The Road to Autonomy

Todd Deaville, VP, Advanced Manufacturing Innovation, Magna, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how artificial intelligence and advanced robotics are transforming global manufacturing.
To Deaville, AI is a highly powerful tool set optimized for recognizing complex patterns, making quality-control decisions, and analyzing massive data flows. Applying AI to robotics introduces unprecedented flexibility to the physical world, moving beyond historically rigid, defined programming to enable machines that can adapt and make operational changes in real time.
With manufacturing facilities spanning 28 countries, Magna’s primary challenge is deploying these advanced technologies at scale. To achieve this, the company clusters its solutions around specific product and process archetypes, relying on a playbook approach with practical guides to help local plants succeed.
This shift toward more complex digital workflows is being further accelerated by a new generation of workers whose gaming backgrounds have trained them to navigate highly interactive, realistic three-dimensional simulations.. By continuously feeding operational data back into its systems, Magna is elevating the skills of its workforce, streamlining its design-for-manufacturing processes, and building a highly efficient, autonomous future.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Defining AI in Manufacturing
2:40 Robotics
4:42 Open Source Models & Data Sovereignty
8:34 Deploying Tech Globally
11:07 Labs vs. Active Factory Floors
13:06 Scale Is the Real Bottleneck
16:56 Humanoid Robots
21:13 Gaming and the Evolving Workforce
28:57 Magna Data Flywheel
31:06 The Future of Robotaxi Manufacturing
32:32 Future of Magna
33:56 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, Indices 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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This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Tesla‘s unsupervised robotaxi launch in Miami, Waymo preparing to bring four new markets online, and NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison’s letter to autonomous vehicle operators.
On July 3rd, Tesla launched unsupervised robotaxi in Miami, their first market outside of Texas and California. We were there on the ground conducting field research with no safety monitor and no chase vehicle in sight, riding through torrential downpours and flooded streets. The fleet grew from two vehicles on day one to three vehicles by day three, and it was the best unsupervised robotaxi experience we have ever had.
While conducting field research, we counted over two dozen Cybercabs staged in Miami, every single one with a steering wheel and a Florida license plate. We believe these are validation vehicles and that Cybercab will be Tesla’s major robotaxi launch vehicle. Notably, Tesla’s operating domain extends further west than Waymo’s, wrapping around the back side of Miami International Airport.
As Tesla scales in Miami, NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison sent a letter to autonomous vehicle operators on July 8th citing a pattern of driverless vehicles interfering with police, fire, and EMS. The timing was notable, as our Tesla robotaxi flawlessly pulled over for an ambulance during our Miami rides. Mr. Morrison’s approach of loosening hardware rules while tightening behavioral scrutiny is the regulatory framework we believe the industry needs to scale.
Waymo opened employee rides in Las Vegas, San Diego, Tampa, and Denver, the final gate before public service. Tampa confirms the call The Road to Autonomy made three weeks ago when we uncovered Waymo’s 100,000 square foot warehouse lease near Tampa International Airport.
Beyond the four new cities, OMEGA uncovered corporate filings pointing to potential Waymo deployments in France, Spain, and the Netherlands, along with an Alphabet entity in Singapore holding $21 billion that we verified as a wholly owned Waymo subsidiary through the Delaware Chancery Court.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Grayson and Walt discuss Baidu publicly disclosing 143,000 autonomous driving miles in Hong Kong and Zelos securing Malaysia’s first L4 public road permit for driverless delivery.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Tesla Launches Robotaxi in Miami
8:50 Tesla's Miami Service Area Compared to Waymo's
14:35 NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison's Letter to Autonomous Vehicle Operators
19:13 Waymo's New Markets: Las Vegas, San Diego, Tampa, and Denver
23:02 Denver: Waymo's First Snow and Ice Market
26:41 OMEGA uncovers Waymo's European Grand Ambitions
29:32 Waymo's Playbook
32:01 Uber's Autonomy Partners Struggles
34:27 Foreign Autonomy Desk
35:21 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 Tesla’s Unsupervised Robotaxi launch in Miami, Waymo’s July 4th stumble in San Francisco, and Momenta’s oversubscribed IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
On July 5, 2026, Tesla launched Unsupervised Robotaxi service in Miami, its first unsupervised market outside of Texas, with retrofitted Model Ys operating through heavy rain and flooded roadways during the heart of hurricane season.
Grayson was on the ground for launch day, riding through South Florida’s mini lakes without a single hesitation from the vehicle, and uncovered a Cybercab staging lot near Miami International Airport with dozens of vehicles ready to deploy. The Miami launch is a deliberate stress test of Tesla’s camera-only system against the exact adverse weather conditions currently under NHTSA engineering analysis, and the receipts reveal a premium pricing experiment running 3X to 4X the base fare of Tesla’s Texas markets.
Then there is Waymo, whose vehicles bricked across San Francisco on the 4th of July as fireworks, road closures, dense crowds, and connectivity failures overwhelmed the fleet. Vehicles idled until their batteries depleted and had to be towed, one Waymo burned, and San Francisco officials have launched inquiries into the incident.
The July 4th stumble potentially exposed a remote assistance bottleneck that makes Waymo’s lean human supervision model the critical scaling constraint in burst demand emergencies, threatening the path to one million weekly rides as regulators eye special event requirements and remote operator staffing ratios.
Closing out the show, Grayson and Rob discuss Momenta’s listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as the market’s first physical AI stock, with the retail tranche oversubscribed 414 times and 14 cornerstone investors including BlackRock, Fidelity International, GIC, Mercedes-Benz, and BYD.
With its software running in over 900,000 vehicles and licensing revenue growing 42-fold over three years, Momenta’s IPO signals that institutional investors are shifting their preference away from speculative capital-intensive deployments towards proven physical AI providers.

