thunderbuck
Free Market Party Company
thunderbuck

This is the franchise system working as designed. Manufacturers cannot dictate pricing (even if they can make strong recommendations). I’m sure Ford themselves would love to be able to boost MSRP at this point so they could take a bigger slice of the pie.

Thought so! I remember seeing a nice little YouTube mini-doc about how that all happened awhile back. Would love to visit.

The brake inspection may have been mandatory, not because the driver suspected a problem.

Isn’t Evergreen the company that bought (and built a new museum for) The Spruce Goose?

(I know, I know, extremely relevant and all...)

I have no doubt that’s the correct number, but LG Chem is also paying them back close to $2 billion to cover costs (at the end of the day it really was their QC that’s liable)

15 cars have caught fire, so it isn’t that many.

You’re not paying attention. Elsewhere in the world we’re already seeing EVs/PHEVs taking as much as 30% market share, and that’s just a start.

Crushed? Why? They’ve settled the QC issue that led to the fires, and they’re getting in TONS of battery packs from the cars that are just getting the swap. Simple and cheap to recondition the used battery packs coming in and swap them into the buy-back cars.

With GM buying back thousands of Bolt EVs, we’re going to see a ton of CPO Bolts in the next year (reconditioned with new battery packs, of course).

Exactly. Don’t charge me for something you don’t have to maintain. That includes updates to the basic infotainment system (that probably needs to be priced into the car, sure)

I agree that the specific instance here was completely inexcusable. I think this was a mistake on Tesla’s part, though, not necessarily a reflection on whether a given feature should/shouldn’t come from subscription.

Most parking structures use standard vehicle formulas from the 60s and 70s when typical cars weighed considerably more than even EVs do now.

I don’t even mean “full” self-driving, I’m talking about things like GM’s SuperCruise that are already a thing. SC is going to take some significant upkeep, so it makes some sense that users would be billed to maintain the service.

I’m not going to disqualify an ad solely on their lame attempts at SEO. It’s dumb, but the point here isn’t to penalize the seller.

No, there’s one “killer app” for automakers: self-driving. There’s a rationale for subscription fees (i.e. the service needs a substantial staff and ongoing maintenance). Also, live concierge/emergency service like OnStar seems to have enough customers to justify ongoing payments.

BMW’s in particular is dumb because they tried to monetize basic vehicle functionality.

I think there’s a line. I’d never buy a car that just wouldn’t run without a subscription, but I hope we never get to that point.

The Continental GTC is my lotto-fantasy car and I wouldn’t be averse to owning a used one. But this particular one has enough red flags to put me off.

Absolutely. Sure you can get more powerful/torquier drivetrains, but they’re all tuned for workhorse duty. This is a racehorse among draft horses, and for what it was in the day it was a pretty good performance deal.

These are pretty collectible, and this one’s in nice shape and seems to be well-maintained. The legit performance truck just isn’t a thing anymore; sure lots of trucks are available with more powerful drivetrains, but they’re all tuned for capability, not outright performance.