Autonomous rideshare startup Waymo has announced an additional $2.5 billion investment round of funding. Waymo plans to use the additional funding, led by parent company Alphabet Inc., to hire more staff and advance its self-driving technology toward more paid rides.

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Electric moped-sharing company Revel is discovering that “the more wheels the merrier” as the brand launches its first Tesla-powered ride-share program in NYC.

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One of Tesla’s future plans is to roll out a network of self-driving “robotaxis,” dubbed “Tesla Network.”  In today’s Tesla shareholder meeting, CEO Elon Musk fielded a question from a shareholder about the possibility of having a human-driven rideshare fleet prior to the rollout of Tesla Network.

This would be similar to Uber/Lyft or other rideshare services, but driven through an owner’s own Tesla app which they already have installed.

Musk seemed responsive to the idea, stating that while the end goal is to have autonomous ridesharing, this might be a good stopgap prior to Tesla gaining regulatory approval for their robotaxi fleets.

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During yesterday’s conference call about Tesla’s second quarter financial results, Elon Musk refused to answer a question from a financial analyst about Travis Kalanick’s, Uber’s CEO, recent comments that his company would buy 500,000 Teslas in 2020 if they are equipped with Tesla’s self-driving technology by the end of the decade.

The short conversation was very revealing. Here it is in full: expand full story