Good to be back!

This week I’ve learned that Sarah Barnes from the excellent newsletter Along for the Ride has hung up her gloves after 8 years of writing on autonomy. Her newsletter was a great read and an inspiration, and I’ll miss it. 

I am back from a long vacation and here to stay. You will see two changes moving forward: 

Enough intros, let’s start #movingpeople.

Tesla debuted the Cybercab in Austin on September 3rd - carrying paying passengers. The Cybercab has no steering wheel and no pedals, two seats, and runs on cameras only (nine cameras in total). The number of Cybercabs authorised for commercial robotaxi use in Texas is 45, bringing the total fleet in the city to roughly 160 vehicles. 

Right after the Cybercabs went on the road - the NHTSA opened an investigation into the use of the cars. The US regulatory system is a self-certification one, in which companies certify themselves based on a safety standards checklist; in Zoox’s case (also no steering wheel etc.) the NHTSA required additional approvals. This might be the case with Tesla, although the company could continue operating while under investigation. To be continued.  

Tesla is not wasting time - publishing a form for businesses interested in buying Cybercab fleets or providing infrastructure for its network. This is part of Musk’s long-term plan. 

My take: while Zoox beat Tesla to the world’s first no-steering-wheel commercial service, its scale is slower. Watch Tesla closely over the coming weeks - if the cars prove themselves from safety and operational perspectives, and NHTSA doesn’t block, Tesla is poised for huge growth.  

See Tesla’s Austin figures live:

And a video of a ride:

Uber is cutting 10% of its global workforce, circa 3,300 roles, in its largest layoff round since the pandemic. Dara Khosrowshahi explains that the move strips out management layers to make the company simpler and faster, with management and coordination roles taking the hit. 

My take: Uber is showing double-digit growth in Gross Bookings, Revenue and operational metrics (see chart below). The company is doing very well. In contrast, share price has been weak (chart below), mostly influenced by autonomy-related concerns, which are neither directly related to nor resolved by this reorganisation. Bottom line: this step is designed to reorganise the company for the future - a leaner, faster and more AI-resilient Uber. 

In London, Wayve and Uber launch the UK's first autonomous ride-hailing service, safety drivers included. For now, there are 15 autonomous cars in the city, with riders matched at random. Watch a BBC journalist taking a ride. 

Note that there are two regulatory routes to market: one that relies on the existing regulatory taxi (private-hire in the UK) framework, which will always require a safety driver. The other, a ‘full’ autonomous service, which is sought by Waymo and Baidu, is still waiting for regulatory guidance. The UK government aimed to launch a fully autonomous service this year (2026) but TfL and the DVSA have yet to release full guidance, and it seems such a service would be toward the end of the year in a best-case scenario, and sometime in 2027 in a realistic scenario. 

My take: both Wayve and Uber gain operating knowledge and position themselves for when fully autonomous services begin. From that perspective, this is a smart move. I just hope riders aren’t disappointed to share the vehicle with another human being. 

Also Uber shut down its operations in Nigeria (launched 2014) and Uganda (2016). This has to do with both worsening economic conditions (fuel prices and currency volatility) and increased competition, which have brought margins down. In Nigeria, Moove is allowing drivers to switch to Bolt and InDrive. 

Uber now maintains a limited presence in Africa. It exited Ivory Coast (September 2025) and Tanzania (January 2026) and is now present in only five markets: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and recently entered Morocco. Major players on the continent are InDrive, Yango and Bolt, along with local apps (SafeBoda, Faras). 

New ride-hailing competition in Latvia! Carguru, Latvia’s car-sharing company, is launching (pivoting?) ride-hailing operations, under the GURU brand. This had been in the works - back in February 2025 Vlad Reskājs, founder/CEO, published his intent to go head to head with Bolt in a public LinkedIn post, citing bad service as a result of minimal market competition. Fast forward 1.5 years later - and the service goes live. Good luck Vlad!

Waymo opens paid service in Denver, San Diego and Tampa, taking it to 14 US cities on a fleet of roughly 4,000 vehicles. Each city starts with dozens of cars and will work up to hundreds. 

Waymo goes to the debt market for the first time, raising more than $3 billion to fuel robotaxi fleet expansion. Until now, Waymo has funded itself through equity, most recently (Feb. 2026) raising $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation. My take: $3 billion buys you a lot of cars…

Zoox begins testing in Houston and San Diego, taking it to 12 US markets, using retrofitted vehicles with safety drivers for mapping first. Las Vegas is still the only place Zoox runs commercial services, and this week it added a route between the Strip and International Airport. 

