While You Were Sleeping: June 30, 2014
Rust never sleeps, and neither does TTAC, as we bring you a completely random yet utterly essential selection of recent automotive news.
Never Has A Guitar Rocked Less: According to Autoblog, “Harrison Guitar Works” has decided to build the “ultra-exclusive” Alfa Romeo guitar they’ve been threatening to build for a while now. They’re going to make just eleven of them, in the hopes of selling two. At the most. Seriously. Your humble author has spent new-car money on individual guitars before and I wouldn’t waste a hundred bucks on this thing. Nobody else will either.
And Nobody Thought About Asking Anna Paquin To Endorse It Once upon a time, Nissan built the X-Trail, a sort of too-rough-around-the-edges-for-American-consumption cute-ute. It was an ugly square thing but apparently it was the sole home of a 280-horsepower turbo version of the mighty SR20 engine. Now the X-Trail and the Rogue have been unified in a single homely product, and Nissan says it will double global sales as a result. Sales are expected to be highest in the United States and China. “Because that’s where all the stupid people are,” a Nissan representative very carefully did not say.
That’s Not Quite The Gilette Model, But It’s Not Quite Not, Either: Replacement battery packs for a Nissan Leaf will cost $5500. There’s an additional $225 for early Leaf owners and three hours of labor at your shop’s local rate. Core charge is a “stack”, which is what the kids on the street call $1000. There might be a finance plan.
The Question Is, How Could You Tell It Was Happening: NHTSA is going to investigate the 2012-2014 Nissan Versa for unintended acceleration. Apparently, the piece of carpet that trims the transmission tunnel can trap a driver’s foot. Expect a fair amount of government spending, terminating in abject apologies from Nissan executives who never considered how easy it would be to get your foot stuck in a Nissan Versa carpet trim, mostly because they’ve studiously avoided ever driving a Nissan Versa.
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- David Murilee Martin, These Toyota Vans were absolute garbage. As the labor even basic service cost 400% as much as servicing a VW Vanagon or American minivan. A skilled Toyota tech would take about 2.5 hours just to change the air cleaner. Also they also broke often, as they overheated and warped the engine and boiled the automatic transmission...
- Marcr My wife and I mostly work from home (or use public transit), the kid is grown, and we no longer do road trips of more than 150 miles or so. Our one car mostly gets used for local errands and the occasional airport pickup. The first non-Tesla, non-Mini, non-Fiat, non-Kia/Hyundai, non-GM (I do have my biases) small fun-to-drive hatchback EV with 200+ mile range, instrument display behind the wheel where it belongs and actual knobs for oft-used functions for under $35K will get our money. What we really want is a proper 21st century equivalent of the original Honda Civic. The Volvo EX30 is close and may end up being the compromise choice.
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"Sales are expected to be highest in the United States and China. “Because that’s where all the stupid people are,” a Nissan representative very carefully did not say." "Hahaha, I'm so edgy because I think Americans are stupid" Put another way...sales will be highest in the US and China because those are the only two countries that matter.
Disclaimer: I merely tried to point out how silly it is to call something "football" where you actually hold the ball in your hands while running like crazy. I regret my words, of course you can do/say whatever you want, the world is guaranteed to follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1CE4P8qqPE Not a fan of football though (neither types).