The system worksto save fuel by cutting off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop at a red light, for example. Automakers were incentivized at add the feature by off-cycle credits from the federal government. But now those credits are gone, and the auto industry is likely to start phasing the feature out. Lee Zeldin claims it will save “$1.3 trillion,” but good luck spending it while the world burns.

Since Waymo doesn’t have a vehicle with automatic doors, it has to pay on gig workers for help. (The Washington Post covered this phenomenon recently.) Just another example ofthe invisible human labor that’s required tokeep these autonomous systems afloat.

Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana toldBloomberg the robotaxi company was on track to reach the 1 million weekly rides milestone by the end of 2026. The company is currently provides about 400,000 rides per week across six US cities. Waymo just announced thatits sixth-generation vehicle is going to start accepting passengers in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

[Bloomberg]

Chinese automotive publicationGasgoo says the new companies are in talks to dramatically increase Waymo’sfleet of Hyundai EVs. The deal could be worth around $2.5 billion, assuming $50,000 per vehicle. But even if the report is true, don’t expect Waymo’s robotaxi fleet to suddenly grow by 50,000: the company has said it plans onadding only 2,000 more vehicles in 2026, for a total fleet size of 3,500. Waymo is currently testing and validating the Ioniq 5 and the Zeekr RT as its next two robotaxis.

Last month,a federal judge ordered the US Department of Transportation to unfreeze$5 billion from the federal program dedicated to building more EV chargers. But today, Transportation Secretary announced a new requirement that all federally funded EV chargers be “100 percent” built in America. Since most EV chargers are sourced from China, this will essentially refreeze the funds and indefinitely delay the installation of more chargers.

[USDOT]