Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Alright, Who Bought A Dart Last Quarter?
Customers must be really desperate for new cars right now. Stellantis recently released its third-quarter sales figures and some very strange anomalies stand out among the legions of Ram pickup trucks and Jeep Wranglers that made it into customers’ driveways. Let’s start with the strangest number in this report, three. As in, Stellantis reported the sales of three brand new Dodge Dart sedans, a car that’s been discontinued in America since 2016. Did a handful of dealers just forget that they parked Darts somewhere? Were these cars local parts runners on dealer plates that were never registered? Is this just a result of auditing past Dart sales numbers and realizing that a few mistakes were made? Next come numbers five and seven, the number of brand new Fiat 500Ls and Fiat 500s reportedly sold last quarter. Both of these Italian runabouts exited production after the 2020 model year. I know that Fiats aren’t the most rapidly-selling cars in America, but two years on dealer lots seems a bit excessive. However, if you did buy a brand new Fiat 500 last quarter, good job. The 500 is a fun little car that enjoys a bit of a thrashing in Italian tradition, the sort of car we sorely need in the marketplace now. Needless to say, we’re reaching out to Stellantis for clarification on these figures to learn exactly what the hell is going on. While a handful of Fiats languishing on lots for two years doesn’t require much suspension of disbelief, what’s going on with the Dart sales figures?
Georgia Court Says No To Rivian Incentives
When a big company wants to build a new facility, it’s often wooed by incentives from jurisdictions that want facility investment. I say often because that’s not always the case. Reuters reports that proposed incentives for a new Rivian plant in Georgia have been struck down in court. While this news is definitely a shame for Rivian, it’s not difficult to rationalize the court’s decision. Looking at Rivian’s financial forecasts, things aren’t exactly smooth sailing. Slow deliveries and high expected losses are bad signs with talks of a recession swirling, even if making vehicles often requires an astonishing burn rate.
Lordstown Motors Finally Starts Truck Production
Lordstown Motors recently announced the start of commercial production for its Endurance electric pickup truck. To be a bit more precise, two saleable units have been made. Two trucks isn’t many, but Lordstown is setting its sights low and planning to deliver just 50 trucks this year. That’s a very reasonable number, provided everything necessary comes through, as Lordstown explains. So, not out of the woods yet, but not exactly vaporware. I have a feeling that Lordstown will have a smoother ride than many EV startups due to contracting manufacturing to Foxxconn. Actually building cars is incredibly difficult and costly, so if it can be outsourced to another corporation, that’s one less thing for a car brand to worry about. In a way, it could signal a new automotive paradigm. With brands like Fisker, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz outsourcing production of certain models to Magna, it’s not without precedent and could allow for more agile, localized vehicle development and production.
The Chip Shortage Drags On
In “no shit” news, Reuters reports that Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares expects the chip shortage to continue on into 2023. It’s a crap, yet, completely expected bit of news, although the chip shortage could be less of an issue in the near future than it’s been this year. Rising interest rates could put a damper on new car demand as cheap loans dry up, while the rising cost-of-living has been pricing some shoppers out of the new car market entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if new vehicle demand takes a hit next year, which should help automakers rebuild inventories.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on today’s edition of The Morning Dump. It’s Tuesday and my word, are we really in October already? The month of Drake and costumes of things that were never supposed to be sexy is upon us, which means that some of us in northern climes will soon be tucking our favorite cars away for the winter. What’s one last adventure you’d love to have with your summer toy before it gets stored safely out of the salt? Lead photo credit: Dodge You need 3 darts to play darts. The first player to hit a 300C wins. The warnings against cold weather driving in the owners manual are among the strongest worded I’ve ever seen for a consumer product. “Competition racing tires have rubber compounds that may develop surface cracks in the tread area at temperatures below 20°F (-7°C ). Always store competition racing tires indoors and at temperatures above 20°F (-7°C) when not in use” “Driving with competition racing tires on snow, ice, or cold road surfaces can cause loss of control or an accident. Competition racing tires are summer season tires and are not intended to be driven in snow, ice, or road surfaces below 32°F (0°C). Do not drive a vehicle with competition racing tires in these conditions” “Avoid