Transcript: Tesla FSD 14 Updates and Waymo’s Latest Moove Away from Uber

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss, Waymo’s planned expansion to London in 2026 and a new delivery partnership with DoorDash in the US. While Walt shares his detailed experience with Tesla’s FSD 14, including the new ‘Mad Max’ mode’s performance, its success in conquering his driveway , and lingering “abrupt braking” issues.

Later in the episode Grayson and Walt break down the autonomous vehicle competition heating up in the UK between Waymo, Wayve, and Uber, and the significant energy infrastructure challenges facing Waymo’s expansion in New York City.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Key Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[01:03] FSD 14 ‘Mad Max’ mode finally conquers Walt’s driveway

The most recent FSD 14 update, which includes the “Mad Max” mode, has finally enabled Walt’s Tesla to successfully get up his notoriously difficult driveway “over and over”. He can now summon it from a store, and it will pull all the way into the driveway, though it cannot park inside the garage yet.

[02:40] FSD 14 hesitation issues at the “famous fish store”

Walt notes that FSD 14 is having new challenges at his “famous fish store,” which has a very tight parking lot. The car now pauses before exiting, possibly struggling with a drainage grate, a hesitation that did not exist in FSD 13.

[03:26] Abrupt braking and smoothness issues in FSD 14 vs. FSD 13

Walt confirms he is still experiencing “random braking”. He describes a recent “very abrupt” incident in the dark where the car slowed from ~45 mph down to 15 mph. He feels FSD 14 is “less smooth than FSD 13” and believes it won’t see a wide release until those issues are “ironed out”.

[04:49] Deep dive: How FSD 14 ‘Mad Max’ mode handles lane changes and speed

Walt explains that ‘Mad Max’ mode is more willing to make lane changes, such as passing a slow driver in the left lane, though he doesn’t find it “overly aggressive”. For speed, it took his car up to 84 mph in a 65 mph zone and into the “high forties” in a 30 mph zone, which he felt was too fast and manually scrolled down.

[06:33] Are named modes (Sloth, Hurry, Mad Max) replacing MPH settings?

Grayson and Walt discuss how Tesla’s speed controls are moving away from setting a specific number to choosing a named mode, like ‘Sloth’, ‘Hurry’, or ‘Mad Max’. They speculate this could lead to driver profiles in a robotaxi world but question who would be liable for a speeding ticket if a user selects an aggressive mode.

[08:44] Debunking “rolling stop” allegations for FSD

Walt calls recent allegations of FSD performing “rolling stops” bizarre, stating that he is actually “irritated” that FSD always comes to a complete 0 mph stop. He argues this is unnatural, as most human drivers slow to 1-2 mph, and he would “applaud” FSD for adopting a more natural 2-3 mph stop.

[09:40] Waymo’s 2026 London plan and partnership with Moove

Grayson details Waymo’s London announcement, as they plan to operate under a UK pilot with paying public members in 2026 and expand to full commercial operations in 2027. It will be a “Waymo One Market,” and they will use Moove as their fleet management partner.

[11:32] London: The first market for Waymo One vs. Uber/Wayve head-to-head competition

Grayson and Walt analyze the London market, highlighting it as the first city where Waymo One will compete directly against Uber, which has partnered with Wayve. The situation is complex, as Waymo’s chosen fleet management partner, Moove, is a company that Uber itself owns a minority stake in.

[16:32] Waymo partners with DoorDash for a new delivery vertical

Waymo announced a new partnership with DoorDash, its second venture into delivery, which will cover a 315-mile service area. Walt sees this as Waymo actively developing new business models beyond just robotaxis, noting the interesting choice to partner with DoorDash instead of its existing rideshare partner, Uber.

[21:28] NYC’s massive energy and charging infrastructure hurdles for Autonomous Vehicles

The discussion turns to NYC, where the head of the taxi federation is pushing back against EV mandates, citing a lack of charging. Grayson notes this confirms their prior concerns about Waymo’s expansion, revealing there are only 300 DC fast chargers and 1,200 L2 chargers in the entire city, nowhere near enough to scale a large fleet.

[27:12] Stellantis partners with Pony.ai in Luxembourg

Stellantis, Waymo’s original OEM partner, announced it is partnering with Pony.ai to deploy autonomous Peugeot vans in Luxembourg. This prompts Walt to question why Waymo, as the clear leader, is not announcing more OEM partnerships.

