G. David Felt

In the latest round of Trade War rhetoric is a question that has ended up in the courts, when is a passenger van really a cargo van and does this tariff engineering really justify getting around the 25% chicken tax? In response to President Donald Trump's tariff war, automakers are find interesting ways to play the grey area of the legal system. According to BNN Bloomberg and Bloomberg news, trade attorneys are closely watching the Ford Motor Co. legal case play out in federal court. This case deals with the importation of passenger vans that are then stripped down once they clear customs and sold as cargo vans. The difference here is that Ford pays 2.5% import duty on passenger vans versus te 25% import duty on light trucks / cargo vans. This challenge against Ford brought by U.S. Customs is challenging the practice of tariff engineering. The art of building a product one way, then changing it once cleared by customs for another use. With all the increased tariffs imposed by the Trump administration this could have critical impact on a region that many automakers have used to bring in a profitable product for market needs. According to the news stories, a ruling by the Court of International Trade ruled in Ford's favor in 2017 but is being challenged by the administration in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Regardless if the U.S. and China come to terms for a new trade agreement, there are no promises that the in place tariffs would be repealed. Ford's argument is that tariff engineering is a legitimate maneuvers for firms exploring ways to mitigate duties by project reclassification, shifting production to other countries which changes the origins of product assembly. Trade lawyers across the country say this case will help establish legal guidelines for tariff engineering. To quote the story from BNN Bloomberg: The U.S. Court of International Trade has stated that under the well-established customs law, manufacturers can intentionally make a product that can avoid higher tariffs with simple changes. What cannot be done is situations such as hiding a higher quality product in a lower quality product like high grade tobacco inside a case of lower grade tobacco. This case has come down to the wording on the import paperwork of "principally designed for the transport of persons". The current administration says this is a scheme for avoiding taxes and local jobs. Ford argues that the goods must be classified in their condition as imported, regardless of later alterations and ended use by consumers. Appeals court is expected to rule in the coming weeks. View full article

I think the next thing is true voice control over the whole phone and building it to be either a bracelet, or just an ear piece. I have found that there is a need to have everything in the phone but in a very small format as well as the need to be flexible with lifestyle.

Agree, me think the profits are Vaporware here in the US at least!

Roomy for us big people and better than cars in most cases which are even more cramped.

If your at home, then again 220V charging while your doing stuff at home is still more than enough and some states more than others lead in quick charge DC charge station easily found around the highways, work and retail locations. Do not get me wrong, it would be nice to have a 440V 3 phase fast charger at home, but more often than not most people would not need it or need to spend the money on it once they got used to charging their auto every night.

Disagree, SUV's are not to blame. Consumers tastes are. Roadsters might be nice to look at but unless they are profitable, hard to justify for the bulk of society to own and use.

If only that was true of apple products. Not everyone sees the apple interface as user friendly or simple.

That is a super sexy Cadillac. Todays auto's are truly missing that interior room with comfort.

Yet the Chrysler commercials with Ricardo Montalban were really good I thought even if the auto's were not memorable. https://www.bing.com/search?q=car commercial with ricardo montalban&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=car commercial with ricardo montalban&sc=1-37&sk=&cvid=6FAE91254C15464BA6B757257493F10B

That is just stupid. Computers are supposed to make our life easier not harder and that is harder. Should be voice command capable. Tesla, rear middle seat heater on medium Tesla, passenger rear outside seat off. Should be that simple.

Thanks Drew for posting this. I honestly hate these things, but all my travels to Japan, Korea and China shows the Asian Rim is crazy about them as you get them in everything from taxi's to rentals. Crazy. and stinky. Let me smell the natural leather of the auto, not some fake scent.

Cleaned the windows and RainX them before the rain started tonight. Into a Winter Storm Warning with 20" of snow expected in the mountains. Tomorrow is going to be a Pow Pow Day on the slopes and me having to work. Supposed to warm up next week as we go into an extended dry spell. Planning to wash and clean all the auto's.

I am surprised they can make money let alone keep it going with sales figures like this. Anyone know what other auto is built on the same platform that would allow it to have low production cost to keep on selling?

Pure Electric or Hybrid? ? Me thinking Electric as Pininfarina has talked about working with others and building their own super electric car. Interesting, wonder what it would look like if it was a CUV?

Cool, but if the Grand Wagoneer is a 3 row, why have another one under another name. Me thinking that maybe a bit of over kill in the CUV/SUV segment.

Much appreciate the clarity. Thank you.

Why, most people would plug it in and leave it overnight. No need to spend money on expensive hardware when an overnight charger will more than do the job to give you a full battery pack.

