Shift: A podcast about mobility

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Grayson Brulte sees promise and potholes ahead on the road to self-driving May 18, 2025

Show notes

Grayson Brulte, founder and CEO of The Road to Autonomy, discusses recent developments in autonomous driving, including Sterling Anderson’s departure from Aurora for a new job at General Motors.

Brulte details Aurora’s driverless launch and a short-seller report that has since detoured the self-driving truck startup.

He further surveys Waymo’s progress, sizes up Tesla as a potential robotaxi rival and — finally — ponders a doomsday scenario for the city of Detroit.

Oshkosh’s Jay Iyengar forges industrial-strength autonomy May 11, 2025

Show notes

The executive vice president and chief technology officer at Oshkosh Corp. details the company’s efforts to infuse automated driving technology into work vehicles with niche applications.

Those applications range from airport baggage trolleys to garbage trucks — and even autonomous garbage cans that bring themselves to and from the curb. Iyengar explains the compelling business propositions behind those products.

Further, she outlines Oshkosh’s defense business and discusses the state of the company’s work on electric vehicles with the U.S. Postal Service.

Benchmark’s Bryan Bille measures Trump impact on EVs and battery supply chain May 04, 2025

Show notes

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence principal analyst Bryan Bille assesses policy changes in the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term that affect critical mineral developments, batteries and the electric vehicle supply chain.

Amid tariffs and a geopolitical rivalry with China as the backdrop, Bille compares and contrasts Trump’s plans to develop domestic mining and processing options with those of former President Joe Biden. Further, Bille details new seabed mining developments and the ripple effects of America’s search for rare-earth metals around the globe.

McKinsey: EV pains subside while driver-assist becomes a ‘differentiator’ Apr 27, 2025

Show notes

McKinsey’s partners Philipp Kampshoff and Patrick Hertzke break down results from the consulting firm’s annual global consumer pulse survey.

They detail improvement in owner experiences with electric vehicles in the U.S. and the reasons driver-assist systems will likely become a “clear differentiator” with consumers in the years ahead.

Wayve’s Kaity Fischer hits the gas on automated driving’s next chapter Apr 20, 2025

Show notes

Fischer, vice president of commercial and operations, discusses the tech startup’s new partnership with Nissan, which is Wayve’s first public tie-up with a global automaker.

She details how Wayve’s end-to-end AI models help drive the company’s ability to rapidly scale, deliver on its global aspirations and forge an “AV 2.0″ era. Further, she discusses the allure of Level 3 automation and talks about what it’s like to transition from a traditional auto supplier to a tech startup.

John Absmeier stitches together a look at autonomy, software and Toyota’s Woven City Apr 13, 2025

Show notes

On this week’s podcast, the chief technology officer and director of Woven by Toyota details the latest developments at Woven City, the company’s technology and mobility test bed located at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan.

He discusses Woven’s ongoing work with the Arene operating system and its role in accelerating the maturity of software-defined vehicles. Further, Absmeier explains Woven’s self-driving strategy and how it fits within the broader Toyota ecosystem.

From Futurama to future tech, Dan Albert muses on the auto industry’s past, present and driverless road ahead (Episode 295) Apr 06, 2025

Show notes

The author of “Are We There Yet?: The American Automobile, Past, Present And Driverless” examines the effectiveness of efforts to improve road safety with automated-driving technology.
In a wide-ranging discussion, he further discusses the appeal of Kei trucks, General Motors’ 1939 Futurama exhibit, Peak Auto, and the virtues of tech-free road trips.

A glimpse into Aurora’s plans for launching driverless trucks (Episode 294) Mar 30, 2025

Show notes

Self-driving tech company Aurora Innovation plans to launch commercial service with its driverless trucks in April.

In this episode, Nat Beuse, Aurora’s head of safety, and Gerardo Interiano, senior vice president of government relations, preview the launch and delve into the details of how the company prepared to safely deploy trucks with no humans aboard on public roads in Texas.

Auto tech stands front and center at Nvidia’s GTC showcase (Episode 293) Mar 23, 2025

Show notes

This week’s Shift podcast features multiple interviews regarding news developments shared at Nvidia’s GTC, a prominent conference for developers sharing their latest artificial intelligence innovations.

In this episode:

Nvidia automotive Vice President Ali Kani discusses the company’s new partnership with General Motors and delves deeper into the tech giant’s long-term automotive strategy.

Wayve CEO Alex Kendall takes us for a spin around San Jose, shows us firsthand how an end-to-end learning model can effectively drive a vehicle in a new environment with little training, and shares how Wayve might help legacy automakers compete with Chinese rivals and Tesla.

Volvo software engineering chief Alwin Bakkenes and Zenseact product Vice President Erik Coelingh detail a new technique that allows them to create thousands of synthetic driving scenarios derived from one real-life incident.

Edwin Olson explores May Mobility’s budding rivalry with Waymo robotaxis (Episode 292) Mar 16, 2025

Show notes

Following a driverless ride around Ann Arbor, Mich., Edwin Olson, the CEO and co-founder of Toyota-backed May Mobility, sits down for a discussion on the company’s plans for new deployments and the company’s work with Lyft.

Further, Olson explainshow May Mobility’s business model differs from those of its competitors, who actually owns self-driving vehicles, and how the startup quietly emerged as one of the few remaining alternates to robotaxi front-runner Waymo.

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