Waymo Redraws the Map, Aurora Goes Driverless, Uber Backs May Mobility to Challenge the Autonomy Duopoly

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo newly announced potential strategic partnership with Toyota to develop personally owned autonomous vehicles, signaling a major shift in its strategy.

Also this week, Aurora achieved a massive milestone by launching fully driverless commercial trucking operations, completing over 1,200 autonomous miles. Just as Uber continues to expand their autonomy ecosystem by partnering with May Mobility to bring their autonomous vehicles onto the Uber network in Arlington, Texas.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Key Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[01:00] Waymo’s “Pivot” with Toyota

Waymo announced a “potential strategic relationship” with Toyota to develop personally owned autonomous vehicles. This move is considered a significant “pivot” from its perceived strategy of focusing on a robo-taxi fleet, either through its own Waymo One service or in partnership with Uber. The announcement is described as a “preliminary agreement,” which suggests there is no formal deal yet and that it may have been released prematurely to get ahead of competitors like Tesla.

[05:00] Industry Ramifications of the Waymo-Toyota Deal

This partnership is expected to force a pivot throughout the industry, putting pressure on other OEMs to define their autonomy plans. It specifically calls into question the strategies of companies like Ford, which has reportedly scaled back its autonomous vehicle programs. The shift toward personal AV ownership is viewed as a “structural change” that could reduce the number of vehicles households need to purchase. The move also serves as a market validation for companies with a licensing-focused business model, such as Nuro and Wayve.

[08:50] Is Waymo One Toast?

The new focus on personal car ownership raises serious questions about the long-term viability of Waymo One, Google’s owned-and-operated robo-taxi fleet. The hosts speculate that the Waymo One concept could be “toast” and compare the strategy to Google Fiber, which was used to stimulate the market rather than to compete directly with incumbents everywhere. This pivot may make a partnership with a ride-hailing company like Uber more likely for handling network operations.

[13:05] Managing Personally-Owned Autonomous Vehicles

The conversation explores the significant logistical challenges of personally owned AVs, including how they will be managed, maintained, and insured. Owners will likely need to pay for a subscription service that provides remote assistance when a vehicle gets stuck. Maintenance, such as sensor calibration and cleaning, will create a new ecosystem opportunity for service providers. This creates a model for recurring, high-margin revenue through multiple subscriptions for services like connectivity, autonomous software, and insurance.

[18:45] Aurora’s Driver-Out Launch

Aurora achieved a major industry milestone by launching driver-out commercial operations for autonomous trucking. In partnership with Uber Freight, an Aurora truck operating on the PACCAR Peterbilt platform completed over 1,200 fully autonomous miles with no human in the cab. With this accomplishment complete, investors are now looking for the next catalyst, such as a clearer revenue model and a plan to scale the fleet of trucks.

[25:35] Uber Backs May Mobility

Uber is partnering with May Mobility to add its autonomous vehicles to the Uber ride-hailing network, with an initial launch planned for Arlington, Texas. This move aligns with Uber’s strategy of creating an open ecosystem with multiple AV technology partners rather than developing its own stack. The partnership is a significant win for May Mobility, which is currently raising its Series E funding round and has a deep relationship with Toyota for its vehicle platform.

[33:00] The Great Highway Unlock

Waymo appears to be aggressively preparing to launch its service on highways, a move referred to as “the great highway unlock”. Waymo vehicles have recently been spotted testing on major freeways, including I-95 in Miami and I-80 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Adding highway capability is expected to dramatically improve trip efficiency, potentially cutting a 45-minute trip in Los Angeles down to just 20 minutes. The hosts predict this expansion could happen as soon as this summer.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt, the autonomy markets are taking off like a Ferrari off the start line. News and information is flying around everywhere. Are we getting to the point where. Perhaps we have to make this two shows a week. I’m unsure, but anything’s possible. But to our listeners and viewers, we do commit to you every Saturday. Walter Piecyk and I will continue to break down the autonomy markets. What do you think, Walter Piecyk two? Or should we stick with one?

Walter Piecyk: I think, to your point, it’s, and especially given the earnings week, I’ve just had to deal with the thought of doing two podcasts in a week. I. In my case three ’cause I already have the Light Shed podcast. I think that would be too much. But you’re right, listeners can be assured and if you follow me on Twitter, like I say every Saturday, ’cause that Grayson is what you define as a weekly podcast, not every couple of weeks, every Saturday we will try and be here dropping episodes for you on the autonomy space.

