BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | DEC 8 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

Automotive Ventures is very excited to announce our investment in SelectFI. | LINK

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Automotive

President Trump on Wednesday threw the weight of the federal government behind vehicles that burn gasoline rather than electric cars, gutting one of the country’s most significant efforts to address climate change and thrusting the automobile industry into greater uncertainty. Flanked by executives from major automakers in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said the U.S. Department of Transportation would significantly weaken fuel efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new cars and light trucks. The administration claimed the changes would save Americans $109 billion over five years and shave $1,000 off the average cost of a new car. The Biden administration’s stricter efficiency standards were designed to get more Americans to go electric. But Mr. Trump said they “forced automakers to build cars using expensive technologies that drove up costs, drove up prices, and made the car much worse. This is a green new scam, and people were paying too much for a car that didn’t work as well.” For the past half-century, the efficiency standards have compelled automakers to increase the distance their vehicles can travel on a gallon of gas, reducing fuel consumption and leading to innovations like electric and hybrid cars. | The New York Times ($)The United States should quit trying to compete with China on electric vehicles, U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno said Tuesday, sparking renewed debate over what direction the nation's auto industry should take amid shifting federal policies on trade, tailpipe emissions and fuel efficiency standards. "We were ahead of them by a mile, by 10 miles, on the internal combustion engine. They went into EVs, and then they convinced the Western world to go into EVs and play their game," the freshman Republican lawmaker from Ohio said during an auto industry conference. "That was just irrational, dumb policy." Moreno also celebrated major policy changes during the first year of the Trump administration that cut back on the Biden-era federal push toward EVs. He highlighted congressional action to cancel stringent state-level EV regulations, the zeroing out of fuel economy fines and an end to federal EV subsidies. | The Detroit News ($)Cars used to be entirely mechanical objects. With hard work and expertise, basically any old vehicle could be restored and operated. But the car itself was stuck in time. If the automaker added a feature to the following year's model, you just didn't get it.  Things have changed. A Tesla Model 3 has few dials or buttons; nearly every feature is routed through the giant central touch screen. It's not just Tesla: Many new cars—and especially electric cars—are now stuffed with software, receiving over-the-air updates to fix bugs, tweak performance, or add new functionality. In other words, your car is a lot like an Apple iPhone (so much so that in the auto industry, describing EVs as "smartphones on wheels" has become a go-to cliché.) This has plenty of advantages—the improved navigation, Tesla's fart noises—but it also means that your car may become worse because the software is outdated, not because the parts break. Even top-of-the-line phones are destined to become obsolete—still able to perform the basic functions like phone calls and texts, but stuck with an old operating system and failing apps. The same struggle is now coming for cars. | The Atlantic ($)Scout Motors remains committed to factory-run service centers and sees them as a crucial part of the brand’s U.S. launch despite another notable electric vehicle startup going in a different direction. Scout, which plans to begin production at its South Carolina plant in late 2027, is set to follow Tesla, Rivian and Lucid Motors with factory-run service centers. It will not have independent repair facilities handle maintenance like Slate Auto, another EV startup. | Automotive News ($)BMW drivers lead the U.S. in drunk driving citations with over three violations for every 1,000 drivers, according to a study by Suzuki Law. Luxury car brands comprise four out of the top five spots for vehicles subject to the most drunk driving citations, the data showed, with names like Audi, Volvo and Acura included. Meanwhile, a University of California study augments a potential link between bad driving habits and luxury cars. The study closely considers driver behavior, in particular what happens when cars approach pedestrian crosswalks, and how often drivers stop while people cross. According to the study, eight out of every 10 cars stopped, although drivers of luxury vehicles were less considerate towards pedestrians. “The most significant trend was that fancy cars were less likely to stop, and BMW drivers were the worst." | PropertyCasualty360President Donald Trump, apparently enamored by the pint-size kei cars he saw during his recent trip to Japan, has paved the way for them to be made and sold in the U.S., despite concerns they’re too small and slow to be driven safely on American roads. “They’re very small, they’re really cute, and I said ‘How