Goldman: Automated Trucks To Cost 300k Jobs Per Year

Authored by Jon LeSage via OilPrice.com,

While Google’s Waymo company has taken center stage for bringing self-driving cars to roads, autonomous trucking may make it to the mainstream first. 

Silicon Valley startups, technologists, and venture capitalists see great potential in the technology - even more than most traditional trucking companies are supporting.

For months, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has put out teasers that the electric carmaker will soon reveal an electric semi-truck with autonomous capabilities. That announcement may take place this week, on November 16.

Embark, a Silicon Valley start-up, is scheduled to release details next week on its self-driving technology for trucking. The automated system has tested in partnership with truck-leasing company Ryder and Electrolux, an appliance manufacturer. Trial runs are exploring the potential of transporting trailers to Electrolux’s California warehouses with autonomous trucks.

CB Insight, which tracks venture capital, reports that companies will place about $1 billion in commercial truck autonomous systems this year, 10 times the level of spending three years ago.

The $700 billion trucking industry continues to be an integral part of the U.S. economy, and that of other economic giants and developing countries around the world. With more manufacturing happening overseas in places like China, trucking is part of making sure everything from automobiles to packaged food products make it to warehouses and end users on time.

Trucking companies and giants who invest heavily in logistics—like Amazon and Walmart—see great potential in cutting costs and speeding up delivery times. That will come via cutting labor costs when truck drivers no longer become necessary, and by extending the hours that commercial trucks can be kept in operation.

Companies also believe that traffic accidents will be reduced when autonomous vehicles become widely adopted for passenger and cargo transport.

Insurance premiums are expected to go down, along with collision repair costs. Autonomous driving is expected to be much safer than what’s delivered by human drivers.

Waymo and other tech companies and automakers currently testing out self-driving cars are preparing to play a part in developing cities around the world. Government officials, employers, and residents in these cities hope that self-driving cars will eventually reduce the number of cars on the streets and make them safer with less car crashes.

Self-driving cars face tougher challenges navigating through crowded, chaotic city streets—and face even tougher regulatory hurdles to cross. Cargo trucks spend most of their time traveling down broad, open highways with much less traffic.

There’s also the practicality of several trucks “platooning” together on highways that simplifying the equation over companies like Waymo dealing with crowded cities and higher risk for collisions.

Volvo Trucks sees great potential in utilizing platooning systems for cost savings and achieving more efficiency in freight hauling. One autonomous truck can lead a platoon with two or more trucks following close behind, taking advantage of the aerodynamic efficiency.

The company successfully demonstrated on-highway truck platooning in California during March 2017. An alliance was set up for the trial run with Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH) at the University of California, Berkeley, to test three Volvo VNL 670 model tractors hauling cargo containers at the Los Angeles Port complex and along Interstate 110.

Volvo sees opportunities in achieving fuel savings, improving highway safety, and increasing the capacity of transportation systems.

Daimler AG’s truck division is following a similar path, announcing in September that it will test platooning technology on U.S. roads. The German company’s U.S. division gained approval from Oregon’s transportation regulatory agency after completing a successful trial run in the state.

US Xpress, one of the largest trucking companies in the U.S., added autonomous braking and collision-avoidance systems to its 7,000-plus truck fleet. Next, the company will add automated lane steering for deployment within the next three years.

The 7,000-plus trucks owned by US Xpress, one of the nation’s largest trucking companies, were updated with autonomous braking and collision-avoidance systems. Max Fuller, the company’s co-founder and executive chairman, plans to upgrade them to have automated lane steering in three years.

“I’m putting building blocks into my trucks that each year gets us closer and closer,” said Max Fuller, the company’s co-founder and executive chairman.

Another Silicon Valley company, Peloton Technology, is developing a platooning system that will make it easier for trucks to travel within a platoon. That means they’ll save large volumes of gasoline and diesel typically consumed by work trucks.

Peloton’s system uses cameras, sensors, and networking equipment for trucks to communicate with each other. It can avoid disasters such as a second truck ramming into the first after a sudden stop.

Goldman Sachs economists predicted that trucking will shed about 300,000 jobs per year starting in about 25 years. That may begin sooner than anticipated if automated trucking clears government hurdles and technology innovations—and becomes widely adopted by trucking companies.

Inventory Levels Of These GM Plants Still In "Danger Zone" Even After 2 Hurricanes And 6,000 Job Cuts

Over the past two months, General Motors" stock has rallied nearly 30% on the notion that hurricanes in Texas and Florida solved the company"s nagging inventory problem.  But, even after two of the most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history wiped out hundreds of thousands of vehicles and GM"s preemptive elimination of some 6,000 jobs, Automotive News says the company still has a ways to go at certain plants if they want to bring system-wide inventories down to healthy levels. 

Even after cutting more than 6,000 jobs this year, General Motors might need to further shrink its manufacturing operations to address bloated inventories of some vehicles amid plateauing U.S. sales and pressure from Wall Street to avoid overproduction.

 

The majority of GM"s U.S. assembly plants, including some where a shift already has been eliminated, produce vehicles that on average have at least an 80-day supply, 33 percent more than what the industry generally considers healthy, according to estimates from the Automotive News Data Center.

 

"The danger zone is definitely consistently staying in that 80 to 100 days," said Joe Langley, a senior analyst at economic forecasting and data company IHS Markit. "The ultimate red flag is when volume is at that 120 days or more consistently and incentives aren"t moving the needle."

 

GM has at least seven U.S. assembly plants that on average produced vehicles with greater than an 80-day supply entering October, including four that have more than 100 days, according to the estimates. That does not include GM"s two U.S. plants for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, because pickups commonly have higher inventories to meet demand for a variety of trim and feature configurations.

