There are some juicy new details out of Japan this week about the failed Nissan-Honda tie-up, and they make Honda’s initial interest and its quick disinterest make a lot more sense. For all the talk about how Nissan and Honda could complement one another, it’s Mitsubishi that could offer the most to Honda.
It’s quite silly, I suppose, that I worried recently that I’d stop getting an opportunity to write about the companies merging in The Morning Dump. This is a story that won’t go away. There’s a report out saying that Honda was actually eyeing Mitsubishi, with a Nissan merger acting as the most obvious way to accomplish the task of absorbing the automaker.
Nissan, for its part, is hoping it can import more Rogues to the United States from Japan in a bid to lower the price even more. It’s all part of Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida’s plans to save his company without ceding control to Honda. And if it doesn’t work? Honda is apparently still willing to talk merger, just sans Uchida.
Back here in the United States, is Dodge thinking about getting into NASCAR racing again? That would be cool. Finally, Ford is now facing another huge judgment over the roofs of its Super Duty pickups, this time for $2.5 billion.
Honda Reportedly Is Super Into Mitsubishi And Wanted To Use Nissan To Acquire It
Why did Honda so suddenly sour on its potential tie-up with Nissan and Mitsubishi? The three companies went from announcing a technical partnership back in August to a full-blown merger at the end of last year when Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn expressed interest in buying Nissan.
Last week, it became a little more obvious that Nissan expected to be more of a partner and that Honda, for whatever reason, reportedly decided to force Nissan into capitulation. What happened? One interpretation was that Nissan was too slow to change its course and Honda wasn’t having it anymore.
This appears to be a part of Honda’s sudden displeasure with the deal, but a bigger issue might have been Mitsubishi deciding it didn’t want to get sucked into Honda.
That’s what Nikkei Asia is reporting, and it has some receipts on just how thirsty Honda was:
In an event indicative of Honda’s aim, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe insisted that Mitsubishi Motors CEO Takao Kato attend a news conference announcing the start of Honda-Nissan merger talks, scheduled for Dec. 20. When Kato told Mibe that he had to be in Indonesia that day, Mibe changed the date to Dec. 23.
If it weren’t for Mibe’s move, we wouldn’t have gotten the base photo for our little The Three Amigos joke. All of this is unnecessarily complex, because Renault is Nissan’s largest shareholder (with some shares held in trust), and Nissan is Mitsubishi’s largest shareholder (at about 34%). To get ahold of Mitsubishi, Honda would theoretically have to please both Renault and Nissan.
Why would Honda even want Mitsubishi? It’s the smallest of the three by a decent degree. Again, from Nikkei Asia:
Mitsubishi has proprietary plug-in hybrid technology as well as a vehicle lineup suited for traveling in rough terrain that is popular in Southeast Asia. These strengths were appealing to Honda.
[…]
Mibe had been signaling Honda’s interest in a tie-up to Kato since 2023. But Kato kept his distance. He was fully aware that significant investments are necessary for automobile electrification and software development, and going it alone would not be an option. But agreeing to a tie-up with a major automaker could mean being taken over.
Aware of Mitsubishi’s caution, Honda tried to get closer to Mitsubishi through merger talks with Nissan.
Honda’s only plug-in vehicles for sale in the United States, at the moment, are the GM-developed Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX. While the company is great at building hybrids, it’s got less experience with PHEVs. Honda is also looking for markets that aren’t China to expand, and there are many places where Mitsubishi (and Nissan, to be fair) are bigger brands.
Mitsubishi, though, wasn’t having it, and walked away from talks after fears that it would be subsumed by Honda. The big difference between Nissan and Mitsubishi is that Mitsubishi is part of a much larger corporation, Mitsubishi Group, that’s even bigger than Honda.
If Mitsubishi Group doesn’t want to cede Mitsubishi to Honda–and it sounds like it doesn’t love the idea–then that’ll make it harder for Honda. However, Mitsubishi Group, via its trading company Mitsubishi Corporation, only owns 20% of Mitsubishi Motor, so none of this is fully resolved.
Also, reportedly, Honda would be interested in the Nissan-Mitsubishi merger so long as Nissan gets rid of its CEO. This is also the outcome that Renault is rumored to want, having lost patience with Uchida.
Nissan CEO Goes Rogue… Get It?
