Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania (part of the TRATON Group) joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Scania’s customer-centric approach to autonomous trucking and their partnership with Plus. 

The conversation begins with Peter discussing Scania’s autonomy efforts and the four core principles of their approach:

1. Focusing on the customer journey perspective.
2. Concentrating on long-haul transport and confined mining applications.
3. Maintaining control over their systems through strategic partnerships.
4. Coordinating efforts across TRATON’s brands.

Strategic partnerships are key to the development and commercialization of autonomous trucks. TRATON recently announced a partnership with Plus for the development and commercialization of SAE Level 4 autonomous trucks. The cultural fit and shared values between the two companies were one of the critical factors in the deal coming to fruition. 

Even with the Plus partnership, Scania intends to continue developing its own autonomous driving technologies in parallel. 

If we don’t understand the product, we will not be a good partner for Plus or anyone else either. – Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania

This dual-track approach allows Scania to maintain deep technical expertise in autonomous driving. 

When it comes to commercializing autonomous trucking solutions, Peter details Scania’s “driver-as-a-service” model. Rather than competing directly with customers for transportation services, Scania aims to integrate autonomous driving into their existing operational systems and workflows seamlessly.

The initial autonomous lanes will be determined entirely by customer needs and existing transportation routes. These lanes will most likely be long-haul routes due to the economics and acute driver shortages.

Throughout the discussion, Peter underscores that partnerships, culture fit, and shared values are critical for scaling autonomous trucks successfully. 

It’s easy to forget about culture and values when you talk about technology, because it is essential that technology works, but it’s actually people that are developing everything behind. – Peter Hafmar, Vice President & Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania

Wrapping up the conversation, Peter reaffirms Scania’s customer-first philosophy as the driving force behind their autonomous pursuits, ensuring solutions that unlock tangible value for their transportation partners.

Chapters:

0:11 Scania's Approach to Autonomous Trucking

5:33 Scania's Autonomous Trucking Commercialization Strategy

8:18 Autonomous Solutions for Minning

11:02 Driver-as-a-Service Lanes

13:45 Plus / TRATON Partnership

16:06 Scania's History in Autonomous Trucks

18:10 Customer Approach to Autonomy

21:44 E.U. Autonomous Trucking Policy

23:09 Rolling out Autonomous Trucks in the U.S. and E.U.

26:34 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Tuesday March 19, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Mazen Danaf, Senior Economist and Applied Scientist, Uber Freight joined Grayson Brulte on The Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economic conditions impacting the adoption of autonomous and electric trucks. 

In this engaging economic discussion, Mazen provides valuable insights into the forces molding the future of autonomous and electric trucking. With $18 billion of freight under management, Uber Freight has a unique vantage point into wider market dynamics.

A key focus of the conversation is the recent rebound in consumer spending on goods, which increased 5% year-over-year in 2023 after a two-year stagnation. This positive demand signal bodes well for increased freight volumes and a potential freight market recovery emerging in Q2 2024, according to Mazen. Other indicators such as improving manufacturing data, reduced truck orders, and employment in long-haul trucking are creating conditions conducive to higher freight demand.

However, Mazen cautioned that the $1.13 trillion in U.S. consumer credit card debt, while elevated, has returned to a manageable 5% debt-to-income ratio consistent with pre-pandemic levels. Monitoring factors like unemployment will be crucial to gauge if the consumer remains able to sustain spending.

Turning to transformative freight technologies, Mazen emphasized the importance of analyzing autonomous and electric truck adoption through a comprehensive economic lens rather than a tech lens. Long-term, he expects a decades-long transition facilitated by a hybrid approach of both autonomous and professional driver operations.

For electric trucks, substantial public and private investment is needed to build out charging infrastructure at scale. Freight-dense interstate corridors like Los Angeles-Inland Empire and Dallas- Houston are prime candidates for targeted electrification efforts to maximize emissions reduction.

