Cybercab Day Arrives as Robotaxis Become Bankable

0:00Walt, it happened under in Bargo for whatever reason, but Tesla threw their Cyber Cab launch party in Austin at Austin City limits. I'm sitting here hoping the great Willie Nelson was going to come out me the first rider. Unfortunately, Willie wasn't there. Elon wasn't there. Limited stats as Tesla height machine geared up. Low and behold on the right shoulder came the press release cannon every company in autonomy dropping bombs and press releases all over the place. They did that way Mo tapped the bond market bond way Mo bond. Let's start with what happened at Austin City limits where a good friend David Moss was there with his father live and in person. I mean, when I saw one of David Moss's rides in the Cyber Cab and he was playing, I think it was Kanye. I was assuming that you were going to lead in with some some type of Kanye lyrics or some type of lyrics. So I'm thankful for a listener's say that we didn't get a rap opening this week.

1:04But look Cyber Cab, this is, you know, this is a pretty big event, right? You literally have today in this market more than a few cars throughout the entire ODD taking paid rides in a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no break. And unlike the other car vehicle that did this, which was Zooks in Las Vegas, it'll go wherever you want it to go. It doesn't go to six or seven locations. And from what I've seen thus far hadn't stopped in the middle of any any intersections. I mean, I realize that our people are always going to try and tear things down. That's fine. It's not at a hundred cars. I don't think yet. So it hasn't hit the milestone that you and I have set to deem that a market commercial. But like this is a pretty monumental event. It's I guess it's a little odd that that Elon wasn't there, but but makes such a big deal that like at this, whatever this event that they had for the for the influencers among them.

2:08You know, that's not the that's not the story here. Like the story is like that the cybercubs are in the market taking paid rides in the full ODD. Like I don't know how you view that other than being a pretty big milestone for autonomy in this country. If not globally. It's a major milestone for autonomy. Tess was doing the one thing the US open isn't doing. They're inviting the influencers in to see this because Elon understands the power of X when the my opinion. One of the reasons why he bought Twitter, but I got to tell you all you and I analyze this. Yes, it is a it is a historic moment. Despite the let's call that the negative Nellie Brigade. I'm just going to say this for the record. It seems to me in my analysis that there is a coordinated attack to make this not looking important through various different folks in the media and influencer channels. Maybe they need to go down a few honeyduses of the US open to realize that this is a very important moment not just for Tesla, but for the entire autonomy economy. I don't disagree with you. There was obviously press releases ready to go media talking points that were sent out.

3:13And based on some of the conversations that you and I have had. Yeah, I mean, I get it because that's that's what fear. That is what you know, fear drives in the market. So look, we'll have to monitor this close. It will see, you know, how many cars they get there will be in in Texas in a couple of weeks and you know, have an opportunity to get in some of those cars. In Austin, just look for context, right? I mean, they hit a million unsupervised robot taxi miles. That's obviously, you know, much less than the 200 million that wemo has. But okay, so what? Like they are now commercial in the market. And it's just growth. And competition from here. By the way, the number of miles that they put on where I thought I didn't think that this was going to happen until year end. These guys cranked out 620,000 additional miles. Since the last six weeks, it sounds like if that's if my math is correct, maybe my math is off. I'm sure some of our listeners can help me out with that.

4:14But since the safety monitors came out, they put on a lot of miles and now you look in the market. And there's these gold cars everywhere, which by the way is a complete counterpoint to an episode that we did probably over a year ago, where we talked about the benefits of not having all of these sensors on the top and not being, you know, not standing out as an autonomous vehicle. These cybercats clearly stand out a lot in Austin from what we've seen. They do stand out and you miss the key point there when you said a million miles, a million unsupervised miles. I'm like some companies Tesla just closes supervised versus unsupervised miles. I'm never going to stop on that until the market agrees with it into into wave. I mean, we're going to get this later. I just got to get Julian in the team a huge shout out. Thank you for putting out an honest press release and we'll get to that later, but thank you. You're doing it the right way back to Tesla. I like it that it stands out. We were you and I had these great tacos in Austin and we're talking about this Walt Disney analogy of just kind of blending in and then cybercab is growing on me.

5:21One of the things that going back to X that we've seen the pricing is different. They're pricing it as a two cedar, not a four cedar. So it's it's even more affordable, which I'm sorry. Uber bulls is going to put more pressure on Uber cybercab scales because you're going to undercut the price even further. Look, I am not going to I'm going to stay consistent. I think with what I've said historically on this podcast about pricing, like you cannot draw any conclusions from day one pricing. You don't know if they're generating profit on this. Like this is not a truly public product yet. So you can have companies that that try and price aggressively to send messages or to try and grab share. However, like we did go and see how this car is made. We have a good understanding of the cost of this car relative to where we most cost is. And certainly some of the other cars that Uber is partnering with their market. It's substantially lower. But I'm not going to advertise over a half a million or a million miles right for a utilization that Uber CEO himself, Dara has said.

6:26Autonomous cars are utilized much higher than a typical human driver. I don't think that's crazy to understand why that's why that's the case. So forget where the pricing is today. I think it's interesting. But ultimately you know the cost structure of this is much lower. And then the most important thing, Grayson, you've got a cost structure. You got what you price in the market. The most important thing competition, but competition is what drives lower prices and more innovation. So if you go to Austin today, you can get an Uber, you can get a WAMO. Now you can get a Tesla. You know, for a robot taxi and competition is is again, you know, what makes our country great in terms of the innovation and building business models that are ultimately good for consumers. So you're right. Competition is the free market. Let the product win. Don't sit here and try and put regulatory modes inside with unions to meet your current objective, which was your not your old objective. We'll get into that a little bit later.

