R1S Wins Doug DeMuro’s 2022 Car of the Year Award -- Two in a Row For Rivian!

[White Shadow]

You perhaps give the "actual automotive journalists" a bit too much credit. They don't always get their facts straight, split hairs over performance metrics that rarely matter in daily driving, and of course are never influenced by vehicle manufacturers ?. If that's what's important to you, then by all means keep bowing to the "actual automotive journalists".

Doug shares a different and, for many, more relatable experience of the vehicles he reviews.

Nobody is perfect and I never claimed they were. Do you think your boy Doug gets it right all the time? No, no he doesn't. The irony there is that he's primarily a "features" guy and still gets plenty wrong.

Anyway, it's an apples and oranges comparison. Car magazines have a ton more resources to do actual comparison testing. You know what else they have? Yup...they have multiple people with multiple opinions who actually vote on their car of the year. Doug's car of the year is just Doug's opinion. If you can't see the massive difference in just that point alone, then there's nothing else to discuss here.

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[electruck]

Nobody is perfect and I never claimed they were. Do you think your boy Doug gets it right all the time? No, no he doesn't. The irony there is that he's primarily a "features" guy and still gets plenty wrong.

Anyway, it's an apples and oranges comparison. Car magazines have a ton more resources to do actual comparison testing. You know what else they have? Yup...they have multiple people with multiple opinions who actually vote on their car of the year. Doug's car of the year is just Doug's opinion. If you can't see the massive difference in just that point alone, then there's nothing else to discuss here.

The reviews are all just opinions (with various facts intermingled) and , in my opinion, no single review is meaningful on its own. You really only start to get an accurate impression of a vehicle when looking at multiple reviews from different sources. They all come at things from their own angle and they all present a different piece of the puzzle. When there is collective agreement, then you can start to rule out various forms of bias, problems with individual vehicles, etc and have some confidence in their conclusions/observations.

 

[COdogman]

? Okay...

Doug is a YouTuber. Literally anyone can start a YouTube channel and start reviewing cars. All the major car magazines employ actual automotive journalists who work on actual instrumented comparisons with data to back up their subjective opinions. Doug spends his time telling you about the quirks and features of a car. If that's what's important to you, then by all means keep bowing to Doug.

Don't get me wrong, Doug is certainly popular as far as YouTube car reviewers go, but his popularity is nothing compared to car magazines. Doug is the Scotty Kilmer of YouTube car reviews, nothing more. I certainly consider him nothing but entertainment at best. But hey, he likes Rivian, so I'm sure lots of people here will stick up for him. If he hated Rivian, it's a safe bet we'd see just the opposite.

What qualifications do you think are required to be an “automotive journalist”? Doug has worked for Porsche, worked as a writer for Autotrader, Jalopnik, formed his own car blogs and published books on automotive topics. He also started Cars & Bids.

Like it or not magazines are dying a slow painful death and YouTube is now the preferred delivery method for most automotive related reviews. That’s why the magazines now make YouTube reviews. Doug is a respected and popular reviewer because of his enthusiasm for cars. It comes through in every review he does, whether good or bad. He is a quirky and funny guy who really gets into the details of every vehicle in a way none of those magazines ever do.

If he wasn’t a fan of Rivian I would take it as the opinion of one person, just like I take the “car of the year” award. But let’s not act like Rivian hasn’t received similar accolades from the more traditional “automotive journalists” you refer to.

 

[BeanEW]

I just took my R1S to Reno on icy roads and the car impressed me more and more. Yes, it is car of the year for me too.

 

[ads75]

Somehow, a YouTuber Car if the Year award doesn't really have any prestige to it. I'd be more impressed if he traded his Defender in for an R1S.

A YouTuber Car of the Year award may not have any "prestige", but I would guess that some of his 4.5 million subscribers care about his opinion.

 

[Tahoe Man]

? Okay...

Doug is a YouTuber. Literally anyone can start a YouTube channel and start reviewing cars. All the major car magazines employ actual automotive journalists who work on actual instrumented comparisons with data to back up their subjective opinions. Doug spends his time telling you about the quirks and features of a car. If that's what's important to you, then by all means keep bowing to Doug.

Don't get me wrong, Doug is certainly popular as far as YouTube car reviewers go, but his popularity is nothing compared to car magazines. Doug is the Scotty Kilmer of YouTube car reviews, nothing more. I certainly consider him nothing but entertainment at best. But hey, he likes Rivian, so I'm sure lots of people here will stick up for him. If he hated Rivian, it's a safe bet we'd see just the opposite.

