U.S. Dark Money Tries to Stop Robotaxis as Japan Says Yes to Full Autonomy

A coalition called the Coalition for Accountability and Road Safety has spent over $2.6 million on ads opposing autonomous vehicles in DC and neighboring states, outspending mayoral candidates and raising questions about Uber’s potential involvement in stalling Waymo‘s expansion.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism plans a unified SAE Level 4/5 certification framework starting in December targeting 10,000 autonomous vehicles by fiscal year 2030, with Waymo-Toyota and Wayve-Nissan partnerships already aligning.

In autonomous aviation, Reliable Robotics demonstrated software-controlled taxiing, takeoff, and landing on a Cessna Grand Caravan in Albuquerque under remote supervision from California, targeting first regulatory approvals by end of 2027.

Key Autonomy Signals Episode Questions Answered

Autonomy Signals Topics & Timestamps

[0:00] KPMG Sponsor Introduction

KPMG works across the full autonomy ecosystem, advising operators, OEMs, suppliers, insurers, and investors as autonomous mobility scales.

[1:58] Signal 1: Dark-Money Coalitions Are Trying to Stop Robotaxis

The Coalition for Accountability and Road Safety has spent over $2.6 million on ads opposing autonomous vehicles in DC, outspending the mayoral candidates. Grayson and Rob analyze Uber’s push for mandatory network distribution, the public split with Waymo, and why the election puts existing Sun Belt and California deployments at risk.

[37:01] Signal 2: Japan Greenlights Full Autonomy

Starting in December, MLIT will certify Level 4 and Level 5 vehicles without steering wheels, brake pedals or mirrors, in support of Japan’s goal of 10,000 Level 4 vehicles by fiscal year 2030. Grayson and Rob explain why the Waymo and Toyota news and Wayve’s ministerial drive were not a coincidence, and why operational permitting remains the real constraint.

[55:02] Signal 3: Cleared for Autonomous Takeoff

Reliable Robotics completed a flight in Albuquerque where software handled taxiing, takeoff and landing, supervised by a pilot 700 miles away in California. Grayson and Rob discuss the company’s target of first FAA approvals by the end of 2027, and why airspace integration will decide how fast autonomous cargo flight scales.

Full Episode Transcript

Dark Money Groups Target Robotaxi Expansion in DC

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Grayson Brulte: Rob, in America it’s interesting times, and why do I say it’s interesting times? It’s the day after the blue tsunami. That’s right, America had a blue tsunami, and the impacts on autonomy are going to be rather large. Not minute, rather large. And over the coming weeks, and months, and years, we will break down all of those signals ’cause it’ll be very important for us to watch. And this week, the signals are taking us somewhere that you and I have covered in depth: international. And so the signals this week are as follows. The proxy play, how Uber and dark money coalitions are stalling robotaxis. Something swampy about that. Signal two, ditching the wheel, Japan green lights pedal-less pure play robotaxis. Hip hip hooray. Yay, Japan. Okay. And cleared for takeoff, we’re getting autonomous flight. Well, those are the signals. We gotta say a huge thank you to KPMG for being a wonderful sponsor of Autonomy Signals. And for the audience, I’m gonna tease a little something cool. If you happen to be at CES, we’re having an Autonomy Markets, Autonomy Signals, and The Road to Autonomy presence with our friends at KPMG. So reach out, we’re gonna do lots of activations throughout CES. Rob, since we, it’s blue tsunami, or if you wanna say it’s a tsunami hangover day depending on what side of the aisle you’re on, let’s go to the swamp, and let’s start with what do we know about all of the money, the dark money flowing around DC? No, it’s not for elect this person, elect that person. It’s about, “Hi, we don’t like robotaxis.” I almost said, “Hi, my name is The Slim Shady.” It’s like, “Hi, my name is I Don’t Like Robotaxis.” What do we know?

Rob Grant: Yeah, this is getting ugly in DC. Washington Post is all over it. and I think it, it portends really bad things coming on the back of the, the, the blue tsunami, the blue typhoon, the blue wave, whatever you wanna call it, because part of what fueled last night’s results was a, a anti-AI, anti-tech, big company pushback where people felt that they just didn’t have enough control over what was happening to them from these big companies. And so what’s going on in DC? If you haven’t been following this, this is an important thing to follow because it will have downstream effects in markets where AVs are currently authorized and operating, and in markets where AVs want to go to to get authorization and begin operations. So in DC, th- there are not any AVs operating in driverless commercial mode right now, and there is a potential bill that is coming up in the fall that’s been debated for many years. So that’s the context here. So the coalition, called the Coalition for Accountability in Road Safety, has spent over 2.6 million on ads opposing autonomous vehicles and local commercial localization. To put that in perspective, this dark money group is outspending the mayoral candidates themselves Candidates like Janice Lewis George spent 1.18 million, and former rival Kenyan McDuffie, 1.4 million. So this dark money group is throwing in more money than even the candidates are, and they’re extending ad buys into nearby Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New Jersey. Also states, we should note, that have yet to authorize AV operation. Despite framing themselves as grassroot coalitions of labor unions, safe street advocates, and community leaders, groups like CARS, the Coalition for Accountability and Road Safety, and the People First Transportation Alliance operate with little public transparency, overstated founding affiliations, and undisclosed funding enabled by non-profit issue advocacy legal exemptions. So I’ll tell you, nothing illicit about this, but also it just smells, right? It, it, it’s bad. this is what people hate about politics. the anti-robotaxi campaign that these groups are putting on has achieved already notable legislative victories, prompting New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who was just reelected, to pull back AV expansion in upstate New York, stall permit renewals in New York City, and lead presumptive DC Mayor Denise Lewis George to publicly oppose fast-tracking AV legalization this year. And this is where it really gets interesting What we have is a lot of smoke around how Uber may or may not be funding, directly affiliated, indirectly helping, however you wanna call it, with these organizations. Now, there has been no proof, and we have found no proof. I am telling folks straight up. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. That’s my general belief. There has been a lot of talk that Uber is funding these AV advocacy groups in order to stymie Waymo and to prevent Waymo from getting into markets before Uber is ready. is also no doubt, while we can’t prove that they’re connected, assume they’re not, assume they’re not connected to this, there’s no doubt they are lining up on the same side as these groups because they are concerned that Waymo has or will get a lead there. They’re concerned that they’ll be disaggregated from their consumer base in DC. And they’ve publicly stated, as we pointed out in May when they put out a policy paper, that they do not believe that direct-to-consumer L4 operators like Waymo should exist. They should be forced to use a hybrid network of a combination of human drivers and AV operators, such as, lo and behold, Uber. And this is where the concern rises between the connection between Uber and these groups. They clearly have the same objective, I don’t know if they’re tied together, but they are pushing in the same direction to stall the expansion of AVs in DC and the neighboring northeastern cities

