This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss New York Governor Hochul’s bill to legalize autonomous vehicles in New York, with New York City notably carved out, Uber’s changing Waymopartnership language and Waymo’s upcoming expansion to Sydney. 

In New York, autonomous vehicles could be coming to state roads, but not New York City, as Mayor Mamdani is prioritizing taxi drivers over robotaxi deployment. Down in Texas, where autonomous vehicles can operate anywhere, Waymo has expanded their service area in Austin as Uber has changed their promotional language from “exclusively available on Uber” to simply “available on Uber” when promoting Waymo rides.

On the international front, Waymo is actively planning to expand to Sydney following meetings with Australian Transport Minister Catherine King. In China, WeRide robotaxis are now available in the WeChat super app, enabling riders in Beijing to order autonomous rides directly through the platform.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Verizon Outage 

1:45 New York’s Unkind Welcome to Autonomous Vehicles 

9:19 Robotaxi and Waymo Face-off in Austin

12:47 Autonomy Markets Merch

14:15 FSD Goes Subscription Only on Valentine’s Day 

17:18 Waymo Eyes Australian Expansion 

21:03 Tensor Auto

24:06 Stack AV

26:14 Plus AI Expands to Japan

28:33 Foreign Autonomy Desk 

30:33 Next Week

Recorded on Thursday, January 15, 2026

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