Headlines for the Week of June 4th, 2018

EVs Are Takin' Our Jerbs!

Electric vehicles are all fun and games except for the fact that they contain 30% fewer parts than internal combustion vehicles. While, to most of us, that’s a good thing because it means less can go wrong, it also means there’s less to make. So while many new jobs are created in the fields of battery and motor technology, in Germany alone, as many as 75,000 engine and transmission jobs may be lost if as many as 25% of vehicle sales are electric by 2030. German labor representatives are on the case now, trying to put together plans to maintain jobs by retraining workers in new, relevant fields, or basically, what we refuse to do in America while instead pandering to people who don’t want to give up their careers working in unskilled labor areas that are obsolete. At least one country understands progress!

WRC goes All-EV

The FIA World Council this week approved big changes to the World Rally Championship, moving vehicles to a common motor setup, and those motors will be all-electric. They’ll also use common batteries and a common chassis, but the parts around those - suspension, steering, equipment, etc. - will be up to each team. In that regard, it won’t be entirely down to driver skill because they’re all driving the same car and they will all have the same power, 670 horses from twin electric motors powering all four wheels. The common components will help keep costs down, which has been a growing problem in racing across many series, and is the reason there’s only one team in the top level of the World Endurance Championship. Plus, the relatively short sprint distance of rallying is much more well-suited to electric vehicles compared with endurance racing because of range concerns. I think for many viewers and spectators though, it’s going to be hard to get over hearing the absolute chaos of turbocharged motors hurtling steel and plastic through woods and along cliffs. As for the people living along those cliffs though, they’ll probably really appreciate it.

GM Exec Crashes at Really Bad Time

If you’re a skilled driver who loves vehicles and you happen to crash a car on the track during an Indy car race, chances are you’ll be a bit sheepish but it’s okay, you’re a race car driver and this happens sometimes. But if you happen to be the pace car driver and you wreck the pace car, causing a half hour delay in the start of the race because you spun your Chevy Corvette ZR1 into a wall, you will feel mortified. One can’t help but feel a bit sorry for GM EVP of Global Product Development Mark Reuss, who did just that before the Detroit Grand Prix of Belle Isle this week. Even Indy 500 winner and fast circle man Will Power jumped to his defense saying the corner Reuss took is a bit off-camber and unloads the rear wheels, causing slippage. He even went so far as to issue a really painful apology that he 100 percent didn’t have to do because if you can’t imagine feeling exactly how he felt when he crashed that car in front of thousands of people, you need to be put on an island far away from people because you are a sociopath.

Come On and Take a Free (Autonomous) Ride

Great news for Californians as a new rule has just gone into place allowing you to be picked up by a fully autonomous vehicle. In even better news, the companies running these vehicles can’t charge you a fare for the journey because this is all in the name of testing technology and not capitalism. Well it’s in the name of future capitalism. But focus on free today. Problem is, only one company has applied for a permit to test fully autonomous vehicles in the state, and these systems aren’t exactly totally safe, as we’ve been seeing recently, so maybe don’t hold out for a rare free ride from a company that may kill you.

Tesla Investor Call Sans Fireworks for Once

Tesla held its annual stockholders meeting this week and we got some answers to boring bonehead questions without a healthy dose of attitude for once. The bad news is there is no real super interesting news, but the good news is there’s no real super interesting news. Musk said production of Model 3s is humming right along and they anticipate reaching 5,000 units per week by the end of this month, but right hand drive and base models are still going to have to wait until next year. He said the Model 3 was beating its rivals in sales, namely the BMW 3 series, Audi A4, Lexus IS and Mercedes C-Class. Hidden in that little gem was the fact that nearly a quarter of all Model 3 reservations have been canceled, either by the company or by buyers. While that sounds like bad news, to have that many cancellations and still be outselling the competition really illustrates the ongoing hype around and interest in the car. Finally, Musk said the Model Y was on schedule for release in 2020 along with the new Roadster and Semi. He also hinted that sometime after that, Tesla would be working on a Volkswagen Golf-sized hatchback, which makes sense since it’s the best-selling car in Europe. One can’t help but wonder if, by the time they get around to it, if Volkswagen won’t already have a mass-market electric hatchback on sale, beating them to the punch. Between the eGolf, the Golf GTE and the various VW ID cars, they have an awful lot of irons in the fire.

Lamborghini Awaits Worthy Battery Power

As for Tesla’s competition, they won’t be getting any from Lamborghini, at least for a while because the Italian supercar manufacturer says no battery exists yet that is worthy enough to be bestowed upon one of their raging bulls. Chief Technical Officer Maurizio Reggiani said that they’re aiming for brutal acceleration, a top speed of at least 186 and the range to be able to complete three laps of the Nurburgring. Given that the Nordschliefe is only 12.9 miles, achieving a range of 40 miles seems awfully doable, but I bet you’d be surprised how quickly that range disappears when you’re pushing a Lamborghini as hard as it’ll go around the German forest. But one needs only look at Tesla’s Roadster for evidence that batteries with incredible acceleration and high top speeds remain only a few years away. Even their top of line Model Ss feature an aptly named “insanity mode” which is damn quick. Lamborghinis, however, are permanently stuck in insanity mode, which is sort of why we like them so much.

