Transcript: WeRide Is Catching Up to Waymo Globally

Executive Summary

WeRide’s expansion to Madrid marks its fourth city with Uber, putting it increasingly in direct global competition with Waymo, which is simultaneously pursuing Australia and building a 100,000-square-foot Tampa depot. Waymo’s registration of 45 Zeekr robotaxis in Texas raises political risk concerns, with a bipartisan Senate bill emerging to ban Chinese vehicles in the US.

Uber’s $500 million Nuro commitment is milestone-driven rather than a blank check, and Aurora stake sales signal a strategic retreat from autonomous trucking just as Amazon and FedEx Freight move more aggressively into the space. Serve Robotics is expanding into laundry delivery in Philadelphia, and Autobrains is set to launch a robotaxi service in Munich pending regulatory approval.

Key Autonomy Markets Episode Questions Answered

Autonomy Markets Topics & Timestamps

[00:00] SpaceX IPO

Grayson and Walt open on the coming SpaceX IPO, orbital data centers, and Terafab, the SpaceX, Tesla, and Intel push to build their own chip fab, take on TSMC, and cut Taiwan out of the supply chain.

[3:53] WeRide and Uber Expand Across Europe

Uber and WeRide add Madrid as the fourth of fifteen cities they plan to deploy together, even as Grayson flags that much of WeRide’s fleet is Chinese-manufactured per its SEC filings.

[7:39] Waymo Registers 45 Zeekrs in Texas

As of June 4th, Waymo registered 45 Chinese-made Zeekr robotaxis in Texas, and Grayson stands by his unforced-error call while asking how long until Abbott, Paxton, and Cruz weigh in.

[10:30] Waymo’s New Tampa Depot

Waymo signed a lease on a 100,000 square foot warehouse near Tampa Airport, its third Florida market after Miami and Orlando, with the open question being whether the fleet crosses the causeway into St. Pete.

[15:36] Uber Sells Down Its Aurora Stake

Uber sold another stake in Aurora, leaving roughly $800 million it is likely to unwind, with Dara already off the board and the move raising questions about the future of Uber Freight.

[16:33] Why Amazon Hasn’t Bought an Autonomous Trucking Company?

With Amazon and a spun-out FedEx Freight moving into the freight business, Grayson is dumbfounded that Amazon bought Zoox but never acquired an autonomous trucking company that fits its operations.

[23:04] Avride Robotaxis in Texas

Avride clarified its Dallas numbers at more than 200 vehicles and 60,000 Uber rides, a chance for Grayson and Walt to warn against the false narratives state AV data can create.

[25:26] Serve Robotics Moves Into Laundry

Serve Robotics is expanding from food delivery into laundry pickup and return in Philadelphia, with Co-Founder & CEO, Ali Kashani set to return to The Road to Autonomy podcast in a few weeks.

[26:29] Ferrari Rules Out Autonomy

Ferrari’s CEO says no autonomy for its customers, a line Grayson files alongside Ferrari’s old vow never to build an electric car.

[28:56] Foreign Autonomy Desk

Uber extends its European push by partnering with Autobrains on a Munich robotaxi service pending regulatory approval, where Nuro is already testing, while Saudi Arabia’s PIF-backed Humain teams with NVIDIA to deploy robotaxis in the Kingdom.

[30:27] Next Week

Looking ahead, Walt turns to WWDC and the pricing of the SpaceX deal, with Hertz CEO Gil West joining The Road to Autonomy on Tuesday to break down the company’s global robotaxi strategy.

Full Autonomy Markets Episode Transcript

WeRide Is Catching Up to Waymo Globally

Grayson Brulte: Walt, SpaceX is preparing to go to Mars, or as your shirt says, Occupy Mars. The CEO of Ferrari says, “No autonomy for our customers.” And Uber continues its eastern expansion into Europe. But let’s start with the upcoming SpaceX IPO, ’cause I know you haven’t been calling me a lot lately, ’cause you’ve been working hard on it. What have you uncovered?

