It looks like the problem isn’t the damn kids. Well, not in this instance.

The problem is us keyboard jockeys; the corpulent shrimp-eaters of the world.

Clearly, our bitching and moaning hasn’t gotten us anywhere. Read More >

General Motors’ second-quarter earnings report is out, and there’s red ink to report.

Hammered by the coronavirus-related shutdown of its domestic manufacturing facilities and a corresponding sales slide, the automaker reported an $800 million loss in Q2 — a far cry from the rosy, $2.42 billion profit it saw a year earlier.

GM’s cash burn was also a five-alarm affair, but one element of the report was hardly depressing at all: the company’s Chinese sales. Read More >

Toyota announced the creation of a new holding company that will oversee its software development initiatives this week. While our default response is to gripe about the nebulous concept of “mobility companies” and the industry’s obnoxious emphasis on shifting data, we also understand that it pays to have someone on hand who knows their way around a line of code.

It wasn’t all that long go that Volkswagen was bragging about taking software seriously, only to be publicly shamed by the media when bunk programming screwed up the launch of numerous physical products. The cynical side of the brain knows this could have been avoided by ignoring unnecessary connectivity features and a potentially ill-conceived attempt to digitize the entire cabin.

We’re sympathetic to the nature of competition and the appeal “newness” has on customers. The automotive industry has seen the sea of riches amassed by tech companies harvesting data and knows which way the wind is blowing. No brand wants to be seen as technologically inferior, even if many of the newer features in modern cars aren’t really in service of anything other than marketing. Yet the “software first” mentality that has started presiding over vehicle development seems somewhat counterproductive, and Toyota may have just bought into it hook, line and sinker.

Then again, maybe it’s a great play and we’re just not seeing the big picture. So let’s dive in and see what we find. Read More >

You’re probably disinterested to learn that Ford found a cheap way to measure and record the interior dimensions of assembly plants in preparation for retooling operations. However, the manner in which the company plans to scan its Van Dyke transmission facility is an altogether different matter.

The maker of wholesome products like the F-150 and a vast array of passenger cars no longer offered to American consumers chose to temporarily adopt a pair of hell hounds secretly designed to one day enslave the human race. Read More >

Living in Europe and eager for the next generation of Mitsubishi products? You might end up waiting forever.

As part of a crash cost-cutting exercise designed to stabilize the storm-rocked company, the Japanese automaker has decided to reduce investment in under-performing markets while chopping fixed costs by one-fifth over the next two years.

In Europe, the brand could soon become a ghost. Mitsubishi has hit the stop button on any new product headed in that direction. Read More >

Based on Mitsubishi’s bleak assessment of its own future, you might have thought it would be the automaker winning this week’s award for saddest economic forecast. But Nissan refused to be outdone. Having already warned the world that 2020 would prove harrowing even before anyone heard the term “COVID-19,” the brand now predicts an operating loss of 470 billion yen ($4.5 billion USD).

Nissan likewise estimates total revenue declining by one-fifth through year’s end to 7.8 trillion yen ($74.1 billion) as its worldwide vehicle sales continue a longstanding retreat.

While it’s difficult to know what to peg these losses on, there are a few obvious suspects. Both automakers sacrificed their identities as automakers in order to spend years trying to expand globally, with a particular focus on developing countries and bland models assumed to have mainstream appeal. Nissan even re-launched the Datsun name as an affordable alternative in places like India, but it wasn’t the sales success the company envisioned.

Read More >

The next time certain product planners in Wolfsburg look in the mirror, they have a question to ask themselves: “How did we let the Volkswagen Passat get so damn dull?”

Especially after a refresh.

It’s not like the company is incapable of producing quality, fun sedans. The Jetta GLI is a hoot. The Arteon might struggle to find buyers, but that has little to do with the car’s dynamics, as it’s pretty fun to pilot. Even the non-GLI Jetta mixes practicality and pleasure well enough.