Waymo vs. Uber: The Open Commercial War

Grayson Brulte: Smoke and fire. I had to put the inspector hat on, and the inspector, I have a magnifying glass. We’re reading these things with a fine print of trying to find out what’s going on, and unfortunately, this is dark money. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m not saying it’s bad, but I wanna look at the facts. You laid out the facts, and the inspector loves the facts, and the little fine details on that facts. So let’s just give you some additional context, Rob, ’cause you were so, so spot on. And this is interesting. This group has spent 2.6 million on ads opposing it. 2.6 million. The c- mayoral candidates, 1.18 million and 1.4 million. 2.6 million dollars. You don’t go to an ATM, say, “Hi, I’m gonna go to lunch and take out $2.6 million.” My opinion, that is a massively highly coordinated effort, ’cause that is a large amount of money. Let’s just call it as it is. Somebody or some organization is trying to influence something. And you mentioned the Uber policy paper, and the keyword is there, force. And then, because the inspector likes, we like to read, you wanna look even further? Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra, I’m gonna say I view Tekedra, and I don’t know her personally, I view her as a very calm set of hands. She’s doing a very good job of operating and running Waymo while Dmitri focused on the tech. She’s handling policy and business. Again, that’s my assumption. I have no relationship with her. But boy, oh boy, she’s channeling Iron Mike. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Maybe watching the Netflix show because she dropped a few uppercuts in Bloomberg today. And for the record, for the print, she said the divorce, which we called two years ago, is coming. And maybe Mes- Uber didn’t get the message because on Uber’s earnings call today, they listed Waymo as a partner in ’27 and ’28, and in the interview with Bloomberg dropped an intention, “Nope, not happening.” So it is very clear the little, if you wanna call it civil war or battle between Uber and Waymo, is now open and public, and this, there i- it is a smoky swampiness. And no, Lee, it is not a Harry Potter. There’s something is smoking here. This is gonna be interesting to watch

Uber’s Regulatory Strategy: Forcing Hybrid Network Rules

Rob Grant: Yeah, 100%. It, it is. Uber, right, cannot win exclusivity commercially. That is the signal I take from this. They know that they cannot directly compete with the AV operators on their network right now with Waymo. And their attempt to partner with Waymo has gone sour, right? And, and Tekedra, who I do know, and I think you’re right, she is of s- of, of a sound judgment and very steady hand, and she understands, as she was quoted in that Bloomberg article, that that customer relationship and meeting customer expectations is absolutely critical to growing the Waymo platform and to growing trust and public acceptance for AVs. And she directly put it out there. It was not up to snuff for their partnership with Uber. Now, Uber is countering here. It is countering on a regulatory basis. It is lobbying for a rule that makes network distribution mandatory. So they will tell you directly to your face, “We’re not opposed to an AV bill in DC. What we’re opposed to is allowing an operator like Waymo to go forward and operate without being required to operate on my network.” And so what they want to do is make it mandatory for a Waymo to have to use an Uber in DC. And, you know, that’s– Hey, look, that’s a defensible position for, for a company who feels like they’re behind. And that, that to me is what this reads like. This is a, “If I can’t beat them straight on, I’ll beat them some other place,” right? And there’s, there’s an old quote that’s attributed to a former NBA player that says, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” And that’s what this feels like. This feels like a little bit of, of what Uber was in the, in the early days of Uber in 2015 and 2017. But there, they were ahead, right? They were just trying to get further ahead as quickly as possible. Here, to me, this is a clear signal that they feel way behind. we saw it a little bit in their discussion today. You know, no discussion really of, I think they said, what, they expect maybe 700 AVs on their platform by the end of the year. Not sure if they clarified that with driverless AV operations. I think they just said 700 AVs. They didn’t talk about Nuro going driverless. I’m not sure if they even reiterated that Motional will be going driverless. So for me, if I’m one of their partners, I feel like they’re a little bit lack of faith in my ability to move forward and compete with Waymo. And, and that is showing up in the way that they are handling their regulatory counters to the commercial first punches that Waymo is throwing and successfully landing.

Waymo’s Sole California Robotaxi Permit and Uber Partner Gaps

Grayson Brulte: And they’re deploying a regulatory capture strategy and say, “Okay, our partners,” because they operate a partner network for autonomy, “are not ready.” And I, and I wanna highlight something that you’ve drilled into my head, so credit to Rob on this one, ’cause I don’t think a lot about it, and I’m gonna emphasize this because when you hear it, you’re like, “Oh,” you know what. Waymo is the only company operating paid commercial service in the state of California for robotaxi. Let that sit in. Let’s repeat that again. Waymo is the only company operating paid commercial robotaxi service fully town city California. When that sets in, you’re like, “Holy,” you know what. The market’s ex- expanding, so thank you for drilling that into, in, into my head. So that clearly tells you Waymo is ahead from a technology standpoint, but more importantly, w- and thank you for educating me on the, the different levels of permitting in California, they’re ahead from a regulatory permitting perspective, understanding the, all these jurisdictions and how they’re expanding. So it’s not just technology, it’s regulatory. And on the Uber side, their partners are not there yet. Motional has told us, on the record, and Uber did reaffirm it on the call, and Balaji mentioned it in pr- in, in the remarks on X today, their CFO, that Motional will be going driver-out by the end of the year. Fine. Good. Congratulations, Team Motional. Laura, you’re doing a really good job turning that ship around. Really proud of you how you’re operating it. But what do we care about here in autonomy signals and autonomy AI? Numbers. We do not know the number of vehicles. And wanna know something that if, if you and I were sitting there having lunch, say, eight, nine months ago, we would say, “Yeah, no way in, no way in” you know what land? Hell would freeze over. Use the Eagles’ line. Zoox, this month, November, will begin operating on Uber in Las Vegas. So they’re saying, “Look at Las Vegas. It’s going to have Zoox. It’s gonna have Motional.” But what I say, that’s autonomy roulette because who’s there? Waymo’s operating in Ojai there. They’re picking you up at the airport, and then guess who’s coming? Elon. Maybe he’s gonna move to Nevada now after what happened. That robotaxi’s coming. It just seems that competition is brewing. Uber’s partners are behind. Their technology is not ready for m- multi-m-market scale, let alone international multi-market scale. It’s saying, “Okay, we’re gonna slow this down.” But I look at this, do we ever get to a point where, say, let’s say Uber’s successful and they slow it down so much and then three, four years from now they’re like, “Oh, crap, we overdid this. We gotta go try and undo all this”? It just seems to me that if they have success, it can cause even bigger problems down the line, potentially.

