Transportation Law Commons^™

The Future Of Law And Mobility, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

With the launch of the new Journal of Law and Mobility, the University of Michigan is recognizing the transformative impact of new transportation and mobility technologies, from cars, to trucks, to pedestrians, to drones. The coming transition towards intelligent, automated, and connected mobility systems will transform not only the way people and goods move about, but also the way human safety, privacy, and security are protected, cities are organized, machines and people are connected, and the public and private spheres are defined.

Why Intra-Brand Dealer Competition Is Irrelevant To The Price Effects Of Tesla's Vertical Integration, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

"In recent years, Tesla Motors (recently renamed Tesla) has been engaged in a state-by-state ground way for the right to distribute it’s all-electric vehicles directly to consumers. The car dealers' lobby, with the political backing of General Motors, has fiercely battled back, relying on decades-old state dealer protection laws to argue that Tesla is legally bound to distribute through franchised dealers. Through a combination of favorable state legislative and judicial decisions, Tesla has won the right to distribute directly in many states, but remains categorically barred from direct distribution in important states like Michigan and Texas--and hence all direct distribution …

Tesla And The Car Dealers' Lobby, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Tesla Motors, the offspring of entrepreneur Elon Musk (who brought us Pay-Pal and SpaceX), is the most exciting automotive development in many decades and a marquee story of American technological dynamism and innovation. The company’s luxury electric cars have caused a sensation in the auto industry, including a review by Consumer Reports calling Tesla’s Model S the best car it ever tested. Despite the acclaim, Tesla faces enormous challenges Despite the acclaim, Tesla faces enormous challenges in penetrating an automotive market that has been dominated for a century by internal combustion engines. Not only must it build cars that customers …

Creating A Plug-In Electric Vehicle Industry Cluster In Michigan: Prospects And Policy Options, Thomas P. Lyon, Russell A. Baruffi Jr.

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Article seeks to examine how policy can be used strategically to foster the development of a plug-in electric vehicle ("PEV") industry cluster in Michigan. The tendency for certain industries to localize in particular regions has captured the interest of much economic research and policy discussion in recent years. The trend toward the clustering of new industries has stayed strong despite the acceleration of globalization. Attention to clusters has proven to be an enduring theme in economic development circles for nearly thirty years. Clusters generate synergies that make industrial activity greater than the sum of contributions by individual players. In …

Air Quality And Transportation On Colorado's Front Range: Taking Responsibility For Difficult Choices, Wade Buchanan, David A. Pampu, Christine Lipaj Shaver, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Air Quality and Transportation on Colorado's Front Range: Taking Responsibility for Difficult Choices (March 12)

15 pages.

Collection of 3 papers presented at the Hot Topics in Natural Resources Law program held on March 12, 1996.

Includes biographical information for Wade Buchanan, David A. Pampu, and Christine Lipaj Shaver.

With communities along Colorado's Front Range continuing to grow at a rapid rate, government, private businesses and citizens are faced with difficult choices concerning air quality and transportation. Can we control the "brown cloud" and increasing congestion on our roads and freeways? What decisions and sacrifices must be made, and who will take responsibility for them? Wade Buchanan, Chairman of the Regional Air Quality Council (RAQC), …

Regulation Of Intermodal Rate Competition In Transportation, Joseph R. Rose

Michigan Law Review

The controversy over intermodal rate competition comprehends both legal and economic issues. Clarity requires that each be explicitly stated and separately treated. The legal issues center on the meaning of section 15a(3) of the Interstate Commerce Act and the declaration of the National Transportation Policy that precedes the Act, which are the sources of the Commission's authority. The economic issues involve the effect on resource allocation of rate-making proposals devised to carry out these provisions of the Act.

An Examination Of The Cab's Merger Policy, Arthur H. Travers Jr.

Publications

No abstract provided.

