The hideous reality of the coronavirus has exposed the hideous realities of the mobility industry with sobering implications for all. At its core, mobility is about moving people in the safest, most efficient, and cost effective ways and suddenly citizens around the world are being told to stop moving and stop congregating.… Read More
Author: Roger C. Lanctot
Technology Tyranny and the End of Radio
As technology consumers we make tradeoffs.
We let Google peer into our online activity and email communications and we even accept annoying advertisements tied to our browsing activity in order to access free email and browing. We tolerate smartphones with diminishing performance from Apple – even after Apple admits that the
Huawei Sends Unmistakable Message
A funny thing happened on the way to Barcelona for the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event scheduled for this week. The event organizer – the GSMA – exhibitors and attendees were forced to come to terms with the risk of contracting and spreading the coronavirus – COVID 19.
Several large European, South Korean, and U.S.
Savings Tip the Balance to EVs
In a rare and perhaps unfortunate moment of candor, Cruise Automation CEO Dan Ammann wrote, in his blog post describing the emergence of Cruise (a subsidiary of General Motors) that conventional internal combustion engine vehicles “break down relatively easily. And if they make it 150,000 miles, well, lucky you.”
Ammann goes… Read More
Tesla: Two Heads are Better Than One
Telsa Motors’ stock skyrockets and all observers are shocked and amazed. The shorts that took a multi-billion-dollar hit then double down with their concerns regarding the German gigafactory construction permits or coronavirus or the company’s ability to create demand or fulfill it.
All of these investors are ignoring something… Read More
Privacy is Different in Cars
The New Yorks Times’ “The Privacy Project” highlights all that is terrifying about our surveillance economy. We blithely throw away our privacy for the privilege of freely accessing mountains of information about the things we want to buy, the celebrities and teams we follow or support, or to get directions
Tesla is Teaching Us to Move Over
Believe it or not, Tesla Motors is teaching us to be better drivers. One of the most remarkable lessons we are learning is that motor vehicles on public roadways ought to stay away from emergency and other service vehicles. In the U.S., we can all expect to hear more about “Move Over” laws – now enacted in all 50 states.
It sometimes … Read More
Woven City: Smashing Toyota’s Looms
Car companies are interesting creatures in a corporate world increasingly dominated by Internet-centric behemoths from Silicon Valley, Seattle, and China. While the denizens of the Internet have demonstrated their ability to create billions of dollars in shareholder value from the whims and whimsy of browsing consumers,
Don’t Blame Trump for Auto Downturn
There is a temptation to blame U.S. President Donald J. Trump for everything that is right or for everything that is wrong in the world today. Either that or blame Brexit. It’s just possible that Uber, instead, ought to be considered the target of shame for everything from traffic fatalities to global warming.
The automotive… Read More
Even California Can’t Save Hydrogen
Fisita World Mobility Summit 2019 in Nagoya, Japan, brought together powerful perspectives on everything from vehicle architectures (Visteon), to open source software (Synopsys), mobility (METI), and connectivity (Bosch). The most enigmatic juxtaposition at the event, however, came in a panel discussion I moderated
CHIPS Act dies because employees are fired – NIST CHIPS people are probationary