Joe Moye  0:00  

b specializes in the deployment and management of these mobility networks which utilize shared electric autonomous shuttles a seat eight to 10 passengers are designed to do these you know one to two mile type routes and services to connect in the case of the tradition community very end various ends of the property in residential areas into the business districts into the retail districts and things of that nature. So these these live work play type communities is is being developed at tradition kind of represent great use cases for residents, businesses and visitors.

Announcer  0:42  

Welcome to CRE PN Radio for influential commercial real estate professionals who work with investors buyers and sellers of commercial real estate coast to coast whether you’re an investor, broker, lender, property manager, attorney or accountant we are here to learn from the experts

J Darrin Gross  1:08  

Welcome to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks CRE PN Radio. Thanks for joining us. My name is J. Darrin Gross. This podcast focused on commercial real estate investment and risk management strategies. Weekly we have conversations with commercial real estate investors and professionals who provide their experience and insight to help you grow your real estate portfolio. 

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Today my guests are Joe Moye and Dan Grosswald. Joe is the CEO and leads Beeps efforts in the safe testing of electric autonomous vehicles to serve the needs of public and private communities. And Dan Grosswald is the president of Mattamy Homes, and he oversees homebuilding and Land Acquisition Operations in southeast Florida. And in just a minute, we’re going to speak with Joe Moye and Dan Grosswald about how Mattamy is creating a blueprint of communities of the futures with Beeps autonomous shuttle network woven into their tradition community in Port Lucie, Port St. Lucie, providing equal access to mobility, easy access for shopping, groceries, and more. 

And, but first, a quick reminder, if you like our show, CRE PN Radio, there are a couple of things you can do to help us out. You can like, share and subscribe. And as always, we encourage you to leave a comment. We’d love to hear from our listeners. Also, if you want to see how handsome Our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel. You can find this on YouTube at Commercial Real Estate Pro Network. And while you’re there, please subscribe. With that, I want to welcome my guest, Joe Moye and Dan Grosswald. Welcome to CRE PN Radio.

Dan Grosswald  3:27  

Thanks for having us. 

Joe Moye  3:29  

Yeah, appreciate the opportunity.

J Darrin Gross  3:31  

Well, I am really excited to talk to you. I’m looking forward to our conversation. But before we get started, if each of you could take just a minute and share with us a little bit about your background. Well,

Dan Grosswald  3:46  

I’m Dan Grosswald, as you said President of the Southeast Florida Division for Mattammy Homes. And I’ve been in the home building business mostly in Florida for the past 30 years, worked for various large homebuilding companies, developing communities and homes throughout the state of Florida and the Southeast.

Joe Moye  4:11  

And Darrin, Joe Moye, CEO of Beep and I guess I’m a serial technology entrepreneur, if I had to describe myself in one sentence, I’ve been involved in both the investment side the operate side of startup technology companies for the better part of the last two decades. We started beat five years ago, really on the thesis of being able to get out in front of the wave of these autonomous shared electric platforms that change the way we move people and provide an alternative means of transportation in public and private communities and most specifically, in these first mile last mile use cases where, you know, we have to provide incremental arterial routes to connect people to goods and services in areas like that. addition community at Madami homes.

J Darrin Gross  5:04  

Got it? Well, I said, I’m excited to talk to you guys and doing a little bit of research and just kind of thinking through some of the challenges that you guys face and solve and work through. It’s, I’m looking forward to our conversation. And I guess the the the first thing I was thinking first start with the vehicle, but actually, I’m thinking more about the community. So I’ll start with you, Dan. With the community, can you tell us a little bit about the, the size and scope of the communities that you’re developing? And kind of little bit of the back or I guess, kind of the, you know, just a little description of what what makes up the community that you develop?

Dan Grosswald  5:48  

Well, we have, you know, communities all across North America, were founded out of Toronto, Canada, but we have a US operation that runs from Dallas, Phoenix, Tucson, and to the Carolinas and all through Florida. In South Florida, we have multiple communities. Tradition is really our flagship community. It’s a 20 year old community that fell into bankruptcy in the downturn. And Mattamy bought it in 2018. And that was about 25% of it was developed as a very complex deal because of the debt structures that were in place with CDD bonds and other obligations that it’s actually three dri eyes. Three major plan developments that are are one, and as I said, was partially built. And there’s about 8200 acres combined. There are ultimately almost 18,000 homes there. There’s 22 million square feet of industrial and office space. There’s apartments along with the residential and there’s a lot going on there. There’s two, two, turnpike i 95. interchanges, they’re a massive network of roads and trails.

