Aaron Nathan, Founder, CEO and CTO, Point One Navigation joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy Podcast to discuss safety and scaling autonomous vehicles with precise location services. The conversation begins with Grayson and Aaron discussing how we can make cars safer today, due to a rising trend of speeding on roads that is leading to an increase in crashes and fatalities. One potential way to dent this trend is to solve for the issue is for companies to actively embrace and implement active safety solutions that can predict and act before an incident takes place. Ultimately making systems that can detect something that is going to happen and then actually do something to avoid those type of tragic incidents. That is really where I think this industry is going to have a big impact in the near term. – Aaron NathanWith rising crashes across the world, could the general public become more open to trying and eventually embracing autonomous vehicles as part of their daily lives? AVs do not get distracted, text or speed. They simply follow the rules of the road and take you to and from your destination safely. Safety will be one defining factor that ultimately leads to a future with autonomous vehicles. The other factor that will ultimately drive consumers towards autonomous vehicles is convenience. We are starting to see the early phases of this trend with the introduction of Apple‘s Crash Detection that is featured on the iPhone 14, Apple Watch 8 and Ultra. As much as this is a safety feature, it’s a convenience.Feeling that your device is really helping you be safe, that technology that kind of feeling is something that we are going to see, not just from companies like Apple, but also car companies that are building these technologies. – Aaron NathanCould Apple’s introduction of Crash Detection be the first step towards the much speculated Apple Car? Possibly. Grayson and Aaron discuss why an Apple Car would be an another platform for Apple to grow their services businesses through the introduction of augmented reality experiences in-vehicle complimented with a commerce layer. To achieve this vision, Apple has to develop an autonomous vehicle stack.While Point One Navigation is not developing an autonomous vehicle stack, they are however enabling AVs to know where they are all of the time and updating other vehicles in the fleet in real-time on road trends with their precise location. We are the common language that the cars can use to talk to about where they saw something. – Aaron Nathan Real-time data can be used to update an autonomous vehicle on traffic patterns and advise the passenger on the best time to leave the destination when they summon an autonomous vehicle. Point One’s technology can also apply to traditional vehicles as well. This is convenience and this is the future of mobility. Tying the digital and physical worlds together, that is a building block that we are enabling. – Aaron NathanIt’s not just traffic data, it’s the real-time precise location of the vehicle that makes Point One’s technology so important to the future of autonomy. Wrapping up the conversation, Aaron shares his thoughts on the future of precise location services. Location is one of the most important and invisible sensors in all of robotics, not just self-driving vehicles. – Aaron NathanRecorded on Thursday September 15, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Andrew Culhane, Chief Strategy Officer, Torc Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy Podcast to discuss scaling autonomy profitability along with Torc’s strategic relationship with Daimler.The conversation begins with Andrew reflecting on the last 14 years of Torc, as he first joined the company in 2008 as a Sales Engineer. Up until Daimler acquired a majority stake in 2019, the company never took any outside funding and was profitable each and every year. Torc was bootstrapped from day one. We had no outside capital into Torc until the Daimler deal. – Andrew CulhaneThis is a success story. This is Torc. The can do attitude of running a growing profitable business has proven to be extremely successful for the company. While it’s successful today, it was a journey that was full of hard decisions and moments of uncertainty. It’s these moments of uncertainty that laid the groundwork for Torc pivoting to autonomous trucking as Andrew explains in detail. These decisions led to what the company is today, a company with a Daimler partnership that is solely focused on autonomous trucking.We had learned a lot of lessons over all of those years and really understanding what it was going to take, and made that move to trucking before anybody else. – Andrew CulhaneThe decision to pivot from passenger vehicles, mining and military to focus solely on autonomous trucking was not an an easy decision. While the decision was not an easy one, it allowed the company to focus their entire effort on autonomous trucking. As part of their focus on autonomous trucking, the company is focused on a hub-to-hub model. This model was chosen based on experience and listening to the needs of their customers. It has been three years since Daimler took a majority stake in Torc and there has been a great deal of collaboration during this time. It’s been a really interesting partnership and collaboration. – Andrew CulhaneThis approach follows Torc’s track record of not overhyping and not making promises that they cannot keep. Torc has never publicly set a date to remove the driver and operate driver-out operations as they have always kept true to who they are. With this in mind, Grayson and Andrew discuss the boom and bust hype cycles of autonomy. While Torc is not making timeline