Transcript: First Impressions of Tesla FSD 14, Waymo’s Next Potential Markets

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the much-anticipated release of Tesla’s FSD 14, offering a first-hand account of its new parking capabilities and lingering driveway quirks. Later the conversation shifts to the regulatory landscape as NHTSA has opened a preliminary investigation into FSD following numerous incident reports. 

On the robotaxi front, Waymo hired four lobbyists in Minnesota as part of an effort to change the law to make fully autonomous vehicles with no safety driver legal on public roads, all the while Lyft announced a “Lyft Ready” partnership with Tensor Auto to streamline vehicle integration in an effort to grow their robotaxi fleet.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Key Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[00:34] Walt’s First Impressions of Tesla FSD 14

Walt received early access to FSD 14 and reports a mixed experience. The system successfully performed a complete trip, including backing out of his driveway, driving to a destination, and navigating a tight parking lot to park itself, a major step forward in functionality. However, it still struggles to drive up his unmapped driveway and at one point attempted to pull into a neighbor’s. He notes the driving feel is sometimes more hesitant or jerky than previous versions, speculating that it’s programmed to be overly cautious.

[07:08] NHTSA Opens Preliminary Investigation into Tesla FSD

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched a preliminary investigation into Tesla’s FSD software. This action follows 58 reports of traffic safety violations, which include 14 crashes and 23 injuries across 2.88 million vehicles. It’s believed that a complete program shutdown is highly unlikely. Instead, if issues are found, the probable outcome is a “recall” that would be addressed through an over-the-air software update rather than a physical return of vehicles.

[12:21] Tesla Gains FSD Testing Approval in Sweden

In a positive regulatory development, Tesla has been approved for FSD testing in Sweden, the seventh country to grant such permission. The permit allows for three company-owned vehicles to be tested for three years. As Sweden is a member of the European Union, this marks the first FSD approval within the EU and may set a precedent for how the technology is rolled out across the continent.

[14:50] Waymo Hires Lobbyists to Enter Minnesota Market

Waymo is making a strategic push into Minnesota by hiring four lobbyists to change a state law that is currently blocking the deployment of driverless robotaxis. The law requires a person to be in the vehicle who can take control if needed. Waymo aims to get the law amended during the next legislative session, which could clear the way for commercial operations in Minnesota by August 1st, 2026.

[20:25] Waymo Testing Update in NYC and Miami

Waymo’s expansion and testing efforts continue to be visible in major US cities. A Waymo vehicle was spotted testing with a safety driver in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Additionally, photos have surfaced of Waymo vehicles testing at the Miami airport, suggesting that airport pickups and drop-offs could become a standard feature from day one in new market launches.

[22:05] Sidewalk Delivery Bots: DoorDash & Serve, and “Dot”

The autonomous delivery space is heating up as DoorDash announced a partnership with Serve to begin robotic deliveries in Los Angeles. This news closely followed DoorDash’s unveiling of its own delivery robot, “Dot,” which can travel up to 20 mph in bike lanes. Dot is equipped with a sensor suite of eight external cameras, one interior camera, four radar, and three LIDAR sensors, signaling DoorDash’s major ambitions in autonomy.

[26:55] Lyft and Tensor Auto Announce “Lyft Ready” Partnership

Lyft has partnered with Tensor Auto to make their vehicles “Lyft Ready” straight off the factory line. This “deep tech integration” means the vehicles are pre-configured with all necessary software to immediately operate on the Lyft network, managing everything from routing to safety features. The partnership aims to execute on the long-discussed business model where individual owners can purchase an autonomous vehicle and add it to a ride-hailing fleet to generate revenue.

[31:05] Aurora Gets Warning Trial Exemption for Autonomous Trucks

In a major win for the autonomous trucking industry, Aurora has received a regulatory exemption from needing to use physical warning triangles if a truck pulls over on the side of the highway. This removes a significant logistical hurdle for driverless operations. Importantly, this waiver is now available for any autonomous trucking company to apply for, paving the way for broader commercial deployment of autonomous trucks across the trucking sector.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt, Back in America, I even had a visitor on my flight, Sir Richard Branson, of all people. He flew into Miami. He was in the front and I was in the rear with the gear. But that’s how things go. And while I come back. It’s boy, oh boy. It’s acceleration of autonomy. Maybe somebody got nervous that I was in England learning about what they’re doing, but all joking aside, Tesla released FSD 14. You somehow got it. Then NHTSA opens a preliminary agreement into Tesla for FSD, and then all lo and behold, Waymo goes and hires four lobbyists for Minnesota. A lot to break down this week, but the big question, you got FSD 14, does it go up your driveway?

