I feel the majority of Chrysler’s issues stem from the types of people who buy them.

I think reliable has to be better defined.

Lord forfend us against the safety nazis. I ride a motorcycle. Millions of Americans, and billions of humans world wide ride motorcycles, motorbikes, and scooters. I can absolutely guarantee you that this Wuling Hongguang Mini EV is already “safer” than any motorcycle.

The Alfa Giulia (and the Stelvio by default) have been far more reliable than many critics have assumed. Anyone I know that has purchased or leased them have been happy as hell with them and report no more issues than any other new car.

Oh gosh, you must have met my mother. She still holds true that countless brands are unreliable because she had a friend with a cousin back in 198- or 199- who bought that brand and had a lemon. She even thinks that Honda and Toyota reliability are a myth because her friend blah blah blah.

Basically every car that is subjected to a reasonable maintenance routine. Cars that are taken to the workshop to prevent problems rather than fixing problems tend to leave less money there.

Most cars are more reliable than people say. One person has a bad experience, repeats it to someone else, that second person picks it up as a lazy joke, repeats it ad nauseam on a motoring site [in times past, in the letters page of a magazine] a comic stuck for a joke picks it up [and exaggerates it] and says it on…

Let’s see. A bent wheel, new TPMS, steering rack, brake cooling duct, drain plug replacement... That car was wrecked by slamming it over a curb and now we’re calling the repair work an oil change?

They’ll lease them for next to nothing.

This will be MUCH cheaper here. As others have said, it’s a compliance car to keep CARB happy. But they still have to get people to buy a bunch of them, they can’t just offer them for sale then not sell any. So I predict the lease deals on these things will be absolutely EPIC. Like $99/mo Leaf lease deal epic.

Ford has 1 plant building Transit Connect vans. In the first (many) years of production, the TC was not available in the US. So, it made no sense to build it in the US. Even now, most of these vans are not meant for North America, but for other continents. So, Ford builds them elsewhere. Makes perfect sense.

I think if we spent any amount of time trying to understand the Carolina Squat culture [...] we’d respect it more, too.

If you can’t figure out what the safety implications of not being able to see over the hood are, that’s your defect, not ours.

Going ‘down East’ in NC, the squat is pretty much a beacon for mouthbreathing redneck.

Are these first time legislators? They certainly aren’t skilled at writing a bill.

I did take a cursory look and at least in my quick Google Image search for Carolina Squat, all the owners I saw appeared to be white guys.

“We did stupid dangerous shit in the past and managed to survive and therefore we should never ban stupid dangerous shit” isn’t really a coherent argument.

Biggest issue with squat and/or lifted trucks is safety. If I’m driving the car that is “The Answer”, aka Miata, and I get rear ended...

SImple. Forbid the use when the vehicles are on public roads and in motion.

TLDR: We are still living with what is basically a protectionist knee-jerk reaction from over half a century ago.