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The Centre on Tuesday proposed an outlay of Rs 26,000 crore for various road projects in Bihar. In her <keyword id="6358021" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="budget" source="Orion">Budget</keyword> for 2024-25, <keyword id="19912360" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Finance-Minister-Nirmala-Sitharaman" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman" meta.hostid="83" meta.entityid="Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman">Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword> said the <keyword id="19909265" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Union-government" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Union government" meta.hostid="83" meta.entityid="Union government">Union government</keyword> will arrange financial assistance to Bihar through aid from multilateral development agencies. The government will also set up airports, medical colleges and sports infrastructure in Bihar, she said. The Centre will also formulate plan 'Purvodaya' for all-round development of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh. Sitharaman further said the government will support industrial corridor for development in the eastern region. The finance minister also said the government will provide e-vouchers directly to 1 lakh students every year with interest subvention of 3 per cent of loan amount. SEE ALSO:<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/union-budget-2024-live-updates-finance-minister-nirmala-sitharaman-key-announcements-23-july/liveblog/111942008.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/union-budget-2024-live-updates-finance-minister-nirmala-sitharaman-key-announcements-23-july/liveblog/111942008.cms" target="_blank">Union Budget 2024 Live Updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to present her record seventh consecutive Budget today</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/expectations-from-union-budget-2024-25-how-will-this-budget-impact-you/articleshow/111946291.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/expectations-from-union-budget-2024-25-how-will-this-budget-impact-you/articleshow/111946291.cms" target="_blank">Union Budget 2024-25: How will this budget impact you?</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/heres-a-quick-overview-of-pm-modi-3-0-governments-first-budget-to-be-presented-by-fm-nirmala-sitharaman-today/articleshow/111944393.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/budget/news/heres-a-quick-overview-of-pm-modi-3-0-governments-first-budget-to-be-presented-by-fm-nirmala-sitharaman-today/articleshow/111944393.cms" target="_blank">Here's a quick overview of PM Modi 3.0 government's first budget, to be presented by FM Nirmala Sitharaman today</a>

