Tesla's Flying Roadster and the Future Global Car Market

 

Wall Street Journal - "What Tesla’s Flying Roadster Really Means for the Global Auto Race"

"With a flying sports car, Elon Musk displayed again that he’s America’s biggest dreamer.

...



In many ways, whether it flies or not is besides the point. Unveiling the Roadster with out-of-this-world technology reiterated that Musk has given up designing cars for regular people to drive. He says the Roadster is the last new vehicle Tesla will offer for humans to drive and is betting instead on remaking Tesla as a robotics company.

In effect, Musk is leaving the mainstream car market to the Chinese—who, he has suggested, are so formidable that many Western automakers are unable to compete without government intervention. It’s a telling sign of where things are going for the Western automotive industry."

The Verge - "The Tesla Roadster flew, drove upside down, and hit 60mph in under a second"

if this isn't the cleanest example of europe vs america right now, i don't know what is https://t.co/0US8PLuUQP

— Rod (@rod_mallo) October 16, 2026

The Everyday Car of Yesteryear Now Prized Vintage

 

Wall Street Journal - "From ‘Piece of Junk’ to Prize Showpiece: The Rise of the Everyday Classic Car"

"“People collect or buy the stuff that they kind of imprinted on when they were younger,” Rabold said.

That has helped shift the landscape of the “collector” scene beyond the baby boomers to what Gen Xers and millennials grew up idolizing. Tyson Hugie, 44, has owned more than 50 cars, especially from Honda and Acura. He makes YouTube videos about his 12-car collection in his home city of Phoenix. Among them, a 1989 Honda Prelude 4WS, the same type of car he drove in high school.

“It’s kind of like a time machine,” he said. “I get in that car, and I’m taken back to being 17 years old.”

The average age among Hagerty’s customers in 2025 was 53, but Gen-Z is the company’s fastest-growing customer base. Insurance policies are up 48% year-over-year for Hagerty’s Gen-Z drivers.

Dominic DiLettera, 19, is a sophomore in college in Rochester, N.Y. He saved all his birthday money and every allowance since he was 7 years old, knowing he would one day want to buy a car. At 15 he decided he wanted something fun, so he paid $3,000 for a 1989 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24—a sporty version of Chevy’s boxy compact car."

Robotaxi Future is Already Here

WSJ - "It’s Waymo’s World. We’re All Just Riding in It."

Car Colors Over the Years

 

Via Threads.

The $20,000 Electric Truck

 

The Vergecast - "The Slate Truck is a whole new kind of car"

TechCrunch - "Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla"

Slate.auto

The Death of the Minivan

 

The Atlantic - "The Death of the Minivan"
By Ian Bogost"

"Pickup was quick. In the first year after introducing them, Chrysler sold 210,000 Dodge Caravans and Plymouth Voyagers, its initial two models. Overall minivan sales reached 700,000 by the end of the decade, as the station wagon all but disappeared. But the new design also generated stigma: As the child of the station wagon and the service van, the minivan quickly came to represent the family you love but must support, and also transport. In a nation where cars stood in for power and freedom, the minivan would mean the opposite. As a vehicle, it symbolized the burdens of domestic life.

That stigma only grew with time. In 1996, Automobile magazine called this backlash “somewhat understandable,” given that the members of my generation, who were at that point young adults, had “spent their childhoods strapped into the backseat of one.” Perhaps it was childhood itself that seemed uncool, rather than the car that facilitated it. In any case, minivans would soon be obsolesced by sport utility vehicles. The earliest SUVs were more imposing than they are today: hard-riding trucks with 4×4 capabilities, such as the Chevrolet Suburban and the Jeep Wagoneer. These were as big as or even bigger than the plumber-kidnapper vans of the 1970s, and they got terrible gas mileage, cost a lot of money, and were hard to get in or out of, especially if you were very young or even slightly old. Yet the minivan’s identity had grown toxic, and for suburban parents, the SUV played into the fantasy of being somewhere else, or doing something better."

