They were plenty drivable but the reliability gap between those GM cars and their Asian counterparts was far larger than today. I traded my mid 80’s Pontiac for a mid 80’s Civic around this time and the difference in build quality was stunning. My parents and brothers switched to Honda/Toyota in the years following.  …

In my anecdotal observation, truck buyers are most guilty of needing to buy a new one every 2-3 years to keep up with the Joneses/pissing match.  

A Tesla transmission will use the same amount of oil in its lifetime that an ICE car will use in 6 mo this.

Disinformation was around back the too though. American car manufacturer’s actually funded studies that claimed you were safer without a seatbelt as you were more likely to get thrown clear….

Aldi is not self governing… Aldi is oppressively dictating the terms of food transport, not the private citizen. Only a sheep would shop at Aldi and bend to their process.

People forget that Gen Xers are now becoming empty nesters and ditching their suburban lifestyles to move back into more interesting communities like this one   Some are even retiring early   

This is the issue with modern pickups. Giant tall body panels make 20” wheels look dinky.

Yeah, the cladding sort of works on the Crosstrek with meaty tires, but not at all on this sedan.   They should just go all in at this point and ditch the sedan, making a Crosstrek WRX.   It would at least be interesting and somewhat true to their rally roots.  

They aren’t starting from scratch with production capacity like Tesla, Toyota has large hybrid production lines that simply need to be retooled. They also started building a large Japanese battery factory awhile back with Panasonic that is supposed to be ready for 500k batteries per year in 2022.    They have had…

I can tell if I really floor it going into a turn… the BMW doesn’t understeer much and rotates nicely into the corner…. But in every day driving it really isn’t much different than a front biased AWD car. Traction is excellent, making it tough to break the wheels lose even with traction control off.

It absolutely is. My last three cars are Mk6 TDI Sportwagen > MK7 GTI and now an F31 BMW wagon. Sportwagen was definitely the best value. Not the most fun but not bad either. Pretty sure the MK7 Sportwagen has more space than my BMW wagon. Came close to getting the Alltrack… those just look great….   I just wanted…

Is that true about the mileage? My wife has one and it gets 44 mpg all day everyday. I think it was based on the previous generation Prius at the time. Regardless the interior is a much better place to be and she loves taking it to the dealership for service, so worthy trade offs for giving up a little…

Farmers, most of my rural Indians bus drivers were farmers.  

Don’t forget the cows that wind turbine ground vibrations would have harmed….   All saved due to the hero train.  

I’m far from a truck defender but lots of people haul things that are not 4x8 sheets of plywood that they would prefer to keep outside of their truck. I personally use my BMW wagon but can see the appeal when I spend part of an afternoon vacuuming wood chips and cleaning chainsaw oil from the cargo area of my car.

I don’t think the situation is nearly this bleak. I can’t speak to the manufacturing sector but I’m an Architect in the Midwest and in the field of design and construction merit based advancement is alive and well. Also true of the skilled trades that design and build buildings.

Indeed.  Large churches, corporations, unions and colleges all suffer from human nature.  

I mean, it doesn’t even have engine bay electronics installed yet, so this surprises?

If I had a million dollars…

Hyperbole I know, but degradation was only an issue with the early hybrids and EV’s which used more archaic technologies.  Modern EV’s are typically rated for like 10% or less degradation over 200,000 miles.