Why, then, did the Passat, which was once relatively engaging, if not an outright sports sedan, get so boring? Read More >

Via a Google search, an old press release floated up from January of 2019 that, in hindsight, foreshadows current events. You see, because of the shutdown, organizers of last year’s Consumer Electronics Show warned attendees that they might see some changes to programming.

That shutdown was the byproduct of typical partisan wrangling. Fast-forward to 2020 and all programming, everywhere, is impacted by an altogether different shutdown, one which stands to turn next year’s CES tech extravaganza into an online-only affair. Read More >

An Indian-owned British automaker is about to land a French boss.

On Tuesday, Jaguar Land Rover parent Tata Motors announced the hiring of Thierry Bolloré, former CEO of Groupe Renault, as the automaker’s new CEO, replacing the retiring Sir Ralf Speth. The new boss arrives on September 10th. Read More >

Never mind 2020. In the previous decade, Americans purchased more new cars per year than ever before. Roaring out of the recession, U.S. sales volumes ticked upwards year after year, settling above the 17 million marker and staying there for quite some time. Even last year’s haul defied expectations, landing north of that hallowed marker.

It didn’t reverse the increasingly geriatric nature of the country’s fleet, however. American automobiles, on average, have never been older, and they’re now poised to jump rapidly in age. Read More >

Listen, we don’t want to hear about that summer after high school… unless it involved a road trip requiring precise and detailed navigation!

That’s right, today we’re talking about finding one’s way through life in the most literal sense. Charting a course. These days, reaching your destination usually involves a pre-programmed route, satellite linkup, and a detached female voice ordering your every move, barking commands at every turn.

Do any of you still hang on to the old ways? Read More >

Electrify America, the organization formed as part of Volkswagen’s $2-billion penance to promote the spread of electric vehicles after the Dieselgate scandal, is touting a new EV-related icon it believes will be in service of its broader aspirations.

The company has launched an obligatory Change.org petition to get the Unicode Consortium to adopt an charging station emoji of its own design. Electrifiy America noted that the governing body rejected last year’s proposal, saying something needed to be put into place to that “represents the EV industry and the future of transportation.”

It also said it realized “the Unicode Consortium has a tough job to avoid overpopulating smartphone keyboards with endless emojis. However, we believe the Unicode solution of continuing to represent EV charging with a Gas Pump Emoji is not a forward-thinking approach.”

Read More >

GMC’s an interesting brand. Free of cars from the outset (Sprint/Cabalero notwithstanding), General Motors’ truck brand seems well positioned to turn America’s unquenchable thirst for trucks and utility vehicles into big, big bucks.

For the most part, it has, yet glaring shafts of white space remain in the brand’s lineup. Time for a little rearranging? Read More >

Strapped for cash, Mitsubishi has placed another legend on the chopping block. While the Pajero is famous globally for its stellar performance at the Dakar Rally, giving Mitsubishi more wins at the event than any other brand in history, you probably knew it as the Montero (or Dodge Raider if you’re old enough).

Sadly, you won’t be knowing it as anything but a memory soon — even if you live somewhere with a source of fresh examples. Having forecast another year of losses, Mitsubishi decided it need to continue tightening its belt. The Pajero will be taken out of production while the brand focuses on business in Asia. Read More >

As vehicle production rates begin tipping back towards normalcy, the pandemic continues to rattle supply chains. The wheels of industry may be in motion, but they’re not yet in sync — making a comeback difficult for some players.

Ford dealers report a shortage of replacement parts needed for repairs, with some components taking over to a month to arrive at service centers. Against this backdrop, the automaker issued a technical service bulletin telling dealers to check for coolant leaks in the cylinder head of the 1.5-liter EcoBoost engines found in the Escape (MY 2017-19) and Fusion (2014-19). The repair notice dropped in April, though Ford owners have complained about fluid leaks for a couple of years after a shocking number of owners noticed their engines were overheating — only to find that one of the cylinders was hoovering coolant. Read More >