Transcript: Waymo’s Big NYC Announcement, Rider Survey Hints at Strategy, Can Texas Block Tesla? Is Meta Entering Autonomy?

Executive Summary

On this episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s major announcement to begin testing in New York City, a complex market with significant legal and political hurdles that must be cleared before a full launch. 

A deep dive into a Waymo rider survey that reveals a clear strategy to position itself as a premium service, potentially moving away from its partnership with Uber to build a standalone, feature-rich app. 

They also cover the political grandstanding aimed at Tesla’s Texas launch, Kodiak’s major manufacturing deal, and the fact that Meta may be entering the autonomous vehicle space.

Key Topics & Timestamps

[00:25] Waymo’s Big Announcement: Returning to New York City 

Waymo has announced it will begin testing its autonomous vehicles in New York City starting in July, marking its return to the city for the first time since 2021. The move is considered a significant deal due to NYC’s reputation as a complex and challenging market. This strategy mirrors Waymo’s approach in Washington D.C., where they begin testing to build public awareness and political pressure while working on the necessary legal changes for full operation.

[04:30] The Legal and Political Hurdles for Waymo in New York

Waymo faces significant legal barriers in New York, as current law does not permit fully autonomous vehicles to operate without a driver. A bill, S7784, must be passed by the state legislature, but the session is out until next year, making the earliest realistic launch for driverless service summer 2026. Beyond the state level, there’s also the potential for local political challenges, such as a future mayor imposing punitive local taxes on the service.

[08:00] Waymo’s Expansion in California and Highway Challenges 

While facing hurdles in New York, Waymo is expanding its service area in California, including moving into Inglewood. This expansion suggests confidence in their vehicle supply, which is managed with their partner Magna. However, the company still has not enabled highway driving, leading to speculation that the delay is due to a technical concern or insurance liability issue rather than a lack of vehicles. Concurrently, Waymo is in ongoing discussions with SFO airport to gain pickup and drop-off access, but it requires an entirely new permit structure with no clear timeline.

[14:45] Deep Dive: Analyzing a Waymo Rider Survey 

A survey sent to Waymo riders provides insight into the company’s future strategy. The first question asks users to classify the Waymo One service on a scale from “Standard” to “Premium” to “Lux”. The absence of an “Economy” option suggests Waymo intends to position itself as a high-quality, premium-priced service, validating the idea that autonomy should be priced higher than standard Uber and Lyft because it’s a better product.

[18:00] What the Survey Suggests About the Waymo vs. Uber Relationship 

The survey’s questions heavily imply that Waymo is building out the features for its own standalone app, Waymo One, signaling a potential split from its partnership with Uber. While Waymo is currently available on the UberX (economy) tier, the survey’s focus on a premium brand identity and proprietary features like loyalty programs and advanced booking suggests a strategy to operate independently.

[22:30] Future Features: Carpooling, Dynamic Pricing, and Loyalty Programs 

The survey polled users on a variety of hypothetical features to gauge interest. These included the ability to reserve a car for several hours for a fee , receiving a discount for walking further to a pickup spot , carpooling options , skipping the line for a fee, booking round trips, and earning credits during busy times to use later.

[35:15] Can Texas Legislators Block Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch? 

A group of Democratic state legislators in Texas sent a letter urging Tesla to delay its robotaxi launch until a new law takes effect on September 1st. However, this action is viewed as “political grandstanding” because the legislators have no actual authority to enforce a delay. Furthermore, an analysis of the new law shows Tesla’s vehicles already comply with all its requirements, such as having recording devices (Sentry Mode) and being registered and insured in Texas.

[38:45] Zoox’s Rough Ride and Kodiak’s Big Manufacturing Deal 

Zoox received negative press after two reporters from the San Francisco Standard rode in one of its vehicles and reported feeling nauseous. In the autonomous trucking sector, Kodiak Robotics announced a significant deal with Roush Industries to serve as a contract manufacturer. This partnership will allow Kodiak to build and up-fit its autonomous trucks at scale, including those being delivered to its customer Atlas Energy, mirroring the Waymo-Magna manufacturing model.

[44:20] Is Meta Entering the Self-Driving Car World? 

Meta unveiled a new AI model in Paris called V-JEPA 2, which is capable of driving a car, sparking speculation about the company’s ambitions in the autonomous vehicle space. This move is seen as part of a larger trend where major AI companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Nvidia are looking to leverage their technology in the physical world. Rather than building cars, Meta could potentially build and license an autonomous driving software stack, creating major competition for established players.

[48:45] Applied Intuition’s $600 Million Raise at a $15 Billion Valuation 

Applied Intuition, a company that provides development and testing tools for the autonomy industry, announced it raised $600 million in a new funding round, achieving a massive $15 billion valuation. The significant investment underscores the company’s critical role as a primary player powering the future of autonomous systems for various companies in the space.

Watch the Full Episode of Autonomy Markets

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt, welcome to New York, but you’re already there. Waymo’s announced they’re coming to New York. Grandma can go for a ride. Foodies can take, hopefully take a ride up to Arthur Avenue and experience really great authentic Italian down in Texas. There might be a speed bump for the cyber cab launch. And there was a mega monster raise in the autonomy markets for a private company, which we’ll get to later. But let’s start with New York and Waymo. Walter Piecyk was Frank Sinatra famously once saying, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

Walter Piecyk: You know, it seemed almost anti-climatic given the number of autonomous announcements that occurred this year. But if you went back to earlier this year, this was like a big prediction. We, you know, we, for light, she, we do our top, um, predictions for the year. This was one of them. I got a lot of, you know, feedback and questions from investors about it. Um, so at that time, which was, you know, just the start of the year, it seemed like a big deal. But now with all these investments and market launches and expansions of, of territories, it, it feels a bit anti-climatic, but it is a pretty big deal. Is it not?.

Grayson Brulte: It’s a huge deal. It’s the first time that Waymo’s back since 2021. They’re gonna start testing in July. The really big deal is the laws, the way they’re written in Albany, you can’t legally operate today. Session’s out until 2026. So Waymo is gonna have to change the law before they can operate. This is the same strategy they’re doing in DC announcing they’re going to a market start testing while they work to change the laws. There’s new strategies emerging.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I mean I think it, you probably get some consumers fired up. Bad at those that have traveled to other markets and found it to be a positive experience and and want technologies in the market. So I think it’s a good strategy ’cause you start early and get some political pressure to build. But the other signal here, Grayson, is you know, new York’s a very complex and challenging markets. So to see these cars on the road in the city performing. I know in DC it’s one thing, not as many cars In DC I don’t think it’s just nearly the same type of challenge. We’ve talked about the benefits of legislators seeing the cars in, in town, um, but for New York it’s a, it’s a different scenario. So to see those cars on the road, that’s gonna be a pretty big deal. And, and obviously we’re starting in the summer, but as we enter into those winter months, you know, weather is a thing that a lot of of people have questions about in terms of how these cars will perform.