promises, the company is clearly laying the groundwork towards commercialization as the company recently appointed Peter Vaughn Schmidt (Head of Daimler Truck Autonomous Technology Group) as CEO. Wrapping up the conversation, Andrew discusses what drove Torc’s financial discipline from day one.Recorded on Tuesday September 13, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Scott Painter, Founder & CEO, Autonomy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss Autonomy’s approach to electric vehicle subscriptions. The conversation begins with Scott discussing why he founded Autonomy.I think that great entrepreneurs, great companies have to solve a real problem. – Scott PainterOne of the key hurdles to the adoption of electric vehicles is affordability and that is the problem that Autonomy is solving with their subscription model. For those individuals who are uncertain about electric vehicles and/or concerned about range, Autonomy offers a low commitment way to discover and experience an electric vehicle without a long-term commitment. Because Autonomy owns the fleet and gathers data in real-time about the vehicles, the company is able to offer time based episodic insurance for subscribers. With this model, subscribers only pay for insurance when they are driving the vehicle, leading to a lower operating cost than a traditional lease. Overall, an Autonomy subscription is about 15% less than a traditional lease. When compared to a Tesla lease, an individual needs to have a minimum 720 FICO score in order to qualify for a lease. With an Autonomy subscription, an individual can secure a subscription with a minimum 640 FICO score. What we are really focused on is giving people the ability to get flexible access to mobility without necessarily having to go into debt. – Scott PainterThe other key differences are that an Autonomy subscription is minimum of three months as compared to traditional Tesla lease that is 36 months. A Tesla lease will report as debt on consumers credit reports, while an Autonomy subscription will not report as debt. The fact that a subscription, an Autonomy subscription in particular does not show up on your credit report as debt is a very big deal. Which also allows us to open up another really key value proposition, which is you can pay for it with a credit card. You can not pay a traditional car lease or a car loan with a credit card, because it is illegal to pay debt with debt. – Scott PainterWith rising consumer credit card debt, Grayson and Scott discuss how Autonomy approaches underwriting and how the company is constantly evaluating potential subscribers from a credit risk standpoint. In addition to the consumers’s credit report, Autonomy also looks at potential subscribers insurability.The goal here is to have dramatically better outcomes than a traditional auto lender or auto lessor. We just do not want to have bad debt on the books. We want to see good quality revenue coming in. – Scott PainterTo scale up the business, Autonomy has placed an order for nearly 23,000 electric vehicles from 17 different automakers for a capital expenditure of $1.2 billion order. This order represents 1.2% of the projected U.S. electric vehicle production through the end of 2022. Wrapping up the conversation, Scott discusses how he plans to expand the business in the coming years.Recorded on Thursday, September 8, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Avery Ash, Head of Global Public Policy and Product Strategy, INRIX joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss how data can help cities and DOTs (Department of Transportations) better understand congestion and how to properly plan for it. The conversation begins with Avery discussing how INRIX gathers anonymous data from 500 million vehicles, mobile devices, mobile apps, parking lot operators, mobile carriers and smart meters all in real-time.Expanding their data gathering capabilities, INRIX recently announced a partnership with GM where data from 15 million vehicles will be used in a collaborative manner to create Safety View. This product leverage the promise of connected vehicles to improve safety planning in local communities. As local communities plan for safe road ways, data will play a vital role in determining the best way to improve safety. In Washington, D.C. for example, 20% of drivers travel at least 10 mph above the speed limit in school zones. Knowing this data, schools will be better prepared to implement safety solutions such solutions as speed bumps, crossing guards, lowering speed limits in surrounding neighborhoods and working with local law enforcement to increase the police presence. You can not expect one silver bullet solution that is going to solve this problem. – Avery AshOnce the new safety measures are put in place, schools can measure the impact of the changes thanks to the data. Data is also having an impact on how cities tackle the issue of congestion. Each year, INRIX publishes their Annual Global Traffic Scorecard and this year the company reported that the average American driver lost 36 hours in 2021 due to congestion. With all of this data being gathered, how can cities effectively use the data to reduce traffic? That is the million dollar question. In London which is the world’s most congested city, where drivers lost 148 hours to congestion in 2021, the city has not figured out how to effectively reduce traffic even as the city has a daily £15 congestion tax. New York City is currently debating on whether to follow London’s lead and introduce a congestion tax. But NYC has a crime problem that three quarters of New Yorkers have called a very serious problem. Crime is driving New Yorkers tourists