Joel Feder
Joel Feder covers the business of the auto industry through the lens of trucks, performance vehicles, and new model strategy for The Drive. He focuses on how product decisions, powertrain choices, and trim-level moves reflect broader business bets by major automakers. His reporting combines enthusiast-grade detail with a clear sense of where a vehicle fits in a company’s portfolio and competitive landscape.
Trucks, performance, and nameplate moves
Feder’s work sits at the intersection of business news and enthusiast culture, with a strong emphasis on pickups and performance-oriented models. In his coverage of Ram’s Rumble Bee, he treats the rumored return of the nameplate as a strategic decision about what kind of V8 hardware the brand is willing to invest in, not just a styling exercise. He explains what a supercharged V8 means for the truck’s positioning, how it connects to Ram’s heritage, and how it contrasts with rivals that are shifting to downsized or electrified powertrains.
Across his recent pieces, he returns often to stories about special trims, off-road packages, and high-output variants. He tracks how manufacturers use limited editions and halo models to retain enthusiasts as they adjust lineups around emissions rules, electrification, and cost pressure. That focus lets him treat each new package or badge not simply as marketing, but as a signal of where a brand thinks its most profitable and loyal customers are.
Feder also pays close attention to the lifecycle of well-known nameplates. When a performance version is discontinued or resurrected, he frames it as a business decision about margins, regulatory headroom, and brand identity. He highlights the tension between keeping iconic V8 and performance badges alive and the capital spending now flowing into electric platforms and hybrid powertrains.
Business news grounded in specs and hardware
Although his beat is business, Feder anchors his stories in mechanical detail and concrete specifications. When he covers a new truck or SUV, he does not stop at the headline price or corporate talking points. He spells out engines, horsepower, torque, towing and payload figures, and how those numbers compare to earlier versions and key competitors. That approach makes business stories about pricing, positioning, and segment strategy intelligible to readers who care first about what is under the sheetmetal.
He often uses small technical changes to illuminate larger business trends. A shift from a V8 to a downsized turbo engine, an added hybrid option, or a new off-road package becomes a way to explain how an automaker is chasing fleet-average targets, reducing complexity, or carving out higher-margin sub-trims. Rather than treating corporate strategy as abstract, he follows how it shows up in powertrain mixes, option bundles, and equipment levels on dealer lots.
Feder’s tone stays direct and factual, but he writes with the assumptions of an enthusiast audience. He respects that readers notice gearing, tire choices, suspension setups, and performance claims, and he weaves those details into discussions of segment share, profit focus, and regulatory constraints. That combination gives his business coverage a product-centered angle that differs from finance- or policy-only reporting.
Fast-turn news, explainers, and continuity
Most of Feder’s recent work at The Drive takes the form of fast-turn news stories tied to announcements, leaks, teasers, and product reveals from major automakers. He is quick to break out the key facts—what is new, what is gone, what it costs, when it arrives—and then add context from prior model years and earlier executive statements. Headlines are straightforward and descriptive, signaling that the piece will deliver concrete information rather than opinion.
Alongside straight news hits, he writes explainers that unpack what a new trim, engine, or pricing move means for a broader lineup. In those pieces he connects several model years or related announcements into a clear narrative about a company’s direction with trucks, performance models, or electrification. He often returns to the same nameplates and segments over time, giving his archive a sense of continuity; readers can see how a given truck or SUV line evolves across multiple stories.
Feder makes heavy use of manufacturer data, statements, and official imagery, but his coverage is not a simple relay of press releases. He highlights inconsistencies with prior messaging, notes where an automaker is out of step with segment trends, and calls out when a change represents a real mechanical upgrade versus a cosmetic refresh. The emphasis remains on clarity and accuracy, with little rhetorical flourish.
Long-running focus on the auto industry
Feder brings more than a decade of experience in automotive media to his role at The Drive. Before joining the masthead, he held reporting and editing roles at other automotive outlets, covering new vehicles, technology, and the car business. That background shows in his comfort with both niche enthusiast topics and broader industry storylines.
Beyond daily news, he has participated in broader automotive coverage across formats, including video and audio segments where he discusses new products and industry developments. Across those platforms, his through-line stays consistent: he treats vehicles as the clearest expression of each automaker’s business strategy, and he reports on that strategy by starting with the hardware and working outward.
4 more business journalists.
Alex Bronzini-Vender
Alex Bronzini-Vender is a business reporter who focuses on how economic forces and corporate decisions shape specific communities and industries. He covers business for the Washington Monthly, writing reported pieces at the intersection of commerce and public life. His work reflects the magazine’s emphasis on linking markets and money to power, policy, and everyday experience. He treats business not as balance sheets and deals but as choices that affect local realities. In “Fear and Loathing in Palo Alto,” he uses a city tied to the tech sector to examine how a powerful industry influences a community. He grounds his business beat in on-the-ground consequences rather than treating corporate and financial developments in isolation.
Alex Smith
Alex Smith focuses on the business impact of enterprise technology, with a distinctive emphasis on AI literacy and skills rather than technical specifications. They write for Technology Record, covering how artificial intelligence and cloud platforms from major providers are turned into concrete programmes for organisations and governments. Their beat sits at the junction of business strategy, national digital policy and large-scale technology partnerships. They report on national AI literacy programmes and public–private partnerships, showing how policy choices, vendor capabilities and skills gaps intersect. On the business beat, they treat AI and cloud as tools for competitiveness, workforce readiness and participation in a data-driven economy. Their concise, announcement-led reporting highlights who is partnering with whom, what programme is being launched, which technologies underpin it and how it changes capability on the ground for executive readers.
Alison Durkee
Alison Durkee focuses on how law, regulation and politics create business risks for major companies and industries. She is a reporter at Forbes, where she writes news-driven explainers on complex legal and regulatory developments and their impact on corporate strategy, reputation and markets. Her coverage centers on companies under scrutiny, especially in technology and other high-growth sectors, and tracks trials, investigations and fast-changing policy fights. She breaks down lawsuits, inquiries and regulatory moves into clear parts, grounded in timelines, filings and official actions. She reports on generative artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies as tests of legal frameworks and corporate risk management, explaining how issues like intellectual property, safety compliance, consumer protection and governance can reshape product roadmaps, partnerships and investor expectations.
Alyson Shontell
Alyson Shontell covers business through the lens of leadership, using in-depth conversations with powerful executives and founders to show how their decisions shape companies, markets, and public life. She is editor in chief at Fortune, overseeing coverage across the masthead while continuing to write selected high-impact pieces. Her core work is long, reported interviews and profiles of CEOs of large companies, dominant tech firms, and fast-growing startups. She focuses on how leaders think, manage risk, make unconventional calls, and handle crises, culture, and the future of work. Her subjects include corporate chiefs, startup founders, and political figures treated as executives. She probes operating detail, governance, internal culture, and trade-offs around growth, disruption, and workplace models, using concrete examples and direct, accessible prose that foregrounds the subject’s voice while pressing for specifics.