Personal News and One for the Road

In This Issue

• Some Personal News

• What We Can Still Learn from The Grand Tour

• From Around the Internet

• More Goodies

Some Personal News

As you possibly know, for the past 4 years I’ve been running content full-time with a company I helped co-found — Wrecked Media Group — and its flagship publication EV Pulse. Additionally, I’ve had the good fortune with working with some of the best freelancers in the business, and have full-time on staff some of the best people in this entire industry. Full stop.

At the end of this month, though, Wrecked Media Group will have run through its funding and myself and my team will all be laid off. “How are you laid off from your own company?” I’ll explain in a bit. But before then I want to personally vouch for the people who work for me. Whether in a freelance or contract capacity, or as full-time employees, you’d be smart to have any one of them on your team and will happily sing their praises to anyone who is willing to listen.

While I’m not sure what their plans are, I’m going to try to work on a few different projects. I plan on making the EV Pulse property available to any of my former teammates if they need a place to put content, and I’ll occasionally run some content through there. Its content is still distributed through MSN, and the YouTube channel is still growing strong with a litany of valuable evergreen content. I plan on trying to keep it reasonably fresh — even if I’m not directly making money to do it — to try to keep some value in the brand. In the future, I’d love to be able to take full control of it and continue to grow it, but I currently don’t have those resources.

While I have some project ideas in the works, including this publication that I hope you subscribe to and share, I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing. Maybe I’ll return to freelancing, or at least trying to freelance, as I feel like I still have some valuable to offer. But who knows? Me writing my opinion on these very pages might prevent me from finding work since being anti-misinformation is in the minority these days.

Maybe I’ll just go around begging everyone I know for a job?

What We Can Still Learn from The Grand Tour

Last Friday, the final episode of The Grand Tour aired on Amazon Prime (affiliate link), and it marks a milestone in automotive content creation. While many have suggested, in many cases rightfully, that the show lost its luster a long time ago, there’s still a bunch we can learn from its 22 year run as a show on the BBC and then on Amazon.

Yes, Jeremy Clarkson can be a problematic individual. Punching a producer because he’s hungry is most certainly not how you behave in the workplace. Plus, some of his views just don’t jive with 2024 sensibilities.

For example, in the final episode he calls EVs “shit” because they aren’t fun or entertaining. Clearly he hasn’t driven the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, which is one of the most entertaining cars I’ve driven in the past couple of years, regardless of powertrain.

But unlike a lot of automotive content on the internet right now, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May weren’t reviewing cars. They were telling stories. There are a lot of car reviewers, including myself, on the internet these days. Some of them get insane amounts of views, too.

However, in 2024 to be successful online you have to tell compelling stories. When you have the budget of Amazon, you can travel around the world with excellent cinematography and go on epic adventures. Some early car YouTubers would spend tons of money doing that, just to not see a big return-on-investment.

But I can assure you it’s not production value that matters these days. It’s the story. It’s the narrative. It’s the people.

I don’t expect many people in the automotive space to know who Sam Sulek is, but he’s blown up on YouTube with long-form content that is barely produced in a vlog-style format (a format some believe is dead).

His most popular YouTube video, shown below, has over 4 million views and it’s just an hour of him basically grocery shopping.

So why is that? Because he has something interesting to say. His personality draws people in, and they’ll watch even the mundane because of what he has to say when he’s doing it.

On the other end of the spectrum, obviously MrBeast continues to crush it on YouTube, but that’s because he has fast-paced videos that quickly tell a story. His success is the story, the mission, the objective, or the challenge.

Inherently car reviews don’t deliver that. If someone is watching a car review they’re interested in the car and if it’s something they buy. Car reviews are evergreen, but they don’t drive extended watch time or overall session duration (something YouTube cares more about than anything).

What Top Gear did early on was tell stories. They were entertaining. People who weren’t interested in cars could easily sit down and watch Top Gear. This was long before they had the budgets that they have today, and the shows were still successful. In fact, I’d argue some of the older episodes, when they didn’t have dump trucks full of Pound Sterling, were better because they had to tell their stories in a more confined and restricted way.

I’m good friends with some creators now well into the millions of subscribers on YouTube, work hard, and are trying to change with the times. They’re doing a lot of things right, I’m not going to yuck anyone’s yum here.

But if you’re looking to start or grow in 2024, you can still learn from what a 22 year old show allegedly about cars managed to accomplish, and incorporate some of that into what you do.

I’m fortunate enough to be in a YouTube peer group with both the product manager in charge of the YouTube algorithm and YouTube’s Creator Liaison. Their messaging is clear. As this publication continues to grow, I plan on sharing more of those experiences with you all within the context of the automotive space, so stick around.

Green Car Reports and others are reporting that per the bankruptcy agreement at Fisker, customers are going to be on the hook recall repairs. That means if there is a safety recall, the customer is going to have to open their wallet if they want it fixed. Fisker will be on the hook for the parts, but the customer will have to pay the labor.

That is insane. A safety recall is something that has always been, and always should be 100% on the OEM. It’s the cost of doing business, and to be frank, any bankruptcy court should require Fisker to cover both. In fact, I’d be in favor of corporate veil piercing and requiring Henrik himself to pay out of his pocket for recalls.

In 3 to 5 years, when Henrik Fisker pops up again to start a new car company (and you know he will), we need to collectively say as an industry; “No.”

I’ve had many conversations with sources about why Fisker’s venture this time failed, along with insight on his first attempt, but that’s not what I think should matter at this point. While Henrik is famous designer and talented when it comes to clay, it’s clear that how he chooses to run a car business doesn’t work. And if he’s going to leave owners holding the bag, like he is doing here, then we shouldn’t give him the coverage or exposure he so clearly desires.

From Around the Internet

• The First Cruise Missile - Did you know that the first U.S. cruise missile tested didn’t care a nuclear payload or explosives? It carried mail.

• The Chicken Tax - This TikTok creator explains the Chicken Tax in 1 minute and 19 seconds better than a lot of people can with more time. It’s a reminder of who pays the tariffs, and who is on the hook for unpaid tariffs. The Eminem reference also made me laugh out loud.

More Goodies

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