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New mobility comes at a cost · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:11
  Jeff Cranson: Today I'm talking with a frequent guest, Joann Muller of Axios Mobility.
• 0:19
  Jeff Cranson: She actually writes their future of mobility newsletter and does uh more reporting on everything across the spectrum of automotive developments than anyone else in the business.
• 0:32
  Jeff Cranson: Uh lots of things to cover today.
• 0:34
  Jeff Cranson: Um, interested in some efforts by some automakers to make electric vehicles more affordable, uh, what they're trying to do, even as federal policies have created a bit of a lull in the market.
• 0:46
  Jeff Cranson: Um, how public policy at the federal level will affect the development of autonomous vehicles, which are typically electric vehicles, and what that means to that future, whether it's slowing down and again is just a lull, or whether or not we're going to see that uh roaring soon enough.
• 1:04
  Jeff Cranson: And then some safety concerns uh related to mobility overall, but especially with uh the advent of more robotaxis on the roads and those kinds of things.
• 1:14
  Jeff Cranson: So, Joann, as always, has done reporting on all those topics and had a lot of great things to say, and I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 1:21
  Jeff Cranson: So, again, I'm with Joann Muller of Axios Mobility.
• 1:25
  Jeff Cranson: She writes the Future of Mobility newsletter, which is a must-read for uh anybody that's interested in all things going on in the automotive sector today, changes uh fast and furious, and uh, I guess, from my thinking, the hardest working person in automotive journalism.
• 1:41
  Jeff Cranson: So, thanks for taking time to do this, Joann.
• 1:44
  Joann Muller: Good to be here, Jeff.
• 1:44
  Joann Muller: Thanks for having me.
• 1:46
  Jeff Cranson: So, first, I wanted to talk about a story you had a couple of weeks ago about uh automakers and their efforts to make electric vehicles more affordable.
• 1:54
  Jeff Cranson: There's a lot of headwinds uh at the federal level with the administration policies.
• 1:58
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, yet some big folks like Ford are still committed to this and they're trying to find ways to get them uh into the homes of middle class people like Ford did in its uh original and in its original incarnation uh more than 100 years ago.
• 2:13
  Jeff Cranson: So talk about some of those things and how some of the other automakers are doing those things too.
• 2:18
  Joann Muller: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:19
  Joann Muller: So um, you know, the challenge is these are expensive technologies.
• 2:24
  Joann Muller: And the only way that you can make a good solid business out of them is if you have uh you make them at scale.
• 2:31
  Joann Muller: You know, the the automakers are are masters at mass production.
• 2:35
  Joann Muller: But if you're selling EVs in small volumes, they just end up being money losers.
• 2:41
  Joann Muller: So the challenge is to get the costs down so that you can make them affordably uh at mass levels.
• 2:49
  Joann Muller: And so, you know, everyone is doing this.
• 2:52
  Joann Muller: Uh certainly uh GM has been working for some years and they've got a lot of different models coming off the same uh basic platform.
• 3:01
  Joann Muller: Ford is now uh starting over basically on its EV uh efforts, and they uh have designed a low-cost platform uh that will uh mostly produce uh be used for vehicles at the entry level of the market, the lower end.
• 3:20
  Joann Muller: Um so what we're talking about here, the first vehicle is going to be a small or a medium-sized pickup truck.
• 3:28
  Joann Muller: Um, and I think that um, you know, then there will be other versions that come off of that.
• 3:34
  Joann Muller: And the idea is to get the cost of that platform way down.
• 3:38
  Joann Muller: Um, and then they can make them share the the different, they call them top hats, uh different top hats on the same platform, and you can make a lot of money that way in theory.
• 3:49
  Jeff Cranson: What's the mid-size pickup they'd be talking about comparable to now, to um mid-size pickups that that Ford GM Stalinus produced?
• 3:58
  Joann Muller: It probably gonna be a little bit bigger, I think, than the Ford Maverick, which is a hybrid on the market today, maybe ranger size, um, but probably not much bigger than that.
• 4:10
  Joann Muller: They I think they have eventually have plans for another uh uh larger pickup truck that's electric.
• 4:17
  Joann Muller: And forget that plan has gone on and off a couple times.
• 4:20
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, yeah, but they're talking like $30,000 range, right?
