Automobiles

How to buy an Electric Car (2/20/2021)

The electric car comes of age, right when we need it (10/22/2018)

Automakers’ History of Intransigence and an Opportunity for Change (12/2017)

"What has been revealed as a result of some research at universities is that it's relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want the brakes on, to launch an air bag," Clarke told The Huffington Post. "You can do some really highly destructive things now, through hacking a car, and it's not that hard." See this.
Jared Diamond wrote about the collapse of earlier civilizations to great acclaim and brisk sales, in a nimbus of unimpeachable respectability. The stories he told about bygone cultures gone to seed were, above all, dramatic. No reviewers or other intellectual auditors dissed him for suggesting that empires inevitably run aground on the shoals of resource depletion, population overshoot, changes in the weather, and the diminishing returns of complexity. Yet these are exactly the same problems that industrial-technocratic societies face today, and those of us who venture to discuss them are consigned to a tin-foil-hat brigade, along with the UFO abductees and Bigfoot trackers. This is unfortunate but completely predictable, since the sunk costs in all the stuff of daily life (freeways, malls, tract houses) are so grotesquely huge that letting go of them is strictly unthinkable. We're stuck with a very elaborate setup that has no future; but we refuse to consider the consequences. So messengers are generally unwelcome. (attributed to James Howard Kunstler.)
consumers have no idea how much fueling their cars actually costs them. The majority of people paying just over $1 for a gallon of gasoline at the pump has no idea that through increased taxes, excessive insurance premiums, and inflated prices in other retail sectors that that same gallon of fuel is actually costing them between $5.60 and $15.14. When the price of gasoline is so drastically underestimated in the minds of drivers, it becomes difficult if not impossible to convince them to change their driving habits, accept alternative fuel vehicles, support mass transit, or consider progressive residential and urban development strategies. (2003)
American-style suburbia...the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. James Howard Kunstler

These three states that went for Trump in 2016 will be hardest hit by his auto tariffs: report (8/18/2018)

Clean Car Standards Should Be Strengthened, Not Reopened (8/11/2017)

Cars Suck Up Data About You. Where Does It All Go? (7/27/2017)

Senate Report Slams Automakers for Leaving Cars Vulnerable to Hackers (2/9/2015)

What are the likely geopolitical consequences of self-driving cars and trucks?

Ralph Nader: Safety in name only at NHTSA (9/18/2014)

Meet the American City Where Cars Have Been Banned Since 1898 (7/7/2013)

Nobody’s Safe: ‘Car Hacking’ the Latest Advanced Form of Assassination
 * see the case for free software.

In the video below, Dr. Kathleen Fisher, a DARPA program manager, talks about the ability to hack into car computer systems. She explains how it is possible to remotely control modern cars through Bluetooth and smart phone technology.


Fuel Economy Guide for automobiles:  Check this site for the real costs of driving an automobile.

A Requiem For Detroit (5/12/2010)

How Detroit Went Bottom Up (9/28/2009)

The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit: A Tour of the Once Mighty Motown.

You're Fired (4/1/2009)

America's Autos on Welfare

Electric Vehicles

Bailout ? What happened to the PNGV Efficient Vechicles ? Chad Kister 12/31/2008

Get an estimate for your auto repair.

Fuel Economy Guide for automobiles: model year 2008

Lobbying: A Recession Proof Industry.

Project Better Place

CleanMPG.com

make cars safer for kids (www.safecarsforkids.org) ;

Plug in America was mentioned in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car.

LInks

Congress For the New Urbanism

Bibliography

Reinventing the Automobile: Mitchell

Asphalt Nation: Jane Holtz Kay

Unsafe at Any Speed: Ralph Nader.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream a Francis Ford Coppola film (1988)

Order "Who Killed the Electric Car?" on DVD!Still filling up with gas? Ever wondered why? Now it's a film available on DVD!

This acclaimed exposé chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1. Film critics nationwide have rated this film a top pick.  See electric cars, the people who love them, the companies that built them and fuel them, governments that regulate them, and the fight for our future. "Daily Show" with Jon Stewart |  Director's Blog |  PBS "NOW" episode, June 9, 2006  Watch video | official movie website | Read more

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