Smarter Cars
by Michele Kyrouz
Smarter Cars is a show about the future of transportation - from autonomous vehicles to electric scooters and beyond. We're interviewing key players in transportation, autonomy, robotics and the AI that powers these new developments.
Episodes
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Maxim Romain - Dott
In this episode, we’re talking with Maxim Romain, co-founder and COO of Dott, a French micromobility company operating shared kick scooters and now e-bikes in Europe. We discuss Dott’s approach to sustainability and cities, its scooter operations, swappable batteries, parking compliance and other...
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Peter Deppe - Kuhmute
Today we're talking with Peter Deppe, CEO/co-founder of Kuhmute, a company that provides universal charging docks for micromobility devices. We discuss how Kuhmute docks work with all form factors from e-bikes to wheelchairs with variable charging and an adapter, the process for installing and...
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Fred Jones - Tier
Today we’re talking with Fred Jones of Tier - a German company that has become one of the biggest micromobility players in Europe. Tier operates shared fleets of electric scooters and is rolling out electric bikes and mopeds as well. We discuss Tier’s strategy and operations in Europe, its new...
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Jameson Detweiler - Fantasmo
Today we're talking with Jameson Detweiler, President/Co-Founder of Fantasmo, a company that makes HD maps and provides hyper-accurate positioning services for micromobility companies. We discuss the challenges of GPS and geolocating vehicles in cities, the benefits of camera-based positioning...
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Ghassan Haddad - Lime
Today we're talking with Ghassan Haddad, Lime's Head of Public Policy and Communications for Europe, Middle East and Africa. We discuss Lime's operations in European cities, policy differences between European and US cities, Lime's expansion into new form factors including the addition of Jump...
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Shabazz Stuart - Oonee
Today we're talking with Shabazz Stuart, founder/CEO of Oonee, which makes secure parking structures for bikes and scooters in cities. You can see what Oonee looks like at https://www.ooneepod.com. We discuss how Oonee pods and kiosks can serve both owned and shared micromobility for many…
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Alex Nesic - Drover
Today we're talking with Alex Nesic, co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Drover. Drover provides an advanced IoT module for micromobility vehicles that is capable of granular infrastructure distinction in real time without the need for ground truth information or precise GPS. Drover helps...
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Carl Vernersson - Voi
We interview Carl Vernersson, Chief Commercial Officer of Voi, a micromobility company based in Sweden. We discuss Voi's latest scooter and technology, including turn signals, sidewalk detection, and swappable batteries. We also discuss the operational and regulatory challenges in European…
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Felix Petersen - Spin
In this episode, we talk with Felix Petersen, Head of Europe for Spin, about Spin's expansion into Europe, the approach to regulation in different European countries, the operational and infrastructure challenges and opportunities in Europe, and the future of various form factors for micromobility.
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Sam Kansara - Waymo
In this Season 5 finale, we're talking with Sam Kansara, a senior product manager at Waymo who is scaling the Waymo One driverless ride service and Waymo Via for trucking and local delivery. Waymo has been the leader in developing autonomous driving technology and the first ride service to remove...
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Jewel Li - AutoX
Today we're talking with Jewel Li, the COO of AutoX, a company making an autonomous driving system for cars, delivery vehicles and long haul trucks. AutoX recently was the third company to receive a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California without a driver in the car. We discuss AutoX's...
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Evangelos Simoudis - Synapse Partners
In this episode, we talk with venture capital investor Evangelos Simoudis, Managing Partner of Synapse Partners and author of two books on the future of transportation - The Big Data Opportunity in Our Driverless Future and his newly published Transportation Transformation. We discuss his views…
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Graham Gullans - Superpedestrian
In this episode, we talk with Graham Gullans, VP of Business and Corporate Development at Superpedestrian, a company that makes intelligent electric scooters and bikes and now operates a shared micromobility service called Link. We discuss the use of vehicle intelligence to improve safety,...
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Modar Alaoui - Eyeris
In this episode, we talk with Modar Alaoui, the CEO and founder of Eyeris, a company that provides in-vehicle scene understanding for cars with ADAS systems and fully autonomous vehicles. In-vehicle scene understanding can be used for tasks such as driver monitoring, occupant monitoring, safety…
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Dmitry Shevelenko - Tortoise
In this episode, we talk with Dmitry Shevelenko, CEO and founder of Tortoise, a company providing remote repositioning services for lightweight electric vehicles such as scooters and delivery robots. We discuss the challenges facing the shared scooter industry, and how Tortoise can help solve...
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Matthew Johnson-Roberson - Refraction AI
In this episode, we talk with Matthew Johnson-Roberson, the CEO and co-founder of RefractionAI, a company that builds and deploys robotic platforms to provide safe and scalable last mile goods delivery in urban areas. We discuss Refraction’s current business model, providing delivery services to...
