Last night was a bit of a blur. There was the Cybercab liveblog. Stellantis shook up its own leadership, but kept Carlos Tavares around for a little bit longer. Toyota returned to F1. I drank what I thought was a peppermint tea but was actually a laxative tea. It was like we had the Morning Dump last night both figuratively and literally.
I’m not going to start with any of that. Instead, I’ll skip ahead to something that caught my eye earlier this week: a bit of a palette cleanser. Americans are buying smaller cars again at rates we haven’t seen in a while, which is good news. It’s almost an accident and one I hope automakers learn from.
Palette cleansed? OK, the Cybercab. Elon Musk usually pulls these things off, somehow, though the stock is selling off this morning. Did everyone just shrug? Is that what the morning after is like? While Musk was talking about a fully autonomous universe in California, his new friend former President Donald Trump was in Detroit saying he was going to block autonomous cars. What?
Honda has a new recall for… checks notes… my car.
We Can’t Have Cheap Chinese Cars Because We’re Just Barely Getting Cheap Small Cars Here
If you want to know the real reason why we can’t have Chinese cars it’s not because of national security reasons or that country’s lead in electric cars. It’s not about forced labor or IP theft. It’s has a lot to do with protecting autoworkers. It doesn’t matter if you think that’s a good or bad thing, it’s just a reality of concentrating these folks historically in states that have huge and disproportionate importance when it comes to electoral outcomes. Though, at some level, I think it feels right that we protect autoworkers.
Automakers know this. Automakers might be arguing against tariffs on Chinese cars in Europe, but they sure as hell aren’t making that argument here. After years of making expensive, big, heavy, inflated cars it’s almost like we forgot to make cheap cars.
The market as a whole is extremely mediocre this year sales-wise, and the two big exceptions are hybrids and smaller, affordable cars. This is what’s dragging down average transaction prices despite all other inflationary pressures according to Cox Automotive:
While the Mitsubishi Mirage was the only new vehicle in the U.S. still transacting for under $20,000 in September, the overall mix of small, more affordable vehicles has been elevated for much of 2024, which is helping hold down the new-vehicle ATP. Vehicles such as the Chevrolet Trax (ATP: $25,081), Toyota Corolla (ATP: $25,535), and Hyundai Elantra (ATP: $25,902) continue to sell at a strong pace.
[…]
“One reason transaction prices are lower in 2024 is that many buyers are choosing smaller, less expensive vehicles,” noted Cox Automotive Senior Economist Charlie Chesbrough. “The subcompact and compact SUV segments are outperforming the market this year, and by no coincidence, they’re also two of the lowest-priced product segments in the market.”
While smaller, more affordable vehicles are gaining market share in 2024, other segments are shrinking. Notably, the full-size pickup truck share is lower year over year in 2024.
Did you catch that last bit? Full-sized trucks are losing market share and smaller vehicles are gaining market share. Yeah, it’s a price thing, but it’s also a product thing. The Chevy Trax is a great vehicle. As is the Toyota Corolla. It’s plenty of car for most people and, while the Chevy Trax isn’t Geo Metro small, it’s small enough.
The mix of cars mentioned is interesting as the Trax is a Korean-built car sold by an American brand and the Hyundai Elantra is a Korean brand selling an American-built car. This pattern is basically true across the market as Ford sees huge sales from its relatively small Ford Maverick, Jeep’s old-as-Moses Compass saw a sales increase of 71% year-over-year.
Just. Build. Good. Affordable. Cars. This isn’t hard.
Tesla Stock Down 8% So Far This Morning, Uber Stock Up 8%
iRobot came out 20 years ago
science fiction vs reality#iRobot $TSLA #OptimusPrime pic.twitter.com/VR75darmYR
— Adidust.eth (@dustdust213) October 11, 2024
If you want to have the best read of how Musk’s “We, Robot” event last night went you can just compare Tesla’s stock (down about 8% so far today) with Uber’s stock (up about 8% so far today). If the market believed Musk’s vision for the future, which would make Uber obsolete, was real then you’d expect the opposite to happen.
Musk’s timelines for these things are much like my daughter’s timelines for getting to bed, full of the same hopeful promises and always annoyingly over-optimistic. Or, as one Bloomberg columnist put it this morning:
And yet, for all the futurism, so much of the night’s show felt like a rerun. The caveats about schedules and the next-yearism are virtually catchphrases at this point. Musk also played many of the old hits about robotaxis being far safer than humans; how passenger vehicles today sit idle most of the time; how people will be able to fall asleep and wake up at their destination in these things. Even the dancing Optimus robots, and Musk’s claim that everyone on Earth will ultimately own one, are not new anymore.
