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! It seems like a day doesn’t go by without Waymo making some kind of expansion announcement. Detroit, Las Vegas, Nashville, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., are just a few of the cities the company plans to bring its robotaxi to in the coming months. But as I have argued in this newsletter before, there is another “expansion” I think is more important. Freeways. And now after years of testing and development, the company’s commercial robotaxi service is using freeways around the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. This is a critical expansion for the company. It’s the concrete and asphalt connective tissue in sprawling metro areas like the Bay Area. This new freeway access is fueling Waymo’s expansion in that region, which is now 260 square miles and encompasses Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Robotaxi rides can have more efficient routes too. Waymo told me it will reduce ride times by up to 50%. And using freeways is also essential for Waymo to offer rides to and from the San Francisco Airport, a location the company is currently testing in. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 That freeway-to-airport moment will be the big unlock for Waymo. But will it be enough to help push it in the black? Until someone over there slides me their balance sheet, I can’t say. It will certainly be a popular option for travelers. That doesn’t mean the economics will pencil out. Read on for more news, including Einride’s SPAC bid, deals for Harbinger and Teradar, as well as how Via fared in its first earnings and a looming shutdown for Rad Power Bikes. Plus! Scroll down to get the results of the Tesla poll. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin It’s been nearly nine months since Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson abruptly resigned, leaving the company without a permanent replacement. That may be about to change, though. A few little birds told us Lucid Motors has zeroed in on a candidate for the top role. It’s expected to be someone outside the organization, which is perhaps no surprise; in August, we shared here that the company and the executive hiring firm it’s using had cast a very wide net and was even cold-calling some candidates. This would likely mean that Marc Winterhoff, who’s been serving as interim CEO, would slide back to the COO role he occupied before Rawlinson left. 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 Another SPAC has entered the AV world! Mergers with special acquisition companies may not be officially “back,” but they are certainly popular among autonomous vehicle companies. Einride, the Swedish electric and autonomous truck startup, plans to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, just six weeks after it raised <head>00 million from investors. The SPAC merger with Legato Merger Corp. values Einride at <head>.8 billion in pre-money equity. Einride does generate revenue, which may sound obvious but there have been plenty of pre-revenue transportation companies that have SPAC’d in recent years. For now, its primary source of revenue is coming from its software-as-a-service product and a fleet of 200 heavy-duty electric trucks used by companies like Heineken and PepsiCo. Its unusual-looking autonomous podlike trucks are still in pilot mode. The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2026, with Einride making its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Other deals that got my attention this week … Forterra, a company developing autonomous tech for defense, raised $238 million in equity and debt funding. Moore Strategic Ventures led the equity piece of the funding, while Crescent Cove provided the debt financing. Gopuff, the rapid-delivery startup, raised $250 million in a round led by Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners. Baillie Gifford, Robinhood, Equalis Capital, George Ruan, Yakir Gabay, and Gopuff’s co-founders. The funding put its valuation at $8.5 billion, according to Bloomberg, a significant markdown from its last raise in 2021. Harbinger, the Los Angeles-based electric truck startup, raised <head>60 million in a Series C funding round co-led by FedEx. As part of the investment, FedEx ordered 53 of Harbinger’s electric truck chassis. Octopus Electric Vehicles, a U.K.-based electric vehicle-leasing business, has struck a deal with lenders, including Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Agricole, to take its total funding line to £2 billion ($2.6 billion), Sky News reported. Teradar, a Boston