Making matter worse, it"s not just small passenger cars where GM is currently oversupplied as the company is sitting on 125 days worth of GMC Canyons and roughly 80 days worth of other "popular" pickup truck models.

Inventory numbers point to the potential for a cutback in Wentzville, which has run around the clock since spring 2015. It makes the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans and the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickups. Slowing sales have left GM with an estimated 84-day supply of those vehicles as of Oct. 1, including 81 days" worth of Colorados and 125 days" worth of Canyons.

 

"The Colorado and Canyon have sold far better than they thought they would," said Ron Harbour, a consultant with Oliver Wyman. "At this point, they"re trying to figure out if this is a long-term trend or not."

 

Langley, the IHS analyst, said he thinks GM would need to cut a shift in Wentzville by next summer if inventories remain elevated.

 

"That"s the one big plant on the truck side that concerns me for getting a shift reduction," Langley said. "That plant is running at a level it was never designed for either. That"s been the story for a lot of these factories."

Of course, no matter how bad the company"s persistent inventory problem looks on paper, there is one group that simply couldn"t care less: GM shareholders.

These Are The World's Most Congested Cities

No matter what city you live in, traffic is something you probably dread being stuck in.

Whether it is the slow-moving I-95 in New York City or the molasses-like trip from East Hollywood to Santa Monica in L.A., it’s estimated that traffic congestion costs the United States alone a whopping sum of $300 billion per year in gas and time.

THE WORLD’S WORST TRAFFIC

Which city has the ultimate distinction of having the world’s most horrific traffic?

Today’s infographic comes to us from INRIX via their Global Traffic Scorecard 2016, and it highlights the most congested cities around the globe. The report looks at average hours spent in congestion for 1,064 cities in 38 countries, as well as the percent of time spent in traffic.

Here’s a Top 10 list you don’t want to see your city on:

Taking the top spot was Los Angeles, where drivers spent an average 104 hours stuck in the city’s legendary traffic jams.

The cost of this congestion, measured in wasted time and fuel, was $9.7 billion – a number that works out to $2,408 per driver!

"Unprecedented Thefts" Force Baltimore Bike-Sharing Program To Suspend Operations

In 2016, the city of Baltimore partnered with Bewegen Technologies to launch North America’s largest electrical-assisted cycling (or pedelec) bike sharing program. The system is located in Baltimore’s metropolitan area with over 25 stations available. Fast forward one-year later, this grand "sharing economy" experiment in America’s most dangerous city has imploded due to what the company"s CEO says is a level of theft he has never experienced before.

As of today, Baltimore officials have suspended all operations of the bike fleet until October 15, 2017. According to the Baltimore Sun, the temporary shutdown is due to “thieves ripping the bicycles out at an unprecedented pace”, said Alain Ayotte, CEO of Bewegen Technologies, the Canadian manufacturer. The manufacturer of the $2.36 million Baltimore Bike Share system said his company has "never experienced the level of theft" that caused officials to announce a temporary shutdown of the program to allow additional locking devices to be installed to the bike docks.

Per Baltimore Sun,

"We don’t have this issue anywhere else, not at this level,” Ayotte said Wednesday. “Our locking system is recognized [as] very, very up to industry standard, but due to the issues that occurred in Baltimore this summer, we did add additional security.”

The bike-share program launched last fall with 200 bicycles at 20 stations and was supposed to grow to 500 bicycles at 50 stations in the spring. Instead, it has suffered so many thefts and maintenance backups that most of the bicycles are out of service. The program will close Sunday and reopen Oct. 15.

Unwittingly, some bicycle stations were placed in areas of extreme wealth inequality and high violent crime. Even though, each bicycle is outfitted with GPS, it did not deter thieves. Baltimore is suffering from a racial wealth divide according to JPM. The report highlights African Americans are 63% of the total 620k population with nearly 1/3 having a net worth of zero.

At one point, the thefts became so rampant, maintenance employees spent a majority of time searching for stolen bikes. The Department of Transportation had to apologized for misleading millennials about the true nature of the bicycle problem calling it a ‘rebalancing issue’.

In particular, a citizen named Brian Seel, wrote a Medium piece titled: “Baltimore Bike Share Only Has Four Bikes”. Recently, he rode to all 25 bike sharing docks and only found four working bikes. In the article, he explains how the ‘real problem’ is communication issues with the bike sharing company…

Mr. Steel rode to all 25 stations. In his first finding, he stopped at Baltimore City where there were no bikes, but 5 listed on the APP.

At Baltimore Visitors Center there were no bikes, but 7 listed on the APP.

In Baltimore’s financial district there were no bikes, but 6 listed on the APP.

Baltimore Bike Sharing’s twitter plays it cool….

@BmoreBikeShare any news about what"s happening with the bike share bikes? are they being retrofitted to stop theft, or where are they?

— Yargl Blargl (@evoinvitro) August 31, 2017

It’s a ‘manageable situation’

Know that most city bike share systems shut down for maintanance at least once a year. This is a manageable situation.

— Baltimore Bike Share (@BmoreBikeShare) September 13, 2017

The last one is hilarious: “This is not unusual”…..

Most city bike share systems shut down at least once a year for general maintenance. This is not unusual. We feel ya though.

— Baltimore Bike Share (@BmoreBikeShare) September 13, 2017

Baltimore is a shrinking city with a population at a 100-year low. Officials are unwittingly throwing money at anything, such as a bike-sharing system, to attract millennials. Unfortunately, there is too much overhang in a city where 50-years of democrat-controlled leadership, in-conjunction with decades of deindustrialization. This should be a big clue to millennials that the narrative of city life continues to crack.