Election Results Harden Autonomous Vehicle Headwinds in Key States

Rob Grant: Fully. And th- this is where I think my concern is most directed at. Yes, it, it was already going to be a heavy lift for the Waymos of the world to open up Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts. The- these are not easy places to insert emerging technology, regardless if it’s transportation-based or any other technology. They, they are notoriously kind of laggards when it comes to regulation of this type of technology. And that’s, that’s fine, right? Different states. It’s why we have a 50 state experiment, as we call it, right? Different states take different approaches. But that lift just got a lot heavier after last night’s elections for those places that, that they’re not yet in. And so that’s, that’s notable for that reason as the kind of anti-tech, anti-AI, anti-data center was a motivating factor, particularly for young voters, and young voters who felt that that was a motivating factor went overwhelmingly for Democrats. And we know that in these northeastern cities, it is generally the Democrats who are a little bit more wary. I won’t say they’re uniformly anti-AV, but they’re a little bit more wary of the technology. They want more robust guardrails. They want answers to questions about labor and, and things of that nature. And they’ve just got a wind at their back. But they w- that was already a pretty big lift. My focus is the real friction here is potentially in the key Sun Belt deployment hubs and the potential for rollback in those areas, right? So the emergence of, of Democratic executive and legislative power last night in testing and deployment bastions like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, I think means operational flexibility can no longer be taken for granted there. Now, while these rules in place won’t dissolve overnight, what you have are, are now Democratic governors with increasingly, at the– in Georgia and in Arizona, likely Democratic legislatures. There’s still a split in Texas. But what you’re gonna see From the success of these groups, which may or may not be Uber-backed, but certainly seem to align with what Uber wants to achieve you’re gonna see a push for more local municipal control, emergency responder coordination, mandatory data disclosures, tighter insurance requirements, right? Just more teeth generally that could put at risk, put at risk the ability for these companies to continue operating in the manner that they’re doing in these places that we have come to known as leaders for AV deployment. And again, Uber, whether directly affiliated with these groups or not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it feels to me like there’s something there, but I can’t prove it. and knowing Jill Hazelbaker just left over at Uber to OpenAI, the information reported, she was in this on-again, off-again discussion with them for a year, so which is an interesting thing as well Fanning the flames of anti-AV sentiment to achieve your short-term goal because you don’t feel like you can compete right now may feel like a victory for your next couple of quarterly reports because you don’t allow Waymo or Cruise in front of you. But it’s gonna feel like a loss for many, many years if AV operations get rolled back in the places they’re already at and they never come to the places you need to go

Grayson Brulte: It’s scary. I’m sitting here, I said, “Rob, Halloween was last week, and, and, and, and, and the Headless Horseman’s coming.” Th- this is scary. The, the. it’s, there is no other way to say it. And when you look at this Cars group, they spent $800,000 in Pennsylvania. Well, what did we have we covered in our newsletter last Sunday? You’re having calls with local council members trying to ban AVs and call for certain requirements. Hmm, very familiar. Must have a human driver, must be part of a network. Hmm. You’re starting to see the language be consistent. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying who’s writing it, I’m saying it’s starting to be consistent. And what I will say, and I will credit this to The Washington Post, the digital paper trail, or the, if you wanna call it, the leakage trail, keeps going back to the same companies. And so what do we know from that? This is highly coordinated. This is not a one-off, “Hi, I, I woke up and had a bowl of cereal and decided I wanna do something.” This is a highly, highly coordinated attack that could have a lot of negative ramifications, and let’s call a spade a spade here. In two, three, four years, there will be multiple Uber AV partners who are operating driver-out commercially. It might not be in the markets they thought, but they will have, their technology will be there. Then do these partners, if, if it is deemed to be true, and I am not accusing, if it is deemed to be true that hypothetically Uber is behind this, do those partners end up leaving and the whole thing implodes? It’s something to watch because these partners play a very large role in Uber’s autonomy future. Without Uber’s robotaxi autonomy partners, Uber does not have a future in autonomy unless they go out and make an acquisition. And if one plus one equals two, do you wanna go to the company that’s trying to stall this and stop this? No, you don’t wanna sell to them. And then that gets very, very interesting. So if you wanna say it’s a, it is a multi-front war. Okay, so you thought, think that you’re the Vikings and you’re going to sack London, and London being Waymo. We all know how history played out.

Rob Grant: Yeah. And it’s interesting, right? Both the Waymo will continue to do the good work that it’s doing in these legislative bodies. Others will continue to do the good work they’re doing, right? There’s, there’s no indication that this is a growing body of AV operators who are in line with these groups. But what you also, I think, find is that as a result of these types of pushes, combined with what we saw with the results from the election last night, that the timelines for victory for AV operations and approval in places like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, DC, just got pushed out. They just– I mean, 12, 18, 24 months or longer. And, and, you know, maybe that serves Uber’s purpose, right? but it certainly doesn’t help the autonomy industry. And I think what you will see is, is, in particular, Waymo they’ll look to go overseas. You will. I, my sense, my gut tells me a big. And we’re seeing it. We’ve reported on it. a big international expansion from Waymo. And part of that is their technology’s ready to go, and, and they were always on the roadmap. so I’m not saying this is without forethought from Waymo, like we talked about. We, we both respect Tekedra and Dmitri and, and the way they’re running that organization. but I think it accelerates it and at least puts more emphasis on success internationally to grow because growth in certain corridors of the United States just got harder, and more of your resources are now gonna be used to defend those areas that you thought you had steady ground on. And a lo- and a lot of this is, is going to be more defense than offense in the United States given what these groups are doing successfully in, in DC.

