The automotive world is racing ahead with autonomous and self-driving vehicles, arguing that when computer brains take the wheel away from humans, commuters will love the convenience and everyone will be safer. The Nissan-Renault Alliance is only the latest in a raft of car companies all staking claim to leadership here. Nissan-Renault says it will …
Ford as Inventor and Innovator? Look at a Ford Showroom and Then Consider the Stock
“What’s wrong with Ford is that investors and the broad marketplace think it is a tired old company from a dying town, Detroit. The facts suggest otherwise…” Pause for a moment and consider Ford Motor Co., a 112-year-old car company that emerged from the recession with a focused business plan and a clear vision of …
Unloved but Useful, Minivans are a Great Deal Now — and Will Be an Even Bigger Deal in 2016
Minivans, to both Baby Boomers and Millennials, are as cool as a Tilley hat or Birkenstock sandals worn with woolly socks. They are the automotive equivalent of a Walkman cassette player. A minivan is a car for the Brady Bunch, not a slick, badass tech tool for bae (before anyone else) urbanites. To the typical …
Canadians Gorging on Gas Guzzlers
Cheap oil is hammering sales of small, fuel-efficient cars, while gas guzzlers have become hugely popular at a time when OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and Russia have vowed to keep pumping oil in massive volumes – even as the price of a barrel of Brent hit an 11-year low this week. According …
January 8, 2016 | Commentary, First on the Grid 1 Comments (0) |
Detroit’s automakers: re-born and reinvented
It is fashionable and easy to bash Detroit’s car companies, lazily painting them with the broad brush of incompetence and insularity, then concluding that Ford Motor, General Motors and the former Chrysler Group — now part of the world’s 4th-largest automaker, FCA — are pitiable industrial relics, soon to be overwhelmed by the great geniuses …
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