0:00
/
0:00
Smart Driving Cars episode 404 with special guests from ITN America
Smart Driving Cars episode 404 with special guests from ITN America
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
About this episode
A deep dive into ITN America, a nonprofit transportation network focused on providing mobility for older adults and those with mobility challenges. Founder Catherine Freund and volunteer Marianne Sturtevant share their experiences, highlighting the importance of community-driven transportation and the social connections formed through rides. The discussion also touches on the role of technology in enhancing service efficiency and the unique rides that go beyond medical appointments, emphasizing the value of independence and quality of life for seniors.
ITN America has been providing mobility to older adults who need rides for thirty years. How? Founder and CEO Katherine Freund and volunteer Marian Sturtevant join Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus the latest on Tesla, Waymo, Handy Rides and more.
Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Brand
Tesla
"...perhaps another headline for us to touch on here. Tesla is testing driverless robot taxis,..."
Tesla is a company that makes electric cars. They are known for being very advanced and are working on cars that can drive themselves without a driver.
Tesla is an American electric vehicle and clean energy company founded by Elon Musk and others. It is known for its innovative electric cars and advancements in autonomous driving technology.
Concept
driverless robot taxis
"...Tesla is testing driverless robot taxis,..."
Driverless robot taxis are cars that can drive themselves without anyone inside to control them. They use special technology to find their way around and pick up passengers.
Driverless robot taxis are autonomous vehicles designed to transport passengers without a human driver. They use advanced sensors and software to navigate and operate safely in various environments.
Term
autopilot
"...the naming of auto, pilot and FSD misled customers or potential customers into believing vehicles were fully automated..."
Autopilot is a feature in Tesla cars that helps with driving, like keeping the car in its lane and adjusting speed. However, it still needs the driver to be alert and ready to take control.
Autopilot is a driver-assistance system developed by Tesla that provides features like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance, but it does not make the vehicle fully autonomous.
Term
FSD
"...the naming of auto, pilot and FSD misled customers or potential customers into believing vehicles were fully automated..."
FSD means Full Self-Driving, which is a feature in Tesla cars that is supposed to allow them to drive themselves. However, drivers still need to pay attention and be ready to take control.
FSD stands for Full Self-Driving, a feature offered by Tesla that aims to enable fully autonomous driving capabilities, though it currently requires driver supervision.
Select text to request an explanation
It's the smart driving cars podcast. We are glad you have found us again. I'm Frit Fischken
along with the faculty chair of autonomous vehicle engineering at Princeton University,
Alan Kornhauser. Hi, Alan. Hey, good afternoon, Fred. Good afternoon. It's been a very interesting
year with some long awaited progress when it comes to providing mobility, rides to people
who really need them. And that has been a focus for decades at ITN America, the first and only
national nonprofit transportation network for older adults and people with mobility challenges.
And with us from Maine is the founder and CEO, Catherine Freund, and another special guest,
Marianne Sturtevant. Hi, Catherine and Marianne. Hi. It is really great to see you both. So,
let's start with some background, Catherine, and Marianne's history with you as well.
Well, why don't I let Marianne tell you her history with us? She can tell the story much better than
I can. Well, I've written with you people I think for 30 years, maybe a little longer. And I've been
left at the place where they were supposed to pick me up. This is in the beginning. And I might be
waiting 20 minutes or something. Only once did they ever forget me. But outside of that, now,
it's just like it's creamed to the crop when asked for a ride at a certain time. That's when the
ride is there. And they take it and they're very kind and nice drivers. And you laugh at this only
one time in my experience, if I had a driver that I would not like to drive with again. And it
wasn't his driving ability. But anyway, I really enjoy the service because I've never driven in
my life. And if I want to go somewhere, who do I call ITN? And then of course, I do like to help
them too. And I do finish up their bills and mail them for them each month as long as I'm around.
And how many years have you been volunteering to help us?
A little over 30.
No, volunteering to send the bills out.
Oh, probably 20, 15 maybe?
That sounds right.
Yeah, 15 to 20. I can't remember exactly when. And so it's a very interesting organization to work for.
