Autonocast

#208: Anthony Townsend on Ghost Road

It's rare for Alex, Kirsten and Ed to agree on anything, but they're unanimous on one point: Anthony Townsend's Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car was the best AV book of 2020. This week Townsend joins the show to discuss his book, which looks at how urban, economic and political development could be transformed by autonomous drive technology. If any of these topics interest you even a little bit, you'll want to make sure to catch this episode and pick up a copy of Ghost Road.

#207: Swamy Kotagiri of Magna

At a time when the auto industry is seeing an influx of new startups like it hasn't seen in a century, one of the most interesting companies to watch is Magna International. Not only does Magna supply everything from an in-house EV platform and ADAS to body-in-white and drivetrains, they also provide the engineering and validation expertise to turn startup dreams into reality... and they can even contract manufacture the final result. To understand how a "full-stack" automotive startup enable...

#206: Right To Repair, Funding Rounds and Safety Cases

In the wake of the election, the gang discusses the potential implications of the newest Massachusetts "Right To Repair" law, the return of successful funding rounds to the AV space, and the rising importance of the safety case.

#205: Why Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" Beta Is Dangerous

Tesla's deployment of a "limited beta" version of its "Full Self-Driving" software to public roads raises a number of important issues around how and why AV developers test safely on public roads. With Kirsten just getting back from vacation, Alex and Ed walk her through the most immediate concerns... plus, Alex shares what it's like to be trained as a professional AV safety driver.

#204: Nancy Sun and Randol Aikin of Ike

With competition in autonomous trucking heating up we speak with two of the top leaders at Ike, a startup that brings a unique development approach to this exciting space. Co-founder and Chief Engineer Nancy Sun and Head of Systems Randol Aikin oversee Ike's work transforming core technology licensed from Nuro into an autonomous trucking solution, and they explain how their strategy turns some popular perceptions about AV development on their head. Learn why they see AVs as a systems engineer...

#203: The Great AV Debate featuring Horace Dediu

Recently Ed had been noticing some negativity about AVs in tweets by friend of the show and brilliant technology analyst Horace Dediu. He challenged Horace to debate the prospects for autonomous drive technology, and what resulted was a fascinating conversation that proves there is more consensus about AVs than it sometimes seems. Though the resulting episode was less of a debate than originally imagined, it is still an in-depth exploration of the past and future of AVs as they struggle out o...

#202: Battery Day, Geely's EV Architecture, Camera-only ADAS and more

The gang struggles to make sense of Tesla's sprawling "Battery Day" presentation, which they contrast to Geely's very different strategy for EV dominance through a shared flexible architecture. We also look at Mobileye's new camera-only Level 2+ ADAS and discuss a couple of recent news items involving the autonomous trucking company TuSimple, making this week's discussion as diverse as the future of mobility itself.

#201: Modern UI Woes, the GM-Honda Alliance and SPACmania

The gang is back with another discussion episode covering a diverse range of topics, from the new Mercedes S Class and Polestar 2 and the struggle to create good modern user interfaces, to the GM-Honda Alliance and another look at the SPACmania that is inflating EV startup valuations while looking past AVs almost entirely.

#200: Mark Wheeler of DeepMap

Mapping continues to be one of the more misunderstood aspects of AV development, so to help clear up the confusion we spoke with one of the godfathers of modern mapping tech. Mark Wheeler is the co-founder and CTO of DeepMap, a company that's been working on onboard HD mapping for AVs since 2016. He explains why mapping matters, how DeepMap builds its HD maps, and how he ended up working in this fascinating space.

#199: Jody Kelman of Lyft on autonomous ridehailing

Lyft is one of the few mobility platforms where you can hail a ride in an autonomous vehicle, at least in Las Vegas and Chandler, Arizona where it partners with Aptiv and Waymo respectively. But Lyft is also developing its own autonomous driving technology, at its Level 5 organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lyft's Jody Kelman joins the show to explain this dual-track approach, lay out her vision for autonomous ride hailing and explain where the "Level 5" name came from.

