Automotive News: The Petey Awards
Veteran Automotive News reporter Peter Brown is celebrating the close of his 25 year tenure with the august publication with his announcement of the Petey Awards. This is a highly personal, even maverick view of the major automotive achievements during his time with the magazine. The fifteen category awards are not given in the usual spirit of mutual industry backslapping but instead are at once entertaining and provocative. Two awards in particular stick in my mind: the most disappointing technology and the worst car.
In an industry filled with chancers and hype it is hardly surprising that there is a long list of technologies that have not lived up to their promised potential. I still don’t quite understand the point of heated seats that take five minutes to warm up, by which time the car’s heater is doing its job anyway. It’s a bum wrap, as they say. The object of Brown’s ire is far more grave: the lithium-ion battery. For decades the electric vehicle (EV) has promised to save the world, held back only by the gigantic mass of the lead-acid batteries. Then the new generation of lithium-ion battery was heralded as the power source that would finally set the electric car free on the open road. Just as the miniaturised battery had made it possible to carry a mobile phone without throwing your back out, so it was hoped to make electric motoring practical for the masses. Some hope. Belying their minimalist appearance, lithium-ion batteries are pieces of high technology that are expensive to manufacture. Manufacturers are too shy to reveal current manufacturing costs but even in eight years time it is thought that the cost will only have come down to around £4,500 (US$7,000). This weighs heavily on the cost of the vehicle and only at the most elevated prices do car manufacturers stand any chance of making some profit. Furthermore, the fact that the battery needs replacing before its tenth birthday suggests that most middle-aged electric cars will be worth little more than junk money. A devilish shock awaits in the trade-in market for those who thought they were buying an automotive saint.
Peter Brown’s most challenging choice of award recipient must be for the worst car in the past twenty-five years. My money was on the Pontiac Aztec, a family car designed by a couple going through a divorce. Just as well I laid the bet with myself since the trophy went to the Jaguar X-Type. I admit that I am probably one of Jaguar’s harshest critics, but it is only out of a love for the brand and a desire to see the company making more of its extraordinary talents. Its attempt at a small car was indeed a marketing blunder, but surely no worse than the S-Type. It also seems odd to complain that it was a mistake to base the X-Type on the excellent Ford Mondeo. Surely the whole point of Jaguar being part of Ford is that it meant that new cars could be developed at a reasonable cost? Even if I was not a fan of the car it was a very decent first step and for a time it sold in quite respectable numbers. Ford’s only mistake was in allowing the Mondeo platform story to gain common currency. Shame also on Jaguar for giving up on its young offspring just as all the hard work had been done. There is a new small Jaguar on the drawing board but it is reputed to be based on the same platform as the large XJ and Range Rover. And there was I thinking that the small Jaguar would share its underpinnings with the small Land Rover models. Could the small Jaguar actually be heavier than an equivalent off-roader?
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