We know there’s more than a little overlap between TTAC and Jalopnik, the Gawker Media empire’s car blog, so we’d like to remind our readers who do have a commenting account at Jalopnik to change their password (since Gawker was apparently too “in shock” to warn users earlier). Gawker Media was attacked by a group of hackers known as Gnosis, and at least 200,000 Gawker user accounts have been hacked, exposing commenters’ login information and allowing some Twitter accounts to be taken over and used to send spam messages. The attack on Gawker was reportedly a response to the blog pioneer’s “outright arrogance,” and some have speculated that it was related to Gawkers antagonism of the famed hacker hangout 4chan; we reckon that Lotus was somehow behind it. To find out if your account has been compromised, surf over to Gawkercheck.com, or simply change your password at Jalopnik or any other Gawker Media site. Or, you could just delete your account and become a regular here at TTAC instead. Just saying…
Category: Media
The relationship between automakers and automotive journalists can be extremely difficult, as automakers often hold access to cars hostage based on a journalist’s coverage of them. If, as an automotive journalist, you like every car you drive, the world is your oyster. Automakers invite you to every launch, PR guys gaze longingly into your eyes, and all is right with the world. If, on the other hand, you write negatively about a car, you can find yourself watching the gravy train pull out of the station without you… or, as it turns out, you could even be sued. At least in Italy.
Carscoop reports that Fiat is suing the Italian TV show AnnoZero for “defamatory” remarks about the Alfa Romeo MiTo Quadrifoglio, after the program asserted “the overall technical inferiority of the Alfa Romeo MiTo” in comparison to the MINI Cooper S and Citroen DS3 THP. The details of the case are sketchy, but you can find Fiat’s press release on the matter after the jump.
Jack Baruth’s prescient preemptive strike against the American incarnation of everyone’s favorite car show leaves little room for more full-length opinion on the new Top Gear USA. Which is a good thing considering I’ve only watched the first installment online (why get cable when you have the internet?)… and as far as this anglophile originalist is concerned, once was enough. But it’s certainly possible that I’ve missed signs of improvement. So now that we’re two episodes deep, let’s hear it from you: is Top Gear USA irredeemably mediocre, or is there reason top look forward to future episodes? And if your opinion leans towards the former choice, how the hell do we as Americans successfully combine our two great cultural loves, cars and TV? Because, as a nation, it’s hard to deny that our TV-shows-about-cars track record thus far is just plain embarrassing.
The second-best thing about this video? The Dodge rep specifically notes that it’s embargoed until Monday. The very best thing? It’s been on Youtube for nearly a week. Autonetwork doesn’t play the embargo game… and as a result you get a quick peek at some new Dodges as well as a taste of the tedium that is a press launch event. Enjoy it while it lasts!
As surveys go, the Morpace Omnibus Study [full results in PDF here] isn’t perfect. But even though it’s based on only 1,000 online respondents, it’s chock full of provocative insights. Of course Automotive News [sub] misses the best one, in its haste to trumpet the headline
Buyers usually don’t consider loyalty when choosing dealerships
Tomorrow your humble Editor boards a plane for Michigan, en route to a date with the Chevrolet Volt. TTAC has followed the Volt’s bumpy road to production-readiness since Bob Lutz decided that the Prius had to be “leapfrogged,” and we’ve tracked every change to the Volt’s mission, message and mechanical blueprint along the way. And though cars don’t exist in a vacuum, giving the Volt a fair review will require us to leave a lot of this contextual baggage at the door.
TTAC’s long been used to playing the “heel” of the auto journalism world, and sure enough, our skeptical approach to the Chevy Volt is already renewing accusations that TTAC “hates GM.” For the record, this accusation doesn’t fly. We have the tendency to obsess on GM because that company’s rise and fall is the most compelling story in the automotive world. To read GM’s history is to watch a person claw their way up a cliff by his bootstraps, and upon reaching the top, spend the next several decades strangling himself with the very same bootstraps. I challenge anyone who is interested in the world of cars to look away from that.
In any case, our Volt coverage has focused thus far on dispelling myths, so in the interest of seeking the truth everywhere, I thought we should take a moment to make a few Volt myths of our own. After all, despite planning to build only “10-15k” Volts next year and 60k in 2012, Automotive News [sub] says
And even though my personal and professional obligations to the truth make me the worst marketing candidate ever, I may just have an idea of where to start…
Since we questioned Motor Trend’s decision to claim that it got 127 MPG in a Chevrolet Volt without publishing a trip log, the buff book has apparently come to terms with the fact that the Volt is “as efficient as you want it to be.” In a piece dismissively subtitled “Yes, Your Mileage May Vary. Welcome to the Real World,” MT Editor-in-Chief Angus Mackenzie publishes MT’s Volt test trip log, but not before harumphing
For decades we have routinely published “MT Observed” fuel economy numbers as part of our road test data. And apart from the odd complaint that we journalists always seem to have a heavy right foot, those numbers have drawn few comments. Until our Chevy Volt test.
No surprise, perhaps. After all, 127 mpg is a pretty big number. But, as outlined on the next page, it’s a real number. It’s what we observed during our test.
Except that nobody (here at TTAC anyway) was surprised at the size of the number. Because of the Volt’s unique drivetrain, it would have been eminently possible to record 300 MPG, given enough recharges. What was surprising is that a publication would throw out a meaningless number and then wait a day (and a call-out) to condescendingly provide the raw data behind their test. And even then, still not point out that the Volt’s post-EV range efficiency (described by MT in terms of “EV/Gas miles”) was actually under 36 MPG (in line with tests conducted by MT’s buff book “peers”). Finally, it might have been appropriate for MT to explain that, on this particular test anyway, a Nissan Leaf would have needed one extra charge (over the night of the 22nd-23rd) but would have returned infinite MPG (though the 100 mile claimed range would have been properly tested on the 23rd). But there we go being inconveniently rude again… and who are we to turn up our noses at MT’s (belated) transparency?
