Detroit, NYC, LA - Join Our Free Fall Events
Zipotle, Tubero, Via-ipo-a?
Summer may be coming to a close, but Curbivore’s event calendar is just heating up! We’ve got a suite of sweet summits and mixers coming at you from coast-to-coast.
Curbivore is kicking off Mobility Week with our Mobility Mixer: a lively evening of networking, a panel discussion and drinks, hosted at Detroit TechTown, on September 23rd.
Top mobility investors from coast-to-coast will be convening alongside Michigan's foremost transportation, autotech and public-sector leaders for a lively discussion on "The Future of Mobility Investment: Innovative Intersections Between Public & Private."
If you're a founder, funder, builder, OEM, mobility startup, investor, or just a friend of the curb... join us to celebrate Mobility Week with some West Coast flair.
Curbivore is pleased to invite you to the Urban Autonomy Summit, presented by Nexar, convening at Newlab Brooklyn on October 8th, 2025.
New York City is at an inflection point: autonomous vehicles are no longer a future debate—they’re already navigating big-city streets. With the likes of Waymo, Tesla, Zoox, Wayve and more all testing in dense urban cores, NYC and other megalopolises face urgent questions around safety, equity, and integration with existing urban transport systems. Now is the moment for a critical discussion to shape AV deployments.
Coco Robotics and Curbivore present an LA Tech Week happy hour — Autonomy, Delivery & Mobility Mixer — for the brightest minds from the worlds of mobility, delivery, urbanism, foodtech, and govtech at Coco's beautiful Venice Beach HQ. If you're a founder, funder, builder, policymaker, or just a tinkerer trying to improve how people and goods move about our cities — this is the event for you!
We kick things off with a lively panel discussion on "Funding the Future: Raising Capital for AI & Autonomy," featuring Coco's Co-Founder Zach Rash, fresh off the company's successful $80M funding round, backed by Jack & Sam Altman, followed by great food, drinks and networking. Join us October 14th in Venice Beach.
Deeptech After Dark - Future Mobility & Clean Energy Mixer. From automotive to aerospace, energy to cleantech, meet the builders shaping the future of deep technology. An evening of great conversation, interesting people and delicious drinks, brought to you by AVL and Curbivore. Celebrate LA Tech Week with the industry's best and brightest: investors, builders, entrepreneurs, designers, regulators, OEMs, founders, funders and more! Join us October 15th in Culver City.
PARTNER | Are Autonomous Vehicles Impacting Rideshare Utilization and Driver Earnings?
Autonomous vehicles were expected to make rideshare cheaper for riders and more profitable for platforms. But how are they impacting traditional rideshare driver earnings and utilization today?
The Gridwise Autonomous Vehicle Impact Report analyzes four AV-active markets against nationwide trends to uncover the early effects on driver pay and productivity:
Hourly pay decreased YoY across all AV cities, including a –6.9% drop in San Francisco, while nationwide hourly pay rose +1.0% YoY.
Earnings per trip rose +3.4% YoY nationwide, but fell or remained flat in every AV market — with Austin declining –5.3% YoY.
Gross monthly pay dropped YoY in most AV cities, such as a –9.0% decline in Phoenix, even as nationwide earnings rose +8.0% YoY.
It’s still early days for autonomous vehicles, but the early data points to real pressure on drivers in AV markets.
Download the full report to get the complete picture of how AVs are reshaping rideshare.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
Zipotle! Burrito and bowl builder Chipotle is teaming up with drone deliverer Zipline to offer aerial feats of Mexican-ish treats in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. Customers must order through the Zipline app, but they get access to the full Chipotle menu (although conceivably you can’t encourage your chef to plop in too many extra pounds of rice.) Texas has emerged as real hub for these flying fast food initiatives: witness similar moves by Wing, Flytrex, Jamba Juice, Papa Johns and such. (We did a deep dive on drone delivery back on May.)
Transit ups and downs: 20% transit cuts hit the Philly area, after state Republicans let SEPTA’s previous dedicated funding stream expire. Kansas City’s transit system receives a lifeline, after the city steps in to provide funding and the agency restores fares. NYC’s LIRR nears strike. But in happier Big Apple news: the MTA awarded $2B in funding to advance Second Avenue Subway construction, and Jacobs / HDR picked to provide engineering consulting on IBX. DART’s suburban Silver Line nears completion, although its 1 to 2 trains per hour frequency will limit ridership. Bengaluru Metro’s new Yellow Line cuts congestion on nearby roads by 10%. Back to bad news: Atlanta Beltline CEO downplays likelihood of light rail construction.
