NAMAD President Change, Self Driving Stalls, Heavy EVs, NY Making Chips

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This Thursday we’re coming to you from the annual NAMAD membership meeting in Miami, FL where a change in leadership was announced last night. We’re also talking about the continued struggle of self-driving tech, as well as the new weight requirement for roads given the rise in EVs, and a massive semiconductor plant coming to Syracuse, NY. 

NAMAD President Damon Lester stepped down and assumed the role as Vice Chair of the Board. After a 1 year executive search process, Hugene Fields will be stepping up. 

• Self Driving cars still stalling out in go to market strategy
  • One of the hardest things to figure out is something called “unprotected left turns,” or left turns when navigating oncoming traffic.
  • A McKinsey & Co. report states the industry has currently invested over $100bn in R&D for self-driving technology.
  • “You’d be hard-pressed to find another industry that’s invested so many dollars in R&D and that has delivered so little,” Anthony Levandowski says in an interview. “Forget about profits—what’s the combined revenue of all the robo-taxi, robo-truck, robo-whatever companies? Is it a million dollars? Maybe. I think it’s more like zero.”
• Transportation companies say that EV vehicles are too heavy for roads
  • “[C]ars and trucks climbed from an average of 3,200 pounds (1,451 kilos) to 4,200 pounds over the last four decades, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.”
  • Currently, less than 1% of vehicles on US roads are EVs, but with aggressive sales targets, it will be harder for transporters to meet highway weight requirements.
  • “‘The truth is we will not be able to move as many electric vehicles under the current weight limit. That could mean more trucks on the road, delays in orders and increased costs,’ said Sarah Amico, executive chairman of Jack Cooper, among the largest car haulers in North America.”
  • Transporters are asking for an additional 10% weight limit, giving them the ability to carry the same number of vehicles, if they are all EVs
• Semiconductor chips coming to Syracuse (Half of ASOTU team just cheered)
  • Largest private investment in NY history, up to 100B to build a mega complex in Syracuse’s northern suburbs
  • Micron would build up to four separate semiconductor fabrication plants in phases at the 1,300-acre site off Route 31, Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told syracuse.com
  • It will be the 8th largest site in the US. 
  • The US accounts for less than 12% of global chip production

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