Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
Tesla Suspends Cybertruck Reservations Outside Of North America
More than two years after Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck concept, the pre-launch saga of Silicon Valley’s big shiny object continues. According to Reuters, Tesla has stopped taking non-North American reservations for the Cybertruck. The option to plunk down some cash on the steel doorstop recently disappeared for international customers, with Tesla taking its typical approach of not commenting at all on the matter. Honestly, I can think of a few possible hang-ups for overseas sales. If the Cybertruck happens to weigh more than 7,700 pounds (3,500 kg), Europeans won’t be able to drive it on a standard Class B license. There’s also the matter of pedestrian safety which doesn’t look so good on the Cybertruck with its sharp corners and tall steel front end. Speaking with News Australia, former CEO of Australian vehicle safety body ANCAP (you couldn’t think of a better acronym?) voiced further concerns about the Cybertruck’s exoskeleton structure, saying “We would expect that a vehicle should be able to absorb some (crash) energy because if it doesn’t absorb some energy…it will be the people inside who bear the brunt.” Yeah, that doesn’t sound so great, I’d rather my spleen not be considered a crumple zone. Regardless, residents of Canada, the United States, and Mexico can still pre-order Tesla’s Cybertruck in the hopes that delivery will happen eventually. Elon Musk claimed in April that the Cybertruck would go on sale next year, but who’s to say for sure?
Cadillac Hikes The 2023 Lyriq’s Price, Then Gives Some Back
I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t Cadillac already release pricing for the Lyriq? Well, yes and no. The limited-run Debut Edition may have stickered for $59,995, but the standard version of Cadillac’s electric crossover ratchets things up to $62,990 plus tax, title, dealer fees, markup, the blood of a firstborn and a crisp handshake. While a $2,995 price hike without any added features seems a bit steep, Cadillac’s making up for some of that price jump with a choice of benefits. According to a Cadillac press release, Lyriq buyers can choose between two years of unlimited free charging at EVGo stations or $1,500 towards a home installation of a Level 2 240-volt charger. Honestly, the home charger installation is the smart move if you’re not racking up a ton of miles on road trips. Orders for the standard series Cadillac Lyriq open up on May 19. Deliveries of rear-wheel-drive models are expected to start this fall, with the AWD model coming in early 2023 for $64,990.
Android Auto Gets A Massive Update
Not content to let Apple CarPlay hog the spotlight, Android’s rolled out a massive update to Android Auto that allows for split-screen scaling to any screen size and aspect ratio. Yeah, this is pretty huge. Previously, Android Auto came locked to certain aspect ratios, not great if your car has a massive portrait screen or a super widescreen display. In addition, most cars only supported an icon-based single-screen interface, which was fairly limiting as you’d have to choose between displaying your preferred mapping app or your preferred music app. With the next update, not only are all cars getting split-screen Android Auto functionality, it actually seems like a well-designed split-screen interface. Navigation is big and bold, with smaller music and communication tiles either off to the side or underneath depending on your infotainment system’s aspect ratio. It’s a bit like what Apple’s been doing with CarPlay, except a communication tile is far more useful than a calendar tile. Another neat perk of the new Android Auto update is better integration of Google Assistant. According to a press release, Google Assistant will be able to send suggested replies to text messages, share a user’s location with a friend, and recommend music. Honestly, these sound more creepy than useful, but that’s just me. Expect this big update to Android Auto to roll out over the next few months. Your move, Apple.
Ken Block Is Bringing A Wild 911 To Pikes Peak
It’s the 100th anniversary of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and Ken Block is planning on winning the whole thing. An impressive goal, but one that would require incredible skill and a highly-advanced car, preferably with a silly name. Well, we know what makes up the second half of that equation. Say hello to Hoonipigasus. The builders of this pink beast, famed BBi Autosport, call it a Porsche SVRSR. This 911 has been hacked, slashed and bewinged to become the hill climb special we see today. As altitude sucks power, this thing comes with a lot of ponies, 1,400 of them to be precise. Methanol fuel and boost combine to send the force of explosions to all four center-lock wheels. Total weight? A fleet 1,000 kg, or around 2,205 pounds. As for the visual package, well it’s simply killer. I mean come on, this is everything I loved in middle school mashed together. Race cars, old Porsches, vintage liveries, skate-inspired all-over print designs, it all floats my boat. The livery itself is a tribute to the 1971 917/20 Pink Pig race car, except with a street art twist courtesy of Trouble Andrew, a.k.a GucciGhost. With major sponsor Mobil adding their iconic Pegasus logo, Hoonipigasus is certainly one eye-catching special. As for Block’s Pikes Peak ambitions? I guess we’ll find out on June 26 when competitors take on the mountain.
