In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one half of a couple elects to remove the too-painful memories of their partner from their mind. All the happy moments. All the sad ones. The triumphs. The fights. The simple quiet hours that provide the foundation of a good life. If you were a Chrysler dealer, would you want to make the last few years disappear, too?
One of my go-to measures for the state of various brands is the chart that shows how long it takes them to sell the cars on dealer lots. Chrysler is the easiest to look at because they have basically one vehicle, which gives deeper insight into the state of that model. The Morning Dump is nothing if not a collection of deep insights and songs featuring women with guitars.
If Chrysler has one model that has too much inventory, Infiniti’s problem is a little different. It only has two models and it keeps changing the names of everything it sells. It’s the job of the new Nissan CEO to fix that.
Is AI going to take his job if he fails? Is it coming for everyone’s job? Certainly not mine. A neural net can gather the news, but can the neural net make Millennial-coded movie references? Oh, it can? Bummer. The head of the UAW and Senator Bernie Sanders got together to warn of the impending AI jobpocalyspse.
Will Polestar make it? The company lost more money, but also earned more money.
Chrysler Is The Brand In The Box
As an Elder Millennial, I’m also qualified to make Gen X references, and what’s more Gen X than an Alice in Chains allusion? This is the chart I love, and it shows Days’ Supply as broken down by brand. This is essentially the number of cars on dealer lots (or in transit to dealer lots) versus how quickly that brand sells those vehicles. So, looking at the green bar, the national average is 79 days, meaning that it would take 79 days to sell all the cars currently on lots or in transit if no new cars were built.
If you’re far to the left of the bar, that means you’ve either got a tight supply, you’re selling fast, or both. In the case of Lexus and Toyota, those are fast-selling brands with production discipline. The same is true for Honda. If you wonder why people pay at or above MSRP for Toyota products, it’s because they’re popular and Toyota doesn’t overbuild. Audi is interesting, because Audi is both in the middle of transitioning to new models and has been one of the biggest victim of tariffs, which indicates to me that the brand has been cutting back on imports. If you’re far to the right of the bar it usually means you either have produced a lot of cars, they’re selling slowly, or some of both.
And then there’s the box. You never want to be in the box. In order to preserve scale, brands that have more than twice the national average go in the box. Right now there’s exactly one major brand in the box and it’s Chrysler.
This makes sense. The brand has just one car after the axing of the Voyager, which is just a slightly cheaper version of the only thing it really makes. Does the brand even have a future? It doesn’t have a second model yet, though it’s getting a redesigned Pacifica (and keeping the old one around as the new budget model).
So far as I can tell, there are few (if any) of the redesigned Pacificas currently for sale. This means that there’s probably an opportunity here for buyers. If you’re in the market for a minivan, the brand is both about to start selling a somewhat new model (it at least looks different) and currently has a ProMaster’s worth of inventory, making it the perfect time to strike.
Just to see if my theory held any water, I went to the Pacifica subreddit and, sure enough, people are reporting great deals:
Given that the base Pacifica retails for $44,000, these self-reported scores are pretty good. I don’t think the Pacifica is the best vehicle in this class, but a non-PHEV one is probably a great way to soak up a lot of miles if you have a family. If the choice is between waiting and paying over MSRP for a Sienna or walking it with a Pacifica that’s thousands of dollars under MSRP and available right now, well, I can’t blame anyone for choosing the Chrysler.
How Is Infiniti Going To Win You Over?
The extraordinarily talented Kristen Lee and I may not always have the same taste in cars, but we have similar taste in car-related press events, so we both excitedly signed up to see Infiniti show off the new QX65 with Rob Gronkowski and that other guy.
The question on one of the cue cards this woman was holding up was “have we won you over yet?” That’s an important question for Infiniti, which is on the left side of the above chart, but probably only because Infiniti only sells two cars, the QX80 and the aging QX60, and has been careful to not import too many.
Nissan’s new CEO Ivan Espinosa talked to Hans Greimel in Yokohama and touched on something that I have long wondered about Infiniti:
Espinosa outlined six pillars of Nissan’s U.S. growth strategy:
1. Dive into body-on-frame SUVs and pickups, starting with new XTerra
2. Roll out more hybrids, including e-Power and a new parallel setup
3. Revitalize the Infiniti lineup with a consistent stable of five nameplates
4. Boost localized U.S. production to 80 percent
5. Concentrate on retail customers over fleet to get 5.7 percent retail share
6. Generate more volume per nameplate with wider powertrain selection
That bolded point is what interests me. Can anyone who isn’t an Infiniti dealer name all the cars Infiniti has made the last few years? It’s hard enough to remember model names when they’re words, but Infiniti has always been an alphanumeric brand. If you want a Lexus ES in 1996 or 2026, you can get a Lexus ES. In 1996, if you walked into an Infiniti dealer, you could get, what, a G20, an I30, or a J30? The next year you could get a QX4 I guess.
Being able to have “consistent” nameplates seems like a big deal.
Senator Bernie Sanders And Shawn Fain Are Worried About AI
As you can see in the video above, Senator Bernie Sanders and a bunch of labor leaders came out to say that, hey, maybe this Artificial Intelligence thing should come with protections for workers. Well, specifically he said that people who wanted to replace American workers with AI should “go to hell.”
The UAW’s Shawn Fain was there, and he had some thoughs, via the Detroit Free Press:
“Workers must have the right to negotiate how AI will impact their jobs,” Fain said.
