{"id":660,"date":"2005-09-07T12:09:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-07T16:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=660"},"modified":"2005-12-11T11:54:07","modified_gmt":"2005-12-11T16:54:07","slug":"auto-asphyxiation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/auto-asphyxiation","title":{"rendered":"Auto-asphyxiation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter M. DeLorenzo is an automotive industry consultant who also writes a weekly column at the Autoextremist<\/a>. He pulls no punches, despite the fact that some of his livelihood comes from the companies he criticizes in the column.<\/p>\n

Anyway, this week’s column<\/a> (it’ll be replaced by Sept. 14, and the archives don’t seem to be online) is all about the effects of the post-Katrina gas crunch on the SUV market. It’s not a pretty picture, and DeLorenzo savages the auto industry for its mega-reliance on these cars:<\/p>\n

Detroit marketers in particular created “the need” and “the want” here, folks – and don’t for a minute be misled into thinking otherwise. Detroit single-handedly pushed an egregiously callous marketing strategy that revolved around launching more and more variations of larger SUVs into this market and creating the demand for vehicles that were a dismal combination of laughable space utilization, miserable handling dynamics and piss-poor fuel economy – wasteful mastodons that made little sense even under the most wildly optimistic scenarios. Not only did they push bigger and bigger SUVs and “urbanized” pickup trucks, they made these vehicles drive like cars so that people would realistically consider them as benign alternatives for their transportation needs – even if they were woefully inappropriate choices in every respect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He doesn’t have high hopes for the industry this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter M. DeLorenzo is an automotive industry consultant who also writes a weekly column at the Autoextremist. He pulls no punches, despite the fact that some of his livelihood comes from the companies he criticizes in the column. Anyway, this week’s column (it’ll be replaced by Sept. 14, and the archives don’t seem to be … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Auto-asphyxiation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-aE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1041,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/free-market-dance-dance","url_meta":{"origin":660,"position":0},"title":"Free Market Dance Dance","author":"Gil","date":"July 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"BizWeek offers an essay on how failed videogame platforms are good for the business: Of course, whereas a market leader's role is to provide stability, there is a difference between stability and stasis. Ideally, the \"big guy\", whoever it is, must represent the basic ideals of the medium as it\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1631,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-17-2007","url_meta":{"origin":660,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 17, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"August 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I think I'm gonna go inject some liquidity into capital markets, if you catch my drift! (yuck) Enjoy the links, dear readers! \"Don't go there!\" It's the list of Most Overhyped Vacation Spots! * * * The music industry is in major flux. 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