Each time a driver in Seattle meets a red light, they wait about 20 seconds on average before it turns green again, according to vehicle and smartphone data collected by analytics company Inrix. The delays cause annoyance and expel in Seattle alone an estimated 1,000 metric tons or more of …
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Back in February, when a Conservative Party lawmaker in the UK’s House of Commons voiced support for the 15-minute city conspiracy, he was laughed at by his fellow members of Parliament. Now, eight months later, the British government is fully embracing the fringe conspiracy and placing it at the heart …
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The internal combustion engine ruled the 20th century. In the 21st, electric motors and automation are reshaping the way stuff and people get around. Transportation workers aren’t entirely thrilled about how it’s going. On Tuesday, a caravan of big rig trucks roared into Sacramento as the Teamsters union rallied support …
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Elon Musk hasn’t been sighted at the picket lines in Missouri, Ohio, or Michigan, where autoworkers are striking against the Big Three US carmakers. Yet the influence of Musk and his non-unionized company Tesla have been everywhere since the United Auto Workers called the strike last week. In some ways, …
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In addition to making everyone an epidemiologist, the Covid-19 pandemic schooled the public on the world-spanning network of manufacturers, assemblers, and shippers behind just about every consumer good that arrives on your doorstep. Or driveway. Car prices soared as automakers struggled with a supply chain jammed up by worker shortages, …
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Last year, Ford sold more than 650,000 F-150 pickup trucks, making it the most popular vehicle in the US for the 46th year in a row. Couple that with Americans’ recent thirst for very big cars, and few things say “US of A” like a truck bed and a little …
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Ethan Surgenavic was excited to begin work at a new electric vehicle battery-cell plant in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley last summer. The Ultium Cells plant is a joint venture of General Motors and South Korea’s LG, and he grew up in the area when GM was known for well-paid, unionized jobs. …
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ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Have a Nice Future, Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode talk to Chris Urmson, CEO of the self-driving-truck company Aurora. They discuss new legislation in California that could help or hinder a driverless future, whether self-driving vehicles are actually safer, and the consequences for the transportation …
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Who owns the data created by cars: their owners, or the companies that built them? In 2020, Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly approved a law that began to answer that question. It required automakers selling cars in the state to build an “open data platform” that would allow owners and independent repair …
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Take a walk around San Francisco this summer and you’ll see something curious: Jaguar SUVs and Chevrolet hatchbacks driving around with no one inside. The ghostly vehicles are owned and operated by Google spinoff Waymo and General Motors subsidiary Cruise. Soon there will likely be a lot more of them, …
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