Check out the car news stories you might have missed this week.
As we move into February things are getting spicy in the auto industry. Among today’s stories are people camping out at a car dealership, Nissan is finally getting some autonomy, and robotaxis are getting put in the dog house by San Francisco.
Corvette faithful camp for a C8 E-Ray.
Remember back when people would camp out at Apple stores to get the latest, slightly improved iPhone? That same feverish enthusiasm has reared its head among the Corvette enthusiasts as hundreds camped outside a dealership in Nashua, New Hampshire for a chance to be one of the few lucky ones to own the E-Ray. As the first hybrid Corvette, the E-Ray offers all-wheel drive and the quickest acceleration ever for the American sports car.
Check out the mania for yourself here.
See the bizarre things one man does with his Corvette here.
EVs require energy “superhighways.”
People are abuzz about an article that The Hill recently published about how the US electrical grid is woefully incapable of accommodating EV adoption, something we’ve known for some time. Thanks to the piece having been written by a professor at Texas A&M and a research affiliate at MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, more are actually listening to the warnings. They postulate that with too many EVs charging in an area at once, substation transformers might be overloaded and explode. We’re glad this topic is getting more attention because it’s a real concern.
Read the article here.
Nissan and Renault go Dutch.
After two decades of Renault wearing the pants, it and Nissan have finally reworked their lopsided “alliance” to where they’re equal partners. This move wasn’t made by the French out of the goodness of their hearts. After strangling Nissan innovation for years, they’re loosening their grip on the Japanese automaker to free up resources for EV development. But can Nissan bounce back from its two decades of malaise?
Read more about the alliance shift here.
Toyota is still the top dog.
After all kinds of doomsday predictions last year that Toyota would lose its spot as the largest automaker in the world, it edged out Volkswagen Group by a whopping 2 million units for 2022. Cue the articles about how production volume no longer matters!
Leasing cars is going the way of the dodo.
A new report claims people are less interested in leasing a car than ever. The culprit is apparently rising costs in the industry, making people really think about what their hard-earned cash is going towards. It turns out owning a car which can serve as reliable transportation for years after a lease term would end has value after all.
Read more about it here.
San Francisco pumps the brakes on robotaxis.
For years now, the city of San Francisco has been showcased as a glowing success story for the future of robotaxis carting humans from one location to another. However, a recent report from NBC News uncovers how the city government is trying to slow the expansion of these services, thanks in large part to problems with the robotaxis suddenly stopping in traffic and causing serious problems. So the Utopia we’ve been sold might not be as it seems
Read the report here.
Image via Chevrolet