Grayson Brulte: Perhaps the fourth time’s the charm. I do three as well, so perhaps fourth. You never know. But what we do know. The news flowed this week. Late in the week, Aurora came out with the big reveal, which we properly called here in Autonomy Markets, that they’re gonna launch drive route commercial operations. Earlier in the week, Waymo was on defense. The pivot was real, as we called it. Last week, they announced, and I’m gonna quote this year, a potential strategic relationship with Toyota to develop personally owned autonomous vehicles. Is this a announcement to take some of the heat off of Tesla, or is there something more here?

Walter Piecyk: First, I wanna address the pivot because I think we used the word pivot. We got some feedback on that. Oh, this is not a pivot. You know, this is they, they talked about doing private ownership. Um, years ago. I mean, when you get to the point where you’re announcing a, a deal or a preliminary agreement, um, with one of the largest OEMs in the country, and the common consensus in the market you know, doing robotaxis. The only question was like, is it Waymo one or are you partnering with Uber? So to, to go down this route of private is certainly a pivot and an evolution that I think wasn’t really anticipated. So that’s huge news. Now, to your point on the preliminary agreement, I mean, preliminary agreement means like there is no for formal agreement, and to me that reflects like we needed to get something in the market. You have Uber’s got, Uber’s got earnings up. next week, the bigger kind of, you know, event that’s kinda looming and coming towards us Tesla. Excuse me. Yeah, Tesla launching in Austin in, in June. So maybe these types of things, you know, motivated the companies to try and get something in, in press release

Grayson Brulte: Reading the tea leaves, well, this seemed rushed and listening over and over and over again to the replace of alphabet’s Q1 earnings call. Perhaps Sundar slipped when he made that and they had to accelerate this press release even though it was not fully baked. Am I reading that right?

Walter Piecyk: I I don’t know. Um, But I don’t know if it feels rushed. It just feels premature. Um. Again, but this is a major strategic decision for the company to make, to indicate to the market that they, in fact, will be willing to license it. I mean, Google stock has not been doing well. You can’t blame it on the group at Waymo. You can blame it on the fact that Cha BT is coming for your search Um, So I think they need announcements for um, and indicating that you would license the technology, which would be less capital intensive than owning. in some way operating a large robotaxi um, maybe was, was, you know, hopeful of the company to try and get some more positive light

Grayson Brulte: You have to get positive. What I asked this in this week in the In the Autonomy Economy newsletter, when’s the last time you used Google for a query? The results that I got back, not good. Most individuals are using. Grok, or they’re using Chat GPT. When this announcement came, Tesla stock traded down 5%. Our investors now realizing that the Tesla’s biggest competitor will be Waymo.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I don’t, Tesla stock is so volatile and you know, every day someone’s trying to force a press report about, uh, Elon that is. quickly denied. I mean, I think yesterday they were saying that they were trying to get him out at Tesla, which not only did Elon deny, but the board itself denied. So I don’t think we can, we can look at Tesla’s stock and movement. And also I would say that that management team the owner, uh, Elon, is not gonna be impacted by their strategic decisions about whether Waymo does something or Aurora does something or whatever. They’re plowing forward. They are believers uh, plans to, to deliver autonomy to the market. And, and not for nothing to the Elon haters out there, but when Elon went out and talked about private ownership of Teslas, you know, many people kinda ridiculed that as a crazy idea. So now you effectively have a validation in the market where Waymo and two respected large brands in the market are effectively saying that that is our end here, um, in terms of what they wanna accomplish. And, and then getting back to the very first question again, Grayson, which is, was it premature? Maybe, but if you’re just signaling to the market that, Hey, we’re Google, this is Toyota. We want to get to, to privately autonomous vehicles, and we’re not talking about some random autonomy company. We’re talking about Waymo, where people can get into a car today and go to sleep and do have true that is a momentous occasion regardless of where they are in the stage of

Grayson Brulte: True. That’s very true. If and when they do sign that potential strategic. Agreement. Does that force a pivot throughout the rest of the industry where you have ramifications that go far and wide?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I would Absolutely. I think that’s already happening. I mean, we’re seeing announcements it feels like every other day, which is why you were joking earlier about do, um, two podcasts a week. I mean, the question I have is. not new to the game. Right. Toyota has a relationship with may mobility, which we will talk Um, You know, they have a relationship with Aurora. Um, and Aurora just had a, a major milestone, which we will talk about later. Toyota’s got, is deep in this. Where are the other OEMs and does it put pressure on them? I think it was like Ford that I think Backburnered a lot of, of their autonomous, um, or even their a DAS plans in their you know, should there be, or is there probably at, in the boardrooms and at the level, uh, level, a lot of questions, um, being asked about what their future is because, you know, if we’re talking um, autonomous ownership, you know, this is a structural change to the industry. I mean, if you have a car that can drive you on your commute in the morning and then go home and be available. For other members of your family, it reduces the number of cars you have to purchase. It’s

Grayson Brulte: it’s a game, a changing moment on the Ford thing. Pete Bigelow texted me from automotive news today and said, what’s going on? Ford shut down their automotive electrical platform that was built by Doug Fields, ex Apple built the for shut it down. Their autonomy program is all shut down. Which leaves no path for forward in autonomy. But licensing does this validate, Nuro’s, pivot to licensing and Wayve’s business models just to purely focus on licensing? Is this a another validation in the market?

