On today’s show… Consumer Reports says, “Don’t buy a Model 3”… some Chinese cities are practically forcing car buyers to get an EV… and Bosch develops a system to prevent motorcycles from wiping out. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.
CONSUMER REPORTS SAYS, “NOPE, WE DON’T LIKE IT”
Consumer Reports will not recommend that anyone buy Tesla’s Model 3. It came to that conclusion after its Model 3 test vehicle took 152-feet to come to a stop from 60 miles-per-hour. That’s not very good. To put that in perspective, that’s 7-feet more than it takes for an F-150 to stop from the same speed. Other media outlets have also complained about the Model 3’s poor stopping distance. But Tesla never reacted to them. Obviously it really cares what Consumer Reports has to say because Tesla was quick to address the issue. It says the braking distance can be improved with new hardware that it will roll out in a couple of days.
CHINA PUSHES BUYERS INTO EVs
Sales of electric cars are soaring in China and now we know one of the reasons why. In major cities in China it’s almost impossible to get a license plate for a new car with a gasoline engine. Bloomberg reports that one Beijing resident waited two years to get a license plate, then threw in the towel and bought an electric car instead. He got a BYD Qin 300, which costs $37,000. Beijing, a city of 21 million people, has a lottery two times a year where residents can compete for 40,000 license plates, so they are very hard to get. You can buy one at an auction, but those plates cost over $12,000. However, if you buy an electric car the plate is for free and you can get it a lot faster.
CHINA REDUCES IMPORT TARIFFS
China is going to reduce its import tariffs on cars. It was at 25% but is going down to 15%. That’s still pretty high. Import tariffs for cars going into the European Union are 10%. In the U.S., import duties on passenger cars are 2.5% and 25% for trucks. China is also going to reduce the import tariff on car parts from 15% down to 6%. This will help foreign automakers and suppliers importing products to China, but it’s only a modest step forward.
Still to come, a new kind of surround view system for entry level cars.
LOW-COST SURROUND-VIEW FROM MAGNA
360-degree surround-view camera angles are especially helpful for parking big SUVs and pickup trucks and soon they’ll be even more useful. Most current systems just show the vehicle from a bird’s eye point-of-view, but the giant supplier Magna and semiconductor maker Renesas have a new 3D surround view. In parking and low speed maneuvers, it allows drivers to toggle between a number of different camera angles. This is a low-cost solution that is meant for entry-level to mid-range vehicles and the two companies say a European automaker will be the first to adopt it.
YES WE NEED THESE STINKIN’ BADGES
Did you know there were three different Dodge Viper badges? And did you know each badge has its own nickname? The badge from 1992 to 2002 is called “Sneaky Pete,” the one from 2003 to 2010 is “Fangs” and the final badge from 2013 to 2017 is called “Stryker.” That’s Stryker with a “y,” just like some convertible Spyders are spelled with a “y.” And if you’re a giant Viper fan, the 2nd ever Viper-only Concours will be held next year, May 3rd – 5th at the historic Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
AERODYNAMIC TRUCK WHEELS
We’re no strangers to aerodynamic wheels on this channel and here’s something that caught our eye at the Great Designs in Steel Seminars last week. It’s a steel insert that goes into an already existing wheel for large commercial vehicles to improve aerodynamics. The company that developed the wheel, Maxion Wheels says it still needs to test the setup to see how it works and it could be several years before we see it on trucks. But you saw it here first.
Coming up next, Bosch developed a way to prevent motorcycles from wiping out.
BOSCH STOPS MOTORCYCLES FROM WIPING OUT
Advanced safety systems are common for cars, trucks and SUVs and now the supplier Bosch is working to bring the same technologies into motorcycles. It’s adding radar for bikes that allows for automatic cruise control, blind spot recognition, and collision warning where the rider gets an audio or visual signal if another vehicle is dangerously close. Bosch has also developed a solution that greatly reduces the risk of wiping out. If a sensor detects sideways wheel slip, a gas is vented through a nozzle that provides a lateral force to help keep the motorcycle upright and on course. Bosch says it’s like a magic hand that helps keep the bike upright and interestingly enough, the gas accumulator they use is plucked from passenger car airbags. And that should help keep down the cost.
And that brings us to the end of today’s report. Thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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Comments (22)
May 22nd, 2018 at 12:24 pm
John,
Should Tesla investors be concerned without a recommendation from CR? After your program with Sandy Monroe and his team’s breakdown of a Tesla, I thought that might curb the enthusiasm of buyers but apparently not so much.
May 22nd, 2018 at 12:24 pm
Musk actually said that a firmware update will be issued, not a hardware update.
May 22nd, 2018 at 12:25 pm
The Bosch system is certainly an interesting concept and may work while cruising through a parking lot or turning a corner but I have doubts about its effectiveness at actual riding speed.
May 22nd, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Tesla buyers don’t care about some things, but I suspect most of them would not want bad brakes. Actually, I’m surprised the 3 has that problem.
May 22nd, 2018 at 12:52 pm
CR also said Tesla’s “center-screen only” approach to key vehicle controls was dangerous, and I fully agree. I can just see some Tesla fanboy smoking one of these dual motor pocket rockets in a rainstorm,then trying to fiddle with his screen to turn on the wipers. Safe travels, fanboy!
May 22nd, 2018 at 12:58 pm
I do not see a compelling reason to buy a Tesla Model 3 over a Chevrolet Bolt. Consumers reports let tesla off the hook by not mentioning even more troubling issues like the reliability issues Edmunds has been dealing with.
Anything the Tesla model 3 does, the bolt does the same or better. And it can be purchased for $35,000 any day of the week unlike a Tesla Model 3.
