Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Trends: Are Chauffeurs DOOMED?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Blain (00:25):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another exciting
episode of the GroundTransportation Podcast.
Today we are absolutely going tonerd out on autonomous vehicles.
I, have heard people say it'snot coming.
We've got 10 years.
We've got this, we've got that.
There was a huge announcementtoday, and we're super excited
to talk about it.
us always.
I am with my amazing cohost,Ken.

(00:45):
Ken, I know you're just asexcited about this one as I am.

Ken Lucci (00:49):
I, I am because every single day the data, platforms
that we use, um, you wanna talkabout nerding out on, uh,
Bloomberg Terminal on our DowJones, Factiva on, d and v
Hoovers on PitchBook.
I have alerts sent up, set upalerts for every possible

(01:13):
subject that I wanna look at,including autonomous vehicles,
electric vehicles, and thespecific companies.
So every morning.
I started this a year ago withthese databases.
Maybe once or twice a week I'dget stuff on avs, autonomous
vehicles.
Now I'm getting three or fournews stories and analyst reports

(01:35):
a day.

Yep.
It is hot.

Ken Lucci (01:39):
Red hot.

And I think, you know, we've got an announcement
that we'll cut to here in alittle bit, but I know that
we've had the news Waymo'smoving into New York.
That was a recent one.
We've got

Ken Lucci (01:49):
Yep.

just broke today that we'll talk about in a
second.
There are so many thingshappening in that space I think
people have kind of made this, Icall it an underestimation.
Like people think that in thetech world, things move on kind
of a straight line.
If I tried it today and it suckstomorrow, it's gonna suck.
But tech leaps and balance,

Ken Lucci (02:09):
that law they call it?
What's that law?

Moore's law?
I think is what you're talkingabout.
So of of course, the residentnerd.

Ken Lucci (02:15):
wait a minute.
You've cemented yourself in mymind as a techno nerd.
I want you to explain to thestudio audience, wait a minute,
we have no studio audience tothe audience what that law is.
Please take your time andexplain it because it's

All right, Moore's Law basically explains that
you're on an exponential scalewhen it comes to the power of
computing.
So when we're talking about acomputer chip and you know, you
think of, for those in theaudience, you're probably all,
remember the days when we hadlike Pentiums, I have the penem
one, I have the PENEM two.

(02:51):
Now we have, you know, the coreI seven, the core i nine.
Apple has M two, And four.
What Moore's Law says that.
It's going to double.
So, you don't go from going,zero miles an hour to one mile
an hour to three mile an hour.
You start really jumping andthat's why if you start looking
in computers, start seeing, youknow, you might have, back in

(03:15):
the day we had 64 megahertz andthen it was 128 and then it was
five 12 and then, you know, itjust keeps by doubling.
And so roughly, depending onwhich version of that you wanna
apply, basically what it'ssaying is in our, a cycle of, of
roughly six months to a year orso, computing power doubles.

(03:37):
And so when developers, whentech people are planning stuff,
it basically tells me that if Iknow I'm gonna need twice as
much computing power and techpower to do this as I currently
have is currentlytechnologically available.
I just have to get working on itnow.
Knowing that the power I need,the computing power I need will

(04:00):
catch up because it's doubling,incrementally going up.
And that's exactly what I wastalking about a second ago.
Just'cause something was hereyesterday doesn't mean it's
gonna do a linear jump.
We saw it happen with ai.
AI is just absolutely boundingall over the place.
It's

Ken Lucci (04:16):
So, just to reign you in a little bit, Moore's Law is
not just a computer about acomputer chip, it's about
technology advancement ingeneral.

in general.

Ken Lucci (04:25):
Yes.
So let's, let's put this intosome reality.
Transports 250,000 passengers aweek with 1500 robo taxis, and
they are doubling the passengerservice every five months.
Whereas when they started, itwas tiny.
To James Point, when technologyreaches a certain point.

(04:50):
It exponentially grows in anextremely short period of time,
and we're getting damn close tothat exponential growth on the
AV side.

And there's something I think we need to
really point out that a lot ofpeople aren't grasping.
These companies are datacompanies.
So you know, I've ridden inWaymo's, I've ridden in
self-driving vehicles.
I'll give you a great example.
And, my buddy down the streethas a Tesla and he's part of the
full self-driving beta.
You know, we're, I'm a hockeyplayer, so we're going to the

(05:21):
hockey store.
He put, I said, Hey, you got thefull self-driving.
let's, see what he can do.
He puts it in full self-drivingmode.
It backs outta the driveway, itstarts driving.
We get off the highway andthere's a no turn on red and it
tries to run the no turn on red.
And I go, ah, got it.
It's not ready.
He goes, oh no, no big deal.
pushes the little round part onthe string wheel, holds it down,

(05:42):
and it goes, record your messagefor the developers.
And he goes, Hey, this was a noturn on red.
It didn't identify the sign ittried to make a right on red
here.
this is something that you guysneed to look at to fix.
And I said, wow.
How long's that gonna take?
And he goes, it'll probably benext week the next time I drive
through here.
It won't do that.
Now.

Ken Lucci (06:00):
so let's, let's

like that easy.

Ken Lucci (06:03):
st Wait, wait a minute.
Stop there because you, you'vehit upon something that I don't
think anybody knows.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (06:09):
Teslas are recording data and recording pictures.

cameras.

Ken Lucci (06:14):
It's covered in cameras and it's sending them
back to Tesla.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (06:19):
That data.
Okay, so, so let's just set thetone for a second.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (06:24):
everybody in the industry should know about
Waymo, if you don't.
Waymo is owned by Google.
They operate a fleet of JaguarSUVs that

E Pace Jaguars.

Ken Lucci (06:35):
He pays jaguars that have all kinds of technology.
Waymo, te uh, Google Technologyon it, and it's LIDAR based AV
technology.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (06:45):
Tesla, uh, just launched their robo Taxii
service in Austin, Texas.
Oh, by the way, Waymo is inPhoenix,

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (06:56):
Francisco, LA Austin, and they are mapping 12 other
cities, including New York,Boston, and Philadelphia.
This summer.
Their goal, Waymo's goal is todouble their size of their fleet
by the end of 2025, beginning of2026,

They want

Ken Lucci (07:16):
te

major metropolitan areas.

Ken Lucci (07:18):
all of them.
Then you have Tesla's Robo Taxi.
These are the two bigs in theUnited States, but it doesn't
end with the United States.
Tesla.
Talk about if Waymo uses Lidarr.
Talk about lidar, not that Iexpect you to be an expert, but,
and then talk about what youunderstand the Tesla, uh, how

(07:39):
the Tesla operates

Okay, so you've got a couple things there.
Right?
This is one of the few timesthat being in training and
having a tech background paysoff.
'cause we can, we can bringthese things down

Ken Lucci (07:50):
and being a nerd.

nerd, right?
Being a nerd doesn't help.
Right.

Ken Lucci (07:53):
Yep.

here's the thing.
LIDAR is light-based radar.
We are sending out light pulses.
We are measuring the way theyget back and they're using it.
radar uses the same thing, onlyradio waves.
So At like radar guided crews,laser-assisted crews, um, of
the, those technologies areusing that.
It's the exact same technologyon the laser side, if you've

(08:16):
ever seen one of those lasermeasuring tapes where you put it
on the wall, you push the buttonand it magically tells you,
right?

Ken Lucci (08:22):
back to avs.
Yep.

doing is we're doing this on a big scale.
So lidar, same thing that's onyour iPhone.
We're putting out all theselight pulses and we're using
that to take measurements of thereal world.
And we're using that to create a3D map of the real world.
When you have camera works thesame way as your eye.
We have two eyes in our headbecause we have to use those two

(08:44):
points of view to give us depthperception.
That's how you know how farsomething is.
Your brain compares your lefteye and your right eye, and it
knows the difference between it.
Since we're born, it justautomatically does that, and
that's how you know how far awaysomething is.

