The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) conference in Las Vegas is over, and every dealer seems to have been told basically the same thing: We expect you to sell more cars next year. Given that most analysts expect a flat market this year, how exactly is that going to work?
The theme of today’s TMD is: Aim for the stars, and maybe you’ll land on the roof. Every brand seems optimistic going into the rest of the year, and they have some, um, interesting thoughts about what can be accomplished.
That’s not to say things can’t improve. Ford, with its seemingly endless string of warranty issues, finally made enough improvements and will be able to hand out some bonuses tied to those changes. Stellantis, though, is handing out notices to owners asking them to please stop driving their cars if they haven’t had the Takata airbag replacement.
And, finally, many great car writers and editors are willing to go on strike if Hearst, the company that owns all of the major traditional buff books, doesn’t meet their demands.
Stellantis Will Grow 25% This Year, Says Stellantis
It would be strange for an automaker to say to its dealers that it expected them to sell fewer cars in a year, right? The point is, typically, to sell more. I’m no business genius, clearly, but that would make a little bit of sense to me.
On the other hand, the experts at Cox Automotive are forecasting sales of 15.8 million units this year, which is slightly down from 2025. Even if you take the more positive outlook of 16 million from Edmunds, this means that there is essentially no surplus of buyers this year.
And, yet, the line always has to go up and to the right.
Vince Bond, Jr., over at Automotive News, has a good wrap-up post on what various brands are asking dealers to deliver this year:
Companies on hot streaks, including BMW and Hyundai, are confident they can keep rolling. Others see an opportunity to steal back market share from rivals.
Stellantis is pushing dealers for 25 percent more retail sales this year, with Nissan, Mitsubishi, Volvo and Volkswagen also wanting double-digit gains. Mercedes has set a 7 percent target, while Honda and Kia are each seeking 5 percent.
Wait, Stellantis said what? More please:
The automaker is banking on a redesigned Jeep Cherokee and the gasoline version of the redesigned Dodge Charger to recover lost market share. In addition to delivering fresh products, Stellantis is funneling more advertising dollars to assist dealers at the regional and local levels.
The 25 percent target is a “tough number” but not impossible, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions.
Reviving the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 on the flagship Ram 1500 could help the brand claw back market share in the pickup race, Fiorani said.
This, to a normal person who follows the car market, sounds absolutely unhinged. As a whole, Stellantis sales were down 7% year-over-year. It’s not like there are a lot of Fiat or Alfa Romeo products coming to the rescue, even if a new Jeep Cherokee can only help. Some of the brands have grown sales in North America, so they’re on a positive trajectory, but 25% is absolutely wild, even with marketing and incentive support. Collectively, these brands have been on a slide longer than Stellantis itself has existed.
Nissan putting up double-digit growth also sounds like a tough challenge, although the new Sentra is not bad (review coming). Nissan has fallen so far that perhaps up is the only direction left. Can Volkswagen dealers build double-digit growth wholly on the back of new Tiguans and old Atlases? Good luck!
Many of the brands hoping to grow are also subject to tariffs, meaning price competitiveness is going to create a new challenge. By comparison, Honda and Kia seem downright reasonable.
Ford Hands Out Bonuses For Quality Improvements
The “Quality is Job 19” jokes have been writing themselves for too long, so perhaps it’s only fair to point out that, at least by its own accounting, Ford improved last year.
Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley told employees in a town hall on Wednesday that companywide bonuses would be set to 130%, according to four people familiar with the matter, as the automaker delivered on its goal to improve vehicle quality.
Farley told attendees that the higher payouts are mainly due to the automaker’s improved initial vehicle quality, which measures repairs in the first 90 days of ownership. Farley said the metric is the best it has been in a decade, two of the people said.
As you can see in the photo above, CEO Jim Farley stands between each new vehicle now to make sure it’s in good condition.
Stellantis Begs You To Please Not Drive These Cars
It’s wild to me that the Takata Airbag Crisis is ongoing. I feel like we do a version of this story every single year. If you’ve somehow missed it, the company that made a huge proportion of the airbags for cars globally had a defect that would cause airbags to fire shrapnel into people when inflated. This means you could survive an accident only to be killed by the airbag that just tried to save you.
