We recorded this episode, with the home robotics company Intuition Robotics, earlier this year while we were at Mobility Week in Tel Aviv, Israel. Because Intuition is not making a product that is directly related to mobility, we weren't sure if the episode made sense to run here on The Autonocast, so we've been keeping it in cold storage. But after talking to one of their investors, Jim Adler of Toyota AI Ventures (Episode #106), we have a better understanding of why a massive car company might invest in a product like Intuition's... so with that in mind, enjoy this somewhat out-of-the-ordinary but enlightening episode.

How does a giant company that is perfectly adapted to the traditional auto industry adapt to the new world of mobility technology? Why is Toyota investing in home robotics? How is storm tracking like high-tech venture capital investing? What books inspire technology investors? Jim Adler of Toyota AI Ventures, a venture capital fund that works with the Toyota Research Institute to position Toyota in future technologies, joins The Autonocast to answer these questions and more.

It's always fun to talk about mobility with your Uber or Lyft driver, but rarely is the conversation as good as it is when that driver happens to be Harry Campbell. Based in Los Angeles, Campbell has become the internet's leading resources for rideshare drivers with a book, blog, podcast and social media presence. On today's episode, we pick his brains for driver-centric insights into the Uber-Lyft competition, the new NYC regulations, Uber's pivot to a multi-modal platform strategy, the timeline for autonomous car deployment and much more.

From Cruise Automation's aspiration to eventually serve rural communities to Volvo's inter-urban and Daimler's urban autonomous vehicle concepts, the "where" of mobility technology is increasingly overtaking the "how." In the spirit of this transition the gang takes a look at how a more collective approach to new technologies like autonomous vehicles and micromobility could help them live up to their utopian sales pitches. 

On this episode of the Autonocast: Alex locates Waymo in the "Chasm of Annoyance," Ed thinks the TRI-Uber alliance is less crazy than you do and Kirsten provides an important update about Ze Byton Life. Plus Alex shares his pro tips for experiencing Pebble Beach on just five dollars per day.

Fresh off her vacation in Africa, Kirsten tells Alex and Ed all about mobility in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. The gang goes on to discuss whether Uber should get rid of its autonomous vehicle development program, how Argo and Ford are cross-pollinating their engineering talent through collaboration, and why Bird is working on new technology to cut down on scooter abuse.

Test facilities for autonomous vehicle development are sprouting up around the world, but today we take a look inside one of the originals: MCity, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Greg McGuire is the lab director who oversees both the fake city that makes up the test facility and the fleet of vehicles that that performs research there. A veteran of Zipcar, Greg explains his obsession with new mobility technologies and how his team is facilitating multidisciplinary research into a wide variety of problems in order to serve a diverse group of partners.

On-demand mobility sounds great, until demand dramatically outstrips supply and you're left stranded or surge pricing kills the value proposition. Meanwhile, rental vehicle fleets are being squeezed by declining demand, utilization and margins. A couple of veterans of the ride hailing and rental businesses saw opportunity in these two challenges, and are building a platform called Autofleet to redirect underutilized vehicles into ridehailing or delivery services. CEO Kobi Eisenberg joined the show while we were in Tel Aviv to explain his vision for a platform that can spin fleets up and down the way Amazon Web Services spins virtual machines up and down.

With Kirsten off conquering the Namib Desert, and just generally being cooler than us while on vacation, we call on the services of our guest co-host former PolySync CEO and current roofing enthusiast Josh Hartung. Between the Tesla going-private craziness, a recent IIHS test of Level 2 driver assistance systems and the autonomous drive sector's sojourn in the trough of disillusionment there's a lot to talk about. It may not be as cool Kirsten's African adventure, but we do what we can.