Walt, busy week. I was in California and the trusty inspector hat was on doing all tons of fieldwork. While I was there, I played Snoop Dogg's 'Drop It Like It's Hot.' That's how it rolls. While Martha Stewart, she played 'Home Style.' That was a very interesting ad there from Waymo. While they play home and Snoop gets ready to bake the Ohi. Tesla's getting ready to roll out the Golden Cyber Cup. They were everywhere in the valley and next week hopefully paying rides in Austin. While that's all happening, there's a lot to break down this week in lots of way news. So, what do you want to start with, the inspector trip to California or a comment of why the hell do you keep talking about rap?
I mean, I think I'm finally getting closer to being able to translate what the hell you say in these opens. It's taking a lot of my mental focus. I think it's creatine is helping on that front. Um, I did notice some comments when Martha was getting out of the Ohi about what Snoop is doing inside the Ohi. So, I think I kind of caught some of your references about baking the Ohi. Uh, but yeah, let's start with obviously the most important thing always is getting out there and doing the field work. The reason our listeners are receiving this podcast on Sunday and not today is because Grayson was doing some redeye activity. So, we got a little delayed and he was capturing us much more fieldwork. So, Grayson, why don't you tell the listeners, you know, what you learned while in, you know, California.
Yeah, I don't mind the red eye. I know you prefer the gentleman's flight, but I don't mind the red eye. So, don't worry, I'm full of coffee today, and I've got a lot of opinions. What I saw in the Bay Area was a dramatic expansion of Waymo's operations from the city all the way down to San Jose going east. It is a very big ODD with a lot of operational infrastructure being put in place. Waymo was kind enough to host me at the Talland depot. I got to see the Ohi for the first time and I got to tell you, Walt, you and I talk about Waymo being vehicle constrained. I'm not so sure that how constrained Waymo is. And I'll go on the record here and make a prediction. If Waymo adds roughly another thousand to 1,200 cars in the Bay Area, they will have a significant market share of the ride hail. And I say that because the longest wait time I had in a Waymo was 12 minutes all up and down the peninsula.
And the problem with your supposition is that that's three additional markets using those thousand cars that you might see in a lot there. Um, they're still likely getting upfit, right? These things are not getting are not lined. So there's still some limitation in the grand scheme of things and you think about all of the markets that they've launched and the ones that they have queued up. Um, that's the issue. So for me I think I would I wouldn't get too excited. I would guess that they're going to allocate those things to individual new markets. One of those markets, by the way, and I want to tie this into your initial comment about California getting much bigger. Did you happen to ask them when our friends in Riverside are going to get service?
No, I didn't because I left my wallet in El Segundo. So, I'm sorry I forgot that one.
So, what else did you see out there other than And by the way, how was the Ohi in comparison to the Jag and any other vehicles autonomy wise that you tried out there?
Sure. So, the push back on the vehicles, in my humble opinion, the vehicles are coming because the infrastructure that I saw, you're not making the capital investments in the infrastructure and the energy. That's something that's not discussed a lot, the energy if you're not going to add those additional vehicles. Clients have seen the reports and we'll tease it here, but there is big plans in our opinion for what's happening there in California. Yes. So, I got to test the Ohi several times. I did front seat rider. I'm a front seat rider guy. I love to sit in the front seat and then I also did the back seat. I got to say, Walt, because I just got off a red eye and I've had a lot of coffee, somebody's going to make a San Fernando Valley movie in that Ohi. There's that much room in the back seat. Yes, there's photos of luggage, but you know, I'm a guy and my mind goes somewhere else. So, I think that's going to happen. It's an incredible amount of room in the back seat. It's really exceptional. In the front seat, something really interesting. I posted this on X and I don't know why, and so I don't want to speculate on this. I use my measurement stick on my Apple phone. There's roughly 32 inches of dash space. It seems rather large. So, what's in there? That is a question. Overall, the ride felt very light. I wasn't a fan of the ride necessarily. It felt the vehicle felt very light, like it was manufactured almost like a matchbox toy. So, I didn't like that. Another thing I did not like in the front seat, you can't put the recline back. There's no recline on the front seat. Didn't like that. The Jag can recline. The other thing is I had to call Waymo support. I couldn't find the USB-C. I'm out there doing field work and I couldn't find the plug. The plug in the front is hidden underneath, so very hard to find. Didn't like that. The back seat was cool, as I said, with all that space if you want to have an extracurricular activity. Overall, wasn't necessarily a fan of the Ohi, but I love the doors. I thought the doors were cool and how they open up. I posted a video on X touting my X account here, Gibralty. Check it out. It was funny when the Waymo was dropping me off. A Zoox test vehicle pulled in front. Oh, you get to see Zoox's test vehicle and the Ohi. Overall, I am going to go on the record and say I believe that this is a stopgap measure to getting to the Hyundai. I do not believe this is going to be a long-term vehicle just based on the experience there that I had because what I did was as a good field reporter did, I did inspections. I rode in the Zoox, then I rode in the Ohi, and then I rode in the Jag. So, I was able to compare all three rides in completely different experiences.
