Apple has made a notable hire this month with a storied career in the automative industry. As first reported by Bloomberg, Steve MacManus has joined Apple as a “Senior Director” working out of Apple Park in Cupertino.

As Waymo continues its push for a driverless future, the Alphabet company is trying to expand to more regions. This week, the state of California has granted Waymo a permit to transport passengers in its self-driving vehicles.

Waymo has largely been testing and operating self-driving cars in the United States. The Alphabet division today announced a partnership with Renault and Nissan to bring autonomous vehicles to France, Japan, and other parts of the world.

An unconfirmed report of Apple buying Drive.ai suggests the Cupertino company may be primarily interested in acquiring engineers from the self-driving startup.

However, a statement by Apple suggests that the deal is not certain …

Google Maps is now able to show you the real-time availability of nearby EV charging stations when you use the map search feature.

Shipping authorities in Denmark have adopted a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) to detect shipping sulphur emission levels. The shipping emissions detection system, developed by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), will be deployed along the Great Belt region where large tankers travel from and to the Baltic Sea.

New data out today about retail store closures in the US shows that “experiential” tenants like Apple and Tesla aren’t driving consumer traffic to malls like landlords expect.

In a post on Medium, Waymo has confirmed massive expansion plans for a Technical Service Center in Mesa, Arizona.

Towards the tail end of 2018, Google Maps added the ability for users to find out the location of Lime scooters in a very few select cities globally. The service has now rolled out to a further 80 cities around the planet.

Lyft has today officially filed its IPO with the SEC (via CNN) as it looks to raise as much as $100M under the ticker LYFT on the Nasdaq. The move comes as Lyft’s main competitor Uber is also expected to make its initial public offering soon.

A rumor today from German publication Manager Magazin, shares some alleged details about a shift in Apple’s Project Titan. While Apple’s car efforts were originally expected to include the company manufacturing its own vehicle, it reportedly later changed course to just focusing on developing autonomous vehicle software. However, today’s rumor suggests that Apple is working on its own electric van.

Leviton has unveiled its next generation electrical Load Center. The new breaker panel works with an integrated Wi-Fi or Ethernet hub to offer remote circuit control, monitor electrical consumption, set up smart alerts, and more with its iOS and Android app.

For the past several years, Alphabet’s X has been working on Project Malta to create a new approach for grid-scale energy storage based on salt. Malta is now ready to graduate from the Moonshot Factory as an independent, non-Alphabet company.

Apple has recently picked up one of Tesla’s senior designers, Andrew Kim. After spending two years at the automaker working on design for many Tesla vehicles, even unreleased models, Kim is now continuing his design work on undisclosed projects at Apple.

Nine years since the Google Self-Driving Car Project began and over 10 million autonomous miles later, the company today announced the launch of Waymo One. The Alphabet division is launching the first public self-driving service in Phoenix, Arizona and fully detailing how hailing an autonomous vehicle works.

Following recent updates focused on upgrading Commutes, Google Maps is now working to improve the experience of finding charging stations for electric vehicles. Optimized search and listings surface more detailed information like ports availability, and supports Tesla, ChargePoint, and several other networks around the world.