Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The GTI will get 40+ mpg on the freeway at 78 mph, which I'm happy with, but they recommend premium for it.  I'm pretty sure it would be fine with regular high quality fuel though.  I've put in midgrade a few times.

It's nice to have a clutch again, for me, even driving in town.  I prefer it.  

I'm just getting older and don't push them like I used to. Although I did get up to 110 last week, on accident.

How in the hell does that happen?Did a half gallon bottle of single malt Scotch roll off the seat and fall onto the accelerator?

The dynos of turbo engines often are fascinating (to me) as they show flat torque from roughly 1800 to 4000 RPM.  One can feel the difference in driving engines are similar hp if one is boosted and the other is not but has larger displacement.  And the mpgs may not be much different in the real world, but turbos can "trick" the fuel economy tests.

Agreed. HP is an easy-to-game metric. It's just torque multiplied by RPM, divided by a constant. If you can manipulate the torque curve such that it's peaky at higher RPM, or if you can increase the redline of the engine to allow it to rev higher, you can often get HP numbers that look gaudy but don't really reflect the driving experience. 

Hence you get cars like the old Honda S2000, which put out 240 hp but only if you revved the crap out of it [it had a 9000 rpm redline]. Or 600cc 4cyl sportbikes that make over 100hp, but all that HP occurs in the 12-14K RPM range. 

Those cars/bikes are simply not all that fun to drive/ride in around-town scenarios. They're often quite gutless at low RPM, and thus to feel that power, you have to drive them in ways that don't really make sense in normal traffic [and attract the attention of LEOs]...

Even my Ford Flex puts out 285hp, which doesn't sound paltry [even in a car of its heft], but it's got variable valve timing and you can feel the difference in how it pulls when you hit the RPM that the VVT kicks in. The Ecoboost equivalent puts out 365hp, which doesn't sound like a huge difference than 285, but I'm sure the low-RPM torque is MUCH higher than the non-boosted engine.

I think a lot of people are entranced by pure HP numbers, without realizing that high HP doesn't make the driving experience particularly great unless it's paired with low-end torque as well. 

EVs outsell gas cars in Norway today because of incentives.  I doubt that happens in the US by 2030.

Norway is a sweet ass country. One of my favorite places I've ever been to. Oslo is super expensive though. Ridiculous. A taxi from the airport to my hotel which was maybe 1.5 miles away cost me about $65.

How in the hell does that happen?Did a half gallon bottle of single malt Scotch roll off the seat and fall onto the accelerator?

Early morning, not many people on the road, and I found myself there without trying. I backed her down to 80 in short order. It felt just the same.

https://electrek.co/2018/10/04/super-cruise-versus-tesla-autopilot/

I generally don't trust Consumer Reports, but this suggests that Caddy's Supercruise is competitive.

https://jalopnik.com/one-of-the-best-parts-of-cadillacs-super-cruise-has-a-h-1833724088

Reasonable people disagree, but for my money, Cadillac’s Super Cruise system is the best semi-autonomous system in the game: better than Tesla’s, better than Volvo’s, better than Nissan’s. But one thing that sets it apart—its system for making sure the driver’s paying attention—apparently doesn’t work great under full sunlight.

I was in a CT6 with this activated but it was on a freeway on SF.  It was impressive, but that wasn't very challenging as an environment.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/29/tesla-autopilot-vs-cadillac-super-cruise-guess-which-wins-video/

I like to drive but traffic in Florida is so bad. hopefully, I'll start using high-speed rail a lot more often.

Virgin Trains USA high-speed rail station just got approved in downtown Boca Raton. Their station was just approved in Aventura near the Aventura Mall about a month or two ago. Construction on both stations will start early 2020 and the stations will be completed by 2020. Their stations in downtown West Palm Beach, downtown Ft. Lauderdale, and downtown Miami have been operational since 2018.

They are expanding the line from WPB to Orlando airport, that's set to open 2022. They are already negotiating with DisneyWorld and Tampa to build stations there. I haven't taken the train yet, but I'm planning to take it down to Miami this weekend. I've heard only great things about it so far.