Futurismo | An Automotive News Podcast

  • Author: Vários
  • Narrator: Vários
  • Publisher: Podcast
  • Duration: 230:55:26
  • More information

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Synopsis

Futurismo is a podcast about the next quarter-century in the auto industry. Each season, well take a specific trend or technology that exists in some form today, and look forward to how it will evolve in the not-too-distant future to reshape how we think of transportation and cars.Futurismo is a production of Automotive News, the leading publication covering the auto industry. Check out our reporting online at autonews.com and follow us on Twitter @Automotive_News.

Episodes

  • Shmuel De-Leon on solid state battery benefits, why the U.S. should speed development

    12/10/2025 Duration: 20min

    Shmuel De-Leon, CEO of De-Leon Energy, an Israeli battery consulting firm, explains the safety and performance benefits of solid-state batteries in electric vehicles. He spoke with Automotive News reporter Richard Truett at The Battery Show Oct. 8 for the Shift podcast.The U.S. should support solid state battery development to compete with China long term, he said. “Hurry up with a national program to support the battery industry, to build a battery supply chain, to develop new technologies, innovative technologies that could compete better,” De-Leon said. “Every day that we are not doing it, we are just shooting the foot of the American automotive industry.”

  • Magna’s Todd Deaville on how the mega-supplier uses AI

    05/10/2025 Duration: 18min

    Magna International is leaning on artificial intelligence to improve manufacturing and to gain supply chain insights amid shifting trade policy. Todd Deaville, vice president of advanced manufacturing innovation at Magna, joins Automotive News supplier reporter John Irwin, on this week’s Automotive News Shift podcast. Plus, Shift hosts Hannah Lutz and Molly Boigon break down what the end of the federal EV tax credit means for the auto industry. Highlighted stories: The end of EV tax credits begs the question: What happened?

  • Mike Murphy of the EV Politics Project: How EVs became polarizing

    28/09/2025 Duration: 31min

    Mike Murphy, CEO of the EV Politics Project and the American EV Jobs Alliance, discusses how electric vehicles became political and the future of sales once the federal tax credit is eliminated, plus how the public views EVs.Murphy also shares how he became an EV advocate after spending his career as a Republican strategist and political consultant.

  • Automakers, be prepared for China competition in U.S., Larry Dominique says

    21/09/2025 Duration: 27min

    Automakers shouldn’t count on Chinese vehicles’ exclusion from the U.S. market forever, warns Larry Dominique, previously with Stellantis and PSA North America and now president of LD Management Consulting.If automakers “don’t push for innovation and push for technology, when those gates do open, they’re going to have that much more of a gap to catch up on,” he said on the Automotive News Shift podcast.Dominique and Jerry Hirsch, senior editor of technology and innovation coverage at Automotive News, discussed China’s threat to the legacy automotive industry, among other topics.

  • Policy changes to slow EV sales but cost, charging improvements will buoy sector

    14/09/2025 Duration: 22min

    The elimination of the federal electric vehicle tax credit, scheduled for Sept. 30, will reduce EV sales initially, but charging infrastructure improvements, supply chain efficiencies and more EV options will push the sector forward long term and open the door to more efficient vehicles across powertrains, panelists said at Automotive News Congress in Detroit Sept. 11. Elaine Buckberg of Harvard University’s Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Elizabeth Krear of the Center for Automotive Research and Jeffrey Morrison of General Motors discussed the future of EVs with Hannah Lutz, Automotive News director of technology and innovation coverage.

  • Ralph Nader, consumer crusader, is not done yet

    07/09/2025 Duration: 30min

    Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate and a former presidential candidate, says the auto industry moved too quickly on electric vehicles and needs to devote energy to making internal combustion engine vehicles more efficient.He acknowledges his 2000 presidential campaign overshadows his crusade for automotive safety, an effort that created regulatory agencies, saved lives and won him a spot in the Automotive Hall of Fame.

