Waymo’s Shocking Data & Uber’s Infrastructure Pivot

Executive Summary

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk dissect Waymo’s impressive autonomous scale, revealing the company uses just 70 remote assistance agents worldwide for 3,000 vehicles. The duo also analyzes Uber’s unexpected $100 million investment into EV charging infrastructure, questioning the future of their “asset-light” strategy. Finally, they cover the latest regulatory hurdles for robotaxis across the US and Tesla’s recent FCC approval for Cybercab wireless charging.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[00:00] Waymo: 70 Remote Agents for 3,000 Cars

Waymo revealed in a memo to Senator Markey that they only have 70 remote assistance agents worldwide to support 3,000 autonomous vehicles on the road.

[04:00] Waymo’s Unforced Error of Outsourcing Remote Assistance to the Philippines

Grayson and Walt discuss Waymo’s decision to locate half of its remote assistance agents in the Philippines, calling it an “unforced error” that invited unnecessary political pushback.

[08:00] SFO Rideshare Volume and Waymo’s Impact on Traditional TNCs

Grayson and Walt analyze data from the San Francisco Gate regarding Uber and Lyft airport rides, estimating that the San Francisco market accounts for half to two-thirds of Waymo’s total national ride volume.

[15:00] New York Governor Hochul Pulls Robotaxi Proposal

New York Governor Kathy Hochul caved to political pressure from special interest groups and pulled a proposal that would have allowed robotaxis to operate outside of New York City.

[20:00] Iowa Lawmakers Push a Driver-In Bill

Iowa lawmakers are advancing bills that would mandate human drivers in autonomous vehicles, highlighting a confusing political landscape where traditional opponents and supposed pro-autonomy groups are aligning.

[23:00] Will the Real Uber Please Stand Up? The $100M Charging Pivot

Will the Real Uber Please Stand Up? The $100M Charging Pivot: Despite repeatedly claiming to be an “asset-light” company, Uber is reportedly spending $100 million to build fast-charging EV stations in Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

[29:00] “Take or Pay” Contracts: Is Uber Blocking Competitors?

Uber’s new charging infrastructure deals appear to involve “take or pay” contracts, raising questions about whether they are leveraging these agreements to block competitors from accessing necessary charging resources.

[32:00] Tesla Cybercab Gets FCC Wireless Charging Approval

The FCC issued an order allowing Tesla to use ultra-wideband radio technology to wirelessly charge the Cybercab using a drive-over charging mat.

[36:00] Tesla NHTSA Exemption

Grayson tempers expectations for the Cybercab, pointing out that Tesla still needs to secure an exemption from NHTSA to legally operate a vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals.

[38:00] Aurora Opens 1,000-Mile Autonomous Trucking Lane

In autonomous trucking news, Aurora opened a new 1,000-mile commercial lane from Texas to Arizona, and Paccar highlighted its partnership with Kodiak in its latest earnings release.

Full Episode Transcript

Grayson Brulte: Walt, during a Senate hearing, we actually learned something in a follow-up testimony to. Senator Markey Waymo revealed some interesting data, a local San Francisco paper, they dug and got some data. Uber says they don’t want to be in the asset business, but yet we get an announcement. They’re going into the asset business. Then in New York, what’s going on? The governor pulled a complete 180. Yes. I like s Oh, no, AVS are bad. That’s not happening. That’s your neck of the woods. There’s a lot going on. But let’s start with the Waymo data. What do you make of this data We learned? +4

Walter Piecyk: to get something valuable out of any Senate hearing is a bit of a stretch. And in this case, and just to be clear, it didn’t happen at the hearing itself, where basically the Waymo Chief Safety Officer had kind of an embarrassing performance. Um, Senator Markey had him on his heels and talking about the remote assistance agents. Some of them being located in the Philippines, which obviously there was grandstanding about that. But the benefit to us here on autonomy markets is we got something we’ve been wanting for a while, which is more data, right? And the more data that we got was Waymo actually disclosing to the Senator and obviously in a, in a, in a, you know, a memo that was made public that there are only 70 remote assistant agents that are on duty worldwide. Half of them, which. Or in the Philippines, which we’ll get to next. But let’s first talk about this 70 for, and by the way, Waymo also updated and said they now have 3000 cars in the road, so there’s only 70 remote assistant agents servicing as a backup. The 3000 cars on the road. What, what is your reaction to that? +4

Grayson Brulte: My reaction is, you need to run for Senate. ’cause we’ve been trying to get this information for a long time. So if you were a sitting member of, of Congress, you could have given it to us. But all, all kidding aside, it’s impressive. You have 3000 vehicles on the road and you have 70. Remote assistance operators. And the interesting thing in the letter to Senator Markey, they’re not, those 70 individuals are not online all the time, so in theory, maybe there’s 40 online at one time, 50 online dime. It’s really, truly impressive and it tells you the quality of the Waymo stack and how far truly advanced it is.+4