#198: Liza Dixon on Autonowashing (and more)

Every once in a while, someone coins a word that takes a huge and complex concept and makes it comprehensible to the general public. That's exactly what Liza Dixon did one day, when she responded to one of Alex Roy's tweets with a brand-new neologism: Autonowashing. We caught up with the doctoral candidate, human-automation interaction expert and all-around badass to discuss Autonowashing, her research, human factors and much more.

Dispatches from the Dumpster Fire

Listen in on this rousing discussion about meme markets and the whackadoodle world of EVs. Plus, the gang weighs in on an unfortunate product being marketed to Tesla owners.

#196: Amazoox and Waymolvo

Two major developments in the autonomous vehicle world captured our attention in this week's discussion episode: Waymo's deal with Volvo, and Amazon's purchase of Zoox. We discuss the deals, what they might mean, and how they affect the rest of the alliances... but more importantly, how we should mash up the names into catchy portemanteau.

#195: Welcome To The Blendercast

The gang has a lot of news to discuss this week, with an NVIDIA-Mercedes partnership, BMW and Daimler's "conscious uncoupling," Apple Maps' mobility features, and Lyft's recent moves in mapping and electrification. Still, in spite of all this meaty news, Alex only wants to discuss one thing: blenders. Welcome, friends, to the Blendercast.

#194: AV Depictions In Amazon's "Upload" And Why SciFi Matters

The gang spends this week's discussion talking about fiction, specifically the new Amazon Prime show "Upload." This is a bit of a change of pace, as The Autonocast has always tried to keep its discussions firmly rooted in the real-world, but there's a good reason for this switch-up. For one thing, it's just plain fun at a time when we could all use a little escapism, but according to Ed it's actually educational too... or is he just kidding himself?

#193: Racism, Research Studies and Other Light Topics

With everything going on right now, mobility can seem like a frivolous thing to be focused on but as the gang discusses in today's episode it's actually more important than ever. New technology allows us to build new ways of getting around, and to ensure that these new systems serve everyone it's critical that we understand how our past systems failed to do so. Plus, what's the deal with that study saying AVs will only solve 34% of road crashes?

#192: Anuja Sonalker of STEER

We've talked a lot about the importance of picking the right domain in early applications of autonomous drive technology, but one rarely gets discussed: the parking lot. Anuja Sonalker is taking on that challenge at her company STEER, which is developing autonomous parking functionality for both the direct-to-consumer retrofit and OEM option markets. She joins the show to explain how STEER hopes to address that market, discuss her background in cybersecurity, and explain some important AV sa...

#191: Aine Denari of ZF on the rise of ADAS

With the timelines for fully autonomous vehicle deployments stretching out, much of the automated driving technology space is pivoting toward the booming advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) market. To help us understand what's driving that market and how it's developing, we are joined by Aine Denari, the SVP of ADAS at the giant Tier One supplier ZF.

#190: The Autonomous Hunger Horse Game Race

Those of us who follow and/or report on autonomous vehicles often struggle to find the right way to frame competition in the space. Is it a horse race, only everyone is headed for a different finish line? Is it the Hunger Games, only not boring and stupid? Deep thoughts abound as the gang discusses the recent news.

189: Women In Autonomy on AI Bias

With conferences being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Autonocast is proud to host important discussions that were planned for IRL events. On today's episode: Women In Autonomy presents a discussion of AI bias in autonomous vehicle development, featuring Aptiv's Nandita Mangal, Aeye's Indu Vijayan, and NVIDIA's Neda Cvijetic and moderated by Genevieve Smith of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership.

#188: Boris Sofman, Head of Trucking at Waymo

With its robotaxis already on the road in Arizona, Waymo has been quietly moving toward the autonomous trucking space for some time. To find out more of why the original AV developer is looking at the opportunities in logistics, we spoke with Head of Trucking Boris Sofman. In today's episode, Boris explains how Waymo's two main programs relate to each other, reveals that the safety case is critical intellectual property and briefly discusses his past life building entertainment-focused robots...

