Really ripe for abuse, and how would the solution work? A Ford dealer isn’t qualified to handle a Honda the way they are if its a Ford.

2nd gear: A dealer has basically no ability to control the price they pay for new cars, but they’ve got every ability to control what they pay for used cars. Cars that are seen as less reliable have a lower value at trade-in. Obviously, even very reliable vehicles can have a recall, like what happened with Takata air…

Second, better comment with data:

It really varies depending on the geography of the city. The issue with bus range, though, is that it can only partly be defined in miles: Buses make more frequent stops than cars. Yes, you’re not powering the drivetrain, but you do want to keep the lights and climate control on.

Electric buses make sense for a lot of situations, particularly since a lot of the time, you can run a bus during rush hours and charge it in between (so you really only need, say, a 4 hour run time then can have 6 hours to charge).

Re: Ottawa’s attendance: I went to high school there back when they were a team that was sure to make the playoffs (and unceremoniously get kicked out after scoring like 3 goals in the series), and asked a couple friends in town about what’s going on, esp. since the area’s population is 50% bigger than in 1996 when…

Not sure if you’re serious or just trolling people who say that about the MLS. At least when NHL games are broadcast, the production quality and announcers are appreciably better than what you get at a Div 2 college game.

Also, the focus on initial quality instead of the 3-year reliability score bothers me: I get why an automaker wants to look at initial quality: It’s a proxy for “how many cars leave the factory with a problem,” and you get the data for the current model, but for the most part, I’d say 90 days tells you if a car was…

Awards are given out annually, and generally just in initial quality and dependability, but there’s a lot of car categories: Small cars are divided into Compact Sporty car (Mini Cooper), Compact Car (Kia Forte), Compact Premium Car (BMW 4 series),and Small Car (Chevy Sonic).

Actually, the surveys ask about more than just “satisfaction,” and have for a long time. The “initial quality” award comes from questions that ask about whether you had to take your car into the dealership for service in the 1st 90 days, and if you did, what the issue was.

This sounds dumb and obvious, but I stop and ask myself “what do I really want to be doing right now?” and do it. Sometimes, it’s curling up and reading a book, sometimes its watching a TV, sometimes its spending time with my dog.

How many of the “multiple cities” are going to be suburbs of Phoenix, AZ? By “launch” do they mean “have 2-3 cars on city streets being hailed mostly by employees as they work out the kinks?”

Unfortunately, the thing that’s going to prohibit people from betting behind the wheel of this is the dealerships. I recently bought a Kia, and it was honestly the most miserable experience I’ve ever had in a car dealership - new or used.

That might/might not be a better deal depending on the financing you’d get on the remaining car value. (Also, I don’t see any of these being daily drivers in 10 years, but I wonder how Kia’s 10 year powertrain/5 year bumper-to-bumper warranty works if you go from lease->purchase).

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head: this is a “halo” car. Peter Schreyer talked about how this car will change people’s perceptions of the brand - Kia sells enough low/mid range SUVs to sell the 1st generation Stinger at a loss and still make it “worth it” if it eventually opens up new markets for them - but…

Very surprised Kia doesn’t make yellow standard across all their models.

This is really underappreciated. We (understandably) get a lot of fear stories about how the digital world has drawbacks the physical world doesn’t (Logitech bricking their old smart remote; Amazon remotely deleting a Kindle book people had paid for due to a copyright issue, etc.), but I think, so far, there have been…

I get your points, and actually made the observations you did about how student loan debt is different from other kinds of debt, in terms of being pretty freely available to those with no/low credit history without being asset-backed.

What’s really terrible is that under the changes Congress made to student loans in 2006, now private student loan debt is also immune to bankruptcy proceedings.

Yeah, I’m not from there, but it seems like they’re really not doing a great job at protecting young, educated people who want to be able to, you know, drive to work.