Category: Drive Time

More Backtracking

Drive Time, Eco-Crap

This one had me giggling like a little girl:

Bentley has decided to delay its electric vehicle plans.

The historic carmaker that’s headquartered in Crewe, Cheshire, has opted for a shift in strategy as they now plan to renew three models with petrol engines, instead of electric.  The company originally planned to transition to a fully electric lineup by 2030 – under its Beyond100 strategy.  These previous plans included offering only plug-in hybrids and EVs by 2026, then eventually phasing out hybrids for a zero-emission lineup.

But why, oh why are they seemingly defying the EU/BritGov’s NetZero diktat ?

Bentley CEO, Frank-Steffen Walliser, said: “There is a dip in demand for luxury electric vehicles, and customer demand is not yet strong enough to support an all-electric strategy.

“The luxury market is a lot different today than when we announced Beyond100.

“Electrification is still our goal, but we need to take our customers with us.”

That last sentence is just to appease the Greens.

Frankly — given that Bentleys have stood for “luxury + power” ever since they won several Brooklands and Le Mans races in the 1930s — there’s little reason to think that a typical Bentley customer should be any different in, say, 2030 (or ever) than they’ve been since those halcyon days in the 1930s.

Massive engines — gasoline/petrol-powered — with ripsnorting power and “sufficient” speed are a Bentley trademark.  Hell, many Bentley customers — current and potential — are still seething about the company’s decision to dump the W12 in favor of a turbo V8.

And just as a reminder:  Bentley is owned by Volkswagen (the W12 is actually a VW design from the Phaeton).  VW is also the owners of other brands… and what are they doing?

Porsche, another brand that is owned by the VW Group alongside Bentley, recently announced plans to delay the launch of its latest EV due to low demand.  Instead, the iconic German sports car marque plans to focus on internal combustion engines and innovative technologies such as wireless charging — recently demonstrated with the upcoming Cayenne EV.

Similarly, Audi, yet another VW brand, has abandoned its goal of becoming an all-electric brand by 2033, instead opting for flexibility based on market conditions.

Oh.

Yeah, and those “market conditions” are being signaled by their respective customer bases with a common voice:  “Screw those stupid Duracell motors:  we want real engines in our performance cars.”

I could have told them this would happen, and in fact I did on these very pages.

And hey, I don’t own stock in VW — but if I did, I would have dumped it the very second they announced their stupid all-electric / electric-only initiative.

And This Is Why

Drive Time, Eco-Crap

And as the car manufacturers like VW and Mercedes continue to wonder why their stupid customers are refusing to buy their little Duracell cars, there’s this report from the trenches:

Wheeler Dealers host Mike Brewer has claimed purchasing an electric vehicle was the “most stupid decision” ever made, revealing he has ditched his EVs and returned to petrol models.

Oh noes!  Whatever could have happened?

“The day I decided to sell my Porsche Taycan, which is a high-performance beautiful electric car, was the day that I couldn’t charge it. I went down to see my parents. On the way back there was nowhere to charge it, all the chargers were broken and nothing would work.

“When I did find a charger that was working, there were 12 people queued up waiting to charge their cars. The car went into ‘limp home’ mode, meaning I had to drive it at 40mph on the motorway, I realized I’d just paid £130,000 for something I was driving at 40mph on the motorway embarrassed. Why am I doing that? Why did I put myself through that anguish?

“Plus it was losing £5,000 per month at that time so it was the most stupid decision I’ve ever made.”

Is that all?

“I did buy one of those electric Mercedes recently, an EQC. 10 minutes and I’d done enough of that. That went back. I watched it lose £20,000 over the course of a couple of months and went ‘I don’t like that anymore’ and it went.”

And:

“I went very quickly back to an ICE and very quickly back to a flat-six.”

So, I think, will a huge number of his viewers.

When you can’t charge your car battery and the car’s value is depreciating faster than a Bentley’s… it’s time for a change.

…and not:

For my Murkin Readers who’ve never heard of Mike Brewer, here’s the background on Wheeler Dealers, which ran for over 20 years on Brit TV.

Beating Around The Bush

Drive Time

Yup, it’s time for yet another of Kim’s Insane Trip challenges.  This one, however, is completely different.

Your trip is to drive along this course, taking as long as you want, during the months of June and August.

The starting point is Phoenix AZ, and you are at liberty to take either the easterly side (in an anticlockwise direction) or the westerly side (clockwise).

