I’m a reporter with 25-plus years experience writing about, and working in, the auto industry. After a journalism degree at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where I was a Morehead Scholar, I started out with the dearly departed Nashville Banner, an evening newspaper. My beat included GM’s Saturn Corp. in then-rural Spring Hill, Tenn. when the factory was still just a hole in the ground, plus the giant Nissan factory nearby. That turned into a post at Automotive News, the leading auto industry trade paper, as a one-man New York City bureau, covering European luxury brands, Wall Street, publicly traded dealer groups, retail auto finance and monthly auto sales. A four-year stint as market research and corporate strategy manager at Mercedes-Benz USA gave me an insider’s perspective. More recently, my freelance assignments have included Advertising Age, Automotive News, AutoWeek, Bankrate.com, Businessweek.com, CBS Interactive, The Financialist by Credit Suisse, ForbesAutos.com and Forbes.com. I am also the former Senior Editor for Auto Finance News in New York.