TechCrunch Mobility: The return of Travis Kalanick proves it’s 2016 again

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This flyer was laminated and ready to go and then Travis Kalanick He took me back to 2016 by making a surprising announcement.

The Uber co-founder and former CEO who resigned in 2017 after a series of controversies has returned and built a robotics company called Atoms. And wait, he is on the verge of acquisition Prontoa self-driving vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites and founded by his former Uber colleague, Anthony Lewandowski. Kalanick revealed that he is already the “largest investor” in Pronto.

This is a hard pill to swallow, and the latest sign that we are indeed back in 2016. For those who may not remember, 2016 was an exciting year for autonomous vehicles. Uber acquired Levandowski’s startup Otto — a deal that almost immediately went sideways and led to Waymo suing the ride-hailing company for theft of trade secrets.

Now we return to our original programming.

Just last week I almost waxed Rivian The electric vehicle manufacturer is trying to make the upcoming R2 SUV one of the fastest cars to be launched in history. ICYMI, it’s here.

This week, I’m in Austin SXSW – The annual technology meets music film, television and comedy festival. Rivian, the title sponsor of SXSW, used the event to share pricing and other specifications for the R2. There’s still a lot to unpack and I’m still interviewing people as I write this (including the CEO Scaring RJ later today), but here’s what we know.

The Performance Launch Edition, which will be the first version of the R2 on the line, will start at $57,990. My initial article delves into what you get for this price. Senior reporter Sean O’Kane focused on the long-promised $45,000 version and why it won’t be released until late 2027.

My time at SXSW with the Rivian team has begun to reveal some of their R2 strategies. The company leans heavily into experiential marketing that directly targets the core market. The attendees at SXSW in Austin, which includes high-tech and creative people from around the world, are as close to the Rivian customer archetype as you can get.

But will it work? The EV itself is more accessible IMO than the larger, more expensive R1 truck and flagship SUVs. The R2 also has a few goodies, including a new operating system, which is more powerful and capable than its more expensive counterpart. The operating system software, which I did not test at length, is a notable improvement over the R1 in terms of compute and user interface. For example, the R2 has a single SoC (system on a chip) that powers the infotainment system and handles 200 TOPS (tera operations per second) of computing at the edge. The next-generation R1 vehicles have four SoCs and do most of their computing in the cloud.

Head of Software at Rivian, Waseem bin Saeedtold me that this edge computing is important because it allows the company to run large language models locally, which will provide much lower latency and better performance.

The other big change I’ll mention briefly is the “halo wheels” on the steering wheel, which are pictured above. These wheels provide haptic feedback and allow the driver to quickly change the temperature, fan speed and speaker volume without moving his hands or eyes to the center display. Chief designer Jeff Hammoud He told me this handles some of the largest requests from customers without adding a bunch of buttons. Notably, the program allows the company to add more capabilities to these Halo Wheels over time.

birdie

Lucid Motors Xiaomi tried to make a splash at its investor day when it showed off a robotaxi concept designed to be built on the company’s “mid-sized” EV platform. Interim CEO Mark Winterhoff He made a statement on stage saying that the company is “working on a custom Lucid Robotaxi vehicle” that would come after mid-size electric cars debut.

The company later clarified to TechCrunch that there is no active development and that the car is just a concept. A little birdie tells us that the project is very new, having only started in the last two or three months, a timeline that leaves us wondering how long it will take Lucid Motors to put something like this on the road.

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

Offers!

I think this is the Rivian issue! Because the company created another startup and raised a large amount of money to scale it up. I’m referring to Mind robotsan industrial robotics laboratory, and a $500 million Series A funding round co-led by venture firms Accel and Andreessen Horowitz.

As Sean O’Kane writes, the funding follows a $115 million seed round led by Eclipse (this venture capital seems to be everywhere lately) in late 2025. Mind Robotics is now valued at about $2 billion.

Robots were the focus of some of Rivian’s programming at SXSW, including a panel with an engineer and YouTuber Mark Robert And CEO of Rivian Scaring RJ. I interviewed Scaringe on the sidelines of the event and asked him about Mind Robotics and the reason behind these efforts. I also asked if he plans to take out more companies. Let’s just say there was a very long pause before he finally said, “Probably not.”

