Ken Lucci: 0:25

Well, welcome everybody to another exciting episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast. My name is Ken Lucci from Driving Transactions. I'm blessed today to be with a special guest, but I want to call out the fact that my partner in crime, James Blaine, is sadly from PACS training, is not here today. He's out training a group of chauffeurs, perhaps a group of motor coach drivers. So sadly I'm doing the solo, but. I am so blessed to, have a special guest, Ashwini correct me,

Ashwini Anburajan: 0:59

Awin, but

Ken Lucci: 1:01

Ashwini Ashwini for, and she's the chief Executive Officer of a, of an exciting company called Obi, OBI Ride. obi.com is the website. Now, I found you. Full disclosure by the report that came out on, on your company and you in Forbes

Ashwini Anburajan: 1:21

amazing. I didn't realize that.

Ken Lucci: 1:23

so we, we have a lot of databases. We, we, we have access to a Bloomberg terminal, but we also have, every day Factiva comes to us. Um, Dow Jones comes to us on anything we track in mobility, and you came to us and I was so impressed with, you know, the, the title of Forbes, and I'm gonna let you talk about it, is Obie is the Kayak of Rideshare. So give us an, an idea or give us a description of OB and please give us your bio and what brought you to this exciting opportunity to be chief Executive Officer of ob.

Ashwini Anburajan: 1:59

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Um, so Obi is a rideshare aggregator, so you can see prices and wait times in one screen. So if you're in New York, you can compare Uber, Lyft, curb and power in a single app in San Francisco. It could be Waymo, Uber, and Lyft. In London, it would be Freenow Bolt, Uber. Addison Lee, et cetera. Um, we call it the Kayak for Rideshare because this meta aggregation and search has existed in the airplane and the travel industry for a very long time. It has not actually existed though in ground transportation, and there are many players out there. There are many options for rides and some people want a luxury ride, but some people just wanna ride as quickly as possible to where they need to go, and they're willing to pay whatever they need to for it. Uh, OB users are power users of Rideshare. They use Rideshare. I have multiple rideshare apps on their phone. So the app is very easy to use, right? You simply put your location in, you can deep link into the different rideshare providers and you can use the app in 175 countries. And we've grown to over a million users and, um, I'm really excited to be in the new role. I was Chief Revenue Officer. I joined the company in October, 2023 and, um, in August, uh, took the, took the CEO role. So

Ken Lucci: 3:27

Nice. Now you have a great bio though. You've got something. Were you an NBC reporter at one

Ashwini Anburajan: 3:33

I was, I started my career in politics covering Barack Obama's 2007, 2008

Ken Lucci: 3:40

Uh, how we hearken back to those years. We don't get political here, but I'm just gonna say that, but go

Ashwini Anburajan: 3:46

yeah. So I

Ken Lucci: 3:47

great.

Ashwini Anburajan: 3:48

It's what? It's what's called a digital embed. So you live on the road, you chase the candidates around with a camera and a microphone and a recorder. You put your stories on a blackberry. I'm aging myself, but it was true. I was outta college. I was outta college. And that's what I did. And I did that for, um, at NVC. And I saw that the media industry was changing. I was interested in technology. Um, and I decided to go to business school, and straight outta business school. I started working at Buzzfeed, um, as like, kind of like a new model for digital media. And you asked me how I came to ob. It's because at Buzzfeed I was introduced to the concept of consumer data and um, I was put in charge of a data network and had to monetize that data for Buzzfeed. And that really set me on the trajectory of my career. what I'm really good at is working at consumer applications. Figuring and figuring out how to monetize the data behind that application. And I was, came to OB because they had an incredible data set on rideshare pricing, consumer location, et cetera. And, um, had known the founder for a long time and he said, you know, we need to figure out how we monetize our data set. And I said, I think I can help you do that. So, um, we started publishing reports. Our Global Rideshare report, for example, our report on Waymo pricing. Um, and we began to monetize the dataset. So the app is free to use for consumers. Um, it's not subscription based. We don't always collect affiliate fees on, on the ride. So you're really getting a very true picture of what's available at the moment. But we do monetize the data that we're collecting on the backend.

Ken Lucci: 5:30

Sure. So, so distill this down, if I wanted to, I could just have the Obi app instead of having all of the different apps on my phone, correct.

Ashwini Anburajan: 5:39

No, you still need the different apps on your phone because we don't

Ken Lucci: 5:42

You still need to be a subscriber. You still need to be the subscriber. Gotcha. So walk me through it at a sixth grade level, because I'm old. I open up the OB app and tell me what happens.

Ashwini Anburajan: 5:54

Yeah, so you open up the OB app, it's gonna ask you to link your accounts across different

Ken Lucci: 5:58

Of course. Makes

Ashwini Anburajan: 6:00

can link into Uber. You can link into Lyft to curb, um, bolt if you're in, you know, in Europe, Kareem, if you're in the Middle East, for example. And,

Ken Lucci: 6:13

other one we, we ride?

Ashwini Anburajan: 6:15

um, there's, yang and Kareem are the biggest, I think. We ra that, I think it's a smaller provider, but uh, we don't have it yet, to be

Ken Lucci: 6:23

yeah. They're in China. They're China making their way over.

Ashwini Anburajan: 6:26

Okay. And so in, in Mexico City, you can have Didi, like for example. So it does require you to, on some level, to download different apps, right? but you can link the apps and whether you're linked or not, you will see a search, you will see the pricing. And what it does is that it gives you the pricing, it compares. Uber, Lyft, Didi Kareem, depends on where you are. And you can deep link in and you can sort by ETA. you can sort by price and you can sort by type of ride. So if you want a premium car or a large car, for example, in certain markets we have black car companies as well. So you'll see Carmel sedan, for example, in New York and Chicago. and that's something that we're trying to do is to bring more smaller and independent companies onto, onto the app in

Ken Lucci: 7:20

Well, we can help you with that.

