Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Foxconn + VW = Scout?
You probably don’t know what Hon Hai Technology Group is, but you’ve used something the company’s built. In fact, the iPhone or iPad you’re reading this on could have been built by the Taiwanese megacompany. Perhaps you know it by its more popular international name: Foxconn. If it’s electronic, Foxconn probably builds it in one of its massive and sometimes terrible plants. The company always manages to be on the edge of what’s coming, which explains why it’s jumped into EV truck manufacturing by purchasing the former Lordstown GM plant from Lordstown Motors in an agreement that sees Foxconn making the Lordstown Endurance truck and owning part of that company. It’s possible that Lordstown is not the future of the car industry, no offense, so what’s with Foxconn’s investment? There was an interesting piece filed this morning in Automobilewoche (the German sister pub of Automotive News) that indicates Volkswagen is at least “in talks” with the Taiwanese company to manufacture Scout EV trucks and SUVs. That’s right, the Scout of International-Harvester fame that brought us rugged and handsome trucks and SUVs of yesteryear. Why is Volkswagen going to build a Scout? It’s a good question and, lucky for us, Thomas broke down the whole sordid history earlier this year. The short version is that International-Harvester became Navistar, which in turn became part of Volskwagen’s truck arm. The article goes on to note that Magna-Steyr is also in the mix for making the trucks, which are expected to come to market in 2026.
Renault And Nissan Still Trying To Work It Out
It’s fairly well established that the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance was a marriage of inconvenience built around two fundamental truths:
Renault, a huge employer partially owned by the French state, was never going to be allowed to fully fail even as it made mediocre cars and bad decisions. Nissan, not owned by the Japanese state and maker of great cars and equally bad decisions, was going to be allowed to fail.
Back in the late 1990s, Nissan found itself buried under a mountain of debt following the popping of Japan’s Bubble Era. The Japanese automaker hoped that DaimlerChrysler and Dr. Z would come to its rescue but, alas, Nissan’s debt and Daimler’s poor experience with Chrysler led the German manufacturer to walk away from the potential deal. The only company interested in taking on Nissan’s debt was Renault and thus the Renault-Nissan Alliance was formed. Since essentially the first day of the company it’s been a battle between Renault trying to finally absorb Nissan and Nissan steadfastly refusing to give up its independence. In 2018, then-Renault and Nissan Chairman/CEO Carlos Ghosn was going to relent and further entwine the companies and, well, we all know how that went. It’s been 20 years of this crap and it’s still going on! Here’s an update from Reuters just today: Those two are like Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Maybe they’ll finally work it out! Ongoing talks between Renault and Nissan about their alliance could prompt the biggest reset in the tie-up since the 2018 arrest of longtime executive Carlos Ghosn, but it still has to be confirmed how they play out.
All These Sedans Are Dead
Acura ILX? Dead! Hyundai Accent? Dead! Toyota Avalon? Dead! Volkswagen Passat? Dead! Wormer? He’s a dead man! The nice folks at USA Today have a wrap up of all the cars discontinued in the United States for 2023 and what’s most notable is all the sedans. Sure, the weird-fit Ford EcoSport and the half-measure Lexus RX L are also on their way out, but they’re just going to be replaced by other crossovers. The reality is that the entry-level car is mostly gone and is being replaced by the entry-level subcompact crossover and mid-to-fullsize sedans are being replaced by mid-to-fullsize crossovers. As with all realities, this one is subject to immediate change.
Hyundai To Build Batteries With ‘SK On’ In The US
Following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Hyundai is jumping in bed with South Korea’s SK On to build car batteries in the United States. Reuters has an explanation of why this deal is so important for Hyundai: Yup. Hyundai and Kia have extremely appealing EV offerings but those cars are less appealing without the $7,500 government dollars on the hood. If you’re curious who SK On is, you can read this Forbes profile of their CEO which details how they want to surpass CATL in battery production by 2030. “We expect the stable supply of EV batteries from SK On will also enable us to contribute to emissions reduction and meet climate goals in the market,” Hyundai said in a statement. As the new law requires EVs to be assembled in North America to qualify for the tax credits, Hyundai Motor Co and its affiliate Kia Corp, as well as major European automakers, were excluded from the subsidies as they do not yet make the vehicles there.
The Flush
What does Scout need to do to be successful in the United States?
Photos: VW, Omaze, Renault, SK On, Nissan
I always feel like a lonely voice crying into the wilderness on this, but here we go again. Sedans as we knew them are almost certainly never coming back. The advantages of a CUV body style (higher viewpoint, better visibility, easier step-in height, better capability, more cargo space for a given length) aren’t going anywhere, and the advantages of a sedan body style (better handling, better fuel economy, lower cost) are smaller than ever by comparison.
