2019 to 2021
Summary of the Speed and Scale of the changes coming by digitizing mobility:
- Tony Seba Future of Transportation as a Service
- Red Bull TV, JPods starts at 10:25 (2016) on the future of transportation (self-driving cars for off-network, JPods for urban networks, and Hyperloops for highspeed networks between cities)
- $500 million Hyperloop Certification Center in West Virginia Announcement
- Pirates and Patriots, such as Tesla, are purposefully violating existing laws to delivered 3 billion self-driving miles on roads and a 9X better safety record. An example of violating laws, operating a car without a licensed driver, no driver at all, Tesla’s promotional video on “Smart Summon”
Capital Investments:
- Morgan Stanley: Why Waymo Is Worth A Staggering $175 Billion Even Before Launching Its Self-Driving Cars
- McKinsey and Company: ‘A physical version of the Internet’: How Hyperloop could be the broadband of transportation
- $28 billion was invested in mobility startups in 2017
- 40x ROI on Kiva’s $775 sale to Amazon
- Mar 5, 2020: Valued at $30bn, Waymo considers its next move “outside investors lined up this week to pour $2.25bn into Waymo”
- Transportation poised for wild ride over next decade
Governments:
- We Could Never Afford America’s Highways — Even Before COVID-19
- Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze – South Carolina, Vince Graham
- The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth
- Cuomo: I Reached Out to Tesla to Help Fix the Subway System’s Signal Problems
- Engineers to Pedestrians: No ‘Walk’ Signs for You!
- Senator Beach and the Georgia Senate Transportation hearing, March 12, 2019 on solar-powered mobility networks.
- Mass Transit: L.A. is hemorrhaging bus riders — worsening traffic and hurting climate goals
- Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It
- Subway Performance Reaches Major Milestone – On-Time Performance Crosses 80% for the First Time in Six Years, Up from a Low of 58% in January 2018
- Georgia sees spike in pedestrian deaths
- Leon Drolet: Transit is fading as transportation options shift
- Hey California, you can now trade in your old car for an electric bike!
- Latin America pledges 70% renewable energy, surpassing EU: Colombia minister
- Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending
- Boomers Are Thriving on an ‘Unprecedented’ $9 Trillion Inheritance
- 71 people were killed while traveling around Denver in 2019 — here’s where
- US Uses 11 Times More Energy Than UK (with Only 5 Times More People)
- Dallas-Fort Worth’s sprawling rail networks haven’t worked, so here’s a better idea
- Clearwater one step closer to aerial transit system in Tampa Bay
- Yet Another Report Highlights DART’s Poor Quality Transit
- Atlanta is home to three of worst traffic bottlenecks in U.S.
- TAKOMA PARK AGGRESSIVELY WORKS TOWARDS ELIMINATION OF FOSSIL FUELS
- We Could Never Afford America’s Highways — Even Before COVID-19
- Mar 3, WSJ: Amid Coronavirus Fears, Officials Say New York City Subway Is Safe
- May 5, 2020, BBC: Coronavirus: Tube numbers to be ‘severely restricted’
- London’s Tube to be overwhelmed ‘with just 15pc of passengers allowed onto carriages after lockdown’
- Bill would tie Amtrak funding to preservation of long-distance routes
- Bike safety defects in San Jose.
- Gross Domestic Product, 2nd Quarter 2020 (Advance Estimate) and Annual Update, 32.9% decrease in GDP
- Iran dumps dollar for yuan; US imposes new sanctions
- National Conference of State Legislatures summary of States enacting self-driving car laws.
- What should matter….doesn’t.
- U.S. States Face Biggest Cash Crisis Since the Great Depression
- Mass Transit ridership is 65% lower than before the pandemic
Self-driving cars
- Tesla Is Now America’s Number One Premium Automotive Company, Outsells BMW, Lexus In Q4
- Waymo now has 20 million self-driving miles. Excellent summary.
- $80 billion has been spent on self-driving cars with nothing to show for it.
- Dr Ortiz letting his Telsa drive him home in NYC traffic.
- Autonomous trucks reach a new milestone (with video)
- Driverless cars won’t deliver a transport revolution—and the auto industry stands to lose out
- Morgantown network of self-driving cars has been running since 1972.
- Sony reveals electric car prototype as CEO dubs mobility the next ‘mega trend’
- New York-based architect Bjarke Ingels designs Toyota’s “city of the future” in Japan
- The federal government just granted its first driverless car exemption
- Nuro’s new delivery R2 bot gets the first driverless vehicle exemption from feds
- Autonomous Milestone: NHTSA grants first-ever driverless car exemption
- Soucheray: Light rail is an even bigger disaster than we thought
- Fed Risk Summary, page 28
- Musk gets approval to expand in Las Vegas.
- Car design is about to change forever. This video encapsulates how
Covid-19
- Spread of flue on the London Tube
- Coronavirus in NY: MTA chief calls subways safe — but also says avoid them
- Coronavirus May Have a Lasting Impact on Public Transit Funding
- U.S. Jobless Rate May Soar to 30%, Fed’s Bullard Says
- NY Times: A Tragedy is Unfolding: Inside New York’s Virus Epicenter
- Half of China’s Infections on Saturday Came From an International Flight
- Real Clear Politics: April 3, 2020, Virus Experts’ Early Statements Belie ‘Prescient’ Portraya
- ‘It’s positively alpine!’: Disbelief in big cities as air pollution falls
- Tech Workers Consider Escaping Silicon Valley’s Sky-High Rents
- MIT Study: NYC Subways: The Subways Seeded The Massive Coronavirus Epidemic In New York City
- Jeffrey: What Spread Coronavirus in New York City? The Subways.
