Maextro S800, with a two-tone paintwork.

We’ll all soon know luxury Chinese car brands

Maextro S800, with a two-tone paintwork.

I noted in the new Autocade Year of Cars that the French faltered in China because the Chinese marques no longer need them, especially when they are churning out superior product. They have no use for French cachet, especially as the brands edge upmarket. You’ve got the HIMA collective from Huawei, all with luxury marques, […]

Read More… from We’ll all soon know luxury Chinese car brands



Autocade reaches 40 million page views; thank you, humans

1985 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer.

Autocade has now hit 40 million page views, with the counter at 12,353,148, to be added to the previous installation’s 27,647,011. We’re 159 over the milestone. There has been plenty of activity as we added some pages to match Autocade Year of Cars 2025, our new print yearbook, sitting on 5,222 models, a healthy 114 […]

Read More… from Autocade reaches 40 million page views; thank you, humans



Autocade Year of Cars 2025: the covers that could have been

Xpeng P7+ on the road with a Chinese skyline behind it.

Would you have bought Autocade Year of Cars 2025 if it had either one of these covers?     This one, with the Geely Galaxy E8, was rejected due to image quality. It was going to be the cover till about a week before publication. Then we zoomed in 400 per cent on the output […]

Read More… from Autocade Year of Cars 2025: the covers that could have been



The new Jaguar

'Create exuberant' on a colourful image featuring four people dressed in yellow, orange, red and magenta.

Originally published on my friend and international branding guru Stanley Moss’s blogs, What Is a Brand? and Endless Road, as he requested this piece.     Jaguar Land Rover announced some time back that it didn’t see Land Rover as a brand any more. It would rather we think of Defender and Discovery as brands, […]

Read More… from The new Jaguar



Autocade reaches 5,200 models

2024 Luxeed R7 in pink, facing rightward; beach scene behind it.

We’ve arrived at 5,200 models on Autocade, after catching up on some more recent Chinese brands. The 5,200th model is a crossover, but at least it’s rather more stylish: the Luxeed R7. We’ve had the earlier S7 there for a while, and now we’ve completed the Luxeed line-up. In fact, we’ve completed the current line-ups […]

Read More… from Autocade reaches 5,200 models



A bronze at Best

Front cover of booklet, Pīwari the Kaitiaki, with a bee illustration.

I’m proud to say I had a small part to play in Pīwari te Kaitiaki, which took out a bronze in the Social Good category at the Designers’ Institute of New Zealand’s Best Design Awards. My role was helping realize the translated version in te reo Māori, and it was an absolute joy to work […]

Read More… from A bronze at Best



Continuing the disinformation removal and bot blocks

Call me an idealist, but I think people should stop using those search engine copy massaging programs, write like real humans, and expect the technology to bend to us, rather than the other way round. That’s how we still conduct business. There are still disinformation pages about me out there, but no new ones since […]

Read More… from Continuing the disinformation removal and bot blocks



Here’s probably how Semrush linked concepts—and got it totally wrong

When you have been on this disinformation-busting journey for nine months, you can work out how Semrush got everything so wrong. Here’s one item, a bunch of SEO tools, and if you read the description, ‘Google SEO Xiaoyan’ is in the copy. Probably deeply questionable, which is why Google offers it for Chrome.     […]

Read More… from Here’s probably how Semrush linked concepts—and got it totally wrong



Tesla misfires, Toyota lies

The 1983 Corolla liftback—the E80 series was peak Corolla, relative to what was on offer in the C segment. Toyota was on a high then.   Tesla finished itself this year, by firing its new-product development team at a time when it desperately needs new products—proper products, too, not the Cyberstuck which has so many […]

Read More… from Tesla misfires, Toyota lies



Autocade reaches 37 million page views

I knew this was coming since I saw the Autocade total was 7,000 shy of 37,000,000 yesterday (after a couple of 30,000 page-view days). At 9,373,244 on the counter, plus 27,647,011 from the old server, we arrive at 37,020,255 (which, of course, means we had 27,000 page views over the last 24 hours). That’s 50 […]

Read More… from Autocade reaches 37 million page views