The Road to Autonomy

Edwin Olson, CEO & Co-Founder of May Mobility joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss going driver-out in Sun City, Arizona and the economics of the business. The conversation begins with Edwin discussing what went into launching fully driverless operations in Sun City, Arizona. There is a bunch of technology that has to come together to meet your safety requirements and your capabilities. But actually pulling a safety driver out is about so much more than the technology. We have to bring our riders, our partners, the regulators, insurance companies, first responders. There is a huge amount of work that has to come together to get everyone ready to give this project a thumbs-up. – Edwin OlsonMay Mobility chose to launch in Sun City because of the driving environment and the economic potential. From a technical standpoint they were able to go driver-out in Sun City because of their Multi-Policy Decision Making system. May Mobility’s Multi-Policy Decision Making system has enabled them to deploy in multiple geographic and weather environments such as downtown Detroit, northern Minnesota and Sun City, Arizona. You are never going to become a Babe Ruth by only playing tee ball. You have to start to taking the pitches and playing the hard game. – Edwin OlsonAll of May Mobility’s deployments operate year round, in sun, rain, snow and are revenue generating. The business model being implemented by May compliments public transit as it offers a better return on transit investments for cities and transit agencies. Currently it costs roughly $150 an hour to operate a transit bus in most cities. Our revenue potential is about $150 an hour per vehicle. – Edwin OlsonThe service being provided by May Mobility is as an on-demand point-to-point service being delivered in micro-transit model. As the company gradually removes the safety driver from operations, margins are expected to be around 60%. Driverless operations will ensure a better service without having to rely on drivers who might not show up for work. By switching into a rider-only product we can solve the labor problem and be able to turn on this very high margin business. – Edwin OlsonAs May continues to grow, the company will look to add new vehicles to the mix in addition to their current fleet of fully redundant Toyota Sienna hybrid minivans. We are constantly evaluating other platforms that could help expand our platform offerings so that we can grow our accessible market and grow the business in turn. – Edwin OlsonMay Mobility is a business. Edwin understands this as he is highly focused on developing a business model that is scalable and profitable long-term. When he meets with investors, he breaks down the economics of the May Mobility model and why they are different from the traditional robo-taxi business. In addition to operating an autonomous vehicle business, May is licensing their data to insurance companies. Creating an entirely new revenue stream for the company. Wrapping up the conversation, Ed shares his vision for the future of May Mobility. Recorded on Thursday, December 21, 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.

Joanna Buttler, Head of the Global Autonomous Technology Group, Daimler Truck North America joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia and Daimler Truck’s outlook for autonomous trucking. The conversation begins with Joanna discussing how Daimler Truck North America is approaching autonomy. We see autonomous as one of the biggest opportunities for us as a company. – Joanna ButtlerTo execute on this opportunity, Daimler Truck is focused on deploying long-haul autonomous trucks in the United States as part of a hub-to-hub strategy. As part of the strategy, Daimler is developing the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia and Torc Robotics is developing the autonomous driving software. At Daimler Truck Capital Market Day 2023 in July, the company announced that autonomous trucks were a strong strategic pillar. Projecting that autonomous trucks have the potential to deliver € 3 billion in revenue by 2030 with the official launch for Daimler’s trucks scheduled for 2027.When Daimler commercializes autonomous trucks, customers will purchase the autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia from Daimler Truck and an autonomous driving software subscription from Torc with flexible pricing models. To simplify the sales process, Daimler will coordinate the entire transaction and offer financing through Daimler Truck Financial. Daimler Truck’s customers will be able to achieve a higher utilization with autonomous trucks as they will be able to operate 24/7 with limited downtime. Higher utilization could lead to lower shipping costs and increased margins for fleets. To achieve their vision for autonomous trucking, Daimler is developing a redundant autonomous-ready chassis to ensure the highest levels of safety and functionality. The development process started with a list of 1,500 requirements that they jointly developed with Waymo and Torc to identify the systems, features and tasks that are required to enable autonomous driving. When autonomous trucks scale, the benefits to society and the economy will be immense. Autonomy can and will bring great benefits for society. – Joanna ButtlerWrapping up the conversation, Joanna shares her outlook for autonomous trucking.Recorded on Thursday, December 14, 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.