J Darrin Gross  7:08  

Got it? And you said it was 25% developed before you guys took over?

Dan Grosswald  7:12  

Yes. The previous developer, you know, fell bankrupt. And so we when we got there, we had still a very large community, but some of it had already been their shopping center, was there a power center, and a couple 1000 homes were in place there

J Darrin Gross  7:30  

Got it. And you said eight-two hundred acres is that right?

Dan Grosswald  7:35  

Eight-two hundred acres, there’s 800 acres of open space and parks, and a lot of homes and commercial development there.

J Darrin Gross  7:42  

Got it.  And I’m just curious, since Beep deals with the autonomous vehicles, how many miles of roads do you have in 8200 acres? And traditionally,

Dan Grosswald  7:56  

You know, I don’t know how many miles I know that we built 15 miles just last year and expanding their community from one end to the other. And as far as the autonomous shuttle is concerned, we’re building a 20 mile long network of trail system that largely travels on

J Darrin Gross  8:17  

And is it independent of the roadway then is it its own little path or?

Dan Grosswald  8:22  

That’s that’s the ultimate goal for the most part. The way we’ve done it way Madam has done it in tradition is that we’re creating a separate trail network with a pathway specially designated just for the autonomous shuttle. 

J Darrin Gross  8:38  

Got it.  And Joe, if you could describe a little bit about Beep and then the vehicle that you guys are deploying in the Tradition development.

Joe Moye  8:49  

Yeah, so as I mentioned at the onset here be specializes in the deployment and management of these mobility networks which utilize shared electric autonomous shuttles a seat eight to 10 passengers are designed to do these you know, one to two mile type routes and services to connect in the case of the Tradition community very end various ends of the property in residential areas into the business districts into the retail districts and things of that nature. So these these live work play type communities is is being developed at tradition kind of represent great use cases for residents, businesses and visitors. The the vehicle itself today operates at about 12 to 13 miles an hour. You know covers a range of about you know two to three miles in distance. You know, as far as kind of the furthest routes that we we serve. The batteries which are provided as these vehicles are electric can operate in about a five to six hour service before being recharged. And the whole concept is to take these platforms and as Dan described to build a mobility network that gives people an alternative to their personal transportation and, more importantly, provides access and mobility options for people that don’t have personal transportation or have difficulties getting out of the home.

J Darrin Gross  10:28  

Got it? In the use of the the the autonomous vehicles, is there a regular route that they travel like a regular city bus? Or is it more of like an app and somebody says I need to get from point A to point B and the vehicle shows up to take them there?

Joe Moye  10:46  

Yeah, so it’s a great question. The answer is all of the above. So one of the things that’s unique about these technologies, and I know we’re going to talk a little bit about, you know, the importance of risk and safety, as it relates to the deployment of these vehicles, is having a, you know, geo fenced area or a fixed route type service is a key component of where the technology is today, we have kind of virtual rails that the vehicle travels on, but it doesn’t mean it needs to be just a trolley car loop. We can connect routes and redeploy assets into different directions, and provide as you point out the flexibility of on demand services. So being able to hail a ride at a particular stop, you know, to get where you want to go. It’s not come to my driveway and take me anywhere I want to go. But Mattamy has designed a very convenient network of, of shuttle stops where it’s very convenient for, you know, the residents and visitors in the area to access the services.

J Darrin Gross  11:48  

Got it.  And Dan, I’m just curious, from from Mattamy’s point of view, what what were some of the thoughts and bringing in the autonomous vehicles to service the community.

