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The first thing that came to my mind was the first gen Escape Hybrid that seemed like a great vehicle and a little "ahead of its time" but they never actually took off. The Quadrasteer kind of falls into this category as well, especially with GM bringing it back with the Hummer EV and Sierra EV.

Question for everyone: I'm working really hard on getting regular feature stories started back up. I have three series themes I'm working with so far and I am looking for suggestions for each one. Ideally, I would do one from each theme each month. Fabulous Flops - We've done Fabulous Flops before with the Renault Avantime and the Chrysler 2.2 Liter - The theme of this is something that was actually pretty good, but failed in sales. It can be a technology or a model or even a whole brand. Forgotten Tech - These are things that were supposed to be the promise of the future, but failed to catch hold. Some examples already in my list are HCCI engines, V2V technology, and Buick Dynaflow transmissions. Guilty Pleasures - These are cars from the past that aren't considered popular (No GNX, Corvette, Mustangs) but for some reason scratch an itch, and if you found a clean one for cheap, you'd consider buying it. If you suggest one that I think is a compelling story, I'll take it to private message and we can talk about it more. So please post here or send me a PM. I'll select ones that I can write an educated article on, but not every suggestion will be selected.

Holy smokes, I completely forgot about that! It seems like the kind of tech that would have been FANTASTIC in the large trucks for the last couple decades and it's a shame it went away.

I work as an estimator for a car insurance company and I think for sure any of these mega cast cars will be totaled if wrecked and the cast is damaged. Although that isn’t too different from if frame rails, subframe or inner quarter panels are damaged now most of the time the car is totaled because any of those jobs gets into 50+ hour repairs plus the cost of the parts and materials and headlights are really expensive now. On the salvage side, Mercedes get the best salvage return, the newer stuff easily over 50% their value and even at 10+ years old over 40%. Toyotas usually get over 40% unless they are old and EV’s are usually in the 40% range while an average car is like 20%.

I think it depends on what Toyota’s production capacity is in 5 years. I think we need another upgrade in battery life and cost for EV to really take over. It might not be until 2030 that EV market share hits 50%. So Toyota has time if they scale huge and have everything in place then. We can say GM has products coming but it’s all low volume. 5,000 Sierra electric trucks at $105,000 isn’t a business model for them. GM needs to be making 500,000 electric pick ups, 500,000 electric Equinox globally, maybe more. Only Tesla has the scale in place, they will sell over a million Model Y next year, Ford will be lucky to hit 50,000 Mach-E’s. If Toyota shows up in 3-5 years with 3-5 million EV per year capacity they could stop Ford and GM just as they have the past 30 years.

There have been plenty of things that the US government has done poorly the last couple decades but I think forcing foreign auto companies to produce their vehicles here was a great move.

According to the CDC infections have broken down as follows here in the U.S. based on type of blood. Type A - 41.8% of the overall infected had this blood type. Type B - 29.93% of the overall infected had this blood type. Type AB - 21.19% of the overall infected had this blood type. Type O - 7.08% of the overall infected had this blood type. Clearly Type O is the most resilient to being infected. AB is second and Type A is the most common that gets infected. @oldshurst442 Do you know what type your Wife, Kids and you are? Maybe your wife is type O so she is very resistant to it naturally. I am glad to hear you and your family are mending.

I was away from here for a short while... Covid finally breached my defenses. My son caught it from school from his friend. He woke up with his throat scratchy 2 Saturdays ago, and we ignored it. He got a call from his friend that night that he tested positive. Sunday morning, his scratchy throat was still present so we did the Covid test thing. Positive. The whole family tested. All negative. He stayed home from school on Monday. My throat was scratch on Tuesday. I tested. Was positive. Stayed home for the next 5 days. My manager, God bless her, she took over the restaurant. Did a great job!!! I slept in the basement so I dont infect my daughter and wife. My daughter tested positive though, on Wednesday. Missed school for three days. My wife, nada. The only one to escape the cliutches of Covid. The worst my son had was a scratchy throat for 3 or 4 days. My daughter only for a day and a half with a scratchy throat. I, didnt have it that bad. I was just coughing for 4 full days. Hard dry coughing. THAT was rough. Not the coughing part, but because I was coughing for 4 days straight. And I had lost my taste for 14 or 15 days. I tasted sweet, salty and sour, no flavour. So it wasnt that bad. Eating was not bland because I did have some sort of sensory pleasure. Shot #4 awaits. It is avalaible. The new variant ones. My wife took her jab. The rest of us have to wait(?) or will wait because we do have the Covid anti-bodies still in our systems because...we caught it. So near XMAS time or shortly thereafter is when Im figuring we will get #4.