You can overcome some of that in design, using lower-weight materials, but at that point you get into a weight-safety-cost tradeoff analysis.

Also helps that rails are orders of magnitude more efficient as far as rolling friction. Rail transports is by far the most efficient shipping method as far as fuel/ton transported. 

The Es44 carries thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to tow literally thousand of tons for miles.  

Diesel* Electric. That first part is key. Also, fixed routes make it very easy to have the needed fuel (Diesel) available along pre-planned stops.

They didn’t forget, they just outsourced that technical content to shitty Engineering Explained videos.

So does alot of car companies. Nissans CVTs were/are plagued with issues and thats the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Nissan cars.

Volcano tourism is the choke sex of vacations?

The CVT is what I think of when I think of Nissan.

LOL, Pathfinder old?  It’s only been out for like thre... seven years!?!  Holy shit.

That is an absolutely brilliant business.

It’s about the size of the wheel well, is it not? My 2013 Accord Sport had 18s, which seemed to fill it out just about right.

My NB Miata was originally purchased with factory big brake kit (and no abs. Original purchaser knew what was up). I have to be careful, as not all 15" wheel clear the calipers. 15"!

Wheels bigger than about 20 inches don’t make a lot of sense for passenger cars. With some rare exceptions for brake caliper clearance, big wheels are admittedly a modern aesthetic choice on newer cars, nothing more. The vast majority of cars on the road would do just fine on 16-18" wheels.

I like your take and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Can we start a “more sidewalls” community?

First mover disadvantage / the Altavista curse

What kind of “experts” don’t suggest a Honda Accord Sport 2.0T which is a similar motor to the Type R.   Comes in a Manual Transmission and is a great family sedan and what I’d expect would be Honda reliability. 

We have not been waiting for a $100,000 wagon. We’ve been waiting for a $28,000 GTI wagon with a manual transmission.  

I thought for sure it was a troll... and they were going to bring out the “real one”.... I’m literally shocked at how bad this is.

I have an idea for how to fix Nissan: Autoplay ads on the infotainment screen.

Efficiency.