#187: Jewel Li of AutoX

If we've missed a huge topic within the sprawling world of autonomous drive technology, it's what is happening in China. China is making a huge push into self-driving vehicles, and it's doing so in a very different context from the US, Europe and other markets. On this week's show, we are joined by Jewel Li of the Chinese-based company AutoX, to discuss the differences and similarities between the US and China in terms of both autonomous mobility and new mobility more generally, especially in...

#186: The Autonomous PR Dilemma and Auto Industry relationships

Will autonomous vehicles save us from COVID-19? You may have seen some stories that seem to imply that they will, but which fall apart if you poke at them a little. Kirsten, Damon and Ed figure that this is just another part of the broader problems with autonomous drive technology PR, and that how we think and talk about self-driving vehicles need to change. Plus, the Honda-GM EV tie-up occasions the opportunity to discuss what does and doesn't work in auto industry relationships.

#185: Layoffs, partnerships, tuned supercar crashes and other distractions

On this week's Autonocast discussion episode: Alex denies responsibility for the crash of a tuned supercar in Manhattan, Kirsten reports on mobility tech company layoffs, Ed wonders how many cities are taking this opportunity to reboot their relationships with mobility providers, and Damon maintains his unflappably bemused demeanor.

#184: Alisyn Malek

Because mobility is so foundational to society, rethinking it requires a broad, multidisciplinary approach. As a former EV engineer at GM, a former investor for GM Ventures and the founder and former COO of the autonomous shuttle startup May Mobility, Alisyn Malek has precisely that kind of big-picture perspective. She joins the show to discuss the state of mobility tech, alternatives to VC funding for startups in the space, the challenge of matching product and infrastructure "clock speed" w...

#183: Cabin Fever Sets In

COVID-19 continues to take its toll, as the gang is a little extra quarantine-drunk in this discussion episode. Alex, Kirsten, Damon and Ed jump around between topics as diverse as: Cannonball Runs in the time of COVID, self-disinfecting bikes, the anti-touchscreens-in-cars backlash, cringey Model Y "off-roading" videos, and the emissions standard rollback. Buckle up!

#182: Nancy Post of John Deere

With so much pessimism in the world of autonomous drive technology, we thought we'd highlight a company that has built a solid, customer-focused business around automated vehicles. Nancy Post is the Director of John Deere's Intelligent Solutions Group, and has been working on the agricultural machinery giant's automation systems for decades. She explains how John Deere's automation efforts started, how they have evolved, and where they are going now.

#181: Stefan Seltz-Axmacher on the end of Starsky and the future of autonomy

The collapse of Starsky Robotics has been the subject of rumor and speculation in the autonomous drive technology world for months, but now founder Stefan Seltz-Axmacher is ready to set the record straight. He joins The Autonocast to discuss his recent blog post on The Fall of Starsky, the lessons learned from his time running a startup, where the autonomy and trucking spaces are going, and what he's doing next.

#180: Damon's Back

Founding Autonocast co-host Damon Lavrinc is back from a stint working at a variety of mobility companies, and he's come at a time when there is so much to think about and discuss. On this classic wide-ranging discussion episode, the gang considers the seismic shocks running through the mobility tech world, which companies are surprisingly well-positioned, which need to rethink things, where they can pivot to, and how long some can survive. Plus: what happens to urbanism in a pandemic, how de...

#179: Sam Abuelsamid on the 2020 Navigant Research Autonomous Leaderboard

Every year, the Navigant Research Autonomous Leaderboard report ranks the various players in the autonomous mobility space and every year it prompts much wailing and gnashing of teeth from fans of companies who trail in the rankings. To help explain the factors that go into these rankings and the methodologies used measure them, we are joined by the report's author Sam Abuelsamid. A widely-respected analyst covering autos and autonomy, Sam was last on The Autonocast back in January of 2018 wh...

#178: Keeping Up With COVID-19

With COVID-19 bringing any sense of normalcy to an abrupt end, the gang pauses their recent parade of high-profile guests in favor of an old-fashioned discussion episode. Between some of the big recent headlines in mobility and the still-evolving impact of certain novel viruses, there's a lot to discuss in this week's wide-ranging conversation. Ed explains how EV technology allows GM to revisit the brand brand strategy that built (and nearly destroyed) its US-market dominance, Kirsten shares ...