James Reed, COO, Kodiak Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how Kodiak is scaling the business with financial discipline, economic scenario planning and operational readiness as the company ramps up commercial operations heading into 2024. The conversation begins with James sharing his thoughts on the current state of the autonomous trucking industry.Next year DARPA will have been 20 years ago, finally all of us that our on this path are at the point were autonomous vehicles are real and driver-out autonomy in the trucking business is going to happen in the very near future. – James ReedOver the next decade the autonomous trucking industry is going to enter the commercialization phase with a strong focus on financial discipline. Financial discipline is one of James’ strong suits as he was previously CEO of USA Truck that was successfully sold to DB Schenker in September 2022 for $31.72 per share in cash. It’s not just success that James brings to Kodiak, it’s a deep understanding of economic cycles and how those impact operations and cash-flow. In the depths of 2008 financial crisis, James served as Division CFO at Washington Mutual. The bank was ultimately acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase because of their sub-prime mortgage portfolio. During the banking crisis James saw first hand how one division that takes on too much risk can sink an entire corporation. I learned about this dichotomy of you can be widely successful and still fail as a team. – James ReedBeing in banking is about risk management and this is a skill that influences how James runs operations at Kodiak. To manage risk, the team matters. You have to hire the best to mitigate the risk and limit your potential downside exposure. Including planning and forecasting as the economic environments can change suddenly. As we prepare to enter 2024, we could be entering a potential recessionary environment depending on the actions of the Federal Reserve and how the economy reacts to those actions. Well run companies plan for upsides, downsides including recessions as part of their on-going operations. – James ReedKodiak is planning for this potential economic environment as was an economic growth environment. Planning for all economic environments and what the potential impact will be on the Kodiak business is one of the core strengths that James brings to the team from his years of financial experience. The Kodiak business is not a pure-play autonomous trucking business, it’s a diversified business with a defense division because of the ability of their autonomy stack to work in unstructured environments. On December 5th, it was announced that Kodiak has been awarded a $49.9 million, 24-month United States Department of Defense agreement to help automate future U.S. Army ground vehicles. Moving forward, defense will be a key pillar of the Kodiak business. We plan to become a defacto prime in the autonomous software space. – James ReedIn 2024, Kodiak will continue focus on commercialization, industry partnerships and driver-out operations on public roads. Wrapping up the conversation, James shares his vision for the future of Kodiak which includes a potential IPO.Recorded on Tuesday, December 12, 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.

David Welch, Detroit Bureau Chief, Bloomberg joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the future of Cruise and how the robo-taxi market will shakeout. What moves will Waymo, Zoox and Motional make now that Cruise has been sidelined for the foreseeable future?The conversation begins with David discussing how GM moves forward with Cruise after an October 2, 2023 incident involving a pedestrian in San Fransisco was allegedly mired in a coverup. The supposed actions led to the grounding of the Cruise fleet, the resignation of Co-Founder & CEO Kyle Vogt and a 24% reduction in the workforce including nine key executives. They are going to start-off in one city, so they are sort of stepping back 18 months. In terms of their roll-out, you know it does raise a big question if they even really push robo-taxi, or does this at some point does this become part of General Motors developing self-driving personally owned autonomous vehicles. – David WelchOn the news of the 24% reduction in the workforce at Cruise, GM’s stock rallied 6.65% to close at $36.08 on December 14, 2023. If Cruise is indeed absorbed by GM, the questions become what division will Cruise become part of, will there be a big pivot away from robo-taxis to personally owned autonomous vehicles and how will GM retain and hire new AI talent?Or could GM shift the Cruise model to that of a licensing model? A model where GM licenses Cruise’s autonomous driving technology to other OEMs? This model could resonate with Wall Street as there would be a clear path to Cruise becoming a self-sustaining business unit of GM with high-margins. I think that could eventually be the real race or battle between Cruise and Waymo, licensing this technology to the car companies. – David WelchLicensing will be one of the core elements of autonomous driving technology in the future. Today autonomous vehicles are a luxury product, not a mass market product. With autonomous vehicles being a luxury product, there is an opportunity to build a commerce layer into the rider experience. Could Alphabet look to possibly integrate YouTube into the Waymo as a monitizable experience?With Cruise currently sidelined, could Waymo look to take advantage of the market conditions and accelerate the roll-out of the Waymo One program? Potentially, but Waymo appears to be sticking to their well managed roll-out that includes ride-hailing tours and an early rider program. Then there is Zoox, an Amazon company. When do they make their move? Zoox has been very quiet as the autonomous vehicle market accelerated and then contracted over the last year. Is now the time that Zoox takes advantage of the market conditions and introduces a paid robo-taxi service that could be added at a later date? Or is Amazon working on a Prime-Mobility tier?Wrapping up the conversation, David shares his insights and thoughts on how he sees the robo-taxi market evolving over the next five years. The thing that is really going to have to change and evolve is what the business model is. – David WelchRecorded on Tuesday, December 19, 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.

