Transcript: Trump, China & Autonomous Vehicles: Inside Look at U.S. Transportation Policy

Executive Summary

In this episode of The Road to Autonomy Podcast, Grayson Brulte sat down with Finch Fulton, Government Affairs and Public Policy Advisor, K&L Gates where he provided a detailed analysis of the Trump administration’s approach to autonomous vehicle (AV) policy, emphasizing its support for innovation balanced with a new focus on organized labor.

Fulton breaks down the escalating technological competition with China, arguing that federal regulatory certainty is essential to unlock domestic investment and maintain America’s leadership in autonomy. The conversation also explores the critical need for the autonomous vehicle industry to proactively engage with groups like the Teamsters to create a unified path forward for development and deployment.

Key The Road to Autonomy Episode Questions Answered

Key The Road to Autonomy Topics & Timestamps

[00:27] How the Trump administration views autonomy and innovation

The Trump administration is seen as very supportive of innovation and autonomy, building on its first term’s “AV 4.0” document, which promoted a whole-government approach to ensure American leadership. The administration is appointing leaders with strong innovation leanings who understand how technology can improve safety outcomes. However, it is also expected to be mindful of organized labor’s needs, requiring a thoughtful approach from the industry.

[2:47] The rising threat of China and its impact on American autonomous vehicle leadership

There is concern that China could surpass the U.S. in autonomous technology, similar to how it has made leaps in the electric vehicle field. China often copies American innovation but backs its industries with heavy subsidies and a centralized government approach that allows it to dominate key tech sectors. To maintain leadership, the U.S. must establish clear rules and provide certainty to its innovators and investors.

[4:41] Why regulatory certainty is crucial for unlocking investment in the U.S.

Billions of dollars are waiting to be invested in the U.S. autonomy sector, but investors will not commit until there is regulatory certainty in the form of a federal framework. The current environment, with numerous state-level bills creating a “whack-a-mole” situation, presents a huge business risk. Providing clear “rules of the road” gives innovators the confidence to deploy and investors the certainty they need to fund these technologies, which is essential for competing with China.

[6:59] The role of key political figures like Secretary Rubio in addressing Chinese IP theft and security risks

Officials such as Secretary Marco Rubio are acutely aware of the national security risks posed by China. Intelligence agencies have repeatedly testified before Congress about China’s widespread intellectual property theft and its infiltration of critical U.S. infrastructure, such as power grids and networks. This decades-long effort by China to steal U.S. systems and gain the ability to pressure the American economy is the context for all policy discussions around technology.

[12:47] China’s strategy of data collection through apps like TikTok and DeepSeek

China uses popular applications to gain massive amounts of data and insight into American culture and thought processes. Apps like TikTok provide data on younger, impressionable individuals, while newer tools like DeepSeek could offer insight into what Americans are thinking, effectively giving away the “battle plan”. While Congress has moved to ban DeepSeek from government devices, there is a concern that the U.S. is not fully awake to the danger of empowering its primary geopolitical competitor.

[23:45] The potential for an “autonomous vehicle safety framework” and what it might look like

There is a strong push to revive and update the AV safety framework ANPRM (Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) introduced by former Secretary Chao. The industry has largely consolidated around a “safety case” approach, where a company must prove the safety of its vehicle’s operations by making claims and showing the evidence to support them. This framework would include engineering and process-based standards, such as having a person in charge of safety with veto power and processes for continuous learning from incidents.

[27:32] The significant influence of Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters on autonomous trucking policy

Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters hold significant influence because rank-and-file union members are a key voting bloc for President Trump. To move forward with a regulatory framework, the AV industry must treat the Teamsters with respect, engage with them directly, and work to address their legitimate concerns about worker impacts and future job training. While not all demands can be met, constructive engagement can prevent a unified front against autonomous trucking.

[32:58] Addressing the concerns of independent owner-operators (OIDA)

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has also opposed autonomous trucking, fearing that small trucking companies won’t be able to afford the technology and will be driven out of business. The counterargument is that it would take decades to produce enough autonomous trucks to displace human drivers, especially as freight demand increases. The technology can also be used to eliminate the worst parts of the job—the dangerous, inefficient, long-haul routes, creating a brighter future for drivers.

[37:19] Policy priorities for the next 18 months to advance the autonomous vehicle industry

Key priorities include locking in previous regulatory interpretations through formal rulemakings to provide certainty that cannot be easily reversed. Specifically, this means finalizing the autonomous vehicle safety framework and the FMCSA rule for ADS-equipped commercial motor vehicles. The industry must work together to champion these logical, safety-focused policies and help advance autonomy as a whole.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Finch. It was great to see you in D. C. at the Council for Economic Resilience event a few weeks ago. Thank you so much for coming, and it was, we were honored to have your former boss there, Secretary Chao. And, since you were last on the podcast, we had an election. You and I spoke about it, what could be, what could not be. Now President Trump’s sworn in, he’s, he’s there, he’s talking to the media, he’s firing away signed executive orders. What impact do you see President Trump in this, in this term having on autonomy?