What Will Stabilize Used Vehicle Sales? (Hint: Nothing Good)

Authored by Daniel Ruiz via Blinders Off blog,

Until this point, a lot of what I"ve shared with you is theoretically based on my knowledge and experience of used vehicle values and how I believe they affect new vehicle sales velocity. Today, I am going to share some some hard data that I"ve been researching with a great deal of effort.

I genuinely believe that used vehicle values have a very significant effect on new vehicle sales velocity. I have explained it on Twitter and on a previous blog post through the concept of trade cycles. Because of this, I am certain that used vehicle values can be used as a leading indicator for inventory management at the manufacturing level, at the retail dealer level and certainly as an investment tool. However, I humbly hold that current used vehicle value indexes sources are not good enough.

There is a very specific group of vehicles that can be monitored in order to better project results. The Manheim and NADA index both have too much noise in the data. For example, the Manheim Index has no model year restrictions and includes new vehicle price inflation in the calculations. NADA goes up to 8 model years. Both average the data over multiple months and include vehicles which, in my opinion, have little to no impact on new vehicle sales velocity. Therefore, I have decided to make my own index.

For now, I"m going to use Ford as an example please ignore the red residual line until later.

I have said numerous times that passenger vehicles are at a different points in the value cycle than trucks and SUVs.

This is common knowledge at this point, and most have placed their faith on trucks and SUVs. This includes manufacturers shifting production and rental car companies changing their fleet mix to the better performing SUV and truck sector. Most analyst are looking at fuel prices to mark the top of the SUV and truck market. Here"s what they"ve missed:

Here"s WHY this matters:

Now back to residuals. What I want to drive home, in simple terms, is that assuming no change in demand, supply precedes price changes. When used vehicle values underperform residual values, the return rate of leases goes up. The opposite is also true. Less vehicles returned means less auction volume supporting higher prices. More vehicles returned means more auction volume supporting lower prices. Look at the charts again and note the acceleration of used vehicle value declines when used vehicle values fall below residual values. So where do we stand today? You tell me if this looks supportive of higher used vehicle values:

You might wonder what will stabilize used vehicle values going forward. Consider this, a used vehicle is nothing more than a new vehicle transaction that drove off the dealer"s lot.

The answer, years of declining new vehicle sales and we are just getting started.

If you feel that my insight might be a useful part of your investment decisions in the automotive sector, I offer phone consultations as well as in-person presentations through GLG.

Carmageddon Continues - Dealers "Wildly Overweight" SUVs As Sales Slow

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The auto boom, one of the key components propping up consumer spending, has come to an end.

Dealers are wildly overweight SUVs just as the market turned.

As auto-industry growth stalls and family sedans go the way of the flip phone, one silver lining had been the trusty “crossover” SUV. Sales in the category boomed amid lower gasoline prices and higher demand for spacious wagons with all-wheel drive.

But more clouds seem to be gathering as the summer car-selling season comes to an end. Incentives on SUVs are skyrocketing amid rising inventories, a trend that promises to dent the fat profits the segment has long returned.

Auto makers report sales on Friday, and August volume is expected to rise 2% compared with the same month in 2016, but only because dealers have an extra selling day this year. On an adjusted basis, the rate of retail sales—stripping out deliveries to fleet buyers—will hit the lowest point of 2017, according to J.D. Power, despite hefty sales incentives and new model offerings.

The U.S. auto market’s slowdown isn’t a new story, as analysts widely expected a seven-year growth streak to end and for sales to plateau at roughly 17 million a year for the foreseeable future. Red flags for the crossover market, however, represent a whole new set of headaches, particularly for companies like General Motors Co.

“The industry is wildly overweight on crossovers,” John Murphy, an auto analyst for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a recent presentation. The number of crossover models sold in U.S. dealerships is expected to rise to 110 nameplates by late 2020, up from 78 today, he estimated.

Auto makers like GM—long dominant in the SUV market—have relied on bigger or heavier vehicles with higher price tags to drive profits, and offset the losses that result from sales of family sedans or compact cars. But in the first half of 2017, incentives for SUVs shot up 33%, according to research website Edmunds.com, with the average discount or rebate in the segment reaching $3,200.

Ford Motor Co. is currently offering a $3,500 cash rebate on the Ford Escape, along with 0% financing for 72 months. A Ford spokesman said the SUV market is “increasingly competitive,” noting average transaction prices last month fell $400 compared to a year earlier.

Economists Expect Plateau

At every peak, economists expect a “plateau”, be it the stock market, the housing market, or cars.

Reasons to Expect a Crash

• Self-driving features are on the way and many people will wait for them


• Lots of retiring boomers purchased their last car


• Anyone who bought with long-term financing in the past few years is deeply underwater, making trade-ins difficult


• Auto sales are increasingly subprime


• After years of record sales, who needs a newer car away?

Vehicles account for 20% of retail spending. A crash or even a significant slowdown will impact retail sales and thus GDP.

Why the Government Hates Your Car

Via The Daily Bell

How could The Daily Bell be so clueless and naive about autonomous vehicles? A lot of you pointed out in the comments of a recent article called 5 Huge Benefits of Self Driving Cars, that the government and their media are in favor of anything that takes control away from the individual.

You raised a lot of good points. Among them was a strong theme that since we know the government spies on us, self-driving cars will just add to their knowledge of our whereabouts.

Sure, police won’t be able to pull us over, but they could have the car drive us directly to jail, as one commenter put it.

You are right. The government is engaged in a war on cars. Autonomous vehicles are a piece of that puzzle.

