The Road to Autonomy

Aaron Nathan, Founder and CEO of Point One Navigation, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss powering precise location for physical AI.
Since his last appearance on the podcast two years ago, Point One has expanded beyond autonomous vehicles into the broader physical AI sector, including autonomous mowers, agriculture, last-mile delivery, humanoids, and drones.
At Point One’s core is one of the world’s largest professionally owned RTK networks, which refines standard GPS accuracy from roughly five meters down to two centimeters. Point One delivers its network, corrections, and software as a utility that customers can build on, much like a traditional wireless carrier.
The company’s next frontier focuses on consistency over simply chasing millimeter-level precision, ensuring robots hit two-centimeter accuracy as reliably as possible and recognize when they fall short.
In agriculture, Point One’s technology allows customers to record the exact location of every seed planted, reducing water, fertilizer, and pesticide use by up to 80% while maintaining or improving yields. In drone delivery, greater accuracy minimizes required drone spacing, enabling higher fleet density and increased delivery capacity.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Point One Two Years Later
01:43 New Applications for Precise Location
06:58 Point One, A Location Company
11:24 Location for Last Mile Delivery
14:23 How RTK Delivers Two Centimeter Accuracy
19:30 Precision Location in Agriculture
22:45 Location for Humanoids
31:00 Location for Aerial Drones
37:35 GPS Denied Environments
39:17 $35 Million Series C
41:02 Fuse Conference
43:47 Future of Location Services
47:20 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
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.

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This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s first ever debt raise, the latest The Road to Autonomy Field Reports and the emergence of London as an autonomy capital.
Grayson views the debt raise as a clear signal of aggressive expansion, while Walt sees securing access to capital markets as a crucial strategic advantage as competition heats up. As Waymo continues to expand, the company launched fully autonomous operations in Detroit, with both Grayson and Walt agreeing that commercial service will commence before the end of the year.
In Las Vegas, Zoox continues to deploy the Zoox way. Special Field Correspondent David Moss headed to Las Vegas to try out Zoox’s new drop-off location at the T-Mobile Arena. The ride from Resorts World cost $42.26 and took 28 minutes, including extra loops around the Excalibur parking lot compared to $18.68 for a Waymo Ojai ride.
Across the Atlantic, London is emerging as a premier autonomy capital, with the guessing game heating up over whether Uber or its autonomous driving partners will secure the Automated Passenger Services (APS) permit. As Uber and its partners debate who gets the permit, Waymo is ramping up operations, preparing for what Grayson predicts will be a launch in London.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, XPeng formally named its new robotaxi service YoYo, while Stellantis selected Momenta to power autonomous capabilities for its Peugeot and Jeep brands in mainland China.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Atoms and Zoox Field Reports
05:15 Autonomy Roulette on Uber in Las Vegas
08:20 Waymo Raises $5 Billion in Debt
12:20 Waymo Launches Unsupervised Testing in Detroit
14:53 Tesla Robotaxi 24/7 Timeline in Austin
18:33 Uber and Pony.ai Head to London
25:12 How Long Until Wayve Goes Unsupervised?
33:21 Minneapolis Mayor Vetoes Driver-In Mandate as California Mandates U.S. Remote Operations
37:30 Autonomous Trucking, Cleared for Take-Off
42:36 Foreign Autonomy Desk
44:34 Next Week

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
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 Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoing a city council ordinance that would have required human safety monitors in robotaxis, California requiring remote operators of autonomous vehicles to be physically located in the United States, and the U.S. Army creating the Futures and Autonomous Systems Command.
The Minneapolis City Council voted 7 to 4 to require robotaxi operators to keep a human safety monitor earning the local minimum wage in every vehicle at all times. Mayor Frey vetoed the ordinance, calling it a backdoor ban. The council currently lacks the nine votes needed to override the veto.
The veto keeps Waymo on its path to commercial deployment in Minneapolis. However, organized labor and safety advocates who secured the council majority can bring the measure back or push for legislation at the state level. In states lacking preemption, the ordinance serves as a template for driver mandates across the Midwest and Northeast that threaten to hold operators at the testing stage.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 1246, requiring remote operators who take direct control of an autonomous vehicle to be physically located in the United States and hold a valid California driver’s license. The law also mandates that operators dispatch local incident technicians when requested by emergency services, institutes fines for blocking first responders, and requires notification of local authorities during fleetwide outages.
The requirements do not take effect until 2028, and the California DMV has yet to define the staffing ratios that will determine compliance costs. Whether offshore support teams must be relocated depends on how final rules distinguish remote assistance from direct remote driving.
Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Martell signed a memorandum establishing the Futures and Autonomous Systems Command (FASCOM). FASCOM features a dedicated portfolio acquisition executive for autonomy to prioritize autonomous ground vehicles, watercraft, resupply, and breaching systems by fiscal year 2028. The Army is also expanding its 15X Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems Specialist and 390A Robotics Technician roles to integrate autonomy experts directly into tactical units.
FASCOM’s modular open systems approach provides emerging autonomy companies such as Anduril, Shield AI, and Applied Intuition direct prototype lanes into operational formations, while traditional defense primes retain their roles as open system integrators.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:27 Signal 1: Minneapolis Mayor Vetoes Driver-In Mandate
29:37 Signal 2: California Mandates U.S. Remote Support for Autonomous Fleets
59:01 Signal 3: Army Builds a New Command for Robots

