Everyone needs to get around. How we do it will change more over the next decade than it has in the last century. Legacy automakers, like Ford and GM, are scrambling to become technology-savvy companies, and the tech industry is trying to cash in on the change. New players, like Rivian and Tesla, are disrupting the industry and sometimes stumbling. We look at how self-driving hardware and software make the automobile better or, in some cases, deeply flawed. We cut through the hype and empty promises to tell you what’s really happening and what we think is coming. Verge Transportation cares about all moving machines and the place they have in the future.
The EV company started rolling out the functionality for its luxury SUV via an over-the-air software update on Wednesday. After the update, the Gravity will support phone mirroring wirelessly or through an USB hookup.
The ridehailing giant adds another robotaxi partner to its swelling stable of firms. Uber customers who indicate an openness for driverless could be matched with a Zoox robotaxi. The partnership will launch in Las Vegas this summer, followed by Los Angeles by mid-2027. Zoox will also continue to offer its service through its own app.
The attacks have led to thousands of flight cancellations, stranding travelers in Dubai and elsewhere.
They joined a new initiative called Utilize that aims to use strategies like battery storage and virtual power plants to make more use of the electrons already available to the grid. It’s a plan that’s supposed to make electricity more affordable as opposition grows to data centers blamed for higher utility bills.
The new Cayenne S Electric slots between the entry level Cayenne Electric and the high performance Turbo Electric, both of which were released late last year. The dual-motor S Electric will have an output of 536 horsepower, which jumps to 657 hp when using Launch Control. And it will start at $126,300 when it goes on sale this summer, as compared to $165,350 for the Turbo Electric. Giddyup.
The FAA just announced its picks for the Advanced Air Mobility and Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) Integration Pilot Program (eIPP). Out of over 30 applicants, eight projects were selected to serve as the blueprint for how these aircraft will eventually fit into daily lives. The key focus areas are: urban air taxis; regional connectivity; medical and cargo; and autonomous flight. But the clock is ticking. Under the program’s guidelines, we can expect to see the first test flights beginning as early as summer 2026.
The feature that allows women to adjust their settings to indicate a preference for a woman driver in all circumstances is coming to more cities, including New York, Philly, D.C., Atlanta, and Austin. Uber started piloting the feature in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Detroit in 2025 and is now expanding it after receiving positive feedback.
But not everyone is on board; one Uber driver called it “gender-based labor exploitation, not empowerment.”
The Amazon-owned company with the toaster-shaped robotaxis is now testing its vehicles in Phoenix and Dallas. Zoox will start manually mapping with its retro-fitted Toyota SUVs before leveling up to fully autonomous testing with its purpose-built vehicles.
The company is also actively testing with passengers in California, though it has yet to receive a permit for a fully public, paid commercial robotaxi service in the state.
Plug-in hybrid owners rarely actually plug in their vehicles, practically negating the climate advantages of the technology.
Chevy’s hybrid sports car is a sweet deal compared to its Chinese, Italian, and German competitors. And its performance specs underscore the inevitability of electric propulsion.
The company trying to become a “leading vertically integrated electric mobility platform in North America” says it will “support Rad riders through post-closing customer programs, including honoring certain warranties and gift cards.” It also plans to transition production of Rad Power-branded e-bikes to the US using components sourced globally.
[Life EV press release]
That is, the fastest EV product launch in US history. TechCrunch’s Sean O’Kane (who’s also a Verge alum) outlines how Rivian is staking its future on the launch of the more affordable R2 mid-sized SUV, predicting it will sell 20,000-25,000 by the end of this year.
If it succeeds, it will pull off something that only Tesla has done with the Model Y — and in a much more challenging environment. Rivian is expected to announce the R2’s price (previously estimated to start at $45,000) at SXSW next week.
Glenn Mercer of Car Charts has a new chart that shows EV sales ticking up slightly in the US, after all the chaos around the expiration of the tax credit has settled. We’re basically back to where we were around 2022-2023, with EVs capturing around 5-6 percent of total sales. So where are things headed? According to Mercer:
As the saying goes, we will eventually “solve for the equilibrium.” Which might in the near term be something like diesel-powered duallies on the ranches, gas-burning pickups in the ruburbs (rural suburbs), BEV runabouts in most urban areas, and PHEVs and HEVs in the closer-in suburbs. Not to mention a diverse zoo of person- and cargo-carrying e-bikes and scooters everywhere.
