Suppose that a Democrat wants to take a ride in a new Tesla Cybercab, coming soon to a city near you? He/she/ze/they wouldn’t want to be seen in the vehicle without a disclaimer on the back. How about selling temporary magnets and vinyl cling signs? Here are some ideas for the wording, but maybe readers will have better ones…
Democrat on board
I support autonomous driving, not autonomous trillionaires
I hate Elon Musk
I needed a ride. I didn’t join a cult.
Robotaxi passenger — not a Tesla customer
I did not choose the CEO
Vehicle’s politics do not reflect those of its passenger
(for the older rider) I booked this before I remembered who owns Tesla
Temporarily occupied by a registered Democrat
I am using this vehicle under protest
I have serious concerns about the owner of this company
This is transportation, not complicity (#FreePalestine)
I am participating in this ride ironically
NPR tote bag in the trunk
Figure $15 per magnet/sticker. A majority of Americans are Democrats. Tesla hopes to address the entire market. Each Democrat might need three stickers/magnets per year (some will fall off; the messages will lose their novelty). We can’t get money from babies, but the U.S. population is at least 343 million (nobody knows the true number because nobody knows how many migrants live among us). The total addressable market, therefore, should be approximately 150 million times $45 per year = $6.75 billion per year for Signs of Righteousness LLC. Does anyone see a flaw in this business plan?
Here’s a report on driving a 2022 Tesla Y around Northern California. The car, built in Dec 2022, was delivered to me at SFO by Avis with over 71,000 miles on the odometer. My range anxiety began at the airport. The fully charged machine was predicted to go only 186 miles before bricking itself. No, problem, I thought. My friends in Napa are Righteous and will have a charger for anything that can reverse Climate Change (TM). The car sported error messages regarding climate control (because of #ClimateChange since 2022?) and rear tire wear:
The rear tires had at least some tread left and I wasn’t planning to use Dog Mode so these messages didn’t worry me too much. The car was pre-tuned to the Bollywood FM radio station. Just remember that it’s not a “replacement”:
I made it to Piedmont, California without incident:
A house next door to my cousin’s reminds Native Americans that America was “Built by Immigrants.” (Or maybe not, actually, since it is extremely rare to see anyone non-white in Piedmont.)
One great thing about the Tesla software/camera systems is that the machine is smart about when to cancel a turn signal, e.g., after a lane-change is complete. Sadly, though, the vehicle still lacks CarPlay and its Google Maps-based navigation display is nowhere near as driver-friendly as Google Maps. It doesn’t show stop signs or traffic lights along one’s route, for example, and, therefore, it is impossible to see that one should turn right at the second light. All navigation cues are essentially distance-based, despite the fact that “second light” is a lot easier for a human to gauge than “0.2 miles”.
Maybe it was the glass roof or maybe it was the climate system fault that I had been warned about, but the climate control system in the 2022 Tesla Y was dramatically inferior to what we’re accustomed to in our luxurious Honda Odyssey, a 2017 design. Even when the outside temp is in the 70s, the interior surfaces, such as the seats, will be broiling hot. The AC takes around 20 minutes to cool it down and the climate system seems to lack an awareness of whether it is sunny or dark outside. If sunny, a temp setting of 65-67 degrees is necessary for comfort. At night, though, the same setting will result in the interior becoming too cold. (By contrast, our Odyssey cools down from a 90-degree Florida parking experience in about 5 minutes and we just leave it on “72 Auto” independent of the insolation. (ChatGPT says that the latest Teslas have improved rejected of solar heat through the glass and also “15 percent” better cooling.)
On arrival in Napa at a worrisome 25% charge level, I discovered that Avis had either not provided me with the J1772 adapter to a “standard” charger or it was in the glove box, out of which I was locked without a required PIN code. It’s apparently too complex to have rental customers be authorized in the Tesla app and, therefore, everyone who rents from Avis is a valet and uses the valet key (which, at least in the plastic case supplied by Avis, scratches up the side of the driver’s door pillar). Did my friends in Napa have the correct hardware for charging an Elon Musk-designed Tesla? Here’s their entryway and living room:
(Yes they are white Boomers and no they aren’t paying any property tax (owned the same place for about 45 years so they pay tax on the 1980 value).)
