Transcript: Kodiak is Going Public, Aurora’s Driver-Out Countdown Continues, and Lyft Expands to Europe

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Kodiak Robotics plans to go public via a $2.5 billion SPAC, a deal underscored by a 100-truck follow-on order from Atlas Energy that validates their autonomous trucking technology.

As the industry holds its breath for Aurora’s imminent driver-out launch, Lyft announced a $197 million acquisition of FREENOW, signaling a significant expansion into the European ride-hailing and autonomy market. Grayson and Walt also break down Waymo’s current operations in Los Angeles, discussing everything from fleet management depots to its current limitations of avoiding highways.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Key Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[00:45] Walt’s Trip to LA: Waymo Experience and AI’s Impact on Media 

Walt discusses his recent trip to Los Angeles, where he had new observations about the Waymo service, visited fleet management depots, and met with the sidewalk delivery company Coco. A key part of his trip was a dinner with media executives to discuss the disruptive impact of AI on the film and TV industry, including debates on cost reduction and whether AI can originate creative works.

[02:45] Deep Dive: Waymo’s LA Performance, Pricing, and Highway Limitations 

The Waymo experience in LA is perceived as a high-quality, premium service with clean vehicles and a more aggressive driving style than in the past. While pricing was found to be cheaper than UberX during the day, some local residents reported it can be more expensive during periods of long wait times. A significant drawback is that Waymo vehicles are not yet using highways, which turned a 25-minute trip into a 40-minute one.

[05:20] Inside Waymo’s Fleet Operations: A Look at the Depots in LA 

Walt visited two Waymo depots in LA and was surprised by the lack of large-scale, professional cleaning operations, despite the cars being consistently clean for riders. One depot, run by Terawatt, was focused on charging, while a larger one, run by Transdev, handled maintenance for a significant number of vehicles—up to 70 cars were spotted across its different levels. This led to an estimate that Waymo’s LA fleet must be over 100 vehicles.

[09:30] Kodiak Prepares to Goes Public via $2.5B SPAC and Secures a 100-Truck Order 

Kodiak Robotics announced it is going public via a $2.5 billion SPAC deal that includes a $100 million PIPE. The most significant part of the news is a follow-on order for 100 trucks from an existing customer in the Permian Basin. This order is seen as powerful validation that Kodiak’s driverless technology works and is commercially viable.

[13:00] The Great Debate: Are HD Maps Becoming a Relic of the Past? 

A discussion emerges about whether reliance on high-definition (HD) maps is becoming an outdated approach to autonomy. Companies like Waymo and Aurora use HD maps, while newer entrants and competitors like Kodiak, Wave, and Tesla operate without them, suggesting a more cost-effective and faster path to deployment may be possible with end-to-end AI solutions.

[17:00] The Countdown Continues: Will Aurora Launch Driver-Out Operations This Month? 

With the end of April approaching, there is growing anticipation and some concern about whether Aurora will meet its stated goal of launching commercial driver-out operations. After this launch, the key metrics to watch will be the number of runs, uptime, and whether the trucks can operate at night and in bad weather, which competitor Kodiak already does.

[24:45] Lyft Goes International, Acquiring FREENOW to Expand into Europe 

Lyft is expanding into Europe by acquiring FREENOW in a $197 million deal. This move is seen as a strategic way to establish a European footprint and build a fleet platform that can later integrate autonomous vehicle technology. It’s noted that this could open the door for Lyft to partner with Chinese AV companies like Pony.ai or use Chinese EVs on its European network.

[30:00] Nuro Expands to Japan & the Battle for Sidewalk Delivery Dominance 

Nuro, which has a 10-year partnership with Uber, is expanding its testing to Tokyo, Japan. This move has sparked speculation that Nuro may be close to announcing a partnership with a Japanese OEM like Honda or Toyota. The discussion also covered the sidewalk delivery market, with companies like Coco facing the “battle over the sidewalk” as cities decide on regulations for these bots.

[35:15] Unconfirmed Reports: Is Tesla Slowing Down its Robotaxi Development? 

Unconfirmed reports from Reuters suggested that Tesla was slowing down the development of its Cyber Cab and Semi due to tariffs on Chinese parts. The hosts labeled this as potential “fake news,” questioning whether it might be a preemptive excuse leaked by Tesla in case they miss their planned June launch for the robotaxi service in Austin.

[38:40] Waymo Opens its Uber Waitlist in Atlanta 

Waymo announced the opening of its waitlist for rides through the Uber app in Atlanta, a marketing move designed to build anticipation. However, it was criticized that the operational design domain (ODD) in Atlanta stops six miles short of the airport, a key unlock needed for true usability in the city.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt. Another big week in the autonomy markets. Kodiak’s going, public lifts going across the pond, expanding to Europe. Nuro is going to land of the rising sun, expanding to Japan. Aurora’s getting ready to launch, drive route operations this month. Tesla, we got a little bit of fake news. Perhaps they’re not gonna launch in June, but most importantly this week, you are my old stomping grounds of la. Is this Walt, the director? What did you learn out there? 

Walter Piecyk: It was great visiting La Grayson, one of my favorite cities. Your former home, I think for a period of time. Uh, it was a really busy day. I’m kind of worn out. Have definitely new observations on the kind of Waymo experience as it exists in la. The need to get to highways, have some observations on a couple of the, the companies that are doing fleet management for Waymo in LA have some observations on visiting with Coco, which, Coco, which we’ll get to later. Which does food delivery for, for Uber East, using robots that are moving towards autonomy. And of course we did have a little fun, spent a dinner with a bunch of TV and media folk, , on the roof of the, the, I think it’s called the Santa Monica proper, which was a lovely and enlightening, , evening, discussing the concerns that at least that industry has about ai, 

Grayson Brulte: Last week you said that you were on your oh oh Top secret mission. Did your friend and partner at Light the Netflix Bull Rich Greenfield join you? 