Well, I'm glad you finally came around on the larger cabin. I know your original push back was on the Zoox, which is similar, I think, maybe in size. Maybe Zoox is a little bigger and you're facing each other like a London taxi. Um, and I'm sure for anyone that's on the Ohi project, they're happy to hear the guy who called it an unforced error say positive things. But let me ask a little bit more in trying to unpack this concept of light. Um, is light meaning that when you close the door the door is not as heavy, the noise is different inside? That's fine. That's maybe of the manufacturing of the equipment. Or is there what about the ride itself in terms of how it takes turns? It's stopping, like is the feel of the ride if you detach it from how you're describing light any different than the Jaguar?
Sure. So, let's break it down. There is a lot more wind noise and I do not have Ohi highway access. So, just want to clarify that I do have Jaguar highway access and we did that. We could talk about that. Going on a street of 45 mph, you hear the wind noise. You do not hear that wind noise in the Jag. And from a weight perspective, it's basically comparing a Cadillac to a Kia in terms of weight. The gross vehicle weight of the Jag is much heavier. It rides much much heavier. It just feels more luxurious. Where the Ohi does not feel luxurious. If you were to hypothetically have the same weight of the Jag in the same weight of the Ohi, minus the wind noise, and minus, by the way, the speakers are not nearly as good in the Jag because I was busting Snoop there, the Double OG, and I had the dead going too going around San Francisco because that's what you do, minus the stereo, minus the wind noise. If the weights were equal, you from a driving perspective, you would not be able to tell if you were blindfolded.
Got it. So that's to me that's fine, right? The ride feels the same. The quality of the ride, look, you know, at the end of the day, we're trying to get the price per vehicle down. I've talked before about how Waymo is effectively still a science project. The Jag and the cost of the Jag as well as the sensor stack that's on there which is much higher than the Ohi but that's not a sustainable business model. We'll see what happens when we get to the Hyundai and perhaps, you know, a fourth OEM but a lot of this is having to drive down, you know, the cost of that underlying vehicle and I don't to you you mentioned in your one of your comments being at a stopgap measure. I agree and this has always been and this is my push back on being an unforced error. Needed something in the interim while some of these other OEMs seemingly are circling the wagons wanting to develop autonomy on their own. I'm looking at you, GM, Ford, etc. Um, but Hyundai will be there. Hyundai, I'm guessing will feel a bit closer to the Jag and the overall quietness. And look, let's relate this to Tesla. Like the Tesla Y that my wife had that we've subsequently returned compared to the current Y is like night and day in terms of what it sounds like inside and the overall suspension and the comfort of the ride. Every vehicle is going to be different. This kind of argues for some diversity of vehicles within the fleet which Tesla has talked about and obviously Waymo is actually executing on. Um, so but the important thing I think to pick out from what you said was that the ride itself felt similar and I think that's important because we've heard so often that when new vehicles are launched in the market, they have to go through a whole new training process. You know, we heard this about the Cybercab and obviously Waymo had similar things with the Ohi and now and they're probably going to have to do it for the Hyundai. When you have a new vehicle, new training, I always I've been curious, I don't want to say I was worried, curious whether the aside from the feel of the vehicle, the feel of the ride is similar. So that I think is to me positive news in terms of where Waymo is with autonomy in their multi-vehicle fleet that they have.