The War on Cars

PragerU points out what car ownership means to Americans culturally. Cars are synonymous with freedom for many Americans, allowing them to spontaneously go wherever they please.

On the other hand, buses, trains, and airlines have pre-planned routes. Somebody controls where public transportation takes you, and it is not always the consumer. The government sees it as their job to shape the citizen to their standards. Getting people to use public transportation validates the need for government services, and increases dependence on government institutions.

There is an inherent freedom on the open road, in being able to pick up and go. The government sees it as their job to crush this freedom. And to them, it doesn’t actually matter how free cars really make you. What matters is destroying the idea of freedom. Don’t encourage them! They seem to think. The battleground is in the mind.

To increase their control and relevance in transportation, the government and media take a multifaceted approach. They start by crushing the pride car owners have felt since the Ford Model T. They replace that pride with guilt, fear, and anxiety.

The meme is that cars are dangerous and dirty. You must not care about the safety of yourself and others if you drive a car. You must hate the environment if you drive a car, and the bigger the car, the worse you are.

So if you want to be environmentally conscious, you need to get a car with better fuel economy, which means it is lighter weight, and less safe. Driving an unsafe car increases the anxiety of dying or being seriously injured in a car accident; stats the government and media are happy to hammer home.

But government standards, and environmentalists pressure, to drive more fuel efficient cars also significantly raises the costs of those vehicles–another source of anxiety. At some point consumers are supposed to just throw their hands in the air, give up, and use public transportation.

You should also be ashamed if you peel a banana while stopped at a red light. A British woman was given a citation and fine for doing so. But the worst part of the story is how the police, her peers, and even she herself responded to the situation.

Anna Mellors added: ‘I think it needs to be a blanket rule so debates like this don’t need to take place, just don’t eat or drink behind the wheel.’

…

[The motorist said] ‘Understandably, it is illegal to take both hands off the wheel but I didn’t think I was a danger to anybody.’

Really, is that understandable? You can’t turn the lights, windshield wipers, or turn signal on without taking your hand off the wheel. Are you really supposed to keep two hands glued to the wheel the entire time you are driving or is that an unrealistic and unnecessary standard which increases the stress of driving?

The police said:

‘The driver slipped up when they declined the offer of a course and elected to challenge the case in court. However the driver entered a guilty plea and received three penalty points and fines totaling £145 [instead of £100].’

A driving course for eating a banana.

The clear message the government wants to get across is to not fight their authority, and you will not be punished further.

Washington state has introduced a similar law, which doesn’t outright ban things like eating burgers and drinking lattes while driving. Instead, it outlaws distracted driving, so police can make a case out of just about anything, even fixing your hair in the mirror.

Seattle even admitted to reducing parking spaces in a concerted effort to drive citizens crazy enough to abandon their vehicles in favor of public transport.

The fear and anxiety of driving around are mostly caused by the government. Your commute driving to work may be cheaper than the train if you don’t get pulled over. This will be a fun road trip if you don’t get pulled over.

A natural anxiety while driving would be worrying about the safety of yourself and others. But when I come up to the crosswalk on the bike path down the street from me, I find myself not looking for bikers approaching from the left and right, but watching to see if there is a cop lurking in the parking lot beyond.

But don’t let the government and media bully you into abandoning your freedom to drive a car, even a big old truck if you want to. Certain things you can’t avoid, like the possibility of being pulled over. But the mental fortitude to not let the government stress you out is still in your control.

That, and if all roads were private then the government wouldn’t even have a say…

But that is a topic for another day.

New Device Allows Cops To Download All Of Your Smartphone Activity In Seconds

Via TheAntiMedia.org,

“Any person who operates a motor vehicle in the state shall be deemed to have given consent to field testing of his or her mobile telephone and/or personal electronic device for the purpose of determining the use thereof while operating a motor vehicle, provided that such testing is conducted by or at the direction of a police officer.”

That’s language from the text of a bill currently working its way through the New York state legislature. The legislation would allow cops to search through drivers’ cell phones following traffic incidents — even minor fender-benders — to determine if the person was using their phone while behind the wheel.

Most states have laws banning the use of mobile devices while driving, though such laws are rarely enforced. This is largely because it’s nearly impossible to catch someone in the act. What person would admit to an officer that they broke the law, the argument goes, particularly when it’s after the fact? After all, cops don’t show up until after the accident occurs.

Now, technology exists that would give police the power to plug drivers’ phones into tablet-like devices — being called “textalyzers” in the media — that tell officers exactly what they were doing on their phone and exactly when they were doing it. And if the readout shows a driver was texting while driving, for instance, the legal system will have an additional way to fine them.

“Recording your every click, tap or swipe, it would even know what apps you were using. Police officers could download the data, right on the spot,” Jeff Rossen of NBC News said in a video report on the technology.

Proponents of the legislation point to the rise in traffic fatalities associated with using mobile devices while driving. But rights activists, such as Rashida Richardson of the New York Civil Liberties Union, says it’s a societal issue and no excuse to violate an individual’s privacy:

“This is a concern because our phones have some of our most personal and private information — so we’re certain that if this law is enforced as it is proposed, it will not only violate people’s privacy rights, but also civil liberties.”

New York state isn’t alone. Currently, similar legislation is being considered in Tennessee and New Jersey.

Chicago Cab Industry Collapsing As Medallion Foreclosures Soar

Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel has a lot on his plate these days between soaring murder rates, failing pension systems and the worst domestic migration trends in the country as residents see the tax-hike writing on the wall and are moving out of the "Windy City" by the 1,000s.  Now, it seems he can add a failing taxi industry and millions in additional annual tax revenue losses to his list of woes.

