The idea of creating an autonomous taxi service has been kicking around Tesla for at least eight years, but the company has yet to stand up much of the infrastructure it would need, nor has it secured regulatory approval to test such cars on public roads. For the moment, Musk has put off plans for a $25,000, mass-market vehicle that many Tesla investors — and some insiders — are pushing for and believe is crucial to the carmaker’s future.
Category Archives: transportation
Sorry, But Joe Biden Can’t Build Your EV Charger (Op Ed)
Picture a future of electric cars everywhere, including your driveway, along with the charging stations necessary to keep them running. Head downtown to mail a letter and pick up a latte? Slow chargers on every corner. Go to the mall to raid the Sephora? Chargers all over the parking garage. Go to work? There’s a place to plug in your car. Take a highway trip, say to visit an annoying family member, let’s call him Steve? You’ll pass Wawa fast-charging islands where gas pumps used to be. You might want to stop at one of those because, when you get to Steve’s house, he probably won’t let you use his charger.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-04/sorry-but-joe-biden-can-t-build-your-ev-charger
Can 15-Minute Cities Work in America?
There has been a lot of hype, and criticism, about the “15-minute city,” a model for mixed-use neighborhood planning where offices, schools, shops and parks are within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from one’s home.
Some have hailed the idea as the key to an urban utopia but have wondered if such a concept is even possible in US cities designed for cars. In the UK, alt-right influencers have gone so far as to suggest that the concept is an anti-automobile conspiracy designed to confine residents.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-05/new-research-shows-the-15-minute-city-can-work-in-the-us
The Best and Most Frivolous Car Tech Is Going Straight to EVs
From regenerative braking to the quiet hum of battery-powered cruising, electric vehicles are upending many a fundamental when it comes to the traditional driving experience. Slide into the cockpit of a contemporary EV, though, and you’ll notice another bit of hardware getting an unexpected rethink: the humble interior light.
Gone is the jaundiced bulb that blinks on when a car door is opened, the one your parents warned had to stay off while the vehicle was in motion. In its stead? A veritable LED disco. Today the interior of nearly every battery-powered car is veined with lights in the dashboard, door frames, foot wells and ceiling.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-13/electric-vehicles-are-getting-all-the-best-car-tech?utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-climate&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=climate&utm_medium=social
Commentary: The Promise and Folly of Self-Driving Cars
A debate over self-driving cars has reached a fever pitch in San Francisco. Companies like Cruise (a subsidiary of General Motors) and Waymo (a subsidiary of Alphabet/Google), under mounting pressure to commercialize their decades of research & development into autonomous vehicles, have been pushing hard to expand self-driving taxi services in the city. At the same time, city officials are sounding the alarm about how their cars are disrupting essential services including public transit and emergency vehicles. Grassroots advocates from all sides have also jumped into the fray, engaging in everything from online tech boosterism to guerrilla tactics to disable vehicles on sight.
https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/09/14/commentary-the-promise-and-folly-of-self-driving-cars
The Automation Of Public Transport Is Underway
There has been a lot of hype around autonomous driving in recent years, with several autonomous passenger vehicles being tested across cities worldwide. But when it comes to public transport, it appears to be lagging behind cars in terms of automation. And with the announcement of the launch of the U.K.’s first autonomous bus route, the question arises – why isn’t there more autonomous transportation in cities around the world?
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Automation-Of-Public-Transport-Is-Underway.html
Cars take up way too much space in cities. New technology could change that.
When we talk about the problems associated with cars and transportation, we often focus on fatal accidents, or air pollution, or traffic jams.
We less frequently consider how much sheer space cars take up in America’s cities. But let’s pause to give this some thought.
There’s the space the cars themselves occupy. The average car, two hulking tons of steel, is 80 percent empty when it’s being driven by a single person. And most of the day, cars are totally empty, sitting unused. That, of course, requires space for parking: There are a billion parking spots across the United States, four for every car in existence. Plus, there are all the paved roads crisscrossing our cities.
https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/cars-cities-technologies
Shared mobility: Sustainable cities, shared destinies
As consumers demand convenient, cost-effective, and sustainable modes of travel in urban areas, shared mobility is surging. According to a McKinsey analysis of annual reports, the number of e-hailing trips tripled from 5.5 trillion in 2016 to 16.5 trillion in 2019. Over the past decade, shared mobility has also become an attractive field for investors. Since 2010, private investors, technology companies, and others have directed more than $100 billion into shared-mobility companies. Cities are pursuing emissions-cutting goals to address the climate crisis, and this decade may see an even more dramatic shift to flexible, shared, and sustainable ways to travel. More than 150 cities are currently working to introduce measures aiming to reduce private-vehicle use, McKinsey analysis finds.
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/shared-mobility-sustainable-cities-shared-destinies
The Death of Third Places and the Evolution of Communities
The pandemic and social distancing were the latest threat to the ongoing viability of third places, and now ubiquitous video conferencing threatens to accelerate the decline of these physical spaces.
https://medium.com/illumination/the-death-of-third-places-and-the-evolution-of-communities-5bbffc01c5e
How Cars Transformed Criminal Justice in the US
The automobile functionally collapsed physical space, especially in the smaller states in the Northeast. It was all of a sudden very easy for a perpetrator committing an offense in one jurisdiction to cross state lines. And our criminal justice system was notably patchworked, without one centralized law enforcement bureaucracy.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-11-14/in-rules-of-the-road-a-timely-chronicle-of-cars-crime-and-the-law
Analyzing Trends 