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Now Trump is granting a 30-day extension for car companies for the tariffs... but to what end? You can't shift an entire supply chain in 30 days.

Albert is very catholic and follows it closely. I keep trying to warn him that an 88 year old man with double pneumonia, several acute attacks of respiratory failure, and a body that doesn't seem to be fighting the infection on its own (little to no fever) even with antibiotic assistance is not likely long for this world. @A Horse With No Name - we're dialing back on the politics here unless it is directly related to the auto industry. I need to wack a few of your recent posts.

Yeah, I dunno what I wanna do. I'm pulling back on spending. The Chrysler and the Avalanche are just about paid off. I was going to grab one of the cheap EV leases for all the mileage I'm doing these days, but now I am thinking a Volt or ELR for cheap.

Yeah...I'm a bit uncertain about my upcoming flight in May to Colorado for vacation.

I missed this correction, returning to talk of cars and such...,

This is a bit of a failure of Mercedes-Benz's manufacturing process. They don't have the flexible manufacturing that Honda, Toyota, and GM have where they can shift production around easily. Their plants seem to be much more model-specific. Honda can build the Civic, Accord, CR-V, and Passport from the same plant. Mercedes can build 3 sizes of the same SUV sausage at the same plant, but they can't seem to alternate between sedan and suv at the same plant.

I don't know. That would deplete some Catholics in the Modern Old World ... sell that to that French, the Spaniards, the Irish, the Canadians, etc. .... no bueno. I'm already sort of lapsed. I wouldn't handle that well. Asia's significant Catholic community is in the Philippines, where they are the majority religion. They are growing some in India, Korea, etc. But their identities and cultures don't have much in common. Add to that growth in Africa. At any rate, I do like Pope Francis on a gut level and hope for his best. This post, and my first one, is about recognizing his relative higher level of kindness, humility, and wanting to connect with a broader range of humankind.

I'm a little down given what's going on with Pope Francis's health. I know that there isn't a lot of religiosity on C&G, that I know of, but it is the religion I was raised in and the one I identify with, even though we "casual Catholics," especially with roots in warm weather places, have an irreverent and cheeky approach to most things in life. Blame it on the palm trees. I didn't realize he was 88. He turned 88 in December. I believe he's been Pope between 10 and 15 years. He was a much needed antidote to Pope Benedict, the tightly wound and legalistic predecessor and German Pope, and it seemed to have worked out well. He comes from Italian lineage, but is from Argentina, which has been a good thing for connectedness between the RC church and Latin America. Comparatively speaking, he has been a humble Pope who has a handle on the fact that people are fallible and not fire and brimstone robots. With this being local news here, I'm fairly up to date on what's going on. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and, clearly, he was not able to participate in the publicly held religious observation. Even though he's resting okay, it doesn't look good as he's had a lot of setbacks. I'm holding good thoughts.

Working hard on my Espanol.

You should be able to get interior space without a vehicle being this large, it is bigger than the Ford Excursion. The ID Buzz could fit six 6-foot people in it with ease and is smaller than this.

This thing is just too large.

Through February 2025 Ford is down 7.4% for the year and Lincoln is down 14.6%. Ford Mustang is down 34% and Mach-E is up 62% and outselling the ICE Mustang 6,841 to 5,191. E-transit up 3%. F150 Lightning down 15%

This vehicle, the VW Polo, deserves a shout out for being so competent in so many areas. I was once assigned one that was a slight upgrade within the automatic category overseas. Then, I was assigned one two more times, and it matched the icon I’d be renting. I should have written this up several months ago; however, the product remains largely unchanged. The Polo’s immediate strength is its taut road manners. Handling is addressed and so is smoothness. Sound control is good, too. The engine is a turbocharged 3-cylinder that is shared by the VW family of companies and also makes its way into Seat and Skoda products. One would never think this is the powerplant, especially if from North America, most likely thinking it has a larger 4-cylinder engine under the hood. The transmission is also the VW family umbrella’s 7 speed DSG and it is now very refined … and probably reliable, too, if not mistreated and properly maintained. Shifts from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 are smooth, heard, seen on the tach, but not really felt. Pushing down on the accelerator can change that. Subsequent shifts go by unnoticed. Again, downshifts are also understood, and that’s about it. It’s a composed unit. The Polo’s interior is nicely trimmed out. More than a Seat or a Skoda equivalent, the simple dashboard with some subtle cants is both pleasing to the eye and easy to use and live with. As for the dashboard’s main instrument cluster, it’s clean and simple, though one thing stood out to me. I’m used to two large central gauges, usually the speedometer and the tachometer. In this car, the tachometer is the one big gauge in the middle, with a digital speed readout slotted into the middle of it. This can also depend on the dash settings you select. It worked well and doesn’t take long to get used to. At each of the 4 corners of this big gauge are important pieces of information such as gear, time, and other of the most critical pieces of information. To each side of this tachometer is a linear bar graph type fuel gauge and temperature gauge. When a temperature gauge is included, I’m a “happy camper.” Space utilization is good. To me, this is a 5-door hatchback. This may have looked quirky to North Americans a while back, almost whisking them back to Chey products such as the Malibu Maxx, or even back to the dowdy Citation. However, this compactly packaged 5-door is more of a sedan with a squared off back in my mind. I personally prefer it to the VW Golf, with its larger rear sail panel. It’s also a very common typology in Europe and other international locations at this time. Visibility all around the Polo from inside the cabin is mostly good. For its price point, the VW Polo is close to perfect on limited access tollways, really at home on winding 2 lane roads, and easy to live with in most tight spaces. It’s also not too difficult to park. It is especially confident, nimble, and hushed enough at 100 to 120 kmh (~62 to 74 mph) on the more important and smoothly paved major tolled highways, achieving better than average fuel economy compared to its peers from my stops at the fuel pumps. The relationship between price point and quality is not always linear and ratable. What I mean is that you get closer to the roadability of a BMW 2 series sedan … not quite all the way up and, though not as much of a bank vault on highways and as planted on 2 lane roads, it definitely inspires confidence … without having to spend the rest of the sticker to get up to the price tag of that entry level BMW. If you have sensible motoring needs that mix up roadability, reliability, space, economy, and an attractive enough package with good build quality, the VW Polo is a vehicle to consider. I have always been happy to be assigned one as a rental and have looked forward to take it out daily to experience different types of road demands. Their good Android Auto cluster for maps and music make this even more fun and achievable. They are seen everywhere and there must be a good reason for that. - - - - - PHOTOS FORTHCOMING