The overarching theme of the podcast was consumer behavior, market forces, infrastructure, and the regulatory environment will all shape trucking’s autonomous and electric future as much as the technology itself. Mazen stressed, “it’s interesting to look at the broader context…because it will definitely have an effect.” Uber Freight’s vast data intelligence provides a powerful economic prism through which to forecast this transformation.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction 

0:40 Consumer Spending and The Economy 

6:50 Fed Interest Rate Cuts 

9:12 Real Estate Markets 

11:08 Layoffs 

12:50 Decline in Freight Market Job Growth 

14:40 Carriers Investing in Autonomous Trucks 

21:04 Autonomous Trucks and Intermodal 

24:13 Autonomous Trucking in California 

27:34 Autonomous and Electric Trucks Impact on Jobs 

31:15 Introducing Electric Trucks into Fleets 

41:27 Q4 2023 Truck Sales Decline 

43:44 Freight Recovery 

45:43 Key Takeaways

Recorded on Thursday, February 15, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Alex Kendall, Co-Founder & CEO, Wayve joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Wayve’s AV 2.0 approach to autonomous driving.

The conversation begins with Alex discussing the founding of Wayve and how their autonomous driving stack has evolved.

Yes, we started with cameras, but a common misconception is that we think camera only is the way to go. Actually I think the sensing stack you need to use should be based on safety, scalability and economics. – Alex Kendall

Wayve’s approach to autonomous driving has attracted world class investors such as Microsoft. Last year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates visited Wayve and took a ride in their autonomous vehicle through the central London and Soho on an unmapped, un-planned route. 

The whole thesis behind our approach is to build a system that can learn behavior. – Alex Kendall

This approach is called AV 2.0. It is being developed with end-to-end neural networks that are economically scalable. Does this approach end up being the most common approach to solving autonomous driving? Tesla is taking a similar approach with the introduce of FSD 12.0. Could Wayve and Tesla usher in a future with end-to-end neural net autonomous vehicles?

As Wayve begins to commercialize their autonomous driving technology, they are first deploying their software as a driving assistance system with OEMs.

We don’t need to change any hardware, add-on or retro-fit anything. We can work with production vehicles today and have the neural network deployed. The advantage of this is that we can start to give consumers exposure to embodied AI, rather than dropping in an L4 solution from day zero. We give them an exposure to a companion co-pilot driver assistance system and it can learn overtime quickly developing to a point where it can become L4 and autonomous. – Alex Kendall

The advantages of this approach is that it allows Wayve to generate revenue today, gather more data to train the neural nets all while building public trust. The more data, the better the neural nets and there is also the opportunity to license data to other autonomous vehicle developers. It’s a strategic approach with lots of options as Wayve has chosen to partner with OEMs and not build their own vehicle. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Alex share his thoughts on embodied AI and the future of Wayve.

Episode Chapters

0:08 Founding of Wayve 

5:34 Bill Gates Goes For a Ride

6:35 AV 2.0

19:22 Wayve Commercialization Model

24:22 Testing Autonomous Vehicles in London

26:02 Data as an Asset Class

29:51 Partnership Approach

30:59 Future of Wayve

Recorded on Friday, March 8, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and analysis on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy podcast and This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Dr. Peter Weiss, Board Certified Physician and Health Care Entrepreneur joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy: Autonomy Economy podcast to discuss the economic impact that autonomous vehicles will have on health care.

The conversation begins with Dr. Weiss discussing how he views autonomous vehicles and the delivery of health care complimenting each other in the future.

Health care is more then just seeing the physician or a health care provider, it’s about getting from point A to point B to provide that care. – Dr. Peter Weiss

In the future autonomous vehicles will have the capability to determine if a passenger is having a heart attack, potentially saving their life. The question of who makes the decision to re-route the autonomous vehicle to a hospital is yet to be determined. The vehicle could ask the passenger for permission, but what if that individual is unconscious? Then what happens? 

If the passenger is unable to respond to the question, then the car should be able to then directly take the passenger to the hospital and at the same time notify the hospital that we have a patient coming in with certain blood pressure, certain atrial fibrillation. All this information that can could really save a life. – Dr. Peter Weiss

Is legislation needed to limit the liability of that decision? Most likely, as the decisions made will open a formidable maze of legal liabilities. Then there is the aspect of insurance and what hospital the passenger is rerouted to for medical care. Are those doctors and hospital in-network or out of-network? Who is responsible for the difference in cost?

