Suaviloquent

I like the interior, looks pretty techy, as it should for an EV. Is that a drive by wire shifter I see?

If it can deliver the essence of luxury and be able to really communicate it as well, it'll move the brand forward. Have world-class panel gaps. Meticulous material selection and craftsmanship. And frameless doors. Yes, that would really help. Options galore, but realistic pricing as well. Quality of implements available first, not quantity. And give it some kind of lasting competitive advantage. I like the 30 way massage seats standard, and killer audio... basically a lazyboy massage concert in a car. Quiet refinement. High quality lighting. Bunker like build, and decent gusto. Now not having rwd is already going to make it a tougher propostition for those who want prestige first. So Lincoln's gotta make it up elsewhere. They better make sure it isn't another fancy Taurus or a fresh Acura RLX competitor. That would be suicide. But I really liked the concept's looks and interior, so that is the winning formula they must preserve transitioning to production.

I expected the Colorado to clobber the Tacoma.

It kind of reminds me of how a bullet train's front end is curved and how the locomotive cab is all streamlined. In person, the 200's sheetmetal looks very fluid and all looks like it's all formed from one piece. It looks spectacular in white. Hopefully this does the same.

Can threads stop being so adversarial? We're all salivating to defend our stoic choices of brand preference, but it just leads to unnecessary back and forth discourse with predictable results. It's like an elephant in the room. You can easily predict exactly what someone would say based on their previous posts. I find it extremely, incessantly ridiculous. Threads don't have to be positive. But please folks, don't continue to be as political as the worst of politicians. If you can't concede an inch, that doesn't make you right or the other wrong. Move on, keep the threads moving. Because at this rate, every single one is at risk of devolving into nonsense.

It's very interesting the new midsize truck dynamic. I think people really want more choices, they want more in this segment. So Ford, and Ram, please reconsider. A Dakota and Ranger would really round it out again. Maybe it's similar to the downsized crossover craze?

In cases like these, it's never about the absolute value of damages. There's no effective means to quantify. But that doesn't mean responsibility is whisked away. VW vehicles worldwide probably emit on orders of magnitude far lower than anything out there. It won't be penalties levied that will skin VW alive. And it shouldn't be at all.

It's the only car that I can think of that's just so honed to its mission. Sure, there's compromises, like any car. But it defies expectations for a car at any price; and yet it undercuts anything worth it's salt performance-wise. This is raw performance. Kind of like how a Miata is raw fun.

Absolutely. And Job security for contingencies such as volatile gas prices.

I think one issue of contention has to be the movement of production to Mexico of certain models. There's a very likely chance that if gas prices go up, that the suv/cuv craze will halt on its tracks. If the compact, and other lower margin products are assembled elsewhere, that only means loss of production and loss of jobs in America. I think it's a zero-sum game. And I think UAW will probably go after Ford to if the deal isn't good enough for the planned movement of production away from (Wayne? Correct me if I'm wrong). And if the chicken tax does go away, then there's going to have to be huge incentives required to make a Ranger truck in the U.S. I do not like the shifting of production away from U.S. Even though the manufacturers would definitely increase profitability, I do not want to think about the negative externalities.

Fall has arrived and things are getting hectic.

Well, since according to EPA total vehicle volume the Honda Fit should be bigger than a Mazda CX-3... I'll take a Mazda CX-3 as my pipsqueak vehicle of choice. Two if they get their diesel past industry setback now know as dieselgate.

I think something was lost in the essence of what a Tesla is with what they've done. It going to sell, no problem. But I think this means the $35,000 Model 3, will come with serious compromises to reach that price point. It'll be an interesting development. And it also puts a lot of weight on the Model 3 to meet their 500,000 units sales goal by 2020.

Of course, hyper, if every company had to internalize the risk of polluting the environment, we'd have no cars on the road today. But sadly the rules, the way they were enforced before weren't stringent enough. If VW's only competitive advantage is diesels and the U.S. market's regulatory environment too strict; the only prudent thing to do was to never attempt to sell diesels here. Or go through the necessary hurdles no matter how meddling. But how could any company internalize the risk of harmful emissions, you say? Well, pretty simple; list the potential liability as limitless. That ought to allow the bean counters to scare the engineers from doing something like this. A cunning and practical thing to do was deception. But ultimately questions raised by private concerns, not the government led to this series of events. Now you tell me, is it the U.S. government being so strict, or did their lapse of judgement; their allowance of letting manufacturers 'self-test' that led to this? Who asked the questions? If the academics didn't, would it be fair to say VW would not be in a hole that they are in today? Yet someone, somewhere would have had their health degraded due to proximity to harmful NOx emmissions. Even with strict rules, government didn't get in VW's way. So the only logical critique of the regulators is how untimely their regulating activities really are. Incompetence is forgivable, but actus reus with mens rea, isn't.

