Uber wants to be the ‘Amazon of transportation.’ BMW and Daimler might do it first.

Two major car makers just out “Ubered” Uber. 
Last year, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he wanted the app to do it all: individual rides, carpools, food deliveries, electric bicycles, e-scooters, self-driving vehicles, and even flying taxis. He…

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Daimler and BMW invest $1.1 billion in urban mobility services

Daimler AG and BMW Group officially agreed to merge their urban mobility services into a single holding company back in March 2018 with a 50 percent stake each. And now, they want to unify their services under 5 categories by creating 5 joint ventures — Reach Now, Charge Now, Park Now, Free Now and Share […]

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Why Daimler moved its big data platform to the cloud

Like virtually every big enterprise company, a few years ago, the German auto giant Daimler decided to invest in its own on-premises data centers. And while those aren’t going away anytime soon, the company today announced that it has successfully moved its on-premises big data platform to Microsoft’s Azure cloud. This new platform, which the […]

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Transportation Weekly: Amazon’s secret acquisition and all the AV feels

Welcome to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. I cover all the ways people and goods move from Point A to Point B — today and in the future — whether it’s by bike, bus, scooter, car, train, truck, robotaxi or rocket. Sure, let’s include hyperloop and eVTOLs, or […]

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Sony venture arm invests in geocoding startup what3words

Sony’s venture capital arm has invested in what3words, the startup that has divided the entire world into 57 trillion 3-by-3 meter squares and assigned a three-word address to each one. Financial details were not disclosed. The startup’s novel addressing system isn’t the whole story. The ability to integrate what3words into voice assistants is what has […]

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Daimler’s semi-autonomous truck puts self-driving features on the road

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Daimler trucks are going autonomous — eventually.

For now, Level 2 (L2) partial automation will have to suffice. The vehicle company behind Mercedes-Benz cars announced Monday at CES 2019 that its new Freightliner Cascadia big-rig will include higher levels of robotic driving. The semi-autonomous trucks will start production in July in North America. It’s not fully self-driving, but it’s pushing the trucking industry deeper into an autonomous mode. 

Truck CEO Martin Daum admitted he was skeptical of autonomous capabilities back in 2015, when Daimler unveiled its Freightliner Inspiration autonomous concept truck. Now he sees Level 4 autonomy (full autonomy in most situations, climates, and environments) coming to trucks within the decade. Read more…

More about Ces, Trucks, Autonomous Vehicles, Daimler, and Semi Autonomous

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BMW’s premium ride-hailing service is now live in China

BMW has joined a handful of automakers to compete with transportation upstart Didi Chuxing, which bought Uber’s Chinese business in 2016. Last Friday, the German luxury carmaker launched a premium ride-hailing service in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan Province with over 14 million people. The new offer is part of BMW’s ReachNow carsharing brand that kicked […]

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Robot couriers scoop up early-stage cash

Much of the last couple of decades of innovation has centered around finding ways to get what we want without leaving the sofa. But there’s a catch: We can’t lie around ordering pizzas if someone still has to deliver them.

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Europe’s ride-hailing companies aren’t scared of Uber

Uber is speeding toward a historic IPO next year that could value it as high as $120 billion, but that doesn’t scare its rivals that operate across Europe. Speaking on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, Markus Villig — the CEO of $1 billion-valued Taxify — and Via CEO Daniel Ramot, whose company has expanded from Israel into […]

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Self-driving Mercedes-Benz S Class sedans are coming to San Jose

Another autonomous ride-hailing test project has popped up in the U.S. This time, Daimler and Bosch, one of the largest automotive tech and hardware suppliers in the world, are partnering to pilot a robotaxi service in San Jose, California. The program will use automated Mercedes-Benz S Class vehicles, the German automaker’s full-sized luxury flagship sedans, the company […]

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Electric flying taxi service Lilium poaches key hires from Audi, Airbus

Lilium, the developer of a new, electric, vertical take-off and landing vehicle for a novel flying taxi service, has poached some pretty big former executives from Airbus and Audi as it builds out its technology and gets ready to bring its service to market. Mirko Reuter, the former head of automated driving at Audi, has […]

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