Walter Piecyk: That was part of the primary reason of the trip is to get a bunch of technology and media folk together for this dinner to discuss kind of how AI is, is is changing their future. You know, people, everyone’s got their own concerns and you know, it’s understandable how in the media world films can are gonna be able to be made at a much lower cost. There was a lot of debate on, you know, can AI originate great films? Can it be Quentin Tarantino creating this, this great film? So it was, it was a, it was a good, healthy discussion and you can really see how AI is, is touching industries across the board.

Grayson Brulte: It’s touching industries. James Cameron even came out and said, you gotta lower the price to make a movie by 50%. That’s the media business. Now we’re in the autonomy business. I’m curious, Walt, being a good steward of the autonomy markets, did you take out your app and show ’em how to and start putting people in Waymo rides at the dinner? 

Walter Piecyk: these people were very well versed in Waymo and, and using it. , they did have, in some cases different experiences than I did. For example, I found the pricing to be less than UberX when we were comparing lake rides. But some of the local LA residents were telling me at times when the wait times get to 20 or 25 minutes, it’s been more expensive for them. , I think it was a shared experience in terms of the cleanliness and the, the, the feel of the car. It feels like a driver’s definitely, like I mentioned on my last trip to San Francisco, feels more aggressive in the driving. So that’s the, so that’s good. I brought up, I, I didn’t really have this conversation about the length of the rides, but that was an issue, right? Meaning that they’re not using the, the highways. So a ride that Google Maps told me should have been 25 minutes, ended up being 40 minutes because we passed by entryways onto the highway. That is just not doing now. So I think it will in, hopefully in the near future because it’s got the, the toll tags and, and what have you on there. But it’s certainly one of the unlocks. That’s not something that anyone mentioned. I think the, the residents in LA that I talked to were very happy and, and, and perceive this as a premium experience relative to, to Uber.

Grayson Brulte: For an Angelino or an individual lives in one of the three Bs, Brentwood, Bel Air or Beverly Hills, you don’t really leave your area, so you never go on the highway. That’s a dirty little secret. When you live in la you live in your little compartment area, so the Waymo unlock works there. Do you feel that Waymo starting to become part of the LA culture? 

Walter Piecyk: I mean it, I think it’s in, in the moment still a bit of a tourist attraction, even within the people that live there. Meaning that one person I talked to said that this was like a reward that they would provide to their child who was doing schoolwork or whatever, where they would take, use the Waymo to take them to get ice cream, and that that was the reward. So it’s, you know, it’s still, I think, in the novel novelty stage, but the perception is again, and clearly that it’s high quality, which, which is why it’s a bit puzzling. When I had these rides in the middle of the day, that they were pricing like a 35 or $5 ride or so, whether it was Uber or Lyft, we checked both apps was, you know, 10, 15% cheaper on the Waymo One app.

Grayson Brulte: The curiosity back when I chaired the co-chair of the Autonomous Vehicle Task Force City, Beverly Hills that we always joked about. At some point these autonomous vehicles become TMZ Tour buses. Any chatter about that actually becoming a reality when you were out there? 

Walter Piecyk: We didn’t really talk about that. I mean, I think people understand the functionality and, you know, do I buy that next car? More so than it being a tourist trap. The revenue opportunity at Grayson is not, you know, tourist rides like that. It’s getting people to use this as their every day, , as, as their everyday transportation. For sure.

Grayson Brulte: That and unlocking LAX to me, that’s the, the big game changer there. When you were out there, you’re going around, you’re, you’re double Oh Walt, you visit a lot of the Waymo Depots. What did you uncover? What did you learn? 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, it was interesting. I was surprised at the lack of cleaning facilities that were there. Again, the ride, every ride I took in LA and, and the, and the feedback I got from the residents were the rides, you know, the Jags or clean positive experience. People were joking, like, is there cameras in there watching to see if someone leaves some litter that then needs to get sent back to the depot. But getting back to your question, I saw a Terawatt Depot, 30 chargers, a lot of cars, and they’re getting charged a lot of activity in and outta the lot. I didn’t see one car getting clean in the moments that I were there. Went to another larger depot that appeared to be more for maintenance. It was, I think, run by Transdev. You could see, you know, tags on top of the cars. Some had to be recalibrated. If it was a certain color, A different color was for some maintenance, whether it was a flat tire or whatever it was. A lot of cars there like two, two different stories, like one on the upper deck, then there’s a lower deck, and then there’s an inside, I think, where the. A large garage where the maintenance was was happening, but again, not like a, you know, a production line of cars coming in and getting thoroughly cleaned. No car cars getting cleaned on the outside. You know, I think maybe one guy was polishing up a car a little bit, but it didn’t gimme the sense of like, it being like a professional, you know, production quality, , fleet manager as, as I would envision, where the, where the industry needs to get to at some point.

Grayson Brulte: When do you think Waymo gets there and do they have to get there to really truly scale? 