Technology has enabled people to drive what they really wanted to all along, without the associated tradeoffs that used to prevent them from doing so.
I’m wondering what the younger generations are going to be buying as they get older and can afford new vehicles. Will they want an SUV or crossover like their parents had, or something else? That’s what killed the station wagon and minivan, no one wanted to drive what their parents did.
Same is true for automatic transmissions. Back in the day checking that box usually meant a higher purchase price, less mpg, less performance and more $$ trips to the shop. Now however automatics yield BETTER mileage, great performance and are overall fairly reliable. So good by manual transmissions.
Some automakers tried to upsize their cars over the years to try and appeal to those tastes – higher rooflines, higher seating positions, more interior space – didn’t work. In the more recent/current/outgoing generations, they leaned into lower rooflines and seating positions for ‘sportier’ feels and touted that fact in the press releases (Camry and Accord did for example) – because people were going to buy a RAV4 or Pilot or whatever anyway.
Young people want utility vehicles too. Whether they learned to drive on SUVs/vans, or have the old family CR-V/Highlander/Explorer/etc. handed down to them when they start driving, or they have kids and don’t want to crouch down to load the kid in/out of the lower roofline of a car, heck even just large dogs – they’re shying away from sedans too, even if they like a regular car otherwise. And look at all the outdoorsy editions of standard crossovers to go along with the overlanding craze – Trailsport Hondas, Wilderness Subarus, etc. – it’s not the seniors those are trying to appeal to.
Correct, but what exactly makes you think this trend will change any time soon? The demographic trend of Americans having fewer children and getting older on average is much longer-term than just the Baby Boomers.
“Like McMansions, CUVs will become obsolete once the people that demand them age out.”
This implies that there’s pent up demand among currently-young people for sedans. To which I say, where is the evidence?
Or, I may just be babbling. It’s early; I have the flu.
Hugs.
It is correct that increasing drag will still result in worse fuel economy, in spite of the engine’s thermal efficiency being increased due to the modified operating point. You use more fuel than you gain in increased thermal efficiency. Increasing the load from 20 horsepower to 25 horsepower might make the thermal efficiency at the operating point go from 14% to 15%, but now you need 25% more power to maintain speed, resulting in an increase in fuel consumption.
The displacement on the engine doesn’t make as much difference in a car’s fuel economy as we have been led to believe. The reason cars with V8s tend to consume more fuel than small 4-cylinders is because the cars themselves are bigger, heavier, and less slippery to the air than those cars with smaller engines. Compare the 1980s era Mustangs, the 4 cylinder, vs the 5.0L V8, and there is about 2 mpg difference between them. 24 mpg highway for the anemic 4-cylinder, and 22 mpg highway for the 5.0L V8. The V8 does have potential to use a lot more fuel when racing about, however, but in normal A to B driving without hard accelerations, the V8 and the 4-cylinder are very close in economy.
Load reduction is the single most important thing that can be done to improve fuel economy, and even modern cars are totally designed backwards from what is needed to keep load down. They have at least twice as much drag as is necessary for the amount of utility they provide, all in the name of marketing, emphasizing brand identity, and the aesthetics dujour. It’s wasteful and stupid, IMO, and is costing everyone way too much money and depleting the world’s natural resources, for no good reason.
If the automakers made featherweight sub 2,500 lb streamliners with drag coefficients in the mid 0.1X range with long-legged gearing and overpowered monster engines(say, an 8L twin turbo V16), it is not out of the realm of plausibility for such a hypothetical car exceed 40 mpg at a steady 70 mph in spite of all the pumping losses such an engine would impose. Although in city driving with lots of stop and go, a big, powerful engine can be GREATLY penalized, and the mass of the car becomes the overriding factor in economy in these circumstances.
And, I, for one, have never found a higher seating position to be at all attractive or comfortable, in fact, quite the opposite, it’s downright disconcerting. Maybe personal preference, same reason why I always prefer a normal chair vs a bar stool, or a low toilet over one of those stupid “comfort height” models everyone has to have now. And I’m not exactly short, although 5ft 10 still isn’t tall, either
Everyone likes to say they manage great fuel economy in whatever vehicle they’re predisposed to like best, but the government says an Escape gets 28-30 combined (41 in a hybrid) and a Town Car gets 18 combined. So no, not particularly close at all.
We’ll see a resurgence of sedans due to EVs. As range and charging abilities/networks get better that might change again, but we’ll see sedans come back for EVs.
The Model X and Y have drag coefficients of 0.23 and 0.25 respectively. The Bolt EUV is 0.23. The EV6 is 0.28. The Nissan Ariya and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are 0.29. Etc etc etc.
These are not G wagons we are talking about. If we were going to see a resurgence of sedans, it would have started already. Instead, it’s nothing but EV crossovers as far as the eye can see.
