Data pressed: Saturday, October 31, 2026

Happy Monday, folks!

We’re powering drones with energy beams. Grab a bevy - kick up your feet. Let’s dive in.

Reach says a drone flew for 10 hours on a beam of power, with no cord and no landing to charge. The best part - 83 views as of Nov. 2. lol

Remember your first wireless charger? Apple announced the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, its first iPhones with wireless charging, on Sep 12, 2017.

Nine years to the day after the iPhone 8 reached stores (Sep 22, 2017), Reach Power says a drone flew itself for 10 hours on a steered beam of power. That was Sep 22, 2026, at the Virginia Tech Institute for Advanced Computing, at an Operational Energy-Innovation event.

Tesla got an FCC waiver for a car-charging positioning system, too. It lines up an electric vehicle over a ground pad for wireless charging. The FCC granted it on Feb 18, 2026. Not a Tesla App reports it is for the Cybercab. The FCC order names no vehicle model.

Hat tip to Nikola Tesla, who showed lamps lit without wires back in 1891. Cord-cutting never goes out of style.

I’ve followed Reach Power for several months. It blows my mind that a company with this technology has 28 subscribers on YouTube. And only 83 views on last week’s rapid-fire flight test. Hilarious.

Godspeed, Reach!

This week's thesis: one name did most of the adding.

Zipline added 65 of the 75 net new delivery drones on the U.S. registry in the week to Oct 31.

Tesla added 505 of the 620 net new vehicle authorizations in Texas from Oct 9 to Nov 2 (81%).

One week and one window make a pattern to watch, not a trend.

The number to quote: 3,991 registered delivery drones, 78.1% of them Zipline's (Oct 31, 2026).

Zipline went from 3,052 to 3,117 registered delivery drones in the week to Oct 31. That is 78.1% of all 3,991.

Amazon added 7, to 772, after adding 100 the week before.

Large drones reached 16,757, up 117 on the week.

Aurora's third-quarter revenue was $3 million, with a net loss of $234 million, per its shareholder letter filed Oct 28.

U.S. imports on the drone lines of the tariff schedule were $134.0M from January to August 2026, against $141.9M a year earlier. July and August 2026 ($23.6M and $24.4M) were the two biggest months of this year. The drone duties began Sep 3, so their effect is not in our data yet.

Earnings This Week

  • BETA reports Tuesday, Nov 3 before the open.

  • Joby follows Wednesday, Nov 4 after the close.

  • Kodiak is also scheduled to report Thursday, Nov 5 after the close.

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

On Oct 28 the White House signed a Section 232 proclamation on robotics, industrial machinery and their parts and components. It puts no tariff in place now. The text doesn't mention drones.

Drones already have their own Section 232 action, signed Aug 13, 2026, with duties since Sep 3.

Texas authorized 620 more vehicles in 24 days. From Oct 9 to Nov 2, the Texas lookup went from 2,708 to 3,328 vehicles authorized to operate. Tesla added 505 (81%), Waymo 74, a fleet we are not naming 38, and Kodiak 3.

Waymo says it is scaling in five cities over the week of Oct 27, adding nearly 250 square miles. Waymo post

Toyota and Waymo say they will begin initial operations to test and validate an autonomous Toyota bZ4X fleet in Japan in 2027. Waymo post

Joby flew its piloted air taxi from St. Petersburg to Tampa International on Friday, Oct 30, the first of a week of Florida demonstration flights under the White House-backed eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (WUSF). Joby says Orlando and Kennedy Space Center flights are planned. We haven't confirmed they have flown.

Wisk says it opened a vertiport at Hollister Municipal Airport after a ribbon-cutting last week. Wisk newsroom

Honest caveat: Demonstration flights and a test pad are not passenger service, and the Toyota and Waymo date is a plan for testing, not a launch.

Thanks for hanging out with us. If you want to watch us vibe code Marble in public, our latest video is Building an AI Investment Research Platform With Claude Agents.

Now you're up to speed.

Godspeed.