Walter Piecyk: I don’t even know if it’s about Waymo, ’cause I don’t think Waymo or Uber really want to touch this business. So it’s, I think when a third party evolves that can do this stuff and turn these cars around more quickly than what appeared to in terms of the number of cars that were parked in the lot. I mean, the thing that struck me. Is, is we’re seeing all these cars in these lots, especially the, in the lot that they were, they were doing maintenance and we’re talking about Austin having 35 cars, and doing servicing the whole, a whole city, we believe, I don’t know if we know this for a fact, but we believe with 35 or, or maybe 50 cars, when I see the number of cars that were awaiting maintenance or perhaps cleaning in some of these depots, it seems like there should be, there should have been more activity in terms of cars in and out there.

Grayson Brulte: Outta curiosity, how many vehicles did you count at these depots? 

Walter Piecyk: I didn’t really count them. I, you know, we put some pictures on Twitter, but, like again, the charging depot at, at Terawatt, you could see those were cars getting charged and once they were charged, someone would unplug them and they’d be on their way. I think the other, the Transdev was a bit different, where there’s probably, I don’t know, 30, 40 cars upstairs, another 20 or 30 cars downstairs. So that’s a decent number. I think overall, and I don’t know how many other. Uh, depots like this exists. Certainly, you know, in order to have the cars in the right location when the peak hour occurs, you’re gonna have to have locations like this where you can handle 20 or 30 cars in, in a moment. For charging our gun, for cleaning in multiple areas of the city.

Grayson Brulte: Yeah, I mean, based on what you uncovered on your journey, I’m gonna go on the record and say, I believe the fleet’s over a hundred vehicles in la. Would you think that’s fair? 

Walter Piecyk: It would have to be, ’cause there’s, you know, when we were out and about there was obviously lots of cars on the road, but, you know, if you want to try and maximize it, you know, I would think that the inventory, there would’ve been more activity in terms of getting that stuff. But again, it’s one point in time. It’s hard to criticize ’em. And again, this is still an early stage company is, even though Waymo is further along than other autonomy companies out there, just look at their cars. I mean, they’re spending what, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car. They’re not at the point of. Maximizing the efficiency in terms of getting the price of the car down and the, the maintenance and fleet management of the car down. And to repeat what I said before, I don’t think they want to do this right. So a, someone will evolve and say, Hey, we’re gonna turn these cars around and fix them very quickly. And maybe it’ll be an offshoot of an existing enterprise business, , or local garages that, that can handle five or 10 cars here and there. We’ll just have to see how that market evolves. But it’s, it’s a very important piece in the overall puzzle for sure. And certainly something that we spend a lot of time on here on autonomy markets.

Grayson Brulte: It’s an important piece of the puddle and a model could emerge in the future where Waymo no longer owns the asset, very similar to to Kodiak where their customers are owning the trucks. This week, Kodiak filed to go public and a $2.5 billion SPAC with a hundred million dollars pipe. It’s a big moment in the autonomy markets. What do you make of it? 

Walter Piecyk: Getting money, especially in, in what’s been a volatile market, is certainly very important. It’s a hundred million in the pipe. We’ll see how much more they get, , as the SPAC process continues, depending on how redemptions work there , that’s impressive. Not to say nothing about getting money. , but the a hundred truck order, that’s to me the real news, right? I mean, there’s a hundred trucks on order for an existing customer that’s clearly happy. How many times do we see, you know, a technology company, Hey, we do a trial and you see some autonomous car with safety driver in, and then it lasts for three or six months, and then it just expires. Right? Here’s a trial that, or a trial, excuse me, a revenue paying order done in the Permian Basin that has now been followed up by a hundred truck order. Like that is, that is impressive. The presentation overall that Kodiak delivers. I think very detailed in providing metrics, , about how they can generate revenue and introducing a new thing, which is per hour stats, which gave us a lot of opportunity to really conceptualize how to put together a revenue and profit, you know, opportunity for Kodiak and, and how they’re putting this business together.

Grayson Brulte: Kodiak currently has 750 hours of paid commercial driverless hours under their belt. Aurora, as of recorded, this podcast in April 17th has zero hours over time. This is gonna take, I would say years. Does that become a metric in the industry that everybody looks towards? 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we’ll see. And, and you’re right. And there is also a large military contract that they had for development work as well at Kodiak. But in terms of the paid hours, I mean, paid miles is also something that’s gonna be very interesting. Paid hours to me is incrementally interesting because when I’ve talked to fleet managers that run their business and are paying drivers now, they’re looking, they’re, they’re formulating their business base on a, on a per hour basis. ’cause that’s the relative cost of the driver that’s in the truck. They’re not paying that truck driver per miles. And, and you know, there’s different, this can equate different type of applications. If something’s driving. 15 or 20 miles an hour versus whatever, 45, 50. And I think I’ve heard in the past some criticisms of Kodiak, oh, their, their trucks don’t drive that fast. I’m like, I don’t know. I’ve seen videos of the Permian Basin, they look pretty fast to me. And in this presentation they specifically cited the assumption of an average speed of 45 miles an hour overall, which I think is obviously a reasonable, timeframe. So whether per hour becomes the new metrics that everyone should follow, I don’t know. I mean, typically in other industries, you, you gravitate to the, to the stat that everyone reports. Can Kodiak effectively bully others into reporting per hour stats because it might make Kodiak look better relative to their peers? I don’t know that either. Like, we’ll have to see how that plays out to me. You know, the bigger question that investors continue to have right now is just does the product work and there’s no better. Validation of whether a product works or not than being able to put on your, you know, income statement revenue that someone actually paid. ’cause you know, you can see letters of intent and trials where someone’s like, sure, you know, we will let these cars operate at, at this location. And, and then it doesn’t follow through in revenue when you, when you’re actually getting paid for it and then you’re getting follow on orders, you know, that’s where to use. Maybe a pun. The rubber hits the road. Rubber. Rubber meets the road.

