Two different car traders saying cars are not selling at auction. This is bad
Cars at auction between dealers are sold at prices way lower than you will ever see at retail. My Dad traded some cars this way for a while. (he had worked in car sales before). When repossessions and trade-ins sold at wholesale “dealer to dealer” are not moving, retail is toast.
The implication here is that recent interest rate rises along with price inflation and job loss has folks just not buying cars, so dealers are not buying them, even at wholesale auction, and that means banks are going to have a lot of “inventory” on their books when they would rather have the “bad loan losses” gone and be re-lending the money. But they aren’t. All around not good.
First it is cars. Then it is houses. Then it is businesses. Then the economy augers in.
I’m in the middle of this right now as I’m trying to get a different tow vehicle to take loads of stuff from California to my new home. While the major problem is just that pickups are going for crazy high prices due to low availability (new or used), it is also clear that the market is all out of joint from interest rates and an economic halt. Some cars are very cheap, while pickups are crazy high (since new ones are not available, drying up the used market as folks are not trading in the old ones.)
So what do I make of all this?
Fuel costs are rising incredibly as the Gang Green Policies put reserves out of reach of production.
The Fed has been punting interest rates up at a crazy rate. What is it, 3 x 3/4% in a row (in a market where 2 x 0.25% is prone to apoplexy)?
Ford, GM, and others have announced going 100% EV (so why in hell would anyone invest in oil production and refining with a 30 year payback, and why would a dealer buy used petroleum cars for resale? Also why would folks with gas or Diesel trucks trade them in for unobtainium EV trucks?)
Bottom line is that a great shock is being pushed into the car / transport business and The People are not buying it (or the cars); so the sector (and with it the economy writ large) is shuddering to a halt.
Not exactly a surprise as that is the GEB Goal. But… For now, what do we do?
I’m putting about $400 a week into “things of value” (presently food stores; but with “other stuff” to follow at about $1000 / month if possible. Gold, silver, land, “real goods” as time, storage, and effort allow.)
I’m never buying any car newer than about 2008 “going forward”. Just too much crap in them, and not at all interested in an EV at this point.
Expecting to get stocks, bonds, real estate, and more at dirt cheap prices in about 1 year as the economy collapses (EU going a lot farther a lot faster, with PPI, Producer Price Index, up about 40%/year or more right now, so CPI, consumer price index, to go ballistic early next year in the EU) Looking at strategies to preserve the $ value in the face of an 8% Government inflation rate – closer to 15% real (so things like shorting stocks & bonds, buying TIPS – Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, precious metals, etc.).
But that the banks are not selling distressed assets (priced too high at auction), and the market is not clearing for used / repo cars… well that argues strongly for “collapse in early stages”. Watch for falling real estate prices, contracting GDP, and overall monetary decline in value in keeping with the Real inflation Rate (not the nominal government numbers). Eventually real estate will go back up in value, but only after the price bubble collapses and the market clears. Usually about a year to 18 months.
That folks are letting go of their cars is bad enough; but that brokers are not buying the inventory at prices that the banks loaned on; well that’s very bad as is indicates the Bank Loan Desks are already compressed and it will only get worse as higher interest rates and Government Mandates put them further under water. This will ripple back upstream to the car makers, their employees, and more. At a slightly slower and slightly delayed timing, the same thing ought to show up in the housing market. I’m already seeing “For Sale” signs staying up a long time on local houses; where 6 months ago they were selling the same day they were listed.
Hang onto your hats, it’s going to be a bumpy ride and the roller coaster is just pulling out of the station.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Indeed. Panics happen fast. Recovery isn’t nearly as fast. “Busts” take about 18 months to clear, if the government stays out of the way. “Booms” can take years, but can end early if the government gets in the way.
Early signs here in South Australia. A lot of small shops empty. Houses selling slower than last year as shown by For Sale signs (2 years ago Agents were advising against the cost of a sign as sales were so brisk, now the signs hang around for some weeks. Sales aren’t helped by rising interest rates.
