If you asked someone who didn’t know anything about cars what the best-selling vehicle in the United Kingdom was I bet they’d say something stereotypical, like the Mini Cooper, or maybe something obvious like the Toyota Corolla. Ask a car person and they’d probably tell you the Puma, because it’s usually the Ford Puma. Not so in March!
Most of the site today is going to be a distraction from all that’s going on, because I think that’s what a lot of us probably need. It’s not that all of it isn’t important, which is why The Morning Dump is going to talk about it as it relates to cars. Specifically, I’m going to talk about how this is creating massive uncertainty for the people who buy and sell cars seem to face every day. It’s also possible this is just because I need a break from thinking about the Astros giving up an eight-spot in one inning to the Rockies after I fell asleep.
What’s going to happen with energy? Will inflation rise? Will consumers even notice? Will it lead to more electric car purchases? It depends on where you live.
Energy Prices Keep Going Up, But The Impacts Are Delayed
Much of the war in the Middle East centers around access to the Strait of Hormuz, which is a narrow path around Iran and Oman that controls the flow of both refined and unrefined petroleum products needed by parts of the world.
As Bloomberg‘s Javier Blas explained to the Odd Lots podcast, the basic concept is that your future depends a lot on how reliant you are on other people for your energy and how close/far you are from that energy source. The United States has reserves and is a net exporter of oil, so it’ll probably never run out of oil, even if prices go higher. China has both its own sources and massive reserves. If you’re in Australia or Indonesia or even South Korea, it’s a bit of a tougher situation.
As Blas points out, there’s been a bit of an oil glut lately, so there’s a lot of excess fuel in the system that we’re still working through. What happens when that runs out is anyone’s guess, as is the length of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the length of the war.
So far, though, consumers in the United States have been relatively calm. Car sales conditions were mild through the first two months of the year before turning south in March. There are other factors to consider, as Cox Automotive’s Jeremy Robb points out:
New-vehicle sales rose to a 16.3 million SAAR in March, up from February’s weather-depressed pace but down 8.7% year over year against a tough comparison. Last year’s market saw elevated tariff-induced pull-ahead volume that will not be repeated this year, making year-over-year comparisons more challenging through the second quarter. Fleet sales remain a bright spot, while retail share declined.
In consumer confidence, forward-looking expectations fell and inflation expectations surged to 6.2% from 5.5%—the highest since May 2025—as the Middle East conflict keeps energy prices elevated. For now, tax refund dollars are providing a meaningful bridge through a softening labor market, but the spring selling season will test whether that support can offset rising inflation fears and weakening confidence in the months ahead.
We are now entering a second year of a White House that has tested the limits of executive power, so we’re comparing this year to a 2025 that was dominated by tariffs and massive changes to subsidies. Is up that good? Is down that bad? It’s harder to say than usual.
Based on the data, the average consumer in the United States doesn’t seem as tentative as you’d maybe guess given all the negative headlines about fuel prices, and an impending energy crisis. As Robb points out, we’ll learn a lot in the next couple of months about how long that can last.
Consumers elsewhere seem to ready to jump, though.
Brits Go For Plug-In Hybrids, Australians For EVs
Would you believe that the best-selling car in the United Kingdom in March was the Jaecoo 7? I buried this story a little bit because I needed the setup. Will oil be cheap? Will electricity? If you buy a plug-in hybrid you get the best (or worst, depending on who you ask) of both worlds.
Plug-In Hybrids (PHEVs) are quite popular in China and other markets, even if adoption has been slow in the United States. According to the latest registration data, the UK car market had its best March since 2019. Massively leading the way in growth were PHEVs, which grew by 46.9% year-over-year and improved market share to 13.0%. BEVs grew by 24.2%, though the 22.6% market share is shy of the government’s goal of 33% this year.
