The Road to Autonomy

Thomas von der Ohe, Co-Founder & CEO, Vay joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why Vay is taking a tele-driving first approach to autonomy.The conversation begins with sharing the current state of autonomy in Europe. Could Europe be the market that first ushers in personally owned autonomous vehicles? With Porsche announcing a deal with Mobileye to offer semi-autonomous features in new models and Mercedes-Benz introducing DRIVE PILOT, European OEMs could usher in this market.But what happens when that vehicle potentially needs assistance when the vehicle exits the highway? This is where Vay comes into the picture as they are developing teledriving technology. Vay’s technology could be offered as a complimenting feature to vehicles with SAE Level 3 driving capabilities. This combination of highway driving in Level 3 or Level 4 fashion and then urban driving through teledriving could be a really really strong combination. – Thomas von de OheVay is taking a tele-driving first approach to autonomy. The big advantage of tele-driving is that we believe that we can get something into the market much much earlier that is able to scale.– Thomas von de OheThe approach that Vay is taking is resonating with regulators in the E.U. In February 2023, Vay became the first company to operate a vehicle without an individual in the vehicle on European public roads. Now that Vay is operating on public roads in the E.U., the use cases for their technology only becomes stronger.Imagine going out to dinner, having a bottle of wine and then instead of driving home, Vay tele-drives your vehicle home for you that evening? It’s possible and that is just one of the many potential use cases for Vay’s tele-driving technology. While this is just one example of what is possible, Vay is currently focused on urban driving and launching a service in the future. Wrapping up the conversation, Thomas discusses how tele-driving can change the way we live in cities. Recorded on Tuesday, May 16, 2023--------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.

Pete Bigelow, Senior Reporter, Automotive News, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the changing landscape of mobility markets. The conversation begins with Pete discussing how the automotive industry is preparing for a potential economic recession and the impact that Tesla’s price cuts are having on the market. The other major effect that Tesla is having on the market is the adoption of software-as-a-service in vehicles today.Tesla’s FSD (Full Self-Driving) is highly profitable and it’s success from an economic standpoint is changing global automakers in-vehicle software strategy.The business strategy behind it is very sound and enticing. – Pete BigelowNot all global automakers are feeling the Tesla pinch just yet. Ferrari with €1.38 billion in cash a 23% profit margin and no pension liabilities is currently over subscribed in terms of their order book. But looking to the future, Ferrari like all of the other global automakers will have to adapt to a world with autonomous vehicles. Personally owned autonomous vehicles are coming and Ferrari owners will want one. Will Ferrari listen to their customers and introduce an autonomous Ferrari at some point in the future? Grayson and Pete discuss the possibilities. Or could it be Mercedes-Benz that takes the plunge first introduces a personally owned autonomous vehicle?Over at VW under Oliver Blume, the company has been focused on IPOing their iconic brands starting with Porsche. Could a Lamborghini or Bentley IPO be next? Possibly. But what we do know is that under Mr. Blume’s leadership, VW is unlocking value for shareholders.While Mr. Blume has taken a diligent approach to the VW brand IPOs, the autonomous vehicle industry over the last 24 months rushed into SPACs and IPOs with limited and sometimes no revenue. Now they are struggling as the reality of public markets begins to set in and Mr. Market does his job to paraphrase the famed investor Howard Marks.Everyone saw the EV SPAC succeeding and raising so much money that they did not want to be left out. It was fear of missing out, fear of missing out on that big burst of cash upfront and they thought they were going to make it through to the other side. Now that is very clearly flat not the case in a lot of places or it puts a lot of people in a very precarious position.– Pete BigelowThe autonomous vehicle companies that stayed private such as Cruise and Waymo are now in a position of greater strength as consolidation has begun to sweep the industry and certain competitors have ceased to exist. It’s in this market that Cruise and Waymo along with Motional will be able to gain market share thanks in part to their strategic financial partners. Wrapping up the conversation, Pete shares his thoughts on how he sees mobility changing over the next decade. Recorded on Thursday, April 20, 2023--------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.

Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Covenant joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why Covenant always has a seat at the table as it relates to new technologies and how they are preparing for autonomous trucks.The conversation begins with Matt discussing how he is currently thinking about autonomous trucks as it relates to over-the-road operations. We figured that we needed to have a seat at the table, because autonomy was going to be a way to potentially augment our business. We have been involved since the very beginning. – Matt McLellandHaving a seat at the table and understanding the business is highly important to Matt as he shares insights from his recent four-day ride-along with a professional over-the-road driver. It gives you more context and experience into that whole kind of analogy of walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes. – Matt McLellandAs part of their having a seat at the table strategy, Covenant has a partnership with Aurora where the two companies are actively exploring the integration of Aurora’s virtual driver (Aurora Horizon) into Covenant’s operations. It’s not just from a technical perspective, it is also from a operations perspective.In order for autonomous trucks to scale, there has to be standardized operations around launching autonomous trucks from different sites. This is because there will be different technicians and employees at each site operating autonomous trucks for a variety of companies as the depots/launch sites will most likely be shared. Once the industry agrees on a shared launch strategy, the next issue that the industry is going to have to agree on is fuel. Diesel and the value proposition of autonomy is asset utilization, making that truck stay on the road to cover the most miles possible as efficiently as possible. – Matt McLellandWith the clear value proposition that diesel has for autonomous trucking, society is shifting to low-carbon solutions, opening the door for renewable diesel. While renewable diesel offers a bridge solution, there is not enough renewable diesel in the market today to support the wide-scale adoption. It’s the perfect bridge to zero emissions, its a solution available today that will get us to a much better place then where we are [today]. – Matt McLellandWhile it’s a solution, it comes at a premium cost to shippers that is being coined the “green premium”. The green premium is opening the door to autonomy as an autonomous truck can operate longer hours with less idling time and more efficiently. Covenant estimates that autonomous trucks can operate 8% to 12% more efficiently per truck. On Covenant’s autonomous journey today, today the company has partnerships with Aurora and Torc Robotics as they actively prepare for a future with autonomy. Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on sustainability. Recorded on Friday, April 11, 2023--------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 Hayes, Founder & CEO, Ghost Autonomy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why advanced technology is invisible and how Ghost plans to scale autonomous driving. The conversation begins with John discussing the founding of Pure Storage and what he say in the market when he founded that company and how that compares to the founding of Ghost Autonomy.Our data storage company was actually founded on the basis of trends and consumer technology. – John HayesSimilar to the way that storage was changing, John saw an opportunity to build a new modern autonomy stack that was not built on the DARPA Urban Challenge stack, but one that was based on consumer technology. Let’s look at what emerging trends are out there in hardware and where can we make smart software and what industry can we go into. – John HayesWhen Ghost first started to develop their autonomy stack, they started with a stereo camera-only approach and in the middle of 2021, they added radar to the stack. The direction we took with radar was to go in a software defined direction. – John HayesOne of the main defining aspects of the Ghost Autonomy stack is that they have engineered the stack to make it as invisible as possible. In addition to being almost invisible, the stack operates on low-power which will allow electric vehicles running their autonomy system to have more range. The hardware running on this low-power compute are four camera pairs and one high-resolution radar pointing forward. From a use-case scenario Ghost has engineered an SAE Level 4 design for highway use and an SAE Level 2 design for non-highway use. It’s a rolling ODD where you increase the competence at slower and slower speeds over time. – John HayesComparing and contrasting the Ghost Autonomy system to a traditional SAE Level 2 system, the system is more intuitive. From the user experience point of view, we focus very much on a concept system called collaborative driving, where there isn’t a button that you push to activate it. You are on the highway, it says you can drive anytime you want by turning and indicator blue and you let go of the steering wheel and it turns green. And you do not set anything, the car just goes and picks a reasonable speed and a reasonable following distance. – John HayesThis is built on John’s fundamental belief that that advanced technology is invisible in a way. The Ghost system does not have button or nobs, the system just works. Today a human has to click the ticker to change lanes, but in the future Ghost is working on a navigation system where the vehicle will simply just change the lane without being promoted to by the driver. I want to make the system extremely scalable so that you wouldn’t have to enter a destination to activate it. You just start driving and if you just want to let go of the wheel for 30 seconds to send a text, that’s a perfectly valid way to interact with the system. – John HayesFrom a business standpoint, Ghost is going to commercialize the product by licensing their software to OEMs.Wrapping up the conversation, John discusses the future of Ghost Autonomy.Recorded on Friday, April 7, 2023--------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.