Ali Javidan, Founder & CEO, Range Energy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss electrified trailers and the impact that these trailers will have on truck fleets. The conversation begins with Ali sharing what inspired him to create an electrified trailers startup. It all starts with a question he asked himself; What if we electrified the trailer? Taking a survey of the industry, nobody was paying attention to trailers, expect for a few nerds and myself. So I decided to a start a venture trying to help bring some real technology to the trailer and really help hybridize these fleets in a meaningful way without disrupting how the fleets work. – Ali JavidanWhen fleets deploy an electrified trailer they are achieving on average 30% – 40% increase in fuel efficiency on a mixed route that includes city and highway driving. If the truck is exclusively driving in cities with heavy loads such as beverages, fleets are seeing a 40% – 50% increase in fuel efficiency.40% reduction in fuel consumption actually equals somewhere around 70% reduction in harmful emissions output. – Ali JavidanIncreasing fuel efficiency is wonderful, but do professional drivers enjoy driving the trucks equipped with electrified trailers? They very much do so, as the electrified trailers increase the overall operational efficiency of driving the truck. As these trailers scale, there could be potential safety increases as these trailers will have a higher-level of traction that could potently lead to safer driving conditions in adverse weather. As autonomous trucks scale commercial operations, there is an opportunity to attached electrified trailers and automate the slider adjustment, lift gate door or the lift gate. Automating the trailer compliments the autonomous truck, enabling a true autonomous operation. This is possible because the electrified trailer has a controls platform, a power platform and a communications platform. As much as we can be framed as disrupters in this industry, we don’t want to disrupt anything. We just want to give everybody better tools. – Ali JavidanRange Energy is going to commence commercial operations in 2024 with pilot customers, followed by a larger pilot deployment in 2025 leading up to the full commercial launch in 2027/2028. Wrapping up the conversation, Ali shares his thoughts on how he sees the electrified trailer market evolving. Recorded on Friday, December 8, 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.

Jana Breitkopf, Managing Director of Mercedes pay USA, discusses how Mercedes is revolutionizing in-car experiences with Mercedes pay. The future will enable ordering through voice commands, in-car commerce, and autonomous driving, creating profitable revenue opportunities. Mercedes pay, available in 44 markets, partners with Mastercard for fuel payments in Germany, showcasing global expansion and personalized payment experiences.

Olivia Hu, Head of Autonomous Trucking, Uber Freight joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how autonomous trucking is going to complement and accelerate the growth of Uber Freight’s $18 billion of freight under management platform. The conversation begins with Olivia discussing the current state of the autonomous trucking industry. The autonomous trucking industry right now is just at this very exciting moment, when its going from purely a technology and R&D pilot or project to let’s look at go to market. What is the long-term strategy? How do we bring different ecosystem players from OEMs, Tier 1s, autonomous trucking developers, maintenance providers, fleets, shippers, networks like ourselves all together to start planing that long-term commercialization strategy? – Olivia HuCollectivity the autonomous trucking industry is preparing for the next phase — commercialization. When commercialization begins in earnest, Uber Freight stands to benefit as they will be the platform that connects the autonomous trucking companies with the freight. The first autonomous trucking lanes to come online will be in the Texas Triangle, from Dallas/Fort Worth to Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth to El Paso. These lanes will be used to learn how autonomous trucks operate in a commercial environment and what the operations will look like when at scale. When autonomous trucks are operating at scale, the industry will have to build and maintain public trust. One of the best ways in our opinion to build public trust is to host an “Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day” where everything in the store is 20% off for one-day because it was delivered by an autonomous truck. Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Daydemonstrates to the public the positive economic that autonomous trucks will have on the cost of living as they suffer under high inflation. As it relates to professional drivers, fleets and shippers, Uber Freight is also working to build trust and educate them about how autonomous trucks could fit into and compliment their existing operations. For me, what’s most important about building trust is being very transparent, honest and giving them the time to ask questions. – Olivia HuWhen Uber Freight brings autonomous trucking partners onto the platform they engage in a KYC process (Know Your Customer) that evaluates the company’s safety framework including the safety culture, technical capabilities, leadership team and the go-to-market strategy. We think having the right go-to-market strategy will be really critical and that includes working with other ecosystem players like OEMs, like ourselves, network providers, shippers and fleets. – Olivia HuUber Freight’s KYC policy was developed and implemented to limit the potential risks that might arise if and when regulation takes hold in the industry. Today, Uber Freight has partnerships with Aurora and Waabi and previously had a partnership with Waymo Via prior to the division being shutdown. In the future, Uber Freight will look to add more partners to the platform, but they will not partner with every autonomous trucking company.We only partner if it makes sense. If we truly believe that they have a safe reliable product with a long-term strategy that is the right commercial application for our customers. – Olivia HuThe right long-term strategy is one that is grounded in economics that enables pricing power. Uber Freight’s Insights AI tool gives their customers to optimize their operations, pricing structure and what lanes make the most sense to deploy autonomous trucks.Wrapping up the conversation, Olivia discusses the role the Uber Freight will play as autonomous trucking scales. Recorded on Thursday, November 30, 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.

