The Road to Autonomy

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the Waymo/Uber divorce going public, Zoox receiving NHTSA approval to charge for rides, Aurora earnings, and Qualcomm's BMW win as ADAS becomes the Trojan horse into autonomy.
The Waymo/Uber relationship is unraveling in public, with The Financial Times confirming Waymo will launch its own app in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028 before the contract expires that May. Both sides are airing grievances, from dirty cars and bad routing to weather no-shows and unsustainable financial terms. Grayson goes on the record that the relationship terminates early, calling for a Waymo app in those markets by June 2027, while Walt takes the under.
After 12 years and billions of dollars, Zoox can finally charge for a ride. NHTSA granted an exemption capped at 2,500 vehicles per year for two years, a ruling that also creates a potential viable deployment path for Tesla's Cybercab.
In autonomous trucking, Aurora is targeting 1,000 trucks by the end of next year against 200 this year, a heavily back-end loaded ramp that depends on truck supply, Roush capacity, and unresolved questions about how the Volvo Autonomous Solutions margin split works. Meanwhile, Qualcomm's selection by BMW as lead compute for next-generation ADAS confirms the growth of the L2+ market and positions Snapdragon as the Trojan horse into autonomy compute.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Baidu began RT6 robotaxi testing in London with both Uber and Lyft on the outskirts of the city, received a full driverless permit in Hong Kong, and China resumed issuing robotaxi permits once again.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Waymo/Uber Divorce Goes Public
5:45 Uber's Autonomous Vehicle Partner Problem
10:28 Waymo's OEM Partner Signals
12:25 Zoox Gets the Golden Ticket
16:52 Advancing America’s Safety and Competitiveness for the Evolution of National Deployments
20:16 Aurora Q2 2026 Earnings
27:43 How Big Is the OEM Risk?
30:38 ADAS as the Trojan Horse Into Autonomy
35:42 Ford BlueCruise Falls Short
37:23 Foreign Autonomy Desk: Baidu RT6 Testing in London with Uber & Lyft
41:33 Next Week

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
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 the latest Tesla FSD Supervised Cannonball Run record, seniors adopting FSD as a mobility preservation tool, and Baidu beginning robotaxi testing in London on both the Uber and Lyft networks.
David Moss, Spencer and Owen Sparks drove a Tesla Model 3 running FSD Supervised 14.3.6 from the Red Ball Garage in New York City to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California in a record-setting 47 hours, 15 minutes and 39 seconds without ever touching the wheel.
While the young kids break Cannonball FSD Supervised records, older individuals are actively embracing FSD as a mobility preservation tool. With no AARP partnership and no marketing spend, word of mouth is pulling seniors into a $47 billion a year senior transportation market that remains underserved, creating a structurally high-retention customer for Tesla.
As Tesla FSD adoption grows with seniors, Baidu launched supervised RT6 robotaxi trials in the London borough of Brent on both the Uber and Lyft networks, with Lyft utilizing FreeNow's existing Transport for London private hire operator license.
Baidu's deployment in London is a regulatory choreography play, not a technology demonstration, with driverless commercial authorization targeted for 2027 remaining the single binary event that either validates or collapses Baidu's Western expansion thesis.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:30 Signal 1: Tesla FSD Supervised Cannonball Run Record
26:23 Signal 2: Seniors are Embracing FSD
51:47 Signal 3: Baidu Begins Robotaxi Testing in London

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
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 Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Tesla's Cybercab validation timeline, Tesla Semi FSD Supervised, Alphabet's quiet quarter on Waymo, and the Mobileye CEO stepping down after 27 years.
Tesla disclosed 380,000 unsupervised miles, but those miles were logged on Model Y and do not transfer to Cybercab. The new chassis has to earn its own validation miles before commercial service begins, and Tesla is pacing production to that validation rather than building a fleet ahead of it. The ramp is slower than the market expects.
Best case, that puts Tesla at 100 cars in Austin or a Florida market by year end. Elon Musk also offered an aggressive timeline for autonomy on the Semi, where Tesla is the OEM and removes the largest structural risk in autonomous trucking, creating an overhang for Aurora and every capital dependent competitor.
Alphabet reported Other Bets revenue of $380 million against a loss of $1.8 billion, with the smallest amount of Waymo commentary from Sundar Pichai in roughly six quarters and no milestone announced. Mobileye is abandoning its asset light model for full vertical integration, putting it in direct competition with the OEMs it needs as customers.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Momenta secured approval for driverless commercial operations in Shenzhen as China resumes issuing robotaxi permits.

