How Car Makers & Influencers LIE to You
Let me be very honest with you guys I am the only person out there the only social media influencer who has told you the truth about what happens behind the scenes when the car reviews are created for you to watch and how much of lying and bribing that’s going on behind the
Scenes I’ve showed you the footage I’ve showed you the emails and I have paid quite a price for it most of the automakers have banned me for from their media events um a lot of sponsors have lefted because they realize that I’m exposing the industry so but I know why
No one else wanted to do it because I’m the only one who could actually afford it cuz I run my own channel and um I have other sources of income so I could lose all all of these revenues and still be true to my audience and expose the
Industry for what it is I’ve put together three videos and all of them have very unique footage that you’ve never seen before and probably won’t see again I don’t see anybody else doing it and I will show you guys all right now back to back um pay attention because
Like I said you will never look at car reviews the same ever again uh and and and hopefully this will help you make better decisions about the cars that you will be buying in the future now before that I just have to take a moment to let
You know that this video is brought to you by energy pal are you thinking about going solar but not sure what panels to get whether or not to get a home battery or how much all of this is going to cost well energy pal will do all of that for
You and you will get a $500 gift card when your installation is complete if you use the link in the description of this video all right with that out of the way let me show you the first video that I’ve made which is literally exactly about how car makers buy and
Bribe us the influence ERS H here we go this is what happens when a car influencer gets a free first class trip being whed and DED by an automaker right before he does a review of one of their cars do you think he will be fair in his reviews knowing any criticism may
Have him never again getting invited to these luxury vacations I mean um media trips well I have been fair and critical when needed in my reviews and many Brands like Volkswagen GM rivan Lucid Porsche and many others have banned me from their future vacations I mean media
Trips yes someone write that down for me I will even show you one of the emails from Volkswagen bluntly admitting that so can you trust car reviews from the popular influencers and car Publications that are regularly accepting these trips not only because they are better than
Any vacation that you have ever been to but are also essential for their content today I am going to show you what happens behind the camera on those trips and how most car brands like Volkswagen and rivan essentially bribe reviewers and journalists to make sure that you don’t accidentally notice anything too
Negative about their new car now I should tell you that not all brands ban journalists for bad reviews there are still some brands that haven’t Banned Me despite my honest reporting like Nissan vinfast tog and xang Motors so kudos to them letting me enjoy these trips without any fear of retaliation for my
Honest opinion all right now gather around boys and girls and let me tell you what happens when an influencer gets a media event invite it all starts with with an invitation to go to a really cool location sometimes within the country like Los Angeles New York or
Vegas but many times abroad Europe Asia and Middle East the part that’s not on fire your airfare and your hotel are booked in advance and many times you get to bring a camera person or a production assistant with you however I have seen many journalists just bring their
Spouses or Partners which I guess are assistants too I have also seen those people completely ditch at the media events and even media dinners and just bluntly make it a family vacation many times your trip to the airport in a car of your choice is paid for as well and
When you arrive at the airport you get to Fast Track your way through business class q and get to a luxury all-inclusive lounge with unlimited food drinks open bar showers and even your own massage chair all of that while most of you are miserably curled up in metal
Airport chairs at the crowded Gates then you get on a plane before everyone else except for people with kids which never made sense to me why why do kids need to be the first ones on the plane do do do they need some extra time to prep
Themselves to cry and hit my chair for the next 12 hours and the business class experience is great you get your own space that becomes a bed with a big screen TV your set of slippers and toothbrushes and all kinds of goodies you get a five course meal and unlimited
Drinks and snacks throughout the entire flight it is amaz balls finally you get to the Exotic destination of the Brand’s choice and oh boy most of the time you are in for an amazing week you get to your destination and someone is meeting you at the exit with one of those signs
With your name on it takes your luggage and brings you to a chauffeured car to drive you to the hotel and the hotel is usually topof the line it’s got some gifts and snacks waiting for you in the room a lot of times it has a spectacular
