Transportation editor
Andrew is transportation editor at The Verge, He covers electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, public transit, policy, infrastructure, electric bikes, and the physical act of moving through space and time. Prior to this, he wrote about politics at City & State, Crain's New York Business and the New York Daily News. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids, and many different brands of peanut butter.
The driver-side door keypad was once standard on America’s best-selling vehicle. No longer, reports The Drive, as it will now become a $455 dealer option. I suppose the silver lining is that Ford isn’t trying to turn it into a subscription.
The Drive also points us to this excellent essay about the difference between “tiered permissions and variable access” which is totally worth a read in light of this news.
The state’s DMV is inviting proposals for how best to regulate heavy-duty autonomous vehicles, which have so far been prohibited on California’s public highways. Meanwhile, the California state legislature advanced a bill to require a human operator in robot trucks at all times. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a similar proposal last year, but hasn’t said whether he would do it again.
After trying to make BrightDrop work as a standalone brand, GM has decided it will have a happier home among the Silverados and Camaros at Chevy. GM reabsorbed BrightDrop last year, citing “effeciencies,” and now its assigning it to Chevy in order to tap into the brand’s “broad commercial vehicle sales and service dealer network.” Chevy dealers will be able to sell BrightDrop’s 400 and 600 electric vans, as well as the fleet management software and other products.
[pressroom.gm.com]
It’s been more than 16 months since Ford kicked off the auto industry’s switch to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, and so far, it and Rivian are the only two companies with access. The bottleneck seems to be the lack of adapters — though Tesla recently said it has increased production to 8,000-a-week at its Buffalo gigafactory. But in the meantime, industry heads are getting worried:
The delays have fueled speculation that Mr. Musk was having second thoughts about opening up Tesla’s network, possibly because he was worried that access would help other automakers sell battery-powered models and lure customers from Tesla, which has suffered from declining sales.
[The New York Times]
Forbes noticed that Musk’s first two manifestos have been scrubbed from Tesla’s website. The first Master Plan, which was released in 2006, outlined Tesla’s plan to release a series of EVs and use the revenues to build more affordable models. The second plan included plans for additional EVs, as well as solar panels and battery storage. The earliest blog post on the company’s site now dates to 2019. Coincidentally, the purge comes as Musk as aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, and has come to the defense of the oil and gas industry.
After almost two years of testing and a gradual phase-in program, Waymo says its finally ready to provide 24/7 robotaxi service at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport. It’s a pretty big milestone, given how financially essential airports trips are for all human-powered ridehail and taxi services. Waymo also recently completed its 100,000th trip to the airport, and is available for curbside pickup at Terminals 3 and 4. Airport pickups are typically pretty chaotic. So, good luck robots!