Transcript: Lyft’s Back! Waymo Deal Shocks Market, Tesla & Uber Forge Unthinkable Alliance

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the two big deals of the week. Lyft and Waymo’s Nashville partnership and Tesla partnering with Uber Freight to bring the Tesla Semi to the Uber Freight platform.

Grayson and Walt break down the specifics of these deals, Waymo’s new but limited airport access at SFO, and major progress in the autonomous trucking space from companies like Bot Auto.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Key Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[00:00] Lyft is back in the autonomy game

Lyft is back in the autonomous vehicle space with a new deal with Waymo. This news is coupled with two other major developments: an “unthinkable” alliance between Uber and Tesla, and Waymo receiving clearance for operations at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

[1:00] Breaking down the new deal between Lyft and Waymo in Nashville 

The deal between Lyft and Waymo will take place in Nashville. It is a non-exclusive agreement where the autonomous vehicles will be available on both the Lyft and Waymo networks. The announcement caused Lyft’s stock to rise 15-20% while Uber’s stock fell 5%.

[2:00] How the Nashville deal’s shared fleet differs from Waymo’s Phoenix operations 

In Phoenix, Uber and Waymo operate with two separate fleets on separate apps. The plan for Nashville is different; it will utilize one shared fleet with integrated technology, making it a more efficient way to service the market.

[3:00] The strategic importance of Lyft’s Flexdrive for fleet management

Waymo will own the cars, while Lyft will be responsible for managing the fleet through its subsidiary, Flex Drive. This is a key strategic advantage for Lyft, as it owns its fleet management capabilities, whereas Uber outsources this function to various partners.

[7:00] History Corner: Revisiting the first Waymo and Lyft deal from 2019 

This is technically the second deal between the two companies, not the first. The original partnership was a pilot program in 2019 that involved 10 Chrysler Pacifica minivans operating in Phoenix.

[9:00] Political hurdles in Nashville and the potential impact on vehicle choices (Zeekr vs. Hyundai)

A potential political issue looms in Nashville’s 2026 gubernatorial race, as leading candidate Senator Blackburn is a notable “China Hawk”. This could create a problem for deploying Chinese-made Zeekr vehicles, potentially leading Waymo to initially use its remaining Jaguar I-PACEs and later transition to Hyundai vehicles.

[12:00] What does this partnership mean for the Uber-Waymo relationship? 

The deal created significant market volatility and challenges the assumption that Uber would be Waymo’s exclusive partner for new markets. Uber’s stock dropped 5% following the news, and the development raises questions about who Waymo will partner with for future city launches.

[15:00] Waymo gains clearance for SFO airport access, but with a catch

While Waymo has been approved for pickups at San Francisco’s airport, the service is not curbside. Riders must travel to a “kiss and fly” station, a seven-minute, two-stop journey from the terminal, which the hosts describe as inconvenient.

[18:00] Prediction: When will Waymo fully unlock highway driving? 

The SFO airport access is seen as a clear indicator that Waymo is getting closer to launching on highways. One host predicts that Waymo will be operating a paid commercial highway service in the San Francisco Bay Area by December 31, 2025, ahead of a similar launch in Phoenix.

[25:00] Bot Auto demonstrates a fully driverless 40-mile run 

Autonomous trucking company Bot Auto released a video of a “validation run” showing one of its trucks completing a 40-mile trip completely autonomously. The truck, with no human in the cab, successfully navigated service roads, highways, and town roads.

[34:00] The Unthinkable Alliance: Tesla Semi joins the Uber Freight network 

In what is described as an “unthinkable” deal, Tesla and Uber have partnered to bring the Tesla Semi to the Uber Freight platform. The agreement includes financial incentives and integrates the electric trucks into Uber Freight’s dedicated solution. The move is viewed as a “Trojan horse” for introducing Tesla’s autonomous technology into the trucking sector.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walter Piecyk. Wow. Oh wow. I feel like we were transported back to the nineties with Sir Mixed lot ’cause babies got back. ’cause Lyft is back in autonomy. This week, Lyft announced a deal with Waymo, and if you can believe it, the unthinkable happened. Uber and Tesla did a deal, and another unbelievable Waymo was cleared for takeoff at SFO. Adjacent, is this the version of California sober?

Walter Piecyk: First of all, um. I think the back that Baby has is different than Lyft being back as I recall that song. And yeah, California Sober is probably a, a good explanation for, you know, the version of their airport, um, where you have to go in San Fran, but we’ll get back to that or we’ll get to that later. Let’s, let’s first start racing with the thing that sent, um, Lyft stock up 15, 20%, sent Uber stock down 5%. We finally got this deal between Lyft and Waymo. I mean, on one hand I wanna pat myself on the back ’cause this was part of my Lightshed predictions to start the year. You know, we did this the, we did this massive report, big predictions for 25. This was part of one of the predictions, but on the other hand, like as things died down, we kind of fell asleep on this. I remember like earlier episodes of the podcast like, where’s Lyft? What happened to Lyft? And then we just basically stopped asking, we fell asleep on Lyft. And David Risher. Got the deal done.

