I don’t disagree at all. My point is that the OEMs are really ceding making the parts and just becoming point of final assembly. They often don’t really dictate much in the way of how the third parties create or design the part, they just use it in final assembly.

And this is why every manufacturer, including one in California that people either love or hate, are really not something to invest in, at least long term.

Honestly, I hope you get your wish. The only thing stopping it is that they have to federalize any model sold here, and it has to have all the required safety features that may not be included in a current Dacia model. But hey, if they can bring a Thai market car here (Mirage), and Ford can bring an Indian one…

Want to know something funny?

Here’s the issue. When a recipe has a name, not just a list of ingredients, then it is a set recipe. Adding ingredients makes it different.

You mean like Miss Lindsay?

This. All. Fucking. Day.

I would guess that it is because of the dealers. Closing down the brand means paying off the dealers and their franchise agreements. And really, with so few models, and low volume, it really is not that expensive to bring stuff to the US that they also sell in other markets. And the Renault/Nissan alliance makes it…

Funny thing, had that 60 year old granny been the mom of the deceased, she would have been wailing and weeping and calling for the driver to be lynched. And had it been her son driving the car, she would have just claimed that other than killing those people, he’s a good boy.

I think it may be more an issue with the parents swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool.

Ok, devil’s advocate on your cost to race legally argument.

I am guessing that the survey really focuses on the entertainment systems as “reliability” issues to allow the other real issues - you know, the ones that leave you stranded on the side of the road, or replacing major drivetrain components early in the ownership experience, usually out of warranty - to go relatively…

Somebody has to swoop in and take over the demand left by the Fiat 500E ending sales in the USA. /s

You can think the farming community is a bunch of rubes who shot themselves in the foot all you want. But one, it’s not quite that way, and two, the whole right to repair issue has nothing to do with people’s trusting, rather companies selling you something but not actually letting you own it.

Agreed that there is a lot of poor spending choices being made at the VA, and the level of care should be much better for our veterans. But the point was that we do need to take good care of them, those brave men and women who put on the uniform and did what a lot of other citizens would never do.

So you are saying that buying an EV....

Yes, they did, and Ol’ Yeller is alive and well and living at a farm down the road.....

Does it actually have to work on the Supercharger network? No, it can sit there with the plug attached but doing nothing and get the same looks of admiration from the masses as any real Tesla would. Image versus substance, and image wins every time. 

Jonathan Swift approves of your modest proposal, in an eat the poor kind of way.

That $130B is well spent. We should spend more on medical care and retired military. Those folks actually put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf, and we owe them, big time.