Why we need fewer driverless cars and more carless drivers

Published

1 year ago

November 1, 2023

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In recent years there has been a growing interest in autonomous vehicles. Big tech and car companies are pouring tons of cash into making the dream of self-driving cars a reality. It may sound like we’re finally close to achieving the future we’ve been sold on from countless sci-fi movies, but perhaps we’re missing the mark here. Maybe what we really need is not another fancier car on the road, but more folks on two wheels instead – I’m talking of course about bicycles and electric bikes.

It’s not that driverless cars aren’t without benefits. The idea sounds good in theory, taking human error out of the equation and replacing it with a presumably infallible computer. The problem is that even ignoring the major safety risks of testing out this unproven technology on public streets around unconsenting individuals, you’re still left with an increase in the numbers of cars on the road leading to the same problems cars cause today.

Saying hello to bikes and goodbye to traffic jams

One of the most immediate benefits of increasing the number of cyclists on the road is the significant reduction in traffic congestion.

Bikes take up far less space than cars, and even a modest shift from car commuting to biking can result in a noticeable decrease in traffic jams, leading to smoother and faster travel for everyone.

In contrast, driverless cars, while likely one day capable of optimizing routes and reducing human error, still occupy the same amount of physical space on the road, doing little to alleviate congestion. Their goal is to solve some problems, which they may eventually be able to do successfully. But in doing so, flooding the streets with driverless Ubers will simply create more problems. Just in the way Uber itself was meant to solve many of the problems in the transportation industry, nearly a decade later is has left us with merely more traffic than ever before by incentivizing the filling of roads with an ever increasing number of vehicles.

Your heart (and waistline) will thank you

Promoting cycling not only contributes to cleaner air by reducing vehicle emissions but also encourages an active lifestyle.

Regular cycling has been proven to improve cardiovascular health, reduce stress, and enhance overall well-being. Electric bikes, with their pedal-assist functionality, make cycling more accessible to people of all ages and fitness levels, ensuring that the health benefits of biking can be enjoyed by a broader demographic. On the other hand, the convenience of driverless cars leads to an even more sedentary lifestyle, exacerbating current public health issues related to physical inactivity.

Not everyone can ride an e-bike and not every trip is e-bikable. Far be it for me to call electric bikes a global solution for every transportation need. But the types of trips being performed by driverless cars now are often short city hops and thus are the prime example of an e-bikeable trip.

Stronger, friendlier and more socially-connected communities

When you’re behind glass in a private car, you’re disconnected from the world. But cycling promotes social interaction and a sense of community.

Unlike the isolating nature of cars, cyclists are more likely to engage with their surroundings and with other people. Creating bike-friendly cities encourages a vibrant street life and fosters a sense of belonging and connection among residents.

Not every trip is a chance to stop and chat, but riders tend to be happier, more engaged people because of it. A friendly wave or a chance to say hello on the way to work can be a small mood-booster that does wonders for mental health. As social creatures, isolation is rarely helpful for our minds and bodies.

Supporting sustainable urban development

As urban areas continue to grow, sustainable development becomes increasingly crucial. Prioritizing cycling infrastructure, such as protected bike lanes and secure bike parking, promotes a more efficient use of space and resources.

It encourages compact, mixed-use development that is accessible by bike, reducing the need for extensive road networks and sprawling parking lots. This not only preserves green spaces but also creates more livable, human-centered urban environments. No one has ever said “You know what this neighborhood needs? More asphalt!” A reduction in car dependency means more prioritization on designing cities for people. Two and three lane streets can become single lane streets with a bike lane and wider sidewalks or parklets that add more green space into urban areas.

It’s even economically better for businesses, as many areas that renovated streets to be more walkable and bikable have found that increased foot traffic means local businesses thrive.

Yes, this is a street in Amsterdam. But this could easily be a street in the US. It’s all about priorities.

Addressing economic disparities

Bicycles and electric bikes are more economically accessible than cars, driverless or otherwise. And the growing list of e-bike purchase incentives, especially for low income folks, is making them more affordable than ever.

Investing in bike infrastructure and subsidies for e-bikes can help bridge transportation gaps in low-income communities, providing affordable and reliable mobility options. It’s even better for local city governments and municipalities, reducing the economic costs associated with road maintenance and congestion-related productivity losses.

Summing it up

While driverless cars hold the promise of a high-tech, automated future, they are not a panacea for the many challenges facing our transportation systems. Driverless cars are cool, don’t get me wrong. The technology is impressive and undoubtedly holds promise in certain situations that can’t be handled by a bike. But they are primarily being used in areas where bikes could perform the same job in a cheaper, more efficient and arguably safer way.