Walter Piecyk: I’m learning all about orbital data centers and power and solar. and look, a big part of this is, is gonna be Terafab. It’s hard to get enough compute these days. Google’s making their own, Amazon’s making their own, and, and, you know, SpaceX and Tesla together with Intel not only are gonna design their own, but they wanna build their own fab. They’re gonna compete with TSMC. So I don’t know. It sounds like something for us to reduce our exposure to to Taiwan. Maybe the government should help out here and chip in. What do you think? Chip in to, to build some, some, fabs in the, the great state of Texas

Grayson Brulte: Well, the US has been trying to build fabs, you know this, for almost a decade in the Phoenix region, Arizona. So anything we can do to onshore the manufacturing of chips and eliminate the Taiwan risk in the supply chain, I’m all for it

Walter Piecyk: Well, so am I, and, you know, we’ll see how this thing goes. There’s some– I’ve been doing a lot of work. There’s, there’s a lot of capital it’s gonna take to, to achieve this stuff. If anyone can do it, I think Elon’s the right guy, but it’s, mm, could take a little time. But more on that later. Meanwhile, over at Tesla they expanded the service area. It looks like, you know, I was asking AI, I was asking Anthropic, they were telling me 250 square miles, and I don’t really think that’s right. Looks to me more like about 100 square miles, so it looks it’s still smaller than what Waymo is in Austin. What was your takeaway from, from the expansion of Tesla’s service area, and unsupervised so they claim in Austin?

Grayson Brulte: Well, unsupervised was a say a fourth of that or a third of that. It was, it was a small expansion. The unsupervised expansion looked, it appeared based on the map, that it was continuing down that, that H-E-B parking lot that you and I had the great Tesla Waymo race out of, and it looked like it was expanding that direction. Again, we don’t have any real clear data on that. What we do have data from is the, the Texas Automated Vehicle database, where they’re showing that m- more cars are coming online, but we don’t have a clear sense of this is going. All we know based on X posts is service is not running 24/7 yet

Walter Piecyk: I mean, from my standpoint, I, first of all, I didn’t even catch that, so it’s, you know, kind of think odd you wouldn’t just go unsupervised for the larger area, especially since you have so few number of cars there anyway. gotta scale up, man. Gotta get to the 100 cars, and the fact that, again, they’re not expanding unsupervised to the same type of square mileage or even much larger and not adding cars, you know, I guess put a pin in it. Put a pin in them for a while until we see some progress on car expansion

Grayson Brulte: We need to see it, and there’s been several posts on X coming out of Dallas that individuals for several days have been unable to get the vehicles. Here’s the key thing to watch. The World Cup’s going to Dallas. Will the robotaxi be operating in Dallas when the World Cup’s going on? There’s something to watch

Waymo-Uber Partnership and Avomo in Europe

Walter Piecyk: I doubt it. I don’t think that’s gonna happen. You know, the other thing that’s in Austin is Waymo with Uber, and those two companies, you know, to get a Waymo you have to use your Uber app. And again, it’s one of I’m sorry to bring this up week after week, but it’s one of my favorite moments with you when we put our Inspector Clouseau hats on, when we found that Avomo depot and you’re like, “We found you.” Still amazing. Still think about that every time I see the word Avomo. I am a bit shocked to see the news this week that Uber is partnering again with Avomo. That’s not the surprise. but that WeRide is. Well, sure, I guess that is potentially a surprise that it, it is kind of expanding to these European markets.

Grayson Brulte: I think you have FOMO. That’s fear of missing out for those from Rio Linda, okay? You need, you have a fear of missing out that you don’t have one of these inspector hats, and you gotta get your own hat with your own tagline. I’ll tell you something. Based on the cleanliness of the vehicles in Austin, I was shocked to see Avomo come back into the picture, and I say that because MOOVE-IO, who Uber’s an investor in and has a relationship with, their US headquarters is in London. It’s, it’s not hard to, to go across the channel into Europe, so I was shocked to see it

Walter Piecyk: Yeah, so I don’t know. So I guess the other question I’d throw back at you is like, you know, you thought things were pretty bad with Avomo. Doesn’t this, you know, doesn’t this indicate that maybe things aren’t that bad at that company if they’re, if they’re signing new deals, in this case with WeRide?