Now, one thing that I want to highlight for the audience that we learned on our trip is you see the Ohi, the sensors are up left, right, high and you might wonder is that for better vision? Is that for this? No. And I got to give a lot of credit to the Waymo engineering, the safety team, the policy team and the leadership for this. That's reducing the insurance payouts in the events of a crash because when a Jaguar is rear-ended, and it happens, there is sensors behind that bumper. I saw them. Waymo was very kind. I actually saw all the sensors that are behind the bumper. The Jag on the Ohi. Those sensors aren't there. They're up here. It's basically what it looks like is what Don Bernett did with the sensor pods. Looks like sensor pods. So, if the Ohi is rear-ended, you do not have that giant insurance claim. You do not have that really expensive one downtime from a maintenance cost and two repair cost. So this thing nobody's talking about this, it is cheaper to operate just purely on where they put the sensors in the design standpoint. And furthermore, we also learned this and I'll say this for the record. I don't think at the time Waymo had a choice but to do the deal with Geely. And if you know, you know. So, I just want to go back because I think after CES on the trade show floor when we saw what Ohi when it was getting renamed at that time from what they were calling it the Zeekr to the Ohi. Um, I did have that conversation with the Waymo people on the floor and I think also at the Google event that they do in California for Google I/O or whatever it's called and the other and to your point you're talking about accidents but just maintenance. Sometimes these sensors do go bad and one of the things they pointed out was like how easily they could basically take the sensor off the LiDAR sensor that's up in those front corners and take it back on or if they wanted to iterate to additional or new sensors that perform differently that was advantage. So that's kind of the it's a counterargument to what you know more so myself but I think you've been in agreement line fit meaning like embedded in the car looking like it kind of blends into the environment that is one of the downsides right in terms of the maintenance on a line fit embedded sensor type car might be a bit more challenging than what they've developed with the Ohi. I don't know. I still think at the end of the day you want to be able to crank out thousands and millions of these things and line production integrated into the car is ultimately the end game for this.
I agree and we've said this many times on this podcast and the CEO of Hyundai has come out and said it without naming Waymo that they're going to ramp up production. I believe that the Hyundai Ioniq 5 is going to be the massive ramp vehicle for Waymo and it's going to come off the line. Any other rides you want to talk about when you were out there in sunny California?
Yeah. So, as I said, Jag went in a highway. It is a magical experience going on a in a on a Jag on the highway. It's just awesome. There's no other way to describe it. So, I want to say that. That is awesome.
It's not terrifying to be doing 50, 60 miles an hour on the highway with no one in the driver's seat.
No, it's awesome. I love it. It is my preferred method of transportation when I'm in the valley. And I would use it exclusively 100%. Except for one issue. I was going to take it to SFO. I was going out of the Harvey Milk terminal and the Waymo app give the UI team a lot of credit. Pops up. Please note we are going to drop you off at the kiss and fly and it'll be a minimum 15 minute to get to your terminal. I was like no you know what this Mr. Spice I'm not going to say. I'm be well behaved ma'am. So I took Robo Taxi, you know, aka the delivery service, got dropped off right in front. No interventions down from Palo Alto to the airport. Really great experience in Robo Taxi. For those wondering about economics, it was half the price. And I want to say this for the record, it wasn't the same having a driver there. Even though she was a wonderfully nice lady, it wasn't the same having a driver there. I much preferred to be in the cabin with no drivers. So, I did that. I also went and visited our friends at Wayve. So, Alex and the team, thank you so much for the invitation. Julianne, Frank, everybody, I got to say, your ride's getting good. And thanks for the ride to the KPMG event. Hugh, thanks for hosting a wonderful insurance summit team at Wayve. The Wayve tech, Walt, it's accelerating from when I was last in the vehicle in London. And for those wondering, yes, it does highways and it does them flawlessly.
Well, that's good that you've got some level of comparison. I've still yet to be in a Wayve vehicle. So, anytime they want to invite me out to California or London, I know again the Eagles are playing in London coming up in a couple of months here. I'm happy to hop in one of those cars and give my perspective or even Vegas at CES, wherever. I will fly wherever you want me to. I'm glad you had a positive experience. Um, and was that with a safety driver? Was there someone in the passenger seat? How did that ride How was that ride executed?
So, it was with a safety driver. Before we get to that, there was an individual who listens to the show came up to me and said, 'I just want to tell you something.' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I am a huge Eagles fan.' So, I like when you and Walt get into the Eagles banter. So, Walt, you have an Eagles fan out there and this person is going to London. So, perhaps you can have a point with this individual in London. Reach out to me privately. I will connect you with Walt.
Is that a Wayve person? If that's a Wayve person, then yeah, let's go to the Eagles game in London and then take some Wayve rides afterwards. That sounds like a great plan.
So, here's the kicker on take the Wayve rides. There is no planned route. KPMG was hosting an event there. We got in the Wayve vehicle, they punched the address in and it went. So, the Wayve ride, no fixed route, just completely dynamic. So, want to point that out there. Yes, there was a safety gentleman behind the wheel. Learned some really great insights, which we'll talk about in future podcasts about what they're doing with Nissan and the Leaf and their London plans. But Wayve's gearing up for big things and they are on the road to unsupervised. And yes, they will report supervised versus unsupervised miles unlike some.