  • Ahead of IAA, Anshuman Saxena unpacks Qualcomm’s big driver-assistance ambitions

    31/08/2025 Duration: 36min

    Anshuman Saxena, vice president and head of ADAS and automated driving at Qualcomm, details the company’s long-simmering efforts to deliver driver-assistance technology on a global scale.Underway for years, those efforts will debut aboard BMW’s Neue Klasse platform during the IAA mobility showcase in Munich next month. Saxena discusses that development, plus broader driver-assistance plans at Qualcomm. The company has roughly $45 billion in expected auto industry revenue, and roughly a third of that is from driver-assistance products. Further, he discusses how AI will upend motorists’ experiences inside their vehicles — think KITT and Knight Rider come to life.Finally, Hannah Lutz and I mentioned last week’s 100th anniversary of Automotive News at the start of the podcast. You can find more information and a retrospective on a century’s worth of major automotive milestones here. 

  • AAA’s Greg Brannon finds traffic-jam tech struggles in real-world congestion

    24/08/2025 Duration: 35min

    Greg Brannon, director of automotive research at AAA, details the results of a new technical evaluation of traffic-jam driver-assistance technology. Researchers found it experiences a “notable event” every 9.1 minutes.He examines the differences in performance between hands-off and hands-on traffic-jam assist technology and offers automakers solutions for improving future systems. Further, Brannon looks at how even well-performing systems can lull drivers into a state of automation complacency, which brings its own set of problems, and he discusses the gap between automotive marketing promises and the real-world reality of driver-assistance performance and limitations.

  • Harry Campbell on how robotaxis reshape the ride-hailing business

    17/08/2025 Duration: 46min

    Harry Campbell, known in the mobility world as The Rideshare Guy, explores how an influx of new driverless deployments and self-driving partnerships are disrupting the status quo in the ride-hailing realm.He examines the new tie-up between Lucid, Nuro and Uber, and probes the latter’s widening influence in bringing robotaxis to cities across the U.S. in meaningful numbers.Further, Campbell, a ride-hailing driver himself, details how the rise of robotaxis are affecting human drivers who rely on the Uber and Lyft platforms for income.

  • EV policy rollbacks could threaten U.S. global competitiveness, says Biden-era charging leader Gabe Klein

    10/08/2025 Duration: 36min

    Gabe Klein, who led the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation under President Joe Biden, warns that the Trump administration’s reversal of federal EV incentives and emissions rules could devastate the nation’s ability to compete globally, especially with China. In this episode, Klein breaks down the Joint Office’s role in accelerating private EV charging investments and filling gaps in charger deserts with public funding. While he expects a period of instability in the EV charging landscape, the long-term outcome is inevitable: Americans will drive EVs and charge them on the road, he said.

  • Plus CEO David Liu on global growth and going public

    03/08/2025 Duration: 34min

    David Liu, CEO of automated-driving tech company Plus, discusses how $300 million in proceeds from an expected SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp IX will fund the company’s next phase of growth.He details ongoing partnerships with Volkswagen’s Traton Group, Hyundai and Iveco, and underscores the company’s vision for rolling out autonomous trucks at global scale. Further, Liu discusses efforts to develop trucks equipped with both autonomous-driving software and equipped with hydrogen-fueled powertrains, and how the two might make a potent team for long-distance trucking.

  • Kurt Kelty breaks down GM’s EV battery strategy

    27/07/2025 Duration: 39min

    Kurt Kelty, vice president of battery, propulsion and sustainability at General Motors, discusses a flurry of recent battery developments that underscore the automaker’s long-term electric vehicle outlook.They include a new foray into energy storage systems alongside Redwood Materials, for which GM will provide both new and second-life batteries, production plans for lithium iron phosphate batteries with Ultium Cells in Spring Hill, Tenn., and work on a lithium manganese-rich chemistry. Kelty, a Tesla veteran, also talks about his time building Tesla’s Gigafactory with JB Straubel and Elon Musk, and why it was so important that the upstart make its own battery cells.

  • Factorial Energy’s Siyu Huang on bringing solid-state batteries from the lab to roads

    20/07/2025 Duration: 40min

    Siyu Huang, founder and CEO of Factorial Energy, provides updates on the company’s ongoing work with Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai, and details the company’s efforts in developing solid-state batteries that allow for much faster electric vehicle charging times.She discusses what the end of federal tax credits will mean for EV sales and the expected trickle-down fallout on battery startups.Further, Huang explains why Factorial pursues both semisolid and solid-state battery innovations, how the company is using artificial intelligence in those efforts, and describes which will be tested in a fleet of Dodge Daytonas next year.

