I’m in the Goodwood Festival of Speed media center, which is full of people with cool jackets from various European races or F1 teams. I’ve just scarfed a “real British bacon” sandwich, and I’m inclined to take a nap, so it’s a great relief that Stellantis and the Italian government are yet again giving me life courtesy of their neverending stupid beef. I call it a stupid beef because the details are just a constant source of personal delight, even though the stakes are billions of dollars and hundreds or thousands of jobs.
Slowly sips some black British tea…
There was an election here in the United Kingdom and a new government has been swept into power. The same has happened in France, where a coalition of moderates and liberals fended off a late charge from the Far Right. What will happen in the United States this fall? It’s a lot like Shitbox Showdown, where you’ve got two choices and there’s a lot of debate over which one will fail you first. The UAW backed President Biden early and is now, reportedly, waffling.
Contemplates eating another bacon roll…
General Motors is going to probably demolish most of the famous Renn Center HQ in Detroit, which is a key part of Detroit’s skyline. If this is like most GM projects, they’ll realize in about 10 years how far ahead of the curve the Renn Cenn was and will start a 20-year project to rebuild it.
Is it too early for a pint?
And, finally, did Facebook kill the car forum?
Le Notti Di Stellantia
I love Italian cinema. Fellini, Rossellini, de Sica, Benini, Antonioni, et cetera. I love how even the darker neo-realist films contain those little grace notes of absurdity that mimic the strangeness of life. Is there anything more absurd than the near-constant bickering over random things between Stellantis and Italy? The arguments over tiny-ass flags? Absolutely not.
All of Europe’s political structure is built on insecurity. The world is changing yet again and, after a brief period of light resurgence (mostly in Germany), threats are everywhere. It is this insecurity that has helped bring forward more populist governments, like Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy Party.
Italy has long had a large industrial automotive base in the form of Fiat, which in the 1970s employed roughly thirteen trillion Italians. The company had a brief resurgence itself under the impatient but steady leadership of Sergio Marchionne, and Fiat even acquired Chrysler in what amounts to a fire sale. Given that more of the power in the relationship was in Italy, this seemed fine with the Italian government.
The creation of Stellantis, which combined Fiat Chrysler and the remnants of Peugeot-Citroen with some other bits, hasn’t been seen in Rome as such a good deal for Italy. Now Fiat is a partially American company based in Hoofdorp in The Netherlands and, even worse, is now partially owned by the French government.
Stellantis has, under Carlos Tavares, taken an approach to various governments that involves asking for massive handouts/subsidies and threatening to move jobs to other places if they don’t fork’em over. For some reason, this hasn’t endeared Tavares to the new Italian government, which is, again, populist. The lifeblood of populism is constantly getting mad about things, and Tavares seems to get off on picking fights so, yeah, here we are.
What do I mean by “here”? The Italian government is considering using a new law to strip away the Autobianchi and Innocenti brands from Stellantis. This is from Italian news site Il Sole 24 Ore’s (which means The Sun) article that translates directly to “Cars, China Wants Historic Brands Innocenti and Autobianchi.” Reuters breaks it down for us:
Il Sole said the government’s appropriation would be made possible under a law passed in December and a draft implementing decree, under examination by the Court of Auditors, concerning brands that have been unused for at least five years.
Once under government control, they could be given to “companies, including foreign ones, that intend to invest in Italy or move to Italy manufacturing activities located abroad,” the law says
Wow. The Italian government is out here Bobby Clarke-ing Stellantis. Brilliant. I love it.
Autobianchi is the famous Italian brand known for making their own versions of Fiats while Innocenti is known for doing the same thing with Minis. Neither brand has existed as an active carmaker for a while, but that doesn’t mean Fiat doesn’t want to keep them. Certainly, Fiat isn’t likely to be keen on having to compete with a Geely-owned car that’s called Innocenti, is built in Italy, and costs like half of what a Fiat 500 costs.