As the USA Today points out, the cab industry in Chicago is quickly hurdling toward extinction as nearly 50% of the city"s fleet sat idle in March 2017 and medallion foreclosures in 2017 have already exceeded 2016.

About 42% of Chicago’s taxi fleet was not operating in the month of March, and cabbies have seen their revenue slide for their long-beleaguered industry by nearly 40% over the last three years as riders are increasingly ditching cabs for ride-hailing apps Uber, Lyft and Via, according to a study released Monday by the Chicago cab drivers union.

More than 2,900 of Chicago’s nearly 7,000 licensed taxis were inactive in March 2017 — meaning they had not picked up a fare in a month, according to the Cab Drivers United/AFSCME Local 2500 report. The average monthly income per active medallion — the permit that gives cabbies the exclusive right to pick up passengers who hail them on the street — has dipped from $5,276 in January 2014 to $3,206 this year.

The number of riders in Chicago hailing cabs has also plummeted during that same period from 2.3 million monthly riders to about 1.1 million.

More than 350 foreclosure notices or foreclosure lawsuits have been initiated against medallion owners already this year, compared to 266 last year and 59 in 2015. Since October, lenders have filed lawsuits against at least 107 medallion owners who have fallen behind on loan payments, according to the union’s count.

Meanwhile, the value of Chicago medallions have crashed by 90% in less than four years after peaking at over $350,000 each back in 2013.

The value of Chicago medallions hit a median sales peak of $357,000 in late 2013, just before Uber arrived on the scene in Chicago. In April, one medallion sold for just $35,000, according to city data.

About 39% of Chicago’s medallions are owned by individuals or groups with four or few fewer medallions, while the majority of medallions are owned by companies that maintain large fleets of taxis and lease the permits and vehicles to licensed operators.

"It feels like the city is just watching us collapse," Aikins said. "Right now, there are a few people, the elderly and some others who refuse to take Uber because they are uncomfortable with it, that keep us going. But how many of those people are out there to sustain us?"

Not surprisingly, the cabbie union has done what unions do best by calling on local government officials to prop up the dying industry through tax incentives, measures which should buy them at least another month or two of operation.

The union is calling on the city take several actions to provide relief for the city’s struggling taxi industry, including changing rules so taxi drivers aren’t required to replace their vehicles as often, waive an annual $1,176 per taxi ground transportation tax fee, and eliminating a city medallion license renewal fee that costs owners $1,000 every two years.

“When they opened up ground transportation and taxi market to thousands of for-hire vehicles like Uber, Lyft and now Via . . . taxi driver income has been decimated and owner-operators are unable to keep up with loan payments for their medallions plus their high-operating costs,” said Tracey Abman , associate director at AFSCME. “As a result of that, hundreds of taxi owner-operators are facing foreclosures on their medallions and thousands more foreclosures are likely unless the city takes substantial action to reduce the financial burden on small taxi owners.”

Of course,Chicago cabbies aren’t alone in feeling the pinch.  In New York, ridership in the city’s iconic yellow cabs has fallen about 30% over the last three years. Last year, San Francisco’s Yellow Cab — the city’s largest taxi company — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  Los Angeles taxi ridership fell 43%, and revenue was down 24%, between 2013 and 2016.

Shocking that it is so hard to compete in an industry in which Uber is willing to burn billions of dollars per year to provide your service for a fraction of your operating costs.

Speeding Vehicles Strike Pedestrians In Separate Times Square, Staten Island Incidents: At Least Two People Killed

Update: in a separate incideint, Breaking911 reports that 5 People were just struck by vehicle, 1 DOA, 3 likely to die / very critical on Broadway & Castleton Ave. It is unclear if the two incident are llinked, especially if as the NYPD is trying to claim, the first driver had no intention of driving into pedestrians.

BREAKING IN STATEN ISLAND, NYC: 5 People just struck by vehicle; 1 DOA, 3 likely to die / very critical. Broadway & Castleton Ave.

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 18, 2017

Staten Island: Broadway & Castleton Ave, @NYPDhighway CIS Requested after 3 people struck by a vehicle and 1 aided is DOA. #BREAKING

— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) May 18, 2017

* * *

A car jumped a curb and plowed into a busy sidewalk in Times Square during the lunchtime rush, killing one person and injuring several others on Thursday, sources said. The driver is in custody and being tested for alcohol. One person is dead, and at least 13 injured.

Reuters witnesses said that the driver"s actions "appeared intentional" and that the vehicles "drove against traffic" and onto the sidewalk, striking pedestrians.

The crash happened at Broadway and West 45th Street at about 12 p.m., officials said. FDNY said 13 patients were being treated at the scene.

According to NYPD, the driver is 26 year old Richard Rojas from the Bronx.

The vehicle that struck pedestrians was a red sedan and the driver has been arrested and removed.

The arrest of driver shown below:

And yet despite the immediate arrest, in the past 30 minutes the NYPD has already figured out that the incident was not terrorism:

• CBS SAYS TIMES SQUARE INCIDENT NOT CONNECTED TO TERRORISM, CITING NEW YORK CITY POLICE

A video of the arrest below:

WATCH THIS - BREAKING VIDEO: NYPD taking driver from Times Square incident into custody pic.twitter.com/lP0yyfMUZt

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 18, 2017

A live feed from Pix 11 below:

Video: At least 10 people receiving treatment after vehicle strikes pedestrians in NYC"s Times Square@BraddJaffy pic.twitter.com/vSk548yHNs

— Global News (@GlobalZarfati) May 18, 2017

According to the NYPD, the car lost control on 7th Avenue between 42 and 43rd streets, and an investigation is underway.

