top of page


July 14, 2026 - China Issues New Regulations for L2 ADAS
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 14, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. It's been more than a decade since the Society of Automotive Engineers published the J3016 standard that defines six levels of driver assist and automation from zero to five. In the years since, the standard has been widely used by automakers, suppliers, and regulators to describe the new ADAS and ADS systems they are deploying. The problem w

Sam Abuelsamid
6 days ago2 min read


July 13, 2026 - Volkswagen Sales Keep Sliding
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 13, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Not so long ago, the Volkswagen Group was the largest automaker in the world by sales. But in the 2020s, those sales volumes stagnated and more recently declined. There are a variety of factors leading to this, including the company's struggles to gain traction with its electric vehicles outside of Europe and, especially, the challenges in th

Sam Abuelsamid
7 days ago2 min read


July 10, 2026 - New EU Safety Regulations Take Effect
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 10, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. As of this week, a number of new automotive safety regulations have gone into effect in the European Union. These include mandatory driver monitor systems, automatic emergency braking (AEB) to detect vulnerable road users, improved forward vision requirements, expanded use of safety glass, and requirements for wet-weather performance of worn

Sam Abuelsamid
Jul 102 min read


July 9, 2026 - NHTSA Wants Action On AVs and First Responders
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 9, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Roadways are an incredibly complex and continuously changing environment. Despite this, humans actually do a surprisingly good job of navigating through that environment. While 40,000 fatalities a year in the U.S. is still far too many, the fact that we drive 3.2 trillion miles a year and only have 1.26 fatalities for every 100 million miles d

Sam Abuelsamid
Jul 92 min read


July 7, 2026 - Toyota Moves Tacoma Production to Texas
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 7, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. One of the key policy objectives of the Trump administration has been to pressure manufacturers to move production back to U.S. factories and employ American workers. Since the imposition of substantial tariffs in early 2025, including on countries that the U.S. has free-trade deals with, we've already seen this have an impact on the productio

Sam Abuelsamid
Jul 72 min read


July 1, 2026 - The End of The VW Golf Diesel
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for July 1, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. While Volkswagen wasn't the first automaker to introduce diesel engines into its cars, it has been one of the standard bearers for the technology for 50 years, since making it available on the Golf. For several decades, the VW Golf was the bestselling car in the world, and a substantial proportion of those hatchbacks were equipped with diesel

Sam Abuelsamid
Jul 12 min read


June 30, 2026 - New California EV Incentives Coming
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 30, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. The U.S. federal incentive program for electric vehicle purchases was sunset on September 30, 2025, and while a few states like Colorado and New Jersey still offer some incentives, most car buyers now have to pay full price. California, which has had several incentive programs over the years, is preparing to launch a new one targeted at first

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 302 min read


June 29, 2026 - NHTSA Proposal Would Eliminate AV Brake Pedals
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 29, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Current federal motor vehicle safety standards in the U.S. require the installation of a variety of hardware components, including control pedals for braking and acceleration, steering wheels, rearview mirrors, lights, braking systems, seat belts, airbags, and more. For a vehicle that is capable of driving itself without a human operator, man

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 292 min read


June 26, 2026 - Waymo's Zeekr Ojai Meets Connected Car Rule
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 26, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. China's Geely Group owns three different automotive brands that have vehicles in the U.S. market and are potentially threatened by the U.S. Commerce Department's Connected Car Rule. Starting in 2027, the rule prohibits the import or sale of vehicles that use vehicle-connectivity or driver-assist hardware or software sourced from China or Russ

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 262 min read


June 24, 2026 - Slate Officially Prices Truck at $24,950, Too Much?
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 24, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Just over a year after initially revealing the Blank Slate electric pickup, the Michigan-based startup has officially announced the pricing and opened the order books. When it was announced, Slate targeted a starting price under $20,000 based on the availability of a $7,500 federal tax credit. Unfortunately, not long after the announcement, t

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 242 min read


June 19, 2026 - Carvana Tries New Car Sales
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 19, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Over the last 30 years, there has been some innovation in the used vehicle retail sector, mostly having to do with achieving scale to give customers more choice and after-sales support while improving profitability. The two biggest companies in this space were CarMax and AutoNation, both of which opened national chains of used vehicle supers

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 222 min read


June 22, 2026 - No Robotaxis For New York
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 22, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Getting around New York City by car has always been challenging. With a population density of 29,300 people per square mile and a lot of relatively narrow streets, the combination of delivery vehicles, refuse trucks and emergency vehicles, and personal vehicles creates a lot of congestion. Following the addition of ride-hailing to the city's

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 222 min read


June 18, 2026 - Ford Starts LFP Battery Production
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 18, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Ford's BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan, has been one of its most controversial factories in decades. The factory was originally planned to be built in Virginia, but the governor of that state pushed back because Ford was licensing production technology from China's CATL. After Ford announced it would instead put the plant in the r

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 182 min read


June 17, 2026 - Stellantis, Wayve, and Uber Robotaxis
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 17, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. At the recent Stellantis investor day, the automaker announced that it would partner with Wayve to deploy next-generation hands-free driving assist starting in 2028. Wayve also announced a partnership with Uber in 2025 that would bring Level 4 robotaxis to London and numerous other cities around the world, beginning with pilots in 2026. Now

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 172 min read


June 16, 2026 - Chevrolet Unveils 2027 Silverado with New V8s
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 16, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. For the Detroit-based automakers, full-size pickup trucks are crucial, since they sell in large numbers and are their most profitable products. Thus, it's important when they introduce a new generation of those products. Today, Chevrolet has taken the wraps off its 2027 Silverado 1500 light-duty trucks. GM spent billions on the development of

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 162 min read


June 15, 2026 - Next-Gen Hypercars Remain Hybrid
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 15, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. The current generation top class of endurance racing prototypes are known as Hypercars in the World Endurance Championship and GTP in the North American IMSA series. Within these classes, cars are allowed to be built to two distinct sets of technical regulations that are then subjected to a balance of performance system that tries to ensure t

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 152 min read


June 5, 2026 - Tesla FSD Trainers Don't Trust It
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 5, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. It's been nearly a decade since Elon Musk declared that all Tesla vehicles coming from the factory had the hardware to be fully Level 5 autonomous with just software updates. I've always known that to be a lie since L5 requires the vehicle to be able to drive itself in all conditions, and Tesla vehicles lacked the systems to keep all the senso

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 52 min read


June 3, 2026 - BYD Commits to Damage Coverage for ADAS
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 3, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Chinese automaker BYD recently held an Intelligence Strategy Launch event where it made a number of interesting announcements related to its driver assist systems, including its intention to cover damage from crashes when using its Gods-Eye driver assist. The Gods-Eye system is offered in three tiers of capability across BYD's various models a

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 32 min read


June 2, 2026 - 15 Years of Toyota Collaborative Safety Research Center
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 2, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Twenty-twenty-six marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of Toyota's Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC). This program was launched in 2011 to enable Toyota to partner with universities on transportation safety-related projects that are designed to be shared with the industry. The outcome of all the research is published and m

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 22 min read


June 1, 2026 - Tesla Ditches FSD Branding In China
This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for June 1, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. This October will mark a full decade since Tesla began offering customers the opportunity to pay for "full self-driving" capability. At launch, the capability was priced at $5,000 on top of the required $3,000 enhanced autopilot capability. Over time, the price rose as high as $12,000 before dropping back down, although as of earlier this year

Sam Abuelsamid
Jun 12 min read
bottom of page