Yup. This. A railroad engineer not only has to deal with grade-grossings which may or may not be controlled, but general environmental conditions, like rock fall or trees across the tracks. The engineer can easily decide whether those hazards are really a show stopper, or even do light clearing. Autonomous train would…

This is true for corn-based ethanol in North America. Brazil uses sugar cane, which is many times more efficient to produce, making it a good alternative fuel in sugar cane regions. Corn-ethanol has an energy balance (energy in vs energy out) of only about 1.5x which combined with transportation inefficiencies (you…

Up to 8,300 pounds, which is lightweight compared to some configurations of the F150. I wouldn’t hesitate to use its tow rating fully.

This. Don’t bust the funeral home worker because the stature isn’t fully defined.  Take it up with the legislature instead.

25 MPH was the emergency braking test.

That’s weird. I definitely don’t consider it full-size. But it probably gets cross-shopped more with full-size trucks, since you can also get an F150 that gets better fuel economy and tows twice as much for almost the same price. And on the flip side, I’ve never heard of a Taco/Colorado/Ranger buyer consider a…

Context matters. Marginal headlight rating is actually Best-In-Class!

No way. It’s definitely the next gen Ford Flex. We just haven’t heard about it yet. It just looks tall because everything has to be crossovery these days... Nice to see them finally add an oval to the grill;)

Most vehicles retain fuel pressure when off. You only have to forget to bleed pressure once when doing a fuel filter. It’s an unpleasant lesson. I can’t speak to your specified vehicle, but that’s not typical in newer vehicles. BTW - Not only did I run a repair shop for a few years, I was also drove wreckers during…

Gasoline in the tanks doesn’t spontaneously catch fire. But gasoline does when it sprays out of a leaky fuel rail or supply line, which retain residual pressure for a long time after parking. I’ve seen several cars that caught fire parked. I’ve watched one catch fire while moving (it was a Kia) last summer. And I’ve…

You do realize new diesels don’t smell, and have equivalent noxious emissions requirements, while emitting less CO2?

And MUCH cheaper future repair costs. When your CP4.2 fuel pump self-destructs, it’s an $11,000+ repair.

Did you happen to look at the payload sticker for this truck? I’ve seen other high-trim Rams with horrifically low payloads, and I’m wondering how prevalent this is.

The new trucks do use Urea. In the exhaust stream. Which allow them to run hotter combustion temps and crank up HP levels. Which requires piston cooling as a result, but this is done with oil jets, not urea. Potentially I could see this causing conventional oils to break down. But it certainly is not directly caused…

Yup. Explorer more or less smoked every other offering.

If you’re going to serve ice cream from outside the van, you might as well just push an umbrella-covered-cooler-cart around.

NOPE. Deforestation for housing is trivial. Deforestation for bio-fuels (due to biofuel mandates) is huge, followed closely by food production.

That’s giving them too much credit. They just swat at the flappy thingy on the column (or give the big radio dial thingy a spin) and let it lurch. Repeat step 1 if it lurches in the direction they don’t want to go.

Not to mention a fairly mundane powertrain. The Lexus V8 specs are nearly the same as the new RWD Explorer’s base 4-cylinder. And the Lexus still has a 6 speed auto, so crawl ratios won’t be that far off even though the Explorer lacks a low range. The hybrid version might even offer more torque at crawl speeds.

Well, it kinda does. At least until the national grid is 100% renewable. A kilowatt of renewable energy, even if “allocated” from renewable energy, will still result in a kilowatt of carbon-based power production somewhere on the grid. The only exception might be in the PNW, where spring and summer hydro/wind/solar pro…