In this interview, Tim Draper speaks with a Glide representative about the company's patented autonomous road-to‑rail solution. Glide has engineered a single vehicle that can lift any standard road trailer, switch between road wheels and rail wheels, and move freight from highway to rail in as little as 15 minutes up to a day, eliminating the traditionally capital‑intensive, multi‑equipment process. The system uses sensor fusion—LiDAR, radar, and traction control—to navigate autonomously, with a human in the loop for rail alignment. Glide claims the U.S. market for such transfers is $100 billion and the global market $20 trillion, covering commercial, defense, oil & gas, waste, and other sectors. The prototype was publicly demonstrated and declared fully functional at the Reindustrialize and New Mobility Futures events.
Chapters
and a lot of people, and it's very, very capital intensive. What we've done at Glide is we streamlined the process down to one. So one vehicle, one move, one piece of equipment, and we can move goods from road to rail within 15 minutes to a day. So we're gonna show you our technology here. So we are the world's first autonomous road-to-rail solution, patented road-to-rail solution. So I talked about the invisible problem, like, you know, folks that are impacted by, you know, our transportation infrastructure. But the visible problem is that— have you ever driven down the freeway behind a semi-truck and looked over at the rail and said, why aren't these guys over there? Well, the only reason why that is because there's multiple pieces of equipment that are needed to move goods from road to rail. Multiple pieces of equipment, multiple processes, and a lot of people. And it's very, very capital intensive. And so we can get underneath any road-based trailer and any rail-based cart with little to no modifications. So we're essentially industry agnostic, commercial side as well as the defense side, oil, gas, trash, Whatever moves on road or rail, we can move today utilizing our patented technology.
Oh, so it's a tire that turns into a wheel.
Yeah, we have 2 sets of wheels on it. So we have a road wheel as well as a rail wheel.
Somebody's got to drive. Is it AI?
It's all autonomous. It's fully autonomous.
Then we have human in the loop. So it finds the rail.
Yes, we utilize sensor fusion. So a combination of LiDAR, radar sensors, as well as we work with positive traction control. And then, you know, before we jump, we work in dirt, What's the market
size for
this? Market size within the United States is $100 billion. Globally, it's $20 trillion.
$100 billion in what? In moving things from trucks to rail?
Yes, yes. From road to rail and then all the industries as well. So everything that is—
What about just moving it from road to rail?
$100 billion.
That's interesting. Have you built this thing or—
We have. We have. We actually unveiled it last week at Reindustrialize and New Mobility Futures to the world. So it was fully functional.
