TechCrunch Mobility: The Nvidia backup plan for China’s self-driving industry

This week, TechCrunch Mobility explored the future of transportation and the role of AI in it. The focus was on the challenges facing China's self-driving industry and Nvidia's possible backup plan in light of Jensen Huang's resignation.

Leo Wang, CFO of Pony.ai, a Chinese autonomous vehicle company, spoke about the industry's struggles with demand outpacing supply of Nvidia chips. To address this, the company is becoming more efficient with training models by using mid-tier compute resources and turning to domestically produced chips for AI training.

Wang also noted that Chinese companies have been preparing for tighter export controls on Nvidia chips, having been developing alternatives for a few years. May Mobility, for example, plans to use the Volkswagen all-electric ID. Buzz for its global ride-hailing platform, targeting the deployment of more than 10,000 autonomous vehicles by 2031.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a Waymo software recall from a year ago, after numerous reports of robotaxis illegally passing school buses. This came after a software update intended to fix the issue. Tesla's Cybertruck production will end next summer, while the company expands its robotaxi service to San Antonio, Texas. Meanwhile, Uber is launching a new parking reservation service, and United Airlines is restricting access to AI agents for booking flights and managing reservations.