In looking at the news of the day a theme emerged: Bosses. Specifically, a lot of people are asking if certain CEO/Chairmen should have their jobs. This is, of course, after record profits for most automakers.
Leaders are judged by the present in the present, and yet the real measure of success is how they perform in the future as judged by someone looking at the past. This can create competing incentives, especially with a publicly traded company whose value is being recalculated every millisecond.
We’ll start today with Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (pictured above), who admits that his North American operations have been less than ideal. He’s taking the blame, which is something a good leader does. But is his concern about the past consistent with the reality of the present? I’m not so sure.
And what of VW + Porsche CEO Oliver Blume? Porsche is enormously valuable and I think Blume has done a good job of dealing with his various constituencies, but one observer makes the point that perhaps doing both at the same time isn’t working. And what of Akio Toyoda? Given all the tsuris, two big proxy groups are saying dump him.
Finally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is going to get the greatest paycheck in human history and it’s interesting to see who ended up pushing him over the line.
Does Carlos Tavares Understand The Problem
Michael Lewis, through his books and movies like The Big Short and Moneyball, frequently suggests that maybe collective wisdom isn’t all that wise. That maybe it’s easier to persuade ourselves and others that if we’re making money and winning games we’re doing the right thing, which works right up to the point that it comically and tragically fails.
It is an extremely white-nerd-online-point-of-view to quote Moneyball, but to thine own self be true, I guess.
I will say that I believe Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares when he says that his company is failing in North America and part of the cause is his “arrogance.” That quote was from an investor presentation yesterday, and here’s some context from The Detroit News (Stellantis hasn’t posted the transcript yet):
Stellantis NV CEO Carlos Tavares said Thursday his company was “arrogant” when it failed to quickly react to a convergence of several problems in the United States over recent months, including manufacturing issues and ballooning inventories.
“When I say we were arrogant, I’m talking about myself. Nobody else. I’m talking about the fact that I should have acted immediately,” Tavares said at an investor gathering Thursday at the automaker’s North American headquarters in Auburn Hills.
He said he should’ve formed a task force to tackle the problems, which have included manufacturing hiccups at a couple of unnamed U.S. plants that “are not operating as they should.”
The making of cars has, indeed, been a problem for Stellantis. The company has been hugely profitable, but it’s been profitable because it’s been selling old cars on old platforms. Many new cars are on the horizon, including the Charger Daytona and Ram Ramcharger, and those need to work to justify the investment.
Granting Tavares credit for his humility in this situation, and while I’m sure he’s trying to solve the problem of Stellantis in North America, I’m not sure he’s looking at the right problem, and I say that because of what’s said later on in this article:
“(There will be) questions about where we are in terms of cost-cutting, and are we on the limits or not? It is the same thing as asking, do we have limits to our imagination?” Tavares said of finding areas in the company for savings.
Beyond reducing headcount, Stellantis executives on Thursday also discussed their efforts to save money by moving more of its engineering departments to so-called “best cost” countries, such as Morocco, India and Brazil.
Platform reduction and cost reduction through shared platforms is the way every modern automaker is trying to operate and it’s likely sensible for a company with so many regional operations to pursue that strategy. The laying off of engineers in America and the search for cheaper engineering elsewhere feels wrong to me, though.
The part of Stellantis that used to be Dodge wasn’t successful because of accounting, it was successful because it built products people found desirable. Offshoring all the engineering in order to accomplish those goals doesn’t strike me as an ideal solution to the company’s current biggest problem, which is that it doesn’t make competitive cars in the United States.
Should Oliver Blume Run Both VW And Porsche?
Volkswagen and Porsche have a wild history that goes all the way back to the time that Porsche thought it would be able to buy Volkswagen and then, surprise, it went so sideways that the opposite happened and now Volkswagen owns Porsche.
This arrangement was beneficial for both, as Porsche has managed to become a much better company that still produces world-class cars and does so profitably and at way higher volumes than it did when it was more on its own.
So what’s the problem? Financial reporter and opiner Chris Bryant makes the point in a column this week that maybe having Oliver Blume head both VW and Porsche ain’t working. Here’s the crux of his argument:
VW’s preference shares have declined around 20% since Blume’s appointment, further compressing VW’s market capitalization to a derisory €59 billion, less than smaller rival Stellantis NV.
