Headlines & Coming Up – Week of 2.5.18 | iDSC028

Headlines & Coming Up – Week of 2.5.18 Tesla’s solar division, born of its Solar City purchase, is about to start selling products at Home Depot.  SpaceX Falcon Heavy readies for lift-off and Russia is opening the International Space Station as a tourist attraction. And coming up this week, Tom’s road trip to San Francisco for Stomach Cancer.  Plus Officer Yarbrough of the California Highway Patrol joins us to detail the life and death importance of child safety seats. Welcome to iDriveSoCal the podcast all about mobility from the automotive capital of the United States – Southern California. I’m Tom Smith.  Here’s what’s happening in mobility news: Tesla is about to start selling solar panels at Home Depot. Bloomberg reports that 800 of the retailer’s locations will have Tesla branded selling spaces in the coming months. Home Depot competitor Lowes is also rumored to be in talks to carry Tesla solar products. Tesla’s solar division was born of the company’s 2016 purchase of Solar City. The Bloomberg report says Tesla’s much anticipated solar roofs could be on the horizon for Home Depot as well. And all systems are go for Tesla’s sister company, SpaceX, to launch its highly anticipated Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time on Tuesday. This is the one that will carry Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster as its payload. Adding to the allure of the plan Musk says it will be playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity during launch. Musk is managing expectations though, stating that the sweet ride’s destination is Mars orbit but that’s if the whole thing doesn’t blow up on ascent.  And speaking of space, Russia is planning to start a space tourism operation as early as next year. The plan is to rocket five to six people annually, as comfortably as possible, to the International Space Station for a 10-day stay. During that time you can head out on spacewalk to shoot video of your experience. The cost of the trip is being estimated at a measly hundred-million-bucks. And that’s what’s happening in mobility news. Coming up this week on iDriveSoCal. On Wednesday we break new ground with the iDriveSoCal Podcast.  Yours truly will take the microphone completely solo to share the details of a recent road trip to San Francisco I took with my wife and son.  It was the first time I drove to San Francisco.  Find out what was surprising about the drive, what was shocking about San Francisco, the conference we went there for and, well… find out if I can pull of an entire podcast solo or if I completely humiliate myself!  Let’s face it – that’s why you’re going to listen.  But I’m okay with that. Plus, with my son being just a few months old you’d better believe we had him strapped into his safety seat as securely as possible.  And with more and more traffic congestion there’s never been a more important time in history to have your children securely seated when driving. If you’re a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or anyone who’s driving a child under five-feet tall you want to check out Friday’s episode about safety seats.  I guarantee you’ll learn something from my talk Officer Simeon (Sim-moan) Yarbrough of the California Highway Patrol.  It could very well save the life of someone you love. Officer Yarbrough: You want to be able to put that child seat in… it doesn’t take that much time.  You don’t want to have mirrors back there… on the road.  I’ve pretty much seen the worst of the worst… no matter what. Subscribe to the iDriveSoCal podcast and never miss and episode.