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
EXTRA: Cars as a Virus with Hermann Knoflacher [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:07
***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 sign up today! We'll taking a very short break to work on…
TEASER: Winnipeg Bike Mayor Patty Wiens [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:37
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. Patty Wiens is the Bike Mayor of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Cana…
Key to the City with Sara Bronin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:51
Zoning is an invisible force that dictates how and where we can build housing, offices, factories, parks and more. It dictates how we access such places and can reinforce car dependency, often in ways that burden the com…
TEASER: When Athletes Ditch the Car [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:04
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. During the recent US Open Tennis Championships in New York…
Project 2025 and the Stakes for Transportation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:20
There's been a lot of talk this election season about Project 2025, the initiative from the Heritage Foundation to prepare for a potential second Trump administration. Understandably, much of the conversation about Proje…
What We Did on Our Summer Vacation, featuring Rick Steves [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:52
Why do Americans spend lots of money to visit walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly European cities, only to come back to the U.S. and oppose all those things where they live? Rick Steves has some thoughts. Countless peop…
TEASER: Voices of Velo-city [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:43
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. In June, Doug attended Velo-city, an annual cycling summit…
Listener Origin Stories (Patreon Bonus Re-Release) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:35
Episode 133: Listener Origin Stories (Patreon bonus re-release) We're taking a short break to work on our forthcoming book and some of our upcoming fall shows. We'll be back with new free episodes in early September. In…
TEASER: Walking 4,000 Miles with Holden Ringer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:33
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. This month's exclusive Patreon bonus episode is an intervie…
Vehicular Cycling and John Forester, Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:04
NOTE: This is part two of a two-part episode. To hear both parts right now and without ads, become a Patreon supporter of The War on Cars. In part two of our deep dive on John Forester and his 1976 book Effective Cycling…