Grayson Brulte: The one thing I want to see how they perform before we get to the winter. How are they gonna perform during the UN general assembly?. You and I both know the city turns into an an upside down obstacle course. It’d be interesting to see how they perform during that major event in the city.

Walter Piecyk: It does grace and, and it’s, these are like sudden changes to markets. Complete streets and avenues get shut down at, at a moment’s notice and, and it does wreak havoc on the city. I wonder if we’ll pause. Service for those weeks, they probably shouldn’t, right?. ’cause again, that’s when the people that are gonna be in town, you want them to see your product in operation and getting testing to try and build up some pressure, um, to let the city do it. So, I mean, it’s, it’s, look, it’s exciting. It is a big deal.

Grayson Brulte: It’s a huge deal. And when you looked at the. Of, I’ll put at the very vague announcement that Waymo put on X, there was a very clear indicator that you and I have talked about for multiple episodes now, no mention of Uber. What do you make of that?.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, you know, given what some of the consensus view was. Since the launch in Austin where it was joint and everyone’s like, oh, look at the YPI data and how growth was going together. The anticipation was all, all of these new markets were gonna include Uber. Now look, this is, they’re just saying they’re testing, right?. So it still could be that this is gonna be an Uber market, but it is noticeably ABT absent. And it’s also interesting that you would think that you would wanna partner with someone that’s already developed at least somewhat of a relationship. If you’re trying to achieve, you know, some regulatory hurdles in in the market,.

Grayson Brulte: To me, if it was gonna be an Uber market, they would’ve already announced it. That’s just my personal opinion, and to me, it’s another sign of the fracturing relationship that we’ve talked about and discussed in depth between Waymo and Uber. And we saw in the public markets when the announcement came out. Uber stock and Lyft stock sold off on the news.

Walter Piecyk: they did and they certainly did. I mean, obviously there’s a lot going on in the markets these days, but. it’s something to keep an eye on. Now, you know, this is regulatory and, and towns and cities are something that I think, you know fairly well. How do you see this kind of playing out in, in the big apple?.

Grayson Brulte: It’s going to be a complex process. Brad Sterz, who’s the gentleman who runs government for Audi’s, been working for years to try and change this law, where today you have to have an individual behind the wheel. You have to file a police report that to be escorted. I don’t know if that applies to New York City, so I want to caveat that there. That was the way the law used to be. There is a bill that came through the, uh, New York State Senate. It is Senate bill S3 34. If that bill is signed and passed into law, it would allow fully autonomous vehicles with no driver behind the wheel to operate anywhere in New York state. However, the New York Senate in the legislative session throughout of session until January of next year. So the realistically, the earliest that Bill could come in now is January, 2026. So you’re realistically looking at, say, March, April, maybe May, if you’re lucky of having a, a law change there. So. Realistically the earliest, unless something dramatically changes and the governor calls back the, the legislators, you’re looking at a July of August next year, realistic launch because it takes 90 days from the time the governor signs the bill till it becomes law. So you’re looking at the earliest they can launch is summer 2026.

Walter Piecyk: And is the governor our only issue here?. ’cause you know, we have a big mayoral race coming up in, in the city, and clearly that’s what they’re gonna be targeting and. One of the candidates that’s, that’s, you know, at least in the running, um, you know, has had some aggressive things to say about a number of different issues. So, you know, can a radical mayor, um, you know, upset the apple cart here, even if there is, you know, progress at the state level.

Grayson Brulte: Preemption that that individual who you’re referring to has made some out there comments and Yes, he’s currently front running. It’s between realistically him and Cuomo and he has a clear shot of making it. But from realistically, the state will, will preempt the city and then on top of that we could get a national framework, which would preempt New York City, which also would preempt New York State as well. So it’s gonna be a preemption.

Walter Piecyk: Okay. That, well, that’s, that’s good to know. But who knows?. Maybe this guy will organize a. A, you know, a traffic stop in his own city. You never know.

Grayson Brulte: You never know or what that individual could do. It could put a local tax on the Waymo to, to make it financially unfeasible for majority people to work on. So that could very well happen if this individual decides to follow through with their publicly stated agenda.

Walter Piecyk: so when you say that though, then this goes back to the battle that Duffy’s having with our, our congestion tax. So. And there’s been some question of authority there. So like, again, can you supersede some mayor putting some random punitive tax on, you know, a technology?. I mean, again, this gets back to the need for a national framework and, and, and everything, you know, that this industry needs. But, you know, maybe it takes, you know, some, you know, severely radical, uh, local officials. Um, to kind of test and, and push, you know, the, the need for the silent majority to get a national framework and maybe state rules forward here just to show how ridiculous, you know, some of these things have become.

Grayson Brulte: It could, it could just highlight one individual’s agenda and it could that, and then the opposite side on the autonomy side can highlight that. Look, this individual’s agenda is hurting mobility in in New York for New Yorkers. So yes, and anything’s impossible. That’s taking place in New York.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, speaking of overregulation in officials, let’s shift to the other side, the other coast in California, where despite having the similar challenges that we have here in New York. Waymo is expanding their, their footprint, um, in both San Francisco and I think, I think la or no,.

Grayson Brulte: Yep. They’re going down to Inglewood home of the Lakers, which is recent, a former home of the Lakers, which originally just sold for 10, for 10 billion. So that’s an interesting move there that the bus family sold.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, so I’m not, you know, historically I’ve, I’ve been critical of the supply issue that exists. Um, at Waymo, but clearly there’s some level of, of confidence in their supply if they’re expanding these areas. I mean, if you think about San Francisco and, and where they’ve moved down, um, in those areas, I mean, you, you have to have had, even if they’re not using highways, they have to have, um, been, hit some progress, I guess, in releasing supply. I’m sure it’s not just. The LA car’s getting redeployed ’cause they’ve reopened that, that ODD. Um, but congrats to Waymo, I think maybe for moving forward with, with, uh, and I guess their partner, uh, who is it?. Who’s the partner again, Magna.

Grayson Brulte: Magna. That’s correct.

