Tesla’s Troubling Twitterer-In-Chief

Photo by The New York Times

Our top story last week concerned Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweet about taking the company private and my assessment was that it would solve all the company’s problems. I should have qualified that a little bit in that it would solve all the problems except the one sitting in the company’s fanciest chair - Elon himself. While it’s a great move for him to continue to exert more control over the company he founded, his control is pretty much the last thing the company needs to be successful. Which makes it all the more strange that he gave a long, winding interview to the New York Times this week where he was described as both laughing and crying and where he invited anyone to take over the company if they thought they were better suited to do the job. Let’s review the qualifications for how some other CEO might do something different then.

First, another CEO probably wouldn’t work 120 hours a week, neglecting his kids and setting an unhealthy and unreasonable example for the working environment for his colleagues. They probably shouldn’t take Ambien in order to fall asleep or go on drug-induced social media rants as some investors suspect he’s doing instead of sleeping. 

Second, a replacement CEO might consider consulting board members, attorneys, accountants or any other department before casually tweeting out a threat to buy out the company, which Musk did to the shock of his Board of Directors and to the displeasure of shareholders and the SEC. Not only has the company been subpoenaed for information related to the claims made in the tweet, there have also now been four lawsuits seeking class action status against Musk and Tesla because of the instability rocking the company’s stock price in the wake of the tweet. As it turns out, when you tweet out financially relevant information saying “funding secured,” you actually really must have your funding secured instead of only having some vague interest from a shady Saudi fund that, according to multiple reports, is not capable of financing the funding that you are meant to have secured. 

Finally, another CEO might focus less on investors short selling stock and more on the actual vehicles being produced to ensure that company is succeeding and fulfilling the promises the CEO sets for it. CNBC reports that Model 3 production is humming along at more than 5,000 units a week, which is the benchmark Musk set for the company, but Carscoops also reported that a $78,000 Model 3 was sent to a buyer kitted with three white door trim panels and one brown one. It seems unlikely that the buyer would’ve specified something like that and for nearly $80,000, you might hope that a company could look at its finished product to ensure that all the boxes were ticked before shipping it off to a buyer. There were multiple occasions during the production and shipment process where this problem might’ve been spotted but wasn’t, and a CEO should make it a priority to ensure that quality control on luxury vehicles is a little tighter than that.

So the invitation stands, if you think you can do a better job than Elon Musk, he’ll hand you the keys himself. Unless, of course, it turns out this is another one of those promises he come up just a bit short on.
 

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines for the Week for June 18th, 2018

Flying Cars to Take Off in Ingolstadt

Long time listeners may remember a few months ago I mentioned Audi’s partnership with Airbus to start developing flying cars. As a refresher, these were very loosely termed cars. Basically it’s a three-part design, with a quadcopter, passenger pod and electric skateboard-like platform. The pod can be transported by either the quadcopter or wheeled platform, making it either flying or car, but not really “flying car.” I said at the time that the idea was pretty neat and more likely to succeed than any other system I’d seen and, sure enough, Audi has just received approval from the German government to start testing these in their headquarter city in Bavaria, Ingolstadt. Now, this is a long way from being like “oh my God, we are all going to be catching flying car taxis from the airports within five years,” but it’s a lot closer than I thought we’d see in my lifetime, so I’m hoping this actually goes somewhere. Onward and upward, Audi.

Volvo’s New US Plant feat. Dig @ Trump

In a time when automotive manufacturing jobs can be hard to come by in the US, who can we trust to bring back those jobs? Yep, the Chinese and Swedes! Volvo, which is owned by Chinese company Geely, formally opened their new factory in South Carolina, which will build the new S60 we’ll get to later. In addition to providing Volvo the chance to suck up to American buyers by focusing on the $1.1 billion investment in America and the 4,000 jobs the factory will host when construction is complete, the event gave Volvo execs the chance to cast some serious shade at Donald Trump and his supporters Nikki Haley and Governor Henry McMaster. Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said “If you have trade barriers and restrictions, we cannot create as many jobs as we are planning to. We want to export and if suddenly China and Europe have very high barriers, it would be impossible. Then you have to build the cars there. And then all cars will be more expensive, you have to invest more tooling and have every model in every country. That’s against all the logic of modern economies that trade with each other.” It seems there’s a lot of commentary about our trade policy being against all logic, and yet here we are, threatening a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and auto parts. It’s almost like logic doesn’t factor into decisions at all, but what do I know, I’m only a master of business with a degree in political science who happens to like his cars cheap and fast.

Audi CEO Arrested, Thrown in Slammer

^Criminal

The fallout from the Dieselgate scandal continues still in Germany where this week Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was arrested based on concealment of evidence relating to the defeat devices on Volkswagen Auto Group vehicles. He’s actually remaining in custody because the prosecution thinks he’s a flight risk. Audi has had to scramble to name an interim CEO while their boss remains a jailbird, but this just continues to look bad. If the CEO of one of your major brands was aware of the effort to deceive authorities, former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn is probably shaking in his boots because you can bet he knew about it too. It’s a serious problem when a culture of corruption comes straight from the top, and you would’ve thought Volkswagen had learned its very expensive lesson, but by keeping Stadler as Audi CEO this long after the scandal came to light, maybe they need a couple more billion dollar settlements before the root out all the corrupt jerks. I’ll take my settlement in the form of a V10 R8, thank you.

Teslupdate #1,000,000,000

This will again not be the week when we have no Tesla news, because there was some wild shit going on with Elon Musk’s company this week. First, the not-so-wild: tesla completed the setup of a third production line over the weekend...in their parking lot. Yes, the new line is underneath temporary tents outside because the space is needed that badly to ramp up production to meet goals. Back when the factory was a combined General Motors and Toyota venture, they managed to crank out 8,200 cars per week from the inside of the place, so if Tesla needs to move outdoors just to reach 5,000, I think you can imagine how much more complicated those production lines must be and how much more space they take up.

Amazing work by Tesla team. Built entire new general assembly line in 3 weeks w minimal resources. Love u guys so much! Pic of 1st Model 3 dual motor performance coming off the line … pic.twitter.com/Xr55P3fmGd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2018

Next came some serious shade thrown from General Motors. Actress Mary McCormack who you may remember from some sort of television shows somewhere, tweeted out a video of her husband’s Tesla Model S, which apparently just started catching fire while he was driving it and burst into flames in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard. Tesla has no idea what happened or why, but GM jumped at the opportunity, offering the actress a free Chevy Bolt as a more dependable loaner car. Nicely done, GM communications guy Ray Wert.

Okay now we get to the crazy shit - on Sunday, Elon Musk sent out an email accusing a former employee of sabotage and intellectual property theft, as well as leaking sensitive information to third parties and the press. He followed that email up with another about someone potentially trying to sabotage a production line by starting a fire. Then on Tuesday Tesla filed a lawsuit against a former employee for allegedly having stolen confidential information and making false claims to the media. Then on Thursday, someone claiming to be a friend of Martin Tripp, the guy Tesla sued, called the Gigafactory to warn that Tripp was coming in to shoot up the place, causing a minor panic and for beefed up security until the county sheriff found there was no credibility to the threat. Then AFTER THAT, Tripp posted to Twitter an email exchange that he had with Musk about the lawsuit wherein they both called each other horrible human beings and generally behaved like children.

We’re not yet sure if the Sunday email and Tuesday lawsuit are connected, but if not, that means there are several people trying their darndest to mess up Elon’s life. And jeez, people if you like constant dramabombs being dropped, no need to watch daytime television, just follow Elon Musk on Twitter. This is ridiculous.