Related,
"Volkswagen ID Buzz Coming to U.S. by 2023" (Mar. 2021)

The Dakar Rally

 

Reuters - "Driving in the desert: Surreal images from the Dakar Rally"

From Wikipedia:

The Dakar Rally or simply "The Dakar", formerly known as the "Paris–Dakar Rally", is an annual rally raid organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. Most events since the inception in 1978 were staged from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal. Security threats in Mauritania led to the cancellation of the 2008 rally, and events from 2009 to 2019 were held in South America. Since 2020, the rally has been held in Saudi Arabia. The event is open to amateur and professional entries, professionals typically making up about eighty percent of the participants.

The rally is an off-road endurance event. The terrain that the competitors traverse is much tougher than that used in conventional rallying, and the vehicles used are typically true off-road vehicles and motorcycles, rather than modified on-road vehicles. Most of the competitive special sections are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rocks, and erg among others. The distances of each stage covered vary from short distances up to 800–900 kilometres (500–560 mi) per day. The rough terrain and lack of skill usually results in accidents and serious injuries.

From RedBull.com:

Imagine a race where cars, motorcycles, trucks and quads zoom across vast deserts, challenging both the vehicles and the drivers to their limits. That's the Dakar Rally, an incredible adventure that takes place every year in a different part of the world.

The 46th edition of the Dakar Rally will be hosted by Saudi Arabia from January 5–19, 2024. Starting from the city of AlUla and ending at Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, the near 7,900km route, of which 4,727km are timed specials, includes some of the most breathtaking and difficult terrains of Saudi Arabia including the Empty Quarter, Rub' al Khali and Wadi Rum.

The race is a combination of speed, endurance, strategy and teamwork, and it is considered one of the most grueling and exciting motorsports competitions in the world. Drivers and their navigators must work together to navigate tricky terrain, overcome obstacles and face unexpected challenges in order to make it to the finish line.

With more than 1,000 people lining up to race, the 2024 Dakar Rally promises to be another epic rally-raid adventure over the sand dunes with a host of established global stars and talented young racers out to impress.

The Global EV Series Honda Zero (2026 and Beyond)

 

The Verge - "Honda debuts new global EV series, Honda Zero, coming in 2026"

Hypercars

 

New Yorker - "The World’s Fastest Road Cars—and the People Who Drive Them"
By Ed Caesar

"One definition of a hypercar is a vehicle that nobody needs. Most have theoretical top speeds approaching or exceeding 300 m.p.h., which is much faster than Formula 1 cars, whose top speeds are about 220 m.p.h. Many hypercars also accelerate faster than Formula 1 cars. Hypercars, though, are ostensibly manufactured for the road. (A few models are designated as track-only.) Except for Germany’s autobahn, which has no speed limit, there are few public highways where one can use more than a fraction of a hypercar’s power. To some motoring aficionados, driving a hypercar is like crushing a nut with a diamond-encrusted sledgehammer. “They are trophies, big-game hunter’s trophies,” Mikey Harvey, the editor of the car magazine The Road Rat, told me recently. “They have little or no engineering value, or aesthetic value, or, frankly, functional value. But they are rare. And they are king of the hill. And every one is a little bit faster than the last one. They’re all so completely, undrivably fast on the road. If you take any of those cars anywhere near the outer limits of their performance envelope, you should get a long custodial sentence. . . . I don’t get it. I just think it’s appealing to the very worst of us.”"

Also by Ed Caesar:
Making Cricket in America (Jul. 2023)
Ibiza's House DJ (Oct. 2022)
Simulating Westworld (Dec. 2021)

Learning F1 Racing

Kia's Massive Turnaround

CNBC.com - "How Kia pulled off a massive turnaround in the U.S."

