The Road to Autonomy

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Zoox Las Vegas pricing, Waymo’s post-Uber divorce Phoenix expansion and WeRide saying the quiet part out loud, regulatory permits can create moats.
Zoox launched paid rides in Las Vegas with a $12 base fare, $1.50 per mile, and 40 cents per minute, premium pricing paired with 15 to 30 minute wait times and select destinations. Walt calls it a Disney ride, not a premium product, and once Waymo and Tesla enter the market, that pricing gets hard to defend, especially if wait times continue to be high.
Staying in Vegas, Waymo announced a dedicated pickup and drop-off zone with Allegiant Stadium while Zoox has a deal with the Sphere, which might cost riders a $40 drop-off fee, opening a new battleground in Vegas where every casino and venue deal becomes a potential competitive advantage.
Weeks after Waymo and Uber divorced in Phoenix, Waymo added 55 square miles of service area, increasing the total to 350 square miles. On the WeRide earnings call, management said the quiet part our loud, regulatory permits are an asset.
Over in Europe, OMEGA uncovered a Waymo incorporation in Zurich registered to Google’s largest engineering office outside the United States, one week after the president of Switzerland rode in a Waymo in Mountain View.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Uber and Wayve are preparing a supervised Tokyo launch with Nissan LEAF vehicles, with the word supervised buried in the last paragraph of the press release.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Zoox Launches Paid Rides in Las Vegas
07:19 Fleet Fragmentation and the Lyft Opportunity
11:24 Waymo's Dedicated Zone at Allegiant Stadium
19:16 Waymo Adds 55 Square Miles in Phoenix
21:07 Waymo's Upcoming European Expansion
24:06 WeRide Earnings
28:06 Mercedes, NVIDIA, and the Compute Question
31:44 Uber Serve Robotics Divorce
40:47 7,200 Waymo Vehicles
44:03 Foreign Autonomy Desk
47:56 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
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 fully exiting its equity position in Serve Robotics as the delivery partnership ends, CaoCao launching robotaxi operations in Hangzhou, and Boeing offloading Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu to Archer Aviation in a deal that trades equity for cash flow.
Uber recently liquidated its entire remaining stake in Serve Robotics, as Serve announced on their Q2 2026 earnings call that the company will not be renewing its delivery partnership when the contract expires in 2027, exposing the pitfalls of being reliant on a demand aggregation platform.
While Uber and Serve prepare to part ways, CaoCao launched public road testing without a safety driver in Hangzhou’s Binjiang District with a fleet of roughly 100 vehicles, backed by parent Geely’s manufacturing might and a purpose-built EvaCab robotaxi with a sub $35,000 BOM cost targeting 100,000 units by 2030.
As China’s robotaxi industry grows, Boeing exited autonomy by selling Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu to Archer Aviation for a 19.75% equity stake, immediately re-anchoring Archer’s valuation on defense cash flow rather than eVTOL speculation while pushing autonomous certification down the line.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:32 Signal 1: Uber and Serve Robotics Get Divorced
31:40 Signal 2: CaoCao Vertically Integrates Robotaxis
1:00:10 Signal 3: Boeing Exits Autonomy with Archer Aviation Deal

