Kevin Kelly is easily on the list of the world's best and most experienced futurists, and a friend. He's started a new podcast series to explore the most optimistic forecasts for the future, and he asked me to join him for one of his very first episodes.

Usually I like to temper my optimism, and talk both about the utopia and what can go wrong, but it's fun to just look at some of the great things in what I call the robocar vision that got me interested in it and how it can change the world.

You want to test a robocar in a simulation of everything you can think of. Now Waymo has built an AI tool with Google Gemini to make that easier to do

CES has become the smart car show. I summarize what was interesting from several companies.

Tesla has pushed a bold and risky strategy to do it with less hardware. Has this been an effort to force the team to make the harder path work?

Empty robotaxis and long drives without interventions make some imagine Tesla FSD is ready to deploy. The math may say the reverse.

Charging at hotels is the best way to charge on road trips. Sadly, hotels are now billing a lot more to do it.

A review, with video, of the new Zoox robotaxi operating in Las Vegas. The ride is good but has some flaws. Can Zoox's risky strategy win the game against Waymo, Tesla?

I don't think Waymo failed to plan for a power outage. I suspect a combination of human craziness and some Waymo mistakes made it happen

Waymo says they failed because they ran out of humans to help cars out of a jam. Why didn't simulation tell them in advance how many humans they would need?

The biggest stories of the year, with no surprise, the Waymo and Tesla constrast playing a big role in the year's news.

There are many clues that Tesla is using lots of remote monitoring and supervision, and possibly even remote driving, for their early tests. Optimus still does that.

Waymo fixed the problem, and they should definitely obey the law. But is what they did actually dangerous? And how might we redesign the school bus system in the future?

We get to see a little more of how Waymo has structured their AI as they get to do the land rush alone in the USA.

People with gasoline thinking are obsessed with duplicating the gasoline fill-up, and want fast charging. But the right answer is to be slow, matching the dwell time.

Waymo just doubled the number of cities they operate with nobody in the vehicle. How do the various teams decide where to expand next, and will it be your town?

Tesla has for years released highly misleading crash safety data for Autopilot. Now they may finally get closer to allowing apples to apples comparisons

Waymo will now drive freeways and cover most of the San Francisco peninsula, including SJC airport

Waymo seems wiling to let outsiders look at their practices and data. Where are Tesla at the others in having this important transparency? Also, what about cats?

Bill Gates recently posted his new thinking on Climate Change declaring we've been thinking about it the wrong way. His article is sending shockwaves, some agreeing, some feeling he has betrayed the cause, and some like Trump declaring this is proof that climate change was a hoax.

The cost of the physical robotaxi is about 25% of the COGS of operating one, so it makes a difference, but only when competition is fierce and margins are thin