At a time when the auto industry is seeing an influx of new startups like it hasn't seen in a century, one of the most interesting companies to watch is Magna International. Not only does Magna supply everything from an in-house EV platform and ADAS to body-in-white and drivetrains, they also provide the engineering and validation expertise to turn startup dreams into reality... and they can even contract manufacture the final result. To understand how a "full-stack" automotive startup enabler like Magna is approaching this unique moment in history, we sat down with Swamy Kotagiri, a 21-year veteran at Magna, currently serving as President and soon to be the firm's next CEO.

In the wake of the election, the gang discusses the potential implications of the newest Massachusetts "Right To Repair" law, the return of successful funding rounds to the AV space, and the rising importance of the safety case.

Tesla's deployment of a "limited beta" version of its "Full Self-Driving" software to public roads raises a number of important issues around how and why AV developers test safely on public roads. With Kirsten just getting back from vacation, Alex and Ed walk her through the most immediate concerns... plus, Alex shares what it's like to be trained as a professional AV safety driver.

With competition in autonomous trucking heating up we speak with two of the top leaders at Ike, a startup that brings a unique development approach to this exciting space. Co-founder and Chief Engineer Nancy Sun and Head of Systems Randol Aikin oversee Ike's work transforming core technology licensed from Nuro into an autonomous trucking solution, and they explain how their strategy turns some popular perceptions about AV development on their head. Learn why they see AVs as a systems engineering problem rather than an AI problem, how they get away with a tiny 6-truck test fleet, why they are sticklers about using the right language for this technology and much more.

Recently Ed had been noticing some negativity about AVs in tweets by friend of the show and brilliant technology analyst Horace Dediu. He challenged Horace to debate the prospects for autonomous drive technology, and what resulted was a fascinating conversation that proves there is more consensus about AVs than it sometimes seems. Though the resulting episode was less of a debate than originally imagined, it is still an in-depth exploration of the past and future of AVs as they struggle out of "the trough of disillusionment."

The gang struggles to make sense of Tesla's sprawling "Battery Day" presentation, which they contrast to Geely's very different strategy for EV dominance through a shared flexible architecture. We also look at Mobileye's new camera-only Level 2+ ADAS and discuss a couple of recent news items involving the autonomous trucking company TuSimple, making this week's discussion as diverse as the future of mobility itself.

The gang is back with another discussion episode covering a diverse range of topics, from the new Mercedes S Class and Polestar 2 and the struggle to create good modern user interfaces, to the GM-Honda Alliance and another look at the SPACmania that is inflating EV startup valuations while looking past AVs almost entirely.

Mapping continues to be one of the more misunderstood aspects of AV development, so to help clear up the confusion we spoke with one of the godfathers of modern mapping tech. Mark Wheeler is the co-founder and CTO of DeepMap, a company that's been working on onboard HD mapping for AVs since 2016. He explains why mapping matters, how DeepMap builds its HD maps, and how he ended up working in this fascinating space.

Lyft is one of the few mobility platforms where you can hail a ride in an autonomous vehicle, at least in Las Vegas and Chandler, Arizona where it partners with Aptiv and Waymo respectively. But Lyft is also developing its own autonomous driving technology, at its Level 5 organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lyft's Jody Kelman joins the show to explain this dual-track approach, lay out her vision for autonomous ride hailing and explain where the "Level 5" name came from.