Finch Fulton: Well, he was very supportive of innovation and autonomy as a whole. In his 1st administration, of course, you know, 1 of the key documents we put out was our 4. 0, ensuring American leadership and automated vehicle technology. That was a whole government approach. We see some leaders returning, some that are known are like, Michael and then Parker over the office of science and technology policy. It’s a strong leadership there. We’re seeing lots of people tapped that have strong, uh, innovation leanings and people that understand how innovation can lead to higher safety outcomes. Uh, certainly secretary Duffy has said all the right things. And he’s shown a great interest in pushing forth with the use of autonomy and then if we get some of our old champions back in, like, Steve Bradbury for the deputy secretary, should he be confirmed. You know, we would see a lot of strong leanings towards autonomy and the greater use of autonomy. I do think 1 thing that will be interesting is. You know, after the election, we saw President Trump. Lean in on the West Coast port automation issues. And so I think, and he leaned in on behalf of organized labor. And so I think we’re going to see that the industry needs to be thoughtful about ensuring that you understand what organized labor’s needs are. But don’t let some of the more outlandish demands take over the conversation. You can show that you care about the blue collar worker without giving up everything that the technology can do. So, I think that you have to be mindful about the approach. It is not just a slam dunk. , but I do think if you, if you include the right people. And you make the right considerations, you can push forward so that we can finally get some permanence and some of the rule makings. And some of the regulations and rules of the road for autonomous vehicles of every kind.

Grayson Brulte: I’ll say for the record, I think the pick of Secretary Duffy as Secretary of Transportation was a brilliant pick. I fully expect Secretary Duffy to, to move the department forward and do a really good job. And we’re seeing how he’s handling this unfortunate tragedy that happened in Washington. Secretary Duffy is assertive, he’s on the point, and he’s extremely well articulate in how he’s delivering that message. With AV 4. 0, you highlighted the key, American leadership. We’re seeing now the rise of deep seek. We had a report in the Financial Times today that China’s building a war fallout bunker for nuclear war. They’re gearing up ships in the Taiwan Strait. We have export controls on ships, but yet they’re still getting them. How does America hold the leadership mantle on autonomy when you have this rising threat coming out of China that we’re starting to see? And autonomy and secretary of president for secretary of treasury came out during his confirmation here. So China’s trying to export their way out of recession. And he even used the word depression. My big ask is at some point they’re going to export autonomy it’s like they’re trying to do export AI. How do we get ahead of that and ensure American leadership?

Finch Fulton: So, you know, obviously, as we think about this China, whether or not they actually ripped off some of our systems to create theirs. , certainly we’ve seen time and again that they let our leaders innovate and then they copy. Now, we shouldn’t take for granted that they will always do that because certainly we’ve seen in the electric vehicle field, great leaps and bounds where their technology has now beaten ours, um, or for the time being seems to be outperforming ours greatly subsidized, but still. So, you know, when it comes to automation as a whole, especially for automated vehicles you know. American industry needs certainty. I don’t think that we’re going to get national champions the way China does it with heavy subsidies. Um, and their approach to try and dominate certain key components of the innovation economy. We’ve seen that play out for battery technologies and electric vehicles. We’ve seen it play out with things like aerial drones and other technologies. We can’t let this be an area where we lose the lead that we have because we failed to set the rules and provide certainty to innovators to be able to deploy, which then gives certainty to investors to be able to have money flow back into these technologies. Once again, sort of the same way we saw under the first Trump administration, we saw tens of billions of dollars flow into these technologies because people saw There was going to be a road for deployment, and then the investments have withered for the past 4 years again, having gone to a startup, then ran out of money. Um, we couldn’t raise. It was a much tougher environment for a number of reasons. Obviously, you can’t just blame politics. , but, you know, if we can, if we can provide certainty. To the innovators, then they can compete and they can compete on safety in the right ways and they can compete on technological innovation. If we keep around and China has that, you know, 1 mind. Mentality whole government approach, You know, they can beat us in this technology because. There’s no dissenting voices, it’s just the voice of the government telling everybody exactly what to do and they will carry it out. So it is an international. And a global competition, and it is 1 that we are at risk of losing our lead in. If we can’t provide a path forward for our innovators.

Grayson Brulte: We need the path forward. The investors I speak to, there’s billions of dollars on the sidelines ready to invest in autonomy into the sector, but they will not do it until there’s regulatory certainty. They want to see a federal framework. They don’t want this whack a mole. I believe now we’re up to 15 driver in bills across the United States, and that’s a huge risk to their business, and they’re not going to invest until there, there’s certainty. And to me, I’m looking at this, so we have David Sachs as an AI and crypto czar. Do we need an autonomy czar because China is starting to export , their champion pony AI, their champion we ride the vehicles are now showing up in Europe on the European continent. It’s, it’s, they’re getting closer.

Finch Fulton: I’ll say, I mean, I don’t know that he would give himself this title, but I hope Michael gets confirmed and I would just put the title of automations are on him. He’s got a lot of experience, automated vehicles with drones and with all the advanced technologies when he spent his time is. Oh, undersecretary of technology research and development at the Department of defense. That’s what he did after his time as the deputy, uh, the office of science and technology policy at the White House. Then he went to, scale AI, I believe after that. So he’s got some deep experience in this field. So we want to just give the title to somebody. I mean, I don’t know if you’re thinking about recruiting somebody else into the White House to do it as well, but I think Michael Kratios is as good as it gets in that area.

