Europe’s Own Path to Autonomous Mobility | Lukas Neckermann

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Autonomy Insiders. The show where global industry leaders in autonomous driving unpack their real world insights. - I believe firmly that we have structural advantages in this autonomous race. - Our starting point is a very different one in Europe. A completely different structure to our cities in our modal share is quite different. Europe's path in terms of autonomous mobility is an extension of public transport and additional mode. It augments the whole mobility mix and it'll be authorized under a single type of approval framework. (upbeat music) - Welcome back to Autonomy Insiders. I'm your host Daniel and every few months some publishes the same verdict on Europe and autonomous driving. And one camp says Europe is hopelessly behind. The other says Europe should skip this race altogether and my guest today think both camps are wrong. So in January he wrote that Europe is taking its own path in autonomous mobility and that Europe is also succeeding. So behind the claims, it's a harder question. If the software that drives the car comes from California, from China, from Israel. So what actually stays in Europe? So who earns the money? Who employs the people and who owns the fleet? So Lucas Neckermann has been thinking about this longer than most. And more than 10 years ago, he coined term mobility revolution, built on three zero emissions, zero accidents and zero ownership. And he started his career at BMW and Aliens Group. He has written four books on mobility and cities and he has lectured at the NYU and the University of San Galen. He co-founded Pay Europe where he sits also on the board and also the Urban Places Lab. And he runs Neckermann Strategic Advisories in London. And today we cover Europe's own path where the value in this industry really sits, a stress test of some of his own arguments and what he got right and wrong over the last 10 years. So Lucas, welcome to autonomy insiders. I'm so happy to have you on the show today. - It's great to be here, Daniel. - So Lucas, let's start with the debate you joined in January. You answered a piece in the financial times which argued that Europe does need travelers cars. And you wrote that both sides are wrong. So those who say Europe is hopelessly behind and those who say Europe should sit this race out. So what makes you so convinced that Europe can take its own path? - First of all, the genesis story of my counterpoint to that, it was basically in the same week that there were these two notions. One that we're not going fast enough and the other saying, well, why bother at all? And both of them came from the other side of the Atlantic. And you know, there's a German saying that you should sweep before in front of your own door before you comment on the dirt in front of someone else's. And it's a little bit like that. I genuinely feel that Europe and I'm in spite of my accent. I'm a German and I'm British. I picked up my accent during my studies in the US, but I'm a European. And I believe firmly that we have structural advantages in this autonomous race. So let's kind of talk through those a little bit. Europe has historically in terms of voice prioritize accessibility, safety, move towards lower emissions, high quality of life in cities and data privacy is of course a huge topic in Europe as well. So whereas in the US, you have a bit of a hot mess in terms of transport. We have a lot of share where I live, for example, in London, about a third is active transport, a third is public transport, and only a third of their about is the car. That's our starting point. Versus the US where robotaxies fill a gaping hole because alternatives are simply missing. And that's fine. And it's good that they're filling that hole. They are creating new mobility opportunities. But our starting point is a very different one in Europe. It completely different structure to our cities and our modal share is quite different. Now let's talk about road safety. From a road safety perspective, I mean, it doesn't compare. And I need you and all of the listeners to remember this, especially when we hear statistics on how much safer autonomous vehicles are. I got into the autonomous business because I firmly believe that autonomous vehicles will be safer and they will be. But our starting points are different between the US and Europe. The number of crashes per vehicle mile driven in the US is three to five times higher than we have in the UK or most of the rest of Europe. And not to mention the fatalities on the streets, which are dramatically higher in the US. So again, we've prioritized road safety to a much, much different degree in Europe. So the argument kind of falls flat to a certain extent when you already have cities in Europe, which have zero road fatalities in a given year. Oslo, Helsinki, these are big cities, zero road fatalities. So it makes the argument for autonomous a really difficult one. And then there's another aspect which is only really just emerging. And that's data privacy or data security. In the US now, there's a current discussion on cameras, roadside cameras. Company called Flock, but there are others as well that are not necessarily controlled in terms of how they're being deployed. We're familiar with CCTV, certainly in the UK, but we also know that that data is very, very, very strictly regulated. That