Locking out driver seat controls is a terrible idea, because it means the driver could be locked into an unsafe position while in motion. It’s an edge case, sure, but edge cases are where bad things happen.

make me want to pull trim pieces off the interior in a mild, fussy rage

There’s a substantial difference between “not on time” and “I haven’t figured out how to access the onboard computer and may have starved the engine of lubrication for thousands of miles but certainly won’t admit to that when I’m trying to garner enough media attention to geta free engine.”

he may have said “scrap” to keep the story short and simple, but i wouldnt be surprised if the dealer maybe offered the guy a few bucks to walk away from it. then they take it, slap a new motor in there and sell it...

Hidden windshield wipers are a solved problem. Increase the height of the hood slightly or lower the windshield a bit, put them at the bottom, bam. You have hidden wipers. I also don't like the tall wiper because pushing snow down on the initial stroke would be really annoying. But I guess that’s not disruptive…

Damn DaSilva, back at it with the shitty takes!

In fairness, “It couldn’t do anything competently other than go in a straight line” was pretty much the design brief for this car.

Yaa...hay-soos do the BMW CUVs look bad. That one is basically what the Pontiac Aztek would look like now if GM never killed it.

I always thought that the GTO “looks like a Grand Am” was truer to its nameplate heritage than a retro-styled GTO would have been. I get why people wanted something that “looks like a GTO”, but the original GTO was a big engine wedged into Grandma’s Tempest.

Annnnd......here comes the technician!

Let’s start with the van itself. These things are actually tougher than a coffin nail. The engine, while turbocharged, does have the benefit on multiport EFI, which is something NOT offered on the other four cylinder vans. The 2.2 and 2.5 were pretty ok, then along came the…

“The Pontiac GTO is a storied nameplate” too old people and parking lot posers.

Faulty argument. The problem (for some) is the application of the GTO badge, not the car itself. Fine. You can have that. But the GTO was and remains a GREAT car, especially with the manual and the 6.0 LS2, and is one of the few from that era I’d still happily plunk down some coin for. It’s fun to drive, handles well,…

I know I’ve been making a lot of arguments that start or end with “In the current car market” but I just can’t with this one. Almost $20k for a 33 year old minivan? No.

This is the thing that we car lovers don’t understand about the simple ordinary folks - they don’t care about cars. Like, yes, the Versa is totally unlovable piece of, I don’t know, a thing, that is perfectly serviceable and reliable, and unlike their Explorers and Blazers, it was new, a new car. With working AC. And…

There’s a difference between that and what this person described, which was nailing the brakes without surrounding traffic having begun to slow in the hopes that by the time you creep there, the stoppage is clear.

The single seat Metro does kind of kick ass though.

Yeah, they were weird nerds five years ago. Now it’s aggressive, unhinged tech bros who worship at the altar of Musk and defend even his most insane claims and beliefs. 

I think we should strongly consider “would immediately end a driving test” as a valid criteria to stop a public beta of any self-driving system. Until it can complete (and pass) a basic driving test, we should probably limit test vehicles to people hired and trained to properly monitor and control the vehicle.

“I can’t imagine any carmaker trying to get away with something like this today”