Grayson Brulte: What position or role is he going for?

Finch Fulton: He’s nominated to be the head of the office of science and technology policy.

Grayson Brulte: Perfect. That’s where you want this to live. Perfect. We, we wish him the best. Hope and pray he can get through confirmation because you have an individual with deep experience that understands this threat. When I study this threat and I look at this what role does Marco now, uh secretary rubio going to play in this because he has Some very stern comments that he made during his confirmation hearing where he goes that one day we can wake up and in china Is controlling our media? He seems like he is well averse at state to the risks that are posed Across the board,

Finch Fulton: Yeah. Well, it’s no secret. I mean, again, our intelligence agencies have testified before Congress about the amount of intellectual, property that has been flat out stolen by the Chinese, the infiltration into our networks, and our power grids. You see the even recent news about some of our critical infrastructures, Chinese are finding ways to put in trap doors so they can come back in. They could potentially, if necessary, in a time of war. Take control, shut down some of our key systems, put a lot of hurt on American civilians. , they have infiltrated our networks and they pose a direct threat now, should they choose to exercise it. So, it is scary times, right? I mean, my hope is that, like, we have the same pressures we put on them. It’s just they haven’t found them yet. Right? That’s just like, that’s an idle hope, but like, hopefully we’re not just sitting here. On the receiving end of this, and certainly it’s good that we know it’s there, but it’s our systems are so decentralized. With so many different authorities responsible for maintenance and upkeep of them, that there’s just vulnerabilities all over the place. So it is, it is worrisome. So everything we talk about in terms of, you know, just specifically automated vehicles, or even some of the rulemakings around connected vehicles, they’re all in the context of this pervasive decades long effort of the Chinese government. To get into our systems, to steal our weapons systems, to steal our intellectual property, to put in, to have an ability to impact our economy as a whole and to put pressure on us. Should we ever, you know, get into an arm conflict with them? They’ve been positioning themselves for decades. So we can get along with them. We can trade with them. We can be good partners with them. It doesn’t mean that everything’s going to go bad. And certainly from their point of view, you get why they would want to have safeguards. Against the American superpower, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worrying and concerning. And that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be circumspect about all of our actions with regard to their ability to inflict pain on us. I mean, that’s not really something that allies do, right? You don’t see France and the UK putting the same pressures on us. So that’s not how friends treat each other. , so we have to be circumspect in all of these areas, even if we compete with them in the free market, as we do. And our friends in Europe, we can’t lose sight of the fact that they consider us a threat and they’re positioning themselves to be able to act against us if necessary.

Grayson Brulte: there are threatened. There’s there’s Pew data that’s been released recently that the American public overwhelmingly. Views China as one of the biggest threats to American democracy and you look at vulnerabilities, you look at threats. The Taiwan Strait, if China goes into Taiwan, the global semiconductor comes to a screeching halt. The company is going to be affected the most is the company that’s driving this economy right now is NVIDIA . and they play such a significant role in autonomy as well . how does the U. S., what policy put in place to hedge this risk? Because this is a major risk. I know, well, I’ll get feedback and push back. Oh, the foundries are coming in Ohio. Well, those aren’t coming anymore. You have foundries coming in Arizona. Those are still online. But there’s, to me, the choke point is so obvious and so visible. What policies can be put in place?

Finch Fulton: I mean, that’s a. That’s a really good question. And I’ll tell you what gets me too is, as we think about this, if you’ve seen some of the news articles about the advancements in asymmetric underwater warfare with underwater drones. If we talk about our U. S. Navy, which is, of course, in view of the world, they keep the trade lanes, open for literally everybody in the world. We have to be everywhere all the time to keep the free flow of trade very underappreciated by global partners, but when you have new sorts of threats, like you’ve seen developed in Russia and Ukraine. , with that ongoing conflict, you see those and the risk they would pose to our. Armed services and our military forces as a whole, then you start to open up new worries about our ability to project power. I mean, it’s different if you’re talking about defending the homeland, but our ability to project power to protect our allies. That becomes very worrisome. So in terms of policies, it can’t be military only, obviously, because the Chinese are looking at ways to use this asymmetric warfare tactics to be able to defeat our overwhelming superior military technology right now. And just the number of ships and planes. So, I mean, ultimately. As we look to try and make sure that we’re not completely reliant on Chinese technologies for things like our own military equipment, our missiles, our ships, which right now we are reliant on China for some of our key weapons. We have to be able to disentangle this, but still keep enough of a good trade relationship with China so that they would forever find it not in their best interest to go to war with us. So that doesn’t mean bowing to them at all, but it does mean, you know, we want them to buy our things and we want our innovators to have access to some of the Chinese products that. Are valuable,

Grayson Brulte: there’s a lot of things here. What happens with tariffs? Trump’s obviously going to put tariffs on China. How are they going to retaliate?

