More complicated car tech could mean the return of auto manufacturing to the United States
The opening of Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada signals the United States' contention with the Asian companies that have dominated the battery cell market. The shift towards higher-tech manufacturing is already driving automakers like Ford to relocate their factories to the U.S.
Jan 4, 2017At some point in 2017, a fully autonomous Tesla will blast across the country en route from Los Angeles to New York.
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In 2016, shop class became cool again
Are cars on the brink of the first real revolution since the Model T? After a century of autos that more or less followed the same design, big disruptions are on the horizon from automation, ride/carsharing, and electrification.
Calling these developments a revolution might be inflammatory, of course. After all, it will take decades to roll out the infrastructure for electric charging stations, and maybe millennials will still buy cars.
But something changed in 2016, and the auto industry is once again a place for leading-edge technology. To wit: "Artificial intelligence, LIDAR, and data security are now part of everyday car speak."
The automation of cars will require a political response.
The self-driving revolution could pull the rug out from under the most common form of employment for American men without a college degree: driving.
The long-term outlook for the 8.7 million jobs in trucking is bleak following successful beta road tests of self-driving trucks from companies like Otto. Driving a truck is the most common employment in most American states.
Three things to note:
1. Automation could cause the cost of transportation to drop so low that the rich segregate themselves to well-off exurbs
2. If cars aren't already electric by then, it could also cause emissions to spike.
3. Self-driving taxis might be cheap, but do we really want them to replace public transit (which retains a public obligation to serve everyone equally)?
Cars are an unspoken tragedy
As social theorist Ivan Illich noted in his many jeremiads against the automobile, technologies as pervasive as the car can begin to bend the rest of the world, inverting the priorities of planners to favor the needs of cars over those of people. And it's not just that we're addicted to oil—though transportation recently passed energy as the number one source of carbon emissions in the United States, and the sector is responsible for 15 percent of emissions worldwide.
Also tragic, though perhaps less spoken of, are the deaths accepted as the price of human mobility. More people are killed by car accidents every year than by AIDS and murder combined, and they cost the United States an astonishing $1 trillion a year, more than 5% of GDP.
The Editors' Longreads Picks
- An excellent essay on poverty and writing by Starr Davis. Updated May 31, 2022
- Novelist Héctor Tobar tries to understand the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the experiences of a single high school.
- Steven Johnson with a long assessment of the current state of A.I. and language. (The illusion has gotten very good.)
Welcome to The Morning News Tournament of Books, 2017 edition.
- Our championship match is decided in the Tournament of Books, with news of a Rooster surprise debuting this summer. Updated Mar 31, 2017
- In Thursday's action, Reyhan Harmanci sets up a colossal final.
- The Zombie round opens with Buzzfeed's Isaac Fitzgerald reading The Nix and The Underground Railroad.
Все ваши Белый дом принадлежит нам.
- "Will Putin expose the failings of American democracy or will he inadvertently expose the strength of American democracy?" Updated Mar 3, 2017
- Wilbur Ross just wanted to make some money in ethically gray areas (that should've prevented him from taking office).
- Jeff Sessions's spokeswoman can't help but continue to lie.
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends.
- Trump's assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. Updated Mar 1, 2017
- Don't just blame the oil companies for destroying the oceans—blame sushi restaurants.
- Nothing escapes the deepest trenches of the ocean floor. Not light, not nutrients, not pollutants.