Grayson Brulte: I don’t know. That’s, that’s the, that’s the, it’s the cop-out answer. I don’t know, and all I’ll point to is that Uber is an investor in Avomo, but I, I, I don’t know

WeRide Expands to Madrid with Uber

Walter Piecyk: The other, the other kind of takeaway here is WeRide European market, obviously we’re, you know, we really want WeRide to succeed outside of China into these European markets to t- you know, to kind of prove out their business model, hit those number of cars that they’ve identified that they need to get to positive EBITDA. So, you know, good progress there in, you know, getting some additional partners in, in in Madrid and moving that progress forward

Grayson Brulte: Yeah, as part of the agreement, it’s the fourth of the 15 cities that Uber and WeRide are gonna deploy together, so they’re continuing to, to make progress. I just keep going back to the political risk. Uber is helping to accelerate Chinese technology, and I think at some point a politician is going to wake up and ask a lot of questions. To me, it’s just a growing risk

Walter Piecyk: I guess so. I’m moving more in the if, if it doesn’t happen now camp, things that it’s a, it’s a reducing risk as we go forward. And, you know, to WeRide’s credit, there’s basically two companies that are really making tangible process right now in the global economy wor- world, and that is Waymo and WeRide. You know, others obviously are making progress, but like, you know, for, for WeRide to execute, execute on, you know, progress on an additional city with Uber, that’s, you know, whatever clappy hat, I guess, for them, for WeRide

Grayson Brulte: I’ll give WeRide credit. they are expanding and they’re, and they’re frankly taking the expansion very seriously. You’re right, with Waymo, we had a, a report out of Australia this week that Waymo is trying to overturn the laws there to allow autonomous vehicles to work in Australia. So Waymo clearly has global ambitions. WeRide clearly has global ambitions. Perhaps you’re gonna have a global showdown between WeRide and Waymo. Something to watch. The, the, between the two Ws. WW, which one is it gonna be?

Walter Piecyk: I mean, I think the one area that WeRide seems to be doing better on is identifying cars and manufacturing process to low- lower that overall price. I mean, I think that’s still something that, you know, you’re dealing with Zeekr, you know, yeah, it’s a cheaper car. You’re still doing upfitting. We’re still waiting for Hyundai to kinda get kicked off. But you gotta give the kinda nod at this point. Like, Waymo’s got that, you know, is ahead in terms of number of cars, but at some point, cost and volume of those cars is gonna be more relevant, and you can kinda see that building threat occurring at, at WeRide

Grayson Brulte: It’s going to be interesting, but let’s not forget a lot of the vehicles, I’m not saying all, a lot of the vehicles that WeRide has disclosed in their SEC filings are Chinese-manufactured. So again, I’m still highlighting that, harping on that risk

Waymo Registers 45 Zeekr Robotaxis in Texas

Walter Piecyk: Well, that’s a good segue ’cause I know you like to attack these Chinese vehicles and, you know, you’re famous on this podcast for saying it was an unforced error for Waymo to pick Zeekr, which is, which is Geely, you know, in this, in this basically made to, made to specification product. And yet I see some news this week, as of June 4th, Waymo registered 45 Zeekr robotaxis with the Texas Automated Vehicle Portal. Am I misremembering or weren’t you on this podcast and said, “Good luck launching those Zeekrs in Florida or Texas”? Did you not say that?

Grayson Brulte: I did say that, and I stand by that. And I asked the question of how long until Waymo gets a phone call from Governor Abbott? How long until Ken Paxton, who is the Republican nominee for the US Senate from Texas, he gets on it? How long until sitting US Senator Ted Cruz gets on this? I got news for you. Once a politician picks up on this, you’re going to see a you-know-what storm of epic proportions is going to emerge. Chinese vehicles on the streets of Texas. Let’s say that again. Chinese-manufactured vehicles on the streets of Texas. That doesn’t add up, Walt

Walter Piecyk: Okay, but didn’t I see Chinese vehicles on the streets of Texas when they come across the border? ‘Cause I think they have the ability to drive across the border. I don’t know if that was California, Arizona. I thought maybe Texas. this wouldn’t be a first. You know, obviously different rules in this situation. I don’t know. I’m taking the other side of this. I think you’re overreacting, and I don’t think anything’s gonna come of it

