David

11 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

Yep....treated myself to a new (to me) car today.   Had been looking, did a few test drives of CT5s and CT6s, found this minty 2019 CT6 AWD w/ 44k miles at the Cadillac dealer in downtown CLE.    Took a test drive, fell in love.   Going to take it on my road trip to the Outer Banks and Myrtle Beach next month.    Hadn't really intended on getting another black car...but couldn't find one in red in the state.   

 

Congratulations Robert, that is a nice-looking car!

On 3/8/2024 at 7:18 PM, riviera74 said:

How much is that Escalade iQ SWB again?  Cadillac needs to be careful NOT to overprice this brand new vehicle.

I would not be surprised to see it start at $150,000. Expect the V edition to be a $200,000 model imho.

1 hour ago, riviera74 said:

I find it interesting that the name Challenger has been mothballed.  Sure, if you look at history, the Charger was only a 2-door between 1965 and 1974.  The fact that Dodge made the Charger a sedan shortly after the debut of the 300 was probably meant to boost sales, while the Challenger took on the old Charger coupe role of the muscle car era.  Maybe Dodge can pull it off; only time will tell. 

As for an EV Charger, color me a little skeptical from a sales standpoint.  Since when would an EV buyer cross-shop a Charger with a Tesla or a Lucid or a Rivian?

I do not believe it is about cross shopping. The science shows we are running out of OIL. Folks can deny it all they want, but Saudia Arabia the worlds largest stock pile of OIL for Decades is now reducing production as their wells run low. Climate Change is also changing peoples attitude about what they drive and the Boomers can try all they want to stop and stay stagnant, but Humanity has always moved forward and the future is EV. 

Those that want ICE will have ICE options and those that want EVs will find more and more options and lower prices.

People are hating the maintenance of ICE and as lower cost EVs come on the market they will buy. 

GM was Stupid to end BOLT before they had true replacements ready as the BOLT sales just like the VOLT sales shows there was a market and customers buying.

We will change over and Stellantis is behind the 8 ball and as such this is to grab attention while they still sell their fuel thirsty cars/SUVs and trucks.

10 hours ago, surreal1272 said:

Those and the Hyundai Ioniq5 all share a resemblance.

Ioniq 5 was based on their original Pony car. A awesome modern take of the 1970's Pony. I am excited for the 2025 model year with all the enhancements they are offering including a larger battery pack.

1 hour ago, Drew Dowdell said:

This is what I see

Yup, I can see that too.

🤔 Is it me or does this thing look like the Hyundai Pony?

29 minutes ago, smk4565 said:

Potential home run if they really do charge $45,000 for it and it gets the $7500 tax credit.  Then we are talking $37,500 starting price, that will undercut a well equipped Ford Escape or Toyota Rav4.   But not available until 2026?  2 years away so I wont' be surprised if the price is $50k by the time it comes out because all these companies oversell the base MSRP then the price skyrockets.

Your acting as if Rivian is Tesla. Yes they over promised, under delivered in their initial EV, but I think they have this pretty well sorted out. Will be interesting to see what the price is in 2026, could be less as battery prices drop.

Sadly Rivian is a NO GO for me as any auto I purchase has to support Android Auto and Apple Carplay.

45 minutes ago, surreal1272 said:

That depends on where you are. There are nothing but Charger cops here, whether it's local cops, country sheriffs, or state troopers. There are SUVs, sure, but far more Chargers used than those.  

It is an interesting observation that as you push out into the rural and mountain area you find only SUV. Yet in the major cities Chargers all over here in Washington and especially a move to Tesla's as the EV of choice for traffic patrol for Suburban and inner city.

Some interesting reading:

Even as EV sales slow, lower battery prices are expected to boost demand (goldmansachs.com)

Electric school buses outperform diesel in extreme cold (electrek.co)

4 minutes ago, smk4565 said:

That could be true, they might give up on the Charger Police car and just let Ford have that market.

I can see a few of the EV as pursuit cars for police.

I can also see them used for Traffic duty only as I see plenty of Tesla 3 as Traffic patrol cars.

