The Road to Autonomy

Are you ready to go behind the scenes and uncover the secrets of the company playing a pivotal role in the future of autonomous and electric vehicles? In this riveting episode, we dive deep into the world of Applied Intuition, the Silicon Valley company partnering with automotive giants such as Porsche to develop groundbreaking software that will make self-driving cars a reality.Join us as host Grayson Brulte sits down with Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig, the visionary co-founders who are fusing cutting-edge artificial intelligence with decades of automotive expertise. You'll gain unprecedented insights into their bold mission to accelerate safe autonomy across industries – from transforming in-vehicle experiences to tackling defense applications.But that's not all! Brace yourself for insights into Applied Intuition's pioneering work, including their multi-stack strategy to future-proof technology, ambitious vehicle software platform to revolutionize mobile electronics, and the innovative ways they're empowering automakers to control the consumer experience like never before.Don't miss this opportunity to understand the forces driving autonomy and witness the birth of a new era in intelligent machines. Listen now and immerse yourself in a world where the boundaries of possibility are constantly being redefined.Episode Chapters0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction0:56 Series E Funding3:44 Applied Intuition AI Roadmap5:58 AV 2.010:00 Insights into the Chip Market11:04 Applied Intuition Trust Layer14:37 Autonomous Driving24:36 Applied Intuition x Porsche27:45 Software Development with OEMs36:54 Applied Intuition Defense Business39:24 Future of Applied IntuitionRecorded on Friday, March 29, 2024 --------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss Tesla’s data advantage and what it means to the development and commercialization of autonomous driving. The conversation begins with Pete and Grayson discussing Tesla FSD (Full Self-Driving) and the advantages Tesla has with their data gathering abilities. Tesla has over 5 million vehicles fitted with FSD hardware and software on the road today, driving an estimated 50 billion miles per year — 100,000 miles per minute. This on-going data collection gives Tesla a massive advantage over competitors developing an end-to-end neural net self-driving stack.Mobileye is taking a similar approach to Tesla by gathering real-world driving data to train their autonomous models. Currently Mobileye has over 26 years of data equaling over 200 petabytes of driving footage, equivalent to 16 million 1-minute driving clips. But is it enough data to train their autonomous driving models and scale a business?It has yet to be determined if there is a business there for Mobileye as year-over-year revenues are expected to be $226.35 million, down 50.6% from the year-ago. To try and accelerate revenue growth, Mobileye is moving the business away from ADAS chips to the autonomous driving sector which has larger margins. [Mobileye is] talking about going from roughly $50 dollars of revenue per unit to $1,500 with Supervision to $3,000 per car with Chauffeur. So I think that the path mobilize sees forward is really ramping up production of those systems, finding buyers for those systems, particularly in China.– Pete BigelowWhile it’s well known that Tesla is gathering driving data, it’s not well known that Mobileye is gathering driving data. Could consumers push back and demand to be paid a fee for gathering data for Mobileye? If consumers demanded to be paid, the Mobileye autonomous driving business model would be at risk. Then there is the political risk. What if a U.S. Congressman or Senator introduced a “Car Owner Bill of Rights”?The data being gathered by vehicles is going to be an asset class at some point in the future. When it becomes an asset class, owners of the vehicle will demand to get paid the same way publishers are demanding to be paid today when their content is used to train large-language models (LLMs). Data is the asset that unlocks future business models. One of the most significant business models that will emerge from the development of autonomous driving is licensing. If FSD use rates pick up and Tesla does indeed license FSD, RBC is projecting that Tesla will generate $35 billion in FSD revenue and $18 billion in licensing a year by 2035 for a total of $53 billion a year in revenue.Then there is Qualcomm. In Q1 FY 2024, Qualcomm reported automotive revenue of $598 million up from $456 million in Q1 FY 2023. An increase of $142 million, year-over-year. Sales were partly driven by the Snapdragon Digital Chassis Solution. Their year-over-year automotive revenue is growing faster than both NVIDIA and Mobileye. With a $30 billion dollar design pipeline and focus on ADAS, Qualcomm is well positioned to enter the autonomous driving market in a big way.Qualcomm has become already the quiet giant of the automotive industry. – Pete BigelowWrapping up the conversation, Pete shares his insights into how he sees autonomous driving market evolving over the next five years.Recorded on Friday, March 8, 2024 Episode Chapters0:10 Tesla FSD5:15 Mobileye19:51 Licensing Autonomous Driving Software 29:10 Qualcomm34:48 Evolving Autonomous Driving Market--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Adam Kovacevich, Founder & CEO, Chamber of Progress joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the regulatory environment for autonomous vehicles in California and what impact if passed, local control would have on the deployment on AVs in California.The conversation begins with Adam discussing why autonomous vehicles are so divisive in California. Today, there is a divide between the entrenched “status quo” and the residents of California that are excited to use autonomous vehicles on a daily basis. In someways this is such a threat to the status quo that unfortunately city leaders in both LA and San Francisco have resisted. – Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO, Chamber of ProgressPhoenix is taking the opposite approach of both LA and San Francisco. The city and the greater Phoenix metro region have welcomed autonomous vehicles into their communities with great success. Waymo vehicles operating in the region do not get high, they do not get distracted and the do not drive drunk. Yet, when the positive benefits are presented to officials in California, they do not want to hear it.I would like to think that Los Angeles will ultimately be one of the great markets in the world for autonomous vehicles, just because the car is so central to LA. – Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO, Chamber of ProgressWhile LA could ultimately be one of the great markets for autonomous vehicles, legislators in the State Assembly and State Senate are actively working to pass regulations that would effectively ban autonomous vehicles in California. If autonomous vehicles are essentially banned in California, the state’s economy would ultimately suffer from an economic downturn.One of the ways that clever legislators are trying to ban autonomous vehicles is by passing legislation that would give local municipalities regulatory control over autonomous vehicles. Each municipality would have its own set of regulations, and perhaps even their own DMV to enforce the regulations. If signed into law, the local control over autonomous vehicles bill would be an effective ban on autonomous vehicles in the State of California. Could you image if this proposed local control law was applied to drivers? If you wanted to drive to the beach from Downtown LA, you would pass through Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica all before ending up in Malibu. Five different cities, five potentially different sets of regulations. What if one of those cities decided they only wanted residents to drive in that city? You could potentially blocked from reaching the beach. Would this violate the California Coastal Act in some form or fashion? What is being proposed is not realistic. It’s being driven by special interests that want to see autonomous vehicles banned in the state. This is not about the citizens of the state or residents of the cities were autonomous vehicles operate, this is about control and appeasing special interests. It’s not practically about local control, it’s really effectively a ban. – Adam Kovacevich, Founder and CEO, Chamber of ProgressIf the local control bill is passed, signed into law and autonomous vehicles are effectively banned in California, the business exodus from the state would further accelerate. Businesses want to operate in a regulatory environment that is predictable, manageable and stable. Wrapping up the conversation, Adam and Grayson discuss what it would look like if autonomous vehicles were regulated at the federal level.Episode Chapters0:11 Why Autonomous Vehicles are so Divisive in California4:20 Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles7:41 Pending Autonomous Vehicle Legislation in California 19:55 Business Exodus from California28:33 Developing Public Trust in Autonomous Vehicles 34:11 Federal Regulation of Autonomous VehiclesRecorded on Friday, March 29, 2024 --------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, Loadsmith joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the unit economics of autonomous trucking and the Loadsmith self-balancing freight network. The conversation begins with Brett discussing the unit economics of traditional trucking.Trucking and the most successful trucking companies look at unit economics. However they are measuring their business, they are going to do it in a very unit way. Whether you are looking at revenue per truck per day, revenue per truck per week, revenue per truck per hour, depending on your business and how your business is operating, revenue per mile obviously. When you start looking at things like fuel surcharge per mile, your deadhead miles, your out of route miles, all of the things that build into those unit economics, that is the basis of trucking. So you have to look at things at a unit economic perspective. – Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, LoadsmithWhen autonomous trucks are introduced into the fleet the economics are going to change. Well, the whole thing is going to change. The entire economics of trucking are going to change and not in every lane on day one, and not even in every lane forever. But the economics of, let’s just call it your 20 most dense lanes in the United States are going to probably change very drastically, very quickly.Then it will continue to expand to the top 100 lanes from a density perspective, and it may settle in somewhere 150 to 250 total lanes that can support autonomous from an economics perspective. – Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, LoadsmithAutonomous trucks are first going to be deployed on over-the-road long haul routes, while the last-mile routes will still be driven by professional drivers. This dichotomy is going to lead to job creation and higher wages because of the demand for for first and last mile drivers. To capitalize on the hybrid network that is going to emerge from the mass deployment of autonomous trucks, Brett founded Loadsmith.Along with the emergence of autonomous trucks, zero-emission trucks are also beginning to come online. However, the unit economics of zero emission trucks do not calculate today due to their higher upfront costs which is 50% more on average than traditional diesel trucks. I’m very, very pro zero emission. I’m very, very pro autonomous. I do not think because of the cost of the truck that you’re going to be able to have zero emission in the middle mile at scale without it being autonomous. – Brett Suma, Founder & CEO, LoadsmithThis is partly because of the infrastructure and the economics to operate the service with a professional driver. Where zero emission trucks could thrive is in the first and last mile. While autonomous trucks will thrive in the middle-mile. To scale up their autonomous freight network, Loadsmith partnered with Kodiak. Wrapping up the conversation, Brett shares his opinion on the future of the freight industry.Episode Chapters0:23 Economics of Trucking3:24 Impact of Insurance Costs on Trucking Economics15:36 Economics of Autonomous Trucks24:56 Building a Hybrid Freight Network31:55 Founding of the Loadsmith Freight Network36:04 Unit Economics of Zero Emissions Trucks39:41 Economic Advantages of the Loadsmith Freight Network 42:20 Freight Balancing 48:24 Partnership with Kodiak51:24 Future of Freight IndustryRecorded on Thursday, February 29, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania (part of the TRATON Group) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Scania’s customer-centric approach to autonomous trucking and their partnership with Plus. The conversation begins with Peter discussing Scania’s autonomy efforts and the four core principles of their approach:Focusing on the customer journey perspective.Concentrating on long-haul transport and confined mining applications.Maintaining control over their systems through strategic partnerships.Coordinating efforts across TRATON’s brands.Strategic partnerships are key to the development and commercialization of autonomous trucks. TRATON recently announced a partnership with Plus for the development and commercialization of SAE Level 4 autonomous trucks. The cultural fit and shared values between the two companies were one of the critical factors in the deal coming to fruition. Even with the Plus partnership, Scania intends to continue developing its own autonomous driving technologies in parallel. If we don’t understand the product, we will not be a good partner for Plus or anyone else either. – Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, ScaniaThis dual-track approach allows Scania to maintain deep technical expertise in autonomous driving. When it comes to commercializing autonomous trucking solutions, Peter details Scania’s “driver-as-a-service” model. Rather than competing directly with customers for transportation services, Scania aims to integrate autonomous driving into their existing operational systems and workflows seamlessly.The initial autonomous lanes will be determined entirely by customer needs and existing transportation routes. These lanes will most likely be long-haul routes due to the economics and acute driver shortages.Throughout the discussion, Peter underscores that partnerships, culture fit, and shared values are critical for scaling autonomous trucks successfully. It’s easy to forget about culture and values when you talk about technology, because it is essential that technology works, but it’s actually people that are developing everything behind. – Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, ScaniaWrapping up the conversation, Peter reaffirms Scania’s customer-first philosophy as the driving force behind their autonomous pursuits, ensuring solutions that unlock tangible value for their transportation partners.Chapters:0:11 Scania's Approach to Autonomous Trucking5:33 Scania's Autonomous Trucking Commercialization Strategy8:18 Autonomous Solutions for Minning11:02 Driver-as-a-Service Lanes13:45 Plus / TRATON Partnership16:06 Scania's History in Autonomous Trucks18:10 Customer Approach to Autonomy21:44 E.U. Autonomous Trucking Policy23:09 Rolling out Autonomous Trucks in the U.S. and E.U.26:34 Key TakeawaysRecorded on Tuesday March 19, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mazen Danaf, Senior Economist and Applied Scientist, Uber Freight joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economic conditions impacting the adoption of autonomous and electric trucks. In this engaging economic discussion, Mazen provides valuable insights into the forces molding the future of autonomous and electric trucking. With $18 billion of freight under management, Uber Freight has a unique vantage point into wider market dynamics.A key focus of the conversation is the recent rebound in consumer spending on goods, which increased 5% year-over-year in 2023 after a two-year stagnation. This positive demand signal bodes well for increased freight volumes and a potential freight market recovery emerging in Q2 2024, according to Mazen. Other indicators such as improving manufacturing data, reduced truck orders, and employment in long-haul trucking are creating conditions conducive to higher freight demand.However, Mazen cautioned that the $1.13 trillion in U.S. consumer credit card debt, while elevated, has returned to a manageable 5% debt-to-income ratio consistent with pre-pandemic levels. Monitoring factors like unemployment will be crucial to gauge if the consumer remains able to sustain spending.Turning to transformative freight technologies, Mazen emphasized the importance of analyzing autonomous and electric truck adoption through a comprehensive economic lens rather than a tech lens. Long-term, he expects a decades-long transition facilitated by a hybrid approach of both autonomous and professional driver operations.For electric trucks, substantial public and private investment is needed to build out charging infrastructure at scale. Freight-dense interstate corridors like Los Angeles-Inland Empire and Dallas- Houston are prime candidates for targeted electrification efforts to maximize emissions reduction.The overarching theme of the podcast was consumer behavior, market forces, infrastructure, and the regulatory environment will all shape trucking’s autonomous and electric future as much as the technology itself. Mazen stressed, “it’s interesting to look at the broader context…because it will definitely have an effect.” Uber Freight’s vast data intelligence provides a powerful economic prism through which to forecast this transformation.Chapters:0:00 Introduction 0:40 Consumer Spending and The Economy 6:50 Fed Interest Rate Cuts 9:12 Real Estate Markets 11:08 Layoffs 12:50 Decline in Freight Market Job Growth 14:40 Carriers Investing in Autonomous Trucks 21:04 Autonomous Trucks and Intermodal 24:13 Autonomous Trucking in California 27:34 Autonomous and Electric Trucks Impact on Jobs 31:15 Introducing Electric Trucks into Fleets 41:27 Q4 2023 Truck Sales Decline 43:44 Freight Recovery 45:43 Key TakeawaysRecorded on Thursday, February 15, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alex Kendall, Co-Founder & CEO, Wayve joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Wayve’s AV 2.0 approach to autonomous driving.The conversation begins with Alex discussing the founding of Wayve and how their autonomous driving stack has evolved.Yes, we started with cameras, but a common misconception is that we think camera only is the way to go. Actually I think the sensing stack you need to use should be based on safety, scalability and economics. – Alex KendallWayve’s approach to autonomous driving has attracted world class investors such as Microsoft. Last year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates visited Wayve and took a ride in their autonomous vehicle through the central London and Soho on an unmapped, un-planned route. The whole thesis behind our approach is to build a system that can learn behavior. – Alex KendallThis approach is called AV 2.0. It is being developed with end-to-end neural networks that are economically scalable. Does this approach end up being the most common approach to solving autonomous driving? Tesla is taking a similar approach with the introduce of FSD 12.0. Could Wayve and Tesla usher in a future with end-to-end neural net autonomous vehicles?As Wayve begins to commercialize their autonomous driving technology, they are first deploying their software as a driving assistance system with OEMs.We don’t need to change any hardware, add-on or retro-fit anything. We can work with production vehicles today and have the neural network deployed. The advantage of this is that we can start to give consumers exposure to embodied AI, rather than dropping in an L4 solution from day zero. We give them an exposure to a companion co-pilot driver assistance system and it can learn overtime quickly developing to a point where it can become L4 and autonomous. – Alex KendallThe advantages of this approach is that it allows Wayve to generate revenue today, gather more data to train the neural nets all while building public trust. The more data, the better the neural nets and there is also the opportunity to license data to other autonomous vehicle developers. It’s a strategic approach with lots of options as Wayve has chosen to partner with OEMs and not build their own vehicle. Wrapping up the conversation, Alex share his thoughts on embodied AI and the future of Wayve.Episode Chapters0:08 Founding of Wayve 5:34 Bill Gates Goes For a Ride6:35 AV 2.019:22 Wayve Commercialization Model24:22 Testing Autonomous Vehicles in London26:02 Data as an Asset Class29:51 Partnership Approach30:59 Future of WayveRecorded on Friday, March 8, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and analysis on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy podcast and This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Peter Weiss, Board Certified Physician and Health Care Entrepreneur joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy: Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economic impact that autonomous vehicles will have on health care.The conversation begins with Dr. Weiss discussing how he views autonomous vehicles and the delivery of health care complimenting each other in the future.Health care is more then just seeing the physician or a health care provider, it’s about getting from point A to point B to provide that care. – Dr. Peter WeissIn the future autonomous vehicles will have the capability to determine if a passenger is having a heart attack, potentially saving their life. The question of who makes the decision to re-route the autonomous vehicle to a hospital is yet to be determined. The vehicle could ask the passenger for permission, but what if that individual is unconscious? Then what happens? If the passenger is unable to respond to the question, then the car should be able to then directly take the passenger to the hospital and at the same time notify the hospital that we have a patient coming in with certain blood pressure, certain atrial fibrillation. All this information that can could really save a life. – Dr. Peter WeissIs legislation needed to limit the liability of that decision? Most likely, as the decisions made will open a formidable maze of legal liabilities. Then there is the aspect of insurance and what hospital the passenger is rerouted to for medical care. Are those doctors and hospital in-network or out of-network? Who is responsible for the difference in cost?In 2022, hospital expenditures grew 2.2% to $1.35 trillion according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Could rerouting autonomous vehicles with unwell passengers add to the growing hospital expenditures? Yes. When health care is able to be delivered in an autonomous vehicle, there could be cost savings that would offset those growing expenditures.It’s not just hospital expenditures that are growing, it’s the overall cost of delivering health care. In 2022 U.S. consumers spent 8% of their income on health care, only 4.8% less than they spend on food according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Overall health care expenditures grew 4.1% to $4.5 trillion equaling $13,493 per person, accounting for 17.3% of GDP. A percentage of the increasing expenditures could be correlated to motor vehicle crashes. Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in their United States with over 100 people dying everyday. In 2015, more than 2.5 million drivers and passengers were treated in emergency rooms as a result of being injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes. The economic impact of these crashes is notable. For crashes that occurred in 2017, the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with occupant injuries and deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes exceeded $75 billion. If autonomous vehicles can eliminate a majority of these crashes, the economic not to mention societal impact could be astronomical. You would save billions of dollars in costs that could be provided for underserved communities that need treatment for asthma, for all of these other things that could be done. There is a greater utilization of the money that could be provided for care. – Dr. Peter WeissAutonomy and autonomous vehicles are good for society and the economy. They will have a positive economic impact on health care while making the roads safer. Wrapping up the conversation, Dr. Weiss share this thoughts on the future of medicine. Episode Chapters0:00 Introduction0:43 Autonomous Vehicles and the Delivery of Health Care6:48 Growing Medical Expenditures17:41 End of Life Medical Care Costs 20:32 Personal and Business Spending on Health Care 27:28 Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes 33:42 Neuralink37:17 Future of MedicineRecorded on Sunday, February 4, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Steven Jenkins, Vice President of Technology Strategy, Magna joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Magna’s partner approach to developing autonomous driving systems. The conversation begins with Steven discussing how Magna is approaching safety systems. Magna is one of the only real few suppliers that has the entire set of enablers to make it happen and do a complete system. So we are thinking about the whole system as a package rather then individual pieces of the package, and that allows us to develop these market leading products that deliver the enhanced safety and convenience for the driver. – Steven Jenkins The software defined vehicle will unlock continuous updates to the vehicle, unlocking new features and functions. Eventually these software updates will be able to upgrade vehicles to enable autonomous driving functionality depending on their sensor package. As vehicles become more advanced with higher levels of autonomy, the debate around driver monitoring creeps into the conversation and ultimately leads to the question; when is the right time to introduce driver monitoring? That question ultimately comes down to the OEM. While the OEM makes that decision, Magna is working on a series of in-cabin monitoring solutions that benefit the driver and the passengers. This approach will benefit their OEM customers as they introduce higher levels of autonomy. Magna is approaching autonomy as as a step-wise approach.In a kind of autonomous scenario you are really taking a kind of huge leap in terms of what you can do with a vehicle, but you are not taking as big as a leap when it comes to technology. A lot of things are pretty similar. – Steven Jenkins A hybrid market that comprises of both robotaxis and personally owned autonomous vehicles could emerge at some point in the future. How the economics of these models emerge will depend on the companies that make the product available and take the risk from a financing perspective. Either way, Magna will be there from a technological standpoint to help their partners and customers usher in the future of autonomy. Wrapping up the conversation, Steven shares his opinion on the future of mobility. Episode Chapters0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction0:56 Magna’s Complete Safety System Approach 4:25 Software Defined Vehicles6:07 Neural Network Approach to Autonomous Driving10:28 Driver Monitoring16:31 Magna’s Approach to Autonomous Driving31:09 New and Emerging Technologies37:07 Staying Ahead of the Market38:54 Future of MobilityRecorded on Monday, March 11, 2024Magna International is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company--------About The Road to AutonomyAbout The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Harry Campbell aka The Rideshare Guy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the rideshare industry, the role that power drivers play in the ecosystem and his thoughts on Uber’s growing hybrid network.The conversation begins with Grayson and Harry discussing Uber’s outperformance compared to the S&P 500. Over the last 12 months, Uber has outperformed the S&P 500 by 102%. While Uber is outperforming the market, their competitor Lyft is struggling to figure out the future of their business. Drivers are the backbone of both Uber and Lyft. According to J.P. Morgan, the average Uber driver earns $33 an hour. The estimated average hourly earnings are only for Period 3, commonly referred to as active time. Period 1 is when a driver is on the Uber app waiting for a ride. Period 2 is when a driver has accepted a ride and are driving to pick up the passenger. Period 3, that’s when you make the most amount of money as a driver. You want your wheels moving, you want to be going fast, you want to be going far. That’s kind of how you make the most amount of money. $33 an hour is basically saying drivers make $33 an hour when they are driving to a customer or they have a customer in the car, but we are not going to count any of the downtime. – Harry Campbell While drivers are the backbone of the platforms, there are divergences in how Uber and Lyft attract and retain drivers. Both companies use incentives to retain drivers, Lyft is starting to increase the amount incentives to attract power drivers away from Uber. Power drivers are drivers who drive more than 40+ hours a week or roughly 6,000 miles per month. Accounting for 20% of the driver inventory at any moment.As Uber continues to grow and shed non-core assets, the company is laying the foundation to transform Uber into a hybrid platform with both drivers and autonomous vehicles. Today, you can hail a Waymo in Phoenix on the Uber app and have Uber Eats delivered in a Motional autonomous vehicle in Santa Monica. When it comes to Uber’s strategy with AV, I think it’s kind of a no-brainer. – Harry Campbell This is the right strategy for Uber. Dara Khosrowshahi made the strategic decision to sell Uber ATG to Aurora and focus on becoming a platform again. Uber was able to shed the billions in development costs, while fully embracing the power of Uber — the platform. This decision has allowed Uber to focus on growing their free cash flow while becoming profitable. The Uber 2.0 strategy will enable Uber to collect a fee very similar to the way Mastercard and Visa collect swipe fees every time a consumer makes a purchase with their credit card. The more consumers choose to ride in Waymo vehicles on the Uber platform, the more revenue Uber will generate. Uber’s new autonomous vehicle strategy will pay dividends as Waymo scales up. If the price of a Waymo is on par with Uber X, consumers in our opinion will overwhelmingly choose Waymo because of the consistent experience. Either way, Uber benefits as the company will collect a platform usage fee. Wrapping up the conversation, Harry shares his opinion on the future of Uber. Episode Chapters0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction0:55 Uber vs S&P 5002:05 Does Lyft Survive?3:32 Rideshare Drivers: Driving for Uber and Lyft17:41 Uber and Lyft Driver Incentives 21:40 Most Popular Rideshare Vehicles 25:33 Dara Khosrowshahi29:36 Do Uber Drivers Buy UBER Stock?35:20 Changes Drivers Would Like to See on the Uber and Lyft Platforms41:50 Autonomous Vehicles as Rideshare Vehicles (Robotaxis)44:50 Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle Strategy49:10 Lyft’s Earnings Blunder50:38 Uber’s Product Compared to Waymo53:44 Expanding the Uber Platform1:07:56 Uber Freight1:10:20 The Future of UberRecorded on Thursday, February 22, 2024Uber is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company--------About The Road to AutonomyAbout The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ian Rust, Founder & CEO, Revoy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of Revoy and why hybrid is the right approach to electrifying Class 8 trucks. The conversation begins with Ian discussing Revoy’s approach to hybrid technology for electrified trailers.We view hybrid definitely the most viable solution for electrification in the Class 8 market. – Ian RustThe Revoy EV hooks up in-between a tractor and a trailer in a matter of minutes. Revoy is able to do this, because they deliver pre-charged EVs to their customers, eliminating the charging downtime. By bringing in that pre-charged battery pack we can integrate in under five minutes. – Ian RustOne of the major benefits to the Revoy system is an increase the MPG (miles per gallon). The Revoy test fleet has been able to achieve 67 mpg in a diesel class 8 truck. When trucks are traveling on hilly roads, the extra torc delivered by the hybrid system allows trucks to keep pace with the other motorists on the road. When coming down a hill, the system’s regenerative braking activates, assisting the professional driver and increasing safety. We can actually stop a tractor trailer with a Revoy EV applied 30% sooner. – Ian RustRevoy’s EVs will not be sold, they will be leased on a per mile basis with zero up-front payment. They will be deployed at strategically located hubs where the drivers will stop and swap their Revoy EV in four minutes. You can just have essentially uncapped long-haul range on electric power by just stopping and swapping in four minutes. – Ian RustWrapping up the conversation, Ian shares his thoughts on what the future will look like for electrified class 8 trucks. Recorded on Tuesday, February 20, 2024Episode Chapters0:00 Introduction 0:37 Revoy’s Approach to Electrified Trailers3:03 Increases in MPG (miles per gallon)5:08 Safety and Insurance Benefits8:49 Revoy Business Model12:56 Infrastructure 20:28 Stop and Swap24:20 Hybrid Technology 31:42 The Inspiration for Revoy34:40 Scaling Revoy 40:35 Future of Hybrid Solutions for Class 8 Trucks--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Timothy Dooner, Host, WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discus the rise and fall of digital freight brokerages and the growth of autonomous truckingThe conversation begins with Dooner discussing his outlook for the freight market.There is 8. 1% less brokerages than there were a year ago at the start of this year. But there’s still 17% more brokerages than we started at the pandemic. Everyone’s been waiting for not just volumes to go up, but the way freight works, it’s volume plus capacity. They’ve been waiting for the capacity to go down. Volumes are looking a little bit better. Things are receding and this year I’m hearing a lot more optimism. – Timothy DoonerThe optimism is being shared by Walmart as there are rumors circulating that Walmart is looking to develop a digital freight brokerage. Since Walmart operates their own fleet, they have a unique data set that could potentially help them leapfrog the competition when and if they are introduce a digital freight brokerage service. The freight market is currently turbulent as the demand for freight and the capacity to haul the freight are not in sync. Then there is the California electric truck mandate which will ultimately end up increasing the costs to ship freight, hurting both the carriers and the consumer. Could these mandates help to accelerate the adoption of autonomous truck as they are cheaper to operate? It’s possible and as we are seeing in California, autonomous vehicle technology is not always welcome. in San Francisco vandals set fire to a Waymo autonomous vehicle with a firework, burning the vehicle to the ground. If the regulatory environment in California eventually allows autonomous trucks to operate, will similar vandals also try to cause damage to autonomous trucks? Autonomous trucking is going to play a major role in the future of trucking and the global economy. As the technology is developed different business models are going to come to fruition and one of those is the licensing model. Kodiak has the potential to license their SensorPods technology, creating a lucrative revenue stream as they develop their autonomous trucking platform. This is in addition to their growing defense business.Then there is Uber. Uber has investments in Aurora and Waabi, and has the Uber Freight division. Yet they do not operate an autonomous trucking fleet. Grayson and Dooner go onto dicuss Uber’s autonomous trucking investment strategy and who ultimately owns the asset.Wrapping up the conversation, Dooner shares his 2024 outlook for the trucking market. Recorded on Wednesday, February 14, 2023Chapters0:00 Introduction 1:34 Freight Market Outlook 7:31 Walmart’s Rumored Digital Freight Brokerage 10:42 Are Electric Truck Mandates Accelerating the Adoption of Autonomous Trucks 13:57 Vandals in San Fransisco Set Fire to a Waymo Autonomous Vehicle 18:20 Commercializing Autonomous Trucking 25:32 The Business of Kodiak Robotics28:15 Autonomous Delivery Drones 31:55 Uber’s Autonomous Trucking Investment Strategy 39:18 Who Owns the Asset? 