would that do in this country?’” Trump told reporters on Wednesday at the White House, as he outlined plans to relax stringent Biden-era fuel efficiency standards. “But we’re not allowed to make them in this country and I think you’re gonna do very well with those cars, so we’re gonna approve those cars,” he said, adding that he’s authorized Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to approve production. While the ultra-compact cars are highly popular in Asia, they currently don’t meet federal standards for new vehicles in the US. | Bloomberg ($)Could President Trump really bring kei cars to the United States? That would be difficult, but not impossible, said Tifani Sadek, director of the University of Michigan Law School’s Law and Mobility Program. It would take some big changes.  Kei cars and trucks are a distinct vehicle category in Japan, with limits on size. They have tiny, 660-cc engines. Created in 1949 to encourage car ownership, they qualify for significantly lower vehicle taxes and insurance premiums, and are a fixture, especially in rural Japan. But the keis, which typically weigh less than half of standard cars, most likely would not meet the mandatory safety requirements for vehicles sold in the United States. Older models can lack safety features like airbags. | The New York Times ($)The costly learning curve of software-defined vehicle development is creating a strategic advantage for automakers who waited — a shift that could reshape competitive dynamics across the industry for the next decade. As much as 30 to 40 percent of the software architecture work from the first wave of SDVs can now be carried over, sharply reducing both development costs and time-to-market risks, said Sachin Tikekar, president and co-founder of software specialist KPIT. Volkswagen, Renault, Honda and Hyundai stand to benefit from billions spent and years lost by rivals, he said. The pattern reveals a fundamental truth about automotive technology transitions: Being first doesn’t always mean being best positioned. | Automotive News ($)General Motors’ newest product and technology executive has said he thinks of the Detroit automaker as a canvas. One that can be curated, retouched or even torn apart. After roughly six months as executive vice president and chief product officer, Sterling Anderson appears to be putting all three ideas to work as he oversees the company’s vast product portfolio — from the vehicles themselves to the software powering them. Anderson, who left the self-driving car company Aurora Innovation that he co-founded to join GM in June, has quickly become the most influential product executive in more than 15 years, outside of GM President Mark Reuss. He has consolidated power to oversee “the end-to-end product lifecycle” of GM vehicles, including manufacturing engineering, battery, software and services product management, and engineering teams, according to GM. “My priority is to accelerate the pace of innovation. One of the ways we do that is with this disaggregation of this abstraction of software from hardware,” he told CNBC during an Oct. 22 technology event in New York. “That’s the point of the role, I think, is it brings together all of these pieces into a unified approach to how we do product going forward.” | CNBCAt a technology showcase in New York, General Motors CEO Mary Barra described a future with vehicles doubling as intelligent personal assistants. As the car drives to the office, she said, its occupant can catch up on work, write emails or watch a TV show. The vehicle can then drive to a dealership for a routine brake inspection. It picks up dry cleaning and dinner before returning so the kids can get to a soccer game. “It’s more than just a vehicle. It makes your life easier, more streamlined, and — more importantly — safer,“ Barra said. ”That’s what we’re working toward at General Motors. We know that what you expect from your car is changing. Customers want immersive tech in their vehicles and to stay connected wherever they go.” | Automotive News ($)For the first time in the U.S., a roadway has wirelessly charged an electric heavy-duty truck driving at highway speeds, demonstrating key technology that could help lower the costs of building electrified highways for all electric vehicles to use. The experimental highway segment tests a patent-pending system designed by Purdue University engineers. The segment, built by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), is a quarter-mile stretch on U.S. Highway 52/U.S. Highway 231 in West Lafayette. Purdue researchers demonstrated the wireless charging system this fall using an electric semitractor provided by Cummins. | Purdue UniversityThe UK will start taxing EV driving with a self-reported per-mile system, set at 3p per mile for pure battery cars and 1.5p for plug-in hybrids, starting in 2028. The change is needed as fuel-duty revenue is expected to collapse over the next 25 years if European governments succeed with their green plans, with the British Treasury estimating it would halve to £12 billion by the mid-2030s. The UK's experiment with EV taxation will be closely watched by other Western governments, and its success or failure may determine whether other countries adopt similar systems or revisit alternative methods of EV taxation. | Bloomberg ($)

