The Road to Autonomy

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the latest developments in the autonomous vehicle industry including the introduction of Tesla’s Cybercab, Waymo’s expansion and the growth of robotaxis. 

On 10/10 Tesla unveiled Cybercab, a two passenger robotaxi as Waymo ramps up operations in multiple cities around the U.S., Hyundai works on their Motional strategy and Zoox prepares to launch commercial service in Las Vegas in 2025. 

Even as Robotoaxis scale, certain OEMs are still focused on developing SAE Level 3 systems which come with complex regulatory issues. Along with the regulatory issues comes liability and who is at fault in the event of a crash. It’s a problem that has not been solved yet and one that certain special interest groups might not want to be solved.

Episode Chapters

0:00 We, Robot

6:55 President Tump on Autonomous Vehicles

8:34 Shared Rides

11:45 Zoox in Las Vegas

14:00 Motional / Hyundai

21:14 Tort Reform

29:02 Tim Kentley Klay's HYPR

33:10 Mobileye

34:47 VW ID Buzz Autonomous Vehicle Service

37:33 Robotaxi Outlook

Recorded on Friday, October 11, 2024 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

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In this episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Tesla’s We Robot event, an event that Grayson has dubbed as “Autonomy Disneyland” and the markets mixed market reaction to the event.

While the We Robot event was impressive and Disneyesque, it fell short on providing concrete details about timelines, financial projections, and technological progress in Tesla’s development of full self-driving (FSD). The lack of substantive details led to an 8% drop in Tesla’s stock price, while Uber and Lyft’ stocks gained on no further details about Tesla’s proposed robotaxi network service. 

Overall, the We Robot event was impressive. Cybercab, Robovan are Tesla’s vision for an autonomous future. Optimus is getting closer to moving into homes, and we suspect Tesla has something else up there sleeves. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 Optimus (Robots)

2:35 Full Self-Driving (FSD)

9:40 Cybercab

19:24 Uber & Lyft

26:12 Does Amazon Integrate Zoox into a Prime Mobility Tier?

28:33 Inductive Charging 

32:56 Autonomy Disneyland

34:54 Next Week

Recorded on October 11, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

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David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on TheRoad to Autonomy podcast to discuss Ford's BlueCruise price cut and GM's burgeoning competition with Tesla for personally owned autonomous vehicles. 

Ford continues to face headwinds without an autonomous driving partner as GM prepares to once again commercialize Cruise and Tesla prepares to introduce the robotaxi on 10/10. Without a partner and Waymo currently open to doing deals with several OEMs, could Ford once again strike a partnership this time not with Google but with Waymo?

There are a lot of questions to be answered as the market for personally-owned autonomous vehicles begins to emerge. When the market is fully emerge, one of the biggest questions that remains is which company will secure the coveted Costco partnership?

Episode Chapters

0:00 Car Software Subscriptions 

8:06 GM Cruise Subscription 

10:53 GM vs. Tesla

13:03 Could Ford Go Back to Waymo?

15:31 May Mobility

18:53 Autonomous Driving Stacks

20:52 AVRide

21:38 Commerce Dept. Connected/Autonomous Vehicle Proposed Rules

24:22 Autonomous Driving Stacks for Select Markets

25:32 Hyundai 

28:32 FSD Approach 

30:19 Zoox

37:03 Costco Autonomous Vehicle Partnership 

39:12 Aurora Driver-Out 

40:03 Key Takeaways 

Recorded on Tuesday October 3, 2024 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Tesla’s highly anticipated 10/10 We Robot event and what could be announced. Could Optimus have a friend? Could Tesla introduce Full Self-Driving (Supervised) for Tesla Semi? Will the robotaxi be a two passenger vehicle? There are lots of questions that will be answered next week live on the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, CA. 

As Tesla is poised to potentially change the market, Waymo has begun their early rider program in Austin, Texas in a 37 square mile ODD. Next up for early rider, Atlanta. We expect Waymo to begin Atlanta early rider access in November 2024. Then there is Zoox which announced a new partnership with the Vegas Golden Knights and delayed their Vegas robotaxi launch until 2025 as part of the announcement. 

Wrapping up the episode, Grayson and Walter discuss Xiaodi Hou’s new start-up, Bot Auto and Uber Freight’s growing role in the autonomous trucking ecosystem. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 10/10 Tesla We Robot Event

1:50 Venture Capitalists and Wall Street’s Outlook on Autonomy Investments

5:25 Perhaps a Two Passenger Tesla Robotaxi?

7:06 Tesla Semi

10:14 Waymo’s Increased Testing of the Zeekr Vehicle 

13:18 California’s Autonomous Vehicle Bills Vetoed

18:20 Waymo Begins Early Rider Access in Austin

20:51 Zoox / Golden Knights Partnership 

25:25 AVRide

26:43 Sidewalk Delivery Bots

30:12 Bot Auto

33:38 Next Week

Recorded on October 3, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

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Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on the Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the growing demand for oil and how Texas energy exports could hit $230 billion by the end of the year. 

In Q3 2024, global oil demand reached a record of 103.4 million barrels per day. To keep up with the global demand for oil and in an effort to maintain marketshare, Saudi Arabia recently announced that the Kingdom will increase daily oil production by 1 million barrels at day to 9.9 million barrels per day by December 2025. 

While Saudi Arabia is increasing output, Texas continues to output millions of barrels of oil per day as well. As of July, Texas is currently outputting 5.7 million barrels per day of crude oil and 3.85 million barrels per day of natural gas liquids.  As global oil demand continues to outstrip supply, Texas is working to close the gap by leveraging technology to bring new wells online. 

The oil and gas industry is thriving in Texas. So much so, that the industry paid $26.3 billion in state and local royalties and taxes in 2023.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Preparing for Hurricanes 

2:35 Growing Oil Demand 

11:33 Oil Markets & Interest Rates 

14:34 International Longshoremen's Association Port Strike 

19:42 Interest Rates and the Impact on Drilling 

23:22 Increasing Productivity Through Automation 

27:28 Oil & Natural Gas Industry's Impact on Texas' Economy 

31:28 Growing Household Debt & Delinquencies 

35:48 Strengthening Euro 

37:42 Rising Oil Demand Continuing in 2025 

40:21 Quarterly Oil Outlook

Recorded on Friday, September 27, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

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Vladislav Voroninski, Co-Founder & CEO of Helm.AI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how generative AI will revolutionize autonomous vehicles. 

Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize the development of autonomous vehicles, while shortning the development time required to build autonomous driving systems. Helm.AI's unsupervised learning approach to autonomous driving is enabling more compute-efficient AI models for autonomous driving.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Current State of GenAI

5:52 AI Simulation Models

8:02 Autonomous Driving Bottlenecks

11:36 Validate Decision Making

13:56 Tesla’s Approach to Full Self-Driving

18:22 Helm AI’s Simulation Platform

23:06 Unsupervised Learning

25:05 Helm AI Decision Making Models

29:27 Helping OEMs Develop Autonomous Driving Systems

35:04 Autonomous Vehicle Market Outlook

39:23 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Thursday, September 26, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the U.S. Commerce Department’s proposed ruling to prohibit the sale or import of vehicles that have hardware and software integrated into the vehicle connectivity system (VCS) and software integrated into the Automated Driving System from China and Russia. They explored the potential impact of the proposed rule and what the broader implications for trade relations could be in the future. 

Later the conversation delves into Waymo’s LA expansion and Grayson predicts Waymo will open the service to all members of the public within the next two months. As Waymo prepares to open the service to the public in LA, Grayson and Walter examine the communication strategies of autonomous vehicle companies, making the case for more transparent and frequent updates to build public support and investor confidence.

As investor hype is building as we get closer to Tesla’s “We Robot” event on October 10th, could GM try and get ahead of Tesla’s 10/10 event and make an announcement at GM investor day on 10/8 about a potential personally owned autonomous vehicle? 

Wrapping up the episode, Grayson and Walter debate the decision by Apple to shut down Project Titan.

Episode Chapters

0:00 U.S. Commerce Department Proposed Autonomous Vehicle Ruling

4:10 Upcoming Autonomous Vehicle Policy Hearings in Texas

8:44 Uber / WeRide Partnership

11:13 Zoox

16:53 Waymo’s LA Expansion 

19:52 Airport Pickups in Autonomous Vehicles

22:18 Autonomous Vehicle Media Strategies 

26:16 Shrinking LiDAR Market

28:12 Tesla’s 10/10 We Robot Invites Are Out

29:53 GM Investor Day on 10/8

33:06 Jony Ive & Apple

36:02 Augmented Reality in Autonomous Vehicles

39:37 Next Week

Recorded on September 26, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Las Vegas, Vay has completed over 5,000 teledriven trips as the fleet has expanded to 150 vehicles. Justin Spratt, Chief Business Officer, Vay joined Grayson Brulte on Autonomy Insights to discuss the business of teledriving. 

Vay's teledriving system, VayNet, minimizes latency through advanced compression techniques and redundant networks. Their business model offers the potential to reduce costs by up to 50% compared to traditional ride-hailing services.

Theit technology has the potential to unlock new efficiencies in transportation, from improving operations in seaports and airports to enhancing car rental services and supporting the growth of autonomous vehicles.

Chapters

0:00 Vay's Approach to Teledriving

1:10 Automotive Safety Case

3:57 Vay Business Model

9:12 Economics of Teledriving

10:10 Vay Use Cases 

12:57 Telemarket Outlook

Recorded on Wednesday September 18, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aleksey Matyushev, Co-Founder & CEO, Natilus joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss optimizing air freight with autonomous blended wing body (BWB) aircraft. 

A blended wing aircraft body enables 20% more volumetric space and 30% better fuel efficiency for freight cargo when compared to traditional aircraft design. 10% of the world’s good travel by air freight, yet comprise 90% o the value. With most of the world’s electronics being made in Asia, including the iPhone, air freight plays a vital role in the global supply chain. 

With a growing global pilot labor shortage, autonomous blended wing body aircrafts can ensure that the world’s supply chain continues to function without hiccups.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Current State of the Air Freight Market

2:38 Air Freight Routes

8:57 Natilus Flight Distances 

10:09 Blended Wing Body (BWB) Design

14:07 Economics of Natilus

17:59 Manufacturing the Aircraft

22:10 Why Build an Autonomous Aircraft?

26:14 Fuel

28:56 Scaling Manufacturing

30:08 Projected Aircraft Costs

31:05 Inspiration for Natilus

33:58 Future of Natilus

Recorded on Thursday September 19, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s potential pivot away from Zeekr to Hyundai, Zoox’s commercialization strategy and why Uber is the platform for autonomy. 

Waymo’s potential deal with Hyundai for the IONIQ 5 platform could mark the end of Waymo’s deal with Zeekr, ending what we have termed an unforced error. If Waymo is indeed abandoning the Chinese made Zeekr, could there be a broader shakeout of Chinese technology in the autonomous vehicle industry? 

Then there is Zoox which is operating in a secretive manner as they prepare to launch commercial operations “soon”. Could Zoox’s secretive approach potentially lead to potential consequences because of their lack of transparency with both the market and consumers? 

To accelerate the adoption of autonomous vehicles, Congress needs to pass an Autonomous Vehicle National Framework that incudes trucks weighing over 10,000 pounds to accelerate the autonomous vehicle adoption and investment in the United States. A national autonomous vehicle framework will unlock investment that will lead to economic growth. 

Walt and Grayson also explore the potential catalysts that could drive faster autonomous vehicle adoption, including consumer experiences, economic pressures, and the upcoming U.S. election. Throughout the discussion, they stress the importance of pushing for more aggressive expansion into challenging environments to truly advance the technology and gain public trust.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Waymo in San Francisco

6:44 Zoox

14:37 Waymo / Hyundai 

18:48 Autonomy Economy

25:02 Autonomy and Elections

27:22 Autonomous Vehicle Experiences 

29:19 Investing in Autonomous Vehicles

21:23 Next Week

Recorded on September 19, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finch Fulton, Government Affairs and Policy Advisor, K&L Gates joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss autonomous vehicle policy, regulation and the impact that the 2024 Presidential Election could have on the development and commercialization of both autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks. 

Under a second President Trump administration or a Harris administration there will be different approaches to regulating autonomous vehicles. While the approaches will be different, it is important that the next administration takes a balanced approach that fosters innovation while ensuring safety and the ability to operate commercial autonomous vehicle and truck businesses. 

During the conversation, Grayson and Finch cover a range of topics, including California’s AI regulation efforts, the positive economic benefits of autonomous vehicles on consumers budgets, and the recently expanded partnership between Uber and Waymo.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Impact of the 2024 Presidential Election on Autonomous Vehicle Policy

6:00 AI Regulation 

14:52 AI Regulation’s Potential Impact on Autonomous Vehicles

17:44 California Autonomous Trucking Regulations 

20:55 California vs Organized Labor 

24:30 Positive Economic Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles

28:15 Uber/Waymo Austin & Atlanta Partnership 

34:16 Tesla Robotaxi Platform

36:28 Emerging Personally Owned Autonomous Vehicle Market

38:09 Licensing Autonomous Driving 

39:28 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Friday, September 13, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the latest developments in the autonomous vehicle industry, drawing insights from Grayson's recent trip to Silicon Valley.

There is an emerging shift towards developing autonomous driving stacks and licensing the technology to OEMs and mobility platform providers. Nuro is embracing this trend as they announced their new business models this week.

As the autonomous vehicle business models change, consumer exceptions are changing in parallel. There is an increasing focus on premium experiences in autonomy as both startups and global OEMs begin to develop plans for personally owned autonomous vehicles.

While the best laid plans often go awry, this time around OEMs are learning from the mistakes that they made when they jumped two feet into electrification with no real consumer strategy and no EV supply chain strategy.

With growing competition from Chinese autonomous vehicle companies, U.S. based autonomous vehicle companies are beginning to focus on costs. As they focus on costs, the debate around LiDAR and if it's needed to develop an SAE Level 4 autonomous vehicle continues to rage.

Wrapping up the episode, Grayson and Walt discuss the latest buzz surrounding the autonomous vehicle industry including potential pivots and partnerships in the industry.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Back from Silicon Valley

3:41 Nuro 

5:08 California's 33% Commercial Insurance Fee for Rideshare Rides 

9:17 Personally Owned Autonomous Vehicles 

16:34 Mobility Platforms 

21:42 Experiences

25:10 California Business Climate 

26:29 Safety 

30:59 Regulatory Environment 

36:09 Impact of a Potential Alphabet Breakup on Waymo 

38:56 The Latest Autonomous Vehicle Buzz

Recorded on September 12, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

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Sumanoharan Narayanan, Director of Engineering, Automated Technology Group, Daimler Trucks North America joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia.

Episode Chapters

0:00 How do you Build an Autonomous Truck

04:47 The Idea Behind Daimler Trucks Autonomous Trucking Program

8:34 The First Step in Building an Autonomous Truck

11:33 Designing an Autonomous Truck

15:37 Retrofitting

18:07 Autonomous Ready Cascadia Propulsion & Reduncy Systems

31:20 Technicians and Maintenance

34:37 When Do Mirrors Go Away?

38:17 Sensor Suite

44:26 Tesla Semi

52:18 Future of Autonomous Trucking

57:40 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk, discuss Wall Street's perspective on autonomy, the implications that autonomy could have on Uber and whether it'a s strength or weakness for Uber. Along with the impact of Tesla entering the robotaxi market and the growth of Waymo.

Later in the conversation they explore topics such as the potential for autonomous vehicles to be marketed as a premium service, the challenges of integrating Chinese-made vehicles into U.S. markets, and the future of food delivery services.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Wall Street's Perspective on Autonomy

3:33 Uber

13:01 Autonomous Vehicle Insurance

16:32 Autonomy as a Premium Service

18:55 Waymo

30:37 Uber Freight

33:42 Delivery (Uber Eats & Instacart)

38:46 Until Next Week

Recorded on September 5, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bruce Franklin, Senior Directive of Automotive, Micron joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the crucial role of memory in autonomous vehicles and the broader automotive industry.

Micron has been a key player in automotive memory for over 30 years, with a steadfast commitment to quality, safety, and innovation. Memory requirements in cars has evolved over the years from no memory to basic infotainment systems to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to memory that enables autonomous vehicles to operate safely.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Micron's Automotive Business 

9:14 In-Vehicle User Experience 

11:42 Micron's Approach to Autonomy

21:03 Driver Monitoring 

24:38 What if a Vehicle Did Not have Memory?

26:39 Memory for Different Vehicle Platforms and Sensors 

32:31 Investing in ISO Standards

37:37 Future of Micron

39:08 Key Takeaways 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rajat Bhageria, Founder & CEO, Chef Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the future of automation in food industry and the impact of rising labor costs.

Chef is addressing the critical labor shortage in the food industry that is being driven by higher labor costs and increased turnover through automation. They’ve developed and deployed robots that are capable of performing assembly and plating tasks with high precision and consistency by leveraging computer vision. 

Their robots are designed to be seamlessly integrated into existing production lines, occupying the same footprint as a human worker. Chef’s systems can handle a variety of food items and are particularly adept at “scoopable” foods. 

To enable food packaging companies the ability implement the automation system without a high CapEx investment, Chef is deploying the system as a “robotics as a service” model as a yearly subscription with ongoing software and hardware updates.

Companies that have implemented a Chef system have seen a 20% increase in production capacity, significant reduction in food waste (giveaway) and improved food portion consistency.

Episode Chapters

0:00 California Fast Food Minimum Wage

4:36 Chef

6:31 Packaging and Plating 

10:33 Chef Autonomous System

23:50 Food Portion Consistency

26:25 Chef Commercial Model

30:50 Customer Results

33:07 Why Chef?

35:06 Installing Chef

37:08 Inspiration Behind Chef

39:58 Food Packaging Automation

42:59 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

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Andreas Wendel, CTO, Kodiak joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss developing a versatile autonomous driving business. 

Chapters

0:00 Developing an Autonomous Driving Stack

7:10 Verifiable AI

10:49 Maps

13:07 Autonomy for the Military

16:07 SensorPods

22:36 Changing Approach to the Autonomous Driving Stack

26:47 Moving Away from LiDAR

29:17 Launching Fully Autonomous Operations with Atlas Energy

34:40 Hardware Enclosures

37:18 Operating Environments and Future Vehicles

41:05 Growing The Kodiak Business

44:14 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The future of battery recycling is a closed loop ecosystem. David Klanecky, CEO of Cirba Solutions joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast for a wide-ranging discussion about the future of battery recycling.

With growing demand for critical minerals, geopolitics and fluctuating commodity prices it's vitally important to build out the closed loop ecosystem of battery recycling. Batteries from consumer devices, electric vehicles, and industrial applications can all be recycled and enter a second phase of life if the right protocols are put in place at the end of life of the product.

In addition to the environmental benefits of battery recycling, including a reduced carbon footprint and the creation of a closed-loop supply chain for battery materials, there are positive economic implications.

Recycled batteries could potentially lower the cost of electric vehicles and other battery-powered devices. For this to happen, a closed loop ecosystem will have to be developed, scaled and monetized.

Chapters

0:00 Current State of Battery Recycling Market

5:24 Quality Control

8:13 More Efficient Battery Recycling

12:05 Battery Recycling Process

17:21 Commodities

21:57 Battery Degradation

23:16 Recycled Batteries

29:08 Maritime Batteries

31:14 Solid-State Batteries

33:39 Future of Battery Recycling Business

36:15 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-economy/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kevin Damoa, Founder & CEO, Glīd Technologies joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Glīd’s autonomous to rail system.

Kevin is a veteran with two tours in Iraq and experience in the National Guard, is the entrepreneur behind Glīd, a company developing autonomous vehicles capable of operating on both rail and road. Glīd’s technology aims to revolutionize first-mile logistics and intermodal operations.

One of Glīd’s key advantages is its ability to eliminate multiple material handling steps in the logistics process, potentially reducing carbon emissions and improving efficiency.

Beyond logistics innovation, Glīd has a strong social mission. The company plans to create jobs in marginalized communities near ports and rail yards, offering training and employment opportunities without requiring formal education. This approach aims to provide economic mobility and inspire future generations.

Looking ahead, Glīd aims to democratize first-mile transportation, starting in the United States with plans to expand globally. Their goal is to improve logistics efficiency, reduce costs, and positively impact communities adjacent to ports and rail yards, potentially contributing to lower consumer prices and an improved quality of life.

Chapters

0:00 Military Service

0:53 Inspiration for Glīd

1:39 Glīd Weight Restrictions

3:21 Maintaining Glīd

4:25 Job Creation

7:45 Glīd Target Markets

9:07 Glīd System

19:54 Road to Rail Transition

24:02 Railroads

25:04 Regulatory

26:43 State of Glīd’s Technology

28:13 SpaceX Manufacturing

29:30 Romeo Power

31:32 Future of Glīd

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

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You bought a personally owned autonomous vehicle (self-driving car). But do you need insurance? Wondering how you are going to insure the vehicle? Sergey Litvinenko, CEO of Koop Insurance joined Grayson Brulte on Autonomy Insights to explain how insurance and personally owned autonomous vehicles will work and who will be responsible in a crash.

Chapters

0:00 Insuring Personally Owned Autonomous Vehicles

4:30 What Happens in a Crash? Who is Responsible?

8:05 OEMs as Insurance Companies

10:44 Reinsuring the Risk

12:45 Future of Personally Owned Autonomous Vehicle Insurance

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™.

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Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Alphabet's additional $5 billion investment into Waymo, energy storage and traditional automakers autonomy strategies.

Chapters

• 0:00 Alphabet Goes All In on Waymo
• 7:17 Waymo compared to Uber in San Francisco
• 10:21 Waymo's Pending Vehicle Problem
• 12:49 Zoox
• 23:21 Cruise
• 25:38 Licensing Tesla FSD
• 33:04 Ford
• 40:03 Trends
• 42:08 Key Take Aways

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Tom Murphy, CEO of Capital Cities/ABC excelled at capital allocation. Following the example set by Mr. Murphy, Don Burnette, Founder & CEO of Kodiak is implementing his version of Capital Cities/ABC capital allocation strategy as he grows Kodiak. 

Don Burnette joined The Road to Autonomy Founder Grayson Brulte on Autonomy Insights to discuss Kodiak’s focus on growing long-term profitable revenue and achieving industry best EBITA margins. Mr. Burnette is keeping a keen eye on expenses and ensuring that capital is allocated to growing the business, not frivolous expenses. 

By keeping costs low and offering valuable solutions to customers, Kodiak was able to expand into Defense and off-road autonomy in a deal with Atlas Energy in the Permian Basin. 

The deal with Kodiak is potentially profitable enough to sustain Kodiak as a business even without its other business lines (defense and on-road trucking). 

Kodiak is in the process of transforming from a R&D-focused company to an operations company. In the mold of Capital Cities/ABC, Kodiak implementing a capital allocation strategy that ensures long-term growth.

Recorded on Friday, July 26, 2024

Episode Chapters

• 0:00 Kodiak’s Expansion into Off-Road Autonomy 
• 2:39 The Decision to Diversify 
• 5:02 EBITA Margins 
• 6:42 Capital Cities/ABC of Autonomy 
• 10:06 Core Pillars of Kodiak’s Business 
• 11:32 What’s Next For Kodiak

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ossa Fisher, President of Aurora joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Aurora is preparing for driver-out operations in Texas by the end of the year. Aurora is taking a disciplined approach that Ossa likens to the preparation of elite athletes training for the Olympics.

Aurora’s advanced perception system combined with their proprietary FirstLight LiDAR is assisting the company in their journey towards driver-out operations. The FirstLight LiDAR can detect obstacles up to four football fields away, significantly enhancing safety. 

Aurora’s development strategy combines on-road testing, controlled track environment testing, and extensive simulations. They’re rigorously preparing for various weather conditions and rare events to ensure maximum safety and reliability. 

The company’s partnerships with PACCAR, Volvo and Uber Freight will enable the company to scale operations and build a meaningful business overtime. The business model could change over time as it was developed to be flexible as the company scales driver-out commercial operations.

The first lane that Aurora will operate driver-out will be Dallas to Houston followed by El Paso to Fort Worth. It’s has been a big journey for Aurora to get to driver-out operations and it will be a bigger journey once driver-out operations commence and expand to multiple lanes.

Recorded on Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Preparing for Driver-Out

4:46 Uber Freight Partnership

7:14 Customer Exceptions for Driver-Out

9:06 Driver-Out Lanes

9:48 Fright Lane Patterns

11:05 Scaling Aurora

14:09 Safety

19:29 Building Trust

22:11 Driver-Out Operations & Infrastructure

23:47 OEM Partnerships

26:55 CDL

30:57 Economics of Aurora 

37:26 Aurora’s Impact on the Trucking Industry 

39:46 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss key trends and geopolitical issues that are impacting the global oil and natural gas markets. 

Today, there is record high global demand for oil and natural gas, driven by economic growth and increased consumption of petrochemicals. Despite efforts to transition to renewable energy, oil and gas remain critical to economic activity worldwide and without energy there is no form of economic activity. 

During the conversation, Grayson and Dean discuss several issues impacting the oil and natural gas markets including the geopolitical factors affecting energy markets, including the U.S. presidential election, potential conflicts in the Middle East, and shifting alliances in Europe. Dean emphasizes the importance of stable policies and international trade relationships for long-term energy investments.

The conversation also covers the status of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is at historically low levels. Dean expresses concern about the government’s reluctance to replenish the reserve despite potential global instability.

Regarding the U.S. economy, Dean notes high levels of consumer debt and its potential impact on spending and economic growth. Grayson and Dean go onto discuss the Federal Reserve’s approach to interest rates and inflation and what impact interest rate cuts could have on the oil and natural gas markets.

Throughout the podcast, Dean stresses the interdependence of energy markets, economic growth, and geopolitical stability. With regard to energy policy, Dean suggests a balanced approach that recognizes the ongoing importance of oil and gas while also addressing environmental concerns.

Recorded on Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Fed Rate Cut Impact in the Oil & Natural Gas Markets

4:39 Oil and Texas’ Economy

11:27 Exporting Natural Gas to Mexico

13:18 Record Demand for Oil & Natural Gas

17:29 Argentinean Shale Oil

19:30 Impact of the U.S. Presidential Election on the Oil Markets

20:48 EU Energy Policies

24:20 Currencies Impact on the Oil Markets 

27:41 Consumer Debt

28:50 Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)

36:20 Hurricanes 

38:51 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Martin Sandström, Chief of Staff, EasyPark Group joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the evolving landscape of urban parking and its intersection with autonomous vehicles and city planning. 

Parking is a crucial tool for cities to manage mobility as it’s often the second-largest revenue stream for municipalities after taxes. During the conversation Grayson and Martin explore how digital layers and data are transforming parking management, allowing cities to implement more effective pricing and policies based on supply and demand. 

Add autonomous vehicles into the picture, and the opportunity to solve issues such as overstaying in charging spots and reducing congestion is greatly improved. Then there is electric vehicles and the challenges that those vehicles bring to the urban mobility landscape. 

There are challenges implementing electric vehicle charging infrastructure in parking facilities, including the high upfront costs and current reliability issues. In some European countries, particularly Scandinavia, governments are mandating the installation of charging in parking garages.

Looking to the future, Martin envisions parking becoming more technology-driven with less human interaction. He sees the potential for parking to be bundled into autonomous vehicle subscriptions and for parking operators to evolve into mobility hubs offering various services.

