In order to reach even 50% vehicle electrification in the United States we need a lot of normies to buy electric cars. The first- and second-adopters have already purchased an EV. The buy-curious have taken the plunge. Now, the extremely average consumers need to start replacing their Honda CR-Vs with electric cars.
My guess in a Morning Dump earlier this year was that the Honda Prologue was going to be a great way for us to test if that third-adopter class was just waiting for one of America’s most trusted brands to finally put out an electric car. It seems that’s what is happening.
Honda, of course, has a robust ICE and hybrid portfolio to fall back on, so it’s not fatal for the company if the Prlogue flops. Nissan, on the other hand, is dealing with one flop after another and is having to beg its dealers to not freak out over the company’s performance. Volkswagen is past begging its workers to help it out, and now flat-out saying it needs more from them.
That’s kind of bleak. Let’s end this Morning Dump with some good news: Trains are back, baby!
Prologue Sales Are Going Up, Up, Up
There’s the great Arrested Development bit where analyst/therapist-turned-actor Tobias Fünke tries to drum up interest in what he’s doing by hanging around the water cooler saying things like “That Fünke is some kinda something” and “I’m tired of hearing how genius that Fünke is.”
Why is the Honda Prologue the ‘most important electric car of 2024’ and why isn’t the Cybertruck or the Daytona or anything else? Mostly because I called it that:
I think GM and Ford have worked hard trying to push their EVs, but the next traunch of people most inclined to buy the current generation of EVs and hybrids are probably looking to buy something from either Toyota or Honda. Toyota has great hybrids but a mediocre EV. Honda has good hybrids and now, it seems, a decent EV.
I’m really curious to watch Prologue sales. Given the current projections, it’s not likely that Honda will sell more than 50,000 of these in 2024, which puts it in the Mach-E territory. That’ll help juice the market, but it isn’t an overwhelming number. But if Honda can be a success with a perfectly fine EV I think it’ll show where the demand is. If it fails and spurs more hybrid growth, it’ll also show where the market is.
Either way, the Prologue is maybe the most important electric car of 2024.
I said “maybe” because I gotta keep a little wiggle room, right?
So far this year, Prologue sales have done a little better than my rosy projections. Honda saw a 14.5% increase in sales in November, led by a big increase in hybrids. The CR-V Hybrid, for instance, now represents a total of 54% of all CR-Vs, just as that model heads for a record year.
And the Prologue? A total of 6,823 were delivered last month, outselling the Odyssey minivan, the Passport SUV, and the Honda Ridgeline. The Prologue has now been on sale for a few months and the company has already moved 25,132 of them. The brand should easily top 30,000 sales this year (well, mostly leases I’m guessing).
Lacking more than quarterly reports it’s hard to say exactly where Honda will end up, but my guess is that the company will deliver more EVs with one single model than Cadillac, Polestar, Toyota, Subaru, Lexus, Genesis, or Audi individually.
A lot of this is because of aggressive leasing, but that’s true of almost every electric car. A more interesting comparison for me is the Chevy Blazer EV, which is built by GM on the same Ultium platform and is comparably priced. In Q3, GM sold roughly 8,000 Blazer EVs for a rate of about 2,700 a month. Even if you add in the cheaper Equinox EV, the selling rate in Q3 for the Blazer EV and Equinox EV combined was about where the Prologue is.
My guess is that sales of the Blazer EV and Equinox EV were up in October and November, so this is one of the comparisons I’ll be watching in January when we finally get everyone’s full-year sales reports.
Overall, this makes me think that the market isn’t quite as soft as everyone tends to think. There are still EV buyers out there. It’s been obvious for some time that pricing is important but, it seems, branding is also important.
Nissan North American Boss To Dealers: ‘We Ask For Your Patience And Understanding’
Nissan is in bad shape. It would arguably be better if it were just a part of Honda. Even if my vision of a combined Nissan-Honda came true, that wouldn’t help the unprofitable dealers stuck with unattractive supply.
The company seems aware things are going poorly and sent off a Thanksgiving memo to dealers, seen by Automotive News:
“We are working diligently to implement turnaround actions and the stability and future value they will bring to valued business partners like you is a high priority for us,” Nissan Americas Chairperson Jeremie Papin said in the Nov. 30 message viewed by Automotive News. ”We are working hard to deliver more details on these action plans. In the meantime, we ask for your patience and understanding.”