Walter Piecyk: I’ve had past discussions with some of these Chinese companies that Uber has recently put forth as their partners. As being, you know, effectively equivalent to Waymo and you know, specifically maybe pony. And what I’ve heard in China, you know, even in what the regulators in China require in terms of remote safety agents to cars on the road, it is a much higher ratio. Meaning many more remote people to the, to the autonomous cars that are on the road than what Waymo, um, has basically disclosed. I’m actually just absolutely shocked that the number is as low as it is, whether it’s 40 or 70, I don’t care if it’s a hundred. I would’ve been shocked by a hundred. The economics there and the kind of the not, I don’t wanna say proof, but like the validation that autonomy is real. Anyone out there saying, oh, these are just remote drivers driving this car. Unless they’re absolutely lying, that goes out the window. Right? 3000 autonomous cars, right? Obviously they’re not always on the road at the same time, but I don’t even care. Cut that in half. Cut that, you know, by 70%. You know, that number of cars for that number of remote drivers is such a, to me, a positive thing about this industry and kind of where the economics can go for it.+4

Grayson Brulte: A hundred percent and I’ll, I’ll say it very bluntly and. Very loudly wa it’s something Waymo should tout. They should be proud of you. You have individuals on both sides of the equation. Oh, their tech’s not advanced. Tech’s not advanced. And you and I know people pile on, but the data that was released to the United States Senate tells you that Waymo is clearly ahead and clearly advanced, and frankly, it is fucking impressive.+3

Walter Piecyk: Now look, the flip side of this is. Why are they bothering having half of these 70 people being in the Philippines? Like literally, what is the cost savings that are possible? And like even if you’re like getting ready to scale up at this point when you’re trying to get approvals and we’ll get to New York later, like why would you have that risk? Which obviously was exploited by Senator Markey at a senator hearing of having half in Philippines. Is it really that hard to find another 35 remote assistance agents in the United States of America? +4

Grayson Brulte: And there’s companies such as Transdev, which is a Waymo partner that can do that. It goes back to this unfortunate situation with Waymo and unforced errors. You have the remote assistance in the Philippines, then you have the Chinese made zeer, another unforced error. The pushback that will probably get well the time zone difference. Well. Folks work the graveyard shift in America. There are individuals that work different odd hours so we can have it here in America, and it would avoid that situation.+4

Walter Piecyk: I mean, a key to the answer here might be, you know, another thing that I know you put your inspector hat on for in this response, which is again, not shocking ’cause I think I had heard this before, don’t remember where, but that these are not, you know, necessarily way more employees. This is a third party, so it’s possible. Waymo contracted with this third party for these remote assistant agents. Didn’t have enough control over them. Just like, you know, you could argue like, when did Apple gain control over what was going on with these manufacturing partners? And it was the third party person that effectively hire the Philippines. You still, your Waymo, you still need to have control over that, know that, and know the kind of political ramifications that you had to deal with in front of the, in front of the Senate.+4

Grayson Brulte: That’s why the inspector had, it goes back to the fine print. All the data that you and I discuss on this podcast is publicly available. We just go through with a fine tooth comb and a magnifying glass in some cases is, I mean, this goes back to your historical world. Well, checks and balances. Where’s the checks and balance system as some of these decisions are being made, because they could have avoided a lot of heartache, a lot of very negative press, and this now becomes a talking point for individuals and organizations that want to see autonomous vehicle stop. Look at this. They’re sending jobs overseas, and it’s just not a very good narrative.+4

Walter Piecyk: Not good, but let’s not lose the, the underlying positive here in terms of Waymo and frankly, the industry. 70 remote assistant agents. For 3000 cars. I mean, clappy hat for that, clappy hat, for that racing. Get the clappy hat out that that’s amazing. And by the way, the 3000 vehicles, the last update we had was 2,500. I’ve talked about it doubling to more than, you know, 6,000 I think vehicles by year end. So if there are 3000 basically now, and everything we heard last week in terms of what’s gonna come out of the Mes Mesa plant, what’s gonna come from Hyundai? Um, well on their way to hitting my, hitting my target.+4

Grayson Brulte: The clappy hat’s here. Waymo, you get the clap. You did a wonderful. Wonderful job. Now, Walt, here’s the question. We always look to benchmark things. Should this Waymo number 70 to 3000 be the new benchmark? And if so, should other robotaxi companies release the data so we can properly compare? +3