Now Alert Readers will note a couple of things about this trip, namely:

  • while the proposed route goes close to major cities, it doesn’t actually allow you to go into any of them (not that one would want to), and
  • there are no interstate highways involved.

Which is a critical part of the challenge, because:

There will not be any paved roads.  The route will consist of gravel, rural or tracks only, and will include shallow river crossings, mountain passes, steep climbs and descents as well as long stretches of desert or semi-desert roads.  The route, while testing, will not include any of the ridiculous “climb over boulders” or “cross that ravine” nonsense.  Any of the vehicles listed below can make the trip easily.

Each car will be fitted with a GPS device that will prove that you actually drove through the various checkpoints that will be scattered along the route.

The cars/trucks may carry spare tires and a decent complement of spare parts of things that are most likely to break.  You may stop along the way in any of the small towns you get to for gas, running repairs, oil changes etc., but the costs are out-of-pocket.

In the finest Top Gear tradition, you will be accompanied by a maintenance / repair vehicle (which has to be able to follow you on your chosen road) to make medium-serious repairs en route.  (Think:  modern-day Range Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser.)

You may take as many or as few companions for the trip as you wish, constrained only by the passenger capacity of your vehicle.  (Suggested list:  best friend, mistress/wife/girlfriend, mechanic etc.)  Or you can just go solo, for that matter.  Specify in Comments.

Overnight accommodation will be provided as needed, or you may want to just pitch a tent and camp wherever you are.  Remember:  there is no time limit.

Now what kind of vehicle, you ask, should you consider to make such a trip?  The choices are listed below, and they come to you gratis (see below for the stipulations).  In other words, when you follow the link (in the pic) to see the car’s specific details, ignore the price.  What you’re looking for are the following:

  • will it make the trip?
  • will you be able to drive over fairly rough country roads?
  • will you require back/kidney surgery afterwards?
  • will you be able to fix it en route if something breaks?
  • have you always wanted to drive one of these?
  • etc.

Needless to say, this being my challenge, there are no new cars — in fact, there are no cars made after 1995 — although some of them are ground-up rebuilds or restomods, but there ya go.  And you may not make any substitutions:  stick to the list.  Also, whether pictured or not, each will be fitted with a winch of sufficient power.

And while this is not a race, if you make it back to Phoenix inside a certain time frame you get to keep the car.  It’s your choice whether you want to race for that prize, or just enjoy the trip for as long as it takes.  What the hell, it’s a free car, right?

Finally, assume that all vehicles are in top-class running order.

Here, then, are your choices.

Read more

Control Freaks

Corporate Fuckery, Drive Time

What is it with Germans and their fixation on control?  Here’s the latest from their foremost corporate branch of Control Freaks International:

The 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA and the 2027 Mercedes-Benz GLC are the automaker’s first truly software-defined vehicles, meaning they have the brains and chips for virtually everything on the car that’s controlled by software to be updated over-the-air. They have the new Mercedes-Benz operating system, known as MBOS, as well as fourth-generation MBUX infotainment systems with fancy touchscreens, all developed in-house.  The new MBOS represents a paradigm shift, says Ola Källenius, chairman and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, with 100 percent of the car reachable via over-the-air updates. Now, cars come in with an empty electronic control unit (ECU) and then Mercedes loads [the software] into it as part of the production process, he adds. In the past, the ECU came from a supplier with the software already pre-loaded. Not anymore. Mercedes wanted an end-to-end software package it created itself.

Am I the only one who is getting chills from this little exercise as described?  Here’s why I’m both apprehensive and white-hot angry.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving, with 100 percent of the car reachable via over-the-air updates.”

And those “updates” would include “shut-downs”, all at the behest of MBOS — and if you don’t believe they would, you haven’t been paying attention to the recent history of Germany.

Also, remember that “the gift that keeps on giving” refers to the gift to Mercedes, and not to its customer.

Finally, if you think that these “updates” will remain free forevermore, you really haven’t been paying attention to the history of technology companies — and Mercedes is increasingly becoming more about technology than about engineering.  Which means that at some point, the design of the updates will be left to A.I.

How nice.

Funny, that:  the GLA 250 was always on my list of potential future car purchases.  Not anymore.  I wouldn’t accept one as a gift, because of what I’d be giving up to Mercedes:  my freedom and indepence.