our privacy as individuals is protected at all times and that the data is not leaked or used in quite the same way. And when we think about autonomous mobility, we're talking about vehicles that have quite a lot of cameras as well. So I think that in itself is a debate and a discussion that we still have to have and that the US will find as a hurdle to further deployment to autonomous. So I think our starting points between Europe and the US and frankly also China are very different. It augments the whole mobility mix and it'll be authorized under a single type approval framework. America's path sees autonomous mobility as a substitute for public transport because it was never really built. It could certainly make the case, maybe take the investment and build public transport. But in a lot of places in the US, there's very, very little public appetite for that. And in China and on the other hand, autonomous vehicles, I mean, this is industrial policy more than anything else. Of course it serves in need in very, very dense, large cities. But also the infrastructure and also frankly, the demographics are very, very different. So what's really important to know is the starting point that we have is so completely different that we can't compare. And then I'm frankly hesitant and very reluctant to let somebody else from any other region in the world tell us in Europe what we should be doing with regards to automated mobility. - Yeah, that makes sense. And one of the main arguments is regulation and you wrote that the US is working with a patchwork of cities or state also self-regulation while Europe already has a framework for type of rule as you just mentioned. And some countries are preparing even for cross-border operations. So we could say the rules are in place. The vehicles mostly aren't. And you said yourself in May that there are only a few thousand autonomous vehicles under road worldwide. So when does a lead in this regulation that we have turned into a lead also in the market? - Yeah, so at the last autonomy summit in London, I suggested to participants learn to love regulation because it's not a bad word. It's a real enabler in Europe, it certainly is. Regulation is our head start. It's not the finish line. Once a vehicle is type approved, it can operate across 27 markets. If you take a look at the service areas of the vehicles in the US at the moment and you put all of those together, that area is about twice the size of London. And each one of them has a different set of regulations because they're in different states. They're in different cities. They have certain special regulations because they're going to airports. They have a different reporting requirements. And basically a permit for one doesn't imply permission in any of the other locations. It's very, very hard to build positive unit economics when you have unique regulation across every single area where you deploy. And what we're creating in Europe is a harmonized framework. And I would say the UK, Germany, and closely followed, I suppose, by Switzerland, maybe France as well, has a real, real advantage in terms of the framework that we've set for proving safety and enabling deployment. So when an operator comes into the UK or Germany, they know exactly what they need to do. And that deployment actually can be across a much, much larger area than just a fraction of one city in the US or in Germany or in the US. You're okay. Yeah, I think it's clearly an advantage when you exactly know what to do to deploy and Your answer to scale has been also Partnership, so you said public private partnership is the trend that will define the next five years because Europe has more pilots and more Public money that then any other region and some argue that it's also the problem so at an and VDIK event the summer as speaker said that the EU has funded about 80 projects and 38 still exists and most stops gaining the data funding and so Why do pilots die in Europe in your opinion? The first thing I would say is most wrong with pilots Pilots per se aren't a problem pilots that you don't learn from and apply to new deployments that Is a problem and I would really hope that we're learning along the way across all of the pilots that we've done Yes, the pilots many of which have been funded at the State or National or EU level have stopped short after Six months 12 months three five seven ten vehicles driving short distances and there's a lot of reasons those pilots stop short Some of it is because the vehicles weren't ready. I mean these pilots go back 12 14 years. I mean, you'll remember some of the vehicles that we were riding and they were just not fit for purpose to be fair So now that we're in the next generation of vehicles the next you know autonomous riding stack the pilots make more sense And we can actually get more scale out of these vehicles frankly speaking in the US what you have is extended and scaled pilots Because all of them still have and the US of course, it's you know, you can deploy in those defined areas But you're regulated locally and you are self-certifying self-regulating and When something goes wrong Well, then it's then it's on you and self-regulation will only take you so far just ask Boeing the European case is Prove the safety case first And pilots help with that and then we can do Large-scale rollouts and frankly those those take money and that takes us frankly as well back to the unit