After deducting VW’s majority ownership of Porsche and truck maker Traton SE, this implies the rest of VW’s sprawling automotive empire is effectively worth nothing. My hope that listing Porsche would help reveal hidden value at VW has proven much too optimistic. VW investors still have a cornucopia of concerns, ranging from the company’s fading relevance in China and software delays, to a lack of competitive electric vehicles and the Audi division’s subpar performance.
It’s a fair point, even though I don’t agree.
When Blume took over from Herbert Diess, Volkswagen was not in great shape, still reeling from Dieselgate and the rather listless term of Matthias Müller. I don’t think the current vision of the company is perfect and China is a legitimate concern, but the high amount of experimentation with brands like Cupra and the ongoing desirability of Porsche globally makes me think the dual-role isn’t that big of a deal.
It’s a crap job running VW and somehow this guy runs both companies for about $10.8 million a year, which is way less than most car execs. I think getting to run Porsche is the fun perk and it’s bad management to take away work people find enjoyable if they’re good at it.
Dump Akio?
We had a column implying that maybe Blume should relinquish his CEO job at Porsche so he can focus on being the boss of VW, so here’s a column arguing that Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda should keep his job.
Why, after helping shepherd the automaker to its position as the most profitable public company in Japanese history, would people want to dump him? All the major screwups around faked crash tests and fudged powerplant numbers have led to major activist investor groups to call for Toyoda’s head.
Hans Griemel, in his column, gives a bunch of arguments for why Toyoda should keep his job, but I like this one best:
Back in the day, Toyotas were durable and reliable. But they were also ho-hum.
From his first day in office, Toyoda set out to change that, and he worked miracles. Under his drumbeat of “ever better cars,” Toyota has delivered better-looking, better-driving vehicles.
Toyoda rearranged the portfolio around successful vehicle families, such as the Crown, Corolla and Yaris series. He also rebalanced the regional sales mix.
Maybe Bob Lutz was right about this one?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk Gets The Vanguard Vote
According to Reuters, it was big investor Vanguard (which owns the second biggest stake in the company at 7%) that helped push Musk over the line in order to get the biggest payday in history. This is entertaining because Vanguard actually voted against the pay package when it was initially proposed in 2018.
What changed Vanguard’s mind?
In its note, Vanguard said while Musk’s pay was “a substantial outlier” among CEOs, Tesla’s shareholder return was in the 98th percentile of all Russell 3000 companies from 2018 through 2023. “There are few companies that have created as much absolute market value appreciation as Tesla,” Vanguard said.
The man said he could eat 50 eggs and he ate 50 eggs, so pay up.
What I’m Listening To Today While Writing TMD
Whether you’re a No Limit Soldier or a Cash Money Millionaire you gotta appreciate Juvenile’s surprise crossover hit “Back Dat Azz Up,” which came out 25 years ago this week?!? Man, I’m older than I thought I was. NOLA celebrated by making Tuesday “Back Dat Azz Up Day.” The best part of this video is that they clearly shot it as “BACK DAT THING UP” which is the cleaner version and then just dubbed over him saying “AZZ.”
The Big Question
Rank them:
Blume
Tavares
Musk
Toyoda
Juvenile, duhToyodaBlume (Sorry, no manuals at launch? Cheap-feeling 992 components? Bruh.)TavaresGetting hit by a busGetting hit by a spaceshipGetting hit by a spaceship with a bus on itGetting hit by a bus, hit by a spaceship, then carried into the vacuum of space on the nose of said spaceship and then getting launched into the sun…
The absolute end of infinity: Elon frickin’ Musk
Dude deserved to lose his job over the misappropriation of company resources for Twitter’s stupid AI thing and his absolute lack of interest, as a car CEO, in actually building cars. I hope the saner institutional investors who came out against that stupid pay package bail because I feel like it’s all downhill from here so long as they have that gross chud steering the ship.
I wish I knew how you really felt. Your post is so restrained it’s cryptic.
wait… did you skip over Tavares? Can we put him in that spaceship? EDIT: Oops, sorry you edited, I should have refreshed first…
I edited, and then the formatting got all messed up.
Ranking was (trying this without numbering):
Juvenile, duh
Toyoda
Blume (Sorry, no manuals at launch? Cheap-feeling 992 components? Bruh.)
