Transportation

GM pauses paid advertising on Twitter as Chief Twit Elon Musk takes ownership • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, General Motors, Social, Transportation, TwitterNo Comments

General Motors has temporarily paused paid advertising on Twitter, one day after billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk finalized a $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform. CNBC was the first to report GM’s decision. ZebethMedia confirmed the U.S. automaker’s decision. “We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” the company said in an emailed statement to ZebethMedia. “As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue.” It’s unclear what percentage of GM’s total advertising budget is dedicated to Twitter. Most, if not all, automakers have a presence on Twitter. Although not all of them opt for paid advertising. Ford, GM, Stellantis, Porsche, VW and Volvo are just a handful of the established automakers along with newer companies like Rivian that have social media accounts on the platform. Fisker is still on Twitter even after its founder and CEO Henrik Fisker deleted his personal account in April following the announcement of the Musk-Twitter deal. Musk tried to quell advertisers’ fear earlier this week with a note posted on his personal Twitter account about his intended approach to running the social media platform. “There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising,” Musk wrote. “Most of it has been wrong.” He went on to write that he believes Twitter has the potential to be a “common digital town square,” and that the platform cannot be “a free-for-all hellscape.” Musk’s promises might not be enough for GM as it seeks to compete and even surpass Tesla in EV sales.

Cruise opens robotaxi waitlist in Austin and Phoenix • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in autonomous vehicles, cruise, TransportationNo Comments

Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous vehicle subsidiary, is now inviting potential passengers in Phoenix and Austin to join the waitlist to be among the first Cruise robotaxi passengers. The company has been operating a fully driverless commercial robotaxi service in San Francisco since June, with fully driverless meaning there’s no human safety operator behind the wheel. Last month, Cruise announced plans to add Austin, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona to its resume. During GM’s third quarter earnings call, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the company remains on track to complete its first commercial driverless public rides and deliveries by the end of the year. When Cruise initially launched its waitlist to join the “Cruise Rider Community” in San Francisco earlier this year, it promised rides would be free at first. In the past, the company said initial rides in Austin and Phoenix may be free with the intent to begin charging for the service shortly after, but a spokesperson told ZebethMedia today that Cruise will launch a fully driverless paid service immediately. The company began supervised testing in Austin last month with more than a dozen vehicles, according to Vogt, who noted that Cruise’s mapping systems “work as expected.” Cruise intends to begin at limited scale and ramp up as the company produces more vehicles — specifically, the Cruise Origin, a purpose-built AV that Cruise will rely on for its exponential levels of scale and robotaxi domination across the U.S. Interestingly, as part of the waitlist questionnaire, Cruise asks what time of day riders would most likely use the service: morning, afternoon, night and late night. In San Francisco, Cruise only operates from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in San Francisco, largely due to California’s regulations. Cruise’s main competitor Waymo, which has been providing a commercial robotaxi service outside of Phoenix since 2020, operates 24/7, according to the company’s FAQs. So it follows that Cruise may not have to remain a vehicle of the night when it goes to Arizona, at least. Cruise said it would share more updates on the times of day it will run its service in the near future.

Uber to freeze fake rider account names, pilot front-facing video recording • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apps, Transportation, UberNo Comments

