Let me translate for you what you sound like to people who have been in worse financial spots than you: “Fuck ‘em, it’s their fault for being too stupid to not just buy money cheaper somewhere else, lazy assholes”

Compound interest calculations were required in my 10th grade math curriculum. The math behind compound interest is way beyond what one could reasonably expect a 7 year old to understand. I don’t think you are going to have much luck teaching Euler’s number in elementary schools.

Because sometimes - in fact, most of the time - it has little to do with people not understanding how finances and loan rates work and very much to do with unfortunate circumstances that you couldn’t possibly predict and may not have enough resources to overcome.

That’s assuming those with bad credit are able to shop around. If you’re poor, your choices become limited real quick. If they don’t have a functioning vehicle, how are they supposed to shop around?

You are correct, lenders are not holding a gun to their head saying they have to take these rates. BUT, we live in a country where we have outsourced our transit to the private sector in most places, so if you want a job, you need a car. If you want to get your kids to school, you need a car. If you want to basically…

At some point we need to stop expecting consumers to become experts in any field they want to do business in, and start expecting companies to act ethically and in good faith.

...but did anyone really think at the time that it would be a good idea?

I can only speak for the half-dozen or so states I’ve lived and worked in, but for most of them anything over 20 or 25 years is exempt from everything.

There’s more, according to the press release from the DOJ.

My $35k Model 3 is parked in the garage right next to my $40k bullet-and-hammer-proof CYBERTRUCK, and both are being powered by my solar roof that cost “no more than a standard roof”.

Chrysler has always barely survived on one hit wonders post muscle car era. The Caravan, PT Cruiser, Ram trucks, and now we’re nearing the end of the 2004+ Hemi platform’s reign. The company has built cars for the same, unchanging customer base for its entire life and they’re finally running out of drag strip. I say…

To be fair, it seems Stellantis was screwed either way. From Marchionne’s 2015 “Confessions of a Capital Junkie” (link below since Kinja doesn’t handle in-comment links properly), it basically states that 49 percent of a new vehicle’s development costs comes from frame/chassis development. It stands to reason that a…

I’d guess that one of the other big issues is, when you swap over to electric, there’s a whole lot of new factory hardware that needs to be built and installed- with ICE, they’ve been able to just update the machinery they have for decades, replacing only when necessary. But think of all the machinery it takes to make…

But the idea that it’s passing on unsustainable costs to consumers seems invalidated by the presence of all-EV startups like Tesla or Nio.

I work in the packaging industry; our customers are other companies.  They traditionally buy our product, use it, and then throw it out when done.  It’s single-use packaging.  One of our customers is a “zero waste” company. Basically they negotiated that we take back our used packaging and throw it away, so they don’t…

But that would be logical thinking. Today all politics is only based on emotions rather sober realism. With social media, every idiot that doesn’t understand the subject (me included) has to give their useless opinion.

AWD is “safer”. Yes, your car will generally have a better time accelerating from a stop. No, your car won’t necessarily stop or turn any better than a FWD or RWD car. AWD means nothing if you exceed what the laws of physics will allow.

Really the myth is that all seasons aren’t fine in the winter. For all but like, 5% of the country, they are. All season in 2021 are totally different than the ones that weren’t sufficient in the cold 30 years ago.

The one guy who was thrown clear of a wreck and walked away unscathed as his car burst into flames has a lot of nephews.

The motor mount and location is easily the easiest part of a swap. Figuring out where to put your batteries, cooling them, wiring them to a controller and to the motor and then redoing all the electronics because you’ve already had to redo the whole electric system anyways... That’s tough. I’m curious if for a lesser…