In Cambridge, Massachusetts, a new App Drivers Union joined forces with Boston Carmen's Union Local 589 and Teamsters Local 25 to press city officials over the growing presence of Waymo vehicles mapping local streets ahead of an eventual driverless rollout. Drivers, including former cab operators who already lost income to Uber and Lyft, say they fear a second wave of disruption from autonomous vehicles. The group cited Atlanta, where the Rideshare Drivers Union reports lower pay, longer wait times, and fewer fares since Waymo launched there in summer 2025.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-31
Seoul police say 80 Tesla drivers illegally activated Full Self-Driving using aftermarket devices that bypass regional software locks, confiscating 21 such units. The modules tap into the car's CAN bus, with some drivers importing devices from Europe or China and at least one building his own using GitHub instructions. Drivers face prosecution under the Motor Vehicle Management Act, carrying penalties up to two years in prison or a 20 million won ($15,000) fine.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-30
Waymo and Toyota announced a partnership under which Toyota will manufacture 2027 bZ4X electric vehicles fitted with Waymo's self-driving system at its Takaoka plant in Japan. Testing will begin in Japan next year, with plans to extend the right-hand-drive vehicles to the U.K., where Waymo has been testing Jaguar I-Pace vehicles in London ahead of a planned robotaxi launch.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-30
Kodiak AI has secured its first binding commercial contract for driverless trucks on public highways, agreeing to deliver 75 self-driving big rigs to California carrier DTL Transport starting in 2028. DTL plans to deploy the trucks on interstate routes between Dallas and El Paso, and Dallas and Atlanta, where Kodiak has already conducted testing. The announcement comes ahead of Kodiak's plan to remove human safety operators from trucks in December for a driverless service hauling Ikea goods on Interstate 45.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-28
A government proposal would require robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles to display distinct cyan-colored exterior lights when operating without a human driver. The color is intended to visually signal to pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers that no person is controlling the vehicle.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-27
Turo announced it will flag which Tesla vehicles on its rental marketplace have Full Self-Driving (Supervised) enabled, using direct API access to Tesla to verify the feature. Eligible hosts who list FSD-capable cars will get a free one-month trial of the software. Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y rank as Turo's third and fourth most-rented vehicles this year.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-26
A new robotics system called Dream-1 is designed to generalize zero-shot to tasks, environments, and robot hardware it has never encountered before, removing the need for each robot to collect its own training data first. Its developers point to falling hardware costs, including bimanual robot arm setups priced as low as $2,000, as a second factor making wider robot deployment feasible. Together, they argue, these shifts could let robotics escape the chicken-and-egg problem that has long slowed the field compared with self-driving cars.
dreamlabs.ai
· 2026-10-24
A former Luminar CTO and co-founder, who worked on lidar technology for self-driving cars, writes that AI companies are evolving from infrastructure customers into infrastructure builders themselves. He draws on his 2022 experience speaking at an automotive conference about the autonomous vehicle transformation to frame today's AI buildout.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-24
California Highway Patrol said a 71-year-old pedestrian died after being hit by a Tesla traveling about 70 mph on I-80 near Vallejo early Thursday, while the vehicle's Full Self-Driving system was reportedly engaged. The 26-year-old driver remained at the scene and told officers the car had attempted to brake and steer left, but it still struck the man as he walked onto the freeway from the shoulder. CHP said the pedestrian was later struck by another vehicle that did not stop.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-23
Rivian has acquired Third Dimension, a London-based startup that uses AI to convert images and video into 3D world models, for an undisclosed sum. The 15-person team, founded in 2024 by Tolga Kart and Piotr Sokólski and previously focused on gaming applications, will join Rivian's autonomy and AI division under James Philbin and shift entirely to automated-driving work.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-22
A 71-year-old man was struck and killed early Thursday while crossing I-80 in Vallejo by a Tesla operating in Full Self-Driving mode, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The California Highway Patrol said dashcam footage showed the vehicle braking and steering left to avoid the pedestrian, but its right front still struck him; at least one other vehicle is believed to have hit him afterward, though only the Tesla driver stopped at the scene.
theverge.com
· 2026-10-22
Tesla executives said on the company's third-quarter earnings call that it plans to start selling its steering-wheel-free Cybercab to customers by the end of 2025, starting with a small volume. Currently all Cybercabs produced are going into Tesla's own robotaxi fleet, according to engineering VP Lars Moravy, with outside sales to scale gradually as the company learns about delivery and fleet management. The vehicle is also under federal safety review.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-22
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