The union is becoming more and more vocal about the impact of AI on the manufacturing workforce. On April 25, UAW Region 1 Director LaShawn English, who represents UAW workers in Detroit and surrounding areas, will host an “AI workshop” to inform members on the threats and use cases of AI in the manufacturing industry.
Automakers who employ union workers have been eagerly adopting AI technology.
I’m guessing this will be a part of the next round of UAW contract renegotiation.
Is Polestar Doing Better Or Worse?
Are you a glass half empty person or a glass half full person? Are you a Polestar lost more money than ever person, or a Polestar made more money than ever person?
The Swedish company’s net loss widened to $2.36 billion in 2025 from $2.05 billion a year earlier, it said Friday, marking its largest annual deficit since being spun out of Volvo Car AB in 2022 and listing on Nasdaq. A total of $1.05 billion was due to writedowns, mostly on models.
[…]
The wider loss last year came even as revenue jumped 50% to $3.06 billion, with more than 60,000 cars sold as it rolled out new models and thanks to robust demand in countries like the UK.
Polestar reiterated that retail sales volumes are projected to rise at a low double-digit rate this year, driven by a growing share of the Polestar 4 coupe and the introduction of a new Polestar 4 sport utility vehicle variant later this year.
Despite the hefty annual loss, the company’s net loss narrowed to $799 million in the fourth quarter.
I guess I’m the third kind of person: a net loss narrowed.
Would you become a member?
This month represents our 4th year of existing, and that’s really only possible with membership. A website in 2026 is a hard thing to run, especially as we deal with the fallout from Slop and AI. If you enjoy reading The Morning Dump and are able, I’d sure appreciate it i you’d consider becoming a member. We’re also giving out a discount! Just click this link to save 4.44% on a Cloth-tier membership, or go here and use the code 4tunate and pick out whichever membership level you want and get the fourth anniversary discount!
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s Japanese Breakfast with “Picture Window.”
The Big Question
Which brand has had the most chaotic naming conventions?
Top photo: Chrysler
Wait, Infiniti only has two models now? When did this happen?
Wait, Infiniti still sells cars?
Big Question: Anyone else think the firm that named the Bz4x might take the cake for chaotic naming for that alone? I know it’s the Bz now but still.
Well, only in the 4th quarter. The rest of the year stunk.
Saw a new Polestar three in my neighbor’s driveway. It replaced a Polestar 2 so a one-for-one swap so no market share gain.
Anyone who uses the company model code to describe a car is the most chaotic.
“The BMW E46 is just the best looking car of it’s era.”
K.
so… what about that tells me it is a 3 series produced in the late 90s-early 00s?
“Well, if you don’t know, then sheesh (head roll, eye shake).”
If you know you know, and if you don’t you don’t matter. To those in the know, e46 tells you rather more than “325i”, which can be any of FOUR rather different generations of car, different body styles of which even overlapped in model years.
Lincoln takes the cake for me for dumbest model designations with thier MK-this-and-that nonsense, though at least they went back to names, and actually pretty good ones.
Happy 4stiversary Autopian!
General warning. Jobs are over. Start saving and start planning for that future(2 years max for most of you white collars). I think we’ll see 1-2 years of chaos before our 90 year old senators decide to do something about it. Bernie can worry all he wants, but if you aren’t an employee, theres nothing to negotiate, and companies aren’t gonna box themselves in on this.
Oh, your job is safe? No, it really isn’t. Because the people that pay you, won’t be getting paid. The robots are advancing faster than you want to admit too mr plumber. I’m a secondary failure myself, but we are already trying to do what we can to prep for that. Call me crazy, but all you need to do is open your eyes and LOOK.
“Jobs are over” seems a bit alarmist. Give AI a chance to demonstrate how stupid it really is at certain things. Unless you have good data, AI can only do so much. Right now a ton of AI applications are being subsidized, take those away and adoption will be more normal.
Everyone is trying to throw AI into their business whether it makes sense or not and it often doesn’t make much sense based on their data hygiene.
Yes, it is alarmist. If you’re paying attention and care about anyone else in the world, you should be warning them too.
People are willfully ignorant right now and its very frustrating. Everyone I know thinks they are safe, but they agree the people doing very similar stuff are fucked.
You’re not special, your job isn’t and your boss doesn’t care about you, unless you are the boss. I am trying to warn you, you can ignore it along with everything else thats screaming at you right now.
Own part the companies that will run humanity shortly. Own companies going to space. Or be owned and be even more of a wage slave.
I’m thinking the transition is going to be more like what happened with manufacturing – robots (the industrial kind – not the anthropomorphic machines Musk wants to hoist upon us) started taking over the assembly lines and people were forecasting the end of manufacturing jobs. Last I checked, those plants still have lots of human workers. Most of them are just doing different things than in the past.
It’s going to be a similar transition in the white collar world – the AI tools will be doing a lot of the “heavy lifting”, but humans will still be needed to manage the AI “machinery”.
Yes, everybody is going to experience a transition in how they work, but opportunities will still be there if you’re willing to make the transition.
The other day I likened it to the transition from horses to machines – if you were willing to make the leap and learn to drive the mechanical contraptions, you had a future after horses were left in the dust. Granted your work didn’t relate to cleaning stables and keeping the horses fed anymore, and the guys that were driving the horse teams had a leg up on those that didn’t (if they weren’t too stubborn to stay with the horses), but it turned out almost everybody was capable of learning how to drive.
