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When did Michelin stop being French?

It is actually Mercedes has the best racing team Mercedes is the standard everyone is chasing Sales figures are everything and Mercedes is #1 in luxury sales

smk is like the M-B star in here, always with the same 3 points

A Volt with more cargo room and possibly better rear seat room as well? Sounds like a much more appealing car to me.

I've been pretty happy with my TripleTreds. I don't know how they are for true performance driving (Encore, 138hp), but they've been a great all-around tire. One of the reasons I picked them was for their superior snow performance. Not quite a snow tire, but better than most other All-Seasons in that regard. The downside to them is that I've never gotten the same MPG out of the car since they went on.

One word: Unimog! Okay Okay Okay it isn't a standard full size truck but hell if it isn't the best in the world at being versatile/flexible and doing truck things.

Lack of parking discipline drives me crazy... I go out of my way to make sure I'm centered in spots. But some dumbass always seems to park with a tire right on the space boundary line or over it. The long doors of 2drs are part of why I prefer 4drs in general.. especially in parking garages. My favorite parking headache story happened about 15 years ago in Denver. I parked my old Jeep GC in a spot of the 5th floor of my employer's garage. Came out at 5pm, and asshat #1 had parked a Chevy pickup so close to my left side I couldn't have opened the door, and asshat #2 had parked a Aerostar so close on the right I couldn't have opened the passenger door. Had to open the hatch and crawl over the back seat, between the front seats into the driver's seat. Arrggggghhhh

They are still headquartered in France (in Clermont-Ferrand, former home of the French Grand Prix), but have US manufacturing (presumably through the BF Goodrich and Uniroyal acquisitions in '89). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelin

Looks like a Toyota, which is another way of saying, it looks ugly.

Easily the most visually offensive Buick... ever. Putrid.

Well, I'm not an advocate of this sort of thing, usually. Changing the character so much. But while we're changing out powertrains, could've also put a '57 Thunderbird Special engine in there; 340 HP supercharged. Or a SOHC 427 from the early '60s with 425 HP. Or a Ford FE 511, and go 8.7's in the quarter @ 147 MPH. This is solidly over 700 HP :

XFC Reality - Xtreme Fast Charging Tesla is the current GOLD standard of EV auto charging. Their roughly 400 North American Charging stations handle 120-140 kWh charging that allows Tesla to brag about their 90 kWh battery packs recharging in 1hr compared to 10 hrs for a Nissan Leaf, 8hr for a Chevrolet Bolt if you home charge. Tesla's customers have had this perk and until now been able to brag about it. Tesla made sure they had this by using a proprietary plug that kept other EV auto's from using the Tesla Network. In comes IONITY, the European group consisting of Porsche, VW, BMW, Daimler and Ford. This is a 400 plus Xtreme Fast Charger network being built now in Europe. A 350 kWh network that covers from 200 to 920 volts at 350 Amps of charging that will allow EV Auto's to refill in 15 min or less. This allows EV auto's that need from 50 kWh to 350 kWh of capability to be handled by these new Liquid cooled Charging stations. The technological breakthrough is in the Charging cables that connect to your EV Auto. These are light, thin charge cables that remove the heat load by liquid cooling in high amperage use. These XFC system charge aproximately 20 miles of range per minute or 300 miles in 15 minutes. How Does This Benefit North America, Specifically the US? This is where the proprietary Nissans Charging (CHAdeMO) and Tesla interface are about to Lose the EV Charging race. The XFC interface uses the CCS (Combined Charging System) based on the J1772-2009 SAE standard. This has been adopted by pretty much every country in the world as the standard except China where they have this standard, Tesla and their own Chinese standard as the 3 plug types that have to be supported at this time. The US is expected to move forward with Nissan changing over in the near future. Porsche is installing 500 of their XFC chargers across the US at dealerships and various EVgo sites. There is also Electrify America, a subsidiary of VW and funded by the $2 Billion plus funding they have committed to for installing XFC charging across America in addition to all the EV charging infrastructure funding that was paid to each state in the settlements. From Level 2 to Level 4 (XFC) charging will get installed from inner city places to suburban and especially highway stops that can support long distance driving by EV auto's. The future is bright for the upcoming onslaught of EV auto's including the Electrify America's Chargers as shown below. The Drive Story SAE J1772 Org SAE J1772 Info

I'd buy a TDI Golf. Had a mk7 one been around when I was car shopping, I'd be in one of them instead of my Focus.

Diminishing Returns and NOT the Global Standard to be in! Yes after the 90's the excitement and fun of watching the race went in the toilet. So true, could have been the end of the 90's in reality.

When was the last time somebody overtook somebody during the race and not during a pit stop? Probably around year 2005.

It's a great time to be a fan of F1.. ? Yup, steady decline in viewership for the past decade. Forbes link for graph.

Then they aren't the golden standard of racing if they only have their toes in one league of racing when there are hundreds out there. Formula 1 is the biggest money pit and, I could be wrong, I believe their ratings have been declining for the past decade as the sport blows to watch. I love the technology and the sheer speed of those cars but it is the least entertaining form of automobile racing out there. Want to know the finishing order of every race? Just watch the qualifying session. Heck, just watch Q3 and watch laps 1-3 and that's all the entertainment the sport offers. ..so.. like a regular truck that is completely different than the pictured Sprinter? lol

I still think M-B should sell the pickup versions of the Sprinter here--in regular and double cab, in work truck, luxury, and AMG variations...would be a cash cow, I think.. make the bed deeper and less homely looking, though.

