The Road to Autonomy

• Episode 348 | Autonomy Markets: Waymo's Six Stages of Autonomy

  This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s accelerated nationwide expansion with new markets, Minneapolis, Tampa, New Orleans, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando getting ready to come online, while breaking down and coin Waymo’s Six Stages of Autonomy.As Waymo expands, competition is brewing in Dallas where Avride in partnership with Uber and Lyft in partnership with Mobileye will begin to operate commercial robotaxi services later this year and into next year, as Dallas begins to emerge as a major robotaxi market.Beyond Waymo, the episode explores broader industry signals, from sidewalk delivery robots that are scaling, to Zoox’s extremely limited San Francisco deployment despite Amazon resources, and the accelerating Chinese robotaxi expansion into Europe.Episode Chapters0:00 Waymo’s On-Going Expansion 2:21 Waymo’s Disney World Opportunity 8:04 Waymo’s Six Stages of Autonomy 14:45 Waymo’s Upcoming Dallas Launch 18:08 Dallas Robotaxi Competition 20:36 Waymo’s Current Political Issues 25:09 Scaling Delivery Robots 28:41 Zoox Has Scale Ambitions 32:34 Foreign Autonomy Desk 33:21 Next WeekRecorded on Thursday, November 21, 2025--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.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.

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• Episode 347 | The Next Autonomous Vehicle M&A Wave Starts Below the Line

  Hugh Nguyen, Partner, Automotive Technology & Mobility, KPMG joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the emerging wave of autonomous vehicle partnerships, the hidden value in fleet operations, and the coming M&A consolidation that will reshape the industry.As the autonomous vehicle ecosystem accelerates through a phase of rapid partnership formation, the real value lies “below the line” with fleet operations, depot management, safety protocols, and operational expertise that rarely makes headlines. While the market fixates on vehicle counts and technology partnerships, the proprietary knowledge of how to actually deploy and scale robotaxi operations at profitable unit economics represents the true competitive moat. Hugh predicts the next 18-24 months will see continued partnership proliferation across global markets, followed by strategic consolidation driven not by headline M&A deals, but by precision talent acquisition and operational capability roll-ups. The winners will be those who control fleet operations, understand regulatory navigation, and can scale profitably. Capabilities that are increasingly attracting investor interest as the industry matures beyond the cult of the founder and towards operational excellence.Episode Chapters0:00 KPMG's Thoughts on Autonomous Vehicles 6:04 Autonomous Vehicle Partnerships 15:31 Emerging M&A Activity 23:48 What Happens When a Partnership Doesn't Work?25:47 Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Management 31:45 Autonomous Vehicle Asset Rollup 40:10 The "Passport" Model 47:17 Cult of The Founder48:54 M&A OutlookRecorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.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.

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• Episode 346 | Autonomy Markets: Waymo's Highway Unlock Is Real. Its Moat Still Isn't.

  This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s great highway unlock, their Bay Area expansion to 260 square miles and the launch of commercial service at the San Jose Airport.Despite the expansion, Waymo remains sharply vehicle-constrained. Bloomberg reported this week that the company is operating roughly 1,000 vehicles in the Bay Area, 700 in Los Angeles, 500 in Phoenix, 200 in Austin, and just 100 in Atlanta, for a total fleet of approximately 2,500 vehicles spread across all markets.In the autonomous trucking market, Kodiak continues to demonstrate that the economics work. With 10 fully driverless trucks generating revenue in the Permian Basin, the company logged 5,200 paid hours last quarter, up 166% from Q2, a meaningful validation of the model.Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Walt examine why technology leadership means nothing without scalable manufacturing partnerships and now how autonomous trucking is pulling ahead of robotaxis on business model execution, and what global expansion in Abu Dhabi and Singapore signals about the global competitive landscape.Episode Chapters0:00 Waymo Expands to Highways3:58 Vehicle Supply16:56 California Airports19:28 Tesla FSD Update21:42 Uber Ski25:21 Kodiak29:40 Foreign Autonomy Desk30:40 Next WeekRecorded on Thursday, November 13, 2025--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.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.

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• Episode 345 | Autonomy Markets: Waymo Expands, Lyft Builds, Uber Ducks as Tesla Rewrites the Autonomy Script

  This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s expansion into three new markets, Uber’s role in autonomy and Lyft’s growing infrastructure ambitions. Beneath the headlines, Tesla is aiming to once again reshape the entire autonomous driving industry with their AI5 chip, FSD Unsupervised deployment, and the expansion of their insurance business. As Tesla continues to focus on what’s next, Uber is sending mixed messages to the market while engineers across Silicon Valley begin exploring alternatives to Nvidia’s GPUs. Wrapping up the conversation, Grayson and Walt discuss what happens when the world’s largest autonomy players diverge on strategy and long-standing partnerships begin to falter.Episode Chapters0:00 Waymo’s Three City Expansion 2:11 Waymo & Uber’s Relationship 4:21 Managing Robotaxi Fleets14:56 Robotaxis at Airports 16:40 Uber’s Autonomy Messaging Strategy 23:12 NVIDIA and the Growing Demand for new Chips25:45 Applied Intuition 28:19 Tesla37:14 Foreign Autonomy Desk40:02 Next WeekRecorded on Friday, November 7, 2025--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.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.

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• Episode 344 | Autonomy Markets: NVIDIA’s Autonomy Ambitions Become Clearer as Waymo and Uber Head for Divorce

  This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss NVIDIA’s ever expanding autonomy ambitions and the fracturing relationship between Waymo and Uber, which may signal the end of one of the industry’s most-watched partnerships. Jensen Huang’s latest GTC announcements further signaled that NVIDIA is moving beyond supplying compute to potentially building their own full autonomy stack and licensing it. Grayson and Walt trace this shift back to the early days NVIDIA’s automotive division and the evolution of its Hyperion platform, which is now positioned not only to power OEMs but also to compete directly with the very companies that rely on its GPUs to enable autonomous driving systems.While NVIDIA appears poised to compete with its customers, Waymo and Uber’s partnership is showing signs of unraveling after Uber announced plans to deploy Lucid/Nuro autonomous vehicles in San Francisco next year, directly challenging Waymo on in their home market.Grayson likens the move to “divorce court,” raising questions about how the companies will divide the Austin and Atlanta markets, where Waymo currently operates exclusively on Uber’s platform. The episode closes with updates on Aurora’s strategic pivot and the Foreign Autonomy Desk, covering Baidu’s expansion in Hong Kong, Uber’s European ambitions, and continued progress in Tesla’s FSD rollout.Episode Chapters0:00 NVIDIA's Autonomy Ambitions 7:13 Waymo & Uber's Fracturing Relationship9:35 Nuro's Upcoming Launch on Uber in San Francisco 11:51 Gemini is Coming to Waymo14:05 Boston's Autonomous Vehicle Blunder15:43 Seattle's Challenging Political Environment 17:34 Political Coalitions 19:36 Aurora's Pivot25:32 Tesla Robotaxi / FSD 14 Updates30:04 Foreign Autonomy Desk33:08 Next WeekRecorded on Thursday, October 30, 2025--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.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.

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