Waymo Hits the Highway and Should Build Its Own Pit Crew

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the rapid scaling of autonomous vehicle services, highlighted by Grayson’s firsthand experience using Waymo’s new highway access from SFO to Mountain View. They analyze Waymo’s Miami Beach expansion and the emerging political and regulatory battles facing the industry in Virginia and New York.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[00:00] Silicon Valley and London Field Work

Grayson Brulte shares his experience testing Waymo’s new highway access at SFO, noting a 19-minute gate-to-car walk. Meanwhile, Walt explores the autonomous landscape in London and the Cotswolds, comparing the experience to his typical Tesla FSD usage at home.

[18:40] Google Gemini

Walt highlights a Cloverfield horror story regarding privacy alerts he received while using Google Gemini in London. He notes that unless using an enterprise account, human reviewers may see prompts, and deleting chats doesn’t immediately remove them from Google’s servers.

[20:59] Waymo in London

While mapping is underway with two humans in the front seats, London’s famous Black Taxi drivers remain skeptical. They questioned the technology’s ability to handle heavy pedestrian traffic and the loss of the social aspect of a human driver.

[25:27] Waymo’s Miami Beach Expansion

Waymo has officially expanded its Florida footprint to 91 square miles, now covering the causeways and Miami Beach. Brulte predicts that Waymo will begin limited operations at Miami International Airport (MIA) by May 2026.

[29:16] Waymo’s Fleet Management Strategy

A shift in strategy is noted as Waymo has stopped consistently announcing fleet management partners for new markets. While Moove IO is the partner in Miami, the lack of disclosed partners for Orlando and Tampa suggests Waymo may be experimenting with in-house operations under their new CFO.

[31:55] Autonomous Vehicles in Virginia, Not This Year

Legislation to allow fully autonomous vehicles in Virginia has been pushed to next year. Waymo publicly blamed opposition from other automated vehicle companies and automotive manufacturers for jeopardizing the bill.

[34:56] Waabi’s Robotaxi Messaging

The team critiques Waabi’s recent announcement regarding a partnership to deploy 25,000 robotaxis on Uber. They note a lack of meat in the announcement, specifically the absence of a confirmed OEM partner or a clear timeline for the hardware.

[39:06] Glydways Expansion

Glydways continues to scale its dedicated-lane autonomous pods, breaking ground in Atlanta and engaging in trials at Newark Airport. The business model focuses on point-to-point infrastructure that is significantly cheaper than traditional rail or trams.

[42:47] Foreign Autonomy Desk

In Germany, Volkswagen’s MOIA service aims to produce 500 ID. Buzz autonomous vans by the end of the year using Mobileye technology. These vehicles are currently undergoing testing in Austin, Texas.

[43:26] Next Week

Grayson and Walt are heading to Texas for further fieldwork, noting that 2026 is a big year for scaling autonomy. They plan to film upcoming content on-site, including a look at autonomous flight prototypes.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt, you’re in London. I just got back from Silicon Valley. We’re on the road. We’re always learning about autonomy. Well, you and I are on the road learning about autonomy. The PR spin machines inside autonomy companies were revving up. While they were revving up, Waymo was actually doing the work and expanding. Let’s start with London. How is it? How are you? I missed you.

Walter Piecyk: And Waymo, I saw doing the work. In London. I didn’t see Wayve, I saw Waymo, uh, doing work in London. Um, I had a lovely time in London. I’m currently in the Cotswolds. And to get to the Cotswold, I had to drive several hours, which for me is now disconcerting because as you know, Grayson and as our listeners know, the vast majority of my miles driven or are fully FSD on my Tesla at home. So it was very odd not only to be driving again, but to be driving. On the, on the wrong side of the road, or I guess here they say, would say left, right. Who knows where I am, but I got here safely for the night. I’m in the Cotswolds.

Grayson Brulte: That’s good to know. Well, you were doing that. I was busy in Silicon Valley. ’cause in London they call it the boot. So at the, I opened up the back of the Waymo boot. I try to see what was compute was in there. We wee, wee wee, wee wee. All the alarms started going off. So to the listeners and viewers don’t try and open it up.

Walter Piecyk: Hold on. You try to, but the trunk I’ve, I’ve put. In the back of a a Jag, I’ve opened the trunk and put my baggage in there. Did you go into the sub trunk of the trunk?

Grayson Brulte: I tried. I tried. I wanted to be the inspector. We woo wee was oh boy. Down it goes.

Walter Piecyk: Did they revoke your, your app access or, or what happened? Did anyone get on the, on the live camera or did anyone from the Philippines tap in and say, excuse me sir, what are you doing?

Grayson Brulte: Nobody tapped in. And the good news was it I wasn’t using my Waymo account. So that’s a little trick there.

Walter Piecyk: So now you were talking, I think this week about getting, uh, highway access. Was that in the valley or would, was that back in Florida?

Grayson Brulte: So we got highway access is coming here in Florida. Not activated yet, but Waymo was very kind, granted me highway access and to Waymo, a huge thank you. They gave me SFO access and you know, me, Mr. Curmudgeon, when it comes to things, I have the, the, the Walt in me comes out with certain situations. And I was able to experience it at SFO. It was really interesting. Well, I have to tell you, so flew United and we were the second gate in the United Concourse. I timed it. I said, okay, I gotta do my field work 19 minutes gate until the time I was in the Waymo. I gotta say it wasn’t that bad. That’s me. Who doesn’t like to go far is saying it wasn’t that bad.

Walter Piecyk: Wait a minute, so, so the person that on this very podcast says, bitched and moan about wanting curb access. He, you walked to, I guess what, where was it the, was it the kiss and fly or was it somewhere closer?

