The Road to Autonomy

Michael Brandt, Co-Founder and CEO, RC Mowers joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss autonomous mowers and how they unlock scale for an industry that is labor constrained.
In the landscape industry, turnover is structural, the work is hard, and skilled employees tend to stay away, making this an ideal industry to deploy autonomy that unlocks scale and frees up human resources to focus on the work robots cannot do yet.
The perception stack on the autonomous mowers is LiDAR-first, enabling the mowers to operate day and night with equal capability. Airport operators were the first to recognize what that unlocks, deploying autonomous mowers at night when runways close, expanding the operational window on land that never stops needing maintenance.
As private equity continues to roll up the landscape industry, the use of autonomous mowers is growing as they solve the labor problem and unlock growth that the old model cannot deliver.
The future of autonomy in landscaping will not be won by the operators waiting for the price to come down. It will be won by the operators who are already three years ahead, deploying autonomous mowers today and building the next generation of the landscape industry.

Episode Chapters
00:00 AUTNMY AI
00:36 Founding of RC Mowers
05:56 Landscape Labor Crisis
09:21 Autonomous Mower Stack
11:54 Deploying Autonomous Mowers
20:46 Autonomous Mowing at Airports
25:47 Autonomous Mowing
32:11 Private Equity Landscape Industry Roll Up
38:12 Autonomy-First Landscape Company
46:48 American Manufacturing in Green Bay
50:54 The Future of RC Mowers

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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 Waymo’s undisputed global lead, the growing consumer-driven shift toward supervised ADAS (Level 2++), and autonomous trucking’s inflection point.
After spending the week in Silicon Valley, Walt shared his on the ground observations amidst the backdrop of Waymo’s noisy week where the company paused service in several cities and temporarily shut down highway access. Even though Waymo had a difficult week, the company’s underlying position is unchanged, as they remain the undisputed global leader.
Wayve announced a supervised L2++ point-to-point deal with Stellantis, indicating a potential pivot towards ADAS as a short-term revenue generator. Grayson views the broader growth of ADAS as being consumer-driven, with global OEMs looking to build their own version of Tesla’s FSD.
Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Walt discussed London gearing up for robotaxis and the global growth of Chinese robotaxis.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Walt's Silicon Valley Field Report
07:20 Why Tesla Won't Add LiDAR
11:05 Uber's AV Labs and the Data Question
13:13 ADAS Opportunity
18:40 Waymo's Noisy Week
23:45 London Further Opens the Door to Robotaxis
26:23 Build America 250 Act
29:44 Wayve x Stellantis
31:34 Foreign Autonomy Desk
34:44 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 the BUILD America 250 Act, XPeng’s mass-produced pure vision robotaxi, and the ESA-China SMILE mission reaching orbit.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves and Ranking Member Rick Larsen released the text of the BUILD America 250 Act, a bipartisan five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that includes the first-ever federal framework for autonomous trucks.
The bill, if passed and signed into law in its current form, would provide regulatory preemption for autonomous trucking in the United States and authorize nearly $30 million annually through 2031 for workforce development grants.
Over in China, XPeng’s first mass-produced robotaxi rolled off its production line in Guangzhou. The robotaxi is built on the company’s GX platform and features a pure vision system powered by their in-house Turing AI chips.
Then there is the SMILE mission, a landmark collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences that launched on May 19 from Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a Vega-C rocket. SMILE carries the world’s first space-borne soft X-ray imager and an ultraviolet aurora imager designed to observe and predict the space weather events that disrupt the global navigation satellite systems that autonomous vehicles, drones, and maritime vessels rely on for centimeter-level positioning.

Episode Chapters
00:00 AUTNMY AI
1:32 Signal 1: BUILD America 250 Act
37:39 Signal 2: XPENG Pure Vision Robotaxi
58:51 Signal 3: ESA/China SMILE Mission Reaches Orbit

Autonomy Signals is presented by KPMG.

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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 market 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.

Subscribe today: 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 Waymo’s newly announced expansion ahead of the World Cup, the suddenly accelerating deterioration of the Uber/Waymo relationship, and the partnerships that actually matter for Uber’s autonomous future.
As Waymo expanded their U.S. service area by 1,400 square miles across 11 cities, Uber continued to amplify both their direct and indirect attacks against Waymo in the media and in a self-published report about deploying autonomous vehicles.
Even as the deterioration of the relationship spreads into the news, Walt notes that the divorce narrative is already largely priced into Uber’s stock, but the more interesting question is what happens next with Uber’s remaining partners.
Nuro recently opened an engineering and partnerships office in Munich, home to BMW, with Lucid notably absent from the press release and personally-owned autonomous vehicles mentioned directly. On the WeRide earnings call, the company outlined European expansion plans including Slovakia and made the case for a unified Level 2 to Level 4 platform.
Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Walt discussed Volvo Autonomous Solutions’ new Dallas-to-Houston lane and what the true definition of autonomous and what defines supervised.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Waymo's World Cup Expansion
03:59 Waymo's Unforced Error
05:08 The Waymo/Uber Divorce Narrative Goes Mainstream
14:51 Nuro Opens Munich Office
20:26 WeRide Eyes a Unified L2-to-L4 Platform
22:47 Volvo Autonomous Solutions Dallas-to-Houston Lane
23:49 What Defines Driverless
31:39 Foreign Autonomy Desk
32:04 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.

This week on Autonomy Signals presented by KPMG, Grayson Brulte and Rob Grant discuss Uber’s policy play to slow the deployment of robotaxis, BYD’s costly market share gain, and Unitree going sci-fi with a production-ready Mecha robot.
Uber recently released a policy paper titled Unlocking the Promise of Autonomy that emphasized that the transition to autonomy should move slowly through a phased hybrid model where mixed fleets of human drivers and autonomous vehicles share the platform for years.
The report appears to be a regulatory framework designed to penalize the autonomy-only business model currently being deployed by both Waymo and Tesla, positioning Uber’s hybrid approach as the only socially responsible path. In what appears to be a deliberate effort to slow down robotaxi deployments until Uber and their partners catch up.
Over in China, BYD updated their Seagull EV with an optional God’s Eye system, a roof-mounted LiDAR with Level 2+ capabilities running on NVIDIA Drive Orin for a starting retail price of $13,000. This is the first subcompact vehicle in the world equipped with premium autonomous hardware at this price point, putting pressure on Western automakers to compete. But the price point comes at a cost, as BYD’s Q1 2026 net profit dropped 55% and operating cash flow collapsed 67%.
Then there is Unitree, which launched the GD01 Man Transformable Mecha, a 1,100-pound, nine-foot pilotable robot that switches between bipedal and quadruped modes. Priced at approximately $650,000, the GD01 is a calculated engineering showcase flex ahead of Unitree’s anticipated Shanghai Star Market IPO targeting a $7 billion valuation.
The launch of the GD01 Man Transformable Mecha signals China’s ability to rapidly prototype, commercialize, and scale embodied AI hardware at a pace Western competitors are struggling to match.

Episode Chapters
00:00 AUTNMY AI
01:33 Signal 1: Uber's Policy Play to Slowdown Robotaxis
36:57 Signal 2: BYD's Costly Market Share Grab
55:41 Signal 3: Unitree's GD01 Man Transformable Mecha

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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 market 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.

Subscribe today: 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.