Episode 274 | Autonomy Markets: Lyft’s Autonomous Vehicle Manifesto, LiDAR’s Potential Big Winners, Personally-Owned Autonomous Vehicle Fleets

The Road to Autonomy

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Lyft’s autonomous vehicle manifesto, the impending consolidation of the LiDAR market, the emerging personally-owned autonomous vehicle fleet market, and Waabi’s driver-out strategy.

Lyft’s manifesto highlights the potential for private car owners to integrate their personally-owned autonomous vehicles into the Lyft network, a concept similar to Elon Musk’s vision for Tesla owners. For this to become a reality and for autonomous vehicles to scale effectively, a national regulatory framework is essential.

During his Senate confirmation hearing for Deputy Secretary of Transportation this week, Steven Bradbury expressed enthusiasm for autonomous vehicles and advocated for a federal framework. Mr. Bradbury also emphasized a market-driven approach to technology adoption, rather than government-mandated solutions such as LiDAR.

Currently, the LiDAR market is dominated by Hesai, but consolidation looms a majority of the publicly-traded pure-play LiDAR companies face dwindling cash reserves and limited revenues.

In the autonomous trucking market, Waabi aims to go driver-out on public roads by the end of the year. But can they pull it off? And if Volvo isn’t their OEM partner, who will be? Grayson and Walt debate the challenges ahead and the role of autonomous driving retrofit kits in the industry’s future.

Episode Chapters

0:00 Lyft’s Autonomous Vehicle Manifesto

5:39 Personally-Owned Autonomous Vehicles

11:22 Fleet Management

16:11 Waymo / Lyft Relationship

18:05 Credit Card and Telco Partnerships

20:10 May Mobility, Mobileye / Lyft Partnership

22:02 Autonomous Vehicle Policy

24:41 LiDAR Market

31:05 Waabi Driver-Out Plans

39:52 Autonomous Driving Technology

47:04 Unforced Error of The Week

49:08 Next Week

Recorded on Thursday, February 20, 2025

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