Driverless cars are not the magic fix for our traffic woes and our health problems. Bikes and e-bikes offer a down-to-earth, connect-with-your-neighbors, get-your-endorphins-flowing kind of solution that driverless cars just can’t match. So how about we give our cities, our health, and our wallets a break and give biking the spotlight it deserves?

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Environment

Tesla board is reportedly floating replacing Elon Musk as CEO

Published

3 hours ago

May 1, 2025

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Tesla board is reportedly floating replacing Elon Musk as CEO

According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Tesla’s board has taken steps toward potentially seeking a new CEO to replace Elon Musk.

To say the least, Tesla’s board of directors has been extremely favorable to Elon Musk, Tesla’s largest single shareholder and long-time CEO.

They have backed his every move, granted him a $55 billion CEO compensation package, and remained silent when he threatened Tesla shareholders that he would not develop AI products at Tesla unless given a larger, more controlling share of the company, or decided to fire Tesla’s entire charging team to make an example out of the head of the team.

Tesla’s then-third-largest individual shareholder, after Musk, Leo KoGuan, told Electrek last year that he couldn’t get his concerns about Musk heard by the board.

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Most recently, they have not addressed the protests at Tesla stores and product boycotts, which are attributed to Musk’s involvement in politics, angering a significant portion of the population and Tesla’s consumer base.

Many people, including myself, deduced from the board’s silence that it did not plan to take action against Musk’s negative impact on the brand.

Now, a new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that the board started to move against Musk for the first time last month.

The report brings several new information to light. Here are the main points with quotes from WSJ:

According to unnamed sources, Tesla’s board reached out to executive search firms to look for a new CEO:
- “Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive, according to people familiar with the discussions.”
The board reportedly met with Musk and asked him to spend more time on Tesla:
- “Around that time, Tesla’s board met with Musk for an update. Board members told him he needed to spend more time on Tesla, according to people familiar with the meeting. And he needed to say so publicly.”
After Musk committed to spending more time at Tesla, it’s not clear what is the current status of the search for a potential new CEO:
- “The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.”
Additionally, Tesla’s board has been looking at adding a director, and JB Straubel, whose role on the board has mostly gone under the radar, has reportedly been meeting with investors:
- “The eight-person Tesla board has been looking to add an independent director, according to people familiar with the process. Some directors, including Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, have been meeting with major investors to reassure them the company is in good hands.”
WSJ has reportedly seen text messages that Musk sent to someone telling them that he doesn’t wish to be CEO at Tesla anymore:
- “Last spring, he told that person that he no longer wanted to be CEO of Tesla, but that he was worried that no one could replace him atop the company and sell the vision that Tesla isn’t just an automaker, but the future of robotics and automation as well.”
The report mentioned a Tesla manager who shared frustration about Musk’s negative impact on the business who has reportedly been let go since his comments were reported in the media:
- “Eliah Gilfenbaum, a Tesla executive in California, told his team that it was getting more challenging to hire and retain talent, according to one person who was present. He told them Tesla would be better off if Musk resigned. That was unlikely to happen, he told them, and employees needed to reconcile the boss’s politics with the company’s mission. He advised them to try to compartmentalize and just keep going.”
The board reportedly told investors that Musk wasn’t as well aware of what’s happening with Tesla as he used to:
- “In recent meetings with investors, board members told them that despite Musk’s government work, he was involved in Tesla meetings remotely. One board member told people that sometimes Musk wasn’t as well prepared and that he needed to be briefed more about what is happening with Tesla. The board members continued to say they believed Musk’s proximity to Trump and the White House would benefit the company over the long term.”

The report provides some insight into how the board is addressing the current situation with its controversial CEO.

During Tesla’s earnings call last week, Musk said that he would scale back his time at DOGE to spend more time at Tesla.

It encouraged some investors, but the CEO still claimed that he would “spend a day or two per week on government matters”:

“I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly. I’ll have to continue doing it for, I think, probably the remainder of the President’s term, just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back, which will do if it has the chance. So, I think I’ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so and as long as it is useful. But starting next month, I’ll be allocating probably more of my time to Tesla and now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done.”

In addition to these duties, Musk serves as CEO of SpaceX and the de facto leader of X/xAI, as well as being involved in Neuralink and The Boring Company.

Musk didn’t respond to WSJ’s request for comments, and as of the time of writing this article, he didn’t seem to have directly addressed the new report on X, but he did share a couple of memes about him “wearing many hats”:

He appeared at Trump’s cabinet meeting today wearing two hats simultaneously.

