Negligent Operators

Tag: Motor Trend

  • HAL Up

    After receiving the September issue of Motor Trend a few weeks ago, I was, naturally, elated at the cover.  The New Cars edition is always fun.  We see confirmed technologies and designs to be coming up rather than uncertain concepts.

    But the FIRST FREAKIN’ ARTICLE is Angus Mackenzie’s “Driver Down,” a piece discussing the future of automobiles and autonomous technology.  What?!  Not the greatest start, guys.  I can’t go into looking at the new models with a preconditioned depression.

    Everyone knows about Google’s forays into autonomous Prius’s moving about Southern California.  According to Mackenzie, they’ve covered more than 140,000 miles so far.


    Big whoop.  My truck has too.

    The reality is, this is the way the automotive industry is moving.  It’s a comfort to have someone feel the same way I do.  Although, after asking several of my friends what they thought (none being “car people” in the slightest,) none of them found the thought appealing.  Who really hates driving? 

    Oh wait…..

    I live in the Midwest, where L.A.-like traffic jams are rarely seen.  So I’m probably not one to talk.

    Still.  Driving is a wonderful experience.  Being the person I am, I cannot imagine wasting precious gas with hands on a burger rather than the steering wheel.

    In the article, Mackenzie discusses government mandate as the driving force behind companies producing autonomous cars.  Whether American automakers would actually put up with that is debatable, and the issue smells too political for me to discuss it.  What I’m concerned about is the implementation of completely autonomous cars. 

    I’m fairly familiar with most of the technology involved, and I would not consider it reliable enough (at this point,) to justify letting the driver sleep through an automated road trip. And I have serious doubts as to the general public being comfortable with that anyway.

    I, for one, enjoy being in complete control.  My vehicle of choice is a 20-year-old Toyota pickup.  No traction control, automatic transmission, power windows, power locks, self-locking hubs, or even anti-lock brakes.  And I prefer it that way.  There’s nothing between me and the road but some mechanical linkages.  Of course, that means there’s no electronics to save my ass when I inevitably screw up. 

  • The Chrysler Youth-Powered Comeback

    All too often, I talk about the importance of a car manufacturer’s attitude toward its customers.  Well…when it’s said like that, it seems pretty obvious.

    In these discussions, I usually group car makers into one of two groups; those who put as little effort/money into their product and then try to get the maximum amount of profit from it, and those who put in as much effort/money into the quality of each product as they can afford.  It appears that the latter always incurs a better outcome for both the producer and the customer.

    The recent past has been absolute hell for our own domestic Detroit monkeys.  It was hopeless!  Their misunderstanding seemed never ending.

    Hopeless to everyone but Kaleb, that is.  He believes that “chicks dig Taurus’s.”

    Most of my information came from “Chrysler’s Comeback,” an article written by Angus Mackenzie in the February 2011 edition of Motor Trend Magazine.  As usual, top quality stuff.  You should check it out.

    I agree with Mackenzie in his opinion that it’s Chrysler’s new management carrying the bacon and bringing new hope.  Quotes like this one practically give me goosebumps;

    “If you take a Chrysler and make it fun to drive, with European handling and absolutely over-the-top quality, you easily get a Lancia.  Which is good news for the American consumer, by the way.”

    No kidding.

    That one comes from Oliver Francois, the CEO of both Chrysler and Lancia.

    Conveniently, he couldn’t have reinforced my opinions on “attitude” in a more direct way.  Mackenzie seems to attribute these changes to the new management’s relative youth compared with their predecessors.

    I think my sister’s 90s Dodge Grand Caravan stranding us both several times as a toddler has caused an evolutionary process to occur in my body, in which all Chrysler products immediately bring distaste.

    “Hot, yes.  But not a suitable mate.  I have a gut feeling that it may leave me to fend for myself against the highway predators in the near future.”

    Or, is it really just me?  “Dodge” is practically damning when used around most of my friends.  Is the media the root cause of that?  Well….that’s a discussion for another time.

    My point is that fresh people tend to bring fresh ideas, and it seems that Detroit’s favorite wimpy kid is bringing it to the bullies with some great ideas from middle-aged men.

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