Mercedes goes all in on EVs, with studies now indicating EVs do save 50% of emissions over their lifetime, versus petrol vehicles. Is this enough to keep on course to a low-carbon future? And what about flying cars? Co-host Sally Dominguez and Special Correspondent Drew Smith have some answers.
Co-host Sally Dominguez and special correspondent Drew Smith explore the many facets of vehicle electrification with Mark. EVs are finally happening – but does that make them inevitable?
(Pictured: GMC’s new Hummer EV SUV, coming at the end of 2021)
Co-host Sally Dominguez looks beyond battery-powered vehicles, opening the door to a future featuring hydrogen, “paste”, and ammonia-powered engines. This diverse transition from fossil fuels enables a range of new vehicles for all of the ways we’ll live and work in the decades to come.
Sally’s new book EPIC Resilience is a great guide to staying match-fit in an ever changing world. Grab a copy here!
Special correspondent Drew Smith explores a European car market that appears to have reached a tipping point in sales of electric vehicles. Is it real? Is it sustainable? Can the power grid handle all those new EVs?
Drew asks the experts – and gets some surprising answers.
Drew co-authors the amazing ‘Looking Out’ newsletter – read the latest one here.
Prediction: At least half of all passenger vehicles sold by 2030 will be electric, revolutionising transportation – and energy.
Series 5 continues with more bold predictions for the next decade — an era of transition and remediation, as we work across multiple fronts and multiple industries – internationally – to cool the climate.
The pandemic has touched every aspect of our lives – forcing us to recalibrate our privacy, our connections with others, even the way we use cash. Walking through series 4, we peek into a few of the significant discoveries in this series – reflecting on what we’ve learned.
This show gave us a chance to touch base with these guests:
Physical distancing makes personal transportation a necessity. When public transport risks infection, cars & bikes become our safe spaces. Co-host Sally Dominguez looks at the sudden reframing of the automobile as self-contained ‘safe space’ during the pandemic. Special correspondent Drew Smith rhapsodises about the Renault Espace, the first MPV designed – to carry people.
1984 Renault Espace
Be sure to sign up for Drew Smith’s “Looking Out” newsletter – grab it here.
It’s the birth of ‘fabless’ production – manufacturing without huge capital investment. Will we be able to design a car ourselves – inexpensively and safely?
Is our transportation future a sleek clean sci-fi vision or a Max Max redux with added robotics? Could it be hell on wheels – or heaven on earth? Mark, Sally and Drew each explore their own versions of the perfect – and less-than-perfect automotive worlds to come.
Waste? Not! Designing cars for near-perfect recycling – is it even possible, or do the next billion end up as junk? How do we rethink a sustainable future around billions of automobiles? And can EVs promise zero carbon emissions?
We reference a lot of material on this episode, including this BP report on how much carbon we’re adding to the atmosphere every year. And a great article on recycling shredded automobiles.
Transformations in autonomy & electrification give automobile designers a new palette of possibilities – does our experience of driving change?
Drew Smith talks to BMW design legend Chris Bangle about what it took to design the REDSPACE urban car for the Chinese market. And here’s a video where he’s talking at the Art Center College for Design in Pasadena (Chris’s alma mater, and the school that graduates most of the world’s top car designers):
Mark and Sally sat down at the North American International Auto Show for a long interview with recently-retired Ford design legend Elizabeth Baron, about what it took to combine the real and virtual design processes into a seamless whole.
Elizabeth Baron, in the podcast suite at the Detroit Foundation Hotel, January 2019
Finally, Sally learns about the design possibilities created by autonomous vehicles from Luciano Nakamura, one of the founders of Australian startup AEV Robotics.
AEV Robotics rethinks design around urban use cases…
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