Walter Piecyk: So congrats to, Waymo and their partner Magna in getting some more supply, which begs, let’s get back to prediction land. We haven’t done some predictions in a while. Grayson and when. Will we hear, I don’t know if Waymo will announce this or otherwise know that there’s, you know, 3000 Waymo’s out in the wild or 5,000 even. Do you think, do you think we’ll see those type of announcements at some point?. That lot, um, that magna lot will be emptied in, in, I guess it’s Phoenix, right?. Um, and they’ll have to come up, um, with some more supply. But what’s your prediction on hitting 5K?. Let’s call it.

Grayson Brulte: Q1 26.

Walter Piecyk: Love it. I love when I put you on the spot, there’s a, maybe a slight, you know, neurons firing about, but Q1 20, I think that’s probably, that’s probably right. I mean, I’m gonna say, I mean, how about maybe on their Q4 earnings call, they can talk about having 5,000 cars on the road. At that point, Grayson, you have blown through your Jags, right?. Um, I mean, I guess Hyundais will start to be kicking in. Uh, but where will we be?. I love this topic ’cause it’s your unforced error From our earliest episodes of the autonomy markets, will they be cranking out a, a, a ton of, uh, zoo’s excuse, yeah. Zoo’s, zuckers, zoo’s, zuckers, uh, on the roads at that point.

Grayson Brulte: Unfortunately, the Chinese made zuckers look like they’re going into the fleet. ’cause every day you go on Reddit or you go on X and you see photos and photos popping up of the vehicle. So I think that they are going to fill those in with the Chinese made zuckers, which is an unfortunate unforced error, and I’m not gonna shut up about it.

Walter Piecyk: Well, Trump just, just, uh, delayed the shutdown of TikTok for another 90 days. So maybe, uh, zeer iss gonna be okay for some. Sometime he’s got some distractions in other parts of the world at the, at the moment. , I mean, let’s get back to Waymo in California. What’s up at the highways?. I mean, you know, on one hand they’ve got the supply to expand the geographic area, like maybe I’ve mis called this and it’s not a supply issue. Is, is there, is there a technical issue in terms of their willingness to open up the highways in some of these markets?.

Grayson Brulte: I thought a lot about this and I spoke to a a lot of individuals and this one theme started to bubble up, which we haven’t discussed yet. Is it an insurance liability issue?. Could that be the reason that’s holding it back?.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, that’s just not being comfortable with where you are technically and, and frankly, like going back to my LA experience, you know, there’s highways within that ODD that you could shorten the trips. So it’s not a supply issue. It’s like it’s gotta be a technical issue. So I know I’ve said this over and over and I’m just recanting now, like I no longer believe highways for Waymo are a supply issue. I think there’s a real technical concern there, whether it’s driven by insurance or otherwise. I guess people need to start asking the question, what’s going on with Waymo on the highways and who will get there first?. Waymo or Tesla?. Oh, that’s gonna trigger people, but I had to say it.

Grayson Brulte: It’s great. And then here, here, here, here comes the pile on for the trigger Tesla. We both have Teslas with FSD and it works on the highway flawlessly. So there you go. Bring it on. So here’s the question while we’re gonna go back to prediction corner here. What gets unlocked first? SFO? ’cause we have an update on that. I’ll tell you after. Or highways, which one does Waymo get unlocked first?.

Walter Piecyk: That is a great question. I mean, how do you, you can’t do, I don’t think SFO without doing the highways first. You have to do the highway ’cause it would be ridiculous to get off an SFO. I can you get to San Francisco without getting on that highway?. Are there, I know there’s kind of roads on the side. There’s that. There’s that like candy land house that you see on the right there. I don’t know. Know if you can actually do it. It has to be highways first.

Grayson Brulte: All right. I’m gonna say take the opposite. I’m gonna say SFO first. It’s gonna be a slow journey to get there, but I’m gonna say they’re gonna unlock SFO because the official spokesperson for, for SFO Airport released a statement this week as it relates to whamo. I’m gonna read you the statement here, dis, and this is in quote, discussions with Waymo are ongoing, but there remains no specific timeline for when it will be able to offer rides. To and from the Travel Hub, Waymo represents an entirely new mode of transportation, and thus requires an entirely new permit structure for Autonom vehicles. End quote. Do you know what this sounds like to me?. California overregulation at its finest.

Walter Piecyk: Oh, maybe we should add into that. San Francisco highways in New York. Which, which of the three, which of the three happened first?. I mean, I don’t even, why, why don’t they go to more favorable, more, more, um, open states rather than focus on, you know, I shouldn’t say that. ’cause I definitely want Waymo in New York as soon as possible, but pick an easier one. Why does Elon’s the same thing he’s saying like, California’s gonna be the next, next area he goes to. Don’t bother Eli. Go. Go somewhere easier.

Grayson Brulte: Go somewhere easier. Come to Florida, the regulatory environment’s, great. Texas, Florida, do the Texas two step. Well, it it works for you from a regulatory standpoint. You don’t have to deal with the, all the bureaucracy around regulation. And in Florida and Texas, you don’t have a little thing called the California Public Utilities Commission. And you have two great governors that want this technology. Walter Piecyk, let’s stay here. On the Waymo front, we have a, a viewer. He got a hold and he sent it to us, a survey that Waymo put out in the market. And I want to go through this writer survey with you line by line. ’cause there’s a lot of interesting nuggets in here for us to discuss and break down. So here we go with the survey. This is a Waymo survey that was sent out to riders. Let’s start with this. Well question one in the survey. In your opinion, where does Waymo one fall on the following scale?. Then Waymo gave you the options to answer Lux highest quality offering, known for its luxury features and prestige. Offers a noticeable upgrade from premium options, and the next option was in between premium and lux, followed by premium, high quality offering with notable features and brand reputation. Offers a noticeable upgrade from standard options. Next one in between standard and premium, followed by the last one. Standard basic offering with a focus on meeting fundamental needs. What do you make of those questions?. Is Waymo trying to position this as a premium product to get a higher rate than Uber and Lyft?.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, what I notice is that there’s not a level below standard or. You know, economy so clearly, you know, they’re not trying to position the brand as an economy brand. And it’s, it’s interesting ’cause a lot of people, when they think about autonomy, it’s always about saving you money, saving you money. And, you know, there’s nothing, there’s no category for that. There’s in, in how it’s being perceived on this scale. So. I think this is like a confirmation of what we’ve been talking about in terms of autonomy being better than, you know, what you have for Uber and Lyft today should be priced accordingly. Um, and if they’re, they’re showing the survey like this, this is probably how, you know, the product is gonna be priced going forward. And I think there was some actually data out this week where someone was studying the pricing of Waymo and how it was superior. And like of course it should be priced higher. It’s a better product. It is a better product. Period. End of story. Sorry, there’s not even a debate about that, at least in my mind. There’s always a debate about things, but not in my mind. So great. So this, by the way, Grayson I love getting these surveys and this one was like highly protected. You know, there were water stamping and everything. ’cause it does reveal a lot of times what the companies, you know, where they’re trying to position themselves. So let’s go on to question two, or did you want to, did you have more to say on question one?. Sorry. I’m so excited to get to the next one.