Is this going to happen? Probably not. While the PM is a populist, the other big source of power is the Elkann family which, you know, owns a big chunk of Stellantis. This feels like it’s just more carping from the Italian government which, if past is prologue, will induce Tavares to do or say something mean in response. I can’t wait.
UAW Reportedly Worried About President Biden
As a person who studied government and worked in politics, I think it’s fair to say that President Biden has been the most successful first termer since Bill Clinton. You may not like his policies or agree with them, but as a longtime senator, it would be hard to argue that he hasn’t gotten a lot of signature legislation through an extremely divided U.S. Congress.
Inflation is down, crime is down, and employment is relatively high. All of this would be a recipe for breezing into a second term if there wasn’t a concern that President Biden is a little old. Maybe a lot old. This was all on display during the first televised debate between former President Trump and President Biden. The current President seemed a little low energy and lost, though coherent on policy points, whereas the former one sounded like he just did a bump of coke after watching 900 hours of Alex Jones. Great choices, all.
This has freaked out some people in the Democratic Party establishment, as they believe that the ascendance of Trump would result in something akin to the end of Ghostbusters before they destroy the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It’s been suggested that, hey, maybe there’s enough time to put in VP Kamala Harris, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, uh… Montpelier, Vermont City Councilperson Sal Alfano. Anyone.
One of the early endorsers of President Biden’s campaign is UAW President Shawn Fain and, according to this Reuters report, he’s got some cold feet:
Fain called together top officials at the nearly 400,000-member union to discuss concerns and what the union’s options are, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified. The union is considering its next steps, the sources said.
[…]
On Wednesday, Biden met with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of U.S. trade unions, to shore up support among labor unions. Fain attended that meeting.
Recent polling has shown that the debate hasn’t changed the current polling much, so who knows, but clearly the UAW is talking about it.
GM To Kill Most Of The Renaissance Center?
Earlier this year GM announced it was making a deal with Detroit mogul Dan Gilbert to build a new office complex for the automaker. This led to the inevitable question: What happens to the current one, Detroit’s iconic Ren Center?
According to this Detroit Free Press story, it sounds like all that Class A office space might just get torn down:
High-level discussions involving General Motors, Dan Gilbert’s real estate company Bedrock, at least two architectural firms and construction companies on what to do with the Renaissance Center have led key decision-makers to increasingly consider at least partial demolition of the structure that has dominated Detroit’s skyline for half a century.
The discussions are preliminary, with studies underway on the best future use for the riverfront property after GM moves to Gilbert’s new Hudson’s Detroit building in the city’s core downtown. But according to several people familiar with the matter, early thinking leans toward tearing down most of the seven towers and leaving one or two standing to preserve part of the skyline. The tower or towers left standing of Detroit’s most recognizable building complex would then be renovated for new uses beyond the offices and shops it offers now, two of the people told the Detroit Free Press.
Even though the Ren Center has historically been an MC Escher-like maze of conference rooms where execs tortured their underlings, it would be weird to not have it there anymore.
Did Facebook Kill The Car Forum?
I might get most of my car news from Discord these days, but I still look to car forums for a deep history of how to fix my car. The days of arguing with friends, idiots, and idiot friends on VW Vortex or NASIOC or even Fchat is kinda of a thing of the past. Did Facebook kill the car forum?
That’s the contention of our buddy Sajeev Mehta over at Hagerty:
As the social media giant’s user base kept growing, it inevitably sucked in more traditional forum users and gobbled up their free time in the process. While I avoided directly interacting in the Facebook groups that gutted forums like Lincolnsonline.com so thoroughly, I’d join and occasionally lurk to see what people were talking about.
What I witnessed there was beyond tragic: a new generation of Lincoln enthusiasts were pulling these cars out of fields, inheriting them from relatives, and buying them on the open market only to ask the same questions “we” on the forums answered over 20 years ago. All the information was already in the forums, fact-checked by trusted members who knew their stuff (a concept that’s proven more challenging to execute in Groups), and easily searchable.
