The Road to Autonomy

Zach Harrell, Director of Insights and Analysis, Army Applications Laboratory, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how the U.S. Army acquires autonomy and brings cutting-edge technology into the hands of soldiers as fast as possible.
The bottleneck in defense autonomy is rarely the technology. It is the acquisition process, the decades of requirements documents and program cycles that slow everything down. AAL exists to break that pattern, broadening the Army’s access to the commercial industrial base and capitalizing on the agility of small and non-traditional companies that have never worked with the Department of War.
To do that, AAL experiments with process rather than hardware. Their DevX Marketplace lets any company upload a six-minute pitch video, no military ID required, and a passing submission satisfies the competition requirement for contracting, opening a door for the rest of the Army to potentially buy that technology without running a separate solicitation.
Autonomous bridging is the proof of what that approach unlocks. Rather than building a new system, AAL backed an autonomy kit that retrofits the Army’s existing bridging equipment, letting sections steer and link themselves into position. The payoff in human terms, is a roughly 90% reduction in the soldiers exposed during one of the most dangerous tasks combat engineers perform.
With the FY2027 budget requesting $54.6 billion dollars for autonomous warfare and Austin emerging as a defense tech hub, the future of Army technology will depend less on what gets built and more on the Army’s willingness to adopt it at the lowest burden and lowest cost, to the greatest effect.

Episode Chapters
00:00 The AAL Mission: Getting Technology to Soldiers Faster
03:44 Inside the DevX Marketplace and the Six-Minute Pitch
07:41 Autonomous Bridging
12:17 The Connected Battlefield
16:01 Department of War $54.6 Billion Autonomy Budget
21:37 Learning from the Battlefield
29:19 Supply Chain Risk
31:57 How AAL Invests: Technical Risk, Military Utility, and Moonshots
40:55 How to Work With AAL
43:12 The Future of Technology in the U.S. Army
44:29 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.
Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss autonomous trucking reaching an inflection point, Waymo acquiring Apple's Arizona proving ground and Tesla filing for a robotaxi permit in Las Vegas.
As Gatik expands its middle-mile freight operations with PepsiCo across Texas, Arizona and Arkansas, Volvo Autonomous Solutions told investors it is targeting $3 billion in autonomous transport revenue within five years through its transport-as-a-service (TaaS) business.
On the robotaxi side of the business, Waymo acquired Apple's former 5,500-acre proving ground in Wittmann, Arizona for $220 million, a facility with a high-speed oval an hour from its Mesa up-fitting plant. Grayson views the acquisition as a signal that Waymo is preparing to test at highway speeds away from prying eyes, while Walt notes that satellite imagery sees everything.
Before the segueing into the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Grayson and Walt debate Tesla's Clark County permit application for up to 5,000 robotaxis in a Las Vegas market with roughly 6,500 Uber drivers, Einride going public and Rivian beginning R2 deliveries.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Chinese robotaxi continues to accelerate into Europe with Pony.ai in Luxembourg and WeRide in Slovakia.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Gatik Goes Driver-Out with PepsiCo
02:51 Volvo Targets $3 Billion in Autonomous Transport Revenue
06:54 Einride Goes Public
08:58 Tesla Files for Clark County Robotaxi Permit
11:52 Waymo Acquires Apple's Arizona Proving Ground
13:39 Wayve and Uber Open the UK Interest List
16:20 Baidu Added to the Pentagon's Designation List
18:31 Foreign Autonomy Desk
27:13 Nebius Launches a Physical AI Lab
28:14 Next Week

