Someone who lives in NoVa told me that anywhere she’d live before, when asked how far away something was, you answer with distance because it was easy to guesstimate time. In NoVa, you respond with time.

My guess is they were trying to keep up with the emissions regulations of the time and the ECUs just weren’t there yet. I had an ‘87 Lotus Turboesprit with K-jet. It was quite a lashup. So many relays and wires but it did have computer of sorts that ran closed loop with the O2 sensor.

I was so sure this was a gag that I went all the way down the web site’s path for a deposit, sure it would fail or Rick Roll me at some point. Nope, it’s ready to accept my CC information.  This appears to be an actual thing.

My wife, daughter, and I took a multi hour drive from wherever-the-hell-we-were to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Initially, it felt like total mayhem, especially as it got dark. Suicidal TukTuks with no lights! Our driver would pass anywhere and everywhere. Eventually, I realized we were actually going pretty slowly. If…

Not just him. The price got there because someone else was willing to pay just a bit less than that!

3rd gear: not surprised. MB has been working the problem for a LONG time. I went to a presentation at Stanford 17 (!) years ago that included a discussion of the testing they were doing with autonomous systems on the autobahn.

I’ve been saying for ages that local chargers that make up the bulk of the ‘free charging’ included by Toyota (Whole Foods, whatever) are pointless. As you’ve noticed, once you have an EV, you just plug it in at home and that’s it. Hell, my neighbors with Model 3s don’t even seem to bother with daily charging since the…

After years of mostly Euro car ownership (VW, BMW, Volvo, Jag, MINI, Lotus, Porsche, Ferrari), I’m forced to acknowledge I have a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with them. “Oh sure, it’s great except for” *lists 11 things that go wrong with all of them*

Cheaper too.

Oh man, my dad bought an amazing red/tan ‘94 Turbo with really low miles about 20 years ago. Drove it until ‘06 or so, when his knee said “no more MT for you”.

Since you went to MMI, I’m curious on your take. To my thinking, there are two major factors in play. There are just fewer motorcycles out that, so less demand for technicians, which translates in less need/ability to stand up an organization to create and manage a standard certification. Motorcycles are also just so…

I want to buy a new motorcycle. As much fun as my 140hp (which isn’t even that much these days) Ducati is, I’m liking the idea of one of the little Husky Svartpilens that doesn’t got 70+mph in first gear for zipping around town.  MSRP is $5400. I’ve been quoted (after pulling many teeth) $7495 and $7800. Basically…

Coincidentally, my colleague - who was describing the LIDAR-based system he developed - mentioned a paper that came out of Tesla that included an explanation of why they didn’t use LIDAR. His opinion was that they didn’t have engineers who knew the signal processing required to use the sensors effectively.

This one is harder to justify than the Escalade since the current Range Rover is pretty poorly regarded (Edmunds rated it 6.9 out of 10, making it one of the lowest-ranked luxury SUVs on the market) and hasn’t been redesigned since 2013.

A friend who drove one (experienced E30 spec racer, owns lots of cars, has driven lots of cars) told me the C7 Z06 was I-cant-believe-they-sell-these-to-regular-people fast. I know the raw spec sheet numbers don’t show it but he said it was vicious. 

12yo daughter. So glad she’s a few years out so that there should be some normalcy restored in the used car market.

No shit? That’s awesome! I honestly didn’t think it would work without a way to be super precise. I get that aluminum is softer than aluminum but it just seems like it would be so easy to damage the frame.

I gather it’s possible but you’d need to pay a proper machine shop to do it. You’re not going to just hold the frame in place by hand. It needs to be set up in a very rigid jig.

That’s insane. For grins, I just put my 19k mile 6MT ‘19 Sportwagen in and they came back with $1700 less than I paid OTD ($22300 IIRC). Which is still crazy but nothing like your deal.

My wife was hit by a Hertz renter many years ago. They are self-insured and screwed with us for ages (lying to me directly about a witness statement was my favorite) before finally coughing up. Not that it matters, but I’m happy to report that trying to save $300 on a $600 incident cost them at least $10k in revenue…