The general polling of Americans can sometimes be depressing, but the number of my fellow driving citizens who either are afraid of or distrustful of self-driving vehicles seems appropriately high to me. Go America!
After a lot of complaining about California’s emissions regime, Stellantis has come to an agreement that likely allow it to start selling all its cars in all states again.
Hertz has also come to an agreement with its CEO Stephen Scherr, in that the company has agreed he wont work there anymore after a big bet on electric cars blew up in his face.
And, finally, Lotus is getting a bespoke program, because rich people love bespoke programs (maybe everyone loves bespoke programs, actually, but not everyone can afford them). It’s a humpday Morning Dump, let’s do it like Shock G.
Fear Of A Self-Driving Planet
A huge number of drivers are unsure about self-driving cars (25%) or just outright don’t trust them (66%). Only 9% of drivers actually trust self-driving vehicles.
These numbers come via this survey by AAA, the roadside assistance company that also won’t stop asking me to sign up for freakin’ life insurance every three days (I might not renew, tbh, it’s getting bad).
Given all the coverage of crashes involving Teslas and general confusion on the part of robotaxis, it’s not a big surprise. Obviously, there are few true self-driving cars on the roads, so some people are just afraid of the unfamiliar. This is one of those occasions, though, where I think the Overton Window is just about as open as it needs to be.
I say this because we are far from what is true full self-driving in most situations, but there are numerous Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that are helpful safety additions to vehicles. The good news, according to this same study, is that people seem interested in these helpful features:
It’s interesting that only 48% of people are ok with adaptive cruise control given that these are common systems on vehicles that probably get used at a high percentage.
Stellantis And California Reach Emissions Deal
Stellantis has been causing all kinds of issues for its dealers, refusing to ship certain vehicles to California and a handful of other populous states that follow California’s emissions guidance unless directly ordered.
That’s probably coming to an end as the State of California, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Stellantis have a deal in place that’ll see Stellantis voluntarily agreeing to CARB’s guidelines.
Here’s the buoyant press release from Stellantis with the positively spun headline: Stellantis and California Partner to Drive Carbon Emissions Reduction Efforts.
I love this formulation. This morning, my daughter and I partnered on school lateness reduction efforts (barely).
So what’s Stellantis gotta say about all this?
As part of the agreement with CARB, Stellantis pledged to expand its ongoing commitment to strengthen its electrification offensive through educational efforts for U.S. consumers and dealers on the benefits of electric vehicles (EV). This includes collaborating with Veloz, the leader in promoting EV awareness efforts, providing discounted EVs to organizations in disadvantaged communities, building upon ongoing efforts and contributing an additional $10 million for the installation of public EV chargers.
“Together, we have found a win-win solution that is good for the customer and good for the planet,” said Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares. “This agreement will avoid 10 to 12 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of the agreement and will also allow our U.S. customers to fully benefit from our advanced technologies, including five plug-in hybrids and two pure electric vehicles. We remain as determined as ever to offer sustainable options across our brand portfolio and being a leader in the global decarbonization efforts.”
“This partnership with Stellantis will help California achieve our ambitious goals to drastically cut pollution and get more clean cars on the roads,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “The biggest and most influential companies in the world understand that this is how we can fight climate change together, and it’s another example of the private sector joining California to help millions of people get into clean vehicles.”
Tavares/Newsom 2028!
Hertz CEO Falls On EV Sword
The car rental business seems like a shaky one to me, dependent on a bunch of factors that rental agencies can’t control (used car values, disposable income of travelers).
Hertz, in particular, tried to make a big show of buying a bunch of Teslas as it launched its post-COVID bankruptcy IPO. It worked for a brief second before the reality of how hard that would be became apparent and a new CEO, Stephen Scherr, was left trying to make it work.
It didn’t work. Hertz ended up buying a bunch of Teslas at the height of the market when the vehicles were the most expensive, which meant that Elon Musk’s constant price-slashing devalued this huge asset when Hertz decided to sell most of its fleet. That’s not really Hertz’s fault.
While good due diligence should have prevailed here, the fact that EVs are more expensive to fix and take longer to fix isn’t precisely Hertz’s fault (the company told investors the repair costs were about double ICE cars), though it is its problem.
The rest of the issues? Those are more Hertz’s fault. Even before the pandemic, when I was renting cars almost every week for work, the quality of Hertz’s services felt like they were slipping. The fact that the charging rules were prohibitive and the lack of chargers in some markets were an issue seems like something Hertz should have figured out ahead of time.
