1st:

Of course they would. The UAW would be stupid not to talk politely about trying to work with him now. It has nothing to do with any of its (distant) past racist behavior. It’s a matter of survival for them.

The GOP is firmly in control of the federal government now and is trying to pass all sorts of their agenda…

No one is saying you can’t spend your money how you want. But the fact is that your choice doesn’t impact just you. If you paid for all the external costs of your choices, fine.

But the fact is that you don’t. The extra pollution you choose to spread negatively affects everyone. The extra gas you choose to burn costs…

Actually, the average efficiency has increased, even with the shift to larger vehicles. The problem, that you touch on, is that if gas prices stay the same, people will switch to larger vehicles simply as it comes at no extra cost. There are ways to create a penalty. CAFE historically has been poor as it has…

Sorry, but you’re confusing the new requirements with the old way CAFE was done.

Each and every vehicle has a fuel efficiency requirement, based on size. It doesn’t matter if you sell 100% large cars - but rather that the cars meet their requirement for their size. The 54.5 mpg number is very misleading - most midsize…

Not at all. You simply add a line to your income tax return. Say the credit for a nonworker of driving age was half that of a worker. Your household has two workers and one nonworker. That equals 2.5 times the value of the credit. The value of the credit is determined easily by the revenues turned in to the…

Well, I didn’t say it was *perfect*. :)

Adjustments could certainly be made, such as a slightly larger credit for rural citizens.

I also think that it would actually spur on mass transit demand. I live in a metro area with nearly 2 million people and our mass transit system is completely useless. Thankfully my commute…

Sigh.

The tests have been dumbed DOWN and that is precisely why the sticker mpg is so much lower than what counts for the fuel efficiency standards. They’ve gone through the test twice now and modified the scoring to make the sticker show LOWER numbers.

And if you don’t get the sticker mpg in real life, then you’ve got…

Those larger vehicles don’t have a 54.5 mpg requirement - theirs is significantly lower, and the requirement for each vehicle is based on its footprint.

And yes, gas is cheap. For now. That never lasts, and being unprepared for the hit is dangerous for national security and the economy. You may not remember gas lines,…

Actually, quite a few cars already meet that 54.5 mpg mandate.

Most people don’t realize that the mandate applies to the CAFE standards test methods, NOT what they put on the sticker. For a car to reach the 54.5 mpg standard, its sticker mpg would have to be around 39 mpg. So already, you’ve got the Volt, the Sonata…

There are other ways to get around a regressive gas tax nature. Put the revenues from the tax into a refundable tax credit - I’d make it a flat amount per person employed, and a smaller amount for each person of driving age.

There’d be no problems for anyone consuming an average or less amount of gas per year -their…

Not enough to influence choice.

We need a gas tax of $3 per gallon, phased in, with revenues used to repair existing infrastructure (only about $0.10 of that $3), not expand it, and the rest going to fund a fully refundable tax credit. If you consume an average amount of gas, this would cost you nothing apart from the…

If you put a hefty tariff on foreign cars, then the vehicles would either not be sold here or they would be built here to avoid the tariff (ever heard of the chicken tax?). If they weren’t sold here, then the sales would go to companies that WERE building cars here.

Um... NAFTA didn’t exist, and there wasn’t anything approaching open trade between the US and Japan when that plant was built.

Ok. But can it run offline without a data connection? Nokia’s Here app offered that capability years ago, and any old podcast / music app could allow you to play what you wanted on the stereo.

If it requires data service over your phone, it’s pretty much pointless, IMO.

How do you reach that conclusion?

Toyota had their CA auto body plant, Georgetown plant, and 3 parts plants prior to NAFTA, and they had 1 Canadian plant. Since then, they’ve added 5 plants in the US and 2 in Mexico.

There are some significant concerns here with this roof.

First, is cost. Musk says it will be competitive with traditional roofs when factoring in energy savings. Ok. Great. What kind of roof is he referring to? Asphalt shingle? Cedar Shingle? Metal? Terra Cotta? Slate? There’s an enormous difference in cost there. In…

Not sure on the Flex, but the Taurus I had and the Fusion I have both had/have rattles. But the nice thing? They’ve always been easy to fix. Taurus was all about pulling a bolt-in insert out of the dash, affixing some felt to the backside and reinstalling, and the Fusion is the same thing, only in the inserts in the…

I don’t particularly care for the looks, but actually kind of like the vehicle.

Big problem is sales have been abysmal, the platform will be very dated, and fuel economy is poor by today’s standards, making it hard to justify as requirements tighten.

Might make more sense to come out with an upscale variant off the…

“It doesn’t seem like doctors drive awesome cars anymore. I’m sure most of the younger ones right out of school are still saddled with massive student loan debt. Not long ago, I was treated by a young doctor who was daily-driving a 2007 Scion tC. I kind of felt bad for him.”

On the contrary, I know a lot of doctors…

Honestly, while the merger with Solar City makes their cash crunch even worse, Solar City could arguably improve things, too. How? Shut down most of Solar City’s operations. Stop leasing out to new customers, and turn to just maintenance of their existing customer base. Their overhead would plummet, but revenue would…