Tales from Disengagement Reports & Another AV Unicorn
California remains Ground Zero for autonomous vehicle testing, notwithstanding its regulatory scheme that requires companies that wish to test autonomous vehicles to obtain a permit and to file annual reports of “disengagements” experienced during testing. It’s a thoughtful approach that yields more information than the Department of Transportation’s “encouraged” annual safety report. Host and litigator Zach Adams discusses the just-released disengagement reports for 2018. With over 40 companies now testing, this is a rich field. We unpack the Apple disengagement reports in particular depth and chew on Timothy B. Lee’s provocative article about Waymo’s strategy. Finally, it has been a record-breaking month for autonomous vehicle companies with more than $1.6 billion raised in February 2019, and Tod discusses TuSimple and Nuro’s successful raises.
View MoreResources
Driverless investment tops $1.6B so far this month (February 15, 9201) (Eugene Demaitre author)
GM Cruise Averaged 5,200 Miles Between AV Disengagements (February 18, 2019) (Anthony Alaniz author)
Google’s Waymo risks repeating Silicon Valley’s most famous blunder (February 14, 2019) (Timothy B. Lee author)
How collaboration in the future of mobility will bridge the old and new, EY website (February 19, 2019) (John Simlett author)
Self-Driving Truck Tech Startup TuSimple Raises $95 Million in New Funding, WSJ (February 13, 2019) (Jennifer Smith author)
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Clayton Christensen author)
Twitter thread (on Apple disengagements) (February 18, 2019) (Oliver Cameron author)
Show Notes
1:15 GM and GM Cruise are investing smartly
3:30 GM Cruise’s compensation strategy
5:20 Parallels between GM Cruise and Argo.ai
5: 50 Digging into investments in GM Cruise
11:50 Form factor for EV and AV – Where are the trucks?
13:55 Tesla strings together profitable quarters
17:37 Tesla acquires Maxwell Technologies
21:18 Tesla shrinks its workforce but draws muted reaction
23:18 Aurora raises $530 billion in a Series B24:30 Amazon jumps into autonomous vehicles
28:35 Ike – which is pursuing driverless commercial trucking – raises money to add talent