Walter Piecyk: I think, I mean, obviously depending on what your bias is, you could try and use this to validate whatever you want. To me, the primary one is. Pri private ownership in terms of all these other companies. You know, everyone’s making decisions and this is not the only business model that I think, you know, can or is gonna, is gonna work. There’s uh, and, and there’s disadvantage. It’s just, it just puts more pressure on perhaps OO other OEMs to find additional partners. And I think as we’ve talked about on this podcast, and as I’ve written in some recent notes, the key, I think the key thing to consider is that we haven’t seen any exclusivity. So it’s that there’s gonna be multiple partnerships on both sides, meaning May Mobility using Uber and Lyft, know, Toyota using multiple technology partners, Uber, you know, using multiple technology partners. So I think everyone’s gonna want to place their bets. Maybe you have one really strong bet and then you have others that are at a, at a minimum, a stalking horse. But maybe you just know. Uh, which solution is gonna, is gonna ch is gonna win at the end of the day. Like, and again, we’ve talked about this on many episodes for a long time listeners, about how AI and what I’m calling Autonomy 2.0 and how that’s changing the pace and the cost of development.

Grayson Brulte: It’s exciting times. You’re right. You, you want a test. But I have to ask this because let’s go back in history to 2020. Waymo signed an exclusive deal with Volvo cars to be the L four provider. Nothing came of that. That’s five years. Will Toyota be the same thing in five years or, or is Waymo really gonna get the rack together and do something this time?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I don’t know if, first of all, this is exclusive. Um, so I don’t think it’s exclusive, I guess. It could evolve that way, right? It’s a preliminary agreement. don’t know. We could go that route. Grayson, the, the topic I’m more interested in, in talking about is that, you know, if this is a kind of pivot towards private ownership, is Waymo one as a concept, meaning Google having this massive robotaxi fleet, is that toast Now, is this like, okay, we have this path on licensing and selling cars, and does this help maybe Uber. Become more likely of a partner in, you know, in whatever markets Google decides to go to. It almost kind of reminds me of Google Fiber. Google Fiber was building fiber to compete with the cable companies in DSL they originally started it was like, oh my God, Google is gonna overbuild everybody and be a competitor. And really all they did was do it in a couple of markets to inspire capital investment to get regulators to put more pressure on. You know, building out fiber and I think that was ultimately successful. You got fiber building from, you know, and t and, and you know, private equity and T-Mobile’s funding some stuff. maybe this is kind of a signal that Waymo one is really not the long term strategy for that company. What do you think,

Grayson Brulte: I was involved in a Google fiber deal back in the day, and I will tell you point blank, it became very obvious to us after a few months that Google Fiber had no interest. They were using us as a. Bargaining chip, but they did build out Austin. They did build, build out really Provo, Utah. They built out some really strange markets.

Walter Piecyk: Kansas City Kansas City was an early one. Yep.

Grayson Brulte: So they built out these strange markets, re commercialized them. But what Waymo One is doing, they’re building out strategic markets. So I’m unsure now. I’m gonna put the crazy hat on. Do we get to a point where. Alphabet perhaps sells Waymo to Uber at some point, and Mees the Uber Merchs the Waymo one app into Uber.

Walter Piecyk: I mean, that’s certainly possible. I, I don’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, . I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point, but, that’s why this, that’s why this preliminary agreement, I think is so interesting. It, it gives you at least a little better insight or, or a reason to rethink what your preconceived notions may have been about what Google’s longer term, strategy is. The thing that I’ve been focused on is getting more cars, so. I’m hopeful that when this preliminary agreement continues and can, can, and discussions continue to get to final point, that part of that is, Hey Toyota, send us some cars that we can either outfit or put on a, you know, development timeline to integrate, you know, for use, whether it’s in our network or if you know. Uber wants to run the network and you have a third party, own the network. So cars I think is, it would be interesting. There was no, obviously no mention of that. And of course the relevance of this, as our long-term listeners know, it goes back to the unfor error Waymo, of selecting Zeer, a Chinese EV car manufacturer, which obviously could face some, some, you know, restrictions in terms of even receiving them, let alone how much they’re gonna cost given that they’re made in China.

