This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 17, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Back in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, General Motors made a key strategic decision about sourcing components. After decades of shifting toward globalization and chasing the lowest price for everything, it suddenly became clear to everyone how brittle the supply chains had become with so many key materials coming from just

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 16, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Tesla recently launched its purpose-built Cybercab into its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. The Cybercab, which was unveiled at an event in Los Angeles in 2024, is a two-seat coupe with no steering wheel, pedals, or gear selector. The only interface element is a central touchscreen. This may already be proving to be a problem for firs

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 15, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. The 2027 Ford F-150 is getting another mid-cycle refresh this fall. Visually, the only noteworthy changes on the existing trim levels are some revised grilles and wheels. Unless someone is particularly pedantic about picking out their F-150 variations, they almost certainly won't notice the changes. The base 2.7-liter V6 in the F-150 is

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 9, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. The messaging from Washington on Chinese vehicles is getting increasingly confusing, although there does seem to be consensus on at least one aspect. No one seems to want to let Chinese-built vehicles within US borders. In Congress, Senators Elisa Slotkin and Bernie Moreno are pushing the Connected Vehicle Security Act, which would put an

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 8, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. During a recent GreenCars Podcast interview, GM's Vice President of Battery and Sustainability, Kurt Kelty, expressed skepticism about the prospects for solid-state batteries in the next several years. Kelty said, "It's always been that chemistry of the future; it's still that chemistry of the future." If the latest news from Taiwan's Pro

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 4, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. This week, Tesla began deploying its purpose-built two-seat Cybercab on its Austin, Texas, Robotaxi service. Just hours later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Tesla's self-certification process for the CyberCab. Like the Zoox robotaxi, the CyberCab is designed to operate without any human co

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 3, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 2027 is going to be a pivotal year for Ford's electric vehicle aspirations. After getting off to a strong start earlier this decade with the Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning, the automaker overinvested in expanding production capacity instead of improving the vehicles. In combination with political pushback on EVs and problems with publ

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 3, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Another city is getting its first public robotaxi service today as Uber begins providing rides in London, England. Uber is partnering with UK-based Wayve, one of the numerous automated driving system developers it has invested in. While Waymo and Baidu are both actively testing their robotaxis in the British capital, Uber and Wayve are th

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 1, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. A recent incident in Macomb Township, north of Detroit, should serve as a reminder to EV drivers to check prices before you plug in somewhere, but also to charger site hosts to be more transparent about your policies. Recently, a driver of a rented Chevrolet Bolt was running low on juice after dropping off a friend at the airport. He used

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 28, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. For those who attend the annual CES every January in Las Vegas, one of the most miserable parts of the week used to be the wait in the taxi line to get around all the different venues hosting events and suites where companies were holding meetings. Las Vegas is a city that relies heavily on tourism and large conferences and is notoriously u

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 27, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. At its Investor Day in Seoul yesterday, Hyundai Motor Company CEO Jose Munoz made a number of important announcements about the brand's plans through the remainder of this decade. The larger Hyundai Motor Group, which also includes the Genesis and Kia brands, has been on a roll this decade, growing to become the third-largest automaker grou

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 26, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. When Ford announced that it would be producing its upcoming Universal Electric Vehicle platform at its Louisville assembly plant, it also included the news that production of the Ford Escape and Lincoln Corsair would be ending. The last of those two crossovers left the Louisville line in December 2025, and with them, about one-quarter of Li

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 25, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Over the past decade, Nvidia has dramatically shifted its business, increasingly moving away from its roots as a developer of graphics chips to power computer video games to commercial applications powering artificial intelligence. While much of the media attention has focused on the costly Nvidia GPUs that power the growing number of data

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 21, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Hyundai Motor Group's premium Genesis brand is preparing to launch its first-ever hybrid model in the midsize GV80 SUV. The hybrid drive system is based on Hyundai's next-generation electrified architecture, which has already launched on the Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride. Until the new system launched, Hyundai used a system consisting

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 20, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Today's episode is a little bit different from the usual news story, as I'm providing some thoughts on the Ford Fathom. As usual, Ford has begun trickling out little bits of news ahead of the formal introduction of a major new product. Inevitably, these teasers raise as many questions as answers, and one of the questions I've heard several

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 24, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Over this past weekend, trade talks between Canada and the U.S. aimed at avoiding new 25% tariffs on a wide variety of goods imported from Canada broke down in the final hours. The failure to reach an agreement was not that surprising, as Canada, like many other countries, has found the Trump administration to be an unreliable negotiating p

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 18, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Today in South Korea, Hyundai unveiled a completely redesigned version of one of its bestselling models, the Tucson compact crossover. Following its usual pattern, Hyundai isn't taking an evolutionary approach with its design but is instead going off in a whole new direction. It turns out that we got our first hint of what to expect with t

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 18, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. While numerous companies developing automated long-haul trucks, including Kodiak and Plus AI, are based in California, until recently none of them have been allowed to actually operate these vehicles in their home state. California regulations have limited automated driving to light-duty vehicles in part due to pressure from trucking unions

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 17, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. Over the past decade, there have been numerous fatal crashes involving vehicles operating with various levels of driving automation. Most of those have involved Tesla vehicles, which are technically still Level 2, even for the so-called Full Self-Driving, meaning that the human driver must be supervising the automation and ready to take ove

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 14, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. The midsize XT5 crossover is the oldest model in the current Cadillac lineup, having been launched 10 years ago as a replacement for the SRX. The XT5 has been produced in both the U.S. and China for those respective markets, but China got a new generation of it in 2024, while the aging model carries on here. A new generation XT5 isn't expec