Walter Piecyk: I don’t know if I’m Waymo. First of all, I’m not sure why you were sitting on this info. Absolutely. I’m like touting this and anyone else that kind of emerges, demanding that they also release what these ratios are. Right? This is certainly a relative validation point, um, to other players in the market. Um, anyway, well done. But that wasn’t the only data we got from, from Waymo this week. There was a, I guess, an article in a, a newspaper called the San Francisco Gate, I believe. Um, I think it was mostly talking about, basically about Uber. Um, so we can kind of match this to some Waymo opportunities, but they bas they were specifically touting the amount of revenue that Uber and Lyft generate for the airports. ’cause it’s $6 a ride and there’s 10 million rides and you know, for last year, 60 million to the airport, yada, yada, yada. Let’s, let’s dissect some of the data. San Francisco said the San Francisco eight said Uber and Uber and Lyft do about a million rides per month to the airport. So they’re getting back to like whatever, some type of pre COVID levels. They’re making some relationship there. There’s obviously slower months. Let’s assume it’s at like 800,000, um, per month when you kind of average out big months versus low months. And they also said that the airport represents about 15% of total rides for, for these companies. So if you just do basic math, 800,000. 15% of about 5.3 million rides per month. So then you just take that, you know, total rides back out that 800 and you’re left with four and a half million non-air airport rides that Uber and Lyft are doing. Now we’ve, we’ve seen, you know, yip it data and other people refer to Waymo being 20 to 25% of the San Francisco market. So if you just take that four and a half million rides, which are the non-air airport rides. ’cause remember Waymo doesn’t have or didn’t have for most of 25 any type of real airport volume. So if you take 20 to 25% share, which is, you know what some of these data companies have referred to, of that four half million, that implies that they’re doing about Waymo 200 to 260,000 rides a week in San Francisco. Now we also know. And in Waymo’s latest update nationally, they’re doing 400,000. So if you’re using this math from that, from, and look, there’s always rounding and things like that. But if you’re doing, and if I’m doing my math right, I’m sure I can always screw up my math. Hopefully not. Um, it basically implies that San Francisco is like 50 to 60 to, you know, a half to two to two thirds of total Waymo rides nationally. I mean, does that surprise you? +4

Grayson Brulte: No, especially when you look at the entire base. Area going all the way down to San Jose now because the Bay Area and the Valley are tech forward and they’re early adopters, and let’s not forget that’s where Waymo decided to launch their service. So no first market, first mover advantage, no surprise to it. Over time, will that number go down? Yes. The number that will go up, they’re gonna continue to eat into traditional ride share, especially as they get to the garage. And if somehow some way they’re able to get to the curb, you’re gonna watch that number go even higher.+4

Walter Piecyk: I mean, you mentioned the Bay Area and that’s where maybe these numbers get a little funky. ’cause what is it, San Francisco like? When people have talked about the 20 to 25%, I think they were referring to San Francisco proper as opposed to the Bay Area. So the numbers can be a little squirrely, but even if you go to the low end of that and even lower, you know, you talk about like Waymo hitting scale, but if you’re like all of your rides are not all, but half of your rides are basically in San Francisco, then you again reflect back on what our friends at Uber said on the earnings call, which is like, oh, San Francisco. Is different than la. We have tech forward people here and this, that and the other thing. And saying that you can’t extrapolate what the great people of San Francisco do to other cities around the country. You know, this provides a little evidence to that saying like, has Waymo really proved out if half of the rides are still basically in this, in this first market, it’s actually not the first market, but in San Francisco.+4

Grayson Brulte: the reason why I believe that a majority of those rises are in that market. One, the individuals that live there, but two, I also think it’s the, it’s the market that has the most vehicles. And over time, as Nashville comes online, Miami opens to the public, other markets open to the public. You’re going to see that number decline. You’re gonna see other markets uptick. And I’ll go on here and make a prediction. I’ll go on the record here and say that within the next two years, Miami will become a top three market for Waymo.+4

Walter Piecyk: I mean that’s look at the end of the day. Yeah, that’s true. These numbers are only gonna go down as as a mix, but it’s just again, where are they today? Any event. Let’s talk about the bigger issue here with this math, which is now that they are getting to the airport, what this could actually do to ride. So let’s go back to this airport data again. Let’s just, I know they said a million in the article, but let’s just say it’s on average, 800,000 based on seasonality. Assume no growth, and let’s just assume Waymo is gonna capture 15% of those rides that are, that are happening to and from the airport. So that that equates to about 30,000 incremental rides per week on top of the 400,000 nationally that they’re doing. So the San Francisco airport alone in this scenario, could technically add like seven, 7% growth to their weekly rides. Now, I don’t know, you know, in terms of, maybe you can refresh my memory, can you drop off and pick up in Waymo and obviously interested in your thoughts on. We know Waymo is still not in the ideal pickup and drop off locations, how much that impacts it.+4

