G. David Felt

G. David Felt Staff Writer Alternative Energy - www.CheersandGears.com Musk Throws Fit, Tesla Model S Goes from Good to Acceptable! Tesla claimed they had the safest auto's in the world and this was backed up by their 2013 IIHS testing of the Model S that received all good marks. Since then 4 years have passed and IIHS has upped their crash testing standards and other auto companies have stayed on top of the game to be the best around. As such the lastest 2017 IIHS test showed that the safest auto's this year were the all new Lincoln Continental, Mercedes Benz E-Class and Toyota Avalon. Earning acceptable ratings were Tesla Model S, Chevrolet Impala and Ford Taurus. As such Tesla fired off the following statement: "While IIHS and dozens of other private industry groups around the world have methods and motivations that suit their own subjective purposes, the most objective and accurate independent testing of vehicle safety is currently done by the U.S. Government which found Model S and Model X to be the two cars with the lowest probability of injury of any cars that it has ever tested, making them the safest cars in history." IIHS 2017 report IIHS 2017 Top Safety Picks Business Insider story Green Car Reports Story

Looks like it from the pictures, I do not see the crosshair grille.

True, Washington state has actually required PSE the state power supply and natural gas supplier to put in the actual 220V chargers. Course the state brags about how many chargers are being installed but we know it is only a fraction of the actual EV's being sold at this time. Course prepped for the future as the state marketing goes. LOL Washington state is incentivizing the gas stations to install rapid chargers. A few are already being done, but be interesting to see how fast they do it.

Except the west coast which is charging full speed ahead with required EV chargers in all new homes built, all apartments built and existing have to be retrofitted with them or added while building. Public chargers are everywhere now. Every major freeway / highway system has them even at rest stops. Clearly some parts of North America will be ready far faster than others.

Escalade Platinum for myself XT5 for the Wife. Wish they still had an Escalade EXT!

CEO Torsten Müller-Otvös is a complete IDIOT! He clearly has his head in the sand and will be hurting Rolls-Royce more than helping it. His comments about hybrids clearly show he does not understand the technology. This is why he will fail. So Sad, So Bad.

Plus China's push is helping this move. Potus 45 attitude of bringing back the golden age of the 50's with Petro is very dated thinking. Totally agree here. I do wonder if they are building their own 48 volt system or using Daimlers?

I totally get where you guys are coming from and that is also why I ended up with my AWD Trailblazer SS. GM needs to get performance versions of their CUV line out the door sooner rather than later. I think many are over the Mustang / Camaro type pony cars. I can see a whole new world of performance Trucks and CUV/SUVs. GMC Acadia Typhoon edition GMC Terrain Typhoon edition Chevrolet Traverse SS edition Chevrolet Equinox SS edition Ford Explorer SVT Ford Edge SVT Just some examples of what I see as the new performance focused CUV auto's. I see these as all monochromatic versions, not chrome. Focused on performance with some off road capability maybe.

So something along these lines?

I understand your point of view. Being ahead of some who are already low is not that great of a gain. But Honda appeals to certain types of peeps. Fiesta is the rare auto that also sells in a much higher trim form in Europe. The rest of Fords product line and pretty much all of GM is a failure to that market sadly. Like VW here in North America, Ford and GM have not yet figured out the market dynamics. Still on the fence in regards to VW CUVs if they will truly capture market share of just move sales from cars to cuv's.

All yours @A Horse With No Name Too ugly and small for me.

I totally understand and get this, the age of Hybrid is upon us and soon ev only in the long term. Enjoy the last golden age of ICE auto's.

So True, I totally agree. VW has not learned how to build cheap enough nor have they figured out how to really build for the North American market just as GM and Ford have not figured out how to build for the European market.

I can say that about all the asian and german brands on top of the US brands. They all have good times and bad times. Right now the GM and to a certain point FORD are doing way better than the Germans and many of the Asians.

Even with the new Accord, their lineup looks dated, looks stale and is so frumpy from over conservative style that it will only appeal to hard core Honda fans. Their product line will NOT win Market share. Just soso interiors even in their newest auto's and small tight interior room. Honda need fresh blood from outside the company not more of their yes sir lemming employees. Sorry, but I have to totally disagree with you about Honda.

To everyone at Cheers and Gears and all our Guests,

Feel like they are hiding something. With that said, I am surprised that people are still buying the hunk of junk Sprinter vans. Talk about cheap interiors that easily break. Non reliable power trains and problematic suspensions. I see less and less on the roads around Washington. More Ford, GM and RAM vans. My brother in law who thought the diesels would be long life low maintenance, low cost just unloaded the last of his service vans replacing them with Ford and GM traditional vans which have proven to last better than the junk Sprinters.

As stated above 77% of Commercial sales was in the Gov & commercial markets, up 36% for the month and yet Rental sales were down 11,000 autos or 54%. So this has me thinking fleet sales to private commercial companies and gov agencies.

WOW, looked at multiple financial web sites and even others are mentioning that they would like to know the actual break out of commercial sales details but that GM is only reporting a percentage. Weird.

Thank you, did not know if you had any other info than that. Will see if I can find anything. Appreciate all you do Bill.

Leaf is understandable, Nissan is extending all current lease owners till version 2.0 is out so they can roll over to the newer one and are giving away just about existing leases on leaf 1.0 to keep it going as they have had a defection of people to the BOLT.

Painfull for mostly everyone. Clearly the auto market is turning down and I bet will be soft for the rest of this year and into next year if not soft till 2019 as things cool off. They have been on a rip roaring pace for a number of years.

We'll this better not be a surprise to anyone. RAM is carrying the company and the Jeep GC. everything else is down big time. The jeep product line does surprise me. Dodge Challenger, Viper are surprising to see.

Sales are exactly where I expected them as SUV/CUV and trucks sales are pretty much up, car sales down. My surprise is GMC. What is going on there as over all sales are sucky. Plus the graph does not show this so if GM is selling commercial products,what are they or is this saying commercial sales are to car rental? @William Maley Can you expand on the commercial comment more please. Thank you

Nice, solid numbers as expected. Seem Audi has hit it just right in having the product consumers want. But I honestly do not remember what their marketing tag is now so that does surprise me.