Waymo’s Big Week and Elon Musk’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
