Today’s Morning Dump is going to be a little different, because rather than simply answering your questions about the state of the automotive industry I’m going to be asking you all for a little help. This is because the $30k Ford EV being designed by Ford’s Skunkworks lab is going to be out-and-about testing this summer and I’ve got it on good authority that most you have little rectangles with cameras connected to the web in your pockets.
Would you like to be able to repair your own vehicle? The automotive industry met with President Trump last week and asked the President, along with Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, and were allegedly against it. While legislators in the United States weigh whether or not to make it easier to repair your own car, the Chinese government is trying to get automakers to slim down their big batteries.
Hagerty is once again hosting the Festival of the Unexceptional and, while we won’t have a SsangYong there, I have to credit the organizers for highlighting a car I never knew existed. I love getting stumped.
I Am Very Curious What This Looks Like
The Ford Maverick was a bit of a revelation when it first went on sale. An extremely affordable, handsome and supremely efficient unibody truck was apparently the vehicle a huge chunk of the market wanted. It’s one of my favorite vehicles of the last ten years and one that I kinda still wish I’d bought. I had a friend who put a deposit down on the no-options $19,990 XL Hybrid and ended up not doing it. If I’d have taken it I probably could have sold my Forester for about as much money (this was the height of pandemic used car inflation). Oh well.
Will I feel the same way about the $30,000 Ford?
Here’s the best photo I’ve seen of it, which comes from DT’s visit. David also noted something interesting from his trip to the lab where this is being developed:
Off to the side I noticed a late 1960s Ford Escort rally car. What was that doing in the design studio? I have no idea, but I’m going to dream that it is somehow being used as inspiration for the new truck’s design.
Now, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press, we have this little bit of information:
About the EV pickup, House said the first vehicle off Ford’s newly developed Universal Electric Vehicle platform, an all-electric midsize pickup aimed to start at about $30,000, is ready for launch and prototypes of it are being made in Michigan and tested on roads.
Ford spokesman Dave Tovar clarified that while the prototype are “out in the wild” right now, they are not yet on Michigan roads, but they will be in the next few weeks.
Remember, the Ford Maverick took some design cues from the original Ford Maverick, so it’s not impossible for the ’60s Escort to maybe play some small role in the design here. So here’s may ask: If you see this thing testing in Michigan, or Colorado, or California, or any of the places Ford normally tests vehicles, please send us a photo to tips@theautopian.com and maybe we’ll send you something as thanks.
As always, with prototype cars, there are a few guidelines:
- If the cars are moving, or you are moving, please exercise extreme care. Getting photos of a heavily camo’d car is never worth putting anyone in danger. It’s also not worth following someone around, because test drivers are people, too, and that’s creepy. Don’t creep anyone out.
- If the car is parked and on a public street, you have the right to take photos, but if any of the test drivers or engineers ask you to leave please give them space. This is a fun, friendly thing, and not corporate espionage. If the employees in the car are in a good mood, please feel free to ask them questions and transmit those answers back to us, but always be polite.
- Don’t open any doors or touch anything. Not only is that illegal, it’s also not fun. This should be fun!
I know our readers are sharp-eyed, so I’m looking forward to seeing what you find.
President Trump: ‘They have a thing; Nobody’s Allowed To Fix Their Car’
I probably assumed that it would be fun, in a Chauncey Gardiner sort of way, if the President just said whatever came to his mind. In practice, it turns out this isn’t always a great time. Still, there are moments when it is amusing and edifying, and that happened last week when a bunch of representatives from the automotive industry met with President Trump.
After a string of victories for advocates of right-to-repair laws that allow end users/owners to access the necessary software and information to fix their own vehicles, it seems as though the automotive industry is a little nervous about those laws. Specifically, the House has the REPAIR Act, which exists to:
[E]nsure consumers have access to data relating to motor vehicles of the consumers and critical repair information and tools for such motor vehicles, to provide such consumers with choices for the maintenance, service, and repair of such vehicles, and for other purposes.
According to Reuters, GM’s Mary Barra, Andrew Frick from Ford, some folks from the NADA and Alliance for Automotive Innovation, plus very industry-aligned Senator Bernie Moreno met with President Trump to explain why it’s important for manufacturers to do vehicle repairs. Here’s how President Trump described the meeting:
“We had the auto industry in yesterday. They don’t want people to fix their car. I said, ‘That’s strange!’” Trump said. “They have a thing; nobody’s allowed to fix their car.”
Sadly, Ford, GM, and others refused to comment on this. That’s a little funny, though? The industry contends that it has made the necessary tools available to dealers and independent repairers. The dealers seem to be concerned that giving repair shops data will allow them to produce knockoffs and give too much power to insurance companies to influence repair decisions.
Who is telling the truth here?
China Continues To Speed-Run Modernity
Chinese consumers maybe aren’t that different from everyone else. While there are many, many more small urban electric cars than there are here, car companies keep making larger and larger vehicles and people keep buying them. The difference is that Chinese regulators seem to be doing something about this.
