Trucks | Future of Transportation for 2026.11.02
FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital

Notable

GM to pay $220 million to settle allegations it violated drivers' privacy (link). 'GM was accused of pitching Smart Driver to help ​people improve their personal driving safety, only to violate drivers' privacy by reneging on its ​promise not to sell their data without permission. Many people who signed up were also enrolled in GM's OnStar safety, navigation and diagnostic service....In January 2025, ⁠GM agreed ​with the US Federal Trade Commission not to disclose ​vehicle geolocation and driver behavior data to consumer reporting agencies for five years.'

Toyota's partnership with Waymo takes more shape as Toyota bZ4x vehicles will enter fleet service in UK and Japan (link). The big line was somewhat hidden in the release, near the end: 'Toyota and Waymo will continue to explore the future of autonomous driving technology for personally owned Toyota vehicles.' Is this more of a Toyota story or a Waymo story? Yes.

New data from my colleague Puneeth Meruva at Trucks on a new milestone: more AV startups were created so far in 2026 than any other time (link). 'We’ve seen 81 new autonomous vehicle startups so far in 2026, which is more than any full year since we founded Trucks Venture Capital in 2015.' Techcrunch coverage (link).

London mayor calls for robotaxi cap (link). 'Drivers’ unions have held protests at the London HQs of Wayve and Waymo in recent weeks.' The highest-paying job in the entire AV industry (salary-wise) is from UK's Wayve at $625k USD, but perhaps this should come as no surprise that the job won't be located in London (it's in Sunnyvale; link).

Spoofing GPS to steal precious highway cargo (link). Via Weans. 'First, thieves hack freight brokers’ accounts on shipment-listing websites and post fake shipments to lure real bids, then send a malicious link to any trucking companies that respond. Once victims click, thieves install software to take control of their accounts and start bidding on real shipments.'

Small-town Adrian Steel 'should have gone out of business long ago' (link). Another tidbit that served as grist for Dunne's new upcoming book, Car Wars (link).

Details emerge on China's new 10-fan EV airplane, the Comac CE-25A (link).

On Harley-Davidson's LiveWire group: a sale or breakup in the works? Going concern notice given in filing (link) CEO gone, restructuring committee formed to stop losses.

Trek CEO on the company's 50-year history (link). On regrets during the Covid boom times for bikes: 'We made a lot of great decisions, but we definitely were too aggressive on the inventory side. If you take a look at all the orders we had from retailers around the world, we took those and cut them in half, and we should have cut them by 75%. It was just too aggressive, and when you have too much inventory, bad things happen. We’ve worked our way through that. The lesson was: don’t look at your retailer’s orders; look at what’s actually selling through retail.'

Video: 20 seconds of touchscreen madness to change an air vent in a new Audi (link). Video: F-18 Hornets flying over the Swiss alps, upside down (link). Via Carl H. Video: James May drives the Slate pickup (link). Video: dressing up as confused AVs for Halloween (link). Via RF. Video: the slo-motion heap at the end of a NASCAR race (link).

A new exhibit at the Vatican celebrating 100 years of Popemobiles (link). Via Nick D.

M&A / Deals / Changes:

Construction vehicle AV startup Bedrock raises $600M (link). Led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital.

Re:Build, which at various times has been seen as either Slate's parent company or a spin-out of it, raises $2.1B (link). Led by General Catalyst and JPMorganChase’s Strategic Investment Group.

Doordash to acquire Instacart for $17B (link).

Board & Executive Changes:

Elroy Air: Jeremy Hux named CFO (link).

General Motors: Chris Hatto retires as Global Business Solutions & Chief Accounting Officer (link).

LiveWire: CEO Karim Donnez resigns as CEO; Roy Gallagher named Chief Restructuring Officer; David Barse and Scott Nash join board (link).

Harley-Davidson: Anthony Fassino, Bryan Slone join board (link).

Goodyear Tire & Rubber: Jerome Rouquet named CFO (link).

Rivian Automotive: Derek Mulvey promoted to interim CFO (link).

Garrett Motion: Steven Tesoriere resigns from board (link).

Verra Mobility: Matthew Kvarda named interim CFO (link).

AutoZone: Jamere Jackson resigns as CFO (link).

Curated Jobs:

View over new 1351 active job listings from companies, including Lime (link) and Manna (link).

Staff Electrical Engineer at Gatik in Santa Clara, CA USA (link).

Senior Software Engineer, Autonomy Actions Sustaining at Motional in Singapore (link).

New Stuff:

'Persistent camouflage' via an always-on flying carpet above a vehicle (link). 'provides persistent cover over the asset for thermal infrared and synthetic aperture radar signature management.'

What if you took The Worst Way? (link). 'Enter an origin and a destination, and we’ll tell you the longest, stupidest, most asinine way to get there.' Via Josh G.

Dennis Dillon sues his son for use of name on dealership group in Boise area (link).

Edge Case Completes Independent Safety Assessment of May Mobility’s Safety Case Framework (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Waymo's patent application shows how an update to the system means minor sensor glitches won't cause hard braking (link).

Statistics / Projections:

Nearly 14% of California households have one or more hybrids or EVs (link). Via Sacramento Bee.

Used EV sales are growing: increased 12.3% month over month and 21.2% year over year in September to an estimated 47,862 units (link). Via Cox Automotive. 'Used EV share rose to a record 3.3% of total used-vehicle sales, up from 2.9% in August, as ICE+ sales declined 4.4%.'

Automotive advertising will drop below 10% of annual U.S. ad spending for the first time this year; ten years ago it accounted for 13% (link). Via WSJ / Guideline.

Thank you:

Thank you to Carl Heffernan, Aaron Nathan (link) and Lior Ron (link) for offers of introductions to new founders, investors and friends over the last week.

Trucks portfolio companies mentioned in this issue:

Edge Case Research (link), Gatik (link), May Mobility (link), Motional (link). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

Everything starts from a dot (Kandinsky),

Reilly Brennan