Grayson Brulte: If you think I’m overreacting, look at- to the bill that is emerging in the US Senate to ban Chinese vehicles in the United States. And I will have you add that as a Democrat-led bill, not a Republican-led bill, so this could potentially become a bipartisan. I know bipartisan’s a dirty word, but potentially could become a bipartisan issue

Walter Piecyk: I’m skeptical. Bills come and go. There’s something that they used for their constituencies. I’m, I’m taking the other side. Time will tell on who’s right on this. But for our, for our listeners out there, send me some pictures of Zeekrs in Texas so I can tweet at Grayson with a picture of a Zeekr in Texas saying, “Clearly not an unforced error if these things are rolling around Texas. And by the way, maybe they’re gonna come to your neighborhood next. Florida, here comes the, here comes the Zeekrs.”

Grayson Brulte: No. What I’ll do, and I will then tag Senator Cruz, I will, I will, I will tag Ken Paxton, I will tag Governor Abbott, and if you come here, I’ll tag DeSantis. And, and then guess what? That’s a pretty good political alliance

Waymo Signs 100,000 Sq Ft Tampa Depot Lease

Walter Piecyk: Now speaking of Florida, Waymo, you know, they’ve already announced Tampa, but they’ve, they’re starting to add some infrastructure for Tampa. They signed a lease for a warehouse that’s 100,000 square feet. I think it’s close to the Tampa Airport. similar distance to, I think when we looked at the Miami depot that was under construction. So what do you think? What are your thoughts there? And by the way, again, they have this depot. I don’t know if they have many Jags left. It seems like this depot would be a good spot to start sending some some of these Zeekrs to.

Grayson Brulte: You just like putting salt in a wound. Ooh, that’s what’s, put it in there. That’s, that’s where you’re going with that. 100,000 square feet is basically a Costco or a super-sized Costco. In the article that, that, that came out in the Tampa Bay Business Journal, it clearly stated Jaguars. What vehicles will show up there? We don’t know, and I’m not gonna m- make a prediction there. V- politics-wise, I will say that it’d be wise not to put a Chinese-made vehicle there. And it’s right next to the airport, and so it’s interesting. So the Waymo depot’s up here, the airport’s here, where the the Buccaneers play is over here, George M. Steinbrenner Field, where the Yankees have spring training is there. Really strategic location. The big thing to watch, do those vehicles cross the causeway and go into St. Pete? That’s something to watch as they expand

Walter Piecyk: This is gonna be Waymo’s third Florida market, Miami, Orlando being the other two. Does St. Pete count as a fourth? I mean, it’s, it’s kind of a, like you said, across the causeway, and it’s called, like, Tampa-St. Pete, right? So does, would that count as a, as a fourth market?

Grayson Brulte: If you’re from that region, oh boy, you be- you better say, you better say it counts as a, as a market. To the majority of the public, I just believe that Waymo will call it the Tampa Bay market, and they’ll, and they’ll consider it one. But technically, it, it would be two if they did go across the causeway

Walter Piecyk: Well, I didn’t mean to offend our listeners from Tampa-St. Pete. I have, I have spent many times, many moments in Tampa. We used to– When I was a rower in college, we used to train in Tampa, so I spent many a, a winter break in, in Tampa. A place in Florida that I have not had such a good time would be Jacksonville, where the Eagles lost the Super Bowl to the Patriots, Tom Brady-led Patriots. What is the chance that, that Jacksonville is gonna get a Waymo rollout?

Grayson Brulte: I’m very sorry that everything for our listeners has to, goes back to your beloved Eagles. I’m, I’m ve- I’m very sorry for the, the, the individuals who have to put up with that nonsense. With, with, with that aside, I, it, it could potentially be a good market. It is, it is a, is a fast-growing market. you have a gentleman, Nat Ford, who runs the, the JTA, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, a wonderful gentleman, by the way, that is very pro-autonomy. I just don’t think it’s going to be for a, a while. I think you’ll probably see the Fort Lauderdale market come online before you see Jacksonville.