I’m not going to say the Internet used to be better, but…
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I was at a party last night and I thought someone said that Jamiroquai was DJing. It was not Jamiroquai, but here’s “Cosmic Girl” because it could have been him. He’s probably here.
The Big Question
Did FB kill the forum? What platform do you use now to talk about cars?
Maybe not facebook, but I use YouTube a lot for repair/diagnostic information.
YouTube would have been amazing when I was a teenager just learning to work on cars.
Instead I had to rely on a factory service manual, a non-factory service manual to put it in terms I could understand better, weekly TV shows that gave me a TLDR version (Shade Tree Mechanic being one of them), and an e-mail distro that was sent daily and took 20 minutes to download because it was so large…
I be remembering desperately digging though car repair books at the library hoping one would me give a clue as to how to do some seemingly simple repair!
I know the forums are dead, but I have no idea how FB contributed to it. When I first read a description of FB I decided to stay away.
I now read that FB is somehow contributing to the large number of people who have decided to believe crime is up, inflation is high, and employment is down *but only everywhere they can’t see for themselves*. “I’m fine, my family is doing well, my city and state are doing well, but those places you’d never catch me have all gone to hell!”
Shouldn’t Autobianchi be reserved for someone who will license or steal someone else’s design and make it LIGHTER and LESS RELIABLE?” Someone needs to test the market for this concept applied to BEV’s.
Fingers crossed the riverside property is developed not only to extract $, but also to provide (artistic, educational, social, etc) value to Detroit. The world doesn’t need more properties who’s main purpose is a transnational hedge against legal clawback of ill gotten gains.
I hope someone hurries up with the next gen EV disruption and drops the value out of the Lucid Airs. I want one for less than half of what the 22’s are going for.
Can we get a bumper sticker that says “Warning, I speed up for curves”?
Where’s my cup of tea? Why is it so cold in here.
Can’t believe everyone is so busy talking about social media and politics that Matt got away with referring to Jay Kay as Jamiroquai and not ‘that guy from Jamiroquai.’
Who?
One of the reasons I quit Jalopnik was because they would find the barest thread to link cars to political statements. “Here’s a politician I don’t like standing next to a bus. I get to bore you with my take!” The fact that I usually agreed with them didn’t change the fact that I was there for the cars and to have fun. This is becoming less fun. Thanks for listening.
Jalopnik was so much fun at one point (if you remember the real old site) but it just devolved into endless political negativity. This site has captured some of that magic.
I think perhaps it’s just that this site caught some of its subscribers, not sure how magical that is
I’m sorry, did we run out of Jon Lovitz images?
Did FB kill the forum? I have no idea. I’ve almost never used FB.
What platform do I use now to talk about cars? This one obviously!
To me it’s a combination of FB, Discord, and to some extent websites like this.
NASIOC? I thought you had happily left the Subaru world behind…
How else does one get circle-jerked into buying one against better judgment? Echo chambers are dangerous.
oh man i hope they do sell them to the chinese. it would be what those sobs deserve for mismanaging that company so poorly for the last 40 years while making sure to pay themselves handsomely and being sold off to whoever was doing well that year. and for moving their hq to the netherlands to dodge taxes in the us dodge/chrysler deserves every terrible thing that happens to them.
Absolutely largely killed forums and the replacement is largely worthless. The weird stuff for me was some forums actively trying to get users onto their FB page. While costs are likely lower, it’s a sure way to eliminate the purpose of the forum to gather and disseminate information (even if many forums were filled with idiots and trolls, there were good forum, while there is no good social media page and certainly nothing equivalent in usefulness) and replace it with the most superficial parts of showing off pics and pointless arguments.
Forums were great – latest questions/posts filtered to the top. People could put together long form journal entries about mods, walk-throughs and adventures.