And from our old pal Patrick at InsideEVs:
From what I could see watching from afar, the We, Robot event had a joyous feel to it—Optimus robots walking through the crowd and making drinks, Tesla’s biggest fans and supporters going for Cybercab rides and Musk himself promising a coming “age of abundance” where “anyone will be able to have any products and services they want.”
Yet that wildly optimistic tone stood in stark contrast to Musk himself as of late, who’s become the doomsday preacher of the digital age after acquiring the social media platform Twitter and transforming it into the dark fountain of misinformation and hate speech that is X.
It’s weird that the theme of this was Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot or, more accurately, the Will Smith movie version. The CEO in that movie gets killed by his own creation and we decide, as a society, that really good robots are too advanced for us. One of the videos playing inside the little cabs giving their Disney World-esque rides around the WB Studio lot was Bladerunner 2049, where the ultimate bad guy is a tech CEO trying to sell a vision of the future. Musk seems to strike me as a guy who loves the visuals of sci-fi yet seems unable to internalize any of the warnings.
Former President Trump Comes To Detroit, Says He’s Going To Stop Autonomous Cars?
TRUMP: "Other countries produced auto-mo–bile and autonomous vehicles. Do you like autonomous? Does anybody like an autonomous vehicle? You know what that is, right?"
CROWD: *one person claps* pic.twitter.com/68y8nP5sIl
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2024
You have almost certainly already made up your mind about the election and nothing you’re going to read on a car blog is going to change that, nor is that our mission around here. But the former President speaking before business leaders in Detroit about the car industry is news.
It was, uh, interesting:
From Crain’s Detroit Business:
He promised a car industry “renaissance, the likes of which we have never seen before,” saying he intends that triumph “to be among my greatest legacies.”
He also said if Kamala Harris wins, “the whole country will end up being like Detroit” — a negative statement the vice president’s campaign quickly amplified on social media. He later pledged the city’s “rebirth” in a second term.
Does this mean that he’s supportive of bringing back Pontiac so it can finally produce the Pontiac G8 ST? That might be a winning issue around here.
The most confusing bit, linked in this video here, is when former President Trump spoke about autonomous cars:
“Do you like autonomous? Does anybody like an autonomous vehicle? Know what that is? Right? When you see a car driving along? Some people do, I don’t know. A little concerning to me, but the autonomous vehicles we’re going to stop from operating”
I think what he’s saying is that he’s going to stop autonomous cars from other countries, though his speech has been harder to follow lately. He also added that he wanted to make interest from car loans tax deductible, which would “revolutionize” the industry.
Honda Recalling 1.7 Million Vehicles Over Worm Gear
It finally happened. I bought the Honda CR-V Hybrid mostly for life reasons, but also to have something to write about and now I do! It’s being recalled!
According to the NHTSA report, the recall stems from an improperly produced steering gearbox worm wheel, causing excessive internal friction in the vehicles. That friction can cause a feeling of “sticky feeling” when turning the steering wheel.
“Increased friction between the worm gear and worm wheel can increase steering effort and difficulty, increase the risk of crash or injury,” according to the NHTSA report.
Well, that’s not good. For the record, I haven’t noticed this issue as my car is quite new.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
For all of my love of pop music and female pop vocalists, Christina Aguilera doesn’t usually pop up in my recommendations. The only reason I heard “Haunted Heart” is that she wrote this song for the Addams Family animated movie and it was on a Halloween mix. How did I not know this song? It goes almost too hard. Christine has pipes and bars.
The Big Question
Can Detroit beat the Guardians and make the ALCS to face the Yankees? Or, if you don’t like sportsball, are you going to watch the NASCAR Roval race this weekend? If you also don’t watch car racing, what are you doing this weekend?
They just need to kill all light truck exemptions and small cars will return with a vengeance. I get why people pick mid-size SUV’s (think like the ford escape) over mid-size and compact cars – you get so much more vehicle for very similar money, and when everyone else is in taller cars driving a car kind of sucks a lot of the time cause you can’t see around anything else on the road. I drive a small hatchback, and trying to back out of parking spaces or turn right off a multi-lane road sucks when the hood of the stupid truck next to you is above your roofline.
Hah yeah there are newer trucks that the bed goes almost up to the roof line of my truck yay 30+ year old 2wd Cummins. At least my bed is easy to get things in and out of unlike newer trucks that sit so damn high.
I built a utility/kayak trailer this spring and it’s almost a joy to use for yard waste as it is so much easier to load than a PU, holds more than most of them (5’x8’x2′), and I can brace larger branches against it to cut them down and jam shit in without caring so much like I would if I had a $70k truck, even with bed liner. I think the top of the cargo area is probably lower than the bed floor of some of these PUs.
Why I love my Fit’s Lane Watch, which Honda discontinued, the fools.
I guess that goes for the Fit and the Lane Watch. I’ll buy a used Fit if I have to give mine up for some reason, or shop Mazda.
Regardless of whether you like her music style or not, Christina Aguilera has an amazing vocal power and range. There are a few studio cuts of her floating around out there with no editing, reverb, etc and she still sounds fantastic.
Car trends come and go, and the executives running car manufactures have a history of being out of touch and following any obvious trend into the ground. This creates self fulfilling prophecies.
For years no one thought a small convertible would sell, so no one invested in them. Then they pointed to the poor sales of 20 year old designs like the Alfa-Romeo Spider and patted themselves on the back. When the Miata launched it was a smash hit and suddenly every car maker had to have a topless roaster.
The everything must be bigger and more macho trend played out a decade ago, but everyone had so much invested in it that the hype machine kept sales afloat. Now that giant SUVs and trucks are everywhere they just aren’t cool, and the inconvenience of climbing into them and maneuvering them has fewer upsides. Buying an expensive luxury SUV once made you look fashionable, now it makes you look old.
The whole country’s already like Detroit. https://youtu.be/YyvHqYu_KXI?t=92
It’ll be interesting to see if smaller cars progressively take more market share in the coming years/decades, as younger generations buy them more- https://insurify.com/car-insurance/insights/most-popular-cars-by-generation/, or if the main trend is that people buy larger cars as they age.
I’m certainly hoping that the trend to buy smaller cars will continue.
Me too. There’s no new car I’d consider except maybe the Mazda3.
Surprise, cheaper cars are moving while more expensive models cool off a bit.
Or at least until the friendly neighborhood Chevy dealer (they look for the consumer you know) slaps a $5k markup on the Trax.
Also just because I can pay more doesn’t mean I feel like some more expensive cars are providing good value. I’ll be very tempted to just buy a Trax, Kia Soul, or something like that when the time comes. Just get something cheap and simple. Even those cars have plenty of features these days.
As I wrote on the article a few days about Versa sales, this is mostly an artifact of very limited production of cheap cars in 2022-23 due to shortages. Automakers (rightly) prioritized production of more profitable stuff.
From an absolute numbers perspective, subcompact and compact cars are still mostly selling the same or fewer units than they did 5 years ago. Subcompact CUVs are a mix of up and down (the Trax is up, and really does seem like the best vehicle in the segment).
This is not a revival of the small car segment, just a mild reversion to the mean.
I was just looking up the numbers to make this same statement. I think this is 100% it. We’re still climbing out of the COVID issues, so looking at YoY sales numbers still doesn’t tell the true story. It’s still a good thing.
It’s same as the post the other day about Mitsubishi CRUSHING it compared to others. the numbers are up, but it’s still bad, just not as bad as last month/year. Because they are still climbing out of a huge hole.
Percentages are very misleading when you are moving low volumes for sure. “I doubled my sales this month” “What, from 2 to 4?” “Yup”. Still 100% increase in volume.
But overall, I agree. Full size trucks and SUVs are not yet ready to bow out and exit stage left. They will remain the prima donna for some years yet I am sure.
I used to laugh at salespeople who would be in a meeting giving high fives that they were up 15% without even a sideways nod to the fact that they were down 50% 2 years ago. It was almost like they would tank on purpose for a year, then spend 3 years celebrating big gains just to get back to where they were. (that’s not what they were doing, but at times it felt like it.)
I wish you were wrong, but I know you’re right.
Seems not so much Asimov, but more Alan Parson Project “I Robot”. Lots of noise and bravado, little else. Then there was Styx doing “Mr. Roboto” as much the same. Elmo, please STFU.
When that Styx album came out, they said it would change music forever. Instead, it just made Styx disappear.
It was a big thing on MTV and then suddenly it wasn’t.
Well, that’s a kind of change.
Styx had jumped the shark long before that album.
The new Trax cuts a surprisingly Outback-ish profile. Seems like a great package tbh
I’m often surprised by how good a new Trax looks in the metal, especially compared to the old one.