“The execution and marketing of EV’s [by Hertz] was a horror show across the board,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities who follows the EV market. “It’s a black eye they couldn’t recover from.”
Part of the problem for Hertz was that even people who might want to buy an EV wouldn’t necessarily want to rent one while on the road, when they don’t necessarily have the ability to plug them in to charge them as they would at a private home. There might not be a charging station, or enough time, for a rental car customer to charge an EV, Ives said.
By hewing to charging rules the way Hertz has enforced refueling rules, it may have dissuaded customers from wanting to rent an electric car. Without building any charging infrastructure at its rental locations, Hertz may have hurt its own business.
So, Scherr is gone, even if it the idea for the Hertz deal was actually from former Ford CEO Mark Fields.
Lotus Chapman Bespoke Is Now A Thing
Luxury and sports car automakers like Porsche and Bentley have made obscene money from customers who want their Bentayga or 911 or whatever to exactly match their desires.
Here’s an example of a Porsche bespoke color:
(I actually worked on this video a little, which was fun).
Lotus is now getting in on the business, launching in China in April and then hitting the rest of the world soon. While Porsche calls it Porsche Exclusive, Lotus is calling it Lotus Chapman Bespoke:
With Bespoke, there are three levels of personalisation and customisation to choose from:
- Tailor-made: choose your own unique combination from within a broad palate of colours and designs, and finish with exclusive personal touches and details.
- Collection: choose from a selection of limited-edition designs, bought to life in partnership with partners, artists and likeminded luxury brands.
- One-off: As the name suggests, build a car as unique as you are.
I can’t wait to see what people come up with as I love bespoke/custom cars.
What I’m Jamming To While Making TMD
This came on the radio! My daughter was like “Whaaat is this?” And I was like “We’re late, but this is going to get us to school on time, trust me.” Soul Coughing is so weird.
The Big Question
We’ve got an AAA survey here, so my question is: Do you subscribe to any roadside assistance program?
Why can’t AAA spell braking? Why can’t a custom design marketing piece spell palette? Is nobody minding the store?
Roadside assistance comes with my car insurance policies, and it’s actually excellent. I’ve had to use it with an older car whose transmission left me stranded, and it was super smooth.
I don’t intend to use AAA for anything because their exclusions and waiting periods are onerous. It feels like “when you need a tow” is excluded from the towing coverage.
They probably can, but don’t know (or care about) the difference.
See:
Peddling vs. pedaling (both ways)
Just deserts vs. just desserts
Dire straits vs. dire straights
Complement(ary) vs. compliment(ary) (both ways)
Lose vs. loose (God, give me strength)
Hear, hear vs. here here
Principle vs. principal (both ways)
Not forgetting: its vs. it’s (although I am guilty of that one sometimes, if I am not watching myself)
I sign up for AAA since I don’t know any other road side assistance that beats their 200 mile towing + motorcycle towing.
I’m afraid of human driven vehicles. People can be dumb, distracted, drunk, and dickheaded, often at the same time. Self-driven car accidents get all the press but plain old people-driven cars are the real killer, statistically.
I have roadside assistance that covers any vehicle I’m driving or riding (oddly now including ebike charging)
It’s got me out of trouble a few times, but after pushing a motorbike home 1km in 40°C heat, I’ll never be without some level of cover.
That chart that says emergency “breaking” TWICE made me cringe, especially from AAA…which I do have and actually have always liked…even though I would still change my own tire if needed (or something easy) it’s good for my wife to have so figured might as well add me. It’s just nice to have plus you can get discounts on lots of stuff like hotels, etc
Yes. I have BCAA (Canadian AAA). I got it because I own a nearly 40 year old car that I’ve been known to road trip to go to car shows. I was having nightmares of breaking down somewhere on I-5.
“Lotus Chapman Bespoke”
What a perfect way to brand “Add Lightness to the Wallet”.
I don’t even trust been around for decades actual cruise control.
When my phone lags for a fraction of a second I am annoyed for a fraction of a second. Should one of these lag for a fraction of a second there’s an accident
I do have AAA. Just makes sense with the multiple cars.
I’m not afraid of self driving, I just resent the lack of consent.
Who still pays for AAA? Are they still relevant? Seems like a relic from another time. I thought roadside assistance was provided by insurance in the modern age.
It’s often cheaper to have AAA than to add it on to your insurance. Also, can be more flexible in terms of who is contracted with whom.
Plus having it separate from your insurance can be highly beneficial in this day where insurance really doesn’t like any claims on your record and roadside assistance claims are included in that calculation.
