Context Is For Kings

Now that the Ides of March is over, we’re heading straight into spring. That means we’ll soon be back to talking about tariffs, though the conversation might be different this time. It’s just like when Lucy says she’ll hold the football for Charlie Brown this time.

Also, if you work at an automaker or supplier and want to add me to your war planning Signal group chat, I can be reached at chadkirchner.1701. Here are the other ways you can reach out.

In This Issue

• The Real Job Of An Automotive Reviewer

• The Koreans Make Peace

• Your Moment Of… Let’s Call It Zen…

The Real Job Of An Automotive Reviewer

While cars have always been political in some way, never have they been so intertwined in modern history than they are right now. The CEO of a major automaker is also a de facto co-president of the United States and is using that power to cause chaos and harm. He’s so unpopular that people are rising up in peaceful protest, some are actively flipping off and calling drivers of those cars Nazis, and even others are using the opportunity to vandalize dealerships and cars from that automaker.

That same administration is trying to lump all criticism of that automaker together and declare that any criticism or protest of that automaker is a hate crime or an act of domestic terrorism.

So, how should an automotive reviewer cover Tesla’s products? I’ve mentioned how I think it should be done in a previous installment of this very publication, but it became clear over the weekend that people are still trying to find ways to mess it up.

On Saturday, Edmunds shared its first look of the refreshed Tesla Model Y. The company added one to its long-term review fleet, meaning that it went out and purchased the car from a Tesla store. The review was a straight review with zero additional context of what’s going on in the reality in which we live.

The comments to the posting on Bluesky sum up most of the sentiment. The post has 431 comments and just 4 likes. That’s what the kids would call “a ratio.”

Not everyone is connected to the automotive industry like an automotive journalist is supposed to be. That’s why it’s a job for some of us, but not everyone. I expect a brain surgeon to know the ins and outs of the lump of gray matter inside my skull, but if that same person doesn’t know the difference between a plug-in hybrid and an EREV, that’s fine with me.

It’s possible, though less likely now, that someone might just be searching for a new car and want an EV. That some person reads the Edmund’s review and goes and gets a new Model Y on a day that’s not on the weekend (when the protests are in full swing), and then not understand why people are flipping them off everywhere they go.

I’ll come back to this in a bit.

Also on Saturday, Pultizer-prize winning automotive journalist Dan Neil wrote an incredibly tone deaf justification as to why he just recently purchased a Tesla Model 3 that is full of both hubris and cope.

Here’s Neil explaining why he purchased the Model 3 — a used one.

Neil goes on to say that he didn’t realize people were all that upset with Elon Musk.

If your job is to understand the automotive industry professionally, you don’t have to follow Musk on Twitter to know what he’s doing and why people are angry. To be this ignorant is both journalistic malpractice and the ultimate level of cope.

He makes sure that he also throws in some Musk-approved talking points.

That's true, as long as his daughter doesn’t get in a crash, the door poppers don’t work, and she burns to death like some kids in New England did recently in a Cybertruck.

The Model 3 does have good crash test results. So do a lot of other cars. The driver assist function — completely camera-based — works until it doesn’t. No credible engineer in the automotive space considers a camera-only system an effective system for preventing crashes, but rather recommends radars and cameras to more effectively understand its surroundings.

Though, to be fair to Neil, not every crash situation will be a painted road on a brick wall.

But perhaps the most galling, tone-deaf, irresponsible thing he says in the entire article of ridiculousness is what he shares next.

Wow.

For starters, there are other modest zero-emission vehicles out there. For someone who claims to know about cars and reviews cars, they should be aware of things like the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Bolt, the new Chevrolet Equinox, the BMW Mini SE, and a litany of other new and used EVs out there.

Who cares if the CEO of the car company — who is actively alive and not some problematic figure of the past — is a Nazi? I'll do it as long as I can save a few bucks.

Who cares if the CEO won’t acknowledge his trans daughter and would like to cure the world of the “woke mind virus” that is being trans? So what if he wants to genocide an entire group of people?

Neil’s willing to sacrifice anyone to save a few bucks on a car is what he’s seemingly announcing to the world.

The thing is, if you’re just trying to cope with the fact that you bought a car that now is bringing you negative attention, don’t write the article. He wrote the article because he wants attention — which I’ll admit I’m giving him right now — but it’s still so odd to write an article highlighting the things Musk does and shrugging them off as being “not important for a car purchase.”

That brings me back to what the role of an auto reviewer and critic is. Historically, the press has done a poor job at covering the rise of authoritarianism. In automotive journalism, it’s often a retort to someone going beyond the scope of just the car to be told to “just stick to cars.”

Here’s the thing, though. You’re doing your reader a disservice by just “sticking to cars.” Because buying a car with the badge of Elon Musk’s car company on the bonnet can have consequences beyond the normal purchasing issues.

Right or wrong, I wouldn’t want to sent my car out in a car that might get her called at Nazi at the grocery store. I wouldn’t want to send her out in a car that might get vandalized and her called a slur.

It’s important to provide context when reviewing a car. That context needs to go beyond just the regular things, too. Yes, we drive hundreds of cars a year, and that’s important. But we also follow the industry and should make sure our readers are as informed as possible when buying a new or used car.

InsideEVs also posted a review of the Tesla Model Y update recently, and it’s a fairly positive review. But it also mentions that there are things beyond just the car being good that might affect the success of the car, and it gives a decent warning about that.

It provides context. It’s not overbearing. It’s not screaming. It’s just a nudge to say, “Look, if you like the car, that’s great, but just know other things are happening that might sway your purchase decision.”

You can provide that context easily enough. It’s not even being brave or daring, it’s doing your job. If people are mad because you’re doing your job, their beef is with the richest man in the world, not with the journalist telling the truth.

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