42:59 Tesla Cybertruck 43:52 Apple Vision Pro 51:08 2024 Trucking Outlook--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shannon Nash, Chief Financial Officer, Wing, an Alphabet company joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Wing’s operations in the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) region and why 2024 is the year of autonomous drone delivery. The conversation begins with Shannon discussing how Wing is approaching autonomy and how the service works. The most commonly delivered item is hot coffee. In Frisco, Texas through a partnership with Walmart, Wing is able to deliver hot coffee (without spilling it) to customers with-in five minutes. Wing’s autonomous delivery drones have FAA approval to fly Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) enabling the company to scale the service.In the Dallas Fort Worth area with Walmart we are able to go six miles from the location of the Walmart to the customer’s home. – Shannon NashIn the Dallas Fort Worth region, Wing is currently operating in two locations with Walmart — Frisco and Lewisville. These two strategic locations enables Wing to reach over 60,000 residences. In addition to these two locations, Wing will be expanding drone delivery operations with Walmart later this year in the DFW region. Wing and Walmart’s goal is to cover 75% of the DFW region with a drone delivery service. Autonomy is one the keys to scaling in addition to fitting into the existing workflow of delivery. When you introduce a service like Wing you want to make sure that you don’t disrupt those workflows. – Shannon NashWorkflow integration is clearly working as Wing has successfully completed over 350,000 deliveries across three continents to date. When Wing looks to launch service in a new city or region they engage with the local community to understand their needs, wants and desires and most importantly explain the service to them. They host events in the local community and bring the drones along for show and tell days, so when they launch commercial service there are no surprises. We will continue as we expand to do that community outreach and really that community partnership. – Shannon NashTo scale, Wing is developing the Wing Delivery Network which will unlock efficiencies as the drones will not return to base, instead they will go to the next pickup location. When the network is up and operating, Wing will be able to increase deliveries beyond 1,000 packages a day.Today, Wing drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.6 pounds and they recently announced a new drone known as the Big Box Plane that is capable of handling packages up to 5 pounds. These drones are capable of flying up to 65 mph. Wrapping up the conversation, Shannon shares her vision for the future the future of Wing.Recorded on Tuesday, February 13, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Covenant joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why it all comes down to unit economics when fleets are evaluating new trucking technologies such as battery electric trucks and autonomous trucks. The conversation begins with Matt discussing how Covenant is thinking about implementing battery electric trucks into their fleet. With limited range and reduced weight capacities, the right lane and freight have to be matched up to ensure a successful run. The fleet of the future is actually going to be something that is made up of a lot different pieces of equipment that reflect the different and diverse needs of our customer base. – Matt McLellandReduced capacity comes with increased cost, as battery electric trucks cost roughly 50% more then traditional diesel trucks. Factor in stubborn inflation, slim margins and a Fed Funds interest rate of 5.33%, fleets are hamstrung when it comes financing the increased cost of battery electric trucks.Is a hybrid solution the right solution? As companies look to lower their carbon emissions, could electrified trailers be the solution? Or it could be renewable diesel or B100 (pure biodiesel)?Hybrid solutions that are not full on zero-emission vehicles, that’s what I think the future is. – Matt McLellandThe costs to implement low carbon, zero-emissions technologies for trucks is going to cost more. For the business model to work, that cost is going to have to passed onto the consumer. But the economic reality is, consumers will not pay more for shipping as they are used to fast free shipping commonly known as the “Amazon effect“. Could the push towards low carbon and zero-emissions trucks inadvertently accelerate the implementation and adoption of autonomous trucks?It all comes down to the unit economics. – Matt McLellandAutonomous trucks offer better unit economics than traditional trucks, and the economics only get better as the size of the fleet increases. Covenant is taking a measured approach to autonomous trucking by rolling up their sleeves and developing relationships with the developers. This approach has led to commercial relationships with Aurora and Torc. Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on the future of the trucking industry.Recorded on Friday, February 9, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyAbout The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the current state of the mobility markets. Markets that are in flux with EV sales falling, GM rebooting Cruise, while Waymo scales and the autonomous truck industry prepares to launch commercial operations. The conversation begins with Pete sharing his insights into the electric vehicle market with the backdrop of 5,000 U.S. car dealers sending a second letter to President Biden urging the administration to “hit the brakes” on the EV push. Are these dealers urging The President to hit the brakes because non-Tesla EVs are simply not selling? The EV market can’t be lumped into a monolith, it’s really how certain companies are approaching a change from early adopters to mass-market consumers and that’s where we get into the nitty gritty of a potential slowdown. – Pete Bigelow Tesla with an EV U.S. marketshare north of 55% continues to dominate the market. Raising the question, is there even an EV market in the U.S.? Or is the market for electric vehicles in the U.S., simply Tesla?Tesla is running away with the domestic market right now. – Pete Bigelow Could this change when BYD enters the U.S. market? If and when BYD enters the U.S. market, they will be able to undercut the Detroit automakers as their cost structure is dramatically lower. Is an $18,000 EV the tipping point that supercharges the EV market to the detriment of Detroit?Or does the potential Apple Car become the tipping point? The average Apple user spends 5 hours a day on their Apple devices. Spending more time in an Apple car would only help Apple strengthen their ecosystem and grow the services business. That’s the promise of the Apple Car, they are just going to capture your attention in one more living space. – Pete Bigelow A company that has captured the attention of the industry, regulators and the overall automotive market is Cruise. The company is in the midst of a reboot following an unfortunate incident. How will the reboot work? What role will GM play in a rebooted Cruise? Will GM be forced to rebrand Cruise as they look to rebuild public trust? Grayson and Pete discuss a myriad of possible scenarios. While GM works on a reboot plan for Cruise, Waymo is expanding. When Waymo officially expands operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, they will be operating in a 635 square mile ODD (operational design domain). This will be the largest deployment of autonomous vehicles anywhere in the world.Soon the autonomous trucking industry could surpass the Waymo deployment as the industry prepares to launch driver-out commercial operations later this year. The autonomous trucking industry is growing and new partnerships are being developed that will impact the industry long-term. Wrapping up the conversation, Pete shares what he is watching in the mobility markets this year.Recorded on Friday, January 26, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike Murphy, Republican Political Strategist, Co-Host of Hacks of Tap and CEO, EV Politics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the politics of electric vehicles and their impact on the 2024 election.The conversation begins with Mike discussing his cross-country journey from central New Hampshire to Los Angeles in a VW ID.4 electric vehicle over the summer, and how this adventure led to the founding of EV Politics. Today, electric vehicles have become full of politics and a presidential campaign issue. I just do not like the bashing because I am a free market conservative. I think people to aught to make a choice and these cars have become loaded with politics. – Mike MurphyWhen consumers choose to buy and drive a non-Tesla electric vehicle, they feel overwhelmed by the fact that public charging networks are unreliable — leading to charging anxiety. Which is further stoking the political divide with EVs. This could all be changing as the EV industry moves to the North American Charging Standard (NACS) created by Teslaand developed into a standard by SAE International. Drivers of non-Tesla vehicles will soon have the ability to use the Tesla Supercharger Network, increasing their ability to access reliable charging. In a national survey of 600 voters with household income of $50K+ representing 67% of U.S. 2020 electorate, EV Politics conducted a campaign style poll to gather the pulse in America of electric vehicles. When asked what their biggest concern about owning an EV is, the top two answers were expensive (58%) and insufficient range for trips (53%). Outside of the top two answers, 43% of respondents cited unreliable charger networks. From a political perspective, both Republicans and Democrats agree that cost and insufficient range for trips are their biggest concerns when it comes to buying an EV. However, they disagree about what their friends and relatives will think if they bought an EV.Electric vehicles are not perceived as cars, they are perceived as political statements. – Mike MurphyThen there is Elon Musk. Is he a good ambassador for electric vehicles? It all depends on who you ask. Republicans have a favorable opinion, as 61% agree while only 34% of Democrats agree. Then there is China and the underling issue of Chinese EVs coming to America. How will this potentially impact the politics of EVs and how Americans view EVs? The future of mobility around the world is going electric. Do we want America to be a big player in that or do we want to be Britain in the 70’s and we just keep closing Rover plants? – Mike MurphyAmerica has a choice to make as it relates to the future of mobility. If politics overtake commonsense, America will be left behind. America has to invest in the mining and refining of critical minerals in the U.S. Controlling the EV supply chain is a national security issue and one that should not be taken lightly as the world transitions to electric vehicles. With the 2024 presidential campaign underway and the possibility of a change in The White House, the question around EV subsidies will continue to linger. What impact could a second President Donald Trump administration have on the EV industry? Would Tesla be invited to The White House to promote American ingenuity? Or would the company continue to be sidelined as it has been for the past four years? These are all outstanding questions that will be answered over the next 12 months. Wrapping up the conversation, Mike discuss how he see the EV market evolving over the next four years from a political standpoint.Recorded on Tuesday, January 23, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil and Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss his 2024 outlook for the oil & natural gas markets. The conversation begins with Dean sharing his outlook for the oil and natural gas markets.The outlook for oil and natural gas looks bright. – Dean ForemanLast year, the world set a new record high for oil demand of 101 million barrels per day. As we begin 2024, attention is now turning to geopolitics and global economic concerns. In Argentina, Javier Milei was sworn in as President on December 10th in a referendum on the economy with aspirations to rebuild the economy and lower inflation by unleashing economic growth. With economic and political reforms, Argentina has the ability to become an exporter of oil from the Vaca Muerta shale formation. It has been estimated that the Vaca Muerta formation has the ability to produce more than 1 million barrels of oil per day by 2030.Argentina because it has shale oil, the Vaca Muerta formation in Neuquén. It’s like the Marcellus in the United States, expect it’s much deeper and super high quality rock. They have the potential to really flip and become an exporter much like the United States. But they haven’t had the business climate to be able to support from a macro perspective companies with predictability trusting to go in and invest a lot in the ground. – Dean ForemanIf the business climate changes, it will be interesting to watch and see what multi-national companies begin to invest in the Vaca Muerta formation. In the United States, economists are projecting a soft landing for the economy. If indeed a soft landing is achieved, more investments are going to be needed to bring the amounts of oil and natural gas to the market that are needed to sustain growth.A portion of economic growth can be attributed to tourism demand, as Bloomberg is reporting that 2024 will be a record-setting year for travel. The International Air Transport Association is projecting that 4.7 billion individuals globally will board planes in 2024, generating $964 billion in airfare revenue. The cruise ship industry is also seeing growth as it is estimated that 35.7 million passengers will board a cruise ship in 2024, up from 31.5 million in 2023. If the consumer trend of opting experiences over purchasing goods continues, there could be an uptick in global oil demand. With the Federal Funds Rate at 5.53%, one has to question how long consumers will continue to spend on travel until they feel the weight of the high interest rate environment. If consumers cut back on travel, what is the impact on oil and will diesel demand offset the potential weakness in gasoline? Grayson and Dean discuss the potential scenarios and what the outcome could look like. One of the biggest uncertainties coming into this year, from a household and a corporate perspective is the delayed impact of the pent up effect of having raised interest rates so much, so fast. – Dean ForemanAnother trend to watch is the re-emergence of hybrid sales in the U.S. In 2023, U.S. individuals purchased over 1 million hybrids, up 76% year-over-year. It’s a clear signal that consumers are still willing to purchase vehicles that have an internal combustion engine. Whether this is being driven by a pricing decision or the simple fact that consumers want reliability and consistency has yet to be determined. What has been determined is that there is clearly a trend emerging. A tree that is powering Texas to produce 5.7 million barrels of oil per day, its highest level since 1981. In 2023, Texas accounted for 54.7% of U.S. drilling, it’s highest level since 2019. In Q3 2023, the Permian Basin set a new production record of 10 million barrels per day of oil equivalent. Today, the Permian Basin accounts for 27% of the total U.S. oil and natural gas production. It has the ability to continue to expand, again because of the quality of resources as well as the ability to get pipelines without dealing with the morass of many of the federal energy regulatory commission, interstate pipeline regulations. With Texas’ nimble intrastate pipeline system, it has the unique ability to attract capital and respond to upstream production. That’s why the Permian Basin has really stood out versus anywhere else in the country. – Dean ForemanWrapping up the conversation, Dean shares his insights on what to watch in the oil and natural gas markets over the next quarter.Recorded on Thursday, January 4, 2024--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcast

Edwin Olson, CEO & Co-Founder of May Mobility joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss going driver-out in Sun City, Arizona and the economics of the business. The conversation begins with Edwin discussing what went into launching fully driverless operations in Sun City, Arizona. There is a bunch of technology that has to come together to meet your safety requirements and your capabilities. But actually pulling a safety driver out is about so much more than the technology. We have to bring our riders, our partners, the regulators, insurance companies, first responders. There is a huge amount of work that has to come together to get everyone ready to give this project a thumbs-up. – Edwin OlsonMay Mobility chose to launch in Sun City because of the driving environment and the economic potential. From a technical standpoint they were able to go driver-out in Sun City because of their Multi-Policy Decision Making system. May Mobility’s Multi-Policy Decision Making system has enabled them to deploy in multiple geographic and weather environments such as downtown Detroit, northern Minnesota and Sun City, Arizona. You are never going to become a Babe Ruth by only playing tee ball. You have to start to taking the pitches and playing the hard game. – Edwin OlsonAll of May Mobility’s deployments operate year round, in sun, rain, snow and are revenue generating. The business model being implemented by May compliments public transit as it offers a better return on transit investments for cities and transit agencies. Currently it costs roughly $150 an hour to operate a transit bus in most cities. Our revenue potential is about $150 an hour per vehicle. – Edwin OlsonThe service being provided by May Mobility is as an on-demand point-to-point service being delivered in micro-transit model. As the company gradually removes the safety driver from operations, margins are expected to be around 60%. Driverless operations will ensure a better service without having to rely on drivers who might not show up for work. By switching into a rider-only product we can solve the labor problem and be able to turn on this very high margin business. – Edwin OlsonAs May continues to grow, the company will look to add new vehicles to the mix in addition to their current fleet of fully redundant Toyota Sienna hybrid minivans. We are constantly evaluating other platforms that could help expand our platform offerings so that we can grow our accessible market and grow the business in turn. – Edwin OlsonMay Mobility is a business. Edwin understands this as he is highly focused on developing a business model that is scalable and profitable long-term. When he meets with investors, he breaks down the economics of the May Mobility model and why they are different from the traditional robo-taxi business. In addition to operating an autonomous vehicle business, May is licensing their data to insurance companies. Creating an entirely new revenue stream for the company. Wrapping up the conversation, Ed shares his vision for the future of May Mobility. Recorded on Thursday, December 21, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Joanna Buttler, Head of the Global Autonomous Technology Group, Daimler Truck North America joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia and Daimler Truck’s outlook for autonomous trucking. The conversation begins with Joanna discussing how Daimler Truck North America is approaching autonomy. We see autonomous as one of the biggest opportunities for us as a company. – Joanna ButtlerTo execute on this opportunity, Daimler Truck is focused on deploying long-haul autonomous trucks in the United States as part of a hub-to-hub strategy. As part of the strategy, Daimler is developing the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia and Torc Robotics is developing the autonomous driving software. At Daimler Truck Capital Market Day 2023 in July, the company announced that autonomous trucks were a strong strategic pillar. Projecting that autonomous trucks have the potential to deliver € 3 billion in revenue by 2030 with the official launch for Daimler’s trucks scheduled for 2027.When Daimler commercializes autonomous trucks, customers will purchase the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia from Daimler Truck and an autonomous driving software subscription from Torc with flexible pricing models. To simplify the sales process, Daimler will coordinate the entire transaction and offer financing through Daimler Truck Financial. Daimler Truck’s customers will be able to achieve a higher utilization with autonomous trucks as they will be able to operate 24/7 with limited downtime. Higher utilization could lead to lower shipping costs and increased margins for fleets. To achieve their vision for autonomous trucking, Daimler is developing a redundant autonomous-ready chassis to ensure the highest levels of safety and functionality. The development process started with a list of 1,500 requirements that they jointly developed with Waymo and Torc to identify the systems, features and tasks that are required to enable autonomous driving. When autonomous trucks scale, the benefits to society and the economy will be immense. Autonomy can and will bring great benefits for society. – Joanna ButtlerWrapping up the conversation, Joanna shares her outlook for autonomous trucking.Recorded on Thursday, December 14, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

James Reed, COO, Kodiak Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Kodiak is scaling the business with financial discipline, economic scenario planning and operational readiness as the company ramps up commercial operations heading into 2024. The conversation begins with James sharing his thoughts on the current state of the autonomous trucking industry.Next year DARPA will have been 20 years ago, finally all of us that our on this path are at the point were autonomous vehicles are real and driver-out autonomy in the trucking business is going to happen in the very near future. – James ReedOver the next decade the autonomous trucking industry is going to enter the commercialization phase with a strong focus on financial discipline. Financial discipline is one of James’ strong suits as he was previously CEO of USA Truck that was successfully sold to DB Schenker in September 2022 for $31.72 per share in cash. It’s not just success that James brings to Kodiak, it’s a deep understanding of economic cycles and how those impact operations and cash-flow. In the depths of 2008 financial crisis, James served as Division CFO at Washington Mutual. The bank was ultimately acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase because of their sub-prime mortgage portfolio. During the banking crisis James saw first hand how one division that takes on too much risk can sink an entire corporation. I learned about this dichotomy of you can be widely successful and still fail as a team. – James ReedBeing in banking is about risk management and this is a skill that influences how James runs operations at Kodiak. To manage risk, the team matters. You have to hire the best to mitigate the risk and limit your potential downside exposure. Including planning and forecasting as the economic environments can change suddenly. As we prepare to enter 2024, we could be entering a potential recessionary environment depending on the actions of the Federal Reserve and how the economy reacts to those actions. Well run companies plan for upsides, downsides including recessions as part of their on-going operations. – James ReedKodiak is planning for this potential economic environment as was an economic growth environment. Planning for all economic environments and what the potential impact will be on the Kodiak business is one of the core strengths that James brings to the team from his years of financial experience. The Kodiak business is not a pure-play autonomous trucking business, it’s a diversified business with a defense division because of the ability of their autonomy stack to work in unstructured environments. On December 5th, it was announced that Kodiak has been awarded a $49.9 million, 24-month United States Department of Defense agreement to help automate future U.S. Army ground vehicles. Moving forward, defense will be a key pillar of the Kodiak business. We plan to become a defacto prime in the autonomous software space. – James ReedIn 2024, Kodiak will continue focus on commercialization, industry partnerships and driver-out operations on public roads. Wrapping up the conversation, James shares his vision for the future of Kodiak which includes a potential IPO.Recorded on Tuesday, December 12, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the future of Cruise and how the robo-taxi market will shakeout. What moves will Waymo, Zoox and Motional make now that Cruise has been sidelined for the foreseeable future?The conversation begins with David discussing how GM moves forward with Cruise after an October 2, 2023 incident involving a pedestrian in San Fransisco was allegedly mired in a coverup. The supposed actions led to the grounding of the Cruise fleet, the resignation of Co-Founder & CEO Kyle Vogt and a 24% reduction in the workforce including nine key executives. They are going to start-off in one city, so they are sort of stepping back 18 months. In terms of their roll-out, you know it does raise a big question if they even really push robo-taxi, or does this at some point does this become part of General Motors developing self-driving personally owned autonomous vehicles. – David WelchOn the news of the 24% reduction in the workforce at Cruise, GM’s stock rallied 6.65% to close at $36.08 on December 14, 2023. If Cruise is indeed absorbed by GM, the questions become what division will Cruise become part of, will there be a big pivot away from robo-taxis to personally owned autonomous vehicles and how will GM retain and hire new AI talent?Or could GM shift the Cruise model to that of a licensing model? A model where GM licenses Cruise’s autonomous driving technology to other OEMs? This model could resonate with Wall Street as there would be a clear path to Cruise becoming a self-sustaining business unit of GM with high-margins. I think that could eventually be the real race or battle between Cruise and Waymo, licensing this technology to the car companies. – David WelchLicensing will be one of the core elements of autonomous driving technology in the future. Today autonomous vehicles are a luxury product, not a mass market product. With autonomous vehicles being a luxury product, there is an opportunity to build a commerce layer into the rider experience. Could Alphabet look to possibly integrate YouTube into the Waymo as a monitizable experience?With Cruise currently sidelined, could Waymo look to take advantage of the market conditions and accelerate the roll-out of the Waymo One program? Potentially, but Waymo appears to be sticking to their well managed roll-out that includes ride-hailing tours and an early rider program. Then there is Zoox, an Amazon company. When do they make their move? Zoox has been very quiet as the autonomous vehicle market accelerated and then contracted over the last year. Is now the time that Zoox takes advantage of the market conditions and introduces a paid robo-taxi service that could be added at a later date? Or is Amazon working on a Prime-Mobility tier?Wrapping up the conversation, David shares his insights and thoughts on how he sees the robo-taxi market evolving over the next five years. The thing that is really going to have to change and evolve is what the business model is. – David WelchRecorded on Tuesday, December 19, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ali Javidan, Founder & CEO, Range Energy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss electrified trailers and the impact that these trailers will have on truck fleets. The conversation begins with Ali sharing what inspired him to create an electrified trailers startup. It all starts with a question he asked himself; What if we electrified the trailer? Taking a survey of the industry, nobody was paying attention to trailers, expect for a few nerds and myself. So I decided to a start a venture trying to help bring some real technology to the trailer and really help hybridize these fleets in a meaningful way without disrupting how the fleets work. – Ali JavidanWhen fleets deploy an electrified trailer they are achieving on average 30% – 40% increase in fuel efficiency on a mixed route that includes city and highway driving. If the truck is exclusively driving in cities with heavy loads such as beverages, fleets are seeing a 40% – 50% increase in fuel efficiency.40% reduction in fuel consumption actually equals somewhere around 70% reduction in harmful emissions output. – Ali JavidanIncreasing fuel efficiency is wonderful, but do professional drivers enjoy driving the trucks equipped with electrified trailers? They very much do so, as the electrified trailers increase the overall operational efficiency of driving the truck. As these trailers scale, there could be potential safety increases as these trailers will have a higher-level of traction that could potently lead to safer driving conditions in adverse weather. As autonomous trucks scale commercial operations, there is an opportunity to attached electrified trailers and automate the slider adjustment, lift gate door or the lift gate. Automating the trailer compliments the autonomous truck, enabling a true autonomous operation. This is possible because the electrified trailer has a controls platform, a power platform and a communications platform. As much as we can be framed as disrupters in this industry, we don’t want to disrupt anything. We just want to give everybody better tools. – Ali JavidanRange Energy is going to commence commercial operations in 2024 with pilot customers, followed by a larger pilot deployment in 2025 leading up to the full commercial launch in 2027/2028. Wrapping up the conversation, Ali shares his thoughts on how he sees the electrified trailer market evolving. Recorded on Friday, December 8, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jana Breitkopf, Managing Director, Mercedes pay USA joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Mercedes pay is enabling the future of in-car experiences. The conversation begins with Jana discussing how Mercedes is approaching in-car payments. We want to make it as easy and as convenient as possible for our drivers to use services like parking, charging or fueling. – Jana BreitkopfMercedes began creating Mercedes pay over five years ago to meet the expectations of their drivers. As technology advances, in the future drivers and passengers will be able to say “Hey, Mercedes” order golf balls from Amazon. When this moment happens, the era of in-car commerce will be ushered in.This moment will overlap with the commercialization of personally owned autonomous vehicles as Mercedes pay will enable in-car experiences as it will be the payment layer that makes those experiences possible. Autonomous driving will leverage in-car commerce as a revenue channel. – Jana BreitkopfWhen autonomous vehicles are combined with a payment platform, a global commerce platform will be created. The future of in-car experiences will be built around apps and services that will create value for passengers. Unlocking this value creates new profitable revenue opportunities for Mercedes. Mercedes pay is available today in 44 markets around the world. In Germany, Mercedes pay has a partnership with Mastercard where customers can pay for fueling directly from their vehicle. This partnership eliminates the paying for gas friction in Germany, as there is no pay at the pump service. Instead motorists have to go into the store and pay, which can be inconvenient and frustrating at times. Over the coming years, new markets for Mercedes pay will be coming online. As new markets come online, Mercedes pay will adapt to the local markets customs, data compliance/security and regulatory requirements. Ensuring that the system just simply works with the tap of a button or a simple “Hey, Mercedes”. Wrapping up the conversation, Jana shares her vision for the future of Mercedes pay.Recorded on Friday, December 8, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Olivia Hu, Head of Autonomous Trucking, Uber Freight joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how autonomous trucking is going to complement and accelerate the growth of Uber Freight’s $18 billion of freight under management platform. The conversation begins with Olivia discussing the current state of the autonomous trucking industry. The autonomous trucking industry right now is just at this very exciting moment, when its going from purely a technology and R&D pilot or project to let’s look at go to market. What is the long-term strategy? How do we bring different ecosystem players from OEMs, Tier 1s, autonomous trucking developers, maintenance providers, fleets, shippers, networks like ourselves all together to start planing that long-term commercialization strategy? – Olivia HuCollectivity the autonomous trucking industry is preparing for the next phase — commercialization. When commercialization begins in earnest, Uber Freight stands to benefit as they will be the platform that connects the autonomous trucking companies with the freight. The first autonomous trucking lanes to come online will be in the Texas Triangle, from Dallas/Fort Worth to Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth to El Paso. These lanes will be used to learn how autonomous trucks operate in a commercial environment and what the operations will look like when at scale. When autonomous trucks are operating at scale, the industry will have to build and maintain public trust. One of the best ways in our opinion to build public trust is to host an “Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day” where everything in the store is 20% off for one-day because it was delivered by an autonomous truck. Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Daydemonstrates to the public the positive economic that autonomous trucks will have on the cost of living as they suffer under high inflation. As it relates to professional drivers, fleets and shippers, Uber Freight is also working to build trust and educate them about how autonomous trucks could fit into and compliment their existing operations. For me, what’s most important about building trust is being very transparent, honest and giving them the time to ask questions. – Olivia HuWhen Uber Freight brings autonomous trucking partners onto the platform they engage in a KYC process (Know Your Customer) that evaluates the company’s safety framework including the safety culture, technical capabilities, leadership team and the go-to-market strategy. We think having the right go-to-market strategy will be really critical and that includes working with other ecosystem players like OEMs, like ourselves, network providers, shippers and fleets. – Olivia HuUber Freight’s KYC policy was developed and implemented to limit the potential risks that might arise if and when regulation takes hold in the industry. Today, Uber Freight has partnerships with Aurora and Waabi and previously had a partnership with Waymo Via prior to the division being shutdown. In the future, Uber Freight will look to add more partners to the platform, but they will not partner with every autonomous trucking company.We only partner if it makes sense. If we truly believe that they have a safe reliable product with a long-term strategy that is the right commercial application for our customers. – Olivia HuThe right long-term strategy is one that is grounded in economics that enables pricing power. Uber Freight’s Insights AI tool gives their customers to optimize their operations, pricing structure and what lanes make the most sense to deploy autonomous trucks.Wrapping up the conversation, Olivia discusses the role the Uber Freight will play as autonomous trucking scales. Recorded on Thursday, November 30, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lee White, Founder & President, LM White Consulting joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why autonomous trucking is a big business opportunity and what the economics of that business will look like when autonomous trucks are operating commercially. The conversation begins with Lee discussing the current state of the autonomous trucking industry. We are on track, we are on plan, we are moving forward. – Lee WhiteThe autonomous trucking industry is healthy and the health of the industry is being validated with the continued investments from institutional investors such as T. Rowe Price and Softbank. While economically healthy, the industry is currently under strain from the perceived notion that autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles are one in the same.The consistently for the AV trucking operations is a very positive advantage over robo-taxis, and I think the trucking group has to begin to separate itself from this clumping everything together. – Lee WhiteTo truly demonstrate the benefits of autonomous trucking, the industry has to take a hold of the narrative and demonstrate to the public, policymakers, investors and the traditional trucking industry the true benefits of autonomy. Autonomous trucks will lead to lower cost goods (helping to reduce inflation), more productivity, and more robust and secure supply chain. Daimler Truck is taking the lead on messaging to investors and Wall Street. During their Capital Market Day 2023, Daimler Truck announced that autonomous trucking would be one of the key pillars of their business. By 2027, autonomous trucking will begin to unlock a new high-margin business. By 2030, Daimler Truck is projecting revenue north of €3 billion with EBIT potential north of €1 billion.To unlock this business Daimler Truck is investing responsibly and managing their capital expenditures. For the first nine months of 2023, Daimler Truck has invested €155 million in “other business activities and corporate items which comprised primarily of operational expenses related to their autonomous driving business”. Up from €139 million for the nine months of 2022, an increase of €16 million year-over-year. This is a responsible investing strategy that is both prudent and sustainable for Daimler Truck long-term. It’s one that more companies developing autonomous trucks should follow. The model for developing and commercializing autonomous trucks varies widely. Volvo is taking a slightly different path to autonomous trucking through their transport-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the autonomous trucks.[Volvo] wants to sell you you transportation as service and that becomes how they sell trucks now. It’s like the airline industry, you don’t buy an airplane engine anymore from GE or Rolls-Royce, you buy time, you get run hours. If that’s the new model, that will be very successful. – Lee WhiteAs we head into the holiday season with a slowing economy and consumers deprioritizing spending on physical goods and prioritizing spending on experiences, the freight industry will have to adapt to the changing consumer spending patterns. The slowdown in the freight market has been ongoing for sometime and YELLOW, a 100 year-old LTL carrier was a casualty of market conditions and union negotiations, as the company filed for voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on August 6th, 2023.97% of all trucking companies have 20 or less trucks. There is going to be a lot of them that are right on the edge. – Lee WhiteWrapping up the conversation, Lee and Grayson discuss the impact that California’s zero-emissions trucks regulation will have on the trucking market. Recorded on Thursday, November 9, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sam Abidi, Chief Commercial Officer, Monarch Tractor joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Monarch’s autonomous MK-V tractor and how the growing labor shortages are accelerating the adoption of autonomous tractors on farms around the world. The conversation begins with Sam discussing how Monarch Tractor is approaching autonomy. From day one we were thinking about how you could build an autonomy kit that could go on a tractor, that can essentially reach a price point that most farmers can use, and where we landed is that you need to do a bottom up build of the tractor — that tractor is called the MK-V. – Sam AbidiWith the global economy shifting to a labor light economy, due to a growing labor shortage, autonomy applications on farms is rapidly accelerating. If you actually go talk to some of our farmers, many of them are coming to us because it is an alternative to having no one do that job. – Sam AbidiMonarch takes a farmer frugal approach to autonomy as they know every dollar counts on a farm. The farmer frugal approach enables Monarch to charge farmers $800 a month to unlock the autonomous capabilities of the $90,000 MK-V tractor, which is less the equivalent labor cost. In the future as the model evolves, Monarch is exploring the possibility of introducing a tractor-as-a-service model for select regions around the world. If this model comes to fruition, Monarch will not hold the asset (tractor) on their balance sheet. Instead they will look to a partner to hold the assets (tractor) as it is not an effective use of their capital to hold tractors on their balance sheet.Today, Monarch has a financial services agreement with CNH Industrial Capital America to provide financing for the MK-V tractor. The Monarch MK-V is an all-electric tractor with a swappable battery that can run 14-hours. Financing is an important part of farm economics. – Sam AbidiWhen a Monarch tractor is deployed on a farm, farmers control all the applications of the autonomous tractor with their proprietary WingspanAI digital platform. If you automate a tractor and you have a dozen tractors or two dozen tractors running the farm and then you connect those to a digital platform, that essentially tracks everything from when they are dispatched to what they are doing to how well they are doing it, you have essentially digitized the farm. – Sam AbidiThe data that Monarch’s autonomous tractors are gathering will enable the company to create new revenue streams in the future by monetizing the rich amount of data that the tractors gather on a daily basis. To scale, Monarch has a partnership with Foxconn to manufacturer the MK-V at their Ohio facility. The decision to engage Foxconn for manufacturing was made from the lessons that the founders learned from their years in the automotive industry. Wrapping up the conversation, Sam shares his vision for the future of Monarch Tractor.Recorded on Tuesday, November 7, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sterling Anderson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Aurora joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the founding of Aurora, the economics of the Aurora business model why the world’s best product is a very profitable product. The conversation begins with Sterling discussing why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and himself came together to form Aurora in 2016. We saw a lot of players in the ecosystem at the time struggling to figure out the right path. A credible independent player in our view could change the game for them and unlock the potential of a powerful ecosystem from OEMs to carriers to private fleets to even Tier 1’s and companies who provide some of the backend service. We felt like a credible autonomy player who played our position and enabled or unlocked the rest of the industry could deliver tremendous value here, and we did not see much of that at the time. – Sterling Anderson Being an independent company is one of the keys to Aurora’s success as it has allowed them to build an industry wide solution that unlocks potential for both cars and trucks. The original product roadmap for the company which is still intact today was to look at trucking, ride-hailing and local goods delivery.Trucking was top of the list in terms of the first product that we wanted to go to market with. – Sterling Anderson In 2018, Aurora began laying the foundation for their autonomous trucking product when they integrated their autonomous driving stack into a Volvo truck and began testing on a track in partnership with Volvo. Trucking is the first product, ride-hailing will follow. – Sterling Anderson The Aurora business model for trucking today is transportation-as-a-service, as the business and technology matures, the model will evolve into a driver-as-a-service model. This is a model where we are licensing the self-driving system, inclusive of the hardware, the software and the data services required to operate it to our customers who are in turn purchasing either the truck from the OEM who provides it or purchasing a set of solutions. – Sterling Anderson Customers who sign up for the driver-as-a-service model will pay a utilization service fee (per mile fee). To keep the trucks up and running at optimal performance, Aurora trucks are designed for reliability and serviceability. This design approach allows Aurora to optimize the economics of their operations. In my view the world’s best product is also a very profitable product. – Sterling Anderson As Aurora prepares for driver-out commercial operations in late 2024 with 20 trucks on the Dallas to Houston lanes, the autonomous trucks will be operated under the transportation-as-a-service model. In 2025/2026, the customers operating under the transportation-as-a-service model will begin to transition to a driver-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the assets. Wrapping up the conversation, Sterling shares his vision for the future of Aurora. Recorded on Friday, October 27, 2023Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:18 Why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and Sterling Anderson founded Aurora3:38 The Vision for Aurora8:07 Going Public with Volvo and PACCAR10:57 Local Goods Delivery and the Middle Mile12:34 Aurora Trucking Business Model24:52 Preparing for Commercial Driver-Out Operations27:48 A Focus on Profitability34:45 Terminal Operations40:43 Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day46:00 Aviation History--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the growing global demand for oil and its economic impact on the global economy. The conversation begins with Dean discussing the current state of the oil markets. It’s a tight market and despite everything that has been going on we really have tightness to watch in terms of supply and demand and where that supply is going to come to meet that demand. – Dean ForemanThe growing demand for oil in the United States is coming from jet fuel, 1.8 million barrels per day and diesel fuel, 3.6 million barrels per day. With an additional 6 million barrels per day being refined for materials. With the growing demand for oil the United States is looking to increase volume by lifting sanctions on Venezuela. The demand for oil is not just limited to the United States, it’s a global phenomenon.China is now the single largest importer of crude oil, over 13 million barrels per day. – Dean ForemanWith China being the single largest importer of crude oil, the country embraced electric vehicles to slow their dependence on foreign oil imports. A big part of the traditional push by China to get into electrification wasn’t just to strategically control the value chain, it was to prevent, as their economy grew an unsustainable growth in their oil imports. – Dean ForemanU.S. Energy Information Administration is projecting demand of 103 million barrels per day in 2024, an increase of roughly 200,000 barrels per day year-over-year. Over the coming years, the United States will be the largest single source of growth of oil supply.We’ve seen record production this year, U.S. crude oil production for the first week of October struck 13.2 million barrels per day, that’s a record high. Our previous high was in March 2020 of 13.1 [million]. – Dean ForemanThe growing demand for oil is good for the Texas economy. Texas, as of September is producing 5.9 million barrels of crude oil per day. For the first eight months of 2023, Texas has driven 43.2% of U.S. oil production, its highest since 1981. For the first seven months of 2023, Texas has exported $125 billion of oil, natural gas and derived products globally. Wrapping up the conversation, Dean shares his outlook on the oil markets for the next quarter. Recorded on Thursday, October 19, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matt Soule, CEO and Co-Founder, Parallel Systems joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Parallel Systems will act as an economic growth engine for the rail industry. The conversation begins with Matt discussing how Parallel Systems business has evolved since he last joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy roughly year ago. During this time, Parallel has been testing their Gen2 vehicle in the United States and has deployed a Gen1 vehicle overseas. As they gear up to deploy their Gen2 vehicle, the company is preparing up to test railworthiness at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado. We will run our vehicle through a series of tests there, to most importantly validate the models that we have already built up to predict how the vehicle will perform. – Matt SouleWhen Parallel begins to commercialize their business, they are going to compliment the traditional rail business by offering the rail industry a solution to expand their freight operations inside of the traditional 500 mile routes. With Parallel’s smaller scale we can serve freight lanes that do not require massive volumes to have that daily arrival and departure. That’s the core of our strategy. – Matt SouleA pillar of this strategy is replacing trucks on drayage routes. A large opportunity is moving freight on rail from the Ports of Los Angeles, San Pedro and Long Beach to the Inland Empire, one of the largest industrial complexes in the United States with over 4,000 warehouses. Parallel’s autonomous and electric vehicles will have a range of roughly 500 miles between charges. The vehicles will be operating in a platoon of 20 and will charge while they are being unloaded and loaded at the terminal.When we go into a terminal, we will have charging nests kind of like a robotic vacuum cleaner going to it’s charging dock alongside the rail and the vehicles will go to those locations and automatically dock with the chargers, and while they are charging the freight is unloaded and loaded. – Matt SouleThe next version of the vehicle (Gen3) will be the commercial product that drives up reliability and drives down cost. Looking towards the future when Parallel is operating a commercial business, Matt sees autonomous trucks complimenting the business. The economics get better and better and better the more productive that asset is. So I think that is where there can be a real compliment, where a self-driving truck can handle the complex first and last mile if there is a service that does not require us to go directly to that customer. – Matt SouleWith the current economic backdrop of a slowing global economy, Matt is preparing the business to take advantage of the emerging autonomy economy that will arise out of the economic situation partly due to the global labor shortage. Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his outlook for the future of Parallel Systems.Recorded on Tuesday, October 17, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vinay Shet, Co-Founder & CEO Teleo joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Teleo’s approach to supervised autonomy in a labor light economy.The conversation begins with Vinay discussing how Teleo is approaching supervised autonomy and it’s benefits.By switching between tele-operations and autonomy and switching between machine one, machine two and even machine three, [operators] are able to control multiple machines at the same time. – Vinay ShetTeleo’s approach to autonomy allows trained machine operators to increase their daily production while improving the overall operational efficiency of the job. This approach to autonomy developed to create value for construction companies that are facing a growing labor shortage. Labor is the number one problem that our customers flag to us for themselves. They are simply unable to find enough people to do the work that they have signed up to do. Across the board they have more work to do then they have people available. To the point where our customers tell us that they literary park their machines, because they are unable to find people to operate the machines. – Vinay ShetFacing a growing labor shortage, Tomahawk Construction is deploying Teleo-enabled semi-autonomous trucks to move dirt at a residential community job site in Naples, Florida. This repetitive task is now automated, enabling Tomahawk to develop the residential community with great efficiency. As the community development scales, Teleo-enabled semi-autonomous trucks at the job site will eventually scale up to twelve trucks.To scale the business, Teleo is utilizing a dealer network to sell their retrofit kits and have them installed on large machines. As the labor shortage grows and the Bank of America coined labor-light economy begins to take shape, Teleo is poised to prosper as their technology can help to fill the labor gap. Autonomy augments people. I think it’s really about making people more productive and making their lives more comfortable. – Vinay ShetWrapping up the conversation, Vinay shares his vision for the future of autonomy. Recorded on Friday, October 13, 2023Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:22 Teleo's Approach to Autonomy4:06 Remote Operations7:17 Construction Industry Use Cases11:02 Labor Light Economy13:22 Teleo Business Model18:34 How Teleo's Construction and Mining Compliment Each Other20:40 Multi-Site Deployment24:48 Future of Teleo--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gabe Sganga, Head of Commercial Growth, RRAI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss RRAI’s focus on autonomy for military and defense applications and how they have been able to apply the learnings from battle to their civilian business.The conversation begins with Gabe discussing why RRAI is focused on autonomy for military and defense applications.RRAI has always been a defense-first company. Strategically we are focused on delivering defense capabilities to support funded programs right now. – Gabe SgangaRRAI’s autonomous vehicles have been deployed in theater around the world. When deploying autonomous vehicles in theater, the autonomous driving stack is hardened for the harsh environment of war. Through their deployments in theater, RRAI has been able to apply the learnings from battle to their civilian business. Operating in these conditions is not unique to defense, it’s unique to end-users who tackle the hardest jobs that keep the industrial heart of our country and economy running. – Gabe SgangaDefense is a large part of RRAI’s business, but it is not the sole focus of the business. In addition to their defense business, RRAI has a growing commercial business with a keen focus on off-road autonomy applications. The company chose to focus on this commercial market as they viewed it as being underserved. The business model that RRAI operates under is autonomy-as-a-service. For autonomy-as-a-service, we wrap everything into a single license price.