Grayson Brulte: As Waymo goes down this pivot. We have public data that says in 2026 they’ll begin taking ownership possession of the Hyundai vehicles and, and they’ll be testing them with more ramping up in 27. Could we potentially see a follow on release where Hyundai is going to work with Waymo to build a personally owned Ionic five autonomous vehicle?

Walter Piecyk: That is a great question. And if I am senior management or in charge of that partnership at Hyundai, aren’t I getting on the call with, with Waymo, with Google and mean like, what the fuck? Like I was supposed to be doing, you know, vehicles for you to have in your fleet and now you’re gonna be selling cars that are gonna compete with me on that side. So, , absolutely. Like why wouldn’t, why would you go through that whole technology, , integration that Hyundai is doing? We’ve seen the cars, we saw ’em in CES, I think we’ve seen some, some cars on Reddit. , and not try and benefit from being able to sell those, , to your customers.

Grayson Brulte: I’ve been saying this for years personally, autonomous vehicles are great, but there’s a backside to it. How are these vehicles gonna be managed? How are they gonna be maintained and how are they gonna be insured? What’s gonna happen? Who’s gonna manage that whole backside of this?

Walter Piecyk: That’s a great question. It’s one of the dozen questions that I think comes out of this, this Waymo and Toyota announcement. That’s why it’s so monumental. But to your point, like the, the belief is that Waymo obviously has. Remote people that when the Waymo gets stuck, they can figure out a way out of that situation. Elon said the same thing about how their cars, when they launch in Austin are gonna work. So if you privately own this, you’re gonna have to subscribe to something that will deal with the car when they get in those situations. And then on the maintenance, like, you know, I’ve been to the depots where, where Waymo’s are, are maintained, there’s calibrations that are done, sensors that are, that are cleaned. , or broken, you know, this provides one of those ecosystem opportunities for someone to make a lot of money in terms of the servicing of these vehicles for that private owner, you know, to, to either outsource that or I’m sure there’s gonna be A-D-I-Y-Y opportunity, for some consumers as well.

Grayson Brulte: If you look at what your partner rich covers all the time, it could be a streaming bundle. You get your vehicle subscription, and then you get your cleaning subscription. You get your insurance subscription powered by Koop. Could we see that?

Walter Piecyk: I pay whatever I pay 10 bucks for, I think media in my Tesla. I pay another 99 bucks for autonomous driving. I’m probably gonna be able to get discounted insurance rates. So yes, there’s multiple different subscriptions. That can be attached here, which is great, right? That is a recurring revenue, a high margin business that can get a decent valuation. And in terms of how that, that industry is serviced, you know, there are companies working very hard today in the background that have this long-term thinking, that are trying to get their, you know, assets in the right locations, , and their partnerships with, you know, with Uber, with Lyft, with these, these companies. , to benefit from that over the long term, whether it’s private ownership or robotaxis

Grayson Brulte: you and I have decades of following. markets Press release has come. Sometimes they’re strategic. Was this press release put off for strategic reasons? Was Waymo trying to bring somebody to the bargaining table, do a deal or do something? Was there more to it that meets the eye since it was so vague?

Walter Piecyk: We just talked about the impact we think it would have on Hyundai, but what about the other OEMs that have no partnerships or that are going down a strategic route like Ford that you talked about that is not positive. For the rest of the industry, maybe this is a wake up call to get them to the table. And maybe the next leak we’re gonna hear that Waymo is contemplating some type of exclusivity with Toyota for some version of this and as well as Hyundai to get more OEMs. But I think in, in, in case, Waymo’s case, again going back to the Google fiber, if they’re trying to affect change in the market, to benefit them and their technology. This is to try and get more OEMs to approach them and do a deal like they’re, they’re contemplating to do with, with Toyota. ’cause that would obviously be huge for Waymo to sign multiple, multiple deals with, with the OEMs. And by the way, I don’t think that they, Waymo would be able to do an exclusivity. Just like I didn’t think that they could force Toyota to only be able to put onto a Waymo one network. Why? Because the FTC is gonna say, well, you’re using your market power. You’re using this great AI intelligence, even though they’re a map focused company to, to, you know, have an advantage to lock people out of these OEM relationships. So I, I think that there’s still an opportunity, for them, for other technology companies to partner with OEM and maybe for that reason, that’s why Toyota was the best choice because you can’t attack Waymo and Toyota. Toyota already has other technology partnerships, you know, versus have they done something with Ford that has none.

Grayson Brulte: You know who’s gonna be the biggest lose. And all this. When the pivot comes to fruition, gm, they blinked too early by shutting down crews and gonna be left lot in autonomy partners. This market shifts towards pursuing autonomous vehicles, but yet they give Paul Jacobson their CFO, all this credit. Oh look, we’re increasing the buybacks. Buybacks do not equal innovation end of the day, and it’s gonna come back to haunt ’em, and it’s gonna cost them billions more for that strategic error they made.

