Tesla’s Brand Value Nosedives, VW Dealers And Scout Rumble And BYD Is Dominating In This Week's News Roundup

One man is dead and two more were injured after a fire chief stopped to help a driver who hit a deer Sunday evening. Coweta County Fire Rescue battalion chief James Bartholomew Cauthen was driving near Stroud, Alabama when he saw a motorist who needed help. The two men then tried to go to a nearby property for help when the homeowner started shooting at them. Cauthen was killed in the ensuing gunfight the New York Times reports. - Collin Woodard Read More

If you own a modern Subaru, chances are you’ve heard of Starlink — the company’s connected services suite, which lets you control your car through an app or call roadside assistance to your location. That system, though, has other functionality that you might not know: Storing your car’s location history for the last year, and making that information available through an admin panel that until recently was left wide open for hackers. - Amber DaSilva Read More

Volkswagen announced plans to bring back the Scout name back in 2022, and late last year, we saw the first vehicles Scout plans to sell — the Traveler SUV and Terra pickup truck. We were big fans, the general public were big fans and VW dealers were mad because Scout plans to use a direct-to-consumer sales model, cutting them out of the deal completely. We initially thought Scout might cave to dealer pressure, but the electric startup has responded to the latest attempt to block DTC sales by telling dealers to pound sand, the Drive reports. - Collin Woodard Read More

Chinese mega-brand BYD shifted 4,272,145 automobile units in the 2024 calendar year. That accounted for a massive 41.3 percent increase from the 2023 calendar year, and shows that Build Your Dreams is actually (finally) building some pretty big dreams. That massive domestic and international growth is coming at the expense of traditional Western automakers like the Volkswagen Group. VW’s sales in China, which at one point accounted for half of the brand’s global profits, have halved since 2019 and it’s hard to be optimistic about any traditional automaker’s success in that market again. - Bradley Brownell Read More

We’ve all had the thought: You’re tired after all that grocery shopping, you don’t want to lug everything you bought up all those steps to your fridge in the cold. Can’t you just leave them in the car overnight, deal with them tomorrow? Well, according to WTVG out of Ohio, doing so may ruin your refrigerated foods, but frozen goods should be perfectly fine. - Amber DaSilva Read More

After years at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution, raising its reputation among consumers and boosting its profits in the process, Tesla is now on a downward spiral. The company saw its deliveries drop for the first time in a decade last year, profits are down and its brand value has now taken a $15 billion hit as a result of its aging lineup and Elon Musk’s move to the right. - Owen Bellwood Read More

Every day it seems Stellantis loses a little bit more of its grip on reality. Now, the struggling automaker says it wants its French luxury unit, DS, to rival the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Right now, it’s more of a BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz fighter, but these French loons have higher aspirations for the brand. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Heartwarming! This 101-year-old man still drives everywhere in his Chevy Silverado, because it’s his only way to access such luxuries as “groceries.” He’s clearly a fan of driving, but it’s also clear that his pickup is the only way he’s getting to H-E-B for food. Ed Davis of Texas isn’t a cute little tale — he’s a policy failure. - Amber DaSilva Read More

The Car Allowance Rebate System, known colloquially as Cash For Clunkers, was largely intended to stimulate the economy in a post-recession America, though the Obama administration billed it as a way to reduce automobile emissions and increase traffic safety by pushing consumers to trade their old gas-guzzlers for new cars. The CARS program offered $4,500 to Americans who would trade in their cars with a combined fuel economy number under 18 for a new car with a higher number than 28. The rebate was in extremely high demand. The incentive program was expected to last from July through November, but ran out of funds within a month of launching. - Bradley Brownell Read More

Toyota still makes a lot of models that are relatively affordable. Out of all the vehicles in its lineup, eight of them have starting prices (excluding destination charges) under $30,000. Much like nearly every automaker these days, Toyota doesn’t have any truly small cars to sell anymore, but that may change in the near future if Toyota’s dealers get their way. - Lawrence Hodge Read More