Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I've been critical of all these SUVs and CUVs in the past for reasonable reasons I think.  Now that we own one, I do "get it".  My wife loves it more than I do.  I find the thing to be "acceptable" but not exciting, which at my age is OK I think.  It's easier to egress than the GTI which starts to be a thing and has higher forward seating/views.  The space inside is good, rear storage is good, it is very quiet at speed.

And if you watch while you drive, you'll no doubt notice maybe half the other cars around you are CUVs.

The Mustang E looks low to the ground, to me, not really a CUV type, I think.  The Camaro E is the same, four doors.  

Next thing we know we'll have some CFB playoff instead of letting drunk bitter old sportswriters chosing the NC.

A variation of this happened to us with the hybrid.  We went on a 9 day trip and when we returned, the car was dead, doornail dead.  I called Hyundai service and a AAA truck showed up soon enough, he ended up jumping the car and said the battery read dead.  The next day I took it to the dealer, this time it started up OK.  Everything was fine.

Turns out the car shuts down after 4-5 days.  You have to enter the car with the physical key and hit a well hidden button that activates the battery.

Nobody told me this trick, I never read the manual.

One thing to remember is that people just don't want sedans anymore, especially from domestic manufacturers.  I don't think either Chevy or Ford sell any true "cars", it's all SUV's, cross-over SUV's, and trucks.  Chevy has discontinued the Camaro (again), and they're probably never going to bring it back.  I'm not sure about the Mustang's current or future, but rebranding as an EV may be the only way that "Mustangs" survive in the modern age.  That being said, it probably also gave Ford a little bit of extra marketing to a lot younger crowd who is much more willing to accept a xSUV as a Mustang.  We can keep splitting hairs, and come up with that any Mustang not built on a body-on-frame architecture isn't a real mustang either, and I think they've been uni-body since the 90's. 

MOPAR is discontinuing the Challenger and Charger as well.  One or the other might come back as an EV.

So I think there's some value to Ford, in having the ONLY gas-powered "muscle car" available in the marketplace.

The Corvette isn't really a direct competitor and has never been considered a "muscle car."  Modern Corvette owners might even attempt to tell you it's a "Supercar"-- and they might have a case for that.

Camaro's future is as an EV, if there is one.  Hardly anyone is selling a sedan now, the Accord is a very nice one of course.

I don't think that's a real car, just an illustration of a concept.  

It is an artistic concept drawing based on a bit of info from GM.

Apparently Nissan and Honda are merging. So may not see any of the Nonda sporty cars in the future. 

Oftentimes, when you've made a bad decision, the worst thing you can do is double down. The best approach can be cutting your losses and moving forward as well as possible. It's a hard lesson, but extremely valuable, and General Motors (GM -1.88%) is currently in the process of learning it after investing $10 billion in its Cruise autonomous vehicle program.

The Detroit automaker had once vowed not to step off the accelerator of autonomous driving development -- until December, when it announced a near complete reversal of its strategy. Is General Motors' exiting its robotaxi dreams a mistake, or was the venture the mistake?

Time is money
Following in the path of crosstown rival Ford Motor Company, which threw in the towel on its autonomous driving unit Argo years ago, GM announced its Cruise subsidiary is ending its effort to develop robotaxis. General Motors will now combine Cruise and its own teams to further push its efforts in advance autonomous and assisted driving, which would provide more immediate benefits for customers and its finances.

"Given the considerable time and expense required to scale a robotaxi business in an increasingly competitive market, combining forces would be more efficient and therefore consistent with our capital allocation priorities," General Motors CEO Mary Barra said in a call with analysts.

Cruise was once lauded for its potential to become a large part of General Motors. In 2021, the company estimated it would generate revenue of $50 billion by the end of the decade, and only last year it was targeting $1 billion in revenue by 2025. General Motors had even planned for Cruise to pair up with Honda Motor Co. to launch a driverless ride-hailing service in Japan in 2026.


But its robotaxi plans had become a headache. In October 2023, a Cruise robotaxi struck a pedestrian in San Francisco, leading to California stripping Cruise of the permits it needed to operate the robotaxi business. Cruise idled its entire fleet, Kyle Vogt resigned as CEO, and nine other executives were fired. That was perhaps the beginning of the end of GM's robotaxi plans.


It's a change in strategy that General Motors believes will save more than $1 billion annually after restructuring Cruise, which is roughly half of its annual spend on the subsidiary. Those savings become more important when you consider that General Motors, among many in the industry, is losing serious money on developing electric vehicles (EVs), and with the automaker currently restructuring its troubled China business at the cost of $5 billion.