Ken Lucci (08:57):
And that's how Tesla operates with cameras.

how Tesla operates.
But

Ken Lucci (09:01):
Okay.
So we have Lidar.
Lidar.
is coke.
the Tesla camera and AI isPepsi.
To me, that's,

that's it's an oversimplified.
It's an orange and an apple,

Ken Lucci (09:12):
That's the way my mind works because I'm
oversimplified.
Keep, so keep going.

think about it more like an orange and an apple,
right?

Ken Lucci (09:20):
Okay.

has their advantage, each has Each has
their

Ken Lucci (09:23):
But explain the Tesla camera and AI concept as opposed
to the lidar

So here's the thing.
In the beginning we had lidarand camera.
We're taking two differentreadings.
We're comparing them to eachother, and we're using that now
as humans.
I mentioned the two eyes in yourface.
Typically, a lot of thesesystems have one or more cameras
that they're using to try andmap stuff out, obviously there's
some tech there that your braincan't do that.

(09:50):
It can't.
But at some point Elon decides,yeah, we're not gonna do LIDAR
anymore.
We're gonna cut those sensorsout.
Our cameras are good enough.
We're visually seeing goodenough.
That's what humans do anyway, sothey go to a non LIDAR model.
If you start looking at Waymo,if you start looking at these
vehicles that kind of have thesensor arrays all over'em, the

(10:10):
little spinning thing on thetop, all of gonna be your LIDAR
and other sensors.
Again, oranges and apples.
Tesla has done a really good jobof getting the camera to work by
processing it and the wholething is, and I, I won't jump
the gun on this, but what youhave to understand we're at
really kind of a central pointwhere certain technologies have

(10:32):
all merged and come together.
got 5G internet, which is fastenough now an LTE, which was
kind of its predecessor, whichis fast enough down to do a lot
of realtime data stuff.
You've got arm processing andyou've got processors that do a
lot of work with multiple tasksat the same time while using

(10:55):
very little power.
This is your Apple M1 through Mfour chips.
Those are arm,

Ken Lucci (11:00):
by the way,

go ahead.
I.

Ken Lucci (11:02):
Tesla's data.
getting back.
Is the Tesla vehicle datagetting back to Tesla using 5G
or some other way?

So it's gonna send data with whatever connection it
has.

Ken Lucci (11:14):
Yep.

when they started this 20 years ago, my
grandfather who worked for JetPropulsion Laboratories, the
think tank of NASA, did a jointprocess.
They did a, a joint program withthe Department of
Transportation.
And back then we were puttingthe tech in the road.
You just, you, the computerprocessing power needed was so
big it wouldn't fit in a car.

Ken Lucci (11:35):
sure.

what did they do?
They started embedding magnetsin the road and

Ken Lucci (11:39):
Yeah, I remember that.

yeah.
So basically at this point,we're making road trains.
It's

Ken Lucci (11:44):
Yep.

the magnets like tracks.
And then at that point, I don'treally have to worry what's
around me.
I just at that point have toworry, okay, am I gonna hit
something and be looking out?
And if I hit something, I slamthe brakes.
We're not talking about havingto worry about changing lanes,
all these other things.
Back to kind of that point Imade, as we've seen computer
processing and all of thesethings get faster and more

(12:07):
compact, and Moore's law hastaken that computing power and
shot it to the moon, right?
For those of you that don'tknow, speaking of moonshot, you
have more processing power in acalculator than we had to get to
the moon back in the sixties.
So now we can take that and itactually fits in the car.
So the idea here is reallysimple.
We cover the car and sensors.

(12:28):
We have this thing in there, andnow we're mapping it out.
This third magical element comesinto play in about 2020.
already had ai, not in the waythat we know it, but in the
terms of learning and

Ken Lucci (12:43):
Sure.

data

Ken Lucci (12:44):
Yep.

In 2020, they make these giant leaps in ai.
We start seeing the chat, westart seeing the modeling, we
start seeing all of thesemulti-layer ais like we never
had before.
So now I can take these massiveamounts of data, I can
extrapolate the information, Ican get a model of it, I can get

(13:06):
it to fit in a computer in thecar.
now that car having the rightsensors can drive.
I said, a lot of them are usinglidar, but you've got some like
Tesla that are making it workwith a camera.
So that's, that's kind of yourplaying field,

Ken Lucci (13:20):
Uh, so that's the tie in between the Tesla cameras and
grok ai.

So yeah.
So you've got

Ken Lucci (13:28):
Okay.

different pieces there.
It's not that simple, But,you've got grok, you've got all
these different ais they'reusing to crunch the, data.
Yeah,

Ken Lucci (13:35):
keep it simple for the audience.
Lidar is very intense on.
The radar devices on thevehicle.
whereas Tesla is using thecameras and sending the data and
interpreting it in AI to do itsmapping.
Correct.

almost all the mapping is taking place on the
vehicle and they're comparingGPS data with what

Ken Lucci (14:00):
Unbelievable.

it and doing it there.

Ken Lucci (14:02):
And you and in real time

to

Ken Lucci (14:04):
though.

up to the cell tower, you'd be toast.
'cause as soon as you get a celldrop out, you're done.
But

Ken Lucci (14:09):
Yep.

doing is it's essentially, think of it as if
you're driving through somewherenew and every time you get done,
everybody comes back and tellsyou what they learned about the
new place they drove and you'remaking notes about it.
That's

Ken Lucci (14:22):
is what I experienced on this route.
And what I love about what youjust said, a, as far as your
buddy is, your buddy is pressinga button in real time saying,
this is a problem with where weare right now.
So it's, it's constantlyevolving and AI is changing it.
Okay.
So the, the interesting thing isto me is, you know, Waymo, Waymo

(14:44):
and Tesla are the bigs, butthere are probably two dozen
other companies in the UnitedStates.
I'm, you know, I'll just mentionone is May Mobility,

Yep.

Ken Lucci (14:53):
and they are, they're mounting devices on standard
vehicles.
But to me the, the news of AV isactually more exciting
everywhere else in the world.
in addition to Waymo and Tesla,there's a company, uh, called
Pony ai.
Now, pony AI is traded onNasdaq.

(15:16):
And it's United States office isout in Silicon Valley, but it's
basically a Chinese company.
And pony AI has massive fleetsof autonomous vehicles in China.

Oh, China's huge in this.

Ken Lucci (15:31):
Huge.
They are building EVs and avs inmega factories in China that are
the size of football fields

Yep.

Ken Lucci (15:42):
in size and the manufacturing facilities that
once manufactured cell phonesare literally turning out EVs.
So

It's the same tech.
It's the same brains.

Ken Lucci (15:55):
right?
Another name to watch is ponyai.
So recently, pony AI developedor pony AI in China, the avs.
You know, they say, well,they're all electric vehicles,
and boy, that's gotta be acharging nightmare.
They actually have batteriesthat change cells.
You don't charge the vehicle.

(16:16):
You send the vehicle back to itsdepot for a 20 minute change of
the battery and you put in afresh battery.
It's

they're starting to do that like drive-through,
right?
So think of how you swipe thebattery off the bottom of your
screw gun, right?
You

Ken Lucci (16:29):
yep.

new one in, you pull in, it's got an arm, it
comes out, pulls the batterypack off the bottom, a new one
on and off you go.

Ken Lucci (16:37):
So it's interesting to me how the TNCs are reacting,
responding, and to figure outhow to get AVS into their fleet.
But let's set the tone.
Waymo has its own app, Uber likeapp.
Tesla has its own Uber like app.

yep.

Ken Lucci (16:57):
So contrary to what many in the limo software
industry or the softwareproviders in the limo space tell
us, it's not really difficult tocome up with an Uber app or

No,

Ken Lucci (17:10):
a universal app,

and they're going to do to Uber, what Uber did to
the limo industry, right?
That if Uber doesn't find a wayto get on that same wave and
ride it.

