Ride AI

In this episode, we dive into the gritty reality of autonomous trucking with Xiaodi Hou, founder of Bot Auto, a Level 4 freight-hauling company that's rewriting the playbook on autonomy. While much of the industry chases glossy tech demos and futuristic hype, Bot Auto is quietly building a cost-efficient, scalable logistics operation—one truckload at a time.

Today's episode is a recording of an interview from the Ride AI summit in which Vishay Nihalani of Waymo (Director of Product Management, Operations) unpacks the company’s transformation from Google’s self-driving side project into a global pioneer of autonomous mobility. From deployment strategy to global expansion, it’s a behind-the-scenes look at how Waymo is designing autonomy for the real world — and the road ahead. Interview by Edward Niedermeyer.

In this episode, Ed Niedermeyer sits down with Nimrod Nehushtan, EVP of Strategy and Business Development at Mobileye, to unpack the company’s push to bring ADAS to the mainstream. From Mobileye’s new partnership with Volkswagen and Valeo—bringing hands-free Level 2+ driving to EVs priced under $30K—to the rollout of Supervision, Chauffeur, and REM-based technologies, the conversation dives deep into Mobileye’s evolving product stack, regulatory tailwinds, and vision for scalable autonomy.

YouTuber, writer, and coder Sophia Tung recaps the week's most important AV news, including Waymo’s big Bay Area expansion, multiple Tesla controversies, Travis Kalanick’s robotaxi regrets, Rivian’s hands-free driving debut, and more. This week’s episode is shorter than usual, but hopefully it serves as a good introduction to Sophia and her point of view on AI mobility. She’ll be podcasting more with us in the future. As a reminder, the first Ride AI summit is taking place on April 2 at Neuehouse in Hollywood, California. We already have an amazing group of speakers lined up, including Amnon Shashua of Mobileye, Gill Pratt of TRI, and other top decision makers from Waymo, Zoox, Wayve, Apollo Go, Nuro, and more. There's a ton of excitement around the fact that this will be the first event of its kind that people will be able to take a fully driverless Waymo robotaxi to, making it the perfect opportunity to inaugurate the second chapter of this technological space. The on-stage conversations will be focused on this shift, from experiments and ideas to delivering real-world realities, and how to reboot conversations with stakeholders in the public sector, capital markets, media, and beyond.Tickets are currently on sale ⁠here⁠: https://ti.to/rideai/ride-ai-2025

The first Ride AI summit, an intimate gathering of top leaders in driving automation technology and related AI-empowered hardtech, is taking place on April 2 at Neuehouse in Hollywood, California. In this episode, our hosts, Edward Niedermeyer and Timothy B. Lee, preview the aspects of the event program they are most excited about. We already have an amazing group of speakers lined up, including Amnon Shashua of Mobileye, Gill Pratt of TRI, and other top decision makers from Waymo, Zoox, Wayve, Apollo Go, Nuro, and more. There's a ton of excitement around the fact that this will be the first event of its kind that people will be able to take a fully driverless Waymo robotaxi to, making it the perfect opportunity to inaugurate the second chapter of this technological space. The on-stage conversations will be focused on this shift, from experiments and ideas to delivering real-world realities, and how to reboot conversations with stakeholders in the public sector, capital markets, media, and beyond.Tickets are currently on sale here. Space is limited.

Alex Kendall, founder and CEO of Wayve, shares how Wayve's unique end-to-end AI approach allows their self-driving system to generalize across different countries and driving cultures—from London to California. The discussion explores how Wayve (which recently raised $1 billion from Softbank and others) combines vision, language, and action to create more intuitive human-AI interactions, why synthetic data matters for safety testing, and how their lean hardware strategy could make autonomous technology more accessible to automakers worldwide.

The AV trucking company Aurora is spending the final days of 2024 busily getting ready to start hauling freight without humans on board, a long-awaited milestone. On the eve of this potentially historic launch, our host Timothy B. Lee catches up with co-founder Sterling Anderson about the long road of technological innovation that led here. Sterling shares his journey from leading Autopilot at Tesla to starting Aurora in late 2016. The conversation covers the technical and strategic decisions behind Aurora's development, emphasizing their shift from robotaxis to autonomous trucking. Sterling highlights key partnerships with OEMs and others that have allowed Aurora scale their operations efficiently. Tim and Sterling discuss Aurora's unique approach of verifiable AI to ensure safety and reliability compared to end-to-end monolithic systems. Finally, Sterling explains the critical regulatory aspects Aurora is navigating as they aim for a driverless trucking launch between Dallas and Houston by April 2025.

Timothy B. Lee of the Understanding AI newsletter joins Ed Niedermeyer to unpack Tesla’s flashy robotaxi unveil.

In this episode of the Ride AI podcast, host Ed Niedermeyer interviews Anuja Sonalker, CEO of Steer Tech, to discuss a lesser-known success story in mobility technology. Anuja shares how Steer Tech, founded in 2016, specializes in low-speed, autonomous vehicle operations within geofenced areas like parking lots and depots. She explains that while parking automation was initially underestimated, it presents complex challenges requiring high precision and intelligence. Steer Tech developed the first fully autonomous Level 4 parking solution and has since expanded into broader vehicle orchestration systems. Their lean, customer-driven approach allowed them to achieve cashflow positivity by focusing on practical applications in fleet management, emphasizing operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability. Unlike many companies in the autonomous vehicle space, Steer Tech avoided big venture capital funding, choosing instead a more sustainable business model that balances innovation with profitability.

In this episode of Ride AI, recorded live at Micromobility Europe in Amsterdam, we delve into the evolving landscape of EV charging and automation with Crijn Bouman, founder of ROCSYS. Crijn shares his extensive journey in e-mobility, starting from his university days influenced by a friend's self-built electric bike, to founding ROCSYS, a company that develops autonomous EV charging robots for robotaxis, human-driven fleets, and more. He explores the critical advancements in EV fast-charging, the role of robotics in automating EV charging, and the broader implications for mobility and infrastructure.