Dan Grosswald  12:04  

When we acquired the property, which is located in the city of Port St. Lucie in South Florida, you know, there’s 70,000, homesites approved for development in that area. And it’s one of the fastest growing areas in the country, very, very popular for people relocating from the northeast and other parts of Florida, it’s a really affordable place to live. But in positioning our community, we want to differentiate it from all the rest of the 70,000 Lots, we wanted to make a special place, you know, Mattamy has a commitment to community and making it a great place to live and making a positive impact there. And also sustainability is one of our core values. So putting all these things together, the differentiation, the sense of community and sustainability, it was really just a perfect fit to make Tradition, a really special place. And that’s what attracted us to Beep.

J Darrin Gross  13:05  

So in, because one of the other things is it has a development as opposed to like a quote city where you’d have the I’m assuming a city bus? I don’t know if that’s something that the city has available or not. But is there any error? I guess, first of all, I guess the question is, does the city have its own city bus system or any kind of a public transit,

Dan Grosswald  13:31  

There’s public transit, you know, it’s not very robust, and for the western part of the city, and it covers like a wider area, you know, we’re trying to provide a smaller network that connects each one of our communities within the master plan community, to the downtown and to each other and to a network of parks we have there. So we’re able to more specifically provide transportation, and the ease of transportation in and out without using your car within the community. So it’s more of kind of a micro last mile transportation system than a broad overarching bus system that goes across the whole city.

Joe Moye  14:13  

Yeah, I’ve I could add in, I think one of the most important aspects of what we’re doing together is, you know, the biggest gap that we have in our country and transportation is this micro transit arena that we’re talking about, you can take a bus into downtown, you pick the city, and yeah, if you happens to be, you know, New York or the other large metropolitan areas, you may be able to use a subway or another means of getting around. But in most cities and in most communities, you know, in the case of of Dan’s community, I think it’s 17 square miles or 18 square miles. Think about taking a bus to get near the community and then how do you get to your job on the other side of that community. So up A component of this is providing these arterial services, as I call them, in Dan’s case to connect residents and make, you know, the whole area, much more eco friendly and convenient from a mobility perspective. But it’s also how do people, you know, that may come from outside the community, leverage that network as well to access the various goods and services, including, you know, a major health center that is there on their property, the Cleveland Clinic, so a lot of lot of importance, I think, in looking at the realities that large bus services are not terribly convenient many of these scenarios and frankly, don’t navigate some of these roadways very safely and very effectively.

J Darrin Gross  15:50  

Yeah, no, I appreciate you. You shouldn’t line on that. Because I just, I was trying to think, Okay, how does this compare and contrast to what one might think of as a traditional, you know, transit system? And just kind of that Micro Focus? I appreciate that. So on as far as the adoption, acceptance kind of use within the community. Dan, can you speak to how the community has been, how they’ve responded to the use or the, the vehicles in the community?

Dan Grosswald  16:29  

Well, I go a little bit beyond that. First, you know, we introduced the idea to the City Council, and the police department, the fire department, you know, a lot of the governmental agencies there, and they embraced it wholeheartedly. The city of Port St. Lucie is pretty progressive in terms of trying to develop a better transportation system. So we started with them. And they were very accepting of it. And as you know, we’ve slowly deployed the network. And in the first phases, we circled the commercial areas, there’s a very large commercial area in the center for shopping and dining, and, you know, personal services. So we use it in there first, and it was immediately adopted, we’ve done a lot of programs to introduce it and explain it to the residents. And it’s present in all our community events. And now we’re deploying it into individual communities as they open up. And the usage has been very strong and consistent. You know, the only thing that really affects it is sometimes weather or holidays or things like that, but especially during the weekends and the evening, early evenings and things like that people love to use it to go downtown or to go shopping or go to the dentist. So it’s been really pretty easy. Of course, you know, there’s always a few naysayers here and there, but I’m sure that happened when the horse and buggy was introduced in the car. And, but that’s something you face, but by and large, it’s very widely accepted and embraced by the community.

J Darrin Gross  18:07  

That’s great. I’m curious how how, if somebody is writing, is there a fee they pay to get on? Or is it? How’s the the fee structure?

Dan Grosswald  18:19  

Well, that’s a good, that’s a very good question. So the Tradition as a series of CDDs, community development districts, so the CDD, and this will also lead into some of your risk questions, but the CDD owns and operates the vehicles or leases on but they own and operate the system. So people pay CDD Fees through their tax bill. And we fund that the whole system through the CDD. So they get to really write it for free. And that would be open to anybody within the county, by law. That’s great.

