Merry Christmas, And Now a Retrospective Look Eight Months Later

When I was but a tyke, my parents would give me extremely vague, outlandish and downright wrong clues as to what sat under the Christmas tree for me every year. My mom and dad, being ever clever (or at least thinking they were), would disguise my gifts with a Matryoshka doll arrangement of boxes, fill those boxes with pieces of wood or other noisy-when-shaken household accoutrements, wrap the presents up and shove them under the tree. This Christmas Present Camouflage™ would typically produce quizzical looks on my face, and those of friends and family members, as we shook the boxes and communally attempted to ascertain what was inside.

Which, now that I think about it, is similar to how I viewed TTAC when I started back at the end of April.

But first, let’s roll back the calendar a few years.

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  • Jalop1991 is this anything like a cheap high end German car?
  • HotRod Not me personally, but yes - lower prices will dramatically increase the EV's appeal.
  • Slavuta "the price isn’t terrible by current EV standards, starting at $47,200"Not terrible for a new Toyota model. But for a Vietnamese no-name, this is terrible.
  • Slavuta This is catch22 for me. I would take RAV4 for the powertrain alone. And I wouldn't take it for the same thing. Engines have history of issues and transmission shifts like glass. So, the advantage over hard-working 1.5 is lost.My answer is simple - CX5. This is Japan built, excellent car which has only one shortage - the trunk space.
  • Slavuta "Toyota engineers have told us that they intentionally build their powertrains with longevity in mind"Engine is exactly the area where Toyota 4cyl engines had big issues even recently. There was no longevity of any kind. They didn't break, they just consumed so much oil that it was like fueling gasoline and feeding oil every time