Weekend Car Culture Roundup February 24, 2024

A week ago, we reported that numerous Tesla Cybertrucks were facing a premature rust issue despite being made of stainless steel. Owners say they noticed orange stains on the stainless steel panels of their nearly new Cybertrucks. However, a Tesla engineer is now saying that your eyes are deceiving you, and Cybertrucks aren’t rusting. Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Drunk driving was apparently a big part of American culture all the way up to the 1980s, so you can imagine some folks probably didn’t take too kindly to the fact the gat damn gubment was trying to infringe on their rights to get lit up behind the wheel. That’s exactly what we’re looking at in this partial news clip out of California. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

One of the things I love about this profession is that you’re always learning or discovering something new. You think you know everything about a certain model or company and then boom, something new comes along. This happened to me recently when I discovered something both interesting and weirdly off-putting about the Dodge Neon. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Back when auto companies used to sell affordable small cars, they would often market them to young people. Typically, these were the buyers automakers wanted to get into these products and, in theory, move up through the brand. While brands like Scion were more successful at reaching young people, others tried too hard, sometimes embarrassingly so. Take Ford with the first-generation Focus. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

A truck driver in Dayton, Ohio had an extremely violent wake-up call during their morning drive on Wednesday. They were eastbound on US-35 when their truck’s bed collided with an overpass. The structure wasn’t exceptionally low to the roadway beneath. The dump truck’s bed was raised. According to WHIO, The incident was reported to local emergency services, but it wasn’t confirmed if anyone was injured in the crash. - Ryan Erik King Read More

If you’re wealthy — and I don’t mean just rich; I’m talking superyacht that’s bigger than most people’s homes with a helicopter pad, sub and a gold toilet with a heated seat wealthy — you have the sway to approach just about any automaker to request they design a one-off vehicle just for you. It’s kind of wild, but if you’re footing the bill for the design, engineering, etc, then why should a company say no? Many of these cars are never seen by the public. And when they are shown, they can be off-putting or straight up weird. Take the Bentley Silverstone, a car you’ve probably never heard of. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Vladimir Putin gave Kim Jong Un a luxury limousine — made in Russia, with love, of course — the kind officially used by Russian heads of state. The North Korean dictator’s entourage confirmed the gift Tuesday, according to Russian state media, which claims Kim Jong Un is the first leader to receive an Aurus Senat limo from Putin. The international community is balking at the gift, calling it a flagrant violation of sanctions placed on North Korea by the United Nations Security Council, on which Russia sits as a permanent member, as the Associated Press reports. - José Rodríguez Jr. Read More

Good morning! It’s Thursday, February 22, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Good morning! It’s Monday, February 19, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Owen Bellwood Read More

VinFast is having a pretty brutal time right now, but that hasn’t stopped the nascent Vietnamese automaker from being optimistic about its future. Sure, it managed to have a $650.1 million net loss in the last quarter of 2023, and sure it sold fewer than 35,000 vehicles all of last year, but that isn’t going to stop VinFast! - Andy Kalmowitz Read More