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New cars are just for rich people now

jalopnik.com

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Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#111

Post by marssaxman »

trilbyglens wrote: post #104
sandworm101 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safety is also the driving factor in vehicle size. We are in an arms race of constantly increasing vehicle complexity and mass. The safest vehicle to be in any two-vehicle crash is almost always the bigger one . With mass comes cost. The irony is that vehicles are now ridiculously safe in comparison to decades past. Regulators who for years improved safety by leaps and bounds (seat belts, crumple zones, anti-lock bre…

Motorcycles are absolutely not a solution as anyone who has ridden will tell you.

Not a solution to what, exactly? Motorcycles have satisfied most of my everyday transportation needs for many years now.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#112

Post by eesmith »

ftxbro wrote: post #108
eesmith wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Ford was about as anticommunist as you could get. He was a strong anti-Semite, a conspiracy theorist who railed against "international Jewry", who paid to print the fabricated 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in the US. He was absolutely against unions. His private police force used violent opposition against unionization, like the Ford Hunger March and the Battle of the Overpass. And…

> What are you talking about? Ford was about as anticommunist as you could get. He was a strong anti-Semite, a conspiracy theorist who railed against "international Jewry", who paid to print the fabricated 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in the US. they would call him a communist, and also an anti-semite

You haven't said why they would they call him a communist, only asserted that he would.

People use "communist" as a generic slur - there's probably people who called Joseph McCarthy a communist too.

Is that really the point you're trying to make? That calling someone "communist" has no meaning these days?

Otherwise, you can read how in 1923 Ford wrote that communism has failed. In his own words, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.260931/page/n1...

"As soon as [Russia] began to run her factories by committees, they went to rack and ruin; there was more debate than production. .. The fanatics talked the people into starvation. ... Bolshevism is now crying for the brains and experience which it yesterday treated so ruthlessly. All that “reform” did to Russia was to block production. ... The same influence that drove the brains, experience, and ability out of Russia is busily engaged in raising prejudice here."

"The reason why Bolshevism did not work, and cannot work, is not economic. It does not matter whether industry is privately managed or socially controlled; it does not matter whether you call the workers’ share “wages” or “dividends”; it does not matter whether you regimentalize the people as to food, clothing, and shelter, or whether you allow them to eat, dress, and live as they like. Those are mere matters of detail. The incapacity of the Bolshevist leaders is indicated by the fuss they made over such details. Bolshevism failed because it was both unnatural and immoral."

Shortly afterwards is his philosophy:

There can be no greater absurdity and no greater disservice to humanity in general than to insist that all men are equal. Most certainly all men are not equal, and any democratic conception which strives to make men equal is only an effort to block progress. ... It is the larger men who give the leadership to the community and enable the smaller men to live with less effort."

He believed him to be one of those larger men, and his methods the way to get smaller men to live with less effort. Which included being able buy his cars.

That's not communism, that's the utopian paternalism of American technocracy.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#113

Post by adammarples »

marssaxman wrote: post #111
trilbyglens wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motorcycles are absolutely not a solution as anyone who has ridden will tell you.

Not a solution to what, exactly? Motorcycles have satisfied most of my everyday transportation needs for many years now.

Not a solution to carrying passengers, or lots of bags, or in snow and ice, or very long distances, or going somewhere you don't want motorbike gear and helmet to worry about. I love my motorbike but it's not as practical as a car for lots of things.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#114

Post by frumper »

Spark_Ed wrote: post #18
tdba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, Ford put his money where his mouth was and dropped the price of the Model T by 5x over the production period. Very hard to imagine today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_product... > I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the b…

Thanks to Ford being sued by Dodge and setting the precedent that you must operate in the interests of the shareholders and not the customer or your employees.

I mean, Ford could have also not sold shares(ownership) in his company then they could do what they want.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#115

Post by dwaltrip »

xigency wrote: post #103
Spark_Ed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to Ford being sued by Dodge and setting the precedent that you must operate in the interests of the shareholders and not the customer or your employees.

So if a company wants to cater to customers and employees first it needs to be organized as a co-op?

I believe there is also the option of structuring it as a “public benefit corporation”.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#116

Post by falcolas »

notadev wrote: post #46
falcolas wrote: post #37

If you're purchasing a new vehicle for over $40k, you're getting scammed IMO. There's a lot of great electric and hybrid vehicles with good reliability history. But if you want to look like a _____ in a lifted dodge ram, well, we'll be happy to give you plenty of room on the road to roll your coal.

The same can be said about all the ______ driving their status symbol Teslas.

You're probably right. At least a Tesla can't be modified to roll coal. Yes people do that. Yes, they're absolute pricks. And at least most Teslas don't have their light bars at head height thanks to the lift kits. Nothing quite like the inside of your car being illuminated like it's noon at midnight.

But in the end, I'll take a pretentious prick over a malicious prick.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#117

Post by falcolas »

sp332 wrote: post #54
falcolas wrote: post #37

If you're purchasing a new vehicle for over $40k, you're getting scammed IMO. There's a lot of great electric and hybrid vehicles with good reliability history. But if you want to look like a _____ in a lifted dodge ram, well, we'll be happy to give you plenty of room on the road to roll your coal.

Do they actually exist on dealer lots now? For a while there, big cars and pickups were the only ones available. And dealerships were marking up electric cars so high that manufacturers got mad and started threatening them. https://www.motor1.com/news/569524/hyundai-genesis-avoid-dea...

Vehicles are rolling onto the lots quite a bit right now. Manufacturing is catching up.

However, they're rolling right back off the lots too, after 3+ years of shortages.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#118

Post by falcolas »

a_subsystem wrote: post #59
falcolas wrote: post #37

If you're purchasing a new vehicle for over $40k, you're getting scammed IMO. There's a lot of great electric and hybrid vehicles with good reliability history. But if you want to look like a _____ in a lifted dodge ram, well, we'll be happy to give you plenty of room on the road to roll your coal.

Show me an electric passenger truck that can pull 20,000 pounds.

Do you tow an excavator or bobcat behind your truck often enough to justify purchasing one given how high the ongoing costs will be?

But even then, Dodge does offer their 3500 at a base trim that's only a bit over the $40k bar I set (about $45k for the Tradesman trim). And you'll be foregoing electric for a few more years (or purchasing specialized construction equipment).

I have to say though, this is a bit of a different usecase than a family purchasing a car. Such a vehicle is going to be more of a work expense, after all.

Re: New cars are just for rich people now

#120

Post by marssaxman »

adammarples wrote: post #113
marssaxman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a solution to what, exactly? Motorcycles have satisfied most of my everyday transportation needs for many years now.

Not a solution to carrying passengers, or lots of bags, or in snow and ice, or very long distances, or going somewhere you don't want motorbike gear and helmet to worry about. I love my motorbike but it's not as practical as a car for lots of things.

It's funny - I find cars to be less practical than motorcycles for most of the trips I take, for example whenever traffic or scarcity of parking are involved - which is most of the time! - and if for some reason I could only have one vehicle, I want to say that I would choose the motorcycle, because life without it would suck; but then, a car actually can handle all the trips a motorcycle can make - comparatively slow, expensive, and annoying though the process may be - whereas there are a minority of errands one occasionally has to run which a motorcycle cannot handle at all. So perhaps the real answer is that it's too much to expect any one mode of transportation to handle every need.
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