TechCrunch Mobility: The return of Travis Kalanick proves it’s 2016 again

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility – your central hub for news and insights on the future of mobility. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free – just click TechCrunch Mobility!

This letter is covered and ready to go next Travis Kalanick brought me back to 2016 by making an eyebrow raising announcement.

Uber’s co-founder and former CEO resigned in 2017 after a series of back-and-forths. building a robotics company to be invited Atoms. And, wait, he’s on the cusp of finding out ProntoThe autonomous car startup is focused on industrial and mining sites created by Uber’s former partner, Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick revealed that he is already a “big investor” in Pronto.

That’s a lot to digest and the final sign that, yes, we’re back in 2016. For those who can’t remember, 2016 was a great year for AVs. Uber acquired Levandowski’s startup Otto — a deal that immediately fell apart and led to Waymo suing the ride-hailing company for privacy theft.

Now, back to our original programs.

Last week I just finished Rivian and the EV maker’s quest to make the upcoming R2 SUV one of the fastest cars in history. ICYMI, Here it is.

This week, I’m in Austin SXSW photos – the annual technology meets music meets film, TV, and comedy festival. Rivian, the title sponsor of SXSW, used the event to share pricing and other details about its R2. There is a lot to release and I am still asking people as I write this (including the CEO RJ Scaringe later today), but this is what we know.

The launch edition, which will be the first R2 model in the lineup, will start at $57,990. My first article is research what you get about that price. And senior reporter Sean O’Kane focused on the brand’s long-promised $45,000 and why it’s not coming. until the end of 2027.

My time at SXSW and the Rivian folks are starting to reveal their R2 solutions. The company is leaning heavily on content marketing that is targeted directly at its core market. Attendees at SXSW in Austin, with well-heeled talent and designers from around the world, are as close as you can get to the Rivian customer archetype.

But will it work? The EV itself is more accessible IMO than the big and expensive R1 cars and SUVs. R2 also has several features, including a new operating system, which is more powerful and capable than its more expensive counterparts. The operating system, which you’ll admit I haven’t tried in a long time, is a notable change from the R1 in terms of computing and user interface. For example, the R2 has a single SoC (system on chip) that runs the infotainment and handles 200 TOPS (tera operations per second) of computing at the edge. The next generation R1 drives have four SoCs and do a lot of cloud computing.

Rivian’s software director, Wassym BensaidHe told me this edge computing issue because it allows the company to run major local languages, which provide high latency and good performance.

Another major change that I’ll briefly mention is the “halo wheels” on the steering wheel, pictured above. These wheels provide haptic feedback and allow the driver to adjust the temperature, fan speed, and speaker volume without moving their hands or eyes from the center door. A great producer Jeff Hammoud he told me that this answered the big requests from customers without adding too many buttons. Of course, software allows the company to add more power to the halo wheels over time.

A little bird

Lucid Motors tried to make a splash on his investor day when he showed a the robotaxi concept it was designed to be built on the company’s “midsize” EV platform. Executive CEO Marc Winterhoff made clear on stage, saying that the company is “working on a dedicated Lucid Robotaxi” that would come after mid-size EVs.

The company later explained to TechCrunch that no development is taking place and that the car is just a concept. A little bird tells us that the project is very new, having only started two or three months ago, a timeline that leaves us wondering how long it will take for Lucid Motors to put something like this on the road.

Do you have a warning for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

Sales!

I think this is a Rivian story! Because the company has released SOMETHING and raised a lot of money to expand it. I say Mind Roboticsindustrial robotics lab, is his $500 million Series A funding round It is managed by companies Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.

As Sean O’Kane wrote, the investment follows a $115 million investment led by Eclipse (this VC seems to be everywhere lately) at the end of 2025. Mind Robotic is now worth about $2 billion.

Robotics was the focus of some of Rivian’s programs at SXSW, including a panel featuring engineers and a YouTuber. Mark Robert and Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. I interviewed Scaringe on the sidelines of the event and asked him about Mind Robotics and what inspired the effort. I also asked him if he wanted to start other companies. Let’s just say there was a long pause before he said, “Maybe not.”