Grayson Brulte: It validates the Kodiak driver. You started with a small order and then you went to a hundred truck order, and then perhaps you go to even large order it. It validates the driver and it validates the opportunity in oil and gas. And when I look at the oil and gas market, so kodiak’s down the Permian Basin, which is West Texas and New Mexico, the other opportunity for oil and gas is a North Dakota. And the Kodiak driver can operate in inclimate weather. Perhaps they end up growing a very big oil and gas business over time.

Walter Piecyk: For sure. The weather thing is also an interesting one, and I think we’ll get into that later as it relates to kind of next step for Aurora and where they are in their timing. , but yeah, I mean, it, it was good. The other thing that was interest entertaining in terms of the, you know, the presentation is, you know, they, they were looking at valuation, you know, when you have no revenue and no profitability with the comps. Like the valuation is just more of like, oh, Waymo’s valued at this number, and, you know, Aurora’s valued at this number. And like, okay, so we have. Trucks, we have a similar service and you know, you can get us at a discount ’cause it’s just a discount to the overall capitalizations of these other and limited comparables that are in the market.

Grayson Brulte: One of the interesting things in the investor presentation that really stood out to me is that Kodiak’s going to offer two models to the market from a business perspective. They’re gonna do a per mile license fee, or they’re gonna do a per vehicle license fee. To me, this kind of reminds me of the, of the early days of cellular where you had your minutes, then you had your rollover minutes and you’re, and you’re afraid to use it. And then obviously we move to the unlimited plans. Could that be where all this is gonna merge to is the per vehicle license fee. So you can use it all the time, get all the utilization out of it.

Walter Piecyk: You know, Grayson, I just don’t know. I’ve, I’ve, you know, when we were at, in Fort Worth for Forward Fort Worth, I had an opportunity to speak to a lot of people within the industry. There was a lot of interesting opinions on this. You know, it’s recently spent time with Bot Auto and their, their view is the end customer just once their goods delivered at a lower price than they’re delivering today and have some. Belief that it’s gonna be reliable going forward. ’cause they don’t have to worry about sourcing drivers. But in their case, like they’re doing the middle mile, they are then, I assume, contracting with someone like JB Hunt to do last mile and the customer never sees that. They just know that the goods are getting delivered from A to A to B as opposed to if you sell a truck or purchase on a truck, like does the customer have to set up some facility that deals with an autonomous truck showing up at their facility? Like how, where does service start and end? And then to your question, how do you price that, you know, relative to how historical contracts are getting priced? I don’t know. And, and, and to me, I’m more focused on does the technology work, right? That is first and foremost because none of these pricing schemes ultimately matter unless you can get driver out and deliver, deliver the product, safely from there. If we believe that one guy has ability to price differently, though, like that’s not differentiated, like you can change how you price your technology. I get it. There’s like, you can’t, if you have one type of relationship with an OEM versus another, you can’t. If you, you know, you know, you don’t have last mile figured out versus another guy. So yeah, it’s not that easy, but I’m less concerned with, you know, how it ultimately gets priced, that that will figure itself out. I’m more concerned with, you know, who gets the technology to work.

Grayson Brulte: We’re gonna find out by the end of the year. Kodiak’s technology is clearly working ’cause they’re operating drive route. Aurora is going to go drive route and also bot auto’s going drive route by the end of the year. When you look at all these technologies and staying on the Kodiak theme here for a minute. Kodiak doesn’t need HD maps. They operate without ’em. Where Aurora does need HD maps, WA wave doesn’t need HD maps. Tesla doesn’t need HD maps. Waymo does. Could HD maps become a relic of the past? 

Walter Piecyk: You can’t help but wonder when you hear from Wave or Wabi or Tesla or whoever or these, the new entrants, like, it’s almost like autonomy two oh that aren’t from that kind of original mold of building the maps and doing all this, that this new way can get there more cost effectively and more quickly. Now, the kind of, the counterarguments to that is like, no, it can’t be dumb. I, I get it, but we’ll let, we will suspend our criticism and until we see how these things play out, and it, you have a perfect example of that coming up in June, with Tesla and, you know, look, I, I’m using my full self-driving on Tesla. It feels as good as a Waymo in terms of the feel of the ride itself. I’m not gonna comment on whether. It’s as safe on these kind of exclusion areas, but I take my Tesla on a highway and Waymo doesn’t in the moment. So, you know, I don’t know, but I, I think there is certainly an opportunity and there’s certainly a lot of companies and getting back to the conversation we had with the media folk, AI is quickly changing everything, and will serve as a potential disruptor across many, many industries, including autonomy. And, and look, even last week we talked about is Waymo in trouble in terms of being within a large, kind of slow moving big tech company that’s just living off the free cash flow of Google, which is it Google search, excuse me. Which is it in itself being threatened, by LLMs and that revenue being, model being threatened. It’s not crazy to think that, you know, some of these new entrants that are doing what, you know, maybe Don Burnett and others are doing. , you know, can provide as a disruptor. And let, let’s also just keep in mind whether it’s Aurora, whether it’s, , Kodiak or any of these companies, just because they’re focused on trucks today, if that technology works, doesn’t mean that they can’t take that technology and then license it to an OEM for a vehicle that’s not a truck. Yes, I know it’s different. Yes, I know the market’s big enough to handle it, and maybe they have or haven’t said it, but you can’t, you can’t exclude that as, as a possibility. And I will once again come back to, starlink as the example of this, where everyone’s like when starlink was first, oh, they’re starlink is just delivering service. For someone in rural America that needs internet. Then it was like, okay, yes, they can go into suburban America where your connection is bad or, or unreliable. Then all of a sudden it’s on airplanes and then that was never the original market. And then it’s, then they’re connecting boats and then they’re connecting, you know, moving trailers. So once you get a technology to work in a certain subsegment, the opportunity is to broaden that out based on how the technology works, especially if it’s like an end-to-end type solution like ai, where it’s not just reliant on some map development.

