Here Are Last Week's Best Car Culture Posts

A Nebraska woman exploited a glitch in gas pump software that allowed her to get nearly $30,000 worth of free gas… until the owners figured out what she was doing. Now, the 45-year-old is in a whole lot of trouble. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

When Elon Musk launched the Tesla Cybertruck, a brutalist stainless steel monstrosity doubling as an electric pickup truck, there were plenty of signs that things were not, um, going well. First and foremost were its ridiculous looks, but then came the claims that this truck would be a bulletproof off-roading legend designed for the end times — claims that were quickly debunked when lead designer Franz Von Holzhausen hurled a steel ball at the window and shattered it. Perhaps that should have been our cue to relegate this low-poly truck to the realm of “concept” and not “reality.” - Elizabeth Blackstock Read More

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, March 13, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Owen Bellwood Read More

Buying a used EV or hybrid can be risky since there is no way to truly know the health and potential remaining longevity of these cars’ integral batteries. Or, at least that was the case until recently. A new product called vsNEW is currently aimed at dealers, but the team is considering making it publicly available, too. It’s a dongle that plugs into most OBD scanner ports, reads the car’s battery health, and sends its findings in a report to your email within a matter of minutes. Sounds brilliant, but does it work? To find out, I headed out to scenic Malibu to host a test day for local Jalopnik readers who drive EVs, hybrids or PHEVs to have their battery health tested. - Logan Carter Read More

Ah Detroit. My hometown is often the scene of automotive shenanigans and hi-jinx, to the point where even Detroit Police Department officers are rolling their eyes at car crimes happening right in front of them. - Erin Marquis Read More

The Chicken Tax has been around since 1963, pushing a crushing 25 percent tariff on imports of potato starch, brandy, dextrose, and light trucks and vans. I don’t know much about potato starch, brandy, or dextrose, but the light trucks and vans part of the law was intended as a middle finger to Germany’s Volkswagen. The vans and commercial trucks sold by VW at the time were going gangbusters, eating into the profits of American automakers, who simply couldn’t build a van that could compete with the iconic aircooled Type 2 Transporter. The law was little more than a ploy by Lyndon B. Johnson to win reelection with the United Auto Workers vote. It has outlived its welcome. - Bradley Brownell Read More

Mercedes-Benz conducted a crash test that goes beyond merely recording what happens to a car in a collision from a few exterior and interior angles, and has recorded through the car’s sheet metal and components with an X-ray machine. The test is the first of its kind, according to the Deutsch automaker, which was able to conduct the X-ray crash test with the help of the Fraunhofer-Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, or Ernst Mach Institute (EMI), in Freiburg, Germany. - José Rodríguez Jr. Read More

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, March 12, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

The ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ judge has fond memories of his first car, a 1986 Ford Taurus.

We’ve talked at length about how larger cars are making American roads deadlier each year. Sure, they’re safe for their occupants, but what about the rest of the population that’s outside your Tahoe? Well, the data shows that they’re sacrifices at the altar of Big Vehicle. But why, exactly, do size and fatalities correlate? - Steve DaSilva Read More