Audi comes out with an Electric SUV that transforms into a pickup.
So this thing is jam packed with gimmicky gizmo’s that are all “Creative Innovations”.
And I do mean jam packed.
From top to bottom and end to end.
All the cool rich kids are going to want this, right?
The problem with “Creative Innovations” is, when they stop working.
I wouldn’t even want to take a guess at what it would cost to fix that sliding rear glass mechanism or that fancy flip out steering wheel if it suddenly crapped out.
Pretty likely more that what I have been paying for entire vehicles for the last twenty years.
Nope, nope and nope.
You can have all of that crap.
Call me Old Fashioned all you want but I am going to keep my REAL TRUCK
as long as I possibly can.
You can have your D Cell Special on steroids.
The RED DRAGON lives on! Burn that gas, pollute the air with NO2 and CO2!
Creature comforts in my truck:
Heat
Sunvisor
Seat
Also.. Locking Hubs and a manual shift transfer case
I can bet that Lucas dis not do the electrics on that … Oh, wait! The way that electric cars keep self combusting maybe the Prince of Darkness has cursed the electrics.
I was hoping the helicopter was going to open fire on it.
Are ye sending medieval musketry lithographs for me to hammer the thesis upon ye olde church aperture?
Yea, me Lord, forthwith.
What’s a helicopter doing in a car commercial in the first place?
It was bringing the gas powered generator to recharge the battery they ran down playing with the truck bed mode and SUV mode.
Winner!
I must not be a cool rich kid, ’cause I sure don’t want it. I’d like to replace ye olde Focus, but not with anything new. And if I were a rich kid, I’d prefer a Willy’s Utility to that monstrosity.
Oh, I’m with you on that 100%. I remember when a fuel pump was two bolts, two hose clamps, and a gasket. And you could climb down beside the engine to do it. Open a hood now and it looks like a packed suitcase; can’t even see the engine.
I want to go back in time and beat to death every engineer who decided the fuel pump should be in the gas tank and require removing half the interior to get to it.
Okay, have the fuel pump in the gas tank. With an access hatch big enough for to get to the damned thing.
Or die. Die in a horrid flurry of fists and feet.
Bastards.
My GMC van’s fuel pump would croak every 50,000 miles or so. And I put over 300,000 on that bitch before I got rid of her. So that was 5 times replacing the fuel pump, and it being the only vehicle meant having it dragged to the repair shop near work so I could walk my ass over and pick it up when done.
Another reason to never let a newer car or truck get below half a tank of gas. Those damn fuel pumps rely on the fluid for cooling, and without it they burn up.
I remember reading many years ago an article ranking car brands on their reliability. For the sake of the article, reliability was determined by the number of times a vehicle was in the repair shop for something other than routine maintenance. At that time, I think it was BMW that was ranked most unreliable, followed closely by other high end car brands. There was a paragraph added to the end of the article noting that most of the service work for the high end car brands was to fix problems with all of the fancy gadgets and electronics, not for mechanical issues.
Edsel 2.0
Way too many gimmicks. Why on earth does anyone need the dashboard and steering wheel to fold out of the way?
I have a ’97 Range Rover that can’t be started because the electronics are dead. I’m sourcing a carburated small block chevy engine to install and I’m going to rewire the whole thing. The only electronics will be in the radio.
You… bought… a Range Rover…
…No matter how much of it you replace, that vehicle will find something to break…
I hear those vehicles make great stealth chicken coops for people who have an HOA…
See? even MacGyver doesn’t want a Range rover.
LOOK at all that CRAP to break!!! NO.FAHKING.THANKS!!!
That was my take.
Apparently “German Engineering” is has devolved into “let’s see how much breakable crap we can put inside this box”.
I’m with you on the old truck however when my old keister saw they have plug into the cig lighter seat heaters THAT was a modern edition I could deal with! (id love to have an old willies pu but my taco truck will have to do)
so with all those gimmicks operating the battery last 15 minutes before you even start the car?
I wonder if the entire mess turns into a large scrap of metal, when the CMOS battery dies, and the boot sequence is corrupted? That would be a wonderful thing to happen at 5:15, after a bad day at work, and the rain starting to fall.
Nice concept vehicle, but 100% impractical. That ‘pickup bed’ will stay pristine the entire life of the thing, and the front and glass will be cycled less than a dozen times. The new owner will demonstrate it to his friends then never again…
I’d like to see them drop a round bale in there -or in Musk’s Cyber truck.
I saw one of Elon’s trucks heading N. On the Alaska highway last week. It was 30 below and the closest charging station was almost 100 miles away. I had just seen a picture and blurb showing the parking lot at the place had 2 feet of snow and a big berm of snow in front of that from the gas station being plowed out all winter long. They said they weren’t worried about the charging station being opened up because it never gets used anyway.
I sure don’t see a cord of firewood or a roll of hay going in that toy truck…
Count me out.
One good solar storm (Carrington Event) and that thing is total toast.
The only thing that won’t stop would be the payments.
To paraphrase the old German service writer at the VW dealer, “You by zero shit, you eat zero shit”.
Driving home today I saw some of the local crackheads hauling about a rick of wood in a smallish front wheel drive car they had converted into a pickup by hacking off the roof behind the front seats and parts of the side panels with what must have been an axe, raggedy as hell but they were rocking it.
Years ago I lived across the street from a guy who chopped a hearse down and made a pickup out of it.
Neck
I wonder how much the scan tool costs to work on that thing. That’s definitely a drive once a year type of car. For parades only.
GAY as Fuck !
The true zenith of American auto making was late 60’s MOPAR, probably with the 69 Super Bee or the 70 Road Runner. Everything since is like MS Windows-they keep coming out with “new and improved” product that in every iteration is less useful, less usable, less effective and less intuitive than the last. MOPAR or no car.
That’s what, 10 electric motors to move components to get the car going? That’s going to be a maintenance nightmare. I have a base 2011 Chevy pickup and a big diesel 2020 Dodge Ram 3500 dually with all the bells and whistles. The Chevy has no upgrades — not even power windows. All it has is an AM/FM radio, air conditioning, automatic transmission, and power steering. It had been a fleet truck for a construction company before I bought it.
Over the past three years, the Chevy has been a bit of a clunker, but it just keeps going. *Every time* I get in the Ram, something new is busted. It’s never anything that stops it, but it’s always some sensor or another. Right now, the tire pressure sensors are not working, the airbag sensor is not working, and the engine light is on (my Chevy dealer did a diagnostic and said it’s a problem with the no-knock electronics that I have to have fixed at the Dodge dealer). The tire pressure is fine. The airbags are fine. The engine runs fine. But it’s going to cost me a thousand dollars to get the sensors fixed if I ever decide to do it.
So, now you want to sell me a car that is *completely* electronic…
Imagine the rattles that will have in a couple years if you drove it on any sort of rough road. Would drive me fuckin nuts!! Way too much fold out slide up BS.
I will stick with my F350 4×4 Lariat with the 6.7L Diesel.
Stupid shit as usual what’s worse is some people will buy it