May 22nd, 2018 at 1:39 pm
One thing Tesla has done is strike fear into the auto establishment. Owners tend to love them. Why is no one complaining about the kidde kar Ford Ecosport on US highways? Is panel fit more important that selling a car which cannot compete on US highways? The Ecosport’s native India is not LA to Vegas on I 15.
May 22nd, 2018 at 1:39 pm
If CR doesn’t like the Tesla 3 Touch screen, I wonder about their acceptance of the touch screens in the latest Volvo vehicles and Ram pickup. I recognize Volvo and Ram don’t put all controls in their touch screens, but a fair number of previously hard controls were displaced by such large screens.
May 22nd, 2018 at 1:44 pm
Victor, the US market Ecosport is a 2nd generation product, engineered to meet US customer and regulatory requirements. If Ford was going to dump a half-baked Ecosport on the US market, they would have done it 4-5 years ago.
May 22nd, 2018 at 2:00 pm
@Lambo – Good point. I wonder what is the top speed at which this device is still effective? It doesn’t say in the press release, but my sense from the video is that it may be about 25MPH. Maybe 2 gas accumulators per side would be better? But for some reason I can picture some yahoo twisting the nozzles to see if it has a “turbo” effect.
May 22nd, 2018 at 2:01 pm
I still say if the tiny Ford is on the I 15 LA to Vegas, watch out. They drive that road like bats out of Hades. Read the review in the latest Car & Driver. An urban car it might be, but cross country it isn’t.
May 22nd, 2018 at 3:30 pm
With so much riding on the Model 3, Tesla should have known that the car wasn’t fully ready for release despite huge quality and basic-engineering problems with the car. Enter the usual “kiss of death,” *Consumer Reports,* and the car gets hammered. In addition, the reverse-engineered, complete tear-down of the Model 3 by Munro and Associates — obviously an objective approach to discover any problems with the car — revealed embarrassing issues with panel-fit-and-finish quality and safety engineering, but brought praise for the Model 3′s good acceleration and handling. Add to this the inability to introduce the $35K version (you could buy one, but perhaps you wouldn’t want one), and the impression is one of dire problems at the Tesla operation.
May 22nd, 2018 at 4:32 pm
#9 Sean after watching the video a few times I just don’t see the Bosch system ever being practical. You would need the training wheels like they have in their video due to the sudden shift in balance. In the video you can see the rear tire start to slip and when the thrust of air goes off the bike is pushed down or in the case of this video it would have pushed him over in the direction he was leaning. To make matters worse you have a bounce effect afterwards to deal with. Let’s not guess what may happen to ones leg if not in the correct position during this burst of air.
Nice concept in theory but I’ll pass. But hey you have to start somewhere and they get a A for effort.
May 22nd, 2018 at 4:58 pm
#9 & #12 – I’m a little skeptical, however, I would assume Bosch has evaluated this. While I understand the training wheels during development, it would help to convince watchers if they had a video of unit in action without training wheels. Watching the top level motorcycle riders they not only support the bike with their knee during hard cornering, some of them are now using their elbow/arm in addition.
Sean – Laughed at your comment regarding the “yahoos” turning the thruster to the rear for boost as that was my LOL comment to my friends when we first saw this a couple of days ago.
May 22nd, 2018 at 6:33 pm
6, 10 The Ecosport is big, compared to a car I sometimes drive on the highway, a MINI Cooper. It’s acceleration is more like another car I sometimes drive on the highway, a Prius. Yeah, the Ecosport is not a great car for the superslab, but every car now sold in the US is “capable” of highway use, if you don’t mind the noise, etc.
May 22nd, 2018 at 6:46 pm
14 Well, from what I can find, the Ecosport is a littlr slower than a Prius, but quicker than an entirely highway capable 1.9 TDI Jetta wagon I had.
May 22nd, 2018 at 9:42 pm
The AutoLine Daily transcript has an error with “hardware” cited about the Tesla Model 3. Using the same link provided, it is “. . .fixed with a firmware update . . .” Firmware is another type of software that is closely coupled to a dedicated function, like brakes.
Other sources report the Tesla bug is in the ABS braking system. Since Tesla does ‘over the air’ updates, cars will have to go to a service center.
May 22nd, 2018 at 11:11 pm
T3 is what happens when one secretly farms out to a chink , especially metallurgy
May 23rd, 2018 at 8:41 am
Elon’s tweets about the CR article were “interesting.” First, he said they’d “never seen anything like this,” but a little later, said “looks like this can be fixed with a firmware update.” I suspect that, in the end, he wants be be on the good side of CR.
As far as the touch screen controls, it is what it is, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like having no wiper, radio, or HVAC controls. I don’t know if that, alone, would keep CR from “recommending” the Model 3, assuming the brake issue is fixed.
7 Don’t the Volvos and Ram trucks at least have wiper controls, and and some conventional radio and HVAC controls?
May 23rd, 2018 at 9:56 am
I was wrong re. the new Volvo and Ram touch screens. I found that neither has HVAC controls, other than on the screen.
May 23rd, 2018 at 10:14 am
9,12,13 If you catch the last sequence in the video, they do show the corrective action of the airbag burst without the training wheels. With that being said, I don’t think (this idea) will gain any traction in the market.
May 23rd, 2018 at 6:27 pm
Its not just lack of space for new cars in china and hence the lottery, its that air pollution makes it look like paradise in LA before the Clean air acts. Even the Chinese elite is choking on this and hence the massive push on EVs. Beijing also sees that becoming a big ev market will help them compete with the Wests leadership in car design. China has also bet big on large scale wind-solar power and this helps square the circle