Walter Piecyk: Yes, I was very pleased to be added to the early access group for, uh, for Tesla, and I did get FSD 14. My testing has been pretty limited so far, just ’cause it’s been a very busy week. So first on the very positive, I basically pressed a button. The thing backs outta my driveway, drives all the way to the fish door, which I’ve talked about on this podcast a lot. Pulled into the parking lot, which is a very tight and small parking lot, and then parked. So, you know, check mark something. Obviously we expected, obviously people are, are talking about it. Um, but yeah, that was a big positive. On the flip side, like it still can’t figure out my driveway. It, it wants to kind of, I think it’s possibly, ’cause my driveway is not on the map. It’s not in the center of where the front lot is. Like at one point it went to my neighbor’s driveway and pulled in there. I’m trying to train it to do so. So it looks like. The car can quite easily go, you know, end their, their ride in a driveway, but for whatever reason, I still can’t get, get it to go up my driveway. So hopefully I will provide an update if and when that happens. The funny thing is, I think on FSD 12, there was one time on my wife’s, uh, Tesla that it actually did go up the driveway, but I continued to have that as as a problem.

Grayson Brulte: When I get it, hopefully this weekend, I’ll see if it goes to my driveway. But you went in your neighbor’s driveway. Did you wave and say. Hi, honey. I’m home.

Walter Piecyk: These are long driveways, so I didn’t get up to that, to that point, and I stopped it and tried to encourage the car, um, to make that turn into my driveway. Why don’t we go through some of the, um, some of what other people experienced this week who also got 14 one, and you’re familiar with some of these people I think.

Grayson Brulte: I am. We got whole Mars blog, and I’m gonna quote this here. It says 14.1 is way smoother, less jerky, more confident turns dirty. Tesla, it’s an interesting name, but he’s been quoted by Elon several times and quote says, best version yet on highways, but still gets weird in city lanes. And then I’ll use the term mixed commentary on Reddit. What are you experience? Is it smooth? Is it jerky? What are you experiencing?

Walter Piecyk: the whole Mars thing is just weird. I mean, it’s definitely not what I would consider smoother. It’s not worse. It ba and, and by the way, I said this last week, like I’m not sure for me how it can get better. It already feels like it, like human driving. I, you know, I prefer when FSD drives to when I drive. If anything there, there are moments when it, it feels like it’s trying to be more safe than prior versions. And as a result there’s, there are some, um, you know, hesitant or jerky kind of moves that I’ve, that I’ve experienced thus far. The interfaces are very different. Like you don’t scroll up and down in terms of mileage. You choose a lot more, um, you know, versions of how the car is gonna drive. So I’ve been messing around with that a little bit and that might have had something to do with it. And there was also one situation where I was pulling out of a parking lot, , and there was like a metal, I don’t know what was impacting the car, but there was, there was a metal drain there, but for whatever reason it was about to go up to make an unprotected left and then it like backed up almost for the camera to look at what it was in front of and what I was driving over. Again, I’m just speculating what the car was doing, but physically it just backed up. Then it went on, went on its way and it almost felt to a point where like someone was controlling the card to get a better look. Like, Hey, I’m gonna back up from here, take a look and then say it’s okay to drive. So I’m wondering is it possible that there are, you know, there, the early access group is not a large group I think of, of users. Is it possible that they’re sending certain scenarios back to a remote evaluator to decide like, yes, you can move forward and continue to drive? ’cause I’ve also heard, I’ve also seen. On social media situations where people have said like, it didn’t do something, then it started to do something like it was almost thinking on the spot and changing its mind. I just, I almost wonder if in these rides, are they, is it possible they’re sending it back to a, a, a human to determine whether the remote driving should proceed?

Grayson Brulte: Anything’s possible. I mean, at this point, it’s pure speculation until we get a no from Tesla. But I’ll ask you this. Since you had very, I’ll say very limited experience with FSD 14, do you feel that it’s another step forward towards FSD unsupervised? Have you seen any major improvements?

Walter Piecyk: yeah, obviously the major improvements are, it parks at the destination, right? You press a button and then it just goes. The concept of pressing a button on your phone and hopping in a car and then taking you to, to a location which it parks. And I think Elon was talking today about how like you could get off at the front of the store in a, in a grocery parking lot, and then the car goes and looks for a parking spot on its own. So obviously that the, that’s a major development forward. It’s just interesting that in the actual riding of it, there’s been some changes that, I don’t know, maybe again, it’s trying to be more safe than not. That just changed a little bit. About the feel, not necessarily to to, to my preference. Um, but I think when you look at it on balance, it’s obviously better in term of the functionality. Now, Grayson, the question though I have for you is that’s fine. This is this universe of FSD 14 one. What does this mean, if anything, to whatever version of FSD is happening in Austin right now, and what does it pretend, if anything, about when that. Safety attendant is gonna get pulled out of the passenger seat in that market.