Grayson Brulte: No the, the kiss and fly would’ve been better. It was the rental car center, so I had to go where, if you’re going to go. Into the dinosaur. That’s a human driven car. You go straight or if you’re going to go get on the tram, you go right up the stairs. So I had to ride the, the airport tram to the rental car center and, and lo and behold, so I’m like, oh, this is easy, this is great. So I go down two floors. I wanted to get some exercise. The escalator was broken to go down the last three floors. Uh, no sign though. Pain in the butt, but still well worth it.

Walter Piecyk: So if you’re willing to get on the tram, then if they get to that garage where Uber typically picks up, not the Uber block but the regular Uber, I assume now you’re good with that and that can really help Waymo if they can get into that garage. And is there anything about what you saw at that rental car, um, place that’s different or easier that would say like, oh, well it’s clear they can do the rental car company where they couldn’t do the garage.

Grayson Brulte: So putting on my Walt hat here for a moment. I timed it. So just to walk to the Uber and Lyft is 12 minutes, so it’s an additional seven minute walk. Tram ride. What Waymo had, which was really nice, they had a dedicated curb. There was a sign of Thomas vehicle pickups branded. For Waymo, no traffic. Right out, right out going by United, where they do all of the, the cleaning and refurbishment of the air of the airlines. And the years ago, United hosted me there. A lot of cool stuff happens there, but right onto the 101 Very little traffic. So once you got there, massively convenient getting there. A pain in the neck.

Walter Piecyk: Well, that’s fine. No traffic. But I mean, Waymo’s can handle traffic. We’ve all, you know, everyone’s been in a Waymo that can handle traffic. So again, my question to you is, is, there anything that you sense is more complex about the garage versus the rental car agency? Or is the issue continues to be, not about a Waymo capability, but really more about, um, the powers that be restricting Waymo from that closer access where the Uber and Lyft pickups are.

Grayson Brulte: Politics at the, at the end of the day, it’s politics. The Waymo, in my opinion, can handle where the Uber and Lyft pickups are. The Waymo can handle curbside. It’s entrenched interest in politics that’s stopping it. And I’ll go on here and I will make a very bold prediction if and when Waymo is allowed to pick up curbside. At SFO, within the first 12 months of active service, Waymo will take 30% market share at the airport from Uber and Lyft.

Walter Piecyk: I don’t, I I’m not as, um, I, I don’t, I don’t think curb is as important as, as you, uh, think it is. I think if they can get outta the garage, they can get to 15, 20% share pretty quickly and, and, uh, but at least they’re, you know, they’re getting closer. I don’t know if kissing flies closer than. And this rental car company or what, but um, still not still getting held back, which is, I think important, which we talked about last week and important for our listeners to consider. In terms of the impact that Waymo has had on Uber and Lyft to date in this market. They’re still, they’re still, they’re still tying their hands behind their back because if politics more than anything. Let’s MOOOVE on to the ride itself. Um, how much did it cost you? What was the. You know, where, where did the car drive? I assume you’re on a highway there, right? So you had to get on the highway there. How, how did that all that whole ride go?

Grayson Brulte: So my ride was $89 92 cents to be exact. It was SFO down to Mountain View. I looked at. UberX was roughly $60. Uh, comfort was around 90. SUV was around 120. So going from SFO down to Mountain View, roughly, I was going about a mile from Google’s headquarters to put that there into perspective. So, as I said, Waymo was very kind and granted me highway access, and I had no idea what to expect, but I had the GoPro there and we’ll, we’ll play some video here now for you of that. It is. It was a smooth experience. It was a wonderful experience. The vehicle went in all three lanes. The vehicle did not go in the HOV lane. It went all the way to the left. It went all the way to the, to the right, all three lanes. And the real interesting thing was the Waymo is in the far left lane next to the HOV lane, and there’s this individual who must have been going 90 plus miles an hour, cuts the Waymo off, the Waymo, honked at it . it. It was pretty neat. Great experience.

Walter Piecyk: Come on. Hold on, hold on. The Waymo honked.

Grayson Brulte: Yes.

Walter Piecyk: do you have that on video? I think that’s the first I’ve ever heard of any autonomous car actually making a sound. Are you sure about this?

Grayson Brulte: I’m a hundred percent sure I was busy. Your partner, Brandon, would be very proud. I had, I was playing some 97 Phish. I had it blasting. I thought it was Trey on the guitar and lo and behold, no, it was the car.

Walter Piecyk: You might be breaking news here, Grayson. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone having their Waymo hit the horn. Let’s go back up though. In terms of the feel. You know, we’ve both been in FSD most recent software, mad Max mode, lane changing. Hesitation. How would you compare it? I know it’s not back to back, but how would you compare it to the FSD on the highway?

Grayson Brulte: it’s more conservative, especially if you’re in hurry mode or if you’re in Mad Max mode. The way. MO is much more conservative, a lot less lane changes, but from a driving comfort perspective, just as equally comfortable if, if you were to go ride in an FSD in similar settings to the Waymo, I don’t think you’d be able to tell from a comfort standpoint extremely comfortable riding. It was just refreshing of not having to deal with an individual in the vehicle and you’re there by yourself in this little cocoon. It was a magical, magical experience.

Walter Piecyk: What about speed? Is it it, did it go over the speed limit? Under where? Where was it? Where were you pacing at on this ride on the highway?

Grayson Brulte: The California Highway Patrol is probably loving Waymo. Walt, it did not go one mile an hour above the speed limit. It obeyed the speed limit perfectly.

Walter Piecyk: All right. I don’t like that. I don’t like that. It’s okay to go a little bit above the speed limit. In some cases it’s safer to do it, but good info. That is great info. I can’t believe you just delivered all that info, especially with the honking horn, without putting the Inspector Clouseau hat. So I, if I had my clappy hat here in the Cotswolds, I would say Welcome, sir. Brilliant and, and lovely.

