TheCUBE Research’s John Furrier sits down with Amy Luca, CMO of Tensor, at the NYSE as a part of the Robotics & AI Leaders series, diving into the evolving world of personal autonomous vehicles. Luca shares Tensor’s vision of ownership-based robocars, positioning them beyond robotaxis and redefining independence by making autonomy a personal, private experience.
Tensor’s Level 4 autonomous design, built to prioritize safety and privacy together, Luca explains. Powered by Nvidia, the vehicles operate with self-contained systems that keep all data within the car. This approach eliminates external exposure, ensuring confidence for owners while setting Tensor apart in a crowded and competitive autonomous marketplace.
The discussion also emphasizes tangible benefits for everyday commuters. Autonomous control reduces accidents, eliminates distractions and creates a more efficient commuting experience, Luca highlights. Furrier underscores how ownership shifts the model, giving drivers the freedom to reclaim time, build trust and experience autonomy without compromising safety or privacy.
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Amy Luca, Tensor
TheCUBE Research’s John Furrier sits down with Amy Luca, CMO of Tensor, at the NYSE as a part of the Robotics & AI Leaders series, diving into the evolving world of personal autonomous vehicles. Luca shares Tensor’s vision of ownership-based robocars, positioning them beyond robotaxis and redefining independence by making autonomy a personal, private experience.
Tensor’s Level 4 autonomous design, built to prioritize safety and privacy together, Luca explains. Powered by Nvidia, the vehicles operate with self-contained systems that keep all data within the car. This approach eliminates external exposure, ensuring confidence for owners while setting Tensor apart in a crowded and competitive autonomous marketplace.
The discussion also emphasizes tangible benefits for everyday commuters. Autonomous control reduces accidents, eliminates distractions and creates a more efficient commuting experience, Luca highlights. Furrier underscores how ownership shifts the model, giving drivers the freedom to reclaim time, build trust and experience autonomy without compromising safety or privacy.
TheCUBE Research’s John Furrier sits down with Amy Luca, CMO of Tensor, at the NYSE as a part of the Robotics & AI Leaders series, diving into the evolving world of personal autonomous vehicles. Luca shares Tensor’s vision of ownership-based robocars, positioning them beyond robotaxis and redefining independence by making autonomy a personal, private experience.
Tensor’s Level 4 autonomous design, built to prioritize safety and privacy together, Luca explains. Powered by Nvidia, the vehicles operate with self-contained systems that keep all data with...Read more
exploreKeep Exploring
What are the different levels of driving assistance and how do they relate to vehicles like Tesla and Waymo?add
What factors are contributing to the increased awareness and support for Level 4 autonomous vehicle technology in recent months?add
What are the key features of the car's design and how do they support its autonomous capabilities?add
>> Hello, I'm John Furrier, here at theCUBE Studio at the New York Stock Exchange, part of the NYC Wired community. Of course, this is our special robotics and AI leaders, we have all the leaders making things happen, building great products, making the news. Amy Luca here, CMO of Tensor, an innovative company that's doing some amazing work in autonomous vehicles, robocars. Amy, great to have you here. Thanks for coming on.
Amy Luca
>> Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
John Furrier
>> So you guys have a unique proposition in a world that everyone is talking about, the self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, all the tech nerds love it. You've got Tesla, you've got Waymo, Tensor, but you guys are doing something different. Explain what Tensor is doing. What's the company, the ambition, what's it all about?
Amy Luca
>> We like to say we are the world's first personal, fully autonomous robocar. So what that means is that it's a level 4 from the ground up build, intentioned to be a car that drives for you, that you can personally own. So not a robotaxi, but actually something that sits in your garage that you can build a little relationship with.
John Furrier
>> And there's a lot of stories behind the tech. I want to get into, still stay high level because I think it's important to understand, folks to understand, because no one really kind of knows what a level 4 is. Can you explain the L4, why that's important and the evolution of autonomous vehicles and why it matters?
Amy Luca
>> Yeah, I think when people are in San Francisco is probably the best, you talked about Waymo, the car that doesn't have a driver behind the wheel. A car that you can be eyes closed, ears closed, actually not even having to engage with the road, that sort of freedom to get your time back in the car. So level 4 really means that you don't have to drive anymore, which for the commuters is probably something that sounds pretty amazing.
