If you missed last week’s event, dive into the best fits with our just-released sizzle reel.

We’ve also just released video recordings of all the panels, firesides and speeches from Curbivore 2026:

• Kicking off Curbivore ’26: Autonomy, Delivery & Mobility

• Resilient Streets, Cities & Mega Events – The Road from Today Until 2028

• Beyond the Storefront: Successfully Navigating the On-Demand Era

• Urban Autonomy in America: What’s Real & What’s Next

• Tasteful Technology: The Future of Delivery

• Nithya Raman Welcomes You to Los Angeles

• Meet Dot: DoorDash’s Accelerated Autonomous Local Commerce Solution

• Better Wheels, Smarter Apps & Higher Wages: The Future of Gig Work

• Forecasting the Future of Gig Work in an Autonomous World

• Keep On Rolling: Electrifying, Scaling & Automating The Vehicles of Tomorrow

Watch Now

BIG NEWS SHARED FROM CURBIVORE’S STAGE

As always, Curbivore saw huge news launched from our main stage.

Uber’s Head of Grocery & Retail Partnerships, Beryl Sanders, launched Returns: a reverse logistics service that’s gone live with partners like Best Buy, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Pet Food Express, Pacsun, and Petco.

Listen in to my conversation with her, digging deep into third party delivery’s evolution from urban niche to worldwide must-have, on the latest edition of the podcast.

We also hosted the official partnership launch for Fastport Honda and Bird + Spin. The iconic micromobility operator will be incorporating those fetching equads into its field operations.

And of course, Curbivore also hosted the official launch for Ridepro Team, plus the U.S. launches of new delivery bots from Neubility and Robotis. Take a look at our fantastic photos from last week to see all the other cutting-edge mobility hardware on display.

Curbivore moves markets as well. We hosted a number of financial analysts, with Roth publishing its updated research on Lyft, Uber, Amazon, Alphabet and DoorDash.

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Finally hopping off the Curbivore stage, we’ve got plenty of industry news to catch you up on…

Coco heads north: Our friends at Coco Robotics have launched their latest market, bringing 20 bots to San Jose, CA. NorCal has been a bit less delivery bot friendly than SoCal, but DoorDash also recently launched its Dot bot in Fremont. (As discussed at Curbivore last week.) Coco is also partnering up with BlindSquare, providing robust data on hazards in the pedestrian right of way to the vision impaired.

Even bigger bots: Meanwhile, indiGOtech is taking its GO Bots to Belgium, as it partners with large retailer Colruyt Group’s Collect&Go service. (Indigo purchased bot-builder Clevon last year.)

Huge fundraising hauls: Slate Auto pulled in another $650M, in a Series C led by TWG Global, in its quest to bring affordable electric pickup trucks to the masses. Mappedin raised $24.5M to better map indoor spaces. Flock Safety is reportedly raising another round, after hauling in $275M last year: there’s always money in spy cameras! Glydways closed on $170M for its closed-route autonomous shuttle system. Overall EV funding sits at $3.57 billion YTD, up a bit YoY.

Not feeling the love in Philadelphia: Uber is fighting a proposal from the City of Philadelphia to add a $1 per ride tax to ridehail trips. The funds would go towards filling gaps in school district funding; I think this one would be an easier sell if the money went towards public transit or city infrastructure. Meanwhile, as predicted, rowdy cheese steak eaters have been beating up Avride’s delivery bots.

Red state transit: Omaha, Nebraska just started laying down rails for its new streetcar system, with a route that’s unfortunately rather duplicative of its sole BRT line. The city’s lofty vision is “Imagine an Omaha where people can park their car, then take the streetcar to shops, restaurants and entertainment venues without moving their vehicle more than once.” (Emphasis mine.) Meanwhile, Atlanta just inaugurated service on its first BRT line, which unfortunately still runs in mixed traffic for much of its route. And Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) is trying to kill a voter-approved light rail project in Austin, candidly noting “Austin is the blueberry in the tomato soup, and obviously the City Council has run amok and needs to be reined in.” Yay partisanship!

A few good links: Auto Marketplace shares its top takeaways from Curbivore 2026. Atoms officially purchases Pronto. Delivery worker Sergio Gustavo Ajche joined by Mamdani and Schumer at deliverista hub ribbon-cutting; here’s how it got built quickly. Quack: Avride squashes duck in Austin… talk about fowl play. No surprise: new research shows its more dangerous to be a pedestrian in areas with low foot traffic, not high. Malfunctioning electric busses leave South Florida transit operators high and dry. Pacific Surfliner adds new commuter-friendly train service. NYC adds protected bike lanes to 72nd Street. Tesla brings its not quite autonomous robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston. Capital offense: Uber ramps up AV spending to $10 billion, while buying new stake in Delivery Hero for €270M. Flytrex launches bigger drones for larger Little Caesars pizzas. NY Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie works to kill Stop Super Speeders bill. U.S. urban growth slows as immigrants stay away. SpaceX and CA Coastal Commission settle lawsuit. Can outdoor boozing reinvigorate California’s shopping districts? How to reinvigorate mid-sized cities’ downtowns. Bonjour hi: four new REM stations open in Montreal on May 18. LA Metro launches RFP for water taxi between San Pedro and Long Beach (can we extend it up to Santa Monica / Venice?)

See you next week!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

Beryl Sanders, Uber’s Head of Grocery & Retail Partnerships, has led that charge, scaling up Uber Eats into novel verticals with new merchant relationships. Jonah Bliss sat down with her, live at Curbivore 2026, to hear what’s next for the delivery and mobility giant, including its just-launched returns feature (reverse logistics: so hot right now!)

Also on the pod, Jonah, Greg and Sela dig into the latest robotaxi news, share what’s working for micromobility operators in LatAm and Europe, and chew over Upshift’s pivot to tele-ops. Listen in!

Then, the festivities continue all day Friday at 826 Mateo St.

While we always bring out amazing transportation + delivery technology and unforgettable street food, to me the highlight of the event is the public sector leaders who are pushing mobility forward. I'm especially excited to announce that this year we're joined by Councilmember Nithya Raman, who has been a visionary and champion for improved mobility, better urban planning and healthier small businesses across Los Angeles.

She joins other champions of the public realm — from LADOT, NYCDOT, CPUC and more — and will be addressing attendees right after lunch concludes.

Register Now - It's Your Last Chance

We still have just a couple of tickets left for our biggest and best event yet — a full day and a half of amazing demos, powerful networking and thoughtful discussions uniting autonomy, delivery, mobility and so much more.

See you soon!

-Jonah, Harry & The Curbivore Crew

You’ve got just one day left to save over $300 on admission — act fast!

This year’s event is our biggest and best yet. We kick things off on Thursday 4/16 with our famous Opening Reception at Bike Shed Moto Co, brought to you by Ridepro Team.

Then Friday the 17th is an entire day of market-moving announcements, interviews, panels, demos, exhibitions, and of course our celebrated and complimentary street food. The core theme for this year’s festivities is understanding how the rise of autonomy is impacting just about every other topic we hold near and dear: cities, mobility, delivery, local businesses, civic technology and the curb. (Harry and I break apart those topics, and give you a taste of the discussions to come, in this week’s podcast.)

This year the networking opportunities go late into the night, with Nexar’s AV Future After Party closing things off!

Register Now

MEET THE LATEST PARTNERS JOINING US 4-16/17

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Eating your own lunch? Evidently Amazon’s quick commerce solution in India is growing so popular that it’s cannibalizing the ecommerce giant’s traditional grocery delivery platform. Amazon Fresh is reportedly winding down its “same day” options in 10-15 major cities to concentrate on 10-20 minute delivery. That’ll be tough on the margins!

Chicken, Wing(s): DoorDash and Wing are expanding their aerial delivery partnership to the land of Chick-fil-A, with a new launch in the Atlanta exurb of Locust Grove. Centered around a mall (of course!), the service promises 20 minute delivery for meals that would otherwise get bogged down by highways and cul-de-sacs. We’ll be touching on autonomous delivery operations at Curbivore when Harry chats with DoorDash Labs’ Harrison Shih!

Delivery, Ace’d: Uber Eats continues to add new non-food partners to its platform, as it begins delivery services for Ace Hardware. As Ace is a co-op, the deal starts with 3,700+ of the brand’s 6k locations, but that’s likely to grow over time. Jonah chats with Beryl Sanders, Uber’s Head of Grocery & Retail Partnerships about the push from restaurants to markets to all of retail, next week at Curbivore.

Physical AI, so hot right now! Palo Alto-based Eclipse just raised $1.3 billion in new capital for backing “physical AI” startups, split between early stage and growth funds. Existing port cos include Mind Robotics, Wayve, Arc, Mystra, Foxglove and Redwood Materials.

Derailed: A new crunching of FTA data shows how ridership has recovered (or not) from the pandemic at various large transit agencies across the states. While other major agencies are at 80-90% of their 2019 ridership, and even SF’s local operator Muni is at about 75%, BART has only seen about half of its riders return. Hence, the state’s loan to Bay Area agencies, hopefully followed by voters approving new permanent funding.

Feds on bikes: Finally, we may get an answer to the age old quandary, “what is an ebike?” The Safe Standards for Personal E-Bike and E-Moto Device Specifications (Safe SPEEDS) Act would empower the CPSC to define and regulate electric micromobility device at a federal level, better cleaning up the division between electric bicycles and electric motorcycles, while possibly adding speed and age-related requirements as well.

Does “Tesla for X” still sell? Voltify, dubbed the Tesla for Rail, just raised $30 million from Aleph and Fortescue to transition diesel train systems to electricity while relying on micro-grids instead of costly system-wide electrification.

Remote driving in circles? Estonian remote driving tech co Elmo is partnering with SF carsharer Upshift, to bring teleoperated rental cars to the Bay Area. Vay is doing something similar in Nevada, but this whole space seems to be struggling to gain traction… not as sexy as AVs, perhaps?

Join our friends at CoMotion Miami: From autonomy and advanced air mobility to intelligent infrastructure and mega-events, CoMotion MIAMI is where the world’s decision-makers come together to chart what’s next at the #1 future mobility event.

Join us on April 28-29 at Miami Dade College for two action-packed days of pitches, keynotes, insightful panels, hands-on workshops, live demos, exhibitions, networking and unmissable after-hours gatherings. Register now with Curbivore-30 and save 30%.

A few good links: Learnings from Portland’s zero-emissions delivery zone. Zenobe keeps funding EV truck charging. China cracks down on drones. U.S. traffic deaths fall. DoorDash local commerce report shows inflation easing (let’s see what happens next quarter, once higher gas prices are baked in.) NYC launches Office of Curb Management. Swobbee opens new NYC location. Deliverect launches AI agents. India grapples with gig worker shortage (try paying them more?) Grubhub co-founder moves into roadside automotive services. Niantic Spatial unveils the Scaniverse. Return of rail service to Atlanta’s Beltline looking less and less likely.

Get your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

We’re just two weeks away from Curbivore 2026 — uniting the worlds of autonomy, delivery and mobility on April 16th and 17th. We kick things off with our exclusive Opening Reception (registrants: keep your eyes peeled for RSVP info) followed by a full day of programming — panels, firesides, demos, workshops, booths, networking and amazing food + drink) and a rocking after party.

Our full agenda is now live, we’ve just announced our latest amazing speakers from Sweetgreen, Lyft, RidePro, Business Insider and Wolfe Research, and we’ve got more partners joining the fun (read to the bottom for all the details.)

Join the Conversation - Register Now

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Waymo takes off: Waymo’s AV services continues to grow in leaps and bounds, with the service now providing 500,000 paid rides per week, across 10 markets. Per TechCrunch’s crunching the data, it looks like growth has hit the “hockey stick” phase.

ALSO raises even more money, also: Just eight months after it’s last $200M raise, Rivian spin-out ALSO has raised a fresh $200 million. DoorDash is joining existing investors in this round, while DD Co-Founder Stanley Tang snags a board seat. Do note his quote, “We’re excited to invest and partner with them as we look to scale autonomous delivery.” Prior, ALSO had just been talking about delivery bikes and e-quads, not autonomy; it’s also interesting to see DoorDash continue to spread its bets around, given that it’s internally developing its Dot bot (which we’ll get to see and discuss at Curbivore!)

Seattle’s overdue rail progress: Seattle just inaugurated a giant expansion of its East Link light rail line, adding seven miles of service to a now 60 mile system, linking the city’s core with the eastern ‘burbs that host Microsoft and plenty of other tech jobs. The new rail is technically the world’s first to traverse a floating bridge (across Lake Washington;) the route used to host interstate carpool lanes.

Who’s driving that driverless vehicle? California legislators are pushing ahead with rules for remote operators of autonomous vehicles, including a requirement that they be located in the U.S. and have a California driver’s license. Slightly less sensible is a requirement that each operator can mind no more than three vehicles. Certainly we don’t want them watching thousands of vehicles each, but baking in a hard number this early seems premature. Expect to hear more about this from Pat Tsen, CPUC Deputy Executive Director – Consumer Policy, Transportation and Enforcement, at Curbivore.

What IS a restaurant? Given the rough economy, you’d think that restaurant openings in Los Angeles are falling. That’s true if you think of a restaurant as place you can sit, order from a human, and enjoy your meal. But if you include “limited service” restaurants, think delivery-oriented ghost kitchens, new restos are actually at an all time high. But when one address can technically host dozens of “restaurants,” it’s tough to say what the real number is any more…

All aboard for a nice exit: Congratulations to Vesputi, a public transit ticketing startup, that just sold their company to publicly-listed Tracsis, for up to €8.2M ($9.5M.) Our fund invested in them almost five years ago, and it’s great to see the hard-working team get a nice exit.

A few good links: New research suggests ridehailing accounts for 0.4% of all U.S. person trips, AVs could up that by orders of magnitude. Australian states suspend public transit fares in effort to win over drivers stung by high gas prices. Uber buys Blacklane in continued push into high-end travel. Feds declare war on D.C.’s streets. Take a look at some disheartening charts at how badly OBBBA is hurting America’s fiscal capacity, solely in the name of cutting taxes for the 0.1%. Bay Area commuter rail service SMART ups service to almost every 30 minutes (ugh, just get on a dang clock face,) partially funded by cutting nearby bus service. NYC goes on a pothole filling blitz.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

MEET THE LATEST PARTNERS JOINING US 4-16/17

Ride Pro Team is a membership-based platform redefining what it means to be a professional rideshare driver. We give drivers the tools, technology, and community to transition from on-demand workers to independent business owners.

