tekdemon

So if it comes out in 2010 that means Hyundai's hybrid technology is currently 13 years behind Toyota's.
Going by this metric Ford actually did a pretty great job getting the hybrid escape on the market by 2004, even if it meant using such a similar system that they had to license the patents from Toyota. But that's actually looking like a pretty smart decision since wasting your time trying to come up with hybrids that don't violate any Toyota patents is like trying to invent a wheel while refusing to use circles.
I honestly think what's needed is a supplier of cutting edge hybrid powertrains that can be bolted on to almost any system. Like if Borg Warner made integrated hybrid transmissions or something, then every car company could just source it and voila, hybridtastic. Honestly if you had a few billion lying around it wouldn't be a bad idea to start a hybrid powertrain supplier company.

@Alex
Are you kidding me? India's pollution is insanely poorly controlled. At least China can use heavy-handed requirements to tamp down pollution (like forcing factories to shut down for the Olympics, forcing cars off the road based on license plates, etc.) while heavily investing in and promoting cleaner technology (China now has what's likely the world's cleanest coal-based steel smelting now).
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751397
So while the water source for drinking water in Shanghai may be disgustingly horribly toxic, China will throw the money at it to filter it for the drinking public, whereas in India their infrastructure is so poor and the government so weak that you're not likely to see any real improvements anytime soon.

And if you even SLIGHTLY care about health, China is leaps and bounds ahead of India. Just look at the two countries rates of HIV infection to get an idea of how the health authorities work to combat the spread of diseases. Or look at the rates of polio, malaria, TB or just about every disease that most developed countries no longer have.

China's not a clean country, but you have some serious delusions if you think it's worse than India. Go travel through both India and China-you might feel like you're in 1980's Los Angeles because of the sky in every Chinese city, but that's still about 50 years ahead pretty much every city in India.

Don't feel too bad, at least you know that a lot of very wealthy people (even without his wife, Senator McCain is a pretty wealthy man...there aren't many poor Republican Senators out there) manage to resist the nouveaux riche temptation to go buy the most expensive cars you can afford.
A little sad that he didn't put a decent budget sports car in there, but the guy's over 70 so it's not like it's a good idea for him to be piloting 600 horsepower beasts through the streets.
Truth be told if I had the cash I'd probably buy a lot of cars that fly under the "I'M RICH" radar. Driving something like a Toyota Avalon Limited or a Buick Lucerne is a LOT less likely to attract attention than if you drive around in a Mercedes Benz S600, and while some people might want the attention I'd rather not attract carjackers and kidnappers if I was rich. And if you're just using the cars as commuters it's not like the Avalon would be any less comfy than the Mercedes (and ironically, probably more reliable so you don't have to be stranded somewhere with your $100,000 car).

Yeah I don't know where they got the slow-motion thing from...I'm pretty sure this is normal (slow) cruising speed, lol.

Kill Mercury and shore up Lincoln sales by moving the lower-end luxury stuff that Mercury sort-of represents into Lincoln. And work a little more on actually differentiating the models than they've done previously (no grand marquis please).

In Japan people actually tune Odessey's...which is why there's even a Mugen page dedicated to it:
http://www.mugen-power.com/street/odyssey/introduction/index.html

It's only available with 4 cylinder engines, but the higher horsepower engine found in the Acura TSX actually makes it's way into the Odyssey as well...meaning it's a minivan with a redline over 8000RPM (not sure exactly what since there are so many variants of the K24A).

Anyways, I guess people in Japan get excited about it. I don't think it's actually that big, even though the pictures make it seem massive I think it's actually pretty small compared to the minivans you're used to thinking of.

BTW, this minivan *might* be coming stateside with the new focus on smaller cars and all. I wouldn't mind seeing a smaller minivan around.

The best part of the episode was when Hulu put a GM Employee discount ad in the middle of a show that's one giant Ford commercial (did they *HAVE* to put in that F-150?! SERIOUSLY?!).
I think the worst part so far is how you apparently treat suffocating and heat shock by...zapping people's chests with electricity. Because that's exactly what you should do when people have fainted from being too hot and having no oxygen-electrocute them until they're ok.
Seriously who the hell wrote this crap, it's so awful that a 4 year old could have come up with a better plot playing with hotwheels. *sigh*

Oh, also? You apparently have no idea what irony is. The real irony here is that you think I'm the moron.

While I personally think the Lexus ES has been a silly car in recent years (back in the day there was more differentiation with the older ES's being somewhat significantly nicer cars), at least it competes in a different segment than the base Camry LE. Yes, when you option up the Camry into V6 XLE land the lines start to blur, but the volume seller is the 4 cylinder LE with the power driver seat in cloth, and there's quite a bit of difference between that car and the base ES. And even if you're comparing the Lexus ES against the few loaded V6 XLEs, one attracts people who want to show off that they bought a luxury brand, and the other attracts people who want to look like they bought a commoner's car (really, how much more common can you get than a Camry). So even if the cars are almost identical they seek out different types of customers, the kind who seek attention and the kind who go out of their way to look like they own the most generic car possible.

The Aveo and the G3 are unfortunately in brands which largely compete for the same customers, both in price (a base Aveo is priced like a base G3), and in other demographics (it's not like a Chevy is more luxurious than a Pontiac) so the overlap is silly. The only situation I see where Toyota does similar crap is with the Yaris overlapping with the Scion xA/xD vehicles, although they have attempted to mess around with door/trunk/hatch combinations to try and make it pseudo-exclusive (which I personally think is stupid, they should get rid of the xD and just forward the customers to the other side of the dealership where the Yaris is, especially now that there's a 5 door Yaris it makes zero sense to sell an xD).

So, anyways, in summary, the Camry and ES are actually effectively rebadged. But the G3 and Aveo, much like the xD and Yaris, are idiotic. Rebadging only makes sense if the cars actually target different audiences and have at least some real differences (even if there's overlap the base vehicles shouldn't be the same thing).

Actually, studies have shown that people who watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are actually much more up to date on news than your average person, and equally up to date as people who watch traditional news. And the ratings on these shows are actually very, very, high so they're one of the top news sources by viewership.
And honestly their viewership isn't a bunch of community college stoners, it's usually pretty well educated and pretty high income people.
If you really want an accurate description of their demographic I'd say it's usually under 50, educated, and liberal-leaning. But even though both Colbert and Stewart are liberals they invite a lot of conservatives and libertarians (Mike Huckabee, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, etc.) so viewership is fairly broad.