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The Guardian
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Living in Iran: how have you been affected by the recent conflict?
Israel's attack on targets across Iran on Friday, has been followed by three days of escalating strikes, as both sides threatened more devastation in the biggest ever confrontation between the longstanding enemies. We would like to hear from those living in Iran and who are part of the diaspora on how they have been affected. Please note that while we'd like to hear from you, your security is most important. We recognise it may not always be safe or appropriate to record or share your experiences – so please think about this when considering whether to get in touch with the Guardian. IP addresses will be recorded on a third party webserver, so for true anonymity use our SecureDrop service, however anything submitted on the form below will be encrypted and confidential if you wish to continue. You can share your experience by filling in the form below or messaging us. Please include as much detail as possible Please include as much detail as possible Please include as much detail as possible Please note, the maximum file size is 5.7 MB. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. If you include other people's names please ask them first. Contact us on WhatsApp or Signal or Telegram at +447825903400. For more information, please see our guidance on contacting us via WhatsApp, contacting us via Telegram. For true anonymity please use our SecureDrop service instead. If you're having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
TechCrunch Mobility: The cost of Waymo
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced late this week that it plans to streamline the Part 555 exemption process to make it faster for automakers that want to deploy self-driving vehicles built without human controls like a steering wheel or pedals. The letter sent to 'stakeholders' (meaning those companies working on AVs) is fairly opaque still. And manufacturers will still have to demonstrate that vehicles without traditional steering wheels, driver-operated brakes, or rearview mirrors provide an equivalent safety level as compliant vehicles and that the exemption is in the public interest. The main gist here is that the NHTSA contends the current Part 555 exemption process is not well suited for automated driving system-equipped vehicles and that it is a lengthy and complex process. In short: The agency wants to speed things up. In other federal agency-related news, Trump issued a few executive orders related to drones and fast-tracking supersonic travel. Side note: I see that my predictions (from last edition) that the Trump-Elon Musk fallout would turn into one of those on-again, off-again relationships was correct. Let's get into the rest of the news. Last week, I shared our scoop about Jony Ive's LoveFrom firm working alongside Rivian designers and a skunkworks team that would end up spinning out into Also, a micromobility startup. Well, a few more little birds have popped up to share a bit more and to clarify the relationship. I learned that the project was code-named Inder. Rivian actually applied for a trademark of the name Inder but later abandoned it. Sources also shared that while the LoveFrom team brought its industrial design expertise to the effort — and apparently a cool motor design — it was not involved in any UI/UX. Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O'Kane at or Rebecca Bellan at Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop. JetZero, the Long Beach, California-based zero-emissions jet aircraft company working on blended wing airplanes, plans to build a factory in Greensboro, North Carolina. The company, which has backing from a variety of venture capital (like Trucks VC) and from strategic investors like United Airlines and Alaska Airlines, said it will invest $4.7 billion over the next decade on the project, The Wall Street Journal reported. Construction on the facility is expected to begin in the first half of 2026, with first customer deliveries in the early 2030s, the company said. There is an important detail in this deal: It includes more than $1.1 billion in state performance incentives that would be paid over nearly 40 years and are contingent on JetZero creating over 14,000 jobs between 2027 and 2036, Reuters reported. Mitra Chem, a battery material startup, raised $15.6 million of a planned $50 million funding round. Waymo rides cost more than Uber or Lyft — and people are paying anyway, according to Obi, an app that aggregates real-time pricing and pickup times across multiple ride-hailing services. The company published what it's calling the 'first in-depth examination of Waymo's pricing strategy.' The TL;DR: Waymo's self-driving car rides are consistently more expensive than comparative offerings from Uber and Lyft — and it doesn't seem to matter. Waymo robotaxis became a symbol of the LA protests after imagery showing several driverless vehicles — with anti-ICE graffiti and slashed tires — on fire. Waymo removed its remaining vehicles from the downtown LA area and plans to pursue criminal prosecution of and collect damages from those who vandalized its robotaxis. The incident raises some important surveillance questions about how the numerous cameras and sensors on Waymo vehicles are used and whether it is providing camera footage to authorities to identify protesters. Waymo didn't answer our questions about that. June 22 is the big Tesla robotaxi launch day in Austin, Texas, at least according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Wayve and Uber announced plans to launch a fully driverless robotaxi service in London. This isn't happening right away, though, and the timing is notable here: The U.K. government recently announced an accelerated framework for self-driving commercial pilots to roll out in spring 2026, up from late 2027. Infinite Machine, the New York-based micromobility startup backed by a16z, revealed a seated scooter called Olto that will cost $3,495 when it starts shipping later this year. The Olto will feature 40 miles of range, pulled from an easily swappable 48V lithium-ion battery. During Apple's WWDC 2025 event, a few car-related items were revealed, including that the company is adding widgets and message tapbacks to CarPlay with iOS 26.
