TechCrunch Mobility: A new, bigger AV boom is here
News Source
β’Sun, 01 Nov 2026 17:04:00 +0000
π° What Happened
A venture capital firm says a second, bigger wave of self-driving car startups has arrived. Trucks VC has heard pitches from 81 new autonomous vehicle companies in 2026. That is two-thirds more than last year.
The firm says the count is already higher than during the boom of 2016 and 2017. Partner Puneeth Meruva says better AI models explain the jump. New systems can handle many different places at once instead of one city at a time.
That could make self-driving cars cheaper to build and faster to launch.
π The Backstory
Self-driving cars have been promised for more than a decade. Early companies mapped every street by hand and tested in a few cities. Costs were high and progress was slow.
The first big investment wave came around 2016. Several startups raised large sums, then shut down or were sold. Engineers learned that real roads are messier than demo videos.
Now AI models trained on huge amounts of video do much of that work. Open models from Nvidia and Qwen are also free for startups to build on.
π― Why It Matters
Robotaxis and self-driving delivery could change how people get around and what they pay for rides. More startups also means more testing on public streets.
A venture capital firm says a second, bigger wave of self-driving car startups has arrived. Trucks VC has heard pitches from 81 new autonomous vehicle companies in 2026. That is two-thirds more than last year.
The firm says the count is already higher than during the boom of 2016 and 2017. Partner Puneeth Meruva says better AI models explain the jump. New systems can handle many different places at once instead of one city at a time.
That could make self-driving cars cheaper to build and faster to launch.
Self-driving cars have been promised for more than a decade. Early companies mapped every street by hand and tested in a few cities. Costs were high and progress was slow.
The first big investment wave came around 2016. Several startups raised large sums, then shut down or were sold. Engineers learned that real roads are messier than demo videos.
Now AI models trained on huge amounts of video do much of that work. Open models from Nvidia and Qwen are also free for startups to build on.
Robotaxis and self-driving delivery could change how people get around and what they pay for rides. More startups also means more testing on public streets.