They had an electric car charger, of course, but only for their Nazi-free Chevrolet Bolt, which uses the J1776 “national standard” that, in fact, is no longer a standard because everyone is adopting Tesla’s connector. I hit a Supercharger on the way out of Napa, though, and it worked seamlessly (just plug it in and they bill Avis and, presumably, Avis will eventually hit me with 55 cents/kWh plus an absurd markup). That said, how much time do you want to spend at a Circle K?
My second Supercharging was at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. Tesla tells you how to get there, but not that the Supercharger is on the second floor of the parking structure. There’s a slow “destination charger” bank on the ground floor. Once upstairs, I discovered that a white Model Y is the new black Model T:
Locking and unlocking was always a painful process, especially if one needed more than the driver-side door open. This wouldn’t have been as serious an issue, I’m sure, if Tesla were to engineer a Honda-style key fob intended for renters who are fully, but temporarily, authorized to use the car.
Despite the epic hassles of charging, I’m not sure that a gas-powered car would have been dramatically less expensive for fuel. Unleaded regular was over $6 per gallon ($3.90 in Florida during the same week, says AAA):
Would I want to own this vehicle for manual driving? No. Our Honda Odyssey is two years older and has almost as miles on it and is a superior machine overall. Were the deficits relative to the Honda tolerable if the Tesla would drive itself competently? Yes.
Wishlist (of stuff that hasn’t already been fixed in 2025 update of the Y):
real switches for basic adjustments, such as mirrors
gauges behind the steering wheel, as seen in every other modern car
adopt CarPlay or at least show traffic lights and stop signs on the navigation map
make the glass roof optional; I never got any value out of it while sitting in the driver seat and it is an absurdly bad idea for the Sun Belt
a new name for the car with the next rev of the design (it’s confusing if an obsolete jalopy can be rented out by Avis and called by the same name as a nice new redesigned car); how about “Tesla Le Tigre”? (optional Derek Zoolander decals and/or tiger stripes)
An engineer friend with a 2003(!) BMW M5 as his daily driver sat in the Tesla and played with the switches on the steering wheel and pronounced them to be “garbage”. It makes sense that Tesla would cheap out on everything for its current models/pricing, but why not have a “super premium” version where they put in BMW-/Mercedes-grade switches, a screen behind the steering wheel, etc.?
Separately, shout-out to California for allowing people to set up Short-Term License Plate Accounts when driving rental cars through various toll gates. Toll-by-plate charges then go, for a specified time period, directly to one’s credit card rather than taking months to get through Hertz or Avis with various markups applied.
(Traffic was mostly terrible, incidentally, though not if one stayed within Menlo Park/Palo Alto and avoided commuting hours (8-10 am and 4-7 pm on weekdays?).)
There were no improvements in minivans from Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, or Kia for 2026 (see Minivan news for the 2026 model year). What did the legacy automakers do with the additional year of engineering time? There are no improvements in minivans for the 2027 model year either! Honda’s driver assistance tech on the Odyssey, for example, is the same as it was in 2017 (for the 2018 model year). The only change for Honda is a $400 price increase. Car and Driver says that “the [Toyota] Sienna carries over into 2027 unchanged” (this is the only manufacturer from whom we might have to wait until October to get official news; maybe there will be some tech improvement over what was introduced in 2020).
Chrysler killed the plug-in hybrid version of the Pacific and tweaked the styling (for people like us who buy minivans for maximum style/prestige!).
A dynamic difference we can comment on is the Y L’s new suspension. The Y L uses the Y Premium’s single-valve adaptive damping with a specific tune for the L’s larger chassis that prioritizes comfort without permitting unnecessary body roll in corners. There’s even a passenger-comfort setting that attempts to absorb more impacts for those in the rear seats. Anyone who has ever bounced around in the back of a Tesla Uber will appreciate the idea of a softer rear-seat ride. The Model Y’s excessively firm ride has long been a sticking point at C/D, and the Y L addresses it in a way that doesn’t compromise the car’s handling strengths.
