About this episode

Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss the latest developments in autonomous trucking and robotaxi permits.

This week on Autonomy Markets , Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss autonomous trucking reaching an inflection point, Waymo acquiring Apple’s Arizona proving ground and Tesla filing for a robotaxi permit in Las Vegas. As Gatik expands its middle-mile freight operations with PepsiCo across Texas, Arizona and Arkansas, Volvo Autonomous Solutions told investors it is targeting $3 billion in autonomous transport revenue within five years through its transport-as-a-service (TaaS) business. On the robotaxi side of the business, Waymo acquired Apple’s former 5,500-acre proving ground in Wittmann, Arizona for $220 million, a facility with a high-speed oval an hour from its Mesa up-fitting plant. Grayson views the acquisition as a signal that Waymo is preparing to test at highway speeds away from prying eyes, while Walt notes that satellite imagery sees everything. Before the segueing into the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Grayson and Walt debate Tesla’s Clark County permit application for up to 5,000 robotaxis in a Las Vegas market with roughly 6,500 Uber drivers, Einride going public and Rivian beginning R2 deliveries. On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Chinese robotaxi continues to accelerate…

People in this episode

Hosts: Grayson Brulte, Walter Piecyk

Topics covered

• autonomous trucking
• robotaxis
• Waymo acquisition
• Tesla permit
• Gatik operations
• Volvo revenue target
• foreign autonomy

Keywords

• autonomous trucking
• robotaxi
• Waymo
• Tesla
• Gatik
• PepsiCo
• Volvo
• Einride
• Rivian

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Waymo, Apple, Tesla, Gatik, PepsiCo, Volvo Autonomous Solutions

Places: Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Las Vegas, Clark County, Luxembourg, Slovakia

More episodes of Autonomy Markets

• Has Robotaxi Begun to Scale? · July 18, 2026 · 29 min
• Three Robotaxis in Miami, Four New Waymo Markets, One New NHTSA Letter · July 11, 2026 · 37 min
• Waymo and Uber Divorce in Phoenix. Are Austin and Atlanta Next? · July 4, 2026 · 35 min
• Qualcomm Sells the Chip While Mobileye Eyes the Fleet · June 27, 2026 · 45 min

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