7:32But Austin and then you know, we talk a lot about it, but Zooks has clearance now to charge. So perhaps they're going to get going in Austin. They've been tested in there for a while. So you're going to have three. You're going to have Uber. You're going to have way more on Uber, which you're going to have to play autonomous roulette, which is a not a good experience. And you've got Tesla cyber cab, Tesla robot taxi. And then perhaps the Zooks mobile and even perhaps motion or loosen rules in the market. So that's going to be a very hot market. But when we look at that market to before we get back to Tesla, the one company that's kind of disappeared. And this has been their home base for a long time of testing, even before Tesla relocated there. VW moia you don't hear about them in Austin very much, even though that's their home testing base in America is going to put that out there. But back to Tesla, you're right about pricing. Just a little bit clarity. Here we just got a tweet about 10 minutes ago. Walt cyber cab is open into the public at 2 p.m. CST today. So members of the public are going to start writing it to PMCST will be in there in a few weeks. It is a good positive sign. Now the clock ticks to how long does Dallas Austin Miami come online with cyber.

8:38Now let's get to the foot that we were getting humbled with yesterday. And I think there's in my dealings with investors. You know, I think there's a fair amount of misunderstanding. I'm not sure where this information is coming from. I'm guessing. I'm guessing. I think I know where it's coming from. But I'm not going to I don't know for sure. So let's not speculate. But I think there was not to pick on somebody, but sometimes some certain people are easy to pick on. In this case, Gene monster. Once again, with a tweet. I think encapsulates what I've been hearing today. This is what he tweets. Nitsa needs a wake up call. Nitsa needs a wake up call. Administrator Morrison, the agency quote, rain on the Tesla cybercat launch by opening a probe into Tesla's self certification. And then there's an M dash. So I don't know if it's AI or he uses M dashes. But anyway, specifically, whether a vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals meets federal safety standards. I think the question for Nitsa, why slow the roll out of autonomous vehicles when the best data we have say there's seven to 10 times table blah blah blah blah.

9:41So I think that the problem here is that or the challenge here and maybe I'll let you because you and Rob have done far more work in this than I have is like, this is like what is expected. When you self certified, it is the job of Nitsa to actually watch what's going on. And then if they have questions. And clearly, this is a new vehicle. They're going to have questions. See what's going. They're not stopping Tesla from doing anything. They're not slowing that anything. They're seeing how the roll out is going. And for good reason, like the administrator. I think who is very pro innovation, you can look at the CNBC clip. I've put it up on my on my Twitter feed X feed. If you want to take a look at how he's talked about this. Should be focused on say he's doing his job. That's his job. But at the same time, he's pro innovation is not just going to let do a knee jerk reaction like we've seen from so many other politicians. On shutting things down because of the perception of what a sensor what sensors are needed or whatever other kind of fun has been pushed out into the market. But again, I'm sorry for going on for so long.

10:44Grayson, you and Rob have done much more work on this. What are your thoughts on this tweet and all of this is buzz around Nitsa. I think that we as highly inappropriate to to put Mr. Munster and say Nitsa needs a way of call is incorrect. Furthermore, it is factually incorrect. And I would encourage Mr. Munster to go through the vast archive in the public media where secretary Duffy has spoken about America's need to lead on autonomous vehicles and setting the regulatory environment so America can accelerate this read the public statements and speeches given by administrator Morrison on Nitsa. On Nitsa's commitment to scaling autonomous vehicles in America, both secretary Duffy and administrator Morrison are well aware of the competitive threat to China faces. And this does not come as a surprise if you listen to autonomy markets or autonomous singles or reading the research that we put out wrote to autonomy. Nitsa is merely doing their job. Nitsa does not need a wake up call point blank. Nitsa is doing their job and I commend administrator Morrison and secretary Duffy for putting autonomy front and center and caring about it because Mr. Munster.

11:54If you go back three and a half years to the Biden administration, this vehicle would never be on the road. And if you don't believe me, go read the public documents in the federal register. That's right. If the Biden was still president or Harris, this vehicle would not be on the road. So that needs a wake up call, not Nitsa. I don't mean to make Jean the punching bag. He's a very nice person I met him many times. He's just reflecting I think what's in the investor base. I think there's so many people that are kind of down on Elon for a variety of reasons that are always looking for the negative. And again, we were dealing with this yesterday prior to the look. Just to be clear, like if this rollout doesn't go well, right, if these cybercabs start to get into accidents and aren't acting safely. First of all, I'm just going to assume based on my interaction with, you know, both Tesla and SpaceX. It is this is gets back to what I've said many times in this podcast. There's a greater culture of safety at this company that I think anyone gives them credit for.

13:01But aside from that, like then, yeah, then the Nitsa will play a role like they did with Zooks. But again, if this rollout goes well, like an this could take an evaluation investigation, whatever you want to call it days, weeks, months, like you might not hear anything out of Nitsa over that period. Am I getting that wrong or is that your understanding as well? I'm getting that right. This could go on for weeks. It could go on for months with with no commentary either out of Tesla or out of Nitsa. So this is just how this process works. But I want to point out a big difference. And I'm not a regulatory expert. That's Rob's department. You and I had the very fortunate opportunity to walk the cybercabin line. We got to see the giga casting. We got to see the safety breakdowns. We got to see some incredible stuff on that tour. The cybercab is built on a factory line. The Zooks, which will be releasing a road to a town report on is upfitted. There's a difference. Yeah, there is a difference in how self-certification works. But again, let's stick to the central message here, which is like an investigation is what it is. That's what they should be doing.