I don't really work for them. I just help them. So it makes a big difference. And there are people
that work for them. I've always enjoyed them. They're kind. And they try to do their jobs very
efficiently. And they run into a lot of snags. And I understand that I've worked in an office for
many years.
Well, Catherine, I think before we have Alan jump in here, because he's anxious to jump right in.
I am anxious to jump in.
Explain to our audience a little more fully exactly what ITN America is and how you've
been able to provide mobility to people who need it.
Okay, sure. Fred, thank you. So ITN America stands for Independent Transportation Network of America.
And I guess I developed the ideas for this when I went back to school at I think 40
and studied public policy and looked at the unmet transportation needs of older Americans from,
you know, from an economic perspective, from a legal perspective, every perspective,
public policy is an interdisciplinary degree. So you look at it from all different angles.
And sort of figured out that people were driving cars because they like cars.
And that you could just because you couldn't drive a car anymore past a certain point in your life
didn't mean that you didn't like it and you didn't want to be in it. So we developed the idea of
providing transportation for people in private automobiles. Long before Uber, long before Lyft,
we said, look at all that transportation capacity sitting in driveways.
And how do we convert that into mobility for older people? So we developed a volunteer
transportation model with the idea that if we could make it work here in Portland, Maine,
that we could replicate that in other communities around the country and connect it into a national
network. And that's what we did. And that's what we did. So I got a couple numbers for you here.
We have driven eight and a half million miles. We've provided 1,750,000 rides. Those are door
through door, arm through arm. And we see the median age of the people we serve is 80.
So Marion's a little bit older than that, 19 years older than that. I drive Marion to church on Sundays,
by the way. She's my ride every week. She gets in the front seat and we catch up, right?
When you're going to visit your son, he lives in New Hampshire. How many different organizations
you volunteer for? I'm down to just three now. If she's putting together a bunch of things for
the rummage sale, she'll show me all the different piles. This goes here, this goes here. Anyway,
we've become friends. So we've driven a lot of miles over the years and we've served a lot of
people. Right now, we have over 5,000 people in the system across the country. We've got about 100
nonprofit organizations in our national network and we just added another 50 more. So up to 150 now.
And guess what? I've got a list here for you of fun rides over 30 years. So what do you think is the
most fun ride that people do? Get their hair done. That's it. It's get their hair done. It's over
60,000 rides to take people to get their hair done. And the second most popular ride is going to
exercise. You hear about healthy aging. You hear about aging in place. You hear about people being
lonely and isolated if they haven't got transportation. But if you have good volunteer
transportation, you can get your hair done. You can go to exercise and gambling about 9,000 rides to
gamble over that time. Did they win? I don't know. I just, you know, people have a lot of
stereotypes in their minds about transportation for older people. They think pretty much it's
go to the doctor, go to church. That's it. That's what people have in their heads. But the truth
is that when you're 80 years old, if you liked gambling when you were 25, you still like it
when you're 80, right? And if you care about getting your hair done and looking right, you care
about getting your hair done and looking right for your whole life. You don't just want to go to
the doctor. So it's kind of a well-rounded approach. And that's what we do. That's what we
support. I'm sure happy that I'm not 80. Okay. So therefore, you know, I don't need that. Do I
have hair to get done? Maybe I'm not sure if I have hair to get done. Alan, I think she's got a
story for us about dating also. Oh, no. I certainly don't do any of that. Okay. Go ahead.
Well, this was out in California in Los Angeles. And it was a 90-year-old man
who had found someone he wanted to go out with on match.com.
And so he spoke to the executive director of the ITN out there and said, you know,
I really want to go on a date. But can I use this service to go on a date? She said,
yeah, of course you can. And she drove it. She took him out on his date. I've taken people out
on dates. There was one man he rode with us in the very beginning. And he set up a ride for
his wife and all her friends to go to lunch, right? So I picked him and his wife up. And then we
made a circuit. And we picked up all of her friends and we took them to lunch. And then,
you know, he was in the front seat. He didn't get out of the car. I said, Harry,
aren't you going to lunch? He said, oh, no, I'm the driver.
That's great. Right? I mean, he, of course, I was the driver, but he considered himself
to be the driver. And so he took them where they wanted to go. He didn't have to be in the car.