View and everything you want uh like room service and many times Hotel restaurants and services including massages are paid for as well then over the next few days or a week you are invited to all kinds of fancy events media dinners test drives with access ACC to the newly unveiled cars factory
Tours entertainment unveilings and you get the Press passes to the auto show if the Brand’s events are part of it which many times they are sometimes you are treated to Unforgettable life experiences like this one where an entire attraction Park on a private island was shut down just for about 20
Of us and a full show was performed in which we were even allowed to participate that was a awesome but I can’t stress enough that the majority of journalists and influencers are not just having a great time which absolutely they are they are also 100% rely on the
Content that they get during those trips this is the only way you get early access to these cars in many cases ahead of time so when the news is released you already have an article or a video ready to go and then once it’s all over and
You’ve gained like 10 lb from all of the free food and drinks uh you are sherred back to the airport and the lounges the first class and all of that repeats itself one more time and once you get home and remember that you actually have
A job you’re in a bit of a pickle even though you’re not told what to say or what to write by any of these Brands you are definitely going to be watched as you release your content and even though not all brands will Blacklist you from their future events for your criticism
Most absolutely will it’s an Unwritten rule so to speak or in the case of Volkswagen actually very much written that’s right Volkswagen was actually blunt enough to flat out put that in writing that I will not be invited to future events because of my review of their Volkswagen ID Buzz now in my
Defense the Volkswagen ID Buzz blows I did not like it I thought it was a weak attempt at resurrecting an iconic vehicle with lazy design and Engineering now back to the brides I mean uh vacations h i I mean media trips damn it if I had to estimate the money spent on
Most of the trips that I have gone to I would say they range anywhere from $5,000 to about $50,000 or above each so you tell me if you’re going to be an honest journalist and have yourself cut off not only from these amazing trips but also from the very content that you
Need to keep going or you know say something like this when it comes to a car that we all know is essentially a huge failure and an embarrassment to the EV manufacturing this is the Honda e and it might just be one of the most desirable electric cars no one of the
Most desirable Cars full stop on the market right now ah Nobody Does it Like fully charged and don’t get me wrong I have consciously made my choice over and over again fully aware of the consequences and that’s why I don’t have access to the cars that everyone else does and I
Don’t have a million subscribers but I do have one thing that they don’t besides my awesome collection of pink shirts and that is why I hope you watch my Channel all right now if you thought that was bad which it was let me show you another video that I’ve made
Actually before the one that you just watched where I’ve kind I’ve concentrated on two things one I show you some proof of how um you know the the car makers operate as far as you know who’s allowed access to their cars in order to make the reviews and
Secondly I’ve concentrated on you know showing you uh and going really after the biggest Publications and specifically the biggest YouTube channel in the election car space they fully charged and exposing them for who they are which are Liars who simply shamelessly sold out let me tell you a
Secret car viwers on YouTube and everywhere else are full of you know how I know I used to be one of them I definitely think this is a really cool cat uh definitely just excited so this is one of those videos where you learn how to keep your house
From being broken into from a professional burglar that’s me but I have taken a different path you can tell by the fact that I am no longer covering the automaker events mainly because they have banned me that’s right Banned Me from them because unfortunately my reviews were honest and they don’t like
That kind of nonsense which brings me to the first type of a car review that you should not trust there are total of three and we’ll get to the other two in a second but this one is the most common and popular one and yet by far the worst
Now this is the type of a review that is done by an established Automotive media from bigger channels like Motor Trend or doc diura all the way to smaller channels that are recognized by the car industry as micro influencers like until until very recently myself I thought it
Was just as beautiful as this one and I also am really okay and these are the reviews of cars that get posted right about when a new model is released or even before that now think about it how does one get a hold of a brand new car that is not on
The market or even in production yet to be able to review it well you have to be invited to a media drive by the brand if you do have a decent following on social media within the automotive Niche you should be able to get into most of the