“Saturday Snippet: Notes on Inflation”
Link there
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/09/saturday-snippet-notes-on-inflation.html
“The History Books Will Prove This is an Industrial Example of The Great Pretending
September 24, 2022 | Sundance | 168 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/09/24/the-history-books-will-prove-this-is-an-industrial-example-of-the-great-pretending/
“Everything, everything he outlines, is essentially accurate about the damage being done to western economies. …. Except the biggest realization and acceptance is missing…. It’s being done by design. The people he outlines are not making a mistake, they are doing it on purpose.”
“The U.S, EU, CA, AU and western economic central bankers did not respond sooner to the inflation crisis (2021) because the central banks were waiting for the politicians in their systems to establish the energy policy that their pre-planned action was intended to support. [<- Reread that if needed]."
And more
@Another Ian:
One of the things we’ve learned through this process is just how much of this is planned destruction and created crisis. Any trust I had in the commercial media, government agencies, law enforcement (from DAs to cops / TLA Agents) is all gone.
We’ve also had big spotlights on the Soros, Klaus Schwab, UN, GEBs in general, and all the WEF “penetration” of governments. We know now that it is all corrupt from top to bottom and that the Dominion System is entirely for stealing elections. “Protests” are only paid street theater. NGOs are to bypass legal means and defraud the public about who is doing what. Sadly, that the difference between a Crazy Person Conspiracy Theory and “actual history” is about 6 months. And that Congress is entirely about graft, greed, payoffs, skim, fraud and corruption; with RINOs as dirty as the DNC.
The only question is what percentage of the population has seen that…
Seems like my view from looking from outside USA and looking at what we have gotten here
Feedback from quoting you yesterday
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/09/us-used-auto-sales-crash-more.html
“…Ford, GM, and others have announced going 100% EV…”
That is like food stores announcing that from now on they will no longer sell beef, pork or chicken, that all meats will be plant based.
Not only is it crazy and ” authoritarian” ( for lack of a better word ) to impose that on people, but I think shoving electric cars down our throats will cause a gigantic drop in car sales ; people will hang on to their gasoline cars for much longer than usual.
Repair shops will fix used gasoline cars and be busier than they have been in years.
Car makers will watch their EVs collect dust, as very few people will buy them.
This in turn will affect the economy negatively…I fear the next 5 to 10 years will be very chaotic. Lots of ups and downs with inflation.
The people in charge have no idea what they are doing.
This will seem like a silly comparison,
but a few decades ago some ” geniuses” at Coca Cola were convinced that abandoning the ultra popular recipe and replacing it with ” the New Coke” would be the greatest thing since the invention of the light bulb.
Those filthy rich “brilliant” people whom you would think know what they are doing ( how else did they become Billionaires, right? they must be brilliant people who know better than us, right?) had no idea what they were doing, it was a total failure.
It was a catastrophic failure.
Green energy is the New Coke on steroids; it will fail miserably.
California and now New York are insisting on that. Welcome to Cuba!
@Canadian Friend: “The people in charge have no idea what they are doing.”
Maybe they don’t. Or perhaps they really DO understand. The old motto is “Ordo ab chao”, or, “Order from chaos”. Fifty years ago, the average person living in Western Civilization was pretty happy. How do we know? Because people from all over the world risked their lives just trying to make the trip and become a citizen in the West. It is hard to change a system when most of the people in it like how it works. You can’t make a new order until you create chaos first.
