Autonomous Vehicles & Robotaxi

Tesla and SpaceX are seeking a federal ruling that the Terafab name does not infringe trademark rights held by TERA-print, adding a legal fight to the company's planned $16.8 billion chip complex. Tesla filed three Terafab-related trademark applications in May, and the planned Texas operation would manufacture, package and test advanced logic and memory chips for Optimus robots, Cybercabs and SpaceX data centers. Tesla shares slipped roughly 1% to $362.84 on Friday. The stock trades 8.66% above its $333.92 GF Value, indicating investors still pay a premium for Tesla's long-term growth ambitions. The larger question is whether Tesla can turn the $16.8 billion capital commitment into reliable semiconductor output, since bringing chip production in-house adds execution risk around yields, utilization, engineering talent and manufacturing discipline.

Caterpillar announced on September 15 that its self-driving haul trucks at a Luck Stone quarry are moving large tonnage, with expansion to two more Virginia quarries, Boscobel and Bealeton, including the first autonomous deployment of Cat 775 trucks. The company disclosed no order value, truck count, or profit contribution from the autonomy milestone, and autonomy was named on the earnings call only as a source of higher SG&A and R&D expenses inside Resource Industries. In the second quarter of 2026, revenue reached $20.5 billion, up 24% year over year, with adjusted EPS of $8.17, up 73%, while backlog climbed to $72 billion, up roughly $35 billion versus a year earlier. Power & Energy is the engine, with segment sales up 17% to $8.2 billion and power generation sales up 72% on large gensets and turbines for data centers, and gas prime orders extend toward the back half of 2028 and into 2029. Caterpillar trades at $798.51 against a consensus analyst target of $975.61, a trailing PE of 34x, and full-year tariff costs of around $2.2 billion for 2026, with expected IEEPA tariff recoveries of approximately $400 million.

Microchip Technology said its Silicon Storage Technology subsidiary has secured AnalogAI as a customer for its memBrain SAGE intellectual property, a design win that expands the company's exposure to edge AI and neuromorphic computing. The technology combines analog compute-in-memory with ultra-low-power operation to support real-time AI inference and learning directly on edge devices, and AnalogAI plans to use it in processors targeting humanoid robots, drones and vehicles. The win builds on Microchip's technology-licensing momentum, with licensing revenues rising to $42.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2027 from $33 million a year earlier, and licensee revenues growing to $163.8 million in fiscal 2026 from $131.1 million in fiscal 2025. Microchip faces intensifying competition in edge AI from NXP Semiconductors, which said AI-enabled processors are expected to represent 15% of industrial and IoT processor revenues in 2026, more than doubling from 2025, and from Texas Instruments, which cited strong demand across robotics, industrial automation and energy infrastructure. Microchip shares have risen 9.2% year to date, trailing the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector's 16.7% gain, and the stock trades at a forward 12-month price/earnings of 17.31X versus the sector's 20.32X. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Microchip's earnings stands at 92 cents per share, up a couple of cents over the past 30 days and implying 162.86% growth.

XPENG held the China launch event for its next-gen AI flagship SUV, the G9L, in Beijing, and said the model will be available in 64 global markets with a global launch event on October 12 at the Paris Motor Show. The G9L comes in both BEV and REEV versions, measures 5,120 mm long with a 3,100 mm wheelbase and a 0.605 wheelbase-to-length ratio, and runs on XPENG's VLA 2.0 model and the same Turing AI chip used in its IRON humanoid robot. The vehicle meets the design standards of four major five-star safety ratings worldwide, having completed 192 crash tests across the Euro NCAP, ANCAP, C-NCAP and CIASI protocols totaling more than 110 individual test items, plus global road testing across 26 countries and regions with cumulative mileage surpassing 6.74 million kilometers. The G9L will begin production in both Guangzhou, China, and Graz, Austria, becoming the fourth XPENG model to roll off the line at Magna's plant in Graz after the G6, G9 and P7+, meaning four localized models within a single year. At the event, Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng also said the world's first automated production line for advanced general-purpose humanoid robots was officially commissioned, using robots to produce robots, and confirmed XPENG's Paris Motor Show booth is in Hall 6.

After market close on September 17, Fulongma announced plans to sign a contract related to autonomous sanitation driving technology development and to cooperate with Huawei Cloud Computing Technologies on developing autonomous sanitation driving technology. The cooperation is an exclusive strategic partnership between the two sides in the field of intelligent sanitation, with a total contract value of 200 million yuan including tax. According to the announcement, the two sides have planned agreed three-ton and six-ton vehicle platforms, sweeping and washing business scenarios, and other elements. Huawei Cloud will conduct technical research on vehicle intelligent upgrades, drive-by-wire optimization, and cloud adaptation, and will exclusively develop and deploy the Fulongma Sanitation Autonomous Driving System for Fulongma, including cloud-based, vehicle-side software, and vehicle-side intelligent hardware solutions. Huawei Cloud will lead the adaptation and verification of autonomous driving algorithm software for three vehicle platforms in sweeping and washing scenarios. This is not the first time the two sides have joined forces. On December 11, 2025, Fulongma and Huawei signed a framework cooperation agreement, and on September 12 the two sides further signed a strategic cooperation agreement on embodied intelligence in the sanitation robot field. In the first half of 2026, Fulongma achieved revenue of 2.608 billion yuan, up 7.63 percent year on year, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 101 million yuan, up 7.27 percent year on year. Sanitation equipment business revenue was 808 million yuan, up 61.15 percent year on year, and sales of new energy sanitation equipment reached 938 units, up 81.43 percent year on year, accounting for 38.70 percent of total sales.