I see Mazda, and some of the baby Merc CUV, whatever it’s called.
Well, this weekend I will be restocking the fridge from all the food I had to throw out for the second time in two weeks, dealing with FEMA, and looking for a new job as my place of employment was destroyed. Obliterated in one night.
Good times!
(also, Go Tigers. Gimme something…)
I wish you all the best.
Thank you! I got off relatively unscathed. My kitchen is a bat cave because the hurricane shutters are stuck down and the mechanism is stripped. (they’ve been through a few, lol), and there is still a tree leaning on the power line that needs to go, but thanks to elevation I stayed dry. Even if my mailbox needed a snorkel, lol.
Many, many people were not as lucky. A lot of my co-workers and friends are pretty much homeless and lost all their shit they didn’t lose 2 weeks ago. Ugh.
I gave up on FEMA for the day after 2 1/2 hours on hold. Which I get, but still.
Yet, the news cycle moves on because it wasn’t a Cat 6 or some shit.
Been through a few myself. Never fun at all.
And really sorry about FEMA. After Hurricane Ivan, 2004, they just showed up a couple days later. No phone call needed. At the very least FEMA needs an automated phone response that takes your name and contact number, and promises to call you back asap.
Not all that hard to figure out, but?
It’s tough to get a good take on the situation with the TV media. Not enough detailed reporting, just what’s “easy” and not to far from the hotel please.
Again best to you all there.
FEMA just needs an automated wait time announcement to the caller, so I know I can take a “morning dump” or walk a greyhound or something without missing my 8,754th place in line.
Also wishing you well, however empty a few keystrokes feel.
Had call with my car dealer yesterday. Traded a 1500 truck in for a mazda 3 hatch. I have done more truck poo with my black widow than I have ever done with the old truck. That is a manual, gets 30+ to the gallon and is fun to drive. Told him to figure it out.
Still want to rebuy the 2008 350z i used to have, although it is functionally worthless as a dd, I know the 370 is better
Im putting around every summer in a 2003 g35 coupe and it’s a d*mn delight.
The only thing it has going against it is that stupid HVAC/Audio shared motherboard which will short out if you crank the tunes and heat up the amp causing the car to go full blast AC on ya.
It’s not the end of the world in the summer but with premium gas prices where they are I’ll probably yank it and reflow the solder at some point.
My weekend will be spent in DC! Unfortunately, my wife and I are going for a funeral, but we should have at least one day to do touristy stuff. Anybody got suggestions of what to see? What to avoid? Best time to go places?
I’ve heard the Air and Space museum remote site at the airport is amazing. If the weather is nice rent bikes and do a lap around the Basin, Jefferson memorial, WW2 memorial, etc
Oooo. Renting bikes sounds like a good way to get around!
We also rented bikes in Alexandria and biked to Mt Vernon, that was a good time on a bike path almost all the way
It is. I had never been there (my father used to dump me off at the one near the Mall back in the 80s.) I finally went to the one by Dulles a few years ago. Lots more planes, and fewer exhibit halls. It’s more of an open space museum (although the planes are still shown in relevant groups.) I had an older digital camera that burned though AA batteries and I think I had to buy multiple sets from the gift shop just to keep up with the amount of pics I was taking.
Avoid the beltway. At all costs.
I don’t think we’ll be doing much driving, so checkarooni!
Just don’t drive whatsoever. It’s not worth it if you aren’t used to the roads and traffic patterns. Take Metro or Uber everywhere. The best time to do the monuments is at night. They’re all lit up and the crowds are minimal. All the stuff on the national mall is walkable if you don’t mind getting a lot of steps. As JT4Ever suggested you can also rent bikes or scooters to move around the mall quicker.
The Udvar-Hazy Center (the air and space museum at Dulles airport) is absolutely fantastic if you’re into aeronautical history. They’ve got an SR71, space shuttle, and Concorde amongst other things, but it’s kind of a pain to get all the way out there and back. If that’s the sort of thing you’re into it’s worth it, if you’re indifferent about planes and such it’s probably not worth the trouble since you’re just here for a weekend.
If you want to get off the beaten path Fort Reno is very cool and is the highest point in the city. If you climb to the top of the hill that’s next to Belt Road you can see all the way into Virginia. It’s super cool and when we were teenagers we’d go up there to smoke, drink, make out, etc…but they cracked down on the teenage hijinks so it’s very peaceful now.
