It’s been a week since we cracked open the champagne to celebrate our 25th birthday, along with our memory banks to take a look at our history of predicting the future. Now that we’re back in the present and once again looking forward, it seems like we’re not the only outfit reconsidering the road ahead. Chinese automaker NIO thinks it can make battery swapping work this time. Elon Musk reveals yet another Model 3 that costs more than $35,000. Uber and Lyft are defending against claims they make traffic worse—again—and we have yet more confirmation that systems like Tesla’s Autopilot are confusing people.
It’s been a week. Let’s get you caught up.
Headlines
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If you remember Better Place, maybe you remember battery swapping for electric cars as a garbage idea. Time to rethink that, say contributors Levi Tillemann and Colin McCormick. They take a look at EV maker NIO, arguing the Chinese newcomer could make the whole idea work—for everyone’s benefit.
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If Lime is going to deliver on its goal of getting people out of cars, its scooters have to live up to life on the mean streets. CEO Toby Sun told Aarian its new “Gen 3” vehicle will do just that, with more range, improved stability, and extra ruggedness.
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And if Uber and Lyft are going to deliver on their goal of getting people out of personal cars, they need to convince the public and regulators that their services don’t clog up the streets. A new report from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority finds that between 2010 and 2016, the two ride-hailing giants caused more than half of the daily vehicle delay hours increase. But, as Aarian notes, the whole situation’s a lot more complex than that stat indicates.
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On Friday, self-driving startup Drive.ai launched a new service in Arlington, Texas, ferrying just about anybody along a few fixed routes, including to and from the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium. I’ve got the details on the new, money-making scheme, which still includes humans behind the wheel, just in case.
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Stop me if you’re heard this one before (well you can’t, but try tweeting me I guess)—drivers expect too much from “semi-autonomous” systems like Tesla’s Autopilot. Jack has fresh research from Europe indicating that more than 70 percent of car owners think vehicles can drive themselves (they can’t). “It’s really worrying that consumers are believing the hype” one researcher says.
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OK, stop me if you’re heard this one before (actually bother Jack)—Tesla isn’t releasing the forever-awaited $35,000 Model 3 yet, but it will sell you a brand new “mid-range” Model 3, good for 260 miles and starting at $45,000. And the strategy reminds us of what Apple does with the iPhone.
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If you did the looks and specs of Audi’s all-electric E-tron SUV, you’ll be glad to know it’s also a beast when you take it to the salt flats of the Namibian desert. Eric Adams has the details.
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Self-driving car developers testing in California have been looking backward too, but mostly because the humans on the road just can’t stop rear-ending them. Jack dug through the numbers and made some charts to explain why, and wonders if the bots should share some of the blame.
Pick-Me-up of the Week
Remember when everyone was optimistic about how much good tech could do for the world? Sebastian Thrun and Sam Altman never forgot, and they came to the WIRED 25 summit to cheer us up with news of flying cars and nuclear fusion.
Stat of the Week
16 billion
That’s how many ride-hailing trips the global population took in 2017, according to a recent study by ABI Research. And this year, they think it’ll hit 24 billion, as companies like Uber, Lyft, and Grab expand. Also noteworthy: 70 percent of those rides happened in Asia.
Required Reading
News from elsewhere on the internet
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Elon Musk, Tesla, and the SEC finally, officially settle the brouhaha that started back in August, when Musk tweeted that he was considering taking the automaker private.
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Both Tesla and GM are running low on the $7,500 federal tax credits their customers get when they buy an electric car. A Senate bill would extend the deal.
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Formula 1 comes to Texas for the US Grand Prix this weekend, and Jalopnik breaks down what you should know.
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Tesla’s leadership exodus continues with the departure of its manufacturing chief.
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My favorite detail (of many) from The New Yorker’s deep dive into Anthony Levandowski and the Waymo v. Uber trial: “Levandowski sometimes wore a custom-designed gray T-shirt, a gift from a colleague, that read “I Drink Your Milkshake”—a line from “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s film about a murderously ambitious oilman.”
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The French are liberating themselves from the car with the brotherhood and equality of … the free-to-ride bus.
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Quartz looks into Uber’s semi-secret economics department that are to its lobbying and policy teams as Q is to James Bond.
In the Rearview:
For a look at where Anthony Levandowski got his start, consider my oral history of the 2004 Darpa Grand Challenge.
Source:WIRED