Grayson Brulte: I’ll give you an honorary clap.

Walter Piecyk: And a tip of the bitch is to you.

Grayson Brulte: what you, what I realize more than anything of riding around in the Waymo vehicle that this week in, in and around Mountain View in Silicon Valley and having highway access, this is the future, the the one thing that Waymo has to overcome from an operational standpoint, drop off and pickups had some challenging incidents. We had a dinner, challenging incidents around drop off and pickup. I decided I wanted to go stretch my legs and I went to one location over by Stanford University. There was a dedicated Waymo drop off in pickup, so it’s something that they still have to overcome, but you realize you don’t want to go back. You get used to the experience. And on the pricing standpoint, because we get a lot of feedback about that, the Waymo on average was more. What I did notice, and I dunno if this is ’cause I don’t use Uber anymore. 20% off your ride, 15% off your ride slashing prices. Because if the Uber discount was not in my app, it would be on par with Waymo. But Uber is offering me discounts ’cause I was comparing them and I still went to the Waymo. ’cause I want that consistent, consistent experience that Waymo offers.

Walter Piecyk: So you’re in, um, you know, the Valley San Fran heart of technology. There’s Waymo’s not the only potential opportunity there. Did you tap into that Tesla Robotaxi app and how did that go?

Grayson Brulte: Yes, you. You know me. I wanna try everything. I’m a kid in a candy store when I’m in the valley. Oh, I gotta try. I gotta try. I gotta try. And I was going, I, I got in there and I, I had some free time and I wanted to go get some really good, authentic Chinese food. And I was like, oh, great. Let me try the, let’s take Robotaxi now. Let’s try it. It was a 32 minute wait. Can’t do that. Okay, so I take the Waymo’s there in five minutes. I come back from the Chinese restaurant to go back to the hotel vehicle unavailable, try it again another time, 27 minute wait. I couldn’t try it ’cause I think the shortest wait was 25, 26 minutes. It was a short wait, and if you look at robot taxi tracker that says 244 vehicles in the Bay Area, but I can’t use the service if I have to wait 25 plus minutes.

Walter Piecyk: I don’t know. I just don’t understand the whole point of this like. Just get the technology, get the driver out and, and like, what’s the point of this? I mean, do they need the extra miles with, uh, with someone in there and like, if you’re not really doing it, if it’s a 30 minute wait, I mean, I, I don’t, I don’t, I just don’t get it in in terms of what they’re doing in California.

Grayson Brulte: But what I did see was really cool. Over in Palo Alto by the Tesla Engineering Office, I saw a Cybercab mirrorless testing on public roads.

Walter Piecyk: hope it’s mirrorless. And was there a wheel in there?

Grayson Brulte: I cannot confirm that I’ll, right now here, I’ll, I’ll post a photo right now and, and we will let our audience determine that. I cannot make that clarification. If there was or there wasn’t, but for the audience, please, please let us know. It was cool to see it though.

Walter Piecyk: there was a human in there though, right? So a human driving, a mirrorless car, is that, is that what we’re led to believe?

Grayson Brulte: There was,.

Walter Piecyk: I don’t understand how that’s allowed in California, but.

Grayson Brulte: know what else I saw? I saw a Zeekr with no human testing by. Alphabet’s headquarters, and then sure enough on X Waymo goes, Ojai. I go, no Zeekrs.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah. How dare you. How dare you. It’s not a Zeekr, it’s an, Ojai. Why don’t you just call it a Geely? Let’s, let’s just skip over the Zeekr and call it a Geely. What about our friends at Nuro? Did you, were you able to see any of their cars out and about?

Grayson Brulte: So Nuro was very kind to, to host us at Nuro. We went there and we saw their new lucid gravity. Saw all the components, all the componentry got a complete walk down or walkthrough of how they’re building it. And then so Rob and I are on our way to go meet with the team at Lucid. And so what do we do? We see a car we’ve never seen before. We pull on the side of the road, we get on our cameras. Wow, what’s this Lexus? There was the black Lexus cruising around Mountain View with hardware that looked familiar. Lo and behold we’re, we’re coming out and Nuro says, okay guys, time for a ride. We went for a ride in a black Lexus. Nuro is on a black Lexus with their hardware comfortable ride. They’re making a lot of really good progress and for the audience, I’ll give you a little tease. There’s something big coming at Nuro and not what you think, so stay tuned for that.

Walter Piecyk: well the last time I was at Nuro, I think they had their, their, their stack on a Toyota. Um, so I mean, they could buy any, anything, right? I mean, that’s the whole point of this in terms of Nuro, their opportunity to partner with any of these OEMs and you can slap that equipment. On any car, I suppose, with some modifications, and then over time, you know, expand to get more OEMs and build it in. So glad to hear that that Nuro is, is still progressing. Um, what about like, did you take a taxi? Did you take an Uber? Did you take a Lyft or did you just, uh, too much time in, in the variety of autonomous opportunities to not even bother with, uh, old school.

Grayson Brulte: I did old school back to the airport ’cause I wanted to see if I was right about the experience and it was horrible and I, next time I’m never doing it again. It’s over every time I go to San Francisco, which I, I will be there next month. We, and I will tease for the audience. We are filming a podcast in a prototype, and it is not a vehicle we are filming live on location next month. So stay, stay tuned for that. And I’m using Waymo.

Walter Piecyk: With what company are you? Are you not disclosing or are you just teasing? You’re just teasing something.

Grayson Brulte: all I’m gonna say is that it’s a prototype that goes in the air, not on the ground, and we we will be filming inside of that. Yes.

