Transcript: From London to Dubai Robotaxis are Rapidly Expanding Globally

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss robotaxis going global with Grayson Brulte reporting live from London after an impressive 45-minute ride in a Wayve autonomous vehicle, detailing its vision-based system that flawlessly handled complex scenarios such as a double roundabout.

After Wayve, the conversation shifts to the growing institutional investor interest in the underlying economics of autonomy, including fleet management companies, energy infrastructure, and vehicle depreciation. 

Closing out the conversation, Grayson and Walter talk about the burgeoning robotaxi market in the UAE, where Baidu is launching in Dubai and Uber launched a dedicated autonomous vehicle tier in Abu Dhabi where individuals can order a WeRide robotaxi.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Key Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[03:00] From Double Roundabouts to Aggressive Drivers, Our London Wayve Ride

Reporting from London, Grayson Brulte describes a 45-minute autonomous ride in a Wayve vehicle. Calling it one of the best autonomous vehicle ride experiences he has ever had and was “thoroughly, thoroughly thoroughly impressed”. The vehicle, which had a safety driver present, successfully navigated difficult scenarios such as a double roundabout and defensively slowed down for an aggressive driver even when it had the right of way.

[04:00] Wayve’s Vision-Based Technology Stack

The Wayve vehicle runs on an Nvidia Orin chip. Its compute system is air-cooled and very small, fitting entirely in the trunk, or “boot”. The sensor suite is composed of 12 cameras and one radar. Notably, the system operates without using any LiDARs.

[06:00] Wayve’s OEM Partnerships & Sensor Flexibility

Wayve’s technology is adaptable and can work with or without LiDAR and radar sensors. The decision to include additional sensors, such as LiDAR on the Nissan ProPilot vehicles, was a request from the OEM partner and not a technical requirement from Wayve. 

[13:35] Moove & The Economics of Fleet Management

Moove is a fleet management company that has partnerships with both Uber and Waymo. It aims to manage the “below the line” services for autonomous vehicle fleets. Grayson expressed doubt about a Bloomberg report that Moove was seeking to raise $1 billion to own Waymo’s assets on its balance sheet. The conversation highlighted that institutional investors are showing increased interest in the underlying economics of autonomy, asking questions about energy, real estate, and the depreciation and salvage value of autonomous vehicles.

[18:48] US Market Update: Waymo in NYC, Zoox in DC

In US market news, Waymo has been granted permission to continue testing in New York City through the end of the year. Meanwhile, Zoox announced Washington D.C. as its next city for deployment. 

[22:25] US Politics, Tesla & NHTSA

On the political front, two Democratic senators, Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal, sent a letter to NHTSA demanding tighter oversight of autonomous vehicles. The letter specifically highlighted Tesla’s FSD system, which Senator Blumenthal has a long history of calling for investigations into the company.

[26:00] Kodiak & Mobileye Market Updates

In market news, Kodiak’s stock saw a 16% pop following disclosures that respected institutional investors own the stock. Mobileye’s stock was also up after an investor conference where it presented a “more pragmatic message” focused on revenue-generating L2+ and ADAS products. Mobileye’s detailed roadmap includes taking the driver out in mid-2026 with the VW Buzz program and a commercial launch with Uber in Los Angeles in late 2026.

[34:30] Dubai & Abu Dhabi’s Autonomous Vehicle Push

The UAE is considered a key emerging market for autonomous vehicles due to a favorable regulatory environment and a growing tourism brand. Dubai’s government is targeting 25% of all trips to be autonomous by 2030. In line with this, Baidu has won permits to launch its Apollo Go robotaxis in Dubai and aims to be fully driverless there in early 2026. In a related development, WeRide now has an autonomous vehicle tier inside the Uber app in Abu Dhabi, allowing users to hail a ride.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt the other day, I put on The Clash, the song London’s calling’s coming on. So what do we do when I do field work? We buy a ticket. In this case, I went across the pond. I’m here in London. I’m not broadcast from 2 2 1 B Baker Street, the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes. I’m here in London. I met with Wayve. I met with institutional investors, learning a lot about the autonomy economy in Europe. While I’m here in Europe, the baseball playoffs are underway back home. I hope you’re following it. Unsure. I know you’re an Eagles fan, but I know what you’re following in the autonomy markets and this week, Tesla, once again, unfortunately, they’re facing pressure on the regulatory front. Zoox is hiring lobbyists and they’re out there lobbying to get their exemptions. Baidu in, in working with Dubai. They wanna become the autonomy of capital while I’m here in London meeting with folks. What else is happening in the autonomy markets this week? 

Walter Piecyk: Well, before we get to that, Grayson, I think what our listeners really would like to know is how many London taxis that you’ve taken. Then when you’ve gotten into one of these London taxis, which in many ways approximates, Zoox, which as our longtime listeners know, is something you’ve criticized, does it bring back Zoox memory and has it changed your opinion on these boxier vehicles that you can sit in where you’re facing your fellow passengers? 