Ashwini Anburajan: 7:21

Okay. That's that's good to know.

Ken Lucci: 7:23

Yeah,

Ashwini Anburajan: 7:24

And I think that, you know, one of the big, big focuses is that rideshare is, you know, you ask how I ended up in this role. Like I, I have cut down on my rideshare spend. But like, I live in Brooklyn, you know, it was like, I used to be one of those people that would take the subway at two in the morning and, uh, during the pandemic that that habit stopped, uh, as it, as it needed to. And so it just started taking rideshare a lot. And at one point, like, I think it was in 21 or something, my, my bills were like 800, 900 a month. On, on, like, you know, in,

Ken Lucci: 8:00

it can easily go there because it's a convenience addiction, right.

Ashwini Anburajan: 8:03

yeah. Completely. And so for me it was just like, it, it made natural sense to like, you know, and I, I actually started using the app and I started staving money. I was a very loyal Uber user. I only used Uber'cause I just couldn't be bothered, you know, with, with anything else. I think I had Uber one on top of it. And, but then I started using the app and I, I started using Curb, I started using Lyft and there was actually like a diversity in my, in my options and my bill went down. Uh, and you know, I started playing like 600 a month instead For, for Rideshare?

Ken Lucci: 8:37

so this is, let me stop you there. This is not a static price. This is live pricing and live availability.

Ashwini Anburajan: 8:43

Yes.

Ken Lucci: 8:44

Wow. So there's gotta be a backend connection there way above my pay grade from a tech perspective,

Ashwini Anburajan: 8:51

Yeah. We are able to, to pull pricing via, accounts. Um, and. There's a secret sauce behind that as as well, we have API links to some of the providers. and the goal there is to create consumer transparency in price,

Ken Lucci: 9:07

So talk about that. I mean, that's, that's your value prop besides by the way, that's total added convenience. That I can find out who's available, what the prices are from all of them without opening up their individual apps, per se. Right. And then I make a choice and it either can, it can either automatically open up that app or I just go out and I open it up. But you do the shopping for me.

Ashwini Anburajan: 9:30

Yeah, we'll deep link you into the app as long as the app is on your phone.

Ken Lucci: 9:35

it can be that easy if you do the, if you, if you're much smarter than me and you can actually connect the two things together, my business partner would do it. So that's easy. So you, so talk to me about the price transparency aspect, because you know, here to four, that's been a problem for the TNCs. I could take the same trip. And it's dramatically, as George Bush would say, ally different, dramatically different each time. And that's really, I irritating. I mean, I even noticed it last week or two weeks ago when I was in New York because I, and I did take a TNC, but like a month and a half ago, I took the same trip and it was unbelievably less expensive. It was the same

Ashwini Anburajan: 10:19

cause it's dynamic pricing, right.

Ken Lucci: 10:22

So talk to us about pricing transparency and, and, and the, the sentiment of the consumers. The sentiment of the users.

Ashwini Anburajan: 10:29

look like we are growing organically. we don't spend a lot of marketing and we saw our user base double last year because consumers are paying more for rideshare than they ever were before. They're also taking more trips. So you're seeing this, this market is growing, right? I mean, rideshare has gotten sexy again'cause of avs and people are excited about what's happening in autonomous vehicles. They're like enthusiastic about the experience they're getting, but fundamentally, they were taking more rides anyway. They were paying more for rideshare anyway. And when we look at what we're doing in terms of dynamic pricing, there's multiple things that affect it at any given time. We know that we've done research that, um, weather obviously time of day traffic patterns, supply and demand. The availability of cars at any given moment obviously makes, makes a huge, makes a huge difference.

Ken Lucci: 11:29

Location and reference to events like concerts and football games. Yeah.

Ashwini Anburajan: 11:35

Um, you know, like congestion pricing, you know, in Rideshare has existed always, right?'cause the price is gonna go up. And I think that, you know, the dynamism of the pricing is a reason that apps like ours exist. People expect this from airlines. They expect airlines to have different prices on different days, different times. There's a lot of gamification around. When should you be looking for like a flight? Um, rideshare doesn't exist in that way'cause it's an immediate demand, right? You go out and you want it to hail a taxi back in the day. You call a car now from, from your phone. It's really where you are in any given moment, and you need it. You need the demand to meet you at that moment. The idea that that price should be static is. I think it's unrealistic. And it was unrealistic in the taxi industry, right? And back then they used to have surcharges for rush hour or other, other aspects of it. Now they have surcharges for congestion pricing. If you're in New York City, right, you're coming into midtown or downtown, you have to, you have to pay more to do that. And I think that's. That's to be expected in any kind of dynamic market. the difference, and I think where consumers get frustrated is they don't understand why the price is changing and why it's so different. Um, and I think that that, you know, there's a black box around a lot of these algorithms, but we, we do know that are key factors that influence it. It's supply, it's traffic on the streets, it's time of day, it's weather. And, and those are the, those are the four biggest things that are gonna influence your, your price.

Ken Lucci: 13:02

Okay. So are you at the point where you're saying, listen, if you waited, this would cost you much less? Do you have to go right now?

Ashwini Anburajan: 13:13

Yeah, so we, we, we have the data to do it. We

Ken Lucci: 13:17

Don't, don't tell me the secret sauce.'cause I can't keep a secret, but so, so

Ashwini Anburajan: 13:22

We also have the data to say, walk two blocks and your price is gonna go down. And, um, we may or may not be rolling out those types of features in, in the future, but we've had that type of data for a very long time.