Toyota Gets Wild With Blacked-Out Trim
Not content to be out-stealthed by a goddamn Chevrolet Bolt EUV, Toyota has dropped three special appearance packages that swap chrome for more subtle stuff. Say hello to the 2023 Tundra SX, 2023 Tacoma SX and updated 2023 Camry Nightshade. I won’t lie, SX feels like an underrated trim level designation. S is a good letter, X is a cool letter, put them together and you get vehicles like the AMC Eagle SX/4 and Suzuki SX4, nifty little all-wheel-drive passenger cars. So what does SX gets you on this pair of Toyota pickup trucks? Let’s start with the big one, the all-new Tundra. Building upon the one-step-up-from-base Tundra SR5, the SX adds dark gray wheels, body-color exterior trim, and a black 4×4 emblem on 4×4 models. The SX also deletes the door emblems for a cleaner look and swap silver interior trim for satin black. Honestly, I’m shocked. A black trim appearance package that doesn’t go overboard and is based on a lower trim level? Toyota’s been quite tasteful here. Of course, there is one caveat. The Tundra SX is only available in two body styles and four grayscale colors. Hey, the crew cab with the 5.5-foot bed and the double cab with the 6.5-foot bed are volume models and grayscale colors are what sell right now. Moving on to the 2023 Tacoma SX, it too is based on the SR5 trim. The Tacoma gets a lot more black, from black wheels with black lug nuts to black trim, black mirrors, and black badges. The cherry on top is a set of bedside SX graphics that look straight out of MX vs ATV Unleashed for the Playstation 2. Honestly, the Tacoma SX is probably worth it for those bedside graphics alone, the font is wonderfully nostalgic. Despite the Tacoma SX’s wonderful bedside graphics, it’s the 2023 Camry Nightshade that’s likely the most interesting of the bunch. Available with four-cylinder front-wheel-drive, all-wheel-drive, or hybrid powertrains, it actually dials things back from last year’s model to become a very good spec indeed. Building on the mid-range SE model, the Camry Nightshade will be most easily distinguishable by its lovely set of bronze alloy wheels. You really don’t see a ton of manufacturers offering bronze wheels, so it’s dope as hell that Toyota’s hopped on the good taste bandwagon and ditched the black holes of black wheels. Also new are black-trimmed lighting assemblies, a subtle yet wonderful touch. Other trim bits include black mirror caps, the black mesh grille from the TRD Camry, a black rear spoiler and black badging. You can get the updated Camry Nightshade in black or white, but the new Reservoir Blue is the color to go for. Honestly, an all-wheel-drive Camry Nightshade sounds like a pretty solid, attractive all-weather family car. The available all-wheel-drive system is actually quite deft and proactive, shuffling torque rearward when starting from a stop and under hard on-throttle cornering. Slap on a set of sticky summer tires and you’d have a really surefooted, handsome daily driver. Good stuff.
The Flush
Whelp, time to drop the lid on this edition of The Morning Dump. With almost every car in the past five years offering Apple CarPlay and/or Android Auto in some capacity, I have a question for you. If you own a car with phone mirroring, how often do you actually use your native infotainment system? I’ll admit, whenever I’m in a press car I like to poke around in the menus to discover cool features and Easter eggs, but I almost exclusively use CarPlay when on the move. It’s intuitive, it integrates beautifully with Waze and it just works. Then again, maybe you like to have your Hyundai N performance page open or navigate to charging stations to precondition the battery on your EV. That’s totally cool too. Lead photo credit: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc. “Are we going to harvest the next field?” “Yes, but we can only drive halfway there, then we have to park until Sunday.” Good point about the Wedge -E’s crumple zones and pedestrian safety Good Luck Getting A Tesla Cybertruck There, fixed. (Some strikethrough would be nice) Another way he wants the public to test his products. The absolute lack of a crumple zone on the Vaporware truck negates the first advantage, the bumper car effect will still be there to an extent, but that’s not going to make the people inside the vehicle any safer it will just cause them to be shaken more (and considering that as of a 2017 IIHS test that, despite the airbag deploying, allowed the driver’s skull to impact the steering wheel in another Tesla vehicle that doesn’t sound great.) Low CoG is no longer a thing with this vehicle, so I’d expect it to maintain some semblance of a low rollover risk, but still be pretty high. Other things to think about: Tesla has lied about its crash safety standing and where it sits in the ranking. The “undentable” steel body and “unbreakable” armored windows mean that if you get in an accident and are unable to get out, you might get to burn to death if the fire dept can’t get you out of the vehicle. Tesla sells known defective vehicles that have been turned in as lemons as used cars Tesla gets around safety recalls by allowing for “goodwill recalls” and then gets customers to sign NDAs so they can’t talk about what was fixed, such as suspension defects which allow the entire suspension to collapse. I’m not a Tesla fan. I also don’t hate them, I think they’ve done a lot of good towards advancing electric vehicles and getting the world away from ICE vehicles. What I am is an engineer, mechanical engineer to be specific. My career field was started literally because steam boilers would explode and kill people and no one knew how to design them properly to not do that. The primary rule of this career field is to remember that when what you’re designing goes out into the world it will interact with people, if its designed wrong it can maim or even kill. To my mind, from all I have seen, Tesla doesn’t give a shit about that rule. But the real point is this: none of us have any idea what the crumple zone will look like on this thing. You don’t. I don’t. Perhaps the pulling of this from anything but North America reflects this. Perhaps they want to launch into markets where they have a ton of orders and do a smaller truck later. Also a thing we don’t know. And your assertions of ethically questionable behavior on Tesla’s part pale next to what GM (ignition disabling airbags), Ford (Firestone and Pinto and…) and all the others have done. I mean, seriously? Its about percentages sold vs accidents. As an engineer, I don’t need to explain p-value and sample population to you. You already know this is a big factor in how dangerous something is. Last I checked there were around 300 deaths for over 6 million vehicles recalled in the GM ignition switch issue, slightly more than a dozen of those deaths were specifically the fault of the airbag being disabled. Tesla has actively cancelled tests that all other large manufacturers do. Tests that find issues before they go out to the customer. I can’t really get behind that. People are walking away from all sorts of accidents now. Modern cars are absolutely amazing. Doesn’t help the few that don’t when its a company that cuts corners. Tangent: The Pinto had something like 27 fires from being rear-ended. That myth was debunked back in ’94 or ’96. Move fast and break things. In this case pedestrians. Every day. I find Car Play to be buggy and limited, and basically do nothing better than the native infotainment. It’s a solution in search of a problem IMO. I do wish it had been wireless but may get an aftermarket dongle for that functionality. Plus, you know, it practically says “SEX”. No doubt they will add accessories to simulate a V8 engine sound and something to generate smoke so they can still roll coal on EVs.