Walter Piecyk: in the air. Uh oh. Be safe, Grayson. I don’t know about these. I don’t know if I’m quite on board with the air taxis yet. Those batteries, it’s gonna take a lot of battery power to go up and down. Just make sure they have enough battery to get you back down safely. I need you on that. The weekly podcast. The weekly podcast, by the way, the what else? Anything else in Silicon Valley.

Grayson Brulte: Yes, you, you’re right about weekly and for, we do this weekly and The Road to Autonomy. We’re gonna start doing more onsite stuff this year, which we can do with autonomy markets more on onsite stuff. Yeah. So that’s cars. Then I went and, and visited some friends, which we’ll be doing a special podcast with ’em for the air. So safety, that, that will be filmed on location. And I went and saw our good friends over at Kodiak. Don Burnette was very kind, uh, hosted me at Kodiak. They do these events called Signal. I was honored to be the speaker, so thank you to the 150 plus individuals that showed up. It was a lot of fun. And I went for a ride in the Kodiak truck. They’re making a lot, a lot of progress.

Walter Piecyk: So you generated the noise for the signal event. Is that that’s, is that what I’m hearing? Did you, did you say anything controversial? Did you get anyone like, pushing back on you at this event? Or was it just kind of you spewing your, your, you know, themes without any pushback from, from the audience? Hopefully someone in that audience can, can learn from some of the pushback I’ve given you. Over the years, did that happen at the at the signal event?

Grayson Brulte: It was a very good event. What did happen? Well, two things happened. I’m very proud to say thank you to the wonderful individuals friends at KPMG. Walt. They showed up in an autonomy markets, t-shirts, they had ’em on. That was the coolest thing ever. The inspector shirts, they had ’em on and everybody said to me, where’s Walt? I said, what in my chopped liver? Where’s Walt?

Walter Piecyk: Exactly. I, I mean, I think that’s great and you know, for those that don’t know, maybe you’re listening to it on a podcast, go to the YouTube channel, get a link, buy yourself an Autonomy Markets t-shirt, and we, we would obviously love to see you sending those pictures. Maybe we’ll flash pictures of anyone that sends a picture of themselves in an autonomy markets. T-shirt on the podcast. So Productive trip. Did you, did I miss anything? I mean, holy cow. Were you there all week? What? I mean, what was going on?

Grayson Brulte: I packed things in. I was there for a a couple days, but I do wanna highlight the ride that I took in the Kodiak truck. We went through some really interesting turns around these Cloverfield turns, they call ’em in California. The Kodiak driver is progressing at a rate that I do not think. A lot of individuals. A appreciate, it’s truly, truly impressive from a technology standpoint. And I also wanna highlight, everybody knows this is happening. I’m allowed to talk about this. It’s really cool. The compute in the cabin is shrinking. So remember the old days you go an autonomous truck? Well, it’s high as the ceiling. It’s getting much, it’s getting much, much smaller now. And as it gets smaller, the drivers continuing to progress and get better and better. And I gotta say, I walked away from Kodiak . thoroughly thoroughly impressed. So thank you, Don, Jennifer, Dan, and the whole team.

Walter Piecyk: I mean that’s, what I noticed about a lot of ’em. I mean, we saw that with main mobility, they have all the compute in that front passenger seat, obviously on the trucks. It was massive, noisy, windy, and I think that’s why they had to have those big cabs in order to complete ca, you know, to, um. Have all that compute in there. So it’s good to hear that, you know, that was able to be, uh, shrunk down a bit more. So I’m sure that’s just a part of the process over time.

Grayson Brulte: It is. It is . staying on the, on The shrunk. You’re in London. The roads are shrinking over there. They’re small, they’re tiny, and you see Waymo’s. How many Waymo’s did you see? What did you notice? And were they behaving and driving on the opposite side of the road like they’re supposed to?

Walter Piecyk: Well, first I wanna go back to your past comments. This is what I do with Rich Greenfield on Art. On On the Lightshed podcast. Sometimes you say something and I have to correct it. Sorry, it, I believe you meant a clover leaf offramp, I think you said Clover Field, which is I think, a horror film, Clover Field.

Grayson Brulte: So you wanna stay in the Rich theme. I’ll give you a a horror look what’s happening in Hollywood now. That’s a horror situation.

Walter Piecyk: Yes . that is definitely a horror type situation. I’ll give you another Cloverfield horror situation, which kind of ties into Waymo, a Google company, for those of you that follow me on Twitter, and if you don’t, please do at @WaltLightshedTMT Um, you know, I’m over here in London, right? And every time I go to my Chrome to open up a website. Since it’s the mommy state, you, you gotta like cookies. I accept the cookies, I accept the co constantly accepting the cookies. ’cause of all the disclosures, it drives you nuts. Anyway, so I go to Gemini and Gemini’s like basically, I forget what the exact wording is, but basically it says like, do you know that you know a human can actually look at your prompt? And I’m like, what? That doesn’t sound right. Let me toggle that off. I go to try and toggle it off and. It turns out you have to basically turn off your chat, so no chat that you would have with Gemini would get saved. That’s the only way it works. So I did that, deleted all my chats. By the way, that doesn’t save you because even after you delete it, they’re still saved for three years. But again, a human, like you could say, like there, it’s anonymized, but if, if the human is reading it and you wrote something in there about yourself, they can obviously read it about you and identify. Who you are. I would also add an addendum here. I don’t know, they talked about contractors potentially getting this. I don’t know where these contractors are. Hopefully it’s not like Waymo where it’s going to some foreign country. So someone in the Philippines is reading my Gemini things. Uh, anyway, so I turned this off for a couple days and now like Gemini is completely useless. ’cause like you don’t want your chats going away. You need to refer back to them, gimme that bolognese recipe, whatever it is, and go back to them. So public service announcement. I know this is like kind of a slight divergence from autonomy markets. Just know that when you’re in Gemini, and I’m sure most of these other AI things that, you know, as they’re training the data, if you’re not on an enterprise account, which most people aren’t, they can basically, a human can actually read it. So that, that’s a bit of a clover field story, uh, for me. Sorry for the divergence on that.

