I don’t know how quickly they’re planning on purchasing all of these vehicles, but I bet a lot of the existing vehicles are already past their service life and many many more will be soon. Just look at our decrepit post office fleet for an example.

I can’t buy another car for a while (as I just bought a new one last year), but I’m seriously considering picking up a “first gen” EV (something along the lines of a Focus EV or Fiat 500e) in a couple of years, either certified pre-owned or maybe lease a new one (although I guess they’ll be onto 2nd gen by then). Even…

“’Free-marketers’ have no grasp of environmental consequences” is also often a valid statement (unfortunately). Also, what free market?

I think it should be done for said environmental reasons. The “free market” (not that we really have one) is rarely on the side of the most ethical solution. Also, our government is usually behind the times. I’ve been postulating for years that certain governmental fleets would be perfect applications for widespread…

You do realize they have batteries, right? I’m pretty sure they don’t wait until right before the fire to charge them. And the station can have a backup battery (like a Tesla firewall - or if you want to go cheap, just some lead acids hooked together). Also, if you’re really paranoid about that, keep a generator on…

How would it not work out? Electric motors are way more reliable than gas or diesel engines, there’s less supporting systems to break down, fire trucks don’t usually have to go far and now you wouldn’t have to ever drive it to a filling station. Sounds like the ideal application to me.

Good for you. Like I said, if it works for you - great. I just find your labelling of us who disagree or have a different experience as “soft” very insulting.

Yeah I know, but I didn’t want to take a chance on misremembering the letters for that specific era. I’d be crucified on here.

If yours has been great then I’m happy for you. I don’t hate the concept or the people who drive them, it’s just that I’ve had a miserable experience with a costly, poorly working, poorly insulating PITA soft top and none of it was worth it. I quickly realized that the times I would actually like to have the top…

Not that one. Most Jalops have a permanent hard-on for older Cherokees.

Good to know.

Well, there’s 60 seconds or so of my life that I’ll never get back.

There’s a Ford dealership here that does something similar. They put nitrogen in the tires and install LoJack on almost all the Mustangs on the lot and then charge quite a bit for those items. Needless to say, when it came time to get quotes I went to every dealer but them.

Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing (except I’m not really in the market for a new car). If there’s still that much road noise with a retractable hardtop (one that costs $6k extra), that raises a big WTF flag for me. I re-read Andrew’s paragraph to make sure I understood that he meant with the roof all the way…

Or a jaw harp. Pick one.

Don’t forget rain getting inside the cabin, not being able to take your car through most car washes, having to replace expensive headliners, tops & crappy plastic rear windows, manually “helping” the roof open and close as stuff wears out,...

Or, in many other cases us kids learned our lessons about buying old soft-top convertibles and now swear never to buy a drop-top again, even if the price is right. ;)

I don’t agree with nearly everything Obama did, but he did cut military spending and he also cut the overall deficit by a massive amount.

Indeed. We’ve allowed the military-industrial complex to become so massive and pervasive that it’s now difficult to cut back without hurting our economy. I think the only way out is through reasonable spending cuts over time (which Obama was doing) and smarter allocation of funds away from stupid projects like the…

I would imagine working on David’s Jeep probably feels like being all the women Nic Cage has punched on screeen, continuously.