In 2022, hospital expenditures grew 2.2% to $1.35 trillion according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Could rerouting autonomous vehicles with unwell passengers add to the growing hospital expenditures? Yes. When health care is able to be delivered in an autonomous vehicle, there could be cost savings that would offset those growing expenditures.

It’s not just hospital expenditures that are growing, it’s the overall cost of delivering health care. In 2022 U.S. consumers spent 8% of their income on health care, only 4.8% less than they spend on food according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Overall health care expenditures grew 4.1% to $4.5 trillion equaling $13,493 per person, accounting for 17.3% of GDP. 

A percentage of the increasing expenditures could be correlated to motor vehicle crashes. Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death in their United States with over 100 people dying everyday. In 2015, more than 2.5 million drivers and passengers were treated in emergency rooms as a result of being injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes. 

The economic impact of these crashes is notable. For crashes that occurred in 2017, the cost of medical care and productivity losses associated with occupant injuries and deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes exceeded $75 billion. If autonomous vehicles can eliminate a majority of these crashes, the economic not to mention societal impact could be astronomical. 

You would save billions of dollars in costs that could be provided for underserved communities that need treatment for asthma, for all of these other things that could be done. There is a greater utilization of the money that could be provided for care. – Dr. Peter Weiss

Autonomy and autonomous vehicles are good for society and the economy. They will have a positive economic impact on health care while making the roads safer. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Dr. Weiss share this thoughts on the future of medicine. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction

0:43 Autonomous Vehicles and the Delivery of Health Care

6:48 Growing Medical Expenditures

17:41 End of Life Medical Care Costs 

20:32 Personal and Business Spending on Health Care 

27:28 Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes 

33:42 Neuralink

37:17 Future of Medicine

Recorded on Sunday, February 4, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Steven Jenkins, Vice President of Technology Strategy, Magna joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Magna’s partner approach to developing autonomous driving systems. 

The conversation begins with Steven discussing how Magna is approaching safety systems. 

Magna is one of the only real few suppliers that has the entire set of enablers to make it happen and do a complete system. So we are thinking about the whole system as a package rather then individual pieces of the package, and that allows us to develop these market leading products that deliver the enhanced safety and convenience for the driver. – Steven Jenkins 

The software defined vehicle will unlock continuous updates to the vehicle, unlocking new features and functions. Eventually these software updates will be able to upgrade vehicles to enable autonomous driving functionality depending on their sensor package. 

As vehicles become more advanced with higher levels of autonomy, the debate around driver monitoring creeps into the conversation and ultimately leads to the question; when is the right time to introduce driver monitoring? That question ultimately comes down to the OEM. While the OEM makes that decision, Magna is working on a series of in-cabin monitoring solutions that benefit the driver and the passengers. 

This approach will benefit their OEM customers as they introduce higher levels of autonomy. Magna is approaching autonomy as as a step-wise approach.

In a kind of autonomous scenario you are really taking a kind of huge leap in terms of what you can do with a vehicle, but you are not taking as big as a leap when it comes to technology. A lot of things are pretty similar. – Steven Jenkins 

A hybrid market that comprises of both robotaxis and personally owned autonomous vehicles could emerge at some point in the future. How the economics of these models emerge will depend on the companies that make the product available and take the risk from a financing perspective. Either way, Magna will be there from a technological standpoint to help their partners and customers usher in the future of autonomy. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Steven shares his opinion on the future of mobility. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction

0:56 Magna’s Complete Safety System Approach 

4:25 Software Defined Vehicles

6:07 Neural Network Approach to Autonomous Driving

10:28 Driver Monitoring

16:31 Magna’s Approach to Autonomous Driving

31:09 New and Emerging Technologies

37:07 Staying Ahead of the Market

38:54 Future of Mobility

Recorded on Monday, March 11, 2024

Magna International is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company

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About The Road to Autonomy

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Harry Campbell aka The Rideshare Guy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the rideshare industry, the role that power drivers play in the ecosystem and his thoughts on Uber’s growing hybrid network.

The conversation begins with Grayson and Harry discussing Uber’s outperformance compared to the S&P 500. Over the last 12 months, Uber has outperformed the S&P 500 by 102%. While Uber is outperforming the market, their competitor Lyft is struggling to figure out the future of their business. 