Why is anyone defending VW here? Its way off-base to think no one in the top brass of VW knew anything about it. It's extremely difficult to pull out content of vehicles in general, and it needs some sort of oversight to make sure the tracks are covered. Now I have nothing against VW. As long as they pay their fines, pay their dues, find a solution; then they're out of the hole.

Obviously, it's the Ford F150's industry changing aluminum construction that has forced Rolls-Royce's hand.

I just got the renewal notice for the domain name... .and for the first time ever... I hesitated. That's what some people around here are making me feel about my own website. Yeah, but sometimes the traitors come from within. The downfall of this website won't be caused by people like Bong, Ccap, Olds, Cp, and a myriad others, proven, reliable and the real deal when it comes to class. My interaction with this website is sheer amusement. And balking at stupid rhetoric. Or petty entitlements.

You know the biggest advantage about diesel fuel efficiency has to do with the fact they run on homogeneous charge compression ignition, and then recirculate exhaust gases to pump more air into the cylinders. If HCCI becomes feasible for gas engines, there's going to be massive increases in FE and reduced engine complexity. In other words, diesel engines work just fine, but the alternatives that might just be possible; will just kill it, or make it extremely uneconomical. Basically it's gonna be a product with a negative and high reduced cost. As for this truck; yeah it's gonna give heat to a lot of different trucks. But it will not be a viable business model for GM on a large scale. The reason why it is packaged the way it is, is because GM does not want this truck to be any threat to the Silverado. They want the enthusiast and the mid-size buyer. People who weren't going to buy full-size anyways. Plain business sense.

Olds, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But if there's any angle the U.S. has on this, is that VW might get a deal, a 'plea bargain' of sorts. Here's what I think: -VW will eventually pay a fine somewhere within their reserved of $7.3B. I expect it to be about half of that, and that's the worldwide fine total - Developed countries U.S. and Germany (which VW is moving production AWAY from or have small presence entirely) may get VW to cough up more investment dollars -HyperV6's plausible timeline of solutions and similar circumstances is right on the money Industry wide fallout is greater scrutiny with diesels but: - Any industry from primary, manufacturing or service sectors with a heavy utilization of diesel; such as major construction, agriculture and courier, long haul trucking as well as conventional (in a sense) heavy duty trucks will get preferential treatment as to the emissions of their vehicles. Whether it be testing intervals or actual compliance with regulations or anything in the red tape. - Passenger car diesels will see a setback in North America, but it's not unrecoverable. - VW will have to rethink their strategy of cost-cutting. Lets see here, 3 strikes in a row. Toyota suffered because of cost-cutting. GM suffered because of cost-cutting and here we go VW, fresh butchered meat, suffered because of cost-cutting. But again, it's not a completely bad situation.

The F35? Every detractor says its a pig; while the U.S. military brass and Lockheed say it's the best thing to come after I can't believe its not butter margarine. The escalation of commitment by the U.S. DoD and concurrency have shredded the fighter apart. Now seriously, the thing has been in development for over a decade; and they have to retrofit every single one built thus far until they finally finish development. What a waste of time. It's the Acura's NSX of the Aviation industry. It's just never gonna be finished; because probably most of the design is compromised - either the Chinese or Iranians or North Koreans stole something about it; or some parts are already obsolete; or the fact that in order to keep cross-sections lower they lost some desirable characteristics of a fighter. It's a one size fits all solution. It's going to replace conventional fighters, assault aircraft, fighter bombers, and stealth reconnaissance planes. It's not particularly fast, it's got a relatively short range; it's armament is reduced because of no fixed external hard points, and really it's only strength is stealth. In a world where technology evolves so rapidly and the disruptive nature becoming so apparent... if there's any advantage that this jet has; it won't last long against other, powerful nation states that could be potential combatants in the future. But sure, let's overkill the little mujaheddin fighter who stole a Mig-21 with a missile from miles away. I just think it's a hack. I don't particularly like Harper nor Mulcair; but I don't believe in Socialism; and Justin Trudeau... can someone show him the door please? If the minor recession in Canada is being caused by oil only, then it's safe to presume boring Harper is the only sensible choice. What would Mulcair do? Tax the stuggling oil patche companies, and pander to unions or support disgusting Metrolinx. Neither are things I want.