Grayson Brulte: Kodiak’s already done it. They operate on Ford. F1 fifties for the Department of Defense, they operate on taxon tanks. Those are cool. Not patent style tanks, but the Textron tanks. Aurora’s done cars. If you look at Aurora, we’re, we’re gearing up for this moment in history when this month they’re going to pull drive around, become a monumental moment that’s gonna disrupt the industry. Very similar way to chat. GPT is disrupting. Google search, there’s a lot of inbound. Not a day goes by. I don’t get a text or a call or multiple thousands of people. Did Aurora go driver out yet? Did Aurora go driver out? Are they gonna do it? What’s going on? Do we need to start to worry since the my phone won’t stop ringing with people asking me about this? 

Walter Piecyk: Earlier in the month when we had all of the, the tariff drama, um, I kind of encouraged them to wait until the drama, you know, simmer down so you can get the full bang. We didn’t have that much drama this week. In the grand scheme of things, yeah, the market has still some shocks of volatility. We’re past the midpoint, you know, this was a date as you, as everyone remembers, was pushed out. You would’ve think that. We’re not gonna have to wait until April 30th, , to get this thing done. So, I don’t know, maybe we should start to worry, I guess. And then what’s the next milestone? Grayson? I mean, is it 10? Is it gonna be 10 trucks? Can they, since they were late, maybe revive and bring back, you know, an an earlier target where they do 20 trucks? I mean, what, what, what’s next for them? 

Grayson Brulte: me is, is how many runs are you doing and are you doing on that consistent basis? Is it just, okay, you did Dallas to Houston, you turned off the lights, goodnight, or is this thing going back and forth consistently? To me, that’s the big metric that we’re gonna have to launch because if you read the SEC filings, and I’m gonna quote this here, quote unquote commercial launch, it may, that means uptime. That means runs.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, commercial launch. But then it’s what is the runs? Are they during the day? Because I think. My understanding is like they’re not gonna operate at night and they’re not gonna operate in bad weather. Something that Kodiak, , is already doing. So, and by the way, like what if they, let’s say Aurora launches, they get 10 or 20 trucks, they go, you know, they deal with weather. They start running those trucks in bad weather and, and, and darkness at the end of the year. So those are positive catalysts. But then what happens when you go into 2025? What if Don Burnett announces some deal in Texas on the road with his cars? Like even if it’s not immediate that hey, we have an order for five trucks to deliver by the end of 2025, and the market then looks very different in terms of a company that, you know, at the moment it might be valued at a couple of billion dollars versus one that’s, that’s valued at multiples of that effectively going after the same market with probably a similar number of cars actually, or trucks actually in, commercial service. If anything, maybe Kodiak in that case has, has more so. These are all things to consider that I don’t necessarily think are on the front and foremost on the minds of broad investors, let alone ones that are, that are at Aurora, at the mo, you know, invested in Aurora in the moment.

Grayson Brulte: I’m gonna watch cashflow and I’m gonna watch for commercial partnerships that generate cashflow. Let’s assume, and, and I’ve said this publicly on the road Autonomy podcast and, and Pete Bigelow agree with me, same thing. Aurora goes driver out commercial launch with paccar. When then do you think we should expect to see the Volvo v and l trucks come online? 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we had a great conversation with Volvo, down in Texas. It sounds like they really are forward thinking, looking forward to visiting, some of their facilities where this technology is getting delivered. I don’t know how the, how these things work, but. It doesn’t feel to me like that is gonna be a 2025 event. Maybe in 2026. We see. See, hopefully if things go well with Aurora, that they start ramping up the, the Volvo relationship.

Grayson Brulte: Staying on that theme, we had big news outta Lyft. Lyfts expanding. They’re going across the pond to the UK and Europe in $197 million deal to acquire free. Now I. Big move. Why now? 

Walter Piecyk: I always love your Precision Grayson. It’s not a $200 million deal. It’s a, it’s a $197 million deal, or when Nuro raised a hundred million dollars, it wasn’t a hundred million dollars. It was $106 million. That you’re very specific. I love the attention to detail. The bigger issue is 200 is just not a big number. I think there was some press reports from a couple years back, maybe more, you know, during the Covid era where Uber was looking or not looking, but maybe this company was asking for, over a billion dollars in valuation. I think there’s, you know, there was other considerations. So $200 million feels like a steal to get a platform. You know, in Europe that expands the footprint. And the other aspect is like, it’s all taxis, which is fine, but to me, and maybe we’re just talking our book here in autonomy Markets, it feels like you’re developing a fleet platform which autonomy can then layer on top of. And again, if you look at what we’ve talked about in the United States and Uber’s efforts to build fleets as a higher mix of the supply of their cars and controlling that supply and also driving down the insurance costs, , of those cars. Maybe Lyft is just creating a framework for that future and really shifting the company to be, you know, the partner for autonomy in, in, in the ways that they can. So, you know, I think it’s a good move. And at $200 million, not much. Let’s put this in context. Like, Lyft’s market cap is only a couple of billion dollars. It’s funny, like you have Lyft generating all these rides in, in the US and, and some level of, of profitability. That’s effectively not far off the valuation that, that, , Kodiak’s gonna get if this thing gets, you know, holds price. And at the SPAC level, 10, $11 in terms of a couple of billion dollars of market cap.