AUTEC is a leading manufacturer of commercial sushi robots that equip food service businesses and academic institutions globally.

Common Good is a versatile public affairs strategy group providing comprehensive consulting services for both the public and private sector.

And we warmly welcome our latest media partners: CoMotion, LA Auto Show and the Florida Automated Vehicles Summit.

Join the Conversation - Register Now

In today’s episode, we dive deep into what she sees as the hidden dangers lurking behind many AVs: humans that are too quick to trust fallible machines, too much latency between vehicles and their remote operators, incomplete regulations and a desire to keep costs in check. (These are topics so important that we’ll be revisiting them at Curbivore in April, where we’re bringing together regulators from the CPUC, alongside AV and delivery bot leaders.)

Also on the pod, Greg, Sela and I dive into London’s novel microhub alliance, Florida’s senile new speed limits, delivery cos pushing into physical AI, high gas prices and more. Listen in!

Curbivore is just three weeks away, and we’re excited to share more of the iconic speakers joining us April 16 & 17 in Downtown Los Angeles. Hear from leaders pushing delivery robotics, micromobility, gig work, next-gen parking, and even the Olympic Games forward! Check out all our speakers, and secure your tickets now!

Register Now - Join Us April 16 & 17

MEET THE LATEST PARTNERS JOINING US IN APRIL

As a global micromobility leader, Bird is making cities safer and more livable by reducing car trips and strengthening transportation ecosystems. We’re transforming the way the world moves one ride at a time.

Everee is the real-time payroll platform built for gig platforms, delivery operators, and on-demand workforces, so you can pay workers the moment a shift ends. With built-in compliance across all 50 states and cash flow support that removes the burden of fronting payroll, Everee helps you scale your workforce without the friction of legacy pay cycles.

HUB International is the largest privately held insurance brokerage in the United States, serving more than 2 million clients across commercial insurance, employee benefits, retirement, and wealth management. Our dedicated Physical AI practice insures companies building autonomous systems reshaping how goods and people move — from sidewalk delivery robots and autonomous trucks to advanced industrial robotics and humanoid platforms. HUB's Physical AI team brings deep technical fluency, purpose-built coverage structures, and carrier relationships designed for companies operating at the frontier of autonomy and last-mile delivery.

Y Risk is the innovation brand of The Hartford, delivering creative solutions for emerging business models and helping insure tomorrow’s economy.

Register Now - Join Us April 16 & 17

Adway is redefining the future of out-of-home by turning everyday vehicles into dynamic, high-impact digital canvases. We empower fleet operators to unlock new revenue streams while giving brands a bold, mobile platform to captivate audiences in the real world.

Flex is the trade association that represents the app-based platform economy and the people who rely on it.

Sweetfin is a healthful, chef-driven, California inspired poke and plant based bowl concept that uses local produce, sustainable fish, and innovative ingredients. Our entire menu is gluten free and all of our menu items are made in-house, from scratch, daily.

Business-in-a-Box builds patented mobile stores. Our store models are branded retail solutions for businesses looking to stand out and connect with customers.

Register Now - Join Us April 16 & 17

Christensen Group’s Future of Mobility Practice delivers specialized insurance and risk management solutions for the companies redefining how people and goods move. The practice supports shared mobility platforms, micromobility fleets, last-mile delivery operators, and autonomous vehicle and fleet developers, combining deep expertise in product liability, fleet risk, and emerging transportation technologies to build tailored insurance programs for the next generation of mobility companies.

The best clients deserve the best drivers. The best drivers deserve the best pay. Chauffeur by Courial. We’re excited to announce that Chauffeur by Courial is officially bringing our all-luxury ride-hailing and advanced booking platform to Los Angeles this April.

Goodie Bag is a mobile app based marketplace offering exclusive deals on quality unsold food from local shops. We help shops reach new customers and optimimze revenue, create more affordable options for consumers, and reduce food waste!

Obi is a global real-time aggregator that compares millions of pricing and pick-up (ETA) data points providing consumers and businesses with actionable data. The free consumer app allows riders to compare taxis, black cars and major rideshare providers instantly. Riders can search by car type, or pick up ETA and always book the lowest priced vehicle or quickest pickup. With over 1,400,000 global users, Obi has partnered with dozens of rideshare and taxi providers around the world to help provide transparency in ride fares. The app provides real-time pricing data across all the major rideshares including Uber, Lyft, Waymo, Tesla, Bolt, Curb, Indrive, Yango, Ola, Empower, Didi, Careem, Freenow, Grab and many more.

Register Now - Join Us April 16 & 17

RELATED EVENTS & NEWS ROUND-UP

Open Mobility Mixer: Our friends at the Open Mobility Foundation are kicking off Curbivore with an industry mixer, open to anyone that cares about digital infrastructure, curb technology, and the future of cities. RSVP for 4/15.

HNGRY Live - Physical AI: Jonah Bliss joins Matt Newberg and leaders from Instacart and Gambit Robotics to discuss why everyone is suddenly hot for robotics and physical AI. Register for the 4/2 webinar.

Ride AI: Our friends at Ride AI reconvene on April 15, 2026, at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco. Register now and score a free Waymo ride!

NYC Mobility & Delivery Tech Happy Hour: Our buds at Electric Avenue are organizing the Big Apple’s best and brightest on 4/21.

PIE Show: Parking Today is hosting the all-new Parking Industry Expo in Dallas, 3/30-4/2, and they’re offering Curbivore subscribers a last-minute discount to attend. If you work in parking, curb management, or mobility, this one’s worth your time. PIE is built around editorially curated content (no sales pitches), meaningful connections, and topics that matter to mobility professionals every day. Use code CURBIVORE26 at checkout for 100% off a standard registration.

CDAT: The Catering, Delivery & Tech Expo, presented by The RMDA, brings together independent restaurant delivery operators, DSPs, and industry tech providers — a highly targeted audience of decision-makers actively shaping last-mile delivery, catering, and restaurant operations. March 30-31 in Vegas.

A few good links: CTA struggles with worker assaults. Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), looks to federalize AV rules. London’s Wheely brings luxury ridehailing to NYC. Zoox expands to Austin, Miami and more of SF. InDrive revenue climbs 31%. MOIA readies for LA launch (looks like Playa Vista in the bg.) WeRide heads to Slovakia. SMART preps for Healdsburg extension. Sony / Honda kill off Afeela EV, just in time for record gas prices! LA fiiiiinally gets speeding cameras. Chicago Cubs look to fill neighborhood with more parking. SCAG talks curb space management. Boston drags feet on new bus lanes.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

Register Now - Join Us April 16 & 17

Whether AVs ramp up to five or 50% of mode share, I think the more interesting questions are actually about what comes next… what are the second order effects of the robotaxi revolution?

What will the rise of self-driving vehicles mean for the drivers that currently work in ridehailing or as cabbies? Even in the most optimistic deployment scenarios, AVs are capital intensive, so their scale will cover base demand, not peak. In that case, might TNC drivers go back to the earlier premise of gig work, and just log on for a few hours of supplemental earnings during rush hour?

What happens to urban real estate, both public and private? Why waste valuable land on car storage, if the car can take itself off-site while you’re shopping, or better yet: pick up its next passenger. Can those spots then be repurposed as outdoor dining, parks, or homes? Will they become charging depots for power-hungry vehicles, or will we have instead decided that all our spare grid capacity should be spent on AI server farms?

Will restaurants and retailers thrive in a world where self-driving trucks cut down their input costs, and sidewalk bots give them some breathing room on delivery margins? Might those gains help independent shops compete, or will well-funded chains be better able to capitalize on these advancements?

If the price of ridehailing falls, might more people eschew car ownership, opting to only pay for mobility when they use it, thus enjoying a broader array of transport options? That was more or less our conceit when we created Turo: people would use and pay for cars just when they needed them, and then opt for other mobility modes — transit, biking, etc — at other times. Suffice to say, making car usage cheaper only led to people using more cars…

While AVs scale up, some of the remaining questions are technological in nature, but I think even more are actually policy questions. If we don’t want everyone stuck in (self-driving) traffic, might more cities opt for congestion pricing? What happens to parking meter revenue in a world where nobody needs to park?

Questions like these are vital, and they’re at the heart of the conversations we’ll be having at Curbivore 2026. We’ve assembled a truly top notch cast of speakers, we’re bringing together the smartest companies building the future (meet more of them below, or skip to the bottom if you want the weekly news) and we’ve got all the technology of tomorrow right on display. Join us April 16-17 in Downtown LA.

Register Now

MEET CURBIVORE’S LATEST PARTNERS

TaskUs delivers outsourced digital services that power the companies shaping the future. By combining specialized human talent and intelligent technology, we solve complex operational challenges through a unified ecosystem of specialized services — from L&D to R&D, remote and emergency assistance, in-field and mission control operations — reducing cost-per-mile and enhancing rider experience while ensuring uncompromised safety and compliance.

Wombi offers a premium, all-inclusive e-bike subscription. Memberships include theft protection, 24/7 Rider Rescue, and the option to purchase your bike when the time is right. Ride with confidence knowing Wombi has you covered every mile of the way.

Serve is a leading autonomous robotics company operating a scaled, commercial, Level-4 fleet across 20 U.S. cities.

Voltera enables rapid AV fleet deployment through purpose-built, high-performance hubs in dense urban markets.

LAZ is a leader in tech‑enabled mobility and parking, delivering people‑first operations powered by smart technology — to help our clients build their businesses, not ours.

Mapbox is the location technology platform that powers billions of map, navigation, and search experiences worldwide. Trusted by developers and enterprises, from BMW to DoorDash, Mapbox delivers flexible, high-performance geospatial solutions that delight users, enhance operations, and transform industries.

Join Them in April - Register Now

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

A (self-driving) truckload of AV news: Fresh off relaunching its Motional robotaxi service in Vegas, Uber announced its investing up to $1.25 billion into Rivian to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous R2 SUVs. Meanwhile, the DOT is getting ready to allow mass-production of steering wheel and pedal-free vehicles. On the smaller side, Ottobot is taking its delivery bots to a remote Australian mining village, in partnership with Sodexo. And Uber ATG’s former Self Driving Lead documents all the inherent flaws with his self-driving Tesla that led to its crash.

Watch me talk about AVs and ridehailing! Can’t get enough snark, I mean analysis? I’ll be speaking at Roth’s 38th annual capital markets conference on Monday at noon PT. Register for the livestream of “Rideshare At Crossroads - Autonomy, Global Expansion, and the Next Phase of Mobility.”

Out of gas… Brent oil prices briefly cracked $119 this morning, while a gallon of sweet, delicious gasoline is now averaging out to $3.88 in the United States. Prior research shows that for every 10% increase in gas prices, transit ridership grows by 1.2%, so this awful war might be the most Trump has ever done to boost public transport.

Double dash: Two-wheeled deliveries are taking off on DoorDash, with growth of deliveries via bikes and mopeds scaling four times faster than car-based orders over the past two years. Two-wheeled couriers earn 10% more per hour than their automotive counterparts, thanks to less time spent parking and stuck in traffic. DD also just added a new category that requires zero wheels — Tasks — a platform for gig workers to add photos and data to enrich menus and AI training sets.

Here comes Amazon, quickly: Amazon is looking to eat some of DoorDash, Uber Eats and Instacart’s lunch, as it launches one-hour delivery of select inventory. The new $9.99 per order service is launching in major cities as well as mid-sized ‘burgs in the Mountain West, while a 3-hour option is headed to small towns nationwide.

New York two-step: NYC Mayor Mamdani is halting the NYPD’s crackdown on bicyclists, ending criminal summons for minor traffic violations, while also upping training for bike-based delivery workers. Meanwhile, his new Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn is looking to relax permitting for outdoor dining.

Unsafe at any speed: New data from Streetlight shows that most of America’s streets are still far from safe. Pedestrian fatalities are on the rise, as metro areas — especially in the South — prioritize speed over safety.

Discondobulating: Condos should be a great way for America to combat its housing crisis. Affordable for builders and homeowners alike, while taking a naturally urban form. And yet we build far too few of them, thanks to an arcane mix of rules that favor litigation and slow planning / plot mapping.

A flagrant conflict of interest: Meanwhile, older condos are in trouble too. San Francisco recently wrote new rules that required older high-rise buildings to install fire sprinklers. Now the fire marshal who wrote the controversial rules has found himself a new job as a consultant that “helps” building condo associations comply with the $300k per unit requirements.

End of the line, once more: The Red Line — a long-planned east-west light rail line in Baltimore — appears to be on life support, with officials looking to replace the planned train with a cheaper bus rapid transit system. This line has died many previous deaths: a similar route was sketched as part of the region’s Great Society era subway system, of which only one different line was ever built; it was revived as light rail in the early 2000s, and then killed by Governor Hogan, before being revived by the current Governor.

LA’s next, next subway: LA Metro has recommended the San Vicente-Fairfax alignment for the northern extension of the K Line, aiming to hit job and population centers across Mid-Wilshire and West Hollywood. The agency also appears to sadly be kowtowing to the dumbest NIMBY complaint yet — concerns that the deeply bored tunnels would somehow disturb single family home owners above — and may in turn choose a longer than necessary route in the Wellington Square neighborhood: that would both cost more to build and make service forever slower. In happier news, here are some beautiful photos of the D Line stations that open in two months.

Cool book alert: Friend of the curb Joshua Schank’s new book — New Tricks for Old Bureaucracies — is on sale now, hitting shelves next week. Score yourself a copy!

A few good links: Singapore cabbies raise fares as gas prices jump. LA break ground on tallest modern affordable housing project West of the Mississippi (35 stories, no parking.) Detroit Airport to host Michigan’s largest Supercharger site. IIHS / Volpe push for active intelligent speed assistance on fleets. Google Maps gets Geminied. Atoms. Prosus leads $600M round into Indian ridehailer Rapido. The problem with hacker house hype culture. Iceland transitions from gas tax to road user charge. Ex-Nikola CEO and convicted fraudster Trevor Milton plots his airplane-oriented comeback. Despite federal withdrawal, CA continues investing in zero-emissions transit. Immigration is good for local economies (duh.) Sony-Honda’s eye-catching (and troubled) Afeela 1 to be California-only for the time being. Eight lessons learned from the death of the D.C. Streetcar. Amtrak rail yard sale could lead to new Chicago neighborhood + White Sox stadium. Mexican city of Uruapan inaugurates aerial cable car. Congestion pricing leads to faster NYC subway ridership growth.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

In today’s podcast, I chatted with Michael Schneider, the organization’s Founder & CEO about how to replicate his group’s success, what it took to get measure HLA passed (including lots and lots of money, something he credits to his days as a startup founder,) why LA is still struggling to reshape its streets (hint: it’s also about money, or the lack thereof) and a few wonkier topics like charter reform.

