Be surprised! Don is a petrol head. Well, that makes up for everything else, doesn’t it?
Yes, 20 readers, one son, Dan Kawai and his team at Autoleague, the ACCC and defo lawyers, under the carports at the Spanish Revival Mar-a-Lago Club, a members-only club where Don is an employee, has sat a red 2007 Ferrari F430 Coupe, a bright electric blue 1997 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster with a 5.7-litre V12, a 2003 Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren with a 5.5-litre V8, an armoured 2015 Mercedes-Maybach S600, an armoured Cadillac Escalade and his current, most loved drives, a 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud with a 6.2-litre V8 and a 2015 Phantom with a 6.6-litre V12 engine.
But in an irony that won’t be lost of devotees of the myth of Narcissus, Don can’t drive any of them on a public street. Since the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy, presidents and vice-presidents (past and present) are not allowed to operate motor vehicles on the open road. LBJ was the last president to drive himself.
Joe Biden, who you may remember is the current president of what passes for the USA, told a Unted Auto Workers conference: “There are a lot of reasons to run for president, but there’s one overwhelming reason not to run for president. I like to get that my Chevy Z06 from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds.”
Despite Don’s bromance with Elon, his election (Trump not Musk although they probably will jointly run the show) adds another heavy knife wound to the stumbling electric car industry. Remember it was Don that explained why he will “terminate crooked Joe’s EV mandate”: “They don’t go far, they cost a fortune, they don’t work in the cold and they are all made in China … other than that they are wonderful.”
Well, we might have a bit of a problem here without the Trumpster. One of Australia’s largest car insurance companies is right now considering not insuring used EVs. Older used EVs have small resale but high replacement battery costs. Around $20k to replace a battery on a car that maybe isn’t worth that not only doesn’t make financial sense but does present a few moral hazards.
But look, the whole car industry is going through what spinmeisters would call a difficult period. Or what you and I would call a trainwreck that only a few manufacturers and dealers may get out of alive. Some of my dealer friends (three) tell me Honda is tossing up whether it will stay in the local market, that some VW dealers have so much stock they’re hiring vacant lots nearby and the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (not a friend) says new car sales were 8 per cent off in October. Current FCAI boss Tony Weber says that “the battery electric vehicle share of new sales has remained subdued despite an increasing number of new brands entering the market and substantial tax benefits available to some purchasers through the FBT concession.
Many of these new EV sales are in the highly competitive medium passenger segment which already records almost 50 per cent of sales being electric but the segment accounts for just over four per cent of total sales.
In the bigger world, Nissan will cut 9000 jobs, sell part of its stake in Mitsubishi Motors and reduce global capacity by 20 per cent to carve out $5bn in additional savings. Jalopnik’s headline this week screamed “Stellantis Needs Saving from Itself, Plus BYD made more money than Tesla last quarter and Volkswagen admits it’s been in trouble for decades”.
In other news: the WSJ tell us: “Toyota Motor Cuts Sales Forecast After Quarterly Profit Halves”. The Japanese auto giant said Wednesday that net profit dropped 55 per cent from a year earlier to 573.7 billion yen for the three months ended September 30. And Honda Motor Cuts Forecasts for Car Sales, Profit After First-Half Results Drop 20 per cent.”
As you know Stellantis is the company that makes the Jeep that Dan Kawai and his team at Autoleague sell. Autoleague also sells second hand Fezzers, Lambos, Porkers and Mercs at their Carco dealership at 181A Great Eastern Hwy, Midland, WA. If they treat customers like Jeep buyers, watch out.
Race officials had made the start 90 minutes early to try to avoid the really heavy rain that had flooded Brazil’s Interlagos track on Saturday. Max Verstappen had been relegated to 17th on the grid in a race that could see him lose his world championship title. Max knew in the history of the sport only five out of 1121 previous world championship races have been won from seventh or lower. He knew that morning he had qualified 12th and his best time was around four seconds slower than eight other drivers. Once he left the grid, he knew his heart would beat between 170 and 200bpm for the next two hours.
He humiliated the rest of the field. Max worked his way through the field despite a slippery track and lots of rain, never going back a place. By the end of lap one he was eleventh. He probably is the best driver in the wet of all time and this was, to my mind, the greatest win of all time. When the others went into the pits, he stayed out only boxing when the red flag went out after Colapinto crashed. Was Max lucky? No. He was comfortable. Another day in the office when every other driver including Lando was struggling.
Max Verstappen won for the first time in 10 races. He won by 19 seconds. He set 17 fastest laps in total. He broke Michael Schumacher’s record for the most consecutive days in the lead of the drivers’ championship and he could win another world title as soon as Las Vegas. Weirdly enough the two Apines came second and third.
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