Pete Bigelow, Public Relations Manager, Kodiak joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss his firsthand experience in the Permian Basin and how the region acts as a "literal and figurative sandbox" for autonomous trucking.

During the episode Grayson and Pete discuss Kodiak's operational partnership with Atlas Energy Solutions, the hardening of technology against extreme weather and road conditions, and how these industrial learnings are accelerating Kodiak’s timeline for driverless highway operations in the second half of 2026.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Permian Pete

3:50 Permian Basin

8:02 Automation in the Permian Basin

11:10 Learnings from the Permian Basin

16:01 Permian Basin Operations

18:49 SensorPods

23:50 Kodiak's Diversified Business Model

27:34 Autonomous Trucking Regulations

30:15 Permian Basin Road and Traffic Conditions

35:49 Permian Pete's Ride Experience

41:31 Autonomy Markets Outlook

Recorded on Friday, December 19, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Darin Brannan, CEO & co-founder of Terminal Industries joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss transforming the logistics yard into a fully automated environment using computer vision and agentic AI. 

Unlike legacy approaches that rely on RFID tags or manual "clipboard and radio" processes, Terminal Industries utilizes a proprietary computer vision platform trained on real world data, including weather occlusions, dirt, and glare to achieve high-accuracy tracking without requiring perfect conditions. 

By digitizing the yard through an agentic workflow approach, the company is moving beyond simple point solutions to building a unified operating system that connects the warehouse to transportation, effectively enabling the transition from manual oversight to autonomous execution.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Playing Chess

2:35 Yard Operating Systems

7:15 Yard Bottlenecks

9:33 Traditional Yard and Warehouse Operations

15:15 Computer Vision

19:05 Building LLM Models

24:37 Data Control Centers

27:43 Automating Yards

36:34 Changing Consumer Habits

39:03 Autonomous Trucks and Yards

40:07 Future of Terminal Industries

Recorded on Monday, December 15, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

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, Grayson hit the road and met with Tim Kentley-Klay of HYPRLABS in San Francisco, Tesla started removing the safety attendees in Austin and Waymo is reportedly raising another round at a $110 billion valuation.

Grayson shares details from his exclusive first ride in the HYPRDRIVE vehicle in San Francisco and insights from his The Road to Autonomy podcast interview with Tim Kentley Klay. They discuss HYPR’s emergence from stealth and the company’s unique vision-only, self-reinforcement learning approach to autonomy.

As the vision-only modality gains market validation, the conversation shifts to Waymo. Despite generating significant momentum with a sensor suite heavily reliant on LiDAR and radar, the company is reportedly seeking to raise $15 billion in external capital at a $110 billion valuation. Grayson and Walt debate the strategic logic behind the raise and offer predictions on when Waymo will surpass one million paid rides per week.

Closing out the show, they analyze the implications of a recent Bloomberg report suggesting that Sterling Anderson is being groomed to become the next CEO of GM.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Brighter with Herbert

1:32 HYPRDRIVE Ride and Meeting with Tim Kentley Klay

6:50 Waymo From SFO to the City with No Highway

12:28 Tesla Starts Removing Safety Attendants in Austin

18:03 Luminar Files for Chapter 11

22:26 California’s Pending Tesla Ban

25:30 Sterling Anderson’s Growing Role at GM

31:24 Waymo’s Capital Raise 

37:43 Kodiak’s Partnership with Verizon

39:58 Next Week

Recorded on Friday, December 19, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tim Kentley Klay, CEO & co-founder of HYPRLABS, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how the company is achieving autonomous driving in downtown San Francisco using just 33 watts of compute and zero simulation or HD maps. By prioritizing "learning velocity," HYPR utilizes an end-to-end neural network that learns continuously from real-world driving data, avoiding the structural noise injected by classical simulation and hand-coded heuristics.