Centre proposes ₹26,000 crore for road projects in Bihar

Since 2013, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> has promised that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla">Tesla</a> will have a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/business/tesla-self-drive-car/index.html">self-driving car</a>. To get there, the company has leaned on a specialized group of test drivers who are part of what's known internally as "Project Rodeo."Test drivers on Project Rodeo say they push the company's self-driving software to its limit. They work to bridge the gap between driver-assist software and fully autonomous driving. Operating on open streets with other vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians, they have tested unreleased software that will be crucial to Tesla's push into autonomous driving.Test drivers said they sometimes navigated perilous scenarios, particularly those drivers on Project Rodeo's "critical intervention" team, who say they're trained to wait as long as possible before taking over the car's controls. Tesla engineers say there's a reason for this: The longer the car continues to drive itself, the more data they have to work with. Experts in self-driving tech and safety say this type of approach could speed up the software's development but risks the safety of the test drivers and people on public roads."The idea is that you're a cowboy on a bull and you're just trying to hang on as long as you can," a former test driver who trained for the critical-intervention team in San Francisco said.Business Insider spoke with nine current and former Project Rodeo test drivers and three Autopilot engineers in states including California, Texas, and Florida. The drivers worked on training Tesla's Full Self-Driving software and its Autopilot software, which, despite the products' names, require a licensed driver at the wheel. Most asked to remain anonymous, citing a fear of professional reprisal, but their identities are known to Business Insider. Eight of the drivers described experiences that occurred over the past year, mostly between November and April.<div type="image" title="tesla cars in a parking lot" height="2827" width="4195" msid="114814069" hostid="261" sizebytes="1645262"></div>None of the test drivers who spoke with BI said they had been involved in a crash.Five who worked for the company in 2024 said they narrowly avoided collisions, including almost hitting a group of pedestrians. One former critical-intervention driver in Texas told BI that they sometimes ventured into their city's bar district late at night to see how Tesla's FSD software reacted to drunk patrons spilling out after last call. The former driver in San Francisco recalled riding around Stanford University during training, testing how close FSD would allow the vehicle to get to people at crosswalks before they had to take over. And a third critical-intervention driver said they allowed the car to speed through yellow lights and drive 35 mph under the speed limit on an expressway to avoid disengaging the system.A former Autopilot engineer told BI that while testing is done on open roads, Tesla runs hundreds of simulations and sometimes tests difficult scenarios on a closed course before rolling out new software to test drivers' vehicles.Tesla did not respond to a detailed list of questions about Project Rodeo and its self-driving technology.The test drivers' experiences highlight the balancing act Tesla and other automakers face as they prepare their self-driving software for widespread consumer use.Experts say public testing is crucial and can help identify safety issues before the technology hits the market. Missy Cummings, a former safety advisor for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said that while practices vary, she believes many autonomous-vehicle companies likely employ tactics similar to Tesla's."In theory, these drivers have gone through training, and eventually these cars do need to be able to operate in the public domain," Cummings said. She added that clearly marked vehicles could help the public better identify test drivers.Safety experts say fragmented and limited autonomous-vehicle regulations, coupled with self-reporting by automakers, create a complex environment where companies balance public safety with getting their products ready for commercial use."There are very few rules around autonomous testing and a lot of dependency on self-reporting," said Mark Rosekind, a former NHTSA administrator and chief safety innovation officer for Zoox, an Amazon-owned autonomous-taxi firm. "If companies aren't reporting, it's hard to know what's going on."In the past decade, authorities have investigated several automakers, including Tesla, Waymo, and Cruise, over crashes involving self-driving or driver-assist software.<div type="image" title="elon musk looks at a tesla" height="3488" width="4868" msid="114814075" hostid="261" sizebytes="1020846"></div>A lot depends on Tesla's promise of autonomous driving; Musk said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-worth-basically-zero-without-self-driving-2022-6">in 2022</a> that self-driving was "really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero." The Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote in a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-robotaxi-release-date-elon-musk-stock-price-2024-9">note</a> last month that the company's future valuation was "highly dependent on its ability to develop, manufacture, and commercialize autonomous technologies." Tesla's stock fell by 10% on October 11, the day after the company's robotaxi event. <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-stock-price-q3-earnings-elon-musk-profit-margins-guidance-2024-10">It rebounded after Tesla reported earnings on October 23</a>, and it's up by more than 3% overall in the year to date.<h2 id="e24440fb-f024-4003-b2a2-7b4d055c8c7a">Inside the day-to-day of a Project Rodeo driver</h2>Tesla went on a hiring spree this year, bringing on test drivers in at least half a dozen US cities, a review of LinkedIn profiles suggests.A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-job-openings-seasonal-test-drivers-data-capture-2023-7">job listing from 2023</a> said test drivers needed a "clean driving record, safe driving habits, and a minimum of 4 years of licensed driving experiences." Eight drivers told BI that the onboarding process included two to three weeks of hands-on training, including test drives with a trainer in the passenger seat.According to employees and internal documents, one specialty within Project Rodeo works to replicate the job of a ride-hailing driver by picking random points on a map and driving between them. Those working on a different team, known as the "golden manual" team, drive manually, without any assistance, to train FSD software on what by-the-book, error-free driving looks like.Critical-intervention test drivers, who are among Project Rodeo's most experienced, let the software continue driving even after it makes a mistake. They're trained to stage "interventions" — taking manual control of the car — only to prevent a crash, said the three critical-intervention drivers and five other drivers familiar with the team's mission. Drivers on the team and internal documents say that cars rolled through red lights, swerved into other lanes, or failed to follow posted speed limits while FSD was engaged. The drivers said they allowed FSD to remain in control during these incidents because supervisors encouraged them to try to avoid taking over.The critical-intervention drivers recalled multiple instances where they felt unsafe but believed intervening could put their jobs at risk. The former driver in Texas recalled taking over only after FSD nearly rammed the car into the side of a vehicle stopped at an intersection.Non-critical-intervention drivers said they also felt pressure to push the system as far as possible. Five current and former employees said that they were instructed to intervene if they became uncomfortable with the software's behavior but that they sometimes received feedback from their supervisors if they were considered to have disengaged too early.John Bernal, a former test driver and data analyst at Tesla, said test drivers dealt with risky situations as far back as 2022. (Bernal was terminated that year; he said he was fired for sharing videos on his YouTube channel that showed his personal Tesla malfunctioning while using FSD.) He described instances where he broke traffic laws in order to collect data. Bernal said that his supervisors never instructed him to break the law but that he sometimes felt it was the only way to get the data the company wanted.He recalled one test in 2022 that was designed to see how well the system recognized a red light."My training was to wait until the wheels touched the white line before I could slam on the brakes," Bernal said. He said he sometimes ended up in the middle of the intersection if the system didn't work correctly.He also worked to train the autonomous software on "vulnerable road users" — defined by the Department of Transportation as pedestrians, bicyclists, people on scooters or in wheelchairs, or highway workers on foot — when he manually drove the "Ground Truth Machine," a Tesla outfitted with lidar and radar sensors to help the system map and identify objects."I'd drive over double lines to get close to a bike," Bernal said. "I would go obnoxiously slow through an alleyway where drunk people were, and I would be extremely rude and get really close to people."<div type="image" title="tesla showroom with autopilot posters" height="2939" width="4200" msid="114814073" hostid="261" sizebytes="255868"></div>Two years later, test drivers were asked to train the system near pedestrians, test drivers said. Five recalled a bug with FSD that made vehicles brake too early at crosswalks. To improve its performance, they were instructed to interact with pedestrians as frequently as possible.Sometimes, the drivers said, the software would slam on the brakes when no one was at the crosswalk; other times, it wouldn't stop at all. According to Tesla employees and internal documentation, FSD's performance depended heavily on its software version, and the versions appeared to operate at different levels of caution.The former San Francisco driver said that as they drove around Stanford University, their trainer, another test operator with more experience on the team, chastised them for braking too early. They recalled that at one point they came within three feet of hitting a bicyclist at a roundabout."I vividly remember this guy jumping off his bike. He was terrified," the driver told BI. "The car lunged at him, and all I could do was stomp on the brakes." They said the trainer was pleased by the incident. "He told me, 'That was perfect.' That was exactly what they wanted me to do."The driver added that "it felt like the goal was almost to simulate a hit-or-miss accident and then prevent it at the last second."The former Autopilot engineer said it was better for training to see whether the software could correct itself. They also said that not intervening when the car acted abnormally — including veering into another lane or doing something that confuses another driver — was important for training. Human motorists don't always drive rationally, they explained, and the software needs to know how to respond. It's also easier to parse the data if there are fewer driver interventions, they said."At the critical juncture where it's about to make the key decision," they said, it's helpful to see whether the software makes the right or wrong call. "We want the data to know what led the car to that decision," the engineer said. "If you keep intervening too early, we don't really get to the exact moment where we're like, OK, we understand what happened."<h2 id="52098605-f887-4702-a6ab-cf47e173ce28">A 'Wild West' with little regulation</h2>Tesla is one of many automakers attempting to make autonomous vehicles a reality. Waymo, backed by Alphabet, launched the first driverless taxi service in Phoenix in 2020."In many ways, it's like the Wild West out there," said Cummings, the former NHTSA safety advisor. "There is very little regulation around training or informing the public about testing."The stakes of data collection on public roads are high. In 2018, a self-driving Uber with a person behind the wheel struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Cruise paused testing after one of its driverless vehicles hit a pedestrian in October 2023. Another vehicle had already hit the pedestrian when the Cruise car struck her, dragging her 20 feet before stopping. It <a target="_blank" href="https://www.getcruise.com/news/blog/2024/cruise-resumes-manual-driving-as-next-step-in-return-to-driverless-mission/">resumed testing</a> with safety drivers in some cities in May.<div type="image" title="waymo self driving taxi interior with pedestrians outside" height="4000" width="6000" msid="114814077" hostid="261" sizebytes="568560"></div>Two former Waymo employees said that they had a team similar to Tesla's critical-intervention team but that Waymo's version of critical-intervention testing was limited to closed tracks with dummies. Two former Cruise employees said that they had mapping teams and teams that tested on closed courses and public roads but that, unlike at Tesla, those teams were instructed to take over as soon as the software went off track, and they typically tested with at least two people in the car.A Waymo spokesperson said the company's safety framework included rigorous testing in controlled environments and on public roads. A Cruise spokesperson said the company's vehicles were designed as fully autonomous systems and were therefore fundamentally different from Tesla's driver-assistance technologies.Philip Koopman, an autonomous-driving expert at Carnegie Mellon University, said that Tesla's critical-intervention approach, as described to him by BI, was "irresponsible" and that the company should be playing out all "critical scenarios" on a closed course."By allowing the software to continue misbehaving to the point a test driver needs to avoid a crash, Tesla would be imposing a risk on other road users who have not agreed to serve as test subjects," Koopman said.Alex Roy, a general partner at NIVC and a former director of operations at the autonomous-driving startup Argo AI, said companies should be correcting the software as soon as it strays from the course, particularly on public roads."You should play those mistakes out in a simulation, not on an open road," Roy said. "Real-world testing is necessary, but real-world mistakes are not." The former Tesla engineer said they doubted that computer simulations are sophisticated enough to replicate the data generated by real-world driving. The former engineer said that, to help the software improve, it was best for test drivers to avoid intervening whenever possible."If you have a parent that's holding the bike the entire time, it never gets to learn," the engineer said.Test drivers on Project Rodeo felt this keenly."You're pretty much running on adrenaline the entire eight-hour shift," one former test driver in the Southwest said. "There's this feeling that you're on the edge of something going seriously wrong."Do you work for Tesla or have a tip? Reach out to the reporter via a non-work email and device at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:gkay@businessinsider.com">gkay@businessinsider.com</a> or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="c-link">248-894-6012</a>.

