Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.

I’ve joked here and on the Equity and Autonocast podcasts that the autonomous vehicle industry feels a lot like 2016, at least in terms of the buzziness surrounding the sector.

But a recent conversation with Trucks VC partner Puneeth Meruva has me rethinking that comparison. There’s evidence that 2026 is even hotter — at least by certain measures — than those frothy dealmaking days of 2016 and 2017. 

Trucks VC, which specializes in early-stage investing, has fielded pitches from 81 new autonomous vehicle startups so far in 2026 — two-thirds more than last year and enough to surpass the boom years of a decade ago.  The VC firm argues in a new blog post that we’re in the midst of a second, even bigger AV wave fueled by technological breakthroughs. Yes, I’m talking about AI. 

“For a long time AV companies were trying to go from what was AV 1.0 to AV 2.0, which is kind of this holy grail end-to-end architecture for AVs,” Meruva told me. “And I think the foundation models now provide a technical architecture that makes those end-to-end systems possible.”

These foundational models are particularly good at generalizing across different environments and scenarios, potentially making AVs cheaper and faster to deploy. The arrival of powerful open source models like Nvidia’s Alpamayo and Qwen’s general-purpose vision-language-action models has made it even easier for startups to get off the ground.

The barrier to entry is lower than ever before. Meruva said Trucks is consistently seeing startups deploy within a few months and with less than $1 million raised. (And while Meruva wouldn’t name names, the firm has invested in some of them.)

Of these 81 startups that pitched Trucks VC, I mistakenly assumed most would be applying their AV tech to construction, warehouse, agriculture, and mining. And yes, those were in the mix. But what surprised me was the growing number of startups pitching pure-play robotaxi businesses. And many are positioning themselves as direct competitors to Waymo. 

As wild and galaxy brain-thinking as that may sound, Meruva thinks there is room for smaller players. 

“In this world, smaller, more niche autonomy companies can compete — maybe they're not competing with Waymo on a global scale, but maybe they're competing in specific regions or specific types of routes,” he said.  

And Meruva doesn’t see the pace flattening. He expects even more AV startups to pitch the firm next year.

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Notable reads and other tidbits

Elroy Air, a startup developing autonomous heavy-cargo drones for defense, rapid response, and commercial logistics, hired Jeremy Hux as its CFO in preparation for going public.

Ford announced two new EV chargers that will allow its forthcoming Fathom pickup truck to serve as a battery capable of delivering power to the home or grid.

GM is embracing hybrids now. Times sure have changed! The U.S. automaker is also trying to move past the driver data-selling controversy from several years ago. GM agreed to a $220 million settlement with 36 states (its settlement with California and the Federal Trade Commission happened earlier) to settle allegations that it illegally sold private driving behavior and location information to data brokers.

Kodiak AI will deliver 75 self-driving trucks to freight company DTL Transport starting in 2028. It’s the company’s first binding commercial deal for driverless big rigs that will run on public highways.

Rivian reported its third-quarter earnings, and a few items stood out to us. For one, the new R2 has been successful enough for the company to raise its 2026 delivery guidance by a couple thousands vehicles. Rivian, which had previously expected to deliver between 65,000 and 70,000 EVs this year, bumped up that floor to 67,000. But here is another potentially lucrative development: The $5.8 billion joint venture between Rivian and Volkswagen Group is expanding to include AI assistants. No word yet on whether that means VW will invest even more money into Rivian. 

Tesla turns to Turo to boost adoption of Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

Waymo and Toyota have locked in a manufacturing partnership, officially moving them past the “we’re just talking” phase. Toyota will manufacture AV-ready bZ4X vehicles — and integrate Waymo’s self-driving system — at its factory in Japan. The vehicles will be used for robotaxi services in Japan, the U.K., and other international markets. Importantly, the companies hinted that this could eventually lead to a licensing deal in which Waymo AV tech is in personally owned vehicles.

One more thing …

Last call for founders, investors, and builders based in and around the Boston area. The Founder Summit — a one-day event in Boston — will be held on November 4. And I will be there! This event is really geared toward startup founders, aspiring founders, and investors. Attendees can expect advice-driven talks from VCs and serial founders, plus lots of chances to network. 

For my TechCrunch Mobility readers, here is a 30% discount on tickets. Click this link and use the code mobility30.