[30:22] Previewing the upcoming Tesla earnings call.

Grayson and Walt look forward to Tesla’s upcoming earnings call, expecting CEO Elon Musk to answer questions unfiltered. They are waiting for updates on FSD and, most critically, a “timeline on when the safety attendant gets pulled out” of the robotaxis in Austin.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt, it’s barely been a week since I’ve been back from London. I haven’t even gotten through editing all my photos of the wonderful city, and lo and behold, Waymo announces they’re going to London. Was it perhaps my ride that was flawless by the way, in the Wayve vehicle that at Waymo was inspired to make the announcement. Now we never know, but I’ll tell you, big things are happening in the London market and while big things are happening in the London market. Big things are happening here. Waymo also announced a deal with DoorDash, which we’ll get into later, and you continue to get update after update. I’m a little jealous of your FSD 14 Let’s start with that. I gotta know the big question. Has it conquered your driveway yet? Are you going to the neighbor and say, how do ho neighbor o.

Walter Piecyk: first, just to level set, since our last podcast, there’s been two additional updates to FSD 14 that I’ve received. Um, so I think that one, the most recent one that I got that has been, you know, most talked about the Mad Max mode, which I’ll get into briefly, that did in fact en enable the car to successfully get up my driveway over and over. So that’s, I’m finally through that. So now. I can press a button from a friend’s house, or from the fish store, or from the grocery store or whatever, and it will go all the way into my driveway. I can’t yet get it to park inside my garage, but all the way it, it will park, um, in the driveway. So I’m, I’m obviously very pleased about that.

Grayson Brulte: I’m glad you’re very pleased, Walt, but I’m very curious. You talk about your love and affection for the Fish store. Have you taken the owner for a ride yet?

Walter Piecyk: I have not taken, um, the owner for a ride. I did, I do go to different locations. I went to an office complex, um, this week, and it was, it was kind of old school. They had reserved parking spots for the CEO of whatever random company. That was in there. And the Tesla, just like it drives by handicap parking, drove by these reserved parking spots. There was no sign. It was literally just printing on the, on the driveway and then found the mill or the parking lot and then found the next open spot. So I, I thought that was pretty impressive. I don’t know if there, it’s able to actually read what’s going on and making those decisions on the fly, but it, it picked a, you know, a guest parking spot in that case.

Grayson Brulte: That’s fantastic. Did it pull in? Did it back in? How was it? Parking in that spot?

Walter Piecyk: In that spot. I believe it backed in, but in the fish door it did a front end. So it’s doing both. I, you know, it used to just always back into these spots, but I think it’s doing both the front end in, in the fish door was a lot more natural, uh, this time. So that was, that was definitely a positive.

Grayson Brulte: I gotta know, do you have a reserved parking spot at this fish store? Because every podcast we talk about your beloved fish store.

Walter Piecyk: It’s a very, um, maybe I’ll send a video out of it. It’s a very tight parking lot. It’s a good test, to be honest. Like the FSD has challenges getting out of it. I don’t know. I think it’s, there’s like a, a drainage grate on the bottom that it keeps pausing before, before going out. Ever since I’ve gotten into this FSD 14, it didn’t have that hesitation in FSD 13. So maybe a future update will solve that one at our. At our very famous fish store. By the way, Martha Stewart also goes to this fish store, so I’m not the only one that really likes this fish store.

Grayson Brulte: So we have a common neighbor, but I digress on that point. What about these reports that I’ve been reading on X and to some degree Reddit with this abrupt breaking, are you experiencing any of that? Have you seen any improvements in the updates that you’ve gotten?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I, there’s definitely been improvements, , you know, in the updates, but there is kind of random braking that that occurs. And last night I had one in the dark. It’s possible there was a deer that was about to cross the road, but it was very abrupt and slowed. The car I was probably doing. I would guess like 40, 45 and it, and it started slowing it down to 15. , So that one was more abrupt. So I think, and, but there’s also little hesitation ones when you’re, when you’re about to pull out, um, that are occurring, that when you feel them, it makes you feel less certain, it’s less smooth than FSD 13. So I think. Until they get that ironed out and back to the level of smoothness that they had at FSD 13, this will probably, FSD 14, will probably probably remain with these kind of early adopters in the early adopter program that that would be my guess.

