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Top Story: Uber Partners With Hertz for Autonomous Fleet Management
This story opens the news for the meaning it carries for (a) Hertz and the entire rental industry, (b) Uber and (c) Lucid.
For Hertz, and any rental company, managing autonomous fleets is an excellent fit and a future opportunity. Fleet operations are already rental companies’ core competency: charging, maintenance, repairs, cleaning and depot operations are all performed today. This specific partnership will be delivered via Oro Mobility, a Hertz subsidiary, which is already active in the ride-hailing industry, leasing vehicles to Uber drivers and operating ride-hailing fleets with hourly employed drivers on the Uber platform.
The autonomous opportunity is relevant for Hertz - and for any other rental company - Enterprise & Avis to name a few (Avis already working with Waymo in Dallas). While rental companies are an excellent fit for managing autonomous fleets, they have mostly been quiet so far. Maybe this will change now.
For Uber, this is another building block in its AV strategy; by partnering with Hertz it gets access to large distributed networks across both major cities and smaller markets, globally. This scale cannot be achieved with Moove / Avomo.
This deal is currently designed for Lucid-Nuro vehicles, representing a 35,000 vehicle opportunity. Lucid will enjoy working with a dedicated aftermarket partner and gets its cars in front of Hertz (which keeps on buying ‘normal’ vehicles).
Win-win-win.
Ride-Hailing & Robotaxi 🚙🚕
Uber held its annual “GO-GET” global product event, announcing a slew of new features, all designed with the “one app for everything – helping you go, get, and now travel” in mind. Key takeaway - Uber is expanding beyond rides and delivery into travel, on-route to super-app. Main features include:
Hotels: by partnering with Expedia, Uber not only allows booking via the app, but also adds hotel bookings into the Uber One subscription scheme, allowing for up to 20% discounts and 10% in credits. Later this year, Uber will launch home rentals through Vrbo (an Expedia brand).
Travel: your personal travel concierge. Local recommendations on tourist destinations; restaurant booking via OpenTable; “room service” (deliveries) for any travel essentials and additional functions to manage travel experience.
Eats for the Way: fancy a coffee and a bite? The new feature allows you to book those to the car, for Uber Black bookings. The driver will pick it up on the way.
Shop for Me: request items from any store, and Uber will make it happen.
See the GO-Get page and Dara’s blog post for more new features and plans.
Uber acquires Hong Kong e-hail taxi platform FlyTaxi. This isn’t Uber’s first acquisition in the market - in 2021 it acquired HKTaxi, a competing solution, integrated it into the Uber platform, and shut it down in 2025. The result of that acquisition was the growth of FlyTaxi, founded 2013. Now FlyTaxi is also being acquired. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Uber launches Uber Moto in Basel, Switzerland. This is the first European city to experience the two-wheeler ride service. 50 electric motorcycles will be deployed in the city, allowing a 30% cheaper product than the car-based solution.
Zoox to deploy its robotaxi in Miami. The company has been testing (using Toyota SUVs) in the city since mid-2024. Zoox is currently available in Las Vegas and San Francisco (commercial operations) and has recently deployed in Austin. In Vegas, the company started testing airport rides, with employees as riders.
In early April Baidu experienced a system failure, which caused over 100 vehicles in Wuhan to suddenly freeze on the spot. Now China is suspending issuing of new autonomous vehicle licences, to be resumed pending government review of the incident. Baidu has yet to publicly comment on the incident. Note: this does not affect existing Baidu robotaxi operations in Wuhan.
Tesla shows its Cybercab drive off the production line.
Full Self-Driving (Supervised) has now traveled over 10 billion miles, and counting.
Vay grows Las-Vegas fleet to 175 vehicles, expands remote driving serving area, partners with hospitality staffing platform Goodwrx for ride-discounts, and announces over 60,000 Vegas rides to date.
Grab awarded the first-ever cross-border ride-hail service operator licence, connecting Singapore and Malaysia. That border sees 450,000 crossings per day.
Lyft’s Baidu vehicles arrived in London.
Autonomous vehicles could pose a threat to the airline industry (and also to existing road infrastructure and the desire to limit the personal car).
