The Oshawa plant has been doomed for years. Back in 2008/2009 they wanted to close it, and they made no promises to keep it open for after 2019. The UAW workers at the plant make over $30 an hour, with some of the employees who have been there longer making over $40. I've seen and heard first hand how they brag about how they do practically no work, but get paid more than everyone else (who doesnt work in a Union). The workers have been doing their best to bleed the company for every nickel they can get, and now they're crying foul. I have zero sympathy for them.
Lots of cuts happening here in the UK too. Jaguar LandRover announced today that they were cutting 4500 UK jobs. Ford also announced today it would be cutting thousands of UK jobs after profits fell 82% last year.
This is a really nice in depth overview of the new Rivian models that may be released in the future. What they are promising seems pretty cool. Just to give a small highlight, they are claiming a wading depth of 1m (3.28ft). And that wading depth is limited by the cars buoyancy, so they state (presumably unofficially) that if you load the car up with more mass, it can actually wade deeper.
I'd probably say that is somewhat of a pro. With the screens being a bit big, the things on them are not extremely tiny and hard to press like they would be on a small screen. And with the screen on the Ford being higher up on the dashboard, the driver probably doesn't have to take their eyes all that much off the road. I'd reckon they'd be able to keep the road in their peripheral, rather than look away completely. TBH, the price of the screens probably won't make that much of a difference compared to how much the rest of the vehicle is worth. I still like it. To me it's not over the top or too bland. Not to mention it still looks like an Explorer.
That's not an Explorer. This is a true Explorer: --- Post updated --- The interior worked just fine with just a average-sized infotainment screen, not a tablet-sized one.
Fiat Chrysler have now received their penalty for cheating US emissions laws. Some of their cars had software to detect lab testing, and would disable emissions features outside of the lab. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/fiat-chrysler-settles-in-lawsuit-over-diesel-emissions-cheating Essentially, they didn't sell as many cars as VW, so they aren't getting hit as hard. However, ... So if you own an affected vehicle, expect some changes I guess? Its expected the total cost to Fiat Chrysler (including fines) will be somewhere around $500 million.
I know didn't look at the rims close enough and just assumed it was from the ford's above and to be fair it was 3am for me.
The new Peugeot 508 looks really quite nice imo. Its great to see some of the classic Peugeot lines from their older cars reappearing.
The classic Peugeot wagon had three rows of seats and still more cargo space than this turd despite being shorter. How I miss the times when a wagon was a work car, not a lifestyle vehicle.
And folded like a tin can when impacted at greater than 30mph, with far more road noise and generally less comfort.
Unfortunately there's these things called the laws of physics. They generally tend to dictate what is possible. Any improvements within them are fair game, until you remember about something called economics. You can have any 2 of the following (Relative to cars already on the market): More Affordable Better Possible Of course, its more like a set of sliders, where each equals 1. Then you have 0.1 left to allocate per each new generation of car. Since they do incrementally get a little bit better (for the average consumer) overall over time. All of that said, from what I can find the current 508 is about the same length as the 504 that I assume you were talking about. They are both 4.8m long. So the size is no different. The difference is where that size is. Here is a very approximate size comparison
I'm looking at the Ford Racing parts for mine. Gonna combine them with a full header-back exhaust and an 89 octane tune. Should be good for 50 or so HP. i love the way modern engines respond to basic breather mods and chip tunes.
I know, it's amazing. I straight piped mine already. No mufflers, and Y-pipe where the resonator was. Fairly good increase in power and sounds great, for a 4 cyl. I'll probably tune mine later...