Last Chance for Detroit...
Avride catches up, top transit towns, Slate's spy-free truck
We’re just a few days away from the latest edition of our Urban Autonomy Summit, headed to Newlab Detroit on Tuesday, June 9th. We’ve got limited spots still available: apply to attend now.
We’re bringing together top regulators, investors, media, startups, OEMs and AV innovators — including May Mobility, Motional, Ford, Terawatt, Voltera, Michigan DOT, Rocsys, Nexar, IBM, TaskUs, Automotive News, DoorDash Labs, City of Detroit, WSJ and many more. We’ll have three must-attend panel discussions: “A New Vision: Improved Technology for Safer Streets & Highways,” “Charged Up Infrastructure: Electrification’s Capital Moment,” and “Owned vs On-Demand: Which Way for AVs?” followed by great food, drinks and networking.
PARTNER | Why It Doesn’t Have to Be Humans vs. Machines
A new report makes the case for a hybrid autonomous vehicle network that gives cities time to plan, protects workers from sudden displacement, and keeps service available beyond the wealthiest zip codes.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
I guess today we’ll zig, not zag: Today’s Zag Talk podcast episode is temporarily delayed due to unforeseen technical issues. We’ll be publishing it shortly: please subscribe via Spotify or Apple Podcasts to ensure you get instant access.
Curb is the word… More great news write-ups continue to come out of our Curbivore 2026 conference. Over at GovTech, Skip Descant looks at how LADOT and its private sector partners are using the LA28 games to jumpstart new transportation and smart city technologies. And at Marketplace, Julia Pickar talked to our partners at Starship Technologies to learn how the rise of delivery bots is creating a whole new career pathway for engineering-minded college students.
Avride is catching up fast: Autonomous vehicle startup Avride is quickly racking up miles and metrics. Its robotaxi deployment in Texas just hit 60,000 rides and 1.3M autonomous miles, meaning they have the second biggest fleet in Texas. On the delivery bot side, they now have 500 PDDs cruising the mean streets of Austin, Dallas, Jersey City, Columbus, Tucson, Philadelphia, Salisbury and Tokyo; that’s almost 2/3s the amount that Serve Robotics reported in its Q1.
Clean Slate: Slate Auto is building a stripped-down and compact electric pickup truck, aiming for a sub $30k price. Now they’ve revealed that they won’t try to recoup some margin by spying on drivers and selling the data, something that plenty of OEMs have gotten slaps on the wrists for recently. The truck supposedly has 600 parts and components, but no fancy screens or sensors to monitor you. Meanwhile, auto retailer Carvana is considering investing in the upstart automaker, building off its push into new car sales.
Big apple bus biz: Perhaps running a discount skin care brand doesn’t qualify you to try your hand at transit operations? Makeup maker The Ordinary found that out the hard way, as the City of New York shut down its free shuttle bus service, meant to link Domino Park and Prospect Park without forcing straphangers to schlep on the G train. Meanwhile, NYCDOT is setting up temporary bus lanes for the World Cup, while the city’s microhub pilot has taken 3,000 truck trips off the road. Transit Tech Lab announced 18 companies that will pilot their tools with local transport operators. And a terrible, fatal collision on the Queensboro Bridge, between a bike and an illegally-fast scooter — the bicycle was literally torn in half — reminds us that regulators need to do more to crack down on unlicensed micromobility vehicles.
Heck yea, H.R. 9041! Democrat Rep. Mike Thompson and Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan just introduced the America Bikes Act to fund more biking infrastructure, incentivize bicycle manufacturing in the U.S., and improve bike safety. Meanwhile, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved the BUILD America 250 Act, which would reauthorize $580B in surface transportation funding.
What the Flock: Last week we got into the camera data shenanigans over at BusPatrol. Now cities are squawking at Flock, over concerns that the ALPR cameras may also be sharing their data with federal immigration enforcement. Municipalities like Dayton, OH are unsure if they can remove the cameras without changing existing contracts, so in the meantime they’re just covering the cams with black bags.
Not all transit is created equal… What good is a bus line if it only comes once per hour? New Urban Institute data compares how much transit access residents of various urban areas have, and where those regions have been building homes. Some places like South Florida or Metro Detroit have decent bus coverage, but lack frequency and high-quality rail options, leading to low ridership. Of course, factors beyond transit service — office centrality, parking abundance, road tolls, etc — can have a huge impact on how much locals use transit.
PNW problems: Portland’s ridership numbers might be headed downward, as TriMet is cutting 10% of its service in the face of structural budget deficits. Up in Seattle, the rail network is still expanding, but not as much as previously planned: faced with rising costs, Sound Transit has indefinitely delayed an extension towards Ballard. Things aren’t much better on the opposite side of the country: rail operator Brightline is fielding bankruptcy loan offers.
Run through: In happier transit news, Works in Progress looks at the transformative power of through-running, where linking different stub-ends of old commuter networks can create modern, regional rail. While this is old hat in most of Europe and Asia, the U.S. has been stubbornly slow to adopt the practice, with a few exceptions. Philly’s had it since the 80s, LA is currently building it, new plans for NY Penn may finally bring a limited version to the Big Apple and Boston has been mulling it for decades.
A few good links: Waymo’s Ojai welcomes first riders. Grubhub adds integrations with Eater, Beli, Alexa+ and Bilt. NY Mayor Mamdani looks to boost QueensWay over QueensLink for disused rail trestle. NY State okays TIFs to fund Second Ave Subway, IBX; no mention of cost reforms. D.C. Council looks to update local ridehailing regulations. London grinds to a halt as Tube strike hits second day (Londoners, I’ll be in your fair town in two weeks: let’s meet up!) Gigascale raises $250M venture fund to back climate, physical economy startups. Speedbird Aero’s drones fly over São Paulo. Harbinger Motors eyes IPO. Africa’s Spiro raises $215M for its electric motorcycles + battery swapping network. NYT kicks the tires (spins the blades?) on Joby’s eVTOL service to JFK. Serve Robotics begins laundry deliveries with NoScrubs. British Columbia ratifies Uber / Lyft’s first Canadian driver union. JSK heads to MTA — yay! Baltimore Penn Station expansion paused. HUD shows homelessness up 27% from 2013, as it transitions away from “housing first” model. Transit payment giant Cubic suffers black eye after their failure to pay AT&T bill causes BART fare outage. Houston starts Smart Loading Zones pilot, with Automotus. Uber to deploy 500 data-collection vehicles.
Don’t forget to join us in Detroit on June 9th for our next Urban Autonomy Summit.
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew