Car companies can’t come out with new products unless they spend the money to develop them. So we dug through piles of annual reports to find out which automaker invests the most money in R&D, which is where the car companies book their expense for new product development. We also looked at which companies spend the most on R&D as a percent of total revenue. Let’s take a look, shall we?
Coming up on RoundAbout . . . talk about karma! An abusive husband gets his comeuppance in a story you have to hear to believe. An Airbus A330 — yep, a wide-body passenger plane — practically hovers above the ground. We’ll tell you how. Plus we debate the first amendment in our BLIND SPOT story of the week. Judge Sanders, shall we proceed?
RoundAbout records LIVE on Fridays at 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT. Visit RoundAboutShow.com and click Watch Live to watch our webcast and look in on all the antics.
First he accused GM of “Kill(ing) the Electric Car.” Then he took “Revenge” and got buddy-buddy with the giant company that created the Chevrolet Volt. But Chris Paine, director of the new documentary, “Revenge of the Electric Car,” hasn’t faced off against our resident EV skeptics. This week John McElroy and Peter De Lorenzo will attempt to navigate the EV hype and get down to the heart of the matter: are electric cars really here to stay? Of course we’ll get into the top news of the week as well: GM earnings disappoint, experts are sounding the overcapacity alarm in China and Lexus is calling it quits on the HS 250h. All that and much more on this week’s show.
MINI’s latest product is not staying true to the company’s name. The Countryman is huge by MINI standards! This compact crossover offers a variety of fun features including a manual transmission and a turbocharged engine, but how well does it work in the real world? Find out here.
Automotive legend Bob Lutz takes John McElroy on a personal tour of the new Lotus Evora. This high-dollar sports car will offer drivers astounding performance thanks to its light weight body, which is almost completely made out of carbon fiber.
Coming up on RoundAbout . . . another bizarre BMW pickup truck surfaces on the interwebs. Roadkill is on the menu tonight — some mighty fine fare. And we uncover why Steve Jobs never had a license plate on his car. All that and more, plus we recap some of our favorite things from the SEMA show. So sit back, relax and enjoy the program.
RoundAbout records LIVE on Fridays at 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT. Visit RoundAboutShow.com and click Watch Live to watch our webcast and look in on all the antics.
This week we’re wondering if the iPhone has met its automotive match. Designed by our guest, Stuart Norris, Cadillac CUE is the infotainment system that promises to simplify a user’s experience while offering the smart phone features people have come to expect. It will begin arriving in 2012, and we’ll be asking Stuart what he thinks puts CUE ahead of the competition and how it will avoid the quality problems plaguing MyFord Touch. To discuss this and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist.
Fisker’s high-end, plug-in electric sedan, the Karma, hasn’t really even hit the road yet and the company is already planning to introduce another model. Enter the Surf, which was revealed at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. Mr. Autoline, John McElroy, takes a quick design tour of this car with its creator, Henrik Fisker.