It’s a beautiful morning to wake up and smell the roses. Monterey Car Week has kicked off, it’s summer in the northern hemisphere, and your morning digest of important, bite-sized pieces of car news is here. Today, motorsport could be part of the Olympics, car part sourcing just got more stringent, the Nissan Frontier gets an extension of life, and more. Welcome back to The Morning Dump.
Ask What Your Country Can Hoon For You
Planning for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics is well underway, and Reuters reports that some new sports are on the table. If you’re wondering what that has to do with a car website, I’ve bolded the really important bit below for emphasis.
Flag football and cricket have been shortlisted along with baseball-softball, lacrosse, breakdancing, karate, kickboxing, squash and motorsport.
Motorsport, huh? Hot damn. Whenever the Olympics decide to add a new sport, it must first pass approval by local organizers, at which point it gets kicked up to the International Olympic Committee for top-level confirmation. Then, and only then, is a new Olympic sport born. As Jalopnik notes, the FIA has pushed for karting to be included at the Games for a few years now, so it could be something along those lines.
Regardless of what form it takes, the prospect of motorsport being on the roster is cause for excitement. Sure, the Race of Champions is amazing and conceptually similar, but making motorsport an Olympic sport would open it up to entirely new audiences. I say the more people interested in going fast, the better.
Supply Chains Just Got More Complicated, But For A Good Reason
Cheap car parts imported from China are about to experience new complications. While this doesn’t sound great for consumers, it’s actually a good thing. See, China isn’t exactly known for a spotless human rights record, and Reuters reports that America is stepping up enforcement of sourcing regulations.
Increased inspection of products destined for auto assembly plants by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) could signal difficult times ahead for automakers who will need solid proof that their supply chains are free of links to a region where the U.S. believes Chinese authorities have established labor camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.
When legislation targeting products that may have been made with forced Uyghur labor was established last year, it initially focused on stuff like clothes and solar panels. Now, it’s reportedly expanding to auto parts, raw materials, and lithium-ion batteries. Stuff that could really hit the auto industry hard if the proper documentation isn’t in place, as violations could slow the trickle of parts needed to build new cars. Even in a rebounding market, it’s still worth it—consumer ease shouldn’t come above others’ well-being when ethical issues exist.
Now, before you go accusing me of pointing out other countries’ problems while conveniently ignoring issues at home, just know that it goes both ways. For one, I’d prefer if my license plates weren’t made using prison labor. Everyone deserves to work voluntarily and with dignity regardless of background.
Extended Frontier
If you fancy the new Nissan Frontier but don’t yet have the scratch for one, don’t worry—you may have just been given a little more time. Automotive News has obtained an internal memo that claims “production of the current-generation midsize Frontier at Nissan’s factory in Canton, Miss., has been extended two years beyond its previously expected redesign, now carrying into the 2029 model year.”
So, what spurred the change? As with most extended model cycles today, it may have something to do with the shifting tides of propulsion. Basically, Nissan may need more time as it builds out EV production:
In the memo, Nissan didn’t offer suppliers a reason for the life cycle extension, but one supplier briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified, told Automotive News that the previously planned changeover would have come just as the Canton factory is gearing up to build new Nissan and Infiniti electric vehicles.
Simplifying the introduction of new models assembled at the same plant is an entirely prudent reason for extending the Frontier’s lifecycle, and it’s not like the Frontier is on the bleeding edge of midsize truck tech. The last one had a 17-year model cycle, and the new one is refreshingly old-school compared to the likes of the Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger, and GMC Canyon.
Faraday Future, Which Still Exists (???), Delivers Its First $309,000 Car To A Customer
I bet you haven’t thought about Faraday Future in a while. Electrek reports that Faraday Future’s first consumer model has finally been delivered, the first $309,000 FF91 2.0 Futurist Alliance (yes, seriously). Does this mean that Faraday Future has shaken off its tumultuous past of executives leaving, models being delayed, and the founder filing for personal bankruptcy? Hardly. It seems that Faraday Future is riding the coattails of all-AI everything, the popular tech buzzword of the moment that has an uncertain future. Per an earlier press release:
As FF officially enters the 2.0 stage of development, the Company believes that the future development of products and technology in the spire mobility industry will be characterized by FF’s four new trends of All-AI, All-Hyper, All-Ability, and Co-Creation.
In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious, none of these words actually mean anything. Sure, they’re shiny, but cars don’t run on hype. Will artificial intelligence buzzwords be enough to differentiate Faraday Future from the litany of ultra-luxury EVs coming to market? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
(Editor’s Note: I love that somehow, Faraday Future survived long enough to get in on the AI hype. Bullshit just comes naturally to that company. —PG)
Your Turn
If motorsport makes it into the Olympics, what specific disciplines would you like to see? While something along the lines of karting makes sense, Olympic rallycross sounds like it could be just the tightest thing ever. However, maybe you’re a touring car fan, or want to go completely bonkers with something like Stadium Super Trucks. There really are no bad options here.