While the Ford Puma is still in the lead through Q1, it’s barely ahead of the Jaecoo 7, a plug-in hybrid from a subbrand of Chinese automaker Chery. In March, though, 10,064 Jaecoo 7s were sold, to just 9,193 Ford Pumas. For all the talk of BYD, not a single BYD broke the top 10. I went to Britain a couple of years ago and pointed out that Chinese automakers had a huge advantage there, partially because the UK doesn’t have a huge manufacturing footprint and isn’t subject to EU trade policy.
A lot of this is cost. A Jaecoo 7 plug-in hybrid costs about £35,000, compared to nearly £40,000 for a Tucson PHEV and £42,000 for a Tiguan PHEV. According to Jaecoo, 85% of sales were of the plug-in hybrid. Will this last? Because of the way the British car market works, a decent number of these sales probably were ordered ahead of the conflict with Iran, so it’s hard to say.
While we’re in the Commonwealth, Australian EV purchases also surged in Australia, although so did PHEVs. Australia has some of the highest fuel prices in the world, so this makes sense.
Chinese Automaker BYD Put On ‘List Of Shame’ In Brazil
Chinese automaker BYD has made a big push into Latin America, including building a plant in Brazil’s Bahia state. That plant came to the attention of the local authorities after 163 workers building it were found to be working in “slavery-like conditions,” according to government investigators.
BYD denied the claims, but the country’s Labor Ministry has added the company to a list of shame following the scandal as Reuters reports:
The list, published by Brazil’s Labor Ministry, carries further reputational risk for the automaker in its biggest market after China.
It also bars BYD from obtaining certain types of loans from Brazilian banks, but does not affect the operation of its sole auto plant in the country that the workers were hired to build.
It’s also been reported that BYD is facing calls for a ‘forced labor’ investigation in Hungary.
VW Happy With Rivian Software, Though Who Knows When We’ll See It
The massive $5+ billion deal between Volkswagen and Rivian was a lifeline to the American automaker, but also an admission that VW’s massive investments in software was mostly a bust. VW of America boss Kjell Gruner was at a roundtable in New York last week and spoke well of how the systems seemed to work.
“From my own experience, I’ve seen the platform,” Gruner said. “I’ve used it in one of my previous lives. It’s the right technology. So I’m glad to see the progress there.”
Great! When will consumers get to see it here in a product?
VW Group said it used the upcoming ID Every1 EV, along with unnamed Audi and Scout models, as reference vehicles for the testing. VW does not plan to offer the ID Every1 in the U.S. and it’s unclear which Audi vehicle would adopt the technology first.
Gruner reiterated that the joint venture’s software cannot be uploaded to an existing vehicle, meaning it’ll only be used on future platforms.
So, a while then…
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
How have only 1,300 people listened to this song? It’s “Duchess” by Nashville indie folk artist Erin Rae. It’s a mood.
The Big Question
What car would you buy, new or old, if you lived in the UK?
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com; Jaecoo
Citroen SM. It’s one of my dream cars and there appears to be an abundance of them in the UK compared to the states, especially here in the Midwest.
What a fantastical machine. 30k for that given the condition and all the stuff it comes with seems low.
I’d buy an estate version of a sedan that never makes it to the U.S. market.
Working in the industry I don’t see the BYD story as that odd when building a new factory or doing renovations to an existing one. Long days are part of the job. The report says workers employed by BYD subcontractors: Worked 7 days a week with 1 day off a month, up to 14 hours per day, had 20% of their wages withheld in a Chinese bank, and were told if they quit they would have to pay for their own flight home. The only thing odd there is holding back 20% of wages.
This last Christmas shutdown we installed new equipment in a factory. 3 weeks, 12 hours minimum (20 hours for the longest), zero days off, and I’m sure if I quit and walked off the job I would be paying my own way home. Salary – so no overtime.
When I worked at a Japanese company a friend and coworker took a job in Japan working on a new transmission model. That team worked 12 hours Monday – Friday, 8 hours on Saturday, and 4 hours most Sundays. They did that for 8 months. Salary – so no overtime.
We had Japanese engineers come over to the USA for 3 year rotations. When they went back to Japan there were basically hazed with massive overwork to beat the “lazy American” attitudes out of them. To them a salary employee working a 50 hour work week was considered freeloading.
I think people in the Europe and North America forget that labor reforms hard won by unions in the past are not universal.
Factory Shutdowns are both the worst and best part of being in Engineering at a large OEM. I finally get to install my projects, but I end up working nonstop for a few weeks. Thankfully even being salaried, I still get OT, so that check after shutdown hits like a second Christmas bonus.
It is a bit funny for us as the USA is the only region where salary engineers do not get paid for overtime.
I did start with my current employer as a contractor though so I early on I did get to experience the joy of opening up checks with 80+ hour weeks with overtime.
“As Blas points out, there’s been a bit of an oil glut lately, so there’s a lot of excess fuel in the system that we’re still working through. What happens when that runs out is anyone’s guess”
I can tell you what happens… oil prices will shoot up from where they are now. On an inflation-adjusted basis, we haven’t hit all time highs yet.
But if this carries on, we might.
“We are now entering a second year of a White House that has tested the limits of executive power”
And I foresee this causing a backlash eventually and new limits put on that executive power eventually
“What car would you buy, new or old, if you lived in the UK?”
I’d probably get the higher spec/longer range electric Renault 5 in green like this:
https://www.renault.co.uk/electric-vehicles/r5-e-tech-electric/configurator.html?conf=https%3A%2F%2Fuk.co.rplug.renault.com%2Fc%2FBACR-%2FAjGxszu
I follow a YT channel that covers shipping news, and that’s what he’s been saying. There was still a lot of oil already in transit and being stored inside of tankers.
He says once we get through that supply, prices are going to go up. He also says that even if everything returns to “normal” tomorrow, it will take monthd to recover from the shocks to the supply chain that have already occured..
A friend of mine in the UK just said “when the last oil tanker arrives in May prices are going to skyrocket”…
I believe it. The one good thing about it is at least then we’ll stop hearing “still not as high as Biden”.
Except the Turd will just double down on the other 2,000 lies…
I assume you are referring to “What’s going on in Shipping” hosted by the amazing Dr. Sal Marcagliano. So informative.
That’s the one!
I would build cheap car fleet. Probably a cheap tdi wagon or hach maybe skoda, seat, polo. Maybe a a 2 door Hilux and a dacia spring or mg phev or ev. Or if some other Chinese ev or phev is dirt cheap. Maybe a dirt cheap panda or 500 or if I got lucky a ds3. Would be hard to resist a deal on a jimney or rocky.
Right now a lot of DS3s and other Citroens are off the road because of the latest round of Takata airbag recalls.
What year is it Robin Williams meme .jpg
Eventually the planet will be free of Takata airbags, one way or the other.
Car to buy in the UK would have to be a Morgan Supersport. Adrian might even approve of that.
I’m not super current on Brit motors, but I’d likely want an old Land Rover. Either an old Defender (prob a 110), or maybe an 80’s Range Rover County, in green. I’ve liked those ever since I saw Lady Jane’s in Lovejoy.
Or an OG Mini, those look like so much fun.
I’d probably go for a classic or maybe a lightly pesto-modded Ford Capri GT. ’72-’74 preferably.
Make it yellow or purple with black interior. Or I might be talked into a period-correct orange as well.
If it’s “pesto-modded” shouldn’t it be green?
God-damn auto correct. However, British Racing Green® is also an acceptable color.
I believe “pesto-modded” is what Italian car owners do when they restore old cars.
Theory: Trump is a Manchurian candidate controlled by the Sierra Club and is secretly plotting to combat climate change by threatening the world’s supply of oil. His feigned insanity, erratic behavior, orange skin tone, and hostility to anything that can be hallucinated as “green” is merely a plot to get people to buy EVs…
I’m on to you, Donny. Nice try.
(I mean, that makes about as much sense as anything right now)
To answer the actual question, I would drive the mint-condition 6th generation F250 I saw parked a few blocks away from the Tower of London last year. If I can’t convince that owner to sell, I would get a new single-cab Ranger.
