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

What You Need to Know Today

A new video from Tesla appears to contain a brief glimpse of CyberCab, the automaker’s highly anticipated self-driving taxi project. The short snippet shows the interior of a prototype vehicle that has two-seats, scissor doors, and no steering wheel. While the design bears a resemblance to earlier renderings published by Elon Musk, it could very well be a deliberate misdirection designed to fan speculation about Tesla’s mysterious robotaxi before its official unveiling on August 8th.

Jensen Huang on why video training will be fundamental to self-driving cars and why he believes Tesla’s FSD tech (which is powered by NVIDIA) is the furthest ahead. “Video is the most effective way to train these models.”

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LA-based Aerodome has raised $21.5M in Series A funding for its drone-as-first-responder service, led by CRV.

Meanwhile Orca AI, an Israeli startup that develops autonomous technology for cargo ships, has secured a $23 million investment, led by OCV Partners and Mizmaa Ventures.

Working with software specialist Plus, Hyundai is gearing up to equip its Xcient Fuel Cell truck for autonomous driving.

Image Credit: Hyundai

Federal safety regulators are adding nine incidents to their ongoing investigation of Waymo’s robotaxis, which began earlier this month.

Pony AI, an AV firm that was founded in Silicon Valley and operates a robotaxi service in Beijing and Guangzhou, is eyeing an expansion to South Korea. This would be the company’s first market outside the U.S. and China.

Related: Sidewalk robots have been approved to operate for delivery and patrol in South Korea.

Image Credit: Uber Eats

Since the pandemic, more U.S. cities are installing dedicated bus and bike lanes—as well as automated traffic cameras to keep the lanes clear of passenger cars and delivery trucks.

The new Kia EV3 will have a LLM-powered voice assistant that is built off of ChatGPT.

A behind the scenes look at Waymo’s driverless taxi depots in San Francisco.

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