Ken Lucci (17:19):
Correct.

now, all of a sudden it's the, before it was,
oh man, the bus is gonna hit usbecause it's gonna disrupt it.

Ken Lucci (17:27):
Right?

at this point, the taxi industry was already
decimated.

Ken Lucci (17:31):
Yep.

some hit.
The people that didn't elevatetheir service, that didn't
actually live up to the blackcar standard got hit.
in my opinion, if you're a taxiguy, you really gotta figure out
how you're gonna

Ken Lucci (17:42):
Yeah.

cause this is the nail

Ken Lucci (17:43):
Yeah.
It's incredibly difficult.
What'll be left in the taxispace is what I call the
unbankable, meaning someone whodoesn't have a credit card or a
debit card, someone who doesn'thave a smartphone, and all of
the governmental programs,whether it's local Medicaid, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But it's not gonna be thegeneral public.

(18:04):
The general public,

no.

Ken Lucci (18:05):
I think, would rather get into a clean robo taxi, than
a standard taxi with a driver.
I think that's going to be adeath nail for the industry, for
the taxi industry.
You know, any MT give me yourthought processes on
non-emergency medicaltransportation.
A big part of that service isthe attendant.

Yeah.
So, so you, we've had thisconversation a lot in the NEMT
space, right?
I'm lucky enough to, to be amember of TTA and I, I, I sit on
a committee there.
On the safety side, one of thethings that comes up there is
this ambulatory versusnon-ambulatory.
And for anyone

Ken Lucci (18:39):
Yep.

not familiar with that, ambulatory is whether or
not they're able to get into thevehicle, whether or not they
need assistance.
You start looking in NEMT,whether it's, curb to curb or
it's door to door, um,stretcher?
Look, if you are doing thenon-ambulatory, which is the
people that need assistance, ifyou're doing stretcher, if

(19:00):
you're doing Like that,

Ken Lucci (19:02):
yep,

you are in a good space.
It's going to be.
A while before that, you know,until we get to the point where
you've got the Jetsons robotwalking up to the door, which
Elon's allegedly working on.
I, think you're all right.

Ken Lucci (19:16):
I agree with that.
I think what you're gonna gethurt is, I do think that.
That ambulatory is going to behurt pretty bad,

and, and let's, but Uber was already targeting that,
and back to

Ken Lucci (19:26):
totally.

earlier, Uber was already targeting that, but the
way that Uber was a disruptor.
The big thing here is that byhaving Waymo get ahead of it
now, the keys to the car shift,so to speak, to Google, because
Google could go out and all of asudden your Ubers, your Lyfts,
your rideshare companies are nowhaving to compete with the
largest tech company on theplanet.

(19:49):
It makes a lot of sense thatUber and Lyft and those types of
companies want to figure out howto get in on this.
And most importantly, theirbiggest issue right now is the
driver, right?
Their biggest issue is havinginventory, having drivers.
The interesting part is, andpeople don't think about this

(20:09):
will be a considerable shift totheir structure because they
don't own metal right now.
If They, go the direction ofself-driving cars, now they're
in the fleet game.
Uber has not been in the fleetgame.

Ken Lucci (20:22):
and they need capital for that, which is, the capital
requirements are balanced by thefact that instead of now paying
out to a driver, 70% of thetrip, allegedly,

Allegedly

Ken Lucci (20:36):
allegedly they're gonna be able to use 70% of the
trip for the av.
But here's the thing, fleetoperation does not begin an end
with the vehicle being on theroad.
It's everything behind thescenes.
I firmly believe, and, and, andwe'll discuss, um, announcement
that I think is gonna affect thechauffeur space.
I firmly believe that Waymo wasgonna get tired of building

(20:59):
depots all over the place.
And managing fleet.
I think the fleet.
Well, I think the fleetoperators are in a good position
if they can withstand thedisruption.
The larger fleet operators whohave mastered how to buy,
repair, maintain, and keepfleets on the road, I think

(21:21):
there's gonna be opportunity inautonomous.
and, you know, Waymo'sextremely, tight-lipped about
it,

they're Google,

Ken Lucci (21:29):
you know, the, they, they also don't have to together
a p and l okay?
At, at some point, even Googleis gonna get tired of throwing
money at this and not seeing areturn on investment.
Now, sadly, that can be a longtime from now.
Their staying power isincredible.
Their staying power is even moreso than Tesla.

(21:50):
So you've got way more Tesla,you've got pony ai.
You've got a, a bunch of othercompanies that are actually
manufacturing

But there's a couple things there, Ken.
So You've hit on four hugetopics, right?
So you've got Tesla that alreadyhas service centers and sales
centers.
already have that infrastructurenow on Google's side.
I agree with you, Google, I, Ithink it's a toss up whether or
not they decide to do that.
But the other thing is, if youlook at like the line bikes and

(22:21):
the scooters that we had, they alot of times would employ people
to go in at night, collect themall,

Ken Lucci (22:28):
Yep.

and

Ken Lucci (22:29):
Yes.

them back in.
I agree with you.
That could be an opportunity.

Ken Lucci (22:33):
the cost of a scooter to manufacture and maintain any,
even if you lose them, ispeanuts.
Uh, compared to and Waymo's,very tightlipped about it.
But the what, from what Iunderstand, the cost of a Waymo
is over 300,000 at this point.
Now they have some deals going.
Waymo has some deals going.
The secret to Waymo is they'resitting on 3,476 patents

(22:56):
globally

it

Ken Lucci (22:57):
on autonomous vehicle.
So tech, so they're going topeople like Hyundai and Toyota
and others and putting that tech

there.

Ken Lucci (23:08):
in those vehicles.
So I do think that eventually, Ido think eventually you, if you
buy a Hyundai or Toyota and youwanna deploy it into an
autonomous fleet, which is what,you know, Tesla is promoting, I
think you're gonna be able to doit.
And I do believe the cost isgonna come way, way, way down,
which we're gonna talk about ina minute.

And Moore's Law covers that, right?
Because the computing powerdoubles, the cost comes down.
If you Of that, look at fatscreen TVs.
you and I both remember.
TVs literally being, five feetdeep.
So you could have the nice DLPprojection.

Ken Lucci (23:44):
Yep.

go buy an 80 inch flat screen LCD for 2,500 bucks.
Costco.

Ken Lucci (23:49):
And you know what?
And you don't give a shit if it,at two years from now, the thing
doesn't work.
You throw it away.
I agree with you.
So when you look at the Waymo'sof the world and the Teslas of
the world, there's no questionthat they're gonna be able to
deploy fleets and depot, thefleets, and maintain the fleets
in major cities.
The question is, are they gonnawant to do it in the

(24:10):
metropolitan areas, you know,below the top 50, or are they
gonna want to have a partner?

it'll be, it'll be major cities.
And here's the other thing,

Ken Lucci (24:18):
yeah.

One of the, one of the neat things that people
don't think about, And thereason I brought up the scooter
is that the maintenance here isminimum because, but all right,
so my Jaguar epac, I'm Waymo, myJaguar EPAC needs service.
I make it drive itself toJaguar.
It's Jaguar's car, as long asit's not a failure on MI Tech.
But guess what?
Even if it is a failure on Miek,what do you have there?

(24:41):
Trained guys that are used toengines, complex vehicle
components.
As long as I make easy toreplace, easy to swap out
modules that tech can swapmodules all day.
And

Ken Lucci (24:54):
And you're,

used to.
Tow

Ken Lucci (24:56):
Yeah,

it when it breaks down.

Ken Lucci (24:57):
I was just gonna say it you're, what you're doing is
your auto dealership, whoever itis, and it's pronounced Jaguar,
by the way, Jaguar, Toyota,Hyundai.
They become the depot.

