Question of the Day: What Makes A Car Boring?

by Jonny Lieberman

Published: October 16th, 2008

question of the day what makes a car boring

As many of you know I manage Autofiends.com . Our unofficial motto (can’t get the tech guys to change the site…) is “No Boring Cars.” Which means as the news of the day rolls in (grist to the mill) I need to parse it to determine what is and what isn’t “boring.” For instance there’s those pics of the new Prius that Jalopnik has whipped itself into its daily frenzy over (). And through the magic of search engine optimization Autofiends could probably get some decent traffic out of the post. More traffic makes the boss happy and (maybe) gets me more money! Only problem: the Prius is dull. Like, rock in sand dull. And not fancy Japanese rocks in Zen sand, but regular Texas Hill Country rocks in Great Plains dust. There’s a lady I know and I think she’s massively boring. She falls asleep at parties, says perhaps one sentence over the course of a night out and at restaurants has the tastes of a six-year-old. I mean really, what adult says, “I hate tomatoes?” To further solidify my view I saw her driving away in a white 1998 Toyota Camry. Which makes perfect sense, as I can’t think of a more boring car. Before you accuse me of Toyota bashing, let me state up front that I think the AE86 Corolla is one the most exciting cars ever built. Especially certain nitrous powered Formula D AE86s that pull away from Vipers on the track. Some of them 1,000 hp Supras are pretty damn thrilling, too. So I ask you: what makes boring?

Jonny Lieberman

Cleanup driver for Team Black Metal V8olvo.

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2 of 56 comments

Noam Notkidding on Oct 18, 2008

electric powertrains, even in a Porsche (yawn)

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Thoots on Oct 18, 2008

What Makes A Car Boring? Oh, I'd call it "small-minded auto journalists." There are actually stories to be told regarding issues like safety, fuel economy, ride quality, reliability, dependability, interior comfort and quietness, control ergonomics, advanced automatic transmissions, vehicle stability controls, resale values, and all sorts of other things, but I suppose it just must take a few more minutes of research to write about these than just quoting some big horsepower number in the publication's 700th report on some new Corvette or similar. You'd think that automotive publications might look around every now and then, and notice that only a veritable handful of potential readers actually drive the "non-boring" cars they write about ad naseum, whereas there appears to be a virtually unlimited number of potential readers who might want to learn more about the technologies built into the cars they drive, but these publications have decided that their cars just aren't worthy of writing about. Ahh, well, what publication wants more readers, anyway? Must not be very important to them. People buy the cars they want for what they believe to be very good reasons. It's too bad that the automotive journalism industry chooses to ignore the vast majority of automobiles, and the people who drive them. I guess it's just way too much easier to just keep on grabbing the low-hanging fruit of "no boring cars."

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MaintenanceCosts Nobody here seems to acknowledge that there are multiple use cases for cars.Some people spend all their time driving all over the country and need every mile and minute of time savings. ICE cars are better for them right now.Some people only drive locally and fly when they travel. For them, there's probably a range number that works, and they don't really need more. For the uses for which we use our EV, that would be around 150 miles. The other thing about a low range requirement is it can make 120V charging viable. If you don't drive more than an average of about 40 miles/day, you can probably get enough electrons through a wall outlet. We spent over two years charging our Bolt only through 120V, while our house was getting rebuilt, and never had an issue.Those are extremes. There are all sorts of use cases in between, which probably represent the majority of drivers. For some users, what's needed is more range. But I think for most users, what's needed is better charging. Retrofit apartment garages like Tim's with 240V outlets at every spot. Install more L3 chargers in supermarket parking lots and alongside gas stations. Make chargers that work like Tesla Superchargers as ubiquitous as gas stations, and EV charging will not be an issue for most users.
MaintenanceCosts I don't have an opinion on whether any one plant unionizing is the right answer, but the employees sure need to have the right to organize. Unions or the credible threat of unionization are the only thing, history has proven, that can keep employers honest. Without it, we've seen over and over, the employers have complete power over the workers and feel free to exploit the workers however they see fit. (And don't tell me "oh, the workers can just leave" - in an oligopolistic industry, working conditions quickly converge, and there's not another employer right around the corner.)
Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh [h3]Wake me up when it is a 1989 635Csi with a M88/3[/h3]
BrandX "I can charge using the 240V outlets, sure, but it’s slow."No it's not. That's what all home chargers use - 240V.
Jalop1991 does the odometer represent itself in an analog fashion? Will the numbers roll slowly and stop wherever, or do they just blink to the next number like any old boring modern car?