Tavares
Getting hit by a bus
Getting hit by a spaceship
Getting hit by a spaceship with a bus on it
Getting hit by a bus, hit by a spaceship, then carried into the vacuum of space on the nose of said spaceship and then getting launched into the sun
…
Ranking somewhere near the absolute end of infinity: Elon frickin’ Musk
Rank them:
Blume
Tavares
Musk
Toyoda
Judy Blume is definitely the heavyweight champion of adolescent lit.
Given the genre, I can give Judy a pass for not backing dat ass up, but the near-universal appeal of Juvenile’s classic jam puts him at the top of the list.
Did Mr. Sarcastic hack your account?
Dammit, the formatting got all messed up.
I’m pretty sure I’ve reported this in the suggestion box but yeah editing destroys markdown formatting, such that even an edited-for-formatting edit will still destroy the formatting
So Tavares thinks taking the cookie cutter MBA approach is going to solve their problems? Doing outsourcing like that always leads to failure.
My department attempted to outsource some engineering/drafting work a couple of years ago when we had too much work, and zero prospects for bringing in new people.
Unless you intend on going through an immense amount of effort and money to train the people you’re outsourcing that sort of work to? Good freaking luck. It caused more issues than it solved, and ironically, ended up being more expensive than just hiring more people at the rates we pay. Which might also be a commentary on the unfortunate salaries we get now, and how the rest of the world isn’t really THAT much cheaper these days.
My work has had mixed results outsourcing engineering work.
Anything that requires knowledge of how the product will be used, built and serviced gets redone by North American based engineers once we realize how bad the outsourced work is.
Anything that only requires two brain cells to rub together (like changing part A for part B in thousands of BOMS and updating the 3D models behind those assemblies) comes back from outsourcing quickly and done well.
Toyoda
Blume…
Musk has to be last, right? But man, Tavares, I can’t think of a single thing that Stellantis (lol) has done right, at least in this country. He’s genuinely fucking awful at that, and by the sounds of it, his solution to race to the bottom via cost-cutting sounds like the sort of thing Stellantis could pay literally anyone to do.
I’m putting Tavares in 3rd, but he’d better watch it. At least Musk sells a few desirable cars, even if he’s an unrepentant knob of a human.
Tavares has to be last. Three Stellantis brands have basically no product in the US. Their newest product – the Tonale/Hornet is not moving the needle for either Alfa or Dodge besides the articles pointing out what a failure the launch has been.
Stellantis is rudderless and there is no reason to believe it is turning around soon.
Toyoda is a silver-spoon prick who’s spent years fighting electrification because he let his company fall behind and now looks like a “genius” because his plan worked
I mean, my understanding is that that’s basically all C suite Japanese businessmen and the country more or less has a caste system. You’re either born to be a hot shot or you’re born to spend your life toiling. It’s extremely rigid, and then when you add in the hyper nationalism/racism Japan is infamous for the odds of a rags to riches story happening are pretty goddamn low.
I think it is a little early to say it worked.
I don’t believe the doom-and-gloom EV articles that the media has been conspicuously pushing over the last few months, but the sales of hybrid vehicles, at least at the moment, “prove” that Toyoda was right
“He said he should’ve formed a task force to tackle the problems, which have included manufacturing hiccups at a couple of unnamed U.S. plants that “are not operating as they should.”
“(There will be) questions about where we are in terms of cost-cutting, and are we on the limits or not? It is the same thing as asking, do we have limits to our imagination?” Tavares said of finding areas in the company for savings.”
Guys, this is not good. My GM recently got back from a large Dealer Group meeting, and the general consensus is that we are literally run by the mafia, and the plan is to find a way to lay off about 20 percent of the unionized workers under the guise of the plants’ “Performance”.
There’s multiple youtube channels touching on this stuff, essentially accusing Stellantis of sabotaging thier own plants.
This is ABSOLUTE hearsay, but I believe my boss 100 percent: He told me one of the dealers in the group knows Tim Kuniskis personally, and said he left because he “Didn’t want to be a part of anything that’s about to be going on”
Don’t worry though, Tavares laid off a bunch of workers at the Tech Center, as well as some at the proving grounds, in order to send those jobs to low-cost countries instead, and then took home a massive bonus.
“Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (pictured above)”
I just want to say I love this running gag.
If you guys want a real pulse on how things are going at Stellantis in North America, head on over to the Stellantis Reddit.