• 4:24
  Joann Muller: So yes, that is the goal to get you know the entry, you know, the starting price.
• 4:28
  Joann Muller: Who who buys the car at the base trim?
• 4:31
  Joann Muller: You know, they always give quote these great low prices, but one once you get you know the the amenities that you want, uh you're paying at least five thousand dollars more.
• 4:42
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, can you even find a car with just the base trim on a lot?
• 4:45
  Jeff Cranson: Do you think?
• 4:46
  Joann Muller: Uh, you know, I I have driven a couple of them that are base level for around 25,000 sedans, these are.
• 4:54
  Joann Muller: Uh, and they're not coming from the domestic manufacturers.
• 4:57
  Joann Muller: I'll say that.
• 4:58
  Joann Muller: They gave up on that market a long time ago.
• 5:00
  Jeff Cranson: That makes perfect sense.
• 5:02
  Jeff Cranson: Um, I think the Michigan, strong Michigan connection there, obviously, besides Ford, um, is that the batteries for this would be produced at the new plant, the blue oval plant they're building near Marshall.
• 5:12
  Jeff Cranson: Is that right?
• 5:14
  Joann Muller: That's correct.
• 5:14
  Joann Muller: Yeah, those batteries, they're already producing batteries there.
• 5:18
  Joann Muller: Those batteries will uh go into uh this vehicle.
• 5:23
  Joann Muller: Um, and they are uh a low-cost chemistry.
• 5:29
  Joann Muller: It's called lithium iron phosphate LFP, and uh it is uh a technology that's been perfected in China.
• 5:37
  Joann Muller: I think it was in uh like everything, it was invented in the United States, uh manufactured production, production was was perfected in in China, and they have all the um all the the uh components and and uh materials that go into it.
• 5:55
  Joann Muller: So Ford said, we need that technology, we're gonna license it from China to put in our own 100% owned Ford plant.
• 6:05
  Joann Muller: So you may recall this was rather controversial.
• 6:08
  Joann Muller: Uh, a lot of people in Washington said, we don't want Chinese uh battery makers here.
• 6:14
  Joann Muller: And Ford had to argue for a very long time and said, This is a Ford plant.
• 6:19
  Joann Muller: Ford employees were licensing technology from a Chinese company so that we can learn how to do it and do it better and take it from there.
• 6:28
  Joann Muller: So this is Ford's gamble.
• 6:30
  Joann Muller: You know, it's uh it's quite interesting.
• 6:32
  Joann Muller: It was controversial, but they won basically, and now they're moving ahead with it.
• 6:37
  Joann Muller: The plant is a little smaller than originally planned.
• 6:40
  Joann Muller: Uh, you may recall the state had provided some incentives based on a number of jobs to be created there.
• 6:46
  Joann Muller: Um, because demand for EVs is lower than expected, they've sort of scaled back the plant a little bit for now.
• 6:53
  Jeff Cranson: But they they didn't bail out completely and they did some pretty hardcore lobbying and negotiations in DC to get it this far.
• 6:59
  Jeff Cranson: And I think uh I mean it's it's it's impressive what they did to keep things somewhat on track.
• 7:05
  Jeff Cranson: Do you think that that I mean, Crystal Ball, again, I always ask you this, but um, is there a bet that people will prefer a well-equipped battery-powered car over a gas metal if the price is right?
• 7:16
  Jeff Cranson: Is is that a good bet, do you think?
• 7:18
  Joann Muller: Uh, I think it could be, yes.
• 7:20
  Joann Muller: Anyone who's driven an electric car will realize uh how much more pleasant it is.
• 7:27
  Joann Muller: Uh, it's faster, it's comfortable, it's well grounded.
• 7:31
  Joann Muller: Uh you know, pardon me?
• 7:33
  Joann Muller: It's quiet.
• 7:34
  Joann Muller: It's quiet for sure.
• 7:36
  Joann Muller: Uh and it's just fun to drive.
• 7:39
  Joann Muller: There are some hiccups that still need to be worked out.
• 7:42
  Joann Muller: Charging is always, you know, the number one thing, but even that has gotten a lot better.
• 7:47
  Joann Muller: So, all things being equal, if you had two $30,000 cars, one that you never had to go to the gas station for, and one that you did, you know, Ford's bet is that you'll go for the electric.