J Darrin Gross  19:02  

And, and maybe this is more for Joe, on the vehicle itself of understand there’s no there’s no driver on the vehicles that correct?

Joe Moye  19:13  

That’s correct. We do have attendents on board the vehicles today because they’re this particular platform is overseen by the US Department of Transportation, they have a program to deploy these types of initiatives, like we’re doing it at tradition. And so they do require an attendant on board who can take over in the case of the need to manually intervene for any reason, is there to educate and inform people on the use of the technology. So I think it’s safe to say that if if a driverless vehicle pulled up in your driveway, you know, you’d probably want to learn a little bit about it before you jumped on it and and took it anywhere. And so it is an education process and adoption process and A big piece of kind of what the future holds is to shift those attendance to virtual attendance so that they will be remote instead of on the vehicle, and providing, you know, the ability to communicate with passengers. If there’s, you know, God forbid a medical incident or some type of safety incident, you want to make sure somebody can immediately, you know, engage dispatch, help, Dan mentioned the importance of the first responders and how you they were integrated into this process to train them on the vehicles and how they will operate in the community. So, so yeah, they are operating in driverless state, if you will, but there is an attendant on board today as part of the transition to kind of more of the human in the loop model.

J Darrin Gross  20:53  

And how long have has the the technology that you guys are using? Is it a particular brand of vehicle? I mean, Beep, you don’t manufacture the US? Is that correct? Or is that

Dan Grosswald  21:05  

That’s correct. We don’t we don’t manufacture the vehicles themselves. We’ve got multiple suppliers. This particular vehicle is from France. The brand has called NaVi they were actually recently acquired by a firm called Kosong. In France, as well, large industrial equipment manufacturer, but so we import those vehicles. And then like I said, we operate them under these US DOT guid guidelines.

J Darrin Gross  21:35  

And how long has the technology? I mean, the the autonomous vehicles, how long have they been around?

Joe Moye  21:39  

These vehicles have been around for about seven years. We’ve been operating in, in Tradition, about three years now a little bit over two plus years. And we’ve been operating in other locations for for four years since we founded the company. But the vehicles themselves were operating in Europe a few years before we brought them to the US market.

J Darrin Gross  22:07  

And given the the nature of the vehicle, I think you mentioned they travel about 12 miles an hour tend to call is kind of the rate of speed. Is that right? That’s correct. I’m just curious, is there a number of incidents? Or can you I mean, I’m just trying to think of what would be the incident where human would have to get involved, I could see the the interaction with the riders or the passengers not understanding maybe what, you know, what is it? Or what are we doing here kind of thing. But but as far as the operation is, is had been flawless? or have there been any issues?

Joe Moye  22:44  

It operates, it operates very effectively in autonomous mode. So the technology itself is, you know, has been advanced and matured over the years, I will say that, you know, some things that are coming in the next generation vehicles, like obstacle avoidance is a good example. You know, where do we have challenges today, you know, we’ve got prescribed shuttle stops, and sometimes you’ll pull up and there’ll be a FedEx truck, and your shuttle stop? Well, the vehicle itself doesn’t maneuver around that and find another location to stop. That’s a simple, but, you know, not an uncommon example of where, you know, you need to take over brief manual control of the vehicle. And those are, although they sound very simple, those are the types of things that are being solved for as it relates to how would you do that, you know, without an attendant on board in the future, and that is simply initiate a command remotely that, hey, it’s safe to maneuver around that vehicle, or, you know, provide what type whatever type of approval it needs to make, take a particular action. So, probably the most common scenario we see is where, you know, something takes up its space. I can see that.

