Welcome back to Equity TechRunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.

Today is Friday, May 29th.

I'm Kirsten Koresk, transportation editor here at TechRunch.

And I'm joined, as always, by our weekend editor Anthony Hot and senior reporter, Sean O'King.

Oh, hi, Kirsten.

Oh, hi.

I heard you had a trip this week in something, something special.

Yeah, I did. And for listeners, oh hi is the new name of a rebranded Robotoxi from Waymo,

which is this kind of minivan. They branded it, Ohio, spelled OJ-A-I.

And it's, have you ever been to Ohio, the town?

I have not.

I went once as a kid.

Okay, so it's like artsy, known for food, bucolic, you know, Southern California. Um, and this is what they're calling their newest robotoxy. I kind of think it's a little bit of, you know, let's, let's move away from the Zika branding and, uh, the fact that it's a stripped down version made in China. It's not no tech, apparently, but, you know, I think they're trying to get away from that. But yeah, I got to go to Phoenix yesterday, and yeah, I got a first look, first look and ride. I mean, this vehicle is supposed to be important for a number of reasons. First off, let's take a step back and just think about the fact that Waymo has built what it's built on a bunch of Jaguar eyepaces, which remains one of the funniest things to have happened over the last decade in my view, at least in the transportation world. But, you know, this is clearly important because it's supposed to drive costs down. It's supposed to be a thing that will get them closer to eventually maybe making a profit. There are a lot of estimates out there, but we don't know numbers as far as how much cheaper this thing is to build and maintain versus an eye pace. It gives them a bit more control over it. It's not, you know, as much of an integration headache as I think the eyepace can be. All that's great. And I think that'll bear out as this really hits the road but I want to

know what it was like because like to me this thing looks like it should ride better than an

I pace it also is kind of like you know it looks a little like the grown up version of the

sort of Firefly AV that Google started this all with like 10 or 15 years ago. So tell us,

tell us what the ride was like. Yeah. I, okay, so from the outside, it has a very friendly

look to it, which is, I realize that I'm putting human qualities on a thing that isn't living,

but it is minivan like, but it isn't quite a minivan for a couple of distinct reasons.

It's got this sort of pale blueish color that changes depending on the lighting, which is kind of

nice and calming, I guess. It's got rounded features. It has super low overhangs. Everything about

it makes it feel, you're right, a little bit like a nod to the

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