Parking and mobility management will become increasingly important as urbanization continues, especially in emerging megacities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Eventually, consumers won’t need to think about parking at all because of autonomous vehicles. But before we get there, parking technology is needed to ensure a smooth parking experiences in urban cities.

Recorded on Friday, June 28, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Business of Parking

7:48 Large Events and Parking

11:31 Autonomous Vehicles and Parking

21:11 EV Charging and Parking

31:21 EU Parking Policies 

32:35 Founding of EasyPark 

36:23 Future of Parking

37:58 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Applied Intuition is developing an off-road autonomy stack to address the growing demand for autonomous solutions in industries such as mining, agriculture, and defense. Qasar Younis, CEO and Peter Ludwig, CTO, Co-Founders of Applied Intuition joined The Road to Autonomy Founder Grayson Brulte on Autonomy Insights to discuss Applied’s approach to off-road autonomy. 

The company’s approach to developing an off-road autonomy stack is driven by industry needs, particularly labor shortages in remote locations and safety concerns. Applied Intuition’s off-road strategy involves creating a modular, adaptable solution that can be customized for various vehicle types and industries. 

This approach allows them to distribute development costs across multiple customers, making it more economical for companies to adopt their technology rather than developing in-house solutions. Their technology is designed to work with a range of vehicles and tasks, with the philosophy that if a human can control a vehicle off-road, their autonomy stack should be able to accomplish the same task.

As the company grows, they are positioning themselves as a key enabler in the emerging autonomy economy, providing the tools and technology necessary for companies to succeed in implementing and scaling autonomous solutions across multiple sectors.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Why Develop an Off-Road Autonomy Stack?

9:48 Off-Road Autonomy and Defense

10:54 Off-Road Autonomy as a Growth Market

13:20 What’s Next For Applied Intuition?

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anand Gopalan, CEO & Co-Founder Vayu Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the dawn of a new era in robotics and autonomous systems. Anand believes the industry is on the cusp of a breakthrough, moving from fragmented point solutions to horizontal intelligence applicable across various robotic applications.

Vayu’s approach focuses on developing high-quality, low-cost autonomous systems. Vayu achieves this through innovative passive sensing technology, which extracts multiple properties of light beyond just intensity, inspired by biological systems. This method allows for robust perception without the energy inefficiency and detectability issues of active sensors like LiDARS.

The company utilizes low-power ARM processors instead of expensive GPU clusters, significantly reducing both cost and energy consumption. This efficiency enables Vayu’s robots to operate for 6-8 hours on a single battery charge, dramatically lowering the carbon footprint of goods movement.

Anand emphasizes the importance of foundation models in robotics, but highlights the challenges of data scarcity and edge computing. Vayu addresses these issues through intelligent use of synthetic data generated in gaming-like simulators, focusing on domain-independent aspects of movement and interaction.

The conversation touches on the broad applicability of Vayu’s technology, from defense to various commercial sectors. Deploying the same intelligence across multiple applications creates significant growth and business opportunities. 

As a business Vayu is focused on drastically reducing hardware costs, and building robotics that can transform a capital-intensive industry to one with rapid return on investment. He envisions Vayu monetizing its intelligence and hardware reference designs rather than becoming a robotics operations business.

In closing the conversation Anand suggests robotics are entering a golden age, driven by new tools and the ability to solve real economic problems. He encourages listeners and viewers to recognize this potential while remaining grounded in addressing the hard technical challenges of edge computing, cost reduction, and energy efficiency.

Recorded on Thursday, June 27, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Current State of the Robotics Market

4:58 Cost of Sensors

9:27 Cost of Labor Accelerating the Adoption of Autonomy

13:29 Value of Robotic Autonomy 

15:19 Lower Power Chips vs GPUs

17:03 Energy Efficiency 

21:03 Passive Sensing 

27:43 AI Foundational Models

31:40 Simulation 

37:45 Vayu Business

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vinay Shet, Co-Founder and CEO of Teleo joined Autonomy Insights to share his perspective on why Teleo is partnering with construction companies like Ajax Paving and Tomahawk Construction to deploy supervised autonomy in their operations. Supervised Autonomy allows operators to control heavy machinery remotely from a comfortable office setting, rather than sitting in the cab of the machine.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Ajax Paving / Teleo Partnership

3:17 Health Benefits of Supervised Autonomy 

6:41 Growth of the Construction Industry

9:56 Teleo's Florida Expansion

10:34 Retrofitting Equipment for Supervised Autonomy 

11:39 Growth of the Supervised Autonomy Market

13:09 What's Next For Teleo

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Corey Clothier, Co-Founder, ARIBO joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss developing and deploying autonomous ground vehicles with the military. 

In this insightful episode, Grayson and Corey explore the rapidly evolving world of autonomous vehicles, with a special focus on military applications and their spillover into commercial sectors. 

The discussion begins with a look at the current state of autonomous vehicles outside the well-known robotaxi market. Corey highlights the diverse applications in mines, ports, terminals, and campus-based environments. He emphasizes that autonomy is far more extensive than just passenger vehicles, touching on crucial areas such as logistics, security, industrial operations and military applications. 

With a background in working with the military on ground autonomy, Corey shares his experiences, detailing projects ranging from autonomous security vehicles to logistics trucks. He discusses the challenges and opportunities in deploying these technologies on military bases and in combat zones, touching on issues like reliability, safety protocols, and regulatory hurdles.

The conversation also delves into the future of autonomy in both military and civilian contexts. Corey predicts a steady growth in adoption and innovation over the next decade, with potential catalysts like competition from China and Tesla’s anticipated entry into the robotaxi market further accelerating development.

Throughout the conversation Grayson and Corey both highlight the interconnectedness of military and commercial autonomous vehicle technologies. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Corey shares his thoughts and insights on emerging trends, particularly in logistics and campus-based autonomous vehicle systems. He emphasizes the need for collaboration, competition, and strong leadership to drive innovation in this rapidly advancing field.

Recorded on Friday, June 21, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Current State of Autonomous Vehicle Market

1:43 Deploying Autonomous Vehicles at Airports

6:12 Autonomous Vehicles on Military Bases 

11:05 Military Collaboration on Autonomy 

16:11 Autonomous Tanks

22:04 Reliability 

26:51 Leader Follower Program

30:25 Opportunities for the Army in Autonomous Vehicles 

34:52 DARPA Grand Challenge 

36:07 Autonomy Evolving Over the Next Decade

42:34 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

India Herdman, Senior Manager, Policy Affairs, Consumer Technology Association (CTA) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the current state of autonomous vehicle / truck policy and why a National Autonomous Vehicle Framework will unlock economic growth in the U.S. 

The conversation begins by examining the current state of autonomous vehicle policy, highlighting the patchwork of regulations at the state level and the stagnation at the federal level. India emphasizes the importance of passing comprehensive federal legislation to unlock the potential of autonomous vehicles, pointing out the safety and economic benefits they could bring to the U.S.

The conversation then delves into the political landscape surrounding autonomous vehicle policy. India outlines the challenges faced on both sides of the aisle, including labor union concerns for Democrats and China-related issues for Republicans. She stresses the need for compromise and a balanced approach to move forward to ensure that the United States is not left behind on the development and commercialization of autonomy. 

In addition to discussing autonomy, Grayson and India touch on other related issues, including the AM radio mandate for vehicles, the role of trial lawyers in shaping policy, and the need for public education on autonomous vehicles. One of those platforms to showcase the future of autonomy is the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) as it serves as a platform for showcasing autonomous vehicle advancements and engaging policymakers.

Throughout the episode, both Grayson and India emphasize the economic potential of autonomous vehicles and express frustration at the lack of political will to advance the technology for the benefit of the economy. They call for a more proactive approach from the industry to educate the public and policymakers about the benefits of AVs.

Wrapping up the podcast they urge listeners and viewers to recognize the urgency of the situation and the need for immediate progress on autonomous vehicle policy to ensure U.S. competitiveness and that the American public can reap the safety and economic benefits of this transformative technology.

Recorded on Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Episode Chapters

• 0:00 Current State of Autonomous Vehicle and Truck Policy
• 3:57 Autonomy is Good for the Economy
• 6:18 Politicians, Special Interests and the Media
• 11:33 Distracted Driving
• 14:17 Public Trust in Autonomous Vehicles
• 15:37 CES
• 19:19 Geopolitics 
• 31:18 Tort Reform 
• 34:06 AM Radio Mandate
• 40:29 Future of Autonomous Vehicle Policy

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dive into the cutting-edge world of warehouse automation as Josip Cesic, CEO & Co-Founder, Gideon joined The Road to Autonomy Founder Grayson Brulte to discuss the current state and future of this rapidly evolving market. 

During the conversation they discuss how AI and robotics are revolutionizing supply chain operations, particularly in the realm of autonomous forklifts.

Discover why major Fortune 100 companies are doubling down on warehouse automation and learn why it’s no longer reserved for early adopters. Josip explains the driving forces behind this trend, including labor shortages, changing workforce desires, and the quest for operational efficiency.

Key highlights include:

• The $150 billion market opportunity
• How AI is enabling end-to-end automation solutions
• The global impact of forklift driver shortages, from Japan to the UK
• Gideon’s partnership with NVIDIA and its implications for the industry
• Insights on market adoption across different sectors

Josip also addresses the challenges of developing autonomous systems for various applications and why staying focused on solving specific problems is crucial for success. He shares his perspective on the future of warehouse automation, predicting a completely reinvented supply chain landscape within the next decade.

Whether you’re interested in robotics, AI, supply chain management, or investment opportunities in emerging technologies, this discussion provides a comprehensive overview of the warehouse automation revolution. Join us as we explore how autonomous forklifts and AI are reshaping the future of logistics and distribution.

Don’t miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the curve in one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing sectors in technology and logistics. Watch now to understand the $150 billion revolution that’s transforming warehouses worldwide.

Episode Chapters

• 0:00 Current State of Warehouse Automation 
• 4:13 Gideon / NVIDIA Partnership
• 5:23 Robotic Software + Hardware Stacks
• 7:51 Autonomous Forklift Market Size
• 9:08 Venture Capital Investing in Autonomous Forklifts
• 10:46 Consolidation in the Autonomous Forklift Industry 
• 12:09 Future of the Warehouse Automation Market

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Matt Markel, Business Leader, Radar & Autonomy Expert with experience at Waymo and in the defense industry joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the NHTSA mandate requiring AEB (automatic emergency braking) systems in all new light vehicles by 2029 and what impact this mandate will have on the development of autonomous vehicles.

While the mandate doesn't specifically require LiDAR, Dr. Markel believes a radar+camera sensor fusion approach will likely be the dominant solution that automakers implement to meet this new regulation. He sees the mandate as a positive for wider adoption of radar, but doubts it will spur major radar technology breakthroughs since full autonomy (SAE Level 4) remains the real driver of sensor advancement.

During the conversation, Dr. Markel raised concerns about the potential unintended consequences that the mandate could cause, such an increase in "false alarm" brake activations from the AEB systems detecting non-threats because of interference. If a driver finds the system not to be functioning correctly, the regulation restricts automakers from allowing drivers to disable the AEB system, which could create towing/repair headaches if the system suffers a failure. 

While the mandate aims to save lives, Dr. Markel argues the safety benefits will be small compared to the potential of full autonomy. He advises autonomy companies to "run their own race" and not be distracted by this regulation from their core SAE L4 missions which offer vastly greater safety upsides.

Recorded on Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 NHTSA AEB Mandate

4:24 Radar Data Generation

9:09 AEB Battery Draw

12:49 Integrating Radar into a Vehicle Design 

15:15 L3 vs L4 Debate

24:26 Is the AEB Mandate a Distraction to L4 Goals?

31:59 Unintended Consequences of AEB Mandate

41:49 Impact of Slowing EV Sales on AEB Mandate

42:57 Key Takeaways 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Joanna Buttler, Head of the Global Autonomous Technology Group, Daimler Truck North America joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the introduction of the autonomous battery electric Freightliner eCascadia demonstrator, Daimler’s 2027 autonomous truck commercial launch and the company’s vision for the future of autonomous trucking. 

2027 will be a pivotal year for Daimler Truck as the company commences commercial operations. In just under 3 years, Daimler Truck will be in the market offering SAE Level 4 autonomous trucking solutions to their customers. It’s a journey that started in 2019 when Daimler Truck went “all in” on autonomy, driven by the immense potential to solve major challenges like driver shortages and enable 24/7 freight movement for their customers. 

Daimler Truck’s vision for autonomy is an ambitious one that leverages their decades of experience and translates it into autonomous-ready commercial trucks. While the excitement today is around battery electric trucks, Daimler is taking a propulsion-agnostic approach, aiming to integrate their autonomous driving systems seamlessly across diesel, electric, and potentially hydrogen fuel cell platforms. Daimler’s goal is to provide their customers with the ultimate flexibility to deploy autonomous trucks optimized for different use cases, lanes and routes.

Underpinning Daimler’s autonomous strategy is an absolute commitment to safety and doing it “the right way” by factory-installing production-ready systems and not relying on retrofits. Joanna is optimistic that Daimler Truck’s manufacturing prowess, established sales/service networks, and decades building customer trust will be key competitive advantages.

Looking ahead to 2030, Joanna sees consolidation in the autonomous trucking market, but with Daimler aiming for a decisive market leadership position leveraging their traditional truck expertise, production capabilities, partners, and established dealer network. As autonomy scales, autonomous trucking could potentially become larger than Daimler Truck’s traditional business.

Recorded on Friday, May 24, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Autonomous Battery Electric Freightliner eCascadia Demonstrator

4:53 The Role of Dealers

6:46 Autonomous Truck Maintenance 

8:59 Propulsion Agnostic 

15:20 Infrastructure as a Catalyst 

17:40 Autonomy Success Metrics

20:47 New Autonomous Trucks?

23:10 Daimler Truck’s Passion for Autonomy

25:26 Why 2027?

27:13 Factory Grade Autonomous Trucks

28:57 Autonomy in 2027

31:05 Future of Daimler Truck

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Covenant joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why certain trucking companies aversion to risk could slow down innovation and have negative economic consequences on their businesses if they delay the rollout of autonomous trucks.

This is a thought-provoking, unstructured yet insightful conversation about the complex relationship between risk aversion and the development of autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks. During the conversation, Grayson and Matt explore how society’s growing fear of risk is stifling progress in the autonomous trucking industry, drawing parallels to historical examples of transformative innovations such as the space program and the development of the airplane that may have never come to fruition in today’s risk-averse climate.

Throughout the discussion, Grayson and Matt grapple with the multifaceted nature of risk perception, from individual responsibilities to the role of tort law and media sensationalism. They argue that the disproportionate attention given to rare autonomous vehicle accidents, coupled with a litigious environment, is creating an atmosphere of fear that threatens to slow the adoption of this life-saving technology that will have positive economic benefits.

The conversation also delves into the economic implications of risk aversion, with Grayson asserting that the rising costs associated with insurance and legal liability are becoming a significant burden for companies pioneering autonomous trucks and vehicles. Matt shares his firsthand experience with these challenges at Covenant Logistics, highlighting the need for tort reform and a shift in public perception.

Despite the obstacles, both Matt and Grayson remain optimistic about the future of autonomous vehicles and trucks. They emphasize the importance of personal responsibility, education, and a willingness to embrace calculated risks in order to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation. 

The episode concludes with a call to action, urging listeners to recognize their own role in shaping societal attitudes towards risk and to support the brave innovators who are working to create a safer, more efficient future through autonomous technologies.

Recorded on Thursday, May 16, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Risk

26:27 Fear

30:54 Managing Risk

32:25 Conquering the Fear of Risk

41:32 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Harry Campbell aka The Rideshare Guy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the potential of Tesla entering the rideshare market both with human driven vehicles and autonomous vehicles. 

In a wide-ranging discussion, Grayson and Harry touch on several key topics surrounding Tesla’s potential entry into the rideshare market and how those moves could affect the overall market. As Tesla explores potentially entering the market, the company’s brand appeal and the millions of vehicles already on the road give them a potential edge, especially once Tesla achieves full self-driving (FSD).

Throughout the episode, Grayson and Harry provide insightful analysis and predictions about the future of the rideshare industry, highlighting the technological advancements and strategic decisions that will shape its evolution.

Looking ahead, Harry sees two major factors shaping rideshare’s future outside of Tesla: the rollout of robotaxis, and a new generation forgoing car ownership and relying more heavily on Uber and micro-mobility options such as e-bikes. Despite challenges such as rising insurance costs, he remains optimistic about the industry’s prospects as personal car ownership potentially declines.

Recorded on Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Tesla Rideshare Market

2:32 FSD 12

6:44 The Hybrid Network (Human Driven Vehicles and Robotaxis)

13:51 Rising Insurance Premiums 

19:15 Tesla Ridehail Network

33:45 Economics of the Uber Platform

37:02 What if Tesla Bought Lyft?

43:06 Tesla Subscription Service

47:14 Future of Rideshare

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The skyrocketing costs of commercial vehicle insurance in the trucking industry is a pressing issue that is causing economic harm. Commercial insurance premiums rose a staggering 9.8% in Q1 2024, driven by three main factors: the proliferation of nuclear verdicts over $10 million, a shortage of experienced drivers, and inflated vehicle repair costs. 

Nuclear verdicts, with an average of $33.8 million, have made insurance unaffordable for many smaller fleets, forcing them into bankruptcy. The current macroeconomic environment, with high inflation, rising insurance premiums, and increasing regulatory costs, is creating a “perfect storm” that could accelerate the adoption of autonomous trucks. 

Lee White, Founder & President of LM White Consulting joined The Road to Autonomy Founder Grayson Brulte discuss the impact insurance rates and nuclear verdicts are having on the trucking industry and why autonomous trucking could be the solution. 

Recorded on Friday, May 17 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Skyrocketing Commercial Insurance Costs 

3:31 Nuclear Verdicts 

8:54 High Insurance are Helping to Usher in Autonomous Trucking 

12:23 Future of The Trucking Industry

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Paul Gioupis, Founder & CEO, Zeem Solutions joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economics of electrifying commercial fleets and the current state of the electric commercial fleet market.

As the global push for sustainability intensifies, the trucking industry faces immense pressure to transition towards zero-emission solutions. However, the path to electrification is riddled with economic challenges, regulatory and operational complexities. As society shifts to electrification, there is a growing global taxation effort underway to fill the estimated $110 billion dollar fuel tax shortfall by 2025 that is being caused by the switch to electric from oil.

Paul candidly addresses the potential $110 billion fuel tax shortfall that is projected by 2025. The potential fuel tax shortfall highlights the need for solutions that strike a balance between environmental goals and economic feasibility. 

Drawing from his Wall Street background and a deep understanding of economics and how to scale a profitable business. Throughout the conversation, Paul discuss Zeem’s bold approach to tackling the electrification conundrum. From meticulously mapping customer demand through 1.8 million fleet phone calls, to strategically selecting locations based on origin, destination, and energy accessibility, Zeem implemented a data-driven strategy.

Recognizing the software glitches and inferior products plaguing the EV market, Paul calls for a consumer-centric approach, where vehicles must stand on their own merits – delivering superior performance, range, and cost-effectiveness. He emphasizes the need for ground-up EV designs, challenging traditional OEMs to raise their game and innovate beyond mere compliance.

Looking ahead, Paul envisions Zeem’s depots as future micro-grids, seamlessly integrating with the existing utility infrastructure while alleviating grid stress through distributed energy solutions. With a steadfast focus on economics, scalability, and operational excellence, Zeem is poised to lead the charge in reshaping the trucking industry’s electrified future.

Recorded on Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Global Budget Shortfalls Caused by Electrification 

3:43 Operational Efficiency of the Zeem Business

8:38 Zeem’s Business Model

16:57 Zeem Locations

22:34 Electrification of Fleets 

34:55 U.S. Highway Trust Fund

37:58 Opportunities for Electrification 

41:55 Key Takeaways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aaron Ticknor, Product Manager, Large Ag Autonomy, John Deere joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the future of autonomous tractors on farms. 

Farming has remained one of humanity’s most essential endeavors since the dawn of civilization. But in the 21st century, a technological revolution is transforming traditional farming — autonomy. At the forefront of this transformation is Deere & Company, an agricultural powerhouse pioneering the future of autonomous tractors. 

We go behind the scenes with Deere to explore their trailblazing work in autonomous tractors and what the positive impacts will be for implementing full autonomy across the farming cycle. From tilling and planting to crop management and harvesting, Deere is developing autonomous solutions that are increasing efficiency, optimizing yields, and helping farmers do more with less.

We’ll dive deep into the cutting-edge technology making this possible, like advanced perception systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning models that allow Deere tractors to navigate fields without a human operator. 

Deere is creating entire autonomous ecosystems, with cloud-based monitoring, control systems, data analytics, and more — providing farmers a degree of oversight, optimization and decision-making capabilities never before possible.

You’ll learn how autonomous farming technology is poised to solve major challenges facing global agriculture – from labor shortages to supply chain vulnerabilities to the imperative of feeding a growing population. Deere’s autonomous solutions represent the future of feeding the world sustainably.

Whether you’re a farmer, technologist, or someone passionate about world-changing innovation, this podcast offers a fascinating look at the autonomous farming revolution underway. Join us as we explore how Deere is driving this transformative shift and delivering on the promise of smarter, more productive, and more sustainable agriculture.

Recorded on Wednesday May 1, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Deere Approach to Autonomy

2:33 Deploying Autonomy on Farms

6:57 Deere’s Autonomous Perception System

10:32 Why Deere Embraced Autonomy

13:38 Deere’s Autonomy Business

19:28 Autonomous Deere Tractors

24:52 Future of Deere

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) issued guidance through their AV 3.0 framework that specifically stated that going forward, federal trucking regulations from the FMCSA will no longer assume that a commercial vehicle driver must be a human present in the vehicle. This cleared the way for self-driving trucks to operate legally, as long as they comply with existing trucking regulations.

Dan Goff, Director of External Affairs, Kodiak Robotics joined The Road to Autonomy Founder Grayson Brulte to discuss the current regulatory landscape for autonomous trucks in the United States.

While in the long-term there will need to be new regulations crafted specifically for autonomous trucking, in the near-term, the existing rules provide a sufficient framework to begin deploying autonomous trucks in a compliant manner. Today, there are only a handful of regulations that don't neatly apply, and the industry has been working to solve those lingering issues.

One key regulatory hurdle that Kodiak has worked on was developing an enhanced inspection program with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) that enables autonomous trucks to demonstrate an elevated level of vehicle safety checks compared to today's methods. Enhanced inspections have helped build confidence with law enforcement around autonomous trucking deployments.

Today, 25 U.S. States have passed laws enabling and regulating autonomous vehicle deployments, further validating their legal ability to operate autonomous trucks complying with applicable regulations.

While the patchwork of differing state laws is manageable currently, Dan believes eventually there will need to be a unified national regulatory framework governing autonomous trucking to enable broad interstate operations. But, the existing legal foundations for autonomous trucking deployments are in place today.

Recorded on Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Current State of Autonomous Trucking Regulations

3:28 Enhanced Inspections

8:52 Evolving Autonomous Trucking Regulatory Landscape

11:48 Autonomous Trucking Misconceptions

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss Tesla’s robotaxi gamble and the prospects for Tesla to license FSD. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Grayson and Pete dive into the bold promises and ambitious plans surrounding Tesla’s bid to launch CyberCab and a robotaxi service. As Tesla prepares to unveil more details on August 8th, they analyze what it could mean for the future of autonomy and mobility.

Grayson and Pete explore whether Tesla will actually show two separate vehicle models — one with traditional controls (potentially the Model 2) and a fully autonomous version without a steering wheel or pedals. The big questions linger: When will Cybercab realistically deploy commercially? And just how good will the self-driving technology be when it is first deployed?

The rise of Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions has sparked concerns about being Uber being potentially disrupted. But making the economics work with such an expensive vehicle platform remains a huge challenge. Could a Tesla subscription service bundled with incentives make a Tesla robotaxi more accessible?

As the conversation evolves, Grayson and Pete also analyze the strategic options for established automakers and if they should consider licensing Tesla’s self-driving software. Or should they choose to develop their own systems with Nvidia and Qualcomm? Or pursue potential licensing agreements with Cruise, Waymo or Zoox? 

Zoox is interesting as the company is planning to launch service in Las Vegas which gives the company unique opportunities to embrace Vegas and create “experiences” such as mobile gambling in partnership with casinos.

Ultimately, the road to Tesla deploying commercial robotaxis at scale remains riddled with technological, regulatory and business model hurdles. But with Tesla all-in on the robotaxi future, the stakes are escalating for the entire auto industry to map out its autonomy strategy.

Recorded on Friday, April 26, 2024 

Episode Chapters

0:10 Tesla CyberCab

2:20 Tesla Mobility Platform

5:14 Tesla Subscription Platform

19:55 Camera Only

23:30 Licensing FSD

35:10 Licensing Cruise, Waymo, Zoox

38:39 NVIDIA & Qualcomm

41:05 Zoox & Casinos 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Josip Cesic, CEO & Co-Founder, Gideon joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the transformation that the warehouse logistics industry is undergoing driven by an urgent need for increased efficiency and automation. 

Labor shortages are rampant, with younger generations showing less interest in roles such as forklift driving. Gideon’s autonomous forklifts which are deployed to load and unload trailers achieve a return on investment within 1-3 years by maintaining or increasing throughput compared to manual operations. 

Gideon’s compelling unit economics, combined with soaring labor costs and challenges in attracting workers, is propelling major companies such as Walmart, Loblaw, DHL, and FedEx to double down on warehouse automation.

Josip explains how Gideon retrofits off-the-shelf forklifts with its autonomy kit comprising sensors including LiDAR and cameras, enabling safe and efficient autonomous trailer loading/unloading. As the technology scales, further cost reductions are anticipated through optimized computing solutions.

As Gideon scales, Josip sees autonomous trailer loading/unloading as merley just the starting point, The big goal is to fundamentally reimagine the entire supply chain through autonomy. During the conversation, Josip stresses the importance of thinking several steps ahead and forming strategic partnerships, as early successes attract fierce competition in this blossoming market.

Ultimately, Josip emphasizes that while robotics plays a pivotal role, the true bet is on people – adopting, driving, and benefiting from the revolutionary efficiencies that autonomous solutions will unlock across industries facing existential labor challenges.

Recorded on Monday, April 15, 2024 

Episode Chapters

0:09 Warehouse Automation Outlook

8:15 Warehouse Automation Market Evolving Over Next Decade 

14:40 Gideon Autonomous Forklifts

26:26 Global Autonomous Forklift Markets 

31:10 Future of Gideon

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the commercialization of autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks. 

In this insightful conversation they discuss the latest developments and prospects in the autonomous vehicle, autonomous truck and electric vehicle markets. Collectively they analyzed Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi unveiling, offering perspectives on how the market might react and the challenges with Tesla achieving full self-driving.

The discussion explores the competitive landscape with Waymo, Cruise, and Aurora diligently working towards commercializing autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks. While examining the technical hurdles, regulatory environment, and investor sentiment surrounding autonomy.

Looking at the broader EV market, they dissect Tesla’s recent sales dip, the arrival of more affordable EV models, and consumer readiness to embrace this shift. The conversation also touches on the struggles legacy automaker GM has faced in executing new technology ventures; Ultium batteries and their autonomous vehicle subsidiary Cruise.

Overall, this podcast provides a comprehensive look at the road ahead for autonomy and electrification, marked by both immense potential and significant challenges yet to still be overcome. Both David and Grayson offer candid insights into the key players, market forces, and make-or-break factors that will shape the future of transportation.

