AD #2597 – Ford Making Progress on Hybrids, Top 5 Automotive Suppliers, Peugeot Interested in JLR
May 17th, 2019 at 11:50am
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Runtime: 7:13
0:06 Peugeot Interested in JLR
0:49 Autopilot Involved in Another Fatal Crash
1:21 Hyundai Named Best Non-Luxury CPO Program
2:18 Top 5 Auto Suppliers
3:10 Ford Making Progress on Hybrids
3:55 Best Selling Hybrid Car in The U.S.
4:32 1st Leg of Buick Regal GS Road Trip
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This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry.
PEUGEOT INTERESTED IN JLR
Reports out of the UK say that Jaguar Land Rover is up for sale and that Peugeot is going to buy it. Only five years ago JLR was earning some of the highest profit margins in the auto industry, nearly 13%. But now those margins have fallen by more than half, despite sales rising 41% and revenue rising 33%. JLR needs to invest heavily in the electrification of its entire model line, as well as invest in autonomy and mobility services, but it doesn’t have the money to do it. If Peugeot or any other automaker does end up buying JLR, look for lots of layoffs and some very painful restructuring.
AUTOPILOT INVOLVED IN ANOTHER FATAL CRASH
Another Tesla operating on Autopilot was involved in a fatal crash with a semitrailer. The accident occurred in March in Florida and the circumstances are similar to another fatal accident involving a Tesla on Autopilot. In both cases, neither the system nor the driver stopped for the trailers and the roofs were sheared off. The latest crash is still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
HYUNDAI NAMED BEST NON-LUXURY CPO PROGRAM
Hyundai was named the best non-luxury certified pre-owned program by Autotrader for the second consecutive year and the third time in the last four years. The award is based on a number of factors including powertrain warranty length, available inventory, bumper-to-bumper coverage warranty, deductible amount and transferability to future vehicle owners. Autotrader says Hyundai’s CPO program “is a significant value and perfect for budget minded shoppers” and also adds that if you want a better overall program, “you’ll need to move up to a luxury brand.”
TOP 5 AUTO SUPPLIERS
As we keep pointing out, suppliers are the real engine of innovation in the automotive industry. Eighty percent of the value of a car is made by suppliers. And just so you know who the top suppliers in the world are, we dug through their annual reports to put together a Top 5 list. Bosch is number one in the world with $53 billion in sales every year. Bosch is actually bigger than that, but we’re only counting their automotive business, not washing machines, or coffee makers or other areas of business. Continental is second largest, but it also has the highest profit margin. Denso is hot on its heels followed by ZF and then Magna. But note that Magna has the second highest profit margins. So there you have it. Three German companies, one Japanese and one Canadian.
TOP 5 AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLIERS | |||
---|---|---|---|
SALES | EBIT | PROFIT MARGIN | |
1. Bosch | $53.2 B | $3.9 B | 7.3% |
2. Continental | $49.6 B | $4.5 B | 9.2% |
3. Denso | $48.3 B | $2.8 B | 5.8% |
4. ZF | $41.2 B | $2.3 B | 5.7% |
5. Magna | $40.8 B | $3.1 B | 7.6% |
Source: 2018 Annual Reports |
FORD MAKING PROGRESS ON HYBRIDS
Ford showed us the progress it’s making on hybrids and the improvements and the components keep getting smaller. Here’s a picture of one of Ford’s engineers holding power switches for the Escape hybrid. On the right-hand side are the first-generation power switches from the 2005 Escape, on the left is the 4th generation power switch for the 2020 Escape. They need to use 6 of the new switches, but even so, they’re far smaller and lighter than what you see on the right. And one of the ways that Ford is packing more battery cells into a battery pack, is eliminating the bolts on top of the can (as you see in the background on the first generation) and is welding the connectors right to the top of the can.
BEST SELLING HYBRID CAR IN THE U.S.
Quick, what’s the best-selling hybrid passenger car that you can think of? The Toyota Prius? No, not even close. Sales of the Prius have plummeted and now the Ford Fusion hybrid easily outsells the Prius by more than two to one. Get this, Ford now sells 80% more hybrids than Honda in the U.S. market. However, Toyota is still the king of hybrids. It sells twice as many as Ford.