I'm sure Uber is going to be very happy that you gave that update on Wayve. What about Zoox? Did you have a chance to hop into Zoox and go to the Zoox lounge?
I was shaking in my boots, Walt. I'm doing. So if the individual knows San Francisco, it's a force intersection. And I sat across the street for a while and I'm sitting there twirling my thumbs, taking my phone out, zooming in, able to hear some things. I have pretty good hearing for an old person. And I kept hearing, 'Free ride, come in and try. Free ride, come in and try.' I said, 'Oh, okay. I'm thinking I My wife's like, 'You better be careful. They're going to have your photo on the wall there because they're very prickly as we learned on this trip.' And I'm just going to say, 'No, no ride.' So I go in there and I said, 'Oh, hi. May I take a ride?' And how long is the wait? They said, '10 minutes.' I said, 'Perfect.' I said, 'Well, where can I go?' They're like, 'Well, you have to pick a loop.' I said, 'Oh, like the only loop we have available in 10 minutes is the 10-minute loop.' So I said, 'Okay, I'll take that.' And they said, 'Your name?' I said, 'GB.' And they said, 'What's that stand for?' I said, 'Greg Benson.' 'Can we see your ID, please?' And they saw my ID. I was like, 'Oh, I'm not sorry, Mrs. Bisc.' I said, 'I'm not getting a ride.' But lo and behold, Zoox put me in the vehicle. Unlike some individuals I know that have gone in there that have not been able to get in the vehicle, they put me in the vehicle. I went on this, I'll call a Disneyland attraction on this loop, a 10-minute loop around San Francisco ride. It was okay.
How'd it compare to Vegas? Because we've all been to Vegas and tried it there.
Same issues because I have video on this. We got stuck in an intersection just like when you had the wonderful LightShed party and KPMG had one as well. We got stuck in intersection. I have it on video. And I noticed I went to a Blue Bottle Coffee where the Zoox go by and I noticed several times of them getting stuck in intersections. So I don't know what the intersection issue is and I'm a taller guy. Not as tall as Walt, but I'm pretty tall. That neck bar hurts my neck and I don't find it very comfortable at all. And not to be nitpicky, but you are a design company. If you put your phone at the top of the pad, it won't charge. You have to move it all the way down the pad to charge. And I didn't like the fact that my Spotify didn't sync. It was a Disneyland attraction. And in the lounge, I counted 12 individuals, not one native San Franciscan. All tourists. Maybe we should call it more of a Universal attraction because Universal is known, especially at Epic, for some of the rides breaking down, not necessarily Disney. It's the Universal attraction.
I mean, it's kind of wild, right? Still limited stops, you know, still with the breaking down. Um, and yet they get obviously a lot of press because they're owned by Amazon. But so, okay. I mean, Grayson, you did more field work in a few days than I think most other people will do in a year. That's incredible. Is there more or can we now move on to the Tesla date that dropped?
There is a lot more field work, but that was reserved exclusively for clients. So, if you're interested, reach out. There's a lot more.
Perfect. All right. So, we can move on to Tesla. This is not a huge shock, but they did announce since our last podcast the date of the Cybercab launch, which is September 3rd, that people I think a lot of influencers will be there. They also, by the way, announced a party or an event, I guess, for the Semi on September 24th in Las Vegas. So, and then subsequent to this announcement, you know, you've seen, I think it was 79, we got information on, I think it was Thursday, 79 new Model Y robotaxis were registered in Texas. So, that fleet side, I think, is approaching 300 at least registered, right? These could be a lot of test cars. I think people in the market have noticed a lot more Teslas. I know someone that lives in Austin, he's seeing more Waymos in areas that he hadn't seen before. So, I think like last time when Cybercab launched, I'm guessing that Waymo is going to kind of dial it up. Maybe put some more vehicles in the market. Probably I wouldn't be shocked to see Waymo expand the ODD in advance of this September 3rd launch, which is days away. Um, so look, it feels like it's happening, but what do you think happening actually means when this thing launches on September 3rd? Like when September 3rd happens, what's the day after? Because a lot of times we've seen something happen, then the day after it kind of gets quiet and like those cars aren't on the road. By our show next week, how many of these Cybercabs do you think are going to be on the road in Austin?
Sub 30. And sorry to the Tesla bulls.
So even though they've registered up to approaching 300 cars, only 10% of them you think are going to be available for rides in Austin.