“a few decades ago some ” geniuses” at Coca Cola were convinced that abandoning the ultra popular recipe and replacing it with ” the New Coke” would be the greatest thing”
That one puzzled a lot of people, me included. I have heard something which I cannot verify, but which would (if it is true; can anyone verify?) explain it. The New Coke fiasco happened just as high fructose corn syrup was becoming extremely cheap. Coke had been using real sugar and wanted to go over to the cheaper corn syrup. How to change without people noticing and complaining? Go to an interim recipe that would never be accepted. When you change back to the old Coke, start using corn syrup. The flavor is not the same, but is close enough that most people did not notice the difference. Even today there are people who prefer the sugar version of Coke and will go out of their way to get it from Mexico where sugar is still used. (Mexico does not have the massive federal handouts to the corn growers which lowers the cost of corn syrup.)
Maybe it is both planned chaos and incompetence.
creating chaos because as the Cloward Piven theory says ( in my own words); in times of crisis it is easy to impose change that in normal times could not be imposed on the masses.
The manufactured Covid crisis is a good example of that.
but I think there is also a lot of incompetence mixed into that, some of the chaos is by design, and some of it is because they have no idea what they are doing.
Related,
Have you seen the video where Democrat Rashida Tlaib asks Big Bank leaders if they will stop funding oil and gas businesses ( to supposedly save the planet from the non existent global warming emergency and to help shove the new green energy down our throat), and all of them say no…one of them even tells her it would be suicide to do that.
Some of the chaos/crisis is created intentionally, but Tlaib is too dumb to be aware of that, I think that she thinks she is truly saving the planet.
People like her, if they have the power to impose change, will do it without understanding the consequences.
@Canadian Friend: “Maybe it is both planned chaos and incompetence.”
Almost certainly true — but I would phrase it slightly differently. We know that many of our obviously incompetent leaders are essentially “selected” and not “elected”. They are picked by forces behind the scene, sold to the public like a commodity, and then used as puppets while in office. Yes, our leaders are incompetent, but that incompetence has been placed into power as part of a mechanism for producing chaos.
Speculation follows: A man who throws a grenade has no idea exactly where each piece of shrapnel will go. The Powers That Be don’t know exactly what destructive acts will be done by the incompetent politicians they throw into our institutions. Neither the man with the grenade nor the Powers That Be even care about the details. They are mostly interested in just making sure that things get blown to hell.
“Is The Fed About To Destroy America?”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247085
I am no expert, but a quick google search gave me this,
“… U.S. exports to the EU 27 account for 16.3 percent of overall U.S. exports in 2019 …”
If Europe goes trough a severe economic crisis and they buy less of everything that comes from the USA…since the USA sells them 16 % of what they produce, this could make the recession and inflation worse in the USA.
… and of course, in Canada too , since we sell about 80 % of what we produce to the USA …when the USA gets a cold Canada sneezes …( or something like that, it is an old expression)
Canadian friend, the world is smaller than ever, and yes, I am of the view that the GEBs are draining all lakes, all economic boats are sinking.
Guess you can still go to on-line ones. Might be good to grab some for later. I’m not buying the story that gas cars will be outlawed.
https://sca.auction/en/locations/branch-tn-nashville-753
https://www.copart.com/locations/nashville-tn-63
https://policeauctionsusa.com/tennessee/
Here’s one with pickups:
https://hibid.com/lots/cars?status=hot&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkOqZBhDNARIsAACsbfLuYaHAgTNZ-9NyB1yW7VjV3E6_t45lE8r1Y-CXrisO_xuM0AEydA0aAhZHEALw_wcB
WRT banning gasoline engines, I can’t help but think of Germany what with great smug and hubris declared they would be rid of fossil fuels. Now they are begging the world for fossil fuels. It’s not that I don’t believe the greeniots want to ditch ICE vehicles, I just believe that same reality that mangled Germany will likewise mangle these nut jobs.
Old thread. Is the comment feature still live?
I wonder about all the 2022 model vehicles that remain only 90% complete. Built but parked awaiting some backordered, critical (or required by federal regulation) component. An air-bag actuator. A fuel injection /emission reduction microchip controller. The RFID sensor that makes the “smart” valve stemps report tire pressure. Some sort of very last thing that prevents the vehicle from going from factory to the dealers.