In the short- and midterm, Papin said Nissan will focus on three areas: reinforcing the product lineup, stabilizing and rightsizing the business, and driving growth.
“We recognize the actions designed to increase product competitiveness, the core of our business, are highly important to bring Nissan back on the growth track,” he wrote.
Rightsizing the business means reducing production because the only thing worse than 10 Rogues that no one wants to pay MSRP for is 10,000 Rogues that no one wants to pay MSRP for.
VW And Workers Don’t Seem Close To An Agreement
While I don’t think Volkswagen’s troubles are as existential as Nissan’s, the scope of VW’s issues is way more immense. It’s the difference between having one NV200 that’s puking oil onto your driveway and having 60 Jettas all with flat tires.
It’s been assumed that VW is going to have to close plants and lay off workers, which is something the company’s union and works councils have been trying to avoid. The negotiations do not seem to be going well, with VW CEO Oliver Blume and Works Council head Daniela Cavallo seemingly quite far apart:
Cavallo warned of the damage to Volkswagen’s image that the management’s tough approach and constant references to negative scenarios are threatening. “The board is damaging our brand with its behavior,” she said. “I am seriously concerned about the way the board is portraying our company in the press.” With its actions, it is offering a perfect opportunity for ridicule and mockery: “This is causing us massive damage.”
And:
Blume has now announced that he will continue to negotiate and work on “measurable and, above all, sustainable solutions.” At the same time, he emphasized the company’s difficult situation. New competitors are entering the market “with unprecedented force” and often with higher margins. At the same time, the car market in Europe is shrinking. At VW, labor costs must therefore be reduced and capacities adjusted. “We are also streamlining our organizations and creating synergies across the Group,” he said.
This is Cake-levels of distance between the two positions.’
Amtrak Will Have A Record Year
Amtrak has reached a record 32.8 million passenger trips this fiscal year (September-to-September), up 15% over 2023. Hell yeah. I was at least a couple of those trips. The nation’s main passenger rail service has seen a lot of improvements in recent years and is doing this with less capacity.
Amtrak achieved an all-time ridership record in Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), welcoming a historic 32.8 million customers as demand for passenger rail service continues to grow in markets across the nation. Amtrak also invested an unprecedented $4.5 billion into major infrastructure and fleet projects – creating the largest boom in rail construction in Amtrak’s history, putting thousands of skilled Americans to work and jump-starting American manufacturing. Amtrak is seizing the opportunity of strong customer interest and leveraging investments to improve all aspects of the travel experience.
“Breaking our ridership record is just the beginning,” said Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner. “This record ridership shows that travelers throughout the U.S. want efficient travel options, and we are committed to meeting that demand. Through bold investments, strong partnerships with states and host railroads, and dedicated planning, we are doubling down on our vision to connect more people and communities like never before.”
The federal rail company also only lost $705 million, which is pretty good for Amtrak.
I get this is a car site and we’re enthusiastically pro-car, but trains are cool and it’s better for everyone if we replace a lot of inefficient regional car trips with train travel. A lot of the growth and a lot of improvements are coming in the denser Northeast Corridor because anything beats driving on I-95 or the NJ Turnpike.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
There’s a good TV On The Radio video with cars in it, which I’ll probably share some day, but I woke up in a very “Return to Cookie Mountain” mood this morning, so please enjoy “I Was A Lover.”
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
When was the last time you took a passenger train trip of more than 4 hours? Where? In America?
I’ve done the Milwaukee-Chicago Amtrak ride a bunch of times. The only other train experience for me is the narrow gauge in northern New Mexico/southern Colorado which is freaking beautiful.
Longest train rides I’ve ever taken:
2.5hours, Wrigleyville to downtown Chicago, 4 miles. it broke.
2 hours, Tokyo to Nagoya, 200 miles
1.5 hours, Superman rollercoaster at six flags great america, 0 miles. it broke.
“lost $705 million”
Not a great framing here. Rail service should be looked at as a service, not a profit-seeking venture. We don’t ask how much money I-95 lost last year, and it doesn’t even charge you (mostly).
About 15 years ago a trip up the coast from LA to Oakland with our infant son. Loved sitting in the observation car with a cold one. Otherwise a few trips from New Haven to Baltimore. Would love to go cross country when I retire.