Grayson Brulte: Do you wanna know a little bit of a secret Walt? 

Walter Piecyk: Yes. I would like to know. 

Grayson Brulte: The answer zero. I have not been in one black cab. 

Walter Piecyk: How is that possible? I mean, how did you get from the airport into, into London? 

Grayson Brulte: Walt, you got no idea. Now, this is a story, and I will paraphrase this with saying my wife watches too many mafia movies. So we landed Heathrow in the morning and the the driver meets us to go take us to our car. Big explosion. I said, holy shit, what’s going on? Next thing you know, Walt, there’s smoke coming outta the parking garage. And, and the, and the, the driver finds out where it is and he says, sir, my car was right there. And my wife goes, they were trying to whack you. I said, Jesus Christmas, you’re watching the wrong movies. So we had to take the Heathrow Express, ’cause the car we were going in nearly got bombed out. And to Dan Goff, I had that conversation with you. Yes. My wife watches too many Mafia movies, so. Well, it’s been interesting. So we hopped on the Heathrow Express. And then I had a car service pick us up a Paddington station where I’m traveling with my daughter. So what do you do? A Paddington station. You buy a Paddington bear. So it’s been a London experience. 

Walter Piecyk: I would like to know when, when this happened and your wife was commenting about, you know, maybe someone was trying to get you, um, what first crossed your mind? Was it gonna be. A Tesla bull that was gonna go after you or a Waymo bull who did? Who, where did it first cross your mind? Which, which side of the aisle was gonna try and get you in your trip to London? 

Grayson Brulte: Neither. I thought it might have been a foreign spy, but a lot of things went through my head. 

Walter Piecyk: What? What? Okay. I don’t know how you get there. Let’s, let’s move on to actual autonomy. And why don’t you tell us a little bit more about Wayve and, you know, what your experience was in, in meeting with Wayve, and I guess were you in, did you try one of their cars? 

Grayson Brulte: I did try one of the cars. I did meet with Wayve. I saw the engineering. There’s a lot for us to dissect and break down with Wayve, and I want to summarize it this way. I was fully, fully impressed. I went on a 45 minute drive. Yes, there was a safety driver. There was no safety engineer, but safety driver on the left hand side of the road. It was one of the, the best AV ride experience I’ve ever had. And before we get the comments, I will be releasing the full 45 minute unedited video for the public to see in the coming weeks. I was thoroughly, thoroughly thoroughly impressed. 

Walter Piecyk: So tell us more about the vehicle and the type of sensor stack that they had and, and you know, anything you can on the technology side first. 

Grayson Brulte: So it was running the Orin Nvidia chip, the one that you saw in a video that that Jensen signed the compute interesting divergence from when we met with AVride. This is air cooled compute, not water cooled compute. The compute and all the stuff that goes in the vehicle. Very, very small. If I’ll use the English term, ’cause I’m here in England. Well, it fits in the boot. There is no compute in the front, there’s no compute under the seats. Very small compute. The vehicle’s running. 12 cameras, one radar and drum roll please. No lidar. That’s right. No lidar. 

Walter Piecyk: Did you have any lengthy discussion with them about kind of this debate? Like is it as big a debate in Europe as it is in the US and, and kind of what is their view there in general? 

Grayson Brulte: It’s you and thank you for bringing that up because we, we had that discussion and, and, and Tilly the team at Wayve and everybody there. Thanks for listening to the episode because when you and I broke down the Wayve Nissan Pro Pilot, I had to bring that up ’cause and we, and we discussed it. The way that the Wayve technology works, and this is really impressive. It’s something that you and I are gonna have to just discuss more in depth, is the Wayve technology is adaptable. The reason Nissan has all the sensors included the LIDAR sensor that was Nissan. That was not a a Wayve technical demand or a Wayve technical need. That That request of Nissan. The Wayve technology can work can work with a radar. With a lidar, without a radar, without a lidar. It’s a primary, it’s a vision-based system, but it can put these adaptions on based on the needs and wants of the OEM and their partners. 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we saw the challenges that Aurora faced, with their OEM partner. In that case it was paccar. Um, in terms of just taking a driver out of the driver’s seat, do you think or anticipate that Wayve will have similar issues? ’cause as we know, the Wayve business model. Is to partner with OEMs, right? They want to go to, to, I think ultimately private ownership, right? That’s the model. Are they gonna face that with other OEMs, where the OEMs, to make themselves feel better, are gonna require that lidar be included in the sensor stack? 

Grayson Brulte: I would say that Alex Kendall, their co-founder and CEO, has diligently thought this out. I, I will say, without Mr. Kendall or the Wayve team, and saying that saying that based on my conversations, they have a clear understanding of the market. The management team has a clear understanding of the politics that go along with these deals, and I will say that they are very well prepared for what potentially could arise from potential OEM partnerships. 