Economics argument, which we'll talk about a little bit later. I know yeah So maybe let me take you to one city that you mentioned already Let me take you to Oslo because it's also an example and you chose for your articles so Router wants to integrate up to 30,000 shared autonomous vehicles into Oslo's public transfer network and you quoted their CEO is saying Their customer expect then end-to-end solution so Can then others copy that or is it more like an real Norwegian exception where you have an wealthy region with a transport authority It also wants to customer well the key to that Isn't necessarily Norway's wealth although there's no doubt of course that it has some but it's not unique Munich, Hamburg most with cities all have similar Levels of potential investment into this technology the key to that particular one is a the ambition and be the customer relationship So the ambition is there to use automated mobility to augment public transport to add To serve underserved areas especially outside of the city center sub urban areas ex-urban areas where Currently there is or it's not profitably. It's not sensible even to run A bus service, but yet the public transport Authority and operator want to serve that population as well and again that applies to a number of different large cities across Europe the Possibility to do that is also because the Public transport authority in the operator have a very close link there. They're joined at the hip That's not the case in all cities across Europe So it's not a monolith in that sense you have to actually look at the structure of how it works in each city And the other thing I said was the customer access piece route or of course Has an app that is used by a very large number of people already and that's the case in a lot of European cities because As I mentioned earlier the modal share is so heavily skewed towards public transport So most people already have the public transport app so that's your access to mobility anyway So if you're paying for public transport if you're paying for by sharing Scooter sharing via a public transport app and fbb is quite similar in Switzerland then It's just an extension of the full Full suite of options and Oslo really shows what Europe can do when a public transport authority takes the lead But I now want to get to the question I hear more than any other in this industry whenever I talk about autonomous driving in Europe I hear this same conclusion. So the value goes to America and China But you don't buy that so why not and we're exactly thus the money stay in Europe and yeah Maybe also how big is that share compared to what goes to the software. So it's funny when we Talk about vehicles that are being deployed We use the brand That has advertised it that has announced it So a lot of people will be talking about Uber or Waymo or maybe Lyft or maybe Bolt and that's fine But we need to take a look at what's behind that brand Again Waymo and Uber they may dominate the headlines, but follow the money per vehicle Kilometer driven if you will and you find financing insurance the depot energy cleaning maintenance operations customer service Contracting everything everything behind it is very very physical and local and here's where the branding ends because even in the US You may hear about a deployment from from one of those brands that I mentioned, but behind them sits Fleet management from flex drive or transdev or move And obviously the vehicles they're coming from Zeaker or Jaguar or maybe Volkswagen and Lucid as well and even the customer service app is not consistent So you've got Waymo of course experimenting on that Where in some cities they're available on Lyft and other cities they're available on and we're in some other cities They have their own app and this is basically a period of trial and That's why we really need to look behind the scenes on where value is being generated and I think there's quite a lot of potential there Remember I mean Waymo again gets a lot of the headlines and rightfully so and we're very very grateful Of course the drive and ambition and the and what they bring the ecosystem But what's the end game here if we compare to say android Alphabet makes really only a very very very small fraction of its revenue by licensing out the android platform In Europe, it's about 30 40-year-olds per device Sold the real value then is generated in value added services and the context of robot taxes that maybe Or is most likely selling advertising eyeball time from the person in the back seat or to the person in the back seat that could very well be An additional value that's being generated But for the operations itself. It's really about hardware and moving things in the physical layer much more than the software Yeah, and you mentioned something similar also in another podcast that You told the industry to focus on the boring problems and you listed the area the orchestration maintenance fleet efficiency Judging cleaning parking all the other stuff so if you had to pick one of those boring problems as the biggest profit pool Which one would you choose and maybe also who in Europe is best placed to capture it today? So I'll pick that two topics that we really should be highlighting more of one is the whole Fleet orchestration because this whole Business model was succeed only if the vehicles are utilized To the highest degree possible that they're repositioned charge Scheduled