Automotive

A matchup of former-Ford siblings ...  

albeit in a tangibly less potent manner, this timelessly hilarious spoof of Apple from a dozen or so years ago....

They lost the plot over a decade ago already. And now some crazy 'marketeers' decided to completely destroy it.

What comes out today. But with both Tavares (CEO of Stellantis) and Ma (CFO of Nissan) having to vacate posts last weekend it looks like an exciting week 😉

Clearly, it's not a symptom of markets as a whole - at least not in the US. Leadership, vision, and product mix are usually the keys in this industry. Tavares and Stellantis got greedy and are paying for it. Best, Tim

And have some more hopefully good surprises in store. What Tavares did is the classical GE / Jack Welch trick of pulling dividends forward and destroying terminal value. While in some circumstances this can make sense financially (practical destruction of... 

When a bunch of fund managers, investment bankers, and institutional investors tell that guy he's too short-term and fast-cash oriented. Apparently, Tavares' whole plan for a near-term turnaround was closing factories, gutting product development, and the... 

Was that Tavares was keen on adding more brands and Elkan was adamantly against. Another acquisition would allow the roll- out of the same playbook elsewhere but leave the company with a neigh on unmanageable portfolio that would need addressing soon afte... 

Now comes the hard part. You've got a capital-intensive industry with years-long development cycles, extreme susceptibility to interest rates and business cycles, uncertain and non-standard global regulations - more so every day in the US - and huge legac... 

Aren’t promising! From the WSJ ...  

I follow the auto industry pretty closely, and I couldn't tell you what "Arrival" is. Legacy OEMs and Tesla are doing a lot better. EV sales are up solidly this year in the US at least. Rolls-Royce's experience with the Spectre suggests there is a market ... 

They missed the boat somewhat in terms of timing and now there’s no free money anymore (interest) and an established competition. Lucid possibly builds the best cars but is in the same tough spot Tesla was until they managed to produce the Type 3 in volum... 

My PhD supervisor had a saying for those kinds of situations, ‘If you tie together two foot sore people, you rarely get a high performance runner’ (admittedly sounded better in the original) 😉 They did manage quite a bit in the meantime and some parts of ... 

Assuming this is real, I like the direction - like an old upright 1950s Mark VII - but this will be polarizing. ...  

But if the camouflaged car from the spy shots in any way resembles its camouflaged shape, the "big Jag" look of the 1950s and early 60s might still be on track for a comeback. Best, Tim

Some more serious publications now issued the same images. At the same time I would be thoroughly impressed if the actual cars looks anything like that - the shapes look exceedingly difficult to manufacture unaltered. Still feels more like a design study ... 

... is to make them in composites. That's what Volvo/Polestar did with the Polestar 1. The minimum radius for shaping alloys is larger than for composites, which can be shaped with super-abrupt folds and creases. It also reduces mass by hundreds of kilos ... 

Should be drastically below a RR. Starting at GBP90k, with a median somewhere around 120k

Unfortunately, that's a tough spot, too. AMG Benz and Porsche Panamera/Taycan competition in that range is fierce. Best, Tim

There’s no easy answers wherever you look 🤷🏻‍♂️

“F-ing road hog bastard” and they were yelling that at my Imperial 40 years ago, before ecologically-sensitive people multiplied like bunnies. But the Jag windows will no doubt be tinted, dual-glazed for noise protection, and won’t roll down. The real pro...  

A concept - getting into serial production like that would at least be exceedingly expensive if at all possible. Now the reports were that it’s a 4 door (suicide rear doors?) but one doesn’t see it from the rendering.

Honestly, I don't think it's going to be all that large compared to the full size trucks people drive as cars in this country. 224-244" pickups are common these days. This might not seem so large when it hits the streets. That said, here's the weirdo expl... 

But my daughter absolutely loves the idea 😊 Maybe I am not the intended audience after all 😉

We finally have a physical-ish photo of the thing with a person. Every other shot had me convinced this only exists as a render. I think it's kind of cool. Let's see the spec and price before jumping to any conclusions. And honestly, a nice dark green, bl...  

He’s real as well, and used to run evo magazine 😁