Walter Piecyk: So that basically means that they, if OEM, so that was your political way of saying, I think. That if the OEMs would like to require the lidar, they can toss that in there. And it’s not like this Tesla thing where Elon has claimed, and that team has claimed that, you know, adding LIDAR as an additional sensor actually confuses the system. They, they don’t. So I think if I’m trying to translate what you’re saying, and I shouldn’t have to do that, grace and just speak directly, that’s what autonomy markets is about. They’ll put it in if the OEM wants it, but it’s not one of these things where if they put it in, it screws up their entire system. 

Grayson Brulte: That is correct. The sensor suite from the design, the Wayve engineering team works works with the OEMs engineer engine teams. I wanna say that very clearly from a sensor requirement standpoint, that is the, the come from the OEM not Wayve, and you are correct, correct, and blunt about this. The Wayve system can work with can work with lidar, it can work with radar without confusing the system. So yes, you are correct. 

Walter Piecyk: So. Look, many people have challenged Tesla’s reason for that. Like, you know, you go back to the earlier days of Tesla when Elon would say, you know, it’s a cost issue. Clearly not a cost issue anymore. Given how third party pricing has come down over the years, here’s a company that can actually do both fine. You know, again, challenging maybe Tesla’s narrative, but again, on the third, I guess my third part of this is like, this is the OEMs requi requiring it because there is, that narrative is a global narrative, meaning that. You know, you’d rather have better safe than sorry, right? Include the lidar in there. But if, if it was, ultimately Wayve’s decision to make, would they have a preference to do it with or without? Lidar, is there, can you even answer that question? 

Grayson Brulte: I can’t speak for Wayve but I can tell you what I experienced, and I’ve never experienced this before. I experienced it in the car. And I’m gonna ask you if you’ve experienced this as a human driver. Have you ever experienced a double roundabout? 

Walter Piecyk: I don’t even know what that means. What? What do you mean? A double roundabout? Like you come out, I know what a roundabout is, but what is a double roundabout? 

Grayson Brulte: So they’re, they’re stacked. They’re one on top of each other. So cars are coming in from all these different rescue with, with a double roundabout. You go into one, you immediately have to go into the other, 

Walter Piecyk: No, I, I’ve never heard of that. 

Grayson Brulte: Yeah. It’s one of the most complicated, driving scenarios and the Wayve driver on the left driver on the left hand side of the road. Handled it flawlessly with a camera. Another scenario, which I’ve noticed, which is very important, which will be in the video which we will be releasing, is that in this part of London that we were in over by the British Museum, the, it’s a, it’s a cars on both sides of the road, and then there’s a little traffic slowing where the, it comes together and we had the, it says on our side, you have the right of way. So this driver, and I’m gonna use the UK term here for you, Walt and decides to floor it. The Wayve driver, this is in this is in autonomous mode. Slow down and, and let the driver go even though we had the right of way. And there, that was in, uh, one scenario that another single one, there was a mother with a baby in a carriage and the vehicle could not tell if the mother was gonna try and illegally cross the road if the mother might lose control of the carriage and the vehicle automatically verge to the right to avoid it and give a base in case. The mother did lose control. Those are two very three actually very interesting experiences firsthand with the Wayve Driver, and that was and that was a camera based system. 

Walter Piecyk: So those were great anecdotes, but I feel like I’m talking to a politician now that’s trying to avoid the question, so I’m gonna pin you down again. I know you’ve done that to me in in past episodes. My question is this, like, based on your discussions with them, do you sense that they have a preference? I mean, obviously they’re gonna work with, however, the OEMs and they have great respect for their OEMs. It’s all about generating business. So, you know, provide what the customer wants. Um, unlike Tesla, which is like, Hey, if you wanna do it, here’s our stack. Good luck. Do they have a preference though? What, I mean, obviously the car you were in didn’t have lidar, and as you pointed out, are some of their OEMs will want to have lidar? What is their preference as the, as the actual technology experts in this, in this situation? 

Grayson Brulte: I was asked to give advice to the Prime Minister today on autonomous vehicles, so I’m in a political mood and I’m gonna give you another political answer. 

Walter Piecyk: Okay, so you’re not gonna answer, lemme try another thing, you know, what do you think the UK or Europe in general is going to, require? This is a two part question by the way. Is the UK gonna require them to put. Lidar or any these other European markets where they’re targeting with their OEMs, first off. And secondly, did you happen to talk about what their partner, Uber said when Dara, you know, was talking about the need for lidar. 

Grayson Brulte: as it relates to the regulatory environment, the uk I’ll say point blank. No, I do not see the UK requiring lidar. The EU and I have met with the individuals in the EU that are drafting the autonomous vehicle regulations. So full disclosure there, unsure. I can tell you based on the preliminary draft of EU regulations, I am concerned with some of the overreaching requirements that are in there. So potentially in the EU but I would say no to the uk. 

