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
Dispatches from Book Tour, Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:00
We are back home in Brooklyn but we can't stop talking about everything we saw out on the road on our Life After Cars book tour. Listen for our takes on the second leg of our trip, which took us from Providence to Austin…
Dispatches from Book Tour [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:55
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind as we hit the road (not in a car) to promote our new book, Life After Cars, in some of the greatest cities of North America including San Francisco, Washington, DC, Seattle, Vanco…
The Creation of America's Car Culture [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:46
This episode is part of a special series called "Changing American Car Culture" funded with the generous support of The Helen and William Mazer Foundation. As historian Peter Norton documents in his book, Fighting Traffi…
PREVIEW: A Talk with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:14
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, becom…
Welcome to Life After Cars [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:58
Today we celebrate the publication of our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile. In this episode, we serve up a sample of the audiobook and talk about some of the things we learn…
The War on the War on Cars with Ted Mann [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:16
In this episode, we talk about the Trump Administration's full-on financial assault on all the modes of transportation we hold dear here at The War on Cars. Biking, walking, public transit—basically, anything deemed "hos…
Cities for Children with Tim Gill [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:45
Tim Gill is a London-based independent scholar, writer and consultant on childhood, and a global advocate for children's play and mobility. He is the author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Urban Planning and Desi…
PREVIEW: The Cars of TikTok [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:42
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, becom…
Political Courage with Brad Lander [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:51
Brad Lander has been a fixture in New York's progressive political scene for nearly two decades now, and has earned a reputation as a strong advocate for bike lanes, bike share, driver accountability, and congestion pric…
TEASER: Cars Drive Us Apart, Subway Takes Unite Us [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:10
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, becom…