Also on the pod: Greg, Athena and I dive into gender inequity across transport, eVTOLs taking off, World Cup transit troubles, super fast fundraising, Curbivore’s latest speakers and more. Listen in!

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PARTNER | Rideshare Prices Up 9.6%, Platform Fees Surged 33%, Driver Pay Up Just 3.6%. Here’s What’s Reshaping Gig Mobility.

Download the 2026 Annual Gig Mobility Report from Gridwise Analytics to understand how pricing, earnings, tipping, and platform economics evolved across major U.S. rideshare and delivery platforms.

Our findings include:

• Customer prices rose 9.6% while platform fees per trip surged 33.2% and driver gross pay per trip grew just 3.6%

• Rideshare tips hit a record high of $1.58 per trip while delivery tips fell to $4.16, near an all-time low

• Over 60% of consumers say they cut back on rideshare due to pricing, up 16.6% from the prior year

• Consumers are rapidly shifting to more premium ride types, with Comfort, Black, and Priority jumping 10%, 35%, and 319% respectively

• Driver bonus pay reached a three-year high of $317.65 per quarter

Download the full report to see the complete picture of where gig mobility economics stand today.

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Air taxis take off, look out below! The FAA approved eight pilot programs, allowing companies like Archer, Beta, Joby and Wisk to start testing eVTOLs that have yet to receive full certification. The tests will take place in 26 states, with participation looking less political and more based off of which regions have existing aerospace economies.

Self driving, self funding? AVs are in land-grab mode in more ways than one. China’s Momenta just filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange, joining compatriot WeRide in tapping the public markets in their insatiable quest for cash. The company is likely to raise $1B+, having last raised privately last fall at a $5B valuation. This will be a nice exit for GM, which invested back in 2021.

LAXluster: LAX, everyone’s favorite airport, just voted to raise fees for ridesharing trips, which are currently $4 (on the low-ish side compared to other major airports.) Under the new plan, drop-offs in the central terminal area will eventually reach $12, while those connecting to the new SkyLink would be $6. Beyond raising revenue, the program looks to shunt traffic to the soon-to-open automated people mover, or encourage folks to take Metro.

Which way, San Jose: In 2022, San Jose, CA adopted a “transit first” policy, opting to get techies onto public transit. First the good news: mass deployment of transit signal priority (powered by Lyt) has increased bus speeds by 20%. And the bad: while that has helped transit ridership rebound a bit from its Covid nadir, the remote-work friendly region still rides busses and trains about 40% less than it did at peak.

Permit reform: San Francisco just gave the “okay” to curbside EV charging, in a boon to both EV owners and industry friends like It’s Electric. This comes as part of Mayor Lurie’s “common-sense” reform to PermitSF, which also includes expediting al fresco restaurant dining (yay,) deck repairs (okay,) and parking in driveways (boo if this means more cars encroach the sidewalk.)

Ad nauseam: It’s a mantra around these parts that the real money makers for many mobility or delivery networks are those juicy, high-margin ads. But what works at scale for the network is a bit less compelling when you break it down on a per-person level. New data out of NYC shows that the annoying seat-back TVs that blare commercials in the back of many Ubers and Lyfts only net the drivers an extra $30-35 in profit per month. Frankly, I’d pay that much just to turn the screen off.

Talk about an incentive! Just how important is the success of Waymo and Wing to Alphabet? New filings show that Sundar Pichai, the company’s CEO, could get as much as $175M in stock-related performance grants if those subsidiaries meet performance goals.

Doge’d: Economic growth has slowed across the country, but some areas are feeling it worse than others… The Washington, D.C. region is at the bottom of the list — down 1.7% YoY — due to the current administration’s hatcheting of the federal workforce. Overall, many (but not all) of the strongest growing regions are the most sprawling and low-density, further complicating any goals to re-grow CBDs and get folks back on transit.

A few good links: Uber eyes subscription pricing for drivers. VW delivers four millionth EV. Politickin’: Gov. Hochul’s pause on NY robotaxi pilot likely done to build allies for insurance reform. California cracks down on Montana license plate tax fraud. Free transit gains momentum in France. Talk about a carbon tax: illegal war with Iran pushes oil prices to $100/barrel. Zoox begins robotaxi testing on the hot asphalt of Phoenix and Dallas. Minnesota may quash AVs. Coco Robotics deploys Niantic’s spatial AI and Visual Positioning System. Public transit investments have a 5 to 1 ROI. Digital curb management providers still struggling to keep an eye on scofflaws. Ridehail drivers in LatAm struggle without safety nets. Serve Robotics partners with White Castle, sees FY25 revenue hit $2.7M. Congrats to Pritzker winner Smiljan Radić. Grubhub / Wonder partners with Dexa (fka Drone Express) to pilot aerial delivery in suburban New Jersey. Zoox to bring Las Vegas and LA robotaxis onto Uber network. With the Senate passing the ROAD to Housing Act, an economist explains why banning investors from owning single-family homes might not be so smart. How metro systems pull commuters out of cars. Swarm Aero raises $35M for drone swarms. Victoria, Australia enshrines two-days of WFH per week for all workers. Why we can’t build modular homes. Nissan, Uber and Waybe collaborate to bring robotaxis to Japan. Ford’s new AI assistant will notify fleet owners about seatbelt usage. Rivian launches more affordable R2. NYC looks to finally charge for residential on-street parking; why has this taken so long?!

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- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

Waymo has famously taken an HD maps approach, while Tesla has been an even more vocal proponent of going mapless. Other companies have taken the no maps approach as well: Imagry, founded in Haifa and led by CEO Eran Ofir, is one of the companies betting that a lighter, perception-driven stack can make autonomy more deployable and affordable. The company’s camera-based system has been tested on buses and shuttles in Israel, Japan, Germany, and the U.S., with a focus on constrained but commercially meaningful routes. As the industry moves past the hype cycle of robotaxi demos and into the harder work of sustainable deployment, Imagry’s experience offers a useful lens into what autonomy looks like when it has to perform outside the lab — whether that future is mapped to the centimeter or not. We checked in with Eran to get his latest thoughts on the mapping debate.

Note: this interview was first published by our team at Ottomate News. We’re republishing it below for The Curbivore subscribers.

Ottomate News: To start, give us the elevator pitch for Imagry.

Eran Ofir: Imagry delivers vision-based autonomous driving solutions without HD maps, lidar, or the cloud. We are pioneering Generative Autonomy: real-time intelligence that drives machines in the physical world. Our AI-centric platform, unlike rule-based systems, learns from experience and adapts to any road, vehicle, or condition, just like a human, only better.

Already deployed across transit and fleet vehicles, Imagry is solving the scalability challenge for both public transportation and passenger cars. Our real-time, hardware-agnostic architecture integrates seamlessly with existing platforms, giving automakers and transit operators a cost-effective, production-ready autonomy solution.

The next leap in GenAI isn’t a chatbot. It’s a driver. Today we drive buses and cars. Tomorrow, we power every intelligent machine that moves.

Most AV stacks still lean on HD maps, even if they talk about “reducing” dependence. What made you confident enough to go fully mapless, and where do you see that choice giving Imagry an enduring advantage vs. players like Mobileye or Wayve who also push lower-map approaches?

Imagry has always believed in the philosophical approach that an AI autonomous driving system should completely mimic the way people think and act. We humans don’t drive with HD maps, since we see the road and understand it. It has always been our premise (since 2018) that a full, uncompromised AI solution is the only practical approach to autonomous driving. We knew this approach would eventually be viable and ultimately prevail (once edge computing in the vehicle would be capable enough, which happened approximately two years ago). Currently only Tesla, Imagry, and Wayve have such capability. This provides us with a huge advantage in project bids, as it means that our vehicles/buses can drive everywhere, and not just in a small and limited geo-fenced area dictated by the HD-map being used by the less advanced players in the market.

You’ve previously said big parts of the AV industry spent billions on flashy demos while you focused on making autonomy actually work in daily service. What did you do differently in your first real deployments—like the autonomous buses in Israel—and what surprised you most when theory met messy real-world operations?

Our approach wasn’t to do demos that would look nice but be built on weak technology. Rather, from the get-go we built the foundation of an AI system that learns by imitation. Also, we didn’t take the unsupervised approach, which is quick and dirty, but the supervised approach to AI training, which is much slower but serves as a very solid foundation for training the neural networks.

When we got on the road (in the U.S., Germany, Japan, Israel…), we learned that lab simulations have little to do with real autonomous driving on public, mixed traffic roads. We learned that keeping latency to a minimum is of paramount importance, and every small change there leads to significant different behavior. We learned that urban driving (which is our forte) is much more complex than highway driving, and we learned how difficult and sophisticated a system should be in order to be able to drive on both sides of the road (most players in the world drive only on right-hand-side or left-hand-side, but not both with the same system, as Imagry does).

Imagry is camera-only and hardware-agnostic, which may be attractive on cost—but safety regulators and OEMs love redundancy. How do you make the safety case for a vision-only system, and what are the long tail risks you worry about?

It has been proven time and again that the need for lidar and radar is not real and was only pushed by their vendors (all of whom have lost >90% of their value since coming on the scene). In the AI era, a camera-based system that sees 100m-300m and 360 degrees doesn’t need lidar or radar that anyhow don’t understand what they see and can’t understand colors and signs. We humans are not equipped with lidar and radars and yet regulators trust us to drive well! Also, given that the response time of our system is at least 3 times faster than a human, it is safer than a human driver. Tesla, XPeng, Volvo, and Imagry are already using vision-only systems, and I expect that by the end of the decade, most OEMs will adopt the vision-only approach. Cameras are continually improving. Now we also drive in dark nights using thermal cameras. We work closely with regulators globally, and they understand now that the old adage “hardware will solve it all” has become extinct; now it’s AI software that rules.

Who do you see as your main customers over the next five years: transit operators, Tier-1s, or the OEMs themselves? And what do partnerships look like in terms of integration, revenue models, data sharing and the like?

Our target customers for our autonomous buses are public transportation operators (PTOs) and municipalities, and fleets (for our roboshuttle offering). Yes, we do work with OEMs, but as partners for providing the needed pre-integrated vehicles to our customers.

You’re live or testing in multiple regions—from Israel to the U.S., Germany and Japan. What are the hidden bottlenecks to scaling from a handful of routes and vehicles to thousands—are they primarily technical, regulatory, operational, or commercial?

The main bottleneck is the regulation, specifically, the length of time required to obtain an L4 driverless permit in a country. We already see cases where the public operator is getting closer to being able to pull out the drivers, and they are preparing budgets to purchase dozens of autonomous buses for their fleets during 2026 and early 2027. It’s only a matter of time. The technology is there, but much still needs to happen in the market with respect to the integration of multiple systems (e.g., connecting to ticketing, billing, control room, etc.), in order for the autonomous vehicle to be ready for full scale in prime time. I would give it around five years until the full solution becomes standard.

Imagry talks about bio-inspired, imitation-learning-based driving. As models get larger and more “world-model-like,” how does your stack evolve—do you see a path to a single generalized “AI driver,” or will vehicular autonomy always be highly domain-specific?

Read the Full Interview at Ottomate News

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

My World Cup runneth over: The World Cup kicks off across North America in just three months, and a number of host cities have now revealed how they plan to handle the soccering masses. Boston’s MBTA is “ready” with an upgraded station in Foxborough. Mexico City has opened a rail line connecting its new tertiary airport, while adding rolling stock to a rail line that serves Estadio Azteca. And Los Angeles Metro is launching express bus service from Union Station and a number of stations that are further afield; I’m pleased to see them using market pricing to adjust their parking lot rates accordingly ($60-120+ depending on location and time.)

Anything for a quiet life… Across the country, shopping centers are struggling with declining foot traffic as shoppers opt for online delivery. Now many REITs are fighting back, hoping to make their malls into “third places” where folks will want to linger. The thinking is that you’ll come for the green space and stick around to buy a latte or some leggings. A fair idea, but perhaps cities should also apply this thinking to their own commercial corridors: keep the streets clean and build some dang actual parks?

Grounded! Supernal, an Irvine-based air taxi startup back owned by Hyundai, just cut 80% of its staff, following earlier departures of key leaders. The company has thus far spent $6 billion in the hopes of bringing a four-seater eVTOL to market. Turns out fighting gravity is rather expensive!

The real cost of urban highways: A new project — Atlas of Inner-City Highway Impacts — aims to quantify not just the amount of land occupied by freeways in America’s cities, but how much that real estate is worth (and the real cost to munis by keeping that land off the books.) I will say, there are some real iffy assumptions in here, while it would certainly behoove many rust belt cities to rip out their highways, it’s not like they’ll suddenly see a wave of demand to rebuild tax-paying uses on all that real estate…

Good state bill, bad state bill: California legislators are looking to slow down the proliferation of e-motorcycles that masquerade as electric bicycles, stopping those more dangerous devices from marketing themselves as “e-bikes.” Over in Utah, benighted state lawmakers are looking to stop Salt Lake City from adding local traffic-calming measures.

Teaching the people that teach the machines: The NTSB has launched a probe into Waymo driving around an Austin school bus when the stop-arm was extended. It appears to be a human-in-the-loop failure, with a remote operator wrongly giving the car an okay to proceed. Next up, perhaps they’ll need to see why this robotaxi blocked an ambulance that was responding to a mass shooting perpetuated by someone protesting the war on Iran. (Talk about a depressing 2026 lingo bingo card…)

Any better? Last month we looked at a new site that lets people bet on local traffic conditions. Now, entrepreneurial Germans have launched DBSM BahnBet, where punters can gamble on how late any individual Deutsche Bahn train may be. Unlike “Rush Hour,” this new site uses only fictional currency, and its main goal seems to be shaming DB’s leaders into improving their on-time performance.

In which “third world” infrastructure is better than our own: Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, just inaugurated line 2C of its metro system, bringing the network to about 35 miles. Meanwhile, Santiago, Chile continues to retrofit its existing (and rapidly expanding) metro system by adding platform screen doors to busy stations.

