Good article, thanks! Learned something new today

The EV1 absolutely helped get them here. The amount of excellent, innovative engineering in a production car was truly impressive back then, setting a landmark that neither Toyota nor Ford even attempted (with the rehashed RAV4 electric and the electric Ranger, respectively).

He said the “Republican party”. And he's right.

VW prices can't drop much because they're just as much a German full employment company as a car manufacturer. They're remarkably inefficient, taking more than half again as many man hours to assemble a car as Toyota does.

I've never understood that either. On the highway it's either 25 mph or 85 mph, rain or shine

Nope, different vehicles. First gen pinzgauers of the 1970s used an air cooled inline four engine.

They had no real US competition prior to the 1980s, so they could overbuild everything and charge what they wanted.

This was a top of the line, pre emissions car built long before Mercedes had to compete on price with anyone else. It helps that it was garaged, barely driven, and treated with TLC by its’ owners over the years. Once Lexus and Acura decimated Benz in the 80s, they couldn't continue doing things this way and things…

Our local departments (and cab companies) used cheap bulk oil at the time; they didn’t want to stock too many different grades so everything got dino 10W40 out of a barrel.

Those must be the cheapest pads money can buy. When I was doing police car work, the marked units did about 45,000 miles a year and we routinely got 20k out of a set of high quality front pads, about twice that for rear pads

In many states drivers can get a ticket for “unsecured load” or failure to tarp loose loads like gravel in things like dump trucks or dump trailers.

I prefer this rear end treatment so, so, sooooo much over the production design.

Back when I was an apprentice mechanic at the Chevy dealership, I rented a room from wealthy friends in their $3 million beachfront house in their super expensive neighborhood and drove a ratty root beer brown metal flake 1970 Challenger with a built drag motor and glass pack duals.

Generally, if the window behind the back doors is triangular, it’s a hatchback. If it’s square or rectangular, it’s a wagon.

This is textbook negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. The very definition of negligent homicide under Florida law, as pointed out by retired military officer and weapons trainer Jim Wright.

What about the employees at AC delco who had worked for the company for 20 years and had their pay cut from 30/hr to 12/hr - or were laid off permanently - when they went bankrupt? Who will hire them?

Secret testing of the new VW TDI nascar engine

They don’t all use vehicles the same way from business to business but they sure do use them for similar purposes from year to year. This, buying vehicles that get better mileage can cost them less money. That’s the whole point, remember?

I understand fixed costs fine. You have a certain number of vehicles you drive an average of XX,000 miles per year (or month, or quarter) each, and you budget for fuel accordingly. Adjust for business trends. Better mileage vehicles will reduce your fuel bill by some percent.