Recorded on Thursday, April 18, 2024 

Episode Chapters

0:11 Tesla CyberCab 

3:19 Chinese AVs & EVs

10:13 Investor Sentiment on Autonomy

13:44 Autonomy and Defense

20:07 Amazon

24:13 Licensing Autonomous Driving Technology

26:46 May Mobility 

30:31 Cruise 

36:38 GM

43:12 What To Watch for in the Autonomy Markets

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finch Fulton, Government Affairs and Policy Advisor, K&L Gates joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the policy and labor challenges currently facing the emerging autonomy economy. 

As the development of autonomous trucks and vehicles gains momentum, it faces significant policy and labor hurdles. There are complicated policy issues that autonomous trucking and vehicle companies must navigate to ensure that autonomous trucks and vehicles can be deployed on America’s roads.

During the conversation Finch provides an insider’s perspective on the pushback against automation, autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles under the guise of safety concerns. He highlights how overly restrictive policies could cripple innovation and America’s competitiveness, driving commerce and jobs to other countries.

The discussion also delves into the role of federal agencies like the FMCSA and NHTSA in establishing a clear regulatory framework for autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles. Delays in key rule-makings are examined as well as what happens when nothing happens. Along with the economic impact of those non-decisions are and who ultimately benefits. 

When autonomous trucks are actively hauling freight on the roads of America and autonomous vehicles are common in cities around the country, America wins. The economy becomes stronger, inflation begins to subside and the roads become safer. When this happens we will begin to usher in the autonomy economy. 

Recorded on Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Episode Chapters

00:15 Election Season and Policy Implications for Automation

01:31 The Electric Vehicle Market and Tesla's Influence

04:58 Supply Chain Challenges and National Security Issues

08:15 The Future of Autonomous Technologies and Labor

20:21 Silicon Valley's Shift Towards Defense Innovation

22:35 Policy Prospects for Autonomous Vehicles in Future Administrations

28:41 Decoding the Politics of Safety Regulations

29:47 The Stalled Progress on Automated Vehicle Safety Standards

31:36 The Impact of Rulemaking Delays on Autonomous Vehicle Safety

33:05 Exploring the Role of Organized Labor in Autonomous Vehicle Regulation

34:01 State vs. Federal: The Battle Over Autonomous Vehicle Legislation

36:52 The Future of Autonomous Vehicle Policy and Investment

44:46 Navigating the Challenges of Electrification and Autonomous Trucks

50:56 A Call for Common Sense in Autonomous Vehicle Policy

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the pivotal role the oil and gas plays in the global economy. 

With a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, Dean provides an in-depth analysis of how geopolitical factors like the Russia-Ukraine war and tensions with Iran impact oil markets. He examines the increasing demand for natural gas, particularly from Asia and Texas’ position as one of the leading producer and exporters of oil and gas.

During the conversation, Dean and Grayson explore the implications of rising interest rates and inflation on the energy sector and the broader economy, including California’s controversial electricity pricing based on household income. 

Additionally, Grayson and Dean discuss the U.S.’s growing national debt and how it could potentially impact the energy markets as there is an interdependence between economic growth and energy demand. 

This comprehensive conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the intricate dynamics of the global energy landscape and it’s profound influence on economic development.

Recorded on Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:11 The Impact of Geopolitics

4:41 Monetary Policy Impact on Oil & Natural Gas Markets

13:34 Growing Demand for Natural Gas

19:24 California Energy Policy

26:40 Oil & Gas Impact on the Global Economy

34:02 Impact of the Growing U.S. Debt on the Economy 

41:34 China Oil Imports 

43:48 Things to Watch in the Oil Markets

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ira Renfrew, Chief Product Officer, Outrider joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Outrider is developing autonomous yard operations that improve efficiency, safety, and resiliency for warehouse operations. 

Outrider has developed an innovative autonomous yard truck system that can connect and disconnect trailers autonomously using their patented Trailer Connect technology. Yard automation is as an untapped opportunity for automation that Outrider correctly identified in 2017 when the company was founded by Andrew Smith.

The Outrider stack was designed for mixed traffic environments in warehouse and distribution yards. One of the advancements that has been made since the company was founded is the introduce of their autonomous “glad hand” trailer connection process.

By automating the entire process, Outrider is able to achieve human-level throughput for trailer moves while enabling 24/7 operation and optimization across the yard truck fleet, leading to increased efficiency. 

Closing out the conversation Ira discusses Outrider’s roadmap, scaling plans, the benefits of electrification when combined with autonomy at customer sites, and Outrider’s vision for fully automated supply chains enabled by AI and robotics.

Recorded on Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:09 The Evolving Warehouse Automation Market

5:11 Increase Warehouse Efficiency with Autonomous Yard Trucks

8:58 Outrider Market Positioning

12:47 Outrider Tech Stack

22:43 Scaling Outrider

26:05 Trailer Connect

28:42 Fully Automated Supply Chain

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sergey Litvinenko, Co-Founder & CEO, Koop joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast how autonomy could transform insurance economics. 

As autonomous vehicles and robotic automation spread across industries, a massive new risk ecosystem is emerging that will require innovative insurance solutions. In a fascinating podcast interview, Sergey Litvinenko, co-founder & CEO of insurtech pioneer Koop, provided rare insights into how his company is leading the charge in underwriting this technological transformation.

Traditional insurance carriers have been hesitant to dive into insuring autonomy risks like self-driving cars and warehouse robotics due to a lack of data and technical expertise. As Sergey explained, “If you can’t model the risk, you can’t underwrite it profitably.” This knowledge gap has created a massive greenfield opportunity for insurtechs focused specifically on robotics and AI.

Koop has developed proprietary systems that ingest and analyze real-world sensor data from robots and autonomous vehicles to precisely model their behavior and safety performance. Using this cutting-edge approach, Koop has achieved stellar underwriting results, with loss ratios under 5% for its robotics book – compared to 70%+ for traditional P&C lines.

This lucrative capability is allowing Koop to rapidly scale and cement its position as the dominant player in the burgeoning autonomy insurance market. Sergey believes large incumbents will be forced to partner with or acquire specialist providers like Koop rather than build expertise in-house. He forecasted robotics insurance could be a “tens of billions” dollar market delivering 30%+ underwriting profits.

As AI ushers in a “Cambrian explosion” of robotic use cases across industries, demand for intelligently underwritten insurance solutions will skyrocket. Koop is uniquely positioned with the technical foundations, proprietary data, and risk modeling skills to capture this unprecedented opportunity.

In Sergey’s words, “When you intersect tens of billions of deployed robots with insurance where you can deliver 30% annual returns…it just makes me very excited about the space.” The autonomy economy is materializing rapidly – don’t be surprised if the pioneering innovators insuring this revolution turn out to be young insurtechs like Koop rather than industry giants.

Listen to the full podcast for more fascinating insights from Sergey Kravchenko on the future of autonomy insurance. The robotics risk market is open for disruption – will your company be leading or following?

Recorded on Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:10 2024 Insurance Market Outlook

5:14 Cyber Security Insurance

9:40 Underwriting Autonomous Vehicles and Trucks

35:36 How Companies Should Prepare for Autonomy and Automation 

37:44 AI Impact on Insurance 

40:26 The Evolving Underwriting Markets for Autonomous Vehicles 

42:34 Key Take Aways

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are you ready to go behind the scenes and uncover the secrets of the company playing a pivotal role in the future of autonomous and electric vehicles? In this riveting episode, we dive deep into the world of Applied Intuition, the Silicon Valley company partnering with automotive giants such as Porsche to develop groundbreaking software that will make self-driving cars a reality.

Join us as host Grayson Brulte sits down with Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig, the visionary co-founders who are fusing cutting-edge artificial intelligence with decades of automotive expertise. You'll gain unprecedented insights into their bold mission to accelerate safe autonomy across industries – from transforming in-vehicle experiences to tackling defense applications.

But that's not all! Brace yourself for insights into Applied Intuition's pioneering work, including their multi-stack strategy to future-proof technology, ambitious vehicle software platform to revolutionize mobile electronics, and the innovative ways they're empowering automakers to control the consumer experience like never before.

Don't miss this opportunity to understand the forces driving autonomy and witness the birth of a new era in intelligent machines. Listen now and immerse yourself in a world where the boundaries of possibility are constantly being redefined.

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction

0:56 Series E Funding

3:44 Applied Intuition AI Roadmap

5:58 AV 2.0

10:00 Insights into the Chip Market

11:04 Applied Intuition Trust Layer

14:37 Autonomous Driving

24:36 Applied Intuition x Porsche

27:45 Software Development with OEMs

36:54 Applied Intuition Defense Business

39:24 Future of Applied Intuition

Recorded on Friday, March 29, 2024 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss Tesla’s data advantage and what it means to the development and commercialization of autonomous driving. 

The conversation begins with Pete and Grayson discussing Tesla FSD (Full Self-Driving) and the advantages Tesla has with their data gathering abilities. Tesla has over 5 million vehicles fitted with FSD hardware and software on the road today, driving an estimated 50 billion miles per year — 100,000 miles per minute. This on-going data collection gives Tesla a massive advantage over competitors developing an end-to-end neural net self-driving stack.

Mobileye is taking a similar approach to Tesla by gathering real-world driving data to train their autonomous models. Currently Mobileye has over 26 years of data equaling over 200 petabytes of driving footage, equivalent to 16 million 1-minute driving clips. But is it enough data to train their autonomous driving models and scale a business?

It has yet to be determined if there is a business there for Mobileye as year-over-year revenues are expected to be $226.35 million, down 50.6% from the year-ago. To try and accelerate revenue growth, Mobileye is moving the business away from ADAS chips to the autonomous driving sector which has larger margins. 

[Mobileye is] talking about going from roughly $50 dollars of revenue per unit to $1,500 with Supervision to $3,000 per car with Chauffeur. So I think that the path mobilize sees forward is really ramping up production of those systems, finding buyers for those systems, particularly in China.– Pete Bigelow

While it’s well known that Tesla is gathering driving data, it’s not well known that Mobileye is gathering driving data. Could consumers push back and demand to be paid a fee for gathering data for Mobileye? If consumers demanded to be paid, the Mobileye autonomous driving business model would be at risk. Then there is the political risk. What if a U.S. Congressman or Senator introduced a “Car Owner Bill of Rights”?

The data being gathered by vehicles is going to be an asset class at some point in the future. When it becomes an asset class, owners of the vehicle will demand to get paid the same way publishers are demanding to be paid today when their content is used to train large-language models (LLMs). 

Data is the asset that unlocks future business models. One of the most significant business models that will emerge from the development of autonomous driving is licensing. If FSD use rates pick up and Tesla does indeed license FSD, RBC is projecting that Tesla will generate $35 billion in FSD revenue and $18 billion in licensing a year by 2035 for a total of $53 billion a year in revenue.

Then there is Qualcomm. In Q1 FY 2024, Qualcomm reported automotive revenue of $598 million up from $456 million in Q1 FY 2023. An increase of $142 million, year-over-year. Sales were partly driven by the Snapdragon Digital Chassis Solution. Their year-over-year automotive revenue is growing faster than both NVIDIA and Mobileye. With a $30 billion dollar design pipeline and focus on ADAS, Qualcomm is well positioned to enter the autonomous driving market in a big way.

Qualcomm has become already the quiet giant of the automotive industry. – Pete Bigelow

Wrapping up the conversation, Pete shares his insights into how he sees autonomous driving market evolving over the next five years.

Recorded on Friday, March 8, 2024 

Episode Chapters

0:10 Tesla FSD

5:15 Mobileye

19:51 Licensing Autonomous Driving Software 

29:10 Qualcomm

34:48 Evolving Autonomous Driving Market

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Adam Kovacevich, Founder & CEO, Chamber of Progress joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the regulatory environment for autonomous vehicles in California and what impact if passed, local control would have on the deployment on AVs in California.

The conversation begins with Adam discussing why autonomous vehicles are so divisive in California. Today, there is a divide between the entrenched “status quo” and the residents of California that are excited to use autonomous vehicles on a daily basis. 

In someways this is such a threat to the status quo that unfortunately city leaders in both LA and San Francisco have resisted. – Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO, Chamber of Progress

Phoenix is taking the opposite approach of both LA and San Francisco. The city and the greater Phoenix metro region have welcomed autonomous vehicles into their communities with great success. Waymo vehicles operating in the region do not get high, they do not get distracted and the do not drive drunk. Yet, when the positive benefits are presented to officials in California, they do not want to hear it.

I would like to think that Los Angeles will ultimately be one of the great markets in the world for autonomous vehicles, just because the car is so central to LA. – Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO, Chamber of Progress

While LA could ultimately be one of the great markets for autonomous vehicles, legislators in the State Assembly and State Senate are actively working to pass regulations that would effectively ban autonomous vehicles in California. If autonomous vehicles are essentially banned in California, the state’s economy would ultimately suffer from an economic downturn.

One of the ways that clever legislators are trying to ban autonomous vehicles is by passing legislation that would give local municipalities regulatory control over autonomous vehicles. Each municipality would have its own set of regulations, and perhaps even their own DMV to enforce the regulations. If signed into law, the local control over autonomous vehicles bill would be an effective ban on autonomous vehicles in the State of California. 

Could you image if this proposed local control law was applied to drivers? If you wanted to drive to the beach from Downtown LA, you would pass through Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica all before ending up in Malibu. Five different cities, five potentially different sets of regulations. What if one of those cities decided they only wanted residents to drive in that city? You could potentially blocked from reaching the beach. Would this violate the California Coastal Act in some form or fashion? 

What is being proposed is not realistic. It’s being driven by special interests that want to see autonomous vehicles banned in the state. This is not about the citizens of the state or residents of the cities were autonomous vehicles operate, this is about control and appeasing special interests. 

It’s not practically about local control, it’s really effectively a ban. – Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO, Chamber of Progress

If the local control bill is passed, signed into law and autonomous vehicles are effectively banned in California, the business exodus from the state would further accelerate. Businesses want to operate in a regulatory environment that is predictable, manageable and stable. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Adam and Grayson discuss what it would look like if autonomous vehicles were regulated at the federal level.

Episode Chapters

0:11 Why Autonomous Vehicles are so Divisive in California

4:20 Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles

7:41 Pending Autonomous Vehicle Legislation in California 

19:55 Business Exodus from California

28:33 Developing Public Trust in Autonomous Vehicles 

34:11 Federal Regulation of Autonomous Vehicles

Recorded on Friday, March 29, 2024 

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, Loadsmith joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the unit economics of autonomous trucking and the Loadsmith self-balancing freight network. 

The conversation begins with Brett discussing the unit economics of traditional trucking.

Trucking and the most successful trucking companies look at unit economics. However they are measuring their business, they are going to do it in a very unit way. Whether you are looking at revenue per truck per day, revenue per truck per week, revenue per truck per hour, depending on your business and how your business is operating, revenue per mile obviously. 

When you start looking at things like fuel surcharge per mile, your deadhead miles, your out of route miles, all of the things that build into those unit economics, that is the basis of trucking. So you have to look at things at a unit economic perspective. – Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, Loadsmith

When autonomous trucks are introduced into the fleet the economics are going to change. 

Well, the whole thing is going to change. The entire economics of trucking are going to change and not in every lane on day one, and not even in every lane forever. But the economics of, let’s just call it your 20 most dense lanes in the United States are going to probably change very drastically, very quickly.

Then it will continue to expand to the top 100 lanes from a density perspective, and it may settle in somewhere 150 to 250 total lanes that can support autonomous from an economics perspective. – Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, Loadsmith

Autonomous trucks are first going to be deployed on over-the-road long haul routes, while the last-mile routes will still be driven by professional drivers. This dichotomy is going to lead to job creation and higher wages because of the demand for for first and last mile drivers. To capitalize on the hybrid network that is going to emerge from the mass deployment of autonomous trucks, Brett founded Loadsmith.

Along with the emergence of autonomous trucks, zero-emission trucks are also beginning to come online. However, the unit economics of zero emission trucks do not calculate today due to their higher upfront costs which is 50% more on average than traditional diesel trucks. 

I’m very, very pro zero emission. I’m very, very pro autonomous. I do not think because of the cost of the truck that you’re going to be able to have zero emission in the middle mile at scale without it being autonomous. – Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, Loadsmith

This is partly because of the infrastructure and the economics to operate the service with a professional driver. Where zero emission trucks could thrive is in the first and last mile. While autonomous trucks will thrive in the middle-mile. To scale up their autonomous freight network, Loadsmith partnered with Kodiak. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Brett shares his opinion on the future of the freight industry.

Episode Chapters

0:23 Economics of Trucking

3:24 Impact of Insurance Costs on Trucking Economics

15:36 Economics of Autonomous Trucks

24:56 Building a Hybrid Freight Network

31:55 Founding of the Loadsmith Freight Network

36:04 Unit Economics of Zero Emissions Trucks

39:41 Economic Advantages of the Loadsmith Freight Network 

42:20 Freight Balancing 

48:24 Partnership with Kodiak

51:24 Future of Freight Industry

Recorded on Thursday, February 29, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania (part of the TRATON Group) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Scania’s customer-centric approach to autonomous trucking and their partnership with Plus. 

The conversation begins with Peter discussing Scania’s autonomy efforts and the four core principles of their approach:

1. Focusing on the customer journey perspective.
2. Concentrating on long-haul transport and confined mining applications.
3. Maintaining control over their systems through strategic partnerships.
4. Coordinating efforts across TRATON’s brands.

Strategic partnerships are key to the development and commercialization of autonomous trucks. TRATON recently announced a partnership with Plus for the development and commercialization of SAE Level 4 autonomous trucks. The cultural fit and shared values between the two companies were one of the critical factors in the deal coming to fruition. 

Even with the Plus partnership, Scania intends to continue developing its own autonomous driving technologies in parallel. 

If we don’t understand the product, we will not be a good partner for Plus or anyone else either. – Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania

This dual-track approach allows Scania to maintain deep technical expertise in autonomous driving. 

When it comes to commercializing autonomous trucking solutions, Peter details Scania’s “driver-as-a-service” model. Rather than competing directly with customers for transportation services, Scania aims to integrate autonomous driving into their existing operational systems and workflows seamlessly.

The initial autonomous lanes will be determined entirely by customer needs and existing transportation routes. These lanes will most likely be long-haul routes due to the economics and acute driver shortages.

Throughout the discussion, Peter underscores that partnerships, culture fit, and shared values are critical for scaling autonomous trucks successfully. 

It’s easy to forget about culture and values when you talk about technology, because it is essential that technology works, but it’s actually people that are developing everything behind. – Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania

Wrapping up the conversation, Peter reaffirms Scania’s customer-first philosophy as the driving force behind their autonomous pursuits, ensuring solutions that unlock tangible value for their transportation partners.

Chapters:

0:11 Scania's Approach to Autonomous Trucking

5:33 Scania's Autonomous Trucking Commercialization Strategy

8:18 Autonomous Solutions for Minning

11:02 Driver-as-a-Service Lanes

13:45 Plus / TRATON Partnership

16:06 Scania's History in Autonomous Trucks

18:10 Customer Approach to Autonomy

21:44 E.U. Autonomous Trucking Policy

23:09 Rolling out Autonomous Trucks in the U.S. and E.U.

26:34 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Tuesday March 19, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mazen Danaf, Senior Economist and Applied Scientist, Uber Freight joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economic conditions impacting the adoption of autonomous and electric trucks. 

In this engaging economic discussion, Mazen provides valuable insights into the forces molding the future of autonomous and electric trucking. With $18 billion of freight under management, Uber Freight has a unique vantage point into wider market dynamics.

A key focus of the conversation is the recent rebound in consumer spending on goods, which increased 5% year-over-year in 2023 after a two-year stagnation. This positive demand signal bodes well for increased freight volumes and a potential freight market recovery emerging in Q2 2024, according to Mazen. Other indicators such as improving manufacturing data, reduced truck orders, and employment in long-haul trucking are creating conditions conducive to higher freight demand.

However, Mazen cautioned that the $1.13 trillion in U.S. consumer credit card debt, while elevated, has returned to a manageable 5% debt-to-income ratio consistent with pre-pandemic levels. Monitoring factors like unemployment will be crucial to gauge if the consumer remains able to sustain spending.

Turning to transformative freight technologies, Mazen emphasized the importance of analyzing autonomous and electric truck adoption through a comprehensive economic lens rather than a tech lens. Long-term, he expects a decades-long transition facilitated by a hybrid approach of both autonomous and professional driver operations.

For electric trucks, substantial public and private investment is needed to build out charging infrastructure at scale. Freight-dense interstate corridors like Los Angeles-Inland Empire and Dallas- Houston are prime candidates for targeted electrification efforts to maximize emissions reduction.

The overarching theme of the podcast was consumer behavior, market forces, infrastructure, and the regulatory environment will all shape trucking’s autonomous and electric future as much as the technology itself. Mazen stressed, “it’s interesting to look at the broader context…because it will definitely have an effect.” Uber Freight’s vast data intelligence provides a powerful economic prism through which to forecast this transformation.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 

0:40 Consumer Spending and The Economy 

6:50 Fed Interest Rate Cuts 

9:12 Real Estate Markets 

11:08 Layoffs 

12:50 Decline in Freight Market Job Growth 

14:40 Carriers Investing in Autonomous Trucks 

21:04 Autonomous Trucks and Intermodal 

24:13 Autonomous Trucking in California 

27:34 Autonomous and Electric Trucks Impact on Jobs 

31:15 Introducing Electric Trucks into Fleets 

41:27 Q4 2023 Truck Sales Decline 

43:44 Freight Recovery 

45:43 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Thursday, February 15, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alex Kendall, Co-Founder & CEO, Wayve joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Wayve’s AV 2.0 approach to autonomous driving.

The conversation begins with Alex discussing the founding of Wayve and how their autonomous driving stack has evolved.

Yes, we started with cameras, but a common misconception is that we think camera only is the way to go. Actually I think the sensing stack you need to use should be based on safety, scalability and economics. – Alex Kendall

Wayve’s approach to autonomous driving has attracted world class investors such as Microsoft. Last year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates visited Wayve and took a ride in their autonomous vehicle through the central London and Soho on an unmapped, un-planned route. 

The whole thesis behind our approach is to build a system that can learn behavior. – Alex Kendall

This approach is called AV 2.0. It is being developed with end-to-end neural networks that are economically scalable. Does this approach end up being the most common approach to solving autonomous driving? Tesla is taking a similar approach with the introduce of FSD 12.0. Could Wayve and Tesla usher in a future with end-to-end neural net autonomous vehicles?

As Wayve begins to commercialize their autonomous driving technology, they are first deploying their software as a driving assistance system with OEMs.

We don’t need to change any hardware, add-on or retro-fit anything. We can work with production vehicles today and have the neural network deployed. The advantage of this is that we can start to give consumers exposure to embodied AI, rather than dropping in an L4 solution from day zero. We give them an exposure to a companion co-pilot driver assistance system and it can learn overtime quickly developing to a point where it can become L4 and autonomous. – Alex Kendall

The advantages of this approach is that it allows Wayve to generate revenue today, gather more data to train the neural nets all while building public trust. The more data, the better the neural nets and there is also the opportunity to license data to other autonomous vehicle developers. It’s a strategic approach with lots of options as Wayve has chosen to partner with OEMs and not build their own vehicle. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Alex share his thoughts on embodied AI and the future of Wayve.

Episode Chapters

0:08 Founding of Wayve 

5:34 Bill Gates Goes For a Ride

6:35 AV 2.0

19:22 Wayve Commercialization Model

24:22 Testing Autonomous Vehicles in London

26:02 Data as an Asset Class

29:51 Partnership Approach

30:59 Future of Wayve

Recorded on Friday, March 8, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and analysis on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy podcast and This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Peter Weiss, Board Certified Physician and Health Care Entrepreneur joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy: Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economic impact that autonomous vehicles will have on health care.

The conversation begins with Dr. Weiss discussing how he views autonomous vehicles and the delivery of health care complimenting each other in the future.

Health care is more then just seeing the physician or a health care provider, it’s about getting from point A to point B to provide that care. – Dr. Peter Weiss

In the future autonomous vehicles will have the capability to determine if a passenger is having a heart attack, potentially saving their life. The question of who makes the decision to re-route the autonomous vehicle to a hospital is yet to be determined. The vehicle could ask the passenger for permission, but what if that individual is unconscious? Then what happens? 

If the passenger is unable to respond to the question, then the car should be able to then directly take the passenger to the hospital and at the same time notify the hospital that we have a patient coming in with certain blood pressure, certain atrial fibrillation. All this information that can could really save a life. – Dr. Peter Weiss

Is legislation needed to limit the liability of that decision? Most likely, as the decisions made will open a formidable maze of legal liabilities. Then there is the aspect of insurance and what hospital the passenger is rerouted to for medical care. Are those doctors and hospital in-network or out of-network? Who is responsible for the difference in cost?

In 2022, hospital expenditures grew 2.2% to $1.35 trillion according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Could rerouting autonomous vehicles with unwell passengers add to the growing hospital expenditures? Yes. When health care is able to be delivered in an autonomous vehicle, there could be cost savings that would offset those growing expenditures.

It’s not just hospital expenditures that are growing, it’s the overall cost of delivering health care. In 2022 U.S. consumers spent 8% of their income on health care, only 4.8% less than they spend on food according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Overall health care expenditures grew 4.1% to $4.5 trillion equaling $13,493 per person, accounting for 17.3% of GDP. 

A percentage of the increasing expenditures could be correlated to motor vehicle crashes. Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in their United States with over 100 people dying everyday. In 2015, more than 2.5 million drivers and passengers were treated in emergency rooms as a result of being injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes. 

The economic impact of these crashes is notable. For crashes that occurred in 2017, the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with occupant injuries and deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes exceeded $75 billion. If autonomous vehicles can eliminate a majority of these crashes, the economic not to mention societal impact could be astronomical. 

You would save billions of dollars in costs that could be provided for underserved communities that need treatment for asthma, for all of these other things that could be done. There is a greater utilization of the money that could be provided for care. – Dr. Peter Weiss

Autonomy and autonomous vehicles are good for society and the economy. They will have a positive economic impact on health care while making the roads safer. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Dr. Weiss share this thoughts on the future of medicine. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction

0:43 Autonomous Vehicles and the Delivery of Health Care

6:48 Growing Medical Expenditures

17:41 End of Life Medical Care Costs 

20:32 Personal and Business Spending on Health Care 

27:28 Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes 

33:42 Neuralink

37:17 Future of Medicine

Recorded on Sunday, February 4, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Steven Jenkins, Vice President of Technology Strategy, Magna joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Magna’s partner approach to developing autonomous driving systems. 

The conversation begins with Steven discussing how Magna is approaching safety systems. 

Magna is one of the only real few suppliers that has the entire set of enablers to make it happen and do a complete system. So we are thinking about the whole system as a package rather then individual pieces of the package, and that allows us to develop these market leading products that deliver the enhanced safety and convenience for the driver. – Steven Jenkins 

The software defined vehicle will unlock continuous updates to the vehicle, unlocking new features and functions. Eventually these software updates will be able to upgrade vehicles to enable autonomous driving functionality depending on their sensor package. 

As vehicles become more advanced with higher levels of autonomy, the debate around driver monitoring creeps into the conversation and ultimately leads to the question; when is the right time to introduce driver monitoring? That question ultimately comes down to the OEM. While the OEM makes that decision, Magna is working on a series of in-cabin monitoring solutions that benefit the driver and the passengers. 