“Trump is a Manchurian candidate controlled by
the Sierra Club…”Vladimir Putin
One of these theories is more fun than the other one.
Definitely. My original theory was that he was a Manchurian Candidate controlled by the Girl Scouts, but even that seemed too sinister to joke about.
That theory only plays out of he is capable of playing 3 dimensional chess. So far, he is only playing 3 dementia chess.
From my vantage point he appears to be playing one-dimensional Candy Land.
Everyone else is playing checkers. He’s putting the pieces in his mouth to see if the different colors taste different.
I went the gas station for the first time since the, ‘um recent events – yeah, that’s how infrequently I drive. $3.72/gallon for regular at Costco.
About the same here in God’s Waiting Room, FL at Costco or BJ’s. Over $4 elsewhere. I filled both cars when the stupidity started, I won’t have to fill up again for a month or two, depending on how often work sends me elsewhere. And I can always Uber to the airport.
One of the upsides of living in the densely populated East Coast is we have legit public transportation options. Not always convenient or pleasant but it’s an option most of American doesn’t have when trying to manage the increase in gas prices.
Not in my parts of the East Coast. But nearly everyone can arrange their life to drive less, and make less stupid decisions about what to drive going forward. Bet the brodozer drivers are hating life at the moment. And somehow blaming Biden.
But I did see some “Trump did this” stickers in the wild when we filled up the rental in CA Friday night, LOL.
True. I’m in Portland, OR and can get to pretty much anywhere in the metro area by train or bus for $2.50. I don’t because it takes at least twice as long and my Bolt EV costs 2.5 cents per mile to “fuel”.
https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/land-cruiser-commercial LandCrusier Commercial version would be near the top.
Not if you keep burning it.
But, for a UK car, it would depend if I’m living in the UK or not – if so: I’d want something small and either EV or PHEV. I would still need to park it, and I don’t want to pay for congestion charges.
Adrian’s Furrari.
I was unaware that the Goth Uncle also has a Fursona.
If Stef can say Parsh I can say Furrari.
I’m not here to yuk someone’s yum.
Doh. Your joke sailed right over me. I don’t really want to add to Adrian’s woes, I swear. Pronouncing “Ferrari” is a bit tricky for me because my tongue wants to roll the Rs for some reason. So I’ve adopted the pronunciation that seems to be used by many British racing commentators, which I would dissect as F-schwa-RAH-ree, hence Furrari. See how simple? Thanks for your attention to this matter.
What car do I buy in the UK, eh? It’d probably be the same thing I drive now: a GT86. Or GR86. Honestly, it just suits my needs and is plenty small enough and cheap to run.
That and a narrow-gauge Ruston 48.
As one of the few here likely to know what a Ruston 48 is, nice choice!
Old school Defender is what I’d end up buying from the UK. Why? Because my wife who normally doesn’t really care about cars pointed out every single one we saw on our trip through Scotland. Is this wise? Probably not. But I know my wife.
It’s very wise to keep the wife happy.
I learned a little bit the first time. This time is over 20 years of following that advice. (She’s a bit of a Saab nut as well; when we were in Denmark she was off with one of her childhood friends and I got a picture of a classic 900 convertible from her.)
I feel ya, Matt, the Cards’ bullpen gave up three home runs to Washington in the 8th last night to blow a 6-3 lead.
Ditto the SF Giants bullpen giving up the game. Sigh.
The list of cars I would buy if I lived in the UK is so long it would fill a book. Used cars are *astonishingly* cheap there, though running them is not. But to toss out a few – how about an Alfa 156 Estate? Rover 3500S? Triumph Dolomite Sprint? w123 MB230TE? Sundry Citroens? An original Renault Twingo? A Saab 90?
Doesn’t the British gov still give pretty good incentives for buying PHEVs? A couple big ones being lower Benefit in KInd tax if they are company cars (common in the UK), and IIRC they are exempt from the London congestion charge (that adds up FAST if you live in the wrong area). And I recall there being some reporting that they are very rarely ever actually plugged in to charge, at least a year or three back. I’d imagine Trump’s War is changing that.