14:10That's what all Americans should want them to do. All humans that you want these cars to be safe. And we'll see how this this rolls out. And like we've always said, like safety first, you don't like it doesn't help anyone. And by the way, Nitsa is doing a favor for the industry, whether it's Tesla or a V ride, which had its own issues in Dallas and investigations related there in Dallas or Zooks, which has been, you know, to certain extent limited. It's a benefit to the industry because you want everyone to be safe. If one of these companies has some major, you know, accidents, it's going to impact the ability for all time to run out in any of these cities. So like, you know, again, administrator, Mars and everything I've seen. I think he's doing a great job putting safety first. But I don't think that has anything to do with slowing Tesla if anything, Tesla has been the biggest gating factor on themselves as they try to get this this technology up to a point where they're where they're ready to go. And by the way, one of the things I noticed on that.

15:11To digress a little bit when I saw some of these influencers that were taking the rise today, the drop off points were like three minutes to the walk, whatever it was, like it wasn't the exact drop off point. So I think that might have been the kind of end around on the issues that we've had historically why we thought this thing was getting held back the pickup and drop off points are certainly a challenge for all autonomy companies. And maybe the way they're doing it is they've now identified safe pickup and drop off locations that might require, you know, a short walk. It's not the exact location that we tried to do in our past rides on Robotaxi and had some issues with. For the most part for Robotaxi's in general drop off and pick up is a challenging aspect that still not solved. And for the audience of you and NHTSA what is the S4 and it's a stand safety. And Mr. Morrison and the team and Nitsa are putting safety first and they are building trust with the public. And because this is what happens in this polarizing society.

16:13And it's a did not issue a letter there would be outcry all this outcry going on what's wrong they don't care about safety. Now they do care about safety with this loud mouth audience over here the same was that we're colluding in my opinion to make this a botched launch wanted to fail. Because there are individuals I've gotten emails must have lighter you don't need fucking light are end of the end of the subject. Okay, you don't fucking need light are whoa whoa you're going to apologize to my mom for that language. Mrs. Pysick I'm sorry but when you get outlandish emails you have to comment and use language that in certain individuals understand. They are proven it first of all I am not I am not on board with you there they proven it for 30 cars in a ODD of one market that they've been there for a year. So on one hand I'm going to say like I'm going to pat us both in the back for having open minds where other people have had very close minds on this topic and I kind of liked the fact that they're one of their CTOs that was that was presenting at this event last night.

17:22Talk about all the experts that were out there that were insisting you needed the thing so I think you know hats off to them but again like there still could be like that the light are as better and then as they get into the night or different weather conditions there's still more learning that I am going to keep my mind open again as many people like to denigrate both sides listening to both sides but for sure those that are absolutists and I think you were a little bit absolutist there I think that's it's a bit too far. Anyone claiming you can't do LIDAR like we can't do without LIDAR you know whatever you know I've got 9000 miles I think now on my FSD versus those with LIDAR where no no no disrespect away but they you know they have LIDAR but in the first ride that someone did I think from one of the journalists that when they're there they had two interventions on in one trip I never had we didn't have had two interventions in any trip that we took in a Tesla for the past you know years since this thing is going to be a lot more fun. Years since this thing has been launched let alone you know in our own FSD you know vehicles.

18:26Am I a absolutist? No did the was that statement made us an absolute yes you could say it was made out of out of anger of frustration there you go frustration. Tesla and the team with Elon the team of Tesla AI have built is completely different and I don't think anybody is truly replicated that. The company is trying to replicate what they built with vision only. There is not a one size fits all for autonomy okay and for for individual sit here you must have a lot of individuals to sit here and say LIDAR is a crutch what each company run the race and build the stack and deployed on the ground and don't pontificate over nonsense to get your point across because you invest billions of dollars in something that's not actually working. I'm going to repeat an analogy that I've repeated in the past because I know you're going to have a listener be like would you put your child in a car that didn't have the ultimate safety of the LIDAR. So like let me just acknowledge and I'm not even saying that this is true for the Tesla bulls don't come at me for this but let's just say for sake of argument that LIDAR adds another level of safety

19:33that you don't have from the camera approach. I'm not saying I agree with that but let's just for sake of this argument as soon as that's the case. Okay but if the robot taxi is in Tesla's case with the cameras still much safer than a human driver we're really just above where the human driver is not to mention all the other benefits relative to where wemo and Tesla and autonomy approaches. And then okay getting back to the criticism how could you put your children there like well you know I own a model why I think that's the safest car in the market. Other people will spend for a Volvo which has been rated the safest you know car in the market. There's a lot of people that put their their kids in cars that are not very high on the ratings of safety. So I say to you look at your own car and check out where there's their safety standard or where they rank on the safety of whoever ranks and consumer reports or whatever it is. And I ask you why are you putting your kids in those cars if it's not the safest car on the market.

20:34There's socio-economic issues and why that is that but. It's more than socio-economic but because because grace and some people are putting their kids in a Porsche right and then and they're driving their kids around in a Porsche that's not a socio-economic issue do you think a Porsche is safe relative to a Volvo now have to correct it's Porsche it's not Porsche Porsche. Oh whatever well you know I don't own one. So the issue is is a lot of it is politics at the end of the day and it's just this madness that surrounds a company and an individual like them dislike them. So he's forced in foremost at that company you and I've experienced it we both own Teslas we've been in Robo taxi we look second they fundamentally care about safety into all the haters that want to hate. If Tesla was not as safe as they were nobody would buy him why is the model why the best selling car into that question because they don't have to range them in syndrome they're buying a safe product.

