Episode 316 | Is the Future of Autonomy Licensing and Contract Manufacturing?

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the future of autonomy.

Is Waymo preparing to pivot away from owning and operating robotaxi fleets towards licensing the Waymo Driver to companies such as Toyota, and perhaps even Ford and GM? If Waymo were to fully pivot to a licensing model, it could establish a new model in which legacy OEMs become contract manufacturers for autonomous driving developers. 

With legacy OEMs acting as contract manufacturers, a new ecosystem would emerge in which OEMs build the vehicles, finance companies carry them on their balance sheets, service providers manage operations, and autonomous driving developers supply the autonomous driving systems under licensing agreements.

Meanwhile, Foxconn has ambitions to become the contract manufacturer of choice for robotaxi developers. If Foxconn were to enter the sector at scale, who would become the fleet operator? Who would finance the vehicles and own them on their balance sheet?

Today, there are still more questions than answers when it comes to the future of autonomy. Yet despite this current uncertainty, the outlines of the industry’s next era are beginning to take shape.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Ford’s LiDAR Demands

4:16 Financing Autonomous Driving Platforms 

5:44 Would GM Sell The Origin Platform to Cruise?

13:24 GM & Politics 

15:38 Foxconn

21:34 Licensing Autonomous Driving Systems 

23:15 Fully-Electric Pick-up Trucks

30:21 Tesla

32:35 Breaking out Robotaxi Revenue 

36:11 Waymo

41:41 May Mobility on Lyft

43:16 Toyota

44:53 Waymo OEM Partnerships 

46:02 What To Look For in the Markets

Recorded on Monday, July 7, 2025

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