Grayson Brulte: Kodiak has a path to being more profitable. When I, and I look at this Lyft deal, and I’m gonna give you a little skepticism ’cause there’s risk involved. 90% of FREENOW rise were taxis. The founder of FREENOW comes out in a statement, says, we will always be a taxi first company. That’s not why I’m buying you. I’m buying you to expand my platform. Do they have a founder risk emerging with this? 

Walter Piecyk: I think you have to put in perspective that this is a European company, so I think what they say publicly about people that are employed to drive taxis is probably matters. So, and this guy now worked for another company, at the pleasure of that company, although maybe the fire people in Europe is not exactly easy. Um, I don’t care what he says, like it is, sure it’s taxi first in it’s fleet, but, , you know, it’s, it’s a platform that they can grow additional riders and, you know, again, provide some opportunity for autonomy. The question though, Grayson, that I have back at you as our, as our China Hawk, you know, with ZEEKR in the US. You know, does Lyft embrace Chinese technology? I mean, after the towers you had Europe talking about opening up trade to China. Here’s an opportunity where, you know, this company, as they start to integrate autonomous vehicles, would start buying, you know, Chinese cars. Would Lyft go that route? 

Grayson Brulte: A hundred percent. ’cause the economics make sense. A hundred percent. And I’ll take this one step further. I see a point in the future where on the Lyft Network in Europe, they’ll be running the Apollo go, they’ll be running Pony, AI will be running on the Lyft network because the Chinese AV companies are expanding to Europe. Furthermore, I wanna highlight, , David Rishi was on CNBC. He talked about the Free Now brand, eventually going over away over time, becoming Lyft. So yes, I do think at some point Chinese electric vehicles and also Chinese autonomous vehicles to be running on Lyft platform in the European Union. I do not see that happening for the foreseeable future in the uk ’cause we have Brexit. But in the EU I do.

Walter Piecyk: There sort could also be some value here on the tech side, on the supply side, on the fleet management side, meaning that they have Flex Drive in the us which feels like it’s a bit overstated in what they do. They’re, they, they’re doing now. But obviously they’ve got roadmap plans to expand what Flex Drive can do. Maybe there was tech that existed, , in this company that can now be brought home and integrated into Flex Drive in terms of helping a fleet mat a fleet owner. , you know, utilize their platform versus some of the other ones out there. And then, and, and we’ve talked about this in past episodes and can be a new differentiator for, for Lyft in the market as this, as this market quickly evolves to autonomy.

Grayson Brulte: What it says to me outside of all this, Lyft’s getting aggressive, and on the aggressive front, could we see Lyft potentially export their may mobility relationship to Europe? And start with that.

Walter Piecyk: I’m sure main mobility would be thrilled about adding additional customers, , in new markets and their OEM partner Toyota obviously global brand, global partner. So sure that’s, that’s certainly a possibility. Although, you know, we can’t just tie lift at the hip to may mobility both companies. I think we’ll seek additional partners . may mobility will seek Uber as a platform partner and you know, Lyft will seek multiple technology companies as their partner as well.

Grayson Brulte: Staying on the international Uber front . nuro, which has a 10 year partnership with Uber is expanding to Japan. The vehicles are starting to arrive in Tokyo to test. Is this the first that, uh, announcement that we’re gonna see a Nuro as it relates to no e em? Because if you’re going to test in Japan, I’m thinking, do you have a deal with Honda? Do you have a deal with Mazda? Do you have a deal with Subaru? Perhaps the next announcement is with a Japanese OEM.

Walter Piecyk: , I guess I’m a little surprised in, in terms of the sequencing. Sure. This might mean that you’re doing that because you have something in the works, or maybe it’s the opposite, which is like you’re trying to seed interest from OEMs in that market, , to a greater extent. You know, what’s important I think, for Nuro is to, as they’ve made this transition in their overall business model. To find an OEM partner and announce that deal. They’ve raised capital already, a hundred, a hundred million dollars, 106 million as you would say, , a couple of weeks ago. But I think getting this deal would, would kind of unlock that ability. The other thing is, you know, what’s, what’s happening to that legacy dedicated product, business, like the R threes, the stuff that was doing food delivery as opposed to, you know, putting a Big Mac in the back of a Toyota. I had spent some time with Coco in la you know, as right now it’s someone’s remote driving them. There is a, I’m sure, a roadmap to get to some level of autonomy there, but more importantly, the, the product itself, like the delivery vehicle is just really cheap. So their ability to return a profit on that ends up being shorter as opposed to having a bunch of technology in a purpose built autonomous, higher speed, perhaps vehicle flow speed. It’s on sidewalks. , it seems like an interesting opportunity. There’s probably an advertising opportunity that I’ve seen them take advantage of where movie studios or Netflix will come and they wanna promote it and they wrap the, the product and given the low price of the, of the vehicle and the low price of the delivery fees themselves. ’cause you’re only delivering, you know, basically is, you know, food items and I’m sure Uber’s not paying them, you know, a ton of money for that. Advertising becomes an interesting opportunity to help the overall business model for sure. But Grayson, you’ve dealt with a lot of these local towns. Like how is this, if these, if these, , vehicles, I guess, or delivery mechanisms or on a bunch of sidewalks, I know that this, you know, the, the scooter, the scooter trash that used to exist in a lot of cities, which I think has largely been cleaned up now, are, are they gonna be, you know, more hesitant to enable these, these little, , delivery vehicles to operate on sidewalks? 

