Future Timeline

(TechCrunch) Kodiak Robotics is one of the last private autonomous vehicles companies focused on trucking that is still standing. Nearly all the rest have been wooed by the public marketplace and the capital it can provide. But co-founder and CEO Don Burnette says the three-year-old company’s strategy of staying focused and small(er) is paying off.

It will be able to deploy a commercial-scale operation for about $500 million in funding, he says in the interview below. To put those go-to-market costs in perspective, that’s 10% of what Waymo has raised in external fundraising and less than 25% of newly publicly traded company TuSimple’s total fundraise.

Kodiak’s strategy is to take a specialized, hyperfocused approach to autonomous trucking that outsources a lot of tech, like data labeling, lidar, radar and mapping, to existing companies. Burnette, who was one of four founders of the self-driving truck startup Otto that Uber acquired, thinks this is a faster, cheaper and more efficient path to commercialization versus building out your own systems and teams.

The company is moving freight for commercial customers, dipping its toes in the market by working with technology partners within the existing ecosystem. Burnette says Kodiak’s Driver technology has achieved a level of maturity where it can handle anything the highway throws at it. In December, the startup achieved “disengagement-free deliveries” between Dallas and Houston, meaning the autonomous system didn’t have to be switched off for safety reasons.

The following interview, part of an ongoing series with founders who are building transportation companies, has been edited for length and clarity. (See link above quote box for the interview)

(The Verge) Audi released details of a new concept car this week called the Skysphere, a self-driving roadster that can change shape at the touch of a button.

The sleek, villainous-looking convertible pairs an electric powertrain with luxury amenities for a result that even Batman would find a bit over the top. Notably, the vehicle features an adaptable wheelbase that can change size based on the driving mode, as well as a digital cockpit with a retractable steering wheel and pedals that stow away when the car drives itself.

It’s a more fantastical outlook on the future than some of the German automaker’s other recent concepts. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less achievable; at the unveiling event, Audi officials said the Skysphere represents what the company believes it can achieve, likely in the second half of this decade, as it pivots to electric and autonomous vehicles.

The Skysphere is expected to have a range of 500km (310 miles), can accelerate 0 to 60mph in under four seconds, and offers about 553 pound-feet of torque. That all sounds fairly normal for a concept car with a hood that splits into two panels and opens like an elevator.

Certainly the most jaw-dropping feature is the expandable wheelbase, in which the vehicle extends an extra 10 millimeters when switching between Sports mode (4.94 meters long) and Grand Touring mode (5.19 meters). That may not seem like a lot, but it’s enough to justify