Eventually “agentic AI” will take over even more work, but (if you’re willing to adjust to the new world), it seems there’s always need for humans in the workforce, regardless of what the new technology is and how dire the “it’s the end of the line for {whatever}” predictions have been.
WSJ this week had an article saying 30-50% of all employees at large companies can be fired with no loss to the business. Some have already done it, and they are getting lots of calls to ask how to do the same. The big difference with AI is that it takes the job, it doesn’t add a job, it takes them. Machines added, AI takes away. Yes, there will be supervisor roles and people will be involved on some level, but 70% of people won’t be needed where they currently are in the white collar world. And very soon, those supervisors won’t be needed, or maybe 1 will. Or maybe just an AI supervisor….. It’s a real slope.
Agentic AI will be in full swing by the end of the year, if you believe anything that is being said. Anyone who is a middle man, is getting cut.
You’re not far off, just really optimistic about how long people will be part of the process from what I have been reading, and what companies are currently, right now, doing.
Fucking Zuck is replacing himself. Think about that. Zuck is making a fake AI Zuck to do his job! The CEO’s don’t even care about replacing themselves, they are excited by it!
Let’s see how many of the companies that have done this are still around in five years before getting too excited about it.
My main gripe with AI at the moment isn’t about being replaced, but that the AI insanity is sucking up hardware and raising the cost of it such that my “normal” Enterprise clients are holding off on thier usual upgrade cycles. As an example, IBM just warned of a *275%* price increase May 1 on thier mid-tier Enterprise storage systems! NOBODY is paying that unless they are in absolutely dire straits. And there literally are no cheap alternatives, because everybody in the industry uses the same parts to build thier boxes.
But it very much IS a bubble – I just read a report that fully 50% of the planned or under construction “AI datacenters” are being scaled back, paused, or cancelled. Community pushback is a real factor too – that has paused the construction of the datacenter my company is installing a HUGE AI/HPC cluster in. Community activists have gotten the building permits pulled. Which means we are installing gear into a datacenter that is unfinished with no construction going on. But the gear has been paid for, keeps arriving and the only place to put it is in the racks on the unfinished data floors. Fun!
This is the new dot.bomb and Cloud all the things bubble. And remember when tablets were going to *completely replace PCs”? All of those things ended up being important, but didn’t change life as we know it and niether will AI once the bubble bursts. Useful, important, but not a new world order.
Maybe I’m just old, but this reminds me of the wave when I helped train the Chinese to take my job, which didn’t really work. I mean we still have a Chinese engineering office, and there were layoffs at our office, but I still have my engineering job. Then 10 years later, some new executive decided we should go train people in India to do our job. Which meant layoffs in both the US and the Chinese engineering office. A bigger hit to the Chinese actually.
Point being, management overestimated both times how much of what was done locally could be done overseas, and I assume that’s what’s going to happen with AI as well. Unfortunately, a lot of guys lost their jobs, and I’m not sure if they landed on their feet when we were staffing back up again 2 years later. So both sides of this are valid. AI isn’t going to take everybody’s job, but management is going to try really hard to have it take more than it’s capable of.
And eventually some even newer executive will decide that the Indians are doing a crap job and bring the work home again, and the cycle continues.
Of course. Wall Street-driven senior management loves NOTHING more than reducing that pesky headcount. But they do usually come to thier senses. Congress should help them along with that, but, well, you know, they are largely bought and paid for at this point.
But it’s still not going to be an apocalypse. There will certainly be winners and losers, there always are. I wish I was 15 years younger and could get in on the logical deployment side of this stuff rather than the physical (which I am too old for). But at this point, by the time I learn enough to be useful, I will be retiring, and there is enough other stuff for me to do that isn’t going to go away, even if there is likely to only be one of me on the team instead of five as there once was.
The CEO of Square (er, Block, so I guess that makes him Block Head) just canned 40% of his workforce and attributed it to AI. You’re not wrong about the potential for cuts.
That said, I’m guessing they’re closer to “let’s keep the 60% of the stable hands that can learn how to drive” than they are to “we really didn’t need those extra 40% of stable hands”.
I’m guessing those remaining 60% are working their butts of right now, trying to figure out how to keep the stables clean AND how to drive the new AI tools.
Companies are making a lot of cuts right now and attributing it to “savings from AI”, but more likely they were overstaffed to begin with.
Where I work, everybody is getting pushed into the AI realm. For what I’m doing (programming), I can honestly say it isn’t there yet. We have a group that’s been using it heavily for about 18 months, and I’m just getting started. They went through an exercise to show me how it worked the other day. It took almost an hour (and burned through a ton of credits) to do something that would have taken me 15 minutes.
They say it will reach parity after we get the MCP trained on our existing code base, but they seem to omit that effort when reporting to management how much time the AI is saving. Not to mention the thousands of dollars a month they’re spending for tokens.
I’ve been hearing they have to make cuts because they spent so much money on AI but aren’t actually seeing the promised savings yet.
It is an excellent scape goat to cut unneeded employees. If a company can do it and have a plausible reason aside from just saving money, they will. Practical effect is that there’s going to be a lot less people on payrolls.
Yeah. “We’re cutting headcount because AI has been so great for us” plays better on Wall Street than “We over-hired and desperately need to cut expenses”. PR 101 – spin everything into a positive.