Grayson Brulte: So you think once things are smoothed out, then it will go into a a wide release. And do you have a prediction of a timeline on when you think that might happen?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, the changes between, you know, the updates that we’ve gotten have already been pretty solid. So, you know, I would guess that. , It shouldn’t, I mean, this is not like an unsolvable thing, right? We know it drives smoothly. And by the way, as an aside, you know, this FSD 14 is definitely not a fork of what we experienced in Austin, because Austin felt more like 13 in terms of his smoothness. So the Austin Robotaxi that, that we’ve, you know, both experienced had the smoothness and the parking ability. So I’m sure that these two things can get married for, for the FSD, um, 14, that, that, you know, is going through a couple of these iterations.

Grayson Brulte: Last thing on FSD 14. Before we move on to the big news, the Week Waymo, I gotta know Mad Max. Have you taken it on 95? What’s it like?

Walter Piecyk: I did do tests on the Mad Max and you know, the primary thing you notice is that we’ve all experienced that situation where you’re in the left lane on a highway and the person’s just like, just kind of driving slow. The, their willingness of the car to switch lanes into the right lane and pass that. That driver on the left, so that lane switching, which is not aggressive. But you know, there are situations where I was trying to get off at an exit and you know, you have that red light, like it’s not safe to go in. As soon as it went where it’s good to go, it would go in front of it. So it’s not overly aggressive, but certainly more willing to make lane changes. In terms of the actual speed itself. I was able to get into some kind of open highway situations where there was no traffic. And I think the way to think about it this way is I want to, I was on a 65 mile an hour speed limit. And you know, for Hurry, which was existed before Mad Max, that would probably take you up to about 80 miles an hour if the, the kind of standard would take you to like 74. And then there’s levels below that now down to even sloth, which will basically take you the speed limit or maybe below it, I don’t know, dangerous, I think, to drive at that speed. So what Mad Max does, speed-wise? Well, what took me up to about 84 miles an hour, so about 20 mile an hour differential to the speed limit. So that felt totally normal. There are places in my town where I was riding Mad Max, where it’s a 30 mile an hour speed limit and it was dialing up the speed to, you know, 45 high forties. And for me, I know there was obviously police in that area, so I, I scrolled down, um, to lower speeds and it didn’t feel perfect or great, um, to be driving. You know, high forties in the 30 there, I’m sure there are 30 zones that exist out there where that’s good, but it, it puts it up to the driver to make that discretionary roll down into a different mode.

Grayson Brulte: I’m picking up here. Is there a common denominator that MPH commonly knows Miles per hour is going away and everything is getting a fancy name? Mad Max Hurry, sloth, and who knows what’s next? Grandma mode. Is that where this is going?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, it seems like that’s the case where before you could control the speed with the actual number. , Now, now it’s basically just kind of a mode, and I think maybe that’s provides an opportunity that when we get to Robotaxi mode. That in your profile, you’re gonna pick a certain type of speed that you wanna drive when you’re in that, in Robotaxi mode. The other question is like, this is me as the consumer deciding how fast I wanna drive, and I am liable, obviously, for that ticket if I, if I get a speeding ticket. If you go into a Robotaxii world and you pick, you know, one of these Harry modes or, or Mad Max, uh, worlds, like who’s paying for that ticket? Like, will they enable this? In a, in, in the RobotaxiI fleet when you’re a customer as opposed to the user of the car.

Grayson Brulte: That’s interesting. Uh, I, you, I, it blew my mind. So you mean to think that there is a potential scenario where. You, Walt. You have your Robotaxi profile and you select the type of driving you want, and then Robax could eventually drive that way for you.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I think, I think that certainly makes sense. The question is, do they gimme an option where it drives? Above the speed limit. Um, because again, in that case, they’re becoming liable. They’re the, they’re the service. There’s more liability as opposed to me, the consumer making this decision on their own. And I know we have listeners that think that the mommy state should take over and control what I have, and I would just question to those people. Do you want a national regulation that that goes to automakers and, and requires them to cap the speed on every car made? 80 miles an hour or 75 miles an hour. And if you don’t want that, why should Tesla be treated any different in the cars that they’re selling to private owners in a roboto, taxii world, I get it, I get that criticism. But in an FSD world where you’re driving it, unless you’re gonna agree to allow your car to be capped at a certain speed, it’s, it’s literally a double standard in terms of that particular criticism.

