The leaves are turning, the weather is cooling off (finally) and one of America’s biggest and longest stikes has ended. Yes, Hot Union Summer is coming to a close. After 146 days, the Writers Guild of America reached a deal last night with the Hollywood studios, ending an entertainment industry shutdown that will have profound effects for years to come. Is the United Auto Workers’ strike due to end the same way soon?
We have some updates on the strike, including what the UAW’s Canadian counterparts got from Ford; some big electric news from Nissan; and speaking of electric vehicles, we’ve got an update on something you might want to know if you’re purchasing an EV soon. Let’s dig in.
$1.6 Billion From Two Very Different Strikes (So Far)
One number that sticks out to me today: $1.6 billion. According to the New York Times’ Dealbook newsletter, that’s the amount analysts anticipate Hollywood studios will lose in global ticket sales due to movie delays. But it takes time for these ripple effects to be felt, so that’s an estimated future loss in revenue behind TV and movies.
But the UAW strike has already cost $1.6 billion in its own way, according to Reuters. That’s in overall economic impact, primarily in the Midwest and other states where the auto industry has a tightly connected reach, and it’s after just one week, whereas the Hollywood strike has encompassed most of this year so far:
The first week of the strike was costly. Michigan economic consulting firm Anderson Economic Group LLC estimates total economic losses have totaled over $1.6 billion so far, largely concentrated in the handful of areas where strike actions or layoffs have already occurred.
The expanded strike will ricochet through the industry’s vast supplier networks.
It comes at a time when the U.S. job market has cooled but remains robust. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to an eight-month low last week. But a rebound in jobless claims is expected in coming weeks as the strike forces auto manufacturers and their suppliers to temporarily lay off workers.
Some producers are already doing it. Auto parts maker CIE Newcor, a subsidiary of Spain’s CIE Automotive, notified workers last week that it would temporarily lay off 300 workers at four Michigan plants, starting Oct. 2, due to the strike.
The supply base for the Detroit Three, as they’re called, reaches deep into the economy, especially in the upper Midwest, and touches everything from chemical and metal producers to electronics.
I’ll readily admit that comparing Hollywood to car production is apples to oranges, even if the striking workers in both cases have some technological parallels for what they’re ultimately fighting for—AI in entertainment and the impact of transitioning to EVs on auto worker jobs.
But if you want to understand just how impactful the American auto industry is, and why analysts worry about what a protracted strike will do to “the economy,” this helps drive the point home.
So what’s next for the UAW strike? In case you missed it, they announced Friday they’ll be striking on some General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution centers—but not any owned by Ford, because the union says it’s making progress with management in Dearborn.
The Wall Street Journal (including our old Jalopnik pal, Ryan Felton) predicts Ford will reach a deal with the UAW first, and that it will have its biggest challenge dealing with Stellantis, which is a weird international operator these days led by a Portuguese hard-line cost-cutter with less reason to give a shit about workers in the Midwest. The Wall Street Journal projects this impact on car supply at dealerships:
The factory disruptions could send the market back into a vehicle famine, but not right away. GM, Ford and Stellantis have rebuilt their depleted stocks more quickly than most other carmakers, even though their inventories remain well below historical norms.
The bigger problem will be in the service department. Cutting off the supply of parts from striking distribution centers will hit dealerships almost immediately, and send them scrambling to find backup options. In 2019, when all of GM’s U.S. operations were out on strike, dealers said they had to turn away service customers for a lack of parts.
For now, availability on the lots of the Detroit brands, such as Chevrolet, Cadillac, Ford, Jeep and Ram, should hold up for a while, unless more assembly plants go on strike.
What Ford’s Canadian Workers Got
I picked a photo of Ford’s Oakville Assembly plant up top for a reason. This weekend, Canadian’s auto industry labor union, Unifor, reached its own deal with Ford. This keeps Ford from having to deal with two North American strikes at the same time. And while Canada’s auto industry is smaller than America’s, any further disruptions are headaches they don’t need.
Here’s Al Root at Barron’s to explain the deal and the impact:
Ford Motor announced Sunday that Unifor, the union representing some of its Canadian employees, has ratified a three-year labor deal agreed to by negotiators on Sept. 19. The deal includes a C$10,000 signing bonus for full-time employees and wage increases of 15% a year over the life of the contract.
That works out to about 4.8% a year on average. It appears there are additional cost-of-living adjustments separate from the 15% figure. The news release includes a mention of “significant inflation protection.” Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request for clarification from Barron’s, but a cost-of-living adjustment plus the base wage increase could easily put the average annual increase in the 5% to 6% a range.