I guess we won’t be able to get one until March? It would be absurd to have an AWD version in Florida (the last snowstorm in Palm Beach County was on January 19, 1977 and deposited 1/4 inch). Dragging around a second motor that compromises the range makes no sense. (The extra acceleration from from the dual motor version isn’t interesting either given that the RWD Model Y can do 0-60 in roughly the same amount of time as our Odyssey, which is overpowered for America’s traffic-choked roads.) A friend in Maskachusetts ordered the Launch edition as a replacement for his Lucid Air due to that machine’s lack of FSD and, of course, he will be able to take advantage of AWD if Climate Change doesn’t progress faster than expected by the expert consensus. When he ordered the machine, a couple of weeks after the launch of the Launch, he was told that it would be delivered in September or October. This was later updated to perhaps as late as December.
I don’t think the Y L will win any beauty contests, but maybe it isn’t dramatically uglier than the Y? It’s 7-9 inches shorter than today’s minivans.
A friend lent his almost-new Tesla S out (not to me!) and the result was a Cybertruck rental while the bumper got some rehab.
The Cybertruck’s FSD struggled at low speeds due to constant phantom human sightings. We’re pretty sure that this was due to a camera’s interaction with the Maskachusetts front license plate (Florida does not require this disfigurement).
I sat in the driver seat for a 45-minute FSD from Dedham to Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA. The system performed commendably except that chill mode hogged third lane (out of four) on I-95/128 and obstructed traffic flow by driving 55 mph during the intervals without significant traffic. It should be smart enough to know that a strict speed limit driver should stick to the two right lanes if four are available.
My primary take-away is that Tesla hasn’t thought through the ergonomics of 98% self-driving. For close to 100 years, cars have been engineered so that the driver can extend both of his/her/zir/their feet (need to be gender-inclusive since we’re talking about a trip around Boston). The left foot sits on a footwell rest or, sometimes, a “dead pedal” that is at roughly the same distance from the driver as the clutch (old-school manual transmission requiring quick changes of position for the left foot). The right foot rests comfortable on the gas pedal.
With the 2026 Model S, however, there is nowhere to rest one’s right foot when self-driving. Either the footwell needs to be a little wider or the accelerator and brake pedals need to be moved closer to the center of the existing footwell so as to make room for a dead pedal on the right. More complex idea since Tesla buyers love technology for its own sake: a rest for the right foot that automatically extends slightly when FSD is engaged and that retracts back into the floor when driving manually (“like an animal”).
A few photos of the Tesla Collision Center and the 10:00 am traffic that we suffered through to get there. (I can’t figure out how people in Boston are so passionate about open borders and the attendant population growth. They are gradually being imprisoned in their own neighborhoods by ever-worsening traffic.)
The pedals are extremely well placed. The accelerator is close to the tunnel, letting the foot rest against its side, and there is plenty of room left of the clutch pedal for the driver to brace himself.
“I have fully concluded that Tesla seriously needs to offer a right hand dead pedal. … if FSD is expected to be coming, everyone will need to put their right foot somewhere.” (2018!)
Happy National Financial Awareness Day to those who celebrate…
We had a family discussion about the possibility that even successful people might be forced to work, e.g., to pay for a child’s college expenses. “It doesn’t matter how much you earn,” I told the kids. “It is always possible to spend every last penny.” They dispute this. I cited examples of second and third homes, of first class airline tickets to Europe, of expensive cars and watches.
The very next day, I ran into a neighbor who had purchased a Porsche 911 GT3 Touring the day before (i.e., while our family discussion was occurring). “The dealer called me and said he had a white and gold one in stock,” said the new owner. “My initial thought was to reject the color, but I went over to see it and came home with it.” In other words, an impulse decision to spend $300,000(?).
(As far as I know, this purchase won’t put any financial strain on the owner, but I thought it was a funny coincidence!)
Meanwhile, any news on the 2020 Tesla Roadster? If it had been delivered as promised would the early ones already be ready for the lithium-ion scrap heap?
