Applied Intuition Bags $250M for AI-Powered Vehicle Tech

Welcome to the Ride AI Newsletter, your weekly digest of important events and new developments at the intersection of technology and transportation. 

Here’s What You Need to Know Today

Applied Intuition, a company specializing in autonomous vehicle software, secured $250M in a Series E round, placing its valuation at $6B. The funding will further support its efforts to integrate advanced artificial intelligence into the automotive, defense, construction, and agriculture industries.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released its first ranking system for partially automated driving systems. Overall, it tested 14 different systems. Eleven were rated poor, two were marginal, and only one—Lexus’s Teammate with Advanced Drive—passed. By contrast, Tesla’s FSD was rated poor. 

Baidu has launched China’s first 24/7 robotaxi service in Wuhan.

Chinese AV companies are faring less well in the U.S though. Last year, the distance covered by self-driving cars from major Chinese companies in California road tests fell by approximately 70%. “Five companies—Pony.ai, WeRide, Baidu, AutoX, and Didi Global—logged a total of about 200,000 kilometers for the period, down about 70% from 2022.”

Relatedly: U.S. security concerns over Chinese autonomous driving technology are causing lobbyists to cut ties with the LiDAR maker Hesai.

Not all self-driving vehicles are cars. Uber is reportedly integrating a 'micromobility robotics' team into its fold, with the ambitious goal of developing self-driving e-scooters and e-bikes

Waymo has launched fully autonomous rides for its employees in Austin. The Texas capital is the fourth city, after San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, where the AV company is offering rideshare without human operators.  

Where will Waymo pop up next? It could be New York. The company’s cars have lately been spotted in Buffalo, where the self-driving vehicle service is performing weather tests. 

A bit late for this winter, but definitely useful in the future, Teleo and Storm Equipment have introduced a supervised autonomous snow plow.

Serve Robotics, a sidewalk-delivery robot startup, announced it will start selling shares OTC.

How the AI that drives ChatGPT will move into the physical world:: “Covariant, backed by $222 million in funding, does not build robots. It builds the software that powers robots. The company aims to deploy its new technology with warehouse robots, providing a road map for others to do much the same in manufacturing plants and perhaps even on roadways with driverless cars.”

Washington state is overhauling its laws to allow more enforcement using traffic cameras. Meanwhile Ohio and Louisianaare doing the opposite.

After being involved in a crash late last year, Orlando’s self-driving shuttle bus is back in service due to a review that determined the accident was caused by human error.

Meanwhile in Ohio, unionized bus drivers have negotiated an unprecedented labor deal with a local transit agency that gives them veto power over self-driving buses.

Phantom Auto, a startup specializing in remote driving technology, is closing its doors due to funding challenges. Despite having raised $95M and creating a teleoperation platform for remote vehicle operation, the company encountered obstacles in the dynamic field of autonomous vehicle technology.

California may request robotaxis to share more data. A new state law would require driveless ride-hail apps to report data on the state of any collisions and traffic violations involving their vehicles.