Most cars have been fixed, but Stellantis just put out a notice asking the more than 220,000 people who still have cars that haven’t been fixed to please stop driving those damn cars. Here are some of the details from Reuters:
Chrysler parent Stellantis NV issued a “Do Not Drive” warning on Wednesday for about 225,000 older vehicles in the United States fitted with unrepaired defective Takata air bag inflators.
The warning applies to older Dodge Ram, Durango, Dakota, Magnum and Challenger, Chrysler Aspen and 300, Jeep Wrangler, and Mitsubishi Raider vehicles that have not had repairs completed from various model years from 2003 through 2016.
Seriously, these cars are dangerous. If you haven’t had a fix, please get it fixed. If you don’t know, please check!
Hearst Union Members Plan To Go On Strike If Seemingly Reasonable Demands Aren’t Met
If you weren’t aware, all of the traditional big auto magazines left in the United States are all owned by one company: Hearst Magazines. That’s AutoWeek, MotorTrend, Good Housekeeping, Car And Driver, and Road & Track.
Those writers are currently bargaining, via the WGA East, for a fair contract. As a WGAE member with a lot of friends in the union, I have my own biases here. What the writers want is mostly simple:
- Livable salaries and raises after years without them.
- A revised work-at-home policy that doesn’t mean that someone who, say, has to review cars for a living is forced to schlep into Manhattan every day.
- AI protections.
As I’ve written about before, Hearst made a deal with OpenAI and is encouraging all of its writers and editors to use its products. It’s reasonable to expect that more companies will utilize AI tools, but it’s also reasonable that creative professionals will want some protections.
One of the big asks appears to be that Hearst can’t just use the likeness of its own employees in videos or photos (or voice, presumably). Could you imagine your favorite House Beautiful video personality having their persona and visage completely copied and used without their consent? Kinda creepy!
The fact that one company owns all these magazines means that how they act impacts the whole industry.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
For no reason at all, here’s The White Stripes performing “The Union Forever.”
The Big Question
Which automaker will see the biggest growth this year?
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com; Ray-Ban; Stellantis; Nissan; Volkswagen
That’s AOL-Time Warner circa 2001 levels of delusion, right there.
I’m going to throw shade where merited, and man, this earns it in spades. For starters, while the Charger is neat-o, its addressable market simply isn’t that big. That’s a car in the realm of fiscally irresponsible 20-something-yo’s and 40-yo’s with a midlife crisis who can’t afford a Vette. Stellantis’s purchasers have historically had the worst credit outside of, I think, Kia, which means that they either need to price things aggressively downward or figure out how to do financing that evades fundamental economic principles.
And… the Cherokee? Sorry, but the Cherokee was last distinguishable roughly 20 years ago. Jeep took the traditional lineup (Wrangler: Hard-core offroader; Cherokee: competitive with a 4Runner for hauling family and stuff and going camping and offroading; GC: tow the boat, haul the family) and absolutely mangled it in the mid-2000’s. I see tons of old XJ’s on the trail. I see zero of the newer models, and don’t know anyone who is brand-loyal to Jeeps outside of Wrangler products. The Wrangler is a great vehicle, but the competitive niche in which the Cherokee is now seeking to compete is dominated by much superior products it’s going to struggle to compete against.
I just took a look at the ’26 Charger ICE base model on Dodge’s website. $50k. One could get a lot of used Corvette for that money to satisfy their midlife crisis!
And you compare that to whatever base price was for a last-gen Charger, which I want to say was around $32k or something. It also had a million trim levels and you could still get something decently interesting for not a ton of money.
That is correct, the 2023 Charger started at $34,230, and the Challenger was $32,465. They moved the nameplate way too upmarket to get anywhere close to the sales volumes the old cars did. Dodge is not a premium/prestige brand and never has been, at its absolute peak, it meant “slightly nicer than a Plymouth, but not as nice as a DeSoto or Chrysler”, it can command high prices for somewhat niche, special models, but not across an entire range like Stellantis is trying to do with it now.