1ST LEG OF BUICK REGAL GS ROAD TRIP
When I talked about my road trip a week ago I got the sense some of you were wondering, why a Buick Regal? Truth be told, it was the one that agreed to me putting thousands of miles on its car. But I too was like you at first. I questioned if the Regal GS we got was going to make a good road trip car. But it actually proved itself right away. I had forgotten the new Regal has a hatchback. I thought it had one of those tiny trunk lids and anyone that’s had to deal with one of those knows how much of a pain it can be to put stuff in. The hatchback made loading all our luggage a breeze. We were then ready to set out, our sights set on Lake Havasu City, Arizona. We wanted to get over there as fast as we could and I think we did pretty good. We made it as far as Oklahoma in our first stint, stopping at a cheap motel for a few hours to rest. It was during that time that the next virtue of our Regal revealed itself. The massaging function on our seats. By no means was it a good massage, but it allowed us to travel a few hours longer before stopping. Our first automotive attraction came later that day, the art installment called Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. People come from all around the world to spray paint the 10 Cadillacs that are buried in the ground. The cars range from a 1949 Club Sedan to a 1963 Sedan de Ville and while they get repainted periodically, they always end up looking like a tie-dye shirt with the paint so thick it drips in some places. We didn’t have spray paint, but busted out a couple of Sharpies to leave our mark on the cars. We were only there for about half an hour, but it’s an image that’s going to stick with me for a long time. But it was time to get back on the road. The next thousand-mile stint was not enough to get us to Lake Havasu, but we had to stop for some rest, which ended up with us in a pretty unique motel room. And I’ll tell you all about that next week.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching, have a great weekend and we’ll see you again on Monday.
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May 17th, 2019 at 12:10 pm
A. JLR, esp the “J” part of it. Is anybody keeping count of how many fools paid billions and billions for this sad loser (Ford, Tata, now Peugeot?), and after they bought it poured more and more billions to allegedly ‘fix’ it, and now it is in crisis again?
If not for Land Rover, for the last 30 years, and counting, Jag would be one of the most idiotic investments on the planet, which is sad, because its cars used to look good and have great interiors and be far more affordable than same sized Mercs and BMWs!
Nor is there any hope for Jag, sure not in the BEV field, where, as you well know and often mentioned in this show, its BEVs are far inferior to Tesla’s equivalents in range and efficiency.
May 17th, 2019 at 12:17 pm
B. Best selling hybrid? who cares? Prius buyers, who were 20,000 a MONTH a few years ago, have graduated to Teslas.
C. Hyundai-Kia is the best ‘value’ CPO other than luxury? Did you notice the five or so reasons why? here they are again:
powertrain warranty length,
vailable inventory,
bumper-to-bumper coverage warranty,
eductible amount and
transferability to future vehicle owners.
Anybody observed that NONE, I repeat NONE, of these 5 have anything to do with the EXCELLENCE, COMFORT, FUN TO DRIVE, PERFORMANCE ( I will not add Luxury, for they sure have none of that) of these lousy vehicles?
Isn’t it transparent that Hyundai is losing billions trying to hold on to these losers, by offering all these goodies that TOYOTA and HONDA do not?
And Autotrader concludes:
“… if you want a better overall program, “you’ll need to move up to a luxury brand.””
A conclusion I fully endorse! Merc and BMW CPO cars and SUVs, usually off-lease 3-year olds with 30k or so miles, for sale for an extremely affordable $30k,
are as screaming bargains as their $200k, AMG S 65, 640 HP, 738 LBFT V-12 flagship models at 7 to 10 years old and 55k miles at $45k!
May 17th, 2019 at 12:20 pm
I had a completely different reaction to Cadillac ranch… It was only painful for me to see remains of Classic Cars being constantly defaced and even damaged and what I considered only disrespected, not appreciated.
May 17th, 2019 at 12:24 pm
3 This is how I saw it as well. Some of these cars looked really stunning, esp. the exterior design, and now they look like abused rustbuckets, with obese females (males too) in shorts desecrating them
May 17th, 2019 at 12:56 pm
Why Ford hybrids because they don’t get full ZEV credits that ford needs to sell F-150
May 17th, 2019 at 1:16 pm
2) After spending 1400 miles in a rented 2018 Hyundai Tucson I can confirm that comfort, performance, and excellence do not apply at all to the 2018 Hyundai Tucson. The reason to buy that Tucson would be the warranty versus price equation.