• 7:59
  Joann Muller: And um I personally think it's a good bet, but that's a gigantic asterisk there is that they have to deliver a car that is $30,000 or less, uh, that's electric.
• 8:13
  Joann Muller: And, you know, they have yet to prove they can do that.
• 8:16
  Jeff Cranson: So that still could be a challenge, yeah.
• 8:18
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah.
• 8:18
  Jeff Cranson: But I think you hit on another point that has been the stumbling block for for many people, obviously, is range anxiety.
• 8:25
  Jeff Cranson: And even with Nebby rolling out and having a lot of complications in Michigan and other states, um, they're still committed to the money that was committed during the Biden administration.
• 8:36
  Jeff Cranson: And I I think a lot of us had gotten the impression that this charger thing was just a huge challenge that was going to take a while to be overcome.
• 8:44
  Jeff Cranson: But it sounds like there's actually been a lot of progress with uh charger infrastructure.
• 8:49
  Joann Muller: There t really has.
• 8:50
  Joann Muller: And I I think it's important for people to understand that this NEBI program you speak about that was uh under the Biden administration is a very small, small piece of the overall electric charging architecture that's being installed everywhere, the infrastructure rather.
• 9:10
  Joann Muller: And um a lot most of the chargers are being built with private capital.
• 9:15
  Joann Muller: Companies like Evigo uh and uh ChargePoint, Electrify America, these and a lot of other ones.
• 9:22
  Joann Muller: It's it's a very fragmented business.
• 9:25
  Joann Muller: Um, but uh the Nevi, the Nevi chargers you talk about are highway chargers all across America.
• 9:33
  Joann Muller: That's an important security blanket for people to know that if they go on a long trip, there will be chargers.
• 9:40
  Joann Muller: So that's why the Biden administration created that plan.
• 9:43
  Joann Muller: But they know that most people are actually charging either at home or in their neighborhood, uh, you know, at the Walmart or the Meyer parking lot.
• 9:53
  Jeff Cranson: And you've had some reporting on that too, and how uh those those charging hubs have have grown and have like like several ports now, right?
• 10:01
  Joann Muller: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:02
  Joann Muller: The size of the charging stations is getting bigger, you know.
• 10:06
  Joann Muller: They used to be maybe two or four, now they're eight, ten, twelve.
• 10:11
  Joann Muller: Tesla has a station out in California that's 164 plugs.
• 10:16
  Joann Muller: It's huge.
• 10:17
  Jeff Cranson: That's incredible.
• 10:18
  Joann Muller: Yeah, it's powered by the sun, too.
• 10:20
  Joann Muller: It's the solar powered, uh, which is yeah, I mean, that's very California, right?
• 10:25
  Jeff Cranson: Right, right, right.
• 10:26
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, you certainly couldn't do that here year-round.
• 10:29
  Joann Muller: No, but but it it just shows that there are things you can do, you know, that if you think creatively, uh you can you can solve these problems.
• 10:39
  Jeff Cranson: So while in the in the big picture, uh that charge infrastructure has gotten better, and we saw you know what Ford has committed to, uh, the other side of this coin is some other reporting you've done on how the pullback of EVs has especially been hard on the South.
• 10:54
  Joann Muller: Yeah, well, so when uh so during the Biden administration, uh a lot of incentives were provided for production of uh EV factories and battery factories and components for EVs.
• 11:08
  Joann Muller: A lot of money poured in, almost all of it went to the south, um, because you know, costs are a little lower, especially labor uh is a factor.
• 11:19
  Joann Muller: You know, those plants down there are are non-union.
• 11:23
  Joann Muller: Um, and so those were built in a lot of states that we would consider red states, um, where they might not necessarily favor EVs, but they certainly favor jobs.
• 11:36
  Joann Muller: Uh and so yeah, yeah.
• 11:39
  Joann Muller: And so now uh those states are the ones that are seeing a lot of interruptions or cancellations of factories.
• 11:48
  Joann Muller: And um, you know, that is if it hasn't happened yet, it will be happening uh in those states.
• 11:55
  Joann Muller: So, you know, it's it's uh it just shows how incentives, government policy can really cause big swings in investments.
• 12:05
  Joann Muller: Um, and frankly, a lot of wasted capital because we've seen that's why GM Ford, uh uh Stellantis, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen, every one of them has had to make gigantic write-offs on their investments in EV manufacturing.