#177: Ashley Nunes on Robotaxi Economics

For much of the last few years, autonomous robotaxis were simply presumed to be a technological problem whose economics would be easily competitive. Now, with human-driven ridehailing still struggling to turn a profit, more and more companies are realizing that the robotaxi business won't necessarily be an easy one. Perhaps the best view of the robotaxi's economic challenge comes from Ashley Nunes, a Harvard researcher whose study of autonomous taxi economics in San Francisco revealed that th...

#176: Joshua Schachter of Self Racing Cars

Joshua Schachter is well-known in the mobility tech world as a savvy angel and venture capitalist, but not everyone knows that he (more specifically, his "Self-Racing Cars" event) played a major role in making The Autonocast happen. On today's episode, we discuss the mobility tech investing environment, how Joshua analyzes potential investments and how Self-Racing Cars came to be the AV sector's punk rock event. For more information on how to attend this year's Self Racing Cars, check out sel...

#175: Phantom Auto

Teleoperation used to be seen as the autonomous drive sector's dirty little secret, the kind of capability that stoked suspicion about the readiness of the technology. Ironically, as AVs get closer and closer to maturity the need for teleoperation capabilities is becoming increasingly normalized as a fundamental part of the stack. At this year's CES, Ed spoke with the leadership of Phantom Auto, a leader in the teleoperation and remote guidance space, to find out how their business is evolving.

#174: Dmitry Shevelenko of Tortoise

Fresh off the heels of tumultuous hype cycles in both shared electric scooters and autonomous vehicles, the idea of "riderless scooters" can seem like the immaculate hypeball. But, as today's episode shows, the ability to move shared scooters remotely is actually a meaningful potential solution to the operational challenges facing shared scooter companies. Dmitry Shevelenko of the scooter teleoperations company Tortoise joins the crew to explain the economic and technological opportunity unde...

#173: David Estrada of Nuro

David Estrada has been on the cutting edge of new mobility tech regulation for years, handling legal and government affairs duties at companies like the Google Chauffeur project, Lyft, Bird and now the autonomous delivery company Nuro. Estrada joins the show this week to discuss his history in the space, where autonomous drive regulation is headed and his latest achievement: an FMVSS waiver for Nuro's R2 delivery bot.

#172: Jesse Levinson of Zoox

During a recent trip to the Bay Area, Ed got a ride in a Zoox development vehicle and came away surprisingly impressed with its autonomous driving capabilities in a tough domain. Immediately following the ride he recorded a conversation with Zoox CTO Jesse Levinson about the challenges of developing an AV in San Francisco, the technology that enables his stack's impressive performance and his improvisational piano skills. Alex and Kirsten also grill Ed about his Zoox ride and the gang discuss...

#171: Chris Urmson of Aurora

If you know anything about autonomous drive technology, you probably know the name Chris Urmson. From Carnegie Mellon's DARPA Grand and Urban Challenge teams to head of Google's Chauffeur program (now Waymo) and now as co-founder and CEO of Aurora, Urmson has been in the thick of AV development since its earliest days. He joins The Autonocast for the first time, recorded live as the annual CES party gathered steam, to discuss what he's learned at the forefront of this new technology and where...

#170: Cruise's Origin Story

Cruise's mysterious "Beyond The Car" event turns out to have been the reveal of its first dedicated robotaxi, the Origin. Both Ed and Kirsten were on hand for the reveal, and share their impressions and analysis of the first production-intent autonomous mobility device by a major Level 4 AV developer. Alex provides the critical perspective (disclosure: he works for a competitor), prompting a lively debate about AV strategy, positioning and communication.

#169: Karl Iagnemma of Aptiv

As Aptiv's President of Autonomous Mobility, Karl Iagnemma now finds himself at the head of a massive $4 billion joint venture with Hyundai Motor Company. The former NuTonomy founder is one of the quiet heroes of self-driving, having spearheaded the first AV deployment in Singapore and led Aptiv into an industry-leading position. Joining the show from the Autonocast suite prior to their CES 2020 party, Iagnemma discusses everything from AV development to his turn as an author and novelist.