Grayson Brulte: He did it. It was like we were playing a game of Where’s Waldo and we stopped looking for Waldo. And in that case it wasn’t Waldo, it was Lyft, but the market that I correctly called or we correctly called Nashville. Waymo’s gonna operate there. They’re gonna operate on Lyft with a catch. Here’s the easiest part, non-exclusive deal. The vehicles will be available on the Lyft network and the Waymo Network. That’s a really interesting turn of events.

Walter Piecyk: I don’t know if we know if it’s fully non-exclusive, meaning that like, I’m not sure when we say non-exclusive, that implies that. Waymo can come in later with Uber. I don’t know, maybe that is true or, or not true. , But we do know that it’ll be a hybrid market. There are similarities and differences with Phoenix, as our listeners may know. And Phoenix, , you know, you have Uber and Waymo on separate apps. Um, so it’s similar in that way, but it’s different in that, you know, in Phoenix, Uber has their own Waymo cars and the Waymo One app. Has their own Waymo cars. So they’re effectively two separate fleets of cars in that market. Whereas the plan, for Nashville is it’s gonna be one shared fleet with integrated technology. So I think a, a difference there.

Grayson Brulte: There is a difference who, who’s gonna own the fleet? Do you have any insights into that?

Walter Piecyk: mean, like we saw when we were in Austin, I think Waymo will own the fleet. . I think the question that we’ve always had is like, well, how much is, you know, Lyft can be on the hook for the financing of that fleet relative to Uber. My guess is, you know, based on the structure of this or, or what they’ve described about this transaction that you, you know, Lyft is not effectively paying for the financing of these cars. Where that might be the case in Uber. Again, we haven’t seen the contracts. We don’t know for a fact. Um. I think in that case, Waymo continues to own the cars, which is I think that they have in every market where they’re, they’re partnered with Uber.

Grayson Brulte: Well, Waymo’s gonna continue to own the cars. Lyft is gonna manage ’em through their Flexdrive ary, which we’ve highlighted many times, and not to be. A funny, is this Lyft flexing Their Flexdrive muscles?

Walter Piecyk: we’ve talked about that a lot. I mean, you’ve done interviews on road to autonomy in terms of the importance of this third leg of the stool. The, the fleet management. Lyft owns this in Flexdrive. Uber outsources this through a variety of partners, some of which they have minority stakes. Maybe they have got takeout clauses for the, for those companies. Could be a key component of what Lyft is, is bringing to the table, but also perhaps this technology integration where they can share a fleet. Now, I don’t know what that means for future markets, if Lyft gets future markets. Will it evolve like Uber did, where it’ll be like an Uber only and not have a a, a Waymo one app as, as we’ve seen in like Austin or, or, or some of these other markets? Or do you think that the future model for Lyft going forward if they do more markets with Waymo, would be this, this kind of joint approach that we’ve just described?

Grayson Brulte: I think it’s a joint approach because if you look at all the public statements that David Risher, CEO of Lyft has made, every interview he’s done recently over the last two to three months, he is highlighted Flexdrive. So I view it as a, as a package deal where Lyft is trying to create more value for Flexdrive.

Walter Piecyk: that’s true from Lyft’s standpoint. So they would probably want to continue that. And from Waymo’s standpoint, I think they wanna make sure that that ecosystem of. You know, charging and, and servicing continues to proliferate. It’s interesting, you know, we’ve always talked about Uber as being the one that wants to fragment the market in terms of the multiple autonomous pro, um, partners. Waymo is the one that’s effectively fragmenting the servicing market, right? By by variety. They had Avis. , they also have like Seattle and Denver where they haven’t yet announced the partner, so I’m sure they’ll either diversify or add, um, more partners there. And again, Uber, you know, can continue to play a role there, but, it’s one of those win-win transactions. It took a while and Grayson. Risher, actually bought a hundred thousand dollars of stock on September 3rd, and this deal was effectively announced two weeks later, and the stock moved 20%. So you typically don’t buy stock with, you know, material non-public information. So, and by the way, this, this thing was probably just, this deal was probably sitting in the background for months and months and months. Do you think there’s a possibility that like Waymo kind of rushed. In, in the last couple of weeks and said, okay, we’re ready to get this deal. We wanna get this deal on the tape. I mean, what do you, what’s your sense on, on the timing and why now? I mean, there’s no doubt that a transaction like this has been taking a long time. Waymo is, you know, Google is a, you know, moves very slow in general. But, you know, it’s just interesting timing, I guess.