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Warren Logan - City of Oakland
In this episode, we talk with Warren Logan, the Policy Director of Mobility and Interagency Relations for the Mayor’s Office of Oakland, California. Warren works closely with the City’s Department of Transportation, Public Works Department and other Bay Area public agencies to develop strategies...
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James Wu - DeepMap
Today we are talking with James Wu, founder and CEO of DeepMap. DeepMap creates high definition maps for autonomous vehicles and assisted driving systems, and provides a map engine service with maintenance and updates to the maps. We discuss DeepMap’s business and customer model, how high...
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Jason Stinson - Renovo
In this episode, we talk with Jason Stinson, CTO and co-founder of Renovo. We discuss Renovo’s origin story going back to 2010 - from its original electric supercar The Coupe, to working with Stanford on Marty, to developing an automotive software platform to help companies manage data from...
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Jody Kelman - Lyft
Welcome to Season 5 of the Smarter Cars podcast. In this episode, we talk with Jody Kelman, Director of Product Management, Lyft’s Self-Driving Platform. We discuss Lyft’s two-pronged approach to autonomous vehicles, including its partnerships with Aptiv in Las Vegas and Waymo in Arizona, as well...
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Sam Baker - Wunder Mobility
In the final episode of Season 4, we interview Sam Baker, co-founder and COO of Wunder Mobility, a company which provides technology to build and scale shared mobility services worldwide. We discuss Wunder Mobility’s business in Europe, its expansion to the US, the role of cities in encouraging...
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Colin Roche - Swiftmile
In this episode, we interview Colin Roche, co-founder and CEO of Swiftmile. Swiftmile is a company that makes and deploys charging stations in cities for micromobility devices such as electric scooters and bikes. We discuss how Swiftmile deploys in cities on public and private land, its...
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Jeffrey Tumlin - SFMTA, Director of Transportation
Today we talk with Jeffrey Tumlin, the new head of San Francisco's transportation agency, the SFMTA, about the challenges of managing city transportation needs as the city grows and the streets don't get any bigger. We discuss managing the streets for the public good, reducing traffic with better...
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Michael Granoff - A VC Perspective - Maniv Mobility
In this episode, we talk with Michael Granoff, Managing Partner at Maniv Mobility, for a year-end wrap on the transportation landscape from a venture capital perspective. We discuss his firm’s investments and focus, the future of transportation in cities, the iteration of micromobility form…
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Jake Sion - COO of Transit
In this episode, we interview Jake Sion, the Chief Operating Officer of Transit. We discuss Transit’s business, the challenges of gathering real time data in cities and how cities can encourage multi-modal transportation in lieu of private car trips. Transit is an app that allows you to locate,...
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Drew Gray - Voyage
Today we're talking with Drew Gray, CTO at Voyage, to do a deep dive on the state of deep learning in autonomous vehicle development and to discuss Deepdrive, a new Voyage project to advance research into the use of reinforcement and end to end learning for AVs.
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Jordan Coleman - Kodiak Robotics
In this episode, we interview Jordan Coleman, General Counsel of Kodiak Robotics, about Kodiak’s autonomous trucking business, the key issues around safety and autonomy, and policy/regulatory challenges the industry faces. Kodiak believes long-haul trucking is primed for autonomous technology....
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Giovanni Circella - UC Davis - Director, Three Revolutions of Future Mobility Program
Today we talk with Giovanni Circella, Director of the Three Revolutions Future of Mobility Program at UC Davis. We discuss his research on adoption of shared mobility services, like Uber/Lyft and micromobility, in California and their impact on car ownership and public transit use. We discuss his...
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Robin Chase - Founder and former CEO of Zipcar - On the State of New Mobility
In this episode, we talk with transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase, the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar. We have a wide-ranging discussion on the state of transportation in cities today, the impact of new mobility services and the policies cities should adopt to encourage a multi-modal...
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SF Supervisor Matt Haney
Today we interview SF Supervisor Matt Haney. He is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, representing District 6 (Tenderloin, Civic Center, Mid-Market, SOMA, Yerba Buena, Rincon Hill, South Beach, Mission Bay, Treasure Island). Supervisor Haney is a past Commissioner and past...
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SFMTA - Hank Willson, Parking and Curb Management
Today we’re talking about how to manage the curb and parking in this age of ridehailing services, micromobility, Amazon and food deliveries, and autonomous vehicles. Our guest is Hank Willson, Policy Manager, in Parking and Curb Management for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. We...
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rideOS - CTO Chris Blumenberg
In this episode, we talk with Chris Blumenberg, co-founder and CTO of rideOS. We discuss the rideOS platform which provides a broad set of products and services that can be used as building blocks for developing on-demand services, including both autonomous and human driven vehicles. The rideOS...
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Lauren Mattern - Nelson\Nygaard - How Parking Policy Impacts Cities
In this episode, we talk with Lauren Mattern, a principal at Nelson/Nygaard, about parking policy and how it impacts cities. We discuss street parking and demand responsive pricing, including her work at the SFMTA on the innovative SFpark program. Lauren previously served as Manager of Parking...
