Urban Autonomy Summit in NYC on 10/8, Waymo launches corporate robotaxi service, and Bot Auto completes first human-less Autonomous truck validation run
Great roundup as always Harry! The Bot Auto validation run highlights an interesting dynamic - while Waymo gets all the robotaxi headlines with their impressive safety stats, autonomous trucking is quietly achieving comercial milestones that might matter more for near-term industry economics. Kodiak going public is notable timing too, coming right when the public consciousness around AVs is shifting from 'will this work?' to 'when will this scale?'. The freight use case has inherent advantages - structured highways, predictable routes, enormous cost savings per mile - but gets less media attention than flashy robotaxis. I think 2026 could be the year when the trucking segment starts outpacing passenger AVs in revenue generation and deployment scale.
Great roundup as always Harry! The Bot Auto validation run highlights an interesting dynamic - while Waymo gets all the robotaxi headlines with their impressive safety stats, autonomous trucking is quietly achieving comercial milestones that might matter more for near-term industry economics. Kodiak going public is notable timing too, coming right when the public consciousness around AVs is shifting from 'will this work?' to 'when will this scale?'. The freight use case has inherent advantages - structured highways, predictable routes, enormous cost savings per mile - but gets less media attention than flashy robotaxis. I think 2026 could be the year when the trucking segment starts outpacing passenger AVs in revenue generation and deployment scale.