Walt, last week we had a special guest. Jason Calacanis joined us and we got great feedback. Jason, I'm craving that steak for that bet. You saw and I saw Waymo's expanding to Japan. Jason, perhaps I'm going to order Kobe. It's more expensive. Haha. Just like you want to get that bone-in ribeye. Oh, Waymo's going to Tokyo, we know officially. Then in 2028, they're going to Singapore. And that's not all. Bolt is getting ready to deploy up to 25,000 robo taxis in Europe. Walt, there is a lot, a lot of stuff to break down this week. Let's start with the Jason episode. What did you make of it?
I think he sees things very similar to how we do in terms of what needs to happen. You know, I get the optimism in terms of the, you know, the rideshare growth. We'll have to see if that happens. That's a pretty big, that's a pretty big ramp. But in terms of like Uber specifically, which is his kind of primary love, he does invest in all these things. Obviously, he's buddies with Elon. But in terms of Uber, like, you know, some of the M&A and some of the kind of ownership of autonomy that he talked about having Travis in there at some point. These are things that I think we've actually talked about many times in this podcast. So we'll have to see how this all plays out. It'll be great to get him back on the pod and review some of this stuff.
Yeah, we had the six-month check and I love the term. I'll call it a Waltism: primary love. That's very true. If you go on Jason's X account...
But it's not his only love, Grayson. And I mean, he gets dragged on Twitter and other locations, you know, from all sides. But like, you know, let's call a spade a spade. He still has Tesla capturing the largest share. Now, it's reasonable to question that and say, okay, does it end up being a winner-take-all where the top guy, whether it's Tesla, Waymo, Aurora, whoever, Uber, is 80% and not the 40% that he has. That's reasonable, but like, you know, to say, oh, you're a Tesla hater or an Uber hater is kind of crazy when he's got them each getting significant share. And again, what I talked about in the podcast, which is if the pie of the industry gets as large as he believes it is, like, and I can't underscore that enough, like if the number of miles driven in the US by Uber and Lyft is 2% of total miles, if that goes to 30%, you're talking about such a massive expansion in that growth rate. Any of these shares, no matter who you're a believer in, whether it's Tesla, Waymo, Uber, like if they split the market, then that's a healthy market for all of them.
Yeah, I think you're right. He does unfortunately get a lot of flak on X. Walt, the Twitter bird went the way of the dodo bird, so let's not forget it. It's X now. X marks the spot. But you're right, he has a very balanced approach to it, and I appreciate his bluntness and honesty on the pod. One of the things that stood out to me, he called it right. And Jason, I give you credit. You're right, sir. That one of Uber's biggest mistakes ever was shutting down ATG. And he said it right here on our pod.
Yeah, I agree. So, we'll see how things go with Travis. Obviously, Travis lives in Austin, has good access to him and Elon and others. I'm sure people at Uber as well, given his positioning there. So, we'll have to see how things play out. Let's move on to Tesla because Tesla was the huge news and then it got very quiet, meaning that like I haven't heard much since then, which in some ways in autonomy is good, right? Because you have perhaps a lot of the haters being like, you know, telling me, oh, once Uber goes commercial there's going to be some catastrophic event very quickly, and it's been a year now, and now with Cybercab a week or two, and thankfully no catastrophic event. Now the NHTSA investigation is ongoing. Tesla has 30 cars in the market. Do you think we can make a connection between these two things, that maybe Tesla is waiting because of their culture of safety and whatever, for things to progress with NHTSA before they take another step in Austin and other markets?
The number we have according to the robo taxi tracker is 40. So a little bit higher than 30. But what I think is happening, and this is just my assumption and belief, is that Tesla's doing it respectfully where they're saying, 'Okay, we're going to go through this audit because that's what it is.' And I want to be very clear. It is a fact-finding mission when it's just trying to uncover factual data. And they're not putting them in multiple cities and basically rubbing their nose in it. They're doing it the respectful way saying, 'Hey, we launched this in a controlled environment. Austin is our home. The factory is here. We are not expanding into other cities until we get permission.' That's my belief on it. It's being done very, very respectfully is how I would summarize it.
