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Long Live Batteries

EV challenges remain but battery life is not one of them. There are lots of great reasons to drive electric. The modern plug-in electric vehicle (EV) is quiet, saves on fuel costs, requires little maintenance, and comes with thousands of dollars in purchase incentives. Downsides still exist, though.

Automated Shuttle Comes to UC Davis West Village

This electric, automated shuttle from SAIC Innovation Center is looping around UC Davis West Village now until June. Through June 1, San Jose-based Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation’s (SAIC) Innovation Center is demonstrating its automated, all-electric shuttle around a defined loop of the solar-panel-lined West Village community as part of an agreement between the auto company and UC Davis. 

Uber and Lyft Increased Traffic Delays in San Francisco by 40 percent

Uber and Lyft increased traffic delays in San Francisco by 40 percent

By Chelsea Whyte

Uber and Lyft drivers are on strike to demand regulated fares and livable wages, in the lead-up to Uber’s initial public offering on the stock exchange on 10 May. Now there is some more bad news for these services: they haven’t lived up to claims of reducing traffic congestion.

New Paper Published in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies: What drives the use of ridehailing in California?

Emerging Technologies: What drives the use of ridehailing in California? Ordered probit models of the usage frequency of Uber and Lyft by Farzad Alemi, Giovanni Circella, Patricia Mokhtarian, and Susan Handy Abstract

The availability of ridehailing services, such as those provided by Uberand Lyft in the U.S. market, as well as the share of trips made by these services, are continuously growing. Yet, the factors affecting the frequency of use of these services are not well understood.

Tara Goddard gives a seminar on ser safety and AV/partial AV

Tara Goddard's seminar on vulnerable road user safety and AV/partial AV at ITS-Davis includes the trolley problem, media critique, tech skepticism, and why we drivers are mostly horrible.

Tara Goddard is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Texas A&M. 

View the webinar here

Gordon Anderson speaks about Automated Vehicle Liability and Insurance at ITS Webinar

Automated vehicles (AVs) can be a revolutionary safety technology, but they will still sometimes crash in novel or challenging circumstances. This webinar begins with a simple question: when AVs crash, who must pay for the damage they cause? The problem is that neither state nor federal law currently provides a straightforward, definitive answer to that question. Considering these vehicles are already testing on public roads, it is likely that there will be crash victims in the near future.

Giovanni Circella presents Travel Behaviors and Vehicle Ownership in the Era of the “3 Revolutions” in Transportation

The three transportation "revolutions" – shared mobility, electrification and vehicle automation – are likely to radically transform transportation (and society, more in general). The adoption and frequency of use of (on demand) shared mobility services, including ridehailing (e.g. Uber and Lyft), carsharing, bikesharing and e-scooter sharing are already causing rapid changes in travel patterns and the use of other travel modes, in particular among younger travelers and urban residents.

Does California Need A ‘Green New Deal’ Of Its Own?

The world has just 12 years to limit global warming to moderate levels, according to a recent United Nations report. In response, Democrats  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey laid out a grand plan for the nation to address climate change: the Green New Deal.

The state's goal of 5 million electric vehicles on roads by 2030 is a good example, according Austin Brown with the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy.

The Three Revolutions: Our Best Hope for a Sustainable Transportation Future?

Road congestion in the US cost US$305bn last year, mostly in lost time; the average Los Angeles driver spends a whopping 102 hours per year in traffic, for example. Increased driving and energy use has resulted in transportation edging out electricity as the top producer of US greenhouse-gas emissions. And while cars have grown far safer over the years, car crashes kill close to 40,000 people per year in the US and injure many more.

White House Ends California Talks On Mileage Standards

The Trump administration broke off vehicle mileage standards talks with California on Thursday, moving the two closer to a possible court battle that threatens to unsettle the auto industry.

Under the administration proposal, the standards would be frozen after slightly tougher 2020 levels go into effect, eliminating 10 miles per gallon of improvement to a fleet average of 36 miles per gallon in 2025.