Because you clearly know exactly what their financial situation is... And the car that their parents drive is perfectly representative of their level of education and future potential saleries... [/s] in case its needed
A family that has old Japanese stuff worth a couple grand isn't one to buy a '13 Sentra for the kid. It's not a rule, but it' s a damn good statistic. Actually, the Sentra is so crap, no family is the one to buy one.
At least in the US, governments at both the federal and state levels have at various times subsidized the production or purchase of electric vehicles, attached benefits ("smug lane") to their use, etc. Also, their efficiency makes them an easy out when dealing with increasingly-ridiculous "standards must constantly get tougher" fuel economy and emissions mandates, which are well past the point of diminishing returns. Thus, even if governments don't directly mandate the production of electric cars (which the State of California has tired to do, and which several governments over in Europe have tried to do slowly by banning the production of liquid burners past a certain date), they do "encourage" the production of crummy BEVs in various ways. I don't mean the no-name internet clickbaiters, I mean the alphabet news networks that airports, gyms, and lots of other places have playing around the clock - most are majors sources of climate alarmism. They really are off-the-charts left-wing, and they do have an agenda to push - just listen closely sometime and see how much loaded language you start to pick up. Thus, you'll have to excuse me if I don't trust them to be entirely impartial (though before you say anything, I never said that conservative news sources were any better about this. Impartial news is difficult to come by these days.) Major and probably original sources of Chicken Little climate predictions that are guaranteed to not come true, but will be treated as though they are irrefutable anyway. Without climate alarmism, there would be little need or market for BEVs. On one hand, this is true, on the other, Fiatsler at least is very chummy with the Bilderberg crew, so who knows. As I mentioned above, climate scientists have already been caught falsifying results to support a predetermined "CO2 will kill us all" narrative, but way too many people either don't know this or think that's a lie. I guess competence isn't really necessary when you can blow enough smoke to distract the vast majority of people who are too busy/gullible to know otherwise. Also, leaks are a lot less of a problem when the vast majority of the people who surround you also believe in the narrative or at least the necessity of getting the little people to believe it (and guess what - university faculties are off-the-charts left wing too, and straight shameless about using their classrooms to indoctrinate rather than educate.) That doesn't mean you're more advanced than us, that just means your countries have a later stage of the same disease. As for trying to tackle it without soaking anyone, why don't you go ask a few diesel owners, who got incentivized into buying now-worthless diesels that turned out to be a terrible idea after all, how good a job they're doing? Maybe they should just take a hike and let the free market sort it out, I mean it couldn't have done any worse a job than they did. It can be, but there has to be a balance. If your only goal is 100% safety 100% of the time, you end up with this: (Note on the "Native American" joke, for people who won't get it and will just think it's racist: it's a dig at a specific US politician who almost certainly is not a descendant of any native tribe, but says she is anyway in a blatantly transparent and sadly successful attempt to gain minority cred. Well, successful until she ended up becoming the butt of jokes like that, anyway.) We don't necessarily want people to die, but in the end we have to be able to live too. Besides, someone pretty smart once said that people who would give up liberty for security deserve neither, and it's my opinion that they will eventually have neither. It's not about cultural appropriation so much as it is about doing everything by halves. Too many people anymore only know the highlights of every country's car culture. Japan? Stance, drifting, street racing, and maybe JGTC/SGT. United States? NASCAR and drag racing. Europe? Anything involving the FIA. Australia? V8 Supercars, maybe burnout contests, and more drag racing. The best analogy I could come up with here is, most people's interest in car culture is rather like buying four different hamburgers, eating a quarter of each, and throwing away the remainder. Why not just get one burger and eat the whole thing? Of course I'm still munching on mine, but at least I'm not running around claiming to know full well what all the others taste like, though Japan has been so freaking overexposed that I've had a nibble like everyone else (I doubt many of the scenesters running around claiming JDM permeates everything they do have actually taken much more than a nibble). Forza Horizon 3 is a perfect example here. I'm sure they put plenty of effort into