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We’re mixing issues up a bit this week to give attention to what was mentioned on, and off, the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Briefly, it was a banger with a variety of high-profile execs and founders engaged on the way forward for transportation.
Listed below are just a few: Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, Slate CEO Chris Barman, Nuro co-CEO and founder Dave Ferguson, Uber CPO Sachin Kansal, Wayve founder and CEO Alex Kendall, and Kodiak AI founder and CEO Don Burnette. Movies of these interviews will likely be posted on our YouTube channel over the approaching week.
The Slate Auto interview with Sean O’Kane and Chris Barman is already out there. For those who watch it, take note of Barman’s feedback concerning the equipment that may be added to any Slate EV. The startup will design, make, and promote equipment, nevertheless it’s additionally going to share knowledge so house owners could make their very own. And even promote it to different house owners.
“We are going to launch the entire knowledge info on that and anyone can 3D print their very own,” Barman mentioned. “So we additionally need that people don’t really feel they’ve to return to us. We wish to create an ecosystem that’ll be on our web site Slate market.”
O’Kane then requested if Slate would take a reduce on these equipment if creators add them to the Slate market.
“Yeah, we’ll take some quantity of price once we work with them,” she mentioned, shortly including that creators can promote elsewhere (and with out Slate taking a reduce). “In the event that they wished to, they may select to promote it on Etsy. It’s their energy of selection and what they do. It’s not as if we’re going to behold them to us.”
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
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October 13-15, 2026
Amongst different highlights … San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie mentioned he was pleased to have Waymo on SF’s streets and welcomed different firms to make use of town as a testbed for autonomous car tech. And transportation-focused Glīd was declared the winner of Startup Battlefield 2025. Oh, and Sean O’Kane and I took a demo journey by the streets of San Francisco in a Wayve car.
Plus, Mawakana made a variety of attention-grabbing feedback onstage, together with that she believes different firms engaged on autonomous automobiles must do extra to show their know-how is protected and that within the face of the promise of higher security, the general public would settle for a dying brought on by a robotaxi.
She additionally mentioned Waymo will go after individuals who vandalize its automobiles and that the corporate has rejected authorities requests for video captured from its automobiles —including that they may proceed to reject these requests if they’re “overly broad.”
Offers!
An organization that developed digital gasoline administration for aviation, i6, raised $20 million in Sequence B funding led by Yttrium. Worldwide Airways Group, World Kinect, and Shell Ventures joined.
IntrCity SmartBus, a tech-enabled intercity bus platform in India, raised $30 million in funding to broaden its community throughout smaller cities and cities within the South Asian nation. The all-equity Sequence D spherical, led by A91 Companions, values the Noida-based startup at $140 million post-money.
Navan, the company journey and expense platform, completed its first day of buying and selling on the Nasdaq down 20% from its $25 IPO value, leading to a valuation of about $4.7 billion.
Pavewise, a highway building tech startup, raised $2.5 million in a seed spherical led by C2 Ventures. Different buyers included Connectic, Service Supplier Capital, Geoff Decide, the previous CEO of Ryvit Tom Stemm, M25, gener8tor 1889, and Broadwater Capital.
Ridepanda, an e-bike and scooter fleet startup that gives subscriptions to firms, raised $12.6 million in a Sequence A funding spherical led by Bikeleasing Group of Germany. Different buyers included Blackhorn Ventures, Yamaha Motor Ventures, Proeza Ventures, and Somersault Ventures.
Notable reads and different tidbits
Aurora added a 600-mile driverless route from Fort Value, Texas, to El Paso, the corporate’s second for its self-driving vehicles. The corporate additionally revealed particulars on its next-generation {hardware}.
India, the market BlaBlaCar as soon as walked away from, is now its largest.
Normal Motors is shedding 1000’s of employees throughout a number of electrical car and battery crops in the US.
Luminar is experiencing a brand new spherical of struggles because the board pushed out its founder and CEO Austin Russell. A brand new regulatory submitting warns that it’ll run out of money in early 2026 and has introduced a 25% reduce to its workforce. The corporate additionally mentioned its CFO has left.
Nvidia made a little bit of transportation information this week, together with a partnership with Stellantis, Uber, and Foxconn to jointly develop autonomous vehicles. The information was a part of a broader announcement round Nvidia’s new Drive AGX Hyperion 10 autonomous vehicle development platform and Nvidia Drive software program, which a number of automakers, suppliers, and robotaxi firms will use. That listing contains Lucid, Mercedes, and Stellantis. The platform is a part of Uber’s purpose to scale its world autonomous fleet to 100,000 automobiles over time, beginning in 2027.
Wayve’s Alex Kendall instructed me backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt that he was actually enthusiastic about Hyperion and that he, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi,and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have been encouraging automakers to make use of it. “What we’d like to see is extra producers constructing automobiles with the Hyperion structure, as a result of that unlocks every little thing we’re making an attempt to do.”
Uber picked San Francisco to launch a premium robotaxi service that may use Lucid Motors’ all-electric Gravity SUVs outfitted with self-driving tech developed by Nuro, in 2026 — a transfer that places the ride-hailing big in direct competitors with Waymo. Reminder: Uber is partnering with Waymo in different cities.
Waabi shared particulars of a brand new autonomous truck made in partnership with Volvo throughout TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
Yet one more factor …
In final week’s e-newsletter, we did a ballot, digging deeper into the query of autonomous car enterprise fashions and requested: What’s the greatest enterprise mannequin for “longer haul” functions of autonomous car tech?
I provided two selections: self-driving Class 8 vehicles touring greater than 500 miles on highways or middle-mile supply, which is autonomous vehicles touring between warehouses and distribution facilities.
Readers, you overwhelmingly picked the large rig possibility with 62.5% of the vote. (Keep in mind, if you wish to happen in our polls, join the Mobility e-newsletter right here.)
Let me depart you with another shot. This picture, of me and senior reporter Sean O’Kane, is a little bit of a full-circle second for us. O’Kane, with a small help from me, spent months engaged on an enormous scoop about how Jeff Bezos was backing a little bit recognized startup referred to as Slate. Since then, Slate has shared its plans to make a less expensive electrical truck and obtained a variety of consideration for it.
Slate CEO Chris Barman not solely got here onto our stage for an interview, however she additionally introduced a TechCrunch-wrapped truck too.