Media drives or be able to get a car for a couple of days to play around with now the media drives oh the media drives these can be amaz balls that’s an industry term you get flown out like an Instagram model by an 80-year-old billionaire business class best hotels
Catered meals entertainment gifts exotic destinations it is awesome I I think some of the trips I went to I would estimate the brand spend an equivalent of about I don’t know $50,000 just on my channel to be there so before I get to the obvious problem
Here there is only so much you can find out about a car if you have it from an hour to even a couple of days it is just not really enough time to truly review it and most media drives are all done within a very controlled environment with pre-selected routes and almost
Never include charging which is an important part of reviewing an electric car now let’s get to the elephant in the room which you probably think is the fact that these Brands tell the journalists and influencers what to show and what not to show but that’s not actually true it’s actually a little bit
Worse than that so let me tell you something that I am one of the very few journalists and influencers who’s even in a position to tell you this what does happen at the media drives and private events for influencers and journalists of course they tell you all the awesome
Things about the car avoid as many questions as possible about any shortcomings and then leave you the hell alone to do whatever type of a review you want to do no really uh you can say anything you want about the car while going to town on the free buffet and an
Open bar they have paid for however if they don’t like what you end up saying well you’re just not going to be invited back and some of them are pretty blunt about it here’s what Volkswagen told me after I asked them why I wasn’t invited
To a media drive now this was after I criticized their ID buzz after its unveiling as you can see they had no problem telling me that a negative take on their car is what got me banned from the future invites and that’s in addition to saying that I wasn’t kissing
Their team’s ass enough for inviting me now don’t get me wrong you still do see some mild criticism in some of the reviews but it’s nowhere near where it should be because almost all of the professional reviewers rely on being on good terms with the brands to be able to
Continue doing their job and have access to the early cars here is a great example of one of the biggest electric car YouTube channels fully charged raving about the Honda e after an exclusive access to its pre-production car this is very exciting this is a really really interesting new electric
Car it’s the it’s it’s really really remarkable coming out very very soon that is very nice first of all very nice you mean the Honda e acceleration one of the worst EV 0-60 specs in the industry with over 8 seconds and he knew it when he said it
As a matter of fact anybody who knew anything about electric cars knew right away at that time that this was going to be one of the worst electric cars out there with only 111 EPA equivalent miles of range which was half of what Eves coming to the market at that time were
Boosting and yet with a huge $35,000 starting price for which you could get another EV with double of that range this was such a huge disaster for Honda that they’ve only sold a few thousand of them in the first year and then even even less than that in the
Following year now did fully charge know all of this when they were making and releasing this video I’m pretty sure they did so why lie well this is why guess who gets invited to another exclusive media dry event from Honda the next year it’s cute it’s retro but it’s built
For the Modern Age this is the Honda e and it might just be one of the most desirable electric cars no one of the most desirable Cars full stop on the market right now wow literally every single word that he said about that car was Bull and he knew
It because by then they knew the pathetic specs for that car and even more pathetic sales and yet one of the most desirable Cars full stop on the market right now and as I was just about to film this video and I kid you not fully charged just uploaded another
Exclusive preview of well you get the picture now right now let’s talk about the other two types of the reviews real quick the second one is any Tesla review it is usually done by a Tesla fan or a Tesla investor and you will pretty much never get the honest review and the
Third one is from those who did not get their cars from the automakers but are owners of the cars themselves and in that case it’s kind of like asking if Johnny is a good kid if you’re asking Johnny’s parents apparently he is so why am I telling you this well when I was
Reporting on electric cars when they were just coming out all news were good news because they were mainly prototypes and hopes and dreams and those are always amazing but then those prototypes went into production and a lot lot of smaller startups went public where their priorities shifted from pleasing
Customers to pleasing investors and then there were a lot of issues to report most reporters have decided to keep their brand invitations coming and that’s why you saw a lot of this this is very exciting but I have decided to do something slightly different it kind of looks like a Ford
