A few years back, when electric and autonomous cars were seen as the next (and possibly last) great mobility revolution, Horace Dedieu was already thinking ahead. What he found is what the rest of the mobility technology world (and venture capital community) has been realizing for the last year or so: micromobility is the more classical (and immediate) disruption of the car. The Clayton Christensen acolyte and famed Apple analyst finally joins the Autonocast to explain what micromobility is, why everyone's talking about it, and how rapidly it's changing how we think about mombility. Plus, he and Ed preview the upcoming Magical Mystery Plant Tour that will take them and ten other analysts and investors to car factories around the world this November.

As wave after wave of new mobility modes invade cities, city planners and transportation agencies have struggled to maintain a sense of control over what was once a sleepy bureaucratic endeavor. Now a host of new platforms and tools are being offered to cities that want to manage the chaos, bring modes together, offer a single payment platform, plan for the future and more. But, as Alex, Kirsten and Ed discuss, empowering transit agencies trades off with the opportunities for private companies that are trying to position themselves as one-stop mobility apps. Begun, the mobility platform wars have.

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.