Happy “we’re still right our 2 percent annual inflation target” day to everyone from the BLS. Let’s look at part of the CPI that used to be deflationary and that is now inflationary: personal computers. June 25, 2026 invoice for 1.5 TB of RAM that my friend bought for his home PC:
The IBM PC was born with 16 KB (base) of RAM in Boca Raton 45 years ago (announced August 12, 1981). From the Boca Raton Historical Society:
In 1967 Thomas John Watson Jr., then Chairman of the Board, announced that IBM would open a large-scale manufacturing plant at Boca Raton to produce its System/360 Model 20 midsized computer. In December 1966, IBM announced its purchase of 550 acres west of what is now I95, south of Yamato Road and east of Military Trail. IBM was the first company to build an industrial site in the scrubland of the west. The original site eventually grew from 620,000 square feet to 3.6 million square feet in more than 40 buildings. The main complex was modeled after IBM’s research center located in LaGaude, France on a rugged slope just ten miles from Cote D’Azur. Marcel Breuer and Robert Gatje, the famed architects who created the LaGaude building adapted the design for Florida’s flat terrain and hot sun.
In August 1981, IBM launched a new product that put the city of Boca Raton on the map. A small engineering team led first by William Lowe and then by Philip “Don” Estridge, secretly developed a personal computer (code name “Acorn”) that was to be ready for market within one year. Under pressure to meet an incredibly tight deadline and with autonomy from management unprecedented in IBM history, a small team created a personal computer that became the standard for the PC industry. Rather than develop all the parts internally, the team, incorporating an “open architecture,” quickly pulled together existing resources from outside companies. Microsoft provided the operating system (DOS) and BASIC programming language; Intel the 8088 microprocessor chips; Tandon the disk drive; Zenith the power strips; SCI Systems the circuit board; and Epson the printer. The open architecture allowed for add-on components to the internal system. Also for the first time, IBM sold this product through outside sources; Sears, Roebuck, and Company and Computerland, were the official retailers for the PC.
The success of the IBM PC resulted in the rapid growth of IBM Boca Raton. Staff size grew to over 10,000 to keep pace with the demand for the PC. IBMers eagerly accepted positions at Boca Raton for, within IBM ranks, it had gained a reputation for being a place of exciting and revolutionary work.
IBM shrunk and the buildings are now the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRIC). I visited with a neighbor who is a car expert (senior engineer for a Big Three manufacturer) back in March for Cars and Coffee Palm Beach. What do the buildings look like today?
Practical advice: use the bathroom before you arrive because the BRIC landlords don’t open up the buildings and let people use the real restrooms, ask for donations, present the history of the PC, or show off what is being done today in their 1.7 million square feet of space. There is a McDonald’s within walking distance and, for the ladies, a Starbucks in a mall across the street. Also, bring your own coffee because the food and drink vendors usually had lines. Budget about 1.5 hours to see the 500+ cars and chat with some of the owners. Perhaps 2,000 people show up (it was free for spectators and $15 for those showing off their cars).
Northerners will appreciate this Kei car, which sported “Floridiots” bumper sticker and flag plus a Confederate flag on the front bumper:
The 1,064 hp Corvette ZR1 was almost impossible to get in March 2026, but there were two at the event.
If a real Chevrolet is too pedestrian, maybe you’d like to see this $1 million fake Ford (a GT that, instead of being made in the Islamic Republic of Michigan by Ford is made in the Islamic Republic of Canada by Multimatic, which also makes the fake Ford Mustang GT3 and GT4).
My favorite part of this 12 mpg machine is the “EcoBoost” logo on the engine (660 hp out of 3.5 liters of V6):
Maybe Chevrolet should slap an “Eco” label on the 12 mpg 670-hp Corvette Z06?
McLaren and Lamborghinis were everywhere, but we saw only a handful of Ferraris.
At the other end of the performance spectrum, a Volkswagen Rabbit GTI:
A replica (I think) Mercedes 300 SLR, complete with removable steering wheel (impossible to get in/out without removing it):
A Mercedes sedan converted to Tesla power:
(Maybe this will become much more common as old Teslas become more numerous and less valuable.)
Here’s a 1976 Pontiac that cost $6,746, which the BLS says is roughly $40,000 in today’s mini-dollars:
Maybe the closest modern equivalent is a Toyota Camry, which starts at about $32,000 including (an outrageous) destination charge?
