Volume 33
| Welcome to the next edition of our bi-weekly recap of the latest and greatest in connected and on-demand mobility. If you’re not already receiving this email, you should be: Subscribe |
| Lyft launches EV rental pilot program for ride-hail drivers in Northern California Reuters, June 15th Lyft Inc (LYFT.O) said on Tuesday it will launch an electric vehicle rental pilot program for ride-hail drivers in a part of the San Francisco Bay Area in partnership with a local utility. |
| Waymo raises $2.5 billion in latest fundraising round despite challenges Kake ABC, June 16th Waymo, the self-driving company of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has raised $2.5 billion as its investors appear undeterred by a CEO change and progress that has lagged expectations. |
| Poltergeist attack could leave autonomous vehicles blind to obstacles – or haunt them with new ones The Register, June 18th Researchers at the Ubiquitous System Security Lab of Zhejiang University and the University of Michigan’s Security and Privacy Research Group say they’ve found a way to blind autonomous vehicles to obstacles using simple audio signals. |
| Seattle’s new zero-emissions delivery hub is an experiment in slashing e-commerce emissions Fast Company, June 21st As companies and governments strategize to make our exploding e-commerce economy more environmentally friendly, the “last mile” of a product’s journey—that is, the very last stage, from the transportation hub to the customer, currently appears the easiest to target. |
| El Pollo Loco testing drone delivery services in parts of Southern California Fox 11, June 19th The next time you order from El Pollo Loco a drone could arrive at your doorsteps with your food. The popular Mexican-American fast food chain is partnering with Flytrex to test drone food delivery. |
| Battery swapping could soon power more electric taxis, ride-sharing, last-mile delivery Green Car Reports, June 15th Ample announced last week that it’s partnering with Sally—a firm that organizes vehicle rentals for taxi, ride-sharing, and last-mile delivery services—to design and build battery-swapping stations in major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. |
| Luminar lays out a new vision for self-driving cars Barron’s, June 15th Autonomous-driving technology company Luminar Technologies unveiled its “Blade” self-driving sensor architecture Tuesday morning—a blueprint that vehicle makers can follow for integrating lidar sensors, according to the company. |
| Forth brings rural EV car-share to Oregon Its International, June 21st Non-profit organisation Forth is leading an electric vehicle (EV) car-sharing programme to improve access to rural transportation solutions in Hood Rider, Oregon. |
| Efforts to introduce self-driving exemptions stopped by Senate committee Carscoops, June 20th Attempts to introduce exemptions for self-driving vehicle testing to a transportation bill have been rejected by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. |
| Plug in to NYC’s transportation future: The Taxi & Limousine Commission is making a mistake in trying to block Revel’s electric cars NY Daily News, June 16th New York’s repeated failure to embrace electric vehicles and related technologies risks leaving our city, and its transportation industry, behind. As the latest setback, the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) is attempting to relitigate a rule allowing electric ride-hail vehicles to operate outside the vehicle license cap. |
| China’s ride-hailing giant Didi could be the world’s biggest IPO this year Fast Company, June 11th China’s ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which commands the largest market share in the country of 1.4 billion people, wants to go public. |
