This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that’s actually important — all in one place every weekday morning. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn’t your time more important?
As we recover from the auto show there’s not a lot of news today from the auto world, but there’s definitely news around here.
1st Gear: We’re Launching A Video Channel
There’s not a lot of post-auto show news and we’re all a little hungover, so today’s TMS is a special all-Jalopnik edition.
Great news! With Top Gear temporarily on hiatus we’ll be launching a new video channel dedicated to bringing Jalopnik’s best stories and worst ideas to life. You’ve seen a hint of this with the episode of Neat Stuff In Cool Cars above.
The current plan is to launch a whole host of new shows on YouTube starting this summer. Subscribe to our YouTube page and keep reading Jalopnik for more updates.
2nd Gear: We Have Some Promotions And Hires To Brag About
If you’ve noticed, since I took over as editor roughly three years ago we’ve expanded from a full-time staff of four to 11 full-time staffers and seven more regular contributors in four countries and three continents.
Where to start? Patrick George has been promoted to Associate Editor from Senior Writer. Tyler Rogoway has been brought on full-time to edit Foxtrot Alpha and Flight Club. Nicole Conlan will be our new Contributing Editor, Weekends, and Kat Callahan will move to Correspondent, Asia.
This actually happened in February, but Stef Schrader is now full-time editor of Black Flag. So, yeah, that happened.
3rd Gear: We’re Going To Offer More Car Buying Advice
In addition to Car Buying we’ve launched The Bests series of recommendations as well as our Buyer’s Guide section.
Look for more consumer buying advice that doesn’t suck as well as more product advice as it turns out from independent studies that many of you value Jalopnik as a source for this kind of information.
4th Gear: This Will Probably Be My Last TMS For A While
All of these new initiatives and the new investment from Gawker Media mean a lot more work beyond running the site day-to-day and I’m mostly just getting in the way of the staff when I jump into operations.
As such, I’m going to be stepping aside as Editor-in-Chief and step into the role of Executive Director of Jalopnik and its associated brands. This means that I’ll still be an editorial employee with a role in guiding the editorial mission of Jalopnik, but I’ll also be able to take a larger role in our growing enterprise.
I could not be prouder of the work this entire team has done.
According to Quantcast we finished March with about 8.4 million U.S. uniques and 41 million domestic impressions. By comparison, we did four million uniques and and 27 million impressions a year ago. That’s more than 100% year-over-year growth.
Not even Subaru is growing that fast.
More importantly, we did it by doing stories that I’m proud of, from important work on civil forfeiture and exclusive features about important figures to stories about Miatas and weird scoops.
We throw a damn film festival. About cars!
This isn’t goodbye so I’ll save all the big thank yous and whatever for when I’m eventually fired or get to live out my dream of being a TV weatherman. Travis will continue writing TMS (Ed: added in case I wasn’t clear).
5th Gear: And That Means Travis Okulski Is Editor-In-Chief
Tried as I did to convince Jeremy Clarkson to take over Jalopnik, he’s refusing to take my phone calls. As such, noted Miata/Meatloaf karaoke enthusiast Travis Okulski will be your new Editor-in-Chief.
None of the growth of the site would have been possible without his hard work, his great talent, and of course his insistence on setting up a Google Calendar.
I have full faith in his ability to expand Jalopnik and continue to make it a place that, above all else, is the most honest voice in the automotive world.
Reverse: Editor Tries In Vain To Post Picture Of Lexus
Roughly ten years ago a lone editor’s attempt to post photos of a Lexus hybrid failed because he didn’t bring more batteries.
Our digicam crapped out before we could get some shots of the newest Lexus hybrid to stun the automotive world: the 300hp, 450h luxury sedan. The world’s first hybrid luxury sedan, the 450h is also the first front-engined full hybrid vehicle with rear wheel drive and the performance of a V8, making it as much a breakthrough as was its dimunitive sibling, the Toyota Prius. The hybrid-drive system combines a 3.5-liter V6 engine with a high-output electric motor — delivering enough power to propell the sedan from zero to 60 in less than six seconds. If gas goes to $4 a gallon in the US, Toyota will rule the world. [Thanks to the mighty Japanese Car Fans for picking up the slack.]
Neutral: Any questions?
We’re around.
Photo: Getty Images Archive