It’s……well, there’s certainly no lack of opinions over there…
My issue with VW is that I still can’t get over Dieselgate, I can’t get over the reliability of the Audi’s I have owned, and I haven’t been remotely titillated by any vehicle they have produced in the past 10 years. I don’t philosophically hate them, but they have just kind of disappeared into the abyss like that 4th bush in the hedges you drive by on your own property.
Remember the 2000s? When Audi was building shit like the original R8 and TT, the S4 had a raucous V8, and the S6 had a goddamn Lamborghini V10? I sure do. Teenage me daydreamed about the 4 rings all day every day.
But today? I can’t even name a single Audi I would recommend to someone. Everything with the godforsaken EA888 is out after my mom’s Allroad unalived itself at 60,000 miles at my GTI spent nearly its entire first year of existence in the service bay.
None of the S or RS models can compete with the comparable Ms or AMGs. The bigger SUVs are inefficient boats. They have no traditional hybrids and their PHEVs offer less range than BMW and Volvo. Their two current BEV offerings are an up-badged poorly reviewed VW blob and an overpriced Porsche hand me down that will maybe get 200 miles of real world range on a good day.
What is there at this point? And on top of it they all look the exact same and dealerships only stock white, black, or gray over black interiors. Good luck finding your Q whatever in the Whole Foods parking lot where there are 11 different white over black Audi crossovers…
It sucks because I love old Audi and Audi was a vital part of my journey to becoming an enthusiast. But outside of the TTRS, which of course they killed, there’s nothing left. I genuinely have no idea who’s buying them anymore.
Precisely. Well said. Totally agree!
Well, don’t buy german cars, they made from chinese parts.
Maybe not as bad as Infiniti (although Infinitis might be more reliable) but I really forget Audi exists these days. I wanted an S5 for years, and last time I decided to look at some listings for a new one, I was just “eh”.
They aren’t reliable, and they aren’t exciting or particularly well designed anymore to make you forget about their reputation for poor reliability long enough to roll the dice.
I have nearly the same feeling for Infiniti. My only issue with them, and it only needs to be this, is that their parent company is Nissan.
VAG, Nissan, and Stellantis. I’ve got no love for any of them. Except Porsche. Those quad headlights are so beautiful.
Infiniti vehicles have two known major issues…. CVTs that expire in the 65k range and V6 engines that implode at about 70k.
Utter garbage.
On the plus side, they may be the only company that can claim they once had a CEO that fit in a suitcase.
“Carlos Tavares said Thursday his company was “arrogant” when it failed to quickly react to a convergence of several problems in the United States over recent months, including manufacturing issues and ballooning inventories.”
And the specific problem was management thinking that pandemic pricing would last forever in spite of the evidence (of inventory piling up) saying otherwise.
And other other problem is the Chrysler and Dodge brands being starved of product.
Seriously… why cancel the Charger/300 when the replacement won’t be ready for a least another year? It’s a fucking stupid move.
But it’s par for the course for these European-focused managers. They are so focused on the EU, they have little to no idea of what’s going on in North America
It reinforces my view that Chrysler/FCA gained little or nothing with this merger with PSA… and that includes BEV tech.
The solution to the problems in North America aren’t that complicated:
Pretty much this, man.
Toyota has something like 30 different models, and half of those have thier own hybrid version, and they dont even compete in the heavy truck and van segment.
Since 2019, we’ve lost the Voyager, Caravan, Journey, Charger, 300, Cherokee, Promaster City, and Renegade.
We have 14 nameplates to sell, and half of them aren’t competitive. Across FIVE brands (not counting alfa)
How can they not see the ridiculousness of this?
Dropping products before replacements are ready is asinine and has been the way the automaker formerly known as Chrysler has been operating for years, even before becoming part of Stellantis, it started under Fiat.
It’s even dumber when you realize the new Dodge Charger is being built in a completely different plant from the LX cars. And the old plant is being retooled to build the Compass, but production on that isn’t scheduled to start until next year, meaning there was no logistical reason at all why the Charger/Challenger/300 couldn’t have been extended for another year to close that gap
It’s because Stellantis doesn’t want to pay any more money to Tesla for carbon offsets to keep the Charger/Challenger going
The new Compass had better be much better than the old one. It also has a reputation to overcome.
“Seriously… why cancel the Charger/300 when the replacement won’t be ready for a least another year?”