Grayson Brulte: oh, but I’m excited too. But let’s, let’s stay on question one here for a moment. If they wanna market as a premium product, UberX is not a premium product. It’s the economy level, or it’s basic economy. If you wanna use an airline analogy, but yet that’s how you get Waymo. So back to you. Now, here it is. Is Uber Xed tier with Waymo operating, is that devaluing the Waymo brand?. Based on this survey data that we’re looking at.

Walter Piecyk: Uber has higher tiers, right?. So. I think it’s, it will, you know, Waymo will show up in those higher tiers. And I think ultimately what Waymo wants to do is probably have its own tier altogether . you know, within that Uber app. No, you’re shaking your head no. You don’t agree.

Grayson Brulte: No, because currently today you can only, you can only get Waymo through the UberX tier, not the high end tier. So again, it’s devaluation.

Walter Piecyk: Well, that’s gotta change, obviously. I mean, and that, that will not last in, in my opinion. There’s no way Uber, you know, neither company should want that, right?. Uber should want to be able to show their, their customers that they’ve got, you know, a premium service, that they’re available to me. And certainly Waymo does not wanna be associated, or maybe it’s just evidence that Waymo is just testing Uber. And this gets back to our whole conversation from the last two weeks of like, what is the real end game here?. You know, is Waymo just, um, you know, positioning themselves for their own thing, which is why I think it’s a good transition to question two. ’cause I think there’s some hint. About that in question two. Is there not.

Grayson Brulte: Walter Piecyk was right, ladies and gentlemen. He called it, he’s right. We’re gonna get to question two here, and I’m gonna read this for you. It features a series of hypothetical questions and ask the, ask the person taking the survey to choose either least likely to increase my Waymo ride or choose most likely to increase my Waymo use. Those hypothetical features are as follows, and we’re gonna break ’em down one by one. Here we go.

Walter Piecyk: But before, before we go on by. One, it’s also interesting how they phrase this. They don’t say It’s likely to decrease my, my Waymo use or de or increase. They say least li least likely to increase. We’re most likely to increase as opposed to this feature would decrease my usage. So that’s also fascinating. And, and that’s almost like the, the McDonald’s, you’re gonna have fries with that, right?. They’re like, they’re saying these are coming, but which one is really gonna, which one should we prioritize?. So let, let’s go one by one and talk about.

Grayson Brulte: yep. They’re saying you’re gonna use this and you’re gonna like it. And if you want, you can supersize it. ’cause here’s, here’s the first one. Reserve a car for a few hours for an hourly fee.

Walter Piecyk: This is amazing, right?. I don’t, can you do this on Uber and Lyft?. I don’t know. But, but I get the point where if you have, like, you know, let’s say my mom, you know, wants to go, you know, from where she lives to go shopping and then have this, that, you know, to go a couple of different stores and keep the stuff in the car and go one to one to one. Like, you know, having that car available for a few hours is certainly, you know, something that, that’s attractive. I’m embarrassed like if, if Uber and Lyft already do that, I’m embarrassed that I don’t know that, so I apologize. I should know that. But that seems like a very interesting one in terms of, um, you know, how they want the product used.

Grayson Brulte: You know what’s interesting about that?. Somebody’s been hanging out in the San Fernando Valley too much. ’cause the individuals that make those movies out there, they’re gonna love that. So I’ll put that out there. So I just said that and I can’t believe I said it, but I, I did say it. The other thing that you and I talked about, this must have been 30 episodes ago. YouTube TV during the Super Bowl. Perhaps you get to, you go in there and you can watch something that you couldn’t watch. There’s a Google integration, but my mind went to the gutter because, eh, that’s where most guys minds go. Now let’s go to question two. Walter Piecyk.

Walter Piecyk: Hold on, hold on. This. But this, this goes, this goes back to, I, we’d have to dig up from a prior episode. I hope. I don’t, who knows if that’s gonna make that the edit floor or not. Um, let’s make it through edit. But this reminds me of a prior episode. Where you’d be like, um, you know, you’d always have these kinda wacky suggestions. What if you would want to like, go, just get in a Waymo and, and sit in a Waymo for an hour and watch a football game and, you know, and Uber Eats takes you and gets you the food. I mean, I think you, you’ve had some of those suggestions in the past. I know you were very excited about having a Waymo that you could have for a couple hours. It’s also, by the way, interesting that this whole industry is so focused on per mile type of data. And here we are talking about hours for an hourly fee. Um, which is, you know, I think something that certainly should be thought about more, whether it’s cars or trucking or whatever. But let’s go on to the second question or the second option.

Grayson Brulte: always be streaming. Here’s the second option. Option to walk farther to a pickup spot for a small discount.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, this one makes sense. I think given their current situation, which is their pickups are not always that great, you know, you, you know, it’s not like an Uber where you’re dealing with the driver. That’s one. Downside today, at least of using them autonomously. Um, so I think they’re just kind of testing the market there and, and finding out, you know, how big of a deal that is because that’s certainly, you know, a Waymo issue that, that I’ve experienced. And, and I think that, you know, if you look at Reddit and things like that, that there’s been discussion about that.

Grayson Brulte: I’m not on the Waymo marketing team, but figure out a deal. Cut up with Bobby Kennedy and make it a Maha moment. Make America healthy again. Well, if you walk this little bit way can, it can help you meet your goals to get healthy. See, that’s how that’s, you gotta play it this way.

Walter Piecyk: No one falls for that bullshit. Definitely. That would not work. I think if you can save someone money to walk down the block, then sure. And like, look, let’s put this in perspective. A lot of times you’re like on the phone and hopefully your Uber driver’s not canceling on you, and you’re like, oh, I’ll, you know, I’ll walk two blocks, at least for New York City, you know, to avoid some cross street. , But whatever, it’s, it’s, uh, I think it’s, it’s, they’re speaking to the issue that they’re dealing with already.

