I should probably start today’s The Morning Dump with the report that Elon Musk fired the head of the Supercharging team and all of her 500 employees for reasons that sound petty, but we’ve been heavy on Tesla and EV news lately so I’m going to start with a look at the broader market first.
Cars got a little more expensive last month, but it’s not a huge deal and you’ll just have to trust me on that. Or not. I’ll show you the data, too, and you can tell me if I’m right or if I’m wrong.
Ok, fine, let’s talk about Elon Musk. I was in David’s loud Jeep yesterday, which smelled of gasoline every time he de-accelerated/was somehow louder with the top on, and we had the discussion of how to talk about Elon Musk without falling into the trap some sites get into of just knee-jerk pillorying him for everything he does. I will attempt not to do that in light of the news of why Musk fired the entire Supercharging team.
You know who took the announcement of President Biden’s tariffs quite well? China. It’s almost as if they knew it was going to happen! In spite of all the China talk, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares kind of shrugged it all off and said the company is moving forward with plans to sell Chinese EVs wherever he can.
Cars Are More Expensive, Everyone Pani… It’s Fine
There’s a quote from longtime journalist Eric Sevareid, of Edward R. Murrow’s generation, about journalism that’s always stuck with me. He warned of journalists who give “…much time and space to describing the noises of battle, and too little to explaining what the battle is about.”
I try to avoid that, which is hard as a wannabe numbers guy. I see numbers all the time and I get excited (or depressed) by them and try to translate my feelings to all of you. Today I’m going to do a little of the opposite and say that you shouldn’t get particularly excited about the latest average transaction price, which went up a little in April month-over-month.
After a quarter of declining prices, the average transaction price according to KBB/Cox Automotive reached $48,510, which is up 2.2% from the previous month, though down 0.5% year-over-year. Is this inflation? Is this sorcery or greed? Probably not. Inventory levels remain high and so do incentives, though incentives are down a little bit.
Or, as Cox Automotive puts it:
“The month-over-month increase in pricing in April is likely just a reflection of some pullback on incentives compared to the end of Q1, in March, when many automakers were pushing discounts to hit a strong finish to the quarter,” said Erin Keating, executive analyst at Cox Automotive. “Still, prices are down year over year. Affordability challenges continue to lurk, and as inventory slowly builds, we can expect to see incentives slowly grow through the remainder of 2024 to help keep any sales momentum alive.”
Now that many automakers are moving to quarterly sales reports instead of monthly sales reports, plus the fact that many of these companies are public, means that at the end of every quarter, there’s likely to be this big push in incentives, meaning the best time to buy a car is probably at the end of a quarter.
Elon Musk’s Supercharger Firing Doesn’t Make Elon Musk Look Good
Leadership, to me, is more than just results. I think you need to have a shared mission, establish values, create a culture, and forever adapt to meet your goals. It is difficult to do all of those things well and I think, as a leader, the best you can do is surround yourself with the kind of people who will help you achieve your mission and tell you honestly if you’re off track.
I will let you draw your own conclusions about Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s strengths and weaknesses based on this Reuters report on what led to Tesla’s firing of the entire Supercharging team:
The day before Elon Musk fired virtually all of Tesla’s electric-vehicle charging division last month, they had high hopes as charging chief Rebecca Tinucci went to meet with Musk about the network’s future, four former charging-network staffers told Reuters.
After Tinucci had cut between 15% and 20% of staffers two weeks earlier, part of much wider layoffs, they believed Musk would affirm plans for a massive charging-network expansion.
The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team.
This seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face and, recently, Musk has walked the plans back a bit. Still, as Reuters reports, the results aren’t great:
Three of the former employees called the firings a major setback to U.S. charging expansion because of the relationships Tesla employees had built with suppliers and electric utilities. Tesla had grown into one of the larger customers for many major utilities around the country, and many had hired new staff and planned new infrastructure based on Tesla’s charging-network expansion plans, the former employees said.
Other companies may be able to fill the gap, the former employees said, but the goodwill built over time with utilities and other contractors from Tesla’s large-scale charging investments will be difficult to replicate.
Neat.
China Blows Raspberries At Biden’s New Tariff
President Biden’s tariffs took square aim at China’s EV industry, as well as other areas where the government thinks China has overly subsidized its industries. Unlike President Trump’s tariffs, which seemed designed to spark a trade war, these new tariffs feel a little more like election-year posturing.
And that’s basically how China is taking it. From Bloomberg:
In a briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said accusations of Chinese overcapacity were a “false narrative” aimed at hindering the country’s economy. He praised China’s manufacturing sector as simply more competitive, innovative and efficient.
“We want to tell our US colleagues that blaming others won’t make yourself more competitive,” Liu told reporters. “Stop using overcapacity as an excuse for trade protectionism. Stop politicizing economic and trade issues.”
This is fairly tame and the response, according to most reports, is also expected to be measured.
Stellantis: If You Want Cheap EVs That’s What China Is For
The Detroit Free Press has a good wrap-up of a press conference from Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (pictured) with Leapmotor, a Chinese EV company partnered with Stellantis. Leapmotor plans to sell cars in India, South America, and Australia. A couple of things caught my eye, including:
Whether Stellantis, which owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands, would consider bringing Leapmotor EVs to the United States in the future would depend on tariffs, Tavares said, also weighing in on the possibility of entry through Mexico.
“I understand that, of course, if the Chinese would like to come to the U.S. they would eventually use Mexico as a sourcing base. I don’t know if this is something that would be acceptable for the U.S. administration,” Tavares said.
I’m not sure that Chinese automakers have specifically said they want to do the Mexico->US route out loud, but I guess Tavares knows better than I do. Also this:
He noted that if Chinese EVs do come to the U.S. market, however, that Stellantis would consider bringing them as well because U.S. consumers want EVs that cost less than $25,000. One way to do that is through Leapmotor, but “we can find other ways also.”
I’m curious to hear what those other ways are.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Is The Polyphonic Spree a band? Is it a cult? Is it a political movement? Is it peak Elder Millennial music? I don’t know, it’s fun. Enjoy it.
The Big Question
Who was the greatest car exec of all time?
I saw the Polyphonic Spree open for David Bowie. I much preferred Bowie.
Tbf that would probably true of any artist opening for bowie.
At least in the US market, few executives can hold a candle to Lee Iaccoca. He was one of the few that truly understood the need and value of an affordable, economical, and not totally garbage vehicle.
From a worldwide perspective, Eiji Toyoda. He brought American-style mass production to Japan but was also partially responsible for the development of the Toyota Production System, kaizen, kanban, and all those other quality control methods you pretended to learn about in business class. He brought Toyota into the US, launched the Corolla, and launched Lexus. These things may not be exciting, but this is why cars today are generally not crap.
Maybe the Chinese automakers can get together and agree to voluntarily cap their annual exports to the US at some arbitrary number? That sort of thing has worked before, right?
Maybe the Chinese automakers can get together and sell cars to the rest of the world and ignore the US? As long as long as they can finance it, this would have a tremendously positive effect environmentally and would give American consumers something else to bitch about.
“Damn that Hong Kong Fooey sports sedan looks so rad. So unfair that we can’t get it here in the US”.
Elon Musk needs to stop being childish and impulsive, get some help, and go away.
Nice zinger from China. Detroit’s problems predate China and even Japan’s entry into the US market. They just never learn a thing, and we need to stop rewarding them and bailing out their poor decisions. Look at the way they’re run vs the way Honda and Toyota are run.
Toyota taught GM everything via NUMMI, but they learned absolutely NOTHING. Jim Farley has Toyota on his resume and learned nothing!
How the fuck is Chrysler/Stellantis still around? They keep going bankrupt, sold, etc., yet they still act like clowns!
The greatest car exec of all time is Soichiro Honda.
The only decent CEO an American car company has ever had was Alan Mulally.
Chrysler et al. is like that turd that just won’t quite flush. Alternatively, the Jeep curse has finally met an automaker that’s just too stubborn to succumb.
