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And it's insane that vehicles are, by far, more expensive than they've ever been, to just be disposable appliances.

Tina was someone I never saw live, would love to have seen her in the 80s-90s..what a voice and presence....

You went to so much effort to construct… what is an opinion… in only the most technical sense of the word. It is almost entirely ?. Eventually, cost and physics will catch up with Elon's promises. The most range the Model X can manage is 348 miles. The Cybertruck is heavier and has much worse aero. Tesla will need to put nearly 100% more battery in the Cybertruck to get it to 500 miles. Can you imagine the costs of a double stacked Model X battery? It's not going to be the $70k version that gets that range, it's going to be the $130k version. GM will have 450 miles of range available in a truck at the bottom end of the Cybertruck's price range. For $80k, you'll be able to get a Silverado EV with 450 miles of range or a Cybertruck with likely around 350 or less. And just like on the Model-X, if you opt for the Plaid, you get a reduction in range... so Cybertruck won't be both 500 mile range and 2.9s acceleration. It will be one or the other. A $15k option. SuperCruise and BlueCruise are like $2,500. It's a truck, who cares? And GM has magnaride, the best shocks on the planet. GM has 4-wheel steering and even their ICE trucks turn well for their size. Already explained why unless it's an 8-foot bed, it doesn't matter. GM and eventually RAM win on this anyway because they have mid-gates. RAV-4 sales are up and there's waiting lists for the Plug-in. If you want to know who the Model-Y is stealing sales from, go look at the BMW and Mercedes sedan sales charts. LOL, they're not going to get 20% of the US market with a $70k base price. Keep in mind that "the truck market" includes the Tacoma, Ranger, Colorado, and Canyon which base in the high $20k range. You can buy two Tacomas for the price of one base Cybertruck. No one tell the Europeans, they've been buying Fords for years. The catch is that Europeans buy European Fords that are built in Europe. Tesla's explosion in sales there coincided with the construction of Berlin-Brandenburg. It also helps that EVs avoid the fuel taxes. The Euro companies are going to catch up to Tesla pretty easily.

I saw that picture and I immediately knew that I had to post it. JUST for you!!! I should have personalized the post to you, but... Its OK

The flexibility of Ultium means that they can offer "city" version of these trucks for a lower price. If I'm a commercial fleet master and Chevy can offer me a bunch of 2WD work trucks in 2WT trim with a 300 mile range that I never have to fuel and cut my maintenance costs way down, I think I'd seriously consider it. We have four 2wd V6 Ram Classics at work, but they almost never leave the 11 sq miles of the town. If I stay there long enough, I want to convince the public works director to put chargers in soon. GM never said what the lowest range of battery they would build for these trucks would be, it's always been shown as "up to" 400 miles, now 450 miles, of range.

The ICE Silverado today has: 4 engines, 2 transmissions, 5 bed/cab configurations, and 2 driveline configurations. (5 engines were available in 2022, the V6 was finally dropped from WT models) It has 8 trims (WT, Custom, Custom Trail Boss, LT, RST, LT Trail Boss, LTZ, ZR2, High Country). Plus each of those trims have levels, like several levels of WT, the ZR2 Bison Edition, Several editions of LT, Sub-packages like Z71. Ford has even more with 8 trims, 3 cabs paired with 3 boxes, 2 drivelines, and I can't even get a clear answer on how many engines. (3.3 V6, 2.7 EB V6, 3.5 EB V6, 5.0 V8, 3.5-Hybrid, 3.5 HO V6 Raptor, 5.2 V8 Supercharged... the 3.0 V6 diesel was dropped, did I miss any?) and while all transmissions are 10-speed, they have a light-duty version, a heavy duty version (V8s and Raptor), and the hybrid version, so really it's 3 different transmissions. At the risk of beating a dead horse, Ram has 8 trims, 4 engines, several suspensions including air and not-air, 4 different sizes of infotainment system, several "special editions" that Ram loves to make.... and the Ram Classic is also still in production with a bunch of its own configurations. Nissan simplifies it for you by only offering trims configured certain ways, and if you don't like it, too bad. Before you even get to pick out a color, you have 17 different trim/bed/cab/driveline configurations to choose from. Luckily, you have only one choice of engine. Your list would be significantly less complex than the current situation. That said, I expect that the LT levels might be trimmed a bit, down to 2 or three. For example, LTZ might be dropped completely in favor of a High Country trim. Or we might not get a High Country at all. (though I hope we do)

I'm saddened by what I just read. It was reported that Tina Turner passed away today. I didn't know she had been sick. She was unstoppable. I thought she'd have a good many more years left. I was hoping she'd keep going and enjoy her later years living outside of Zurich, Switzerland. Many good songs on the album of the same name launching her new solo career, but the title cut up above is its best song, IMHO. What a comeback story! RIP Tina.