… they’ve run out of old Mercedes E-Class parts to use in building the Charger/300.
It’s a little known fact that Carlos Tavares’ wife is Morgan Fairchild. 🙂
I understand he’s actually slept with her.
Do tell……….
I don’t understand that at all, but I’m glad someone does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV85E2S-Idw
2:20
Some time.
No CEO is worth so much as 1/4th of their salary and I think as a society we should be ostracizing people that display the levels of antisocial and narcissistic behavior it takes to rise to that level rather than making them billionaires. But maybe that’s just me.
Add me, but I wouldn’t reserve the large table at the restaurant.
Count me in. Maybe a medium table, at least.
There are DOZENS of us! DOZENS!
I agree, but the problem with this is that these narcissists are supported by narcissists. Not sure how to fix that.
With Stellantis’ poorly disguised platform sharing across brands to date (see: Tonale/Hornet) and plans to offshore its engineering, looks like we should expect more U.S. market rejection of future Franco-Italian Dodges arriving at dealerships.
Instead of only trying to force its way into crowded vehicle segments, Stellantis’ best bet to differentiate itself could be to take a chance on selling a model in an under-represented body style like a variant of a true station wagon/saloon and offer it with reasonable specs at a Camryesque price point.
Return of the Magnum
Tavares is THE problem for Stellantis. On the supplier side, he’s putting smaller suppliers out of business by not honoring contracts on raw material cost increases, taking parts and not paying the bills, fighting suppliers in court. Now suppliers are reconsidering whether to quote any new Stellantis work.Tavares says this is fine, because he’ll just get the parts from India and other low cost countries. Now he’s saying the same for in-house engineering. He’s the kind of leader that claims there are simple answers to complex problems, then tries to make others (like his mention of a task force) figure out the mess he’s created. Ultimately, if he breaks regulatory rules in this process, he’ll blame the executives he directed to break those rules. If record profits were as simple as outsourcing everything, all of the automakers would be doing that.
Alternatively, with Akio Toyoda, he’s provided stable leadership. I’m not happy with Toyota at the moment, because I have a newer Tundra with an engine I can no longer fully trust due to their quality issues, which they have fully admitted to. If Tavares was in charge, they’d be blaming the customer for every blown engine.
I had high hopes for Tavares, since having a leader who would actually, you know, do things would be a novelty for the former FCA. Sergio Marchionne ran FCA with the primary purpose of seeking a merger partner. As a result, there was little investment in new vehicle development, which persisted during the years after Marchionne died, until finally John Elkann managed to get hitched with PSA & Tavares.
At least in comparison to FCA, PSA had done a decent job with vehicle development, and Tavares came into his new role confirming that the FCA vehicle drought was over. It was a low bar to clear, and he cleared it. Or did he?
Now he is upholding some of the worst tendencies of FCA, among which were horrible supplier relations. FCA tried to squeeze blood from a stone with their suppliers, and now Tavares is threatening to bypass them altogether in favor of suppliers in (theoretically) lower-cost overseas countries. And yet oddly enough, those automakers with the most reliable vehicles also tend to have the best supplier relations. Isn’t that weird?
As I said, Tavares had a low bar to clear. But Marchionne at least had two big accomplishments early in his own tenure: One, he rescued Chrysler Group in the first place — we wouldn’t be talking about them now if it weren’t for him. Second, as soon as he came in he looked at the existing portfolio and said, “What can we fix right now?”. And thus, all FCA vehicles received brand-new, class-competitive interiors and major exterior refreshes within 1-2 years.
So, at least this far into their respective tenures, the score is Marchionne 2, Tavares 0.
Chrysler has been chewed up, digested and pooped out by Daimler-Benz, Cerberus and Fiat, and what residues are left are being scattered to the four winds by Stellantis. It will be lucky to survive until 2030 – it’s been mergered and cost-reductioned to death.
COVID-induced supply shortages let every automaker reduce production of less profitable models and trim lines and increase prices. Sure, the CEOs are now all patting themselves on the back and collecting big bonuses. But the recent high profits didn’t happen just because they’re all so good at their jobs.
Jeep etc. were most aggressive at increasing prices during the supply shortages. It stands to reason that once production caught up with demand their vehicles would then pile up due to these price increases. I don’t know if Tavares was including these aggressive price increases among the effects of their arrogance, but he should have.
How should they be ranked?
