Brad Ideas

Robocars & More

Speaker Associates is a speaking agency which has me in their catalog, and they asked me to record short videos answering a series of big questions. Here they are:

What are the most promising applications of augmented reality and virtual reality technology in fields like education, training, and entertainment?

When you have solar, you still pick a pricing plan for your electric utility. Here's some hints about how to do that. In California, it's less complex than expected.

Waymo's service area is still 80 square miles (LA to Santa Monica) but now anybody can ride. It's another milestone.

Musk won big (though thanks to Twitter it may have been no gamble.) But now will urban, blue riders avoid his robotaxis? What happens when the government flips again?

Waymo also just announced they are doing 150,000 rides/week. This internal research projects shows off some interesting abilities of LLMs and a different approach.

Waymo just closed a $5.6B funding round. Some of that will be used to grow the fleet, but is there a way to grow fleets with debt rather than equity finanancing?

Robotaxis have different charging needs than regular cars. Will they want Tesla's new promised wireless charging, or is battery swap made for them>

Ok, No, the Republicans certain take first blame for not standing up to Trump when he took over their party. They have been cowards. But because of that failure, it fell to the Democrats to do what it takes to stop him returning to the White House, and the election remains a dead heat, which it shouldn't be, and only they could have stopped that. I hope they don't fail, but it shouldn't even be close.

How do all the robotaxi contenders compare with Waymo the leader? See it all in one graphic

Tesla has said their Oct 10 "We Robot" day will be one for the history books. But they are very far from having a working robotaxi you can bet your life on. So just what can they show off to live up to the hype? I've collected various speculations on what they might show off at Warner Brothers, in hopes of not disappointing.

Read it at Forbes.com in Since Tesla has no Robotaxi, just what will they show on Robotaxi day?

The electric car revolution is well underway, but soon we ll also see the rise of the electric RV. There's a lot you can do to make trailers better

Waymo might seek a backup if their planned Zeekr receives 100% tariffs from the White House, but probably not the Ioniq 5

Nuro was going to make a large fleet of custom delivery robots. Now it will licence its self-driving software stack to vehicles of all types, including passenger cars

The lastest Waymo safety data throws down a gauntlet in front of other companies to publish similar data, and helps regulators measure risk.

I made this graphic because I find the information collected in it striking. How did Trump get control of the GOP when every single former VP or Presidential nominee living or recently deceased (except Palin) opposes him?

The oldest rail line in the western U.S. has gone electric, but data released suggest the old one used more fuel than giving each rider a Hummer. How can that be solved?

A short term partnership will help both companies learn. But the question of a long-term partnership is much more complex.

Waymo says it's new 6th generation driver has significantly reduced cost. A robotaxi can end up cheaper than a regular car. Here's a list what it doesn't need.