VW ID Buzz Coming to US in 2024

 

The Verge - "VW ID Buzz debuts three-row electric Microbus for the US with more power and space"

Previously, 

VW's Electric Dreams (Jul. 2022)

Volkswagen ID Buzz Coming to U.S. by 2023 (Mar. 2021)

Jeff Bezos's Boat Koru

 

New York Times - "Jeff Bezos’ New Yacht Is Finally Ready to Set Sail"

"“With the clipper bow and the dark hull and the masts,” Mr. MacKay said, referring to Koru’s concave, pointy forward section, “it reminds me of a boat built in 1930 for J.P. Morgan Jr., Corsair IV. It is almost like a reincarnation. It’s certainly at odds with the stuff the oligarchs are building — those look like bloated Clorox bottles.”

Compared with the world’s very largest motor yachts — built for sheer size and the accompanying bragging rights — Koru could almost be considered quaint. Azzam, one of the world’s largest motor yachts, is nearly 200 feet longer.

...

Koru will be propelled primarily by the wind. “Sailboats are usually greener than most powerboats,” said Don Anderson, a former captain of M5, the world’s largest single-masted sailboat, at 256 feet. “I’d like to think that Koru will be one of the most ecological yachts out there, with its sails and also with the technology that will be aboard.”

“When you’re on a sailboat, you’re more in touch with the wind and the waves than on a powerboat,” he continued. “You’re more susceptible to the elements, too. But you can leave California, and once you get past the Catalinas you can basically surf downwind all the way to Hawaii. All you need to do is run with the waves.”

...

Koru will be trailed by Abeona, a 246-foot support vessel. Superyachts often have support vessels following along behind them. These “shadows,” as they are colloquially known, are for the “toys” — the ATVs, supercars, seaplanes, motorcycles, smaller boats, scuba gear, personal submarines and even helicopters that pleasure boaters might bring on a trip. According to its builder, this model of boat can carry these gadgets along with dozens of crew members. (Ms. Sanchez flies helicopters, and the couple was recently photographed taking a helicopter to board Abeona and then Koru.)

Abeona, a motor yacht, will have enough range to follow Koru from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean — a common course for yachts — on a single tank of gas."

Norway's EVs

 

New York Times - "In Norway, the Electric Vehicle Future Has Already Arrived"

Toyota Land Cruiser

Wikipedia - "Toyota Land Cruiser"

"The Toyota Land Cruiser is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is Toyota's longest running series of models. As of 2019, the sales of the Land Cruiser totaled more than 10 million units worldwide. 

Production of the first generation of the Land Cruiser began in 1951. The Land Cruiser has been produced in convertible, hardtop, station wagon and cab chassis body styles. The Land Cruiser's reliability and longevity have led to huge popularity, especially in Australia, where it is the best-selling body-on-frame, four-wheel drive vehicle. Toyota also extensively tests the Land Cruiser in the Australian outback – considered to be one of the toughest operating environments in both temperature and terrain. In Japan, the Land Cruiser was once exclusive to Toyota Japanese dealerships called Toyota Store."

Robb Report - "Toyota Unveils New Images of Its Striking Land Cruiser-Inspired EV Concept"

The Future is E-Biking

 

New Yorker - "Hell on Two Wheels, Until the E-Bike’s Battery Runs Out"

What should EVs sound like?

 

New Yorker - "What Should a Nine-Thousand-Pound Electric Vehicle Sound Like?"

VW's Electric Dreams

 

New Yorker - "The VW Bus Took the Sixties on the Road. Now It’s Getting a Twenty-first-Century Makeover"

Previously,
Volkswagen ID Buzz Coming to U.S. by 2023 (March 2021)

Motorcycle Chariots

Chariot racing is cool, but imagine if you replaced the horses with motorcycles. Okay, now stop imagining...

It exists. pic.twitter.com/VJb5UhtucK

— Kendall Baker (@kendallbaker) May 17, 2022

Hyundai's Retro-Futuristic EV

 

Car and Driver - "Restomod Treatment Elevates 1980s Hyundai Grandeur to a New Level"

Related,

What are we calling this design treatment pic.twitter.com/2jNfguSVQx

— emily sundberg (@Emily_Sundberg) April 12, 2022