– Gabe SgangaThis model allows RRAI to update their fleet when new hardware and technology comes online and deploy it to their customers applications without having to charge them an upgrade fee. The model will only be enhanced when RRAI is able to secure a OEM deal for factory grade trucks built with their hardware and software fully integrated. For on-road applications, RRAI is focused on controlled environments such as distribution center yards, ports and logistics centers because of the regulatory environment. Wrapping up the conversation, Gabe discuses RRAI’s $220 million Series A round led by Softbank in January 2023.Recorded on Friday, October 6, 2023Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:23 Why Autonomy for Defense6:10 Learnings from Autonomy Deployments in Defense Applications13:54 Economics of RRAI's Defense Business21:04 RRAI's Military Background25:00 RRAI's Autonomous as a Service Business Model30:27 RRAI's OEM Approach37:28 RRAI On-Road Autonomy39:00 Yard Trucks43:58 RRAI Investors45:30 Future of RRAI--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Paul McGlone, CEO, Seeing Machines joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss scaling Seeing Machines in-cabin sensing technology. The conversation begins with Paul discussing how Seeing Machines in-cabin sensing technology adapts to meet consumer and regulatory demand.The primary driver of demand is regulatory. – Paul McGloneToday, the in-cabin sensing technology senses the human condition which can be composed of body jesters, head position, eyelid movement and direct gaze (pupil tracking) and soon lip movement. By monitoring the cabin, Seeing Machines can detect distraction, fatigue, passenger occupancy and if someone is holding a phone while driving. As the technology evolves there is the potential to add health monitoring systems into the vehicle that can potentially detect when a driver or passenger is experiencing a heart attack or medical condition. Setting the stage for autonomous vehicles to scale and handle adverse in-vehicle situations. The core target market for our technology is Levels 2 – 4, but certainly as the companies that are managing fully autonomous, say 3rd party vehicle fleets will need someway to detect the well-being of the occupants, particularly if they are paying for the service. – Paul McGloneIn Fiscal Year 2023, Seeing Machines generated $13.6 million in annual recurring revenue, up 27% over Fiscal Year 2022. This revenue was generated from the company’s commercial fleet business (after-market) where the Seeing Machines devices are installed into vehicles. One of the big drivers of the revenue growth was fleet managers looking to reduce driver fatigue and distraction because of rising insurance costs.Fatigue and distraction are the two primary drivers of insurance claims costs in commercial vehicle fleets worldwide. – Paul McGloneFor their automotive business, Seeing Machines has 15 programs with 10 OEMs and over 1 million cars globally have a Seeing Machines system installed. Their automotive business model is a royalty based model where the company is paid a royalty for every car that is manufactured for the life of the model that features their technology. The model has generated $320 million in royalties to date.As we consider our business going forward, we are not only going to see significant growth rates, but we are going to see a mix change in revenue from sort of engineering services, low-margin to primarily royalties which are very very high-margin. – Paul McGloneOutside of automotive, Seeing Machines is expanding into aviation through a partnership with Collins Aerospace. One the areas of focus is a monitoring system for air traffic control to monitor distraction and fatigue.We think that almost every industrial opportunity that has a human-machine interface is an opportunity for accurate eye-tracking to improve either a safety or performance outcome. – Paul McGloneWrapping up the conversation, Paul shares his opinion on the future of in-cabin monitoring. Recorded on Tuesday, October 3, 2023Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:17 The Evolution of Seeing Machines Technology6:01 In-Cabin Sensing System13:16 Seeing Machines Commercial Vehicle Revenue Growth17:57 Seeing Machines Royalty Revenue19:34 Magna Partnership27:37 Collins Aerospace Partnership35:48 Growing Royalty Revenue41:00 Privacy--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the UAW strike and the launch of Stack AV. The conversation begins with David sharing the latest on the UAW (United Auto Workers) strikes against the Big 3 (Ford, GM and Stellantis). UAW President Shawn Fain has taken a different approach to the negotiations from his predecessors as a way to build trust and loyalty with his members. Shawn Fain has to show that he is not another management crony, he is a real union guy. Hence no handshake. – David WelchAnother reason why Sean Fain is taking such an aggressive approach towards the negotiations is that he has to build trust with his membership and show union leadership. The tactics that Sean Fain is implementing is right out of the Bernie Sanders playbook. Several members of Senator Sanders presidential campaigns are now advising the UAW on media strategy. [Sean Fain] wants to reignite a labor movement in America. – David WelchOne of the main sticking points in the strike is jobs and worker pay. The longer the strike drags on, the more it benefits Tesla. It has even been reported that no matter what happens, Tesla comes out the winner from the strikes as the Big 3 will be forced to raise prices of their electric vehicles. Tesla forced GM, Ford and Stellantis forced to build electric vehicles after they validated the market and gained signifiant marketshare. Tesla clearly showed that there was a market for electric vehicles. Could Tesla do the same thing with autonomy in the future? If and when Tesla licenses their FSD (Full Self-Driving) technology, will Cruise and Waymo be compelled to license their self-driving technology to appease investors? Waymo, definitely because they are not a car company. – David WelchFor GM, will they make the same mistake they did with OnStar years ago and not license it? Only time will tell. If GM eventually spins out Cruise, the path for licensing the Cruise self-driving technology becomes a lot more visible. On the autonomous trucking side of autonomy, Kodiak is planning to license the Kodiak Driver to fleets. Investors are watching the sector as the technology evolves and the business models are formalized. Softbank recently invested in Stack AV founded by Bryan Salesky, Peter Rander, and Brett Browning (Argo AI founders). Stack AV is going to focus on long-haul autonomous trucks, but are they entering the market too late? I do not think it’s too late, but they have to move if they want to catch up. – David WelchCould Softbank look to potentially export Stack AV to Japan to capture marketshare in an emerging market that is not yet saturated with competition? Wrapping up the conversation, David shares his thoughts on what to watch in autonomy for the end of the year.Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:13 UAW Strikes16:21 Tesla Beneficial Winner of the UAW Strikes?21:20 Licensing Tesla FSD and Autonomous Driving Systems30:00 Softbank and Stack AV41:40 Autonomy Outlook for the End of the YearRecorded on Thursday, September 21, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Katelyn Foley, President, UP.Labs joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why companies should think differently and think like a software company.The conversation begins with Katelyn sharing her thoughts on the current state of the mobility markets. To me it’s a story about product pivots. There has been incredible movement to EVs and ultimately to autonomous vehicles. – Katelyn FoleyFor traditional OEMs to capture marketshare, they need a relentless focus on developing user-friendly digital interfaces that consumers will want to use on a daily basis. As daunting as this might sound, UP.Labs is ushering in this model with partner, Porsche. Part of what we are doing is to help them think differently. To think like a software company. – Katelyn FoleyPorsche and UP.Labs came together to create six new companies by 2025 that could eventually be acquired by Porsche. Collectively they are looking at opportunities that can enhance the Porsche owner experience through data, efficiency and a robust digital interface. As UP.Labs and Porsche explore opportunities for new businesses, they are respecting the heritage of the brand and embracing it’s status as a luxury brand. This strategy allows Porsche to lean in, embrace innovation and think differently about their business. Being a luxury brand comes with responsibilities. With the shift to electric vehicles, consumers are beginning to ask questions about the provenance of the materials in the battery and the leather on the seats. Consumers want to know that these materials were cultivated in a way that did not have an impact on the environment. Overall, luxury brands should approach electrification by taking the bespoke route and creating a new vehicle that is built from the ground up to be electric. Porsche embraced their heritage of speed and handling by creating the Taycan, which has dazzled consumers. Every brand has to think about what they stand for. What are those few core principles, and the EV really needs to embody those and not just be an EV. – Katelyn FoleyWrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Katelyn discuss network optimization. Recorded on Tuesday, September 19, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gil West, Chief Operating Officer, Cruise joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Cruise is scaling operations across the world. The conversation begins with Gil discussing GM’s revenue target for Cruise of $1 billion in revenue by 2025.We are on target. – Gil WestCruise is on target to hit their revenue goal because they are scaling. Currently Cruise has operations in 15 cities in 10 states. As Cruise scales, they are creating a flywheel effect that continuously improves their operations. We are creating a flywheel effect as we go to market and scale. – Gil WestThe Cruise experience from city to city is consistent from a rider perspective. Behind this consistency is an operational playbook that is deployed in each new city that Cruise expands service. One of the key elements of this playbook is partnerships. When Cruise enters a new city, the company is focused on leveraging underutilized assets to ensure the most cost efficient operations. In San Francisco, Cruise is installing chargers at Oracle Park (Home of the San Francisco Giants) that the company will use when a baseball game is not taking place. When a game is taking place, fans will be able to use the chargers. When it comes to potential expansion cities, Cruise looks at the ODD (operation design domain) that fits the technologies capabilities, commercial opportunity in the market, market density, the availability of infrastructure and the regulatory environment. Our goal is to bring driverless tech to as many people as possible in many places as we can. – Gil WestAs we have seen in San Francisco and Phoenix, overtime Cruise will expand their service area in new cities to eventually cover the entire city. As Cruise expands the amount of ride supply in a city, they are conscious about passenger pick-up wait times. Our goal here of course is to provide a consistently better experience and more accessibility at an affordable price point, and have people be able access the vehicles in a very timely manner. – Gil WestThe experience that Cruise provides in the future is only going to be enhanced when the service becomes integrated into stadiums, concert venues and airports. No more waiting in line trying to catch an Uber or finding your driver. With autonomy and integrations, these headaches will become a thing of the past. As part of their vision for autonomy, Cruise designed and built the Cruise Origin in partnership with GM. The Origin is currently testing on public roads in San Francisco and Austin as the company prepares to deploy the vehicle for commercial operations pending NHTSA approval. We will be introducing the Origin commercially soon and then in multiple cities. – Gil WestWrapping up the conversation, Gil shares his opinion on the future of Cruise which includes new vehicle form factors.Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:55 Introduction1:17 Cruise $1 Billion 2025 Revenue Target Reaffirmed2:45 Scaling Cruise and Maintaining the Experience9:13 Expansion into New Cities22:41 Pick-up Times24:37 Future Cruise Experiences29:54 Cruise Origin35:53 Operating a Profitable Business39:22 Future of CruiseRecorded on Tuesday, September 12, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Ohnsman, Senior Editor, Forbes joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Gatik and the road to profitable autonomy. The conversation begins with Alan and Grayson discussing AB 316 — the future of autonomous trucking in California. The State wants to support the tech and get it out there, and sees the benefits of that. But at the same time you have active opposition from a very powerful labor group that represents a lot of truckers in the State of California. – Alan OhnsmanThe conversation expands from policy to the future of AI and Gatik, a middle-mile autonomous trucking start-up that is on the road to profitable autonomy. Gatik is a company that did not raise billions of dollars, and Gatik did not come out of the gate saying were going to use autonomy for everything. We are going to do robotaxi, we are going to do trucking, we are going to do food deliveries, you name it, we are going to do it. They focused on one thing — middle-mile delivery from a distribution center to a large retail store, that’s it. Nothing else. – Alan OhnsmanCompared to their peers that have raised billions in capital, Gatik has raised a mere modest $120 million. To achieve their goals, the company does not need billions as they are highly disciplined when it comes to operating the business. For every contract that Gatik signs with a customer, each vehicle that goes into service is contractually guaranteed revenue of $200,000 per year. For every 100 vehicles the company puts into service, the company will generate $20 million in yearly revenue. At this time, Gatik currently has 50 vehicles in service, generating $10 million in yearly revenue. Gatik is forecasting that the company could potentially be profitable within as little as two to three years (2025-2026). As the company ramps up towards profitability, they are going to gradually start expanding to highway driving in addition to city streets. Their goal is to overtime, they will move into highway trucking. They will move into Class-8 trucking, they will move into other types of delivery services that they are not doing now, and it’s going to be this gradual evolution of the business. All of it is premised on the fact that it has to a revenue generator. – Alan OhnsmanLooking to the future, Gatik will not explore a potential IPO until the company is profitable on a GAAP basis. Rounding out the conversation, Grayson and Alan discuss the autonomous trucking industry as a whole and the Waymo Via shutdown. Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Alan discuss licensing and the future of Zoox.Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 The Road to Autonomy Introduction1:23 AB 316 and Autonomous Trucks in California6:01 AI and the Push Back from Unions10:39 Gatik and The Road to Profitable Autonomy42:58 Licensing the Waymo Driver45:16 Future of Zoox?50:10 Future of AutonomyRecorded on Monday, August 28, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Nils Jaeger, President, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Volvo Group joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Volvo Autonomous Solutions commercialization strategy. The conversation begins with Nils discussing how the Volvo Group is approaching autonomy. It’s about leveraging autonomous tech for productivity gains, for efficiency gains. – Nils JaegerVolvo Autonomous Solutions is operating in the quarry and mining, ports and logistics and hub-to-hub sectors. These sectors were chosen as they compliment each other and are viewed as long-term growth markets. As a stand-alone business area inside of Volvo Group, Volvo Autonomous Solutions has full development responsibility and are responsible for the commercialization of Volvo Group’s autonomous solutions. Being structured this way, means Volvo Autonomous Solutions has full P&L responsibility. With P&L responsibility, Nils and the team at Volvo Autonomous Solutions are focused on building a business.For us it’s not just the technology, it’s building a business. Building a business is really the core reason why Volvo Autonomous Solutions was created. Having a clear focus on commercialization and having an attractive business model. – Nils JaegerThe commercial business model for Volvo Autonomous Solutions is not a one-size fits all model. It’s a model that is tailored to each one of the sectors where they operate. In the Dallas Fort-Worth region, Volvo Autonomous Solutions will be operating a hub-to-hub autonomous transport solution as a service. Commercializing the hub-to-hub autonomous transport business will require partnerships. As part of the initial roll-out, Volvo Autonomous Solutions has partnered with DHL and Uber Freight. To prepare for autonomous operations, Volvo has begun hauling freight manually in the Texas Triangle. We have actually started this year to pull loads manually for both DHL and Uber Freight. We are putting in place all of the procedures, the processes which are needed to develop this new transportation value chain and to do this of-course in a safe and reliable form. – Nils JaegerFrom a truck asset perspective, Volvo Group is going to own the autonomous trucks on their balance sheet as the service begins commercialization. In these early days there will not be a minimum amount of volume needed to tap into the service, however the volume will have to make economic sense. Wrapping up the conversation, Nils discusses the driver-out fully autonomous operations at the Brönnöy Kalk mine in Velfjord, Norway.Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 The Road to Autonomy Introduction1:23 Volvo Group's Approach to Autonomy7:14 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Commercial Business Model17:33 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Terminal (Hub) Strategy21:16 Autonomous Truck Assets & Virtual Driver Strategy24:22 Economics of Volvo Autonomous Solutions Transport as a Service Model27:57 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Quarry & Mining Business35:20 The Future of AutonomyRecorded on Thursday, August 22, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Vic Shao, President, bp pulse fleet joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss fleet charging as a service. The conversation begins with Vic discussing bp pulse’s electric vehicle fleet charging strategy, the importance of up-time and reliability. To ensure the up-time for partners such as Hertz, bp has developed a software layer that monitors the health of the charging infrastructure to ensure optimal up-time.Software is the enablement tool that makes it efficient and reliable. – Vic Shao The charging stations that bp is installing for Hertz will be open to the public and located at high traffic locations such as city centers and airports. At airport locations, rideshare drivers will be able to access the chargers and charge their vehicles while they wait for passenger pick-ups. By early 2024, 25 locations in several states will be online. As a traditional oil and gas business, bp pulse is complimenting the core business by expanding into new fuel types.bp looks at electrification as just another fuel type. It’s a really attractive fuel type for any number of reasons, but it’s another fuel type. In the future bp is also going to go into hydrogen. – Vic Shao As fleet managers begin the process of transitioning their fleets from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles, economics are driving the decision process. The cost to transition large fleets to electric vehicles is expensive as it requires all-new vehicles along with a complex network of charging equipment. bp has a solution that will enable fleets to convert to electric without the upfront charging infrastructure capital expenditure — charging as a service. One of the big upsides to charging as a service is scalability and upgradability. As NACS (North American Charging Standard) becomes the de facto charging plug standard as the CCS plug is slowly faded out, the charging infrastructure will be upgraded to support the new plug.A large opportunity for charging as a service are ports that have drayage operations that operate on fixed daily routes. A lot of these drayage operations are operated by smaller carriers who might not necessarily have the financial wherewithal to invest in fleet charging. With charging as a service, these fleets will have the ability to transition to electric trucks without the capital expenditure.By 2030, bp is on track to have over 100,000 electric vehicle charging stations online. Wrapping up the conversation, Vic shares his opinion on the future of electric vehicle fleet charging.Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:57 Introduction1:23 bp pulse feet Electric Vehicle Fleet Charging Strategy6:07 Reliable Electric Vehicle Charging10:09 Scaling Reliable EV Charging Infrastructure17:57 Fleet Managers Approach to Electric Vehicles20:57 Charging as a Service35:11 The Road to 100,000 Charge Points37:12 Future of Electric Vehicle Charging for FleetsRecorded on Thursday, August 24, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Peter Ludwig, Co-Founder & CTO, Applied Intuition and Yaser Khalighi, Product, Applied Intuition joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the acquisition of SceneBox and why everything that moves will be autonomous in the future. The conversation begins with Yaser discussing why he made the decision to sell SceneBox to Applied Intuition in March 2023.The vision of building SceneBox, my vision was enabling customers in their autonomy journey. The reason that we exited to Applied was exactly to double down on that vision. – Yaser KhalighApplied is in the process of integrating SceneBox into their product offering, while retaining the user-friendliness of the SceneBox platform. The ultimate goal is that it’s a completely seamless experience in what we call the ADP (Applied Development Platform). – Peter LudwigThe integrated SceneBox / Applied product offering will help autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks scale safely and quickly. To further enhance the Applied product, Applied acquired Embark Trucks for $71 million in August 2023. Prior to the acquisition, Embark was a long-time Applied customer. With the acquisition we are discontinuing the autonomy trucking program, we are not entering Level 4 trucking. But we are going to be able to repurpose the tools they had built around the Applied development platform, and in fact bring some of those into our platform were it makes sense. – Peter LudwigThe data that Applied acquired from Embark will help their customers accelerate the development of their autonomous driving stack for Class-8 trucks. When it comes to training a virtual driver, unique data sets are needed to train the driver. Data gathered for Class-8 trucks can not necessarily be translated over to a developing a virtual driver for robotaxi operations.Taking a step out of the virtual world, Applied is has a partnership with NI (National Instruments) for hardware-in-the-loop validation. This partnership will allow their customers to scale quickly and safely and puts Applied ahead if and when certifications for autonomous driving systems become required by regulatory bodies. Wrapping up the conversation, Peter and Yaser share their opinions on the future of autonomy.Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:38 Applied Intuition acquires SceneBox17:27 Peter Ludwig — Why Applied Intuition acquired Embark Trucks21:16 ML (Machine Learning) Models for Autonomous Driving34:02 Applied’s Synthetic Datasets (How they are Developed)43:00 What is the Future of Autonomy?Recorded on Tuesday, August 15, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brett Suma, CEO, Loadsmith joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of the Loadsmith Freight Network and how the network will create economic stimulus in local communities. The conversation begins with Brett discussing the development of the Loadsmith Freight Network. You can look at the LFN and compare it somewhat to a railroad and their ability to capture capacity. – Brett SumaThe Loadsmith Freight Network will consist of both professional drivers and autonomous trucks. Autonomous trucks on the LFN will mostly operate on the 350 to 900 mile runs, while the professional drivers will focus on the shorter first and last mile routes. For the Loadsmith Freight Network to operate at peak performance, the company developed a digital software layer that enables “Precision Trucking”. The cost savings derived from Precision Trucking will be reinvested in first and last mile operations in terms of higher pay for professional drivers and amenities. With higher pay for first and last mile drivers, local communities will begin to experience a form of economic stimulus through higher spending. Spending will help drive economic growth in those communities and help to off-set increased the cost of goods and services due to inflation.The lanes where autonomous trucks are first introduced will be based on freight flow, regulatory environment, technical feasibility and the economics of the lane. Everything we know about current pricing is going to change when autonomous starts hitting the street. – Brett SumaNot all lanes are created equal from an economic standpoint. The Dallas to Houston lane is oversaturated and it will be a race to the bottom in terms of pricing when autonomous trucks are rolling on that lane 24/7. That is not where Loadsmith is going as they focused on unit economics. Through their development partnership with Kodiak, Loadsmith is collectively studying the unit economics of lanes. It’s this economic discipline that is going to enable their partnership to scale. The respect that Brett and the Loadsmith team has for professional drivers comes from the simple fact that they are listening. We’re doing this, because we are listening to workers. – Brett SumaProfessional drivers are telling them that they want to be home every night and have consistency in their paycheck. Wrapping up the conversation, Brett shares his thoughts on the future of trucking.Recorded on Friday, August 4, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chuck Price, President, AI Kinetics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the shutdown of Waymo Via and what it means for the development of the universal driver. The conversation begins with Chuck sharing his thoughts on the current state of the autonomous trucking industry.We are going through change. What we’re seeing is the early phase of this development which was largely science doing science, now moving to doing engineering and commercialization. Some of the companies that have been involved in this thought ahead for that and are prepared and others are struggling or have struggled. What we are seeing is a consolidation and some changes in strategy that I think are normal and healthy for an industry as complex as this. – Chuck PriceThe consolidation currently occurring in the autonomous trucking industry is healthy — the market is functioning properly. On Wednesday, July 26th, Alphabet announced Waymo will be shutting down their autonomous trucking division — Waymo Via. While this may have come as a surprise to many, there were rumors in the market and public statements by Alphabet on earnings calls that laid the foundation for this announcement. Waymo did the right thing for a lot of reasons. – Chuck PriceBy shutting down Waymo Via, Waymo is now going to focus exclusively on their robotaxi business — Waymo One. As Mr. Price stated, this is indeed the right thing for Waymo to do as they are in a head-to-head competition with Cruise. Cruise is a formidable opponent with the resources to compete. Not to mention, Cruise is currently expanding at a much more rapid pace than Waymo. Cruise is in the driver’s seat, while Waymo follows behind. From a technical perspective, was this an admission by Waymo that the Universal Driver did not work as they expected? Or is this more inancial discipline coming from Waymo as the division will have a new de facto CEO on September 1st — Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet. In her new role Ms. Porat will be responsible for investments in Alphabet’s “Other Bets”. To further streamline the business and appease Wall Street, could Ms. Porat look to license the Waymo driver to global OEMs? Or raise additional capital outside by collateralizing Waymo’s IP? Aurora Innovation with 1,450 patents related to autonomy recently raised $820 million in new capital. I am confident that the formal IP developed by Aurora gave them a huge advantage when they went to raise money, and without that they probably would not have been able to raise. – Chuck PriceEven though Aurora recently raised $820 million in new capital, the company has a cash burn rate of $45.3 million a month. It’s expensive to operate, Aurora. With Waymo signaling that the Universal Driver did not work, Aurora continues ahead with developing their version of the Universal Driver. Would Aurora be wise to shut down their passenger car business and focus solely on autonomous trucking? This decision would allow Aurora to streamline their business and lower their cash burn rate — the economics point the way forward. But the question remains, what path will Aurora choose as the company matures and grows?I haven’t seen a Universal Virtual Driver yet, but I have seen focused drivers come to fruition. We’ve seen cars that are now self-driving without safety drivers. We’ve seen trucks that are self-driving without safety drivers. Both have been achieved. The science is done for those specific use cases. – Chuck PriceTo scale an autonomous trucking startup, the startup has to have a production relationship with a truck OEM. To achieve this relationship, the autonomous trucking startup will have to commit $50 to $100 million to the relationship.Wrapping up the conversation, Chuck shares his thoughts on how he sees the autonomous trucking industry evolving over the next five years.Recorded on Tuesday, August 1, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Todd Lewis, Vice President, Prologis Ventures, Prologis joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Prologis is preparing for the future of logistics with autonomous trucks.The conversation begins with Todd discussing how Prologis is approaching the future of autonomy as autonomous trucks will be operating at their customers facilities. Our role across many of our customers footprints is how can we be an accelerant for adoption, for things that can be transformative to their bottom line, to their top line, to their day-to-day growth. Because we want to have customers that can thrive using our existing footprint today. – Todd LewisTo prepare their facilities for autonomous trucking, Prologis is putting plans in place today to update the infrastructure and add services such as fiber to support autonomous operations. As Prologis plans for autonomy, the company is taking a measured approach to leasing by hedging their capital risk for infrastructure development and capital investment.To limit their capital risk, Prologis develops their infrastructure to be future-proofed. Whether it’s the switch to electric vehicles and laying the conduit needed for energy to designing the yards for autonomous trucks, Prologis is developing for the future. From an underwriting perspective, the company has a robust due diligence process that looks at the long-term viability of the potential company leasing the real estate. Including if they have a corporate parent with superior credit and a healthy balance sheet who could co-sign the lease.We choose partners that have the highest likeliness of success. We try to stay true to picking partners and customers who have operations and new business practices that have, what we would consider staying power. – Todd LewisTo prepare for all the changes currently happening in the market, Prologis created a mobility division to focus on accelerating EV adoption and preparing for autonomy. Focused both on automation outside and inside the facility as by 2027, it is projected that 26% of all warehouses will have some level of automation.I believe that you have to enable automation in order for it to be properly utilized. It’s the nuances that matter. – Todd LewisOutside of the facility, the yard of the future is going to change as there will be autonomous truck launch and landing pads. The changes from an infrastructure standpoint will be minor, but from a human interaction standpoint, major. As both autonomous trucks and human driven trucks will operate at the same facility.The interaction with the human element is something that over time will have to be fleshed out a bit, in order for those systems to work properly. – Todd LewisWrapping up the conversation, shares his thoughts on the future of logistics. Recorded on Monday, July 10, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, Texas Oil & Gas Association joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the global record demand for oil and the Texas economy.The conversation begins with Dean discussing the current state of the oil markets. In a nutshell they are deceptively tighter than relativity modest prices, of plus or minus $70 a barrel recently would indicate. – Dean ForemanEven though we are currently in a tight oil market, global oil demand is projected to increase to 102.7 million barrels per day in 2024 — a record high. If the economy stays on track and continues to hum along and not fall into a recession, the oil supply pressures could continue to mount. Historically in a rising rate environment, the demand for oil and commodities in general has decreased. This time however, we are seeing the demand for oil continuing to be strong. The increased demand for oil is primarily coming from emerging markets. We’re seeing emerging markets drive the majority of economic growth this year, projected again over the next two years and hand-in-hand with that has come the energy demand to go with it. – Dean ForemanIf the demand for oil continues as projected, The United States can bring more supply online. In the United States, Texas currently produces 5.4 million barrels per day of oil. With global demand for oil increasing, Texas’ economy has led the nation in economic growth for the last two quarters. Texas economy is growing at an average annual pace of 7.6%, more than 2.5 times the U.S. average. From January 2023 to April 2023, Texas generated $73.2 billion of state export revenues. When Texas does well, the U.S. does well. – Dean ForemanWith 43.6% of the oil in the United States being produced in Texas, the