Episode Chapters
00:00 KPMG Sponsor Introduction
01:16 Signal 1: Tesla Launches Unsupervised Robotaxi in Miami
38:38 Signal 2: Waymo's July 4th Stumble in San Francisco
1:11:27 Signal 3: Momenta IPOs on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange

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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.

Brett Suma, President and COO of Bot Auto, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Bot Auto’s playbook for autonomously driving one billion autonomous miles in four years.
On April 29th by completing its first humanless run from Houston to Dallas. To achieve long-term growth and commercial success, Bot Auto is rejecting the standard driver-as-a-service intermediary model used by its competitors. Instead, the company is building direct relationships with shippers and designing a utility grid of capacity focused on solving network sequencing, lane selection, and utilization.
As the company focuses on capital-efficient deployment, Bot Auto plans to sidestep raising large funding rounds to purchase depreciating operations assets. Instead, the company will rely on traditional financing methods, established banking relationships, and an experienced sales force to scale its tractor and trailer counts. With a comprehensive five-year financial roadmap in place, Bot Auto is positioning itself to scale organically based on market demand, setting a disciplined target of one billion autonomous miles within the next four years.

Episode Chapters
0:00 Why Bot Auto
4:56 April 29th Humanless Houston to Dallas Run
9:52 Economics of Humanless Miles
14:36 Building a Trucking Business
17:17 Capacity as a Utility Grid, Not Truck Counts
24:19 Bot Auto's Business Model
29:34 CapEx and Financing Trucks
32:15 Hidden Risk of Operating a Mixed Fleet
41:49 Staying Disciplined as Bot Auto Grows
44:24 One Billion Autonomous Miles in Four Years
47:36 AUTNMY AI

--------
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, Indices 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

Follow The Road to Autonomy Indices
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 end of Waymo and Uber's partnership in Phoenix, Tesla's Cybercab hitting the streets of Austin branded for America 250 and Waymo's "Because they're everything" World Cup campaign.
As Tesla gets closer and closer to putting the Cybercab into service, the U.S. Government is inching toward a national framework that would allow vehicles with no steering wheel and no pedals to deploy across all 50 states and charge for rides.
It is the regulatory environment that we believe Tesla is waiting to change before deploying Cybercab into the fleet, even if the rides are free. As Tesla waits for regulatory certainty, The Road to Autonomy broke the news that Waymo and Uber quietly ended their Phoenix partnership, noticing an update on the Uber autonomous vehicle site.
The Phoenix partnership, which lasted 948 days, consisted of a fleet of 12 vehicles that serviced a 180 square mile area. Important to note that this was a dedicated fleet for Uber and the vehicles were not part of the traditional Waymo fleet.
Now that Waymo and Uber have divorced in Phoenix, we believe it is only a matter of time until they divorce in Austin, where the service has been live for 482 days, and Atlanta, where the service has been live for 370 days. Both partnerships could unwind by the first quarter of 2027.
On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Grayson and Walt discuss the global growth of FSD and Volkswagen and Bosch ending their automated driving partnership, the latest in a long line of stalled autonomy efforts at the German automaker.

Episode Chapters
00:00 Happy 250th Birthday, America
1:15 Waymo and Uber Phoenix Divorce
5:47 Dara, Nuro and Wayve Signals
8:24 Who Could Backfill Phoenix for Uber?
13:52 The Fizzling Demand Narrative
17:51 Cybercab, Branded for America 250
21:53 Regulatory, Not Safety, Is Holding Cybercab Back
24:50 Tesla Semi
25:54 Waymo's World Cup Because They're Everything Campaign
28:06 Robotaxis at Airports
29:32 Chinese Made Vehicles
31:11 Foreign Autonomy Desk
34:15 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.