Heya friends, happy Friday!
Limited preamble this week, but I hope the sun shines where you are and your proverbial (fully protected) bike lanes pass through board approvals swiftly. Onwards to ze news!
In Paris people biking now outnumber drivers
Oui oui oui + thank you Bridget for the share. “The study by urban planning agency Institut Paris Region (IPR) found that Parisians use bicycles for 11.2% of their trips inside the city centre whereas people use cars for just 4.3% of journeys.” In 2010, the same research institute put biking at only 3% of trips, an impressive increase. Turns out that when you invest heavily in infrastructure, rapid change is possible!
A review of Seoul’s autonomous bus
“There is a moment on the A21 bus, at around midnight, when the [person] in the driver's seat presses a small red button on his dashboard. He smiles, then lets go of the steering wheel and lifts his feet from the pedals. The vehicle continues to glide through the streets of South Korea's capital, Seoul, turning corners and stopping at traffic lights. No-one on board seems to notice.”
This is the future of autonomy that I can get behind. It tackles a very real problem (fewer and fewer people wanting jobs such as driving night buses), however the labour union has raised concerns that they haven’t been consulted. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for operators, bus riders, and the city.
14-year old charged with lighting an AV on fire
During a Chinese New Year celebration in San Francisco, an AV was lit on fire by fireworks (lol) that were tossed inside the vehicle as it was surrounded by a crowd celebrating. Well, the police got to the bottom of it after they entered a suspect’s residence at end of March, and seized evidence to identify a perpetrator. Surprising nobody, a teenager has been charged for the incident after he supposedly lit and threw the firework into the car. I never thought this incident was an attack on high-tech specifically; rather just one of the many ways we humans tend to be unhinged and unpredictable.
Where are Waymo’s AVs traveling in SF?
According to a report from Waymo, Hayes Valley, Mission Bay, SoMA and the Mission are the most popular areas for AV travel. Sadly, they all also happen to be well served by public transport, and no surprise, the most dense parts of the city. I’m curious if Waymo will survey riders and release data about what modes riders would have otherwise taken for these trips (and if they are pulling riders off of more sustainable modes, such as public transit). It’s going to be a sad day when we realize these services aren’t improving sustainability, congestion, or delivering a safer ride than public transit—and continue down this path like our planet isn’t about to die.
You know what they say… what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas is more fun when you commute by train. That was a bad attempt at wit. I’m sorry. Please send me better jokes because I know that didn’t land lol.
But in all earnest, Brightline has broken ground on a new high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The goal is to have the line up and running ahead of the 2028 Olympics in LA. The trip would take two hours via fully electric trains. Drool.
GM seeks outside investment to bolster Cruise
GM had its earnings call this week, and CEO Mary Barra told investors that they are “exploring quite a few options right now, including potentially … taking outside investments as well” for Cruise. Barra said GM wants to demonstrate “that the model works in one city” and then expand it to other cities. Still waiting.
In separate news, Cruise is looking to offload two offices in San Francisco’s SoMA neighbourhood (SF Standard).
When a Waymo drives on the wrong side of the road
And their PR team tells you it’s for to avoid a collision 🫠. The car drove in an opposite travel lane against oncoming traffic for nearly two blocks in downtown San Francisco. It was behind a group of people riding one-wheelers on Friday night at 9:30pm.. so the car changed lanes, driving past four oncoming vehicles traveling in the lane beside it before merging back over……. video footage here. I think the best way to have avoided a collision would have been to … be patient and stay in its lane?
Musk originally promised that the company’s “Full Self-Driving” program would only get more expensive. But every week is a new week at Tesla and this week Musk slashed the price even further as he tried to get ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings. The program came down from $12k to $8k, but once upon Musk speculated it could go for as much as $100k (lol). Here’s a Bloomberg take.
Side note, this week Elon Musk also said “even if I’m kidnapped by aliens tomorrow, Tesla will solve autonomy”. I’m hoping that’s a promise the aliens are coming to take him (sooner rather than later would be nice, thx).
The AI startups developing AVs in Europe
This article from Sifted notes that AVs are an “inevitability” (not sure I’m quite there yet—at least in this decade), and highlights numerous AV companies across Europe that are working to deliver this tech in various form factors (the software, shuttles, freight, etc).
Baidu goes from burning cash to begging for profit
Specifically: ¥100M yuan of revenue and ¥100M yuan of profit, if the head of their autonomous car unit, Wang Yunpeng, is to be believed. That is approx. $14M USD of both revenue and profit. We’ve discussed how funding has flowed less freely in recent years, so many AV companies are under pressure to make money to stay alive.
Modeling the effect of AVs on the accessibility of the transportation network
“A hybrid heuristic assignment algorithm was introduced, concurrently assigning different percentages of AV presence alongside the remaining non-AV percentage in three distinct scenarios. These scenarios ranged from 0 to 100% AV presence… The findings demonstrated that as the percentage of AVs increased, accessibility improved in both Hearn and Sioux Falls networks across all scenarios.”
Important to remember that there are other interventions that we already know improve transportation network accessibility (and I would love to see the findings from this study compared to others for any academics on the listserv taking requests!).
UK government has a bucket of money for AV research projects
(Another share from Bridget, we don’t deserve her). The latest round of the Government’s Transport Research and Innovation Grant (TRIG) is now open, with organisations and academics able to win up to £45,000 in funding. This year’s competition is seeking proposals focused on:
Nation Specific Transport Solutions: a new category for projects that address specific transport challenges in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland to level up the whole of the UK’s transport system and boost connectivity.
Local Transport Decarbonisation: innovative ideas that accelerate the decarbonisation of local transport systems, demonstrating an understanding of the needs of local areas and communities, whilst also having the potential to be scaled-up across the UK in the future.
Critical & Emerging Technologies: ideas that utilise critical technologies, such as AI, or any emerging technologies, such as drones, to enable a resilient transport system delivering cheaper, cleaner, and quicker journeys for all.
I wrote this week’s edition while listening to the new TSwift album and as a long-time fan I believe it is the most Taylor Swift she has ever been. From a creative standpoint, it feels like she took journal entries, turned them into songs, and shipped them with minimal edits—messy, and unhinged. I love this because it captures the chaos of a moment and while I think another round of edits would have made the tracks appeal to the masses, the lack of them appeals greatly to the fans (aka me). So anyways.. no notes. 😂 DM me for song reccs.
My friend and I made this herby green minestrone this week, and it was so nourishing and warming. I did add some pecorino at the end making it … not vegan … but what else is new.
Friends and I ventured to the Sonoma Coast this past weekend. We went to wild flour bread and Sonoma Coast Vineyards. We walked along the beach at Bodega Beach, and I was reminded how nice a day spent eating carbs, drinking wine, and gawking at the wonder of the oceanic abyss truly is.
If you ever need to get around a paywall, reminder that archive.is is a fantastic resource!
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
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