I just wrote something about some dystopian airline standing seats, seats that seem all but guaranteed to make a flight in one of them an exercise in human misery, something that I feel most of us are inclined to want to avoid. Still, the promise of ultra-cheap flights that these unpleasant not-seats could make possible is definitely tempting. All of this makes me wonder: is there some compromise that would allow the greedy airlines to cram as many of us in a plane as possible and would let us cheapskate travelers pay as little as possible all without being unfathomably miserable? I think there may be.

Now, in order for this to work, some pretty significant compromises must be made, but I think it may be one people could be willing to make. You’d have to give up something. Specifically, consciousness.

Yes, consciousness! Consider this: what if you could get flights for incredibly cheap prices but in order to do so, the airline would need to render you unconscious for the flight, because what they plan to do with you for the duration of the flight is not something an awake person could (or would want) to endure.

Here’s what I’m thinking: for this sort of flight, you need to secure your carry-on luggage to your body, by like wearing a well-secured backpack or something, or a fanny pack or something that actually straps to you. Of course you can check luggage, but anything you take with you will need to be secured to you.

That’s because when you get to your gate, you’ll be injected with some kind of anesthetic that will knock your ass out for the entire duration of the flight. We’ll say the FAA and the FDA collaborate to make sure whatever Spirit Airlines is injecting into your veins is safe, or at least safe enough.

You’ll slump down, some airline workers will grab you and chuck you into these large holds that are full of other unconscious travelers. I’m guessing it won’t be just a big pile, because that’s not that space efficient, but more likely you’ll be slid onto some shelf or into some cubbyhole that would be deliriously claustrophobic if you were awake.

But who cares, because you’re out cold! And then when the plane lands, you’ll be dragged out and into the airport, perhaps via the same conveyer system used for luggage, then given another injection to wake you up.

What happens if there’s a fire or a crash or some other kind of emergency? No idea! I bet they made you sign a waiver, though.

A few minutes of disorientation, maybe a quick vomit or two later, and you’re done! A 12-hour flight felt like a blink of an eye!

So, what do you think? Would you be willing to let an airline knock you out for a flight? Is the risk of letting a budget airline monkey with your brain worth cheap flights and freedom from enduring those free flights?

Tell me! Ryan Air is probably reading this, and I bet some anesthesiologist is looking for a challenge!

The post Would You Be Okay With Being Knocked Out For Your Flight? appeared first on The Autopian.

Every now and then I feel like we report on some new, fresh, crispy hell relating to how airlines plan to shove as many people as possible into a given volume of space on an airplane, and so far, thankfully, the worst of these avaricious torture implements of skinflintery have yet to be actually implemented on a commercial aircraft. But the threats keep coming, most recently in the form of some genuinely miserable-looking “standing only” airplane seats that some budget airlines have said they’ll implement starting in 2026, which, if current thinking on calendar-based math proves true, will be “next year.”

News outlets reporting on theses seats, which were first seen back in 2018 at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, don’t seem to be specifying exactly which airlines are signing up to use these, which makes me a bit skeptical, because if these airlines have announced that they’re doing this, you’d think the articles would mention which ones they are, which so far I have yet to see.

Well, that’s not entirely true; the Irish famously cheap airline Ryanair has been vocal about wanting such standing-only seats, with their CEO expressing a desire to see his planes fitted with such non-seats since 2012. So I guess they’re on board with this, at least.

 

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Instagram accounts like this one have suggested that these seats have passed regulatory requirements and passed safety evaluations, leading to the spattering of articles suggesting that these things may actually show up in planes human beings may willingly get on.

Let’s take a look at these un-seats, which are officially called Skyrider 3.0:

They’re sort of a saddle/straddle design, and I guess they at least allow you to lean on the back even if you’re not really in a sitting position. You have some armrests and a seatbelt, at least. The upright design allows for about 30% more seats to be crammed into a given area, and the seats weigh about half of what a conventional economy airline seat weighs, which can provide fuel savings.

There are other mitigating factors at play here: the airplane still needs enough flight attendants to serve all the people on the plane, there still need to be enough emergency exits for all passengers onboard, and the passengers will still need to be able to evacuate the plane in 90 seconds.

Perhaps these seats really have passed all safety checks, but it’s hard to see how rows this close together will allow for passengers of the broad spectrum of sizes human beings come in to be able to evacuate in a hurry. But, if it’s true that safety regulations were, in fact, met, then I guess someone tested this?

