Jon Keegan3/18/25

GM picks Nvidia as partner to build self-driving car fleet

Speaking today at the Nvidia GTC event, CEO Jensen Huang announced that GM has selected Nvidia as its partner to build its self-driving car fleet.

Huang said Nvidia will help with AI in manufacturing, enterprise, and in the vehicle itself.

In a press release announcing the deal, Mary Barra, chair and CEO of General Motors, said:

“AI not only optimizes manufacturing processes and accelerates virtual testing but also helps us build smarter vehicles while empowering our workforce to focus on craftsmanship. By merging technology with human ingenuity, we unlock new levels of innovation in vehicle manufacturing and beyond.”

GM said it had already been using Nvidia’s AI platforms for training models.

In December, GM scrapped its Cruise robotaxi program after nine years and $10 billion in investment. It laid off half Cruise’s workforce in February, estimated to be around 1,000 employees.

GM’s stock was down about 1% and Nvidia was down over 2% after the announcement.

Autonomous driving company Mobileye is down over 4% on the news.

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Alphabet’s 2015 investment in SpaceX is about to pay off handsomely with the company’s hotly anticipated IPO later this year, which is expected to be the largest in history.

Bloomberg reports that according to new financial filings, Alphabet’s investment could be worth up to $100 billion.

Google invested in SpaceX in 2015 when it, along with Fidelity, invested $1 billion in a round that valued SpaceX at $10 billion. At the end of 2025, Google owned just over 6% of SpaceX, per Bloomberg’s reporting on the more recent filings. That stake has likely been diluted due to SpaceX’s merger with xAI.

OpenAI pulls out of Stargate Norway, hands data center off to Microsoft

This is the third piece of Project Stargate that OpenAI is retreating from since a flurry of announcements last year.

Narvik, Norway

Barclays says autonomous couriers — think sidewalk robots and drones — could push delivery costs down to as little as $1 per order, from between $5 and $7 today and closer to $9 for traditional deliveries in high-labor-cost markets. If robots save $4 on every delivery, and enough companies start using them, the food delivery industry, including companies like DoorDash and Uber, could end up with $16 billion in extra profit every year, according to Barclays.

The catch: we’re nowhere near that world yet. Robots and drones handle less than 1% of deliveries today. Even by 2035, Barclays only sees penetration hitting around 10%.

Google’s Wing and Amazon have also been trying to crack last-mile product delivery — a reminder that this is part of a broader race to automate the most expensive leg of e-commerce.

Lyft is building the infrastructure robotaxis can’t avoid

The ride-hailing company is building an 80,000-square-foot Nashville warehouse where humans will help robotaxis with everything but driving.

Person working at Lyft Nashville warehouse

Uber has long had an asset-light business model: it provided the ride-hailing platform, and its contract workers brought their own vehicles. That’s changing as Uber positions itself at the center of the robotaxi era.

The Financial Times estimates that Uber has committed more than $10 billion to buying robotaxi fleets ($7.5 billion) and investing in the companies that make them ($2.5 billion). That includes yesterday’s announcement that it’s expanding its investment in Lucid, a deal worth about $2 billion, with plans to buy 35,000 vehicles.

This shift pits Uber against industry leaders like Google’s Waymo and Tesla, whose models involve company-owned vehicles running on proprietary platforms. While these autonomous fleets eliminate the need for drivers, they introduce new capital-intensive requirements for charging, cleaning, storage, and repair.

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