Recent content by MotorMaven

Peak sales of gas cars were hit several years ago. EV sales continue to increase both in absolute numbers and as a share of total vehicle sales. The folks denying these facts are like the guys who insisted they’d never give up their iron block V8 Oldsmobiles or Plymouths for 4 cylinder cars...

Chrysler did that in the 70s and almost went bankrupt. They did it again in the early 1990s and almost went bankrupt. Then they did it in 2008 and went bankrupt. If not for the hated Europeans stepping in with bailout cash in 2009 to stop the liquidation, Chrysler would have disappeared back...

Why do that? Stellantis would have to shell out tens of billions of dollars to move tooling, redo the factory, and revamp supply chains all to support two failed brands (Chrysler and Dodge). It’s far more likely they will just let Chrysler and Dodge fade away and have them go the way of...

Chrysler is a goner with this tariff. Dodge probably is too, given that most Dodge products are made outside the USA. Turning around the two failed Mopar brands would require big investment and flexibility in production. Trump has already made building a long term business plan impossible...

It’s not about saving Chrysler. It’s about recognizing that Europe has sunk $30 billion into Chrysler so far and the reward it gets is tariffs and attacks from American politicians. Daimler bailed out Chrysler big-time. The crappy low quality designs that Chrysler creates in the late 1990s...

The issues aren’t connected, not to mention that there’s no evidence of any fentanyl coming from Canada into the USA. The Europeans have to be getting fed up with the USA at this point. European money saved Chrysler from collapse twice in less than a decade — first Daimler and then FIAT. It...

It’s more likely that Stellantis is reassessing its global footprint. With a rogue administration in Washington that defaults on treaty obligations and randomly changes policies every couple of hours, the risk of investing capital in an unreliable market like North America is very high. An...

If the aging boomers demanding pushrod V8s and rejecting modern EV power trains were a major factor in the car buying public, Stellantis would be printing money. Instead the lots are clogged with multiple model years of unsold gas guzzlers. Meanwhile GM and Ford EV sales are soaring and...

I’ve got no problems with you driving a gas car, so long as your use is taxed appropriately to pay for the damage you’re causing. $19 a gallon should cover things.

People said that about Korea and Japan before, and ended up changing their minds. When you see the quality vehicles at low prices that the Chinese automakers produce, you’ll be hard-pressed to pay 3x as much to get shoddy build quality and terrible reliability from “American” automakers who...

If it wasn’t for “the left,” Chrysler would have disappeared in the late 1970s. It was Jimmy Carter’s loan guarantee bailouts that saved it in the 70s and Barack Obama’s auto bailout that saved it again in 2009. Conservative presidents would have allowed it to die 40 years ago.

You’re in total denial of reality about climate change as well as macroeconomic trends. The only thing keeping GM and Ford workers employed making V8 engines are protective tariffs similar to those of the 70s and 80s that, then as now, force Americans to pay higher prices for inferior...

Your local Stellantis dealer is overflowing with 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 brand new unsold trucks with V8s… which kinda disproves the theory.

Yeah, and you’ll be fueling that V8 a LOT over the course of ownership, with increasing gas prices, not to mention the environmental damage it’s causing.

Once BYD figures out a path into the US market, they’ll disrupt the heck out of it. Bring on the low cost, high quality BEVs that Detroit stubbornly refuses to make in a repeat of the 1970s!