Inside 'Project Rodeo,' the Tesla effort pushing the limits of self-driving technology

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Project 2025 is a road map for the next Republican president.</li><li>The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, authored the plan.</li></ul>Well before the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-lost-debate-moments-wasnt-talking-president-2024-6">disastrous presidential debate</a> during which President Joe Biden may have handed the keys to the White House back to former President Donald Trump, conservative thinkers were assembling a game plan.In January 2023, The Heritage Foundation began <a target="_blank" href="https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025">promoting</a> Project 2025, a 922-page <a target="_blank" href="https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf">"playbook"</a> assembled with input from dozens of other conservative organizations to guide the next Republican administration."The time is short, and conservatives need a plan," reads the website for the right-wing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.project2025.org/playbook/">presidential transition plan</a>. "The project will create a playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of the new Administration to bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left's devastating policies."Some of Project 2025's priorities include:<ul><li>Slashing employment in the federal government and muzzling "woke propaganda at every level of government"</li><li>Eliminating the Department of Education and its "woke-dominated system of public schools"</li><li>Prohibiting the FBI from fighting misinformation and disinformation</li><li>Ending the "war on fossil fuels" and allowing further development on Native American lands</li><li>Ending active FBI investigations that are "contrary to the national interest"</li></ul>The plan is so extreme that even Trump has distanced himself from it, writing on Truth Social this week that he knows "nothing about Project 2025.""I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them," Trump wrote.A spokesperson from Project 2025 told Business Insider that the playbook "does not speak for any candidate or campaign.""We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president. But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement," the spokesperson said.

What is Project 2025? The conservative road map is raising a lot of eyebrows, on both sides of the aisle.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Portland's Made in Old Town project aims to make a stateside manufacturing hub for sports-apparel makers.</li><li>Its backers Hilos and the Technology Association of Oregon hope to generate 6,000 jobs as soon as 2028.</li></ul>The Northeast is the ancestral home of footwear manufacturing in the US, where New Balance still assembles more than 4 million pairs of sneakers each year.But much of the industry resides in Portland, Oregon, and its surrounding suburbs, home to well-known brands such as Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Keen, and the North American branch of Adidas. At least a dozen apparel companies, including Lululemon and Allbirds, have part of their operations stationed in the city.Despite Portland's ties to the footwear and sports-apparel industries, it isn't typically considered a manufacturing hub. But that could soon change with a plan for a $125 million development campus called Made in Old Town. The project aims to bring <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-shoe-manufacturing-in-america-2017-3">footwear and apparel manufacturing</a> to the industry's largest US design and product development hub by transforming four city blocks into 323,000 square feet of office space, sample rooms, apparel-manufacturing machines, retail space, and housing.Backers of the project — including the startup Hilos and nonprofits like the Technology Association of Oregon — envision millions being reinvested in vacant and underused properties in Portland's Old Town neighborhood. The infrastructure would be available for rent to the region's roughly 300 sportswear brands, which could pay a monthly fee to use the various spaces for their production needs instead of relying on their typical overseas collaborations with Asian manufacturers.The hope is that if more manufacturing capabilities are brought to the Portland region, brands can more quickly churn out designs for footwear and apparel, according to project backers. And faster production means brands can stay abreast of quick-to-change trends, in terms of both fashion and functionality, to turn greater profits in a highly competitive industry.<h2 id="72bfe22d-30f3-4f7f-b35b-886812fd22b4">Relying on Asian manufacturing for footwear production has its challenges</h2>Nearly all shoes sold in the US are made abroad, mostly in Asian countries including Vietnam and China. The shift to manufacturing primarily in Asia was largely driven by major brands looking to reduce their manufacturing costs. For instance, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-changed-the-shoe-industry-2014-4">Nike moved its manufacturing to China</a> in the early 1980s.Indeed, taking manufacturing overseas did lower costs, but this decadeslong shift also resulted in a decline in the total number of US footwear-manufacturing jobs. In 1990, there were an estimated 76,000 domestic jobs, compared with a little over 11,000 today, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics."Factory owners and suppliers need to be globally competitive in manufacturing and need to be able to be closer to brands," Elias Stahl, the CEO of Portland's Hilos, told Business Insider.With Hilos, a startup that sells software to make it easier for footwear brands to make their gear through 3D printing, Stahl has become a major backer of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.madeinoldtown.org/">Made in Old Town</a> effort, including by recruiting former Nike and Adidas executives to serve on the project's board.In addition to creating jobs, Made in Old Town backers hope to help speed up the manufacturing process for smaller brands. Apparel-design teams are largely in the US, so new designs for sneakers and shirts are typically created an ocean away from the plants where they're later produced. But if <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-fashion-industrys-plan-for-taking-jobs-back-from-china-2012-9">more manufacturing infrastructure was stateside</a>, it could aid in shoe-design rollouts, said Eric Liedtke, a former Adidas executive and the CEO and a cofounder of Unless, which makes plant-based footwear and apparel.According to Liedtke, who's a Made in Old Town board member, startups would benefit from Made in Old Town if the space could bring together designers, manufacturers, and materials suppliers as intended. Today, many apparel brands' in-house US designers, engineers, and product marketers have to do multiple rounds of product-design development. They also have to make multiple trips to factories in Asia to complete in-person prototyping, which involves making a physical model of a shoe to experiment with its design, shape, and materials before settling on the final product.To get around this back-and-forth, larger brands like Nike and Adidas have already created their own stateside sample rooms — spaces where prototypes of shoes and other sports gear are made — to consider design and material selections. They've also invested in digital tools to smooth the flow of information between their design teams in the US and manufacturing facilities abroad.Smaller brands could also save a lot of time and money if those same resources, including 3D-printing capabilities and more in-person interfacing with materials suppliers, were brought closer to home, Liedtke said.<h2 id="b491fee2-1f66-4748-b94f-c08c470531f7">The sportswear industry is facing turbulent times</h2>The <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nike-alums-leading-top-sportswear-brands-like-lululemon-hoka-columbia-2022-11">legacy sportswear players</a> have struggled recently amid greater competition from upstarts like Alo Yoga, Vuori, and Hoka. Nike has posted soft sales and told investors that a turnaround plan will take at least a few quarters.Earlier this year, Adidas, based in Germany, reported its first annual loss in over 30 years as it posted a 16% sales drop in North America. And Under Armour has posted soft sales for several years, which has punished the company's stock.The upheaval in the sports-apparel and footwear business has greatly affected the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/4-reasons-to-explore-portland-oregon-that-are-worth-the-trip">Portland region</a>, where Nike is based and brands like Adidas, Lululemon, Deckers Brands, and Under Armour have a large presence. Nike and Columbia Sportswear are among the major employers in the area that have <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nike-layoffs-2024-what-to-know-about-the-latest-job-cuts-1033076132?op=1">announced layoffs</a> due to the industry's shifting fortunes.At the federal level, the US government has offered billions in subsidies to support manufacturing, mostly targeting the auto, semiconductor, and solar industries. In recent years, this has helped add hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing.This approach tends to focus on industries deemed vital for national security but lets industries like apparel fall by the wayside, Stahl said. But with some state- and private-industry funding, the sportswear industry could be revitalized in Portland and beyond, Stahl added.With the Made in Old Town project, the aim is to generate about 6,000 full-time jobs in Portland by as soon as 2028.<h2 id="d7c07cf7-f329-44dc-9c51-e6c17986ef3b">Lessons learned from Adidas' Speedfactory flop</h2>When Liedtke worked at Adidas, he spearheaded an effort to reroute footwear manufacturing to local markets and closer to the shoppers buying the brand's sneakers to boost innovation and sales.Adidas opened two automated manufacturing facilities, called Speedfactories, in Atlanta and Germany, but both closed within just a couple of years. "We gave it our best effort. It just didn't work out," Liedtke told BI.He said the model was partly flawed because the technology could not account for quickly changing fashion trends. Only one shape of footwear could be created at a time, limiting production efforts.Liedtke said the Adidas Speedfactory flop taught him the importance of getting support from materials suppliers. For example, if materials suppliers are incentivized to set up their sampling and prototyping equipment in Portland, brands there can work through the early stages of footwear design and production more quickly. This approach would make them similar to automakers in the US, who can still make their cars and trucks stateside because many auto-parts suppliers have stationed themselves in the Midwest.Right now, the plan is to dedicate about half of the Made in Old Town space's square footage to sampling and prototyping machinery and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/what-is-3d-printing">3D printers</a>. As for replacing manufacturing abroad altogether: "That's way down the road," Liedtke said.<h2 id="4c011cef-4f3c-4036-98dc-8f14be1dc3c1">A long way to go</h2>The Made in Old Town project is still in its early stages, having raised $15 million of its $125 million goal. Oregon lawmakers have set aside just $2 million to support Made in Old Town after Gov. Tina Kotek approved the funding in April.No brands have publicly disclosed their interest in joining the campus or made any financial investments to support Made in Old Town, and the initiative's backers say an additional $120 million will be needed from brands, suppliers, and manufacturers to support investments in local talent and equipment.For 2024, the focus is on creating a system that can support startup-size brands who want to speed up their footwear-design and -manufacturing processes, Noel Kinder, Nike's former chief sustainability officer and a member of the Made in Old Town board, said."The vision is to accelerate the pace of innovation," Kinder said. "The intention is not to replace the hundreds of millions of pairs of shoes that are made all over the world."

Nike and Adidas veterans are backing a $125M project seeking to revitalize the Portland sportswear industry

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Former President Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025.</li><li>Project 2025 is a map for ultra-conservative activists to enshrine their agenda should Trump win.</li></ul><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-key-cases-civil-criminal-investigations-lawsuits-updates-2022-7">Former President Donald Trump</a> is attempting to distance himself from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-project-2025-conservative-political-playbook-heritage-foundation-trump-2024-7">Project 2025</a>, a political road map created by The Heritage Foundation that lays out steps Republican activists can take during the next presidency to enshrine extreme conservative policies into law and, critics argue, erode the US government's checks and balances.But while Trump's ties to the project are deeper than he admits, some experts on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/political-targets-swatting-increasing-anti-government-terrorism-authoritarianism-trump-expert-2024-1">political extremism</a> and pro-democracy activists say one real cause for concern is how the ideology behind the playbook can — and is — moving ahead with or without him.The architects of the plan will continue to try to push forward its policy goals through the courts and Congress no matter who is elected — and even without Trump's complete endorsement, issues central to the playbook are already incorporated into his platform.<h2 id="147abea3-2bfc-4845-bff1-9017335a21e6">What does Project 2025 say?</h2>Among the four pillars of Project 2025 is an over <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.project2025.org/playbook/">900-page playbook</a> for <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-convention-republican-party-future-takeover-maga-2024-7">conservative activists</a> to follow in the first 180 days of the next Republican administration to "bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left's devastating policies."The plan includes a wish list of right-wing ideological outcomes, including banning pornography and imprisoning its creators, mass deportations, a ban on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-abortion-pill-what-to-know-about-self-managed-abortions-2020-11">abortion medications</a>, firings in the federal branch and cutting some federal agencies outright to "deconstruct the administrative state," and generally pursuing policies to promote "marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families."It would also enable an inclined president to take total control of the Justice Department to weaponize it against their enemies, slash climate protections, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-could-slash-student-loan-forgiveness-end-save-plan-reelected-2024-7">eliminate the Department of Education</a>, which oversees the public school system, among other initiatives "to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will."Through its website, the project is gathering applications for jobs across each federal agency to pass along to the next Republican administration — from the Department of Agriculture to the Federal Reserve — that can be used as leverage to advance its agenda in the event of a second Trump presidency.Many roles would be immediately ready to be filled with loyal followers, while other jobs would be cut entirely. Historian and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who is critical of both Trump and Project 2025, argued in a recent Substack article that such cuts would result in "more influence for the 'inner sanctum' of sycophants and extremists who, as in regimes everywhere, are the real source of power."<h2 id="22af5a13-66b1-4d88-99ce-35b60ed43378">How Project 2025 'runs on autopilot'</h2>According to some critics, among the unique concerns about Project 2025 is the fact that, while the overall objectives would be easiest to achieve under a conservative administration like Trump's, some of the policy goals laid out in the plan don't require the direct involvement of the presidency at all.Angelo Carusone, president of the nonprofit journalism watchdog Media Matters for America, told Business Insider that, though Project 2025 is focused on action at the federal level, it also lays out specific goals that can be advanced by local and state governments, or ruled upon by <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-evangelicals-brag-about-lobbying-to-influence-scotus-cases-2022-7">sympathetic judges</a>.The Supreme Court, for example, in a series of rulings this term, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-rulings-executive-power-grab-strengthen-judiciary-2024-7">eroded the power of the executive branch</a> by rolling back the power of administrative positions in the executive branch while strengthening the presidency itself. The rulings — made by a polarized, conservative-majority court — align with Project 2025 policy goals to deconstruct the administrative state and strengthen the "presidential will."Ben-Ghiat noted in a recent Substack that "it's as though these jurists made their decisions with Project 2025 in one hand and an autocrat's playbook in the other.""And so that's how it sort of runs on autopilot and just moves," Carusone told BI.Some members of Congress have already embraced policies that makeup portions of Project 2025's agenda.Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky has repeatedly introduced measures to abolish the Education Department. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia in 2022 introduced a measure to make it a felony for physicians to provide gender-affirming care to children and prevent federal healthcare facilities from providing such care.Ohio Sen. JD Vance — now Trump's pick for the vice presidential ticket — told Newsweek the project has "some good ideas." He has previously supported abortion bans without exception for rape and incest, and in June voted against a bill that would have cemented access to in vitro fertilization (IVF).With even partial control of the legislative and judicial branches, Carusone noted, even if Trump doesn't win in November, the goals behind Project 2025 can still be pushed forward."So you don't need Trump's thumb on the scale, or even his direction, because it's going to move on its own," Carusone said.<h2 id="e3b0e459-fbed-4704-a008-c47a5a181cab">Trump's close ties to Project 2025</h2>The former president's proposed policies for his hypothetical second term, Agenda 47, include numerous areas of overlap with Project 2025. Among them are the defunding of the Education Department, instructing federal agencies to end programs that promote sex and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/im-transgender-have-been-in-military-for-over-a-decade-2024-5">gender transition</a> at any age, and the niche promise to reissue Executive Order 13957, which made federal employees easier to fire.The independent outlet Popular Information first reported that 31 of the 38 people who wrote and edited Project 2025 had been either appointed or nominated to positions in Trump's first administration or his transition team.A CNN review found over 140 Trump administration members had contributed to Project 2025. The Washington Post described The Heritage Foundation as a "revolving door for Trump officials."After The Heritage Foundation created its "Mandate for Leadership" ahead of Trump's first term, the conservative group proudly announced that Trump applied 64% of its policy recommendations in the first two years of his presidency, CBS News reported. The recommendations included leaving the Paris Climate Accords, ramping up military spending, and increasing offshore drilling.In February, Politico reported that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-nonprofit-is-training-critical-race-theory-activists-2021-9">Russell Vought</a>, a Project 2025 consultant and president of the conservative think tank The Center for Renewing America, included "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/christian-nationalism-distorts-american-and-christian-values-group-2022-9">Christian nationalism</a>" as among the top priorities for a second Trump term.Vought, the outlet reported, was the director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first term and is a likely pick for his Chief of Staff if he's elected again.<h2 id="d1058078-5f68-47e9-a258-3c2ea54de14d">What Trump said about Project 2025 — and its leaders about him</h2>"I have no idea who is behind it," Trump wrote July 5 on Truth Social. "I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."Danielle Alvarez, a Trump spokesperson, told Business Insider that Agenda 47 and President Trump's RNC Platform are the only policies endorsed by President Trump for a second term, adding that "Team Biden and the DNC are LYING and fear-mongering because they have NOTHING else to offer the American people."Though he denies knowing anything about the project, the playbook mentions Trump's name more than 300 times.Kevin Roberts, the president of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reagan-heritage-foundation-economic-freedom-new-right-desantis-trump-markets-2023-4">The Heritage Foundation</a>, noted in a July 10 episode of "The Vince Coglianese Show" that there's a "tremendous" amount of overlap between Trump's Agenda 47 and Project 2025 — and the standard Republican platform more generally.Roberts said there were "no hard feelings from any of us at Project 2025" about Trump's statement denouncing their agenda, saying "he's making a political tactical decision there" in response to a swath of bad press about the playbook's extreme policies."I think what you're going to see is the beginning of a golden era of conservative reform," Roberts added. "Not just because of President Trump, although he deserves most of the credit, but because the rest of the conservative movement has realized this is the moment if we have the leader and the plan that we're able to begin to undo all of the wreckage of the radical left of the last several decades."

Project 2025 is moving ahead whether Trump is elected or not

<ul><li>Road <keyword id="34617" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="construction" source="Orion">construction</keyword> accounts for 40% of the demand for <keyword id="113636" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="construction-equipment" source="Orion">construction equipment</keyword>.</li><li>Some pre-buying of equipment is also likely towards the last quarter of this fiscal, says a <keyword id="183985" type="General" weightage="40" keywordseo="crisil-ratings" source="Orion">Crisil Ratings</keyword> report.Government focus on infrastructure build-out, especially roads, metros, and <keyword id="6360676" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="railways" source="Orion">railways</keyword> a key.</li></ul> The revenue for the domestic construction equipment sector is expected to grow by 14-15% in FY24 on the back of the government's focus on infrastructure, as per a Crisil Ratings report. Construction activity across the real estate and mining sectors will also play a supportive role. The revenue for the domestic construction equipment sector is likely to grow this fiscal on a high base of 29% in the previous fiscal. "This will be driven by continued government focus on infrastructure build-out, especially roads, metros, and railways, including projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP)," the report reads. The increased pace of road construction, which accounts for 40% of the demand for construction equipment, augurs well for the sector's growth. Manufacturers are also witnessing robust demand from the real estate and mining sectors, as well as from contractors of bridge, airport, and metro corridor, said Poonam Upadhyay, Crisil Ratings Director. "In addition, some amount of pre-buying of equipment is also likely towards the last quarter of this fiscal, with the sector migrating to CEV Stage-V2 emission norms from April 1, 2024, which will increase equipment prices," Upadhyay added. In volume terms, the sector is projected to achieve all-time high sales of 1.2 lakh units this fiscal, compared to 1.1 lakh units in FY23. Earthmoving equipment accounted for 70% of sales volume last fiscal, material handling and concrete equipment 22%, while material processing equipment comprised the rest, the report said. (With text input from PTI)