This approach will benefit their OEM customers as they introduce higher levels of autonomy. Magna is approaching autonomy as as a step-wise approach.

In a kind of autonomous scenario you are really taking a kind of huge leap in terms of what you can do with a vehicle, but you are not taking as big as a leap when it comes to technology. A lot of things are pretty similar. – Steven Jenkins 

A hybrid market that comprises of both robotaxis and personally owned autonomous vehicles could emerge at some point in the future. How the economics of these models emerge will depend on the companies that make the product available and take the risk from a financing perspective. Either way, Magna will be there from a technological standpoint to help their partners and customers usher in the future of autonomy. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Steven shares his opinion on the future of mobility. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction

0:56 Magna’s Complete Safety System Approach 

4:25 Software Defined Vehicles

6:07 Neural Network Approach to Autonomous Driving

10:28 Driver Monitoring

16:31 Magna’s Approach to Autonomous Driving

31:09 New and Emerging Technologies

37:07 Staying Ahead of the Market

38:54 Future of Mobility

Recorded on Monday, March 11, 2024

Magna International is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company

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About The Road to Autonomy

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Harry Campbell aka The Rideshare Guy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the rideshare industry, the role that power drivers play in the ecosystem and his thoughts on Uber’s growing hybrid network.

The conversation begins with Grayson and Harry discussing Uber’s outperformance compared to the S&P 500. Over the last 12 months, Uber has outperformed the S&P 500 by 102%. While Uber is outperforming the market, their competitor Lyft is struggling to figure out the future of their business. 

Drivers are the backbone of both Uber and Lyft. According to J.P. Morgan, the average Uber driver earns $33 an hour. The estimated average hourly earnings are only for Period 3, commonly referred to as active time. Period 1 is when a driver is on the Uber app waiting for a ride. Period 2 is when a driver has accepted a ride and are driving to pick up the passenger. 

Period 3, that’s when you make the most amount of money as a driver. You want your wheels moving, you want to be going fast, you want to be going far. That’s kind of how you make the most amount of money. $33 an hour is basically saying drivers make $33 an hour when they are driving to a customer or they have a customer in the car, but we are not going to count any of the downtime. – Harry Campbell 

While drivers are the backbone of the platforms, there are divergences in how Uber and Lyft attract and retain drivers. Both companies use incentives to retain drivers, Lyft is starting to increase the amount incentives to attract power drivers away from Uber. Power drivers are drivers who drive more than 40+ hours a week or roughly 6,000 miles per month. Accounting for 20% of the driver inventory at any moment.

As Uber continues to grow and shed non-core assets, the company is laying the foundation to transform Uber into a hybrid platform with both drivers and autonomous vehicles. Today, you can hail a Waymo in Phoenix on the Uber app and have Uber Eats delivered in a Motional autonomous vehicle in Santa Monica. 

When it comes to Uber’s strategy with AV, I think it’s kind of a no-brainer. – Harry Campbell 

This is the right strategy for Uber. Dara Khosrowshahi made the strategic decision to sell Uber ATG to Aurora and focus on becoming a platform again. Uber was able to shed the billions in development costs, while fully embracing the power of Uber — the platform. This decision has allowed Uber to focus on growing their free cash flow while becoming profitable. 

The Uber 2.0 strategy will enable Uber to collect a fee very similar to the way Mastercard and Visa collect swipe fees every time a consumer makes a purchase with their credit card. The more consumers choose to ride in Waymo vehicles on the Uber platform, the more revenue Uber will generate. 

Uber’s new autonomous vehicle strategy will pay dividends as Waymo scales up. If the price of a Waymo is on par with Uber X, consumers in our opinion will overwhelmingly choose Waymo because of the consistent experience. Either way, Uber benefits as the company will collect a platform usage fee. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Harry shares his opinion on the future of Uber. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction

0:55 Uber vs S&P 500

2:05 Does Lyft Survive?

3:32 Rideshare Drivers: Driving for Uber and Lyft

17:41 Uber and Lyft Driver Incentives 

21:40 Most Popular Rideshare Vehicles 

25:33 Dara Khosrowshahi

29:36 Do Uber Drivers Buy UBER Stock?

35:20 Changes Drivers Would Like to See on the Uber and Lyft Platforms

41:50 Autonomous Vehicles as Rideshare Vehicles (Robotaxis)

44:50 Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle Strategy

49:10 Lyft’s Earnings Blunder

50:38 Uber’s Product Compared to Waymo

53:44 Expanding the Uber Platform

1:07:56 Uber Freight

1:10:20 The Future of Uber

Recorded on Thursday, February 22, 2024

Uber is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company

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About The Road to Autonomy

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ian Rust, Founder & CEO, Revoy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of Revoy and why hybrid is the right approach to electrifying Class 8 trucks. 

The conversation begins with Ian discussing Revoy’s approach to hybrid technology for electrified trailers.

We view hybrid definitely the most viable solution for electrification in the Class 8 market. – Ian Rust

The Revoy EV hooks up in-between a tractor and a trailer in a matter of minutes. Revoy is able to do this, because they deliver pre-charged EVs to their customers, eliminating the charging downtime. 

By bringing in that pre-charged battery pack we can integrate in under five minutes. – Ian Rust

One of the major benefits to the Revoy system is an increase the MPG (miles per gallon). The Revoy test fleet has been able to achieve 67 mpg in a diesel class 8 truck. When trucks are traveling on hilly roads, the extra torc delivered by the hybrid system allows trucks to keep pace with the other motorists on the road. When coming down a hill, the system’s regenerative braking activates, assisting the professional driver and increasing safety. 

We can actually stop a tractor trailer with a Revoy EV applied 30% sooner. – Ian Rust

Revoy’s EVs will not be sold, they will be leased on a per mile basis with zero up-front payment. They will be deployed at strategically located hubs where the drivers will stop and swap their Revoy EV in four minutes. 

You can just have essentially uncapped long-haul range on electric power by just stopping and swapping in four minutes. – Ian Rust

Wrapping up the conversation, Ian shares his thoughts on what the future will look like for electrified class 8 trucks. 

Recorded on Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction 

0:37 Revoy’s Approach to Electrified Trailers

3:03 Increases in MPG (miles per gallon)

5:08 Safety and Insurance Benefits

8:49 Revoy Business Model

12:56 Infrastructure 

20:28 Stop and Swap

24:20 Hybrid Technology 

31:42 The Inspiration for Revoy

34:40 Scaling Revoy 

40:35 Future of Hybrid Solutions for Class 8 Trucks

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Timothy Dooner, Host, WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discus the rise and fall of digital freight brokerages and the growth of autonomous trucking

The conversation begins with Dooner discussing his outlook for the freight market.

There is 8. 1% less brokerages than there were a year ago at the start of this year. But there’s still 17% more brokerages than we started at the pandemic. Everyone’s been waiting for not just volumes to go up, but the way freight works, it’s volume plus capacity. They’ve been waiting for the capacity to go down. Volumes are looking a little bit better. Things are receding and this year I’m hearing a lot more optimism. – Timothy Dooner

The optimism is being shared by Walmart as there are rumors circulating that Walmart is looking to develop a digital freight brokerage. Since Walmart operates their own fleet, they have a unique data set that could potentially help them leapfrog the competition when and if they are introduce a digital freight brokerage service. 

The freight market is currently turbulent as the demand for freight and the capacity to haul the freight are not in sync. Then there is the California electric truck mandate which will ultimately end up increasing the costs to ship freight, hurting both the carriers and the consumer. Could these mandates help to accelerate the adoption of autonomous truck as they are cheaper to operate? 

It’s possible and as we are seeing in California, autonomous vehicle technology is not always welcome. in San Francisco vandals set fire to a Waymo autonomous vehicle with a firework, burning the vehicle to the ground. If the regulatory environment in California eventually allows autonomous trucks to operate, will similar vandals also try to cause damage to autonomous trucks? 

Autonomous trucking is going to play a major role in the future of trucking and the global economy. As the technology is developed different business models are going to come to fruition and one of those is the licensing model. Kodiak has the potential to license their SensorPods technology, creating a lucrative revenue stream as they develop their autonomous trucking platform. This is in addition to their growing defense business.

Then there is Uber. Uber has investments in Aurora and Waabi, and has the Uber Freight division. Yet they do not operate an autonomous trucking fleet. Grayson and Dooner go onto dicuss Uber’s autonomous trucking investment strategy and who ultimately owns the asset.

Wrapping up the conversation, Dooner shares his 2024 outlook for the trucking market. 

Recorded on Wednesday, February 14, 2023

Chapters

0:00 Introduction 

1:34 Freight Market Outlook 

7:31 Walmart’s Rumored Digital Freight Brokerage 

10:42 Are Electric Truck Mandates Accelerating the Adoption of Autonomous Trucks 

13:57 Vandals in San Fransisco Set Fire to a Waymo Autonomous Vehicle 

18:20 Commercializing Autonomous Trucking 

25:32 The Business of Kodiak Robotics

28:15 Autonomous Delivery Drones 

31:55 Uber’s Autonomous Trucking Investment Strategy 

39:18 Who Owns the Asset? 

42:59 Tesla Cybertruck 

43:52 Apple Vision Pro 

51:08 2024 Trucking Outlook

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shannon Nash, Chief Financial Officer, Wing, an Alphabet company joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Wing’s operations in the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) region and why 2024 is the year of autonomous drone delivery. 

The conversation begins with Shannon discussing how Wing is approaching autonomy and how the service works. The most commonly delivered item is hot coffee. In Frisco, Texas through a partnership with Walmart, Wing is able to deliver hot coffee (without spilling it) to customers with-in five minutes. 

Wing’s autonomous delivery drones have FAA approval to fly Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) enabling the company to scale the service.

In the Dallas Fort Worth area with Walmart we are able to go six miles from the location of the Walmart to the customer’s home. – Shannon Nash

In the Dallas Fort Worth region, Wing is currently operating in two locations with Walmart — Frisco and Lewisville. These two strategic locations enables Wing to reach over 60,000 residences. In addition to these two locations, Wing will be expanding drone delivery operations with Walmart later this year in the DFW region. Wing and Walmart’s goal is to cover 75% of the DFW region with a drone delivery service. 

Autonomy is one the keys to scaling in addition to fitting into the existing workflow of delivery. 

When you introduce a service like Wing you want to make sure that you don’t disrupt those workflows. – Shannon Nash

Workflow integration is clearly working as Wing has successfully completed over 350,000 deliveries across three continents to date. When Wing looks to launch service in a new city or region they engage with the local community to understand their needs, wants and desires and most importantly explain the service to them. They host events in the local community and bring the drones along for show and tell days, so when they launch commercial service there are no surprises. 

We will continue as we expand to do that community outreach and really that community partnership. – Shannon Nash

To scale, Wing is developing the Wing Delivery Network which will unlock efficiencies as the drones will not return to base, instead they will go to the next pickup location. When the network is up and operating, Wing will be able to increase deliveries beyond 1,000 packages a day.

Today, Wing drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.6 pounds and they recently announced a new drone known as the Big Box Plane that is capable of handling packages up to 5 pounds. These drones are capable of flying up to 65 mph. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Shannon shares her vision for the future the future of Wing.

Recorded on Tuesday, February 13, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Covenant joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why it all comes down to unit economics when fleets are evaluating new trucking technologies such as battery electric trucks and autonomous trucks. 

The conversation begins with Matt discussing how Covenant is thinking about implementing battery electric trucks into their fleet. With limited range and reduced weight capacities, the right lane and freight have to be matched up to ensure a successful run. 

The fleet of the future is actually going to be something that is made up of a lot different pieces of equipment that reflect the different and diverse needs of our customer base. – Matt McLelland

Reduced capacity comes with increased cost, as battery electric trucks cost roughly 50% more then traditional diesel trucks. Factor in stubborn inflation, slim margins and a Fed Funds interest rate of 5.33%, fleets are hamstrung when it comes financing the increased cost of battery electric trucks.

Is a hybrid solution the right solution? As companies look to lower their carbon emissions, could electrified trailers be the solution? Or it could be renewable diesel or B100 (pure biodiesel)?

Hybrid solutions that are not full on zero-emission vehicles, that’s what I think the future is. – Matt McLelland

The costs to implement low carbon, zero-emissions technologies for trucks is going to cost more. For the business model to work, that cost is going to have to passed onto the consumer. But the economic reality is, consumers will not pay more for shipping as they are used to fast free shipping commonly known as the “Amazon effect“. 

Could the push towards low carbon and zero-emissions trucks inadvertently accelerate the implementation and adoption of autonomous trucks?

It all comes down to the unit economics. – Matt McLelland

Autonomous trucks offer better unit economics than traditional trucks, and the economics only get better as the size of the fleet increases. Covenant is taking a measured approach to autonomous trucking by rolling up their sleeves and developing relationships with the developers. This approach has led to commercial relationships with Aurora and Torc. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on the future of the trucking industry.

Recorded on Friday, February 9, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the current state of the mobility markets. Markets that are in flux with EV sales falling, GM rebooting Cruise, while Waymo scales and the autonomous truck industry prepares to launch commercial operations. 

The conversation begins with Pete sharing his insights into the electric vehicle market with the backdrop of 5,000 U.S. car dealers sending a second letter to President Biden urging the administration to “hit the brakes” on the EV push. Are these dealers urging The President to hit the brakes because non-Tesla EVs are simply not selling? 

The EV market can’t be lumped into a monolith, it’s really how certain companies are approaching a change from early adopters to mass-market consumers and that’s where we get into the nitty gritty of a potential slowdown. – Pete Bigelow 

Tesla with an EV U.S. marketshare north of 55% continues to dominate the market. Raising the question, is there even an EV market in the U.S.? Or is the market for electric vehicles in the U.S., simply Tesla?

Tesla is running away with the domestic market right now. – Pete Bigelow 

Could this change when BYD enters the U.S. market? If and when BYD enters the U.S. market, they will be able to undercut the Detroit automakers as their cost structure is dramatically lower. Is an $18,000 EV the tipping point that supercharges the EV market to the detriment of Detroit?

Or does the potential Apple Car become the tipping point? The average Apple user spends 5 hours a day on their Apple devices. Spending more time in an Apple car would only help Apple strengthen their ecosystem and grow the services business. 

That’s the promise of the Apple Car, they are just going to capture your attention in one more living space. – Pete Bigelow 

A company that has captured the attention of the industry, regulators and the overall automotive market is Cruise. The company is in the midst of a reboot following an unfortunate incident. How will the reboot work? What role will GM play in a rebooted Cruise? Will GM be forced to rebrand Cruise as they look to rebuild public trust? Grayson and Pete discuss a myriad of possible scenarios. 

While GM works on a reboot plan for Cruise, Waymo is expanding. When Waymo officially expands operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, they will be operating in a 635 square mile ODD (operational design domain). This will be the largest deployment of autonomous vehicles anywhere in the world.

Soon the autonomous trucking industry could surpass the Waymo deployment as the industry prepares to launch driver-out commercial operations later this year. The autonomous trucking industry is growing and new partnerships are being developed that will impact the industry long-term. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Pete shares what he is watching in the mobility markets this year.

Recorded on Friday, January 26, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike Murphy, Republican Political Strategist, Co-Host of Hacks of Tap and CEO, EV Politics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the politics of electric vehicles and their impact on the 2024 election.

The conversation begins with Mike discussing his cross-country journey from central New Hampshire to Los Angeles in a VW ID.4 electric vehicle over the summer, and how this adventure led to the founding of EV Politics. Today, electric vehicles have become full of politics and a presidential campaign issue. 

I just do not like the bashing because I am a free market conservative. I think people to aught to make a choice and these cars have become loaded with politics. – Mike Murphy

When consumers choose to buy and drive a non-Tesla electric vehicle, they feel overwhelmed by the fact that public charging networks are unreliable — leading to charging anxiety. Which is further stoking the political divide with EVs. 

This could all be changing as the EV industry moves to the North American Charging Standard (NACS) created by Teslaand developed into a standard by SAE International. Drivers of non-Tesla vehicles will soon have the ability to use the Tesla Supercharger Network, increasing their ability to access reliable charging. 

In a national survey of 600 voters with household income of $50K+ representing 67% of U.S. 2020 electorate, EV Politics conducted a campaign style poll to gather the pulse in America of electric vehicles. 

When asked what their biggest concern about owning an EV is, the top two answers were expensive (58%) and insufficient range for trips (53%). Outside of the top two answers, 43% of respondents cited unreliable charger networks. 

From a political perspective, both Republicans and Democrats agree that cost and insufficient range for trips are their biggest concerns when it comes to buying an EV. However, they disagree about what their friends and relatives will think if they bought an EV.

Electric vehicles are not perceived as cars, they are perceived as political statements. – Mike Murphy

Then there is Elon Musk. Is he a good ambassador for electric vehicles? It all depends on who you ask. Republicans have a favorable opinion, as 61% agree while only 34% of Democrats agree. Then there is China and the underling issue of Chinese EVs coming to America. How will this potentially impact the politics of EVs and how Americans view EVs? 

The future of mobility around the world is going electric. Do we want America to be a big player in that or do we want to be Britain in the 70’s and we just keep closing Rover plants? – Mike Murphy

America has a choice to make as it relates to the future of mobility. If politics overtake commonsense, America will be left behind. America has to invest in the mining and refining of critical minerals in the U.S. Controlling the EV supply chain is a national security issue and one that should not be taken lightly as the world transitions to electric vehicles. 

With the 2024 presidential campaign underway and the possibility of a change in The White House, the question around EV subsidies will continue to linger. What impact could a second President Donald Trump administration have on the EV industry? Would Tesla be invited to The White House to promote American ingenuity? Or would the company continue to be sidelined as it has been for the past four years? These are all outstanding questions that will be answered over the next 12 months. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Mike discuss how he see the EV market evolving over the next four years from a political standpoint.

Recorded on Tuesday, January 23, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil and Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss his 2024 outlook for the oil & natural gas markets. 

The conversation begins with Dean sharing his outlook for the oil and natural gas markets.

The outlook for oil and natural gas looks bright. – Dean Foreman

Last year, the world set a new record high for oil demand of 101 million barrels per day. As we begin 2024, attention is now turning to geopolitics and global economic concerns. In Argentina, Javier Milei was sworn in as President on December 10th in a referendum on the economy with aspirations to rebuild the economy and lower inflation by unleashing economic growth. 

With economic and political reforms, Argentina has the ability to become an exporter of oil from the Vaca Muerta shale formation. It has been estimated that the Vaca Muerta formation has the ability to produce more than 1 million barrels of oil per day by 2030.

Argentina because it has shale oil, the Vaca Muerta formation in Neuquén. It’s like the Marcellus in the United States, expect it’s much deeper and super high quality rock. They have the potential to really flip and become an exporter much like the United States. But they haven’t had the business climate to be able to support from a macro perspective companies with predictability trusting to go in and invest a lot in the ground. – Dean Foreman

If the business climate changes, it will be interesting to watch and see what multi-national companies begin to invest in the Vaca Muerta formation. In the United States, economists are projecting a soft landing for the economy. If indeed a soft landing is achieved, more investments are going to be needed to bring the amounts of oil and natural gas to the market that are needed to sustain growth.

A portion of economic growth can be attributed to tourism demand, as Bloomberg is reporting that 2024 will be a record-setting year for travel. The International Air Transport Association is projecting that 4.7 billion individuals globally will board planes in 2024, generating $964 billion in airfare revenue. The cruise ship industry is also seeing growth as it is estimated that 35.7 million passengers will board a cruise ship in 2024, up from 31.5 million in 2023. 

If the consumer trend of opting experiences over purchasing goods continues, there could be an uptick in global oil demand. With the Federal Funds Rate at 5.53%, one has to question how long consumers will continue to spend on travel until they feel the weight of the high interest rate environment. If consumers cut back on travel, what is the impact on oil and will diesel demand offset the potential weakness in gasoline? Grayson and Dean discuss the potential scenarios and what the outcome could look like. 

One of the biggest uncertainties coming into this year, from a household and a corporate perspective is the delayed impact of the pent up effect of having raised interest rates so much, so fast. – Dean Foreman

Another trend to watch is the re-emergence of hybrid sales in the U.S. In 2023, U.S. individuals purchased over 1 million hybrids, up 76% year-over-year. It’s a clear signal that consumers are still willing to purchase vehicles that have an internal combustion engine. Whether this is being driven by a pricing decision or the simple fact that consumers want reliability and consistency has yet to be determined. What has been determined is that there is clearly a trend emerging. 

A tree that is powering Texas to produce 5.7 million barrels of oil per day, its highest level since 1981. In 2023, Texas accounted for 54.7% of U.S. drilling, it’s highest level since 2019. 

In Q3 2023, the Permian Basin set a new production record of 10 million barrels per day of oil equivalent. Today, the Permian Basin accounts for 27% of the total U.S. oil and natural gas production. 

It has the ability to continue to expand, again because of the quality of resources as well as the ability to get pipelines without dealing with the morass of many of the federal energy regulatory commission, interstate pipeline regulations. 

With Texas’ nimble intrastate pipeline system, it has the unique ability to attract capital and respond to upstream production. That’s why the Permian Basin has really stood out versus anywhere else in the country. – Dean Foreman

Wrapping up the conversation, Dean shares his insights on what to watch in the oil and natural gas markets over the next quarter.

Recorded on Thursday, January 4, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Edwin Olson, CEO & Co-Founder of May Mobility joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss going driver-out in Sun City, Arizona and the economics of the business. 

The conversation begins with Edwin discussing what went into launching fully driverless operations in Sun City, Arizona. 

There is a bunch of technology that has to come together to meet your safety requirements and your capabilities. But actually pulling a safety driver out is about so much more than the technology. We have to bring our riders, our partners, the regulators, insurance companies, first responders. There is a huge amount of work that has to come together to get everyone ready to give this project a thumbs-up. – Edwin Olson

May Mobility chose to launch in Sun City because of the driving environment and the economic potential. From a technical standpoint they were able to go driver-out in Sun City because of their Multi-Policy Decision Making system. May Mobility’s Multi-Policy Decision Making system has enabled them to deploy in multiple geographic and weather environments such as downtown Detroit, northern Minnesota and Sun City, Arizona. 

You are never going to become a Babe Ruth by only playing tee ball. You have to start to taking the pitches and playing the hard game. – Edwin Olson

All of May Mobility’s deployments operate year round, in sun, rain, snow and are revenue generating. The business model being implemented by May compliments public transit as it offers a better return on transit investments for cities and transit agencies. Currently it costs roughly $150 an hour to operate a transit bus in most cities. 

Our revenue potential is about $150 an hour per vehicle. – Edwin Olson

The service being provided by May Mobility is as an on-demand point-to-point service being delivered in micro-transit model. As the company gradually removes the safety driver from operations, margins are expected to be around 60%. Driverless operations will ensure a better service without having to rely on drivers who might not show up for work. 

By switching into a rider-only product we can solve the labor problem and be able to turn on this very high margin business. – Edwin Olson

As May continues to grow, the company will look to add new vehicles to the mix in addition to their current fleet of fully redundant Toyota Sienna hybrid minivans. 

We are constantly evaluating other platforms that could help expand our platform offerings so that we can grow our accessible market and grow the business in turn. – Edwin Olson

May Mobility is a business. Edwin understands this as he is highly focused on developing a business model that is scalable and profitable long-term. When he meets with investors, he breaks down the economics of the May Mobility model and why they are different from the traditional robo-taxi business. 

In addition to operating an autonomous vehicle business, May is licensing their data to insurance companies. Creating an entirely new revenue stream for the company. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Ed shares his vision for the future of May Mobility. 

Recorded on Thursday, December 21, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Joanna Buttler, Head of the Global Autonomous Technology Group, Daimler Truck North America joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia and Daimler Truck’s outlook for autonomous trucking. 

The conversation begins with Joanna discussing how Daimler Truck North America is approaching autonomy. 

We see autonomous as one of the biggest opportunities for us as a company. – Joanna Buttler

To execute on this opportunity, Daimler Truck is focused on deploying long-haul autonomous trucks in the United States as part of a hub-to-hub strategy. As part of the strategy, Daimler is developing the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia and Torc Robotics is developing the autonomous driving software. 

At Daimler Truck Capital Market Day 2023 in July, the company announced that autonomous trucks were a strong strategic pillar. Projecting that autonomous trucks have the potential to deliver € 3 billion in revenue by 2030 with the official launch for Daimler’s trucks scheduled for 2027.

When Daimler commercializes autonomous trucks, customers will purchase the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia from Daimler Truck and an autonomous driving software subscription from Torc with flexible pricing models. To simplify the sales process, Daimler will coordinate the entire transaction and offer financing through Daimler Truck Financial. 

Daimler Truck’s customers will be able to achieve a higher utilization with autonomous trucks as they will be able to operate 24/7 with limited downtime. Higher utilization could lead to lower shipping costs and increased margins for fleets. 

To achieve their vision for autonomous trucking, Daimler is developing a redundant autonomous-ready chassis to ensure the highest levels of safety and functionality. The development process started with a list of 1,500 requirements that they jointly developed with Waymo and Torc to identify the systems, features and tasks that are required to enable autonomous driving. 

When autonomous trucks scale, the benefits to society and the economy will be immense. 

Autonomy can and will bring great benefits for society. – Joanna Buttler

Wrapping up the conversation, Joanna shares her outlook for autonomous trucking.

Recorded on Thursday, December 14, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

James Reed, COO, Kodiak Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Kodiak is scaling the business with financial discipline, economic scenario planning and operational readiness as the company ramps up commercial operations heading into 2024. 

The conversation begins with James sharing his thoughts on the current state of the autonomous trucking industry.

Next year DARPA will have been 20 years ago, finally all of us that our on this path are at the point were autonomous vehicles are real and driver-out autonomy in the trucking business is going to happen in the very near future. – James Reed

Over the next decade the autonomous trucking industry is going to enter the commercialization phase with a strong focus on financial discipline. Financial discipline is one of James’ strong suits as he was previously CEO of USA Truck that was successfully sold to DB Schenker in September 2022 for $31.72 per share in cash. 

It’s not just success that James brings to Kodiak, it’s a deep understanding of economic cycles and how those impact operations and cash-flow. In the depths of 2008 financial crisis, James served as Division CFO at Washington Mutual. The bank was ultimately acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase because of their sub-prime mortgage portfolio. During the banking crisis James saw first hand how one division that takes on too much risk can sink an entire corporation. 

I learned about this dichotomy of you can be widely successful and still fail as a team. – James Reed

Being in banking is about risk management and this is a skill that influences how James runs operations at Kodiak. To manage risk, the team matters. You have to hire the best to mitigate the risk and limit your potential downside exposure. Including planning and forecasting as the economic environments can change suddenly. 

As we prepare to enter 2024, we could be entering a potential recessionary environment depending on the actions of the Federal Reserve and how the economy reacts to those actions. 

Well run companies plan for upsides, downsides including recessions as part of their on-going operations. – James Reed

Kodiak is planning for this potential economic environment as was an economic growth environment. Planning for all economic environments and what the potential impact will be on the Kodiak business is one of the core strengths that James brings to the team from his years of financial experience. 

The Kodiak business is not a pure-play autonomous trucking business, it’s a diversified business with a defense division because of the ability of their autonomy stack to work in unstructured environments. On December 5th, it was announced that Kodiak has been awarded a $49.9 million, 24-month United States Department of Defense agreement to help automate future U.S. Army ground vehicles. Moving forward, defense will be a key pillar of the Kodiak business. 

