The MW Automotive Thread 5.0 GT

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[mikeszekely]

Well, I mentioned elsewhere that my desire to baby my Porsche Taycan caused me to see out another vehicle to drive primarily in the sloppy winters we get here in southwest PA (but also because the township decided the week the kids go back to school is the best time to do roadwork), and @TangledThorns asked me to talk about it. 

So, my criteria was pretty simple.  I wanted something with AWD; I got a good deal on my Taycan, but it's the base model that's RWD, and maybe this could have been avoided had I simply invested a bit more and got a 4S, but what's done is done.  I wanted something electric; I'm not road tripping, and with prices of gas and electricity in my area even a pretty inefficient EV is going to run me about a quarter of the cost per mile, to say nothing of lower all-around maintenance costs.  It had to be something my wife was ok with; her own car was in the shop for an extended period of time, and though they eventually gave her a loaner (that she never really cared for) we kind of realized that we'd get more value out of a backup vehicle either of us could use than strictly something I'd drive.  And, mostly, I wanted something cheap.  This car is, after all, essentially a spare.  We don't need all the bells and whistles of our daily drivers.

Turns out there are a lot of brands offering relatively low-cost, low-mileage leases on EVs right now.  Some, like the Honda Prologue and Volkswagen ID.4, couldn't be found anywhere within 100 miles.  But we shopped what was in the area, and we eventually settled on, of all things, the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T. (Largely due to my wife's company being a supplier for Stellantis).

I'll be honest, the Charger Daytona has fascinated me since Dodge first unveiled it last year.  I mean, MOPAR enthusiasts were already turning their noses up a promised gas-powered turbocharged straight six version, insisting that any real muscle car has to have a naturally-aspirated V8... no way were they going to buy an EV!  But rather than bolting a muscle car name onto a fastback SUV like Ford did, the new Charger really does look like Dodge tried to make a genuine successor to the name.  Even the haters admit that the car looks pretty cool, with a faux grill, and headlights that blend elements of the first & second-gen Chargers with the outgoing 7th generation and taillights that mix the modern with the third-gen, and a long, squared-off retro-modern body akin to the Challenger that it's also replacing.  The Scat Pack trim even has a ducktail spoiler like the third-gen Charger did.  Capitalizing on the retro vibes, Dodge brought back the Fraztog logo from the '60s and '70s, a logo that would have appeared on the original Charger.  With that Fratzog logo comes something Dodge calls "Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust."  See, by law, EVs have to make a certain amount of noise so that pedestrians can hear them.  Now some, like my Porsche, simply amplify the natural sounds of the electric motor.  Others, like BMW, make cool spaceship noises.  Dodge, in an attempt to play into their muscle heritage, basically mounted a speaker to the rear of the car to play fake V8 engine noises.  It's kind of cool when you turn the car on- there's a sound like a jet turbine winding up, followed by a loud rumble that caused both my wife and my mother to jump like my cat when I sneeze, and as it idles it almost could be mistaken for an ICE engine.  But as you accelerate, the sound that comes out of it has a tinny quality that sounds more like an Outrun arcade cabinet than V8.  Worse, it revs up and then just kind of whines there, as there aren't any gears to shift through.  I think I'd enjoy the Fratzonic Exhaust more if Dodge took a page from Hyundai's book and added fake gears you can manually shift like the Ioniq 5N.  Fortunately, you can put the car in "stealth" mode, which shuts the speakers and the fake noise off and relies solely on the sounds of the electric motors.

It doesn't matter how good a car looks, though.  Ultimately, it's about how well it drives.  And, well, it's fast!  The R/T Stage 1 I bought can do 0-60 just under 5 seconds, or a hair faster than my Porsche.  Opt for the Stage 2 Scat Pack and you can cut that down to just over 3 seconds, which on numbers alone makes it faster than any Hellcat.  But I think that's where the similarities to previous ponies with the Charger name kind of ends.  See, when you step on the accelerator, you go.  No burnouts, no smoking tires, you just go.  What's more, the car moves smoothly and confidently.  At nearly three tons it's not going to tear through the corners the way my Porsche does, but it's rather difficult to kick the tires loose into a slide.  This car's not going to be doing any donuts.

Oh, yeah, three tons.  Yeah.  I went to look at new Charger thinking, "like a Challenger, but electric."  No, in person, this thing's nearly a foot longer and four inches wider than a Challenger.  My wife's Kia EV9, a three-row SUV, is just a tad shorter than this behemoth.  If a technician took the 100kw/h battery off the car it'd still weight more than my similarly-electric Porsche.  And yet, it's really not that bad when you.  It cruises comfortably, accelerates quickly, and aided by the regenerative brakes it was capable of stopping just as quickly (Car and Driver found the Scat pack to stop from 70mph slightly shorter than both the Hyundai Ioniq 5N and the BMW i4 M40).  It's only in sharper turns or successive curves that I really was aware of the size, and again, that's me comparing it to a Porsche.  Compared to just about any SUV I've drive I'll happily take the Charger.

Pair the composed ride with the interior... it's quite spacious.  Despite being a coupe, passengers in the rear have leg room for days, and the seats are wide and a bit plushy.  My mother, who has a hard time getting in and out of my Porsche and who finds the bolsters on its bucket seats at tad too aggressive for those of a plumper build, was quick to tell me she actually prefers riding in the Charger.  Now, I don't know that I'd go that far from where I was sitting (the driver's seat!).  I definitely took the Charger on a few winding back roads and though, "man, my Porsche would just eat this up!"  But on the other hand, I didn't even slow down as I barreled over steel plates in the road near my parents house that I'd have to gently coax my Porsche over.  After months of worrying about the ground clearance on some steep hills it was actually kind of liberating to simply not care.  

Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and rainbows.  Despite having the car for all of five days, I've already had to take it back for service.  On Sunday, after going with a friend to see a movie, the car just wouldn't start.  A screen came on telling me that the battery needed service, and the car seemed to being reporting that it was charging despite not being plugged into anything.  After consulting the internet, I turned it off and waited for all the screens to go completely dark, and was eventually able to get it started.  At least I could get it home, I figured.  And for the next seven miles, no problem, but as I come to a light a bunch of warnings come on- "parking sensors off," "stability control off," "speed may be limited."  A turtle icon comes on the dash, and the car refuses to go more than 5mph.  I manage to turn off into a parking lot and again shut the car down completely and restart it.  Took back roads the rest of the way, but didn't have any other problems.  In total fairness to Stellantis, I eventually realized I may have left a dome light on while I was programming the garage door opener, which could have drained the 12v battery, and after extra double-checking that all the lights were off I'd since driven it to get groceries on Monday, took it 20 miles through backroads back to the dealer today, then drove it home again without any further issue.  And, credit to the dealer, they spent an hour and a half pouring over the car to try to find a problem.  They did find that the pump for the washer fluid was dead and ordered a new one that they'll put in after they get it, but both batteries and the connections between then checked out, and all the latest software updates have been applied, so they couldn't do much more there than make a record of it and pass it along to Stellantis.  Fingers crossed that it was just my bad, I guess.

QC aside, would I recommend this car?  Probably not.  See, it really comes down to price.  I think Dodge was like, "it's faster than a Hellcat, so we'll price it like one!"  Down the line, when they inevitably cram a HEMI into it, that might be enough to attract the MOPAR crowd, but right now, as an EV, for everyone else?  I don't think Dodge actually built a muscle car, I think they built a grand tourer.  The sticker price on this R/T Stage 1 is comparable to a BMW i4 xDrive40, and I took one of those for a ride, too.  Trust me, all things being equal, you want the BMW, which ranks among the very best cars I've ever driven.  Depending on the options, the Scat Pack will run you another $10-$15k  Even with different sales incentives, there are other EVs that are nearly as quick that bring more features to the table.   That being said, you might be able to find a good deal on a lease.  I got a 3-year, 10k miles/year (a number which I rarely hit in just one car, let alone spread over two) lease for $1000 down and $300 a month.  At that price, it genuinely is a stylish and fun alternative to the sea of electric crossovers everyone else seems to be offering, an alternative I'm glad exists even if the pony purists hate it.

[TangledThorns]

Shame on you for not getting a AWD Porsche, lol. I learned that lesson too many times where I live, ugh, and will never go back to RWD. 

Sucks about the Dodge QC issues.  I think it looks cool af from the front but its so massive that its like a boat to me. For the size I might as well get a Hummer EV but I won't do that either, haha. 

 

Edited August 28 by TangledThorns

[mikeszekely]

27 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Shame on you for not getting a AWD Porsche, lol. I learned that lesson too many times where I live, ugh, and will never go back to RWD. 

Sucks about the Dodge QC issues.  I think it looks cool af from the front but its so massive that its like a boat to me. For the size I might as well get a Hummer EV but I won't do that either, haha. 

 

Despite being slightly longer and nearly as heavy as my wife's EV9 it doesn't feel as big as that does. It definitely feels bigger than a Porsche, though. 

But yeah, in the future I'll either go back to one car, probably a Taycan 4S with the optional Active Ride upgrade, or if I continue the two car thing I'll maybe swap the Taycan for an even funner Porsche like a Boxster and get something like that BMW i4 for a daily (cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed that test drive).

[jenius]

Porsche is working on an electric Cayman which sounds fun to me though I can just feel the side eye from my ICE purist friends.

[TangledThorns]

14 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Despite being slightly longer and nearly as heavy as my wife's EV9 it doesn't feel as big as that does. It definitely feels bigger than a Porsche, though. 

But yeah, in the future I'll either go back to one car, probably a Taycan 4S with the optional Active Ride upgrade, or if I continue the two car thing I'll maybe swap the Taycan for an even funner Porsche like a Boxster and get something like that BMW i4 for a daily (cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed that test drive).

 

Get the two seater. Its yours and not the children's! Having kids and in a back seat means there will eventually be barf back there, lol. Sucks more if it happens in a 4-seater luxury or sports car which is why we transport them in a Subaru. Subaru is made for kids and dogs, haha. 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I'll be honest, the Charger Daytona has fascinated me since Dodge first unveiled it last year.  I mean, MOPAR enthusiasts were already turning their noses up a promised gas-powered turbocharged straight six version, insisting that any real muscle car has to have a naturally-aspirated V8... no way were they going to buy an EV!

I can attest that when this one was first pitched there was a good deal of debate over whether it was "crazy enough to work" or just regular crazy. 🤔

I worked on this one personally, and while I'm limited in what I can say by a raft of NDAs I've been dying to hear what someone outside the fast feedback fleet has to say about it, so I greatly appreciate you sharing your experience.

 

20 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Capitalizing on the retro vibes, Dodge brought back the Fraztog logo from the '60s and '70s, a logo that would have appeared on the original Charger.  With that Fratzog logo comes something Dodge calls "Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust."

[...]

Dodge, in an attempt to play into their muscle heritage, basically mounted a speaker to the rear of the car to play fake V8 engine noises.