driving on wet roads, in heavy rain, or through standing water with competition racing tires. Failure to follow this warning may result in tire failure, increasing the risk of crash, injury and/or death.” “There are no measures for flat tire repair included with this vehicle. It is recommended that drivers always bring a mobile phone in case of a flat tire” “There are no snow tires that are compatible with the wheels on this vehicle.” Like the warnings in the old Shelby Mustangs that the competition brakes had be to properly warmed up for maximum capability, the danger hot exhaust stickers on the first-gen Vipers, or one of my favorites, the plaque in the Ford Thunderbolt that in effect said “we cut all kinds of corners on everything but the drivetrain b/c we know what you bought this for.” “This vehicle is not designed to tow a trailer” “Here’s how to install a child seat” (Note, I usually have a child seat installed) “You must press the clutch pedal to the floor to start the car” “Recommended shift points for fuel economy” etc etc etc Love to hear an actual owner experience. Test drove a “proper” one (2. 4 Tigershark, C635) and it was a pretty damn miserable car. No amount of handling (which it lacked out of the box) could make up for just how cheap and miserable the interior felt, or build quality that left it sounding like paperclips in a tin can. And unlike the Neon, it was screaming bloody murder for more power. (Neons were sub-2800lbs at 150HP, Darts were 3300lbs+ at 184HP. You see the problem?) Severely squandered potential, in other words. At 200-220HP with progressive springs and some attention to detail, it could have been the Neon’s better. And I do not say that lightly. Plus, they had a fleet spec version. You literally could not order a Dart with the “radio” this one had, because it deleted the backup camera. Seriously, it was the basic LCD display unit, which was never offered on the consumer Dart. I want to know where they found it, only so I can burn that place to the fucking ground with every one of those shitboxes in it. However…..I have argued many times that owning an Alfa is a portal through which all petrolheads must pass if they genuinely want to know what it is that differentiates a car from a toaster or a washing machine. Because Alfas have flaws, they feel human, as if they have a soul and a temper. Each one is like the tortured hero of a Russian novel, a car of extraordinary depths, a car you can never truly fathom, especially when it four in the morning and it is enveloped in a cloud of steam, yet again, on the North Circular. They are like cocaine. The unimaginable highs are always matched by immense, brooding lows. Massive electrical storm that inevitably follow a glorious sultry evening.“ He was very proud that it was still running. Because it was on it’s eighth engine replacement. I said “oh, it eats cylinder heads?” Nope. He’s had to have the longblock replaced 8 fucking times. I think it’s some combination of: A) Have radically different notions of what “reliable” means, and what level of annoyances they’re willing to overlook (I’m guilty of this with my own FCA product). B) Don’t want to admit they made a mistake buying a trouble-prone vehicle. C) Not having a good grasp of statistics (even the most notorious failures usually only affect a small percentage of vehicles, yet are a big deal when thousands are sold) Horrible car, but that is also one person’s anecdote. I wouldn’t have owned it with the 2.4L, which has a habit of guzzling oil regardless of the application, or the 2.0L which was just an absolute dog. The 1.4 was a fun motor that would have benefited from the car being a few hundred pounds lighter, and it sounded great with the dump pipe I had on it. I’ve always wanted the Fiat 124 just for that motor. But all of them were pretty reliable, it has a bad rep that is mostly undeserved, because I’ve never seen any really major issues with them. Common issues regardless of engine were shift cables, rear calipers, radios(common on all FCA vehicles), door speakers, but like I said, nothing really major. Turbo issues were common on earlier turbos too, but if you caught it under warranty it was covered and you got a brand new turbo. The worst issue was the 2.4 with its oil consumption issue. We did a few motors on those in my time at Dodge. I had a few other do-dads installed in it too, like sway bar, shift bushings, short throw, etc.. It was a fun car to hustle on a backroad, and it was a pretty competent road tripper too. I was interested because it had 22 more HP and a lot more torque than my Cruze. After finding I didn’t agree with the seats, that ended that. Its traction in the snow is really terrible though. For cornering purposes, most of the laden weight(being me, the rider, as the vehicle is under 100 lbs) is placed over the two front wheels. This means the rear drive wheel readily spins in the snow. I know to stop pedaling and lightly tap the e-brake to kill the motor as soon as the rear starts to turn away from a straight trajectory, and let it regain traction. If the rear drive wheel slips out, I could easily lose control. If the trike starts going sideways, it could flip instantly as