that depots are available and the utilization of the vehicles are are maximized There's a few companies that do that one that I work with is a company called Odyssey They actually do it on behalf of one of the deployments here in London and that is going to really be the difference between Making operations on a unit economics basis be profitable or fail the second one and it Doesn't get mentioned enough is insurance Insurance is something that's terribly boring Yet not a single vehicle can move without it and five maybe 10% of the revenue is going to go to insurance I can guarantee you that that's always going to be a profitable part of the business model So There's a lot that goes on behind the seats and we really need to focus on the boring stuff because the boring stuff is What's going to make the profit and you go back to the old you know gold digger adage there You know, it's not to the people who find the gold. It's the people who sell the fix on the shovels It's very much the same thing here Super interesting and in the same post you wrote that vertical integration isn't happening to the decree It's being presented and it doesn't make sense because expert will always be better There are some counter examples I would say for example way more in some markets they control the software the operations the app And some not as you mentioned we they have partners like move and so on But it's the largest robot taxi operator in the world in some markets, logically integrated. Then you have also Tesla, which is going in the same way. But what would you say, why are they wrong? Or do you think Europe is just simply also a play with different rules? I think certainly, Waymo, of course, like everyone else, will depend very, very heavily on those who have made it their USB to deliver on the back end. And they already do rely on those partners. I wouldn't say that they're vertically integrated by any stretch. In fact, if you consider the revenue of the entire stack, the customer layer is going to get maybe 10%, 10%, the tech stack is going to get about 20%, 25%, 30% of the revenue. The manufacturer is going to get 25% to 30% in the fleet management is going to get about 40%. So even right now, the parts that Waymo does control are max a third of the revenue of robot taxis anyway. And there are other business models as well. And there's other vehicle types and logistics and things that we can talk about. But for passenger transport, that's kind of the revenue split. And all of that falls by the wayside. If you have to pay door to have to close the doors for you on a vehicle, obviously, that's not happening anymore with the with the New Zika vehicles. But I mean to say, the vertical integration can't happen and it shouldn't happen because there are people who are just better suited to do some parts of that. Waymo has no interest in getting into a business line with EBIT margins of 6, 7, 8%. And that's what we're talking about in a manufacturer. That's what we're talking about. Frankly, also the customer layer, you know, that's EBIT margin that Uber has for ride-hailing. It's certainly not in fleet management where the EBIT margins are also quite they're healthy, but they're nothing close to what a software company is used to. So why would a software company vertically integrate if you're getting into a business line that just doesn't have the level of profitability that you're used to and that more importantly, your shareholders are used to. Speaking of shareholders, you did mention Tesla, honestly, in terms of their robotaxi proposition, it's not something we need to worry a lot about in Europe. Even Elon confirms that it's at best a very, very faint future, future vision, at least based on the platform and the hardware that they have right now. Absolutely. They're busy getting their level two system, approved you in Europe before they do anything in level four. You set something too far up last year also to start with me. So that all the work and Uber driver does like cleaning, charging, registering the car, fleet management, so all the stuff that we talked about, it doesn't go away. So it goes somewhere else and you also pointed out that the early robotaxi deployment had as many people behind the scenes as they would have drivers. So can you give us a guess or a number? So we're just at ratio stand today and also maybe at what number of people per vehicle does a robotaxi to meet in Europe actually make money. So this is a number that's banded about quite a lot because there are suggestions that some of the operators have a 1-10 ratio, a 1-20 ratio, a 1-25 ratio of monitors to vehicles. Now monitors is just one small part of the puzzle. Remember, if your starting point is ride hailing where you have a lot of unpaid activities being done by drivers, again, somebody has to do it. So ride hailing is a very difficult way to make a living and that's because you're only making the revenue when you're actually driving with a passenger but you're spending a lot of time cleaning your vehicle, charging your vehicle, fixing your vehicle, changing the tires, all of those different things that are not in any way supported but that need to happen. So while the focus is on monitoring vehicles and sure we'll get to the point where you have one person in a big room with lots of screen in front of them and managing 20 vehicles. As soon as that vehicle hits the depot, that vehicle has to go through