Grayson Brulte: See, now we know you’re from New York. ’cause if you wanna go uptown or or you wanna go downtown, you gotta go to a certain street. ’cause they go one way. See, we got you there Walter Piecyk. Let’s go on to the next one. Carpool for a small discount. I’m not sharing it. I don’t really care your thoughts.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, any of our longtime listeners are well aware of Grayson’s distaste for sharing his car. This is why he doesn’t like Zoox. I’m not sharing my zoox. And look, I mean, I think at the end of the day, you know, Uber has tried this without great success, um, you know, in the past and so has Lyft. It, it, you know, it just hasn’t caught on. But you have to, you have to pull the market. Maybe there is an opportunity for that.

Grayson Brulte: Imagine if Zoox pull the market. Maybe people want to get nauseous riding the vehicle as we, as we saw this week.

Walter Piecyk: the other issue here is like, the reason you wanna share rides for Uber and Lyft is the labor cost, right?. So. It really for Waymo shouldn’t be as big of a deal, but again, I’m sure they’re just pulling the information. What’s our next, what’s our next option?.

Grayson Brulte: next one, see prices for future pickup times. I like this.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I think that’s fine. I don’t, you know, maybe Waymo is gonna ultimately evolve to be like the T-Mobile of I. Ride share where it’s like, we’re not gonna surge price you right?. The price is what it is and you don’t have to worry about what, what it is at a future pickup time is the same price today is it?. Or you know at this time as it is for three or four hours. Again, think about why surge pricing exists. It’s to attract labor into the market. You don’t have to attract a robot into the market is either there or not there. So this one seems kinda weird. Um, again, um, you know, it’s just about the information. This is great. Great. Grayson, how many, what’s next?.

Grayson Brulte: The next one is, this is before we go to the next one there. Here’s the question. What if the former CEO of T-Mobile went to run Waymo?. Could he really make Waymo the UN-carrier?.

Walter Piecyk: You’re talking about John Ledger, huge fan . yeah, I mean, I think Ledger is, is, you know, is great at understanding the consumer, so I don’t think Waymo really has a consumer issue though, right. The product. You know, like many Google products kind of speak for itself and you know, the technology would deliver. No offense let John, but I’m not sure that they, this one needs you. There’s plenty of other companies out there that certainly do need, you need, you.

Grayson Brulte: He’s an extremely talented executive. I think he would do extremely well at Waymo. Here’s the next one. This one I don’t get. See smart destinations for one click hailing. What the heck does that mean?.

Walter Piecyk: see smart destinations for one click hailing. I have no idea what that means. Is that like, Hey, I’m gonna go to the museum, or I, I don’t even know. Did you, are you sure you, you copied that down correctly?.

Grayson Brulte: I, I double, triple, cross-checked it. Yes, I did Write that down correctly.

Walter Piecyk: No idea. So maybe, maybe part of this process is just to confuse the, confuse the person taking the poll with. I have no idea what that means. I can, can’t wait for our listeners. To chime in with what, what smart destinations are for one click ha.

Grayson Brulte: Could it be.

Walter Piecyk: Oh, wait a minute, maybe it’s just, it’s AI and it’s predicting. No. Could it be that?.

Grayson Brulte: Or how about it’s just like the, the, the Google AdWords. It’s the sponsored links. Perhaps it’s a sponsored destination perhaps that you might go to. So you wanna go to Pete’s Coffee or the ad model’s coming?.

Walter Piecyk: God no. Who knows?. We’re gonna find out someone from Waymo. Please let us know. We we, let’s go on to the next one.

Grayson Brulte: please let us know. Okay. Here’s the next one. The next one is link my calendar apps for smart trip suggestions. To me that says the AI’s gonna, this is what I like to do. I like to go to baseball games. So maybe he’ll say, oh, the San Francisco Giants are playing tonight. Okay, one click to go to a Giants game. Perhaps that’s what it means.

Walter Piecyk: So this may be answers our last one and this one together. When they’re saying smart. They’re basically saying like, ai, they’re pulling information outta your calendar. And when I, you know, I have that with like Google Maps, right?. Where it just pops in from my calendar what happens to be there. So it makes it easier rather than to type in information. So I think they’re just, they’re talking about, you know, basically ag agentic ai, where you’re moving across different apps and sucking out the information so that your transportation is better. So yes, that’s, you know, that would be great to have.

Grayson Brulte: This seamless experience. This one. Waymo. I’m gonna tell you right now ’cause I know you’re listening and taking notes and trying to figure this out. This is the best one. Okay. Skip the line and get picked up faster for a small fee. Yes. yes. yes.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, if, if they get their pickup times to less than seven minutes, I’m not sure it matters. But yeah, I mean. Sure there should, you should always sell first class, trying to get and get the premium. Um, for those that are willing, willing to pay for it. Especially now, obviously when people sometimes have to wait 15 or 20 minutes ’cause of the supply issue that that Waymo has. Hopefully over time that won’t be an issue ’cause there’ll be enough product on the market. But yeah, I love that idea. I wonder why Uber and Lyft having considered the same.

Grayson Brulte: Could you imagine getting out of a baseball game or getting out of a concert?. You could skip all that line. Have a way more there waiting for you. Priceless.

Walter Piecyk: It would be amazing. I think I wanna just point out that at the end of this sentence it says small fee. I mean, I’ve come out of, you know, the, the, um, I’ve come out, come out of the sphere very recently. I would pay a very large fee to cut the line and get into that Uber a bit faster.

Grayson Brulte: Yes. There you go. He wants to get down to Shakedown Street. We gotta get there quickly. Here we go. Here’s the next one. Request and pay for a ride for family or friends. Very, very smart idea, especially when you start to put older individuals or younger individuals in the vehicles.

Walter Piecyk: It seems like stable table stakes not interesting to me. Sure. I mean, yes, ask people about it, but like this is table stakes. Of course, you have to have that.

Grayson Brulte: Yes. There we go. Next one, . Book a round trip for a small discount.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, no brainer. Why doesn’t Uber already do that?. I don’t understand. Take me to dinner, pick me up from dinner at a certain time, scheduled time. And prob I’m probably gonna pay up. I’m probably gonna pay, more overall. ’cause now it’s scheduled. You’re get like getting, you’re paying more, you’re getting discount. It’s like a markup, markdown. You’ll pay more ’cause it’s a scheduled ride, but then it’s a discount ’cause you’re doing two That seems like a no brainer, like Uber. Why aren’t you doing that?. And I know Uber listens. Maybe you should add that one, that they, they literally just gave you a free Idea.