Finch Fulton: I don’t know. And honestly, where we stand right now today is January 31st. I think we’re going to learn a lot more about the president’s approach to terrorists tomorrow. Right? It sounds like we’ve gotten higher numbers. I think it’s 25 percent for Canada and Mexico starting now. And it’s you wonder, you know, the saying I’ve heard is, you know, don’t take him. Literally take him seriously. Well, I mean, I think they’re taking him seriously. I don’t know what sort of negotiation tactic this is. Or if this is a starting point, but it is going to, you know, this will sort of be a trial run for what we see with China. There’s a, you know, I’m not going to predict. I’m not going to be able to predict what exactly is going to happen there, but as they say, may you live in interesting times ancient curse.

Grayson Brulte: Yes, we, we, there’s no doubt about the interesting times. And if you talk about sophistication of China, so they launch ByteDance, they launch TikTok here in America. China’s getting all this data insight into American culture, especially younger individuals for, better or worse, are highly, highly impressionable. Then they launch DeepSeek. And I’m not buying the way that this was rolled out just for the record here, and then they’re getting all of our data about what we’re thinking You’re just empowering the enemy’s like oh here. Here’s the battle plan sir. This is it Why is nobody waking up and realizing this is I understand the technical the the quote unquote Breakthrough, but it just seems that if you turn on CNBC or you turn on Bloomberg It’s just, they are, and Palmer Luckey said this, by the way, and I agree with Mr. Luckey, that all they’re doing is out there touting Chinese propaganda about how far they are ahead of us. When does somebody wake up? Especially from a policy standpoint, you’re based in D. C. and you’re one of the smartest policy people I’ve ever met. When does somebody wake up and say, wait a second, this, you’re just, you’re just empowering the enemy.

Finch Fulton: well, I will say it is only been 1 week and I’ve already seen Congress, ban the use of DeepSeek from any Congressional tool iPhone or whatever. Certainly military’s followed on, I believe is also issued it, and just as a whole. I think it’s brand new, so it’s like, it’s got a lot of downloads. Anyway, people are interested in it. But from a user perspective, I don’t have it, but I’ve messed with lots of the other tools. I don’t think there’s anything right away that would lead to widespread adoption beyond what people are already using with any of the consumer facing products. And in terms of anything that would be on a more commercial base, I don’t know that there’s any, many American companies that at least right now are thinking it’s a good idea. Certainly there’s questions about whether or not it would be banned. Obviously, if it really was just 3 percent of the cost to develop it 1, because they copied it, but even in terms of how they have to sell the product that changes things dramatically. and honestly, I know this is a little bit of a side note. I’m curious as to how much it’s going to change some of the planned investments. , on some of the data centers and the like that we’ve heard about, because if they found a better way to do it. I mean, who’s to say that Anthropic or ChatGPT or somebody won’t just say, okay, well, we can mimic that too. And then, you know, figure out a way to make theirs a fraction of the cost. So, I think you’ve seen a lot of companies, obviously OpenAI is different, but a lot of companies are responding with, uh, oh, neat, it’s advancing things further because they know they can just do exactly what the DeepSeek team did. Copy it back and then figure out how to make it dramatically cheaper because, you know, some of the numbers we were seeing about the investments required to keep these systems going further. They were just bonkers. I mean, they were not, they were not sustainable is what I should say. And so I think there’s a hope that there was. There were some real breakouts to figure out how to recoup this money. And certainly, if you’re some of the 1, if you’re some of the companies that have already invested billions in it, you are concerned about the sunk cost of your previously made investments. But if you’re if you’re new, especially American startup, and you’re like, oh, I can just mimic that too. You know, it is a, it’s early days. So it is a. Highly competitive market and first movers aren’t always the winners. A lot of other companies can leapfrog those costs come in and just benefit from the lessons learned. So we’ll see, you know, there’s a lot to be determined, but this is not the end of the story.

Grayson Brulte: No, it’s, it’s just be, it’s merely just beginning. I’ve played with DeepSeek, but I played with it on perplexity with the data’s hosted in America, and that’s getting sensitive. And I have to say I wasn’t impressed. The o the open AI model much better. And, and if the reports are true, we don’t have enough evidence yet. But the reports say that a lot of it was stolen, but what, what it really did more than anything, it showed the power of open source and that’s where you have the new, uh, met Lama form model coming with open source. The money is not going to be made. On building the llms the money’s gonna be made on what’s building on top of it And we got some insight into what you asked about for the the spending On the blackstone earnings and coo jon gray came out and said no we’re we’re full steam ahead. We’re still seeing the demand Mr. Zuckerberg on the meta earnings so that they’re going to continue their investment. So the investment is going to continue I I don’t necessarily buy that the way that they trained it uses so many less gpus I think we do have a major breakthrough coming if, if, if, and when Google can get that willow chip commercialized, then, okay, whoa, look at what this chip’s doing. So there’s going to be chip breakthroughs. I don’t necessarily think that the, the models of the way they describe it are necessarily going to be breakthroughs, but this all comes back to policy. And we’re very fortunate. We have a young, if one of the youngest in history, vice presidents, that’s extremely tech savvy, former venture capitalist and vice president Vance, what role is he going to play? Shaping.

