I think this is where a lot of the frustration from automotive journalism comes

Also, at least where I live, a lot more families are going single car so they get one SUV that can haul everyone. The other parent bikes, takes transit, or works from home, making a second cheap commuter car unnecessary.

To add onto this. If people were actually buying small cheap cars, no way in hell they would discontinue them.

I don’t really know how else to explain the broad and persistent demand for expensive trucks and SUVs

There you go with reasonable facts and data to refute a story. Take your star. Still, this sure explains how so many people are driving around in $60k trucks. 

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where things go from here — just a passing look at what happened a decade ago.

I live in a mountainous area and agree with your use case, but you don’t need paddle shifters to do it. In both of my current cars (both auto with a floor shifter, mind) you knock the shift lever over and then rock it back and forth as a semi-auto, and the car holds a steady 4k RPM in 3rd while you coast down the…

Looking at the Trillion dollar club, it’s

This reminds me of a terrible coworker I used to have. Her wiper wore out one day so, instead of replacing it, she took it off and stuck the arm in the air. For weeks.

How can Tesla possibly be worth the same amount as Google?

“The underlying Geländewagen is Mercedes’ longest-running model, having originally been introduced as a military vehicle (think, fancy Jeep) in the late 1970s. The civilian model arrived in 1979, but wouldn’t make its official U.S. debut until 2001. That was in answer to the success Range Rover was enjoying in the…

Why does everyone always comment about scratching up a $100K or even $50k off roader, but not about crashing a $150k track car like a GT3? Neither car will likely be truly used as design intended, but the few people that actually do probably aren’t too concerned with the consequences of doing so and are probably insure…

Remember, this is nice price or no dice, not “do I like this particular car or not”, which is what I see in the comments mostly.

Just what I need! A $100,000 off-roader that I would be terrified of scratching up and (gawd NO!) rolling over into some craggy ditch.

He did have it in writing. The problem was the dealership employee screwed him over by omitting the fact that what they both signed was simply an acknowledgement of the reservation, rather than a contract that forbid alteration of the final sales price.

At the same time, why does everything have to come down to legality and signed agreements for things like this. Shouldn’t a well functioning system be easy to navigate, transparent, and not rely on having to protect yourself all the time?  An ideal system here should be relatively “frictionless” so to speak.

Asked my sales guy yesterday about this. Said they sell at MSRP and usually don’t get anything in writing, but could get something in writing if I wanted.

If you can afford a Tesla you buy it. On paper and driving Tesla’s are better than the competition 99% of the time. That will eventually change and there’s plenty of opportunity at the lower cost end but that part of the population isn’t buying EVs yet.

I would argue “underpowered” is the wrong term, because an underpowered car would most likely be over-stressed (it would constantly need to run at high work loads to move itself around). Instead, it’s more like “de-rated”. The engine itself is capable of more power, but it’s not being asked to create more than…

A 200hp car can do 116 as well. This isn’t about the horsepower, but more about the idiot doing 116 in a 30. More bureaucratic red tape because somebody didn’t follow the current laws isn’t going to change with new laws.