Ever dreamed of ditching your car and all of its attendant responsibilities?

A new pilot program in Detroit aims to prove out the business case for making a car-free lifestyle easier. Corktown Carshare is a teleoperated EV carshare program that’s now available to residents of Corktown, a neighborhood that’s emerging as a mobility hub in the Motor City.

The pilot, a partnership between Sway Mobility and Mapless AI, is pitched as a way to free users from the headaches and costs of personal vehicle ownership, while still giving them access to destinations like big-box stores, healthcare providers, and the airport––while reducing traffic congestion and carbon emissions.

“Most car owners only drive their cars a few hours a week, which means many of us spend a lot of money for our cars to sit idle in a parking space or garage,” Sway Mobility CEO and co-founder Michael Peters said in a statement. “Expanding access to affordable, sustainable mobility options by providing carshare-as-a-service will enable more people––particularly those who cannot or do not want to own a private car––to get around town easily and cost-effectively.”

Remote work: Sway designs and operates carshare-as-a-service-programs around the country. Mapless AI provides remote driving tech. The program’s reliance on teleoperations is one of the things its founders believe sets it apart from other carshare businesses.

Keep reading here.—JG

Picture this: A vehicle approaches an intersection to make a left-hand turn at the light.

The problem is, traffic is backed up. A human driver might consider two options: moving into the turning lane early, or bypassing the intersection and making the turn later.

This is the example Balajee Kannan, VP of autonomy at autonomous vehicle startup Motional, gives to illustrate how two different types of AV planning systems––rule-based versus machine learning-based––might respond to a common but slightly tricky driving scenario.

A rule-based system, he said, “is going to try to optimize…and try to get in at exactly the same spot in a small window within which it needs to come over. Which means it’s going to get stuck a lot more if that window is taken over.”

An ML-based system, on the other hand, “can learn that behavior, when you have a sequence of vehicles in front of you that’s starting to do a lane shift…blindly instead of waiting to do it.”

Keep reading here.—JG

March has been a busy month for the automotive labor movement.

The United Auto Workers––which represents hundreds of thousands of autoworkers and is trying to organize thousands more at foreign automakers and EV manufacturers to try to secure workers’ futures in the EV transition––filed federal labor charges against Volkswagen, ratified a contract for EV battery plant workers, and threw its support behind proposed tariffs that have jolted the industry.

First up: The UAW alleged that Volkswagen is “violating US labor law” by reducing jobs at a Tennessee plant and claimed the automaker is attempting to “make major changes without first negotiating with the union, as required by law.” Volkswagen says this claim is “categorically false” and that it has been negotiating the shift reduction with the union “for months.”

Workers at the Chattanooga plant voted last year to join the UAW and are negotiating their first contract with the company.

VW attributed its decision to reduce a shift at the plant, where it builds numerous models including the electric ID.4, in part to slower EV demand, as well as broader efforts to make its global business more efficient. The company is implementing a voluntary attrition program.

“The UAW has notified the Trump administration of Volkswagen’s unacceptable, anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-American conduct,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “It is no accident that they want to ram through a layoff in America in the days before expected auto tariffs take effect, as they profit from high exploitation labor in Mexico.”

Keep reading here.—JG

From the launch of Mac OS X (2000) to the rise of AI-driven SaaS and self-driving cars, the past 25 years have defined how we live, work, and connect. Tech Brew’s Quarter Century Project explores the pivotal moments that shaped today’s digital world—and asks what’s next for the industry.