nicholas

50% is a literally comically unrealistic number at this point. We're reaching the stage where economic realities start to take over from well-intentioned but delusional policy. Ford's EV division just reported a loss of $1.3B (about $130k per vehicle) in Q1 of this year, and pretty much every other EV maker except Tesla is also losing big money on each unit. The sooner we stop continuing to cater everything to cars, the better. Most people don't even like cars or enjoy driving, and it makes everything suck for the few of us that do.

Was down in Rock Hill yesterday picking up some motorcycle parts and had some free time, so I walked around downtown. I never visited Rock Hill as a kid and don't have as much of a frame of reference, but the amount of clearly recent infill and renovations/restorations is surprising. There are definitely a TON of cleared/surface lots scattered around though (especially evident from satellite view) and it would really help tie things together if some of those could be redeveloped, particularly the massive White St parking lot. More trees would be appreciated as well (certainly this will be helped as existing young trees continue to mature). Was surprised to see there is basically an urban greenway connecting Winthrop with the heart of downtown along White St.

I've always heard that the Red Line was going to follow the tracks along Graham St and potentially have a station at Camp North End. If it follows that route then I don't see how or why it would need to use the spur through NoDa?

Right on cue...the Porsche Macan EV: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a60565604/2024-porsche-macan-ev-drive/ Priced close to the Model X but is a little smaller than that (and for now is lacking any obscenely powerful battery options to take on the Plaid). However the build quality and fit/finish will almost certainly be several notches above Tesla, and even though EVs are as exciting as a toaster I'm sure the Porsche will be more "engaging". I think the biggest question is how big of a sustained market is there for $80k+ EVs. For reference Tesla usually sells 20k-25k Model Xs a year here, and Porsche has consistently seen similar sales figures for its ICE Macans. I don't get the impression that a majority of traditional Porsche buyers are interested in EVs, but it will probably bring in a healthy amount of new buyers who don't want to take a chance on a similar vehicle from a startup.

I believe this is Kinship West that is visible from Graham St.

I think this needs its own thread or it will be getting posted in all of the South End and Dilworth threads. Not the best pics but I drove by earlier today and just one building remains.

A lot more demo within the past week at the Daniel Corp project. From earlier today

fixed

Late response but Kroger had a presence around Raleigh even into the late 2010s. The Triangle never really had any notable homegrown grocers survive the suburban era, and the biggest players from what I remember in the early 2000s were Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and Kroger. When I was a child my parents mostly shopped at Food Lion and Kroger, which at the time were the two closest grocery stores to our house. There were actually still a couple of Winn-Dixie stores still scattered around as well (the main one that comes to mind was located where Hendrick Toyota Apex is now on US 64). From the early 2000s, Harris Teeter and Walmart expanded pretty rapidly (with Aldi, Trader Joe's Lidl, Lowe's Foods, Publix, Wegmans, and Whole Foods all rapidly growing their presences by the late 2010s), while Kroger was much more modest. It was rare to see a new or even updated existing Kroger store, and by the mid-2000s most of Kroger's stores were starting to feel outdated, and many of those were located in moderately neglected shopping centers in less desirable parts of town. By comparison Harris Teeter's stores were substantially nicer. The only newer Kroger I can recall was at the intersection of Raleigh Blvd and MLK Jr Blvd; it must have opened sometime in the mid-2000s and had a fuel center at the corner of the lot, which was the first grocery store gas station I remember noticing as a kid. That store did not survive long and closed sometime in 2012 or 2013, and the gas station was demolished as well. That space is now a Rose's. I believe one of the final Kroger stores in North Carolina was in Garner where the Lidl and Harbor Freight Tools stores are now. It was open until late 2018. There was also one at the intersection of Falls of Neuse Rd and Strickland Rd in North Raleigh. It closed sometime in 2017 or early 2018. Surprisingly (given the wealth of the surrounding area) Food Lion took over that spot a couple years later.

^With EV credits and dealer/factory incentives that is one of the least expensive vehicles in America, and despite that basically no one is buying them. I doubt Vinfast could even give away many of those for free based on how bad the reviews have been. I only give them a couple of years before withrdrawing from the US market. Most of the upstart EV companies will disappear in the next few years. Canoo is seemingly on its last legs as of this writing. They recently bought up some of the assets of Arrival which went bankrupt, but had an office in South End for a while. Fisker is also on the brink of collapse. Lucid is losing obscene amounts of money on each unit sold. Rivian likely has the best chance to survive but is also losing money on each unit sold (just not as much, relatively speaking). Polestar has the support of Volvo and gobs of Chinese funding so it is probably safe, and obviously Tesla isn't going anywhere. I do think Tesla is underestimating its impending competition though. Especially from Porsche. Aside from multiple blatantly misleading Cybertruck publicity stunts, Tesla has sat on its hands for several years now. In roughly the same timeframe, Porsche has greatly improved its Taycan EV sedan and has multiple additional EVs well into development, including a Macan EV crossover and a 718 Boxster EV "sports" car. Porsche has a history of under-promising and over-delivering, whereas Tesla only seems capable of doing the total opposite. From what I understand it can take time for governmental agencies to adequately test new vehicles.