J.D. Power Initial Quality Honors Hyundai

The annual list of J.D. Power rankings for initial quality were released this week and, if you’ve been listening to this show and looking at their recent cars, you won’t be surprised to learn that Genesis, Kia and Hyundai are the top three brands. All of them being owned by Hyundai. Even Porsche comes in at just fourth spot and Ford in a somewhat unbelievable fifth. The trick is, the initial power rankings count the number of problems experienced per hundred vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership. If things are going wrong within 90 days, that’s generally not a great sign for future reliability, but certainly not a sign that cars with good initial quality will last longer, as may be the case with Ford. They also don’t measure the severity of problems, so a busted transmission is effectively the same weight as a windshield wiper motor squeaking, which is pretty misleading. Furthermore, as I’ve discussed before, automakers pay JD Power for the right to use their awards in marketing materials, so these sort of non-firsthand user reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, Hyundai definitely deserves a look as they do make some pretty nice cars. Just, as with everything else, QUESTION EVERYTHING.

RC-6 Corvette

While I’ve never driven one, It’s my understanding that Corvettes are very fun cars to drive. But in the Netherlands, where people decided they’d rather have land where the sea was so they built a complex series of windmills to drive the sea back into the ocean, one man has gone and made his Corvette a bit more complex as well. Specifically, he modified his C6 Corvette to be remote controlled. We’ve seen full-sized R/C cars before, but doing so to a Corvette is an entirely different scale; one that cost about $4,000. It’s honestly really impressive that someone could pull this off, but I still think I’d rather be behind the wheel of that V8 rather than just puttering it around a parking lot. But that’s the Dutch for you - defying convention, and the ocean.

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Header image: When your GTI is the least athletic member of your automotive family tree.

Tesla Troubles

Tesla: the company that generates more headlines and top stories than actual motor vehicles despite claiming to be a car company. Last time I covered the company, major shareholders had just approved a super unbelievable compensation package for CEO Elon Musk tied to the company’s total market value, rather than to numbers of vehicles produced or Model 3 orders satisfied or JD Power scores or any number of other metrics by which a car company may actually be adjudged to be a success. Just like in Ford’s case earlier, Tesla’s sole focus is on pleasing shareholders, and it really shows.

The problem for Elon and Tesla is, the hype machine eventually runs out of gas and the company valued more highly than Ford, GM, Fiat Chrysler or any number of actual car companies, will have to face the music eventually for perpetually failing to meet the goals it outlines for itself. And that’s a problem when you consistently set outrageous goals that artificially inflate your stock price. That “face the music” time may be coming soon, because there have been several issues in the past few weeks that deserve mention.

Photo by Jesse Gary, KTVU

First, another fatality. This is Tesla’s third in which Autopilot was engaged when the death occurred, and the preliminary investigation by a law firm representing the deceased’s family has decided that Tesla’s Autopilot misread lanes in the road and drove the man straight into a median, where the car burst into flames and killed the driver. Tesla insists that the crash is the driver’s fault because its system isn’t perfect and requires drivers to pay attention to the road ahead and provide input when prompted, which the driver apparently was and ignored. The National Transportation Safety Board admonished Tesla for releasing details about the crash before its investigation was complete and kicked them out of their investigation process. And yes, this is the second story in a row that involves someone dying because a technology company deployed a system to the public before it was ready.

Simultaneously, Telsa was busy recalling 123,000 early Model Ss because of power steering bolt failures that would render the car still driveable, but requiring considerably more effort. While it’s hardly a rare thing for a car company to issue a recall, its coinciding with reports about the Model 3 needing considerable rework after coming off the assembly line paints a poor picture of the company’s quality control.

Speaking of the Model 3, production has been shut down twice so far this year to address bottlenecks preventing the factory from meeting production goals. In their Q1 investor call, Tesla reported 2,000 Model 3s rolling off the line in the last week before the earnings call, which represents a significant jump over the 1,200 observed in the weeks prior, but remains 20% short of the 2,500 goal Elon set for the company in January. In response to inquiries about the delays, Musk declared that there were no delays, but that deliveries were just experiencing a “Time Shift,” which is basically a way of invoking quantum leap doctor who bullshit to try to explain away your company’s failure. And remember, the 2,500 goal was the re-forecast of a re-forecasted forecast. In addition to the shutdowns to improve efficiencies, Tesla is adding a third shift to their Fremont factory, meaning cars will be produced 24/7 in order to start reaching production goals more effectively.

Of course, another shift means a greater potential for labor issues and Tesla has had plenty of those recently, with the Center for Investigative Reporting, uh, reporting that Tesla has been under reporting worker injuries on legally-mandated reports to make the company’s safety record appear better than it is. The center’s magazine, Reveal, interviewed more than three dozen current and former employees, including ex-safety personnel and have previously been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes for the quality and reliability of their reporting. Tesla’s response? Lies. All lies! In fact, the Center is an extremist organization and pawn being used by the United Auto Workers union to try to influence workers into joining, which Tesla is known to be against, having reportedly fired 700 workers for their pro-union sentiments last fall.

And this is only one salvo in the many Tesla or Musk have launched at news outlets for accurately reporting the news. A recent Economist article suggesting Tesla would need to raise $2.5 to $3 billion this year to meet production goals prompted a tweet from Musk calling the Economist boring and replying that the company would be profitable in the second half of this year, a claim viewed as dubious by many actual economists who sort of know what they’re doing unlike a certain someone.

As a result of all of these issues, Tesla’s stock value has been dropping. And although he claims that he’d forego a salary in order to see the company thrive, it’s not hard to see how a $52 billion carrot dangling in front of you might motivate you to work towards it. The problem is, when your success metric is as squishy as shareholder value, which is based on perception, rather than substance, your focus is not on safety, or fair worker representation or quality, or or even human life. It’s based on what people think of you and your future potential, and all the talking in the world isn’t going to matter if you can’t do the walking, and right now, Tesla is still at a crawl.

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines for the Week of March 19th, 2018

List time!

Do you like lists? Well we got some lists this week, starting with Consumer Reports, who, uh, reported on the ten new cars most likely to last longer than 200,000 miles. This is, of course, not based on any sort of long-term testing since they're new cars, but rather based on expectations set by old versions of the cars. As you'd expect, the list is entirely comprised of Hondas and Toyotas, with the sole non-Honda/Toyota being the Ford F-150.
Another list we got was from Edmunds of their vehicle brands with the most and least loyal buyers. So did the likelihood that cars will last longer than 200,000 miles correlate with higher brand loyalty? Yep. Toyota and Honda were first and third, with only Subaru coming between them. Also in the top ten non-luxury brands were Ram, Chevy, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, Ford and Mazda. Jeep just missed out on the top ten, ranking that high probably only due to the popularity of the Wrangler. At the bottom? You guessed it. Dodge, Chrysler and Fiat.

Ford’s Future Sees Several SUVs

Remember the first generation Ford Explorer? The one that had the exploding Wilderness AT tires that caused them to flip over and kill people? Well, one of the reasons that story was news was because SUVs were relatively new and the high center of gravity exacerbated the likelihood of the vehicle flipping in an accident. From that Explorer, we got tougher safety rules for tires, for roof rigidity and for rollover resistance. But what we also got were a whole slew of other SUVs that followed Ford's recipe of building large vehicles built primarily for on-road use. It's surprising then, that one of the pioneers of the SUV movement has fallen so far behind its competitors as the SUV craze heats up again. Ford's existing Escape, Edge, Explorer and Expedition are fine, but don't particularly stand out in an increasingly crowded field.