I bet they could put leather seats in the back of a Unimog and pass it off as some sort of luxury wilderness exploration vehicle and sell them for $500k here as a Rolls Royce SUV competitor.

How many different leagues or classes does Mercedes even race in? I love Mercedes but my god are you oblivious. I guess ignorance is bliss though so...?‍♂️

You can donate your airline miles to the cause.

Yes---smk's 3 points may indeed be: * Sales figures are everything * Mercedes always has something coming that will beat anything current * Mercedes is the standard everyone else is chasing

On the Malibu and Cruze, I see a lot of basket weaving up front in the grilles. The latest Hyundai Sonata is playing with these egg crate grille motifs on various trim levels. CVT ... it will be interesting to see how it plays out. It's supposed to be a simple concept. However, with Nissan, they don't repair them when they fail, and they have. They just do an R & R. I began to like CVT for the gas mileage but I then returned to liking the feel of driving a vehicle with a step gear transmission. The new Cruze with the 1.4L T and 6 speed automatic is a wonderful little car to scoot around in. As for the Malibu, I just wish they'd tweak the rear roofline a minor amount and deal with that kink in the moulding out by the C-pillar. As for the Cruze, can they just put a damn leather wrapped steering wheel and shift knob handle in their LT version? One shouldn't have to go to a Premier to get that and also have to accept the leather seats that go with that. I like cloth seats with a leather wrapped wheel. As for the Spark, I like that they have been featuring a defined bumper strip up front for at least a few years. Something defined and substantial needs to somehow sit at the very front of the grille and not just ornate, shiny plastic bits. With the Sonic bowing out, that might take away the only GM car to offer manual windows in its base model, unless the Spark does as well. (I believe they are available on the Nissan Versa, the base Ford Focus, and the base Ford Fiesta.) A friend of mine has the base 2016 Silverado with 2 WD and it has manual windows. I was stunned to see that. Not many cars to choose from these days ... sigh ...

Lol a slightly larger tire would be the least of this car's mpg concerns, but thanks Those are just the US main offices for Michelin. I work for a UK owned company, but our US headquarters is in Houston and where you would be referred if you had company questions.

Hold on a sec y'all. Why is everyone making a point (get it?) about the lady's looks, when it is clearly the dude who is the better looking of the two robots in the video?

They still are, I have new Michelin's on both my Trailblazer SS and Escalade ESV and they rock, handled snow better than any other tire.

^ I agree. Same thing happens where people think the S-class (coupe) costs $30K because it wears the same nose as the CLA.

Cool concepts and visions with this electric vehicle. I do have a warm and fuzzy feeling for the future if its depicted this way. I also fear the future for those very same ideas that were presented to us. I cannot wait for those concepts to be reality, at the same time I wish we were still in the 1950s-1980s. Before all this electronic and internet explosion that we are experiencing and about to delve further into a virtual reality world... The infinite amount possibilites that we are about to enter with our lives regarding our electronic devices, our cars, our homes...its overwhelming. Its scary. Visions of Terminator, Avatar, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Back to the Future 2, has just flooded my brain. Some scary thoughts, but some awesome ones too! Did I just say that I wish we were still in the 1950s-1980s? Nix that! The future, if we dont phoque it up with greed and war and everything bad humans are capable of, the future looks OK to me! One thing though. Other than the awesome blue electric colour vibe from the grill to the interior lighting, the silhouette of this thing looks like its of a Mazda CUV design language...not a very Buicky look to this CUV. PS: That lady's milkshake sure would be able to attract all the boys to the yard!

Kinda has a toilet bowl thing going; everything is swirling toward the center.

'225' is tread or sectional width, so it's wider. It's sidewall is proportionally shorter, but 70% of 225 is actually a taller sidewall than 75% of 205. Yes, a taller sidewall should give you a bit more compliance, but the diff here is minuscule. BTW- sidewall height is measured from the tire bead to the tire tread, so in calculating overall tire height, it's rim diameter + (sidewall x 2). Here the sidewall is only 4 mm taller on the 225, or 8mm taller overall. You'll never notice a difference in compliance on that alone.

The base seats are 10-way adjustable. The up-level seats are 30-way adjustable. The 30-way are the ones with the independent thigh adjusters. On the 10-way, they have a seam down the center, but are not split.

Just get one with the 2.0t and forget about the 1.5 I think a Caribbean Blue or Oakwood Metallic Cruze Premiere RS Diesel Hatch would be the bee's knees. The new wheels and stronger front end look really good... not sure about the protruding taillights though.

Such a shame to see GM saddle the Malibu with a CVT. It is other wise a very competent car that I find quite compelling within it's segment. GM is going backwards with some of their products.

^^^ Lots of people try to make it sound like the Camaro styling is the problem..... the bigger problem is still that it's a bunker with no space and you can't see out of it.

I think it performed better when new. I'm actually looking forward to see if the CVT helps. It might. I've said many times, the 1.5 is a great road car. It's very bipolar in that regard. It's the in town stoplight to stoplight stuff that the car gets tedious to drive. And at the time it was an improvement over what I had. So, progress. I'm real curious to see if the EPA numbers go up any. If not then I am not sure what the point it. Cruze would have been better to put CVT in first IMO.