But he was with them. He took them where they wanted to go. And then I took him home. And that's
kind of, that's the kind of sense of mobility that you really want people to have. That is,
if you're the driver, you're in charge and you're in control. And you're in control of your own
mobility and the people you're giving rides to. And, you know, that independence is something
that matters to people. See? Marianne's shaking her head. It's a big deal. It's a very big deal.
I always say that the things that really matter most are the things, I call them the things that
float in the air, right? That's like things like courage, love, family, neighborhood, the things
that are like clouds, right? They're there, but you can't quite tell what the boundaries are.
You can't, you can't quite hold them in your hand. But those are the things that really matter.
Those are the things that really matter. And that's really what good mobility can provide.
And I think your example with that gentleman, you know, him considering that he is organizing
mobility and a joyful time out for all these ladies, even though he just organized it with you
and you actually did the driving where he couldn't just gave him that sense of achievement that is,
you know, that's, you can't, nobody out there, I don't know of an academic that's out there
measuring that stuff, okay? And this is what ends up being really important in the provision
of this mobility, the freedom, the freedom that those of us that still drive have.
But my goodness, as soon as they take those keys away, whoa, you're done. And I'm going through
this period with my own sister who, I mean, you should not be driving, okay? You're gonna hurt
yourself or somebody else, okay? Come on, get a ride, okay? And trying to make sure she has
home care and let the home care service person give her the ride that she needs. I don't know,
I don't think ITN America is in, is in Shardin, Ohio or Eastern, you know,
Southeastern Cleveland. I doubt it. I don't know how much Uber and Lyft is out there,
but certainly a home caregiver can do that. My sister should not be driving. And but,
boy, she just loves to go to Giant and go take her car there. She loves to go get her hair done,
all these sort of fundamental daily values to improve the person so that they can have a
decent life, right? Right, right, yeah. No, mobility, you know, it's a feeling as much as it's a
capability, right? That's correct. That, that, you know, I think that's what separates us,
the plants and the animals, you know, phylum kingdom, genus order, remember that, you know?
Yeah, yes. Whether or not we want to be separated, I'm not sure we can decide
some other point, okay? Some trees have a heck of a long time and have a lovely life. I don't know.
We're alive and the plants are alive, right? All the plants all over the earth, they're alive,
but they're basically rooted. They're alive and they're still in their quiet. We're alive and
we move and we're noisy. Oh, I'm sorry. And no, it's a very fundamental thing. Movement is a very,
very primal thing. And, and I think that's one of the reasons it matters so much to all of us,
right? You know, our, our freedom lives in that mobility in many ways. So.
Well, I mean, this, this all of course rings in our years too. We're approaching it a little bit
differently. Instead of with the elderly community or people who can't drive because of
physical constraints, really, you should not be driving. We're trying to deal with it with those
who economically find themselves stuck. Okay. Sure, they might be able to walk it, but you know,
how far can you really walk it? And if you're, you have to be far, if you want to go places that
are farther than that, then what about the affordability aspect of this thing? And, you know,
in some places we do have some amount of transit available, and it is very affordable from the
consumers. The problem is it does, if it goes to where you're going, beautiful, great, wonderful,
beautiful. Problem is that where things are laid out, don't necessarily are not on a string.
And at the times when, you know, one is operating along that string. So one needs the kind of service
that you're offering, which is when did the person want to go to where they want to go,
as opposed to who knows who decided that the bus line is going to be down here and whatever,
and so on. I mean, mobility is a two-dimensional spatial problem, not a
one-dimensional problem. And one-dimensional solutions on that two-dimensional spatial
just doesn't cover it well enough. So we're trying to do a better covering.
Spoken like a true professor. You have evolved, Catherine, I think,
into somewhat of a technology company, too, I suppose, out of necessity. Tell us about that.
Sure, but Marion wanted to say something, so I wanted to know.
IGN has given me the opportunity that I can volunteer, and they drive me to wherever I'm
going to volunteer. And last year, I was named Volunteer of the Year for the City of Portland,
Maine, and it was all because I was able to get there.
Well, thank you. Well, that's a pretty solid testimonial.