I agree. I never thought of Doug as some worthy reviewer of cars/trucks. My opinion is he points out the quarks and whatnots on vehicles for entertainment. He has a large audience, but IMO that's because he's entertaining...I wouldn't base my buying decision on his reviews.

 

[electruck]

I wouldn't base my buying decision on his reviews.

Why would anyone base a purchase decision on any singular review?

Conversely, why would anyone exclude any reviews from their research? Sure, don't watch Doug if you don't like his personality or presentation style. I certainly don't watch him on a regular basis. But I do take his feedback about Rivian with just as much credibility as any other car reviewer in part because he does lend a different perspective.

 

[jakef801]

The R1S is a sexy vehicle. I was able to check out 3 of them at the SLC SC yesterday. (I hope they were there for delivery prep a day not technical issues - hate to say, but it was probably the latter).

Nevertheless, the R1S is a badass looking ride. My R1T is growing on me and I'm keeping it for the meantime.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Somehow, a YouTuber Car if the Year award doesn't really have any prestige to it. I'd be more impressed if he traded his Defender in for an R1S.

If the year award what ... ?

You perhaps give the "actual automotive journalists" a bit too much credit. They don't always get their facts straight, split hairs over performance metrics that rarely matter in daily driving, and of course are never influenced by vehicle manufacturers ?. If that's what's important to you, then by all means keep bowing to the "actual automotive journalists".

Doug shares a different and, for many, more relatable experience of the vehicles he reviews.

This is a great take and where I am now. It's like the 0-60 metric where so many quick vehicles are separated by less than 0.5 a second, which really isn't meaningful for most uses, yet it becomes a source for arguing tires, track, modes, SOC, ringer tunes, among people who mostly don't even own the vehicle(s) being tested.

I really enjoy his exuberant take, pointing out those little things in a vehicle that might be super helpful/cool/fun for an actual owner (or conversely, weird things that might get on your nerves).

Plus, it's a DIFFERENT perspective, there's plenty of magazine type resources for instrument measurement data, I was thrilled when some review pointed out you can put two 38q coolers front-to-front in the rear area with the seats up.

 

[COdogman]

If it weren’t for airport news stands, most of the automotive magazines would have been dead and buried a decade ago.

 

[brancky3]

If it weren’t for airport news stands, most of the automotive magazines would have been dead and buried a decade ago.

I don’t know how they stay in business even with these sales. I’ve had a $1/year subscription to C&D for about 8 years now. The cost of shipping them to me doesn’t even get covered by what I pay

 

[COdogman]

I don’t know how they stay in business even with these sales. I’ve had a $1/year subscription to C&D for about 8 years now. The cost of shipping them to me doesn’t even get covered by what I pay

I think it’s simply ad sales. I still read a few magazines via Apple News and over the last 10 years some of them appear to be more ads than articles. Although that doesn’t seem like a long term plan for success either.

 

[White Shadow]

The reviews are all just opinions (with various facts intermingled) and , in my opinion, no single review is meaningful on its own. You really only start to get an accurate impression of a vehicle when looking at multiple reviews from different sources. They all come at things from their own angle and they all present a different piece of the puzzle. When there is collective agreement, then you can start to rule out various forms of bias, problems with individual vehicles, etc and have some confidence in their conclusions/observations.

I mostly agree with that. But it also supports my basis that Doug is a one man show. His COTY is solely just him. A magazine like C&D has a point system and a voting system, so by default you get multiple opinions from various sources in just one publication. But yeah even then I read other reviews as well. I just put more weight on the ones that I find most useful and credible. Unfortunately, Doug doesn't really fit that for me. He'll always be the "quirks" guy as far as I'm concerned, and that's basically just entertainment.

 

[brancky3]

I mostly agree with that. But it also supports my basis that Doug is a one man show. His COTY is solely just him. A magazine like C&D has a point system and a voting system, so by default you get multiple opinions from various sources in just one publication. But yeah even then I read other reviews as well. I just put more weight on the ones that I find most useful and credible. Unfortunately, Doug doesn't really fit that for me. He'll always be the "quirks" guy as far as I'm concerned, and that's basically just entertainment.

His regular scoring is pretty objective, but of course there’s going to be subjectivity with ANY journalist in terms of fun to drive and practicality. His opinions aren’t going to fit everyone but you can judge how far off it would be from yours based on his thoughts about quirks and features.

 

[BeanEW]

Don't underestimate the power of Youtuber especially ones had 4.5m subscribers.

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