Drivers are the backbone of both Uber and Lyft. According to J.P. Morgan, the average Uber driver earns $33 an hour. The estimated average hourly earnings are only for Period 3, commonly referred to as active time. Period 1 is when a driver is on the Uber app waiting for a ride. Period 2 is when a driver has accepted a ride and are driving to pick up the passenger. 

Period 3, that’s when you make the most amount of money as a driver. You want your wheels moving, you want to be going fast, you want to be going far. That’s kind of how you make the most amount of money. $33 an hour is basically saying drivers make $33 an hour when they are driving to a customer or they have a customer in the car, but we are not going to count any of the downtime. – Harry Campbell 

While drivers are the backbone of the platforms, there are divergences in how Uber and Lyft attract and retain drivers. Both companies use incentives to retain drivers, Lyft is starting to increase the amount incentives to attract power drivers away from Uber. Power drivers are drivers who drive more than 40+ hours a week or roughly 6,000 miles per month. Accounting for 20% of the driver inventory at any moment.

As Uber continues to grow and shed non-core assets, the company is laying the foundation to transform Uber into a hybrid platform with both drivers and autonomous vehicles. Today, you can hail a Waymo in Phoenix on the Uber app and have Uber Eats delivered in a Motional autonomous vehicle in Santa Monica. 

When it comes to Uber’s strategy with AV, I think it’s kind of a no-brainer. – Harry Campbell 

This is the right strategy for Uber. Dara Khosrowshahi made the strategic decision to sell Uber ATG to Aurora and focus on becoming a platform again. Uber was able to shed the billions in development costs, while fully embracing the power of Uber — the platform. This decision has allowed Uber to focus on growing their free cash flow while becoming profitable. 

The Uber 2.0 strategy will enable Uber to collect a fee very similar to the way Mastercard and Visa collect swipe fees every time a consumer makes a purchase with their credit card. The more consumers choose to ride in Waymo vehicles on the Uber platform, the more revenue Uber will generate. 

Uber’s new autonomous vehicle strategy will pay dividends as Waymo scales up. If the price of a Waymo is on par with Uber X, consumers in our opinion will overwhelmingly choose Waymo because of the consistent experience. Either way, Uber benefits as the company will collect a platform usage fee. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Harry shares his opinion on the future of Uber. 

Episode Chapters

0:00 The Road to Autonomy Index Introduction

0:55 Uber vs S&P 500

2:05 Does Lyft Survive?

3:32 Rideshare Drivers: Driving for Uber and Lyft

17:41 Uber and Lyft Driver Incentives 

21:40 Most Popular Rideshare Vehicles 

25:33 Dara Khosrowshahi

29:36 Do Uber Drivers Buy UBER Stock?

35:20 Changes Drivers Would Like to See on the Uber and Lyft Platforms

41:50 Autonomous Vehicles as Rideshare Vehicles (Robotaxis)

44:50 Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle Strategy

49:10 Lyft’s Earnings Blunder

50:38 Uber’s Product Compared to Waymo

53:44 Expanding the Uber Platform

1:07:56 Uber Freight

1:10:20 The Future of Uber

Recorded on Thursday, February 22, 2024

Uber is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company

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About The Road to Autonomy

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Ian Rust, Founder & CEO, Revoy joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the development of Revoy and why hybrid is the right approach to electrifying Class 8 trucks. 

The conversation begins with Ian discussing Revoy’s approach to hybrid technology for electrified trailers.

We view hybrid definitely the most viable solution for electrification in the Class 8 market. – Ian Rust

The Revoy EV hooks up in-between a tractor and a trailer in a matter of minutes. Revoy is able to do this, because they deliver pre-charged EVs to their customers, eliminating the charging downtime. 

By bringing in that pre-charged battery pack we can integrate in under five minutes. – Ian Rust

One of the major benefits to the Revoy system is an increase the MPG (miles per gallon). The Revoy test fleet has been able to achieve 67 mpg in a diesel class 8 truck. When trucks are traveling on hilly roads, the extra torc delivered by the hybrid system allows trucks to keep pace with the other motorists on the road. When coming down a hill, the system’s regenerative braking activates, assisting the professional driver and increasing safety. 