industry puts safe guards in place to protect against the potential impacts of hurricanes to ensure that oil can continue to flow. Wrapping up the conversation, Dean shares his outlook for the global oil markets and what he expects to see occur over the next quarter. Recorded on Friday, July 7, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Stefan Heck, Founder & CEO, NAUTO joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how NAUTO’s predictive-AI software is helping to reduce distracted driving. The conversation begins with Stefan discussing what he saw in the market when he founded the company in 2015 and what he learned from collision data. There is nothing as dangerous as distracted driving. – Stefan HeckAccording to NAUTO’s propriety data, on average, a commercial driver is distracted 7 times per driving hour, equating to roughly every 9 minutes. To help mitigate the distracted driving risk and reduce potential crashes, the NAUTO system monitors drivers behaviors and offers audio cues to gain the drivers attention. With-in the first week of using NAUTO, about 80% of all the distractions and nearly 100% of the severe long distractions are eliminated. – Stefan HeckThe system acts as a virtual coach that keeps drivers engaged while driving, giving them feedback in real-time on their driving behavior. The feedback comes in the form of a virtual coach that inspires change. When a driver realizes that their behavior as dangerous, they are more likely to change that behavior. In the data NAUTO has seen 80% to 90% of the drivers drop their risk behavior based on feedback from the virtual coach.This virtual coach, predictive-AI system is able to identify potential dangerous scenarios because it has been trained on 3 billion miles with over 200,000 high-risk driving events. The accuracy of all of these interventions is really important. There’s nothing as upsetting as telling you, hey there is a bicycle here and there is no bicycle. Or you are tailgating and there is nobody in front of you. So, we spent years making sure that all of detectors, all of our interventions are super accurate. – Stefan HeckIf the system is not accurate, drivers will begin to distrust the system and figure out a way to turn it off. This behavior is common amongst individuals who own vehicles with lane-keep assist. They simply turn it off because it’s inaccurate and annoying. A system that is accurate is a system that works and does it job to help avoid dangers driving scenarios. NAUTO’s system caught the attention of Stellantis, as the company invested with a plan to offer the system in their commercial fleet vehicles. At first the system will use the NAUTO hardware and in the future, the software system will run natively on the vehicles by leveraging the on-board sensors without the NAUTO hardware. In addition to Stellantis, NAUTO has a partnership with Brightdrop where fleets can order can order the system pre-installed directly from the factory today. As robo-taxis scale around the world, the NAUTO system could be used for occupant detection and safety routing applications. As autonomy grows, NAUTO’s market grows. Wrapping up the conversation, Stefan shares his opinion on the future of AI as it relates to mobility.Recorded on Wednesday, July 5, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Trevor Crain, Mobility Research and Education Program Manager, Argonne National Laboratory joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss building America’s electric vehicle workforce. The conversation begins with Trevor sharing his thoughts on developing the workforce of the future as society shifts to electrified forms of mobility and how this skill set can transition to other industries. Our team here at Argonne looks at how do we build revolutionary and innovative programs that help all of our workforce program participants be able to address all these different technologies. – Trevor CrainAs the workforce is developed to work on electric vehicles and the infrastructure needed to support EVs, Argonne is working to ensure that students have the skill sets needed to succeed even when the technology or standards change. One of the ways that Argonne is helping students develop the skill set of the future is through the EcoCar Challenge. The EcoCar Challenge is a multi-year program where 15 North American universities teams come together to develop next generation electric vehicle technologies and automation are energy efficient. These teams are getting real-world, hands on experiences.We are taking things out of the research realm and into the actual application realm onboard our real test vehicles. – Trevor CrainBernstein Research is projecting that battery electric vehicles will reach 40% marketshare globally by 2030. If this forecast comes to realization, the workforce development and the skills needed to service these vehicles will has to be accelerated and developed today.One way to potentially accelerate the work force development for EVs is through apprenticeships where students do not take on debt. This is just one of the many options that could be implemented to ensure that the workforce of the future is ready today.Expanding the conversation, Trevor discusses the skill set that students learn as part of the EcoCar Challenge. As part of the challenge, students are encouraged to think from a customer centric approach. Would a consumer want this feature? Would a consumer pay for this feature? Does this feature increase the range of the vehicle?Wrapping up the conversation, Trevor shares his thoughts on electric vehicles.Recorded on Tuesday, June 20, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lee White, Founder & President, LM White Consulting joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss scaling autonomous trucking operations. The conversation begins with Lee explaining why after a 38-year career at UPS he decided to joined the autonomous trucking industry. In 2018, Lee took his first ride in an SAE Level 4 autonomous truck and it changed the way he looked at trucking forever. I remember standing outside that truck and looking back at it and saying; you know I am never going to be able to look at trucking the same way. – Lee WhiteLee’s insight into how large truck fleets operate is absolutely crucial to scaling revenue generating autonomous trucking operations. As the traditional trucking companies operate on extremely slim margins with tight timeframes for deliveries. For example, J.B. Hunt currently operates at a 6.4% margin, while Werner operates at a 4.8% margin. These margins leave little room for error. Enter, autonomous trucks. Autonomous trucks will enable traditional trucking companies to expand margins and utilize them on routes that benefit their operations the most. While professional drivers handle the other routes. Autonomous trucks and professional truck drivers will not compete for jobs. Instead, they will compliment each other, shore up the supply chain and enable trucking companies to optimize their operations.I don’t ever see an environment where you don’t have drivers. – Lee WhiteThe optimization will come from integrating autonomous trucks, intermodal, dedicated and over-the-road operations. Autonomous trucks at first will be deployed on high-density lanes with repeatable routes. In order for autonomous trucks to scale, there has to be infrastructure — truck terminals. These terminals will most likely be shared, yet there are no standards as it relates to how the infrastructure has to be built to accommodate autonomous trucks to launch and land. Furthering the conversation Grayson and Lee discuss how the autonomous vehicle market compares to the autonomous trucking market from a revenue and total addressable market (TAM) standpoint. Wrapping up the conversation, they discuss if Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Daimler become the Waymo and Cruise of autonomous trucking. Recorded on Friday, May 19, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charles Eagan, Chief Technology Officer, BlackBerry joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss cyber security for autonomous and electric vehicles.The conversation begins with Charles sharing the current state of the cyber security market as it relates to electric and autonomous vehicles.The more software, the more network connectivity, and the more autonomous behaviors you have along with that comes a reciprocal cyber impact. – Charles EaganAs cars get smarter, the cyber security risks increase.What I am hoping is that cars will become much more secure than cell phones, because we will learn from the computer attacks, the cell phone attacks, the networking attacks and then we can take those best practices and make sure we are applying them. – Charles EaganThe risks increase when the vehicle infrastructure becomes connected. For example, when a consumer plugs their vehicle into charge they are mostly unaware of the cyber risks. Plugging a simple charging cable into an electric vehicle could potentially be a cyber security risk with real-world consequences.The vulnerabilities that exist in today’s Government infrastructure or computer infrastructure, those vulnerabilities will also apply to the EV infrastructure. – Charles EaganThe big challenge becomes how do we make software-defined infrastructure and vehicles secure against cyber attacks from Nation-State actors. Attacking the infrastructure and locking electric vehicles to the charger for example could cause severe economic damage.To help mitigate the risks, we have to audit the software supply-chain and ensure that only the software intended for the vehicle is being used. This becomes critically important as society begins to shift towards over-the-air updates and autonomous vehicles.With a software-defined vehicle comes payments. In the future vehicles, will have a payment layer built into them which allow either the driver or passengers to conduct commerce. To ensure a secure transaction, the payments will have to be secured with identity information.The more connected, and the more vehicles, and the more software, the more monitoring that you need to do. – Charles EaganTo monitor vehicles and the enterprise, Blackberry created CylanceGUARD. Monitoring allows Blackberry on behalf of customers to monitor the behavior of the network and determine if the unexpected happened. If the unexpected happens, Blackberry notifies the proper authorities who implement their action plan.Wrapping up the conversation, Charles shares his insights into how Blackberry is approaching cyber security for autonomous vehicles.Recorded on Monday, May 15, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Matt Markel, President, Spartan Radar joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how software is enabling the next generation of radar. The conversation begins with Matt discussing the current state of the radar.I think it’s a really interesting time for radar. – Dr. Matt MarkelWhen deploying radar on commercial vehicles, the radar has to be optimized and designed for the use-cases that the commercial vehicle will be undertaking on a regular basis. Today, commercial vehicles are using radar to increase safety and in the future it will be used to enable autonomy. Increasing efficiency by using autonomy is a force multiplier. – Dr. Matt MarkelAutonomy is not a one-size fits all solution. Autonomy will be achieved in a variety of ways with different tech stacks. One of the hottest debates today is the LiDAR vs radar. Breaking the debate down, Matt shares his thoughts and insights, and explains the environmental limitations to each solution. Can autonomous vehicles operate at SAE Level 4 with only camera and radar?Yes, but the real question is what are those conditions? What are those Operational Design Domains? What are those ODDs that this combination can operate in? – Dr. Matt MarkelA camera, radar system that could operate at SAE Level 4 on highways and SAE Level 3 on suburban roads could help to usher in the personally owned autonomous vehicle market. When it comes to robo-taxis operating in dense urban environments, a full stack including LiDAR, camera and radar is the ideal solution due to the complexity of the ODD.One of the key ingredients in the autonomous driving stack is software. Spartan very similarly to Waymo is using software to enhance the performance of radar. One of the key differences between Waymo and Spartan’s approach to radar is that Spartan is making their software available to everyone. We do believe that there is a lot of performance being left on the table with automotive radar today. We can help Tier 1’s unlock that with our software products. – Dr. Matt MarkelSpartan’s approach is being validated with an investment from Microsoft and a partnership with Tier-1 automotive parts supplier — Valeo. Because we are adding software capabilities to these systems, it provides flexibility for the Tier-1. It makes them relevant to multiple OEMS, multiple applications, multiple RFQs without a change in the hardware. – Dr. Matt MarkelWrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on how he sees the radar market evolving over the next decade. Recorded on Tuesday, June 6, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ed Walker, Vice President, Shared Economy & Mobility, Hub International joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how technology and autonomous vehicles are reshaping the insurance industry.The conversation begins with Ed discussing the current state of insurance markets for the gig economy. The current environment is a really broad spectrum of winners and losers. – Ed Walker The current environment is having an impact on the consumer as the average auto insurance liability rate has increased of 10% over the last year. This increase is on top of the industry average of 10% all claims filled in 2022 were fraudulent across all the insurance markets.There are more people on the roads without insurance then there has ever been right now in the United States. Underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage which is not provided in every State has become what used to be a consideration on a renewal to an absolute requirement in my opinion. – Ed Walker While in Ed’s opinion this an absolute requirement, we are starting to see the trend of bring your own insurance for gig economy workers and individuals who subscribe to a vehicle subscription service. In some cases, these individuals are not properly insured which could potentially have negative ramifications on them personally. When you have a bring your own insurance model, what you have is a subscription model where the car is not owned by the customer. However that customer is going to a personal limes agent or a program in order to get the vehicle insured. – Ed Walker The insurance they purchase might not be perfect, but in their minds it’s still insurance and it allows them to drive the vehicle. For those individuals who drive as for a service such as Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats and DoorDash a large portion of their take-home pay goes to insurance premiums. The insurance is costing your operation anywhere between 10 to 40 cents per mile depending on [The] State and the carrier. – Ed Walker With gig economy drivers getting squeezed with rising costs due to inflation and tight insurance markets, the question becomes how long is this model sustainable in it’s current form. The economics of the model today are opening the door to a future where ride-sharing services will be primarily operated with autonomous vehicles. I see autonomous vehicles as our ultimate light at the end of the tunnel if these situations do not improve. – Ed Walker The autonomous vehicle and autonomous truck markets are rapidly evolving as companies scale operations across the United States. As these companies scale their operations, the insurance market underwriting operations will continue to evolve. The more we do it, the better, smarter we get at it. The more carriers can make money at it, the more carriers show up, the more competitive the market gets. – Ed Walker Wrapping up the conversation, Ed shares his thoughts on the future of insurance.Recorded on Thursday, April 27, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thomas von der Ohe, Co-Founder & CEO, Vay joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why Vay is taking a tele-driving first approach to autonomy.The conversation begins with sharing the current state of autonomy in Europe. Could Europe be the market that first ushers in personally owned autonomous vehicles? With Porsche announcing a deal with Mobileye to offer semi-autonomous features in new models and Mercedes-Benz introducing DRIVE PILOT, European OEMs could usher in this market.But what happens when that vehicle potentially needs assistance when the vehicle exits the highway? This is where Vay comes into the picture as they are developing teledriving technology. Vay’s technology could be offered as a complimenting feature to vehicles with SAE Level 3 driving capabilities. This combination of highway driving in Level 3 or Level 4 fashion and then urban driving through teledriving could be a really really strong combination. – Thomas von de OheVay is taking a tele-driving first approach to autonomy. The big advantage of tele-driving is that we believe that we can get something into the market much much earlier that is able to scale.– Thomas von de OheThe approach that Vay is taking is resonating with regulators in the E.U. In February 2023, Vay became the first company to operate a vehicle without an individual in the vehicle on European public roads. Now that Vay is operating on public roads in the E.U., the use cases for their technology only becomes stronger.Imagine going out to dinner, having a bottle of wine and then instead of driving home, Vay tele-drives your vehicle home for you that evening? It’s possible and that is just one of the many potential use cases for Vay’s tele-driving technology. While this is just one example of what is possible, Vay is currently focused on urban driving and launching a service in the future. Wrapping up the conversation, Thomas discusses how tele-driving can change the way we live in cities. Recorded on Tuesday, May 16, 2023--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.