Tag: Cars

How Bikes Will Take Their Revenge on Cars and Help Us Reclaim Our Streets

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Photo by Andrew Gook on Unsplash

As an enthusiastic cyclist and environmentalist, I’m quick to notice the tragedy of the commons flourishing on the premises of personal transportation, especially in the U.S.

Big cities are going car-free. London’s Mayor Saqid Khan’s newest “London Plan” envisions that 80% of all trips in London will be made by foot, bicycle or public transport by 2041.

Without this shift away from car use, London cannot continue to grow sustainably. […] The design and layout of development should reduce the dominance of cars, and provide permeability to support active travel (public transport, walking and cycling), community interaction and economic vitality.

London is one of a number of major cities committing to the future where getting from point A to point B doesn’t depend on personal cars.

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How Ford Will Electrify Vehicles to Make Them Better

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Ford is electrifying its most popular vehicles to make them even more capable, productive and fun to drive.


Happy New Year!

As we kick off 2017, at Ford, we’re also looking further into the future. The era of more affordable electrified vehicles is dawning, and we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make people’s lives better by changing the way the world moves.

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Andreessen Talks Flying Cars and Fleeing Jobs

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TechCrunch | Flickr

A quarter century ago, Marc Andreessen pioneered the web browser, and as a venture capitalist today he remains a fount of capitalist optimism. In an interview with The Verge, Andreessen says he still hears a “steady drumbeat of empowerment and opportunity coming underneath what looks like a very stressed, very angry time.”

He also thinks the autonomous-vehicle-driven future may take longer to arrive than we expect — the transition will be slow and complex, as NewCo’s John Battelle has argued. But flying cars might well come sooner than you think. “I don’t know if they’ll get them to work,” he admits, but if there’s a breakthrough in battery tech, get ready.

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The Soul of an Old Machine

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Robert Payne | Flickr

Henry Ford famously made inexpensive cars and paid his workers enough so they could afford to buy those cars. Ford aimed for a sort of virtuous cycle, in which a growing business would support a prosperous customer base that could in turn help the business grow further.

In the century since Ford’s heyday American business leaders have largely abandoned this approach, but it’s beginning to creep back into the conversation. Writing in The Atlantic, law professor Michael Dorff argues that too often today’s mission-driven corporations wear their ideals on their sleeves — giving to charity, promoting sustainability initiatives — but fail to build their businesses around a fundamental commitment to the well-being of workers and the wider community, the way Ford at his best did. (He had some execrable traits, too.)

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