While the industry often relies on massive engineering teams and brute-force compute, HYPRLABS is executing a high-efficiency strategy with a team of just four engineers and a foundational model trained for only $850. Drawing inspiration from DeepMind’s AlphaZero, the company allows the AI to model the environment without predefined rules, using their autonomous vehicle fleet as a validation platform for a new category of robots launching next year.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction to HYPRDRIVE

1:30 HYPRDRIVE

5:40 Learning Velocity

8:10 Building HYPR

12:23 Training the System

18:55 The Origins of the HYPR Approach

21:36 Building Trust

23:35 Simulation

27:07 $850 to Train the Model

30:44 HYPR Robots

33:22 Cameras

35:16 What's Next

Recorded on Sunday, December 14, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

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 Rivian’s bold vertical integration bet as the EV maker announced plans to build their own chips and lidar sensors, effectively moving away from NVIDIA.

Is the introduction of “Autonomy+”, a new software subscription priced to undercut competitors a risky distraction or a necessary move as the company works toward profitability? As Rivian looks inward, Wayve signed a major win, signing a definitive agreement to scale with Nissan in North America and Japan beginning in 2027.

Then there is Uber. Who does Uber want to be when autonomy grows up, and who will their partners ultimately be and what those relationships will look like in the long term? Currently, Uber’s autonomy narrative faces challenges, as the company appears to be playing defense while getting front-run by partners Waymo in the U.S. and Momenta in Abu Dhabi. 

Closing out the show, Grayson and Walt discuss the growing world of international autonomy on the weekly Foreign Autonomy Desk segment, covering updates from Bolt, Stellantis, and Caterpillar.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Rivian’s Autonomy Ambitions 

13:11 Licensing Autonomous Driving Stacks

17:29 Wayve’s Approach to Autonomy 

21:07 Tesla’s Safety Attendant Out in Austin Plans

23:35 Waymo’s Blitz Scaling 

27:37 Waymo’s Growing OOH Ad Business 

32:32 Uber’s Autonomy Narrative 

37:57 Serve Robotics 2,000 Robot Delivery Milestone

39:30 Tensor Auto / Zero Partnership 

42:13 Aurora’s Permian Basin Expansion 

44:47 Foreign Autonomy Desk 

52:16 Next Week 

Recorded on Friday, December 12, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ed Olson, Founder & CEO of May Mobility joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how autonomous vehicles can eliminate the "rideshare lottery", the inconsistent, variable experience of traditional rideshare by deploying fleet-managed robotaxis that offer a predictable, premium service.

While the industry often focuses on vertical integration, May Mobility is executing an asset-light strategy focused on partnerships with Toyota, Uber, Lyft, and Grab to augment, rather than replace, existing networks.

To help these networks scale efficiently, May Mobility is prioritizing hybrid vehicles to maximize asset utilization, effectively bypassing the downtime and infrastructure costs associated with EV charging.

Episode Chapters

0:00 May Mobility Expands to Asia with Grab

1:54 May Mobility's Partner & Deployment Strategy

4:43 Weather & Culture

12:48 Service Areas & Vehicles

19:12 The Hybrid Decision

22:15 Vehicle Platforms

25:15 On-Board Compute

29:07 Deploying Robotaxis at Scale

32:23 May Mobility Playbook

38:26 Autonomy is Growing

45:22 Next Year

Recorded on Tuesday, November 25, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

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 “Thriller in the Big D” as Waymo upstages Uber’s party in Dallas. The day before Uber was set to announce its commercial launch with Avride in Dallas, Waymo stole the spotlight by announcing they went driver-out in the same city. 

During the episode Grayson and Walt analyzed the fallout from this timing, including Uber’s “marketing fail” where a safety driver was spotted in promotional footage, and debate whether Avride’s limited 9-square-mile launch is a legitimate business move or just another “science project”.

Beyond the drama in Texas, they dove into the broader race to scale, questioning if adding a few hundred cars in new markets Houston, Baltimore, and St. Louis truly counts as commercial scaling. As Waymo announces new markets, Sterling Anderson is aggressively hiring at GM and the autonomous trucking market is beginning to heat up.