Uber is releasing a suite of new safety features geared towards the driver, including freezing fake rider account names and piloting a front-facing video recording tool to replace a driver’s dashcam. The safety features follow a feedback period from drivers that Uber began this summer. It looks like drivers have been having a hard time with fake user names. Uber, in its attempt to prevent discrimination based on name, has allowed riders to update their names in the app. The result is some users changed their names to cartoon characters or “even offensive language” which Uber said “can lead to challenging pickups or uncomfortable situations for drivers.” Uber will conduct a large audit of rider account names and freeze any accounts with clearly fake names. Riders will have to update or validate their account names with Uber’s support agents to have their accounts unblocked, the company said. Drivers will also be able to flag any fake or inappropriate names in their app’s Help section. Uber is also expanding its audio recording feature and piloting front-facing video recording. The ride-hail giant says in-app audio recording during rides has helped it determine the best course of action after a safety incident, and it’s helped riders and drivers feel safer when using the app. Uber has been piloting audio recording in three U.S. cities over the past year, and will now expand to six new U.S. cities next month, including Cincinnati, Nashville, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Tucson. The video recording trial, which will take place in Cincinnati, Louisville and New York City in the U.S. and Santos and João Pessoa in Brazil, will allow drivers to record video using the front-facing camera on their smartphone. The idea is to replace an interior-facing dashcam with a much cheaper and easier to set up alternative, and it will allow drivers to record both video and audio on every trip, the company said. As with the audio recording feature, no one, including the driver, can access the recording unless the driver wants to share it with Uber to find information in a safety-related incident, Uber said. Uber also revealed some new road safety features on Thursday. The company said its in-app navigation system will now suggest fewer left turns, which according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, result in 22% of crashes. The navigation will also alert drivers to “watch for cross traffic” when approaching an intersection without a four-way stop.

The Tesla Cyberquad for Kids is being recalled over safety concerns • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Cybertruck, Recall, Tesla, TransportationNo Comments

The Tesla Cyberquad for Kids, a $1,900 mini ATV inspired by the yet-to-be produced Cybertruck, is being recalled due to safety concerns flagged by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Radio Flyer, which makes the Cyberquad for Tesla, is handling the recall. About 5,000 units have been sold, per the CPSC. Consumers will receive full refunds once they remove the product’s motor controller and send that back to Radio Flyer via a prepaid envelope. Removing the motor controller will permanently disable the Cyberquad. Directions on how to locate, remove and return the motor controller can be found on the Radio Flyer recall website. CPSC posted Thursday a notice on its website that the mini ATV “fails to comply with the federal mandatory safety standard requirements for youth ATVs, including mechanical suspension and maximum tire pressure.” The agency also said the Cyberquad lacks a CPSC-approved ATV action plan, which is required to manufacture, import, sell, or distribute ATVs. These action plans typically include a numbrer of safety requirements, including rider training, dissemination of safety information, age recommendations and other safety measures designed to reduce crash and injury hazards, preventing serious injury or death. The Cyberquad, which was available for purchase via Tesla and the Radio Flyer, is no longer listed on either website. Radio Flyer still sells mini versions of Model S and Model Y vehicles for kids. The only remnant of the product (at least on the Tesla website) is a Cyberquad for kids bomber jacket, which is designed for “your adventures on Cyberquad for Kids.” In December 2021, Tesla added the “Cyberquad for Kids” product on its website, where prospective customers were able to place an order. The Tesla “Cyberquad for Kids” was made with “full steel frame,” along with cushioned seating and fully adjustable suspension, could travel around 15 miles on a full charge and reach a top speed of 10 miles per hour. That top speed could be restricted to 5 mph.

It’s time to admit self-driving cars aren’t going to happen • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars, TransportationNo Comments

