The batteries are the elephant in the room. Not only the usual stuff about range. They have a very high replacement cost, meaning that an EV is totaled when it is about 12 years old, while an internal combustion car can easily last 20 to 25 years. No one is talking about the huge disposal problem of these large batteries when they are used up. All the environmentalists pushing for EVs will be howling about how terrible they are once there are mountains of dead batteries and nothing to do with them. Final issue is urban charging. I charge my EVs at home (yes I have them...doesn't mean I think they are right for everyone), but people who have to park on the street will be constantly struggling to keep their cars charged. Curbside chargers are unworkable. They will be vandalized and / or stripped by copper thieves immediately. ... View more

If they are going to bring them back as EVs, at least don't stick them on SUVs. It is really nauseating to see an SUV badged as a Mustang. Hopefully the SUV fad will play out as people realize they don't actually need them and are paying an unnecessary price in weight and handling. ... View more

I can't really tell what you are trying to say here. Five years ago, car makers seemed to think that the buyer of an electric car or a hydrogen car wants to say "I'm not the least but interested in what the car looks like. I just want a small carbon footprint". Witness the horribly ugly BMW i3 or the Honda Clarity. Both sold poorly and they deserved to sell poorly. More buyers want a car that runs on electricity than want an "ELECTRIC CAR!!!!!!". The Tesla Model 3 is a great example. It looks like a car. Yes. it doesn't need to have a hood, but the front trunk combined with the rear trunk allows a lots of storage without playing the SUV game. ... View more

Something that never seems to get discussed, but should be a huge consideration is the environmental impact of disposing of millions of used up EV batteries. They are probably toxic and physically large.(Oh, and if you crush them, they probably burst into flames.) The other issue is the impossibility of urban dwellers being able to charge their cars when they do not have their own parking space where they can mount their own charger. There seems to be a pipe dream about curbside chargers. If they tried that, they would soon find that most are out of order and / or vandalized by copper thieves, with no one in charge of maintaining them. I happen to own an EV and a plug-in hybrid, but I have no illusion that this could work for everybody. ... View more

Hudson offered the Electric Hand in the late 1930s. As I recall, it was a system of solenoids and vacuum diaphragms that physically moved the shifter lever for you. ... View more

I had the opposite experience. My 1946 Hudson pickup sat in my garage for 20+ years while I tried to figure out an odd overheating problem.  About 4 years ago, I decided it was time to get serious. I think I found and fixed the problem, but I also converted it to 12 volts and added a pusher fan in front of the radiator. Then I took it out for a test drive. 10 miles out, 10 miles back.  The cooling system was working fine, but the anxiety of worrying if something else was going to break led me to realize that I enjoyed looking at it more than I enjoyed driving it. So, I decided to sell it and let someone else actually enjoy driving it. ... View more

That car may not have 217,000 miles. Since it was original Euro spec, and the speedometer that shows 217,000 is calibrated in miles, it is obviously not the original speedometer. Did the car come with any documentation that records how many kilometers were on it when it was imported and how many miles were showing on the MPH speedometer when it was installed?  If not, the mileage is really "unknown" and may well be less than the 217,000 that is showing. ... View more

Something that is showing up in YouTube videos:  Apparently Tesla Motors has people following the insurance salvage auctions and they record the VINs of Teslas that have been sold as salvage. Then they disable that car's ability to use Superchargers and note the car's Salvage status so that they can weasel out of warranty claims.  From the photos I have seen on the CoPart site, it is really easy to total a Tesla. Lots of them with what looks like superficial damage.  They also restrict what body parts you can buy if you are not a Tesla certified body shop. For example, as I understand it, you can't buy a rear quarter panel, perhaps because they don't trust you to weld it on properly. ... View more

There is some misinformation here: California allows the registration of out-of-state vehicles that do not have California smog equipment if the vehicle has more than 7,500 miles. Titling a Salvage vehicle does require brake & light inspections (which are also safety inspections. I had one car fail because the horn didn't work). Otherwise it is the same as bringing in a vehicle from out of state: You need to have the VIN verified and a commercial vehicle needs a weight certificate. The fees are hefty, but not because it is a salvage vehicle, but because California registration is fee heavy. The only salvage-specific fee is a $50 CHP inspection fee, and it is not clear when that is required (I did not have to get a CHP inspection or pay the fee). ... View more

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a "numbers matching" Honda motorcycle. The frame numbers were the model, followed by the "K" series number, followed by the sequence number. (I.E. a CB750K3 would have a number like CB750-3012345 and the engine was similar but with an "E" following the model number, such as CB750E-3054321. As they came out of the factory, the sequence number of the frame and the engine were not identical. ... View more