Trucks | Future of Transportation for 2026.02.16
FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital

Notable

In one swoop, Trump kills US greenhouse gas regulations (link). 'For nearly the past two decades, the “endangerment finding” has allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to craft rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Rather than repealing those rules individually, the Trump administration can undermine them all at once by attacking the endangerment finding.'

How far are we from structured China/US OEM joint ventures? (link). In discussions about this on our Trucks thread this week, my partner Jeff Schox pointed out the three-headed paradox of Trump on these issues: 1) China is labeled an economic enemy, and we’re told tariffs are necessary to counter their heavily subsidized manufacturing. 2) Climate change is dismissed as fake, so domestic clean-energy and EV subsidies are eliminated. 3) Yet Chinese EVs are hailed as the future, and we’re urged to partner with China for 'sustainability.'

Inside the making of the Jony Ive/Marc Newson Ferrari interior (link). Via Diego. Buttons are cool again.

Waymo talks about its new 6th generation system (link). The image on the lower part of this page shows multiple vehicle shapes, and most notably shows a heavy-duty truck (a category which Waymo meaningfully exited about two years ago). Is this a signal of them potentially getting back into trucking?

I wrote about pauking for WITI (link). Pauking is a made up term but I needed a way to describe the new liminal time that AVs created without social pressure. When cruising and idling costs about $.50 an hour, it's cheaper than parking almost anywhere.

China takes aim at screen-heavy car dashboards in safety push (link). 'In a set of proposed regulations, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that functions including turn signals, hazard lights, gear selection and emergency calling must have fixed buttons or switches with a minimum surface size of 10mm x 10mm.' Buttons are cool again.

Total EV write-downs from the Detroit 3 now more than $50B (link).

Unpacking Waymo's $126B valuation (link).

Video: Motional with some trolling of the recent stories on Waymo's pay-to-close-doors (link). Video: America's gambling addiction has now hit live betting for traffic cameras (link).

M&A / Deals / Changes:

EV retail startup Ever raises $31M (link). Led by Eclipse.

Stellantis sells half of $3.7B EV battery plant...for $100 (link).

Getir's Turkey delivery business acquired by Uber (link).

Automated forklift startup Fox Robotics acquired by Symbotic (link).

Luminar assets acquired by Microvision for $33M (link).

Board & Executive Changes:

Northrop Grumman: Christopher Grady joins board (link).

Knight-Swift Transportation: Amy Boerger to leave board (link).

Lithia Motors: George Hines departs as Chief Innovation & Technology Officer, position eliminated (link).

CarMax: Keith Barr named CEO, joins board (link).

Dana: Byron Foster promoted to CEO, joins board (link).

Curated Jobs:

Head of Service at BasiGo in Nairobi, Kenya (link).

Sr. Electrical Engineer (Contract) at Skyryse in El Segundo, CA, USA (link).

Hiring? Post a job (link). If you're a startup, use code 'Trucks' for free standard listings.

Hunting? View all 252 postings on the MobilityJobs job board (link).

New Stuff:

Deep look inside software supplier Applied Intuition (link). At $100/car and $800M topline revenue reported, does that mean they are in 8M cars already?

Trump administration moves to require 100% domestic materials in EV chargers (link).

Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk (link). 'To visualize the practical application of this metric, we examined a freeway merge segment in California connecting Highway 101 and Highway 880. Historical data indicates this segment has an HBE rate approximately 70 times higher than the average California freeway, and averaging a crash every six weeks for a decade.'

John Deere Announces its 2026 Startup Collaborators, including AI foundation model startup TorqueAGI (link).

Waymo reportedly considering $2.5 billion agreement to buy 50,000 Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis by 2028 (link).

The Trump administration is killing auto stop/start (link).

Drivers over the age of 70 will have to have their vision checked every 3 years, under plans to reform driving laws in Britain (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Ford's patent application shows manual shifting gear for EVs (link).

Statistics / Projections:

Manhattan's new congestion tolling has spread its benefits to neighboring towns as well (link). Via NBER / Bloomberg. 'But drivers who never ventured into the toll zone also saved time: As a group, this cohort, including those traveling within Bergen County or from the Bronx to Brooklyn, racked up savings exceeding 461,000 hours per week. An average journey became just eight seconds faster, but because there were over 100 times more of them than Manhattan-bound trips, their aggregated savings were more than five times greater.'

The US added more than 18,000 new fast-charging ports in 2025, amounting to a 30% increase from the previous year (link). Via AP / Paren.

Global EV registrations fell 3% in January 2026 (link). Via Techinasia / Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI).

In 1983, roughly half of US 16-year-olds had a driver's license, but that number fell to 25% in 2022 (link). Via Business Insider / Federal Highway Administration.

Thank you:

Thank you to Axel Dickson (link), Kersten Heineke (link) and Mike Kim (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

BasiGo (link), Skyryse (link), TorqueAGI (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men (Roald Dahl),

Reilly Brennan