“No reverse gear” is the norm in hybrids - always has been. Prius has never had a reverse gear, for instance. Just spins MG2 backwards. 

I dunno - maybe I’m an outlier - but I tend to find it far more freeing to just fix shit properly and never have to worry about the day that the tape (etc) will inevitably detach at the least convenient time.

No, other way around. “Why use six parts when one will do?” is the German way. And that one part will have the functionality of six built into it - when any one function fails, it’s time to switch out the whole assembly.

I’ll be honest: I’ve been a car nut forever, but I will never understand the draw of a mechanical watch. I’m a “simplify, never complicate” person, with an engineering background. Mechanical watches are the antithesis of fundamental engineering: thoroughly obsolete, needlessly complicated, perform less desirably than…

Holy crap, Trader is still a thing?

I have no opinion of this: I have no interest or ability to ever buy a new Model S, so this will forever be somebody else’s problem. 

One of the reasons I deeply respect the Fiat 500. Say what you will about the car, but it came in a lot of damn good colours. 

Would you rather subsidize those who are buying gasoline? Because that’s what you’re doing right now.

If gas were taxed as heavily as it should be, there would be a lot less interest in keeping a gas car for another 13+ years.

My smart fortwo does this. Once the digital gauge hits one segment, the trip odometer then displays how many litres you have remaining. So, you will have one segment flashing in the digital gauge, and 3.5L displayed in the trip odo. 

Battery replacement in a Prius really isn’t a big deal. They’re interchangable with only a few components needing to be swapped over, 2004-2018. You can mix and match between Prius and Prius V, and the cells can be mixed between Prius C also.

That’s amazing! My 2012 is at 75,000km, which is honestly considered “sort of high” for one of these, here.

Neat seeing the inside of a US-market 451! Hey look, a clock which displays in AM/PM! My Canadian one can only display in 24hr time. And 142k miles! Wow, that's crazy for a tiny city car!

Probably true. But they’ll never travel at any real speed, never have to go over bumps or curbs or anything. They travel around a flat surface at slow speeds, dragging stuff behind them - not much else. Wet noodle is probably good enough!

Guaranteed. “We know where to cut, where to weld, and that this one won’t collapse on itself. Also, these are plentiful and always $500 or less”. 

Yup. Want a Mercedes Benz? You can do the entire transaction via email or telephone. They will deliver it to whatever location you want, any day you want. It will have license plates on it already, and all you will have to do is sign four slips of paper upon delivery. They will gladly pick up your trade-in or your…

Ehh, lets keep in mind that Tesla still has to fund their experience centres and delivery centres, and has to manage all of the delivery logistics in-house. Rather than experience centre staff being commissioned, they’re salaried — but there is still a cost.

Fair. Being more literal, though, the Subaru/Toyota structure really doesn’t show up in their products. The FR-S showed almost no cooperation at all - the car was almost exclusively Subaru in design, financed by Toyota. The only true Toyota parts you’ll find on it are electronic, and require a translation module so…

I think it’s a much, much closer partnership than Toyota/Subaru.

Yup. A lot of the Tesla fanboys are simply proud of their “Home Team”. Doesn’t matter if they’re terrible at the sport they play, they’re “my Home Team, damnit!”.