Silicon Valley’s Changing Autonomous Vehicle Landscape: Licensing, Experiences, Personally Owned AVs

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

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