1st Gear: These politicians in Washington are the same ones that have made “at-will employment” the rule for pretty much everyone nationwide. As far as anyone’s been able to tell, GM’s been playing by all the applicable rules - rules which Congress and the states set up. GM may be higher profile than most employers,…

Yeah, I understand that shrinking windows are probably safety related (glass... is glass, the body of a car contain pillars, hold airbags, etc.), but we’re really reaching a point where the top half of a lot of vehicles - not just low-slung hatches, but also, sedans and CUVs (which really should have bigger windows,…

Well, that’s why it’s a concept.  You lose a certain amount of what the designers think is “shiny” when you go into production, and it’s not like adding real bumpers would make cause them to have to radically rethink the platform or anything.

That’s not a bad value, but you also have to buy a charger unless you’re one of a lucky few (let’s just say $1k, since it’ll be more than $500 and less than $1500 for most people by the time you get it installed). Pricing an i3 lease here, that’s ~$5500 between the money down + charger, so you’re looking at $10k in…

They spend the rest of their time jacking each other off, which isn’t technically masturbating.

That was my thought - actually, they’re typically higher around here (I just checked). That’s actually really good value retention on a car maxed-out car that’s under $30k new (particularly considering it’s a Fiat, far from the most practical choice at that price range, and that there’s plenty of other…

Given how important grilles are to the identity of a car (something Hyundai Motor Co knows well, with Kia using its “tiger nose” at a time when it stopped doing obvious copycats), the fact that Genesis is still “experimenting” with theirs just shows that the brand knows it isn’t close to being taken seriously.

The “Volt” being their plug-in hybrid, while the “Bolt” being the EV is the most confusing naming system in the history of cars. Like, if the Dodge Caravan was a rear-wheel sports car not a van and the Mustang was called a Clydesdale level dumb.

(Current-gen Soul owner, who thinks they’re a really great value for what they are)

You know what’s funny? I don’t know about the current gen, but the last 2 gens were designed by Kia’s designers in California.

You’re right - EVs don’t work for everyone, but I think there’s a lot of people where an EV with an 80-100 mile range would be a perfectly good vehicle (if you’re part of a couple, and one person has a gas powered car, and the other has a shorter commute).

It’ll be really interesting to see how Tesla Model 3s and others with 300+ mile ranges do on the resale market. I’m betting they’ll hold value better, partly because they appeal to a much broader group of people. 

The problem is that by the time that we know what the market’s likely to be for replacement batteries on vehicles out of warranty (8+ years), they’re likely to be pretty obsolete.

I can see people “refurbishing” battery packs by combining good cells from bad batteries, but I frankly have no idea how feasible this is…

Another poster had info on this - it seems like it’s doable, but the dealer says they have “great rates” on shipping. Assuming your other option is having you and a friend/significant other spend 5 hours driving here, having them take their car back, while you limp back stopping ~5 times for gas, that’s a pretty full…

Right - there’s a ton of question marks, and the prices justify that.  I don’t know what say, the residual value is of a CNG passenger vehicle, but I’d also expect those to be terrible.

I’m not sure that counts as “gaming,” since most places just pay at whatever the IRS rate is (since anything more would be taxable), any more than, say, driving a Prius or a fuel-sipping smaller car is “gaming.” 

I think you’ve got half the story. Yes, people leased and no one’s buying them after, which is why the prices are plunging. The same high rate of depreciation is true on Nissan Leafs, though, and those are decidedly not carbon fiber, though, so I don’t think you can say that it’s fear of damage that is keeping the…

Depending on where in the “midwest” you mean, here’s a Panda-colored 2014 i3 in the Chicago area for the same price. It’s got 3,000 more miles on it, but it’s also got the baby gas range extender.  I guess that means that if you’re willing to stop at every gas station along the way, you could probably drive it to…

I made the same point about 2 Leafs (and we agree it’s Leafs not Leaves), but I’ve got a couple neighbors with i3's. I talked to one of them about it - here’s her logic: She and her husband are a 2 car family and have a gas-powered car for trips. It’s older, but a solid road trip car they like. Both typically take…

Also worth noting BMW has an 8 year/100k mile warranty on the battery, so that part is likely to be covered for the 3 years in question on this vehicle (depending on when, exactly, this car was purchased).