TechCrunch Mobility: The cost of Waymo

Summary

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced late this week that it plans to streamline the Part 555 exemption process to make it faster for automakers that want to deploy self-driving vehicles built without human controls like a steering wheel or pedals. The letter sent to “stakeholders” (meaning those companies working on AVs) is fairly opaque still. And manufacturers will still have to demonstrate that vehicles without traditional steering wheels, driver-operated brakes, or rearview mirrors provide an equivalent safety level as compliant vehicles and that the exemption is in the public interest. The main gist here is that the NHTSA contends the current Part 555 exemption process is not well suited for automated driving system-equipped vehicles and that it is a lengthy and complex process. In short: The agency wants to speed things up. In other federal agency-related news, Trump issued a few executive orders related to drones and fast-tracking supersonic travel. Side note: I see that my predictions (from last edition) that the Trump-Elon Musk fallout would turn into one of those on-again, off-again relationships was correct. Let’s get into the rest of the news. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Last week, I shared our scoop about Jony Ive’s LoveFrom firm working alongside Rivian designers and a skunkworks team that would end up spinning out into Also, a micromobility startup. Well, a few more little birds have popped up to share a bit more and to clarify the relationship. I learned that the project was code-named Inder. Rivian actually applied for a trademark of the name Inder but later abandoned it. Sources also shared that while the LoveFrom team brought its industrial design expertise to the effort — and apparently a cool motor design — it was not involved in any UI/U...