Uber’s Milestone-Driven $500M Nuro Investment and Aurora Stake Sale

Walter Piecyk: All right, so we got some other Uber news, I guess. This is a Reuters headline with all caps, of course, coming across my Bloomberg, all caps and in red, that Uber is putting $500 million into Nuro. I’m like, “Wait a minute. I think we already knew this.” There was the $100 million that was initial. There was the $300 million that, that came in, in, as part of the Lucid deal. So either they’re rounding up, and there’s been a lot of rounding up this week. I- for example, I think David Risher was rounding up the cost of a, of a Waymo at $200,000. That’s a hell of a roundup. That is not what a Waymo costs, not even close, but, but I digress. again, this narrative of Uber investing and stuff, and I just wanna clarify that, you know, when Uber makes these investments, they’re not just handing a blank check over to these companies. And, and again, this isn’t news. Like, we’ve, we’ve written about this. It’s, you know, around the 400 range. the, the amount of money is tied to milestones. You just don’t hand it over. So, and, and the same is the case for Rivian and, and some of these other things. They’re gonna have to actually make progress to delivering, delivering autonomy in order to get this cash. And we obviously hope that these companies do that, but I think you should always consider that when you see these big headlines of these $500 million more spent by Uber.

Grayson Brulte: And that goes into the one thing that you and I do really well and I harp on, details matter. When you actually read the content, it says based on milestone performance or language around that. Details matter. This headline-driven media nonsense has gotta stop at the end of the day

Walter Piecyk: And again, like, I’m not even sure that this was new information. Did they put in an extra $100 million to get to the 400? Is my– Are my numbers wrong from, from– And, like, why is this new news? But whatever. but they did, at the same time as they’re putting money in, or maybe n- it isn’t the same time ’cause it’s milestone-driven. At the same time as people were talking about Uber spending more money, they don’t talk about the fact that they were cashing out some money, and in this case, they, they sold, Uber sold an additional stake in Aurora, which is obviously autonomous trucking led by Chris Urmson, who’s, you know, one of the original constructors of what is now Waymo. you know, they also, Aurora would purchase what was Uber’s autonomous group. This is the stuff that Travis Kalanick built up and, and ultimately got sold off when Dara was stripping the company of a lot of these autonomy assets. This is in addition to the billion dollars that they had previously sold. Now, you know, Uber still has about $800 million left in Aurora, which I assume they’re just gonna sell now. Dara is already off the board of this company. Uber still has Uber Freight. What do you think– I mean, this is not, and again, this is not new, right? They’re, this, they’re just selling more of Aurora. I think when they sold the first chunk, we talked about it’s likely that they’ll just continue to sell it. But what does this say, I think, about Uber Freight Grayson?

Amazon and FedEx Freight Enter Autonomous Trucking

Grayson Brulte: I believe fundamentally Uber Freight does not have the cachet it had in the market after the Transplace acquisition. Lior Ron, who, who built Uber Freight, resigned as CEO to join Waabi as COO. So to me, that was a sign. But the bigger sign is Amazon put out a blog post and a, and a tweet I’ll have you know. Amazon is entering the freight business. Amazon is going, is competing head-to-head right now with Uber Freight. And let’s not. And why is that important? Amazon has one of the most sophisticated, if not the most sophisticated freight networks in the world. And then if you wanna put icing on the cake, FedEx Freight now was spun out of FedEx, now a new publicly traded entity. The new CEO of FedEx Freight, John Smith, not, no relation to the late Fred Smith, came out and said autonomous trucks are ready for prime time. Again, another logistical powerhouse. So you have FedEx Freight and Amazon Freight that are going after Uber Freight. You’ve got a, you’ve got an issue there

Walter Piecyk: So Amazon’s a big company. It feels like I meet someone and they’re like, “I’m the head of autonomy,” and then the other person’s like, “I’m the head of autonomy,” and then it’s like it’s different sectors, like whether they’re managing partnerships or the internal autonomy, whether it’s like sidewalk autonomy or drone autonomy or trucking autonomy. My question that I’m getting to is this: They went out of their way to buy Zoox when basically I think that company was in trouble. That company, that has not gone well, let’s call it, right? Why is it that Amazon has not purchased a Zoox-like in the trucking world? Like the, the synergies for what they’re doing, and now that you’re mentioning this freight side of things, why wouldn’t they be. I mean, I know they’ve, they’ve tried partnerships with a number of companies. I think they ran some trucks for Plus for a while. I think they’ve done maybe some stuff with Aurora or at least talked to them. Like, why aren’t they just owning this space? And, and is the reason perhaps that there’s some internal development that we’re gonna find out about?