Global Autonomy: Waymo’s International Expansion Strategy

Grayson Brulte: The autonomy economy, as we’ve said from day one when we co-founded this company, is global. The autonomy economy is global. And I have to give a lot of credit, because I’m reading the tea leaves here, and I’m purely speculating, but I’m reading the tea leaves. I have to give a lot of credit to, to, to Sundar, to, to Ruth Porat, to, to Tekdra, to Dimitri. The timing of the Toyota announcement, the disclosure of the Toyota Motor Corporation of a factory being built in Japan, brilliant. Absolutely brilliant timing. And we know, this is all public data again, that Hyundai has the innovation factory in Singapore. Hyundai is a partner. Hypothetically, that factory could build the Waymo IONIQ 5s. And why do I say hypothetically? ‘Cause that factory currently builds the Motional IONIQ 5 robotaxis. So in theory, could build that. And why is that important? Waymo would have two factories building robotaxis outside of the United States. where has history taught us they’re going? Two places. One, Southeast Asia. Two, Europe. And if I’m a member of the, the EU Commission, I am sitting here and I am salivating. Okay, America wants to ban this technology. Well, the EU is behind on AI. You, you see the commissioner saying, “We need to catch up on AI. We need this to be a European product.” I’m gonna open the floodgates even further to autonomy. I’m gonna ingest all this, and then America’s got a problem. It’s playing catch up to Europe. I mean, you could see this really interesting table turning depending on how the EU politics go, ’cause let’s not forget, China’s getting a foothold in Europe on robotaxis, not to even mention battery electric vehicles. So this could be an interesting turning of the tables depending on how the politics go here, and that could potentially backfire on whoever potentially is funding this

Rob Grant: I agree. I agree. And, know, to put it in perspective again, like Waymo’s goal, as we talked about, I think it was just last week is 8,000 vehicles deployed at the end of this year. Uber talked about 700 vehicles deployed by the end of this year. And Waymo’s goal is 20,000 vehicles by the end of next year. I think Uber’s was, was considerably less though ramped up from 700. And so again, you feel like there’s a sense from Uber that things are slipping too fast from their competitive balance, and so they’re reaching for different levers to even that field. which I think is is in their right, right? Nothing they’re doing, if they’re doing any of this, is illegal. These are all perfectly legitimate ways to influence elections and outcomes, but it doesn’t feel like it’s certainly in the best interest of the autonomy economy. And it could be that Europe is a big winner, could be that the Chinese are a big winner out of this. And look, we’ve, we’ve seen and heard from a lot of these Chinese companies that are really doing great progress. I mean, Baidu is progressing very well. Pony.ai is progressing very well. WeRide is progressing very well. and they, they all seem to be moving in the same direction, even though they’re still competing with each other, which is what I would hope to see from the competitors here in the United States, because the job is not done. The job is not done for AV acceptance, and it could very well slip away. And that, and again, that’s my big concern is it makes expansion harder, but it also puts at risk kind of where you’re at now and the status quo. And we could very well see a rollback in these, these states like Georgia, Texas, Florida, California, and others

Grayson Brulte: It’s sad, and the rollback is real, and not to play Monday morning quarterback, but I’m just gonna say that the industry has done a horrible job of, of trying to build public acceptance. It’s, it’s not resonated. The J- the, the James Carville line is about the economy, stupid. Well, we saw what happened. We saw what happened, and it’s time to change the messaging because if the consumer acceptance slips, robotaxis are gonna have a data center moment, and that’s not gonna be good. That’s all I’ll say. It’s not gonna be good. Which brings us to OMEGA’s risk, ’cause yeah, there’s quite a few risks here. Success by Uber and its allies in DC, Pennsylvania, and New York not only delay expansion, but possibly signal support to seek rollback of existing frameworks in, bingo, California. Why is that important? ‘Cause Waymo’s the only one operating there, fully autonomous driver. Al, thank you for drilling that into my head, Rob. I love you for it. Texas, oh, boy. Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. That’s what I’ll say. Oh, boy. Georgia. Geo- Ray Charles, “I don’t have Georgia on my mind, but somebody else does.” And Florida, well, Byron Donalds is governor-elect. Good man. Not gonna happen here in Omega. Sorry about that one. Potentially setting back industry years, if not permanently. If any of these risks were to happen, as I said, hello, Europe. Hello, my darling. Hello, my dolly. Hello, my European Union.

Rob Grant: Right. And, and look, for folks that, that don’t understand, like, there are multiple avenues. It’s not only through the legislative session that these changes could be made, right? And we have just talked about and seen last night a huge change or a, a big change in many of these places in leadership at the governor level and in the state legislative level. And the change in California, right, is not from one party to another, but with Gavin Newsom exiting and Xavier Becerra coming in Newsom was a staunch advocate and defender of AVs and technology. There is no guarantee that Becerra is the same way and there’s no guarantee that these groups could try even through the legislative way or even through ballot initiatives here in California. Ballot initiatives are super popular in California. I think I voted on 11 of them when I submitted my vote by mail. they could– I could see a, a ballot initiative to roll back driverless vehicles in California. and so, you know, that would then take it straight to the, the, the people for a vote not even having to move it through the legislative body. And so it’s gonna be interesting to watch where the fallout from this comes and the fact that, like we said, there’s an alliance, maybe not in formal agreement, but at least an alliance in terms of outcomes that we want from these bills between Uber and the organizations that are pushing for a reversal or a dead stop of AV operations.

Grayson Brulte: You’re in California and, I mean, Wu-Tang, Dollar, Dollar Bill Y’all. California’s like Ballot, Ballot Bill Y’all. And I mean, just look at the AV fights around AV five. You know, are you employee? Are you not an employee? I mean, these fights are. I’m just gonna call a spade a spade. This is my opinion, not reflective of our company. These fights are only gonna pick up, and I think they’re only gonna get more intense. You’re going to have certain sides and bo- well, that are gonna dig their heels in, and they’re gonna feel extremely m- vindicated, and then they will there, and then you’re gonna have other sides that are gonna have to play some pretty tactical defense, and i- it’s gonna be interesting. And, and as a friend of mine who is a political consultant in California, and you can see him on TV, I’ll respect his privacy and won’t name names. He goes, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, the consultant always wins in California.” And unfortunately, Mike, I think you’re, you’re, you’re probably right there. I won’t mention Mike’s last name, but you probably know who he is. So lot of things to watch, which brings us to risk number two. Regardless of if Uber is directly involved in funding these groups, and we are, and for the record, we are not saying they are or they are not. We’re saying that it is a potential. We’re not saying it is. its stance on objecting, ’cause this is public, Uber’s stance on objecting AV authorization bills in multiple US markets risks being seen as a huge no-confidence vote in the product and progress of its current autonomous vehicle partners. That’s what I said earlier. Mega’s, like, taking this out of my brain. I wonder who coded her. that’s like Rodney Dangerfield. “Hey, I can’t get any respect.” That’s what I said all day, “They don’t give me any respect.” And I thought we can go back to school. The partner risk is real with Uber, and I don’t think the market understands just how real that risk is. And if you look at Uber’s Q3 filings today with the SEC, and the supplemental they made public today, you can read on their investor page, the partnership timelines for certain partners. Slipping. Slipping

