This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo's potential new partnership with Toyota, the launch of Aurora's driver-out commercial operations and Uber's continued effort to challenge the autonomy duopoly.

On Tuesday, Waymo announced a potential partnership with Toyota to develop personally-owned autonomous vehicles, confirming a business pivot in an effort to counter Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi launch in Austin. Wile Waymo signals a shift in strategy, Aurora launched fully autonomous commercial operations in partnership with Uber Freight.

As Uber became Aurora's first commercial customer, the rideshare side of their business continued to double-down on autonomy, as they further fragmented the autonomy market when they announced a strategic partnership with May Mobility to deploy AVs on the platform.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Every Week

1:06 Waymo / Toyota Partnership 

13:14 Managing Personally-Owned Autonomous Vehicles

15:20 Is Waymo Eyeing More Deals?

17:09 GM Blinked

18:55 Aurora Goes Driver-Out

22:05 Uber Freight 

23:31 Autonomous Trucking Market

25:37 Uber /May Mobility Partnership 

32:03 Uber/Lyft and Autonomy Competition 

32:58 The Great Freeway Unlock

37:02 Next Week

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