Grayson Brulte: And lest I forget, way back in the day, they did a deal with Embark that was disclosed as part of Embark’s SPAC process. If you read the original prospectus for Zoox that, and read the court case documents that were filed in the Delaware Chancellery Court, it was made very clear that Zoox has no intentions and they, they have to stay on the mission. They, they will not go into trucks, which always dumbfound to me. I said, “Okay, you got the stack, you can put it into sidewalk delivery bots, you can put it into trucks. You can, you can morph it.” And as, as, as you and I know, and as through the communications, you never see Zoox an Amazon company. Does, is it something you wanna be proud of? You, you’ve got this great balance sheet. As for why Amazon never acquired autonomous trucking company, never looked into it, I’m dumbfounded. I, I, I don’t understand why. I can make a very rational argument that Amazon should have never bought Zoox and should have bought an autonomous trucking company ’cause it fits into their operations. Why? That’s the million-dollar question. And ’cause I’m getting good at this, to the folks at Amazon, have, please have Mr. Andy Jassy address autonomy on an earnings call and give us some color into the strategy there

Walter Piecyk: I mean, they could do this one of two ways. You know, it’s, there’s obviously still capital intensity, whether you’re someone like Aurora spending a lot or even companies that are spending a little like Kodiak, there’s still capital intensity. There is, you know, runway to a certain period of time. So there could be pressure on these companies where, where Amazon could come in right when they’re, when, right when they’re at this inflection point of getting autonomy to work and make a, a really attractive acquisition. They similarly could, could provide additional capital that buys future freight miles, you know, in, in exchange for, or takes a equity stake in these companies with a right for fur- future purchase. You know, as things kind of play out, as cash burn continues, as we’re kind of in this transition point where these companies are hitting commercialization right at a time when they need that kind of capital intensity to get to that, that next step in that, in that sweet spot. I mean, it seems like a time when, you know, they and perhaps FedEx should lean in more aggressively given their size. what are your probabilities on that speculation?

Grayson Brulte: I’ll give it a 50/50. And I know it’s a cop-out answer, but I think about this. Does Amazon have battle scars from the Zoox acquisition that could potentially make them more hesitant to do a deal on the trucking side, do you think?

Walter Piecyk: I don’t because I think they can see Waymo’s in the market operating quite well. so I don’t think it’s a autonomy issue. I think it’s a Zoox

Grayson Brulte: I agree with that. in my opinion, Amazon, obviously they have the balance sheet to do it, they have the free cash flow to do it, they have the, the engineering, they have the compute access to do it. Perhaps it’s an issue where they wanna wait until there are companies operating driver-out, no supervisor on multiple lanes, and then they go in there and, and scoop something up and the technology’s already more mature perhaps. So, I don’t know. At some point I see Amazon doing something. What they’re going to do, I’m not gonna make a prediction on that, but it’s, at some point they are gonna do something. ‘Cause all you have to do is go look at Kiva Robotics for the warehouses. That worked out well for them. Why, I just don’t understand why they haven’t do it. But if, here’s a, here’s a hypothetical for you. Let’s say FedEx Freight goes out and does a deal and acquires somebody. Do you think that potentially forces Amazon’s hand to move faster?

Walter Piecyk: Mean, Certainly whenever there’s action in a market, the knee-jerk reaction of management teams is to rush to their whiteboards and figure out what they need to do. Reactivity. You always need that first domino to drop in order to create others. So we’ll see if that happens. And I think, look, as, as these guys progress forward and their needs for capital progress forward, I think those things will happen. I mean, the other– the flip side of this argument is there’s such a focus on compute. You’ve got companies is- Google. Now there’s, there’s news of Facebook wanting to issue equity in the market for the amount of capital required for compute. Like, even though these are small dollars relative to what they’re spending on compute, maybe there’s, like, some lockdown on, on CapEx and investments like this in other areas. You never know if that has some, some knock-on impact of that. So time will tell, but I’d just like to throw it out there so that at some point in the future when it does happen, we can always refer back and say, “You heard it here first on Autonomy Markets.”