So Ford is taking action as we've discussed recently, coming out with a new Bronco and now a baby Bronco that promise off-road prowess to those seeking it, while ST versions of most models will inject some sportiness where there currently really isn't any. While other brands go upmarket, Ford is looking to expand to performance niches, which should be attractive to enthusiasts. But Ford also announced this week that it's entering a three year partnership with Indian manufacturer Mahindra to develop some small cars, but interestingly, an electric SUV. Apparently Mahindra will supply the body of the vehicle with the technology that goes inside coming from Ford, who only have a few forays into the electric vehicle realm currently. Its interesting that Ford wouldn't want to use any of their existing platforms for such a development, but perhaps Mahindra just has a chassis that caters particularly well to electrification. In any case, these cross-company collaborations are becoming increasingly common as brands look to reduce costs and expand into new markets.

Musk Makes Mad Money

Despite not accepting a paycheck for his work at Tesla, the company's board and shareholders have generously decided to force one upon him, assuming he meets specific goals related to the company's value in the stock market. The company is currently valued at $56 billion and the bonuses for performance kick in once the company hits $100 billion. If the company becomes one of the highest valued in the world at $650 billion, Musk would earn an incredible $55 billion for himself. As is, he'll have to be content with his paltry $2.6 billion in company stock, which in addition to his existing $20 billion net worth, will probably be enough to keep him warm at night. This comes despite the fact that, yet again, the company is likely going to miss its production targets for Q1 for the Model 3, which still has around 450,000 outstanding orders yet to be filled.

Shareholders and the board also don't seem upset by the fact that many of the new cars coming off the assembly line have to go directly to reworking facilities because the part quality, fit and finish are so poor. Nor does it bug them that things are taking so long because much of the cars are being hand-built while the robots that are supposed to be making them just sort of hang out in Germany. Also not phasing them is the fact that Tesla fired 700 employees in October or the fact that the United Auto Workers union is getting increasingly aggressive with its activities around the Fremont, California facility. Nope, none of this matters because they say that they see a bigger opportunity for long-term value through energy capture, storage and use. Well, unfortunately for them, they're not the only company working in each of those areas, and they certainly aren't the company with the best product in any of them. And in the interest of full disclosure, I do work for a company that produces an energy storage system similar to Tesla's, so I do have an idea of what the competitive marketplace looks like.

LSEV EV is 3DP

It was inevitable. After we heard about Porsche and Bugatti 3D printing parts for their vehicles to improve performance and reduce cost, it was only a matter of time before we saw an entire car made by a 3D printer. Well, that day is today because Chinese company Polymaker has worked with Italian manufacturer X Electrical Vehicle to produce the LSEV, which is almost entirely 3D printed. Obviously things like the chassis, tires and windshield could not be printed for safety reasons, but that's apparently about it in terms of other parts produced normally. They say they've also been able to reduce the amount of plastic parts in the car from 2,000 (which is typical in conventionally produced vehicles) to just 57. Imagine driving a car with just 57 plastic panels on it! Of course this comes at a cost, which is performance. It has just 93 miles of range and only drives 47 miles per hour, making it mildly more effective than a golf cart, which honestly probably has even fewer plastic panels and apparently fewer is better?

Nissan’s Electrified Future

Nissan announced this week a new initiative called M.O.V.E., which is an acronym for "Mobility, Operational Excellence, Value to Customers and Electrification," and which aims to sell a million electrified vehicles by 2022. Of course, "electrified" can mean hybrid or plug-in and not necessarily true electric vehicles, so perhaps the goal isn't that ambitious, but another part of the plan is for 20 models to have autonomous technology. As part of this, they announced the forthcoming Altima would be the third Nissan vehicle to get their Pro Pilot autonomous system, which is pretty basic so far. And that's probably a good thing, given the week autonomous vehicles have had.

Accord to Cheap Out to Sell Out

Fresh off a redesign that has it looking uglier in almost every respect than its previous generation, the Honda Accord now features a hybrid model that uses the company's tried and true system of pairing a 143-horsepower four cylinder with a 181-horsepower electric motor to somehow combine and create only 212 horsepower. Impressively, the trunk space isn't hindered at all by the battery, which probably means there's no spare tire. Also impressive is the fact that the new Accord Hybrid costs a whopping $4,000 less than the outgoing one. The reasons for this, to me, are many. First, the new hybrid is actually less efficient than the old hybrid, averaging just 47 MPG in the city. Second, just look at it, with its awkward chrome unibrow-looking front end and Volvo knock-off rear with its incomplete styling lines and random chrome. It's an ugly car. I used to really like the Accord, but this really changes all that. Also, sedan sales are dropping like a stone and the Accord, usually a best seller in this class, is stagnating on dealer lots. As of the beginning of this month, dealers averaged a 103-day supply of Accords, which are normally so in-demand they can be hard to find. The problem is so bad that some dealers have canceled orders for new Accords and others are asking Honda to come up with some generous incentives for leases just to get them out of their inventories. And it's still not a bad car, it's winning acclaim for its performance from many news outlets. But man, just look at it! I suspect many buyers are, and that's the reason they're still sitting on the lot.

Viper Factory’s Future Features Past

When the production of the Dodge Viper ceased last year, Detroit lost a factory (again) and gained an empty building (again). Fortunately, Fiat Chrysler have come up with some plans to not just let the structure languish and decay the way so many other factories have in the motor city. Instead, the building will be remodeled to become a museum for historic Chrysler and Fiat vehicles in North America. It will be renamed the Connor Center and become home to 85 of the company's 400 or so historic cars, but for reasons unknown to me, it will not initially be open to the public. If I were Chrysler, and thank god I'm not because I can't stomach another breakdown, I'd be out there every day imploring the public to remember that we once made some cars that some consider historic. Basically anything to distract from the current fleet's J.D. Power and Consumer Reports scores.

Design Finally Trending the Right Direction

When you think of over-designed cars, the first thing that has to come to mind is the current Honda Civic. It's just vile in its ostentatious, look-at-me boy-racer styling, but it's far from the only guilty party. The new Lexus style is fairly polarizing and the Germans have been guilty of applying 15 feet of styling to a 12 foot car recently as well. But, at least in the latter's case, that's set to change with upcoming models, as both BMW and Mercedes have announced plans to tone down their looks and bring styling back to a simple, understated elegance. Honestly, it's what I like most about German cars and part of the reason I bought the GTI. For the price, for the performance, it was the least shouty choice and the silver paint really made the few styling lines on it pop in a way that I thought was really clean looking. Whereas with recent Mercedes and BMW vehicles, intersecting styling lines have tended to create design clash instead of flow, new models will emphasize sleekness. Audi has been doing this for years, but their downfall is that, in creating a minimalist design, they have minimized the differences in all of their vehicles, making them virtually indistinguishable from one another. 

Driving Test Involves Not Much Driving

Photo by Buffalo Police Department

Things didn't go too well for a 17 year-old in Buffalo, Minnesota on Tuesday, when she went to take her driver's test. Parked right out front of the exam office, the teen fired up the vehicle, which is apparently the only part of the test she got right, then shifted into drive, stomped on the gas instead of the brake and launched her Chevy Equinox straight through the front of the office. Fortunately, nobody was inside and the teen wasn't hurt, but the 60 year-old examiner in the car with her had to be hospitalized for non-life-threatening injuries. While no charges will be filed against her for the mistake, I am pretty sure her classmates will sentence her to life without forgetting what she's done.

Stig’s Strange Speed Stunt

Photo by Guiness World Records

Last week it was lawn mowers, this week, tractors, as Top Gear's Stig has set a new Guinness World Record for fastest modified tractor. As a stunt for this weekend's episode, the bright orange rig with a ridiculous wing on the back hit 87.27 miles per hour after two runs were averaged. For a 5.7 litre 507 horsepower Chevy V8, that isn't very fast at all, but for the Stig, in a tractor with open sides, I bet it felt pretty damn quick. Some say, he moonlights as a scarecrow.

