The Emperor's New Tunnel
The War on Cars
The War on Cars, LLC
4.9 • 937 Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2021
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two years after it was first announced, a tunnel project in Las Vegas by Elon Musk's Boring Company was finally revealed to the world. Originally conceived as a way to whisk Las Vegas Convention Center visitors from one side of the sprawling complex to the other in futuristic-looking pods, the $53-million project turned out to just be… just a bunch of Teslas in tunnels. Oh, and there were flashing lights. Nevertheless, in a recent CNBC segment, anchor Shep Smith and reporter Contessa Brewer were tasked with making "a highway underground" sound innovative, thrilling and worth the hype. So how'd they do? Not great. Aaron Gordon — senior reporter at Vice's Motherboard — called the segment, "the most embarrassing news clip in American transportation history." Aaron, not to be confused with the podcast's other Aaron and other Gordon, joins all three The War On Cars hosts to discuss the disappointing project, the embarrassing coverage and whether any of it will make a difference in changing people's perspective on the alleged genius of Elon Musk.
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SHOW NOTES:
Watch CNBC's Shep Smith and Contessa Brewer go giddy for "a highway underground."
Aaron Gordon saw the segment and declared, "This Is the Most Embarrassing News Clip In American Transportation History."
More from Aaron Gordon at Motherboard, Vice's tech news site.
Subscribe to Aaron Gordon's newsletter, Urbababble.
Pick up a copy of On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City by Evan Friss and other titles at our Bookshop.org page.
Follow us on Apple Podcasts and leave a review.
This episode was edited by Doug Gordon. Our music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Our logo is by Dani Finkel of Crucial D.
Find us on Twitter: @TheWarOnCars, Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek.
Email us: thewaroncars@gmail.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the War on Cars. I'm Aaron Napaestack and with me are my co-hosts. |
| 0:07.0 | This is the War on Cars. I'm Aaron Napaestack, and with me are my co-hosts, Sarah Goodyear, and Doug Gordon. |
| 0:16.8 | Hey there. |
| 0:17.8 | Hello. |
| 0:18.8 | Hey, so on this episode, we're joined by a special guest, journalist Aaron Gordon. |
| 0:23.5 | Aaron is senior staff writer at Motherboard. |
| 0:26.2 | That is Vice's Tech and Science website. |
| 0:29.4 | Previously, Aaron was a reporter at Jalopnik, |
| 0:32.4 | and also the transportation reporter for the |
| 0:34.5 | village voice in New York City. Aaron Gordon, welcome to the war on cars. |
| 0:39.0 | Thank you for having me guys. Such an honor to be here with you. |
| 0:42.5 | So this, we have to acknowledge this might be one of the most impressively non-diverse panels in |
| 0:49.5 | podcasting history. We've got basically three Jewish guys all named Aaron or Gordon and |
| 0:55.7 | Sarah Goodyear. Right, who is I'm not Jewish, I'm not a guy and I'm not named |
| 1:00.7 | Aaron or Gordon. So you're really bringing a unique perspective to the conversation. |
| 1:05.6 | I am I feel I feel very valuable in this context. |
| 1:10.6 | And I have to break the news to everybody and to our listeners my middle name also Aaron I'm Douglas Aaron Gordon |
| 1:17.7 | So this is gonna be really confusing. Yeah |
| 1:20.8 | The new band is Sarah and the Arons. The worst band in history, absolutely. |
| 1:26.9 | So look, we've been wanting to get Aaron Gordon on the war on cars for a while, |
| 1:30.8 | and we finally had the excuse to do it. |
| 1:33.4 | Doug, do you want to kind of set us up here? |
... |
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