Ken Lucci: 13:36

Okay, so why wouldn't a consumer download ob?

Ashwini Anburajan: 13:42

I mean, there's no reason not to. If you take a Rideshare app and you're gonna be in a major city, you should download Adobe. You will save money, you'll save between 10 to 30% per ride.

Ken Lucci: 13:51

Wow.

Ashwini Anburajan: 13:52

Yeah. And what we know from consumers, this is just a like, just like. Rideshare is a commodity. there is some level of brand loyalty. We see at about 10 to 20% brand loyalty, among consumers. But most consumers, especially American consumers who spend the most on rideshare, are really like a$1 difference, will swing 90% of users.

Ken Lucci: 14:56

And, and it's interesting to me, and I've, I've had these esoteric discussions about. Doesn't it have to be more than price? At some point when you're building a brand based on lowest price, lowest price, lowest price, at some point it needs to be about more, right? So talk to look. I would say no. There's no reason why any corporation or any individual wouldn't download ob. Do you have, and again, no secret sauce, do you have any idea, any, uh. Ideas about going after the corporate space and offering corporate portals or corporate travel management tools.

Ashwini Anburajan: 15:36

We've, we've been approached by a few folks about it, but it wasn't like a serious enough discussion for us to, to really engage. I think that. We could definitely help companies save money. There's no, there's no question about it. Um, I think that, you know, it's not an era. We've explored a lot. We'd be very open, so reach out if you're, if you're interested in talking to us about it. but definitely, you know, it is fundamentally a consumer app on the go

Ken Lucci: 16:05

How deep is your tech bench? Again, just

Ashwini Anburajan: 16:10

How would you, how would I, what, what do you mean by that question?

Ken Lucci: 16:13

know, you, you said you're introducing some new features and I love the fact, I love the fact in an urban area, you can say to me, listen. You know, guess some exercise. Walk 500 feet that way and I'm gonna save you three bucks.

Ashwini Anburajan: 16:26

yeah,

Ken Lucci: 16:26

Do you, do you have the tech, the, the backend to, to, to keep developing the app that way as the value prop moves forward

Ashwini Anburajan: 16:34

yeah, because I obs been in the market now for about five years,

Ken Lucci: 16:38

based in Netherlands

Ashwini Anburajan: 16:40

Uh, no. We're based in, we're based in New York City, in Union Square. We have offices in France and Poland, where we have a lot of our team. So Mo, a lot of our team is European.

Ken Lucci: 16:52

And your founder, who? Your founder, who was

Ashwini Anburajan: 16:54

The founder is Pam Safa. Um, he started the company. About 10 years ago under a different brand and different value prop. Um, we pivoted to OB in 2019 2019. 2020. And he is based in Los Angeles. So we're a very distributed team and, um, very close knit team though, I would say. And, you know, I think we're a very, very technical team and it's like 85% of people on the team are engineers and data s.

Ken Lucci: 17:25

Awesome data. Data is our life, but somewhat more rudimentary than, than what you do. And we do a lot of m and a data. We do financial metrics from. Financial metrics, if you want to know what the average company spends for fuel driver labor, et cetera, where your people, what the gross margins are on the, on the buy reservation side. So how are you viewed by the rideshare companies as complimentary or as a com competitor, or how are you viewed?

Ashwini Anburajan: 17:54

I like to think of us as a cooperate.

Ken Lucci: 17:58

Sure. Um,

Ashwini Anburajan: 17:59

I think that, I think there's been resistance in the rideshare industry. To moving into meta aggregation and meta search, and there's a reason for it. They learn the lessons via hotels and airlines and other, other, other platforms, um, or other, other aspects of the travel and mobility industry. That being said, there is an acknowledgement that consumers really like using us and there's an acknowledgement that our data is very valuable. And so we do sell our data and there are ride share companies that buy our data sets. So we have, um, it's a push-pull relationship, you know, and it's imperfect, but it's there. And, um, I think as time goes on, my hope is that there will be more rideshare companies that embrace the idea of direct booking within Obi putting like, you know, and having more of a. Integrated relationship with us, um, because I think it's just gonna drive, um, drive engagement and drive more optionality for, for the consumer.

Ken Lucci: 19:07

Well, and let's talk about optionality opening up, right? Um, we, we, I've become obsessed with autonomous vehicles every day. I, you know, every day our databases from Dow Jones or, uh, from Dun and Bradstreet, or from PitchBook, or from Crunchbase or from Bloomberg, we search everything autonomous vehicle. And I can't get over. When I started doing the tracking the data, I'd get five articles a week. Now I get 10 a day.

Ashwini Anburajan: 19:40

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 19:41

Um, when I, we started doing the data aggregate, not aggregation, but research, et cetera. There were no financial institutions doing reports on autonomous, and now JP Morgan's got one. Goldman's got one, pitchbooks got one, and it's a deep dive into the autonomous space. When you look at what's just taken place over the last 12 months with the expansion of Waymo with, with Tesla's entry into autonomous. Give us an idea of where you think both the ride share landscape, what are there other players gonna come into the US market? And then give us an idea of where you think autonomous is gonna be in the next three to five years.

Ashwini Anburajan: 20:35

Yeah. Um, what you're seeing is like a rapid acceleration, right? Like it was the idea of like a, a GI like, you know, coming. Like, you know, when you look at open AI and what happened when, when they rolled out GPT, it was the first consumer brand. People embraced it and it just started to take off. Right? And it's impacted now an entire industry around search and the internet and how people source information because there was consumer enthusiasm for it.

Ken Lucci: 21:04

Absolutely.

