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Allow me to get a bit philosophical here: History is only smooth in retrospect. Few earth-shaking shifts are inevitable. A few steps forward, some more back. Change only looks easy from a rocking chair.
Which is all to say, it was a rocky week for electric vehicles, the motorized transports that are supposed to help us save the planet. Tesla underperformed in its first quarter production and delivery numbers, pulling that one-step-back routine after taking two steps forward in late 2018. The automaker attributed the discrepancy between vehicles produced and vehicles delivered to its overseas shipping operations, but that didn’t stop us from wondering: Is it possible that fewer people want to buy Teslas?
WIRED also this week got a look inside Audi’s E-tron factory in Belgium, the world’s first carbon-neutral electric-vehicle plant. The German automaker’s 37,000-square-meter photovoltaic farm feels like a win.
Also this week, we wondered about the road ahead for congestion pricing in New York City and got up close with the blood-toting drones flying over North Carolina. It’s been a week. Let’s get you caught up.
Stories you might have missed from WIRED this week
New York City decided it will charge drivers entering a large swath of Manhattan by 2021—but the tricky parts of implementing the traffic policy are far from finished.
Speculating about the future price of gold or soybeans is for wimps. It’s all about trucking futures now.
Tesla deliveries fell 30.5 percent from the last quarter of 2018 to the first of 2019. What does it mean for the future of the electric car company?
Take a trip to Brussels to see the carbon-neutral factory where Audi produces its new electric SUV.
The US’ first officially sanctioned, revenue-generating drone delivery scheme took off in North Carolina, with blood samples aboard.
After Lyft’s IPO, WIRED columnist Zachary Karabell warns potential investors: Wait and see what happens with the upcoming crop of public tech companies, unless you can afford to lose some dough.
Turns out that not every day is a winding road: Singer Sheryl Crow had some trouble with her electric vehicle this week.
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None other than Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped her troubleshoot, of course. Crow later tweeted that she’s still a fan of the automaker.
64 percent
The share of Americans who say they wouldn’t buy a self-driving car (if one existed), according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said driverless vehicles should also be held to a higher safety standard than traditional autos.
News from elsewhere on the internet
Green investors are passing on the Lyft and Uber IPOs.
Speaking of those IPOs: They’re bringing more attention to the questionable economics of the companies’ scooter and bike businesses.
Tesla is big in Norway.
Now Teslas on Autopilot can make lane changes without asking for human permission first.
A federal judge ordered the SEC and Elon Musk to talk it out over his tweets.
Bloomberg has the details on a nasty and possibly physical altercation between Musk and a departing senior Tesla exec.
LA, Uber, and privacy advocates square off over scooter data.
A report by Ethiopian investigators found that the pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed last month did all they could to prevent the incident—putting the spotlight back on Boeing’s system.
Essential stories from WIRED’s canon
A quick ride in the hottest electric vehicle of 1997: A golf cart, of course.
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- Tower Bridge, London's engineering marvel, turns 125
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