Good morning from Quick Shift, where we're hunkering down and preparing for the oncoming robot revolution, if you take this New York businessman turned presidential candidate seriously. Board up your windows and hope for the best -- we've got the latest news on the future of cars below. -- Shiraz Ahmed
Stay tuned: The White House will unveil its long-awaited infrastructure plan today. While an outline of the proposal has already leaked last month, the full plan should further highlight how the administration views dividing $1.5 trillion of spending between federal, state and local governments.
Trump administration weighs mpg cuts: The fuel economy mandates set under the previous administration could be in for a sizable trim, from a fleetwide average of 46.6 mpg by 2026 to 35.7 mpg, according to Bloomberg. This could have a heavy impact on industry investments in electrification, though if the California Air Resources Board doesn't play ball then carmakers could be in for a big headache.
Waymo and Uber settled: If you hadn't already heard this news, then maybe you've been shot into space in a Tesla Roadster. The two companies reached a settlement announced Friday where Waymo dropped its claims in exchange for $244.8 million of Uber stock. Uber, for its part, maintains that trade secrets were never stolen nor utilized in its self-driving car technology. Staff Reporter Katie Burke, whose been following this case since the beginning and was in the courtroom this past week, writes about what this fight was really over.
Quick hits
- Our Tokyo bureau chief spent a week living with a robot, and the results were comedy gold.
- Porsche and Audi will develop a joint EV platform to save on development costs.
- Hyundai executive: Shared mobility services will dominate self-driving cars.
- Panasonic is planning many more EV battery plants.
- Beijing just opened its first autonomous car test track.
- Google is putting its AI chip on the market.
- Philosophers want to take a crack at the Trolley Problem too.
- This MIT drone can evade trees in a forest at 20 mph, but just makes us queasy.
- Porsche will 3D print parts for your classic Porsche.
- Uber will force drivers offline after 12 hours to combat drowsy driving.
- DeepMind's latest AI uses what it learns on one task and tranfers that to another job.
- Two of Uber's Asian investors investing in a company that competes with Uber.