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2024 WTF?!
How do I even remotely summarize this year? I'm not sure where to start.
Mathew Growden
December 22, 2024
In partnership with
Well, That Was Interesting
Ford CEO Jim Farley charges a Ford Mach-E at a Tesla Supercharger.
Jim Farley charging his Ford Mach-E at a Tesla Supercharging station emblematizes several trends and threads that wove through the entire year. Throughout the year, competitors became allies, and unknown brands (predominately from China) have come out of nowhere to capture the imagination of car buyers in international markets.
Everyone got on board with NCAS and Tesla’s charging standard, but Ford got there first. media.ford.com
The GM-made Honda Prologue became a “surprise” hit. forbes.com
The Volkswagen-made European market electric Ford Explorer might be the best Volkswagen EV yet. insideevs.com
Toyota’s new Urban Cruiser is going to be made by Suzuki. carscoops.com
Honda and Nissan look to expand their previously announced partnership and continue to dance around a merger. cbc.ca
But that might just be the beginning of a slew of expanded partnerships, mergers and alliances as incumbent brands fight off the growing reality of global Chinese automotive expansion.
In 2024, China became the number one exporter of vehicles in the world. nytimes.com
BYD entrenched its dominance as the world’s largest manufacturer of new energy vehicles (BEVs, EREVs, and PHEVs). theglobeandmail.com
Tech company Xiaomi did what Apple couldn’t do (RIP Apple Car). They launched a smart car that integrates with their smartphone and other smart home technology. They also managed to pump out 100,000 unit sales in their first year of making and selling cars. businessinsider.com
Autonomous vehicles became a real thing, thanks to Waymo. Spoiler alert: their self-driving cars are safer than human-driven vehicles. theverge.com
Flying cars… became legal in the US. thechangeoptimist.com
Stellantis… made a lot of headlines. thechangeoptimist.com
Volkswagen… realized Rivian might be better at software than they are. thechangeoptimist.com
Amazon… started selling Hyundais online. thechangeoptimist.com
Elon… became a James Bond villain. thechangeoptimist.com
We all became more familiar with Tariffs than we ever wanted. thechangeoptimist.com
I got to meet and interview Kara Swisher (who generously agreed to be a podcast guest even though I didn’t have a podcast yet). thechangeoptimist.com
And, while compiling this newsletter, I’ve written over 60,000 words or nearly the equivalent of a 240-page book. That’s fucking something.
Quote Of The Year
“We are mortal and they are not. But you have to be careful what you mean by immortality. The machines need our world to make the machine that they run on. If they start to do that for themselves, we’re fucked.”
Most Popular Links From 2024
Okay, unmitigated data… these are the most clicked links from my newsletter this year.
Most Popular Posts From 2024
These are the most popular emails, as measured by their open rate.
This has been a fucking blast. Thank you for reading!
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