Grayson Brulte: We don’t know what version of FSD they’re running in Austin. I still believe it’s a fork of some version of FSD optimized for it. I stick to my prediction by the end of the. A year, probably I would say around November that the, the safety driver gets removed

Walter Piecyk: I agree with that. I just don’t know if this 14. Whatever we’re seeing at 14 is gives us any kind of signal as, as, as people would say, in terms of getting closer to that, I think, I think we have to consider them as two, , two very separate things in terms of, you know, that development. So, and again, like the functionality of being able to park is, is just, it’s just gonna be much more useful I think over time, you know, with incremental updates. Some of these other things that we’ve ex, that I’ve experienced. , Might clean themselves up, but it, you know, and, and we’ll see about this kind of, it almost like changing its mind midway where you actually feel that mind changing, you know, in, in the middle of your ride. You know, how that kind of works out and what’s really happening there in, in the background. Is it the software doing this? Is there a human involved? I don’t know. I would doubt that it’s a human involved, but like, it just felt like that might’ve been the situation, but you know, it was a one-off.

Grayson Brulte: I can’t wait until you go to dinner. You, you get dropped off in front and the vehicle goes and parks off and come back and get you. That’s gonna be great. Well, well, Tesla’s advancing on the technology. They’re taking bumps and bruises on the policy side. This week, NHTSA opened. A preliminary, that’s the key word. A preliminary investigation into Tesla. Looking at FSD specifically with 58 reports of issues involving traffic safety violations when using FSD, including 14 crashes and 23 injuries affecting 2.88 million Tesla vehicles. What are your thoughts on this? ’cause last week we talked a little bit about the politics here, but what are your thoughts?

Walter Piecyk: Well, I mean, I think it’s just an extension of that. Right. And, and none of these crashes or injuries are, are new information. This is, you know, some of the new stuff. At least that was highlighted was by Senators Markey and Blumenthal. Were about some of the, you know, the railroad crossings and things like that. So it’s just, you know, the politics and, and by the way, credit to NHTSA. Well, actually there’s no press release, so this is really more of a REUters thing. So it’s not like they’re being responsive to pressures from Markey and Blumenthal. For all we know, this NHTSA of investigation was, had already been, you know, going on for some period of time. But that’s their job, right? To keep people safe. And you know, at the end of the day, like that’s what we’re trying to do here, right? You have whatever, 60,000 or so people that unfortunately are killed on our roads that are, have nothing to do with autonomy. But you want as this new technology to evolve for the, for it to be safe. That’s the whole point, right? To aid it, to save lives. And then obviously we know what the, or we have our views on how that’s gonna, should change the economy. So I guess my question back to you. Grayson is, how do you think this will go? I mean, I, I have a, a big, a good feel for how processes go with the FCC, the FTC, the DOJ. I’ve been through these things hundreds of times, don’t have as much, you know, experience or none in NHTSA. What’s the timeline? You know, what are the, the possible, procedures that, that stem out of this? If they find that there’s an issue that they need to, to progress on.

Grayson Brulte: The timeline I’m not gonna comment on, I’m gonna cop out on that for the simple fact there’s a government shutdown and, and, and, and we don’t know. So I’m gonna defer to that on that from a, a procedural process. This is hypothetical. I wanna say this is hypothetical and pure speculation on my part. Where in a hypothetical situation, if NHTSA does potentially find something, they will issue a recall. Now I wanna clarify the issue with the recall, because what will happen is te, they will say, okay, there’s an issue potentially with railroads. Tesla will push out a software update. Is not a recall, in my humble opinion. When it’s a software update, the word recall has to go away and you call a a, a software fix, a a software update, a software enhancement. Because you and I both know the headlines around the world, Tesla recalls 2.8 million vehicles. They’re not recalling them. They’re not going into a shop. It’s a software update.