Agentic AI is in full swing already.
When all the jobs are gone, who is going to be purchasing all the goods and services our robot overlords will be creating and providing? Will the entire concept of money become moot and we’ll all finally experience a utopia?
I think no one, and that’s gonna be where it messes up my job. After enough pain, people will flip out and the gears will turn and something will have to change. I certainly don’t expect a utopia for 90%+ of people.
Or buy some rope.
VW naming conventions with ID.xxxx
Alphabet soup names when used by 1 or 2 automakers can work because you know what an S class, C class, 3 series, etc is. When everyone adopts it, it becomes a useless jumble of undifferentiated poo.
“Undifferentiated Poo” would make a good math rock album name.
A lot of Pacificas with $7,000 off MSRP advertised around here. Pretty good deal, particularly since Siennas are expensive and in short supply. The problem for me, though, is still the Odyssey. It’s old and outdated like the Pacifica, with the handicap of being seriously ugly in comparison. But it’s probably a better V6 minivan with higher resale, and they are also readily available on dealer lots with about $2,000 off MSRP. I’d probably just do that.
Infiniti’s naming convention is a mess, but that’s only a part of the battle. Whatever alphanumeric badge they use is currently affixed to uncompetitive and unappealing vehicles. They need a better naming system but there’s no point until they make better vehicles. They need to release a good product with a good name at the same time.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I love how the pacifica looks, my neighbors kids just got one. I think they beautiful! I have no idea how they drive or hold up, but looks they are hands down the best looking van out there, Kia is in second.
Hmm, maybe the way I wrote it, but I think the Odyssey is the ugly one. Pacifica is a nice design.
100%. We bought an Ocean Blue Pacifica S back when they did the last redesign, after the panoramic sunroof in our Kia Soul decided to spontaneously explode while driving down the interstate one November. Stow n’ go has been amazing! Can haul friends and family around one day. Within about a minute, can convert it to haul full 4×8 sheets of plywood or drywall out of the elements! It rides like a pillow. We’ve taken it on many road trips and camping trips. None of the other vans on the market have such convenient capabilities.
This news is killing me, because I’m buying a new minivan in October… I’m broke, so the Pacifica sounds like a good choice, but i’m probably going to get an Odyssey because I also plan to keep it for 20 years, like the Odyssey I’m replacing.
Good move. The previous T&C was the only vehicle (brand new rental) that completely stranded us because it wouldn’t start after our first day on the road to our new home. Did I mention it was full of the critical items you don’t put on a moving van? No Stellantis anything ever.
Meanwhile my 12 year old Fit is perfect at 100K miles.
Was on the Big Island Hawaii last week for spring break, every other car was a white Pacifica, including mine, we walked up to the wrong car many times. The van was perfectly fine, didn’t blow me away one way or another. Throttle was a little touchy off the line, got 25mpg for the week. Driving dynamics wasnt as nice as my 2018 Odyssey, and MPGs aren’t close to the Sienna. Middle of the road van that does well for fleet usage I assume.
My neighbor did have theirs bought back on the lemon law, head gasket blew at around 70k, and battery drain that would disable the car every 6months or so.
You nailed it there. We had Odysseys for probably 10 years, and every input just felt smooth.
Had a rental Pacifica, and the throttle was definitely jumpy. If they’d add a little bit of easing to the inputs, it would have been pretty decent. It did feel smaller inside compared to the Honda as well.
I wonder how the 2014ish era Sienna’s throttle compares to the Pacifica’s.
I’m a bad example because the vehicles I’ve driven the most by far have been an Econoline with the 4.6l V8 and now a Prius v, but whenever I drive a close relative’s Sienna, it is so hard to start smoothly from a stop.
There’s a Pacifica Subreddit??? Wow. I almost had the opportunity to drive a Pacifica earlier this week when the rental car place at a smallish airport ran out of sedans. I opted for a Mazda CX-50 instead.
As for chaotic naming conventions? Any brand that uses letter/number combos that don’t represent anything.
I think in a lot of ways, individual subreddits and chassis-specific Facebook groups have taken the place of forums for owners. I’m sure some people are just weirdly passionate about their Pacifica, but it’s also often a place to troubleshoot, which in a Pacifica I imagine is a regular occurrence.
The last Infinity that mildly sparked my attention was a Q50 I had as a rental. It was an OK car but I like the BMW 3 or 4 series rentals better.
No, the UAW doesn’t get to negotiate the use of AI in factories. I swear the old guard’s goal is to milk every cent they can get even though it kills those jobs for their kids generation. It has been the same for 50 years where they fight anything and everything that increased productivity.
No opinion on Polestar
I’ll become a member again when you fix the comments.
I have to ask. What’s wrong with the comment section (besides letting me in it.)?
Sorry, is this the oldest/newest thing?
Maybe a perception thing? I dunno. Everyone sees something different when they turn the kaleidoscope.
Matt you guys should look at (i’m guessing you already have though) what Defector does re; subscriptions vs commenting privileges.
For me – YES!
Oldest on top, newest on bottom. Threaded
Since you’re here, matching padding on the comments between when they’re new and highlighted and not highlighted. This way the text does not reorient itself every time you scroll the mouse over a new comment
Comments should be threaded with oldest on top, newest at the bottom like any other modern blog.