Bike Breaks, Brings Brown Boxers

In other speed-related news, things didn't go quite to plan for Valerie Thompson this week at the World Speed Trials in Australia, which takes place on a salt flat that I didn't know existed outside of Bonneville. While attempting to break her 304 mile per hour record on a custom motorcycle, Valerie's bike...experienced trouble...causing the bike to lay down and slide for about a mile, shedding bits of itself along the way as it came to a stop and leaving a bright red stripe across Australia. Fortunately, Valerie is okay and she did manage to hit 328 miles per hour before the problem started. The bike, however, needs some serious work. Experiencing technical difficulties is never fun, but I can't imagine a more pants shitting moment than technical difficulties occuring above 300 miles per hour on two wheels.

McLaren Finds Friends with Flops

McLaren may not have had much luck with Formula 1 last year since they used Honda's shitty, under-powered, unreliable motors, but they haven't lost their sense of humor. Since now all Formula 1 vehicles will be fitted with the so-called "Halo" to prevent drivers' heads being taken off by flying debris or, indeed flying other vehicles, that means there's a new hashtag branding opportunity for companies constantly seeking for a way to make the most expensive motor sport cheaper. Some have accurately noticed that the halo device looks less like a halo and more like the straps of flip flops or, if you live in Australia, thongs. So who better to sponsor the halo than a flip flop company? McLaren has brought on Gandys, a British lifestyle brand who are, fittingly, launching a McLaren-inspired flip flop called the "halo edition," from which 100% of profits will go to the company's charity that benefits orphans in Sri Lanka. So while we'll wait to see if this season has a happier ending for McLaren, we should all go out and buy some F1 flip flops and give some orphans happy endings a little sooner.

Philippines Phlatens Phat Rides

If you're familiar with Rodrigo Duterte, this next story is probably going to seem pretty tame by his standards. After all, he operates death squads that have killed a documented 1,400 drug users, petty criminals and homeless people, even children. But he is the president of the Philippines, where he rules with an iron fist and squadron of bulldozers. And I do mean literal bulldozers, which he used this week to crush 14 vehicles worth about $525,000 that were illegally imported into the country. The cars included Mercedes, Porsches and Maseratis and the show was broadcast for the entire country to see, apparently as a confirmation of the Duterte's commitment to build a country free from the shackles of corruption. There's more work to do as apparently there are almost 1,000 other smuggled vehicles on the docket for destruction. As much as I don't want to see Lamborghinis, Aston Martins and others impounded and then crushed in a reality show kind of way, I suppose it's worth it if it takes Duterte's mind off of killing the children of drug addicts.

Highway to Hellcat

A Wisconsin man apparently out to prove the unsuitability of the Dodge Challenger Hellcat was arrested on Tuesday for driving 140 miles per hour on an Indiana Toll Road. If you're thinking, "how the hell did the cops catch a 707 horsepower muscle car?" Well it's not because he crashed, it's because he got caught behind everyone's favorite rolling roadblock; two semis driving side-by-side without passing each other. This may have been the only occasion that that happening was actually a good thing. When asked for an explanation why he was driving at twice the speed limit on an interstate, the driver just said he was trying to get to Maryland. Because there can't possibly be faster ways to get there than by endangering hundreds of people on public roads with a drag race car with shitty suspension.

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines for the Week of March 12th, 2018

How’s that Ramp Up Going, Elon?

If you’re hoping, as I do, that every time Elon Musk and Tesla revise their output schedules that this will surely be the time they get it figured out and it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out, you’re not going to enjoy this next story. Tesla had to completely shut down its Fremont, California manufacturing plant for a week last month to fix issues and bottlenecks related to the production of their Model 3 sedan. According to workers inside the factory, a staggering 40% of parts for vehicles were not suitable for use on cars, requiring extensive reworking or re-manufacturing, which are apparently different things. Reworking involves taking a new part and fixing it to be up to a certain standard, while re-manufacturing takes used parts and fixes them up to be new-looking again. Tesla insists they don’t put re-manufactured parts on cars, but if almost half of parts require reworking, and they’re still putting out cars with irregular panel gaps that command comparisons to 90's Kias, you can call it “re-wizarding,” but it’s still not a good thing.

Trump Strikes AGAIN

The President of the United States has a habit of weighing in on things in a…unique way, and last week, when discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and how horrible it is, cited a practice that is either so top secret that no auto industry professional in the world has ever heard of it, or is completely made up. Here are Trump’s exact comments: “It’s the bowling ball test. They take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and drop it on the hood of the car. If the hood dents, the car doesn’t qualify. It’s horrible.” What!? What car could possibly pass this test!? After thoroughly baffling the automotive media for a while and offering no explanation for his comments, an astute reader of the Washington Post’s coverage of the story suggested in the comments that perhaps he was referring to a test where Japanese safety officials test pedestrian safety by shooting dummy heads at car hoods to determine how damaged a head might be if it made contact with a car. Perhaps someone explained this with a bowling ball analogy, which could account for some of the misunderstanding, but the part about a car failing if it dents is still completely out of left field. In any case, it’s a test Japan applies to all cars, not just imports to keep them out of the country, so to use it as a sort of argument against the Trans-Pacific Partnership was always a stretch but, when it comes to politics these days, sense and logic doesn’t really apply anymore anyway.

Green with Envy, Yellow with Value

When I chose the gorgeous Reflex Silver color for my GTI, resale value didn’t really factor into my decision; I just liked it more than all the other options available. But apparently people do choose white, silver and black because those sort of “neutral” colors are more universally liked and the theory goes makes your car more desirable secondhand. Well, turns out that’s bogus because a new study by used car search engine ISeeCars.com has revealed that the car color with the lowest depreciation rate was, in fact, yellow, depreciating an average of 27 percent in the first three years of ownership. Also above average were green and orange, going to show that safe colors really aren’t that safe. But that’s not to say all wild colors are helpful. Some of the worst performing colors were beige, gold and purple. The purple car that immediately jumps to mind is the Chrysler PT Cruiser, which immediately makes sense why it would be one of the worst cars for keeping its value.

Lamborghini Says, "Damn the Fuel Economy Standards!"

Speaking of yellow cars that don’t depreciate much, Lamborghini was in the news this week for comments made by the company’s chief technical officer, Maurizio Reggiani. He indicated that, while other companies like Ferrari are moving to a V-8 or V-6 turbo hybrid in their future cars, Lamborghini has no intention to stop making their V-10s like that which powers the Huracan today. I love this quote from him: “My question is, why do I need to do something different? If I trust in the naturally aspirated engine, why do I need to downgrade my power train to a V-8 or V-6? I am Lamborghini, I am the top of the pinnacle of the super sports car. I want to stay where I am.” You do you, Lamborghini, and we will love you always for it.

GM Wants to Rent Your Car

With the launch of its Maven service in several US Cities, General Motors joined the ranks of the ride-sharing businesses, but using new cars put into circulation by General Motors themselves. Starting this summer, GM will begin a pilot program, expanding vehicle availability to personal cars if owners are willing to put their vehicles up for rent. This equates to a sort of Air BnB on wheels, which actually already exists with services like Turo, which I did not previously know about. But this being a GM venture, it has some extra benefits, like Maven offering liability insurance for GM vehicle buyers who choose to take part in the plan. Given how people generally treat their rental cars, I can’t imagine there would be a whole lot of interest in pimping out your ride, but if you need some extra money, maybe it’ll catch on with the likes of people who see their cars as appliances.

