I guess I need to continue to tap the ‘decade of the hybrid‘ sign until it falls onto the floor of this bus. If I’m endowed with extra strength today it’s because of the example set by the Texas Longhorns softball team. I, along with the entire Morning Dump team, would like to congratulate them for their hard work, commitment, and the ice cold water in their veins. Now it’s time to sit back and party.
Unless you’re Volkswagen’s American arm. If you’re on the executive team in Herndon, Virginia, you’ve got a little bit of work left before you can celebrate. Specifically, you gotta get going on hybrids. It’s just gonna take a minute. The upside, at least, is that for now the USMCA’s carveouts still exist, in case the supply chain that VW needs goes partially through Mexico or Canada. In Australia, there are no such concerns, as a majority of imports now come from China.
Toyota still makes the GR86 here in the U.S., and while it’s in the “very slow, minor updates” part of its lifecycle, it’s cool that Toyota (and Subaru) still sell the car.
There’s No Volkswagen Hybrid Without A North American Supply Chain
The mood at Volkswagen of America is reportedly grim, especially as the automaker’s ping-ponging from Dieselgate to electrification resulted in the company skipping over the important step of developing hybrids. The new head of VW’s American arm, Kjell Gruner, is on the case, telling Automotive News that “We would like to have them yesterday.” So what’s the issue?
“For those hybrids, they really need to be made in the U.S.,” Gruner told Automotive News. “So the battery made here, the gearbox made here and that means that you need to redo the software and then you have the engine together with a hybrid powertrain. That just takes time.”
Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport hybrids will be built in Chattanooga, Gruner said. The Tiguan hybrid will likely be built in Mexico.
It’s good that Volkswagen is taking its time and, at the same time, super frustrating that it’s taking so long for VW to have a hybrid. There are companies that currently sell hybrids built abroad, but production is increasingly shifting to the US for both trade reasons (tariffs) and economic ones (huge demand). If VW were to build out a hybrid capability abroad and then find itself on the wrong end of a trade war that would suck.
For Kia, the company realized it would save more than 10% by building the Sportage Hybrid in the United States, so it’s likely that the overriding condition here is simply a trade barrier, although both Toyota and Honda have been building them in the United States for years. I do appreciate that Gruner also added these would be real hybrids, and not the 48v mild hybrids that are so popular in Europe and are starting to become more common here. It’s not that those systems are bad. They’re not, and basically solve the issue everyone has with start-stop systems, but it’s not the same thing. [Ed Note: As someone who helped develop a mild hybrid system on the Jeep Wrangler 2.0, I think MGU/BSG-based mild hybrids are a waste of time. -DT].
A true hybrid Atlas and Atlas Cross would be a nice addition, though I think the most potential comes from the Tiguan. It being built in Mexico could be a problem, but current developments are at least positive on that point.
Mexico Thinks Car Parts And Automakers Will Avoid Forced Labor Enforcement Tariffs
Everyone in the car industry has been keeping a close eye on what happens as the White House renegotiates the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), with automakers perhaps worried that they can’t run out the clock on the Trump Administration when it comes to making cars or parts in Canada or Mexico.
There’s some potentially good news for automakers via Reuters:
Mexico said on Wednesday that goods complying with the rules of origin under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would be exempt from a proposed 10% U.S. tariff tied to an investigation into forced labor enforcement.
The Mexican Economy Ministry said the clarification came after consultations held with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). It added that roughly 85% of Mexico’s exports to the United States qualify under USMCA rules of origin and therefore would not be subject to the proposed measure.
The USTR has proposed a 10% tariff on imports from Mexico and around a dozen other economies, including Canada, the European Union, Argentina and Britain, as part of an investigation alleging that 60 countries failed to effectively prevent imports of goods made with forced labor in third countries.
The Trump Administration continues to look for ways to re-impose tariffs (even as the court starts knocking them down), while also granting numerous waivers so it doesn’t accidentally blow up the entire economy.
Australia Now Imports More Cars From China Than Japan
There’s been a preponderance of successful Chinese trucks being sold in Australia and now the country, which is uniquely susceptible to fluctuations in gasoline prices, finds itself on track this year to import more of all Chinese vehicles as Bloomberg reports:
Almost 36,000 passenger cars from China landed in Australia in April, according to government data released Thursday, well ahead of the 29,000 from Japan. That took the number of Chinese cars arriving in Australia in the first four months to above 100,000, a 51% increase on the same period last year.
