May Mobility & Motional's Visions for Autonomy
NYC happy hour: tonight at 6 PM
If the rise of robotaxis means that Americans will change their commuting patterns, that could be both a profound benefit for our cities, and an existential shock to our OEMs. While I personally think (sadly) the odds are slim that Americans truly give up their long love affair with the personally owned vehicle, the car companies aren’t basing their long-term plans on my snippy commentary.
Earlier this month we gathered some of the industry’s top minds to discuss the implications of AVs at scale, including execs from two autonomous vehicle brands — Motional and May Mobility — with particularly close links to automakers. Throw in industry experts from Wall Street Journal and Automotive News, plus execs from the likes of Nexar, TaskUs, Voltera, Rocsys, Terawatt and more, and I think we had some particularly insightful conversations. Catch all the recordings below.
A New Vision: Improved Technology for Safer Streets & Highways
Perception technologies are continuously improving, paving a route to not just smarter vehicles, but safer streets and highways. What are the hardware, AI and policy breakthroughs driving adoption forward? This panel explores the promising improvements coming for all road users.
Jon Miller — Chief Business Officer, Nexar
Jordan Prickett — WW AI & Automation Partnerships, IBM
Nick Allen — Director of Business Development, TaskUs
Henry Greenidge — Senior Policy Advisor & Counsel, DoorDash Labs
Kathryn Snorrason — Deputy Chief Mobility Officer, State of Michigan (Moderator)
Charged Up Infrastructure: Electrification's Capital Moment
As vehicles electrify and autonomy scales, the biggest mobility story may no longer be the cars themselves — but the infrastructure beneath them. From grid capacity and megawatt charging to robotics, depot development, and industrial policy, electrification is becoming a once-in-a-generation capital and infrastructure transformation. This panel brings together leaders across charging, energy, and public policy to discuss who will finance, build, and control the backbone of the next transportation economy — and why states like Michigan could play a defining role in shaping it.
John McLean — Head of Market Development, Voltera
Alessandra Carreon — Chief Climate Officer, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy
Erin Galiger — Director, North American Markets, Rocsys
Lindsay VanHulle — Deputy Editor, Automotive News (Moderator)
Owned vs On-Demand: Which Way for AVs?
Will autonomous vehicles be something we own, or something we summon? While robotaxis promise lower costs and higher utilization, consumers have long valued the freedom, privacy, and convenience of personal vehicle ownership. This panel explores the competing visions for autonomy's future, examining the economics, technology, policy, and consumer behavior that will determine whether AVs become a shared mobility service, a personal product, or something in between.
Peter Cohen — GM of AV + Rideshare, Terawatt
Tom Tang — Chief People and Customer Operations Officer, May Mobility
Alan Hall — Director, Communications & Marketing, Motional
Patrick George — Detroit Bureau Chief, Wall Street Journal (Moderator)
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
NYC Happy Hour — Tonight: If you live in the Tri-State and work in mobility or delivery, you’d better join us tonight at Threes Brewing for our NYC Mobility & Delivery Tech Happy Hour. Co-hosted by the fantastic Louis Pappas of Electric Avenue, we’re bringing together the worlds of micromobility, curb management, last-mile delivery, EVs, AVs, batteries, bots, and everything in between, a half mile from Atlantic-Barclays. Register now!
Not just delivery bots… Robot.com, née Kiwibot, debuted its R-Noid semi-humanoid. With 7 degrees-of-freedom arms capable of carrying 9 lbs each, the machine is geared towards industrial, logistics, healthcare, food services, lodging, and experiential work.
Juicy! Micromobility stalwart Lime is nearing its IPO, having now priced it around a $1.5 - 1.7 billion valuation. Most of the proceeds will go down to paying down debt, while Uber is considering upping its stake. Per the S-1A, it looks like a few execs will sell ~10% of their shares as part of the offering.
New Zoox: Amazon’s AV subsidiary Zoox has unveiled a refined version of their purpose-built robotaxi. No they haven’t added back mirrors or a steering wheel, but the latest version has a tweaked interior for added rider comfort, plus changes to the exterior meant to improve communications with other drivers and pedestrians. Zoox is still awaiting an NHTSA exemption to begin commercial deployment of its non-standard vehicles.
World Cupdates: Soccer continues to be played, and fans continue to make it to and fro their stadia in one piece. Seattle saw record daily ridership of 280,000 and is adding capacity after riders reported long lines after a late night game. Lime’s local operations also hit a ridership record: 83k. San Jose’s VTA also set a ridership record of nearly 40,000. Vancouver is seeing ridership spike even on non-game days (up 5.15%.) And visitors to Atlanta have deemed their experience “probably as good as what America could have done.” NYC is also interestingly is festooned with info about game-related travel restrictions.
How does your state stack up? Brookings Institute analyzed electric vehicle readiness across the country, judging states by their consumer incentives, environmental standards, charging infrastructure, market access and gov’t procurement. California — home to over 1.25M EVs — topped the ranks, while South Dakota — EV population: 1,676 — brought up the rear.
A few good links: Lyft sets a minimum multi-sensor system standard for AV deployments. Samsara debuts new AirTag-like shipping label to combat logistics theft. Agility Robotics plans SPAC. NTSB probes fatal Tesla crash. Bay Area transit ridership slowly rebounds. Can we turn all of LA’s overly wide boulevards (which used to host streetcar tracks) into new parks? Japanese TNC Go makes stock market debut, raising $553M. Irish drone startup Manna pulls out of home country after regulators hold up permit. Turkish Competition Board approves Uber’s acquisition of Getir’s delivery arm. An architectural review of LA’s new D Line stations notes that while the underground portions dazzle, the street level-design falls short. Hundreds of ~5 year old startup unicorns (including a handful in the mobility sector) are slowly limping towards the graveyard. Uber Eats adds Kiehl’s, FedEx Office, Blick Art Materials, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Choice Pet. Kansas City to put facial recognition cameras on busses, yuck. On China’s move from phones to cars. Ninja nears bid for Delivery Hero. Slate’s affordable and adorable EV pickup truck reveals $25k price point. Fastport Honda reveals sick new website (and speaking slick, I greatly enjoyed kicking the tires on Minimal’s eQuad while in London.) Rare bipartisan bill to boost housing affordability looks DOA after Trump threatens veto.
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew