Andrew J. Hawkins

Transportation editor

Andrew J. HawkinsMay 21

The Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door coupe event sounds legitimately bonkers.

I’ll let Jalopnik’s Daniel Golson set the scene for you:

With 600 people in attendance, the automaker shut down Los Angeles’ 6th Street Bridge, turning it into a Hollywood Autobahn on which the new EV was ripping burnouts up and down the concrete just after sunset, with Brad Pitt and George Russell sitting shotgun. Then Blink-182 did a 30-minute set and made a lot of dick jokes.

Also Jacob Elordi was there? Wild times.

Mercedes-AMG Shut Down LA's 6th Street Bridge For The Most Outrageous Car Reveal Ever - Jalopnik

[Jalopnik]

Andrew J. HawkinsMay 21

Audi’s futuristic headlights are coming to America.

Audi says that its Matrix LED headlights reduce glare for oncoming drivers by using the vehicle’s front-facing cameras to continuously shape the light pattern in real time. Audi first released the headlights in Europe in 2013, but regulatory hurdles delayed their adoption in the US. A rule change in 2022 eased those hurdles, allowing Audi to launch the new Matrix LED headlights in its Q9 and SQ9 SUVs later this year.

Image: Audi

Uber is deploying its own self-driving cars again, just not as robotaxis

Andrew J. HawkinsMay 21

Jeep and Ram vehicles are getting hands-free tech from UK’s Wayve.

Parent company Stellantis said it would be integrating Wayve’s tech into its STLA AutoDrive platform to enable “hands-free, door-to-door supervised automated driving across both urban streets and highways.” Think of it as Stellantis’ answer to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving. The automaker also has a preexisting deal with Nvidia, Uber, and Foxconn to make robotaxis.

Stellantis and Wayve Partner to Bring Hands-Free Door-to-Door Supervised Automated Driving at Scale

[Wayve]

Anthropic is paying $15 billion a year for access to Elon Musk’s data centers

Andrew J. HawkinsMay 21

Flytrex will build drones in Texas for pizza delivery.

With imports from China effectively blocked, Israeli drone company Flytrex is opening a new “manufacturing and maintenance facility” in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with the capacity to produce “thousands” of drones annually. The company says the new facility is key to its plan to open 60 new delivery sites across DFW by mid-2027. Flytrex currently operates a drone delivery service with Uber Eats and DoorDash, with some of its drones capable of delivering a couple pizzas at a time.