Yeah, TPTB felt that the Charger lost a certain je ne sais quoi without making some proper engine noise.  I know some were hoping a simulated engine note would offset some of the hesitancy potential buyers might feel at the prospect of an otherwise-silent muscle car.

 

20 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

But I think that's where the similarities to previous ponies with the Charger name kind of ends.  See, when you step on the accelerator, you go.  No burnouts, no smoking tires, you just go.  What's more, the car moves smoothly and confidently.  At nearly three tons it's not going to tear through the corners the way my Porsche does, but it's rather difficult to kick the tires loose into a slide.  This car's not going to be doing any donuts.

One of the tradeoffs of e-motors vs. an internal combustion engine and mechanical transmission.  When there's nothing mechanical stopping you from delivering maximum torque to the wheels even at 0rpm, certain precautions have to be taken in launch calibration to avoid damaging or outright destroying tires on an aggressive step-in.  

Even a comparatively dozy BEV like the Fiat 500e can easily lay down a strip of smoking rubber or shred a tire without that calibration.  (I found that out the hard way.)

 

20 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

At that price, it genuinely is a stylish and fun alternative to the sea of electric crossovers everyone else seems to be offering, an alternative I'm glad exists even if the pony purists hate it.

I'm glad to hear that you enjoy it, your earlier difficulty aside.

[mikeszekely]

58 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I can attest that when this one was first pitched there was a good deal of debate over whether it was "crazy enough to work" or just regular crazy. 🤔

I worked on this one personally, and while I'm limited in what I can say by a raft of NDAs I've been dying to hear what someone outside the fast feedback fleet has to say about it, so I greatly appreciate you sharing your experience.

Oh, that's cool to know someone who worked on the Charger's development!  Like I said earlier, I don't know if it's going to win over the V8 crowd, and I'm not sure the Daytona actually counts as a muscle car, but I definitely prefer whatever it is to the electric "Mustang."

[spanner]

more for the Aussie car lover's..

 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

The long and skinny on the EV charger is that Stellantis/Dodge attempted to sell a car that its core market openly ridiculed and made fun of.    Dodge was known as a performance brand SRT, Viper,  Challenger, Charger.. etc.    The removal of the Hemi is the death knell for this brand,  and the scramble to include"Six Pack" ICE option will not cut it.     An example of a European company not understanding the US car market,  and totally missing the mark with its core audience..    See Cracker Barrel for similar results.   

I also find amusement in people applying the "purist" label to people with my point of view..     you do realize we are on Macross World right?    If I need to explain that one..  this will go over your head.

Even with all that said,  I don't hate the EV Charger.. I do like how it looks.   But the speaker for engine noise is pretty comical,  Yes its fast and pretty impressive at that.   On the flip side,  these cars will not exist outside of collections in 7-10 years.    Same with any EV no matter who the manufacturer due to battery lifespans and cost of replacement.

You wanna prove me wrong..  buy the car.. don't lease it.    

As someone who enjoys classic cars,  and I have a preference for the V8.   I have 2 cars from 1969 both are fully working and road legal.  

I challenge any current EV to be in that shape in what.. 2081?   not happening.. 

 

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

The long and skinny on the EV charger is that Stellantis/Dodge attempted to sell a car that its core market openly ridiculed and made fun of.

Like I said, those on the dev team absolutely were torn between "Is this crazy enough to work?" and "Is this just plain crazy?".  

On paper, it sort of made sense.  A properly calibrated emotor can deliver as much or more power than a combustion engine and has no RPM restrictions on when it can deliver its maximum rated torque.  All other things being equal, an EV could handily blow a regular muscle car into the weeds.  Most EVs have to have their motors derated to avoid burnouts and tire damage from anyone who puts their foot down too hard.

The intended market, however... eech.  Muscle car aficionados are infamously puritanical and winning them over was always going to be a massive uphill battle if not a full-on Sisyphean task.

 

2 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

The removal of the Hemi is the death knell for this brand,  and the scramble to include"Six Pack" ICE option will not cut it.

The BGE is a beautiful engine family, but she's not the most efficient thing on the planet, and CAFE and emissions targets were a priority for all of the Big 3. 😵‍💫

Almost nobody in America is buying A-segment or B-segment small cars.  Even D-segment and E-segment mid-size and full-size cars have been in sharp decline for years.  To the point that a bunch of product lines in those segments from the Big 3 have been axed over the last ten years.  Those car lines were key to meeting emissions targets, since the big trucks and SUVs that Americans love are nowhere near as efficient.  Something had to give somewhere, which is why all of the Big 3 made a push toward electrification of trucks and SUVs and scaled back production of less efficient engine designs.

I wasn't a fly on that particular wall, but it's a sucker bet that the decision to discontinue the HEMI was an attempt to drag corporate average emissions back into line with the low sales of the Fiat 500, 500e, and 500x, and the discontinuation of the 200 and 300.  Esp. with all of the Big 3 overdependent on purchased carbon credits.

 

2 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

An example of a European company not understanding the US car market,  and totally missing the mark with its core audience..    See Cracker Barrel for similar results.

From my own personal experience... sort of?  Not really?  It's not that the understanding wasn't there.  It's more like that the people with that understanding were marginalized by incoming leadership who assumed the market can't be that different and then end up backpedaling.

It's actually kind of funny how predictable it is the second time around.

Cracker Barrel's situation is a different kind of corporate idiocy, trying to water down a brand with a modern-minimalist aesthetic to make it more appealing to venture capital.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

As someone who enjoys classic cars,  and I have a preference for the V8.   I have 2 cars from 1969 both are fully working and road legal.  

