Mercedes and Volvo say you’re correct. They have had teams for decades that investigate every fatal collision involving one of their cars. They’ve both said that a lot of single-car fatalities are likely suicides.

There’s a whole line of historical literature analyzing the parallels between the behavior of “prophets” and the DSM-V. Seeing visions, hearing voices, making connections between seemingly unrelated facts and events. These genes have survived in the gene pool for so long, you have to ask why and how that happened.

I suspect it’s not. Having seen people do some similar things, my top guess is schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Either unmedicated, or self-medicating with recreational drugs.

The fact that nobody was hurt is kinda making *me* religious. “God protects babies, fools, and drunks.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Everyone hates Bangle, but von Hooydonk was and remains the true villain. When BMW gets a bailout from the Bavarian government somewhere around 2035, he’ll be remembered as one of the reasons the company failed.

The obvious point of them releasing this video is for them to say “vulgar bucktooth grilles and shitty electronic interfaces aren’t a departure for us. They’re our BRAND HERITAGE!”

SX4 AWDs are also tons of fun to drive, and apparently pretty damn bulletproof. Every so often one pops up on my local Craigslist, and they seem to fetch $6-10k. Someone likes ‘em.

Yeah, Suzuki gave up on sedans in that size class. They’re happy to sell you a crossover with similar space inside.f

Got one as a rental once. Not “meh,” at all. Lots of fun. One of those cars that you could tell the team worked hard to get right in detail.

I’m low-key looking for one of these, but not because I like them. They’re the right donor car to manual-swap a W211 E-Class. This car is priced just about $2k more than the cost of buying the swap parts from a dismantler, so there’s plenty of room to part out the rest of the car and make good money.

I think you’re right - van-like BEV conveyances will start to get more common, particularly in urban areas. I’m here for it - the packaging is so much better than these silly compact crossovers.

This article got me looking at BMW Group annual reports to see if Mini’s decline in journalist accolades has correlated with sales declines.

Not even all that remote, TBH. I spend a lot of time in NorCal where you can be a hour outside of San Francisco, but still in a place where cell signal is spotty and Comcast service is unavailable. Starlink says they’ll be serving my area later this year for $500 setup and $99/month ongoing cost. I’d 100% buy that…

In this case, the objections raised were in bad faith, based on a fat sack of manufactured partisan lies. Is that “seditious”? Maybe not, but probably yes. No matter the label, all of those Congresscritters who voted against certification should be tossed out on their ear. Any company that sent checks to them is…

Yeah, this. The idea is that there is a line that was crossed. A violent attack on Congress while it’s in session is not “corrupt business as usual.” A company can’t continue supporting the politicians that made that happen, regardless of how many politicians they are donating to.

^^^ This. Their donation patterns suggest that “right-to-work” laws are what they’re trying to preserve.

I could see people having nostalgia for these things. But: Collectors will want low-mile examples with their original engines.

There’s a good chance that the original M112 succumbed to the worn cam / balance shaft sprocket issue, which was the subject of a recall and a bunch of lawsuits. The later M112s didn’t have that issue, and are 400k-mile taxi motors.

Nah. eBay provides. German cars got complicated with the interior electronics about 15 years ago. What I’m seeing now is that the parts that would have seemed incredibly expensive to replace (like LED screens) are widely available for small money from wrecking yards and the aftermarket. If you’re willing to get a set…

This. I couldn’t even comment from my iPhone running Safari - I had to wait to get into the office and fire up Chrome just so I could pile on to the complaint. That’s how motivated I am to complain about this crappy, crappy UX.