Also their entire range is like two cars at this point.
I saw a newer cherokee on a trail ride at and off road park and the trail guides politely asked him to get off the trails after stacking rocks most of the morning to avoid body damage. Another buddy of mine tried to make one into an overlander and eventually sold it for a 4runner.
Yeah, like, go to Moab, and anything over a 4 or 5 is just narrow-track SUV’s and trucks (4Runners, Tacos, the occasional built S10 or Ranger or Xterra or Isuzu Rodeo or what-not) and old-time XJ’s or Wranglers. Full-size anything gets thrashed, newer anything (in the crossover ute space) gets thrashed.
And the occasional delightful madlad with a 2004 Prius who wants to give it one last hurrah before scrapping it.
There’s a reason stereotypes exist, and while I am wholeheartedly Team 4Runner, the old XJ’s were just amazing vehicles. Jeep doesn’t make anything like ’em anymore (by which I mean, offroad competent, comfortable, inexpensive, and reliable).
I thinking Kia/Hyundai might do it with their momentum, but who knows.
With the big boys and the current administration intentionally crashing the market (buying low) then putting out fake numbers to increase the market (then selling) over and over again doesn’t gauge the economy correctly. Wake Up.
The truth is out there man, that’s just what the lizard people want you to think. They get us angry at each other and plant fake stories to do it. Once we are fighting each other they swoop in and kill billions and enslave the survivors to work the cricket mines.
I bought a new Ford a month or so ago. It came with window recalls. There was a debate at the service department on how they could have sold it to me. Did a 1k mile oil change and asked to get the new window track and programing done while I was there, lady denied all knowledge of it. Then when I get there, they tell me yeah it actually does have a warranty extension (nice way to say it came broke), as a matter of fact it has TWO! So I’ll be back next week to do that.
So Ford is up there at the top with those bonus’s being delusional.
At least on the dodge side the awd and hidden 4 door hatchback Charger with an ICE motor has a chance to be a relevant enough previous gen 4 door charger sporty family hauler to maybe get some of those sales back. Time will tell of course. and they really need a halo 2door hellcat version to regain the urban desire X factor I begrudgingly feel like.
The European brands with business in the US are high on their own supply. Not unless they cut prices or subsidize interest rates will they show any “growth”. The cost for that “growth” will be borne next year. And the years after until the effective price cuts work their way through. But hey, at least they made the line go up and right this year. Party time!
Most deluded – the brands that think they have enough customer loyalty that they can get rid of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and the average buyer won’t care.
Truer words were never spoken. The fact that they seriously (or maybe not, IDK) expect sales to increase 25% because of one (1) new SUV and a sports car that starts around $50k is completely insane. This company has gone fully off the deep end and I wish to God they would sell their domestic brands already because holy shit, it’s going to get so bad.
Also, it’s a company that has failed on their last three major product launches.
The EV Charger, Hornet and Wagoneer have not lived up to their sales expectations. If one more company releases a minivan that is even reasonably successful in the segment it could devastate Stellantis’ US sales.
I think the next-gen Odyssey being hybridized is going to really hurt them.
I’m in the weird position where I believe that the AI doomerism is probably more fiction than reality to play into hype, and it really is not as good or capable as is being sold… but at the same time I think it is absolutely evil and should be forced from polite society
It’s evil and damaging applications FAR outweigh any possible societal good.
100%!
Creativity, art, and language are these amazing human abilities. Handing that over to machines to “create” just turns creation and creativity into yet another consumable activity and further separates humans from experiencing the intangible, hard to describe, yet completely necessary acts that we were given as gifts and make us individual and human
I’m not afraid that AI will successfully replace humans, what I fear is that companies and governments will believe that it can for just long enough to do some real, lasting damage to civilization before it all comes crumbling down. When the companies that embraced AI fail, anyone left there will be out of a job, and this will happen at an enormous scale, in a market already full of unemployed skilled workers. We’re experiencing a recession during a bubble, and I shudder to think of how much deeper it can go
Not to mention the effects of AI disinformation campaigns and data center resource usage.