I caught the flu at the end of this last week and I’m starting to just recover, though I had a bit of a setback last night. Perhaps this is why, in my sickness-addled brain, the idea of Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida deciding one way to help save his company is to ship more Rogues from Japan to the United States is so amusing to me.
Automotive News explains the logic of it:
The fourth generation is scheduled to arrive in early 2027, alongside an e-Power series hybrid. A plug-in hybrid will follow the next year.
According to the plan under consideration, lower-priced internal combustion versions likely would be built in Tennessee.
“The economics of building the more expensive electrified variants and upper trims is better in Japan,” because of the yen’s weakness relative to the U.S. dollar, the person said.
Nissan and Mitsubishi smartly decided the former’s Rogue and the latter’s Outlander should be built on the same platform. For the next generation, it sounds like a mild hybrid and plug-in are coming.
The strong dollar and weaker yen, at this moment, mean that it would make sense to build the cheap version here and import the more expensive version from Japan. Additionally, the current tariff regime makes importing vehicles (at least ones without truck beds) to the United States that much easier.
All of that could change in the next few years, and certainly during the lifecycle of the vehicle. What if the dollar bombs? What if President Trump goes through on his threat of reciprocal tariffs?
Building cars is so hard!
Is RAM Going Back To NASCAR?
The NASCAR season kicked off officially at Daytona last weekend and it was a mixed affair, especially for pal and contributor Parker Kligerman. The best race all weekend was probably the truck race, and Parker won… only to be disqualified for bullshit ride height reasons in the post-race inspection. Parker’s team is appealing and, if the appeal isn’t successful, I suggest we all riot.
I thought the Xfinity Series race was also pretty good, and it marked the debut of Parker in the booth now that CW is broadcasting the series. The look is way more modern and it’s a good broadcast team. The Cup and ARCA races were both chaotic and not necessarily in a good way.
And speaking of Parker, I’d entirely forgotten that when he was a Penske development driver he actually raced RAM trucks in the Truck Series (see the photo above). The automaker left the series about a decade ago though, according to Mopar Insiders, RAM might be back next year:
Ram could soon be making a long-anticipated return to NASCAR, with sources suggesting the brand has submitted a formal application to join the Craftsman Truck Series for the 2026 season. If approved, it would mark Ram’s first official involvement in the series since withdrawing after the 2016 season. Meanwhile, speculation continues to grow regarding Dodge’s potential return to the NASCAR Cup Series by 2028, reigniting a brand legacy that has been absent since 2012.
That would be cool.
Ford Hit With $2.5 Billion Judgment In Georgia
Ford has not done well with juries in Georgia lately. A jury in one county awarded a family $1.7 billion over a rollover incident with a Super Duty truck (though it was overturned on appeal) and then, a few days later, a different Georiga jury handed out a $2.5 billion judgment in another Super Duty rollover incident.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution via The Detroit News:
Herman Mills, 74, and Debra Mills, 64, were driving in Decatur County on Aug. 22, 2022, in their 2015 Ford F-250 Super Duty truck when it rolled over and the roof crushed down on them, according to the suit.
Debra Mills was driving the truck with Herman Mills in the passenger seat when the truck struck a driveway drainage culvert, causing the vehicle to go airborne for about 81 feet before smashing into the ground and flipping over, according to filings in the case.
Ford, for its part, denied that there was an issue with the roofs on these vehicles and will appeal the verdict.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
A few people probably saw the Pavement video for “Rattled by the Rush” as something featured on 120 Minutes. The slack indie rockers didn’t get a lot of MTV play, which may or may not have been the point. If you did see the video it was probably on Beavis & Butthead. “It’s like they’re not even trying!”
The Big Question
How many more times will I get to use The Three Amigos topshot that Peter created?
Top photo: Honda, Mitsubishi, Other People’s Money
“ A jury in one county awarded a family $1.7 billion over a rollover incident with a Super Duty truck (though it was overturned on appeal) “
I see what you did there!!!
How fast do you have to be going to get a SuperDuty to launch 81 feet???
Glad someone called that out, I did the math and for a perfect frictionless spherical Ford super duty it’s about 40MPH.
With crumple zones and friction losses in guessing it’s closer to 70MPH.
Sorry to hear about the flu! Hope you feel better
“rollover incident with a Super Duty truck (though it was overturned on appeal)”
The words just write themselves…
That top shot is disturbing…but funny!