So if that's the case, I'm just... And by the way, let me ask you a question though. If NHTSA looks at it here, does that also apply to dropping Cybercabs in other local municipalities that they haven't been blocked in, like Florida or Houston or wherever?
That is correct. If, let's, this is all hypothetical. I just want to clarify this is all hypothetical. If Tesla passes the audit and they get a, let's say, a check mark or a thumbs up, then Tesla is free to deploy that anywhere in the 50 states that allow the operation of fully autonomous vehicles. So for me, like when I see Marson on CNBC and NHTSA and basically just how the administration has approached autonomy, even how the president has kind of responded to the fear-mongering around, you know, AI, I feel like they, the pace here, and I've seen by the way the same thing at the FCC, that Chairman Carr at the FCC has moved through issues quicker than any chairman I've ever seen at the FCC. So I'm going to throw it out there. I mean, it's mid-late September, mid-September. I mean, it feels to me like by end of year we should see these markets in Austin, you know, probably get, you know, assuming all goes well, that NHTSA will complete that process before the end of the year and then they have the Cybercabs there and maybe that is the moment you see we finally get over our 100-car benchmark. I mean, maybe it happens sooner, but I'm guessing based on the culture at Tesla. And then I guess I wonder, is it 100 in Austin and then one or two other markets at the same time? So, can we up our optimism here and think about multiple markets where maybe they have over 100 Cybercabs?
Yes, I think we can up our optimism. And we're recording today is Friday. Normally for the audience, we record on Thursdays, but Mr. Morrison, the NHTSA administrator, gave a speech in Pittsburgh. The transcript is available on nhtsa.gov, but the highlight of Mr. Morrison's speech was removing unnecessary barriers for driverless vehicles. NHTSA is carefully updating outdated — that is the key word that is in the speech — outdated federal motor vehicle safety standards to focus on overall safety performance rather than traditional design specifications that assume a human driver. So, Mr. Morrison gave a speech, and that is a direct quote from the speech, which again is available on nhtsa.gov. That to me is a signal that NHTSA is moving in the direction to allow this for Tesla if they pass a safety audit, and then that will apply to other companies because there will be a pathway to do this, which then will unlock the American ingenuity to deploy this technology in the United States, which will be a boom for our economy.
Well, we wish them the best, and like anything, like any of the autonomy players, we hope this process moves as quickly and most importantly as safely as possible. And I think, you know, like I was going to say SpaceX, but like Tesla, where we believe there's a culture of safety, I think the same exists as it should at NHTSA. I think some people confuse the focus on safety there as like them clamping down. You can be pro-safety and also want our technology to advance because I think the administrator at NHTSA, people at Tesla, people at Waymo realize that if there's an accident, you know, that's tragic throughout the industry, it's not going to be great for the industry. So, NHTSA is the perfect agency, I think, to deal with that in a rational way. So, we look forward to finding out more details. Let's move on to Nashville. Waymo's second partner, Lyft, where they launched there. Again, this is one fleet, where you can get access to a Waymo, either through the Lyft app or directly on the Waymo app. Have we gotten any good feedback on how that launch has gone in Nashville?
Yes, we have. Friend of the show, David Moss. Love David Moss. And for the audience that doesn't know, David Moss is now a special field correspondent for The Road to Autonomy. A lot more, I'll call it mossified content. There you go, David. I've got you a verb, sir. Mossified content coming your way. Yeah, he headed to Nashville. I mean, this gentleman is truly the Energizer Bunny of autonomy, and I mean that in a very positive way. He went there to experiment with it and he played autonomy roulette. Order, cancel, order, cancel, order, cancel. And then, Walt, he hit the magic invisible wall. He got banned from the Lyft for ordering and cancelling too many times. Not a good experience. The gentleman Reed on X got him unbanned. So Reed, thanks for getting our friend David Moss unbanned, but Walt, autonomy roulette did not work out in Nashville.
I mean, that I think has to do with the number of cars that they're allocating there. So that's, I think, unfortunate for now. Hopefully they get allocated some more cars to do a true test for how this partnership will work. And hopefully this is not just kind of Waymo going through the motions with Lyft and they're going to give it a fair assessment on whether this partnership can work. But we'll find out.
