This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Kodiak starting the process to become a publicly traded company, the anxiety leading up to Aurora’s driver-out commercial launch and Lyft’s expansion into Europe through the acquisition of FREENOW.

Kodiak has officially filed to go public in a $2.5 billion SPAC deal, backed by a $100 million PIPE and a 100-truck order from Atlas Energy that signals strong market confidence. Aurora’s long-anticipated driver-out commercial launch is drawing closer, with industry watchers counting the days and parsing every signal for an indication of launch. 

On the platform side of autonomy, Lyft is expanding to the UK and Europe through a $197 million acquisition of FREENOW. Now that Lyft has European operations, there is a path for the company to scale robotaxis on two continents.

It appears that Lyft is gearing up to compete with Uber more aggressively, while in the U.S., Waymo continues to grow their Waymo One service which overtime will capture marketshare from both Uber and Lyft. Meanwhile, Walt headed out to LA to get an on the ground understanding of how Waymo is scaling in the City of Angles and how Angelenos are currently thinking about autonomous vehicles. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 Walt’s LA Adventure

2:08 Waymos in LA

9:40 Kodiak Files to Go Public

17:10 HD Maps

20:41 Aurora’s Driver-Out Moment

24:22 Lyft Acquires FREENOW, Expands to Europe

30:00 Nuro Expands to Japan

31:10 Sidewalk Delivery Bots

35:10 Tesla FSD

38:27 Waymo’s Upcoming Atlanta Launch on Uber

41:04 Next Week

Recorded on Thursday, April 17, 2025

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