FWIW, I once lived in an area where the deer population was estimated at ~250 per square mile. Damn things were like rats on NYC subways - everywhere you look. You’d be lucky to make it a month without some level of deer accident.

What sort of mutant deer are you referring to?

White tails average ~100 lb for does and ~150 for bucks. 400 is EXTREMELY rare. 250 would be reasonable on the upper end, but 400? Often? You crazy. :)

Interesting bit with that take, of course, is that FCA certainly let everyone know that they were about to “do it” with Google... yet that didn’t seem to bother Google at all....

You’d get steam from any significant coolant leak and a hot engine.... doesn’t have to be running...

Massive? Far from it. And any impact of any actual size should be enough to trip the inertia switch.

Per State Farm’s estimates, there are over 1.2 million deer hit by cars each year... yet fires after these collisions are extremely rare.

Y0u only say that because you haven’t had Goetta yet - It’s like the Cincinnati version of haggis.

But there should have been no fuel leaking in a collision such as this. The energy absorbed in the impact simply shouldn’t be high enough to cause damage deep enough into the engine compartment to cause a leak.

For reference, a frontal impact at 5x the energy involved here would only be allowed to leak 10 ml of fuel…

Totalling a car is completely different than causing enough damage to reasonably start a fire. It isn’t hard to rack up several thousand dollars in damage from even a low speed collision - but these shouldn’t be causing fires. Is this the same as a head on collision on the bumper? No - but the energy absorbed isn’t…

Except that 60 mph impact against a smaller, lighter object, is significantly different that a 60mph impact the way you’re thinking about it.

That deer weighs about 5% what the WRX does. If you assume a perfectly inelastic collision, then the energy absorbed in the crash is about the same as the WRX would experience in…

I’d argue that no car should burst into flames from hitting a deer at those speeds - the damage, while expensive, should never have been able to cause a fire.

I’ve found companies often don’t give one lick about hearing from consumers trying to help them solve their problems. Two cases in point:

I have a refrigerator with a through-door ice/water dispenser. The ice dispenser auger drum broke and put a nice sharp shard of plastic into my glass of icewater. Luckily caught it…

I’m trying to think of a reason why a car should burst into flames after hitting a deer. That to me is the troubling safety issue - a deer will mess up a car, but I don’t see a good reason for a fire to break out afterwards.

That said, this is all a reason I carry a fire extinguisher in the trunk.

I’d wager we’ll eventually get to your vision of the future.

But not in the next 20-30 years. Ford has to function as a car company in the current environment while preparing for a long slog to where you think we’ll get eventually.

I’d argue that the Fiesta hatch is an infinitely better looking vehicle than the sedan, which just looks awkward in the back. But the sedan has more usable cargo space than the Fiesta unless you fold the hatch’s rear seat down, but since it doesn’t fold flat, even that capability is pretty compromised.

Agree... but I will give him this - so many hatches that are built are arguably less practical than the (often cheaper) sedan version of the same car - too many basically lop off the trunk and leave the vehicle with negligible cargo space. Yes, the opening is bigger, but you’re left with no place to put anything.

“Google was comfortable with the Silicon Valley approach of “frenemies” — sometimes partnering with competitors so each side can learn something. That concept seemed anathema to Ford, sources said.”

Not sure that I buy this story when I read this. Because Ford has done plenty of “frenemies” type deals in the past.

6…

Not really - they’ve slapped new bumpers on vehicles, but many of them are starting to get long in the tooth since their last major redesign. I personally like Ford, but they do have issues with making pretty minor styling changes (like new bumpers) and leaving too much the same between “facelifts”, letting each…

Not exactly true. There are quite a few low-level jobs where being fired would certainly follow you. In many states, simply having a teaching contract not be renewed can be a death sentence for a teaching career. That’s why teachers are often scared sh*tless about speaking out against administration abuses.

And there…

Supply and demand would assume that this is a real free market. But the boards are composed of executives from other companies who then vote to raise each others’ salaries and limit competition in board elections.

As a result, we aren’t rewarding “competent executives”. We’re rewarding executives for being executives,…

Except the problem is that the board of directors is made up primarily of executives from other companies who have a vested interest in inflating salaries, so they can also clamor for a hefty raise. The “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” behavior among boards is very well documented.

And to make it even…