21:43I talked about this on the ledship podcast as well. Whatever I mean it is it is what it is. Let's let's move on to there was other news in this in this day of disappointments the day of you know suppose a disappointment which was let the main line media run on this thing they also had a thing pop up on their website that said basically come help build the robot taxi network and they have people submit. They have people submit their names and their companies and whether they were interested in purchasing a fleet of cybercam mobility hubs or infrastructure so they're like already on to that next step of not Tesla owning every car but you know to us I guess you would call this private ownership it's not necessarily you you only at one car but I'm sure that is part of the the you know the process here that they're going to get to but that was pretty big in and of itself. And I think I overshadowed by the event of the cyber cab launching can you kind of break it down a little bit more for us it got overshadowed by the event but didn't get over over overshadowed by us I think it is a massively important moment and I'll say point blank I think it's a bigger moment than the influencer launch what test is signaling to the market is that they want to do a franchise model.

23:05And there was a robot taxi company back in the day which already made anonymous was going to divide up markets and sell licenses to that market a franchise model if that's where test is going and they say okay well you can get the new you can get the try state area license okay grace you can get the self Florida license okay David Moss you get the Seattle license. That's going to be interesting I filled out the form now I applied I want to see what happens I'm interested in owning a fleet of these things and I think there's others are our friend Sergei over a coup he's got 20 300 inquiries of individuals that say how do we ensure this it is a positive step that there could be a lot more brewing there and it could be a franchise model. And for those that understand franchising not all QSR its quick service restaurants franchise models are identical so if if Tesla is going to go all the way to the Chick-fil-A model not so interesting if they're going to go more the Wendy's McDonald's model very interesting potentially to individual so we're going to have to see how that modeling goes I don't really think it's going to be a franchise that we describe it in terms of someone getting.

24:09You know effectively exclusive access to a market I just think that in a market if you want to you know run 20 cars they're going to allow you to own and plug into the network for for 20 cars they're not going to allow those same cars to plug into. Uber or lift network and I think you start with 20 30 cars because that's the effect of that's the more efficient way to build this thing out but what you end with though is what if I just buy one car and for my car it. There's no steering wheel missing it's going to be my personal usage and so anything that's on the network is free to me and then I can plug it into the network for usage at night so then you address this issue that a lot of people have brought up in terms of like oh what are you doing the peak hours how do you have to have a fleet of acts to handle for the peak hours well if you have private ownership. Even on an individual car basis where someone can use that car during the day and then turn it out to the network at night that becomes your your peak hour now someone might argue like well how's that going to work someone's going to want to use the car it's the same concept as that exists today with Uber like where do you think those Uber drivers are doing they're using they're not using their cars at the peak hour they're actually out there being workers in those peak hours so it's effectively the same concept you you own an asset.

25:29In this case one that's probably less than $30,000 right so depending on what type of car that that you're getting from Uber typically higher than that at least the cars that I take maybe down on the Uber X on the Uber X level that is now you know a revenue generating asset for you as well as your own personal autonomous vehicle and because this is a ton of markets and you're Mr. Wall Street so I got to bring this up Tesla has the ability to finance the fleet for you. That is a big difference compared to a traditional Uber driver that has to get independent financing to get a vehicle to drive on Uber yes another was the fair deal back in the day but Tesla has their has their own bank own own underwriting own credit the ability to underwrite these vehicles. So that's not count that out now before we move on to Uber just one tempering item on all of this Tesla bullishness that we just delivered.

26:30For those that are there saying all at once you know this whatever the comment is like oh you know slow then all. Just we've said this many times in the podcast it's not going to be all at once like you're not going to have 10 markets just light up with 500 cars there are in our view and I think this is you know an educated view there's work to be done in individual markets as they rolled out now look they're not going to be limited like WAMO has been limited into the extent of upfitting and getting jaguars and then waiting for the you know the the O highs to be done and upfitting those they can crank out a lot so that. The pace will be faster but the pace is not all at once this is the absoluteism that that I just really disfavor it will be methodical it can be quick let's see how they do in Austin first let's get let's get them to 100 Austin and then maybe some of these other markets and then and then we'll reevaluate how quick that pace can be but I think you have to temper some of those expectations that's what we do here mean where the truth detectives and the inspectors ever turn you on use but you're right.

27:36It's it's going to be a slow gradual roll out which goes back to what you and I have said for a long time and we get a lot of flack for it. Test the fundamentally cares about safety. I want to leave you with that as we go on to the next action. Test the fundamentally cares about safety. Next thing is I'll give financial times credit I think this was a strategically timed release of this article which really wasn't new news it was a bit of a rehash with some additional quotes including from uber themselves which was a little surprising honestly. But just talking about how they're pushing on lawmakers in Jersey and DC and you know and this again something we've talked about here before on this podcast that human drivers have to be 85% of rides during this three year pilot obviously this could be restrictive to autonomous companies. And it's what we call you know regulatory capture in uber's own policy paper that they used to support this this was published back in May of 26.

28:42They actually conceded the driver utilization and hour earnings are already declining in San Fran and L.A. Which is interesting right because did we see on Twitter a lot of reports pushing how there's no impact on us in San Fran and L.A. And yet part of the argument here is that oh that the hourly wages are down I think there's a grid wise analytic study of some avi active cities were hourly wages were dropping three to 6% year every year in San Fran L.A. Austin and Phoenix while rideshare markets without robot taxis had a slight pain crease but even a uber's own policy paper said driver utilization and hourly earnings were already declining. So which is it are they having no impacts on you in the market or they having impact in your market and is this reaction of regulatory capture. You know a bit over the top I mean even in this article. Um uber CEO Andrew McDonald Mac we love the guy you know I think he does a good job a great job at uber acknowledged that the stance did look strange he called it ironic.

