/daily ·18 SEPT 2026 ·FRIDAY ·3 MIN READ ·6 STORIES

From Singapore to open-source semis

The week closes with Waymo in a second Asian city, Europe's first large-scale autonomous EV fleet commitment, a solid-state battery partnership with supply chain teeth, and an electric Class 8 truck with all 1,023 parts free to download.

01 / The Day

FRIDAY 18 SEPT 2026, ranked

Waymo Launches in Singapore, Its Second International Market

Waymo published plans to begin autonomous vehicle operations in Singapore — its second announced international market after Japan — bringing its sensor suite and mapping stack to a left-hand traffic, dense urban environment that differs substantially from its San Francisco and Phoenix operating conditions.

Singapore operates on left-hand traffic, requiring mirror-image mapping, sensor recalibration, and local Land Transport Authority regulatory approval
Singapore has been licensing autonomous vehicle pilots since 2017, giving Waymo an established regulatory framework to enter
Following Japan, Singapore suggests an Asia-Pacific expansion logic, not a one-off international experiment

Why it mattersEach new international Waymo market is a technical validation as much as a commercial expansion — proving that a system trained on US driving data can generalise to different road rules, urban density, and traffic culture is an unresolved question for the entire autonomous vehicle sector.

01 waymo.com↗

Lucid and Bolt to Deploy 25,000 Autonomous EVs Across Europe

Lucid Motors and European ride-hailing platform Bolt announced a partnership to deploy up to 25,000 autonomous electric vehicles across multiple European markets, combining Lucid's powertrain and range credentials with Bolt's existing multi-city driver and customer infrastructure.

25,000 vehicles is a commercially significant fleet — comparable to some of the largest global robotaxi commitments announced to date
Bolt operates in 45+ European cities, providing an immediately available geographic deployment footprint
The autonomous component is subject to per-market regulatory approvals; timeline for fully driverless operations has not been confirmed

Why it mattersEuropean robotaxi deployments have lagged US and Chinese equivalents significantly; a 25,000-vehicle commitment between a credible hardware manufacturer and an established ride-hailing platform is the first deployment announcement at genuine commercial scale in the region.

02 electrek.co↗

Solid-State Battery Maker Factorial Signs Production Partnership with Mitsui Kinzoku

Factorial Energy — which has previously announced partnerships with Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis — secured a new manufacturing partnership with Japan's Mitsui Kinzoku (Mitsui Mining and Smelting) to scale solid-state battery production, adding materials supply chain expertise to its existing OEM commercialisation path.

Mitsui Kinzoku is a leading supplier of battery copper foil and electrolyte materials — the partnership targets the supply chain, not just cell manufacturing
Factorial's electrolyte system operates at room temperature, addressing one of the main commercial obstacles to solid-state battery deployment at scale
The partnership follows CATL's Tectrans II platform and BYD's solid-state timeline announcements this week — multiple convergent commercialisation paths are now public

Why it mattersSolid-state batteries have been perpetually 'five years away' for over a decade; when a materials supplier with supply chain leverage partners with a cell maker that has OEM backing, the commercialisation timeline begins to look like an engineering problem rather than an unsolved science one.

03 electrek.co↗

Royal Enfield Flying Flea C6 Electric Motorcycle Launches Globally with European Pricing

Royal Enfield revealed European pricing and confirmed the global launch of the Flying Flea C6, its retro-inspired electric motorcycle — bringing one of the world's largest motorcycle brands by volume into the electric category for the first time in markets outside India.

Royal Enfield sells over 900,000 motorcycles annually, primarily in South and Southeast Asia — the C6 is its first global electric product
The retro aesthetic targets the lifestyle segment rather than performance, positioning above mass-market electric scooters
European pricing places it between mass-market electric scooters and premium performance EV motorcycles — a segment with few current options

Why it mattersRoyal Enfield's scale in emerging markets means the C6's market reception will directly inform whether legacy motorcycle brands can migrate their cost-sensitive customer base to electric across the markets that matter most for global two-wheel electrification.

04 electrek.co↗

Tesla Brings Cybercab to China for Display Only — No Sale, No Driverless Service

Tesla displayed the Cybercab autonomous vehicle in China and explicitly ruled out both sale and commercial robotaxi deployment in the Chinese market — a strategically notable positioning given that Baidu Apollo and Pony.ai already operate commercial driverless fleets in multiple Chinese cities while Tesla's US Cybercab faces an ongoing NHTSA certification investigation.

No timeline was provided for any Chinese commercial Cybercab deployment; Tesla cited ongoing regulatory discussions
Baidu's Apollo Go operates 10,000+ vehicles in China; Pony.ai is licensed in multiple cities — Tesla would enter a crowded, established market
The NHTSA certification investigation in the US and the China display-only status create regulatory pressure from both sides simultaneously

Why it mattersTesla's most distinctive new product is arriving in the world's largest auto market as a showroom exhibit while local competitors operate commercial fleets — a strategic gap that compounds if the NHTSA dispute in the US extends into 2027.

05 electrek.co↗

Windrose Releases Its Class 8 Electric Semi Truck as Open Source — All 1,023 Parts

Windrose released the complete CAD model library for its E700 Class 8 electric semi truck — all 1,023 components — under an open-source licence, making it the first open-source heavy electric vehicle designed for commercial freight at full scale and signalling a business model based on manufacturing services rather than proprietary IP.

Class 8 trucks (gross vehicle weight over 33 tonnes) are the final and most demanding segment of road electrification for freight
Open-source design allows fleet operators and OEM partners to customise the platform without licensing fees or proprietary supply chain lock-in
Windrose's apparent commercial strategy is manufacturing and assembly services — the same IP-agnostic model that Linux proved viable for enterprise software

Why it mattersAn open-source Class 8 electric truck is an institutional bet that hardware commoditisation, not platform lock-in, will define the commercial EV freight market — a thesis that challenges every incumbent OEM's IP-based revenue model.

06 electrek.co↗

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The Daily Archive

/FRI 18 SEPTFrom Singapore to open-source semis /THU 17 SEPTThe Price Floor Drops Again /WED 16 SEPTTesla's Regulatory Reckoning, CATL's Megawatt Truck, and the $20K BYD /TUE 15 SEPTIAA and the Cybercab detour /MON 14 SEPTThe Drag Coefficient Race /SUN 13 SEPTWeekend Shift /FRI 11 SEPTDiverging Markets /THU 10 SEPTTrump's China EV Gambit /WED 09 SEPTBYD Breaks Records, PHEVs Fail Tests /TUE 08 SEPTSafety First (and Then Not)/MON 07 SEPTBYD goes global, Cybercab goes 24/7, Chinese brands ace NCAP /SUN 06 SEPTVW signs, Ford bets /SAT 05 SEPTElectric Vehicles — Saturday, Sep 5 /FRI 04 SEPTLive Wires /THU 03 SEPTElectric September /WED 02 SEPTAffordable and Accountable /TUE 01 SEPTSafety, speed, and a deleted mandate /MON 31 AUGChina-First, Fleet-Forward /SUN 30 AUGThe 27 Percent Week /SAT 29 AUGThe Most Powerful Porsche Is Electric, BYD Prints Money Exporting, Underground Miners Go Electric /FRI 28 AUGKia Hits Price Parity, Ports Go Electric, Waymo Calls Out Tesla