News about autonomous driving

Uber Technologies is widening its business beyond ride-hailing into food delivery and freight, relying on acquisitions, international growth and partnerships. It agreed to buy ezCater, a U.S. catering and workplace-meals platform, in an all-cash deal valued at $2.3 billion to strengthen Uber Eats in large-order catering and Uber for Business. The deal is expected to close in the coming months, subject to regulatory approvals, and Uber expects it to be margin accretive. The move could challenge DoorDash, which expanded its own workplace catering offerings in April 2026 after large team orders grew 30% faster than regular orders. In autonomous mobility, Uber works through partners: it launched supervised rides with Wayve in London, and with WeRide and AVOMO it secured Spain's first national Level 4 permit for a Madrid rollout starting with 20 vehicles, while its Zoox alliance targets Los Angeles next year.

TIER IV and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) announced an expanded collaboration to integrate the NVIDIA Hyperion sensor and compute platform and the NVIDIA Halos safety system into Autoware-based autonomous vehicle projects across Germany. Hyperion is a reference platform for Level 4 autonomous vehicles and robotaxis that combines NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor computing with Halos, and the initiative will use dual DRIVE AGX Thor configurations. Announced at NVIDIA GTC Berlin and building on the TUM Autoware Research Center established by TIER IV, the work focuses on autonomous public transportation and robotaxi applications. Leaders from TUM and TIER IV stressed the need for open, verifiably safe architectures rather than closed, proprietary systems.

Tesla launched the Cybercab, a two-seat autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal, for commercial service in Austin on September 4. As of October 10, Tesla had 739 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas, including 420 Model Y and 319 Cybercabs, up sharply from 420 vehicles (45 Cybercabs) on September 4. According to RobotaxiTracker, 277 vehicles are actually in service in Austin, including 107 Cybercabs, a fleet in the same range as Waymo's more than 300 vehicles. Cybercabs make up 39% of the registered fleet but only about 11% of the 531 reported rides. Tesla's service runs from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., while Waymo operates 24/7 through the Uber app, and the article says the key metrics to watch are in-service vehicles and actual rides.