Arlington 86s its Buses

In other ride sharing news, Arlington, Texas has done away with its public transportation, which apparently was lacking anyway. Instead of buses and routes, the city has launched Arlington Via, which features Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans that can be hailed via an app or phone number and will come around and pick you up and take you to your destination. If this sounds a lot like Uber or Lyft, you’re totally right, except that it’s publicly subsidized, so trips are only $3 or you can buy a week pass for $10, which is crazy cheap! For about $40 a month, you can basically have your own driver that you occasionally have to share with other passengers. Mark my words, smart people will use and abuse the hell out of this system and it will be fantastic until the city realizes what a massive loss it is and discontinues it after its one year contract is up. I would absolutely be doing that if such a service were available here. It’s less than the monthly payment on any car! And you don’t have to drive in traffic!

Toyota Bolsters Avis’ Connected Fleet

Finally in rental car news, Toyota has signed a multi-year deal with Avis Budget Group that will supply 10,000 connected cars to Avis to “help streamline the customer rental experience.” It’ll basically help provide real-time location, odometer, fuel level and other information without the need for attendants to go check the cars manually, which would honestly be pretty handy if you’re running late for a flight and just needed your receipt so the accounting department doesn’t crucify you when you get back to work. It’s not very exciting and it seems like something that should’ve been accomplished years ago, but I guess we should just be happy with progress when we get it.

Buick’s Naming Crap Continues to Confound

Last you heard of Buick, they were prohibiting the use of the word wagon when mentioning their new Regal TourX, insisting it was a crossover. Well, starting next year, they will begin forcing drivers of all their new vehicles to insist that their car is indeed a Buick when asked by incredulous friends as happens all the time because their commercials are so reflective of real life. That’s because Buick is removing the “Buick” lettering from the back of its vehicles in the same way that BMW and Mercedes-Benz don’t actually say “BMW” and “Mercedes-Benz” on the back because people just know what the propeller circle and tri-star signify. Buick has the audacity to think that buyers most definitely know that the tri-shield badge means that a vehicle is the Buick. And while, sure, loyal listeners of my show may know that, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to suggest everyone does. But you know, good luck to Buick, who sold 4.5% fewer cars in America in 2017 than they did in 2016, which is also half the number of vehicles they sold in 2002. You’re probably doing just fine.

Elsa Lets the Boston Police Go

Video from Time

In South Boston this week, for the first time in, well, a week, the city got 16 inches of snow, which trapped a Boston Police van. Normally this type of story wouldn’t make the news, but the van was freed by none other than Elsa from Disney’s Frozen. A man dressed as the ice princess approached the beached van and asked the drivers if they wanted to build a snow ramp. She dutifully guided them as they rocked the van out of its spot and pushed until the vehicle was clear of the snow and then let it go. Turns out the cold never bothered her anyway. And that’s enough Frozen jokes.

New Cars

Baby Bronco and Mustang GT500

Ford made a big splash this week, announcing plans to refresh 75% of its lineup by 2020, which is good because, honestly, it needs the help. Where’s it making the biggest investment? Predictably, in vehicles that sell like hotcakes, namely SUVs, where the brand’s existing models are pretty long in the tooth. But we’re not just talking about the Escape, Edge and Explorer, all of which will get new versions, which include ST trim models that up the performance factor a bit. We already knew a new Bronco is coming and, although we haven’t seen it yet, Ford announced that they would have a smaller off-road-focused SUV that would be coming out to slot in below the revival of the bucking horse truck. We don’t really have any details on it, but the speculation is that it’ll give the Wrangler a run for its money in performance if maybe not in the customization sector. They also teased a photo of the new Shelby Mustang GT500, which can obviously only be a good thing. As we see automakers continue to churn out compact crossovers, it’s honestly great to see Ford say, “Yeah, but how about a Wrangler alternative and an even faster Mustang?” The market may not be demanding the most exciting vehicles, but at least automakers still have some people working there that want to inject the fun into cars to satisfy those of us in the so-called niche markets.

Audis for Everybody

If you like Audis, then screw the year of the truck, this is the year of the four rings for you. The company shared this week that they expect sales and deliveries of new cars to be pretty poor this year because they’re basically going to spend the entire next eight and a half months dropping new cars on us. They say there will be over 20 redesigned and new models launched this year, including the launch of several all electric models like the E-Tron crossover and E-Tron GT, a sedan. There will also be redesigned versions of most of the rest of Audi’s lineup, and the rate of unveiling means we’ll see a new car from them just about every three weeks, which is crazy ridiculous! But then again, when you think about Audi’s styling and realize they just stick an existing car in a copier and change the magnification level and hit “print,” maybe it’s not that outrageous to have so many cars coming out at once. Especially when Audi apparently achieved a billion Euro cost reduction last year by reducing research & development. Be prepared for a new generation of, “Oh, that’s a nice A-6. Er, A-4? Ach S-8!”

VW is S.O.L with New Names

Meanwhile at parent company Volkswagen, the Germans apparently had to come up with a new name for the electric vehicle brand they are preparing to launch in China with partner company JAC because they were not allowed to use the Chinese name for SEAT. Instead, they have chosen SOL, in all caps, which of course is Spanish for “sun,” conjuring images of a bright, shiny all electric future. Or, if you’re the type of person who uses acronyms, the capital letters S-O-L means “Shit Outta Luck,” which is just as well because the first car of the joint venture is a re-badged JAC vehicle that boosts just 114 horsepower and a top speed of 80 miles per hour. So, sorry, China, if you were hoping for a better electric vehicle to come from the partnership. I guess you’re, well, you know.

Lexus RC Black

It’s been at least a few weeks since our last black edition of any car, so we were about due for one. This time it’s Lexus, who is creating only 650 versions of their RC F Sport Black Line. The trick is, it’s not actually a trim available for the RC F. Just the RC 300 and 350. So not the V-8, just the V-6 and I-4 models, which, to me, causes it to lose a bit of the sinister element to it. What’s the Black Line version get you? More black. Just like in every black version of any car. Can this trend stop now?

Also from Lexus, they are launching the Sport Yacht concept, which is not a tongue-in-cheek concept car that plays on large sedans being referred to as land yachts. It is actually a yacht. It started as a fun concept from Toyota Marine Division, a 42-foot ship that features two Lexus 5-liter V-8 engines cranking out 885 horsepower and an almighty sound. The concept was never intended for production apparently, but after being handed the “Boat of the Year” award at the Japan International Boat Show, Toyota has had a sit down and think and decided that, yes, it would like to make more money from rich people and will actually build the boat and offer it for sale worldwide. Not just that, but they’re planning on a 65-foot version that can entertain up to 15 guests, because rich people love offering people a ride in their Lexus only to pull up in their Maserati and say, “Ha, silly, my Lexus is docked!”

Hyundai Kite Concept

Hyundai is also going nautical with their Kite concept, which debuted at the Geneva show two weeks ago but didn’t quite make it into my rap-up. It’s a sort of light weight dune buggy thing that was designed by 15 students as part of their Master in Transportation Design program at the Instituto Europeo di Design. The wild thing is, it can be transformed into a single seat jet ski, and who doesn’t want that! Granted, the utility of this thing is somewhat questionable. A dune buggy isn’t exactly practical for a daily commute and the number of times I have been flying over dunes only to arrive at a sudden ocean or lake and wished I could suddenly have a jet ski are relatively few. But you have to celebrate thinking outside the box, and this is most definitely that.