Do you really need to drop a modern muscle car drivetrain into a motorcycle? Yes:
It’s a great event, but I think something more needs to be done to commemorate our best desktop friend!
(I like to do everything in the dumbest way imaginable so I held off on buying more SSD back in October 2025 when building my new desktop PC. I figured that I would be able to get 16 TB on an M.2 stick, rather than merely 8, and that the price would keep falling. Instead, the 8 TB Samsung 9100 that I did purchase has more than doubled in price and 16 TB limped into the market in March with a price of $16,000 (below).)
Our loyal reader and thoughtful commenter Alex Kowalski died of cancer two years ago (see Rest in Peace, Alex Kowalski). A few of us got together on some memorial tiles at the National Corvette Museum. One of Alex’s skills was dealer-level car maintenance and he rebuilt the engine on a 1968 C3 Corvette.
We stopped into the Cathedral of Corvette in August 2025 to pay our respects to Alex and to the engineering behind the machine that he loved enough to rebuild.
The visit started with a Nissan Altima identifying as a Corvette:
The memorial for Alex is just inside the entrance:
Here’s a crazy story about a Corvette that rose from its tomb:
The same year/generation Corvette that Alex had, driven by Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell (passed away just a few days after our museum visit, on August 7, 2025 at age 97):
Some relevant advice from the Corvette Club of Tennessee: “Life is Short: Keep the Pedal to the Metal”. I wish that Alex’s life had been longer, but am glad that we have the memories at the museum and here on this server.
It’s Father’s Day. For those handful of American men who have any control over their kids’ lives, a suggestion….
If you’re anywhere near Tacoma, Washington and haven’t been carjacked yet (Tacoma is “safer than 1% of U.S. cities), the LeMay car museums are well worth a stop. The primary one is near the Almond Roca factory in Tacoma proper and styles itself “America’s Car Museum”.
We were there for a special American Supercar exhibition, in which the Corvette and Ford GT were featured prominently.
Here’s an astonishing 1000 hp Oldsmobile:
GM loaned the museum the C8 Corvette test mule:
Those who loved physics class will appreciate this 1923 Lincoln, the first car to drive over the doomed Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940:
If you need a last-minute art idea for America’s 250th:
Thanks to Harold LeMay’s fortune built hauling garbage, the museum has magnificent examples from every era of the automobile, a 1906 Cadillac, for example:
A 1930 Duesenberg:
A wartime Chevrolet:
A 1954 Chevrolet wagon that would be awesome to own with retrofit A/C:
If Greta Thunberg hadn’t segued into pro-Hamas activism, this would be the perfect 100 mpg car for her, from aircraft engineer Jim Bede:
In order to skip out on Tacoma’s reputation for violent crime, we stayed in the new development of Point Ruston, a bit to the northwest. Fortunately for Florida real estate values, the breakdown of order in the West Coast cities is still in evidence. A CVS in the moderately-rich area locks up the precious laundry detergent:
Immigration has resulted in a random assortment of humans with conflicting cultural and religious values. Below, Muslims complying with Islamic dress codes are juxtaposed with (1) a pet dog (haram), and (2) a female rollerblader shamelessly displaying her bare midriff:
Our good fortune with the weather and Mount Rainier views continued:
We’re informed that Floridians are stupid. The hyperintelligent progressives of Tacoma, however, need to be reminded to close the water tap after filling a cup at the ice cream shop:
The coffee shop nearby has a complete Righteous Boomer No Kings Rally Starter Kit:
The fridge magnets for sale during morning coffee include one that situates anti-Trump protest in the context of Martin Niemöller-level heroism (which makes sense since The Reverend Niemöller hated Jews almost as much as today’s progressives and actually voted for the Nazi Party three times!):
Although the residents of western Washington State are surrounded by neighbors who are in obvious need of assistance, e.g., due to being unhoused, their political energies go into parading around in front of each other to show how much they hate what Donald Trump is doing 3,000+ miles away in D.C. Here’s the reading material provided at the coffee shop:
The next morning we hit the LeMay Collections at Marymount, a less-glitzy venue in south Tacoma. This shouldn’t be skipped! We opted for a docent tour, which included a ride in a Ford Model T and a visit to a massive car warehouse that is normally off-limits.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if Stellantis brought back the AMC Pacer?