There are square miles of parking lots near factories and assembly plants covered with parked not-quite-finished cars and trucks and SUVs.
At SOME point a container-load of parts Just-in-Time scheduled for late 2021 delivery will belatedly show up. And, I suspect, work on 2023 vehicles will be suspended while traffic from parking lots to assembly lines to rail heads gets very very heavy indeed. Then a glut of brand-new / old model vehicles will budge into the market like a pig part-way thru a python.
What are the knock on effects?
@Pouncer:
Or…. they might just change a sticker on them and call them 2022 model cars…
FWIW, I’m pretty comfortable with my “Fleet” as it stands today. The only probable change will be dumping my newest one (the 2008 ML 320) as it has been a hangar queen of electrical and other problems. I might buy a replacement (from no newer than 2001 or so – certainly nothing with a ‘clicker’ to start it or laden with ‘computers’). Highest candidates? A FORD Expedition / Lincoln Navigator in gas or a Dodge RAM Diesel (potentially FORD 7.3 Diesel… but not the newer sucky ones). Something that can use crappy fuel, runs a long time, and where I can do a lot of the parts swapping myself.
Then I’m going to concentrate on DIY BioDiesel. Buy / build a set up while they are readily available. That would let me keep a couple of my cars going “no matter what”.
I have ZERO interest in anything new enough to have a load of computers in it, or a tablet screen to work on (in the dark doing 70 MPH on the freeway…) to do anything. Just not going to happen. So they can build all they want, but until they are making “new” XJ Jeeps or 7.3 L Powerstrokes (without Blue Goo needs); I’m not buying.
Oh, I might get a small e-buggy for those 3 mile trips to the grocery store and the 10 miles to the hardware store for small stuff; but unlikely. Only if there’s a lot of places I need to go (but can’t) with an ICE.
Oh, and from personal experience: The ML has its hind brain die in the rain if the rear tail light assembly gets a leak OR if the sunroof drain fails. Yes, the sunroof drain runs through the Hind Brain compartment… per the mechanic who fixed mine.
From “Matt’s Offroad Recovery” channel (great fun BTW): The new FORD Pickups lose their mind if they go into too deep of water and get wet inside, then don’t run again. Also some other truck they recovered did the same. A Toyota Tundra? Something like that. Water to just at floor level, it goes nuts. So all that offroad and bad environment, / creek fording stuff? Get an old XJ or CJ Jeep…
So for your Bug Out Vehicle in places with any potential of flooding (or heavy rain if a Mercedes ML…) get something old and dumb.
They can finish the assembly of all those quasi-done cars, and likely sell them to someone; but I’m not buying one. Also look at the brakes. Rusty ones mean it sat and rotted before shipping to the dealer…
Oh, and of course, I’m not interested in anything that has a multi-kW-hr battery that can’t be submerged or (like the Tesla) where a bit of road FOD like a bolt tossed into the underside / pan causes it to go all sparky car flame me to death. I want a car that can suffer minor damage AND ford a 2 foot deep+ flooded area and still get me to the hospital or away from the hurricane…
If I had the money I’d have my car entire fuel injection system removed and replaced with a carburator .
I am old enough to remember carburators, and I love them for many reasons.
I would even prefer having a manual choke like my first car had back in the 1970s.
I hate that a computer decides what my car must do, based on how much oxygen it detects in the catalytic converter and all that ridiculous ” saving the planet” stuff based on a scam leftists came up with.
I am also old enough to remember carburetors. I also remember how finicky they were. First “cheap” fuel injection systems in mass market automobiles (70s) were electric carburetors. I wouldn’t mind going back to that. Mechanical fuel injection systems are older than I am.
Once a Holey carburator was correctly tuned, the car ran very well and the rumble of the exhaust was sweet.
Not to hijack current discussions, but I failed to get my question across. And while your status report on your personal preferences is a very good clue about the macro situation, it’s only a clue.