Ford and GM both had operations in the country that evaporated around the time of the Global Financial Crisis, with China seemingly happy to pick up the slack.
The Toyota GR86 Continues On With Small Tweaks, Grey Paint
Hey, it’s Sung Kang! I’ve had a couple of opportunities to talk to Sung and he’s a cool dude. I’m looking forward to his movie about drifting.
I’m also a fan of the Subaru BRZ/Toyota GR86 twins, which are relatively affordable and light sports cars that you can buy, right now, in America. They’re both getting a little on in age, sure, but it’s a treat that you can still buy them. The GR86 has gotten some minor tweaks for this year:
To improve controllability, engineers refined the relationship between accelerator input and torque delivery to help create a smoother, more linear response. They also widened the chamfer of the shifter interlock between 4th and 5th gear by approximately 0.02 inches to help deliver a smoother shift feel.
In addition to the new Thunder exterior color, the 2027 GR86 introduces updated interior options that build on its driver-focused, GR-inspired character. A new available Cockpit Red interior adds bold contrast to the cabin with black Ultrasuede® and red leather accents on the side bolsters, red floor mats and red door accents. A black interior option is also available, featuring black Ultrasuede® and black leather-trimmed upholstery, black stitching and an all-black cabin treatment. Premium models also receive a cast iron black finish on several interior touchpoints, including the switches, knobs and shifter, for a more cohesive appearance. The base grade comes equipped with six-way adjustable black GR-embossed fabric seats with sport fabric side bolsters.
Additional updates were also made to help enhance driver confidence. The recognition range of the stereo camera was nearly doubled to improve detection of preceding vehicles when using cruise control. A monocular camera was also added to help detect nearby objects at intersections.
I assume ‘The Widened Chamfers’ is the name of SWG’s Echo And The Bunnymen cover band.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
We are somehow short one Peter this week, so I’m doing social as well. I got it in my head to do a Paula Abdul theme for everything on some of our social platforms. I cannot explain why, so please don’t ask. This means that “Rush, Rush” has to be the video of the day.
The Big Question
What’s your favorite music-video car?
Top photo: VW
TBQ: Sammy Hagar’s Ferrari in I Can’t Drive 55.
Needless to say I haven’t watched music videos in a VERY long time.
Ew, grey? Grey, Toyota? GREY??? Putty grey?????
I’ve got absolutely nothing against Paula Abdul, but this will forever be the only “Rush Rush” I remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWNKOox3NEY
“The Big QuestionWhat’s your favorite music-video car?”
Bruce Willis’ El Camino in the Gorillaz video for Stylo.
https://onscreencars.com/music-video/gorillaz-stylo-chevrolet-muscle-cars/
A couple of little nuggets to add to the Australia story:
The Tesla Model Y, which is made in China for the Australian market, was the top-selling car in the country last month.
EVs have seen a huge upswing in sales (doubling from a 10% share of all sales to 20%), with Chinese makers being the largest beneficiaries by far due to their price advantage in this space.
We’ve actually taken the plunge on a Chinese EV, a Jaecoo J5 (looks a bit like a knock-off Range Rover), for which we’re still waiting to be delivered. Not something I could have told you we’d be doing twelve months ago, but the upswing in quality and the incredible price-competitiveness of the Chinese marques just can’t be ignored.
Dumb question: what’s stopping VW from buying hybrid power trains from other OEMs and plopping those into their cars? Surely that has to be faster than starting from scratch, and it gives them a year or two of actually selling hybrid cars while they work on their own.
I’d take a punt its a lot to do with capacity, hybrids being all the rage, who has spare capacity to help VW out? You can only buy a thing if it is for sale. They’ll still need to engineer it at least a bit, by which stage they could have their own thing anyway.
I test drove a VW Jetta Hybrid, what, ten years ago? It seemed perfectly nice, but it wasn’t for sale. Why can’t VW resurrect that tech?
Not my favorite, but the first one that popped into my head was the lime green Dodge Challenger in Iron Maiden’s Wicker Man video; off of their Brave New World album which is amazing especially Blood Brothers. Also, when I went to get more info on the car, stupid AI said it was this: “dark 1960s Ford Mustang coupe”
Turning off AI search now…
Fuck AI!