Mulally, famously not from the Detroit car mafia.
The greatest “car executive” and greatest “car executive sociopath” are uncomfortably adjacent in concept.
“Autopian Readers: If you want pop-over video windows that can’t be stopped or made to go away, that’s what Jalopnik’s for…”
Matt, David and Jason, for the love of god (or insert preferred deity name here), please stop the pop-over videos. We’ve already watched and enjoyed the videos the first time, it bogs down browsers, and frustrating loyal readers trumps any extra positive metrics or potential revenue that having the same videos pop over, over and over generates.
the notifications thing is also stuck behind it for me now too, so i have to scroll all the way back to get it out of the way to see or interact with them now.
That’s not supposed to happen, sorry! Can you email matt@TheAutopian.com with a screenshot and your browser?
sure
Our goal is to always have fewer ads than our competitors but that doesn’t mean we can have no ads. If you don’t like this player I invite you to become a member and it won’t sticky.
Today the pop-over videos appear in a smaller format on the top left of my screen. But now they can’t be scrolled past to avoid the distracting repetitive content. Only option now is to hit pause to freeze the video motion.
We’re going to try and tweak it, thank you.
I love how most see “greatest” as the most “infamous”.
I’m going to nominate Mary Barra. Seriously, who else has lasted this long in this harsh of an environment?
In my lifetime I’d say Bob Lutz, maybe Iacocca, both seemed to make cars people wanted. If Lutz had stayed on at GM who knows how much farther ahead they’d be on hybrids and EVs, if he’d had succeeded Iacocca maybe Dodge would have more than 2 car models today, and Chrysler more than 1.
Before my lifetime, I’d say Ford, even with all his questionable morales, he made cars for the people, he fought the Selden Patent, he tried to make flying cars a thing, he hung out with Edison and even was cool with electric cars. He also seemed to be ok with a certain German regime and beat the stuffing out of unionizers, so not the best later in life.
Greatest car exec of all time? I don’t know. If we’re specifically talking car guy as the qualifier, I go with Colin Chapman, tied with Carrol Shelby.
To me it’s a toss up between Durant and Sloan. Could someone explain the Tavares meme to an old non-hip boomer?
Lovitz = modernish Rodney Dangerfield?
I never found him that funny. His humor alway came across as forced. Preferred Phil Hartman over him.
Dude. That Jon Lovitz character is ~40 years old. It’s an SNL character from the late 80s called Tommy Flanagan, The Pathological Liar.
Wait until you learn about cordless phones and a company called Netflix that will send you movies IN THE MAIL!
I watched Lovitz on SNL when the show was new and he was young. Also enjoyed his riffing on the same theme on Newsradio. In terms of the phones I had a StartTac brick in the 80’s when i worked for a Nationala Telecom outfit writing real time telephony switching operating systems. These days i work as a cloud systems architect specializing in AWS and Azure. So not the luddite you are implying. I didn’t make the connection with Tavares. Probably BC I stopped paying any attention to Chrysler and Fiat for that matter in the 70’s.
I don’t think he’s actually saying you’re a luddite, just playing off the fact that you were saying you were an old non-hip boomer by joking about other things newer than the character.
Wasn’t sure apologies all around if that was the case.
My comment does seem kind of dickish now that I’m rereading it. Sorry about that.
I tried taking MOOC from Harvard awhile back called Computer Science for Lawyers but after the first few classes I couldn’t follow it. So I’m def the luddite between the two of us! 🙂
I overreacted too imo. I was always interested in devices and doodads. Built electric motors, steam engines, go carts and blew up things with chemistry sets as a kid under dad’s guidance and forbearance. Built my first computer (Popular Electronics kit) at 14 pre pc. Hard core geek . Took 2 yrs of pre med and hated it. Ended up in electrical eng, and computer science dual degrees.
My younger brother, also an eng, absolutely hates programming and most things computer internals. He runs a systems testing group at a large company.
I forgot about that skit, but still laughed every time Matt used Lovitz’s face. Thanks for bringing me full-circle.