Every time I read about M&A stuff in the auto industry, I am reminded of the old PSA:
“If you don’t use a condom, you are sleeping with every partner your partner ever had.”
I just love hearing people blather on about why they need a big heavy duty vehicle to be safe and then you read about these single vehicle collisions causing injury or death. I guess a couple retirees just had a lot of towing to do. Everybody needs to tow.
While I get that these billion (yup, that’s a ‘b’) dollar verdicts in personal injury/death lawsuits are extremely unlikely to hold up, it’s pretty inane to even start there. Those kind of figures should still be reserved for class action suits and other situations covering large numbers of people, at least until we give inflation a *few* more years to work its magic…
That verdict against Ford is going to get nuked from orbit on appeal.
Nissan and Mitsubishi seem like a far better fit, they both sell dull but worthyish dreck on the cheap. The Rogue and Outlander might as well be the same NOW.
Are you not aware that Nissan and Mitsubishi are already partnered or are you saying they should become one company altogether?
Might as well merge them into one automaker and get it over with.
Neither is a good fit for Honda. I don’t think anybody is a good fit for Honda, they have aways kind of done their own thing. And in many ways done it pretty well. I personally am not a huge fan of their products, but I do respect them.
I’ll say this for Mitsubishi – the fact that the Outlander is the cheapest PHEV in Canada made it very attractive for the fleet buyers at my large company. They’re fine! Now if only my co-workers would remember to plug the things in…
This top shot is going to haunt me. For a long time. <shiver>
Yeah. . . that ain’t right.
Mitsubishi would have made a lot of sense for Honda. Rock-solid reliable PHEVs, true body-on-frame platforms, dominance in ASEAN markets and Australia—these are all things that Mitsubishi is really good at that Honda lacks entirely. I hope they can work something out once Nissan shits the bed and bring us a new Triton-based Honda Tourmaster!
This season of Automotive Jerry Springer keeps getting more interesting with each passing story 🙂
The drama of a love triangle is a tale as old as time. Or is this more of a square if you count Renault?
What’s holding Suzuki afloat? Have they already been swallowed up by a bigger Japanese brand? IIRC the Swift is still on sale and I see Mexican Jimnys every once in a while.
I don’t know if it’s enough for long term survival, but they continue to make big $ in India (with Maruti JV)
They’re part of the Greater Toyota Co-Prosperity Sphere, Toyota owns a 5% stake in Suzuki and the two have a formal strategic partnership on electric vehicle and battery development and manufacturing
Toyota pays Suzuki to rebadge a bunch of their Marutis for developing markets, and Toyota’s upcoming ‘Urban Cruiser‘ for the EUDM is really a rebadged eVitara. They will be fine.
The impression I am getting is Mitsubishi might be amenable to merger talks with Honda should they be assured an arrangement like they have with Nissan instead of being completely absorbed by Honda.
Did you mean to be funny when you wrote that the rollover verdict was overturned on appeal? ‘Cause it was funny.
I estimate you might get six more months of Three Amigos usage. Then, three blind mice might be more appropriate.
What is the top shot from? Google’s spectacular AI says it is from The Godfather and we know it is never wrong…
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11gzejgz4o
Taking a swing here for a movie I’ve never seen, but I’m guessing it’s Pretty Woman.
I thought so too, but I can’t find any pictures of Julia Roberts in that dress (the one in Pretty Woman was red) so now I’m thinking not.
“Other People’s Money”
I had completely forgotten about that movie!
Other context for the Super Duty Crash from the article linked, Debra who was driving had a heart attack which caused her to lose control. While not explicitly stated, in order to launch an F-250 81 feet through the air, the speed must be immense, which is plausible if the driver is having a heart attack and the throttle is pinned. The vehicle experienced a “Half-Roll” and the cab collapsed, my guess is it flipped and rolled once after touching down, and the amount of energy a super duty has after touching down after the sort of flight it had, yeah that absolutely would collapse the roof, structural issue or not. FWIW the 2015 F-250 only had a 3 or 4 star rollover rating (Based on powertrain/cab config) in the first place.
