We’ve survived 2019 and are a year away from a new decade.  Here are a few things that happened in the past year:

Elon Musk was in the news a lot as he revealed the Mad Max-inspired Tesla Cybertruck to gasps, started to dig a tunnel beneath Las Vegas, opened a factory in China to build Model 3s, and was found not to have defamed a British cave explorer by calling him a "pedo guy" when he was insulted.  To the dismay of short-sellers, Tesla’s stock price recently hit an all-time high.

In the world of politics, the Mueller report was released with lots of anticipation but not much else. The sitting President became the fourth impeached, for abuse of power and obstruction over the Ukraine scandal, though the impeachment remains in limbo over rules of the Senate trial.

The Boeing 737 Max aircraft was grounded after another crash in March, and Boeing’s CEO was ousted.  The historic Notre Dame Cathedral suffered a devastating fire during renovations, and its survivability remains in doubt. Vaping is rampant among teens and resulted in several deaths.  Anti-government protests in Hong Kong concerning extradition continue, as do raging wildfires in the Amazon rainforest and Australian bush.

Prominent passings included designer Karl Lagerfeld, actor Luke Perry, baseball great Frank Robinson, socialite Gloria Vanderbilt, architect I.M. Pei, Chrysler savior Lee Iacocca, businessman and presidential candidate Ross Perot (who sold Electronic Data Systems to GM for $2.5 billion), retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, and shock jock Don Imus.

The big news in the automotive world was the introduction of the C8 Corvette with a mid-engine layout, long the dream of Corvette engineers.  The biggest surprise was perhaps its low $60,000 base price.

GM filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, claiming that their negotiations, which allegedly involved bribes to former UAW leaders, resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of increased pay and benefits. 

PSA Group, manufacturer of Peugeots and Citroens, and which acquired Opel and Vauxhall from GM in 2017, is working on a merger with FCA.  The resultant company would retain 13 automobile brands and be the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the world, behind VW Group, Toyota, and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. Peugeot still has plans to return to the U.S. to satisfy the demand from the handful of people who miss their 405s, 504s, 505s, and 604s.

Buick announced that they were retiring the Regal and Regal TourX after the 2020 model year, which will leave them with an all-crossover lineup.  Buick said that they are just giving buyers what they want, as 90% of their sales were crossovers.  In 1998, Buick’s tagline was “Isn’t it time for a real car” when they didn’t have any crossovers or SUVs in their lineup.

Departing vehicles included the Audi TT, Buick Lacrosse and Cascada, Chevrolet Cruze, Fiat 500 and 500e, Ford Flex, Toyota Prius C, and Volkswagen Beetle.

I was barely on the C&G boards in the last year and can’t comment much on what’s been going on in the forums, but here are some of the best and worst things in the automotive world for the 18th annual edition of Cheers and Jeers:

Cheers to Chevrolet for introducing the Best New Car in the mid-engine Corvette.  The styling is a little disappointing with the sedan-like cluttered rear end, but the platform will allow it to have an electrified and all-wheel drive future with fearsome performance.

Cheers to Cadillac for Best Reversal by bringing back real model names, at least on the electrified models.  This announcement occurred a couple of years after Lincoln also decided to bring back names.  Cadillac had some decent alphanumerics with the CTS, STS, and SRX, among others, but decided to lose whatever brand equity there was to the apparently short-lived CT and XT badging created under previous Chief Johan de Nysschen.  Cadillac has many storied names that deserve to come back, but they also have had some great concept names.

Jeers to Cadillac for Most Pointless Badging with torque numbers in Newton-meters rounded to the closest 50.  Ideally, the only thing that people should know of Cadillac power and torque is that it is ample and the numbers should be irrelevant.  

Cheers to Ford for Best New EV, the forthcoming Mustang Mach-E.  While the naming is highly controversial, the vehicle itself has the right form and styling to be successful if Ford can deliver on this aspirational vehicle.  By comparison, GM seems to be faltering a bit on the EV front, with the Bolt largely unchanged except for a small bump in range since it was introduced for the 2017 model year.  The many promised new EVs have yet to show up in the U.S.  In January GM President Mark Reuss said that Cadillac would take the lead in electrification efforts and that it would be the final effort to turn the brand around, which places an air of desperation around the brand.

Jeers to Porsche for having the Least Efficient EV in the much ballyhooed Taycan.  The EPA range for the large 93.6 kWh battery is only 201 miles.  By comparison, a Tesla Model S with Ludicrous mode and a 100 kWh battery has a 345 mile range, and the non-Ludicrous model has a 370 mile range.  Audi and Jaguar are also having difficulties with efficiency, and this shows how far ahead Tesla is.

Cheers to Subaru for the Most Impressive Sales Record for the 93 months of consecutive year-over-year sales gains, which finally came to an end in October, but which is probably just a temporary blip amidst a strong vehicle lineup. 

Jeers to GM, FCA, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai and Kia for Worst Eco Move by siding with the current federal administration in denying California from setting its own emission standards.  By being able to regulate its emissions, California has been able to clean up the previously smoggy skyline, and this move would increase fuel consumption and harm air quality.  Cheers to California Governor Gavin Newsom for doing what car buyers do, make a judgment on the vehicles they buy, by choosing not to purchase sedans from the aforementioned automakers.  The State of California is also requiring that sedans owned by the state government to be electrified.  Ford may be the largest beneficiary, at least until the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Energi go out of production in a year or two.

Jeers to the Federal Communications Commission for Worst Safety Move by proposing that a portion of the 5.9 GHz spectrum that was intended for automobile safety instead be used for wifi.  Their reasoning is that there has been limited progress for usage of the spectrum for Dedicated Short-Range Communications (the outgoing CTS being the first and only production vehicle to install it) for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications amid competing DSRC and 5G LTE technologies and the lack of a federal mandate.  However, nearly 37,000 people are killed in traffic crashes every year on public roads in the U.S., and technology using the spectrum has the potential of saving thousands of lives every year.  Limiting the usable spectrum may limit the safety opportunities.

Hope everyone has a safe, prosperous, and Happy New Year!
 

Cheers to @bobo for doing this every year!