The Guardian
11-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Tell us: have you planned an environmentally-friendly funeral?
We would like to hear from people who have planned an unusual, environmentally-friendly funeral for themselves or a loved one. Can you describe the eco-friendly funeral you've planned? Who is the funeral for? What do you think of more traditional funerals? Why did you decide to have a different type of funeral? You can share your stories and pictures using the form below. Please share your story if you are 18 or over, anonymously if you wish. For more information, please see our terms of service and privacy policy. Your responses, which can be anonymous, are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. We will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature and we will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For true anonymity please use our SecureDrop service instead. If you're having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
TechCrunch Mobility: How Jony Ive's LoveFrom helped Rivian and what Uber's next-generation playbook looks like
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! I've spent a decade covering Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, so it would be natural for me to weigh in here about the billionaire's public fallout with President Donald Trump. Plenty of other reporters, armchair analysts, influencers, and bloggers have already done that. Some of it is smart, while some of it misses the mark — by miles. Since I have the benefit of institutional knowledge, and a helluva good memory, let me offer some brief reminders and predictions. We've been here before — Musk has a long, well-documented history of creating seemingly strong alliances and then burning it all down. As senior reporter Tim De Chant noted, Elon is getting an introduction to politics. The problem here is that Musk also embraces risk and gravitas — which means that learning something doesn't equate to his behavior changing. Expect a roller-coaster ride of tentative peace followed by public outbursts. Rinse. Repeat. The implications of this fallout promise to be broad and will likely touch all of Musk's various enterprises. I will be monitoring how Tesla EV sales numbers fare and how the "Big, Beautiful Bill" will actually affect the automaker's business if it is passed into law. In the short term, I will be focused on Tesla's great robotaxi experiment in Austin, Texas, and how Musk's complicated and increasingly toxic relationship with the Trump administration affects his dealings with the Department of Transportation. Prior to his public breakup with Trump, Musk was lobbying lawmakers on legislation related to autonomous vehicles — specifically over a bill introduced on May 15 called the Autonomous Vehicle Acceleration Act. Ever since Rivian spun out Also, a micromobility startup that also received backing from Eclipse Ventures, we've been poking around to find out more. A few little birds have been in touch and helped us better understand how the skunkworks program turned into a stand-alone company; they also revealed a surprising detail: Jony Ive's creative firm LoveFrom worked alongside Rivian's design team and the staff under the skunkworks program. Senior reporter Sean O'Kane and I have the full scoop here. Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O'Kane at or Rebecca Bellan at Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop. Memorandums of understanding rarely grab my attention. But this one did. Joby Aviation and Saudi Arabian conglomerate Abdul Latif Jameel signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a distribution agreement for up to 200 electric aircraft. The tentative deal is notable because Abdul Latif Jameel is already an investor of Joby. If finalized, the partnership could provide Joby with a fast path to monetizing its electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles in Saudi Arabia. Turning an investor into a customer can complicate the relationship, too (just ask Amazon and Rivian.) Obvio, a California-based startup that is combining AI with cameras placed at stop signs to root out unsafe driving behavior, raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Obvio plans to use those funds to expand beyond the first five cities where it's currently operating in Maryland. Portless, an e-commerce fulfillment and logistics startup, raised $18 million in a funding round led by Commerce Ventures, with participation from eGateway Capital, Ground Up Ventures, and FJ Labs. Portless uses a Shein-like business model and charges brands duties after an item sells, helping defer the cost of