The Road to Autonomy

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Bot Auto’s fully autonomous commercial run from Houston to Dallas, Aurora’s expanded partnership with Hirschbach, and Uber’s CTO publicly criticizing Waymo on X over safety.
With Bot Auto completing a 231 mile commercial paid run with no human in the cab, no safety driver, and no observer, the conversation evolves into a deeper discussion around the imminent Waymo robotaxi moment for autonomous trucking, with Kodiak operating fully autonomous in the Permian Basin and Aurora announcing a non-binding 500 truck MOU with Hirschbach representing roughly 15 percent of the carrier’s fleet.
While in Houston, Grayson conducted field work riding in a Tesla Unsupervised Robotaxi in the Cypress neighborhood, where he counted 24 robotaxis staged for launch at the Tesla service center, while observing that both the Tesla and Waymo vehicles drove aggressively in a similar manner to Houstonians.
More signs emerged this week of the deteriorating relationship between Waymo and Uber as the CTO of Uber made a post on X accusing a Waymo of an aggressive maneuver against a Muni bus in San Francisco, a rare public criticism from a partner in a public forum, reinforcing the deteriorating relationship that appears to be on the verge of a divorce.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Grayson and Walt discuss China suspending new autonomous vehicle permits following the Baidu Apollo Go incident in Wuhan where 200 robotaxis simultaneously froze on March 31st, and WeRide’s partnership with Lenovo to deploy 200,000 robotaxis over the next five years against a current fleet of 1,125 vehicles.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Field Work: Bot Auto Launches Fully Autonomous Commercial Service
05:42 Aurora's Expanded Partnership with Hirschbach
08:53 Congressman Ro Khanna's Anti-Autonomy Stance
11:18 Uber and Hertz Partner for Robotaxi Fleet Servicing
18:40 Avomo, Moove, and Uber's Fragmented Autonomy Strategy
20:07 Uber CTO Publicly Criticizes Waymo on X
24:13 Waymo's Next City: Cincinnati or Kansas City?
27:30 Tesla Unsupervised Robotaxi in Houston
34:37 China Suspends New Autonomous Vehicle Permits
39:14 WeRide and Lenovo to Deploy 200,000 Robotaxis
40:54 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: 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 Signals, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss the WeRide and Lenovo autonomous vehicle partnership, Pronto’s first deal under Atoms with Mariana Minerals, and Bot Auto’s 231 mile driver out commercial run from Houston to Dallas.
WeRide and Lenovo recently announced a five year non-binding partnership at Auto China 2026 to deploy 200,000 autonomous vehicles, a 200x scale from WeRide’s current global fleet of 1,023 vehicles, with Lenovo’s HPC 3.0 compute platform accelerating the growth. The HPC 3.0 platform performs under extreme temperatures with a focus on reducing emissions, signaling that the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the European Union could be potential deployment markets.
AUTNMY AI‘s proprietary OMEGA algorithm estimates fleet ownership costs between $10 and $20 billion. No funding partner or fleet owner partner has been announced to date.
While WeRide and Lenovo made headlines this week, Pronto announced its first post-Atoms acquisition deal with Mariana Minerals. The mining company will deploy Pronto’s autonomous haulage trucks at the Copper One mine in southeastern Utah, beginning with three trucks and scaling to fifteen by year end.
Then there is Bot Auto, which made history this week as the first company to deploy an autonomous truck for paid commercial over-the-road freight on the Houston to Dallas lane. The Road to Autonomy team was on the ground to witness Bot Auto successfully complete a 231 mile fully autonomous driver-out commercial run, no human in the cab, no observer, no individual with a CDL.
A field report will be released next Tuesday.

Episode Chapters
00:00 AUTNMY AI
02:00 Signal 1: WeRide and Lenovo Partner to Accelerate Autonomous Vehicle Deployments
26:21 Signal 2: Pronto Deploys Autonomous Haulage Trucks with Mariana Minerals
44:30 Signal 3: Bot Auto Goes Driver-Out Over-the-Road

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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 market 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.

Subscribe today for free: 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.

Taylor Brownstein, Director, Technology Investment Banking, TD Cowen joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Wall Street is funding the autonomy economy.
The autonomous vehicle and truck markets are currently experiencing a healthy rebound from the 2021 to 2023 hype cycle, driven by real commercialization, the Physical AI tailwind, and a more disciplined investor base that is now focusing on companies that are growing businesses focused on commercialization, not just technology.
Capital is king. Over the next 18 months or so, the autonomy markets are expected to consolidate as companies that are unable to raise capital, retain and hire talent will fall further behind, as their competitors continue to raise capital that accelerates their growth.
In this market, dual use is one of the most compelling opportunities as the Department of War actively embraces automation and autonomy. But at the end of the day, no matter what it all comes down to the economics of the business.
Then there are the public markets. The SPAC window is currently open for companies with paying customers and the potential for long-term growth.
While the traditional IPO path remains largely closed to pre-revenue/early-stage autonomy companies as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic absorb all the air in the room, making SPACs paired with PIPE capital the most realistic route to the public markets for the next wave of autonomous vehicle and truck companies at this time.

