The War on Cars

EPISODE 120: Super Bowl LVIII Roundup

Added 2024-02-14 11:01:01 +0000 UTC

Hello, good people of Patreon!

it's time for our annual Super Bowl roundup episode!

This has become a tradition for us and it's always a fun one to produce and record. It usually takes about a week to get this one out, but thanks to an early recording session on Monday and some heroic work by our editor Yessenia Moreno we are able to release episode CXX (see what we did there?) with the Big Game still fresh in everyone's minds.

This was a weird year for Super Bowl ads, with none of the Big Three U.S. automakers buying airtime, something that hasn't happened in 23 years. Plus, after last year's "LOOK AT US WE'RE MAKING EVS" theme, this time around only two of the car ads were for EVs — and only one of those even called attention to that fact. This year also marked the return of Volkswagen to the Super Bowl after a conspicuous 10-year absence. 🤔

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed putting it together. As an extra treat, we are releasing a special Patreon bonus episode for you all tomorrow in which we discuss two additional ads: one that provides a nice contrast to the excess of most car ads and another that seems to represent a lot of what's going on in the U.S. these days.

THANK YOU as always for your support!

All the best,

Aaron, Sarah and Doug

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Patreon supporters can listen to this ad-free episode on Apple Podcasts or another podcast app. Check out these instructions on how to find and use your private RSS audio link from Patreon. Patreon is now integrated with Spotify. You can also use the Patreon app or listen in your browser.

LINKS:

Watch all the 2024 Super Bowl commercials. (USA Today)

None of the Big Three automakers ran a Super Bowl ad this year. (Detroit Free Press)