[…] The Unifor negotiations flew under the radar for most investors. The negotiations, on the surface, appeared less contentious. The American negotiations have included UAW President Shawn Fain literally trashing proposals from auto makers while the car companies strike back at what they have characterized as union-supplied misinformation.
The Canadian deal offers a little hope and might show that a U.S. deal isn’t all that far off. The 15% number with inflation protection is close to what auto makers are offering the U.S. workers. There is no guarantee, of course, that the UAW will settle for what a Canadian union will be getting. The UAW initially asked for wage increases of more than 40% with reduced working hours.
Fifteen percent isn’t bad. In America, the UAW wants 36% pay increases, the automakers have come back to offer around 20%, so I suspect they’ll meet somewhere in the middle. But Canada’s negotiation process ending this way may set the tone for what happens in the U.S.
Nissan To Go All-Electric In Europe By 2030
File this one to “Huh, okay.” Nissan, a car company that was an early pioneer in the EV space before completely dropping that ball [Editor’s Note: You could argue that it completely dropped the ball with how it designed its terrible air-cooled battery pack that degrades 50 percent in 10 years. -DT], and now sells just a handful of them worldwide, has pledged to go all-electric in Europe by 2030. From Reuters:
“There is no turning back now,” Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida said in a statement. “Nissan will make the switch to full electric by 2030 in Europe – we believe it is the right thing to do for our business, our customers and for the planet.”
The Japanese carmaker said that one of two new EV models it has already confirmed for Europe will be manufactured at its Sunderland plant in northern England.
Earlier this year, Nissan raised its targets for EV models as it plays catch up in a segment dominated by newcomers like Tesla (TSLA.O) – saying it would launch 19 new EV models by 2030.
I don’t know what all of those cars will be or where they’ll come from, but Reuters says Nissan is all-in on electrics and depending on partner Renault to make it happen. Renault is also expected to be all-EV by 2030, so this makes a little more sense that way.
Either way, I look forward to seeing the dead sprint Nissan will have to undertake to make this goal a reality.
Heads Up: EV Tax Credits Are Changing Next Year And It May Be Good For You But Weird For Dealers
If you are interested in electric car ownership, I think your pricing and options are only going to get better as time goes on. Case in point: starting Jan. 1, you will be able to activate the EV tax credit at the so-called point of sale—at the dealership, not as a tax credit you’ll be reimbursed for later. It took the federal government a minute to figure out how this will work logistically, since it’s the dealers being reimbursed, not you. Via Automotive News:
Starting in 2024, eligible EV buyers will be able to transfer federal tax credits to dealers and use those funds as a down payment. The credit transfer is allowed under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Section 30D credit for new EV purchases and Section 25E credit for used EVs, which provide consumers with up to $7,500 and $4,000, respectively, if certain requirements are met.
The U.S. Treasury Department said participating dealers will be able to register via an online IRS portal in the next few months. In January, those dealers will be able to submit EV sales information to the IRS and “promptly receive payments for transferred credits,” Lily Batchelder, assistant secretary for tax policy, told reporters this month.
It’s a nice boost for consumers, and the automakers need to bust their asses here to advertise the fact that it’s happening and how it works. As for the dealers, well, they’re uneasy about getting reimbursed quickly enough, which was a huge problem during Cash for Clunkers (remember that?):
While many of the finer details are still to come, several dealers told Automotive News they are concerned about how seamlessly the process will play out on their showroom floors and how soon they will be reimbursed by the government.
“History would tell us we have a lot to be nervous about,” said Tyler Slade, operating partner at Tim Dahle Nissan Southtowne in suburban Salt Lake City.
While applying the credit to a vehicle at the point of sale — or cash on the hood — is the “optimal situation,” it puts more burden on the dealerships, Slade said.
“You’re going to have plenty of dealers that aren’t going to be comfortable with that risk … waiting for the government to pay, much like Cash for Clunkers,” he said.
Ohio dealer Michelle Primm recalled waiting a month to receive a direct deposit from the government once a “Clunker” deal was approved. Others weren’t as lucky.
“There are horror stories out there that dealers didn’t get paid for six months,” said Primm, managing partner at Cascade Auto Group, which operates Audi, Mazda and Subaru dealerships in Cuyahoga Falls.
Anyway, keep an eye on this program starting next year. I also suspect a lot of these EVs will go down in price as domestic battery plants ramp up, scale improves and automakers get antsy to get them into customer hands.