Grayson Brulte: Idea. We, we’ve had data from the San Francisco Alexander, the San Francisco Chronicle and, and the standard that individuals San Francisco are putting their kids in these vehicles to go to school. That’s a really great way to, okay, you send the child to school, then you have a there in the car pickup line to pick ’em up. So that’s a big win there. It’s a really smart idea. On the next one here, earn credits during busy times to use. During less busy times,.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, this is, this is like right up your alley. You’re all about the Infinity card. And you love the, the, the mileage and it being included, you know, in your credit card benefits, that this has been one of your big things in in past. So I’m gonna turn this one over to you.

Grayson Brulte: they’re doing it. They wanna build a point system. Just don’t build it like an airline and, and don’t build it. Like certain credit card companies that keep raising their annual fees, some people complain, I’m okay, whatever with it, you get the benefits out of it. You gotta do it the right way. It builds loyalty. I really like it, but you’re gonna have to build an ecosystem, the best one out there in the, in the market. Everybody knows the American Express Membership Rewards Program. Build something similar to that. You got something cooking. So I think that’s a really good thing.

Walter Piecyk: A lot of these, but this one particularly stands out at me as that’s not something you do if you’re doing something with Uber. If you’re doing credits, you’re doing the credits within your own, you know, Waymo One app, as most of these are obviously.

Grayson Brulte: What This is all pointing to relationship’s done. Waymo’s putting it, the pieces in place to go out on the own. It, it’s the, it’s here in the data. Then the next question is. Get a car at designated stands instead of hailing.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I mean, I think even, you know, the, though the apps have reduced friction a great deal, sometimes you just don’t wanna. You know, go through that process. And if you are near a location where, you know, there’s a lineup of Waymo is just waiting, that, you know, you’re just gonna be able to hop right in. I think there’s, you know, there’s some, there’s some value at that for sure. So I think that’s another, uh, just another interesting idea. So a good job from whoever Waymo is thinking about these things. I mean, I would assume that Uber’s thought about a lot of this stuff as well.

Grayson Brulte: Oh, Uber, come on and tell us the designated stands, the question that goes in, do you have to build out physical infrastructure or is it just going to be you go to the certain areas?. So that’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, do you need, so do, would you need city approvals for designated areas or can you just say, look, I know there’s this area. I mean, obviously if you just had a bunch of Waymo’s line up on someone’s street that wasn’t previously designated by the city, I’m, I’m guessing the neighbors would not be too happy.

Grayson Brulte: It’s gonna come down to curb politics and who owns the curb and who controls the curb, which is regulated at the city level. So there are gonna have to have city approval for that. Yes. So let’s get on to the, the next couple ones. I’m gonna bundle these here for you because they’re very similar, but it’s very important for our audience to hear ’em and I’d love to get your opinion. After all of ’em, they are schedule a pickup hours or days ahead of time. Set up a recurring trip with a generally consistent price greet, way more flexible pickup window for a small discount, and extend the time the car waits for you for the pickup for a small fee.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, these are all just table stakes stuff that we’ve seen Lyft and Uber implement. All these guys can just, if it’s successful, replicate what the other one does. This is all just research. To find out how you’re gonna run your own ride share business, period. Like that’s, that’s what most of this has been. And that’s, that is the largest takeaway from this other than, you know, the positioning of being high end, which should be obvious, but I think has been debated by other people. But, you know, they’re doing surveys because they’re trying to figure out how to make their their best own app. If they, if they were already, you know, hadn’t made the decision to move forward with Uber alone, they wouldn’t even bother. With these surveys. I’m not saying that that is, that that is the defined end. Just to reiterate, for those that haven’t listened to every episode of Autonomy Markets, shame on you. I’m not saying that that’s the end game. I’ve always said that they have not yet decided, but that is different than the consensus view from some that think that, that Uber is the end game for Waymo. I think Waymo has not yet fully decided, but certainly that there’s an, in my view, at least, an intent. To do Uber one and do it on their own, you know, and we’ll just have to see how that plays out. But this is, I think, evidence and support of that view.

Grayson Brulte: You meant to say Waymo one, not Uber one there, Walter Piecyk. We get ’em a little confused here with the verbs.

Walter Piecyk: You know, I do that a lot on this pot. I realize sometimes I, I confuse Uber and Waymo. I’m sure Uber hopes that at some point it all gets blended together.

Grayson Brulte: the survey clearly says to me is that Waymo has big ambitions for Waymo One, they want to become more of just a rideshare platform. They wanna become an integrated travel platform. They wanna become their own version of the Uber app, in my opinion. And if that does come true, does Waymo next move into delivery to compete with Uber Eats? And DoorDash is that the next move that could happen?.

Walter Piecyk: I think, class 8 trucks is probably also on the agenda. I mean, anything, this is, this is, you know, like any tech company, you go after one market and you exploit it and then you go from there. And I’ve seen this with SpaceX, right?. Where it was, oh, they’re only gonna do consumer broadband for these very remote people. And then once you have internet connectivity around the globe, you start to go after every additional market. Once you have the technology of vehicles being able to drive themselves, there’s obviously. You know, a lot of markets that you can broaden, uh, into.

Grayson Brulte: There’s a lot of opportunity in the market, and the market is about to be disrupted sometime, perhaps it’s going to be June 22nd, perhaps it’ll be another day in June, or they’ll push it July, but we are starting to see. The messaging hype build up from competing companiesZoox rolls back the curtain on their factory that they’re building. Waymo announces New York City, and then on what’s supposed to happen in a couple days, Zoox’s supposed to roll out the robax. It seems like everybody’s trying to take control of that narrative and not let Tesla shine and and own the market.

Walter Piecyk: obviously they’re gonna contest this, but yeah, I believe that the pending launch of Tesla in Austin has got people, you know, pushing out press releases. On a variety of topics. It’s certainly, you know, in the market now, you know, I think there’s some expectation that there’s gonna be some movement forward next week, but Grayson and I saw that there’s, there was a letter from, I think some legislators in Texas, are they gonna put the, are they gonna be able to put the brakes on Tesla moving forward here?.

Grayson Brulte: No. No, no, nope. To me, Walt is this political grandstanding because it was a group of democratic state representatives and state senators that are urging Tesla to delay the launch of the Robotaxi until September 1st. When a new law takes place and they’re arguing, oh, this law can do this, this law can do that. So what do we do? . autonomy markets, we look into the law. Well, they want Tesla to be able to be capable of operating compliance with state traffic laws. They can do that. They want Tesla to be equipped with a recording device. They already have ’em. It’s called Sentry. Then they want it to be compliant with federal law calling F-M-V-S-A standards, the Model YR, that they want it to be capable of achieving minimal risk condition if the automated drive system is rendered inoperable. It has been, there’s remote teleoperation and they want, this is the best one. They want it to be registered, titled and insured under Texas law. They already are. So to me, this is political grandstanding. ’cause everything in this law, Tesla already complies with.