29:42Right why because of how uber entered the market they entered the market they grab their share their 80% share whatever 70% share whatever it is now they want to. You know capture that through this regulatory these regulatory walls mean if I was rip fan winkle and I went to sleep and I came back I'd be questioning everything that's happening with uber. First they wanted to fight the man being the taxes in the unions now they want to be the man. Okay so here's the thing and I'm just going to put this out there just to kind of just to just nag a little bit. If uber wants to buddy up to the unions why not let a b5 become law where every driver becomes a union member. Why not come out and support that that you stopped and you fought it tooth and nail and now you're going up to the unions to stop autonomy. You can't have your cake and eat it too this is not me on to net. I mean what is fundamentally going on with uber I'll tell you what in my opinion is fundamentally going on.

30:42Follow the commentary on X ubers under siege from autonomy point blank and they are desperately trying to do tactics with regulatory capture and change the narrative by rolling out certain individuals on TV and in the media to do this. But I got to give raffee in the team of the FT a lot of credit for publishing the ground truth the FT is in my opinions doing the best job outside Joanne Mueller at Axios of covering robotaxies in the world. I mean this is strange times I'm going to go call up standard coup d'oeuvre can bring back Dr. Strangelove. I don't know what's going on time to ride the bomb look again. I don't blame them for what they're doing but it's also a tell action speak louder than words right you're talking about autonomy at the same time trying to kneecap autonomy. Right and if you're a partner if you're neuro if you're wave if you're a V ride and you're seeing this guy like capping your volumes at effectively 15% in these markets. Not to mention you're already fighting for share among the multiple partners that uber is trying to go on the market like that's these guys are still need to raise capital in many cases like that is not.

31:49I think an ideal situation the counter argument to this and hopefully we'll get Jason you know on the podcast to kind debate this live is like this is the only way this is what uber said this is what's Jason saying like you know there's everyone is so fearful of job loss. You know you have to do it there's no other way to well there are markets where you can do that right and again let's get back to uber's own statements about the very very small percentage that autonomy has in these markets they're not losing 2 million jobs overnight this is already going to be a process that occurs over time. Okay as that process occurs as that transition to autonomy occurs what's happening at the same time you're saving lives you're having lower costs to the consumers because of competition and you're creating new economy jobs to service these vehicles. You let's talk a little bit about what they're what they're hiring in Texas these are the other states so it's not like this binary thing were like 3 2 million jobs or 2 million driver jobs are just going to disappear overnight it's not going to work that way I get why you frame it that way right you're framing it that way to create the fear to in order to protect the market share of uber.

33:05The reality is that's not the way it's going to work so look if individual states let it happen I said this many times the podcast before like you know you we have what's local and mandami are doing in New York. When the citizens see the benefits of lower cost cleaner safer more consistent rise in these other states the consumers were ultimately going to demand this that's my view. It's right to then I mean in early education mandami wants to ban AI and I disagree with Bill Akman is over stance but I agree with his stance going after mandabi saying the kids need access to this technology so you're right once in an individual or family gets access to technology I'm going to give a great example to climb at hogging face and with him in the robotics team done. We've made these cute robots for kids and it's a great exercise where a parent can sit with a child probably as little as 6 or 7 and build robotics and learn deep deep models and deep learning and deep thinking I mean that is just a fascinating thing to team of hugging face your your your pollen robotics great the new duck I'm still on the wait list is great keep going and encouraging children to experiment the new technologies now jets now that you don't hugging face please keep the open source train going now that I said that yes what's going to happen and I'm going to do it.

34:21I predicted this probably about 15 years ago individuals are going to go to a city where there are robot taxis unsupervised for the record operating and they're going to come back in the pressure on the local city councils and the local governments to allow this technology it's going to happen and there is going to be a tsunami I'll call the autonomous wave that is going to sweep the country at some point let's just over to we know they've got their announcement I think again directed it at you know during the day. We're in week when everyone you test that was going to have this event aside from adding additional cars in the market which is what we talked about I think the last week's podcast it's like what they did the first time by the way the first time they did that it was noticeable right you would go to Austin there to be weemos everywhere and they were like flight in the market when Tesla had very few cars in the market now with the flood of these golden these golden cybercabs in the market I think that impact was first probably a bit muted.

35:21To say the least they also by the way open public rides in Denver San Diego in Tampa so now your commercial markets are up to 14 US cities cities they talked about a fleet size of 4,000 what's seen low because I think we had gotten an update back in May of like 3,800 so I don't know if that 4,000 must be rounded down I'm guessing that they've got many more than 4,000 vehicles in the market especially now that oh high is going to be it's going to be cool. So obviously weemo continues to pay forward and is still the leader for sure in this market weemo is the leader in the air scaling 14 cities driver out unsupervised commercial operations Tampa sunny environment San Diego sunny environment which was not talked a lot about the Denver Statement did a good job on this the local Denver paper weemos going to be operating in a cold weather environment where it snows That's something to watch I plan on going there this winter to ride in the oh high in the inclimat weather that's something to really watch and see how this would be their first cold weather market how the oh high performs in that cold weather that's something to watch one more thing there was some headlines about weemo being in the final stage to raise about $3 billion in debt.

36:40This is the I think the first ever borrowing this is less than a year since they did that $6 billion $16 billion dollar sorry equity round. So you know a lot of a lot of reasons to invest obviously buying all these cars these oh highs hopefully getting that Hyundai plant going. I just grace and I also I think you sleuth that you put your inspector clue so had on and which you have a new one you have a baseball cap of inspector clue so nice but. Did you see some advertising for like ops managers is there a possibility that that weemo is going to start building more of its own service locations or is this just a manager to bring on third parties to put that layer together for their network. So now the trusty inspector hats on not not the baseball and the baseball one is why we're in the field and the reason why I'm wearing that I'm teaching the audience there's a lot more field work coming and I have a special guest is joining me on a lot of that field with can you know who you are sir can't wait to get out in the field with you.

