...I mean, you can’t break your bones by crashing your car if your car has already broken your bones for you. It’s considerate, really; instead of seatbelt pre-tensioners and force limiters, you have occupant space pre-squishers and force maximizers. More safety innovation from Volvo.

I’ve heard that “seized” engine thing before about F1 engines, but...what exactly does that mean? That a cold F1 engine would require a very large and powerful starter to make the valves/conrods/crank rotate? That the whole thing is so brittle when cold that any or all of those pieces would break without prewarming?…

Best of both worlds is a high-revving crossplane. Regular old crossplanes just sound like fat pickup trucks. Flatplanes sound—for obvious reasons—like I4's.

How smooth or not smooth was the stop/start system? This and the CRV are top-of-the-list for my mother’s next car.

Because the 8-speed isn’t a ZF; it’s a Hyundai-designed unit. They seem to have the only 8-speed that isn’t a ZF, for better or worse. I agree, though; they could engineer a manual to handle the torque. I’m sure what’s lacking is a market for that sort of thing.

I am in the nebulous backwards land of shocked and disappointed at the number of people who are still looking at this situation through the narrative lens of “mind your own business, he earned that money.” He just didn’t, though, is the thing. As others have mentioned, his net worth isn’t liquid, so it’s not all his…

Forester, yes. I’m almost 6'6" (6'5.5", whatever), and my ‘06 Forester suites me very well, even with the fantastic, massive sunroof overhead. It’s got over 150k miles on it, and has been quite flawless in operation—especially during New England winters—even if it’s loudish inside and the fuel economy isn’t great.…

In fact, I have. At least, I can say that I lived in Beijing for three months, and ignoring the snarling traffic of the ring roads—which is totally possible with the city’s subway system—traveling through that sprawling 10-million-person city was somehow far more manageable without a car than it is in the ultimately-mo…

There’s real weakness on display in failing to acknowledge others’ strengths. I don’t recall saying that the transportation systems in these countries were perfect, but there’s a logic to them that doesn’t end up justifying people driving 75 miles every day to work, or walking 5 miles—along what are often outright…

The thing I find hilarious is that nowhere more than the U.S. do cars dominate discussions of the “future of mobility”. Know why? It’s because everywhere else already has it figured out.

And I get that, but what makes it impossible for American carmakers to sell sedans/cars at a profit that prohibits Japanese/Korean ones? It can’t be assembly costs, as—at this point—most Japanese/Korean cars sold here are also made here. I grant, too, that trucks/CUV’s may just have higher profit margins, even if…

I don’t know if Koenigsegg is big or cash-rich enough to have a subsidiary. Hyundai, by contrast, is sitting on big enough piles of cash to pay $10 billion for a plot of land in southern Seoul to build a 109-story skyscraper. I wish they’d put some of that into acquiring and investing in some offbeat brands like…

The thing that really confuses me is that the Focus and Fusion—Ford’s two biggest selling non-crossover/trucks—were both very well received at their launch, but the Fusion’s design is now 5-6 years old, and the Focus of the U.S. is seven years old. They did the same thing with these new, much more competent vehicles…

This is when I wish that a cash-rich, management-savvy, ambitious company would step in, buy the whole thing, invest, and really take control. Spyker has had such artistically-beautiful cars; it’s like Lotus, with a now-vague-ish, but wonderfully unique company with a history of building worthwhile machines, albeit in…

I could have sworn they stopped making these.

A reminder that stocks are far less indicative of the actual value of a company than the perceived value.

I can guarantee you that there is plenty of non-monetary benefit to be reaped from Ford paying that quarter billion in taxes over 34 years, too. And as we’ve seen in just about every area—value chains, labor markets, and investment opportunities—the race to the bottom doesn’t end up working out well for any…

“Loans”. Great. So is this tax abatement a loan with interest, or basically a grant with no interest, i.e. free money? And while I’m planning on moving to a state with nursing unions, say that hypothetically I have a family and children and can’t just uproot them for my own benefit. What then?

These development incentives basically never pay off, because specific benefits are asked for from the government—tax breaks—and, generally, specific benefits are never demanded from the company in such a way that they actually offset the cost of the incentive.

Really? So moving money from people with a smaller marginal propensity to consume—the wealthy, who can afford basically anything they want, and therefore have no real reason to buy more—to a larger marginal propensity to consume—the poor, who can afford basically nothing they need, and therefore will spend every cent…