To read comments today you have to:
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the oldest comment
Read the threaded responses down
Scroll back up to the 2nd comment
Read the threaded responses down
Repeat for every comment on the page until you get to the top of the page
Then scroll all the way back down again to find the button for page two
Repeat for page 2, page 3, page 4…..
It is just a dumb way to organize the comment section.
I’d like an option for best, newest, oldest but I’m not a member so I keep quiet.
Fair enough. I was a member for a few months but the “member” benefits didn’t amount to anything. But they asked awhile back what they could do to make things better and I said fix the comments and I would sign back up.
I am a member, and I’d like that too. But I just love it here as it is if need be.
What else is the UAW good for other than being a leech on companies and screwing over their membership?
The old guard has pensions, free health insurance in retirement, and gets paid more than engineers. The UAW got them that.
They have also consistently been unwilling to give up anything so that a future generation can have a very good paying but not quite as lucrative job.
The Detroit 2.5 are down to less than 150K UAW members today.
I should have clarified meaning what are they good for now. It was very obvious when I was working for the Blue Oval the divide between the old guard and now.
Yes, that division is obvious in our factories as well. However, the old guard still has the numbers and runs things for their own benefit at the expensive of the younger generation.
We have two distinct groups. The old guys that are in their 50’s, 60’s, and even 70’s that have managed to hang on through downsizing and now a growing new and younger generation in their 20’s and 30’s that is just starting to build in numbers as the old guard retires.
The old guys are all about their platinum health insurance that they pay a few hundred buck a year for but costs more than $25,000 per employee. The young guys want to see dollars in their paycheck because they don’t go to the doctor and aren’t thinking about retirement in 40 years.
The young guys are also a bit salty that the old timers get the best shifts, jobs, and first crack at overtime and vacation days. Seniority sucks unless you are senior.
I always considered Alice in Chains as Millennial music.
Journey, Van Halen, Duran Duran, Phil Collins are my go to for Gen X music.
Kristen Lee? Didn’t you use to steal her lunch?
2nd—old X’er..anyone up for some Dio?
https://youtu.be/WGRyO3hJ9GM?si=FUuF9tvoQf8aluuK
Awesome, RJD could still pull it off (RIP).
Crue was coming to city near us a few years ago and buddy wanted to go until I pulled up recent live video…
I now have as much hair as Ronnie had back in the day.
Gen X ended with babies born in 1980 by most accounts I read. I was born in 1980 and AiC came out while I was in high school.
Then there is the ‘Xennial’ sub-generation born roughly between 77 and 83 that grew up analog but adopted technology early. I think Early Millenial is near here too.
TL;DR: I think both are acceptable here.
I like it!
Yup, AIC was HS for this tail-end Gen-X human.
We had so much good music, and parents that shared their awesome stuff with us too.
I love that era of music, but I’m in that “Xennial” group and was too young to be listening to Dirt in 1992.
I was also the oldest kid in the house, so I learned about these bands from buddies who had older brothers. Probably clicked for me closer to 1996-7.
’76 baby, AIC is firmly implanted in my brain as part of the soundtrack of my college years.
Was a big part of my college soundtrack as well, but we just had some good taste in music I guess. My roommate made his own “RIP Layne” bumper sticker when it happened.
What, no Gary Numan, U2, Depeche Mode, OMD, Joy Division, New Order, Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, Prince, Cyndi Lauper, or Madonna? For shame.
All good choices.
Gen X is officially from 1965-1980 birth years. Which puts Gen Xers in high school from the late 70s to the late 90s. That’s Disco, New Wave, and Grunge. Which is a WIDE array of music.
I think the better way to describe generations is with experience with electronics.in their childhood
Boomers. TV at Home.
Gen X. Video games, VHS, computers and Cable TV
Later: Internet and Social Media
This changes everything. Boomers all watched the same TV shows and listened to the same radio stations. Gen X did that too, but had different VHS tapes available, more Cable TV stations and arguments about which video game system was the best.
For example of what I mean, when I was a kid, my big sister loved watching Sonny and Cher. We all watched it, even though I wasn’t really into it.
My daughters are much closer in age than my sister and I. One loved Webkins the other loved Club Penguin. They fought over who had what time slot to do their thing, but these extremely early social media things were two different “worlds” online and while one would do her thing, the other would watch DVDs (Spy kids for one and Cartoons for the other). So, although they are closer in age, they don’t have the shared entertainment thing that me and my sister had with Sonny and Cher.
I like the brackets you made for each. It’s a great delineation.
Remember when Cher had that guy twist Sonny’s nose?
I mainly remember mom being scandalized by whatever Cher wore at the end of the show. I liked Carol Brunette and the Muppet show better and would tend to read when Sonny and Cher was on.
That scene is the only one I remember. Sonny and Cher were my parents show.
I thought Scooter kept The Muppet Show running smoothly and I had a friend that looked exactly like Beaker.
“Given that the base Pacifica retails for $44,000, ”
… it explains why the Pacifica isn’t selling. For $44,000, I’d expect it to be a hybrid… and it isn’t.
To clear the inventory, Stellantis needs to give up on their Covid-shortage fantasy level MSRPs.
And they need to bring back the Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan.
And make a value package version that has just what you need and none of the fluff and sell that for US$25K
“Which brand has had the most chaotic naming conventions?”