Your Turn
I have my doubts about Nissan these days. I really do. I think the latest generation of cars it has out (Frontier, Pathfinder, new Z, although I’ve still seen approximately zero of those on roads) look really great. But in terms of tech and powertrains, they seem far behind most competitors. Do we have faith in Nissan to be able to navigate the future at all?
I DEMAND THAT ALL ALTIMAS BE SACRIFICED TO SATISFY THE BLOOD LUST OF THE MECHANICAL GODS, AND THEN NISSAN MAY, PERCHANCE, BE SPARED.
Surely Nissan just does a Tesla and has a whole 4 models, of which really only 2x exist in any quantity… and even then those 2 are basically the same car…
18 new models seems like overkill in the this new world of ‘a car is just an appliance’ Even trimming the range down to 6 models is heaps, and very achievable, especially when doing sharing with Renault and a bit of Mitsu in the heap.
Nissan can still make a really good cars if they want to, they just can’t do an entire lineup of them…
I think a number of dealers will be open to taking the chance at any issues with the reimbursement if it helps clear out EVs sitting on their lots quicker.
I can’t say for sure that Nissan is in trouble, but I can say that the circumstances look bad, and Nissan is acting like a company that’s circling the drain.
Nissan’s plan to go all-electric in the EU by 2030 (instead of 2035) smacks of desperation. They just don’t have many options. They want to rewrite their reputation, and they need to reinvent their powertrains.
Nissan can hardly navigate the present, let alone the future. Nissan beat everyone to the electric van market with the e-NV200 yet they refuse to sell them in the US even though there was significant demand and there still is significant demand, I’d buy several if they sold them in the US. The e-NV200 would also be a great basis for a light duty BEV pickup, in Norway there’s at least one outfit that converts them into pickups with dropside beds.
Nissan shouldn’t be trying to be technophilic like every other automaker making BEVs, make them work, make them cheap, and sell them.
Nissan, the Stellantis of Japan. They had interesting vehicles in the 90s much like Chrysler did at that point but today, they are just dinosaurs. They wanted to get as much profit they could while downgrading everything, including quality. Now they are getting back on track but the damage is done, they need to replace those CVTs with something else
Notice how Nissan stated “in Europe”.
They will just sell small EVs there with a couple of different chassis variants bolted on. It’s already just the Micra, Juke, Qashqai, Leaf pretty much that’s it.
There is no Pathfinder or Frontier or even a Navara in Europe anymore.
The largest vehicle they sell is the X-Trail or the Ariya.
Nissan’s big problems are going to be efficiency and a pivot to EVs. But lagging behind could work to their advantage. Their target demographic wants an affordable vehicle and/or an affordable payment. By being the laggards, they’ll also be positioned to keep selling cheaper vehicles.
And the Ariya feels more conventional than some of the other EVs, so they may well capture a good chunk of the EV buyers who aren’t looking for the high-tech choices.
I wouldn’t count them out just yet.
So let me get this straight…
The government is using everyone’s tax dollars even more blatantly by paying the down payment on cars, therefore allowing OEMs to charge more for cars than most people can afford if they aren’t clued into how it all works? It’s almost like double taxation because you are paying Peter AND Paul for the people who do need a car, and for those who don’t need a car, they are also paying one of them either way. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, even though there are “supposedly” no emissions (just like when I Dutch Oven in my sleep “supposedly”) this whole government-backed EV push stinks to high heaven.
I agree. Let’s stop picking winners and losers. We can start with the federal fuel tax, which hasn’t increased in 30 years. We can then index it to inflation, since the tax has effectively halved itself over the course of time. Then we can start taxing carbon emissions too.
The government is blatantly using our tax dollars to pay for infrastructure developments that should have been funded by taxes on consumption of that resource, robbing Peter (the poor) to pay Paul (rich, high road-use consumers). That doesn’t seem fair to me. This government-backed oil push stinks to high heaven.
I agree to an extent about oil. More to the point though is that fossil fuel is a mature and established system. It is very difficult to squeeze more blood out of that stone. So, a nascent technology is now the flavor of the decade in order to create a whole new marketplace in addition to FF. Except this go around it’s being funded by and “for” many people who never asked for it and will see limited benefits from the push. Those making this “new” money are just adding an additional bank account to the ledger from an industry they created out of thin air and aggressive government policy that surely won’t stick as it’s written today.
None of this is being done for the greater good of the environment or the people. It’s a money move and that’s what stinks.