I have a 30 year old vehicle with 150,000 miles on it that I keep as a toy for weekends. That car was superior to this Hyundai in every single way. Pretty sad when a new car can’t compete with a 30 year old car.
May 17th, 2019 at 1:44 pm
I had mixed feelings about the Cadillac ranch. My fiancé and I were on a road trip from Connecticut to San Francisco and I always thought it would be cool to see quirky roadside attractions along the way. A vision that is promoted in so many books and movies. The ten Cadillacs are perfect examples of the peak of flamboyant designs coming from Detroit. Being a “car guy” I was particularly looking forward to this stop among the many we planned. I remember it being in a James Brown music video from 1985, “Living in America”. Just a piece of Americana.
However once there I too was disappointed how the cars had so many layers of paint on them that the bodylines were almost unrecognizable.
They were selling paint cans out by the street and I found it odd to promote the desecration of an art exhibit. I also found it odd that something so obscure would draw a crowd out to the middle of nowhere Texas. I understand they moved it further from the city in 1997 so its away from anything. We didn’t add any paint but like Sean did we added our names with a Sharpie. Surly they have been covered a few times over by now. Anyone who loves cars or just quirky stuff like that should visit if your nearby. Even today we are both glad we stopped.
May 17th, 2019 at 1:44 pm
I have also had to rent Hyundais and Kias (A Hyundai Sonata for a weekend, and more recently an Elantra for a full week, and a god-awful Kia Rio for a day) and I can testify that they are crude, unrefined, tinny, uncomfortable POS. The phrase “Hyundai or Kia Excellence” is an oxymoron.
Anybody who prefers to waste $30k on a new Tucson instead of investing the same amount of $ on a CPO X3 or Merc GLC has absolytely no clue what they are talking about, and most likely they have never experienced those vehicles, just the Hyundai-Kias.
May 17th, 2019 at 1:47 pm
7 Those adults who buy the spraypaint look to me like 5-year old kindergarten kids coloring the drawings in their little books, and worse, because while the kids brighten up the pages of these books, the ‘tourists’ (better “Vandals” are ruining classic cars that should be RESTORED and admired instead.
May 17th, 2019 at 2:00 pm
6 I get rental vehicles for work often and have driven tons of Nissan, Hyundai and Kia’s. I typically get CUV’s or what they call full size which is the size of a Ford Fusion. Occasionally I get lucky and have gotten a Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger V8 and most recently a Toyota Highlander. My trip is typically 600 miles so I get a pretty good feel for each vehicle. Have to say, hands down the Highlander seats have been the most comfortable seats so far. My personal vehicle is a Cadillac CTS and the Toyota seats were better. Didn’t hurt that the vehicle came with auto braking, active cruise Control and lane assist features so it was just a step under auto-pilot. If I removed my hands from the wheel it would chime with a dash warning to keep my hands on the wheel.
Anyway I have to agree that Hyundai/Kia although might be a good deal as far as getting a cheap reliable vehicle with a stellar warranty. They are not anything more than that.
May 17th, 2019 at 2:44 pm
It’s unfortunate that the public & media blame Autopilot rather than the driver for these crashes. I always thought it was provocative of Tesla to call their level 2 autonomy system ‘Autopilot’. It’s implying performance that it can’t deliver. I think the version 2.5 in the Tesla Model 3 is amazing, but it ain’t an autopilot.
May 17th, 2019 at 2:50 pm
My thought is that the Prius has just become to weird looking and is probably turning away buyers. It was always kinda dorky looking but now it is just hideous.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:09 pm
Maybe part of why Prius sales are down, is that everyone who wants one has one, and they rarely break. At one time, people replaced Priuses with the next generation, but the gen 4 isn’t enough better than the gen 3 to be worth it to many people, and the gen 4 looks funny.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:20 pm
Speaking of replacing Priuses, I recently replaced mine, with a Camry hybrid. I miss the hatchback utility, but the main time I need it is when I’m in Indiana, where I have my van. The reasons for the Camry? It’s quieter, and more comfortable on the highway, and is quicker. The mpg is surprisingly close to the Prius, even going fast. The Camry, unlike the Prius, is not specifically designed for low drag, but it gets 43-44 mpg on the Interstate at 80 mph, about the same as the gen 3 Prius at that speed. The gen 4 Prius should do a little better, but not a lot.
