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: 100

The War on Cars
Podcast Episodes
Back to School with the Bike Bus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:54
If you've never heard of a bike bus—or a bicibús, as it's known in the Catalonian capital of Barcelona—it's a beautifully simple idea. Kids and parents ride their bikes to school along a pre-planned route, picking up cla…
Inclusive Transportation with Veronica O. Davis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:30
In her new book, Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, Veronica O. Davis — the Director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for the city of Houston, Texas — takes a hard look at t…
TEASER: Chaos in the Bike Lane with Aaron Gordon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:49
The rising problem of mopeds and motorcycles in New York City bike lanes is impossible to ignore but the solutions are anything but simple. Recently, journalist and friend of the podcast Aaron Gordon wrote an essay for h…
EXTRA: Inside Automotive Journalism with Bob Sorokanich [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:54
***This is a bonus episode that was previously only available to Patreon supporters of The War on Cars. If you want to hear more bonus episodes like this, please enlist today! We'll taking a very short summer break and w…
TEASER: Live from New York! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:58
This special episode of The War on Cars was recorded live before a sold-out audience at Caveat on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and was styled after a community board meeting... except instead of people yelling at eac…
Traffication with Paul Donald [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:29
In his groundbreaking book, Traffication: How Cars Destroy Nature and What We Can Do About It, scientist and researcher Paul Donald synthesizes dozens of studies to help us understand what cars and roads do to living thi…
SPECIAL: Freeway Exit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:37
This is a special presentation of the first episode of Freeway Exit, a six-part series produced by award-winning reporter Andrew Bowen of KPBS Public Media in San Diego, California. Freeway Exit reveals the mostly forgot…
Is It Worth It To Confront Drivers? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:25
Have you ever been walking across the street when a driver turned into your path and almost hit you? Or riding your bike when a hostile horn-honker laid into you for delaying them to the next red light by a few seconds?…
TEASER: Inside Automotive Journalism with Bob Sorokanich [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:07
Have you ever wondered what the reporters who cover the auto industry think about oversized SUVs and pickups and whether the fever for these gas-guzzling, space-hogging, planet-heating and people-killing monstrosities wi…

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