Is U2C serious? Help me make it make sense....

[jaxlongtimer]

Time for Tesla to call the caped crusaders at JTA?

Shares of the electric vehicle maker plunged more than 8% on Tuesday, pushing the company's market cap below $1 trillion and to its lowest since Nov. 7, which was two days after President Donald Trump's election victory.

The stock has plummeted 25% to start the year, while the Nasdaq is down just 1.5%, and has slid more than 35% from its record close on Dec. 16. CEO Elon Musk has lost more than $100 billion in net worth over that stretch, though he is still the world's richest person, with a fortune valued at about $380 billion.

The latest slide followed a report from Reuters on Monday that Tesla's long-awaited upgrade to its partially automated driving systems left owners disappointed. Many users told the publication that Tesla's "navigate on city streets" feature in China fell short of Musk's promises for self-driving technology.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/25/teslas-market-cap-sinks-below-1-trillion-as-stock-falls-more-than-9percent.html

[Ken_FSU]

[thelakelander]

Lol can't wait to see how popular this expensive train wreck will be. Which one of you will be first in line to pay to be driven around the Northbank in a utility van?

[jaxlongtimer]

Will be interesting to see the outcome of the "tests" on Bay Street.  If they fail, as many expect, what will JTA have to say for that?  "Oops, we just made a $400 million mistake" or "Still not working, so give us a few hundred million more"?

JTA will never admit failure so expect the latter.

[Steve]

The color scheme makes it look like an ambulance

There's so much to unpack here.

[fsu813]

Lol can't wait to see how popular this expensive train wreck will be. Which one of you will be first in line to pay to be driven around the Northbank in a utility van?

Just place the words "Ultimate Urban Circulator" on the side of the van and watch what happens. Instant hit.

[jax_hwy_engineer]

Nothing says "autonomous" quite like a guy in a high-vis vest sitting in the driver's seat...

[Charles Hunter]

I notice the number on the van is "2B"

The question is "or not to be?"

[Todd_Parker]

Similar vibes...

[Ken_FSU]

The color scheme makes it look like an ambulance

From my understanding, it's a design decision.

Makes it easier to just flip on the sirens and head to the hospital when it drives itself into the river.

[jaxlongtimer]

The color scheme makes it look like an ambulance

From my understanding, it's a design decision.

Makes it easier to just flip on the sirens and head to the hospital when it drives itself into the river.

Or runs over pedestrians that need to then be carted away.

[jcjohnpaint]

The color scheme makes it look like an ambulance

From my understanding, it's a design decision.

Makes it easier to just flip on the sirens and head to the hospital when it drives itself into the river.

[loremipsumerian]

I've been lurking this forum for years. I'm sorry to pander, but as someone who's interested in city planning, just generically, and as someone who's lived within a low number of American cities housing what most of us would consider real transit, I anecdotally understand the benefits.

It's so tragically hilarious occasionally taking in y'alls long term broad consensus, knowing the structure will never listen. As a sporadic lurker, my ability to remember usernames over years means your collective passion for thoughtful change is most likely your driving force. This is a rare resource, even within those sporadic American cities that embrace anything other than the car. Which is classic Jacksonville. Structurally incompetent, but home to what I believe is one of the underutilized collectives of creative and aware voices within this collapsing empire.

That's why I've been fascinated by the Ultimate Urban Circulator since my latest return to Jacksonville, 7 years ago. I've been in Jacksonville at 3 points in my life, due the Navy (my family's benefactor). The federal government is considered bad, broadly, by Jacksonville's sprawl, despite its giant contribution to its sustainability.

Which is why to me the Ultimate Urban Circulator is so insane. Nobody in the sprawl wants public transit. They subconsciously moved to Jacksonville due to consolidation. Why would they care about Regency Mall's absurd literal crumble (as featured in the final scene of Season 4 Episode 4 of "My Show, Also My Life," - https://youtu.be/xCI6owEYUXI?si=nrLtHFO4-Jm6W-BS&t=3816) when St. John's Town Center is even more removed from Downtown's demise?

This is why "My Show, Also My Life" went to Autonomous Vehicle Day here in Jacksonville last summer. I wish I could have finished this before Jacksonville started building the "Autonomous Innovation Center," but you try editing the penultimate season 4 episode of "Your Show, Also Your Life" without spending over 500 hours across 9 months.

I premiered this episode in my living room last night, to a dozen friends, as evidenced from this promotion on my Instagram feed:

https://www.instagram.com/lorem_ipsumerian/reel/DGwa2gsuRK9/

And the full episode, Season 4 Episode 7 of "My Show, Also My Life," episode title "Ultimate Urban Boondoggle," continues airing indefinitely, on internet, at www.myshowalsomylife.com, for as long as this all keeps going, right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBI3QACsXrU

[Joey Mackey]

I saw one of these shuttles plodding down Adams Street earlier today. There was an attendant in the typical driver seat location, with his eyes focused on the road ahead, and his hands at the ten and two position on the steering wheel. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he was...driving.

[Ken_FSU]

I saw one of these shuttles plodding down Adams Street earlier today. There was an attendant in the typical driver seat location, with his eyes focused on the road ahead, and his hands at the ten and two position on the steering wheel. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he was...driving.

I sat in 20 minutes of traffic earlier today when driving from City Halll to the Brooklyn Chipotle because of lane closures from the construction of JTA's new $40 million concrete shoebox that it's using to control its fleet of manned ambulances.

Meanwhile, a $2 million no-frills Skyway connection that would have eliminated my need to even get in a car was deemed too cost prohibitive by JTA to move forward with.

Meanwhile, up at our Atlanta office (and in cities like San Fran), autonomous Waymo's are circling the city, on the private sector's dime, better and more efficiently than JTA's "bleeding edge" manned U-Hauls that will be studied for centuries to come by those researching bold and heroic innovation. And these cities are actually using their public transit funds for projects that will serve a greater, wider, more equitable good than a 2-mile, $500 million, resume-padding vanity project for a guy who almost bailed for a better gig in Saudi Arabia.

Have said it for years and will say it again - this thing is a generational mistake. Best case scenario, it runs for a year and then the private sector comes in and does it better and cheaper than the public sector ever could. Leaving us with a redundant Uber service funded by the next 30 years of gas tax and no meaningful progress toward actual public transportation solutions.

God forbid we simply look at what our peer cities are doing and invest in something like a street car line, or commuter rail. Something that moves a significant number of people between different population centers without the need for cars, while spurring transit oriented development along a fixed route and improving quality of life for our citizens. Instead, we're arrogantly insisting that we know best, and that the true future of transit is a fleet of low-speed, low-capacity, short range robotic fucking vans aimed at fixing a problem that simply does not exist - moving hundreds of locals a day between the Shipyards and the Landing.

Definition of insanity, unfolding before our eyes.

Emperor wearing no clothes while everyone slaps him on the back and claps as the LaVilla shoebox is topped off.

---

P.S. Driverless Waymo's in San Francisco lined up ahead of Charlie XCX's concert ending. Ready to privately take attendees wherever they want to go afterwards for ~$10 a pop using a nationally available, Uber-like app. In what universe does what JTA is offering (shared vans on a fixed loop at $500 million in public expense using a janky JTA app) outdo what the private sector is already doing at $0 expense to the taxpayer?