Byron Pope, over at Ward Automotive had a piece out in August that bears some consideration. Titled, Death of the Dream Car, it argues the age of concept cars – those outlandish, oftentimes entirely impractical designs put out by auto manufacturers – have gone the way of the dodo as those manufacturers have been driven into a more practical and more serious mindset. If one were being snarky, one could say that all that creativity has been expended on politically expedite design efforts around plug-in hybrids, electrics, hydrogens, and the like. But even there, there is less imagineering going on.

I’m always torn when I hear people talking as if bikes – and particularly electric bikes – are the future of urban transportation. They are certainly “a” future or “part of” the future, but we’re on the cusp of a great flowering diversity of transportation options – particularly in the urban context, and so I always want to say, “wait, just hold on, wait until we see what’s next”.

Mike Marshall at J.D. Powers & Associates has some news for those that believe safety sells: Sometimes it does; but more increasingly – unless it’s standard, largely invisible, and intuitively cool – it doesn’t. How we think about safety – in a market context versus a regulatory context – will be central to the evolution of automotive safety systems.

…this last weekend I had an exquisite opportunity to once more realize how important it is to get outside of yourself, and recognize that while most of the time the ultraworld does – in fact – revolve around you, sometimes it doesn’t. And those can be the most rewarding of times on the trail.

Looking at the National Infrastructure Bank and asking what do we need to do infrastructure like its 2099