One of my guilty pleasures is looking up whatever’s the hottest vaporware product. Honestly, just watch any Computer Clan video, and you’ll get your fix of all sorts of vaporware and scams. But potential automotive vaporware is the best, because it’s sometimes the craziest.
We sent an engineer to check out the bizarre Dreame EV that’s apparently being promoted by Steve Wozniak and Dwyane Wade. Oh yeah, it apparently has solid rocket boosters on it. Except, you know, they don’t make any sense. Erik Hancock:
Hilarious. Those nozzles look like the sort of things a kid draws – a mishmash of a bunch of different technologies they don’t understand but that look badass. Those nozzles are not from a rocket, but from a jet engine. They’ve got variable-geometry “turkey feathers” that suggest afterburners as well as the tailcone that is typically part of the turbine assembly – as opposed to an actual rocket that is just a plain nozzle with no central suspended assembly.
Todd Beauchamp points out just how ridiculous the claim of having SRBs is:
Soild Rocket Booster? As in you can’t refuel it?
A solid rocket booster (SRB) is a high-thrust, reliable propulsion system that uses solid propellant—typically a mixture of ammonium perchlorate, aluminum powder, and a binder—to provide primary lifting power during the first two minutes of flight. Unlike liquid engines, they cannot be throttled or shut down once ignited.
Can’t be shut down… Oh this keeps getting better and better…
JP15:
Yep, I caught that too, haha. So basically, they watched the Mythbusters JATO rocket car episodes and said, “yeah let’s do that but it also has AI”.
A rocket on a car that makes full power until its fuel is expended. What could go wrong?
TK-421:
So this is what ACME changed their name to?
Subsea_EV-VI:
For reference, this is what a 100kN thrust solid rocket motor looks like when firing:
Good luck getting that homologated.
Palmetto Ranger:
“Each car will learn about its owner…your car will talk to your toothbrush, your air fryer, your vacuum!”
This all sounds like a threat more than a sales pitch.
SoCoFoMoCo:
Isn’t this what Elmo said Tesla was going to do with the next Roadster? And he’s beat to the vaporware punch by Temu Dyson, tsk tsk.
Finally, Matt wrote a Morning Dump about GM cashing in on trucks. I love our readers. My 0.02 Cents:
Any chance that GM will be refunding consumers that bought higher priced vehicle due to the tariffs, I suspect people would be pleased to get a check back for a couple of grand or whatever. That way they can more easily afford to put gas in their new trucks…
Beto O’Kitty:
No you’re adorable. I’m a pedant.
MondialMatt:
No, you’re a comma shy. I’M a pedant!
Data:
Why is that M in I’m capitalized?
MondialMatt:
For EMPHASIS, dammit!
Fine: “I’m.”
Dammit.
TheDrunkenWrench:
It stands for Mondial.
Have a great evening, everyone!
Topshot graphic image: Autopian
Every day across our great nation car dealerships field phone calls from out of touch boomers about “the new 2027 XYZ” that they “saw on YouTube” and when the sales consultant tells them it’s AI they freak out and demand an apology and/or leave a 1-star Google review. How dare someone tell them that they’re looking at imaginary stuff! They’re almost like Trump voters. Oh wait….!
Are you sure? Most boomers I know would do some internet research before bothering to call a dealer about any car.
My relatives born in the 1920’s if alive today would definitely do that though.
I do love Woz dearly, but I wish he’d be a little more discriminating about what he promotes.
What’s that extra M for?
That’s a typo.
To be fair, automakers ate a HUGE proportion of their tariff costs. Prices should have gone up a heck of a lot more than they did, and it is very much reflected in pretty much all of their earnings reports. This is also true of most of the big retailers. As usual, it was the little people who got screwed.
Yeah, in this one instance the companies do have a legitimate claim. I saw an estimate a while back that around 85% of the tariff costs have been eaten by companies, because they were smart enough to understand what passing that along to the consumer would do to the economy (unlike the people enacting the tariffs, sadly).
In terms of things big businesses are doing to screw us, 15% of the tariff costs is small potatoes.
The Chinese advertising that rocket car are the same ones selling 1000 dB horns and 1000000 lumen bulbs on Amazon.
Watch and have a laugh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAe9qvC49qY
and:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceA5xL6ggEw
1000dB horns?
Now we know who builds the war horns in the Warhammer 40k novels.
“Riiiiicola!!!!!”
I want a 1000 dB horn for my Miata. I NEED to let people know where I am vs all the lifted trucks in Tennessee.
Just play the soundtrack of a straight-piped Harley. It reportedly works for them.
Agreed! My little Ferrari toot always startles them back into their lane, but I sure would like to strike fear.
You will surely let people know where you are, in this whole universe.
Back when people were still doing lowriders we used to attach train whistles to our suspension air tanks. They certainly weren’t 1000 db horns but they may have well have been. Fun fact (or perhaps just a nerdy one): the loudest sound ever heard by man was the eruption of Krakatoa which was over 300 db and could be heard 3,000 miles away.
A 1000db horn would cause the instantaneous destruction of the entire universe.
Better be careful with that one.
Right, that’s bad. Okay. Alright, important safety tip. Thanks Egon.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present, the Jericho. BWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
And the 16TB external drive for $15 (which is actually a 32GB micro SD card with some fakery to make a computer think it’s16TB when you plug in). My wife fell for that, but she got it through the Walmart website and I’m a little peeved that they do so little vetting of their third party vendors.