We plan to become a defacto prime in the autonomous software space. – James Reed

In 2024, Kodiak will continue focus on commercialization, industry partnerships and driver-out operations on public roads. 

Wrapping up the conversation, James shares his vision for the future of Kodiak which includes a potential IPO.

Recorded on Tuesday, December 12, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the future of Cruise and how the robo-taxi market will shakeout. What moves will Waymo, Zoox and Motional make now that Cruise has been sidelined for the foreseeable future?

The conversation begins with David discussing how GM moves forward with Cruise after an October 2, 2023 incident involving a pedestrian in San Fransisco was allegedly mired in a coverup. The supposed actions led to the grounding of the Cruise fleet, the resignation of Co-Founder & CEO Kyle Vogt and a 24% reduction in the workforce including nine key executives. 

They are going to start-off in one city, so they are sort of stepping back 18 months. In terms of their roll-out, you know it does raise a big question if they even really push robo-taxi, or does this at some point does this become part of General Motors developing self-driving personally owned autonomous vehicles. – David Welch

On the news of the 24% reduction in the workforce at Cruise, GM’s stock rallied 6.65% to close at $36.08 on December 14, 2023. If Cruise is indeed absorbed by GM, the questions become what division will Cruise become part of, will there be a big pivot away from robo-taxis to personally owned autonomous vehicles and how will GM retain and hire new AI talent?

Or could GM shift the Cruise model to that of a licensing model? A model where GM licenses Cruise’s autonomous driving technology to other OEMs? This model could resonate with Wall Street as there would be a clear path to Cruise becoming a self-sustaining business unit of GM with high-margins. 

I think that could eventually be the real race or battle between Cruise and Waymo, licensing this technology to the car companies. – David Welch

Licensing will be one of the core elements of autonomous driving technology in the future. Today autonomous vehicles are a luxury product, not a mass market product. With autonomous vehicles being a luxury product, there is an opportunity to build a commerce layer into the rider experience. Could Alphabet look to possibly integrate YouTube into the Waymo as a monitizable experience?

With Cruise currently sidelined, could Waymo look to take advantage of the market conditions and accelerate the roll-out of the Waymo One program? Potentially, but Waymo appears to be sticking to their well managed roll-out that includes ride-hailing tours and an early rider program. 

Then there is Zoox, an Amazon company. When do they make their move? Zoox has been very quiet as the autonomous vehicle market accelerated and then contracted over the last year. Is now the time that Zoox takes advantage of the market conditions and introduces a paid robo-taxi service that could be added at a later date? Or is Amazon working on a Prime-Mobility tier?

Wrapping up the conversation, David shares his insights and thoughts on how he sees the robo-taxi market evolving over the next five years. 

The thing that is really going to have to change and evolve is what the business model is. – David Welch

Recorded on Tuesday, December 19, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ali Javidan, Founder & CEO, Range Energy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss electrified trailers and the impact that these trailers will have on truck fleets. 

The conversation begins with Ali sharing what inspired him to create an electrified trailers startup. It all starts with a question he asked himself; What if we electrified the trailer? 

Taking a survey of the industry, nobody was paying attention to trailers, expect for a few nerds and myself. So I decided to a start a venture trying to help bring some real technology to the trailer and really help hybridize these fleets in a meaningful way without disrupting how the fleets work. – Ali Javidan

When fleets deploy an electrified trailer they are achieving on average 30% – 40% increase in fuel efficiency on a mixed route that includes city and highway driving. If the truck is exclusively driving in cities with heavy loads such as beverages, fleets are seeing a 40% – 50% increase in fuel efficiency.

40% reduction in fuel consumption actually equals somewhere around 70% reduction in harmful emissions output. – Ali Javidan

Increasing fuel efficiency is wonderful, but do professional drivers enjoy driving the trucks equipped with electrified trailers? They very much do so, as the electrified trailers increase the overall operational efficiency of driving the truck. As these trailers scale, there could be potential safety increases as these trailers will have a higher-level of traction that could potently lead to safer driving conditions in adverse weather. 

As autonomous trucks scale commercial operations, there is an opportunity to attached electrified trailers and automate the slider adjustment, lift gate door or the lift gate. Automating the trailer compliments the autonomous truck, enabling a true autonomous operation. This is possible because the electrified trailer has a controls platform, a power platform and a communications platform. 

As much as we can be framed as disrupters in this industry, we don’t want to disrupt anything. We just want to give everybody better tools. – Ali Javidan

Range Energy is going to commence commercial operations in 2024 with pilot customers, followed by a larger pilot deployment in 2025 leading up to the full commercial launch in 2027/2028. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Ali shares his thoughts on how he sees the electrified trailer market evolving. 

Recorded on Friday, December 8, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jana Breitkopf, Managing Director, Mercedes pay USA joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Mercedes pay is enabling the future of in-car experiences. 

The conversation begins with Jana discussing how Mercedes is approaching in-car payments. 

We want to make it as easy and as convenient as possible for our drivers to use services like parking, charging or fueling. – Jana Breitkopf

Mercedes began creating Mercedes pay over five years ago to meet the expectations of their drivers. As technology advances, in the future drivers and passengers will be able to say “Hey, Mercedes” order golf balls from Amazon. When this moment happens, the era of in-car commerce will be ushered in.

This moment will overlap with the commercialization of personally owned autonomous vehicles as Mercedes pay will enable in-car experiences as it will be the payment layer that makes those experiences possible. 

Autonomous driving will leverage in-car commerce as a revenue channel. – Jana Breitkopf

When autonomous vehicles are combined with a payment platform, a global commerce platform will be created. The future of in-car experiences will be built around apps and services that will create value for passengers. Unlocking this value creates new profitable revenue opportunities for Mercedes. 

Mercedes pay is available today in 44 markets around the world. In Germany, Mercedes pay has a partnership with Mastercard where customers can pay for fueling directly from their vehicle. This partnership eliminates the paying for gas friction in Germany, as there is no pay at the pump service. Instead motorists have to go into the store and pay, which can be inconvenient and frustrating at times. 

Over the coming years, new markets for Mercedes pay will be coming online. As new markets come online, Mercedes pay will adapt to the local markets customs, data compliance/security and regulatory requirements. Ensuring that the system just simply works with the tap of a button or a simple “Hey, Mercedes”. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Jana shares her vision for the future of Mercedes pay.

Recorded on Friday, December 8, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Olivia Hu, Head of Autonomous Trucking, Uber Freight joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how autonomous trucking is going to complement and accelerate the growth of Uber Freight’s $18 billion of freight under management platform. 

The conversation begins with Olivia discussing the current state of the autonomous trucking industry. 

The autonomous trucking industry right now is just at this very exciting moment, when its going from purely a technology and R&D pilot or project to let’s look at go to market. What is the long-term strategy? How do we bring different ecosystem players from OEMs, Tier 1s, autonomous trucking developers, maintenance providers, fleets, shippers, networks like ourselves all together to start planing that long-term commercialization strategy? – Olivia Hu

Collectivity the autonomous trucking industry is preparing for the next phase — commercialization. When commercialization begins in earnest, Uber Freight stands to benefit as they will be the platform that connects the autonomous trucking companies with the freight. 

The first autonomous trucking lanes to come online will be in the Texas Triangle, from Dallas/Fort Worth to Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth to El Paso. These lanes will be used to learn how autonomous trucks operate in a commercial environment and what the operations will look like when at scale. 

When autonomous trucks are operating at scale, the industry will have to build and maintain public trust. One of the best ways in our opinion to build public trust is to host an “Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day” where everything in the store is 20% off for one-day because it was delivered by an autonomous truck. Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Daydemonstrates to the public the positive economic that autonomous trucks will have on the cost of living as they suffer under high inflation. 

As it relates to professional drivers, fleets and shippers, Uber Freight is also working to build trust and educate them about how autonomous trucks could fit into and compliment their existing operations. 

For me, what’s most important about building trust is being very transparent, honest and giving them the time to ask questions. – Olivia Hu

When Uber Freight brings autonomous trucking partners onto the platform they engage in a KYC process (Know Your Customer) that evaluates the company’s safety framework including the safety culture, technical capabilities, leadership team and the go-to-market strategy. 

We think having the right go-to-market strategy will be really critical and that includes working with other ecosystem players like OEMs, like ourselves, network providers, shippers and fleets. – Olivia Hu

Uber Freight’s KYC policy was developed and implemented to limit the potential risks that might arise if and when regulation takes hold in the industry. Today, Uber Freight has partnerships with Aurora and Waabi and previously had a partnership with Waymo Via prior to the division being shutdown. In the future, Uber Freight will look to add more partners to the platform, but they will not partner with every autonomous trucking company.

We only partner if it makes sense. If we truly believe that they have a safe reliable product with a long-term strategy that is the right commercial application for our customers. – Olivia Hu

The right long-term strategy is one that is grounded in economics that enables pricing power. Uber Freight’s Insights AI tool gives their customers to optimize their operations, pricing structure and what lanes make the most sense to deploy autonomous trucks.

Wrapping up the conversation, Olivia discusses the role the Uber Freight will play as autonomous trucking scales. 

Recorded on Thursday, November 30, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lee White, Founder & President, LM White Consulting joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why autonomous trucking is a big business opportunity and what the economics of that business will look like when autonomous trucks are operating commercially. 

The conversation begins with Lee discussing the current state of the autonomous trucking industry. 

We are on track, we are on plan, we are moving forward. – Lee White

The autonomous trucking industry is healthy and the health of the industry is being validated with the continued investments from institutional investors such as T. Rowe Price and Softbank. While economically healthy, the industry is currently under strain from the perceived notion that autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles are one in the same.

The consistently for the AV trucking operations is a very positive advantage over robo-taxis, and I think the trucking group has to begin to separate itself from this clumping everything together. – Lee White

To truly demonstrate the benefits of autonomous trucking, the industry has to take a hold of the narrative and demonstrate to the public, policymakers, investors and the traditional trucking industry the true benefits of autonomy. Autonomous trucks will lead to lower cost goods (helping to reduce inflation), more productivity, and more robust and secure supply chain. 

Daimler Truck is taking the lead on messaging to investors and Wall Street. During their Capital Market Day 2023, Daimler Truck announced that autonomous trucking would be one of the key pillars of their business. By 2027, autonomous trucking will begin to unlock a new high-margin business. By 2030, Daimler Truck is projecting revenue north of €3 billion with EBIT potential north of €1 billion.

To unlock this business Daimler Truck is investing responsibly and managing their capital expenditures. For the first nine months of 2023, Daimler Truck has invested €155 million in “other business activities and corporate items which comprised primarily of operational expenses related to their autonomous driving business”. Up from €139 million for the nine months of 2022, an increase of €16 million year-over-year. 

This is a responsible investing strategy that is both prudent and sustainable for Daimler Truck long-term. It’s one that more companies developing autonomous trucks should follow. The model for developing and commercializing autonomous trucks varies widely. 

Volvo is taking a slightly different path to autonomous trucking through their transport-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the autonomous trucks.

[Volvo] wants to sell you you transportation as service and that becomes how they sell trucks now. It’s like the airline industry, you don’t buy an airplane engine anymore from GE or Rolls-Royce, you buy time, you get run hours. If that’s the new model, that will be very successful. – Lee White

As we head into the holiday season with a slowing economy and consumers deprioritizing spending on physical goods and prioritizing spending on experiences, the freight industry will have to adapt to the changing consumer spending patterns. The slowdown in the freight market has been ongoing for sometime and YELLOW, a 100 year-old LTL carrier was a casualty of market conditions and union negotiations, as the company filed for voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on August 6th, 2023.

97% of all trucking companies have 20 or less trucks. There is going to be a lot of them that are right on the edge. – Lee White

Wrapping up the conversation, Lee and Grayson discuss the impact that California’s zero-emissions trucks regulation will have on the trucking market. 

Recorded on Thursday, November 9, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sam Abidi, Chief Commercial Officer, Monarch Tractor joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Monarch’s autonomous MK-V tractor and how the growing labor shortages are accelerating the adoption of autonomous tractors on farms around the world. 

The conversation begins with Sam discussing how Monarch Tractor is approaching autonomy. 

From day one we were thinking about how you could build an autonomy kit that could go on a tractor, that can essentially reach a price point that most farmers can use, and where we landed is that you need to do a bottom up build of the tractor — that tractor is called the MK-V. – Sam Abidi

With the global economy shifting to a labor light economy, due to a growing labor shortage, autonomy applications on farms is rapidly accelerating. 

If you actually go talk to some of our farmers, many of them are coming to us because it is an alternative to having no one do that job. – Sam Abidi

Monarch takes a farmer frugal approach to autonomy as they know every dollar counts on a farm. The farmer frugal approach enables Monarch to charge farmers $800 a month to unlock the autonomous capabilities of the $90,000 MK-V tractor, which is less the equivalent labor cost. 

In the future as the model evolves, Monarch is exploring the possibility of introducing a tractor-as-a-service model for select regions around the world. If this model comes to fruition, Monarch will not hold the asset (tractor) on their balance sheet. Instead they will look to a partner to hold the assets (tractor) as it is not an effective use of their capital to hold tractors on their balance sheet.

Today, Monarch has a financial services agreement with CNH Industrial Capital America to provide financing for the MK-V tractor. The Monarch MK-V is an all-electric tractor with a swappable battery that can run 14-hours. 

Financing is an important part of farm economics. – Sam Abidi

When a Monarch tractor is deployed on a farm, farmers control all the applications of the autonomous tractor with their proprietary WingspanAI digital platform. 

If you automate a tractor and you have a dozen tractors or two dozen tractors running the farm and then you connect those to a digital platform, that essentially tracks everything from when they are dispatched to what they are doing to how well they are doing it, you have essentially digitized the farm. – Sam Abidi

The data that Monarch’s autonomous tractors are gathering will enable the company to create new revenue streams in the future by monetizing the rich amount of data that the tractors gather on a daily basis. 

To scale, Monarch has a partnership with Foxconn to manufacturer the MK-V at their Ohio facility. The decision to engage Foxconn for manufacturing was made from the lessons that the founders learned from their years in the automotive industry. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Sam shares his vision for the future of Monarch Tractor.

Recorded on Tuesday, November 7, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sterling Anderson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Aurora joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the founding of Aurora, the economics of the Aurora business model why the world’s best product is a very profitable product. 

The conversation begins with Sterling discussing why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and himself came together to form Aurora in 2016. 

We saw a lot of players in the ecosystem at the time struggling to figure out the right path. A credible independent player in our view could change the game for them and unlock the potential of a powerful ecosystem from OEMs to carriers to private fleets to even Tier 1’s and companies who provide some of the backend service. 

We felt like a credible autonomy player who played our position and enabled or unlocked the rest of the industry could deliver tremendous value here, and we did not see much of that at the time. – Sterling Anderson 

Being an independent company is one of the keys to Aurora’s success as it has allowed them to build an industry wide solution that unlocks potential for both cars and trucks. The original product roadmap for the company which is still intact today was to look at trucking, ride-hailing and local goods delivery.

Trucking was top of the list in terms of the first product that we wanted to go to market with. – Sterling Anderson 

In 2018, Aurora began laying the foundation for their autonomous trucking product when they integrated their autonomous driving stack into a Volvo truck and began testing on a track in partnership with Volvo. 

Trucking is the first product, ride-hailing will follow. – Sterling Anderson 

The Aurora business model for trucking today is transportation-as-a-service, as the business and technology matures, the model will evolve into a driver-as-a-service model. 

This is a model where we are licensing the self-driving system, inclusive of the hardware, the software and the data services required to operate it to our customers who are in turn purchasing either the truck from the OEM who provides it or purchasing a set of solutions. – Sterling Anderson 

Customers who sign up for the driver-as-a-service model will pay a utilization service fee (per mile fee). To keep the trucks up and running at optimal performance, Aurora trucks are designed for reliability and serviceability. This design approach allows Aurora to optimize the economics of their operations. 

In my view the world’s best product is also a very profitable product. – Sterling Anderson 

As Aurora prepares for driver-out commercial operations in late 2024 with 20 trucks on the Dallas to Houston lanes, the autonomous trucks will be operated under the transportation-as-a-service model. In 2025/2026, the customers operating under the transportation-as-a-service model will begin to transition to a driver-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the assets. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Sterling shares his vision for the future of Aurora. 

Recorded on Friday, October 27, 2023

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 Introduction

1:18 Why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and Sterling Anderson founded Aurora

3:38 The Vision for Aurora

8:07 Going Public with Volvo and PACCAR

10:57 Local Goods Delivery and the Middle Mile

12:34 Aurora Trucking Business Model

24:52 Preparing for Commercial Driver-Out Operations

27:48 A Focus on Profitability

34:45 Terminal Operations

40:43 Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day

46:00 Aviation History

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the growing global demand for oil and its economic impact on the global economy. 

The conversation begins with Dean discussing the current state of the oil markets. 

It’s a tight market and despite everything that has been going on we really have tightness to watch in terms of supply and demand and where that supply is going to come to meet that demand. – Dean Foreman

The growing demand for oil in the United States is coming from jet fuel, 1.8 million barrels per day and diesel fuel, 3.6 million barrels per day. With an additional 6 million barrels per day being refined for materials. With the growing demand for oil the United States is looking to increase volume by lifting sanctions on Venezuela. The demand for oil is not just limited to the United States, it’s a global phenomenon.

China is now the single largest importer of crude oil, over 13 million barrels per day. – Dean Foreman

With China being the single largest importer of crude oil, the country embraced electric vehicles to slow their dependence on foreign oil imports. 

A big part of the traditional push by China to get into electrification wasn’t just to strategically control the value chain, it was to prevent, as their economy grew an unsustainable growth in their oil imports. – Dean Foreman

U.S. Energy Information Administration is projecting demand of 103 million barrels per day in 2024, an increase of roughly 200,000 barrels per day year-over-year. Over the coming years, the United States will be the largest single source of growth of oil supply.

We’ve seen record production this year, U.S. crude oil production for the first week of October struck 13.2 million barrels per day, that’s a record high. Our previous high was in March 2020 of 13.1 [million]. – Dean Foreman

The growing demand for oil is good for the Texas economy. Texas, as of September is producing 5.9 million barrels of crude oil per day. For the first eight months of 2023, Texas has driven 43.2% of U.S. oil production, its highest since 1981. For the first seven months of 2023, Texas has exported $125 billion of oil, natural gas and derived products globally. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Dean shares his outlook on the oil markets for the next quarter. 

Recorded on Thursday, October 19, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Soule, CEO and Co-Founder, Parallel Systems joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Parallel Systems will act as an economic growth engine for the rail industry. 

The conversation begins with Matt discussing how Parallel Systems business has evolved since he last joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy roughly year ago. During this time, Parallel has been testing their Gen2 vehicle in the United States and has deployed a Gen1 vehicle overseas. 

As they gear up to deploy their Gen2 vehicle, the company is preparing up to test railworthiness at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado. 

We will run our vehicle through a series of tests there, to most importantly validate the models that we have already built up to predict how the vehicle will perform. – Matt Soule

When Parallel begins to commercialize their business, they are going to compliment the traditional rail business by offering the rail industry a solution to expand their freight operations inside of the traditional 500 mile routes. 

With Parallel’s smaller scale we can serve freight lanes that do not require massive volumes to have that daily arrival and departure. That’s the core of our strategy. – Matt Soule

A pillar of this strategy is replacing trucks on drayage routes. A large opportunity is moving freight on rail from the Ports of Los Angeles, San Pedro and Long Beach to the Inland Empire, one of the largest industrial complexes in the United States with over 4,000 warehouses. 

Parallel’s autonomous and electric vehicles will have a range of roughly 500 miles between charges. The vehicles will be operating in a platoon of 20 and will charge while they are being unloaded and loaded at the terminal.

When we go into a terminal, we will have charging nests kind of like a robotic vacuum cleaner going to it’s charging dock alongside the rail and the vehicles will go to those locations and automatically dock with the chargers, and while they are charging the freight is unloaded and loaded. – Matt Soule

The next version of the vehicle (Gen3) will be the commercial product that drives up reliability and drives down cost. Looking towards the future when Parallel is operating a commercial business, Matt sees autonomous trucks complimenting the business. 

The economics get better and better and better the more productive that asset is. So I think that is where there can be a real compliment, where a self-driving truck can handle the complex first and last mile if there is a service that does not require us to go directly to that customer. – Matt Soule

With the current economic backdrop of a slowing global economy, Matt is preparing the business to take advantage of the emerging autonomy economy that will arise out of the economic situation partly due to the global labor shortage. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his outlook for the future of Parallel Systems.

Recorded on Tuesday, October 17, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vinay Shet, Co-Founder & CEO Teleo joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Teleo’s approach to supervised autonomy in a labor light economy.

The conversation begins with Vinay discussing how Teleo is approaching supervised autonomy and it’s benefits.

By switching between tele-operations and autonomy and switching between machine one, machine two and even machine three, [operators] are able to control multiple machines at the same time. – Vinay Shet

Teleo’s approach to autonomy allows trained machine operators to increase their daily production while improving the overall operational efficiency of the job. This approach to autonomy developed to create value for construction companies that are facing a growing labor shortage. 

Labor is the number one problem that our customers flag to us for themselves. They are simply unable to find enough people to do the work that they have signed up to do. Across the board they have more work to do then they have people available. To the point where our customers tell us that they literary park their machines, because they are unable to find people to operate the machines. – Vinay Shet

Facing a growing labor shortage, Tomahawk Construction is deploying Teleo-enabled semi-autonomous trucks to move dirt at a residential community job site in Naples, Florida. This repetitive task is now automated, enabling Tomahawk to develop the residential community with great efficiency. As the community development scales, Teleo-enabled semi-autonomous trucks at the job site will eventually scale up to twelve trucks.

To scale the business, Teleo is utilizing a dealer network to sell their retrofit kits and have them installed on large machines. As the labor shortage grows and the Bank of America coined labor-light economy begins to take shape, Teleo is poised to prosper as their technology can help to fill the labor gap. 

Autonomy augments people. I think it’s really about making people more productive and making their lives more comfortable. – Vinay Shet

Wrapping up the conversation, Vinay shares his vision for the future of autonomy. 

Recorded on Friday, October 13, 2023

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 Introduction

1:22 Teleo's Approach to Autonomy

4:06 Remote Operations

7:17 Construction Industry Use Cases

11:02 Labor Light Economy

13:22 Teleo Business Model

18:34 How Teleo's Construction and Mining Compliment Each Other

20:40 Multi-Site Deployment

24:48 Future of Teleo

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gabe Sganga, Head of Commercial Growth, RRAI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss RRAI’s focus on autonomy for military and defense applications and how they have been able to apply the learnings from battle to their civilian business.

The conversation begins with Gabe discussing why RRAI is focused on autonomy for military and defense applications.

RRAI has always been a defense-first company. Strategically we are focused on delivering defense capabilities to support funded programs right now. – Gabe Sganga

RRAI’s autonomous vehicles have been deployed in theater around the world. When deploying autonomous vehicles in theater, the autonomous driving stack is hardened for the harsh environment of war. Through their deployments in theater, RRAI has been able to apply the learnings from battle to their civilian business. 

Operating in these conditions is not unique to defense, it’s unique to end-users who tackle the hardest jobs that keep the industrial heart of our country and economy running. – Gabe Sganga

Defense is a large part of RRAI’s business, but it is not the sole focus of the business. In addition to their defense business, RRAI has a growing commercial business with a keen focus on off-road autonomy applications. The company chose to focus on this commercial market as they viewed it as being underserved. 

The business model that RRAI operates under is autonomy-as-a-service. 

For autonomy-as-a-service, we wrap everything into a single license price.– Gabe Sganga

This model allows RRAI to update their fleet when new hardware and technology comes online and deploy it to their customers applications without having to charge them an upgrade fee. The model will only be enhanced when RRAI is able to secure a OEM deal for factory grade trucks built with their hardware and software fully integrated. 

For on-road applications, RRAI is focused on controlled environments such as distribution center yards, ports and logistics centers because of the regulatory environment. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Gabe discuses RRAI’s $220 million Series A round led by Softbank in January 2023.

Recorded on Friday, October 6, 2023

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 Introduction

1:23 Why Autonomy for Defense

6:10 Learnings from Autonomy Deployments in Defense Applications

13:54 Economics of RRAI's Defense Business

21:04 RRAI's Military Background

25:00 RRAI's Autonomous as a Service Business Model

30:27 RRAI's OEM Approach

37:28 RRAI On-Road Autonomy

39:00 Yard Trucks

43:58 RRAI Investors

45:30 Future of RRAI

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Paul McGlone, CEO, Seeing Machines joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss scaling Seeing Machines in-cabin sensing technology. 

The conversation begins with Paul discussing how Seeing Machines in-cabin sensing technology adapts to meet consumer and regulatory demand.

The primary driver of demand is regulatory. – Paul McGlone

Today, the in-cabin sensing technology senses the human condition which can be composed of body jesters, head position, eyelid movement and direct gaze (pupil tracking) and soon lip movement. By monitoring the cabin, Seeing Machines can detect distraction, fatigue, passenger occupancy and if someone is holding a phone while driving. 

As the technology evolves there is the potential to add health monitoring systems into the vehicle that can potentially detect when a driver or passenger is experiencing a heart attack or medical condition. Setting the stage for autonomous vehicles to scale and handle adverse in-vehicle situations. 

The core target market for our technology is Levels 2 – 4, but certainly as the companies that are managing fully autonomous, say 3rd party vehicle fleets will need someway to detect the well-being of the occupants, particularly if they are paying for the service. – Paul McGlone

In Fiscal Year 2023, Seeing Machines generated $13.6 million in annual recurring revenue, up 27% over Fiscal Year 2022. This revenue was generated from the company’s commercial fleet business (after-market) where the Seeing Machines devices are installed into vehicles. One of the big drivers of the revenue growth was fleet managers looking to reduce driver fatigue and distraction because of rising insurance costs.

Fatigue and distraction are the two primary drivers of insurance claims costs in commercial vehicle fleets worldwide. – Paul McGlone

For their automotive business, Seeing Machines has 15 programs with 10 OEMs and over 1 million cars globally have a Seeing Machines system installed. Their automotive business model is a royalty based model where the company is paid a royalty for every car that is manufactured for the life of the model that features their technology. The model has generated $320 million in royalties to date.

As we consider our business going forward, we are not only going to see significant growth rates, but we are going to see a mix change in revenue from sort of engineering services, low-margin to primarily royalties which are very very high-margin. – Paul McGlone

Outside of automotive, Seeing Machines is expanding into aviation through a partnership with Collins Aerospace. One the areas of focus is a monitoring system for air traffic control to monitor distraction and fatigue.

We think that almost every industrial opportunity that has a human-machine interface is an opportunity for accurate eye-tracking to improve either a safety or performance outcome. – Paul McGlone

Wrapping up the conversation, Paul shares his opinion on the future of in-cabin monitoring. 

Recorded on Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 Introduction

1:17 The Evolution of Seeing Machines Technology

6:01 In-Cabin Sensing System

13:16 Seeing Machines Commercial Vehicle Revenue Growth

17:57 Seeing Machines Royalty Revenue

19:34 Magna Partnership

27:37 Collins Aerospace Partnership

35:48 Growing Royalty Revenue

41:00 Privacy

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the UAW strike and the launch of Stack AV. 

