TechCrunch Mobility: Google’s Gemini is coming to your car, chaos comes for Luminar, and the Amazonification of Uber 2.0

Welcome to Techcrunch Mobility – Your central axis of news and visions about the future of transportation. Subscribe here for free – just click Techcrunch Mobility!
Well, who put their bet on General Motors Being the place of landing to Aurora Participant founder and head of the product Sterling Anderson? Not me. But here we are. A few days after Anderson announced his resignation from his position and the Board of Directors in Aurora, he talked to me about his next disturbance as head of the products at General Motors. In short, it will supervise the entire production line for gas and electricity-run cars in General Motors-a place that covers the entire General Motors portfolio of life and includes devices, programs, services and user experience.
Anderson could not say much; In addition, the mission has not started yet. Anderson said he would not take the new job if Aurora is not launched after the Truck Service in Texas.
Let’s jump to the rest of the news.
birdie
At a large turn of events, Luminarfounder Austin Russell It appears to have been pushed as CEO and Chairman. You can read my coverage here, which provides a little overview of how to reveal this, but I know there is a lot for this story. TL; DR: If you just want to read the Luminar Q1 profit report, you will assume that Russell is still on top. A separate press release, issued with the emergence of the company’s profits, announced a leadership change and that a messenger resigned after achieving ethics from the audit committee of the Board of Directors.
Here is what I hear from some small birds. The word “ravage” appeared more than once, and the chaos was not over. Member of the Board of Directors Luminar John Hong HingHe is the founder and chief investment official of the Crescent Cove Adviss and the teacher of Russell, resigned a day later. Hung was also in the audit committee.
Do you have advice to us? Email Kirsten Korosec in Kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com Or my signal in Kkorosec.07, Sean Okan on sean.okane@techcrunch.com or Rebecca Billan in Ribecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or achieve These instructions To learn how to contact us via encryptive correspondence applications or secretrop.
Deals!

Aurora He had a few strange weeks full of a woohoo driver without driver! -And transformations-is, there is a co-founder. To create, Uber announced plans to make $ 1 billion of exchange notes due in 2028 in a special position. As you may expect, the shares decreased after investors were exposed to potential mitigation and what this might mean to the value of Aurora shares.
Other deals caught my attention …
ChefThe latest start starting from Up.labs-Phcha Partnership, raised $ 5 million of seed money. Santa Monica, in California, which designs the application programming interface to allow agents and service stores to communicate in actual time with manufacturers and software sellers working to operate their operations, quietly for nine months.
The Chinese battery manufacturer Cattle Far from startup. But it should be noted that this banana public subscription plan. The company wants to raise at least $ 31.01 billion, Hong Kong – this is only shy of $ 4 billion – in the Hong Kong list. This is the largest list in the world in 2025.
Here is possible The deal that sparked some eyebrows. Federal rail conversations are with Elon Musk‘s Tunnels Company, Boring companyMore than billions of dollars in a project.
Shipping flockTruckload Freight Brokerage, based in California, has raised $ 60 million in the E’Neil Strategic Capital series. Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, SignalFire, GLP Capital Partners and Bracket Capital.
Promise readings and other tales

Independent vehicles
TimingA plan to launch a roboti service in Austin next month caught the attention of federal safety investigators. The Bureau of Investigation of the National Traffic Safety Administration on the Highway on the company sent a detailed list of questions about the upcoming Robotaxi service as part of the investigation of how the “full (subject to supervision)” company works in low -definition conditions.
The summons began to appear more in the AV sector. It was last week Zoo. now And emo She released a program to summon a program on 1,200 self -driving cars after some robots participated in simple collisions with gates, chains and other gate -like things.
Fire It seems that he is trying to descend in Guangzhou. The Chinese company said it had provided eight methods of operating independent robotics robotics in the central part of the city. The company also started trying a fully driver -driver robots in Abu Dhabi.
Electric cars, shipping and batteries
General Motors It works on a new battery chemistry called lithium rich in manganese, which says it must reduce the costs while offering the scope of driving. It is worth noting that these LMR batteries significantly reduce the amount of nickel and cobalt compared to the most advanced cells in General Motors, and they are decisive minerals that are not easily available from local sources in the United States.
Footnote clearThe last organizational deposit provides in the first quarter an insight into its sales numbers. A quarter of the EV Maker’s record got an elevator of rental sales and rental contracts for the company.
Car list More than 100,000 reservations for a low -cost electric -expensive electric -up -up truck.
Everyone, let’s give a slow applause to Toyota To redesign-and most importantly, rename-its only electrical car for the United States market. EV, once called BZ4X, will now simply BZ. The original BZ4X is not received. I am looking to go behind the steering wheel to know the improvements made by Toyota. Meanwhile, Toyota restored the C-HR, but this time as EV. We hope this time is more successful. He arrives in the United States in 2026.
An annoyed economy
Three years ago, the reporter Rebecca Billan noticed this Uber It was passing through the Amazon. Its stadium was that the company is like AmazonI created a closed workshop to feed customers again on other Uber channels. The second part of this development started, according to this week. Uber seems to exceed its concentration on transportation and work to become a comfortable, comfortable application, a sum of services, and the daily use pattern platform with its best offers behind Paywall.
The future of the trip
American lawmakers submitted the fastest flying law in an attempt to review the 52 -year -old ban on the fastest flying on American soil. The timing can be decisive to start operating Boom SupronicWho made progress in developing a plane of the next generation of the fastest sound
Vertical space A plan to develop a VX4 electric variable has announced, indicating that the company is following opportunities in defense and logistics.
Car technology
appleThe next generation of its famous information and entertainment programs is finally launched. Reminder: It was announced for the first time three years ago. The new version, called CarPlay Ultra, will appear for the first time on a new time Aston Martin Vehicles in the United States and Canada.
Google GEINI brings the Importary IQ to all cars that support Android Auto in the next few months. Patrick Brady, Vice president of Android Motors, said that Gemini will appear in the experience of Android Auto in two main ways.
Don’t miss more hot News like this! Click here to discover the latest in Technology news!
2025-05-16 18:06:00