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I spent the last week at SXSW, the annual tech, film, comedy, and music festival in Austin. I recommend scrolling through our live blog to catch up on all the transportation, AI, social media, creator economy — basically tech — news that happened during the conference.
I’ve watched Austin evolve over the years with some good and bad outcomes. Protected bike lanes have been one positive development, which I appreciated as I rode a few Lime scooters and two Mod Bikes e-bikes around the city. Austin is also becoming a hub for autonomous vehicle activity with Avride headquartered there, Zoox testing on public roads, and Waymo launching a commercial robotaxi service.
I was lucky enough to be matched with two Waymo robotaxis — all ride-hails occur through the Uber app, so it’s never a guarantee. I also had one coordinated match courtesy of Waymo. As I wrote earlier this week, it is absolutely wild that Waymo and Uber are working together. Here’s why.
Oh, and here is what I discovered in my Waymo-Uber robotaxi ride. Hint: some updates to the user interface.
A little bird
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Deals!
Senior reporter Sean O’Kane took a deep dive into a new venture firm called Leitmotif that’s been quietly making loads of deals for the past 16 months. The firm, which has funded around 20 startups, broadly focuses on decarbonization with a portfolio that includes EV companies, space and battery plays, and four nuclear fusion startups.
That’s not the interesting part. Here’s what is: All of the money in its fund came from the Volkswagen Group. Check out the full story about why the German automotive giant has committed $300 million to Leitmotif’s first fund.
Other deals that got my attention …
Carpool Logistics, a vehicle logistics platform, raised $12 million in a Series A funding round led by Wavecrest Growth Partners, with participation from CarMax, Impel founders Devin Daly and Michael Quigley, and automotive industry veteran David Metter.
Daqus Energy, a startup working on battery materials, raised $6 million in a seed round led by Morningside with participation from unnamed individual investors.
Nirvana, an AI-based insurance platform that uses real-time driving telematics and 20 billion miles of truck driving data to build and manage insurance policies for truckers, raised $80 million in a Series C round of funding led by General Catalyst. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Valor Equity Partners also participated. The investment values Nirvana at $830 million post-money.
Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in Sweden, the latest blow to Europe’s attempts to create a battery-manufacturing juggernaut that could rival the Chinese giants.
Notable reads and other tidbits
ADAS
Rivian rolled out a hands-free version of its driver-assistance system for highway driving, which founder and CEO RJ Scaringe discussed onstage at SXSW in Austin. The new hands-free feature puts Rivian in competition with Ford and GM, which have similar hands-free systems that control steering, acceleration, and braking under certain conditions and locations.
Autonomous vehicles
Hugging Face teamed up with AI startup Yaak to expand LeRobot — a collection of open AI models, datasets, and tools to help build real-world robotics systems — with a training set to allow robots and cars to navigate environments like city streets autonomously.
Trucks VC general partner Reilly Brennan had an interesting column, Don’t mistake ridehailing for AV ridehailing.
Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, thinks the company’s decision to abandon its autonomous driving program was a mistake. Reminder: Uber ATG was burning through cash when it was sold to Aurora in 2020.
Waymo keeps expanding — this time in Silicon Valley. And that expansion has come with hundreds of parking tickets.
Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries
The Mint 400 off-road race put two EVs — a Rivian R1T truck and a Chevrolet Silverado EV ZR2 off-road race truck concept — to the test.
Rad Power lost its CEO and gained a new one in a span of a few days.
President Donald Trump said he will label violence against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism — yet another sign of his deep support for Elon Musk. As reporter Sean O’Kane notes, “Tesla Takeovers” have been breaking out across the globe at Tesla dealerships as people protest what they see as a hostile takeover of the federal government by Musk (who is CEO of Tesla and its largest shareholder) and his Department of Government Efficiency. Some of the protests have resulted in graffiti on Tesla signs, charging stations set on fire, even Molotov cocktails being thrown in one dealership’s lot.
This week’s wheels
This week I tried two e-bikes from Austin-based Mod Bikes. I’ll focus on its newest one, the Groove, which launched earlier this week.
I spent 24 hours with the Groove, an all-electric step-through bike with a souped-up beach cruiser look and feel. The Groove existed before, but Mod Bikes discontinued it. Now it’s back and has been updated throughout, including the frame, battery, torque sensor, smart display, and motor.
The bike itself is sporty and polished with lots of thoughtful details that make the $1,999 price seem like a steal. The design is thoughtful with easy-to-read and easy-to-operate controls and an integrated bike lock that folds neatly on the frame.
The Groove is a throttle and pedal assist bike, and I found it easy to switch between the various modes. I rarely relied on the throttle alone because the assist provided plenty of oomph. The bike has a payload capacity of 275 pounds and reaches a top speed of 28 miles per hour. The Groove has 50 miles of range; however, there is a dual-battery option that pops it up to 100 miles.
One note, though: Wow, this bike is hefty. And while that is generally a good thing, folks should give themselves a bit of time to adjust to its weight.
I also tested Mod Connect, which allows users to wirelessly pair a Lumos ultra-smart helmet to sync and control turn signals directly from the bike. The connected bike helmet made me feel far more visible to drivers as I navigated the busy streets of downtown Austin.
What is “This week’s wheels”? It’s a chance to learn about the different transportation products we’re testing, whether it’s an electric or hybrid car, an e-bike, or even a ride in an autonomous vehicle.
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