Right?

Ken Lucci (25:09):
where the vehicles sleep at night.
That's where the vehiclescharge, to your point.
So this, this evolution's gonnabe interesting, but, but you
know, I, I have to tell you myconversations.
with operators are prettyinteresting.
And it almost hearkens me backto the days when I was an
operator.
An Uber came in and people arelike, ah, they're gonna be out

(25:30):
of business.
This isn't gonna catch on.
And they, you know, they'regonna have to adhere to the
regulations.
Right.
Ex ex.
Right, exactly.
You know, it reminds me of whenI was in the security business,
one of the biggest operatorsthat I dealt with said, oh, you
know, this internet of things,which by the way, completely
changed the security industry.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (25:48):
Oh, this Internet of things is a fad.
It's, you know, we're alwaysgonna be running wires in
people's houses.
Are you kidding me?
So anyway, so I've spoken toquite a few people in the
industry.
at the network level, you know,stakeholders in the industry,
and they're like, no, no, it'sgonna, it's not gonna affect the
luxury space.
And in my mind, listen, a lot ofthese people and my customers,

(26:10):
I'm not gonna sit there andargue with them over that.
I argue enough with them.
OI argue enough with'em OO overtheir financials anyway I said
I'm not, you know, I don'tagree.
And I say to myself, it's allgoing to change when somebody
builds out an AV luxury model.
And then it's so funny, we hadLeonardo gno from Mag's, uh, on

(26:35):
another episode, and, andLeonardo brought this up, he
said, Ken Waymo is a luxuryvehicle.
They just didn't paint it theright scheme.
And he's right.
If you did a black, black Waymo.
And that Waymo was cleanedbetween rides and it was a
higher level service.
It's gonna affect chauffeur, butthat's, that's not the

(26:57):
announcement.

you hit, so before we go to the announcement.
You've hit on what I, right, andI'm in training.
I come from tech.
This is my world.
I know this stuff like the backof my hand.
I, like I said, grew up with agrandfather that literally
worked on this tech back when itwas smart roads.
This was basically bred into meto know tech.
That's my world.

(27:18):
But one of the things you'vejust brought up is still need
someone to clean the vehicle.
If I'm going to the airport at4:00 AM and I've got a ton of
stuff with me and my wholefamily, and it's just the
vehicle showing up, versus if Iknow I've got someone in town
that's going to send someonethat's going to take care of
everything, that's going tobasically now shift more to

(27:40):
concierge role.
if you are looking at autonomousand you're thinking, oh man, how
do I not get hit by this bus?
That's where in my mind, youstart thinking is, how do I
provide service?
How do I make it to where I amable to the people that I have?
To do things that I know evenautonomous can't

Ken Lucci (28:00):
And to your point, we'll get to that because at the
end of this, I am gonna makesome recommendations for every
operator out there.
But this week, in my mind, thegame changed

big

Ken Lucci (28:10):
and the game changed specifically with the
announcement that UberTechnologies announced
yesterday.
That would be a Thursday thatit's partnering with the
Electric Vehicle Startup, lucid,L-U-C-I-D.

The same electric vehicles that we see in the
industry.

Ken Lucci (28:28):
all right.
Okay.
And, and it's stock prices,LCID.
And I'm gonna get to the reasonwhy I said that.
And the self-driving softwarecompany, Nuro which to me is the
biggest piece of the story.
So they announced yesterday.
That Uber is partnering withLucid.
They're investing a few hundredmillion dollars in Lucid, and

(28:53):
they're going to have 20,000 ofthese vehicles on the road over
the next few years.
And at the same time, theannouncement was made that these
vehicles, the fir, one of thefirst places it's gonna deploy
is it's gonna deploy in Dubai.
And then the expectation is theyare going to launch 20,000 of

(29:14):
these vehicles in quote, yet tobe named major US cities.
So Uber has agreed to investseveral hundred million

I think

Ken Lucci (29:24):
of dollars

plus million and the,

Ken Lucci (29:26):
in Lucid

yeah.
No, no, no.
So it's, it's, yeah.
It's split between Lucid andneuro and, I think

Ken Lucci (29:32):
and neuro,

clip we can cut to,
Lucid provides the gravity SUVs.
You guys provide a part of thetechnology stack.
Uber basically pays foreverything.
They've invested$300 millioninto lucid several hundred
million dollars into you.
What happens next?
So Lucid is integrating Nuro'sdriver.
Hardware components, so thesense and compute into their

(29:55):
vehicles on the production line,those vehicles are then shipped
to Uber.
Uber owns and operates them, andNuro driver's software, provides
the driving capability for thosevehicles on the Uber network.
You have a very closerelationship with Nvidia.
You, you know, essentiallybuilding on top of, of what
Nvidia offers.
End to end.
Just explain it because it seemslike a bit of an unlock for you

(30:18):
guys.
This deal kind of involvesNvidia to a certain extent as
well.
So all of the compute on thisRobotaxi platform is gonna be
based on N NVIDIA's.
That's the Thor chip set, theThor, uh, SOC.
That's right.
And for us.
For Nuro, that has dramaticallysimplified our overall compute,
because before we had thatsystem, we had to have FPGAs

(30:38):
that dealt with the raw sensordata.
We had to have CPUs, we had tohave GPUs, we had to have safety
computers.
We've been able to effectivelycollapse all of that into the
Thor, SOC.
So a simplification and thecomplexity as well as a, a
significant reduction in cost.
Gravity goes into productionlate 2026.
And thousand of them are due toUber over a six year period.

(30:59):
How do you get to public roads?
Nuro, has been doing fullydriverless operation on public
roads for over five years now.
So we have a lot of experiencewith what it takes to validate
our tech and to get it out ontothose roads safely.
With the Lucid platform, it'sobviously a new vehicle platform
for us to work with.
We got uh, first prototype insomething like seven weeks,
which is unheard of so it'd bemoving very, very quickly.

(31:21):
So Lucent's providing the sensorsuite.
The sensor suite is Nuro driverhardware, so it's a sensor suite
that Nuro has designed, althoughall of it is automotive grade
sensing off the shelf.
Off the shelf sensing.
So Nuro has basically provided adesign template for that, and
Lucid is going to integrate thatfor the prototype vehicles where
we're doing small scaleintegration for the 20,000

(31:44):
fleet, it's going to beintegrated directly into the
production.
neuro was very tightlipped about the exact
amount.
I believe Lucid wasn't astightlipped, but, but I, I might
be misquoting that,

Ken Lucci (31:55):
lucid, look, it Lucid is not because there's

chunk of money.

Ken Lucci (31:58):
right Lucid stock skyrocketed 36% and let's just
stop with that, where thatinvestment was yesterday.
Anyway the story to me behindthis is neuro, okay?
Neuro is, there's two, two guysthat run neuro, a guy named Dave
Ferguson and prior to Neuro, hewas the principal engineer for

(32:19):
Guess Who Guess

Put'em outta their misery,

Ken Lucci (32:24):
Google Self-driving program known as Waymo.
Okay.
He left Google to found neuro.
This guy has a master's inrobotics and a PhD in robotics
from Carnegie Mellon and abachelor's in Computer Science
and mathematics from theUniversity of Tonga.

(32:44):
He also has a hundred patents tohis name in a, uh, in autonomous
vehicles, and he's published 60academic papers.
his partner, is a guy named JohnJ Zoo.
I'm, I know I murdered that, butI apologize.
This guy was a principalsoftware engineer at Google, one
of the founders of theself-driving program known as

(33:07):
Waymo.
In addition, he, basically, I'msorry, he earned his master's in
bachelor's in computer science.
From the University of Virginiaand he has over a hundred
patents.
Also.
To me, the story is not lucidand Uber.
Yeah, it's a little bit Uber tome.
The story is they took theneurotech, which they called

(33:30):
neuro driver.
This is the huge piece to me,and they put neuro driver in an
ordinary lucid ev.
Well, there's nothing ordinaryabout a lucid ev.
They're gorgeous.
Okay.

but they basically bolted it on.

