Tell me you don’t know Seattle without actually telling me...

If those European marquee-name automakers want to get the attention of the world’s automotive press, they can put on a glitzy event at their HQ, invite the press, and then have it covered worldwide on automotive websites/blogs/podcasts as well as the (diminished) remaining automotive print media, without having to…

There’s no shortage of soft targets like that. And it’s always the same dilemma - don’t screen, and you’re opening the floodgates; screen, and you’re setting people waiting for the screening up to be sitting ducks. Both incredibly scary. Oh, and that’s before you get into scenarios like huge events in the middle of…

Those were a bit of a presence in 80s Germany, but never in huge numbers. I always think back to those when I see a Crosstrek Wilderness.

From experience with that very engine in a 2012 Tacoma - yep, it’ll do that, and will be gutless and thirsty and unrefined the whole way. Great example of sturdiness over performance.

Those mid-sized vans are not about van life, they’re about weekend camping while maintaining a daily-driveable footprint. Think VW Westfalia and Weekender, rather than fully built out rolling-cabin style Sprinters/Transits/Promasters.

Not sure Dodge is in a position not to piss of half the population. Much of the appeal of the Challenger harkens back to an orange TV prop car with a giant Confederate flag named the General Lee...

Hardcore Mopar - is that like hardcore soft porn?

Crazy nutter, or wingnut, or fundamentalist anything, tends to be its own thing. There’s this thing called the horseshoe theory that tries to explain that phenomenon (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory) - it explains why RFK appeals to MAGA wingnuts, or why in Washington State we have very urban places…

If it’s eligible, then it’s starting to come into range as a viable future-proof alternative to a nicely spec’d Tacoma or Ranger or Colorado/Canyon.

Nissan has some meh EVs on the market. They know what they’d need to do if they wanted to be a force in that market, plus they have the Renault tie-up/alliance. They’ve got a lot of problems - none of which would be solved by buying a bunch of IP by bailing out brand with no established market presence, a rapidly…

How about we start calling it NACS (which is now being implemented as an SAE standard) rather than Tesla’s? Because it’s about to be just that, the standard for EV charging in North America. 

I had a very base-spec 1994 Trooper with the 3.2 V6. Great truck on so many levels - seriously capable yet a good road trip mobile, well built. Yes, it had some issues down the road (the O2 sensors went at 80K miles - that seemed a little premature), but it was a pretty solid product. Thing is, the Rodeo of the same…

Japan did a fair bit of industrial policy to boost manufacturing in key industries (like cars), but what’s going on in China is a very different beast. Chinese industry today stands on the shoulders of decades of protectionism, direct state intervention, and intellectual property theft.

For comparison - these are aimed at the subcompact segment that’s no longer a thing here in the US. Think Ford Fiesta, Honda Fit (Jazz, in the rest of the world). And hey, when we still got the Fit, it was North of 20K, and that was pre-Covid price increases. European prices for the same vehicle are generally higher,…

I don’t know about perfect overlap - there seems to be a bit of Escalade in that diagram as well...

Chiefs are not union members, they’re management. And while I’m generally incredibly leery of police unions because of their knee jerk protectiveness beyond all reason when it comes to what are clearly people who can’t be trusted with law enforcement responsibilities, in this case, the union having he Sergeant’s back…

So here we are in 2024, after decades of Kaizen being taught in business schools because it clearly worked in revolutionizing manufacturing - and Ford is still resorting to beating people with the metrics stick and harping on “incentives”. I share your surprise at just how clueless one can be and still make millions…

Slow car fast and all that, sure. But it sounds like these guys will be cruising rather than canyon carving, and it looks like it’s mostly for shits and giggles. Might as well embrace that.

Anything from the 80s that’s affordable today is not going to be a quick car - the horsepower wars came later, and even a very nicely restored 80's “hot hatch”, for example, would not be anywhere close to winning a stop light drag race against a modern minivan. So getting “sporty” things from that decade just doesn’t…