China 2015: Cars of Rmqi, Xinjiang Uyghur

After covering the northernmost city in China (Mohe), we now travel to Ürümqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region in the westernmost part of China. I thought we may as well push it to the extreme and explore the provincial capital furthest from Beijing, a whopping 1,500 miles (2,400 km) away.

In fact, Ürümqi – pronounced something resembling “Yooloomooshee” – is both geographically and culturally closer to Kabul in Afghanistan than it is to Beijing. The majority of the population is Muslim and most Chinese road signs are dubbed in Arabic and sometimes Cyrillic script.

What are the most popular vehicles in this remote part of the world?

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  • FreedMike If Dodge were smart - and I don't think they are - they'd spend their money refreshing and reworking the Durango (which I think is entering model year 3,221), versus going down the same "stuff 'em full of motor and give 'em cool new paint options" path. That's the approach they used with the Charger and Challenger, and both those models are dead. The Durango is still a strong product in a strong market; why not keep it fresher?
  • Bill Wade I was driving a new Subaru a few weeks ago on I-10 near Tucson and it suddenly decided to slam on the brakes from a tumbleweed blowing across the highway. I just about had a heart attack while it nearly threw my mom through the windshield and dumped our grocery bags all over the place. It seems like a bad idea to me, the tech isn't ready.
  • FreedMike I don't get the business case for these plug-in hybrid Jeep off roaders. They're a LOT more expensive (almost fourteen grand for the four-door Wrangler) and still get lousy MPG. They're certainly quick, but the last thing the Wrangler - one of the most obtuse-handling vehicles you can buy - needs is MOOOAAAARRRR POWER. In my neck of the woods, where off-road vehicles are big, the only 4Xe models I see of the wrangler wear fleet (rental) plates. What's the point? Wrangler sales have taken a massive plunge the last few years - why doesn't Jeep focus on affordability and value versus tech that only a very small part of its' buyer base would appreciate?
  • Bill Wade I think about my dealer who was clueless about uConnect updates and still can't fix station presets disappearing and the manufacturers want me to trust them and their dealers to address any self driving concerns when they can't fix a simple radio?Right.
  • FreedMike I don't think they work very well, so yeah...I'm afraid of them. And as many have pointed out, human drivers tend to be so bad that they are also worthy of being feared; that's true, but if that's the case, why add one more layer of bad drivers into the mix?