John Furrier
>> And a lot of the tech conversations, whether it's Reddit or X, there's always conversations around L2, L4, and the different levels and distinction. What's the defining, what's the levels mean?
Amy Luca
>> The best way to explain it for a consumer who's starting to learn about this technology is there's just different levels of assistance. So everything down from a level 2, where I'm driving it myself, I have the pedals, I can control the vehicle, to level 4, which is completely hands off, and level 3 is a little bit in between there, and that can be assisted driving. So there's different levels related to how much the car or the vehicle, in our case a supercomputer and a robot, is helping to assist the driver in driving or identifying obstacle in-
John Furrier
>> It's like a Tesla is like a level what?
Amy Luca
>> Tesla I believe is level, well, Tesla-
John Furrier
>> Somewhere-
Amy Luca
>> So it's a level 2, is a level 4. So Tesla definitely has some level 4 capabilities they're launching right now, and I believe with safety drivers in Austin. But yeah, I think the level 4, Waymo is a level 4, for instance. Level 4, fully autonomous. If you sit in the back seat, anybody who's had that experience with the steering wheel turning and nobody in the driver's seat, yes.
John Furrier
>> It's quite bizarre. And if you haven't done it, everyone has to do it. And they do a selfie, they do a little video, they share with their friends. It's become new but it's accelerating fast. Can you talk about the pace of innovation? What's the pace of play like right now in this innovation?
Amy Luca
>> I mean I think you would probably know from just following the space that all of a sudden it seems everyone's talking about it. I would say 12 months ago, obviously Waymo was here and definitely people were not as aware of Waymo. But now in the pace, I would say in the last six months, a lot of activity. We obviously launched a few weeks ago as Tensor, as the brand. We've been in development for 10 years though, so we've been a Silicon Valley startup for quite some time. But yeah, I think the pace is accelerating, and mostly that's because of safety reasons. So if you think about in the United States, over 40,000 vehicle deaths every year, and we know that L4 technology where a driver is not having to make those decisions or distracted driving or texting while driving, all the things that we do as drivers, level 4 is safer. So I think you're going to see a lot more from a government support, regulation support in many different countries around the world. They're going to really support level 4 technology for safety reasons.
John Furrier
>> And also just to call out the category, so there's robocars and there's robotaxis. We see Waymo, that's a taxi service. Okay, robotaxi. Robocar is, I own the car.
Amy Luca
>> You own it. Yeah, so I think there's a difference between the business model. So the business model of a robotaxi is a fleet, a fleet of cars that go to a central depot that are managed and maintained centrally. Whereas a personal robocar has to be something that sits in your garage, that is charged in your own garage, that can actually go take itself for service, because there isn't that place that goes centralized at night for maintenance and service. It also creates a bigger burden on us from a redundancy and technology perspective. The car needs to have diagnostics to make sure that it is taking care of itself, so that you don't have to worry about taking care of it.
John Furrier
>> Besides the safety, I want to come back to safety, but I want to get into this intelligence piece because right now we're all watching the AI and the intelligence. It's the L4 Tensor is packed with tech, is there a video that you can go into great detail-
Amy Luca
>> So much.
John Furrier
>> Check out the Tensor's website. They have a ton there. But there's a lot of tech, but it's a personal robot for me, that's my car, which means I want privacy. So privacy, it's my car, but it's also a learning car. Talk about that feature.
Amy Luca
>> I love that you bring that up because it's actually what we say is the first fully agentic car. So it has its own personal AGI technology. What does this mean for the end owner? That the car is learning your habits and behaviors and helping you. Say you have a commute in the morning, the car can text you and say, "We better leave because it's getting time to leave." And so think about it like your iPhone, the best way to think about it is that it's personal device, but when you have that much data and you have a personal AGI for your car, security becomes really important. One of the important features that was very important to us when we built and designed the car was that the car, unlike our competitors, is not connected to a cloud. It has a self-contained hard drive and all of the data is self-contained in the vehicle. Now, information can be shared with Tensor, but the app that communicates with the car is fully encrypted because we know when you have a personal vehicle, you don't want to be sharing your photo or what you're talking about, or there's lots of cameras and sensors in this car, you don't want to share that with a cloud with us from a technology perspective. So if you choose to share it, you can, but it's self-contained in the vehicle.
