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The fu***d up world of Millennial and Gen Z auto enthusiasm hotline:
Hello!! You’ve reached the improbable but true insight resource for today’s fu***d up state of auto enthusiasm and the industry for GenZers and Millennials. Please listen carefully as our menu of concerns and remedies has changed drastically over the past few weeks.
Press 1 to escape into a fog of boomer nostalgia: the good ol’ simple Biscayne, Bel Air and Impala days. Toss away your worries over tariffs and three major international conflicts and hear a sunny soothing patriotic balm from Dinah Shore. Experience the real “Right of Return” to the blessed trinity of Synchromesh, Powerglide and Turboglide; the thrilling days of yesteryear. None of this complicated regenerative braking trash.
Terrified of tariffs? Press 2 to hear rousing historic legacy Labor Day economic speeches by major UAW officers and current political candidates that stir your passions to make and buy American as you drive across the Gordie Howe Bridge and watch your disposable income shrink while your education debt balloons.
Press 3 for a terrifying look at the current state of affordable domestic product disarray in the wake of miscalculated collapsed EV adoption and abandoned production, looming tsunami waves of Chinese EV product over-topping US trade barriers, and the shorting out of the electric grid. Fathom that.
Press 4 to hear how you can convert the remaining seven years on your eight-year vehicle purchase contract to a crypto version that could lower your payments but might add more risk and uncertainty to your already precarious financial world.
Thank you for calling The Fu***d Up World of Millennial and GenZ Auto Enthusiasm Hotline. No wonder you are stressed out..
Dr. John
Phoenix, Arizona
Time machines.
You seem to be continually unhappy that you don’t possess a time machine to take you back to the “glory days” of the 50’s and 60’s. I totally understand, if I’d had your “catbird seat” to “see, touch, feel” the people and innovation of those halcyon times I’d be in the same boat. As it is, I’m just a poor ‘ole immigrant from California who lived those days in the car crazy zone. I got kicked off my summer job at the local Chevy plant when I got knocked out by a Bel Air traveling in the overhead assembly line. My noggin didn’t match up with the sheet metal and when they discovered I wasn’t 18 that didn’t match up with policy. My most distressing moment at the bowtie was when I was dispatched to the receiving dock to bust-up some Corvette blocks that had been shipped in error to the Golden State. But, man, it was exciting back then. The dealers covering up their showroom windows until announcement day and then the unveiling with the big searchlights left over from the war arcing through the night sky. It was showbiz! The cars weren’t perfect by a long-shot but they were moonshots compared to what we’d had during the war. The problem today is the boys with cajónes and go-for-it attitude have departed for parts unknown in a blizzard of regulations and bureaucracy. As for the White House occupant I guess I’d rather have a full-time crook than a part-time honest man. At least I know to keep an eye on him.
Barry Hanna
Atlanta, Georgia
Thank you.
I just wanted to say thank you for your regular column(s) on the auto industry. As an “insider” myself, with a lifetime of experience in the regional design studios of two American and one Japanese auto maker, I know the bare truth of many of the things of which you speak, and your insights shared with the wider world are of much value to anyone interested in the industry.
Also as a keen student of history, political science, geopolitics, and the general state of the world, I can appreciate the courageous stand you’ve taken against your country’s current administration, its corporate enablers, and the danger it presents to not only your country, but to the rest of the world. Voices like yours, at times like these, matter.
Thank you for speaking up on a public platform. The world waits hopefully for the return of the Americans that we once knew.
RM
Melbourne, Australia
Survival.
A reader made the comment, ". ..the beginning of the end for the domestic auto industry"...well, never-mind the end of the auto industry -- Trump's tenure is the beginning of the end of America as we have all come to know it, and to appreciate its many admirable points.
In the course of roughly one single generation, the United States has become completely unrecognizable. What happened? Was everyone somehow asleep at the switch, as this narcissistic bully with the IQ and mannerisms of an 11-year-old pre-pubescent boy somehow pulled the rug out from everyone.? How can devotees of this $2 billion net earner possibly fawn upon every emission that might randomly spew forth from his major orifices, even as these very same people themselves fall victim to completely naive and thoughtless economic and world policies?
Can America survive the balance of this century under the heel of the Orange Anus Tripod? For that matter, will it even survive for the next two years?
Eddy S.
Newcastle. Ontario, CANADA
More people need to wake up.
Great job on this week’s rant! You made your points with a colorful flair and I support what you said. More people need to wake up to the realities of what Trump and his administration are doing to the auto industry. Bullying Canada and many of our other allies does not make for a stable environment to predict future design and manufacturing needs.
EF
Spring Hill, Tennessee
Missing in action.
Just when you start thinking the pedophile in chief could not come up with any more stupid ideas, I really wonder where Mary Barra and his new suck-up friend, Roger Penske, have been. Either one of them could explain what an awful idea these and other tariffs are. Why does nobody in the White House realize it? And why does nobody explain to them that half of those trucks at Chevrolet stores all over the country, waiting to be sold to hardworking Americans, were built in Oshawa? I am actually starting to be happy to see the MAGA acolytes get screwed the worst.
Joe Folz
Bonita Springs, Florida
Where we are.