Grayson Brulte: Yes, as of today, if you have early rider access, you can get dropped off and picked up at the Rack, which is the rental car center. So yes, it is about 11 to 12 minutes to go on the little choo choo train, I’m sorry, the electric train to get over to the rack to get into it. I’ll be there in two weeks. I’ll be taking a Waymo from the rack down to Silicon Valley when I give a talk with Don Burnett at Kodiak. So I’ll let you know the experience firsthand. But yes, to me it’s a consistent experience that I will, and you know me, I don’t like to walk. I want curbside, but to not have to deal with the forest gum analogy of life is like a B of chalk because you don’t know you’re gonna get, I will gladly take the little train choo choo train for 12 minutes to get a consistent experience.+4

Walter Piecyk: The bottom line is based on this math, and people can make whatever assumptions they want. Like opening up San Fran airport alone can have like a 5% plus impact on rides. And let’s be clear, like the average, you know, revenue per ride to and from the airport is definitely gonna be higher than their typical ride. So it’s gonna have a larger relative impact. On revenue. These are the higher value rides that obviously they can get. And as you know, I guess our listeners know Waymo can also drop, you know, these customers off in the Bay Area. It’s not just to back and forth with San Francisco. It’s, it’s opened up the region. So again, interesting data and thanks to the intrepid reporters at the San Francisco gate for, for getting us that info.+4

Grayson Brulte: Thanks for the, the data and I’m looking forward to seeing as data grows because we’re going to get more data, and I know you and I are at odds of this, but I do still think that Waymo was a big tourist attraction. And perhaps you could see Mayor Laurie or somebody individual in the mayor’s office that wants to tout this as an eco, as an economic growth engine, and perhaps they get curbside. And if Waymo gets curbside, boy oh boy, watch out.+2

Walter Piecyk: So here we have San Francisco representing maybe 50% of Waymo’s rides. Right? You know, California often criticized in terms of, you know, some of the politicians that are there. Meanwhile, on the other side of the coast, it’s much worse. Like we can’t, Grayson in the great state of New York can’t now get this because our governor, Kathy Hoel has pulled the proposal that would’ve allowed for robo taxi services outside New York City and this is just a month after that she introduced it and touted, quote, New York Open for business. What, what do you make of, uh, that had happened here? +4

Grayson Brulte: New York closed for business. It’s true. Look at the tax rate increase they’re trying to pass in New York City businesses that are fleeing to Miami’s not very positive, friendly business environment in New York City. And from the governor’s perspective, from the state perspective. Ring, ring, ring. Hello, special interest. Governor, you’re not doing this. Ring, ring, ring. Governor, you’re running for reelection. You want that donation? Not gonna get it. If you support this political pressure from special interest, the governor caved because a certain faction, she needs the support to win reelection. Without the support of a certain special interest, she can’t win reelection and based on. Many public, grandiose statements that have been made through press releases and in pub, in public forms around the United States. You know who this is? The governor clearly caved to political pressure, and frankly, it’s a sad day for the residents of New York ’cause this technology would’ve saved lives and proved the experience. Not to mention it would’ve been an economic growth engine for a city and a state that absolutely desperately needs it right now.+4

Walter Piecyk: Well, let me temper some of your arguments as the defender of New York. While I am as outraged as you are by our governor’s actions and you know, the, just basically putting people’s lives in danger by not enabling a new technology. Let’s be a little bit more realistic about this and reflect back on things that we’ve said about New York in the past, which is. It’s kind of hard. It’s gonna be hard for them to get power and service and, and the nuts and bolts to launch in this city anyway. So maybe by the time they’re gonna still look, Waymo and others will still work on the infrastructure to enable autonomy in New York. Um, you know, by the time that either she’s out of office or, you know, sees the light, that this actually saves lives and improves the, the economy, um, maybe it’ll, it will kind of coalesce, you know, with when the charging and service networks will be ready. And, and, but look, it, you know, we know that there’s not enough capital, you know, going after this important third leg of the stool, which is service and charging. If you’re the company that has the capital. To your point, like why would I deploy it to New York when there’s other areas that the politicians are welcoming, you know, this type of growth and welcoming a product that can save their uh, citizens’ lives.+4

Grayson Brulte: I have the inspector hat on here because what we’re going to do, we’re going to watch for public filings and building permits to see if Move IO or another Waymo partner or Google Alphabet real estate starts to acquire energy assets in New York. But getting to your larger point, yes, you are going to see companies migrate to states that are friendlier. I’ll give you the greatest example in a time I can give you. The autonomous trucking industry was built and developed in California. California put undue regulations that you can’t deploy a class 8 truck on, on on public roads. So what does the industry do? They took jobs and they moved all the commercialization to the Dallas-Fort Worth Triangle DFW, and that worked really well for them. And then with robo taxis, you’re going to see those companies go to where they can operate, and the states and cities that are welcome, willing to welcome them are gonna have a great economic impact. Not to mention the quality of life increase. And the amount of lives that are gonna be saved, it’s gonna be positive. So I know you’re in New York, Walt, but it’s a sad day for the Empire State. The empire is not friendly to technology.+4