The conversation begins with David sharing the latest on the UAW (United Auto Workers) strikes against the Big 3 (Ford, GM and Stellantis). UAW President Shawn Fain has taken a different approach to the negotiations from his predecessors as a way to build trust and loyalty with his members. 

Shawn Fain has to show that he is not another management crony, he is a real union guy. Hence no handshake. – David Welch

Another reason why Sean Fain is taking such an aggressive approach towards the negotiations is that he has to build trust with his membership and show union leadership. The tactics that Sean Fain is implementing is right out of the Bernie Sanders playbook. Several members of Senator Sanders presidential campaigns are now advising the UAW on media strategy. 

[Sean Fain] wants to reignite a labor movement in America. – David Welch

One of the main sticking points in the strike is jobs and worker pay. The longer the strike drags on, the more it benefits Tesla. It has even been reported that no matter what happens, Tesla comes out the winner from the strikes as the Big 3 will be forced to raise prices of their electric vehicles. 

Tesla forced GM, Ford and Stellantis forced to build electric vehicles after they validated the market and gained signifiant marketshare. Tesla clearly showed that there was a market for electric vehicles. Could Tesla do the same thing with autonomy in the future? 

If and when Tesla licenses their FSD (Full Self-Driving) technology, will Cruise and Waymo be compelled to license their self-driving technology to appease investors? 

Waymo, definitely because they are not a car company. – David Welch

For GM, will they make the same mistake they did with OnStar years ago and not license it? Only time will tell. If GM eventually spins out Cruise, the path for licensing the Cruise self-driving technology becomes a lot more visible. On the autonomous trucking side of autonomy, Kodiak is planning to license the Kodiak Driver to fleets. 

Investors are watching the sector as the technology evolves and the business models are formalized. Softbank recently invested in Stack AV founded by Bryan Salesky, Peter Rander, and Brett Browning (Argo AI founders). Stack AV is going to focus on long-haul autonomous trucks, but are they entering the market too late? 

I do not think it’s too late, but they have to move if they want to catch up. – David Welch

Could Softbank look to potentially export Stack AV to Japan to capture marketshare in an emerging market that is not yet saturated with competition? 

Wrapping up the conversation, David shares his thoughts on what to watch in autonomy for the end of the year.

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 Introduction

1:13 UAW Strikes

16:21 Tesla Beneficial Winner of the UAW Strikes?

21:20 Licensing Tesla FSD and Autonomous Driving Systems

30:00 Softbank and Stack AV

41:40 Autonomy Outlook for the End of the Year

Recorded on Thursday, September 21, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Katelyn Foley, President, UP.Labs joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why companies should think differently and think like a software company.

The conversation begins with Katelyn sharing her thoughts on the current state of the mobility markets. 

To me it’s a story about product pivots. There has been incredible movement to EVs and ultimately to autonomous vehicles. – Katelyn Foley

For traditional OEMs to capture marketshare, they need a relentless focus on developing user-friendly digital interfaces that consumers will want to use on a daily basis. As daunting as this might sound, UP.Labs is ushering in this model with partner, Porsche. 

Part of what we are doing is to help them think differently. To think like a software company. – Katelyn Foley

Porsche and UP.Labs came together to create six new companies by 2025 that could eventually be acquired by Porsche. Collectively they are looking at opportunities that can enhance the Porsche owner experience through data, efficiency and a robust digital interface. 

As UP.Labs and Porsche explore opportunities for new businesses, they are respecting the heritage of the brand and embracing it’s status as a luxury brand. This strategy allows Porsche to lean in, embrace innovation and think differently about their business. 

Being a luxury brand comes with responsibilities. With the shift to electric vehicles, consumers are beginning to ask questions about the provenance of the materials in the battery and the leather on the seats. Consumers want to know that these materials were cultivated in a way that did not have an impact on the environment. 

Overall, luxury brands should approach electrification by taking the bespoke route and creating a new vehicle that is built from the ground up to be electric. Porsche embraced their heritage of speed and handling by creating the Taycan, which has dazzled consumers. 

Every brand has to think about what they stand for. What are those few core principles, and the EV really needs to embody those and not just be an EV. – Katelyn Foley

Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Katelyn discuss network optimization. 

Recorded on Tuesday, September 19, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gil West, Chief Operating Officer, Cruise joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Cruise is scaling operations across the world. 

The conversation begins with Gil discussing GM’s revenue target for Cruise of $1 billion in revenue by 2025.

We are on target. – Gil West

Cruise is on target to hit their revenue goal because they are scaling. Currently Cruise has operations in 15 cities in 10 states. As Cruise scales, they are creating a flywheel effect that continuously improves their operations. 

We are creating a flywheel effect as we go to market and scale. – Gil West

The Cruise experience from city to city is consistent from a rider perspective. Behind this consistency is an operational playbook that is deployed in each new city that Cruise expands service. One of the key elements of this playbook is partnerships. When Cruise enters a new city, the company is focused on leveraging underutilized assets to ensure the most cost efficient operations. 

In San Francisco, Cruise is installing chargers at Oracle Park (Home of the San Francisco Giants) that the company will use when a baseball game is not taking place. When a game is taking place, fans will be able to use the chargers. 

When it comes to potential expansion cities, Cruise looks at the ODD (operation design domain) that fits the technologies capabilities, commercial opportunity in the market, market density, the availability of infrastructure and the regulatory environment. 

Our goal is to bring driverless tech to as many people as possible in many places as we can. – Gil West

As we have seen in San Francisco and Phoenix, overtime Cruise will expand their service area in new cities to eventually cover the entire city. As Cruise expands the amount of ride supply in a city, they are conscious about passenger pick-up wait times. 

Our goal here of course is to provide a consistently better experience and more accessibility at an affordable price point, and have people be able access the vehicles in a very timely manner. – Gil West

The experience that Cruise provides in the future is only going to be enhanced when the service becomes integrated into stadiums, concert venues and airports. No more waiting in line trying to catch an Uber or finding your driver. With autonomy and integrations, these headaches will become a thing of the past. 

As part of their vision for autonomy, Cruise designed and built the Cruise Origin in partnership with GM. The Origin is currently testing on public roads in San Francisco and Austin as the company prepares to deploy the vehicle for commercial operations pending NHTSA approval. 

We will be introducing the Origin commercially soon and then in multiple cities. – Gil West

Wrapping up the conversation, Gil shares his opinion on the future of Cruise which includes new vehicle form factors.

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:55 Introduction

1:17 Cruise $1 Billion 2025 Revenue Target Reaffirmed

2:45 Scaling Cruise and Maintaining the Experience

9:13 Expansion into New Cities

22:41 Pick-up Times

24:37 Future Cruise Experiences

29:54 Cruise Origin

35:53 Operating a Profitable Business

39:22 Future of Cruise

Recorded on Tuesday, September 12, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Ohnsman, Senior Editor, Forbes joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Gatik and the road to profitable autonomy. 

The conversation begins with Alan and Grayson discussing AB 316 — the future of autonomous trucking in California. 

The State wants to support the tech and get it out there, and sees the benefits of that. But at the same time you have active opposition from a very powerful labor group that represents a lot of truckers in the State of California. – Alan Ohnsman

The conversation expands from policy to the future of AI and Gatik, a middle-mile autonomous trucking start-up that is on the road to profitable autonomy. 

Gatik is a company that did not raise billions of dollars, and Gatik did not come out of the gate saying were going to use autonomy for everything. We are going to do robotaxi, we are going to do trucking, we are going to do food deliveries, you name it, we are going to do it. They focused on one thing — middle-mile delivery from a distribution center to a large retail store, that’s it. Nothing else. – Alan Ohnsman

Compared to their peers that have raised billions in capital, Gatik has raised a mere modest $120 million. To achieve their goals, the company does not need billions as they are highly disciplined when it comes to operating the business. For every contract that Gatik signs with a customer, each vehicle that goes into service is contractually guaranteed revenue of $200,000 per year. 

For every 100 vehicles the company puts into service, the company will generate $20 million in yearly revenue. At this time, Gatik currently has 50 vehicles in service, generating $10 million in yearly revenue. Gatik is forecasting that the company could potentially be profitable within as little as two to three years (2025-2026). As the company ramps up towards profitability, they are going to gradually start expanding to highway driving in addition to city streets. 

Their goal is to overtime, they will move into highway trucking. They will move into Class-8 trucking, they will move into other types of delivery services that they are not doing now, and it’s going to be this gradual evolution of the business. All of it is premised on the fact that it has to a revenue generator. – Alan Ohnsman

Looking to the future, Gatik will not explore a potential IPO until the company is profitable on a GAAP basis. Rounding out the conversation, Grayson and Alan discuss the autonomous trucking industry as a whole and the Waymo Via shutdown. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Alan discuss licensing and the future of Zoox.

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 The Road to Autonomy Introduction

1:23 AB 316 and Autonomous Trucks in California

6:01 AI and the Push Back from Unions

10:39 Gatik and The Road to Profitable Autonomy

42:58 Licensing the Waymo Driver

45:16 Future of Zoox?

50:10 Future of Autonomy

Recorded on Monday, August 28, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nils Jaeger, President, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Volvo Group joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Volvo Autonomous Solutions commercialization strategy. 

The conversation begins with Nils discussing how the Volvo Group is approaching autonomy. 

It’s about leveraging autonomous tech for productivity gains, for efficiency gains. – Nils Jaeger

Volvo Autonomous Solutions is operating in the quarry and mining, ports and logistics and hub-to-hub sectors. These sectors were chosen as they compliment each other and are viewed as long-term growth markets. As a stand-alone business area inside of Volvo Group, Volvo Autonomous Solutions has full development responsibility and are responsible for the commercialization of Volvo Group’s autonomous solutions. 

Being structured this way, means Volvo Autonomous Solutions has full P&L responsibility. With P&L responsibility, Nils and the team at Volvo Autonomous Solutions are focused on building a business.

For us it’s not just the technology, it’s building a business. Building a business is really the core reason why Volvo Autonomous Solutions was created. Having a clear focus on commercialization and having an attractive business model. – Nils Jaeger

The commercial business model for Volvo Autonomous Solutions is not a one-size fits all model. It’s a model that is tailored to each one of the sectors where they operate. In the Dallas Fort-Worth region, Volvo Autonomous Solutions will be operating a hub-to-hub autonomous transport solution as a service. 

Commercializing the hub-to-hub autonomous transport business will require partnerships. As part of the initial roll-out, Volvo Autonomous Solutions has partnered with DHL and Uber Freight. To prepare for autonomous operations, Volvo has begun hauling freight manually in the Texas Triangle. 

We have actually started this year to pull loads manually for both DHL and Uber Freight. We are putting in place all of the procedures, the processes which are needed to develop this new transportation value chain and to do this of-course in a safe and reliable form. – Nils Jaeger

From a truck asset perspective, Volvo Group is going to own the autonomous trucks on their balance sheet as the service begins commercialization. In these early days there will not be a minimum amount of volume needed to tap into the service, however the volume will have to make economic sense. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Nils discusses the driver-out fully autonomous operations at the Brönnöy Kalk mine in Velfjord, Norway.

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 The Road to Autonomy Introduction

1:23 Volvo Group's Approach to Autonomy

7:14 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Commercial Business Model

17:33 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Terminal (Hub) Strategy

21:16 Autonomous Truck Assets & Virtual Driver Strategy

24:22 Economics of Volvo Autonomous Solutions Transport as a Service Model

27:57 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Quarry & Mining Business

35:20 The Future of Autonomy

Recorded on Thursday, August 22, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vic Shao, President, bp pulse fleet joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss fleet charging as a service. 

The conversation begins with Vic discussing bp pulse’s electric vehicle fleet charging strategy, the importance of up-time and reliability. To ensure the up-time for partners such as Hertz, bp has developed a software layer that monitors the health of the charging infrastructure to ensure optimal up-time.

Software is the enablement tool that makes it efficient and reliable. – Vic Shao 

The charging stations that bp is installing for Hertz will be open to the public and located at high traffic locations such as city centers and airports. At airport locations, rideshare drivers will be able to access the chargers and charge their vehicles while they wait for passenger pick-ups. By early 2024, 25 locations in several states will be online. 

As a traditional oil and gas business, bp pulse is complimenting the core business by expanding into new fuel types.

bp looks at electrification as just another fuel type. It’s a really attractive fuel type for any number of reasons, but it’s another fuel type. In the future bp is also going to go into hydrogen. – Vic Shao 

As fleet managers begin the process of transitioning their fleets from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles, economics are driving the decision process. The cost to transition large fleets to electric vehicles is expensive as it requires all-new vehicles along with a complex network of charging equipment. bp has a solution that will enable fleets to convert to electric without the upfront charging infrastructure capital expenditure — charging as a service. 

One of the big upsides to charging as a service is scalability and upgradability. As NACS (North American Charging Standard) becomes the de facto charging plug standard as the CCS plug is slowly faded out, the charging infrastructure will be upgraded to support the new plug.

A large opportunity for charging as a service are ports that have drayage operations that operate on fixed daily routes. A lot of these drayage operations are operated by smaller carriers who might not necessarily have the financial wherewithal to invest in fleet charging. With charging as a service, these fleets will have the ability to transition to electric trucks without the capital expenditure.

By 2030, bp is on track to have over 100,000 electric vehicle charging stations online. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Vic shares his opinion on the future of electric vehicle fleet charging.

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:57 Introduction

1:23 bp pulse feet Electric Vehicle Fleet Charging Strategy

6:07 Reliable Electric Vehicle Charging

10:09 Scaling Reliable EV Charging Infrastructure

17:57 Fleet Managers Approach to Electric Vehicles

20:57 Charging as a Service

35:11 The Road to 100,000 Charge Points

37:12 Future of Electric Vehicle Charging for Fleets

Recorded on Thursday, August 24, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Peter Ludwig, Co-Founder & CTO, Applied Intuition and Yaser Khalighi, Product, Applied Intuition joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the acquisition of SceneBox and why everything that moves will be autonomous in the future. 

The conversation begins with Yaser discussing why he made the decision to sell SceneBox to Applied Intuition in March 2023.

The vision of building SceneBox, my vision was enabling customers in their autonomy journey. The reason that we exited to Applied was exactly to double down on that vision. – Yaser Khaligh

Applied is in the process of integrating SceneBox into their product offering, while retaining the user-friendliness of the SceneBox platform. 

The ultimate goal is that it’s a completely seamless experience in what we call the ADP (Applied Development Platform). – Peter Ludwig

The integrated SceneBox / Applied product offering will help autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks scale safely and quickly. To further enhance the Applied product, Applied acquired Embark Trucks for $71 million in August 2023. Prior to the acquisition, Embark was a long-time Applied customer. 

With the acquisition we are discontinuing the autonomy trucking program, we are not entering Level 4 trucking. But we are going to be able to repurpose the tools they had built around the Applied development platform, and in fact bring some of those into our platform were it makes sense. – Peter Ludwig

The data that Applied acquired from Embark will help their customers accelerate the development of their autonomous driving stack for Class-8 trucks. When it comes to training a virtual driver, unique data sets are needed to train the driver. Data gathered for Class-8 trucks can not necessarily be translated over to a developing a virtual driver for robotaxi operations.

Taking a step out of the virtual world, Applied is has a partnership with NI (National Instruments) for hardware-in-the-loop validation. This partnership will allow their customers to scale quickly and safely and puts Applied ahead if and when certifications for autonomous driving systems become required by regulatory bodies. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Peter and Yaser share their opinions on the future of autonomy.

Chapters:

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index

0:56 Introduction

1:38 Applied Intuition acquires SceneBox

17:27 Peter Ludwig — Why Applied Intuition acquired Embark Trucks

21:16 ML (Machine Learning) Models for Autonomous Driving

34:02 Applied’s Synthetic Datasets (How they are Developed)

43:00 What is the Future of Autonomy?

Recorded on Tuesday, August 15, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brett Suma, CEO, Loadsmith joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of the Loadsmith Freight Network and how the network will create economic stimulus in local communities. 

The conversation begins with Brett discussing the development of the Loadsmith Freight Network. 

You can look at the LFN and compare it somewhat to a railroad and their ability to capture capacity. – Brett Suma

The Loadsmith Freight Network will consist of both professional drivers and autonomous trucks. Autonomous trucks on the LFN will mostly operate on the 350 to 900 mile runs, while the professional drivers will focus on the shorter first and last mile routes. 

For the Loadsmith Freight Network to operate at peak performance, the company developed a digital software layer that enables “Precision Trucking”. The cost savings derived from Precision Trucking will be reinvested in first and last mile operations in terms of higher pay for professional drivers and amenities. 

With higher pay for first and last mile drivers, local communities will begin to experience a form of economic stimulus through higher spending. Spending will help drive economic growth in those communities and help to off-set increased the cost of goods and services due to inflation.

The lanes where autonomous trucks are first introduced will be based on freight flow, regulatory environment, technical feasibility and the economics of the lane. 

Everything we know about current pricing is going to change when autonomous starts hitting the street. – Brett Suma

Not all lanes are created equal from an economic standpoint. The Dallas to Houston lane is oversaturated and it will be a race to the bottom in terms of pricing when autonomous trucks are rolling on that lane 24/7. That is not where Loadsmith is going as they focused on unit economics. 

Through their development partnership with Kodiak, Loadsmith is collectively studying the unit economics of lanes. It’s this economic discipline that is going to enable their partnership to scale. 

The respect that Brett and the Loadsmith team has for professional drivers comes from the simple fact that they are listening. 

We’re doing this, because we are listening to workers. – Brett Suma

Professional drivers are telling them that they want to be home every night and have consistency in their paycheck. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Brett shares his thoughts on the future of trucking.

Recorded on Friday, August 4, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chuck Price, President, AI Kinetics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the shutdown of Waymo Via and what it means for the development of the universal driver. 

The conversation begins with Chuck sharing his thoughts on the current state of the autonomous trucking industry.

We are going through change. What we’re seeing is the early phase of this development which was largely science doing science, now moving to doing engineering and commercialization. Some of the companies that have been involved in this thought ahead for that and are prepared and others are struggling or have struggled. 

What we are seeing is a consolidation and some changes in strategy that I think are normal and healthy for an industry as complex as this. – Chuck Price

The consolidation currently occurring in the autonomous trucking industry is healthy — the market is functioning properly. On Wednesday, July 26th, Alphabet announced Waymo will be shutting down their autonomous trucking division — Waymo Via. While this may have come as a surprise to many, there were rumors in the market and public statements by Alphabet on earnings calls that laid the foundation for this announcement. 

Waymo did the right thing for a lot of reasons. – Chuck Price

By shutting down Waymo Via, Waymo is now going to focus exclusively on their robotaxi business — Waymo One. As Mr. Price stated, this is indeed the right thing for Waymo to do as they are in a head-to-head competition with Cruise. Cruise is a formidable opponent with the resources to compete. Not to mention, Cruise is currently expanding at a much more rapid pace than Waymo. Cruise is in the driver’s seat, while Waymo follows behind. 

From a technical perspective, was this an admission by Waymo that the Universal Driver did not work as they expected? Or is this more inancial discipline coming from Waymo as the division will have a new de facto CEO on September 1st — Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet. In her new role Ms. Porat will be responsible for investments in Alphabet’s “Other Bets”. 

To further streamline the business and appease Wall Street, could Ms. Porat look to license the Waymo driver to global OEMs? Or raise additional capital outside by collateralizing Waymo’s IP? Aurora Innovation with 1,450 patents related to autonomy recently raised $820 million in new capital. 

I am confident that the formal IP developed by Aurora gave them a huge advantage when they went to raise money, and without that they probably would not have been able to raise. – Chuck Price

Even though Aurora recently raised $820 million in new capital, the company has a cash burn rate of $45.3 million a month. It’s expensive to operate, Aurora. With Waymo signaling that the Universal Driver did not work, Aurora continues ahead with developing their version of the Universal Driver. 

Would Aurora be wise to shut down their passenger car business and focus solely on autonomous trucking? This decision would allow Aurora to streamline their business and lower their cash burn rate — the economics point the way forward. But the question remains, what path will Aurora choose as the company matures and grows?

I haven’t seen a Universal Virtual Driver yet, but I have seen focused drivers come to fruition. We’ve seen cars that are now self-driving without safety drivers. We’ve seen trucks that are self-driving without safety drivers. Both have been achieved. The science is done for those specific use cases. – Chuck Price

To scale an autonomous trucking startup, the startup has to have a production relationship with a truck OEM. To achieve this relationship, the autonomous trucking startup will have to commit $50 to $100 million to the relationship.

Wrapping up the conversation, Chuck shares his thoughts on how he sees the autonomous trucking industry evolving over the next five years.

Recorded on Tuesday, August 1, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Todd Lewis, Vice President, Prologis Ventures, Prologis joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Prologis is preparing for the future of logistics with autonomous trucks.

The conversation begins with Todd discussing how Prologis is approaching the future of autonomy as autonomous trucks will be operating at their customers facilities. 

Our role across many of our customers footprints is how can we be an accelerant for adoption, for things that can be transformative to their bottom line, to their top line, to their day-to-day growth. Because we want to have customers that can thrive using our existing footprint today. – Todd Lewis

To prepare their facilities for autonomous trucking, Prologis is putting plans in place today to update the infrastructure and add services such as fiber to support autonomous operations. As Prologis plans for autonomy, the company is taking a measured approach to leasing by hedging their capital risk for infrastructure development and capital investment.

To limit their capital risk, Prologis develops their infrastructure to be future-proofed. Whether it’s the switch to electric vehicles and laying the conduit needed for energy to designing the yards for autonomous trucks, Prologis is developing for the future. 

From an underwriting perspective, the company has a robust due diligence process that looks at the long-term viability of the potential company leasing the real estate. Including if they have a corporate parent with superior credit and a healthy balance sheet who could co-sign the lease.

We choose partners that have the highest likeliness of success. We try to stay true to picking partners and customers who have operations and new business practices that have, what we would consider staying power. – Todd Lewis

To prepare for all the changes currently happening in the market, Prologis created a mobility division to focus on accelerating EV adoption and preparing for autonomy. Focused both on automation outside and inside the facility as by 2027, it is projected that 26% of all warehouses will have some level of automation.

I believe that you have to enable automation in order for it to be properly utilized. It’s the nuances that matter. – Todd Lewis

Outside of the facility, the yard of the future is going to change as there will be autonomous truck launch and landing pads. The changes from an infrastructure standpoint will be minor, but from a human interaction standpoint, major. As both autonomous trucks and human driven trucks will operate at the same facility.

The interaction with the human element is something that over time will have to be fleshed out a bit, in order for those systems to work properly. – Todd Lewis

Wrapping up the conversation, shares his thoughts on the future of logistics. 

Recorded on Monday, July 10, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the global record demand for oil and the Texas economy.

The conversation begins with Dean discussing the current state of the oil markets. 

In a nutshell they are deceptively tighter than relativity modest prices, of plus or minus $70 a barrel recently would indicate. – Dean Foreman

Even though we are currently in a tight oil market, global oil demand is projected to increase to 102.7 million barrels per day in 2024 — a record high. If the economy stays on track and continues to hum along and not fall into a recession, the oil supply pressures could continue to mount. 

Historically in a rising rate environment, the demand for oil and commodities in general has decreased. This time however, we are seeing the demand for oil continuing to be strong. The increased demand for oil is primarily coming from emerging markets. 

We’re seeing emerging markets drive the majority of economic growth this year, projected again over the next two years and hand-in-hand with that has come the energy demand to go with it. – Dean Foreman

If the demand for oil continues as projected, The United States can bring more supply online. In the United States, Texas currently produces 5.4 million barrels per day of oil. With global demand for oil increasing, Texas’ economy has led the nation in economic growth for the last two quarters. 

Texas economy is growing at an average annual pace of 7.6%, more than 2.5 times the U.S. average. From January 2023 to April 2023, Texas generated $73.2 billion of state export revenues. 

When Texas does well, the U.S. does well. – Dean Foreman

With 43.6% of the oil in the United States being produced in Texas, the industry puts safe guards in place to protect against the potential impacts of hurricanes to ensure that oil can continue to flow. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Dean shares his outlook for the global oil markets and what he expects to see occur over the next quarter. 

Recorded on Friday, July 7, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Stefan Heck, Founder & CEO, NAUTO joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how NAUTO’s predictive-AI software is helping to reduce distracted driving. 

The conversation begins with Stefan discussing what he saw in the market when he founded the company in 2015 and what he learned from collision data. 

There is nothing as dangerous as distracted driving. – Stefan Heck

According to NAUTO’s propriety data, on average, a commercial driver is distracted 7 times per driving hour, equating to roughly every 9 minutes. To help mitigate the distracted driving risk and reduce potential crashes, the NAUTO system monitors drivers behaviors and offers audio cues to gain the drivers attention. 

With-in the first week of using NAUTO, about 80% of all the distractions and nearly 100% of the severe long distractions are eliminated. – Stefan Heck

The system acts as a virtual coach that keeps drivers engaged while driving, giving them feedback in real-time on their driving behavior. The feedback comes in the form of a virtual coach that inspires change. When a driver realizes that their behavior as dangerous, they are more likely to change that behavior. In the data NAUTO has seen 80% to 90% of the drivers drop their risk behavior based on feedback from the virtual coach.

This virtual coach, predictive-AI system is able to identify potential dangerous scenarios because it has been trained on 3 billion miles with over 200,000 high-risk driving events. 

The accuracy of all of these interventions is really important. There’s nothing as upsetting as telling you, hey there is a bicycle here and there is no bicycle. Or you are tailgating and there is nobody in front of you. So, we spent years making sure that all of detectors, all of our interventions are super accurate. – Stefan Heck

If the system is not accurate, drivers will begin to distrust the system and figure out a way to turn it off. This behavior is common amongst individuals who own vehicles with lane-keep assist. They simply turn it off because it’s inaccurate and annoying. 

A system that is accurate is a system that works and does it job to help avoid dangers driving scenarios. NAUTO’s system caught the attention of Stellantis, as the company invested with a plan to offer the system in their commercial fleet vehicles. 

At first the system will use the NAUTO hardware and in the future, the software system will run natively on the vehicles by leveraging the on-board sensors without the NAUTO hardware. In addition to Stellantis, NAUTO has a partnership with Brightdrop where fleets can order can order the system pre-installed directly from the factory today. 

As robo-taxis scale around the world, the NAUTO system could be used for occupant detection and safety routing applications. As autonomy grows, NAUTO’s market grows. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Stefan shares his opinion on the future of AI as it relates to mobility.

Recorded on Wednesday, July 5, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Trevor Crain, Mobility Research and Education Program Manager, Argonne National Laboratory joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss building America’s electric vehicle workforce. 

The conversation begins with Trevor sharing his thoughts on developing the workforce of the future as society shifts to electrified forms of mobility and how this skill set can transition to other industries. 

Our team here at Argonne looks at how do we build revolutionary and innovative programs that help all of our workforce program participants be able to address all these different technologies. – Trevor Crain

As the workforce is developed to work on electric vehicles and the infrastructure needed to support EVs, Argonne is working to ensure that students have the skill sets needed to succeed even when the technology or standards change. 

One of the ways that Argonne is helping students develop the skill set of the future is through the EcoCar Challenge. The EcoCar Challenge is a multi-year program where 15 North American universities teams come together to develop next generation electric vehicle technologies and automation are energy efficient. These teams are getting real-world, hands on experiences.

We are taking things out of the research realm and into the actual application realm onboard our real test vehicles. – Trevor Crain

Bernstein Research is projecting that battery electric vehicles will reach 40% marketshare globally by 2030. If this forecast comes to realization, the workforce development and the skills needed to service these vehicles will has to be accelerated and developed today.