Walter Piecyk: Okay. In Telco land, you know they forced GSM, the Europeans in the us Obviously you could pick whatever technology you want. They didn’t license spectrum based on the technology. So we’ll see how that, we’ll see how that plays out. Clearly, you know, in my opinion, the better solution is you let technology, people do technology. And when I was in DC this week, I, I, I learned myself about what’s happening in telco and how Nvidia, you know, can put GPUs directly into radios, which will reduce a lot of the legacy stack that’s out there. And it sounds crazy and it impacts legacy providers, potentially massive reduction in cost. But you know, clearly these governments, wherever they are. Should let technology flourish and let new approaches exist and we’ll see if they work or don’t. And if they don’t, fine. You know, then those that have the better technology approach, if that includes LIDAR or not, um, will be successful. Is there anything else you want to add in terms of, of Wayve or should we move on to other meetings that you had in, in the uk? 

Grayson Brulte: I will say this wholeheartedly Wayve is a special company company and there’s big things coming and, and I was beyond, beyond impressed what I experienced. And Walt, don’t you worry, I got you an invitation and they can’t wait to see you too. 

Walter Piecyk: I can’t wait. And, but my second part of the question, did you talk about what Dara said about lidar? Did that come up in any of your any of your conversations? 

Grayson Brulte: I will not comment on that directly, 

Walter Piecyk: so if there’s nothing else, let’s talk about in terms of Wayve, let’s, you know, pun intended, move on to what, you learned about Moove. And maybe first give us a little bit of background on who Moove is and, you know, anything interesting that, that, that you learned in, in your, in your meetings with them. 

Grayson Brulte: Moove is a fleet management company that is partnerships with both Uber and Waymo that are looking, and I’ll use the term, the Hollywood line to own the below the line to manage all the fleet services for autonomous vehicles. AKA robotaxis, and there was a Bloomberg about a month ago. That Moove is looking to own the to own the Waymo assets on their balance sheet by raising a billion us. Based on the meetings that I’ve had here in the uk, I am unsure. If that report is true, to the extent it is true, so a lot of us couldn’t get an, I couldn’t get a definitive answer. I know you want a better answer, but I’m telling you I could not get a definitive answer, but I have reason to doubt that Bloomberg article and if that is truly going to come to fruition and if it is going to come to fruition at the dollar amount that was publicly reported. 

Walter Piecyk: Then just in general, you know, we talk a lot on this podcast about the importance of what they do. Um, anything you know that you got from them in terms of the challenges of getting power and. Whether the market’s gonna be fragmented? Do they look at this being a long term roll up? Like what are their, what are their overall thoughts on the US market? Obviously this is, they’re a global company, but in the US market specifically. 

Grayson Brulte: I will say point blank Energy’s top of mind. It, it is top of mind and, and I want to, to expand that and meeting with several institutional investors today. The topic of energy is coming up more and more to and to some of those investors that listen to autonomy markets, the road autonomy. Thank you. But the institutions are really starting to ask the questions that we discuss here in autonomy markets, energy real estate, and this came up today, which was the first time I’ve heard in a long time, what is the depreciation value of an autonomous vehicle? And what did you end of life? Can you make any money from salvage? So institutions are starting to look at the, at a, at a bigger picture and the conversation is just not around the technology anymore, where fleet management is becoming very, very compelling and did meet with some institutional investors that watched our video from Austin and, and was asking all about the depot. So very, very interesting that attention is turning its way to the below the line, the fleet management and the services side of autonomy. 

Walter Piecyk: On the residual value thing, it really goes back to a lot of the discussions we had with Nuro, where Nuro is convinced that you wanna move away from the purpose designed vehicle and partner with OEMs because of that ability to finance and have residual value. I’m just not sure that I agree with that, that long term, because at the end of the day when I plug our, our models together and, and trying to figure out. Mix of miles on autonomous fleets in terms of robotaxi, taxii fleets, I think they’re gonna run these things into the ground and put hundreds of thousands of miles on them. And you know, the residual value will effectively be parts, right? I mean, I just, I had a, uh, I had a car for 10 or 12 years and I got a couple couple thousand dollars for something. I paid I think like 60 or 70 for, like, I just don’t know if that’s a major input, um, to what people should be thinking about in terms of how this all works. And frankly. If you can drive down the, uh, cost of the vehicle, strip out all the stuff that, all the bells and whistles that get put into a, what you would want in a privately owned car, in something that’s a robotaxi you know, and make it a lot cheaper and be able to do this, as we’ve talked about many times before with Fox Connor, any of the number of contract manufacturers that are out there. I don’t know, I, I don’t necessarily buy into that, um, that, that model, uh, completely. But we’ll see. As always, keep in my, I’ll keep my mind open. 

Grayson Brulte: I wanna stay on the theme, ’cause I had a conversation with a friend of mine who covers the public markets and he started asking all these questions about scrap yards and how scrap yards can make money from this. So there’s a lot of interesting dialogue that wasn’t happening six months ago. 