China wants slimmer electric vehicles after years of bigger batteries and rising demand for space and features helped make passenger cars significantly larger and heavier, state broadcaster China Central Television reported on Sunday.
The average passenger car in the country weighed 1,704 kilograms (3,757 pounds) in 2024, weighing about a third more than in 2012, the report said. Family EVs have also grown wider over the years, with many popular sport utility vehicles and multipurpose vehicles now approaching or exceeding 2 meters (6.5 feet) in width.
More power, more range, more luxury equipment. It’s great to see our friends on the other side of the world embracing our norms.
What Is A Kia Clarus Wagon?
The Brits do the “Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional” as a sort of send up of Goodwood and similar Concours-type events, and it’s always a good time. You can get tickets for the next one here, which is happening at Grimsthorpe Castle on Saturday, July 25th. There’s some great crap coming, including a vehicle they honestly could have just made up to fool me:
In the text submitted in the Concours entry form for this Kia Clarus Wagon, the owner states that they’re almost completely forgotten, with just three estates and twelve saloons left in the Netherlands, where it’ll be making the journey from this year. Never mind “forgotten”, we didn’t realise they did an estate version of the Clarus in the first place. The other cars on the Concours lawn will have to try hard to match the Kia’s level of anonymity.
Ok, so it’s not just me.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I’ve been enjoying the music of Elizabeth Nichols and “Paul Revere” is full of the kind of twangy humor I expect from her.
The Big Question
Have you ever seen a camo’d car? Do you see them where you live?
Top photo: Ford/Marvel Comics
Was in downtown Savannah this last weekend, and saw a virtual parade of SUV’s in camo (presumably Hyundai, due to the proximity of the new plant). They were obviously having some sort of event nearby. First time seeing that sort of thing. Guess we should get used to it. Have also seen an IONIQ 9 with mfr. plates, several vinfast VF9’s (probably due to being close to the port), and most interestingly, a SEAT Ibizia that parked in the local Y. That hatch looked pretty cool for an economy hatchback.
A couple of summers ago, I was coming back from a wedding through Tennessee and got passed by a pair of very lightly camouflaged current-gen Nissan Rogues. We got stuck in traffic, and once the traffic cleared, they accelerated far quicker than any NA CVT has any right to. I surmised at the time that it must have been the upcoming Rogue hybrid, but that was two years ago, and still nothing but rumors.
I haven’t seen camouflaged vehicles in person, but I have seen one of Caterpillar’s single cylinder emissions test engines preserved at a museum. Yeah…they make singles out of their bigger diesels to do tests with. Easier and cheaper to instrument and dyno than a full size engine.
Caterpillar also used to use box trucks to test their highway diesels when they still made those. Seen those around years ago now.
I live very close to the Ford plant in Flat Rock, MI, so I see Mustangs with camo all the time (usually those are the special editions). Also I worked for GM, it was nice to see things without the camo before anyone else. The first clue is the big red button on the dashboard called E-STOP.
Yes in Barcelona they can be seen, usually VAG cars (Audis often). Sometimes (actually relatively recently), Daimlers.
I lived between Detroit and Ann Arbor for a bit over a year around a decade ago. At the time I worked downtown Detroit so I spent a lot of time commuting on 94.
This coincided with the time the second-generation Ford GT was in development. Someone testing the car must have lived near me because I was regularly passed by a lightly camo’d Ford GT going east on 94 in the morning and west in the evening.
On a few occasions when traffic was lousy I could catch glimpses of the interior. While the exterior looked mostly similar to the production model, what I saw of the interior clearly looked like a vehicle undergoing testing – in plain view there were at least two laptops (which the guy driving the car would often press a few buttons on while driving), numerous wires, and a lot of other sciencey gear I couldn’t identify.
I suppose I was technically never able to confirm this was a preproduction GT, but between the flying buttresses, center exhaust, and the noise it generated, I don’t know what else it could be. Frankly, I’m not sure why they bothered with the camo at all – if anything, that might have made the car even more conspicuous.
I saw other camo’d vehicles cruising around the city at various times, but the GT is the one I will always remember. I think seeing preproduction cars was the coolest thing about living there.
Paging Brenda Priddy & Co.
The mountains and desert east of San Diego here are popular areas for test mules to drive, so I’ve seen a few.
I used to live in Dearborn/Dearborn Heights and work at the Meijer in Allen Park.
Camo’d things were pretty common, but there were also non-camoed things, like a RHD Fiesta, Fusion wagon, and a bare carbon GT.
I moved 45ish minutes north 8 years ago, so it happens a lot less now.
Please identify the design cues the new Maverick took from the 1970s Maverick. Is it the four wheels, the rear-hinged hood, and dual windshield wipers??
It’s the inset lights in the headlights.
That’s a deep cut. I would’ve never connected that.
