Big Week for U.S. Autonomous Trucks, While China Shuts Down Autonomy

About this episode

The episode discusses recent developments in U.S. autonomous trucking and the impact of regulatory changes in China.

This week on Autonomy Markets , Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Bot Auto’s fully autonomous commercial run from Houston to Dallas, Aurora’s expanded partnership with Hirschbach, and Uber’s CTO publicly criticizing Waymo on X over safety. With Bot Auto completing a 231 mile commercial paid run with no human in the cab, no safety driver, and no observer, the conversation evolves into a deeper discussion around the imminent Waymo robotaxi moment for autonomous trucking, with Kodiak operating fully autonomous in the Permian Basin and Aurora announcing a non-binding 500 truck MOU with Hirschbach representing roughly 15 percent of the carrier’s fleet. While in Houston, Grayson conducted field work riding in a Tesla Unsupervised Robotaxi in the Cypress neighborhood, where he counted 24 robotaxis staged for launch at the Tesla service center, while observing that both the Tesla and Waymo vehicles drove aggressively in a similar manner to Houstonians. More signs emerged this week of the deteriorating relationship between Waymo and Uber as the CTO of Uber made a post on X accusing a Waymo of an aggressive maneuver against a Muni bus in San Francisco, a rare public criticism from a…

People in this episode

Hosts: Grayson Brulte, Walter Piecyk

Topics covered

• autonomous trucks
• robotaxis
• partnerships
• safety concerns
• China regulations

Keywords

• autonomous vehicles
• Bot Auto
• Aurora
• Waymo
• Uber
• robotaxi
• safety
• China
• Hirschbach

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bot Auto, Aurora, Hirschbach, Uber, Waymo

Places: Houston, Dallas, Permian Basin, Cypress, San Francisco, China

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