They’ll have their place, and can provide a net benefit to society if deployed right. 

You left out the fact that the automatic transmission itself has a cost, so it’s not like the cost of a manual is = cost of automatic + cost of manual. The cost of a manual is cost of manual - cost of automatic. 

I think you just described public transit, which is already a thing and more sustainable. 

Yup. Dear BMW, nobody wants an EV that’s shoehorned into a vehicle designed for ICE and therefore not at all optimized for its characteristics and packaging. Try harder, you’re BMW ffs.  

It’s worth mentioning that the engines replaced by Ecoboost usually aren’t a direct comparison because power increased significantly. In the case of the F-150, Ford replaced the 4.6L V8 with the 3.5L V6 (right?), HP and torque increased from 292/320 to 365/420.

I’m preparing to sell my ‘97 M3/4/5 with 203k miles. Mechanically great shape, but the body reflects being daily driven during the recession’s endless road construction in Pennsylvania.

That’s cool, good for you. Except you don’t represent the majority by any stretch.

Who did the hard work? At what, hoarding wealth? Wealth is a limited resource. How are others supposed to get a piece of that wealth pie when a particular generation before you were even born spent their lives hoarding and writing laws specifically to make it even easier to be a hoarder.

And today it seems like they’re grabbing for the spot that Hyundai was after about 10 years ago...

Look, I get that Elon Musk shoots his mouth off ALL the time about super unrealistic things. But to suggest that self-driving tech is vaporware is to be absolutely ignorant of the progress, desire for, and reality of impending autonomous tech. It’s guaranteed to completely transform the industry and how we get around.

But, they really REALLY need to keep selling cars. Not all Tesla buyers are paying for Autopilot, but the availability and allure of something innovative is attractive. That alone is helping to sell cars, regardless of whether they’re so-equipped.

Not sure what BMW ownership looks like in Europe, but the vast majority of new BMWs sold in the U.S. are leases. So many people probably just don’t care to learn much about the car they’re renting for 2-3 years.

Wow that’s shockingly high. My ‘16 4Runner’s tow rating is 5,000 pounds. 

Or just up the voltage :) And this car isn’t being made with respect to ANY of our norms. This is a hypercar, it exists for the specific reason of using insane technology. 

Cabling isn’t a barrier, just an engineering problem. It’s a matter of choosing the proper conductors and keeping them cool. 

Why not fuel economy AND performance...?

The average sales price of modern pickups is about $50,000, nearly entry-level 5-series money. And that’s just average transaction price — there’s a TON of cheap bare-bones trucks being sold, meaning a good number of high-end luxury pickups are also being sold.

And not just that, but providing pure watts to the grid isn’t the only way an EV can help the grid. 

Hiding problems like that is ENTIRELY a top-down problem. He may have had no clue what was going on with the transmission, but engineers sure as shit aren’t hiding problems like this unless they’re afraid of what would happen if they raise the issue to upper management. From the top down, good management would reward…

WTf does this have to do with a transmission being faulty? This is like saying 737 MAX was divebombing the ground because the engineers who designed the anti-stall system liked flying single engine aircraft.