Lee White, Founder & President, LM White Consulting joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why autonomous trucking is a big business opportunity and what the economics of that business will look like when autonomous trucks are operating commercially. The conversation begins with Lee discussing the current state of the autonomous trucking industry. We are on track, we are on plan, we are moving forward. – Lee WhiteThe autonomous trucking industry is healthy and the health of the industry is being validated with the continued investments from institutional investors such as T. Rowe Price and Softbank. While economically healthy, the industry is currently under strain from the perceived notion that autonomous trucks and autonomous vehicles are one in the same.The consistently for the AV trucking operations is a very positive advantage over robo-taxis, and I think the trucking group has to begin to separate itself from this clumping everything together. – Lee WhiteTo truly demonstrate the benefits of autonomous trucking, the industry has to take a hold of the narrative and demonstrate to the public, policymakers, investors and the traditional trucking industry the true benefits of autonomy. Autonomous trucks will lead to lower cost goods (helping to reduce inflation), more productivity, and more robust and secure supply chain. Daimler Truck is taking the lead on messaging to investors and Wall Street. During their Capital Market Day 2023, Daimler Truck announced that autonomous trucking would be one of the key pillars of their business. By 2027, autonomous trucking will begin to unlock a new high-margin business. By 2030, Daimler Truck is projecting revenue north of €3 billion with EBIT potential north of €1 billion.To unlock this business Daimler Truck is investing responsibly and managing their capital expenditures. For the first nine months of 2023, Daimler Truck has invested €155 million in “other business activities and corporate items which comprised primarily of operational expenses related to their autonomous driving business”. Up from €139 million for the nine months of 2022, an increase of €16 million year-over-year. This is a responsible investing strategy that is both prudent and sustainable for Daimler Truck long-term. It’s one that more companies developing autonomous trucks should follow. The model for developing and commercializing autonomous trucks varies widely. Volvo is taking a slightly different path to autonomous trucking through their transport-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the autonomous trucks.[Volvo] wants to sell you you transportation as service and that becomes how they sell trucks now. It’s like the airline industry, you don’t buy an airplane engine anymore from GE or Rolls-Royce, you buy time, you get run hours. If that’s the new model, that will be very successful. – Lee WhiteAs we head into the holiday season with a slowing economy and consumers deprioritizing spending on physical goods and prioritizing spending on experiences, the freight industry will have to adapt to the changing consumer spending patterns. The slowdown in the freight market has been ongoing for sometime and YELLOW, a 100 year-old LTL carrier was a casualty of market conditions and union negotiations, as the company filed for voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on August 6th, 2023.97% of all trucking companies have 20 or less trucks. There is going to be a lot of them that are right on the edge. – Lee WhiteWrapping up the conversation, Lee and Grayson discuss the impact that California’s zero-emissions trucks regulation will have on the trucking market. Recorded on Thursday, November 9, 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.