A few good links: Food delivery price wars sink profits at China’s JD.com. NYC seeks clean-energy powered vending carts. Revel (not the EV startup) raises $150M for improved manufacturing software. Harbinger buys Phantom AI in a move that may portend more autonomous trucks. Federal court upholds NYC congestion pricing cordon. Venture funding hits new monthly record, driven by AI and AV investments. Pronto raises $25M to deliver domestic workers to your door in just 10 minutes (in India, naturally.) Olo launches customer-facing food delivery app. Judge rules troubled insurer American Transit Insurance failed to properly defend Uber. Parking glut: Arrive buys Passport (impressive work by founder Khristian Gutierrez, just two years after stepping back into the CEO role.) Virginia looks to allow self-driving vehicles by 2028. Sydney finishes tunneling for its $29B AUD, 24 km express rail line connecting its two CBDs.

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- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

And while these urban conditions spawn all sorts of fascinating startups that work in the Tri-state, those same companies then struggle when they try to scale up and serve other parts of the country. Equally vexing: many concepts that work well in Europe or Asia might want to use NYC as a beachhead for a U.S. launch, but are then stymied by the fact that U.S. regulations or other localization factors might be too byzantine to navigate.

NYC leaders set out to solve this problem with launch of BATWorks, teaming up with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and Cambridge Innovation Center, effectively pairing the nation’s three biggest tech hubs outside of the SF Bay Area in a shared mission to incubate, pilot and commercialize clean technologies.

In today’s episode of Zag Talk, I sat down with Alex Mitchell, Senior Vice President of LACI BATWorks, to talk about the mission, how startups can better work with governments, and his unique background in the mobility ecosystem. Plus, Sela, Greg and I dig into the latest Waymo news, Egypt’s fast-growing delivery startup, gambling on traffic, and the Citrini report that temporarily popped the stock market. Listen in!

EVENTS | Cutting Edge Mobility Heads to Curbivore: April 16 & 17

Our annual conference focused on the future of delivery, mobility and autonomy is just around the corner: Curbivore returns to Downtown LA on April 16 & 17. We’re pleased to announce our latest partners — true innovators driving the industry forward. Meet Bot Auto, Robotis, Indigo Tech, Rideshare Carz, RoboDock and Neubility: and join them in person in April to see the technologies reshaping our streets.

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Hot bot: Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics just unveiled its new Coco 2 next-gen autonomous delivery bot. The new robot’s improved hardware aims to increase the amount of time operating fully autonomously, while also allowing for operations in bike lanes and on roads. (I’ll be at Coco’s launch party tonight — expect more pics of the hardware soon!)

Most literal curb news: City of Boston introduces its Curb Lab, an initiative of the Office of Emerging Technology. City of Seattle is hiring for a Temporary Curb Technology Strategist. OMF releases Shared Learning for Smarter Curbs report. Washington State debuts the first statewide pedestrian network map, displaying sidewalks, curbs and crossings for 90% of the state’s population areas.

The future of retail is all IKEA? Ikea continues its march to retail dominance, as its launching its 11th California location, in SoCal’s Helms Bakery furniture district. This will be one of the Swedish chain’s smallest US. stores, coming in at around 40,000 feet, built into a historic building on a bustling shopping street near light rail. Greater Los Angeles has always been a place for Ikea to test new concepts, the chain also operates its largest North American location (456,000 sq. ft.) in nearby Burbank. Real heads will recall that Ikea first grew to Golden State dominance when it took over erstwhile imitator STØR, which Ikea acquired the same year as it was mocked in The Simpsons. Also worth noting is that over 35% of Ikea’s sales now come via ecommerce channels.

Oh Elon… Eight months into Tesla’s launch of “Robotaxi” service in Austin, the service has around 42 cars, with sub 20% availability, a far cry from Musk’s promise of 500+ cars and coverage for half the U.S. population. Meanwhile, Tesla just built its first steering wheel-free Cybercab, while its cars continue to try to drive people into lakes.

In happier AV news: Waymo hit 200 million autonomous miles, as it began welcoming riders in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, while also beginning tests in Chicago. Aurora Innovation’s AV trucks are about to hit the highways between AZ and TX. Wayve raised $1.2 billion, one of the largest venture rounds in British history. Newark Airport is planning to pilot autonomous buses from Oceaneering, Ohmio and Glydways.

Ride the D: LA Metro has officially announced the D Line extension is set to open on May 8th (which is juuuust slightly past its most recent promise of “winter.”) Service on the 3.9 mile section links Koreatown, Mid-Wilshire and the edge of Beverly Hills, a diverse and dense stretch of offices, residential and cultural destinations. Part of this line was originally meant to open in the ‘90s, before an explosion at a Ross Dress for Less temporarily scared voters out of tunneling near methane.

You can just hallucinate your entire vacation! Congrats to my friends at Turo on launching a partnership with OpenAI, allowing travelers to search for rental cars in ChatGPT. Like many of OpenAI’s collaborations, there’s still a bit of work to be done: a bit of testing finds that the chat bot will hallucinate availability in markets that Turo doesn’t serve, and repeatedly link to cars that are unavailable.

Big cities need fast trains: New Delhi just opened the final segment of the first line of its Namo Bharat Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), logging an impressive 100k riders on inauguration day. The system is a rapid-metro of sorts, engineered to run at around 110 MPH, with subway system-like frequency, with stations a good three to four miles apart. Seoul is working on a similar system, which is key to making transit time-competitive in sprawling mega cities.

A few good links: Walmart to pay $100M over deceptive Spark Driver pay. Einride raises over-subscribed $113M PIPE. Does the release of new music result in more distracted driving, causing more accidents? (Yes.) CA Gov. Newsom signs legislation to loan Bay Area transit operators $590M. (Remember my podcast with Sen. Scott Wiener, who championed this bill?) Boston extends free fare pilot on three bus routes. Uber debuts Autonomous Solutions division. New report finds that 44% of LA County’s pavement is unnecessary (but disappointing to see no mention of Measure W, a recent parcel tax that discourages impermeable surfaces.) Traffic enforcement cameras help SF improve ticketing rate. ZaiNar raises $100M for AI-powered GPS alternative. NYC Court unmasks fraudulent car accident crime ring. Even in a blizzard, NYC’s courier warriors go out to deliver food (hope you tip!) Meanwhile, the storm also highlighted pedestrians’ favorite desire paths. Uber snaps up SpotHero. FedEx sues U.S. for tariff refunds. Amazon hits 100M sustainable deliveries in Europe. It’s Electric launches in D.C. Singaporean ridehailer Tada eyes growth in U.S., Africa. Trump Admin looks to kill Tremont Ave busway in the Bronx. Plano agrees to drop DART withdrawal election, after regional transit agency agrees to kick back some taxes to city (looks like the hostage takers won, expect more munis to try this…)

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

If there’s one transportation mega-trend that looks to be taking place in 2026, this is the year that autonomous vehicles become “real.” No longer are AVs consigned to the exurbs of Arizona; you’ve got robotaxis prowling the streets of dense mega-cities and low-tech towns alike. Autonomous trucks are hauling loads for marquee retailers, and sidewalk delivery bots are moving meals even in locales with incredibly strict regulatory regimes.

But the future isn’t static… and at Curbivore we pride ourselves on bringing together the newest machines reshaping the future of autonomy, delivery and mobility. Our latest 2026 partners are trucking across Texas, introducing new delivery bots never seen before on this continent, are building and financing vehicles purpose-fit for ridehailing and are even innovating new ways to charge electric fleets. Learn more below, but better yet: meet them in person on April 16-17 at Curbivore.

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Meet Our Latest Partners

Bot Auto is an autonomous trucking company based in Houston, founded in 2023 by Dr. Xiaodi Hou. Bot Auto utilizes a small fleet of trucks equipped with its AI-powered Autonomous Driving System to run freight for customers in Texas via a hub to hub, Transportation as a Service model. It currently services major customers on lanes from Houston to San Antonio and Houston to Dallas.

Leveraging its globally trusted DYNAMIXEL® smart actuators, ROBOTIS (Robot is...) powers the GAEMI delivery robot for reliable last-mile delivery across indoor and outdoor environments. Partner with us to deploy scalable delivery solutions that lower costs and improve operational efficiency.

indiGO is launching the next generation of EVs and AVs that are purpose-built for delivering people, packages and food while reducing fleet operating costs and maximizing performance. This new platform is made possible via the world's only SmartWheels innovation that combines propulsion and active suspension directly into the wheel architecture, enabling highly-efficient EVs and AVs that are roomier, lighter, and smoother than other vehicles in this class.

Rideshare Carz’s mission is to empower rideshare and delivery drivers with the tools, education, and opportunities to take control of their financial future. The company provides reliable, high-quality rental vehicles alongside expert guidance to help drivers become their own boss, maximize their earnings, and create a schedule that fits their lifestyle. Through competitive pricing, flexible rental options, and a commitment to driver success, Rideshare Carz strives to remove barriers to entry and support drivers in building a profitable and sustainable business. As the company expands its reach, it remains dedicated to fostering a community of independent entrepreneurs who thrive in the evolving gig economy.

RoboDock builds robots that automate depot operations, like charging and vehicle checks, for electric and autonomous vehicle fleets. We turn fleet depots from manual sites into self-running systems that lower operational costs and increase vehicle uptime.

Neubility is a South Korea-based robotics pioneer, specializing in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for last-mile delivery and security patrols. We provide comprehensive end-to-end solutions—spanning hardware, autonomy software, and fleet management platforms—and currently hold the record for the most robot deployments in South Korea.

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Who’s ready for robotic sushi? In a world where a majority of restaurant consumption takes place off premises… do you really care who the chef is? What about for sushi, a cuisine where the chef’s precision and techniques have been prized skills for centuries? As ever more diners turn to delivery, and restaurants large and small grapple with rising costs, Autec’s sushi making robots are taking off in popularity. I recently sampled these machines’ tasty maki over at LA Sushi Co and discovered that despite the attention-grabbing headline, the story is far less simple than it seems. Read the piece at Ottomate.

Climate change comes for urban transport: As California’s been pounded by rain, LA’s delivery bots are struggling to cross water-logged streets. Across the country, bike share systems are still encased in blackened snow a month after the major storm hit northeastern cities. (H/T Justin.)

DoorDash delivers growth: DoorDash wrapped up 2025 with quarterly orders growing 32% YoY to 903 million, while Q4 revenue spiked 38%. We’ll have a full analysis Monday at Modern Delivery.

It’s so over… Does it ever feel like the whole economy is just wobbling on top of a series of increasingly convoluted prop bets? Meet Rush Hour, a new gambling app (I’m sorry… “prediction market”) that lets punters wager on local traffic conditions. Get the number of cars and trucks that will pass through an intersection per each light cycle and you could win, while society loses!

But at least micromobility has finally recovered: European scooter operator Voi posted its best year yet, cresting 116 million rides in 2025. That pushed net revenue to €178.2M ($210M) for the year, with profitable operations bringing the company to just about break even.

Bad Tesla! Tesla’s Robotaxi operations in Austin continue to misbehave, with the company logging five more accidents in the past month. While some of these are minor scrapes, they also include “collision with a fixed object at 17 mph while the vehicle was driving straight.” Electrek concludes that Tesla’s current driving record is 4-8X worse than your average human motorist’s.

It’s an EV / AV land grab: Uber is getting directly involved in operating charging depots for AVs, as the company plans to spend $100M to build fast-charge hubs in LA, SF and Dallas. This space is getting crowded, including competitors like Avomo, Moove, Terawatt and Voltera (some of which have also received investments from Uber.)

EV sales finally fall: While anyone could have predicted this would eventually happen, thanks to the dual punch of expiring subsidies and tariff-induced price hikes, it’s officially official. Electric vehicle sales fell year over year for the first time in the United States, with 2025 coming in 0.4% below ‘24.

From the Department of Newspeak: A fantastic environmental review document for a freeway widening would like us to know that adding lanes is actually equitable. Well, case closed! I suppose this is a great example of why progressive groups need to continue to create new terminology, so as to stay a step ahead of those that co-opt the language…

Rotational inertia? Air taxi upstart Joby is tying itself closer to Toyota, one of its largest investors, with the automaker looking to integrate its renowned manufacturing processes into the EVTOL maker. Meanwhile, its competitor Archer Aviation may be airing bafflingly vague ads during the Winter Olympics, but company execs are now saying its more lucrative prospects involve military work with Anduril.

A few good links: Facing budget crunch, San Diego’s transit agency considers hiking fares to highest in nation. Chips ahoy: Ukrainian drones deliver cookies as well as munitions. NYC street vendors celebrate regulatory reform. Toyota and Pony.ai collab on robotaxi production. Zoox heads to Columbus, Ohio. Feds resume slow disbursement of Hudson Tunnel funds. Relay pulls the plug on NYC operations. Gov. Hochul kills plan to allow robotaxis in NY State. Lobbyists are using AI-generated messages to weaponize regressive astroturfing campaigns. NYC considers free bus fare pilot during World Cup. In defense of new cities (worth noting that Irvine has some lovely bike infrastructure.) NYC to spend $1B to quadruple traffic enforcement cameras (maybe they should get a cut of those bets too…)

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

While this can be a headache for individual car owners, collectively it can be the death knell for a fleet or shared operator. Last week, Zipcar announced it was shutting down its Boston HQ, as owner Avis streamlines its carsharing arm into its larger operations; this comes after its slow retreat from once-promising markets like the U.K.

New entrants aren’t immune from these challenges either. While robotaxi operators are aiming to be safer than human drivers, they’ll need to rack up years of driving data to realize those risk-adjusted pricing benefits. In the meantime, fixing the damage to a $100k+ AV is going to be a lot spendier than when a human TNC driver decides the 10th little dent on his or her old Camry isn’t even worth getting buffed out.

There are, of course, things that both regulators and corporate actors can do to ameliorate these issues. On today’s podcast, I chat with Ed Walker, Practice Leader of Shared Economy, New Mobility and Autonomous Vehicles at Hub International, about recent state level reforms, like California’s SB 371, or a new bill in the works in Florida, that should help bring some relief to insurance prices. He and I also dig deep into what steps mobility startups can take, especially as they’re getting off the ground, to bake in the best practices that should lead to lower costs over the course of their businesses.

Elsewhere on the pod: Greg, Athena and I jump in to the market’s reaction to Lyft and Uber’s latest earnings, Waymo’s latest fundraising haul, Uber Eats’ foray into Turkey, and how Jamaica is using drones to recover from Hurricane Melissa. Do tune in!

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Lowered Lyft: Lyft posted its FY2025 results, and much like with Uber the week before, the market was not impressed. Gross bookings rose 15% to $18.5 billion and revenue climbed 9% to $6.3B for the year, but the company posted an unexpected $185 million operating loss for Q4, sending the stock down 15%. Lyft has been slowly raising prices lately, causing its growth rate to decelerate, as users hop to the competition. The company is seeing some gains from targeted investments like its Lyft Silver program for seniors; maybe its new push to allow for teenage riders will be another small win?