Finch Fulton: Well, it’s going to be interesting because as we see more of the commercial applications of this technology come into place, it’s also going to impact how like the FTC takes a look at exits. Right. So you build something because maybe you want to own this product and commercialize it and run this company your entire lives. Or maybe you want to do it for 5 years or so, get it stood up, get it going and then you’d like to move on. So you should be allowed to sell the thing you’ve created. That’s part of the American economy. I mean, that is not, that’s a feature, not a bug. And so, as we look at the different, I’m sorry, I’m sure you saw open AI. , is now working with our, , nuclear labs, providing tools for their own researchers and investigators and just employees of all kinds to be able to use it to query things, ask questions, think through things. Certainly you have to back it up with humans, but, you know, there’s nothing better than if it’s 5 am and you just have a really dumb question or thought being able to just ping the system and have it feed it back to you. You also look at it so that that’s a good business to government application. It’s all sorts of business to business applications that make a lot of sense. And one of the applications that is business to consumer, when you talk about having a system that is a little cheaper, that is closed system, so it doesn’t need to pull in all this extra outside information, you talk about something that can go in the dashboard of your car or just part of your car’s infotainment system. I had a situation where my car, the back rear tire started making grinding sounds and it started driving differently. And I used. Claude’s anthropic to quiz it as to like, Hey, my car’s doing this. What could be happening? What are the most likely things? And it said, Oh, you know, here’s the five most likely things. I said, okay, how much would that cost to fix it? And you know, we don’t really know, but here’s ballpark to do to do it. And I said, all right, if I take this to a shop, what are they going to sell me on? What is needed? And what do I need to watch out for? Like, what could they be upselling me on? So I know to be mindful and to be cautious about that. And it gave me these things when I took it into the shop, it was the top two. It was two things. It’s the top two out of five things that it told me. And then I knew that they didn’t try and sell me on any of the things I needed to be mindful of, and I also sounded much more informed. When I’ve talked to them, it’s like, I don’t know if this is what it is, but I think it may be this and then it made me a lot more comfortable going into that interaction because I don’t know that much about cars, but I was a lot better informed. I was a lot more comfortable. It was not safety base. It was not life or death, but me as a consumer, it dramatically made my life better. So I did that on my phone, but why couldn’t that just be in my car? And then I can do everything from telling it to play party in the USA to asking it, you know, the weather to then. Asking questions about the car, why is it doing this funny thing? I mean, that is a Knight Rider application, but that’s something that I would expect to see at CES next year. Why is it not in our cars? It’s the same tool, same system, so

Grayson Brulte: I had a car where I had a prototype version of ChatGPT built into the car. It worked horribly, but yes, I truly, truly believe that’s coming to the car. And then I believe the next thing that’s going to come to the car is the augmented reality where the screen’s going to become augmented. You’re going to have, you’re going to have experiences. And when we remove the steering wheel, at some point, the Azure or one of these big distributors is going to put alcohol in the car. When we put alcohol in the car, in an autonomous vehicle, with no steering wheel, do, is the open container laws going to have to change or, or where do you see that going?

Finch Fulton: I mean, that’s very interesting because, yeah, I don’t know. I tell you what is interesting though, that obviously asks the questions, how will they be able to tell if somebody throws up in the car? And I mean, that’s an issue they face today, right? Like, if you’re picking up a robo taxi somewhere, how will they know if the person before you, you know, smoking a cigarette or threw up or like, you know, any of the gross things that humans can do, they have to have systems for that. I know they do, but it’s still. It’s so, you know, raises the question you would think they would be allowed to because, you know, especially if you’re well, I guess I won’t apply because I don’t know, but you think over time, they may be able to update the laws to allow for that in certain areas. You just seem like Las Vegas would seem to a lot, but, you know, it’s a really interesting question that I hadn’t thought about.

Grayson Brulte: I think about the weird things because the best source of thinking about things that you would never think of, talk to police officers. They think of stuff that nobody would ever think of. And I said, sir, why did you think of that? Well, we’ve seen it happen. It’s like, well, okay.

Finch Fulton: it’s like the old saying, if you ever see a warning sign, it’s not because somebody just thought of it. It’s because somebody’s already made that mistake.

Grayson Brulte: Exactly. We saw it with McDonald’s coffee. That’s why coffee is hot. Do you see Vice President Vance getting involved in the nitty gritty working with Secretary Duffy on autonomy policy? Or will the Vice President focus on larger economic issues from a policy perspective?

Finch Fulton: I have not necessarily seen anything and that’s his past that would make me think that he would dive into autonomous vehicles specifically, his time in the Senate or anything like that. Maybe I missed it. , so I don’t necessarily think he’s going to jump into that, but certainly the vice president typically picks. A few areas where they want to focus on. Mike Pence was National Space Council, and he worked a lot with Department of Transportation on space launch and re entry. So J. D. Vance could choose to do something along those lines. , certainly I would welcome it. It would be great for the industry as a whole, but I guess we’ll see where he decides to spend his time. You’d think it’s going to be rail safety policy as well, just because that would be consistent with this previous time. But, you know, we will see.