Episode Chapters
0:00 AUTNMY AI
0:37 Autonomy is Back in Vogue
4:11 Unit Economics
9:51 Dual-Use Applications
22:24 Consolidation
29:22 The Robotaxi Competitors: Waymo and Tesla
42:38 SPACs with PIPE Capital
45:05 Traditional IPOs
50:55 Market Signals

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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: 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 Tesla’s dedicated Supercharger build-out for Robotaxi in Arizona, Kodiak’s autonomous trucking operations in the Permian Basin, and Mobileye’s defensive posture on their Q1 earnings call.
With Tesla launching unsupervised robotaxis in Dallas and Houston this week, the conversation evolves into a deeper discussion around newly filed permits for 56 dedicated, non-public V4 Superchargers in Chandler, Arizona, and a second private charging depot in Mesa, signaling Tesla is building dedicated Robotaxi infrastructure as the original 12-market scale plan slips into Q3.
Out in the Permian Basin, Grayson conducted field work with Kodiak and Atlas Energy Solutions, inspected the depot, and watched fully autonomous trucks operate off-road in the middle of the oil fields, picking up sand at the end of the 40-mile Dune Express sand conveyor.
During Mobileye’s Q1 2026 earnings call, when asked about their autonomous driving partnerships, the tone turned defensive on Volkswagen’s longer-term commitment and the emerging competitive threat of NVIDIA’s growing ambitions.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Grayson and Walt discuss Huawei’s $11.7 billion continued commitment to autonomous driving on the mainland and Pony.ai’s plan to operate more than 3,000 robotaxis across 20 cities globally by the end of 2026, with over half deployed outside mainland China.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Permian Basin Field Work: Kodiak & Atlas Energy Solutions
08:51 Tesla Launches Unsupervised Robotaxi in Dallas and Houston
13:16 Tesla's Dedicated Robotaxi Superchargers in Arizona
15:38 AUTNMY AI
16:45 Avride's 200 Vehicles
19:19 A Tale of Two SPACs, PlusAI & Einride
20:45 Zoox Expands Testing to Miami and Las Vegas Airport
23:55 Mobileye Goes on Autonomy Defense
32:22 Foreign Autonomy Desk
34:24 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: 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 Signals, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss autonomous military cargo helicopters, Caterpillar’s acquisition of Monarch Tractor’s intellectual property, and the termination of the PlusAI and Churchill Capital IX SPAC merger.
Airbus recently conducted its fourth flight test of the MQ-72C autonomous cargo helicopter for the United States Marine Corps, in partnership with L3Harris, Perry Labs, and Shield AI. While the test was a success, AUTNMY AI‘s proprietary OMEGA algorithm assesses that the MQ-72C will not achieve commercial deployment before 2028.
The market is potentially conflating the 2028 military initial operating capability target with commercial market entry, a category error that overstates the near-term commercial opportunity by two to three years and ignores the ITAR, FAA certification, and program authorization constraints that structurally preclude civilian deployment.
Then there is Caterpillar’s acquisition of the intellectual property and core assets of Monarch Tractor. This is not an agriculture story, this is a data story. Caterpillar is acquiring eight years of real-world field data, two to four million labeled frames across 40,000 acres of specialty crop terrain, and a patent portfolio covering obstacle avoidance, vehicle follow systems, and battery swap technology.
The Monarch acquisition represents a $15 to $40 million purchase of a $350 to $500 million replacement cost software and perception stack, compressing the model training timeline for edge case optical detection by an estimated 18 to 30 months.
While Caterpillar is ingesting data to accelerate its construction and mining autonomy programs, the autonomous trucking capital markets delivered a different signal this week. PlusAI and Churchill Capital IX mutually agreed to terminate their proposed business combination.
Even with the PlusAI SPAC being terminated, the autonomous trucking market as a whole remains healthy.

Episode Chapters
00:00 AUTNMY AI
01:16 Signal 1: Airbus Completes 4th Flight Test of the MQ-72C Autonomous Cargo Helicopter
23:29 Signal 2: Caterpillar Acquires Monarch Tractor IP
47:17 Signal 3: PlusAI and Churchill Capital IX SPAC Termination

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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 market 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.

Subscribe today for free: 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.