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Lucid and ridesharing firm Bolt have announced a partnership to bring at least 25,000 autonomous vehicles built on Lucid's midsize platform to European roads, with Bolt owning and operating the fleet. Bolt aims to have 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its platform by 2035, though no launch timeline was given for the Lucid-based robotaxis, which will likely use NVIDIA's Hyperion architecture for Level 4 autonomy.
Lucid Motors and European ride-hailing platform Bolt announced a partnership under which Bolt aims to deploy at least 25,000 fully autonomous vehicles built on Lucid's upcoming mid-size EV platform. The vehicles would use Nvidia's Hyperion compute and sensing system, though no autonomous driving software provider was named, and no orders or payments have been finalized yet.
Uber has ceased operations in both Nigeria and Uganda with immediate effect, ending its ride-hailing services in the two African markets. In Uganda, the shutdown removes a widely used transport option for commuters in Kampala.
Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow is raising as much as $27 million from existing investors in a convertible-note bridge round that carries a pay-to-play clause penalizing backers who don't participate. The financing is meant to bridge the checkout company toward a future Series E2 round, after its valuation collapsed from $11 billion in 2022 to roughly $300 million. Breslow says Bolt is nearing profitability but declined to disclose how much cash remains.
At an annual robotics showcase in Beijing, humanoid robots competed across events including sprints, standing high jump, kickboxing and dance routines. Several machines reportedly surpassed human world records, including in the 100-meter and 400-meter sprints, while others suffered dramatic falls during the competitions.
At the second World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing (August 22-26), robots competing in a 100-meter sprint and standing high jump beat human world records set by Usain Bolt and others, marking a jump from last year's event where they trailed human performance. Some sprinting robots couldn't stop in time, crashing into barriers, falling, and in a few cases breaking apart with sparks or catching fire, while separate tasks like hanging laundry showed robots still moving far slower than humans.
Unitree Robotics released footage of its headless humanoid, Superman, jumping 6.5 feet and sprinting over 28 mph, both exceeding known human records. Two days later the Hangzhou company debuted on Shanghai's stock exchange, with shares spiking 629% above the offer price and pushing its intraday valuation near $66 billion before settling at $50.8 billion.
At the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, the bipedal robot Tiangong Ultra clocked a 9.39-second 100-meter sprint, edging out Honor's Lightning at 9.47 seconds and both beating Usain Bolt's 2009 world record of 9.58 seconds. Neither robot could stop cleanly, with each crashing into padded foam barriers past the finish line.