But you can’t monetize that. Facebook only cares about engagement so all you’ll ever see it “what oil should I use” where everyone chimes in with whatever random thing they buy and those antagonistic low-effort outrage memes.
“Autobianchi is the famous Italian brand known for making their own versions of Fiats while Innocenti is known for doing the same thing with Minis. Neither brand has existed as an active carmaker for a while, but that doesn’t mean Fiat doesn’t want to keep them”
You know what? I’m all for a “use it or lose it” law. If they’re not going to use these two brands, another company or person should be allowed to use it.
“but according to several people familiar with the matter, early thinking leans toward tearing down most of the seven towers and leaving one or two standing to preserve part of the skyline.”
That’s so wasteful. Why not renovate the and turn at least some of it into residential and other purposes? Or just lease it out to other companies (as is already happening)?
Also I have to ask… WHY does GM need a new headquarters? What’s wrong with the existing one? Is it too much space for them? Well then just move out of the parts and lease that unused space to some other company.
Maybe it would be best if GM just sold off the property to a developer or building management company and let them figure out what to do with it.
“Did FB kill the forum?”
Not for me it didn’t.
GM moving out and now talking with developers about tearing down some of the towers makes me wonder if there isn’t something aging out in the buildings infrastructure. Re-wiring or re-plumbing an older building of that size might not be worth it.
They should make a new Lancia Delta and give the Ypsilon back to Autobianchi. That’s where the line started after all (Autobianchi Y10)
The Delta is coming back. As a crossover probably.
It absolutely killed the forum. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some car forums out there and still going strong–but even big ones like VWVortex and TheSamba exist in diminished states.
I learned so. Much. From car forums in my teenage years and through some of my 20s. Dedicated threads to specific problems, build threads, multiple page threads of people helping someone with a particularly difficult or hard to diagnose problem, you had a wealth of knowledge available on every aspect of the car/make in question. I learned so much from some forums, and my own experience with the cars they were for, that I was able to contribute and help people with diy instructions, pictures, etc. Build threads were always a favorite, where you could see each and every step, start to finish. I remember being enthralled watching the discovery and restoration of the earliest existing VW prototype unfold on TheSamba in basically real time.
Social media is not the same. I see the same questions getting asked weekly in air-cooled VW groups. And some dubious answers as well. On a forum, if someone who had a couple/few thousand posts, you figured they probably had a good idea of what they’re doing. You don’t get that same level of, I guess you could call it “experience validation” on Facebook. And I have yet to see anything resembling the good old build thread on social media.
These days when I look up forum DIYs, they’re often from 10+ years ago, with any photos long gone. I can’t tell you the number of jobs I did with the help of a well written DIY with photos. YouTube videos just aren’t the same, I don’t want to have to keep rewinding and pausing in the middle of a job while trying to listen to someone talk.
It’s a bummer, honestly.
I was all over Jeepforum when I was a broke college kid with a Jeep. I learned almost everything there was to learn about how to fix a jeep. I loved reading the build threads and dreamed of all the mods I would do when I had time and money. There were some dicks there but for the most part, it was good people who shared a passion.
Huh? Remnants? It’s not like the PSA Group was some two bit start-up that was cut up and sold off in pieces. They were a conglomerate of brands and a major player in the the global marketplace who realized they would be stronger by merging with another conglomerate.
I had the thought a few months ago that Facebook had been killing car forums. I join groups for vehicles I have or am interested but mostly seem to lurk on the pages. They seem to be highly variable in content quality and knowledge. The big downside is how unorganized things are. The search functions is hit or miss and you aren’t able to really do build threads since things just get posted to the main page so you miss out on in depth work that people are doing. Most don’t want to see that level of detail clogging up the page. Many groups seem to be riddled with scammers as well. I don’t know if a return to forums or improving the way Facebook groups are setup would be a better answer.
