RE Aston Martin. That Bloomberg article says that they export 80% of their cars and that the US makes up 20% of their sales. So, that means their market is about 20% US, 20% UK. It also says that Japan bought about 300 units last year out of 3600 manufactured yearly. That’s 8%. So, in total, the US, UK, and Japan…

Unpopular opinion: The i8 isn’t a particularly pretty car. It’s a very busy design with lots of “look at me” touches that ensure people know it is a hybrid or “green” car. The rear end is particularly bad. There is one running around my neighborhood lately and I honestly find it boring to look at. It’s ok, but nothing…

Yeah, Tesla’s “bottlenecks” are that they still don’t know how to actually construct cars. They are using an old GM/Toyota plant that only ever built 450,000 cars in a single year. GM and Toyota did that with about 5500 workers. Tesla is building about 100,000 cars this year using 10,000 workers. They are just…

This is exactly what they did—the same, but MORE. It didn’t have the interesting character work from the first one, and some of the notes struck me as wrong, like the big fight between Hopper and Eleven. There just wasn’t very much drama in this second season, and some things were left out, like a real resolution with…

Unfortunately, you often need a lawyer to get a the car company to take a lemon back. It is common, but sometimes difficult. This is probably exacerbated by “normal” car companies’ dealer networks—you have to take it in to the dealer, get it checked, let them try to fix it, do that a few times, and ultimately, the manu…

Not the worst thing you can say about him. He is a Trump supporter.

I would buy the shit out of the next Mazda 3 if it looks like that Kai concept . . . but part of the issue here is that it looks awesome because it is so low to the ground. That stance is not likely to survive to production. It would have to be a Mazdaspeed version.

Um, if the 3 series is 2 door and the 4 series is 4 door, shouldn’t either the X1 or the X2 be two door? (Sorry If I got that wrong, I can’t keep up with their naming scheme.)

Call me crazy, but who fucking cares? In the hierarchy of major issues facing the automotive industry, the country, and ultimately the world, the naming of various autonomous driving systems has to rank near the bottom.

Thanks? I don’t see the difference with your edit. What am I misunderstanding?

There are two really likely scenarios with NAFTA. First, he just out, claiming he’s helping, doing the best, NAFTA was the worst. The US economy suffers for a few years until a new deal is negotiated. The backlash probably helps to keep Trump from getting re-elected. (Farmers hate the idea of ending NAFTA.)

Can anyone explain the case for the subscription model? I have a really hard time seeing this become widespread or common. I get that, with the internet, everything is becoming a subscription, see e.g., Microsoft Office, Spotify, Netflix, and that we often don’t buy permanent rights to a lot of stuff anymore. But when…

They need to make a 3 door variant . . .

They need to just switch to all road races. I might actually watch that. NASCAR is way better than people think it is, given that there is a good amount of passing and the races aren’t easy to predict. But the normal speedways are so boring . . .

Europa Report deserves a mention. Maybe lower on the list, but it’s better than A.I., Primer, The Fly, and Dune. I get that movie critics have a hard on for David Lynch, but really his stuff isn’t that good. Weirdness =/ quality.

It’s not as historically significant as he thinks it is, is one part of the answer. I put this in another post, but this tank was never used by US forces over seas. It may have been used by Canadian or British forces. Also, they built almost 50,000 Shermans. There is a fair number of them still around. At $600,000, he…

Wait, wait, wait, let’s be clear, this tank was not used by American forces overseas. It was never used by the 2nd Armored Division in Europe. It is possible that it was used by the British at Normandy, but it is very unlikely.

First generation Honda Civic. I have no idea how that car has survived this long. It moves around too—changes parking spots. So, it still runs.

This looks like a movie prop from a 1990s movie about a dystopian future.

I became very frustrated with Forza 6 since for two reasons. First, the AI is actually terrible. The computer players stick on line perfectly until late in the race, and then they suddenly fall behind to let you win. On the other side of it, the computer will catch AI players up in an unfair manner. I think this is…