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2024 Dodge Charger, the Apple Car and the 5 worst car brands | Autoblog Podcast #822

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by News Editor Joel Stocksdale. They lead off with the 2024 Dodge Charger reveal, followed by various EV startup news including the reported death of the Apple Car; rumors of a tie-up between Fisker and Nissan; and when we'll finally see the Tesla Roadster. That's followed by rumors of sporty EVs from VW group possibly including an Audi TT and the five worst car brands according to Consumer Reports. Road Test Editor Zac Palmer pops in to discuss Formula 1 at Bahrain, and Migliore and Stocksdale wrap up the podcast with the cars they've been driving: the Toyota Prius, Kia EV9 and Infiniti QX50. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #822 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown News 2024 Dodge Charger Reveal Apple Car reportedly dead Fisker and Nissan rumors Tesla Roadster production target Electric VW group sports coupes Five worst car brands Formula 1 at Bahrain What we've been driving 2024 Toyota Prius 2024 Kia EV9 (Road trip to Chicago) 2024 Infiniti QX50 Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related video:

EPA says automakers ahead of schedule for 54.5 MPG by 2025

Remember, the target is 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Today, the CAFE level is a little over 30. How we get from here to there is something the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is monitoring closely. Thus, the EPA just released an annual flash report on how the auto industry is progressing towards meeting the nation's fuel economy goals. Overall, the industry is doing almost 10 grams per mile (equivalent) better than the rules require. The good news is that the industry is a bit ahead of schedule. In the report (see page iii), the EPA breaks things down by automaker based only on MY12 numbers. Tesla is at the top of the list (which is ranked by over-compliance with 2012MY CO2 standards), but for our money, the real leader is Toyota. The Japanese automaker built the second-highest number of vehicles (2,020,248, after General Motors' 2,364,374) but racked up the most net 2012 over-compliance credits (13,163,009 metric tons). That's an average of over 6.5 metric tons per vehicle. The next closest is Honda, with just over five metric tons of credits per vehicle. Given the MPG fiasco with Hyundai and Kia, the EPA says, "we are excluding Hyundai and Kia data because of the ongoing investigation into their testing methods," but overall, the rest of the industry has credits worth 25,053,168 metric tons of CO2, which means it's doing almost 10 grams per mile (equivalent) better than the rules require. Go team. For now, the numbers in this report (and there are a lot more of them – get the 59-page PDF for yourself here), can't really be used to understand everything from the first year of the new CAFE program. The EPA writes, "Because the program allows credits and deficits to be carried into future years, at the close of the 2012 model year no manufacturer is considered to be out of compliance with the program. ... Compliance with the 2012 model year standards can't be fully assessed until the end of the 2015 model year." There are a more interesting tidbits in the report, such as the fact that Fisker produced 1,415 model year 2012 vehicles, Tesla made 2,952. Remember, too, that CAFE numbers don't equal the fuel economy you see in your daily drives. In the real world, the 54.5 CAFE level will be about 40 mpg, and the average fuel economy today is around 25 mpg, so we have a ways to go, no matter how you measure it. EPA Report: Data Show Automakers on Track in meeting Greenhouse Gas Standards WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S.

Analyst calls on Apple to buy Tesla

This is the layman's understanding of how the tech world works: come up with an idea; execute idea; start making money; get bought out by Apple, Google or some other wealthy company seeking the Next Big Thing; retire to Fiji at age 23. Occasionally, though, one of those startups grows quickly enough to avoid being bought out by the big boys of Silicon Valley. Tesla is one such startup, and while it's an automaker as much as a tech company, the mingling of both worlds in its business model has helped the company survive since 2003, become publicly traded in 2010 and avoid being bought out by a bigger company (though the personality of its co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, may have something to do with that, too).
This record of independence hasn't stopped the analysts from talking, though. According to CNN Money, Andaan Ahmad, a London-based investment banker with German bank Berenberg, has petitioned Apple CEO Tim Cook to buy out Tesla and bring Elon Musk into the Apple family. On paper, the move would sort of make sense: since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple appears to some to have been sagging, releasing better iterations of its currents products but lacking the big, new, industry-investing widget that makes people go mad. Expanding into the automotive market, a long-rumored destination for Apple, would allow the Cupertino, CA-based brand to stretch its legs in a new direction. As Ahmad notes, Apple needs to go "out of the box" or "the key debate will always be about [Apple's] ability to sustain these abnormal margins in [the] iPhone business."
Although not expressly discussed in the CNN story, we could also see some big benefits for Tesla. The Palo Alto-based automaker has been locked in a war over direct sales to customers with a number of dealership groups across the country, many of which have particularly powerful political lobbies. If Tesla had the backing of the world's most powerful company, which also has success in the business of upgrading traditional retail experiences, it could help establish the direct-sale model on a wider scale.