  • Redwood Materials’ Cal Lankton Gives Old EV Batteries New Life

    13/07/2025 Duration: 26min

    Lankton, chief commercial officer at Redwood Materials, details why the company just opened its Redwood Energy business unit and how it is repurposing used electric-vehicle batteries in energy storage systems. He discusses Redwood’s first major project, a system that utilizes more than 700 used EV battery packs that’s already the largest microgrid in North America. That system powers an AI data center at a Redwood facility in Sparks, Nevada. Further, Lankton explains the economics behind repurposing, and how it fits alongside Redwood’s traditional recycling business.

  • Michael Dunne shares China’s playbook for automotive supremacy

    06/07/2025 Duration: 44min

    Michael Dunne, CEO and founder of advisory firm Dunne Insights, details how Chinese automotive startups like BYD asserted dominance over Detroit’s legacy carmakers. He explores Ford CEO Jim Farley’s effusive praise of Chinese automakers during the recent Aspen Ideas Festival and the difficulty legacy automakers have in keeping pace with clean-sheet tech startups.Finally, Dunne discusses a workaround that American consumers might utilize in purchasing Chinese EVs and avoiding high tariffs – buying lightly used vehicles from a Mexican dealership just across the border and then driving them into the U.S.

  • Lyft off: Jeremy Bird details the ride-hailing network’s role in the robotaxi future

    29/06/2025 Duration: 39min

    Jeremy Bird, executive vice president of driver experience at Lyft, explains how the company is working with Mobileye, May Mobility and others to launch robotaxis in the near term.He explores the complementary and competitive aspects of relationships between ride-hailing networks and self-driving tech providers, and the pricing differences between human-driven and automated rides. Further, Bird addresses how Lyft’s human drivers feel about their jobs in an environment when self-driving technology is becoming a reality in several American cities.

  • J.D. Power’s Kathleen Rizk and Lisa Boor warn of driver-assist ‘identity crisis’

    22/06/2025 Duration: 41min

    Kathleen Rizk, senior director in J.D. Power’s global automotive practice, and Lisa Boor, senior manager in the firm’s mobility benchmarking unit, address consumer confusion in the realm of driver-assist systems.They detail their latest consumer surveys, which reveal motorists do not find many driver-assist features useful and are unsure if these systems benefit safety or convenience.Rizk and Boor explore what that means for automakers, which have invested billions developing automated driving systems and intend to derive subscription revenue from next-generation technology.Further reading on that topic can be found here. 

  • As Tesla readies for launch, Alex Roy inspects the economics behind the robotaxi business model

    15/06/2025 Duration: 49min

    From his time inside a robotaxi startup, Alex Roy knows what it really takes to build a business around self-driving technology.The venture-capital partner, business advisor, podcast host and founder of the Human Driving Association examines Tesla’s pending robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, and discusses whether robotaxis can become a profitable business.He further discusses the capability of Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” software, considers Waymo’s head start and details the four companies he believes have the potential to become long-term leaders in automated driving.

  • MIT’s Bryan Reimer proposes a rethink on highly automated driving

    08/06/2025 Duration: 49min

    The founder and co-director of MIT’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium, Bryan Reimer, says the auto industry has been distracted by the allure of highly automated driving and should place short-term focus on developing smarter collaborations between motorists and machines.Reimer further explores the nuances involved in distracted driving discussions and the business models associated with fully autonomous driving. Finally, as the Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium marks its 10th anniversary, he details the state of transportation research at a time of precarious federal funding.

  • LG Energy’s Bob Lee navigates toward a sustainable future for the battery industry

    01/06/2025 Duration: 37min

    Bob Lee, the North American president of LG Energy Solution, details how the ongoing tariff turmoil has both helped and hindered the company’s long-term planning efforts.He details how the company’s decision to invest in a variety of battery chemistries, produced at eight different North American factories, has brought a growing number of interested customers, despite a more tepid electric vehicle market. Further, he discusses what happens next now that LG has bought General Motors’ stake in a former joint venture.

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