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China

A fundamental axiom of economics is that when two individuals or countries trade, both are better off. In the decades after World War II, the U.S. was the world’s largest exporter and economy and as it grew, it imported more, helping its partners. As they grew, they bought more of what the U.S. made. Expanding trade helped everyone specialize, leading to more competition, innovation and choice, and lower costs. China is now the world’s second-largest economy and its largest exporter, but its philosophy is quite different. It has never believed in balanced trade nor comparative advantage. Even as it imported critical technology from the West, its long-term goal was always self-sufficiency. In 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping codified this approach as “dual circulation.” This would, he said, “tighten the international industrial chain’s dependence” on China while ensuring China’s production was “independent” and “self-sustaining.” And as China expands into high-end manufacturing such as aircraft and semiconductors, Xi has decreed it must not relinquish low-end production such as toys and clothes. Beijing has discouraged Chinese companies that invest abroad from transferring key know-how, such as in the production of iPhones and batteries. Xi has rejected fiscal reforms that would tilt its economy away from investment, exports and saving and toward household consumption and imports. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Foreign carmakers doing business in China once avoided talk of “technology transfer”. Their Faustian bargain with the country’s government allowed them to access its vast car market in return for the know-how they transmitted through joint ventures. Now that the flow of technology has reversed, they use the phrase openly. In a recent presentation on its business in China, executives from Volkswagen happily noted that it was “leveraging local partners for technology transfer”. Over the past few years foreign carmakers in China have been flattened by local rivals such as BYD that have fast become world leaders in electric vehicles. As the Chinese market has gone electric, foreign carmakers’ share of it plummeted from 62% in 2020 to 35% last year. VW has lost its position as the top carmaker in the country. Last year it sold 2.9m cars in China, down from 3.9m in 2020. Only around 200,000 were EVs. Some foreign carmakers, including America’s Ford Motor Company and General Motors, are scaling back in China. But others are adopting local technology in an effort to fight back, by shifting more of their operations to the country and working with local firms. | The Economist ($)The latest earnings season hasn’t been kind to Chinese carmakers. But spare a thought for their foreign rivals, whose glory days in the world’s largest vehicle market ended during the pandemic. They’ve had to downsize their footprint and pivot, turning China into a base for exporting to the rest of the world. So far, the strategy is working. That’s allowed the Detroit Three — General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Stellantis — to avoid leaving the market entirely, as some have called for. After hitting a record high of 1.27 million shipments in 2016, Ford’s China sales declined 85% to an estimated 180,000 units last year. It’s been a similar fall from grace for GM, which counts Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Buick among its biggest brands. Fiat Chrysler, now part of Stellantis, exited its joint venture making Jeeps three years ago. | Bloomberg ($)China’s electric-vehicle industry captured half its domestic market in just a few years, crushing sales of gasoline-powered vehicles from once-dominant global automakers. But foreign players weren’t the only losers. Many Chinese legacy automakers also watched their sales collapse – and responded by flooding the world with fossil-fuel vehicles they couldn’t sell at home. While Western policymakers have focused on the threat of China’s heavily subsidized EVs, protecting their markets with tariffs, U.S. and European automakers face greater competition from China’s gas-guzzlers in countries from Poland to South Africa to Uruguay. Fossil-fuel vehicles have accounted for 76% of Chinese auto exports since 2020, and total annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely more than 6.5 million this year, according to data from China-based consultancy Automobility. | Reuters ($)The European Commission is reviewing tariffs on Volkswagen’s battery-electric vehicles built in China. VW hopes the tariffs could be replaced with an annual import quota and minimum price mechanism. VW’s Cupra subsidiary, whose Tavascan all-electric SUV is made at the group’s Anhui plant in China, has warned that tariffs pose a serious threat to its business. If accepted, the commission could grant an exemption from the 20.7 percent tariff within months, according to a statement from Seat. Volkswagen’s Anhui plant is a majority-owned joint venture with China’s JAC Motors. | Automotive News ($)