Tesla faced a September 30 deadline to explain to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration how its Cybercab satisfies federal vehicle-safety requirements. The agency wants details on Tesla's self-certification process, including whether temporary human-driving controls or other equipment were used to establish compliance, and is also seeking information about operating restrictions such as speed, geographic boundaries and time-of-day limits. The questions go straight to the Cybercab's unconventional design, which operates without a traditional steering wheel, pedals or mirrors. Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter and has already begun Cybercab production, but does not yet provide standalone Cybercab revenue figures, making regulatory progress one of the clearest near-term markers for the program. Tesla shares gained approximately 2.0% to $363.75, a level that trades 8.92% above the GF Value estimate of $333.97.

Elisa de Martel, formerly chief financial officer at Alphabet's autonomous vehicle company Waymo, has been hired as CFO of self-driving startup Wayve. Outgoing CFO Max Warburton, who held the role since 2024, is moving into a strategic advisory position supporting the company's leadership team. De Martel, who will be based in Sunnyvale, California, served as Waymo's CFO from 2022 to January 2026, a period when the company began commercial operations in several cities and raised $5.6 billion in a Series C round led by its parent company that pushed its valuation above $45 billion. She previously was CFO at industrial-grade 3D printing company Carbon and spent 11 years as manufacturing finance director at Apple. Wayve, founded in 2017 and now valued at about $8.5 billion, has raised $3.2 billion to date and has partnerships with automakers including Nissan and Stellantis; it recently launched public rides in London with a human safety operator on board, with Tokyo expected to follow soon.

Aptiv said on August 25 that it will support NVIDIA's newly announced Jetson Orin Nano 2 processor, extending a partnership that already covers the more powerful Jetson Thor platform. The NVIDIA chip packs 78 TOPS of processing power into an 8GB, 8-core Arm design that doubles the inference speed of its predecessor while cutting power draw by 40% at equivalent performance. Aptiv is pairing the compute support with its PULSE surround-view camera and radar system for 360-degree sensing, its Gen 8 radar for object detection in tough conditions, and Wind River software for long-term maintenance and security updates. The move follows Aptiv's second-quarter results reported on August 4, 2026, when revenue reached $3.3 billion, up 2%, and adjusted EBITDA climbed to $613 million from $547 million a year earlier, lifting margins to 18.7% from 17.1%. Free cash flow, however, came in at just $12 million for the quarter, down from $219 million a year earlier, and the first half of 2026 posted negative free cash flow of $196 million versus a positive $264 million a year ago, while hedge fund ownership fell from 53 funds to 42 quarter over quarter and short interest sits at 7.05% of float.

Autonomous vehicle company May Mobility is merging with a special purpose acquisition company and will become publicly traded, a deal that could raise more than $300 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion. May Mobility said Wednesday the merger is with ACP Holdings Acquisition Corp., a SPAC established by Houston, Texas-based investment management company Atlas Credit Partners. The transaction will involve a $120 million private investment in public equity, plus up to $217 million from a trust account maintained by ACP Holdings, though SPAC shareholders may redeem their stock at the time of the merger and reduce the amount going to May Mobility. Once the merger is complete, May Mobility said it will be the first public company in the U.S. focused entirely on autonomous ride-hailing vehicles, setting it apart from Tesla, Rivian, Alphabet's Waymo, and trucking-focused Aurora and Kodiak. Founded in 2017, May Mobility operates autonomous Toyota Siennas in three U.S. locations, has a partnership with Lyft in Atlanta, and offers rides in Eden Prairie and Grand Rapids, Minnesota; it generated around $10 million in revenue last year with a cash burn of around $93 million, has offered more than 550,000 paid autonomous rides covering more than 1 million miles, recently began its first trial deployment in Japan, and plans commercial launches in Arlington, Texas, with Uber at the end of this year or in early 2027. May Mobility said it will use the proceeds for research and development, especially around removing its safety drivers, supply chain investments to reduce bill-of-materials costs, and new geographic deployments it expects to announce later this year.