Grayson Brulte: That is a good point and I’ll continue on. What’s PSA? So I run an enterprise accounts for all the LLMs, and you are right. There is a big difference between the personal to enterprise to our listeners and viewers. You can learn a lot by reading the terms of service, and sometimes you might even get spooked, and as well said, you get a horror movie.

Walter Piecyk: Well, and also it’s also, you know, kind of ironic, I’m sitting here complaining about mommy state alerts and, and I’m guessing that the only reason I got that alert in my Gemini. It’s ’cause I’m like geo located here. Anyway, let’s, let’s MOOOVE on to Waymo. So I’m in a black taxi, which I, I prefer, I did take Ubers here. Um, I was in a black taxi. I prefer these guys, even if the line says to go one way. ’cause I’m always tracking on my Google maps and it says the road’s closed. These black taxi drivers or like know when roads are closed or not. And that’s the best way I think in London. Anyway, I see this Waymo. Obviously, and which I posted, um, on, on Twitter now called x two people in the front seat. You know, obviously it has all the sensors and the guys like, you know, the taxi driver’s, like, well, the sensors are obviously gonna come off. This is just, they’re just mapping. I’m like, no, no, no, dude. Like, that’s what it’s gonna look like. And then they weren’t, there’s a kind of the back and forth of like, you know, it’ll never work in London. I’m like, well, it’s kind of working right there on the opposite side of the street where most people didn’t think that that could happen. Well, it won’t work in traffic. And we had some fun talking about like, when you go through certain areas of London where you’re surrounded by 50 people, what are they gonna do? I’m like, well, you know, in California sometimes when you’re surrounded by 50 people, they end up on the top of the car ripping the sensors off. So those things will happen from time to time. Doesn’t mean the service won’t happen. You know, this person was not this driver, great guy, was not convinced, um, that I think the two highlights were when he is like, well what is this technology company? Where are they based? I’m like, well, it’s Google. And then he’s like, oh shit. Because I think he just kind of assumed it was some random tech company that would run outta money and not be able to develop it. So I think he got very quiet after that. Um, and the other just all time quote, um, which I think I heard on a podcast recently, someone say the same thing is, is, uh, the quote was, who are you gonna talk to? If you’re in this car alone? Who are you gonna talk to? I was tempted to say that maybe sometimes people would like some peace and quiet, or maybe they’ll get on their phone or they can zoom with someone on the screen. But I did not, and I agreed with them and said, yes, there’s always gonna be great. Just like Uber, I think is, has much stiffer competition in London because these great black taxis that exist there and their knowledge that they have, um, you know, Waymo will have incremental issues, but it was, it was great to see Google making progress in London already.

Grayson Brulte: It is, I’m looking forward to going to London at the end of the year, depending on the regulatory environment of where the Autonomous Vehicle Act stands in the uk and riding in a Waymo and adding it to the list of cities that rid in a Waymo. And I think Waymo is going to be very good for the. UK’s economy and let’s see what happens in the election and if the if the local elections accelerate or decelerate the adoption of autonomy in the United Kingdom.

Walter Piecyk: Where were the Wayves, Grayson? I didn’t see any. I was, I was all ​the city. Various neighborhoods. Did a great, you know, different food tours and theater district, you know, didn’t see one Wayve. Where are they?

Grayson Brulte: They’re out by the Victoria and Albert Museum over by Wayves headquarters.

Walter Piecyk: I think I was over in that general area, didn’t see anything.

Grayson Brulte: that raises the whole question about blending in versus being a Waymo.

Walter Piecyk: uh, blending into an average person, but I had my Inspector Clouseau hat on Grayson. And put it on. And, you know, I was carefully watching. I wasn’t saying, I’m just sitting on the, that there were times I was tired. I think I walked probably about seven, eight miles a day with, you know, scoping out. I had my, monocle on, sat on some benches, just watched the cars go by, waiting, hoping, getting ready to bring my, my phone out to promote Wayve in London. Didn’t see one.

Grayson Brulte: That’s not. That’s not good,.

Walter Piecyk: This is why we travel. Grayson, and this is why we travel. This is to look to see, you know, what’s going on in these markets.

Grayson Brulte: that’s true. And I travel with the hat when I was scoping out the Miami Depot and Waymo wife goes, you’re putting the hat on. Oh yeah, I gotta put the hat on. And we gotta get you a a, a matching inspector hat so you can rock it in the field.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I could list so many different cars that I’ve been in. It’s just, just kind of amazing that I’ve never sat or seen a Wayve vehicle yet. Anyway, let’s go back to the US and, um, talk about Waymo in Miami. Um, I guess they’re expanding. We can’t find a Wayve in London. Waymo’s expanding to Miami Beach. So now it’s uh, what is it, bril, is that how you pronounce it? And the beaches, 91 square miles in Florida. Your state, your home state, Florida men are watching these Waymo’s drive back and forth.

Grayson Brulte: It’s awesome. So Waymo has now conquered the causeway getting to the beaches, and it’s interesting, if you look at the map, as you clearly articulated, 91 square miles, uh, right up to the map is MIA Miami International Airport. So I think it’s just a matter of time until that goes, but then it’s getting up to Aven, Tora, and if you start going west. You run into Miami Gardens and for the those individuals who are not familiar with Florida Geography, why is that important? That’s hard. Rock Stadium, F1 Dolphins, concerts, all happens there. It’s just a matter of time until Waymo expands the hard rock and that’s gonna get really interesting. And the best part, I got notified of this expansion. Walt, while riding in a Waymo. I got little palm trees. Waymo now goes to Miami Beach, would you like to go? And I felt like riding back. I’m in Silicon Valley. I’m not in Miami today, but it was a cool coincidence.