Walter Piecyk: Share. Repurchase and dividends are when you don’t have an opportunity to invest for growth. And sometimes investing is just so that you don’t decline. And in GM’s case, to your point, they have an opportunity to invest for growth. And look, it could be that this agreement. Makes them pivot again and start to look for, you know, more technology partnerships. Again, whether it’s neuro or mobility or Aurora, I mean, there’s a host of opportunities out there, out, out there for them. Obviously you’re gonna face ridicule on this podcast ’cause you, you know, you’re kind of, you’re doing it, you’re not doing it, you’re doing it again. but ultimately, if that’s the right decision, I agree with you that, you know, share repurchases. Probably not the best course of action if you’re an auto OEM in this moment in time,

Grayson Brulte: taking the Telco corner here. GM wants to be Verizon. I don’t see any other way around it.

Walter Piecyk: at least for with Verizon, you could, you could argue that the management team literally doesn’t have anything else to invest for in terms of growth. I mean, they tried media and, and that was a failure. They are investing, or at and t’s investing in fiber, but. In that case, when you don’t, when you have no growth and you’ve got no opportunity to stimulate your growth, then then yeah, give money back to shareholders in the form of dividends or share repurchase.

Grayson Brulte: That’s the car side gm they’ve gotta figure out before Detroit becomes Foxconn City, but on the autonomous trucking side of the house. We’re getting enormous growth while you had this giant countdown clock going just like fla flave, but it said, well, it’s a roller countdown clock. And you were, you were counting down the days and you were counting down the time and where are they gonna do it? And lo and behold, we correctly called it, furthermore, we correctly called that they were gonna launch on the PACCAR Peterbilt truck. Successful driver route commercial operations, and I want to give credit to Chris Sterling and Nat, the whole team over there. They didn’t just go down, did it once over 1200 fully autonomous miles with nobody in the cab. Aurora, congratulations. You did it. Now the hard work begins. What are your thoughts Walter Piecyk?

Walter Piecyk: There was a lot of pressure on this management team for sure, when we were down at for, for Fort Worth, and you had, you know, just a great, group of people representing that industry. There was a lot of focus and optimism, for Aurora. I. I think they, they, from an, from an investor standpoint, I mean you see the stock’s down 5%. Obviously there’s a sell on the news component to this. wouldn’t necessarily have waited till the very last week when you had already delayed things from late 2024 and not announced it to till May 1st. I would think it might have looked better. you kind of, Hey, you know, every, of course we were gonna do it in April and announce it and do it in mid-April. But look, you know, it’s a, it’s a company and a management team focused on safety and doing it the right way. And if that’s when it was done, that’s when it was, was done. And to your point, congrats to them. Okay, but now what’s next? Right? So this is like, it’s always onto the next, right? This is a great accomplishment, but you know, now investors want to feel like, what’s our next path? What’s our next catalyst that. Gives them confidence that they can convert this into a revenue EBITDA and free cash flow generating machine. , that can justify the valuation of the company

Grayson Brulte: There are business review calls coming up on May 8th. Do we get any insight on that call for what’s next?

Walter Piecyk: if possible. I don’t expect anything more other than to talk to reiterate that, look, hey, we wanna work on, you know, doing it all these weather conditions, which doesn’t seem like that should be a heavy lift. I don’t think that’s gonna, people are gonna get too excited, like, oh great, you can drive in the rain, , getting tens of trucks. If there’s any way to increase that to more, again, I know you’re focused on Paccar. That was a great call. We had, you know, had great conversations with Volvo. I am personally interested in how that Volvo relationship and when that Volvo relationship will evolve. , for sure. I don’t know if the market in general cares about those, that level of, of weeds I guess I would call it, uh, in the company. But, you know, and I think maybe getting be a better sense of the revenue model and seeing some revenue ramp is, is gonna be, very important.

Grayson Brulte: and I need to highlight this ’cause it’s really important. We talked about it on past episodes, continental, and that extremely valuable deal that Aurora Cut played a huge role in making this happen. And Continental deserves a lot of the credit for making this milestone possible. The launch partner for Aurora. Was Uber Freight, Olivia Hu really, really well done. Congratulations. Walter Piecyk, you and I have talked about this offline quite a bit. The market doesn’t give Uber credit for the Uber freight business. They report May 7th. Does Dara make a statement about this and how they’re gonna grow the Uber freight business?