Honda Mean Mower Mk.2

Honda, it seems, is getting tired of being asked when they’re going to bring back the S2000 or some other affordable sports car now that their NSX has pushed decidedly upmarket. Instead of replying simply “never,” they’ve resorted to the tried and true internet tradition of trolling their fans. Instead of coming out with a fun sports car with 189 horsepower that will hit 134 miles per hour, Honda this week unveiled the Mean Mower Mk.2, a riding lawn mower with the engine from one of their 1,000 CC Fireblade motorbikes because why make a fun car when you can make a fun lawnmower instead? This isn’t the first time Honda has done this, having put a V-twin from a previous Fireblade into an older riding mower and achieving some impressive numbers. This second generation takes it up a notch, just as it takes up the trolling. Honda knows how to have fun. They’re just not going to go out of their way to help us have any. But hey, keep having your engineers work on pointless shit, Honda. And maybe give your designers the day off so we can have a Civic that doesn’t look like an origami spaceship.

Obituaries

Lincoln Continental

R.I.P

We heard some rumors last week that Ford is planning on canceling the Lincoln Continental after just one new generation of the car they allegedly spent $1 billion to resurrect, which seems like a ridiculous waste of money. That said, last year, they barely sold 12,000 examples, which pales in comparison to the 52,000 Mercedes-Benz E-classes or the nearly 41,000 BMW 5-Series cars of similar size and fanciness that were sold last year. When it debuted, the Continental was mocked for being a knock-off Bentley in its styling, but I guess not that many people are interested in driving Bentley knock-offs? This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but with sales that low and sales of sedans in general tanking like the Miami Marlins, it’s a safe bet that Ford might want to cut its losses. 

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Headlines for the Week of March 5th, 2018

The Year of the ...Truck?

After a wild Detroit Auto Show when all three big American brands showed off their fancy, shiny new pickups, and on the heels of a market clamoring for bigger, butcher, gas-guzzlier vehicles, 2018 was decreed the year of the truck. So how are we looking two months in? Like maybe declaring what year this was in January was a little premature. Pickup sales were down a whopping 15% in February over 2017, which itself was not a great year for motor vehicle sales. Analysts are chalking it up to a “continued softening of the market,” which is a polite way of saying nobody is really buying cars right now. I think the best way to drive sales though, is to probably start accusing buyers of softening the market, to which all the super insecure guys will probably respond “No, you're a soft market! I'm hard all the time. Gimme that truck!"

Detroit Auto Show to Move to Fall

Speaking of the Detroit Auto Show, it usually kicks off the year every January, a time where it has to compete for attention with the Consumer Electronics Show, which is increasingly a car show as cars are increasingly consumer electronics. The idea has apparently been presented to move the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to October, when there’s less competition and the weather isn’t so shitty in Michigan and carmakers can do some things outside of Cobo Hall. The problem is, the show takes a whopping three months to set up, and there are events in the hall during those months, so the show would have to scale back on the extravagance or find another time altogether. Given that automakers have started sitting out some shows, and many didn’t come or brought a reduced presence to Detroit this year, not to mention the political pressure a trade war might bring, moving might not be the answer to the Detroit Show’s problems. 

Michigan Forgives Where Illinois Doesn’t

Also in Michigan, the state has forgiven $637 million in fees owed by drivers so the people in debt can get their licenses back. Those extra fees were a part of a scheme from the governor in 2003 to plug a budget hole by tacking on extra fees for traffic tickets committed by people with more than 7 points on their licenses. Of course, it’s not good to get any points, and perhaps if you’re such a bad driver that you rack up so many citations that your license gets revoked, maybe you shouldn’t get it back. But your tickets shouldn’t drive you into poverty such that you can’t afford to get it back. There are some stipulations regarding who can get their licenses back when, but most of the fees are being waived as long as drivers do it quickly. How many people are we talking? About 300,000 people have had their licenses suspended because of unpaid fees. That’s about half the population of the city of Detroit. To their credit, Michigan saw the error of their ways, unlike Illinois, but I can’t imagine I’d be too happy with them if I’ve had my license suspended for the past 15 freaking years, forgiveness or not.

Tesla Fined for Pollution

Tesla, makers of the clean-running, no carbon emissions electric cars for rich people, have been fined for air pollution. Specifically related to the excess nitrogen oxide pollution from the company’s Fremont manufacturing facility, not from the vehicles themselves. Tesla says the emissions were the result of some malfunctioning equipment that has since been resolved, but nevertheless, they have settled the case with California, part of which entails the installation of solar panels on the roof to further drive down the facility’s dependence on fossil fuels. As far as fines go, $140K and a promise to be more energy independent are getting off pretty easy.

Goodyear’s Green Tires

Goodyear is also getting in on the green bandwagon and has unveiled some new tires that are truly ridiculous and have no hope of ever seeing production, but are a neat idea and interesting to look at nonetheless. Basically, it’s an airless tire, which we’ve seen many concepts of previously, made of recycled tires, that features a healthy moss growing between its rigid rubber structures. The moss takes carbon dioxide and generates oxygen from it, and the moss is fed water by the tire, which soaks up some moisture and routes it to the plant. They said it could take as much as 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide out of the air and add as much as 3,000 tons of oxygen. That is, if everyone in a city the size of Paris wanted to drive around with fuzzy green wheels on our cars, which I’m not entirely against! Goodyear also showed off some new tires specifically designed for EVs since apparently traditional tires wear out 30% faster on electric vehicles because of both the weight and force of instant torque just shredding rubber. The new design has a bigger contact patch with the road for more grip and also generates less noise, which is great because EVs are already so quiet, tires do tend to be the loudest thing on them apart from wind, which I doubt Goodyear can do much about. These will be on the road in Europe next year, and they feature a light baby blue paint because that somehow became the official color of hybrids and efficiency.

Ride Hailing Wages In Dispute

A study released by MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research or, as nobody calls it, CEEPR, compared a survey of 1,100 drivers for Uber and Lyft with what they called “detailed vehicle cost information” and found that the median profit for drivers came out to around $3.37 per hour before taxes. It said that as many as 74% of drivers are earning less than the minimum wage their states mandated, all of which means that most people driving for these ride hailing services would be living in poverty. Uber and Lyft were quick to dismiss the study as using shoddy and/or inconsistent data and much of it was self-reported by drivers, who are incentivized to paint a bleak picture of their earnings so the companies will raise their pay rate. The disputes were so strong that one of the paper’s lead authors actually came out and said that he agreed that some of the information could be misleading and that they’d rerun the numbers to try to improve the validity of the study. Either way, ride hailing drivers probably don’t make too much money and MIT students probably don’t have enough oversight in their research.

Audi Debuts (Not Terrible) Flying Car Concept

Flying cars. We’ve all been here before, but Audi has partnered with Airbus and Italdesign to unveil a concept that’s actually not too incredibly terrible. Instead of the tried and dumb design of a car-and-plane-in-one package that is what we commonly think of as a flying car, the Pop.Up Next concept utilizes a three-part system comprised of a passenger pod, a skateboard-like road-going electric vehicle platform that the pod can sit on, and an eight-rotor quad copter-like flying unit that the pod can hang from. The concept video, which looks really neat, shows that Audi knows that only super duper rich white people are going to use this thing, and it’s designed as a sort of taxicab supplement, where you can hop in a pod with the flying unit attached once you get out of your first class or chartered flight, then fly across the city to a lot where the skateboard-EV units are located and the flying unit will land your pod on the wheeled vehicle, sending you on your way to your final destination while the flying pod autonomously flies back to the airport or to a charging station somewhere.

As far as flying car concepts go, this is one of the most well thought out versions, but there are just so many hurdles to get over before these things can ever actually be realized. But the fact that these are fully autonomous gives this a leg up because then you don’t have to license drivers as private pilots, which, given the skill level of most drivers, always seemed like a long shot.

