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Reilly Brennan, the godfather of the Autonocast and Trucks VC general partner, returns to the pod for a wide-ranging discussion on the business of robotaxis, how AVs have evolved in the past decade, his latest fund, and some surprising insights into Tesla.
Reilly Brennan, author of the must-read Future of Transportation newsletter and partner at Trucks VC, returns to Tech Cars Machines for a discussion on recent trends in transportation investing. We discuss financing round sizes and valuations, AI in autonomy and robotics, the promise of hydrogen combustion engines, the EV market, and much more. Host: … Read More Read More
Reilly details a sector-specific then-and-now look back from his more than two decades of transportation experience, shares how the venture asset class has shifted in light of the momentum in this sector and what this has meant for sector-focused VC firms, outlines why building ecosystem and collaboration across startups, investors, universities, regulators, etc. is needed for the next decade of transportation innovation to thrive, and finally shares lessons learned from investing in transportation business models that may combine both hardware and software components.
In Part I of this conversation, Reilly Brennan described how the days of late October, 2022 will go down in history as some of the most important in the history of autonomous vehicles. In the space of just a few days, one company (Argo AI) went out of business, Tesla was taken to court for its Autopilot system and Reilly Brennan experienced a transcendent "before and after" moment when taking the Cruise robotaxi on a flawless 40 minute trip through the street of San Francisco. In this week's Part 2 of the conversation we look at the next giant hurdle for autonomous vehicles: Profitability. Cruise, Waymo, Baisu and other AV companies are still plowing through tens of billions of dollars in development costs. When will these companies be able to scale up their robotaxi fleets in multiple cities and become commercially viable? Put another way, now that Cruise has established proof of concept on the technology front, how long before we see proof of profit? #DrivingWithDunne / #ZozoGo https://twitter.com/Dunne_ZoZoGohttps://www.instagram.com/zo.zo.go/?hl=enhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-dunne-a696901a/
Scour the planet and you are unlikely to find anyone who knows the business of autonomous vehicles (AVs & ADAS) better than Reilly Brennan, Co-Founder, Trucks Venture Capital. Over the past ten years, Brennan has taken rides in more than 100 autonomous vehicles. He and his partners at Trucks Venture Capital have also invested in dozens of startups in the AV ecosystem, including leading innovators like Gatik, May Mobility, AEye and NuTonomy. In this week's Driving With Dunne conversation, Brennan reveals why his recent 40 minute ride in a Cruise robotaxi through the streets of San Francisco was a mind-altering experience. What acts of technological magichad Cruise managed to perform? Where had Cruise broken through? Brennan also lays out in vivid terms the crucial distinction every driver should make between autonomous cars and vehicles that are enhanced through advanced driver assistance systems. #DrivingWithDunne / #ZozoGo https://twitter.com/Dunne_ZoZoGohttps://www.instagram.com/zo.zo.go/?hl=enhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-dunne-a696901a/
Reilly Brennan, General Partner, Trucks VC joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss investing in the future.The conversation begins with Reilly and Grayson discussing what is going to happen when consolidation begins in the autonomous vehicle industry.This is a period of consolidation because you have essentially a lot of the robo-taxi ideas turned into commercial applications, probably around logistics and parcels. – Reilly BrennanThen there are the startups such as Bear Flag Robotics (acquired by John Deere – August 2021) and Gatik that have been focused on specific applications since day one. Shifting the conversation to industrial use cases, Grayson asks Reilly what his thoughts are on the industrial market as it relates to autonomy.One of those specific industrial markets is mining. With global mining companies hitting record profits and Rio Tinto recently announcing a $7.7 billion half-year dividend, Grayson asks Reilly if a global mining company could potentially acquire an autonomy startup.No doubt. Electrification and AV to those specific players is as much on their mind as the way you would think about DHL, UPS, Amazon, etc adding autonomy and electrification to theirs. It's just a component of how they make money or will make more money in the future. – Reilly BrennanThere is a growing segment of the startup market has is beginning to focus on the opportunities in the industrial market. One aspect of the startup industrial market that is booming is the autonomous trucking industry.The autonomous trucking industry is generating revenue and shoring up the supply chain through automation, as consumers battle ever-increasing inflation. Reilly rightly points out that this industry is heavily dependent on partnerships to scale and return capital to shareholders and investors.One of the key partnerships in the future will be railroads. Grayson makes a prediction that in the next 18 to 24 months, a railroad will buy an autonomous trucking company.Another segment of the industrial market is maritime. Looking at investment opportunities in the space, Reilly is currently studying hydrography and shipping routes. There is an emerging opportunity to map waterways which will increase shipping efficiencies.The depths within ports can change so much that it impacts how much payload you can take. – Reilly BrennanAs maritime shipping routes get optimized, it's time to allow autonomous trucks to enter and operate at ports.The partnership dynamics of autonomous trucking is arguably one of the most important parts of the business. In fact, we have seen some of the logistics companies take investments from entities that own or have access to those ports for that specific reason.It's a fundamental question that there is not any one company, even Waymo that can lay claim to a leadership position for those specific pickup points. That is a big opportunity and in fact, it's probably more important than saying you are running 10,000 trips a day on this route in Texas.If someone came to us and said if I secured the access to these specific vital ports in the United States, I think that is actually saying something a great deal.