“Yeah, No.” – The United Auto Workers.
Members of the United Auto Workers are pushing back on contract offers from the Big Three and are going on strike at a rotating list of plants.
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Ford
Ford F-150 Lightning Review: The F-150, But Electric. That’s About It.
The F-150 Electric is a heavier, faster version of the F-150 Acoustic. Will this sell with the F-150 loyalists because of this? Or, will it alienate car buyers who are looking for something different in an EV?
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Ford Loves New Mobility So Much, Their Exec Keeps Bragging About Driving His Truck To Buy A Cup Of Coffee.
A Ford executive went to town on urbanism this week, bragging about the great fuel economy in his car that most people can’t afford, which he drove to a coffee shop that most people can’t afford, and mocking the authors of both academic research and urbanist discourse on the question of automotive safety. It’s a really bad look for a company that is struggling to differentiate itself.
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Top Douchemobiles, Rated
A completely unscientific list of the most douchey cars, ranked and with commentary of the kinds of people who drive them.
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What, Me Block A Bike Lane? Trouble at Ford’s Ziggurat of Mobility
The Blue Oval scores another kind of big, fat, blue oval, rotated 90°, for its commitment to walkability and bikeability in the new Michigan Central Station project.
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Infrastructure: Think Outside The Smartphone-Driven Profit Motive
One of Michigan’s most visible mobility spokespeople recently said in a webinar that smartphone ownership and profitable markets were the two hindrances to developing sustainable mobility solutions in the state. It’s a politically horrific, functionally dubious, but baffling thing to say.
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Into Exurban Oblivion: Auburn Hills Mulls Ditching Transit Service
In one of the farthest-north suburbs of Detroit, a municipality’s elected representatives are discussing the possibility of eliminating fixed-route transit, which has the support of an overwhelming percentage of the electorate, to save around $800,000 per year. In this guest co-editorial, Calley Wang and Nat Zorach argue that this is a really, really terrible idea.
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Everyone And Their Mom Is Making An Electric Car. Few Will Prevail.
Sony makes great headphones and great gaming consoles. Will they be able to make a great EV? Will everyone wading into the increasingly muddy waters of the “blue” ocean of electric vehicles be able to compete? Probably not.
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But Weight, There’s More: The Achilles Heel of Electric Vehicles
Electric cars are generally far more efficient than gas-powered ones, as a matter of thermodynamics. But a new article looks at one huge problem with electric cars, and one that is often entirely disregarded in policy, regulation, and consumer economics, and that’s the factor of how much they weigh.
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MDOT: Rebrand And Replace. Some Ideas From The MAP Conference.
Nat is attending the Michigan Association of Planning’s annual conference. It’s going great– especially with regard to figuring out new ways to refashion state agencies that aren’t doing their jobs.
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