J Darrin Gross  24:06  

As far as the the expected updates, or the the future updates that you’re expecting, are those software in nature, or is there is it a reconfiguration of the hardware,

Joe Moye  24:19  

it’s both so there’s, you know, the next generation vehicles, which will be released in 2025. So, a couple of short years from now, you know, there’ll be much more industrial grade as far as kind of an automotive type platform although in the shuttle form factor that will be able to operate at higher speeds will you know, have advanced technology in the vehicle itself and the drive by wire and brake by wire type components, which are really important to make that you know, the starting and stopping the vehicle much more human like, you know, and and then secondly on the software front And the external technology, you know, it’s, you’ve really got two competing forces in autonomy. Right now you have vision technologies, which are all camera based, much like your adaptive cruise control on a vehicle you may have today. And then you have sensor based technologies that a lidar in particular, which which emits an image and creates a three dimensional view of everything around it today, these vehicles are purely sensor based in the next generation, they’re going to be a combined sensor and camera base, which will dramatically advance its ability to operate in these higher speed more complex scenarios. And that’s been a big kind of piece of what’s been advancing over the last several years with with a couple of our key partners.

J Darrin Gross  25:51  

In Dan, as far as the the investment in the vehicles, is there a I guess this could have been for either one of you guys, but I just think with Danby in the community, the the one that bought the the vehicles, is there, what’s the expectancy? Life expectancy? Or do you? Do you have like a replacement? sense of how how long before you have to replace the vehicles? Is there a thought process on that, or?

Dan Grosswald  26:22  

Well, we have, I think, a life expectancy of seven to 10 years, but the technology evolves faster than that. So what we’re more interested in is having, keeping up with a trend and improving the service and the quality of the service and the cost of the service. And that’s one of the great things about working with beep is that, you know, when our agreement, they they agreed to help us provide the latest technology, regardless of the lifecycle of the vehicle.

Joe Moye  26:50  

And that’s, that’s a really important point. Because if, if you look at like the, you know, FTA guidelines for useful life of public vehicles, you know, a shuttle form factor or a van form factor is typically a five to seven year useful life. And, to Dan’s point, I mean, every, every three years, we envision a refresh of the the sensor stack, and the camera stack, potentially, software upgrades, no different than any other application today, you’re going to get those updates pushed, often and regularly. So that will continually stay up stay updated. But the big thing is going to be you know, do we want to get into an expanded operating domain and need to upgrade the center stack to, you know, what we all know will be cheaper and better technology three years from now, it’s kind of Moore’s law, in effect.

J Darrin Gross  27:49  

Yeah. So what have been some of the biggest challenges in deploying the the technology and, and going into vehicles in the community?

Dan Grosswald  28:02  

Well, for us, really, the biggest challenge is not the technology, but building the infrastructure, because it’s different. And the sometimes the city has trouble understanding the meaning of the infrastructure that we’re building, you know, they’re trying to apply principles and rules that for roads or pathways that don’t necessarily apply to the vehicle. So the approval process has been very difficult at times, and honestly, difficult, time consuming, and a lot of explaining and understanding, teaching and understanding with the cities. So really, the slowest or most difficult part is getting the infrastructure bill, you know, allow the vehicle to travel off road, within tradition.

Joe Moye  28:50  

And I would just add, you know, it’s, you know, as these vehicles evolve, and continue to, you know, be more broadly utilized in scenarios, like we’re talking about here. And there’s a, there’s a big regulatory and legislative set of actions that need to happen. I mean, our, you know, the standards in our country, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, in particular, weren’t written for autonomous vehicles, they were written for driven vehicles. And so for decade old regulation is governing, you know, these new technologies. And there’s, we spend a lot of time both educating and lobbying in Washington around this regulatory reform, and we’re seeing some progress for certain. But you know, our country has always been the leaders in these new transformative technologies. And this is one where, you know, we’re falling behind other parts of the world as far as attracting those partners here to US soil because we’ve been a little slow on the regular The toy front.

Dan Grosswald  30:01  

Yeah, we really are early adopters of the technology. I think we’re the only users of autonomous shuttles in South Florida at the moment, although there are several others within the state. But it just shows you that it’s not really widely recognized or known or understood from a approval process in the in the local area of approvals.

J Darrin Gross  30:25  

Yeah, I’m kind of curious, I would think that this is becoming more well known and recognize you guys are probably receiving a lot of attention from other communities looking to adopt the, the technology or the use of it is that are you finding that to be the case? Right?

Dan Grosswald  30:41  

Yes, we, you know, we get a lot of interest from other developers wanting to see it. And we also get a lot of interest from Uli Urban Land Institute and universities, we’ve had multiple visits from different university University of Miami FAU, where they, you know, have these people learning, discipline or planning or architecture, or those types of things, and they want to come visit and see it. So we’ve had a tremendous amount of people come and visit, see it an operation, I’m trying to learn and understand how this works. No.