Grayson Brulte: It’s a double standard. And yes, there are folks that wanna cap and regulate everything. That’s not the democracy that we have here in the United States. There’s been allegations this week. Tesla has these rolling stops. What have you learned about that? Have you experienced it? Have you seen it? What have you learned?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, that’s a bizarre one, and I think any, any of us that have FSD are irritated by the fact that our FSD when it comes to a stop sign, goes all the way to zero miles per hour. You know, no car, you can’t tell me. I don’t wanna say no. Absolutes are always bad, but the vast majority of anyone that drives does not go to zero miles per hour. I know there we’re gonna be in our, oh, yes, I do. I’m sure. But if you looked at what zero miles per hour represents on your speedometer as opposed to one or two miles per hour. I mean, everyone’s coming to a rolling stock. So it, it was crazy when I saw, um, I think on Twitter, someone saying like, oh, they’re, they’re doing, they’re, you know, they’re, they’re gonna do rolling stops now. I’m like, absolutely not. I’ve got video of it. That’s not true. And frankly, when they do, I will applaud it. I don’t want them rolling through it five miles an hour, 10 miles an hour. But certainly there’s a comfort and normal normalcy to like, when you get to two or three miles an hour. Which is basically nothing in terms of how the cars is moving, um, to, to enable that and again, allow the consumer to make that, you know, that decision on their own.

Grayson Brulte: While Tesla continues to push the ball forward here in the United States, Waymo continues to expand not just the United States, but globally. And this week, Waymo announced they’re expanding to London in 2026. Having been there, met with officials, Waymo, and it’s my assumption, will operate under the UK’s pilot in 2026 with paying members of the public and in 2027 expand to full commercial operations when the law becomes in effect. That is, if all look at the polls, there will be a change in the ruling party and a change of Prime Minister. So we need to watch that as well. The two big things outside the politics in the UK, which we’ll get into after this one. This is a Waymo One Market and two, this will be a Moove Io infrastructure partner, and there’s big things coming with the road to autonomy and Moove. So tune in for that. But Walt, what do you make of this? No, Uber, and they’re going across the pond.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, it’s fascinating. It’s becoming a bit of a, of a battleground and you know, I kind of. Poo-pooed the relevance of the UK in prior podcasts. But this is, you know, shaping up to be a background. I mean, I kind of get London big, international city. It’s also, we’ve talked about before that I think these executives are competitive. So I, I’m guessing, no offense racing, it might not have been you driving around in, in the Wayve that video specifically, but maybe that was a reminder that Wayve is a partner with Uber. And you know, that w that Waymo wanted to show that, hey, we can partner there. And what makes it incre incrementally interesting. Again, Waymo going into a market where Uber is with Wayve already is Waymo is using Moove, which is a company that Uber owns a minority stake in. So yeah, I mean I think it’s, it’s fascinating on on so many dynamics. Which one do you wanna hit first?

Grayson Brulte: Let’s hit on the the market dynamics because if all goes according to plan based on all of the public releases that are out there, London. Will become the first market where Waymo with Waymo One will compete against Uber with an autonomous vehicle on their platform. They’re gonna compete head to head in a market. This is gonna get very, very interesting.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, and it speaks to kind of the fallout since, you know, if we go way back to the partnership that. Waymo has with, with Uber and Austin, and how subsequent markets have not included, um, Uber I’ve said on this podcast before Seattle, Denver still up for grabs that Uber still could, I think, be the partner there. But you know, it seems like every new market we get, um, ends up being Waymo One, or Lyft or, or potentially new, new, new partnerships for, uh, for Waymo.

Grayson Brulte: And so here’s the thing. Having recently been in the UK, you can feel the political turmoil, you can feel the economics, and there’s polling data and economic data to back up this statement. So Uber has a very public relationship with Wayve. They’re an investor in Wayve. Do we perhaps see an Uber Wayve Nuro like deal where. Perhaps Uber Invest in JLR. I say that because creating jobs in the UK, re retaining jobs and having an OEM partner to really scale and conquer the UK market.

Walter Piecyk: I don’t know. I mean, you know, Uber’s throwing money around. You know, I think in certain cases, let’s take, in this case, Moove as a reminder Moove is basically what doing the charging and the servicing of these cars. And that’s what they’ll be doing in London. And this is what Uber also owns a minority stake in. Maybe Uber should be, as I’ve said before, investing capital and owning these things so that when someone like Waymo comes into a market and Moove is established, which is now an, would be an Uber owned, or in this case maybe they roll up a bunch of these things, that it increases the likelihood, , that they’re gonna use Uber as their partner in that market as opposed to Waymo One or Lyft or, or some other option that’s in that market.