Rock Creek Park is super nice and very underrated. There’s a bike/walking path that you can basically take from one end to the other. It’s a great place to go for a walk, run, or ride. Also all the museums on the mall are free, which is great. If you only have time for one go directly to the national gallery of art. It’s spectacular.
Where are you staying? I can give further recommendations based on your area. As far as restaurants go it may be hard to find a table this late in the game, but some of our favorites are Le Diplomate (French bistro), Rasika (Indian with a twist), Nina May (farm to table/American type deal), and St. Anselm (best steak in the city, we have a res tomorrow night lol)…but if you want to get a little more adventurous there are lots of unique cuisine options.
Ethiopic is incredible Ethiopian food, Purple Patch is Filipino and rocks, Thip Khao is Laotian and awesome, etc. Most of the touristy/guide book options aren’t worth your time. Do not go to Ben’s Chili Bowl, it’s not great and I don’t know any locals who eat there…but if you want a very old school, classic experience 1789 in Georgetown is great and next to the infamous Exorcist stairs.
We’re staying at the Marriott Crystal City near the airport.
Also avoid the Wharf area. We went there and it was a hypercrowded collection of chain restaurants
The Wharf is awful. It’s like someone took a suburban “city” center and dropped it in an actual, interesting city. My dad and I always joke that it feels like someone picked up Bethesda MD and plopped it in DC. Gentrification at its absolute worst. No one who’s from here goes there, which should tell you everything you need to know.
Yeah, the Wharf was the lowlight of our family DC trip a couple years ago. Nothing like overpaying for some lukewarm Gordon Ramsey’s Fish n’ Chips to eat sitting on the sidewalk!
As a tourist, I thought the Anthem was a pretty cool place to see a show.
Air and Space and Natural History museums. If you like beer, hit up Churchkey
Although It’s been quite awhile since I been to it, the two you mentioned, the American History and the Arts and Industry (appears to be temp closed) were the ones I liked the best.
If you like african-american music and culture the top floors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture have some great displays – including the Mothership from Parliament Funkadelic. If you have lots of time and can handle crowds, the lower levels with history displays in a chronological sequence is interesting, but most people start in the basement and work their way up, so it tends to be overcrowded. This museum requires free timed-tickets, so it takes a modicum of planning.
If you want something different and less crowded, the Postal Museum near Union Station is a fun take-in and the Portrait Gallery is usually a good take-in.
Likewise some of the less well-known museums like the National Building Museum or the National Museum of the American Indian can be fun.
I think they are still working on the sculpture garden in front of the Hirschhorn, but they have a lot of modern art and sculpture on display in the building – which I do not think requires timed-tickets.
If you like airplanes & aerospace, the National Air & Space Museum’s Udvar Hazy Center, near Dulles Airport, has lots of planes and a space shuttle on display.
If you are near Dupont Circle the Phillips Collection has a great art collection spanning the early 1800’s to about the mid/late-1900s.
I have not done any of these, but some of my friends like going to rooftop bars – some like VUE have great views, but can be pricy: https://washington.org/visit-dc/rooftop-bars-restaurants-washington-dc
The museums are free. If you like modern art (or even if you don’t) go to the Hirschhorn. You’ll love it or you can walk out. Everything is walkable, except the Jefferson Memorial, which is far away, but near Arlington. Plenty of other museums too.
What am I doing this weekend? Drinking lots of good beer!!
https://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/
and taking a BUS which exists today. Think I would puke if I sat backwards in the cyberbus.
Auto loan tax deduction – more fodder for the financially illiterate. Finance a $50k vehicle at a 10% rate you pay about $5000 in interest the first year to keep the math simple. A tax deduction doesn’t mean a tax CREDIT, so you just take $5k off the top of your taxable income, so if you made $80k that year it now counts as $75k. If that puts you in the 25% tax bracket (too lazy to look it up) for that top portion of your income (everyone understands how marginal rates woirk, right?) that saves you $1250. Hardly lifechanging, more likely banks will just raise interest rates or dealers will raise prices to compensate and keep the money themselves. Its not like the interest is all of a sudden refunded in whole…
Most people that have to finance cars don’t itemize anyway as their standard deduction is higher than whatever amounts they have that can be itemized. And anyone with money will just pay cash instead of paying 10% for auto interest.
So on the very same day that his buddy Musk unveiled plans for two new autonomous cars, Trump says he’s going to stop autonomous cars from being built.
How about that.
It’s perfect, now Musk would have an external reason for not building them. Blame the gummint.
