It’s amazing that people insist on arguing this with me when I’ve told them that used prices are often so out of control they’d be better off buying new. It’s constant on this site that people insist that I’m wrong on that.

There’s a simple rule I follow. The average car lasts 15 years or so. So take the negotiated…

Interestingly, a coworker just took delivery of a Model 3. Two days later, we got 5.02" of rain in a single day (2" more in the first few hours of the next day).

My first thought when I saw it in the lot wasn’t “hey, there’s a new Model 3, how cool!”, but rather “hey, look, the bumper is still on!”

And when it comes to delivering products on time or at promised prices, or when it comes to the company’s profitability, those doubters have been right nearly every single time.

Am I the only one who thinks Ford hasn’t done nearly enough to change up the look of this?  The entire side profile seems virtually identical at first glance to a model that will be a full decade old by the time this comes out.

Yep... most interstates through the Appalachians are gentle enough that you never really have to brake significantly going downhill. In an automatic the extra drag through the transmission is enough to help slow you enough to keep your speed from climbing most of the time, and in a manual you’re just hitting the…

On the other hand, I can replace the brake pads on my car for $40 in 15 minutes. A clutch is a hell of a lot more expensive and takes a lot longer. Guess which one I’d rather bias the wear heavily towards?

Attributing the effects of those infrastructure upgrades funded by the city/county to the stadium is highly misleading, though - they could have made those improvements without a stadium, and still had more room to place considerably more businesses that would operate year-round and bring in more spending as opposed…

Well, they didn’t actually. What MLS wanted wasn’t their own stadium - they’re perfectly willing to share (see recent additions and how many of them share stadiums). What MLS did demand was control over all of the revenues associated with the games at the stadium. Mike Brown wouldn’t agree to that and evidently…

And I’d agree that this should generally be extended to unprofitable ones - we generally shouldn’t be in the business of this - but the financial crisis was a rare exception where doing nothing would be far worse - but they should have demanded more ownership stakes for the investment.

Only state I’ve seen do these…

They opened that stadium in 1966 at a cost of $25.5 million. It was renovated 23 years ago at a cost of $200 million. How on earth do they still owe money on the bonds? The original construction cost should have been paid off 20+ years ago, and even the renovation should realistically be paid for by now, at that…

Do you really think the value of the land has been boosted by there being a stadium there?

Neither does Toyota, but that didn’t stop them from extracting much more from Alabama.

To be accurate, though, the general public benefitted from my investment, too.

Of the total breaks, I got:
30% of the cost via the Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit
2.85% of the cost via Renewable Energy Credit sales
7.90% of the cost via loan subsidies

Anyone could take advantage of these same programs. And as the…

BTW, they may have $17 billion in cash and equivalents right now, but a company the size of Ford needs most of that cash just to float daily expenses - they can’t spend down to $0 - they’d be in bankruptcy long before that.

Last major upgrade I did to my house came with about 41% of the cost covered via subsidies and tax breaks from various government levels...

I despise these special deals. If the government wants to offer tax incentives across the board for anyone investing in the area, that’s one thing, but it should be a level field - new investments, reinvestments, etc - all should be treated equally.

That said, Ford is asking for about a 1/3 subsidy here - which…

Last time I bought a new car, though, ESC was still not mandatory, and Honda was only offering that on their highest trims - and without that, TPMS loses much of its usefulness...

Actually, the SEC has said they’re investigating.

And since no one has yet come forward to show evidence of the claimed financing (which should have been trivial to show the SEC, quite honestly), and even Tesla’s board of directors doesn’t seem to know where the financing is, this IS a story worthy of an article.

In reality, the 70s were not a great time for cars, period. Japanese ones stunk back then, too.

In fact, you were more likely to die in a vehicle fire in pretty much any of the Pinto’s competitors than you were in the Pinto.  The Pinto had a horrid defect, but others were arguably worse overall, but better only when…

1st: I’m not sure why this is a surprise. I know Ford employees have gone on GM and Toyota tours, too.

And the idea that they found areas they thought they could do better? Again, completely unsurprising. I’d be stunned if trained engineers couldn’t walk into any plant from any manufacturer and easily find similar…