Featured Toyota can’t keep up with demand

New cars are just appliances on wheels.

Fun cars stopped being sold in the USA a few decades ago.

 

i had a miata, i've grown out of that kind of fun. fun is now just something new and different

 

But what is different about new cars?

At one point I owned an air-cooled, rear-engine car, a diesel-powered hatchback and an electric car, all at the same time. This was before I saw any Teslas on the road. I've always liked things that were different, yet practical.

Electric cars still seem a bit different. But other than that, all cars these days seem like the same appliance made by different brands. The body styles are all about the same, the interface is about the same, the sound is about the same, the feel is about the same the smell is about the same.

• To me, I'd consider an EV like your Bolt, because it feels different than other cars and yet is practical. I'm just not sure yet if it would be reliable and also get us the distance needed as our only car. Maybe if I could have two nicer newer cars, one for road trips and one for around town, but usually the around town car is a cheap clunker.
• I feel like the Toyota GR Corolla is also different. I like that it has a stick shift and appreciate a lot of the engineering in it. But I don't need a 300 hp race car to put around town in.
• I feel like the Ford Bronco is different. I like how it has options like a disconnecting front sway bar as well as a manual transmission with a crawler gear. But I might drive it over some off-road pass maybe once a year or every two years. That's not worth the cost to me.
• Older cars attract my attention way more than new cars. I don't care if we're talking about cars from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's. I'd love to have an air-cooled VW again. Or some spartan, FWD, Japanese econo-boxer, of a hatch-back. Or perhaps a diesel powered small station wagon with a low roof-line.
• But common sense tells me that I should be saving up for a new hybrid Corolla. It would get me from point A to point B and do so efficiently and reliably. What I don't like is it's overpowered, no stick-shift, feels a bit too big, and the interior is cluttered worse than my mom's knickknack shelf.

 

one thing new about my bolt is air conditioned seats and heated steering wheel, fantastic!
if you like acceleration, ev's are amazing, but i prefer to preserve the front tyre tread

 

we have 70,000 miles on our 2020 RAV4HV. I guess it's a keeper for now. I want to replace our 2009 minivan which I do not put many miles on...thinking used Stow-n-Go Pacifica. We have the annual car tax which starts to sting at $50k average new car cost.

 

I miss the heated steering wheel from the Leaf, especially on those -30 °F days. It was also nice having heated seats both front and rear, although I didn't like the leather seats. Does the Bolt have cloth seats?

Acceleration? The Leaf was way overpowered. My Avalon is way overpowered. All new cars are overpowered. I never put the pedal to the metal. I guess that's why I have a reputation of being a slow driver.