Drew Dowdell

This is the spiritual successor to the Neu Beetle. Retro, cute, but this time a modern powertrain and roomy enough for people/families to actually buy.

Because they operate as separate companies that share tech rather than the GM model of multiple divisions that develop together.

@smk4565, did you hack into @balthazar's account? Jaguar/LR are barely the volume of the Denali trim at GMC. I wasn't speaking of volume, I'm speaking of differentiation of purpose. Defender and Discovery buyers are not cross-shopping against the E-Pace or F-Pace, they're looking at the Lexus GX, or maybe Yukon Denali or Grand Cherokee Summit if they're open to brand-slumming it. E-Pace and F-pace buyers are going to cross-shop with Macan or X4/5 or GLE "coupe" or the Infiniti QX70 if they still made it. The Genesis GV70 and GV80 are direct broadside torpedo shots to the GLC/RX/MDX (the XT5 should be here, but it's so outclassed on the interior I can't put it in the list with a straight face) and the GLE/QX60/Aviator respectively. These are the big cushy cruiser crossovers. What I'm saying is there is room for KLB to do a better Defender / Discovery / GX460... or an Escalade/Navigator/LX (hybrid or EV only of course) then add the Stinger with a substantially upgraded interior and a "rugged" small EV (think Baby Rivian) and you've got yourself a luxury brand that doesn't overlap with Genesis.

You're thinking old style rebadging. That is exactly what I wouldn't want to do. Where Genesis is curvy, KLB should be square. Where Genesis is plush (and their higher trims are very plush), KLB should be firm and restrained. Designed with function in mind rather than flare.

Yes... but they'll compete for different people. The LR Defender and the Lincoln Aviator and Acura MDX and Porsche Macan and Lexus GX460 all start at around $50k +/- $5k Are you suggesting that there is a lot of cross-shopping between those models just because they're the same price SMK @balthazar? I'm suggesting that Genesis looks at the GLE/Aviator/Macan buyers while while KLB does the more off-roady, woodsy Defender / GX buyers There's nobody left that has two luxury divisions around the same price class except perhaps Jaguar-Land Rover. But it is exactly them who I would point to as an example of suitable differentiation. Their issues aren't from competing with each other but a host of other things.

That’s why I’m suggesting that they do not overlap, but hit different “styles” of luxury. Genesis takes on the metro-chic luxury of Mercedes. KLB goes after the woodsy “I own a working estate In Connecticut” like LandRover and the Lexus GX/LX

From the mail bag.... occasionally I get these e-mails regarding this 10-year-old article in protest to @Blake Noble's conclusions.... usually, they're just one-line retorts calling us stupid... but I got this one last week and it was very well written. Dennis says: "I would disagree with your review of the Chrysler 2.2 - I had cars with both the 2.2 and 2.5 - my mom had an 83 Plymouth Reliant with the 2.2 and auto trans - she drove it until she quit driving at about 160,000 miles - when we sold it. I did have the head off once I believe, or maybe just the valve cover gasket - the main thing on this car is that it needed to be tuned just a bit out of specs for it to run right - if set within specs it would not run well at all until warmed up. Frustrating thing is that the mechanic showed me that it made very little difference in emissions tuning it to the place where it would run great. The car was comfortable, had one a/c repair at about 100,000 miles, roomy, and I thought it was an attractive car - hers had a nice dash and interior - unlike the ugly cars of today. I did try to keep this car well maintained - so that helped no doubt. But at over 160,000 miles, it was running great, not burning oil, and got great gas mileage. The 2.5 engine was very smooth, but I would take the slightly better gas mileage of the 2.2 over the smoothness of the 2.5. And the 2.5 still sounded not-sporty at a stoplight in my 87 Daytona" Dennis, we love to disagree with people and we love when people disagree with us. It's part of what makes this site fun. So please consider signing up and join in the fun.