House of Cards. Goddamn Kevin Spacey, too good. And the opening music is just delicious.

VW's biggest problem is their marketing and distribution, after this debacle. Every VW dealer I've been to has had high pressure sales staff, terrible inventory. Their marketing of their core vehicles is non-existent; and it's because the VW Group does not want VW to poach Audi sales. And, they are incompetent when it comes to growing through their existing base. VW thinks people give a damn about German engineering. Except the customer demographic that buys Camries, Cruzes; Equinoxs, Edges, the staple products of all the mass-market brands; NONE of the buyers want German engineering. None. They want : reliability, quality, safety and value. All of those being weighted equally high, and 'value' includes F/E and upfront costs. And I don't think VW hits any of those marks really that well. Besides, their terrible infotainment systems; and decontenting of models has left them is a space where they can attract no one expect the most die-hard of fans. Don't get me wrong, the Golf and Touareg are the best vehicles they make; but they are not vehicles that can sell well. A Golf does everything an A3 does really well. So really, they split sales of the SAME pie. VW has to bring their product prices into the realm of buyers that could make their sales go up. Now if those same consumers think VW already skimps on reliability; then where else could they think VW may have cut corners to build a product at a price, not to a standard. Their Jetta is a turd. Their Passat, while nice; it just makes you salivate when you see the overseas version. Sure, when they lauched the 2012 model, sales spiked. But now there's no steam left. The product was just left to sit, the updates no the least being meaningful; and their cost reduction efforts still could not afford parity in standard features relative to other makes. For example: In the midsize space Ford and Mazda, did quite the opposite to what VW did, respective to the 2012 Passat and 2013 Fusion, and 2014 6. Both the Fusion and 6 answer the question of 'premium styled conventional mass-market sedan' better than VW. How could they have let that happen? The last Passat was a premium product for the time. They didn't have to lose the style. VW needs to show some humility, and do what Hyundai had to do to gain traction. Namely, that's price reductions and adding back content to the vehicles. They won't succeed without a market penetration strategy, where they have to operate either cost-recovery or even in the red; (they're probably already in the red) and give people more for less to build their rep. Now these recent events have forced their hand; but this is a strategy they should have employed long ago. I predict VW sales will tank in the U.S. And if they ever recover; they'll only be in the same failing predicament they were in before this crisis.

It looks terrible to me in the trims other than the LT, and again market share gains at the loss of segment leading margins. It's a trade-off, not a win-win. Each side has its advantages. GM's probably depreciating the capital very quickly to manufacture so much more trucks comparatively than the past. while Ford has maintained the same sales volume but charges more per truck. Different means to increase cash flow and raise capital, but looking at the success of high margin auto sales - namely luxury sales; high profits per unit have handily trumped incremental profit through volume time and again. But, GM gets its trucks on the road, people see more of them, and they might join the herds; but then they're only still catching up to Ford. They still can't command the higher prices Ford charges. In the long run, it isn't as much about how much each vehicle development program costs, as much as the profitability of a product line and getting the favorable mix, while still being a sales leader. I think Ford could easily relinquish the top sales crown by tightening the vice-grip on the high margin sales. In that case they free up capital to invest into other products, not into just churning out more F150s. GM on the other hand should increase their prices. It's a logical step to increasing profitability.

I like the product on its own, but it's positioning seems a little iffy. Sure, it takes up a market all to itself, and it beats rivals current and defunct handily, mostly because of its pretty good value proposition. But I don't know if the appeal of a Mustang and Camaro convertible is lost onto this model.

Then again, the `~$38,000 dollar fine per vehicle probably accounts for the latent damage. I mean $18 billion dollars would bankrupt VW, but if they could cough up the dough... Let's continue this convo in the VW thread.