• 12:26
  Joann Muller: Because the demand wasn't there, and the incentives for EVs you know, taking those away also you know made demand softer than it already was.
• 12:36
  Joann Muller: And so you had all this money put into manufacturing things that nobody wants to buy right now.
• 12:42
  Jeff Cranson: But if you talk to the top brass and any of those companies, people who are thinking about the future and have to look 20, 30, 40 years ahead, they still think that's the future, right?
• 12:52
  Jeff Cranson: They they don't, this is a lull.
• 12:54
  Jeff Cranson: This isn't like uh you haven't killed off the concept.
• 12:57
  Joann Muller: I I think that's true.
• 12:58
  Joann Muller: That's certainly what you know the car makers are telling me that long term it's still going to be an electrified industry.
• 13:06
  Joann Muller: But you know, I I do wonder how all this will play out, though, because if you think about all the data centers to power AI, uh and the demands, that's like the hungriest beast you've ever seen.
• 13:21
  Joann Muller: And then you add in the electric vehicles and other things that are going electric, you know, like a lot of gas stoves have to go to electric in some states, right?
• 13:31
  Joann Muller: That kind of thing.
• 13:32
  Joann Muller: So our demand for electricity is growing.
• 13:36
  Joann Muller: So the question is, are we gonna how are we gonna produce all that electricity?
• 13:40
  Joann Muller: But the other that we can't forget that this is always something people um miss about electric vehicles, they actually can help with the electric shortage, right?
• 13:51
  Joann Muller: So our cars are parked in parked 90%, 95% of the day.
• 13:57
  Joann Muller: Uh, if you think of them as a giant battery that is supplying energy to the grid rather than drawing energy off the grid, uh, we can use our cars to help manage peak demand.
• 14:12
  Joann Muller: Um, in the afternoon, let's say, when when uh demand for air conditioning and stoves and all that stuff peaks, uh the cars have surplus energy that can be used to power the grid.
• 14:27
  Joann Muller: Now, this at the moment is a very early concept.
• 14:32
  Joann Muller: Um, it is it is being tested widely by GM and Ford and others, mostly in California, but in some other states too, and Texas is one.
• 14:43
  Joann Muller: Um, but this this can happen.
• 14:45
  Joann Muller: And you know, I I do think in the future cars are going to be not just powering our homes during blackouts, but powering our neighborhood all the time.
• 14:55
  Jeff Cranson: You've got an electric storage facility sitting in your garage.
• 14:58
  Joann Muller: Exactly.
• 14:59
  Joann Muller: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:00
  Joann Muller: School buses are another great example, right?
• 15:02
  Joann Muller: School buses need big batteries, but they only drive around for an hour a day, and then they're sitting there.
• 15:09
  Joann Muller: They could power an entire school system.
• 15:11
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, there's a lot they could do between the morning and the afternoon, right?
• 15:14
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:15
  Jeff Cranson: Please stay tuned.
• 15:16
  Jeff Cranson: We'll be back with more talking Michigan transportation right after this.
• 15:25
  MDOT Message: Even with the best planning, backups and traffic congestion can occur during road construction.
• 15:30
  MDOT Message: This can pose hazardous situations for both motorists and construction workers, particularly when drivers are distracted.
• 15:37
  MDOT Message: Motorists are more likely than workers to be killed or injured in work zone-related incidents.
• 15:43
  MDOT Message: Additionally, the leading causes of all work zone-related crashes are distracted driving and speeding.
• 15:49
  MDOT Message: So it's crucial to do your part in ensuring the safety of both drivers and focusing on your most important task, safe driving.
• 15:57
  MDOT Message: Slow down and stay focused.
• 16:01
  Jeff Cranson: In DC last week, the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, uh, Transportation Policy Forum had a lot of discussion about the promise of autonomous vehicles and safety.
• 16:16
  Jeff Cranson: And uh, I remember writing congressional testimony for the MDOT director back in 2015, so you know, more than 10 years ago, talking about uh the promise of ABs and what it means in terms of lives lost on the roads and the fact that we accept, you know, 30 to 40,000 people dying in car crashes.
• 16:37
  Jeff Cranson: And we would never accept that if it was the airline industry.