Walter Piecyk: Okay. Before we tear too much into New York. Into New York, let’s go to a different state, Iowa, where lawmakers have advanced two bills from house subcommittees that would require a human behind the wheel. So this is not necessarily a red versus a blue issue. I mean, they’re gonna face autonomy. Companies are gonna face challenges from a variety of different angles.+3

Grayson Brulte: The autonomy companies are going to face it, but this is a series of tactics that certain special interest groups have used. They go to statehouse as they rally support. Let’s put driver in because, oh, if you get rid of the drivers going to eliminate jobs, there’s going to kill jobs. Well, to the folks that are trying to pass that off as truth, there is economic data and including data from the United States Department of Transportation that debunks that. Then the issue in Iowa is you have the. The other issue in Iowa was that you have the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. They’re supposed to be pro autonomy. They’re out there using the Uber and Lyft talking points around hybrid networks. So on one side of this group that’s lobbying for this is saying, yes, we need hybrid networks. Say no, autonomy is good. Iowa is a big basket of confusion as it relates to this policy. The pro autonomy folks are now the hybrid folks, the traditional folks that don’t like this. They’re together. It. It’s a hodgepodge of a hot mess.+4

Walter Piecyk: Well look, the one way we can solve all this. I assume is a federal mandate. Like where are we with, first of all, is that true? Like, if we have some type of national mandate, federal mandate, can that, you know, displace, uh, what hoel has made, you know, harder to do now, and where are we with that process? +2

Grayson Brulte: Preemption, a national autonomous vehicle framework will preempt state and local laws. Hocul will lose all of her power. The lobbyist in Iowa will lose all their power and an autonomous vehicle will legally be able to go across state lines, county lines, city lines as it relates to where we are, the the bill that came out of committee in the house. I do not see a path forward as of today. In the Senate. I do not necessarily see it going forward because we have a midterm election coming up and the gears are shifting now towards a midterm, and it’s sad. What? I like to be optimistic and see it go through, oh yeah. I like to be the world’s biggest cheerleader for this. Do I see it going through at this point? Unfortunately, I do not.+4

Walter Piecyk: Well, there’s still time on the clock. Um, I’m not too disappointed ’cause, you know, we still do have to ramp volumes. We have to build the infrastructure. So it’s not, I don’t think dramatically holding back the progress in the industry. It’s just, you know, like many things a little, uh, disappointing on, on when things like this evolve. Let’s shift over to Uber. Um, which again, I don’t, wouldn’t say I’m shocked, but I’d be a little surprised that Uber who has long, you know, kind of pushed this concept of like, Hey, we’re, we don’t wanna be a part of servicing. We’ll have minority stakes. We’ll partner, we don’t wanna, like they said, they’re not gonna own cars long term. I get that they, they’re buying some near term, but now there’s now. There’s a report out of Bloomberg that they’re gonna spend a hundred million dollars building, fast charging autonomous vehicle, um, vehicle charging stations. What do you make of this? By the way, this is San Fran, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Um, three markets obviously there where autonomy is important.+4

Grayson Brulte: Build and own. you listen to the past couple earnings calls from Uber, we want to be an asset like company. The last quarterly call, we wanna be an asset like company. How are you going to be an asset like company if you’re owning assets? We have the SEC filing that Uber’s gonna own 20,000 plus Nuro lucid robot attackers. Now you’re gonna spend a hundred million dollars on infrastructure. I’m gonna pull an m and m on you. Will the real slim Sadie, please stand up. Please stand up. Will the real Uber please stand up? It seems to me that Uber’s trying to figure out who they want to be, and not to mention Walt. I thought they had partners of Omo and move. They’ve invested in and they’re on their cap table that was supposed to handle all of this.+4

Walter Piecyk: I mean, Moove and Avomo are the high profile one. There’s other ones that are kind of under the radar that, that Uber has made investments in and funded in order for fleets or infrastructure to be built. Those companies, you know, they take some of this money and then they go out and try and raise additional money. So imagine you’re one of those companies trying to raise additional companies or money to build out, again, charging and service, whatever. And the guy that’s about to write you a check is like, well, wait a minute. Uber’s are they building their own now? And I think it potentially creates some unnecessary questions at a time when maybe some of these companies are trying to raise some money.+4