A couple caveats for those going apoplectic over the headline: I mean self-driving isn’t going to be a thing A) in our lifetimes and B) with any kind of omnipresent scale. So in terms of the daily lived experience of most people reading this, truly autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. The evidence pointing to this has been mounting for years now, if not decades, but it’s now tipped the balance to where it’s hard to ignore for a reasoned observer – even one like myself who has previously been very optimistic about self-driving prospects. My decision to make this call is mostly predicated on one big event from Wednesday: Scooped by our very own Kirsten Korosec, Ford announced that it would be winding down Argo AI, the company backed by itself and fellow automaker Volkswagen focused on developing full level 4 autonomous driving technologies. Ford explained their justification in doing so when they released their Q3 earnings a few hours later, noting that not only were they shutting down Argo, but they were also essentially deprioritizing L4 technologies altogether, to instead focus on advanced driver assistance (ADAS) systems with internal resources. Ford CEO Jim Farley justified this by saying that “profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off and we won’t necessarily have to create that technology for ourselves” on the company’s earnings call Wednesday evening. The sentiments echoed those of a much younger and more tech-forward automaker CEO from just last week at our Disrupt conference in San Francisco. While Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe did say the company was eventually aiming to introduce Level 4 autonomy, he also said that the plan is to focus first on L2 and L3 ADAS, with its existing shipping vehicles capped at L3 given their current hardware limitations. He did say that he believes L4 is actually currently possible for companies with the proper advanced hardware kit on cars – with the caveat that those be geofenced to a specific location. That brings us to the companies who are currently operating driverless vehicles on actual public roads, Waymo and GM’s Cruise. Surely, if two (ostensibly) for-profit companies are already out there doing it, then it’s going to happen, right? The fact is that these existing services are extremely constrained in terms of geography and operating hours (though the latter is arguably a regulatory issue) and that seems unlikely to change at a pace that would make them ubiquitous in any reasonable timeframe. Plus, the existing services face consistent, vocal criticism from residents who have to share the road with them. At least Cruise and Waymo’s vehicles are tuned for extreme caution – possibly to a fault. Tesla on the other hand seems much more intent on hard-charging into a future where its so-called ‘Full Self-Driving’ technology actually lives up to its name, with an expanding pool of beta users employing the tech on public streets and frequent software iterations that on at least one occasion have done more harm than good. Musk is also intent on stripping out as many sensors as possible from the Tesla autonomy hardware kit, probably in search of margins, under the misguided belief that compute, AI and optical input will improve and combine to act as a cure-all. Musk strives to justify Tesla’s approach on the regular, but it looks like he may have to do that explaining in more granular detail to the U.S. Department of Justice if they proceed with any action resulting from an ongoing criminal investigation the government branch is pursuing. With even early pioneers striking a skeptical note, the time to consider the opportunity costs of shovelling money into the autonomy engine on autopilot is now. Argo AI was considered a leader with solid technological fundamentals by most experts in the field, so its shuttering is a strong signal not to be ignored. Meanwhile, I barely even scratched the surface on regulatory and public acceptance of any true ubiquitous self-driving, which will necessarily lag technological development — and likely by a lot, not a little.

Ford takes $2.7B hit on Argo shutdown, shifts its bet to driver assist tech • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Argo AI, Ford, TransportationNo Comments

As the third-quarter earnings drumbeat continues, we learned more about the state of global supply chains, global consumer appetite for big-ticket items and the future of self-driving technology. After the bell this afternoon, Ford beat Wall Street analyst revenue estimates of $36.25 billion, per Yahoo Finance, with automotive Q3 2022 top line of $37.2 billion, and total revenues of $39.25 billion, up 10% despite lingering supply chain issues. The company’s adjusted earnings per share also came in ahead of expectations. However, the financial news was quickly outweighed at least in commentary terms by the company’s choices regarding autonomous vehicle technology. ZebethMedia broke the news earlier Wednesday that Argo AI, a self-driving company in which Ford was an investor, is shutting down. Ford, in its earnings report, wrote that it is shifting its capital spend from the Level 4 autonomous systems being developed by Argo AI to internally developed “L2+/L3” advanced driver assistance technology. “So it’s taking that investment and putting it towards a business where we think we will have a sizable return in the near term relative to one that’s going to have a long arc,” said Doug Field, chief advanced product development and technology officer at Ford, during Wednesday’s investor call. Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, even went so far as to say “profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off and we won’t necessarily have to create that technology for ourselves.” “We don’t expect a single ‘Aha!’ moment like we used to,” he said during a call with investors. “Advancing Level 2 hardware and software beyond what Blue Cruise can do today, and ultimately enabling our customers to travel in very large ODDs or operating domains with their eyes off the road will give them back the single most valuable commodity in our modern lives. Time.” Letting go of the Argo AI investment, however, had a material impact on the company’s profitability in the quarter. To unwind the trade, Ford had to endure a $2.7 billion “non-cash, pretax impairment” on its Argo stake. That pushed the company’s GAAP results into negative territory for the three-month period. Taking a huge pre-tax loss is notable, as is the shift to focus on lower-level driver-assist technologies. The company had some good news to report, however, apart from its top-and-bottom line beats: profitability. Per the automotive company, Ford expects 2022 to bring in $11.5 billion in earnings before interest and taxes. Free cash flow projections for the year also ticked higher, with Ford anticipating $9.5 billion to $10.0 billion worth of the substance in 2022. (Ford’s EBIT in the third-quarter of $1.8 billion was above its own expectations.) The news of Argo’s dissolution comes not even a month after the company officially launched a robotaxi service on Lyft’s network in Austin using a fleet of Ford Escape hybrid vehicles. Last month, Argo also launched an ecosystem of products and services aiming to support commercial delivery and robotaxi operations. It’s not clear what will happen with those services now, and Argo did not respond to ZebethMedia in time. Ford’s view that it can forgo investments into pricey — and seemingly yet far-out — self-driving technology could mean a dearth of future deals from major car companies into smaller, tech-heavy autonomous companies. And the pullback in optimism could impact suppliers for those companies — the lidar concerns, and their ilk. Last week at ZebethMedia Disrupt, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe shared similar sentiments to Farley’s, saying that fully autonomous vehicles would be harder to achieve and scale. He said Rivian would pursue Level 2 and Level 3 systems which are on cars now and are getting increasingly better every day. Ford is not the only company struggling with its self-driving ambitions; Tesla is reportedly in trouble with the U.S. government about its own self-driving tech. The U.S. Department of Justice is reportedly investigating the company regarding its “Autopilot” capabilities, which is Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system that CEO Elon Musk has boldly claimed can drive itself in certain scenarios. This story is developing. Check back in for updates.

