Project Road Trip Discussion Thread

[Bandit & The Snowman]

IMO it's enough that we have the Tesla lookalike in AI traffic. Branded, no thanks.
Have European EV brands made any ground in NA? Chinese?

[plykkegaard]

If any it would be Chinese brands
It also depends on import duties these days

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IMO it's enough that we have the Tesla lookalike in AI traffic. Branded, no thanks.

Tesla (TSLA) US sales estimated to have dropped 17% in January ...

[Ludo Diabolo]

One thing that caught my attention in the Ireland research blog is that Škoda was mentioned several times as a partner. But a partner for what exactly ?

As far as I know, there is currently nothing in either game that clearly comes from Škoda, so I'm really curious about what this partnership actually involves. Could we perhaps be getting something related to Škoda in the future ?

[harishw8r]

They are just in good business relations. That's usually how marketing works. May not mean anything for the game.

[LATrucker]

Škoda provided the car for their research trip. It makes sense since both SCS and Škoda are czech companies.

Who knows, maybe we'll get something for ETS2 in the future too. Even if it's "just" the factory in Mladá Boleslav in a Czechia Rework.

[LATrucker]

IMO it's enough that we have the Tesla lookalike in AI traffic. Branded, no thanks.
Have European EV brands made any ground in NA? Chinese?

I think there are no European EV-only manufacturers, but yet you regularly see cars like the Volkswagen ID.4 on the roads. At least in and around the cities

[Bandit & The Snowman]

EV-only like Tesla doesn’t exist in EU either, all the major brands still mostly sell ICE based cars (but their EV sales are ramping up). So, I should have said “EU based brands with their EVs”.
There are some Chinese brands however that are purely EV and they’re massively trying to get into the European markets with cheaper prices for their well-equipped cars. Kinda like what Asian brands did decades ago.

[Brendan0620]

I saw several BYDs in Iceland when I was there a year ago. There were a lot of Teslas too, including new ones, which I saw in abundance there than I have seen stateside.

and the Cybertruck is a meme car. As far as electric vehicles go, I like Rivian more; at least their pickup actually looks good, and from what I hear it's much more practical and durable than Cybertruck 2077.

Yeah, I hate the takeover of crossovers in American cars. I really hope no Road Trip pack ever includes a crossover, but I'm sure some manufacturer will want their latest generic blob-car as a condition for featuring something actually good.

I got the opportunity to "test" drive a Cybertruck last year from my close friend and so I drove it for 3 miles and yeah, I agree, it is a meme for sure. It doesn't have a shifter column, your gears are located on the screen (*pretends to be shocked*). It is also insanely heavy yet it drives very fast when you floor it. In many ways the GMC Hummer EV is also a meme, but not abashed "in your face" type of meme compared to the Cybertruck.

As for crossovers, I'm inclined to agree, I'm not a fan of them, they are very boring and generic. We had a crossover Dodge Journey for 13 years and it was the most generic car ever with it's cloth seats and lifeless 2.4L 4 cylinder Mitsubishi-derived engine, thankfully it was shockingly reliable up until it's engine gave out this year.

[Bandit & The Snowman]

True word. Similar goes for full-size SUVs, they kinda killed station wagons, at least in Europe. (Different market, I know.)

[Brendan0620]

I believe Station Wagons were phased out of many manufacturers catalogues in the mid/late 2000s here in the US. I remember when Ford was still selling the Flex which blurs the line between Car and SUV based on the Taurus Unibody. Ford was the last American manufacturer to sell a Station Wagon because GM stopped doing so long before Ford and Chrysler stopped after the Magnum, which was just a Dodge Charger 4-door as a Station Wagon.

There is still a market for modern "Station Wagons", but it's primarily from European brand automakers. I know Mercedes Benz and Audi still like to sell "Station Wagons" in limited quantities here in the US. The Full-Size SUV has a huge market here, with Ford, GM, Chrysler (via Jeep), Toyota and Nissan all having full-size SUVs they sell here in the United States.

On the topic of full-size SUVs, would love to see the Sequoia get the nod for the Toyota pack, although I think they might go with the 4-Runner instead if they put the Tundra in since the Tundra and Sequoia are on the same platform.