Grayson Brulte: It is interesting timing ’cause if you, if you look at the filings before the latest purchase. Last time Mr. Risher bought stock was May. So there was a quite a, a a, a big time difference there. And when he was touting the stock purchases weeks ago on tv, he was saying ’cause he believes in the strength of the company where they were going over the long term. But looking at this, and this is pure speculation, I wanna emphasize pure speculation. Perhaps Waymo said to Uber, we want this to be a non-exclusive market. We want to be a hybrid market. And negotiations broke down. And then Waymo called up, don’t laugh, one 800 Lyft. Hello Lyft. We want to do a deal. And Lyft’s like, whoa, we’re back in the game. Let’s do a deal. I, I’m just speculating. Maybe that happened.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, it feels like that because I don’t think Risher iss, the type of guy that if he had the information, would’ve like been trading on that. So my guess is, again, it was probably something that they worked on for a long time and then for whatever reason, it came to a conclusion. Going back to Phoenix Grayson, , you know, aside from, you know, identifying that again, Uber and way more have different fleets, I think you have a little history corner for us in. You know what the origins of Phoenix were that I think most people have probably forgotten about. I know I have, and this was a shock to me when you pointed this out.

Grayson Brulte: A lot of people have, I was watching TV and they even for forgot it on tv. This is not the first deal. Waymo has had with Lyft, and I even caused me to put a tweet out. The first deal goes back to 2019 for 10 vehicles operating in Phoenix. So technically this is the second deal between Waymo, Lyft, not the first. We’re correcting the record for the folks that watch tv.

Walter Piecyk: And so do, so do we know then what happened in Phoenix? So you started in 2019, there was 10 cars. That trial came to an end, I guess. Then Waymo did the Waymo One app and then ultimately brought Uber in later with, again, a se, a separate fleet.

Grayson Brulte: It was. It was very interesting ’cause I went through the archive of the Waymo blog and there was no announcements after that. There was no public statements after that. It just kind of tapered off. So perhaps it was truly just a pilot, but. Why did it end? We, we don’t know.

Walter Piecyk: So it’s different time, different era. They did 10 cars, then completely different tech stack. I don’t even know what cars that they were using back then, nor do I care. Probably gonna use, oh, you Grayson, you know, you wanna chime in? What was the car that they were using back in 2019?

Grayson Brulte: I do. They were using the Chrysler Pacifica Minivans.

Walter Piecyk: Okay, well maybe I can find one of those on eBay. That would be a nice relic to have. I’ll stick it in the front yard and, you know, give comments from my guests. But, um, so in this, for, for, um, the market that’s coming up. Here in Nashville, what do you think in terms of, number of cars that they’re gonna launch with and which models, do they have enough Jags, , to launch this? Because I think they’re talking about 2026, right? So like, are there any jags left by 2026 and how many think you they’re launching with.

Grayson Brulte: I don’t know, but I will say if you’re gonna put something on your front lawn, you better be careful. ’cause I threatened you would open pit fire in my father-in-law’s front yard and he had a meltdown over the grass. So be be careful with that aspect of it. If you look at the Nashville market, you cannot look at the Nashville market without looking at politics. There was a governor’s race coming up in in 2026. The polling today, I know it’s a ways out, indicates that Senator Blackburn, who was running for governor. Will be elected governor in November, 2026. If Senator Blackburn is elected governor and becomes governor of Tennessee, you have a Zeekr issue because Senator Blackburn is a China Hawk. Very outspoken on that. With that political angle in mind, the vehicles that I see initially being the Jaguar I-PACEs is, if there’s any left, I, I say that if there is any left and then eventually that becoming a Hyundai market, depending on what happens in the Savannah plant. Based on the current Pol political situation that we’re seeing between Hyundai and the Trump administration, and as for vehicles, I am going to say based on the Austin launch, 50 to 75, maybe a hundred on the high side to start over the first three to four months of opening that market.

Walter Piecyk: And I think ultimately Lyft has talked about getting to hundreds. So I would say by the end of 2026, you’re getting to hundreds. And by the way, if you’re getting to hundreds by the end of 2026 in, in Nashville, combined with all the expectations we have with existing markets, you’re, you need Zeekrs And, and, and Hyundai’s and I, I would guess if there’s an issue with Senator Blackburn that, you know, basically you could redeploy some of the Jags into this market, in order to, to satisfy whatever those, those requirements might be. And unlike Phoenix, you don’t need this duplicative fleet. So it’s a more efficient way to service a market, , by having one, one shared fleet.

Grayson Brulte: And when you look at the market we hit, this is very important to highlight ’cause you and I did the work on this when we were in Austin. Nashville is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. They are currently having energy issues. Is there enough energy there today to to scale this fleet? And do we need to look for if Lyft hires and energy specialists in Flexdrive for the Nashville market?