Road projects to boost domestic construction equipment players' revenues

India will spend nearly Rs 143 lakh crore on infrastructure between fiscals 2024 and 2030, more than twice the Rs 67 lakh crore spent in the past seven financial years starting 2017, rating agency Crisil said on Tuesday. Of the total, Rs 36.6 lakh crore will be green investments, marking a five times rise compared with the amount spent during fiscals 2017-2023, it added. "India's infrastructure spending will double to Rs 143 lakh crore between fiscals 2024 and 2030, compared with 2017-2023," Crisil said in its Infrastructure Yearbook 2023. Crisil Ltd managing director and CEO Amish Mehta said the agency expects India's gross domestic product to grow at an average 6.7% through fiscal 2031 to be the fastest-expanding large economy. "Per capita income is seen rising from USD 2,500 now to USD 4,500 by fiscal 2031, creating a middle-income country," he said, adding that this growth will be underpinned by massive all-round infrastructure development, with sharp focus on integrating sustainability." While releasing '<keyword id="19169539" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="crisil-infrastructure-yearbook-2023" source="Orion">CRISIL Infrastructure Yearbook 2023</keyword>', which includes a unique national index CRISIL InfraInvex, Mehta said policy interventions and a conducive investment climate have aided the uptrend in the CRISIL InfraInvex scores across sectors. "Four of these -- roads and highways, power transmission, renewable energy and ports -- have an overall score of 7-plus (out of 10), which underscores the pace of reforms and developments of the past few years," he added. The rating agency noted that the next phase of infrastructure development will be marked by growth in the average ticket size of projects and a significant number of mega-scale projects. Appropriate and consistent policy and regulatory interventions and focus on timely execution build an attractive case for various stakeholders to accelerate investments across infrastructure sectors, Crisil said. The renewable push The rating agency predicted that prominent sectors such as roads and power are expected to remain major contributors, while relatively nascent ones such as <keyword id="312660" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="EVs" source="Orion">EVs</keyword>, solar, wind, and hydrogen will pick up pace. "The share of EVs in India's overall automobile sales is likely to reach 30% by 2030. "Two-wheeler EV sales are expected to outpace other segments up to 2028, while demand for EV buses will be driven by state transport undertakings," it said. According to Crisil, favourable total cost of ownership and total cost of acquisition, as well as model availability for two- and three-wheelers will support EV offtake in coming years. It said the share of renewable energy in total capacity is estimated to grow 4x between fiscals 2023 and 2030. While solar will account for half of the incremental non-fossil generation, Crisil said there is a growing need to leverage emerging technologies such as 'floatovoltaics' (floating solar), offshore wind technology and green hydrogen. Noting that the hydrogen sector is poised to attract substantial investments, estimated at Rs 1.5 lakh crore between fiscals 2024 and 2030, the rating agency said mandates for green hydrogen use and incentive schemes will be important here considering the cost of production of green hydrogen is twice that of fossil-based hydrogen. Crisil said India's first sovereign green bond issuance will pave the way for the development of the domestic bond market for green issuances. Over the past few years, global experience has shown increasing appetite for green assets among investors, leading to Indian companies seeking funds in global markets, it added.

India's infra spending to ride EV, solar, wind and hydrogen push

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Kamala Harris vowed to destroy Project 2025 after Biden endorsed her for the Democratic nomination.</li><li>Project 2025, by The Heritage Foundation, outlines radical conservative policies for the next GOP president.</li></ul>Shortly after President Joe Biden <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-endorses-kamala-harris-after-dropping-out-2024-7">endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris</a> for the Democratic nomination, Harris made her opening pitch to the country, arguing that voting for her will allow her to decimate the controversial Project 2025."I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation— to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda," she wrote on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://x.com/kamalaharris/status/1815122384908910919?s=46&amp;t=bkmJfZuvxzKCaiQCsNuiTw">X</a> on Sunday night.Created by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-project-2025-conservative-political-playbook-heritage-foundation-trump-2024-7">Project 2025</a> is a road map for the next Republican president, presented in the form of a hefty 922-page <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf">playbook</a>.It aims to enshrine radical conservative policies into the law and erode US government's checks and balances.Some of its most extreme priorities include: eliminating the Department of Education, prohibiting the FBI from fighting misinformation and disinformation and ending the "war on fossil fuels."Although Harris said that she is determined to defeat former President Donald Trump and "his extreme Project 2025 agenda," Trump himself has called the project "ridiculous."He attempted to distance himself from it with a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112734594514167050">post</a> on his Truth Social on July 5, saying: "I know nothing about Project 2025.""I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal," Trump wrote. "Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them."And the project itself is <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/project-2025-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-elected-2024-7">not dependent on Trump</a>. Some of the goals outlined in the project don't require a president's involvement at all, and can be carried out by local and state governments.While Trump denies knowledge or links to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation was one of the sponsors for the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-rnc-speech-assassination-attempt-takeaways-2024-7">Republican National Convention</a>, which saw the GOP nominating Trump for the presidential ticket.When asked for comment, Trump's spokesman Steven Cheung told BI: "Kamala is the one with the radical, out-of-touch agenda," adding that she is "soft on crime" and "hates American energy production and jobs."Harris' statement comes shortly after President Biden quit the race, following weeks of calls from <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/top-democrats-convincing-joe-biden-drop-out-campaign-nancy-pelosi-2024-7">top Democrats</a> telling him to step aside or risk losing the election."While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden wrote in a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1815080881981190320">letter</a> posted on social media.Representatives for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Kamala Harris' opening argument: Vote for me and I'll decimate Project 2025

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Many Americans are prioritizing travel despite concerns about the economy.</li><li>Labor Day weekend domestic travel is projected by AAA to be up 9% year over year.</li></ul>Americans are increasingly seeing <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/travel-rewards/survey-travel-plans-2024/">travel as a need rather than a want</a>, with many people willing to cut back in other areas — or even <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/genz-millennials-going-into-debt-summer-vacation-travel-taylor-swift-2024-6">go into debt</a> — before giving up vacation altogether.Rod Griffin, senior director of public education and advocacy at Experian, said even though many Americans are worried about the economy, they're still traveling."They're just looking for ways to make it more affordable, or at least reduce the costs," he told Business Insider.After a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-gen-z-travel-debt-affirm-klarna-credit-cards-2024-8">booming summer travel season</a>, AAA estimates domestic travel over Labor Day weekend is up 9% from last year, while international travel is down 4%, according to their booking numbers. AAA said the shift is driven in part by inflation, which has made trips abroad 11% more expensive.Griffin said he's spoken to consumers who are paying closer attention to their options when it comes to making travel more affordable and that includes rethinking how to travel domestically, like by taking <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/road-trip-destinations-families-hidden-gems-usa-2024-8">road trips</a>.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/survey-road-trip-expenses/">Experian survey data</a> from May found that 71% of consumers surveyed felt that inflation impacted their road trip plans. The survey respondents included 1,008 insured drivers, who, on average, said they expected to spend more than $1,000 on road trip expenses. Gas, lodging, and food were the expenses respondents expected to spend the most on during their trip.Griffin said there are various ways consumers say they are cutting back on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/road-trip-food-stops-in-every-state">road trip</a> costs, from opting for less expensive hotels to packing lunches rather than stopping for every meal to taking group trips that enable cost splitting.Some Americans are also taking trips that aren't as far away in order to save on gas but still get quality family time in."People are looking at, not a staycation, but a closer to home vacation, as opposed to going cross country" in order to save on fuel and lodging, he said.In some cases, like if you are a couple traveling in an area with higher gas prices, it may even be cheaper to fly rather than drive, so weighing those options is another way to ensure you're opting for the most affordable option.Travel-minded Americans can also focus on the bigger picture of their finances in order to out aside more money for travel, Griffin said. For families who rely on road trips, keeping up with car maintenance can avoid costly and unexpected vacation expenses.Experian said three out of four surveyed consumers said they were worried about car insurance rates increasing, so Griffin said another option is to shop around for lower rates, noting that Experian has an insurance marketplace that can be used."Reduce overall costs that affect that budget in the long term," he said.Americans can also focus on utilizing their credit card points or actively seeking out a credit card that comes with rewards for common <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-consumer-spending-international-travel-entertainment-surge-savings-2024-3">travel expenses.</a>The key thing to saving money on road trips is to plan ahead, Griffin said, and to set a budget and stick with it.

