The Autopian

Back in 2021 during Rivian’s very first media launch, I got to test out the company’s Quad Motor four-wheel drive system. What I found is that, on paper, it’s the greatest four-wheel drive system ever, but in reality it was far from it. Tires flared up as the software was unable to properly anticipate traction conditions, and the heavy R1T slid sideways as it kicked rocks out from under its tires. In general the whole thing was far, far more dramatic than it should have been.

AI is one of the most frustrating parts about being both a writer and a car enthusiast right now, and I’m not even talking about how my work has been straight ripped by AI websites or the fact that it’s awful for research. I hate that I have to triple-check press images from startup companies to make sure they’re not AI-generated. Now, you can’t even trust that someone posting a brochure image didn’t feed it through an AI first.

I did not intend to become an Internet businessman, but while other writers were doing the five-knuckle shuffle to pics of McLarens I studied the blade. And, by “the blade” I mean programmatic advertising. I sort of understand it now. Maybe. One thing I know is that the peak of rates for display ads every year is usually right around the last two weeks of November. Ergo, if I could have the highest traffic any day I’d probably pick November 19th.

Learning to drive has been a rite of passage for teenagers for just about forever. A car offers a teenager the kind of freedom they’ve never had before, but being a new driver also comes with risks. Parents naturally want to keep their kids safe by surrounding them in as huge a bank vault as possible. However, buying your kid the biggest pickup truck or SUV you can find could come with some consequences in a crash, and here’s why you might want to pass on that idea.

Three-wheelers! They’re cool, right? I’ve always thought they were cool, but I get it if a few too many spottings of guys (it’s always guys) blasting their dubious musical tastes from RGB-LED-bedazzled Polaris Slingshots have knocked three-wheelers in general down a couple or twenty pegs in car-coolness for you. I actually kinda like the Slingshot Grand Touring (the one with a roof and hilarious half-gullwing doors), but it’s far from my first choice in one-wheel-missing motoring.

For nearly as long as there have been supercars, car enthusiasts have been finding cheaper ways to replicate them. Often, these replicas look cobbled together, and it’s obvious to even someone who isn’t into cars that they aren’t the real deal. Some other replicas are so good that the average person probably couldn’t tell. There’s a car out there that’s somehow both at the same time. This 2009 Honda Civic LX was done up like a Lamborghini Aventador, and it looks, we’ll say, unfortunate.

I’ve been accused by many readers of having a rather distorted view of reality; some even claim that it seems drug-induced. Unless there’s something odd in the half-dozen or so Diet Cokes I consume each day, I can assure you that I am not “chemically enhanced.” It’s just that for some reason I just see things differently than most or imagine them in ways that never were. Sometimes they’re good visions, other times not so much.

If I were any Stellantis dealer I think I’d look warily at used car chain Carvana, which has been allowed to purchase CDJR franchises. It’s all sort of weird, and recent reports show just how strange the whole relationship is, including an Arizona dealership sending a bunch of cars to a small market in Pennsylvania. The Canadian trade war continues at a quick pace, and it’s such an incredibly shoot-your-dick-off moment that I sort of don’t believe it’s going to really happen. But what do I know?

For reasons only understandable to myself, my now-disbarred therapist (I’m not even certain that therapists have to pass a bar exam? It’s possible she was a lawyer, which would explain a lot, though not why she was able to prescribe medicine that she made herself in the back of her Econoline) and my former rabbi, I have an unusual appreciation of ads and press photographs of Volkswagen Beetle trunks, especially the ones from Super Beetles.

The 1986 Ford Taurus was an automotive industry revolution. Ford took car design years into the future with its aerodynamic family car that instantly made most other cars look a decade old. For most enthusiasts, the best version of the Taurus was the hot version SHO, with its Yamaha-designed V6 and snickety manual transmission. But there is another enthusiast version of the Taurus, one that perhaps most people have forgotten about.