alike to single occupancy vehicles out of an abundance of caution. When planning for congestion, it’s important to take into account a variety of data points and not just rely on one source of data. It’s really important to enter into these sorts of policy changes with eyes wide open and with a willingness and frankly a plan for how you are going to measure the impact. – Avery AshCould autonomous vehicle drop-off and pick-up zones be a potential solution in the future as AVs scale and are deployed in cities around the world? Grayson and Avery discuss drop-off and pick-up zones as a potential solution for congestion in cities.Wrapping up the conversation, Avery shares his opinion on the best way cities can prepare for the large scale deployment of autonomous vehicles. The first step is to get a really clear understanding of how your roadways are currently being used and what behavior looks like across your road networks, across all road users. – Avery AshRecorded on Tuesday, August 30, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Tara Andringa, Executive Director of Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss developing and maintaining public trust in autonomous vehicles and trucks.The conversation begins with Tara discussing how PAVE is working on developing public trust of autonomous vehicles. I really like to think of it as a conversation with the public. Every single person is a stakeholder in transportation, and so what we want to do is let everyone have a voice in thinking about what the future of our transportation system looks like. – Tara Andringa One of the biggest hurdles to over come on the road to developing public trust in autonomous vehicles is misleading headlines that erode public trust in the technology. This is one of our biggest challenges right now. – Tara Andringa These headlines are eroding public trust as they are confusing ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) with autonomous vehicles, which is causing confusion with the public. Some individuals are over-trusting that the ADAS system will operate like an autonomous vehicle, meaning that they will not have to pay attention when the vehicle is driving, potentially leading to tragic situations. One reason these headlines are being printed is the amount of traffic that they generate for news outlets. While the traffic leads to higher ad revenue, the headlines could potentially lead to unfortunate events and an overall erosion of public trust in autonomy. It’s much easier for them to write self-driving car then it is to say a car that under limited circumstances with an attentive human behind the wheel can handle some driving tasks. That just does not roll off the tongue. It gets simplified to really dangerous results. – Tara Andringa It is very important to point out that you cannot buy an autonomous vehicle today and that all autonomous vehicles are currently operated as part of a fleet. To try and clear the confusion, PAVE partnered with AAA, J.D. Power, The National Safety Council, SAE International and Consumer Reports on the CLEARING THE CONFUSION: Common Naming for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems document. There are two different naming issues and I really want to distinguish between them. One is that we need clear language for what is available today and the other issue is that we need clear language to distinguish today’s technology from future technology. – Tara Andringa With over 40 different names for Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), consumers are unsure of what the technology can do, potentially causing confusion. The is why the common naming document is so important. Perhaps the common naming document can be transferred into emojis that everyone around the world no matter what language they speak can understand what it means.There are examples from history that can help pave the road with trust. One example is The Vagabonds, a group composed of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs who made yearly camping trips in Ford vehicles between 1916 and 1924 with the goal of developing trust in the automobile. A more modern example is what Voyage did in The Villages to develop trust of autonomous vehicles with the residents of the community. When you really give people exposure to the technology, they start thinking about it in a much more real way. – Tara Andringa Building upon history, a diverse group of members from leading startups, to established automakers to insurance companies to non-profits, to software providers came together to form PAVE with the goal of developing public trust in autonomous vehicles and trucks.Wrapping up the conversation, Tara shares insights on how communities and Governments are preparing for the large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles. Recorded on Tuesday, August 23, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Hayk Martiros, VP of Autonomy, Skydio joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss developing a vision-based autonomous drone complete with obstacle avoidance and why this system enables pilots to trust the autonomy. The conversation begins with Hayk discussing what makes Skydio different from other drone companies.The whole premise of Skydio is to build a vision-based autonomous drone. A drone that uses cameras to see and understand the world around it, and then navigate in that world so that the user does not have to be an expert pilot. They do not have to worry about avoiding objects or knowing exactly how to have your fingers on the sticks ready to go, but rather you are just interacting with this robot that you feel that you can trust. – Hayk MartirosSkydio drones operate a