The Collections includes a large exhibit on the Elon Musk of the 1940s, Preston Tucker. Promoting the public sale of stock in an unprofitable company whose products were delayed did not make Tucker a trillionaire, however, but got him prosecuted and shut down by the U.S. government. Tucker beat the rap, but the company was killed. Tucker’s design had a lot of safety features that would gradually appear in mass-market cars over the subsequent 30 years. The museum explains that the original design even included seatbelts but that they were removed due to a fear that the public would infer that the car was more dangeorus than existing designs. One design goal was that the engine and transmission could be removed and a loaner engine/transmission swapped in. This would take less than one hour and would enable repairs to be done offline.
How much fun would it be to have this Edsel station wagon? Our docent reminded us that Edsel Ford shouldn’t be associated with business failure, despite the lack of success of the Edsel cars that were introduced after his death. It was Edsel who twisted his dad’s arm into adding the Model A to Ford’s product line as an alternative to the Model T, which Henry Ford considered to be ideal.
The Collections has far more cars than the downtown museum and they don’t always get a lot of room for display and walking around:
There are a lot of gems, however, and the place is well worth 2 hours. You’ll learn about at least a dozen car brands that you hadn’t previously known existed. Below, I learned about an entire class of car that I hadn’t heard of, the “cyclecar“. 14 hp out to be enough for anybody, as Bill Gates famously never said.
Just imagine how much surplus oil we’d have if people did most of their errands in a modern version. Even with 1913 technology, this machine supposedly achieved 40 mpg at 40 mph (more than enough speed to get around Seattle and, in fact, even 15 mph was overkill during a lot of our time on I-5).
A righteous neighbor here in Abacoa (not everyone in Florida is Deplorable, especially here in Palm Beach County, though it is rare even for the Righteous to have a political/social justice bumper sticker), this afternoon:
I asked Grok to redo it to read “I bought this before Elon had four commas” rather than “I bought this before Elon went crazy”:
The updated sticker is perfect for adorning any Tesla, of course, but it also makes sense for those of us with non-Tesla cars. We can proudly proclaim that we didn’t help Elon get to his envy-stoking level of wealth.
How are others dealing with their grief? New York Times front page:
The Native American community:
Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire.
The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk's level of wealth.
Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire. While working people struggle to get by, the billionaire class is becoming the TRILLIONAIRE class. It's disgusting. I'm fighting to tax the rich so we stop rewarding trading stocks over punching clocks.
(What evidence does Ms. Markey have that Elon ever “traded stocks”?
Bernie:
Today, Elon Musk, a trillionaire, pays the same amount into Social Security as someone making $184,500.
If we end that absurdity and lift the cap on taxable income, we can make Social Security solvent for 75 years and expand benefits by $2,400. My Social Security bill does that.
An envious California progressive at the peasant level of wealth for Palm Beach County (at least $30 million for Mx. Newsom and the female companion he/she/ze/they plucked from Harvey Weinstein’s hotel rooms):
Americans are struggling to pay for groceries and gas while Elon Musk becomes a TRILLIONAIRE.
When the federal government is for sale, the rich get richer and everyone else gets shafted.
(If California could confiscate 100% of Elon’s $1 trillion would that be sufficient to realize at least part of their high-speed rail dream?)
The grandson of Muhammad Kenyatta:
An economy that makes it possible for a trillionaire to exist, while the average American can’t afford gas and groceries, is fundamentally broken and rigged.
— Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (@malcolmkenyatta) June 12, 2026
The pro-Hamas next U.S. Senator from the Islamic Republic of Michigan:
In case you were wondering whether to take investment advice from me, 15-20 years I confidently predicted that Honda and Toyota would jump in and take the EV market away from Tesla as soon as Tesla had run out of early adopters. Honda and Toyota were so much more experienced and better at making cars than Tesla that of course they’d be able to make better electrically-powered cars. (Honda is, apparently, able to design a better electric car than what Ferrari is offering, but that’s like being a dwarf among midgets.)