Delivery van dressed up as a Volkswagen Mini bus for Halloween so the bottom line is this instead of making a statement and creating an amazing electric vehicle as a returning Legend something that Ford did pretty good job at with the Mustang mck e Volkswagen has essentially put a minius shell on top of
The id4 with very average specs that will be even more average and outdated by 2024 in called it a day you weren’t supposed to drag the ID buzz into the past you were supposed to bring the past into the future this is not how you compete with Tesla and other impressive
Competitors remember that email from Volkswagen essentially letting me know I was banned from their media events this was the video they were talking about and I kid you not it came out literally at the same time as I was having dinner with the Volkswagen team including then
The Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Kio now some of you may not know this but Volkswagen used to be a sponsor of this channel for about a year and a video like that and other videos of me criticizing the id4 has lost me tens of thousands of dollars in more advertising
Income if I would just keep my mouth shut and say I don’t know something like this this is the new ID buzz and it’s the Cure My Friends the cure for the oversized yet somehow cramped boring sey annoying SUV that had been clogging up our streets for too damn long another
Fine video from Guess Who the fully charged so next time you’re watching a car video review don’t think about what the person in front of the camera saying but think about the nice fat cater dinner behind it and they are delicious I should know all right now we’re still
Not down here because I’m going to show you the last video uh which is very different because U this is the video that I did about all this negative publicity um that all of these Publications and influencers have created for you know one of the younger
Brands uh but when I was doing my research about you know what was really wrong I realized well you got to you got to see this one can you trust car reviews well earlier this year I have exposed Volkswagen and other brands for bluntly Banning critics like myself from
Their media drives to avoid criticism and I showed you how big media Outlets like fully charged lie to you in order to keep their early access to the cars and breaking news today I will show you what happens when a group of popular car review Publications decide to attack a
New brand for the very things they have given a pass to other more well-connected brands in this case I’m talking about the new car maker that you may have have never heard of vinfast you see vinfast is new to the US market and it just got a ton of bad reviews earlier
This year from a few big Publications that’s not very common so what really happened here well let’s go over them and then compare what they said about vinfast versus what they said about other brands when it came to the exact same shortcomings now don’t get me wrong
Vinfast has plenty of things to fix and and improve and it is crucial that they do let’s start with a road and track that called vinfast EPA range a problem but when they reviewed the Honda e that has half of that range and yet not even
Close to half of the price somehow said oh well it’s not perfect doesn’t have the longest range but what’s more important is that it’s a lovable Hood so 200 M of range bad 100 Mil of range oh look how adorable what a cutie wait what are we talking about but the road and
Track did not stop the hypocrisy there they have also claimed that the vinfast media car was unfinished now that very well might have been the case and again that’s on vinest but no car in the modern history was more unfinished and had the worst build quality for years
Than the Tesla Model S even Tesla’s now biggest fan boy and former contributor to this Channel Sandy Monroe said this in our conversation about Tesla’s poor build quality and specifically the terrible paint shop at Tesla’s freem mon Factory the reason that the paint quality is poor on the Tesla is because
They got a really bad paint shot and if it was up to me during the covid problem I would have bulldozed that place and I’d have spent the half a billion dollars it takes to put in a really Primo paint shop yes per Sandy Monroe and you can watch that video in its
Entirety anything that came out and in some cases still does come out of the Freemont California Factory has build quality issues I know because I was one of the first Tesla Model S customers back in 2012 the car was built out of cardboard spit and hope so let’s see
What the road and track said about the unfinished and sloppy build quality of the model S when they did did a review of it all right here it is scrolling scrolling still nothing huh oh what’s this oh the article specifically mentions that there was nothing to
Complain about at all and that Tesla has produced a perfect car now honestly I don’t even have time to list all of the Articles and videos outlining all of the um um what do you guys call it oh yeah unfinished and embarrassing build quality of early Teslas with panel gaps