Your Next Honda, Powered by GM

Tell me if this sounds familiar – A friend of yours is shopping for a car and wants something efficient, so you suggest the Chevy Volt. You get the response, “Yeah, but I want something reliable, so I’m thinking Prius or Insight." Well, the next time you have that conversation, you can fire back, “Yeah, well Honda likes General Motors’ battery technology so much that they recently signed an agreement to use their batteries in future electric vehicles.” Because that just happened this week. If you really want to turn the screw, you can say something like, “Honda is so far behind on battery technology, the deal really isn’t even a collaboration. The deal basically just gets GM a better deal because they can buy more batteries in bulk and then give them to Honda. They may be collaborating on hydrogen fuel cells in a more equitable partnership, but if you buy a Honda electric vehicle in the future, just know you’re basically getting a GM.” That’s not entirely true because motors and transmissions and well, the rest of the cars will be different, but sometimes it’s just good to knock people down a peg or two if they’re blindly brand loyal.

Hyundai’s Connected Car Tech Detailed

Are you the type of person who is too lazy to swipe a credit card or get out of your car for some nachos? Well Hyundai is designing a system just for you! Their Hyundai Digital Wallet and access to purchasing platform Xevo will allow drivers to pay for things like food and fuel and parking directly from the car without having to reach into your pocket or purse to get your preferred payment method. Before long, the steering wheel can just be replaced with a robotic arm that shoves churros into our mouths as the vehicles drive themselves to our destination.

While everyone loves churros, not everyone loves big brother, and a portion of Hyundai’s connected car tech pertains specifically to driver analytics, which the car will collect and share with a company called Verisk, who will give you a Verisk Driver Score, which can then be passed on to your insurance company if you either give them permission or simply don’t tell them not to. This is allegedly to offer tips and discounts on courses to help improve driving and not to tattle to your insurance company that you’re a dangerous driver, but I think the rest of the world can join me in issuing a collective fuuuuuuuuck that on this plan. Some drivers certainly could use some help not sucking, but I will hold myself responsible for informing them of their inadequacy by way of horn blaring and wild gesticulations.

Hyundai Missed the Diesel Bus

And poor Hyundai, they really try, but sometimes, they just kind of look like the guy at a hockey game who is so busy playing Pokemon GO that they miss a goal getting scored and then look up like “oh, what happened, do I clap now?” This week was one of those times because immediately after Nissan and Renault announced that they were both discontinuing development of diesel engines, Hyundai bursts into the room and is like “here it is, our new 2019 Tucson, which features a mild hybrid diesel engine!” Everyone’s like “oh, did he not hear the news?” I mean, truth be told, Mazda has some diesels coming up too, but these are going to be hard sales in Europe where diesels are tanking harder than the Las Vegas Golden Knights right now.

Most & Least Expensive Cars to Insure for 2018

Speaking of insurance, we got a couple of lists today of the most and least expensive cars in the country to insure. The top five most expensive included the Dodge Challenger, which no doubt made the list because of its Hellcat version, and the Toyota 86 and Mitsubishi Lancer, which made the list because they’re driven by young reckless kids. Topping the list though were the Mercedes S-Class and the Tesla Model S, undoubtedly earning their places because of high repair costs and the incredible amount of technology in each.

As for the cheapest to insure, there were predictably a bunch of Toyotas and Hondas, some GMC vehicles, most full-size trucks and, interestingly, the Chevrolet Corvette, which clocked in as the 12th cheapest car to insure. Ahead of it were a bunch more trucks and luxury crossovers and the Jeep Wrangler, which was number six, but the absolute cheapest car to insure in the U.S. this year was the Subaru Outback with its Eyesight forward collision avoidance technology. On average, buyers paid just less than $540 total per year, which is just about half my bill for the GTI, which is only moderately depressing. But it makes sense. They have great visibility, good reliability, good crash test ratings and are driven by crunchy dog-having, oatmeal-loving hippies who never exceed the speed limit and clean up their campsites after themselves. Not that insurance companies would profile people like that. 

Coder Boy’s Wild Ride

In a bizarre story from Virginia this week, a National Guard soldier got hopped up on drugs and stole an armored personnel carrier, then got engaged in a not-so-high speed chase with police after which he was arrested and charged with a whole slew of crimes because, go figure, the National Guard doesn’t appreciate you stealing their things. An APC is basically a tracked tank but without a turret and with a larger interior to accommodate the transport of troops. It’s big, it’s tan, it’s hard to miss flying down the streets of Richmond. Making the story even more bizarre is that this soldier is a sort of well-known coder who made an anti-social justice variant of a secure web browser and tried desperately to get the attention of an accused sexual abuser. Nobody is still sure why he stole the APC but cocaine is a hell of a drug, so maybe he decided “well, it’s there and probably more fun than an Uber home.”

It’s Rainin’ Merde

Finally, in truly disgusting news this week, a woman and her son in British Columbia, Canada were driving along at about 160 miles or a billion kilometers as they call them up there, from Vancouver when they were suddenly struck by a cascade of what appeared to be sewage flying through their open sunroof. One minute, you’re cruising along enjoying one of the many beautiful days the Pacific Northwest has to offer, the next, you’re getting pink eye from someone taking the afternoon flight from Philadelphia. The driver suspects it was sewage from a plane that just so happened to have the supreme bad timing and placement to hit her open sunroof, which is possible, but rare and hardly a reason to keep your sunroofs closed out of sheer paranoia. But can you imagine how much worse it would’ve been if she had been driving a convertible?