Government has really screwed with the vehicle industry. The auctions are evidence. What’s the next outcome or next macro-clue we can look for?
Factors going into the screwing: “Cash for Clunkers”, ostensibly to remove pollution from urban local atmosphere, has taken out a bottom tier of vehicles previously traded by relatively impoverished consumers. “Health and Safety” requirements have made the whole NEW car tier more expensive and pushed some middle class consumers down into used car markets (which should have made the auction markets more lively…) The “stimulus money” chasing too few affordable vehicles drove prices up. (Consumers for new expensive vehicles are NOT those on whom the “stimulus” made much difference.) “Supply chain” issues though, (largely Butteggegg failures) as I mentioned, have constricted supplies of new not-quite-complete new cars. So The high end buyers are holding 2018-2021 cars out of the used car market, waiting.
This too has driven used car prices up …
But the past month, prices started trending down, while nothing in the screw ups above have really been resolved.
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/08/used-car-prices-dropping
Something has changed. And another big change coming, as I said: inevitably the clog in the supply pipeline will resolve into a glut of 2022-model-year cars moving into the “new car” channels in spring or summer of 2023.
This is so unprecedented I can’t begin to imagine how to begin analysis and prediction.
I beg some analysis from the group here, collectively (and many, individually) much much smarter than me.
My answer might seem too simplistic, and too optimistic ( funny because my girlfriend tells me all the time I am a pessimist ! ) but I think imposing on us electric cars will fail, it may take years, but it will fail…kind of like imposing the front wheel ( made by Mazda) Mustang or the ” new Coke” failed.
here are a few excerpts from an old Road& Track article,
“… in a 1985 act of lunacy, Ford executives decided that what real-wheel-drive American muscle-car fans really wanted was a front-wheel-drive Japanese car, so long as it had a shiny pony badge slapped on its grille. The call was made to phase out the rear-drive Fox platform in favor of a front-wheel-drive platform jointly developed with Mazda. …”
“… Using the kind of marketing brilliance that brought us “New Coke,” Ford planned to sell the outgoing rear-drive car beside the new Mustang as the “Mustang Classic” …”
“… Like Coca-Cola, Ford was so confident in this strategy that it put its entire Mustang development budget behind it. …”
“… Fans pelted Ford with hundreds of thousands of letters against the proposed change to a car that had become an American icon…
In response, Ford executives enacted a rare change in strategy, …”
Long story short,
The people who we would think are up there making those big decisions because they are brilliant people are for the most part, no more brilliant than the guy that mows your lawn or fixes your clothes dryer.
New coke failed, new Mustang failed because those people have no idea what they are doing.
and imposing electric cars on us will fail…the difference is that those electric cars as they will fail will also make the economy ” fail” because unlike coke or Mustangs, our whole economy is tied to the automobile industry and the petrol industry.
The forced move to green energy is based on lies about climate change, and is such a bad thing that it will cause – and has started to cause – inflation, shortage of food and will certainly cause wars.
By the way for those who think what I am saying does not make sense, you should read the United Nation’s report about mining for stuff required for green energy ( I saved it somewhere , can t remember the exact name of the document ) , although they say it in much softer terms that I am, the United Nations report admits the move towards green energy is going to be very difficult, will cause lots of problems, from damage to the environment to forced labor in poor nations, and yes they even mention possible armed conflicts between nations.
Electric cars will be at the center of this catastrophe, and after a few years of that insanity that will cause inflation , famine, poverty and armed conflicts, people will vote for candidates that want us to go back to petrol.
Electric cars will not completely go away, but they will only be used by a very small percentage of the population , just like only a very small percentage of the population are strict vegetarians.
Shoving change down the masse’s throats usually results in bad things, and it will this time as well.
“… Using the kind of marketing brilliance that brought us “New Coke,”
That is a classic case. There are lessons to be drawn. And doubtless, there are many which try to do this. But do they get it right?