As for Honda and the Prologue, I’m not that surprised. If we’re working off stereotypes (aka, marketing) Honda customers are likely to be a bit more accepting of the EV premise. We’re talking a lot of left-leaning suburbanites. I’m sure there’s a lot of Honda customers who have been waiting for a usable EV that didn’t have a bowtie on it, and didn’t come with burden of buying a Tesla. These are people I know, and can imagine. Meanwhile, everyone I know with a GM product are firmly in the “EVs are garbage” camp. Sooooooo, sort of a tough spot for GM.
I’m thinking that while the Prologues may not make as much money for GM as a Blazer sale would, it at least keeps the line running and presumably doesn’t result in an actual loss. So if Honda ends up selling more of them than Chevy does, it may not matter all that much.
I’ll also note that there are quite a few Chevy Bolts out there, many of which seem to have been purchased by non-GM owners. GM is likely hoping to convert some of those to the new Bolt, whenever it arrives, or upsize them to the Equinox. I realize the Bolt’s reason d’etre, especially in the last couple of years before it was cancelled, was likely its price along with its small size, but owners seem to really like them. GM’s probably happy to sell their EVs to non-GM owners and keep selling Silverados and Tahoes to the never-EV crowd. Win/win?
Potentially yes. GM obviously should be trying to court people who wouldn’t normally consider a Chevy. Though I have some biases against GM myself, I certainly hope their EV investment pays off, and that giving Honda a viable EV while Honda develops a competitive platform doesn’t end up a mistake.
The only Amtrak rides I ever take are between Albany and Penn Station, which make a lot of sense, especially if you’re heading to a Knicks game, or seeing Phish.
Trains are awesome, and I wish we had better service and options for them.
I took the Coast Starlight about a year ago from SoCal to Oregon. The late night portion between the Bay Area and Klamath Falls is the Wild West, just crazy lawless.
On the way up a bunch of passengers got on, removed their shoes, and started talking loud enough to overwhelm my noise cancelling headphones. The bathrooms were gross, just overflowing with garbage and cigarette butts.
On the way back, a female passenger got assaulted twice by an unhoused individual. They were both drunk and I’m pretty sure they had been hitting a meth pipe during the stops.
The first time I didn’t witness the assault, but I heard it. The conductor didn’t believe the female passenger when she reported the first assault. The guy stole her can of beer and groped her and he told her she shouldn’t have been drinking.
The second time I witnessed it and told the conductor and the guy got thrown off the train.
At the time he was making out with an unhoused individual who got off in Oakland and started panhandling at the Jack London station.
A few weeks later a guy got shot and killed by the cops on that section, he had been threatening people with brass knuckles.
https://www.kdrv.com/news/crimewatch/police-release-bodycam-footage-of-amtrak-train-shooting/article_357b6858-d122-11ee-b9e2-078288382a1c.html
I work with unhoused people and have had times in my life when I was couch surfing. Referring to people as homeless is insulting and dehumanizing. When I worked at a community college there were students who were struggling and sleeping in their cars and using the gym to shower. I never called them homeless, they all were working and educating themselves. Homeless implies panhandlers or addicts, a lot these kids were LGBT and had been kicked out of their families.
A lot more unhoused people then you would think are kids, LGBT people, and victims of domestic violence. You can insult them all you want if it makes you feel better.
You don’t get it do you. Here in Utah parents kick gay kids out on the street or send them to conversion camps where they get fucking assaulted. My ex worked as a public defender with them and you would be amazed how many kids there are like that on the street. Have some humanity bro. Not every homeless person is a fucking drug addict.
Thank you for that.
Good luck reasoning with that guy.
Yeah, for that I actually agree…it’s the same damn thing. Just look at the definition:
Homeless=No house Unhoused=No house
IT’S THE SAME…DAMN…THING.
I’m sick of people trying to change words for the sake of changing them and sugar coating things so they are further from reality. The worst one ever is whoever says “unalive” instead of dead…YOU HAVE A SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS!
The Prologue seems nice, but it’s not in consideration for my household because my English professor boyfriend hates the name so much it was instantly vetoed.
Rightsizing does not even seem like a word. And, it’s a word I would NOT use if I was the communications director of a major, worldwide company.
I love corporate-speak. “Layoffs”, “RIF”, “made redundant” and “job cuts” are all bad words because people will lose their jobs. Let’s invent a new word, “rightsizing”. That sounds like we are optimizing our business for the future. They’ll never figure out that it means the same thing.
