Private Equity Is Killing Three More Important Car News Sites

I’m doing a Gilmore Girls rewatch for my mental health, and last night I hit the episode with the writer Norman Mailer. In retrospect, it’s not the cameo that catches you off guard, but the insistence that one of the characters should be respected because his dad is a billionaire who made his money by owning regional newspapers. It’s the opposite of today when billionaires still own media companies, but only because they’re the only ones rich enough to risk the losses. The other option is private equity.

The private equity thing rarely works out well for media companies, and I’m sad to start this week’s first Morning Dump with news that three of the OG car news sites are going dark in approximately one week.

Also in one week, President Trump’s narrower “Liberation Day” tariff announcement is reportedly coming. What does that mean? Who is it for? No one knows for sure, including possibly the President himself, but it does seem to be a narrower set of moves than originally threatened/promised. Just the potential of all these tariffs is going to change the globe, and not necessarily in ways that are great for everyone.

And, finally, the United States is far from the only country playing games with trade, as China looks to build its next EV plant in a part of Europe that voted with it, not against it.

All Three High Gear Media Sites Go Dark Next Week

If you’re in media long enough you’ll live to see the publications you grew up with change dramatically or disappear. It’s always been the game. As a kid, Newsweek and Time magazine were two of the world’s most important news brands. They still exist, but both combined probably lack the influence of the eighth-biggest podcaster.

The economics of the media landscape have changed, which has sent the owners of many of these publications looking for an exit. Often, they find the door marked PRIVATE (EQUITY). I’m sure this works out for some publications, though I’m scratching my head to think of a shining example.

In the auto space, we’ve seen Hoonigan go bankrupt, the talent chased away at Donut Media, reorganizations at Cars & Bids, and the entire staff of Autoblog fired. All of these companies were entwined with PE. The latest victims are the original High Gear Media sites: Green Car Reports, Motor Authority, and The Car Connection.

All three of these sites date back to the early car Internet when blogs first came into the mainstream. I remember writing for Jalopnik back in 2008 and first encountering Green Car Reports and its longtime editor John Voelcker. The sites were a big part of the car news ecosystem at the time, growing big enough to be acquired by mega-conglomerate Internet Brands (WebMD, Cars Direct, et cetera) in 2014 for an undisclosed amount.

Here’s how the acquisition was described in a press release from 2014:

“High Gear Media’s vertical automotive focus and commitment to producing high-quality content for in-market consumers complements and enhances our portfolio of leading online automotive brands,” said Bob Brisco, CEO of Internet Brands. “Consumers will continue to benefit from top-tier automotive content and buying advice, while auto OEMs and dealers will have access to exciting new advertising opportunities at unprecedented scale.

The key here is “in-market,” as it means “people who might buy cars.” The ability to sell to people in the purchase funnel is a key reason why certain car websites still exist. If you’re curious why Hearst, which already owns Car And Driver and Road & Track, bought Motor Trend, in-market is almost certainly a part of it. If you’re an average person and you search for info about a car online you’ll probably be sent to Car And Driver, which is largely just a massive buyer’s guide at this point. That’s intentional because that’s how Hearst makes a huge chunk of its earnings.

Reports show that none of the three departing sites lately have been able to muster much traffic (all three combined seem to do less traffic these days than The Autopian) as the staffs have shrunk over the years. It’s hard to imagine how to make a business out of a readership that low. Even if it was maybe inevitable, it still feels awful.

Joel Feder, a longtime and much-liked colleague, said on Friday that April 1st would be the end of posting to all three of those sites:

All good things come to an end. On April 1 this chapter will come to a close.

The Car Connection, Motor Authority, and Green Car Reports are being shut down. I have poured my heart and soul into this job and team for 15 years and could not be more proud of what we accomplished and stood for. Will forever be grateful to Marty Padgett for his unwavering support throughout the entire journey. Thank you to the rest of the team both past and present.

Journalists and PR folks from across the car web have reached out to give their support and express shock over the decision:

It’s here that I’ll mention the completely unsurprising detail, which is that Internet Brands is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (better known as KKR). This is a massive US-based private equity firm that owns everything from a South Korean beer company to Simon & Shuster publishing.

Internet Brands itself encompasses a huge swath of the online information space, and its other automotive holdings including CorvetteForum, RENNlist, and Cars Direct. It’s not clear if any of the forums (including Dodge Forum, MBWorld, and Club Lexus) the company owns will be impacted, but early indications are they aren’t involved in this round of closings.

I reached out to a spokesperson for Internet Brands with a list of questions. In addition to knowing if any forums will be closed, I’m curious if they’re going to maintain all the many years of reporting these sites did. In particular, Green Car Reports provided a lot of important coverage of Dieselgate and it would be a tragedy to see it all erased. [Ed Note: I’ll also emphasize just how much great stuff came from these sites, which acted as the launching pad for a number of talented journalists who are still crushin’ it today. -DT]. 

I’ll update the post if I hear back from them.

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President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Is Coming

Because this is the second term for President Trump it’s clear to everyone that he loves using tariffs as a way to balance what he sees as unequal treatment of American products abroad and that you can’t really know from day-to-day which of his musings will come to fruition.