I’m Waymo’in here! Waymo just received approval to begin autonomous vehicle testing in NYC; expect to see its Jaguar I-Pace vehicles in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. (I suppose you could say our Urban Autonomy Summit in Brooklyn is pretty timely — join us!) Not to be upstaged, Nuro just closed on $203M in fresh funding, with participants including Baillie Gifford, Uber, Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, NVIDIA, and Pledge Ventures.
We love a good marketing stunt… Uber and Turo have teamed up to launch a rentable pool truck, available through Labor Day in LA and Miami. (Yes, they clean it in between reservations.)
Why can’t we build? (State capacity rules everything around me…) It’s old gospel at this newsletter that American public transit construction costs are out of control compared to other developed countries. But new Eno research shows that highway construction costs have now exploded as well. In fact, things have gotten so bad that despite the ILJA pumping a record amount of money into infrastructure construction, the inflation-chained amount of value created actually went down.
Driven to debt: With car costs continuing to creep upward, more and more Americans are finding they can’t truly afford their motoring habits. Instead, they’re turning to longer loan terms, and more owners are trading in cars that aren’t fully paid off, baking even more debt into their next loan. Meanwhile, our ever-bigger cars and trucks are pushing our automotive fatality rate higher as well.
Parking reform, reformed: In a bid to lower housing construction costs, Chicago has killed off parking minimums for new homes near transit. LA is looking to go one step further: state law already nixed parking minimums near transit, but now the city is considering removing requirements citywide. El Paso, Texas — one of the least dense large cities in the whole country — was considering easing parking requirements and promoting ADUs, but backed off in the face of NIMBY pressure.
Via IPO-a: Transit tech firm Via just filed its S1 as it bids to go public. Last year, revenue jumped to $337.6M from $248.8M the year prior, while losses narrowed to -$83M. For the year thus far, its customer growth has slowed to a trickle, but revenue is still up as it squeezes out more per customer (although gross profit has held pretty steady around 40%.) Via last raised in 2023 at $3.5 billion valuation, so its success on the market will be a good indicator if more long-simmering mobility startups can finally cash out.
Double robo: Serve Robotics just purchased Vayu Robotics, bringing the latter’s evidently more advanced self-driving tech to the former’s larger deployment with 3PDs and chains. Both company co-founders graced Curbivore’s stage earlier this year; did we perhaps help play matchmaker?!
No way to run a country… Trump Admin halts privately-funded wind power project after it reaches 80% completion. White House directs NASA to destroy climate-studying satellite. EPA offers refiners waivers to avoid compliance with fuel blend mandates, while trying to hinder CARB’s roadside emission checks. New exec. order looks to rescind already granted funds for local governments that don’t align with MAGA policies.
A few good links: NYPD’s illegal sidewalk parking leads to dangerous curbs and reduced tree-cover in select NYC neighborhoods. Finicky Fisker Oceans find new life as Big Apple ride-hail cars. States consider revisiting 85th Percentile Rule that often leads to overly high speed limits. Talk about an all-purpose vehicle: e-bike dropped from drone helps Ukrainian soldier escape Russian forces. AI-powered bus cameras help speed up transit. Single-staircase reform inches forward in LA, thanks to Councilmember Raman. Zoox taps The Routing Company for trip planning. Oway raises $4M for LTL freight. ARK Invest parks $12.9M in Pony.ai. LA starts protecting bike lanes with proper concrete. Transport & logistics investments fall 69% QoQ to $3.5M. Great trains for dear leader — a video tour of Pyongyang’s upgraded metro stations. Blue Water Autonomy raises $50M for autonomous ships. Lyft teams up with tennis legend Billie Jean King to push Lyft Silver for seniors. LA releases new map to track Measure HLA progress. A very fun video about LACMTA.
Please note — I’ll be publishing, and podcasting, on a reduced schedule for the next few weeks, as I take some time off over the summer. But you can still get your fix over at Modern Delivery!
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew