U.S. Auto Market News and Reviews

Mr_Shiftright

It's a gold-plated name, so unless Tata runs it into the dirt, ala GM did with Cadillac, then that name "Jaguar" is always going to have marketplace power in the luxury field.

I wish, though, that Jaguar would return to its roots. It was not born as a luxury land yacht.

Mr_Shiftright

Looks like we spoke too soon. VW might indeed get fined by the German government, and South Korea is also making noises.

Germany Might Fine VW

henryn

laurasdada said:

There will always be a Jaguar.

Unless there isn't.

Mr_Shiftright said:

It's a gold-plated name, so unless Tata runs it into the dirt, ala GM did with Cadillac, then that name "Jaguar" is always going to have marketplace power in the luxury field.

Things don't work that way in the modern world. The way it used to be, when we were young, brand names meant something. Remember "The quality goes in before the name goes on." And where are they now?

I worked for Gulf Oil for 13 years, 1972 to 1985. When Chevron bought them out, they dissolved the name, they did not want it. No value. Over the last 3 or 4 years, I'm seeing the name again. On second rate discount gas station / convenience stores. I guess it shouldn't bother me, but it does.

Mr_Shiftright

You could still poll your average person on the street and the name "Jaguar" will evoke a positive response or at least an image of a car driven by "well off" people. I can't say "Gulf" ever meant very much to anyone, except maybe the "Gulf Economy Run" way back in the 50s.

"Jaguar" still has relevance, whereas "Maybach" only evoked "Maybach Who?". Same with "Packard"--nobody remembers what it was except the old folks.

"Tesla" was a good pick for a new brand name because all the geeks knew who Tesla was--even if they didn't know he was a marginal nutcase.

berri

I recall while living in FL back in the 80's that I felt my cars ran better on Gulf (and Chevron for that matter). Sad to see the old names go. Even sadder, while it is legal, it is almost dishonest to take an old, quality name and stick it on crap. Happening all the time in many areas like electronics and even clothing. The old "anything for a buck" tradition!

Mr_Shiftright

Well that's certainly true what you say about degrading formerly respected names. One thinks of Black and Decker in power tools, for instance, vs. say Bosch.

stever

"The steady growth in the American automobile market has been an economic success story: Carmakers set a record last year by selling more than 17.4 million new vehicles.

But with consumer demand leveling off after six consecutive years of rising sales since the industry’s near collapse during the financial crisis, car companies are under increasing pressure to show strong monthly numbers, however they can."

Why Monthly Auto Sales Numbers May Not Be What They Seem (NY Times)

circlew

German minister to Trump after tax threat: ‘The U.S. needs to build better cars’


“The American car industry is getting worse, weaker and more expensive,” Gabriel told Bild on Monday. If U.S. buyers are choosing German models, as Trump suggests, then “that’s why the U.S. needs to build better cars,” he said.

US getting better but not better than the rest. Nothing changed since 2008.

tlong

circlew said:

German minister to Trump after tax threat: ‘The U.S. needs to build better cars’


“The American car industry is getting worse, weaker and more expensive,” Gabriel told Bild on Monday. If U.S. buyers are choosing German models, as Trump suggests, then “that’s why the U.S. needs to build better cars,” he said.

US getting better but not better than the rest. Nothing changed since 2008.

Well at least our emissions work a lot better than the cheating from VW. Surprise that he didn't mention THAT.

Mr_Shiftright

He'd probably call that a Straw Man argument.

andres3

Mr_Shiftright said:

He'd probably call that a Straw Man argument.

Not to mention Chrysler/Fiat are getting similar accusations now.

GM was fined decades previously for Emissions violations (Caddy) as well. Please don't tell me that was the "other" GM prior to bankruptcy managed by Gov't Motors.

And it's not that VW's emissions didn't work, it's that they were turned off, for the most part, in order to enhance performance and mileage.

tlong

andres3 said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

He'd probably call that a Straw Man argument.

And it's not that VW's emissions didn't work, it's that they were turned off, for the most part, in order to enhance performance and mileage.

They didn't work for most of the time that the car was actually driven on roads.

andres3

tlong said:

andres3 said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

He'd probably call that a Straw Man argument.

And it's not that VW's emissions didn't work, it's that they were turned off, for the most part, in order to enhance performance and mileage.

They didn't work for most of the time that the car was actually driven on roads.

Generation 3 models have an EPA approved 2-step fix now. Recall is in.

Mr_Shiftright

New Levels of Wretched Excess

fintail

Hey, people in Russia and the Arabian Peninsula need cars too.

Mr_Shiftright

Good. As long as I don't have to look at these monstrosities.

fintail

Oh, it's already that bad. This is in production, I think:



And even the traditional one isn't exactly the paragon of refined taste:



Vehicles that scream "I stole this money, and also bought off the authorities, deal with it"

Mr_Shiftright

I am not impressed, only amused.

berri

While I didn't grow up with wealth, my school district back in the 60's included two pretty well to do areas. One was old money and you'd actually see a lot of Buicks, Ford station wagons and the like in their driveways. The other was new money where the driveways had the same excess and the houses. I always wondered if the old money hung on to it longer.

fintail

The old money likely survived. It's not much different today. Lots of money in my region. Old money - immaculate 10+ year old LS/S-class/E-class wagon/Porsche etc. New money (and offshore money, huge factor here) - highline AMG/M/RS/Range Rover etc. Tesla might dabble in both. Old money bought their house for 250K in 1982 and it is now worth 3MM.

suydam

But who had $250k in 1982? Not too many folks.

fintail

Old money

In this area, 80K in 1982 could easily be 800K-1MM today.

tlong

Tesla sells over 25K cars in a quarter - latest news.
That's over 100K cars/year at that pace.
Regardless of their profitability (or not), that's an amazing number. And those cars are not cheap.
Ten years ago did anybody expect that we'd have 100K electric vehicles being sold a year in the US, and not from any of the established auto companies at that time?

This is from the same guy that just launched a satellite to orbit, landed the first stage, and then reused it for another orbital launch, and landed it again.

suydam

Isn't that global sales?

Mr_Shiftright

The EV market seems to be growing slowly. It is sobering though to compare these numbers to say Ford's 1st quarter sales of "regular" cars---586,000 and change.

andres3

Mr_Shiftright said:

The EV market seems to be growing slowly. It is sobering though to compare these numbers to say Ford's 1st quarter sales of "regular" cars---586,000 and change.

Also, I wonder how the US Gov't subsidies differed between Ford and Tesla.

fintail

Has to be global sales.

Time for the tax gift to expire.

tlong

fintail said:

Has to be global sales.

Time for the tax gift to expire.

Given GM's tax gift, Tesla should have subsidies for like another decade or two.

fintail

I mean the tax gifts given to the buyers, those who need it, or dare I say, deserve it, least.

tlong said:

Given GM's tax gift, Tesla should have subsidies for like another decade or two.

Mr_Shiftright

A strange form of tax credit given that most Teslas are probably coal-powered.

suydam

I thought most Teslas are sold in California, where coal supplies 6% of electric power.

fintail

Tons of them in the Seattle area, even with the hydropower here, coal is still a significant source, but nobody likes to talk about it.

Mr_Shiftright

45% of Tesla sales are in California. Biggest sales per capita? Oddly enough----Norway!

However, in southern California, where lots of Teslas are sold, about 40% of energy comes from coal. How is that possible? Because the plants are "invisible"---they are kept out of state (NV and AZ)!

Pretty good sleight of hand, eh?

Also Tesla is still losing money apparently.

ALSO pretty good sleight of hand !

suydam

Hmm, according to stats I saw, over 45% of California electricity comes from natural gas.

Mr_Shiftright

If you’re an LA Department of Water and Power customer, about 40 percent of your power comes from coal.

LA DWP is America's largest municipal utility btw.

suydam

http://energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_system_power.html

Mr_Shiftright

That link is dead but I think we are saying the same thing--I'm just pointing out that in certain major geographical regions, coal supplies a great deal of the energy, while you are pointing out the overall percentage of each energy source for the whole state.

So if you are served by the LA DWP, say living in Beverly Hills, your Tesla gets 40% of it's motivation from coal plants. If you live in Silicon Valley, say in Atherton, maybe 0% from coal.

suydam

Sorry. I had trouble with the paste function. The link was from the California Energy Commission. The state of Calif. gets 44% of its electric power from Natural gas and 6% from coal. LA is too big to skew the energy use that much.

fintail

Here's a site that gives power generation by area

According to this, my clean green region is only 36.2% coal, not much less than the national average. However, our 39.7% hydro is much higher than average.

Default southern CA zip 90210 gives the majority to 62.5% gas. I wonder if gas infrastructure and the power grid would survive everyone switching to EVs - another elephant in the room nobody wants to touch (along with fuel tax issues).

Michaell

fintail said:

Here's a site that gives power generation by area

According to this, my clean green region is only 36.2% coal, not much less than the national average. However, our 39.7% hydro is much higher than average.

Default southern CA zip 90210 gives the majority to 62.5% gas. I wonder if gas infrastructure and the power grid would survive everyone switching to EVs - another elephant in the room nobody wants to touch (along with fuel tax issues).

Not surprisingly, almost 70% of the electricity where I live comes from coal. Given the high level of incentives on electric vehicles here in Colorado, I find that a bit amusing.

Where my family lives outside of LA, it's about 65% natural gas and 0% coal.

Mr_Shiftright

L.A. Country' population is larger than 41 states. It can certainly skew the data for the entire state.

If you type in the zip code for Beverly Hills (a typical L.A. zip code) you will see 40% of power coming from coal.

suydam

All I'm saying is if California gets 6% of its power from coal, than LA can't possibly get 40%. It's too big not to affect power consumption in the whole state. I'm going by the California.gov numbers.

Mr_Shiftright

Well yes, it gets 40% of that 6%, so all Teslas driven in L.A county are 40% coal-powered.

In Florida, another popular Tesla hot-spot, about 25% of the state's energy comes from coal, but I don't have the breakdown by zip code.

There. Are we okay now?

tlong

Yes, 0% coal in my area as well. But electricity is still expensive here. It's also tiered like our progressive income tax. We are in the 0.33/kwh marginal bracket...I keep waiting for the solar costs to go down before I pull the trigger on photovoltaics.

Now that our new brilliant government (Federal) no longer cares about restricting coal any more, it will be market forces rather than any policy that will drive us away from coal.

Mr_Shiftright

L.A. wants to be off coal by 2020. I think all but the diehard communities want to be done with it.

Of course, many EVs will still be powered by fossil fuels, which has to burn somewhere, if not in your engine.

tlong

Tweet from Elon Musk:
Elon Musk‏Verified account @elonmusk Jun 9

Few people know that we started Tesla when GM forcibly recalled all electric cars from customers in 2003 & then crushed them in a junkyard

fintail

That's some shade. I wish Tesla would recall some of its cars from the dopes who drive them around here.

Also a funny GM/Tesla parallel. The EV1 has Saturn-like styling. The Saturn was known to have panel gap issues. Tesla panel gap issues can be seen from space.

andres3

Tesla likes to talk about 0-60 times, but what about 0-100 times?

Top speeds?

fintail

The typical Tesla driver here just races up to 30 anyway.

Michaell

fintail said:

The typical Tesla driver here just races up to 30 anyway.

Because traffic won't allow speeds faster than that?