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Coord - CTO Jacob Baskin
The curb is in high demand with TNCs picking up and dropping off passengers, delivery companies pulling over to deliver food, groceries and e-commerce items, and micromobility companies looking to park scooters and bikes. In this episode, we talk with Coord cofounder and CTO Jacob Baskin about…
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Harry Campbell - The Rideshare Guy
Today we're talking with Harry Campbell, founder of the Rideshare Guy blog and podcast, and the author of The Rideshare Guide: Everything You Need to Know about Driving for Uber, Lyft, and Other Ridesharing Companies. We have a wide-ranging conversation about driving for Uber and Lyft, how the...
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Perceptive Automata - Sam Anthony
In this episode, we talk with Sam Anthony, the CTO and co-founder of Perceptive Automata, a company that makes software to help autonomous vehicles understand human behavior. We discuss why it is such a hard problem for autonomous vehicles to understand human intention and behavior, safety...
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Aeye - President Blair LaCorte
Today we’re discussing Lidar and perception systems with Blair LaCorte, President of Aeye. We discuss Aeye’s technology and business, how Aeye created its products to mimic human perception, and how its products fuse 2D cameras with 3D Lidar to create a different approach to perception sensors…
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DeepScale - CEO Forrest Iandola
In this episode, we interview Forrest Iandola, the CEO of DeepScale, about vision and perception software using deep neural nets. We discuss DeepScale’s business, how it works with the rest of the autonomous vehicle technology stack, the state of autonomous vehicle software today and the…
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Talking Micromobility with Hong Quan of Karmic Bikes
Today we're talking about micromobility with local startup founder Hong Quan of Karmic Bikes. We discuss electric bikes, scooters and other form factors, the definition of micromobility, use cases and business models and city infrastructure.
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TuSimple - Robert Brown
We discuss autonomous trucking with Robert Brown, Director of Public Affairs at TuSimple. We cover the technology used by TuSimple in its autonomous trucks, its current operations which include hauling loads for paying customers in Arizona, and some of the policy issues facing the autonomous...
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Reilly Brennan - Trucks VC
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.
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Applied Intuition - Qasar Younis, Matthew Colford
In this episode, we interview Qasar Younis and Matthew Colford of Applied Intuition about simulation and its role in developing and testing autonomous vehicles, including the safety and policy implications.
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Warren Logan - San Francisco County Transportation Authority
In this episode, we talk with Warren Logan, a senior transportation planner at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority about the regulation of emerging mobility services in SF, including TNCs and scooters, and ways that industry can work more collaboratively with city government. We...
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Alisyn Malek - May Mobility
Welcome to Season 2 of Smarter Cars. We talk with Alisyn Malek, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of May Mobility, about their commercial deployment of autonomous shuttles on public roads in Detroit and plans for future expansion.
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Joshua Schank, Chief Innovation Officer, L.A. Metro
In this episode, we interview Joshua Schank, the Chief Innovation Officer for L.A. Metro. We discuss the challenges facing public transit as mobility options evolve, and the innovative approach L.A. Metro is taking to improve transportation and mobility options in L.A. County, including pilot...
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Ding Zhao - Autonomous Vehicle Safety/Testing (U. Michigan)
In this episode, we discuss autonomous vehicle safety and testing with Ding Zhao, Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Michigan. How will we know when AVs are safe enough to deploy? Will it take driving billions of road miles? We discuss his method of using accelerated evaluation...
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Brian Soublet - California Dept of Motor Vehicles
In this episode, we discuss the new California autonomous vehicle regulations with Brian Soublet, Deputy Director and Chief Counsel for the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The California Legislature implemented legislation in 2012 directing the DMV to issue regulations governing…
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Philip Koopman - Carnegie Mellon - AV Safety
Our guest is Professor Philip Koopman of Carnegie Mellon University. He’s been researching automotive safety and embedded systems for more than 20 years and is currently focused on safety in autonomous vehicles. We discuss how to think about autonomous vehicle safety, including what level of…
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Nico Larco - Urbanism Next @ U. Oregon
Our guest is Nico Larco from the University of Oregon, and we discuss the secondary impacts of autonomous vehicles on cities, including potential effects on parking, transit, street design, land use, urban planning, sprawl and real estate valuation.
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Regina Clewlow - Transportation Researcher UC Davis
In this episode, we talk with Regina Clewlow, a leading transportation researcher on shared mobility and autonomous vehicles. She recently published a UC Davis study regarding the adoption and impact of shared mobility services on cities. We discuss the findings of her study and possible...
About this show
Smarter Cars is a show about the future of transportation - from autonomous vehicles to electric scooters and beyond. We're interviewing key players in transportation, autonomy, robotics and the AI that powers these new developments.
Hosted by
Michele Kyrouz
Categories