Jeff Farrah, Executive Director, Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the economic impact of autonomy and why autonomy is the future.The conversation begins with Jeff discussing how the autonomous vehicle industry will navigate the potential economic downturn that is on the horizon.There is an expression in the venture capital world that some of the very best companies are built in down markets. – Jeff FarrahWhile this is an expression, Founders and Executives in the autonomous vehicle industry are hard at work commercializing, scaling and generating revenue from autonomy. The industry today is entering the next phase as AV companies move away from full-time research and development and into the operations stage of their companies lifecycle. As AV companies mature, the market is taking notice. There is a tremendous amount of excitement kind of up and down the economy to ultimately have a piece of this [market].– Jeff FarrahAs the market takes notice, consumers are starting to take notice as well as autonomy will create high-paying jobs. Along with the new jobs created by autonomy, the technology will have a positive economic impact on the global economy by creating new jobs, shoring up the supply chain and ultimately helping to lower inflation. For AVs to truly scale, we need a National Autonomous Vehicle Framework that enables regulatory certainty. With regulatory certainty, investment into the sector will flourish. We do not want to have a situation where this industry does poorly because there are giant question marks hanging over it that policy makers could have ultimately clarified. – Jeff FarrahToday, there is no National Autonomous Vehicle Framework and the industry is left with a patchwork of laws that makes scaling difficult. In California, legislators are currently considering bill AB316 that would prohibit the operation of autonomous vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds on public roads for testing and commercial operations without a driver in the vehicle. This bill in it’s current form will kill jobs and have a negative impact on the economy of the State of California.You have a situation where many of the leading autonomous trucking companies are based in California. Despite that, the State in many circles tends to be taking a posture of no thanks, we are not interested, please go elsewhere. – Jeff FarrahWhen the industry goes elsewhere, jobs will follow. In the communities that embrace AVs, new jobs will be created, new businesses will open and those communities will experience the positive economic impact of AVs. Recently, Governor Reeves of Mississippi signed HB 1003 welcoming autonomous vehicles to Mississippi.With the signing of HB 1003, autonomous trucks can now travel along the I-10 from Arizona to Florida fully autonomous.Wrapping up the conversation, Jeff shares his view on the future of autonomous vehicles and trucks.Recorded on Tuesday, April 4, 2023--------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.

Timothy Dooner, Host, What The Truck, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss all things trucking and the current state of the trucking industry.The conversation begins with Grayson and Dooner discussing the importance of securing DoD (Department of Defense) contracts when developing autonomous trucks as those contracts provide reliable revenue and stability as the autonomous trucking companies ramp up commercial operations. Where do you get money if the carriers won’t give it to you, and you are in an economy right now also where the venture cap is not free and you just want YOLO a SPAC out there to the retail traders? – Timothy DoonerAs the Fed continues to raise interest rates, the days of free money are over for the foreseeable future. With the monetary environment being tight, autonomous trucking companies with little to no revenue will find it very hard to raise capital and at some point will have to shutter. While the monetary environment remains tight, the geo-political circumstance stance remains fraught as China escalates their pressure on Taiwan. With a geo-political scenario that is uncertain and Taiwan controlling the global semi-conductor industry along with China controlling the electric vehicle supply chain, the potential for a global economic disaster that brings a halt to a future with electric trucks is elevated. A future with electric trucks is a complex future as there are the supply chain issues in addition to the charging infrastructure issues that are also plaguing the industry. It has been reported by some carriers that it is taking months to get the electrical backhaul needed to operate heavy-duty charging at certain locations. When the electric heavy-duty chargers are up and running, the next issue to tackle is time. Freight is messy. There is a lot of stuff and a lot of delays and the last thing you want to consider is taking an equation where it used to cost 20 minutes to fuel to now maybe it costs an hour to two. – Timothy DoonerIn the market there are 250,000 carriers with less then six trucks. These operations are small and they do not have the balance sheet to add electric trucks to their operations, but yet in some States they are being forced due to regulation. The change in regulation could lead to further consolidation in the traditional trucking industry while further opening the door to autonomy.I think the future model, the realistic future model does look like autonomy in that middle-mile and delivery in that short mile with electric vehicles. – Timothy DoonerWith the door furthering opening to autonomy in the trucking industry, Grayson and Dooner go onto discuss the current state of autonomous trucking. Wrapping up the conversation, Dooner shares his vision for the future of trucking. Recorded on Friday March 31, 2023--------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.