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines for the Week of May 28th, 2018

Tesla Hits Emergency Vehicle...Again

Let’s see if you’ve read this one before - A man’s driving his Tesla Model S and decides to relax a bit so he kicks on the Autopilot mode, which is working great, keeping him in the lines and evenly spaced between cars right up until the point where it runs him full speed into the back of an emergency vehicle. Oh, sounds familiar? It’s sort of becoming a thing, isn’t it? Except this time it wasn’t a firetruck, it was a Laguna Beach Police Explorer.

Photo by ABC News

The driver says autopilot was on, but we don’t know for sure yet if that was the case. What certainly is the case though, is that the driver was most definitely not fully attentive, which they are supposed to be when driving in autopilot mode because, guess what? People who are fully attentive will be driving, not letting the car do it.

It’s so widely accepted that people do not pay attention when the car is in autopilot mode that Shutterstock now has a stock video of a “sleeping” driver cruising along in a Tesla as it drives itself. This is about the time Elon Musk chirps up and howls at the media for covering another crash of his when there are millions of crashes every day. He’s not wrong here, especially since only minor injuries were sustained by the Model S’s driver in Laguna Beach. But it’s like when my mom let me have a rubber band gun when I was ten - I was given strict guidelines for how it could be used and then I went and shot my brother in the eye. I wasn’t aiming for his eye but hey, his eye got in the way of my shot. Shit happens. And guess what happened then? Yeah, my mom took away the rubber band gun. If people continue to demonstrate they cannot be trusted to use a technology the way it is designed to be used, then it’s either designed wrong or needs to be taken away until people behave. And yes, I realize this could be said about motor vehicles in general, but driving is a privilege and not a right, which the state can take away if you are truly and repeatedly bad at it! But given that Elon’s out there making my rubber band gun look lame with his flamethrowers and journalist credibility ratings services, I doubt he’ll have time to see the sense in my argument.

Tesla Gets Thumbs Up after Thumbs Very Down

After Consumer Reports knocked Tesla’s Model 3 for braking performance worse than a Ford F-150, Elon Musk first had a tantrum, then said everything could be fixed with an over-the-air firmware update, presumably to re-calibrate regenerative braking and increase the performance of the actual brakes on the vehicle. Less than a week later, out goes the update and in comes a big thumbs up from Consumer Reports, who have now bestowed their coveted “recommended” rating upon Tesla’s smallest car. I said last week that it would’ve been nice for the company to get it right the first time, but I’m probably being a little harsh, because almost no company gets their cars right the first time. Look at Ford, who has been making vehicles for a hundred years. They’ve recalled my wife’s Fusion three times now for different things. But with the Model 3, no recall is required. They just upload a fix, your car downloads it and boom, you’re good to go with better performance. It’s really honestly impressive that is even possible now, but as the owner of a phone that has been bricked by an over-the-air update, I can say it’s not a completely foolproof plan to avoid recalls. But good on Tesla for addressing a problem swiftly.

California Unveils Digital License Plates for Idiots

On the subject of California, the state unveiled new digital license plates this week, which are basically e-readers flipped on their sides that display your license number and have a GPS tracker, allowing big brother to see how often you drive past your ex’s house to see if someone new is staying over before you head back to your lonely apartment for a dinner of cheese and sadness. The plates can also display other messages, like advertisements while vehicles are parked, which is just exactly what the world needs more of. And they can be tracked if your car is stolen by a criminal stupid enough to not remove the license plate as the very first thing after actually stealing your car. They will be available for purchase through dealerships at a cost of $700, excluding installation costs and a $7 monthly subscription fee, while I’m not sure what you’re subscribing to other than the appearance of being a sucker. I could now go into how pointless and stupid this is, especially considering it goes on the most vulnerable part of your car in the event of fender benders, but I think you get the point already.

Weekend Motorsports Roundup

There was some racing going on this weekend, all over the place, starting with the Monaco Grand Prix in, well, Monaco. The famous city circuit is known for being tight and showcasing the technical skills of drivers rather than the flat-out speed of the cars and this year was no different. In fact, speed mattered so little that Daniel Ricciardo was able to win the race with a broken car down about 160 horsepower from Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari behind him. In fact, every single driver who finished the race finished in the same position that they started after qualifying. So apart from pit stops, no real passing, which does not make for very compelling racing.

Speaking of uncompelling racing, the Indy 500 was also this weekend and it was won by Will Power, who managed to go around in circles faster than all the other drivers who went around in circles. Congratulations to fast circle man Will Power.

In more exciting racing news, the inaugural Americas Rallycross event took place this weekend in, um, not Americas. It’s taking the place of the Global Rallycross series that went belly up so it’s maybe not so surprising to see the cars racing at Silverstone in the UK. In any case, ex-German Touring Car racer Timo Scheider finished second in qualifying. Normally, second place finishers and qualifying laps aren’t notable except this one is because Timo finished it with his hood flipped up over his windshield. Stop and put it down? Ain’t nobody got time for that! Especially when every second counts and you’re going sideways so often you can just use your door windows to see where you’re going. And perhaps it’s because the course requires so much sideways driving that the winner of the actual event was Tanner Foust, former Top Gear US host who is incapable of driving in a straight line or swearing, and with whom I want to be good buddies. Congrats, Tanner!