Grayson Brulte: It raises a lot of questions, and the question is, does Uber wanna compete or do they want to invest? And the inspector hat’s on here because in the Q4 supplement that Uber filed. On the last page, page 13 of the slide deck, we noticed something Walt for the fleet partners move. IO was not listed there even though Uber is very publicly on their cap table and they’ve given multiple press releases and spoken multiple times publicly about it. Move was not there. And you might wonder, oh, is move outta the fleet business? No, they’re very publicly way most partner Miami, as you saw from the video I just put out, so. It seems that there’s a lot of moving pieces going on behind the scenes here.+4

Walter Piecyk: So they’re Waymo’s partner in Miami. They’re not necessarily Uber’s partner in Miami. Right? That’s therein lies the difference. And, and I just wanna highlight a sentence from this press, this report from Bloomberg. That was, you know, talking about this a hundred million dollar investment in power. It said the Uber spokes person, excuse me, declined to comment on whether Waymo may use the new Chargers it plans to build in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Dallas. This is, they’re talking about Uber here, right? The Uber’s chargers saying those sites are designed for cars that are on the Uber network.+4

Grayson Brulte: Boom. The whole narrative that I said, and I stick by that the divorce is on the horizon. There’s another very public point that points to a deteriorating relationship.+1

Walter Piecyk: It’s just it. It was definitely interesting when you say decline to comment, but then also say that the sites are designed for cars on the Uber network. I mean. I don’t know. It stands out. Maybe it was written incorrectly. I think the author is pretty good, and it was a tight overall story. Um, I mean, look, the other angle here is, you know, Uber had previously made this big push for electric cars. Then I think they pulled back significantly in terms of where they were putting Teslas in their tears and the money. And, and I know that they’ve been tweaking the spending strategy, um, or at least again, according to this great Bloomberg article. They had a survey. This is Uber had a survey last year that drivers were concerned that, you know, they didn’t have access to charging. So maybe this whole a hundred million dollar investment has nothing to do with autonomy and it’s just trying to get more Uber drivers to be able to charge their electric cars. I’m skeptical. I think everything at that company is through the lens of preparing for a future in autonomy. And autonomy is very closely associated with. Electric, right? There’s not many hybrid opportunities that are, that are available to them, but is it possible we’re overthinking this? And this is really just more about supporting the existing Uber driver network.+4

Grayson Brulte: We’re not overthinking it. Yes. Does Uber publicly want to have more green vehicles on? Yes, but if you speak to drivers, the drivers like the hybrid vehicles, so the demand, and you just look at sales with the 25 to $50 billion of write downs that American companies have taken on EV sales. So you have EV sales declining in America. When Uber’s saying that, oh, we’re gonna invest in charging, it doesn’t add up. You and I know, and you clearly articulate it, this is for robo taxis. And so thinking about this, the markets that you listed. Said, Hmm. Okay, so Dallas, they have the, the Hyundai Ionic Fives running an AAV AV ride. As we know from NIUs, there’s 30 of those in the United States. So let’s just say they’re all in Dallas charging. And we do know what Nuro vehicles are coming online. Is this Uber getting ready to scale +4

Walter Piecyk: It could be. I mean, there’s an, again, another interesting kind of tidbit out of this article that I’m gonna just quote it and said, on Wednesday, Uber also announced that they had reached new deals with charger operators. These are the third party guys, right? To make charging more accessible to its drivers in electric vehicles. Just talked about that. Here’s the key line. It’s gonna guarantee usage to these charging partners, meaning it’s gonna pay fines. If Uber drivers don’t realize certain utilization levels. Question, what does fine mean to me, this sounds exactly like what’s known as a take or pay contract, meaning if you give me a certain rate for charging, I will guarantee you a certain amount of usage, whether there’s enough cars that drive there. The question about this sometimes, ’cause I’ve seen these back in, in early device days where, where I think there was a shortage of gallium Arsenide and Ericsson when they made phones. Had these take or pay contracts with gallium arsenide guys, the ques, sometimes you do that to block out the competition from getting this key resource. So I just wonder if any of these third party relationships in any way, maybe restrict. People that are, you know, wanting to charge their electric cars that are not on the Uber network. It’s hard to know. We have, we haven’t seen the contracts, but it’s just interesting wording on if you’re willing to commit that much time. It could be just that they’re committing all this charging just to get a good rate. That could be the on the surface issue without seeing the contracts. But sometimes you do stuff to block potential competitors from getting access to these key resources. In this case would be electric chargers.+4

Grayson Brulte: It very well could be and if, if it reading the tea leaves, I’d be looking for two things. One, do we get a press release way more set up? Way more logistics underneath the alphabet real estate arm, which is world class. Or two, do we get more announcements from Waymo for move for more markets? And those two things will tell us a lot that can help answer the question that you rightly raised.+4