My high school friend went to college (uni?) in Cambridge.
He’s a specialist in buying those beaters that wouldn’t pass MOT inspection for 100 pounds or less. He’d drive them to Europe for holiday, came back, and scrap them just before MOT. He said they were cheaper than train tickets.
I think he went to just about every country in the Schengen area this way.
Friend of mine went to St. Andrews and ran all sorts of nice cars on the cheap. Really no need for beaters when you can get stuff that would cost $10K here for less than a grand in pounds.
I don’t think the UK got the original Twingo with the happy anime face, it was 2nd gen onwards.
They were privately imported. Not an issue.
Its a shame, they looked cool and we would have happily had one in RHD. We had a Mk1 Clio and it was great, the most practical car and very reliable.
IIRC the reason those cars weren’t being plugged in was they were company cars.. The company provided fuel cards so fuel was *free* for the driver but electricity was not.
It sounded like the companies had bought PHEVs because they were incentivized to do so but continued to follow the standard company car policies.
That plus people simply having nowhere to plug them in.
That *should* be a temporary issue though. Adding plugs, especially L1 and L2 is a lot easier than adding gas pumps.
So this is both true and untrue to an extent. The US does have reserves, but they are far from full, the Biden admin did tap into them, and the Trump campaign promised to refill them out of our abundant supply, however that never happened. This means US reserves are not full, with estimates I’m seeing saying only at around 60% capacity, with around 415 million barrels stored out of a 700 million barrel capacity. The US uses around 20.25 Million barrels of oil per day (mb/d). This gives us at BEST a 21 day reserve should supply be cut off entirely.
Now to the topic of supply. The US is a net exporter of oil and does have it’s own on-shore refineries, however this comes with a huge asterisk. We are a huge supplier of “light, sweet” crude oil, but our refineries are set up for “heavy, sour” crude. Meaning a very large portion of what we can pump, we cannot actually refine into usable petroleum products for consumption by consumers. Estimates I can find state that the US refineries WITH a consistent supply of base crude oil (about 70% comes from Mexico/Canada, 30% abroad) gives us a maximum production capacity of around 16.5 mb/d, giving us net deficit of roughly 4 mb/d of supply. Meaning we have ~104 days of reserve at this deficit.
What does all of this mean, and how does this shake out? well, it means that should supply dwindle due to the straight of Hormuz remaining closed, trading partners rationing or stopping exports, or other geopolitical events stopping the import of refined petroleum products, we can at BEST self-sustain supply until Mid-July. That’s also predicated on the assumption that we can import crude to push through our refineries. Refineries being changed over to account for a crude input change is a multi-year timeline. All of this points to the US being far far less petroleum independent than many want to say we are, and while we may not be rationing fuel yet, we are not nearly as far from it as you would think.
All of this ignores the immense amount of humanitarian atrocities occurring in Iran and elsewhere, as well as the amount of money being pumped into Russia now that their oil sanctions have been widely lifted. While panic is not a good response to the state of things, deep concern is.
We’ve been deeply concerned for the last decade solid and things have only gotten worse. There’s essentially no options left for any normal people.
Don’t be normal is always an option.
I’ve tried going insane but I’m still being lorded over by a dementia-ridden genocidal god-emperor Boomer and I’m insane.
He’s only homicidal at this point. Netanyahu is the genocidal Boomer. Not that I don’t sympathize somewhat with Israel. Gaza FAFO’d.
You’re a creep.
I’m really not, but you are certainly welcome to your opinion. <shrug>
I certainly give Netanyahu more credit than Bush – he at least leveled the place where the terrorists actually came from. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but if the first wrong had never happened…
What about “I’m going to end an entire civilization” is not genocidal?
Trump spews hyperbolic nonsense 24x7x365 (so do the Iranians, for that matter, it’s kind of their brand).
