On Thursday, January 26, Elyse, my friend Matthew, and I went to the Washington Auto Show at the Washington Convention Center. This was Matthew’s first time ever going to the auto show, and the first time that Elyse and I had been since 2020. Overall, I was less than impressed this time around, but I am not entirely willing to ding the entities involved with putting on the show for it, as I suspect that the ongoing semiconductor shortage is likely to blame for the weak showing at the auto show. This is the same reason that my new HR-V is taking so long. And I get it: if they can’t get cars out to paying customers in a reasonable time, it’s hard to justify pulling units out of circulation for demo purposes. Because of this, the event space was a lot smaller than it usually is, with large sections of the upper and lower event halls’ being sectioned off with curtains. I got the distinct feeling when I came in that the space was smaller, and it turned out that my feeling was right. On the plus side, though, one of my big peeves about the auto show in past years was gone, as we didn’t have to wend our way through the convention center’s lobby through a gauntlet of sponsors hawking their products and services that have absolutely nothing to do with cars before getting to the show floor. All that gauntlet of sponsors ever managed to do was piss me off before I ever got started. So good riddance to them, and hopefully they don’t come back in future years. This year, we just came in and went right into the event.
This year, I wanted to go to the auto show in order to check out electric cars. Recalling my day test driving electric cars in Frederick last spring, I wanted to see what the various manufacturers’ offerings were like. I still am in the market for an electric car in addition to the HR-V, but following my October 2022 accident in the original HR-V, this has been put on hold for a while. Following my visit to the auto show, I still got the sense, as was the case last spring, that the electric vehicle market has not yet “arrived”. Automakers are still going for overly futuristic designs for their electric models to showcase that they’re something different, and a lot of brands still don’t have an entry in the electric market as of yet. I have said before that I will know that the electric vehicle market has “arrived” when automakers start rolling out electric vehicles with conventional design. For instance, I’ll know that it’s “arrived” when Honda starts making an electric version of the CR-V that is otherwise exactly the same design as the regular CR-V. In other words, it’s first and foremost a CR-V, and it just happens to be electric. Not this whole, “Woooooooo, look at me, I’m electric!” kind of style that we’re seeing now.
The upper level of the event was pretty straightforward. Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, and a few others were up there, but we didn’t spend much time there at all. The event hall was cordoned off to be fairly small, and there was nothing much of note up there. We went through it fairly quickly. Downstairs was where we spent most of our time, as is usually the case at the auto show, but even that was smaller than past years, and even then, it still felt sparsely filled, with lots of open space between the various exhibit areas and between vehicles.
The first thing that we visited down here was the “Rosa Parks Bus”, which is an historic bus that Metro owns that is dedicated in memory of Rosa Parks. As I understand it, the bus never operated in revenue service for Metro, serving a full career in the Baltimore area before being acquired by Metro in the 1990s.
The Rosa Parks bus.
Interior of the Rosa Parks bus. It carried many replicas of vintage advertisements inside of it.
Busted: I was trying to get a candid photo of Elyse while looking at her phone in the back of the Rosa Parks bus. She noticed me, and looked up just as I was taking the shot.
Metro also had bus 1001, a New Flyer XE40, on display. 1001 is a New Flyer Xcelsior, and is Metro’s first battery-electric bus, which has been used to pilot the implementation of electric buses in Metro’s bus fleet over the last few years. Unlike most of the buses that Metro displays at the auto show, this bus has operated in revenue service in the past.
Bus 1001, with Elyse for scale.
Interior of bus 1001, typical of a WMATA New Flyer Xcelsior.
We then looked at a few private car displays, and also checked out a vendor that was selling model cars. Elyse ended up buying one of the model cars – a black Chevy Blazer. She was originally going to get a model of a 1978 Ford Bronco, but . We also checked out a couple of electric cars, specifically the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the Volvo XC40 Recharge. I didn’t mind either one, and they both merit further exploration. Since my test drives last spring, my strategy for testing electric vehicles has changed. Now, rather than go to dealerships and hope that there was a vehicle for test drives, I plan to go on Turo and rent an example on that platform, and drive it around for a day or two to see what I think and determine whether or not I’m going to pursue it. That way, I’m not dealing with any annoying car salesmen, and no pressure of any kind, because I am paying for a rental, and not contemplating purchasing the car from the guy that I’m working with. Of course, with this being put on hold for a while, there is no particular hurry to start renting cars – especially while I’m still driving Mom’s car around.
Then we went over to the Honda area. I knew exactly what I needed to see:
A 2023 Honda HR-V, with the Sport trim.
Yeah, I needed a little HR-V time, since I haven’t had a HR-V of my own in over three months now, and my new HR-V is still about two months out. I’m getting the EX-L model, which is a higher trim level than the Sport, and while I originally was going to get it in red like seen here, because of vehicle availability, I’m getting it in dark gray, i.e. the same color as my original HR-V.
Selfie with the HR-V on the show floor.
Funny thing about this photo. In order to get the angle that I wanted, I got down on my knees. My getting down there was not particularly graceful. I got down on my knees, and then fell forward onto my hands. A man quickly came over to check on me, to make sure that I was good. I responded, “Oh, yeah. I meant to get down on my knees, but then gravity took over for the rest.” He then joked about whether I would be able to get back up from that position. Interestingly, getting up is the easy part, since I can just pop right back up. Getting down is the hard part.
Selfie in the driver’s seat. I took this photo, and I thought, “Soon, this will be a reality.” Seriously, I can’t wait.
Another selfie, taken just forward of the steering wheel. I am definitely feeling this car. Especially since mine will have leather seats and a moon roof.
We also took a quick ride in a Hyundai Ioniq 5, for which a test course was set up. I put a fake email address into their survey so that no one would follow up with me, and then they took us on a quick ride consisting of three laps around their test track. It wasn’t a bad car by any means, but as I mentioned to a friend on Facebook, “I’m a bit leery about Hyundai/Kia in general after that whole Soul thing.” After all, there is no way in hell that I will ever buy a Hyundai or Kia vehicle ever again. My joke with the person helping us sign up for the demo ride about the liability waiver covered it pretty well: “In other words, when this thing catches fire, you’re not responsible?” Yeah.
Meanwhile, leaving the show was amusing. We had driven to the convention center and parked in a garage about a block away. In leaving this garage, we went up what felt like the world’s steepest exit ramp. Steep as in, to prevent rollback, with no hill-holder function on the Scion like the HR-V had, after I finished paying for the parking, I gunned it, which made the tires squeal. That was amusing, but we got out and onto level pavement.
And that was the auto show. I got some useful information out of it, but the show was admittedly a major disappointment this year, though less of a pain in the butt to attend than in previous years.