For a short flight of an hour or so, maybe these wouldn’t be too bad? And if fares for these kinds of seats were cheap, like dirt cheap, then maybe these are not a bad thing? A $20 flight, or even less? That’s hard to argue with.

That said, these do seem miserable, and if your plane is delayed on the tarmac or anything like that, you could end up strapped to this lightly-padded nightmare for who knows how long. Is cramming as many people as possible into a plane to maximize profits an inherently inhumane act? Probably.

But still, spending maybe $30 or so to go round-trip to spend an evening in some random city you couldn’t drive to in time? That’s kind of appealing.

The post The Threat Of ‘Standing Seats’ On Airplanes Inches Closer To Grim Reality appeared first on The Autopian.

The long wait is finally over. My $258 Honda Life will be landing in America in just a few hours. Everything has gone swimmingly well until now, when my car just got hit by America’s 10 percent global tariff. That’s odd, but then I learned that other cars on the same ship also got hit by the tariff, while many other cars on the ship dodged the tariff. It’s all a huge headache, and nobody can seem to agree on exactly what’s going on.

The tariffs announced and levied by the Trump administration have put global trade on a rollercoaster ride. Some shippers have abandoned entire containers of goods in a panic, while the import car community initially had no real idea of what the final cost of their cars would be. None of this is helped by the fact that President Trump has been pulling the tariff levers forward and backward at seemingly random times, so it’s hard to know what tariffs are even applicable at any given time.

President Trump first announced 25 percent automobile and auto parts tariffs back in March, then eased the auto parts tariff later. When the tariffs were published on the White House’s Presidential Actions page, it didn’t seem to offer a carve-out for cars that are 25 years of age or older, or the age at which the federal government stops caring about whether the vehicles meet safety regulations. The EPA has a shorter 21-year rule, but that doesn’t help you much when the exempt equipment is bolted to a body that can’t enter until it’s 25.

The import community reeled, as getting hit with a 25 percent tariff is a huge deal. Let’s say you spent years saving up a bunch of cash to buy your dream Honda NSX. You find the car and, for the purposes of this scenario, it’s $50,000. Normally, this car would be subjected to a 2.5 percent duty, or just $1,250. If this car gets slapped with a 25 percent duty, it adds to the original 2.5 percent duty, racking up to 27.5 percent. That’s $13,750, and your $50,000 NSX is now a $63,750 NSX. That’s a whopper of a hit.

Trucks hit with a 25 percent tariff would see their duty increase to 50 percent due to the infamous Chicken Tax. At the very least, Kei trucks, the most common vintage trucks Americans import from Japan, are so cheap that even a 25 percent increase in cost doesn’t amount to much.

“Classics” Avoid The 25 Percent Tariff

Thankfully, when the auto tariff actually hit the Federal Register, the boring legalize included a carve-out for classic imported cars. Here’s the boring stuff:

A. Effective with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 3, 2025:
a. The following new note 33 to subchapter III of chapter 99 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) is inserted in numerical order:

“33. (a) Except as provided for in headings 9903.94.02, 9903.94.03, and 9903.94.04, heading 9903.94.01 provides the ordinary customs duty treatment applicable to all entries of passenger vehicles (sedans, sport utility vehicles, crossover utility vehicles, minivans, and cargo vans) and light trucks (hereinafter, automobiles) from all countries classifiable in the headings or subheadings enumerated in subdivision (b) of this note.

Heading 9903.94.01 says:

Except for 9903.94.02, 9903.94.03, and 9903.94.04, effective with respect to entries on or after April 3, 2025, passenger vehicles (sedans, sport utility vehicles, crossover utility vehicles, minivans, and cargo vans) and light trucks, as specified in note 33 to this subchapter, as provided for in subdivision (b) of U.S. note 33 to this subchapter.

Heading 9903.94.04 is what’s most important here, which states:

Heading 9903.94.04 applies to all entries of passenger vehicles (sedans, sport utility vehicles, crossover utility vehicles, minivans, and cargo vans) and light trucks from all countries classifiable in the headings or subheadings enumerated in subdivision (b) of this note that were manufactured in a year at least 25 years prior to the year of the date of entry.

Enthusiasts began to breathe easier. Our 25+ year-old dream cars were safe. Or, at least, that’s what we thought.