Yes. And then if we look at history as our guide when you and I have been in both ODDs, the small one and the larger one. They'll probably start in the smaller ODD and then work their way into the larger ODD. I will say this, and this is all public filings with the state of Texas for the record. Tesla is starting to acquire real estate and put energy assets in under Tesla Robotaxi LLC. That infrastructure is not up and ready yet. So, I just want to point that out. So, that's why based on the infrastructure, I'm going to go on the record a smaller amount. I would not be surprised, Walt, to see dominoes fall. Week one, Austin. A week later, Dallas, two weeks later, Houston. I wouldn't be surprised to see those dominoes fall and then eventually San Antonio.
And when you say dominoes, you're saying just like Waymo puts 300 cars in a market. The domino for Tesla is 30 versus like get to, you know, the Autonomy Markets benchmark of 100 cars in that market. That's how you're guessing this thing plays out.
It's going to play out in smaller numbers. We've all seen the photos shared on X of these large lots full of Cybercabs. I've seen a lot of them in person as well. I just don't think on day one they're going to rip the band-aid off and just put up the Autonomy Markets standard in all those markets on day one. I could be 100% wrong. I just don't necessarily seeing it happen. If you go back to past comments that Elon has made on the Tesla earnings call about being super concerned and super focused on safety, I believe that they're going to want to gently expand into this. That's just an assumption, but that's my belief.
Well, let me just make one connection or one correction for all of our listeners who are Tesla haters out there. It's not technically day one. I think it's more like day 400 in Austin. Again, 100 is what I care about. 30 is obviously going to be a milestone. This is the issue that I think Uber has. It's like, you know, thousand paper cuts. It still feels like they should get to now if they're launching or relaunching or officially launching whatever you want to call this in this market that they should get to 100 by the end of the year or do you think by the end of the quarter if you were to had to pick between two?
I'm going to base this on a metric that they're probably using internally is they're basing they probably have an internal safety metric which we do not know. We do not have access to they have not published it publicly. I am under the assumption that there's an internal safety metric that they're looking at will determine the growth. What that metric is, I have no idea.
Okay. So, but why even do this Cybercab event if you're not going to if you're not at that safety metric? Why not wait until you've hit whatever that presumably that safety metric is that exists before you get to that 100 cars? And honestly, is there really a difference dramatically difference? Can't wait for the what's going to show up in my mentions on this one when I say it. Is there really a difference between 30 and 100?
There's a major difference.
I mean, if you can do a 30, can't you do a 100?
There's a major difference because do not forget this is the path that we believe and we do not have a public statement on this. So, I want to say we do not have a public statement. We have hints of this. It is our belief that Tesla will self-certify these vehicles and it is our belief they want to wait a certain period of time after this after they declare the self-certification till they really ramp. That's just a hunch, but I believe that's the path they're going because when they self-certify and Mr. Morris and the administrator does not send them a letter, they can legally charge. That's right, folks. They can legally charge for self-certifying.
Well, I can tell you that the market as far as I can tell is in your camp where they don't really expect them to hit 100 or 200 in an individual market anytime soon. That's how these stocks and the related stocks are behaving. So, we'll see. We'll see what happens. The expectations seem to have pulled back dramatically, you know, for Tesla, you know, perhaps for some good reason but we'll see. I don't know. The car is performing well. I've been getting some good updates on my Y. Let's move on to the Semi though. They have this event and I think someone was teasing that there might be like another thing of some Euro specification and another handover or some type of conference in handover like the Semi which we hadn't heard about in a while. There seems to be more and more coming out about this. Obviously they're not initially going to be autonomous although I would guess that if they're doing this event in Nevada, Sparks Nevada to be exact, in later September that they're going to show people that go to that thing autonomous operation. It does have, you know, sensors and cameras on there. I'm not sure if there's LiDAR on that Semi or not, but I would guess that they're going to show autonomy at this event for the Semi. Now,
there is no LiDAR. I can tell you I was at the Tesla engineering headquarters this week and Semis are front and center. I mean, they're hard to miss. Front and center for those in trucking, they were attached to reefers. That's right. Those in trucking, the Tesla Semis I saw were attached to reefers.
That is very interesting. Reefer. Are we going back? Hold on. Reefers. Are we going back to Snoop Dogg again? What's a reefer?
I'm behaving. No, I don't have a joint or a blunt to go up and smoke here. But a reefer is a refrigerated truck. Different power requirement.
See, Walt's head's in the gutter. He went from the valley to the clouds all over the map. I can't take you anywhere.
