Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | July 21 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers, asked the U.S. Department of Justice’s new Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force to examine whether state franchise laws restrict competition and harm consumers. The alliance specifically called out state laws governing vehicle warranty service and state laws that limit establishing franchised new-vehicle dealerships in certain areas. | Automotive News ($)“There is a real risk for U.S. automakers that, over time, the U.S. market becomes ... kind of like the Cuban car market, cut off from the rest of the world.” - Kevin Krolicki, Reuters Greater China bureau chief, on Reuters Econ World podcast. | Reuters

Sweden-based Volvo Cars is booking an impairment charge of 11.4 billion crowns ($1.2 billion) in the second quarter related to its ES90 and upcoming EX90 models, due to tariffs and launch delays. The group, which is controlled by China's GEELY Holding, said it is currently unable to sell its Volvo ES90, which is built in China, profitably in the United States due to import tariffs, while profit margins for the same model are also under pressure in Europe for the same reason. | Reuters ($)

In an age of cultural and political bombast, Kei vehicles are oddly defiant, drawing attention for everything they are not: big, loud, showy. Instead, amid a churning sea of steroid-fueled S.U.V.s and oversized sedans, Kei cars and trucks traffic in discretion — and stand out because of it. Kei, pronounced like “Hey,” is short for kei-jidōsha, which loosely translates to “light vehicle.” American enthusiasts list a host of reasons for the vehicles’ surprising emergence, starting with their affordability. Others cite a fondness for all things “J.D.M.,” which stands for Japanese domestic market, and a budding nostalgia for the anime, video game and film franchises of their childhoods. | The New York Times ($)

⚡️ EVs

As Tesla’s sales decline following Musk’s forays into US politics and amid a lack of new models, BYD has overtaken it to become the world’s largest manufacturer of EVs. Its annual revenues surpassed $100bn for the first time in 2024. Now, the industry’s shift towards autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence is writing a new chapter in what has become not just a rivalry between the world’s top two EV makers, but a central pillar of US-China technological competition. | Financial Times ($)

General Motors was the first major US automaker to make the promise to go all-electric by 2035, just four years ago. Those promises have since turned into rough estimates under the second Donald Trump presidency, with the company softening language about its electrification goals. But GM is riding high on EV sales, and as CEO Mary Barra puts it, EVs are still the future — just on a delayed (and very flexible) timeline. | The Verge

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China

The first time China upended the U.S. economy, between 1999 and 2007, it helped erase nearly a quarter of all U.S. manufacturing jobs. Known as the China Shock, it was driven by a singular process — China’s late-1970s transition from Maoist central planning to a market economy, which rapidly moved the country’s labor and capital from collective rural farms to capitalist urban factories. Waves of inexpensive goods from China imploded the economic foundations of places where manufacturing was the main game in town, such as Martinsville, Va., and High Point, N.C., formerly the self-titled sweatshirt and furniture capitals of the world. Twenty years later, those workers haven’t recovered from those job losses. Although places like these are growing again, most job gains are in low-wage industries. A similar story played out in dozens of labor-intensive industries simultaneously: textiles, toys, sporting goods, electronics, plastics and auto parts. Yet once China’s Mao-to-manufacturing transition was complete, sometime around 2015, the shock stopped building. Since then, U.S. manufacturing employment has rebounded, growing under President Barack Obama, President Trump in his first term and President Biden. Policymakers are spending far too much time looking backward, fighting the last war. They should be spending much more time examining what’s emerging as a new China Shock. Spoiler alert: This one could be far worse. | The New York Times ($)

Uber driver Patricia Gatica looked no further than her nearby Chevrolet dealership for a new car. The mustard yellow Chevy Aveo she chose is small enough to squeeze through the congested streets of Mexico City and it gets a very respectable 48 miles per gallon. Best of all, with a price tag of about $17,000, the General Motors subcompact is very, very affordable. The secret: The American-branded car sold in Mexico is actually made in China, where cheaper labor and component costs allow companies to churn out less expensive cars. “When I saw it on the street, I immediately fell in love with it,” said Gatica, 27. “It doesn’t have a big trunk, but it’s very sporty, which I like.” Right now, her Chinese-made car is only available outside of the US. But with prices starting below $18,000, the Aveo and similar Chevy Onix subcompact sedans show how much cheaper cars can be in a market that welcomes vehicles built in China. In the US, the average new car price has soared to almost $49,000, compared with about $32,000 in Mexico, according to the country’s automotive dealers association, AMDA. GM’s lowest-cost car in the US, the Chevy Trax, starts at around $5,000 more than an Aveo sold in Mexico — and that’s for a bare bones version; It typically sells for thousands of dollars more with popular options like heated seats and remote ignition. | Bloomberg ($)

The Chinese government said on Tuesday that it would restrict any effort to transfer out of China eight key technologies for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries, a move that could cement the country’s already dominant role in the production of electric cars. The plan could make it harder for Chinese electric carmakers to set up factories overseas, as the European Union has pushed them to do. Effective immediately, any overseas transfer of these technologies through trade, investment or technological cooperation will first require a license from the Chinese government, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement. Chinese manufacturers have achieved important breakthroughs in the past five years in making inexpensive batteries that can provide considerable driving range for electric vehicles. The new generation of battery technology is central to China’s success in building electric cars that are considerably cheaper than electric and gasoline-powered cars made in other countries. | The New York Times ($)