Grayson Brulte: This is all hypothetical, but let’s say that the London market continues to accelerate. It’s being reported by the Financial Times this week. That Wayve is currently in talks with Microsoft and SoftBank to raise additional $2 billion in $8 billion valuation. Hypothetical again. Uber invest in that round could then Uber say, okay, Wayve as our partner. This is the horse we’re backing. And look to accelerate that over markets as this relationship appears on the surface to be deteriorating with Waymo.

Walter Piecyk: I think like any early tech investor, you’re gonna start by spreading your Be bets broadly, and then those companies that are excelling, you’re gonna put more money towards and, and if they, they believe that Wayve has a lead over the other options that are out there, whether that’s Nuro or May Mobility or whoever. Um, that obviously they were gonna put more, more capital, uh, behind it. So absolutely. That, that makes sense. And in part, it’s for their fragmentation of the market. The question then is at some point, like, if Wayve becomes such a hot investment and you know, uh, you know, attracting stuff like SoftBank or whatever, does Wayve, go to Uber and say like, okay, you know, we’re gonna let you invest as long as. You don’t continue to invest in May mobility or, or Nuro or whatever else that you’re thinking about there, and restrict their, their capital, um, you know, because of the success that they think that they, that they’re gonna have. Could that evolve?

Grayson Brulte: It could evolve. I think if it does evolve, it’ll probably be based on geographic markets. If you say, take the UK and Europe for example. But we know based on the press release and the SEC filing for the Nuro Uber lucid deal that it is going global. We do have confirmation that they will be going to to Saudi Arabia and the SEC filing. So maybe some market by market basis or a country by country basis. That could happen at this point, I’m unsure, but it seems like something really has to give.

Walter Piecyk: But what do you mean? Something has to give In what context?

Grayson Brulte: It’s becoming very clear to me that Uber needs to. Pick their horse or horses, plural and back. ’em are there two horses, Nuro and Wayve. And those are the horses that are gonna ride to compete against Waymo. Because I’m sitting here and looking at this market and saying, Uber needs an autonomous vehicle strategy. Yes, we’re gonna get the inbound on that. Waymo is is not Uber’s long-term answer. That’s becoming very clear. Uber needs a answer to compete with Waymo.

Walter Piecyk: But I don’t think that they. Necessarily have to pick their horse unless they’re forced to, unless the scenario evolves, which I just described, which I’m not saying is likely, but, and the scenario being, you know, Wayve saying, it’s us and I don’t want you investing in anyone else. That’s not typically how it works. So they don’t have to make that choice now. Right. Because, you know, unless they’re experts in knowing exactly what technology is gonna succeed, they wanna seed the market and frankly. If you’re Uber, you don’t want one or two winners, you want six winners. You want a fragmented market. You don’t want one guy to have more power over your ability to put product on their network. You want multiple sources. So I don’t think that is the, the situation. But you know, maybe on the flip side, if, if capital is, is really solid for Wayve and they’re really confident about their product, maybe they can, they can flip that, that narrative. And remember the Wayve business model. Is not at all, at least the way I’ve understood it, relying on, you know, whether Uber’s gonna put a shit ton of these, uh, cars on their network. It’s about licensing to OEMs and private ownership of, of, um, you know, of Wayve enabled cars.

Grayson Brulte: You’re correct and I wanna state for the record, my ride in London in Wayve was one of the smoothest autonomous vehicle rides I’ve ever had. I was completely, thoroughly blown away by the, by the technology and how smooth that ride is. Frankly, it was more smoother than a human. There was no roboticness to it. It was just pure, smooth, and really operated well in the London market. You’re right about the Wayve business model and staying on the theme of business models. This week, Waymo announced a partnership with DoorDash, which this is their second delivery partnership after the one they originally had with UPS in the Phoenix Metro region. Now, Waymo was gonna deliver DoorDash orders and ready for this one and a 315 mile. Service area. It’s pretty impressive. What this deal reminds me of is the original Motional Uber Eats deal. So Waymo seems like they’re expanding into delivery. What do you make of this announcement?

