Sales must really be down. It’s not like they have clear out last year’s models to make room for next year’s models. They have become like the old Checkers. This years models, just like last years models.

They have a correspondent who lives in China. Tesla there is struggling to keep up with BYD as Chinese people want to support Chinese products, and there are now alternatives as good, or even better than Teslas at the same cost or cheaper. https://fullycharged.show/podcasts/podcast-188-cheaper-teslas-chinese-threat/ 

I heard on the Fully Charged podcast that Tesla Model 3 has been discounted down to the equivalent of about $24,000 in China (their biggest market). They are dealing with Chinese manufacturers selling better more up to date cars for less.  If they want to justify their premium price they need to come out with newer…

He was always my least liked presenter on Top Gear. I generally agreed with him when he talked about cars, but when he strayed off topic if found him to be unbearable. I feel he’s lived long enough, and changed so little as to make himself irrelevant.  

I remember reading about a company that made bike frames back in the 1990s moving their fabrication from Taiwan to Alabama because they could hire TIG welders for $10/hr in Alabama. they had to pay them twice as much in Taiwan. Labor wise the south is third world.

I assume this means more 2-1/2 ton EV SUVs. That’s where the biggest profits are. Not a lot of profits in small cars.

Are you telling me nobody would buy a forward control pickup? Even sub compact cars with hardly any front at all manage a 4 star safety rating.  Though people do tend to want what they are used to. Change tends to be generational. 

Canoo is is working to use the benefits of the EV platform. Aptera is another company that started with a clean sheet of paper to use the advantages of electric motors, and design for efficiency.

Two that come to mind are the Canoo platform van and truck, and the Aptera which was designed specifically for efficiency. But like it was said by other commenters, cars have been basically the same for 100 years, and people like seeing what they are used to seeing. Change happens over generations. Though making EVs…

I just wanted to air my complaint about EV design. Almost every EV has an engine bay in the front that doesn’t seen to serve any purpose other than to make the car look like what people are used to. It doesn’t need to be there. Even on designed from the ground up EVs they still add the engine bay even though it…

Seems like Semi trucks with the right infrastructure would be ideal. They could build cells into the trailers that hold the shipping containers Making it possible to hook up a charged trailer, drop the container on it and move along.

There is an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage where he burns off his eyebrows trying to fire up a steam car. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of his steam cars. 

It only takes one person to screw up. Especially on an overpass or elevated freeway. They freeze before the rest of the roads and one wrong move on a frozen overpass puts your car into a slide, then everyone around goes into slides in an attempt to avoid you, and so it goes. 

I drove Fiat X1/9 for a few years as my daily driver. It had a trunk in the front, and trunk in back, and seating for two (my kids were grown and out of the house). It was fun to drive on the windy mountain roads around where I live. It wasn’t fast unless you count the speed you could push it around a turn. I would…

I sold all my Tesla stock for over $700/ share back Elon started all this twitter crap, and since then it has dropped to just $230/share. He may be one of these guys who is good at starting a company, but total crap at running it, but he thinks he’s great at it. 

I rented one of those when I was working on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. It was great little car. Loved it. 

Am I the only person in the US that doesn’t want to own an SUV? It’s starting to look like within 20 years our only choices will be a 3 ton SUV, or a pickup truck.

I have owned a lot of great cars over the years. The one that broke down the most, and was least fun to drive, but I wish I still owned was my 1963 VW Camper van. 

I got my ticket to drive in 1976. The last American made car that I bought was a 1970 Chevy Nova, before that I had 1970 Mustang, and between those two I had a 1970 Dodge dart, I’ve also owned a 1969 Ford Country Squire wagon, and a 65 Impala. I haven’t purchased and American made car built after 1970. After I sold my…

When I was 25 I was repairing a machine at a metal shop, it had broken down several times that day. The guy I was working with was supposed to make sure the power was out before I started. Every time I worked on it he’d turned off the power, the last time I was rushed, I assumed it was off and started reconnecting the…