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
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.

Zach Rash, Co-Founder and CEO of Coco Robotics joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss scaling Coco from 50 brands to more than 5,000 globally.
Over the past two years, Coco has expanded its merchant network from 50 brands to over 5,000 across QSR, grocery, and retail. Growth has been fueled by a frictionless merchant onboarding workflow, as well as rising consumer tip fatigue.
To accelerate their growth, Coco is upgrading its initial fleet of roughly 1,000 sidewalk-only Coco One robots to its next-generation vehicle, Coco Two. Capable of speeds up to 15 mph, Coco Two features a hybrid design that can transition from sidewalks to bike lanes and roadways, significantly increasing delivery distance and speed.
Internationally, Coco is expanding across Europe, operating in the Finnish cities Helsinki and Turku alongside Wolt and Uber Eats. High urban density combined with severe winter weather creates acute courier supply shortages in European markets, making autonomous robot delivery a natural fit.
With unit economics operating well below the cost of human couriers, Coco is targeting mass production of Coco Two to scale the fleet into the tens of thousands by 2027.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Growth of Coco Robotics
05:48 Out-of-Home Advertising (OOH)
08:30 DoorDash and Uber Eats Partnerships
13:15 Scaling from 50 to 5,000+ Brands
21:07 International Expansion into Finland
26:51 Coco Two
31:45 Ralf Wenzel Joins the Board
39:23 Infrastructure Data
43:34 Unit Economics & Cost Efficiency
46:29 AUTNMY AI

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
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 Grayson’s San Francisco Field Work where he rode in a Wayve vehicle on the freeway, compared Waymo’s Jaguar I-PACE and Ojai robotaxis back to back, attended DoorDash’s Dash Forward event, and found Travis Kalanick’s Atoms autonomous vehicle on the streets of San Francisco.
Grayson’s verdict on Wayve is clear. With zero interventions in dense San Francisco traffic, the ride felt very similar to Tesla’s Robotaxi. Grayson believes Wayve has the world’s best competitor to FSD today, is 12 to 16 months from an L2+ product in market, and roughly 36 months from going fully unsupervised, most likely first in London.
Waymo’s Ojai is still teething but dramatically better than three weeks ago, and while the driving felt identical to Texas, the San Francisco vehicles were spotless while Austin remains the dirtiest Waymo market Grayson has ridden in. After months of searching, Grayson found the Atoms autonomous vehicle near Golden Gate Park, located its depot through OMEGA, and will release an Atoms Field Report on Monday.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi rode unsupervised in a Pony.ai powered Verne robotaxi in Zagreb, while speculation builds that Mobileye might not have a future in robotaxis.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Dubai opened the Dubai Autonomous Mobility Lab as it prepares for 25% fully autonomous operations, with WeRide already operating fully autonomously in the Emirate.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Waymo SFO Pickup Experience
04:38 Wayve San Francisco and Freeway Ride
08:58 Wayve Timeline to Unsupervised
10:13 233,000 Mile Waymo I-PACE
13:23 Waymo's Avomo Problem
16:23 Atoms Autonomous Vehicle
20:08 Mysterious BMW Testing in San Francisco and Mountain View
22:08 DoorDash Dash Forward Event
25:39 Dara Khosrowshahi Rides Unsupervised in Zagreb
27:02 Where's Mobileye?
30:05 Lyft Expands Brand to Europe
33:15 Who Jumps from Uber to Lyft First?
36:49 When Does Uber Vertically Integrate Robotaxis?
43:24 Zoox Perceived Intersection Problems
45:18 Kodiak Announces IKEA as Unsupervised Over-the-Road Partner
49:05 Foreign Autonomy Desk
49:30 Next Week

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About The Road to Autonomy
The Road to Autonomy provides institutional intelligence for the Autonomy Economy, powered by AUTNMY AI. We built the indices, set the benchmarks, and execute the fieldwork to put decision-ready physical AI intelligence directly into your workflows with OMEGA.
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.