– Reilly BrennanStaying on the topic of Waymo, Grayson asks Reilly if Waymo will eventually split into two separate companies: Waymo Via focused on autonomous trucking and Waymo One focused on autonomous vehicles.It has always been a question in my mind whether we were at the point in this area of autonomy where you could have a multi-silhouette autonomy company. – Reilly BrennanIs Waymo the only company that could pull off a multi-silhouette approach to autonomy, because of Alphabet's continued long-term financing commitment? It looks that way as Aurora has seemingly shifted a majority of its focus to autonomous trucking.For companies that don't have a Google as a supporter and an investor, I think you probably have to pick one thing you are world-class in. – Reilly BrennanWithout an Alphabet-like financing partner, does Aurora get to a crossroads where they decide to sell off their autonomous vehicle division and focus solely on trucking? It's a possibility as the autonomous vehicle market is beginning to consolidate around Argo AI, Cruise, and Waymo.Then there is May Mobility which is focused on structured routes. Pick-up and drop-offs from airports are a huge opportunity that the autonomous vehicle industry is currently not exploiting. The true opportunity for airports and AVs is in resort towns with limited traffic and high-amounts of passenger traffic during predefined periods of time throughout the year.Looking at the overall investment landscape, Reilly shares a story and his insights into how the team at Trucks VC uncovers potential investment opportunities.When we look at companies, we tend to not really look for ideas, we kind of just wait for great founders to reveal something to us and then we get onboard. – Reilly BrennanWrapping up the conversation, Reilly and Grayson discuss the circular economy and the future of electric vehicles.Recorded on Tuesday, March 1, 2021.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What is the future of EVs? Commercial transit? Why can't we build more trains? Reilly has the answers to these questions and a lot more. Reilly P. Brennan knows a lot about transportation. He was Executive Director for Stanford's automotive research program, Revs. Prior to Stanford he developed his love for transportation in media and technology at editorial publications ranging from Automobile to AOL to Monocle and seat time in over 1000 test cars. He is a founding general partner at Trucks, a seed-stage venture capital fund for entrepreneurs changing the future of transportation. @reillybrennanHe publishes a weekly newsletter about the Future of Transportation. https://reillybrennan.com/newsletters Want to find the right parts for you car? Head to https://carparts.com/thesmokingtire and get 10% off a purchase of $100 or more. Head to https://www.policygenius.com to get your free home and auto insurance quotes and see how much you could save. Go to https://www.HelloFresh.com/smokingtire16 and use code smokingtire16 for up to 16 free meals and 3 free gifts. Want your question answered? To listen to the episode the day it's recorded? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Tweet at us! https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtire https://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtire https://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Click here for the most honest car reviews out there: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire Want shorter podcasts? Subscribe to our new CLIPS channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD4WGV-W5zD1MK4yHbNGwmw
Hey team, this week Oliver interviews Olaf Sakkers about his new book, Mobility Disruption Framework. Olaf is one of the General Partners at Redblue Capital, a new mobility venture investment firm that he founded. Prior to this, he was at Maniv Mobility for 6 years with Michael Granoff, a friend of Micromobility Industries and a previous guest on the podcast. This is one of our favourite episodes. Olaf's work feels seminal, which is always a good place to start from. It covers a lot of the same ideas covered on this podcast all in one, coherent and cogent framework, and helped us really get our head around concepts that we've been thinking about for years but have struggled to articulate. We cannot recommend it highly enough. Thank you to Reilly Brennan for putting us onto it via his excellent Future of Transportation weekly newsletter.Specifically they talk about:- Olaf's history with Maniv Mobility and his new venture Redblue.- The origins of the Mobility Disruption framework and its audience.- Why Olaf is bullish on hydrogen for vehicles.- His framework around CATS and DOGs and why the dematerialisation of transport matters- His framework for Throughput Construction Cost, which in our opinion is revolutionary._________________In the meantime. The next Micromobility America conference is now scheduled for the 23rd of September. It'll be at the Craneway in Richmond, across the bay from San Francisco and have more than 50 top speakers from the industry, more than 1000 global participants and 500+ startups and brands represented. If you love this space and want to find your tribe here, head to micromobility.io to find out more details.