Another reason why free transit is bad policy: BART recently rolled out new fare gates, aiming to make it much more difficult for non-paying riders to access its metro system. Not only have the gates led to more revenue through improved compliance, they’ve reduced maintenance costs, as they keep out the small number of folks that tend to cause the most expensive damage. The transit agency is currently staring down an existential funding shortage that could result in a 63% reduction to services.

Self-driving partisans? Republicans in the U.S. House pushed the SELF DRIVE Act through the Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, after losing the one Democrat that had previously backed the bill. The legislation would override state attempts to regulate AVs and is currently getting flack for questions about how it handles insurance and data-related issues.

Uber makes its case for AV dominance: Uber released a supplement to its Q4 earnings, laying out its case for why the company thinks it’s well positioned to win the robotaxi race. The whole doc is worth a gander, but some interesting stats: new riders grow by 9 percentage points when Uber launches AVs in a metro; Uber claims it gets better vehicle utilization and lower ETAs than first-party AV platforms; and by mixing both human machine drivers it can better serve both peak and trough demand periods. (I will take issue with a bit of the data cherry picking: for example they call out the density of certain cities by their municipal boundaries, as opposed to the actual sub-regions served by AV providers.)

Now this is how you build transit: Lattes, a small town near Montpellier, France, just inaugurated a new tram line extension. Construction costs came in at about $54 million per mile, and trains will arrive every five minutes at peak.

This week in banana republic shenanigans: New York State and the feds are currently duking it out on whether funding for the $16B Gateway tunnel project needs to be restored. But evidently there’s a much simpler solution that’s been floated… the President just wants Dulles Airport and Penn Station named after him, and in exchange he’ll release federal funds. Quod placuit principi, habet vigorem legis!

Good kitty! Just two global cities see humans sharing their terrain with large cats: Mumbai has leopards, while Los Angeles has cougars (aka puma, mountain lion, catamount, or panther.) Southern California is now almost finished constructing an important piece of infrastructure — the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — that will improve connectivity for big cats moving about the region’s myriad mountains. Complete streets are just as important for those with four legs! (Here’s the location on Google Maps, for you cartography geeks.)

A few good links: Skyryse raises $300M for aviation automation. Mitra EV raises $27M for commercial fleet electrification. New data shows that upzoning improves regional housing affordability, but it takes a few years before builders truly start building. Toronto opens Line 5 LRT, which is thankfully much more grade-separated than Line 6. Grab and Hesai collab on lidar. Scott Painter talks TrueCar turnaround. How San Jose sped up its buses (hint: cameras!) Alberta aims to reform insurance market. Cuba runs out of jet fuel. Buffalo’s light rail expansion clears EIS hurdles. Why Minnesota’s Northstar commuter rail was doomed to fail. San Diego County looks to spend $125B on mobility over next quarter century. LA traffic fatalities inch downward, but still a far way from Vision Zero. Reduced immigration whacks state-level growth rates. NLRB decides to regulate SpaceX like an airline or railroad, in move that will make employee strikes more difficult. How to reduce speeding. LA Climate Week to host Designing our Climate Future, Together webinar on 2/25. Flipkart eyes entry into India’s food delivery market. Infinite Machine partners with Bloom. EPA repeals rule that let it fight climate change. (And a H/T to the good folks at Automotive Ventures for supplying some of those repair cost citations.)

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

Responsibly Scaling AVs in America’s Mega-Cities

It’s always fun to see some sparks fly between speakers, and Jeffrey Tumlin, former Director of Transportation for the SFMTA pulled no punches about what he sees as the downsides to robotaxis, having been on-hand to deal with the Cruise fallout. There’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to standardizing how AVs respond to emergencies and first responders, although recent work coming out of the OMF and Seattle are pushing the industry towards a standardized direction.

Jeff does see AVs as a great opportunity to fix America’s long-standing parking issues, as they might both decrease demand for popular spots (the car can drive itself away) while giving cities a reason to finally rationally price their curb spaces. He noted (and we’re swooning):

One of the reasons why I love the Curbivore team is they point out a current regulatory failure, which is our inability to manage the curb for the highest public good, and to get autonomous vehicle companies to be able to partner with cities, in order to direct them to the most efficient places to do pickup and drop off as well as the most efficient or least impactful place to store the vehicle while it’s waiting for its next trip.

Jeremy Bird from Lyft highlighted all the ways AVs can be great partners to cities, while working in tandem with gig workers as well — robotaxis can supply the fixed base while humans cover the peaks — and Andrew Chapin from Nuro made the point that even if AVs increase congestion a bit, that still means more people are getting taken where they need to be, while doing so safely and economically. Rounding things out, the CEOs of Obi and Terawatt reminded us that we’re already seeing some real market impacts from AVs, in terms of changes to average ridehail prices and demand for charger-friendly urban real estate.

Charged Up Cities: Operating Affordable & Sustainable Urban Fleets

Speaking of charging… our second panel went deep into what it’ll take to retrofit big cities’ infrastructure for scaled up AV fleets. Building these charging depots can take years, and operators are already finding that by the time they open, their power needs have outstripped their earlier projections.

Fleet operators, including Vay (which currently does tele-operated driving) are already finding it difficult to fully staff their charging depots, which is why we’re seeing companies like Voltera and Rocsys collaborate on hands-free charging solutions.

Inside AVs: Safety, System Design, Data, and Training

I thought our final panel of the day was particularly fascinating, because we put the full spectrum of AV applications on one stage. From small to large: DoorDash’s Ashu Rege shared the company’s fully integrated approach to delivery bots, Nexar works with both OEMs and robotaxi services, May Mobility’s taken a differentiated approach whereby it partners with public transit providers, and Bot Auto is building autonomy for heavy-duty trucks. All the while, Gridwise’s Ryan Green kept everyone on their toes, making sure that even in the most tech-forward outcome, someone still needs to be thinking about the humble gig worker.

Each of those require different operating rules, different tech stacks, different levels of redundancy, and different business models. With their strong tech and safety backgrounds, it was refreshing to hear Matt Wood and Luc Vincent really get into the nitty-gritty of what it takes to build these systems.

I’m already looking forward to building off these conversations, and getting into the nuances of what the coming wave of autonomy means for all other mobility, delivery and urban systems, at our Curbivore 2026 gathering in April.

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Free as in beer, or free as in speech? Now that he’s sworn in, NYC Mayor Mamdani’s campaign slogans have to meet the harsh reality of municipal politics. One of his big talking points was that the MTA’s buses should be free, which would mean convincing the state to forego over $1 billion in annual ticket revenue. Now NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management is pushing back with a new report, finding that riders would be far better served if that money went towards system expansion: paired with some cost reforms and matching funds, that same subsidy could add up to 41 miles of new subway over a four-decade period. Add in some new housing and that could truly transform NYC. Of course this conversation could all be moot if the USDOT goes through with a new plan to prohibit free buses (so much for local control!)

Not so rad… Rad Power bikes just sold out of bankruptcy for a measly $13.2 million, less than one percent of its peak valuation of $1.65B. If you look at its list of top creditors you see a lot of very normal sounding names (Bruce Rebold, D. Barber, etc.) — no these aren’t family offices you’ve never heard of, they’re sadly the names of people injured by Rad’s bikes (or in even sadder cases: relatives of the deceased.)

As above, so below: Elon Musk’s Boring Co has reached an agreement with Tennessee to bore below Nashville, connecting the airport with the downtown convention center zone. Skeptics point out that the company’s aggressive timeline sounds unrealistic for Music City’s ground conditions, and the supposed throughput would require wild vehicle operating speeds for a course that has a big 90 degree turn in its middle. Up in the sky, Musk’s ambitions are far more modest: he merely wants to put launch thousands of orbital data centers. Oh and at ground level his company town in Texas is getting its own police department; nothing to worry about!

Uber’s global AVs: Uber’s stock fell lightly, as the company’s profit for the year came in below expectation, despite an 18% rise in MAUs, due to to increased equity investments. Most of those investments are of course into AVs, which are of course only likely to continue under the guidance of the company’s new robotaxi enthusiast CFO. In fact, the company’s getting ready to launch AVs into Hong Kong, Madrid, Houston and Zurich.

Waymo’s autonomous cash machine: Elsewhere on the AV front, Waymo just raised a whopping $16 billion, with the likes of Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital joining Alphabet in valuing the robotaxier at $126B. While the co. has now driven 127 million miles autonomously, it’s in a bit of hot water over one particular ride: a Waymo hit a child by a school in Santa Monica. While the kid is okay, and Waymo makes the case that a human would have responded slower, there are questions about if a human driver would have behaved differently knowing they were by a school during drop off hours, and also why the vehicle was going 17 MPH when the speed limit was 15. I got to discuss the nuances of the story with Fox 11, but they sadly trimmed out most of the interesting stuff…

One man’s congestion is another man’s economic activity: Tom Tom released its newest Traffic Index, showing that the world’s most congested countries are Colombia, Malta and the Philippines. Stateside, the most congested cities are LA and Honolulu, but the actual slowest travel speeds belong to NYC and SF.

Plugged up! Good news for anyone with an EV, as America’s fast charging network continues to grow. The U.S. now has just over 70,000 public fast-chargers, with 18,000 new ones coming online last year. Tesla Superchargers represent 52% of the market, but the competition is quickly catching up.

Curb mismanagement? Cities continue to struggle with humble ol’ parking, with 27% of cities still managing their programs’ success off of “compliance,” as opposed to maximizing revenue (and thus turnover.) Excuses for not modernizing systems include limited enforcement resources and public resistance or perception.

A few good links: Our fund, MobilityVC, announced a new investment — Leasy — a car subscription platform for gig workers in LatAm. Mercedes and Nvidia team up on AVs. New congestion pricing data shows its improving drive times in the ‘burbs too, not just the commercial core. NY, NJ sue Trump Admin over Hudson River tunnel funding freeze. For my fellow dorks: LA Metro shares progress on expanding Transit Signal Priority and shifting to a cloud-based system. Colorado Springs releases parking and curb management plan. LACI BATWorks to host “Towards Emissions-Free Microfreight” workshop on 2/19. Bedrock Robotics raises $270M for AV excavators. Machina Labs raises $124M for software-defined mobility + aerospace manufacturing. U.S. federal gov’t to build $11.7B stockpile of critical minerals. SNAK Venture Partners raises $50M fund for marketplace startups. Why LA stopped repaving its streets (although it neglects to mention Measure HLA.)

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

There’s plenty of other industry news to bite into this week as well: I’m joined by Greg and Sela as we discuss the latest robotaxi trials and tribulations (in both the U.S. and Europe,) TrueCar’s interesting go-private deal, and why India and China are trying to crack down on super-fast / super-cheap delivery. Listen in!

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

AV overload! Yesterday’s Urban Autonomy Summit was a huge success! Thank you to everyone that came out, we’ll be releasing recordings and photos shortly. In the meantime, some of the most recent news that our esteemed panelists got into: Waabi raised $1 billion (a record for Canadian startups) and plans to move its AV trucking tech into robotaxis for Uber. Meanwhile Lyft and the City of Hamburg are pioneering a framework to launch AV taxis in Germany, while Gatik started commercial autonomous trucking operations. Down in San Diego, the local transportation operator has come out against self-driving vehicles, while Waymos just went live in Miami.

Man vs machine: New reports from our partners at Obi and Gridwise paint an interesting picture of the evolving dynamic as AVs and human-powered ridehails go head-to-head. Obi’s data shows Waymo’s price premium over Uber and Lyft has narrowed to 12-27%, while Gridwise showed that driver earnings came down in cities where humans face robotic competition.

Micromobility keeps on spinning: Third Lane Mobility, the parent co. of shared micromobility operators Bird and Spin, just raised $20 million in new funding, powering plans to deploy 35,000 new vehicles this year, in markets like Atlanta, LA, Nashville, Seattle, Rome and Tel Aviv. While not the humongous rounds of the ZIRP era, this is a nice validation that the company’s found sustainable financial footing. Third Lane’s also creating a new Transportation Advisory Board, helmed by Gabe Klein, to work with cities on better plans and processes.

The sky’s the limit! Drone deliverer Zipline just hauled in $600 million, bringing its total funding to a cool $7.6B. Zipline has now made over two million deliveries, and plans to expand to Houston and Phoenix in the coming months.

The world keeps building transit: The Transport Politic has charted out all the new public transit lines that opened in 2025, with China managing to cut the ribbon on a whopping 930 kilometers of new metro and light rail service. Meanwhile, we should give some honorable mentions to cities like Tampere, Finland which inaugurated 4.7 km of new light rail, and Ahvaz, Iran which should open 23.3 km of new metro in 2026. In 1990, America boasted four of the world’s top twenty metro systems; in another few years we’ll have zero…

Why can’t we have nice things too? Because we lost the state capacity to keep costs in check! Two fresh examples… LA Metro approved (yay) the Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor, connecting the San Fernando Valley with the Basin via heavy rail. But the board opted for a modified project, cutting a few miles (and multiple useful rail connections) off the project, which had swollen from an estimated $6 billion to a whopping $24.2 billion (and even that’s in 2023 dollars.) The project is now only about 9 miles, and includes just four stations, so it’ll be unclear what they can blame the costs on when the newest estimates come out. Meanwhile, Arizona legislators pulled the plug on a rail extension that had ballooned to about $400M for just three quarters of a mile of street-running operations.

Tesla sturm und drang: Oh Elon… the automaker pulled its safety drivers out of its Austin robotaxi pilot, only for it to be revealed they’re instead just trailing behind in another car (optics, baby!) Meanwhile, at the behest of CA regulators, the company is renaming and rejiggering some of its ADAS products, making its lane-keeping feature only available via subscription. And maybe Tesla doesn’t even want to be an automaker any more; yesterday’s quarterly earnings update saw car sales tumble 9%, with the company planning to discontinue its Model S and X and instead make humanoids and offer transportation as a service. One spot of good news, depending on your perspective, Alex Roy did just managed to drive a Model 3 cross-country without a single disengagement.

Not so SMART: In a sad development, SMART grant funding has been zeroed out in 2026 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) funding, with the remaining $204M in funds reallocated to other programs. SMART grants have been a big driver of cities’ curbside innovations, alongside other tech-forward deployments. Overall transit funding notched a slight gain in funding, working out to about seven tenths of a percent.

