{"id":12739,"date":"2015-07-07T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/?p=12739"},"modified":"2015-07-06T22:50:03","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T02:50:03","slug":"the-economics-of-press-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/2015\/the-economics-of-press-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economics Of Press Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/070715_0245_TheEconomic1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"641\" height=\"551\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When a new car is launched it is reviewed by automobile experts such as Matt Hardigree, who delved into the economics of handing out cars for reviewers to write about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Those who loan out a car to be reviewed carefully analyze the journalist that it is being loaned to and ensure that the car is loaded with the additional optional features that the reviewer likes.<\/li>\n<li>The car is also customized for the environment. If it is going to the north east then it&#8217;ll come with steering wheel and seat warmers.<\/li>\n<li>They don&#8217;t necessary get all the options. For example a review car probably won&#8217;t have the sun-roof feature because this can hurt fuel economy and manufacturers don&#8217;t want that written about.<\/li>\n<li>After the car has been selected it is &#8216;broken in&#8217; by being driven a few hundred miles to make sure that there are no issues with it.<\/li>\n<li>Before the car is delivered the gas station closest to the reviewer is found so that the reviewer gets a full tank. They are not required to refill it before returning the car.<\/li>\n<li>The reviewer normally gets to drive it for around a week before it is handed off to the next reviewer.<\/li>\n<li>Manufacturers will monitor what the reviewer has to say and upgrade any parts that are getting negative reviews.<\/li>\n<li>Parts such as polished chrome wheels will be replaced rather than repaired to ensure that the vehicle gets the best possible press.<\/li>\n<li>Each car will be driven by around 15 journalists. Manufacturers make sure it ends with less than 10,000 miles so it can be auctioned off. Final buyers don&#8217;t know that it was a press review car once.<\/li>\n<li>In general sending a car to be reviewed costs about $2,800 per journalist \u2013 assuming that there is no damage to the car which reviewers are not liable for.<\/li>\n<li>If journalists write positive things about the car then the manufacturer may pay the publication to use quotes from the positive reviews in advertizements.<\/li>\n<li>All of this can create a conflict of interest. This is why some publications such as Consumer Reports outright buys the cars it reviews \u2013 in secret so the car manufacturer can&#8217;t fine tune the car for the reviewer.<\/li>\n<li>Hardigree, the author of the article, goes through about 25 review cars a year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The full article takes a much deeper dive into the economics of the industry and provides many more fascinating details. It is worth a read over <a href=\"http:\/\/jalopnik.com\/the-truth-about-press-cars-1714460086\">here<\/a>, and worth considering the next time you read a car review.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/jalopnik.com\/the-truth-about-press-cars-1714460086\">Jalopnik<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a new car is launched it is reviewed by automobile experts such as Matt Hardigree, who delved into the economics of handing out cars for reviewers to write about: Those who loan out a car to be reviewed carefully analyze the journalist that it is being loaned to and ensure that the car is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bulletin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/070715_0245_TheEconomic1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12739"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12743,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12739\/revisions\/12743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Centives.net\/S\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}