I really wonder what would have happened with this morning’s trading, if, instead of that cybertron thing, Musk had shown off a $25k small hatchback based on a cut-down Model 3 platform and announced a firm job 1 production date.
My gut says what they showed WAS a low price, small, cut-down car. But at some point Musk thought he could sling this taxi stuff more than that car. So, he had them pivot a little so he could continue to sell his “cybertaxi” BS that he’s been promising for a decade now.
I bet this thing turns into a small car model.
If it does, I’d actually be pretty impressed/excited, because it is decent looking and we don’t have many small sports coupes on the market these days. Honestly, a new electric MR2 or Del Sol or EXP-type car would be a pretty revolutionary product in this day and age
So much of the form factor seems dictated by human driving. Maybe that’s just a hangover from using existing designs but it seems to me like it’s meant to slap a steering wheel on it and some pedals and sell it. All drive by wire of-course.
This turned in a drivable car with a Model S PLAID drive system, AWD, power dense battery to make PLAID power, and a sub-3,000 lb curb weight would be amazing.
That’s where Musk usually wins. He promises BS, then provides something viable but far short of what was promised. It keeps the company floating and the hopes (and stock price) of inventors high at the same time.
He’s a gigasalesman
He should go back to things he can actually deliver on. Like flamethrowers.
Can’t operate as a responsible car company when your stock valuation is based on empty promises that you’re actually a tech startup. If Tesla focused on building cars like it should the stock would tank and Musk can’t allow that.
That is as likely as him delivering on the promised cycbertaxi within a decade or never.
Maybe a decline in full size truck sales will encourage the industry to make base/lower optioned trucks more readily available, if they have fewer customers willing to take out a $50,000+ loan for something they don’t really need.
Fifty grand for a full size truck? That IS the base model these days.
I’m assuming they put at least some money down or have a trade in. I’ve never 100% financed a car so I tend to think of a car loan as a percentage of the price.
This whole “autonomous vehicle” thing is a lot of hot air at this point. The ones we do have are geofenced into specific parts of cities with generally benign weather. Wake me up when an autonomous car can safely traverse a snow covered road at highway speeds. That’s something that humans around me do occasionally and usually fairly well. We haven’t yet figured out how to make these things fail safely when they’re in an accident. To be fair, a lot of humans are clueless how to get their cars off the road in a minor accident.
Or drive through a blizzard highway or urban.
gearbox worm wheel, causing excessive internal friction… That friction can cause a feeling of “sticky feeling”
I for one welcome my worm getting sticky while working internally with friction.
On baseball notes, Hinch shouldn’t have been fired, and I look forward to the future cheating scandal of the 2024 World Champion Tigers.
Asimov (and many of his contemporaries) was a true visionary. A science fiction author with a hard science background and humanitarian impulses. His entire robot series (mostly written in his teens and 20’s) wrestled with issues humanity faces today, including reigning in AI, job loss to automation, etc… Many of these stories are now 80+ years old.
BTW the movie bears no resemblance to his writing, he was an optimist. He believed humanity could and would control it’s creations. The 3 Laws were absolute.
Which is highly unfortunate. I quite liked the movie as a standalone piece, but it is NOT I, Robot. I wish they had used a different name then, just as I hate all the IPs getting raped today buy people who think they can do better than the original author, but somehow also doubt their prowess enough to also need to put a famous name on it and not sell it as an original.
1000% agree
It’s offensive that Musk appropriates his legacy to hawk varorware.
Detroit is going to win. Hinch should have never been fired.
I mean that would be a very Detroit thing to do
Lol, this is the future President Trump is trying to save us from! (Fixed)
A mountain-dwelling coworker reported that the northern lights were spectacular last night. The Blue Ridge Parkway, closed after the last hurricane remnants, is scheduled to reopen today, so I’ll be up there late just like the old days—except no drinking and sans teenage drama
Lots of reports here in the DC suburbs, even with the light pollution. I missed the window I guess.
Thankfully I saw the Aurora when I was a teenager in the mountains of NE PA. It truly is magnificent, and entirely different when not time lapsed.
It was highly visible even here in Philadelphia
Went out about midnight here (Eastern Ontario) and the aurora was spectacular.
Our power near Clearwater came back on, and with it any chance of seeing anything in the sky. Nonetheless, I’ll take power.
Also, we drove the entire Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway in late September. I’m so thankful I got this bucket list item in. It’s 168 miles opening today,at least 100 is still closed.
Trax SS when?
It’ll have the big motor, the 1.5L.
Because they’re no longer small