Ashwini Anburajan: 21:04

And it was a superior product that was highly well delivered and had spent many, many, many years in a, you know. Like in the back, like, you know, with the, with the curtain pole. Like the curtain like drawn. Um, and I think that's the exact same thing that's happened with Rideshare Navs. Uh, I think the rollout of OpenAI and GPT is really a good example of how Waymo has rolled out its cars. The level of enthusiasm for Waymo ride is massive. Um, they were very careful. They were thoughtful. It's a very high-end experience in taking a car. It's a novelty. For many consumers to actually do it. Um, you know, it's kind of like a tourist attraction for people that are visiting San Francisco or Phoenix or la and it is a great experience in the car. And what our research has shown is that though the price is 30 to 40% higher, sometimes two times higher,

Ken Lucci: 23:06

Then typical Uber,

Ashwini Anburajan: 23:08

Yeah, yeah.

Ken Lucci: 23:10

Two to three times. It can be two to three times higher.

Ashwini Anburajan: 23:13

It can at, at, at times because there's very few cars, right?

Ken Lucci: 23:16

Of course, and they've gotta maximize the, the income,

Ashwini Anburajan: 23:19

Yeah. And they're maximizing the income. And what we know is that, once a consumer is taken the ride, 70% prefer it to being in the car with the driver.

Ken Lucci: 23:33

You know, it's funny, I'm an old time chauffeur guy. I started my limo company in 2005 after I had retired from the medical arm industry. And I'll never forget, forgive the guy that told me to get into the limo business. But anyway, and the biggest issue we had was the driver, meaning if you, if you had a driver on point, he was recommended. Uh, by name five, 10 times more than anybody else, which had its own challenges. But then when you had people that complained about driving, number one, it was, it was absolutely unsafe driving

Ashwini Anburajan: 24:07

Mm-hmm.

Ken Lucci: 24:08

you know, the braking issues or changing lanes without blinkers because that passenger in the back is a critic. Right. But I was surprised how many people complained and said, I don't want this driver. And it was for non-issues relating to safety. They just couldn't keep their mouth shut. They didn't practice matching and mirroring. And then when you looked at the safety aspects, and I think you'll agree, the AV companies have done a fantastic job at putting the safety data forward.

Ashwini Anburajan: 24:44

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 24:45

As, as a part of their value prop, they identified and said people are gonna question whether these things are actually safe. And they've had, I think it's, um, UBS did a report with, I believe with Waymo. So they did a research report, and I know the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, which we follow, did a tremendous report and the safety. Is it, it's the, all the data points point to it being exponentially safer than a human being.

Ashwini Anburajan: 25:15

They drive very slowly. If you've taken a car,

Ken Lucci: 25:19

Right? So, okay. So you have

Ashwini Anburajan: 25:22

takes you forever to get from point A to point B. In my opinion, this is my personal opinion, it's not official research, but like my personal opinion is it takes you forever to get from point A to point B, but it's a good experience getting there.

Ken Lucci: 25:33

You know, I have, we, we deal with probably there isn't any of the largest chauffeur networks in the country that we don't deal with. I mean, the phones ring off the hook with the guys that own those companies. And then most of the large regionals, 20 million and above, 10 million and above. And I really, there's a guy in Phoenix that I really admire, and he's a very quiet, unassuming guy, runs a 30$40 million operation. And he made a comment to me,'cause I said to him. W when I went there, I asked a, I spoke in front of a bunch of, uh, limo guys that do black sedan, black car, and I said, is this affecting you? And most of them said, almost all of'em said no. Now, then I went and took 25 Uber rides, and every one of them said, it's affecting us. But the gentleman that I admired the most in that marketplace said to me, it is Ken. It, I can't put a number on it, but I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'd put my mother and my kids in an autonomous vehicle before I would put them in an Uber. And I thought that was very telling. And when you think about the aspects that the TNCs must deal with, the human component, wouldn't you agree that's a lot of their problems? I mean, a lot of their issues have, you know, when you look at even the worst news, forget about data points, just the news stories, uh, right.

Ashwini Anburajan: 26:56

Yeah. I just wanna, I wanna drill down on the point you just made that I would put my mother in a kid in an autonomous vehicle. That is exactly what our survey research has found. We surveyed 5,000 consumers. It's the largest consumer survey on ride on avs that have, that has been done thus far, and. That fact is what blew our mind, that people were more willing to trust an AV with their kids and with elderly relatives or anyone, they deemed vulnerable

Ken Lucci: 27:27

Sure.

Ashwini Anburajan: 27:28

putting it in the car with the standard driver. And of course we know that kids take Ubers and they take Lyfts and they take ride share, but they are more comfortable doing that. And I thought that was a really fascinating fact. Um, and that was something that. Stood out to me the most in the data set. Like, you know, I knew that there was gonna be enthusiasm and we're gonna be running another survey, and we're gonna be coming out with more research soon. But like, I, I knew that there'd be enthusiasm. I knew people would like the experience in the car. I, you know, I took, I took tons of Waymo's and, and I saw it myself. But what I didn't expect was like that trust factor would just leap as, as much as it did.

Ken Lucci: 28:07

Sure.

Ashwini Anburajan: 28:08

and I think

Ken Lucci: 28:09

huge. That's huge. And let's take it, let's drill down a little bit further and look at the, the female business traveler.