The threat of tariffs on autos sent automakers scrambling for assistance, only to see the ones against Canada and Mexico quickly reversed. Suppliers are freaking out. Even the new metal tariffs (not to be confused with the NüMetal tariffs, which mostly impact Korn commodities) are starting to cause trouble for automakers.

There’s maybe a bit more clarity on this, now that President Trump’s aides are saying a ‘Liberation Day’ is coming on April 2nd. Cleary this date was chosen so that it doesn’t compete with the third anniversary of this site’s founding on March 32nd.

From Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump’s coming wave of tariffs is poised to be more targeted than the barrage he has occasionally threatened, aides and allies say, a potential relief for markets gripped by anxiety about an all-out tariff war.

Trump is preparing a “Liberation Day” tariff announcement on April 2, unveiling so-called reciprocal tariffs he sees as retribution for tariffs and other barriers from other countries, including longtime US allies. While the announcement would remain a very significant expansion of US tariffs, it’s shaping up as more focused than the sprawling, fully global effort Trump has otherwise mused about, officials familiar with the matter say.

The overall goal here, other than punishing other companies for putting tariffs on the United States, is to try to encourage trillions of dollars in investment in the country. This is a major shift from the historical neo-liberal trade policy embraced by both major parties, but especially by the Republican Party. The actual impacts of these policies are unclear because, at the moment, it’s not obvious who or what is going to be hit with import duties.

The New ‘China Shock’

I talk about China Shock a lot, which is the modern name for the period in U.S. history when an influx of cheap Chinese goods led to lower prices for consumers at the expense of a lot of jobs, especially in the Industrial Midwest.

These new tariffs could lead to a new one, just not here. Bloomberg Businessweek called the indirect impact of America’s new trade policy a “New China Shock” in last week’s The Big Take feature:

“This is China Shock 2.0 or China Shock 3.0,” says Gordon Hanson, a professor of urban policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and one of the authors of the research paper that coined the name of the phenomenon. “China has this immense manufacturing capacity, and the goods have to go somewhere.” The lesson from the US experience, he added, is that “there’s a political response to all this. People get mad.”

The hollowing out of local economies in the American heartland helped lead to the rise of Donald Trump as a political force. Seeking to rebalance US-China trade and bring manufacturing jobs home, Trump imposed tariffs on China during his first term that were kept in place by the Biden administration. Chinese manufacturers priced out of the US had to search for alternative markets, while some moved production to other countries to evade duties.

Countries that are targeted include Mexico, Vietnam, India, Turkey, and other emerging markets. It makes sense. If the United States becomes a harder market to access, China’s huge production capacity has to go somewhere.

China’s Newest EV Factory Is Reportedly Coming To Spain

Speaking of…

Last year I wrote that the “Chinese Government Is Reportedly Using Stellantis To Punish Europe” and, yeah, that’s a decent headline. I think a more accurate headline could have been “… Is Using Stellantis To Punish Parts Of Europe.”

Here’s what I had at the time:

Chinese automakers desperately want to sell cars outside of China and, specifically, they want to sell cars in Europe. For various reasons, ranging from the protection of local industry to the discomfort with China’s excessive subsidies/questionable labor practices, the European Union went through with its threat to add massive tariffs to many Chinese automakers trying to sell in Europe.

This wasn’t a unanimous vote, with Germany and Hungary opposing the measure and many more countries simply abstaining. I’ve talked about this before, but Europe has an uneasy relationship with China that depends a lot on the import-export relationship between individual EU member states. Ultimately, it was populous France, Italy, and Poland whose support pushed the tariffs forward, and it’s those countries that are now at risk of reprisal from China.

Stellantis has so many brands it’s hard to keep track of them all, but the newest one is a Chinese firm called Leapmotor that Stellantis became the majority shareholder of recently. Leapmotor already invested in Poland, using a plant there to produce the cheap T03 electric car. It was expected that Leapmotor would build the B10, pictured above, in Poland as well.

Since the vote, those plans have shifted, and now it’s probably Spain that’s getting the plant according to sources who spoke with Reuters:

China’s embassy in Spain said Stellantis and its Chinese partner Leapmotor plan a $200 million investment in a Spanish factory after a person with direct knowledge of the matter said Spain was the top site to produce the B10 electric crossover for the European market from 2026.

The two companies have been looking for a site in Europe to produce the model which made its debut on the continent in September. Stellantis’ factories in Germany and Slovakia have also been under consideration, Reuters previously reported.

China’s embassy said the factory where they plan to invest is in Zaragoza, northeast Spain, but did not provide any further details.

Everything is politics.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

I’m going to do a musical theme week, and that theme will be Laura Nyro. My argument is that the artist Laura Nyro is the most influential artist of the 20th century that you’ve never heard of, and everyone from Elton John to Ben Folds owes a ton to Nyro. You’ve heard her songs because she’s written for everyone, even if you’ve never heard her amazing voice.

The song I’m guessing most of you know is “Eli’s Coming” by Three Dog Night. It’s a Nyro song through and through, including the massive tempo shifts, the furious piano part that’s like a haunted ragtime, and the just sheer intensity of it all. People love this song and most have no idea it was Nyro who wrote it.

The Big Question

What were the first automotive publications you remember reading?

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