We can actually stop a tractor trailer with a Revoy EV applied 30% sooner. – Ian Rust

Revoy’s EVs will not be sold, they will be leased on a per mile basis with zero up-front payment. They will be deployed at strategically located hubs where the drivers will stop and swap their Revoy EV in four minutes. 

You can just have essentially uncapped long-haul range on electric power by just stopping and swapping in four minutes. – Ian Rust

Wrapping up the conversation, Ian shares his thoughts on what the future will look like for electrified class 8 trucks. 

Recorded on Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Episode Chapters

0:00 Introduction 

0:37 Revoy’s Approach to Electrified Trailers

3:03 Increases in MPG (miles per gallon)

5:08 Safety and Insurance Benefits

8:49 Revoy Business Model

12:56 Infrastructure 

20:28 Stop and Swap

24:20 Hybrid Technology 

31:42 The Inspiration for Revoy

34:40 Scaling Revoy 

40:35 Future of Hybrid Solutions for Class 8 Trucks

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Timothy Dooner, Host, WHAT THE TRUCK?!?, joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discus the rise and fall of digital freight brokerages and the growth of autonomous trucking

The conversation begins with Dooner discussing his outlook for the freight market.

There is 8. 1% less brokerages than there were a year ago at the start of this year. But there’s still 17% more brokerages than we started at the pandemic. Everyone’s been waiting for not just volumes to go up, but the way freight works, it’s volume plus capacity. They’ve been waiting for the capacity to go down. Volumes are looking a little bit better. Things are receding and this year I’m hearing a lot more optimism. – Timothy Dooner

The optimism is being shared by Walmart as there are rumors circulating that Walmart is looking to develop a digital freight brokerage. Since Walmart operates their own fleet, they have a unique data set that could potentially help them leapfrog the competition when and if they are introduce a digital freight brokerage service. 

The freight market is currently turbulent as the demand for freight and the capacity to haul the freight are not in sync. Then there is the California electric truck mandate which will ultimately end up increasing the costs to ship freight, hurting both the carriers and the consumer. Could these mandates help to accelerate the adoption of autonomous truck as they are cheaper to operate? 

It’s possible and as we are seeing in California, autonomous vehicle technology is not always welcome. in San Francisco vandals set fire to a Waymo autonomous vehicle with a firework, burning the vehicle to the ground. If the regulatory environment in California eventually allows autonomous trucks to operate, will similar vandals also try to cause damage to autonomous trucks? 

Autonomous trucking is going to play a major role in the future of trucking and the global economy. As the technology is developed different business models are going to come to fruition and one of those is the licensing model. Kodiak has the potential to license their SensorPods technology, creating a lucrative revenue stream as they develop their autonomous trucking platform. This is in addition to their growing defense business.

Then there is Uber. Uber has investments in Aurora and Waabi, and has the Uber Freight division. Yet they do not operate an autonomous trucking fleet. Grayson and Dooner go onto dicuss Uber’s autonomous trucking investment strategy and who ultimately owns the asset.

Wrapping up the conversation, Dooner shares his 2024 outlook for the trucking market. 

Recorded on Wednesday, February 14, 2023

Chapters

0:00 Introduction 

1:34 Freight Market Outlook 

7:31 Walmart’s Rumored Digital Freight Brokerage 

10:42 Are Electric Truck Mandates Accelerating the Adoption of Autonomous Trucks 

13:57 Vandals in San Fransisco Set Fire to a Waymo Autonomous Vehicle 

18:20 Commercializing Autonomous Trucking 

25:32 The Business of Kodiak Robotics

28:15 Autonomous Delivery Drones 

31:55 Uber’s Autonomous Trucking Investment Strategy 

39:18 Who Owns the Asset? 

42:59 Tesla Cybertruck 

43:52 Apple Vision Pro 

51:08 2024 Trucking Outlook

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Shannon Nash, Chief Financial Officer, Wing, an Alphabet company joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss Wing’s operations in the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) region and why 2024 is the year of autonomous drone delivery. 