Sam Abidi, Chief Commercial Officer, Monarch Tractor joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Monarch’s autonomous MK-V tractor and how the growing labor shortages are accelerating the adoption of autonomous tractors on farms around the world. The conversation begins with Sam discussing how Monarch Tractor is approaching autonomy. From day one we were thinking about how you could build an autonomy kit that could go on a tractor, that can essentially reach a price point that most farmers can use, and where we landed is that you need to do a bottom up build of the tractor — that tractor is called the MK-V. – Sam AbidiWith the global economy shifting to a labor light economy, due to a growing labor shortage, autonomy applications on farms is rapidly accelerating. If you actually go talk to some of our farmers, many of them are coming to us because it is an alternative to having no one do that job. – Sam AbidiMonarch takes a farmer frugal approach to autonomy as they know every dollar counts on a farm. The farmer frugal approach enables Monarch to charge farmers $800 a month to unlock the autonomous capabilities of the $90,000 MK-V tractor, which is less the equivalent labor cost. In the future as the model evolves, Monarch is exploring the possibility of introducing a tractor-as-a-service model for select regions around the world. If this model comes to fruition, Monarch will not hold the asset (tractor) on their balance sheet. Instead they will look to a partner to hold the assets (tractor) as it is not an effective use of their capital to hold tractors on their balance sheet.Today, Monarch has a financial services agreement with CNH Industrial Capital America to provide financing for the MK-V tractor. The Monarch MK-V is an all-electric tractor with a swappable battery that can run 14-hours. Financing is an important part of farm economics. – Sam AbidiWhen a Monarch tractor is deployed on a farm, farmers control all the applications of the autonomous tractor with their proprietary WingspanAI digital platform. If you automate a tractor and you have a dozen tractors or two dozen tractors running the farm and then you connect those to a digital platform, that essentially tracks everything from when they are dispatched to what they are doing to how well they are doing it, you have essentially digitized the farm. – Sam AbidiThe data that Monarch’s autonomous tractors are gathering will enable the company to create new revenue streams in the future by monetizing the rich amount of data that the tractors gather on a daily basis. To scale, Monarch has a partnership with Foxconn to manufacturer the MK-V at their Ohio facility. The decision to engage Foxconn for manufacturing was made from the lessons that the founders learned from their years in the automotive industry. Wrapping up the conversation, Sam shares his vision for the future of Monarch Tractor.Recorded on Tuesday, November 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.

Sterling Anderson, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Aurora joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the founding of Aurora, the economics of the Aurora business model why the world’s best product is a very profitable product. The conversation begins with Sterling discussing why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and himself came together to form Aurora in 2016. We saw a lot of players in the ecosystem at the time struggling to figure out the right path. A credible independent player in our view could change the game for them and unlock the potential of a powerful ecosystem from OEMs to carriers to private fleets to even Tier 1’s and companies who provide some of the backend service. We felt like a credible autonomy player who played our position and enabled or unlocked the rest of the industry could deliver tremendous value here, and we did not see much of that at the time. – Sterling Anderson Being an independent company is one of the keys to Aurora’s success as it has allowed them to build an industry wide solution that unlocks potential for both cars and trucks. The original product roadmap for the company which is still intact today was to look at trucking, ride-hailing and local goods delivery.Trucking was top of the list in terms of the first product that we wanted to go to market with. – Sterling Anderson In 2018, Aurora began laying the foundation for their autonomous trucking product when they integrated their autonomous driving stack into a Volvo truck and began testing on a track in partnership with Volvo. Trucking is the first product, ride-hailing will follow. – Sterling Anderson The Aurora business model for trucking today is transportation-as-a-service, as the business and technology matures, the model will evolve into a driver-as-a-service model. This is a model where we are licensing the self-driving system, inclusive of the hardware, the software and the data services required to operate it to our customers who are in turn purchasing either the truck from the OEM who provides it or purchasing a set of solutions. – Sterling Anderson Customers who sign up for the driver-as-a-service model will pay a utilization service fee (per mile fee). To keep the trucks up and running at optimal performance, Aurora trucks are designed for reliability and serviceability. This design approach allows Aurora to optimize the economics of their operations. In my view the world’s best product is also a very profitable product. – Sterling Anderson As Aurora prepares for driver-out commercial operations in late 2024 with 20 trucks on the Dallas to Houston lanes, the autonomous trucks will be operated under the transportation-as-a-service model. In 2025/2026, the customers operating under the transportation-as-a-service model will begin to transition to a driver-as-a-service model where they will own and operate the assets. Wrapping up the conversation, Sterling shares his vision for the future of Aurora. Recorded on Friday, October 27, 2023Chapters:0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index0:56 Introduction1:18 Why Chris Urmson, Drew Bagnel and Sterling Anderson founded Aurora3:38 The Vision for Aurora8:07 Going Public with Volvo and PACCAR10:57 Local Goods Delivery and the Middle Mile12:34 Aurora Trucking Business Model24:52 Preparing for Commercial Driver-Out Operations27:48 A Focus on Profitability34:45 Terminal Operations40:43 Autonomous Trucking Grocery Store Day46:00 Aviation History--------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.