Interesting article, but there are a lot of assertions on both sides.

The prius isn't a true CVT. It's a planetary gearset sandwiched with an electric motor. Very reliable. Every Nissan CVT and any other belt driven CVT is an unreliable mess of a transmission design to make it just past the warranty period. 

People hate these because it’s just one more rung of evolution away from interesting. Cheap? Underpowered? FWD? CVT? And now top-heavy?

Closest thing to an RS6 Avant in your budget: BMW 535i Xdrive wagon, with a JB4 tune. With an intake, exhaust, iintercooler and JB4 tune, they can make north of 450 horsepower. Even with just the tune and nothing else, you can get them to 340.

While it seems like Rolls Royce, Bentley or some luxury maker would keep it going the longest (rich people don’t care about fuel economy), we now see that electric cars are quieter, faster, safer and more comfortable than gas powered cars. These are all things rich people love. Though hypocritical, they also tend to…

In their own right, they’re not bad. Very early 2000s styling element and extremely dated looking today... But so are most early 2000s cars.

It’s ugly, but the F10 chassis is extremely well built and the N55 is a reliable engine, once you address the HPFP (which has almost certainly been done before this reached 104k).

Thanks! I have too much time on my hands 

Design Process:

So were these the same games inside? Or did the mildly alter the games, with some different cars and liveries?

Look up leasehackr.com and find one of the brokers offering a new Bolt lease. They come out to under $200 a month for a 3 year lease (factoring in down payment too). A leased Bolt is the cheapest new car you can buy 

Once you drive them, there is no question that the Spark is the more enjoyable and livable car. But alas, the Mirage is significantly cheaper to own long term, thanks to the much better fuel economy, twice the warranty length and better overall reliability.

That will never happen. Either he goes to jail and becomes a martyr, and Don Jr fills his shoes. Or he gets off free and is just as destructive over the next 4 years, running again in 2024.

The Chevy Spark LS Manual has manual crank windows, manual door locks, and no cruise control. It’s the least well equipped car on the market, but even that is legally required to have a backup camera and has bluetooth.

Designing tech products that you (and a majority of Americans) may very well use on a daily basis. But that’s neither here nor there.

Pointless, yes. But I understand why it exists. It’s from a simpler, purer time. When BMW clearly needed to expand the Mini range, but didn’t want to dilute the Mini character (i.e. don’t make them larger than necessary).

The original is a disaster, and I don’t think there are many critics - nor the general public - who would agree with you that it’s a cohesive design and one of Ford’s best designs.

Tell me about it. Was trying to find a bottle of Blanton for my whiskey-enthusiast brother... But ended up settling on Breckenridge Reserve. It’s unique at least, and something he’s never seen in the Midwest.

It was a federal ban on movable headlight fixtures that forced it. The body shape was really not able to fit anything other than pop-ups.