This is so cool, EV is way better looking than the ICE version as I do not like the extra big hump in the hood but over all outstanding by Dodge.

Wonder what Pricing will be? 🤔

Awesome van for the city and suburban needs by companies.

This is a good move, should help to move these 400V EVs till generation 2 comes out at 800V version.

Will be interesting to see how they handle this transition and if they survive.

I am very excited to see the reveal of this and what has been whispered as a Genesis electric version of the GV90 that is also supposed to be revealed some time this year. Be exciting to see how much more range it gets with a bigger battery pack since the Ioniq 5 will now have a bigger battery pack. I would expect this to have a bigger battery than the current Kia EV9 that is being sold.

Exciting times for sure on new EV autos. 

41 minutes ago, smk4565 said:

It was obvious to everyone except Henrik Fisker that Fisker would go bankrupt.  

Maybe Nissan, Renault and Fisker can all merge and all go bankrupt together, because I think all of them are in trouble when the Chinese manufacturers hit the European and American markets and undercut everyone in price.

Another problem is quality. Fisker has had many issues with their first EV. 

The forum that was supposed to be a cheerleader for Fisker EVs has had more traffic due to this one story than positive.

https://forums.fiskerati.com/fisker-ocean/ocean-the-good-bad-ugly/

Then you have these constant power loss problems.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/09/fisker-ocean-braking-power-loss-problems-investigation/

Then main stream media even says the products they are delivering are not ready.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45997938/2024-fisker-ocean-test-drive/

https://jalopnik.com/fisker-ocean-crossovers-are-falling-apart-in-their-owne-1851244202

So I totally agree that Fisker will have to move in with another much larger auto company to survive.

Saw many comments on the Fisker and one thing everyone seems to agree on is that Designing a good looking auto and engineering is two different things.

@Drew Dowdell Did they say why the Silver Collar would not work with the adapter at charging Ford EVs?
 

Do they not have all the pins that support the slower charging in the NACS adapter?

5 hours ago, ccap41 said:

It didn't even start well. The Hummer had issues almost immediately. 

 

I can't agree more. I've said it since the beginning that they needed to plop that powertrain in a few other vehicles. 

 

When did they reverse course? When did they announce a move away from Android Auto/CarPlay and then say they were keeping them? How do I not remember this announcement?

Yes Hummer did have issues and the Lyriq shipped and then held to address software issues. Those are the only two that seem to still be working with their current software as they are the only EVs that support Android Auto and Apple Carplay as GM used the default Qualcomm software with minimal customization.

Course the stupid thing is that they are planning to with the updates for the trucks and Chevrolet SUVs move all EVs to their custom software with no Android Auto or Apple Carplay. Hopefully when they realize they made the mistake everyone thinks they did, they will enable it as it is software switched off/on. 

Yup we are in total agreement on GM messing up the Hybrid thing.

Ford initially back in 2020 when Qualcomm started to announce OEMs that were going to use their Qualcomm Snapdragon system with Android OS that they would go with a customize experience protecting the end user's data from the cell phone companies. Then in 2023 they started to say they would keep it for ICE and not for EVs at the start of the year and by the end of the year the Ford CEO stated that all ICE and EVs would support Android Auto and Apple Carplay as the customers have stated it is an important part of their auto experience.

Much like how Wendy's said at the start of the week in their investors meeting that they would roll out Surge pricing for peak hours of buying their food the internet had an uproar with millions sending via social media their unhappiness with Wendy's about surge pricing. Wendy's has now announced that the customer has spoken, and they will NOT be implementing surge pricing.

Ford listened to their upset customers, GM has not realized that their customers are not happy about the lack of Android Auto / Apple CarPlay and I think this will bite them big time.

32 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

There are fanboys of every company though. I know people who think GM is perfect, Ford is perfect, Toyota, Honda, Merc, BMW, Audi, etc. 

Somebody here was trying to convince others that the Ultium rollout hasn't been a complete shtshow. 