capturing Australia itself, setting up cameras to watch the sky and whatever, but the fact that there are LHD cars in that game at all (with LHD being, as far as I know, blanket illegal in Australia) shows how much of a rip they really gave about capturing authentic Australian car culture - i.e. none, it's just another pretty background for the same old show and almost (there are some Australian cars, but the list is still only scratching the surface) the same old list of supercars and cult classics, just like Colorado and the Riviera were and just like England will probably be. I go to hot rod shows, and I come away feeling like the only young person, or one of the only young people, there who wasn't dragged there by an ancestor. Wrinkles and gray hair and Vietnam veteran apparel everywhere. How much are these people going to take with them to the grave? How much lore is being permanently lost because people are only interested in whatever [insert popular car culture news source here] is feeding them? I fear there will come a day when I'm the last person left on earth who even knows that Japan didn't invent mountain pass racing with a cartoon in the 1990s. I'm not really sure. Maybe it's location or the way I deliver my message, but I've seen a lot of people who just did not care. The problem with trying to be inclusive is the possibility of diluting ourselves to death. From what I've seen, this process is already well in motion. Besides, you've got it backwards; the reason so few people are interested in cars is that onerous laws make it difficult if not impossible to build attractive, tunable, fun-to-drive cars that people can actually afford. In today's dollars, the 1971 Plymouth Duster 340 would have cost $19,368.54. Very few new cars are available for that little money, and none of them have V8s or RWD, or are as quick, or as good-looking, or as tunable as the Duster. I get what you're saying; what I'm saying is that ideas like "most people aren't car enthusiasts, therefore most cars can and should be boring" need to go away. When it comes to surrendering, the French have nothing on modern gearheads, and sooner or later we'll surrender our hobby into oblivion if we don't change course. I actually agree with you here. I don't want to kill the planet, I just don't believe cars are going to do so, or at least that we've done everything we need to do to keep them from doing so. Diesel, however, is just super trash. Supposedly, a true diesel master like Gale Banks can tune a diesel to not smoke at all, but I'm not sure that will take care of the particulate problem, considering that OEs don't seem to be able to do that either. All very good reasons to want an NA. Too bad they're going extinct, and the practice of "downsize + boost everything" actually has defenders in the car community. For all that, you have my respect. That was actually my original beef with the "numbers people"; they tend to say things like "Well the DCT is 0.2 seconds faster to 60 MPH and more convenient in traffic so why would you even want a manual anymore?" Seriously, manuals are disappearing fast enough already, they don't need people like that helping them on their way. I wouldn't quite say that yet; as far as I'm concerned battery-electric is still the absolute worst power system for a car. I might have to rescind that respect I have you earlier. Buying or even indicating support for BEVs tells manufacturers and regulators that there is a market there, which will result in more of them being brought to market... which will result in them taking over the secondhand market it a couple of decades.
Ending this discussion right now with a new topic... Chevrolet, can you actually f*cking design anything, or are you purely uncaring of what the vehicle looks like?
You're sayin' all this, but it's pretty much an American MDX - midsize CUV, big grille, floating pillars.
Nah, looks more like a '19 Silverado-'18 Terrain fusion mess: Also, the grille of the MDX isn't as tall as the damn grille on the Blazer. It's more like the Chevrolet version of the NX, where the grille is so wide it touches the lower aero of the front bumper.
The Escala looked better than this, and that was a Cadillac concept that GM denied to be placed into production for stupid reasons. If you want a better-looking Blazer, just go back to the original Blazers. (not trying to sound too demanding, but it'd still be better to look at)
Here's a render of a modern 2-door Tahoe. I don't know why Chevrolet hasn't done a 2-door SUV in a while since the late 90s Blazer though.
Then notice how much coupes have we lost over the last 4 decades, how many former 2-door-only cars have a 4-door-option replacement and how CUVs and SUVs pretty much replaced personal luxury coupes.
Here's a (rough and quick) render of a 4-door VW Up. If they already did it for the pre-facelift, why not do the same with the facelifted Up?
I actually don’t hate it. I think the grille is a little big, and it doesn’t deserve the blazer name, but the looks are ok.
Was expecting this to be much worse: Incredibly impressive on the part of everyone involved in designing that car.
