In the first edition of the Tesla Reader’s Digest, Washington state makes nice with Tesla’s business model as Arizona ponders doing the same — while fighting three other states for the right to host Tesla’s Gigafactory, no less. Meanwhile, General Motors pens a letter to Ohio asking the state to force the EV automaker to play by the same rules as they already do, pricing of the Model S falls in Europe, and Edward Niedemeyer offers his view on how Tesla can topple the auto dealer monopoly.
TTAC reader Evan Reisner thinks that a small pickup is just the ticket for GM. But it’s not the one you may expect.
The prevailing wisdom on TTAC is that many Americans are interested in a compact pickup truck – but the same wisdom also suggests that such a truck would be bad for GM’s CAFE ratings. Market demand aside, CAFE is one of the reasons that Chrysler and Ford got out of the small truck game.
Yet few people know that The General has a product that can combine the best of both worlds. But they’ve chosen not to offer it in the USA.
The need for economies of scale in the automotive industry is driving some interesting events. The latest, a reported joint venture between Nissan and Daimler, is yet another step for the two companies, which has seen the Renault-Nissan alliance enter into, well, an alliance, to share costs relating to R&D and manufacturing.
Otherwise known as the Mitsubishi Eclipse.
No car has better embodied the sad decline of a once competitive automaker.
Awkward styling. Poor interior space and wonky ergonomics. Plus, you got a double whammy if you decided to keep them in the arid parts of the country.
Thin flaky paint… and a weird flaw with the glues and vinyls used on the dashboard. The net effect of which is…
Hyundai unveiled the Korean market Sonata in Seoul, while the North American spec version gets its debut in New York next month.
I was browsing the internet the other day and came across a website that purports to be “A guy’s post-college guide to growing up.” Normally I avoid websites like this. I learned about the manly arts the old fashioned way, dangerous experimentation, but since I have been wrestling with an especially verdant crop of nose hair recently I thought I might find some grooming tips and so I decided to check it out. Amongst all the articles on slick, greasy-looking haircuts, sensual massage techniques and the power of positive self-development, I found this handy beginners’ guide on how to drive a stick shift. Since it was one of the only things on the site I had any real experience with, I looked it over and decided it was pretty good. Naturally, I thought I would share it.
The folks over at Metalsucks.net picked up on a recent craigslist post that Chris Holmes, a founding member and guitarist for the 80’s hair band W.A.S.P. until 1990, is selling his “baby.” He will not be taking his 1987 Trans Am and has apparently already left the United States.
The 56 year-old is pursuing opportunities in Europe and while the folks at Metalsucks.net have a rather amusing take on that, we are car people. As such, we will focus on this rock-star quality ride.\
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The Detroit Autorama has a definite blue collar vibe. Even those of the half million dollar cars competing for the Ridler award that are “bought, not built” are paid for by couples who obviously are affluent, but who have made their money not as doctors or lawyers or financiers but rather from operating some kind of small business enterprise. Most owners participate one way or another in their builds and most also have some experience working with their hands. Last year I had the chance to visit the facility where Chevy has the COPO Camaros built and I was present to watch two owners take delivery of what is essentially a $100,000 toy. One of them, Dan Sayres, of Waverly, West Virginia, now owns a number of automotive related businesses, including a collision shop and a recycling yard. He told me that he started with a single tow truck. It takes some smarts to go from one used tow truck to buying purpose built drag racers. Of course, you don’t need deep pockets to come up with a big idea. From the mid six figure Ridler competitors to the unfinished projects in the basement, there are lots of big ideas at the Autorama, not all of them successful. One of the biggest ideas, both figuratively and literally, is the car that Tom Carrigan built because he thought he could do it.
Here at TTAC, we’re often accused of being libertarian cop-hating anarchist hippie freaks. Nearly as often as we’re accused of being tools of the corporate power elite and their propaganda machine. It’s true that most of our writers have a bit of an anti-authoritarian bent. After all, car guys want to go fast, and so on, and the Man doesn’t want you to go fast, and so on, and so forth, and also tickets for having a non-CARB-approved intake pipe suck, and so on. Sometimes we take it pretty far. We’ve even had a writer quit because we were being insufficiently respectful of highway cops, or something like that.
Our struggle against the police state is just that — a struggle against an ideology, not a war on the best of the peace officers out there. Today, I was reminded of that fact again, when a sheriff’s deputy went out of his way to fix a major problem for me.
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“This life came so close to never happening” -David Benioff, The 25th Hour A bit of fortuitous timing can make all the difference. Just missing a particular wave by even the briefest interval can radically alter a particular outcome. (N.B. Unlike most Sunday Stories, this story is true. Names, dates and other details may have […]
Yes, we know water is wet too, but this study from the AAA provides some interesting findings regarding how extreme temperatures affect the driving range of electric vehicles.
The new Citroen C4 Cactus is delivering on its promise to offer a C-Segment car for a B-Segment prices, with base versions starting at just under 14,000 euros – by comparison, its sibling, the C4 hatchback (which is more like a Volkswagen Golf, as opposed to the quirky, pseudo-crossover Cactus) starts at 18,850 euros. But the low price of the Cactus isn’t even the big story here. Instead, Citroen appears to be aping the mobile phone industry with two new innovative pricing plans for the Cactus.
One of the handful of models already under recall by General Motors over a defective ignition switch, the Saturn Ion faces additional scrutiny by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over failures traced to the vehicle’s electric power steering.
Bentley has released a teaser of its new SUV, which looks to be fairly toned down compared to the EXP 9 concept. The EXP 9, as you may remember, was the last word in tastelessness, a great signal that you just liquidated your offshore account ahead of looming international sanctions.
General Motors head of global powertrain and former Delphi senior vice president of powertrain systems Steve Kiefer aims to steer engine development toward a brighter future, one influenced by his love for diesels, quietness and refinement.
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