This is the year that a ton of EVs come off lease, as such, an expected surge in low-cost low mileage EVs will hit the market. Might be a good way to go for a commuter auto.

I am trying not to buy anything much for personal reasons, even beyond Politics. We will see. the end result of all of this wll obviously be terrible.

My fear is that the next pope will be MAGA sympathetic. A good friend of mine thinks the next pope will be from Asia as that is where the church (Catholic) is growing the most. Hone a Chisel. This guy gets it... Quantum Mechanics is interesting...

Depends on the model. The EQB is the same as the B-Class. The EQE sedan is a very different interior to the E-Class, the EQS sedan is very different from the S-Class. And write this in your calendars, I actually agree with @smk4565 for once. The EQS sedan interior isn't as high quality as the S-Class. The materials feel a lot cheaper.

Sitting here wondering what, when, and how regarding the accumulated earnings on my GM card. I always passed on the junk mail, ignoring that it offered changing from a rolling clock accumulation to an accumulation that doesn't expire. I then did it. Had I done it sooner, there would be more money in the piggy bank. Right now, with the auto industry and the overall American landscape changing so much, I haven't a clue.

ATC - one very important job

There need to be more EV's and lower cost ones. Once the Chevy Bolt, Kia EV2, EV3, EV4 type cars come out with lower costs the EV market should pick up. And Mercedes has a whole new EV line coming, GM is still expanding Ultium, Toyota isn't even in the game yet, so once all those guys ramp up there will be a lot of options. I think a lot of the EV pushback is from people that don't want to lose their V8 or sports car, which is a small % of the population or people that know nothing about EVs. Sure people don't want to lose their gas 911. But I can't imagine anyone is saying the 3 cylinder Ford Escape, 3-cylinder Nissan Rogue, 3-cylinder Chevy Trailblazer, are some sort of excellent driving experience and they are going to hold onto poor NVH, underpowered engines that the turbos blow after 100k miles and "you'll have to pry it away from my cold dead hands." Most sub $40k cars are just appliances that an EV with a bad driving experience. Once they get $30-40k EV's out, you'll have Rolls Royce level NVH compared to a Nissan Altima or something it will be night and day.

I have heard people saying they like driving the EQE and EQS, but the looks are just so bad there is no price at when they become desirable. I am very excited for the electric E-class though because it will have the 800 volt NMC battery and it will look the same as the ICE E-class which looks great.

Idiots are making me very nervous about flying this May for the company's tradeshow. Musk is an Idiot and his Satellite company will not make things better over what Verizon has been doing in slowly modernizing the system.

I agree with the first part, people using speaker phone in public. I think most everybody sees/hears that and it drives the other 90% of us nuts. I don't know why it's so annoying, because it really is just like two peole talking and we wouldn't complain about two people in a waiting room talking, but it drives me nuts. I guess it's mostly because these people talk so loud as is they're trying to shout to each other and the microphone isn't picking up anything. The second part about people listening to loud music that you occasionally hear, just sounds like a grumpy old man. There's no way you hear their music for more than a minute or two at a stop light and then it's gone. There's nothing wrong with them listening to their music loud. That's not bad parenting, unless it's clearly done on purpose TO disturb people, but I highly doubt that. How often are you hearing music that's so loud that it's disturbing to you? I can't remember the last time I heard somebody's car system that loud. Come to the Midwest, we're quite the chill people!

Good morning. I think it would be funny to go into a biker bar, locate the jukebox, select "McArthur Park,""More, More, More," and "I Love the Nightlife," and GTFO.

@trinacriabob This is way too funny what folks here are doing with their Tesla's. https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/motoring-news/why-do-tesla-owners-rchange-their-badges/news-story/36f97d5ade14e330524af4024dd7ed7 At least the person was complete in making sure all details were there. SkyActiv -Check, CXs - Check, Logo - Check, Mazda name across trunk lid - check Excellent attention to details. Wonder what the front looks like, big Mazda Logo too? Built out of a Prius: 🤣 No Suprise that the companies might have to die again as they cut employees and funding from the parent owners is cut off. https://electrek.co/2025/02/27/another-luxury-automaker-cuts-jobs-after-failing-to-keep-up-with-evs/ https://www.carscoops.com/2025/02/stellantis-pulls-1-5-billion-investment-from-struggling-maserati/

It was sad..I've seen him in many movies..great actor. Bonnie and Clyde (his first role that got attention), French Connection and French Connection Il, Narrow Margin, The Firm, Twilight, Night Moves, Superman and Superman II, The Package, Mississippi Burning, Absolute Power (with his contemporary Clint Eastwood), to name a few...

While I'm as angry over the current state of things as anyone, I'm going to gently steer the conversation away from politics given the no-politics rule we've had in place for years. If you've got something political to talk about, it must be related to the car industry somehow.

Cutting ATC will not work well.