AD #2315 – Jeep Reveals Moab Concepts, Ford Updates the Fusion, Autonomous Uber Accident Unavoidable

On today’s show…no, that autonomous car that hit a pedestrian was not at fault…should Elon Musk get paid $50 billion?…and Jeep shows off a bunch of cool concepts headed to Moab. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the show for enthusiasts of the automotive industry.

AUTONOMOUS UBER ACCIDENT UNAVOIDABLE
We’ve got an update on that autonomous Uber car that struck and killed a pedestrian. The police chief of Tempe, Arizona says the accident was unavoidable. The pedestrian suddenly stepped out in front of the car, and even the safety driver inside the car did not have time to react. We still need to get the details of the full investigation, but this update shows that the blowhards on social media calling for a complete ban on AVs really ought to wait for the facts before popping off with their ill-informed opinions.

SHOULD TESLA PAY MUSK $50 BILLION?
Should Tesla pay Elon Musk $2.6 billion? OK, how about $50 billion? That’s what Tesla’s shareholders have to vote on today, whether or not he should get that kind of compensation. Musk will not automatically get that kind of money. Tesla has to meet specific goals in stock price, revenue and earnings. That means shareholders would benefit, too. And because of that, we bet that they approve the plan

CHINA CORNERING COBALT MARKET
The auto industry is waking up too late to the fact that the Chinese have just about cornered the market on cobalt. That’s the warning from Glencore, a Swiss company that trades in mining commodities. Cobalt is needed to make batteries for electric cars. And Glencore warns that we will not see EVs made in Europe, the U.S. or anywhere else except China if it completely corners the market. The price of cobalt has quadrupled since January, 2016, going from $10 a pound to $39.  

Coming up next, a bunch of stuff about Ford.

FORD UPDATES THE FUSION
Several months ago, we showed you this screenshot of what we suspected is the new nose on the Ford Fusion. And sure enough, that’s pretty much it. Just a new nose. It will be the first Ford to come standard with its Co-Pilot360 driver assist technology, with automatic emergency braking, blind spot warning and lane keep assist. And the electric-only range of the plug-in hybrid is now 25 miles, up from 21 miles. But we wonder if the marketplace will even notice these changes. And it’s half-hearted efforts like this that explain why Ford’s passenger car sales are plummeting.

REDUCING TIME AT THE DEALERSHIP
Ford is also launching what it calls Ready.Shop.Go which is all about reducing the time it takes to buy a car at a dealership. It allows customers to search online for inventory, pricing and incentives, lock in a deal for 48 hours, apply for financing, estimate trade-in values and schedule a test drive. Coming soon, it will include lease options and digitally signed contracts with Ford Credit. But you’ll notice that all this does is force you to do more paperwork online than at the dealership.

FORD OFFERS CONNECTIVITY FOR OLDER MODELS
OK, one more Ford story. Its giving owners with older cars the chance to get more connectivity. It’s a dongle that plugs into the OBD II port, and includes a 4GLTE WiFi hotspot. Owners can control key fob functions, track the vehicle and receive vehicle alerts with their smartphone. It’s available on 2010 to 2017 model year vehicles but it costs $17 a month. That sounds a bit pricey to us. So you tell us, would you pay seventeen bucks a month for those features?  

Jeep always comes out with the coolest concepts for Moab and we’ll show you what we saw right after this.

JEEP REVEALS MOAB CONCEPTS
Some people wonder why Jeep spends any time designing concepts to take to the Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah. It’s because the off-road event gets every kind of Jeep enthusiast, from backyard mechanics to CAD engineers designing their own modifications. And this year’s Moab concepts really speak to that wide spectrum of customers. Take the the entry-level off-roader, the B-UTE, a slightly modified Renegade. Mark Allen, the head of Jeep design, calls it a gateway drug into the more off-road capable Wrangler. Then comes the Nacho, which comes loaded with production aftermarket pieces from Mopar and is probably more in-line with what the average Wrangler customer will do. One area that Jeep felt it hadn’t explored much is high-speed off-roading, Baja style. So it designed the Sandstorm, with 14-inches of vertical travel in the front and 18-inches in the rear and plenty of power from a 6.4L 392 HEMI mated to a 6-speed manual trans. What I would call a throwback to the original Jeep is the 4Speed: no doors, roof, HVAC system, radio or rear seats, but it has a carbon fiber hood, fenders and rear floor for a total weight savings of 950-pounds. Speaking of nods to the past, the Jeepster features a two-tone paint job and a chopped roof for a cool retro look. And since you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve already been, the design team also bought a 1965 Wagoneer off Craigslist and updated it with a bunch of new technology to make the perfect road trip vehicle. What’s best about these concepts is they’re running, driving, soulful creations that will likely see an off-road trail. And it’s even more amazing that the design team only started working on them in November. It’s impressive what they can do in 5 months.

And don’t forget to join us for Autoline After Hours at Noon today. That’s right today at Noon. So if you’re watching this show around that time, check out After Hours when you’re done with this. John and Gary will be talking with Doug Osterhoff, the Marketing Manager at Buick about the new Regal TourX. Watch the show on our website, Autoline.tv or on our YouTube channel.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.