Audi’s Bringing Cameras and Efficiency

What has been a key feature on concept cars for years may become a reality on the forthcoming Audi E-Tron. Whereas previously US law mandated that cars come equipped with side view mirrors, a revision to that regulation (we are in the age of deregulation, after all) will mean car companies can now use cameras and screens instead of glass. The advantage here is that wing mirrors generate drag that can cost electric vehicles as much as three whole miles of range, so by eliminating them, car companies can get better range out of their batteries and charge you thousands more for expensive cameras and screens instead of cheap mirrors and plastic housings. There aren’t many other advantages of cameras. Glass mirrors allow you a 3D stereoscopic view of what’s behind you, allowing for better depth perception, they don’t have screens that wash out in direct sunlight and they aren’t blinded by headlights when it’s dark. But progress, Audi will say, to which I respond, I’d rather sacrifice three miles of charge to be able to better see what’s on either side of me.

U.S. Production Update

Several companies announced new plans for U.S. production last week, some of which I’m sure a certain politician will use as evidence that his trade war threats and tariffs are paying off despite no credible evidence of a connection. First, Hyundai is investing $388 million towards building a new plant in Alabama where motors for the Sonata, Elantra and Santa Fe will be built. This of course means more jobs for hard working Americans, but at the same time, only fifty hard working Americans will be able to find new work there.

But Nissan is going the opposite direction, scaling back their North American production by 20 percent to adjust to falling profitability. Low demand has led to greater incentives and more fleet sales, which have decreased profitability for Japan’s second largest automaker. Fortunately, no employees are being let go at the two assembly plants in the US and three in Mexico, but I guess they’re going to be able to spend more time making sure all the bolts are tight on those Maximas and Rogues.

EVs Could Cost Governments Billions

Right now, many governments are investing in subsidies for electric vehicles and the infrastructure to support them, but that may not last too long because the same cars that governments want us to drive could end up costing billions in lost tax revenue. Right now, gas taxes are a huge source of funding for infrastructure support, but as EVs don’t use fuel, that revenue could dry up. The International Energy Agency estimates that, if 30 percent of new car and truck sales by 2030 are electric (which is hugely ambitious), governments worldwide could be missing $92 billion in tax revenue. Obviously that’s going to have to be made up somehow, whether through distance driven taxes or maybe via our electric bills. Otherwise those potholes and crumbling bridges will never be replaced.

Cars are Too Expensive

A new report by CNBC has revealed that the average monthly payment for a new vehicle is a whopping $523, in addition to the fact that loan terms extending as far as 96 months, or eight years, is becoming far more common. Average length is around 67 months, so somewhere in between five and six years, and the total amount borrowed for vehicles rests at around $31,500. All of these numbers represent unprecedented highs, which is a problem considering interest rates are increasing, averaging now 5.17 percent on new vehicle loans. It’s even more of a problem when you consider that, according to my buddy Chuck at the Federal Reserve, the average disposable personal income per capita is just $44,000, which equates to less than $3,700 per month. According to LendingTree, the average monthly Mortgage payment is around $1,100, meaning Americans are spending more than 43 percent of their income on just their car and their house. That may not sound like much, but as the price of goods and services like food and health care increase, consumers are less able to afford their lifestyles. Plus that disposable income number includes benefits and employer contributions to 401ks and pensions. If this sounds familiar, a similar thing happened in 2008 when housing prices were crazy high and we know how that all turned out. But it’s probably fine, guys. After all, 90-day delinquent loans only increased to 4.3 percent this past quarter and Bloomberg reports that people are prioritizing cell phone bills over their auto loans and credit cards, with PeerIQ CEO Ram Ahluwalia saying “the car is no longer a central asset.” But it’s fine.

Uber Pads Wallet, Prepares for IPO

Fresh off surprising Pittsburgh’s mayor with resuming autonomous vehicle testing in the city, Uber now wants to be the “Amazon for Transportation,” according to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Between its ride hailing service and UberEats, the company is doing pretty well financially and hopes to act as a platform for all sorts of transportation solutions, including public transit, ride sharing and even biking. It looks like others are buying this too, with Japan’s Softbank having taken a large ownership stake in the company. Softbank also announced this week that they’re investing $2.25 billion in GM Cruise, General Motors’ autonomous vehicle division, which may open up some doors for Uber to test with vehicles other than Volvo’s, and will allow GM to operate on Uber’s platform. But more than just some Japanese money, Uber wants our money as well and is on course for an initial public offering next year, where individuals with more hope than brains can spend their hard-earned money to purchase stock in a company that is still burning cash and doesn’t really have a solid path towards profitability, at least until its autonomous program cuts out all its human drivers. But Skynet doesn’t go live until 2047 in most Terminator timelines, so I think we’re good for a while if you want to get in on the ground floor.

Jaguar Land Rover Goes Muddin’ (Autonomously)

Jaguar Land Rover announced this week that they are developing a system called Cortex, a project that hopes to develop level 4 and 5 automation for off-road driving. Currently, autonomous systems rely on digital road mapping pretty extensively, so an off-road system would have to depend more on cameras evaluating the terrain ahead and adjusting the vehicle correspondingly. In theory, this will render the Cortex system more advanced and reliable than most other systems at adapting to unplanned changes in conditions. Head of the company’s connected and autonomous vehicle research program Chris Holmes said “It’s important that we develop our self-driving vehicles with the same capability and performance customers expect from all Jaguars and Land Rovers,” which I can appreciate. What I can’t appreciate is someone wanting to take their car off-road, but wanting the car to do the driving when you’re actually off-road. It’d be like designing a race car to drive itself, but with a race car driver as a passenger.

