The latest edition of Car of the Future is here! The Car of the Future blog post is a bimonthly look at all the news you might have missed on connected and driverless cars, electric and hybrid cars and everything in between.
If you read any great articles yourself about the Car of the Future, please send them to me at nma@motorists.org and perhaps I will link them in the next edition. I also post a Car of the Future story every day at 8:00 PM on Facebook.
Biggest news in the past two weeks of course has been speculative articles on President-elect Trump’s approach with regards to transportation issues. Here are a couple of stories that concern the Car of the Future.
- From the Verge: What a Trump Presidency means for Self-Driving Cars.
- From The Christian Science Monitor: Is a Trump Presidency the Real Market Test for Electric Cars?
- From Bloomberg Gadfly: Trump Can’t Kill the Electric Car.
- From the Associated Press: Elaine Chao’s Record suggests skepticism on new safety Regulations.
- Forbes.com: Driverless Car Advocates like Elaine Chao.
Los Angeles Auto Show
Two fascinating articles concerning last month’s Auto Show and AutoMobility Conference in Los Angeles crossed my desk which might be of interest.
- The New York Times article discusses how the auto industry is pondering its digital future.
- The Verge also wrote an article about the show with a question: Is Los Angeles ready to rethink the car?
Car Sharing
The Winnipeg Free Press posted a quite critical article on a recent widely publicized study on the carsharing company Car2Go. Carsharing Benefits may be Exaggerated is a must read! Car2Go recently pulled out of Minneapolis due to lack of business.
Connected Cars
Connecting cars to smart cities has become a much larger topic of late. My concern with connected cars though has to do with distracted driving. More connections—more distractions. Should a car really become that smart that it can multitask when we were perfectly fine before with using a car to get from point A to point B?
- Pittsburgh is becoming one of the hubs for testing driverless cars and smart city technology. Techrepublic.com gives some insight.
- Nissan revealed how connected cars could become a goldmine (hint—involves direct advertising).
Driverless Cars
Once again, we are drowning in stories on driverless cars. Here are the few that I think might add to your information on the subject.
- Driverless Car Makers should not receive a Liability Free Pass, an article written for law students from the American Bar Association Website.
- The UK Insurance Journal posted an article about wanting more data and international standards with regards to highly automated vehicles.
- Carmakers, of course, want “flexibility’ in self-driving car regulations.
- Forbes.com presented a utopian viewpoint of how personal mobility could work!
- Cracked.com, a comedy website gives a different viewpoint into the problems of Driverless Cars.
Hybrid and Electric Cars (EVs)
- Even though market is small, automakers continue to back EVs, an article from The Seattle Times.
- Along the same vein, CleanTechnica.com posted an article that says Morgan Stanley believes that the EV revolution is just getting started.
- Autoblog.com reports that the Obama Administration is taking one last stab at promoting EVs.
- Autoguide.com has a useful article if you are looking to buy a used EV or Hybrid.
- The Detroit News Columnist Neil Winton wrote a column on Global EV, hybrid sales to soar, with U.S. Reluctance.
Other Stories
- The Finland ongoing experiment with car ownership, carsharing, ridesharing and alternative fuels continues. Biofuels.com news posted an article that explained how Finland plans to subsidize the increase use of biofuels and electricity in vehicles.
- Michigan Public Radio ran a fascinating report on the evolution of Detroit from Motor City to Mobility City.
- And here is a blast from the past…meet ALVINN, a self-driving car from 1989.