Grayson Brulte: it’s the battle over the sidewalk is really what’s happening. So there was, there was talk years ago, go off the sidewalk, go into the bike lanes and the bike mafia had a meltdown. They have a whole coalition of lobbyists. They had a meltdown. Then the then, and then the bots went back to the sidewalk on an upcoming episode of the Road to Autonomy, the co-founder and CEO swerve of robotics, which is a competitive cocos coming on. So I’ll be sure to ask him what his thoughts on that, on that. For the meantime, right now it’s gonna come down to a city ordinance, but I believe at this time that they will stay on the sidewalks and probably eventually move into the bike lane. ’cause the bike lanes are completely underutilized. Yes, send me the hate mail. It’s a fact. They’re underutilized and they ruined cities. Look what they did to Paris. The bike lanes absolutely ruined that city. It’s a shame what the congestion that the bike lanes have cost from a radical mayor. So with that Ran said it’s gonna come down to local ordinances.

Walter Piecyk: So there’s a incentive in that obviously businesses are for it. And they have an impact on, on the local, uh, government. Second, there’s probably a revenue share. Like if the town gives you the ability to operate on a sidewalk, they can get a revenue share on the delivery or, or whatever, that’s existing there. So I think there’s incentive. , it’ll, it’s obviously gonna depend on the mayor and, and the population. I, I guess the question though, Grayson, is like, if, if there’s multiple competitors in the market, is there a first mover advantage? Like if I go into a small town and say like, I’m your sidewalk delivery guy, and they say, sure, we get this revenue share. Are they gonna be forced in any way to also approve the second and third and fourth robot company that, that perhaps wants to, to enter that market? 

Grayson Brulte: They have to, A city legally cannot pick winners and losers. They legally can’t king make anybody. The city has to be neutral on that, so Yes.

Walter Piecyk: So whatever they approve the first guy on, they can. So why wouldn’t it be like a franchise? Say, look, we’re only gonna allow two franchises. And then we’ll put an RFP out and whoever bids the most and, and however you wanna frame that, percent of revenue, maybe a license and actual license fee. Does the model evolve that way? 

Grayson Brulte: could, because then, then your local, civics will tell you that they, that gives government control over, and you don’t go back to the scooter problem. So I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s happening in certain municipalities around the country already.

Walter Piecyk: It’s hard to turn down some free revenue at the expense of just having a couple of robots deliver products to your, to your local. And look, if it’s cheaper to deliver, it helps the local economy. It helps that local restaurateur and those are very vocal and influential. I think people in, in terms of any, , community, 

Grayson Brulte: If you look at vocal, the fake news is vocal.

Walter Piecyk: That’s quite a pivot. I love it.

Grayson Brulte: it. It’s a pivot and it’s a, it’s a true pivot. This week, unconfirmed reports from Reuters who you can’t trust. That Tesla is going to slow down the development of the cyber cab ’cause they’re importing parts from China because of the tariff and they’re gonna slow down the semi. No comment from Mr. Musk and the Tesla stands, the fan boys on x. No comments. Is this just Reuters throwing out more fake news, which they have thrown out consistently against Tesla and Mr. Mr. Musk has debunked multiple times, or is there a kernel of truth here? 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I don’t, I’ve, I don’t know. We’re gonna have to find soon enough. Hopefully they don’t use this as an excuse to not deliver In June. We’re about to head into earning season and I’m, my radar is already gonna be up for companies that are gonna blame Outlook. Changes on uncertainty around tariffs. I mean, certainly there will be companies definitively impacted by. Perhaps some companies being frozen in capital investment or moving forward with projects because of uncertainty over tariffs. But when that happens, it’s kind of like the, what I call the El Nino effect. Then if someone’s business, if they needed to change their outlook or their guidance, like, oh yeah, it’s the tariffs. It’s not us, it’s not our lock of execution. It’s the, so similarly, I just, I’m cautious if, is it fake news or is it Tesla leaked news so that they have an excuse on why they’re not delivering in June? If I were to betting, man, I would just say like, I think it’s, it’s probably fake in that, you know, even if it’s five or 10 cars, that there’s some level of, of focus at the company and getting the launch in Austin, uh, done in June.

Grayson Brulte: The launch is gonna happen at some point this week. Mr. Musk came out and posted on X that unsupervised FSD is coming by the end of the year for personally owned Teslas. That’s the three, the Y, is that a little bit of a hedge there or is that just Mr. Musk just t touting the, the what he believes.

Walter Piecyk: yeah, I think it’s what he believes. So we’ll see if that actually happens. And I think there’s plenty of documentation that people have on what he said and believes in. Then what actually happens, 

Grayson Brulte: What he says and believes, I gotta give a shout out to light. She, you published the most interesting piece of data, the great quarters guys chart. I can’t stand it. You can’t stand it. Where can our viewers and listeners go, go see the chart, that light she publishes every single earnings season. Tell us 

Walter Piecyk: Grayson is referring to is during earning season and I spend hours and hours and hours listening to management teams and part of these earnings calls are, are analysts that, that ask questions and. Rather than asking the tough questions that get us the answers that we need, they’re more interested in just telling the management team what great jobs they’re doing so that they can hear themselves, speak and for everyone to hear them speak on these conference calls every week. So, uh, yes, it’s very frustrating.