Here is one: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/company/history/the-story-of-one-of-the-most-memorable-marketing-blunders-ever
I don’t trust it. For one thing, it says New Coke was “the first formula change in 99 years”. No, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_formula
Although the new formulation had beaten both Pepsi-Cola and the old Coke formula in multiple blind taste tests, consumer response was overwhelmingly negative.
First rule of focus groups: you have to discount the temporary appeal of the new shiny thing.
First rule of marketing: you should not reject your established base.
@Pouncer:
I’m not sure what you are looking for. Ideas about prices going forward. What will happen to the Car Companies. What to buy now. What crap is going on politically. etc.
Yes, Governments have screwed the Car Market forcefully in a few different ways. As you noted: Mostly via Environmental Mandates and Safety Mandates until now. Lately they have added the third way of “ESG Scores” and the mandatory move to eCars.
Every iteration has made the product somewhat worse and the prices way higher. This trend will continue. It will have many effects on The Average Person.
One example:
In the late ’70s I arrived in Silicon Valley to my first job. Another of my class mates had me over to her family home. “Dad” was selling some old Detroit Flat Car as they had bought something new and it was old.. Serviceable. Ran well. Well maintained. But older, high miles, and a nondescript whatever model. Price? $75. About what it would cost for a new battery and a tune up (that it did not need, btw). Fast Forward to now: The Daily Driver “Clunker” is no more. The kids “First Car” to tinker with under the tree is gone (thanks to “do not touch” laws on intake and exhaust laws… and prices).
The whole thrust of the event is to PREVENT economical use of cars and REMOVE cars from the road.
So you can buy a $50,000+ car with a huge tendency for something to break and require $1000+ of electronic care; or you can buy a $1000 absolute minimum car as that’s the “cash for clunkers” cut off line; and hope you can get it past the smog check without another $2000 of “stuff”.
Lately, the “supply chain” issues have screwed up current production. I don’t really care about this for me at all as I’m NEVER buying a new car again. The economic value just isn’t there compared to used, for one thing. Then there’s the whole “decreased reliability and incredible maintenance cost increases” on new design vehicles (basically anything with a load of electronics and Diesels after the Blue Goo mandates of about 2008. Call it about 2001 to 2007 depending on maker and model). I’m far more likely to buy an “antique” in good shape. Though this strategy worked well in California, it is vastly harder in the Rust Belt. Florida TBD…
Heck, I’ll build my own “Kit Car” or from scratch one-off before I’d put down $50,000 for a pile of crap that rusts away in 5 or less years and requires about $2000 of computer maintenance per year… (The 2008 Mercedes – that does not need blue goo- has taught me a very good lesson. I thought I was on the OK side. I was not. The 2001 wagon seems on the right side, so cutoff somewhere in that range most likely).
In other words: There’s a reason that old Jeep XJ (Cherokee) from prior to about 1990 I think… is now commanding a PREMIUM. Were I to buy a Jeep, that’s what I’d go for. Then put in whatever maintenance was needed to keep it going forever.
What about eCars? Well, they are being forced down our throats. I think I have enough Old School fleet to cover all my remaining driving years. What I don’t know is what incredible stupid will be applied to fuel supply. 2 of my cars can run on Jet Fuel, Lamp Oil, or home brew bio-diesel – so I figure I’m OK on that front as those will be the last things made unavailable. IF it ever becomes impossible or painfully expensive to get gasoline: I might get some kind of eCar just to do all the 20 mile or less things around town. Groceries. Local stores. Run to the bank. I would consider it a disposable car and buy the cheapest POS I thought would do the job. Perhaps even a Golf Cart. Other than that, not going there.