37:45As it relates to logistics manager yes there was a hiring that popped up on the waymo jobs career a logistics individual with experience of managing logistics what this tells me and really between the lines and reading the public statements that we know has made around the categories and the requirements you have to have. They are looking for an individual is a head of logistics to oversee all the logistical components to me that says that waymo is getting ready to take possession of the Hyundai's there's more vehicles coming it also says to me there is more depot infrastructure coming and they need an individual to keep the team cook line to keep the trains moving on time and to me it signals scale and in the one of the key requirements in the job posting was international experience. Waymo is getting ready to put their foot on the excel already 14 markets by next this time next year or probably 28 to 30 markets they are not slowing down there only accelerating so that sounds like a role that's that's managing third party partners for a lot of logistics as opposed to investing in billion or only just six I know last week you had a great podcast with the founder of Volterra.

38:59Do it's that whose buildings you know charging obviously right now they would only deal with one a v company at a time or one whatever fleet at a time but ultimately I think that's a that's a shared thing. The one of the interesting takeaways that I had from that podcast creation which I meant to ask you about was him saying the importance of finding locations of that had zoning for car washes like it's an incremental problem if you want to have like a true service facility for car washes so we've already talked about that. The challenges of finding something where you know you could find the power that's needed right I mean the typical process here is like you bring a truck of fuel to a generator to charge the electric cars then maybe you get the gas at the hook up and then maybe a year later you get the power that you need. Now we're saying on top of that maybe you need to coordinate not obviously in all locations you'll have these sub depots everywhere but finding locations where car washes is this is there a model for private equity to just start to roll up a bunch of car washes and see if that's a location for for some of these the future of autonomy rides here lots private equities already rolling up car washes is his you and I both now it's amazing look at the numbers the amount of cash the car washes spit off no pun intended they do a good job.

40:17I'm not a job of washing the money but I digress I digress on that statement. You are yes it's interesting when you when you talk to Frank if you'll terror you talk to Rob all the intricacies that go along with zoning and I had no idea how complex getting a zoning apartment approval is for a car wash. I think a lot more difficult than you think give me an example Tesla's depot in Las Vegas has been approved for a car wash I want to disclose the location of where it is but it's not exactly on the strip is more of an industrial area. Depots infrastructure are complex from a regulatory standpoint and yes you are going to see a lot of nuances of from the local regulatory things are putting in car washes putting in energy locations to schools it is a lot more complex than individuals actually think it is. So Wemma wasn't the only one to drop news the day of the Tesla event or around it are also our friends at Zooks drop something and even I think got some there's CEO chiming in about how great this was and specifically that they're going to begin driverless rides at Harry Reid International Airport the first AV service permitted the Vegas airport both terminals.

41:32This is very soon after the August 10th paid launch that we covered. Free rides to fairs to airport to access in under a month is pretty good and but my question though for you is well first of all my question to the tweet because you know how to do a little troll I'm like can I take it to the to the Cosmo because we know that the challenge it. Zooks is they only have limited air you know number of drop off locations but the bigger question grace and is like I thought that the the Nitz limitation they cap them at 45 miles an hour so how are they getting. To the airport if you have to take that road that has a higher speed do they basically get now get a waiver on being able to drive these things at the faster speed no they do not get a waiver this is triple A I have not been to Vegas in a while so the triple A. Average post speed that what you're supposed to is 40 miles an hour so technically Zooks. Is going to operate at 40 miles an hour it will be slow how much honking it will be I don't know looking forward to getting Vegas to experiment but they're within their within their legal right of the roadways to to operate there.

42:44The most important point and I am afraid to ask how much it's going to cost but I'm going to do it anyways because I'm going to go there and experience it. Drop off and pick up at the curb to team Zooks you get the clapy hat I think this is the first clapy hat I've ever given team Zooks but again you're getting the clapy hat because. Drop off and pick up curbside that is awesome now I'm afraid to ask what the surcharge is going to be because we know it's $40 at the sphere I'm afraid to ask what is at the airport but extremely well done with with curbside now what the question is. Does we mo get curbside next for this does test look at curbside next for this and if they do. Does Uber have a meltdown I mean you already covered the amount of advertising that Zooks does in that airport so it doesn't surprise me that they've built a strong strong relationship there if you claim you're going to take it but you're going to have to stay at a hotel that Zooks actually has a drop off location at unless you're going to take a you're going to connect.

43:55To another to another ride but I don't know and again getting back to the 45 miles an hour like they can go 40 but I thought the limitation was if the speed limit on the road was that high that that car was not allowed on the road I think we need to do a little bit more. Work on on how that all went down and and you know first first hand experience if anyone's out big is take one of these things and let us know how good how it's going. That wasn't the only news they also expanded to Houston and San Diego you know Houston is near and dear to our heart. It's they by the way painted this as a weather issue in its own talking about the heat in Houston the heavy rain that's in Houston they talked about San Diego the fog and the freeway car and so they're they're like playing up hey our Zooks is going to operate in more difficult location those are still warm locations let's be honest I'm going to see these things in the snow that that's the true I think challenge. For these things but Houston is interesting just because that's that's the market we identify where we thought that Nuro you know maybe should should identify.

45:02To launch in first given the challenges that you and Rob think that Nuro is going to have in getting the permitting that's required to launch that Nuro lucid Uber partnership in California by year in as as many people expect based on the regulatory environment is going to be in our belief Houston because they can. Charge for rise Uber is told the market that they are going to launch paid rides. I do not see any which way that that's going to happen in California this year paid rights. They can launch a service for free rise but I don't see a way they're going to get to paid rights unless I miss reading this but I believe that market is going to be Houston. Zooks is clearly expanding when I alluded to it in last week's newsletter that Zooks has grand ambitions and it's no longer rounding air. We're producing a report on that and all I'll say there's a lot more vehicles in different states of shape and Zooks is having you believe they have the ability from a vehicle standpoint to scale us while I say they have the vehicles.