Best car enthusiast – Toyoda
Biggest personality – Tavares
Biggest A-Hole – Musk
Biggest appliance – Blume
In 5+ years, Toyota will arguably still be ready to roll out BEVs if that is what the market wants.
Even before Toyoda was “redeemed” for his resistance to BEVs and focus on hybrids, the idea seemed to be that Toyota was sitting on their hands pretending batteries don’t exist.
They’ve put more big batteries into mass produced vehicles than anyone, they were just called hybrids. They have been doing R&D on batteries just as long as anyone. They are supposedly one of the leaders in getting to solid state batteries.
He said they’re going to make a $25,000 USD Jeep EV.
Stellantis small EV’s are FWD.Jeep doesn’t really even sell 2WD products anymore.If he had any sort of understanding, we’d be getting a new cheap Dodge or Chrysler BEV instead of a Jeep.
Hell, we’d have Chrysler and Dodge products coming out in droves in the next few years.
Carlos understands Europe, just like Fiat and Daimler do. None of them understood how to make America work, when it never was that hard.
Also, to answer the Big Question:
ToyotaBlumeMusk and Taveres didn’t show up. Musk was probably out acting like a playboy despite being a creep and Tavares is talking once again about budget cuts but watching Peugeot and Alfa Romeo go racing with blank checks because it sells a 308 and Tonale I guess.
Chrysler’s later-era European leaders always focus on Jeep because that is the name they know. So every new vehicle idea needs to be a Jeep. It’s like they refuse to do any further research into the North American market.
No one who voted for this payday should ever bitch about income inequality or the super rich ever again. Sorry, you’ve lost that privilege by deciding that one person is worth that much money. No one is.
Something tells me the people who voted for it aren’t the ones concerned about income inequality.
Probably not, but this vote did dilute their shares. Real 4D chess masters here.
After their first bailout, Chrysler ran an ad where Lee Iacocca said something to the effect of, when you get kicked in the head, you learn to put first things first, and in the car business, product comes first.
Well, let’s look at Stellantis’ product
Dodge – two models, yes, just two models. The Durango, launched way back in 2010 for the 2011 model year, and horribly out of date; and the Hornet, a poorly executed rebadge of an Alfa Romeo that’s badly built and overpriced by about $10k
Chrysler – one model, the Pacifica, which was launched in 2016 for the 2017 model year and is therefore also now outdated
Jeep – built it’s reputation on being a dedicated SUV specialist brand, but passenger cars have been slashed across the industry, and now every automaker is turning themselves into an SUV specialist brand. Jeep doesn’t have a special niche anymore, they can’t trade on a unique identity, so they have to make themselves about something else, and haven’t really figured out what that something else is
Ram – ignoring key parts of the market (smaller trucks), probably shouldn’t really be a separate brand
Fiat – never should have been here in the first place, isn’t technically here now, since it’s one remaining model has been cancelled.
Maserati and Alfa Romeo – for people who really want a BMW or Mercedes, but prefer something with a worse reputation, horrific depreciation, and 1970s BL build quality. Again, not really understanding exactly what they add, or could realistically add, to the bottom line.
And look at all the models that were dropped without a replacement. The Journey, Charger, Challenger, Caravan, 200, and 300 were all good sellers, but are gone with nothing currently occupying their former spaces in showrooms. Yeah, there’s a Charger/Challenger replacement on the way, but it’s going to be significantly more expensive and why the hell is there a 12 month gap?
Stellantis is almost as bad as Tesla at launching new models and updating old ones, there’s no excuse for that, at it’s at the root of every problem they’re having in North America.
The Fiat 500e is here now
I missed that one, well, good, hope it sells better than the Hornet. But we all know it won’t
Should be rear wheel drive. That could be a fun.
….Dodge’s website shows Hornet, Charger, Challenger, and Durango?
Not that that invalidates your argument in any way (still a tiny model count for a full brand name), just mildly confused.
The Charger and Challenger are dead and have been for some time now, 2023 was the final model year, and we’re currently 9 months into the 2024 model year. I’ll bet the Chrysler site still shows the 300, too, but that’s the same story.
There are still quite a few Challengers and Chargers out there. Well discounted too. The F8 Green Scat Pack I just saw advertised for $40k is kind of tempting since they are the last of their kind. And I don’t want to be the second owner of a Dodge muscle car.