I laugh every time I see a photo of “Tavares” here. If the Autopian keeps publishing for a few years, Internet researchers may start to link photos of Lovitz as Tavares. Not that anyone is really that interested in him, but AI could get confused, and that’d be a riot!
And I don’t know if he was the greatest auto exec of all time, but Yutaka Katayama (“Mr. K”) of Datsun/Nissan was all right. He seemed to understand car enthusiasts and made a very American, yet iconic Japanese car accessible & popular. Just don’t call it a Fairlady!
That would be an amazing outcome.
to be fair, Lovitz probably can run a car company better than Tavares
It would be really funny if someone went and edited the Tavares wikipedia page to include a picture of Lovitz.
Lee Iacocca was certainly up there among the greats, from sportifying the Ford brand to saving the Chrysler group, and even the creation of the humble minivan. The man had keen business sense, a deep understanding of why people buy cars and more charisma in his pinky finger than the amount everybody else had to share.
Perhaps bit biased from a recent viewing of Haggerty’s Piëchisode, Ferdinand is a strong contender there as well, somewhat dampened by plausible entanglements with emissions testing cheats. He cared about making great cars above all else, and I love that.
I’m sure as soon as I post this I’ll remember someone I regret not mentioning.
The greatest car exec of all time was Mergio Sarchionne.
That’s a deep cut for this site, but not wrong.
Lee Iacocca. I agree his tastes (which he forced onto the vehicles) were irrelevant by the early ’80s but as an executive his credentials are peerless. He should have stuck to the business (not styling) side only past about 1975, but his early hits were stellar.
Going to have to agree. I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with it, but as a kid I had to write a report on the man and present it while dressed up as him in what was titled “Night of the Notables”. There was some extra padding under the suit and tie, but the school vetoed a fake cigar. I also had a poster-board set up with photos of our family’s own Dodge-Aries K-car, along my girlfriend’s family’s mini-van among other Ford and Chrysler products chronicling his journey at the time. It was actually one of the more fun school projects I was able to engage in.
I can’t remember if I commented it here before but I did the same after reading his autobiography in middle school (normal middle schooler activities). Put baby powder in my hair in the bathroom to gray my hair for the part which my teacher thought was a great touch.
I had a copy of that autobiography – a good read! I also did something with my hair, but I don’t remember exactly what. The baby powder would’ve been better, because mine involved something my mom came up with that was sprayed in and it looked like I was going grey for weeks.
I mean this is just par for the course for Musk. He’s always been volatile, narcissistic, antisocial, and has maintained a bit of an uncanny valley vibe due to all of it. All of this is well documented and, while it’s more or less been the case his entire life, it’s definitely gotten much more virulent and delusional over the last several years. I think he had a lot of reasons to try to keep his worst impulses in check that just aren’t there anymore due to how inordinately wealthy and powerful he is.
He really is a real life Lex Luthor. Whether or not that affects how you view him and his products is up to you. A lot of people don’t care. A lot of people do. I personally can’t separate the art from the artist. I’m willing to acknowledge some of the ways he’s been brilliant. Tesla is the best charging and battery manufacturer out there and they brought EVs to the masses.
While Musk is absolutely not the inventor he claims to be, he’s absolutely been an incredible investor with impressive foresight. Even if he’s more or less just been throwing immense wealth he was born into around, he’s made himself exponentially more wealthy in the process and saw market trends before anyone else did. That takes a lot of intelligence and raw talent.
I won’t take either of those things away from him. But unfortunately, his demons have come home to roost and he doesn’t have the self awareness or guard rails around him to realize it and get himself/his car company back on track…because he lost the plot a long time ago. Everything is about him now and he wants to be worshipped and treated as a demigod. It’s abundantly clear that this is due to absolutely crippling insecurity, but unfortunately he’s so wealthy and powerful that in his endless quest for more power and to be told he’s an extra special boy who’s cool and smart he’s harming an inordinate amount of people.
And unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to care. I genuinely think he’s antisocial and that his path would have been a lot more grim if he didn’t have piles of money to throw around and chase his interests with. I legitimately don’t think he’s capable of empathy. The man needs some goddamn therapy…but do any of us think he’ll get it? He’s basically nothing but Id at this point. A giant pile of unchecked impulses…
Maybe we have some work to do as a society if these are the sort of people we prop up and give the most power too? Idk I’m just spitballing here…
Easily the most succinct description of Musk I have read.
Yes. But when it comes to naming his kids, pure genius…
When it comes to being a father, not so much….
Unrelated but I saw a Kona on my drive to work and thought of you. Though I think it was a 2024 with the narrow LED running lights. The aero kit was also pretty aggressive on the back considering there’s no longer an N trim.
I’m honored! There is still an N Line trim that’s all show but no god. They claim the N isn’t coming back due to emissions. Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. I think they just didn’t sell very many Kona Ns and would rather use the ingredients to make Elantra Ns, which sell better and are better reviewed.
My personal hope would be for a Kona N PHEV. They already have the ICE, hybrid, and EV platforms, now just marry them together to make what the Dodge Hornet should have been.
I’ve also said for years, the things musk owns that are successful, are only successful in spite of him and not because of him.
the more he is allowed to interfere with even the successful things he’s got his name on, the more they’ll begin to fail.
Absolutely nailed it, 100%.
This is a really good description. I don’t know if people realize how bizarre his behavior is. I’ve come across some sociopathic, abusive execs in my career, but nothing comes close to firing 500 people because of 1 meeting. The expense, legal risk, and reputation damage that creates for an organization is astronomical and he just … doesn’t care.
“He really is a real life Lex Luthor.”
He will find that Lex has the advantages of plot armor and authorial fiat.
“While Musk is absolutely not the inventor he claims to be, he’s absolutely been an incredible investor with impressive foresight.”
Of course much of that happened in a zero interest rate environment, putting things a bit closer to “easy mode”.
The near zero interest rate environment existed for all companies in the US market…
Tesla is a (current) success after 21 years and at least 4-6 min. near death experiences.
Making automobiles is one of the most capital intensive and challenging businesses in the world.
Elon Musk seems to have many abhorrent opinions, but I think the widespread hatred for Elon Musk is out of proportion to the actual harm he has caused in the world, especially if you weigh that against all the good he’s done in promoting renewable energy. I think if you look to history for examples of other people like Musk, you’ll find that they’re all deeply flawed as human beings. It seems to go hand in hand with their great abilities.
I prefer flawed human beings who don’t give aid and comfort to Nazis.
The greatest auto exec of all time is John Delorean. Brought about the muscle car movement, knew how to party, and invented the poorly executed stainless steel body production vehicle. Plus I believe he had a giant shirtless picture of himself in his own office so if thats not greatness i don’t know what is.
Truly a giant among men. Just add coke.
I was gonna say….we can’t forget the cocaine when discussing his storied legacy
I legitimately first read that as “snorted legacy”
It is said he had a nose for business.
Malcolm Bricklin. Imported crappy, tiny Japanese cars that nobody wanted. Started an eponymous company manufacturing cars that nobody wanted. Imported sporty FIATs after FIAT couldn’t be arsed to import them. Imported crappy, tiny Yugoslavian cars that nobody wanted. Still doing bad deals in the industry today, age 85.
Dear Autopian Overlords. Autoplay videos are the papercuts of the internet. Please stop them. Please?
Yes! Please stop the autoplay videos. They make the site unbearable.
Well its even worse now, as the vid is locked into a corner of the screen at all times. Keeps going downhill, overall site is approaching lightening site 2.0.
Right on top of where the notifications menu appears when you click on it. Top tier design.
That isn’t supposed to be the case. Can you email me a screenshot of that?
Sent!
I think we’re much lower than the lighting site and we’re trying to be careful not to get there, however we have to keep the site running and this feature allows us to show it to non-members. If you don’t like this feature I invite you to become a member! I do appreciate your feedback though and will consider it when evaluating this test.
