BBC: Thailand Covid: Idle taxis used to grow food for out-of-work drivers. “In a car park in the Thai capital Bangkok, green shoots sprout from the roofs of colourful taxis. Thailand’s tough Covid-19 restrictions have left the city’s hectic streets quiet, putting taxi drivers out of work. As fares dried up, many drivers left the city for their home villages, leaving so-called taxi graveyards behind.”
Penn State News: Digital marketing campaigns focused on auto recalls can improve consumer safety. “Regulator-initiated digital marketing campaigns aimed at urging consumers to comply with automobile recall requests can improve compliance, saving money and possibly even lives, according to a Penn State Smeal College of Business-led research team.”
Vox: America’s car crash epidemic. “Even as Americans have been driving less in the past year or so, car crash deaths (including both occupants of vehicles and pedestrians) have surged. Cars killed 42,060 people in 2020, up from 39,107 in 2019, according to a preliminary estimate from the National Safety Council (NSC), a nonprofit that focuses on eliminating preventable deaths. (NSC’s numbers are typically higher than those reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) because the NSC includes car deaths in private spaces like driveways and parking lots, and it counts deaths that occur up to a year after a crash.)”
ProPakistani: Quetta Bans Unvaccinated People From Buying Fuel. “The District Administration of Quetta has decided to ban unvaccinated individuals from purchasing petrol in a bid to get citizens vaccinated. It ordered local fuel stations on Wednesday to only sell petrol to people who produce their vaccination certificates issued by National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA).”
FleetWorld: Ogilvie Fleet’s free EV database to help drivers research electric cars. “The database, which currently includes all 132 electric cars available, enables users to quickly compare the cheapest, the most efficient, or longest range car, along with a host of other parameters, such as BiK data and vital statistics.” Aimed at the UK but man, there’s a lot of cars here.
News4Jax: Until 2023? Parts shortage will keep auto prices sky-high. “Back in the spring, a shortage of computer chips that had sent auto prices soaring appeared, finally, to be easing. Some relief for consumers seemed to be in sight. That hope has now dimmed. A surge in COVID-19 cases from the delta variant in several Asian countries that are the main producers of auto-grade chips is worsening the supply shortage. It is further delaying a return to normal auto production and keeping the supply of vehicles artificially low.”
Motor Authority: Sit back and tour the Toyota Land Cruiser Heritage Museum from home. “If you’re a fan of Toyota’s iconic off-roader, the Toyota Land Cruiser Heritage Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a must-see. With the coronavirus pandemic still ongoing, that may not be possible for many people, but the museum now has an online virtual tour that lets you check things out from the comfort of your home.”
CNET: Waymo launches Trusted Tester shuttle program in San Francisco. “Waymo recently took the opportunity to show off a little by publishing some images of what its fifth-generation Driver AI sees while navigating a public road. It turns out that those images were just a prelude to Tuesday’s announcement that Waymo will be offering its shuttle service in San Francisco, but not everyone can use it.”
The Next Web: Researchers fooled AI into ignoring stop signs using a cheap projector. “A trio of researchers at Purdue today published pre-print research demonstrating a novel adversarial attack against computer vision systems that can make an AI see – or not see – whatever the attacker wants. It’s something that could potentially affect self-driving vehicles, such as Tesla’s, that rely on cameras to navigate and identify objects.”
Daily Record: Haynes offers new AutoFix digital help for motorists. “AutoFix has been designed to ensure that people new to motoring DIY can build skills over time as they get to grips with maintaining and repairing a car. So it covers simple but essential maintenance tasks such as identifying what warning lights mean, learning how to replace bulbs, guidance around monitoring tyre pressures and advice on fluid checks and top-ups.”
I mentioned this in March as being in-progress but it looks like it’s about ready to go. Daily Mail: Autocar turns 125! World’s oldest car magazine’s archive goes online. “Over the past six months, more than a million pages spanning 125 years of automotive history have been ‘digitised’ for posterity…. The Autocar motor archive… goes live next month with podcasts narrating the first 52 pioneering editions in their entirety and the most visually attractive front covers available as prints and posters.”
Associated Press: NHTSA unveils new, easy-to-use auto recall search tool. “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday unveiled a new online dashboard for vehicle owners, car shoppers, safety advocates, the media and anyone else to search its massive database for automobile recalls going back 50 years.”
Tyre Press: Tyres Industry Publications: the next 75 years. “The consumer tyre advice site WhatTyre and a new paywall-free digital archive of Tyres & Accessories magazine lead a range of new services from Tyre Industry Publications.”
Marketing Dive: Volkswagen targets Pinterest auto shoppers with virtual test drive. “Pinterest’s digital offerings also allow Volkswagen to create a completely virtual shopping experience, another move that could help widen the brand’s reach. Instead of catering to only the consumers who can and are willing to physically visit a dealership and take the ID.4 on a test drive, Volkswagen is allowing people everywhere to operate the vehicle through a virtual simulation, and with 360-degree viewing capabilities that aim to lend further realism to the experience.”
Automotive Industries: Automotive Industries join the iconic collection of motoring publications. “The Motoring Archive is aiming to become the world’s most comprehensive online location of motoring history as told through the lens of the magazines that have told the story from 1895 through to the present day.”