Improving its UI is something Meta seems to avoid doing at all costs, so I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting them to make Groups actually function.
That’s true, improving the UI doesn’t help them sell more ads. Unrelated but what is up with all the “Just wanted to introduce myself and share a photo I took” posts.
No idea. I feel like it’s just people thirsty for likes. Which is another reason why Groups is inferior to forums.
“What platform do you use now to talk about cars?”
Looks up in a brief bit of confusion- where am I now, and where is that voice coming from? Am I the voice in Matt’s head and what is “British Bacon” slang for?
Hmm
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/kcuk4ai#ypho57q
Yeah that’s certainly *a* summary of the Biden situation. Reality paints a far less rosy picture though.
The age thing recently came to a head because it was impossible to deny that he was in cognitive decline after millions of Americans saw it firsthand. But he’s been like this for *years*. This was not a one-off thing and anyone that frames it that way is outing themselves as a partisan hack. I implore you to look at speeches from when he was a Senator and compare to now. The hiding of his condition for years would, in a more normal world, be one of the biggest political scandals ever. His own team actually said “he’s dependably engaged between 10 and 4” as if that was supposed to reassure anyone. Not only should he not be running for another term, he should have resigned already.
Also, he was already in deep trouble before the cognitive decline issues came to a head. He was and remains the most unpopular president in history by the polling numbers. Voters don’t trust him on any of the issues that they rank as the most important including foreign policy, immigration, and the economy.
Democrats are freaking out because if he goes down in flames in November, there is a decent shot they won’t flip the House in addition to losing the presidency. They already have almost no hope of retaining Senate control.
The polling data hasn’t moved much yet, but did you ever watch that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry runs into a sliding glass door and Lucy Liu (who he’s dating in the show) never sees him the same way again? That’s swing state voters with Biden. He slammed into a sliding glass door.
The real problem is the lack of reporting on the cognitive decline of the felon which is apparent and obvious.
I think most rational folk would agree that both options are bad, we should feel bad that they’ve gotten this far, and we have literally hundreds of millions of other possibilities that would be better.
“The hiding of his condition for years would, in a more normal world, be one of the biggest political scandals ever.”
This doesn’t seem to have affected the love certain people have for Reagan, who was literally not sure where he was for a good portion of his presidency.
Let’s face it, neither candidate is supportable. Biden has some serious cognitive issues. Trump is a (34 times) felon who has already proven (and continues to prove) that he has cognitive issues too.
Yes the fact that they’re still running remotely close to one another by the polling is indicative of the serious issues both candidates face. Normally you wouldn’t worry too much about unseating a president whose approval rating is hovering around 38%, but Biden absolutely has a chance to win still.
That was after he (Reagan) was shot, was it not?
Yes, both options are bad. Hoping both parties come up with something better, or a strong dark horse third-party candidate emerges.
A massive write-in campaign behind some independent candidate could be the political upset we need that would deservedly shake the established bipartisan system.
“As a person who studied government and worked in politics, I think it’s fair to say that President Biden has been the most successful first termer since Bill Clinton.”
As a person who studied industry, and works in industry, and is a big fan of Bill Clinton, I think it’s fair to say this is a doggy-doo-doo summary. In fact, I think it’s fair to say it could not be more wrong- Trump, Obama, and Bush (or, let’s be honest here- Cheney) were all generally more effective at actually pushing policies that impacted the average American in their first terms, whether or not you agree with those policies.
I suspect the NYC politico bubble our writer lives in is far more heavily influenced by the media than the average American community is, which would give a perhaps more rose-tinted view of things than may otherwise be the case.
Maybe he’s just following Regan’s reelection playbook.
I have been sporadically active on make/model specific forums for years. A great font of curated knowledge is available on them.
Anybody else read the headline, and immediately hear Cornholio in your head?
ARE YOU THREATENING ME?
I need TP! TP for my bunghole!