My 1997 Honda Life, which I scored for just $258 in the Japanese auction system, departed Yokohama, Japan, aboard the MOL Clover Ace on April 21. I’ve been obsessing over roll-on, roll-off ships ever since and tracked the Clover Ace as she sailed to Panama, snaked her way through the canal, and made headway for the American East Coast.

Schrödinger’s Tariff

It has been a long wait, but I started seeing some action last week when I got an arrival notice from my shipping line and the Customs paperwork invoice from my Customs broker, All Ways International Shipping (AWIS). Everything looked great until I checked out the invoice from AWIS. The Customs duty was $32.25. Huh, that’s weird, I expected to pay 2.5 percent, or just $6.45. Based on my calculation, I was paying 12.5 percent. What gives?

I reached out to AWIS and was given a breakdown, which noted that my car was subject to an additional 10 percent duty. When I asked about that, I was told, “Because your vehicle was not manufactured in the US, there is an additional 10% duty on top of the standard 2.5% rate.” But what does this mean?

AWIS is referring to the Trump administration’s 10 percent global tariff, which hits the imports of all countries with a minimum additional duty of 10 percent. From the White House:

President Trump is invoking his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to address the national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit that is driven by the absence of reciprocity in our trade relationships and other harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes (VAT) perpetuated by other countries.

Using his IEEPA authority, President Trump will impose a 10% tariff on all countries.
This will take effect April 5, 2025 at 12:01 a.m. EDT.

I wasn’t alone in getting hit by the 10 percent tariff. Another enthusiast in a private JDM group that I’m in has a car on the Clover Ace, and he got hit by the 10 percent tariff. It was a similar deal for someone else with a car on the Clover Ace.

But then it gets weird. Dealership and importer Car Shop Midori had 14 cars aboard the Clover Ace and claimed to have paid just the 2.5 percent duty on each vehicle. Dylan Cain, the operator of the Import Guys, recently cleared 22 cars at the 2.5 percent rate. The Autopian spoke with another enthusiast who just imported an expensive, over 25-year-old classic from Europe and took delivery this week. This person only paid the usual 2.5 percent duty.

So, all of this is madness. Lots of people are paying the normal 2.5 percent duty, while many others are getting hit with the 10 percent tariff, to hit a total of 12.5 percent duty.

Some importers in the private JDM group I’m in claim it’s based on when your vehicle was loaded, saying that the 10 percent tariff would hit vehicles loaded onto a ship after the April 5 deadline above. But this doesn’t explain what’s happening here because the Clover Ace wasn’t loaded until about April 20 and didn’t leave until April 21, yet, only some cars on this ship have gotten the 10 percent tariff.

Other importers are pointing to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes being used to clear cars. The belief is that HTS 9903.01.33 should be the code chosen, which states:

Articles of iron or steel, derivative articles of iron or steel, articles of aluminum, derivative articles of aluminum, passenger vehicles (sedans, sport utility vehicles, crossover utility vehicles, minivans, and cargo vans) and light trucks and parts of passenger vehicles (sedans, sport utility vehicles, crossover utility vehicles, minivans, and cargo vans) and light trucks, of any country, as provided in subdivision (v)(vi) through (v)(xi) of note 2 to this subchapter.

Since 25-year-old cars are exempt from the 25 percent tariff, that would mean the normal 2.5 percent. People getting hit with the 10 percent tariff are seeing HTS 9903.01.25, which says:

Articles the product of any country, except for products described in headings 9903.01.26–9903.01.33, and except as provided for in heading 9903.01.34, as provided for in subdivision (v) of U.S. note 2 to this subchapter.

This is the heading for the 10 percent global tariff. Some importers in the American JDM community are saying 2.5 percent is proper, while others are saying the additional 10 percent is actually the proper code. It’ll make your head spin. Not helping things is how Customs is clearing vintage imports with either code applied.

You Can Help Yourself

I decided not to fight over the 10 percent charge to my car, as it amounts to just $25. Honestly, I don’t blame AWIS here because this whole situation has been a dumpster fire. Also, as importers point out, it’s not the brokers that are charging you for duties, but Customs.

Unfortunately, if this confusion continues, it’s going to bring just another headache to import enthusiasts. If you’re like me and you just pick a broker you’ve worked with in the past, you may not know if you have to pay 2.5 percent or 12.5 percent until you’re hit with the bill, which sucks. Thankfully, there is something you can do about it. Before you choose a broker, ask them what they expect your import duty to be. Several brokers are now advertising that their cars are getting hit by the 2.5 percent duty rather than the 10 percent duty.