May 17th, 2019 at 5:49 pm
10 My friend still really likes his “premium” Hyundai Genesis G80.
May 17th, 2019 at 6:08 pm
11 Super Cruise would be a good name for Tesla’s Autopilot. Wait. That name is taken.
May 18th, 2019 at 12:29 am
the brief mention of JLR electrics brought to mind the days when most British electrics came from Lucas AKA “Prince of Darkness” My Austin Healey & my E Coupe 2+2 electrical experiences drove me forever away from British Motor cars.
May 18th, 2019 at 8:09 am
15 I’m sure he does, and I also believe your other friend or aquaintance loves his Elantra. You could find thousands of YUGO owners who loved their cars too. What does it really prove, in the context of 17 million cars sold a year just in the US?
May 18th, 2019 at 8:21 am
14 Wow you sure do replace your cars all the time. I don’t know if you are able to get the best used trade-in prices, but even if this is the case, just the taxes alone every time you sell and buy would be a major drag.
BTW how do you explain the almost equal mpg of your Camry hybrid vs your Prius, given the laws of Physics that should dictate much lower MPG for the Camry?
(I drove from LA to San Diego and back in the summer of 2009 with a rental new Prius at the time, and I remember getting 47 MPG (vs 51 city and even higher on country roads) at 75 MPH. Your Camry gets 43 at 80 MPH (is this a computer or actual MPG?)
And given that every new Prius model is 10% better than the prior one, MPG-wise, my 2009 was3 generations ago, so today’s prius should get, at 75 MPH Highway, 51-55-59 MPG? Or is the 10% not 10% for highway MPG?
May 18th, 2019 at 11:44 am
While certainly not a Tesla fan, I take exception that blames Tesla for its Autopilot system. Even in its (Tesla’s) fatal accidents (involving trucks), it was clearly driver error, with inattention, as the sole cause. An owner never has the right to define in his own mind what a term, in this case “Autopilot”, means or even infers; default definition, of said “Autopilot”, must be interpreted with the description and operation that is included with the owner’s manual. As with all level II autonomy, ultimate responsibility for the control of the vehicle still requires ultimate control with the operator.
May 18th, 2019 at 11:49 am
19 I probably don’t get the best tradein prices, but probably do “ok ” Anyway, at my age and general health, I’m beyond worrying about running out of money.
As far as the mpg, the Camry LE hybrid I got used lithium batteries which have bettery charge-discharge efficiency than the NiMH of my Prius. Also, I’m wondering if the “scaled up” powertrain is a little more efficient at the power loads of highway driving. The 43 and change on the interstate is from dividing it out for about 1500 miles. I haven’t checked the odometer yet, but recent cars of all brands seem to have odometers accurate within a per cent. As far as each generation Prius doing 10 % better, that’s probably city more than highway. I’ll see what data I can find. I’m not at a lunch stop in Kentucky, on the way to Indiana.
May 18th, 2019 at 5:27 pm
21 I was thinking the Camry Hybrid should be close to the Tesla 3 in price (the $35or $37k version) and if you would use it in IN you would be able to recharge it at home.
Another option, if you buy new and keep 3 years or so, is leasing. Some luxury makes like Jag used to have leases that were much more advantageous than buying, even with the generous discount from MSRP.
My 47 HWY at 75 MPH (probably the average speed was a bit less, if you include entering and exiting the highway) were from the car display. The whole 2-day rental used about 6 gallons for about 300 miles, so avg about 50.
May 18th, 2019 at 5:52 pm
21 Another explanation may be that the Prius exterior styling is really not some big scientific wind-tunnel optimized thing I used to think it is, that produces those huge MPG numbers. I used to accept that styling believing it was functional (except the very first Echo-based Prius I never liked). But recently Hyundai was able to get the same or better MPGs with the Ioniq, which looks like a regular economy car with smooth styling. And now with the Accord and the Camry Hybrids (also the Civic hybrid or Insight, that got better MPG in the CR test than the Prius, but CR did not like it for other reasons).