vision-based autonomous system with cameras instead of radar and LiDAR because cameras are the only way to make an autonomous drone that just works. Cameras also enable the drone to have a longer battery life as they are lighter and less power intensive when compared to radar and LiDAR. Designing everything, form and function together to absolutely optimize for weight is kind of everything with a flying machine. – Hayk MartirosWhile the drones are designed for weight, the vision-based autonomous system has an obstacle avoidance system that operates smoothly while in-flight. The system develops trust with the pilot and enables them to fly without having to worry about the drone crashing into a visible object. We invested a huge amount of effort into this. We were the first company and team to use deep learning for robot obstacle avoidance in a real product. – Hayk MartirosAutonomy combined with an obstacle avoidance system is one of the key ways that trust with drones will be developed in the future. This will lead to trust being built with regulators such as the FAA when companies request permission to fly beyond the visual line of sight. Skydio customer Dominion Energy was recently granted FAA approval to fly beyond the line of sight in seven U.S. States to inspect power generation facilities. Our approach has been let’s try to prove our case and prove the trust worthiness of our autonomy through data and work with the FAA to make progress. – Hayk MartirosWhen flying beyond the line of sight, Skydio has a return to home feature where the drone will autonomously fly back to the launch point or a pre-specified point if the battery runs low or connectivity is lost for example. The drone autonomously makes this decision based on data from the on-board health monitoring system. Autonomy combined with the ease of use makes Skydio special. – Hayk MartirosEvolving from a software company to a vertically integrated hardware and software company has allowed Skydio to design an autonomous drone that just works. The autonomy system was first developed in 2014 when the company was focused solely on software. Since then the technology has continuously advanced as more and more edge cases are added into the autonomy stack leading to the system becoming more robust and more autonomous. Wrapping up the conversation, Hayk shares his thoughts on the future of autonomous drones. Recorded on Tuesday, August 16, 2022 --------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Damien Scott, Director of EV Product Strategy, BrightDrop joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss energy and the role that managing energy usage in real-time will play in a future with electrified transportation. The conversation begins with Damien discussing growing up in Botswana, flying around the country with his father who was a medical doctor and why his parents made the decision to homeschool him and his sisters. One of the amazing things about living on a remote game farm in Botswana is you have to become incredibly practical fixing vehicles, borehole pumps, electricity frequently goes down, and so there is a lot of direct exposure to the fundamental things that we use in our life. – Damien ScottHaving been exposed to medicine and aviation at an early age, Damien made the decision to go into technology after being inspired by science fiction. He wanted to work on technology that would bring about some of the more positive visions of the future that involved energy and transportation. While living on the farm, Damien’s father installed their first solar powered borehole pump, which reduced the families dependence on diesel. This was the first time that Damien was exposed to solar and the true benefits of the technology. Having experienced solar energy in a remote part of the world first-hand, Damien discusses the opportunities that he sees for solar energy. The market for renewable energy such as solar continues to grow and is projected to make up 27% of the world’s energy by 2050, coal still accounts for 27% of the world’s primary energy, roughly the same level as 50 years ago. In 50 years from now, how will the world’s mix of energy sources change?This is the big question. I think it boils down to a set of actions that technology companies will take, the policy makers will take. It’s not determined what this mix is going to look like, it is really ours as a species to make these decisions. – Damien ScottEnergy demand is growing globally and The US Energy Information Administration is projecting that the global energy demand will grow by 47% by 2050. To be prepared to handle this increase in demand, we have to start paying attention to energy demand and its impact on the energy grid. One of the first things to look at is, can we optimize what we have already and take the assets that we have — the electricity grid we have today and the one that we expect to evolve in the short to medium term and just use it more efficiently. – Damien ScottWhat happens when you electrify large fleets of commercial vehicles? What will their impact be on the energy grid? How do you manage the energy usage. This is the problem that Marain set out to fix and they are now doing it as part of BrightDrop.In order to create the future that we want, we have to simulate it. It’s really expensive to make the wrong decisions in our infrastructure buildout with the electricity grid. – Damien ScottThis approach will ensure that commercial EV fleet owners are properly prepared and not caught flat footed as they scale up their global electric vehicle fleets. As we are still early in the adoption of electric vehicles, the future is yet to be written in terms of how fleet operators will manage