MKBHD, Fisker, and "the worst car ever reviewed"
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Brutal if this is primarily due to one bad review from a social media influencer. No wonder why companies fear them and Fisker wanted to postpone the review.
You don't get to release a v1 of a product and tell people "no don't review the v1, wait until v2".
People want to know what they are buying.
Improbable. The bad review can't help, especially now as the back-and-forth is getting even more publicity, but Fisker's issues were known beforehand.
They are a small startup, with limited means (they have to outsource manufacturing to a company called "Magna") in a now crowded space, with big hungry Chinese companies moving in, slow sales, limited name recognition, and a buggy product.
Does their product stand out, in a good way? or does it come across as half-baked and gimmicky?
It's in a space where people do expect support for years from an established company, so even mentioning "limited runway" will alarm potential buyers.
And rising interest rates, so it's now harder to get more financing. The smaller, less successful companies in the crowded space will either go under or get bought up.
See this from May 2023, it was Known: https://www.teslarati.com/fisker-massive-earnings-miss-q1-20...
I don't see the financial, sales and product quality issues as being all that separate, each one impacts the others.
This one bad review (which is not the first bad review) is merely a focus of attention on the deeper issues.
Bit if one influencer post a video with his thoughts about the car - it is brutal?
Good car manufacturers give new cars for few days to basically everyone willing to review. With such product Fisker should go out of business.
I think calling him that is sensationalism, like “influencer takes down a car company!”
If I understand right, he has a large studio, people working for him. It’s more like a media company at this point. Not a guy in his bedroom reviewing phones.
I think the input lag on the accelerator pedal is what kills it for me, though.
In the recorded call with the senior engineer, he called Brownlee "this kid".
Should have taken "this kid" seriously earlier.
The caller is a "field service engineer" - which I have been myself across multiple industries, and even while running a crew of 6 people with very dangerous equipment and explosives, I never felt like I was doing much of particular import or really all that much responsibility compared to managing people directly and owning a company employing them.
$2/mo is a rounding error for most people’s commute costs, even mine and I am fully remote.
The fact of traditional web content is that companies who led with free content gave away too much for too long to build their footprint and the result is that people are trained to refuse even the smallest charge to read articles, even things they seek out daily
I also feel that literacy in general has declined. Long form written content just doesn’t garner attention in a world where influencers are posting videos and images. The dopamine hit from social is something a well researched and written article can’t compete with today.
Tying all of this back to your comment, Netflix subscription costs have balloned and their subscriber counts have picked up 30 million in 2023 according to statista.
Netflix costs 10x what I pay for NYT. Journalism is far more valuable than the type of true crime docudramas cranked out on Netflix but it’s too late now
In 2024, a subscription to NYT would be too expensive even if it were free.
How many cars have he reviewed? I thought he mostly reviewed smartphones.
So 50+.
There's been a huge trend in the last 5 or so years for corporations to go to "influencers" like Brownlee because they're ignorant and uninformed to the depth the industry press are.
This has been going on for a decade with shitty kickstarters for bicycle accessories which had to be kickstarted because the designers couldn't sell the idea to any existing companies, get funding, secure distributorship, or all of the above, because the industry knew their idea was shit.
Nowadays it's fly-by-night e-bike importers who hire a firm to do some high-end looking branding and import some shitty e-bikes with some gimmick (for a while it was lightweight single-speed ebikes, for example), last just long enough to sell a bunch, ship out replacement parts at the drop of the hat to keep early adopters happy and then evaporate as the bikes really start to break down and the brand's reputation tanks.
Brownlee knows a lot about cell phones and cameras, but his knowledge in the automotive industry is shit and everything he puts out is tepid and "safe". He regurgitates the press packet, follows the standard "nice things to say but a few subjective criticisms/opinions to make it seem impartial", and that's a wrap.
Look down his list of videos: "the Bolt EUV is the best deal in EVs!" "The Kia EV9 is surprisingly good!" Whoa whoa Keith, don't get too controversial!
At the age of six I knew my mom’s meatloaf sucked. For some things in life, you don’t need to be “qualified”.
You don’t need to be a Certified Gearhead to know that a backup cam that doesn’t work half the time contributes towards making a car experience crappy.
In fact it can be good to have “normie” opinions and reviews. Some things are meant to be refined tools used by the general populace.
How is it OK to record a private phone conversation and publish it publicly without consent?
Asking to pull out your customer's fingernails while representing your company is a sure way to attract attention.
He did not say "the worst car ever". I doubt that he has reviewed a circa 2005 Chery Subcompact. And if so, there's no relevance at all.
His reviews are good in the modern EV space. The more relevant omission - vehicles that might actually be worse, but which he has not reviewed yet - would be any vehicles made by Vinfast.
(and envelopes full of cash of course)
Just getting access to the press car fleet alone is worth something to a reviewer; if they can't get access to cars, they starve, especially if they can't get access before the embargo lifts; all the traffic will go to the reviewers who had pre-embargo access.
If they're honest and don't pull punches, and don't have the clout of say Top Gear - the car company's PR team will cut them off.
The way most reviewers get around being able to sleep at night is by focusing only on the things they like, and lie by omission. Any criticism is focused on subjective meaningless things like "this color is horrid."
For example: go read reviews of the VW Mk8 GTI, see how many reviewers tow VW's line about them "curing" understeer, and how many reviewers are honest about the press car being delivered with softer tread compound tires up front and harder compound tires in the back, to cheat and make the car handle more neutrally.
See how many mention that the press cars were EU models (normal) with a slew of features that won't be available in the US at all (not at all normal), like the fancier adaptive suspension system. See how many of them rave about how good the suspension is...a suspension the US didn't get!
0: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/03/ars-asks-how-do-you-fee...
But what is described here is how common reviewers and influencers are treated. However a superstar like Top Gear or MKBHD won't be impressed by a night at a London airport hotel. They require much more resources otherwise the company risks the hammer coming down like it was case here.
People really shouldn't be surprised by this stuff - this phenomenon is as old as mass media itself.
Nobody knows who Marcus Brownlee is unless they're into tech and under 30.
Disagree. I started looking at EV reviews on Youtube, and soon noticed him in that context. Yes, including the Fisker review. I don't fit your filter. You don't need to be under 30 or into computer hardware to have that experience.
You’ll also note the guy I was originally responding to didn’t, and instead throughout this thread has made vague and uncritical commentary about social media influencers and how they need to be “managed” disregarding what Marques’s channel actually does. Don’t give a guy like that an out.
I don't know how anyone would say he doesn't qualify for the "professional" moniker.
- driving modes seem impractical and half-baked
- no hill hold; expected in upcoming software update
- UI gets slow and unresponsive when switching screen orientation
- there is a burst mode with a hard limit of 500 activations (!)
- general unreliability; affects bluetooth pairing, key fob operation, cameras (!)
- color backgrounds behind the meters can sometimes blink in a distracting way
These are the ones I remembered.
Most of them could be fixed by software, though the problem with the steering buttons being too close to the hand grip (14:11) may not be?