• 16:40
  Jeff Cranson: Um, and and what it means to people with disabilities and and elderly drivers, you know, the the the independence that can come with that.
• 16:48
  Jeff Cranson: So it really it really struck me um last week that here we are 10 years later, and we're not quite as far along as I thought we would be.
• 16:56
  Jeff Cranson: Um, but you know, you've written about that too, and what what Waymo and others are doing with robo taxis and things.
• 17:02
  Jeff Cranson: And again, I always say whenever there's a crash or close to a crash, it gets all kinds of headlines like, oh, you know, automated vehicle involved in a crash.
• 17:11
  Jeff Cranson: It's like almost always it was human error, right?
• 17:14
  Jeff Cranson: It wasn't actually the the the robos, the robots' fault.
• 17:18
  Jeff Cranson: So talk about that and what your reporting is showing you.
• 17:22
  Joann Muller: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:23
  Joann Muller: Well, I do think we hold robots to a higher standard than humans.
• 17:27
  Joann Muller: Um uh, but um also this is such new technology.
• 17:33
  Joann Muller: We don't know what we don't know.
• 17:35
  Joann Muller: And an example of that just happened last weekend in um Austin, Texas, where sadly there was a mass shooting.
• 17:44
  Joann Muller: Um, and a Waymo robotaxi was on its way to pick up a a passenger in the vicinity and encountered a blocked road and did what it thought it should do, which was make a U-turn, turn around, not go into a dangerous spot.
• 18:02
  Joann Muller: They didn't know what was going on there, they just saw the road was blocked, so it turned around.
• 18:07
  Joann Muller: Well, as it was turning around, an ambulance came up trying to get through to get to the scene, and the robotaxis trained in that situation to stop and yield.
• 18:19
  Joann Muller: Well, it had two competing instructions there make a U-turn or yield.
• 18:25
  Joann Muller: And so what it did was it just stopped crosswise in the middle of the street, and it became the ambulance.
• 18:33
  Joann Muller: It blocked the ambulance and it it blocked the whole street, and it turned out a police officer had to come and in communication with Waymo had to get in, disengage the robot, and drive the car away.
• 18:48
  Joann Muller: This is not something that the algorithms probably anticipated, uh, you know, and uh uh what to do um when there's a mass shooting.
• 19:01
  Joann Muller: Uh it, you know, there was a power outage, a mass power outage in San Francisco, and a bunch of robotaxis just stopped because they didn't know what to do.
• 19:11
  Joann Muller: So we don't know what we don't know until we encounter it.
• 19:15
  Joann Muller: And even though there's a lot of simulation, they try you, they use AI to try to imagine every possible scenario.
• 19:24
  Joann Muller: But they even the best AI system can't imagine everything.
• 19:28
  Joann Muller: So the point is that we are at the first pitch of the first inning with this technology, and it has great promise.
• 19:37
  Joann Muller: It could be a World Series champ, but we but we don't know yet, right?
• 19:42
  Joann Muller: And so um the question is how much are we willing to let to be the guinea pigs as this is being uh rolled out?
• 19:52
  Jeff Cranson: But all things being, you know, somewhat normal, um I what's normal anymore?
• 19:59
  Jeff Cranson: I yeah, well, I I know that you believe, um, and I believe that if setting aside all those various scenarios that you're talking about everyday driving on the road, a computer is a better driver than a human.
• 20:11
  Jeff Cranson: We all think we're we're great drivers, but nobody else is.
• 20:14
  Jeff Cranson: But they don't have road raids, they don't drink, they don't do drugs.
• 20:17
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, there's all kinds of reasons to think the computer is gonna be a safer driver, right?
• 20:24
  Joann Muller: Yes and no.
• 20:25
  Joann Muller: I mean, I I believe in the promise for sure.
• 20:28
  Joann Muller: And I believe that they can do what we train them to do very, very well.
• 20:33
  Joann Muller: Uh, it's what w robot robocars don't have that humans do have, is common sense, is reasoning.
• 20:43
  Joann Muller: We see things all the time that we have never encountered before.
• 20:48
  Joann Muller: And we figure it out and we make the best possible choice that we can based on what we know.
• 20:58
  Joann Muller: The robots only know what they've been trained, and when they don't know, when they are seeing something they haven't been trained on, they are trained to stop and pull over, and that in itself causes problems.