Walter Piecyk: Look, the autonomy, which is the physical manifestation of, of AI is gonna change the economy in so many different ways. Yeah. There’s gonna be something down at scrap yards I don’t think we’re gonna ever get to that point, Grayson. I know it’s great and someone might be excited about it, but I think I’m gonna leave Scrapyards out of my interest list in terms of, you know, how autonomy’s changing the market. There’s a lot more interesting things that we’re gonna, that we’re gonna deal with. Is there anything else that we need to cover in London or can we move back across the pond and talk about what’s going on in the us? 

Grayson Brulte: We can move back across the pond, but I wanna leave this for the audience. The UK is going to be a very, very important autonomous vehicle market, and so put it on your, your watch list and, and pay attention to it. 

Walter Piecyk: I’m gonna push back on that like. Why? Because Wayve’s there, because at the end of the day, the population is not that high. We’ve, we’re seeing what’s happening with politics in general in that country. So like other than being the home of Wayve, which we have great obvious respect for, why should I care about the uk? 

Grayson Brulte: There is an opportunity based on transport data to deploy 120,000 robotaxis in London, not city of London, but London proper. That is the, the registered number today of Ubers under license from the transport industry. 

Walter Piecyk: That’s great, Grayson, but there’s like, what, 60 or 70 million people? That live there overall, , great beer, Liverpool, top of the table. I don’t know if they’re a swing factor in what happens globally, but let’s move, let’s go back to the us the most important market in the world and New York. The best city in the world. You know, back on the East Coast in general, you have Waymo extending its permit. To keep testing in New York City through the end of the year. And like I just said, New York City is the ultimate, uh, city, the best city density, aggressive drivers, potholes the size of a mini Cooper, as you know what they say. If you can, if you can survive here as an autonomous company, you’ve, you’ve got bragging rights pretty much anywhere. And, and on the other side, our buddies over at Zoox are announcing Washington DC is the next city. Which is not really about the tr tough traffic patterns. I was just there, you know, not really that complex of a city, but clearly more about the optics. So what’s better a way to normalize your robotaxi than driving senators and regulators, you know, around their offices. Right. So that’s, that is a positive, I think, for the industry in, in general. So, you know. What were you, obviously you haven’t been following the US news as closely, what were you, what did you, what got you more excited? You know, getting, having some more New York City, and obviously we have an election coming up here in a, in, you know, in a month or so, which could really dramatically change things. But what was more interesting to you, uh, Waymo in New York or Zoox announcing DC as its next city. 

Grayson Brulte: The most interesting thing to me is none of those. You’re Walt Sinatra. Now, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. We got Walt Sinatra here. Waymo extending to the end of the year is a very good thing. It is a very good movement for the industry. It is not a catalyst I wanna stress because as I’ve been following the news, and I by love my beloved New York Post, they got the best, best sports page in town. Adam Adam’s dropped out. If you look at the polling data, the polling data is showing an incoming mayor in Mamdani, Who is against this form of technology, so that’s, that could be a potential risk. Maybe. Waymo was just trying to front load what’s going on and Zoox going to dc. Very smart move. But Walt, not commercial testing. I read the press release. It was testing, not commercialization. Two positive steps, but nothing to look for at this point as a catalyst. 

Walter Piecyk: I mean the, the Mamdani’ stuff. I, I, I feel you on that, but as you, as you know, well, like there’s other infrastructure issues that need to be dealt with in order to get a robotaxi fleet to work in New York. If Mamdani wants to set the city back, if he has even has the power to do that, um, that’s on him. And whatever, you know, these things pass as they did in San Francisco. But in terms of Zoox, you know, let’s, let’s tie this into another political thing that’s happening right now back home, um, where we’ve had a shutdown, right? So I, I’m, I’m gonna list off some things I think that are get impacted by the shutdown. You might correct me on some of them, but, NHTSA crash investigations I think would be paused, right? So that’s a big one. Uh, you’re shaking your head no, but you can, why don’t we go one by one? NHTSA crash investigations paused. So what, what happens at NHTSA during this shutdown? 

Grayson Brulte: based on the publicly available Department of Transportation, shut down funding documents, the 574 employees at NHTSA. There, there, there is no furloughs as it relates to their work and to their investigations of working with. With counter agencies and other individuals. I’m unsure how that will work. But A, as based on the the DOT funding, the NHTSA continues full steam ahead, but I do not have any insight to how that might impact investigations and or potential investigations. 