Note: It is remotely possible that despite 100 years of “This Time For Sure!” stories of the new Super Battery that will Change Everything!!!! yet doesn’t: Somebody might do that someday and make an eCar viable. IFF they can get rid of the Glow In The Dark Tablet that kills your night vision AND make the car not so User Hostile (i.e. has lots of things to make it NOT go more than go i.e. interlocks) I’d maybe possibly consider one. I expect that by the time that happens I’ll no longer be driving…
So my intent from this point forward is to ONLY buy things without a load of computers and none needing Blue Goo. Preferably with a metal key to get in (not “clickers” as mandated in 2005 in Germany – I’ve spent roughly $500 to $750 on new clicker keys in the last, roughly, year. $275 each and they seem to die every few years.) Focus on Dodge Cummins or Ford 7.3 Powerstroke (both pre-common rail injection if possible. Reliability goes steadily down over time for all the Big Three Diesels with FORD dropping off a cliff after the 7.3, Cummins doing a steady decline with increasing crap mandate load, and GM being just rated “avoid” in all years… but the further from mechanical injection they get, and the more electronics in the injection / boost system, the less durable and reliable they become.)
In cars, I’m more likely to look for a 1950 to 1970 car than any 2000+ anything… At least then I know I can get any machinist to make any replacement part that isn’t available (and that I won’t have to deal with “those electronics are no longer made” or “the software is no longer available”…) Yes, I have zero faith “going forward” that parts will be made for anything over 5 years old or that any new car will last longer than 5 years… So I’m planning “my own way”… One that sidesteps the Government Mandate years and avoids the “non-mechanical parts unavailability” that’s going to hit hard.
IF you are in the market for “nearly new used”: Yes, that ought to have dropping prices for about 6 mos to a year, as my best guess. Increased new supply, more folks buying them and more older used going to the used market. Probably for about a year. Maybe only 6 mos if the economy flatlines…
Speaking of “New Coke”… I remember hearing a story decades ago which I was never sure about. True? Fable? The story is that New Coke was put on the market as a way to introduce the recipe change from old-style sugar to new-style (cheaper!) high fructose corn syrup. The fear was that if the formula were changed from sugar to corn syrup, people would revolt. The flavor of corn syrup is close, but not identical with traditional sugar. On the other hand, and in large extent because of the massive influx of Federal grants to corn farmers, sugar was becoming increasingly expensive while high fructose corn syrup was becoming cheaper and cheaper. The solution was to market “New Coke!”, a product which was expected to fail. When that was removed from the market and replaced with a return to old Coke (which was actually now “corn syrup Coke”) people would accept it. Clever, those marketing experts…
True? Fable? I don’t know, but it certainly SOUNDS like big business at work. Oh, and even now, you can buy SUGAR Coke if you look closely. Mexican Coke uses sugar, and I think that some forms of Kosher Coke use sugar. Some people will pay a premium for sugar Coke, imported and sold at a local tienda.
Last month, S650 Mustang chief engineer Ed Krenz confirmed to Ford Authority that the upcoming pony car will be “much more difficult” to tune than the outgoing S550 model. This comes as a result of the increased cybersecurity measures tacked onto Ford’s new Fully Networked Vehicle (FNV) architecture, which underpins the seventh-generation Mustang. R&T sat down with tuning industry leaders ProCharger and HP Tuners during the 2022 SEMA Show to discuss what this change means for Mustang customers, as well as the aftermarket as a whole.
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As our vehicles start to integrate more complex systems such as Advanced Driver Assist Systems and over-the-air updates, automakers are growing weary of what potential bad actors could gain access to by way of hacking. Whether those hacks come in an attempt to retrieve personal customer data, or to take control of certain aspects of these integrated vehicles, automakers want to leave no part of that equation unchecked.
“I think there are very specific reasons why the OEMs are taking encryption more seriously,” HP Tuners director of marketing Eddie Xu told R&T. “There’s personal identifiable data on vehicles, there’s more considerations now than just engine control modules controlling the engine. It’s everything involved.”
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a41926249/automakers-locking-aftermarket-tuners-out-of-ecus/