Andrew J. Hawkins

The EV company, which just had a relatively good quarter, is apparently working on some interesting new projects. In an interview with Reuters, CEO RJ Scaringe said the company has “other variants” of the R2 that it hasn’t shown publicly, including a pickup truck version and a sportier R2X model. Rivian is also considering building its own lidar, perhaps in partnership with a Chinese company. The company is planning on adding lidar to the R2 later this year as part of a big shift into autonomous vehicles.

In an earnings call last month, Elon Musk was feeling bullish that Full Self-Driving (Supervised) would soon be authorized in the European Union, especially after the Level 2 automated system was approved for use in the Netherlands. But according to emails seen by Reuters, EU regulators are in no rush to give the green light. They have issues with FSD, including “the system’s tendency to speed, whether it is safe to use on icy ​roads and drivers’ ability to circumvent features designed to prevent cell-phone use.”

Several outlets are reporting that the demise of the ultra-low-cost carrier is imminent, after Spirit failed to secure a lifeline from the Trump administration. As our aviation correspondent Darryl Campbell reported last week, the loss of Spirit is likely to drive already soaring airfares even higher.

Emergency response officials from San Francisco and Austin met with regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a private meeting last month to clear the air about robotaxis, according to a recording obtained by Wired. Waymo vehicles are “freezing” in front of fire stations and committing more traffic violations, the officials said. Waymo declined to attend the meeting.