Welcome again to TechCrunch Mobility, your central hub for information and insights on the way forward for transportation. Enroll right here without cost — simply click on TechCrunch Mobility!
In case you missed my announcement final week, TechCrunch Mobility is shifting to the Beehiiv publishing platform. The launch is scheduled for July 18. Beehiiv gives a number of cool options to assist me higher have interaction with you. It’s a win for each of us.
The publication emails will proceed to come back from newsletters@techcrunch.com. To make sure you don’t miss a single one, please add the above handle to your contacts and transfer it to your major inbox. This tells your web service supplier that you simply love TechCrunch and wish to see this article.
Earlier than we soar into the remainder of the information, a phrase about Grok, the AI mannequin created by xAI, an Elon Musk firm that lately acquired his social media service X. Sure, that is associated to transportation.
Grok, which might analyze pictures and reply to questions, is supposed to be a competitor to fashions like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Grok has change into a centerpiece of X, the place customers work together with the AI chatbot. It’s additionally change into more and more combative and gone on a number of antisemitic tirades, praised Hitler, and even made rape threats. (These posts have been taken down.)
And simply yesterday, AI reporter Max Zeff found that xAI’s latest mannequin, Grok 4, appears to seek the advice of social media posts from Musk’s X account when answering questions concerning the Israel and Palestine battle, abortion, immigration legal guidelines, and different controversial points.
How is any of this associated to transportation? Grok is coming to Tesla autos as quickly as subsequent week, in response to Musk.
A well known white hat hacker who makes use of the deal with “Inexperienced the Solely” dug into Tesla’s firmware and made a number of discoveries. For instance, drivers will be capable to select sure Grok “personalities,” together with ones which might be NSFW (not secure for work), argumentative, youngsters story, horny, therapist, unhinged, and extra. He additionally discovered that “Grok at present requires premium connectivity and pairs into your current account.”
Somewhat fowl
Picture Credit:Bryce Durbin
Acquired a tip for us? Electronic mail Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Sign at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com, or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or take a look at these directions to learn to contact us by way of encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop.
Offers!
Picture Credit:Bryce Durbin
In one other episode of “Is it 2016?” Rivian micromobility spinout Additionally raised one other $200 million with a post-money valuation of $1 billion. Sure, that’s proper, a micromobility firm that has but to disclose its first product.
As we’ve reported earlier than, there may be plenty of hype and anticipation round Additionally — and Jony Ive’s LoveFrom connection to the model definitely helps increase its profile.
Different offers that bought my consideration this week …
Talking of buzzy EVs which have raised eye-popping rounds, senior reporter Sean O’Kane interviewed the founders of Slauson & Co., a Los Angeles enterprise agency that launched 5 years in the past and was an early investor within the Jeff Bezos-backed Slate Auto. Need to atone for Slate Auto information? We created a helpful Slate Auto timeline that covers all our scoops and information. We’ll replace this recurrently.
Finnish e-motor startup Donut Lab raised €25 million ($29.2 million) in a seed funding spherical led by Risto Siilasmaa, the founding father of cybersecurity firm WithSecure (previously F-Safe). Risto has additionally joined Donut Lab’s board.
INSHUR, an insurance coverage merchandise service centered on the on-demand financial system, raised $35 million from Trinity Capital. The brand new funding will assist INSHUR’s continued growth throughout america.
Notable reads and different tidbits
Picture Credit:Bryce Durbin
Autonomous autos
President Trump has nominated Jonathan Morrison to go the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration. Morrison has a historical past of tussling with Tesla.
In the meantime, it seems to be like Tesla is attempting to unfold its robotaxi wings. The corporate utilized to check and function autonomous autos in Arizona in a bid to convey its fledgling robotaxi service to the Metro Phoenix space. Our story has a number of attention-grabbing tidbits and explains the AV allowing course of in Phoenix. One vital level: The corporate may also want a TNC allow to offer ride-hailing providers.
Musk additionally commented that robotaxis will come to the Bay Space as soon as they obtain regulatory approval in “a month or two.” There’s only one subject with that: The California DMV, which regulates AVs, says Tesla hasn’t even utilized for a driverless testing or deployment allow but. As of immediately, Tesla solely has an autonomous automobile testing allow for public highway testing with a security driver, which it’s held since 2014.
Waymo continues to broaden, and never simply geographically. The corporate is opening up its robotaxi service in Phoenix to youngsters. There are caveats right here, specifically that the kids can solely join by way of a verified mum or dad’s account. And so they must be ages 14 to 17, so no 13-year-olds. That implies Waymo desires to keep away from center schoolers and solely present service to these in highschool.
In the meantime, Waymo is sniffing round New York Metropolis (a famously restrictive place for AVs) and Philadelphia. The corporate kicked off “highway journeys” within the two Northeastern cities. Street journeys could be considered as early testing, though in New York Metropolis the autos will all be manually pushed and used to map and gather knowledge.
Electrical autos, batteries, & charging
A number of new EVs broke cowl this previous week: Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius took the upcoming all-electric GLC for a check trip; Subaru stated it would reveal its new all-electric compact crossover SUV at 7:30 p.m. ET on July 17; and Volvo shared details about the carbon footprint of the all-electric ES90which begins manufacturing later this summer time.
In the meantime, I spent a number of days within the 2026 Rivian quad-motor R1S and R1T. That is the second technology of the flagship EV and the EV maker’s most costly trim, which prices between $115,990 and $125,990, relying on the model.
Try the complete article about my check drive, which digs into the tech behind the second-generation flagship EV.