BTW before you bought the Camry Hybrid did you test drive it and compare it to an Accord Hybrid test drive, or even a Fusion Hybrid (which I was bribed $50 to drive when it came out and got 31 vs the alleged 47 MPG)?
May 18th, 2019 at 7:39 pm
On Cadillac’ ranch, it is a public art installation, done in collaboration between “ The ant farm” art collective and the eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh. It is a dynamic art install and the paint and constant change are all a part of the exhibit. The changing look of the sequentially installed years of the vehicles is to design, you experience it at the time of your visit, and it will change with time …there are other things that provoke thought in Amarillo if you look.
Along the lines of the Prius , I thought of one but the funky dash drove me away, a hybrid highlander or Camry would be better for me personally. I do think if the Prius offered a standard dash it would get more sales.
May 18th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
24 To me, the Prius dash, at least for the gen 3 is fine, and the one thing I really liked about the Prius over the Camry hybrid is the shifter. The Prius shifter always goes to “the middle” after engaging drive or reverse. That allows the car to automatically go in park when you push the start/stop button to turn the car off. I like that. The Camry hybrid has a “shifter” that emulates a ’60s car with a console shift, which, I guess, is what a lot of people want.
May 18th, 2019 at 8:52 pm
23 I drove the Accord, and I like the styling better, but I felt more “stuff going on” with the powertrain than the Camry, and it seemed noisier under acceleration. Also, I wasn’t crazy about the Honda’s push button “shifter,” though I’m sure I could have gotten used to it. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t drive the Fusion or Malibu, though I like tha looks of both. Both are thirstier than the Camry and Accord, though.
May 18th, 2019 at 9:01 pm
19, etc. Another reason the Camry hybrid might get close to Prius highway mpg, is the that the Camry has DGI, which is supposedly good for a 3% improvement over port injection. Prius still uses port injection.
May 18th, 2019 at 9:11 pm
22 My Camry was about $30K MSRP. It’s an LE, with cloth seats, but with some of the safety gadgets in an option package.
I’d thought of leasing, but I never know how long I will want to keep a car. I sometimes keep them one year, and sometimes 30 years. Leasing might be a good deal for me, though, if I wanted a “luxury” car for a few years, just to see what I’m missing. A better deal yet, though, might be to do what you do, buy one a few years old, after it has lost 2/3 of its value, and is still almost like new.
May 19th, 2019 at 9:26 am
26 Seems you did your homework.
28 Leasing usually makes sense with luxury or other low-volume vehicles that have special offers, or if you plan to move in 3 years, or if you expect the car to be worth more after 3 years than the lease assumes, and you can buy it cheaper per the term of the lease. I never leased, never even made payments, always paid cash, but my parents, while they did not need to, took a small loan when they bought the 1991-2 Civic hatch, and forgot to do some paperwork at the end of the payments, and when it was totaled and I went to get the insurance $ (a good 1,000 euros in 2017, considering its age and low initial price of about $10k overseas), I had to waste untold time trying to find who issued the stupid loan, find the necessary papers etc.
May 19th, 2019 at 10:34 am
19 Here are the EPA numbers of the four generations of Prius.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=16705&id=19813&id=26425&id=37163
I can’t send a link to CR’s data that will work, but in their tests, the highway mpg got progressively better by generation, but the gen 3 got worse city mileage than the gen 2. I suspect there was some inconsistency in the testing. With hybrids, the state of charge of the battery at the start of the test would probably have a big effect on the results, which could account for gen 3 doing worse than the gen 2, Their city test is from a cold start, with lots of stops, and generally returns very low mileage for all vehicles.
May 19th, 2019 at 12:54 pm
30 I drove the Gen 2 in LA, beat both its estimates. One problem w that model was the very limited rear headroom, it made it almost impossible for me to ride in the back. So when I was in DC and had to take a taxi in 2010, I took a Gen 3 Prius but sat up front. A Crown Vic I used the other way was also very uncomfortable in the back despite its great length, it had the headroom but no legroom, as the driver’s seat was reinforced with a barrier and my knee pressed it. Unbelievable poor design, a car 212″ long, almost a foot longer than my 740iL which had endless legroom in the back, and to hurt while sitting in the back, and a taxi to boot!
