Neutral: Obviously we have to keep a sedan around because we need pink Cadillacs for Mary Kay.

If memory serves, in the 1980s the window-sticker mileage was always 5 MPG higher for manual. Automatic transmissions at that time typically had no electronic control, no overdrive, no locking torque converter. They also weren’t built that well most of the time, but neither were manual transmissions or any other part…

Reverse: wait, people use turn signals?

Some grain-handling facilities in the US have something sort of like a crane with a sling that they use to raise the front end of grain trucks. Quick way to empty them even if they don’t have a working lift in back to dump the contents, requires nothing unusual on the trucks.

Neutral: The people I know who looked at electric vehicles all considered the tax credit, but it would not have made a difference in their decisions. For some people (like me with nowhere to charge at home), they’re impractical regardless of price. A lot of people can’t afford them even with the tax credit. The people…

I knew some of this, not all. None of it is surprising to me. The same general class of issue exists in other industries that make cool stuff because the process is full of not-cool work, office politics, and business realities. People become software developers because they like playing video games. Look up some…

Neutral: I only consider safety in the most general sense, like “can I see out the windows” and “can I reach everything” and “will the insurance bankrupt me”. I pay more attention to safety when I buy tires, probably because those needs are easier for me to quantify and don’t significantly change from one year to the…

A slower car with a good driver can be just as quick through not-straight-line paths as a much faster car (but rando soccer mom isn’t going to suddenly be that good just because somebody jumps in and yells “drive” while waving a gun around or being shot at by bad guys).

I went the other direction. When they were new I thought the Z4 (both convertible and coupe) looked kind of neat. Now I walk past one and think damn what an ugly car.

I broke $200k partly because I simply must have a custom color. How embarrassing would it be to go somewhere and see somebody else drive up in the same color Porsche? Though I couldn’t find any way to have it show me the car in a custom color.

I’m looking for a car that automatically fills my bank account with money while sitting parked at home. It wouldn’t just be good for me, it would be good for the environment because I’d consume less fuel and less electricity if I didn’t have to work and do all the things that go with the job.

If only the UAW members had some way to organize and band together to protect themselves from the UAW leadership, maybe if somebody invented a form of collective action to help balance the power....

Snorkel even though the owner doesn’t even like driving though mud puddles.

Obviously we need to bring back the Ford Edsel.

I grew up in when lots of cars had 5mph bumpers and people complained about how crappy those were compared to the older bumpers.

If memory serves, the Moral Machine offered no clear option for “least likely to damage my car when I hit them.” That was an obvious flaw, I’d want my self-driving car to not incur those costly repairs that Jalopnik keeps pointing out come with all this fancy new stuff.

It’s not just the cost to repair vs the value. It’s how much you’d have to spend to replace it. I spent way more on my old truck than it was worth, but its value was low because it was old and replacing it would have cost way more than those repairs (plus I did a few myself). I knew it was time to let go when it…

Obviously the best is the one I could actually afford to buy and drive daily.

Geo Metros, being tiny and weighing nothing, were not quite so cool if you saw what they looked like after any non-trivial accident.

You still think the bikes must have been on the right when I said they were on the left. Cyclists on a 4-lane street near my old office would go to the wrong side of the street (yes, in to an opposing traffic lane) on a red light, race up to the intersection to beat the signal change and incoming traffic, and make a…