This edition of TechCrunch's Mobility newsletter covers two developments: unusual disclosures in Tesla's second-quarter shareholder letter and earnings call, and a major funding round for Travis Kalanick's new venture, Atoms, which notably includes an investment from Uber, the company he once led. The Tesla news raises questions about the true pace of its robotaxi rollout and Cybercab readiness, while the Kalanick story marks a striking comeback for a figure who left Uber under a cloud of scandal nearly a decade ago.

Tesla's cumulative robotaxi mileage chart masked a quarterly decline of roughly 36%, from about 1.1 million miles in the first quarter to around 700,000 in the second, even as the company touted service expansions into Florida and Texas. Elon Musk also revealed that Tesla must gather Cybercab-specific driving data using retrofitted vehicles with manual controls, seemingly contradicting past claims that its nearly 10 million customer cars were already generating usable training data; meanwhile net income fell 5% year-on-year as capital expenditure doubled and free cash flow turned negative. Separately, Kalanick's Atoms has raised $1.7 billion in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and Uber also participating and Ben Horowitz joining the board; Uber's $100 million stake, made six months ago, is especially notable given that Uber previously sued over a self-driving trade secrets dispute tied to a company Kalanick had acquired.