This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 29, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Next year marks the 30th anniversary of Toyota launching the first modern hybrid electric vehicle with the debut of the original Prius. Today, electrified powertrain options have proliferated through virtually everything Toyota builds, except for sports cars, and even the upcoming GR GT will be a hybrid. Here in the U.S. market, hybrids ac

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 28, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Just over five years after the first Toyota Corolla Cross rolled off the assembly line in Huntsville, Alabama, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing today celebrated the production of 1 million vehicles as another Corolla Cross and a Mazda CX-50 rolled out simultaneously. In August 2017, Toyota and Mazda formalized their partnership, and the followin

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 27, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. At various times over the past two decades, General Motors has offered a variety of different hybrid systems, including mild hybrids on the old Saturn Vue to the two-mode hybrid system it had on full-size pickups and SUVs. It even had plug-in hybrids in the Chevrolet Volt and Cadillac ELR. Currently, the only hybrids that GM sells in North

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 26, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Aurora Innovation is currently the leader in deploying automated long-haul trucks in North America, with about two dozen in operation as of the third quarter of 2026. By the end of this year, the Pittsburgh-based company is targeting 200 trucks operating routes across Texas and several other southern states. The trucks currently in operati

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 22, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Yesterday, General Motors hosted its second annual GM Forward tech event in New York City and provided a number of updates on its progress. At last year's event, GM made the surprise announcement that it would launch a Level 3 hands-off/eyes-off automated driving system in 2028, starting with the Cadillac Escalade. Numerous automakers, inc

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 21, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. In spring 2025, within a couple of weeks of each other, General Motors and Ford both announced they were working on lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries for future EVs. Since then, Ford hasn't said much else about its LMR work, but GM has provided several updates, including a recent announcement that it would be producing these new cells

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 20, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. At first glance, the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) seems like a great bridge for people who like the idea of going electric but aren’t quite ready to go all-in. PHEVs offer enough electric-only driving range to cover most people’s daily needs, then keep going as a regular hybrid until the gas tank runs dry. The problem is: What if

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 12, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. While America continues to play politics with what sort of energy we should be using to propel vehicles, the rest of the world continues to leave us in the dust. So far this year, battery-electric vehicles only account for 5.74% of U.S. vehicles and total electrified models, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and BEVs, account for 26%, wi

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 8, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Besides the Panasonic/Tesla partnership, LG Energy Solution has been one of the clear leaders in producing lithium-ion batteries for vehicle electrification in the U.S. Their plant in Holland, Michigan, was one of the first to produce these batteries here, and joint ventures with GM, Honda, and Stellantis had the company well positioned to

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 7, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. For a brand with as much history as Jaguar, it's kind of a shock to realize that we're coming up on a decade since it last unveiled a new product. In November 2016, Jaguar unwrapped the i-Pace, its first electric vehicle, at the Los Angeles Auto Show. After getting off to a good start, i-Pace sales waned due to a variety of quality issues a

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 6, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Back in May 2026, Stellantis hosted a capital markets day to lay out its revised global product plan under new CEO Antonio Filosa. Those of us who attended in person got to see a wide range of upcoming vehicles that will launch over the next several years for North America and the rest of the world. Stellantis is planning to reveal several

When General Motors relaunched the Chevrolet Bolt at the beginning of this year, the company indicated it would only be available for a limited time. Now we know just how limited. Production is expected to wind down in the first half of 2027, giving the new Bolt a run of only 18 months. That raises an obvious question: Why would GM invest hundreds of millions of dollars re-engineering the Bolt and moving its production from Orion, Michigan, to Fairfax, Kansas, for such a sho

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 1, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. In motorsports, engineers will tell you that you have to read the technical regulations twice, once to see what they say, and then a second time more thoroughly to see what the rules don't say. It's those gaps that provide the opportunity to get ahead of the competition. Over the last several decades, we've seen a clear trend of drivers mov

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 29, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Over the past year, we've seen numerous announcements from Chinese companies about the introduction of EV charging systems topping 1 MW, including CATL, BYD, and Geely, and they are rapidly building out networks of these much faster chargers. BYD has also announced that the second generation of its subcompact Seagull that has gained atte

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 28, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Earlier this year, Lexus announced that its variant of the three-row electric crossover triumvirate that also includes the Subaru Getaway and Toyota Highlander would be called the TZ 450e. It's based on the same core underpinnings as the Toyota and Subaru, but has a more premium look and feel to it. While Toyota has delayed the launch o

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 25, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Ever since General Motors started introducing its modern electrified vehicles with the 2010 debut of the Chevrolet Volt, the automaker has also been working on creating a circular ecosystem for batteries. In the early 2010s, following the production launch of the Volt, GM started with second-life applications. As prototype Volts from the

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 23, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. UK-based Wayve has been on a roll for the past year. The developer of assisted- and automated-driving software has won a third production deal with an automaker, with today's announcement that it will be supplying Mercedes-Benz. Previously, Wayve got production design wins from Nissan and Stellantis to provide software for hands-off and

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 24, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. US President Donald Trump is meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, and there has been speculation that the two will reach a deal that would allow Chinese automakers to produce and sell their vehicles in the U.S. Unsurprisingly, US-based automakers are pushing back on this idea and desperately don't want it to happen. The U.S.

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 22, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Whether you're building a basic anti-lock brake system or a fully automated vehicle, one of the core elements the system needs to understand is the condition of the road surface. Safely controlling functions like acceleration, braking, and steering depends on being able to accurately estimate how much traction is available between the ti

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 21, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. It's no secret that the market for electric vehicles in the U.S. is far smaller than most of the industry had hoped for in 2020. While many had projected upwards of 20% market share by now, it's still hovering around 6% due to multiple factors. That has caused many EV programs to be scaled back or canceled. But there is one key segment o