Missing parts falling off trim fading paint and a million of other build quality issues but you didn’t notice any of them not even over the years when you had a chance to update your article with the and I don’t mean to introduce new terms to your editorial staff facts but
Road and track wasn’t the only one to point out the build quality issues in the bf8 one of the biggest Automotive Publications the Motor Trend pointed them out as well well surely they have pointed out exactly the same issues when they reviewed the model S in
2013 um no nothing at all huh weird how about their 2014 review still nothing uh 2015 16 17 18 the green car reports didn’t Fair any better than complain about the media car being unfinished but in their review of the 2012 Tesla Model S it literally says we saw no major quality
Flaws huh okay I mean not okay even gelnik which usually is pretty fair at dishing out criticism couldn’t resist to take a shot at the vfa but when I looked up their review of the model S they two said nothing about Tesla’s horrendous build quality there was was also this
Report from Steven oing of inside EVS who felt car sick during his media drive and despite the sounding more like a personal old man problem and I know because I have plenty of them he has dedicated a good majority of the top Prime space of his article to his tummy
Trouble before he even started the actual car review finally Kyle Connor of out of SPAC said this about the $55,000 vf8 again for 55 grand does it feel that premium but when he drove the Tesla Model S plat for more than double of that price he said this it’s not
Nearly as premium as some of the other cars but do you really need it well Kyle if you don’t need it in $130,000 car why would you need it in a never mind I am tired but you do get the picture these reviewers and Publications are straight up take Us For Fools and
There is nothing we can do about it or can we by the way I wasn’t planning on making this video but when vinfast has asked me to produce a sponsored series of videos together which I was more than happy to do because I am a fan I said
Hey you know sponsoring my channel is not going to buy my opinion right if we’re going to move forward with this we’re going to have to address the elephant in the room which is all of these bad reviews that are coming out and they said knock your out so that’s
How I started to dig into what was behind all of it and now you see what I have discovered and let me tell you when a brand comes out with their first EV it’s always far from perfect whether it’s a Tesla or a Mercedes and the media cars that are usually very early
Production cars are generally not very good but apparently neither is the journalistic Integrity of some people with access to them now let’s address a couple of things that I have yet to mention first you might be wondering is it really fair to compare two reviews by two different reviewers of the same
Publication I mean they can have two different perspectives right well no when it comes to bigger Publications like Road and track Motor Trend and others each publication usually has their own set of moral and editorial standards and they have multiple people including the editorinchief to make sure they are enforced so different writers
May have different set of opinions but not different set of facts or bias it is also very much possible that Tesla or other brands have given the reviewers more polished media cars and honestly this is where vinfast dropped the bomb and should get better at it but this is
Why these reviews should at some point be updated when the publication is able to get a hold of Their Own car purchased or rented to conduct a true independent review and yet they don’t so should you trust car reviews now the short answer is no however I would suggest do what I
Do when I’m trying to research a new car new smartphone or a new travel destination read and watch the reviews that present both sides of the story the pros and the cons all right so I have to say that these three videos that I’ve just kind of showed you guys back to
Back is probably uh my best work in terms of you know how proud I am of doing this I already told you that this has cost me so much money and so so much red tape that I will probably never be able to break through again um and yet I
Did it I hope this gets more views simply because I think people really need to know when there watching car reviews what’s really behind them now I I I’ve gotten some comments in in for those videos where people say well I knew this all along well good but now
You also have some evidence and I hope that’s what you saw in these three videos um don’t forget to share them I really do think that this is something that literally is is is a public service that I’ve provided um in even though of course I make money uh doing these
Videos and a lot of you were kind enough to also subscribe to my channel um you know send me money on YouTube or patreon and support my channel that way and I do appreciate it so looking forward to all of your comments other than that see you
Guys next time and remember to stay charged
Here’s a compilation of very rare videos that only I was making over the last year exposing car companies and car reviewers / influencers on how they cover and review cars, specifically electric cars!
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