The Road to Autonomy

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s expanded partnership with Toyota, bringing factory-line integration to an autonomous bZ4X fleet in Japan by 2027.
With the Toyota and Hyundai manufacturing partnerships, Grayson says Waymo now has the manufacturing capacity and capital to dominate the robotaxi market globally, while Walt views the Toyota partnership as a volume ramp heading into 2030 that poses a serious threat to traditional rideshare.
Beyond robotaxis, Grayson and Walt analyze the partnership’s potential to introduce personally owned autonomous vehicles, which could accelerate the consumer trend toward one-car households. They also question Alphabet’s decision to omit the landmark Toyota announcement from its earnings report, even as Waymo added 250 square miles of territory across five cities in a single week.
In Orlando, Grayson spent five hours riding in Waymo’s around its 120-square-mile territory, observing hundreds of Ojais at a massive depot near the airport. However, access restrictions at Orlando International Airport (MCO) and the Brightline station continue to choke off high-value transit corridors, underscored by a chaotic pickup attempt at a nearby Amazon facility.
In Houston, Tesla expanded Robotaxi’s service area to 254-square-miles in the shape of a rocket ship. Over in autonomous trucking Aurora delayed its 200-truck milestone to February due to supply chain issues and reduced guidance, contrasting with Kodiak’s binding 75-truck order and leaner cash burn.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, XPENG received an SAE Level 4 demonstration permit in Guangzhou, Baidu Apollo Go received a SAE Level 4 special operating permit from Switzerland’s Federal Roads Office and Tesla’s FSD Supervised was granted approval in Latvia.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Waymo and Toyota Partnership
06:36 Personally Owned Waymo Toyota Vehicles
09:18 Waymo's Volume Ramp to 2030 and the Impact on Rideshare
11:53 Waymo Expands Service Coverage by 250 Square Miles
13:15 Alphabet Earnings
16:08 Waymo's California Advantage
18:20 Orlando Field Report
31:28 Tesla Robotaxi in Orlando Field Report
33:17 Tesla Robotaxi Houston Expansion
35:47 Tesla Extends Robotaxi Service Hours
37:47 Aurora Delays Its Truck Milestone
41:28 Non Binding vs. Binding Autonomous Trucking Deals
46:13 Gatik Class 7 Truck Spotted in Plano
51:46 Rivian's Autonomy Plans
55:07 Foreign Autonomy Desk
1:00:08 Next Week

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Autonomy Signals presented by KPMG, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss Tesla’s Texas robotaxi fleet crossing 1,000 vehicles, Bedrock Robotics raising $600 million to automate construction, and Purdue researchers building a drone that can track a person without GPS.
Tesla’s registered Texas robotaxi fleet crossed 1,050 vehicles, with Cybercabs now making up more than half the fleet after a tenfold ramp in Austin during October. The surge proves Tesla can build vehicles faster than it can deploy them, but with paid Cybercab rides limited to Austin and highways, rail crossings and 24/7 operation still locked, fleet scale does not establish leadership over Waymo, which logs nearly four million rider only miles a week.
Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million in a Series C led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, valuing the two year old company at $4.1 billion. Retrofit kits that automate existing excavators offer the fastest path to revenue as skilled operators retire, though hidden boulders, wet ground and OEM control over integration could slow the jump from paid projects to repeat orders.
Purdue University researchers built a drone that tracks a running person under dense forest canopy with all processing onboard, without GPS or satellite navigation. When a university lab can build this, the algorithm stops being a moat, and the advantage for defense and search and rescue buyers shifts to field validation, manufacturing and accountable operation.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
1:47 Signal 1: Tesla Floods Texas With Cybercabs
27:16 Signal 2: Bedrock Robotics Raises $600 Million
50:35 Signal 3: Purdue Builds a Drone That Can Find You

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides Institutional Intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.

This Week in The Autonomy Economy is the briefing investors and industry leaders read every Sunday as they prepare for the week ahead. Original insight and commentary on the Autonomy Economy.

📬 Sign up for the newsletter at https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

Follow The Road to Autonomy Indices at https://indices.roadtoautonomy.com/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Danny Bernstein, Founder & CEO, RESERVOIR and Paige Bailey, AI Developer Relations Lead, Google DeepMind joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how rugged Physical AI is moving out of simulation and onto the farm.
Simulation alone cannot carry Physical AI into agriculture. Rain, mud, diesel power requirements and extreme heat break systems that perform flawlessly in sim, which is why RESERVOIR built a working farm in Salinas where startups deploy immediately instead of waiting six to nine months after raising capital.
Bonsai Robotics, which tested at RESERVOIR has sold more than 400 robots, and its $60,000 autonomous hybrid tractor flexes between strawberries and vineyards because the team understands grower economics as deeply as robotics.
The farm itself is being redesigned for autonomy. Bayer is breeding broccoli for automated harvest, orchards are moving to two dimensional trellising, and physics is beginning to replace chemicals as California tightens regulation.
Google DeepMind is positioning Gemini and Gemma as the flexible intelligence layer for this shift, from crop vision to on device robotics.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Rugged Physical AI Goes Mainstream
01:02 Google DeepMind's Robotics Ambitions
04:11 Bonsai Robotics' $60,000 Autonomous Tractor
06:43 Why Startups Wait Months to Reach a Farm
10:17 Building Trust Between Growers and Engineers
14:45 Physical AI as a Growth Market
16:24 How Robotics Moved to the Center at Google
18:31 Broccoli Bred for Automation
22:44 Gemini Vision for Crop Scanning
24:39 Is Agriculture Ready for Automation?
26:34 Physics Replacing Chemicals
29:57 Weather Next and Google Earth Engine
33:17 The Future of Physical AI
35:19 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.