These days, I’d say it’s BMW. Going on the BMW Canada site, they have the:
-iX
-iX M model
-iX3
-i7
-i7 M model
-i5
-i5 M model
-i4
-i4 M model
-i3
-7 Series
-5 Series
-4 series Coupe
-4 series M model Coupe
-4 series Gran Coupe
-4 Series M model Gran coupe
-4 series Cabriolet
-4 series Cabriolet M Model
-3 series
-2 series coupe
-2 series gran coupe
-2 series M Model
-M2
-M2 CS
-M3
-M4 Cabriolet
-M4 coupe
-M5
-M5 Touring
-XM
-X7
-X7 M model
-X6
-X6 M model
-X6M
-X5
-X5 M model
-X5M
-X3
-X3 M model
-X2
-X2 M model
-X1
-X1 M model
-Z4
-Z4 M Model
That’s waaaaaaaaaay too many models.
In my view, all the faux-M/”M Models” should be ditched.
And from there, half of the remaining models can probably be ditched as well.
It’s a ridiculous number of names, but there’s meaning in the numbers. I know a something-3 is going to be smaller than an something-7. I know M means performance, X means SUV, Z means roadster, and i means electrified. So while I couldn’t tell you the difference between an M4 coupe and a 4 Series M model Gran coupe, I can definitely tell you the difference between a 4 Series M model Gran coupe and an iX.
All that’s to say, I’d argue it’s a little confusing, but not chaotic.
Counterpoint: IMHO $37K is still way too much.
Toyota offers a base Camry with a hybrid drivetrain for ~$30k. With that in mind I don’t think the ICE only Pacifica, riding on a (facelifted) 10 yo platform is compelling enough to command $37k. And yes I drove one and I liked it but not for $37k.
the better comparison is the Sienna though, which start at 40k and a hybrid, not the camry sedan
I disagree. Who knows how much of that $40k of the Sienna is cost of manufacturing and how much is profit.
The $30k Camry proves a basic, modern vehicle can be offered for less, even with a modern hybrid drivetrain. Aside from a bit more raw material what is it about a Pacifica makes it *worth* another $7k? Especially given the cost of that production line was paid for long ago?
Once again (and everyone say it with me):
Username checks out.
Of course!
Even so, am I wrong? If so why?
I don’t really know if you’re wrong really. I don’t think it’s right that people that have a need for a Sienna would consider a base model Camry and I think Stryker made a good point.
It doesn’t really matter that the Sienna might have more or less profit included in the cost and all of that if you need a minivan to haul your family. Usually people don’t cross-shop different categories like that.
But I won’t argue that the Camry is a relatively good deal in today’s market if it meets your needs. I just thought it was funny that the guy named Cheap Bastard is focused almost entirely on the price in that scenario/argument.
And based solely on cost, I can’t argue with you.
who is realistically cross shopping and comparing a sedan with a mini van? that is the point I’m saying and the Sienna just happens to be the Toyota minivan.
it doesn’t matter what is profit or manufacturing for anyone with the Pacifica on their list, they aren’t going to be comparing it to a Camry.
It’s not a matter of whose cross shopping what, its a matter of how much a realistic ask for these old minivans is. The Camry – as I’ve already pointed out – is proof of what is actually possible even in today’s market. That the Camry is not a minivan does not matter. What does matter is that the built in Kentucky Camry has to pass modern US crash/emissions/fuel economy standards standards and does so with flying colors.
im not saying the Camry isn’t good, or that 37K isn’t still too much.
I still don’t think or understand comparing a sedan to a minivan and not another minivan makes any sense for the cost point you want to make when people don’t shop solely on that.
What matters is not what people are cross shopping or that one is a ICE minivan and the other a hybrid sedan other than any differences in material costs or additional difficulties in manufacturing. The differences in manufacturing are not much. My own car, a Mazda5 minivan is just a modified Mazda3 sedan.
What matters is they are both built in North America using NA labor for the USDM and therefore they both must meet all requirements for passenger vehicles of that market. The Camry is newer and a much more complicated vehicle with a HEV battery and yet its ask is far less than the older, simpler Pacifica. I want to know why Chrysler (or anyone) thinks their Pacifica is worth the higher price other than “because that’s what the rubes will pay”.
Don’t know bout you but round here 2yo PHEV Pacificas can be had for less than a new hybrid Camry. The only people I know who considered Pacificas recently all only considered them because A) there’s a PHEV and other minivans don’t/didn’t offer that yet and B) they’re super cheap for a minivan. And I don’t mean A or B, I mean specifically A and B. So it’s less “what the rubes will pay” and more “I need a minivan, what do minivans cost? Aw crap, ok what’s the cheapest one cost?”
Which begs the question; Could Chrysler sell the Pacifica with a similar pricing structure to the Camry* to undercut the competition while still showing a modest profit? Because it seems they’re not doing too well as is.
*This of course assumes Toyota isn’t selling Camrys at a loss. Which doesn’t seem likely to me.
The Camry is new and has a full factory warranty you may never need whereas a 2 yo Pacifica…well, you’re probably going to want a good B2B warranty.
Right, the idea behind the pricing isn’t that a Pacifica is worth that much more than a Camry. It’s that people shopping for a minivan are not looking at Camry’s. They’re looking at Siennas, Odysseys, and maybe Pacificas. So the comparison is not based on what other basic modern hybrids exists. It’s based on “what else is there that an individual customer is considering”.