Grayson Brulte: We’ll see. What we do know, there is a champion in the White House. He’s widely reported. He has an office in the Eisenhower Building. Mr. Elon Will we see Mr. Musk potentially push for a national autonomous vehicle framework, or push for policies that encourage

Finch Fulton: We’ve already, I mean, I believe he’s already called for an AV safety framework, and I can’t help but bring up that Secretary Chao introduced an AV safety framework, advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, towards the end of our time the 1st time around. So I think that they’re going to pick that up, brush it off. I would think that they would put a greater focus on a safety case approach because that’s where industry is consolidated around that was discussed in the, among other issues or among other approaches. They sort of said, like, this way that way. Let us know how you feel about this. But since then, the industry has consolidated around a safety case approach, which is you make the case or how you can deploy safety, make your claims, show the evidence for why you think that make sure that all adds up together and that you can prove the safety of any operation of that vehicle. You can set that up with the, with an engineering and process based framework, safety management system framework. And some of that is as simple as like. Do you have a person in charge of safety? Do they have veto rights over operations? Can they weigh in and make sure that safety is prioritized? I mean, some of these sounds simple and then, you know, do you have a process for X? Okay. How do you show that? What’s the evidence? The process for Y on and on and on continuous learning, making sure that all of this. , is improved and that you can learn from safety incidents that can be baked in and then you can look at different scenario based, better motor vehicle safety standards. If you would like to build from there. , so that way you can make sure that you are specific enough. To give certainty, but also it would help give help assure state legislators. So, the states and cities don’t go in and try and regulate in that space because they see the federal government acting in that space. Because if you assume best intentions from our state and local partners, you assume that they just feel the need to regulate because they don’t see. The Department of transportation regulated, which is funny because under secretary child, they’re moving forward with it and then nothing happened. And so you started seeing the state bills popping up in these last 4 years. You know, at much greater numbers, because the government wasn’t moving. So those concerns started percolating. And if you assume that people just want to do right by their constituents. They felt the need to act. So they see the federal government acting and they know they can weigh in leave comments, have meetings, maybe be part of working groups. I don’t know. , but if they can be included in that, and they can tell their constituents, I’m working on this, I’m going to make sure that we’re heard. And they do right by their constituents while still letting the federal government use its authorities in its rightful place to address. You know the real concerns people have about this new technology. So that’s the way it ought to happen.

Grayson Brulte: You’re right. Could, if we do get a framework, do you think it will include trucks weighing over a gross weight of 10, 001 pounds?

Finch Fulton: Yeah Well, I mean dot I don’t see why they would limit themselves with the house They have committees of jurisdiction with energy and commerce being able to handle vehicles under 10, 000 pounds in house transportation infrastructure Handling vehicles over 10, 000 pounds. It’s the main reason why I think we’ve seen a schism in congress is just because committees of jurisdiction So it’s sort of like a silly bureaucratic reason. But certainly, you know, some people do want to allow light duty vehicles and prohibit trucks. That’s the teamsters approach. Right? So we have to be mindful of all of this. Certainly it impacts the world you move forward. But if you’re talking about a NHTSA AV safety framework and safety case based approach, that should be for all vehicles . there’s never been any serious discussion about splitting that off.

Grayson Brulte: How big of a risk is Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters to making a regulatory framework that gives investors certainty? How big of a risk is Mr. O’Brien and the Teamsters?