tariffs. Toma, an AI voice startup that is applying its tools to car dealerships, raised $17 million across a seed and Series A round led by a16z. Y Combinator (Toma was in YC's January 2024 cohort), the Scale Angels Fund, and auto industry influencer Yossi Levi, also known as the Car Dealership Guy, have backed the startup. Recent executive shuffling coupled with comments by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi don't just hint at the company's strategy. Nope, this is like a neon blinking sign and the word "autonomy" is at the center. Earlier this week, Uber announced it had appointed Andrew 'Mac' Macdonald as president and chief operating officer. The company also announced the departure of Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, who ran Uber's delivery business. Gore-Coty's responsibilities will slot under Macdonald, who has been with the company since 2012 and most recently led the mobility and business operations. Another tidbit worth mentioning: He launched Uber's Toronto operations 13 years ago and spearheaded its autonomous strategy. Mac's new role will combine mobility, delivery, and autonomy. At a Bloomberg conference, Khosrowshahi was asked about AVs. He talked about building the AV ecosystem and Uber's stakes in companies (Aurora and Waabi) developing autonomous vehicle technology. 'We want to essentially support the AV ecosystem and continue to help that ecosystem develop and then AVs penetrate into the marketplace,' he said. 'AVs, we think, represent a safer way of transportation. Ultimately, we think it'll expand the marketplace as it makes kind of safe transportation cities available to everybody.' In other Uber news, the company has added a new type of account with a simpler UI for older people. Tesla filed trademark applications for the term 'Tesla Robotaxi' after the company's previous attempts to secure trademarks for its planned self-driving vehicle service hit roadblocks. I missed this story from Axios reporter Katie Fehrenbacher and wanted to mention it here. Last year, Redwood Materials quietly walked away from the Department of Energy (DOE) loan it had received conditional approval for. To date, Redwood has never received any federal funding. I reached out to Redwood to understand why. Redwood initially applied for a DOE loan in 2021. The process dragged on and at considerable cost to Redwood. Companies that go through this process are responsible for paying the third-party consultants and experts hired to vet the business and technology. By 2024, Redwood was still on the conditional approval limbo. While it was waiting, the company raised more than $2 billion in private funding and generated nearly $200 million in revenue last year. Ultimately, Redwood determined that the costs and constraints of this loan outweighed its value. Walmart and Alphabet's Wing are bringing drone delivery to thousands more customers. Wing, which already operates out of 18 Walmart Supercenters in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, is setting up shop in five more U.S. cities through the partnership. In all, more than 100 stores will be added in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. Trevor Milton, the recently pardoned founder of Nikola, has been fighting a subpoena from the creditors of his bankrupt electric trucking company. Milton owed Nikola nearly $100 million before it filed for bankruptcy in February, which followed an arbitration case with the company in 2023 related to his criminal conviction that he lost.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
TechCrunch Mobility: Uber Freight's AI bet, Tesla's robotaxi caveat, and Nikola's trucks hit the auction block
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! For those U.S.-based readers out there, enjoy the long Memorial Day weekend, and if you're on the road, expect it to be crowded. AAA projects 45.1 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home over the Memorial Day holiday period, from Thursday to Monday. About 39.4 million of those folks will use a car. Let's get to it! This edition has news on loads of companies, including Aurora, Uber, Tesla, and Waymo. Plus, a number of startups you may be interested in. Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O'Kane at or Rebecca Bellan at Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop. Luminar, the lidar startup turned SPAC, appears to be grasping for capital. Why else would the company make a deal with Yorkville Advisors Global that could bring another $200 million into its coffers through the sale of convertible preferred stock over an 18-month period? Under the terms, Luminar will issue $35 million in convertible preferred stock to the investors. Luminar may issue additional tranches in amounts of up to $35 million no more than every 60 days at a purchase price equal to 96% of the stated value of the convertible preferred stock. You might recall Luminar's board recently replaced founder Austin Russell as its CEO. The company is also going through another restructuring — its third in a year. Other deals that got my attention … SparkCharge, which offers what it calls 'charging-as-a-service' for fleets, raised $15.5 million in a Series A-1 round led by Monte's Fam, with participation from Cleveland Avenue, Collab Capital, Elemental Impact, MarcyPen, and non sibi ventures. Alongside the equity round, SparkCharge also secured a $15 million venture loan from Horizon Technology Finance Corp. Sylndr, a Cairo-based online used car sales startup that is expanding into auto financing, servicing, and tools for dealers, raised $15.7 million. The round was led by Development Partners International's Nclude Fund. The startup also raised nearly $10 million in debt financing from local banks in the past year. Is an auction a deal? Perhaps for someone. Nikola's hydrogen trucks, which have a value of about $114 million, are up for auction — one of the company's last steps in unloading all of its assets after filing for bankruptcy in February. Aurora has put human 'observers' in its self-driving trucks at the request of its partner PACCAR, a disclosure that has some scratching their heads about the move. To be clear, these 'observers' are not human safety operators, meaning they can't intervene. An Aurora spokesperson confirmed and noted they have a different role than the human safety operators in the company's supervised hauls. This news prompted folks to send me a slew of messages with questions like 'Why?' and 'What's the point?' Einride founder Robert Falck is stepping down from the role of CEO. Einride's CFO, Roozbeh Charli, will take over the role of chief executive effective immediately. Reliable Robotics, the autonomous aviation company, appointed Marc Stoll as its new CFO. Stoll is the former VP of Finance at Apple and partner at Eclipse Ventures. Zoox has completed the 'initial mapping phase' and will begin testing its self-driving vehicles in Atlanta later this summer. The California Public Utilities Commission approved Waymo's request to expand its commercial robotaxi service area into more communities south of San Francisco. Meanwhile, Waymo and Uber plan to start offering robotaxi rides in Atlanta to select customers who signed onto a waitlist earlier this year. Tesla plans to limit where its robotaxis operate in Austin, Texas, to specific areas the company deems 'the safest,' according to Elon Musk. Using a geofence represents a major strategy shift for Musk, who spent years claiming his company would be able to create a general-purpose self-driving solution that could be dropped into any location and work without human supervision. Arc unveiled a new electric boat called the Arc Coast, a $168,000 watercraft with a center console design. Senate Republicans have voted to overturn a waiver that allowed California to set stricter air pollution standards for vehicles. The state has received waivers more than 100 times since federal laws granted the right some 50 years ago. Uber plans to launch a B2B logistics service in India through a partnership with a government-backed nonprofit that aims to break the domination of Flipkart, the e-commerce giant backed by Amazon and Walmart. Uber Freight recently launched a suite of AI features to shippers around the world as part of its existing supply chain software. That includes an expansion of Insights AI, which Uber Freight quietly launched in 2023, as well as more than 30 AI agents built to 'execute key logistics tasks throughout the freight lifecycle.' Senior reporter Sean O'Kane interviewed CEO Lior Ron about the company's dive into AI — including the how, why, and what's next. Yup, 'This week's wheels' is back with Rebecca Bellan, who writes about her time on the new Heybike Alpha, a sturdy, fat-tire, all-terrain e-bike with a $1,699 price tag. The entire review can be read here. For those who want the highlights: The Alpha ticked a lot of boxes for Bellan — notably the mid-drive motor with torque sensor and long-lasting battery. There were some frustrations, though, too. Putting the bike together, the app, and outsized horn were disappointments. But generally, Rebecca felt the Alpha was an excellent all-around e-bike, whether you want to take it on off-road adventures or use it in the city to do your weekly Trader Joe's shopping. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data