Walter Piecyk: Dar has given himself a lot of things to talk about on this earnings call. , yeah, I think that’s gonna be one of it. They own, Dara used to be on the board of this company. , they own, what is it, like 28% of the company? This is where the Uber, a TG guys go, which in some way was Dara kind of pushing out like the Travis era stuff. Uh, but still this is a close, partner for Uber. So absolutely it’s gonna be profile. I mean, Uber Freight is a smaller percentage of the overall business. , for sure, but, and hopefully, I don’t think he’ll do this, but hopefully maybe Dara will talk about, you know, the broader opportunity that could benefit Uber even more greatly, which is the fact that Aurora’s got a Toyota relationship themselves, where they plan to integrate their Aurora driver into Toyota Siennas. That can be then used, you know, in the, in the Uber fleet. So I hope Dara talks about that. I don’t know if he will. If I get a question on the call, I’ll ask it.

Grayson Brulte: Okay. To the Uber folks that, listen, please let Walter Piecyk ask a question ’cause we know you listen. So that’s, that’s my, my, my pitch. Well the, the autonomous trucking market’s heating up kodiak’s in the process of going public this week plus put out video, they were testing on a track, fully, driver route autonomous, preparing for their 2027 launch. Are we good to get an inflection point for autonomous trucking here?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, this definitely increases the profile. I can just tell you from, from the investor standpoint, just these announcement this week, the dialogue in terms of who are these companies again, and we’re gonna have an opportunity to meet with, , Don Burnett from Kodiak and the plus AI guys, , in a couple of weeks when, when they’re in New York. , you know, I think there has to be more investor knowledge in, , investigating the size of the trucking market because it is huge. , it doesn’t go without saying what I said before, though, that, you know, autonomy technology expand to other vehicles. Like if you’re getting it to work, you’re gonna, and you can make it work on a class, a gigantic truck, to work on a highway. Think about that, the speed and the weight that, that thing’s traveling and the ability to kind of pivot and do cars. I mean, you would think that there’s some applicability. So, , I, I, to, to, that was a long answer. For, for your question. The short answer is A absolutely. , and hopefully the timing is good for Kodiak, who’s, you know, in the process of doing a SPAC transaction to go public, to raise incremental capital.

Grayson Brulte: Right now, Aurora’s driver route public roads. Kodiak is driver route in the Permian base. And later this year bought auto looks, all signs points to them being the third one to join them for driver route. It’s a very big milestone. It seems that towards the end of this year into 2027, there’s gonna be a lot, a lot of movement coming in the autonomous trucking industry.

Walter Piecyk: Again, you’re going back to our primary theme. This is the common theme we’re gonna have to go to two times a week. Yeah. We’re just Grayson and you and I are, and especially, you know, the great people in Fort Worth, , that, that hosted us. You know, certainly very optimistic about the market opportunity that can exist there and, and, you know. Helps out companies like JB Hunt, , where great people there that, that we’ve spoken with as, as well as, you know, Amazon, UPS, the, the entire ecosystem there. It’s, it’s a big opportunity.

Grayson Brulte: Autonomy is an ecosystem going, going back to the car side and and going to Uber, Uber’s building out an autonomy ecosystem. Dara deserves a ton of credit for executing on an autonomy strategy of building that fragmentation. I. Just today, right before we recorded, you sent a WhatsApp, you go boom, we called it, we did call. We went on a pretty good calling it role here. I gotta say

Walter Piecyk: It is not we, Grayson Grayson. It’s not we. It’s you called this one in terms of adding Uber. To the mix for main mobility.

Grayson Brulte: that’s very kind of you. Well, we’re still a team, so we called it. May Mobility is now going to be operating on the Uber network, starting in Arlington, Texas later this year. Ed Prya, buddy, well done. We visited you in Ann Arbor and Marsh, Walter Piecyk and I, and then when we were in Texas. I’m gonna let Walter Piecyk take this over now. He went and checked you out in Arlington, Texas where you’re gonna deploy. What did you learn when you were down in Arlington? Walter Piecyk.

Walter Piecyk: So Arlington is, I think that’s a state, state or someone, someone, federal government basically pays one ticket price for the contract and they run it. And the students were getting it for free. It wasn’t the same hardware and software that, that we experienced in Ann Arbor. So I, what I suspect is. you know, when they convert those cars and drivers and those operations effectively to Uber, you’ll probably get some hardware and software updates there to make it more consistent with the experience that both of us had in Ann Arbor. And to be clear to our listeners, we sat in a car and there was no one in the driver’s seat and it drove around Ann Arbor. , so that was driver out obviously not taking paid rides. I, I should have given ’em a dollar and said, here’s your first paid ride. , so Arlington I think is just, they’re picking up on an existing contract, but the bigger issue is like, look, you’ve, it shows how a technology company, you know, can partner, can have multiple, ride share partners, and that’s fine for both of those companies. I’m sure Uber and Lyft don’t care like they want. Technology companies like Main Mobility to Succeed. So there’s no downside I don’t think, for them to both be using them perhaps in different markets.

