A Podcast as Uplifting as Car Sales in August

It was an awesome summer for me in the PacificNW, but most car dealers and auto makers had a great summer too. Car sales were lush and green in August for almost every brand, and the good news trickled down all the way to electric cars like the Volt and Nissan Leaf.

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Car sales were like a day at the beach

But what is good for car makers may be bad for consumers. Inventories are tight across the U.S. and that may mean higher prices and less choice.

If you love old cars, and rare cars, that is a good place to park your assets. The Economist found that classic luxury autos are a great investment.

But few of those investment vehicles spend much time on the road, especially because traffic is going to get much, much worse because there are few plans to increase the amount of roads.

Do transportation planners take into account how bad (or good) drivers in their regions are?

Driverless cars would help take more of those bad drivers off the road and they are one of the five things that are coming in near future vehicles. Nissan and GM are promising at least semi-autonomous vehicles by 2020.

Will they be safe enough for passengers to skip the seatbelt? That might not be an option if ignition interlocks are connected to seat belts. But that might have lots of other benefits for car design.

Finally, we dissect a goofy list of 15 things you should always have in your car and Mathew convinces me that jumper cables are still a good idea.