Trucks | FoT: Gatik, Telo, Futurail

Trucks | Future of Transportation for 2025.09.29
FoT is the intelligence arm of Trucks Venture Capital 

Notable:

Robotocist Rodney Brooks on humanoid robots and their struggles with dexterity: 'we are more than ten years away from the first profitable deployment of humanoid robots even with minimal dexterity' (link).

Is Waymo headed toward an end-to-end AI approach? (link). One of the corniest arguments in AV is that 'Tesla is end to end, Waymo is not,' delivered with a smug look while the speaker clutches his apple juice. Being ‘end to end’ today doesn't necessarily translate into real on-road performance. The parallel argument happening is ‘LIDAR vs camera only’ with similar certainty. Sensor primacy that merely confirms a belief is its own recklessness, and the same is true for AI frameworks.

On its 200th anniversary, the train shows its power and longevity (link). 'On September 27, 1825, a steam train crowded with excited passengers travelled 26 miles from Shildon via Darlington to Stockton in north-east England. It broke down on route, and one man fell off and had his foot crushed. But the journey is recognised as the birth of the railway age, which was to transform human mobility, business and social life around the globe.'

Tesla is urging drowsy drivers to use 'Full Self-Driving' ADAS system -- that could go very wrong (link).

California Gov Newsom says GM's Mary Barra 'sold us out' over loss of $7500 EV tax credit (link).

Why US cities pay too much for transit buses (link). 'Silverberg and her coauthors found that fully 70% of US bus procurements in 2024 were unique, meaning that there was no identical procurement anywhere in the country. (Customization seems to be increasing: 20 years ago, “just” 45% of bus procurements were unique.) With a median contract size of just five vehicles, bus operators cannot exploit economies of scale to lower production costs.'

Video: remote control cafe in Cebu, Philipines (link). Video: installing car door puddle lights on kitchen appliances (link). Video: Stratolaunch lift off (link). Video: an excavator driver with exceptional skills (link). Via JD. Video: aggressive bus driver would probably make a great NASCAR driver (link). Video: electrying scenes from the International License Plate Convention (link).

Marshall Pruett's obituary for Honda's Robert Clarke contains this wonderful line: 'Creation was at the core of Clarke’s life. Excellence was the byproduct’ (link).

M&A / Deals / Changes:

EV truck startup Telo raises $20M (link). Led by Telo co-founder Yves Béhar and Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning.

US Energy Department adds 'emissions' to its banned words list (link).

African ridehailing startup Enakl raises $1.4M (link). Led by Catalyst Fund.

Mercedes-Benz spins off chip team into new company named Athos Silicon (link).

Loblaw expands Gatik deal to 50 driverless trucks by 2026 (link).

Fram and Trico owner First Brands preps for Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing (link).

Ebike maker Cowboy reportedly getting acquired by ReBirth (link).

European automated train startup Futurail raises $7.5M (link). Led by Asterion Ventures and Leap435.

Board & Executive Changes:

Supernal: CEO Jaiwon Shin, CTO David McBride, Chief Strategy Officer Jaeyong Song and Chief Safety Officer Tracy Lamb depart (link).

Alaska Air: Jason Berry promoted to COO, succeeds Constance von Muehlen (link).

Curated Jobs:

Staff Software Engineer at Edge Case Research in Pittsburgh, PA USA (link).

Senior Machine Learning Researcher, Large Behavior Models & Diffusion Policy at Toyota Research Institute in Los Altos, CA USA (link).

Staff Infrastructure/DevOps Engineer at Gatik in Mountain View, CA USA (link).

Hiring? Post a job (link). If you're a startup, use code 'Trucks' for free standard listings.

Hunting? View all 485 postings on the MobilityJobs job board (link).

New Stuff:

China opens ‘Arctic Express’ shipping route to Europe (link). 'The vessel is expected to complete the journey in just 18 days, nearly 1/2 the time compared with traditional sea lanes.'

'Yamanotes' is a directory of train station departure melodies from the JR Yamanote Line (link).

Baidu wants driverless robotaxis in Dubai by first quarter 2026 (link).

Photographer Shahram Saadat's 'The Whale' is a series of portraits of people going through a car wash (link).

Copenhagen and Oslo airports forced to close over drone sightings (link).

Tesla’s robotaxi push is confusing regulators (link). 'The company hasn’t applied for any permits, yet continues to insist it’s operating a robotaxi service in California.'

Heavy trucks brought from outside the U.S. will be hit with a new 25% tariff (link).

Waymo launches B2B product for employee and event rides (link).

Patents & Patent Applications:

Tesla's patent application shows inflatable aero deflector for Cybertruck in tow mode (link).

Statistics / Projections:

China leads the world in industrial robot installations (link). Via Gizmodo. 'China leads the world in industrial robots, operating over two million and installing nearly 300,000 in 2024, representing 54% of global deployments.'

Chinese OEM BYD outsold Tesla in the European Union again in August (link). Via Sherwood / European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

The fastest selling cars in the US are used EVs (link). Via Bloomberg. 'In August, the average used electric vehicle traded hands for $34,700, nearly level with the average used car or truck running on gas, according to Cox Automotive. And the EVs were generally only 2 to 3 years old, while internal-combustion options average about 6 or 7 years old.'

Thank you:

Thank you to Josh Berg (link) and Philipp Willigmann (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). View the full portfolio of Trucks companies (link).

Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun, but Mama - that's where the fun is (Manfred Mann),

Reilly Brennan