We'll find out. But I do want to highlight for the audience. This is very important. I would encourage you to read Lyft's blog. Lyft has invested significant capital in building a state-of-the-art depot. This is the first FlexDrive-built managed depot out there in Nashville. There are two depots in Nashville. Autonomy AI clients have access to all that data, but that's going to be something interesting to watch. Do we see a potential market where going forward there is no Lyft but only FlexDrive? It's something to watch.
Definitely. Now, I'm looking at our show notes, Grayson. Yes, we do have show notes. And all I see, there's a lot of stuff here, but it's Waymo in Vegas, Waymo in Tokyo, Waymo in Singapore, Waymo's grand European conditions. I mean, this is like a whole Waymo segment just underscoring kind of that train, that locomotive that autonomous robo-taxi keeps chugging forward. What was the most interesting of the multiple expansion things that were announced this week from Waymo?
I was going to say, come on, Walt, do the autonomous locomotion. [laughter] We can have a lot of fun with that. So, there was a lot to break down with Waymo. Let's start with Vegas. This is the best part. There is no fixed destination. You can go anywhere in the OD, the operating area. It doesn't have to be fixed. You can go to the Cosmo, and for the folks, you don't have to go get a Caesar salad at Topgolf and wait an hour and a half to get a ride, which Walt has done. That is the best news of this. No airport yet, but you can go anywhere you want within the OD. So, I just also want to point something else out about Vegas and Sphere, just to kind of clean up some past conversations, because Sphere also signed a deal with Lyft and Lyft is going to get signage. But what that doesn't mean, however, is that Uber is excluded from dropping off people. Uber, they want to make it easy for their customers. So the same, I think, goes true for Zoox. I'm not sure that Waymo is necessarily going to be blocked from dropping customers at the Sphere. There might not be the signage. It might not be as precisely as close, but I think that earlier read that I might have had in terms of grabbing exclusivity at least at the Sphere, maybe it'll be different at Allegiant Stadium or some of these other locations. But I think that market's open. And to your point, Grayson, you know, the difference when taking a Zoox is there's a limited number of hotels you can go to with Waymo. You know, there shouldn't be a limitation there, but I look forward to testing that in the weeks and months to come. We may have to get out to Vegas before CES.
Well, we will be going out to Vegas before CES, and David Moss will be producing several field reports for us from Vegas on that experience. And you want to know, it's really interesting. You have the Golden Knights. They play at the T-Mobile Arena. You do a really great job covering telco. So, if you want to learn about telco, reach out to Walt. And I'm going back and forth on X with the T-Mobile Arena. And they said there is no drop fee. And I said, 'Oh.' I said, 'Well, what about Zoox? What's the drop fee? It's in their terms of service. Crickets, crickets, crickets.' So, we're still trying to uncover that. T-Mobile, it's a very public forum. I asked the question, please respond. Or Zoox, what's the fee? Because $40 to get dropped off, hey, ain't going to happen. I'm not going to be nickel-and-dimed. I got to pay resort fees and I got to get nickel-and-dimed. Not going to happen. Let's get some clarity on that.
So, moving on globally, Waymo, Tokyo and Singapore. Tokyo happened first. Singapore, I believe, was one of your predicted markets. So, clappy hat for you. Is this a package deal? And like, how do you see the expansion domestic versus international over the upcoming six months?
Awesome. So, we did the clappy hat. Thank you. I'll clappy hat myself, but I'll also credit Omega for this. And here's a funny thing, Walt. In March 2nd, 2020, Waymo set up a holding company called Omega. And what is Omega? It's Waymo backwards. And why is that important? First of all, our algorithm Omega uncovered it, but they put 20.2 billion US dollars in a holding company. And why is that important? Well, Singapore is home to Hyundai's innovation factory. Furthermore, why is that important? That is where the Hyundai Ioniq 5s come out of. And if you read the fine print in the press release, Waymo clearly stated that the Jaguar I-Paces are for mapping. I'm going to make a prediction. Singapore will be an Ioniq 5 market and Tokyo will be a Toyota market. They will scale, I would say, with a sub-fleet. And then for true scale in Tokyo, it is going to be a Toyota market. Why is all this important? Waymo is going global and they're getting ready to go global at scale because the thing that you and I have discussed in the previous hundred episodes about Waymo being vehicle-constrained, that is now going away. It's dissipating.