I challenge any current EV to be in that shape in what.. 2081?   not happening.. 

And the main reason for that is this:

I'm not joking even a little.  One of the biggest stumbling blocks for EVs of all types is standards.  Every OEM has their own proprietary network architectures, connector pinouts, etc. and in some cases there are multiple national-level competing standards for things like charging interfaces and regulation of energy storage devices.  They try to harmonize, but intercompatibility is such a nightmare that Argonne National Laboratory has a facility and annual industry events devoted to trying to get everyone on the same page just with vehicle charging and smart grid integration.

It's 100% possible right now to hot-swap EV battery packs in minutes as long as the pack's set up for it.  The problem is there's no standardization of pack form factors, mounting points, etc. even within a single OEM, never mind across OEMs.  If we could sort out the standards problem, you could keep an EV in service forever with much cheaper generic replacement packs even if battery chemistry changed.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

 But the speaker for engine noise is pretty comical,

That’s oddly been common even before the ev stuff started becoming common. A lot of the Gas engines have been silent for over a decade, even rather quiet in the muscle cars. I remember a long time ago when the Mustang’s were getting 💩as soon as people realized that the noise was a speaker thing rather than an engine thing. Some people even argue that the fake noise is a safety feature to warn pedestrians and cyclists.

As far as Cracker Barrel, that’s a whole different issue. The company was desperate because they started losing money and decided to try a logo change up. Most people didn’t even know it was an iconic logo til the few diehard customers that like the place started crying over it. Honestly I didn’t even know there was one thirty minutes away til my lady informed me about its existence after the controversy was in the news. She hasn’t ever been there either.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's 100% possible right now to hot-swap EV battery packs in minutes as long as the pack's set up for it.  The problem is there's no standardization of pack form factors, mounting points, etc. even within a single OEM, never mind across OEMs.  If we could sort out the standards problem, you could keep an EV in service forever with much cheaper generic replacement packs even if battery chemistry changed.

That’s one of the stupid issues I have with this changeover. The companies aren’t on the same page with the standardization and it’s stalling the industry. If they’d standardize things, it would make the vehicles much less expensive and easier to maintain over time. Most of the charging stations seem to be Tesla and if someone has a different type of car, then they have to hope for an adapter to work. And that issue sometimes goes the other way as well.

We might get an ev one day, but they’ll have to sort these issues out and make them more affordable overall and I’m not sure if that will be in my lifetime 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

That’s oddly been common even before the ev stuff started becoming common. A lot of the Gas engines have been silent for over a decade, even rather quiet in the muscle cars. I remember a long time ago when the Mustang’s were getting 💩as soon as people realized that the noise was a speaker thing rather than an engine thing.

Not silent, but quieter... mainly as a product of more efficient engine designs driven by tighter regulations on tailpipe emissions and fuel economy.

That's a pure vanity feature introduced in the early 2010s intended to replicate the driving experience of older cars with worse sound insulation.  Those systems either amplify the existing engine noise or generate fake engine noise and mainly pipe it into the cabin.

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Some people even argue that the fake noise is a safety feature to warn pedestrians and cyclists.

The fake engine noise isn't... but I can understand how people might make that connection.

EVs are required to have an Acoustic Vehicle Alert System that plays an audible tone at around ~70dBA in low speed operation so that pedestrians can hear the otherwise actually silent EV coming.  Similar versions of the same requirement all came into effect in the 2010s around the same time that the purely-for-vanity's-sake fake engine notes were being added to cars with combustion engines.

 

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

That’s one of the stupid issues I have with this changeover. The companies aren’t on the same page with the standardization and it’s stalling the industry. If they’d standardize things, it would make the vehicles much less expensive and easier to maintain over time. Most of the charging stations seem to be Tesla and if someone has a different type of car, then they have to hope for an adapter to work. And that issue sometimes goes the other way as well.

It's not the companies... or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that it's not just the companies.

The issue is that there are many different governmental and non-governmental bodies developing, publishing, and enforcing/certifying standards.  Those organizations which are developing those standards are often (but not always) independent of the corporations that are using those standards in their products.  Those standards are usually developed by committee, and the committee can be made up of representatives from multiple rival OEMs, suppliers, research institutions, government regulators, etc.  These organizations that develop the standards are often localized to one country or region and don't necessarily come to the same conclusion as another standards body in another country or region.

To give an example, there are nominally five different major electric vehicle charging standards in play, maintained by four different organizations:

• SAE J1772, the main/oldest US-based charging standard developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers
• SAE J3400, the newest US-based charging standard developed by Tesla and formalized by the Society of Automotive Engineers because nobody trusts or likes Tesla
• IEC 62196, the European Union's charging standard developed by the International Electrotechnical Commission
• GB/T 20234, the People's Republic of China's charging standard developed by the Standardization Administration of China
• CHAdeMO, Japan's domestic charging standard developed by the CHAdeMO Association

None of them are compatible with each other at the hardware level, and there is at least some degree of incompatibility at the software/protocol level too.

As the comic suggests, any attempt to create one standard that covers everyone's use cases just means you have another competing standard in the wild with all the others you were trying to get rid of.  Most of the manufacturers would love to converge on a single standard so we can stop pissing about with having to develop half a dozen variants of a single function or have half a dozen different port hardware variants.  It's just that nobody can agree what standard to converge on.  

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

16 hours ago, Big s said:

That’s oddly been common even before the ev stuff started becoming common. A lot of the Gas engines have been silent for over a decade, even rather quiet in the muscle cars.

 

As far as Cracker Barrel, that’s a whole different issue. The company was desperate because they started losing money and decided to try a logo change up. Most people didn’t even know it was an iconic logo til the few diehard customers that like the place started crying over it. Honestly I didn’t even know there was one thirty minutes away til my lady informed me about its existence after the controversy was in the news. She hasn’t ever been there either.

 

first statement about quiet cars..  in your soccer mom wagons and daily econobox cars,   they were always quiet.  Not including the aftermarket fart can exhausts.   As for sport and muscle cars.. lol   maybe I spend more time around sport and muscle cars..   that and I do not live in CA.       

As for Cracker Barrel.. the CEO decided to tune out the core audience.   The "Most People" argument does not hold water,  Most people were knocking the company for being bone headed.     I don't see how this is any different with Stellantis and Dodge..    European company tuning out its core customer,   pushing EVs to a muscle car crowd.. fail.   With the fall back being the Hurricane engine,  which is also European in an American Muscle car brand..   double fail.   

 

And as for industry standards.. yes and no.    A standard in theory should aid in pricing as well as build and repair issues.   However..  even with standards these cars will still NOT last.   in my example the only shared standard that the 69 Caprice, and 69 Charger have are they run on gasoline..    and yet they are still here.    

 

Its also worth noting that both of the cars I mention come from a time period where the general consumer believed a vehicle should be disposed of at 100k miles.   Modern vehicles have come a long way on beating the 100k mile expiration date..  well some manufacturers have.. others not so much.    But its to be expected considering average new car costs keep going higher and higher. 

 

[Big s]

16 minutes ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

The "Most People" argument does not hold water,  Most people were knocking the company for being bone headed. 

It was a very small minority of people, but those people had a loud voice. It’s sorta like that M&M’s thing a while back that most people didn’t care about, only less people know about the existence of Cracker Barrel.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

As for Cracker Barrel.. the CEO decided to tune out the core audience.   The "Most People" argument does not hold water,  Most people were knocking the company for being bone headed.

That doesn't tally with the facts at all, though.  The "tuning out the core audience" nonsense is pure BS from a handful of loudmouth incel culture warriors on Twitter. 😆

Cracker Barrel tried to rebrand and modernize its trade dress to appeal to a younger and wider consumer demographic because revenues were in freefall.  Why?  Because their #1 repeat customer demographic is people over 65 and nearly half of all customers are over 55.  Folks on fixed incomes are feeling the economic downturn most strongly of all, and having large parts of your primary customer base checking out to join the choir invisible is bad for business long-term.  They underestimated how much of their brand identity is tied up in that kitschy trade dress rather than their admittedly pretty mediocre menu. 😆

 

3 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I don't see how this is any different with Stellantis and Dodge..    European company tuning out its core customer,   pushing EVs to a muscle car crowd.. fail.   With the fall back being the Hurricane engine,  which is also European in an American Muscle car brand..   double fail.   

It's quite a bit different.

This wasn't driven by slipping sales or the target demographic literally f***ing dying off, for example. 😆

Stellantis is a multinational, not a European company.  The development flagship is still in Michigan, as it has been since before Fiat got involved.  As Fiat-Chrysler, some European development activities were actually moved to the US because the engineering expertise was concentrated there.  (That's why the museum on the HQ grounds closed, it ended up converted into office space for the newly US-based Alfa Romeo and Maserati staff.)

Pushing a performance EV to the muscle car crowd was risky, they knew that going in.  That's why we had things like that "Fratzonic sound" system added.  I've explained the other reasons behind it in previous posts.  Ultimately, yeah... kind of a forlorn hope.  Like I said, we were peddling new technology to a pack of borderline Luddites.  That was never going to end well. 😆

 

3 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

And as for industry standards.. yes and no.    A standard in theory should aid in pricing as well as build and repair issues.   However..  even with standards these cars will still NOT last.   in my example the only shared standard that the 69 Caprice, and 69 Charger have are they run on gasoline..    and yet they are still here.    

That's not at all correct I'm afraid.

A technical standard is nothing more or less than a rather wordy document that tells you in precise and exacting detail how to do the thing.  The goal is to ensure that everyone who is working on a specific technology has a shared understanding of how it's supposed to work so that it will function with things built by other people.  In theory, a standard ought to drive prices down by making development easier (since you're not reinventing the wheel) but in practice not s'much because a huge amount of effort goes into staying on top of all those applicable government, industry, and internal standards.  (And I say this as someone who sits on four SAE J-standard committees currently.)

Your belief that that '69 Caprice and '69 Charger share no standard beyond "runs on gas" is entertainingly wrong.  Practically every aspect of those cars construction is governed by manufacturer-specific corporate standards, industry standards, and/or government standards.  Those cars were built after FMVSS was put into place, so they absolutely comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards of the era they were built in.  Everything from the pitch of the screw threads to the thickness of the sheet metal to voltage tolerances of the spark plugs and battery to the thickness and material of brake hoses to the presence of seat belts is dictated by multiple standards documents at multiple levels.  There are whole layers of corporate bureaucracy at the OEMs devoted to developing, maintaining, updating, and ensuring compliance with all these standards in every aspect of development and manufacturing.

The stories I could tell you... and probably put you to sleep with because they're boring AF...😆

I don't disagree that these early generations of EVs will not have a century-long lifespan in the hands of collectors.  That's because the technology behind these early generations of EVs is evolving so fast and everyone is pivoting as fast as they can to new features, use-cases, and standards that a part may only be in production for a few years before it ends up being redesigned, upgraded, and repackaged for a new generation of vehicles with more powerful motors, new transmission concepts, and new energy storage tech.  Once EV tech matures and the pace of development is less frantic, we'll see machines with substantially longer lifespans.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Because their #1 repeat customer demographic is people over 65 and nearly half of all customers are over 55. 

