Transportation

The tunneling venture announced it raised $3 billion in a Series D funding round led by the United Arab Emirates that values the company at $23 billion. Last year, the Boring Company signed a preliminary agreement to dig the Dubai Loop, a 4-mile (6.4km) tunnel that includes four stations linking the Dubai International Financial Centre and Dubai Mall. With this new financing, the company plans on developing over 150km (93 miles) of tunnels throughout Dubai.

YouTuber Josh West thought he was going to show his wife a good time by booking a Cybercab for their date night in Austin. Instead, a hard-braking episode left her with a sore neck, and then the Cybercab tried to drop them off in an empty parking lot at night. “Kind of wonky,” an amiable West says. “Definitely work left to do.”

Lyft customers hailing a ride in Waymo’s service area (which includes Downtown/Broadway, North Nashville/Germantown, East Nashville, Midtown, and South Nashville) could be matched with a robotaxi. Waymo and Lyft first announced they’d be teaming up for a robotaxi service in Music City nearly a year ago. Lyft is also handling fleet services, such as cleaning, maintenance, and EV charging, through its Flexdrive subsidiary. Customers who would prefer a robotaxi ride can also book one through Waymo’s own app.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a letter to the automaker that he was “deeply alarmed” that Ford licenses tech from battery maker CATL and automaker Geely, Reuters reports. Ford responded by accusing Duffy of being “wrongheaded” and “chasing headlines” — which, if you know Duffy, makes perfect sense. The letter drops a few months after the Trump administration banned Geely-owned Polestar from selling its EVs in the US.

I found this Washington Post story about the “lowly” seat belt warning — how they came to be, which automakers have the best and worst chimes, and the people who are still militantly opposed to wearing seat belts — to be highly fascinating. The occasion is that the federal government is delaying new rules that would require automakers to install more persistent warnings. It’s troubling because seat belts literally save lives, and so do reminders to wear them.

Season two of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League put five cars on the track this weekend, and it was going more smoothly than the series’ 2024 debut, for a while.

Several UK airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and others, have grounded departing flights as the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) deals with a “technical issue” affecting its “flight processing system.” NATS adds that its “engineers are on site and working urgently to resume normal operations as quickly as possible.”

After taking the wraps off its all-electric SkyNomad SUVs in July, Xiaomi has officially launched the four-car lineup in China, which starts at RMB 209,900 (~$31,275) for the N70 Pro model.

Some of the pro-Tesla content creators that the company invited to its closed-door Cybercab event are starting to post their first rides.

Right now, Tesla is holding a private event with a bunch of pro-Tesla influencers to celebrate the “launch” of its autonomous Cybercab vehicle. But in a break from the past, the company is not livestreaming the event. Several influencers posted on X that the company made them sign NDAs and barred them from posting any content until the event is over. Not really the sign of confidence a lot of investors were looking for!

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked to send tailpipe pollution policies to Congress to repeal. US District Judge Beryl Howell accused the EPA of “Orwellian doublethink.”

According to the company’s newly launched Robotaxi website, children under the age of 13 are not permitted to ride in the Cybercab — even if they’re riding with an adult. Kids between the ages of 8-13 are allowed in Tesla’s Model Y robotaxis, but only when riding with an adult. And those under 8 are not allowed at all. Even stranger, the Cybercab’s compliance documents (PDF) include detailed instructions for installing child seats. Which is it, Elon?

We still have no word on when this supposed event is taking place. All we know is that it’s in Austin, which predictably has seen a surge of gilded Cybercabs hit the streets. Reuters says it’s supposed to start at 5:45PM ET, citing a Cybercab engineer’s tweet that I can’t seem to verify. Either way, we’ll be monitoring the event and will hopefully have more updates to share later today.

The robotaxi company has accrued more than 8,300 violations in San Francisco since January 2025, according to records obtained by Gazetteer. On average, that’s about 103 tickets a week. Most of the violations appear to be for parking in locations reserved for tour buses, obstructing traffic, or blocking bike lanes.

Scratch that: who leaves two pig heads in the back of a Waymo? Throw-up, leftover joints, even the occasional doo-doo — I can understand how some of these things can be left behind for the robotaxi cleaner. But pig heads?

The Amazon-owned robotaxi company was just approved to make passenger trips to and from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. Airports can be chaotic environments, and regulators want to be sure that robotaxis won’t add to the chaos. As the first robotaxi company approved for airport trips, Zoox will have its work cut out for it.

The layoffs, which affect around 3,300 employees, comes as part of efforts to “make Uber simpler and faster,” according to a memo published by CEO Dana Khosrowshahi.

The robotaxi company said today that it will start accepting its first public riders in three new cities. Customers will be invited to ride on a rolling basis before the service is opened up to everyone. The announcement marks Waymo’s first public rides in the new state of Colorado. And the company says it now has over 4,000 vehicles in its commercial fleet across 14 cities. Here are the service area maps for all three cities.

Hat tip to investor Reilly Brennan, who noted in his Future of Transportation newsletter that Waymo software engineer Reed Morse has been beefing with Tesla fans on X over sensors and service area maps. Morse said Tesla is “mostly bluffing” its way through its upcoming Cybercab launch. It’s just more evidence that despite being the undisputed leader in driverless robotaxis, Waymo still feels the need to point out the fallacies in Tesla’s approach to robotaxis.

First it was the Toyota Engineering Society’s Miraidon Project, a life-size version Pokémon Violet’s motorcycle-like mascot. Now it’s time for Pokémon Scarlet’s mascot: Honda has its life-size Koraidon on display at PokémonXP in San Francisco. It looks fantastic, and it blinks. Its mouth even opens!

NBC News identified 43 videos that appear to show Tesla drivers asleep at the wheel, 17 of which were posted this year alone. This is, of course, a well-worn problem for Tesla, which has tried to curb the trend with stricter driver monitoring systems. But drivers are easily subverting these guardrails with sunglasses, allowing them to continue sleeping despite eye-tracking technology.

Waymo announced today that it will launch a robotaxi service in Munich by the end of 2027, marking the latest international market for the autonomous vehicle operator. The company is also eyeing London and Tokyo for future service. It remains to be seen whether overseas regulators will be more welcoming than some US cities?

The low-volume truck that Elon Musk once claimed would sell over 250,000 units annually is now about $5,000 more expensive, according to Reuters. Two trims are going up in price: the dual-motor version is now $74,990, up from $69,990; and the all-wheel drive Cybertruck is $84,990, up from $79,990. Tesla has futzed with the truck’s lineup before, introducing a $60,000 all-wheel drive version and jacking up the Cyberbeast trim by $15,000. But it’s done little to juice sales, with only 3,519 Cybertrucks delivered in Q1 2026, down 45 percent year over year.