Tesla said to face criminal investigation by the Department of Justice over self-driving claims • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Tesla Autopilot, tesla full self-driving, TransportationNo Comments

Tesla is said to be facing a criminal investigation launched by the U.S. Department of Justice facing claims made by the company regarding its “Autopilot” capabilities, Reuters reports, citing “three people familiar with the matter.” The inquiry was launched last year per the sources and was initiated following over a dozen accidents involving the active use of Tesla’s Autopilot system, some resulting in fatalities. Tesla, and in particular CEO Elon Musk have been bold in their claims regarding Autopilot’s capabilities: The company’s so-called “Full Self-Driving” or FSD (which is not that at all, by the way, even by the admission of the company’s own materials) beta launched in October of 2020, and now has over 100,000 members enrolled from the larger global Tesla owner population, according to the most recent public numbers. The automaker still cautions users of “Autopilot,” “Enhanced Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving Capability” that they must remain “alert,” with their “hands on the steering wheel at all times” and that they “maintain control of [their] car.” That said, Musk himself has suggested FSD could be “safer than a human” before the end of this year in an earrings call from January. It was a reiteration of a claim from a year prior he made on Twitter, noting that FSD would “work at a safety level well above that of the average driver this year.” Note that just because the DoJ is investigating doesn’t mean criminal charges will necessarily result — they could opt to pursue civil action, do nothing at all or level charges.

Ford, VW-backed Argo AI is shutting down • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Argo AI, autonomous vehicles, Ford, TransportationNo Comments