I in no way back this nonsense in Iran, but to date, it is the very definition of being as “surgical” as it is possible to be with modern weapons (even then, shit happens when you are blowing stuff up). If he starts carpet bombing Tehran then I will change my opinion of his genocidal tendencies.
And look – he TACO’d as usual. Shocker.
I’m personally wondering how the math works out that we are a net exporter of oil, when the US consumes ~20 million barrels/day of petroleum, and produces maybe 14 million barrels/day. Seems like some imaginary numbers are at work that are not the sort that I’m familiar with as sqrt(-1)
We are a net exporter of all petroleum products, combined which includes crude oil and refined product, we are still a net importer of crude oil specifically
I ended up browsing around the interwebs out of curiosity, and from what I could find from the EIA and such, it looks like propane and similar liquified gas exports are what put the US into the net exporter category for petroleum products. Natural gas is its own category separate from petroleum, but up to 90% of propane comes from natural gas production, and is counted as a petroleum product, which explained at least some of the discrepancy of production and imports not necessarily equaling consumption and exports in numbers I saw.
From that, seems like the US is perhaps still a net importer of heavier petroleum products, but once the LPG types from natural gas are added, becomes a net exporter. Clear as mud as usual these days.
You can use facts to prove anything remotely true
I’m far from an expert on the topic, but as I understand it our oil extraction is in excess of that 20 mb/d number, but because much of it is light and sweet and therefore not refinable by US refineries, we export a large chunk of that, and import a lesser volume of heavy crude that we can refine.
Either that, or we’re a net exported in dollar value since light crude is generally more expensive due to needing less processing to become usable petroleum products like gas. Again, not sure how it shakes out, but I don’t see any evidence to suggest that across all crude mixes the US is not a net exporter, I just have no clue what the mix/ratio is.
Are you concerned about getting oil from Canada and Mexico?
At this point in time no, but if we continue to push a trade war against them, it’ll either stem the flow, or significantly raise the cost, either way likely resulting in a bump or hike in prices. If we do loose that supply, things will get ugly quickly.
*Stares Canadianly*
And now perhaps the oil companies should start converting the refineries to use US oil. But they won’t, because that would be less profitable regardless of the price of oil, given the inelasticity of demand. Also, it really rather make sense to suck the rest of the world dry first – we can afford it, much as people whine about the price of the stuff.
Yeah I would agree with that, I am far from knowledgeable on the economics of refineries and how the breakdown of cost per usable barrel varies depending on input crude, but I suspect the refining of heavy crude is more technologically complex, so by being able to do it at scale like we do in the US, it’s a more cost effective way to produce usable fuel. Its certainly a sticky issue since converting a refinery when there is a glut of usable fuel is a massive money loser due to downtime at zero production, but spinning up new refineries is massively expensive and has long lead times. So making such a big investment based on a wildly dynamic and unstable situation may be a bad long-term investment.
All that to say, poor leadership on a country level ruining the supply chain globally has large knock-on effects at home and abroad, even if the US is an on-paper net-exported and “should be” self sufficient.
It’s guaranteed to be a bad investment. This too shall pass. As will Trump and MAGA, and the pendulum of American politics will swing back the other way as it always does. I actually do have hopes for the future. MAGA is the last gasp of the dying white majority.
Today is rarely the new normal.
You don’t just flip a switch and convert feedstock. You need to build a whole new refinery. Oh, and the last new refinery built in the US was in 1976.
It certainly CAN be done. It won’t be because it’s more profitable not to, regardless of the cost of oil. That just gets passed on to consumers and since everything is based on “margin” remaining the same (or higher if possible) actual profits go up as prices go up. Oil companies are not charities.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2026/04/05/debunking-a-persistent-myth-us-refineries-cant-handle-shale-oil/
There is no investment needed to refine light oil. It just weighs less per gallon so more gallons need to be processed to make the same mass of products.
Supports my point rather well. It just costs more, and there is no reason to really care about input costs when you can pass it along to the end user at almost any price.
The price of light relative to heavy could fall enough that switching leads to higher profit, but it is not likely as long as there are refineries elsewhere in the world that can run on light but not heavy driving up the demand.