China is quickly closing the gap with the United States in the contest to make technologies that rival the human brain. This is not an accident. The Chinese government has spent a decade funneling resources toward becoming an A.I. superpower, using the same strategy it used to dominate the electric vehicle and solar power industries. “China is applying state support across the entire A.I. tech stack, from chips and data centers down to energy,” said Kyle Chan, an adjunct researcher at the RAND Corporation, a think tank. For the past 10 years, Beijing has pushed Chinese companies to build manufacturing capabilities in high-tech industries for which the country previously depended on imports. That approach helped China become the maker of a third of the world’s manufactured goods and a leader in electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels. And it has also been applied to the essential building blocks of advanced A.I. systems: computing power, skilled engineers and data resources. China pushed that industrial policy approach as three presidential administrations in Washington tried to hold back its ability to make technologies like artificial intelligence, including by restricting sales of chips made by NVIDIA, America’s leading A.I. chipmaker. | The New York Times ($)

At an industrial site in this Texas city, men dressed in head-to-toe protective gear dip giant ladles into a well of molten metal heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. They’re making something the U.S. has hardly, if ever, produced at commercial scale in recent decades: rare-earth metals. The factory is the most visible mark of MP Materials’ high-stakes, billion-dollar bet that an American company can take on China’s dominance over the metals—and the magnets they power in everything from cars and smartphones to missile systems. In recent months, China has used its chokehold over 90% of the world’s rare-earth magnets to cut off access to Western companies, rattling industrial giants such as Ford and Tesla and forcing the U.S. to the table for trade talks. MP has invested more than $1 billion in new infrastructure and equipment. A mine it controls in California has become the largest source of rare-earth minerals in the Western Hemisphere. Now, with its expanding Texas facility and fresh investment from the Pentagon, the company is racing to complete the supply chain so it can start converting large quantities of its minerals into high-grade magnets. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

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Autonomy & Robotics

Uber said it plans to invest $300 million in electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors in a robotaxi deal that aims to start with one major U.S. city late next year. Over six years starting in 2026, Uber will acquire and deploy over 20,000 Lucid Gravity crossovers that will be equipped with autonomous vehicle technology from startup Nuro, the three companies said in a July 17 statement. The agreement illustrates the renewed plans and push for financing for self-driving cabs years after a first wave of autonomous driving investment produced only a limited number of vehicles. Tesla has recently launched a robotaxi trial in Austin and Alphabet Inc.’s driverless taxi unit Waymo is speeding up its expansion. As part of their announced deal, Uber will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Lucid and Nuro, which supplies self-driving technology to automakers, the joint statement said. Of that, $300 million will go to Lucid, the EV maker said in a separate filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Uber’s latest move underscores its renewed push into the robotaxi space after exiting in 2020. Since then, Uber has pivoted to partnerships with several technology developers, including Waymo and Aurora. The deal with Lucid follows Uber’s robotaxi agreement in April with Volkswagen that will supply its ID.Buzz vans for commercial service planned for Los Angeles next year. | Automotive News ($)

Tesla hasn’t done enough to protect against drivers misusing its Autopilot system, a safety expert testified at a trial over a 2019 fatal collision. Mary “Missy” Cummings, an engineering professor at George Mason University, told jurors in Miami federal court that the Tesla owner’s manual, which contains critical warnings about how the system works, is difficult for drivers to access. She also said that prior to the crash, the company was having problems with drivers ignoring computer-generated warnings and had not embraced so-called geo-fencing already in use by other car makers to block drivers from activating driver-assistance functions on roads they’re not designed for. | Bloomberg ($)

Waymo robotaxis have driven more than 100 million miles without a human behind the wheel, doubling the mileage in about six months, a top company official said, as it speeds up deployment in U.S. cities amid rising competition. | Reuters ($)

Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD claims it has delivered what Elon Musk has promised forever but has failed to deliver again and again: a car that can park itself with full Level 4 (L4) autonomy. That means that the car can navigate a parking lot, find a spot, and park completely unattended. BYD’s system operates outside dedicated structures and is not restricted to pre-mapped locations. The company is so confident in the technology that it announced that it will cover any damages to your car or any other vehicle if things go wrong. This means if anything happens, the owner won’t have to file a claim and have their premiums go up. BYD’s confidence stems from a sophisticated sensor architecture. The God’s Eye system deploys multiple sensing technologies working in concert, unlike Tesla’s problematic camera-only approach. Even the entry-level God’s Eye C variant—one of three autonomous driving levels included in most affordable models—includes 12 cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic sensors with 1-centimeter accuracy. The mid-tier God’s Eye B adds a lidar sensor, while the premium God’s Eye A variant features three lidar sensors for maximum precision. The system’s parking accuracy allows the car to get within 0.8 inches of other objects, enabled by multiple redundant sensors that create a three-dimensional map. This allows the vehicle a deep understanding of its environment. This multi-sensor approach allows the system to detect obstacles. It can even recognize hanging objects over the roof line of the car. | Fast Company