So to answer your question about technology, I'm going to connect it to something Alan was
just talking about, which is basically mass transit, which moves along routes.
And to make transportation affordable, it has to be efficient. And before the advent of
as much information technology as we currently have, when we just had telegraphs and telephones,
right, that was communication technology, but information technology has really revolutionized
mobility. Because before the current technology, the only way to create efficiency in transportation
was to move a whole bunch of people together along a predetermined route or predetermined schedule.
That's why high occupancy vehicles who bring people together either in airports or at,
you know, for ocean liners or for trains or for buses, right, you bring everybody together
into one place and you put them into one large vehicle and then you have a lower cost per ride
and a more affordable transportation system. That only works where you have high density
populations or where people will come together specifically to get into a high occupancy airplane,
right? But now, because of information technology, we can know where all the vehicles are all
across the map and we can know where the people are and put them together have the, instead of
having the people come to the vehicle, which is mass transportation, we can have the vehicle come
to the person, right? That's how ITN works and that's how Uber and Lyft work, right? So that's
a revolutionary different way to do transportation for the general population. You could always do
transportation. You could have your horse and carriage at your house, right? And that's personal
transportation. You got one vehicle and one family or one person. But the way we can do it now is
the vehicle can be in a completely different place and send it through technology to the person,
right? So it's very different now and we're still experiencing lots and lots and lots of changes
in this model. You know, individual trips remain very, very expensive. That's I think why a lot of
the transportation network companies are moving meals and packages and things like that to make
their business model work because just moving people turns out to be really expensive. Is that
makes sense? Yeah, and are you sure you're not the professor and I'm the student here? That is
like perfect. It is perfect and it is. And really the way you make it, the way you can make it
affordable is because you leverage the volunteer in this whole process and you provide appropriate
incentives and values to the volunteers so that you can do it affordably. And I applaud you for
doing that because it is not easy to be able to find volunteers and have people help. But it
requires a sense of community, a sense of cooperation, which is part of what you've created
in ITN to be able to do that. Well, thank you. We're trying. Most people don't realize this,
you know, you do Alan because you're in the transportation business, but the largest cost
of transportation is not the vehicle. It's not the insurance. It's not the fuel. It's the cost
of the driver. It's labor. And people don't experience that when they're driving their
own car because they don't pay themselves. They just get in the car and they do it. But the hourly
rate, especially with minimum wage going up all over the country,
the cost of labor is the biggest cost in transportation. That's why autonomous vehicles
are going to be so important because that's the other way to reduce or eliminate that cost,
autonomous vehicles. But currently now it's volunteer transportation that makes that
transportation affordable. And so for the market that you have, the volunteer really
serves as an asset to the delivery of the mobility because the person that you are taking really
appreciates the needs that that person to help them or at least make it comfortable for them.
So it's very important that you have that. But for if one goes to the broader transportation market
beyond just the seniors, where people don't really need somebody, then there is an opportunity
to maybe throw more technology into this and provide them also now the high quality
affordable mobility. But your point with affordability is absolutely true.
Two things have made you affordable. One is the ability to have the volunteers. Two is the
technology that you have behind there that allows you to manage the vehicles, the volunteers,
so that they are very productive in that if one looks at somebody working for Uber and Lyft,
they might be getting paid while they're giving the ride. But how long did they sit around and
wait for that ride? And now if it doesn't really matter and they do, but if they're really out
there looking to be able to do it over a substantial period of time and feed their family,
then they have to have rides all the way one after the other. Otherwise they're sitting around
and who's paying them for. And so all of a sudden, if you have them sitting around,
your costs don't even go on high because you've got to pay them for waiting.
Not only for driving, you have to pay them for waiting. And then the technology to not manage
the fleet, manage the volunteers, manage that is critical to having a chance to be able to
provide it affordable. And I think we should mention that, Katherine, you're not just,
you're not there in Portland directing rides all over the country. You are providing the backbone
for others around the country, other organizations to run operations, correct?
Yeah, we have a number of different kinds of technology. We have operational technology
called ITN rides, and it's built specifically for volunteer nonprofit transportation programs.
