On today’s morning roundup of car news, we look at how Ford swung and missed in Q4 and all of 2022; why Mazda’s U.S. boss has hot takes about EV range; how it’s a tough time for EV startups; and why Honda’s dealers are nervous about this new Sony venture. Ford Left $2 Billion On The Table In 2022 Despite all the many headwinds the automotive industry faced in 2022, General Motors had a pretty great year....
Happily, the clip was recorded and translated so we can all enjoy this bit of unplanned, unscripted humanity: — Spoon & Tamago (@Johnny_suputama) January 27, 2023 It’s not exactly an Earth-shattering exchange, but I personally find it strangely endearing; Sato gave his speech, and afterwards current and soon to be former CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, jumped in to tell him he should have smiled during his speech. Sato admitted he was nervous, Toyoda said just adding that smile would have been perfect, and they both laughed, like, you know, humans do....
In the meantime, for 2022’s final Morning Dump, we have news about the Chinese auto industry’s rise in Europe; our allies in that continent being none too happy about our Inflation Reduction Act; and the e-bike boom we’ll see even more of in 2023. Let’s do this! China’s European Boom The car you see above is a 2023 MG EV4. Looks pretty slick, doesn’t it? It’s not a bad deal, either; for an entry-level price of 28,420 Euros in Germany, you get 217 miles of EV range on Europe’s WLTP cycle, 10 to 80 percent fast-charging in 35 minutes, and a package that competes with the Volkswagen ID....
Also interesting is seeing some of the things crowed about on this luxury car, and how they’re dirt-common today: Power locks and being able to open the trunk from the inside? Good luck finding any car today without those, but at one time, that was steaming-hot shit. Two cigar lighters, though, that’s pretty much gone. I believe it’s what eventually evolved into our Lexus GS, which had some controversial styling of its own over the years....
See where I’m going, here? Lemme assist you: How did they not see this huge, goofy face staring right at them? It’s like a Cheshire Cat, all wide eyes and colossal grin. You can’t crow about “functional efficiency allied to beauty” and then throw this shit at us, Jaguar. Come on. A Cheshire… Jaguar? Also, out of curiosity, what does “Cold Start” denote, as far as types of articles? Also, if the site is still taking suggestions, a notification to show when someone’s replied to you could be good to have....
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday Looks Like Macron Doesn’t Want Automakers To Flee To The Land Of Freedom Fries We’ve already covered how the Inflation Reduction Act is causing global automakers to move to the United States (along with cheaper energy and a market for EVs)....
From Luca de Meo:: Oh yes, it’s that sort of French car. See, the Renault 4 helped mobilize the French masses in the 1960s, and it was a huge deal. Not only was the Renault 4’s upright form immensely practical, it was also the first hatchback to really catch on. In fact, it was so popular that production lasted from 1961 until 1994. And you thought the C3 Corvette stuck around forever....
And it’s the Camry, by more than two to one. Honestly, this is the smart move: they’re boring as hell, but a tired old stickshift Toyota sedan makes a lot of sense as a beater. Like the old Packard ads said: “Ask the man who owns one.” Which leads me to today’s challenge. As regulars on Opposite-Lock know, and some folks might remember from that old orange site, I have an ex-government-fleet pickup truck....
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. Used Car Wholesale Values Drop 10.6 Percent Year-Over-Year, Per Maheim Used car wholesale values continue to drop with the latest Manheim Index update showing decline through October, down 4....
It doesn’t take much for the alignment, especially the toe setting (which we’ll discuss in a bit), to change. Your suspension alignment should be checked and adjusted every few years as part of normal periodic maintenance to keep your tires from wearing improperly. Poor suspension alignment can also lead to worse fuel economy since your car has to work harder to roll the tires down the road if they aren’t pointing in the right directions....
A brief bit of background on myself: I’m a civil engineer by education, project manager by profession, and a tinkerer at heart. By “tinkerer,” I do not mean itinerant tinsmith, but someone who is always looking for projects, whether that is improving (hopefully) something around the house or crawling under my Jeep XJ to replace another worn out part. [Editor’s Note: I met Doug and his family while galavanting around Europe in my diesel manual Chrysler Voyager....
If you haven’t heard of Arch Motorcycles before, I can’t blame you. The company isn’t a household name and builds just a handful of bikes each year. The force behind Arch Motorcycle involves two motorcycle fanatics. As lifestyle site Wave writes, Gard Hollinger is a lot like most of us here. As an eight-year-old in California, Hollinger’s fascination with motorcycles began when another boy asked if Holinger wanted to ride his minibike....
If you ask the folks over at A&E’s History about the Rosetta Stone, they’ll tell you: “The Rosetta Stone is a slab of granitoid stone featuring a written decree issued in 196 B.C. by a group of Egyptian clergy and Egypt’s ruler, Ptolemy V, attesting to his generosity and devoutness. The decree is written in three ways: hieroglyphics, which were used mainly by priests; Demotic, a somewhat simpler script used for everyday purposes; and ancient Greek....
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the bottle-green BMW takes it in a landslide. The Infiniti was supposed to be a Toyota Cressida, so it would have been two rear-wheel-drive inline sixes, but some jerk bought the Cressida before I could get around to it. I had to grab what I could find. These things happen. It’s why I can’t work too far ahead; I have to write each post no more than a day or maybe two before....
Do I find this to be a striking image on some subconscious level because it’s Yom Kippur and I’m fasting and part of my brain has locked onto that massive cache of protein? But I’ve only been fasting like 6 hours? And I don’t think I’d want to eat a crapton of raw meat out of a plastic tray in the back of a European Ford wagon? Even if I wasn’t fasting?...
First, look at this thing. This is the newly released Dacia Duster Commercial, which includes the brand’s new logo design. Would you believe me that for £13,995 pre-tax (about $16,950) you could have this magnificence? Check out the taillights, which look like mini flux capacitors: It’s substantially similar to the regular Dacia Duster anyone in the United Kingdom and Europe can buy, albeit with a few key differences. The rear windows are covered in an “opaque film” and the seats in the back are gone in favor of a flat-floor separated from the front with a large bulkhead....
Some examples are below- can you think of more? Of all the cases of extreme facelifting to keep ancient cars looking “current,” it’s hard to find better examples (or worse examples, really) than some products sold in South American, particularly ones offered by divisions of Ford. One of these cars is the Ford Falcon, or namely the first compact sedan that Ford debuted for the American public in 1959. This exact body was sold in Argentina until the 1990s, and in the eighties Ford attempted to “update” the machine with the fashions of the day, meaning black trim, composite headlights, and more modern wheels....
The van came to my attention via the Twitter account of my friend Emily (who is an absurdly talented tinkerer and builder of things, just so you know) who noticed the van-chunk as it was revealed in an unusually low LA river: It looks like it was some kind of panel van maybe pic.twitter.com/QGzwbwIkue — Emily Velasco (@MLE_Online) May 11, 2022 We don’t get to see much of the van at all; in fact, what’s not hidden by water appears to have been partially bisected by either human hands wielding a Sawzall or the bite of a terrifyingly large kaiju of some kind....
What The Hell Is It? To help us understand just what Toyota is doing here, I thought a visual may prove useful: Here are the fundamentals: even though Toyota seemed to tell our own Mercedes Streeter back in July that the Crown is not a replacement for Toyota’s current top-of-line sedan, the Avalon, but they pretty much said it was during the press trip I was on, and, come on, that’s basically what’s happening....