Anything Audi Does Dutch Can Do Better

The Dutch have come along and laughed at Audi’s pitiful attempt at a complicated-ass flying car and said, “No, you krauts, this is how we will get all the rich white peoples' money!” And they tore the cover off the Pal-V Liberty, which is also a flying car, but one of those car-and-plane-in-one package. Except it’s more of a car and a gyro copter, which permits a shorter take-off and landing, which is handy since I don’t think many people have their own runway. What’s different about this is that they say it’s fully road- and air-legal and can be purchased right now, making it what they call the world’s first production flying car. How much does the exclusivity of owning such a thing run? Well, their cheapest bargain basement Liberty Sport model, which comes with flying lessons since a pilot’s license is required, starts at just $368,000, or the price of a really quite nice, large Midwestern home. But can your home fly at 112 miles per hour and get 31 miles per gallon? I didn’t think so. Peasant. 

Renault’s EZ-Go Needs Customers to EZ-Come

Renault, meanwhile, is keeping its autonomous taxi plans completely grounded, but has also unveiled a pretty interesting concept called the EZ-GO. It’s all-electric and features level 4 autonomy as well as an interior that is basically just some benches and a lot of windows. It opens in a sort of clam shell way that would probably be terrible in rain but at least looks neat, and has a flat loading floor to haul wheelchair-bound passengers, which is a nice touch. They foresee this as a solution to ride sharing and ride hailing that cuts out the driver and use of a personal vehicle, which is to say a shared taxi, and are hoping to have operational prototypes on the road in the next four years. Parent company Nissan also owns a stake in a media company, which just so happens to be interested in providing content for passengers to view while riding in the EZ-GO. There were no suggestions on how much rides might cost, but if I’m a captive audience being forced to watch some commercials during my ride, it better be cheap or free.

Mercedes Puts Real Projectors in Your Projectors

Another neat concept shown at the Geneva Motor Show this week was Mercedes’ new projector headlight system. Now, projector headlights have been around for a long time. They use parabolic glass or plastic to project the output of your headlights further. But this is a bit different. Called the “million-pixel” headlight, these will actually project images onto the road ahead of you, warning of upcoming peril, or providing driving tips, or doing neat things like displaying the dimensions of your car to see if you’ll be able to fit in a parallel parking spot (in which, of course, the car will park for you). It can also detect faces and windshields and automatically dim pixels to not blind pedestrians or other drivers, which is a fantastic feature for all the old-ass Mercedes owners who constantly drive around with their brights on. I don’t think it will help them turn off their turn signals or stop mistaking the gas for the brake though. 

Pre-Production Honda CB750 Sets Record

Photo from AutoWeek

In motorcycle news, the Honda CB750 is one of the best selling motorcycles of all time. Well, that’s not the news, actually. It’s old news because they haven’t made the CB750 for decades. But when it came out, it was one of the first bikes to use a four cylinder motor and was pretty powerful. In fact, it’s referred to as the first Universal Japanese Motorcycle, which is sort of a term that covers a bunch of similar Japanese bikes to have similar specs and come out in the 70s and 80s. But the CB750 was the first, and at auction this week, a pre-production model from 1968 built for promotional purposes, and one of two produced prior to the model’s actual release, sold for a record of nearly $264,000. These bikes are so ubiquitous that you can head to craigslist right now and find one for around a grand, so why the markup? There’s exclusivity in being one of the first of the first of a kind.

Elon Set to Make ELOT of Money

Photo from Elon Musk's Instagram

Elon Musk has maintained that he won’t take a salary from Tesla Motors as they ramp up production and start fulfilling the 500,000 reservations for their Model 3, but two of Tesla’s largest shareholders are much more generous to the CEO than he is to himself. They have proposed a vote on a compensation package valued at $2.6 billion, which represents about 5% of Tesla’s market valuation, which some have accurately called ludicrously high. They apparently see it as a showing of support for the guy who has, in their terms, produced some pretty incredible things for the company so far, and they’re not entirely wrong. What he has also done is consistently over-promise and under-deliver while allowing some shady business practices to go unchecked and discourage unionization to protect the workers affected by the shadiness. And here I thought the secret to getting rich was under-promising and over-delivering. Turns out I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life. 

Saudi Sells Billionaire’s Blingy Rides

My house is a nice house, but it only has a two car garage, which is still more garage than many people have, but I think a prerequisite for a next house would be space for a third car. I, however, am not a Saudi billionaire, and it’s a good thing, because my garage space would not remotely be enough to accommodate the car collections of these guys. I’m speaking specifically about Maan al-Senea, who is being detained right now due to debts owed by his company, appropriately called the Saad Group. He owes as much as $16 billion to creditors and in order to pay off some of his debt, the government of Saudi Arabia is selling some of his cars. How far will that go? Well, considering he and his company have 923 vehicles licensed to them, it turns out the sales can go pretty far! I honestly don’t know how you store almost a thousand cars. But I’d sure as hell like to give it a try someday. But, you know, without the billions in debt.

New Cars

Chevy Bolt Rear Seat Delete

I drive a hatchback, which I occasionally use to haul work-related things, and it’s great because I can just fold the back seat down and throw in all my camera gear or whatever I’m toting with me on any given day. Hatchbacks are great for this, but I don’t think I’d ever really consider using one as a commercial hauling vehicle, but Chevy has decided that some people do actually think that’s a good idea, and that the best way to accomplish this is to take their all-electric Chevy Bolt and throw out its back seat, giving you plenty of space to store...whatever it is you have to take to your job site. I should caveat this by saying that you won’t actually be able to order a Chevy Bolt Rear Seat Delete (as they’re calling the package) because it’s restricted to government or fleet orders and is available as a $350 add-on. Which, when you think about it makes sense, because only the government would find it rational to pay hundreds of dollars more to get less of something.

Mahindra Roxor

If you haven’t heard of Mahindra, I don’t blame you. They’re an Indian automobile manufacturer who produces quite a few vehicles, just none of which come to the States. They’ve also had a license to produce replicas of the old Willy's Jeep for some time, and now, for the first time, they’re going to start releasing those replicas for sale in the US, and they’ll be made in Michigan! Mechanically, they are extremely similar to the old CJ-model Jeeps (before it was called the Wrangler), but it uses a unique power plant; a small diesel and manual transmission. Unfortunately, safety standards have advanced a tad since the 1940s, so while these are remarkably similar to the old models, they are most definitely not road legal. So if you’re in the market for a fun trail vehicle or a little utility all-terrain vehicle like the Polaris Ranger but want some vintage style, this thing is for you. Oh, and it’s also $15,000 so you could buy one or just buy a used Wrangler for less money and be able to drive it on the road. Your choice.

Obituaries

Volkswagen Beetle

We learned this week that the plucky Volkswagen Beetle will be discontinued after the current generation, though we don’t know when that will be. As all Volkswagens start to move over to the fabulous MQB platform, the Beetle doesn’t really fit and, as Research & Development boss Frank Welsch said, there’s only so many times you can have a “new new new new Beetle.” As it leaves, the new I.D. Buzz, the retro-futuristic electric minibus will be taking its place as the nostalgic vehicle in the VW lineup, albeit with a decidedly modern flair and probably no vase for flowers tucked into the dash.

Also last week was the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland, and I’ve talked in the last few weeks about how so many cars had been unveiled online before appearing at the actual show. It really kind of took the wind out of the sails for the whole thing, and I wasn’t expecting to have a whole lot of new material for my usual Rap-up. So instead, in last week's podcast, I put together a little diddy that sort of expresses how I feel about this year’s event. If you haven't listened already, check it out!