Ken Lucci (33:45):
In five weeks.
Five weeks, they had it on theroad testing.
Okay.
That that's huge.

there's something there too, because on this, you,
you, you've got this leadership,and we've seen this a lot in
Silicon Valley.
Apple had a self-driving carprogram.
Google's had a self-driving car.
They've all been fighting overwho they want.
They're all fighting over AIengineers.
One of the big things, and neurotalks about this, if you go look
at them, is neuro is using theThor chip from Nvidia.

(34:17):
Now, I, I don't care if you'renot a tech person, anybody who
bought Nvidia stock has mademoney on it because Nvidia is
basically powering the AImovement.

Ken Lucci (34:27):
Hundred percent

I talked earlier about you have, arm computing,
you have 5G internet and youhave AI and kind of them all
hitting that, that right hockeystick moment where they've all
just kind of crossed in scaleand power.
are working very closely Nvidia,which means if they can dream up
what they want it to do,NVIDIA's going to have chips

(34:49):
they can give them and be ableto for it.
You've got a huge, big backingon the tech side and the ability
side, and now you've got moneybehind it.

Ken Lucci (35:01):
So we've got the Lucid Air Sedans, which go from
70,000 to 249,000 for the highperformance sapphire trim.
Then you've got the touringtrim, the EV model, and the
touring trim starts at 78,900,and the Grand tomo trim is
110,000.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (35:23):
the lucid gravity is, I'm sorry, the lucid gravity is
the electric SUV.
It goes from 81,400 to 96 5.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (35:35):
Okay.
So for the sake of argument,just say that the neurotech
triples the cost of that unit.
You've got a$300,000 piece ofequipment that.
You can keep on the road.
And if it does$200,000 a year inrevenue where your cost of goods

(35:58):
is 70,000, it doesn't take longto pay for that vehicle and
start getting an ROI.
Now, I, I also wanna share someinternal news that is pretty
wild.
We, uh, driving transactions forthe first time in the last two
weeks has gotten two customerswho put AV vehicles in front of

(36:23):
us to do financial properformance.
Okay?
Now what does that mean?
They give us the cost of thevehicle.
We do the fixed cost, variablecost, we do the revenue models.
One of them is for college anduniversity.
Okay.

the, what's the number on those vehicles?
What's the cost of

Ken Lucci (36:42):
Gotta be careful.

able to

Ken Lucci (36:43):
Can't say for who, but it's been.

one, I'll throw one out to kind of help give you
that.
The la

Ken Lucci (36:48):
It is three.
It's, it is between three and$400,000.

Because now, now to give you a point of reference,
when I went to I-A-T-R-A coupleyears ago, which those of you
that don't know, that's theInternational Association of
Transportation Regulators.

Ken Lucci (37:02):
Yep.

to my good friend Matt Doss, who runs that.
Matt invited me out and theywere doing AVS one year, and
when

Ken Lucci (37:08):
You know something?

what

Ken Lucci (37:09):
I, wait a minute, I gotta stop you.
The there,

okay,

Ken Lucci (37:14):
Matt Dos does not invite me anywhere.
The business I've done with him,the business we do together,
he's never so much has bought mea dinner.
I apologize.
I had to get that off my chest.
Go ahead.

okay.
Matt, if you're listening, yougotta take care of my buddy Ken
over here.
We gotta get him invited

Ken Lucci (37:30):
Never bought me a dinner.

If it makes you feel any better.
The one time I could have beenbought dinner by Matt, I, I
missed so,

Ken Lucci (37:40):
The business we've done together, put the, probably
put the deposit on his house inFlorida.
It's okay.
I'm not bitter.
I'm not bitter.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.

him on the side right now as we're recording.
No, I'm kidding.
No, so, so at Matt's conference,right at ITR, the number that
they gave, when we asked howmuch a fully autonomous vehicle
cost out the door, was it half amillion dollars?

Ken Lucci (38:02):
Yeah, so they've even come When was that?

that's,

Ken Lucci (38:05):
that?

last year's, right?
That was 2023.

Ken Lucci (38:08):
Two years ago.

a million dollars.

Ken Lucci (38:10):
Okay.

you are now telling me that you're seeing ballpark
at 300,000, and this kind ofgoes back to that Moore's law,
that

Ken Lucci (38:16):
Yep.

doubling, the cost is

Ken Lucci (38:19):
Yep.

down.
The amount of power you can getis changing.
It, it's going to be big.
Now the other side of that thatI think is really important to
note here is that the big markthat is kind of sat out in the
industry who will be sellingautonomous.
And they keep it for themselves?

(38:39):
You've got Tesla, you've got,you know, I would expect Toyota
is gonna do it.
You've got some that are

Ken Lucci (38:45):
Excuse me,

an

Ken Lucci (38:46):
it's pronounced Toyota and it's pronounced
Jaguar.
You said something wacky likeyou.
You said Ja, you said Jaguar.

yeah.

Ken Lucci (38:54):
It's, anyway.

East Coast guys, you can't, you can't understand
our, our Midwestern accent Iguess.
But no, The whole deal there isyou're that are gonna sell it.
I think the big questionbecomes, as you talked about
with the patents as you talkedabout, what's there, I don't see
Waymo taking their foot off thegas.
I don't see Uber taking theirfoot off the gas.

(39:16):
I don't see any of these doingit.
But I think where we may seeopportunities is their model
right now is going to have toentirely rely on large cities.
They're not gonna be able to dosmall windmaster towns.

Ken Lucci (39:32):
And huge infrastructure builds.
And huge infrastructure builds.

These are not things that I think we're gonna
see mass adoption on.
It's the exact same thing thatwe had with EVs when they first
came out.
You had to have chargingstations, you had to have things
there.
And so I don't think it's gonnaeliminate it.
But I can also tell you there'sbeen some interesting talk about
what's gonna happen to Cruise,who we haven't mentioned yet.
For those Cruise was operated byGM on a similar model.

Ken Lucci (40:01):
Yep.

depending on what you've heard and what you read
into it, what you want to do,it, it doesn't sound like Cruz
is going forward in the same waythey were.
And even when I was at IATR,they

Ken Lucci (40:13):
Huh?

sponsors there were Waymo and Cruz

Ken Lucci (40:15):
I thought they closed.

well, and that's where I'm going with this,
right?
Waymo was

Ken Lucci (40:20):
Yep.

Cruz was kind of lower end.
But is not just gonna takeeverything they learned in all
that tech and throw it out.

Ken Lucci (40:27):
Well, to wait a minute

crews, they've got pieces there.

Ken Lucci (40:31):
to your, point, to your point, for self
preservation.
Uber has to dive into this.

They don't have a choice.

Ken Lucci (40:41):
Okay.
Waymo, this can be a roundingerror on their p and l and
balance sheet.
They can do this shit for yearsto come.

Google

Ken Lucci (40:51):
Okay?

an entire list of projects it's spent bank on and
then it's like me, it didn'twork out.

Ken Lucci (40:58):
Right.
But in this case, Waymo, there'snobody who can say to me that
Waymo is not an initial success.
In other words, you know, whenyou do a proof of concept, if
you consider the first fewcities proof of concept, doing
extremely well.
Now, the, the, the first onesthat Waymo is displacing is

(41:20):
Uber.
There's no question about it.
But if you ask the savvyoperators in the cities, you
know, which I have, they dobelieve that it's costing them
some money.
And when I pose the question tothem.
What happens if there was acategory of service that was
exclusive and it was a luxurypiece of equipment and it was
attended to in between rides, doyou think it would hurt you

(41:41):
then?
And they're like, yeah, we do.
We believe it will hurt us.
So we've been, for the firsttime we've, we've been pulled
into a couple of AV situations.
An operator says to me thisweek, well, you know, we're not
big in the black car space.
not gonna hurt me.
And I had to send him thisbecause he's, I wanted him to
understand it.
The Uber of Southeast Asia iscalled grabs, GRAB.