Skin in the game... I am a 3rd-generation automotive "Innovator" and a child of history. History involves understanding how economies affect the automobile industry. Our industry is caught in a cycle that will only encourage more protectionism, tax payer funded "loans" and grandiose claims of the future. The auto industry has been in the shitter since it was "nationalized" in 2008. The brain trust put in place to run the "jobs program for those approved by HR" has left the auto industry manned by sheeple. The incompetents that now run our industry think that catering to the luxury addicted 1% is going to make them profitable. Henry Ford wouldn't agree with that. Then again, he wouldn't be qualified to work for the cabal that he created, today.
Face it. They only want to sell to the ignorant 1% and to the government that bailed them out. Deregulation, being financed by the other 99% with easy money, protectionism, tax avoidance, staffing the company with ass kissers and focusing on the law enforcement market have destroyed the auto industry. Fortunately, the money laundering and financial manipulations are still moving forward...
Ptg0
Highland Park, Michigan
Into The Darkness.
People in cults don’t know what they don’t know. This whole American experiment has ultimately run its course. The combination of Religion and Patriotism has created a cult that has taken over critical thinking and logic. The fool in Washington has proven that he is very effective at getting people to abandon those two important human traits. Things that would end your political career, Gary Hart for example, are now things that get ignored. Ignored by religious leaders. By business leaders. By local leaders. Notice the word leaders. He has corrupted the minds of many. Even the destruction of constitutional rights isn’t a bridge too far. I seriously doubt we ever recover from this as a functioning society.
JRR
Plymouth, Michigan
Not looking good.
Don't hold back Peter. You could be looking at the beginning of the end for the domestic auto industry. Each has big investments and footprint in both Canada and Mexico. Affordability and plant utilization are going to be huge issues facing them immediately with no product solutions in sight.
Bob Longstreth
Rochester Hills, Michigan
At what cost?
Phenomenal rant this week, guys. Proud of you, and proud to be part of the reality resistance. This too shall pass, but at what cost?
Dave M.
Houston, Texas
Greetings from Canada.
Peter, I want to thank you for your comments. Your column gives me hope that these crazy wars of bombs and tariffs will end one day.
Eric H.
Calgary, Alberta, CANADA
Wish list.
2028 presidential candidate wish list: 1. Rational. 2.Dementia free. 3. Under 60 years old. 4. Pays off their entire credit card balance each month.
DB
Berwick, Maine
Thank you.
Thank you for your strong commentary this week. I was very ashamed of GM on July 27, pandering to those GOP fools. A political rally at Milford, why? GM lost billions due to policy changes, but we're hoping to land defense contracts worth millions? Smiles and tours with that diaper stench? It was a sick day for me - I couldn't stomach it. Win with Integrity must be for 8th levels and below.
I've been reading you for over 20 years now - thank you for the inspiring, truthful words. it means a lot! MSM has gone soft on the damage to our detriment.
PG
North Branch, Michigan
Editor-in-Chief’s Note: As far as I’m concerned, that day in Milford was the darkest day in company history. Shameful, disgusting and simply inexcusable, it will remain a stain on Mary Barra’s tenure as CEO forever. -PMD
Keep it coming.
Hi Peter, great rant this week. Probably your all time best. I wish the Democratic eunuchs in Congress and the Senate could grow a pair and be this aggressive. Keep it coming. I always look forward to the latest edition of AE. Great way to start the week. Don’t let the assholes wear you down.
JW
Novato, California
Bravo.
Bravo on another excellent Rant this week! You are a shining beacon of reason in the abyss of darkness and the current political quagmire of ignorance and incompetence. Please don't ever hold back on account of the army of sycophants propping up our current national nightmare.
David Kozak
Murrieta, California
More.
The restraint in your rant was much appreciated! More please :-)
Chuckbdc
Rockville, Maryland
Amen.
THANK YOU for 'speaking out' regarding the 'Global Embarrassment.' It truly is beyond fucking ridiculous! His incompetence, cruelty, dementia, and pure malevolence is destroying not just the domestic car industry but our entire democracy, way of life, and world order. THANK YOU for calling out what too many people are too deep in denial, delusion, and magical wishful thinking to admit!
We did this to ourselves and the world. Because this is now politics in America. The person who tells the prettiest sweetest sounding lies, no matter how impossible, wins.
The billionaires of this country destroyed our democracy, stole the economy for their own benefit by cutting our social safety nets to pay for their own tax cuts, and packaged it all as “freedom.” Selfish, short-sighted, stupid people were dumb enough to buy it, and actually voted to make it all happen.
As people hurt even more, Trump fomented grievance, retribution, anger, and hate to further divide us. Distract us so we wouldn’t notice they’re robbing us blind, and make even more money off the stupidest ones – TrumpCoin, TrumpPhone, TrumpSneakers, and spiking fuel prices to reward his big oil patrons.
Because so many voters are too selfish, short-sighted, stupid, and deep in denial to accept the truth, even when it’s staring them in the face. That’s how Trump got elected. Not once but twice. People aren’t drawn to Trump because he is smart, competent, or ‘Christian.’ They are drawn to him because he tells uneducated, insecure, angry people that their stupidity, ignorance, and racism are actually strengths.
It’s not often a once powerful and admired nation votes to make itself poorer, sicker, stupider, and forever less trusted and relevant on the world stage, but that’s exactly what we’ve done to ourselves.
I hope your health issues are improving, and wish you all the best for continuing good health!
Best regards,
Nick Land
Bristol, Rhode Island
A matter of trust.
I don't trust anyone who doesn't like cars or dogs.
Tom Pease
AE’s L.A.-based correspondent
Beverly Hills, California