Walter Piecyk: Again, I don’t, you know, they weren’t on that, that chart, so they don’t have any autonomous deals with MOVE today. This is the Uber I’m talking about. So, no, I would not expect that. Maybe, maybe you’ll get more expansion from Avomo or, or they’ll find some additional partners or, or maybe this a hundred million dollars investment is kind of step one. Into a pivot to embracing the Lyft model, um, where you own it. And in the case of Lyft, it’s Flex Drive and they’re obviously having to invest in Flex Drive, um, to try and convert that to something that can handle, um, autonomy. But definitely, definitely an interesting signpost or event. Um, for Uber to watch again, could just be, hey, just chargers for our existing rideshare customers. Given the autonomy focus, it’s on, on going on at that company right now. I don’t know. It, it feels to me like a, a bit of a pivot. And by the way, we have to applaud them for it because this is, you know what, I think you and I, one, one of the, some of the things that we agree upon, we don’t agree upon everything. Um, but we do think that owning that leg, it would be helpful to the ride share guys.+4

Grayson Brulte: It would be extremely helpful to Uber to own the infrastructure, and I would go as far to own a fleet management company. And then to, to own the, the vehicle as such, which, if there’s this, if you want to call it a land grab or a dash for energy, what type of competitive advantage does that give Teslas? They scale robotaxis with all their energy infrastructure assets around the world.+2

Walter Piecyk: I mean, we’ve talked about that before and I think I have the same questions here. They talk about finding chargers, but. Are they getting locations that can also hand in cleaning? We’ve seen them both, right? We’ve seen areas where it’s just charged and we’ve seen areas where they’re doing service. It’s fine to have charging areas. I mean, the issue with Tesla is like, I’ve been to some of the Chargers, like they’re in the parking lot of an ikea. Like, I don’t know if that can be fenced off and specifically used for cyber cad. Like, um, I don’t know how how that is is gonna work. Um, but speaking of charging on, on cyber cab, that’s a good segue to our next topic, which is, um, it’s not that the first cyber cab came off the off the line at Giga. That’s great news. It’s, you know, my good friends over at the FCC issued an order that’s, they’re gonna be able to use ultra wideband radio technology to wirelessly charge the system. And basically what this means is the car pulls in and there’s a mat. And the d and on the bottom of the car communicates via wireless, basically charging wirelessly as it hovers over this mat, um, for the cyber cab. So well done at the FCC. This thing’s been out there since this process is, this is not new. I know some of the people that follow Tesla think it’s like new and I mean this has been going on since 24, um, July of 24. To be specific, it was out for comment in early 25. So it’s good that they’ve, the order finally hit yesterday.+4

Grayson Brulte: Put your telco head and we have to get you a, he says Walt’s Telco corner for us, non FCC, non telco people. Why do the FCC have to get involved to allow this to happen? +1

Walter Piecyk: You’re using, um, like an it’s, we’re using RF to do the charging. I mean, there was a company I visited years ago, like 10 years ago, electricity, that talked about this very thing. I remember them saying, like, one of the challenges was you pull your car into your, into your garage. If a cat happened to like sit in between or a mouse, maybe that wouldn’t be necessarily good in between the charging thing, so they had to set up things to turn off the electricity. There was, I think in, I think it was Korea, they had buses that at every bus stop it would charge momentarily to get to the next bus stop in order to charge these, these electric cars. Believe it or not, Grayson, you could, there was a product where. You, you could do a slow leak of power into your phone. You’d have a charger basically sitting on your, you know, on a cabinet somewhere. And it would slowly charge it via what this is when you’re using, you know, radio frequencies. This is under, you know, what the FCC in this country, uh, obviously control. So, so they have to get involved. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s pretty interesting stuff.+4

Grayson Brulte: Now the Tesla has, if I’ll use the term permit, does that allow them to go anywhere in the United States or is that geographically limited? How does that work? +1

Walter Piecyk: I think, I haven’t looked in the, in the details of this, but, um, I mean, FCC, you know, enables things on a national basis. And again, this is like radio frequencies between something that’s sitting on the ground and a car that’s above it. I’m sure there’s, if you look in the details for these things that I’ve mentioned, there’s some safety issues that, that are addressed. By the way, one of the ones that I remember reading about, I don’t know if why Tristy was doing this, but you’d have like solar panels up in space and then you’d have to spot beam it down to a receiver on earth. But you just gotta hope that nothing flies in between. I may be misremembering that. Um, but there’s, you know, this is again part of, of just technology advancement and certainly when you think about this concept of like, hey, you know, the. The robot taxii backing in and having like a robot plug it in. You don’t necessarily need some robot to plug it in like you’ve talked about on past episodes. You’re just sitting over a wireless charger and, and you’re good to go.+4

Grayson Brulte: No matter how you want to cut the pie, it’s becoming very clear. Based on the cyber cab coming off the line, the FCC approval, Tesla’s getting ready to scale robotaxi. Quickly, quickly, quickly.+2

Walter Piecyk: So what do you make of that first cyber cab coming off the line on February 17th?