Andy Chatham, Co-Founder, DIMO joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the DIMO open-connected vehicle platform and why there are no good apps for cars today. The conversation begins with Andy discussing why he decided to build DIMO and what he saw in the market when he launched the company.Cars are becoming more intelligent, they are taking over more of the driving task from end-consumers, but were still waiting for that first deployment where millions of people are able to actually take their hands and eyes off the road and give control over to a computer. – Andy ChatmanWith the rapid increase in ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) systems being available in cars today, combined with consumers believing that an SAE Level 2 system is a self-driving car, Grayson brings up the point that consumers will want to own personally owned autonomous vehicles when they are ready. If this does indeed come true, what impact will it have on the robo-taxi market?I think there will be some real markets in which robo-taxis are able to deliver value to consumers and provide a useful service. – Andy ChatmanThen there is Tesla, What happens if and when Tesla can figure out SAE Level 3? What impact will it have on the emerging personally owned autonomous vehicle market? What impact this have on Tesla from a business perspective? One thing that were very sure of, is that it will increase the value of the data coming from the car in some relatively non-obvious ways. – Andy ChatmanThis is where DIMO comes into the picture. We want to give ownership of the data coming from the vehicle to the owner of the vehicle and the occupant of the vehicle, and make sure that they are able to do whatever that want with it. – Andy ChatmanAt some point in the future, consumers are going to want to own and control their own data as it relates to their mobility experiences. Today, consumers can take control of their data with DIMO and take advantage of apps that create value for their driving experience. One of the apps, that developers have built on the platform is battery health monitoring. With electric vehicles having surpassed 10% of global sales for the first time in 2022 and used electric vehicle sales in the United States rising 32% in the first three months of 2023, knowing the health of the EV’s battery becomes extremely important. We can provide you insights into how your battery is performing in the real-world. How quickly are you able to charge it. How quickly it’s discharging. When you are repeatedly charging it from zero to 100%, we can give you insights around, hey this is going to degrade the value of your battery overtime. – Andy ChatmanIn addition to battery health data, DIMO is able to offer insights into real-world EV charging performance and what chargers are charging at what speeds. There are inconsistencies in the public charging network that is leading to charging anxiety for non-tesla EV drivers. The difference is that Tesla built, owns and maintains their own EV charging network. Tesla drivers really experience range anxiety. – Andy ChatmanWith all of the data coming off of connected vehicles, one of the key elements that OEMs will have to maintain is trust. Consumers are going to have to trust that their vehicle is going to always work, always be secure and work when they need to drive somewhere. One of DIMO’s goals is to become a trusted platform for mobility. We look at what we doing as creating the first truly open developer platform for cars. – Andy ChatmanWrapping up the conversation, Andy shares his opinion on the future of mobility.Recorded on Tuesday, March 28, 2023--------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.

Matteo Del Sorbo, Executive Vice President Magna New Mobility, Magna International joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why not all mobility solutions work in all markets and Magna’s mobility investments in India. The conversation begins with Matteo discussing how Magna approaches autonomy. Our approach at Magna here is to develop robust and reliable features that fulfill the needs of the market, our customers, the regulations, all the while we still have a careful eye on the future and mega trends that impact mobility and in the end, autonomous driving. – Matteo Del SorboThis approach allows Magna keep their pulse on the future of mobility as the company continues to operate a profitable revenue generating organization. It’s a wise strategy that allows Magna to engage in an autonomous vehicle market that is now consolidating around a handful of winners who are well financed and poised for long-term growth. We are going to play a very important role in autonomy and ADAS. – Matteo Del SorboIt’s not just autonomy and ADAS, Magna is also embracing micromobility and energy while deploying solutions in emerging markets including India. India is a market of 1.4 billion individuals with a GDP that is projected to grow 6.5% this year. I have always said that not all solutions work in all markets. I think micromobility is a perfect example. Certain solutions work in well in one geographic region, but not in another. You need to really understand the market, the needs, the people that drive the right solutions. – Matteo Del SorboTo understand the mobility market in India is to understand the infrastructure challenges in the urban environments and why micromobility works. Battery swapping is allowing companies to operate electric mobility solutions in India to overcome the constraints of limited electricity reliability and the overall infrastructure challenges in the country. With a mandate from the Indian Government to convert roughly 200 million two-wheelers from gas to electric, the opportunity for battery swapping is enormous. This is where Magna thrives as the company knows how to scale and engineer world-class products. Magna is rapidly scaling operations with their customer Yulu Mobility/Yulu Energy, they are also an investor. Currently Yulu Mobility has has 10,000 electric scooters in operation which Magna is helping to scale by the tens of thousands over the next year.We are going to be adding 10,000 units every month for the next 12 months. By the end of year we will have over 100,000 units. – Matteo Del SorboWhile the recipe to scale operations in India is there, Magna is also looking to expand their footprint to other emerging markets where their expertise can provide value and shareholder return. At the end of the day, you have to solve a problem. Just bringing a bunch of kick scooters to a city because they are cool will not solve problems, it will not give you scale, the market, people demand a scaled quality product. – Matteo Del SorboTo achieve success in these new emerging markets Magna has teams focused on new emerging mobility technologies will be that will impact these markets. Wrapping up the conversation, Matteo and Grayson discuss the future of delivery. Recorded on Tuesday, March 7, 2023--------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.