Ashwini Anburajan: 28:16

Right,

Ken Lucci: 28:17

A female, you know, the, I think the number now is about 42% of corporate travel is, is, is fe, they're female and a lot of'em are female executives. But you have female management, you have trainers, you have the road warriors that, you know, the 20 fives to thirties. That's the number one issue that they, that corporations have is the safety and duty of care aspect. That completely, that risk goes completely away when they, when they embrace autonomous,

Ashwini Anburajan: 28:47

Yeah, I mean, look, I definitely, I will say, look, look like I take a ton of ride. I've only only had issues four times in that I can distinctly remember where I literally like. Message, like the app, like after the ride was over or like was asked to get out of the, I asked to get out of the car. It's only happened to me three or four times and it's never been like something that's like that. Like whatever. It's fine. Um, and I think it's'cause I'm in major cities and places where they're mostly professional drivers, right? Like New York, London, et cetera. Um, but I would say like safety is, safety is a real thing. We saw the New York Times piece that came out, And I think that prioritizing safety is something that, you know, we all have a responsibility for. Um, and it's something that,

Ken Lucci: 29:33

that,

Ashwini Anburajan: 29:34

it's like, if, if you take off, the element of the car is unsafe,

Ken Lucci: 29:39

yes. Oh, oh, it's a moving object.

Ashwini Anburajan: 29:41

right? So the car is unsafe, but then if you, if you remove the human element of like, you know, feeling unsafe, it just, it makes people far, far more comfortable.

Ken Lucci: 29:51

And before we go any further, whatever that survey costs, please, I'll pay for it. Because I'm doing a, I'm doing a state of the industry, um, talk. And one of the pieces that I've been asked to, to touch upon is avs, because I've done a deep dive on it, but I, I have a lot of people who think, well, that's not gonna bother the chauffeur space. I disagree. I disagree for some of the reasons you just talked about. There is good data out there that how it will quote, disrupt the TNCs, meaning moving them from human driver over to av. And I don't know if you followed the announcement that, uh, Uber, um, partnered with Neuro Who I'm huge fan, huge fan of that company even though I can't get the CEO to come on. Uh, that's okay. He's busy. And they, and they partnered with, um, lucid to build 6,000 premium SUVs. That was a, that was another bellwether to me. So you just hit upon Well, consumers are gonna think they're unsafe, they're not gonna want to use them. No. You Data shows the opposite. When we, watch the traditional TNCs. Uh, And there was another one today where Lyft is doing a similar partnership with another autonomous vehicle company. When we watch the TNCs move fast into autonomous, w what do you think? If you had a thousand rideshare drivers out there today, how many rideshare drivers do you think they're gonna be in five years in the major metropolitan areas?

Ashwini Anburajan: 31:31

it's, it's a great question. Look like what I, I was at the, they had an urban autonomy summit this week in New

Ken Lucci: 31:38

unhappy to meet. Yeah. I didn't, uh, it,

Ashwini Anburajan: 31:41

Honestly, it was the, it was, uh, it

Ken Lucci: 31:43

I.

Ashwini Anburajan: 31:43

the, it was the room of very, very impressive people and I was very happy to, to be in attendance and, um, one of the board members of the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Pointed out that New York City has as many professional drivers as like residents in the city of Pittsburgh. Like, you know, like, and do I think there's gonna be a dent there? Yeah, sure. Like I think, I think there'll be a dent. We just don't know how much yet we have seen that there's been an impact now on driver earnings to some degree. Um, but I think what you're pointing out is like, I think there's a lot of wishful thinking that the abs are just gonna go hang out in the outer boroughs. And pick up people there? No, I mean these are expensive rides and they're luxury cars. And it depends on the car, right? Like it depends. There's gonna be like an As in any Uber also started out as a high-end service and then eventually introduced Uber X and Lyft came out into the market and it, and it changed the market dynamics. So everyone started taking those cars. And I believe that a similar thing is gonna happen where it actually may be a high end entrant initially. But you'll see that filter down based on the cost of the vehicle and you know, the competition on price o overall. But I do believe that it's, you know, there was this theory that, you know, the drivers are only gonna be in Manhattan because there's no way an AV can get through Times Square,

Ken Lucci: 33:11

Wanna

Ashwini Anburajan: 33:12

Yeah, I would, I would, I would bet against that. That bet, like right.

Ken Lucci: 33:16

They're mapping in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York from, you know, my, my data points say is going very well,

Ashwini Anburajan: 33:26

Well, you know, I just saw Waymo come off the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn. I had walked the bridge and I was like walking on Broadway. Saw it and I, I was like, for a second I was like, there's no, I was like, for a second I actually thought there was no one in the car.'cause I, it was dark and I couldn't see, and then I took a video and I, in my video I could see that there was someone there. But the idea that just that you were going across, if you have to like know that those streets, but to go across the bridge, come off the bridge and then turn onto Broadway. I mean, they are mapping it, right?

Ken Lucci: 33:55

They are. And the, and, and so we'll get into a tech maybe a little bit down the road, but let, let, let's talk specifically about the cost of the vehicle. So we did, we've done some financial pro formas and, and the brains of this company is not me. It's, it's, it's, my business partner is a degree in corporate finance. He is an artist with anything Excel. He can make, excel, do things that the developers didn't even think about. So, so we just did for, for. A, a client that has engaged us a, a review of five different AV vehicles. And, and, and because of that, I had to study the Waymo, um, CapEx on a, taking a regular factory. Jaguar, Jaguar, um, and putting all of their AV on it and it, and it, and it was about 165,000. Now the funny thing is Waymo is now shifting and, and, and it's been public. Uh, and Waymo's not a client, but Waymo is now experi experimenting in Phoenix with the Zeke, which is an a Chinese SUV with seating where we're facing each other inside the vehicle, similar to the Zoox unit.