I have only taken train rides that long outside the US and if they were more than 4 hours it wasn’t much more. In the US, the Northeast Regional/Acela routes are the only ones that really make sense, which is why those are the routes that actually make money. It’s one of the few areas of the country with enough density to make it worthwhile.
It’s ok by me to talk about trains here, for me they don’t compete with cars. They compete with short regional flights. Basically there are times in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast that total time of drive to airport + groping + flight + travel to city center is greater than or equal to: drive to train station + ride train to city center. I have taken Amtrak from Baltimore to NYC several times and it’s been a good experience each time (especially when work is paying for Acela).
However they have the same issue as flights in that I have to drive to get the train and likely have to rent a car on the other end if my business isn’t in the city center. Thus, they don’t compete with cars because a car takes me from exactly where I am to exactly where I want to go. Only issue is whether or not I want to drive that long, and the older I get, the more willing I seem to be to drive a long ways.
I am currently leasing a Blazer EV. The Chevrolet store I worked in at the time was having a HELL of a time moving any of their EVs so they gave out stupidly cheap employee lease deals. I have a fairly decent commute, so a low mileage lease is not for me. I have an RS AWD with an MSRP of roughly $55,000 but they incentivized it enough to keep it under $400 a month for 2 years at 15,000 miles a year and threw in a free charger(installation included too!) so it was tough to say no to. I have two other gas vehicles and I was curious to try the EV life, so I dove in. After two years, I get to toss this bitch!
When I left that store and ended at another dealership group which had a Honda store, that store was leasing Prologue Elites for under $300 a month. Goddammit.
TL;DR-I fucked up and should have waited.
I haven’t taken a train ride over a couple hours, but I wouldn’t mind if it if we could get a station here that would take me far enough.
On the subject of EVs, I just got an email from TELO saying their configurator is up. If they make it to production (big if) and keep their pricing (also a big if) at around 45-50k for a pickup with 350+ miles of range (range estimate may be optimistic), they could have something. Unfortunately, I don’t expect them to make it, but I’ll be watching. The fact that they want to offer a small pickup piqued my interest right away, even if I think they’re mostly a pipe dream.
If you
build itmake it cheap enough, they will come. Sounds like that’s what is happening with the Prologue.I wonder what’s going to happen when all of these dirt cheap leases come back and are nearly worthless because some new, better EV tech has come along. Are the manufacturers taking the hit on both ends or are these low lease rates just because of the tax credit?
I’ve only ever used rail in Europe, and while it is quite convenient to not have to learn traffic laws to get around, I have had a few disasters and near-disasters because I didn’t understand how the local rail system worked. A couple of examples:
I also bought a ticket for the wrong week once, but luckily the train wasn’t full and I was able to just buy one (at an increased price) from the conductor and cancel the one for a week later when I wasn’t going to be there anymore. That was just stupidity on my part though, nothing to do with trains.
I’m curious about this too. I recently bought an ICE truck, wife is going to pick up something ICE here shortly. Will I be able to pick up a Ioniq 5 for like $15k in 2 years?
That’s what happened in the early to mid 2010s, when Nissan was buying LEAF market share through discount leases. There were lots of cheap used LEAFs available 2-3 years later, depreciated by about 60%. Might play out similarly this time.
Besides the great lease incentives, I would have only considered leasing at this point for an EV. I’m guessing by 2027 the next generation of EV’s will have better range and tech making it obsolete and thus heavily depreciated.
The weekend before Thanksgiving we took the Northeast Regional from the first/last stop in Roanoke to Philly. Easy parking and plenty of seats since it is the first stop. 8 relaxed hours in a comfy seat and we hop off the train refreshed in the city of Brotherly Shove. Happy days, go Birds.
On the return trip Monday we couldn’t sit together until after DC. This is not a huge deal, but how difficult would assigned seats be without doubling my ticket price to get into business class?
The real problem, though, was the delay. Lynchburg (barf) is the penultimate stop, Roanoke being the final. Between the two we pulled over for three hours to let three other trains pass. This pushed our arrival time from 1030pm to 130am. Then we had a 90 minute drive after that. A nearly 40% increase in travel time is not acceptable when the whole shebang already takes longer than driving.
Freight lines are running longer trains to save money on crew. These trains are too long to pull over into the sidings to let other trains pass them. Wherever the rails are shared, everything moves at the speed (and whims) of the freight trains.
I may be wrong on this. I’m not a train guy, just listen to Well There’s Your Problem and those guys are always talking about railway stuff.
