Waymo’s Big Week and Elon’s Promises

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s mapping expansion to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), their continued Bay Area expansion and Tesla’s ambitious plans for launching a FSD Unsupervised.

As Waymo begins mapping SFO, there are still hurdles that the company has to overcome before offering commercial service, as their current permit prohibits transporting commercial goods or passengers. When Waymo applies for their ground transportation operating permit, The Teamsters are expected to oppose Waymo’s permit application it in an effort to block the service. Despite this potential challenge, we expect commercial operations at the airport to begin by this summer, as there is a clear economic benefit to San Francisco’s economy.

Down at Giga in Austin, Elon Musk held an all-hands meeting where he outlined his bold plans for FSD Unsupervised and the company’s upcoming robotaxi service. At some point, Tesla will “crack” full self-driving and when they do, Waymo will have their first true competitor.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Waymo Begins Mapping SFO

9:14 Waymo Airport Predictions (SFO, SJC, LAX)

11:13 Waymo Nashville Prediction

13:16 Waymo / Hyundai Prediction

14:38 Waymo’s Continued Bay Area Expansion

19:13 Uber, Lyft and the Growth of Waymo

21:04 Waymo Zeekr Robotaxis

26:43 Waymo on Uber in Austin

30:59 Could Waymo be Expanding to the UK?

34:16 Tesla Unsupervised

35:43 Tesla All-Hands Meeting

37:36 Tesla CPUC Permit

38:47 NVIDIA GTC

42:04 Truck OEMs

46:57 Unforced Error of The Week

48:51 Next Week

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