Ashwini Anburajan: 35:07

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 35:08

That unit comes out of the factory at$54,000 and they put$25,000 of AV equipment on it. It's an$80,000 build now. Uh, compared to 165, I mean, they've cut it in half. Where is it gonna be three to five years from now? I think that, I think that at some point they're gonna get to be commonplace and perhaps, you know, be is even as what we're paying for passenger cars now, it'll be AV equipped.

Ashwini Anburajan: 35:37

Right.

Ken Lucci: 35:39

So do you follow anything? Do you follow the a AV that's going on in China right now

Ashwini Anburajan: 35:45

Yeah, I read about, um, I believe it was, I was reading more about Grab, because they did the partnership in Singapore, but I'm blanking on the name of the company and I can't remember if it was a Chinese company or not.

Ken Lucci: 35:59

So, um, JP Morgan and Goldman did a fantastic job at, at dissecting the current market in China. There are 30,000 abs. In the top, in the top six cities. Don't ask me what the top six cities are, but in the top six cities, in the fun, the, the, what got me is they converted the autonomous vehicle Industry over there is huge. They've converted companies that used to make cell phones that are five football fields long, and they're pushing out these avs and, and we've got a re report coming out on AV similar to that, that we'll share, but Each vehicle generates$30,000 in revenue, and Goldman and JP fix the gross profit margin, which is where I live at, at approaching 50%. Now you can put a, you put a car and a driver together in a in and you do airport service. You're lucky to make 35% gross. We have the data on 280 of the biggest companies, or 280 companies, 35 gross. You're humming along at 35 gross, bigger equipment, you make more money. But my, my point is China is in, in the case of TNCs, we were at in the ride shares. We were at the epicenter. I don't think we're the epicenter of avs. I think it's China is the epicenter. totally. so talk to us a little bit about your expansion plans and do you, which, where are you gonna expand next?

Ashwini Anburajan: 37:33

so we have really focused on. Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Africa, Eastern Western Ghana, South Africa, Kenya. Um, we're looking really strongly. We've done a lot of work in the Emirates now, uh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai. Um, we've started to expand. India has been a big market for us the entire time. Um, very quietly grown and just huge organic growth there. And, uh, now we're very consciously like, kind of actually targeting marketing spend into Singapore, um, and Southeast Asia.

Ken Lucci: 38:10

a lot of autonomous coming in Southeast

Ashwini Anburajan: 38:12

And I think that these markets, you know, us, we, we just think about ourselves a lot, but these markets are huge. Right. Um, we are obviously looking at latam, but we haven't put as much effort into it, um, as. You know,'cause I, I just don't find it as, as competitive and large, as some of the other, these other markets. But we're spending a lot of money and time there. We're looking for new providers. There are new companies rolling out, there's a lot of investment happening. Um, where there, you know, there's an interest in bringing AVS onto, onto platforms. I just talked to a new company that's gonna roll out in Zimbabwe and South Africa. That's looking to acquire avs, that's looking to acquire drivers and wants to create a new, a new rideshare service like transportation is a need. We're more mobile than ever. The populations of these countries are more mobile than ever, and it doesn't surprise me that China's like the first. I mean, they've been the first in a lot of things around, um, technology. You know, if you, if you go into, into these cities and for better or for worse regulation may or may not be hindering that, that technology growth. I think it's great that we're being hyper careful and safe in the US but we often do things at a much higher cost than we do internationally. I went to business school at Cambridge in the uk and they had a term that they would use there called Jaga, right? And it's the idea that you have fewer resources. So you can't build the way the Western world builds. You have to build in a more nimble, faster way and leap to the next solution. Right? And I think that that's what's happening in these markets. So even you brought up Zoox. I don't, is it Zoox or is it Zoox? I always call it Zoox, but.

Ken Lucci: 39:52

we, yeah, I, okay, so Zeke is the Chinese AV manufacturer that Waymo is using and that's SUV vs. Being, being tested in Phoenix. I call it Zoo X. You're probably right, it's probably zoo's. Zoo's owned by Amazon. They built a huge manufacturing facility to build these vehicles.

Ashwini Anburajan: 40:15

Right.

Ken Lucci: 40:16

In California in Silicon Valley, and they've deployed the vehicles in Las Vegas. Now, I don't expect you to know this, but the chauffeur driven limo show is in Las Vegas every year. This is the first year we're going to go there, and we are gonna see those autonomous

Ashwini Anburajan: 40:32

Right, and going back and forth across, across the

Ken Lucci: 40:34

Right?

Ashwini Anburajan: 40:36

I brought up the car because like, you know, like it's literally like, it's going back and forth, right? It's just like literally going like, like this

Ken Lucci: 40:42

back. There's no front.

Ashwini Anburajan: 40:44

There's no front. There's no steering wheel, there's all these things, right? And that's like, that's the idea. Like we're we the, when you look in a Waymo, it's built like a traditional car. To a degree, and the idea of what these things will look like, how many people they can take, the w the ways that they'll move. I think a lot of that is like influx. And as we think about urban or urban, rural and like, like, you know, semi-urban environments globally, the types of cars that will succeed there are, you know, we just don't know. And I would tell you, having taken a mini bus in South Africa, like. Might as well be in an autonomous vehicle. Like, you know, if, you know, like what that, what that is, it's like, you know, you hop on, it's a private ride, there's like a bunch of people packed in, you know, like transportation is, is quite messy all over the world. people ride it in large numbers together. And if you're starting to improve that experience and autonomize it, there's, I mean it's, it's, it is a more than a trillion dollar opportunity, right? Like, you know, I think. It's, uh, it's huge and I think that a lot of cars are coming out and they're gonna be doing them far cheaper outside the us

Ken Lucci: 41:56

Yes. And let's face it, when you're talking about China, you're talking about the fact that the government, the regulatory is, is. You know, embedded with the manufacturing. So they're going to have a competitive advantage, not waiting. I was waiting for regulatory to catch up. very good friend of mine and I'd love to introduce him if, if you don't know him, is a gentleman named Matt Dawes. And Matt Doz is the, basically he is the president of the Transportation Re Regulators Association. He was a vice mayor in New York City, I think under Giuliani, but he was also the commissioner of Thet, the taxi authority, the TLC and his Wendell Marks the legal, his, his law firm. They're the ones that basically do most of the legal transportation, legal work. And he said to me. You know, we are just so far behind on the regulatory. We've not caught up. I was fascinated to see that the, that, I think it was Tesla got from the federal government basically a, a permit to go from the National Highway Safety Council, or whatever it is, and I, I should have it here, but they were given the green light to, to test autonomous vehicles pretty much anywhere they wanted.