“Also, it really rather make sense to suck the rest of the world dry first”
*phone rings late at night*
Hey Canada, I know things have been kinda rough between us. We said some things, you said some things but damn if I haven’t been craving me some Alberta tar. So what’s say we get back together?
(Full disclosure: I’ve never made a late night booty call to an ex so I can only imagine this is how they go.)
The short version is that a lot of the oil we import gets refined and then the finished products exported. Looking at the latest month we imported 6.7 mb/d of oil and exported 4.3. For refined products we imported 2.0 mb/d and exported 6.6 mb/d.
Cut off exports of refined products like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel and the USA can likely meet our own demand. However, the oil industry wouldn’t get their windfall war profits and they donate way to much to both side to let that happen.
As for sources of heavy sour crude – we certainly didn’t kidnap the president of the country with the largest reserves of heavy, sour crude because he was a drug dealer….
Will ask again. Why is VW reengineering the Rivian R1S when they could potentially save a ton on Scout development and just do a rebadge?
The Scout is scheduled to be a PHEV (initially) and BEV (eventually), Rivian is a BEV only.
The R1S is not optimized for production. It was a first vehicle, by a start-up, and is expensive to build and sold at a loss.
Rivian has taken a lot of lessons learned from that first model and applied them to the R2 and R3.
…ok or the R2 or R3. Point is that they have sunk a lot into staffing a new product development cycle when there existing relationship offers interesting badge engineering opportunity
The relationship with Rivian is only for software.
On the mechanical side Scout shares components with VW’s SSP platform. VW hasn’t announced anything yet but I could also see the Scout BoF platform used for other VW products in the future.
While both are BOF EVs, to retrofit an EREV system into a vehicle that was only ever designed to be pure EV is incredibly complicated, to the point that at least half the vehicle or more would be different. Also the size of the two is fairly different, from what I can find the Scout Terra will be a foot longer than R1T, wider, longer bed, and different wheelbase, so because VW wanted a different size/class product, a rebadge wouldn’t work anyways.
I would ditch the EREV and just rebadge the Rivian. Existing business relationship. Existing manufacturing facility. Existing platform.
There are obviously compromises. VW isn’t flush with cash and Scout seems at risk as it stands
I think VW, despite it’s many product planning missteps in the past, recognized accurately that there is only so much demand for a Pure EV pickup like the R1T, and they had to do something different like an EREV option and a different size (5.5ft bed vs 4.5 for R1T for example) to be able to make such a big investment worthwhile. Also the VW investment into Rivian never did have a clause for a rebadged vehicle, only license of it’s software suite, so a rebadge job was not necessarily a given to be practical.
I’d like to think I’d say “easy, a Caterham Seven” but my actual answer is probably an original Ford Puma.
I like the current crossover variant (why can’t we get these here in the states?!), but the original coupe is such a cool little guy, a bit of everyday fun in reasonably modern, reliable package I could drive every day.
I’ll take a classic Mini, Alec Issigonis got it right the first time.
Not that it’ll matter when our Cold War nightmares finally come true tonight.
I’m with you. I don’t know how long I’d drive the Mini, but I’d have to get one. Like I’d need to get a 500 or Panda if I moved to Italy.
I mean, I’m picking up a classic mini later this month. So it makes sense I’d still want one if I moved to the UK.
Ford Ranger Super Duty. There’s not enough pickups on the road over there.
There’s a reason smaller cars are popular.
Actually there are many reasons both logical and emotional but if I’m doing a hypothetical, I’m gonna have fun.
I’m a Chery hater solely because they give their brands the worst English names in the entire Chinese auto industry. I’m a little surprised that a Chinese car went #1 so soon, especially a relatively mediocre Chery, but maybe I shouldn’t be.
If I lived in the UK I’d love to own a Ford Escort RS Cosworth
The answer for years and years has been an old top gear era A6 Avant TDI. A true mile muncher. And then I’d probably spend $20,000 getting it right lol