Volkswagen Will Bring Its Robotaxi Service to the U.S. with Help from Uber

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Europe’s self-driving car industry has lagged behind the Chinese and American markets. German automaker Volkswagen may remedy that problem next year, when it will debut its robotaxi ride-pool service in the U.S. Plus: Big publishers may have a new way to take on the AI industry’s encroaching web scrapers. Patrick Coffee hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Programming note: Starting this week, Tech News Briefing episodes will be released on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the TNB Tech Minute will be released twice on weekdays, in the morning and afternoon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Rated T for Teen.
0:01.7	Each year, thousands of adults lose their shred.
0:05.1	It's an epidemic simply known as shred loss, but it doesn't have to be this way.
0:09.2	Because rekindling your shred is as easy as playing the new Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4.
0:13.7	With new parks, cross-platform multiplayer, and sick new game modes,
0:18.9	we can put an end to shred loss everywhere.
0:21.6	Hit the new Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 and show the world that the shred's not dead.
0:25.6	Pre-order Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 and play the Foundry demo.
0:33.6	Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, July 11th. I'm Patrick Coffey for the Wall Street Journal.
0:40.5	The Robo Taxi Wars are heating up between key players like Waymo, Tesla, and Volkswagen.
0:47.8	Self-driving minivans are already testing out German roads, and a deal with Uber will bring them to the U.S. next year.
0:54.3	Plus, what are data scrapers? And why are big publishers trying to block them?
0:59.6	We look at the latest development in the fight between AI and the news business that could
1:04.0	change the future of the web as we know it.
1:08.2	But first, scrapers don't sound like the friendliest tech toys.
1:12.8	But they're especially threatening to the media business, since they descend on websites
1:16.9	by the millions in order to vacuum up the kind of content that feeds AI products.
1:22.0	And that includes the original reporting that drives news organizations.
1:26.1	Now, some publishers are hoping to force the AI
1:28.9	giant's hands by blocking their bots altogether. The journals Isabella Simonetti reported on this
1:34.9	emerging phenomenon. Isabella, publishers are now fighting tech companies to protect their websites
1:40.6	and avoid having their stories hoovered up to feed new AI tools.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 7 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.