Walter Piecyk: well, Grayson, you just, I hope for Waymo’s sake that it’s nothing like what you just talked about, because those two things are now failed. Right? It, there’s no UPS or USPS deliveries anymore. Motional doesn’t even exist, I don’t think. In that context. So I hope it’s nothing like that, and I don’t think it seems anything like that because DoorDash is obviously a, a real and and vibrant competitor to Uber in terms of delivering, I think this is starting with, you know, some of just the, the dash source of products and will expand to, um, you know, restaurants and such. It makes a lot of sense and it’s a new vertical and to me shows that, you know, Waymo is just not interested in. You know, the original thesis of like, Hey, we’re going to, you know, science project, a autonomous technology, license it to OEMs and be on our way. They’re looking at developing business models, whether it’s a robotaxi business model that they’re now expanding to the UK. We’re now a food delivery model that will start, you know, with DoorDash. It’s obviously also interesting that they did it with DoorDash and not Uber, where they’ve, where they’ve been a partner on the. Human delivery model, let’s call it otherwise known as rideshare.

Grayson Brulte: It is. And so I start looking into the deal and I put on my Inspector Clouseau and I read the legal terms and I wanna read this here for you all. This is the exact language from the legal terms of service here as it relates to this deal from now through the end of the year DashPass. Members in these cities can receive $10 off one Waymo ride per month. A new promotion code will be issued at the start of each month. Once redeemed in the Waymo app, discount will automatically apply at checkout. And to the next ride booked in eligible services, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, from Monday through Friday between 2:00 AM and 2:00 PM one discount will be issued for each of the following months, October, November, and December through the 31st 20, 25. Common things here, Walt. These are all Waymo One markets, and based on my experience with one of the world’s largest airlines. It seems reading the tea leaves here that Waymo paid for this partnership.

Walter Piecyk: Well, if they did that, it feels like it’s probably new. ’cause my guess is that on the Uber partnerships that they’ve done for, for rideshare type stuff, that, that it’s Uber, that that’s writing the check. So it’s certainly, again, interesting that Waymo’s doing that. And if that is true. We don’t know whether it is or not that, , again, it shows their, their interest in developing operating markets and operating models, not just build a technology that they’re gonna license and be on their way.

Grayson Brulte: I think it’s becoming very clear. In my opinion, Waymo’s revenue slash business model is a lot more complex than meets the surface.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, and I think, you know, we, we look for these signposts as much as we can. To understand, you know, Waymo’s plan for the future. There’s certainly been kind of a rollercoaster of views on that from the investor standpoint. It, are they with Uber? Are they not, you know, are they a licensing model? Are they gonna invest in cars? So the more they do type of this type of stuff, it, it becomes certainly more interesting.

Grayson Brulte: interesting and uncertainty is the New York City market. We’re Waymo’s looking to expand. You have the energy issues, you have the policy issues, and then the head of the State Federation for Taxi Drivers came out this week and says, no more electric. We need to be able to go back to hybrids. Walt, is there simply enough energy or infrastructure in New York to support Waymo’s fleet, which you and I believe is gonna have to be pretty significant.

Walter Piecyk: When I saw this article, first of all, I didn’t realize that there was some requirement for taxis to move to electric. It makes sense, obviously, um, that there would be one. But it, it, it kind of made me smile when this New York Post article hit that, that outline this. ’cause I’m like, this is exactly what we talked about in terms of the challenges that Waymo is gonna have. In launching in New York in terms of building up service centers and specifically charging for the amount of cars that they would have to deliver into this city. And that would be kind of a gating factor, even more so than just actual making of the cars, which has been another criticism or, or you know, that we’ve had, or in terms of concern, in terms of Waymo’s ability to scale. So, yeah, I mean, obviously someone’s gotta push back. On, you know, these, the politicians that are expecting stuff, that’s just not possible, especially given these are the same, this is the same political structure that restricts construction and, and the ability to actually build this stuff in the first place.

Grayson Brulte: New York needs a lot. Do you want to have a little interesting insight? I went and did some energy research and if folks want more, please reach out. There are only 300 DC fast chargers in New York City and only 1200 L2 chargers. You’re not gonna scale a fleet on that.