So it manages volunteers. And it has a number of innovative programs that we've invented
that access resources in many different forms. For example, there are a lot of people who
volunteer to drive other people, whether they're working for a nonprofit or not.
A typical example is you'll have, say, four or five women who are friends,
and one of them drives and the other four don't. And so that one will take all the others,
grocery shopping and to the card game they want to go to or whatever. And then that one person
has a health issue. Maybe it's a stroke, maybe it's a hip replacement, it's something, right?
Well, the whole little system of five people, depending on that one person goes down.
And all of the years that that one person drove all the other people, that labor cost is gone,
it's evaporated. But in a system that says, okay, if you're driving all these other people,
we're going to give you credit for that. And we're going to store it electronically in our
technology. And that's going to become basically transportation Bitcoin, right? It's electronic
currency. We store it in your account. And then when you can't drive, you pull that equity out
and someone else will drive you, right? So that is just beautiful. Okay. Thanks. No, it is. It's
next person comes in there and earns their, they're doing the driving and they're doing the
managing and they're earning their credit and it just allows the whole thing to flow. I mean,
it's beautiful. So I think one of the things we did is we just looked at things differently than
other people were looking at them. We said, here's a car you can no longer drive. Instead of giving
it to your grandchildren, why don't you trade it to pay for your rods, right? And we'll put it
into your personal transportation account. And if you want to volunteer to drive other people as
a volunteer, we'll put all the miles you drive as a credit into your transportation account.
And then you've got electronic equity. You've got a capital asset that's turned into an operating
asset. You could always use cash. We have gift certificate programs to pay for transportation.
You know, by the time you're 80, you probably have probably all the bathrooms and slippers you
need. Okay. That was nasty. That was nasty. I do not want another Hanukkah or another Christmas
gift. I mean, what am I going to do with them? I have stats. But if you couldn't, if you couldn't
drive anymore, would you like a gift certificate to pay for your rides? Hell yeah. Hell, without a
doubt. I mean, take all that stuff coming. I mean, whoa, Elizabeth is just going to throw it away
and when I go in the hole anyway. So come on, whatever. Alan, you're too much. There is another
aspect to this. I think that in some real value that we really we've skirted around a little bit.
And that's the social aspect of this. This is valuable to people not just to go from here to
there, but my assumption is that they get to know the drivers well. And there's a loneliness
epidemic out there that we've all heard so much about. And this is really a social experience
as well, besides going from here to there. I think so. You know, you so you chat with your
drivers, don't you, Marion? Oh, yes. And I know they tell me their life, their home life, their
problems and where they work. And I share it with them. Yeah. And can we how old are you now?
I'm 99. Oh, and a half. Good. So congratulations. I mean, my goodness.
I mean, you put a lot of us to shame. I mean, we're near 99. I'm only 39. So I'm
actually, I celebrated my 43rd, 39th birthday, but never mind. That's another issue.
Just a kid. Well, whatever, congratulations. We look at it as a sense of community. And in fact,
in terms of looking at the affordability piece for where it's basically money is the reason why
people don't have the mobility as opposed to age, which is what we're trying to deal with. We see
the same thing. It's to get your hair done. It's to visit a friend. It's to play cards,
shoot hoops, do whatever across town instead of having to walk it. And the value proposition is
a value proposition of creating a better community and having, you know, happier campers out there
as opposed to, I don't know, I guess it's fun sitting at home watching a screen, but you know,
it gets pretty darn boring after a while. Yeah, no, it's interesting. People don't talk about
mobility very much. And it, well, I call transportation the vascular system of the community.
You know, it connects everything. It connects the people. It connects the organizations. It connects
care to food to everything. And everybody thinks about the destinations, but they completely
forget that it doesn't mean anything if you can't get there. If you can't get there and get there
when you want to get there and when you should get there and that, you know, it's a space time problem.
And if you could move it in time, then yes, you can all can put it all in one vehicle and just
move it to the D, but you can't because simply because there's, there's a certain time when
it's opportune for you to be there when the other people are going to be there to play cards with
you want to, you know, what goes on with that. And you're, you're exactly right. You know,
too much of the mobility is about getting to work and being more efficient and getting to work.