BMW has to take the cake here. At one point it was Series + Displacement + a letter or two to designate how cool it was. Easy peasy. Then the displacement number became meaningless once they started using smaller, turbo engines. Then they changed the series meaning like twice with a few years. Then there was the xDrivei35HammerheadFistpunch debacle. Now the “M” moniker only sometimes means its the fast one.
It’s madness.
Yeah, agreed.
Once I discovered my dad’s 1980 320i had a 1.8L engine instead of the 2.0L the car had previously, I realized they’ve been lying for a long time.
I’m actually excited for the Infiniti revival. The new QX65 is genuinely attractive and I’m a sicko who actually likes Infiniti’s design language. I think their current and recent vehicles look good, the main issue IMHO has been the powertrains.
Charging luxury prices for vehicles with the same shitty VC Turbo engine and CVT from a damn Altima is insulting to customers. They’ve also got 0 electrified vehicles. Good fucking luck competing with Lexus….
But they’re apparently putting a V6 in the QX56, we’re apparently getting a rebadged version of the new Skyline with a manual transmission, and with the new Rogue hybrid looking promising as is I’d imagine the bones will be plenty appealing as an entry level luxury car…especially since there aren’t any hybrids in that class outside of Lexus.
Anyway Infiniti is suddenly poised to be pretty interesting again, and at a time when the Germans are flailing and releasing anonymous blobby tech monstrosities that’ll be worth $7 as soon as their warranties are up there’s an opening right now.
Oh and I love Japanese Breakfast. Michelle seems to get better with every album, it’s impressive.
She’s great!
Is it just me or does Bernie Sanders not age anymore? I swear he looks the same since his 2016 Presidential run.
Which leads me to TBQ: Mountain Dew and Doritos (stay with me). Bernie must have been hitting these products that not only stopped aging, but made also made him hip with the all the “youths” he appealed to then. Genius!
But if the answer must be car related: Cadillac’s naming convention changes threw me off many times.
Cadillac is a good call, even just for CTS/CT5.
And by extension, you could include Chevy Volt vs Bolt. Who approved that?
You forgot the Chevy Spark
I don’t think that’s chaos. It was strategic branding. They had Volt, Bolt, and I believe at some point Jolt.
It’s all the preservatives in the MD and Doritos that froze him in time.
Bernie was just born old and cranky. Once his hair turned white he assumed his final form.
Siennas are rotting on lots here under MSRP, please don’t extrapolate coastal conditions to the entire country.
Here’s 3 under MSRP before negotiating on a local lot (plus several more in production/enroute).
https://www.teamtoyotaon41.com/inventory/new/toyota/sienna?paymenttype=cash&instock=true&intransit=true&inproduction=true
Every dealer locally has at least one on the lot and not a single one is over MSRP.
Honestly, I should start an “import/export” business to transport sorely needed hybrid vans to the underserved California and New York markets.
You’re doing the lord’s work
Embrace Midwestern privilege.
Cheaper houses and cars, and all it will cost you is feeling in your extremities a few months a year.
Midwest born and raised here. The Midwest also offers violent wind vortexes, floods and epic snowstorms, but maybe global warming has taken care of those. Oh, Midwest humidity is a thing. And mosquitos.
The housing prices are pretty sweet, I’ll grant you that, and schools systems used to be good. No shade on the Midwest for those things.
Depends where in the midwest. I used to live in the Chicago suburbs. Moved to East TN. Bigger house, on a bigger lot, property taxes were 1/6 of what they were in IL. It doesn’t get hotter than northern IL, it just stays hot longer. I see maybe 2 mosquitos a year. Almost no snowstorms. If it ever gets below 0 degrees, I haven’t seen it in 6 years. No kids, so don’t care too much about the school systems. Pretty sure they’re all pretty terrible around the country though. Oh, and no corn sweat.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but what the hell is corn sweat?
The corn percolates up the water from the ground, and in the humidity releases it into the air making the atmosphere extra juicy.
That sounds as bad as I was afraid it would.
Crap, a good portion of the time here in the Philippines east coast I don’t have feeling in my extremities, give me the cheap stuff!
But (I think?) we have better roads?
Friends in the UP are always complaining about how bad the potholes are.
I mean, the only ones not labeled “in production” are high trim versions with a whopping 1k off. They only have… 3? Still impressed they put any money on the hoods of these though. Siennas are basically unobtanium here.
I’ll add, our dealers always have a dozen listed on their websites, but they’re all “in production” or “in transit” and in reality, are all sold. A friend got repeatedly “sorry that actually just sold!” by a local dealer… obviously they’re lying and all of these vans have already been reserved in one way or another. If anything, one on the lot probably means someone backed out.
My point in highlighting these (which are by no means atypical here) is that getting a new Sienna requires neither waiting nor paying over sticker unless one is inclined to.
There are low trim ones at other dealers advertised at MSRP.
But it might require a one-way flight to Chicago and a drive home.
I mean… I suppose that’s sort of doable. Wild effort for a minivan, and I’m a weird van freak. I don’t think my wife would be cool with moving to the Midwest for sweet van inventory access either.
Or I guess paying for it to be transported. You don’t want people on the coasts doing this though, or we’ll bleed the Midwest of Siennas dry.
Another add, my local dealer claims to have 15 Siennas! All are listed as in-production, lol.
Flights are pretty cheap and you wouldn’t burn much gas driving back.
I guess, speaking as someone who travelled (albeit only about 2-3 hours) to buy my van, people in general underestimate how much you can potentially save by travelling a bit to buy a car. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I paid a markup when the same vehicle was under MSRP a few states over.