Other mitigating facts that make the judgement bizarre to me are the fact that it took 26 minutes to get the guy out of the truck after first responders arrived, and he later died at the hospital, while his wife died at the scene. Tragic of course, but would lead me to believe it’s not entirely the trucks fault. Also the jury assigned 85% fault to Ford, and 15% fault to his wife, this split-percentile blame thing just seems so arbitrary, as does 1.7 Billion in judgement. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to defend corporations, but how can anyone prove the death of two retirement aged, presumably average citizens warrants a 9-Figure judgement worth of loss? It feels like a Jury wants to send a message which is fine, but surely there’s caps on these things right?
Does it say anywhere who brought the suit? Both passengers died, so it isn’t them. To me this has the distinct odor of some grieving family getting convinced by a slimy ambulance chaser law firm to try and cash in on the tragic death of Mimaw and Peepaw in a traffic accident by squeezing an 9-figure settlement out of Ford.
It was the children of the deceased couple, one each presumably from previous relationships, which is to say that’s 1.7 Billion to a single family. It’s totally within the families discretion to try to raise suit, and there is no way to truly quantify a loss like this, but 9 figures for any family short of the richest on the planet cannot claim to be losing that much money.
Waayy back when, a jury didn’t have a concept of what to award the USFL in a lawsuit against the NFL for anti-trust violations. The values of the business and the losses associated with this. So, they put in a $1 as an award since they had no concept of what the real damages should be worth.
Ends up the judge could decrease the penalty, but NOT increase it. So, the NFL emptied out the sofa and the USFL went belly up.
Since then, juries just make up huge numbers. Then the judge can reduce the penalty to a number that makes sense.
That makes a lot of sense, both from a legal framework of taking the value judgement out of the hand of the judge, and the procedural ramifications, but you’ve got to wonder why there isn’t some sort of basic framework for approximating what values should be. Heck, there’s pages and pages of sentencing for every crime under the sun with modifiers, considerations, and so much more, but the second a death lawsuit comes into play, truly any number can just be slapped on a paper by a jury and rubber stamped all the way up the courts. After a certain point it just seems even more judicially inefficient with the inevitable number of appeals and court time that will take.
I sort of know what is standard for an injury from way back when with my wife. It’s the cost of everything including lost wages x 4. (3 of which are pain and suffering).
But wrongful death?
Not a clue. I guess earning potential x some multiple. But in this case, with the couple being retired, I can’t see the earning potential being 0.
And for company against company suits? No fricking idea. Wet a pinky finger and stick it in the corner of my mouth.
That was the subject of a great ESPN 30 for 30 documentary. Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?
I’m generally not on the side of corporations, but this accident seems like something far outside the scope of regular safety measures.
I’m also shocked at the amount. I’m sure they were wonderful people, but I hope these two retirement-aged adults were not the sole providers for their middle-aged children.
I stated elsewhere that I am guessing the amount is a placeholder. The jury blames Ford but has no idea of what the amount Ford should pay. Lesson learned from way back when is that the Judge can decrease the amount, but they can’t increase it in many states.
Since Georgia has had crazy jury awards a couple times, I figure this is what is going on. The Jury has no guidance on what is customary for a settlement, so they just make up a number with a ton of zeroes and then the Judge can reduce it to whatever is customary.
I’m an engineer, I wouldn’t give out Trillions in this case. Just go for something like 873 Google Plexes.
Bankrupt the entire universe..
I don’t know what vehicle is built to withstand a rollover after 81 ft in the air. Some may survive better than others but I don’t think this is part of the suite of safety tests that mfgs engineer for. I was totally against the big corporation at first but this was a freak accident. I think we need to examine why retirement age people needed or wanted to drive such a heavy vehicle. This is not a Rav4 that is serving as basic transportation. This is a vehicle with a 10k GVWR that was designed to do work.
I wouldn’t expect anything short of a race-ready tube chassis to be able to survive that amount of mass with that amount of energy.
So if mfr’s have to build to survive this type of crash, we’ll all be driving literal tanks.
These increased roll over standards are partially why we now have such limited visibility out of our vehicles now with the fat pillars.
I don’t think a Tank could survive this impact. M1 tanks have killed people in rollovers.
The problem is that to make something sturdy enough to take the abuse, it has to be heavy. Which means that it hits even harder.
I know a solution, but you can’t lean on the roof without leaving dents.
If you could make and M1 catch 81ft of air, I’d love to know your method (other than dropping it from somewhere higher than 81ft). Whatever ‘obstacle’ launched this truck wouldn’t have registered as a pebble in the Abrams.
