Yep, hence Porsche, who see the average manufacturer charging $600 for paint and think “why not $13,000?” I believe $13k is the current cost for a PTS colour.

Yes, and this almost never works in terms of any meaningful profit. Even for Porsche GT cars, you have to get really luck with timing for it to work out, let alone high volume mainstream production vehicles.

That engine in the 3.0si was one of the all-time greats, and perfectly suited to the Z4. Totally linear, but with more than enough torque to make it feel fast in any gear, and it sounded fantastic. I also agree that that era was probably the sweet spot for the Z3 / Z4 family. Pre-turbo, but with a much more…

Yes, two sides of the same coin really. The people who should be saving for retirement but can’t are the same ones who are surprised at how the math on a $50k car loan works.

Yes, I have a friend whose business builds EV charging stations, including for Tesla and Electrify America, but also for organizations seeking to electrify portions of their fleet. They have an insane pipeline, including building the kind of stuff you’re talking about.

One of the only camera tools I found useful was the 360-degree “overhead” view in my XC90. I thought it would be a gimmick, but it was actually incredibly useful to see the position of the vehicle in a tight spot. My current DD (2020 Subaru Outback) and my wife’s car (2020 Kia Soul) both just have pretty crappy rear…

Yes, but it’s amazing that there seem to be so many people who are shocked at the amount of a loan payment on a $40k or $50k car, as if there is some magic formula other than dividing the amount of the loan by the number of payments.

Definitely my E46 325i Touring (5-speed manual, sports suspension, only real negative was that I didn’t love the red exterior or the relatively tiny trunk). In theory, I miss my R53 Cooper S (blue with white roof, manual obviously, basically no other options). But my wife had one of similar vintage when we met about…

Depends how you define “reasonable” I guess. In many cases, you’d be talking about an eight-hour charge time on a standard outlet (even the Prius Prime, which has a pretty small battery, takes about 5.5 hours). If people have parking at work with an outlet, then that would be fine, but more likely they are competing…

But I think even this argument plays into the Tesla cult members’ belief that Tesla has some magical technology that other manufacturers don’t have, and which evil government won’t let them deploy. This is definitely how Tesla staff in their stores present the technology. I know you’re not making the argument in this…

This. Alcohol is so culturally embedded in our society, and yet so toxic.

I think that RWD E91 with stick is just about the sweet spot. I had the xdrive version since that’s all that was sold in Canada, and the all wheel drive really dulled the experience. The short shift kit was not compatible with xdrive variants either.

WeWork added the additional genius step of earning less for the space in aggregate than they were paying in rent. Then presumably they stiffed the owner of the real estate by not paying rent when the whole facade collapsed.

Obviously no one who says Canada has “free” healthcare thinks all the things you listed are free. They mean universally free at the point of delivery, which is mostly the case in Canada. His perspective is only wrong if you deliberately misinterpret what he wrote.

That’s my issue with this era of S4 - it’s just not that great to drive. Audis of this vintage still suffered from numb steering, and handling that was heavy on the understeer. The V8 and six-speed stick are great in principle, but the whole package is actually pretty lacking in driver engagement. I suppose the…

Honestly, it feels just par for the course for the Tesla cult. I can totally see their CSRs being indoctrinated to the idea that they are bravely saving the world, and that any slight criticism of Tesla must therefore be smote down with great vengeance, or passive aggressive whining, as the case may be.

But I think the F430 is destined to be a classic, simply by virtue of being the last Ferrari available with the gated 6-speed from the factory. Personally I think it’s much better looking than the 360, but the F355 is still the best looking modern-ish Ferrari.

I’m definitely a bit less forgiving. In the case of the claims about robo-taxis and other self-driving claims, it’s fraud, plain and simple. You can make claims about whether the fraud is intentional, but that’s not really how it should work with public companies where retail investors are buying the stock. The SEC…

I think that is my main issue with Tesla. They make announcements for things that are coming “next year,” when all they mean by that is they might have some half-assed prototype in about two years. And then Musk talks about it as if that innovation milestone was already achieved, even if they are still two years…

Tesla fans believe Tesla dominates entire product categories where their offerings are mostly fictional (Roadster, Semi, Solar Roof, Cybertruck), so if anything the real waymo self-driving will reinforce the cult’s beliefs. Waymo’s self driving that it actually has is less impressive than the self driving Tesla…