Dave Kinchen
Dave Kinchen is a reporter for FOX 2 Detroit who concentrates on the auto industry and on how vehicles intersect with labor, consumer protection, crime, and daily life. He is known inside the newsroom and on-air for signature coverage of major auto stories, including union actions affecting the Detroit automakers. Across his recent work, he moves between factory gates, gas stations, and neighborhood streets, following the impact of automotive decisions and incidents on workers, drivers, and local communities.
Auto industry and UAW coverage
Kinchen is closely associated with coverage of the auto industry and organized labor, particularly the United Auto Workers. His author bio notes that he becomes known for signature reporting on the auto industry, including the UAW’s historic strike targeting all three of the major Detroit automakers. In live segments on a national news stream within the FOX family, he is brought on as the FOX 2 Detroit reporter to discuss the prospect of auto workers striking within days, underscoring his role as a frontline source on UAW developments. This work places him at the intersection of labor negotiations, corporate decisions, and the economic stakes for workers whose livelihoods depend on the auto plants. His coverage in this area treats the auto beat as both an industrial story and a community story, tracking how union strategy and company responses ripple out through households and local businesses tied to the factories.
Consumer protection and gas price investigations
Kinchen also reports on consumer issues tied to driving, especially when state authorities scrutinize gas stations and pricing practices. In one recent piece, he covers a BP gas station in Romulus near Detroit Metropolitan Airport that is accused of price gouging by the state attorney general’s office, highlighting unusually high fuel prices compared with surrounding stations. His story follows how the complaint triggers an investigation by the attorney general and notes that the pricing discrepancy leads to a second probe, showing how a single station’s practices can escalate into a broader enforcement response. Through this type of coverage, he treats the pump as a key point where ordinary drivers encounter possible abuse, and he focuses on what happens when regulators step in on their behalf. The reporting frames fuel pricing not as an abstract economic trend but as a concrete fairness issue for motorists in a specific place.
Crime, public safety, and vehicles
A recurring strand in Kinchen’s work links criminal investigations and public safety to vehicles, using individual cases to illuminate risks on the road and in parking lots. He covers the killing of a woman found beaten to death in the back of an SUV on a city’s west side, pairing the facts of the case with the location and condition of the vehicle as central elements of the story. In broadcast segments and online clips, he reports on a man kidnapped, beaten, and left in a burning SUV, underscoring how a familiar object like a personal vehicle becomes the scene of a violent crime. Other pieces follow incidents where children are found in hot cars or rescued after being left inside vehicles, again placing attention on everyday lapses or crimes that unfold around parked cars. Across these stories, Kinchen treats vehicles not only as transportation but as stages for serious harm, emphasizing the investigative details, police response, and community concern that accompany each case.
Local development and community impact
Beyond the factory floor and the crime scene, Kinchen’s archive includes coverage of local development decisions that shape the built environment around drivers and residents. One story follows a city commission’s decision to deny a proposed data center plan in Allen Park, drawing out the implications of a large infrastructure project being turned away at the local level. By reporting on a commission vote and its outcome, he connects civic process to questions about land use, economic development, and the kinds of projects that communities are willing to host alongside their roads and neighborhoods. This strand complements his auto and consumer work, showing how he tracks the policies and projects that influence how people move, work, and live in and around their cars.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aarian Marshall
Aarian Marshall is a staff writer at WIRED who stands out for covering how cars, software, and policy collide. She writes on transportation systems and cities, from the auto industry to broader mobility systems. Before WIRED, she reported on cities and urban policy for The Atlantic’s CityLab. Her beat runs from electric vehicles, fuel prices, tariffs, and car-buying decisions to autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and software-defined cars. She reports with a systems view, linking policy shifts, technical failures, and urban life to what happens on streets, in repair shops, and at the pump.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung writes engineering-led coverage of Chinese electric vehicles and performance cars for CarNewsChina. He focuses on new energy vehicles, battery systems, powertrains, electric platforms, high-end domestic brands, and track-ready models, and he explains technical details in plain language for non-specialist readers. His reporting treats new models as hardware and systems stories, with precise figures on range, battery capacity, chassis layout, motor outputs, weight, and acceleration. He also covers the Chinese auto industry’s finances and technology roadmap, including sector profits, vehicle volumes, and solid-state battery timelines. His background in Electrical and Computer Engineering shows in the way he writes about vehicle electronics and battery management.
Al Pefley
Al Pefley is a television news reporter for CBS12 News whose work centers on how laws, law enforcement and local decisions shape everyday life for drivers and other residents. He reports in a general assignment role but returns often to transportation, public safety and pocketbook issues, treating driving as a point where policy, disability and policing intersect. His coverage includes driver-focused laws, fuel and tax policy, crime, policing and internal affairs findings, with a consistent focus on accountability and concrete consequences for people’s wallets, safety and trust in institutions. He explains county gas tax debates, campaign positions on teacher pay, property crime and retail theft in short, clear segments. Pefley works primarily on the scene, using live or recorded field reporting and interview-driven pieces to show what happened, why it matters and what comes next.
Aliza Savira
Aliza Savira focuses on the hidden financial costs of owning modern cars, especially how insurance can undermine expected savings. She writes about automobiles for MSN, looking at new technology and electric vehicles through everyday ownership rather than showroom appeal. Her work highlights the gap between promises of cheaper running costs and the full financial picture of owning a vehicle. In electric vehicle coverage, she treats insurance premiums as a key ownership problem that can erode long-term value. She stays close to practical questions drivers face, such as which recurring costs matter most after purchase. She reports on how insurance structures and premium levels interact with new automotive technology. Her beat is consumer-focused automobile reporting, with a clear, utilitarian lens on ownership experience, recurring expenses, and risk, rather than lifestyle or performance.