How about just be efficient when you get to work? But how about allowing you to get to work? I mean,
if we look, if we look at the community that we're, we're trying to serve here in Trenton,
you know, being able to get from, from where affordable housing exists to where jobs exist,
you know, and jobs that whatever, you know, they're not along the bus lines. They just aren't,
and some of them aren't great, fantastic, wonderful. Too many of them aren't. And therefore,
if you can't get there, you can't have the job, even though you might be qualified. If you can't
punch in on time in some of these jobs, they're not to, you know, they're not a professor job,
where I can just saunder into my office anytime I want. But, you know, I've led the good life.
Okay. I mean, you got to punch in on time. You don't punch in on time, you get, you get booted.
And so you can't get there on time and get there on time day in and day out. You have no hope.
And so, and so what do you do? End up staying at home. And I mean, it's brutal. So, you know,
this, the providing mobility for just the simple things as well as things that put food on the
table is, is just so important. And it's a shame that we don't do a better job for the people that
are in the most need, one seniors as you do, who can't turn the key or press the button to start
the car anymore, should not, or the people who can't afford it simply because, you know, they
have to feed their families. Well, the site for more information is itnamerica.org. Katherine,
congratulations on all that you've done for decades now. 30 years, boy. We had the 30 years
celebration last month. And Elizabeth and I were pleased to attend. And it was just
such a tribute to you. You deserve it. I mean, you put in the time, okay, without a doubt. And
and tenacity. We applaud you. You're very kind. Thank you. Thank you. And, and Marian, thank you
so much for spending time with us as well. And we wish you a happy birthday in advance. Yeah. Yeah.
And, and, and maybe we should have a big birthday celebration. I mean, we should, we should do a
on your on your birthday. We're gonna get a little cake to do. I mean, oh, I want a big cake.
Well, we need a big cake because we're gonna have a lot of candles. Okay. So that otherwise,
you know, it will be, well, the fire marshal is going to come in if we don't can't spread those
candles out over a big cake. Put one in the middle. Okay. Yeah. Well, that would be in the meantime,
we wish you both a wonderful holiday season. It's going to be beautiful there in Maine. Yeah.
Thank you both very much for inviting us into your podcast. Allen, that was just amazing. But
perhaps another headline for us to touch on here. Tesla is testing driverless robot taxis,
not yet with passengers in Austin, Texas. It's being done with lots of caution and I think a
trailing vehicle, at least for now. Yeah, there may be a trailing vehicle on there. I just saw
the videos, but and I applaud them for having a trailing vehicle because look, if something who
knows what, if a meteorite comes out of the sky or something like that, some and it's not something
that one can handle the extremely rare event, then maybe the folks in the back can
take the hit, not have that car take the hit or something like that. My own personal philosophy
on that is, is I will never test without an attendant behind a wheel. There's just no purpose
in testing without an attendant behind the wheel. If the attendant is not doing anything,
it's essentially the same thing as not having a person in there. But to not have the person in
there when you're in, the reason you take the person out of there is to achieve the affordability
piece so that you can give rides affordably. That's the reason for it. Not to say, hey,
I don't have anybody behind the wheel. What's the societal value proposition on that? Okay,
not at all. The value proposition, the thought is that if you can provide high quality
mobility affordably, then some people will improve their lives because of that. And that's why you're
doing it. And if you can do that and also not require public subsidy to do that, then that would
be fabulous. Because right now, everybody who tries to provide affordable mobility to folks
is so hopelessly bankrupt, requires so much public subsidy to do what they do that the current
situations in which you have to have a person behind the wheel, just don't, there's no hope.
There's no hope to make them. But with the removal of that person behind the wheel,
at least in all of our simulations, whatever good the simulations are, there is hope of doing that.
And out of that hope is the opportunity to improve the quality of lives of a lot of people
who otherwise wouldn't be able to have the mobility that Catherine is providing to seniors.
