Gerald Lackey

Waymo opened its service to all Nashville riders, removing the waitlist requirement. Airport testing is underway, and a Lyft integration is coming later this year. waymo.com/blog/shorts/nashvi…

The big question with any new tech, especially autonomous vehicles, isn't just 'can it work?' It's 'do we truly understand how it works?' For public trust and safety, the transparency around these systems needs to match our ambition. techtimes.com/articles/31971…

Waymo recalled nearly 4,000 robotaxis after vehicles drove into active highway construction zones 13 times, the fourth recall in two years. The system was working exactly as designed, the design just prioritized the wrong hazard.

NYC is retrofitting two Manhattan heliports for electric air taxi operations, with Archer and Joby expected to begin commercial flights there by end of year. Cities that build the infrastructure first will set the terms. smartcitiesdive.com/news/nyc…

DC’s updated e-bike law took effect this month, drawing a clearer line between e-bikes and electric motorcycles as teen ridership climbs. Now 3 classes of e-bikes. Anything capable of exceeding 20 mph on electric power alone is not an e-bike. More below. icebike.org/washington-ebike…

The UK is starting autonomous HGV rollout on hub-to-hub routes because they're predictable and measurable. US freight corridors have the same structural setup, and operator readiness is outpacing regulatory clarity here the same way it has abroad. traffictechnologytoday.com/n…

Uber, Lucid, and Nuro picked Houston as their second robotaxi market, targeting mid-2027, with each company doing the one thing it is good at instead of one company vertically integrating the whole stack. Specialization versus vertical integration. techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/ub…

Washington's new e-bike law restricts riders 12 to 16 from operating e-bikes that go faster than 20 mph. I'm curious whether age-based speed caps are the right fix, or whether they just push the issue elsewhere. kiro7.com/news/local/new-sta…

People assume autonomous vehicles will kill car rental. The better question is whether rental operators are actually the best-positioned players in the autonomous era, since tech companies build the software but have no interest in managing fleets. autorentalnews.com/digital-c…

Waymo and TU Delft built a new model called the Reference Driver to better predict human behavior in the moments before a crash. The research is useful, but it can also serve the company's own narrative if no one examines it. techcrunch.com/2026/06/10/wa…

Private sector partners are frequently the first movers, supplying speed and a willingness to innovate, while the public sector contributes scale and a mission-oriented focus that is almost impossible to replicate anywhere else.

Amazon's e-cargo bike pilot is easy to dismiss as a novelty, but dense urban delivery economics genuinely favor smaller, human-operated vehicles over autonomous alternatives right now, and that may hold true for longer than the tech narrative suggests. planetizen.com/news/2026/05/…

The BUILD America 250 Act sets aside $27M to retrain truck drivers for the autonomous era. Everyone focuses on displacement, but the more interesting question is whether this transition creates better opportunities than the jobs it replaces. businessinsider.com/build-am…

The case for it is straightforward. 84.8 million carsharing users, $9.2 billion in auto lending fraud, and no human clerk in sight. Something has to fill that gap. technology.org/2026/05/25/in…

Cities planned for cars, then bikes. E-scooters and e-bikes didn't wait for infrastructure to catch up, they just scaled. 133 million shared micromobility trips in 2023. The rides are happening. The infrastructure isn't ready.

The numbers that open this piece from the Department of Energy are worth sitting with for a moment, because they frame the scale of the challenge in a way that makes the urgency of transportation energy research feel concrete rather than abstract. energy.gov/cmei/vehicles/ene…

The case for robotaxis rests on a safety argument that has genuine empirical support. Waymo's peer-reviewed data suggests its vehicles are involved in substantially fewer injury crashes than human drivers in comparable conditions. vitalcitynyc.org/waymo-nyc-r…

East Grand Rapids just updated its ordinances to formally recognize and regulate micromobility devices. As new mobility options emerge, local regulations must evolve alongside them to support responsible travel. wzzm13.com/article/news/loca…

Controversial, but I think a notice of noncompliance w/ a 72-hour reporting requirement is a good instrument to improve the safety of autonomous fleets if DMVs exercise their authority effectively. Safety compliance is better than punishment in this case. nbcbayarea.com/news/local/dr…

Public input before the Legislature finalizes these recommendations is not a bureaucratic formality. It is how you find out whether the people sharing these spaces agree with the assumptions on which the framework is built. bostonglobe.com/2026/05/01/o…