That’s Ford CEO Jim Farley to Car and Driver about the F-150 Lightning. The automaker recently discontinued the electric truck, after announcing a massive $19.5 billion write-down on its EV operations. “I mean, look, we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Farley adds, admitting that Ford’s gas-engine “prejudice was so high that we hadn’t designed the [electric] cars right.” Now the company is betting that it can right-size its business with smaller, more aerodynamic EVs.
They even had to blur out the Ford logo in a couple of shots in this video. The best part of the press release is when Caterpillar says it was inspired by a deluge of AI slop in response to rumors that it was building its own pickup truck (it’s not; according to The Autopian, this is just a one-off).
AI-generated images of a Cat pickup were getting everyone excited. You couldn’t look away, and we couldn’t either. Thousands of inquiries flooded in from customers, contractors, and equipment owners with one simple question: “What would a Cat Truck really be like?”
You see, kids? Sometimes slop is good!
You may never be able to drive the Vision GT concept — except when it arrives in Gran Turismo 7 — and there’s nothing to prove the model at Xiaomi’s MWC booth is even a functioning EV. But hey, you can’t say it doesn’t look the part.
The Vision GT was designed to split the difference between performance on straights and corners, with a chassis that was “sculpted by the wind.” Apparently it’ll be on display at the MWC show floor, where hopefully I’ll get a better look at it.
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Verge Score
The sturdy CGO compact rides big and tucks away small.
Despite Elon Musk’s public statements that Tesla was close to getting “regulatory permission” to launch a robotaxi service in the Bay Area, the company has yet to apply for any of the required permits, Reuters reports. It also logged zero miles of autonomous test driving on California roads. Seems like a strange position for a company staking its future on robots and self-driving cars.
The ridehail company is working with Irish drone company Manna to launch a commercial drone delivery service on the Emerald Island. This is Uber’s first drone delivery deployment in Europe, although the two companies say they plan on bringing their service to more cities in the future. Uber also oversees drone delivery in Dallas, Texas, with Flytrex, while Manna used to deliver Samsung electronics via drone in its home market.
The robotaxi company has yet to obtain permits for driverless commercial operations in either city, but it typically deploys manually driven vehicles to gather mapping data while its applications move through the bureaucracy in the background. The news comes after Waymo announced the commencement of driverless operations in four new cities in Texas and Florida earlier this week, bringing its total robotaxi markets in the US to 10.
[Waymo]
Joby Aviation, the company that acquired Uber’s own air taxi business in 2020, says it will launch its first commercial service in Dubai later this year. To build anticipation, Uber is adding Joby’s air taxis to its app so customers can get a sense of what it will be like when the service eventually launches.
A year ago James Bruton demonstrated a custom self-balancing bike that rolled around on a pair of big red inflatable balls. For 2026 he’s both simplified the bike by reducing it to just a single ball, while also further complicating the build by creating his own custom omni-wheels for more precision and control.
The robotaxi company said today that it will start accepting its first public riders in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. First up will be customers from those four cities who have downloaded the Waymo app; other customers will be added on a rolling basis, the company said. That brings Waymo’s total number of markets to 10, which is double from where it was a couple of months ago.
On Monday afternoon, Uber announced it’s buying the parking spot reservation app for an undisclosed amount, saying it plans to add parking benefits to Uber One and build in-app reservation into its main app, bringing car owners into Uber’s ecosystem.
The two also note the potential for fleet services (like parking robotaxis?), and vehicle charging.
The Italian automaker cancelled the Lanzador, which was supposed to be its first crack at a pure battery-electric supercar, to focus instead on plug-in hybrids. Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winklemann told the Sunday Times that the “acceptance curve” for EVs among the company’s target demographic was “close to zero”. Yipes!
[The Sunday Times]
The parent company of Jeep and Dodge just took a $26.5 billion hit on its EV investment. But its problems run much deeper than that.
The EV company says the staff cuts are intended to “improve operational effectiveness and optimize our resources,” TechCrunch reports. An internal memo added that the company is still focused on “further expansion into the robotaxi market,” following the launch of a robotaxi collaboration with Nuro and Uber last year.
