The Watt Car EV Podcast Jan 29, 2026

255: The Bolt Shall Live Again...Or Maybe It Won’t

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

58:27

Car

Chevy Bolt

The Chevy Bolt is an electric car made by Chevrolet. It's designed to be affordable and can drive a long distance on a single charge.

Car

Buick Envision

The Buick Envision is a small SUV made by Buick. It's designed to be comfortable and has many modern features that make driving easier and more enjoyable.

Term

CAFE standards

CAFE standards are rules that help make cars use less fuel. They set goals for how many miles a car should drive on a gallon of gas, which helps save energy and protect the environment.

Car

Chevrolet Equinox

The Chevrolet Equinox is a type of vehicle known as a compact SUV. It's designed to be spacious and comfortable, making it a popular choice for families.

Car

Chevy Trax

The Chevy Trax is a small SUV made by Chevrolet. It's designed to be easy to drive and good on gas, making it a popular choice for city driving.

Car

Chevy Trailblazer

The Chevy Trailblazer is another small SUV from Chevrolet. It's a bit larger than the Trax and offers more space and features for passengers and cargo.

Brand

BYD

BYD is another car company from China that focuses on electric cars and batteries. They are growing quickly and selling more cars in other countries.

Brand

Geely

Geely is a car company from China that makes different types of vehicles. They are becoming more popular in other countries, especially in Europe.

Company

Lucid

Lucid is a car company that makes electric cars. They are known for their high-end models that can drive long distances on a single charge.

Term

bunker fuel

Bunker fuel is a type of fuel used by cargo ships and large boats. It's very thick and can cause a lot of pollution when it's burned, which is why it's considered dirty fuel.

Term

Congestion pricing means you have to pay to drive in busy areas, especially when there's a lot of traffic. It helps reduce traffic jams and encourages people to use public transport or electric cars instead.

Term

plug-in hybrid

A plug-in hybrid is a car that can run on both electricity and gasoline. You can charge it by plugging it in, and it can drive a certain distance using just electricity before it uses gas.

Brand

BMW

BMW is a well-known car brand from Germany that makes luxury cars. They are famous for their high-quality engineering and sporty performance.

Car

Chevrolet Volt

The Chevrolet Volt is a car that can run on electricity or gasoline. It was designed to save fuel by using electricity when possible and switching to gas when needed.

Brand

GM

GM stands for General Motors, a big company that makes cars like Chevrolet and Cadillac.

Concept

Electrify America

Electrify America is a company that builds charging stations for electric cars across the U.S.

Term

charging network

A charging network is a group of places where you can charge your electric car, making it easier to find power when you need it.

Car

Volkswagen I

The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is a new electric van that looks like the old VW buses people loved in the past. It's designed to be eco-friendly and is great for families or anyone who needs a lot of space.

Car

Ford Mach-E

The Ford Mach-E is a new electric SUV from Ford that offers a sporty design and electric performance, similar to their Mustang cars.

Term

This is the What Car Evie podcast for Thursday, January 29th, 2026, episode 255.

The Bolt Shall Live Again.

Or maybe it won't.

Forgive us if we talk about the same thing this week that we talked about last week.

I don't think we did, but maybe we did.

This is the problem.

So, item number one on the rundown here, I'm like, I've talked to somebody about this,

and we texted, Ed and I have texted each other about this.

And it seems so familiar to me, and I'm like, I don't know if we've talked about it or

not, and you know, I'm not going to go back and listen to last week's episode, that's

old news, so.

Always forward.

Yeah, even if it means we can't remember what's behind us.

Who's we?

I'm Phil Royal.

What's that?

Who's we?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

That's where I was going to.

I'm Phil Royal.

I am one of the co-hosts here.

I am one of the people that points you to youtube.com slash at the What Car, so you can see our

smiling faces instead of listening to the audio, the yucky yucky audio only version.

And I also should send people to the whatcar.com slash store to buy paraphernalia, even though

I keep threatening to take that down.

That term sounds so dirty for some reason.

Paraphernalia?

Anyway, it's not moist paraphernalia.

For what?

I don't know.

I used to, I used to say what my experience was, go back like 30 episodes and listen to

the intro there and you'll hear that I've been around the block.

I don't know.

That also sounds dirty.

Anyway, at Sanchez, been around the block a few times myself.