Yeah I very much refuse to buy a marked-up car under any circumstance. It’s just not happening. So that’s where the Sienna just sort of seemed like a no-go to me (not that I can’t get a Sienna here without mark-up, I would just have to wait a long time I suppose).
A plane ride, mileage and gas (not to mention a weekend of my wife wondering aloud whether disappearing for a weekend while she shuttles the kids around to games is worth it) seems like it’s own sort of markup? I’m also “deep” in the Northeast where flights are pretty damn expensive, it’s sort of an ordeal to get out of here. Looking within a daytrip, most of these dealers seem to have the same issue.
This is mostly me wondering aloud. Certainly if you want a Sienna badly enough, you’ll do the requisite work. But I think Toyotas resistance to making enough Siennas has been the best thing the Honda Odyssey has going for it. It’s pretty easy to grab one.
Really I wish Toyota would stop being dicks, build a more rational amount of Siennas, and allocate them to the markets that actually want them, but that’s not going to happen.
I don’t know how much things have changed with gas prices but my last two vehicle purchases have happened with me arranging out of state delivery to my home.
For my Boxster in 2019 I think I paid $450 for delivery outside Atlanta from North Carolina. For my Macan in 2024 it was about $1300 from Colorado.
Not sure what a one-way ticket and gas cost but that $1300 is probably less than the price difference buying a car in a high ASP area.
That’s crazy. I have 5 Toyota dealers within 50 miles of me and there is only 1 on the lot total. Granted I live next to Toyota’s largest factory so there are an inflated number of Toyota purchasers in the region.
Interesting. I thought maybe that was red/blue area thing, but Asheville has tons available too.
While I get that national averages are driven by high-population coastal regions, I’m not sure that 3 Siennas on the lot at a grand under MSRP should be considered “rotting”. The closest Chrysler dealer has only 5 Pacificas on hand, but discounted by $8,100-$9,500. A big Indianapolis Chrysler dealer has 21 listed with $5,000-8,000 off MSRP. To me, that still very clearly demonstrates the larger point of the Toyota being in high demand. No one’s knocking 20% off a Sienna.
https://www.thomascdj.com/searchnew.aspx?ModelAndTrim=Pacifica
https://www.tomobrienindy.com/cars-for-sale-indianapolis-in.html?ModelAndTrim=Pacifica
“Rotting” was a bit of hyperbole, but contrasted to the idea that you need to wait for months or pay a markup, this is pretty good.
The Chrysler may still be a better deal depending on one’s specific circumstances and desires.
Here in Canada, you’re paying sticker for a Sienna, and putting $500 deposit down for the pleasure of waiting 6-12 months to get it. It’s insane.
We almost pay sticker for used ones.
I was planning on doing something like this until I found out that in some states, buying your car in another state means you are SOL for state lemon laws. Yes, it is probably unlikely you’d need the lemon law, but if you did….
There is still a federal “lemon law” I guess? And you could just hope the manufacturer does the right thing, but that might be naive.
With a Pacifica? It’s very likely you’ll need the lemon law. Sienna? Not so much.
“…looking at the green bar, the national average is 79 days, meaning that it would take 79 days to sell all the cars currently on lots or in transit if no new cars were built.”
That’s not what that means. It would only mean that if all cars were perfectly interchangable and equally desireable. In real life, just because Toyota is out of Grand Highlanders it doesn’t mean that customer would go buy a Dodge charger.
What the average is, is a benchmark that can be used to determine how well you’re keeping your production in line with demand. If you’re far to the right, you need to stimulate demand or cut production. If you’re far to the left, you might want to raise prices.
Tesla’s model naming more or less follows Musks descent into madness:
Roadster: does what it says on the tin.
Model S/X: okay, getting old timey with it, but “sedan” and “X-over”, I see what’s happening…
Model Y/3: …oh, cute, you spelled “Sexy” in faux 1337.
Cybertruck: ….what the actual…
Chrysler’s position is even worse than stated. All you have to do is look at who shares the right edge of that chart with Chrsyler. It’s (unsurprisingly) the full Stellantis set. They have lost consumer trust.
Even more than Ford, the recall masters.
Not only have their sales dropped but they didn’t cut back on production.
They went back to their old pre-2020 playbook – overproduce and then throw cash on the hood to move cars.
They should have an extra bar of “industry average, not including stellantis”, just to see how much they skew the overall average
Naming: I used to be able to tell you what was what from BMW and Audi, but now I have no idea.
I second that vote. Every naming convention makes sense – but it seem like both of them have changed the convention a couple time in the last decade.
How long did Audi’s even numbers are ICE / odd numbers are EV names last?
What? The 2026 BMW M340i xDrive 50 Jahre Edition isn’t a perfectly succinct name? And what, you mean to say that the BMW Individual M760Li xDrive Model V12 Excellence THE NEXT 100 YEARS doesn’t roll off the tongue? Yes I copy/pasted the exact, official names for each, punctuation and all.
Ha, last week I was in Vancouver BC and rented a car from National, and when I got to the area of cars available there was only a row of Pacificas left. We ended up with a Chrysler Grand Caravan, which is apparently a make/model combo exclusively in the Canadian market.
That’s what they call Voyagers in Canada
Utter Chaos.
Land Rover Range Rover Autobiography somethin somethin.