• 21:11
  Joann Muller: And I think that's what we're seeing right now.
• 21:13
  Joann Muller: Can a robot drive straight down the highway without weaving, without getting distracted?
• 21:19
  Joann Muller: Absolutely, they are well trained to do that, they're even now pretty well trained to drive around your neighborhood.
• 21:28
  Joann Muller: They can see the person with the stroller or the you know, the kid doing something.
• 21:34
  Joann Muller: The child that runs out from behind a couple rows of cars, right?
• 21:38
  Joann Muller: Well, this just happened too, as you know, in California.
• 21:41
  Joann Muller: The but but here's here's where my argument is on that one.
• 21:45
  Joann Muller: Waymo said our car, as soon as we saw the the child who ran out between two parked cars, we slammed the brakes and we hit the child, unfortunately, but we hit them at six miles an hour.
• 21:59
  Joann Muller: We did some AI computations and determined that if a human were driving through there at the same speed, they their reaction time would have been slower and they would have hit the child at 14 miles an hour.
• 22:14
  Joann Muller: What could have happened, you know, if the child is hit at a faster speed?
• 22:19
  Joann Muller: Okay, that's good.
• 22:21
  Joann Muller: But when I drive through a school parking uh school drop-off zone, I'm going much lower than the speed limit.
• 22:28
  Joann Muller: I am looking everywhere.
• 22:30
  Joann Muller: Or I might even, if I don't have to drive through there, I'm gonna take a different route.
• 22:36
  Joann Muller: These are the things that humans reason and use common sense that the robot doesn't.
• 22:42
  Joann Muller: And so Waynebell still has to perfect its system to try to give it some of this common sense, but ultimately humans have superior brains than robots.
• 22:57
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, no, that's that's a really good point.
• 22:59
  Jeff Cranson: Um I would only say um that not every driver is you driving more carefully in a school.
• 23:07
  Joann Muller: Oh, totally, totally.
• 23:08
  Joann Muller: Humans are bad drivers.
• 23:10
  Joann Muller: There's I will not disagree on that.
• 23:12
  Joann Muller: But uh they also are they're better at reasoning.
• 23:19
  Jeff Cranson: Yes, I I think that's true.
• 23:20
  Jeff Cranson: Well, lastly, and this is related to safety, um, because you and I could talk about these things for so long, and I just I love your perspective.
• 23:27
  Jeff Cranson: But the one that really caught me um was your story about how crashes go up when new music is released.
• 23:34
  Jeff Cranson: Um talk about that.
• 23:37
  Joann Muller: Yeah.
• 23:37
  Joann Muller: Well, so so some uh Harvard Medical School researchers, uh, you know, everybody knows that smartphone distraction is a thing, but it's very hard to measure in the real world.
• 23:52
  Joann Muller: And so they set out to try to figure out what happens when we know people are probably using their smartphones.
• 24:00
  Joann Muller: And the best proxy for that, they said, was when big uh albums get released by Taylor Swift or Bad Bunny or Drake, whatever.
• 24:09
  Joann Muller: And so they looked at five years of data and they compared the federal uh database for fatal accidents with Spotify downloads over the same period of time, five years, and they found that on the days when big albums were released, streaming went up dramatically, and so did fatalities.
• 24:36
  Joann Muller: You know, that's a correlation, it doesn't necessarily, it's not a causation, but it does make a lot of sense to me.
• 24:44
  Jeff Cranson: Yes, it does.
• 24:45
  Jeff Cranson: It absolutely does.
• 24:46
  Jeff Cranson: I don't know what you do about that.
• 24:47
  Jeff Cranson: I guess you hope that as the the technology gets better for hands-free driving and uh things that people can do so they don't actually have their phones in their hand, which you're not supposed to do when you're driving in most states, including Michigan anyway.
• 25:00
  Joann Muller: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:00
  Jeff Cranson: That reduces that.
• 25:01
  Jeff Cranson: But Joann, as always, I appreciate it.
• 25:04
  Jeff Cranson: Um, I want to be sensitive to your time, but I really uh always enjoy these conversations and your insights.
• 25:11
  Joann Muller: Well, thank you, Jeff.
• 25:12
  Joann Muller: Great to be with you.
• 25:13
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 25:17
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout.
• 25:21
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jacke Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.