Dr. Peter Vaughan Schmidt, CEO, Torc Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Torc is preparing to scale their autonomous trucking business. The conversation begins with Peter discussing why he joined Torc Robotics. One of the defining factors as to why he decided to join was the company’s culture. The company’s culture is one that is both humble and collaborative. It’s this culture which has allowed Torc to thrive and one that appealed to Peter when he led Daimler Trucks majority investment in 2019. Since the investment, Torc has accelerated the technological development of their autonomy stack as they work towards their operations at scale by 2030 goal. Autonomy will be at scale within this decade by 2030. – Peter Vaughan SchmidtFor autonomous trucking commercial operations to scale, there has to be a redundant autonomous truck platform that will enhance safety and increase uptime efficiency. Through their relationship with Daimler Trucks, Torc will have access to Daimler’s new redundant autonomous truck platform based on Freightliner’s Cascadia with 1,500 new upgrades. Eventually these new trucks will be fitted with Torc’s autonomy stack and tested in various areas around the world including Albuquerque, New Mexico where Torc currently has a base of operations. One of the unique advantages to testing in Albuquerque is the elevation changes on I-40. We thought if you could do Albuquerque you can really do most cities, most interstates. – Peter Vaughan SchmidtIt’s not just testing in Albuquerque that goes into developing the Torc driver. Torc is also learning from experienced professional drivers on know how to “drive” a truck and what the courtesy maneuvers look like when driving on the highway. Daimler Trucks is also providing support from a hardware perspective. As Torc prepares to scale and commercialize the business, the company will embrace a subscription model, however the company is open to other potential models as well based on market demand.We will try to make it as easy for customers as possible to apply this new technology and the way of paying for it. – Peter Vaughan SchmidtWhen the customers take possession of the Torc autonomous trucks, they will be factory built by Daimler Trucks and deployed in a hub-to-hub model. Wrapping up the conversation, Peter shares his thoughts on how he sees autonomous trucks being deployed over the next decade. Recorded on Monday, March 6, 2023--------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.

Jan Becker, CEO & Co-Founder, Apex AI joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how the autonomous vehicle industry has evolved from the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge to the dawn of the era of commercialization in 2023. The conversation begins with Jan discussing the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge and his role on Stanford's team.People called it the Woodstock of Robotics. – Jan BeckerThe DARPA Challenges showed the world that it was possible to make a car drive itself. It was these challenges sponsored by the U.S. Goverment and led to the founding of the autonomous vehicle industry.One of the outcomes of the DARPA Urban Challenge was that Google started and funded Waymo and Waymo then really showed in my opinion the automotive companies that autonomous driving can be done as a product. – Jan BeckerIt has been 15 years since the DARPA Urban Challenge and the world of autonomy has changed drastically. Autonomy is now maturing, scaling and commercializing. The hype cycle of 2000’s has faded along with the timeline as autonomous vehicles are now becoming a commercial business. One of the trends that is beginning to emerge is the personally owned autonomous vehicle. While this trend is still in it’s early days, it its a trend that will have a significant impact on the future autonomy as consumers will come to expect this feature. Then there are autonomous trucks which will initially roll out as a hub-to-hub model where the trucks will operate fully autonomously on the highway. When they arrive at the hub (depot), the freight will be switched to smaller vehicles some of which will be autonomous. The low hanging fruit in my opinion is really to automate the hub-to-hub transportation. – Jan BeckerWith the industry maturing, Apex AI is developing safety-certified, developer-friendly and scalable software that allows developers to build safe reliable software for mobility platforms. By building on Apex AI, developers can do what they do best – build applications. What we provide are the libraries, the functionality to enable our customers, the developers, the car companies to build software that scales. – Jan BeckerWrapping up the conversation, Jan shares his thoughts on the universal driver and how he sees autonomous vehicles scaling. Recorded on Tuesday, February 28, 2023--------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.