Walter Piecyk: I think there’s other stuff like, you know, the DOT AV testing, FA drone like approvals, things like that. I mean, these shutdowns typically don’t last that long, so I don’t, I think we should kind of skip over this, not spend too much time and see how long it, it ends up, being, I mean, there is. You know, Congress does kind of move on. I think, you know, in my world, um, you know, FCC Chairman Carr is gonna have to, you know, sit in front of a bunch of senators. They’re gonna grill him. You know, in that world of politics, you have two democratic senators. Uh, ed Markey and Rich Blumenthal, of I think Markee, Massachusetts, Blumenthals Connecticut, sent a letter to NHTSA demanding tighter oversight. Pointing specifically at the FSDs behavior. I think there they were referring back to these, a lot of these videos of the Teslas not handling, um, basically the train, uh, barriers that were coming down. Um, you know, interesting obviously that it comes from due to Democrats. This is a couple of weeks after Elon and Trump were at the Charlie Kirk Memorial together. Obviously seemingly in, in, in pretty good spirits are, are we back too? Kind of politics as usual. Um, you know, we’re gonna have the Dems going after Tesla and, and frankly, like, since they’re not in charge, other than calling for it, you know, is anything you think gonna happen at NHTSA in terms of them calling for, for additional investigations? 

Grayson Brulte: what’s old again, is new again. This is not the first time Senator Blumenthal has called for an investigation into Nisa. This has happened on multiple occasions. I am not going to foresight why? All I can say, and this has been publicly documented and debunked, the time that Senator Blumenthal went for a ride with FSD supervised on, it was on a controlled course. Certain things happen in the testing, and I will not say who did it for privacy purposes, but there’s, there’s a long history of Senator Blumenthal going after Tesla and going and trying to push forward investigation. So what’s old again, is new again, and it’s unfortunate and it not giving political advice. In my humble opinion, if Senator Blumenthal wants these investigations, Senator Blumenthal should go to Austin and take a ride in Robotaxi and experience how good this technology truly is. 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, you’re assuming that politicians on either side, , left, right or center or up, down, whatever, whatever direction you wanna say, or care about the actual facts as opposed to, you know, playing to whatever political base that, that they have out there. So I’ve kind of lost a bit of faith in that. I spent, you know, again, spent a lot of time in DC which just there again, this, this past week. So, and, and the reality is like them. Um, you know, sending these letters does that really everyone’s mind is, I think, seemingly already made up. So in the meantime, you know, Tesla’s hopefully moving forward, I still didn’t get my software update to 14 FSD yet. Um, you know, as they’re, they keep out to pushing the technology forward and, you know, people will just have to decide for themselves as they, as they get exposed. To this technology and we see how, how it performs, , you know, in Robotaxi world, you know, or hopping into a car of a friend of yours like me that has FSD and then uses it. Every time that that I drive, 

Grayson Brulte: It’s just, it’s a shame. It’s it’s politics at its fine is how I would describe it. And I said this last week and I got some, I would say this politely, Walt, some heated feedback about the phone. And I still believe the phone causes more crashes, more accidents, more incidents than FSD, and I would love people to need to challenge me on that ’cause I’m not gonna stop on that. It’s a very good system. Is it the greatest system in the world? No. Is it a very good system? Yes. Is it gonna save lives? Yes. 

Walter Piecyk: Yeah. I, I don’t, I mean, I think we’re in agreement there. One other thing in the US again, you know, focus of this podcast, New York City, greatest city in, in the world, um, home of the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ where Kodiak was last week with their truck. Today we’ve got a 16% pop in the stock. Um, there was some disclosures of some institutional respected institutional investors that own Kodiak. It frankly shouldn’t have been a surprise. I think it was, it should have been if anyone had done their homework. was known that people, or it should have been known that, that these investors were in it. But, you know, I think again, it’s good to get. The, the market is used as a way to get some exposure and I think this is good, good for the space. So, um, congrats, I guess is what you would say to Kodiak for, for seeing this pop in the stock. We’ll see if it continues. Obviously one day pops can, can disappear the following day, depend on any number of, number of things. 

Grayson Brulte: good for Kodiak. I think, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a, an indication that there is institutional interest in the area. And I wanna state for the record, there was a photo that went around last week when I was in the States that two Kodiak autonomous trucks got into a, into a crash. False news, fake news, Atlas Energy, and put out a long, lengthy blog post expl explaining what happened. So fake news on that. It just seems that anytime there’s a potential incident or or perception of an incident, everybody runs out there for autonomy, you know, to make the autonomy of the boogeyman. But then there’s that great Warren Buffett line. There’s a great Howard Marks line on it as well. The stock market’s a voting machine, and clearly the market is, is voting in Kodiak. And um, you know, stocks go up, stocks go down, markets go up, markets go down, but it’s, it’s a positive indicator that institutions are opening up this technology. And that’s something that I’m seeing right here when I’m in London. 

Walter Piecyk: I. mean, it’s a voting machine for one day, so I wouldn’t, you know, put the cart before the horse. But yeah, it’s, it’s always positive if you get some attention as a result. I mean, the other stock. It’s up Today is Mobileye Mobileye was at an investor conference, um, yesterday. I think giving what I would call a more pragmatic message relative to the stuff that we love to talk about here. Talking about L two plus and a DAS. Not in robotaxis. Obviously that’s very different than kind of the world of Nvidia talking end-to-end AV and, and robotaxi taxis and MobileEye focusing on, which I think what you’ve, what’s what you have appreciated historically revenue now, products now. Like what is, you know, what are they doing now? Like, you know, ’cause here’s a company that’s generating what, $2 billion of, of revenue already, which is primarily a DAS. It’s not really. The future of autonomy. So, um, you know, any, any new thoughts on Mobileye? And, and again, we’ve talked about this before in this podcast, like maybe that is a pattern like, or a, a process where, hey, you do L two first, and that is the next step to autonomy or you of the belief that no, you gotta go full force to full autonomy from day one and not even bother with these interim steps. 