> their Brave New World album which is amazing
I don’t believe those words have ever been uttered before
Ha ha, seriously? I think it’s really good…but yeah, it kind of can’t compete w/ all of their classic stuff. Most bands all of their original material is better
Saab 99 Turbo AND the Rover SD1 in The Human League’s “Don’t you want me”
How is it that The Autopian is seemingly unaware that VW actually sold both VW Jetta Hybrids as well as VW Touareg Hybrids in the United States? 2013-2016-ish for the Jetta and 2011-2017-ish for the Touareg. Yes, at the SAME TIME as the “clean diesel” fiasco was happening. Why were their Hybrids ever cancelled here? Why can’t the powertrains come back? These are the questions The Autopian should be asking the people at VW. But I swear, VW has to be the case study for automotive incompetence, they simply don’t deserve to succeed in this market, they certainly don’t seem to actually be trying…
What immediately comes to mind in terms of music video cars is the 1968 Olds 442 in Chicago’s “Stay the Night”. The car wasn’t just “in” the video, it was the star of the video.
What’s your favorite music-video car?
The Logan’s Run hovercar they put in Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker’s “You Got Lucky” video.
Trust Volkswagen to mess up hybrids when they had more of a chance. The Volkswagen brand, specifically, has only sold two here, that I know of. There was the gen. 2 Touareg Hybrid, which was an esoteric over-engineered offering designed to take the place of the departed V8 on that model. And then there was the Jetta Hybrid, which had a turbo and a DSG, a 7-speed dry-clutch unit not sold anywhere else.
My friend had a 2016 Jetta Hybrid SEL. It killed two transmissions: one at 33K miles that was replaced under warranty, and another at 133K miles. The second time, the dealer couldn’t even get an ETA on the transmission because it was backordered, and so the was sold during the peak of the COVID shortage (for $7,000) and my friend bought a new Subaru.
The green ABD Tuned New Beetle in the 1999 song Candy by Mandy Moore.
VW has tons of PHEV:s here in Europe in various guises from Audi, Skoda and VW since early ’10s. Not quite sure why they haven’t come to US.
But no conventional hybrids, which has put them on the back-foot in the market. They are now just rectifying this…
Nothing to keep VW from downsizing the battery and removing the plug from the EU PHEVs. If they wanted to that is.
The market has forced them to do it.
https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/electrification-made-easy-volkswagen-presents-new-full-hybrid-for-golf-and-t-roc-20334
Toyota just loves them a “fancy gray” color they try to dress up in words.
The description of the Mustang in Black Sunshine sounds great, although it looks pretty normal and still wears the 289 badge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqPClltS5k8
Honorable mention to the (animated) buggy in Gorillaz 19-2000, it can do a wheelie at like 45MPH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXR-bCF5dbM
The Jaguar twins in Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again video. Although they aren’t my favorite twins from that video.
Volkswagen is also introducing conventional hybrids on this side of the pond… after endlessly repeating they didn’t need them.
Also mild-hybrids are good… to get the ECO label and get inside low emissions zones here.
Finally, I wish the GR86 was still sold here. Would make my MX-5 decision harder…
That’s like how Nikon and Canon insisted that their cameras didn’t need internal stabilization systems. Better to sell a set of stabilized lenses… but now they’ve changed their tune because camera-based stabilization works better with vdieo.
I believe Australia is the only example of a developed nation with auto manufacturing capabilities and trade restrictions to support domestic manufacturing that simply gave up and walked away from the whole thing. Then the market did what unfettered market do. It gravitated towards the least expensive things that are fit for the purpose.
If giving up you mean the government subsidising US firms over $350m a year to manufacture cars that the public didn’t want (large sedans were not what the buyer wanted). Then watching during the GFC the US parent firms walk away back to the US with the cash and not marketing our cars such as the commodore in the USA then yes. Toyota manufactured here and was quite successful with exporting and making a solid profit. Unfortunately the parts makers couldn’t exist without three firms orders so Toyota was forced to close. The fault lies with GM and Ford.
Australia stopped making cars because it didn’t make financial sense. As mentioned above – when the subsidies went away so did the manufacturing.
I was just thinking about how there aren’t nearly enough grey cars on the road…
I don’t think I’ve seen any coverage on Autopian yet of the silliness in California where the state government has proposed preventing people from replacing manufacturer tires with tires that have a worse fuel economy rating.