Walter Piecyk: the question that you put forth is really just a question for Flexdrive and can they execute? And Flexdrive has historically been as a. Servicing company for car rentals. It’s very different than what they’re doing for autonomous fleets. So this is gonna be, I think, a very important market to watch for Flexdrive and ultimately Lyft. And if they can execute well, then that can be replicated and gives Lyft kind of potentially an edge in terms of additional markets that are out there in, in the case of Uber, like Uber might be fine, you know, maybe they have three or four JV partners and one of them execute. There’s nothing like the control of it being a hundred percent owned subsidiary, where you can grab the guy’s neck and ring it for not getting the job done, as opposed to being the 30% partner. You’re on the board, you’re, you know, and you’re trying to get them to invest the dollars. I think that is, you can’t underestimate that. You know, we, we’ll see how that plays out. Still question. Uber’s strategy of not taking this, this, uh, in-house.

Grayson Brulte: Walter Piecyk,, this is not the seventies. She can’t ring somebody’s neck without getting in trouble. There’s, there’s rules in hr. We’ll put that there. You said Uber. Let’s ask the million dollar question. In your opinion, what does this mean for the Uber Waymo relationship?

Walter Piecyk: first of all, as a stock analyst, I love the, the fact that it continues to create volatility. There’s clearly people that are always very certain about what Uber and Waymo’s future is, and we see. Them obviously state these, these views I guess on, on, um, on CNBC, but also we see it reacting to stock being down 5% on the news. And I just harken back to Austin and the YipIt data and everyone’s like, oh, this is such a great thing for Uber and every new market’s gonna be an Umer Waymo market. And then the very next market was Waymo one. And then like, okay. You know, one or two other things happen and, and you know. You see the stocks move. So I think, you know, it’s good in terms of those of us that are trying to understand what we think the next catalyst can be and you know, which way those, those stocks are gonna go. So, um, I, I guess I continue to expect that, , to continue. It’s also funny to hear people denigrate Lyft, you know, which we saw in a couple of these programs based in its relative market cap. I mean, you’re excluding the kind of Uber Eats business. Uber freight, the global business. The bottom line is like. Just like AI is gonna disrupt industries, right? Autonomy is gonna change, change things, right? Dramatically. So the platform that they have, , is certainly capable of enabling an autonomous future. So I don’t, you know, think that people should count these guys out just because their market cap happens to be a fraction of what Uber’s is in the market.

Grayson Brulte: [clap], Walter Piecyk,, you should go on the CNBC and, and debate this because you’re right. And another angle to point out that they, when they harp on the market cap, they acquired FreeNOW, now Lyft is on the European continent, so they have the ability to scale globally now, which they didn’t prior to the acquisition.

Walter Piecyk: that’s exactly right in terms of when you’re viewing the scale, it’s about the markets they’re gonna get into. Again, maybe the importance of this third leg of the stool, the fleet management, the charging, any number of things I think can occur. , So look, the bottom line is, I guess the next question’s gonna be the next market to launch. Is it Waymo one? Is it Lyft? Is it Uber? Is it both? I mean, you know that that ends, ends up being a big question and every incremental market. My view on this is, has been pretty consistent, is not necessarily your confirmation of where the end game is for Waymo, and I’ve said this before, like I’m not even sure that the current co-CEOs will ultimately be the one to make the final decision. We’ll have to see as this business evolves as they get to. What I consider a science project, not because I’m trying to denigrate what Waymo’s doing. Waymo’s got, they’re a leader, they have the great product, but they’re still outfitting cars with expensive sensors. They haven’t hit production and scale volume yet, right? So as they get to the next phase in their, in their business, , we’ll see who’s making the decisions and, and I think the path is not yet clear.

Grayson Brulte: I agree with that the, the, the path is not clear. Waymo has out outside of the technical abilities, outside of the manufacturing. Waymo still has a lot of hurdles that they have to overcome. Let’s stay on the Waymo theme here and let’s switch gears to SFO Airport. You and I have gone back and forth and in the previous episode, we broke down the politics of why we thought it’d be a long time. And lo and behold, two things happened this week. One, we got a post on next for Mayor Lourie of San Francisco, praising Waymo’s expansion to, to SFO saying it’s an economic driver. But Walter Piecyk, there was a catch. It was at the kiss and fly station. You cannot get curbside kiss and fly. And that’s a, and I did this, I did the homework on this. ’cause you teach me these things. You’re a very good teacher. Two stops, seven minutes. To me, that’s a giant pain in the, you know, what we’re in, uh, you know what? This is, this is half baked.

Walter Piecyk: we’ve had this debate before about San Francisco Airport and um, you call me the fitness director for saying, I don’t mind doing the walk to the garage. I think that’s fine. Um, I think I’m aligned with you on this when you’re telling me to walk and then get on a mini bus or whatever it is to go to a separate location. , I think that’s unfortunate. Hopefully San Francisco will see the light on that and, and, you know, move it to the right location and I think there, there, hopefully their citizens will pressure politicians or whoever it takes to do that. To get that done. I still don’t want to take away, it’s still a good milestone, right? Just like when Waymo got the per permits in New York. Yeah. There’s a lot of wood to chop in terms of, you know, getting additional permits, getting the charging in order to get New York commercial, but like this is a good milestone and. The bigger picture is, is I don’t think I can get to SFO without getting on a highway. So we’re starting that process, , to getting the, the big unlock, which is highways. And so what’s, does this change your view on, on when the highways get turned on, uh, in California?