I swear every time Kevin is out of town, some sort of notable development gets announced somewhere around Charlotte.

Crane appears to be fully assembled at Oxbow. I'll try to pull over and get a pic on my ride back through in a little bit.

Knew it was only a matter of time https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/04/15/wegmans-is-coming-to-charlotte

Couldn't grab a pic from my motorcycle but demo has started. A good chunk of the building at the corner has come down.

Semi-monthly rant incoming... Do new cars not come equipped with turn signals anymore? I rarely ever see anyone use them, and obviously I can't read minds. I propose a mandatory 72 hr jail sentence for anyone not using turn signals, and also a 72 hr jail sentence for people driving in the left lane when not actively passing another car. Also, why are there SO MANY damn trucks in South End? I parked next to a new Silverado 1500 at Harris Teeter, and its windowline was literally at about the same level as my car's roofline. Predictably, there was not a single scratch anywhere and it had an obligatory bed cover to display how infrequently it is ever used as a truck.

The reality is that it's going to be spotty for a while because we're really far behind on bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. It's (very) slowly getting better, but unfortunately there's relatively little money going towards these projects, and the general public pushback makes it hard to reach the tipping point of widespread use due to the slow rate of construction. We have to take what we can get, and continue pushing for more. I suspect a couple branches off of the Rail Trail, especially down Summit and Tremont, would generally garner widespread support (and maybe even some corporate funding) because everyone sees how active those streets already are. But most people see Matheson as it currently is (an automotive sewer) and until people walking/biking becomes a ubiquitous sight, it is hard to shift the mindset of people along that corridor.

The Model Y is a much smaller vehicle than pretty much all of the other vehicles you listed. The Model X is moderately closer in size and weighs around 5,200 lbs depending on trim level. The base Cybertruck is just over 6,600. Body-on-frame ICE vehicles such as F-150s, Silverado/Sierras, Tahoe/Suburban/Yukon/Escalades, etc will always be heavier than unibody vehicles like the Equinox. Unfortunately, EPA regulations encourage these larger heavier vehicles because their emissions requirements are less stringent at that level.

Also. If the plan all along was to run the trail up Jordan Pl, along Matheson, and over to Kaleido, I don't really understand why it was designed to head back towards Brevard before turning onto Jordan Pl. Probably should have just stayed on N Davidson till it got to Jordan Pl. Especially since it doesn't even go directly past the 25th St station (although the regular 25th St sidewalks provide a more than adequate connection).

Isn't that spur basically just used to turn around the Amtrak?

There has definitely been some cleanup at that corner in the past day or two. And the McLaren showroom next door hasn't had any cars visible the past few times I've driven past.

On that subject, I wish more people rode. Especially for trips that don't require cargo space. I've put 10k miles on mine since Feb last year, and it's so much easier to park and get through traffic on it than in my car. Plus there are more options than ever in the motorcycle world, especially for entry-level bikes.

Not OP but the obvious answer is to stop catering EVERYTHING to cars. Whether a car is EV or ICE doesn't really matter because both still push a car-based lifestyle. There are differing negative effects, but the ones from ICEs are much more in your face than EVs. And since cars are absolutely everywhere, people feel less guilty driving an EV than they do an ICE. Automakers will follow the path of least resistance. Producing EVs reportedly requires a lot more minerals per car (about six times as many) than ICEs, and if the only way for automakers to survive going forward is to build EVs, they will source the necessary materials and metals from regions where it is easier to exploit environmental and human protections, which obviously creates different problems that are much less visible to most consumers. Corporations have shown repeatedly that they will not do the right thing, particularly when something is way off the radar of the average person. I will always argue that many people (probably a noticeably large majority of people) largely view driving as a chore and cars as appliances, but are largely trapped in a car-based society, and the automotive industry certainly wants to keep it that way...

Who is going to slow down when the road looks like this? That looks like 65+ mph would be a more than comfortable speed to drive at.