Finch Fulton: So, 1, I’m fortunate to have worked for secretary Chao, who’s former secretary of labor. Her thing was always, you treat them with the utmost respect. The teamsters and organized labor have done a lot for the American worker. You will respect that history, and you’re going to treat them right because you will not always agree with them and we’re not always going to do what they want, but I want you to do your best to work with them. We did. We had good relationships with teamsters. We should take that approach again. Sean O’Brien has such an impact because the Teamsters voted, the rank and file blue collar Teamsters voted for President Trump. And the whole reason Joe Biden was so pro labor is because when President Trump was going against Hillary Clinton, he had shifted the blue collar worker dramatically. And organized labor rank and file votes dramatically away from Hillary Clinton in a way that the Democratic Party had never seen before in recent history, and it scared them. So then Biden had to be the most pro labor president of all time, and that didn’t work because Donald Trump still got their rank and file blue collar. Organized labor voters, especially teamsters supported him more than Kamalla Harris. So he’s not going to be lost on that. I mean, there’s a lot of populism that has gone into where, how we’ve got where we are today. I mean, we saw, you know, CEOs of major companies unable to get meetings with the Republican leadership. Sean O’Brien’s over here speaking at the RNC. So we’ve got to respect that. We got to respect that voice. But if you take a look at what the teamsters have requested in public comments and everything, we can do most of them like, you know, they want new updated guidance. They want to make sure that. Impacts to workers are evaluated and better understood. They want to make sure they understand the role of labor in the future. They want to know, you know, what skills do they need to be training for? What are the roles that are going to be created and how do they get ready for them? They want to make sure that their current members aren’t going to be impacted. Now, you and I know, we’ve seen studies so that they won’t be, but that means we should be willing to engage on these questions. And the teamsters are as, you know, they’re not a unified entity. And so we need to engage with the different regional offices and the teamsters to make sure they understand the potential benefits to them of these technologies. I mean, they will augment the workforce. There’s not enough. Of these jobs, and there’s not enough of these trucks to go around to take any job from any driver today, and it can change the role of the driver tomorrow. You know, there’s a lot of benefits that can come from this. But if we don’t make it just a uniform, all of organized labor thinks that are bad. And we’re much better off if we can engage with them to make sure that all the teamsters. Regional committees don’t necessarily see it as bad. That’s a win. We have to engage with them, not ignore them because I think that, you know, certainly you want to respect the role of the worker. Going forward and make sure they understand how these technologies can benefit them because what we’ve seen and you and I have talked about this before when they talked about containerization and port automation, there’s more jobs. Now, there’s better jobs. Now, there’s safer jobs. Now, better quality of life. So, what were you fighting for and what are we going to be fighting for in the future? Not the trucking job of the past that’s gotten significantly worse in their mind since the 80s. It is not what it used to be. So what are you fighting to save? Are you going to fight to save something that you hate in the first place? Are you going to work together to build something that’s better for you in the future? So by engaging with them, we can figure out what works. Can’t, you can’t give into every demand. Like there has to be a human driver in every truck. That’s not how autonomous trucking works. You also can’t promise jobs that aren’t yours to promise. If you own an autonomous trucking company, you can’t promise warehouse jobs because those aren’t your warehouses. You know, so there has to be a logical understanding of who they are dealing with. They got to meet us halfway on this, but industry does have to talk to them and figure out how to meet their legitimate needs and their legitimate demands. Because we’re talking about, like, remote operators for AVs should meet the same qualifications and safety standards as human drivers. Hell yeah, we have zero problems with that. That is true. If you’re going to be operating a vehicle, yeah, you can’t, you got to pass your drug test. You got to be limited on your hours of service. Yeah, all that makes sense. You look at these, I don’t read them all, but like the couple dozen, 20 or so that I’ve got that I’m looking at, most of them are like, yeah, no, I get that. That’s fine. So if industry can get that message across. You can modify them. We’re not going to get the teamsters like, oh, yeah, we changed our mind. 100 percent autonomous trucks into the future. But if you can engage with the actual teamsters. Then you can start making it so that Sean O’Brien doesn’t feel 100 percent force behind him to try and kill the autonomous truck in future.

Grayson Brulte: We have to engage. We have to be respectful and we also have to keep an eye on the future and Mr. O’Brien and the Teamsters. I’d welcome Mr. O’Brien on this podcast to have a An honest conversation about autonomous trucking and the positive impact that it will have on labor And the positive impact it will have on the u . s. Economy because when the u. s economy thrives, mr. O’brien your members thrive your pension does better, sir everybody Wins outside of the risk with mr. O’brien in the teamsters Are there other political landmines as it relates to getting a national framework that you’re aware of or that could bubble up in the future?

Finch Fulton: The owner operator, independent, drivers of America, OIDA, they have long opposed technology as well. Different issues, but the same gist. They’re just worried about what this could mean for their jobs in the future, you know, as essentially your small trucking companies. Like, well, we’re not going to be able to afford autonomous trucks. So will they drive us out of business? And again, I understand why you would have that concern in the long run. But there’s not going to be a chance for that. There’s not, you can’t crank out if everybody was trying to buy every truck coming off the line and they turned every line into just autonomous truck making units, there’s, it would take decades. Like, there’s not enough, you can’t put enough trucks out there to make a big enough dent to cost anybody their job, especially with freight demand increasing. I mean, it’s, it’s bananas, but I get why the gut reaction would be. Oh, no, we hate this. We want to fight this. But it’s not an existential threat to the American driver. It’s not. And fundamentally, you know, they can choose different sort of driving roles over time. But if you want to be a long haul driver as it exists today, 20 years from now, yeah, you’re going to be able to do that. You can still choose that job. Like I have no doubt 30 years from now, I have no doubt. Like there will always be a need for the human driver to be able to take on some of these roles, but you don’t have to do the worst ones. You don’t have to do the back breaking ones, the most dangerous ones, the ones that, you know, keep you dozens of days away from home at a time with decentralized pickup and drop offs, with all the inefficiencies of the market, with you having to eat cost left and right because you’re stuck waiting at a warehouse and you’re not making money if the wheels ain’t turning. If the wheels ain’t turning, you ain’t earning is what I meant to say. So, you know, we can use this technology to drive out the inefficiencies that have been driving the American trucker into despair for decades now. So, we can use these technologies to fix that. The autonomous truck is just 1 part of it. And I think if we do that, then they see a brighter future for their members as well. But with them, you also have to engage directly with them.

Grayson Brulte: We have to engage and if you look at The individuals that are truck drivers long haul over the road the diabetes the health issues It’s very sad. That’s that’s the best part to automate but that last mile god bless come on teamsters Come on, we’d love to host you. We’d love to that day and they can go home at night They can see their children. They can go to the baseball game. They can go to their church They can engage with their community. That’s powerful. Then they invest in that community Perhaps they open a diner or an ice cream parlor a lot of stuff is gonna happen But we have to engage and set the The framework on the engagement standpoint is, is, does the autonomous vehicle in truck industry have a deep enough talent bench that understands this engagement and that has the relationships with the Trump administration, or is this all roads lead to Finch Fulton?