Phil Koopman compares the Valuation of a Statistical Life (VSL) (currently $13.7m) to the insurance minimums for purported life-saving technology such as autonomous driving being much lower. Reminds us of Edward Norton's job in Fight Club as a "Recall Coordinator" applying "The Formula" for initiating a recall (see clip from movie here: LINK). | Phil Koopman

When it comes to self-driving and robotaxis, the most common argument is about Waymo vs. Tesla. Within the industry, most people think Waymo is the undisputed leader, and that Tesla isn’t even in the race. At the same time there are a number of people, not just Elon Musk, who think Tesla’s the leader or eventual winner. Now, we’re going to dive into this debate and discover why people take either position. | Forbes

Tesla and Waymo are racing to build their own robotaxi empires, but not everyone is convinced the hype is justified. A new report from analysts at HSBC found that the potential market for driverless taxis was "widely overestimated" and warned that it could take years before robotaxi fleets began returning a profit. HSBC analysts suggested that the idea robotaxis would be more profitable than their human-driven counterparts was based on a misconception. Although robotaxi operators do not have to worry about the cost of paying a driver's wage, they said that driverless taxis face a slew of "overlooked" extra costs that would likely cut into profits. According to HSBC's analysts, those include parking, charging, and cleaning fees, as well as teams of remote operators to intervene when things go wrong. | Business Insider ($)

✈️ Aviation & Space

The U.S. lags behind Russia and China in manufacturing drones, training soldiers to use them and defending against them, according to interviews with more than a dozen U.S. military officials and drone industry experts. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has acknowledged that the country has fallen behind, and he announced a series of new policies and investments in drones that he vowed would close the gap. In a video released on Thursday, he cited outdated rules and procurement processes as making it too difficult for commanding officers to buy drones and train their soldiers to use them. | The New York Times ($)

🦾 Artificial Intelligence (AI)

As AI changes how people browse, it is altering the economic bargain at the heart of the internet. Human traffic has long been monetized using online advertising; now that traffic is drying up. Content producers are urgently trying to find new ways to make AI companies pay them for information. If they cannot, the open web may evolve into something very different. Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, people have embraced a new way to seek information online. OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, says that around 800m people use the chatbot. It is the most popular download on the iPhone app store. Apple said that conventional searches in its Safari web browser had fallen for the first time in April, as people posed their questions to AI instead. OpenAI is soon expected to launch a browser of its own. Its rise is so dramatic that a Hollywood adaptation is in the works. As OpenAI and other upstarts have soared, Google, which has about 90% of the conventional search market in America, has added AI features to its own search engine in a bid to keep up. Last year it began preceding some search results with AI-generated “overviews”, which have since become ubiquitous. In May it launched “AI mode”, a chatbot-like version of its search engine. The company promises that, with AI, users can “let Google do the Googling for you”. Yet as Google does the Googling, humans no longer visit the websites from which the information is gleaned. Similarweb, which measures traffic to more than 100m web domains, estimates that worldwide search traffic (by humans) fell by about 15% in the year to June. Although some categories, such as hobbyists’ sites, are doing fine, others have been hit hard (see chart). Many of the most affected are just the kind that might have commonly answered search queries. Science and education sites have lost 10% of their visitors. Reference sites have lost 15%. Health sites have lost 31%. | The Economist ($)

We've been thinking a lot about how automotive industry participants navigate a future where consumers rely on their AI agents for research, shopping, and (potentially) deal negotiation. This is a thought-provoking article from DirectBooker (which is focused on hotels) that has implications for the automotive ecosystem. Will consumers (or more accurately, consumers' AI agents) continue to shop third-party marketplaces, or will these agents find the necessary data elsewhere? And how will dealers ensure that they've structured their information (dealership, inventory, pricing, etc.) so these AI agents can find them? Lots to think about and (hopefully) implications for the next wave of entrepreneurs innovating in the Automotive Technology space. | DirectBooker

🚘 Car of the Week

Our Automotive Ventures "Car of the Week": a 1998 RUF CTR 2 Sport. | Broad Arrow

Have a great week,Steve Greenfield

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📺 In The News

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Jonah Bliss from Curbivore is one of our favorite people in the VC universe. It was a pleasure catching up with him to discuss what we look for in our founders. | Curbivore

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Steve caught up with Mark Hollmer from Automotive News to discuss the impact the current climate of tariffs and immigration/visas might have on innovation across the automotive technology landscape, and specifically for dealership-facing innovation. | Automotive News ($)

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Thanks to TechCrunch for the great article on Automotive Ventures portfolio company Auriga Space. Congratulations to Winnie Lai and the team! | TechCrunch ($)

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ZAG Daily covered Steve's conversation with Jonah Bliss from Curbivore | ZAG Daily

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On this week's "Future of Automotive" segment on CBT News, we take a look at the quiet but rapidly accelerating robotaxi race — and the decisions that could shape the future of urban transportation

. | CBT News ($)

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