Cars

Mississippi Autoworkers Mobilize

July 18, 2017 Michelle Chen, www.dissentmagazine.org Resist! Cars, Manufacturing, Mississippi, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Michelle Chen for Dissent - The workers at the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, had high hopes when the state-of-the-art factory complex moved in fourteen years ago to a small, majority black town where more than a quarter of residents live in poverty and decent jobs are scarce. As the manufacturing economy stagnated in the early 2000s, Nissan brought a streak of Clinton-era economic optimism into this struggling corner of the South. The global auto giant erected a multinational enterprise that is now the largest local employer, with more than 5,000 blue-collar jobs for an area with a workforce of fewer than 8,000. The factory’s launch was intended to make Canton a keystone of Mississippi’s “advanced manufacturing” growth agenda, promising decades of job development. But paint technician Morris Mock sees his hopes evaporate every day on the line. After fourteen years at the plant, he says, “People are hurting inside of my factory.” His fellow coworkers have been concerned by what they see as increasingly unstable working conditions and general deterioration in benefits and safety protections. A few years ago they campaigned to organize with the United Auto Workers (UAW). Since then, he says, the workers have faced growing hostility from management for seeking to unionize...

Coalition Of 13 States Challenge Trump On Vehicle Emission Standards

June 13, 2017 Staff, www.reuters.com Resist! Cars, New Economy, pollution, Trump Administration

By Staff of Reuters - New York State's attorney general and 12 other top state law enforcement officials said on Friday they would mount a vigorous court challenge to any effort to roll back vehicle emission rules by the Trump administration. In March, President Donald Trump ordered a review of U.S. vehicle fuel-efficiency standards from 2022-2025 put in place by the Obama administration, saying they were too tough on the auto industry. The push to weaken the rules by the Trump administration comes as automakers are worried that consumers shift to larger vehicles and low gas prices will make it expensive or impossible to meet the regulations. They also fear a prolonged fight with states over the rules could make revising their product plans difficult. Democratic state officials have been increasingly aggressive in challenging Trump administration regulatory rollback efforts. "In light of the critical public health and environmental benefits the standards will deliver, if EPA acts to weaken or delay the current standards for model years 2022-25, like California, we intend to vigorously pursue appropriate legal remedies to block such action," the state attorneys wrote in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency including Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, Washington State, Oregon and Rhode Island.

From Oslo To Vancouver, Cities Plan To Go Car-Free

June 9, 2017 Leanna Garfield, www.tsss.ca Create! Cars, Cities, Transportation

By Leanna Garfield for TSS - In late 2016, Madrid’s Mayor Manuela Carmena reiterated her plan to kick personal cars out of the city center. On Spanish radio network Cadena Ser, she confirmed that Madrid’s main avenue, the Gran Vía, will only allow access to bikes, buses, and taxis before she leaves office in May 2019. It’s part of a larger effort to ban all diesel cars in Madrid by 2025. But the Spanish city is not the only one getting ready to take the car-free plunge. Urban planners and policy makers around the world have started to brainstorm ways that cities can create more space for pedestrians and lower CO2 emissions from diesel. Here are 12 cities leading the car-free movement. Oslo will implement its car ban by 2019. Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019 — six years before Norway’s country-wide ban would go into effect. The Norwegian capital will invest heavily in public transportation and replace 35 miles of roads previously dominated by cars with bike lanes. “The fact that Oslo is moving forward so rapidly is encouraging, and I think it will be inspiring if they are successful,” says Paul Steely White...

Gas-Powered Cars Will Vanish In 8 Years, Big Oil Will Collapse: Stanford Study

May 24, 2017 Staff, www.theantimedia.org Create! Cars, Oil

By Staff of Anti-Media - The reason for this, as he explains in thorough detail, is that the market for self-driving electric vehicles (EVs) is simply growing too fast. “What the cost curve says is that by 2025 all new vehicles will be electric, all new buses, all new cars, all new tractors, all new vans, anything that moves on wheels will be electric, globally,” Professor Seba writes in his report. It’s a matter of economics and innovation, Seba says. EVs are cheaper and easier to manufacture, their few moving parts require almost zero maintenance, and they can actually outperform their fossil fuel guzzling counterparts. “The electric drive-train is so much more powerful,” writes Seba. “The gasoline and diesel cars cannot possibly compete.” The professor says the only thing currently stopping this grand shift to electric is consumer price. Seba says the “tipping point” will come in the next few years when the cost of an EV will be down to around $30,000. But by 2022, when low-end models are $20,000, the changing tide will be unstoppable. In the near future, only nostalgics like car collectors will have a use for the old models, Seba predicts.

VW’s Environmental Settlement Includes 400 EV Fast Charging Stations

March 29, 2017 James Ayre, www.cleantechnica.com Create! Cars, Electricity, Technology, Transportation

By James Ayre for Clean Technica - As part of its court settlements with with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Volkswagen will build around 400 electric vehicle fast-charging stations in the US, according to reports. The $2 billion settlement will see the majority of stations — to be comprised of 150 kW and 320 kW DC fast-chargers, around 5 chargers to a station — installed in metro areas with high expected demand for electric vehicles. Note that these are genuinely “fast charging” rates, much faster than current non-Tesla fast chargers. The first US high-power, superfast-charging station with 150 kW of power is currently being constructed for the EVgo charging network (visualizations of that station from EVgo below).