Uklon, the Ukrainian ride-hailing platform, wants more than 30% of revenue from outside ride-hailing and more than 20% from outside Ukraine within five years. Uklon recently completed the acquisition of Ukrainian e-scooter rental operator e-Wings; and expanded operations in Uzbekistan. 

Avride crosses 100k rides and expands its service zone in Dallas. Gojek and ComfortDelGro partner to offer CDG’s supply to Gojek riders. DiDi launches R2 driverless service tests in China, using a GAC Aion vehicle:

Verne's Croatian robotaxi project formally ended on 31 August, and the €89.7M of EU funding behind it now goes under review. The company says it is ready to repay the money if the targets attached to it were not met. Verne originally planned to launch robotaxi services based on its own fleet using Mobileye technology; that didn’t hit the required timelines so the company pivoted to using Pony.ai and partnering with Uber. To be continued. 

Momenta posts H1/26 results, its first since the Hong Kong listing:

Separately, Momenta joins Baidu and Pony.ai in Shanghai's Pudong robotaxi testing, and tells investors it is moving to mass-produce Level 3 vehicles with automakers while exploring a subscription model for the software. 

CaoCao, the Geely-backed Chinese ride-hailing platform, cleared RMB 10bn of revenue in the first half:

Meet the people who make autonomy. 

The Autonomous Cities Summit 2027 will take place in London on March 18th, 2027. I’ve been part of it since it started, and intend to join next year as well. If you are joining, use my MOVINGPEOPLE10 discount code for 10% off when registering.

Swvl secures its first working capital facility in the UAE to fund the launch of new enterprise accounts. The company says UAE revenue has grown roughly fivefold since it relaunched in the market in December 2024, and it recently signed a five-year enterprise contract worth up to $5.5M. It follows a $14.5M strategic round in late August, aimed at US expansion. 

The Routing Company picked up new US public transit partnerships with Orange County and Mobility for All.

May Mobility and NTT Mobility to launch first public autonomous rides on a Toyota e-Palette. 

I’ve updated the 2026 event list - take a look:

Dutch car-sharing operator MyWheels has put Tesla's supervised Full Self-Driving into its shared fleet, starting with a single Model 3 and planning to scale to around 50 vehicles by the end of 2026. FSD is legal in the Netherlands, so renters could use ‘autonomous’ car-share. This is the first in Europe, and MyWheels intends to track how renters use FSD and what effect it has on damage claims. 

YouTaxi, a German car-share operating in a rural area, is allowing users to earn credits by charging, cleaning, relocating and delivering vehicles to other customers. The program helps cut operating costs.

PitchBook released its H1/26 Mobility Tech Report - key takeaways: 

💰 Deal value up 23% YoY to $32.1 billion - while deal count down to 218 from 250. Growth comes from a few massive late-stage deals.

🚗 Autonomous driving dominates: $20.8 billion, 64.8% of total deal value. 

💥 Waymo's $16 billion raise commands 50% of the total H1/26 deal value and 77% of the AV deal value.

🍔 Other late-stage and growth deals control the pipe: Shield AI $2B (drones), Saronic Technologies $1.75B (autonomous ships) and Wayve's $1.26B (autonomous driving) leave only 1.3% of the $32.1B to early stage deals

🐣 Pre-seed and Seed brought in 0.2% of the total deal value: only $59.6M - vs. $959M in 2021

🔫 Crossover with military is evident - Shield AI and Saronic are military first 

⚡ EV investment weakened due to China's EV dominance and US reduced policy support

For more.

Salzburg launched S-Bike, a publicly funded e-bike scheme, starting with 200 bikes across 65 locations, with plans to expand the fleet to 1,000 across 100 locations. Lime is the (white & black label) operator. 

Belgium introduces mandatory helmets for e-scooters travelling over 20 km/h.

Brazil's antitrust regulator Cade (Administrative Council for Economic Defense) rejected Keeta's appeal against the restaurant exclusivity clauses used by rival 99 Food, and then ordered a broader review of the whole food delivery sector. Also this week, iFood filed its own complaint against Keeta, telling the regulator that Keeta operates at a loss per order in Brazil and subsidises it with capital from its parent. 