John Furrier
>> We do a lot of coverage of NVIDIA. Obviously the AI, physical AI piece of their business ranges from manufacturing, physical factories, digital twins. You're seeing a lot of this super computing conversation. I mean basically you guys built a supercomputer car.
Amy Luca
>> Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Okay. It's got AGI intelligence, which means it can progress and learn, probably sync with the calendars, "Hey, you're late for the appointment, let's pull a Zoom."
Amy Luca
>> Even more things we probably can't even imagine at the moment, right?
John Furrier
>> It's a computer, so it's got storage, it's got compute, tons of technology, and it's not connected. Explain that. So it's not connected to the cloud. So this is where the privacy angle, people would say, "Hey, whoa, whoa, what's it?"
Amy Luca
>> You brought up NVIDIA. NVIDIA is a partner of ours. We're using their technology, their chip is in our car, the Thor chip. But basically what it means is we have a supercomputer and a hard drive in the car. As a matter of fact, that hard drive can be taken out. So if you leave your car at the airport and you want to take the hard drive with you, you can do that.
John Furrier
>> Not swappable hard drive.
Amy Luca
>> Yeah. But in terms of information and knowledge about the vehicle, yes, there's downloads in terms of updating software and things like that, just like your iPhone, but we're not sharing your personal information or personal activity in the car to our cloud server.
John Furrier
>> Talk about the approach you're taking that's different than others, because people are trying to follow along. It's moving very fast as you mentioned. So what are some of the things that you guys are doing that's different than others?
Amy Luca
>> I think really focusing on personal and individual autonomy, because at the end of the day, I think it's wonderful to have, and I think there's room for all the different business models in terms of robotaxi and I think there's a amazing technology. But for us, the pivot was about six years ago and we decided that it was about owning your own autonomy, the one space, your own personal space. And that's a real big pivot from a lot of our competitors right now who are trying to scale their business through a robotaxi model. But we believe that we love, maybe it's my California roots, we're a California based company. We like to have our own personal vehicles, we want to have our own space. We want to be able to put our stuff in the trunk and not have to worry about others in the car. So yeah, at the end of the day, I think there is a real market for people who want to have this vehicle in their garage when they want it. Not having to wait for an app to tell you how long it's going to take for a robotaxi to get to you.
John Furrier
>> For us who have lived through the iPhone moment. I remember pre-iPhone what the world was like, and the iPod was great for music and you can listen to the songs on the go. Podcasts had been started 20 years ago as a result. And when the iPhone came out it was the first time, and I remember, I'll never forget, I was at CES next, the following year, and I didn't bring my laptop because I could do everything on my phone. So there was a point in time, there was such a sea change. What are some of the things that you guys are envisioning? Because if I have a robocar, it's essentially a computer, I could probably do Zooms in it. So what do you guys see as-
Amy Luca
>> 5G enabled. So the car's 5G enabled, so yes, literally it could be your own-
John Furrier
>> The app car economy. What I mean, how do you envision that? What are some of the things you guys talk about? Because I'm sure you're way ahead of everyone else as you bring some and see the potential.
Amy Luca
>> I mean I think there's, the sky is the limit right now, we're at the early stages of when iPhone launched the app store people said, "Why do we need all these apps?" And then it came to being, there's an app for that, for everything. So I think we're at the early stages of what's possible, but I do think we have to reimagine what an interior experience is for a passenger, because no longer do you have to be worried about the road. Is it your entertainment sanctuary? Is it the place where you catch up on a nap? Is it a place where you're conducting high-level business meetings? But that sort of entertainment experience is something we're thinking quite hard about and we expect our customers to really help us shape the experience that they want.
John Furrier
>> We were talking before you came on camera about this was built from the ground up.
Amy Luca
>> Ground up.
John Furrier
>> Ground up to be a level 4-
Amy Luca
>> That's right.
John Furrier
>> Fully autonomous, which is with all that tech. What's the status? Can you take us through kind of where you guys are on the progress? Where is it available, when's it coming out? When do I get my own? What are some of the requirements? Do I have to have a special thing at my house? Do I have to have a car depot with special connections? I mean, how do I adopt and consume the car?