Tesla shares have fallen 20.71% year to date, but Wedbush analyst Dan Ives maintains a $600 bull-case target that implies roughly 70% upside by valuing the company as an AI and robotics platform rather than an automaker. Tesla currently trades at $356.58 against a Wall Street consensus target of $390.09, an implied gain of about 9%, with the consensus drawn from 34 analysts on EPS and 45 on revenue. The bull case rests on Full Self-Driving software economics with gross margins above 80%, licensing of the autonomy stack to rival OEMs, and an autonomous and AI ecosystem Ives values at over $1 trillion in market cap, alongside Robotaxi operations in seven U.S. markets with more than 380,000 unsupervised miles and nearly 1.5 million paid FSD customers globally. The bear case is well armed: Q2 2026 revenue rose 25.5% to $28.24 billion but non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 missed estimates by 38.51%, operating margin collapsed to 1.4%, free cash flow turned negative at $1.09 billion, and 2026 CapEx is expected to exceed $25 billion. FY2026 EPS estimates have drifted from $2.11 to $1.77 in sixty days, with 18 downward revisions against 7 upward in the trailing 30 days, while the stock carries a forward P/E of 154. In the broader auto complex, General Motors trades at $85.37, up 5.68% year to date with a target of $101.64, and Rivian trades at $15.54, down 21.16% year to date with a target of $19.23, the group's biggest implied upside at about 24% on its R2 launch and Uber robotaxi partnership.

Axera announced that its automotive-grade ADAS SoC M57 now powers Aptiv's new-generation integrated front-view ADAS unit, which has entered mass production and begun deliveries for EU-bound models from a leading Chinese new-energy vehicle manufacturer. Led by Aptiv's China team, the driver-assistance system meets the requirements for a five-star rating under the 2026 Euro NCAP protocols. The unit uses a single M57 SoC with an integrated MCU to cut hardware size and power use by 20% each, and incorporates an 8MP, 120° HD camera, leading vision perception algorithms, and Wind River Kaiwu RTOS. The M57 is a Chinese automotive-grade SoC built on Axera's full-stack, proprietary core IP, with an NPU delivering up to 10 TOPS and native support for BEV and Transformer architectures, plus an integrated MCU and ASIL-D hardware safety island certified to AEC-Q100 Grade 2, ISO 26262 ASIL-B, and ISO/SAE 21434. Li Hao, Axera's GM of Automotive Business, called the EU mass-production launch a milestone for Chinese automotive chips developed in China and built to serve the world, and said M57 has already secured design wins from multiple automakers and Tier 1 suppliers in China and abroad.

Karin Rådström is steering Daimler Truck, the world's largest commercial-vehicle manufacturer, through a cultural and strategic overhaul as Chinese competition looms over the European truck market. Since becoming CEO in 2024, Daimler Truck's share price has risen almost 40%, from €33.15 to €46.24, and zero-emissions vehicle sales climbed 67% in 2025, though group net profits fell 48% year-on-year in the second quarter despite a 5% revenue uplift, hit primarily by tariffs. Chinese companies currently hold just 1.36% of the European commercial-vehicle market, according to Dataforce, but SuperPanther and Sinotruk have begun production in Austria and Windrose has set up a European headquarters in Antwerp, while Windrose's Global E700 offers a 700 km fully loaded range against 500 km for Daimler Truck's flagship model. Defense is a key growth pillar: Daimler Truck aims to double defense-related revenues to €1 billion, or $1.17 billion, by 2028, a figure that would still represent only 2% of overall annual revenue, and it plans to invest mid-three-digit-million euros in its new Daimler Truck Defence brand while targeting Level 4 autonomous trucks for the U.S. market by 2027. Rådström, only the second woman to lead a DAX 40 company, has pushed a "simpler, faster, and stronger" operating mantra to cut bureaucracy, a shift Citi analyst Klas Bergelind says has decentralized the organization even as cultural change takes time.

Amazon.com Inc.'s Zoox is expanding its robotaxi service in San Francisco, taking direct aim at Waymo and intensifying competition that also includes Tesla Inc. Zoox has received a federal exemption allowing it to commercially deploy up to 2,500 purpose-built robotaxis annually for two years, though its San Francisco service still operates under California's driverless pilot program rather than a permit for paid driverless passenger service. The company launched its San Francisco service to public riders from a waitlist in November 2025, originally serving the SoMa, Mission, and Design District neighborhoods, and quadrupled its San Francisco service area in spring 2026, while its first paid commercial service began in Las Vegas in August 2026. Waymo remains the clear market leader in San Francisco, operating across a Bay Area service footprint of more than 330 square miles, while Tesla operates modified Model Y vehicles in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and parts of Florida, with its purpose-built Cybercab now offering limited paid Robotaxi rides in Austin. According to Mordor Intelligence, global ride-hailing revenue is expected to increase from $224.84 billion in 2025 to $266.28 billion in 2026 and ultimately to $513.77 billion by 2031, representing a 14.05% compound annual growth rate, with e-hailing accounting for 73.62% of 2025 revenue.