What?
That’s not what the proposed rulemaking says. The rulemaking says that the California Energy Commission would create a program that is “designed to ensure that replacement tires sold in the state are at least as energy efficient, on average, as tires sold in the state as original equipment on new passenger cars and light-duty trucks.”
So it’s not stopping anyone from buying anything. It’s a program to raise the average efficiency of what’s available.
If passed it is very much going to limit choices. It’s a massive problem, because OEM tires on new vehicles often deliberately sacrifice durability and performance for fuel economy. It certainly merits a lot more discussion and scrutiny to prevent unintended consequences.
So “preventing people from replacing” is now “limit choices.” Indeed, lets move those goalposts.
A citation is needed about OEM tires. How a tire is selected is way more involved then pick the one with the best economy.
And if you want discussion, great news! Public comment is open until June 9 to be included in the next public hearing. Just make sure you actually read the rulemaking so you’re commenting on what is being proposed and not what some blog told you would happen.
Shhh, you’re impinging on their right to talk shit about California’s great evil government with little basis in what actually happens in California. :p
40-year resident of California and centrist in my leanings although still on the conservative side. MAGA folks in my orbit think I’m a Communist, so take what you will from that. I abhor both extremes. I’ll quote myself from previously: “It certainly merits a lot more discussion and scrutiny to prevent unintended consequences.”
I want to downsize my Prius 19″ rims to 17″ and increase my sidewall to keep the overall diameter the same. Toyota can take their energy sucking and ride compromising 19 inchers back.
I do believe that is something that David Tracy is looking into.
Why would you want tires which give you worse fuel economy than OEMs?
Maybe you want a more durable tire. Maybe you want a summer tire, or a winter tire.
Better traction
If the OEM tire is designed to last 20 or 30 thousand miles and the aftermarket tire is designed to last for 50 thousand that might matter to you. If your 4WD vehicle came with highway tires and you plan to take it off-road you might throw something chunkier on there like KO2s. If you are in a winter climate you might want or need to buy different snow tires or all-seasons. If you have a performance car you might want stickier rubber. Meanwhile, an OEM will often select a tire that provides better gas mileage because they are incentivized to do so by the system.
There are many reasons one might pick a tire that has somewhat worse fuel mileage, and I’ll also note that if the reason is durability it might be better for the environment overall not having to deal with tire carcasses as often.
I certainly can’t speak for everyone – but the Continentals and Pirellis my car was specified with were fine in California where it hardly ever rains, but after moving to the East Coast where we have regular downpours the wet weather traction was not great, so I went with Vredesteins, which have better wet weather performance, just as good summer performance, and as a bonus last longer without any loss of mileage.
CA’s proposed law would have had no impact on that – even tho Mercedes-Benz does not specify that brand, and even I had made that change of brand while living in CA.
As far as Summer/Winter/Performance tires, many manufacturers already specify different types of tires for their products – even if they are not published in owners manuals, etc. So it would be no stretch of the imagination for them to do so if this law came into being, thereby allowing owners to switch to different types and brands of tires as long as the specs are as good or better than what the factory specified for any type of tire.
Even trucks and 4x4s have different tires specified for them. You want to upgrade your Bronco Badlands to Sasquatch wheels/tires? Ford has already specified tires for that. You want to make your F150 Platinum more off-roadable? The wheel/tire specifications for the F150 FX and Raptor has you covered. So again, if Ford specified Goodyears and Firestones, and you want Kumhos – as long as the Kumhos are as good or better than the factory specs, you’re good to go.
The impetus of the law is to save drivers fuel and reduce emissions caused by cheap off-brand tires which are not designed for durability and low rolling resistance. It’s not to prevent you from changing your Civic Si from Yokohamas to Pirellis or Kumhos. It’s to prevent you from changing your Civic from Yokohama to cheaper and lower-grade off-brands such as Celimo, Atlas or Zeetex.
TBQ: The ZZ Top Eliminator
It’s not just a car, it’s practically a trademark for the group like the Nike Swoosh or the Coca-Cola script.
I was thinking of the ute from Beds Are Burning, but the Eliminator is the correct answer.
I wish Neko Case’s Mercury Cougar had been in a music video so I could nominate it for TBC.