TechCrunch Mobility: EV Sales and Rivian status secures the next billion dollars from VW

please TechCrunch Mobility – Your central hub for news and insights about the future of transportation. Sign up here for free – just click TechCrunch Mobility!

This week we are releasing an abbreviation version of our newsletter for the holiday on July 4th. If you are driving, flying, or riding a train for a US holiday (if AAA predicts that 72.2 million people will travel at least 50 miles or more). The complete newsletter will be back next week.

Before I sprinkle a bit of news, I have one important announcement. TechCrunch Mobility has moved to Beehiiv Publishing Platform in a few weeks. Beehiiv offers many cool features like polls! – To help me interact with you, your readers better. It’s a victory for you and me.

Newsletter emails will continue to be received newsletters@techcrunch.com. To avoid missing one thing, add the above address to your contacts and move it to your primary inbox. This makes Internet service providers love TechCrunch and want to see this newsletter.

Little bird

You may remember last week, a New York Times article reported Uber Co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick teeth Working with investors Buy the US division of a Chinese self-driving car company To the ponyand Uber might help make it happen.

Some little birds tell me Karanick Alley and Uber ATG veterans Eric Mayhofer I’m involved. We are overflowing to learn more. In the meantime, here is a little history lesson. Meyhofer officially moved to Uber after joining Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center in 2015. He eventually became CEO of Uber ATG. Meyhofer is connected to Kalanick’s Cloudkitchens Enterprise through restaurant automation and robotics business LAB37that was it at first Reported by Spoon I’m going back to 2023.

Any tips for us? Email Kirsten Korosec kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com Or, my signal on Kkorosec.07, Sean Okane sean.okane@techcrunch.comOr at Rebecca Veran rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out These instructions To learn how to contact us via an encrypted messaging app or SecureDrop.

Notable readings and other information

Self-driving cars

A catchy new term was coined during a recent recording Autono-castPodcast I will co-host with Alex Roy and Ed Niedermeyer (full credits will be sent to Roy). The term is MVAT, or the smallest viable autonomous theatre. It’s time for businesses to deploy the smallest viable autonomous products, enough to perpetuate the narrative of progress.

One possible example: Tesla allows model Y SUV Drives about 15 miles From the factories to the apartment where the new owner of the car lives, CEO Elon Musk has completed what he called the first “autonomous delivery” of his customer cars. If this is a one-time only, if it is an alias demonstration, it is MVAT.

Incidentally, this doesn’t just mean choosing Tesla. Many other companies have posted flashy videos to showcase the features of their respective automated driving technology. But in 2015 it was a much more common practice. Because AVS was running to the top of the hype cycle.

Electric cars, batteries, charging

The second quarter is over, and that means sales and production numbers! While many automakers publish monthly reports, some of the EV companies they monitor offer only quarterly figures.

Electric Hummers sell most of the lightning bolts of F-150

Clear sales progress as EV manufacturers push to increase gravity production

Libian will receive the next billion dollars from Volkswagen as sales struggle continues

Tesla faces second consecutive year of decline in sales after another bad quarter

meanwhile, Republican lawmakers I passed the settlement method It unleashes many, among other things Inflation reduction methodsthat solar, wind, and clean hydrogen, all loses incentives under the new bill. EV tax credits are also eliminated in the installation of new and used electric vehicles and household EV charging devices.

The end of the EV tax credit has already spread across the industry, including companies that do not have EVs to sell. Slate Autoa Jeff Bezos-backed EV startup had planned to sell pickup trucks for under $20,000 with the EV tax credit applied. But the language The website has been changed to reflect the passage of the bill.

Also, a little news from the world of electric RVs and vans… Pebblesa California-based startup company I’ve written about it beforehas begun customer distribution for the flagship all-electric travel trailer. and grounda Detroit-based startup founded by a former SpaceX engineer, We’ve delivered a new electric vancalled G3, to the first customer.

safety

FBI Cybersecurity companies are known as prolific hacking groups Scattered spiders Now Targeting the airlines and transportation sector.

Qantassaid the Australian airline giant. I experienced a data breach It compromised the personal information of at least 6 million passengers.