Walter Piecyk: It’s, it’s a terminology differential, but the, the weird thing is like some of the, forget about the, the train thing for a moment. Some of the other things that I saw written about in the press about the, the, issues that, that existed in terms of going through a red light or not going through, through a, or not going moving during a green light. Like many of these things I’ve just never experienced and I’ve been through, I mean. I wanna say thousands, but at least hundreds of stoplights with, with FSD and, and at least for me, sample of one never has actually, you know, gone through the light that I can recall. I think I might have, I think I might have recalled that if that was about to happen. So I don’t know how, do you recall something that maybe has already been, even if it occurred in the first place, already been patched on the other stuff? Sure. Like, you know, if there’s issues with. Road barriers or things like that, and the company can come out and say like, okay, here’s your software update. You know, whether they call it a recall or not, it’ll, it’ll be fixed and, and you know, then they can move on to the next thing. But I think your answer though, relative to maybe some out there, some of our listeners that have, you know, often given us feedback is shutting the whole program down, you know, icing them for six months. Do you think that is a possible or probable. Outcome where it’s not just, Hey, send this recall software update. It’s no freeze the program for six months or a year or whatever.

Grayson Brulte: I’m gonna give you the non politician answer. No, not possible. Not gonna happen. That’s the definitive answer.

Walter Piecyk: Okay, well that’s, I mean, I don’t want politician or non pol. I just want the truth, like what’s gonna happen?

Grayson Brulte: on that front, so let’s, let’s zoom, go back in history. This has happened many times throughout history. It’s all documented on NHTSA NHTSA.gov. You can go through it, you can all see the documents. Tesla has issued quote unquote recalls many times before the same thing’s gonna happen. They can issue a software update. And then people are gonna scream. It’s not safe. NHTSA is corrupt, all the usual talking points. But NHTSA is a great organization that’s doing really good work to make the roadway safe. And they have a great administrator, Mr. Morrison. They have great staff and they’re gonna do the right thing at the end of the day.

Walter Piecyk: So meanwhile, in the regulatory front around the world in Sweden, Tesla just got approved for FSD testing there. So, you know, I find it interesting ’cause not exactly a, uh, like a pro Elon market, when I deal with stuff on SpaceX and some of the regulatory approvals that they need to, to get there, you know, one of the things we always have to consider is how politics. You know, get involved in the approval process that Elon needs to face with many of his different companies, um, to get to the next step. So I think probably a positive step if, if in Sweden you’re getting FSD testing.

Grayson Brulte: There have to be company owned vehicles. Three vehicles for three years is the permit, and that becomes the seventh country in the world to approve FSD. So it’s a a very big positive because I believe over time you’re going to see countries that do not want to be left behind on autonomy. And you had a, a speech from the president of the EU saying she wants autonomy to be built in the EU. And we’re seeing what’s happening there and it’s a conversation for another day. But I believe that countries are gonna open up and, and start to really want this technology and openly embrace it.

Walter Piecyk: so the other interesting part of this, Grayson, is while Sweden does have its own currency, they are an EU member. So this I think, is the first country in the EU. And that’s interesting because I like, is that how it’s gonna work in Europe where individual countries will provide Tesla with FSD testing? You know, maybe that happens initially. And then ultimately the EU, EU comes in over the top and either squashes what these individual countries are doing or promotes it further. I mean, Europe is, is obviously a challenging space and as I’ve, as I’ve seen with spaceX, it, it can be, you know, politics obviously can play a role there.

Grayson Brulte: I don’t know where things are gonna go with Tesla in the EU. I will say I have to study the EU market more from regulatory standpoint. I have met with the European Union Commission that’s regulating autonomous vehicles. The laws aren’t done yet, but I need to do more homework before I can give you a conclusive answer.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we have our own issues here in the United States where, you know, even just this week we, we, you know, we’re learning that. Based on some press reports, Waymo’s hiring several people to try and get into Minnesota. , You know, because at the state level, they, um, they can’t launch driverless robotaxis there because the, the, the state there requires a person to be on a board. And who is able to take over driving if necessary. Presumably that means immediately. So there needs to be some, some state changes there. You know, again, no national framework.

Grayson Brulte: And that’s, and that’s an issue. Waymo hired 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 lobbyists to go in there and try and change the law. The, they have to lay the groundwork. The, the timing from a hiring is very good. The Minnesota State legislative body goes back into session on Tuesday, February 17th. That session runs until May 16th, and then upon the completion, if that’s when it ends on May 16th, which is scheduled to, but it could be extended, Waymo could legally be operating in Minnesota by August 1st, 2026. That’s when the laws would take effect if they were able to get it through this session. So a lot to watch, but that’s the timeline for the audience from a policy perspective. Of when they could legally operate commercial robotaxi service If they do get a bill and it is signed by the governor.

Walter Piecyk: So do you think they hold back on doing anything in that market before? You know, basically making this a test market or whatever the term, the road trip market? ’cause they don’t wanna. Enrage, any of the local policy makers there by putting undue pressure on them.

