Elon Musk

Yeah, it's that but also California's more stringent emissions standards (CARB); if it can't sell in CA, they won't bother importing. Hence the VW dirty diesel scandal

speaking of safety standards, useful piece on why they can only be applied after launch in the US (unlike in e.g. europe), which is why the cybertruck is launching here now, and has no specific plans to ever launch in the US https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/cybertruck-safety-elon-musk-tesla-danger.html

I have a 1983 mercedes sl but I never drive it. theoretically accepting offers tbh

xp There's also the issue of dealer networks.. like Skoda or Holden or Vauxhall might actually be owned by GM, but those names are so weird and exotic that dealers might be afraid to be associated with them. They did relaunch Alfa Romeo in the U.S. a few years ago, but I don't actually see that many on the road

GM sold Vauxhalls in the States for a brief period in the '60s before switching to Opel as their preferred 'captive import'.

The Big Three all imported their European marque compacts over here back then, with Chrysler bringing in both Simcas and Rootes, and Ford trying out both Anglias and Cortinas from the UK.

I have a B&W photo of the Simca my dad owned for a couple of years, parked on the street in front of our house, circa 1968. In the background you can see our neighbor's Cadillac parked in their driveway.

dodge/chrysler are owned by stellantis now fwiw. alfa romeo too. so more like big two

One of the final Pontiac models - the G8 was a rebadged Holden Commodore imported from Australia. A guy I worked with long ago had a G8 GXP which had the V8 from a Corvette paired with a six-speed manual. Hell of a car.

Those 2000s GTOs were also Holdens, and had Pontiac survived, they were on track to become all-Holden. The last Pontiac brochure had a preview spread of upcoming models which included those Holden El Camino-style car/trucks (forget the model name).

Holden Ute. The Pontiac was going to be in the G8 line.

Huge Image of The Pontiac version

My family is from Detroit, they were GM all the way. I remember we had a few Opels back in the 60s. Not good cars.

xp That Pontiac looks even worse than the Aztek.

The Opel GT looked dope but was an underpowered POS IIRC.

My dad had a Sunbeam. He loved that car even as he acknowledged it was terrible.

car-ignorant car tale from yesterday--

i saw a 2022 rs6 c8 at downieville exit on i70, waitin for its master to get coffee. as a know-nothing i was amazed by its cool waves. i complimented the owner when he returned (asked him the year, only way i know it).

i asked my buddy when he got back "did you see that rs6 that was parked next to us"? he said "i missed it-- all 600hp of it." i said "BULLSHIT! NO WAY?" "yeah. hope you didn't ding it." what a world.

You would be amazed how that post reads to someone who is actually car-ignorant

I had to use Google translate.

A few years ago I saw an Audi R8 pull out of a strip club at 3 in the afternoon and immediately rear end an Econoline. It looked very expensive.

One of my best friends just swapped out their old compact SUV for an EV, so his wife was considering replacing her old Audi with a newer EV model, too. She found one she liked and her jaw dropped at the price.

Is the R a European thing? My wife has a Mini, and whenever I search for help about things in forums it's always stuff like "the R56 is known to have these problems," or the like, but I have no idea what the R means. Revision? Model? I just know of it as her 2018 Mini Cooper S.

Nerd jargon, series codes for BMW stuff. E30/E34/E36/etc. showing you’re not just a noob who calls it a 3-series.

xp looks like it’s the specific codes for revisions and packages. so instead of saying a year and hatch/convertible/S/cooper package, enthusiasts can abbreviate it. it’s so esoteric it’s on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_Hatch

We had two Mini Coopers. Neither one made it to 75k and they both had many, many issues before that.

There was a kid down the street from me that had two Opel Mantas... he would work on them all the time, but I don't think I ever saw them actually running. Cool looking cars, though

Is the R a European thing? My wife has a Mini, and whenever I search for help about things in forums it's always stuff like "the R56 is known to have these problems," or the like, but I have no idea what the R means. Revision? Model? I just know of it as her 2018 Mini Cooper S.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, December 22, 2023 12:52 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

companies have internal codes for the different generations of their models, so if you know those you can refer to the mini cooper made between 2016-2020 or whatever which is helpful cause the engine might be different than another year but also it might be the same

in that case the r prob doesnt really mean anything important but when r in used in public facing naming it means racing which is a cool car word

The R stands for “really fast”

it stand for rrrrrrrmmmm (sound of car engine)

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:izxpomdyri45gzhppiiyattq/bafkreidf2nqjtawgljnlwa6he4v3fxpbbxkew6wfdketmnppyunabd5xye@jpeg

stupidity on parade

Elon reminds me of those Nobel prize winners who feel qualified to opine on matters they know nothing about

Jesus fucking Christ.

he reminds me more of a really bad forums poster

love cheong jumping in there all i wasnt a c section but my head is very large sir

What a weird flex. "My brain was too big for my mother's constricting vaginal canal." Call yr therapist bro.

So transparently thirsty

"this is how macduff was able to outwit macbeth"

Having a hard time believing Felix from Chapo didn't write those posts as parody. X's echo chamber has somehow made those two even more laughably stupid

musk has ten children and never noticed their heads get bigger after theyre born

he breeds the children, but I've seen no indication he does the whole 'parent' thing

TBF Musk does not interact with or look directly at his seedlings

he has former employees to handle that stuff

he had one of the kids in the office like an accessory! someone at twitter was quoted as saying it was surprising he was a dedicated parent, but then, as they’re doing some marathon “how do we make twitter cheap and more X” meeting the toddler was being tired and fussy at 11pm

His “emotional support human” (his words)

Disproving meritocracy one tweet at a time.

What if I told you these two things are related pic.twitter.com/SmAsT0NSTR

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 5, 2024

lol @ expecting a twitter link to work

The last of the few folks I knew in SF that owned Teslas had sold them in the past year but man after visiting SoCal (LA/OC/SD) over the past couple weeks, it's insane how many there are. One neighborhood had at least one in every driveway.

Yes I realize how car culture is vastly different here than there but no wonder this idiot has so much money.

Yeah, LA is rotten with them.

Don't spend as much time in Sf as I did a couple years ago but they're everywhere in the east bay. My next door neighbors in berkeley (old couple with a few live-in failsons) have 3.

They are ubiquitous in Maryland these days.