When a cyclist sees the Trek Madone SLR 9 AXS Gen 8 for the first time, the following thoughts run through their head, usually in this order:
"What a beautiful bike."
"Damn, that looks really fast."
© Eric Bangeman
In November 2019, I was overjoyed to drive a new Jaguar I-Pace off the dealer's lot. Five years later, I'm waiting for Jaguar to drive the car away.
After two recalls for software updates, the car's range is now permanently restricted to 80 percent of what it was new. And along with owners of over 2,700 2019 I-Paces, I'm waiting for Jaguar to buy the car back. That's because the company has decided that purchasing the cars is cheaper—and likely easier—than identifying and replacing defective battery packs. It's a frustrating situation to be in, and not just because I can no longer drive a car I have grown to like.
Why did I buy an I-Pace? Good question—after all, Jaguars are not renowned for being paragons of reliability. 2019 was also the first year for the I-Pace, and buying a car in its first model can be a risky move as unanticipated manufacturing and parts problems rear their heads. One example: The original wiring harness in the I-Pace was poorly designed, so Jaguar ended up replacing many of them (including mine), which the mechanic told me took 11 hours and involved disassembling the front of the car.
© Eric Bangeman
Connected cars are great—at least until some company leaves unencrypted location data on the Internet for anyone to find. That's what happened with over 800,000 EVs manufactured by the Volkswagen Group, after Cariad, an automative software company that handles much of the development tasks for VW, left several terabytes of data unprotected on Amazon's cloud.
According to Motor1, a whistleblower gave German publication Der Spiegel and hacking collective Chaos Computer Club a heads-up about the misconfiguration. Der Spiegel and CCC then spent some time sifting through the data, with which allowed them to tie individual cars to their owners.
"The security hole allowed the publication to track the location of two German politicians with alarming precision, with the data placing a member of the German Defense Committee at his father’s retirement home and at the country’s military barracks," wrote Motor1.
© Volkswagen
Apparently Hertz's purging of electric vehicles from its fleet isn't going fast enough for the car rental giant. A Reddit user posted an offer they received from Hertz to buy the 2023 Tesla Model 3 they had been renting for $17,913.
Hertz originally went strong into EVs, announcing a plan to buy 100,000 Model 3s for its fleet by the end of 2021, but 16 months later had acquired only half that amount. The company found that repair costs—especially for Teslas, which averaged 20 percent more than other EVs—were cutting into its profit margins. Customer demand was also not what Hertz had hoped for; last January, it announced plans to sell off 20,000 EVs.
Asking its customers if they want to purchase their rentals isn't a new strategy for Hertz. "By connecting our rental customers who opt into our emails to our sales channels, we're not only building awareness of the fact that we sell cars but also offering a unique opportunity to someone who may be in the market for the same car they have on rent," Hertz communications director Jamie Line told The Verge.
© Hertz
Hey, look at that! Another year has flown by, and I suspect many people would say "good riddance" to 2024.
The 2020s have been quite the decade so far. No matter what insanity has transpired by a particular December 31, the following year has shown up and promptly said, "Hold my beer."
The biggest news at Ars in 2024 was our first site redesign in nearly a decade. We're proud of Ars 9.0 (we're up to 9.0.3 now), and we have continued to make changes based on your feedback. The best kind of feedback, however, is your clicks. Those clicks power this recap, so read on to learn which stories our readers found especially compelling.
© Aurich Lawson | Getty Images