Rob Grant: Slipping Yes, indeed. Indeed, right? And I think the only thing I’ll add here is just look at our The Road to Autonomy Robotaxi Index, and you can kind of see why Uber feels it may need to take this approach. Waymo is ranked number one. It has either been number one or number two since the day that we published this index. No partner in the US for Uber ranks in the top eight. They are all at the second half of operators. And that’s meant as no disrespect. People are, are evolving this technology, which is a very difficult thing to do from a technology standpoint. and we don’t want them to cut corners on safety and go out when they’re not ready. But the honest truth is they are behind Waymo. Again, not a slap in anyone’s face. Waymo’s been at this longer than anybody well-funded and has, has kind of seen its progress over a decade plus. but the real fact is that, that Uber is missing, in the United States at least, a top-tier partner to compete with Waymo in terms of both its technology, but also its ability to be in as many places and have as broad coverage and fleet size as well. It, it just doesn’t have that. And so I, I, I really do think that, that part of the motivation for Uber, like we said w- they could have nothing to do with these groups. It doesn’t matter. But, but the motivation for them to seek hybrid rules and to slow down other rules is a market structure play because these two operators are in very different positions in terms of their readiness for scale and their readiness to grab and establish new rider habits when it comes to AVs

Grayson Brulte: That’s well said, and I’ll make a prediction here. I won’t give a– let’s say 15 years, sub 15 years. There’ll be a Harvard Business School case study on Uber shutting down, selling ATG to Aurora, and how it ended up being a critical mistake and costing them billions of dollars. Yes, they did it during the, during the depths of COVID. The bet on Aurora has not worked out. That’s all public. They haven’t made money on it. The other bets haven’t worked out, but they had an ATG program, and I was in one of those in original vehicles on Heinz Boulevard in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the snow. I will have it, in the snow. It wasn’t sticking, but I rode in the snow in that Volvo XC90. And the team that Travis built for this, it was ex-Carnegie Mellon, that was a good car. Uber’s autonomy program be-before the Elaine Herzberg incident was a world-class program, and it was on the right tracks. And they shut it down, and now look where they are. And I’m gonna leave it at that, which brings us to OMEGA’s Take. Local munic-municipal and state policy battles over autonomous vehicle commercialization have escalated into existential high-stakes political combat characterized by the deployment of opaque dark money groups, such as the Coalition for Accountability in Road Safety and the People First Transportation Alliance, designed to shield incumbent labor and ride-hailing interest behind coordinated anti-autonomous vehicle lobbying campaigns. Anti-autonomous vehicles. How you’re against autonomous vehicles when they make our roadways safer and they improve our economy, I don’t know. But you know why. That’s OMEGA’s Take

Rob Grant: She’s, again, concise, to the point, not emotional, but sage in the words that she’s chosen

Grayson Brulte: Rob the poet. That’s how we’ll do it. Rob the poet. He- I like this. We had. That was wonderful. So that’s, that was policy world, and you and I, and I can go on for, for, for days on that. But we gotta get to signal two here, because we gotta g- keep the show on track here. Signal two, we’re heading to Japan, because signal two is ditching the wheel, Japan green lights pedal-less Pure Play robotaxis. Bravo, Japan. What do we know about this signal?

Japan’s Unified L4/L5 Certification Framework Explained

Rob Grant: Yeah, the– this is a very encouraging signal. Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport and Tourism, known as MLIT, that’s how most folks refer to it, plans to introduce a unified certification framework starting in December for Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles, moving away from the current one-by-one certification process, which I’ve been through when I was at Cruise, as we had vehicles in Japan operating with, with our partnership with Honda out of Utsunomiya which is north of Tokyo. Certified vehicles will no longer need steering wheels, brake pedals, rearview mirrors, or driver monitoring systems, allowing for lower production costs and flexible interior designs. Think Tesla’s Cybercab. Passenger vehicles, like robotaxis and buses, must still pass crash tests using dummies and, and established testing procedures, while unmanned cargo vehicles are exempt. Both types must feature fail-safe mechanisms for system malfunctions. Now, for you regulatory nerds, of which you all know that I am one, the rule aligns with the UN World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations, WP.29. for those in the know, if you know, you know, WP.29 and WP.1, very important standards set by the UN World Forum. However, operators will still require separate road use permits to run driverless passenger service on public roads. That’s really important. You still need operational authority. The regulatory shift is designed to support the Japanese government, and I love it when you have a government goal. US is lacking a uniform government goal, but Japan has one, as does many other countries that we talk to, UAE and others, of deploying 10,000 Level 4-capable autonomous vehicles by fiscal year 2030. So, in short, Japan has chosen vehicle homologation, another word that I love for you regulatory nerds, vehicle homologation, not service licensing, as the lever it will pull first to achieve their goal of 10,000 vehicles by 2030

Grayson Brulte: Now with Waymo getting ready to ramp up, vehicles come from the Toyota Motor Corporation. I’m gonna say for the record, the Japanese government will hit their goal. And then it will be multiple partners. Don’t forget you have Tier 4 there. You have Wayve with a partnership with Nissan. And so the Tier 4 is a Japanese open source, so from a regulatory, free and clear. Wayve with a partnership with Nissan, regulatory, free and clear. Waymo partnership with Toyota, regulatory free and clear. This gets really interesting, so I’m gonna go on the record and say that they’re gonna hit that goal. But, but zooming out, let’s not forget you got Applied Intuition going there working with Isuzu, so you got that as well. But now let, let’s zoom out. Why is this important? Why does all this matter?

Rob Grant: I mean, this is super important because this is the, the kind of strongest call we’ve seen from Japan that it wants to ease the path forward for these new vehicle types. You know, writing– The revision that writes control-free level four, level five vehicles into a uniform type approval standard is something that manufacturers crave, right? Rather than this one-off, literally you had to bring each car separately for approval, you will now have the ability as a manufacturer for certainty that you can build a purpose-built robotaxi, and it can be certified like any other vehicle in Japan. Now, again, I have to reiterate, MLIT is still keeping the operating permit gate separate, and anything that carries people still needs to pass the crash test. But the reform rewards whoever can put a Japanese market, Japanese-built autonomous vehicle through that standard and then clear the separate permit. It, it’s, it’s that certainty that manufacturers in particular crave, given how long, how expensive it is to produce a fleet of vehicles in this manner. And so that’s the real kind of achievement here. We’re gonna provide certainty. We’re gonna set forward a uniform rule so everybody knows what it has to achieve, and that will make it very easy to understand if I can build this vehicle, if it will be certified, and then deploy at scale when it’s ready and when those operating permits come in.

Grayson Brulte: This is hypothetical. Hypothetically, if Tesla built Cybercab in Japan, would that qualify for this or does it have to go through a whole say, complex process?