(42:04):
And it's a, it is a smart applike you cannot imagine.
It does banking, it doesdeliveries.
It does so much stuff.
It's not funny.
It really is Uber on steroids.

Huh?

Ken Lucci (42:16):
Grab just partnered with a company in Korea called,
it's a full full stack Koreanautonomous vehicle tech
manufacturer called autonomous Ato Z to deploy the first
autonomous electric shuttle inSingapore.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (42:35):
Okay.
So that caused me to reach outto, uh, the stakeholders over at
A to Z and they were nice enoughto, after the time zone
difference.
My question was simple when webe coming to the US and their
answer to me is, we already haveproposals in the US

Yep.

Ken Lucci (42:56):
and we are already approved as a AV testing
company.
The interesting thing abouttheir partnership with Grab is
part of this autonomous shuttlevehicle program is also
partnered with the NationalPrivate Hire Vehicle
Association.
To provide safety drivers,

Okay.

Ken Lucci (43:18):
the safety drivers have to be on board the vehicle.
Okay.
At least at this point.
I couldn't get them to tell mewhere.
But then I started doing moreresearch on the shuttles.
University of Michigan has gotan autonomous, um, shuttle
program, Mississippi StateUniversity, uh, Mississippi, not

(43:41):
necessarily the bastion oftechnology or forward thinking,
shall we say, is on the cuttingedge with tech innovation and
research.
Introducing an electric,autonomous vehicle shuttle
system pilot program on campus.
And the shuttle is made by samecompany.

Well, but think about it.
You've got places that are usedto doing research, development,
testing, education.
What better place to test it?
You've got.
All of these issues they alreadyhave with, getting drivers with
running shifts, with everythingthere.
If I can put a bus on that routethat runs 24 hours a day, that

(44:21):
doesn't get tired, that chargesitself does everything.
We're good, and let's get somecrap outta the way right now
because favorite and someone'sthinking it right now.
Well, as soon as they runsomeone owner or as soon as they
kill somebody.
The problem is, even thoughthey've had actual fatalities
with avs at this point, how manyfatalities do we see on the road
with human drivers?

(44:41):
How many accidents do we seewith human drivers?
How many times do we haveissues?

Ken Lucci (44:45):
You just there, um, you just literally.
You just uncovered their wayinto the market.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (44:55):
Remember that back in the day that Uber's big entry
into the market was the sharingeconomy

Yep.

Ken Lucci (45:02):
and the ability to use the vehicles that are
already on the road for to, uh,lower carbon emissions.
Well, it actually proved to bewrong, but it

It's'cause they're all driving around in circles
waiting for trips, but that's

Ken Lucci (45:15):
Exactly.
But to, to your point, theAutonomous Vehicle Association,
and there is one, there is, andI think everybody should, by the
way, I think everybody in theindustry should get involved.
Autonomous Vehicle IndustryAssociation's mission is to
advocate for the safe andtimely.
Deployment of autonomous vehicletechnology.

(45:37):
There is not a manufacturer, anauto manufacturers that's not a
member, and everybody we've beentalking about is a member and
their entire persona, theirentire, messaging is to tell the
federal government and the stategovernments that it is much
safer to deploy autonomoustechnology than human beings.

(45:59):
So, when we, everybody on theother end of this, are we, are
we doing this to scare you?
No, we're not because

not

Ken Lucci (46:06):
I, I believe that yeah, it is, without question,
it's going to be somewhat of adisruption, but if you are the
operator that is going to thecolleges and universities and
you are bringing up, have youlooked into any electric or any
autonomous or anything else in,for your campus, you need to be

(46:27):
the operator that they go to.
We ride, this is anotherexample.
Uh, I have a client that does aton of events, a ton of events
in France recently, an event inFrance.
We ride and Renault partnered toput a robo bus

huh.

Ken Lucci (46:49):
in the event it was a, you know, they basically
closed the city for the eventfrom the parking areas and the
hotels to the stadium.
Okay.
So

And, and

Ken Lucci (47:01):
I,

Ken, for

Ken Lucci (47:01):
yep.

that that doesn't know, this Reno is a brand of
vehicle in France.
They're very popular.
They're

Ken Lucci (47:08):
No, see again, it's Rene, it's you what is with your
pro?
It's Rene what's with, what iswith your pronunciations.
Anyway.

if we were in Spain, it would be Reno.
It depends

Ken Lucci (47:18):
Okay.

country you're in for the

Ken Lucci (47:20):
I've learned something about you today.
You really have a strangepronunciation

Oh

Ken Lucci (47:24):
of a

geez.

Ken Lucci (47:26):
automobiles.
I don't know.
What's that.
Anyway,

find a younger hohos.
Your, your

Ken Lucci (47:30):
yeah,

going out, man.

Ken Lucci (47:31):
I know

wrong.

Ken Lucci (47:32):
it is.
It is.
So what's my, what's our point?
What's my point with that?

Yep.

Ken Lucci (47:37):
I'm an operator today, a fleet operator, I'm
looking at, I want to beinvolved in the regulatory
process in my state.
I want to get in touch with andbecome networked in with the
Department of Transportation inmy state.
I want to make sure that I amnetworked in with every college

(48:00):
and university.
facilities manager, thefacilities manager's, groups,
associations are incredible,right?
So I would want to be read inwith what is going on everywhere
around me, and I would wanna beon the cutting edge and find a
way to let it be known that youare, uh, looking into ev

(48:24):
charging, you're looking intoavs, et cetera, et cetera.
The thing that got me aboutneuro getting back to that,
going from five, weeks ofputting the NeuroDRIVE
attachment, it kinda looks likean air conditioner on the top of
that Black SUV,

about right.

Ken Lucci (48:42):
putting that on top of of a standard vehicle and
getting it to testing.

So there's a couple things we haven't talked about
there and, and we, it's gonna bea little bit longer episode than
usual, which is all right.
But the bigger things that arecoming into play, and it's gonna
matter more and more, is thingslike electric steering things
where, we went, it used to bethere was a cable from your foot
all the way to the engine toopen the throttle body.

(49:10):
And that's when the gas and youknow, the air comes in and you
get your power.
They started changing that.
Now it's fly by wire.
The planes started first, thenthey started doing it on cars.
There's your gas pedal if youhave a newer vehicle, is a
sensor.
Then it opens the throttle bodyaccordingly.
The steering now is electric.
It's not hydraulic.
So what's going to happen withthat?

(49:31):
They're setting things up,whether inadvertently or on
purpose, where you can startplugging into those systems that
control it and you can startdriving it and doing things
there.
And again, I think to yourpoint, Ken, I've heard they,
they're gonna get hacked.
They're gonna kill somebody,they're gonna do this, they're
gonna do that.

(49:51):
Look, when we started doingairplanes, people were like, oh,
they're gonna fall out of thesky.
They're gonna, people are gonnadie, but blah, this is the
safest mode of travel.
But when the Wright brotherswere out at Kittyhawk, everybody
thought they were outta theirmind.
What happened?
Time went by, the technologyimproved.
Now it's common day.
And

Ken Lucci (50:08):
Yeah.

don't think if you're a small operator, you're
like, man, I gotta go figure outhow to buy an EV tomorrow or an
AV tomorrow.
But I do think if you are in thebusiness, you need to be looking
at where am I gonna have anopportunity to buy an AB.
How do I find my niche?
How am I gonna keep an identity?
How am I going to, deal withthis new technology?
And keep going because it'scoming whether you like it or

(50:30):
not.

