Along for the Ride #202
a brief interlude before Toronto
Heya friends, happy Friday!
First, a warm hello to many new faces here. Happy to have you along for the ride, and my sincerest apologies in advance for any typos. I promise I care about this newsletter, but I also promise I am a human bean who doesn’t always get it right (including but not limited to basic english). Happy to have you here.
Secondly, there was no newsletter last week because I was living it up in New York City (sorry not sorry, riding the subway is actually too much fun). I’ll also be in Hamilton / Toronto next week to attend NABSA so if you’re around that corner of Canada let me know! I’m going to try and get an edition out next week, but if not you can blame the bikeshare hype.
Finally, this edition is slim for numerous reasons, however, I have gotten some positive feedback from folks about the short and sweet editions. If you have thoughts / feedbacks about your preferred formats, I’m all ears!
California Senate passes a bill to restrict AV trucking, forcing onboard safety drivers for years to come (Smart Cities Dive)
City of Austin begins to publish data on Cruise’s operations—and what do you know their cars also stall in intersections across Texas’ capital (Fox - sorry!)
Public complaints in Austin are also mounting at the same time (Axios)
Cruise nears mass production of their Origin device, a shared electric shuttle (TechCrunch)
Oxford launches an AV single-decker bus (BBC)
Cruise stalls in San Francisco, blocking emergency vehicles, and is blamed for the death of the injured party (Guardian)
Cruise launches a wheelchair accessible AV, with plans to launch in 2024 (Reuters)
UK start-up Wayve unveils its driving system (Financial Times)
ArgoAI founders get backing from SoftBank to develop AV trucking company (FreightWaves)
Waymo says their cars are safer than human drivers, using insurance data (NBC, The Verge)
But did they mention you can get to zero traffic-related fatalities through infrastructure, or no?
Cruise CEO calls AV backlash sensationalism (WashPo)
Civilian takes a pickaxe to an AV (KRON4, Twitter)
Low-key impressed at the LiDARs ability to withstand such extreme force, but also feel like this guy could have given the car a flat tire and moved on..
Designing for street livability in the era of AVs (Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives)
Are high-tech cars more trouble than they’re worth? (Scientific American)
Congress has stalled on AVs, and it is hurting the US (The Hill)
Wins award for most dramatic headline lol
Is the AV revolution stuck in reverse (CNN podcast)
Counterpoint, is the AV era finally arriving? (Bloomberg)
Why AVs are dividing San Francisco (Newsweek)
I went on a pasta tour of Brooklyn and it was *great*. That first picture is of Lilia’s green garlic butter focaccia situation and let’s just say I smuggled some butter back to SF (as any good butter enthusiast would).
I spotted a coned-AV at dinner on Tuesday night, and got to watch as various folks walked by, took pictures, and then eventually one civilian removed the cone altogether. Fascinating exercise to (1) watch the coning happen, and (2) watch how other pedestrians reacted to the car and their real-time decisions to either leave as-is or intervene.
I’ve been joking all week that I’ve been listening to a lot of Olivia Rodrigo and how much I wish I’d been more angsty as a teenager. If you’ve seen me this week, it probably tracks that I’ve been listening to a lot of angsty bops lol.
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
