The Road to Autonomy

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.

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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.

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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 their Texas Field Work where they rode in Cybercab, Waymo, Avride, May Mobility robotaxis, Kodiak and Aurora autonomous trucks, and inspected depots across Austin and Dallas.
Grayson’s verdict on Tesla’s Cybercab is simple. Once you go Cybercab, you don’t go back. In Austin, wait times averaged two to five minutes across dozens of rides, and from a software perspective Grayson found no material difference between Cybercab and the Model Y Robotaxi in terms of performance.
In Austin, Grayson counted roighly 200 to 300 vehicles at Avride’s upfitting facility, a presence he believes the market is overlooking, and views Hyundai as a quiet winner of the robotaxi buildout with the IONIQ 5 powering Waymo, Avride and Motional. The Zoox depot in Dallas was under construction with no visible charging infrastructure, and Grayson estimates it is 12 to 18 months from being operational.
Both Walt and Grayson rode in a Kodiak autonomous truck and Walt noted clear improvement ahead of Kodiak’s driver-out target on the Dallas to Houston lane by year-end. Additionally, Walt rode in an unsupervised Aurora autonomous truck at their Investor Day.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Baidu is ramping supervised robotaxi testing in London with Lyft, Mercedes-Benz signed a licensing deal with Wayve, and Tensor Auto is preparing to deploy robotaxis with Volt Premium Taxi in Bulgaria.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Once You Go Cybercab, You Don't Go Back
03:56 Robotaxi in Dallas
09:01 Cybercab Wait Times, Pickups and Routing in Austin
12:10 Austin Robotaxi Depots
13:45 Avride's Austin Depot
16:02 Zoox's Dallas Depot
17:22 May Mobility in Arlington
20:17 Kodiak Targets Driver-Out on Dallas to Houston by Year-End
24:19 Avride in Dallas and the Uber Partner Math
26:46 Hyundai Is the Quiet Winner in Robotaxis
27:30 Walt Amends His View on Upfitting
30:57 Tesla's Vertical Integration and Supercharger Advantage
33:06 Aurora Investor Day and the 1,000 Truck Target
40:22 President Xi's Visit and a Wake-Up Call for Detroit
47:01 Foreign Autonomy Desk
49:33 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.

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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 May Mobility filing to go public through a SPAC merger with an estimated $93 million annual cash burn, Mercedes-Benz adding Wayve as its third automated driving software partner, and Figure AI’s Helix 2.5 taking on household chores across 30 homes it had never seen before.
May Mobility is merging with ACP Holdings Acquisition Corp at a $1.4 billion valuation and will trade under the ticker MAY upon completion of the transaction. Of the up to $337 million in proceeds, only the $120 million PIPE is committed.
At the company’s current burn rate, the PIPE covers about 1.3 years of operations against roughly $10 million in 2025 revenue. The remaining $217 million depends on the redemption rate.
Mercedes-Benz signed with Wayve for point-to-point Level 2 driving assistance within two years. Wayve joins NVIDIA and Momenta as Mercedes retreats from L3 Drive Pilot and focuses on L2 driving assistance partnerships.
Figure AI’s Helix 2.5 raised zero-shot success from 9% to 56% by pre-training on human behavior data, using half the task-specific data. That still leaves a 44% failure rate in curated homes, with no independent replication and no commercial contracts. The result supports a learning strategy, not a dependable, unsupervised home humanoid.

Episode Chapters
0:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:45 Signal 1: May Mobility's SPAC
27:52 Signal 2: Mercedes Partners Wayve on Autonomous Driving
47:07 Signal 3: Figure AI Introduces Helix 2.5

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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.

Lee Redden, Founder of LastFeet joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss solving the last 50 feet of package delivery with a custom-built legged robot designed to ride in the jump seat of a delivery van and carry packages from the curb to the doorstep.
After co-founding Blue River Technology and selling it to Deere, Lee returned to building because he believes this is one of the best times ever to build robots. LastFeet’s robot walks on four legs with wheels on its feet, so it can climb the high step out of a box truck and then roll quickly and steadily to the door. It learns to walk entirely in simulation, a big change from the hand-calculated kinematics Lee learned in grad school.
The inspiration came from delivery drivers. Lee interviewed dozens of drivers and shadowed their routes, then modeled his robot on the runner, the second person who rides in the passenger seat on busy days and carries packages to the door while the driver keeps driving.
On day one, the robot sits in the jump seat with no change to how the back of the van is loaded. The driver loads a package, the robot bows at the door to set it on the step, and if it runs into something it can’t handle, it asks a remote human for help.
The first robot carries 15 pounds, which covers most packages, and runs on an NVIDIA Orin AGX with two-hour hot-swappable batteries. When it’s unsure what to do, its safety response is to freeze in place and turn into a table.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Why Lee Redden Is Building Again
02:41 How the LastFeet Robot Works
04:56 How to Build a Robot in 2026
07:27 Testing in Snow and Ice
10:00 How the Robot Delivers to Every Doorstep
12:43 Riding in the Jump Seat of a Delivery Van
15:00 Manufacturing at Scale
18:46 Building for Rugged Delivery Vans
22:54 LastFeet Business Model
29:32 Battery Life and Charging in the Van
32:11 What Lee Learned Shadowing 50 Delivery Drivers
37:28 Safety and Building Trust With the Public
40:18 The Future of LastFeet
43:11 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
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.