The Camaro is an example of a product that is probably best in class for its purpose but no one wants it because the only people who can afford it and live with a sports coupe are too old to get in and out of it. The people it is marketed to want SUVs because they are building their lives and households and need to haul crap home from Home Depot.

The Facebook group is celebrating but there is still a lot of bitterness about it. Even if every single person reinstates their original reservation, the trust of the company is broken and it will not be forgotten.

*rushes over to facebook*

A lot of people on the Rivian group are saying exactly that. There are those who are saying "I could afford it, but RJ (the CEO) lied to us and now I've lost all faith in the company. I've canceled my order". Rivian needed this Fanboi base like Tesla has. They royally screwed the pooch on this. The stock is tanking for good reason. They pissed off the fanbois. I'll try and post some screenshots later.

This is actually Rivian's second bait and switch. The first was when they promised all of the reservation holders early access to the IPO. Then they advertised the IPO at a certain price for a month or two. Then the share price shot up a lot right before the IPO. There are people who reserved their Rivian on day one of reservations who still haven't gotten theirs. They had their configuration submitted and their price agreed on. Now they're getting e-mails of $15k - $20k price increases on their reservation. That's not how reservations work.

Up to. Yes, depending on the options selected. There is also some slight of hand by Rivian as well where some things stayed the same price but were decontented. Like the new standard battery pack has 54 miles less range while the original battery spec went up by $6k in price. Some optional paint prices went up $1000, and every color but silver is an optional color. One of the interior colors went up by $2k. So right there, getting the old standard battery, a paint color, and an interior other than black and your cost went up $9k. Still want the original spec quad motor AWD instead of the new standard dual motor AWD? That’ll be another $6k. Hitting a $15k increase with just 4 options is pretty easy to do.

You can't go by base prices because the price of a bunch of the options was inflated too. I'm on the Rivian facebook group and there are post after post of people's reservations jumping from $75k to $95k. Lots are posting screenshots of their cancelations as well. It's unknowable if those are just a loud few, but the comments sections are long and what it has done is turned what was once a total FanBoi group where Rivian could do no wrong... I.E. Telsa-Lite Fanbois, and turned it into a Rivian Hate group. Horrible public relations move.

Well that went smoother and faster than expected. I still have some SQL server tuning to do, but ... we're here.

Hi all... it's that time again. The current server was installed in 2016 and it's time we pack up and move to a newer build. Because I have some other web projects going on, the power of the new server is significantly increased over the last one, so I'm hoping to get some big performance boosts to the site. We're talking going from my Encore to a Hellcat in terms of power. That said, this software is still rather bloated, so there is still an upper limit to how fast it will go no matter how much processor I throw at it. It will be a fun experiment. Also... there is 96 gigs worth of data to transfer, so we'll be down a while. I'll probably kick off the transfer at 5:30 pm my time. Please be patient. Thanks, Drew

Kia is nothing like pre-2000 Plymouth. They have unique models and they don't share styling with Hyundai. There is no Soul equivalent at Hyundai, there is no Veloster equivalent at Kia. Kia has the Carnival while Hyundai has nothing. Even the Palisade and Telluride have different personalities visually and the Telluride is slightly more capable off-road.

Tsk… you know quite well that at over a liter per cylinder that engine was all about the torque

Absolutely. Those pictures were from my trip to Miami and Key Largo over the holidays.

Well keep in mind that while Hyundai owns a controlling interest in KIA, they still operate pretty independently by modern standards. They are much more independent than any of the American brands are from their parents.

You were probably out and about when you were pre-symptomatic though... unless someone exposed you and you KNEW it when it happened, there was a lag time between when you were shedding the virus and when you started having symptoms.