Walter Piecyk: But who?. Who is who?. Um. Basically enforces these laws. Like why would a group of, you know, a select group of legislators write this letter?. Did they have the, you know, power of enforcement or who’s ultimately the enforcer of these, of all these things that you just ticked off.

Grayson Brulte: They have no power, they have no authority. This is political grandstanding as we’re seeing it in other elements on the federal level, the grandstanding. Is only brewing the, the individuals right now that are, that will see this on September 1st will be TxDOT, Texas Department Transportation and the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, not the state legislators.

Walter Piecyk: Got it. So this wasn’t some new letter from the ruling authority. This was just. The legislators, I look, I understand why they’re doing it. I mean, TikTok is another example that there is a law that said TikTok should be banned. It’s just not getting enforced by the administration. Maybe not a perfect example here, but certainly there are laws, to your point, you think that they are, you know, they are operating, um, under those laws, you know, accurately. Um, but again, it’s not for these people to judge that. They’re just highlighting it. , So that there’s some, you know, to your point, press that they’ve been out there saying like, oh, you know, you have to operate this way and make sure that, you know, whoever’s actually enforcing that, you know, will in fact enforce that. So in your view, this is not going to stall anything in Austin or Texas more broadly for Tesla.

Grayson Brulte: No, it’s gonna have zero effect on Teslas. I said earlier it’s, it’s, it’s political grandstanding trying to put out a, a narrative there. Look, we stood up to the billionaire. Look, we stood up to Elon. Okay, I, okay. Yes, the fire’s gonna come and you can leave it in the comments, but it’s political grandstanding at its finest. It’s just trying to take control of the narrative. Tesla is going to launch, they’re legally compliant to launch.

Walter Piecyk: Well, meanwhile, I’ve, I’ve seen more videos of, of Teslas roaming around Austin without the driver, so. It’s getting close that I gotta start booking my flight to get down there. So hope, hoping that they, they kind of push forward this week and, and get some people, some passengers, not people behind the driver’s seat.

Grayson Brulte: We’ll be there, Autonomy Markets. When we get access, we will be there and we’ll tell you the truth of how we see it, because that’s how we call the shots. We don’t pick winners or losers, we just tell you how we see it.

Walter Piecyk: speaking of the truth, I gotta interject there. Grayson, before you go onto our next topic. I did see a little truth this week when the San Francisco standard hopped into a zoox, and the two reporters, , indicated that they felt a little nauseous after driving around San Francisco. I know that probably excited you as our zoox bear. I have to say that I have myself not in San Francisco. I’ve been, I was in a zoox. I went backwards. I felt fine. I thought the ride was great. So my personal experience with Zoox was positive, but. That was not a very nice article that the San Francisco standard wrote about their zoox experience.

Grayson Brulte: No, it wa it wasn’t very good. It just goes that Zoox needs a PR makeover. ’cause then if you notice that the article comes out and the following day, you can’t make the headlines up that the new, uh, the new Waymo competitor I. Zoox is arriving. I mean, some of these headlines that they, that they put out there is just, I I, I, I don’t even, I’m flabbergasted, I don’t even know where to say Zoox is not a competitor to Waymo. Zoox does not have a vehicle on the road taking paying passengers. Okay. And, and their manufacturing abilities are not gigs manufacturing ability. So that’s headlines. The, the, these narratives start running in autonomy and, and, and the hype levels at 11 in their kook. So there’s narratives. And then there’s delivering. That’s what Kodiak Robotics and Don Burnett are doing. They’re delivering. This week they announced they did a contract manufacturing deal with Roush Industries. They’re going to build and upfit the Kodiak autonomous truck being delivered to Atlas Energy that’s real. Trucks being delivered to paying customers is this Kodiak’s Waymo Magna deal.

Walter Piecyk: That was a hell of a transition to Kodiak. So well done. Once again, you are the king, uh, on the, on the, the, the topic transition. I mean, for me, I. The, the, is it Roche, Roush, whatever, like this just looks like what Waymo has with Magna, which I always, by the way, wanna say magma. Magma, you know, from Austin Powers. I think that’s from magma. Um, I mean this is big, right?. Because then they can, I don’t wanna say scale up, but obviously get hundreds, thousands, whatever it is, of trucks. And I think it’s also interesting because whenever we talk about Kodiak and, and. Again, we intend to talk more about the trucking industry ’cause there is certainly a ton of value for our economy there. But the knock on Kodiak from those that have OEM partners is, is the necessity of having OEM partners. Right? And Kodiak’s view on this is like, they’re not against it, but like, you know, when you have OEM partners that can sometimes mess with you as Aurora is dealing with right now with paccar. Then you understand why they go this route where they’re basically putting this equipment on these trucks after the fact, which have been approved, right?. Effectively to move forward with, with those OEMs. And now with Roush, Roche, whatever it is, they can get to scale. That doesn’t mean that three years down the road, Kodiak will not have some OEM deal, you know, when that has to happen. But again, we do get that feedback a lot. I will remain open in seeing how this stuff plays out because you know, as we’ve talked about on past podcasts, there’s a lot of different, uh, business models that exist with these Class 8 trucks, whether plus does it one way and Kodiak does another, and Aurora does it another. And there’s claims that, that certain companies, Aurora, very aggressive. We’re years ahead of anybody else. Uh, uh, like, like we’re dealing with Tesla and Waymo. I’m not an engineer. I’m not gonna go and be able to look at a code by code and determine the precise amount of time that someone’s had. We’ll just watch and see how these trucks roll out and see who gets the contracts and see where the revenue comes in. ’cause right now none of you have revenue.

Grayson Brulte: Kodiak has revenue. It’s in the filing. It’s small, but it’s that. But here’s the thing that stood out to me. An official press photo is released by Kodiak. Do you know what we saw?. I spy with my little eyes. The PACCAR logo. The PACCAR logo is front and center on those trucks. If you go back to the press release before this where Kodiak announced the Atlas deal, what’s front and center?. The PACCAR logo. You look at Aurora’s short-lived driver out. Do you know what’s not present?. The PACCAR logo. Which raises the question, how is Kodiak able to use the PACCAR logo and how is a Aurora not?. There’s something going on there.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah. Again, time will tell they’re still moving forward. Those trucks are still on the road. Yes, there’s a driver in the driver’s seat and the anticipation in Aurora is that they will be able to move forward and that will be a good partner with them. And they’ll obviously, you know, have Volvo as a, as a partner as well. But look, at the end of the day, like Waymo started with Jaguar putting, you know, sensors on top of a Jaguar that they purchased and like Kodiak’s basically doing that. So, , I’m not sure what else to say about that.