Anyway, but we've been doing the podcast audio for more than five years and I think video

for, I want to say over a year now.

I don't know exactly, but I think so.

Sounds about right.

Yeah.

Anyway, so here we are once again talking about the wild, wild world of EVs and some interesting

developments last week that we'll jump right into.

Will we?

Okay.

I guess I should pull the notes up.

We will.

Okay.

So the first item, stop me if you've heard this one.

You can fast forward like a minute or two if we did indeed.

Talk about this last week.

The bolt, the Chevy Bolt was dead.

No, it was alive.

It was good.

Before it was dead.

Then it was dead.

Then it was alive and now it's dead.

I'm sure we've talked about this.

I'm so sure that we've talked about this.

I think I know where you might have gotten that from.

Because you remember GM said it was a limited time offer.

Yeah.

They were bringing it back for a limited time, but they didn't elaborate on that at the time.

Yeah.

Anyway, so they're killing it because the, I guess they need the manufacturing plant to

bring Buick back to America.

So clarify they're killing it again.

Killing it again.

Okay.

So yes.

So they had it.

What was that again?

It's alive.

Then they killed it.

I think what was it last year?

Like 24, 25?

Well, and it also tried to kill itself, remember, back in the day.

Massive battery recall.

Yeah.

The bolts tried to burn themselves off of this planet.

And so then they stopped production and they started production again.

I can still find bolts for sale that don't have the battery replacements that people

are saying that you can like apply for it or something.

I don't even know.

Like I would have thought that's long gone.

But anyway, I recently in the last like couple of weeks, I would say caveat emptor.

Yeah.

So they're taking the manufacturing plant, which is where in Kentucky, Kansas, I think.

Okay.

Kansas.

Kansas, I want to say.

And they are making the China, the currently China built Buick Envision Envision Envision

and it turns out Sherry the Chevy Equinox will be manufactured at this place.

So there is they can't, okay, Buick sold 42,000 envisions last year and in 2023, which is

last time that the bolt had full production, they sold 62,000 bolts.

So I guess this plant can produce about as many Buick's as they need.

And then I guess they'll use the extra manufacturing capacity for the, for the, well, I mean, on

the surface, this seems kind of counterintuitive since they sold more bolts than envisions.

But I guess they scale back in vision production because I'm assuming it was being affected

by the China tariffs.

Even though it's not an EV, which was 100%, but I still think even the ice or maybe the

100% tariff was across the board, maybe it was all vehicles.

It's impossible to know.

I thought it singled out EVs.

I don't know.

Anyway, but it was hit with enough of a tariff, I guess, that GM kind of penciled it out and

said it'd make more sense if we built this in the US.

Well, and the $7,500 tax credits gone.

So the EV is now going to be even more expensive.

That means if they want to offer lower pricing on that to sell the EVs and they're going

to be getting less profit.

And I imagine the Buick is pretty cheap to assemble.

And they could probably make more profit.

Basically, they can just they've got the ability to scale up on something that is an

affordable product that they can sell cheap, manufacture even cheaper.

And it's an easy slam dunk.

And all the CAFE standards or whatever, the EPA requirements are like out the window now.

So at least for the next couple of years.

Yeah. So they don't need to.

So anyway, did we talk about that?

If we did talk about that last week, tell us how dumb we are down in the comments on

the YouTube channel.

We'll take better notes than we did in the last week's episode.

Yeah. So yeah, I don't know if there's much to say about this.

I mean, other than the fact that GM really hyped up the reintroduction of the bolt and

then there just as soon as they brought it back, they're killing it again.

So classic GM move.

But so I will say considering they've killed it, they've created it, killed it,

created it, killed it, created it again and now killed it again, that the bolt will live

again at some point in the future.

It has a really good track record of not being dead yet.

Yeah, I who knows?

I mean, obviously, almost all automakers are always seeking higher margins.

And even though consumers want low cost TVs, the OEMs don't like them because they don't

they don't make good margins on them.

So they'd rather sell you a more expensive crossover or, you know, SUV or whatever.

But anyway, so we'll see.

Yeah. But my bet is it will come back in some form at some point.

I would say as an SUV, since everything goes away and comes back as an SUV,

but this one kind of started as a crossover.

I mean, I think there's room if you look at GM's overall product lineup,

there's room for something smaller than the Equinox, even if you're talking about

like EVs. So there's an Equinox CV and a gas or ICV not related in anything other than name.