Grayson Brulte: Well, if you look at Boston, that would give you an example why you look at Seattle. I’ll give you another example. Why. Un unsure Waymo’s policy team one time is doing this strategy and the next time they’re doing this strategy. So I don’t know what strategy they’re, they’re going to do. The fact that they’ve hired the lobbyists, they’re, they’re, they’re starting the engagement process would signal to me that perhaps they will announce it as a road trip. But Walt, pretty soon it’s gonna be, bur it’s gonna be cold. There’s a lot of snow in Minneapolis, St. Paul. Maybe they, they, they disguise it and say, Hey, we test in Buffalo. We want to test here. ’cause the weather, I, I’m unsure at this time

Walter Piecyk: the other interesting thing about Minnesota is that’s the homestead of Minneapolis that could be attractive because it’s one of the few markets left in these top 20 markets that Waymo still has not announced the plans in. You know, this is something we track pretty closely at LightShed, and if you look at the top 20 markets from top to bottom, they haven’t done Chicago. You know, there’s been some speculation, but nothing really there. Riverside, San Bernardino, you know, you can maybe comment on that. 12th, largest market. Nothing planned or talked about there. Minneapolis and Tampa. So Riverside, San Bernardino. I kind of get, we’ll talk about Minneapolis. Well, let’s talk about Minneapolis and Chicago first. Like those have. Clearly harsher weather than, you know, a New York or a Boston. Is that the reason why they’ve been left off? It’s just this heavier snow because I went to the Super Bowl in Minneapolis, thank goodness we actually won back then. And while there’s a ton of snow in Minneapolis, they do a hell of a job at cleaning the roads. So like what, what is the fear factor between Chicago and and Minneapolis of, of entering those markets?

Grayson Brulte: I don’t know what the fear factor is. When you were at that Super Bowl, there was an autonomous shuttle that was operating there con very small controlled environment, but they, they did operate it there and there is a willingness from the local city government to deploy autonomous vehicles. So perhaps that’s why we’re seeing Waymo hire the lobbyist, Chicago politics.

Walter Piecyk: Yep.

Grayson Brulte: There’s no other way to summarize it, but politics, and I’m pretty sure, and I’m pretty confident Waymo could handle the lake effect, but they can’t handle the politics at this point, in my opinion.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, can you imagine? So let’s, again, let’s put Riverside aside for a moment. Tampa’s the other one. So let, let’s briefly talk about Tampa. I think you might have some familiarity with it. It’s in the same state in which you live in, but how is Tampa not already done? How do you, how do you not do Tampa? If you’re Waymo and you’re doing like Nashville, which is like the 35th largest market.

Grayson Brulte: full disclosure, I was involved in several conversations about roughly five years ago with the city of Tampa. Hi, Hillsborough County, which the county and and the AV companies. Talks broke down between several companies. This wasn’t one company talks broke down. There was a mayor who did not really care for this technology. Whether that’s the reason it broke down, I’m not gonna speculate, but early on there were talks. It is a fast growing market. They have great sports teams, they have infrastructure there. Hopefully those talks can get revived and, and Tampa can go because it makes no sense not to deploy. robotaxis in Tampa, and then also deployment St. Pete go over the causeway. You got two markets right there that that is a fast growing market.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I agree with that. So then Chicago, I would guess, you know, it’s the third largest city, I guess, in how we look at cities. , It’s just gonna have to be, I think if, if they end up getting traction in these other cities, they’ll put pressure on them. Obviously, if they can succeed in Boston and New York. Chicago won’t fall far behind. So if we go past these top 20 markets, just for our listeners intrigue, the next three markets where Waymo has not yet announced doesn’t seem like there should be major political issues there, but maybe to keep your eye on in the 21 spot you have Charlotte, you in the 22 spot, you have Baltimore and the 23 spot you have St. Louis. So those, those are maybe three markets. To keep your eye on that should be a target of, of Waymo for, you know, whenever they’re, they’re, they can get the volume to support that.

Grayson Brulte: Look, the question is when are they gonna get the volume? That’s something that you and I have been watching that we don’t know. We’re gonna have to continue to watch and you have to always look at the, the markets staying on the theme of markets. You are in New York, you put a photo one x. See, even when I’m building something or I’m traveling, I keep an eye on you, Walt, don’t you worry. East 12th Street. You saw a Waymo, so did you put on your your hat and go chase it and say, I gotta go do field work. Did you try and stop it? What did you do?

Walter Piecyk: Well, for full disclosure, that was sent to me by a friend. That was not my picture, not seeing it. But this person was well versed in what to look for. Did see a driver behind the driver wheel. Um, this is downtown in Greenwich Village in in New York City. Um, you know, this is part of, I guess their road, Tripp road trip. For New York, you know, we have an election coming up. We’ll see how that goes and see how Waymo’s progress, you know, progresses there. But hopefully, you know, people get excited when they see some of these robots driving around town.