The conversation begins with Shannon discussing how Wing is approaching autonomy and how the service works. The most commonly delivered item is hot coffee. In Frisco, Texas through a partnership with Walmart, Wing is able to deliver hot coffee (without spilling it) to customers with-in five minutes. 

Wing’s autonomous delivery drones have FAA approval to fly Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) enabling the company to scale the service.

In the Dallas Fort Worth area with Walmart we are able to go six miles from the location of the Walmart to the customer’s home. – Shannon Nash

In the Dallas Fort Worth region, Wing is currently operating in two locations with Walmart — Frisco and Lewisville. These two strategic locations enables Wing to reach over 60,000 residences. In addition to these two locations, Wing will be expanding drone delivery operations with Walmart later this year in the DFW region. Wing and Walmart’s goal is to cover 75% of the DFW region with a drone delivery service. 

Autonomy is one the keys to scaling in addition to fitting into the existing workflow of delivery. 

When you introduce a service like Wing you want to make sure that you don’t disrupt those workflows. – Shannon Nash

Workflow integration is clearly working as Wing has successfully completed over 350,000 deliveries across three continents to date. When Wing looks to launch service in a new city or region they engage with the local community to understand their needs, wants and desires and most importantly explain the service to them. They host events in the local community and bring the drones along for show and tell days, so when they launch commercial service there are no surprises. 

We will continue as we expand to do that community outreach and really that community partnership. – Shannon Nash

To scale, Wing is developing the Wing Delivery Network which will unlock efficiencies as the drones will not return to base, instead they will go to the next pickup location. When the network is up and operating, Wing will be able to increase deliveries beyond 1,000 packages a day.

Today, Wing drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.6 pounds and they recently announced a new drone known as the Big Box Plane that is capable of handling packages up to 5 pounds. These drones are capable of flying up to 65 mph. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Shannon shares her vision for the future the future of Wing.

Recorded on Tuesday, February 13, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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

Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation, Covenant joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss why it all comes down to unit economics when fleets are evaluating new trucking technologies such as battery electric trucks and autonomous trucks. 

The conversation begins with Matt discussing how Covenant is thinking about implementing battery electric trucks into their fleet. With limited range and reduced weight capacities, the right lane and freight have to be matched up to ensure a successful run. 

The fleet of the future is actually going to be something that is made up of a lot different pieces of equipment that reflect the different and diverse needs of our customer base. – Matt McLelland

Reduced capacity comes with increased cost, as battery electric trucks cost roughly 50% more then traditional diesel trucks. Factor in stubborn inflation, slim margins and a Fed Funds interest rate of 5.33%, fleets are hamstrung when it comes financing the increased cost of battery electric trucks.

Is a hybrid solution the right solution? As companies look to lower their carbon emissions, could electrified trailers be the solution? Or it could be renewable diesel or B100 (pure biodiesel)?

Hybrid solutions that are not full on zero-emission vehicles, that’s what I think the future is. – Matt McLelland

The costs to implement low carbon, zero-emissions technologies for trucks is going to cost more. For the business model to work, that cost is going to have to passed onto the consumer. But the economic reality is, consumers will not pay more for shipping as they are used to fast free shipping commonly known as the “Amazon effect“. 

Could the push towards low carbon and zero-emissions trucks inadvertently accelerate the implementation and adoption of autonomous trucks?

It all comes down to the unit economics. – Matt McLelland

Autonomous trucks offer better unit economics than traditional trucks, and the economics only get better as the size of the fleet increases. Covenant is taking a measured approach to autonomous trucking by rolling up their sleeves and developing relationships with the developers. This approach has led to commercial relationships with Aurora and Torc. 

Wrapping up the conversation, Matt shares his thoughts on the future of the trucking industry.

Recorded on Friday, February 9, 2024

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About The Road to Autonomy

About The Road to Autonomy

The Road to Autonomy® is a leading source of data, insight and commentary on autonomous vehicles/trucks and the emerging autonomy economy™. The company has two businesses: The Road to Autonomy Indices, with Standard and Poor’s Dow Jones Indices as the custom calculation agent; Media, which includes The Road to Autonomy and Autonomy Economy podcasts as well as This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter.

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