My take: the food delivery business has been an active regulatory battlefield for the past year. Keeta launched in Brazil in October 2025, but made its first complaint against 99 in August 2025. iFood made its first complaint against Keeta in May 2026. The antitrust regulator has now decided to review the market as a whole, to be continued (at government pace). 

Separately, Keeta is reported to have reached positive unit economics in Saudi Arabia in July, 22 months after launching there, against 29 months in Hong Kong. Note that Keeta is roughly one year into its Brazil launch, so unit economics are probably at a loss. 

Italy strengthens food delivery workers’ rights. (a) Deliveroo's Italian arm has agreed to pay couriers 40% more, now €14 per hour, following a labour exploitation investigation. (b) Glovo, which has been under court administration since February and is still there, offered to do the same. But in Glovo’s case, prosecutors pushed back, saying couriers are not paid for 30% of their time and should be classified as employees, not self-employed. To be continued. 

In Spain, Glovo might face a fine for keeping couriers working in Barcelona through a red heat alert on 8 July, when temperatures reached 40C. 

In an unusual campaign, Careem is offering 20% cashback on food orders placed through rival delivery platforms. To redeem, customers must send screenshots of existing orders and share their details. That’s a great way to win new customers while getting market intelligence on your competitors’ pricing. 

Coco Robotics and Avride are each putting 10 robots into Hoboken, New Jersey, in a 12-month pilot program. Bots will be limited to 6 mph (±10 km/h). Uber Eats and Honda are paying motorcycle delivery riders in Japan for safer riding, scored through the Honda app. Keeta Drone resumed drone delivery in Dubai after clearing civil aviation approvals. Wonder cuts 7% of staff, circa 150 employees. Zomato is testing vending machines, branded Zomato Now, as a rapid food delivery format. 

Bot Auto, the Houston autonomous trucking company, committed to using only US-based remote assistants across its operations, positioning itself against competitors that offshore the role.

Oxa and the Dubai Future Foundation formed a joint venture, SHIFFT, to put autonomous vehicles into ports and airports.

Applied Intuition and HUMAIN, a Saudi public investment fund, announced a strategic collaboration to deploy thousands of autonomous trucks throughout key logistics corridors by 2030.

I love meeting new people and learning about innovation in mobility. Let’s get-to-know / catch up.

EHang flew its EH216-S pilotless two-seater in public in Hong Kong for the first time. Context: EHang withdrew its annual revenue target days earlier as regulators tightened after a fatal (not by E-Hang) crash. A flight demonstration and a scrapped revenue target in the same fortnight is the eVTOL sector in miniature.

Magna International, Canadian auto parts giant is investing another $35M in Yuma,  a battery-swapping network for electric two- and three-wheelers, increasing the auto supplier’s stake from 51%. 

British startup Tyred launched behaviour-based insurance for personal cyclists and shared fleets. Using IoT devices Tyred tracks how riders ride, park and maintain their bikes, and offers insurance accordingly. 

Regent raises $240M to scale Seaglider production. 

Andreas Reschka is the new Engineering Manager @ Applied Intuition. 

Cosimo Leipold is the new Chief Strategy Officer @ Serve Robotics. 

Eetu Pilli-Sihvola is the new Portfolio Lead, Mobility and Maritime @ VTT. 

Evgenia Matrosova is the new Chief Mobility Officer @ inDrive. 

Francesco Golia is the new Commercial Director EMEA & Asia @ Modaxo. 

Ian Clark is the new Director of Product Management @ Trapeze Group. 

Ignacio Escudero Romagosa is the new Ops Manager - BizOps EMEA @ Uber. 

Lance Underwood is the new Senior Director, Commercial Operations @ Aurora. 

Marc Rivers is the new Proposal Manager @ MV Transportation. 

Mike Liu Tianqi is the new Government Relations Manager @ HelloRide. 

Nima Dadash-Zadeh is the new Transport Planner @ Leeds City Council. 

Richard Jeremy is the new Head of Network, Services and Compliance @ West of England Mayoral Combined Authority. 

Sampo Hietanen is the new Board Member @ PayIQ. 

Seun Omotoso is the new Global Director, Operations @ Anda. 

Sophie Bonnecarrère is the new Director, Public Policy -  European Union @ Uber. 

Yale Wong is the new Senior Manager, Service Planning Metropolitan @ Transport for NSW. 

Congrats and good luck!

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