Super-app-ifragilisticexpialidocious: InDrive, the bid-based ridehailing platform that’s big in emerging markets, is the latest mobility platform to set its sights on becoming a “super app.” The company’s recently launched grocery delivery and in-app advertising (love those margins!) which has helped grow these new revenue streams to 15% of the overall sales mix.

Calling all climate-tech founders! Our friends at the L.A. Cleantech Incubator are launching their Brooklyn Army Terminal innovation hub (talk about an east coast - west coast collab!) and now they’re about to start their first round of pilots. Learn more on Feb. 5 about BATWorks’ plan to support companies deploying technology in live operating environments while building traction with NYC based partners.

Well this won’t help our cities rebound… U.S. population growth slowed to some of the lowest levels in history, fueled largely by a huge outflow of immigrants. In a move that will only worsen matters, states like Texas and Florida are now looking to curtail H-1B visa holders. Maaaaybe this immigration and civil rights crack down has gone far enough to shake a few Republicans from the cause: “Latinas for Trump” Co-Founder and Florida State Senator Ileana Garcia says “It’s gone too far” (after she was profiled by TSA at the airport.) I guess the meme about leopards eating faces has finally come true…

Still golden: Startup seed funding deal sizes have reached record bigness, with over 40% of seed and Series A investment in the year so far going to rounds of $100M+. And despite all the naysayers, California-based companies pulled in 63% of all startup funding last year, a record high.

A few good links: Austin gets ok from feds for watered down light rail. Brightline bonds downgraded to junk. On the need for autonomy-focused infrastructure. Atlanta officials secretly paused plans to advance voter-backed light rail project. Luna raises €1.5M for AI-powered bike and motorcycle rider assistance. Automotus and INRIX partner on real-time curb occupancy data. Foxconn and Mitsubishi Fuso plan EV bus. Trump Admin plans to redevelop DC neighborhood. Jascha Franklin-Hodge steps down as Boston’s Chief of Streets. Samsung scales up food delivery bot. Three years after opening of $12B+ opening, NYC’s East Side Access hasn’t resulted in improved travel times for most commuters. NJ to require e-bike licenses. SF reconsidering delivery bots. New data shows EV adoption results in better air locally. Toronto to open Eglinton Crosstown LRT on 2/8, hopefully it’s faster than the last line they debuted. Amazon gives up on Amazon Fresh branded grocery stores. LA launches new streamlined development services bureau, but local builders think this is more akin to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. French government sets goal of 70k carsharing vehicles by 2031 (meanwhile the U.K. is letting their industry whither.) California beats its clean automotive goals. How streets shape behavior. German government delays train improvements. Instead of trying to stop loud NIMBYs from holding up transit projects that have been approved by a super-majority, LA Metro wants the state to undo its just-passed law that upzoned housing near transit. Sacramento to break ground on sorta-light rail, sorta-streetcar project (what’s in a name, anyway?) Hoboken camera enforcement is a policy success but politicians need to grow spines.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

We are three months away from Curbivore 2026 — bringing mobility and delivery’s most interesting thinkers to the Downtown LA Arts District on April 16th and 17th. We’re delighted to announce our 2026 Launch Partners, marquee brands truly driving the industry forward: DoorDash, Fastport Honda, Uber, Nexar, Zoox, Gridwise Analytics, CurbIQ, Starship, AirGarage, GetScale, Ualett and Tranzito.

This is your chance to meet with the industry’s brightest minds at our best rate of the year: $195 Super Early Bird Pricing ends tomorrow! (Alternatively, reach out to learn more about joining us as a partner.)

Register Now & Save

Meet Our 2026 Launch Partners

DoorDash (NASDAQ: DASH) is one of the world's leading local commerce platforms that helps businesses of all kinds grow and innovate, connects consumers to the best of their neighborhoods, and gives people fast, flexible ways to earn. Since its founding in 2013, DoorDash has expanded to more than 40 countries, using technology and logistics to shape the future of local commerce and broaden access to opportunity. With a growing international presence that now includes Deliveroo and Wolt, DoorDash combines global scale with local expertise to serve communities around the world.

Uber's mission is to create opportunity through movement. We started in 2010 to solve a simple problem: how do you get access to a ride at the touch of a button? More than 68 billion trips later, we're building products to get people closer to where they want to be. By changing how people, food, and things move through cities, Uber is a platform that opens up the world to new possibilities.

Fastport, a venture from the Honda New Business Innovation Lab, is dedicated to reinventing last-mile urban logistics through innovative micromobility solutions. Fastport provides companies with revolutionary micromobility solutions to enhance urban logistics including delivery operations while promoting efficiency and reliability.

Based in Foster City, CA, Zoox is reinventing personal transportation–building a safer, cleaner, and more enjoyable future on the road. At the core of its vision is a purpose-built robotaxi that offers the world a better way to ride. Through a combination of cutting-edge technology and a focus on the rider experience, Zoox is transforming urban mobility with its comprehensive and cohesive autonomous ride-hailing service.

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By digitizing curbside regulations, CurbIQ helps cities better understand how their curbs are working today, and gives them modern tools to improve operations in the future.

GetScale offers pay-for-performance recruiting for the largest gig and hourly workforces in North America. They convert and retain over 100,000 workers each year through one-on-one outreach at scale.

Nexar turns cars into vision sensors to understand the world. Its platform powers vision-connected services and apps at scale, making new vision-based applications for better driving powered by a crowd-sourced vision feed. Using anonymous, aggregated data captured from this network, Nexar has developed a portfolio of vision-based data services for the autonomous vehicle industry and public and private sector partners to make roadways safer and more efficient.

Gridwise Analytics delivers actionable gig mobility insights to gig platforms, retailers, and investors, giving them a deep understanding of unit economics, customer pricing trends, driver earnings fluctuations, and the performance of retail brands on these platforms.

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Starship Technologies is revolutionizing deliveries with autonomous robots. The robots are designed to deliver food, groceries and packages locally in minutes. The delivery robots have traveled millions of miles and completed seven million autonomous deliveries around the world.

Ualett® is a dedicated service app, designed for independent contractors (drivers, deliveries, micro-businesses) seeking a seamless solution for managing their accounts receivables. Ualett® facilitates the purchase of your business-generated accounts receivables through a user-friendly sales and purchase agreement. Whether you're a GIG worker, self-employed individual, freelancer, micro business owner, rideshare or taxi driver, or even in the delivery or truck driving business, Ualett® is here to streamline your financial processes and support your success.

Tranzito helps public agencies integrate new mobility into their smart cities future. Our open-ecosystem approach seamlessly integrates the best partners and technologies to offer a customized solution.

AirGarage is a technology-forward parking operator, focused on improving the 30% of downtown U.S. real estate dedicated to parking. Our mission is to transform single-use parking spaces into dynamic, multi-use hubs.

Curbivore is a call to rethink last mile delivery, urban mobility, restaurants & retailing, and civic tech. Join us!

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HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

More than a Wing and a prayer? Wing and Walmart’s drone delivery ambitions are really taking off, with the plans to cover 150 stores over the next year, enough to serve 40M Americans. By 2027 they want to expand to 270 locations, and unlike previous launches in low-density locales like Atlanta and North Carolina, this expansion aims to serve denser cities like Miami and LA.

What would it take to make American transit great? About $229 billion annually, according to Transportation for America, representing a 2.5X increase from current spending. The group finds that the average U.S. city has only 27 transit vehicles per 100k residents, as compared to 133 for world-class cities.

The Second Ave saga continues… NYC’s century-long plan to build a subway up and down Second Avenue has taken a new twist, literally. While the state is currently expanding the line northwards towards 125th street, the new plan would ditch a previous commitment to expand the line south towards the LES and Financial District, instead continuing west through Harlem, linking a number of existing lines (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, A, C, B, D) that lack east-west transfers.

C.R.E.A.M — Consultants Ruin Everything Around Me: Sad news out of the Pacific Northwest, where plans to replace the I-5 bridge over Portland’s Willamette River have climbed to $12.2-17.7 billion, with possible contingencies bringing it as high as $19B. As the highway expansion was originally budgeted at $4.8B, this revelation is so embarrassing that it required a FOIA to learn about. While the consultants running the project have been unable to contain costs, they have managed to feast while doing so: their budgets have grown at 6X the rate of the overall project.

A few good links: You love to see it — PopWheels’ batteries powering an NYC food cart. Relatedly, NYC mulls expanding street vending permits. Kodiak and Bosch collab on AV sensors. Kroger and Uber Eats expand nationwide partnership. Tesla’s European sales in free-fall. The Next Mile Coalition launches Micromobility Roadmap to improve two-wheeler safety and mode share in NYC. Wow actual new concrete for curbs: improvements come to Santa Monica and West LA. Brightline hires ex-Eurostar head to build LA-Vegas HSR.

The newsletter will be off next week as I join my friends at Automotive Ventures for their highly anticipated Future of Mobility Conference in Atlanta. Don’t forget to grab your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

Last month’s power cum Waymo outage in San Francisco is an instructive example. To what degree should an AV operator’s disaster preparedness plan be made public? Should a self-driving car’s behavior when it reaches an inoperable traffic light be something decided by each tech company, or should regulators set a standard?

Relatedly, how should remote operations — when a human outside the vehicle steps in to make a decision for the computer — be regulated? It’s still an open question if that teleoperator needs to be located in the same state as the AV, if they have to have passed a background check, or even if they must possess a driver’s license.

Yet another debate rages around mapping. Should each AV service be required to create HD maps of a service area? On one hand, that hyper precise imaging, laden with semantic detail, offers the computer a level of nuance on each inch of terrain that no flesh-bound mind could possess. But those arguing for a mapless approach think it’s actually safer to have a car that can automatically navigate anywhere, speeding up not just deployments but perhaps better preparing for inevitable changes to mapped landscapes.

To get to the bottom of that last quandary, our team at Ottomate recently sat down with Eran Ofir, CEO of Imagry, to hear his case for why a mapless approach may let AVs truly drive like a human. Give it a read.

Ottomate

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Maps (But Maybe a Little Help from AI)

The debate between mapless and HD-mapped autonomy sits at the heart of today’s self-driving conversation. HD maps offer unmatched precision and redundancy, turning the world into a navigable database — but they also demand enormous upkeep and restrict where vehicles can operate. Mapless systems, by contrast, interpret the road entirely through real-time perception, trading reliability and predictability for adaptability and scale. Each approach has its champions, and each carries trade-offs that go beyond engineering — shaping everything from business models to regulatory strategy…

Read more

5 months ago · 1 like · Ottomate News

URBAN AUTONOMY SUMMIT — 1/28 IN SAN FRANCISCO

Our invite-only Urban Autonomy Summit, presented by Nexar, is shaping up to be a truly peerless gathering of the AV sector’s most pivotal public and private sector players. I encourage you to apply to attend, as we collaborate to solve the industry’s most pressing questions. Speakers include:

• ​Jeremy Bird — Executive Vice President, Lyft

• ​Xiaodi Hu — CEO & Founder, Bot Auto

• ​Ashwini Anburajan — CEO, Obi

• ​Jeffrey Tumlin — Former Director of Transportation, SFMTA

• ​Neha Palmer — CEO, Terawatt

• ​Jon Miller — CBO, Nexar

• ​Ryan Green — CEO & Co-Founder, Gridwise Analytics

• ​Matt Wood — VP of Safety and Validation, May Mobility

• ​Ashu Rege — Vice President of Autonomy & Head of DoorDash Labs, DoorDash

• ​Rachel Swan — Transportation Reporter, SF Chronicle

• ​Claire Eagen — Global Head of Legal, Vay

• ​Erin Galiger — Director, North American Markets, Rocsys

• ​Lora Kolodny — Tech Reporter, CNBC

• ​Rya Jetha — Tech Culture Reporter, SF Standard

• ​Jonathan Colbert — Head of Marketing, Voltera

Apply to Attend for Free

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Transit slowdown: What do we have to look forward to in 2026? The Transport Politic has mapped out all the forthcoming public transit projects in the USA, which in typical North American fashion is a pittance compared to the rest of the world. While locales as varied as Kansas City, Baton Rouge and Ottawa are getting new rail or BRT extensions, most of the action is concentrated in SoCal. Los Angeles will get 3.9 miles of heavy rail subway and 2.3 miles of automated people mover, while nearby Orange County gets a 4.2 mile streetcar / LRT and even the Inland Empire is getting a 19 mile bus rapid transit line.

More on the tribulations of self-driving cars: Andrej Karpathy, former Senior Director of AI at Tesla, seems to have converted from an AV optimist to a self-driving pessimist. He thinks Tesla’s current approach is a dead-end, and finds the limited fleet sizes of the big robotaxi-ers to be a sign that they too haven’t fully figured out all the rules of the road. But perhaps even more harrowing is his declaration that “I don’t think Elon has any credibility at all, on anything” and that “I don’t trust Tesla not to cover up crashes, or silence victims, or critics, or journalists, or use the Trump administration’s corruption to avoid sensible oversight from regulators.”

For whom the congestion tolls: With 2025 in the rearview mirror, we can look back at NYC’s deployment of a congestion pricing cordon and call it an unmitigated success. 27 million fewer cars entered the Manhattan CBD, travel times improved by 4.5%, injuries are down and public transit got $550 million in new funding. But seemingly a handful of people in Queens are still mad about it.

Téléphérique magnifique: Paris inaugurated Le Câble 1, a 2.8 mile aerial cable car line that links neighborhoods in its isolated southeastern suburbs with the nearest metro station. Meanwhile, LA’s wise local leaders are busy fighting a proposal that would build a similar system for free. Surely Paris could learn a thing or two from us about public transit!

Suburbivore? It’s looking like some CBDs might truly never recover from their Covid-related exoduses (exodi?) Downtown Dallas is the latest locale to suffer a blow, as AT&T is moving its HQ, with thousands of workers, to a suburban campus 20 miles away. Of the 21 Fortune 500s based in Dallas-Ft. Worth, now only one will actually be located in Downtown Dallas. AT&T opted for Plano, while other low-density ‘burbs like Irving are even more popular.

Hooray for micro-cars! Our friends at Bingo Tech just unveiled the E2, meant to combine a tiny footprint with swappable batteries, to make ridehailing more affordable in emerging economies. Meanwhile, China’s Neolix is taking its autonomous, golf-cart size delivery vans to the winding roads of Europe.

Wondering about Wonder: Marc Lore’s food tech startup Wonder appetite for zany new ideas seems almost limitless. Hot off acquiring Infinite Kitchens from Sweetgreen, the founder of Diapers.com is now promising to unveil something called Wonder Create, which would let any entrepreneur “Use Wonder’s software to hatch a restaurant brand and recipes. These recipes can be programmed into Wonder’s automated kitchens, which will make and then sell them through the Wonder app.“ I was delighted to chat with Bloomberg’s Joshua Brustein as he was working on this must-read piece.

