This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discussed Tesla’s Q4 earnings, Waymo’s road trip and Kodiak’s historical announcement. It was Tesla this week that captured investors attention as Elon Musk spoke at length about Tesla’s robotaxi plans, licensing FSD and their plans to launch an Airbnb like service for autonomy. 

Will Tesla really hit the June 2025 timeline for unsupervised autonomy in Austin, Texas? Anything is possible, but the precedent is that the launch will be delayed, along with a potential nationwide expansion in 2026. Then there is the potential to license FSD (Full Self-Driving), will Tesla really do it and what will the impact be on the global auto industry? 

As Tesla works towards full autonomy (unsupervised), Waymo continues to expand. This week Waymo announced that they are taking roadtrips to 10+ markets beginning with San Diego and Las Vegas this year, along with opening the Atlanta market to employees. Additionally, Waymo began offering highway service to employees in Los Angeles.

Then there is Kodiak, which made history this week, becoming the first company to sell an autonomous truck to a third party—Atlas Energy. The episode concludes with discussion of Zoox’s challenges in the competitive autonomous vehicle market, particularly in Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Secretary Sean Duffy

2:59 Washington Post: If Self-Driving Cars are Safer than the Alternative, What’s to Lose?

7:02 Tesla Q4 2024 Earnings 

9:28 FSD Unsupervised Launch

13:58 Capital Markets & Analysts 

16:48 LiDAR Narrative 

21:30 Licensing Tesla FSD

26:20 FSD is Coming to Semi

28:51 Kodiak Makes History 

31:28 Tesla Cortex Training Cluster

32:32 Waymo Goes Fully Autonomous on LA Freeways (Employees Only)

35:21 Waymo Opens Atlanta to Employees

37:29 Waymo’s 10 City Road Trip

41:06 Zoox

45:06 Super Bowl

46:09 Next Week

Recorded on Thursday, January 30, 2025

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