The automaker reported a net loss of $2.7 billion for the fiscal year that ended March 31. Earnings were weighed down by more than $9 billion in restructuring charges and write-downs after a retrenchment of its E.V. strategy. It is the first loss that the 77-year-old company has reported since listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1957.
“The business environment and customer demand have changed beyond our expectations,” Toshihiro Mibe, Honda’s chief executive, said in a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday. “We were not able to respond flexibly enough.”
Is there a comic-book villain who can be blamed?
On Thursday, Mr. Mibe said the company would nix its 2040 target of selling only electric and hydrogen-powered cars. That target was based on the Biden administration’s environmental policies in the United States, the company’s biggest market, he said.
“A year ago, there was a drastic change. We have seen a shift from a focus on the environment to the opposite,” Mr. Mibe said. Honda’s previous target, he added, “is now not realistic.”
Hmm… if Joe Biden was virtuous and wise who might be “the opposite” in terms of virtue and wisdom levels?
Greta Thunberg (pre-Queers for Palestine version) won’t be happy with the recovery plan:
For now, Honda said, it will double down on gasoline-electric hybrids, introducing 15 next-generation, high-efficiency models, including larger vehicles in North America, by 2030. Combined with plans to cut costs and accelerate development, this push is intended to restore Honda to record profits by the end of the decade, Mr. Mibe said. The company is also forecasting a return to profitability this year.
If Tesla is close to cracking self-driving and Honda hasn’t even begun to try (the 2026 Odyssey has the same feeble driver assistance features as the 2018 Odyssey), how could Honda conceivably compete? Maybe some sort of monster pseudo-military vehicle like the G-Wagen? Here’s one in military green at the Stuart, Florida airport:
People have demonstrated a willingness to pay huge $$ for this truly terrible car. Speaking of huge $$, one of our neighbors apparently bought a Maybach EV:
Imagine being rich enough to spend $200,000 on an EV that can’t drive itself and will be worth $30,000 after a year or two. (See Mercedes EQE review for my own attempt at living with a Mercedes EV.)
Will it truly be possible for Honda to muddle through to profitability and significance with slight improvements on the Accord, Civic, CR-V, etc.? The stock market doesn’t seem to think so. Tesla is worth more than 10X what Honda is worth (and at least 6X Toyota’s market cap).
Our own Honda seems to be giving up. At five years of age and 62,000 miles, the dealer said that the rubber boots on the lower control arms, which protect the ball joints, are cracked and should be replaced soon ($1100 plus $130 for an alignment that is necessary after the replacement). They also want $70 to replace the pollen filter for the ventilation system, $160 to cleaning the A/C evaporator (is that a thing?), and $230 for “Platinum Fuel Induction Service (GDI). ChatGPT says that the filter should be regularly replaced, but it is a $20 part that can be replaced with no tools (behind glove box) last three suggestions are fraud. ChatGPT says that the second two suggestions are fraud:
Yes, “A/C evaporator cleaning” is a real thing, but I would do it only if you have symptoms.
It usually means spraying a foaming cleaner or disinfectant into the evaporator case or intake area to reduce mold/mildew smell. It can help if the A/C smells musty, especially at startup or after the car sits.
But if your Odyssey’s A/C smells fine and drains normally, this is not a routine “must do at 62,000 miles” service.
Verdict: Real service, but mostly for odor/mildew complaints. I’d skip unless the vents smell musty.
Your Odyssey’s V6 is direct-injected, so in theory intake-valve carbon buildup can be an issue on GDI engines because gasoline does not wash over the back of the intake valves the way it does in port-injected engines. But a dealer “fuel induction service” can mean a lot of things:
Fuel-tank additive
Throttle-body cleaning
Intake cleaner misted through the intake
More involved intake-valve cleaning
For $230, it is probably not a true walnut-blast intake-valve cleaning. It is likely a chemical cleaning package. If the van starts smoothly, idles smoothly, has no check-engine light, no misfires, and fuel economy is normal, I would not consider this urgent.
Verdict: Plausible but likely optional upsell. I’d skip unless there are drivability symptoms, or unless Honda’s maintenance schedule specifically calls for it, which I do not think it does as a routine 62k service.