Oh I’m right there with you on all that. Sorry, it’s really really really hard to build a product that is as transformative and successful as the iPhone. I know everyone wants to do that, but it’s astonishingly rare. Remember when the metaverse was the next big one? When VR was going to be the next big one? When Blockchain everything and NFTs were the next big one? How’d all those go?
Resource management of data centers is disastrous, I’ve been fighting against the seediest developers possible who have been trying to build one next to my town (right next to houses in what is otherwise forest on top of a mountain ridge…) for the past few months. The hype cycle around them is just trying to mask the unlikelihood any of these become real, profitable companies versus the massive drain on energy and capital they actually are long enough to have the government say it’s “essential.”
I’m with you, but part of me worries a lot if I am wrong. So I’m nice to the bots and have invested in AI infrastructure companies.
Don’t worry. Elon is going to put data centers in space.
Well… I think most media hasn’t really picked up on where the problems are. So doom scrolling AI generally sees people afraid their jobs are going to go away and the odd hallucination. Most of the stuff I see being written about is mostly fiction because the actual problems are scary beyond my current ability to comprehend them. e.g. they’re scary enough that a mad man decided a viable solution was data centres in space.
Well if google ever fixes how it prioritizes its ad traffic all these companies that built AI content generating sites will be hosed and perhaps we can get back to something resembling normal.
For now those companies are all raking in the ad dollars because of a flawed system. I still don’t understand why companies are buying ads from google in this environment.
Google will use AI to re-prioritize and then the slop generators will use AI to figure out how to get around it.
Rinse. Repeat.
The future is AIs fighting each other. The entire world is going to be like boomers arguing politics on facebook.
As far as companies buying ads – where else do they go? There is essentially no print media. I haven’t watched ad-supported TV with any regularity in a decade and I doubt I’m alone there.
There’s Facebook ads, various on-platform ads for all the big services as well as on-platform ads for all the online retailers like Amazon, Walmart etc. They all have their captive audience ad marketplaces. Sure it’s a lot to juggle but I would imagine the return on investment has to be better.
If you’re just having your ads placed on slop sites that auto-generate content with no real traffic, what the actual hell is the point?
I do have to add, you got me with the boomers arguing politics on facebook. Great analogy. I haven’t chortled unexpectedly like that in a while so thanks!
My take is the AI space is pretty close to where the dot com realm was just before that bubble burst 25 years ago.
After the shakeout, the world did in fact turn into the globally connected utopia the early dotcommers predicted (more or less… okay a lot less), but it took longer than they envisioned and most of the early players went under along the way.
That’s probably where AI is now. It is probably inevitable, but when it finally goes mainstream, it isn’t going to look like or be the panacea “they” currently think it’s going to be. And there will likely be a business bloodbath between now and then, as the market hype machine meets reality of AI’s current limitations.
Settle down everybody. It’s not like we’re building armies of AI powered humanoid robots that could eventually turn on us and hunt us to extinction after wiping out all jobs. Oh, wait…
“It’s the ICE 2000!”
*rapturous applause*
“Jim Farley stands between each new vehicle”
–Caption of an image that will soon appear in the pages of a Hearst publication
BYD will continue to get bigger and bigger. Entry into Canada recently is just one of their many wins.
Stellantis will be lucky if they don’t see a 25% decline. They messed up their product pipeline and are now paying dearly for it. If they continue to see declines in the coming years, expect them to shed or sell off individual brands and then eventually merge with another auto manufacturer.
If Slate sells any vehicles that will be a (quantity x 100%) increase over last year so hoping they can get some off the line.
For the regular automakers, Nissan has a shot with the new Leaf and the
OutlanderRogue PHEV of doing better, also in Europe the Micra should keep selling well.it is still delusional to think the slate will sell in volume anytime soon.
I’m still thinking it’s vaporware or a dramatically different product after the EV rebate disappeared.
Correct – and the consumer federal EV tax credit was not the most important one. The important credits would have been earned by Slate and then sold to other companies. Those credits were worth about $25,000 per vehicle.
At the core Slate was a plan to sell a cheap products to harvest credit revenue.