📬 Sign up for 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.

This week on Autonomy Signals presented by KPMG, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss Waymo scaling its robotaxi fleet fivefold, Neolix closing the largest autonomous driving funding round in China this year, and GM betting big on personally owned autonomous vehicles.
Backed by a $5 billion loan and $16 billion in equity, Waymo plans to grow its fleet from roughly 4,000 vehicles to 20,000 by the end of 2027 while expanding into the Madrid and Toronto markets. With capital secured, throughput at its Mesa integration facility is now the binding constraint, and the current pace points closer to 14,000 vehicles.
Neolix raised nearly $400 million in a Series E round and signed an agreement with Malaysian conglomerate Sunway Group to deploy its L4 delivery vehicles across Sunway’s properties. The partnership offers a ready distribution channel and a monsoon season stress test, though Malaysia’s pending data protection framework could raise the cost of expanding across Southeast Asia.
GM plans to sell personally owned eyes off vehicles by 2028, starting with premium full size models using LiDAR, radar, and cameras powered by a liquid cooled central compute unit built in house. Bringing the technology to both EV and combustion lineups reaches GM’s most profitable buyers, but competing capital priorities and Tesla’s L4 ambitions could make the feature look dated on arrival.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
1:45 Signal 1: Waymo Is Scaling
23:35 Signal 2: Neolix Goes Global
38:37 Signal 3: GM Bets Big on Personal Autonomy

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides Institutional Intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.

This Week in The Autonomy Economy is the briefing investors and industry leaders read every Sunday as they prepare for the week ahead. Original insight and commentary on the Autonomy Economy.

📬 Sign up for the newsletter at https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

Follow The Road to Autonomy Indices at https://indices.roadtoautonomy.com/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss field reports from Nashville, Dallas and Houston, takeaways from Tesla’s earnings call, Waymo’s accelerating fleet growth, a mysterious effort to stop robotaxis in Washington, D.C.
In Nashville, Grayson tours two Waymo depots near Nashville International Airport (BNA), including a hillside facility with an estimated 300-to-500-vehicle capacity that he dubs the most secure depot the show has visited. His 25-minute round of autonomy roulette on the Lyft app yielded zero matches, but the airport walk from the terminal door to the Waymo pickup zone clocked in at a seamless 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
In Dallas, which Grayson crowns the robotaxi capital of America, Waymo and Avride continue to scale as hundreds of unbadged Tesla Cybercabs sit in a staging lot near Dallas Love Field. In Houston, at the Uber/Nuro/Lucid depot, Grayson spotted just six robotaxis and zero unsupervised operations.
Turning to the Tesla earnings call, the hosts analyze FSD attach rates hitting 75%, renewed plans allowing owners to loan personal vehicles into the fleet, and the slip of the 24/7 service target to year-end. Grayson also connects the dots on why Tesla announced its four expansion cities (Las Vegas, Jacksonville, Phoenix, and San Antonio) in an order directly tracking physical depot construction.
Meanwhile, Walt reacts to a Semafor report projecting Waymo could scale to 20,000 vehicles by the end of next year, surpassing his own 15,000-vehicle estimate, as Waymo launches service at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) and eyes Madrid (2027) and Toronto (2028).
Closing out on the Foreign Autonomy Desk, a VW MOIA van was spotted testing in Europe bearing Wayve decals instead of Mobileye, while France signaled renewed regulatory backing for autonomous fleets.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Nashville Field Report
08:38 Dallas Field Report
13:20 Avis Waymo Depot Buildout in Dallas
15:36 Houston Field Report
19:55 NHTSA Administrator Morrison Interview
21:08 Tesla Earnings
25:15 Waymo and Tesla Depot Infrastructure Buildout
27:17 Semafor Report: 20,000 Waymos by End of Next Year
28:43 Tesla Unsupervised Miles and 24/7 Service
31:17 Robotaxi Pricing vs. Rideshare
33:08 Tesla’s Four New Cities and the Depot Ground Truth
33:45 Waymo's Las Vegas Airport, Madrid and Toronto Expansions
35:08 Uber Nears 100 Fully Autonomous WeRide Vehicles in the UAE
37:19 Hertz, Avis and the Depot Market
39:46 GM’s $20 Billion Buyback
45:12 People First Transportation Alliance
51:06 London Driver Protests and TfL Robotaxi Caps
51:56 Santa Monica Leases Lots to Zoox
55:01 Foreign Autonomy Desk
56:08 Next Week

📄 Follow Waymo on The Road to Autonomy Indices
--------
About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.

📬 Sign up for 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.