As a member I have none of these issues, it does make me sad that this is happening to others.
Some of the other free sites are now so bad as to be unreadable – I hate it when the page has a continue reading prompt and then reloads and brings you back to the top – impossible to use.
Hey Huja! Thanks for your note. We are testing this feature. If you become a member of the site and are logged in you should not see it.
“Who was the greatest car exec of all time?”
Honestly… I think it’s a tie between Henry Ford and Elon Musk… and that includes making rash decisions that hurt the company.
In both cases, before they had huge success, both were apparently much better to work for.
After getting huge success, both had that success go to their heads and became a lot more authoritarian.
For a while, I thought Musk might be smart enough to avoid the same mental trap Henry Ford fell into, but apparently not.
And because of that, I view Musk as a modern day Henry Ford… and all the good and bad that goes with that.
Oh we could keep going with the Henry Ford comparisons to some really dark places! But that other dude is too litigious for me to finish writing this comment.
That certainly IS by design as Elon modeled Tesla after Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company.
As I understand it Tesla’s strong vertical integration was out of necessity as many tier 2 auto suppliers couldn’t be arsed to bother w/ them as their requested parts order quantities were so drastically lower than legacy makers.
“ many tier 2 auto suppliers couldn’t be arsed to bother w/ them as their requested parts order quantities were so drastically lower than legacy makers.”
That was part of it. The other part of it is the parts suppliers simply didn’t make some of the stuff that Tesla needed. For example, before Tesla, nobody was making AC induction or permanent magnet motors at the power levels or the volumes that Tesla needed.
Nor were they very interested in genuinely helping Tesla develop what they needed.
Very true
I waffle between youngest Gen Xer and elder Millenial.
I’ve heard ‘Xennial’ as a name for people that grew up without the internet but had it become ubiquitous in early adulthood.
Yeah, I’m not sure why “Elder Millennial” became the term. “Xennial” seemed like it was going to stick. At least we’re not sticking with “Oregon Trail Generation.” That was one of the dumber sounding terms to gain traction.
Oregon Trail Generation died of dysentery.
I always took “elder Millennial” to refer not to cusp years but just those born in the first few years of the generation, through the mid-80s – or just 80s vs. 90s kids. The oldest Millennials might not have had a cell phone of their own until late/after college, youngest ones might have had one in middle school. At least based on people I know on either end, I’m more in the middle. But then I’ve never heard elder/younger references within other generations either.
As with so many of these terms, it seems to depend on who is using the term. I’ve never heard “Xennial” to mean anyone who could just claim Gen X. It just seems to be Millennials who were born early enough to not identify with the later portions of their cohort. Which is pretty much what the “Elder Millennial” title conveys, just without trying to ride the coattails of Gen X.
But you do have a point about the “Elder” title sometimes extending to all of the 80s. Generations are messy, and adding these smaller subcategories manages to make them even messier.
Yep, and I want to say it has been used to describe the economic differences experienced within the generation, but even then it’s not like there aren’t different sides of that within other generations. Really it’s more tech focused,
even the youngest Millennials should remember VHS, but maybe not a time before Windows 95. Or the range of social media developed over the generation.
Going to start using long-running vehicle generations as a definition instead. Millennials are clearly GM A-body sedans, 82-96. The Pontiac 6000 is the marking point for elder vs. younger: elder Millennials are those born when Pontiac still made the 6000 coupe, pre-1988. Younger ones were born after the 6000 was dropped and it was only the Buick and Olds still for sale, 1992-on. (Don’t ask me about the middle years, I’m part of it and don’t know either.)
It really shouldn’t be so difficult.
Most of the generation cutoffs are random, but the line between X and Millennial is hard and fast.
Graduated high school in 2000 = Millennial. So you had to be born in late 1981 or later. The term was literally invented to describe this graduating class!
I’m late Gen X – 1994 HS grad. Younger brother is definite Millennial – 2000 HS grad. We grew up in the same house but still had VERY different childhoods. He was 5 when we got our first home computer, not 11 like me. He grew up in a fully digital culture, I grew up in the transition period. Almost none of us had cell phones in college, they were near universal when he went. We had very different job prospects upon college graduation as well.