Waymo begins manually driving in Portland, ahead of an expected robotaxi launch, probably later this year. Waymo can’t park at destination. Waymo drives away with luggage.
Geely introduces its purpose built robotaxi, expected to scale via the CaoCao network.
California adopts new AV regulation, to go into effect July 1st, which includes:
Issuing tickets to an autonomous vehicle
Submission of a “First Responder Interaction Plan” to the DMV and posting it online; plan details how law enforcement interact with the vehicle and where vehicle documents can be found
Allow first responders access to manual vehicle override systems and establish two-way communication links with 30-second response times
Allow emergency services to issue geofencing zones which force AVs to leave the area within two minutes
Remote driving licensing requirements
The new regulations also allow heavy-duty vehicles to test and eventually deploy on public roads, opening the door to the likes of Kodiak, Gatik etc.
Portugal approved a decree-law allowing testing of driverless vehicles on its roads. Full legislation TBC.
eCabs, taxi dispatch platform, expands to Bulgaria in partnership with Volt Premium Taxi. Bulgaria does not have any large ride-hailing players active in the county; that is likely to change this year, and Volt adoption of new technology signals willingness to lead the market.
Robotaxi economics:
Data from Morgan Stanley Research shows that robotaxis are much cheaper to operate than rideshare vehicles, even after factoring in depreciation, cleaning, maintenance, charging, mobile operators, insurance, and parking. Waymo at $1.36 per mile, Tesla at $0.74, while ride-hailing at $1.71.
Yes, but: in human driven operations, these costs are transparent to ride-hailing companies, taken care by the driver; when switching to autonomous, those are felt.
Data from Obi shows that while Uber & Lyft prices dropped Q1/26 vs. Q4/25, Waymo and Tesla increased costs, with Waymo the most expensive ride-hailing option and Tesla the cheapest.
Because: pricing isn’t necessarily directly connected to costs. Waymo is testing willingness-to-pay (WTP) models; Tesla wants to push the sentiment that autonomous vehicles are much cheaper.
#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business - a consultancy focused on Innovation, Growth and Autonomy in the Mobility industry.
Autonomous Shuttles, DRT & Bus-Based Mobility 🚍🚌
MAN and ADASTEC partner on autonomous buses. The first bus to pilot in Munich in the autumn of 2026, operating with a closed user group and a safety driver. Note: ADASTEC replaced Mobileye.
The RABus project comes to a close with the publication of the final report. A EU funded project, it ran from 2020 to 2025. “In total, more than 430 test drives were carried out, more than 1,600 people were transported and around 2,100 kilometres were covered in automated mode. Speeds of up to 53 km/h were reached”. An hour for Waymo; probably even less than that
Shotl integrates into LINE
RideCo is fumbling paratransit in Las Vegas; a month since launch, the app is not yet delivering stable operations.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
Forest (previously known as Human Forest) raises £27M, bringing the total raised to £40M. Forest, operating in London, supports 2 million shared-bikes rides per month and has 1.5 million users. Funds will be used to grow. OKAI, e-bike manufacturer, participated in the round.
Voi Q1/26 financial report (last week I analysed FY25 report):
Bottom line - Voi is growing, but has yet to achieve long term profitability.
Also Voi with a threat to leave the UK if legislation won’t be introduced by the time existing trial extension is due - May 2028. The UK has been slow to formally adopt micromobility, with Dott already leaving London back in 2024. Read more here.
Arturs Burnins looks at the Belgium shared mobility report:
🚲 21,721 shared bicycles | 1.45 rides per day
🛴 18,764 shared scooters | 1.93 rides per day for the free floating fleet
🚗 8,976 shared cars | Free-floating cars: 2h15 average rental while A-to-A (round-trip) cars: 8.4h average rental
Stephen Bee looks at the London e-bike delivery market.
Delivery - bikes to cars, bots & drones 🍽🧺
Starship reaches 10 million deliveries. Starship is active in over 300 locations in 8 countries, operating over 3,000 delivery bots.