Electrek’s Take

I’d take the report with a grain of salt. A lot of it makes sense, but there are unnamed sources, and this could be as simple as the board floating the idea of replacing Musk.

Also, I want this to happen, so I’m certainly biased in the sense that I want to believe it’s true.

I think the board and shareholders would have a tough time removing Musk. Shareholders are not sufficiently incentivized by the current stock price, which is resisting Tesla’s declining growth and struggling fundamentals.

And they still believe Elon’s lies about self-driving and humanoid robots soon bringing Tesla back to rapid earnings growth.

I think we might need a few more people to get the “Elon realization moment” before there’s enough motivation from shareholders to push him out.

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Environment

China’s 3-row 872hp SUV would destroy the EU/US market: $40K Lynk & Co 900 PHEV

Published

8 hours ago

April 30, 2025

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China's 3-row 872hp SUV would destroy the EU/US market: K Lynk & Co 900 PHEV

On our trip to Shanghai auto show facilitated by Zeekr, my colleague Scooter and I got to see an unbelievable amount of EVs from 20+ makers, many of which we’d never heard of. Each maker offered an incredible array of models but one in particular stood out to me: the Lynk & Co 900.

One thing I love about this Plug-in Hybrid is that it has a relatively huge battery and could be ridden fully electric, outside of road trips. The two 45-52kWh battery options provide somewhere between 220 and 280 km of range using China’s optimistic calculator. That’s 137 – 174 miles of EV range before the gas motor kicks in and about six times the average daily commute.

Zeekr, Lynk & Co’s sister company, has an even bigger battery, but gawdier PHEV with a 380km/236 mile range before the gas kicks in. At this point, we are really talking about an EV with a range extender.

Environment

Home solar prices just hit record lows – and storage is even cheaper

Published

8 hours ago

April 30, 2025

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Home solar prices just hit record lows – and storage is even cheaper

home solar storage prices — Photo: Sunrun

If you’ve been holding off on going solar, now might be the time to revisit that quote. According to EnergySage’s new Solar & Storage Marketplace Report, prices for both home solar and solar + storage reached record lows in the second half of 2024.

EnergySage, an online solar shopping marketplace (and Electrek affiliate) analyzed millions of quotes from installers across the US in its 20th semiannual report. The data covers January through December 2024 and offers a detailed look at what homeowners pay for solar panels, batteries, inverters, and more.

Home solar and battery storage price quotes hit record lows

The median price for solar-only systems dropped to $2.65 per watt in the second half of 2024, down from $2.80 per watt earlier in the year. That’s the lowest price EnergySage has recorded.

Battery-backed systems saw an even bigger price drop: home solar + storage quotes fell from $2.59 per watt in H1 2024 to $2.40 per watt in H2 2024. Tesla’s Powerwall 3 is playing a big role in the storage price drop. The new version includes an integrated inverter, which shifts some of the cost from the solar quote (measured in $/W) to the storage quote (measured in $/kWh).

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These falling prices were driven by a mix of factors. Equipment costs have dropped – Wood Mackenzie reports that residential solar panel prices were down 30% year-over-year. High interest rates and stable electricity prices have softened demand, pushing installers to offer more competitive pricing. And in California, changes to the state’s Net Billing Tariff have also pressured installers to drop prices.

“Heading into 2025, solar and battery prices had never been lower on the EnergySage Marketplace, and for homeowners, that means more affordable and accessible clean energy solutions,” said Emily Walker, director of content and insights at EnergySage. “This creates a compelling record-low benchmark to measure against as we begin to see the effects of shifting policies and tariffs take hold this year.”

Say hello to high-wattage solar panels

Home solar panels are getting more powerful, faster. In H2 2023, 81% of quotes included panels rated under 400 watts. By H2 2024, that number had dropped to just 14%. The shift is thanks to advances in panel efficiency and design: Either the panels themselves are getting bigger, or they’re packing more power into the same space.

High-wattage panels can reduce the number of panels needed per home, saving space and installation time. But there’s a wild card in 2025: tariffs. Bloomberg reported in April that the US had a stockpile of 40-50 gigawatts of solar panels at the end of 2024, which may buffer the US solar industry from big price hikes. However, that could slow down innovation and complicate the supply chain.

“As panel technologies improve, more homeowners are being offered higher-output systems – meaning fewer panels, more power, and a better return on investment,” said Walker. “We’re closely watching how inventory strategies and upcoming tariffs may shape this trend.”

To limit power outages and make your home more resilient, consider going solar with a battery storage system. In order to find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and you share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*

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