Amazon has announced a new pilot package delivery service in Frankfurt, Germany, that meshes electric road and rail transport.

The e-commerce giant will use vans from its delivery depot to the first tram stop on the outskirts of Frankfurt, with the city’s new Gütertram service transporting the goods to awaiting cargo bikes. Gütertram constitutes part of a research project from Frankfurt University and the local municipality and fits with a broader Amazon initiative to embrace trains. In April, the company signed a logistics contract to use a rail network to transport goods between fulfilment centers in Germany and Italy.

Amazon has been pushing its green credentials to counter various damning environmental reports through the years, though last year it abandoned plans to make half of its shipments carbon neutral by 2030.

This isn’t the first time trams have been repurposed for cargo in Europe. In Germany, Dresden operated the CarGoTram for two decades until its recent closure, while Deutsche Post DHL piloted something similar in Schwerin, scrapping it less than two years after its 2022 launch.

Neat helps other companies sell insurance products to their own customers. In insurance lingo, it focuses on affinity insurance contracts linked to another service or product.

French embedded insurance startup Neat secures $55 million

EV warranty startup Amber is expanding nationwide, bringing on new vehicles and offering a new remote diagnostic scan — all signs that the one-year-old company is putting its recent $3.18…

EV warranty startup Amber launches a remote diagnostic service for Teslas

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off in the early hours of Tuesday morning carrying a crew that will attempt the first commercial spacewalk and travel higher than any crewed mission…

SpaceX launches Polaris Dawn, where astronauts will venture further than any humans in more than 50 years

Amazon has announced a new pilot package delivery service in Frankfurt, Germany, that meshes electric road and rail transport. The e-commerce giant will use vans from its delivery depot to…

Amazon trials last-mile deliveries by tram in Frankfurt
Image Credits: Amazon

Apple’s relationship with Google as its search partner is taking a new turn with Apple’s introduction of visual search, or “Visual Intelligence,” as the iPhone maker dubbed it Monday during…

Apple partners with third parties, like Google, on iPhone 16’s visual search

Spotter, a startup that underwrites creators and offers AI tools, raised $7.4 million, according to a Form D filing viewed by TechCrunch. A representative for Spotter confirmed the filing’s legitimacy,…

Creator startup Spotter raises another $7.4M

Cities spend hundreds of millions each year on paratransit services, or public rides for disabled residents, yet those services remain limited and unpredictable. Wheelchair users often face late pickups, hindering…

Spare fixes cities’ outdated transport services for disabled residents

Lucid Motors is just a few months away from finally launching its electric SUV, and the company now says the upcoming vehicle — dubbed Gravity — will have Tesla’s North…

Lucid Motors’ Gravity SUV will have Tesla charging built in

MariaDB‘s short-lived tenure as a public company is all but over, as the struggling database business is now fully under the auspices of K1 Investment Management. MariaDB also announced a…

MariaDB goes private with new CEO as K1 closes acquisition

In addition, JFrog is also launching a runtime security solution, as well as an integration with Nvidia’s NIM microservices.

JFrog deepens its partnership with GitHub, launches runtime security service

In the world of pharmaceuticals, companies aim to operate under GMP guidelines — a set of production and manufacturing measures to assure standards for medicinal products. But too often, the…

Qualifyze swallows $54M to improve pharmaceutical supply chains

In addition to the code, StackGen also visualizes what the new infrastructure will look like, and users can drag and drop additional resources in this interfaces as needed.

StackGen raises $12.3M for its infrastructure-from-code service

Goods are shipped around the world via roads, rail and air. Why not space, too? That’s the question posed by Inversion Space, a Los Angeles-based startup that’s developing a reentry…

Inversion Space accelerates orbital reentry vehicle tech with $71M Space Force contract

A new report from Congruent Ventures and SVB highlights startups that could significantly reduce carbon emissions, mitigating climate change.

Hardware companies dominate a list of promising climate tech startups

Smartcat, founded in 2016, is among the vendors providing automated translation tools geared toward enterprises, and its co-founder and CEO, Ivan Smolnikov, says business is good.

Smartcat secures $43M for its AI-powered translation platform

Form3, a startup building tools to connect financial players with each other to enable account payments, has it raised $60 million to continue expanding its business. 

Form3, a quiet giant in UK fintech, raises $60M at a $570M valuation

The Threads team is not yet working on a separate inbox or a direct messaging system for the social network, despite user demands and will continue to use Instagram inbox. However, the…

Threads is not working on its own DM system yet, but it might make it easier to send Instagram messages

Google has once again lost in its bid to overturn a 2017 antitrust decision by the European Commission. The bloc found its shopping comparison service had broken competition rules —…

Google loses appeal against EU’s $2.7B Shopping antitrust case, as bloc also wins $15B Apple state aid appeal

A love of food — and, well, cheese — has landed German fermentation startup Formo‘s co-founder Roman Plewka and its team a hefty $61 million Series B round to keep…

Formo gets investors’ mouths watering with Koji protein-based animal-free cheese

Swiggy is considering boosting the fresh issue component of its IPO by $150 million, targeting a total of $1.4 billion.

Swiggy weighs increasing its IPO size by $150M, aiming to raise up to $1.4B

AppsForBharat, the startup behind Hindu devotional app Sri Mandir, has raised $18 million to penetrate into global markets and add new features.

Sri Mandir helps Hindus visit sacred temples and offer donations virtually, from their phones

You could argue whether Cybertruck owners crave attention, but attention they receive, often by critics poking fun at the vehicles. People seem to particularly delight at Cybertruck mishaps, as when…

Seattle Cybertruck became fleeting tourist destination

Cambridge University spinout CardiaTec is striving to tackle cardiovascular diseases, one of the world’s leading causes of death, with AI.

Heart disease is the world’s biggest killer — this Cambridge Uni spinout is using AI to find new treatments

Online platforms have now overtaken TV for the first time as the most popular resource for news among adult consumers, at 71% versus 70%, according to new research.

Online, led by social media, overtakes TV as the most popular source of news in the UK, Ofcom says

Apple has announced new features for the latest version of watchOS, watchOS 11, including translation and an upgraded Smart Stack.

Apple upgrades watchOS with AI-powered features, including translation

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Let’s dive into the news! Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com or send a message on Signal at…

TechCrunch Space: Boeing’s Starliner returns to Earth

iPhone 16, Apple Intelligence, AirPods 4 and more: Everything revealed at Apple Event 2024

With another new iPhone comes another new iPhone button: Camera Control, which was announced at Apple’s “Glowtime” event on Monday.

Why Apple added yet another button to the iPhone 16

Audible, Amazon’s audiobook business, on Monday announced that it’ll use AI trained on professional narrators’ voices to generate new audiobook recordings. A select, U.S.-based cohort of audiobook narrators will be…

Audible recruits voice actors to train audiobook-generating AI

The lack of climate announcement’s at Apple’s annual event shows just how hard meaningful progress on carbon emissions can be, even for one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Climate change was a lot less prominent in this year’s iPhone event

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