The venture capital firm's founding general partner tells why he sees opportunities in "zero-emission entrepreneurship," a growing role for driver monitoring and industrial AV players becoming more attractive targets than robotaxis.
Our guest Reilly Brennan is co-founder of Trucks Venture Capital, a highly respected outfit based in San Francisco that invests in future technologies for the transportation industry. Truck VC investments in autonomous vehicle technologies have proven exceptionally strong, including early round placements in Nutonomy, Nauto, Cruise, DeepScale and May Mobility and others. In this episode, we ask Reilly for his perspective on when robotaxis will become a widespread reality, which companies are leading the industry and why Tesla seems to be zigging when everyone else is zagging.#WinningInAsia / #ZozoGo https://twitter.com/Dunne_ZoZoGohttps://www.instagram.com/zo.zo.go/?hl=enhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-dunne-a696901a/
Today's guest is Paul Eremenko, Co-Founder and CEO of Universal Hydrogen.Before Universal Hydrogen, Paul served as Senior Vice President and CTO of United Technologies and CTO of Airbus. When he co-founded Universal Hydrogen, Paul felt hydrogen was the only solution the industry has to meet the Paris Agreement's goals and decarbonize.Universal Hydrogen is an end-to-end fuel logistics company making hydrogen-powered commercial flight a near-term reality. The aerospace and aviation industry is decarbonizing too slowly to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. Paul and his team are tackling two of the biggest challenges in hydrogen flight: creating a distribution infrastructure and kick-starting demand for hydrogen. To distribute hydrogen, Universal Hydrogen is rethinking how we can transport it. The company specially designs lightweight aviation-certified hydrogen capsules that are compatible with the existing infrastructure and freight networks. Universal Hydrogen is retrofitting regional airplanes with conversion kits necessary to utilize hydrogen as fuel. It is building a roadmap for other aircraft companies to adopt these designs. Universal Hydrogen partners with many companies, from freight logistics to fuel cell development to aircraft makers and modifiers. Backed by Trucks, Jeff Schox, Reilly Brennan, Plug Power, and smaller investors, Universal Hydrogen is paving the way for zero-emission aviation. Pauls walks me through how he transitioned to working in green hydrogen and the gaps that Universal Hydrogen is filling within the aviation industry. Paul explains why hydrogen is the best fuel for zero-emission flight, the barriers to hydrogen adoption, and key startups Universal Hydrogen partners with. Paul and I also discuss the stakeholders, funding to date, and the future of the company. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in learning more about how to decarbonize aviation.Enjoy the show!You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.Episode recorded February 3rd, 2021To learn more about Universal Hydrogen, visit their website: https://www.hydrogen.aero/
Connie & Alex talk tech news and then chat with Reilly Brennan of TrucksVC about all things EV.
This week Oliver interviews Chinmay Malaviya and Charlie Depman, cofounders of Ridepanda, about their efforts to build a better customer journey for purchasing owned micromobility. The platform is relatively new, but it hits on a very relevant need. Thanks to Reilly Brennan from Trucks VC for putting us onto them. Specifically we dig into: - Their backgrounds at Bird, Scoot and Lime and how that led them to starting this business. - The core customer needs that they’re trying to solve- The importance of trusted reviews and reliable servicing for customers- What matters to customers, and why brand is far further down the list than expected- What early traction they’re seeing- How COVID 19 has impacted the buyers guide- Their fundraising journey and what they’re seeing for Micromobility related startups in general.
In a time when delivery and e-commerce are changing our lives, what transportation trends should be on our radar? A special one-on-one episode with Reilly Brennan, founding general partner of the seed-stage venture capital firm Trucks VC.