One way to potentially accelerate the work force development for EVs is through apprenticeships where students do not take on debt. This is just one of the many options that could be implemented to ensure that the workforce of the future is ready today.

Expanding the conversation, Trevor discusses the skill set that students learn as part of the EcoCar Challenge. As part of the challenge, students are encouraged to think from a customer centric approach. Would a consumer want this feature? Would a consumer pay for this feature? Does this feature increase the range of the vehicle?

Wrapping up the conversation, Trevor shares his thoughts on electric vehicles.

Recorded on Tuesday, June 20, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lee White, Founder & President, LM White Consulting joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss scaling autonomous trucking operations. 

The conversation begins with Lee explaining why after a 38-year career at UPS he decided to joined the autonomous trucking industry. In 2018, Lee took his first ride in an SAE Level 4 autonomous truck and it changed the way he looked at trucking forever. 

I remember standing outside that truck and looking back at it and saying; you know I am never going to be able to look at trucking the same way. – Lee White

Lee’s insight into how large truck fleets operate is absolutely crucial to scaling revenue generating autonomous trucking operations. As the traditional trucking companies operate on extremely slim margins with tight timeframes for deliveries. For example, J.B. Hunt currently operates at a 6.4% margin, while Werner operates at a 4.8% margin. These margins leave little room for error. 

Enter, autonomous trucks. Autonomous trucks will enable traditional trucking companies to expand margins and utilize them on routes that benefit their operations the most. While professional drivers handle the other routes. 

Autonomous trucks and professional truck drivers will not compete for jobs. Instead, they will compliment each other, shore up the supply chain and enable trucking companies to optimize their operations.

I don’t ever see an environment where you don’t have drivers. – Lee White

The optimization will come from integrating autonomous trucks, intermodal, dedicated and over-the-road operations. Autonomous trucks at first will be deployed on high-density lanes with repeatable routes. 

In order for autonomous trucks to scale, there has to be infrastructure — truck terminals. These terminals will most likely be shared, yet there are no standards as it relates to how the infrastructure has to be built to accommodate autonomous trucks to launch and land. 

Furthering the conversation Grayson and Lee discuss how the autonomous vehicle market compares to the autonomous trucking market from a revenue and total addressable market (TAM) standpoint. 

Wrapping up the conversation, they discuss if Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Daimler become the Waymo and Cruise of autonomous trucking. 

Recorded on Friday, May 19, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charles Eagan, Chief Technology Officer, BlackBerry joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss cyber security for autonomous and electric vehicles.

The conversation begins with Charles sharing the current state of the cyber security market as it relates to electric and autonomous vehicles.

The more software, the more network connectivity, and the more autonomous behaviors you have along with that comes a reciprocal cyber impact. – Charles Eagan

As cars get smarter, the cyber security risks increase.

What I am hoping is that cars will become much more secure than cell phones, because we will learn from the computer attacks, the cell phone attacks, the networking attacks and then we can take those best practices and make sure we are applying them. – Charles Eagan

The risks increase when the vehicle infrastructure becomes connected. For example, when a consumer plugs their vehicle into charge they are mostly unaware of the cyber risks. Plugging a simple charging cable into an electric vehicle could potentially be a cyber security risk with real-world consequences.

The vulnerabilities that exist in today’s Government infrastructure or computer infrastructure, those vulnerabilities will also apply to the EV infrastructure. – Charles Eagan

The big challenge becomes how do we make software-defined infrastructure and vehicles secure against cyber attacks from Nation-State actors. Attacking the infrastructure and locking electric vehicles to the charger for example could cause severe economic damage.

To help mitigate the risks, we have to audit the software supply-chain and ensure that only the software intended for the vehicle is being used. This becomes critically important as society begins to shift towards over-the-air updates and autonomous vehicles.

With a software-defined vehicle comes payments. In the future vehicles, will have a payment layer built into them which allow either the driver or passengers to conduct commerce. To ensure a secure transaction, the payments will have to be secured with identity information.

The more connected, and the more vehicles, and the more software, the more monitoring that you need to do. – Charles Eagan

To monitor vehicles and the enterprise, Blackberry created CylanceGUARD. Monitoring allows Blackberry on behalf of customers to monitor the behavior of the network and determine if the unexpected happened. If the unexpected happens, Blackberry notifies the proper authorities who implement their action plan.

Wrapping up the conversation, Charles shares his insights into how Blackberry is approaching cyber security for autonomous vehicles.

Recorded on Monday, May 15, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Matt Markel, President, Spartan Radar joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how software is enabling the next generation of radar. 

The conversation begins with Matt discussing the current state of the radar.

I think it’s a really interesting time for radar. – Dr. Matt Markel

When deploying radar on commercial vehicles, the radar has to be optimized and designed for the use-cases that the commercial vehicle will be undertaking on a regular basis. Today, commercial vehicles are using radar to increase safety and in the future it will be used to enable autonomy. 

Increasing efficiency by using autonomy is a force multiplier. – Dr. Matt Markel

Autonomy is not a one-size fits all solution. Autonomy will be achieved in a variety of ways with different tech stacks. One of the hottest debates today is the LiDAR vs radar. Breaking the debate down, Matt shares his thoughts and insights, and explains the environmental limitations to each solution. 

Can autonomous vehicles operate at SAE Level 4 with only camera and radar?

Yes, but the real question is what are those conditions? What are those Operational Design Domains? What are those ODDs that this combination can operate in? – Dr. Matt Markel

A camera, radar system that could operate at SAE Level 4 on highways and SAE Level 3 on suburban roads could help to usher in the personally owned autonomous vehicle market. When it comes to robo-taxis operating in dense urban environments, a full stack including LiDAR, camera and radar is the ideal solution due to the complexity of the ODD.

One of the key ingredients in the autonomous driving stack is software. Spartan very similarly to Waymo is using software to enhance the performance of radar. One of the key differences between Waymo and Spartan’s approach to radar is that Spartan is making their software available to everyone. 

We do believe that there is a lot of performance being left on the table with automotive radar today. We can help Tier 1’s unlock that with our software products. – Dr. Matt Markel

Spartan’s approach is being validated with an investment from Microsoft and a partnership with Tier-1 automotive parts supplier — Valeo. 

Because we are adding software capabilities to these systems, it provides flexibility for the Tier-1. It makes them relevant to multiple OEMS, multiple applications, multiple RFQs without a change in the hardware. – Dr. Matt Markel

Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on how he sees the radar market evolving over the next decade. 

Recorded on Tuesday, June 6, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ed Walker, Vice President, Shared Economy & Mobility, Hub International joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how technology and autonomous vehicles are reshaping the insurance industry.

The conversation begins with Ed discussing the current state of insurance markets for the gig economy. 

The current environment is a really broad spectrum of winners and losers. – Ed Walker 

The current environment is having an impact on the consumer as the average auto insurance liability rate has increased of 10% over the last year. This increase is on top of the industry average of 10% all claims filled in 2022 were fraudulent across all the insurance markets.

There are more people on the roads without insurance then there has ever been right now in the United States. Underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage which is not provided in every State has become what used to be a consideration on a renewal to an absolute requirement in my opinion. – Ed Walker 

While in Ed’s opinion this an absolute requirement, we are starting to see the trend of bring your own insurance for gig economy workers and individuals who subscribe to a vehicle subscription service. In some cases, these individuals are not properly insured which could potentially have negative ramifications on them personally. 

When you have a bring your own insurance model, what you have is a subscription model where the car is not owned by the customer. However that customer is going to a personal limes agent or a program in order to get the vehicle insured. – Ed Walker 

The insurance they purchase might not be perfect, but in their minds it’s still insurance and it allows them to drive the vehicle. For those individuals who drive as for a service such as Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats and DoorDash a large portion of their take-home pay goes to insurance premiums. 

The insurance is costing your operation anywhere between 10 to 40 cents per mile depending on [The] State and the carrier. – Ed Walker 

With gig economy drivers getting squeezed with rising costs due to inflation and tight insurance markets, the question becomes how long is this model sustainable in it’s current form. The economics of the model today are opening the door to a future where ride-sharing services will be primarily operated with autonomous vehicles. 

I see autonomous vehicles as our ultimate light at the end of the tunnel if these situations do not improve. – Ed Walker 

The autonomous vehicle and autonomous truck markets are rapidly evolving as companies scale operations across the United States. As these companies scale their operations, the insurance market underwriting operations will continue to evolve. 

The more we do it, the better, smarter we get at it. The more carriers can make money at it, the more carriers show up, the more competitive the market gets. – Ed Walker 

Wrapping up the conversation, Ed shares his thoughts on the future of insurance.

Recorded on Thursday, April 27, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thomas von der Ohe, Co-Founder & CEO, Vay joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why Vay is taking a tele-driving first approach to autonomy.

The conversation begins with sharing the current state of autonomy in Europe. Could Europe be the market that first ushers in personally owned autonomous vehicles? With Porsche announcing a deal with Mobileye to offer semi-autonomous features in new models and Mercedes-Benz introducing DRIVE PILOT, European OEMs could usher in this market.

But what happens when that vehicle potentially needs assistance when the vehicle exits the highway? This is where Vay comes into the picture as they are developing teledriving technology. Vay’s technology could be offered as a complimenting feature to vehicles with SAE Level 3 driving capabilities. 

This combination of highway driving in Level 3 or Level 4 fashion and then urban driving through teledriving could be a really really strong combination. – Thomas von de Ohe

Vay is taking a tele-driving first approach to autonomy. 

The big advantage of tele-driving is that we believe that we can get something into the market much much earlier that is able to scale.– Thomas von de Ohe

The approach that Vay is taking is resonating with regulators in the E.U. In February 2023, Vay became the first company to operate a vehicle without an individual in the vehicle on European public roads. Now that Vay is operating on public roads in the E.U., the use cases for their technology only becomes stronger.

Imagine going out to dinner, having a bottle of wine and then instead of driving home, Vay tele-drives your vehicle home for you that evening? It’s possible and that is just one of the many potential use cases for Vay’s tele-driving technology. 

While this is just one example of what is possible, Vay is currently focused on urban driving and launching a service in the future. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Thomas discusses how tele-driving can change the way we live in cities. 

Recorded on Tuesday, May 16, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the changing landscape of mobility markets. 

The conversation begins with Pete discussing how the automotive industry is preparing for a potential economic recession and the impact that Tesla’s price cuts are having on the market. The other major effect that Tesla is having on the market is the adoption of software-as-a-service in vehicles today.

Tesla’s FSD (Full Self-Driving) is highly profitable and it’s success from an economic standpoint is changing global automakers in-vehicle software strategy.

The business strategy behind it is very sound and enticing. – Pete Bigelow

Not all global automakers are feeling the Tesla pinch just yet. Ferrari with €1.38 billion in cash a 23% profit margin and no pension liabilities is currently over subscribed in terms of their order book. But looking to the future, Ferrari like all of the other global automakers will have to adapt to a world with autonomous vehicles. 

Personally owned autonomous vehicles are coming and Ferrari owners will want one. Will Ferrari listen to their customers and introduce an autonomous Ferrari at some point in the future? Grayson and Pete discuss the possibilities. Or could it be Mercedes-Benz that takes the plunge first introduces a personally owned autonomous vehicle?

Over at VW under Oliver Blume, the company has been focused on IPOing their iconic brands starting with Porsche. Could a Lamborghini or Bentley IPO be next? Possibly. But what we do know is that under Mr. Blume’s leadership, VW is unlocking value for shareholders.

While Mr. Blume has taken a diligent approach to the VW brand IPOs, the autonomous vehicle industry over the last 24 months rushed into SPACs and IPOs with limited and sometimes no revenue. Now they are struggling as the reality of public markets begins to set in and Mr. Market does his job to paraphrase the famed investor Howard Marks.

Everyone saw the EV SPAC succeeding and raising so much money that they did not want to be left out. It was fear of missing out, fear of missing out on that big burst of cash upfront and they thought they were going to make it through to the other side. Now that is very clearly flat not the case in a lot of places or it puts a lot of people in a very precarious position.– Pete Bigelow

The autonomous vehicle companies that stayed private such as Cruise and Waymo are now in a position of greater strength as consolidation has begun to sweep the industry and certain competitors have ceased to exist. It’s in this market that Cruise and Waymo along with Motional will be able to gain market share thanks in part to their strategic financial partners. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Pete shares his thoughts on how he sees mobility changing over the next decade. 

Recorded on Thursday, April 20, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Covenant joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why Covenant always has a seat at the table as it relates to new technologies and how they are preparing for autonomous trucks.

The conversation begins with Matt discussing how he is currently thinking about autonomous trucks as it relates to over-the-road operations. 

We figured that we needed to have a seat at the table, because autonomy was going to be a way to potentially augment our business. We have been involved since the very beginning. – Matt McLelland

Having a seat at the table and understanding the business is highly important to Matt as he shares insights from his recent four-day ride-along with a professional over-the-road driver. 

It gives you more context and experience into that whole kind of analogy of walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes. – Matt McLelland

As part of their having a seat at the table strategy, Covenant has a partnership with Aurora where the two companies are actively exploring the integration of Aurora’s virtual driver (Aurora Horizon) into Covenant’s operations. It’s not just from a technical perspective, it is also from a operations perspective.

In order for autonomous trucks to scale, there has to be standardized operations around launching autonomous trucks from different sites. This is because there will be different technicians and employees at each site operating autonomous trucks for a variety of companies as the depots/launch sites will most likely be shared. 

Once the industry agrees on a shared launch strategy, the next issue that the industry is going to have to agree on is fuel. 

Diesel and the value proposition of autonomy is asset utilization, making that truck stay on the road to cover the most miles possible as efficiently as possible. – Matt McLelland

With the clear value proposition that diesel has for autonomous trucking, society is shifting to low-carbon solutions, opening the door for renewable diesel. While renewable diesel offers a bridge solution, there is not enough renewable diesel in the market today to support the wide-scale adoption. 

It’s the perfect bridge to zero emissions, its a solution available today that will get us to a much better place then where we are [today]. – Matt McLelland

While it’s a solution, it comes at a premium cost to shippers that is being coined the “green premium”. The green premium is opening the door to autonomy as an autonomous truck can operate longer hours with less idling time and more efficiently. Covenant estimates that autonomous trucks can operate 8% to 12% more efficiently per truck. 

On Covenant’s autonomous journey today, today the company has partnerships with Aurora and Torc Robotics as they actively prepare for a future with autonomy. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on sustainability. 

Recorded on Friday, April 11, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Hayes, Founder & CEO, Ghost Autonomy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why advanced technology is invisible and how Ghost plans to scale autonomous driving. 

The conversation begins with John discussing the founding of Pure Storage and what he say in the market when he founded that company and how that compares to the founding of Ghost Autonomy.

Our data storage company was actually founded on the basis of trends and consumer technology. – John Hayes

Similar to the way that storage was changing, John saw an opportunity to build a new modern autonomy stack that was not built on the DARPA Urban Challenge stack, but one that was based on consumer technology. 

Let’s look at what emerging trends are out there in hardware and where can we make smart software and what industry can we go into. – John Hayes

When Ghost first started to develop their autonomy stack, they started with a stereo camera-only approach and in the middle of 2021, they added radar to the stack. 

The direction we took with radar was to go in a software defined direction. – John Hayes

One of the main defining aspects of the Ghost Autonomy stack is that they have engineered the stack to make it as invisible as possible. In addition to being almost invisible, the stack operates on low-power which will allow electric vehicles running their autonomy system to have more range. The hardware running on this low-power compute are four camera pairs and one high-resolution radar pointing forward. 

From a use-case scenario Ghost has engineered an SAE Level 4 design for highway use and an SAE Level 2 design for non-highway use. 

It’s a rolling ODD where you increase the competence at slower and slower speeds over time. – John Hayes

Comparing and contrasting the Ghost Autonomy system to a traditional SAE Level 2 system, the system is more intuitive. 

From the user experience point of view, we focus very much on a concept system called collaborative driving, where there isn’t a button that you push to activate it. You are on the highway, it says you can drive anytime you want by turning and indicator blue and you let go of the steering wheel and it turns green. And you do not set anything, the car just goes and picks a reasonable speed and a reasonable following distance. – John Hayes

This is built on John’s fundamental belief that that advanced technology is invisible in a way. The Ghost system does not have button or nobs, the system just works. Today a human has to click the ticker to change lanes, but in the future Ghost is working on a navigation system where the vehicle will simply just change the lane without being promoted to by the driver. 

I want to make the system extremely scalable so that you wouldn’t have to enter a destination to activate it. You just start driving and if you just want to let go of the wheel for 30 seconds to send a text, that’s a perfectly valid way to interact with the system. – John Hayes

From a business standpoint, Ghost is going to commercialize the product by licensing their software to OEMs.

Wrapping up the conversation, John discusses the future of Ghost Autonomy.

Recorded on Friday, April 7, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jeff Farrah, Executive Director, Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the economic impact of autonomy and why autonomy is the future.

The conversation begins with Jeff discussing how the autonomous vehicle industry will navigate the potential economic downturn that is on the horizon.

There is an expression in the venture capital world that some of the very best companies are built in down markets. – Jeff Farrah

While this is an expression, Founders and Executives in the autonomous vehicle industry are hard at work commercializing, scaling and generating revenue from autonomy. The industry today is entering the next phase as AV companies move away from full-time research and development and into the operations stage of their companies lifecycle. 

As AV companies mature, the market is taking notice. 

There is a tremendous amount of excitement kind of up and down the economy to ultimately have a piece of this [market].– Jeff Farrah

As the market takes notice, consumers are starting to take notice as well as autonomy will create high-paying jobs. Along with the new jobs created by autonomy, the technology will have a positive economic impact on the global economy by creating new jobs, shoring up the supply chain and ultimately helping to lower inflation. 

For AVs to truly scale, we need a National Autonomous Vehicle Framework that enables regulatory certainty. With regulatory certainty, investment into the sector will flourish. 

We do not want to have a situation where this industry does poorly because there are giant question marks hanging over it that policy makers could have ultimately clarified. – Jeff Farrah

Today, there is no National Autonomous Vehicle Framework and the industry is left with a patchwork of laws that makes scaling difficult. In California, legislators are currently considering bill AB316 that would prohibit the operation of autonomous vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds on public roads for testing and commercial operations without a driver in the vehicle. This bill in it’s current form will kill jobs and have a negative impact on the economy of the State of California.

You have a situation where many of the leading autonomous trucking companies are based in California. Despite that, the State in many circles tends to be taking a posture of no thanks, we are not interested, please go elsewhere. – Jeff Farrah

When the industry goes elsewhere, jobs will follow. In the communities that embrace AVs, new jobs will be created, new businesses will open and those communities will experience the positive economic impact of AVs. Recently, Governor Reeves of Mississippi signed HB 1003 welcoming autonomous vehicles to Mississippi.

With the signing of HB 1003, autonomous trucks can now travel along the I-10 from Arizona to Florida fully autonomous.

Wrapping up the conversation, Jeff shares his view on the future of autonomous vehicles and trucks.

Recorded on Tuesday, April 4, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Timothy Dooner, Host, What The Truck, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss all things trucking and the current state of the trucking industry.

The conversation begins with Grayson and Dooner discussing the importance of securing DoD (Department of Defense) contracts when developing autonomous trucks as those contracts provide reliable revenue and stability as the autonomous trucking companies ramp up commercial operations. 

Where do you get money if the carriers won’t give it to you, and you are in an economy right now also where the venture cap is not free and you just want YOLO a SPAC out there to the retail traders? – Timothy Dooner

As the Fed continues to raise interest rates, the days of free money are over for the foreseeable future. With the monetary environment being tight, autonomous trucking companies with little to no revenue will find it very hard to raise capital and at some point will have to shutter. 

While the monetary environment remains tight, the geo-political circumstance stance remains fraught as China escalates their pressure on Taiwan. With a geo-political scenario that is uncertain and Taiwan controlling the global semi-conductor industry along with China controlling the electric vehicle supply chain, the potential for a global economic disaster that brings a halt to a future with electric trucks is elevated. 

A future with electric trucks is a complex future as there are the supply chain issues in addition to the charging infrastructure issues that are also plaguing the industry. It has been reported by some carriers that it is taking months to get the electrical backhaul needed to operate heavy-duty charging at certain locations. When the electric heavy-duty chargers are up and running, the next issue to tackle is time. 

Freight is messy. There is a lot of stuff and a lot of delays and the last thing you want to consider is taking an equation where it used to cost 20 minutes to fuel to now maybe it costs an hour to two. – Timothy Dooner

In the market there are 250,000 carriers with less then six trucks. These operations are small and they do not have the balance sheet to add electric trucks to their operations, but yet in some States they are being forced due to regulation. The change in regulation could lead to further consolidation in the traditional trucking industry while further opening the door to autonomy.

I think the future model, the realistic future model does look like autonomy in that middle-mile and delivery in that short mile with electric vehicles. – Timothy Dooner

With the door furthering opening to autonomy in the trucking industry, Grayson and Dooner go onto discuss the current state of autonomous trucking. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Dooner shares his vision for the future of trucking. 

Recorded on Friday March 31, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Andy Chatham, Co-Founder, DIMO joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the DIMO open-connected vehicle platform and why there are no good apps for cars today. 

The conversation begins with Andy discussing why he decided to build DIMO and what he saw in the market when he launched the company.

Cars are becoming more intelligent, they are taking over more of the driving task from end-consumers, but were still waiting for that first deployment where millions of people are able to actually take their hands and eyes off the road and give control over to a computer. – Andy Chatman

With the rapid increase in ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) systems being available in cars today, combined with consumers believing that an SAE Level 2 system is a self-driving car, Grayson brings up the point that consumers will want to own personally owned autonomous vehicles when they are ready. If this does indeed come true, what impact will it have on the robo-taxi market?

I think there will be some real markets in which robo-taxis are able to deliver value to consumers and provide a useful service. – Andy Chatman

Then there is Tesla, What happens if and when Tesla can figure out SAE Level 3? What impact will it have on the emerging personally owned autonomous vehicle market? What impact this have on Tesla from a business perspective? 

One thing that were very sure of, is that it will increase the value of the data coming from the car in some relatively non-obvious ways. – Andy Chatman

This is where DIMO comes into the picture. 

We want to give ownership of the data coming from the vehicle to the owner of the vehicle and the occupant of the vehicle, and make sure that they are able to do whatever that want with it. – Andy Chatman

At some point in the future, consumers are going to want to own and control their own data as it relates to their mobility experiences. Today, consumers can take control of their data with DIMO and take advantage of apps that create value for their driving experience. 

One of the apps, that developers have built on the platform is battery health monitoring. With electric vehicles having surpassed 10% of global sales for the first time in 2022 and used electric vehicle sales in the United States rising 32% in the first three months of 2023, knowing the health of the EV’s battery becomes extremely important. 

We can provide you insights into how your battery is performing in the real-world. How quickly are you able to charge it. How quickly it’s discharging. When you are repeatedly charging it from zero to 100%, we can give you insights around, hey this is going to degrade the value of your battery overtime. – Andy Chatman

In addition to battery health data, DIMO is able to offer insights into real-world EV charging performance and what chargers are charging at what speeds. There are inconsistencies in the public charging network that is leading to charging anxiety for non-tesla EV drivers. The difference is that Tesla built, owns and maintains their own EV charging network. 

Tesla drivers really experience range anxiety. – Andy Chatman

With all of the data coming off of connected vehicles, one of the key elements that OEMs will have to maintain is trust. Consumers are going to have to trust that their vehicle is going to always work, always be secure and work when they need to drive somewhere. One of DIMO’s goals is to become a trusted platform for mobility. 

We look at what we doing as creating the first truly open developer platform for cars. – Andy Chatman

Wrapping up the conversation, Andy shares his opinion on the future of mobility.

Recorded on Tuesday, March 28, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matteo Del Sorbo, Executive Vice President Magna New Mobility, Magna International joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why not all mobility solutions work in all markets and Magna’s mobility investments in India. 

The conversation begins with Matteo discussing how Magna approaches autonomy. 

Our approach at Magna here is to develop robust and reliable features that fulfill the needs of the market, our customers, the regulations, all the while we still have a careful eye on the future and mega trends that impact mobility and in the end, autonomous driving. – Matteo Del Sorbo

This approach allows Magna keep their pulse on the future of mobility as the company continues to operate a profitable revenue generating organization. It’s a wise strategy that allows Magna to engage in an autonomous vehicle market that is now consolidating around a handful of winners who are well financed and poised for long-term growth. 

We are going to play a very important role in autonomy and ADAS. – Matteo Del Sorbo

It’s not just autonomy and ADAS, Magna is also embracing micromobility and energy while deploying solutions in emerging markets including India. India is a market of 1.4 billion individuals with a GDP that is projected to grow 6.5% this year. 

I have always said that not all solutions work in all markets. I think micromobility is a perfect example. Certain solutions work in well in one geographic region, but not in another. You need to really understand the market, the needs, the people that drive the right solutions. – Matteo Del Sorbo

To understand the mobility market in India is to understand the infrastructure challenges in the urban environments and why micromobility works. Battery swapping is allowing companies to operate electric mobility solutions in India to overcome the constraints of limited electricity reliability and the overall infrastructure challenges in the country. 

With a mandate from the Indian Government to convert roughly 200 million two-wheelers from gas to electric, the opportunity for battery swapping is enormous. This is where Magna thrives as the company knows how to scale and engineer world-class products. 

Magna is rapidly scaling operations with their customer Yulu Mobility/Yulu Energy, they are also an investor. Currently Yulu Mobility has has 10,000 electric scooters in operation which Magna is helping to scale by the tens of thousands over the next year.

We are going to be adding 10,000 units every month for the next 12 months. By the end of year we will have over 100,000 units. – Matteo Del Sorbo

While the recipe to scale operations in India is there, Magna is also looking to expand their footprint to other emerging markets where their expertise can provide value and shareholder return. 

At the end of the day, you have to solve a problem. Just bringing a bunch of kick scooters to a city because they are cool will not solve problems, it will not give you scale, the market, people demand a scaled quality product. – Matteo Del Sorbo

To achieve success in these new emerging markets Magna has teams focused on new emerging mobility technologies will be that will impact these markets. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Matteo and Grayson discuss the future of delivery. 

Recorded on Tuesday, March 7, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Peter Vaughan Schmidt, CEO, Torc Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Torc is preparing to scale their autonomous trucking business. 

The conversation begins with Peter discussing why he joined Torc Robotics. One of the defining factors as to why he decided to join was the company’s culture. The company’s culture is one that is both humble and collaborative. It’s this culture which has allowed Torc to thrive and one that appealed to Peter when he led Daimler Trucks majority investment in 2019. 

Since the investment, Torc has accelerated the technological development of their autonomy stack as they work towards their operations at scale by 2030 goal. 

Autonomy will be at scale within this decade by 2030. – Peter Vaughan Schmidt

For autonomous trucking commercial operations to scale, there has to be a redundant autonomous truck platform that will enhance safety and increase uptime efficiency. Through their relationship with Daimler Trucks, Torc will have access to Daimler’s new redundant autonomous truck platform based on Freightliner’s Cascadia with 1,500 new upgrades. 

Eventually these new trucks will be fitted with Torc’s autonomy stack and tested in various areas around the world including Albuquerque, New Mexico where Torc currently has a base of operations. One of the unique advantages to testing in Albuquerque is the elevation changes on I-40. 