I’m curious how you can confidently state that “[n]one of this is being done for the greater good of the environment.” I don’t fully agree with the execution here, but claiming that transitioning from ICE to BEV doesn’t benefit the environment is … interesting.
[redacted]
omg now I really want to know!
He called me a contrarian and then something something of a passive insult, which I found funny. I wish he woulda have left it up. lol
I didn’t say it wasn’t a benefit, I just believe that it’s not the reason why it’s happening. I’m not anti-EV in any way, they just aren’t practical yet as a use-case for the majority of end users.
Oh, ok. You’re speaking to the motivations behind the actions, not the outcome of those actions. I misunderstood.
While it’s true on paper and should be true in reality, what we seem to be getting with future plans only getting worse is electrics designed to be forced into obsolescence with structurally integrated batteries, gigacasting BS, and insane CANbus systems that brick a car over a failed tail light (as already high labor prices for mechanics—not that they see that money you’re charged—is bound to go up as the industry bleeds techs it can’t replace), so that they will be uneconomical to repair be it by collision, premature failure, or undiagnosable gremlins sooner than the ICE cars they’re replacing. We’re not getting something like a transistor radios that last decades, we’re getting something more like an iphone that gets forced into obsolescence by mandated software updates even if the unsupported hardware might still be fine. It won’t be long before that same software nonsense happens to cars as that’s how they seem to be pushing it. Oh, you’re car isn’t supported anymore. Why did it coincidentally stop operating as well just as we stopped supporting it and the new model came out? Beats us! Just coincidence, we swear!
It doesn’t, it’s still bad – compared, for example, to completely rethinking transportation needs and policy– just less bad.
Less bad is better.
Economic policy is perhaps more open to interpretation, but there is hard data on emissions as easy to access as this website. EV emissions will reduce over time as renewable generation comes on line. This is still true when you consider battery impacts which have a higher initial emissions penalty, but easily pay off over the lifetime of the vehicle.
Here’s a good starting point: https://publications.anl.gov/anlpubs/2022/07/176270.pdf
Ya kinda missed my point and concentrated on the punny (not necessarily funny) part.
I am all for EVs in many applications. I am of the camp that they are pushing it all too quickly, though. It seems to me that a lot of people are making a lot of money on false promises and unrealistic mandates in the meantime pushing the hustle. For such a small piece of the carbon pie, there sure is a lot of money changing hands in its honor.
I’ll eat my words if it happens, but I can’t imagine there will be even 50% EVs on the road in the next 20 years.
I respectfully disagree with “pushing it too quickly” when climate change is already impacting us. We’re out of time. You don’t have to buy an EV, nobody is going to make you. The government is subsidizing EVs so their costs come down sooner and their technology improves faster.
Transportation is MASSIVE slice of the carbon pie. Like 29% of the US’ annual GHG emissions. Yes, passenger cars are 58% of the 29%, so ~16% of total US GHG emissions is a more fair number.
source: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Yeah, that’s cool to disagree. No worries. I will respond to two things, though:
But as the EPA states if you allocate electricity generation to its actual uses Industrial is 30% and Commercial/Residential is also 30%, so really transportation isn’t #1.
Since the US is the highest per capita polluter in the world, a one or two day Purge would be more effective and then we can continue with ICE cars and not have to destroy the planet building EVs. Overpopulation is the worlds real problem. There will probably be 1 billion more people by the 2035 goals, green efforts will eventually not be able to keep up with the pollution added for increased people. But no one wants to talk about the ROOT of the problem.
I’m of the camp that the things aren’t being pushed quickly enough.
The government has long incentivized economic changes, and technology development. This is always done through incentives and credits (carrot) or taxes (stick). This is not new. Will those working in the new technology make more money? Yes, that’s the point of a Capitalist market. Money drives development. People who want to make more money shift to the incentivized area.
Are EVs the most important area? No, there should be massive carbon emission taxes across the board.
And it can’t happen fast enough. Anyone saying that carbon emission reduction is happening too fast is suffering from some serious environmental head-in-the-sand BS.
I would like for my kids to have a livable planet.
I suspect that Nissan will continue to soldier on into the future like an Altima on the highway with a trash bag for a window, donut spare on the front passenger side, 6 bumper stickers holding together the rear bumper cover, and temporary tags that expired 7 years ago.
Their current demographic of customers will still need electric cars when the laws demanding such kick in, so as long as Nissan stays in their lane (drivers of Altimas don’t know how to stay in 1 lane) they should still be fine.