It was an ATARI 520 ST, pretty high end for the time (1987/88). Used the 3.5 ” disks not 5.25″. Had a modern feeling GUI and mouse. Superb graphics and resolution. Got 386 a few years later. Had a first gen Pentium as a college freshman.
First family computer was the Tandy 1000 EX with an expansion board that took it to 640k, I think. It came with an internal 5.25″ floppy drive and we also had a second external 5.25″ drive.
I always envied my friends Commodore 64’s. The first computer I bought was a second hand Commodore Amiga 500 and later an Amiga 1200. I retired the Amiga and transitioned to Wintel around 1997.
I still have both Amigas and a 64 in a little Commodore shrine. Probably not as impressive as Torch’s basement of electronic dreams.
I got my first computer as a HS graduation present…in 1999.
I think some of the difficulty comes from the period before the term Millennial took hold. The Gen X/Gen Y line was pretty fluid for a bit. As generational lines usually are until events and cultural differences shape the shared experience. The HS graduation line is a good one, though the youngest Millennials were just starting elementary school in 2000.
Generations are tricky because you have to draw arbitrary lines based on a number of factors that may not seem clear, even in hindsight. It’s also interesting to see how much current people want to split things into micro-generations (Xennials, for example). Baby Boomers include hippies and Vietnam vets as well as people who weren’t even born until 1964, but I haven’t heard many folks try to differentiate them.
OMG are people really using this term. I was born in mid 70s and used the net in HS, so pretty much everything after didn’t technically grow up without the net.
You might have “used the net in HS” but it was nothing like the internet that Millenials had access to in high school. According to my googling 3 million people worldwide had internet access in 1990. It was basically forums at that point.
I don’t understand why we need these generational labels at all. But then, I’m a Gen X, so no one cares what we think and we don’t care about that, either.
Henrik Fisker. Not everyone can bankrupt multiple companies, but he’s been able to bilk venture capitalists for a lot and get them to line up to give him the money to do it again.
And there’s still a chance he could attempt another go, and I suspect he could get them lined up all over again.
Henry Ford’s 1st 2 attempts failed (for him).
Well the 1st attempt failed
2nd attempt he was pushed out and I think the company became Cadillac…
Sure, but there’s a difference between Henry Ford’s early failures and Henrik Fisker getting rich on ventures that lose other people’s money. To my knowledge, Ford didn’t fail while he and his wife were the top two salaries at the company (by a significant margin).
True. Henrik’s two auto ventures so far suspiciously smell of fraud.
“Capricious ass fires nose to spite face”
He couldn’t feel said nose from all the cocaine.
Lee Iacocca; Ford Mustang, saved Chrysler, appeared in an episode of Miami Vice. That’s a trifecta right there.
I imagine “other ways” could include dropping cars onto dealer lots from Chinese weather balloons or disguising them as giant pinatas wrapped in paper mache. Once on dealer lots, they bust them open to reveal the Chinese EV prize inside. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
“We noticed there aren’t massive tariffs on giant piñatas. So that’s what we’re importing…as decor for our lots. It’s just really convenient that there happens to be a car inside, too.”
Who was the greatest car exec of all time? Alois Ruf Jr.
Say what you want about him personally (and there’s a lot to say), but I don’t think there can be much doubt that it’s Henry Ford.
It’s hard to separate the person from the “exec”. But, the fact that Ford required his dealers to carry his antisemitic fake-newspaper is hard for me to ignore. For the sake of academic discourse, I can try and ignore things someone personally does. But when they use their business to do it, it becomes one in the same and for me excludes him from the conversation. Which is a shame because he did amazing things. But blaming Jews for the countries problems and spreading claims that there was some sort of worldwide Jewish conspiracy was not one of them.
