Formula E’s electric cars will hit the streets of New York City in July 2017

By Stephen Edelstein Published September 21, 2016

New York City has a reputation for being inhospitable to cars, but in June a swarm of electric race cars will descend on one of its five boroughs.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag announced the electric-car racing series will come to New York on July 29 and 30, 2017, for a two-round event that will mark the end of Formula E’s current season. The New York City ePrix will take place in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn and will be the first race featuring open-wheel cars ever held in New York with sanctioning from the International Automobile Federation (FIA), which also runs Formula One and the World Endurance Championship.

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Like all Formula E races, the New York City event will take place on a temporary street circuit. Formula E prefers events within large cities rather than permanent racetracks — which tend to be in out-of-the-way areas — to maximize exposure. The 1.21-mile Brooklyn circuit will encompass Pier 11 and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on the Red Hook waterfront. The circuit is still subject to final approval by the FIA.

Read more: Audi is all charged up for Formula E

The newly formed Panasonic Jaguar Racing team is particularly pumped for Formula E’s New York debut. Because Jaguar North America is headquartered in nearby Mahwah, New Jersey, the team considers the New York City ePrix to be its home race. Jaguar announced its intention to join Formula E in December 2015 and unveiled its I-Type 1 race car earlier in September.

This is not the first time a race series has tried to tap the lucrative New York City market. Different groups have tried to put on a Formula One race in the New York City area multiple times, most recently in 2010, when F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone announced plans for a Grand Prix of America on a street circuit in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. That effort quickly fizzled, though.

We will have to see if Formula E can do better. The series’ novelty and a location for the race that is closer to the heart of the city could be assets, but a lot can happen between now and July. In the meantime, the Formula E season kicks off October 9 in Hong Kong.

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Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

Cars

Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs

2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time. The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Cars

Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting

Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

Cars

Waymo’s driverless cars are about to begin an overseas adventure

Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

Waymo’s autonomous cars are about to appear on streets outside of the U.S. for the first time.

The company on Wednesday announced on social media that its autonomous cars will be driving onto the streets of Tokyo, Japan, “soon,” with some reports suggesting the rollout will begin as early as next week.