Some Aspects Of The Problem Of Intercarrier Competition, Ernest W. Williams Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The past decade has been marked by numerous examinations of the transportation scene, and particularly of government policy toward transportation, which have borne partial fruit in the Transportation Act of 1958. More than anything else, the rapid weakening of the railroad system after World War II and the conviction of railroad managements that the worsening state of their industry was the result of "unfair" govenmental policies led to the almost continuous attention which has been devoted to the subject by agencies of the Congress and of the executive branch alike. And all such studies demonstrate, before they are done, that …

Antitrust Considerations In Motor Carrier Mergers, Carl H. Fulda

Michigan Law Review

Unification of separate independent business enterprises in a single organization may raise important questions of antitrust policy. The entity which emerges may have acquired, as a result of such unification, a market position of such significance that a substantial lessening of competition or even the creation of a monopoly becomes not only possible but probable. This would be apparent whenever opportunities for buyers of the products or services of the new single unit to shop freely, and to make independent decisions as to prices, channels of purchases and selection of suppliers were to be seriously curtailed, or where such curtailment …

Carriers - Motor Carrier Act Of 1935 - Issuance Of Certificates Of Convenience And Necessity, William H. Hillier

Michigan Law Review

Applicant petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to operate a transcontinental bus line, claiming that it offered a distinct type of low-cost service, that by so doing it attracted a portion of the travelling public not served by other carriers, that its through-trip features were a special convenience to its passengers, and that meals en route were included in its fare charges, which were slightly lower than those of existing carriers. The protesting carriers claimed that existing bus facilities could amply handle all of applicant's traffic, that competition in the motor bus field …

State Regulation Of Interstate Motor Carriers, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

After the decision in Buck v. Kuykendall, the question naturally arose whether a State could require an interstate carrier to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity in order to engage in intrastate business. The question is important because it is possible that interstate business cannot be conducted profitably on a given route without the benefit of supplemental earnings derived from intrastate business. No doubt was entertained by state commissions after the Buck case that they could still exercise plenary control over the intrastate operations of interstate carriers, and deny them permission to engage in intrastate business if …

State Regulation Of Interstate Motor Carriers, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

According to Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution, "The Congress shall have power . . . to regulate commerce . . . among the several States . . . . " Is this provision of the Constitution applicable to interstate motor transportation over a public highway, built, owned, and maintained by a State? The provincial view might have been put forward that because the State owns the highways, therefore it should have exclusive control with respect to the commerce passing over them. Whatever force might have been conceded such a view in the early history of our country, when …

Public Utilities-Power Of Interstate Commerce Commision To Give Certificate Of Convenience And Necessity

Michigan Law Review

Certain coal fields in West Virginia are served by the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Norfolk and Western, and the Virginian railroads. The Chesapeake and the Norfolk compete for the westbound coal traffic coming over the Virginian which has no lines in the western part of these fields. The Interstate Commerce Commission authorized the Virginian to build a short connecting line which made possible much cheaper carriage over the Chesapeake, and authorized the Norfolk to construct a similar line in order to compete on equal terms. The Chesapeake sought a reversal on the ground that the Interstate Commerce Commission is not …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Carriers of Passengers - Duty to Stop at Station to Permit Passenger to Alight-Contributory Negligence of Passenger Plaintiff's intestate was riding in the front end of a crowded vestibule car in the coach next to the tender of the eengine. When the train stopped at his station he tried to leave by the front end, but found the door from the vestibule closed. As he did not know how to open it, or was unwilling to be carried by his station, he stepped from his platform to the bumper of the tender and tried to follow it to the side …

Combination Not Competition Of Railroads, Blewett Lee

Michigan Law Review

In the course of the taking of evidence before what is generally called the Newlands Committee, appointed by Congress to investigate conditions relating to interstate and foreign commerce, it was very interesting to observe the personality of the different members of the Committee, as indicated by the questions which they asked of the various expert witnesses who were brought before them. The keen intellect of the Senior Senator from Iowa has continually played about the problem, how the revenues of the weak lines can be increased without at the same time increasing those of the strong ones. Assuming that some …