Amy Luca
>> Yeah, I think you brought up actually a really good point that I just want to touch on is when it's built from the ground up for level 4, you're talking about a lot of technology, LIDAR systems, camera systems, super computer, all of the technology that goes in this car creates some weight. So one of the challenges with level 4 is when you have this type of technology, building a car that can have this weight. Tensor is about three tons. It's a rather large car. So think about it like a large crossover SUV size, and it weighs three tons. So because of the amount of technology, the redundant systems, you need to have the redundant systems. But where we are right now, we're very excited. We launched publicly the 13th of August, and we are just on a road show right now, the car is here in New York, you can come by and see it. And it'll be taking a little bit of a world tour. It will go into production early next year. So the production models will be built. And it will be available for purchase first in the UAE at the end of next year, and then in the United States the beginning of 2027.
John Furrier
>> How many cars are on display now that you guys are showing around?
Amy Luca
>> We have a bunch, and they're on tour around the world.
John Furrier
>> Where can we see them? Is there like a website that tracks the cars?
Amy Luca
>> Well, actually that's a really good idea. Next, we're going to be in Dubai at the Self-Driving Congress at the end of September. So the car will be there. We have it, they're in San Jose, in our headquarters, so we're not open to the public yet, but there will be different places we'll be taking it around. We'll be at CES, so hope to see at CES. So a lot of automotive events we'll be taking it around as we get toward-
John Furrier
>> How do I identify the Tensor cars? So just because all the people might want to be in the Tensor spotting mode. Is there iconic features?
Amy Luca
>> Absolutely.
John Furrier
>> What's the signature car-
Amy Luca
>> Well, there's a couple of things. I think obviously the LIDAR on the top and the intelligent integration of that design. So as opposed to Waymo where it's retrofitted into the car, our sensors are built in. So you're going to see a lot sleeker design, you can check it out-
John Furrier
>> It's not a bolt-on, literally.
Amy Luca
>> It's not a bolt-on. It's definitely designed for the sensors. As a matter of fact, if you check out Tensor.auto, which is our website, you'll see all of the features and where the hidden sensors are, because pretty much if you see a black panel on the car, it's a sensor or a camera, and the car is constantly evaluating its environment. And I think the other thing too, there's a really interesting feature on the front. If you think about how we have to rethink autonomous vehicles, pedestrians don't know how to interact with an autonomous vehicle where there's no driver that can make eye contact. So we have LED screens on the front end bumper that can communicate with pedestrians to let them know the car sees them and it's okay to pass.
John Furrier
>> I saw a bunch of drunk people in San Francisco doing things on TikTok, they were doing flips off... Stop in the Waymo and doing a flip off of it. The Tensor might react differently. It would be smart to say, "Hey, stop, enough's enough, kids."
Amy Luca
>> Well, the Tensor actually has external speakers and external sensors, so it actually could talk to you externally. So maybe our Tensor's going to have to talk, "Hey, now." Yes.
John Furrier
>> "I'm about to call the police, drunk and disorderly. Hey, get off my hood."
Amy Luca
>> Yeah, I think the novelty of this early stage technology always brings, when ChatGPT and Gemini launched, you got a lot of people putting really ridiculous prompts in, and now people don't know how to live without it because we use it so interchangeably. So I think that we'll die down hopefully.
John Furrier
>> I'm expecting with the agent kind of concept of having intelligence, it's going to appeal to a big segment in the market. We see cyber trucks gets the nerds and it's not the prettiest car if you look at it, but it does attract a certain persona. I'm predicting that you guys will probably attract a luxury buyer. Can you talk about that luxury piece of it? Because the early adopters will probably have some dough to spend, but who wouldn't want a retro, not retrofitted, a built from the ground up luxury car experience?
Amy Luca
>> Yeah, we actually launched, the first public viewing was a few weeks ago at the Quail, the Motorsports event in Carmel, which was really wonderful for us to be with all these internal combustion engines. And then we're here with our electric vehicle that is a self-driving car. And one of the really amazing pits of feedback we got initially from all of these people that are coveting these amazingly expensive Ferraris and Lamborghinis was, "I want to drive that car. I want Tensor because I want to ride." And so I think there's this idea of we want to drive for pleasure, not because we have to.
