Andrew J. Hawkins

During his CES press conference today, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said the company was “exploring rockets.” Indeed, Toyota had just announced that it had invested an undisclosed sum in Interstellar Technologies, a private Japanese spaceflight company, with the aim to leverage Toyota’s manufacturing prowess to mass produce rockets.

The company is expected to update its progress on Woven City, its “living laboratory” in Japan for future mobility projects. Tune in here.

The new tolling scheme that charges people $9 to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan went live at 12:00:01AM on Sunday. New York joins London, Singapore, Milan, and other global cities to force drivers to shoulder some of the burden in paying for good public transportation. I wrote about how congestion pricing can save cities from robot-powered gridlock back in 2019 — check it out.

The availability of new parts has allowed Volkswagen to lift the stop-sale order it put in place last September, after hundreds of ID.4 owners complained about their doors randomly opening while driving (including your’s truly). The door issue certainly took some of the shine off the ID.4 — VW said it only sold 646 in Q4 of 2024, a 94 percent drop year-over-year.