Duct Tape Fixes Everything

If you’ve been on YouTube, and I’ll assume you have, you probably know that there’s a video for how to fix virtually everything, and many of those fixes involve duct tape. Now there’s a video of how you can repair a flat tire with duct tape, except repair is really the right word, but rather “replace.” Some intrepid MacGyvers  who had a wheel without rubber decided to see what would happen if they wrapped the wheel in 20 rolls of duct tape and the results are, well, somewhat surprising in that the car definitely functioned afterwards. Granted, the non-sticky side offers virtually no grip, will tear under any torque and are utterly and completely unbalanced on the wheel, you can actually drive on a tire made of duct tape. That said, 20 rolls of duct tape cannot possibly be cheaper than a tire, so please leave this where it belongs – as a goofy stunt done by YouTube people.

Prius Greatly Improved with 8X the HorsePower

Photo by The Fast Lane Car

I’ve driven a Prius or two in my time and, not being the type of person who really appreciates driving in a super efficient sort of way, I can’t say I really appreciated the car. Now though, some nut jobs have gone and vastly improved the car by taking pretty much everything and throwing it out. The standard second generation Prius body of the vehicle in question now resides on a tube frame that also happens to house the motor from a Dodge Challenger Hellcat, which has been upped from its 707 horsepower to put down 800 at the wheels. Whereas the normal second generation Prius took about ten seconds to get to 60 miles per hour, this car now takes less than ten seconds to go an entire quarter mile and makes a divine sound while doing so. As for gas mileage? I’m gonna guess somewhere around 3 or 4, which does seem a bit thirsty when compared with the original.

Matt LeBlanc to Leave Top Gear

I’ve been catching up with the Grand Tour recently, which is a good show with some funny old guy that feels like an old couch – comfy, familiar, and a little stale. In comparison, Top Gear in the post-Chris Evans seasons feels fresh and interesting and fun and I find myself wishing for more episodes of it rather than the Grand Tour. One of the reasons it’s been so good is Matt LeBlanc, who unfortunately has announced that he will be leaving the show after next series because of time and travel constraints. I get it – he’s American and has to go to the UK for filming, which takes him away from family and friends for a considerable amount of time. In any case, Top Gear will continue on with Chris Harris, who is also excellent, and Rory Reid, who is a genuinely funny guy. But who will replace Joey? Chandler Bing?

Chrysler to Disappear with Fiat?

FiatChrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne will outline the next five year plan for the company’s car brands – a plan he will not oversee since this is his last year in charge of the company. In the last plan set forth in 2014 titled “Our Time Has Come,” Marchionne stated that Chrysler would have eight vehicles in its lineup by 2018, including two plug-in hybrids. As of last count, Chrysler has two cars, the Pacifica and the 300. I guess three if you count the Pacifica Hybrid as a separate vehicle, but still nowhere near eight total models. Gone is the weak 200 and the planned 100 compact sedan and various crossovers never appeared. FiatChrysler apparently got distracted with its brands that were actually doing well, namely Jeep, Ram and Ferrari, and didn’t really put any effort into either Fiat or Chrysler, both of which have crappy, unappealing lineups that are struggling to move cars amid poor reviews and a complete lack of buyer interest. How crappy you ask? Well the company has had to recall 4.8 million vehicles this week because their cruise control may not turn off, which seems like a pretty important thing to be able to turn off. Apparently braking still works to slow the car but people are idiots and may panic if their car doesn’t slow when they disengage cruise control.

Rumor now has it that Marchionne will announce tomorrow that Fiat will exit the U.S. market and Chrysler will exit the rest of the world, remaining for sale only in the U.S. My question is, why stop there? Chrysler has destroyed any sort of goodwill it had in buyers loyal to the brand by not coming out with anything new recently and the Pacifica could just be renamed the Dodge Grand Caravan, and that’s really only because Waymo just ordered 62,000 Pacificas for its autonomous fleet. Kill off the ancient 300 and you have nothing left to keep the Chrysler brand going. I’ll follow up on this next week when we hear more, but it’s probably not going to be too surprising if, just like Plymouth and most of Ford, we say goodbye to Chrysler.

Porsche Calls Car Collectors Immoral

Porsche Klassik magazine published an article recently addressing the issue of investors buying classic Porsches in order to profit from their appreciation rather than to drive them. The author called out such buyers for “spoiling the market” and “causing an explosion in prices even for ‘normal’ Porsche vehicles.” This is largely true, with prices for even basic air-cooled 993 models skyrocketing due to the desire of people to just buy and sit on cars until someone wants to pay them more for it than they paid. I appreciate good design and vehicular beauty and I think that some cars, sports cars especially, could be considered works of art, so in that sense, I appreciate why one might want to preserve such art. But like good artwork, great cars should be appreciated. You appreciate art by studying it and appreciating its form, and you appreciate cars by driving them.  The article goes on to say “the speculation in which many dealers are currently indulging is heading towards the downright immoral,” and I have a hard time disagreeing. But as baby boomers pass on and the generation saddled with $1.4 trillion in student loan debt comes up, these prices will fall back down. They have to, because otherwise the market for them won’t exist.

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines for the Week of April 23rd, 2018

Leafs Light Up Japan

Source: Nissan

One of the primary questions facing the electric vehicle industry is what happens to the lithium ion batteries after the vehicle has either crashed or it’s met the end of its useful life. Lithium Ion batteries are far more impressive than their Nickel-metal-hydride predecessors, but after 10,000 cycles or so, they will start to see some capacity loss due to general wear and tear. You’ll know from having a cell phone that batteries don’t last forever, but Nissan is preparing for the future by partnering with a company called 4R Energy Corporation. They are recycling used Nissan Leaf batteries in street lights, which utilize a combination of solar generation and storage (in the former Leaf battery cells) to provide illumination to roads not served by the electrical grid. They’re starting this program in Namie, Japan, which was hit hard by and is still recovering from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. Pilots are under testing now and the company plans to install lights throughout the town later this year. One can see this being especially useful in other disaster zones like Puerto Rico after Maria, New York after Sandy or the city of New Orleans after a weekend night.