OK, so the basic functionality of the Car & Driver/Chrysler “Txt U L8r” app is fine: receive a text message while you’re driving, and it will read it aloud and automatically reply that you are driving and cannot respond immediately. But the industry’s fundamental ambivalence towards distracted driving quickly rears its head in the form of a “paid upgrade” that allows voice-activated replies by the driver: distracted driving is not a problem to be solved, but a money-making opportunity to be exploited. As a result, the message that C&D and Chrysler send with this new app is “Texting while driving is bad, bad, bad… unless you shell out for our perfectly safe app.” Which, not to put too fine a point on it, is bullshit.
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It’s not that the ad itself fails to mention the car it’s actually promoting, namely the Subaru Legacy. After all, if Subaru wants to entertain enthusiasts without actually indulging in the kind of gauzy praise they lampoon so effectively here, that’s fine by us. No, the only problem with the whole “2011 Mediocrity” campaign is that Subaru’s own Tribeca was clearly styled by the very designers they mock in this spot. And in this day and age, bland, uninspired crossovers are at least as lampoonable a cliche as the bland, uninspired sedans that Subaru slams (and which earned Toyota the cash for a 16.5% stake in Subaru’s parent company). Still, this is a ballsy move for a brand that is already growing like gangbusters in the US, and it shows just how far off the mark Volkswagen’s current attempt at US market growth is likely to be.
My time at TTAC has been full of surprises. Some days it seems that every hour holds a new, more gob-smacking shocker. But the surprise I received today, when I learned that I had been invited to the Volt’s press launch later this month, was one of the least expected and most gratifying to date. After all, not only has TTAC been a longtime critic of GM as a whole, but the Volt has been a special target for us since its conception, even earning its own category in our news blog. I’ve even criticized the Volt project (as opposed to the car itself) in the print media, drawing the ire (of sorts) of the White House press secretary. In the old GM, the very idea of rewarding our relentless criticism, questioning and second-guessing with access to the car itself would have been unthinkable. But today one GM rep explained to me that
The Volt’s been attacked at one point in time by just about everyone. Opinions of the vehicle have been all over the map, but fortunately we now have vehicles for people to drive and experience themselves rather than having to defend it with words and Powerpoint
That GM believes strongly enough in its most high-profile car to allow its most strident critic to drive it marks a material break from past practice (documentation of which abounds in TTAC’s archives, but here’s an especially infamous example). Allowing products (especially a controversial, high-profile car like the Volt) to speak for themselves before their harshest critics speaks to a much-improved culture taking hold at The General. This doesn’t mean the problems are over for the RenCen, but it shows that GM’s new managers are building for the future on a solid foundation of accountability. And that is a big enough deal to warrant a tip o’ the hat.
Since TTAC is already “noted for dissing its mainstream competitors for cosseting carmakers,” we might as well not try to resist temptation on this one… because Car And Driver may have just outdone themselves. It starts with the one of the best headlines in ages:
10Best Surprise: Plastics Make the Chevy Volt’s Interior Possible
Surprise? Where? But in spite of the painfully unambitious headline, what follows is a symphony of strange. The ultimate point of which appears to be that C&D is absolutely thrilled about GM’s decision to make the Volt’s interior out of plastic. Yes, really.
As The Wall Street Journal‘s Dan Neil explains, pedestrians aren’t just annoying, they’re also responsible (in part) for some of the most astonishingly dull designs in all of autodom… like the 2011 VW Jetta. Trends towards rising beltlines, strangely high hoods, reduced visibility, and general carved-from-cheese-ishness in automotive design can all be tied to European pedestrian crash test standards. With a little help from unimaginative designers, global product strategies and consumer apathy, of course.
I know the readers of Autoblog understand the dangers of distracted driving because you’ve been sounding the alarm on this deadly epidemic for years, long before I became Secretary of Transportation. Most Autoblog readers know by now that real drivers just drive.
And, because I appreciate the heavy lifting Autoblog and its readers has been doing on this issue, I’m making my appeal to America’s automotive fans right here…
…Like you, I love driving. I have a 1998 Buick Regal in Washington, D.C., as well as a Ford Escape back home in Peoria. And, also like you, when I drive, I want to do so on roads that are not full of people who simply don’t pay attention to their driving.
But, the sad reality is that people who drive distracted are causing harm to the rest of us.
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood takes to Autoblog to recruit support for his forthcoming National Summit on Distracted Driving (Tuesday, September 21 in Washington DC. BYOB), the second such event of his tenure. And what better way to catch the attention of automotive enthusiasts than by professing your passion for the dynamic delights of a ’98 Regal? Meanwhile, enthusiasts who are taken in by LaHood’s crusade should take note: the last Distracted Driving Summit ended with a ban on in-car texting by federal employees, a measure TTAC described as
a bit like fighting an epidemic (to continue Secretary LaHood’s metaphor) by telling federal employees to take an aspirin.
Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is an agonizing character. There can be no doubt that he’s one of the smartest execs in the business, and yet he so often comes off as the stuffy, pedantic college professor, who sputters into ad hominem at the faintest sign of criticism. His speeches often revolve around stock speaking points and a copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and as the video above proves, his delivery is rarely inspiring. But between the Einstein quotes and plaintive self-sympathy, Marchionne can offer moments of unexpected candor. His speech to Chrysler’s dealers earlier this week offered several such moments, and though it’s too long (and, frankly, boring) to reprint in its entirety (click here for the whole thing), here are a few stunners from the mind of Marchionne.
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