The only thing Nissan is focused on is their advertising. Ads are full of go fast, do cool things, high tech features, and often explosions. Sure ads in general are designed to make you think its the best latest greatest product in the world, but the Nissans are the furthest from the truth.
*fixed it for you
You say that like it’s a bad thing!
Disagree, the Altima is often the fastest car on the road.
They’re advertising the wrong features of a car. No one is buying a Nissan EV for speed or handling prowess, but that’s how they are marketing their Ariya (or however they spell it). People in the crossover segment don’t care about that sort of stuff, if they did, they’d be looking elsewhere. Talk about practicality, affordability, environmental benefits, things that the average crossover buyer is a helluva lot more interested in than driving dynamics.
I’m not talking shit about crossover buyers here, I’m just saying that the things that matter to them aren’t the things Nissan is talking up in their current EV ads.
That’s why Subaru will clean up once they can convince Toyota to actually make some compelling EV’s. New England and the Pacific Northwest are all in for making things greener. It’ll be an easy reach for Subaru who already has that reputation.
Nissan? They’re not going to do well. Too little too late.
*sigh* I got 2% this year. A literal slap in the face from a global multi-billion dollar fortune 500 company.
I’m in a situation where we went a year without raises and without our annual bonus, and we’re slated to get both back. Waiting to see if it’s a better raise to make up for the skipped year, normal, or worse (because the market conditions are still allegedly uncertain after we outperformed predictions in the “rough” year). I was also supposed to go up for promotion this past year, but that had to be skipped, so I’m holding out a bit of hope for that.
But, hey, we’ve been able to offer stock dividends. I don’t have enough stock for it to make much difference, but someone profited off everything.
Big, profitable companies do what they do. I hope you do better next year or get a better offer in the meantime.
Get the fuck outta there.
What does an android need money for anyways? Starfleet provides free lodging and uniforms.
I didn’t even get a cost of living increase this year. I work at an ad agency and they’re becoming less relevant in the digital age as our clients take work in house. Apparently my work from home is now considered part of my compensation? I’ve been there over seven years and they’ve laid off so many people this year, but somehow I can’t get a raise despite the fact I have skills that literally no one else at the whole agency has.
They’re in for a rude awakening, this week or next week I should be getting a job offer that will pay wayyyy more than I could ever hope to make at the agency, not even if I worked there 10 more years. Right at a time they’ve just overloaded me with work from other departments that are short staffed from their layoffs. It’s gonna feel so good to put in my two weeks and watch them struggle.
so, is the two weeks to avoid burning bridges? Because I’d probably tell them “end of the week” and then spend the next few days handing everything off. Two weeks is polite, but these folks aren’t being polite to you.
Mostly, yeah. There’s a few people in my department who I like enough to not totally fuck over. We aren’t friends or anything, but they did advocate for me getting a raise earlier this year–it’s the CEO who wouldn’t approve it. But who knows, in the past some folks have been pushed out quickly after putting in a two weeks notice.
I’ve heard/seen all sorts of petty retaliatory bullshit happening. Hope everything goes well for you.
Last time that happened (I asked for 18% to bring me in line with the market) and they gave me 8% (still significantly under market) I took my skills to market and got another job. When they asked if it was about money, I said YES and then told them their chance for a counter-offer had come and gone. So, now I’ve got a new job at market and a $10k/year raise with that adjustment.
I just don’t know about Nissan either. They got Ghosn’d beyond all recognition and squandered their lead on EVs. It’s hard to overstate just how badly they were mismanaged in the 2010s. Pretty much every step they took was the wrong one…between the mass adoption of CVTs, letting Infiniti die on the vine after making it competitive, the weird pet projects like the Murano CrossCabriolet (although we do love it for how bizarre it is), etc.
The powertrain issue that you mention is a big one as well. They’re still putting goddamn VQs in new cars in 2023. That engine family is 30 years old at this point and they’re incredibly inefficient by modern standards. I get the “no replacement for displacement” argument but some of the ancient V6s that are still kicking around these days have a lot of disadvantages.
They’re also paired with transmissions straight out of the early 2000s that don’t help either. I really don’t know why Japanese manufacturers refuse to make a competent automatic. Just swallow your pride and call ZF up already. I know that this is a site full of die hard manual lovers who refuse to consider any auto valid but it’s hard to overstate how much better a legitimate automatic is compared to traditional slushers. I don’t think folks would hate them as much if they spent some time with a ZF8 or DCT.