NYPD: Car "lost control" on 7th in Times Square between 42nd/43rd. People injured. Investigation underway. Driver in custody. .

— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) May 18, 2017

The New York Police Department closed off the area. A Reuters witness said at least 10 people were being treated for injuries on the ground after the collision at the Midtown Manhattan tourist site.

MORE: At least 10 people receiving treatment after vehicle strikes pedestrians in New York"s Times Square - Reuters witness

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) May 18, 2017

Just heard about car hitting pedestrians on the sidewalk in Times Square. I"m at Thomson Reuters and lobby is locked down. #nyc

— Nia Armstrong (@niaarmstrong) May 18, 2017

While the NYPD is initially claiming that the incident was not an act of terrorism, in a clear bid to preserve calm, we would recommend waiting for a definitive conclusion.

Developing.

Paris' Busiest Train Station Evacuated As Police Search For "Dangerous" Terror Suspects

Paris’ Gare du Nord train station, one of the city"s major transportation hubs and the busiest train station in Europe, was evacuated on Monday as armed police searched for three "dangerous" terror suspects. The station was cordoned off around 11pm local time as dozens of police officers and transport staff evacuated and surrounded the large station in northeast Paris and sealed off all roads leading in as local residents milled around.

????????????#FLASH : Évacuation en cours de la Gare du Nord à #Paris, forte activité policière sur place selon plusieurs témoins (????@rfc1149). pic.twitter.com/32AKnXSinv

— ????Le Globe (@LeGlobe_info) May 8, 2017

The busy station is the terminus of a large suburban and national rail network as well as Eurostar trains from London.

Passengers were confined to trains, according to witnesses cited by the Telegraph. Paris police spokeswoman Johanna Primevert told The Associated Press that the "verification" operation was aimed at “removing doubt” but would not say what prompted it or whether there had been any injuries or arrests.

Something is happening at #GareDuNord train station in Paris.pic.twitter.com/LexA5bfsqH

— Pamela Moore (@Pamela_Moore13) May 8, 2017

French police tweeted that there was an operation underway at the busy station, which is the terminus of a large suburban and national rail network as well as Eurostar trains from London and Thalys lines to and from Brussels and Amsterdam. A Eurostar spokeswoman said the incident did not appear to have any relation to its trains and did not appear to affect its passengers. The operation began after the last Eurostar arrivals and departures late Monday.

Gare du Nord in Paris evacuated pic.twitter.com/LcihDpEiqd

— Charlotte Mason (@masonstoney) May 8, 2017

Dave James Phillips, a 39-year-old technology consultant from Britain, said he was getting off the last train in from London when he saw officers flooding the station. “There were police immediately, and a chap with his hand on his gun,” Phillips told AP. “As we were walking down the platform, one came down and said, ‘Rapide, rapide. Out, out.’”

Phillips said police kept pouring into the station as passengers were hustled out and police buses and unmarked cars were “driving quite dramatically up the road.” Phillips said he had since left the area.

“Hopefully nothing happened,” he said.

According to the Le Parisien newspaper, police proceeded to evacuate and search a specific high speed train from Valenciennes, northern France, with 200 people on board. They were looking for three men that a "partner country" had warned French intelligence last Friday were due to arrive in France where they are suspected of seeking to carry out an imminent attack. According to unconfirmed reports two of the men were thought to be Belgian nationals and one Afghan.

Since then, there have been reported sightings of the trio in Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille, each time prompting a major police operation. This time, the French capital"s daily said, a train conductor and ticket vendor had alerted police to their possible presence.

Security has been particularly tight in the final stages of France"s presidential elections, which ended on Sunday with the election of centrist Emmanuel Macron. France remains under a state of emergency after a string of terror attacks in the last two years left more than 230 dead. The latest occurred on April 20 when an Islamist radical shot dead a policeman on the Champs-Elysées in Paris before being gunned down by other officers.

It’s Not Free Speech if You Don’t Have a License

Via The Daily Bell

Should free speech cover criticizing the government? That is kind of the whole point, right?

An Oregon man is suing Portland for violating his first amendment right to free speech after he was fined $500 for calculating how long yellow lights stay yellow and then speaking publicly about it.

Free speech? No. The city considers making and disseminating calculations about public works “engineering without a license.”

The lawsuit states:

This is a civil-rights lawsuit to vindicate the right of Plaintiff Mats Järlström to talk and write freely without fear of government punishment. Järlström wants to write and speak publicly about a matter of local, state, and nationwide concern: the safety and fairness of traffic lights and traffic-light cameras. Specifically, Järlström wishes to communicate about the mathematics behind traffic-light timing. If he does so in Oregon, however, he will be exposed to government investigation and punishment for engaging in the unlicensed “practice of engineering.” In fact, between February 2015 and January 2017, Järlström was investigated and fined for “critiquing” the standard formula for calculating traffic-light timing and for sharing his ideas with “members of the public.” Under Oregon’s Professional Engineer Registration Act (Act), Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 672.002 et seq., only state-licensed professional engineers are entitled to speak publicly on these sorts of topics. For everyone else—in the words of the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying (Board)—sharing “reports, commentary, and testimony” on technical subjects is “clearly not protected speech.”

…But speech like Järlström’s is exactly what the First Amendment’s Speech and Petition Clauses exist to protect.

Obviously, the city is just trying to silence and intimidate him so they can keep making money off of red light cameras. His point was that the yellow lights were too short to properly allow motorists to stop.

By the government’s definition of free speech, you basically are not allowed to criticize or even petition the government at all.

What if this same standard was applied elsewhere in government?