That’s easy to believe.
I have heard that they are limited to 2.5 miles long on the east coast. They are also all pretty much controlled from Jacksonville, FL.
Source: Buddy is a CSX signal man
That’s because freight railroads own the tracks and thus have priority. The majority of the lines Amtrak runs on are not owned by them.
I will be honest, I had no idea that Roanoke and Lynchburg were served by rail.
What I would LOVE to see is a dedicated FREIGHT line from Kingsport to NJ ports. We could get about 12 jillion semis off of 81.
If it isn’t too personal, where are you that you are 90 minutes outside of Star City? I’m in Hanover, so I can pick up Amtrak in Ashland or Richmond, where it is dirt cheap to get to DC. If that could be even moderately high-speed rail from Richmond to any of the DC metro stops, 95 might not be a parking lot 6 hours a day.
Sorry; I don’t know why I started a rant on your comment. Nice to meet you, No Kids, Just Bikes!
I am between Abingdon and Pulaski. I would welcome removal of ANY semis from 81. 81 is the pits. Specific/vague enough? 😉
I believe they’re to start work on an extension to Blacksburg in 2025, with an end goal of Bristol. Blacksburg will save me some time and I will be grateful for it. Getting the line to Bristol would mean a stop in my town…but I am not sure that will ever actually happen. Nice to meet you.
The truck traffic on 81 is MISERABLE. I’ve driven down 81 from Binghamton all the way down a couple of times, and it’s loaded with 2 lane stretches where one truck doing 60.5 has decided to pass another truck doing 60. I hate it.
Starting a quarter of a century ago and over.a span of about six or seven years, I took the same trip to New York by air, rail and car.
The plane trip was quickest, of course, and cheapest because I didn’t have to pay for it. The car trip was next quickest (6½ hours including a meal and fuel stop off the Turnpike each way) and substantiality less expensive than the train, which took about eight hours, IIRC. And it all was was long enough ago that nothing I’ve written is relevant at all now except probably the track conditions in Richmond (although I think they’re getting upgraded soon.)
Wait, I thought the Korean carmaker(s) were the triple-threat?
I think we need to wait for the Prologue’s depreciation curve, which will depend mainly on the resale value of the leased Prologues.
It has been forever since I took a train trip that long.
Commuted to DTLA from The Valley 30 years ago. Only an hour each way.
Took a train from Philly to Atlantic City 15 years ago. Not 4 hours.
35 years ago, took a train from FL to DC. Overnight.
My wife recently took the train from SLO back home to SoCal. We drove up together, but I had business and she didn’t. She said it was great.
Thing is, using a train requires a lot more planning. Gotta get to and from the station on each side of the trip; at the destination you need transportation, which costs money most the time. And, you are held hostage (metaphorically) by the train’s timetables. Driving, especially with an additional passenger, is far more economical when looking at a 4-hour train distance, and a lot less planning required (unless EV, which requires planning stops at chargers, where are they, how much, how long will it take, etc.)
Wife has taken the train to Santa Barbara with gals for wine-tasting (can walk around when they get there). No need for a DD, everyone can talk to each other’s faces, heck, can actually drink on the train (I think). That’s only two hours or so.
And, I’m awaiting the maglev from anywhere close to LA (I’ll even accept Victorville as a starting point) to Vegas. Maybe when I’m 90 years old (60+ now).
It’s not maglev, but there is a legit high-speed rail line under construction right now that will take you from LA to Vegas more than twice as fast as driving, it’s set to open in 2028.
https://www.brightlinewest.com/overview/project
I’m a big train nerd, and I might come down from Oregon just to ride this after it opens.
Would be great if it is done before those first few miles (out of 300) of that other HSR are done. I won’t even be 70 by 2028! Getting to Victor Valley or Hesperia will be tough, but worth it. From my house: take a train from Moorpark or Simi to Union Station, then take another Metrolink to San Berdoo, then another train to Vegas. Seems like more work than simply driving to Vegas.
And, leaving a car in Hesperia or Victor Valley is also a risk. So the plan will include taking someone else’s car there.
We have taken the train from SE Virginia up to DC a couple times, it’s about a 4-5 hour ride if I remember right. It does take about an hour longer than driving, but is far more pleasant than driving and fighting traffic and trying to find parking, and it’s super affordable too. I thoroughly enjoy traveling by train and would love to do a longer trip at some point.
