Suaviloquent

Ehh, it's just better to put it on the shelf and let it catch dust. If you see it again anywhere, you'll know why the instant it happens. Anyways... RANDOM THOUGHTS!!! I have a midterm tomorrow that I did the practice questions too, eventually got the right answer, looked back at the solutions... waited 5 minutes, did the questions ... again and then said to myself "how da dafuq did I get the answer the first tyme?"

If that's what qualifies as a refresh, then I give up. It looks all-new to me. Except the steering wheel.

I'm talking about stuff 20-30 years from now, which is then maybe when additive manufacturing might make sense. Building a car nowadays requires A LOT of robots. A LOT of different production lines. A LOT of different stations with different tools because assembly is a sequential process. What additive manufacturing can do, is do even more of the "casting" of one part to replace 10s if not 100s of parts into one piece. So you're still going to have assembly, but it might just be a scaled version of how to build LEGOs...

Yeah, but the rest of the interior looks totally all-new. They've already almost gone all the way...

What I mean by a trail is actually road that just happens to not be made of asphalt. I'll stipulate 50.01% of the trails that a Colorado could go on (sans Z71), the Ridgeline can perhaps also go on. There's the "mostly" aspect. Like even some wheel articulation - it'll handle it. If the FWD based AWD Subaru Forester can tackle South Africa, I'm pretty sure that the Ridgeline could as well.

And a glorified Honda Element with a pickup bed to carry tools, 2 by 4's, and few panels of plywood is perhaps all the truck the vast majority of truck buyers really need. I see some contractors on work sites stepping out of family sedans for the job, so I really believe that the difference in capabilities, while real, are immaterial to most buyer's actual needs.

Expenditures on major R&D, due to accounting rules, well, not U.S. GAAP, but in certain situations cans be componentized into assets instead of being just expensed. Uh, I think you might be forgetting that other automakers also plunk down a ton money for R&D. Ford and GM's capital spending has been fairly neck and neck, and other things would only be disclosed to shareholders.

A lifestyle truck might not be a recreational truck. I think the Pilot...er Ridgeline should be capable enough to even have a dirt bike or ATV in the bed (if it fits) and go on most trails that a Colorado could. Now a Colorado outside of Z71 or Trail Boss isn't quite as good as a Tacoma. It might not get sales, not because it is not a capable truck. Mostly Honda might have an issue with whether the product even fits their current brand identity. Has Honda ever been known to built hard-core, off-road or a tough working person's truck? The domestic companies and Toyota has specifically built an image in the public's eye for doing that, even though most truck buyers just buy the expectations, they hardly ever go off-roading, and if they do, they hardly do the technical stuff, and by that point that person would not get Ridgeline no matter how capable it might be.

I might add, that in a better economy, GM should be outperforming Ford - by a lot. It's because GM has finally gone back to its initial successes of having a stable of well-differentiated brands in terms of their target buyer's perceptions of brand image. The only laggard had been Cadillac to an extent, but if that can be improved, and it looks like it will, GM has a superior position in the market outright, in North America atleast. That's something that Ford lacks. Its something that even Honda or I might dare even Toyota lacks. What Lexus really is the backbone cash cow that is the RX and ES. The others, while profitable, are not what the Lexus brand would say are segment leaders in sales, which counter-intuitively they also don't carry as much exclusivity either, so they fail to extract the most value they can command in terms of their price point to the consumer.

GM has also had a recent product assault bonanza. No other automaker is having that same level of new products being introduced anywhere. I don't know why everyone just compares GM and Ford together. Many of GM's small truck sales have actually be conquests from Tacoma buyers. As a whole, GM is doing better, because arguably, GM is finally building excellent products. And many automakers, not just Ford have to be prepared for it. Honda has been so piqued by small truck sales that they have their Ridgeline to be even closer to what buyers basic care factors of a truck lifestyle and then the explicit want of a very car-like truck, in a smaller, nimbler but no compromise package. I suspect the Ridgeline will ride even better than the well riding GM twins.

Actually, read all of the first drives of the Model X, and the third row has very decent legroom, and you mention ingress and egress? Each seat in the second row can power forward individually, because they're mounted on sleek posts instead of anchor points, and they also articulate forward, with a small ark, the pivot point being the under the floor, so the entire seat moves forward. They're premium now to be able to sell arguably very expensive technology. Their models is to eventually enter the lower priced segments. Aren't a few people here all up on that top-down approach? Especially a few certain fans of Cadillac and Cadillac-based Chevys? I know I'm one of them, so I by default agree on what Tesla is doing.

Nice simple article, and good points. But we kind of already knew that Trax and Colorado were vehicles that Ford does not have. But, honestly, GM has continually outsold Ford for a long time. I mean it's not much news really to say GM sells more, and more. Ford's a smaller company.

The next big switch in automotive will be additive manufacturing. That's the holy grail. I don't think carbon fibre will be viable for mass production. And then they'll be a Moore's law on that stuff in terms of getting the accuracy of depositing material to mere nanometers to even just single atoms if it's possible - and doing it in real production time frames.

That's fine, I agree, there were many examples too of shoddy examples of Japanese makes. But that goes against though why people bought the cars. Any car well serviced should be pretty reliable.

