E1: Jason and Johan Talk Grocery Delivery, China's Auto Market Recovery and Tesla

Inside Transportation

This is episode one of the Inside Transportation podcast. This podcast was made possible by Ford Motor Company (www.ford.com) and Fenwick (www.fenwick.com). Featuring Jason Calacanis (Angel investor, LAUNCH, Inside.com) and Johan Moreno (Inside.com). Subscribe to Inside Transportation newsletter: inside.com/transportation Subscribe to Inside Electric Vehicles newsletter: inside.com/evs Recorded on April 13, 2020. Show Notes: 6:00 — More Americans are staying at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumers looking for a way to avoid a visit to the grocery store have turned to grocery delivery services, like Instacart, Amazon Prime Now and the like. Jason and Johan talk a bit about their experiences with grocery delivery services and how they can be improved. They also discuss Nuro, an autonomous vehicle startup, that has received permission from the state of California to test its autonomous delivery vehicles on public roads. Johan thinks this may bridge autonomous vehicles and humans together. 20:00 — In China, car sales saw a steep decline in the month of March - about 43% down overall year-over-year, which is over 1 million units. In February, the market was down by about 79%, about 205K units total versus 1.3M units in Feb. 2019. Electric vehicle sales did very well in China in those months. Jason and Johan talk a bit about China’s electric vehicle sales performance and how some people may feel a responsibility to adopt cleaner ways of living to protect the environment. 33:00 — Jason and Johan talk about whether Uber should be shut down entirely. At least one Uber driver in NYC and one Uber driver in London have died from COVID-19, with families blaming their deaths on driving for the ride-hailing service. One Vice writer argued that Uber needs to shut down to all non-essential riders and follow what Didi in China did during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johan and Jason talk about what should be defined as essential travel and how underserved, essential workers are likely still taking more “unsafe” methods of transit, like buses and trains. 43:00 — Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the automaker’s robotaxi service is still on target for this year. Jason and Johan talk about whether this is a viable target. The service would allow people to hail a ride from a Tesla vehicle that is not in use, relying on the vehicle’s full self-driving capabilities to give that ride. Jason thinks that he would have gone for it when he was younger, but today, probably not. Links discussed in the show: LA smog photo comparison: https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-stay-at-home-order-reduced-los-angeles-notorious-smog-2020-4 The Himalayas are visible from India: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/himalayas-visible-lockdown-india-scli-intl/index.html A man was dragged off the train in Philadelphia because he wasn’t wearing a mask: https://abcnews.go.com/US/philadelphia-police-drag-man-mask-off-public-bus/story?id=70104383 Jason’s OWL Cam: https://owlcam.com/