Delivery Hero Q1/26 financial report - key takeaways:
Group GMV (Glovo, Talabat, foodpanda and many more brands) grew 8.8% YoY to €12.5 billion
Revenue up 17.8% to €3.7 billion (29.6% of GMV)
Quick commerce now accounting for 18% of Group GMV
Zelos targets $600M in Hong Kong IPO. Zelos operates a fleet of 25,000 robovans, mostly in China. Funds will be used to grow internationally.
Flytrex expand partnership with Little Caesars using its new Sky2 drone - capable of delivering two large pizzas and a soda in a single flight. The new drone can carry up to 4 kg (8.8 pounds) and serve a 4 mile flight radius.
Grupo Chedraui partners with Rappi Turbo to launch a 10-minute delivery partnership across major Mexican urban hubs. “Utilizing existing retail floor space for ultra-fast fulfillment significantly lowers CAPEX compared to the traditional 15-minute delivery model based on dedicated micro-fulfillment centers”. “Traditional…”
DoorDash adds new partners: Brookshire Grocery Company (BGC), FreshDirect, Harps Food Stores, and Market of Choice.
Hong Kong’s Competition Commission opens public consultation on Keeta (by Meituan), regarding concerns over the company’s contractual practices with restaurants. This is the 2nd step (of two) that was agreed with Keeta back in November 2025. The 1st saw Keeta make voluntary amendments to its contractual agreements.
AV Freight, Industrial & Logistics 🚛🚜
Bot Auto launches fully autonomous commercial operations, Ryan Transportation the customer. No safety driver, running on a 231 mile (370 km) route between Houston and Dallas. This puts Bot Auto together with Aurora and Gatik, which also operate autonomous commercial freight.
Pony.ai announced the mass production of its Gen-4 autonomous heavy truck, with initial cargo operations planned for later this year targeting trunk lines and ports. The company recently received China's first permit for unmanned cargo operations in autonomous truck platoons. Also Pony.ai partners with CATL to develop an autonomous light truck
Aurora expands partnership with Hirschbach Motor Lines, refrigerated truckload carrier; Hirschbach signed an MOU to buy 500 autonomous trucks, starting in 2027. Aurora operates a DaaS (Driver-as-a-Service), in which the client owns the asset and Aurora “leases” the virtual driver.
Applied Intuition partners with Heidelberg Materials to deploy autonomous haulage systems for Heidelberg Materials' quarry operations, starting at a site in Australia.
I love meeting new people and learning about innovation in mobility. Let’s get-to-know / catch up.
In other news 📰
BMW i Ventures raised a new $300M fund and the investment focus of a CVC is a good indicator of where mobility is heading. On the list: agentic AI and physical AI; industrial software; advanced materials; and manufacturing and supply chain technologies.
The curb is getting more attention. Startups such as Meter Feeder and Mapless AI are developing parking solutions for autonomous vehicles, which include validation and payment. Others are working on curbside access permissions. In NYC, a new office has been established: Office of Curb Management. SWITCH develops AI agents to influence user behavior and automate real time dispatching.
AI is used to identify road offenses. It’s doing great.
Firestorm Labs raises $82M (total $153M) to take drone factories into the field.
Rocsys, hands-free charging system for robotaxis, raises $13M, bringing total funding to $56 million.
Gemini is now coming to cars, replacing the Google Assistant. I’ve got a Google Home, which has recently been upgraded to Gemini. No improvement, but the voice has changed.
How the heck does GPS work? All you need are 4 satellites, triangulation, use of an Einstein formula and a phone.
People 🧑🤝🧑
Alexis Jovignot is the new Directeur Innovation Groupe @ Groupe Keolis.
Amit Frenkel is the new Vice President of Business Development @ Ondas Autonomous Systems.
Ashleigh Filtness is the new Chairperson @ Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.
David Brottet is the new Account Executive @ Matawan.
John Lankford is the new VP of Global Partnerships @ Spin.
Nir Barak is the new Sustainability Manager @ Greater Anglia.
Scott Bradley is the new Executive Vice President @ Pioneer eMobility | e-Boost.
Stacey van der Putten is the new Interim Chief Executive Officer @ Auckland Transport.
Congrats and good luck!
Thank you for reading #movingpeople. If you like what you're reading, please share it with your friends and colleagues so they can benefit from it too.
