munche

Whatever demographic you want to say is buying entry level new cars, they don't have a way in to the Ford brand, that's the point. Domestic cars have benefitted from brand loyalty for a long time, with the whole idea being whatever car you move to next they have something to offer you. They just decided no entry level buyers needed to enter the brand anymore, and now here they are.

The lack of hatch is a big factor as to why I've never gone Subaru. Their hatchback/wagon WRXs look so fuckin good

I'd eat that sandwich

Focus sales in 2016-2017 were within 10% of what Focus sales were in 2006-2007. They just did the CEO move. Cut all your low margin stuff, report Profits Are Way Up and Number Go Up so you get your year end bonus, and 5-10 years from now is another guy's problem.

Honestly if your company makes you talk to Joe in HR once a week so Joe can book your rental car reservation then the quality of the rental cars is probably the least of your problems at that job

I used to own a Focus ST. I've owned 2 cars since but I haven't set foot in a Ford dealer once. They don't have anything to offer me as a customer.

Remember this when Ford keeps talking about their "Sub $30k" EV It'll be the same as their $20k Maverick and their $40k Lightning, gone immediately if it ever exists

Killing their car lines was terminal Next Quarter thinking. They ended popular brands because they felt they'd sell enough higher margin vehicles to make up for it, so now they killed the entryway into their brand for young buyers and they don't have anything to offer buyers when the market tastes shift to smaller more efficient vehicles (like when gas prices shoot up) Epic own goal

If you're traveling regularly you are booking your own travel, albeit within the limits your company sets. If you're regularly booking with a specific company you generally get points which can lead to free upgrades or other perks. They almost always try to upsell you on the lot and if you're really that hard up you can just pay the upsell difference out of pocket to try something funner instead of a shitbox.

Yeah we use National through work and I generally was able to find something that's Fine. When I was feeling froggy I paid a bit extra to drive a Giulia for the week. The car group I hang with has a bunch of folks who frequent Turo, and every time someone gets a Turo for our meets it's like a 50/50 that the car will be fucked up in some way. Bad tires, shit falling off, just not available at all.

They're treating it as a system with disposable parts because they make money selling you the parts + it saves them the effort of having to set up a service network

And the funnest part is even if you use the specific commands sometimes it'll just do some random ass bullshit instead

I use(d) Google Assistant extensively for smart home and basic "play this song" kind of things Now that it's an LLM it gives long verbose answers that are often wrong and everything takes \~50% longer.

they put Gemini into my Google home and now it fails to do basic tasks like 40% of the time "turn off bedroom lights" has worked for years and yesterday it said "What bedroom are you talking about?" (there's only one configured with lights in it) They put Gemini onto my phone and now asking it to play a specific song it'll pick a random ass podcast in a different app instead when before it reliably just opened YouTube Music

Rethinking my interest in the R2/R3 I don't want an LLM guessing at what I'm trying to do when I just want to turn the AC down

Consider who is in charge of our federal government right now and ask yourself how interested you think they are in passing rules for highway safety

Literally the only thing that happened is the NHTSA was directed to make a rule to do Something about impaired driving. The deadline has passed twice and neither time have they actually made a rule.

And the relevant bits since nobody reads past a headline on reddit: >The law directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to codify rules for “Advanced Impaired Driving Prevention Technology.” The agency missed its 2024 deadline to establish those policies but was granted an extension, which is about to expire. In a statement to Kelley Blue Book, the NHTSA noted that it “continues to evaluate and analyze the information contained in the more than 3,000 unique comments received in response and to conduct the research and other activities described” in its report. A law was passed asking the NHTSA to implement rules for advanced impaired driving tech. They have not yet made these rules nor have they said what rules they're thinking of implementing. Everything else is just people speculating and surprise most of them just imagine the most annoying possible thing and pretend that's what's happening.

How is it an unfair comparison to compare the Tesla to an efficient sedan? If you're worried about fuel costs your obvious shopping list would be for efficient vehicles I'm sure it looks great if you compare fuel costs with a Jeep Wrangler, because everything is more efficient than a Jeep Wrangler. "This car is a great deal if you count the fuel savings, but only if you compare it to inefficient vehicles. Also you're only allowed to look in states that are the most favorable to this car" Meanwhile I can save $23,000 in 5 years driving a Honda Civic Hybrid over driving a Model 3, and sacrifice literally nothing. Fanboys gonna fanboy man but show me the math. I actually did research and the Tesla was actually more expensive than I thought it would be, and you did nothing and were like "My favorite car is still the best, you proved my point"