Ashwini Anburajan: 43:16

I mean.

Ken Lucci: 43:18

So, so think about what you said when the par, when we look at that parallel, there was a perfect parallel between AI and av, and it's moving at that speed and the stakeholders are gonna continue to push it. And I think with safety as the forefront. What do you think it looks like in five years? I mean, uh, Uber said 6,000 of these AV premium units are going to be deployed in the United States in 2026. They've committed to 20,000 of these units. I mean, shoot, they gave lucid 300 million. They gave neuro 300 million, and they committed to buy 20,000 of these units. What do you think New York looks like? If you, if you, if you drill down and you say there's 14,000 yellow cabs there now, what do you think happens in five years?

Ashwini Anburajan: 44:12

I mean, I think we're, I think you see it in San Francisco. Everywhere I look, you see a Waymo or a Zoox, right? And the Zoox, obviously, they're just, they're testing right now, but you see the Waymo cars everywhere. Um, harder to spot like a Uber or Lyft to be sure. But the point being is that the, the nature of transportation has shifted and I think that in areas like New York, I think what we're gonna see is. A return to the pre pandemic days, uh, where via was like a really popular option as a public car, right? It's become, now it does like more government transport, but people used to love it, right? Because it was a pooled ride. They'd top in.

Ken Lucci: 44:55

is for the audience that

Ashwini Anburajan: 44:56

Oh, via was another ride share company, but it did pooled rides, so it was a minivan, right? And you could get in you very cheap. I don't even, I mean, it was like, what, four bucks to go downtown? It was very little money. You could pop in, it took you a little bit longer to get where you needed to go. It only operated in Manhattan. Um, but it allowed people to hop on and hop off. Uh, with Great East and they had really great mapping software so they could get you to where you needed to go, and multiple people would be in the ride. And I think that we're gonna see, start seeing some smaller transportation options like that. I think the other things that, you know, they're talking a lot about buses and bus routes in New York right now, the idea that, you know, there are major places to work that are well outside of Manhattan that are in the outer boroughs. And it takes a lot of work for people to get there. And I think that. Starting to see these types of autonomous vehicles deployed to take, you know, six passengers at a time, eight passengers at a time, 10 passengers at a time. I think you'll start to see, you know, my prediction is that, of course we'll have the individual rides and the individual cars as, as we think of rideshare now. But I think you're gonna see a lot more pooling and the idea of 3, 4, 5, 6 people in a car, in a, or in a minivan or whatever, whatever it's gonna look like.

Ken Lucci: 46:15

And the last mile from From transit stations to downtown. From downtown to Corporate campuses. I mean, that's another use case that we're working on now. Is because we have a lot of clients in the corporate shuttle space and there's a, an AV shuttle company whose name shall, you know, leave it out. But they said to us, build us a model for 20 of these units that are gonna go from the public transit station here, here, and here. And we just built it, built it out where there's a cost per mile repair, maintenance, supervision, cleaning, et cetera, et cetera. So you're right. The other use case I think you're gonna see even sooner is closed campus. and even behind the scenes at airport, because I'm getting wind, that they don't like all those people, you know, out in the tarmac, can we really, can we do something with avs?

Ashwini Anburajan: 47:10

Right, right.

Ken Lucci: 47:12

but I think it, I think w what we're saying is, you know, the, there's one thing to call, and I hate this term, this robo taxi. Okay. And I'm coining a term that I frankly hope will be on my Wikipedia page. Right. And not the one I, if I pay for one, I mean a real one.

Ashwini Anburajan: 47:28

Okay.

Ken Lucci: 47:29

It to me, it's autonomous delivery. Okay. It's autonomous mobility. Right. See, we come from the, the chauffeur space. The, origin word is livery from the, from the UK and Right. But, but when people say Robo Taxii, our industry on the lu on the luxury side, or the executive transportation or even group and meeting will say, that doesn't apply to me. And, and I say to them, guys, it's all fun and games until you see the first RFP that says. Give us a price for AV shuttles on our campus, for our corporate to go for, for our employees employee shuttle. So, I'm with you. On one use case is replacement of the TNC driver or the taxi driver. I think that the, this is AV is the death nail to taxi, I think. I think it is.

