Andrew J. Hawkins

The Alphabet-owned robotaxi company announced plans to start operating fully autonomous vehicles in five new cities: Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. Only employees and “friends and family” will be able to take trips initially, but Waymo expects to let public customers use its robotaxis sometime in 2026. Add these to the cities the growing list of markets where Waymo says it expects to launch, including San Diego, Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, Denver, Detroit, Seattle, London, and Tokyo.

The air taxi company will start licensing its electric vertical and takeoff technology to third parties, starting with Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Industries. Archer already has an exclusive deal to jointly develop next-gen military aircraft with Anduril. Now its deepening those ties by supplying its electric powertrain and other tech to the defense contractor’s Omen drone program.

This is a lot, right? Like, why is this so much?

The joint venture, which operates under the official name Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies, is prepping its first prototypes for winter testing in the first quarter of 2026, InsideEVs reports. These include VW, Audi, and Scout test mules equipped with zonal architectures, with consolidated ECUs and less wiring. The first crop of passenger vehicles will also be Audi, Scout, and VW branded models, including the VW’s ultra-low cost ID.EVERY1. Audi and Scout will feature three zonal ECUs, like the second-generation R1T and R1S vehicles, while the VW ID.EVERY1 will come with just one zonal ECU.

It’s been almost two years since the German automaker said it was adopting Tesla’s NACS standard for its electric vehicles. And at last, long after pretty much all the other automakers have already adopted the standard, VW is following through. Starting November 18th, VW ID.4 and ID Buzz owners can buy a NACS adapter online or from their local dealer for $200, which they can then use to fast charge at any of the 25,000 Supercharger outlets in North America. That’s super!