We could easily get to a point where any speech about government actions is not protected unless you are an expert in the field–the government, of course, deciding who qualifies as an expert.

Should accountants be the only ones allowed to publicly advocate a tax policy?  Perhaps only licensed law enforcement could criticize the police. And surely if you are not a legislator, the intricacies of bills and laws are off limits to discuss.

What an open and public dialogue that would promote!

And as for the issue of traffic light cameras issuing tickets, that in itself should never have been permitted. The government takes a picture of a car and accuses the owner of a crime, regardless of who was driving the vehicle. And then, you must either pay the fine or prove yourself innocent! So much for due process. So much for the government having to prove you committed a crime. Innocent until proven guilty? What an inconvenience for a government!

There are various reports online of how to beat a red light camera traffic ticket. Even so, it will take multiple visits to the court, which waste time and money, and even then you might be forced to fork over the cash!

That is why most people just pay the fine, and forget about it. The system is rigged against the recipients of tickets. Everyone knows the time wasted in fighting a traffic ticket will overshadow any money saved if it is dismissed.

Still, if you have the time, and are bothered by the principle of it, it may be worth fighting the ticket to at least make the court work for its theft.

Interestingly, one of the tutorials online about how to fight traffic cameras suggests visiting the site of the infraction:

Time the traffic light as it transitions from yellow-to-red. If the timing is minimal, you might be able to stage an argument in court that there is not enough time to safely bring your vehicle to a stop at the particular intersection.

Would Oregon even allow this evidence in court? Perhaps they would instead slap and extra fine on top of the red light ticket for public engineering. After all, only state licensed engineers are allowed to testify publicly on technical issues.

As Incentives Soar, Auto OEMs Argue That Sticker Prices Are Dragging Down Sales

Apparently Bloomberg and some auto executives are convinced that soaring car prices are the reason that sales are starting to slump.  Bloomberg attributes the problem to new, costly technology being added vehicles:

To understand why the U.S. auto market isn’t growing, consider a top-of-the-line minivan from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV now costs about $50,000.

With twin second-row touch screens, reclining third-row seats, a vacuum and automated parallel parking, the Chrysler Pacifica packs plenty of features to justify a hefty expense. But this big a price tag puts the prototypical family vehicle out of reach for most Americans.

Ford CFO, Bob Shanks, was quick to confirm the theory because pretty much any explanation is better than the truth, which is that auto sales have been propped up by low interest rates, a subprime debt binge that puts the 2008 mortgage crisis to shame and stretched out terms of new loans.

“At some point that will be one of the aspects that will continue to drive down the volume,” Bob Shanks, Ford’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “It will become tougher.”

“It’s not just the price of the cars -- it’s the price of everything else,” she said. “The price of things like health care, shelter -- all of that is fighting for the budget.”

And while this explanation may seem logical, it"s patently false.  While average auto sticker prices tend to rise 2-3% per annum, as TrueCar recently pointed out, industry incentive spending in March rose 13.4% year-over-year to an average of $3,511 per vehicle sold.  So while sticker prices may be rising, the price that people are actually paying is coming down, courtesy of very generous auto OEM shareholders.

Of course, we"ll get out latest look at the numbers tomorrow when OEMs report April sales.  Here"s how the "experts" see things playing out:

So what say you...temporary blip or is the U.S. car buyer tapped out?

Caught On Tape: Hong Kong's Longest Escalator Suddenly Reverses At High-Speed; Injures 18

Rescue workers rushed to Langham Place (a bustling shopping mall in Mong Kok, Hong Kong) after the one of longest indoor escalators in the city stopped and reversed at high speed on Saturday afternoon.

Video footage obtained by The South China Morning Post showed the 45m long escalator quickly changed directions at high speed, causing people to fall and pile up at the base of the escalator.

In another video, some people could be heard screaming as others tumbled down the escalator. Others managed to grab the handrail and steady themselves.

Eyewitnesses said the 14 women and four men lost their balance and rolled down the escalator. A police spokeswoman said one man suffered a head injury and was sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

A Langham Place spokesperson told Apple Daily that the escalator in question received a regular inspection every two weeks. The most recent inspection was conducted on Thursday, and showed that all mechanical parts operated normally.

“I was going up the escalator, and it was like two times faster than normal,” a woman who injured her leg said at the scene.

“I heard people screaming...the escalator was going down but the speed accelerated,” the woman, who identified herself as Tina, said.

“People started to panic... and some fell down.”

She recalled that the same escalator had stopped for a few minutes earlier in the day, around noon.

Langham Place, located at the heart of the busy Mong Kok shopping district, opened in 2004. The mall contains two long escalators from the fourth to the eight floor, and from the eight to the 12th.

How Uber Wiped Out Millions In Capital From "Mom And Pop" Investors In NYC's 'Green Cab Ponzi'

The first yellow-taxi medallions were sold in New York City in 1937 for $10 each.  Over the next several decades, the value of those medallions soared until they ultimately peaked at roughly $1.1 million in 2004, generating an annual return that far outpaced equity returns over the same period. 

So when Dr. Amarpreet Singh received a "tip" from a patient back in 2013 that NYC was expanding its taxi fleet by issuing thousands of permits for a new line of cabs, so-called green taxis that would pick up passengers in the outer boroughs and upper Manhattan, he jumped at the "opportunity" to get in on the ground floor.  Within a matter of months, Singh had purchased himself 5 green-cab permits for $75,000 plus 5 handicap accessible vehicles for another $325,000 and was ready to start raking in the dough. 

