Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Before we jump in, a quick housekeeping item. The transportation newsletter won’t run next Friday due to the Thanksgiving holiday. For U.S. readers, I hope you have a safe and drama-free holiday filled with family and friends, delicious food, and long walks. Good luck to those traveling. For all of my international readers, I haven’t forgotten about you. But we all need a little break. I’ll be back the following week. In the past week, there has been a flood of robotaxi news, mostly driven by Waymo’s flurry of expansion announcements. Waymo, which has a commercial robotaxi service in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, has added more cities to its list. It will manually start driving (a precursor to driverless testing and deployment) in Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa next year. Other cities that the Alphabet-owned self-driving company plans to deploy in 2026 are Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami (it just removed safety drivers), Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. It’s also testing in New York City and plans to offer commercial rides internationally starting with London and Tokyo. Waymo wasn’t the only company to make some AV news. Tesla received a ride-hailing permit in Arizona — the last regulatory hurdle to launch a robotaxi service there. And Zoox is starting to open its custom-built robotaxis to the public in San Francisco through its early rider program. All of this has me poking at the question: When will robotaxis reach a tipping point that will lead to fundamental changes in how people think about moving from Point A to Point B? And perhaps more unclear, is how will that affect society and industries (old and new)? I can’t answer the second question, but I have some baked ideas about the first one. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 In short (and in my view), we are not there yet. It’s not just about the volume of one player. Waymo’s rapid deployment will certainly introduce the idea and experience to more people. But it’s not quite enough. Here is what it will take, from my perspective: geography, competition, and an ecosystem spillover effect. Certain cities are simply going to carry more weight societally than others — at least when it comes to reaching that tipping point. Saturation in San Francisco is meaningful, but it’s also a region that is a literal incubator of technology. To me, robotaxi saturation in densely populated cities in the Southeast and East Coast, as well as in mid-tier cities in the Midwest, will be the tipping point indicator. I am also looking for that startup spillover effect, in which an ecosystem of startups and businesses is launched and supported because of robotaxis. Service-related businesses are an obvious one. But even startups like Point One Navigation, which developed precise location technology and is in our Deals section, would qualify under my definition. And finally, competition. This matters for several reasons, including that it can drive down prices for the user and introduce different business models. So, what do you think? Sign up for the Mobility newsletter to vote in this week’s poll, where we ask: When do you expect robotaxis to reach a tipping point of mass adoption that will affect how people move from Point A to Point B? A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Many little birds have been chirping in senior reporter Sean O’Kane’s ear this past week about electric autonomous startup Monarch Tractor. Some of them shared an internal company memo that shows the startup is precariously close to shutting down. In the memo, execs warned staff it may need to lay off more than 100 employees or possibly even “shut down.” Reminder: Monarch has raised at least $220 million since it was founded seven years ago. It went through a restructuring in late 2024 in an effort to cut costs and expand into new areas, including licensing its autonomous tech. That turnaround plan is underway, but Monarch may run out of cash before it can make real headway. The company is also facing legal problems. A dealership in Idaho sued Monarch for breach of contract and allegedly violating its warranty because the California-based startup’s tractors were “unable to operate autonomously.” Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Autonomy, the EV subscription company founded by Scott Painter, secured $25 million in financing to acquire about 1,250 vehicles to expand beyond its prev