J Darrin Gross  31:19  

And as far as the the routes, I get kind of a gate around the community kind of thing, where I’m assuming the vehicle wouldn’t necessarily transfer beyond that or go beyond that. Is there a, is it all just programmed in there on the on the the the route that it travels? Or is there? I mean, we talked about I guess there’s both the schedule, and then the the opportunity to like, call the vehicle to pick you up at a certain point. But how are you? How is it been used in the community? Is it just basically there’s a red shuttle and and travels around the community? Or is it? Are there specific routes that are travels? Or how many? How many vehicles do you have currently, in your fleet, I guess would be maybe a starting point.

Joe Moye  32:06  

Yes, so So Mattamy has six vehicles operating three routes today, they’ve got two additional routes that they’ll be expanding to, in fact, launching one later this fall, you made a comment. And that is probably important to point out because what’s unique about what Madami has done at tradition is they actually exit the community and go to a retail area, across the road from the community. So it’s not just about getting to our town center and, and getting to the amenities within tradition itself, they actually connect to a property they don’t own, which, you know, is an important, I think piece of what we talked about the form of extending these mobility options. But, but they’ve got six shuttles operating across three routes today. They are, you know, typically running certain hours of operation, with the ability to, you know, utilize through an app and on demand. So it’s not just, if you miss the shuttle at 315, you have to wait, you know, for 30 minutes until it gets back, you can pay on the shuttle to know that you’re there waiting. So those types of, of technologies and more convenience and demand planning type things that you want to do, you know, it’s there’s certain hours of the day where, you know, one route is highly highly utilized, people want to get into the town center for dinner. So looking at those demand profiles and adjusting the routes and the timetables, based on when the the ridership wants to utilize the service is an important piece of kind of the continuous improvement.

Dan Grosswald  33:55  

Another thing that we like to do so we have a very robust entertainment and cultural activities in the town center. And tradition has a really beautiful downtown center, kind of like old fashioned southern square with a big grassy area in it. And we have events here almost every weekend. So another thing we like to do with the shuttles is we call it like a caravan where if we know we’re having a special event, we can line up the shuttles and bring them from into certain areas to service the event. Because parking is always at a premium at the highest peak times. And the shuttle allows people to avoid having to fight for parking. The other thing it does is you know if you want to go downtown and have a few drinks, you don’t have to worry about you know, drunk driving or anything like that you just get on the shuttle and delivered you to your communities door. So there’s a lot of good ways that the shuttle can be used and deployed that service special events did not just like that bus route type of situation.

J Darrin Gross  34:56  

Hey Joe, I am I assumed that It, Dan and Mattamy they purchased the vehicles from Beep. But I’m curious is that? Is that the case? Or do you guys continue to own and lease and operate them on behalf of Mattamy? Or house?

Joe Moye  35:14  

So we do I mean, both scenarios across, you know, our customers in the case of Mattamy, they did it directly acquire the vehicles. And I think, as Dan described, and he can chat a little bit more about reasons why they did that, and why that was important. But then we provide the full service of operating, maintaining, managing, charging, doing everything you need to conduct the service itself.

J Darrin Gross  35:43  

Got it? The answer any anything. As far as the the the owning and operating the vehicles.

Dan Grosswald  35:53  

Now, we just did a cost benefit analysis that whatever is better to lease or buy type of thing. And it just made more sense to us to buy. And with, you know, with the way that beep operates, they’re always willing to help us, you know, we’d have to worry about obsolescence because of the structure of our contract. And you know, the way they like to go about doing business. So there’s that minimizes the downside of actually buying a vehicle that, you know, is going to become obsolete in a few years.

J Darrin Gross  36:25  

Joe and Dan had mentioned some of the different organizations and communities that had come to look at the vehicles and operation. I’m kind of curious, from your perspective, what what are some of the areas that you’re seeing growth in this type of use of the autonomous vehicles?