Grayson Brulte: We should get the, the, the old Drudge Report siren going when, when we Break Something ahead of somebody

Avride: 200-Plus Vehicles and 60,000 Uber Rides

Walter Piecyk: I know others will deny that they heard it here first, but that’s fine. We know that they heard it. Anyway, so let’s go to the next story. Avride. We talked about this last week about we, we, you know, we were curious about the number of vehicles that they were claiming to have on the road. Not they were claiming, but Texas said they had on the road. We got some clarification. It’s probably closer to 200 plus vehicles. They put a tweet out, also talked about 60,000 autonomous rides on Uber. So someone went through the Uber app for 60,000 rides. That’s very impressive, in Dallas on Avride. I was one of those, many of those 60,000, as were you. We’ve shared our experiences in the back in the past. If you haven’t seen it, go to Road to Autonomy, search up Avride. You’ll see some of our comments on our test ride in Austin and our live rides in, in Dallas. but we were right, Ben. Like the three, whatever it was, was, was, you know, included other vehicles. It wasn’t anything Avride was misrepresenting, but it’s just how those numbers work in Texas, where they’re counting all the cars next, versus, like, the cars actually on the road for autonomy. An important point when people are out there s- you know, trying to slice and pla- place, slice and dice, dice and slice? Dice and slice data about our friends at Tesla. Remember that, like, you know, some of the data, if you dig a little deeper and peel the onion a little bit, m- it might not necessarily support whatever thesis you’re trying to Push

Grayson Brulte: It goes back to something that I’ve been saying for probably going on a decade now, that a lot of these reports, and this goes back to the disengagement reports from California, create a false narrative, and frankly, a misleading narrative. And that’s what we’re seeing in the Texas data. I would say to the state of Texas, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, “Please add some clarity or some notes around the data. Just don’t put the number of vehicles and all the VIN numbers. Give some clarity, give some co- context to it, and, and help to eliminate this problem.”

Walter Piecyk: I agree. They do. Everyone’s trying their best, but just remember when you get data, especially from states, you know, you have to ask, think about some of the quality and ask those additional questions versus jumping to conclusions that you think support your thesis. In any event, let’s move on to Serve, another, you know, I’m gonna tout Road to Autonomy again, you know, a, a company that has appeared on, on Road to Autonomy. So again, search the library for that. These guys are turning into a press release machine Grayson, and in this case, now they’re, they’re moving laundry. It’s not just food. They’re gonna use these great robots that are on the sidewalk that in Philadelphia are not getting abused as, as people would have you think. but now they’re gonna be moving laundry for pickup and, and return. Seems like a great application

Grayson Brulte: It’s a wonderful application. I will tease to the audience that Ali is coming back. He’s the, the co-founder and CEO. He’s coming back on in a few weeks. Look forward to that episode. So Walt, the city of Brotherly Love is the city of brotherly autonomy? Like, they’re, they’re, they’re showing some love to the robots

Walter Piecyk: I’m just saying I’ve seen robots there, and I didn’t see anyone messing with them. So now, you know, maybe if someone tries to crack in there looking for a cheese steak, they’re gonna find someone’s dirty laundry. That’ll be a rude awakening, especially Philly dirty Laundry

Grayson Brulte: That’s not good. And you know what’s, what is, oh, oh, also which is a rude awakening? The CEO of Ferrari comes out, he goes, “No, we’re never going to build an autonomous vehicle.” Well, get the tape, the ticker, and let’s rewind back. When Sergio was alive, “We will never, ever build an electric car.” And lo and behold, they, they built an electric car to a lot of, I’ll use the term fanfare. But he says, “The driver has to have the fun, not the computer.” I’m gonna file this under, this is another line of we won’t do it, and they eventually will do it

Walter Piecyk: First of all, when you say fanfare, you just brush over the fact that Johnny Ive delivered the most generic-looking Ferrari ever known to man, where it was even ripped into to f- by a former executive of Ferrari. So that was, you know, you were being too kind there. I think, like, on this auto- Like, you don’t buy a Ferrari to have it drive autonomously. You just don’t. So, like, the electric thing, I can see how they’d flip-flop on that. Not totally, ’cause you’d still want the rumble of the engine. But, like, it makes sense that no one. Like, Ferraris will be the last car to go autonomous

Grayson Brulte: Nope. You’re 100% wrong. You know why?

