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
I would see Mercedes EQS models testing in Palos Verdes while biking, and I believe I saw a camo’d Bently at some point on the roads there too
Well I may spend a significant amount of time near Ford HQ, so maybe I’ll take my rectangles and go snoop around. In a totally legal non-trespassing way.
“What Is A Kia Clarus Wagon?”
Looks like a Ford Mondeo wagon that has been restyled.. but it’s not.
It’s actually based on the Mazda 626
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Credos
And back then, Ford-Mazda-Kia had a growing partnership.
The Kia part came to an end when Kia went bankrupt in 1997 and Hyundai outbid Ford in 1998 for Kia’s assets.
I wonder how Ford/Kia would have turned out if Ford had won the bidding.
Sure looks like a mid 90’s Hyundai Elantra wagon though: https://www.carspecs.us/cars/1995/hyundai/elantra/3540
I’m reading the guidelines for interacting with the vehicle engineers as if it were instructions on interacting with wildlife.
Development engineers are easily spooked and may act unpredictably if not approached with caution.
Maintain a safe respectful distance from them.
Do not attempt to feed the engineers
Do not attempt to touch the engineers or their cars. Only photographs from a distance.
If they become aggressive raise your arms in the air to appear bigger.
I work with these engineers on a daily basis this is exactly what I do when I do not want them to bother me. I just raise my arms and start screaming gibberish at the top of my lungs. It normally scares them off expect the strong few of the herd.
What if I offer them shower spaghetti?
-Do not attempt to feed the engineers
Is always good advice. You should see what happens around here when someone brings in bagels or, God forbid, fancy doughnuts. They need to count their fingers after leaving the break room.
You know seeing as I am one of these engineers I would be inclined to say do feed the engineers, but I also imagine a bear would have a similar stance if you asked the bear if hikers should feed them so I’m not exactly sure where that leaves us.
“I’ve got it on good authority that most you have little rectangles with cameras connected to the web in your pockets.”
Next you’ll tell me I do not need to memorize my multiplication tables because we will have a calculator in our pockets all the time!
When I worked for a Tier 1 supplier in the greater Detroit area, I got to see a lot of camouflaged cars. I even got to ride in some that had the camo partially removed after the model was revealed to the public. Most of these vehicles were rough from all the instrumentation and testing they had been through. I don’t know if it’s still true today, but some of the pre-production cars lived extended lives as test mules for various projects long after the model has launched. They all eventually got crushed though. OEMs don’t want any pre-production cars or parts getting into the public’s hands.
Seen one yes. Driven one, also yes.
Pain in the ass because of all the cladding. Also because the guy in the passenger seat kept hitting the shut down emergency button at the worst times. “Messing with the co-op…”
Chrysler used to do a lot of testing up and down Laurel Canyon and use the parking lot next to the Studio City Du-Par’s (a local diner). Many Grand Cherokees, Pacificas, and minivans in camo. I think they abandoned that route when Du-Par’s closed and became a Sephora. I don’t blame them for going elsewhere. I was depressed, too.
“Paul Revere” by the Beastie Boys was the classic we were hoping for. That’s always on my road trip playlist.
Last drive to NYC, we hit the Beastie Boys as soon as we hit the East River.
All that would do is encourage me to take a nap.
“No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn” makes you sleepy? I need some of what you are taking. We’d just driven 6+ hours through driving rain and it was midnight.
No no no… crossing the East River means you’ve made it to Brooklyn! Time to sleep! It’s right there in the instructions!
That one is my karaoke party trick–I do all three parts and differentiate them in voice and stance. It’s fun to sing and people get into it.
Everyone gets into it except the piano player…and his boy.
Am I the only one who feels a little bit cynical about Ford’s marketing here? We’ve had a press event “about” the truck but where the truck was covered the whole time, and now we have Ford near as much telling people to go on a scavenger hunt for it. (I’m aware that test cars with photographic camo have been a thing for ages now, but having a company spokesperson tell a paper that they’re out in the wild kinda seems to defeat the purpose of secrecy…) I honestly do hope that Ford succeeds, and that between them and Slate we’ll see some real competition in the affordable stuff-hauler EV market segment. It just feels to me like we’re approaching “put up or shut up” territory.
Hell yeah, was a camo SJ Cherokee 2 door 2 streets away as a child.
Ohh – you mean Mfg camo. Spotted a camo’ed Suburban/Yukon in downtown Pgh about a 8 years? ago. Immediately spotted the IRS. Had the same happen near Louisville KY when the first IRS Expedition was released 25 or so years ago. Once again, the IRS was dead giveaway this was something new.
Yes to the first, no to the second. Ten years ago on the inaugural Lemons Rally I saw a group of… somethings… being tested in Death Valley. I would have taken a photo but I was using a Polaroid camera with B&W film for the rally checkpoints, only to learn that the film wasn’t at all happy at high temperature. As the morning progressed the results grew darker, then became abstract:
https://live.staticflickr.com/8833/28585835143_a1b337ca54_b.jpg
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the remaining film hadn’t been permanently ruined as it worked just fine after getting back into cooler conditions, which is to say not Death Valley in mid-August.
Those pics look like they came from some post–apocalyptic zombie survival horror flick.
Twenty five or so years ago, my brother worked for a winter driving cars for Roush doing cold weather testing in northern Minnesota. He still refuses to tell me what he got to drive. All I know is there was one SUV that like four different drivers, including him, rolled in the same curve on a highway.
It wasn’t camo covered but a BYD Dolphin Mini was driving around a couple miles from my house. I assume it had to have been a manufacturer test model but I live nowhere near any significant automotive facility. No idea who would have imported it or how it ended up there.
Saw a camo’d car in north Alabama that suspiciously looked like the C8 Corvette (about two months before it was revealed to the public). Guy was gassing up so I just nodded and smiled and didn’t bother him. I’m pretty sure he looked relieved that he didn’t have fend me off or anything lol
I just realized that I see about 4 times as many prototype camouflaged cars here in Chicago than I do the current Nissan Z. Unfortunately, most of them are unrecognizable crossover blobs that I probably wouldn’t be able to recognize without the camo anyways.
Anonymous crossover is the ultimate camo. If Ford just put an Escape body on the new truck they could get a million miles in before someone took a picture.
I miss seeing test mules. My favorite one was the Cherokee. I was driving through Pontiac on my way to work and I saw a lifted Fiat Hatch.
Or you can get Galpin to foot a bill and send someone out to do a stakeout with Nick.
I don’t remember seeing any mules out and about when I was in Detroit, but I did a few projects at the GM Tech Center in Warren. One day, we went walking through the center to see the dyno labs. We stepped out of a door and a Corvette was sitting there. I looked at it for a second and realized that this wasn’t the current model. I think it was the C-6 that I saw. This was about 18 months before it was released.
Used to live in Tampa, worked in Bradenton. No fun at all.
But one of Ford’s partners (Roush? I think?) has an office down that way. I would see camo’d cars semi-regularly down there. When I could stop to ask they would usually brush me off or say that they were doing hot weather testing
I saw a couple Metris’s testing in Death Valley before they went on sale. I clocked them instantly as preproduction. My family was unimpressed
there is an altitude and cold weather test center TRP Labs at the base of Berthoud Pass in Colorado. I’ve seen several cars and trucks driving around there over the years.
Also, the main street in Fraser Colorado is named Zerex St for the cold testing they did for the antifreeze years ago (before climate change).
I got to see a set of camo’d Ford Super Duty trucks back in the early aughts. They were testing a new diesel engine and I guess also had some body changes going on that they wanted under wraps. We were in Breckenridge, CO and they had weighted sleds they were doing tow tests with at altitude. I thought it was cool they tested in those conditions. However, it turns out they were testing the 6.0 Powerstroke, so… maybe test harder next time.
How am I supposed to see it if it’s camo’d?
I live in the South so I see camo vehicles every day…..OH, you mean MFG protypes. Last time I saw one was a preproduction 80s Thunderbird with mfr plates passing through.