Rob Grant: When these rules are in place, it would allow Tesla to certify its vehicles to the Japanese standard. Now, we don’t know exactly what that standard is yet, right? They, they’re just saying they’re going to produce a standard. So I can’t tell you today if the vehicle that’s rolling off the floor in Austin is going to meet that standard. Now, now Japan has different standards, you know, around lighting for their vehicles, around seating positions, things of that nature that I imagine will carry over into this. And so they may have to produce a Japanese variant of the Cybercab. But again, once they know what these rules are and they can meet those standards that are proposed, then they can build as many Japanese variants as they want, and that’s, that’s the benefit of the rule. It, it, it won’t guarantee that what you build in America will be able to be certified in Japan, but it can tell you that if you want to certify in Japan, this is what you need to build it as. and so that clarity is gonna be super important for, for any manufacturer you know, whether in Japan or not to understand how you must build that vehicle to be compliant with these new standards. But once you’re compliant, you’re good to go

Grayson Brulte: There’s one vehicle Jason talks about all the time and he tweets at us on X. He wants an Alfred. He wants an autonomous Alfred. Jason, at some point, buddy, you’re probably gonna get an autonomous Alfred. As Rob said, with this new regulatory re- guidance, you do have a path to get your autonomous Alfred in Tokyo, so you can do This Week In, In Startups Tokyo style, and you can arrive in your autonomous Alfred. Oh, Jason, I’m very little sorry. You’re probably not gonna get it on the Uber network. But I digress, and I’m looking forward to that steak dinner there, buddy. Okay, Rob, timeline. There are some very interesting, if you wanna say coincidences, coordinations, or just happenstance that happened on the rollout of this timeline. November 2nd, this gets announced. Our friend Alex Kendall, the founder and CEO of Wayve, is there with a minister. What do we know about that?

Wayve CEO Hosts Japan’s MLIT Minister on the Day of the Announcement

Rob Grant: Yeah, and you know how, how we feel about coincidences of this sort. Like, there are no coincidences of this sort, if for those who haven’t listened to us before. So on November 2nd, the same day that these rules or this proposed revision came out, on the same day, Wayve CEO hosted Minister Minoru Kuichi for a Wayve drive in Tokyo. He relayed that Japan had selected physical AI and autonomous driving as a national priority, and a UK autonomy company hosting the responsible minister in Tokyo on the same day that these revisions come out is a visible sign that the uniform standard pitch targets foreign autonomy suppliers as much as domestic OEMs. I also think, right, just three days before came the Nikkei report of the Waymo and Toyota announcement with Nihon Katsu. i- it service contingent on national and local approval and completing validation. The, the October 30th step adds factory-built Japanese platforms to the Waymo-Toyota program. All this is not a coincidence. You have Waymo with Toyota, and if for those folks that don’t know, Toyota dominates the Japanese market. obviously, they have competition from Honda, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, others but Toyota is the big dog in Japan. When they announced that they’re going to build a factory or, or add factory-built Japanese platform to its program to help Waymo, that is a big deal. And then you have the Wayve CEO with the minister of MLIT coming over, talking about how they’re gonna progress with foreign autonomy and, and those types of relationships, and then you have this announcement. It’s all very coordinated. It really does elevate not only Japan as a leader in this space now in terms of what its government is enabling in Japan, but it’s also signaling this is a priority, right? Unlike what we’re seeing in the United States and some of these places like DC, Boston, New York where AVs are being questioned as whether or not they should even exist, no less are they a priority. We see a regime here that is saying, “No, this is actually a priority, and we’re going to take enabling steps to make sure that that priority meets our needs, and then promote a goal for to be publicly held accountable to of 10,000 driverless vehicles by 2030.” So all of this is, is well-coordinated. It signals kind of a huge siren call that Japan wants to be a global leader when it comes to autonomy.

Grayson Brulte: Goes back to what we talked about in the first signal. Ying, yang, a tale of two different countries. America is on the verge because of some dark money of trying to ban autonomous vehicles. Japan is sitting here and saying, “We want it to be a national priority.” Let that sit in. There is dark money funded by a group that we don’t know who funds it, saying they wanna ban it in America. Japan’s saying they want it to be a national priority. W-weigh those two things. Japan sees what’s gonna happen economically. They understand with their aging population. We have an aging population in this country. We have a declining birth rate. Guess what? We’re gonna need automation and autonomy any which way you slice it. So it’s a global market. Autonomy’s global. It can easily ship overseas. It’s something to watch. And I wanna– I gotta toot our horns here. If I had the clappy hat with me right now, I’d put it on and clap it for us. 208 days before Waymo and the Toyota Motor Corporation made the announcement, Omega, our proprietary intelligence model, uncovered a press briefing that Waymo gave in Tokyo that represented the Toyota Motor Corporation. 208 days before, Omega called it. Omega clappy hat for you. Rob and I will get you some more GPUs. Don’t worry. Job well done. And for the audience, OMEGA’s open and it’s an MCP. If you’re interested, send an email to [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. And Rob, while this is all fine and dandy, and we love what’s happening in Japan, there are risks. Omega has uncovered the following risks. Risk one: route authorization, fail-safe validation, and operational readiness absorb the time saved through crash test relief. Technical, but very valid risk

Rob Grant: For sure. And as we’ve mentioned a few times, there is no passage of operational readiness just because you build a vehicle that conforms to the new rules that will happen. You still have to show that your vehicle is capable of moving down certain roads under certain conditions, that it has fail-safe backups, right? An escalation path for when the vehicle is unable to perform certain maneuvers. and so all of this is just a caveat that this is exciting and that the, the vehicle side of building the vehicle is going to get great clarity, which is a huge help for those purpose-built vehicles. There’s still an operational side to this as well. And, you know, that’s not to say that, that the Japanese regulators from MLIT to METI to the NPA, these are different organizations, NPA, National Police Association. METI, I think it’s Ministry of Environment, Travel and Industry, I wanna say it is. I, I might have the T wrong. they still have a role in deciding how quickly you can put your vehicles into service. And so it’s, it’s very, I would say, reminiscent of the US where you have kind of federal standards, how you build a vehicle, and then state and local rules that govern whether or not you can put that vehicle on the road. And so this risk is just saying the second part of that equation, the vehicle standard or, or the, the operational requirements, is not solved, but the first one is

