I’d LOVE to tell my mortgage company, my student loan servicer, and the power company that the money is just a byproduct. I do what I do because I love it, so if I can’t make those payments, they shouldn’t get in a tizzy and talk about canceling this or repossessing that.

This makes Reverse especially ironic:

Then you get to the core of the plan here: Its not to help Mexico.

But your sales folks can help me roll my 30K in negative equity into a 96 month loan on a slightly used dodge dart, right? Also, I have a mid-500s credit score.

The cynical part of me suspects that the auto manufacturers would like for US auto workers to make the same as the Mexican auto workers currently make, instead of the other way around.

Other auto companies have also had multple bouts with bankruptcy, rolling layoffs and closures of production lines and have had to survive through extensive government bailouts and sell-offs and brand closures. Heck, ford is closing production of all US bound cars besides the Mustang. That’s a huge failure IMO because…

What is not mentioned is that turnover in engineering is high due to the pressures, comparatively low pay, and work culture there. That can have serious effects on design integrity (for both the product and production).

Having a 100 year head start helps. Also Tesla has not been bankrupt (yet), so there’s that.

How many times have we heard Tesla is burning through money and is doomed? I’m not worried because I know how they are spending the money (re-investment) and that it will have massive long term benefit.

And if Tesla does become profitable by the end of the Quarter Bloomberg will have the headline “Tesla FINALLY profitable, but will it last?” and Tesla’s stock will take another hit.

Other auto companies also have well-established mass-production lines and spent that capital decades ago.

“...TRUCKS should be used for the purpose a truck serves - to haul cargo, to drive across terrain that isn’t pavement, and to tow heavy loads. A truck should NOT be used to drive back and forth to an office job, and should not haul more people than cargo ...”

I would say that is incorrect... If body-on-frame was the way to go for half the cost, all cars would still be built that way. Keep in mind that most trucks now have the same or more interior space/amenities as most sedans do. I would also argue that a truck bed is not any cheaper to produce than the trunk of a car…

Its a 1/2 finished automobile (steel bed with nothing in it) that sells for 2x of its sedan counterparts. Its basic math.

Americans are willing to pay a lot more for the status symbol of a Truck, just like they’re willing to pay a lot more for a slightly higher ride height of a CUV?

I don’t understand your logic. You could go out right now and buy a brand new 2018 Fiesta ST. They’re not dumping all the current cars off the end of aircraft carriers like the last days of ‘Nam. You could easily buy a 2018 FiST and have easy access to parts for a normal 5-6 year ownership period.

Depends what the gas tax is being spent on. You’d have to specifically limit that revenue to being spent on infrastructure.

Seriously, how many people here bemoaning Ford’s announcement have purchased a *new car* in the last 5 years? More specifically, in the segments that Ford is abandoning?

I don’t think the people in crossovers will take a loss on their cars when gas goes up because they can get 2-3 mpg more from a car. The people that’ll hurt are the people scooping up trucks and brodozers. When gas prices went up in the late 00's, a friend of mine who had been commuting in his Giganto-Truck sold that…

Those CUVs get better mileage than my mid-00's compact sedan. I could trade up from my 12 year old sedan into a CUV and get better fuel mileage.