Yeah, Ford made plenty of completely nonsensical compromises to the company for his own arbitrary beliefs. The guy burned 20 million in 1920-30s dollars trying to farm rubber in Brazil without consulting a single herbalist, scientist or farmer, as a result not one rubber tree survived the laughably bad husbandry methods and no goodwill was left when he banned soccer and beer to “instill wholesome American values” in his company town. Stateside, he had his personal police go to employees’ homes and check their “morals” periodically. He wasted so much money enforcing pointless rules that he had no right to enact in the first place, and that didn’t gain the company a cent. Greed is one thing, spending your company’s money to control other people’s personal lives is pure insanity.
Is Enzo Ferrari an auto exec? Or is patriarch or king more appropriate?
Well, il Commendatore at least, and he gets my vote.
I think I wrote this on ye’ ol’ lighting site there should be a book written about Enzo and his influence foe being such an ash-hole he has to have the record for pissing enough people off to start their own auto companies…
Lamborghini
Bizzarini – former designer for Enzo
Pagani – started by consulting w/ Ferrari on carbon fiber chassis construction
Of course the Ford GT 40
I think there are others but above is what comes to mind
I just finished the new 900 page biography of Enzo by Luca Dal Monte (a surprisingly engaging read). Your list is the tip of the iceberg.
And… tks for the book recommendation. I’m genuinely surprised I’ve never read an automotive journalist who has attempted to make a full list.
While the story with Ford (vs. Ferrari) and Lamborghini (vs. Ferrari) are both well known, I happened upon the Bizzarini and Pangani stories indepently of each other.
Disagree that Ford was a great executive. He did not believe in using accountants and nearly ran the company into bankruptcy before his death out of stubbornness. His approach was Edisonian, which most wise executives would frown upon due to lack of systemic logic and related high costs.
Some examples:
Ford was convinced of his own genius and as such, shoveled an enormous amount of money into terrible ideas. His X-8 engine was a cash sinkhole. His refusal to incorporate a water pump in his initial V-8 engine development because he believed it unnecessary was an expensive failure. Having four teams working on the same project, which were not allowed to communicate and were micromanaged by Henry himself, made things worse.
Once he finally accepted a water pump is required to cool an engine, Henry declared that oil pumps were for losers and forbade one in his next prototype V8 engine (Soth V8). Ford demanded that the engineers figure out how to make it work without one. He wasted both time and considerable money trying to bend the laws of thermodynamics and physics to his will. It failed, of course.
His behavior outside of the engineering realm was often not exactly what one might expect of a great executive.
He used his Dearborn Independent newspaper to publish material such as, “The International Jew: The World’s Problem”. Hardly an executive master stroke.
His notorious Ford Service Department, headed by Ford’s close associate Harry Bennett, was famous for its actions in the 1932 Ford Hunger March (or Ford Massacre). Five marchers were killed and dozens more were injured by machine gun fire from Ford Service Department employees and the Dearborn Police, who were largely controlled by Henry Ford.
In the 1937 Battle of the Overpass at the Rouge River complex, 40 Ford Service Department employees attacked an unarmed Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen, the latter of which suffered a broken back as a result.
Later in life Ford appeared to back off some of his extremist views, but it is unclear if he actually signed the documents that recanted his previous views, or had others sign them on his behalf.
He did much for mass production and industrial progress overall. His method for mass production was applied to building war materials for the US, and for making automobiles ubiquitous. He paid equally, regardless of the color of a worker’s skin. He contributed to the technological advances of many countries – Britain, the US, Germany, the Soviet Union, Canada, and several others. He contributed via philanthropy later in his life as many industrialists of the era would do.
Ford may have been a great industrialist. He was, however, not a great executive.
Industrialist vs Executive is an interesting distinction, and one likely colored by the contemporary definition one uses for Executive – Industrialist, at least to me, is a term to describe someone from history rather than today.
> convinced of his own genius and as such, shoveled an enormous amount of money into terrible ideas. […] micromanaged […] He used his (media platform) to publish material such as, “The International Jew: The World’s Problem”. […]notorious […] Service Department
Enough about Musk already
Not gonna lie…that made me laugh