Futurismo | An Automotive News Podcast

In “Rainbow Road,” the Season 3 finale of Automotive News’ “Futurismo” podcast, host Shiraz Ahmed journeys to Orlando to see how one company, lidar startup Luminar Technologies, is preparing for the next chapter of the autonomous vehicle age.The manufacturer of sensors that act as the “eyes” of self-driving vehicles has tie-ups with Toyota and Volvo. We tour Luminar’s r&d operations, test its technology and hear about the challenges ahead in the race to self-driving vehicles.

In “Going Home,” the seventh episode of Season 3 of “Futurismo,” we talk with Saginaw city leaders about the role advanced transportation technologies will play in the future of small-town America. Listen to the episode above or wherever you get your podcasts.

In “How to Make a Million Dollars,” the sixth episode of Season 3 of “Futurismo,” we chat with Jim Adler, managing director of Toyota AI Ventures, the Japanese carmaker’s venture capital arm.He has invested in companies ranging from lidar sensor developers to low-level autonomous shuttle providers. We talk to Adler about how he found his way to venture capital, what a startup needs to do to impress him and why corporate investors — such as himself — can sometimes “smother” startups. Go to your favorite podcast source to hear the full episode or check it out above.

In the fifth episode of Season 3 of Futurismo, Automotive News' podcast on tomorrow's cars, we're going to look closely at the relationship between the car and the driver -- or, maybe in the future, the passenger."We treat technology as another social actor, and certainly we treat our cars that way with or without the technology," said Pamela Pavliscak, a researcher at Chance Sciences interviewed in this episode.

In the fourth episode of Season 3 of "Futurismo," Automotive News' podcast on tomorrow's cars, we trace what this iconic monument to the rise, fall and subsequent resurgence of the Motor City means for a company that needs to shift the conversation when it comes to its autonomous vehicle efforts.

In the third episode of Season 3 of "Futurismo," the Shift team profiles the beginning of the autonomous revolution. Host Shiraz Ahmed takes a ride in a self-driving pilot in Las Vegas with Glen De Vos, chief technology officer at Aptiv, the technology supplier, and discusses what the path ahead for autonomous cars looks like. In the second half of the episode, Shift magazine editor Sharon Silke Carty chats with Staff Reporter Mike Wayland about his story on the competition between Waymo and General Motors for dominance in the robotaxi race.

In our second episode of Season 3, "Who's Afraid of AI?" we explore this technology that's affecting nearly every aspect of the auto industry and beyond. Host Shiraz Ahmed interviews Maya Pindeus, the 27-year-old CEO of Humanizing Autonomy, an AI startup focused on human-machine interactions with autonomous cars. Pindeus met a Daimler executive at Ars Electronica, a conference that focuses on the nexus of arts and technology, in Austria, and later began collaborating on a project.

In the debut episode of Season 3 of "Futurismo," "Treasure Map," the Shift team travels to Austin for South by Southwest, the eclectic arts and technology festival, to find out how the conversation around the future of transportation is bigger than just carmakers.

In Season 3 of "Futurismo," the Automotive News podcast on tomorrow's cars, we'll go inside an industry being transformed by new technology and new ideas, following the path of startups and gargantuan carmakers to understand how the ecosystem for innovation is changing how we get around.(720720)

In “Detroit,” the finale of the second season of our Futurismo podcast, we take a look at how civic leaders view the promise of new mobility solutions. We’ll hear from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on what Uber gets wrong on self-driving cars, look at what cities want from car-sharing and examine what mobility means for the city that birthed the auto industry a century ago.

In our latest episode, we go to a country that's set on eliminating its reliance on fossil fuels in a big way.

In this episode of 'Futurismo,' we investigate how self-driving cars can be both life-saving technology and out-of-control robot cars. We'll peek in on a self-driving shuttle road-trip across America, find out how the public reacts to autonomous fatalities, and pose an infamous thought experiment to experts in the field.

In "Tomorrow for Sale," the fifth episode of Season 2 of our podcast "Futurismo," we examine how the industry can get consumers -- skeptics, early adopters and everyone in between -- to support and embrace its vision.

In the latest episode of 'Futurismo,' we investigate how car designers are developing the language self-driving cars will use to exchange information with people in and around them. "Light and color," the fourth episode of our second season, features engineers, designers and researchers tackling some of the thorniest autonomous design problems.

For the airline industry, autonomous technology is an old story. In "Up in the air," we find out how pilots manage automation at 200 mph, and see what lessons we can learn for self-driving cars.

In Season 2, Episode 2 of Futurismo, “Patent No. US3359539,” we tell the story of the seat-belt ignition interlock and alarm, a device that requires drivers to buckle up in order to start the car. We delve into how it was born, how, in just a few years, it became the center of a national conversation, and finally we’ll learn how it failed. Engineers working on advanced safety systems today and the self-driving car of tomorrow should heed this cautionary tale, because if one truism holds true through history is that humans can be fickle users.

The future is filled with unknowns. Will the industry’s bet on green powertrains pay off? Is it enough to assume the public will love self-driving cars? In the debut of Season 2 of ‘Futurismo,’ we get comfortable with uncertainty and frame the tough questions the industry must address.

In our last (for now) Byte, we talk about how to start children on the path to becoming the next great automotive inventor -- with advice from Tony Fadell, a co-creator of some of Apple's biggest products.

Blegh! Will the autonomous era turn the self-driving car into a vomit rocket? In our latest Byte, car designers tackle a gross, unexpected side-effect of more free-time in the car.

Automakers and startups have been coming up with new devices to transport people over short distances. Hyundai showed an Ioniq scooter at CES. Audi has its own concept scooter that fits perfectly into its mobility concept car. Even Honda has something called the Uni-Cub, a vehicle that looks like a golf bag. So what's the deal? Why are carmakers spending time pitching something more suitable for college students rather than car-buyers? Automotive News Silicon Valley reporter Katie Burke, investigates.