In this episode of Stuck@Om, my dear friend Reilly Brennan — lead partner of Trucks Venture Capital — joins me to talk about the future of the transportation industry. We have a very philosophical conversation about how the Coronavirus pandemic has taken away our basic level of societal trust. Will we think twice before climbing in an Uber ride? What about public transportation? We wonder if rideshare services will start monitoring the health of their drivers and whether or not their vehicles are frequently disinfected. Reilly's venture capital firm invests in auto industry startups in their earliest stages, so he has unique insight into the autonomous vehicle industry and the strides they're making. We talk about delivery robotics and the increased need for autonomous vehicles to deliver necessities like groceries. We question how the auto industry will survive as dealerships across America are being shut-down. It is now becoming apparent that we — as a society — need to redefine what is essential and our treatment of essential workers. Delivery drivers are risking their lives to deliver goods to provide for their families. Families now quarantined at home and teaching their children are realizing just how much work teachers carry on their shoulders. We have an immense need for more healthcare workers who are now on the front-line of the battle. These people need to be treated as essential outside of pandemics and war-time. Reilly and I discuss the auto industry in-depth and toss around what the future landscape of the industry could look like. Perhaps people will gravitate towards purchasing new vehicles versus ridesharing or public transportation. The truth is — we don't know. Please, give our conversation a listen. Subscribe to THE OM SHOW Outline of This Episode Reilly Brennan joins me in this episode The creation and launching of delivery robotics We must redefine what we define as ‘essential' Do we need to rethink capitalism? How will the automobile sector survive a prolonged shutdown? The difference between cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting The projected future of electric vehicles How the micro-mobility landscape will change Resources & People Mentioned Trucks Venture Capital Refraction AI Nuro AI Instacart Shipt Lime Rentals Bird Rentals Spin Rentals Connect with Reilly Brennan Reilly on Twitter Reilly on LinkedIn Connect With Om www.Om.co Om on Twitter: @Om Om on Instagram: @Om
Reilly Brennan is an early stage investor in the transportation industry and a lecturer at Stanford's School of Engineering. As cofounder of Trucks, a venture capital group that funds the future of transportation, he has played a crucial role in the development of self driving car technology and other advances that will modernize the way we move from place to place. In this conversation, he explains to Payson how transportation touches every part of life, the thousands of decisions that go into evaluating young entrepreneurs, why he invests in the person over the idea, and how he uses the principles of cultural anthropology to assess the potential of the teams that pitch to him. As an avid sports fan, Reilly also has thoughts on the changing landscape of the industry, including the ways in which social media is making athletes more powerful than their sanctioning bodies, why young athletes shouldn't wait to secure sponsors or results to start creating a personal brand, and what the NBA is doing right. Early in his career, Reilly was a member of the Le Mans-winning Corvette C5-R program, and watches car racing closely. He talks about why NASCAR isn't what it used to be, why Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was the last of the great NASCAR drivers, and why the commoditization of the sport deliberately robs drivers of their personalities.
Listen to Reilly Brennan, co-founder and partner at early-stage venture fund Trucks VC, discuss his investments in the transportation and autonomy space. Reilly describes how his investment criteria and portfolio have changed over time and shares his thoughts on the Future of Transportation. Learn more about Trucks and Reilly and his must-read weekly newsletter, The Future of Transportation. More … Continue reading Reilly Brennan, General Partner, Trucks VC →
Listen to Reilly Brennan, co-founder and partner at early-stage venture fund Trucks VC, discuss his investments in the transportation and autonomy space. Reilly describes how his investment criteria and portfolio have changed over time and shares his thoughts on the Future of Transportation. Learn more about Trucks and Reilly and his must-read weekly newsletter, The Future of Transportation. More about GTK, your host Ali Tabibian, our conferences, publications and subscriptions thereto. If links aren’t active in your app, please go to www.gtkpartners.com. A raw transcript is here.
The Autonocast took advantage of its on-stage panel at SXSW to discuss one of the few issues that has real life-and-death consequences: the consequences of language used to describe automated driving technology. Whether caused by sensationalism, ignorance or just laziness, language that oversells publicly-available driver assistance systems and conflates it with autonomy can actively contribute to dangerous uses that actually endanger peoples lives. Kirsten, Alex and Ed are joined by the "Godfather" of the Autonocast, Reilly Brennan of Trucks VC and the Future of Transportation Newsletter, as they deconstruct this insidious problem and start to look for solutions to it.
The second half of our conversations from the Micromobility California Conference really gets into the meat of The Great Scooter Boom, discussing the good, the bad and the ugly of the hottest trend in mobility technology. That means everything from unit economics and infrastructure to charger fraud, theft and regulatory compliance. To tackle all this we're joined by an all-star group of scooter mavens: Reilly Brennan, of Trucks VC (and godfather of The Autonocast), Michael Naka of RideReport and the Movements newsletter, and Victor Pontis of ScooterMap.