With the rebate they were at $20k, without the rebate they’ll be at about $27k, and states like CA are still doing some rebates. Also, and I don’t think this gets enough emphasis, they are ready to produce trucks with less than $1 billion so far, compare that to Ford who’s ‘skunk works’ $30k EV truck they’ve poured over $5 billion into already, and is just now in prototype testing.
But Slate isn’t going for being the next Ford, to recoup the current investment in the next 5 years, assuming they make maybe $3k per truck, they’ll only need to sell 233K trucks, that’s less than 50k trucks a year, not counting the add on packs like the $5k SUV kit.
So, if they actually reach production, they have a much smaller hurdle to profitability compared to a Rivian or Lucid or such.
At $27k, they’re within a couple thou of the base Maverick hybrid. People that want a pure electric, or the easy customizability of the Slate, will still be interested.
But the Ford is a lot more vehicle for the money. Anyone who needs to do more serious trucky stuff than a run to Home Depot (such as towing or driving more than 200 miles at a pop) will buy a Mav.
Yeah, and used EV trucks like the F150 Lightnings are starting to creep down to the 30s for pricing, but again they don’t have to do huge numbers to succeed. If they can find a niche and if the Napas and Autozone and hardware store rental fleets find spots for them that could help sales too.
We’ve seen a lot of EV truck startups flop the last decade, Lordstown, Canoo, Bollinger, so the odds aren’t in Slate or Telos favor, but I hope they make it, be nice to see small trucks make a comeback.
It’s not vaporware. They’ve built a number of prototypes for crash testing, and Leno spent some time looking at and driving one. Color me intrigued.
https://youtu.be/L6_9_HHLOSY
Prototypes and proof-of-concept is a long way from for sale to the general public.
True. But it’s a lot further than vaporware, which by definition is a product announcement with nothing to back it up.
They’ve made 78 prototypes, that’s more than Tucker made.(too soon?)
Pretty sure I said I’m hoping they can get some off the line, didn’t say “They’ll sell millions!”. So glad you’re not calling me delusional here.
I just don’t want the Nissan Rogue PHEV to do TOO well. The one benefit of the Outlander is that it’s assembly line in Okazaki is that the line literally runs about 50% slower than many other assembly plants and that means things get screwed together better. Driving an Outlander proves this daily.
if Stellantis would drop the price of the Jeep Wrangler they would see a lot of growth, They have priced out their potential customers.
I think their $50k base model Charger is doing the same.
Totally, that should be in the high 20s-low 30s at most.
Just saw a facebook ad for $28k off a new wrangler 4xe at the local dealer. Not sure that will help…
With or without the fire blanket?
without. it’s going to be at the dealer parked in service waiting for recall parts anyway so if it catches fire they have the tools necessary to deal with it.
Hopefully Rivian with the R2 should have some decent growth this year
The thing about percentage goals is they mask the scale of the accomplishment. I once grew a church 33% in one year! That masks the fact that it was a little country congregation that worshipped 12 normally. A family of four started attending. Attendance 16, growth 33%, whoo!
Getting 4 new people in a church of 100 would be 4% growth. Same achievement, different scale.
I don’t know how bad Stellantis’ sales have been lately. (Guessing: real bad.) But a new Cherokee – one of their best sellers – and bringing back the hemi – one of their most popular engines – should help a lot. They don’t need as many sales as Toyota to show a big gain.
Next… fix quality, and give us some new products. Dammit, any new Chrysler that’s not a minivan, or even a new minivan, would be nice. I have a historical fondness for the smoldering remnants of Mopar and AMC and would like to see them rise from the ashes of self-immolation.
I think we need the Bishop to re-imagine the new Charger (gas or electric) as the new Chrysler Cordoba.
Only if it has rich Corinthian leather.
Obviously it would have to have Rich Corinthian Leather. That goes without saying.
The Grand Wagoneer needs to be a Chrysler Grand Imperial immediately. Spruce up the interior and print money.
“Imperial” doesn’t exactly have great connotations these days. I imagine even the people who are well-off enough to afford such a vehicle would be aware of that.
Has it been long enough to recycle “Town & Country” again?