Grayson Brulte: I think it’s a positive, but I just want to damper expectations for the motoring Public. Tesla still has to get a Nisa exemption to operate without a steering wheel and without pedals. And in, or then after that, they’re gonna have to get another permit that will allow them to charge. That’s the little, if you wanna call it that little area that Zoox is in right now because they do not have pedals, uh, or steering wheel. So really great engineering feat is coming. Do they get the exemption? Probably at some point. I don’t want to give a prediction ’cause I do not have, uh, I don’t know when, but you will have them rolling out free rides in the cyber cab in let’s say the limited Austin ODD. By, I don’t know, say Halloween, +4

Walter Piecyk: I don’t like how hesitant you are about this exemption for the cyber cab. I’m sensing some concern here that Nitsa is not, you know. Pro technology and pro development. I mean, how are you, how are they fine with someone, you know, having a Tesla y on the road with no driver? Like what difference is it when there’s no wheel there? If, if there’s no driver there, there’s no one to grab a wheel anyway.+4

Grayson Brulte: We’re very fortunate as the American public to have a great administrator, Mr. Morrison at NHTSA. It really just comes down to, and you know this very well from your FCC and your telco work, old regulations that are outdated, that have to get, uh, brought into compliance with modern day standard. That’s really what this comes down to.+2

Walter Piecyk: fine, but I’ve, I think one of the things we’ve seen from, with most of the agencies under the new administration is. Cutting through a lot through that bur bureaucracy quickly, and definitely that’s the case at the FCC.+1

Grayson Brulte: I think Mr. Carr, the FCC has done a fantastic job and he is doing really, really good work there. The outlying thing on this is that we’ve, we know that Mr. Musk and, and President Trump are getting along again. Does the president try and put his thumb on the scale and tip it forward quickly? I don’t know. I’m just saying that is a possibility.+3

Walter Piecyk: And look, before we worry about the cyber cab, let’s get those, the Tesla wise. Scaled up in Austin in the first place. Let’s get that done. And then once that’s done, I, I don’t see any reason why the follow on for Cyber cab should be, um, shortly thereafter. So we’ll see. What else have we got? +3

Grayson Brulte: will see, and we’re looking forward to seeing Tesla scale model wise to more cities there. What else we have is we, we’re going to autonomous trucking. We don’t have a foreign autonomy desk this week because in the Middle East they’re celebrating Ramadan, so we won’t get any releases out of the Middle East for at least 30 days until the end of Ramadan. What we do for autonomous trucking. Aurora opened a new lane. They’re going over a thousand miles from Texas to Arizona to set expectations. There are still safety drivers because that’s what PACCAR demands they have there in the vehicle. But really good lane for Aurora to open up. And what Aurora’s doing is validating that autonomous trucking is scaling.+4

Walter Piecyk: I mean, this is just to kind of follow on from earnings. We’ve talked about, you know, what I learned about what lane is versus not a lane is. So yeah, it’s, you know, Aurora’s kind of pushing forward. Obviously it’s gonna be a lot of upfitting this year, so we will have to keep tabs in. Hopefully visit with our buddies over at Volvo to find out what’s going on there. Um, and you know, good, good for Aurora to open up a new lane.+4

Grayson Brulte: It’s very good for Aurora and this became an individual on X sent us this and we, we pulled it up and PAC car’s latest earnings release. I almost fall outta my chair. They were touting their partnership with driver Route with Kodiak. That was a big milestone there. Maybe Paccar is potentially loosening up as, as autonomous trucking scales.+2

Walter Piecyk: I haven’t had a chance to take a look at that, but I look forward to chatting with our friends from at Paccar at uh, at down in Texas in a couple of weeks.

Grayson Brulte: We’ll be there. Well, you and I are in Texas in a couple weeks. We know what you’re, I know what you’re doing next week. The audience doesn’t know what you’re doing next week. Besides you having Walt time, what do we need to look for in the autonomy markets for next week? +2

Walter Piecyk: I apologize for those that watch this as opposed to listen to it. I’ve been just getting bad enough to have to look, but I’ve gotten just pale over the weeks. It’s been a brutal winter here in New York. It’s getting a little sun, so hopefully we can t it up a little bit. Um, conference season is kicking off, so you never know what type of new information gets released there. And as always, you know, I think, you know, our friends at, at Waymo, uh, at Uber and at Tesla seem to always generate some new, new news for us every week.+4

Grayson Brulte: There’s always news. Every week Walt will be back, I’ll say refreshed and ready to rock and roll next week. The future is bright. The future autonomous feature is scaling Walt Until next week.