I’ll have a longer story about the interview soon, but one thing worth mentioning is that Scaringe believes that companies are thinking about the future of industrial robotics all wrong.

“There has been an incredible emphasis on mimicking human biomechanics, or sometimes even going further, to create very complex machines. I think that what is missing in the industry (installation) and this is one of the things that we see well, is the work that is done by hand,” Scaringe told me. “So the hands are very important. Everything else, from the robotic system, is putting the hands in the right place. And so that the robots can do very complex things, like, say, walking backwards, that just means that the robot has a lot of unnecessary complexity in it because of a lot of work and understanding.”

Some products that caught my eye this week…

An international company inDrive found Fast launch from Pakistan Krave Mart. The all-stock deal received approval from the Competition Commission of Pakistan, allowing the companies to proceed with the sale, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. InDrive confirmed the acquisition but declined to disclose its financial position.

Mirai Roboticsan Italian-based company developing autonomous marine systems, earned $4.2 million from Primo Capital, Techshop, and 40Jemz Ventures.

Surf Air he put the plan in place for 25 Beta Technologies all-electric ALIA aircraft and access to 75 additional routes.

Popular reading and more

Bryan Reimeran MIT research scientist who was recently mine Autonocast podcastit raises an interesting question section published this month: Are self-driving cars headed for the same political stakes as electric cars?

Archer Aviation he answered the question and its claims that its partner Joby Aviation allegedly defrauded the US government and its competitors by pretending to be an American-made company. The power electronics part is getting complicated, which can be very confusing and expensive at the beginning of the development.

Group 14 has started to make silicon battery material at its BAM-3 plant in South Korea. The factory can produce up to 2,000 tons per year, enough for 10 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, or 100,000 remote EVs.

Hayden AIoriginally founded in San Francisco, He has filed a lawsuit co-founder and ex-CEO on serious charges and misappropriation of funds.

The Federal Aviation Administration Good eight test programs which will allow several companies, including Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, Joby Aviationand Mathematicsto begin testing the spread of electric aircraft in early summer. The three-year program will have 26 episodes!

HarbingerEV startup in Los Angeles, unveiled its second vehicle: a compact, medium duty vehicle.

Lucid Motors and shipping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for Gravity SUV owners.

The National Transportation Safety Board released data showing two drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2024 were using it Ford is BlueCruise hands-free driving it must have been interrupted in the minutes before it happened.

Onlya Silicon Valley startup backed by Nvidia, Uber, and SoftBank, and testing its autonomous vehicle capabilities in Japan.

Slate AutoThe launch of EV with the support of Jeff Bezos, is The new CEO before its establishment. Former Amazon Marketplace vice president Peter Faricy now leads the company, while former CEO Christine Barman is now president of automotive.

Tesla now it’s legal resources allowed in the United Kingdom.

Wave he agrees with Uber and Nissan to launch a robotaxi service in Tokyo, with a pilot planned for the end of 2026.

Uber added Hyundai Travel to his own the growth of the robotaxi network. Motional’s self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 is now appearing on the Uber app in Las Vegas. These cars have in-car safety lights, for now.

Zoox had several announcements this week that provide a kind of map of where Amazon wants to go. The company started road map of Dallas and Phoenix, the first step before it begins testing its autonomous vehicles in Sun Belt cities.

It is again meet with Uber will make its robotaxis available for a ride-hailing show in Las Vegas later this year. The Uber tie-up deserves an important caveat, however. Zoox cannot sell products until it is cleared of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for its custom-made robotaxis, which does not have a steering wheel or other traditional controls. That process has begun. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it will begin taking public comments on Zoox’s work so that it is not exempted from the public. Zoox reserves the right to display its vehicles.

One thing…

The Chevrolet Bolt EV it’s coming again – the real EV cut. And a great reporter Tim Singing I went to a company-sponsored press conference and came back with an interesting idea that I’ve been firmly considering as an EV marketing strategy. The Chevy Bolt is the McRib of the automotive world. Want to say more? De Chant also dug into GM’s fortunes bring Bolt.