It's fun to imagine how emerging innovations might shape the future of mobility, but if you want to know how the rubber hits the road you should probably talk to someone in the insurance business. From big data and connected vehicles to managing shared mobility services and understanding autonomous vehicle safety, insurance companies have to turn "the vision thing" into models, predictions and ultimately dollars and cents. To better understand how the insurance business is managing all of these fascinating challenges Alex, Kirsten and Ed sat down with Grady Irey, the Senior Vice President of Data Science and Analytics for the insurance technology company Arity for a fascinating conversation about risk, data, and the future.

With the television debut of Alex's new film APEX: The Secret Race Across America, chronicling his cross-country record-setting run and the history of such automotive insanity, the gang discusses the relevance of high-speed cross country records to emerging technologies. Then the conversation shifts to the emerging "Techlash" which now seems to be breeding enmity for autonomous vehicles, among critics of the high tech sector as well as urbanists and transit advocates. Are these critics right to be suspicious of Silicon Valley's autonomous vehicle development practices? Will AVs help or hurt the causes of urbanism and transit? These questions and many more take center stage as Alex, Kirsten and Ed take on the growing critiques of self-driving technology.

The gang dives back into the world of sensors this week, with a conversation about lidar, autonomous vehicles and surviving the "trough of disappointment" with Angus Pacala of Ouster Lidar. Unlike some other lidar companies, which are a bet on the market for autonomous vehicles, Ouster has taken a diversified approach to the business and now has hundreds of customers in a wide variety of fields. We discuss why that strategy has paid off, how Ouster is validating its sensors, why autonomous vehicles will likely always have lidar, and where the sensor business is headed.

Alex had such a good time talking about his favorite topics with Kelly Funkhouser of Consumer Reports that they almost immediately sat back down and started recording more. Here, for your listening pleasure, is that roughly half-hour of bonus conversation covering a wide range of topics related to human machine interaction in automated driving.

What is Tesla Autopilot missing? Can Driver Monitoring Systems work? What are the best and worst driver assistance systems? How can we improve the SAE automation levels? In this episode recorded live at the Pennsylvania Autonomous Vehicle Summit, Alex (and Ed, before he had to take off to promote his book) gets schooled by Kelly Funkhauser, Consumer Reports' Head of Connected & Automated Vehicles, a rare voice of reason in a sector full of "experts" spouting BS.

While some states scramble to get a handle on the sudden appearance of autonomous vehicles on their roads, Pennsylvania's had time to think about the challenge. Thanks to the Pittsburgh robotics hub around Carnegie Mellon University, robocars have been plying the Keystone State's roads since at least a 2013 demonstration drive. Recorded live at the state's annual Autonomous Vehicle Summit, Ed moderates a discussion about the lessons learned with state Secretary of Transportation Leslie Richards and Ehrlichman Group CEO and returning Autonocast guest Courtney Ehrlichman.

Recently, the entire automotive world has been obsessed with a single vehicle: Porsche's new electric sportscar, the Taycan. Alex and Kirsten were among those invited to the Taycan's official reveal, and share their thoughts on its price, positioning, performance and (most importantly) pronunciation. Meanwhile, Ed wonders if it even matters quite as much as the Tesla-dominated EV discourse makes it out to be.