Never realized how much I’d come to depend on those until I recently took a road trip with my mom in her ‘17 Jeep Compass, which amazingly DOESN’T have one. I realized that every other vehicle I’ve driven in the last five years had them and I missed it terribly.

It’s entirely possible. And the trailer itself doesn’t necessarily need its own battery, or at least not an extremely large one.

This wins 😁

Since this seems to pretty much replicate the old Matrix (a wagonized Corolla) why not go with that?

Exactly. Not having to buy a tool chest for the bed is SUPER cool. Also, the idea that I could stick a portable fridge/cooler in the frunk and keep it powered for the trip is a great idea.

Yeah, even with the K-frame issue this is a good price. This was a decent car. This one’s a little rough, sure, but redeemable.

99% of road wear comes from commercial trucks. That might decline to 98.5% with the advent of heavy EVs, but I’d be surprised if it came to much more than that.

Yes, $7k is bad. The body is okay, but the abuse/neglect send a million red flags. And that horrible wooden veneer on the dash tells me everything else I need to know.

Nice enough car, and I’d say the red flags aren’t massive, but there’s enough of them to put this maybe $1,500 over a fair price, and that’s enough of a margin that you’d have trouble talking it down. ND.

I get it, but that’s part of where “load sink” comes from. Yes, it calls for a lot of energy, but I think it should be an “interruptable” load that can be cut during times of high demand.

Pretty much!

I’d call that a technical challenge, and not insurmountable. There’s a bunch of engineers working on solutions for this.

Yes, this is a marginal NP. This was arguably GM’s best subcompact platform ever, with an improbably compelling drivetrain. Also: an unusual variant in what looks like very good original condition. I’d say this even has potential collector value.

I’d be really surprised if we see this in the next decade, though if they can make headway I’m sure we’ll see it eventually.

There seems to be widespread agreement that the “Lightning” brand here is WAY more appropriate than calling an EV crossover a “Mustang” (not that that was anything I lost sleep over in any event)

I agree 100% with all of these caveats, but neither do I think they’re insurmountable at all. And I think there are enough applications where H2 is the most effective green solution that it’s worth solving these problems.

Another notion I’ve had is that we maintain a deliberate over-supply of windmills, and when they’re overproducing use that power for electrolysis since that will be such an effective load sink.

This is a really nice car, in really nice shape, but I have a hard time seeing more than $5k for it. Mind you, in Colorado the All-Trac feature will be pretty desirable and this WOULD be a decent college car. Even so, I’ve gotta go ND.

Wow... so many red flags just with the amount of work done here... but man, that’s not a bad job at all. Not a “truck guy” but this is guaranteed to draw a crowd at every Cars & Coffee you decide to show up at. $5,500 is fine for this, assuming it doesn’t need any immediate work.

I kind of have a thing for Cadillac ELRs. One would assume these would be just as good. Nice to know.