Grayson Brulte: Toyota’s an investor in May Mobility. They have a manufacturing partnership. They’re building them custom. Toyota Sienna minivans. And I wanna highlight, ’cause there’s a very interesting language in the Uber press release here. It said May will be putting on the platform American made hybrid Electric Toyota Sienna Autonoma mass vehicles. The key word American made is this Uber in May understanding tariffs or is this Uber signaling to the market? They understand that Waymo’s in trouble with the Zeekr.

Walter Piecyk: I think that’s just, you know, underscoring stuff that’s important, , in the current environment. , I’m not sure that that was a key driver of the deal, but you play to your strengths. But look, the important thing here is, as you pointed out, is the relationship that Toyota already has with May. they have a roadmap, roadmap, to go from like what is currently the Waymo type model where you’re getting a car and then outfitting it with your tech stack, to having it come off the, the manufacturing line. And, and that’s a relationship that exists and, and that will, you know, if they’re successful and continue. with those things coming off the line in Ohio, uh, at some point. So that’s, that speaks to scale. And most importantly, that speaks to price. So for all those people out there, they’re constantly like, oh, you know, Waymo can’t, know, make a, or the Waymo car is too expensive because you’re looking at the current state car with put on top. Now the electronics get cheaper. It gets integrated at at, at the manufacturing plant that’s gonna cut the cost of those cars. Dramatically and obviously improve the return , dynamics. And then most importantly, look main mobility’s in the middle of a Series E capital raise. What a great time for an announcement with a partner like Uber. To be able to kind of, you know, add more capital into that raise, , and get this company going. You, you, you joke about, , ed Olson Little Engine. They could, I mean little Engine, they could, I know that’s your joke, but this is, you know, they’ve done a lot with not a lot of money and you know, this is gonna help to really, I think, buttress them forward.

Grayson Brulte: They’ve done a lot, but I’m gonna highlight and emphasis this. They’ve gotten driver out. We were both in the vehicle. There was no driver, there was no remote driver, there was no tele ops. It was full driver out. They did it, they accomplished it. And here’s another thing. They can do it in the snow. It doesn’t have to be a perfect day. That’s a big, huge accomplishment.

Walter Piecyk: I agree. And, but I will say this, let’s, let’s flip this to Tesla, which has not done driver out yet, officially. I use my FSD 12.6, not 13. As our longtime listeners know, I don’t have the most recent hardware in dense fog, and it works. And I know Elon was asked about this in the last call and talked about, I don’t know whether it was him or one of his compatriots talked about how the cameras work in dense fog. I think investors maybe have gotten too overly concerned about the variety of weather conditions restricting whether this industry can more move forward. Clearly they’re doing it at Kodiak. They’re definitely doing it at Maine Mobility. And I’m Grayson, I’m sure you’ve been on other visits. The, with other companies that have similar, similarly achieved this,, this milestone.

Grayson Brulte: Bad weather. The vehicles are doing it. Waymo can drive in snow, they can drive in a hundred degree heat and. In the desert in in California. The interesting thing about the timing of this deal with May mobility, they’ve been very public that they’re gearing up and Curtis Hodge is doing a great job building up may mobility to launch in the Lyft platform in Atlanta. Later this year, I’ll go on and probably say by the summer, now you’ve got an Uber relationship and when David Richard does an interview, he did one last week with on CNBC, we, he wouldn’t even say the word Uber. It was like a dirty word. I. What impact is this gonna have on May’s deal with Lyft?

Walter Piecyk: Obviously it’s positive, right? ’cause it reduces the risk when you have another partner out there that’s, that’s helping to drive revenue and cash flow, you know, for that company. So I think that that’s a positive. I guess maybe you’d be concerned that there’d be a struggle over, you know, who’s gonna get, , access to the cars that are coming off the line. But given this Toyota relationship. And what we’ve heard from a mobility, these guys expect to have tens of thousands of cars in on the road. By 2029, with that said, there are practical considerations. That have to be made, meaning like if you only have a certain number of cars, you know that maybe you just restrict it on a market by market basis, meaning I do Atlanta with Lyft, with Uber, and flip them back and forth, ultimately evolve it to allow them both to operate in the same markets. How do you think that plays out?