Electricity is $.30 in CA and $.15 in FL. It varies wildly. So does gasoline. You need to math out how much you spend in gasoline for a certain mileage and vehicle vs. your price in electricity. When you add up how much gasoline something like a Prius uses, it's not actually that much money. Maintenance is also just a big assumption without data to back it up. How much are the tires on the EV and how much are the tires on the Civic? What kind of equipment is in the $35k Civic vs. the Tesla? How much is the insurance on your Tesla vs. the Civic? People just assume "EV's have cheaper fuel and maintenance costs and that makes up the purchase price" but then fudge all of the actual specifics on any of that. Probably because that's how Tesla markets their cars. So let's use a more detailed source. Edmunds does a great job of considering all of the factors, so let's look: [https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-3/2025/cost-to-own/](https://www.edmunds.com/tesla/model-3/2025/cost-to-own/) [https://www.edmunds.com/honda/civic/2025/cost-to-own/?style=402036389](https://www.edmunds.com/honda/civic/2025/cost-to-own/?style=402036389) In my zip code, the 5 year TCO for the Honda Civic Hybrid is **$42,206** The 5 year TCO for the Model 3 RWD is **$65,318** So yeah, the math doesn't math. It's not worth an extra $23,000 to me to just be driving an EV. And that doesn't count the cost of installing a charger into my house.

If you're starting with "I need an EV" as your primary and main priority and nothing else, this makes sense. If you're starting with trying to find the best vehicle for your needs, this argument has a lot of holes. For starters, where does the depreciation end? No idea on the floor for most of these cars, but the prices on early Leafs and i3s aren't encouraging. "Buy used to get cheaper" also works for everything else. I can get a used Prius in just about any price range if I'm shopping used, and those are cars with incredibly low running costs and a proven long history of reliability. Which brings another point, which is that most EVs have absolutely abysmal reliability ratings compared to ICE cars from the same manufacturer. When you compare something like a Prius to an EV, your fuel costs can even be lower depending on how gas prices and electricity prices compare in your area. The vast majority of people who talk about how much they saved on Gas with an EV don't talk about how much they spent on electricity. Maybe they have cheap electricity and expensive gas and it works for them? That's awesome. When you treat the electric powertrain as just one of the many things in the car that has it's own pros and cons, it's often pretty hard to make the case work in an awful lot of cases.

Right. Chevy's styling is awful, and I've had terrible experiences at their dealers. If I want a small EV that's relatively affordable, I have to settle for Chevy or nothing. You have to understand that for most buyers they aren't going out with "I need an EV" first and everything else secondary. Could I buy a used EV? Sure, they've depreciated like crazy and lots of them are very cheap. Now I'm also gambling on a used car, and the majority of used EVs on the market are first generation products from manufacturers who may or may not support them in the future. It's also hard to say where the floor is for these expensive cars that are depreciating like rocks. Will I be upside down on my loan in 3 years? Who knows. That's a lot of concessions I have to make to save a bit of money on gasoline, and it turns out if you're buying efficient cars and not an F150 to drive everywhere, gas costs are a lot more manageable.

I'm not anti EV. In fact I'd like to make one work and run the numbers every few months. In the new market, the EV premium is still too high. You're basically paying the price of a full class up of ICE car for EVs. Then you also need to be able to charge at home or lose most of the advantage of an EV. Plus everyone making these comparisons always leaves out the cost of their electricity, which can be pretty expensive depending on where you live and what your power source is. The math just doesn't math. Car payment dollars are the same as gas station dollars, and paying $10,000 more for the purchase price you never average out. In some situations like your b4zx, sure, it sounds like it worked out. When my wife needed to replace her Mazda 3, the price premium we'd pay to get an EV over getting, say, a Honda Civic was huge. Plus the cost of adding a charger to the home. I think people forget that just because something isn't a problem for \*them\* doesn't mean it isn't a problem for anyone. You can make almost any vehicle work in most situations, but people are looking for their best overall choice and frankly fuel costs are massively overblown compared to the other costs of owning a vehicle. People are just oversensitive to it because you have to pay for gas each time you fill up rather than an autopay that debits your account once a month.

For some reason, people think the money they spend on gas is Real Money and money they spend on their car payment is Fake Money They'll happily pay $200/mo in extra car payment to save $100/mo in gas

"icon" as in the emblem of gray haired old boomers who never drive them

Insurance rates are high because the way these EVs are built tends to make repairs more expensive. Add to that that many models are new or niche so parts can take a long time and the longer the repair takes the more it costs the insurance company. The design philosophy on a lot of these cars is keeping cost/complexity down by making much larger assemblies than in previous cars, and that means when you need to do repairs on those things it can often take much more labor.

Yeah I think people like to imagine these situations where it would be great to have a car that seats 7 but then in reality unless you're hauling around a bunch of kids every day adults aren't generally super keen to pile into the back of an SUV to go to dinner or whatever. And in the rare event you did need it you could rent a car for the weekend.