Authored by
Devlin Riggs

Teslupdate & Germany's "Things You Just Do Not Do"

Teslupdate (again)

Good lord was there a lot of Tesla news in the last few weeks. Looking at my browser as I wrote this, there were no fewer than sixteen tabs open. And unless you were living in self-imposed media detox, which I would completely understand given the current political climate, you probably heard about the biggest story, which was SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon Heavy. But hold on, we have some ground to cover before then.

First up, a report from CNBC indicated that Tesla was having employees hand-assemble the battery packs to be used in the Model 3s while the machines that were meant to produce them were still being built. As part of this “production hell” that Elon Musk talked about, Tesla was apparently loaned “scores of employees” from Gigafactory partner Panasonic, who make the individual cells for each of the batteries. Concerns were raised that the hand assembly was pretty slapdash and the resulting products were incomplete or unsafe, which the company responded was an allegation that was “detached from reality.” 

Unfortunately for Tesla, it came back to bite the company later last week when Sandy Munro, the founder of Munro & Associates, a Detroit-based engineering firm specializing in reverse engineering products like cars and planes, compared the quality of a Model 3 he was tearing apart to a Kia in the 90s. Calling out panel gaps and fit and finish issues, as well as mechanical quirks, Munro says he hasn’t seen poor fitment tolerances on a car like the Model 3 since the 1970s. In one part of the car, he was able to fit a fingernail in between panel gaps, while on the other end of the same panel, his whole thumb nearly fit. Munro also pointed out how complex the cars were to get in and out of in case of an emergency, noting especially the fact that the rear passengers don’t have mechanical door handles, only electronic. This could be a serious problem if an accident ignites the batteries and cuts power. Of course it’s hypothetical, and these are some of the first models to come out, so hopefully the company is getting these issues all figured out, but not a great first impression to set. 

Video by Autoline.tv

So how did the company respond to Munro’s comments? Flamethrowers! That’s right, Elon Musk fired up the old hype machine on Instagram and announced the sale of 20,000 actual flamethrowers labeled with his Boring Company logo because I guess that was the brand flamethrowers make the most sense under. What they basically did here was take a nerf blaster, cut out the nerf darts and springs and paint it black and white, then insert a $50 Lincoln Electric Inferno propane torch kit, which you can buy at Home Depot, and call it a day. Oh, and they’re charging $500 for the privilege of owning it. Oh, and they’re already sold out, so Elon Musk just made $10 million in the span of a few hours. Oh, and god damn I wish I would’ve thought of this first because this is some Grade A genius shit. Seriously, it looks badass and sure, it’s a ripoff, sure it’s unnecessary, but it’s fun and I do admire a company that can have fun for the sake of it, even if the sake of it is also the sake of distracting you from all the other bad shit going on.

Speaking of bad shit, Elon, zeh Germanz are coming for you! (You may need one of those flamethrowers, so hang on to it.) Porsche announced this week that it's doubling its investment in electric vehicles to an amount nearing $7 billion, which is in addition to what they’ve already spent on their really sexy looking Mission E electric sedan. Some of that will go toward the hybridization and electrification of the Cayenne, Macan, Panamera and 911 and 718 Boxster/Cayman twins, but much will go to future vehicle programs, and they’ve promised that their cars will remain focused on fun. CEO Oliver Blume recently spoke at the 70th anniversary of Porsche sports cars, saying, “At Porsche, the driving experience will always be at the forefront, but in a traffic jam or when you park a car, the driver might want to hand over control of the vehicle.” Finally, someone gets me. Thank you, Oliver! In addition to the spending on vehicles, Porsche has committed almost a billion each will go to expanding their facilities and the development of a charging infrastructure.

But they’re not the only Germans on Elon’s tail. Volkswagen is busy trying to atone for its Dieselgate scandal, from which a big part of the settlement will go toward a massive charging infrastructure, the size of which will rival Tesla’s. Last February, Electrify America, the name of the initiative, announced a very adorable 500 charger network in the first phase. Well, after signing on infrastructure company Greenlots, they’ve gotten a bit more ambitious. Electrify America has announced their first phase will actually now be 4,800 chargers, beginning with 2,800 level 2 chargers in America’s 17 largest cities by 2019 and another 2,000 level 3 chargers throughout 39 states thereafter. Those level 3 chargers will restore 80 percent of a battery’s charge (depending on the battery, of course) in around 30 minutes. Tesla, meanwhile, hopes to have 5,300 chargers up by the end of this year, which is a respectable tally, but we know how Tesla is about keeping promises.

To that point, Elon Musk kept a promise this week when he sent his Tesla Roadster into space on the Falcon Heavy rocket launched by one of his other companies, SpaceX. The launch went off pretty well and successfully launched the car and its passenger, StarMan in his custom-designed spacesuit, on a trajectory toward Mars. In a truly un-Elon-like turn of events, SpaceX actually over-delivered on his promise because the Roadster is on course to overshoot Mars and end up somewhere in the asteroid belt. Whoops.

And speaking of whoops, yesterday Tesla’s quarterly earnings came out, showing the company lost $675.4 million in the three months ending in December. This is compared with losing just $121 million for the same period in 2016, which accentuates just how much the company is spending on the production of the Model 3. The production hell, however, only resulted in 2,425 Model 3s being shipped in the same quarter. It’s not abnormal for startups and tech companies to go for a while without posting a profit. Look at Twitter, they just scored their first ever quarterly profit in last part of last year. But Twitter’s product is entirely digital. To create and make real cars is a completely different undertaking than building a digital platform like PayPal or anything else Musk is familiar with. What’s critical not just for the company but for maintaining the confidence of investors is to show that Tesla isn’t making money right now, but has a roadmap to get there. If the constant production problems and quality issues continue, and if they can’t ramp up to the point where they’re meeting their 2,500 unit per week production target, Elon is going to need to sell a whole lot more flamethrowers.

Germany’s “Things You Just Do Not Do”

In one of the most bizarrely horrible stories to come out of the automotive world in recent memory, news broke this week that a research group operating at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, commissioned a test to prove that diesel fumes were not as dangerous as the World Health Organization indicated. The test itself involved locking ten monkeys in a sealed room and having them watch cartoons while the exhaust fumes from a Volkswagen Beetle were piped in. There are also rumours that there was a similar test conducted on humans, though it’s difficult to believe anyone would’ve signed up for that. It’s actually difficult to believe this whole thing was ever thought of as a valid option. The European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector was funded by Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, who hoped tests conducted would refute evidence that pointed to diesel engines’ potential for harm. Meanwhile VW and several other companies were installing clever software in their cars so the diesel engines could pollute more without being caught.

What really gets me about this is the stubbornness of the whole thing. We’ve known for a long time that diesel emissions aren’t safe and yet the Germans, who were so heavily invested in the development of diesel technology, simply couldn’t accept the fact that the rest of the world wanted a cleaner way to drive vehicles. The realization that diesels were bad could’ve been a turning point for Germany. They could have said, “You know what? You’re right. This is dangerous, and even though it’s more efficient, we need to find a better way to move forward.” They could’ve led the field in hybrid petrol powertrain development, or in electric vehicles or in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Instead, they found a way to make their diesels motors look cleaner while in fact being much dirtier. And they locked some poor monkeys in a room and probably gave them cancer trying to prove that the rest of the world’s scientific community was wrong.

So what happens now? Volkswagen has set up a lobbyist as a patsy who has accepted blame, despite the fact that internal emails leaked to the German paper BILD suggest that senior management was made aware of the details of the testing. What we get is another scandal for Volkswagen, and let’s not forget BMW and Daimler who helped fund the research, to sweep under the rug. 

Does someone have Elon Musk’s number? I think I know a few people who would like to borrow his hype machine.

Authored by
Devlin Riggs