Editor-in-Chief's Note: Do you think the reports of Tesla quality and safety issues are overblown? Think again. Automotive News is reporting that the National Highway Traffic Administration has opened a formal investigation into 120,000 2023 Model Y crossovers. The reason? Oh, nothing much, except of reports that the steering wheels may become detached while driving. NHTSA is aware of two reports from Model Y owners of "complete detachment of the steering column while driving." Repeat that back to yourself s-l-o-w-l-y, as in, WTF? Apparently both Model Y owners were delivered their vehicles with the bolt attaching the steering wheel to the steering column missing. In one complaint to NHTSA, a Tesla Model Y vehicle owner in New Jersey described driving along a U.S. highway when the steering wheel suddenly fell off. The owner said the 2023 model-year vehicle was purchased Jan. 24, and the incident happened just days later on Jan. 29. That this is unconscionable and inexcusable is stating the obvious. The litany of egregious and outrageous quality issues with Teslas is long and unforgivable. (Remember the incident when the roof blew off of a Model 3 while the owner was driving home after taking delivery of it? - WG). The fact that the Cult of Elon blinds people - and some journalists - to the fundamental and unacceptable recurring quality issues with Tesla vehicles is just plain sad and pathetic. Any other car company would have been brought before Congress long ago to be questioned about the quality atrocities that Tesla has displayed from the beginning, yet this car company has been allowed to churn out piss-poor quality vehicles with impunity. It's just flat-out disgusting at this juncture. -PMD
(Honda)
Have you ever gazed longingly at the pallets at Costco and wondered to yourself, "I could really use one of those." Well, Honda may just have your vehicle. This is the all-electric Honda Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV), which "represents a new category of capable work vehicle for companies that need autonomous operation or delivery solutions," according to Honda PR minions. The AWV's capabilities include more pallet capacity, payload and enhanced obstacle detection. Honda is inviting potential business partners and companies interested in field testing AWV to Honda's booth at CONEXPO 2023 in Las Vegas, March 14-18, 2023. Interested construction entities will have an opportunity to learn more about field testing the rugged off-road platform at their worksites. Watch a video of the Honda AWV here. 
The Dodge Last Call Powered by Roadkill Nights Vegas event will host the worldwide debut of the final 2023 Dodge “Last Call” special-edition model on Monday, March 20th. The event will mark the end of an era – the last of the Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger in their current HEMI®-engine-powered forms. Dodge Last Call Powered by Roadkill Nights Vegas includes a full day of drag racing, Dodge thrill rides, Challenger SRT Demon simulators, a cruise-in car show, sponsor/vendor midway areas, a post-reveal concert and more. (It is also meant to celebrate the birth of a new era of Dodge electrified performance, but we couldn't care less about that.) The seventh and final 2023 "Last Call" special-edition model, commemorating the Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger will join the six Dodge "Last Call" models that have already been introduced: the Dodge Challenger Shakedown, Dodge Charger Super Bee, Dodge Challenger and Charger Scat Pack Swinger, Dodge Charger King Daytona and Dodge Challenger Black Ghost. In addition to the seven “Last Call” special-edition models, Dodge is also celebrating its 2023 model lineup by bringing back three beloved heritage exterior colors, B5 Blue, Plum Crazy purple and Sublime green, and one popular modern color, Destroyer Grey. 2023 Charger and Challenger R/T models will also feature new “345” fender badging, a shout-out to the 345-cubic-inch HEMI engine, and all 2023 Dodge Charger and Challenger models will carry a special commemorative “Last Call” plaque under the hood. The Dodge Horsepower Locator tool, as well as information on the brand's 24-month Never Lift plan, is available at DodgeGarage.com.
The AE Song of the Week:
Please don't talk about love tonight
Please don't talk about sweet love
Please don't talk about being true
And all the trouble we've been through
Ah, please don't talk about all the plans
We had for fixin' this broken romance
I want to go where the people dance
I want some action
I wanna live
Action, I got so much to give
I want to give it
I want to get some too, oh-ah-ah
Oh I, I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
Oh, I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
Please don't talk about love tonight
Your sweet talking won't make it right
Love and lies just bring me down
When you've got women all over town
You can love them all and when you're through
Maybe that'll make, huh, a man out of you
I got to go where the people dance
I want some action
I wanna live, yeah
The action
I got so much to give
I want to give it
I want to get some too, ah-ah
Oh I, I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
Oh, I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
Oh, I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
Oh, I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
I love the nightlife
I've got to boogie
On the disco 'round, oh yeah
"I Love The Nightlife (Disco 'Round)" by Alicia Bridges, from the album "Alicia Bridges" (1978)*. Written by Alicia Bridges and Susan Hutcheson. Publisher: CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC. Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind. Watch the video here.
*This disco classic is about a woman who has better things to do than listen to her man's empty platitudes. She tells him to kiss off, and that she's going to get some "action" at the disco, where she can boogie all night. Bridges wrote this with her songwriting partner Susan Hutcheson. The pair met in Atlanta in 1976 and signed a publishing deal with Bill Lowrey, owner of Southern Music. He financed Bridges' solo album, which contained songs written by the pair. It was picked up by Polydor Records, which released "I Love The Nightlife (Disco 'Round)" as a single. The song was a huge hit in dance clubs and charted not just in America but throughout Europe - it reached the top of the charts in France and Germany. The song wasn't written as a disco tune; Bridges and Susan Hutcheson wrote it as an R&B song, but it was discofied to meet the prevailing trend. Hutcheson explained in a 1979 interview with Sounds: "That wasn't cut at all with disco in mind. Disco was just where I was gonna go after I'd told this man to leave me alone, it wasn't meant to be the theme of the song. We do love the nightlife in the sense that we love to be awake at night when its quiet and we can do some bizarre and productive thinking. But actually I don't care for discos at all." Bridges, a white singer born and raised in North Carolina, detested disco and refused to record a full album of disco songs. Her follow-up single "Body Heat" was more in the rock/R&B vein, and topped out at #86 in the US. Her non-disco output never found a wide audience, and after one more album with Polydor she left the label, releasing material independently from time to time. Just how little did Bridges think of disco? Here's what she told Sounds: "I will never do a disco album. I'd prefer to do deodorant commercials. I didn't sing since I was ten years old so I could stand up like a moron and go 'Getfunkynow, getfunkynow, getboogie-woogie, getfunkynow'" The song features in the films Love at First Bite (1979), The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (1994) and The Last Days Of Disco (1998). A 12" remix by Jim Burgess was the version most dance clubs played. Burgess, who died in 1993, did many of the dance mixes heard in the clubs in the late '70s, including "What A Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers and "I Was Made For Lovin' You" by Kiss. (Knowledge courtesy of Songfacts.com)
Editor's Note: You can access previous issues of AE by clicking on "Next 1 Entries" below. - WG