Walter Piecyk: No, Tell me why. I have no Idea

Grayson Brulte: Ferrari is an aspirational brand. It is not a car, it is a brand. And that brand has Value

Walter Piecyk: But if you’re buying a Ferrari, you’re buying it to drive it. Like, I don’t understand. Do you think someone would buy a Ferrari just to sit in there and have it drive you?

Grayson Brulte: Yes, because you and I both know when you roll up in a Ferrari in certain locations, you’re gonna have a good evening. It’s a pickup machine

Walter Piecyk: I understand that, but why do you need it to be driving to you, driving autonomously though? I mean, they are a difficult car to drive. I can see how you can crash those things quite easily. But beyond that, I don’t Know

Grayson Brulte: I, do I have to jog your, y- your memory? The, we’re, we’re a G-rated audience, so I’m not going there. The car autonomously drives yourself and you have a, yeah, you kind of see Where I’m going

Walter Piecyk: Oh, God. Okay, next. Foreign autonomy desk. What do we got? Jesus. Sorry, Mom.

Grayson Brulte: I Beha- I behaved For Mrs. Piecyk

Walter Piecyk: That was Gr- that was Grayson this time. That was Grayson This time.

Grayson Brulte: I behaved. I didn’t say anything inappropriate. I said we’re a G-rated show.

Walter Piecyk: Oh, you’re terrible. You are Terrible. All right, what’s, what do we have on the foreign autonomy desk?

Foreign Autonomy Desk: Autobrains in Munich and HUMAIN/NVIDIA in Saudi Arabia

Grayson Brulte: Ivan was terrible, not me. See, that’s history lesson there for you. On the foreign autonomy desk, Uber continues, as we said earlier, their expansion into Europe. This time they’re partnering with Autobrains, an Israeli-based company. We’ve had the CEO on the Road to Autonomy podcast before. And pending regulatory approval, they’ll be launching a robotaxi service in Munich powered by Autobrains

Walter Piecyk: So Autobrains is basically just another autonomy company and, and I must have missed that episode, so I will have to once again go back into that Road to Autonomy library, the deepest autonomy library in all of autonomy to look for the Autobrains and, And Learn about What this company Does

Grayson Brulte: Thank you. And just to give the, the audience a quick thing, AutoBrain’s, one of their investors is VinFast, the Vietnamese auto manufacturer, and they’re building cars there for the Southeast market, so watch for that. Another thing to point out to the audience for Munich, Nuro is currently testing in Munich as well. So two Uber partners, one city. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out

Walter Piecyk: What else do we have In the foreign Desk?

Grayson Brulte: In the foreign desk, the PIF, the sovereign wealth fund for Saudi Arabia, has a company called Human, and they announced a partnership with Nvidia where they’re gonna deploy robotaxis in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Walter Piecyk: So Humane does what? They’re just a– Are they a tech company, a car company, What are the Humane?

Grayson Brulte: Humane Is a AI startup we’re gonna call a frontier lab, and they are partnering with N- with NVIDIA to deploy them. And the question is, who’s going to be the service provider? That, that’s something to watch and see there. And not to keep going back to the library, Tuesday on Road to Autonomy, Mr. Gil West, CEO of Hertz, joins us, where he breaks down Hertz’s global strategy for robotaxis. And I’ll give you a hint: it’s a lot bigger than you might think

Walter Piecyk: Can’t wait. Looking forward to it. What do We have for next week?

Grayson Brulte: That’s your department. We got WWC, but what else is going on?

Walter Piecyk: Mean, WWDC clearly not gonna say anything on cars. Sp- I’ll be doing, dealing with SpaceX as they approach the pricing of that deal, and you got some more investor conferences. So, I mean, I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe It’ll be a quiet week For us. I Doubt it

Grayson Brulte: Quiet week? Nah, we’ve said that before. The future is bright, the future is autonomous, the future is a busy week.