You’re half correct about Maserati, but you know absolutely nothing about the quality, performance or desirability of current Alfa Romeos. In a sea of identical looking black, white, and gray sedans or SUVs Alfas are a visual pleasure to more than merely Alfa enthusiasts. Unfortunately everyone still seems to be stuck reading Car & Driver’s unfortunate experience with a car that wasn’t quite ready to have the crap beaten out of it. They’re way better now.
Alfa Romeo’s biggest problem is that Stellantis ignores the brand in the U.S. market, and their dealerships in general have terrible reviews, with many just quitting the brand. We have an excellent dealer, and our three Alfa Romeos have been 100% reliable, even the six-year old one. And both of the Fiats preceding our current Alfas were, too. We have zero desire for any German vehicles, period. Been there, done that, paid the price for it, too.
You don’t have to like Alfa Romeos, but Alfa can’t outlive its alleged “bad reputation” with parrots like you endlessly perpetuating it, mainly baselessly.
I’m happy that you have had a good experience, but the data does not confirm that for the brand as a whole
You are correct. We owned a non-quad Stelvio for 3 years, putting 60k miles on it (long commute to work). No issues outside of a bad evap canister valve, replaced under warranty. Would still have it, but after having 2nd kid we needed to upgrade to a 3-row suv (Palisade).
The vast majority of problems with both the Stelvio and Guilia have been with the Quadrifoglio models.
Dealership was great, we bought it at the Seattle Ferrari dealer. I felt a bit odd buying a $45k Alfa Romeo at a dealer with a LaFerrari sitting in the showroom!
Just a note: even though Tesla shareholders voted to give Musk his payday, the real decision lies in the Delaware chancery court. This is powerful evidence that the shareholders actually want Musk to be paid that money, but it isn’t binding on the court.
The Tavares “pictured above” bit is my favorite since SNL’s weekend update McConnell “seen here” bit.
I still don’t get it, but it nevertheless makes me laugh every time
It also puts a smile on my face every time, but I’ve forgotten the story behind the joke of why Hardigree always portrays him as a Jon Lovitz character. I vaguely recall there was some point at which they had a less-than-favorable interaction, but I’m not sure the details.
I’m not going to explain the joke, but I have never met or had a negative interaction with Tavares. I’d love to meet him.
Sorry, I must have been conflating it with another story.
Even though the joke goes over my head, I still like it. I used to regularly watch SNL in that era, so it brings back memories of some funny bits.
I’m just glad to know that I have not gone crazy, and that the lede image is in fact SNL vintage Jon Lovitz.
Thing about Musk is that once he dies, Tesla’s stock crashes into the ground hard enough to get halfway to the center of the Earth. It’s malfeasance on any instructional investor’s part to remain invested in Tesla at this point, because they have no credible succession plan.
I’m feeling the opposite. When Musk and his Adderall addicted management style leaves the building, Tesla stock is going to jump back up near their prior rocket course toward the moon. It’s Musk’s complete lack of focus that delayed the Roadster V2 and every product since. Including self-driving.
I think Tesla would be better off without Musk at this point. He obviously did a great job building Tesla, but he is making some terrible decisions. Product delays and unrealistic promises are bad, but his worst decision was firing the supercharger network staff. Realistically, a lot of people chose Teslas over other EVs due to the supercharger network. It is probably Tesla’s biggest asset. It is already a major source of profit, and that profit will only increase as other vehicles get access to it. Impulsively firing the team that creates and maintains a major profit source for your company is an exceptionally stupid decision.
I suspect some of these investors are doing a kind of pump and dump. Keeping Musk around boosts the share price long enough for them to start reducing their exposure.
Do you know something that we don’t know?
Rank them:
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43. Tavares
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Drowning in a Taiwanese cave
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8,100,000,000. Mr. Krabs
This, but I would swap Toyoda and Blume.
Toyota is actually making some very desirable cars now, and props to them for stick to their guns about hybrids, which is paying out in spades.
While Porsche is good, the news about possibly getting rid of the 718 twins is bonkers and VW is playing 2nd fiddle to a lot of things. I’m not ever sure where Audi stands at this point, I see some around sometimes, but they’re meh as well.
*gets popcorn ready for that questions answers* haha
Why? It’s the same 15 people writing the same insults/nicknames. As predictable as the moon, or at least a Friday The 13th movie.