Walter Piecyk: And then the question is, is is the guy that’s complaining the head of the taxi drivers. Are, are the taxi companies gonna be willing to invest in the infrastructure required to, uh, enable that many electric cars? Probably not. So, but who is, you know, guess, guess who Tesla is and Waymo is, or Waymo through their, their partners like Uber is. So you could theoretically have these companies come in to, to the city and be like, look, we are willing to invest in the city, and here’s what you gotta do in return. You have to let us actually use our autonomous vehicles in your city. You also have to, you know, provide us some zoning ability and some, you know, expedited permit process to build this stuff. And this will be better for your citizens. So these things have to be partnerships. But again, you know, we’re living in a political climate in some of these cities where there doesn’t seem to be a willingness to partner. Um, you know, with. Even different groups of people within the city, let alone with business.

Grayson Brulte: Yeah, and, and there’s an election coming up in New York, so let’s not forget that we all saw the debate the other night. And furthermore, in the data, Walt, this was really interesting. There are only 73 L2 chargers in New York City, DOT, managed parking garages. In facilities, the, the, the restraint gets bigger and bigger. And furthermore, the energy is constrained. It’s in Hunts Point, it’s in Port Morris, it’s in Queens Hunt Hunts. Point has its own, I’ll call, I’ll characterize this complexities. Port Morris has its own complexities and Queens has a rising real estate cost with that, a casino that they’re trying to go there. So the land’s gonna be expensive, the energy’s gonna be hard to get. Which raised the question, why do you think Waymo has not set up a Waymo operations LLC with an energy team to really build out this infrastructure? They’re gonna need to truly scale, not just in New York City, but in cities around the United States and the globe.

Walter Piecyk: Well, I think we know the reason because Waymo has decided to partner with third parties as opposed to take ownership of themselves. Same theory that that’s happening with Uber. You know, I went down a thought process that maybe. Uber has this app that matches drivers, um, you know, with the riders and like it’s so complex and maybe they could match electric cars with charging facilities. The challenge with that is like, you need perfect information in terms of like how many people are at that charger at the time, who’s controlling it, is it working at the time? So it, it just became. More obvious that rather than try to use third party infrastructure out there, again, having ownership of that infrastructure is gonna provide tremendous value given what you outlined in terms of the limitations in bringing power, um, into a lot of these locations that would service, um, New York City.

Grayson Brulte: Right now we have pub public photos. We don’t have confirmation Waymo, but we have public photos that the vehicles are stored in Jersey City. You and I both know that’s not gonna scale

Walter Piecyk: The seven Waymo vehicles. I mean, I don’t think that’s a relevant data point. If it’s like, what is it, 10 vehicles?

Grayson Brulte: if you’re mapping New York City, w why not already have them in the city?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, you gotta get what you can get and then move forward. I, I’m sure it’s not that hard to, to find a parking garage that can handle the 10 or 15 vehicles that they have there. So I, I don’t know the reason, but you know, if you’re just testing, you don’t need it close to the users. They’re not taking rides. It’s their own people driving these cars.

Grayson Brulte: There’s something called the congestion tax and they gotta pay it now.

Walter Piecyk: I’m sure that, that Google can afford the congestion tax of bringing their cars, the 10 or 15 cars or whatever they have in the city, in and out

Grayson Brulte: Congestion. Tax aside, let’s head back across the pond. We alluded to it last week that Europe was becoming a big market for autonomy, and this week we got an announcement from Stellantis. They’re partnering with pony ai and they’re deploying autonomous Peugeot Vans in Luxembourg. Is this perhaps a sign that Stellantis wants to go back into autonomy? Let’s not forget Stellantis through Fiat Chrysler was the original partner for Waymo back in the day.

Walter Piecyk: If you say so, I have no, I have no knowledge of Stellantis or what they’re operating to me. They’re just another OEM. So it’s nice to see an OEM doing something. I mean, getting back to the EV stuff in New York, I just, it feels like a lot of these OEMs are, you know, hesitant to invest in new technologies like AV because they invested in EVs, thinking that there’d be these nationwide. You know, requirements, um, for people to buy electric cars, which never really materialized in, in actual demand. So, you know, anything of an OEM partnering with a, with a, you know, with a technology company like this is positive. Although I would say, you know, on the flip side, I look at someone like, you know, Toyota who has their internal development. Maybe they’re working with Mobileye to do stuff internally and just throwing cash around to other. Partners, whether it’s, you know, May Mobility or others. , I, I don’t know if we can draw any conclusions from this. It just doesn’t seem like there’s a sense of urgency on the OEMs other than maybe Hyundai in terms of pushing some platforms forward.

