Superbowl Roundup with Ian Chillag

Superbowl Roundup with Ian Chillag

Author: The War on Cars, LLC February 10, 2026 Duration: 1:10:56

Super Bowl LX had everything, from ads for weight loss drugs and male grooming products to spots touting tax prep services and calming fears about our AI overlords. It also had one outstanding halftime performance from Bad Bunny. But what the game didn't have was a whole lot of car ads. (Or a whole lot of touchdowns, but that's a different story.) Why, after dominating the broadcast for decades, has the automobile industry gone cool on one of broadcasting's biggest nights? And what did the few cars ads that did run say about the state of the nation and American culture at this particularly fraught moment in time? Ian Chillag—creator and host of the award-winning Radiotopia podcast "Everything is Alive," the co-host of NPR's "How to Do Everything," and a senior producer of "Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me"—joins us to break it all down.

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Watch all of the Super Bowl ads. (NY Times)

Listen to Ian Chillag's podcasts How to Do Everything and Everything is Alive.

Order our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, out now from Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Find us on tour and get tickets at lifeaftercars.com.

Thanks to Cleverhood for sponsoring this episode. Listen to this episode for the latest discount code and get the best rain gear for walking and cycling.

The War on Cars is produced with support from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

www.thewaroncars.org

 


Imagine a world not built around traffic jams and parking lots, but shaped for people. The War on Cars is a dispatch from the front lines of that effort, a collective conversation questioning the automobile’s dominance over our cities, our environment, and our daily lives. Each episode digs into the real-world fight to reclaim public space, examining everything from the politics of a new bike lane to the history of how cars came to rule. You’ll hear from urban planners, activists, historians, and ordinary people pushing back, offering a mix of sharp analysis, on-the-ground reporting, and compelling narratives. This isn’t just about transportation; it’s about the culture and societal choices that have led us here, and the tangible, often inspiring work to create safer, quieter, and more connected communities. Tune in for a thoughtful and necessary critique of the status quo, a podcast dedicated to the idea that our streets can-and should-be for so much more.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

The War on Cars
Podcast Episodes
Fine, We're Doing a Helmet Episode [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:26:01
After New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a social media video showing him listening to concerned citizens and deciding to wear a bicycle helmet, social media exploded. Some people praised the mayor for modeling go…
PREVIEW: What Bicycles Can Do for Cities, via Velo-city 2026 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 11:43
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, be…
Let's Get Political [Re-release] [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:20
***We're taking a quick summer break this week so we're releasing this recent Patreon bonus episode into the general feed. We hope you enjoy it as a taste of what you can get if you sign up to support The War on Cars. We…
Human Transit with Jarrett Walker [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:53
Jarrett Walker's career has been dedicated to improving the quality of public transit in the United States and beyond. A specialist in bus network design, he has led transit planning projects around North America, Europe…
PREVIEW: Bike is Best with Adam Tranter [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:17
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows and more, bec…
Final Dispatches from Book Tour [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:55
Our final Life After Cars book tour roundup episode is here, with our reports from Atlanta, Memphis, Chicago, Montréal, Orlando, Portland, Maine, and many, many more great North American cities! We get into the good, the…
Sidewalk Nation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:00
In most parts of the United States and elsewhere, sidewalks exist in a legal grey area. They are public spaces that, at least when it comes to things such as maintenance and snow removal, are largely the responsibility o…
PREVIEW: Urban Planning Pop with Pondless [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:05
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, be…
Rethinking Criminal Consequences for Drivers Who Kill [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:47
What should happen to drivers who kill or injure someone with their car? Does a focus on punishment for "reckless" or "dangerous" drivers let everyone else off the hook and never force them to look at the larger harms of…
Changing Lanes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:45
What does it take to make a street safer for everyone? In the US, it typically requires a combination of tragedy, grassroots organizing, and political leadership. Even when these ingredients come together, success is nev…