We thought if you could do Albuquerque you can really do most cities, most interstates. – Peter Vaughan Schmidt

It’s not just testing in Albuquerque that goes into developing the Torc driver. Torc is also learning from experienced professional drivers on know how to “drive” a truck and what the courtesy maneuvers look like when driving on the highway. Daimler Trucks is also providing support from a hardware perspective. 

As Torc prepares to scale and commercialize the business, the company will embrace a subscription model, however the company is open to other potential models as well based on market demand.

We will try to make it as easy for customers as possible to apply this new technology and the way of paying for it. – Peter Vaughan Schmidt

When the customers take possession of the Torc autonomous trucks, they will be factory built by Daimler Trucks and deployed in a hub-to-hub model. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Peter shares his thoughts on how he sees autonomous trucks being deployed over the next decade. 

Recorded on Monday, March 6, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jan Becker, CEO & Co-Founder, Apex AI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how the autonomous vehicle industry has evolved from the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge to the dawn of the era of commercialization in 2023. 

The conversation begins with Jan discussing the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge and his role on Stanford's team.

People called it the Woodstock of Robotics. – Jan Becker

The DARPA Challenges showed the world that it was possible to make a car drive itself. It was these challenges sponsored by the U.S. Goverment and led to the founding of the autonomous vehicle industry.

One of the outcomes of the DARPA Urban Challenge was that Google started and funded Waymo and Waymo then really showed in my opinion the automotive companies that autonomous driving can be done as a product. – Jan Becker

It has been 15 years since the DARPA Urban Challenge and the world of autonomy has changed drastically. Autonomy is now maturing, scaling and commercializing. The hype cycle of 2000’s has faded along with the timeline as autonomous vehicles are now becoming a commercial business. 

One of the trends that is beginning to emerge is the personally owned autonomous vehicle. While this trend is still in it’s early days, it its a trend that will have a significant impact on the future autonomy as consumers will come to expect this feature. 

Then there are autonomous trucks which will initially roll out as a hub-to-hub model where the trucks will operate fully autonomously on the highway. When they arrive at the hub (depot), the freight will be switched to smaller vehicles some of which will be autonomous. 

The low hanging fruit in my opinion is really to automate the hub-to-hub transportation. – Jan Becker

With the industry maturing, Apex AI is developing safety-certified, developer-friendly and scalable software that allows developers to build safe reliable software for mobility platforms. By building on Apex AI, developers can do what they do best – build applications. 

What we provide are the libraries, the functionality to enable our customers, the developers, the car companies to build software that scales. – Jan Becker

Wrapping up the conversation, Jan shares his thoughts on the universal driver and how he sees autonomous vehicles scaling. 

Recorded on Tuesday, February 28, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Zander Cook, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, Lease End joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how consumers can capture equity at the end of their car lease. 

The conversation begins with Zander sharing his insights into what he is currently seeing in the leasing market. Putting this into context, the average price of a new vehicle has risen more than $10,000 since the start of the pandemic to $47,920 in January 2023, creating the opportunity for more leases. 

To this point it has been a little counterintuitive, actually leasing had its worst year as a percentage of new vehicle sales in decades last year. – Zander Cook

One of the factors that drove the decrease in new lease originations was the rising interest rate environment. Even with excess cash from the covid stimulus, new lease originations stumbled while the market for flipping electric vehicles such as at the Tesla Model 3, Model Y and the Ford Mach-E only grew. Now that the covid stimulus has dissipated, the market for new lease originations is beginning to show signs of rebounding. 

With a shortage of new vehicles due to the semiconductor shortage and historically high used car prices, consumers had equity in their leased vehicles when the leases matured. This scenario is not common and was driven partly by geopolitics and a vulnerable supply chain. 

Lessees of Honda vehicles historically tend to have the highest average equity as the vehicles hold their equity. Could this change as more electric vehicles come online and consumers choose to lease EVs? If it does change, how will the battery be valued?

For those individuals lucky enough to have equity in their vehicle at the end of a lease, their options to tap into the equity are traditionally limited. This is where Lease End comes into the picture. Lease End was built to streamline the buyout process at the end of a lease. 

Our entire business is streamlining the lease buyout process. – Zander Cook

By streamlining the process, Lease End is saving consumers time and money. In as quick as 25 minutes, consumers can be on their way as Lease End handles all of the logistics and financing. Could this become the future of ending a lease? Perhaps, but consumers will have to learn more about their options to end a lease. 

In my opinion the biggest thing there is going control back to the consumer. Right now most consumers think they do not have any other option besides going into a dealership and dealing with the dealership and doing what the dealership tells them to do. That’s not the case, that’s why Lease End was founded. – Zander Cook

Wrapping up the conversation, Zander shares his vision for the future of leasing. 

Recorded on Thursday, February 23, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Akshay Jaising, VP of Commercialization, Motional joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Motional’s commercialization strategy and how Motional is scaling robotaxi operations in multiple cities.

The conversation begins with Akshay discussing Motional’s commercialization strategy. 

We have taken a very partner centric approach. We want to focus on what we do best, which is building the autonomy stack and then partners with players in the ecosystem to make robotaxis a reality. – Akshay Jaising

Since 2022, Motional has had a partnership with Uber. Beginning with autonomous Uber Eats deliveries in Santa Monica, CA, the partnership has since evolved into a 10-year multi-market deal where consumers will be able to order a ride in one of Motional’s all-electric IONIQ 5 robotaxis. This will be the largest deployment of autonomous vehicles on a ride-haling platform. 

Las Vegas will be the launch city followed by Los Angeles. With the expansion into Los Angeles, Motional will be operating in the 2nd largest city in the United States. Los Angeles is a diverse region that has an interest in alternative transportation modes. Anything to reduce the amount of time sitting in stop and go traffic while having to pay attention becomes a win for the millions of individuals who call Los Angeles home. 

We feel it’s a pretty critical market that has shown customer acceptance for ride-hailing. Our initial pilots and tests in Los Angeles with Uber Eats have been extremely promising and well received. It’s a really strong proving ground to demonstrate how this technology could scale and solve very critical transportation challenges. – Akshay Jaising

As Motional and the autonomous vehicle industry as a whole begins to scale and commercialize, attention is starting to turn from the technology to the economics of the business. Do the unit economics make sense and can the business operate profitability? These are big questions that will have to be answered. In order to answer these questions, AV companies will need long-term patient capital and this exactly what Motional has with Aptiv and Hyundai. 

In addition to Motional’s access to long-term patient capital, the company through the Aptiv/Hyundai joint-venture is currently having robotaxis built to automotive grade standards on the line. A factory-built autonomous vehicle is scalable. 

With over 130,000 autonomous vehicle rides completed to date, Motional is preparing to further scale in Las Vegas and fully commercialize the service. One of the main advantages to scaling in Las Vegas is that individuals arrive in Vegas and stay on average for 72 hours. When they are there, they gamble and enjoy all of the experiences that Vegas has to offer. They come flush with cash and open mind to trying to new experiences.

Creating the perfect opportunity to scale a profitable autonomous vehicle company as riding in an AV for the first time is an experience. Adding to the experience element, by the end of the year, Motional is planning to operate fully driverless in Las Vegas. Queue up the TikTok and Instagram posts. 

Another defining moment will be Super Bowl 58 which will be taking place in Las Vegas. With 325,000 visitors expected to attend the Vegas Super Bowl, Motional is actively preparing driverless operations which will be operating during Super Bowl Week.

We do expect to have driverless vehicles on the road in February 2024 when Super Bowl 58 will be there, and we are excited about that. – Akshay Jaising

As Motional scales operations in multiple cities including Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Motional will be taking a hybrid approach when it comes to drop-off and pick-up zones. The company will utilize zones when they are available and at times they are not, the robotaxis will integrate into the normal traffic patterns. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Akshay discusses how Motional will roll-out service in each market from an economic standpoint.

Recorded on Tuesday, February 21, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Don Burnette, Founder & CEO, Kodiak Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss building an autonomous trucking business and why Kodiak did not SPAC.

The conversation begins with Don discussing the last 18 months in autonomous trucking and why Kodiak did not SPAC. 

We had multiple SPAC offers, but at the end of the day we felt like we just didn’t have the metrics, what didn’t have what it took to be a public company. – Don Burnette

Don, and the team at Kodiak understood the difference between being a private company and a public company. Don along with the team and the board, made the decision to stay private as they felt it would put Kodiak in the best position for growth, benefiting investors, employees and the entire company.

What you are seeing not just in the AV market, but beyond the AV market. You are are seeing a lot of blowback from companies that do not have any of the metrics that public investors want to see and while I think there was some hype and excitement early on in the SPAC craze cycle if you will call it, that excitement, that hype, that fervor has essentially evaporated and know companies are left with their fundamentals and unfortunately those fundamentals are not really strong. – Don Burnette

Today there are 250 registered autonomous trucks available for deployment, while there are currently 4 million Class 8 trucks in operation. With less than a 1% market share, the time for an autonomous trucking company to go public is not there as the technology currently does not have the marketshare and/or the profitability to succeed as a public company when compared to the traditional trucking industry. Don recognized this fact and resisted the temptation of taking Kodiak public via SPAC.

I definitely think that Kodiak’s decision to stay private was the right one in the end. – Don Burnette

In order to stay a private company in a challenging economic environment, you have to have financial discipline. Along with the financial discipline, you have to have the right team that works hard and does not get distracted. 

At Kodiak we have been focused on over-the-road long-haul trucking, autonomy and that was our mission statement on day one and that’s still our mission for the company almost five years in. That focus and not allowing ourselves to get distracted has been a big component of our success. – Don Burnette

As part of this discipline, Kodiak has never done a free run. All of the freight that the company has hauled since day one has been paid. On day one, Don made the decision to run Kodiak as a business, not a science project. This decision has been rewarded in terms of partnerships and the revenue that Kodiak is generating from hauling freight.

With all of the pieces in place, Kodiak is beginning to scale their business and preparing for driverless operations. To achieve driverless operations, Kodiak has developed a redundant safety critical system that ensures the safe operation of the truck.

Driverless operations will first be rolled out in the southern part of the United States partly due to the weather and the updated infrastructure. In addition to scaling autonomous trucking across the United States, Kodiak is working with the Department of Defense to develop autonomous technology that can save lives. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Don discusses the future of the autonomous trucking industry. 

Recorded on Thursday, February 16, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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Christian Spano, Director of Innovation, International Council of Mining and Metals joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy Podcast to discuss decarbonizing mining and how the circular economy can be ushered in through building stocks of materials that can be reused forever.

The conversation begins with Christian discussing what is being done to decarbonize mining transportation operations as there are roughly 28,000 large mine hauling trucks in operation collectively emitting 68 million tons of Co2 a year. 

Health and safety at global mining operations was one of the early factors that started the conversation around the decarbonization of mining. From trucks equipped with ADAS to autonomous trucks, the aspect of how new technologies can improve the health and safety of mining operations is paramount to global mining organizations. 

From 30 to 50 to 80 percent of the emissions of a mine come from haul trucks. – Christian Spano

ICMM members are collectively working together to usher in the future of mining; a future that is sustainable and safe. To usher in this future, the infrastructure will have to be upgraded to accommodate hydrogen and electric vehicles. 

The contribution of a mine turning net-zero starting with the mobile equipment, it’s a contribution to the country that is trying to decarbonize, but also accelerating the availability of all these solutions at scale for many other industries. – Christian Spano

As companies begin to decarbonize mining operations, new jobs are being created. It’s not just jobs inside of the mine that will be created, it’s jobs outside of the mine that support the operation. Jobs such as material traceability will be created, but in order for traceability there has to be a global standard. 

The demand for a global standard and material traceability will end up being driven by the consumer who demands transparency into the battery that powers their vehicle. The demand for EVs is not slowing down as in 2022, global EV sales surpassed 10% for the first time. 

From a minerals and metals perspective, it is estimated that there could be a 20-fold increase in demand for nickel and cobalt by 2040. To meet this demand, we have to usher in the circular economy. 

Recycling is not the circular economy. The circular economy is about building stocks that we can reuse forever. It’s about building stocks of materials that are durable. – Christian Spano

The circular economy is a design opportunity. It’s an opportunity to redesign and rethink how we as a society approach metals and materials. With this approach, we have to keep all options on the table and approach the future of sustainability with an open mind. 

Autonomous vehicles will play a role in the future of sustainability as autonomous trucks deployed in mines around the world will be cleaner and safer. ICMM members are actively embracing autonomy and deploying at their mine sites around the world. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Christin discusses the future of decarbonizing mining operations. 

Recorded on Friday, February 3, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Oliver Cameron, VP, Product, Cruise joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy Podcast to discuss scaling Cruise, the passenger experience and the role AI plays in the Cruise product. 

The conversation begins with Oliver reflecting on the last four years in autonomy.

The biggest change for me that has happened over the last four years is that in 2019 everyone in the industry was waking up to answer the question can we make a car safer than a human, a self-driving car that is safer than a human. – Oliver Cameron

Now it’s 2023 and Cruise is scaling a safe autonomous vehicle service in multiple cities with no safety drivers. As Cruise scales, Cruise is listening to passengers and gathering feedback and incorporating their feedback into the product.

There is just something about self-driving cars that really sparks a sense of optimism in people. – Oliver Cameron

It’s a sense of optimism that brings joy and happiness. The Cruise experience is a consistent experience that only gets better over time. The Cruise virtual driver never becomes distracted, gets upset or emotional. It simply drives you to and from your destination safely each time ride in one of the vehicles, it’s a consistent experience. 

The human equivalent is not very consistent. You can have the world’s best driver and the world’s worst driver from trip to trip. Our experience is very consistent and it only gets better over time and that is something that is very special and unique to autonomous vehicles that the human driven equivalents will simply just never be able to match because of the inconsistency of humans. – Oliver Cameron

As autonomous vehicles scale, they benefit as they gather more data that can be used to improve the product. As an example in less then 90 days, Cruise was able to launch fully driverless operations in two cities, Austin, TX and Phoenix, AZ. Oliver goes onto explain how Cruise was able to achieve this goal.

If our technology was not generalizable, well frankly there is no chance of us deploying driverless in Austin in less then 90 days. – Oliver Cameron

As Cruise scales, The Origin will play a critical role in operations. The Origin will be an eye-catching vehicle that makes you feel like you are living in The Jetsons when you first see it. When you first enter the vehicle you will realize how spacious it is. From a comfortable experience to one that is controlled by voice, The Origin is ushering in the future of mobility. 

Through their partnership with Honda, Cruise is currently testing in Japan. When it comes to expanding to new international markets, the team at Cruise is working hard to understand local customs and how individuals in those countries pay for goods and interact with digital devices on a daily basis. 

This technology can definitely scale a lot faster then people think. – Oliver Cameron

To enable the future of autonomy we need AI breakthroughs. Oliver and Grayson go onto discuss the latest breakthroughs in AI and how Cruise is leveraging their machine learning infrastructure to improve their product. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Oliver shares his outlook for the future of the autonomous vehicle industry.

Recorded on Friday, January 27, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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Jim Mullen, Founder & President, Mullen Consulting joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss how traditional trucking and autonomous trucking compliment each other and their combined benefits to the U.S. freight network.

The conversation begins with Jim discussing what is causing the decline rates in spot truckload rates, which are down 57.3% year-over-year.

It is clearly a supply and demand issue right now. – Jim Mullen

During the 2008 financial crisis, the S&P Transportation Select Industry Index feel from a high of $1,998.20 on February 20, 2007 to a low of $626.27 on March 9, 2009, a 68.63% decline. It took the Index four years until February 19, 2013 to regain the losses from the economic crisis. If history is to repeat itself and we enter into a potential recession, you could see further downward pressure on spot truckload rates. With new entrants in the market and deteriorating market economic conditions, the market currently remains strained.

With all these new entrants who are really just trying to stay afloat, they are going to take freight they ought not be taking or at least be taking freight at rates they ought not be taking. Until you expunge the marketplace of that lack of discipline with those types of folks that are quote desperate you will continue to see that down kind of pressure. – Jim Mullen

Taking an holistic approach to the trucking industry as a whole, it is a very vibrant industry. It is a healthy industry that is preparing for a future with autonomous trucks. It is an industry that is working in tandem with their shippers and customers to ensure that it is a win-win when the economic conditions stabilize and return to growth.

When economic conditions stabilize and there is a return to growth, autonomous trucks will be scaling in a regulatory environment that is made up of patchwork of State laws as there is currently no national framework for autonomous trucks.

Additionally there is no plan for a national framework for autonomous trucks at this time. Is it even necessary? Unsure at the moment, as soon autonomous trucks will be able to operate legally from Arizona to Florida on the 1-10, when Mississippi comes online with their new autonomous trucking regulations.

No matter the regulations, the industry is going to have to develop public trust in each and every State that they operate. This is something that the autonomous trucking industry takes seriously and Jim shares his thoughts from his time at FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) where he served as Acting Administrator on the importance of public trust in autonomous trucks.

While trust has to be developed with the public, the traditional trucking industry is approaching autonomous trucking in a mixed fashion.

There is a mixed bag. Some of the motor carriers are much more aggressive and more involved in looking at how autonomy is going to change their freight networks. But if you look at the blue-chip motor carriers, I say that they are predominantly fully engaged on how autonomy is going to change their business model and freight network. – Jim Mullen

To achieve commercial Level 4 autonomy in with the autonomous trucking industry, it ill take partnerships. Torc has a partnership with Daimler and Waymo has a partnership with J.B. Hunt. Then there are the Truck OEMs that are exploring transportation as a service. Could transportation as a service be how autonomous trucks are deployed in the future? Possibly. Then there are the autonomous trucking companies who are unable to secure an OEM deal, could they potentially explore licensing deals? Possibly.

The future for how autonomous trucks will roll out has yet to be written. It will be interesting to watch how it all plays out and who emerges victoriously.

Wrapping up the conversation, Jim shares his thoughts on the future of the trucking industry.

Recorded on Tuesday, January 24, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sergey Litvinenko, Co-Founder & CEO, Koop Insurance joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss how Koop is reimagining how you underwrite autonomous vehicle insurance. 

The conversation begins with Sergey describing Koop.

We are an insurance technology startup that is focused on everything automated. We focus on fully autonomous vehicles that go on public roads like robotaxis, trucks and shuttles to off-road applications in robotics, in agriculture, construction, mining, warehousing, manufacturing and aerial use cases. – Sergey Litvinenko 

For Koop to properly insure their clients, they have developed a proprietary underwriting platform focused on autonomy, filling a void in the market. Today the market for autonomous vehicle/truck insurance is limited with little flexibility as traditional insurers do not truly understand the risk. 

The main bottleneck why the insurance industry is not able to innovate at the moment is because the insurance industry cannot get the data that would allow them to build the insurance product around the autonomous vehicle risk. – Sergey Litvinenko 

Koop gathers data such as the technical specs of the autonomy system, exposure data and performance data of the vehicles they insure. With the data Koop can properly price the insurance as they understand the risk better then their competitors. 

As Koop primarily operates as an underwriter they work with traditional insurance brokers. Keeping with their theme of being innovative, Koop recently introduced Broker Universe to streamline the process of quoting an insurance policy. What the brokers and Koop deliver together is a high quality insurance offering.

It’s high quality insurance which is going to allow the autonomous vehicle industry to scale. Without high quality insurance, the AV industry will not be able to scale as their risk profile would be to exposed to situations that they can not control, but they can insure against. Furthermore, high quality insurance builds trust with regulators, investors and members of the public. 

Trust is what is allowing Cruise, Waymo and Motional to scale operations in multiple cities around the United States. While these AV companies are scaling and generating revenue, analysts are divided over their valuations with one analyst evening assigning a zero value to Cruise. 

In my view, in the next ten years, Cruise itself could be worth more then the rest of GM combined. It’s a great move for GM to have Cruise because it could drive more than 50% of the revenue of the company in the near future. – Sergey Litvinenko 

In a September 2022 Bloomberg Intelligence report, an analyst mentioned that Waymo may be able to generate about $5 billion in revenue by 2025. To achieve this number, Waymo might have to license their technology. If they do indeed license their technology, what is the impact on insurance? Sergey goes onto explain how it would work and who is responsible when a crash occurs. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Sergey and Grayson discuss the economics of autonomy. 

Recorded on Thursday, January 19, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, American Petroleum Institute (API) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss his 2023 Q1 outlook for the oil and gas markets.

The conversation begins with Dean sharing his thoughts and insights into the current state of the oil and gas markets. 

As the economy goes, that is what we are going to look for in oil and gas markets. – Dean Foreman

The demand for oil has been strong. The U.S. Petroleum demand in December 2022 was 20.5 million barrels per day. For 2022, oil demand grew by 2.2%. Going back to 2000, 2022 was the forth highest year for growth. 

It says that on the heels of the pandemic, $20 trillion dollars worth of economic stimulus has continued to have a pretty positive effect for the economy, despite Fed Funds rate hikes, despite concerns about a recession, despite individual sectors that have been under pressure. – Dean Foreman

The trend of demand outpacing supply has continued for over a year now with inventories that are at historic lows. Oil demand is growing because of the rebound in travel and the increase in cargo shipping by air. 

During the last six months in 2022, 1.5 million barrels per day (1.5% of the global market) of new oil globally came online from Government reserves. While there was some downward price movement, there was also long-term negative consequences as oil companies were discouraged to start new drilling and new infrastructure projects. This could lead to a global imbalance as there will not be enough infrastructure to meet demand. 

The official estimates for demand growth this year range between basically 1 million barrels per day or about 1% of the market, up to 1.7 million barrels per day. – Dean Foreman

In order to meet this demand, investment has to be made and drilling has to expand around the world to ensure that new supply can come to the market. Adding more context to this, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is predicting that global oil demand is expected to reach a record-high of 101 million barrels per day in 2023. 

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve ended 2022 at the lowest point since 1983. When comparing 2022 to 1983, the U.S.’s oil consumption was more than 33% higher. There is little margin for error with solid oil demand and a dwindling Strategic Petroleum Reserve. When you factor in geo-politics and weather, the situation becomes even more unpredictable.

In 2022, the U.S. dollar rose 6.23%. So far this year (2023) the U.S. dollar has begun to weaken. With a weakening U.S. dollar that is projected to weaken by 3% this year according to Bloomberg, oil is beginning to trade on local currencies. 

For Q1 2023, the trends to watch in the oil and gas markets are the Russia/Ukraine conflict, systemic risks to the global food supply and emerging markets debt.

Wrapping up the conversation, Dean discuses the global economics and the impact it has on household budgets. 

Recorded on Tuesday, January 17, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg and Author of Charging Ahead, General Motors, Mary Bara, and the Reinvention of an American Icon joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss his 2023 outlook on the autonomous vehicle market. 

The conversation begins with David sharing his outlook for the autonomous vehicle market in 2023. David shares his thoughts on the market and insights into how investors are currently valuing autonomous vehicle companies.

As the conversation evolves, Grayson asks David if it is time for Aurora to split the business in two and focus solely on autonomous trucking. 

I think there is so much of a focus on their trucking side that for all practical purposes it’s one company. I do not know that they need to split it, because I do not know if there is enough activity going on on the other side to make a difference. – David Welch

If Cruise and Waymo build a large enough of a lead in robotaxi deployments, there is the possibility that Aurora becomes a technology company for the trucking industry. If Aurora’s stock continues to decline, while at the sametime their technology continues to improve, a traditional trucking company could make a move and acquire Aurora. 

With all the moves being made in the autonomous vehicle industry, Microsoft is steadily making strategic investments that will help drive the growth of the company’s Azure cloud platform. Over the last 18 months, Microsoft has invested in Cruise, Gatik and Spartan Radar. 

Microsoft, this is not a venture cap fund, they have to see something before they put money in it. It’s a good sign for anyone who gets funded by them.– David Welch

Microsoft has an advantage when it comes to other cloud providers as the company does not have an in-house autonomous vehicle program. Amazon has a program with Zoox and Alphabet has a program with Waymo. For awhile, Zoox was at the forefront of every autonomous vehicle conversation, and then slowly overtime the company has quietly disappeared from the AV dialogue. 

What are Amazon’s plans for Zoox? Grayson and David discuss what Amazon’s plans for Zoox could be. Could Zoox’s autonomous technology be integrated into Amazon’s Rivian delivery vans? It’s a possibility as Amazon is major investor in Rivian. 

Another major question in the market is what happens to Lyft? Who steps in and buys the company? 

It’s not a profitable business. It’s way too expensive for what it is right now for anyone to buy it. – David Welch

Or could an airline possibly step in and buy Lyft and integrate the company into their passenger operations? If they were to do this, the airline would need an autonomous vehicle strategy. Taking a broader look at the AV industry, David and Grayson discuss Motional and the company’s strategy to scale. Does Motional have enough capital to scale and compete against Cruise and Waymo?

Then there is the second tier of autonomous vehicle companies led by May Mobility. May’s strategy to operate in rural suburban areas that lack public transit is winning over politicians, riders and investors as the company scales in these areas. 

I think it’s a very interesting company. – David Welch

Tesla is also an interesting company. Looking to the future does Tesla open the Dojo platform and does the company create a true SUV? Grayson and David discuss the possibilities. 

Wrapping up the conversation, David shares his thoughts on what he sees happening in the autonomous vehicle market over the next 12 months. 

Recorded on Tuesday, January 10, 2023

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Soule, Co-Founder & CEO, Parallel Systems joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy Podcast to discuss Parallel’s electric, autonomous freight rail system. 

The conversation begins with Matt discussing the founding of Parallel Systems.

The energy efficiency of rail uniquely allows for reduction in energy and therefore reduction in CO2. – Matt Soule

Parallel Systems is working to re-imagine how freight moves on rail by going smaller and simpler with autonomous battery rail cars. The system is flexible and it works with legacy rail operators, which allows those operators further optimize their capacity.

Parallel is developing a system that allows rail to expand their addressable market. – Matt Soule

To help rail become more competitive with trucks, Parallel’s system allows truck unit economics without the massive scale. 

Our economics do not require amortization over large amounts of freight. – Matt Soule

The system operates autonomously on rail routes that compete with drayage operations a platoon. The autonomous rail platoon will max out around 50 cars as it’s the most efficient means of moving freight on the Parallel system. Unlike traditional trains that can block road roadways for extended periods of time, Parallel’s contact-based platooning system allows for the cars to disconnect and reconnect as to not slow traffic for an extended period of time.

When Parallel starts the process of commercializing their technology, the company wants to be a vendor to rail operators. They are not going to act as a service provider and compete with the traditional rail industry. During the dwell time when cars are loaded and unloaded, Parallel’s cars will be able to charge. To charge, the system will require 3 to 10 megawatts of charging capacity. Parallel cars will get around 500 range of mile with a 250 kilowatt battery. 

One of the major advantages of the Parallel system is the system’s ability to dramatically change the braking force, allowing the train to stop faster. 

What Parallel is doing is developing a braking system that does close the loop and we are able to dramatically change our braking force depending on the track conditions, the adhesion of the train wheel to the track, as well as how heavily we are loaded. We are trying to stop as fast as physics will allow us. – Matt Soule

Dynamic braking helps the system operate more safely. The Parallel approach to rail has caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Energy as Parallel was rewarded a $4.4 million grant to fund a 29-month advanced testing program with the goal of quantifying the environmental impact and the overall vehicle stability of their system. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his opinion on the future of freight.

Parallel is creating capacity for freight. – Matt Soule

Recorded on Friday December 9, 2022

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.