I guess that’s why I haven’t heard of them until recently. I’m old, but not that old yet. 
 

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

2 hours ago, Big s said:

I guess that’s why I haven’t heard of them until recently. I’m old, but not that old yet. 
 

Cracker Barrel is a brand based in the south eastern US.    I seem to sit an the most northern of its locations in the Mid Atlantic area,  and nothing really north of Texas in the Central US.   with possibly a few locations in the SW US.   outside of that,  I am not surprised if you have not heard of it.     

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That doesn't tally with the facts at all, though.  The "tuning out the core audience" nonsense is pure BS from a handful of loudmouth incel culture warriors on Twitter. 😆

 right..  which is why they back peddled faster then anything else.    Obviously not most people..    I don't expect this brand to last forever but alienating an established brand for people who don't go there..      great idea!   fail 

This is a car thread not a Cracker Barrel thread..  my reference is still valid.. back on target.

 

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's quite a bit different.

This wasn't driven by slipping sales or the target demographic literally f***ing dying off, for example. 😆

Stellantis is a multinational, not a European company.  The development flagship is still in Michigan, as it has been since before Fiat got involved.  As Fiat-Chrysler, some European development activities were actually moved to the US because the engineering expertise was concentrated there.  (That's why the museum on the HQ grounds closed, it ended up converted into office space for the newly US-based Alfa Romeo and Maserati staff.)

Pushing a performance EV to the muscle car crowd was risky, they knew that going in.  That's why we had things like that "Fratzonic sound" system added.  I've explained the other reasons behind it in previous posts.  Ultimately, yeah... kind of a forlorn hope.  Like I said, we were peddling new technology to a pack of borderline Luddites.  That was never going to end well. 😆

No its not...  maybe its the failure to grasp this that makes the point.    Dodge is an American Brand.. its not European..  putting EVs aside attempting to sell Alfa Romeo's as Dodge is doomed for failure.   I don't see alot of Hornet's..  why is that?   1 reason is that the people who want a Tonale will go the Alpha Romeo route..   And most people know its not an american car.   The hurricane,  is an engine that stellantis has had some major issues with,  and on top of the fact that putting a European motor in an American Muscle car.. is another fail.    And finally onto EVs the market in the US is already saturated at this point,  maybe its all the rage in Europe but that is not natural.   EVs will live and now die because the only way to push EVs is to force mandatory compliance with unelected bureaucrats making arbitrary rules.   Thank god for Cheveron deference and Trump torpedoing Cafe standards..  but that is another topic.      Count me in on the Luddite team if it means we can get vehicles that act more like cars and trucks,  and less like smartphones.. 

 

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not at all correct I'm afraid.

A technical standard is nothing more or less than a rather wordy document that tells you in precise and exacting detail how to do the thing.  The goal is to ensure that everyone who is working on a specific technology has a shared understanding of how it's supposed to work so that it will function with things built by other people.  In theory, a standard ought to drive prices down by making development easier (since you're not reinventing the wheel) but in practice not s'much because a huge amount of effort goes into staying on top of all those applicable government, industry, and internal standards.  (And I say this as someone who sits on four SAE J-standard committees currently.)

Your belief that that '69 Caprice and '69 Charger share no standard beyond "runs on gas" is entertainingly wrong.  Practically every aspect of those cars construction is governed by manufacturer-specific corporate standards, industry standards, and/or government standards.  Those cars were built after FMVSS was put into place, so they absolutely comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards of the era they were built in.  Everything from the pitch of the screw threads to the thickness of the sheet metal to voltage tolerances of the spark plugs and battery to the thickness and material of brake hoses to the presence of seat belts is dictated by multiple standards documents at multiple levels.  There are whole layers of corporate bureaucracy at the OEMs devoted to developing, maintaining, updating, and ensuring compliance with all these standards in every aspect of development and manufacturing.

The stories I could tell you... and probably put you to sleep with because they're boring AF...😆

I don't disagree that these early generations of EVs will not have a century-long lifespan in the hands of collectors.  That's because the technology behind these early generations of EVs is evolving so fast and everyone is pivoting as fast as they can to new features, use-cases, and standards that a part may only be in production for a few years before it ends up being redesigned, upgraded, and repackaged for a new generation of vehicles with more powerful motors, new transmission concepts, and new energy storage tech.  Once EV tech matures and the pace of development is less frantic, we'll see machines with substantially longer lifespans.

   I think you might need to lower the gas on your gaslighting..    I also don't need an explanation on what a Technical standard is.   so pulling this right out of the weeds.. again..  

I didn't think I needed to explain that Chevrolet and Dodge are different companies each manufacturing a product that is the same but also different.  Outside the commonality of a combustion engine (ie runs on gas)  they each do their own things their own way.   But what I can explain is that these cars are 56 years old and still on the road.   

 

Here is some homework for you..  EVs..  take one from outside of your City and drive anywhere to another state that involves rural anything.       You might have some luck in the NE US,  but outside of the major cities your gonna get into trouble.     Add temp extremes like cold or excessive heat and its gonna be even worse.     EVs are at best local only vehicles so long as you live in or near metropolitan areas.    Meanwhile I can borrow my neighbors 92 Honda Prelude and go from coast to coast with a couple of tanks of gas.  Not that he would let me mind you.. but its a feat impossible with the current lack of infrastructure and EVs on the market. 