Walter Piecyk: If you were in a Tesla FSD, they could take you to Miami, but not Waymo quite yet. But it’s, I’m happy to hear that that’s happening. Um, and given that Florida is a state that, you know, says they’re open for business and unlike Governor Hoel in New York who says they’re open for business and then shuts it down after getting pressure from the teamsters, Florida actually is open for business, I think. When are they gonna, when are they gonna open the airport? Grayson? When are we gonna see Waymo’s coming in and out of, of, I mean, Miami might be a little crazy. Can we at least get something in like west the West Palm or Fort Lauderdale airports?

Grayson Brulte: we can’t not touch this issue in New York. They wanna ban AI now for, for engineering for specialties. If they don’t have a license in New York, I mean, what’s next Walt?

Walter Piecyk: hey, hey, stick to, we’re talking about Florida now. We’ leave New York alone. Let’s talk about Florida.

Grayson Brulte: No, no, no. Next thing you know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna ban pizza the way that they’re going. What’s next?

Walter Piecyk: Pizza. Don’t bring up, don’t bring up pizza.

Grayson Brulte: so now let’s go from the the nanny state to the Sunshine State and just look at the amount of tax revenue and individuals that are, that are fleeing out of New York, down to down to Florida. I’ll make a prediction. Waymo will begin limited operations at the Miami International Airport by May.

Walter Piecyk: Okay. If you’re open for business. If you’re open for business, make it April. That’s my challenge to Florida men everywhere and women. But Florida men is the thing, right? Open for, if you’re open for business, April, let’s go Florida. Prove yourself.

Grayson Brulte: the depot is not ready.

Walter Piecyk: Oh, so it’s not politics, it’s, it’s Waymo getting their, getting their act together.

Grayson Brulte: it’s a permitting process as you saw. I don’t know if you saw last week, ’cause you’ve been very busy walking around London. Jeff Bezos gave a, gave a great talk at a conference. I’m not sure which one it was about how Miami permitting should be done in second to use ai. So the permitting process in Miami, as Mr. Bezos clearly pointed out, is very slow. So I’m gonna say by May, fully operational at MIA, and then I have to correct you, I’m gonna pull my own version of Rich Greenfield. You call it the Palm Beach International Airport, PBI? No, no, no. It is now the DJT airport, the Donald Trump International Airport.

Walter Piecyk: Did they really rename the airport?

Grayson Brulte: Yes, they did. And that’s about three miles from Mar-a-Lago. It is the DJT airport. Well, you gotta get your facts straight here.

Walter Piecyk: so can I, can I get on a flight at the DJT airport and fly over the Gulf of America and land in, somehow take a circuitous route maybe to get to Austin and then get in my Tesla, um, robotaxi without a driver can? Is that a possibility?

Grayson Brulte: No, but it is possible to go from the DJT airport to HOU George Bush, so you get two Prestons connecting with her and ride in a Waymo in Houston so you can connect to Houston.

Walter Piecyk: well that’s, that is, that’s definitely, um, good to hear. Anything else, uh, in terms of Waymo in Florida and I guess who is, can you remind me who is Waymo’s partner in, in, uh, in, Florida? In terms of the logistics?

Grayson Brulte: Right now Waymo has only disclosed the partner for Miami. The partner for Miami is Moove io. We do not know Waymo’s partner for Orlando, which is Open Limited Riders. And we also do not know Waymo’s partner for Tampa, which is on their expansion roadmap and staying on the expansion roadmap theme of Waymo. I’ll tease this to the audience. Waymo has actively been upping their lobbying efforts. Across the, globe. So the, this expansion is getting real.

Walter Piecyk: So before we go onto the lobbying and, and kind of the battles that may be existing and new opponents, um, that Waymo is facing, which we touched upon last week on autonomy markets, um. I mean, Waymo’s kind of been quiet on the partner front. Right? So let’s put platform aside for a second is, is it possible that there’s an ongoing pivot at Waymo where rather than bother partnering with more Avis or Moove or Avomo or Flex Drive, that they’re gonna start building up more and more cities on their own and take that capital intensity? ’cause that is, that is certainly not what they have indicated in the past. Or they just like, think that it’s not important enough to talk about as they as they continue To announce more and more markets.

Grayson Brulte: Well there, there’s a. To look in this one. Waymo has a new CFO, so we don’t know what that individual’s capital strategy is. We haven’t have a public statement from him. Secondly, alphabet has one of the strongest real estate arms. Perhaps they’re leveraging Alphabet’s real estate, strategic real estate arm for that, or perhaps that they’re looking at building it in house. I think there’s a lot of. D changes that could be possibly occurring there. ’cause you’re right. ’cause remember in the old days you would say Waymo’s announcing, insert your favorite market here. And our fleet management partner is, insert your favorite fleet management partner here. That’s not happening anymore. And the reason we found out about MOOOVE One, it wasn’t the release, but then there was a LinkedIn post about a month ago from one of the MOOOVE executives, uh, talking about it. And we have not gotten a LinkedIn post from a MOOOVE executive or any post on X from a MOOOVE executive for these other markets. So. Perhaps Waymo’s testing it in-house. We don’t know, but it, it, to me, it seems like there’s a lot of moving parts and it seems like Waymo, I would say it’s the experimenting phase, and if we add on 3, 4, 5 markets and see no partner, I think that’s a clear sign that the CFO is implementing a different strategy.