Grayson Brulte: Depending on the outcome of that election, Miami’s economy could potentially be very happy with all the individuals migrating down there. And this week there’s photo surfacing on X. The Waymo vehicles are testing at the Miami airport. I was just there. I can’t wait to have ’em there. What do you think? Is this a sign that when Waymo launches a new market, airports are gonna come online? Potentially on day one,

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, airports are inevitable and, and maybe Miami is gonna be more welcoming to it as San Francisco, I think San Jose airport obviously is gonna be even more welcoming than San Francisco. So, you know, it’s, it’s. I think you’ll see kind of these domino effects in in 26 and 27.

Grayson Brulte: And before we go on to a new topic that we’re gonna cover here, sidewalk bots, I wanna offer a correction from last week as I documented. I was in the the wave vehicle last week. I said here publicly on the podcast that that vehicle had 12 cameras. The correction is, it had six cameras, which is even more impressive. And I want to clarify the chip, it was running the Nvidia Orin chip and their next Gen three vehicle will be running the Thor. So I want to give a correction there to our audience. Now onto Sidewalk Bots. The market’s exploding with Sidewalk Bots. This week s announced a partnership with DoorDash where they’re gonna start taking DoorDash orders starting in the LA market. And that comes on the heels of the week before when I was in London. DoorDash rolls out Dot, I must much rather been checking out the Dot in San Francisco than hanging out in London. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s seeing this market’s starting to get some really big momentum here.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, that was, that was quite a, a change. One week. You’ve got the dot, which is their own rogue. Lot the next week you have them doing deals with Serve, but you know, at the moment it’s, it looks like, you know, you’ve got a couple of opportunities Serve Coco among others that can address this market. There’ll be kind of a race to, I think who can develop share in there, whether they all survive or not. We’ll see. And like we see in autonomy, you have, uh, OEMs, I think the comparable here is like, I’m an OEM, like Toyota or whatever. And I’m, I’m developing or lucid, I’m developing my own internal version of autonomy and then at the same time doing partnerships with other external autonomy companies. So if you’re DoorDash, it obviously makes se sense to have some internal development as well as partnering with companies like Serve who’ve been successful at raising capital and, and starting to launching in the markets Dinner And Serve is at this kind of inflection point to try and really get production volumes of the robots, and that ends up. There was a lot of words for me to build up to the, to a key word that we’re focused on here. Production, right? Production is the key to Waymo. It’s, it’s obviously gonna be, be the key to any of these companies, to get enough cars on the road fast enough to Serve the demand that we think exists. Whether that’s taking people, or in this case with DoorDash, taking your food or whatever other, um, small items, physical items to, to your customers.

Grayson Brulte: The, the big underlining thing here that has not been highlighted enough in my opinion, is. DoorDash clearly has big autonomy ambition. So now we have dot, they’re, they’re doing stuff in drones. Perhaps they’re gonna do middle mile delivery, but it’s clear that they have big autonomous ambitions. And, Dot is not a sidewalk bot. Let’s clarify that. It can go 20 miles an hour. It can go on bike lanes at 20 miles an hour. That’s pretty, pretty impressive. And the, they’re operating in Mesa, in Tempe, Arizona. So I got asked Walt, do we have to go take a field trip to go see.in person?

Walter Piecyk: I think that’s a great idea if they’ll, if they’ll have us to, to take a look at it. 20 miles an hour, that’s, that’s kind of fast. I don’t think you want that necessarily on the sidewalk, but. Depends, I guess, what type of sidewalk that it is. , And I don’t know, maybe putting them in the bike lanes will slow down some of the cyclists so they don’t kill the pedestrians in the first place. , So maybe, you know, stashing them in the bike lanes will be a good thing to, to normalize some of that traffic.

Grayson Brulte: I like to see him in in New York and when we always do this now, and I’m loving this thing where we have to break down the hardware. So I wanna break down the hardware for you that’s running on dot. It has eight external cameras, one interior camera, four radar, three LIDAR sensors. The key with the lidar soon to be replaced with automotive grade and an effort to save costs. DoorDash seems very focused on costs.

