The trail-trampling fodder of the previous post — Volkswagen’s rugged, hypothetical, yet-unnamed electric off-roader — sparked this question, as it really seems there’s little ground the once nerdy and impractical electric vehicle can’t claim.

The EV revolution, if indeed that’s what it is, started a decade ago with Tesla’s Lotus-bodied roadster, and continues at an ever growing speed. As of this writing, choice is already plentiful. Come two years or so, and the options could be virtually limitless.

Is there a segment where you just can’t see the EV becoming a fixture? (Read More…)

You hear it time and time again on the internet. “There are no bad cars today.” It’s proclaimed by those who lived through the Malaise Era and have personally experienced the build quality and reliability of an new Renault Le Car or Chevy Monza. And while things are most definitely better than they were, nothing’s perfect. Bring out your critical fingertips.

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Humans, like other animals, have an innate ability to detect when something’s wrong in their immediate environment. The sense that something’s amiss, that the natural order of things has shifted in an unusual direction. Of course, this is only achievable if one chooses to open their eyes and look around.

We can all be keen observers if we choose to, and sometimes it pays dividends — it’s said that farmers are traditionally less likely to be killed by tornadoes than non-farmers. And we’ve all seen alien movies where the most obtuse among us don’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.

Maybe you’ve noticed something odd in your town or neighborhood. Something that should be there … but isn’t. (Read More…)

General Motors is selling a full-sized pickup with a four-cylinder engine under its hood. Active fuel management, continuously variable valve timing, thermal management systems – Chevy’s put a good deal of thought and technology into this quad-pot effort.

Today’s QOTD is simple: would you buy a truck with four pistons?

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Yesterday brought two snippets of news concerning your tax dollars and lovers of virtuous cars. The first being an across-the-board price drop at Tesla aimed at countering the company’s reduced EV tax credit; the second, General Motors’ confirmation that time’s running out for the $7,500 bounty on its own vehicles.

Nissan’s next in line to cross the 200,000 vehicles threshold marking the beginning of the credit phaseout, followed by Ford and probably Toyota. Notice there’s no mention of Fiat Chrysler here. As of November, sales of qualifying vehicles at FCA amounted to just over 37,000 — meaning the brash automaker will likely enjoy government incentivization long after its rivals resort to limited manufacturer perks to stoke sales. $7,500 to serve as a big green bow placed atop any vehicle FCA dreams up.

And herein lies your job. (Read More…)

Last Wednesday, our Question of the Day asked which automaker you wished well in 2019. Today we take a different approach, and ask which automaker doesn’t need any of your positive internet thoughts and prayers.

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365 days. A year. One trip around the sun. Whatever you call it, we’re here: the last day of 2018.

Here’s where we let you look into the TTAC Magic 8 Ball and ask for your predictions of auto industry news you think will happen in 2019.

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Like 26-year-olds playing oddly mature high schoolers in films and on TV, some trends evolve into industry standards — the go-to blueprint for success. If the big guys are doing it, then by God, the creators say, so will we. This is the way to go.

The auto industry functions much like Hollywood in this regard, though the major players would insist that careful and predictive analysis of consumer buying behavior are behind their pursuit of the Next. Big. Thing. In crafting the vehicular landscape OEMs are convinced will make you hot, trends materialize. Rivals swerve into the same lane, desperate not to be left behind. Suddenly, once-unique attributes become ubiquitous. Departures become the norm. Think tailfins in the late 1950s, landau roofs in the late ’60s to early ’80s, plastic cladding in the late ’90s/early ’00s, and ginormous, child-swallowing grilles in the 2010s.

As there’s too many trends to mention, why don’t you list some you’d like to see hurled into the sun in the New Year? (Read More…)

It’s that special holiday time of year again. For a few short weeks, people go out of their way to be nice to others, and to wish one another the best in the upcoming new year. While the niceness still abounds, we want to know which car manufacturer receives your well-wishes for the future.

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Sitting motionless in traffic can be almost as painful as slogging through a live feed of one of Elon Musk’s futuristic transportation reveals. In a desperate bid to eliminate daily blood pressure spikes, some of us stagger our commute times (a rare option), some take public transit (often, a grim compromise), others car-pool (like it’s WW2), and those living close enough to their jobs swap the car for a bike and the often insufferable lifestyle that comes with it.

Others dream of something better. You’ve dreamed of something better, and it probably wasn’t any dumber than the lackluster tunnel The Boring Company showed off this week. (Read More…)

Plenty of digital ink and hurt fingers and bums occurred over the past few days, after Lincoln announced its limited run of Coach Door Edition Continentals (don’t call the doors by their common lexicon name).

But I’m here today to ask you whether any of it matters.

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As we saw yesterday with the (very) limited-edition coach-door Continental, sometimes an automaker finally produces what the people cried out for… years earlier.

One wonders what the demand for this suicide-door sedan might have been had Lincoln decided to launch it alongside the regular model back in 2016. Those rear doors are tailor-made for a low-angle exit shots outside the club in any number of music videos. As well, overseas executives in a certain People’s Republic might have found the additional rear legroom quite appealing — and exclusive.

But Lincoln deserves kudos for going the extra mile and actually altering the platform and body of a car to make its door wish (your door wish?) come true. This wasn’t just an engine swap or some other minor alteration that leaves the car’s overall dimensions intact. Lincoln put this sedan on the taffy puller for you. Which begs the question: if other mainstream automakers were willing to go the Lincoln route, what type of limited-edition variant would you demand of them? (Read More…)

Unless you lot have developed powers of which the rest of the world is unaware, you’re reading this post on a computer screen. Ok, maybe on your smartphone. Probably not.

The advent of Windows 3.1 allowed the common nerd to apply wallpaper to the background of the operating system running on their computer screen. The fact I used all those words places me squarely within that group.

Which brings us to today’s question: what car (and we know it’s a car because you’re reading this site) is currently plastered on your screen?

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What is it about suicide doors? Some 47 years after the last pair of full-size, rear-hinged doors faded from the domestic automobile landscape, we continue lusting after them. And automakers continue teasing us with sedans that open like a barn. Remember Lincoln’s go-nowhere Continental concept of the early 2000s? That’s just one of many pieces of vaporware boasting throwback doors that never went anywhere.

Next to narrow, barely-there side mirrors and ridiculously oversized wheels, suicide (aka clamshell, aka coach-style) doors are the design feature a good concept cannot go without, even though the audience has no expectation of ever seeing them in a showroom. Kia saw fit to install them on its Telluride concept. A three-row SUV, fer chrissakes. We’d probably be annoyed with them by now, were it not for Rolls-Royce’s resurrection of this vintage method of ingress/egress.

Are you as afflicted with suicide door love as this writer? (Read More…)

Sitting in a new, unfamiliar vehicle can breed a nearly limitless range of emotions and observations. Excitement, lust, desire … and annoyance.

Just as one design flourish or interior feature can turn interest into a buy, another can turn off prospective customers to such a degree that a sale becomes impossible. Sure, to the experienced observer, these minor complaints might appear frivolous, but the customer is always right. Or are they? (Read More…)