Grayson Brulte: I’ll say this. Over the last probably four months of, of meeting and speaking with institutional investors, the name MobileEye has not come up once. And the news that you’re sharing with me now as we speak, I’m gonna give you a pushback question, is MobileEye reading the market and saying that our true opportunity is an a DS since global OEMs around the world are embracing A DAS and we’re seeing that exactly what’s happening with Honda and Helm ai. Is this a potential to mobilize seas that, hey, listen, we gotta really. Go for this L two market, since that’s where the market believes that our technology serves best. And I’m gonna say this bluntly, Walt Punt on Robotaxi, at least for now. 

Walter Piecyk: Definitely not. I mean, I think, ’cause there was also the message about, you know, taking the driver out in mid 2026 with the VW Buzz program talking about whatever, 12,000 units over four or five years. It’s a more methodical approach. So I don’t think it’s, it’s an either or. It’s just a how they’re progressing. Just like you could argue that in the world of trucking, Kodiak saying like, okay. We’ll start by putting our sensors on. If it’s, if at some point in the future an OEM wants to move with us with greater integration, sure we can go that route, but we wanted to get the revenue today and not have to deal with the slow moving OEMs. Um, so I think maybe you could, you could draw parallels between those two approaches. And frankly, just because investors aren’t asking about a company. It doesn’t mean that’s not a great opportunity that if, if anything, those are the things you wanna look for. Like companies that are progressing, that are, that investors have fallen asleep on. ’cause that might be, you know, something of greater interest. Again, I’m not saying one way or another, haven’t done enough work on MobileEye to know, you know, whether this tech stack is out there. But there’s always a multiple ways to look at at individual companies. 

Grayson Brulte: It’s interesting that you said driver route, VWID bus mid 2026. Did Mobileye give any insight or clarity if that will be a part of the Uber partnership? I asked that because in the original Uber press release for the ID fours that are running on the Uber network in Los Angeles 2027, uh, they originally start. Driver in with a safety engineer and safety driver. Any clarity that Mobileye offered us on that. 

Walter Piecyk: I think it’s mid 26. You’re gonna have Florida small scale driver route deployment, late 26 commercial launch with Uber in Los Angeles. And then after, after you have Uber in la you have Lyft in Dallas with Marni. Um, no specific timing there. So maybe. You’re probably talking 27. And then when you get into 27, you’re also talking about European City launches like ham, ah, excuse me, Oberg Berlin, Munich, Oslo, things like that. So I think that, you know, there is a, there is a roadmap. So we’ll, we’ll see. 

Grayson Brulte: Interesting. I wish them well. I think this is interesting into the, the Mobileye and VW folks, Walt and I would love to take a ride. I know we’ve asked before, you said you’re not letting outside parties in, but based on. This news, we’d love to take a ride. And being based in Florida, I’d love to learn what your Florida’s deployments are because of regulatory environments there. So perhaps we have a new company to watch. 

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we have been watching this. We need to spend more time with them. I’m actually, you know, I’m scheduled to spend more time with them, um, next week. So, you know, I think MobileEye is, is definitely on the, on the radar as it should be. Right? I mean, obviously they’re, you know, they’re a primary player in the space. Um, but as they progress on this timeline, you know, we’ll spend, you know, a little bit more time there. Meanwhile, our friends at Hyundai. Let’s just yank that into it because there was a little bit of news today, obviously on September 30th, the incentives went away for EV cars. And you know, I think you had two approaches. Tesla, I think, you know, remove some of the incentives in terms of the financing for some of these things. And Hyundai, I think, lowered price by the amount of credits that they were getting, wanting to sell more of these Inoqiq 5. So. We’re watching Hyundai ’cause they’re an important partner for Avride but more importantly for Waymo and, you know, wanting to get down that path. If anything, you know, if you’re cutting price in the US to offset the lack of, of EV incentives that are out there, there should be more pressure on that company internally to deliver on those Waymo, you know, product lines to ramp up volume in in this country. So I think. Ultimately what we care about is autonomy. Maybe the, maybe this lack of, of incentive for EVs is gonna help us to put more pressure on OEMs like this to try and deliver products to Waymo and Avride, which is what we wanna see in this country, as in this mean, the us, not uk, uh, as soon as possible. 