Episode Chapters
0:00 380,000 Unsupervised Miles and What That Number Leaves Out
03:13 The 250,000 Validation Miles Cybercab Still Has to Earn
05:22 Cybercab Production Is Pacing to Validation Miles
10:20 Tesla Semi FSD Coming Soon (Maybe Year End?)
14:29 The Case for Vertical Integration
16:24 Reading the Fine Print on Aurora's Driverless Announcement
22:22 Alphabet's Other Bets and the Waymo Spin Non Answer
25:50 How Tesla Runs Airport Curbside Pickups in California
27:44 Zoox Recalls Software That Could Not Handle Smoke
30:15 Mobileye Abandons Asset Light for Vertical Integration
36:14 Foreign Autonomy Desk: China Resumes Robotaxi Permits

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
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 Tesla expanding robotaxi to Tampa and Orlando, Zoox recalling its entire 105 vehicle fleet after driving into an active fire scene in Las Vegas, and China embedding autonomous truck manufacturing in Kazakhstan.
Tesla continues their robotaxi expansion launching service in Tampa and Orlando, establishing their third Florida market alongside Miami. All three Florida service areas are next to the airport, signaling Tesla's ambition to secure airport service, while Tampa marks the first market where Tesla launched commercially ahead of Waymo.
With Tesla moving from ground validation vehicles to driverless operations in roughly three weeks compared to Waymo's 30 week timeline in Charlotte, Tesla's deployment velocity is running approximately 10X faster than its main competitor.
A company that has struggled to scale, Zoox voluntarily recalled its entire US fleet of 105 autonomous vehicles after an unoccupied robotaxi drove into a smoke-obscured fire scene in Las Vegas, requiring a remote teleoperator to reverse the vehicle after its sensor suite was blinded.
The recall arrives as NHTSA escalates enforcement around autonomous vehicles interfering with first responders and as Zoox's FMVSS exemption petition for 2,500 driverless vehicles remains pending. With nine vehicles operating in Miami and no Amazon branding anywhere on the vehicles, rider lounges, or website, questions are mounting about Zoox's commercial direction and Amazon's willingness to stand behind its bet.
Closing out the show, Grayson and Rob discuss China and Kazakhstan formalizing an agreement to establish domestic assembly lines for autonomous SITRAK heavy trucks, turning Kazakhstan into a regional production and deployment hub for driverless freight across Eurasian trade corridors and accelerating China's Autonomous Belt and Road Initiative.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:34 Signal 1: Tesla Expands Robotaxi to Tampa and Orlando
27:15 Signal 2: Zoox Recalls Its Entire 105 Vehicle Fleet
57:15 Signal 3: China Embeds Autonomous Truck Manufacturing in Kazakhstan

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
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.

Nathan Michael, Chief Technology Officer, Shield AI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why the future of warfare is autonomous.
The conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have made the case for autonomy abundantly clear. Drones create asymmetric advantage by driving down the cost per effect, delivering outcomes at reach without putting pilots and service members into harm’s way. As trust in these systems grows through engineered performance and assurance, autonomous systems will increasingly engage in combat and change the face of modern warfare.
Shield AI’s solution to the future of warfare is Hivemind, an AI pilot designed from the beginning to be platform agnostic, mission agnostic, and domain agnostic. This architecture aligns with the Air Force’s autonomy government reference architecture for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which mandates modularity and no vendor lock-in.
No vendor lock-in is becoming a global standard, with nations demanding sovereign autonomy, ownership of data, and the flexibility to swap in the most performant AI pilot as the technology rapidly improves. Hivemind is now expanding beyond the air and maritime domains into space through a series of defense partnerships.

Episode Chapters
0:00 How Shield AI is Thinking About Autonomy in a World Full of Conflict
1:56 Are Drones the Modern Equivalent of the Abrams Tank?
4:09 Is Society Ready for Autonomous Warfare
5:58 Developing Hivemind and the Aha Moments Along the Way
10:50 Deploying V-BAT in Ukraine and Integrating Hivemind on One-Way Attack Drones
13:59 The Autonomy Factory and Adapting Hivemind Across Platforms
17:41 Going from Air to Sea with Huntington Ingalls
22:39 Deploying Hivemind on the Airbus Lakota Helicopter for Contested Logistics
25:52 Winning the U.S. Air Force CCA Mission Autonomy Production Contract
29:37 Autonomy Government Reference Architecture and No Vendor Lock-In
35:34 Expanding Hivemind into Space
38:17 X-Bat, the World's First AI-Powered VTOL Fighter Jet
40:34 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, Indices and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
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

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