John Furrier
>> But what is luxury in an autonomous vehicle? Okay, there's level 4. Okay, great experience. What is the luxury experience like?
Amy Luca
>> I mean, isn't it luxurious to get your time back? I mean, at the end of the day we're all time-starved, right? And I think the luxury is the ability to have your time and your freedom to do what you want to do with your time and not be burdened by having to drive. I think for, there's so many different segments of the population this could work, mom doing the school run, the cars can do the school run. Not having to have a driver pick you up at the airport, having the car be able to come pick you up at the airport when you want, your own personal vehicle.
John Furrier
>> I could use that.
Amy Luca
>> I know, wouldn't that be amazing?
John Furrier
>> Yeah.
Amy Luca
>> Believe me, I want it now. And I've ridden in it and it's like I want it now.
John Furrier
>> What's it like?
Amy Luca
>> It's very smooth, it's very quiet. It has a very luxurious entertainment experience. So yeah, I think consumers will really love it. We had a number of people that have already expressed a lot of interest. We have a priority list on our website, so we've got lots and lots of signups coming in right now, flooding our website with people who are interested in knowing when they can purchase -
John Furrier
>> All right, so back to the point about the road show and availability. New York, San Jose, it's where the headquarters is.
Amy Luca
>> Yep, we're based in San Jose. Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Is it open to the public? Are you guys-
Amy Luca
>> It's not open to the public, but we are going to have a lot of public events which we'll announce on our website.
John Furrier
>> Not yet, but hasn't been announced yet?
Amy Luca
>> We're posting them as we commit to the events. Yeah.
John Furrier
>> Okay, got it.
Amy Luca
>> So the Quail was posted on there. Our Dubai event which -
John Furrier
>> And URL again is Tensor.auto.
Amy Luca
>> Tensor.auto. Yes.
John Furrier
>> Okay. All right, what's next? When we're waiting, just wait for the cars to come off the quote, line.
Amy Luca
>> What's next is continuing to help educate consumers. And you brought up at the very beginning of our conversation, L4 is relatively new. I think you and I have been immersed in it for a while-
John Furrier
>> We love it.
Amy Luca
>> But most people are just starting to understand that it's a possibility. It's not science fiction. I think we'll be road-showing it and showing that the car is real. It's not science fiction, it's not a prototype. It's here.
John Furrier
>> What's been the reaction? I mean, there's early adopters that lean into it. Some are like fearful, AI, we see that all the time. There's even debates on AGI when we're going to see it. Robots, there's all kinds of surveys, when there'll be more robots than humans. What's the vibe relative to the average person?
Amy Luca
>> Well, the car's down here right now in Midtown Manhattan at the Hilton. And it is being swarmed by people taking lots of photos and wondering when they can buy it. I think right now it's a curiosity. I think people are very curious about what the experience is. I think companies like Waymo are paving the way of giving that autonomous experience, which is really helpful. And as soon as we can get people in the car and owning it and understanding what it's like to own your own-
John Furrier
>> As CMO, you must love this because it's like there's novelty, there's innovation, there's luxury, there's a futuristic kind of vibe to it. I mean-
Amy Luca
>> It's a dream.
John Furrier
>> It's a good... You must be excited.
Amy Luca
>> I'm super excited. At the end of the day, I mean it's easy to market a really amazing product. You kind of brought up our technology on our website. We're being very transparent about the safety and the technology. If you're very interested in the technology, there's an hour and 40-minute feature film out there about all of our technical features, because we think it's really important to build trust. And so having a really great product to market is one thing, but our job now is to build trust so people trust that the car will take care of them and keep them safe.
John Furrier
>> Well, we'll have to schmooze you to get some cameras in and check out the car.
Amy Luca
>> Anytime.
John Furrier
>> Amy, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.
Amy Luca
>> Yeah. Come have a ride.
John Furrier
>> I'd love to. I love the innovation. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.
Amy Luca
>> Thank you so much.
John Furrier
>> Yeah, robotics, Siri and AI is all about the innovation. And again, the acceleration, physical AI and physical world with technologies coming together, robocars, is robotaxi, is here. It's only accelerating. Of course we're doing our job to bring you all the action. I'm John Furrier, theCUBE. Thanks for watching.
John Furrier