Finch Fulton: No, no, no, obviously, you know, there was 1 person complain at the end of the Trump administration that. Everybody was hiring Trump people, and so that’s making the industry look Trumpy as a whole. Now, a lot of. You know, there’s been a lot of turnover anyway, so that’s, I think, no longer a leading concern. But I think, because there’s a lot, there’s been a lot of engagement. I don’t think they’re going to, there’s going to be difficulty having the issues be heard with the current administration. Certainly. I can help. And I’m not the only 1. But we have to give. The people that are willing to hear us out on this, every tool they need to succeed. And that means not just leaving it up to them. Right. You’ve got to give them the data they need to move forward with rulemakings, the engagements they need, you’ve got to talk to everybody else at the Department of Labor, at the White House, you have to be engaging on all areas so that if they do send something up, the people that see it already understand what it is and why, and then you have to engage the people that have spoken out against it to again, you don’t have to change their minds. But you have to be able to say we’ve talked with them. We understand their concerns. Here’s how we’ve addressed 85 percent of them. We’re not going to be able to address these for these reasons. We’ve heard them. We’ve taken action on it. We’re ready to move forward. And we think that if you move forward, you will have done your due diligence to make sure that you’re doing right by all the parts and not everybody gets everything they want. But so we have to do that to make their lives easier because they got a lot going on. It is difficult to be sitting in those government seats. So everything we can do to make it easier for them to say yes. That is on us to do.

Grayson Brulte: It is on us to do, and we have to find compromises for the benefit of the American public and the American economy. Finch, what do we need to look for in the policy realm as it relates to autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles over the next 18 months?

Finch Fulton: Well, for Autonomous Trucks, one, the exemption petition that was denied and now is being challenged in court, it’s just bananas to me that they said there wasn’t enough data to be able to justify this. Well, you can always ask for more data as part of an exemption petition being granted. And fine, but if you flip the question, and you said, there’s warning markers on the front of trucks now to to showcase when the vehicle stopped on the side of the road. But we would like you to do a cost benefit analysis on making the human driver. Get out of the vehicle, put their body in harm’s way to put out a warning marker. And it’s got to be even further if you’re in a blind spot. So he’ll recurve. You have to go put your body in the exact area of danger. Doesn’t matter if it’s rainy, doesn’t matter if it’s dusk, you take your human body and you throw that thing out there instead of using lights and technology to signal where the truck is. Go do that cost benefit analysis and tell me if it justifies having these truck drivers put their human body in harm’s way. No, it doesn’t. So you’re going to deny it on that? Just because we’re doing something stupid now doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it. So I’m hoping That we can come to some quick resolution. We can always gather more data. 1 of the things I think they should gather is just how many fatalities incidents injuries happen because drivers have to get out of their vehicles every year. I think they should do it. No, it’s not easy because you have to go through police reports 1 at a time trying to figure out what’s been miscategorized. If we had a new category for this, so it’s not a quick and easy, but it is a safety issue. So I’d like to know just how big it is. And then, of course, if you’re talking about certainty, you want to take some of the interpretations that have been made over time, even, you know, AV 3. 0, you know, asserting that the driver can be a human or a machine, some of the follow on, uh, rulemakings and interpretations that came up from the occupant protection rulemaking, and then some of the applied interpretations we’ve seen industry utilizing, we want those locked in in some of the rulemakings because then you have certainty, just because, you know, interpretations are essentially guidance. And so, if an incoming secretary or future secretary didn’t like the technology, they could destroy the industry just by interpreting differently. So, we want those interpretations locked in, you know, essentially, if you have an autonomous vehicle, it doesn’t have to have the same rules, you know, no steering wheel, no brakes, you know, no windshield windshield, that’d be different. But if you have an autonomous level 4 vehicle, it doesn’t have to have the human controls in there. Bye. We need to have that locked in by regulation so that it can’t just be interpreted differently and, you know, throw a lot of vehicles out of compliance. And then we also, of course, have the AV safety framework and the FMCSA ADS equipped commercial motor vehicle rule. Those need to be advanced. And they need to be advanced with safety, prioritize and with logical, consistent approaches. And pick up where Chao left off, but we need to see forward progress on those and the industry needs to be championing those. And working together as a whole, there’s no time for schisms or arguments. It’s all work together and make sure that we can advance autonomy as a whole, because now is the time to do it. We need to work with people that have opposed us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t move forward. I think we need to do that now.

Grayson Brulte: You’re right. We need to come together for the benefit of the American public, the benefit of the U. S. economy, and to ensure our national security. Sometimes it takes compromises. Whatever it takes, we need to do it together, because when we get a framework, we get certainty. When we get certainty, we unlock investment. When investment creates jobs, and that will start to lead to what I call the autonomy economy. The future is bright. The future is autonomous. The future is sound autonomy policy. Finch, thanks as always for coming on the road to autonomy.

Finch Fulton: Thank you for having me.