Tariffs aside, I cannot wait to pick my little car up. I’ve been so excited that I’ve even lost sleep from the energy going through me right now. I get to drive a cool truck on a fun road trip to pick up a cool car. What a great way to start off the summer. Importing a car is something I recommend all enthusiasts do at least once in their lives, and despite everything, I still recommend it now, too.

(Update: Added a clarification about the 25-year rule.)
(Topshot: Japan Car Direct/Autopian.)

The post My Imported Honda Just Got Hit By Tariffs And Nobody Seems To Know What’s Going On appeared first on The Autopian.

Verizon petitioned the Trump administration to let it lock phones to its network for longer periods of time, making it harder for customers to switch to other carriers.

There are two rules that require Verizon to unlock phones more quickly than other major carriers. Verizon agreed to both rules and gained significant benefits in return—first in 2008 when it purchased licenses to use 700 MHz spectrum that came with open access requirements and in 2021 when it agreed to merger conditions in order to obtain approval for its purchase of TracFone.

The Biden-era Federal Communications Commission last year proposed a 60-day unlocking requirement that would apply to all wireless providers, which would have made AT&T and T-Mobile follow the same unlocking timeframe as Verizon. But now that the FCC is chaired by Republican Brendan Carr, it's looking to eliminate telecom regulations instead of making them stricter. Verizon sees this as an opening to seek an end to its unlocking obligations.

Carr opened a so-called "Delete, Delete, Delete" proceeding in order to identify rules that should be scrapped. Verizon submitted comments last month asking for deletion of the locking rules and followed up this week with a formal request to waive the rules "until such time as the Commission decides on an appropriate industry-wide approach for the unlocking of wireless devices."

Verizon argues that unlocking phones encourages theft and is bad for customers.

"The Unlocking Rule applies only to particular providers—mainly Verizon—and distorts the marketplace in a critical US industry," the Verizon petition said. "The rule has resulted in unintended consequences that harm consumers, competition, and Verizon, while propping up international criminal organizations that profit from fraud, including device trafficking of subsidized devices from the United States. These bad actors target and harm American consumers and US carriers like Verizon for their own profit, by diverting unlocked trafficked devices to consumers in foreign countries."

Verizon also said that after it bought TracFone, there was "a sharp increase in the number of TracFone devices that deactivated before making enough payments for Verizon to recover the subsidy on the device."

Verizon: Do it for DOGE

With FCC Republicans backing DOGE-style changes, Verizon name-dropped Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in its petition. The unlocking rule is "the perfect example of the type of rule that the Commission should eliminate as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's Deregulatory Initiative," Verizon said.

During Trump's first term, the FCC granted Verizon a partial waiver allowing it to lock phones for 60 days to fight fraud. Verizon claims 60 days isn't enough, and it wants to lock phones for at least six months.

"Recent industry experience shows that even a lock of 60 days does not deter device fraud—a huge and growing problem in the United States—and instead enables trafficking in devices that are illicitly sent to foreign marketplaces. This is why the industry standard for providers not subject to the Unlocking Rule is a minimum of 6 months or longer," Verizon's petition said.

Verizon said the FCC spectrum rules it agreed to in 2008 were based on concerns related to net neutrality and open access that are no longer relevant.

"The concerns about the nascent wireless broadband and smartphone marketplace that animated the adoption of that rule—such as new iPhones being designed to work exclusively on one provider's network or restrictive 'walled gardens' for applications—no longer apply today," Verizon said. "It is past time for the Commission's experiment with the Unlocking Rule to end, because today's wireless marketplace bears little resemblance to the one that existed when the rule was adopted, and the rule harms consumers, competition, and Verizon."

Previous chair sought 60-day rule for all

Former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who served under President Biden, didn't agree that the rules were outdated. In the November 2021 approval of Verizon's TracFone purchase, Rosenworcel's FCC required Verizon to extend its 60-day unlocking policy to devices sold by TracFone that use the 700 MHz spectrum. TracFone previously had a 12-month locking policy.

Rosenworcel later proposed that a similar rule be applied to all major carriers.

"You bought your phone, you should be able to take it to any provider you want," Rosenworcel said in July 2024, when she proposed extending the 60-day period to the rest of the industry. A nationwide standard of 60 days "is in the best interest of consumers and competition," she said. Rosenworcel's proposal would have required carriers to unlock each phone 60 days after activation unless a carrier determines a handset was purchased through fraud.