I’ve seen reports where one fell off 10-20 ft berm and landed upside-down. And it didn’t end great for the crew.
what’s next, a billion dollar lawsuit from someone’s family who takes an F350 dually over Black Bear Pass, and rolls it over the side a few thousand feet down the hill?
Why not? People have sued for less.
My dad was an Expert witness for some crane lawsuits in the 80s. One case he testified at had this line up of mitigating circumstances:
The crane had failed inspections multiple timesThe crane operator was not licensed or trained.The crane operator was under the influence of illegal drugsThe operating company had caught the operator using drugs in the cab. Multiple times. Including that day, but he still was working.The crane did not have its outriggers extended and had bypassed alarms about this that weren’t blaring, but were flashing.The crane was being used as a man lift, without a man basketAs the operator attempted something stupid even for a drug addled untrained worker, the crane started blaring alarms, shaking controls etc.When the crane fell down, it badly injured a guy was being hoisted.
The guy injured was the sole provider for a family with 2 disabled kids and a disabled wife.
The jury awarded $5 million to the injured party from the crane manufacturer. The crane operating company had gone out of business and someone should support that family was the thinking.
Your example would be more relevant if it were the crane manufacturer that was sued and not the operating company. It doesn’t apply to negligent operation of a privately owned vehicle.
It was the manufacturer, not the operating company. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
Oh, that fits then. And is just as ridiculous as the Super Duty crash lawsuit.
Similar justification was used for going after Hooker Chemical, RE Love Canal. The school district threatened them with eminent domain seizure if they didn’t agree to sell their chemical dump site, so they sold it for $1 and inserted a clause in the sale contract specifying that it was a hazardous chemical dump site and suitable only for use as parkland, school district built two schools on part of it and subdivided the rest of the land and sold it to developers who built a neighborhood of houses. Later, the school district destroyed the minutes of meetings where the land acquisition was discussed and various other documents also went missing. But, Hooker was the one who had to pay, with an argument being made that someone had to, and they had deeper pockets than the school district. Weirdly, they had actually done an unusually decent job by 1940s standards in terms of sealing and capping the dump, if it had been left alone everything probably would have been fine
Did not know that. I do know that some of the dumbest things done have been with the idea of cleaning things up. Like leaving asbestos in place is almost always a better decision than trying to clean it up and getting it all airborne.
So basically, the only way the crane manufacturer could have avoided the situation would have been to “electrify” the operating chair and automatically shut the thing down when all the alarms were ignored, which would have resulted in a similar lawsuit for injuring the operator?
Maybe Ford should preemptively and retroactively put a hard speed limiter of 35 mph in all active superduty trucks to avoid getting sued again?
Nah, someone will bypass it and they will get sued. Or if it can’t be bypassed, then they will under “Right to Repair”.
Manufacturers are part of a giant chain of CYA in any accident. Everyone from the small business using a F350 to the shop that services it to the dealership that sold it to the Ford all the way down to sub-suppliers of Ford will point fingers at someone else when something goes wrong. So, plantiffs sue everyone to keep this tactic from working.
The fun part is where they sue. I used to live in Huntsville Alabama. At the time, Alabama had very lax tort laws and would allow for giant settlements from juries. And famously, Alabama didn’t have the most educated jury pools. So, if there was anyway a lawyer could show a link to Alabama, they would push to have the trial there.
And they ran into problems all the time seeing openings in Huntsville. I had a lawyer there that worked a case where someone from NY sued in Alabama and showed up for the jury trial. To find the jury pool included 6 engineers, 2 of which had PhDs. The jury questions were detailed questions of the expert witnesses and proof of errors in calculations. The NY group was doomed and tried to settle out of court, but the defendants ran it all the way through and got their legal fees paid for.
Thank you for this. It seemed suspect the minute I read that a driveway drainage culvert was part of it, as well as flying only 39 feet less than Orville and Wilbur’s first attempt.
I just can’t see how the manufacturer is responsible at all, here, with the results of the safety tests available.
The amoutn what in punitive damages, which meant are meant to punish Ford rather than compensate the victims. A wrongful death might net you a few million in compensatory damages for your emotional suffering. I can’t find the actual court docs (after a whole 90 seconds of googling :)) but the jury decided Ford did something actively wrong and bad.