The better EVs have typically been designed that way from the ground-up, not converted from an ICE car but it’ll take time for public perception to wean off of the conventional body styles.
Ioniq 5 is a good example – looks like a regular compact 5-door hatch in pics yet, has the same wheelbase as a Honda Odyssey; taller than a regular car and visually looks much larger in person but isn’t as tall as a small SUV. They do bill it as an SUV, but EPA classifies it as a large car* which is appropriate as it has more interior room than any midsize sedan.
*The EV6 is classified as a small station wagon with just 3 cu. ft. less interior room than the Ioniq 5, but I guess would need more cargo room to bump it up to say, midsize wagon.
I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both, once you get to the intermediate size range and up, I’d prefer a sedan, since the trunks are plenty big enough at that point, but for compact and smaller, probably lean toward hatchbacks
This type:
“you’re street parked on a cold winter day and your boss opens the big rear hatch to throw a box in the back and the whole interior gets a gust of frigid air.”
Yeeaahhh, now about those missing TPS reports….
I am thinking an EV Bronco here. Goo enough for most bad weather travel, carrying room, commuter. Along with a call back to the glory days of the Scout without the rust factor.
And please no capacitative touch controls!
Since this is all vaporware and we’re on the outside making things up, we can take this in any direction without consequence. One obvious choice is, as others here mentioned, create a modern Bronco-like SUV built on an EV skateboard.
Another option is to create a bare-bones, relatively low-tech, hackable, hose-out-the-interior competitor to the Wrangler at a low price. Sort of like the original Scout but an EV.
And a perfect example of mismanagement at every level on a scale that makes even Dumber-Chrysler look good by comparison. They demonstrated at every single turn that not a single executive on any side had the least fucking understanding or empathy for the other side, their cultural norms, or their products. Which was absolutely not helped by Japan’s heavily institutionalized racism and the French government’s excessive and heavy-handed attempts at ‘oversight.’ There is no argument against the institutionalized racism either, by the by. Ghosn’s political prosecution proved that. Japanese executives also personally signed off on suspect or illegal payments to themselves as well, yet Ghosn was the only one threatened with life in prison. Nissan was fined $1.7M for the entire “Ghosn scandal,” and CEO Hiroto Saikawa who admitted to actual crimes – forging documents to inflate his pay by nearly $1M USD in 2013 – was not prosecuted at all. Saikawa, by the way, still works for Nissan making over $1M USD per year in compensation. So does Hari Nada who also admitted to identical crimes. And if you want to see even more fuckery, look into a Mr. Ravinder Passi and what he was subjected to on behalf of Nissan.
This also grossly oversimplifies the conflict. For years upon years it has been open hostilities on both sides. Nissan refuses to kowtow to the invaders who defy all cultural norms, and feels as though they are constantly being insulted; Renault continues to insist the bubble burst proves that nobody at Nissan knows shit about running a company, and that Nissan doesn’t know how to build what Europe wants. It’s been very open, very public warfare on all sides from day one and it has never, ever cooled or improved in any way.
The only reason it hasn’t imploded completely is because of the massive financial fallout for both sides. It would be catastrophic, despite the years and years of both sides fighting to not cooperate in any fashion. Because the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi (yes, they are part of it, and just completely dumped on and ignored) would be a massively, ruinously expensive divorce. Because most of their collaboration is on capital-intensive (read: expensive as fuck) R&D into things like… electric vehicles. And they’ve already had to write off AvtoVAZ.
The chickens have finally come home to roost for this shitshow, and the fallout is not going to be pretty.
“What does Scout need to do to be successful in the United States?”
Stop the recession and return interest rates to zero, while also making it actually affordable – which means either the price has to come down or real wages for everyone have to go way up.
High dollar luxury SUVs went from unobtanium to lot rot pretty much overnight. Every Wagoneer (minimum OTD price, $70,000) around me has already knocked a minimum – MINIMUM – $2k off the sticker. Not the ADM bullshit sticker; the actual factory sticker. One dealer’s already knocked $74,445 highly equipped stickers down to $65,445 or a $995 down lease – because it’s been on the lot SIX MONTHS. 157 days! How fucked is it? Even $45k base model Grand Cherokees are getting big sticker knockoffs and still sitting on lots 40+ days. And demo cars? Forget selling one of those unless you’re going to knock at least eight large off.
http://cornbinderconnection.com/
Hell over a hundred years ago lead acid batteries were being used in submarines yet most of those didn’t explode from the batteries getting wet, and the ones that did usually had reasons.
Point is batteries can do fine in salty environments, even hazardous ones if designed to do so. Which is good as beaches aren’t the only salty places around.
https://img-ik.cars.co.za/images/2016/11/Chevrolet-Trailblazer-ZR1/tr:n-news_1200x/IMG_9007.JPG