When I was in college I took a train from NYC to Chicago (and back) and it took almost 24 hours. Now, almost thirty years later, I see they’ve nicked it down to twenty. All I remember is that it was excruciating watching freeway traffic whiz by while we trundled along at thirty MPH…not to mention the long stretches where we’d sit still.
However the other weekend we did a quick getaway from Seattle to Portland and decided that it was vastly preferable to driving given that A) we actually traveled faster than freeway traffic, although the offset was it took just as long given station stops; B) we could get up and pee whenever we wanted; C) we just planted ourselves in the service car so we had a table to stretch out and play cards; and D) gas and hotel parking equaled the train ticket price (also E we could drink beers).
So short trips are great if you can get one that fits your schedule, but unless we can get some sort of cabin, I’d rather fly or drive the longer trip even if I have to get a hotel for a night.
As much as I’d love to go by train, the destination is generally still the point of my travel – not the journey itself. The last time I checked, Amtrak was a ~3 day trip to FL versus 3 hours on a plane.
I would need to really love trains (or fear planes) to choose that.
At the time it was purely a financial decision and I had the time for a train but not the money for a plane. Nowadays the constraints are basically reversed so yeah, I’m with you.
I could see taking a scenic train ride through the Rockies as a vacation of sorts, where the journey is part of the enjoyment.
But NY to FL would be a brutal on a train.
I just checked and the travel time is down to 37hr from Boston to Miami. That’s still an extra two days round trip.
I disagree train is better than car, Metro-Rail is more for car, but Trains I think of more as Airplane replacements. Which, depending on the route, the difference in speed may be a wash, as you have to get to the airport an hour before your flight, the airport is usually at least a half hour from anywhere, so if it’s a 3 hour flight, you’re looking at at least 5 hours, if the train takes 6-7, less hassle, more comfortable, and way less emmissions, train may be the nicer option.
Also stop trying to ship Honda-Nissan, what has Honda ever done to you? That’s like trying to hook up Hugh Jackman with the Tiger King.(Hugh is Honda in this scenario to be clear.)
My understanding is that, at least in the US where our trains are slow, the time difference is usually much larger than this. More like a 3 hour flight corresponds to a 12+ hour train trip.
Good point, guess it’d be more like an hour flight vs maaaybe an 8 hour train trip, but if you’re wasting your day travelling maybe the train’s still a better option.
Just messing around on Amtrak’s site, it’s three hours from Boston to NYC and probably cheaper than gas and tolls. ($70 business class)
That’s on the Acela trains that I think run between Boston and DC?
Yeah, but that’s, what, a half hour flight? In that case rail may make sense because the overhead of air travel becomes disproportionate to the actual transit time, but once you get into multi-hour flights that decreases a lot.
I agree completely.
But I’d take the train next time I need to make this particular trip. If I’m traveling with anyone more than myself it’s probably cheaper to drive.
LOL – in a PERFECT scenario it’s 3 hrs from BOS to NYC. In reality, delays, speed restrictions and other issues mean you can count on it taking…who the hell knows? It’s unpredictable. Honestly, flying is the fastest way to NYC, but the hassle of the airport (especially Logan) means you’re better off leaving before dawn in the car so you can make it across CT before it becomes the giant, stupid roadblock that it is, no matter what route you’re on. (Pike -> 84 -> 684 -> Sawmill is usually less terrible than hitting the Meritt or stupidly going all the way down 91 to 95. If you’re gonna do that, pick up the LIRR in New Haven)
Merritt was like a cheat code 20 years ago. No traffic most times of day and you didn’t have to worry about cops because there’s no room for them to hide.
It’s definitely not any kind of shortcut these days. I’m pretty far north of Boston now, and I95 is pretty much full by 6am. Luckily I don’t have much reason to go to NYC these days. Next time I have to, I’ll try the train.
If you do, report back!
What’s pretty stupid is that there are train stations all over the state, but the rail service is so abysmal and disconnected. Even the commuter rail doesn’t interconnect its lines north-to-south. So if you want to jump from the Worcester line to the Fitchburg line (merely 20 miles between the two cities), you have to ride one or the other all the way to its terminus (North or South Station) and then switch – no link between North and South station, either.
So to even GET to South Station to take Amtrak is kind of an ordeal.
I cannot understand the lack of a link between North Station and South Station.
A Senator’s brother probably owned a cab company that runs exclusively between the two stations.