The FCC voted 5–0 to seek comment on Rosenworcel's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. While Carr joined that vote, Verizon is hopeful that his push to eliminate regulations will include the 60-day unlocking rules.

"[T]he Unlocking Rule is an outdated regulation that has become both burdensome and harmful—precisely the kind of regulation that the current Administration is focused on rescinding in the public's interest," Verizon's waiver request said.

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You know what pareidolia is, right? Sure you do. It’s when you see faces in things, inanimate things like cars and trucks. This is something I do all the time! If you’d like to stop me, good luck, because you can’t, you can’t stop me from seeing faces in cars because I can’t stop me from doing it either! And, relatedly, this goes back to my fiercely held belief that the headlights are the eyes of a car’s face. Some cars have hidden headlights, and sure, that changes how the face is processed, but it can still work, somehow, and not seem unsettling. But you know what does seem unsettling? Deeply so? The GMC 7000 series of trucks!

And do you know why these trucks feel so unsettling, from a pareidolic persepective? It has to do with the way the headlight “eyes” are handled. Or, really, not handled. Let me walk you through this.

First, let’s look at the kinds of trucks these particular GMC 7000s are based on, the other, somewhat less heavy-duty members of the GMC 7000 family:

Okay, so we have the GMC 7000 on the left there, in a lovely shade of scarlet. As you can see, it has a very face-like grille and headlight setup, giving it a sort of friendly-rugged kind of visage, square of jaw and round of eye, the face of a competent and helpful partner for your worksite.

Next to it, in a ravishing indigo, is a Top Kick series of truck sporting a detail that will become important in a moment: those low-set headlamps, below the grille.

You see, these huge work trucks still need to shine light on the road, so at some point lights set high into the grille will just be too high to be properly useful, hence why big trucks like these tend to mount their lights as low as possible.

So, when GMC decided to make a heavier-duty version of the 7000 series, this is how they solved the headlight position issue:

Oh, what the hell, GMC? Look how they solved the headlight problem: they re-mounted the headlights into the bumper face, which, okay, works fine. Maybe the headlights are a little vulnerable there, but, whatever, sealed beams are cheap. No, the weird part is what they did with the old headlight sockets:

Nothing.

They just left them empty! They didn’t bother to make a new plastic grille molding with no headlight sockets or even some cheap plastic plugs for the holes! They just left those empty, yawning sockets there, which is why I think these trucks have a creepy, undead, zombie-like look to them.

Some emergency vehicles took advantage of these empty sockets by fitting some sort of warning or identification lamps in them, like the red lights you can see on this ex-fire service truck. That helps a bit, though running red headlight-like lights in the front at night carries its own confusion, and we can’t forget that this does also give the truck a certain Mothman menacing-like quality:

Even with the glowing Mothman eyes, I think that’s still an improvement over the empty socket look, which, again, makes these things look like brain-hungry zombies, or whatever the automotive equivalent is (which I hinted at in the top image for this story, and I hope that joke scans).

These trucks weren’t cheap back in the day; a dump truck from around this time – say, 1985 or so – would have cost at least $25,000 to $30,000. That’s a lot of money to spend on something that just looks so…unfinished. If I was a bigshot, say, gravel company owner back in 1985, in my lavish trailer-office decked out in framed Nagel prints, I’d have felt pretty sour when my brand-new dump trucks came rolling up with those horrible gouged-out-eyes look.

I mean, would it have killed GMC to even just do something like this?

A couple of cheap plastic covers that snap into the sockets, that’s all. Cheap and quick, and GMC could even make some money selling replacement ones when they inevitably cracked or got knocked out and lost. They don’t look amazing, but they at least look intentional and not like your brand-new truck is already abandoned in a corner of a junkyard.

Man, GM bean counters were really monsters back in the day. They didn’t give a single, lonely fudge about any of this. And on some level, I get it – does it really matter if this work truck looks kinda weird or creepy in the face? Probably not.

But, then again, all other things being relatively equal, if given a choice between one of these eyeless freaks or a Ford F650 that didn’t look like the undead in the face, which would I have picked? Probably the Ford, because even when we’re talking about utility vehicles, cars are still, fundamentally, not rational.

The post GMC Once Made A Work Truck That Looked Like A Zombie appeared first on The Autopian.