Yes, they started the Ultium rollout well and then it went downhill from there. Sad that GM could not bring in new fresh blood that knew how to build software and instead relied on old, outdated approach by those playing politics. GM has really screwed up and I think this back peddle to hybrids will work in the short term, but they should have never walked away from it as they worked on their EVs. Volt 2.0 should have been rolled out into many other models while they worked to bring EVs on. 

Sadly, I think GM has given up the race to Hyundai/Kia/Genesis who is still moving forward with rolling out EVs while they sell hybrids.

Ford while excited for them, the recall problems across the board has me very hesitant to consider them. At least unlike GM they reversed course and committed to Android Auto and Apple Carplay. GM will find people will not be happy with that being taken away.

This is another pet peeve I have is that the Cadillac Lyriq will continue to support Android Auto and Apple Carplay, but the rest of the EV family will use GM's customer Android Software interface, not supporting the Android Auto/Apple Carplay.

At least Honda did it right with their Ultium Prologue in supporting the cell phones as they said, their customers stated that was a requirement to buy a new Honda auto.

Why GM cannot seem to understand this is beyond many folks including myself as I do not see buying another GM product as long as they do not support the cell phones.

1 hour ago, trinacriabob said:

What I had really meant to say:

It's not news that we're living in ways that are more and more disconnected.  

Cell phones are great, especially in public places and on transport.  However, some people, and even "older" people, now think that "conversations" can be carried on in their entirety on a cell phone.  It's so bad that a sibling's kids couldn't call their grandmother (my mom) for her birthday because, well, it was relayed to her that 'they only text.'  (They have to use a phone at their jobs.)  Have I mentioned that I don't like most millennials?

So, what I've got with a few people is that they want to have conversations this way.  It turns out that their texts dribble in over a 4-hour period on a given day or evening when I'm not expecting them.  If you decide to have a phone call, you can consolidate what you have to say across the span of those 4 hours by thinking about what you need to talk about and getting it down to 30 minutes or so.  And then it's done.

The most normal friends I know text briefly for 1 or 2 iterations and then we set up a time to talk every 2 weeks to a month apart.

* end of rant *

I am a hybrid type of person, some things are just easier to do to stay connected through out the day that text msg just works better for than a couple of seconds call. If it is family or a special event like birthday, anniversary, etc. I totally agree that a phone call is required.

2 hours ago, trinacriabob said:

I didn't vote laugh because of the content, which is serious and sad.

I voted laugh because ...

There's an axle ...

... and then there's Axel Foley

Considering the Toyota Frame failures and now axel failures, I agree sad if anyone gets hurt, but way to funny that peeps think Toyota is this perfect company.

The Beverly Hills Cop series is still great to watch even today. Yup some politically incorrect moments in the films, but they were part of that generation.

6 hours ago, ccap41 said:

I don't hate the looks of their current lineup for their respective segments. That next gen Enclave looks AWFUL though. It's almost the definition of a badge-job. They changed the badges and front fascia and called it a day. 

Yup the Badge engineering has come around to be terrible again.

OUCH Major recall as Toyota axel can separate from the auto causing a crash.

Toyota Announces New Recall: Over 683,000 Vehicles Affected In A Week (msn.com)

Buicks new tag line, "Exceptional by Design"

The Next Era of Buick is ‘Exceptional by design’

1 hour ago, Drew Dowdell said:

There is one very important distinction with the battery; this is the first Hydrogen Fuel Cell that offers regenerative braking.

That is a cool to know feature, sadly I doubt it will make much of a difference.

At least Honda had the brains to know that customers still want Android Auto and Apple Carplay. That is a smart move for them.

WOW, a total compliance auto with underwhelming power and range in a market where hydrogen fueling stations are closing and at a cost that makes it hundreds of dollars to fuel a tank full.

I guess write it off against profits as Like the Toyota garbage, they will have to give these away for near free.

Toyota is already giving stupid $40,000 discounts to just sell the few that they do make and offer you to borrow an ICE auto when you need it to drive longer road trips.

Toyota Offers $40,000 Off a $67,000 Car - Kelley Blue Book (kbb.com)

Looking at the images, guess you have to be a honda fan as the interior is just hideous to me and the exterior mirrors the rest of their product line but is just blah.
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