their fleets. Wrapping up the conversation, Damien shares his thoughts on the future of global energy consumption. The next decade leading up to 2030 is going to be the most important for energy and transportation across all areas, technology, business models, policy. – Damien ScottRecorded on Tuesday August 9, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg and Author of Charging Ahead, General Motors, Mary Bara, and the Reinvention of an American Icon joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss market consolidation in the electric and autonomous vehicle markets along with his new book.The conversation begins with David sharing his thoughts on market consolidation in the autonomous vehicle market and who he thinks could potentially be acquired.Not all of these companies have to sell right now, but if capital markets stay as tight as they are, I think you are going to see a lot of action there. – David WelchOn the electric vehicle side of the equation, EV start-ups are having a hard time raising cash and when they successful raise capital, the capital is expensive. Some of the EV companies are spreading themselves too thin by focusing on multiple markets instead of having a a singular focus on developing a great electric vehicle. A subset of the electric vehicle market that is becoming over saturated is the last-mile electric van delivery market as GM scales BrightDrop and Ford scales their E-Transit van.Anyone trying to get into this business, including Rivian, they are going to have a tough time because Ford and GM not only have vans that are already being built, they have the industrial prowess and the factories to make a big go of it. – David WelchOutside of the electrification of vans, GM has made several savvy moves by acquiring Cruise and Marain among other all the while preparing for the future of mobility which will be on-demand, electric and autonomous. From an economics standpoint, GM is funding Cruise to the tune of $1 billion a year and Ford and VW are investing significant funds into Argo each and every year. The big question is, how long will GM continue to fund Cruise and how long will Ford/VW continue to fund Argo? David shares his thoughts on what the future could hold for Cruise and Argo and when GM and Ford will further tap outside investors and/or spin out the divisions once they start generating significant revenue. Waymo similar to Cruise is generating revenue from their robo-taxi business in addition to their Waymo Via trucking logistics business. Grayson asks David: what will it take and when does he think Alphabet will have their Amazon AWS moment and breakout Waymo earnings for the first time? I do not know if it’s monetary or has a number on it, I think it’s more a strategic thing. – David WelchWhile this will be a strategic decision, the bigger question at present time, do the autonomous vehicle companies have the right executive leadership to commercialize, scale and eventually run a profitable business? Grayson and David discuss the current state of management talent and why Cruise’s competitive commercial advantage could be the executives who joined from Delta and Southwest.Commercializing an AV company to running a profitable AV company requires a different set of management skills. While management will play a key role, a larger question is; will the robo-taxi business ever be profitable in it’s current state? This is not a high-margin business. It’s just one that they can do and has the potential to get very big in terms of revenue. – David WelchLooking at different commercial models, do we get to the point where one of the large AV developers pivots from operating a robo-taxi business to operating a licensing business? Possibly. I think there is a business there. – David WelchBased on the way Waymo is currently structured and being owned by a large technology company instead of an auto manufacturer, it’s a possibility. Grayson offers that the service could be called Waymo Drive and offered as a monthly add-on option for JLR vehicles. The core software would run on Google Cloud, leading to increased revenue in a division that is under Wall Street pressure to gain more marketshare. Or there is Walmart which is currently battling high-inflation make a move to acquire an autonomous trucking company with the long-term goal of lowering operating expenses? Grayson and David discuss as Walmart kicked the tires on acquiring Zoox prior to Amazon buying the company. Would Walmart consider acquiring Gatik?I do not think they are going to want to necessarily own these assets if they do not have to, they just need the benefits of it. – David WelchStaying on the topic of Wall Street, could SoftBank which is the second largest shareholder of Aurora with an 11.8% stake, force the company to split in two by merging the trucking side of the business with Uber Freight of which they are a 3.18% owner (of Uber) and possibly selling the car side of the business to Toyota which owns 6.72% of Aurora? Grayson and David discuss if this is possible and would it create long-term shareholder value?Or could a U.S. Class 1 Railroad make a move and look to acquire an autonomous trucking to expand their railroad operations by connecting the trains to autonomous trucks? The big question again is, does a U.S. Class 1 Railroad they have to own the company?The only reason railroad or anybody buys this is if It looks like they can no longer get access to the technology they need to work this into some sort of intermodal system. – David WelchWrapping up the conversation, David discusses his new book Charging Ahead, General Motors, Mary Bara, and the Reinvention of an American Icon.Recorded on Thursday, August 11, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

