Two words: station wagon.
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The Saab 900 was a great looking vehicle. And the earlier roadsters, like the Sonett were sporty as hell. Mrs. Hawk is a huge fan of the boxy look. Her dream car was a Volvo 240, possibly the wagon.
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I’ve never forgiven Volvo for changing that design.
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My first thought was “that’s a Range Rover”
I haven’t been following closely, what’s the price tag for this one?
+/- $80k - which is why I put “affordable” in quotes.
Full size RR electric starts at ~108K, the “sport” model starts at ~83K (neither released yet)
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The hood wasn’t up with the hazards flashing.
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The R1S is a proper 3-row station wagon SUV, so it’s equivalent to the big Range.
The R2 starts at $45k, but is probably smaller than the Range Sport. It’s actually a tad shorter than the Tesla Model Y and it does seem that Rivian has targeted Tesla’s lineup and, IMHO, knocks them all into a cocked hat.
A few years ago an old buddy of mine and family showed up to the ranch for a bbq in a shiny newish RR…I jokingly called them “Austin yuppie scum”, then they followed me to the house.
He shows up again a year or so later in a Chevy quad-cab p/u, I ask what happened to the RR…
“Never again”, was the first thing he said. Apparently it was his wife’s dream “family wagon” and was purchased without much enthusiasm on his part.
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My last car, I really thought about buying a Defender, which was just out. I love the old defenders, and the new one was a pretty good vehicle for me. I could drive down south padre, I could tow the boat, I could look manly.
I chickened out and bought the Lexus mini-land cruiser instead, the GX, notwithstanding that I loathed the notion of the Lexus. It was reliable, and the Defender was not. I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of Kansas with RangeRover-itis.
They are good looking cars though. And great off-roaders.
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20 years ago I was real close to buying a used D-90 from the dealer in Houston…I too chickened out (if it had had a manual transmission and not auto I might have done it). I love those trucks though.
FWIW, my ex had an LR4, which was the poster child for Range Rover-itis. She loved it and regretted every minute after she let the lease expire without keeping it. RR changed the design and she - along with the rest of Christendom - hated it. The cost of used LR4s skyrocketed.
Full disclosure: her LR4 did have a couple of weird glitchy issues, like an occasional high-pitched whistling that seemed to be loosely associated with turning the wheel but could never be reliably repeated enough to get a bead on. But it never let her down otherwise, and got her through flood waters that only her LR4 and a jacked-up pick-up could navigate.
But for Defender fans, there’s an alternative:
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I drive a 1999 Acura TL. It runs like a top and I’ve had it since new. I plan to replace it with one of these:
It perfectly suits my use case. If they are successful, I’ll order one after a year or so production. I’m already a small-time investor.
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I told Rivian a couple of months ago I’d let them know when I was ready to finally purchase my R1S as my configuration is ready.
Having second thoughts after seeing the R2.
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The R2 is two years away. At least.
R2 Y2?
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There is very likely some shit for Tesla to come out of this.
The obvious issue is that the Tesla automatically disconnects the 12V battery when it detects water, so the electronic door openers don’t work. The door does have a mechanical release, but that is hidden both in the car and deep in the owner’s manual.
So when Chao backed into a pond, she had no way to open the doors. I don’t know if Teslas have the removable headrests that have the spike to smash the windows, and that was Chao’s only real chance of survival. But not everyone knows about that trick either. (And good luck trying that in a CyberTruck with its “bullet proof” windows.)
Conspiracy Theory Time: How is it that she came to back into the pond in the first place?
She was in a new Model X that comes without a physical gear selector. You select D/N/R on the screen, but shifter-less models also have software which allows the car to select your gear unilaterally based on what it sees around it.
So the question to answer here is “who selected “R”, Chao or the software? Maybe she mis-swiped on the screen and was still in reverse when she meant to go forwards. However, she was making a 3-point turn at night, so it’s possible that she selected “D” but the car saw an object ahead, overrode her command and shifted back to “R”.
In that case, she would’ve hit the “gas” expecting to go forwards and instead was yeated backwards into the pond. Trapped with seemingly no way to escape the vehicle, she drowned after having time to make a desperate phone call for help. Tragic.
I suspect the Chao’s will want to get to the bottom of this. I wouldn’t blame them. It has echoes of MCAS to me, where Boeing blamed the pilots initially, only for it to have been a software override that the pilots had no way to control; and Boeing knew it. I wonder how many Tesla owners have had the car send them in the wrong direction, luckily with far less catastrophic results.
Yeesh.
That’s horrible.