the physical transformation to be able to go on its next trip and that is where the unit economics really really hurt. There's a real need for that optimization and the orchestration. We talked about the orchestration piece earlier making sure the right vehicle is in the right place at the right time, again, what Odyssey does and others also do because you need the higher revenue per vehicle mile. Right now, we're not even close. If you take a look at the published numbers, anyway, we're so far away from what you and I see on LinkedIn, people posting, "Hey, my robot taxi ride only cost me so and so much." That's very similar to what I paid in ride hailing. This is a great business model. Again, those are plane numbers right now because the unit economics at the moment don't stack up at the level of scale that we have and that's why, of course, scaling is important. Absolutely. I think one more piece, I'm of the value chain that not enough people talk about is also who owns the car at the end and you've asked whether banks leasing companies or private equity will own and run these fleets and y'all's work with financial services so they know what they're financing. What does a European bank or Lissor need to see before it finances, let's say 1000 robot taxis and who do you expect to make the first move? First of all, why they're the ideal candidate because their cost of capital is lower than anyone else. If any other company in this stack is paying interest rate or LIBORP+2+3+4% or something like that, you have a bank that basically had a much lower cost of capital that makes them very well suited to be the owner. Now what will get them into the game? Frankly, when the business is big enough and they understand the business model, they are at the moment not particularly moved to get off the sidelines because 6,000, 8,000, 10,000, 20,000 vehicles is not yet a game changer for them. They have individual fleets which are larger than that and the biggest leasing companies have a million, two million, two and a half million vehicles. So even the most innovative in the business and I'll and I'll note, you know, someone like a whole money or an enterprise, they they'll get off the sideline when when the volume is there. For right now, there's still a lot of uncertainty because of residual values. Yeah, we're also creating a business here with custom-built vehicles, which I endorse. I think this is fantastic. I love the vehicles being designed for ride hailing, for ride pooling, for maybe shuttles and all of this, but we don't have the clear picture of what the residual value of those vehicles is going to look like. We don't have utilization history. We don't know what the liability and the insurance structures are behind those types of vehicles and until we do, right now the assumption has to be that those vehicles after a certain period of time, they're a write-off. And if they're a write-off, that makes them very, very expensive for bank, PE or for lesser. And that's why I'm very, very certain when the volume is there and when we have a little bit more data on whether these vehicles will actually have a second life after their robot taxi, robot shuttle life, then we'll see the big guys getting into this just because, again, their their costs are lower than anyone else. Yeah, totally Korean. I think also this is a huge part of why you now see companies like Uber was supposed making this huge announcement with like 35,000 robot taxis on their balance sheet. So just to get the ball rolling to make the case or to demonstrate that it works and then the other one can say. Absolutely. Kudos to our good friends at those companies to be thinking big to really be positioning where the industry is going to be at, when the type of approval comes, when we can get those vehicles on the streets, not in, you know, the thousands, but in the tens of thousands and in the six-figure level, because that's what's going to bring everybody else into into the mix. So maybe now let's go from the valued chain also to the map. So because where these vehicles drive also decides who they actually serve and and one of your articles, you also quote the root of CEO and say sustainable mobility for everyone. And everyone also includes the suburbs and all the outer districts. And I think that's also the core mission of public transport, but commercial robot taxi operators go where the money is. So city centers and airports, outer districts with low density, also long empty drips back is maybe not a good route for right-hailing business. So what's your take? Will commercial operators ever serve those areas without being paid to do it? Daniel, you're absolutely spawned to raise that topic and that and that potential risk to be fair. And this is where regulation comes in. This is where the public transport authorities and the public transport operators can work together with the cities to decide. And it certainly will be the case in Europe that they will decide this is where you can operate or this is where you should operate. And we see a lot of learnings from the deployment of yet another mode of mobility, micromobility, scooters, and deepbikes. Cities have learned their lesson from the deployment of these new modes and they'll apply those learnings to the deployment of autonomous. Now to a certain degree, you know, the robot taxi just replaces right-hailing. And It's up to them the regulator to decide how do we