Slate, Wayve & BMW: This Week's Top EV News
15 April
Wayve, a market leader in embedding AI in autonomous vehicles (AVs), has announced that it received US$60m in investments from leading silicon companies including Arm, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Qualcomm Ventures.
The new investment will support integration across automotive compute platforms and continued deployment of the Wayve AI Driver in production systems for ADAS and automated driving.
This comes as autonomous vehicle deployments are on the rise, with McKinsey estimating there more than 700,000 fully autonomous robotaxi rides per week.
13 April
BMW Group together with Encory has commissioned the Cell Recycling Competence Centre (CRCC) in Bavaria, Germany.
The site will use technology developed by BMW Group that eliminates energy intensive thermal processing, aiming to close the resource loop and increase sustainability in battery manufacturing.
Electrified vehicles accounted for 26% of total BMW Group sales worldwide in 2025, with fully-electric vehicles representing around 18%. In Europe, the BMW Group reported a significant growth of 28.2% in fully-electric vehicles.
16 April
Slate’s pickup trucks are set to be an affordable two-door electric pickup for the US market. The EVs feature customisable features which can radically transform the vehicle, including turning it from a pickup into an SUV.
Slate Auto is an EV pickup startup based in the US and has raised hundreds of millions in funding, including from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
As the company prepares for first deliveries, set for the end of 2026, it has raised US$650m in Series C funding.
14 April
Ford has partnered with Renault Group to produce two Ford-branded EVs in Europe.
In 2026, Ford announced changes to its EV plans after recording US$19.5bn in loss mostly related to EVs, with the majority in the fourth quarter of 2025 and the remainder in 2026 and 2027.
However in Europe, EV’s remain a part of Ford strategy.
In the company’s 2025 Q4 earnings call, Ford CEO Jim Farley said: “We're looking to piggyback in Europe with Renault and Volkswagen on capital efficient, high scale, lower cost solutions like B car EVs in Renault. We think that is a market, depending on how the EU and the UK incentivise them, but that can be profitable.”
16 April
A Rivian manufacturing facility in Illinois is set to use a battery energy storage system constructed from more than 100 second-life battery packs sourced from its EVs.
This collaboration with Redwood Materials could deliver 10 megawatt-hours of dispatchable energy capacity to the plant in Normal.
The installation is expected to become the largest repurposed battery energy storage system deployed at a US automotive manufacturing site.
Demand for energy storage solutions has grown as battery manufacturers respond to requirements from emerging technologies, including AI applications.
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Jeff Bezos
Founder and Executive Chairman at Amazon
Jim Farley
Chief Executive Officer