The EV model is actually a little bit bigger than the ICE model.

So right now, GM has their kind of entry level.

I guess you'd call it a B segment crossover.

The Chevy tracks, then, you know, Buick has a couple of variants.

Actually, Chevy has a couple.

The trailblazer and the tracks, they're two kind of variants of the same model.

And then Buick has the Envision and the.

They're all in something on on core, I think this is straightforward or easy.

Anyway, so I mean, from like a marketing packaging standpoint,

there's room for something smaller than the Equinox.

They need more models and to subdivide existing subdivisions

of segments that they've already subdivided.

That's what they need to do.

Yes, that's definitely that's the name of the game, I guess.

So anyway, so yeah, so rip bolt, but we'll probably rise again someday.

Anyway, I'll tell you what else is rising is EV sales in Europe.

So I kind of had to unpack this a little bit because

if you look at the pure numbers on this, it's a little misleading,

but I think I kind of figured out how they got to the the headline they got to.

So all right, so I'm packing a little bit.

Yeah, no, go for it because I see it's not straightforward.

No, but tell me not really.

So the headline that that's it was reported in, you know,

Reuters and of course, like most news outlets now are paywall.

So I just went straight to the source.

So I figured why not, which was not paywall.

So it says the headline is electrified vehicles.

Some even say like EVs outsell ice for in Europe for the first time.

But then you look at the infographics and you look at the figures

and you're like, OK, how are they?

How are they slicing and dicing this?

So this, but I was able to find a breakdown like per segment

and the percentage of each segment.

And then if you put it together, it kind of it kind of makes that narrative.

But it's a little like, you know, same goes.

It depends on what your definition of is, is so anyway.

OK, so I'm just going to go down the categories and the percentages.

And then we'll get to how they came to that conclusion.

So this is vehicle segmentation.

New car sales in Europe for 2025.

So what they call petrol or Americans would call gas cars was 26.6 percent.

Hybrid, non plug-in hybrid was 34.5.

Battery electric, 17.4, plug-in hybrid 9.4, diesel 8.9 percent,

which kind of blows my mind because a few years ago, diesel had a huge

market share in Europe.

I mean, we're talking like over 50 percent in most countries.

That the fact that it's gone below 10 percent is kind of crazy.

But anyway, and then they have another category.

And I kind of thought what's left.

And I'm like, I'm guessing that's fuel cell.

So other is 3.3 percent.

If that's fuel cell, that's impressive.

Well, I mean, if that's the case.

I don't know what other would be unless they have like coal fired, like steam powered.

Yeah, I don't know.

Anyway, so.

If you add up a battery electric and P have that comes to twenty six point eight

percent, which is marginally more than gas, but that doesn't include diesel.

So, but the other other way you could slice and dice this, so if you add up

hybrid, battery electric and P have that comes to over 50 percent.

So that's more than, I guess, gas and diesel combined.

I mean, I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, because you heard for a while, like it was always anything with a plug,

you know, they would count things with a plug.

And hybrid doesn't really fit into that.

But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I guess the that aside, it's the numbers are.

High and they're growing and growing, presumably.

And diesel is dropping, presumably, because the number is not.

I mean, we haven't been tracking this thing year over year.

But like you said, it used to be diesel was everything there.

Yeah, I mean, I remember one point, I think I read this is probably probably

about 10 years ago, France was like 70 percent, not 1770.

Yeah.

And like Germany, Spain, Italy, all that were like usually 50 percent, maybe

high forties, but typically Europe has always been over 50 percent.

So they've shifted pretty dramatically toward what's broadly called, you know,

electrified, yeah, you know, hybrid plug and hybrid battery.

So, yeah.

So I guess this is significant.

And it is growing.

You said it's presumably is growing.

You there's a note that says on your over your basis, December 20, 20, five

battery electric car registrations jumped 51 percent plug in hybrids was 36.7 percent.

And hybrid cars grew 5.8 percent.

So, yeah, it is grown.

Yeah.

So, yeah, a big, big change historically for Europe.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Makes sense.

Good news, I guess.

Yeah.

And a lot of them, the kind of the underlying story is a lot of the sales

are come from Chinese brands.

So like Geely, BYD, whatever, the Chinese are making pretty major

inroads in Europe.

