Along for the Ride #246

gondolas, wayve's SF debut, and an award-winning tube line

Heya friends, happy Friday!

I’ve been in the midst of flat hunting (successfully got keys yesterday!) and being sick (less fun!!). Due to my illness, keeping this newsletter short and sweet, but hope you’re keeping on out there.

Image Credit: Whoosh

• New Zealand plans to begin construction on a gondola to reduce traffic in Queesntown (Time)

  • Better come with that bike lane amiright

• Beijing is expanding their AV demo zone to 3,000 sq km (ECNS)

• How Los Angeles can reduce traffic and build housing before the 2028 Olympic Games (Slate)

• The UK’s West Midlands is preparing to launch autonomous shuttles that will operate between major venues in the city on a 7km route (Birmingham Mail)

• London’s elizabeth line (aka the lizzo line), won the 2024 RIBA Stirling prize for the finest architecture in the UK (The Guardian)

• Lastly, here’s an excellent article about how traffic modeling is a hoax ! that governments spend money on and result in infrastructure projects that (1) cost a bajillion dollars !!, (2) don’t deliver results because their modeling was wrong !!!, and (3) typically favour car-oriented developments resulting in even more traffic !!!! (dissent)

• Wayve—a UK-based darling of the AV industry—will start to test their AVs in San Francisco, and are expanding their office in Sunnyvale (Quartz)

  • Interesting op-ed in MIT Tech Review about Wayve’s launch

• Cruise has re-started “limited” autonomous driving tests in Houston (Fortune)

• Tesla’s “full self-driving” mode is being probed by the feds after a fatal pedestrian collision (WashPo)

• Pony.ai has plans to file for an IPO in the US (Electrek)

• German start-up, Vay, raises €34m to ?? bring a very confusing model somewhere between ride hailing and car rental with a sprinkle of autonomy in between ?? to the world. Naturally they are live in Las Vegas already. (Sifted)

  • You can watch the video about how their service operates and be as confused / perplexed as I am.

• Uber discusses new gig work opportunities in a world with AVs (Fortune)

• Zoox has plans to launch in Las Vegas (GovTech)

• AVs are just another Silicon Valley invention nobody actually needs (The Telegraph)

• How San Francisco learned to love AVs (WSJ)

  • I’ve always believed in sharing various perspectives…… even those I don’t agree with 😇

• Tesla is cocky about autonomous cars it still hasn’t shipped 😇😇😇 (Bloomberg)

• The trouble with Elon’s AV dream (The Economist)

cute stokey sunsets, keys to my new home (!), cemetery bops

• It is full blown Autumn in London, the leaves are changing, the evenings have a slight bite to them, and the scarfs are starting to come out. I’m excited for the logistics of moving to start winding down so I can take full advantage of all of the cozy vibes <3

• A very sweet friend gifted me a subscription to the Vittles substack, which is essentially a bible of london eats (thanks AJ!). I’m only on week one but already getting excited about all the eats to come.

That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.

Sarah

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