Argo AI, an autonomous vehicle startup that burst on the scene in 2017 stacked with a $1 billion investment, is shutting down — its parts being absorbed into its two main backers: Ford and VW, according to people familiar with the matter. During an all-hands meeting Wednesday, Argo AI employees were told that some people would receive offers from the two automakers, according to multiple sources who asked to not be named. It was unclear how many would be hired into Ford or VW and which companies will get Argo’s technology. Employees were told they would receive a severance package that includes insurance, a transaction bonus and termination pay. Several people told ZebethMedia that it was a generous package and that the founders of the company spoke directly to its more than 2,000 workforce. ZebethMedia will update this story with official comment. Argo was founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Pete Rander. The company came out of stealth in February 2017 when Ford announced it would invest $1 billion over five years into Argo. Since then, the company has raised more than $2.6 billion, primarily from Ford and VW, in a pursuit to develop, test and eventually commercialize its automated driving system. The initial Ford investment came at a particularly hype-y time for the nascent autonomous vehicle industry. Startups, many founded by early pioneers of Google’s self-driving project, were landing eye-popping venture capital deals. A string of acquisitions followed: GM bought Cruise for $1 billion in 2016; Delphi, which is now Aptiv, acquired nuTonomy for $450 million; and Amazon bought Zoox. The promises around commercializing AV technology have proven more difficult than expected. A wave of consolidation washed over the industry with companies folding, being absorbed into other companies, including Apple, and others turning to SPACs in hopes of gaining the capital it needs to continue its mission. Argo seemed to be gaining ground in the past year. The company’s self-driving Ford Fusion vehicles, and now Ford Escape Hybrids, were frequently seen testing on public roads in Austin, Detroit, Miami, Palo Alto and Pittsburgh, where it is headquartered. In the EU, Argo was using the all-electric Volkswagen ID Buzz for its testing programs in Hamburg and Munich. Argo also has several pilot programs underway in Austin, Miami and Pittsburgh with Lyft, Walmart and 412 Food Rescue. And just last month the company revealed an ecosystem of products and services designed to support commercial delivery and robotaxi operations. The products — a list that includes fleet management software, data analytics, high-definition mapping and cloud-based communication tools — stretches far beyond the self-driving system that allows a vehicle to navigate city streets without a human driver behind the wheel. Argo appeared to be telling the world it was open for business. This story is developing …

Drones in cities are a bad idea • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in delivery drones, drones, Hardware, Opinion, Robotics & AI, TransportationNo Comments

It’s year five, or maybe ten, of “drones are going to revolutionize transport” and so far, we’ve got very little to show for it. Maybe it’s time to put these foolish ambitions to rest and focus on where this technology could actually do some good, rather than pad out a billionaire’s bottom line or let the rich skip traffic. The promise of drone deliveries, drone taxis, and personal drone attendants has never sat, or rather floated, right with me. There’s so little to be gained, while braving so much liability and danger, and necessitating so much invention and testing. Why is anyone even pursuing this? I suspect it is the Jetsons-esque technotopianism instilled in so many of us from birth: It’s only a matter of time and effort before we have the flying cars, subliminal learning pillows, and robot housekeepers we deserve, right? It feels like because we have things that fly, and things that can navigate autonomously, we should be able to put those things together and make delivery drones and air taxis. Just have to wait for the right genius kid building the future out of their garage, with the help of your friendly neighborhood VCs. Of course it’s not quite that easy. And although the Jetsons mentality explains our acceptance of the development of these technologies — unlike others that we disapprove of for their impracticability, cost, or ethics — it doesn’t really explain why a company like Amazon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to pursue it. The answer there, fortunately, is as clear as why Amazon does anything. To paraphrase Dr Johnson: “Sir, no man but a blockhead ever [spent a decade trying to build an autonomous drone delivery network], except for money.” That’s certainly the case with drone delivery. Amazon has made no secret of its intention to take over the logistics and delivery industry bite by bite, partly through sideways subsidy from other parts of its lucrative, mutually buttressed businesses, and partly with a punishing franchise model that offloads risk and liability onto contractors. That said, the end goal is, as in its warehouses, to replace those flesh and blood workers with tireless automatons. The best evidence for this is that Amazon’s warehouses already treat workers as if they are components in a machine, so it’s just a matter of swapping out a worn out part with another, more reliable part that doesn’t try to unionize. Same with delivery. High hopes Image Credits: Amazon But in the last-mile world, drones are kind of a funny idea. Certainly it has its merits: many packages are small and light and a drone could skip traffic or travel in a straight line over residential blocks to cut hours off delivery times. But that’s before you reckon with any of the actual needs or restrictions of the logistics world. To begin with, drones wouldn’t even cover the last mile — more like the last few hundred meters. Part of the reason for this is regulatory; it’s extremely unlikely that Amazon could procure a permit to fly its drones over all the private property in a city. The liability is just too damn high. Sure, you can do some sweetheart test markets in a random suburb, but good luck convincing urban areas to let commercial drones infest their skies at all hours. So what are they going to do, fly along the streets? High enough that they don’t hit any wires or trees? Carrying a 1-pound package? Only at certain hours? It isn’t particularly efficient! And then, the first time one of those packages or drones drops out of the sky and cracks a windshield next to a grade school, those drones are done in that city, and probably every other city. Done! Even if they could guarantee no accidents, no one wants those things flying around their neighborhood. Best case scenario is: fucking annoying. Drones are pretty loud, and it’s not even the kind of loud you can get used to, like the dull roar of a freeway a few blocks off. No, drones make the most annoying sound in the world short of Jeff Bezos’s laugh. Small ones, big ones, they all sound horrible. There are advances to be brought to bear here, but really, when you have 4 to 8 little rotors spinning at however many thousand RPMs and moving the necessary air downwards to lift a couple dozen pounds of body and payload, you tend to create a certain amount of truly obnoxious noise. That’s just the physics of the thing. If we could make helicopters quiet we would have done so by now. Even if we allow these drones dominion over the air and let them fly with impunity, they’re laughably limited. Where do packages go normally? In a big clearing in your building’s courtyard? On the roof? No, they go to the lobby, which locks, or perhaps in a parcel box… which locks. As commerce has moved online, parcel delivery has skyrocketed, and so has parcel theft. Imagine if a package made a really loud whining noise wherever it went then was guaranteed to be left out in the open somewhere. It’s a really frictionless experience for the criminals, at least. Image Credits: Walmart A drone can’t ring a doorbell or buzz your apartment (unless you hook it into your smart home infrastructure — best of luck with that). It doesn’t have a key to the lobby. It can’t ask you for a signature. Cities are diverse and complex physical environments with a wide variety of obstacles, methods, and requirements for making a package go from here to there in a safe and satisfactory way. We haven’t figured out how any robot can successfully deliver something without the recipient coming out to get it immediately, and doing it from the sky is even harder. Air-dropping is one of the worst possible ways (outside of combat) to deliver anything, only slightly better than yeeting it over the fence — admittedly common,