Bibhrajit Halder, Founder & CEO, SafeAI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss autonomous mining and construction operations. The conversation begins with Bibhrajit discussing why in 2017 when the market was full of hype and investment dollars for passenger autonomous vehicles, that he bucked the trend and made the strategic decision to focus on the heavy equipment industry. Bibhrajit’s strategic decision is paying dividends today as the global mining industry is a $2 trillion dollar market with accelerating growth thanks in part to the growth of the electric vehicle market. The heavy equipment industry is a key supplier to this market, setting SafeAI up with the perfect scenario for growth, all the while helping to improve safety and increase operational efficiency through autonomy.This industry is also not the most safest industry. This industry also wants to run more efficiently. – Bibhrajit HalderThe largest deployment of heavy equipment autonomous vehicles is located in Australia where there are over 1,000 actively heavy equipment autonomous vehicles in operation today. The thousand autonomous trucks that have been running for seven or eight years, and they have moved about 4 to 5 billion tons of material over 24/7 operations without a single fatal accident. – Bibhrajit HalderMines in Australia are capitalizing on the efficiencies unlocked by autonomy and the positive benefits that this technology has on society. In Western Australia, SafeAI has a partnership with MACA to retrofit 100 heavy equipment trucks for autonomy. While Australia is a booming market for heavy equipment autonomous vehicles, the markets of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Japan are emerging markets with growth potential. With autonomy scaling in the mining industry, Grayson compares the mining industry to the agricultural industry and asks Bibhrajit if he sees a global miner making autonomy acquisitions similar to the way John Deere has done to grow their business.If you look at in general, any industry this kind of fundamental technology, there will be consolidation. No doubt about it. There will be consolidation and that consolidation happens naturally as different players come up and show their strengths and weaknesses. – Bibhrajit HalderWhile consolidation will happen at some point in the global mining industry, Bibhrajit is laser focused on serving his customers for the long-term. That is both in the mining industry and the construction industry where SafeAI is actively expanding their business through a partnership with the Obayashi Corporation in Japan.This is the first step of our way to expand autonomous construction in Japan, and we are working hand-in-hand with Obayashi. – Bibhrajit HalderWrapping up the conversation, Bibhrajit explains how autonomy compliments the mining and construction industries.Recorded on Tuesday, August 2, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.

John Rossant, Founder & CEO, CoMotion and Advisory Board Member, NEOM joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss the changing landscape of cities. The conversation begins with John discussing the vision for the futuristic region of NEOM which is roughly the size of Massachusetts located in the Northwest of Saudi Arabia. 95% of the NEOM region will be preserved in it’s natural state and there will be no highways or carbon emissions. Sustainability is at the core of NEOM.NEOM is a very big bet on hydrogen. The core energy of NEOM is hydrogen. – John RossantThe heart of NEOM should be THE LINE development which is a 75-mile long and 1,600 foot skyscraper which is connected by a high-speed train.The world does needs a radical experiment like this. We can not continue urbanizing as we have been, we are ruining the planet. If we can think of a way to do this in a sustainable way using renewable energy, that could be pretty interesting. – John RossantIn the United States, the City of Miami is growing and changing as new individuals move into the region from around the world. However the issue facing Miami today is the city’s all-in approach to cryptocurrency without diversification. Could the lack of the City’s diversification lead to another classic Miami boom and bust cycle? Grayson and John discuss the current state of Miami’s economy, while offering their unique opinions on the future of Miami. Miami, it’s a much much much bigger story than just crypto. – John RossantOne of the stories emerging in Miami is the focus on decarbonizing ocean transport. Over in NEOM, there is a a mixed-use urban development called OXAGON located in the Red Sea which when completed will be the largest floating structure in the world. In time, I think the Red Sea will become the new Mediterranean in terms of kind of yachting in paradise, boating, etc. – John RossantThe story emerging in Dubai is Cruise preparing to deploy the fully autonomous Cruise Origin in 2023 on public roads. With the advancement of NEOM and the emerging Cruise deployment in Dubai, the Middle East is beginning to emerge as a growing market for autonomy. While the Middle East is a growing market for autonomy, New York City is a shrinking market for mass-transit.Mass-transit and public transportation have to be made fun and seamless. – John RossantThis is where multi-modal and on-demand mobility is thriving as consumers want what they want, when they want it without friction. Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and John discuss why the future of mobility is choice. Recorded on Tuesday, July 26, 2022--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as 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.