German Push To Ban Combustion-Engine Cars By 2030 Wins Support

October 10, 2016 Edward Taylor and Mark Heinrich, www.reuters.com Create! Cars, Germany

By Edward Taylor and Mark Heinrich - A proposal to stop sales of new combustion-engine cars by 2030 has gained cross-party support in Germany's Bundesrat, the country's upper house of parliament, Der Spiegel reported. German lawmakers should urge their counterparts in Brussels to push incentives for only zero-emission vehicles to be registered by 2030, the weekly news magazine said, citing a decision taken in a Bundesrat meeting.

Barcelona Is Kicking Cars Off Many Of Its Streets.

October 5, 2016 Ben Adler, www.grist.org Create! Barcelona, Cars, Transportation

Ben Adler for Grist - The city’s plan will create “superblocks” that cars, buses, and trucks must go around, with exceptions for local residents and deliveries at off-peak times. Despite the ominous name, these pedestrian paradises won’t be like their infamous American counterparts — the towering mega-projects that destroyed the urban fabric in the name of Urban Renewal. And with all that valuable space now available, Barcelonians are beginning to find better uses for their streets...

The Netherlands Could Soon Ban The Sale Of Non-Electric Cars

April 19, 2016 Katie Valentine, www.thinkprogress.org Create! Cars, Electricity, Netherlands

By Katie Valentine for Climate Progress - The lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a motion recently that would ban the sales of non-electric cars in the country by 2025. The motion still needs to pass the Senate to become binding, but if it does, it would mean that the only non-electric cars allowed in the Netherlands would be those already on the road today: anyone in the country looking to buy a new car would have to buy electric. Such a law would, naturally, lead to a big increase in electric car ownership in the Netherlands. Already, the Netherlands is doing pretty well on EV purchasing...

Norway’s Plan To Get Rid Of Cars; New Billion-Dollar Bike Highway

March 21, 2016 Adele Peters, www.fastcoexist.com Create! Biking, Cars, Environment, Norway

By Adele Peters for Fast Company - Norway is trying to get rid of as many cars as it can. By 2030, though the country's population is quickly growing, the government is aiming for zero growth in private car use. Downtown Oslo will be car-free in three years. And now as another step towards its goal, Norway plans to spend almost $1 billion on a new network of bike highways. The two-lane bike highways will link suburbs to nine Norwegian cities on the shortest, flattest path possible.

The UAW vs. The Auto Workers

June 10, 2014 Jerry White, www.wsws.org Educate! Cars, Detroit, Labor, Unions

The United Auto Workers union held its 36th Constitutional Convention in Detroit last week. The meeting had three basic purposes: first, to install a new layer of hand-picked, right-wing union executives to replace those who are retiring; second, to impose a hefty dues increase on the membership; and third, to reassure the auto companies and the ruling class as a whole that the UAW will continue to help slash wages and benefits, impose speedup and increase corporate profits. In every respect, the four-day affair exhibited the antidemocratic, bureaucratic and anti-working class character of the organization. The gathering would hardly have been noticed by rank-and-file auto workers except for the fact that the delegates voted to increase membership dues by 25 percent. In his farewell address, outgoing UAW President Bob King summed up the class interests served by the UAW, telling the assembly of cheering delegates, “We want to show and demonstrate, which we do every day, that having a union workforce is a competitive advantage, not a competitive disadvantage.” Since the early 1980s, when the UAW was first brought onto the board of directors of Chrysler and officially adopted the corporatist program of labor-management “partnership,” the UAW has openly functioned to police the workers and provide the auto bosses with a reliable supply of cheap labor.

World’s Most Fuel-Efficient Car Debuts

June 10, 2014 Zahra Hirji, www.insideclimatenews.org Create! Cars, Energy, Environment, Sustainability

The world's most fuel-efficient car has just arrived on dealer lots in Germany and Austria, but don't expect it to be sold in America anytime soon. The Volkswagen XL 1, a diesel-electric hybrid, gets about 260 miles per gallon—meaning, a New York-to-Washington run would guzzle just about a gallon of diesel. Chevrolet's all-electric Spark, America's fuel economy leader, gets half that many miles per gallon. The average U.S. car gets 36 mpg. The XL 1's low carbon footprint is unrivaled among most car models—spewing 34 grams of carbon dioxide for each mile driven, compared to 10 times that from the typical U.S. car. Although it's a limited production vehicle, the XL 1 is expected to boost technology development for super-efficient cars as regulations require automakers to address global warming. In April, the tiny two-seater was honored as a finalist in the 2014 World Green Car competition. "The car offers a glimpse into the future," said Luke Tonachel, senior vehicles analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Its "technology and innovation will work their way into mainstream vehicles." Volkswagen is selling 250 models, which cost $150,000. About 50 have been sold.

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