Real world example time..  former employer chose to purchase 10 Tesla Model 3s for sales and fleet use between the Major cities in the mid Atlantic,  NYC, Philly, Baltimore, DC.. etc.   Worked great until that footprint started to expand further south and west.     I can give you one example of taking one from Baltimore, to Philly, and then west to Pittsburgh and eventually Columbus was a bust.   We ended up swapping the vehicle to a standard Accord in Kingston because the charging would have added an additional workday in travel time.   This was 2022..  the gaps in charging station locations was pretty readily apparent which limited where we could travel.   PA Turnpike anyone?  

 

And finally with all that said.. I don't even have a disklike for EVs..  I just recognize their limitations and without some major remedies easy pass.  

  

 

  

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

No its not...  maybe its the failure to grasp this that makes the point.    Dodge is an American Brand.. its not European..  putting EVs aside attempting to sell Alfa Romeo's as Dodge is doomed for failure.   I don't see alot of Hornet's..  why is that?

First, a quick reality check.  Most OEMs develop a common platform for multiple markets and rebadge as necessary for different trim levels.

Second, another reality check.  Brand "nationality" is mostly BS.  Pretty much every large OEM is using parts developed and manufactured all over the world and the only thing that makes that brand belong to a specific nation is where final assembly takes place.  The era of an automaker's development being localized to a single country is long since over and most cars are as multinational under the hood as your average Star Trek cast.

Third, a point of fact I can't really blame you for not knowing.  The Hornet/Tonale program was not brand-specific or region-specific during development.  It was a single program developed as a common platform for multiple markets and brands.  It's quite inaccurate to say that's "attempting to sell an Alfa Romeo as a Dodge".

As to why we don't see more of them... well... they made the mistake of having the Hornets built at Pomigliano d'Arco alongside the Tonale version. 🙃

 

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

And most people know its not an american car.

Only in the sense that final assembly does not occur in the US, to be frank.

 

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

The hurricane,  is an engine that stellantis has had some major issues with,  and on top of the fact that putting a European motor in an American Muscle car.. is another fail.   

It's only really a "European" engine in the sense that initial production was in Termoli.

That's not where it was designed, and it's not even the only place it's built.

 

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

And finally onto EVs the market in the US is already saturated at this point,  maybe its all the rage in Europe but that is not natural.   EVs will live and now die because the only way to push EVs is to force mandatory compliance with unelected bureaucrats making arbitrary rules.   Thank god for Cheveron deference and Trump torpedoing Cafe standards..  but that is another topic.      Count me in on the Luddite team if it means we can get vehicles that act more like cars and trucks,  and less like smartphones.. 

This also contains a lot of inaccuracies.

The main factor slowing adoption of EVs in the US is a lack of charging infrastructure and the woefully neglected state of the US electrical grid.  Western Europe and China's more cosmopolitan provinces don't really have that problem, which is why EVs have been much more readily adopted there.  EV adoption is only accelerating in developed nations, and the US's temporary regression is not going to have a substantial impact on the growth of the EV market because pretty much every OEM is by default developing for global sales and that means still having to comply with emissions regulations in South America, Europe, Asia, etc.  It just means a temporary reduction in the number of EV options on offer in the US.  Those emissions regs will get tightened again, and we'll see more electrification because that's the most effective way to improve the efficiency of these systems.

 

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

   I think you might need to lower the gas on your gaslighting..    I also don't need an explanation on what a Technical standard is.   so pulling this right out of the weeds.. again..  

Bro, I think you may want to dial the arrogance down to a more reasonable level and recognize you are attempting to BS someone in the industry. 😜

Clearly you DO need the explanation, because almost nothing of what you've said has been correct thus far.

 

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

I didn't think I needed to explain that Chevrolet and Dodge are different companies each manufacturing a product that is the same but also different.  Outside the commonality of a combustion engine (ie runs on gas)  they each do their own things their own way.   But what I can explain is that these cars are 56 years old and still on the road.   

You missed my point completely, I'm afraid.

As I explained previously, there are company standards that are internal to a single OEM, but there are also government standards and international standards for which compliance is not always optional.  Every OEM selling in America has to comply with FMVSS, for instance, or they will be prohibited from selling their cars in the US.  It doesn't matter if your car was made by Chevrolet or Dodge or Ferrari or whoever there are hundreds upon hundreds of applicable standards (many of which are non-optional and government enforced) in its design.  They do not "each do things their own way" in most things.  

Standards governing things like the pitch and depth of screw threads have been a part of the industry since the 1910s.  Every conceivable part of the car has at least one, and often far more than one, applicable government or international standard involved in its design.  

They're still on the road because, well, combustion engines are a mature technology that hasn't really changed much in the last sixty or so years and older models from before the advent of computerized control are a lot simpler at the cost of being a lot less efficient and safe.

 

4 hours ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Here is some homework for you..  EVs..  take one from outside of your City and drive anywhere to another state that involves rural anything. 

See the above about a lack of infrastructure... which is more a government problem than an EV problem if we're being honest with each other.

There is a very definite problem in that it does take quite a bit longer to recharge an EV with a 480V or 800V battery than it does to just pop a nozzle in your fill door and pour out some 87 octane.  That's one reason why electric vehicle standards are evolving as fast as they are.  The search for a better, faster charging system to get that time down to around the same level as just hitting up the gas station.

With Teslas, of course, your main problem is going to be that goofy J3400 connector that only works with Tesla-branded chargers.  Unless you're bringing one of their adapters (a device that bears an unsettling resemblance to a bit of equine anatomy), you're kind of hosed in a lot of places where Tesla doesn't have a presence since most public chargers are the older J1772 design that isn't compatible with Tesla's charging inlet.  If you're stuck using the Level 1 wall-wart... yeah you're going to spend a small eternity charging your car's battery because that's sub-2kW charging.

