I am a big fan of the 1985 MB 300E body styling ,driver instrumentation and the controls. It’s just a timeless design.

It is being assembled in Austria by Magna-Steyr.

Umm, you cannot buy a Tesla model Y.

Those look a lot better in person.

Me too, corners are for wheels, keep all the mass inside of the axels.

If you live in LA you understand why this is. There are numerous interconnected freeways and most trips involve more than one. Pre GPS at this was really helpful. When giving directions locals would say something like this example of Torrance to Pasadena: “take the 405 north to the 10 and then the 110 north” - very…

The problem was a large number of Russian bombers with HUGE nuclear bomb streaking across the North Pole. A small number of interceptor fighters would not have the time or enough air to air missiles to hit each one before they arrived at their targets a dropped multiple 2 megaton bombs. The Genie could take a down…

Bingo. Really good choice for two. Just add a roof mounted storage capsule to keep clutter the contained out of sight.

VW uses a strict algorithm based allocation to “optimize” the production pipeline. It makes sense at the macro level. This is a business driven by volume and velocity. Nothing in the model supports a large rainbow of inventory aging anywhere in the flow. The result is great selection trim, content, and price…

It’s the sell-from-inventory model that drives this. The velocity of the inventory-turn drives ordering behavior and the people an algorithm orders whatever is selling faster, thus there is a convergence effect. As a dealership you want to get what will turn, lower turn units drive down your turn rate and allocation.…

Correct. Bodies in motion wil stay in moition until another force is applied. Not being belted in negates most of the crush zone, pre-tensioning 3-point harnessing, and air bag benefits. There were cases of unbelted individuals being killed by the steering-wheel airbags deployment event as they were being ejected…

The OEMs would have dragged this out for another 20 years to squeeze ROI on their exist capacity. But in reality the age of the ICE is coming to an end as it is constrained by nature to thermal efficiency of around 20%, versus 90% for an electric motor. The most significant force is China, the Chinese government is…

That is how OEM’s hit the overall price point with small compromises that makes sense. The pennies add up over hundreds of thousands of units. They also do it with tires as well by getting less tread depth and softer compounds. The old lighter plugs cost them s few pennies and serve multiple device types with…

Ummm, not a single number in the entire explanation.

That image is actually of the very first pre production LS 400 that arrived in late 1998 in LA at Lexus HQ. It was used for market research and alll the events leading up to the launc in September 1989. Later it sat forlorn behind the warehouse in Torrance covered in smog grim, it might be in the TMS museum…

Where in Santa Monica? My old neighborhood in Ocean Park west of Lincoln to the ocean is full of vintage daily drivers.

I am in the business, Hyundai has never been able to overcome the crappy dealer network problem. They had a lot of good dealerships recruited from Toyota’s dealer network way back in 1985. The brand melted down in 1987/88 and those dealers largely sold off their franchises or relocated them to their worst locations…

The other insurmountable barrier is leasing. That price point and segment is mostly leased. For that you need a residual value that matches the competition and the ability to securitize the leases. Kia is out of luck on both counts. Nobody is going write lease in these things. I can track the registration counts,…

Yes. Minivan. This is the correct application of a used minivan.

its a build simplicity and cost solution to the problem of display and control. It quite smart to bundle all of that into a single component of a touch screen. It’s a technology that just gets cheaper with time. All of the levers and switches just disappear from the supply chain, the assembly is simplified and…