Shift: A podcast about mobility

In "Tomorrow for Sale," the fifth episode of Season 2 of our podcast "Futurismo," we examine how the industry can get consumers -- skeptics, early adopters and everyone in between -- to support and embrace its vision.

In the latest episode of 'Futurismo,' we investigate how car designers are developing the language self-driving cars will use to exchange information with people in and around them. "Light and color," the fourth episode of our second season, features engineers, designers and researchers tackling some of the thorniest autonomous design problems.

For the airline industry, autonomous technology is an old story. In "Up in the air," we find out how pilots manage automation at 200 mph, and see what lessons we can learn for self-driving cars.

In Season 2, Episode 2 of Futurismo, “Patent No. US3359539,” we tell the story of the seat-belt ignition interlock and alarm, a device that requires drivers to buckle up in order to start the car. We delve into how it was born, how, in just a few years, it became the center of a national conversation, and finally we’ll learn how it failed. Engineers working on advanced safety systems today and the self-driving car of tomorrow should heed this cautionary tale, because if one truism holds true through history is that humans can be fickle users.

The future is filled with unknowns. Will the industry’s bet on green powertrains pay off? Is it enough to assume the public will love self-driving cars? In the debut of Season 2 of ‘Futurismo,’ we get comfortable with uncertainty and frame the tough questions the industry must address.

In our last (for now) Byte, we talk about how to start children on the path to becoming the next great automotive inventor -- with advice from Tony Fadell, a co-creator of some of Apple's biggest products.

Blegh! Will the autonomous era turn the self-driving car into a vomit rocket? In our latest Byte, car designers tackle a gross, unexpected side-effect of more free-time in the car.

Automakers and startups have been coming up with new devices to transport people over short distances. Hyundai showed an Ioniq scooter at CES. Audi has its own concept scooter that fits perfectly into its mobility concept car. Even Honda has something called the Uni-Cub, a vehicle that looks like a golf bag. So what's the deal? Why are carmakers spending time pitching something more suitable for college students rather than car-buyers? Automotive News Silicon Valley reporter Katie Burke, investigates.

In this weeks Futurismo Byte, "This is how we (will) jam," we host a competition between staff members to gauge the difficulty of matching two random individuals' music tastes. Meanwhile, Brian Hamilton of GraceNote, a music classification and discovery company, describes his idea to solve the challenge of picking the perfect tune while car-pooling.

In Futurismo Byte #1, our snap-shots of the quirky in the road to tomorrow, we look at how violent video game "Grand Theft Auto" is helping self-driving car engineers.