Grayson Brulte: It does. But before, I just want to give a little bit of history and context. When Waymo first got airport access at Phoenix, you did have to take a train. So there is precedence, but San Jose Airport, the director of the airport, has publicly come out. It will be curbside. So you’re right. If I’m a tourist and I’m gonna fly 3000 miles to to to San Francisco, I wanna ride a Waymo char, uh, trolley car. Go see Fisherman’s Wharf. I don’t wanna take a stupid train. Then I, and then I don’t wanna have to go through all these different back roads. To me that hurts your, you want to, you wanna talk about economic tourism boost? Well, that hurts it. You need to unlock highways. You need to unlock curbside to really unlock the economic benefits that’s gonna have for tourism. To me, looking at this, this is a clear indicator. Waymo is getting closer to highways, and I’ll even go on the record here and make a prediction for you. The first highway to be unlocked will be the Bay Area. It will not be Phoenix. As many predicted it’ll be the Bay Area. I predict by December 31st, 2025 Waymo will be operating paid commercial Highway service in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Walter Piecyk: look, I don’t know what the issue is, but even if, whether it’s California’s first or Phoenix’s second, or vice versa, I, I would assume the unlocks are gonna happen pretty quickly. I just can’t help but wonder, are they waiting for a new sensor stack? Either in the Zeekr or the Hyundai’s in order to, to unlock the highways. Is it still a, a technical issue? , And then let’s assume, let’s put Zeekr aside for a second. Let’s assume yes that’s the case ’cause there’s some better lidar in the Hyundai that that’s gonna hit the roads. Are they gonna have to spend some period of time testing the Hyundai’s on the road or does the testing that they’ve already done with the Jags in, in California qualify? How do you think that process works?

Grayson Brulte: The Zeekr. I know we, we wanna put aside, but it’s important. The Zeekr are currently highway testing in California, both in Southern California and Los Angeles area in San Francisco area. Many public videos and photos documenting that testing. Now going to the Ionic fives coming from Hyundai. Yes, those will have to go through rigorous highway testing, I’ll say three to four months, and I do believe you are correct. I don’t have anything to point to, but I do believe it is a sensor sensor issue. ’cause we do get inbound from listeners and viewers to say, oh, it’s an insurance issue. I don’t believe that is correct. You can insure a human to drive on the highway. I believe it is a sensor issue.

Walter Piecyk: But the Jags are also testing on the highways Grayson. So why wouldn’t you throw them in the mix as well?

Grayson Brulte: I don’t know if the Jags are ca capable with their current sensor set and perhaps there is a risk that Waymo does not want to take something in that sensor set that they’re not telling us.

Walter Piecyk: I think we’re only, we’re obviously only speculating. We have no idea what the situation’s gonna be. I don’t. We’ll say if, if that’s the issue. Better safe than sorry. In terms of these companies, I’m sure have that culture of safety, which exists clearly at Waymo. , But let’s assume that that’s true, that for whatever reason, these three, 5,000, whatever the number is, we’re up to now of Hyundai’s can’t go on the highway. It’s kind of gonna be a weird fleet management situation where you’re gonna have to keep the preponderance of, you know, cars in these local areas. And then when you get assigned. For a highway ride, then you have to send the Zeekr or the Hyundai because I don’t, I don’t know. I mean that, that sounds a bit complex

Grayson Brulte: It will be complex or this is a forward looking thought. Uh, the Jaguars eventually migrate to cities where Waymo has no interest or there makes no point in putting highway service in.

Walter Piecyk: like Nashville, which also has a potentially a senator that. Doesn’t want Zeekr, , cars on their streets. First of all, let, let’s, let’s go back to that for a minute. Um, ’cause I kind of moved on to the next topic. But, , do, does, do the states have the right to pick and choose what cars are gonna be on their roads or are ultimately if we get to a national framework, can they kind of, can the national framework prevent that from happening? And as long as the feds are good with Zeekrs on the road, that they can’t be excluded in these individual markets.

Grayson Brulte: Yes, the national framework could technically, depending on how the language is written. So I wanna highlight that. Demanding language written, yes, preempted allow those vehicles on the road. However, gotta put on the politics hat ’cause that’s what they do in DC They play politics. Senator Blackburn is a staunch close ally of the president. She has the president’s ear, so that has to also take into account.

Walter Piecyk: Well, we’ll see how that plays out so far. Your unforced error on. Zeekrs hasn’t really played out quite yet. Right. They’re actually hitting the road. So as, as of now, it’s, it’s, it hasn’t actually hurt them.

Grayson Brulte: But I, I don’t mean to interject here, but I do wanna point this out. If you look at the drone market, I know it’s adjacent, it’s autonomy. At some point we’ll expand Autonomy Markets into drones, Chinese drones, MA mostly manufactured by DGI are in the process of being a hundred percent banned in America. So there is precedent.