“Daddy – Is that a new Stellantis Grand Imperial Battlecruiser?”
“Why yes it is little one – How did you know that?”
“Because of the platoons of armed ICE 2000 robots coming out of it and heading this way…”
“!!!”
Yeah, 25% growth is only plausible from a very low base, but just maybe their base is in fact that low?
Stellantis is insane. It will certainly help having a vehicle in the most popular market segment that they have been absent from for the past few years, but I think it will be impressive if they stop the losses and improve up to 0% growth. The Sixpack Charger won’t do much for them, the majority of the previous Charger sales were V6 rental cars and there is no equivalent with the new generation.
Nissan is right to be optimistic I think. They have new products that are unequivocally better than the previous versions.
I guess Ford figured out the best way to save on warranty costs is to just stop making vehicles.
The problem with measuring growth is it has to be normalized to the current amount. Stellantis selling 25% more cars is a big jump in points, but not actually that many more cars. But if Toyota has 25% sales growth…
For Stellantis, it would mean about 325,000 more vehicles in 2026 vs 2025
Which, before COVID disruptions, the Challenger/Charger/300 used to do about 180,000 a year on their own, so if they’re expecting the new ICE Charger option to replace all of that lost volume, that would account for half that number
I hope they’re not delusional enough to think that’s going to happen though, because that requires a complete break with reality onto a whole new plane of human consciousness
The thing is that they seem to actually think that an ICE Charger is going to put them back on top. A car that was EV-only for a very long time and the general public probably doesn’t even know exists.
But someone thought it looked good on a chart, which played well with the stock analysts, so here we are….
Seeing how Hearst is a large corporation, they will gladly become an AI slop zombie of an organization that ultimately takes a private equity buyout for pennies on the dollar before fairly paying their employees.
This is, unfortunately, the correct take.
I hate to say it, but at this point, I can’t wait for what’s left of traditional print publishers like Hearst to die. Magazine readership has been in a steady decline for decades, and the content quality from a lot of these publications has been slowly going down over recent years. If all that’s left is a handful of hollow brands pushing AI “enhanced” articles and full-page ads on a dwindling readership, may as well just pull the plug while they still have a shred of dignity left.
Boringly, Hyundai/Kia will probably see the biggest growth this year. The new Palisade is all over the place and I’m already seeing a few ’26 Tellurides around. They’re probably best positioned across the price spectrum as well. Stellantis thinking they’re going to score 25% growth from the umpteenth mediocre revival of a once-great SUV nameplate and the ICE version of a car nobody wants very much is comedy gold, especially by the time CJDR dealers get done with the markups on these “desirable” models.
I’ve seen new Tellurides appearing. And in a neighborhood that has a rapidly increasing number of minivans, mostly a mix of new and used Siennas but also the Hondas and Chryslers, two new Carnivals just appeared.
Hyundai/Kia simply managed to figure out the secret sauce to building a successful automotive business that none of the others have, which is give customers a good product at a fair price. Who knew?
The air bag recall is still going? I remember going to Indianapolis for ISO-17025 (quality system like ISO9000 plus calibration/stats stuff) training on a revision that was upcoming. I think it was about 10 years ago at this point.
We all had little folded cards with our names and companies in front us. I remember sitting across from someone from Takata and thinking the jokes sometimes write themselves.
Seven years ago I traded in a car that had an unrepaired Takata airbag. There were no replacements available at the time. And that was several years into the recall.
Same when I traded in my ’10 Acura TSX in 2018.
VW has no idea wtf is going on. I would assume that at least the board of Stellantis is all aware that they’re just a capital management corporation in the guise of an automaker
I wouldn’t think that anyone working in print media would be in a position to make demands.
How the mighty have fallen… I have subscribed to C/D since 1990. Once read every issue full cover to cover. Now, I have not even opened the most recent (bi-monthly) issue. I just need to finally cancel. I get far more enjoyment from my Autopian membership.
Which is why they air longstanding grudges against Jason at manufacturer PR events.
Because they know how powerless they truly are.
This is something I guess I had assumed was a law; if it is not, it should be.
Unfortunately not a law. The Screen Actors Guild had to fight a bit to ensure such protections for their members.