Nissan has done some good recent work when it comes to design and marketing, but there’s just no getting around how old all of their offerings are. Most of their cars are riding on 20+ year old architecture with 20+ year old powertrains. If you’re Toyota or Honda you can get away with that because of familiarity, brand loyalty, and reliability…but unfortunately Nissan can’t. It’s hard to look at anything they offer and recommend it over a product from either of those companies or even Subaru. Hell I even think the Koreans are way ahead of them right now.
It’s also going to be hard for them to shake the negative stigma around their products, and they have no one to blame but themselves. The primary demographic they sell to are subprime borrowers and the unfortunate reality of that is that those folks ride cars harder. Big Altima Energy is a thing for a reason. Of course I’m not implying that folks with bad credit don’t deserve cars, they definitely do. But when Nissan hands them the keys to brand new vehicles they can’t actually afford no questions asked these are the results they’re going to get.
The mass CVT adoption disaster got them a lot of bad press as well. I don’t think Nissan will ever be relevant for enthusiasts again to be honest. They’re just too far behind at this point. But I’m sure they’ll be relevant in the appliance game for as long as they can shit them out because they’re cheap and available.
Basically I don’t ever see the brand returning to their former glory. I think they’re too far gone at this point and the quality of their products/reputation puts a pretty hard ceiling on things. But they have a niche of buyers that’ll keep them afloat. Unfortunately they’re probably going to have to kill off Infiniti and the Z in the next few years and continue to downsize their lineup.
Was going to counter your VQ age argument with the Toyota GR series engine, but then I looked. VQ came out in 94, GR was 02, so while it’s also ancient but still manages to be impressive, the VQ is almost a whole decade older so definitely not a fair comparison. I don’t even pay attention to Nissan these days because they just are not relevant in anything and there’s no way I would own one, mostly due to the CVTs, and the lack of anything interesting. The Z is nice, but way too heavy, and that’s about it.
The Z is also about as old as the VQ underneath. I think it’s a great looking car but that’s about it. I’m not sure why you’d choose it over an equivalent Supra or even the S650 Mustang GT unless you’re a Nissan/Z diehard. The Supra is sharper in pretty much every way and now that it’s available in stick the one advantage the Z had is gone.
The S650 GT has way more power and character plus way more room. I’m not sure what advantage over it the Z has other than fuel economy or looks (which are subjective anyway). A base GT is only a couple grand more than a base Z as well, and S650s in my area are already being listed for under sticker.
There’s also the BMW 2 Series. A barebones RWD 230i with the M handling goodies is a very compelling package that enthusiasts are sleeping on…and the M240i is way faster than a Z with more room and way better fuel economy. I guess neither matter if you’re a manual diehard but I’d take either over a current Z personally…and I love Zs.
Agreed. I was excited for the Z until I saw actual pics of it and realized the door and windshield were the same as what was on the freaking 350, so it’s a very thorough refresh but still a refresh of a car that came out in like 2006. Hell, the concept was on Gran Turismo 3, circa 2003.
The Supra is better than the Z, and with markups, they are selling for roughly the same amount. The Z should be cheaper, or at least similarly priced to the 4 cylinder Supra, but yeah real world that’s not the case. In that space I would go 2 series, or even Z4 over the Z. Not a fan of the mustang, but it is also definitely a better car than the Z.
It’s worse than you think. The 350Z was a huge deal when it came out while I was in high school. I’ll be 40 next year.
Looks like it was 2002 that production started. Goodness.
The first 350Z was sold in the US a week before the last *4th* generation Camaro was built in August 2002.
The Chevy Express was a mere spring chicken at only 6 years old.
Wow now that puts it in perspective. Damn. I had a late production 2002 Trans Am, to think that was in production at the same time as the 350, which is basically still the new car in a different suit, that’s crazy.
Good Ol’ Nissan. Up ’til 2003 I could get a pickup on the same basic platform and architecture as a 1968 model.
Hahaha you old shite.
*checks notes*
It turns out that I will also be 40 next year and would like to retract my statement.
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it
The fact that people are paying over sticker for the new Z is utterly insane to me….but JDM bros are a different breed. They can’t be reasoned with, and it would be funny if they weren’t harming the entire car community with their irresponsible behavior. CTRs and GRCs wouldn’t be selling at thousands over sticker if these doofuses weren’t tripping over each other to buy them.
I mean I love JDM stuff, I have owned 2 JDM cars that I had imported direct from Japan, but I am not about to spend $70k on a Corolla or anything like that. But saying that, people have been paying $10k over sticker for freaking Tellurides so I wouldn’t say it’s just the JDM fan boys that are harming the community, low supply mixed with too much demand screwed everything on that front.