Nobody seems to remember that Mitusbishi also has an extremely valuable patent portfolio pertaining to balancing and harmonizing 4 cylinder engines. Many auto manufacturers license these out though Mitsubishi needs to keep offering the product to keep them up. This is why it’s vital for Mitsubishi to remain in the USA to keep their portfolio valid. I could imagine how this could be valuable for Honda or any other manufacturer of 4 cylinder engines.
It’d be interesting to see a deep dive of what manufacturer gets royalties based on patents they hold. I remember growing up there was a rich kid at our daycare and the scuttlebutt was that his dad designed an efficient fan for car AC’s that every manufacturer used so he was able to live off the royalties from that and not have to work.
This is a great idea for an article!
Absolutely 100% agree with you
In my youth I remember hearing about someone my Dad used to do “side” work for, he evidently owned a small farm or plot of land outside of the Detroit burbs. His name was Max Day (some say I share a name with him because my Dad associated the name with success) and he allegedly had millions of dollars from a patent for something having to do with brakes and a Star stamping to line them up when installing, or the star bit itself or I dunno what (it was the 80’s and there were many adults with many cocktails relaying these stories) I was young when I heard these things, and then my Dad died when I was 20 so I never got to ask him about it. I’ve tried to figure it out myself from time to time but havent had much luck
Seems to me that Honda can just keep on doing what it’s doing and will do very well. They don’t need those lesser brands. It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re being held down by turkeys.
Doing “very well” has never been good enough in most large businesses, if there is thought that taking an action could lead to “even better”.
This. It’s all about more growth, more faster, more money.
The line has to go up and to the right every year, no exceptions.
When there are exceptions, the plebes suffer (the owners don’t).
Precisely! Management will still get their bonuses while the plebes get laid off.
What is it that Honda wants from Mitsubishi? At least in the US, Mitsubishi is nearly extinct and I cannot think of anything they offer that I would want over a Honda?
Plug-in hybrid technology and their production facilities and market share in Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia, all areas where Honda is weak.
Mitsubishi Motors North America isn’t really a factor at all, although they did post 25% sales growth last year to 110,000 units. Whether that’s sustainable is a big question, they had similar numbers in 2021, then fell dramatically for two years before rebounding, and also just discontinued the model representing over 27% of their sales here, without a replacement
Ah okay yeah I assumed it would of had to do with some type of hybrid tech but didn’t know they had bigger market shares in other countries. Thanks for the info.
Yeah, they’re the #4 automaker in both Thailand and Indonesia, and #2 in the Philippines, they sell about 250,000 units a year across those 3 countries. Honda also has an 80% share of the motorcycle market in Indonesia, so combine that with Mitsubishi’s car/light truck sales, and they’d be pretty dominant there
Mitsubishi Thailand is also a big export hub for the company’s global sales, represents almost half of Mitsubishi’s global production capacity, 400,000+ units/year
Dang. I would have guessed that +25% would have still left them shy of six figures. You go, Mitsubishi!
When you figure how Toyota has their hooks in so many of the smaller Japanese automakers, Honda-Mitsu isn’t really an outlanderish idea.
ELIDavid — what in tarnation is going on in the topshot?
Also, hell yeah, “Beavis and Butt-head” rules. I miss ’90s slackers. Bring ’em back. Like, all the way back. RETVRN. Ungentrify central Austin! WTT: dumb podcast bros for fun burnouts! Make Alex Jones return to just being coked out in his garage instead of an unfortunate and gruesome influence on wider society! THE FULL LINKLATER. Yes ha ha YES </aggressively local comment>
Breakfast beers for the win!
They did come back a few years ago as “Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-head”. Check your Paramount streaming grift site for viewing.
By the way, the best thing to come out of B&Bh is DARIA.
Daria FTW!!
Wait, is that good?
At least we are getting a new version of “King of the Hill.” WooHoo Arlen!
Yeah but it won’t be the same without Dale.
Am I the only one who noticed the wording here – $1.7 billion over a rollover incident with a Super Duty truck (though it was overturned on appeal)
Yup, that must be a very strong judge. Those things weigh like 8k.
Certainly an elected official who knows how to flip votes.
It’s the jury who is assigning damages on that, not the judge. It might be better if it’s the judge because the jury has like zero incentive to care- it’s all someone else’s money and they aren’t accountable to anyone.
I think you missed it.
