MSN Ai

From choke knobs and mechanical radio presets to cigarette lighters and floor-mounted high-beam switches, discover the obsolete dashboard features younger drivers would barely recognize in today's touchscreen-filled cars.

There are cars you buy because they’re practical, and then there are cars you remember seeing once in a parking lot 50 years ago.

Electric cars can wear tires faster than gas vehicles. Learn why EV weight and instant torque matter, plus simple ways to make your tires last longer.

When a salvage-title car shows up at half the price of a similar clean-title model, it can feel like a loophole in the used-car market. For a parent helping a daughter shop on a budget, that discount is hard to ignore. The catch is that the low sticker price often reflects a serious past event, not just a lucky deal.

Can your city ticket an electric truck that blocks part of the sidewalk while charging in your driveway? Learn how sidewalk parking rules, public rights-of-way, accessibility concerns, charging cables, and local bylaws can affect EV owners.

Driver-assistance tech can feel like a guardian angel or an annoying backseat driver, depending on who is behind the wheel. If your husband says these systems make people worse drivers, he is tapping into a real debate that safety researchers, regulators, and automakers have been wrestling with for years. The short answer is that he is not entirely wrong, but the fuller answer is much more interesting.

You go in for a simple repair and leave with a quote for four new tires. That can feel like a sales pitch, especially when only one tire is damaged. On an all-wheel-drive car, though, the mechanic may be reacting to a real driveline risk rather than trying to pad the bill.

You pull up to your block, spot an open curb space, and there they are. A pair of orange traffic cones is guarding the pavement in front of your neighbor’s house like it is a private driveway. It is a familiar neighborhood drama, but the legal answer is usually much simpler than the attitude behind the cones.

If a dealership says your trade-in offer vanishes the moment you leave to think about it, that is often a pressure tactic. It is designed to keep you in the chair and make you decide before you compare numbers elsewhere. The good news is that you usually have more leverage, and more time, than that pitch suggests.

Your friend is not crazy. Leasing an EV can make a lot of sense because battery tech, charging speeds, software, and tax rules are all moving faster than they do with many gas cars. But the key question is not whether EVs are changing quickly. It is whether they are changing fast enough to make buying a bad idea for your specific budget and driving habits.

My condo building finally installed EV chargers, which sounded like progress until I learned the catch: they are attached to premium parking spaces. In other words, buying an electric car would not be enough. I would also have to pay for the privilege of parking close enough to plug it in, and that raises an uncomfortable question about who actually gets to enjoy the cheapest and easiest version of EV ownership.