Grayson Brulte: you’re gonna make that public on X so everybody can check it out.

Walter Piecyk: No, that is proprietary information for light. She, subscribers only. But yeah, sometimes we’ll highlight certain firms that are a little bit more great quarterly than others.

Grayson Brulte: So if you’re institutional, go email team at life, she and sign up for the research. It’s great. I read it. I enjoy it. It’s really well done. Things that I don’t get staying on the great quarter, guys, the things I don’t get. Waymo puts out an announcement this week. Guess what? The Uber wait list is open. Who cares? Why is that such a big deal? Why don’t you just announce that you don’t need a wait list? It’s open.

Walter Piecyk: I don’t, whatever. I think it’s any milestone that you can provide. , and I think this is just kind of, of that marketing. There’s probably just a middle manager marketing person in the, in there that said like, this is our, this is our playbook. How do we develop, like people in Atlanta may not have traveled to San Francisco or LA and experience the magic of, of being in a Waymo. So this is just trying to build up that anticipation. They’re, they’re putting the, the, the red velvet rope in now, Grayson, I Do you stand in line when you see the red velvet rope? ’cause those are the places, the last places I want to go. Or are you the guy in line waiting to get into that club? 

Grayson Brulte: I don’t go to clubs when I do go to joint club, either I know the owner and I don’t wait in line or I go somewhere else. I’m too old for that crap.

Walter Piecyk: Exactly. But I think that’s all. I think that’s all it is. It’s, it is marketing, 

Grayson Brulte: 20% of all Uber rides in Austin were Waymo. I, I said it on the newsletter. I’m saying it now. That’s factually incorrect. Well, here comes the second city, Atlanta. How long until we get YipIt data that lets investors say. Waymo needs Uber, and this narrative can just continue to proliferate.

Walter Piecyk: I kind of enjoy when this data comes out for our clients. Pay for a variety of, of different data sources, and it’s always good to have more data and you just have to put it in context. And if it impacts others’ belief system, that’s good because that creates inefficiencies in the market as an investor, that you can make, uh, money off of.

Grayson Brulte: I want to know, the real excuse from Waymo is when you look at the Atlanta ODD, it stopped six miles before the Atlanta airport. That’s a, that, that’s, that’s a mistake. They gotta get to that airport to truly unlock usability in Atlanta.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, who cares though? Bri said, like, first of all, yeah, I a hundred percent agree, but like we know the issue. They just need to get on the highways. It’s okay. They’ll get there. Like it’s close it San Francisco, it’s la, it’s all these markets. , they will get to the airports. Obviously there’s some negotiation that has to occur, and I think there was some progress on that front in California in terms of physically getting to the airport. What do we have on that front? 

Grayson Brulte: Waymo’s now able to operate at private airports, the Santa Monica airport and the Palo Alto airports, though, you fly your private jet into California land at one of those two airports. You get picked up at a Waymo step forward. Not the commercial platforms, but a step forward. So the airport unlock is coming. That’s clear evidence that Waymo is interested in it. Walt, we had a jam pack week in autonomy this week, lots of big news international expansions. Companies going public. What do we need to look for in the autonomy markets next week? 

Walter Piecyk: This is a big week coming up. You have Tesla reporting, you have, I believe, mobilized reporting. Aurora is another week closer to the end of the month. So hopefully we hear something out of Aurora, sooner rather than later. I mean, if earnings start two, do you really wanna be announcing that in the middle of when other companies are reporting earnings? I mean, get it out, let’s get it done. , so yeah, I mean, I think it’s, it’ll, it should be a busy week.

Grayson Brulte: I would say this, get it done. And when we have the Tesla earnings call, the number one most upvoted question in Robax. I’m gonna read this for Ross. This is hilarious that they wanna answer to Mr. Musk. I hope he answers this and I’m gonna quote this. If a Roboto taxi gets stuck, can the passenger help the vehicle get out by drawing a path on the screen, or control the vehicle in a slow speed using an on-screen joystick end quote. That’s a crazy idea. Do you think we’re gonna get any comment on the Tesla earnings call about that? 

Walter Piecyk: I definitely don’t think you want a cyber truck user driving with a onscreen joystick That completely defeats the purpose of autonomy, , in terms of drawing a path. Sure. I mean, that’s what, that’s what the safety drivers would do for Waymo. But again, like do you want the person driving a line, like into the side of a building? Again, I don’t think you necessarily wanna put that in the hands of the, of the driver. I mean, it really begs the que, maybe the question gets asked and we get some answer from Elon, whether they have, they’re gonna have, you know, people that can kind of tap into these cars and drive them when they get in into precarious situations. Or we can probably just have Elon with his typical response. Well, our cars are still perfect. They’re never gonna need that. They’re always gonna know what the right thing to do is. So we’ll find out on Tuesday.

Grayson Brulte: We will find out. And if you, if they, if they did, let the people draw a path, you have a liability issue there. ’cause you could, you could be high, you could be drunk and anything, anything you want or you’re not paying attention, so you do have liabilities, you then that opens up a whole new can of worms. But each and every week we’re gonna be here to break it down for our audience every Saturday, 10:00 AM The future is bright. The future autonomous. The future is scaling commercial autonomous operations. Walt, until next week.