You can blame the IIHS. They won’t issue top safety picks to cars with bad headlights, defined as a certain amount of illumination at a certain distance. To be fair, they also measure glare, but at a certain height from the roadway. So lights are super bright below a certain height to meet the requirements. This works…

Thing is, you don’t have to feel guilty at all. Corporations create far more greenhouse gas emissions that people do, and between the lithium mining and the global shipping (on bunker fuel) and the trucking (on diesel) involved in building this thing and getting it to your local dealer, it all adds up to so much…

And yet corporate profits have never been higher. I’m not saying that the cost of production hasn’t risen, in some cases quite dramatically. But if this were solely a case of passing on additional costs, that wouldn’t be true. And if you keep raising prices, but not wages, it won’t take long before you run out of…

Except people convince themselves that they *need* all that space. I helped a family of 4 shop for a new car. The kids are 8 and 11. They do not have cubic yards of stuff anymore. But a sedan was off the table. 3-row crossover or nothing. Minivan? No. Larger 2-row SUV? No.  “But it’s so expensive!!!”  Well, yeah. You…

Several manufacturers offer the ability to enable what it essentially teenager mode, which can limit things like speed, radio volume, or the ability to put the vehicle into gear if the seatbelts aren’t buckled. But that’s enabled and disabled by the owner, not the manufacturer.

I’d add another one: just because you see a car listed in inventory on the internet doesn’t mean that car is on the dealer lot and available for sale. Some dealers list cars that are already sold, or are not yet in inventory, or are not yet in inventory *and* already sold. Some manufacturers put cars like this on…

“By wire,” when talking about vehicle controls, means that there is no mechanical link between the control and the moving part. The control sends a command to a computer, which then actuates a servo or motor to complete the movement. Basically all modern throttles work this way. A few cars’ brakes work this way.…

I’m not saying he would have survived - 140 to 0 that quickly is a lot of g-force - but doesn’t the fact that the driver was thrown clear suggest he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt?

I know she said no minivans, so this is likely a waste of electrons, but my experience has been that for a vehicle with 3 rows of useable seats, they’re generally much easier to drive, see out of, park, etc. than the equivalent SUV. For someone who hasn’t driven in a number of years, that may translate to comfort and…

I’m not sure exactly what you’re comparing, so maybe you accounted for this, but it’s worth remembering that in a conventional ICE, 75% or more of the energy content of the gasoline is lost as heat, whereas EVs don’t have that problem. According to google, a gallon of gas has 33.7 kWh of energy in it. Which means that…

I have been to Haiti, and I have been to Monaco. My experience was that the extremes are deeply unsettling, albeit for very different reasons. 

Land Rover! They want you to consider non-leather options. In your supercharged-V8 suv, of course, so I’m pretty sure it’s not an environmental concern…

I have one that looks like it’s identical to the one you rented, and they are, indeed, excellent at their intended purpose, and they genuinely get stellar mileage. The gas gauge also hugs Full like a long-lost lover for a very long time before hurtling towards Empty. 

Look, I’m not defending the dealers, because we all know that most of them are pretty awful. But let’s do some very simple (wrong!) math to illustrate a point. Let’s say you need $100,000 per month to operate your dealership (mortgage, utilities, salaries, etc.). If you’re selling 100 cars every month and making…

A defining characteristic of conservatism is, for me, the inability to grasp why anyone would have a want, need, or experience different from their own. A problem isn’t a problem until they experience it. A good isn’t a good until it happens for them. Etc. You’re being a conservative, because you want the world to…

I dunno, Erik. Gas seems to be a psychological thing. People, during the 2008 price increase, were paying $8-10k for Geo Metros so they could save *maybe* $1k/yr on gas. They traded in Suburbans and F150s for Accords or similar, at huge losses, because somehow increasing your car payment by hundreds per month is okay…

So maybe I’m being dense, but how did this actually make him any money?

I echo the Mazda suggestion, but perhaps the CX-30. Also available with the turbo for power, also AWD, but with a smidge more ride height and clearance for snow and that “safe” feeling people seem to get from sitting higher up. 

When does this rule go into effect? My understanding is that some European vehicles sold here have the hardware to do this now, but it’s disabled in the software for US Market vehicles. Could they theoretically enable this now? Or are rules still being finalized?

BMW is currently offering the M3 for 979/mo on a lease. If you can find one, obviously. But the payment on a $50k car for anything close to a reasonable term will be very close to that, so why not just lease another car. BMWs also include service for the duration of the lease, so he’s saving a couple of bucks on that…