You’re not wrong, but markups are more or less disappearing across the board these days. While ludicrous interest rates still make it a pretty bad time to buy, most stuff is selling for sticker or slightly less right now. If you can afford to buy with cash it’s not a bad time to be looking.
That’s not the case for desirable JDM products. Zs, CTRs, and GRCs are all still selling for over sticker. In my area CTRs are currently going for $7-10,000 over asking, and Acura dealers have caught on and are trying to sell the Integra Type S at a markup as well. GRCs have cooled off slightly but whenever I click around on cars dot com looking for them they’re still going for $3-5,000 over asking at best, and don’t get me started an manual Toyobarus. I frequently see them marked up into the mid 40s.
I really do think the JDM passionate folks are a disproportionate part of the problem right now. And I don’t say this because I dislike Japanese cars. Quite the opposite actually…my wife drives a Honda and I worship at the altar of Miata. But Japanese cars are the ones that seem to have the most markups, and if people would stop willingly paying over asking for them the issue would take care of itself.
It’s also an issue with the manufacturers as well though. Honda and Toyota encourage this behavior with their stupid allocation systems and the artificial scarcity of their desirable products. Either company has the capacity to make more of these desirable cars but they choose not to. That plays a part as well for sure.
Honda gave up and started working with ZF
Did they? Praise the lawd. Put a decent auto in the Integra Type S or CTR and I’ll buy one tomorrow, resale values and enthusiast cred be damned.
The TLX, last gen Accord 2.0T, and all the V6 SUV’s get a ZF 9 speed now.
They seem to still be resisting on the cars with the smaller engines.
Dunno why they don’t just use some bulletproof 6 speed automatic for their cars for credit challenged folks. The CVT is so bad that some people who don’t know anything about cars have heard of it.
Re: the VQ – I know you may be speaking more of sports applications there like the Z. But the Pathfinder and QX60 seem to be old dogs taught new tricks. They have ZF 9-speeds now, and the mileage is on par or better than many others in the segment comparing nonhybrids and all – even those with newer V6s or CVTs or turbo 4s and all that. Maybe not great in the grand scheme, but that’s just true of the segment. A Pathfinder is 20/25 for a 4WD example with the big wheels, right between a 2.4T Grand Highlander and Ascent.
Maybe the variable compression turbo 2.0L was an experiment to see if it’s something that could replace the V6, but it doesn’t seem to have caught on any and with the electric push I think they’re satisfied with what they’re working with. The Rogue needed a change more than most things with the VQ and the 1.5T 3-pot in the Rogue has been well-received from what I’v seen, so guess they can still do good when they try.
I think this is a case of worrying about what enthusiasts value over what normal car buyers value. If Nissan provides spacious vehicles with reasonable reliability, inoffensive styling, and a low cost (bonus points if easy financing as well), they will be fine.
Mrs Muppet loves her 2016 Suzuki Swift Sport. It’s engine make no more power than a Honda 1.6 from the eighties.
Normal people don’t care about the bits they can’t see.
Yep. I think most enthusiast subcultures really misunderstand the size of their community and underestimate how many people simply do not care about their hobby.
There are tons of people who, at best, do not care about cars. There are probably just as many people who actively dislike driving. Cars will always be an appliance to them, and that’s fine. I don’t care about my dishwasher at long as it fits my baking sheets and it isn’t overly expensive. People who feel that way about cars can find their way to the Nissan dealership.
My SO drove an Altima for about 20 years, and she was disappointed to learn her Nalgene bottle would not fit in the cupholders of the newer cars she looked at. She bought a Venza because her dad was retiring from the Toyota dealership and she liked the red color and didn’t want something as tall as a RAV4.
She also seems to have no eye for relative size. My Niro and a Sorento look the same to her. I’m nearly convinced I could replace it with virtually any vehicle in the same color with a hatch and she wouldn’t notice for some time.
And I have coworkers who like cars that don’t even know whether they are driving a CVT, DCT, or a manual (okay, I kid with the last one, but they really don’t notice CVTs are different from traditional automatics, despite having driven both a lot).
Your usual vehicle buyer will buy what they think works for them and fits their budget.
To be fair, the automakers have gone to great lengths to make CVTs behave like traditional automatics. Which is stupid since it defeats the purpose of a CVT, but If you’re in a CVT with simulated shift points it is probably hard to tell the difference.