Walter Piecyk: For this product in general, that’s gotta be an advantage to drive down the cost of the unit, given the, you know, the margin of the, the goods that you’re transporting. Obviously you’re gonna have lower insurance costs. You’re not transporting humans, but certainly driving down cost is, is gonna be. Critical, um, to make these business models successful. As we’ve talked about before, there’s also an advertising model on the revenue side that will help to defer, you know, whatever incremental costs that you have and maybe that, that justifies putting more dollars in for speakers that, that, you know, talk to the people that are around them, or even screens that are, that provide. Live advertising and live interactivity with, with, um, the community that’s around this robot as it’s operating. So these are, you know, puts and takes, but generally speaking, you always want to get that cost of equipment down as low as possible, especially when you’re in a scenario where these are small things and probably subject to some level of vandalization, but you know, we’ll say.

Grayson Brulte: Staying on the topic of scaling. Lyft is clearly scaling their robotaxi ambitions. This week they announced a deal with Tensor Auto to make the Tensor Auto vehicles, which are made by Vin Fast and Vietnam Lyft ready off the factory line. Is this a sign of things to come for Lyft?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I think Lyft and Uber are trying to make as many relationships as possible. Lyft is insistent of how great this is. ’cause it’s a Lyft ready car. I, I kind of wonder why tensor is like tying themselves to Lyft this way. I mean, if, you know, Uber’s kind of the larger player globally. Obviously Lyft has got some Europe ambitions that, that they can execute on. Um, but you know, to be lift ready, you’re kinda locking your, if you’re tensor, you’re kinda locking yourself in from their standpoint. They may not care, right? Because the tensor business model is. Selling it to an end user. And, but you would say like, okay, if you’re gonna make it more attractive to the end user, say, Hey, I’m gonna buy this car, but at the same time, put it onto a network while I go about my day. Wouldn’t you rather be partnered with Uber there than Lyft? So whatever big win for Lyft as a result, um, you know, tensor has to obviously execute. They’ve kind of, to a certain extent come from nowhere. I know you, you were familiar with, with Professor X. Before it kind of converted into what it is today, Tensor. But from my standpoint, they’re kind of like new on the map and, and they’ve got a lot of press releases that are hitting and, and you know, Lyft seems, you know, pretty bold up for them. So I think congrats to both companies and hopefully they, they succeed in pushing this forward.

Grayson Brulte: Before we get into this and analyze this, do we have any clarity or insight on what a Lyft ready car is and what it means from an engineering perspective?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we don’t exactly right ’cause we’re not coders, but what I’ve been told is it’s a quote unquote deep tech integration. That allows the car to be deployed on the platform right outta the parking lot. So in the case of autonomous vehicles, there’s engineering software integration that needs to happen before it can get integrated on a platform. It’s not like, Hey, you’re buying a Toyota, right? And rather than using your phone for Lyft, it’s on the screen. You have to obviously integrate with how the car operates. Think about communicating positions. Status of the vehicle’s battery level mapping, routing, locking, unlocking the doors, safety features. So Lyft Ready is, , you know, it’s, it’s a process that’s gonna, you know, quicken the time to get it on, on that network. , So, you know, I think that’s, that is probably more advanced than nothing.

Grayson Brulte: What I’d like to know is who, who’s footing the bill for this integration? We have the SEC filing that Uber is paying to retool the lucid factory for that. So who’s paying for the integration? That’s something would, would offer a lot of insight to us in the market if we could understand that.

Walter Piecyk: I think initially, you know, obviously Lyft is gonna put some capital to this, but ultimately this business model is, is end users owning these cars. Be willing to spend for those cars. And, and the interesting thing about this is like Lyft and tensor are executing on the model that Elon first talked about, right? This is exactly the Tesla model that you, you’re Tesla, you’re gonna buy a Tesla. This, you’re gonna have this huge residual value. You’re gonna turn it on and plug it into the network and, and off you go. And like here we are, Lyft and tensor with specific timelines to execute on that.

Grayson Brulte: We’re gonna be watching it and then we’ll also be watching it for the market. I’ll make a prediction here. I believe the first market will not be a US market. Most likely it’ll be Dubai or somewhere in the Emirates. What do you think from a market perspective?

Walter Piecyk: yeah, sure. I mean, wherever, it doesn’t even matter frankly. Just get it out there working. Like I’m of, I expressed some frustration a couple podcasts ago and I’m still, you know, kind of in that camp, like, just get the tech work to work. Get the safety drivers out, get the, you know, get the safety at attendants out, show the market that this technology works like Waymo has been showing in several markets. And all that stuff will figure itself out. I think the markets are less important than making sure that tech works. And certainly I don’t want someone to go to a market because the regulator makes it easier for them to do it. I just want it where, you know, some proof positive that these things are gonna work. And save people’s lives, which is we’ll drive adoption and then change our economy.