Hyperloop
- Futuristic ‘Hyperloop’ system could cut Edinburgh to London journey time to half an hour
- US pavilion at Dubai Expo 2020 to include hyperloop simulator
- EuroTube
- Sydney to Melbourne in 40 MINUTES: Ultra high-speed trains could soon slash inter-state travel times across Australia with top speeds of more than 1220km/h
- INTERVIEW: Virgin Hyperloop One moving forward in India, Dubai, and Saudi: co-founder
- Hyperloop CEO reveals where the revolutionary project is right now
- Hyperloop: Is This the Future of Transportation in NYC?
- Hyperloop a step closer to offering a green alternative to short haul flights
- $2 million study looks at hyperloop – 700 mph transit – that would cross Pennsylvania
- The XP-1 hyperloop test pod is coming to Missouri and North Carolina
- The Boring Company’s Las Vegas Loop tunnel project is coming to life
- Pittsburgh to Cleveland in 9 minutes? There is new funding to study the possible Hyperloop route
- Hyperloop could come to North Texas sooner than expected
- Is this the future of transportation? The Hyperloop pod visits the Triangle this week.
- “Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO) will zoom into Washington D.C. on Wednesday, stopping outside the United States Capitol with its XP-1 test pod”
- Hyperloop to add $4bn, 124,000 jobs in Saudi Arabia
- New report claims MO hyperloop could create $3.6B annual boost, 17K new jobs
- Show Me Hyperloop: Missouri panel confident it can win route with $300M+ test track
- Virgin Hyperloop seeks backing to build U.S. certification center
- Senator Manchin sends letter advocating for Virgin Hyperloop One to build Certification and Test Center in W.Va.
- Governor: West Virginia makes its pitch for Hyperloop high-speed pod transit development center
- Great Lakes Hyperloop Feasibility Study
- Link to a new story out to Saudi Arabia today.
- Op-ed: The hyperloop will revolutionize transportation in the post-coronavirus world, Lucas Asher
- Governor announces Hyperloop Certification Center to be built
- Hopes for Missouri Hyperloop project dashed, Branson announces West Virginia
- India: Virgin Hyperloop sets up global hyperloop certification centre
- Effect of Hyperloop Technologies on the Electric Grid and Transportation Energy
Drones
JPods
- Georgia Senate Transportation Committee hearing Mar 12
- THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, How we found (and lost) the dream of Personal Rapid Transit
- Queens Mobility Company, the official Draft EIS Document, LGA Access EIS, and the JPods response
- Georgia Mobility Company
- Response to RFI, San Jose, CA
- Metro Atlanta transit plan: Here’s the project list
- JPods example networks in Tulsa
- JPods in Shaxian, China (2018)
- Boston Magazine: How to Save Transportation in Boston: Big Ideas
- Carden’s presentation on accessibility (starts at 23:20).
- San Jose Proposal and “experts” choosing the same failed tech and vendors from Indianapolis and Las Vegas.
- Las Vegas proposal. JPods networks cost $10-30 million/mile verses the Monorail at $150 million per mile ($654 million for 3.9 miles). The Monorail was recently sold in bankruptcy for $24 million.
- Videos
Fracking, oil, and energy:
- Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? And what can we do to use this global opportunity for green growth?
- The Guardian: What if Canada had spent $200bn on wind energy instead of oil?
- Columbia | SIPA: Reserve Base Lending and the Outlook for Shale Oil and Gas Finance
- Bethany McLean: Saudi America interview with Chris Martenson.
- Fracking March 18, 2019: “The statistics point to a one to two-million-barrel decline in production from the frackers“
- NBC News: April 8, 2019: Why much of the country is headed for $4 gas
- Seeking Alpha: April 9, 2019: U.S. Oil Production Is Starting To Grow Again
- Seeking Alpha: Oct 16, 2019: U.S. Shale Productivity Declines Even As DUCs Decrease
- Peak Oil, Feb 13, 2020: $207.5 billion in losses.
- Mar. 13, 2020: U.S. Oil Production Could Drop By A Quarter
- Oil Shock of 1973–74
- Dallas Fed: Breakeven Oil Prices Underscore Shale’s Impact on the Market ($49 to $54)
- CNBC: Oil now a ‘bigger problem for markets than the coronavirus,’ analyst says
- Baker Hughes Rig Count
- CNBC: Exxon cuts capital spending by 30%, but CEO says it’s ‘committed to maintaining’ dividend
- May 6, 2020: Implied U.S. Oil Production Shows Material Drop And Looks To Be Headed For 10 Mb/D
- April 28, 2020: 3.77 Mb/D Reduction In U.S. Gasoline Supply, Bullish UGA
- May 19, 2020: UGA: Bullish With New Source Of Demand
- June 1, 2020: Bullish UGA, Undervalued By $8
- Saudi America, Bethany McLean
- June 18, 2020: U.S. Energy Dominance is Over
- June 2020, EIA Permian
- July 2020, Shale boss says U.S. has surpassed peak oil
- UGA: Bullish, Demand Exceeds Supply
- Oct 9, 2020 U.S. Oil Production Set To Decline More From Here On Out
Suspended trains:
Graphene
Robots
Capital
Oil
- Oil Discoveries Hit 70-Year Low
- 2020-06-01: OPEC+ Wants To Eliminate Storage Overhang Before Year-End Via Aggressive Supply Cuts. Excellent Debt Wall graphic
Microgrids and Solar
- Opinion: Microgrids could prevent need for planned power outages
- Here’s how some Bay Area businesses and residents circumvented the PG&E power blackout
- Pascal Conductance in LaAIO3/SrTiO3 Channels
- Growth of Solar versus Prediction Failures
Peak Oil
Sea Ice