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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
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 Uber’s Waymo hangover, Zoox launching paid rides in Las Vegas, the Teamsters suing California over driverless trucking, and NVIDIA’s Alpamayo 2 open model.
Uber is nursing a Waymo hangover. Revenue came in light on take rate, management finally owned the $10 billion autonomy spending number first reported by The Financial Times, and the stock sold back into the sixties as the autonomy overhang weighs on the story.
After 12 years, Zoox begins charging for rides in Las Vegas on August 10. An NHTSA filing surfaced by OMEGA reveals the catch, the vehicles cannot operate above 45 mph while average traffic out of Harry Reid International airport runs 55, complicating the airport unlock.
With 105 vehicles as of June across seven approved cities, pricing 20% to 40% above rideshare, and wait times stretching past an hour, Walt calls it tourism pricing for a Disney World attraction. Meanwhile, Waymo returned to freeways after a two-month pause, and OMEGA is picking up new Waymo corporate filings around the world.
Lucid burned over a billion dollars in the quarter but declared the Uber and Nuro robotaxi program a must-win project. The Teamsters sued the California DMV in Alameda Superior Court to repeal driverless trucking rules as autonomous trucking companies continue to rack up supervised miles in the state.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Wayve received a TfL license to carry paying passengers in London with safety drivers across 15 vehicles, but the APS permit is the asset that controls every relationship in the market.
If Baidu secures one, it holds a clear off-ramp from Uber and FreeNow by Lyft to launch Apollo Go on its own. Meanwhile, Pony AI is targeting 500 to 1,000 Gen4 robotrucks in mainland China with CATL over the next two to three years, with a hint of foreign ports expansion.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Uber's Waymo Hangover
4:52 Zoox Prepares to Go Paid in Vegas
12:19 Waymo Returns to Freeways
14:13 Uber, Nuro, Lucid Robotaxi Timeline
20:30 DoorDash and the Market for Autonomous Food Delivery
26:08 NVIDIA Alpamayo 2
32:22 The Teamsters sue the California DMV over Driverless Trucking Rules
35:50 Tesla's China Business Question
39:00 Foreign Autonomy Desk
45:35 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
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 NVIDIA open sourcing its Alpamayo 2 foundation model to capture the entire autonomy stack, WeRide expanding into Denmark through a partnership with GreenMobility, and Aurora sidestepping PACCAR with a Roush retrofit pathway to hit its 200 truck year-end target.
NVIDIA released Alpamayo 2 Super, an open source 34 billion parameter vision language action foundation model for Level 4 autonomy, giving away the model to sell the silicon and lock developers into Drive Thor hardware and NVIDIA compute, raising the question of whether a Foxconn and Taiwan Semi partnership to build a bespoke NVIDIA robotaxi is next.
While NVIDIA powers the autonomy economy, WeRide announced a partnership with GreenMobility, Denmark’s leading shared electric mobility provider, to deploy its EU-compliant GXR robotaxi with public service targeted for the first half of 2027. The strategy being deployed by WeRide in Europe is the Autonomous Belt and Road Initiative, using Chinese domestic cash flow to finance a foreign expansion.
As WeRide expands across Europe, Aurora turned to Roush to retrofit International trucks as a way around PACCAR’s refusal to allow driverless operations, targeting 20 trucks per week to reach 200 driverless trucks by year-end. With Kodiak moving towards Daimler Truck and Bot Auto already there, PACCAR is watching the entire autonomous trucking industry sidestep its factory line while Aurora burns roughly $200 million a quarter racing to scale before its $1.2 billion in liquidity runs out in a little over five quarters.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:11 Signal 1: NVIDIA Open Sources Alpamayo 2 as their Grand Robotaxi Ambitions Come into Focus
40:16 Signal 2: WeRide Expands into Denmark with GreenMobility
1:01:25 Signal 3: Aurora Sidesteps PACCAR with Roush and International

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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
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 the Waymo/Uber divorce going public, Zoox receiving NHTSA approval to charge for rides, Aurora earnings, and Qualcomm's BMW win as ADAS becomes the Trojan horse into autonomy.
The Waymo/Uber relationship is unraveling in public, with The Financial Times confirming Waymo will launch its own app in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028 before the contract expires that May. Both sides are airing grievances, from dirty cars and bad routing to weather no-shows and unsustainable financial terms. Grayson goes on the record that the relationship terminates early, calling for a Waymo app in those markets by June 2027, while Walt takes the under.
After 12 years and billions of dollars, Zoox can finally charge for a ride. NHTSA granted an exemption capped at 2,500 vehicles per year for two years, a ruling that also creates a potential viable deployment path for Tesla's Cybercab.
In autonomous trucking, Aurora is targeting 1,000 trucks by the end of next year against 200 this year, a heavily back-end loaded ramp that depends on truck supply, Roush capacity, and unresolved questions about how the Volvo Autonomous Solutions margin split works. Meanwhile, Qualcomm's selection by BMW as lead compute for next-generation ADAS confirms the growth of the L2+ market and positions Snapdragon as the Trojan horse into autonomy compute.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Baidu began RT6 robotaxi testing in London with both Uber and Lyft on the outskirts of the city, received a full driverless permit in Hong Kong, and China resumed issuing robotaxi permits once again.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Waymo/Uber Divorce Goes Public
5:45 Uber's Autonomous Vehicle Partner Problem
10:28 Waymo's OEM Partner Signals
12:25 Zoox Gets the Golden Ticket
16:52 Advancing America’s Safety and Competitiveness for the Evolution of National Deployments
20:16 Aurora Q2 2026 Earnings
27:43 How Big Is the OEM Risk?
30:38 ADAS as the Trojan Horse Into Autonomy
35:42 Ford BlueCruise Falls Short
37:23 Foreign Autonomy Desk: Baidu RT6 Testing in London with Uber & Lyft
41:33 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
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.