Oh wow…. I hadn’t even thought about that angle.
Are you sure about that? We called roadside assistance like 5 times in one year and it never affected anything.
Seeing “The Love Bug” as an adolescent scarred me for life. Then Hollywood piled on with “The Car,” “Christine,” and “Maximum Overdrive” (damn Steven King, again!) and that put paid to my ever trusting self-driving cars.
Christine and Maximum Overdrive are 2 of my favorite movies of all time
Add in the fact self driving will probably include a interconnected AI, ya might as well add The Terminator to the list.
Aaaagh!
Two comments:
1: A whopping 99.5% of drivers are afraid (or should be) of the human driving 90mph in a pickup/BMW/whatever while weaving in and out of traffic on a crowded highway, whom they see daily.
2: Regarding Hertz and EVs. I *drive* an EV on a daily basis. I recently rented a car from Hertz and had to turn down a Polestar2 in favor of an Impala because of Hertz and Florida’s charging infrastructure. The car was at like 3/4 charge, and I didn’t have to drive much. I asked Hertz what happens if I bring the car back at a low battery level, and they told me that I’d get fined just like if a gas tank was empty. Hertz would, however, give me a list of local chargers.
There is no way I was going to rely on Florida’s EV charging infrastructure to top off my battery, and obviously Hertz couldn’t even be bothered to charge the car fully before renting it out.
If Hertz wanted to make this work, they would get access to a dedicated DC quick charge, rent out cars charged up to ~90%, and offer an option to bring the car back empty for a $20 recharge fee.
I rented an EV from hertz in AZ back in February and they offered that service. Bring it back at any charge level for $25 and that’s what I did. Worked out great for me. Avis had the same deal when I rented an EV in Colorado back in October.
wow, maybe these guys in Florida just didn’t know?
Hertz sent me an email a day before the trip stating that. Looking back at it it says $35 or $25 if your Gold Plus Rewards (which I had as a perk of a Cap One CC)
Was definitely nice not having to stress about when and where to charge before returning.
Aren’t the “bring it back empty” charges where their margins live?
The big margins are on the protection products they offer.
I did rough math on my rental. Car had a 78 KW battery. I returned at 40% and paid $25 for the “return as is.” Google tells me AZ public charging is about 53 cents per kWH. So that 60% of that 78 KW would have cost me $24.80 (and the run around and time of charging)
I definitely think I came out ahead.
I want no semi-autonomous features on my cars. I’ve used them a few times in rentals and other people’s cars and I dislike them every time.
Luddite? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Torch has laid out objective reasons why these systems are bad and it doesn’t make you a Luddite to have an issue with the fact that the car companies are completely ignoring these problems in favor of a “The driver is always responsible for operation of the vehicle” disclaimer.
YMMV but a lot of that is settings, my GTI experience: Lane assist, while she’ll will scold me because road construction make her think I’m straddling lanes, as long as I don’t hit the line she doesn’t care and only provides haptic feedback. Emergency braking, only happened once, and by god she was a tiny fraction of a second faster than me, I’ll take it. In terms of warnings, she has taught me to leave more room if someone is slowing to turn, it used to annoy me but, well, we all have bad habits, call me brainwashed but adding literally a couple of feet, keeps her from screaming and makes me a safer driver. I have had zero false braking events. Adaptive cruise, I had the exact same opinion as you, until I checked the settings, now if I’m set for 85, and the car in front going 70 changes lanes, she accelerates harder and reacts quicker than in default.
Interesting. Normal cruise helps me keep my license but made me a much less observant driver.Y
I could see that getting worse with adaptive cruise
My vehicle has emergency braking. It works and I’m happy that it did.
The business park where I work is off a road with two lanes of traffic in each direction, 40MPH speed limit. One of the entrances is about 1/4 mile before the entrance I use. I’m used to watching for people who will suddenly realize they need make the right hand turn they make every week day and aren’t in the correct lane to do it.
My emergency braking was proven one morning when a vehicle came flying up the left lane, cut over in front of me and slammed on their brakes to make the turn in faster than I could respond. Glad I have it and it worked.
I hate all the active driver “aids”, though I find it puzzling that the smart cruise isn’t the most popular, but the second least. If I had to have them, it’s the only one I would most likely use.
I have Hagerty Drivers Club, far superior and cheaper than AAA (if you have a car insured with them). Hagerty applies free towing to every car you own, even your modern cars under other insurance! Hagerty would be an excellent site sponsor, BTW.