Grayson Brulte: I think you’re gonna get to the point where certain markets are exclusive. So Lyft has the Atlanta market with main mobility. Perhaps the Nashville market is with Uber, and then perhaps the Denver markets with Lyft. And then the LA markets with Uber. That very well could happen otherwise there’s competing against themselves, and it goes back to the early days of ride share where a driver operated for both services and we saw the tensions that were there. I think it’s something that we’re gonna have to learn and we’re gonna have to see how it evolves. And when we look at this technology evolving, the great highway unlock is coming. When you and I visited May, we saw they’re preparing to go on highways this week. There were several photos popping up on Reddit where Waymo is now testing on the highways outside of Nashville. They’re testing on I 95, which I call Mario Kart land in Miami. ’cause people know one speed fast and faster. Two speeds. Actually, and then we had a, uh, on a I 80 in San Francisco in the Bay Area. We had a zeer testing on the highway. When do you think this highway locks them coming? ’cause, based on all the photos that we’re seeing, Waymo appears to be ramping up testing.

Walter Piecyk: I can’t even remember what my initial prediction, what it was on this, but whatever it was, I’m moving it up and I’ll use as my, my first evidence, the fact that they just put out a preliminary agreement with Toyota, which is reflective. I, I think of the pressure that they’re feeling to get announcements and, and move the technology forward. So, you know, I don’t know, like, first of all, do. where, where are they on the timing, do you think, with the airports? And let’s assume that for whatever reason they can’t get the, an airport drop off area. Do they wait for that before they do highways or just push forward with highways?

Grayson Brulte: They push forward with highways. Right now, the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona, you can pick up curbside in a Waymo that’s fully operational, I believe in California, and when I say the airports, it’s gonna be San Jose, L-A-X-S-F-O. By the end of the year, a highway unlock will come This summer, we had a report in Politico today that Waymo has gotten permission to test in Emeryville, California, which is in the East Bay. The interesting connection there. I 80 is the road that connects San Francisco to the East Bay. So, and that’s a highway. So perhaps Waymo’s really gearing up for a larger expansion in California. That highways will unlock.

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, I wonder in, in some cases if they have these islands of, of city coverage like they do right now between San Fran and, and further down the valley, whether you just use the highways. As a way to connect the two, it’s almost kind of like cell phone companies. This is always my example where they’ll light up the highways through rural America and then if there’s a population, then they can build out some additional cell sites there. That, that would seem to make sense. but more importantly, I look at it even within market, Grayson, and I’ll go back to the experience that I had in LA when I was there, checking out the many depots that Waymo had. A 45 minute trip within LA could have been 20 minutes if they were able to, to, uh, hop on that. What is it, the five there, you know, in Santa Monica. , so even that’s just gonna improve the performance of their vehicles within market.

Grayson Brulte: The freeway was the 10 and the, the Santa Monica. They need to unlock that. They need to unlock the 1 0 1 and they need to unlock the 4 0 5. We have proof. Will Coleman, the CEO of Alto, he shared a photo of Waymo testing on the 4 0 5 down by the airport. It’s gonna connect. Communities. What we do know, Waymo is ramping up, they’re scaling up fast. We have unconfirmed reports of thousand plus Jaguar eye paces at a mag factory in Arizona getting ready to be upfitted. Are we getting to the point in the San Francisco Bay area where the only company that will be able to compete in robotaxis with them will be Tesla? Is is Waymo getting that far ahead of the market?

Walter Piecyk: No, they are. ’cause I think there’s a lot of these other technology companies that we talk about every week that are doing partnerships that are, that are followers and perhaps, able to leapfrog them based on the technologies that they’re using and, and the scrappiness of their management teams.

Grayson Brulte: It comes down to management teams, and I have to ask this. Where’s Zoox? Why are we not hearing about it?

Walter Piecyk: Ah, I mean we used to like plug it in ’cause would there’d be some information. I know there was something I saw on LinkedIn in, in Zoox this week down in your neck of the woods. Yeah, I don’t know man. It’s Zoox is, is certainly a head scratcher and certainly someone that has. know, emphasize that they were gonna, they had a do it alone strategy, which now looks quite different, based on all of the partnerships that we’ve seen in this week alone.

Grayson Brulte: The market’s changing. We’re gonna learn a lot. Next week we got Aurora’s earnings call. We have Uber’s earnings call. What else do we need to look for in the economy markets over the next week? Walter Piecyk?

Walter Piecyk: When you just, you just stole my thunder. It’s earnings week. It’s, I had a lot of earnings this week. A lot. Uh, next week, you’re right, Uber, Aurora, Lyft, a couple others for me in, in the TMT space. So it’ll be another busy week and, and who knows, maybe we get freeways unlocked by Waymo.

Grayson Brulte: The rate information is coming out of Waymo. You never know what we’re gonna get, but we do know the autonomy markets will keep on driving autonomously. The future is bright. The future autonomous, the future is drive route. Walt, until next week.