John Krafcik of Waymo

Having worked in everything from manufacturing and engineering to marketing, John Krafcik saw the auto industry from almost every possible angle before becoming the CEO of Alphabet's Waymo division. Now, as head of one of the leading self-driving technology outfits, he's taking on a whole new set of challenges. In an extended conversation recorded just before The Autonocast's 2020 CES party, Krafcik talks moonshots, business models, partnerships and much, much more.

#167: The CES 2020 Download

#166: The 2020 Predictions Episode

With a new year upon us, Alex, Kirsten and Ed pull out their crystal balls and try to predict what might play out during 2020. From the continued rise of ADAS and commercial applications of autonomous drive technology to potential acquisitions, a deployment "land grab" and yes, the "million robotaxis" thing, the gang maps out what they see coming in the world of automated driving. Get your timestamps out, and we'll see you back here next year to see how many of these predictions actually pan...

#165: Looking Back At The Lessons Of 2019

With another year coming to a close, Alex, Kirsten and Ed look back at some of their big takeaways from 2019. Technical progress has continued, as Ed's driverless Waymo ride proved, but new technologies alone don't create viable business models or solve product-market fit. ADAS also made a comeback over the last year, with lots of OEMs announcing new plans to make up for delayed autonomy plans, but will safety considerations spoil the party? It seems that for every new opportunity, 2019 manag...

#164: Ed's Driverless Ride, Simulation, Trust and the NTSB's Uber Investigation

What do Ed's recent driverless Waymo ride, simulation, trust and the NTSB's investigation into a fatal Uber crash have in common? More than you might think. Alex, Kirsten and Ed weave these and other issues together in the latest discussion episode of The Autonocast. If you enjoy conversations like this one, please take a moment to fill out The Autonocast's first-ever listener survey at autonocast.com/survey.

#163: Ali Kashani of Postmates on Autonomous Delivery Bots

Delivery bots were one of the big topics of 2019, attracting huge amounts of hype and venture capital but also generating a good deal of backlash and mockery. Much of that backlash centered on San Francisco, which banned sidewalk-based delivery bots only to provide a single company the necessary permit to test there: the delivery company Postmates. The company's VP of Special Projects Ali Kashani joins The Autonocast to explain what makes their approach different, and what kinds of design con...

#162: Raul Bravo of Outsight

Dizzying progress in computer vision is one of the factors that has brought autonomous driving within reach, but as self-driving cars get closer to reality the probabilistic nature of machine learning inference is creating challenges due to the need for extremely high levels of safety. One possible approach to providing a more deterministic "safety checker" in future autonomous drive stacks comes from a company called Outsight, which is developing an active hyperspectral imaging sensor which ...

#161: What The Cybertruck and Inside The Mustang Mach E

The Autonocast is just back from LA, where they saw the future of mobility in all its forms... from the ridiculous to the sublime. First up Ed and Alex ask Kirsten for her in-person account of the infamous Tesla Cybertruck reveal, where she battled Youtube influencers for the weirdest new car launch story of the year. Then the gang discusses some of the vehicles they saw at the LA show, wrapping up with an interview Ed and Kirsten did with Ford's Mark Kaufman from the back seat of the Mustang...

#160: Jack Weast of Intel

When Intel bought the Israeli computer vision and ADAS company Mobileye for $15 billion, it was a message that the computing and data giant didn't want to miss automated driving the way they'd missed mobile. With over a decade of experience with camera-based automated driving, a leading position in the effort to articulate autonomous vehicle safety and contracts with some of the biggest automakers in the business, Mobileye got Intel into the ADAS and autonomy business in a big way. Intel's Se...

#159: Grady Irey of Arity, on Insuring the Future of Mobility

It's fun to imagine how emerging innovations might shape the future of mobility, but if you want to know how the rubber hits the road you should probably talk to someone in the insurance business. From big data and connected vehicles to managing shared mobility services and understanding autonomous vehicle safety, insurance companies have to turn "the vision thing" into models, predictions and ultimately dollars and cents. To better understand how the insurance business is managing all of the...