Tech Crunch Mobility: Travis Kalanick's return proves it really is 2016 again | Tech Crunch

Overview

Uber’s co-founder and former CEO who resigned in 2017 after a string of controversies is back and building a robotics company called Atoms. And, wait for it, he is on the precipice of acquiring Pronto, the autonomous vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites that was created by his former Uber colleague, Anthony Levandowski. Kalanick revealed he is already the “largest investor” in Pronto.

That is a lot to digest and the final sign that, yes, we really are back in 2016. For those who may not remember, 2016 was a hyped year for AVs. Uber acquired Levandowski’s startup Otto — a deal that went sideways almost immediately and resulted in Waymo suing the ride-hailing company for trade secret theft.

Details

Just last week I waxed on about Rivian and the EV maker’s bid to make the upcoming R2 SUV one of the fastest vehicle launches in history. ICYMI, here it is.

This week, I’m in Austin for SXSW — the annual tech meets music meets film, TV, and comedy festival. Rivian, the headline sponsor of SXSW, used the event to share pricing and other specs of its R2. There is still a lot to unpack and I’m still interviewing folks as I write this (including CEO RJ Scaringe later today), but here is what we know.

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The performance launch edition, which will be the first version of R2 on the line, will start at

My time at SXSW with the Rivian folks has begun to reveal some of their R2 strategy. The company is leaning heavily into experiential marketing targeted directly at its core market. SXSW attendees in Austin, who include well-heeled tech and creative folks from all over world, are about as close as you can get to a Rivian customer archetype.

But will it work? The EV itself is far more approachable IMO than the much larger and expensive flagship R1 truck and SUV. The R2 also has a few items, including a new operating system, that is more powerful and capable than its pricey peer. The operating system software, which admittedly I haven’t tested at length, is a standout improvement from the R1 in terms of computing and user interface. For instance, the R2 has one So C (system on chip) that runs the infotainment and handles 200 TOPS (tera operations per second) of computing on the edge. The next-gen R1 vehicles have four So C and do most of the computing in the cloud.

Rivian’s head of software, Wassym Bensaid, told me this edge computing matters because it allows the company to run large language models locally, which will provide much lower latency and better performance.

Another big change that I will briefly mention are the “halo wheels” on the steering wheel, which are pictured above. These wheels give haptic feedback and let the driver quickly change the temperature, fan speed, and speaker volume without moving their hands or eyes over to the central screen. Chief designer Jeff Hammoud told me this addressed some of the biggest requests from customers without adding a bunch of buttons. Notably, software allows the company to add more capability to these halo wheels over time.

Lucid Motors tried to make a splash at its investor day when it showed a robotaxi concept designed to be built on the company’s “midsize” EV platform. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff sounded declarative onstage, saying the company is “working on a dedicated Lucid Robotaxi” that would come after the midsize EVs debut.

The company later clarified to Tech Crunch that there is no active development happening and that the vehicle is just a concept. A little bird tells us the project is very new, having started only in the last two to three months, a timeline that leaves us wondering how long it would really take for Lucid Motors to put something like this on the road.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.

I guess this is the Rivian issue! Because the company has spun ANOTHER startup and raised a bunch of money to scale it up. I’m referring to Mind Robotics, an industrial robotics lab, and its $500 million Series A funding round that was co-led by venture firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.

As Sean O’Kane wrote, the financing follows a

Robotics was a focus of some of Rivian’s programming at SXSW, including a panel with engineer and You Tuber Mark Rober and Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. I interviewed Scaringe on the sidelines of the event and asked him about Mind Robotics and what was behind the effort. I also asked if he plans to spin out any more companies. Let’s just say there was a very long pause before he ultimately said, “Probably not.”

I will have a longer story about the interview soon, but one item worth mentioning is that Scaringe basically believes companies are thinking about the future of industrial robotics all wrong.

“There has been a surprising emphasis on mimicking human biomechanics, or in some cases even going further, making even more complex mechatronics. I think what’s missed in industrial [settings] and this is one of the things we really see clearly, is the work happens with the hands,” Scaringe told me. “So the hands are very, very important. Everything else, from a robotic system point of view, is to get the hands to the right place. And so the ability for the robots to do really complex motions, like, let’s say, a back flip, that actually just means the robot has a lot of unnecessary complexity in it for the vast majority of tasks and understanding.”

