London Taxis For Everyone
It’s a sort of knee-jerk reaction of those of us who write these morning roundups and worship at the altar of our one true prophet, newsletter-king Matt Levine, to jump into things with a kind of faux-learned skepticism. I’m going to resist the urge and instead approach today’s weird news with a serene open-mindedness. Here’s the headline that woke me up this morning, from Reuters: “Exclusive: Geely plans to turn maker of London black cabs into EV powerhouse.” From the article: Um… Say WHAAAAAAAT? London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) also aims to expand its suite of services, which include cars arranging their own maintenance and recognising their owner’s interests to help them book activities. A little context: Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, aka Geely, is a Chinese mega-conglomerate that owns so many brands that I can never quite remember all of them. In addition to all the ones above, Geely also has Terrafugia (the flying car people) and Lynk & Co. Oh, Proton. Can’t forget Proton. And, like, 10% of Mercedes-parent Daimler. Somehow, with all the above (and a bunch of other Chinese brands), the company isn’t leaving behind LEVC, which was one of its first major international purchases. I sort of love this? Geely’s done a seemingly good job with the London Black Taxi (this Car And Driver review of their EV version is fun) and the cars have a recognizable design with plenty of space for passengers. From the beginning, the dream of the EV is to have a suite of shared components that can be used to create a truck or an SUV or a van or a sports car or a whatever. Modular architecture turned up to 11. There are plenty of markets where the London Black Taxi look and vibe could carry a brand (probably not the United States, but that’s apparently why Zeekr was created). The article alludes to this possibility: If the cars are to be true to the London Black Taxi heritage, it needs to have the world’s best navigation system paired with some problematic thoughts about people from Pakistan. The company already uses an infotainment system and software developed by Volvo and a steering wheel from the Swedish carmaker, allowing it to cut costs, Allen said.
Cash Rules Everything Around Maybach, C.R.E.A.M.
We’ve already touched on how well luxury cars performed last year relative to the rest of the market, and that trend should continue into 2023 with a twist: Cash. With interest rates rising, if you’ve got the cash why would you finance? A $200,000 loan over 48 months at a relatively low 3.0% interest rate works out to more than $12k over the course of the loan. You know how much caviar that could buy? No, seriously, do you know? I don’t know. I assume a lot. I bring this up because Bloomberg’s Hannah Elliott, whose job it is to know what rich car people are thinking, talked to some experts about the trend for this article: Leases are going to be fun to watch. Stock market volatility and economic uncertainty have wealthy consumers sitting on bigger cash reserves, so they are spending more money in absolute dollars. Meanwhile, auto loan interest rates are currently hitting 20-year highs. This trend in the luxury sector will have lingering impacts on industry profits and future consumer behaviour. All-cash purchases mean that dealerships see lower income from financing — something dealers for Genesis, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Infiniti and Jaguar have already begun to try to combat by offering consumers aggressive lease offers, said Mr Krelle.
Leases Are Going To Be Fun To Watch
See what I did there? Let’s get another quote from a Cox Automotive expert, this time from an Automotive News piece about leasing: That would be dope for car dealers and automakers, who have had to weather shortages and all sorts of other pandemic-related nonsense only to then be faced with rising interest rates and inflation fears. Being able to find a way to get people into some cars with reasonable monthly payments means bankable revenue for automakers and, potentially, increased affordability for consumers. Affordability concerns and increased automaker incentive spending are expected to help drive that growth, experts said. Cox Automotive projects that leasing will represent 21 percent of new-vehicle retail sales in 2023, up from an estimated 19 percent in 2022, according to Charlie Chesbrough, the company’s senior economist. I’m not big on leasing, personally, but if you’re going to want a new car every few years then it’s not a bad deal.
Check Out This Bathurst Bentley
Enough financial news. Check out this sweet, sweet Bentley. The ginormous but awesome Bentley Continental GT3 won the prestigious Bathurst 12 Hour race, which is a sports car race on Australia’s Mt. Panorama. To celebrate, Bentley is making two customer cars inspired by the win. From the company’s press release announcing the cars: Neat. You also get a little model. That’s fun! This is fun. I like this. The contemporary performance theme continues with the inclusion of the Blackline Specification – replacing all exterior bright chromework with polished black versions – and the Styling Specification (front splitter, side skirts and rear diffuser in carbon fibre) providing a more aggressive visual stance. The cabin is far more luxurious than the race car counterpart whilst offering a performance feel. Using a mixture of Leather and Dinamica in Beluga with Apple Green accents via micro-piping and contrast stitch, the interior complements the exterior perfectly. ‘BATHURST’ has been stitched into the headrests and ‘One of Two’ can be seen on the treadplates. A unique metal overlay depicting the track has been included in the carbon fibre technical finish fascias on the passenger side, and the names of the victorious drivers together with the winning number seven can be found on the centre console.
The Flush
Have you ever leased a car? Would you again?
Even CarMax’s CEO Thinks Used Car Prices Are Too High Alpine Is Coming To The United States And Appears To Already Be Screwing It Up How BYD’s American Dreams Got Cut Short—For Now Toyota’s Back, Baby The Mazda CX-30 Plug-In Rotary Hybrid Is Coming And The Logo Is Amazing Nearly 70% Of CarMax’s Tesla Inventory Disappeared In Three Days Here’s What You Need To Know About Tom Zhu, Tesla’s New ‘Number 2’
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage. Photos: LEVC, Kia, Mercedes, Bentley You get a pun on “transmission” (car/radio) and “Leak” gets you a triple with leaked information, transmission leak, and well (insert classic Autopian juvenile humor here). Never leased, never plan to. Not unless it’s a crazy cheap EV lease where the monthly cost is less than gassing up my paid-off econobox. Like $99 a month for a base LEAF or something similar. But mileage would be the kicker since my commute is shorter in time than in miles. My sister has leased her last 2 cars. The same car just 3 years newer and I think I have almost convinced her to buy out her lease or when the lease ends just buy a different car. We will see what happens in a little over a year but for now she seems open to not leasing anymore. Take your average German luxury car. High depreciation, high maintenance. You stand to take a hit paying cash or financing. Used models often come with other people’s problems. Leasing makes sense here. Similar logic applies to entry-level brands not known for long-term durability. Do you really see yourself owning a Versa for more than three years? Is it really worth all the cash/debt upfront to own? Probably not. Buying one used?! GTFO! Back when automakers and dealers offered more incentives, you could also work the system a bit with “lease cash” that you can’t get with financing/cash. This way, instead of a 72 month loan at one price, you get 3 years of cheaper payments and a buyout option lower than a comparable CPO. “Consider a used Toyota” has become my version of “Stay in school, kids”. By the way, a lease on a CPO-warranty BMW is actually a better deal (or it used to be before used prices went insane).
- Would I recommend this for everybody? Absolutely not, but it works well for me.
- Would I ever own a BMW that wasn’t covered by a BMW warranty program? Hell no. Leasing is for businesses and people who need to feed their ego by having new cars all the time. Anyone else who leases is just poor at making financial decisions. We’ll see how it goes I guess! I really hope they make these for the general public again and bring them to North America. They were briefly sold in the 1960s as the FL2 for private purchase but not for very long. Loans and leases are for people buying more than they can afford. Not a problem for the ultra wealthy. Unless they are buying a social media company. That being said I pulled an undisclosed shipping company truck out of the snow this weekend with my 150 HP 94 Toyota pickup and it made me really appreciate having a low range 4WD system, a manual transmission, and a solid frame I could hook the strap too, though I’m definitely buying a bubba rope because if I had one one those it would have taken half the time or less and been much less jerky.