Okay, it's one thing to do it with seniors, but there are a lot of other folks out there that
could really benefit from that. So I'm tired of repeating it and repeating and repeating and
try to not say it again. That's what I'm trying to do. That's what Elizabeth and I are trying to do,
that what you, Fred, Elizabeth and I together are trying to do in the group that we have together
that are trying to do this. And, you know, we've gone through with handy rides a year, we've learned
an enormous amount, we know that we can do it, we are confident, we're going forward,
we're going to make it happen. For that reason, we're going to provide high quality, affordable
mobility to people who really need a ride and improve their lives.
And you don't have to repeat it because it's in the book, the real book, I mean, it's been the
book, everybody can read it, you know, not a secret. It's not IP, you don't have to be afraid
of it. Ooh, you're stealing my IP. Please do it. Another quick Tesla headline, California is
delaying any plans to stop Tesla sales and manufacturing in the state for 30 days, a penalty
that was suggested by an administrative law judge who found Tesla's naming of auto,
pilot and FSD misled customers or potential customers into believing vehicles were fully
automated. The state is giving Tesla, I think something like 60 days now to fix any deceptive
claims. So there, we don't know if there's going to be any penalty whatsoever. Oh my goodness,
what deception. Oh, I thought it was fully automated. I mean, what are, when are people
going to accept their own responsibility? Okay, I get so many advertisements today on my phone
that tell me about stuff that just isn't true. Okay. And now, oh my goodness. And of course,
if I'm going to be a knowledge jerk and I'm going to try to hop in the back seat and do my stuff,
oh, oh, they didn't tell me. I mean, people get a grip, except some responsibility yourself.
Sorry. I'm surprised you didn't. I'm surprised you didn't mention the ability to drive up the
Great Wall of China or something. I mean, are commercials? Are you kidding? Look at some of
those things and talk about every car, essentially every car commercial has me driving a car
with nobody else around on the streets. Oh my goodness. Oh, you sold me a car and when I buy it,
there'll be nobody else around. Oh my goodness. That's not deceptive. Are you kidding? General
motors? Whatever. What? Finally, Alan, the administrative law judge who did this. I mean,
I guess you can find administrative law judge. Please cut a lot of that because I'm just going
to get myself into trouble. He was brought by this state. Oh my goodness. I guess, you know,
we won't even discuss which party that person was from. Oh my, we can't even discuss that kind of
thing. Cut it out. Finally, Alan, Waymo is in talks to raise more than $15 billion in new funding,
valuing Waymo at more than $100 billion. It's seeking the funding from Alphabet, the parent
company and outside investors as well. You just talked about how much money has been poured into
this. $100 billion. I mean, I guess it is. I guess it is as of today the only company
in the Western world that operates without a driver, without smoke and mirrors.
So therefore, since it is the only, it probably deserves whatever valuation
all the pump and dumpers want to put on it. Okay. So, yeah, sure. And okay.
If it remains the only one, if it remains the only one, then it has 100% of the market.
And whatever. And anything.
Tesla wants to have something to say about that.
Well, who knows? I guess a lot of people might have something to say about that. Maybe Zooks might
have to say something about that. Maybe even, you know, Maybemobility and others and Mobileye and
who knows whom, you know, may have a lot to say about that. Who knows? But hey, whatever. Hey,
Wall Street, go for it. I mean, you know, Venture, go for it. Ooh, whatever.
I buy high, sell low. So, you know, not good for me because this is such an opportunity that
it's not a buy high, sell low opportunity. I only look for buy high, sell lows.
I'm glad you're not my broker. So, well, we want to thank, we want to thank Catherine Freund
from ITN America and Marion for joining us. Really wonderful. And we want to wish everyone
watching or listening. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, happy New Year, works. Thank you.
Yeah, I gotta go home and light the candles.
Thanks for watching or listening and stay safe.
Request an explanation for:
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
Help improve this episode
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark. Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
Report incorrect info
Suggest better explanations
Flag missing cars
More from Smart Driving Cars Podcast
Smart Driving Cars episode 414- new laws for driverless mobility?
Jun 1, 2026
Smart Driving Cars episode 413- SpaceX, Waymo, NVIDIA, May Mobility & more
May 22, 2026
Smart Driving Cars-episode 412- a look at the Beijing Auto Show & more
Apr 30, 2026
Smart Driving Cars episode 411: Aurora, LeCun, Uber, AI & more
Apr 18, 2026