Walter Piecyk: Well, I’ll just have to watch. Now let’s shift to, to Virginia A. Little bit further north, but still south of the Mason Dixon line. Um, the Virginia House is putting off a vote to allow fully autonomous vehicles until next year rather than acting on it now. So what is going on there?

Grayson Brulte: There’s a fight, and the fight is not between organized labor in the autonomous vehicle industry. The fights between Waymo and the industry. And I wanna read a quote here that was given to a local news channel in Richmond. It was Wwb 12. Richmond. Waymo gave the following quote, and I want to read this here for you, verbatim quote. We are advocating in support of SB 6 7 0 in Appreciate Senator Salim. Leadership on this issue. If the proposal becomes the law, Waymo would be able to bring its fully autonomous ride hailing service to Virginia. However, the proposal is currently in limbo for this session due to opposition from other automated vehicle companies and automotive manufacturers jeopardizing safer roads and more accessible transportation for all Virginians. That is a very pointed statement.

Walter Piecyk: it’s astounding that they said automated vehicle companies. Why would an automated vehicle company want to. Basically throw a monkey wrench in the works of, um, allowing autonomous vehicles. That makes no sense.

Grayson Brulte: Perhaps there is language in the bill that other companies didn’t like. Again, that’s, that’s pure speculation, but the fact that in a public statement to a local news channel, Waymo is calling out the automotive industry and the AV industry. And can we just talk about, for the record, automated vehicle? It’s an autonomous vehicle company. Automated is for reg regulatory, it’s autonomous.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I, I mean, so Waymo said this as a quote. I don’t, maybe they’re meaning some, some type of different company. I don’t, I think we’re gonna need more clarification on what that means. If it is autonomous vehicle companies, then like, the only reason that would happen is if you are a company that’s not ready to go and you want to delay it so that you can launch in the market. But I think that’s, that’s kind of foolish because like, look, as an industry, you want to get all these barriers down. And get this product out there. I don’t, I’m not sure what autonomous company, this makes no sense. So we need Waymo. This literally makes no sense. So I think we need Waymo, um, or ww BT to do a little bit more work and help us understand who exactly is is the problem here.

Grayson Brulte: How about this? I’ll take this one step further to, to our friends at Waymo that listen on behalf of Walt, and I would love to invite you on Autonomy Markets to discuss this issue if you’re open to it and, and let us hear it right from the horse’s mouth.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I mean, they’re not gonna call out an individual company, but we gotta figure it out . one way or another . we’ll find out.

Grayson Brulte: We’ll find out and we’ll continue to follow it. You know what else? We continue to follow Walt, which just gets more and more interesting By the day, the spin machine inside of autonomous vehicle companies, it was an overdrive this week.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, you gotta, you, you want to keep the momentum upgrades and sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it, you know? And T-Mobile was talking about having the best network before they actually built the best network, or at least a better network. So, you know, I respect that. But I guess in this case, you’re referring to Waabi ’cause this one I noticed on my Twitter feed and I’m like, is that new news? Like what? This seems weird that they were posting this, or I guess, you know, impressive. Some might say, quote, we are embarking on a significant partnership with Uber. Everyone knew that already, but I guess this is just a, a, an advertisement to the mass market. So they’re embarking on a significant partnership with Uber to deploy 25,000 or more. Waabi driver powered robotaxis on the Uber platform, an unprecedented opportunity to scale autonomous transportation. Look, it’s also like not even mentioned anything about the trucking. So this is just like a full kind of rebranding publicly to people to get them excited about, um, the 25,000. I’m sure Uber wants them to do this as well. Right? To to have the consumers know that, hey, don’t forget about Uber. We’re gonna be delivering you autonomy at some point in the future. Obviously. Was there any dates as associated with this? Like was what was the meat behind this tweet that, that you could tell Grayson?

Grayson Brulte: There was no meat. There was no clarification on who the OEM is. There’s no clarification on who will own the asset. There’s no clarification on who will manage the asset, and more importantly, there was no clarification on strategy. Waabi today is not operating a driver route, commercial autonomous trucking service, and yet you’re producing robotaxis. It’s the company pivoting from trucks to robotaxis. And then as you and I talk about. And I brought this up during my valley trip, individuals couldn’t understand it. Who owns the asset? Who manages the asset? How is all that work? There’s no substance to it, and I even asked on x, very politely. Crickets, Crickets, crickets.

Walter Piecyk: You know, now that you mention it, like you think about it, if you think of the hard work that Nuro put into developing their technology, right? The money they spent, the money raised. You know, developing a new partnership with Lucid and Uber, you know, in order to commit to, you know, which Uber will own, you know, the, whatever, the number of vehicles that they had, 20,000, I forget the exact number, over X number of years. Very specific. So for them there’s like specifics and numbers and like for. For this company to put out those numbers, 25,000, like to the casual observer, they’d be like, oh, you know, whatever. Nora’s got their 20,000 and like they, they have their 25,000. It’s not the same. Right? There’s no actual, they’re there In terms of a OEM partner and a timeline, am I, am I missing something or, or is that like, what am I missing? Is there, is there an OEM partner? They’re just not, they’re just not announcing or are they just based. Basically saying like, at some point in the future, we’re gonna do 25,000, even though we actually haven’t signed an an actual OEM to do this.

Grayson Brulte: I don’t mean to go down a rabbit hole with you. Waabi has an OEM deal on the truck side . with Volvo. So that’s the truck side. There is a public relationship.

Walter Piecyk: That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the cars here. Where are the 25,000 cars? Are you gonna make your own car? Is Waabi own car? So what? What’s the car? So what’s the car? Maybe you shouldn’t have been polite in your response. Where, on what car? On what wheels. How about this? What wheel are you going to use? Can we at least get a tire manufacturer?