Grayson Brulte: It’ll totally change the economy. It’ll eventually lead to the autonomy economy staying on the theme of tech that works. Aurora has proven successfully that their autonomous driving technology works. They had big news this week wasn’t widely reported, is that they got their warning trial exemption. They can use blinkers now. Big deal. It’s a big step. They’re, I mean, out outside of the PACCAR issue, they’re cleared for takeoff.

Walter Piecyk: When I saw this news hit, I just, I had the biggest smile on my face. ’cause I just remember in some of our earliest versions of the, of autonomy markets where as I was learning more about regulation in my earlier days, and it was just. Crazy to me that they were gonna hold up this great company in Aurora based on these stupid safety triangles. And I was like joking that Chris Sen was gonna be following the cars with safety triangles in his trunk, like in case they had to pull over to put the, to put the triangles there, um, you know, to get this thing off the road. And then I also noted, which I continue to see, and even to this day, every time I see it, I, I go crazy. There’s trucks parked on the side of the road on 95, right outside of New York. There’s no safety triangles. Those guys are asleep. It’s side of the road. It’s not a park area, and there are no safety triangles. So they were holding it into a higher level. So thankfully, you know, and congrats to Aurora, who you know from the beginning said, look, we’ve got a plan to address this. Ironically, they don’t even need it now because PACCAR is continuing to force them to have a driver, or excuse me, a person sitting in the driver’s seat. , But it, it brought a smile to my face because it was a kind of a closing point on an earlier topic from autonomy markets.

Grayson Brulte: And I’m gonna put the icing on the cake for you. That exemption, the, if you wanna use a technical term, the waiver. Any, I repeat, any autonomous trucking company can apply for that. And several have, and soon we’ll get F-M-C-S-A data where you and I could analyze for every single person applied for it. It is a huge positive movement and moment for the autonomous trucking industry. Not wi widely covered, which it should be, but there’s a reason why

Walter Piecyk: Why is that? Grayson,

Grayson Brulte: fear of retribution.

Walter Piecyk: Well, I have no fear of retribution that, that’s for sure, and that’s probably got me in trouble in the past. But look, the. The issue when, when you talk about waivers, it just, I was just at, at something, you’re gonna laugh, but it was, there was a wireless of Hall of Fame dinner. I might have referred to this in the last, um, podcast where, you know, a CTO at at T-Mobile was, was honored, whatever. But there, there were lawyers there because, you know, a lot of stuff, getting stuff done for companies involves hiring lawyers to get through regulations and, and this industry is no different. And the one lawyer was like. Honoring this, this woman who was considered the goat. She’s like, he’s like, she understood that there was exceptions and then there’s exceptions to the exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions of the exceptions that you need to understand with the FCC and in this case may be whatever the regulatory FMCSA or whoever it is and, and getting through to, to make this stuff work. And it’s, there’s a lot of people. I focus on the tech, you focus on the regulation, but there are a lot of people at an organization that it takes to get these companies, , to be successful. And I think that’s some, sometimes, you know, not remembered that there’s, you know, a lot of important people at these companies that, that it requires to get through the various regulatory hoops, technical hoops, sales hoops, whatever it is, um, to generate the revenue and the profit that they need to succeed.

Grayson Brulte: And that’s why I wrote a blog post, oh, years ago, four or five years ago, and I got more nasty grams, if you want to call it that when I said. The policy team are the new rock stars and all my engineering friends flipped out. But you know this, you can build the world’s greatest product, but if the policy won’t enable it to scale, you don’t have a product.

Walter Piecyk: Grayson, you need a wide receiver that can run a route. You need a offensive lineman that can block. You need a quarterback that can deliver the ball to the receiver that’s in the end zone. And you need a coach that actually can call the right plays, and you need the GM to get the right player. So all of these things. And companies are the same thing. Like every, every role is important. Some may be more important than others, like some are are, you know, table stakes. You need to get the technology to work, but let’s not, um, forget the importance of our friends in the regulatory world at, at making sure that this is all possible.

Grayson Brulte: They make sure it’s all possible and what we need to succeed. Walt here in Autonomy Markets is news. What do we need to look for in the atomic markets next week?

Walter Piecyk: Can we take a week off? I mean, it’s, it’s been pretty busy over the past, uh, year and a half I earnings that are gonna start to kick in. I’ll have more in-depth feedback on my FSD 14. I’m sure I’ll be putting on probably another 30 or 40 trips between now and. And, um, you know, our next podcast. So, you know, we’ll see what next week. Next week brings us. Who knows, maybe Waymo announces a road trip in Charlotte. Is that next week’s news?

Grayson Brulte: If it is, perhaps Waymo, listen to autonomy markets. The future is bright, the future is autonomous. The future is great teams, Walt, until next week.