Joe Moye  36:45  

Yeah, so we’re seeing growth in a number of use cases, you know, certainly these Master Plan communities is a great example of, you know, the various types of services that Dan has described. And Mattamy has been a real leader in in industry on advancing, we have other similar communities, one up in the Orlando area, one in the, in the Atlanta, Georgia area. The other you know, primary use cases have been in public transit, where, you know, in downtown urban areas like, you know, Jacksonville, Florida, as an example, like Peoria, Arizona, Contra Costa California, where we’re providing these types of services to really augment public transit to where, you know, in the example of St. Petersburg, you had a ferry coming across the bay, and then it was an hour, a mile and a half to get into the downtown corridor, providing those types of services to link, in that case, a ferry service to the downtown area. The third I would say is campuses, you think of campuses, as academic as business as medical campuses, all of them have parking challenges in it, and the opportunities to maybe supply a service that makes it more convenient to get around these communities versus pulling cars in and out. You know, all of those are our primary use cases for what we’re doing today.

J Darrin Gross  38:24  

I just, I love this whole topic. And I would think that it’s exciting for for both of you. I mean, I would think that there’s just a certain amount of excitement when, you know, as opposed to the same old, same old kind of cutting edge, kind of leaning into the the new and and I think there’s a lot of happy people that as they see it, there’s, I mean, you’ve mentioned there’s a few dissenters, but I would guess that by and large, there’s a lot of happy people that interact with you and, and the product there. So that’s cool.

Dan Grosswald  38:57  

Yeah. Well, you know, when you buy a home in a large community, the community has an identity. And there’s a certain amount of pride and, you know, esteem that comes with living there. And having cutting edge technology, like the autonomous shuttle from beep, really lends to that feeling that the person gets by living in tradition. Yeah.

J Darrin Gross  39:20  

Just occurred to me when you were talking about different opportunities, Joe, or with different communities, campuses and stuff. Is there any kind of weather limitations you you mentioned? I thought like there were certain limitations. 

Joe Moye  39:36  

There are there are some limitations. I mean, it can operate in light, light rain today. I mean, the some sometimes you know, Florida is graced with storms that come through sideways for about 45 minutes every afternoon. And frankly, cars shouldn’t be on the on the road either. So there are some limitations because today his technology is just purely LIDAR based. These next generation platforms, that’s a big thing to be solved for is, yeah, the fused vision sensor and radar technologies. In fact, you know, the higher fidelity radar becoming more and more a key component to how these vehicles will navigate in the future and, and deal with things like inclement weather not we don’t have snow in Florida, but but certainly there’s, there’s locations all across the country where these vehicles want to be deployed. So we’ve got to solve for that. You know, and then it goes as far as even things as simple as a spinning sensor that has almost a wiper on it that keeps them clean, much like you would a windshield. So So there’s all types of technology that being advanced to ensure they can operate and you know, what, how did we use to say it about the, the the post, men and women you know, operating rain, sleet, snow, or hail or something like that.

J Darrin Gross  41:06  

I think they’ve forgotten that up the mailman I have anymore but anyway, I appreciate you guys, uh, you know, just what we’re talking about here. And just I just would think that it’s exciting every day to go to work and and have some sort of a, you know, the point to introduce or have people comment on or be excited about that. I think that’s, that’s pretty neat.

Joe Moye  41:34  

It is, yeah. Dan reminds me every day. It’s never a dull moment together.

J Darrin Gross  41:38  

Yeah, that’s cool. Hey, if we could guys, I’d like to shift gears here for a minute. As I mentioned before, by day, I’m an insurance broker. And as such, I like to ask my guest question about risk. And the question is, what’s the biggest risk. And as an insurance broker, there’s a couple of strategies we always try to employ. And the first is we look to see if there’s a way we can avoid the risk, when that’s not an option, and we’ll see if there’s a way we can minimize the risk. And if we cannot avoid or minimize the risk, and we look to see if there’s a way we can transfer the risk. That’s what an insurance policy is. And like I said, you know, I’d like to ask my guests, if they can take a look at their situation, and identify what you consider to be the biggest risk could be, you know, the the laws, the technology, the community that, you know, whatever, whatever it is, that you see might be the biggest risk. And again, while I’m an insurance broker, I’m not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer. And so if you’re willing, I’d like to ask you, Joe Moye and Dan Grosswald, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Joe Moye  42:54  