🤖

Autonomy, Robotics & AI

For years, experts dismissed the idea of privately owned autonomous vehicles, arguing that the technology was too expensive for private sales. Instead, fleet-owned robotaxis were the safer bet, helping amortize the costs of all the sensors and high-powered computing — said to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — needed to enable the cars to drive themselves. But now the costs for much of that equipment, including lidar, is coming down, resurfacing the idea that autonomous vehicles can be cheap enough to sell to regular people. There is a growing list of companies who are champing at the bit to sell fully autonomous vehicles, including Waymo, Tesla, Lucid Motors, and General Motors. | The Verge ($)For years while training on the streets of San Francisco and eventually transporting passengers, Waymos were the most polite drivers on the road. Pull up to a stop sign at the same time as a Waymo and it would wait, as if to say, “No, please, after you.” If you were trying to go around another car making a left, a Waymo was sure to let you in. In short, they were drivers you wouldn’t want to get stuck behind while in a hurry.  The training wheels are off. Like the rule-following nice guy who’s tired of being taken advantage of, Waymos are putting their own needs first. They’re bending traffic laws, getting impatient with pedestrians and embracing the idea that when it comes to city driving, politeness doesn’t pay: It’s every car for itself. | The Wall Street Journal ($)Self-driving car company Waymo recently released data covering nearly 100 million driverless miles in four American cities through June 2025, the biggest trove of information released so far about safety. The results were impressive. When compared to human drivers on the same roads, Waymo’s self-driving cars were involved in 91% fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes and 80% fewer crashes causing any injury. It showed a 96% lower rate of injury-causing crashes at intersections, which are some of the deadliest I encounter in the trauma bay. So far, other autonomous vehicle companies don’t report or report incomplete data. Waymo, by contrast, published crash statistics with miles driven that allow accurate comparison to human drivers in the same locations. If Waymo’s results are indicative of the broader future of autonomous vehicles, we may be on the path to eliminating traffic deaths as a leading cause of mortality in the United States. | The New York Times ($)Waymo is adding another four cities to its growing list of robotaxi rollouts. The company has begun testing its autonomous vehicles (with a safety monitor) in Philadelphia, and that it will start manual driving to collect data in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. Waymo did not offer a timeline for when it plans to launch commercial services in those locations.  The new locations join a list of over 20 cities where the company is either offering rides, prepping a commercial launch, or testing. Waymo is also now offering rides on freeways in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The company plans to be doing one million rides per week by the end of 2026. | TechCrunch ($)A year after announcing their partnership, Uber and Avride have launched a commercial robotaxi service in Dallas. The service comes with a few caveats, however, including the addition of a human safety operator behind the wheel and a limited operating area. The companies said fully driverless operations, without a safety operator, will begin in the future and the service area will expand. For Uber, the launch closes out a year of rapid dealmaking — and deployments — with a variety of autonomous vehicle technology companies, including Waymo, China’s WeRide, and San Francisco-based startup Nuro. To date, Uber has locked in 20 partnerships with AV companies across freight, delivery, and robotaxis, some of which are now in commercial operation. Uber offers autonomous vehicles through its ride-hailing app in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh with WeRide, and in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix with Waymo. Uber said it plans to have autonomous vehicles on its network in at least 10 cities by the end of 2026. Over the next two years, the plan is to launch AVs on its app in Arlington, Texas, Dubai, London, Los Angeles, Munich, and the San Francisco Bay Area. | TechCrunch ($)Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe sees a robotic, self-driving future as critical to gaining market share — even as the brand continues to build its identity around off-road adventure. “Once you get used to not having to drive your car and having the time back, it’s going to be very hard for customers to accept anything less,” Scaringe said in a Dec. 1 interview. “It’s going to lead to big swings in market share.” Autonomy has become a top priority for Rivian, Scaringe said, drawing more R&D spending than any other area. The effort rests on Rivian’s software-defined vehicle platform, which is critical to developing advanced autonomy. | Automotive News ($)The ultimate goal of those building humanoid robots is not to sell a housekeeper. It is to automate all physical labour. Elon Musk, Tesla’s boss, reckons such robots will outnumber people by 2040. In theory, humanoids should fit smoothly into a world built for humans. But just how soon they will be ready for prime time is unclear. Interact Analysis, an industry analyst, reckons the market for humanoids could eventually be worth $2trn, but says safety concerns and regulation will hamper adoption in the short term. A robot that makes a mistake can cause physical harm. Lighter, less powerful robots are safer but much less capable. “The technology isn’t there yet,” says Rueben Scriven of Interact. He foresees a “humanoid winter” as funding dries up and ambitions plummet. Videos of humanoid robots show them performing all kinds of acrobatic feats, but none of them can enter a stranger’s kitchen and make a cup of coffee. The reason is what NVIDIA’s director of robotics, Jim Fan, calls the “blind gymnast” problem. Training robots for thousands of simulated hours in virtual reality can give them incredible athleticism but grants them no understanding of how the world works. | The Economist ($)Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly, and appears — to the most optimistic eyes — poised to fill gaps that humanoid service robots have demonstrated in their long stumble towards usefulness. The focus is now less on their physical limitations (although those are steadily falling away), and more on how effectively they can be deployed as vectors for the visibly less limited competencies of AI.  Analysts advising investors on the megatrends of the coming year are hot on the humanoid trail. In a research note, Macquarie Group analyst Daisy Zhang wrote that 2026 would mark an “inflection year” for humanoid robots and their worldwide commercialisation. Zhang forecast annual humanoid robot sales to hit 50,000 units next year, rising to 1.1mn units a year in 2031. By 2034, she wrote, the “humanoid robot penetration rate” — the number of robots per 10,000 human factory workers — would exceed the rate for industrial robots.  In a research note last week, analysts at Morgan Stanley proclaimed that the transition to “embodied AI” marked a pivot in history, forecasting a global humanoid robot market worth $5tn by 2050 and a deployment rate of one machine for every 10 humans. Investors should be very cautious; the history of robots reveals an industry capable of creating a mismatch between promise and reality. | Financial Times ($)The short clip shared by the official Tesla Optimus account and Elon Musk, showing Optimus running in a lab, is going viral on social media. The video, captioned “Just a new PR in the lab,” shows the new performance record set by the robot. The Tesla Optimus stands tall at 5 feet 11 inches and weighs 160 pounds, featuring over 40 degrees of freedom, including highly dexterous 11-DoF hands designed for human-like interaction. | Interesting Engineering

SpaceX is preparing to sell insider shares in a transaction that would value the company at a valuation higher than OpenAI's record-setting $500 billion. The company's latest tender offer could value SpaceX at as much as $800 billion, with a share price under discussion of higher than $400 apiece. If confirmed, it would make SpaceX the world's most valuable closely held company, and the company could pursue an initial public offering as soon as late next year. | Bloomberg ($)

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1991 Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer. | RM Sotheby's

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

📢  On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we discuss the long-term implications of the transition towards the software-defined vehicle (SDV). | CBT News ($)

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