TechCrunch Mobility: Waymo’s Big Apple score and Nvidia backs Nuro

Summary

Hey, all, and happy Friday! Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for news, analysis, and scoops around the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! I was sad to have missed the Monterey Car Week this year, especially because there were a number of reveals I was interested in, including the all-electric Cadillac Opulent Velocity; the Chevrolet Corvette CX and CX.R Vision Gran Turismo concepts; and Lucid Gravity X reveals. But alas, the sprawling, Champagne-soaked grounds of Quail or the sea of seersucker suits and wide-brimmed hats at Pebble Beach Golf Course were suboptimal landscapes for my newly fractured and boot-encased foot. Next year! In the meantime, I thought I would reach out to you, dear reader, to get your forecast on what’s in store for automakers and EV sales in the United States once the federal EV tax credit expires September 30. My prediction? Well I don’t really want to taint the results, but I will say this: Automakers are going to have to do something in the short term to attract customers, and not just because of the expiring EV tax credit. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Serve Robotics, the autonomous sidewalk delivery robot company, announced earlier this week that it acquired Vayu Robotics, a startup that has developed AI foundation models and a simulation-powered data engine for robots. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal, but some back-of-the-envelope math and a little bird helped me determine that Serve Robotics paid between $45 million and $50 million for Vayu. Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com Deals! Several weeks ago, I highlighted a deal between Uber, autonomous vehicle tech startup Nuro, and EV maker Lucid. You can read about that here, but the important piece to remember is Uber’s commitment to make an undisclosed “multimillio...