The autonomous vehicle industry is in the middle of a second, larger boom, according to a new analysis from early-stage investor Trucks VC. TechCrunch Mobility reports that the firm has received pitches from 81 new autonomous vehicle startups so far in 2026, two-thirds more than in 2025 and enough to surpass the dealmaking frenzy of a decade ago.
The surge is being driven by AI foundation models that finally make end-to-end autonomous driving architectures practical, according to Trucks VC partner Puneeth Meruva. He told TechCrunch that startups can now deploy within a few months with less than $1 million raised, a fraction of what was needed during the first AV wave.
Why the AV boom is bigger than 2016
The first AV wave a decade ago was defined by expensive R&D and long timelines. Meruva argues that foundation models now provide the technical architecture needed for true end-to-end systems, which makes autonomous vehicles cheaper and faster to deploy because the models generalize well across different environments and scenarios.
The arrival of open source models like Nvidia's Alpamayo and Qwen's general-purpose vision-language-action models has made it even easier for new entrants. Many of the startups pitching Trucks VC are applying autonomy to construction, warehouses, agriculture and mining, but an increasing number are pure-play robotaxi businesses positioning themselves as regional competitors to Waymo rather than global ones.
- 81 new AV startups pitched Trucks VC in 2026, up two-thirds from last year
- Most applications go beyond robotaxis to construction, warehouse, agriculture and mining
- Powerful open source models such as Nvidia's Alpamayo and Qwen's vision-language-action models lower the entry barrier