Ashwini Anburajan: 48:25

I, I, you know, I don't, it's, it, this conference I was at on Wednesday, um, there was a lot of like water drivers gonna do next, right? They're like, they can be in maintenance, they can be this. And there was one guy, uh, from Tower Mobility and he said, these aren't gig jobs to maintain a fleet. You have to have reliable workforce that shows up at a certain time and leaves at a certain

Ken Lucci: 48:48

Oh God. I mean, no question. And the more pa and the vehicles with the more passenger capacity, you go over 16, uh, they're gonna, somebody's gonna. Send me an email. It's either 15 or 16. They, it's all DOT certification and they're absolutely right. That's where we, we built out our use cases where you have the maintenance staff, you have the detailers, you have, you know, you have management, you have the logistics people. The driver is about 35, 30 to 35% of the cost. In, in, in, by reservation chauffeur. And I know on the Rideshare side, you know, they try to, the rideshare co companies try to keep 70%, et cetera. Um, I do wanna touch a, I wanna touch a third rail and, and, I'm gonna do it. I, I have a, I have a problem with the rideshare companies. Let's leave names out of it. I, I, I believe that the rideshare companies at certain times have been guilty of worker exploitation. And they exploit some of the, the, the weakest people in our society that are not perhaps, you know, ling English is their second language and they, they may be, their skillset isn't that, and it bothers me that there's, that theres been such a problem that for them to make a living wage, meaning I've spent this part of my career over the past seven years teaching operators. Here's your cost of goods. This is what it takes to turn the key. This is what your labor cost is. This is what your gross margin is. And I, I, it bothers me immensely, um, to, to see advertisements for rideshare companies. And they've, they've quelled now, but back then, you can earn, you can make$40 an hour. No, you can't. That's your gross. That's not what you keep. Let me teach you what, let me teach you. What you're actually going to keep. How does ob, how does the price transparency impact the driver?

Ashwini Anburajan: 50:54

You know, it's funny, I, I was speaking of this conference I was at, they were talking about the impact on the driver and the idea drill drivers can have these different types of jobs and, you know, but we know that driver earnings have gone down. Driver earnings have gone down prior to AV. And that's from New York City, TLC data. Like, you know, the, if you go to the TLC, you can download data, um, and you can see it, you can see it through companies like GridWise and their, their reports, et cetera. So

Ken Lucci: 51:20

And they're really solid reports. They're

Ashwini Anburajan: 51:22

Yeah, I mean, the, the earnings are there, you can see that driver earnings have, have gone down, while prices on consumers have, have gone up. Right. Because, you know, there's a push towards profitability as, as any company has a responsibility to do to its shareholders. But I would also say though that I think that the big difference here as we think about avs is that it speaks to a larger like technology disruption. And it's a question of like, where do people go in terms of the types of jobs they have and what they're, what they're doing. And I think that the big question we have and has not been answered for is that like, you know, driving is one of the biggest occupations in the United States and globally, honestly. Like, you know, and the ripple effect is not just ride share drivers, it's truck drivers, it's all kinds, all kinds of other, other drivers overall. Um, I do think that, you know, when we think about margins and stuff, like there was a time when driving for Uber and Lyft really was a profitable exercise, right? But the point is the maintenance of the car and all the things and the cost of inflation and everything else has, has

Ken Lucci: 52:30

insur and the insurance, which is insurance, a huge issue. Which we, we could spend a day talking about the impact of avs on insurance. Some of, you know, we have a lot of people that we talked to who are, you know, I just had, um, uh, the president in one of the largest, four higher insurance companies on last week, and the verdict is still out because insurance companies exist on data. They exist on actuary, and there's none. On autonomous except for what the autonomous, and he asked me, he said, you know, have you looked at the data? I said, it's pretty damn solid. Me, even though it is so much in conjunction with Waymo, is the one that put the one I'm talking about. It ain't fudged. It's safe. It's safe. So they, they've gotta grapple with that. I do think that getting back to the drivers. I, I don't like the gig economy. I don't, I, it doesn't feed into the social safety net. It, to me it is, in some cases, it's intellectually dishonest to say to someone, use your asset, by the way, an ever depreciating asset and you are going to make, okay. And then what happens is they try it for 90 days, they try it for 12 months, and at the end of 12 months, they're upside down on their vehicle. So I'm not really unhappy to see. I think that there will be, I think that there will, will be a shift, obviously, and those drivers won't go destitute, but they'll go do other things just like ai. We're gonna have to

Ashwini Anburajan: 54:08

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 54:09

I wanna end with. How do we find, if I'm a consumer, where do I go to download the Obie app? You've done a great job talking about the value. Talk to us about, how do we get on the Obie app

Ashwini Anburajan: 54:23

So it's, it's in the Google Play Store. It's in the app store. You can download it, sign up. It's super easy. Um, test it out, give it a try. Next time you're at the airport and you're thinking of taking a ride share or a taxi, it's a good place to call it and use it, uh, to compare prices and, and airports in particular is where you're gonna see the greatest savings. Uh, more so, and then if you're traveling outside the US in particular, um. It's a great option. You know, most American travelers just use Uber, but there's a lot of cheaper options out there if you're um, if you're using our app,

Ken Lucci: 54:58

An ever changing landscape every single day. And what I love about Obie is the, is the value prop of why wouldn't I do this? There's no reason not to do this. Right, right. And you know what, I'm just gonna throw it out there. I think you're in a position that you're gonna eventually, you're gonna keep these guys, you're gonna keep'em all honest. They're gonna, I do want to, and ask one question, are you interested in having the premium black cars on there? And, and

Ashwini Anburajan: 55:26

We are, we are, we would love to connect with black car companies that would like to be on our platform, especially if you have your own app.

Ken Lucci: 55:34

and, and, you know, you are doing by reservation, a little bit more of a guarantee that the vehicle's gonna be there. So Ash. E Ann Baron, I apologize. From ob, which is ride ob.com. Thank you so much. I know how busy you are. E every time I connect with you, you're at a different city. I really appreciate you coming on. I have a feeling it's not gonna be the last time. So thank you so much for your time. And listen, have a great restful weekend and let's stay in touch.

Ashwini Anburajan: 56:07

Thank

Ken Lucci: 56:07

Thank you.

Ashwini Anburajan: 56:08

it.

56:09

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.