Hyundai and WeRide plan to fuel self-driving with hydrogen in China • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in autonomous driving, China, Climate, Hydrogen, hyundai, Transportation, werideNo Comments

While hydrogen is still relatively niched as a fuel for electric vehicles, a startup in China is jumping ahead to embrace it for autonomous driving scenarios. WeRide, one of the most funded robotaxi operators in China with investors including Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, said Tuesday it is joining hands with Hyundai to launch a “self-driving hydrogen-powered vehicle pilot zone” in Guangzhou, the southern metropolis where it’s headquartered. The collaboration comes at a time when the research and production of clean hydrogen increasingly becomes a focal point for China, which has been striving to decarbonize its economy. Details are scant from the announcement. It’s unclear when the pilot will kick off, what the scale of the trial is, or what exactly is being powered by hydrogen, which is considered one of the cleanest fuels as it is combined with oxygen to produce just water vapor and energy. But it won’t be surprising to see unmanned hydrogen vehicles roaming about the pilot zone since Hyundai has been betting big on the fuel. Indeed, the announcement says that WeRide, Hyundai, and Hengyun, a Chinese power generation and supply company, will work together to “create demand for the use of hydrogen fuel cell battery in unmanned street cleaning and ride-hailing.” In September last year, Hyundai said it planned to offer hydrogen cell fuel versions for all of its commercial vehicles by 2028. The tie-up with WeRide could expand the use case of its hydrogen products to robotaxis. Hydrogen-fuelled vehicles can recharge within minutes, making them an ideal medium for taxi operations if there’s enough refueling infrastructure. Guangzhou is a natural choice for the experiment given Hyundai has been producing hydrogen fuel cell systems in the city since March 2021. When the facility opened last year, the South Korean auto giant set an annual target to produce “6,500 units, with a goal to gradually expand production capacity in line with Chinese market conditions and central government policies.” China has made a big push to electrify its public transportation. In Shenzhen, the hardware capital of the world, nearly all buses and cabs run on lithium-ion battery packs. While the city has grown quieter with fresher air thanks to the initiative, battery safety and recycling remain big sticking points for the local authorities. Long lines often form at charging stations as it can take hours to fully refuel lithium-ion batteries.