Toyota Cancels Avalon, Nation's Shuffleboarders Weep

Most industry watchers are well aware of the rapidly shrinking demand for four-door sedans, with consumers seeming to have permanently gravitated to SUVs and crossovers as their choice for daily commutes. We’ve watched as the Fusion and Taurus vanished from our shores, along with the likes of Impala, RLX, and Continental.

Pour one out for the Toyota Avalon, as well.

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Hide and Seek: Honda Clarity Electric Discontinued for 2020

Honda has discontinued sales of its Clarity EV in North America for 2020. Given that the manufacturer was one of the few OEMs to publicly express doubts about rampant electrification, this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise — with any residual shock being nullified by the model’s lackluster demand.

Between the Clarity Electric, (hydrogen) Fuel Cell, and Plug-In Hybrid models, Honda only saw 11,654 U.S. deliveries last year. That’s a marked decline against the 20,000 units sold in 2018 and a hint as to why the EV has been quietly put out to pasture. Most of those sales undoubtedly went to the nationally available Clarity Hybrid. Fueling restrictions have locked the hydrogen variant to California, with the Electric similarly being isolated to the Golden State and Oregon (the Beaver State).

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  • Probert They already have hybrids, but these won't ever be them as they are built on the modular E-GMP skateboard.
  • Justin You guys still looking for that sportbak? I just saw one on the Facebook marketplace in Arizona
  • 28-Cars-Later I cannot remember what happens now, but there are whiteblocks in this period which develop a "tick" like sound which indicates they are toast (maybe head gasket?). Ten or so years ago I looked at an '03 or '04 S60 (I forget why) and I brought my Volvo indy along to tell me if it was worth my time - it ticked and that's when I learned this. This XC90 is probably worth about $300 as it sits, not kidding, and it will cost you conservatively $2500 for an engine swap (all the ones I see on car-part.com have north of 130K miles starting at $1,100 and that's not including freight to a shop, shop labor, other internals to do such as timing belt while engine out etc).
  • 28-Cars-Later Ford reported it lost $132,000 for each of its 10,000 electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024, according to CNN. The sales were down 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023 and would “drag down earnings for the company overall.”The losses include “hundreds of millions being spent on research and development of the next generation of EVs for Ford. Those investments are years away from paying off.” [if they ever are recouped] Ford is the only major carmaker breaking out EV numbers by themselves. But other marques likely suffer similar losses. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fords-120000-loss-vehicle-shows-california-ev-goals-are-impossible Given these facts, how did Tesla ever produce anything in volume let alone profit?
  • AZFelix Let's forego all of this dilly-dallying with autonomous cars and cut right to the chase and the only real solution.