Many Americans say they won't give up travel in tough economic times. Here's how they're saving on road trips.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su is launching a nationwide tour to promote good jobs.</li><li>The tour aims to highlight the importance of good jobs in pivotal swing states.</li></ul>Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su is hitting the road — and wants <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/julie-su-wants-fill-economy-good-jobs-2023-12">good jobs</a> to follow.Su is bringing the Department of Labor's "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20220621">Good Jobs Principles</a>" — a national framework for better working conditions and positions — across the country. And she's hitting several states that may <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/battleground-states-2024-presidential-election-road-white-house-2022-12">prove pivotal in the 2024 election</a>, with her first stop scheduled in Phoenix. Other stops include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Michigan."A good job is one that not only pays family-sustaining wages and benefits, but also one in which workers have a voice, where every worker goes home healthy and safe every day, and where families can get — in the President's words, 'some breathing room,'" Su told BI. "Throughout this summer nationwide tour, I will be highlighting the work that the Department of Labor has done with community partners on the ground to help ensure that every job is a good one, and that every worker feels the commitment that this Administration has made to fight for them."The tour comes as the Biden Administration faces a continued mismatch between economic reality and perceptions. While the labor market is booming, and wages are still going up, many Americans <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-is-us-economy-recession-outlook-2023-6">have felt continually dreary</a> about their economic outlooks over the past few years — what some have termed the vibecession.But the labor market has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/consumer-confidence-economy-stock-market-gas-prices-eggs-vibes-recession-2024-1">emerged as one bright spot</a> and bolstered Americans' perception of the economy in the latest reading of the Conference Board's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.conference-board.org/topics/consumer-confidence/press/CCI-May-2024">Consumer Confidence Index</a>."The Biden Administration has made improving job quality for this country's workers a priority—and we're seeing those efforts pay off," Su said.As part of the tour kickoff, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego will also announce the city's commitment to the Good Jobs Principles. When city officials sign on to the initiative, they commit to the framework as they seek federal funding for different types of projects.It's the DOL's latest attempt at promoting the idea of "good jobs," and making them more widespread. Part of Su's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/julie-su-wants-fill-economy-good-jobs-2023-12">guiding edicts</a> is to fill the economy with jobs that provide workers security, stability, good pay, and benefits. The Good Jobs Principles framework outlines eight hallmarks of what makes a job good quality; that includes hiring and recruitment from underrepresented backgrounds and doing away with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ibm-accenture-dell-companies-no-longer-require-college-degrees-2023-3">unnecessary educational</a> or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-postings-no-education-college-degree-requirements-hiring-skills-indeed-2024-2">credential requirements</a> — a major barrier for many workers. It also includes better pay, benefits, job security, and access."It's not just good enough that we have created these jobs when a lot of people can't get to them. So it's embedding equity in the way that we're creating these jobs, " Teresa Acuna, the senior policy advisor and deputy director of the Good Jobs Initiative, said. That could mean everything from training to a transportation voucher to childcare."It means taking the more comprehensive look of some of the obstacles that workers have as to why we have a lot of over-representation of people in certain types of jobs versus others," she said.The tour stops are cities and communities that have already been actively working with the Good Jobs Initiative, as workers receive training and get to work."We're not parachuting in," Acuna said. "These are places we have relationships and we're probably going to be revisiting a few times in the next couple of months, but the tour is a snapshot in time of what a lot of this work has been happening already. And that's pretty exciting to us."Are good jobs a key issue for you in this upcoming election? Contact this reporter at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:jkaplan@businessinsider.com">jkaplan@businessinsider.com</a>.

The Biden Administration's labor department is hitting the road for 'Good Jobs Summer'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Electric-vehicle drivers on road trips often don't have much to do while their cars charge.</li><li>Building charging hubs around attractions and amenities could improve the experience.</li></ul>There's a missed opportunity at most <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-charging-stations-explained-levels-plugs-tesla-supercharger-2022-12">electric-vehicle charging stations</a>.As <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-vehicle-misconceptions-about-the-ev-transition-market-sales-2024-5">sales of battery-electric vehicles</a> have increased in recent years, the automotive industry and federal and state governments have been racing to install more charging stations. But building a place to plug in is only the first step in changing the way people fuel their cars.While the automotive industry has done a lot to reduce the amount of time you need to spend plugging in your car on a road trip, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-dozens-of-startups-leading-the-electric-car-charging-market-2022-2">EV charging stops</a> may never match the convenience of five-minute stops to fill your gas tank.Charging stations themselves are also difficult to make money with. A solution: EV charging hubs decked out with restaurants, entertainment, shopping, and anything else that can occupy the hour or two you may need to get a full battery.That's much like how a gas station works. An ancillary business built around a charging hub could fund the owner's bottom line more reliably than the fuel itself.<h2 id="36894d1c-0ea2-4d64-a338-99862d82c945">EVs need rest stops</h2>We're not exactly reinventing the wheel here.Many turnpikes and highways in the US have rest stops or travel centers with amenities that allow drivers to stay longer on the road when they need to stretch their legs. These rest stops are usually funded by tolls or other government-backed funding, which is a more complicated issue for EV charging.Without any clear guidelines, there hasn't been much uniformity in what a charging station can — or should — look like, leading to a Wild West of different designs and locations. Without a clear way forward, there hasn't been much uniformity in what a charging station can look like.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/23/electric-vehicle-charging-infrastructure-in-the-u-s/">Figures from the Department of Energy</a> indicate that at the start of 2024, there were some 61,000 public charging stations in the US, more than double the number of stations in 2020. But many of these stations are tucked away on dealership lots or in otherwise empty parking lots.These stations appear to affect EV adoption. Surveys have suggested that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/charging-logistics-top-barrier-to-electric-car-adoption-survey-2022-7">access to public charging infrastructure increases adoption</a>.But they've also suggested that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-electric-car-charging-station-need-better-amenities-bathrooms-food-2023-8">EV drivers are unsatisfied</a> with the charging experience.<h2 id="368f20ca-faec-4d34-afb7-022fdf893bc2">EV charging stations need an overhaul</h2>Tesla is experimenting with what a longer charging stop could look like.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-supercharger-diner-permit-approved/">Construction is underway</a> in Hollywood on a Supercharger station that would double as a 24-hour restaurant and drive-in movie theater.CEO Elon Musk floated the idea of a destination station like this <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/949831212326993920?lang=en">in 2018</a>, saying he wanted to build an "old school drive-in" at a Supercharger location in Los Angeles. In January, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/tesla-hollywood-supercharging-station-ith-24-hour-diner-restaurant-movie-screens/3312626/">an NBC affiliate in Los Angeles reported</a>, citing city documents, that the screens would project short films that occupy the roughly 30 minutes required to charge a Tesla.The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/teslas-supercharger-changes-hurt-wider-ev-industry-2024-5">Supercharger station</a> is also supposed to be an attraction of its own, designed to look like a 1950s drive-in and diner — a kitschy stop on a Hollywood road trip.The design of these charging stations shouldn't just mimic convenience stores and quick-stop establishments. Charging can take a half hour to several hours, depending on the car and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-charging-stations-explained-levels-plugs-tesla-supercharger-2022-12">type of charger</a>. That's plenty of time to browse a gift shop, grab a bite to eat, or wander around a roadside attraction.