46:06I still have questions around the technology and the roll out and still my belief that is it is over engineered and I was thinking about this the other day which I love to get your take on from the Zooks mobile. People go to Vegas and they bring big suitcases for whatever weird reason what's going to happen if you have two people with big with with big checked luggage getting into the Zooks mobile there's no trunk. There's plenty of room in that cab just like if I take a London taxi there's plenty of room in that cab you know for those luggage things or maybe they'll just get a second Zooks but can I get your impression on the is Houston and San Diego really something to brag about as it relates to weather is that really a weather challenge. San Diego no Houston yes Houston gets monsoon they get incredible heat the Houston weather mean from a heat perspective is hot but they're also testing in Miami which you know you can say Houston's hotter but I just think that they're looking at Houston from a deployment market I think this is gear I think they're using the guy say oh we're going there to test I think that's not necessarily true.

47:15I think they're going there to gear up to launch commercial service but because if you look at this they got to get out of Vegas they got to get into a real market not a an adult Disneyland market I'm not sure why heat is a challenge but whatever but I'll give you the heavy rain because we know that that obviously we must have had issues with heavy rain and the resulting flooding so if you're Zooks and you're framing this as like hey we're going to Houston to do weather validation as you're stated point. Then I can't wait for that first heavy rainstorm so are we going to assume that they will not suspend service during the heavy rains like we've seen we know I think in some cases even Tesla do don't know what we do know and there has been a public blog post so I want to slide this to a public blog post put up by Magnus Steiner that Zooks has done extensive rain testing in Austria the Magnus Steiner plant whether that translates into real world I'm not sure. I think the flooding issue for our frames at Waymo is close to being solved I have with David Moss and I were in a Tesla rubber taxi we handle the flood and that was a pretty big flood but Zooks we have yet to see them operate in a non dry environment because Vegas is a very dry environment so let's see how it truly operates and not testing putting paid passengers in the vehicle so we get unfiltered feedback is Vegas not get hot Vegas is scorching.

48:39Right so the heat thing I'm just enough at the heat thing that can't if that's a challenge then autonomous got a problem anyway let's go across the pond where you get you don't get heavy rains you get spritzy rains lovely weather in London. It's spitting out Uber and wave launched first hellable robo taxi service this week Mustang Machi's I believe small fleet. So your point earlier like hat tip clappy hat whatever you want get the clappy hat out the wave tweets are very plain about it super biased autonomous ride they said a train a TFL license private hired driver on board for every trip. Talk about the locations that it can and can't do you can request a robot that you only get matched are like pretty details and straightforward just the way we like to see it and then conversely. You had the uber framing which I think you know you had had some issues with last week first ever autonomous rise in the UK like no mention of all the stuff and I think.

49:49Getting back to the earlier kind of G monster like I think most people when they're when they're just digesting the information that's fed to them from these companies and all they see that that's why you you know when you have all of these online things about. Oh Uber's 15 partners and they launched in this market and launch in that market without the kind of recognition that you have a safety driver in there it's not as you to your point unsupervised so. To present it as such I think kind of helps that narrative continue to their benefit right so I think to waves credit because I think credibility is the greater issue here as it relates to autonomy you know they were a little bit more detailed and announcing this new market happy clapped to you. Frank Julian Alex Robb and the entire team at wave till your back so you get the clapy hack as you're the OG and you need to do great things there since the beginning. They did it right they clearly stated supervised rights waved not trying manipulate video footage to show that there was no driver like their partner did they set it straight and to team wave thanks for communicating.

51:05The truth with the market and not trying to stretch it into your partner uber please if you're there's a safe job please show the safe driver it's nothing to be embarrassed about please say that it's supervised there's nothing to be embarrassed about the technology is evolving I'm unfortunately way more lucky at the altar but your new partners are technologies evolving so be honest about it don't try and get cutesy and crafty we all see what happens when that happens. So no clapy hack for you. They still get a clapy hack because it is a market that launch for them you know another market that launch right they have a number of different markets that have launched with safety drivers and obviously with we ride you know without the safety driver. But I just when I saw that when I saw that wave tweet post I was like holy cow that was like very straightforward and it was so starkly different what their partner post which by the way you would think that it should be actually the opposite right where the technology company that that needs to raise probably more capital would be out there effectively hyping it as much as they can but.

52:16So it is so it goes I mean look not a great PR week for uber between the financial times article and how they manage this whole regulatory capture thing and then that you know not ideal. So we move on to what I'm going to call trucking depot because you had a couple quick things don't fast forward everyone foreign autonomy desk is next but trucking is a big industry stop the fast forwarding through trucking first you had secretary Duffy. He shut down 110 of these CDL schools so these are basically you know these drivers that have created the problem the IV angle here is obviously every driver that's pulled from the pipeline pipeline. Tighten the supply and these are the exact some belt lanes that are roaring Kodiak are running in so this is regulation is becoming an additional tailwind as if the trucking didn't already have plenty of tailwind so. I thought you know hats off to Duffy for doing that but I think this underscores the importance of of autonomy and trucking which is a huge market now meanwhile there's a there's a competitor in the market plus AI who's trying to go public again via new spec this one's called Texas ventures acquisition.