We have actually had some very bad patches from the Forum software company and a few other corruption issues. More than just user error

Celeron or what us insiders call cellary chips stick around due to the power management, but they suck at actually doing more than web browsing and power point presentations. Would never recommend one to someone. Pentium's are around for the Gamers. Amazing how many people who are on teams always talk about the Pentium. Think it is marketing more than anything else but they do seem to have as you stated a place in embedded devices and small entertainment box's. Any serious power user / gamer will go i9 all the way. Still very interesting to see how far Intel is pushing some chips and ways.

And they say that is supposed to be safer than having a butt warmer seat switch in the back for the person to do it themselves. Riiiigggghhhhhttttt! I honestly while loving their tech, have come to hate the way they are running sales. Would rather deal with a traditional auto dealer than have to deal with Tesla mess of auto purchasing and ownership. Right now the stores have not impressed me, the auto's are all way too small. All I want is a full size SUV EV.

My gut tells me they will FAIL. Fiat is a FAILURE, ALFA is back from the Grave by ROBBING the profits of Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler. Yet the Quality of both name plates are terrible. Billions spent, very little return compared to the abuse that the name plates that keep making profits take. Over all, I was hoping for the DS line, but clearly that is not what they think can work.I do not believe like the story says that PSA is stupid, but I do think they are not acting fast enough and are not looking down the road long enough to what they really need to do here. I think a socialist car company with poor quality issues is going to fail long term and some European gov is going to have to bail them out or let market dynamics play out and kill it.

Ya want your partners to be ready to support all the products you have coming out but not before you get a chance to announce it. OOPS, Fujitsu released their product line and all compatible CPUs that will work on their motherboards. Yup. we now see the whole Enchilada. Would hate to be the person who signed off on this or released the info before it's time. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-9th-generation-cpu-list-specs,38754.html Intel 9th Generation CPUs Cores / Threads Base / Boost Freq. (GHz) Integrated Graphics Memory Support Cache TDP RCP Core i9-9900K 8 / 16 3.6 / 5.0 UHD 630 DDR4-2666 16MB 95W $488 Core i9-9900KF 8 / 16 3.6 / 5.0 No DDR4-2666 16MB 95W $488 Core i9-9900 8 / 16 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2666 ? 65W ? Core i7-9700K 8 / 8 3.6 / 4.9 UHD 630 DDR4-2666 12MB 95W $374 Core i7-9700KF 8 / 8 3.6 / 4.9 No DDR4-2666 12MB 95W $374 Core i7-9700F 8 / 8 ? No DDR4-2666 ? 65W ? Core i7-9700T 8 / 8 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2666 ? 65W ? Core i5-9600K 6 / 6 3.7 / 4.6 UHD 630 DDR4-2666 9MB 95W $262 Core i5-9600KF 6 / 6 3.7 / 4.6 No DDR4-2666 9MB 95W $262 Core i5-9500F 6 / 6 ? No DDR4-2666 ? 65W ? Core i5-9400F 6 / 6 ? No DDR4-2666 ? 65W ? Core i5-9400 6 / 6 2.9 / 4.1 UHD 630 DDR4-2666 9MB 65W $182 Core i5-9400F 6 / 6 2.9 / 4.1 No DDR4-2666 9MB 65W $182 Core i5-9500T / 9600T 6 / 6 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2666 ? 35W ? Core i5-9400T 6 / 6 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2666 ? 35W ? Core i3-9350KF 4 / 4 4.0 / 4.6 No DDR4-2400 8MB 91W $173 Core i3-9300 / 9320 4 /4 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2400 ? 62W ? Core i3-9100 4 /4 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2400 ? 65W ? Core i3-9100T / 9300T 4 / 4 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2400 ? 35W ? Pentium Gold G5600F / G6520 2 / 4 3.9 / - UHD 630 DDR4-2400 ? 54W ? Pentium Gold G5420 2 / 4 ? UHD 610 DDR4-2400 ? 54-58W ? Pentium Gold G5600T 2 / 4 ? UHD 630 DDR4-2400 ? 35W ? Pentium Gold G5420T 2 /4 ? UHD 610 DDR4-2400 ? 35W ? Celeron G4390 / G4950 2 / 4 ? UHD 610 DDR4-2400 ? 54W ? Celeron G4930T 2 / 4 ? UHD 610 DDR4-2400 ? 35W ?

In the 70's, hell even in the 80's depending on dress and environment it could be fine. In todays world of the #metoo movement, nope, would be taken as offensive no matter the tone. Would be better to just be honest if what the person is wearing is not pleasing to the eyesight or just call it beautiful if that is what your looking at. Sadly todays politically correct world we live in is just sucking big time.