QOTD: Feeling Any Anger From NAIAS?
It’s Tuesday at the North American International Auto Show, and already the big, splashy reveals are fading into the past. The Cobo Center’s parking garage has switched back to monthly pass holders, workers have swept up the errant shrimp tails from the media room, and buzzwords have stopped echoing through the streets of Detroit.
We’ve introduced you to a bevy of new vehicles over the past few days. Now that you’ve had time to process what you’ve seen, it’s time to focus on what you feel. Tell us — is there anger welling up inside you?
Despite the show’s theme, “innovative synergistic future mobility” or some such thing, NAIAS 2018 was all about trucks. A new Ram 1500, next-generation Chevrolet Silverado, and reborn Ford Ranger all graced the various stages at Cobo, ready to tempt hard-working Americans with enormous grilles and accommodating beds. And yet, despite this, automakers seem more intent on selling us not cars or trucks, but a car-less future. Well, a future with cars you don’t need to own or drive.
Doesn’t that sound nice? Jim Hackett’s speech on Sunday ruffled more than a few feathers among the TTAC crew, as his company’s city of the future seems pretty low on human autonomy and tire-shredding performance. Does the heavy focus on autonomous driving leave you upset? Are some automakers in danger of losing the plot and alienating loyalists as they barrel down the road to self-driving utopia?
Maybe, and we expect more than a few of you might feel this way, the last thing you want to even think about is “mobility” and autonomous driving and other things that seem determined to ruin your way of life. You want to criticize design. You’re potentially still steamed over the Ram redesign. You’re possibly still perturbed over the Ford Ranger’s four-cylinder engine. Or maybe you just hate the Avalon’s grille and wonder why Toyota still sells the thing.
Let it all out. Share all of your NAIAS frustrations in the comfy couch that is the comments section.
[Image: Bozi Tatarevic/TTAC]
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... not a fan of the "cat's cradle" grill on the Chebby... and the Ford front end looks like a Japanese anime character that got punched in the face... and I'm a Ford fanboy!
Not really angry, but tired of seeing ever more angular prototypes on huge rubber-banded wheels, huger grilles to get shattered by minor parking accidents, ever more "street legal" track cars in disguise that can never use their potential on public roads, and ever more lifted, expanded "luxury" trucks clogging malls and highways. I'm not particularly advocating boring econo-boxes or self drivers, but whatever happened to auto practicality?