Lincoln Launches Subscription Service

If you’ve ever wanted to drive a used Lincoln, but the thought of owning one just put you off too much, there’s great news. The company is following in the footsteps of Volvo, Cadillac and Porsche and offering a subscription service. No, not for the new Continental or Navigator. For its used cars. That means you can pay just over $400 a month to drive New York’s finest fleet taxi vehicle, the MKX. If that price doesn’t sound appealing, consider that that price also pays for insurance, maintenance, warranty and the ability to swap into a slightly smaller but no more enjoyable MKC at any time. If it still doesn’t sound appealing, than consider yourself in the same boat as me. 

California Self-Driving Registration Deadline Update

April 2nd was the first day self-driving cars could legally hit the roads in California. Being home to more than 50 companies testing autonomous systems, it was slated to be a truly historic day for the state. And then only one company applied for a permit. So on the first day, zero self-driving cars hit the road. The timing, perhaps, was not excellent, coming on the heels of Uber’s fatal wreck and a general cringing of other companies as they look to perfect technology before pushing it out to the public. Nevertheless, it’s a good sign that California is regulating it, and that companies were honest enough with their self-assessments that nobody is putting unsafe hardware out on the streets. 

Thumbs Down to BMW

Thumbs are great – they’re one of the best things about being human and allow us to grab things and compete in sports like baseball and tennis without accidentally flinging rackets and bats everywhere. We all like our thumbs, and so does BMW, but perhaps not in the right way. According to a law suit filed in New York, a software developer named Godwin Boateng was waiting for a friend, posted up with his hand on the pillar of his front driver’s door, acting casual, as you do. This BMW X5, however, was equipped with the company’s Soft Closing Automatic Doors (unfortunately abbreviated SCAD), which casually closed on Godwin’s thumb, causing it to then separate from his body. After taking his BMW and his thumb to the hospital, doctors were unable to attach the latter, which has caused Godwin considerable consternation about the former, leading to the lawsuit alleging BMW knew that the sensors in the SCAD system were faulty and didn’t do anything to fix them. I don’t have to tell you listeners that, regardless of your car or features, it’s not a great idea to dangle any phalanges in places where there’s even the possibility that they may be involuntarily amputated, nor was I aware BMW even had a feature that would close doors on you, which is slightly creepy. In any case, who’s got two thumbs and chose the right German car? This guuyyyyyyy.

Florida Civic Takes Short Trip, Long Dip

Source: Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office

I don’t have a pool, mostly because I’m lazy and the maintenance sounds absolutely dreadful, but if I did, and I didn’t have to work on a Tuesday afternoon, I’d totally take a quick splash to unwind. But I don’t think that’s what was planned earlier this month when a Florida resident left her car without placing it in park, causing the vehicle to roll into a nearby pool. Making matters worse, her husband and daughter were inside and were subjected to an unexpected plunging. They both made it out safely, but the same cannot be said for the bright blue civic, which looked positively serene at the bottom of a no doubt pissed off neighbor’s pool. The jokes here are obvious – gives a whole new meaning to carpool, go for a drive, not a dive, for sale with slight water damage, etc. etc. Please feel free to write your own as I enjoy not picking leaves out of my pool.

Cheetah Thinks Land Rovers are Purrfect

Big cats are noble creatures, and that’s probably why Jaguar chose one as its mascot. Even Mercury had the Cougar, which started out as a muscle car and developed into something, well, bad. But every once in a while we’re reminded that big cats are essentially just gigantic versions of the little assholes who go around knocking cups off the counter tops and destroying the legs of couches in homes across the world.  Recently, wildlife photographer Peter Heistein was touring the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania when he paused in his Land Rover for lunch while observing a group of cheetahs. As they are wont, one of the curious cats approached and then jumped into Heistein’s car, sampling the fine interior head rests and gaining a commanding view of the surrounding plains. Heistein did the opposite of what you see on most YouTube Fail videos and remained calm, respected the animal’s space and allowed it to leave once it inevitably got bored. Next time the cat pukes on my pillow, I’m going to tell myself “at least it didn’t devour my interior.” 

Not Stock Nissan Outruns All

Source: Severn Valley Motorsports

If having a car with a ridiculously high top speed that you’ll never achieve on public roads or basically anywhere but an air strip or a salt flat is what you are looking for, you have several very expensive cars to select from. The McLaren P1, the LaFerrari, Lamborghini Aventador, you get it. Or you could get a Nissan Rogue Sport and beat all of those, because that’s just what some English guys did. British speed shop Severn Valley Motorsports made some slight tweaks to their Nissan, which is for sale in Europe as the awkwardly-named Qashqai, and hit a blistering 237 miles per hour, making it the world’s fastest SUV, though unofficially because it didn’t make two runs in opposing directions. What sort of tweaks did they make, you ask? Well, actually quite big tweaks. They threw out the absolute shit 2.5 litre four and CVT and tucked in the 3.8 litre twin turbo V6 from the Nissan GT-R, lowered it and provided a bunch of bespoke bodywork to streamline the otherwise boxy thing. So while sure, this is neat and it’s great that people are having fun in Nissan Rogues, this does absolutely not change my opinion that they are cars for people who would rather be doing anything but driving.

