moneyarchy DOESN’T owe humankind viability!!
moneyarchy DOES owe concentration-of-wealth exclusive-rights.
What is surprising about that inevitability??
Feudalism is humankinds ONLY consistent form of civilization.
While Nature does democracy ( ungulates, dog-like animals, birds, etc ), humankind’s nature is too egotistical to tolerate egalitarianism or equal-validity or democracy ( we even gaslight ourselves about “democracy”, consistently labelling representative-republic “democracy”, which it absolutely isn’t:
it is “1-times removed” from democracy, & that’s its intent )
Why would this change before humankind had experienced near-fatal-consequences-of-ignorance??
The near-fatal-consequences are about to be on humankind, throughout this century, but … concentration-of-wealth as an economic-paradigm, produces exclusion-of-as-many-as-possible.
How can anybody be surprised about it?
THROUGH crushing inferiors, glorifying superiors. That’s how “class” based validity works: always been about excluding the biggest majority as it can, & always will be, unless human-nature changes.
That is its point!
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I’m told that Americans only want big expensive cars but for some reason the government felt the need to slap 100% tariffs on small inexpensive Chinese cars.
Because Chinese cars are priced at a loss to corner the market and put competition out of business.
Meanwhile VW and other manufacturers make smaller more affordable cars, but they don’t sell them here.
That’s because the goal isn’t to sell you a car, it’s to saddle you with a $50K debt obligation they get to sell off.
Exactly. If they were incentivised to encourage the best vehicle for the customer they’d be talking most people into a subcompact or minivan
nobody buys them. sales for such vehicles are tiny compared to larger cars.
it doesn’t make sense to sell subcompact cars if you only sell 5000 of them a year.
BYD and Xiaomi profit from their EVs.
- Dogmatically sticking to fossil fuels.
- “Protecting” domestic manufacturering jobs by refusing to engage with your neighbours.
- Using tariffs to keep out affordable Chinese EVs that use tech everyone will probably be using in 15 to 20 years.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster. You can only artificially prop up your domestic market for so long. You’ll inevitably fall behind even further on innovation with this approach.
Might be the first to make a CoPilot or ChatGPT powered car though.
Look, the Chinese EVs are a literal trade weapon. The other points I agree on. But China has subsidies on EVs even when sold to other countries because they aim to put competitors out of business globally. Otherwise they’d just be subsidizing EVs for domestic use.
So I can’t blame them for tariffing those. But the solution is to invest heavily in domestic EVs, not to keep running with internal combustion…
The US heavily subsidizes its auto industry. Why is this being raised as a point against China? It’s not China’s fault that American auto companies use their subsidies to line their pockets instead of creating cheaper and better vehicles.
And countries that have auto industries put tariffs on US cars too. They also don’t get nowhere near as much in subsidies per car sold abroad. And for the EV subsidies, foreign EVs were also eligible.
China also tariffs foreign cars heavily and always has.
From what I’ve seen it wasn’t specifically a global trade weapon. It was more a side effect of central government planning.
There was just a government program to encourage electric car manufacture to boost local manufacturing. They over saturated the domestic market and are now dumping the cars internationally.
Have you been to China recently? Seems like all the new cars sold there are EVs. They’re not just dumping them on the export market.
If they were just looking to replace ICEs with EVs domestically, they’d have subsidies for domestically bought EVs. They instead subsidize production, regardless of where it’ll be sold. Chinese manufacturers can afford to produce at a huge loss right now and still make a profit.
The scooters there are all electric. It makes it scary to walk on the sidewalks because they’ll ride up on them and they are so quiet you suddenly realize someone is about to run into you. lol
Sure China is not some moral or benevolent actor in all this. At the very least they were forward thinking enough to subsidize the future of automobile transport. Some degree of protectionism may be warranted but the goal should be to catch up with China in the meantime, not double down on fossil fuels.
They’re doing what we should be doing. Subsidizing a sustainable alternative.
Canada and Europe have already let Chinese vehicles in. Canada reportedly wants to make an indigineous EV through sharing of Chinese technological knowledge. Wonder how long the US will hold out.
So what that Chinese subsidize their EVs. The US subsidizes most of their industry.
It’s really tiring for people to say what about China doing X, which the US already does in spades.And most US goods are similarly tariffed elsewhere. What’s your point?
We have been propping u domestic car manufacturers since they started making cars domestically. Pretty rich for a “capitalist free market” if you ask me. I forget we don’t get to be part of socialist America if we aren’t billionaires…
I just want a small car I can work on myself. 30 years ago, I could maintain my own car, do some shadetree mechanics…
But all cars today are meant to be black boxes. All need proprietary tools and computers to do almost anything.
Dear Santa, could I have a 67 camaro.
I’m still chugging along doing maintenance but yeah it’s getting ridiculous. Just as a metric: service manual length.
My motorcycles: ~800 pages
My 2010: ~1800 pages
My 2016: ~13500 pages
I fear to see a more modern vehicle. I don’t own anything newer.
A lot of the page increase is all the diagnostic code debugging. Modern vehicles have way too many computers.
I have a gearless (fixie) bike since last Summer, I don’t even have a manual for it, not do I really need one.
Before that I had a fancy e-bike which nobody but the manufacturer could fix. Even bike shops would warn “We can fix the mechanical parts but we don’t touch the electronics, if it fails while we fix it, it’s on you.” and basically saying they would prefer not to fix it.
Now my bike is so basic I don’t care and I think it’s even safer from potential robbers.