May 19th, 2019 at 2:53 pm
31 I rarely beat the EPA numbers with my gen 3 Prius; maybe too much of a lead foot. Well, I sometimes beat the car’s readout, but it was about 6% high, checked over a few thousand miles. Still, I averaged in the mid 40s calculated overall, pretty good, for my mix of driving.
I just checked the mileage for my last 3 fillups with the Camry, covering 1266 miles, most of it on the interstate going about 80, between slowdowns. I averaged 44.9 mpg. That seems too good to be true, so maybe I didn’t get it very full that last time.
The last time I was in NYC, in 2013, I rode in some Crown Vic taxis that were “stretch” versions, probably the same at as a Lincoln Town Car, with the extra 3-4 inches of length as rear seat leg room. The rear leg room in those was ok, but those cars had really poor cabin space for their length, but had big trunks.
May 19th, 2019 at 3:00 pm
32 I meant sometimes the Prius’s “optimistic” readout beat the ratings.
May 19th, 2019 at 10:21 pm
PSA must have a lot more spare money than I would have expected, buying Opel/Vauxhall, and now maybe buying JLR. I figured Tata had deep pockets, and could afford to lose money with JLR, but I wouldn’t think that the case with PSA.
May 20th, 2019 at 8:18 am
32 In 2009 I was curious to see how high the MPG would be when I rented my first Prius (I had driven the tiny Honda Insight many years before, maybe 1999 or 2000, John J., the man who was the first to buy one in MI, actually drive it to my office and I tested it down the parkway (66 MPG vs 70 EPA). So in 09 I drove the Gen 2 Prius in a relaxed way, but the first miles were in heavy stop-go traffic from LAX to the hotel, where any non-hybrid gas or diesel car would get lousy MPG but it got consistently above 50. On the highway, I drove fairly fast, 75 most of the time, at times more to pass.
May 20th, 2019 at 8:21 am
32 for consistency, I always fill the tank up to the point that it makes a clicking sound and the auto filling stops. Sometimes I put some more (if the price is really low) but then I make an allowance, a few extra miles, for that.
Your 44 highway was with the tires at the recommended PSI or a bit overinflated?
May 20th, 2019 at 8:25 am
34 Automaker seldom make rational decisions. Frequently it’s all about the ego of the CEO. A few years ago VW had a target to sell 800,000 a year in the US. It never reached it, but what if it did, at a huge loss? Not the correct objective. Tata buying Jag looked extreme from the get-go, since it was making very cheap foirth world econocars and then it bought a maker at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Sort of like the income inequality in those fourth world nations, much more extreme than in developed nations. A welfare recepient in the US with a 60″ TV in every room is a tycoon, compared to the poor over there.
May 20th, 2019 at 10:38 am
36 I generally try to “fill it full,” with a few tenths of a gallon more than where the nozzle first kicks off.
My tires were at 36 psi “cold,” one psi above the 35 psi recommended.
37 At the time Tata bought JLR, I heard that they bought JLR because the top guy at Tata liked Jaguar cars. I don’t know if that was true.
May 20th, 2019 at 11:12 am
For consistency of filling my vehicles fuel tank (and I got this from a youtube channel) is to fill till the pumps clicks off, wait 30 seconds and fill again till the pump clicks off. The 30 seconds supposedly lets all bubbles that entered the tank (while initial fueling) enough time to purge themselves back out of the fill spout and permit safe full fueling. Adding too much, by squeezing in that extra rounding off pint or two can overfill you tank and create problems with the carbon canister.
May 20th, 2019 at 11:20 am
39 I’ll try that 30 second thing next time, and see how much more goes in.
May 20th, 2019 at 11:44 am
Usually I’m in a hurry so when I fill the tank I just let it fill by itself while I check the tire pressures (given I only put gas once in 6 weeks here, once in two overseas due to the far longer round trip).
Meanwhile VW offers a big expensive camper in the UK named “Grand California” and it is grand, at 6.0 m and 6.8 m length, and $90k (69k pounds)
I doubt they sell it in.. CA though
https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/volkswagen/680-auto/road-test