I’d love to see a law giving all individuals ownership over their own likeness, because it does seem like such a common sense protection. If you don’t own yourself, then what kind of dystopian hellhole is this?
I just read that some celebrity recently trademarked his likeness for this reason.
I think several non-actor celebrities have now. They shouldn’t have to, in a sensible world that recognizes ownership over one’s own person and likeness, but we’re not in that world, sadly.
Depends on the state. California has a likeness law protecting its residents. IMHO, other states should follow the example.
That’s a good point. State laws can be helpful in this regard. I’d love to see a national/international law, though, so there’s less patchwork and so there aren’t significant jurisdictional questions.
But how then will the State be allowed to superimpose my image on survailance video??
A corrupt government will not allow its laws to bind it. See also: current events.
……… sad, but true. My daughter wants to actively protest. I fully agree, but better understand the implications…..
Think Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing in Rogue 1, Arnie in a few Terminator sequels. All plastic, artificial CGI artifices. I think Carrie’s daughter at least got paid for her usage.
Yeah, it was that kind of garbage that got SAG to push for likeness protections. They don’t want studios to just scan actors and throw them into scenes.
I cheered seeing an assembly line of Arnie Terminator robots. I also know he has the clout to be well compensated for it. No such protections for the non-wealthy.
Maybe it’s time for our own little paper Autopian underground Zine. I’d go to Rich Corinthian Leather for that.
Slate will take the growth crown.
If Slate delivers on their late 2026 availability, they will see infinite growth over the previous year. Scout will take the 2027 crown if they hit their manufacturing goals.
I was going to say that Slate and Telo would be competing on that zero to something growth if either of them deliver. And I do think Slate is probably more likely to deliver and certainly likely to deliver more if both do.
How did I forget about Telo!
Slate’s “every vehicle rolls off the line identical, except for the two battery options” should help them a lot with the production ramp up.
I mostly remember Telo because I am within the first 25 reservations, so I’m watching carefully for personal reasons. I really hope they come to market. But, yeah, the Slate production strategy should mean a very fast ramp. The Telo production strategy is going to be slow, I think. They’re going to make the first ~500 in a very low-capacity setup, then get the full production line going after that, so the only way they beat Slate on growth this year is if Slate delays to next year.
Jay Leno’s Garage had both the Slate and the Telo on recently. I watched the Slate one, but not the Telo one yet. Slate continues to stick to the “priced in the mid-20s” thing which I think is key for them and will be impressive if they can pull it off. An electric city truck is pretty compelling to me, but the price would need to be right.
Seeing that Leno appeared to fit in the Telo well was a selling point for me. I haven’t actually watched the Slate one yet, but I agree that the mid-20s is a heck of price to hit, and it would make them a pretty compelling option.
I like the Telo because it advertises a longer range and will be a properly small pickup, but I am afraid they’re going to miss their range target or price target, either of which could be a significant hit to their competitiveness.
I continue to be pessimistic about Slate. It’s a cool idea, but the trucks are now going to be about ~$30k OTD unless they’re willing to offer discounts. And that’s for a base model, too, that they expect you to pay more money to customize. I just can’t see it catching on with the general public; most people are going to see the sticker price and the relatively short range and just buy a Maverick instead.
Agreed. I would guess they need to keep at least a $10k separation from something like the Maverick. They also need to find a PR way to avoid it being constantly compared to the Maverick as vehicles in the same segment. Make the case as to why they are different products with different use cases. Maverick MSRP continues to understate the actual price you would find on a lot, so maybe they can do it.
Which automaker will see the biggest growth this year?
I’ll go with Jaguar, who will sell a car, which will be 100% growth.
That seems optimistic.
a co-worker just bought an I-Pace last week. done.
“Shut’er down boys, we’ve done it!”- Jaguar’s sales department manager chomping on a cigar and popping a bottle of sparkling white wine from Tesco
Can’t divide by zero. It’s actually infinite growth, depending how you look at it.
100% growth would be selling one car the first year and twice that the second.
Came for the cars. Stayed for the math. Thx for saving me the time of correcting this.