TechCrunch Mobility: ‘Incredibly invisible’

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!

You may recall the Congress meeting last month that sparked criticism That’s it on the use of remote assistants in the Philippines. We have discussed this issue a lot. You can read about remote support groups and road support groups Here and Here.

Waymo tends to attract a lot of attention because, robotaxis are now operating in 10 US cities, with more coming soon. But the issue of remote assistance is not Waymo’s issue. It’s the story of autonomous vehicle technology.

New report from Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) makes my point.

Markkey sent letters to seven US companies – Aurora, Ms. Mobility, Travel, Only, Tesla, That’s itand Zoox – working on autonomous vehicle technology is a list of questions. He wanted to know how often the company’s vehicles rely on input from remote workers.

They they both refused to sayaccording to Markey’s survey results. Mr Markey said there was “a clear lack of transparency from AV companies in their use of remote assistants to help them control their AV systems.”

You can read Story by senior reporter Sean O’Kanewhich explores the issue and includes non-verbal responses from companies. (TechCrunch reached out to all of them.) One interesting admission from Tesla: The company said that remote workers are allowed to provide short-term control (something quite different from “remote assistance”) as a last resort.

But here’s the thing – this won’t go away. And silence will not solve the problem. If anything, Markey seems more interested than ever in finding answers. He is now calling on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate the industry’s use of remote workers and said they are “working on a legislative proposal to establish stricter regulations on how AV companies use remote workers.”

A little bird

There is nothing this week that we have been able to confirm. Send us tips! Do you have one? 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!

It seems like last week that I was writing Uber to be everywhere, all at once. And I see it’s still a trend, although this time it’s not directly related to autonomous vehicles.

Uber said and shopping The beginning of Berlin Blacklanewhich offers the services of demand, driving black cars, while the snow giant is growing deeper into high-end services and luxury tours. Blacklane, which was founded in 2011, has raised more than $100 million to date from rental companies Sixt, Mercedes-Benz, and Alfahim, a group in the UAE.

The time of purchase is known. It comes just a few weeks after Uber announced the launch of Uber Elite, a driver service that also offers more premium features such as airport pick-up and car services.

Some products that impressed me…

Manna Air Deliverythe launch of drone buyers in Ireland, earned $50 million from ARK Invest, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Schooner Capital, Coca-Cola HBC, and Molten Ventures.

The concept of the company Saronic Technologiesindependent shipbuilder in Austin, earned $1.75 billion in Series D funding round led by Kleiner Perkins. The company is now valued at $9.25 billion. Other investors include Advent International, Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, BAM Elevate, and other new partners and recognize the continued commitment of existing investors, including 8VC, Caffeinated Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Elad Gil, and Franklin Templeton.

Voltifya startup that has developed a way to retrofit diesel locomotives with battery power, earned $30 million in seed funds led by Israeli company Aleph and Australian miner Fortescue.

Popular reading and more

Alsoan internally developed micromobility company Rivian which came out last year, will work with it DoorDash to expand autonomous vehicles. As part of the deal, DoorDash participated in a $200 million Series C funding round, which was led by Greenoaks Capital. DoorDash is getting a seat on Plus’s board of directors, too.

Baidu robotaxis stopped in Wuhan, China, sometimes stranded passengers for up to two hours due to system failures.

GM is working on improving its advanced driver assistance system, Super Cruise. CEO Mary Barra posted on LinkedIn that GM has begun testing its next-generation self-driving car on public highways in California and Michigan.

“Soon, more than 200 vehicles monitored by manual testers will be on the road live, with trained drivers ready to take over at any time. This data will guide future updates to strengthen our autonomous capabilities,” he wrote.

Lucid he remembered for more than 4,000 Gravity SUVs after detecting a problem with the seat belts.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration he said that road deaths it decreased by 6.7% to 36,640 in 2025 from last year. This is the second lowest traffic death rate in recorded history at 1.10 deaths per 100 million vehicles driven, according to NHTSA.

All long TSA the movements are making the plane catch and get used to it. For example, United Airlines has updated its mobile app to reflect this TSA wait times at selected airports.

The Subaru-Toyota the partnership continues to roll out EVs. At the New York Auto Show, Subaru introduced the all-electric Gateway, a three-row SUV The Toyota Highlander EV has been redesigned.

TeslaSales figures for Q1 show its cheaper cars are not helping the conversion sales decline. (Other automakers have seen a decline in EV sales.) This appears to have affected Tesla’s workforce at its Austin, Texas, plant. decreased by 22% in 2025. For now, I’m just looking changing of the guard at Tesla (and, no, I’m not talking about that adult departure, although that’s interesting). CEO Elon Musk shared that production of the Tesla Model S and X has ended, a significant milestone that marks the transition from human-driven vehicles to robots and self-driving cars.

Toyota Woven Capital has chosen a The new CIO and COO in the push to find the “future of travel.”

Uber is a Chinese autonomous car company WeRide he started robotaxi services without a public security operator in Dubai as part of an expansion in the Middle East.

That’s it‘s robotaxi service is live at San Antonio Internationalits fourth largest airport. Meanwhile, Wired looked into Waymo’s school bus debacle (referring to the investigation into illegal behavior of its robotaxis around school buses). This article provides new details on how the Austin School District tried to help Waymo solve the problem. It didn’t work.

One thing…

My podcast, and Autonocasttalked to Ashu RegeDoorDash’s Vice President of Autonomy. We recorded this episode before the Also-DoorDash announcement, which makes his commentary on the company’s strategic thinking all the more interesting. Check out the episode here.