There was a link once like a century ago. They keep talking about a North/South link. It’s not even far, you can walk it. Welcome to Boston.
The MA legislature is the most opaque and uniquely underperforming in perhaps the entire country.
Do you mean the ferry from Bridgeport to Port Jefferson? There’s one from New London to Orient Point, but if you’re going out to the east end you should be rich enough for a helicopter. Otherwise you’re visiting family that lives on Long Island, and if that’s the case you really should have a chat with them about their lifestyle choices.
No no – the NYC Commuter rail – I meant Metro North, not LIRR. Silly me.
I don’t know about the Bridgeport ferry, but the Orient Point ferry is by no means a commuter-friendly ride. You only go to Greenport if you have business there. It’s not a good way to access the city – it’s called Long Island for a reason.
I took two train trips this summer, both round trips from Oakland to Santa Barbara on the Coast Starlight. They worked great for my very, very specific use case, but if the point of my trips had been to actually get from Oakland to Santa Barbara and back in a timely fashion, Amtrak would have been the worst possible option.
So what was my use case? I was on deadline trying to finish a novel! I needed an extended period of time where I couldn’t really do anything else—couldn’t go anywhere, no internet (many of Amtrak’s long-distance trains outside the Northeast don’t have wifi, and good stretches along the California coast don’t even have cell service)—so I could really focus and get some writing done. Running on schedule, which only one of my four trains was, the trip is about nine hours each way. In a car, it would be about a ten hour round trip.
One of my trains down to Santa Barbara ended up being four hours late getting in. The delay included being stopped for over an hour outside Vandenberg, waiting for a SpaceX rocket launch, which was kind of an interesting experience, though due to fog we couldn’t actually see anything other than a loud glow. I will say, having to walk to my hotel in an unfamiliar area after 10 PM was far from ideal, but as far as the extra time on the train went—more time for writing!
Any other reason to be on those trains, I would have counted them as a horrible travel experience, but between those two trips, I wrote 40% of my book and got it done well ahead of schedule.
I guess the brand is very important to people. They think they are buying Honda reliability but they are getting GM EV reliability that surprisingly is very good. Add the dealership experience and I see why people doesn’t care about what is underneath the vehicle. If the Honda was available when I got my Blazer EV, that would be my choice too. Apple CarPlay is another factor here. I would never give a dollar to OnStar and their awful customer service.
The Prologue has onstar.
HondaLink® Connected by OnStar – 2024 Honda Prologue | Honda Info Center
This is interesting. I took the family car shopping last weekend and the local Honda dealer had one Prologue on hand (we were there looking at Pilots). We found out that they have been leasing them faster than they can get them in, which honestly surprised me a bit, but I guess it isn’t just local area that has them high in demand. Conversely, I keep getting flyers from my local Chevy dealer (who is owned by the same group as the Honda dealer) throwing cash down and pleading for someone, anyone, to come and lease a Blazer EV.
Last time I rode a train that wasn’t the people mover or an amusement park was…21 ish years ago whew.
Time to scream into the void about EVs: I have a feeling that if we want more normies into EVs that there needs to be an aggressive push for rental properties to include charging. If the barrier of entry to practically use an EV for most commuting is to buy a house…good luck.
The home ownership rate is over 50% in the US, so EVs still have a lot of room to expand among those buyers. I believe it’s more on renters to demand chargers. Assuming the rental complex already has parking and electricity, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to do. I would assume the company that services the chargers will pay for the installation as part of the deal.
A home can be a condo or townhome without a garage.
I was thinking of that. I wonder what the split is between single family homes and condos.
This is not a perfect proxy, but at least as of a few years ago, about 2/3 of occupied housing units had a garage or carport.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1268-december-12-2022-2021-two-thirds-us-housing-units-had-garage-or
They’re rare close to Boston. Most of the housing pre-dates widespread use of personal cars. Even out here in the suburbs there’s plenty of homes without garages for the same reason.
The funny thing is all the housing built in the 80s/90s with attached garages under the house, where modern SUVs and trucks can’t really fit anymore so they just become garden sheds or storage areas.
We took Amtrak from NYC to Montreal for the last time in 2012. Of course it was late both ways, but the Adirondack has excellent views from the Hudson to the Canadian border. This is a trip I did many times.
Then we moved south.
The more Prologues I see the more I like the look of them. They did a great job with the design. If I were looking for full electric thats where my money would go. The lease rates are damn impressive as well.