Well, the last we heard of Toyota was a letter of intent, or a letter to intend, or something like that. It was very thin. So, I'm very intrigued by your prediction that Toyota will be an OEM partner for them in Tokyo. And obviously, Tokyo, not that I've been there and experienced it myself, but has notorious challenging traffic situations. So, to me, that to a certain extent is a more interesting market. Obviously, Singapore is more interesting for you, to your point. Omega literally found this stuff very early in terms of that presence. So, obviously, what you know, great output from your Omega and what it delivers to those clients.
And I just want to highlight for the audience, yes, there was the very, what, one sentence, two sentence release on Toyota, but Omega uncovered this was in Japanese media roughly about two and a half months ago. Chief product officer was in Tokyo and gave a public speech with Toyota executives talking about a bespoke Toyota vehicle that's coming and an acceleration of their partnership. Again, only covered in Japanese media, but Omega uncovered that. And that's where I'm getting my bullishness from is the coverage in Japanese media from that speech that Waymo's chief product officer gave with a Toyota executive.
Now, you've always been on the forefront in talking about insurance. You've had many podcasts on The Road to Autonomy exploring this option. So, I'm very interested in something that probably was below most people's radar, which is Waymo's partnership with Allianz for European insurance claims and safety research. I mean, does this get to private ownership? Is this underscore aspirations in Europe? Like, what's the read that we should have on this?
The read is the grand European expansion plans. Right now, Waymo has a very public partnership with Swiss Re, which publishes the safety data. But the Allianz relationship to me says that Waymo has the insurance mechanisms in place to scale rapidly across the European continent. So, it is a very positive that the insurance is in place. Not to mention, Omega has uncovered several filings, corporate filings. We had the corporate filings, we have the offices, the real estate is there. Now they have the insurance because the regulatory environment in certain countries in the EU is ready to go. It basically is one of the final pieces getting ready for launch. So it's a very bullish signal on Waymo's, I call it, grand European ambitions, which is soon to be about the grand European expansion.
You know who else has ambitions in Europe, and that's Bolt. And they this week signed a deal with Lucid to get 25,000 vehicles on the market. Although when I saw Lucid, I'm like, 'Oh, cool. Nuro is expanding through Europe,' but then I didn't see Nuro anywhere in the release. And for our listeners that don't remember, Nuro and Lucid have the partnership to deliver with Uber a high number of cars. They hope in California, we think maybe a different market initially. So I was a little surprised to see this, especially because like, does Bolt really have any technology to speak of? Is this some version of what Nvidia is pushing? Is Lucid, like Rivian, going to try and develop their own internal autonomy? What's your takeaway on this?
What we know, we have little, minimal context into this. We just have public statements made by Bolt and made by their founder that Bolt does have an internal autonomous driving division. Very similar, this is their version of Uber's ATG. They call it Bolt Autonomous Driving Solutions. We do not know how mature the stack is. We do not have any data into that. But they do have an internal division in the release because what do we do? We love to read fine print. There was very clear language and they're open to partners. It is my belief of reading the press release that could be autonomous driving partners. Again, we have no clarity. We have little insight into this and not to go down a rabbit hole. Bolt's based in Estonia. So, watch that market as well.
And just to be clear, like it mentions Nvidia Hyperion. Again, sometimes I get caught up in the words, especially even listening to them describe it in terms of what is what. My understanding is Hyperion is just effectively the hardware stack and maybe some base model, but it's not the full stack that may be what Mercedes is doing with Nvidia. So just because they show Nvidia Hyperion as a partner doesn't mean that that is necessarily going to be an Nvidia software stack. As I think many people are still kind of waiting ever since you go back to CES and the subsequent conferences that they had when we were expecting all of these OEMs to sign on with Nvidia and really nothing much incremental has happened as far as I can say.
