Month: May 2021
Self-driving technology is still dumber than humans
“Self-driving tech is not yet nimble enough to reliably handle the variety of situations human drivers encounter each day. It can usually handle suburban Phoenix, but it can’t duplicate the human chutzpah needed for merging […]
Toyota, please bring back the original Scion xB
When Indie Auto opened up its comment threads, I failed to “enable” that function on a few older stories. That included, “How Toyota ruined the Scion xB.” So LR used our contact form to offer a response to the article: You’re […]
Will the pandemic lead to a backlash against commuting?
A recent survey of Los Angeles Times employees found that as the pandemic eases, only 1.4 percent of respondents want to return to working in the office five days a week. Antipathy toward commuting was […]
Why lament the lack of a stick in a high-tech sports sedan?
“There’s no point to me of a manual transmission in a modern, high tech sports sedan that otherwise is doing everything it can to just let the driver . . . simply mash the pedal […]
Ads comparing Ford Granada to a Mercedes were ‘brilliant’
“The Granada/Mercedes campaign was a stroke of absolute brilliance. Why do you think we remember it 40 some years later after nearly every Granada has been made into a Huawei refrigerator? Ok, so Consumer Reports […]
Popular Science’s predictions for 1967 cars weren’t always on target
The July 1966 issue of Popular Science breathlessly predicted what U.S. automakers had planned for the next model year. Even though introductions were only a few months away, a surprising number of the magazine’s predictions […]
A few thoughts on skepticism about an EV transition led by Tesla
Yesterday I came across a debate on a left-of-center political blog that sounded surprisingly similar to what I’ve seen in auto industry media. A number of commentators were quite skeptical about a rapid transition to […]