#BernieSanders

Lobbyists are reportedly seeking to soften the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) now that there are some new faces in the White House. Signed in 2018, revised in 2019, and effective since 2020, the USMCA sought to restore North America’s manufacturing base with new content requirements and place the United States in a more favorable position than it held under the North American Free Trade Agreement. But industry groups are now claiming that interpretations from government agencies are gumming up the works, and accusing the U.S. of having a different interpretation from what the other nations had originally agreed upon.

“[The USCMA interpretation makes] meeting the … content provisions that much more difficult for everyone to achieve,” stated David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada.

How about that new Bugatti Chiron? It looks pretty good to me. Better than the last one, anyway.

I always got the impression that its predecessor, the Veyron, wasn’t styled so much as it was excreted. There was just something unpleasant about it; I think the term used in modern architecture is “Brutalist,” and it describes objects that are designed to force themselves on the viewer without gentleness or grace. It applies well to the the Veyron, which was a technical achievement first, a statement of insane Gilded Age wealth second, and a car either third — or perhaps not at all.

Next to the sleek, purposeful-looking Chiron, the Veyron is a squat lump of offensive conspicuous consumption. Yet it had, and continues to have, an undeniable and magnetic attraction. One of our very occasional contributors at TTAC is a fellow who has owned everything from a Lagonda to a 458 to a Ford GT, and all at the same time to boot. For something like three years, however, his Facebook profile photo was of him behind the wheel of a Veyron. It is an object to which even the enormously wealthy aspire. Nothing says “my other car is a Gulfstream” quite like the Beetle-esque Bugatti.

Hybrid owners may soon need a co-pilot and a couple of backseat drivers to use HOV lanes, as the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved a six-year highway spending bill w ith an amendment that would redefine for states what vehicles can and cannot use such lanes for solo driving.