Category: Cars, including self-driving

Here’s how tough the supply chain is right now. GM is delivering partially completed cars for dealers to finish once the parts are available.

(from Sebring, Florida)

From what I have observed, there is no better way to tackle the perfectly smooth roads between a suburban Florida house and the perfectly smooth paved parking lot next to the beach than in an off-road vehicle equipped with monster mud-tread tires. The neighborhood elite seem to have been acquiring Ford Broncos for this purpose. I talked to a Ford dealer about what would be entailed in getting an Everglades edition Bronco. No orders can be placed currently. There is no waiting list. When ordering is restarted at some unknown future date, the wait to buy one at MSRP will be approximately 18 months.

Here are the steel tube doors “for off-road use only” that the neighbors are using on the street:

In typical driving, I think this machine would be lucky to get 15 mpg and it is on target for delivery at the same time that gasoline reaches $10 per gallon. How can that be justified? Friends on Facebook who are passionate Democrats have been posting the following meme:

I think that the idea is that nobody should be upset with Presidents Biden and Harris regarding the high price of gasoline ($2.30/gallon in January 2021, at the end of the hated dictator’s rule). But we could also use the above meme to toss aside all concerns regarding climate change. As long as we have the money to buy a pavement-melting Bronco and fill it with dinosaur blood we should be “thankful” and not worry about what is happening to Mother Earth, to those who don’t have the money, etc.

“Ford Will Have a ‘Pet Mode’ Similar to Tesla’s, Patent Application Shows” (Car and Driver, 2/24/2022):

Perhaps trying to compete with Tesla’s Dog mode, Ford has filed a patent application for something called Pet mode, which would allow drivers to remotely control things including windows and temperature.

Tesla started offering its Dog mode feature around four years ago as a way for drivers to make sure any animals left inside of one of the company’s EVs don’t get too hot or cold, and that passersby would see a notification that lets them know the car is comfortable for the pet.

The patent application was filed in October 2018, which tells us that Ford had the invention in its possession four years ago. The Mustang Mach-E went into production 1.5 years ago yet still has no Pet Mode, thus encouraging anyone who likes to run errands with a dog in the vehicle to purchase a Tesla instead.

Related:

• Car/Kennel (2003)

Here’s a BMW M8 hero showing how to park with low-profile tires:

(Stuart, Florida)

On a recent trip to Denver, I rented a $550/week “full size” car from Hertz and received a 2021 Subaru Outback station wagon. As part of the Great Falling Apart of the U.S. service industry, the vehicle was delivered only 3/4 full of gasoline. The 4-cylinder engine made alarming strained noises when pushed hard enough to merge onto I-25 (even accelerating from 0 to 35 mph on a local road sounded like it was a dramatic event for the vehicle’s innards). This is not the refined 6-cylinder powerplant of our beloved Honda Odyssey.

There is a huge touch screen in the middle of the car and, as with Tesla, a lot of essential buttons are available only within the touch screen, typically at least one or two menu touches away. Apple CarPlay is slow to establish compared to how it works on the Honda Odyssey and the entire infotainment system seems slow.

The lane departure warning system is much more active than on the Honda and generates a lot of spurious warnings, e.g., when merging onto a highway from a ramp.

Who buys these cars rather than a Honda or a Toyota?

Here’s the vehicle on I-70:

Speaking of vehicles, here’s a Ford in Idaho Springs that probably doesn’t generate any complaints regarding the touch screen or lane departure warning system:

and another Ford truck, from Beaver Liquors (near Beaver Creek), delivering supplies deemed “essential” by Colorado Covidcrats.

Of course, it is also possible to take a bus. Note the four mask-related signs in this photo of a single public transit vehicle (Vail Lionshead village):

“Rolls-Royce, Bentley, BMW Sales Surge as Cheaper Brands Lag Behind” (WSJ):

The most luxurious brands such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Porsche and BMW have reported record sales.

Bentley sold 14,659 cars last year, an increase of 31% from the year before and a record for the company. Porsche, also owned by VW, sold 301,915 cars, an increase of 11% world-wide. Both brands posted growth in the U.S., Europe, and China.

Rolls-Royce, owned by Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, whose tailor-made superluxury cars have starting prices of more than $300,000, sold a record 5,586 cars last year, up 49% from the year before.

Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas, told the Journal that buyers of superluxury cars like Rolls-Royce are younger today. The average age of a customer is about 43 years old, which means many of their clientele are in their 30s.

In part, Mr. Fritsches said, Rolls-Royce’s wealthy customers have been sheltered from the hardships felt by many during the pandemic. They benefited more from the economic recovery, the cryptocurrency boom and soaring stock prices. And many of the buyers are first-time Rolls owners, he said, including young entrepreneurs who got rich on the stock market and cryptocurrencies.

Meanwhile, when we took our Honda Odyssey in for an oil change recently, the dealer had exactly 0 new Hondas in stock. If we’d wanted to replace our Odyssey it would have required paying 20% more than we paid a year ago and waiting 1-2 months.

“Global chip shortage: Everything you need to know” (TechRepublic, November 2021):

A shortage in the supply of semiconductors first hit the automotive industry during the COVID-19 pandemic and has had a cascading effect, causing global disruption. The shortage can be traced back to the first half of 2020, when overall consumer demand for cars declined during the lockdown. This forced chip manufacturers to shift their focus to other areas, such as computer equipment and mobile devices, which spiked in demand with more people working remotely.

Part of the problem is that the return on investment isn’t compelling enough to build new foundries—which cost billions of dollars and take years to construct—to satisfy the demand by automakers, according to IDC. Automakers operate in a just-in-time environment without business continuity planning, according to Mario Morales, program vice president of the semiconductor group at IDC.

After they canceled orders early on in the pandemic, disgruntled suppliers turned to other markets that were still doing well, such as consumer electronics, and automakers found themselves lower on the priority list.

I still don’t get it. A replacement for our Odyssey is at least $7,000 more than we paid for the identical vehicle in January 2021. Let’s say that Bidenflation has driven up Honda’s costs by $3,000. Assuming that Honda made a profit on our Odyssey, Honda could still pay up to $4,000 for some chips and sell Odysseys at a profit (they’d have to raise the price to dealers so that Honda recovered the $3,000 premium over sticker that the dealer is currently charging). Apple can’t pay $4,000 for the chips that go inside a $1,400 iPhone. Microsoft can’t pay $4,000 for the chips that go inside a $500 Xbox Series X. Econ 101 suggests that the car companies can outbid anyone other than the U.S. military for the chips that they want. How is it possible that integrated circuit supplies are limiting car production?

Consistent with the WSJ article, I did find a Cadillac available for immediate delivery near the Venice (FL) airport:

“Microlino EV, Adorable Two-Seater, Going into Production in Europe” (Car and Driver):

“Our goal was to deliver the first vehicles to customers within the end of the year [2021], but the worldwide supply-chain chaos is affecting us like many other carmakers,” the company indicated. “Despite our preparations to order crucial parts way in advance, the situation has gotten much worse and is now affecting more and more parts. Now, even commodity parts like simple connectors for the wiring harness have become scarce and have lead times of up to 50 weeks!”