So… in my own experience, less is more! It’s less maintenance, it’s less money, it’s less temptation for others, and ironically enough in this specific case it’s even healthier. I use it everyday, from Sunny spring to rain and snow, it just works.
Simplifying is empowering.
I’m very pro simplifying, but you’ll take my freewheel from my cold dead legs. The only part of my bike that I struggle to repair is I still can’t true a wheel despite trying many times. Well also a broken frame
Ah, pesky tiny ball bearings but honestly it’s not so tricky, mostly patience. Also I did welding workshops so naively confident I could actually make a frame, not a good one though! I’m a bit too lazy for all that though so… now I just ride :D
FWIW nobody should use a fixie rather than a freewheel unless they absolutely genuinely want to… because the first moment of inattention initially, being a bump on the road or just a turn they’ll fall over the bike. After a few cold sweats though then it becomes automatic again, no thinking, just riding, and it’s genuinely fun.
I’ll take more complex computers over trying to get KE-Jetronic to run properly any day of the week lol
Honestly, things have gotten easier for me with the extra computers. Usually if something electrical is wrong, there’s a code for it. Can’t blindly trust the code of course, but it’s usually a good place to get started when doing diagnostics.
Kias just a few years ago were copies of late 90s cars at a price reflecting that and low complexity making them efficient to maintain. Take a Kia now, it’s just as expensive as everything else and will be scrapped in 8 years when one of the $2000 proprietary led assemblies fails.
You should try not tariffs.
Car prices were on the rise long before the tarrif crap. Yes the tariffs continue to make it worse, but this was a trend already! As long as people are willing to pay 50 grand for a rav4 with leather seats they will continue to pump their numbers up. I know VERY few people that drove a car more than 10 years old, their afraid it will break down on them when the reality is their newest 700$ /mo POS techno trash on wheels will be dead long before my 87 gives up the ghost.
The symbol for this are the run down ranch houses near me that look like dumps but they have a $70K truck in front.
hugs Civic si
you’ll get all the motors and transmissions you need, widdle guy.
My last car was a civic si. It was a great car.
There was a whole line of outstanding Civic models for a while there. I miss the Del Sol.
Mass transit systems yet? No? Okay, I’ll check back in a decade after this problem has gotten substantially worse.
I saw something about being approved for “up to 100k” for a car loan. 100k for a car? Man, this country is fucked.
There are pickups being made that are more than $100k. It’s absolutely absurd.
And their beds are spotless because they are used just for regular driving with 1 or 2 people. You could do that with a compact car.
But how else can I stick far out into the aisle in every parking lot and inconvenience everyone around me??
Hurray! The GDP is saved!
Trump tariffs combined with the policy to ‘make in America and buy American’ is going as well as predicted then.
Except American cars still source more than half of their parts outside the country. On top of that they are made far worse than foreign cars.
Paying massive tariffs could be part of the problem.
For some reason most of America decided that they needed a massive truck or SUV that could haul a semi trailer yet their needs 99.9% of the time are short trips and buying groceries.
Americans didn’t decide it. Loophole in fuel efficiency laws ties the fuel economy footprint to carriage size. So to get around this, the manufacturers started making the cars larger, wider, and boxier. It’s why even small sedans are several inches wider than they used to be, when you can find them at all.
Well you need to BE SAFE and walking is SCARY.
Something about companies lobbying for less tax on huge cars.
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Tbh i don’t think i will ever buy a new car. New doesn’t even mean “good” or “reliable” at this point, just a warranty and that they don’t know for sure what or how much is going to break in 10K miles. Its literally paying more to be a beta tester.
At least after a couple years third party techs have mostly figured out where the manufacturer cheaped out and how to fix it for less than the dealership wants.
Another benefit to buying a used car is that if it were to have any glaring issues they would have all been revealed. Think of the first owner as a prolonged stress test.
I’m sorry, what do people do with a shitbox car they bought new? They sell it.
No need to apologize, what do people do with a perfectly fine car that doesn’t suit them anymore for whatever reason? They sell it.
That or they finally got tired of all the problems.
Could be. But that’s why you need to thoroughly go over the car, test drive it and maybe even have a trusted mechanic inspect it before you buy it. Same can be said about a used phone, car, bike, whatever. Do your homework before money changes hands.
As soon as someone releases a small electric pickup truck, I’m grabbing one and holding on to it as long as possible. It’s gotta have LFP batteries, though. Those last a long time.
Slate is making one that should be out in 2027. Ford was supposed to be planning one, but considering how they’ve been flailing, i doubt we will ever see it.
Not holding my breath for Slate. Alpha wolf has been on the same boat for twice as long with it’s “affordable retro EV trucks and cars” not one has hit production in 10 years since they announced it.
I’m on the same boat, though I have a lot more requirements on what I want that electric truck to NOT include. I want a proper work truck that’s user serviceable - not a computer on wheels. Untill that, I’ll stick with my -07 diesel Navara.
Except for a few specific models, battery longevity has been fine for a while now.
LFP batteries have about double the life cycle of NMC batteries. Both will last for thousands of cycles but if I’m looking for maximum longevity, I’m definitely going with LFP.
At this point import a Kei Truck and you’ll have that forever.
I get so sick of dealers advertising “$20,000 off! Only $499/mo” for overpriced cars no one wants, when $20K is larger than my entire vehicle budget and the max monthly payment I can handle is $150. My car is 20 years old and it’s paid off, and I plan to drive it forever if prices aren’t going to go back to reasonable levels.