Unfortunately, Singh missed one vital detail in his due diligence: a small up and coming company called Uber. Per Crain"s

Singh liked the idea of helping disabled New Yorkers get around town, so he paid the broker $75,000 for five green-cab permits, plus another $325,000 for vehicles. Then he waited for drivers to rent his taxis. And waited some more. After nearly two years he got in touch with his patient to see what was up with the investment. Singh learned his cabs were lying fallow in Mill Basin, Brooklyn. He dashed over and found a parking lot filled with 600 cars, none with license plates and some not even outfitted as taxis.

"It was just a sea of green," said Singh. "I walked out telling myself, Oh my God, what have I done?"

The collapse of the taxi business has dramatically altered New York"s streetscape. Spurred by the advent of Uber and other apps, the number of drivers looking for passengers has grown by 40%, but the surge has meant less business for cabbies, who are making 30% fewer trips than only three years ago. Those who invested in yellow or green cabs are seeing their investments wiped out as drivers flock to rivals or pursue other work and cars sit idle.

Since 2013 5,000 taxi drivers have thrown in the towel, and last month Queens-based Melrose Credit Union was seized by state regulators after delinquent cab loans soared tenfold in just 18 months. The stock price of the city"s preeminent taxi lender, Medallion Financial Corp., has fallen so far that one share now costs less than a subway ride.

Moreover, as we recently noted, Capital One breaks out the details of its runoff commercial taxi medallion loan portfolio in its quarterly reports and they don"t paint a nice picture.  Just since March 2015, nonperforming Taxi Medallion loans have soared to over 50% from just over 1% less than two years prior.  

But investors in New York City"s green cab permits allege their losses are due to more than just market share losses to Uber.  In fact, a group of green cab investors, including Singh, have sued in Brooklyn state court, alleging their green-cab broker and his partners cheated them out of $8 million by selling taxi permits "in the manner of a Ponzi scheme." They also allege the defendants funneled millions of dollars" worth of taxi money into Platinum Partners, a large hedge fund that federal prosecutors likened to a Ponzi scheme after it collapsed last year.

Ginsburg"s investors further allege that, in an effort to hide money made from selling permits, he and Langer lent $7.2 million to Platinum Partners in June 2015 through their real estate company, White Rock Properties.

Manhattan-based Platinum was a $1.7 billion hedge fund that collapsed last year, and seven executives were charged with crimes, including the fund"s founder and chief investment officer, two co-chief investment officers and its president.

Of course, medallion broker Alan Ginsburg who made a killing selling green cab permits at multiples of their true market value, denies any wrong doing and says the pending litigation is nothing more than a "shakedown".

The broker, 33-year-old serial entrepreneur Alan J. "A.J." Ginsburg, denies any wrongdoing and said investors are blaming him for the taxi industry"s woes. "The accusations being made about me are absolute lies," he said. "This lawsuit against me is nothing but a shakedown."

It might seem like long ago, but as recently as 2013, taxis were a red-hot investment. The price for a medallion granting the right to drive a yellow cab and pick up street hails quadrupled after 2004, peaking at $1.1 million.

Yet cabs were often hard to find outside Manhattan, and lots of would-be drivers were priced out by the soaring value of medallions. To tackle both problems, in 2013 the city created green cabs, also known as Boro Taxis, and sold 6,000 permits, mostly for $1,500 apiece. Demand was so strong that by December of that year, a permit was resold for $7,000, according to Bloomberg News. The city sold a few thousand more permits the following year for $3,000 each, and still there was a waiting list of 6,300, according to the New York Post.

"People were looking at this as the next big taxi-medallion market," said Matthew Daus, a former chairman of the Taxi & Limousine Commission.

Today, a green-cab permit can be had on Craigslist for just $999, a small 93% discount to what Singh paid in 2013, and the city has declined to offer the last 6,000 permits it"s authorized to sell. Meanwhile, Nancy Soria, the first person to buy a green-cab permit from the city, said she started driving at 8:30 one recent morning and didn"t pick up a customer until 11.

Just another helpful reminder of how quickly bubbles pop...

Fiat Tumbles (Again) As DOJ Prepares Criminal Emissions Probe

A day after the EPA announced their probe of Fiat Chrysler"s alleged "cheating" over diesel emissions tests, the company now faces criminal charges as the US department of Justice has joined the probe.

As Bloomberg reports, Fiat Chrysler is now also under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department over its alleged failure to disclose software that violated emissions standards, according to people familiar with the matter, another legal hurdle for a company already under criminal scrutiny for its sales practices.

The possibility of a criminal action over diesel emissions violations comes after the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday it found software in 104,000 Jeep Grand Cherokees and Ram 1500s that allowed the automaker to exceed pollution limits on the road.

The criminal investigation shows the U.S. is pressing ahead on cases of alleged efforts to rig emissions testing in the waning days of the Obama administration. It isn’t clear where the inquiry stands.

And the share price is fading back towards yesterday"s lows...

The U.S. investigation of Fiat Chrysler involves fewer vehicles than VW, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the probe is confidential. The U.S. case against VW, which led to criminal charges and $4.3 billion in penalties earlier this week, centered on VW employees’ efforts to design a system that would evade U.S. environmental testing and then conspired to cover up its use when regulators began asking about it.

Fiat Chrysler’s Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said Thursday during a call with reporters the matter "has nothing to do" with VW.  He said the software wasn’t intended to bypass emissions tests or operate differently in evaluation than in real-world use, calling such allegations “absolute nonsense.”

"We are confident that no one at FCA committed any fraud or tried not to be compliant," Marchionne said. "We may be technically deficient but not immoral. We never installed any defeat device."

Marchionne told the reporters he presumed the Justice Department was also investigating.