Transportation isn’t changing slowly. It is being torn apart by AI. Then stitched back together with new skills. Every industry sees this. But cars are different.
General Motors just fired 600 IT staff. That’s 10 percent of their department. They called it a “skills swap.” I call it a net loss. GM wants to replace them. Specifically. They aren’t looking for coders who use AI. They want people who build AI from the ground up.
The resume must list AI-native development. Data engineering. Prompt engineering. Cloud-based pipelines. If you just use a productivity tool, you are out. They need architects of the system itself.
Not everyone knows what they’re doing yet.
The layoffs stack up. Ford. GM. Stellantis. Together, they cut more than 20,0,000 salaried jobs in the US. Nineteen percent of their peak workforces. Gone. Mostly because tech changed the math.
Samsara found a trick though. They spent a decade sticking cameras in truck cabins. Watch for theft. Watch for drivers. Watch for liability. Now they have mountains of data. They trained a model on it. It spots potholes. It tells cities how fast they rot. Chicago signed up. Revenue flows in. That’s how you play this game.
RJ Scaringe Is a Magnet for Cash
Look at Rivian. Its spinoff, Mind Robotics, just raised $400 million. Two months after taking in $500 million earlier. Do the math on RJ Scaringe.
Investors have poured $12.3 Billion into his three main plays: Rivian, Also, and Mind Robotics. Don’t count the IPO. Don’t count the Volkswagen and Uber deals worth another $7 billion. The base figure alone is staggering.
Why him?
I asked insiders. The answer was always the same. Attention. Pure attention. Whether you’re a VC or a supplier, Scaringe makes you feel like the only person in the room. No multitasking. No checking his phone while you speak.
Is there anything less cool than a multitasker? I think not. It kills deals.
Other Money Moving Fast
- Arkeus, the Australian drone software maker, landed $18 Million in Series A cash. Led by QIC Ventures.
- Aseon Labs exited stealth mode. Backed by Y Combinator. They make a “depot in a box” to clean and charge autonomous fleets. Sounds boring until you need to wash ten thousand cars a night.
- Rapido, the Indian ride-hail app, raised $240 Million. Valuation hits $3 Billion. Prosus led it.
- Quantum Systems? The German drone firm backed by Peter Thiel is talking to Airbus and Blackstone. Rumored to be chasing €600 Million (~$703M).
News From the Sidelines
Redwood Materials might be listing publicly. Their new CFO, Deepak Ahuju, knows Tesla money. He ran the books there. Then at Zipline. He’s a familiar face if you track EV batteries.
Tesla Robotaxis crashed. Twice since July 2024. The records are no longer redacted. A teleoperator was driving remotely at the time. That’s supposed to prevent the crash, not enable it.
Uber is building two engineering campuses in India. They fit nearly 10,000 people. They also struck a data center deal to handle their growing infrastructure load.
Waymo sent a software patch to nearly 4,00 cars. The update helps them avoid flooded roads. The NHTSA called it a recall. The catch? They haven’t fully fixed the problem. They just added a layer.
What happens when the layer fails? We’ll wait and see.