Grayson Brulte: It’s, listen, they have a very clear path to scaling now. I think that’s a very fair thing to say ’cause Roush is an extremely well respected. If you, if you look at companies that in some lanes are well-respected in other lanes, they’re, the boogeyman is meta, and meta is coming into the self-driving car world. That’s right. I’ve heard rumblings for years and then, then over in Paris this week, meta unveiled a new model called V Gepa two is capable of driving a car. Is this a sign that Meta has bigger ambitions outside of the the metaverse out outside of the llama models?.

Walter Piecyk: the bottom line is obviously AI is, is changing a lot of things, and one of the manifestations is how it opens. Up, um, the physical world, right?. And you, you think about the major themes of ai, whether it’s robots or transportation, um, these are major themes and, you know, we’ve talked about NVIDIA and do they wanna go beyond where they are in the stack?. And, and you’ve seen, um, you know, open AI in terms of their obvious relationship. And wanting to extend where their technology can advance things in, in the physical world, whether it’s with Johnny Ives, with glasses, or, you know, in the robot world so look and Facebook itself. Has looked at doing phones in the past, they didn’t move forward with it. They’re not afraid to spend a lot of money. They spent, you know, tons on the metaverse, so you know, founder, CEO and their willingness to spend. But look, I don’t think we should expect them to make cars. And then you’re just saying like, okay, we have good AI that can leverage the physical world, whether that’s human robots. Um, or self-driving cars. These are the things that get, I think, investors excited.

Grayson Brulte: Because at the end of the day, I could see them building and licensing a stack, and their biggest competitor on AI or one of the biggest competitors, open ai, they have autonomous ambitions too. We’re gonna release an episode on Tuesday of the Road to Autonomy is the whole segment on that of what open AI is doing. So tune, tune into that if OpenAI releases an autonomous driving stack, meta releases an autonomous driving stack. Does Tim Cook and the whole team at Apple, do they start to have bigger, even bigger regrets than they currently have for shutting down Project Titan?.

Walter Piecyk: yeah, I mean I’ve, we’ve talked about this here on the Light She podcast, and I don’t know, that could take a new management team to figure out how to, you know. Move that shift to to products that, , represent growth opportunities for them. I don’t know if Tim Cook recognizes it, but certainly investors will certainly, you know, chime in on that topic.

Grayson Brulte: Well, we were looking forward to seeing some investor notes, some perhaps statements on CNBC or Bloomberg that we can discuss and, and analyze this. If meta goes forward, opening AI goes forward, releases the stack. How does the traditional autonomous driving industry react?. ’cause these are two very deep pocketed competitors potentially entering the sector.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s, it’s an issue and if Apple entered that, that would be an issue. Deep pockets, you know, spending lots on AI that can theoretically be leveraged over. Same question goes for Nvidia grace. And, and if they got, um, more vertically integrated in, in what their plans are for AI and hardware, you know, so we’ll just have to see how that plays out.

Grayson Brulte: Seeing how things play out. Does this put Nuro potentially in play for an acquisition by either OpenAI, meta or Nvidia, to accelerate those plans?.

Walter Piecyk: You can just name every different AI, or excuse me, every different autonomous company. Sure. Like, just tick ’em off. You’re gonna say, oh, does this, you know, elevate main mobility, does this elevate this guy?. That guy?. Absolutely. I mean, the, the, the question here is. It’s like this Waymo versus Tesla issue, which is, you know, you’re five years behind, can you just catch up?. And it, it gets to this essential debate that we’ve had is, is AI end to end?. Whatever you wanna talk about good enough that, I don’t care if someone’s, you know, spent five or 10 years and, and done all the maps and, and been on the bleeding edge of this technology development. I’m not sure, like the question will be, especially when you have these large companies that you mentioned going after it. Do they have to spend the same amount of time when they, when they’ve, there’s, there are tools that they have to get to where Waymo is today are just so much stronger. Maybe, I mean, again, this gets back to earlier and, and, and same, you know, the debates on the trucking. We’ll just have to see, you know, who actually delivers product to the market safely and starts to generate material revenue.

Grayson Brulte: A company generating material revenue today that has the tools applied intuition, what Casser and Peter have built. Phenomenal company. They’ll be on The Road to Autonomy podcast in two weeks, which for their fifth time back on big fans of the company. This week they announced they raised 600 million at a $15 billion valuation. It’s becoming a big company that’s powering the future of autonomy through tools.

Walter Piecyk: that’s an incredible number, right?. Six. Hundred million. That’s like the market cap. Um, you know, of a bunch of different, um, companies in this, in this space. Um, $15 billion valuation is huge. Investors just aren’t even talking about them, right?. They’re, they’re not like, this is a major dollar amount for a company that’s a primary player. You know, you talked about some of these headline articles before, like, oh, forget about Tesla. Zoox is there, but like, okay, what about applied intuition?. And the role that they’re gonna play in an advancing autonomy. Um, so I’m sure we’re all gonna look forward to your your podcast. Upcoming podcast. When are you gonna release that?. Hopefully soon.

Grayson Brulte: Two weeks. It’s, it’s, it’s come out in two weeks. So we’re gonna touch on the round and we’re also gonna touch on the, the open AI partnership where they’re looking to completely transform the in vehicle experience. So they’re building the tools to make the vehicles drive themselves. Now, this open AI partnership, they’re building the tools to change the interior of the vehicle. And in my opinion, I’ve said this many times publicly, and I’ll say it here in autonomy markets. Applied Intuition is the most interesting company in autonomy today.

Walter Piecyk: Wow, that’s, that’s a big statement. So, I mean, we’re gonna have to wait two weeks. I think you should accelerate when you drop that episode, Grayson. And since you’ve built up such anticipation.

Grayson Brulte: Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. But next week you’re gonna get a little bit of insight into open AI in their autonomy ambitions. Walt, that’s coming next week. What else do we need to look for in the autonomy markets over the coming week?.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, obviously we’re coming towards the end of the month, so any news out of Tesla and as a result, I’m sure, even though we’ve seen this flurry of announcements that all of these companies in the space probably already, you know, have even more announcements queued up and ready to go, you know, once, , that Tesla, you know, finally launches in, um, you know, in Austin. So.

Grayson Brulte: The announcements are simmering on the back burner. They’re just trying to wait to take the. Wind out of the sails. The future is bright. The future autonomous. The future is robots Walter Piecyk. Until next week.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered