You are absolutely right about cost being the priority. Cost of production AND long term cost of maintenance. Ford is debuting this engine with conservative power figures so that it lasts a very long time under a commercial-use, 100% duty cycle. Give it a couple years and they’ll probably develop an OEM turbo or…

I agree Acura made a reputation for itself quite well with real model names. The whole alphanumeric soup naming scheme is just a ripoff of the big german marques to try and steal their thunder.

The alphanumeric thing kind of puts everything a manufacturer makes into an anonymous “Sure, an Audi I guess”

I had a similar issue with my 1978 Lincoln Continental mark V, which came with 15" steel wheels from the factory. I ordered a set of 17" Mach-1 style wheels for it, and the 17s wouldn’t clear the brake calipers (4 wheel discs). Turns out the rotors were huge for a 70s car, 14" or something ridiculous. The original 15s…

Wheels bigger than about 20 inches don’t make a lot of sense for passenger cars. With some rare exceptions for brake caliper clearance, big wheels are admittedly a modern aesthetic choice on newer cars, nothing more. The vast majority of cars on the road would do just fine on 16-18" wheels.

To everyone complaining about how trucks are wasteful and polluting, the simple solution to that is simply have a truck as a second vehicle. Put your commute miles on the 45 mpg hybrid and save the truck for recreation and moving big things.

So.. uber is statistically safer than air travel? That’s a DAMN high standard.

Ride a motorcycle, and use the HOV lanes with reckless abandon

I have owned three cars with heated seats and besides testing to see if they worked, did not use any of them. I just don’t enjoy the feeling of a warmer-than-body-temp seat.

The left front tire looks a bit low

Given a sufficiently powerful laser, it would clear its own beam path of precipitation or fog

Rail-guided rocket sleds have gone way faster, though I think the fastest manned one was under 700 mph. Still, it would be much easier and safer to build a manned rocket powered rail car/sled and have it do 1000mph, because the rail guidance eliminates a lot of stability issues.

But how? Helmet cost? Individual freedom? Liken this to the seat belt law - didn’t really stop people from riding in cars.

There is no harm in wearing a helmet. There IS harm in mandating their usage, because it discourages people from cycling at all.

Yep.

Yes. Especially the part about extreme assumptions, and helmets doing little to make cycling safer in an already-unsafe jurisdiction.

Everybody gets sick, everybody gets injured, everybody dies. It’s just a matter of time for when insurance has to pay out on everyone. The lifestyle of a cyclist is not any more risky than that of a frequent pedestrian.

I did read it.

I’m going to need a citation for that argument.

Regular cyclists are healthier and generally require less health care than more sedentary people