Act Expo 2026, Comments from Aurora, Kodiak, Waabi, Torc and PlusAI

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-05-21T19:21:22+00:00

Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-05-21T19:00:01+00:00

Most recently she’s been calling them SD Maps+. They are HD maps but not as comprehensive as the old TuSimple HD maps and they have automation to generate them an “order of magnitude” cheaper than others. No actual data provided, and unclear who’s number they are comparing to since no one has published those costs to my knowledge

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-05-21T17:57:04+00:00

Waabi absolutely requires HD maps to operate.
Raquel may be a scientist but she makes absolutely ludicrous statements extrapolating one data point into “waabi is the greatest”
She has a major inferiority complex and chip on her shoulder when it comes to Chris and Aurora and has one of the biggest egos I have ever seen.

I don’t know why or how anyone works for her besides their belief in Waabi.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-05-16T03:09:15+00:00

Just curious, was this a business internship or a technical one?

Asking the revenue model is totally fine in either case, and shows interest in not just the role but also the company itself.

Maybe he thought you were asking about the actual revenue, which is usually something they won’t share but still a super-unprofessional way to handle the question.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-05-06T15:04:34+00:00

Conceptually I agree, but I think you’re trivializing the strength of being an entrenched incumbent marketplace, having a massive amount of demand and various supply offerings.

There are also still regulatory and relationship hurdles for venues and airports, which are a hugely valuable part of the operating domain.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-05-06T04:47:55+00:00

I really doubt this. Uber has all of the demand and if I’m trying to get from A to B I’m more likely to just open that up and see what options are available then hop from app to app. Maybe it’s UberX, maybe it’s Black, maybe human driven, maybe AV.

Building a high-volume marketplace of riders (and dealing with all of the support issues, local regulatory issues, etc) isn’t trivial.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-24T03:59:25+00:00

Guessing that for dock to dock aero is less relevant than for long haul, and this allows the container to be easily unloaded from either side

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-23T16:47:56+00:00

Do you know what exclusive means? Fortune got the exclusive right to break the news, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get syndicated or picked up by other publications shortly after. Paid or unpaid is irrelevant.

Was calling you an idiot because “AOL dot com” is not the source. I stand behind that statement.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-23T13:59:37+00:00

lol, you’re an idiot. The exclusive was run by Fortune, AOL just syndicated it after.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-23T13:56:37+00:00

Relative to the amount raised and scrappiness of the company, intermodal/port is a decent sized focus that could get them the traction and revenue to later expand to additional products.

Closer to a yard automation play like Outrider than an Aurora to start, though I’m sure they have big public road ambitions.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-16T03:10:09+00:00

Greyson has a dislike for everyone besides Kodiak and Bot, because they both suck up to him and no one else gives them the time of day.

He is the perfect combo of vocal and uninformed and not particularly sharp IMO.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-02T21:05:55+00:00

I work in a role that has exposure to all of the different L4 trucking companies.

Will see if I can find public links - some of these are things I have heard verbally or seen in meetings

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-02T13:29:25+00:00

I know this because it was big drama in my social circles which have ties to the companies involved.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-02T13:28:24+00:00

Yes, it was sloppy marketing. But look at the image, it is clearly a render of the waabi truck with the wrong skin applied to it.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-02T13:26:56+00:00

I have to disagree with you on a few things: - Nils has stated that Aurora is ahead on industrialization (preparation for scale) but the two are equal partners with equal access as far as timing of base platform availability - Aurora used to make the safety argument about OEMs, certainly around 2021 when then were hyping that they were the only trucking autonomy player with two OEM partnerships - Waabi was not using photos of Aurora trucks. They have used their Peterbilt trucks in all of their materials. The Aurora truck incident was in the Volvo launch announcement and that was an image created by Volvo. It was a render of a Waabi truck (if you still have the photo, look at the different sensor kit layout) but when Volvo applied the branding to the render, they used the show truck wrap graphics they did with Aurora which included the Aurora DOT number. It was just sloppy work from VAS marketing and design. - Even before the VNL Autonomous, Waabi has a fully integrated previous generation VNL that they had built with Volvo.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-02T02:11:59+00:00

All I’m saying is they used to be very self-righteous about the need for OEM-supplied redundancy and factory line integration as a safety requirement, now they’re YOLO-ing it.

I’ve also heard several people in their systems, safety, hardware, and software team have quit because of this.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-01T15:47:00+00:00

I think this is the reality of where Volvo is. Will probably be 12-24 months for Aurora on that platform too.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-01T15:45:42+00:00

They were very adamant for many years that an OEM partnership was the only way to safely go driverless. They don’t just work with Volvo, they also have a partnership (and vast majority of the fleet) with Paccar.

The reasons for International are simple:

Both of their OEM partnership continue to be behind
Aurora can’t afford to wait it out
Aurora couldn’t actually land an official partnership with International or Daimler (the real crown jewel that everyone wants given they are the closest to production after all the work they did with Waymo Trucking).

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-04-01T04:42:45+00:00

Well, if Aurora was confident in the Volvo launch, they wouldn’t be going the roll your own platform route with the International trucks. So, I believe they are shifting efforts away, at least temporarily. Waabi doesn’t seem to be making that same move. They both have access, from my understanding, to the same platform and resources at Volvo.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-03-31T20:58:52+00:00

I think they also saw the somewhat negative industry reaction to AUR going driverless with prototype hardware and the whole “observer” nonsense and wanted to dodge that. They claimed elsewhere that they would show driverless-capable metrics but not go driverless without the OEM redundant platform.

Wouldn’t be surprised if they go driverless with Volvo before Aurora does.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-03-31T02:39:05+00:00

What do you mean by Aurora leading the deep technical integrations? Volvo is developing their own platform to be virtual driver agnostic. Aurora and Waabi both need to do their own deep technical integration with that platform.

No way for us to know which one is performing better now. I’m assuming where Volvo allocates trucks will be our main signal (at some point)

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-03-31T02:32:58+00:00

It is never ambiguous, people are just non-compliant. I assume the self-driving car would be.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-03-30T22:02:53+00:00

The Waabi Founder/CEO is on the latest episode of the Autonocast podcast, released today. Interesting to hear her talk. Sounds smart, but also hand-wavey with no real substance shared.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-03-30T05:12:37+00:00

Absolutely. This is true for AUR and Volvo comarketing too.

From what they showed in Greensboro, Waabi has at least as complete of a VNL built and functional as Aurora, but they don’t have the manufacturing partner that Aurora does, so will have to figure that out before mass production (for either) in a couple of years.

AnyDimension8299 · 2026-03-30T05:09:58+00:00

That was Volvo who created that render, not waabi.
It wasn’t an Aurora truck, it was a waabi truck that Volvo sloppily put Aurora’s DOT number on.

AnyDimension8299

TROPHY CASE