My old BMW stranded me in a rural location out of state. I called AAA who informed me that I only had silver level so they wouldn’t pick me up. (My wife had dropped gold only 2 weeks before). I asked if I could upgrade on the spot and promise to keep gold from then on. Nothing doing.
I called Hagerty and they signed me up for Drivers Club on the spot for way less than AAA Gold and dispatched a tow truck to haul me 125 miles back home at no charge. That kind of customer service earned my business for the long term.
IMO, AAA is still living off inertia and goodwill from when they were a well-run customer service company. Today they are just marketing.
Sadly Hagerty won’t insure your cars if they’re not in an enclosed garage, at least in California 🙁
Sad but true.
In regards to the Stellantis CARB deal what is exactly meant by
Does this include PHEVs? What about Range Extended BEVs like the upcoming Ramcharger?
I ask because the first production BEV Wrangler won’t be made till 2028 apparently, and Stellantis’ only current BEV offering is the Fiat 500e. So will Stellantis basically have to advertise other automaker’s BEV offerings since the Fiat 500e won’t work for everyone?
I’d rather the $10,000,000+ that is going to this effort instead go to fixing the PHEV Wrangler, making more PHEV Wrangler variants (including a Gladiator), and overall work on getting more BEVs and PHEVs into production.
I’m ‘mixed’ on some driver aids. A couple years ago a Toyota Camry rental tried to insert us under a trailer of a semi truck.
On the interstate in a sweeping left. Semi on the right and me passing in the left lane. I was hugging the solid line on my left side and due to IL poor road maintenance, there was no dashed center line still in existence. The LKA didn’t like how close I was to the line on the left and gave a good right twist to the steering. I wasn’t expecting it. I quickly gripped the wheel and steered back left, but not before we were literally inches from the passenger window hitting the side of the trailer. The right side mirror I’m sure was under the trailer.
This is my experience with my 2022 Highlander.
The lane centering is great so long as the road is painted well. It genuinely feels like the car is driving itself.
But the lane keeping assist is a nuisance. All it does is beep and nudge me when I’m deliberately hugging one side of my lane.
I’m either cruising with the lane centering on or I have lane keeping assist disabled. The middle ground is worse than useless imo.
Normal person: “Stupid car tried to put me under a semi!”
Teslarati: “Got a 97.937% success rate from FSD today!”
I used to be on a AAA subscription through my dad, but I told him to take me off it last year, and I intended to get my own. Then their website was being weird and wouldn’t let me sign up, so I didn’t. Then I remembered how terrible their service is, so I didn’t try again. Then I used my mom’s AAA in January, and after waiting 5 hours, and having to tell the tow truck operators how to get my car on the flatbed without destroying the front bumper because they had a giant mound of frozen mud on it. They also damaged the bumper and bent a rear control arm in the process, and neither AAA or the tow company will do anything about it. So I definitely will not be re-subscribing, ever.
Other AAA instances in the past that didn’t go well:
I think there might actually be 1 or 2 more, but these are the worst ones that I can recall.
AAA has really failed in keeping their tow network widespread and to high standards. Maybe they aren’t paying the tow companies enough to get the best.
We have AAA Gold. I have used their services 3 times in the past 22 years. Twice for towing due to mechanical breakdowns and once for a battery that decided to die abruptly. We keep Gold level because it allows for longer tow allotment.
“It’s interesting that only 48% of people are ok with adaptive cruise control…”
Really interesting, since aside from reverse emergency braking (not breaking, I never want my car to break itself) this is the only feature I would ever have a use for.
“the company told investors the repair costs were about double ICE cars”
This also caught my eye with those ridiculous Rivian repair stories and whatnot – we hear all the time about reduced fueling/regular maintenance costs on EVs, but I wonder how a lack of repair facilities and parts made of unobtainium factors into the overall ownership cost…
What I read is that repair costs were doubled because of the time it took to fix the cars. Time not rented = lost income.
“This morning, my daughter and I partnered on school lateness reduction efforts (barely).” Preach brother, preach.
On a side note, I saw Mike Doughty do an acoustic set in a dive bar in Cleveland one time. Tried to get him to sing BT’s ‘Never Gonna Come Back Down’, but he claimed it couldn’t be done acoustic. He shoulda tried.
“Right on to all them English girls named Charisse…“
Charisseeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!
We have a family AAA plan. I haven’t had to use AAA since I got rid of my POS Oldsmobile, but it’s nice for the discounts. So many random things give you AAA discounts. I once saved 50 bucks on a tourist attraction in Montreal (that tower of Mordor looking Olympic site) with AAA.