The Washington Auto Show 2023 runs from 20-29 January. I’ve wanted to go and see what it was like for several years. This year, I decided that since it was running on my birthday, and I don’t make a habit of working on that day, that I’d check it out. A day pass is only $12.50 so I gave it a try. I’ve watched clips from some of the bigger shows on TV and really wasn’t sure what to expect. The website lists a lot of manufacturers, but also a collectors car section. The convention center doors didn’t open until noon, so I found things to occupy myself during the morning, then took metro into DC. I started the experience with a great lunch to make sure I didn’t have to spend typical convention food prices (for those who’ve never been to a convention, they tend to be two to three times as expensive as outside prices kind of like a ballpark or concert).
I chose to eat at Daikaya (https://www.daikaya.com/) a ramen shop in DC that has been consistently rated among the top 100 restaurants in the DC area. If you like ramen and are going to be in the area of Chinatown in Washington DC, they are worth a visit. They currently have six types of Ramen on their menu with an assortment of extra toppings you can chose from. The service is typically very fast. The only drawback is, if your timing isn’t great you may have to wait a while to be seated. Its a small restaurant that does not accept reservations. If you go at the wrong time of day, you may have to wait a while, but in my opinion, the food is well worth the wait. If you happen to get lucky with timing as I was, you’re seated right away.
I chose the Shoyu ramen with extra chashu and nitamago.
Once I finished lunch, it was time to walk the rest of the way to the convention center and see the car show. I honestly hadn’t thought about writing a blog about the visit, or I’d have taken more general photos. I’m working to completely rebuild my website and wanted to start sharing my thoughts on different conventions I go to, and other things, so thought this would make a good first post. The Auto show did not take up the entire convention center. They had the main halls on the upper floor, and a good chunk of the lower level dedicated to displays, electric car test track, electric towing demonstration, and e-bike demonstrations. Most of the auto manufacturers also had test drive opportunities that you could sign up for to drive their cars outside. I didn’t take advantage of any of the test drives, but with the variety of them available I feel like this would be an excellent opportunity for someone looking for a new car, but not sure what they want, and not wanting to deal with the pressure of sales people at dealerships until they made their decision
The top floor rooms were dedicated primarily to Toyota, Ford, Chevy, Subaru, Nissan, Kia, and Stellantis (which included Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, and a few others). I took a quick photo as I entered to show the size of the hall and the volume of cars. Many of the manufacturers had race car models based on their production cards, as well as current model production cars, prototypes, and first looks at models coming out this year. Toyota appears to have a few concept vehicles, but there were no where near as many as you find at some of the other big car shows. I only took a few photos in this hall, as it was mostly normal daily drivers for most of us (and a few sportier cars). I was surprised at how many e-vehicles were on display andsome of the models that different manufacturers are turning into electric vehicles
One of the e-cars that I was most surprised to see was the Ford Mustang Mach-E. As you can see, it was sitting inside its own light cube, so we were not allowed to touch it. The specs don’t look too bad, and the GT model is advertised to be able to go from 0-60 in 3.8 seconds (according to Ford’s testing). Its amazing how far technology has come in the lest decade when it comes to electric vehicles. In my mind, the main thing that still needs to be improved upon is the range. Most of the electric cars I looked at the specs on had a range of somewhere around 250 miles to a charge. If you’re not going on longer trips, and either have a charging station near you that isn’t too expensive, or you have a charging port installed at home, this probably won’t be much of a problem for most people. I usually get about 250 miles to a tank in my RAV-4 when I’m driving around town. If you want to go out of town for a weekend or a vacation, the 250 mile range could get annoying or become a problem in some areas. I guess those are just the tradeoffs you have to accept.
Once I was done with the main hall, I went downstairs where they had Hyundai, Lexus, Honda, Acura, Volvo, Polestar, and the exotic cars. Hyundai had a test track set up where you could test drive their electric vehicles. I have to admit, I didn’t look at much int eh Lexus, Honda, or Acura sections. When I started to walk into them I noticed a Lamborghini in the distance and made a beeline to the exotic car area =P. The photo below was facing the bulk of what was available but missed the exotics (mostly because I hadn’t spotted them until I started wandering the floor.
I spent over an hour on this floor, mostly admiring cars that I will probably never be able to afford, but like many, will dream of owning. I enjoy looking at cars and can appreciate many, but I’m not good with identifying models. Again, where I hadn’t thought of blogging this at the time, I didn’t think to write things down that would be helpful. If any of you reading this are car enthusiasts, I hope you’ll forgive my lack of knowledge. The next few photos are of some of the cars I spent the most time admiring. The last car (the pink one) was pretty cool to see. The owner had video that he happily showed everyone that with the wheels canted at the angle they are, it still does drive. It appears that I’ve hit the allowable length of this blog with all of the photos, so I’ll end it here and let you admire the beauty that I did.