53:29You want to give us the history of the specs of plus AI there times the charm that's what they're hoping for. First two specs unfortunately didn't work out and now they're trying a new spec with a company that has interesting crypto and I'm not a spec expert I'm not going to comment on the likelihood of the outcome all I'll just say is that plus is probably hoping I'll guess that they're hoping that their time is the charm. This is going to plus post a bunch of revenue because they've had Amazon trucks right that historically that provided them with driver data that they've been able to monetize and sell for autonomy so that gives them a nice revenue number relative to what you've seen. Aurora and Kodiak have which are more traditional autonomy numbers but but just to put some hard numbers around this spec issue I think the first one was the Hennessy spec this this is back in 21 so five years ago. I think the initial valuation sought there was 3.3 billion and then the most recent one was Churchill that was 1.2 billion and this one I think the implied valuation is 800 million so you're really down pretty substantially from the first attempt.

54:43I'm not going to go public you know hopefully for their sake that they can get this capital in the door and kind of move that that model for meanwhile our friends at Aurora remember are coming up on a big analyst investor day down and Dallas we'll be down there doing other meetings as well and checking out some stuff in Dallas and Texas. Always love to get back down to Texas it is you know the state for I think autonomy let's not forget Kodiak announced this week that they've hauled 1 million tons of sand folio. It's only a ton of supervised for Atlas energy so can't forget that they're going to have fun and analyst day I won't be there don't worry I'll be on a secret mission doing something else. So let's go to what do we got on the foreign autonomy desk this week Grayson the foreign autonomy desk is great this week I've said this many times to Caster and Peter who were the co founders of applied intuition applied intuition is the most interesting company in autonomy and for those that put my money where I mouth is Caster and Peter have been on the road. To autonomy pie cast more than any other guest and they are coming back and once again applied intuition continues to make really great news this week they announced a partnership with human which is a holy omp citrary of the P.I.F.

55:55The public investment fund in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will they'll be partnering to deploy autonomous trucks and building an autonomous freight corridor in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia big move there for applied their stack is clearly scaling and for those that just want to go back in the way back machine with us do not forget applied intuition bought and bark so part of this is built on the old and bark stack. I think we also have some news out of D.D. who began their fully driverless service trials at least they have a next gen robot taxi they call the R2 bookable on the D.D. app so I think this is a company Chinese company obviously pairing in the demand network so like Uber with its own purpose bill vehicle right and so this is effectively a Tesla model or I guess you know probably going to be the way not the way model sorry because we know does not have the own purpose for the vehicle what what are your takeaways on on D.D.

56:58Going back eight years ago Alan Cornhouse you're going to have to fact check me on the salon cornhouse was a professor Princeton he hosts in a really great autonomous vehicle summit has done for a few years but way back in the day he did it and he brought the individuals from D.D. The way way back and then for a while D.D.s tech was far ahead so I'll I'll I'll been a frame this as a comeback Alan you might have better insight than I do but I'm going to frame this as a D.D. come back it's going to get interesting because their technology was ahead before something happened I don't know what happened not going to speculate on that. Positive so Beijing was on and that no no surprise here they're getting ready to expand to the UAE so you and I need to put on our inspector hats on and and head to the UAE to really see this technology because it seems that after Hong Kong the next stop is the UAE for the technology so overall positive step we don't have much data so looking to get data but a positive step of another Chinese company looking to export.

57:59So I think I'm going to support autonomy to the world and initiative that I've coined the autonomous built and wrote initiative. There's one other company that we've talked about here which is GSM which is Vietnam's electric ride hailing operator. I think they have an IPO plan on the Hong Kong exchange but I think there was a report this week about them weighing expansion in the US now I don't know I think their model is car ownership right as opposed to platform. That's what they would plan in the US but the US market can sustain that them as an entrance I'm going to look at this very simple way I'm going to give you a cop out answer Vinfast is not exactly driven up the auto sales charts so. Leave it at that they have 40% of Vietnam's ride hailing market. A little different than the US market ahead of grab there but we're already in Laos Indonesia Philippines Indian Kazakhstan you know similar dynamic markets I think the US would be a pretty big strategy shift for them anything else on the autonomy or the foreign desk you just said the word that I think we're the only ones and Robin I have done think three or four podcasts on now Kazakhstan.

59:12Not the home of war the home will manufacturing. That's right that is a market that I cannot emphasize enough that our audience needs to pay attention to and staying on the global front wemo announced they're getting ready to build and deploy in Munich next year so wemo continues their European push and that's going to be a market where no surprise to our audience wemo will be competing with Chinese momenta who has a partnership with Uber another head to head market. The regulatory capture has started here now is Uber start regulatory capture in Europe don't know not speculating to saying what there's a lot ahead to head markets that are that are occurring around the world London you know Austin I think Tampa so it should be interesting to see competition within autonomy let alone what they're going to do to the to the human driven ride share companies last thing before we go to rap here we ride has a GXR Robo bus Robo bus operating in Singapore.

1:00:14So pay attention to the Singapore market it's a very important market so now that I've given the important markets Kazakhstan Singapore pay attention to might not be on your radar. Well it's going to give me the breakdown for next week because he's giving me a little tidbit inside it's a very busy week what do we have on deck next week well you have like multiple investor conferences next week so all the CEOs of these companies will be speaking I'm sure they're going to probably throw some shade or comments about the Tesla launch and what's going on with wemo in their own markets clearly we have a we're looking forward to a weekend of reports whether on Reddit or Twitter or else on how people cyber cab are going are they truly operating throughout that domain how many are in the market I don't know how we're going to get to that the presentation of 100 cars but it will be interesting we're going to watch this one day by day this wemo debt deal which is announced I guess not even know if it's announced it was talked about in the press see where that closes if it already didn't I may have missed that but it's really the conference isn't a lot of these management teams that are going to be talking about the markets which should be fun.

1:01:23Yeah well and what we'll do is well look for the signals and we'll analyze them here on a ton of markets because there's always clues and signals and what has said the future is bright the future autonomous the future is cyber cab Walt until next week.