Ken Lucci (50:31):
Oh, it totally is.
And to you, to your point, youknow, when you, when you look at
the automobile business, back inthe automobile, the first
automobile, manufacturers, therewere 3,200 of'em in the United
States, 3,200.
Okay.
So I think you're, I thinkyou're at that much, much like
the automobile business.
The, the AV business.

(50:51):
AV business that we're there,right?

Oh

Ken Lucci (50:53):
There's all of these startups and you have to

They're racing, they're trying to get there
first.

Ken Lucci (50:58):
Watch the ones that are the most promising.
In my mind, neuro AI just took agiant step forward.
and Nvidia, I agree with you onNvidia, by the way.
I, I, I've been watching thatstock.
But anyway, if I'm an operator,give me your guess, and I'll
tell you mine on when we aregoing to see avs go from,

Ooh, is a good

Ken Lucci (51:23):
no, let me set it up from avs.
Are gonna go from a novelty tonormalcy in the top 50 MSAs in
this country.
How long will it be MSAs andMetropolitan Statistical area?

So let's, let's talk about a couple things that
haven't come up yet.
One of the things that we haveseen, and the reason that Waymo
entering New York is such a bigdeal, that typically AI relies
on good weather.
Now, AV ai, right?
Because one of the

Ken Lucci (51:56):
Good point.

your brain can do is we can filter.
when it's raining, you don't tryto track every single raindrop.
Now, if you've got lighter, ifyou've got other systems, guess
what?
One of two things is gonnahappen.
You either have to figure outhow to filter all that out and
ignore all of those raindropsinstead of tracking them
individually or.

(52:17):
You have to figure out how tostill do it.
Guess what?
If it's raining hard enough?
If it's foggy enough, ifconditions are bad enough, you
have to pull over.
thankfully, the way the humanbrain is set up, we do an
amazing job of just naturallyadapting to that.
Same thing happens in low lightconditions.
Lidar really works great atnight.

(52:37):
A lot of those technologies workgreat at night because the
camera starts getting low lightimages, the quality drops, so
you have to have cameras thatare designed to be able to
handle low light, those types ofthings.

Ken Lucci (52:47):
So your, your supposition is that they're
gonna struggle, the avs aregonna struggle with rain and
snow.

Oh, I, I, I think it's going to be a hurdle like
anything else.
That's why we saw them launch inPhoenix when Phoenix

Ken Lucci (53:01):
Oh,

dust storm, when it

Ken Lucci (53:03):
yeah.

in Phoenix, when weather was subpar,

Ken Lucci (53:05):
Yeah.

'em in, they wouldn't run'em.
And I've been told, right, I, Ihaven't been there when this
happened.
When I was in Phoenix, it wasall nice weather, but I've been
told that people have beenriding in Waymo's and it starts
rain.
the Waymo basically pulls overand goes, Hey bud.
Sorry.
It's not safe to keep going.
Now, they have spent a ton oftime, a ton of money, everywhere
from Findland and Sweden toCanada, to the northern United

(53:29):
States trying to adapt toweather.
here's the thing, I think we'rego, we're already at the point
where we've seen them grow fromPhoenix to Los Angeles to
Austin, to all of those, I thinkwe're probably in novelty mode
for about five years.
Um, it has taken five years, andI want everybody that's
listening to think about thischat.

(53:50):
GPT came out in 2020.
How many people right now don'thave it as some.
Part of their life.
Apple's integrated it into theiremail, into the iPhone, into
Windows, and it's literally goneinto everything.
And when it came out, it waslike this new toy that we've
played with five years down theroad.

(54:10):
Were, were not there.
It used to be that models,right?
I, I've always been a Mustangguy, sorry Camaro people.
but it used to be that Fordwould update and change the
Mustang design every five years,right?
Probably somewhere in that fiveto eight range is a typical
lifecycle of a body style, of amodel of vehicle.

(54:33):
if we look at that and we say,okay, it gets into the main
major cities and we've overcomethe hurdles, we can assume that
within five to eight years, thenew model vehicles are coming
out.
If you've got neuro, if you'vegot.
All of these other options tojust strap sensors onto it.
You are, you're absolutelykidding yourself.

(54:54):
If you don't think that at theproving grounds, companies are
already strapping on and they'realready working on that five to
eight year from now vehicle.
We've got Super Cruise and gm,we've got Lane Assist.
Right?
You've got all of these thingsto where you basically get on
the highway, you push go and eeven a brand new Kia drives

(55:14):
itself down the highway if youput on the cruise.

Ken Lucci (55:18):
So I'm gonna amend, I'm, I am going to slightly
disagree.

Okay.

Ken Lucci (55:23):
I think within, I think within three years, I
think within three years you'regoing to see major institutions
and closed campuses and closedcommunities look at the AAV
model to replace their publictransit, student transit,

I agree with that.
I I think it probably four yearsprobably is, is my guess

Ken Lucci (55:46):
I I also think that, I think within five years,
you'll see the top 20 MSAs withfleets of these things in them

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (55:55):
of them within five years.
and that's as far as as, that'sas far as I'm willing to go.
I'm not read up enough on it.
I would love if anybody in thisaudience knows Dave Ferguson
from neuro

Oh yeah.
No, we'd love to have

Ken Lucci (56:09):
I would, I would love to have him on.
I would love to get one of theAV people from the TNCs on, if
I'm still not on a watch listinside their companies, but
that's okay.
Nevermind at least one of'em is,you know, somewhat friendly.

So Agree that 10 years is kind of where I think,
I think within 10 years.

Ken Lucci (56:30):
oh yeah.

gonna, we're gonna see them commonplace.

Ken Lucci (56:34):
Oh,

be

Ken Lucci (56:34):
absolutely.

to see AB and I.

Ken Lucci (56:36):
Absolutely.

that's, and that's beyond just, I, think within 10
years be able to go to prettymuch any dealership and buy your
own self-driving vehicle.

Ken Lucci (56:46):
I, I agree with that.
I mean, I'm a little concernedbecause I'm watching the Tesla.
Tesla has several fatalitylawsuits from the Autopilot.
One is big in Miami,

Yep.

Ken Lucci (56:59):
and I'm watching that because I want to see what the
verdict is because Musk's.
Excuse me.
Tesla's defense is the terms andconditions by which they sold
the the autopilot.
and supposedly it's a differentsystem than their autonomous
system.
Anyway, I'm watching that.

Well,

Ken Lucci (57:20):
And the other piece that we have not talked about is
the reaction of the insuranceindustry, which,

industry is going to embrace it.
But I think you brought up ahuge point because right.
now Tesla's full self-driving isa beta.
You're supposed to be hands onthe wheel driving the car,
paying attention, but it's

Ken Lucci (57:39):
right.

uncommon to see people treating it like it's,
mainstay.
And I

Ken Lucci (57:43):
Oh,

and I don't, I

Ken Lucci (57:44):
absolutely.

story's true or not, but the story that I was
told was that when RVs firstcame out, they had autopilot and
you would put on autopilot andit was really just a really bad
name for cruise control.
And so they had a coupleaccidents where people put on
the autopilot and then went inthe back of the RV to make
dinner and crashed and died.
Now, whether or not that's true,but

Ken Lucci (58:06):
No, I, I believe it.
No, no.
Listen, I believe it becausepeople are inherently fucking
stupid.
I mean, I'm sorry.
You call it an autopilot,

not wrong.

Ken Lucci (58:15):
And my mind goes immediately to the autopilots
in, in planes.

Yeah.

Ken Lucci (58:20):
you know, when we get to this point, where AVS become
more normal, do I think that youare gonna see a 56 passenger, AV
motor coach without a pilot?
No, I don't.
For the same reason why, youknow, Boeing, those, the Boeings
can take off and land withoutthe pilot.

(58:40):
Okay.

Oh.