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Thriller in Big D featuring Waymo, Avride and Uber

5:17 Autonomous Vehicle Messaging 

7:01 Avride / Uber’s Dallas Service Area 

10:14 No New Waymo/Uber Markets, So Far

13:50 Waymo’s Rapid Expansion 

18:56 Waymo’s Six Stages of Autonomy

20:26 No Waymo Commercial Launch for Art Basel 

21:49 Will Tesla Robotaxis Ever Be Available on Uber?

23:06 FSD Updates

25:00 Sterling Anderson’s Growing Role at GM

29:04 Wayve Acquires Quality Match 

29:41 Foreign Autonomy Desk

30:13 Waymo’s Continuing Zeekr Issue 

32:21 Autonomous Trucking

33:50 Next Week

Recorded on Friday, December 5, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hugh Nguyen, Partner, Automotive Technology & Mobility, KPMG and Lerrel Pinto, Co-Founder, Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why the immediate future of humanoid robotics lies in enterprise applications, rather than consumer homes.

Powering the humanoids is the software "brain" and system integration, which are becoming the primary differentiators over commoditized hardware.

As humanoids scale, the timeline for adoption is accelerating; Lerrel predicts the deployment of one million robots by 2030, driven by acute labor shortages and the economic practicality of enterprise use cases compared to the regulatory hurdles of the consumer market.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Humanoid Robot Market

6:44 Humanoid Due Diligence

9:40 Humanoid Value Chain

12:08 Humanoids Size and Hands

16:52 Building Humanoids

18:52 Humanoid Personalities

20:24 Managing Humanoid Risk

22:24 Humanoid Fleets

25:36 Humanoid Use Cases

29:58 China

33:20 Humanoid Policy

38:42 Chips

45:44 Deploying Humanoids in the Workplace

49:28 Future of Humanoids

Recorded on Thursday, November 6, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

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 Uber and WeRide's fully autonomous launch in Abu Dhabi, marking Uber's first robotaxi deployment without a safety driver outside the United States.

On WeRide's earnings, the company announced a fleet of 1,600 autonomous vehicles with 750 robotaxis, while Pony.ai announced plans to triple its fleet to 3,000 by end of next year through its Bolt partnership. As Chinese robotaxi companies expand globally, the scaling question emerges: who grows the fastest?

It was another big week for Waymo as the California DMV approved a massive service area expansion that will come with infrastructure challenges and a need for thousands of additional vehicles if Waymo decides to ultimately operate in the approved area.

Later the conversation shifts to Tesla, where Walt shares his firsthand experience with FSD 14.2 in Mad Max mode in New York City. Both Grayson and Walt make predictions on Tesla removing the safety attendant in Austin and expanding to new markets including Arizona, Florida, and potentially Las Vegas by end of next year.

Episode Chapters

0:00 WeRide and Uber Go Fully Autonomous in Abu Dhabi

3:08 WeRide Earnings

6:33 Robotaxi Volumes and Business Models

10:13 Waymo's California DMV Expansion Approval

14:01 Waymo's Santa Monica Depot Noise Issues

20:20 Tesla Robotaxi Scale Plans

24:31 Tesla FSD 14.2 Update

27:52 Do We Want to Drive Anymore?

31:25 Next Week

Recorded on Wednesday, November 26, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mark Seeger, Founder & Co-CEO, Glydways joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss how a mesh network of private, on-demand autonomous pods can solve global urban congestion at a fraction of the cost of traditional transit.

While today’s narrative currently centers around robotaxis, the real breakthrough may come from rethinking the physics and economics of mass transit through disaggregation. Instead of relying on infrastructure-steered legacy rail systems that lose money on every ride, Glydways has developed an autonomous pod system that utilizes lightweight, pedestrian-grade infrastructure at roughly 10% of the cost of light rail. In other words, replacing a $2 billion-per-mile problem with a $20 million-per-mile solution.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Founding Glydways

7:10 Economic Impact of Glydways

12:24 Incumbent Lobbyists 

15:30 Foreign Markets 

18:54 Glydways Infrastructure 

26:43 Trust & Safety 

35:14 Glydways Network

46:09 Glydways Cost Comparison 

49:38 Future of Glydways

Recorded on Tuesday, November 18, 2025

--------

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.

Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.