Alanis, do you read the news? Auto loan defaults are on the rise. And while Tesla looks great with its hundreds of thousands of preorders, people paid $1000 down for those over a year ago when the economy looked brighter, and they won’t “finish” paying until delivery sometime next year.

This is not impressive at all. Gasoline cars have always been able to run on alcohol, and Henry Ford even equipped the Model T with a switch to allow you to run either gasoline, kerosene, or alcohol. His famous quote:

I don’t understand manufacturers’ recent obsession with engineering loud, snarly engine sounds out of teeny little power plants. I drive an older Lexus, and those good ol’ NA engines are plenty quiet in city, and loud enough to wake the neighborhood at redline. And if we’ve learned anything about turbo charging…

Culture of rape is too much of a stretch for you to imagine?

Not true, Tesla wanted female employees that were watertight and easily recyclable, too.

Manufacturers are intentionally trying to kill the manual transmission, partly because it doesn’t sell as well, and partly because they’re trying to upsell you to the more expensive automatic.

90% of the old beater trucks where I live are either a Ford or a Toyota, and mostly Hilux/Tacomas and Rangers. The trucks that don’t stand the test of time are usually made by GM or Chrysler, unless of course you opt for a diesel.

Fuel cells are boring.

Here’s what I know about butt feel in my best apples to apples comparison that I can provide. I own both a Lexus IS300 AT and Toyota Tacoma V6 MT, each 1st gen. Two of the most reliable 6 cylinder engines ever produced by Toyota, around similar time periods, and completely worlds apart in terms of design intent and…

12,000 Supras is not a very large number compared to all the Lexus GS/SC/IS 300's that were made.

This is why I recently converted my car to ethanol. Even the Priuses are going to be stuck in line at the pump.

This is one of the many unfortunate consequences of manufacturers building cars for the benefit of the shareholders, rather than the benefit of the consumer. If you watch daytime television these days, you might notice that at least 3/4 of the car ads promote the idea of leasing instead of buying, and lessees…

The butthurt is strong with Musk. He’s probably a little emotional from watching his stocks get clobbered for the past 4 weeks.

We are going to see a lot of recalls over the next few years because of the increasing prevalence of outsourcing. If cars were built from start to finish using domestic labor, the recalls would be fewer due to better communication between the design, fabrication, and assembly teams.

Maybe I’m just thick, but I don’t understand this article at all.

Exactly. We’ve had buttons for sport and econ modes for a few decades now, and even the Prius now has additional econ and EV buttons to squeeze maximum fuel savings.

This isn’t a spiritual successor to the Toyota Matrix. This is a Yaris with a CVT option, which means it’s a Yaris successor.

I agree that this car is boring. I’m getting tired of seeing those garish signature Lexus front grills, it looks like cheap chicken wire stretched over the bumper. The rest of the car looks like a bar of soap that’s been dropped too many times.

This is just the beginning of the insane deals on used luxury vehicles. Lots of baby boomers are suddenly finding themselves strapped for cash, and have been selling their spare vehicles to afford their prescriptions and college tuition for their kids.

The reason why our car choices are trending toward crossovers is because the average buyer of new cars (especially luxury cars) is likely to be old and overweight, which makes it harder to get in and out of sedans and coupes. The Wilford Brimleys of the U.S. are the only people left that can afford to buy new cars,…