Shot 1 - No side effects.. slightly sore arm that night Shot 2 - Feeling icky about 24 hours later, lasted a couple days, but no sore throat, cough, or any other respiratory issues, just a feeling of tired and blah. Worked from home that week and just took it easy. Shot 3 - Feeling icky about 24 hours later, went to bed a little early that night, woke up feeling fine. I felt a lot less icky than you did. You sound a lot more like when I had the bad case of Strep rather than what I felt like from the vaccine... though I didn't even have the cough from Strep. That said, I had one of the stronger reactions to the vaccine than most people get. Albert had no reaction to any of his shots beside the sore arm that comes with any vaccine and didn't miss a day of work (he can't work from home). You still didn't answer the question though. How many grandmothers did you kill? How many dads did you put on ventilators?

I don't want to get sick at all. Having Strep a couple weeks ago was plenty for me thanks. I also don't want to spread it to others if I did get infected... and vaccinated people have significantly lower viral loads than the unvaccinated. There is no upside to not getting vaccinated. None. Interestingly, there is an mRNA vaccine for HIV that started human trials in the last week, plus another technique using a gene therapy called CRISPER that can cut the virus out of an infected person's DNA (HIV imbeds itself in DNA, that is how it is able to hide from the body's immune system).

No. That is categorically, absolutely, completely false. There are breakthrough cases of stuff we get vaccinated for as children regularly whenever herd immunity is broken. The MMR vaccine (2 doses - 3 years apart) is 97% effective against measles, 88% effective against mumps. They've also found out that people my age need MMR boosters because the effectiveness of the vaccine we were given as kids wore off unexpectedly. I had my MMR shots redone in 2016. The Tetanus shot drops from 75% effective to 12% effective in about 4 years. Hep B (3 doses in the first 15 months and then restart the adult series with 2 doses after age 21) has a 90% effective rate that drops over time for 20 years.... but the vaccine came out in 1995, another in 1996, and the Hep A and B combo in 2001, you may not have gotten them. I did my series also in 2016. It takes 4 doses of the Polio vaccine (4 doses - 5.5 year spread) to reach 100% effective and the doses go from 2 months old to 6 years old for the entire series HPV (1 dose) is 86% effective in teenage women, and 71% effective in women over 20, but they won't even start administering it until at least 9 years old ate the minimum and many providers won't do it before 14. They only recently started offering it to teenage boys / adult males and they waited this long for stupid sexist reasons. (men are usually asymptomatic carriers so the doctors didn't feel the need to vaccinate them even though it was the men that were transmitting it to the women). As such, there is no data on the effectiveness in men yet because it rarely ever gets detected. Of the childhood vaccines, only the Chicken pox vaccine (2 doses - 5 years apart) meets your criteria of being 100% effective. They all require boosters, many with multi-year intervals. Many of them have their effectiveness diminish over time. The mRNA vaccines are around 93% effective at preventing hospitalization from infection, and 80% effective against any infection at all. The degradation of the effectiveness has nothing to do with the vaccine, it's your body's immune system having the memory to keep making anti-bodies. Unfortunately, just being infected with covid does not provide the same protection as getting vaccinated does and your body loses that memory even faster because it never gets the second dose unless you get infected again. Again, they work fine. Take it up with your body that the virus fighting memory diminishes over time. The vaccine is gone from your body 5 - 7 days after your shot. But this is an insanely selfish, self-centered, view. How many people did you infect in your pre-symptomatic period? Which chemo patient did you kill? Who's dad is on a respirator now all because you sneezed on a shopping cart? Just because you made it through doesn't mean you didn't infect someone else. Boosters every 6 months is a small price to pay to not kill someone. One last chart to counteract your claim that the vaccine is not effective. In the unvaccinated population, there are 9.75 deaths per 100,000 cases. In the vaccinated and boosted population, there are 0.1 deaths per 100,000 cases. So even the old talking point of "99% survival rate" is clearly not even valid.. it's currently about 90.5% for unvaccinated, but earlier this year was lower. Look at the difference in those lines... you still want to say that the vaccine is not effective against preventing deaths? It would take 970,000 vax+boosted people getting covid to equal the number of deaths from 100,000 unvaccinated.