That is true, but it still feels weird to have people who claim to be into cars not even realize. I even had a guy at a dealership (not a Subaru dealership) tell me the Outback didn’t have a CVT. I’m pretty sure he just assumed paddle shifters wouldn’t pair with a CVT.
But if the people somewhat into cars don’t notice, the typical buyer absolutely won’t (and would probably like a smooth CVT with no fake shifts, anyway).
Also, the Nissan hate strikes me as a bit weird, especially coming from this corner of the internet:
People online: “Make more cheap, decontented cars that normal people can afford”
Nissan: “OK” [does so]
PO: “NOT LIKE THAT!!!”
It’s really just the CVTs, isn’t it. They should rebrand it as “Super Efficient Transmission” or something.
If Nissan got out of the CVT market, and back in to some normal automatics, even if they offered both and one could choose, I think their reputation would be set to rebound quite a bit. The CVTs are just massively failure prone, and I say that from a place where I can see how often they fail compared to others in the market, and how much they cost to replace.
It is the CVT’s. My mother in law had a Rogue. The transmission was terrible.
My brother rocked a 94ish Altima with a 5 speed and it was a fun little car. The rust just kept making it lighter, thus faster.
My issue isn’t that the CVT is particularly miserable to drive (it isn’t, really). Nissan’s main sin was putting a maintenance-hungry, failure-prone transmission into vehicles primarily sold to people who will not do the preventative maintenance and cannot afford a failed transmission. The CVT in my Nissan works the same at 160k miles as it did at 60k miles, but your average Nissan owner isn’t changing both internal filters and replacing the fluid with Amsoil every 30k miles.
I do agree completely that the Nissan hate is completely overblown. Among the Japanese brands, their design language is second only to Mazda. Their platforms and engines are old, but no one apart from the internet commentariat actually cares in practice. They’ve kept producing affordable cars. They’re keeping the Z alive through at least 2030.
Mazda’s gone upmarket. Subaru, Kia, and Hyundai have a well-proven inability to design a functional engine. Volkswagen doesn’t seem particularly interested in making usable cars. Stellantis is Stellantis. Ford and GM don’t make cars. If you’re going to be upset at Nissan, you might as well be upset at the entire automotive industry, at which point I’m sure there are some half-decent clouds in your area to yell at.
but they’re not doing ok. They’re on a 5 year Y/Y decrease in sales streak and sold almost half as many cars in 2022 than 2017
They may very well be in trouble, but I’m willing to get a little farther from covid years before shoveling dirt on the grave.
Honda is down pretty significantly as well, and sold 880K in 2022 vs almost 1.5M in 2017, so it’s more than a “Nissan sucks” problem.
right, a rogue has comfortable seats and the right cubbies and good ergo and looks completely anonymous and is a hit for nissan. Normies gonna normie.
I see plenty of Rogues on the street that prove your point.
I sincerely feel badly for workers at companies affected by the trickle down effects from the UAW strike. Those people don’t have the benefit of supplemental income payments from a large union war chest during the strike; they never asked for this.
Badly is an adverb.
I also feel bad for the affected people who will never see any benefit.
Thanks? I know that it’s grammatically incorrect, but it’s more of a colloquialism or turn of phrase, and intended as such in this case. But you get the idea.
Sorry, I’m English, so a lot of American English sounds weird to me. Also I’m a dick.
‘Murican English only English! Just kidding, I thought the same, but was definitely not going to take the time to correct it, but as they said, it is very commonly said over here, regardless of how incorrect it is.
Is feel a thing or an action?
I attempt to be trilingual English speaker, it was all very confusing once, now I just try to understand the intent of the author.
Feel is an action, feelings are things. I was raised speaking English, and it’s still confusing.
pedandick
That is me in one word!
Excellent work!
It’s going to save so much space on my LinkedIn profile.
I just want to point out that this is a super weird cul-de-sac of English grammar and it violates the usual rule of thumb that verbs should be modified with adverbs. Apparently “feel” is a special category of verb where that does not apply.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/do-you-feel-bad-or-feel-badly
Also, there are cases where an adverb is the appropriate modifier for “feel”, so it’s just f…eeling confusing. 😉
Anyway, just wanted to mention this because it is really tricky and honestly I doubt you can expect everyone to get it right in the course of casual conversation. Hence why M-W even says
I feel both indifferent and indifferently.
Schrödinger’s adverb?
I do too. And many of those Tier 2, 3, etc. companies are smaller. They don’t have the resources to pay idled workers even if they wanted to. I’m still rooting for the union, but I hope this is over before it massively shits on the general populace.