Transit 2026? — Foogle Rules the Roads
Burney Simpson
January’s autonomous vehicle events have been overwhelming. There was news about concept cars at CES 2016, the US Department of Transportation wants $4 billion for driverless technology, and the TRB’s 95th Annual Meeting had 950 seminars on connected cars.
I attended the TRB but fell asleep as Google’s Chris Urmson discussed the company’s car research. This is what I dreamed:
Dateline – Jan. 15, 2026 — Foogle Sells 800 Driverless Cars to Maryland Transit
Car marketer Foogle today announced it would sell 800 of its driverless Foogle Around vehicles to the Montgomery County, Md., Transit Authority (MTA). The vehicles will provide about 2 million rides a month, according to the MTA.
Foogle, formed by the merger of Google and Ford, said the MTA order included a mix of one-, two- and four-passenger vehicles. All of the electric-powered Foogle Arounds offer a semi-autonomous and autonomous mode of passenger control.
“This is a great day for clean, efficient public transit,” said Anthony Foxx, president and CEO of Foogle. “Dump your car and go driverless. You’ll love it.”
Montgomery County is an attractive transit market. It has seen a 20 percent drop in car ownership in just three years, and locals take an average of 160 rides a month.
Transport firm Uber operates the autonomous vehicle program for the MTA.
Foogle is growing against arch-rival Honeycrisp, the public transit partnership created in 2022 by Apple and Nissan. Apple entered the vehicle industry with its 2017 purchase of parts-supplier Denso.
Introduced in 2024, the Honeycrisp four-passenger autonomous vehicle popularized driverless transit worldwide. The Foogle Around was launched a year later as a budget alternative, and transit authorities found commuters didn’t care the vehicle looked like a cockeyed Kinkajou.
I suddenly awoke. Urmson was talking about safety disengagements. It was just a dream.
Google car by Shalan Ertis, 2015.