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines & New Cars for the Week of January 8, 2018

Sales Slump to Continue

After all the numbers came in for 2017, overall vehicle sales were down 1.8% over 2016, which marks the first decline in seven years and, unfortunately for car makers, there’s no real end in sight. That is, unless you’re a super car manufacturer. Aston Martin and McLaren both recorded their biggest ever sales years in 2017 because the rich are getting so incredibly stinking rich!

Anyway. During the recession, people held on to their cars longer because they couldn’t afford to replace them. This meant stiffer competition among automakers for the sales that were occurring, so they worked hard to make their cars more appealing, more reliable and safer. When the economy finally bounced back, people spent the next seven years getting rid of their old vehicles and upgrading to newer, better cars.The reports bear this out – cars these days are safer, more reliable and more satisfying than ever before, and so people are keeping them longer, leading to a sales decline.

Sure, you’ll still have incidents where people blow through red lights and total cars, thereby generating a certain amount of reluctant sales, but there are already 1.26 vehicles on the road for every one licensed driver, meaning we have a shit ton of unlicensed drivers out there, or people just have plenty of cars.

And that’s what the industry experts are thinking – we’ve reached peak car, where we’ll back off to a stable replacement level of sales each year. Plus, as interest rates rise, people aren’t going to want to take out loans for new cars either. So how will automakers cope with a shrinking pie from which to get slices? Will they keep innovating as they did during the recession to attract a larger share, or will they collectively start making their products less reliable so they go bad at a prescribed point, forcing owners to upgrade? This is what we’d call the iPhone sales tactic.

Leasing Surges

On the heels of the sales report, leasing looks like it’s going gangbusters. About 31 percent of all new vehicle sales are leases in the US, but if you look at plug-in hybrids, the number jumps to 55 percent of all sales. And then there’s pure electric vehicles. Eighty percent of all EV sales are leases, which is crazy. Almost all people want to essentially rent these cars for a few years and Bloomberg is reporting that a major cause of this is the overall sense among consumers that electric vehicles are going to get better than they are now, so they don’t want to be locked into obsolete technology. Plus, resale value of EVs is currently very, very poor so purchasing one outright just doesn’t really make any sense, apart from for those 20 percent of people who bought them outright. Enjoy your Leaf!

Fuel Costs Jumping

Of course, those EVs may start to look more attractive this year as the 2018 Fuel Price Outlook suggests that gas prices could peak at just less than $3 per gallon. GasBuddy predicts that the national average price will rise 19 cents to around $2.57 per gallon this year, which still is not THAT bad, especially when you look at the rest of the world. But combine that with the drop in fuel efficiency we saw among new car purchases last year and GasBuddy predicts the average household will spend $1,898 on fuel this year. That’s $133 more than last year, which is the cost of at least two nice taco dinners, and I cast shame upon the evil oil spectators behind this rise because nothing should stand between us and nice taco dinners!

California Banning ICEs

Meanwhile in California, the land of the future, a bill has been introduced to the state legislature that would ban the sale of new cars and trucks powered by gasoline or diesel fuels by the year 2040. If you’ve been tuning into the show for a while, you’ll know that 2040 is also a deadline set by Paris, London and a few other cities or countries, with some even having more aggressive targets for pollution reduction. They estimate that the measure, if it’s adopted, would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels in just ten years. We’ll have to see how they end up voting, but I bet there are going to be some very busy lobbyists in Sacramento this week! 

Mazda’s Creepin’ Tech

Mazda this week filed a patent for some technology that’s both innovative and incredibly creepy. It’s apparently all in an effort to thwart distracted or drowsy driving. Basically, there is a camera or series of cameras set up inside the car, pointed at the driver and the car’s computer uses the driver’s eyes and expression to determine if the driver is paying attention and engaged with the drive they’re going on. If it determines that the driver is busy checking texts or Facebook or dozing off, the car will apparently respond by doing anything from simple sounds and visual prompts to changing the navigation system to route the driver to a more fun-looking road to drive. If the driver looks like he or she is having fun and is entertained by the route, the computer will store that route for later reference. Basically, Mazda is going to find all the cool roads and fill them with CX-9s because drivers can’t put their stupid phones down anymore.  

"Eyes on the road, buddy!" - Mazda

Nissan Gets in Your Head

And speaking of creepy, Nissan is taking it to the next level with their new Brain to Vehicle (B2V) system, which they will be showing off this coming week at the Consumer Electronics Show. Drivers are fitted with a skull cap that monitors brain wave activity and transmits signals to steering, acceleration and braking systems that can respond before the driver even moves his or her hands or feet. The driver still actually makes the car do things, but the car just anticipates what’s going to happen and can start things milliseconds sooner. Apparently this is meant to enhance the driving pleasure when it seems to me it’s just cheaper to make cars faster and more responsive than to dump time and research into brain wave monitoring. But hey, they’re making money like crazy selling Nissan Rogues to people so they can do what they want I guess. 

Tesla Under-performs...Again

Meanwhile a Tesla earnings call this week managed to once again unveil the woeful under-performance of the company in meeting the goals its founder sets for it. Rather than churning out a few thousand Model 3s per week as predicted earlier this year, Tesla’s highest number yet was a little less than 800 and, let’s be honest, making almost 100 cars a day is still a super achievement and they’re ramping up effectively. The problem comes when the founder is all bluster about getting to 5,000 cars per week by the end of Q1 2018 which, by the way, has been pushed back to the end of the second quarter. Tesla’s stock took a hit after the announcement, which was, for once, not accompanied by some other shiny thing to distract investors from the problems going on. Tesla has a big year coming up with the launch of both their semi truck and the Model Y, but it’s critical they get their shit figured out quick, or buyers are going to start figuring out that hey, that Chevy Bolt is a pretty nice car and I can go buy one right now.