On today’s episode we do a very quick recap of the inaugural 2019 Micromobility Summit and then turn our attention to talk through what early stage investment in micromobility looks like with Reilly Brennan of Trucks Venture Capital (@reillybrennan).He is a founding general partner at Trucks (trucks.vc), a seed-stage venture capital fund for entrepreneurs changing the future of transportation. Reilly holds a teaching appointment at Stanford University and is influential newsletter Future of Transportation is a radar for what’s happening in transportation. Prior to Trucks, Reilly was Executive Director for Stanford’s automotive research program, Revs. He is very well known in the transport technology space.In this episode we discuss:- Trucks VC and how it’s adjusted it’s thinking about micromobility in its search for the companies that will power the future of transportation.- How he thinks about the evolution of the supply chain in the micromobility sector, and who will be looking to get involved.- Where he sees parallels between the existing early stages of micromobility and the autonomous vehicle space a few years ago.- What opportunities he is looking for in the space, and his thesis of where value will accrue.We also discuss the new Micromobility VC syndicate on AngelList that will be syndicating interesting deals in the micromobility space out to early stage investors. If you are an accredited investor and would like to hear about the deals that Horace, Oliver and others are coming across and backing, please find us on AngelList and apply.
Today on the podcast we have Reilly Brennan, a founding general partner of Trucks VC, a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on transportation. He also holds a teaching appointment at Stanford University and is the author of the Future of Transportation newsletter. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support
Kruze Consulting's Founders and Friends Podcast for Startups
Reilly Brennan of Trucks VC (http://trucks.vc) invited us over to discuss early stage transportation startups. Reilly is a seed Venture Capitalist in the sector and also a Lecturer at Stanford. HIs passion is helping founders build their dream companies.
As we approach the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 this weekend, three of our favorite (and renowned) automotive design geeks join Diego to discuss the lost art of hand painted racing numbers. Graphic designers, car enthusiasts, and appreciators of of craft will likely agree: these #PrimalNumbers are worth saving. Jump in on the conversation and find out more about #PrimalNumbers on Medium (https://medium.com/primalnumbers) + Twitter (https://twitter.com/hashtag/PrimalNumbers). Find our guests on the Twitter: @JRHildebrand @reillybrennan @deancrew7 And as always, we love hearing from you: @ideofutures or futures@ideo.com Cover image: Marmon Wasp via #PrimalNumbers
Earlier this year, Diego hosted a fascinating conversation with drivers Patrick Dempsey and Patrick Long as part of the Open Garage Talk series at the Revs Program at Stanford. Titled "Mindset of a Champion", the conversation focused on what it takes to perform at your very best, even under the most challenging of circumstances. Many thanks to Reilly Brennan and the Revs Program at Stanford for allowing us to share the audio from their Open Garage Talk on the IDEO Futures podcast. And, of course, thank you to Patrick and Patrick for inspiring us all! Good luck at Le Mans! Cover image: Patrick Beaudouin
This week the King Ship pod journeys to Boston for an innovation frenzy! First, Diego was at Harvard Business School for the unveiling of the new IDEO Case. Next stop was the MIT Media Lab, which was holding its annual Fall member meeting. The theme of the meeting was "Deploy", which of course resonates with all of the staff here at King Ship. Our special guest this week was Gordon Jones, Managing Director of the Harvard Innovation Lab. Joe sat down to talk with him about whats happening at the i-Lab and his view of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. If you haven't heard Gordon speak before, this interview is for you. Finally, our inspiration of the week touches on an HBR article that explores how Internet of Things might change business models and peeks into the Future of Transportation, via an awesome newsletter from Reilly Brennan. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music: "Jimmy H. Boogaloo" & "Octopussy" by Juanitos with a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 France License
Reilly Brennan provides a history of automobiles and describes how technological innovations have changed the production, distribution, and use of cars. (October 17, 2012)
Tonight we're together again as Spring has finally sprung in the Motor City, and one of the cars that is putting a "spring" in our step is the just-launched 2011 Mustang. By all accounts, this is a car that can do no wrong: great power, great fuel efficiency and great fun. So, how did Ford do it? To answer that question we've asked Dave Pericak, the Chief Engineer of the Mustang to take a seat on the AAH sofa and spill the beans. Of course, we'll also be getting into the news of the week including the announcements coming out of the NY Auto Show. John McElroy's in studio with David Welch from BusinessWeek and Bloomberg News and they welcome an AAH newcomer, Reilly Brennan from AOL Autos.