*Checks* Yup, I did. Still short about 1.5 cups of coffee this morning.
I was thinking rollover case that was overturned 🙂
I also had the flu last week and had a bit of a setback the other day. This is what I get for being a member of this stupid society.
Hopefully you’re feeling better today.
Excuse me?
Were they travelling at 100 mph? It takes quite a bit to get a 7500 lb truck airborne.
That was my thought, plus do we expect car roofs to handle landing after an 81 ft flight? That seems a bit extreme.
Yeah but down there you can’t count on a judge using common sense.
Same here. Also, aren’t driveway culverts usually at least a few feet back from the road? Sounds like something else going on to trigger the crash.
Also, I’d be very curious to hear the argument actually made in court. Did they actually prove the truck failed in a way that would constitute a design flaw? Did it fail in a way that would have caused it to not be compliant with legal requirements? Just because a couple unfortunately died in an accident that happened to be a rollover doesn’t mean it’s the companies fault. If an NA/NB Miata flips over, the windshield structed flattens out immediately, but nobody’s suing Mazda over that, so why does a Super Duty get treated differently?
NHTSA requires the roof to withstand 1.5 times the vehicle’s own curb weight in a simulated rollover test, which, for the F-250 would be between 8,904 and 10,412 lbs. Ford’s internal specs called for a minimum of 10,500, but I recall an earlier lawsuit that suggested the truck did not meet that 10,500 goal, but how far off it was from it I have no idea. The truck probably meets FMVSS minumims for roof strength, but not Ford’s own target. Also, the circumstances of this crash, with the 81ft jump at speed, probably don’t replicate the rollover test used by NHTSA
Thank you for the context! I was trying to find the FMVSS and NHTSA documentation on what it would have been required to pass, but was struggling to find it. I believe that test is a static load with a press right? I ask because if my memory serves, its 1.5x over the whole roof and static, while this was a very dynamic situation, and and most importantly appears to have either been only one corner or one edge of the cab, where I’d suspect that the loading seen at the point of the cab would easily exceed it’s designed load. Honestly you’d think Ford would bring in an engineer with a simulation to show “hey, it passes FMVSS required loading, but would absolutely fail under what we saw here”
Yeah, I don’t think the standard crash testing procedures test for that kind of accident. It would be one thing if they rolled over at low speeds and the roof caved in, but there’s nothing short of a full roll cage that could have made a difference in this case. Does that precedent mean my fiancee could sue Volkswagen for $1 billion if I was killed in an 80mph impact while driving my Sportwagen? I’m not one to side with big corporations but I don’t think there’s anything Ford could have done differently. If we built every car to withstand edge cases like that we’d be driving tanks that cost a fortune. There’s a point where physics will win no matter what, and it looks like that’s what happened here.
Yes, it shouldn’t be so hard to prove that the truck was not operated in the way intended by the manufacturer.
-Wow dad, you must have jumped like 50 yards.
-Not something to be proud of Rusty… 50 yards…
I’m usually the last person to say “I side with the corporation on this one” but I’m having a hard time faulting Ford. Allegedly the driver was having a heart attack, not to mention it would take Herculean effort to get an F250 airborne like that. No street legal car is going to hold up well in an impact like that because it’s way, way, way outside the parameters of what it’s designed to withstand.
It sucks that lives were lost but to me this just looks like a perfect storm of tragedy to me at best and incredibly reckless driving at worst. Super Duties are behemoths, they’re both uniquely unqualified to be de driven antisocially due to the inherent rollover risks and also too damn heavy to be launched 80+ feet through the air without carrying serious, serious speed.
I hate big corporations with a passion, but I tend to agree with you.
With the caveat that the roof in fact DID meet the internal specs. If it didn’t and Ford made one of those “it’s cheaper to pay out than to fix it” calculations, then fuck ’em.
I saw in a different comment that she had a heart attack.
“81 feet?!? Those are rookie numbers.” – Them Duke Boys
Wow that topshot is awkward in all the right ways. Well done haha
My thought all along is that Mitsubishi had lots to offer Honda while Nissan was dead weight. Apparently Honda saw it that way too.
Nissan does have EVs and pickup trucks/big SUVs, but that might not be enough with all the other baggage that comes along with them ($50+ billion debt). Mitsubishi is obviously a much smaller pill to swallow and has about as much useful stuff as Nissan