Walter Piecyk: sure, I mean, you can pick and choose anything. How about I just pick TikTok? Just got extended to mid-December in terms of a law that’s on the books that says it’s, you know, it shouldn’t be here. So bottom line is Zeekr still there and, and they’re starting to ramp, but, um, both of us are, are certainly looking forward to Hyundai. Um, you know, assuming that they don’t step on their own toes with, with their political issues. , I wanted to go back to the highways though, because that is the final component of this prediction I made in my Lightshed predictions the highways. This is gonna be a big unlock. I mean, the Lyft deal, I was, I’ll be honest, was a little surprised that Uber was off 5% on the Lyft deal and like, did you really think that like, you know, it was just your business to win going forward. Anyway, I digress. If they, they unlock highways, like that’s a much bigger deal because that has a near term impact on the revenue in some big cities for them, right? I mean, you’ve already seen the market share that Waymo has taken. San Francisco, la , you open up airports and those are high value rides that share opportunity for, , Waymo relative to Uber and Lyft is bigger. And like when that, when that announcement finally hits we’re live on highways, do you think we’re gonna see a similar reaction in Uber stock?

Grayson Brulte: Yes, and I also think you’ll see a similar reaction in in, in Lyft’s stock as well.

Walter Piecyk: Obviously gonna be incremental competition for both until each of these companies figure out how to partner with Waymo in in, in new markets.

Grayson Brulte: But do you think is, I mean, this is fast forward to the future if Waymo not, if, lemme rephrase that. When Waymo starts to eat into airport revenue share, which is is a big chunk of revenue for both Uber and Lyft. Does this relationship get perhaps more, more frosty when Waymo starts taking bigger chunks of that revenue?

Walter Piecyk: I mean a lot of this stuff we’re talking about Grayson, like how do you not expect it? Like, do we think that Waymo, does anyone really think that Waymo will never end up at the on highways? Like of course that’s ultimately gonna happen. You know, of course Waymo is gonna take additional share. There’s an opportunity if you model this stuff out in the long term, which we’ve done is, you know, does the overall growth in miles from rideshare, whether autonomous or not. Create an opportunity for a new player that’s separate than Uber and Lyft. And I think, you know, I have certain views on that and I think Dara actually talked about that on, on a recent, I think he was getting interviewed by the All In podcast, basically mentioning the same type of thing. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna impact these companies in the near term and the valuations of, of their stocks on, on, based on how people react. , But look. I mean, this is autonomy markets, like our long-term view is the vast majority of miles driven by rideshare companies will be autonomous. I’ve got very specific views on where I think it’ll be in five years, three years, seven years. But like autonomous will represent the majority of miles, I’ll just say in our lifetime for, for current purposes, if not much sooner. So. People are just gonna have to come to terms with, you know, which companies that’s gonna flow through. And how much market share do you really require to justify the valuation that’s on the companies today?

Grayson Brulte: That’s valid points. We, we will be watching, we’ll be watching. At just to see how it evolves. And it’s not just robotaxis that’s gonna go autonomous, it’s highway. This week we had a video release from Bot Auto that showed them going full driver route, as they called humanless on a 40 mile run. That’s service, roads, highways, and basic town roads. Fully autonomous. No human in the cab. They call it a validation run. Big step. What do you make of that?

Walter Piecyk: , I think that’s great. And I think Grayson, where you and I have differed in the past on this podcast is I’m less assuming that the technology just works. So when companies like Bot Auto actually take the driver out and start getting on the road, that’s meaningful to me. I’m just not assuming that every one of these technologies, you know, actually work. So that’s a big milestone. But you know, you have a lot of companies in this space that are hitting that milestone or getting close. Aurora keeps insisting that they’re years ahead, but we see more and more companies take the drivers out, um, uh, and get revenue paying customers or sell trucks or gets authorization. So it’s a big market there as well. Same thing. We’ll just have to figure out, you know, what the market share differences are gonna be and which business models, um, work. But that’s huge for Bot Auto, not a truck. I’ve been in myself looking forward to get in one. What, what, what was your experience when you were in one of those Bot trucks.

Grayson Brulte: I went on that route. I’ve been in that route. And when I want to clarify, when I was on that. Out there was a safety driver and a safety engineer, but I was on that truck on that exact route, not one intervention. I walked away impressed and said, wow, how did you do this? And, and Xiaodi Hou their founder and CEO told me all the breakthroughs in the gen ai, which you and I know because we, we use it every day. And it got me thinking a lot. Looking back on the video that they released this week. They’ve only raised, and I say only because these are small numbers, they only raised $45 million. And they have 80 employees, so how companies that have raised billions of dollars, just achieving that. When you have the startup that’s raised less than 45 million with 80 employees, do you think it’s, we’re truly starting to see the breakthroughs, I’m gonna use a buzz term, sorry. The breakthroughs of physical AI really starting to take hold.