At the dawn of the internet, we didn’t even have a forum – we had the SE-R mailing list, which due the dorky nature of Sentra SE-Rs, 200SX SE-Rs, NX 2000s, and G20s, was mostly filled with nerdy engineer types. Including a Nissan engineer and a guy who worked for an OEM turbo manufacturer. An incredible wealth of knowledge.
Mike Kojima for the win.
I always thought the SE-R forums had the highest signal-to-noise ratio of ANY forum I had joined. I could get voltage readings for whatever pin I needed on there.
Wrangler forums would tell me to ‘put 33’s on it and let ‘er rip’
By now it’s pretty clear that Carlos Tavares is a comic book supervillain. A CEO is paid to make money, absolutely. This guy, however, wants money, at the expense of everything and anything that would stand in the way of it.
I don’t understand how so many Automotive media outlets are silent on whats going on at Stellantis, but we are watching DiamlerChrysler unfold all over again.
Cost cutting, good selling models cancelled with no replacement in sight,cars cheapened out, plants shut down, badge engineering, quality control spiraling, CEO’s quitting left and right, engineers either laid off or resigning all over the place, being replaced by remote workers from Low cost countries, rows of unsold cars, unpaid vendors…..
While maintaining the highest profit margins of the industry, and the highest paid CEO……
There are people (dodge workers and customers) actively trying to figure out how to execute a hostile takover of the dodge brand to at least salvage it. It’s craziness.
I mean, just look at this shitshow: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellantis/
It’s the Jeep Curse: buy Jeep for the profits and eventually be sold/bought/bankrupted. Bantam, Willys Overland, Kaiser, AMC, Chrysler, Daimler Chrysler, Cerberus, Stellanitis,
I just can’t believe how badly my favorite brand has been run into the shitter, and how nobody seems to want to talk about it. I’ve never in my life seen such a downgrade in quality as the new grand cherokee. We got our first one in, and I couldnt wait to drive it. I was ready to trade my 4xe for one, they just did so good with the design on it.
That all ended the minute I took it for a ride. It feels and drives like a 5 year old Hyundai product. The WK3 grand cherokee was smooth, and quiet, and tight. These new ones have heavy and vague brakes, heavy and vague steering, the ride is harsh, you can hear the ENTIRE driveline, and with 30-40k miles on them they feel WORN OUT. The bones are just BAD, and I never understood it until now.
And I thought it was all in my head, because Car&Driver, Motor Trend, Jalopnik, etc all wrote glowing reviews…But then I started sending customers out on test drives in them and hearing something I’ve never really heard a customer say after driving a brand new Grand Cherokee:
“I dont know what it is, I just don’t like it. What else do you have?”
Theyre repeating the change from the ZJ to the WK, where everything just went to crap, and fast.
I realize including Bantam is a stretch, but the design of the WW2 Jeep is arguably theirs.
Owned an ’89 XJ and a first year 4.0L ’99 WJ. The cost cutting on the later WJ’s was heartbreaking. I looked at a WK and was appalled.
The XJ may be the ideal semi-compact SUV form factor.
Very yes, but with a longer wheelbase. The most popular 2-row crossovers are about the same size, with less hood (no need for a RWD-based I6) and more passenger room.
They could print money if they would just build a new Willys Jeep and offer it as a side by side for $20 grand. They wont, though. They’d rather let Mahindra do that and just sue them every couple of years.
No argument – the Mahindra would be appealing if I had such an need/want.
It’s actively crazy. I don’t know what’s the end-game is, because it seems like every rich dude is busy burning down anything they had a hand in so they can get quick cash.
If the old french maiden doesn’t make a return and fucking sharp-ish to either rein them in or they don’t fuck off to their apocalypse bunkers to leave us to decide our civilization again, I don’t think we have any right to complain when the next round of bailouts happen.
I wont pretend to know how to run a car company, but every decision I’ve seen made the past 3 years seems hand picked to actively run the company out of business.