A few good links: NYC Mayor Mamdani names Michael Flynn as head of DOT — good luck making the busses free! Uber eyes acquisition of parking rez app SpotHero. OEM execs predict a tough year for car sales. Grab trials drone deliveries in Singapore. Amazon acquires Rightbot in bid to improve logistics automation. I hate to say I agree with Matt Yglesias — but Dems should focus on curtailing oil consumption, not local energy production (as true in California as it is in Pennsylvania.) DoorDash beefs up advertising platform. Sao Paulo to get two new light rail lines. TYLin releases Freight Decarbonization Playbook.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets and to apply to attend the Urban Autonomy Summit!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

Meanwhile, Zoox opened its own robotaxi service to riders in San Francisco, Tesla’s (not-quite) self-driving platform is live in California and Texas, and players like Avride are moving in to Dallas as well. It’s safe to say that like it or not, the AVs are here.

Major Policy Questions for 2026

But beyond the eye-catching headlines… there are still some major unanswered questions, starting with the safety and systems architecture fronts. Just this past week, Waymo’s had to issue a software update to fix an issue with some cars illegally passing stopped school buses. While it’s great to see them respond proactively, others like Tesla have taken a far more cavalier approach. Not only is the NHTSA investigating reports of the Elon Musk-helmed company’s cars running red lights, the OEM just rolled out an update to its driver assistance software that allows for texting while driving — something that is very much illegal in every state except for Montana (yee-haw!)

Then there’s the question of congestion, and the second order effects on public transit usage. While some players like May Mobility and Via are positioning AVs as a public transit solution, other robotaxi rides might displace trips that would have otherwise taken place on a bus or train. As a personal anecdote, just the other night I took a Waymo from Downtown LA to my home. While Uber was quoting me $28 — which would have been enough to nudge me onto the Metro — the Waymo was just $14, and right around the corner. Waymo’s fixed fleet economics (as opposed to having a flexible pool of workers) is likely to mean cheap rides at off-peak times, paired with pricier journeys at rush hour.

Meanwhile, despite the promises of optimized routing, robotaxis are still deadheading — traveling many miles without any passengers on board — and thus adding to urban congestion, nearly half the time they’re on the road. The rate has come down in recent months, but it’s actually higher than what human drivers tend to average. Paradoxically, human deadheading has actually been getting worse in SF and LA, perhaps as the addition of AVs pushes up overall supply in the market.

Of course, all of these are very much solvable problems. But they won’t be solved by technology alone, nor can they be fixed with pure policy and rule-making. I strongly believe a collaboration between the two is necessary, especially as autonomous vehicles push deeper into America’s smaller metro areas — we’re about to see Waymos in Baltimore, self-driving Lyfts in Nashville, Serve Robotics in Ft. Lauderdale, autonomous Ubers in Arlington — most of which will lack the regulatory capacity, clout and interest of first-mover cities.

Join Us to Shape that Future — January 28th in San Francisco

With 2026 shaping up to be such a pivotal year, we felt it was only right to convene the Urban Autonomy Summit, presented by Nexar, on January 28th in San Francisco. I was awed by the high caliber turnout we had for the first edition of this event in NYC, so it felt only right to bring it to the heart of AV territory for a half-day of in-depth panels, news-making talks and powerful networking. Our past events have featured leaders from Waymo, Zoox, Nuro, NYCDOT, Morgan Stanley, Maniv Ventures, DoorDash, USDOT, Zipcar, Mapbox, Bloomberg, Uber, Via, Serve, CPUC and many more — expect this invite-only gathering to be a who’s who of AV leaders.

Apply to Attend Today

Inquire About Partnering

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Wow… somehow 2025 is already just about done. I’ll be taking a break from writing (and podcasting) for the next few weeks. In case you missed any of them, here are a few of my favorite pieces from the past year:

A few good links: Rivian plans new autonomy push. Amazon DSPs organize in secret to demand better pay rates. USPS consolidation threatens rural healthcare access. NEVI EV charger funding restored. Toronto tram trouble: new zillion dollar Line 6 is slower than the bus it replaces; mayor promises improvements, but complicated management structure will impede progress. Seattle opens light rail extension, but infill housing is lacking. How to build LRT well. On the rise and fall of CAKE e-motos. Starship partners with Foodora in Czechia. DHL launches autonomous delivery vehicles in Singapore. Ola exits food delivery biz. Grubhub’s top foods of 2025. Fiat Topolino states-bound. CAHSR releases DEIR for LA-OC network. NYPD is so bad at parking enforcement that it took them one week to notice a decayed corpse left in an illegal parked car one block from a police station. LAPD arrests crosswalk painting activist. Instacart in hot water over algorithmic pricing; company files suit against NYC wage laws, integrates into ChatGPT. Uber Direct plugs into Shopify. Walmart expands rapid delivery network. Payment delinquencies rise. A sordid history of Texas cities trying to exit DART. NYC congestion pricing cut air pollution by 22%. NJ politics roiled by investigation into police work stoppage on traffic safety after investigation into discrimination. Highland Electric raises $150M. Qargo raises €28M. RIP to Frank Gehry — his earlier works never really made sense outside of SoCal, as they were a kaleidoscopic refraction of the region’s carefree ideals, expressed through a reimagination of workman materials like chainlink and corrugated metal. And for those of you that really love delivery, check out Modern Delivery’s look back at 2025.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets and to apply to attend the Urban Autonomy Summit!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

In a marketplace, tips aren’t primarily about encouraging good behavior through a feedback loop; they’re a psychological hack that greases the wheels for both supply and demand. You can quibble with the 20% benchmark he’s used, but a courier or driver values $1 in tips more than they value a $1 in base pay. Something about the *ping* of the notification that you’ve received more than you had to makes the job feel more rewarding, and keeps workers on the platform longer.

The same is true for consumers. As much as users might grumble about tip-flation, they’ll continue to sprinkle in a few extra bucks here and there. And a shopper is much more likely to pick the option that’s listed as 80 cents in the initial screen, and then instinctively add on another 20 cents in tip later, than they are to pick an option that was initially priced “all-in” at a dollar.

A Legalized Advantage — But Can Platforms Tip?

All that has been true for years, but recent changes actually make it even more relevant. As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, tips now go untaxed for most workers, subject to some income limits. And while not every type of tip is permissible, the guidance specifically says up to $25,000 in tips related to food delivery or ridehailing will go untaxed at the federal level, with a phase-out for higher earners starting at $150k. As dumb as that policy may be, it means that a dollar in tips is worth up to 24% more than a dollar in regular income.

Interestingly, we’ve seen some city-level policies work in the countervailing direction. When cities like NYC or Seattle mandate higher base pay for app work, they’re generally upping the non-tip portion. The platforms then in turn downplay tipping, to lessen the impact on consumers. I think in the coming years we’ll see the platforms experiment with offering tips themselves, as a way to offer compensation to workers that stretches a bit further. Have a high rating and work consistent hours? Maybe one of the 3PDs will throw in a nice $100 “tip” at the end of the year! It’s certainly not what the law imagined, but we’re not exactly in an era of heightened legal compliance…

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

A very smooth Cyber Monday: Consumers celebrated Black Friday / Cyber Monday with their usual exuberance, with spending up 7.1% YoY. But what does that mean from a logistics and delivery congestion POV? Well, the actual number of items purchased fell about 1%, with prices rising due to the impact of tariffs. Retailers have done what they can to cut costs; I caught up with Flexport’s Darby Meegan who noted that in the past few years, national carriers like UPS have gone from handling 90% of deliveries to handling less than half, with specialists and regional carriers like Veho on the rise. That’s good enough to save shippers a buck per box, while also improving speeds by 20%+.

For local retailers as well: It used to be that on Black Friday you muscled your way into a store, and then on Cyber Monday you sat at your computer and clicked at things on Amazon.com, which would then arrive a few days later. But with the 3PDs now all-in on retail, shopping patterns have blended into an interesting hybrid. Uber tells me that retail orders grew 300% on Black Friday, with consumers clamoring for AirPods, iPads, headphones and PlayStations. Interestingly, folks taking Ubers to stores seemed to have less interest in electronics, with top destinations including Walmart, Target, Ross, Macy’s, Best Buy, Burlington, Marshall’s, Dollar General, TJ Maxx and Kohl’s. And finally, a stat that will get stuck in your head: the top pet supplies item was live crickets, with over 5,000 units sold. I guess lizard owners really felt their “pets” needed a great Thanksgiving meal as well…

Wing and Walmart Head to Hotlanta (Suburbs): Drone deliverer Zipline just went live with Walmart at six Supercenters in the ‘burbs of Atlanta, as part of a partnership that will eventually cover parts of Arkansas, Texas, Florida and North Carolina as well. Why are they all in the South? Your first instinct may be regulatory or “pro-business” reasons, but it really comes down to the built environment. These are towns where it’s fundamentally impossible to walk to the store. Check out this map — literally the first location I chose on a lark — of a home near a Conyers, GA Walmart. A distance of 1400 feet as the crow flies becomes a 3.9 mile walk; in which case, you’ll opt for the drone! (See my previous writing about Wing in North Carolina.)

Insurance ruins everything around me… Zipcar is pulling out of London, and the U.K. entirely, citing rising costs and dwindling consumer spending. While London should be the perfect city for car-light living, the final nail in the coffin may have been insurance costs, which Barak Sas notes climbed 33% last year alone. Stateside, creeping insurance costs are having a huge impact as well: open-street event organizers at CicLAvia say their costs are up 5X, forcing them to rely more on brand activations to keep the lights on and the roads free of cars. Some of this just comes down to inflation, but legislators could help by capping max liability payouts. (As CA just did for TNCs.)

Secure bike parking conquers the eastern seaboard: NYC is rolling out bike lockers across the city, with 500 locations meant to enable biking to subway stations and popular destinations. The city just awarded the contract to our friends at Tranzito, but there were a number of great options (like Oonee) in the mix as well. D.C. is also getting new bike lockers, with 450 showing up at WMATA stations around the region.

Texas two-step? Avride and Uber are rolling out their robotaxis to Dallas, with the safety-driver equipped Hyundais hitting Downtown, Uptown, Turtle Creek and Deep Ellum. Texas may certainly end up being a prime market for AVs, if DFW suburbs make good on their awful plans to end public transit funding.

AV rules: California’s DMV just began a 15-day comment period for new rules on autonomous vans and heavy-duty trucks. Maybe regulators will finally make it so cars, and not just human drivers, can receive traffic violation tickets? Meanwhile, the City of Santa Monica has ordered a Waymo charging depot to shut down overnight, as nearby residents tire of all the reverse beeping and car noises. Perhaps this could be solved by… not putting the cars in an open-air lot? Pulling conduit into a parking structure is a bit harder, but there are plenty of Level 3 chargers built into buildings, some quite close to this lot. Further south, San Diego’s taxi committee is fighting the proposed expansion of AVs into their humble town. You might think “San Diego has taxis?” and you’d be right — these are mostly Uber and Lyft drivers. I bet the taxi committee was fighting them not too long ago!

New train Serb-ice? Belgrade, the largest European capital city without a metro, may finally get the rapid transit subway it deserves. City officials signed contracts worth €1 billion with French and Chinese construction consortiums, towards building a €4.4 billion ($5.13 billion) subway line. (Pretty pricy for a ~13 mile line in a middle income country.) Plans to build a subway have gone on and off for years. For a sense of Serbian transit excellence, please do take a look at these wild photos of their suburban trains or read the epic saga about the redevelopment of Belgrade Centre Railway Station. (And for you true nerds, make sure you watch the six part BBC documentary The Death of Yugoslavia — here it is on YouTube.)

Super fast, take two: Amazon is breathing new life into rapid deliveries, with 30-minute or less produce and electronics now available in Seattle and Philadelphia. The latter city is of course home to Gopuff, so you can see whose turf they’re coming for with this launch. Priced at $3.99 for Prime members of $13.99 without, you’ve got to really want those eggs to arrive quickly.

The housing crisis is pretty much nationwide at this point… New Brookings data shows that more and more middle-class families across the country can’t afford basic necessities. While rising food and child care prices aren’t helping, the biggest driver is of course high home prices. Towards that, it’s no surprise to see the biggest issues in coastal cities, while the Midwest (and surprisingly, Los Angeles) do well. Speaking of the Midwest, someone at Brookings really fucked up that map of Lake Michigan…

Cafe to go: The Trump administration is looking to roll back automotive fuel economy standards, reducing the 2031 average from 50.4 to 34.5 MPG. While boosters claim this will reduce the price of cars, consumers will quickly end up paying that all back and more in higher fuel expenses. In the announcement, President Trump also made a passing remark about wanting to legalize smaller trucks in the U.S. While lovers of cute kei-trucks are enthusiastic, I’ll believe this is happening when I actually see it…

A few good links: A new underground down under: Melbourne opens Metro Tunnel. India’s 3ev raises $13.5M for electrified tuktuks. Cash-strapped Rad Power Bikes hit by battery recall (pretty sure I have one of these cells - eep!) Tesla cuts Austin robotaxi fleet goals from 500 to 60. Japan’s Luup raises $44M to expand micromobility network. Area 2 Farms wants to turn under-utilized parking lots into urban agriculture amenities (we’ve seen this movie before…) Detroit releases 2026–2027 Dockless E-Scooter Permit Application. South Florida skyscrapers sinking at an alarming rate. How to build a community market in under-served neighborhoods (note to the Times: this is not a food desert, there are full-service markets + healthy restaurants within a five minute walk…) Behind the scenes with DoorDash’s Tony Xu. Apartment rents dip nationwide as some (but not enough) new supply comes online. Dollar stores conveniently forget to update sticker prices, leaving cash-strapped shoppers to pay more at the register. Toronto plans to build new bike lanes, despite provincial pressure not to, by reducing car lane widths instead of eliminating them entirely. State Department offers Zipline $150M for African expansion. Autolane raises $7.4M to help AVs navigate retail zones. S.F. mayor pushes through upzoning. Waymo begins DoorDash DashMart deliveries near Phoenix. The decades-long plan to replace NYC’s BQE. Agentic shopping on the rise. Waymo should talk up its tele-ops capabilities. Non-Chinese carmakers hope to turn their flailing China operations into export hubs.