And the thing is to add to Mr. Viper's excellent addition of today's rationale... I do not aspire to own a Tesla. In fact, quite the opposite, I still want some cars like those with big honking V8s to remain in some form - as long as there will be a way to pay fairly for the inefficiency of theirs. Electric cars are so relevant. Many people do not want droning engine noises. Many people do not want to ring out an engine for its power for fear of precipitously deteriorating its components. People want quiet, silent cabins. Lastly, if only people could really imagine life without gasoline stations - without having to pay even $20 to fill up their tanks, if they could see it for themselves like Teslas are able to do today - they'd defect immediately. The car buyer wants these things- these latent needs. When they are articulated by the experiences that define a product, then, truly there is transcendence. Call it whatever you want, but people should be rooting for Tesla, even if they don't want any of their products. Because above all else, Tesla is a small nimble disruptor to the industry that for the sake of its own survival cannot pursue high margins or ridiculous profits at this point because everything it does is to secure a future for itself, which means really just electric vehicles. The worst I've heard here is that some believe they don't build world-class vehicles. Yet they're beating world class companies and their products in quantifiable metrics of performance. They make a hyperbole of fuel efficiency and high performance. They give more value to their customers -as they should in order to entice buyers. But like Drew said, some people are never satisfied, and Tesla is fine with not serving those people, because they really don't have to. All of their production capacity is already solidly booked. They're just a capital monster at this point, and feeding it will be the life or death of the company. I hope they succeed fully and really continue to do just crazy things.

But most people have positive point balances as far as I know. I guess I was kinda oblivious. But we did see dumb down-votes every now and then for a while (the perks of being an admin or newb mod in my case - you can see who votes up or down) which would get up votes to balance it out or top up the balance, even if in my case usually I would be indifferent. When do I downvote? I do - just very infrequently. Maybe in a bad month, perhaps once. In a good month, never. But yeah, when you read stuff that is just gorging on a brand agenda, so add doom and gloom for automakers known to be trying as hard as they can... you can't help but feel like that isn't the kind of discussion anyone would want here. Actually, now that I think about it I follow Surreal's Anti-fan mantra and Old's ready-fire-aim mentality as well as Drew's patience pills and ccap's quest for answers logic and a whole host of stuffs. A whole amalgamation of the best methods and practices, no shame in ripping off other's, no sirreee.

I would hesitate to say they were great vehicles. If you've ever heard of the Metro Foods chain's Food Basics or Discount Loblaw's No Frills, that's what I'd consider the Ford Escape from that time. It's like the Krogers I guess of America. It's not whole foods, It's not the Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4 of that time.

Those two twins were not shoddily built actually. They just had an antiquated platform, and somewhat chugging fuel mileage. I would go for the Duratec V6 euipped models just because I don't trust any other engine they might have had. You might not get ESC, and a lot of people say that's like a must have safety feature. They had good visibility, so your eyes will make excellent backup cameras.

I never knew there was a abuse of +/- stuffs. Where the f*** have I been?

I'm pretty sure the work that went into making Omega will keep the platform relevant for a long time. Besides, ideally the Omega platform was supposed to have a product out a few years prior to now anyways. And still it has just remarkable properties. Alright, maybe 10 years. Not 20. I was thinking of the Panther when I said that platform, but that was just a run of the mill platform that became the Crown Vic we all know as a Police mainstay. But Imagine a Police vehicle made on Omega 10 years from now just for the kicks of getting some more juice out of it. Police fleets would salivating all over for that mind-boggling juiciness. EV platforms are all going to be the same. Subframe - battery - Subframe sandwich.

The used car market has been terrible for buyers recently... How about a last gen Mazda Tribute? It's a completely rebadged last gen Ford Escape, so I think it might still qualify for your domestic brand preference. Basically the difference between the two is the same as the Ford Crown Vic and Mercury Grand Marquis, so there's really no difference other than a different front end clip.

The Viper ACR is incredible. I would reckon though that you have to be able to survive just how much the car punishes you to deliver the kind of performance it is capable of. So aside from race car drivers, there is not much left for the Viper. And really, it should be a car that has limited production runs. If it's a long-term production car, then it will need some real support, some real corporate back-bone to do it. Now the Corvette is the everyday hero sports car, but I'd still say it's not an exotic. And it has developed a reputation for greatness on GTLM class racing, but I'm not sure if that pans out for real endurance like the Monster ACR in the Z06 production car.

Anyways, GM's done a lot of good platform stuff recently. Actually, this is terrific news. Now GM can work on other things we wish they did more of - transform the customer experiences of Cadillac owners, for example. Change the brand identity of Buick to something very fashionable and stylish. GM is thinking like the company that needs to continue to get the most of out their platforms. Squeeze the margins, make as much profits as possible, and amortize the f*** out their best platforms. So, yeah. Well they shouldn't tunnel vision, and then it'll be fine. What it also could mean is that the effective use of platforms could change. You might find Omega being used in a Chevy 20 years from now maybe, because it might just have amazing longevity, given what it does for Cadillac now. It won't be like how the last Impala was just a 20 year old barge. Well, technically it'll really be the same, but we know it won't feel like that.

Porsche's the only one to double-down and they're going for something before 2020. I guess it'll be a 2021 MY sold in late 2020. All Tesla has to do is to remain very differentiated. A lot of companies right now, other than the top-end are making highly substitutable boxes on four wheels. You really have to screw yourself over to get a bad choice in the compact crossover segment, for example. Or look at the midsize sedan segment. The only real reason why I'd say to stay away from the 200 is because I would stay it's a legitimate concern that this specific car doesn't have a future viability and parts may become hard to source in the future. The thing is, Tesla's core buyer is probably extreme disloyal to any brand in particular, and would only defect from Tesla if they really couldn't deliver the product as the entire customer experience. For example, it's going to take multiple large automakers to all agree to build vehicles to a common standard and offer something like Tesla's supercharger network. And for the next 5 years, I bet even if they could, it wouldn't be free.

Yeah, they did say that the 70D would be late availability. So I guess sometime mid year 2016... The real problem is that Tesla is finding it quite difficult to sell the lower battery size models. Everyone wants the 85 or 90 kwh battery models.