deploy so that it actually serves at new populations and there are Presidents for that when overlaunched in London it genuinely did fill gaps where black haves didn't serve customers in the Outskirts of London and some of that is just simply volume. We have 15 and 20,000 black haves and we have about a hundred thousand private higher vehicles or ride hailing vehicles So so there's just a greater density and a greater availability of ride hailed vehicles in London So there's obviously quite a few we're going to go outside of the core and central business areas and frankly It's not it's not the fastest way to get around anyway So they're going to go to where it makes sense to drive if you're in central London Walking biking public transport is without a doubt always the fastest way to get around So the appeal to be sitting in traffic in a in a single occupancy or a dual-locke-pensive vehicle is not really that high And it'll be that way in other dense large cities and again Those cities will regulate for it from the lessons that they learned in micromobility. So there is the potential for This to come in as a new mode to augment public transport and there will be regulatory nudges to make sure that it happens that way Do you think this will will come in kind of an obligation so that they need to Serve the outskirts otherwise they cannot deploy in the city center something like that Obligation is a strong word, but there will be mechanisms that cities will use to make sure that Robotorexies are serving the population in the best way possible and again We shouldn't just focus too much on robotorexies because in Europe again We have this other this other legal type we have Really everything between small medium-large extra large we have we have in the mix so so there's still you know the the prospect of shuttles and Up to an including small buses that will be automated that will be able to serve current Mobility deserts underserved areas in the outskirts of a lot of cities Yeah, so you wrote that around foreign cities and also municipalities in Europe already run on demand right pooling mostly connecting all the other areas and mobility desert as you call it to the to the main lines and that most rights carry only One or two passengers, and I think in those services the drivers the biggest cost and in many regions there are not even enough bus driver So you also have a huge travel shortage in Europe and also in other regions So does autonomy finally make the outskirts affordable to serve well? So you are describing a problem in a solution at the same time indeed the 400 or so ride pooling services that are generally supplied by public transport operators and I know Look us fully anti does a great overview of those over here those are In almost all cases heavily subsidized models that Have occupancy rates per vehicle occupancy rates of under two So we as an industry need to really be honest with ourselves that ride pooling and ride hailing are Effectively the same thing the vehicle types might change and the operator is a different one one is a commercial one is a public service, but at the end of the day we're bringing people at the outskirts generally towards public transport hubs and doing so as a feeder service really It really depends on the commitment that the public transport operator has and we mentioned also earlier to serving those mobility deserts And frankly also the financing that they have to do so if they do and if they are firmly committed perhaps even if they're If their license requires it they will provide those services and They are actually helped and this is where it comes a real benefit to take out the driver Once the unit economics are are more favorable that these services can operate without a driver and thereby again serve mobility deserts I do think that the greatest use case in Europe will not be in the city centers But will be on the outskirts and bringing people to the public transport network and the trunk lines make sense and maybe now Let's look ahead because I think you watched this industry for a very long time So I want your view on where Europe goes from here. So Picture Europe three years from now, which use cases gave first in your opinion Is it a robot tax in the big city or is it these shuttles inside public transport as you mentioned or maybe even logistics and freight? So what do you think well first of all, let's talk about automation more generally speaking and we can compare this in a certain degree to electrification almost a quarter of new vehicle sold Or now a fully electric a third of new bike sold Our electric actually in Germany. It's twice that it's almost two thirds of new bike sold our electric Over half of the buses are fully electric so we've managed to electrify Various parts of the mobility chain and the next thing is to just automate various parts of the mobility puzzle And again that goes across all modes whether that's taxis and ride hailing or shuttles or buses up to and including Trains are very heavily electric anyway, but also on the logistics side and that just like the electrification did will create impact on Infrastructure it will create ripples along so many more business models including I don't know restaurants on the side of highways It will include you know the notion of wireless charging in order to bring down depot and charging costs It will integrate so many other business lines and businesses in its