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Sounds like the FDA did approve a 2nd booster of Pfizer for people 50+, I'm definitely getting it when available. Tangently related to vaccination..I was at my office yesterday for the first time in 6 months, for an all-hands meeting (my company has been acquired by a larger company)...first time i've sat in a conference room for a meeting in about 5 years, 1st time meeting in person several of my coworkers of the the last year..we did try to keep some distance, used a lot of hand sanitizer.. but we did go out for beers and lunch at a local restaurant...first time eating indoors at a restaurant in quite a while, it definitely felt like things are getting close to normal again.. The acquiring company did say they were going to maintain the all-remote approach my company has, and keep the office in Ohio (they are based in Texas, and have been all-remote since March 2020). At the office, had my annual review and was pleasantly surprised to get an unexpected promotion and 15% raise.

There is such a rut stuck mindset about "filling up" with EVs... it is going to take a while for people to shake it. Two main issues: 1. "It takes forever to fill up! I can fill my gas car in 5 minutes!" - So? Then don't "fill up" your EV. You don't need to, and indeed should not be, charging your battery to 100% every time. You'll shorten the life of your battery doing that. Put enough charge in to get to your next charge point plus 25 miles padding, then unplug and be on your way. The only time you ever need to fill up multiple times a day is when you are doing a 600 mile trip... and be honest with yourself on how often that happens. 2. "It takes forever to fill up! Why would I just sit in my car for hours!" - Then don't. I charged twice when I was in Colorado with the Kia Niro EV. I took a friend to lunch and found a parking garage with a charger (easy to do both with the built-in Kia app and the ChargePoint app that works through Apple CarPlay). I didn't sit around waiting for it to charge... I plugged it in and spend time having lunch with a friend outside on a beautiful Denver day. The charger wasn't the destination, the lunch was... but while I was eating, so was the car. I also charged on a visit to Boulder. I parked at a Wholefoods and plugged in to the rapid charger. Then I walked up Pearl Street (beautiful and fun shopping district in Boulder) and had breakfast at one of my most favorite places in the world. After breakfast I strolled through the shops, picked up a couple of gifts for Albert for Christmas, and slowly made my way back to the car. Again, the destination wasn't the charger, it was the restaurant and Pearl Street. But while I was there, the Niro added 115 miles of range. Then I went and drove it up and over the front range and toured the mountains a bit. Coming back down I made a bunch of stops, but generally kept it in high regen mode all the way back down the mountains. I ended the couple hours of driving with just 15 miles less range than I started with. When is the last time you recharged your gas tank by coasting down hill? You know what I didn't do? I didn't hunt around for a non-price gouging gas station within 10 miles of the airport right before returning the car to the rental company. I drove 300ish miles on that trip and spent $15 in charging fees. Can't do that in nearly any car right now.

It turns out a lot of the early interest over Ivermectin was due to a faulty study. There is a parasite that is prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical environments. If you give a patient a steroid, as is often done with covid patients to help reduce respiratory inflammation, this parasite if already in their system can spread rapidly and kill the patient. Ivermectin is the treatment for the parasite. So patients who got the steroid and also got ivermectin appeared to recover better from covid. Eh, I think that was a message that got twisted. Fauci's early statements about masks was "please save the masks for the medical professionals because we don't have enough" and he feared the hoarding as you pointed out. Very very early on in the pandemic, the week before things started shutting down, I was in Miami to visit my parents and I stopped by a Home Depot and Walmart. Every mask, paper towel, and cleaning supply was wiped out. The day I left I stopped at Costco for gas and a slice of pizza before I got on the road and it was a mad-house with people buying pallets of water and everything else they could get their hands on. There was also questions about how well the virus could move through the air. Sure, if someone who had it sneezed or coughed on you, you'd probably get it, but would just being in the same room cause transmission? We didn't have the information on that. It was a very eerie drive home to PA with the roads and gas stations nearly empty. Two days later, PA shut down. One thing that I hope continues is the sanitation of publicly used things like shopping carts and self-checkouts. Years ago I caught a virus that is usually just a kids disease that because of the incubation period, the virus's tendency to live on surfaces, and my movements, I know where I likely got it, and it was most likely from a shopping cart at Costco. So yea, they can keep spraying down those carts, thanks.

Awesome to hear, way to go Robert, well deserved! In regard to Vaccination and Covid, the BA-2 is now the dominate strain here in the U.S. and while for Vaccinated people it will be like a bad 2-3 day flu, unvaccinated, it really attacks the lungs suffocating you. Sadly, I expect a 4th wave of infections and masking to start the summer off. While we will not see the lock downs of past, we are far from over with this virus. The war in Ukraine is really kicking up this bug and clearly France, Spain, UK, Norway and Sweden are seeing high double digit infections again with hospitalization among the unvaccinated. Just like the Influenza of 1918 and not really settling down till 1925, I think current vaccinations will help us get to a more normal state faster being in 2023 with 2025 being truly back to normal. Still a bit weird being in stores with so many unmasked, but I wear my mask as we are not done yet with this virus.

In demand collectibles don’t get driven on the daily like “normal” cars which was his core point. Sure, maybe it doesn’t lose half its value but if you drive that classic car 12-15K a year, it will work that way sooner than you think. Collectible cars, overall, only increase in value because they become garage queens, which was another core point of his. Cherry picking a made up number doesn’t change either of those points.