Burn Rover, Burn

On Sunday night last week, a parking garage in Liverpool, England, resembled the gates of hell as a raging inferno engulfed 1,400 vehicles. Fortunately, no one was injured and, surprisingly, the fire wasn’t started by an Italian super car. It was rather friendly fire, coming from a Land Rover, of course vehicles not known for their wiring or electronics excellence. The fire really is something incredible to see, as you can tell from the video above. The fuel in the cars just fed the fire until it was completely unconquerable by the local fire brigade, meaning they couldn’t stop it spreading to other cars. Sort of like an automotive herpes that, instead of itching, just creates a huge insurance hassle for thousands of people.

Squirrels Drive Local Man Nutty

A British Volkswagen Golf driver learned the hard way how squirrels are  just rats with fluffy tails last month. Apparently he parked his car outside his girlfriend’s father’s home near London and then left with the girlfriend for a month to tour southeast Asia. During that time, several squirrels decided that hey, Volkswagen does make a pretty comfy car, and called the place home, storing acorns in every conceivable place throughout the vehicle they could access. The glove box, the engine bay, even the transmission was packed and the owner found it tough to shift when he returned home. The clean-up and disposal of hundreds of perfectly good acorns that would feed families of the little bastards throughout the winter cost the driver £230. Which is not a small sum, especially coming back from vacation.

Hot Dog, Cool Crime

In other food-related automotive antics, a driver in Texas got off with a warning this week when he was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. Apparently, prior to departing, he placed a hot dog on the rear bumper of his Chevy Silverado and taped a piece of paper with “Free hot dog” written on it above (hard to tell from the above photo, but easy to see how creepy it is) . He then proceeded to drive from Waco, Texas to Brownwood and back, a journey of more than 120 miles, before getting stopped. The hot dog and sign were still there. Now if you’re me, you think this is like the adult equivalent of free candy written on the side of a seedy van, but if you’re a Brown County sheriff's department officer, you just think he’s a funny dude and let him be on his way. Only a matter of time before witness reports roll in about bodies being found in the back of a white pickup with hot dog residue on the bumper.

Pampered Oregonians Pumping

You may or may not be aware, but New Jersey and Oregon both require full service gas stations, or at least they did. Oregon has started allowing rural stations to permit self serve. You know, the same kind of gas we have literally everywhere else in the country? Well apparently people are freaking out about it, don’t know how to pump their own gas and are afraid that they will either burn the whole place down or smell like gasoline the rest of the day. I get that if you grew up not doing it, you may not know how to pump gas, but I fail to believe that people have never watched an attendant do it for them, and I have absolutely zero sympathy for these pampered brats kicking and screaming to get the good old times back. This really seems like a Portlandia sketch in real life. But apparently that really just is the state of Oregon.

Turkmenistan Bad Luck Ban

They aren’t the only place suffering though. Do you love black cars? Do you live in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan? Well tough luck. Your car has just been banned because the president of the oppressive country has decided they are bad luck and they must be impounded or repainted at the owner’s expense. And I do mean expense because it’s a very poor country and the people there can absolutely not afford to repaint their cars just because their president is a nut job. Sorry Turkmen!

Banned in Turkmenistan.

New Cars

Is there a future for the Fusion?

First up in new car news is actually the cancellation of a new car, or at least new design. In a letter to suppliers this week, Ford announced that they are canceling the planned redesign of the Ford Fusion which was scheduled for a 2020 launch. While this doesn’t mean that the Fusion itself has been discontinued and doesn’t rule out a major change coming later, this does look pretty bad, given the trouble brands have had with selling mid-sized sedans this past year. Buyers just want SUVs, trucks and crossovers these days and while Fusion sales are going okay, particularly to fleets, Ford apparently doesn’t see the value in spending time and money in refreshing a car that has only been around four years and remains one of the best looking cars in its class. That or this is the evidence we need to show that Ford is all a part of a massive marijuana smuggling scheme from where the Fusions roll off the line in Mexico. Remember those stories? Twice Fusions have been found with the spare tire well packed to the brim with weed awaiting receipt by a distributor in the US only to be discovered by a so-called innocent car buyer. Sure, Ford. I’m on to you.

New Audis with New Looks

While Ford foregoes redesigns of its cars, Audi has decided that their utter lack of creativity for their own cars needs to be changed. If you’re like me, you’ve probably sat in traffic, admiring an Audi and thought “that’s a really nice looking S6. Or, uh, A8. No, A4? RS4? Shit.” That’s apparently pretty common. According to an interview with Autocar, CEO Rupert Stadler says the similarity between models was used to make Audis more recognizable to emerging markets, which they say has worked swimmingly and now they’re free to spend money and be creative again. Marc Lichte, Audi’s Chief Designer, was quoted as saying something along the lines of “Oh, thank god, Jesus in heaven I’m bored to death over here and only have rulers on this drafting table!” New designs should start rolling out in March or April of this year.

This originally aired in The AllWaysDrive Podcast on January 4, 2018. Subscribe now and never miss the latest new car news!

Authored by
Devlin Riggs