I’ll have a longer story about the interview soon, but one item worth mentioning is that Scaringe fundamentally believes companies are thinking wrongly about the future of industrial robots.

“There’s been an amazing focus on mimicking human biomechanics, or even in some cases going further, making more complex mechatronics. I think that’s what we’re missing in the industrial industry.” [settings] “That’s one of the things we see really clearly, is that the work is done with the hands,” Scarring told me. “So the hands are very, very important. Everything else, from a robotic system point of view, is getting the hands in the right place. And so the ability of robots to do really complex movements, like a backflip, that actually means that the robot has a lot of unnecessary complexity in the vast majority of tasks and understandings.”

Other deals that caught my attention this week…

A global passenger transportation company inDrive It has acquired Pakistan-based express commerce startup Krave Mart. The all-stock deal has received approval from the Competition Commission of Pakistan, allowing the companies to proceed with the deal, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. InDrive confirmed the acquisition but declined to disclose its financial terms.

Mirai robotsAn Italy-based company developing autonomous marine systems has raised $4.2 million from Primo Capital, Techshop, and 40Jemz Ventures.

Surf Air It has placed an order for 25 all-electric ALIA aircraft from Beta Technologies and has received options for up to 75 more.

Notable Readings and Other Stories

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

Archer Aviation The company responded to a lawsuit with its counterclaim that rival Gobi Air had defrauded the U.S. government and its competitors by falsely representing itself as an American-made company. The electric air sector has become vulnerable to litigation, which can be very distracting and costly at this early stage of development.

Group 14 It has begun production of silicon battery materials at its BAM-3 plant in South Korea. The plant is capable of producing up to 2,000 metric tons per year, enough to store 10 gigawatt-hours of energy, or about 100,000 long-range electric vehicles.

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

the Federal Aviation Administration Well, eight pilot programs that will allow a few companies, including Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, Gobi Aviationand WhiskTo begin testing large-scale electric aircraft as early as this summer. The three-year program will extend to 26 states!

Harbingera Los Angeles-based electric vehicle startup, announced its second vehicle: a smaller, medium-duty work truck.

Lucid Motors It ships Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to Gravity SUV owners.

the National Transportation Safety Board Information has been released showing drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2024 while using Ford The BlueCruise hands-free driving system was likely distracted in the moments before the collision.

NuruThe Silicon Valley-based startup, which is backed by Nvidia, Uber and SoftBank, is testing self-driving vehicle technology in Japan.

Slate Autothe electric car startup backed by Jeff Bezos, has a new CEO ahead of its production launch. Former Amazon Marketplace Vice President Peter Farsi now leads the company, while former CEO Christine Barman now serves as head of vehicles.

Tesla It is now an officially licensed instrument in the UK.

WIFI Uber is teaming up with Nissan to launch a robotaxi service in Tokyo, with a trial launch scheduled for late 2026.

Uber Owned by Hyundai added kinetic To the growing robotaxi network. Motional’s self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 cars are now appearing on the Uber app in Las Vegas. These vehicles currently have human safety monitoring devices in the vehicle.

Zoox We had two announcements this week that provide a roadmap for the kinds of where the Amazon-owned company wants to go. The company has begun mapping the streets of Dallas and Phoenix, the first step before testing its self-driving vehicles in Sun Belt cities.

It’s also teaming up with Uber and will make its robotaxis available to welcome the ride-hailing app to Las Vegas later this year. However, this association with Uber merits an important caveat. Zoox cannot deploy commercially until it receives an exemption from federal motor vehicle safety standards for its custom-built automated vehicle, which does not have a steering wheel or other traditional controls. This process has begun. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it will begin taking public comments on Zoox’s request for these waivers. Zoox only has an exemption to show its compounds.

Another thing…

the Chevrolet Bolt EV Back – a real deep cut in EV. And a great correspondent Tim de Chant I went to a company-sponsored press campaign and came back with an interesting idea that I became more and more focused on as a ploy to sell electric cars. The Chevy Bolt is the McRib of the automotive world. Do I need to say more? De Chant also delved into the economics of General Motors bringing back the Bolt.