Walter Piecyk: in the world of wireless or ai, like you kind of get what you pay for it, meaning like I have to spend billions on cell sites to give you coverage. So your cell phone works. I have to spend billions on spectrum to give you capacity, so your Netflix works on your cell phone and ai. You have to spend billions on Nvidia compute in order to get your LLM to work. In the world of technology though, like if there’s better ways to build the software that utilizes the sensor stack, there can be differences. Investment, and there can also be, you know, you enter the game later and new technologies or AI were available to some of the new entrants when they weren’t just available. For companies that have been investing billions of dollars over the past 10 years since darpa, or 15 years, or how, however long it’s been, it’s just a nature of the beast. It’s like, you know. The early money is, is that’s the, that’s the harder money. Um, the question is like, has that bought companies like Aurora enough of a lead over these companies? Because at the end of the day, like Aurora is showing a video and yes, the driver’s sitting back and he is not touching the wheel, but there’s literally someone in the driver’s seat because of the relationship they have with, Paccar. I assume there’s no one in the driver’s seat for Bot Auto in that video.

Grayson Brulte: nope. And the video’s public.

Walter Piecyk: Okay. So you’re years ahead. And I, I get that there’s like, you know, vendor stuff and like, this is oversimplifying it, but I’m the finance guy. Like I see a driver in one. I see a someone sitting in the driver’s seat in a car and not in another, and we get this all the time in terms of Tesla, right? Relative to Waymo. Why doesn’t that apply in, in the trucking world? So I think, you know, these kind of visual, um, signals, I think, Important. So congrats the bot auto for getting that. And I, and I think the more important thing is now is okay, yeah, your, your technology’s good enough to have that safety driver out, but let’s get some revenue cooking with some clients and who is their vendor, that they don’t have a PACCAR type situation that’s saying, don’t stick a, you know, or don’t have no one in the driver’s seat who’s the

Grayson Brulte: They pulled a, a, Don Burnette move and I, and I gotta give Don Burnette the CEO of Kodiak. A a lot of credit that the gentleman, as you know, is getting ready to de Spac Kodiak next week. Mr. Burnette, and he’s said this many times publicly on several podcasts, including The Road to Autonomy. Is that Mr. Burnette did not want to be locked in contractually just to one OEM. He wanted the ability to be able to maneuver Bot’s doing the same thing. They don’t have an OEM partner. They bought the truck off the lot. So there’s no constraints of what you can and can’t do. Where Auroras locked into that.

Walter Piecyk: So, so there’s no control basically in this case, in how, how the relationships work. And then so those that integrate with the vendors will tell you over the long term endure to get production and make it work and have costs low. The approach that Bot and Kodiak are taking is the wrong approach in the long term, even though it’s maybe giving them a solution today that’s quicker, where you don’t have the driver in.

Grayson Brulte: So to push back to those, those critics, there is, Kodiak is the only company in the United States, and perhaps the world cannot verify that ’cause the China data. So I’ll say United States. Operating driver-out consistently 24 hours a day with no driver in the cab. This is not defense. This is commercial operations, Bot just achieved it. So to me, if you’re looking at this from your perspective, Walter Piecyk, there’s a pattern here that it works.

Walter Piecyk: sure it’s a pattern that it works in the near term. Right? So then the, it doesn’t take away someone’s view that over the long term, being more integrated with the OEMs in how the sale process works and how things break down that works. Although, you know, I think Kodiak has a shortest of, like, if something goes wrong with the truck, the trucks are fully, you know, warrantied and, and the trucking company will fix the, the parts that are related to the trucking company. So it’s not like the warranties. Are voided as I think some had suggested to us at some point. So, I don’t know. Look, I, the bottom line is, you’re right, I’m looking at results where there’s not a driver sitting in any front seat, right? And there’s revenue. So like, what else am I supposed to, what else am I supposed to look at? So, you know, it’s almost like the onus should be on these companies, get into production to show us how in the long term, that’s actually gonna drive greater profits.

Grayson Brulte: the risk side of me comes out in this and it just a, a few things. One, bot auto is generating revenue today with the JB Hunt, Steves and company relationship. And two, they’re going to own and operate the fleet. And from the Kodiak side, they’re selling those trucks. And they’re getting a licensing fee. So I don’t, I mean the OEM stuff, uh, it’s gonna be very, very interesting. And the reason I, I use the word interesting and I’ll say it in a delicate way. We still need to know, and we need a, we need a public statement on this, what’s going on at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. And that to me, does that validate the reason why you don’t want to be dependent on OEM? I don’t know, if you look at the Aurora PACCAR situation, that clearly validates it to me. But those are just, you know, speculations.