I'd trust a guy who's driven all of them a lot more than someone who just wants to see their faves win

How can you show how cool and edgy you are if you say a good thing is good? Sounds like something a circlejerking diva would do You gotta say it's actually overrated so you show how cool you are

"overhyped" "circle jerk" are just reddit brain shit "everyone thinks this so i think the opposite" isn't an opinion it's just contrarianism

Yeah nah this is still 100% reddit brain. You gotta be more normal my dude. It's a great driving car that's been showered with accolades from basically every professional car reviewer. That's not an "echo chamber" that's just people saying a good thing is good. "best driving" doesn't mean "best period" and I'm sure if you think nice interiors are important your "best period" car would be a different one. But this contrarian need to think that anything people like is inherently bad because other people like it is just like 1% better than liking whatever the default is because you don't know any better. You gotta put more thought into it.

I think it's because like - idk about the poster above but the Boomer generation watched a bunch of cars that they considered normal and unremarkable become worth big money. All of the sudden the cars of their youth were selling for 6 figures and so everyone held on to them. I think that mindset continues - folks see how some cars that were kept unused with the right rare options become worth a ton of cash, and think it's a good idea to just preserve their car for the next owner. The problem is owning a car and not driving it you're just a caretaker for the guy who gets it next. And unless you had a 1% model/trim and held onto it for 30+ years, you lost a ton of money on it

That's Reddit culture. Everything is fake, so the only way to be Real is to be the biggest hater that speaks truth to power

In general Golf is always the answer when you want to slide the daily driver slider up and the fun sliders down a bit, imo.

The Golf R IMO is a no brainer if you want a nicer daily driver that does better at stoplight acceleration than the CTR but they are taking very different approaches to the same thing

On the C&D lightning lap it was also slower around a power heavy track

You just made the same joke I made

"people keep calling a good thing jerk. What a circlejerking meme for them to say it's good. The only way to be authentic is to say it's overrated and actually sucks" That's reddit brain dude you gotta pull up

The person who enjoys it in 10 years will appreciate your financial sacrifice of not enjoying the thing

It's okay to say good things are good I know redditors are trained to think the only thing that's authentic is screaming about how bad something is but the CTR is actually a legit good car

It's the same as any 20 year old luxury brand car They are complicated, lots of things break in them, all of those things are expensive and time consuming to fix You aren't buying Cayenne parts down at AutoZone and you'll be paying the Porsche tax on all of them. You look at that price and think there's no way this price is legit, and you're right. The reason they're willing to let it go at that price is because that's how badly they want it gone.

How is "No they just spent a whole bunch of money on a product that won't sell" not "something is clearly wrong with their operations" You just said the same thing as the post you're replying to Their car prices are in the stratosphere and they managed to burn a bunch of money on a product they can't sell to the point their profit dropped 93% That's a problem in their business

My personal opinion, EVs are treated by manufacturers and customers much more like tech products than automotive products. And almost everything on the market now outside of a couple of models is a first generation product. Will the tech be relevant in 5 years? Will it still be getting updates from the manufacturer? Will there be some new charging tech next year and you're stuck sitting an hour where everyone else charges in 5 minutes? Then there's the history: What history? These are new models, on new platforms, with new drivetrains. Are they going to be reliable long term? Who knows. Are they going to have the same range in 5 years? Maybe! Will the experience using the UI of the car be decent on a 10 year old EV? Or will it feel like using a 10 year old cell phone? There are an awful lot of unknowns on top of the fact that the entire EV category has inflated prices up front compared to ICE cars in the same class.

The "Why" is up for debate but look up the prices for used EVs, especially high end ones. You can get a Lucid Air Pure that's 1-2 years old with 10k for half of MSRP. The Taycan 4S was $120k+ new and you can get them for under $50k now.

Every conversation about car reliability devolves into "Every source that reports about reliability is wrong, but my vibes are correct"

Using anecdotes to confirm your biases isn't "practical knowledge" That's what compiling and comparing data is

Consumer Reports rates vehicles individually The Bolt doesn't have an overall for some reason but the reliability ratings by year are all over the place, from 16/100 to 78/100 with an average score of 46 over the 7 years they track The current Trax has a predicted reliability score of 69, significantly higher So this proves my point. People just assume EV = more reliable no matter how much data shows it's actually the opposite.

I meant timing but both are correct

People need to realize that software failures can be just as crippling as mechanical failures The meme of "There are less moving parts in an EV and therefore it's more reliable" assumes that you just ignore that moving a bunch of the car functions to software means software problems make things not work. It doesn't matter that your motor didn't fail if you can't start the motor due to software not working. All EVs have been more riddled with problems than their ICE counterparts, because developing complicated software is also incredibly difficult to make work reliably in all situations and these automakers are just learning how to do that vs having decades of experience at it

The Model S is also heavily advertised as a car that drives itself and it turns out it actually crashes a lot