wake. So the impact we're only beginning to see it More specifically, where will we see it? Well on robot taxes specifically that I mentioned most drivers are actually quite poorly paid We will see robot taxes in the next three to five years There will be some a creative effect. There will be some additional needs being served But they will also replace Existing ride hailing to a certain degree and I mentioned the number in London that we have about a hundred thousand if we have 3,000 5,000 10,000 of those becoming robot taxis Objectively a decent number, but in the grand scheme of things It's a proportion of the vehicles that we already have on the street and our job is to make sure that they are orchestrated in such a way that they are doing less empty miles and are Actually beneficial in terms of all of the things that a city wants them to do Lower emissions a higher quality of life greater accessibility greater road safety The other question is around what are we trying to achieve? Technology itself isn't the end goal and that's what I was trying to get to just now cities want this to be deployed for that Accessibility emissions reduction greater safety all of these wonderful social benefits that they bring and only When the technology is actually serving that goal, well, we actually see mask ill deployments and if you look to let's say 2030 Will Europe have its own driving system running at scale so from a company that way for maybe even from one of our Famous automakers here or instead a race that is over in your opinion and Europe's real strength will be everything around the Software that we just I'm covered. Well, I'm of course based in London So I'm very partial to our hometown hero wave has lots of great partnerships and and has enormous potential to be one of the Not the key player in this space. They are Focused very very heavily on having the partnerships with OEMs including European OEMs as we well know now with new Partnerships with European players being announced almost weekly at this point So I do think that we have a lot of potential on the tech side from someone like wave. There are plenty of other Stacks that are being developed and not quite of the same scale. It's worth mentioning someone like a motor AI But a reminder here that so much of the value will be created between the customer and the tech stack and that's Always going to be a local activity because it is well geographically bound So as long as that's the case, there'll be plenty of value that's being generated for European companies in this game Later this month you will open the Madrid autonomous mobility summit with a keynote on the global race for autonomous driving And you wrote that 2026 is shaping up as the year autonomy moves from the pilots that we mentioned to a market here in Europe and Let's hold you to that. So in a good way, so it's October 2027 and we record this show again So what has to be true in Europe for you to say I was right. I don't want us to be measured by Having the most robot axes in operation. I want us to be measured by how have we created the platform the basis for success in Europe And it goes back to a lot of the things that I mentioned earlier and in fact regulation Is part of that basis having type-approved Unle gated vehicles that are available Because vehicles right now are a bit of a bottleneck in this in this whole whole picture There aren't that many vehicles that are available. So we will have created that platform in Europe we will have By the end of 2027 by current planning and all likelihood The first type approved vehicles we will certainly have services there will be several thousand passenger carrying vehicles in various cities we will have proper competition, which no other region can say, because we have invited to Europe the best from North America and the best from Asia, and have our own competitors as well. So, we have all of the bits and pieces, plus the regulatory and structural framework, to make Europe be a highly competitive environment for automated passenger mobility. Yeah, super fascinating. What's coming up in the next few months and years, and we're at the end now, but I just wanted to give you the opportunity also. To share a bit more, when do you speak? When can people meet you? And where can they meet you? A few things that I'll plug. I'll certainly encourage anyone who's listening and who is in the ecosystem if you aren't already to become a member of Pave Europe. The partners for automated vehicle education for Europe. If you are interested in the interaction between cities and automated passenger transport, I would encourage you to reach out to me and the Urban Places Lab. This is a topic that we spend quite a lot of time on. And in terms of places where you'll see me next, certainly you mentioned the Madrid Autonomous Summit. You might also see me doing a keynote at the Tomorrow Mobility World Summit in Barcelona. And of course Daniel, you and I are working together on the Autonomous Summit in London in March 2027. So I expect to see really everyone from our ecosystem showing up and having fantastic discussions here in London. Yeah. Already looking forward to it. So Lucas, thank you so much for taking the time today. It was a really insightful conversation. And yeah. Hope to see you soon and keep up the good work. Thank you Daniel and you too. Great work, great podcast. I love hearing every episode. Thank you so much. Bye.