Surprised you didn’t get a hernia after that stretch, and didn’t they lose that light arrangement after 2024?
This is the vehicular equivalent of “Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen”. While technically true, it’s not really. Hell, my 67 C10 has inset lights.
The little parking lights / turn signals? Like the ones that floated in the grills of the 1973-76 Mavericks? Oh, yeah, they gonna think we twins.
Oops! I meant 1973-77. I always forget the Maverick/Comet lived a year longer than the Valiant/Dart. Forgive me.
As a former teenaged owner of a 77 Ford Maverick (302 V8 model), I’m baffled by this statement also.
I’ve seen a few camo cars up on the I-70 mountain stretches – the Eisenhower Tunnel ascent/descent is a pretty common one for doing some nasty at-altitude towing / braking tests for trucks.
The only time I’ve seen any camo vehicles has been here.
Live in the Detroit burbs. See camo’d up protoypes and development mules frequently. The most fun is when they are in a local parking lot becuase an engineer or test driver needed to stop for groceries
I’ve seen a great number of camo’d cars in the UK Midlands.
Similarly, a few floating around the greater Detroit area (albeit not in Detroit proper).
But, back to the point, that is a handsome Kia. Very 90’s bubble vibe. I like everything about it.
I did see one a couple of years back on a local section of a state highway. I live in southwest VA, so it wasn’t really a place I’d expect to see a prototype in camo with manufacturer plates. Can’t remember for the life of me what it was exactly, but I get the feeling it was a GM EV of some sort.
“the Ford Maverick took some design cues from the original Ford Maverick”
I own a modern Maverick and am familiar with the OG Maverick, and there seems to be nothing even remotely related between the two.
Please do enlighten us to the cues.
Yeah, the OG looked like a Baby Torino, the new one also has 4 wheels
Yeah I’m wondering what Matt design cues are taken from the OG. They didn’t even revive the classic logo.
I will be in lower Michigan for a few days next week. I’ll have to try to remember to keep my digital camera at the ready in case I see one. I’m already planning on being disappointed that it will have four doors and black wheels.
Also, did somebody mention Paul Revere?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znkkpDC4CqY
Pro-tip for other people in the SoCal area: I’ve seen a few camo’d test vehicles in the early morning driving the I-15 in Riverside County, which given the fact that I only make that drive 3 or 4 times a year, is pretty good.
Those may have been vehicles being tested by Automotive Testing and Development Services, which is located near the intersection of I-15 and I-10. I think that they are contracted by automakers to perform testing. I used to work just down the street from their facility, and as such I occasionally saw camo’d vehicles from various companies with Michigan M-plates fitted.
I’ve lived in Michigan and saw them fairly frequently.
I also worked at Honda R&D in Ohio, so I naturally saw them all the time, both at work and on the roads. I never did join an off-campus test drive where I was the one driving the camo car in public, but one of our tests was a months long reliability drive on public roads. The test drivers were being paid to drive it around all day long and log any incidents.
I too, worked for Honda R&D. What years did you work there? I was there from 96-01.
Many years ago I saw a Ford Superduty prototype near Beechmont Ford and the last time I attended SOFR I saw a camoed GMC truck parked in McArthur OH during the Parc Expose
Anderson Township represent!
Have you ever seen a camo’d car?
Never, ever, not near or far.
Do you see them where you live?
Sorry, Matt, that’s a negative.
Grimsthorpe Castle needs to have a very exceptional ghost to go with that name.
I noticed a rather large Jeep SUV of a shape I had never seen. It had tape over multiple logos and emblems, except the JEEP on the back. Apparently it was the latest giant SUV that I’ve already forgotten the name of.
(Southern Ohio)
Wasn’t camo’ed but I saw a Tesla Cybercab tooling around last weekend. I remember seeing a pre-production Model 3 back when, too—it had a metal roof, which never made it to production. It also only had one functional brake light.
I live in Columbus, OH. As you get closer to Marysville, you start seeing Honda and Acura mules running around. I’ve also strangely seen BMW and Mercedes mules going around Columbus on multiple occasions. Maybe we’re similar in climate to Germany?
I see BMWs and Volvos during travel around Spartanburg, SC. I know when I was at Honda we had regular long-term reliability drives where a camo’d car was being driven 8-10 hours a day for months and they’d go pretty far from the campus during that time. I wonder if the BMWs and Mercs you saw were coming up from the south on long (likely even overnight) reliability runs.
Oh great point! We are almost exactly eight hours and 500 miles from Spartanburg. I bet that’s their route!
Did you see the Honda E that was driving around about a month ago? I saw it rolling through Bridge Park one evening and spent about 15 minutes trying to follow it.
I didn’t! Damn, that would have been cool!
It was. I was hoping they were trying to bring it to the US but then Honda made their announcement of no more EVs so that squashed that hope.
I live in the Spring Hill, TN area. I remember seeing several GM cars camo’d including the Cadilla Lyriq. I also have seen some Nissan cars since around.