Trucks | Future of Transportation for 2026.10.19
FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital

Notable

Tesla's unveiled its Roadster, or more accurately a range of four Roadsters with capabilities ranging from incredibly fast to downward-sucking to airborne (link, link to video walkthrough). I always wanted a return to spectacular concept car demos, more a frilled lace Vegas magic show than a platform of rotating carpet, and here we have it. Will anyone be able to drive the most radical of these on the road, with gas thrusters that kickflip the car into the air? Tesla stated on its website that the range topping 'rocket' spec isn't street legal, but in private closed courses I can imagine the Tesla extremists will be happy for the privilege. The other variants of this car (which use fans and a ground-sealing system) will translate into new track records due to much higher cornering speeds. The non-flying roadsters will likely be the fastest cars you will see on public roads by the end of the decade. The flying roadsters will be the most useful Rorschach test for Tesla lovers and haters to force you into declaring your fealty (in either direction).

Inside Uber's Africa pull-back (link). 'In Uber’s case, despite Nigeria’s population of 238 million, the number of people who could actually afford its prices was too small to sustain the business.'

Woman arrested after blocking delivery robot in Philadelphia confrontation (link). 'I know they're taking the jobs of human delivery workers and so, I have been protesting them whenever I saw them by standing in front of them and preventing them from going forward.'

Researchers found that Bench2Drive — the dominant closed-loop benchmark for evaluating end-to-end AI driving on the open-source CARLA simulator — contains flaws that can make underperforming models appear artificially competitive on published leaderboards (link, link to current leaderboard).

Aviation fuel supply tightening: Lufthansa tells jets to carry extra fuel when landing at Frankfurt (link).

Trucking giant Werner on its AV partnerships: not economic yet (link). "'We believe that the economics are not favorable to autonomous right now,' Wikoff said, though he did not elaborate. The model Werner described points to part of the challenge: as long as runs require a safety driver and an onboard engineer, carriers are paying for expensive autonomy hardware and software without capturing the labor savings that drive much of the investment case."

Tesla driver says he was asleep and using FSD when he crashed into highway patrol cars (link). If FSD requires the driver's attention, why doesn’t FSD shut off if the driver isn't paying attention? I can think of two injured officers who'd want that.

Valeo CEO urges EU to set 75% local content bar (above 70% threshold in current proposal), warns 150 factories at risk (link). Perillat: ‘Two years ago, even though all the players in the industry understood the need for a document like the IAA, just saying the words ‘local content’ was a taboo. Now we have a proposal, and we’re debating what should be in it.’

AV startup Bot Auto says its new autonomy kit will cost just $50k above the price of a new truck (link). If these figures are true, this would be a lower 'kit' cost than even what we have seen analysts predicet from Waymo and a multiple lower than what has been reported at other AV trucking startups.

Video: walkthrough of Porsche's new Mission S concept with designer Tobias Sühlmann (link). Huh: no screens. Video: London's Tube map maker Harry Beck was paid almost nothing for his legendary designs (link). Video: James May bought a Series 3 Land Rover 'and he hates it' (link).

'San Francisco created a car-free oasis by the sea and it’s driving locals mad' (link).

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Mobility data firm Inrix acquired by Allstate's Arity group (link).

Penske Automotive Group to Be Taken Private by Penske, Mitsui in $16.3B deal (link).

Indian auto parts platform startup Autobia raises $12M (link). Led by Artal.

French hydrogen airship startup Hylight raises $14.5M (link). Led by Rubio Impact Ventures.

Scottish holographic glass firm Ceres acquired by German optical giant Zeiss (link).

Aerospace startup Blue Origin plans $330M expansion in Florida for weekly launches by end of decade (link).

Chinese chip startup Xheart raises $700M with funding from Renault (link).

Colorado sodium ion battery startup Mana raises $10M (link). Led by Voyager Ventures.

Board & Executive Changes:

Mind Robotics: Doug Field named President (link).

AutoNation: Mark Stewart joins board (link).

Tesla: Mark Snyder resigns as head of charging and energy; AJ Booth to replace him (link).

Verra Mobility: Craig Conti resigns as CFO (link).

Uber: AV leader Sarfraz Maredia to depart (link).

CSX: Michael Cory retires as COO (link).

Dauch: Nathan Iles named CFO; Christopher May to transition to Chief Administrative role (link).

Curated Jobs:

View over new 1351 active job listings from companies, including Stack AV (link) and Veo (link).

Senior Stress Analyst at Skyryse in El Segundo, CA (link).

Sales Director - West at Aperia Technologies, remote (link).

New Stuff:

Waymo's Canadian expansion set for 2028 in Toronto area (link).

'Hostile Vehicle Mitigation' is a contemporary term that describes engineering, architecture, and safety barriers to stop terrorist vehicles from breaching pedestrian zones (link). 'The design of these various vehicle security barriers and landscape treatments came about as security authorities across the globe sought to mitigate the effects of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) and vehicle-ramming attacks.'

Nearly 12,000 California residents bought EVs using state rebate program (link). Via Reuters. 'The program for California residents buying their first ​EV, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in July, offers $3,500 rebates on ​new EVs with retail prices of up to $50,000 and a $1,750 rebate for ⁠used EVs costing no more than $25,000.'

Lyft's new chauffeur service is named Alcove, building on the TBR business it acquired in 2025 (link).

Green SM, a ride-hailing service based in Vietnam, launched a fleet of 500 VinFast VF8 EVs in Los Angeles (link).

Researchers develop an autonomous control system using drifting techniques learned through racing (link). On a physical 1:10-scale car, it recovered from the hardest tested condition in 15 of 30 attempts, while the baseline failed all 30. 'We address these gaps by first training a racing policy with reinforcement learning that learns drifting as a time-optimal maneuver, then adapting it to recovery through continued training with a minimum-time reward.' Any mention of drifting science for safety must include a mention of Marty, the autonomously drifting De Lorean race car developed at Stanford by Gerdes, Goh and team (link).

US NHTSA to rewrite rules to address vehicle headlight glare (link). 'Headlight glare contributes to far fewer crashes than insufficient visibility. From 2015 to 2023, headlight glare was cited as a factor in only one or two out of every 1,000 nighttime crashes across 11 ​US states, the study ​shows.'

Patents & Patent Applications:

Zoox's patent for its handheld vehicle controller (link).

Ford's patent application shows how the vehicle can capture an image of an upcoming restaurant from a billboard, then display its menu and reservation booking from the infotainment screen (link).

GM's patent shows vehicle interior cleaning robot (link).

Statistics / Projections:

Plug-in hybrids, now 1% of US auto sales, are expected to increase by 4x in the coming decade (link). Via Bloomberg / Mobility Global.

The highest-earning 20% of US households accounted for a record 55% of total new vehicle spending in 2024, up from 42% in 2019 (link). Via CAR Group. 'The market has shifted to cater to these wealthier consumers, even as lower-priced models remain available but under-purchased (sub-$25,000 vehicles accounted for less than 2% of sales in 2025).'

Global EV sales fell 2% in September, ending a 6-month growth streak (link). Via Reuters / Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Thank you:

Thank you to Anoop Choong (link) and Chris McNally (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Aperia Technologies (link), Skyryse (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

'To remember everything is a form of madness' (Brian Friel)

Reilly Brennan