Grayson Brulte: That’s valid, which brings us to, to risk two. This is a technical risk in your wheelhouse, and Omega did a really great job uncovering, in my opinion. Risk two here. Japan is unlikely to reach 10,000 L4 vehicles by fiscal year 2030 without faster operational permitting. That is an issue. This is great, I believe, from the technical standpoint, but the permitting standpoint’s your wheelhouse, and OMEGA‘s uncovered a very big risk there

Rob Grant: For sure. And, you know, the areas in which testing has been allowed in Japan has grown. Many years ago, you were limited to areas outside of Tokyo which is where Cruise was testing, and then they slowly opened up different parts of Tokyo to testing. you know, some of the outer suburbs, and as you got closer in. That process still has to play out, and it has to play out in other areas of Japan as well, right? For, for folks that are familiar with Japan, T- Tokyo, sure, right, 30 million people, one of the biggest cities in the world. But there are other places to go. You have Kyoto and Osaka and other places that would like to see this technology, and the government itself would like to see this technology in some of the more remote places, particularly those villages that they’re kind of, I think they’re called, like, sleep towns. There’s a Japanese phrase for it, but it basically describes the sense that the young folks who lived there have moved to the city. What is left is an elderly population that is very, makes the town very sleepy. There’s not a lot of activity going on. But these folks are aging in place, and transportation is a big issue for them. And so the Japanese government has made it a priority for emerging technology to serve these needs. and they were particularly direct with Cruise in our day. “We really need you to, to find a way to serve these communities as much as you serve the communities in Tokyo.” And so there are still some of those issues that have to be resolved in order to get to that 10,000 vehicle number. And they will be resolved in a very local manner. They’re it’s possible that the, the, the Japanese legislature could pass a permitting reform rule that speeds this up. and, and they have that on a, on a five-year timeline on this amazing Gantt chart that Japan always puts out. If you love Gantt charts go look at any Japanese regulator’s website. They’re amazing. They’re, they’re super detailed. and so permitting reform is on the timeline, but you know, politics is politics regardless if you’re in the US or Japan. So there’s no guarantee that the political side of permitting reform gets done in time to reach this national number

Grayson Brulte: Something we’re gonna watch, and I just wanna emphasize and build on what, what Rob talked about with the Japanese government’s policy of, of age in place. One of the main things years ago, looking into it, was getting those elderly folks to healthcare. It’s an issue. And years ago, SoftBank set up a division called SB Drive, and they were building autonomous shuttles. They were really cute. They had the little Pepper the Robot there as the driver to move those elderly individuals from the rural areas to the doctors and home and give them companionship. So i- it’s really interesting. If you’re interested to s- to study it, definitely recommend take a look at it. It’s a really good policy for the, the individuals and the residents of Japan. Which brings us to OMEGA’s take. “Japan’s reform makes vehicle certification more repeatable but does not create a nationwide authorization to operate driverless services. The central deployment constraint remains converting compliant vehicles into locally validated permanent fleets. Hardware flexibility favors adapting global platforms, not e- evidenced Japan-only cabin redesign or assured net cost reduction because steering, braking, and fail-safe capabilities remain necessary.” That just put a whole bow on this conversation.

Rob Grant: That you did. You wrapped it up nicely. I wish you could have done it in origami and maybe made a little cute duck out of it, because it’s, that skill is amazing to me

Grayson Brulte: That’s very difficult. That, that’s very difficult. And the next signal, signal three is very difficult. Cleared for autonomous takeoff. What do we know about autonomy taking to the skies?

Reliable Robotics Demonstrates Autonomous Cargo Flight in Albuquerque

Rob Grant: This is a great indication of where things I think are going in cargo flight, in autonomous cargo flight. A well-named, and I love this name, company called Reliable Robotics. Talk about putting your stamp on what you want the consumer to feel about your product. Reliable Robotics is actively testing and certifying autonomous flight systems on Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft, backed by FAA programs exploring how uncrewed planes can integrate international airspace. Reliable Robotics demonstrated a flight where software handled taxiing, takeoff, and landing in Albuquerque. I love Albuquerque, the, the minor league team down there, the Albuquerque Isotopes, one of the greatest logos in all sports. So they did all this in Albuquerque while being supervised by a pallet- pilot over 700 years– 700 miles away in California, keeping an onboard safety pilot only as a backup. Now, what’s interesting is Reliable Robotics deliberately avoids neural network AI due to its lack of traceability and explainability, relying instead on FAA-provided navigation data, algorithmic filters, and existing airport infrastructure to meet strict safety certification standards. So the initial regulatory approvals focus on automating taxiing, takeoff, and landing because these are the most hazardous stages of flight. I did not know this. This is a stat that Omega provided me. 70% of fatal commercial jet accidents occur in one of those three stages. That’s something I did not know. So fully uncrewed operations do remain years away due to the need for high system redundancy, regulatory approvals, public comfort, legal liability questions, and the continued necessity of remote human supervision. But it is, it is a big step forward for autonomous cargo flight

Grayson Brulte: It’s a huge step forward. In Albuquerque, I’ve been to the balloon festival. Getting up at in the morning and watching those balloons blow up is incredible because the way you are there in the canyon with the winds, as you know. Shout out to, we’re gonna go to Winnipeg, Canada here, Neil Young’s Albuquerque. That was the first thing I did when I went into Albuquerque. I blasted Neil Young, Albuquerque. I was like, “Oh, okay, I’m in Albuquerque now.” Neil Young has taken me there. But yeah, really good food there as well. And little fun inside baseball here. Albuquerque is the former home of Torc Robotics. Peter von Schmidt and the Torc team hosted me there. Thank you, Peter, very kind of you. And inside baseball, they were located at an old Dodge dealership. Remember Dodges? The Dodge Chargers, the Dodge Hemi. And I said, “Peter, why the. are you located here?” And he, and he points down. I said, “Oh.” He goes, “Fiverr line,” ’cause it’s, it was right next to the university, so they were able to get Fiverr. So very interesting Albuquerque insight for you. But that, that aside, this is impressive what’s happening here with the autonomous cargo. Why does it matter?

