I have doubts that the Fusion couldn’t have been profitable.  It wasn’t that long ago they were selling tons and making nice profits.  Killing off the Focus and Taurus but keeping the Fusion likely would have boosted Fusion sales - or at least allowed them to keep volume steady while cutting discounts.

I’ll admit - they’ve done better financially than I thought they would once they ramped up Model 3 production.

That said, I’m not sure they’re “pretty stable” just yet. Profits dropped dramatically in the 4th quarter over the 3rd, and there seems to be growing evidence that they were running out of customers willing to…

Technically, speculating is a form of investing (using money for something with the purpose of gaining more money). It’s just not a productive form of investment. At its best, it stimulates other investment into the supply side of the market to respond to future prices, and can smooth out what would be large…

Last time I was out car shopping, CarMax wanted $18,400 for a 2009 Mazda6i Sport (1 year old) with 36,000 miles.

The local Mazda dealer wanted $17,200 for an *identical* 2010 model with 14 miles on the odometer.

Yeah, they’re overpriced.

Wait - so you can’t test drive it? You just have to rely on their return policy, shortly after stories come out on how painful they’ve made the return? Seriously?

I have doubts they’re able to do this profitably...

Those aren’t the only examples - the US managed to smear a good amount of plutonium north of Madagascar when Transit-5BN-3 failed to reach orbit. We also had a couple ore RTGs reenter where they believe the fuel containers remained intact (one was actually recovered) - interestingly, one of those was Apollo 13's lunar…

Oh, and despite your claims, exports have grown - imports have shrunk.

Go to Ward’s for the data. 

Where the hell are you getting your numbers? Because your imports are too high and exports too low, per Ward’s.

Yep - that sort of spacing between seats in that cartoon is about right for what qualifies for first class on US domestic flights.  Actually, it might be more.  American Airlines, for example, spaces seats at a 30" pitch for coach and 38" for first class.  That graphic is easily 38" or more.

Yep - that sort of spacing between seats in that cartoon is about right for what qualifies for first class on US…

YES, I do. and yes, its accurate. The number of vehicles imported from China is TINY in comparison to the number we export TO China.

YES, I do. and yes, its accurate. The number of vehicles imported from China is TINY in comparison to the number we export TO China.

The problem is when you trash one brand, say Ford, for offering a more advanced system that has some flaws, while excusing another brand that doesn’t offer a similar system at all.

The one nice thing about cars with points is that so many of them had a ridiculous amount of space around the engine to work in...  Nowadays you need microscopic hands and stretch armstrong like arms to reach anything on the engine.

I’ve been enjoying seeing Honda fans suddenly realize this after trashing Ford for their placement in CR’s rankings for the past few years (when most of their vehicles were VERY solid for reliability outside of the stupid optional infotainment systems)

A couple hundred thousand can mean 2 assembly plants running at 100% capacity just to service that market.

It’s also orders of magnitude higher than the number of vehicles we import from China.

The Camry isn’t that high of domestic content.  But dealers are happy to pull out the asinine cars.com “most american” label..... despite the fact the first time it got that label, there were FORTY-ONE models on the market with higher domestic content.

You clearly don’t actually follow the industry that closely if you weren’t aware of the huge numbers of vehicles shipped from the US to China each year.

I think that would be horribly counterproductive.

Consider the Ford Edge. It’s built in Canada (with huge amounts of parts from the US). Your proposal might chase consumers away, which might force Ford to build the Edge in the US. You might think that’s good, but it isn’t.

Why?

Because what will end up happening is Ford…