(Photo credits: Garage 56, Amazon, Nissan, Faraday Future)
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I’d prefer if my license plates weren’t made using prison labor.
Really… Incarcerated individuals cost tax payers tens of thousands of dollars a year but you’re worried they might have to earn their keep?
YOUR TURN – tractor pull or demolition derby
The parts-sourcing news is encouraging, but it’ll take work for it to have meaning. This kind of legislation exists for other goods, and it’s a bit of a challenge to avoid source-laundering – the goods are still made by the same people in the same places under the same conditions, but the source is obscured through many layers of intermediaries that are difficult to police. Not impossible, but not easy.
As for the Olympics, I don’t think cars really belong in the Olympics. But sure, let’s just called it OROC – the Olympic Race of Champions. Next up – Olympic e-racing!
Seeing as its in LA, hopefully they use Willow Springs for motorsport!
Monster Trucks. We need Olympic Monster Trucks.
Pinewood Derby at the Olympics. Holy crap, I’ve finally got a chance to be in the Olympics. I’m so giddy right now.
Yes in the USA are most violent and brutal felons have AC, a gym equivalent, 3 squares and a cot all paid for by taxes that take all those niceties from are seniors right before taking there homes. Yep we are just as bad as China forcing a racist pogrom on minorities putting innocents in prison to perform slave labor under threat of murder first of your family then you. This from a site that keeps pushing cars made from slave labor. Liberals are more hard core minded than i thought.
You strike me as someone who has never known anyone that has real-life experience in prison. One could argue that our own system is a racist pogrom on minorities, designed to enrich a few oligarchs that run publicly traded corporations.
Just because what the CCP is doing is horrible doesn’t mean our system should be immune to criticism.
What prisons have AC? I can tell you they don’t in Texas…
Nobody who talks about prison that way has ever been in one, or talked to anyone who has been in one.
>For one, I’d prefer if my license plates weren’t made using prison labor. Everyone deserves to work voluntarily and with dignity…
Yeah, and everybody deserves to live outside of a prison. Until they commit crimes, then that particular right goes away.
I didn’t think it was that complicated.
At least in my state prison labor is voluntary, as in they don’t even force them to work. As far as I’m aware it’s the same across the US, I’m not sure what the author is talking about.
I’m pretty tuned out of the Olympics these days thanks the IOC’s corruption and the generally unwatchable coverage by US television networks.
But if I do tune into the Olympics, I want to see the classic stuff and the “obscure” stuff. Track and field, weight lifting, water polo, fencing. Put some badminton, shooting, and canoeing on TV!
I don’t need international NASCAR or something you can already see on the X-Games.
I dont get why it cost billions to put on. Why cities have to go bankrupt. Have different cities host different sports in different countries even. Is it so important to get all the athletes together for an international gang bang?
The IOC doesn’t care. They just want their money. It is not about the athletes.
Motorsport in the Olympics is just dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I’m available for paraphrasing if anyone needs me to clear up any confusion.
the teens are gonna love ripping around an abandoned track when the Olympic venue does what nearly all Olympic venues do: fail to repurpose itself and slowly rot into the ground
Ah, yes—because motorsports needs one more notoriously corrupt entity to get into bed with.
I’m interested in a Faraday Future. Can I trade my Bored Ape NFT for one?
“motorsports” what a sad oxymoron.
argument in favor: “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games” – ernest hemingway
argument against: none of those three are olympic. also, IOC is more corrupt than FIFA and FIA put together, does the world really need more jingoism?
Let’s see the Olympic Oil Change become an event. Fastest time wins with disqualification for improper torque specs, oil weight or missed screws/bolts.
Also, I don’t care one bit that prison labor is used to make license plates. I’ve been into a prison (as a contractor, not an inmate) where they did screen printing of the state seal for all the judges chairs etc.. they loved having the option to do that instead of just sitting around.
First off, surely I’m not the only one here who would be disappointed if motorsports bumped breakdancing from the Olympics, right?
Second, if we want to get anything useful out of Olympic motorsports, let’s make it something new. One vehicle for land, sea, and air competitions! Who doesn’t want a flying car-boat?!?
Changali races.
Do it with Stock Cars!
Hear me out here: I’m an old Speed Skating guy, which has always had 5 events until recent years. Stock cars could easily do 5 events:
The short track at the Coliseum
Long Beach street course (Van Gisburgen would take this home to NZ)
Sonoma Road Course
Send them to Vegas for a mid-size track
Send them to Talladega or Daytona for a super speedway.
Give out individual event trophies, and a trophy for who scores the most points.