Grayson Brulte: No, pun intended on that. And furthermore, you know this, if you go on the Reddit self-driving cars, anytime somebody sees a photo or something, they post it on there. They post it on X. We do not have a photo of lobby even testing a car anywhere in Toronto, United States anywhere. There is no even photo circulating.

Walter Piecyk: Look every, I mean, I’ve seen and, and spoke with Raquel, CEO at Waabi, at CES. Super smart person as far as I can tell. Everyone’s got a great respect for her. Um, I’d love to actually spend more time and understand what they’re doing. Um, yeah, I don’t, and you know, especially like, I don’t, I’m not sure you can put out a tweet like that if you don’t actually have an OEM deal, but whatever bygones now there is a company that is making progress that probably doesn’t do enough PR for themselves. And that’s Glydyways. And now Glydyways is not, these things aren’t gonna be driving around, robotaxis around. This is like. Basically replacing trams, right? This is dedicated point to point. They’re gonna create their own separate lane. The real use case here, frankly, is economies that can’t afford to build like new trains like, or, or you know, spend a million dollars on a bus, right? And they wanna move a lot of people from point A to point B. With that said, they’re progressing in San Jose. They recently broke ground in Atlanta for their airport. Now I’m seeing they’re involved in a trial at Newark Airport in New York. And again, it’s, it’s like, you know, a dedicated is that kind of toaster oven looking thing that Grayson in earlier episodes didn’t like. I happen to, like, it’s in its own dedicated lane. In some cases, if you have to lift it up like a tram. Because it’s not this big heavy train, it’s a lot cheaper to do it. The bidding process is like an infrastructure type project where you’ve got construction companies that are like laying cement. It’s a completely different business model. It is an autonomous business model. It is something that will impact the ride share market for moving people from point A to point B. And it is a company that’s funded. Executing and, and signing up contracts and getting deals done. And in the US where the opportunity, um, is truly global. So this is kind of our pseudo foreign autonomy desk. But um, you know, I think Glydyways, we need to spend more time highlighting kind of the progress that, that they’re making on a global basis. ’cause it’s definitely a facet of autonomy, um, that’s gonna be very important.

Grayson Brulte: Mark Seeger has done a wonderful job operating the company and for those individuals who wanna learn more about Gldyways, mark. Their co-founder and co CEO has been on The Road to Autonomy podcast, so I highly recommend you check that out. And if you look at the progress that they’ve made in Atlanta, the progress they’re making in San Jose and the progress they’re making overseas, I’ve gotta ask you the big question, Walt. Why didn’t LAX hire Glydyways, billions of dollars spent? They’re not even get there for the, for the World Cup qualifying matches.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, every time I have to drive on the Van Wick to get to JFK and I see that thing above me, I’m like, oh, this is literally the perfect spot for Glydyways they can Glydyways me. How about this Glydyways me out of the JFK mess to an area where I can hop in my Waymo and take me? Take me home. Let’s like, you know, it could be a hybrid system there. Don’t even bring all the individual waymo’s down down the van wick. Um, you know, just take it out by the way, you know, to flip on. I know people you know sometimes like, don’t like Tesla. My Tesla FSD handles the van wick beautifully. Like that is mayhem. If anyone’s ever been on that road and I just sit back, no stress. Put it on Mad Max mode. You have to put it on Mad Max mode. You cannot be in chill mode when you’re on the Van Wick going to JFK. It worked perfect door. It like coming out to London. Parked in JFK. Hit the button from my garage to the garage at JFK. Perfect.

Grayson Brulte: When do we get a mad Walt mode?

Walter Piecyk: I will say that some of these more recent softwares, I think they’ve stepped back. It’s kind of weird. They, it seems, feels like they’ve stepped back and then all of a sudden. If you hit the gas pedal to accelerate a little bit, then it’s like, oh, it kind of reminds Mad Max what he should really be. And then, then it starts going bonkers that it’s like 80 miles an hour, whatever. Um, yeah. We need a, we need a we need a step above Mad Max. All right, let’s go to the true foreign autonomy desk. What do we have this week, Grayson?

Grayson Brulte: The Foreign Autonomy Desk is taking us to Germany. We had an announcement from Voya Moya VW that they, by the end of the year, will produce 500 of the ID buzz autonomous vans that will be coming off from Moya service and the line in Germany. Self-driving technology is powered by MobileEye, so that we’re going. This way we’re covering a little bit of MobileEye and we’ll see, and those vehicles are currently operating in Austin. Perhaps that we’ll be able to get a, a ride in one. Finally, vw, we know you listen, I’ve asked many times very politely as time last, again, pretty pleased. May we go for a ride in in the VW vehicle in Austin. ’cause that brings us to next week. Walt. What do we need to look for?

Walter Piecyk: By the way, we may not have gotten a ride in the VWID, but at least when we were in Austin, we saw the VWID because I think you’re referring back to London where I didn’t see a Wayve in Austin. We see them. Maybe we’ll just have to jump in front of ’em and see if they can, we can get inside, but yes, we are putting our cowboy hats on, heading down to Texas and doing some, doing some more trip. This is a, uh, you know, this is a big year. 26 is a big year, so there’s gonna be a lot of miles. On the road, hopefully most of the time, with No hands on the wheel.

Grayson Brulte: No hands on the wheel. It is a big thing. We will not jump in front of the vehicles and for individuals that that want to be spooked. The BBC put out a documentary on YouTube, unfortunately, of a group of renegade individuals that are going around San Francisco. Vandalizing and damaging Waymo’s, and according to them, and I’m not a lawyer, they said it’s perfectly within the law to damage and disable a waymo. Again, I’m not a lawyer, but the BBC piece was interesting of what’s happening. The future is bright, the future autonomous, the future is scaling autonomy, and seeing it on public roads. Walt, until next week.