Rob Grant: Yeah. So, I mean, I love the Albuquerque knowledge, and you shout out Winnipeg, which may be the first time I’ve ever heard anyone shout out Winnipeg. I had spent some time there back in my Lyft days, and it’s the only time that I ever saw a polar bear. it, it is just a cold, cold place and if you go to the outskirts of some of the suburbs there, you get very close to nature which is great if you like nature. If you don’t, not so great. the mid-October milestone achieved by Reliable Ro- Robotics is, is it matters because it shows that aviation automation is, is successfully shifting from high-altitude autopilot cruising to complex ground-to-air transitions, right? By executing automated taxiing, takeoff, and landing operations at a major commercial airport under remote supervision from California, the company bypassed the traditional requirement for localized human intervention during high-risk phases of flights. The progress indicates that the operational design domain for commercial aviation autonomy is expanding faster than perhaps the general public perception suggests. And so the, it’s a big deal what they did particularly, you know, going autonomous during these most dangerous parts of a flight is a big step. Now, what is also kind of a unique step, and that we’ll continue to watch, is that what we see with the ground-based robotaxi developers, right? And we’ve just spent a bunch of time talking about them today. They rely on these neural networks heavily, and Reliable Robotics is intentionally avoiding using neural networks because they believe it’s, it’s an unexplainable AI, and they’re doing this to secure regulatory sign-off. So to our earlier discussion, will some Educated regulator who’s maybe listening to the show say, “Wait, I’ve got an idea now. Yeah, I’ve got more questions than I had before. Where I, I wanna learn more about neural networks.” so it, it’s, it’s really interesting how they’re doing it. but I will say that the, the third leg that matters here is that there is a, a large question around liability and regulatory compliance. So aviation safety thresholds, they, they demand critical failures occur in less than one in a billion flight hours. Think about that, one in a billion flight hours. A standard traditionally met only by pairing autopilots with onboard human operators, right? We don’t have fully autonomous commercial passenger flights. Now, they operate autonomously 98% of the time in the air, right? The, your pilot is not sitting there with his hands on the joystick while you’re going cross country for most of the flight. But he is or she is engaged heavily in the three areas that we just talked about in terms of taxiing, takeoff, and landing. And so, you know, aviation stakeholders also will tell you, and we talked to a few, that human pilots serve a legal function as well. and I’m sure, I’m sure the pilots feel this when you talk to them, but they’re there sometimes just to absorb the liability in the event of a crash. so overcoming these structural barriers will require systematic multi-step approvals before you will see fully autonomous cargo flights. But the, the, the technology is progressing. The envelope through which they can push into to do this testing is expanding, and you’re doing it with a federal regulator as a partner here, and all of that is encouraging for what comes next in this space

Grayson Brulte: It’s extremely encouraging. I, I’m very encouraged that you unfortunately did not become friends with the polar bear. They’ve been known to attack people. If you go into the Arctic, you have to go there with somebody with a gun. And, and, and I will give you another Winnipeg, also home of the guess who. And so maybe the p- the po- thank goodness the polar bear didn’t have these eyes for Rob. I’d be scared. I’d have to stand tall. I’m, I’m, I’m staying with the Winnipeg. I’m staying with the Winnipeg bear for you. Burton, I remember all those years, buddy. Good times we had. Okay, that aside, that aside, I do believe at some point, and this is my personal opinion, autonomous flight is coming. It is most likely to start with cargo. I believe it’ll go from two pilots in the cockpit to one in the cockpit, one not in the cockpit, to one in the cockpit, and you start removing eventually with a pilot. In the, the final phase, the pilot will be i- in the back area up there for emergency, and the pilot’s gonna finally remove. It’s, it’s gonna happen. Reliable Robotics, it seems that they have reliable plans, or we’d hope they’re reliable plans. When are they looking to deploy this? What do we know from their publicly stated timeline perspective?

Rob Grant: Yeah, they’re targeting their first approvals for automated taxi takeoff and landing at the end of 2027. So that is with an onboard pilot still in the vehicle not necessarily engaging it, but there just in case. And they believe that removing that onboard pilot is to come in later years. so they, they have kind of an ambitious plan to, to get the first regulatory approvals by the end of next year, and then a plan to eventually move that operator much in the way that you just described. So I will mention the last thing on Winnipeg. The thing you won’t find there anymore is Connor Hellebuyck, our gold medal-winning USA goalie has now forced his way out of the Winnipeg Jets and onto the New Jersey Devils, where he is partnered with Olympic hero Jack Hughes

Grayson Brulte: You’re onto something here. Well, he might not be there, but you know what else you could find up there? A Tim Horton’s. -ha-ha-ha. See? You can- so you can get a Tim Horton’s up there. I remember the first time I took my family to Vancouver. First off was Tim Horton’s. The donuts were good, the coffee, eh, not so good. Sorry I said the quiet part out loud. Which brings us to OMEGA’s take. Safety authorizations and airspace integration requirements con- constrain cargo deployments despite the absence of passengers. Anytime you put anything in the air, there is risk

Rob Grant: Exactly. And that billion hour figure that we just discussed, right? That is an enormous number to meet. And so it will be a while before the FAA signs off on the safety. they also are very aware of the airspace integration requirements, and this is not unique to cargo planes, by the way or autonomous cargo planes. You’re seeing it with drones. You’re seeing it with the eVTOL operators. there is going to be a significant advancement in airspace integration coming, and I think this is one issue where technology is going to be super useful as more and more things get put into our airspace that are autonomous. And so, you know, I think one of the things that, that I look forward is to talking with more of the folks that are working on these kind of super small but super important issues, right? Not a lot of people are talking about airspace integration requirements and autonomy, but you and I are excited about it. Even more excited than me going to Tim Hortons in Winnipeg which is pretty darn exciting. And so we’ll, we’ll continue to follow up on the progress being made because it’s one of the structural things that once unlocked, kind of helps accelerate the entire industry, and it, it’s just not something that gets a lot of attention.

Grayson Brulte: Don’t go there when it’s minus 18, minus 30. It gets cold on the prairie. And then you’re right, autonomous aircraft is fascinating. We’re tuned to monitor that. The integration, you need more air traffic controls, and you, you need to upgrade your new software, and there is opportunity there. And where there’s opportunity, there’s us. Rob and I are here each and every week breaking down the signals for you in the autonomy markets. And if you can’t wait to reach us the thir– every, every week, send a note to [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. We’re here. We’re ready to assist, and there’s a good chance that your competitors are taking our assistance, so reach out. The future is bright. The future autonomous. The future is a global autonomy economy. Rob, we went all over the map. We’re in Winnipeg. We’re in California. We’re in the sky, and we had a lot of little musical references. We had a great show

Rob Grant: I love it. I have so much fun doing this. I appreciate everybody who listens to it, allows us to do this and have fun. And I love hearing your stories about your family trip to Vancouver, where if I’m the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, I’m a little bit worried that your highlight was a Tim Horton’s donut

Grayson Brulte: There is a story that I won’t repeat here that was a disappointment, but I will say really great seafood, great skiing in Whistler. We had a great time. Perhaps I’ll integrate that story into a, a later thing. And if you like hamburgers or steak, you know exactly what I mean. Rob, I can’t wait for next week

Rob Grant: Looking forward to it

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