soon the rear wheel gains traction as the vehicle’s momentum is still heading straight. I’ve had a few close calls in traffic with this, especially with all of the potholes around here. Ahh, the joys of operating tadpole-layout rear-drive three-wheelers in the snow. It’s doable, but you better know what you’re doing! I do miss NE autumn. Been out in California for 40+ years now. Used to hike in the White Mountains back in the 70’s. That Georgia deal sounds even worse (for the people) than even the Foxconn con in Wisconsin for the Gen 10 LCD factory. Gonna have to move quite a few of those penny stock shares to raise any sort of capital right now. Seems fine, I’m sure it will be fine. Why the fuck do they require EPA and CARB shit for an electric car? They should just be exempt LOL Rivian should just buy Lordstown Motors. I think if they crammed the pentestar 6 in there and gave it a stick and some handling upgrades people would have bought them in droves. Or maybe this is just me being a daydreaming enthusiast…I always liked the look of both the Dart and 200 but they never offered a real answer for my need for an engaging drive, and unfortunately sedans that don’t stand out die….hell, some that do (the Stinger) still die as well. It’s a sad state of affairs out there. 2). Rivian seems to make amazing products but they need to get their finances in line if they want to stay relevant…and I find it amusing when corporations that have very clearly benefited from the lax regulations of capitalism turn around and ask for handouts because they haven’t been smart enough with their money. You can’t have it both ways, unfortunately…and color me skeptical that those alleged high paying jobs are actually going to find their way to normal people. I’d imagine all that money will be eaten up by a handful of extremely generous executive salaries, like it usually is. The tech field in general needs to be less greedy IMHO. 3). Lordstown is still a scam and so are almost all of these money incinerating EV startups. 4). I’m glad we aren’t in the market for anything because it still doesn’t look like things are going back to any sort of normal anytime soon…or maybe ever 🙁 Da Flush: I don’t have a summer whip but unfortunately the time to take the P Zeros off the Kona N is already here. We’ve had a couple of cool (high 40s/low 50s) rainy days in a row and the tires are already a disaster. I’ve read that the time to switch is when temperatures approach freezing (feel free to correct me here) but the total lack of traction in the cool rain is driving me up walls. Since I live in an area with only light to moderate snowfall I don’t think full winters are really necessary, but I’m planning on putting a set of Goodyear Eagle Exhilarate all seasons on the car for the cold. Do y’all have any experience with them or other recommendations? The Exhilarates seem to get great reviews and there’s a Goodyear shop a few blocks from me so getting them would be mighty convenient. As of now my plan is to keep the P Zeros and have them put back on when it gets hot again. They’re a one trick pony for sure but their one trick is amazing. I have yet to be able to find the limits of the car and a lot of that is due to the rubber. My dad’s GC has about 120k hard miles on it (he doesn’t take good care of his cars and has enough money that his attitude is more or less “if it breaks I’ll buy a new one”) and the engine has had 0 problems. The electronics, suspension, and transmission are another story…but that V6 is rock solid. There were also performance trims of the Dart planned, but FCA recognized the shift away from sedans earlier than most and the car was canceled before they could see the light of day. Good. Because these deals pretty much NEVER benefit the communities, much less in the high-flying way they’re sold. ‘Oh if we give them a $2B tax break we’ll get $4B in money from all the employees! Because look at all these high paying jobs!’ And of course, the supposed high paying jobs never materialize. And the way the JDA sold it was just insulting to anyone with an IQ over 70, and offensive to the public good. One, Rivian was claiming they were going to be spending over $5B on the plant. The fuck? Are they building trucks or are they building multiple semiconductor foundries? Because TSMC isn’t spending that much building a new 300mm fab. And there isn’t the market capacity for a plant that would be multiple times the size of Toledo North. In other words, the “$5B” number is pure fucking fabrication. Especially when the total employment was alleged to be 7,500 to produce an alleged 400k cars per year. (Yeah, right. They’re going to outsell the Toyota Camry with a truck that costs three times as much. Sure.) Then there’s the way the deal was structured. It wasn’t just a $1.5B (yes BILLION) tax break. They were literally going to ‘lease’ the land (800 hectare) from the development authority to avoid $700M in property taxes for 25 years, which was deliberately undervalued. Real taxes would have likely been more than $2B. The state was going to spend a MINIMUM of $200M to buy the land so they could lease it, grade it, construct new road improvements, extend utilities, build a new highway just for the factory, at least $62.5M to build Rivian their own private training center, and at least $27M on ‘job training.’ With the state being on the hook for all cost overruns and having to build it to Rivian’s spec. Rivian’s bill for more than $750M in cash outlay and maintenance costs? They would pay $300M for 25 years. While also getting $5,250 per ‘job’ in income tax credit, and Georgia paying out a refund collected from employee income taxes if Rivian owed less. No, I’m not joking. They put it in writing. The average salary Rivian’s employees can expect to take home isn’t the $56k number touted – that’s pure bullshit they took from TurboTax based on 10 people. That’s it. 10 people. The actual average for Georgia based on real payroll data is ~$34k-44k. “Lordstown Motors recently announced the start of commercial production for its Endurance electric pickup truck. To be a bit more precise, two saleable units have been made. Two trucks isn’t many, but Lordstown is setting its sights low and planning to deliver just 50 trucks this year. “ And if you believe even these hilariously low numbers, Workhorse has a drone-equipped last mile EV they’d love to sell you, and I have some lovely property in Florida to sell you to park it on. Let me translate for y’all. “We expect to deliver approximately 50 units to customers in 2022 and the remainder of the first batch in the first half of 2023, subject to raising sufficient capital.” Translation: “We’re so fucking broke and so behind on our bills, unless somebody gives us a shitload of unmarked non-sequential bills in duffel bags, we can’t even afford to make the thing we swear we can make.” “Rising interest rates could put a damper on new car demand as cheap loans dry up, while the rising cost-of-living has been pricing some shoppers out of the new car market entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if new vehicle demand takes a hit next year, which should help automakers rebuild inventories.” The problem is that interest rates and profiteering (it’s not inflation when the companies are recording record quarter after record quarter) mean it’s all kinds of fucked. Interest rates and prices have risen so quickly and so high that people have been priced out of cars from week to week. Forget ‘cheap’ loans too, you can’t even get ‘reasonable.’ In January, you were looking at 3.94% on a 60 month new car. Today, it’s 5.18%. On an average new car ($47k) that’s $4,832.85 of interest for a January loan, $6,449.75 for a September loan. Yeah. An additional $1600+ on the exact same car and exact same term. The monthly also goes from $863.88 to $890.83 a month. Assuming you find a car. So this is far more likely to result in worst case conditions instead, especially since companies are doubling down on bad behaviors. There will be an extreme oversupply. Customers can’t afford MSRP (which they won’t cut because they signed the supply deals at peak “ADM”,) issuers will be stuck with high interest rates meaning no cheap loans for customers, and their supply contracts were done based on above peak demand. So they’ll either have to build too many cars to use up the supply they’re contracted to buy, or they’ll have to extend lifecycles so they can use up parts on shelves. You can argue that this is good because it’ll force dealerships to sell cars below sticker again. But it’s not good. They’ll be selling below sticker in some situations, but you’ll be paying as much as currently because of interest alone. $2500 off sticker sounds great to people who don’t realize that doesn’t include the high interest rate, which wipes out any ‘savings’ you got. “What’s one last adventure you’d love to have with your summer toy before it gets stored safely out of the salt?” Depending how the repairs go, I’m hoping to take the Saab on a trip to New Hampshire for reasons. But it depends on what’s found in the transmission. Current suspicion is that it may just be a broken E-clip, but waiting to hear if the local expert is even up for taking a look. Re: Every sports stadium deal ever…. Yeah. Sure. They’re definitely going to sell … hang on, gotta get my calculator here … 25 times Porsche’s annual Macan sales. When the Macan typically leases with a sticker $30k less. Or… sec, carry the 1, divide by zero… more than 28% of ALL MID-SIZE SUVs COMBINED. In 2 years time. At an average price that is more than 50% higher than the two top selling SUVs (Grand Cherokee and Highlander,) over double the Hyundai Santa Fe plug-in, and TRIPLE the Santa Fe Hybrid. You have to be quite literally mentally ill to believe any of the numbers Rivian has thrown out. Or a participant in a con. 400k units would be three to four times Jeep Grand Cherokee annual sales. And the Grand Cherokee has been the top selling SUV for, let me check my notes, EVERY GODDAMN YEAR OF IT’S EXISTENCE. I’ve tried having second cars a couple times now, but with a two car garage and a two car driveway without a parking pad, it’s just brutal. At least here in ND, anyway. It’s not even about the inconvenience so much as it’s not really good treatment of a car you should enjoy. Maybe someday, when I have more space in the country or a quonset or something.
