Stephen Edelstein
Stephen Edelstein is a weekend editor at The Drive who covers cars, trucks, and the wider transportation world with a strong focus on how machines are engineered, used, and lived with over time. His coverage is distinguished by a mix of mechanical detail and human stories, moving from off-road pickups and work trucks to vintage buses, mini trucks, and unusual one-offs while keeping the driver’s experience central. He often uses specific examples and data points - such as studies, mileage figures, and engineering experiments - to turn what could be simple product news into grounded case studies of how vehicles and the systems around them actually work in practice.
Cars, trucks, and oddball machines
Edelstein consistently gravitates toward distinctive vehicles rather than generic model launches, highlighting everything from slammed rollback trucks imported from Japan to tiny gas-powered mini trucks and customized off-road pickups. He writes about collections and workhorses with the same attention to detail, including a vintage truck collection with more than 300 rigs headed to auction and an immaculate 1954 Greyhound Scenicruiser bus offered for sale as a reminder of an earlier era of travel.
High-mileage and hard-used vehicles recur in his work, such as a 2023 Cadillac Escalade that has accumulated 510,000 miles, a Ford F-150 Lightning with 234,000 miles facing a battery replacement, and a farm’s new $240,000 Kenworth that has spent time repeatedly in the shop. He also spotlights enthusiast builds and unusual body styles, from a coachbuilt Ferrari shooting brake with a V12 and a one-off Ferrari reviving a non‑hybrid V8 to an Austin Powers–themed Corvette and a Toyota Crown hearse powered by a 1JZ engine.
Across these stories he treats each vehicle as a specific use case, drawing out what its condition, configuration, or mileage says about durability, ownership costs, and automotive culture.
Vehicle technology, engineering, and in‑car experience
Technical detail is a defining thread in Edelstein’s coverage, where engineering decisions and experiments are treated as central characters in the story.
He writes about oil viscosity and a scientist’s work on its “absolute cosmic limit,” explaining why lubrication science matters for engine survival, and covers how 1,000‑horsepower EV motors can effectively double as rear brakes, underscoring the mechanical implications of high‑output electric drivetrains. His reporting often follows specific tests or prototypes, including aero breakdowns on whether mudflaps hurt truck fuel economy, dyno runs showing how shaping an exhaust like a “silly straw” harms performance, and tiny turbocharged 28cc inline‑six engines pushed to high revs.
Manufacturing choices also feature, from Mercedes’ move to use screws instead of glue in a back‑to‑basics assembly push to GM’s use of virtual crash testing to bring back the Chevy Bolt quickly. He devotes recurring attention to in‑car interfaces and infotainment, with stories on objective tests of how distracting car touchscreens are, Google Maps’ degraded usability, and the future of AM radio in cars.
His piece on a Chevy Silverado ZR2 with 60 inches of screens fits into this pattern of scrutinizing how digital features affect real drivers rather than treating screen count as a simple selling point.
Motorsport, enthusiasts, and automotive culture
Edelstein regularly connects engineering and vehicles to the people and communities around them, especially in motorsport and enthusiast contexts.
He profiles a rocket scientist who made NASCAR irresistibly loud in the 1990s and 2000s, using that story to show how technical innovation shapes the sound and spectacle of racing. He reports on how one owner secured a factory Hot Wheels model as the ultimate accessory for a Datsun roadster, and on an old‑school Tennessee mechanic who celebrates a 95th birthday still working in the shop, emphasizing long relationships with cars and craft.
Sim racing and nostalgia surface in pieces about a 1990s NASCAR simulation rig running Daytona USA and a Japanese racing shop painstakingly building an engine, where the process and tools are described as carefully as the final product.
He also revisits past automotive eras through objects like a 1988 Chevrolet Hot Shot Hauler described as a “bygone beauty” and Watanabe wheels handmade in Japan using old‑school methods, tying design and manufacturing heritage to present‑day enthusiast interest. Even in more playful stories - such as “Austin Powers” Corvettes or patriotic haulers - he anchors the narrative in the specific components, craftsmanship, and history that make these cars meaningful beyond surface novelty.
Electric mobility, ride‑hailing, and transportation policy
Alongside enthusiast coverage, Edelstein has built a substantial body of work on electric vehicles, ride‑hailing, and transportation policy, treating them as interconnected systems rather than isolated products. He has reported on UT Austin and US Army Research Labs joining Uber’s flying car project, Virgin Hyperloop One’s plan for a $500 million R&D center, and scooter and bike rental schemes that allow customers to ride without a smartphone, situating these initiatives within broader shifts in urban mobility.
His coverage of New York City’s vote to cap ride‑hailing vehicles and set minimum wages for drivers, offers from companies like Uber and Lyft to influence regulation, and Spanish taxi strikes against ride‑hailing rules shows a sustained focus on how policy, labor, and platforms interact. On the EV side, he has written about Penske opening fast‑charging stations for electric commercial trucks, the world’s longest electric bus entering service in Colombia, and corporate efforts by Porsche and Volvo to pursue carbon‑neutral operations and environmentally friendly projects.
He often uses surveys and studies, such as polls showing half of Americans view self‑driving cars as more dangerous than human drivers and research quantifying how much the dealership model costs customers, to ground debates in measurable sentiment and economics. Over time, his beat has included battery breakthroughs, shared hybrid patents, safety standards for autonomous vehicles, and ethical sourcing of battery materials, building a longitudinal view of how electric and automated transportation evolves in practice.
Data‑driven, story‑led reporting
Across this wide range of subjects, Edelstein’s reporting combines data, technical explanation, and narrative detail in a consistent way. Mileage figures, engineering tests, polls, and cost studies recur, but they are always tied to specific cars, trucks, or systems, whether the subject is a single high‑mileage Escalade, a drag race where 1980s supercars lose to a modern crossover, or a dealership fee study that quantifies customer impact. His headlines often foreground the concrete hook - a slammed rollback truck, a wood‑powered Chevy that breaks a speed record, a factory‑built 1986 Integra race car - while the articles explore why these examples matter for enthusiasts, owners, and the broader industry.
That combination of technical specificity, historical and cultural context, and clear, accessible prose defines his coverage and sets it apart from more formulaic product‑news reporting on the automotive beat.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Abby Smith
Abby Smith’s most distinctive work combines motorsports coverage with live digital and radio reporting. She is Digital Director at KRDO13 and covers the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, including race updates, weather shifts, breaking developments and ways to follow the action. Her beat also includes automotive news, crime, public safety, politics, city government and community life. Notable work includes coverage of homicide arrests, a major drug bust, a presidential address about the war with Iran, a family’s effort to bring Stephen Hubbard home, a state governor candidate and a city security ordinance. She also reports on fitness, school spirit and station staff. Smith writes in a concise, factual style shaped by investigative documentary experience. She turns live events, official announcements and daily developments into clear coverage across digital and radio platforms.
Adele Peters
Adele Peters covers climate solutions and other structural problems as design and policy questions, focusing on what can work in practice. She is a senior writer at Fast Company, where she reports on energy, transportation, housing, materials, agriculture, corporate sustainability, and social impact. Her stories examine climate technologies, grid resilience, electric vehicles, renewable energy, modular construction, homelessness, affordable housing, compostable materials, regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem restoration. She looks at whether projects can scale, their real-world constraints, and their measurable effects. She interviews political and philanthropic leaders, startup founders, and climate tech entrepreneurs, anchoring stories in what is being built and tested. She has written more than 3,000 stories and contributed to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century and State of Housing Design 2023.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.