EV chargers are too boring — and it's holding us back from electrifying the classic American road trip

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Elon Musk has made developing autonomous driving technology one of Tesla's fundamental goals. </li><li>For years, he's said that Teslas are just a software update away from driving themselves. </li></ul>Elon Musk has spent much of the last decade assuring and reassuring customers and investors that driverless Teslas are right around the corner. Spoiler alert: You still can't take a snooze at the wheel or watch Netflix in traffic. There was the press conference in 2016 when Musk predicted that Tesla would send a car from Los Angeles to New York City <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-autonomous-tesla-drive-across-country-by-end-of-2017-2016-10">without human input by the following year</a>. Then in 2019, he said he felt "very confident" that, by 2020, Tesla owners who bought the pricey Full Self-Driving option would be able to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-robo-taxis-elon-musk-pt-barnum-circus-2019-4">dispatch their cars as robotaxis</a> and rake in passive income from their couches. "Today it's financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla," Musk said at an event touting the carmaker's autonomous-vehicle development in 2019. "It'll be like owning a horse in three years." That revolutionary software update never came, and by 2022 the goalpost for bringing self-driving cars to the masses had <a href="https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-next-year-for-th-1848432496" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shifted to 2023</a>. Meanwhile, Musk has doubled down on the importance of driverless tech, going so far as to say the carmaker will be "worth basically zero" if it can't crack autonomous driving. Over the years, Tesla has hiked the price of Full Self-Driving to a whopping $15,000.While it's made strides and released an audacious prototype version of Full Self-Driving that owners are testing around the country, Tesla still hasn't delivered on its core promise of making cars that drive themselves. Some automated driving experts think it won't happen anytime soon. <h2>Full Self-Driving is far from actually being self-driving, some say</h2>Despite its branding, Tesla's Full Self-Driving Beta currently requires total driver supervision, just like cruise control or smarter features like Autopilot. Unlike those systems, which work on the highway, Full Self-Driving aims to navigate a Tesla from a starting point to a chosen destination in all environments, from rural roads to chaotic city intersections and everywhere in between. Once software updates improve the system sufficiently, the idea is to convert the driver into a passenger. But according to Phil Koopman, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in autonomous vehicles, Full Self-Driving doesn't look nearly reliable enough to function safely without a driver, given the types of simple mistakes it's still making. If the system were as close to ready as Musk claims, it would stumble only once in a blue moon and exclusively in freak scenarios that might trip up a human driver, he told Insider. That's not yet the case. For all the impressive-looking videos shared online of the Beta smoothly traversing intersections and roundabouts, plenty of clips show a jerky system <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr-gs807-rs">struggling with routine driving tasks</a> like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhfkQnqr2Ds">slowing for speed bumps</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9iHQRWaW4">choosing the correct lane</a>. That's not to mention numerous recent crashes involving Tesla's automated systems and stopped emergency vehicles that are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/business/tesla-autopilot-nhtsa-investigation.html">under federal investigation</a>. "Tesla keeps saying next year, and I still don't see any reason to believe that promise," Koopman said. "There's no reason to believe that something magic will happen this year that failed to happen the year before and the year before and the year before."Tesla's goal to flip a switch and deploy Full Self-Driving everywhere, without limits, is beyond a stretch and won't happen safely in the near future, Daniel McGehee, director of the University of Iowa's Driving Safety Research Institute, told Insider. Some companies, like Alphabet's Waymo and GM's Cruise, have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/general-motors-cruise-robotaxi-startup-launch-new-service-phoenix-austin-2022-9">launched autonomous taxis</a> in the US, but only in specific parts of certain cities. Starting with a confined, predictable environment and expanding from there is the right move, McGehee said. "Automation is going to be incremental and not just ready one day," he said. Tesla did not return a request for comment. <h2>Musk's big bet on cameras</h2>Tesla does things differently. That mentality started with its bet on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bmw-ix-vs-rivian-r1s-electric-car-suv-compared-2023-3">electric vehicles</a> and extends to the very core of its approach to autonomous driving.While rivals like Cruise and Waymo use detailed maps and an extensive array of sensors to help their vehicles navigate the world, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-autopilo-radar-sensors-cameras-model-3-model-y-2021-5">Musk wants to simplify things</a>. If humans can drive with eyes and a brain, cars should be able to drive themselves using cameras and computing power, Musk argues. Koopman calls that a "completely ridiculous analogy," given that machine-learning programs just do statistical analysis and can't truly understand situations like humans can. He thinks Tesla needs to significantly alter its approach to make self-driving happen. "Why would you want to tie one hand behind your back doing something that's nearly impossible?" Koopman said. Likewise, McGehee says self-driving cars need a combination of overlapping sensors — whether that's cameras, radar, lidar, or ultrasonic sensors — to move through the world safely. He stresses the importance of redundancy to students in his automated vehicle engineering course. To be sure, others aren't so quick to write off Tesla's way of doing things. Alain Kornhauser, director of the program in transportation at Princeton University, supports the vision-only approach and thinks Tesla is well on its way to autonomous operation. But, he says, self-driving anywhere all the time isn't realistic.<h2>What do owners think?</h2>Musk's ambitious promises and the real-world performance of Full Self-Driving have left some Tesla owners — who paid anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000 for the feature over the years — feeling frustrated and disappointed. Kenji, a 2019 Tesla Model X owner who withheld his last name to avoid online harassment from Tesla fans, said he shelled out for Full Self-Driving after hearing Musk talk up the system's imminent potential. Years later, the system frequently makes unsettling mistakes, leaving Kenji feeling "duped." Reporting that Tesla <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">staged</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilot-elon-musk.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an infamous 2016 video</a> touting its autonomous tech added insult to injury, he said. "I almost wish I could get a refund," he told Insider. "Because it's not ready, and I don't think it's going to be ready for a while."Nick Nicastro, a Tesla Model Y owner in Ohio, called the software "absolutely phenomenal" but said it occasionally botches basic maneuvers, forcing him to intervene. He's satisfied with the feature, but reckons it may be another decade or more before Tesla drivers can kick back while their cars do the work. "As good as it is, the idea of me not having a steering wheel there is many, many, many years away," he said.Are you a Tesla owner, employee, or FSD Beta tester with a story to share? Contact this reporter at tlevin@insider.com

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