Grayson Brulte: Yes. I think what you and I, and which I’ll be watching, and I’ll share it here on autonomy markets. I’ll be watching the Cox Automotive and Experian data. From the next two quarters to see what EV sales are. When we get the next round of data, I believe we’re gonna see a major pull through of individuals that wanted to get before the, before the tax break went away. Now that that has expired, I’m gonna watch the next two quarters to see what that impact is. And you’re right, they have customers wi with the ability to finance and the ability to pay cash for these vehicles, and then hopefully they can accelerate some of this autonomy sales. If EV sales, which I will predict here are going to decline in the United States. 

Walter Piecyk: Grayson, now that you spent a little time in London, I’m wondering if this gives you any kind of, you know. You know, incentive or desire to go to Dubai. Um, you know, ’cause in Dubai you’ve had some news this week. You’ve got Baidu who won some permits to launch the Apollo Go, robotaxis, they’re, they want to go fully driverless in early 2026. And then, you know, last week you had tensor unveiling the robocar. The thing that I actually saw in New York. Not a fleet, but a level four car that you can actually own private ownership. So a bit different than what Baidu’s, um, you know, is proposing, but you know, Dubai. Why pick this market in terms of, you know, this focus or is it just coincidental? But it seems like there’s focus there. 

Grayson Brulte: Regulatory environment. You have regulatory environments, you have a growing tourism brand in the, in, not just Dubai, but the whole UAE. If you go look at Abu Dhabi, they have some of the finest art there. So you’re getting not just your, we want to go have fun in the sand. We want to go and yes, you can drink in certain environments and hotels there. We want to go drink and we want to go party. You’re starting to get a culture and if, if you look at the moves that are being made in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia. Trying to get more tourism. And I believe that incorporating autonomy into your, into your countries or to your, to your Emirates or your kingdoms, into your Emirates, uh, plans is a very positive thing. And actually, I have been in discussions to go over to the UAE to test these things. So we’ll see when that happens. And, uh, to the folks, you know who you are. I got Walt, he’s gotta come with me, and we’re gonna bring autonomy market to the UAE ’cause I wanna experience the technology firsthand With you, With you, Walt. 

Walter Piecyk: We’ll say. We’ll say, I just figured being in London might have inspired you maybe to consider going to the UAE But getting back to Dubai, I mean, that’s a government that I believe is targeting 25% of trips to be autonomous by 2030. I mean, that’s actually, I think that should be an easy lift. ’cause some of the work that I’ve done in the US would suggest that traffic can be much higher than that. Again, assuming you can get these OEMs. Um, to ramp their volume and make sure the regulatory is, is kind of on track. So, , you know, 25% doesn’t seem like a hard target to hit. What are your thoughts on that? 

Grayson Brulte: From a regulatory standpoint, from a demand standpoint, yes, you can, and I wanna stay on. The Emirates News, Walt, we had big news and we had big news this week, at least according to me and you and the autonomy markets audience out of Abu Dhabi this week. It happened. Andrew McDonald. You did it. I love it. I thank you. Please release date on it, Walt. The WeRide in Abu Dhabi has an autonomous vehicle tier inside of the Uber app. That’s right. There’s an autonomous vehicle tier inside of the Uber app to get a WeRide in Abu Dhabi. Now that’s a positive sign. 

Walter Piecyk: That is a positive sign. Let’s bring it back to the US and, and allow us to do that in some of these markets. I have a friend that’s in, uh. Austin right now, and I’m trying to convince him to try and get a Waymo. Um, you know, if you can do it there, if you can do it in Abu Dhabi or whatever you’re, you’re saying, then, then you should be able to do it in the us. I guess Uber in that market feels good enough about WeRide, you know, providing. You know, whatever. Enough rides fast enough. I find that I’m a little skeptical about that given the work I’ve done on WeRide. Um, I don’t know, maybe it was a, maybe it was a local requirement that we we wouldn’t have in, in this country. I don’t know. 

Grayson Brulte: Instead of calling the autonomous vehicle tab, Uber can call, though we autonomous tab 

Walter Piecyk: Uh, that’s a bad joke. 

Grayson Brulte: Well, you know what? It’s a dad joke. How’s that? 

Walter Piecyk: All right, Grayson. Well, that’s it for this week. You know, you’re normally the one asking me what do we have on tap for next week. So now I’m gonna ask you what do we have on tap for next week in terms of what to look for in the world of autonomy markets 

Grayson Brulte: Well, thanks for being the band leader this week. Uh, you made me very proud. Now I’ll give you the name. Tommy Dorsey. He’s a great big band. You did a great job hosting the big autonomy markets. What we’re waiting for next week, you, you and I now FSD 14. I keep checking my phone from London. It said update available. Okay, great. I did minor update to my phone and then I get the data report, 10.2 gigs of data transfer to my Teslas. Like, oh, that seems a lot more than a, a minor update. So maybe that’s an inclination. Something’s coming. What’s on deck Next week is hopefully FSD 14. We test it. We host another great show. I’m back in the States. Until then, the future’s bright. The future’s autonomous. The future is autonomy markets, Walt until next week.