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.
Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Autonomy Signals, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss Tesla’s application to operate up to 5,000 robotaxis in Las Vegas, Waymo’s $220 million purchase of Apple’s former proving grounds, and Neolix’s partnership with Quickbot to solve the last 50 meters of autonomous delivery.
On June 3rd, Tesla expanded their unsupervised robotaxi geofence to cover the entire 245 square mile Austin metropolitan area, even as its active fleet contracted to an estimated 20 to 25 vehicles. That same week, Tesla filed an application with the Nevada Transportation Authority for an Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit to operate up to 5,000 robotaxis in Clark County within the next 12 months.
With expanding service areas and a contracting physical fleet, Tesla is optimizing for a coverage narrative while software readiness remains the critical bottleneck to commercial scale, and the path to Las Vegas still runs through individual casino property agreements.
Waymo purchased Apple’s former proving grounds in Wittmann, Arizona, originally the DaimlerChrysler proving grounds, for $220 million. The site is larger than Waymo’s existing California and Ohio testing grounds combined, featuring a 115 acre city course, a four mile high speed oval, and a dedicated freeway loop, and it sits roughly an hour from Waymo’s Mesa vehicle integration facility.
By securing a closed loop validation pipeline adjacent to its manufacturing hub, Waymo is converting capital into validation velocity as it targets one million weekly rides by the end of the year and up to 20 additional cities by the end of 2026.
Then there is Neolix, the Chinese autonomous delivery company, which announced a strategic partnership with Singapore-based Quickbot to co-deploy an end-to-end autonomous delivery solution. The integration pairs Neolix’s Level 4 logistics vehicles with Quickbot’s autonomous final mile delivery platform, which manages secure entry through doors and elevators without human intervention.
Anchored in Singapore’s Punggol Digital District and timed to the country’s regulatory transition from sandbox to commercial operations, the alliance creates the first commercially viable human-free continuous delivery chain from road to door, with the Asia-Pacific and Middle East as the real targets.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Signal 1: Tesla's Big Austin Expansion and Las Vegas Robotaxi Ambitions
22:47 Signal 2: Waymo Buys Apple's Former Proving Grounds
44:07 Signal 3: Neolix Partners with Quickbot to Solve the Last 50 Meters
56:42 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.
Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gil West, CEO of Hertz, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the launch of Oro Mobility and how a century of fleet operations is helping robotaxis to scale.
A robotaxi parked is a depreciating asset, and the attention goes to the driving while the margin hides everywhere else. Cleaning, charging, maintaining, and positioning the vehicle is the part nobody wants and the part that decides the economics.
Oro Mobility was built to own that work. It is an asset-heavy operating company sitting on Hertz infrastructure, 2,700 chargers, more than 11,000 service locations, and a footprint across roughly 160 countries. Oro owns and operates fleets, human-driven and autonomous, and supplies them turnkey to B2B partners including Uber and Nuro in a manner that Gil frames as the connective tissue between the demand aggregators, the technology companies, and the OEMs, the supply layer for the future of mobility.
That positioning reshapes how the autonomy economy scales. A robotaxi company no longer has to build depots, charging, and a service network from scratch, something Mr. West says could take decades and billions of dollars to replicate.
Over time, Hertz plans to hold robotaxis on its balance sheet as both owner and operator, sweat each asset through the peaks, service it through the valleys, and run the same footprint across rideshare, delivery, and autonomy.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Hertz's Turnaround
1:18 Oro Mobility
4:43 Hertz's Infrastructure Advantage
13:29 Robotaxi Technicians
15:36 Robotaxis and Rideshare are Complementary
19:27 Infrastructure Permitting
22:26 Peaks and Valleys of Assets Ownership
25:47 Inspiration for Oro Mobility
28:28 Hertz as a Platform Business
30:28 Managing the Turnaround
34:21 Defining Success for Oro Mobility
35:22 Hertz Over the Next Century
37:03 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.
Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss WeRide trying to catch up to Waymo globally, Waymo preparing to deploy Chinese-made robotaxis in Texas and the CEO of FedEx Freight's open embracement of autonomous trucking.
As WeRide and Uber continue to expand throughout Europe and the Middle East together, Waymo continues to work towards deploying the Chinese-made Zeekr robotaxis now called the Ojai, with data suggesting they are now in Texas, in a politically risky move.
FedEx Freight CEO John Smith declared autonomous trucks ready for prime time, a signal Grayson reads alongside Amazon entering the freight business and Uber selling down another stake in Aurora. With Amazon running one of the most sophisticated freight networks in the world and FedEx now a standalone public company, the pressure on Uber Freight is building.
Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Walt Uber's continued European push by partnering with Autobrains on a Munich robotaxi service pending regulatory approval, and Saudi Arabia's PIF-backed Humain partnered with NVIDIA to deploy robotaxis in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Episode Chapters
00:00 SpaceX IPO
3:53 WeRide and Uber Expand Across Europe
7:39 Waymo Registers 45 Zeekrs in Texas
10:30 Waymo's New Tampa Depot
15:36 Uber Sells Down Its Aurora Stake
16:33 Why Amazon Hasn't Bought an Autonomous Trucking Company?
23:04 Avride Robotaxis in Texas
25:26 Serve Robotics Moves Into Laundry
26:29 Ferrari Rules Out Autonomy
28:56 Foreign Autonomy Desk
30:27 Next Week

--------
About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.
Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.
Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.
Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.