Ken Lucci (58:42):
But

but

Ken Lucci (58:42):
they.

not have been watching the Airline Pilots
Association because they areright now to keep two pilots.
And by the way, I a hundredpercent

Ken Lucci (58:51):
Oh, I, I think that they there's no way I, I think
they're gonna win it.

They, wanna go down to a single pilot.

Ken Lucci (58:57):
Well, here's what shoots that in the face, right?
The, okay.
The guy is,

right?
The, the Airline PilotsAssociation wants two, but
Boeing

Ken Lucci (59:04):
well, Boeing wants it.
Wait a minute.
Let's just say, say this rightnow.
Does Boeing really have afucking track record for safety
that we wanna follow?
Those sons of bitches arefalling out of the sky,

Yeah, I

Ken Lucci (59:14):
right?

here's but to the point, right?
People that are like, oh my God,you killed someone and avs are
gonna be done.

Ken Lucci (59:20):
No, it's.

were crashing themselves and we're still
flying on them.

Ken Lucci (59:24):
Exactly right, but, so here's the, here's why.
The, the one pilot doesn't work.
Okay?
The average pilot I see goingthrough the airport is 25 pounds
overweight.
He's eating fast food.
He hasn't slept right.
You want to put the lives of 300people in front, in, in the, in
the hands of a walking coronary.

(59:45):
I'll take those odds all daylong.
Two pilots.
And you know what?

Pilots association, we support you.

Ken Lucci (59:52):
if Boeing wins this argument, I'll never fly again.
I'll fly with Bobby, be Gambawho owns his own plane.
I sold his company and I toldhim that I wrote in Invisible
Inc.
That he has to give me flightsanywhere I want in his private
play.
But no, it doesn't.
And it's a laws of law ofprobability.
If you are responsible for 56people I'm sorry, that motor

(01:00:14):
coach is gonna have a pilot.
It's going to always have apilot if

James Blain (01:00:18):
But I think that role's gonna change, Ken.

Ken Lucci (01:00:20):
Oh,

that,

Ken Lucci (01:00:21):
absolutely.

and that's where I was saying the opportunity is
earlier.
In my mind, when I think aboutthe future, the way I envision
it is you are most likely goingto go to a hotel-like model
where there's a concierge at theairport that

Ken Lucci (01:00:37):
Yeah.

unload your luggage.
That helps you there.
And then if you have someonedoing like a and again, this is
gonna be super luxury, not youreveryday guy, but if you have a
high-end person that needssomething there, are going to
have someone help load thevehicle, help get them there.
But the big thing, and this ismy concern with that and my view
on that, and I don't have ananswer to it, people are not

(01:00:59):
looking, and by the way, anybodythat has chauffeurs, people are
not looking for a friend toride.
The vast majority of the time,one of the biggest problems that
I see time and time again isthat people that are providing
luxury service have chauffeur,drivers, whatever role it is
that think they're there toentertain and not serve.
And

Ken Lucci (01:01:19):
Yeah.

is if the car's driving itself and I have a
concierge in the vehicle,they're going to innately want
to converse and entertain and bethat person.
And so I, I think the bigquestion mark right now is, what
does that look like?
Because you gotta think aboutit, your biggest, most important
VIP.
Do you really see them going ona big trip with a bunch of

(01:01:43):
luggage, schlepping all theirstuff into the back of the
vehicle Then It into theirprivate

Ken Lucci (01:01:47):
no.
I don't.
I see that being a luxury.
I think it's a luxury av.
It's with a ticker in the backor with financial news playing.
It's absolutely a rock solidwifi connection.
Et cetera.

Yep.

Ken Lucci (01:02:01):
So yeah, I see those amenities coming and that's, I
had a, a strong disagreementwith an operator who said, Ken,
we can be in the business forthe next 30 years and those are
not gonna affect us.
I said, you're dead wrong.
I said, you're dead wrong.
And a hydrogen powered RollsRoyce.
Okay?

Yep.

Ken Lucci (01:02:18):
Rolls Royce is saying, no more EVs, they're
going right to hydrogen.
Okay.
Rolls Royce, and this is, youknow, rolls Royce is in intox
with some AV technology people.
But the issue with Rolls Royceis you must build it in.
It cannot look like it's

Yeah,

Ken Lucci (01:02:33):
It has to be built in.

can't Looking unit on the roof with sensors on it.

Ken Lucci (01:02:37):
it's

to build it

Ken Lucci (01:02:38):
coming,

think about it, and to your point, right point,
Tesla has been probably one ofthe most forward thinking
because Tesla was putting allthe sensors built into the
design already there, alreadyready,

Ken Lucci (01:02:51):
not telling you why.

not telling you why.
And then

Ken Lucci (01:02:54):
Yep.

their now.
Like this could be a whole useragreements could be a whole like
series, right?
But what you don't realize iswhen you're getting into any of
these vehicles, your useragreement basically says you are
allowing us to mine all thedata.
We're basically tracking yourcar.
Does.
So the

Ken Lucci (01:03:14):
yep.

em they sell, the better it's gonna get.
And again, back to

Ken Lucci (01:03:18):
yeah.

law, it's gonna really hockey stick and go
straight up in the next coupleyears.
If you really think it's gonnabe 30 years,

Ken Lucci (01:03:26):
No way.

in a rural area,

Ken Lucci (01:03:28):
Yeah.

and I really hope you're somewhere where you've
got older clientele that areterrified of technology.
Because even people that hatetech, it is alarming how fast
they'll go from, oh my God,that's so stupid.
That's so unsafe to, oh, Ididn't really want to, but I
wrote in one and it was okay to,I wrote in it the second time to
the third time, oh yes, this isawesome.

(01:03:50):
This is my new thing.

Ken Lucci (01:03:51):
And I think you have to open up your mind because,
you know, the university that'snear me here, I mean, I have to
go off the Eastern shore by twohours to get my teeth worked on
the university here Waymo isabsolutely not gonna put depot,
but some entrepreneur will signa seven, eight year agreement
with this university and supplythem with their on-campus

(01:04:14):
transportation, the avs to comedowntown to their, where their,
their big student buildings are,et cetera.
There will be use cases whereour fleet operators, the ones
that are savvy and prepared, andby the way, well-financed

Yep.

Ken Lucci (01:04:31):
will benefit eventually from avs.
Uh, well listen, we've kickedthe crap out of this hour as
usual.
Very spirited.
You kind of went off on a littlebit if the tech nerd thing
there, which is fine,

Gotta What's coming.

Ken Lucci (01:04:44):
Yeah,

what what

Ken Lucci (01:04:45):
thank you for explaining.
Thank you for ex explaining thehydraulic steering wheel versus,
you know, it's wonderful to beenlightened.
Um, this has been anotherexciting episode of the Ground
Transportation Podcast with mytechno nerd, uh, sidekick James
Blaine, who will be, I'm sure atsome point, training AVS

I don't know about, I don't know about training avs,
but

Ken Lucci (01:05:10):
training

I

Ken Lucci (01:05:10):
AV attendance.

yeah, if you've gotten anything out of this
podcast, think the thing youshould get is that we are not
going to a point anytime soonwhere service loses the human
aspect

Ken Lucci (01:05:23):
Agreed.

sure that people are living up to that aspect and
can provide the service is huge.
I think in our world, we, that'swhere I see the shift is
there'll be a lot of focus onunderstanding the technology,
how to provide service, and whoknows, maybe even at some point
how to service the vehicle.

Ken Lucci (01:05:41):
Listen, I hope I'll be retired by then.
Five more years, baby.
That's it.
Unless the big one comes in.
When that big one comes in, I'mout.

you go.

Ken Lucci (01:05:52):
Alright guys, we'll see you again next next week on
another exciting episode of theGround Transportation Podcast.

Thanks everybody for listening.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.

(01:06:18):
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.

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