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Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
About 10 years ago, there was a lot of buzz about who would win the self-driving car race. One of the problems with that debate, aside from assuming there will be only one winner, is that no one has a reliable way to measure it. This was an early era filled with lots of demos and capital, but very little content, at least not accessible to the public and people like me.
Advisory and research start-up Oatmeal AI To answer this question in real time, we developed a generative AI platform to create a benchmarking system to evaluate and rank self-driving car companies. And this week, the startup launched the Road to Autonomy Index, which searches relevant global public databases, including federal and state reports, SEC filings, public exchanges and other data. The system evaluates a company’s operations, size, revenue, commercial partnerships, manufacturing and safety record based on that data and provides updates every 12 hours. There are four ranking indicators, including robotaxi, self-driving license company, self-driving truck, and delivery bot.
According to Autnmy AI co-founder Rob Grant, the AI platform isn’t just scraping information from the internet. “We agreed early on and didn’t scrape the information,” he said. “If it’s publicly available or available under a Creative Commons license, we’ll use that information. We have some licensing data that we pay people for, and those agreements are the same.”
The index takes a global approach and produces some interesting results. One of the early takeaways that impressed Grant was China’s ranking higher in several categories.
As of Friday, there was no robotaxi leader. waymo. It was made in China Baidu Apollo Go Program – Barely. Second place was Waymo, followed by Chinese companies. pony.ai and We Ride. tesla It was in fifth position.
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I recently received a notification via Little Bird to keep an eye out for a Texas automated vehicle tracking tool that was released in May. And I’m glad they did. looks like tesla, waymoand Zoox States are building their own fleets. NOTE: This does not mean that all of these are being used commercially. Zoox, for example, cannot operate commercially until it receives a waiver from the federal government. Customized robotaxi are currently available, but cannot charge customers.
As of May 28, Waymo had 577 self-driving vehicles registered in the state. There are now 620, an increase of about 7.5% in less than a month. Tesla now has 69 registered self-driving cars, a 64% increase from 42 on May 28. Zoox, which had 35 self-driving cars registered last month, now has 43.
Avride, onlyand Volkswagen subsidiaries. Moia They remain at 317, 47, and 12 respectively.
Do you have any tips for us? Email Kirsten Korosec. kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com Or send my Signal to kkorosec.07 or email Sean O’Kane. sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
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cargo covera logistics company that uses AI to automate cargo operations, has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by u.ventures, Toloka, and Movens Capital. Intercom co-founder Des Traynor and several angel investors also participated.
automobileSingapore-based online car marketplace has acquired Australian used car platform CarPlace, Reuters reported. Terms were not disclosed.
because, A startup developing a short-distance self-driving truck has announced a multi-year partnership with . pepsico. Although the two companies do not share the value of the deal, it represents PepsiCo’s commitment to Gatik, which already operates driverless trucks for the food and beverage giant across Arkansas, Arizona and Texas.
Quantumscape Announced a joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co. to accelerate all-solid-state battery development and related manufacturing processes.
car manufacturer majorAutonomous driving startup waveRide-hailing giant Uber signed an agreement to jointly develop and deploy driverless robotaxi.
XDOFa startup focused on robot training data, received $70 million in investment from Thrive Capital, Spark Capital, a16z, Lux, and WndrCo.
Notable Reads and Other Useful Information
Video posted on Reddit shows a driver running a stop sign and hitting a self-driving car in Dallas. TechCrunch said it was Avride robot taxiWe were welcomed through the Uber app. An Avride spokeswoman said no injuries had been reported and that the company was reviewing incident data “to continually improve our technology and processes as part of our standard procedures.” When asked about the reaction of the self-driving system and the human safety operator behind the wheel, Avride said, “As the safety review is currently ongoing, we cannot provide more precise details at this time.”
tesla Owners in China have discovered a solution to their vehicle’s distracted driving monitor: a small plastic head.
At the An SFO spokesperson told TechCrunch, “Tesla is licensed for limousines to operate at SFO. This is for traditional limousine operations, meaning the vehicles will have human drivers. Tesla is not licensed for autonomous operations at SFO.”
Mobileyewhich claimed to be an autonomous vehicle technology supplier, is now moving to transform into a robotaxi operator. The company plans to launch a robotaxi service in a U.S. city in 2027. History lesson: Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua told me in 2020 that to crack the holy grail of passenger vehicle autonomy, we must first pursue robotaxi.
Uber Plans to launch premium robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027, making it second U.S. market through partnership with EV manufacturer clear And self-driving car startups only.
waymo About 4,000 robotaxis have been recalled to prevent them from driving into highway construction zones. Waymo removed robotaxis from its highways a few weeks ago and has identified at least 13 instances of robotaxis being driven onto sections of highways that are closed for construction. Here are some notable details: A software fix is ”in development.” This means that this issue has not been resolved.
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