Drew Dowdell

Now now, he does have a point. Crossovers sell better than sedans, but sedans sell better than small hatchbacks.

okay, back on topic.....

There are only 2 vehicles currently on sale in the US that are built in China. The Buick Envision and the Volvo S60 Inscription (long wheelbase model).

The Buick Enclave Avenir is built in Lansing Michigan.

Some newer GMs have a similar but more clunky sound that happens on take off, but doesn't change with speed. I haven't figured out what it is yet. My current guess is that it might be active grille shutters closing.

Thank you! Going forward, I'll be 39 every year.

It's distinctive enough that I can hear any time a Chrysler product comes to a stop at the stop sign near my house... the Minivans are definitely the loudest.

It's not capacity, it's skill. On the Model 3 line they are operating the robots manually. That runs completely counter to Musk's claim that they'll be ramping up to 10,000 a month when no one in the industry runs a single line at that speed. I forget the statistic, but I think Ford has one of the fastest producing plants out there (F-150) and that one plant can't even manage 10,000 a month.

Given what the day is tomorrow, I'll let the age joke continue till the 8th... and then...

I thought all Chrysler vehicles made that clacking sound when coming to a stop. I know every Chrysler minivan does it and the Journey too.

Well... no... there would still be that little issue of building them which seems to be a challenge for Tesla at the moment.

That's today, I'm talking 10 - 15 years in the future. The charging infrastructure is going to be going through some rapid development over the next 5 years. Charge times will drop, range will increase, the number of charging stations will grow. I'm participating in the development of some of the new charging infrastructure as part of my day job. One of Tesla's big mistake (in their list of mistakes) was not offering a high range verision of their cars instead of only the high performance version. With the battery capacity they have, they could have made a lower powered "Eco" model that goes 300 - 400 miles instead of just 250 - 300.

I was 25 when I joined...

Yes. The battery is upwards of 30% of the cost of the vehicle, depending on range and vehicle price of course. The Bolt would have the highest percentage of MSRP sunk in the battery of all of the vehicles on the market today. You're overthinking my simplicity argument. I'm not saying that an EV powertrain is simple to manufacture, on the contrary, assembly labor costs per unit are likely more expensive because of the need for Clean Rooms for assembly, etc. What I'm saying is that there can be far far fewer variants of the powertrain design. Manufacturers can have a single physical assembly that replaces 5 to 8 variants of ICE. Just change the software for performance differences. Tesla can upgrade you to a more powerful model over the phone as soon as your Visa authorizes. Not having to build a 10-speed automatic transmission would be a benefit to any manufacturer. The kinds of cars you and I love @ocnblu are already toast. I'm sure your Compass is fun as far as new cars go, I enjoyed my drives in them, but there is nothing like the soul of the older stuff. It's all 4-cylinder automatic Camrys, Accords, CR-Vs, and RAV-4s these days. If buyers cared about soul, those wouldn't be the biggest sellers out there. My prediction that when EVs reach price parity with ICEs wasn't wishful thinking.... it was a warning. The moment a Camry can pick an ICE 4-cylinder Camry or EV Camry for the same price, the ICE's days are numbered. The manufacturers will respond by raising the prices on ICE cars in order to push people into the vehicle that is more cost efficient for the manufacturer to build. That's what they did with V6es... they're pushing us all into Turbo-4s instead. That's what Ford is trying to do with V8s in the F-150 and has done in the Expedition and Navigator. Didn't anyone notice there are only two V6 mid-size family sedans left on the market today?

A completely loaded Enclave Avenier AWD is $59,720, and the equipment that gets you is very competitive. A completely loaded XT5 is $66,230... so an XT7 will go higher.... much.

Who's paying an average $200 a month in maintenance? Maybe a used Benz owner... But in all seriousness, 20 years is still too soon for it to be the majority of transportation in this country. Product plans are being put in place today for vehicles that will hit the market in 10 years. While I do agree that automation will increase... the half life of vehicles is just too long for the transformation to happen that quickly.

Care to expand on why you think that?

That's a pretty big chunk of cars. I thought this was a story about a month or two ago and BMW said there wasn't any problem.

Aside from the name, which I dislike, Avenir is mainly for China. U.S. tastes are no longer Buick's priority.

While he may be right eventually, I think his timeline is a bit too short. I'd guess 30 - 50 years only because of the long period of turnover for vehicles which is only growing. I regularly encounter, while driving my 35 year old car, other vehicles of similar vintage on the road. My 13 year old Honda is as common as anything out there, enough so that I have to look for the faded Mile 0 sticker on the back window to make sure I'm getting in my own silver CR-V and not someone else's. Even if we get widespread adoption of autonomous cars on the market in 10 years, the cars that are new 9 years from now will likely still be on the road in 2042.

What's everyone think of the updated front page?

A Honda rep this morning - "95% of Hondas sold in the US are built in the US"

You mean pricing the car higher because of the implied savings at the pump? At the moment I think only Tesla can sort of get away with that, but it's more of a Tesla prestige price rather than an EV savings price. Tesla does some pretty deceptive lease pricing by factoring "gasoline savings" into the lease price they present. Volt, Bolt, Leaf all seem to be priced a bit on the high side, but in the case of the Bolt at least... GM seems to be losing money on every one they sell. And yes, once EVs hit mainstream, they won't be able to price gasoline savings into them, however, I do think they will be more profitable for the manufacturers to build, so in essence, gasoline drivers will start to pay more for their cars than EV drivers do. Again, this is 10 - 20 years in the future by my toss of a dart. Once EVs reach price parity with ICEs, the ICE is toast.

I mean if the policy being discussed is industry related.... it doesn't mean that we should get into the weeds on the healthcare debate just because the auto manufacturers issue health insurance. In the case above, it was the head of the Dept of Energy talking about how fossil fuels are needed to prevent sexual assault... which is simply ludicrous.... yet that same department has information for EVs on its website.

Sure, why not. Highly informative threads like this make C&G fun! I re-learned a bunch of stuff today re-reading this thread.