Don’t forget to score your Curbivore tickets!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

That’s all well and good… but those are huge companies that have big bucks to spend on pilots (or worse yet, PR stunts masquerading as pilots.) What about the every day businesses that want to move their goods a bit more sustainably? And what of the hard scrabble logistics businesses that need green mobility to be not just “the right thing to do,” but actually work profitably?

That’s why I was pleased to sit down with Kevin Savage, the COO of Delivery Mates, for the final episode of this season of the Zag Talk podcast. Many others have tried, with a rather spotty track record, to make carbon-free deliveries work. Delivery Mates, with its fleet of electric vans, e-mopeds and equads, and some special sauce around its in-house software, may just have cracked the code on making it work.

Do give the episode a listen; Kevin shares plenty of insights from decades in the logistics biz. Plus, Sela and I go deep on London’s latest plan to tackle congestion, the newest sad SPAC saga (hint: it’s Luminar,) Starship’s partnership with Uber and much more.

CURBIVORE — 2-For-1 Tickets — Black Friday Special!

We’ve got a special Black Friday / Cyber Monday offer of our own! Register now for Curbivore — returning to DTLA on April 16 & 17 — and when you buy one ticket, you’ll get a second one free. Bring a friend, colleague or fellow curbside commerce leader. Act fast — this $97.50/person offer expires Monday!

Register Now & Save

Black asphalt, Black Friday: Tomorrow is Black Friday, America’s (and now, it seems, the world’s) great shopping festival. As you go out to spend, reflect on how so much of our built environment is festooned with parking, and even on the BUSIEST shopping day, much of it will lie empty. I went deep on the subject back in 2022, alongside photos and ULI / ITE parking minimum charts… (And shout out to the good folks at PRN working to solve these issues.)

Finally putting the “Bergen” into Hudson-Bergen Light Rail: 25 years after it first opened, New Jersey Transit is looking to fiiinally expand the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail (HBLR) into Bergen County, issuing an RFP to update the DEIS. The Northern Branch Project would extend the line by 10 miles, including seven new stations. Despite serving some of the densest communities in the country, the existing service’s riderships is pretty middling, likely due to its low speeds and lack of direct access to Manhattan.

Microhubs hit Manhattan: Speaking of the Big Apple, it’s delightful to see Amazon continue to improve its microhub + equad delivery operations in NYC. Powered by our friends at Perch, the new pods as a service build-out looks to speed package throughput while cutting down build times.

Emerald City e-cargo: Seattle also continues to up its urban logistics game, as the city has officially launched the Commercial E-Cargo Bike Program, further incentivizing the shift of deliveries to bikes and equads. It’s impressive how quickly the city is iterating on this, with the enabling legislation just signed a few weeks ago. Between Amazon, Urban Freight Lab and Fare Share / PayUp wage laws, Seattle is really a hot bed for urban logistics innovation. (Although to give credit where it’s due, Seattle also leaned on previous work done by policymakers in NYC + Boston.)

Abu Dhabi robotaxi, say it ten times fast! After a year of testing, Uber is starting commercial operations for its L4 autonomous robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The fleet consists of WeRide’s GXR five-passenger vans. WeRide is based out of Guangzhou, China; in an era of increased geopolitical tensions, the Gulf has emerged as a really interesting place where American and Chinese companies can play together. (I’m sure that’ll be a big topic at CoMotion Global in Riyadh.)

Like and subscribe: EV subscription platform Autonomy just raised $25M in new debt financing, as it moves from a Tesla-only model to including other electric brands like Polestar. It also looks like Autonomy is perhaps pivoting to be more of a platform that works alongside dealers like Galpin Motors, which might be in response to those pandemic-era price swings burning the company’s earlier balance sheet.

How does your state rank up? Here’s a fun new mapping project: take a look at the highest public transit commute rate by census tract in each state. At the top of the list: a housing project in East New York, Brooklyn, NY at 91.8%; a housing project (and some row houses) in North Philadelphia West, Philly, PA at 72.6%; East Boston, MA at 64%; Benning Ridge, Washington, DC at 63.5%; and Westlake, Los Angeles, CA at 60.7% (sorry, San Franciscans!) The state with the lowest highest census tract? South Dakota, natch!

Sorry, cities: Municipalities across the country are facing financial headwinds, with average spending levels only up 0.7% in Fiscal Year 2025, basically falling behind inflation; the forecast for 2026 is even bleaker. California governments have the added headache of the total self-own from AB 218 (Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher.) Instead of resolving the issues with a grand jury or special commission, we’ll just spend all our tax dollars on pay days for big law firms and subsequent fraud…

Checking in on Chicago: It’s possible we don’t spend enough time looking at the curbs and mobility moves in the Midwest. But it looks like Chicago is busy letting its Alderpersons rip out already-completed bike infrastructure. Cool!

I’m sure if you gave the truck drivers enough Red Bull they could do this too? Check out the precision of these autonomous trucks, letting a (human-operated) bike jump through them.

Don’t bank your urban redevelopment plans on mega-events… Atlanta is hoping to revitalize Underground Atlanta, a kinda-historic underground shopping district wrapping around its old downtown. The district has struggled for decades, last receiving a bit of love around the ‘96 Olympics. City officials are hoping the 2026 World Cup will breath new life and foot traffic into it, but somehow I don’t think eight soccer games are gonna turn this one around…

Tension rising: AV upstart Tensor has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (big whoop) to bring its autonomous vehicles to GreenMobility, Norway’s leading carsharing platform. Recall that the original idea behind Tensor was that regular motorists will own them and rent them out when not in use, which is the exact opposite of this scheme. And while the Photoshopping on this announcement is so bad that you’d swear it’s 100% vaporware, Tensor did at least have some nice looking hardware on display at AutoMobility LA.

Can we build anything any more? On one hand, I’d like to celebrate that less than one year after the devastating Palisades Fire, the first new home in Pacific Palisades has received its certificate of occupancy. Not too shabby for permitting, inspections and construction; I’ve personally spent more time in permit hell for a simple renovation. But in a neighborhood known architectural icons like the Eames House (fortunately saved from the fire) and Bridges House (sadly lost,) this home looks like, and you’ve got to click to see the pictures to believe me, absolute dog shit. In any sane world this would be a $150K starter home in the exurbs, not prime coastal property. Maybe the idea was that by building it entirely out of plastic and vinyl, in the next fire it will just melt instead of burning down?

A few good links: Cool book alert — “If You Want to Win, You’ve Got to Fight: A Guide to Effective Transportation Advocacy.” If New Yorkers want to improve their transit service, they’ll need to come to terms with being not special. SEPTA looks to restore ailing commuter rail service with $220M in new capital funds. Cool holiday party alert — Data + Donuts Holiday Happy Hour, 12/2 in DTLA. Moving prose on the intersection of AI and real estate. The rise of AVs threatens China’s precarious gig workers. NYC continues to bring its curbside waste collection into the 20th century. Why bikeshare systems shouldn’t say no to tourists.

Don’t forget to score your 2-for-1 tickets to Curbivore; happy Thanksgiving!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew

The great Glenn Mercer has kindly crunched the numbers of cars per household for a few major American metro areas (above,) and the past twenty years of new mobility have simply led to more cars per household. 2005 was right when Zipcar and City Carshare were at the heights of expansion mode, bringing affordable carsharing to neighborhoods all over the coasts… even trying their darndest to make it work in the automotive meccas of the South and Midwest. And mea culpa, I was right behind them: when we launched Turo (née RelayRides) in 2010, we fully believed that sharing cars meant others in the neighborhood would forego owning their own. Here’s an ancient CNN article where we got some of our hosts to opine that they were using our service to ensure “fewer cars will be on the road.”

Next came Uber, Lyft and the ridehailing revolution. Remember how cheap those fares were back in the days of burning VC dollars to form new consumer habits? Even when Uber was offering “record-low rates,” people didn’t change their ownership habits. VMT kept climbing, but evidently that wasn’t just people shifting to being chauffeured, car sales stayed steady too.

Why Would AVs Be Any Different?

If you’ve ever been in a robotaxi, you know that the first trip is mesmerizing, but by the second trip, it’s completely banal. They’re just cars! User behavior is the same as in a TNC, with transit trips and walking more likely to be subbed out than car ownership. And even if the technology gets so good — and riders suddenly start behaving like their better selves — that the operating cost falls materially below that of an Uber or Lyft, the likely outcome is just going to be more trips, but not people abandoning their beloved SUVs and pickups (especially since the ubiquity of cheap parking means every car is effectively a subsidized storage space.)

I think it’s instructive to look at NYC, where car ownership fell a whopping one ninth of one percent over the past twenty years. What did it take?

First, you’ve had the slow re-concentration of jobs away from the car-dependent burbs and back towards the transit-accessible core. While office parks in Jersey and Long Island boomed in the second half of the 20th century, they’ve since atrophied.

On top of that, tolling prices have continued to rise on the roads that criss-cross the Tri-state. Meanwhile, local inflation-adjusted household incomes have fallen, while motoring costs (insurance, maintenance, etc) continue to rise. To sum it all up: fewer people can afford cars, and there are slightly fewer jobs that require a car to get to them. As usual, it’s not the technology: it’s policy and political outcomes. Expect AVs to be no different.

CURBIVORE RETURNS: APRIL 16 & 17 IN DTLA

We’re delighted to announce that Curbivore is returning, next April 16th and 17th, to Downtown Los Angeles. We’re building out a curb-centric city within a city, where you can demo the delivery technologies of tomorrow, kick the tires on autonomous vehicle innovations, meet with mobility’s brightest minds, indulge in the street food that’s rewriting the rules for how we think about public spaces and hear from the leaders that are reshaping curbside commerce.

If you’ve been in the past, you know what a special event this is; show your support by scoring a $195 Super Early Bird ticket. Act fast — ticket prices won’t stay this low for long!

Register Now & Save

HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP

Waymo makes it to tier two cities: Robotaxiing ain’t just for big city slickers, as Waymo rolls into Minneapolis, New Orleans and Tampa. This comes just a few days after the Alphabet-owned AVer it was ready to pull the safety drivers out of its cars in Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando. Zoox is expanding as well, as the Amazon-backed brand opens its San Francisco operations to public riders.

Speaking of “rolls into”… Tesla’s own attempts at building a robotaxi network seem to be running into not-so-metaphorical issues, with the NHTSA logging multiple collisions per week. Meanwhile, guinea pigs (I mean, users) have found Tesla’s safety drivers are falling asleep behind the wheel. Undaunted, the Elon Musk-helmed company is expanding its service to Arizona and opening up its Bay Area and Austin operations to the public. What could go wrong?!

True transit for Montreal: After a seven year construction schedule, marred by the pandemic and the discovery of century-old explosives, Montreal has inaugurated the main branch of its new REM regional express transit system. Mixing fully new track with some older infrastructure that used to host infrequent commuter rail service, the new transit option gives the mid-size city and its burbs the high-quality transport links you see in the likes of Paris (via the RER) or in Germany (S-Bahns.) In true francophone fashion, workers (although not drivers, as the trains are automated) are already striking.

Package crack down: NYC is looking to take a bite out of ecommerce, with the City Council approving a Teamsters-backed bill that would require Amazon and other last-mile companies to obtain city licenses, while also requiring companies to directly employ their drivers, putting an end to the DSP model that often lets the big corporates avoid accountability. Comptroller Brad Lander is pushing for even more changes, including zoning reform for last-mile facilities, increased licensing, fleet electrification, higher labor standards and more. City Council is also considering a law that would require human drivers in all autonomous vehicles.

More money, more problems: Four years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) aimed to reinvigorate America’s road and transit infrastructure, the numbers aren’t looking so hot. Highway and car-focused spending jumped, but after accounting for inflation and cuts from cities and states on their own spending: investments into non-streets/highway modes, like rail transit, actually fell.

Startup slump: Money also isn’t going as far on the venture side of things. Worldwide, transport-related startups raised $21.34 billion in for the YTD, down from a peak of $105B in 2021. For emerging companies looking to do more with less, check out Third Sphere’s Speedstrap Playbook.

In happier startup news: Congrats to two members of our MobilityVC portfolio: we just announced an investment into Eclara, a German EV leasing platform that taps into salary conversion legislation (“Entgeltumwandlung”) that gives employers and employees a tax incentive to opt in to greener mobility. And another portco — Pionix — just raised a fresh €8M round for open source charging software.

“Nobody’s going to sit and have a coffee in a parking lot.” The inimitable David Zipper heads to the French Riviera (what a tough assignment!) to see learn why even some of the country’s most rightwing locales have opted to prioritize transit and pedestrian-friendliness over more asphalt for motorists. The gist seems to be that pleasant places are a competitive advantage, both for tourism dollars and corporate HQs.

A new transit mayor arises: Move over Mamdani, there’s a new progressive darling in town. Seattle just elected Katie Wilson, co-founder of the Transit Riders Union, who ran on a campaign also focused on increased tenant protections and higher taxes for the wealthy.

Shed heads rejoice: NYC is unveiling six “better-looking” options for the sidewalk scaffolding that’s become ubiquitous across the city in recent years, near both construction sites or simply buildings with old facades. The designs by PAU and ARUP remind me a bit of earlier work done by Urban Umbrella, but their uptake will obviously come down to pricing. No word if the city plans to ever reform Local Law 11 — the enabler of this unique piece of curbside blight.

A few good links: DoorDash reservations come to NYC. Uber Eats teams up with Starship’s sidewalk bots in the U.K. Google Maps adds new charging, dining features. Laka raises £6.5M for pan-European bike insurance. Whizz’s Mike Peregudov has a solution for NYC’s e-bike enforcement issues. Complete street treatment headed to LA’s Huntington Drive. Trump admin seeks to eliminate all transit funding. So much for populism: Trump admin undoes cash repayments for cancelled flights. Toyota to invest $912M into U.S. factories for hybrid vehicles. Kroger shutters automated fulfillment centers. The ethical qualms behind $100K robotic police “dogs.” Tesla Diner loses head chef. Monarch sued over self-driving tractors that fail to self-drive. Sortera looks to improve aluminum recycling, as America’s big industrial aluminum plants keep lighting on fire. Falling downtown property values hurt Chicago property tax collection. LA Metro’s universal basic mobility wallet adds Waymo service. California’s road to reducing VMT. New, superfluous green bins clog LA’s curbs. Cleveland eyes Automotus-powered parking enforcement. India’s Pidge raises ₹120CR for “delivery operating system.”

Don’t forget to score your Super Early Bird tickets to Curbivore! And if you’re going to be at AutoMobility LA today — holler at me!

- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew