At his confirmation hearing, Transportation Secretary-designate Pete Buttigieg expressed his support of President Joe Biden's $2T infrastructure plan. Biden's plan is centered around climate change and aims to modernize roads, bridges, and railways. Biden would like to add 50,000 electric vehicle charging stations across highways.

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• The former presidential candidate defended the Biden administration's decision to cancel the Keystone XL oil pipeline and thus the contracts of workers involved in the project, insisting Biden's plan will create well-paying jobs in the clean energy sector.
• Buttigieg said economic recovery will determine how the Biden administration will finance the plan.
• Earlier this week, Sen. Joe Manchin(D-WV) encouraged Biden to spend $4T on infrastructure.
• Buttigieg will likely be confirmed as the Democrats control the Senate. Buttigieg's responses drew bipartisan praise from Sen. Roger Wicker(R-MI), who said he’s “quite certain he will be confirmed.”

United Airlines reported a net loss of $1.9B in Q4 and $7.1B in all of 2020. United warned its sales in Q1 will be down 65%-70% from the same period in 2019.

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• U.S. air traffic in January is down 40% from pre-pandemic levels. January is usually a slow month for passenger volume.
• CEO Scott Kirby said it's too early to know when the company will break even and emphasized mass vaccinations will have to occur for the airline industry to recover.
• United's average daily "core cash burn" in Q4 was $19M, down from $24M in Q3. "Core cash burn" accounts for investments the airlines made to become more efficient.
• United expects to receive an additional $2.6B from the Payroll Support Program. 
• Last week Delta Air Lines announced it lost $755M in Q4 and a record $12.4B in 2020

On his final day in office, former President Donald Trump pardoned former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski. Levandowski received an 18-month jail sentence in August 2020 after he pled guilty to one charge of stealing trade secrets from Google's self-driving car division Waymo.

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• Levandowski left Google in 2016 to start Otto, a self-driving truck startup. Uber acquired Otto for $680M that same year.
• When Levandowski entered his plea agreement, he admitted to stealing 14,000 documents before he departed from Google.
• In February 2017, Google sued Uber, accusing the ride-sharing company of stealing its self-driving car trade secrets. 
• The two companies reached a settlement in February 2018, after Uber agreed to pay $245M to Waymo.
• In explaining the decision to pardon Levandowski, the White House said he "led Google’s efforts to create self-driving technology" and "has paid a significant price for his actions."

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday, carrying an additional 60 Starlink satellites. This was the seventeenth Starlink mission. SpaceX has deployed 1,015 satellites, with 951 still in orbit.

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• The launch was the eighth for the Falcon 9 rocket, setting a new record. CEO Elon Musk has previously said these rockets can be launched 10 times before they require a repair.
• SpaceX intends to launch thousands of satellites around the world to provide high-speed internet anywhere on Earth.
• The project will cost $10B, but SpaceX forecasts it will generate $30B in annual revenue.
• SpaceX is offering early access to the service in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. It has registered subsidiaries in an additional 17 countries such as Australia, Brazil, and Spain.

Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent has partnered with automaker Geely to build smart applications and self-driving technology. The companies will work on mobile apps, including multiscreen interaction and intelligent speech.

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• Tencent and Geely first partnered in 2018 for a joint venture with China Railways to create high-speed wifi and railway mobility service applications.
• Last week, Geely partnered with Chinese search engine Baidu to develop electric cars.
• Earlier this month, Geely and Apple supplier Foxconn announced a joint venture focused on electric vehicles and self-driving technology.

Autonomous vehicle company Aurora has partnered with truck manufacturer Paccar on commercial self-driving trucks. Engineers from both companies will pursue an “accelerated development program” for driverless trucks, starting with Paccar's Peterbilt and Kenworth models.

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• The firms said they'll work on “all aspects of collaboration,” including technology upgrades and integrating the trucks with Aurora’s hardware and software.
• Once complete, Aurora plans to test the trucks on public roads and privately at Paccar’s technical center in Washington state. Paccar would sell the trucks to Aurora, which plans to deploy them in North America within "several years."
• Recently, Aurora acquired Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, its self-driving vehicle division. Aurora also said it will begin testing driverless semi-trucks and other vehicles in Texas soon.

A version of this story first appeared in Inside AI. Read the full issue here.

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