Walter Piecyk: no, I get that. But I think you identified the difference, which is that in the case of Bot Auto, they’re taking on the CapEx and owning the truck so they can make whatever decision that they want. The issue with Paccar, who’s gonna sell the truck to the end customer, which is using the Aurora driver, like that’s a different relationship. And ultimately. The point is, over the long term, that may be the business model that succeeds the most. I don’t know. Like we, we’ve debated this before on this, on this podcast. I see value in both approaches. I’ve done calls with, you know, those companies that are involved in this business to understand, and there I think there’s an opportunity for multiple business models. The point is that in the near term. The model where you’re owning it and taking on that CapEx, you’re, you’re pulling in revenue, fat, you know, sooner, but you’re also, you know, expending a lot more CapEx sooner. But then the third part of that, Grayson, is like, which you should have chimed in on, is like, yeah, they may be spending the CapEx in the truck, but they haven’t spent x billion dollars to develop the technology over the past 10 years. Right. You know, their, their technology development has been obviously much more capital efficient, whether it’s a bot auto or Kodiak or or wherever.

Grayson Brulte: And then there’s the fourth element, which we have not touched on yet. Tesla semi. What’s gonna happen when they enable FSD on that? And I say that under the context, and I’m gonna channel Gene Wilder from Young Frankinstein. It’s alive. It’s alive. Tesla Semi is going on Uber Freight.

Walter Piecyk: , I think the bigger story here, Grayson, is I think you buried the lead, which is that everyone’s like, oh my God, like. You know, Tesla will never do a deal with Uber and like, obviously in the context of the robotaxis. And here you have a deal between two companies, between Tesla and Uber and, you know, there’s some financial incentives. Um, you know, the, we’re gonna subsidize the price of, of these Tesla semis. It’s, it’s, there’s gonna be, they’re gonna integrate into the Uber freight dedicated solution. So like, this is more than just kind of a rando. Agreement. And I think to your point, yeah, I mean, I don’t think that Tesla Semi is gonna be a driver, driver in for an extended period of time. This is like the Trojan horse in getting autonomy, um, into, you know, Uber freight and or just getting the autonomy and trucking and, and it just kind of maybe further validation that if you look at this trucking space that includes Aurora Bot Auto, Kodiak and others, like, you know. Tesla’s there. Yeah. Are they probably behind where these other companies are? Maybe like, you know, getting a truck to be autonomous is, I think, has many different challenges than a car, given the size and weight of the thing. But they’re in the game, right? Tesla semis in the game.

Grayson Brulte: I love the elegant term you used. You’re using your good philosophy here, the Trojan horse. If Tesla semi is a Trojan horse going on the Uber Freight network. Then why would the founder and CEO of Uber Freight Lior Ron resign to go join Wabi as COO?

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I don’t, people leave for companies for a variety of reasons. Um. And sometimes you see, like at Apple, you have a, a flood of specifically AI people and there’s trends to, to, um, to devise from that. Obviously we had some concerns at Aurora, uh, when Sterling Anderson left the company. I think there might have been some additional departures over the course of time there. There’s a variety of reasons why senior managers leave compensation internal politics. Maybe decisions that are made, um, prioritization. So who knows? I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from that.

Grayson Brulte: Okay, so we, we will, we’ll leave that out. We won’t draw conclusions, but, but we’ll watch it. And Bloomberg has reported several times over the years that Uber has looked at divesting. Uber Freight. Now with this deal coming online, do you think Uber Freight for the near term, and when I say near term next 12 to 18 months, remains part of Uber? Or do these Bloomberg stories continue where Uber looks to divest it potentially?

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I have no idea. Nor does it really matter to Uber. Uber’s a massive company. Uber freight’s a smaller piece. I’m not sure. It’s like some distraction. It’s not gonna generate material enough dollars to make a difference to Uber. Uber’s not lacking for cash to invest in autonomy. It’s just not a topic that interests me. And I don’t know if you know Uber Freight outside of Uber is gonna be better or worse than you know is, than whether it’s with the parent company. It’s not necessarily a capital intensive business, right? They’re just matching. Rides it’s platform, so it’s not like it’s a, it’s a cash burn or a drag on, on Uber’s business.

Grayson Brulte: It’s been an interesting week in the autonomy markets. The great fight between Tesla and Waymo is now officially tied to two Walter Piecyk, are we gonna have a big week next week? What do we need to look for in the autonomy markets next week?

Walter Piecyk: Hold on. How is it officially tied? The winner this week, in my opinion, was Lyft. Lyft is this week’s winner. And I think they deserve to be called a heavyweight now, given this deal. And in terms of next week, you’ve got the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit, you’ve got, probably some more conferences. You know, I don’t, I don’t know. I mean, the great thing about autonomy markets is there’s always something new that surprises us every, every week and. This past week was a good one. So hopefully things that, that, , generate more volatility. I do like volatility.

Grayson Brulte: You like volatility. You know why? I know Why a little secret? ’cause you like to play basketball and you have to dribble. You have volatility when you dribble that basketball and what you and I both know, we are here. Your every single week rain sunshine, break it down, the autonomy markets, and I can’t wait for next week’s show. The future is bright. The future autonomous. The future is autonomous trucking, Walt, Until next week.