Auto Paedia
Year: 2018
Media Analysis
All-time best climate change coverage by auto media?
A notable exception to the automotive media’s lack of attention to climate change was a package of stories Automotive News published in 2007. No, not last month or last year — a decade ago. Let’s […]
Satire
2019 auto design: One step closer to machine guns?
This year’s Seattle auto show should have been held during Halloween rather than the second week of November. That’s because the auto industry’s latest wares were a frightful bunch. On the inside they offered the […]
Current Events
Tesla vs. Rivian: Henry Kaiser, meet Joe Frazer
Elon Musk now admits that Tesla nearly died last summer. The sidelined CEO told Axios on HBO that “the company was bleeding money like crazy” during the Model 3 production ramp up. Musk added that […]
Quotes
Corporate focus on making money is myopic
“An industrial company that sees its primary focus as making money rather than making good products, is not going to make good products. ‘Their obligation is 100% to their shareholders’ is not a law of […]
Current Events
Rivian is timid in reimagining American truck
In developing an electric truck, Rivian Automotive has promised to reset expectations about a market segment that has been short on innovation for decades. At least that’s what R. J. Scaringe, CEO of the Detroit-based start-up, told […]
Random Shots
Auto Paedia
Grosse Pointe myopians
“Grosse Pointe myopians” is pejorative term that automotive journalist Brock Yates (2018) gave to the management class of domestic automakers in a review he wrote in 1968. That essay was subsequently expanded into a book, […]
Quotes
AMC: The ‘mother’ of flexible manufacturing
“AMC could be regarded as the mother of ‘flexabile manufacturing’ due to the wide variety of products, with limited facilities to build them. I took a tour of Kenosha assembly in 75. As I recall, […]
Media Analysis
‘How Stuff Works’ quiz says this is a 1971 Gremlin. Nope.
How Stuff Works recently advertised a quiz about vehicles from the 1970s (Tyler, 2018). The promo stated that “no one is getting a perfect score . . . and it’s driving the Internet crazy!” I […]