Global ride-hailing company in Drive acquired Pakistan-based quick-commerce startup Krave Mart. The all-stock deal received approval from the Competition Commission of Pakistan, allowing the companies to proceed with the transaction, two sources familiar with the matter told Tech Crunch. in Drive confirmed the acquisition but declined to disclose its financial terms.

Mirai Robotics, an Italy-based company developing autonomous maritime systems, raised $4.2 million from Primo Capital, Techshop, and 40 Jemz Ventures.

Surf Air placed an order for 25 of Beta Technologies’ all-electric ALIA aircraft and acquired options for up to 75 more.

Bryan Reimer, an MIT research scientist who was recently on my Autonocast podcast, poses an interesting question in a column published this month: Are automated vehicles headed for the same political divide as electric cars?

Archer Aviation responded to a lawsuit with its own counterclaims that rival Joby Aviation allegedly defrauded the U. S. government and its competitors by falsely presenting itself as an American-made company. The electric air sector is getting litigious, which can be mighty distracting and expensive in this early stage of development.

Group 14 has started production of silicon battery materials at its BAM-3 factory in South Korea. The factory is capable of producing up to 2,000 metric tons annually, enough for 10 gigawatt-hours of energy storage, or about 100,000 long-range EVs.

Hayden AI, a startup based in San Francisco, has sued its co-founder and former CEO over allegations of serious misconduct and misuse of funds.

The Federal Aviation Administration OK’d eight pilot programs that will allow a handful of companies, including Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, Joby Aviation, and Wisk, to start widespread electric aircraft testing as early as this summer. The three-year program will span 26 states!

Harbinger, a Los Angeles-based EV startup, revealed its second vehicle: a smaller, medium-duty work truck.

Lucid Motors is shipping Apple Car Play and Android Auto to Gravity SUV owners.

The National Transportation Safety Board released information that shows two drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2024 while using Ford’s Blue Cruise hands-free driving system were likely distracted in the moments before impact.

Nuro, the Silicon Valley-based startup backed by Nvidia, Uber, and Soft Bank, is testing its autonomous vehicle technology in Japan.

Slate Auto, the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has a new CEO ahead of its production launch. Former Amazon Marketplace vice president Peter Faricy now leads the company, while former CEO Christine Barman is now president of vehicles.

Tesla is now an officially licensed utility in the United Kingdom.

Wayve is teaming up with Uber and Nissan to launch a robotaxi service in Tokyo, with a pilot scheduled for late 2026.

Uber added Hyundai-owned Motional to its growing robotaxi network. Motional’s self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles now show up on the Uber app in Las Vegas. These vehicles have human safety monitors in the car, for now.

Zoox had a couple of announcements this week that provide a roadmap of sorts of where the Amazon-owned company wants to go. The company has started to map the streets of Dallas and Phoenix, the first step before testing its autonomous vehicles in the Sun Belt cities.

It is also partnering with Uber and will make its robotaxis available to hail on the ride-hailing app in Las Vegas later this year. That Uber tie-up deserves an important caveat, though. Zoox can’t deploy commercially until it gets an exemption from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for its custom-built robotaxis, which don’t have a steering wheel or other traditional controls. That process has started. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would begin taking public comment on Zoox’s application for those exemptions. Zoox only has an exemption to demonstrate its vehicles.

The Chevrolet Bolt EV is coming back — a true EV deep cut. And senior reporter Tim De Chant went to a company-sponsored press drive and came back with an interesting idea that I have become more and more fixated on as an EV sales ploy. The Chevy Bolt is the Mc Rib of the automotive world. Need I say more? De Chant also dug into the economics of GM bringing back the Bolt.

Key Takeaways

• Uber’s co-founder and former CEO who resigned in 2017 after a string of controversies is back and building a robotics company called Atoms
• That is a lot to digest and the final sign that, yes, we really are back in 2016
• Just last week I waxed on about Rivian and the EV maker’s bid to make the upcoming R2 SUV one of the fastest vehicle launches in history
• This week, I’m in Austin for SXSW — the annual tech meets music meets film, TV, and comedy festival

• Disrupt 2026: The tech ecosystem, all in one room