Imagine telling Sergio in 2019 “Here’s the plan for Stellantis North america for the next few years:
Dodge Caravan: Kill off, no replacement
Dodge Journey: Kill off, no replacement
Renegade: Kill off, no replacement
Cherokee: Kill off, no replacement
300: Kill off, no replacement
Fiat 500L Kill off, no replacement
Ram Promaster City: Kill off, no replacement
Introduce $80-100k Jeep Suv just in time for gas to return to $4 a gallon and interest rates to hit 7-8%
Begin talking about mid-size truck in 2018, do nothing with it.
Begin talking about mid size chrysler Suv in 2020, do nothing with it.
Push everything remaining upmarket, leave no vehicles available under 28,000. Introduce 1 new Dodge, sized to compete with the Ford Ecosport/Buick Verano/Chevy Trax, but price it at 40-50,000.
Develop next generation of vehicles with full reliance on software definition, but lay off most experienced engineers and replace them with cheapest software engineers from Low cost countries possible.
Absolute. Insanity.
Sigh, I fear we are getting to that point. I’m a senior level engineer and make good money, yet am still appalled by CEO and upper management pay packages. The investor class is ruining this country – the growth mindset is simply unsustainable long term, there are finite market limits that anyone can see. Making the same, sustainable profit quarter over quarter is NOT a bad thing, we don’t always need to grow (that is the definition of a cancer).
Exactly. There are so many livelihoods being ruined by a few people that are already rich, and simply want to be richer. They dont care what they destroy, from the lower middle class to the entire legacy of a century old automaker, to make a little more cash.
Wish I knew the answer. I pay my share of taxes for the overall public good and get my share of benefits from such. I economize where I can to pay for what is important to me and my family. New luxury car – not important. Once in a lifetime travel opportunity – important. All our cars are used (and paid for) allowing flexibility for our daughter’s education and other endeavors.
This has existed forever in Capitalism. Read up on the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco by Kohlberg Kravis RobertsCompany that sucked all the money out of RJR Nabisco and laid off thousands.
Cure: start your own company and don’t borrow any money. Then you won’t have to make a profit. Otherwise, don’t make a profit and your lenders will sell their notes/stocks and your company will go bankrupt because no one will lend it money.
He seems to be playing the game of boost the stock price short term, then leave for a better offer elsewhere and stick his successor with the gutted, unsalvageable shell of a company he left behind. And his successor will probably take the blame when it all collapses
Quality control right now is so bad a new part of my job as a salesperson is to Plug a Pod into the OBD2 port before the customer takes the car to run a checklist of common problems (buttons/radio not working, fuel guage correct, clear diagnostic trouble codes and verify that the 12v battery has at least 80% health.
And I’d say 3 out of 4 that I sell have some kind of stored DTC that needs to be cleared.
It’s already collapsing.
> the highest paid CEO……
You make Elon sad.
13 trillion italians were employed by Fiat? Trillion? crazy!
That’s a lotsa pasta.
Those no-show jobs are getting out of hand.
Everyone’s Italian sometimes.
Was recently looking at some articles on hemmings.com and noticed there were no comments anymore. Looks like you can still comment, but 0 comments.
Either they have a technical issue or no one is visiting/commenting anymore?
I will say if you have a common vehicle, YouTube is a great source for us DIY folk. Granted, sometimes you have to run through several of them to find the one that they actually know what they are doing and not just a hack with a GoPro.
Though I haven’t been on in several years, The Samba for older VWs is a great forum. Lots of knowledge there for working on my Vanagon. I never joined any other forums but I do check them out sometimes for repair info.
Facebook absolutely had an impact on car forums. I was a long time NAXJA member and traffic was definitely trending down over my 15+ years with an XJ. Meanwhile as Sajeev said you see all the same questions asked constantly on the FB groups. Forums and searching are a lost art. Everyone wants the answer without the research.