Grayson Brulte: I would disagree and push back. There’s urgency inside of Nissan with the Wayve deal. There’s urgency inside of Honda with the Helm AI deal, which they put more money in this week. So the OEMs are. Some taking a more cautious approach, some taking a faster approach, and at the end of the day, we’re gonna see what model works, what the best.

Walter Piecyk: no offense to pony ai, right? But where is Waymo like, you have all these OEMs. You have Waymo, who’s the leader in the most important market in the world that has global aspirations, clearly with their announcement in the UK. Why are, why are they not? Why aren’t we not seeing more OEM partnerships with Waymo?

Grayson Brulte: That’s the big question. ’cause Waymo clearly needs supply. At the end of the day, uh, they truly need more vehicles and Stellantis has a long documented history of success with Waymo. Going back to the original Chrysler Pacifica minivan.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, so, I mean, I don’t, I don’t know what’s, what’s going on with that, whether it’s a a Waymo issue or an OEM fear issue, ’cause it’s Google. But hopefully one of these weeks we’re gonna come in here. We won’t be talking about like some random OEM with, with a smaller tech guy and it’ll be Waymo with, with an announcement. I mean, we haven’t seen basically anything out of them as it relates to OEMs since that, that thing with with Toyota, which was like an intent to talk basic announcement,

Grayson Brulte: that was probably one of the shortest press releases I’ve ever read for our two major corporations getting together to do a deal.

Walter Piecyk: crazy and silent about it ever since.

Grayson Brulte: When do you think we get clarity on that? Or is that just gonna kind of linger out there in the d in the wind?

Walter Piecyk: I don’t know. I mean, I, I would hope that someone, I mean, this is such a small item, but like, how do you ever get questions in Right. You know, Dmitri is like fully, you know, protected. Doesn’t really take any real interviews, asking him tough questions. It’s not getting asked on, on earnings call of, of Google. So I don’t know. We, we just have to kind of sit here. Sit here and wait. By the way, did you see Dmitri’s tweet earlier this week? If I can read it for our listeners? Um, Dmitri, by the way, for our listeners that don’t know, CEO or Co CEO of Waymo, he, he tweeted from day one. We built the Waymo driver to generalize and perform across various use cases from ride hailing, did delivery. This is him announcing the DoorDash, which is great. We love the DoorDash announcement. Um, but it’s funny, this word generalize comes up, right? Because it’s, to me, it’s been like their defensive word as a response to kind of what we’ve talked about as autonomy 2.0, AI first, right? And then they’ve been using this word generalize. But, but now to argue that they were, they’re gonna generalize from day one. I mean, I mean, I guess he’s me, meaning generalized because like, oh yeah, we’re, we can take people and food, but like generalizing the way we think about it was, was, did Waymo really start as something to generalize autonomy.

Grayson Brulte: No, Waymo started back in 2009 as Project Chauffeur, and the original aspect was was was driver assist on the highway, and then Sebastian Thune was given many interviews about this. Over the years where people just stopped paying attention, so they had to go to level four. So no, it was not built like that on on day one. Yes. Years ago, did they move towards that? Yes. And we saw that with Waymo via trucking, which they shut down, which, and by the way, for the record, we never had a clear answer on why they shut down. I’d love to know why it would truly shut down. Nobody will talk about it. There’s been a lot of, I would say, different changes in how they approach autonomy throughout the years of chauffeur to the Google self-driving car project, to eventually whamo. There’s been a lot of, a lot of changes over the years.

Walter Piecyk: So moving on to what’s for next week. There’s a CEO that does answer questions on their earnings call from investors and otherwise, and, and does get interviewed quite often. That is Elon Musk and Tesla does have their earnings call this week, so maybe we’ll get some more data and updates for what the plans are for FSD and. And obviously the, the, I think the, the really, the big catalyst or, or the, or the, or the development point that everyone is waiting for, which is the timeline on when the safety attendant gets pulled out of, um, the cars in Austin and, you know, when they expand from Austin.

Grayson Brulte: And I’m gonna wait to see if you get another incremental update to your FSD. The one thing that we know about Tesla earnings call, Mr. Musk has no filter you. He’ll pretty much answer any question either on the earnings call or re replying to an an x comment. The future is bright. The future autonomous. The future is scaling robotaxis Walt until next week.