Tesla was #2 in profit per unit in 2021, just $14 behind Mercedes-Benz, plus with that market cap, Tesla seems like it will be hard to beat. Here is a video from Outline ranking the car makers in revenue and profits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoF741Lw954

Wonder how many V8 Hellcats Pacifica vans they will sell? To be shown at SEMA 2022 this fall. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQBr_Q0HCMp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Yes, I was looking at completed transactions on eBay.

Because Teslas are ugly. Auroras are not. What would KBB say about the value of your Pontiac in its current condition? Why would you dump money into it?

This is no difference than current ICE solutions. Right off the GM Performance web site, connect and cruise that does include pretty much everything except labor and the random parts to finish put this in the same price range today. Unless you do it all yourself, which MOST PEOPLE CANNOT DO, the cost is on par between ICE and EV systems and the future is looking bright for cheaper EV systems as battery cost, the biggest cost become cheaper. Solid-State Battery packs will really change the game as they become mainstream replacing existing Lithium-Ion.

Because we love cars? Finding and restoring barn finds will also cost the restorer about that much as well. Why go through the trouble to fix barn find Camaros/Mustangs/Challengers when their modern V8 counterparts cost just as much as restoring the classic ones? As far as the Olds Aurora/Tesla Model 3 electric thing goes? This? Or this? Id rather the Aurora. And Im recycling...

I watched the youtube vid that @balthazar posted over at the Random Thoughts thread. When the dude was showing us the car in detail, the engine bay, the 4 cylinder, the running boards (made of wood), the very spartan but very workable and the lack of unnecessary and useless gadgets, made me realize one thing... Especially reading what @surreal1272 suggested that nobody actually wants a Nissan Leaf. I was thinking about the the costs and price tags of today's cars. I was thinking about Apple Car Play and butt massagers and heated and cooled seats AND steering wheels and electric windows... On ENTRY level vehicles whose starting price all start where luxury cars started 20 years ago. Where all those things only luxury cars offered... I was looking at the engine of that Ford Model A and how crude but easy it was to wrench on. How anybody could wrench on it. How everything was actually accessible so ANYBODY could wrench on them. That engine bay and the spartan interior. That made me realize ONE thing: NOBODY in North America WANTS an easy to fix, no frills, low tech and spartan vehicle. We all want to be spoiled. We all want the frills. We dont want to pay for any of it. We want to bitch and moan and whine WHY cars are sooooo expensive, but we want to be splashed with 'luxury' with useless shyte so we could 'feel' comfortable while we drive. Im not saying we should have wood floorboards, no insulation, no heat or air con... But we dont really need Apple Car Play and butt massagers while the seat ALSO heats or cools our a$$ as well... Gone are the days of the Model T and Model A that TRULY WERE for the every day man and woman. There is no humbleness in our daily lives anymore... In today's world... (see my rant about how North Americans have lived spoiled lives since WW2 in the Vaccine thread to make the connection here as well)

Doesn't sound realistic that someone making $102k would be buying a $940k home.

Ummm, maybe you didn't see the "apples to apples" error there lol. I would sure as hell hope that an SUV Mach-E has more space than a two door pony car Mustang that happens to share the same first name. They literally have noticing else in common unlike the new Equinox.

I don't know where those 'scenario' numbers were sourced from, but if you're pulling down $111K/yr, you should be putting more than $4500 down on a new car.

So after raising prices on 3 out of 6 trims on the Model 3 / Y on March 9th... a mere 7 days later Tesla raised prices again, this time across the board between 3% & 5%. The cheapest, no-option Model 3 now starts at $46,990, approximately a $1365 increase there. [~ Bloomberg]. Tune in next week for another installment of 'but at least this way I'm not getting gouged!'

Irrelevant; he wasn’t at all ‘afraid of the future’ / new to a BE recharging scenario as you implied.

They don’t have YOUR credibility and clearly you don’t count since you have made it abundantly clear that it’s German or nothing even when the German garbage. It clearly matters to you because you have repeatedly touted their high ATPs even when it’s not, relative to the competition. Just skip the part where the $145K models represent probably less than 1% of their overall sales. It CLEARLY matters to you. Stop pretending otherwise.

Competitive? Compared to who and who is buying them? I'll just pick the Aviator as an example, since that is thought to be Lincoln's best SUV and compare to others on first half of 2021 sales: Aviator: 11,856 Acura MDX: 36,791 Audi Q7: 17,705 BMW X5: 29,244 (+ X6: 4,612) Cadillac XT6: 13,141 Infniti QX60: 4,306 Lexus GX: 15,406 Mercedes GLE: 35,705 Volvo XC90: 19,981 Infiniti is a mess, throw them out and Lincoln gets beat by everyone else in that segment, losing to a glossed over GMC Acadia that Cadillac is selling, the glossed over Honda Pilot that Acura is selling, a 13 year old badge job 4Runner that Lexus is selling. Lincoln getting beat 3-1 by Mercedes, BMW and Acura. So either the Aviator is a bad product, or the Lincoln brand image is so lousy that even when they build a good product people ignore it and buy one of the others.