Yeah, I’d be happy to start with that. I think, you know, the the autonomous technology mobility area has done, it’s probably done itself a little bit of a disservice of all the lofty expectations of these George Jetson scenarios of vehicles zipping all around our roadways in autonomous mode. And, and I don’t think it’s because anybody was derelict in their visions, I think it was just the reality that this is a walk before you run technology. You know, one of the things that we’ve hit on here that’s so important, is starting with planned route, controlled speed environments, where you’re able to mitigate a lot of the complex interactions, one would typically have one, you know, much more sophisticated or much larger routes for the traveling of a vehicle. You know, it is the technology is getting better and better every day, as you and I talked about before the call even applications, beyond moving people, you know, if you’re moving boxes, or luggage or anything else, same type of technology that’s being advanced to perceive an environment and be able to navigate a course. And so, you know, I think, I think it’s important as an industry, that we, you know, evolve this together in these more controlled environments and not set false expectations of these vehicles will be able to go anywhere, anytime, any speed tomorrow. And I think from a risk perspective, you know, that dramatically reduces, you know, the chance that, you know, something would happen, but, but I’d also say, you know, at the end of the day, and you probably know these statistics better than I but you know, 43,000 people perished on us roadways. Last year alone, you know, incredible tragedy, the property damage associated with that, you know, the quality of life damage associated with that 94% of that caused by human error distraction impairment, these vehicles respond in a scenario three times faster than a human can identifying something and actuating a break, and they’re never distracted, right, they’re not staring at an iPhone, they’re not going into the town center for a couple of drinks and getting behind the wheel. And that’s, you know, that can’t be lost in this, this is about, you know, saving lives and reducing risk as it relates to one of the biggest threats, you know, in our country today. So, So anyhow, that would be my my soapbox speech on that topic.

Dan Grosswald  45:54  

We’d look at it from three perspectives. You know, first, the biggest, the biggest risk, really, from our perspective is human failure, the vehicle itself and the technology itself is, is very good. And as Joe pointed out, is better than a human being in terms of its safety factor. Really, what happens is either for packing a human acting from the outside of the system, you know, crashing into it, or taking advantage of the vehicle is a risk, not the vehicle or the system, or when it’s not an autonomous mode, it’s actually riskier than when it is in autonomous mode, sometimes the vehicle has to be manually moved. So the risk factor increases slightly, they’re over when it’s in autonomous mode. But the other the other two things. So we decided purposefully to create the dedicated path for the reasons that Joe mentioned earlier. So that helps us minimize the risk that it’s not interacting on an open road or parking lot system as much as otherwise would be if we didn’t have the trails. So and we did that for a reason. And finally, we’ve decided to have the CDD operated, so from a developer point of view, having to do CDD own and operate the vehicles gives us, you know, some sovereign immunity from what we would otherwise be exposed to as a corporation. So that’s kind of how we viewed the risk and how we’ve tried to mitigate or transferred as you mentioned earlier,

J Darrin Gross  47:29  

I love the thought put into all that as far as the I mean, your answers and also the way you guys are actually operating. That’s cool. So to wrap up here, Joe Moye, Dan, Grosswald, where can listeners go if they’d like to learn more connect with you?

Dan Grosswald  47:47  

So Mattamy Homes.com is available to you. If you drill down in that website, you’ll find tradition, or you can come visit us and Port St. Lucie in tradition on Tradition Parkway, and I 95.

Joe Moye  48:03  

And Beep can be found at Ride Beep.com and similar Twitter and LinkedIn connections, so Google that you’ll find us. 

J Darrin Gross  48:16  

Awesome.  Well, Joe Moye and Dan Grosswald, I cannot say thanks enough for taking the time to talk today. I’ve enjoyed it. Learned a lot, and I look forward to doing it again soon.  All right. 

Dan Grosswald  48:28  

Thanks for having us.

Joe Moye  48:30  

Appreciate it.

J Darrin Gross  48:32  

All right. For our listeners. If you liked this episode, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember, the more you know more you grow. That’s all we’ve got this week. Till next time. Thanks for listening to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks. CRE PN Radio.

Speaker 2  48:51  

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