Believe you me, I am intimately familiar with the technical limitations of EVs... I am literally spending my workdays inventing ways to overcome them. 😜

Edited Saturday at 02:50 AM by Seto Kaiba

[Stampeed Valkyrie]

if you work in the "industry" as you claim then less talking to people like chat GPT to get your point across. .    The US is not Europe,  and what works in China and Europe does not work here.     Not even going to get into the thermal runaway issues and the fact that China has millions of EVs sitting in fields brand new and rotting.   

Is it even safe to drive your Tesla again?  or is some whacko gonna come and vandalize it?   

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

if you work in the "industry" as you claim then less talking to people like chat GPT to get your point across.

Perhaps, in the future, check your facts before attempting to argue and not after so I don't have to explain basic concepts like I'm ChatGPT?  Just a suggestion. 😜

 

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

The US is not Europe,  and what works in China and Europe does not work here.

Yes, what works in the US market doesn't necessarily work in Europe or China and vice versa.

When it comes to EVs, the biggest barriers are more in the US's systematic negligence of infrastructure.  Range anxiety is not a wholly separate issue from the fact that the grid is so badly maintained and so far behind in development that it's simply not possible to make EV charging stations as common as gas stations.  All the work being done with ANL and USDoE on "smart grid" applications, DR, rate-conscious "smart" charging, etc. on EVSEs and in-vehicle only goes so far when the grid is a creaking ruin in a lot of states.

A-segment and B-segment small cars are never going to sell here regardless, that's just a fundamental difference in needs.  

 

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Not even going to get into the thermal runaway issues and the fact that China has millions of EVs sitting in fields brand new and rotting.   

Thermal runaway is a nasty topic, the subject of a lot of back-and-forth between the industry and regulators over the last seven or so years.  The EU's latest package of emissions laws and regulations (Euro 7) has some new requirements for OEMs on that front, as do some updates to China's GB/T standards for vehicle-to-cloud regulatory communication.

China's EVs rotting in ports... yeah... they're massively over-exporting in a braindead go at conquering the EV market through sheer volume.  Between the brands being new and suspicions about the connected features spying on you and concerns about good ol' Chinese quality they're not finding an audience as big as they hoped for.  Tesla's having a similar problem now that its CEO is one of the world's most hated men and has alienated the vast majority of his customer base. 😆

Despite the growing pains of EV technology, EV sales are still up 25% globally in 2025... most of that being outside the US though (which only grew 6%).

 

1 hour ago, Stampeed Valkyrie said:

Is it even safe to drive your Tesla again?  or is some whacko gonna come and vandalize it?   

Considering how badly designed and badly built Teslas are, was it ever safe?

Hardly a quarter goes by without someone suing Tesla for false advertising over their "autopilot" feature that keeps causing high speed crashes because Tesla lied about its actual capabilities.  Their current flagship is a pickup truck held together with glue and wishful thinking that can't go offroad, can't drive on roads in snow, can't carry cargo without risking permanent damage to its tailgate and truck bed, can't tow for sh*t without risking frame damage, can't charge without risking the connector getting stuck in the inlet, can't charge in hot or cold weather, shorts out and fails during basic fording tests, frequently bricks itself, is often mistaken for a skid full of garbage by racoons, and is a writeoff in anything more than the most gentle of fender benders. 😆

What part of that sounds safe to you? 😆

Your lemon being tagged by an irate protester is the least of your worries.  Their safety record is so bad we're starting to see talk of states banning the sale of Tesla vehicles.

[Hikuro]

I've been working off and on with Nissan for nearly 30 years, yeah, pre-teen, and my family and I have always been Z enthusiasts since we owned a 280ZX brand new off the truck back in 1980, so growing up around them I've always thought of it as a dream car. Then in 2022 I sold my old Honda HRV and bought a 2014 Nissan 370Z....sadly the market in the area for them was just terrible and the closest I could get was a Touring model with a terrible paint job and some issues. Spent a lot of time working on it making it better....then I had an incident with a police officer running me off the road doing damage to the car that was entirely his fault and his department refused to pay up to fix. 
Well when the new Z was released in 23, I'd been sorely wanting it since first seeing the prototype variant at our dealership. Sadly these cars are super expensive for someone like myself scraping by.

Well, we had some pretty good deals over the summer, and I had enough of fixing a car that was never going to be how I wanted it. So I was able to work a deal with my sales team and we managed to find me a two tone silver/black sport model for the right price.
I've been absolutely loving this car, it handles real well, better at higher rates of speed, the engine has got enough umpf to it that it's made me really enjoy going out for long runs on my weekends off. Just this weekend I took it on a 100+ joyride just having a blast. Ended up picking up donuts and coffee, watch the sunrise then drove home.
I've named it Bluestreak in honor of the Fairlady 280ZX the G1 Autobot was designed from. It's got a nice 3 liter twin turbo V6 pumping out 400hp and right now sits as the top of the line now that the GT-R has been discontinued. I honestly don't see myself doing much of anything to it for modifications as it feels and handles nearly perfect for my needs.
Since getting it I've had to clear out my entire garage so I can safely store it as we've had some pretty wicked storms with quite a lot of hail falling, and I don't want someone trying to break into it being in a not so great neighborhood. 
I really need a nice long trip somewhere to really have fun with it, but I have no idea where to go with the limited budget I got.