The Road to Autonomy

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss New York Governor Hochul’s bill to legalize autonomous vehicles in New York, with New York City notably carved out, Uber’s changing Waymopartnership language and Waymo’s upcoming expansion to Sydney.
In New York, autonomous vehicles could be coming to state roads, but not New York City, as Mayor Mamdani is prioritizing taxi drivers over robotaxi deployment. Down in Texas, where autonomous vehicles can operate anywhere, Waymo has expanded their service area in Austin as Uber has changed their promotional language from “exclusively available on Uber” to simply “available on Uber” when promoting Waymo rides.
On the international front, Waymo is actively planning to expand to Sydney following meetings with Australian Transport Minister Catherine King. In China, WeRide robotaxis are now available in the WeChat super app, enabling riders in Beijing to order autonomous rides directly through the platform.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Verizon Outage
1:45 New York’s Unkind Welcome to Autonomous Vehicles
9:19 Robotaxi and Waymo Face-off in Austin
12:47 Autonomy Markets Merch
14:15 FSD Goes Subscription Only on Valentine’s Day
17:18 Waymo Eyes Australian Expansion
21:03 Tensor Auto
24:06 Stack AV
26:14 Plus AI Expands to Japan
28:33 Foreign Autonomy Desk
30:33 Next Week

Recorded on Thursday, January 15, 2026

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Don Burnette, Founder & CEO, Kodiak joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss taking Kodiak public and why the company's strategy has always been about de-risking autonomy with optionality.
As part of their de-risking strategy, Kodiak has deployed an asset-light business model where partners including Atlas Energy Solutions own and operate the trucks, allowing Kodiak to focus on the AI software.
During the episode, Grayson and Don discuss the strategic importance of Kodiak’s partnership with Bosch to develop a redundant, OEM-agnostic platform that unlocks scale across multiple OEMs. With their partnerships and business model intact, Kodiak is preparing to launch driver-out commercial over-the-road operations in the second half of the year, setting the stage for a broader expansion into physical AI.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Taking Kodiak Public
3:36 Asset-Light Autonomous Trucking Business
12:10 Unstructured Driving
14:31 Kodiak's Platform Agnostic Strategy
21:45 Bosch Partnership
27:47 Preparing for Driver-Out Over-The-Road Operations
34:10 Over-The-Road Business Model
25:38 Future of Kodiak

Recorded on Monday, January 12, 2026

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
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 CES 2026, Zoox’s performance on the Las Vegas Strip and Uber’s potential long-term autonomy plans.
Zoox’s performance was one of those hopefully “only in Las Vegas” moments, as the vehicle was seen stopping in the middle of traffic and blocking entrances on a regular basis. Which raises the question; what is Amazon going to do with Zoox? Do they overhaul management, make an acquisition, or simply shut it down and move on?
While Zoox struggled, NVIDIA introduced their open-source Alpamayo AI models under an Apache 2.0 license to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles and sell more GPUs.
Closing out the show, the discussion shifts to hardware and global expansion, contrasting Waymo’s bulky new Ojai vehicle with the well-designed Lucid-Nuro robotaxi.

Episode Chapters
0:00 CES 2026
2:13 Zoox CES Experience
8:41 NVIDIA’s CES Announcements
12:45 SAE Level 2
16:59 Waymo Ojai
19:31 Lucid / Nuro Robotaxi
21:29 Does Uber Need to Vertically Integrate Autonomy in the Future?
25:05 Waymo / Uber Relationship
27:37 Tensor Auto
32:49 Foreign Autonomy Desk
34:35 Disgrace of The Week
38:24 Next Week

Recorded on Friday, January 9, 2026

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
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 the fallout from Waymo’s crisis management failure in San Francisco, where a power outage left hundreds of vehicles stranded and blocking intersections throughout the city.
Waymo’s prolonged silence on the incident and lack of transparency regarding what truly happened could lead to a decline in public trust just as robotaxis begin to scale. Down in Austin, Tesla missed their 2025 driver-out deadline in Austin, prompting Grayson to push his prediction for driver-out/safety attendant out commercial service to late February or early March 2026.
Then there is Uber, a company with an ever-changing narrative around autonomy—shifting from demand-generation to hybrid networks, and now claiming mass adoption is still decades away. What will the next narrative be, and will it change once again post-CES?
Closing out the show, Grayson and Walt discuss how escalating geopolitical tensions in Venezuela and potential political shifts in the UK could force a hard reset for companies relying on Chinese autonomous technology to scale their robotaxi businesses.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Lights Out in San Francisco
2:44 Why Did Waymo’s Freeze When the Power Went Out?
8:34 Remote Drivers
15:00 Robotaxi in Austin
18:33 Scaling Robotaxi
22:48 Autonomous Vehicle Policy
24:47 Austin Incident Reports
27:17 Uber’s Ever-Changing Narrative
30:31 Miami-Dade Sheriff Deploys Autonomous Patrol Vehicles
32:38 Foreign Autonomy Desk
40:26 CES

Recorded on Sunday, January 4, 2026

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pete Bigelow, Public Relations Manager, Kodiak joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss his firsthand experience in the Permian Basin and how the region acts as a "literal and figurative sandbox" for autonomous trucking.

During the episode Grayson and Pete discuss Kodiak's operational partnership with Atlas Energy Solutions, the hardening of technology against extreme weather and road conditions, and how these industrial learnings are accelerating Kodiak’s timeline for driverless highway operations in the second half of 2026.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Permian Pete
3:50 Permian Basin
8:02 Automation in the Permian Basin
11:10 Learnings from the Permian Basin
16:01 Permian Basin Operations
18:49 SensorPods
23:50 Kodiak's Diversified Business Model
27:34 Autonomous Trucking Regulations
30:15 Permian Basin Road and Traffic Conditions
35:49 Permian Pete's Ride Experience
41:31 Autonomy Markets Outlook

Recorded on Friday, December 19, 2025

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.