It didn't really go down by breakdown by brand, but I've seen

some other stories that said that.

Well, I'm pretty soon as we talked about, as I know we talked about last week,

they'll be selling more potentially in Canada, or at least selling the same

amount faster, because the tariffs have gone from 100 percent to 6 percent

roughly on Chinese EVs coming into Canada.

And a continuation onto that story from last week was, I guess, America's

president was not too super happy about that.

And well, I mean, like, the thing with Trump is, depending on the day,

he says different things.

So, like at first, he was like, he was like, you know, good, let the Chinese

come in on the caveat that they build plants in the U.S., but I guess he

doesn't want vehicles coming in from China.

Yeah, I, I don't know, he wasn't super happy about it.

And Canada's response was something like, we're just rectifying something

that happened a few years ago.

Well, the underlying message of that was the thing that they were

rectifying from a few years ago was when Trump imposed, like, 100 percent

tariff on everything Canadian and Canada went and imposed, well, so America

imposed 100 percent tariff on China and Canada followed suit.

Then America imposed, like, 100 percent tariff on Canada.

And Canada was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

And then started, like, we, that was when we started the first big war.

No, I think that was the second big war, because the first big war

was with Canada was when Trump said that he was going to take over Canada.

They're going to get the 51st state.

Yeah.

And then the second one was where he imposed all these tariffs and that made

Canada go, wait, wait, wait, wait.

And then Canada started fighting back, saying, well, we're going to, like,

one of the provinces, like, banned Teslas, something like that in response

to all of this.

Well, so where Canada has now said that reducing its import, and this is last week's

story, I don't know why I'm talking so much about this, but this was like a

continuation of that news item, was Canada was saying that this was rectifying

something that had happened in the past.

So Trump's all upset about Canada reducing its percentage of EV import

tariff from China.

And Canada's saying, well, this is just rectifying something that happened in

the past.

The thing that happened in the past, the unset thing was where Trump imposed

tariffs like Canada and Canada, where Canada followed suit with America and

then basically declared economic war against Canada afterward.

And Canada was left, like, holding the bag because they'd already done this one

thing following America and then America attacked them.

And so now they're, they're so called rectifying.

It's the madness of the last year is what it is.

Retaliation.

Yeah.

And it's ended up where Canada has not been.

They've had to reset.

Anyway, EVs are selling well in Europe.

Long story short.

Yes.

Don't let me go off on tangents because my tangents go back to last week's articles.

So I'll tell you another market where EVs have been selling well.

Where is that?

Is our home state?

California?

Yes.

I haven't noticed.

I think, I think I read somewhere it's up to, it's up to almost 20% now.

Wouldn't shock me.

EV market, yeah, EV market share in California.

They're everywhere.

They've sold so many EVs in California that according to a USC study, it's had a

measurable impact on the state's air quality, supposedly.

I mean, yeah.

Between, between NASA, so this is a joint study between, or I should say it was

conducted by the Keck School of Medicine at USC using satellite data from NASA.

And they're claiming it's the quote, first real world study showing

statistically significant reductions and observed NO2 or I'm assuming that's the

same thing as NOx because that's like one of the primary components and smog, I guess.

Yep.

Associated with the ongoing transition to light duty electric vehicles over time.

USC study looked at satellite data from 1,687 California neighborhoods.

The study calls them zip code tabulation areas or ZTAs, whatever that is.

I mean, we all refer to the ZCTAs.

Yes, it says it found on average for every 200 zero emission vehicles added to each

neighborhood, the area saw 1.1% decrease in nitrogen dioxide levels.

So there you go.

The argument against EV, one of the arguments against EVs is that they actually

pollute more to make, which is, last I heard, completely true.

Yes.

The breakeven is anywhere between 10,000 miles and 80,000 miles or 100,000 miles,

whatever study you want to believe.

But the breakeven point is potentially within the first owner's

lifespan of the vehicle before it's the mark.

Yeah, typically I've seen, yeah, the first one to three years, I'd say.

So how many EVs are made in the state of California?

Just Tesla's, that's it.

The what?

Tesla's the only EV plant operational in California.

Yeah, I mean, there may be some, I don't know.

So however many pre-mont makes.

Yeah, probably a couple hundred thousand, probably.

And that's in one area.

So you can make the argument of, well, they pollute more, but in the individual

neighborhoods and the, as we say, the ZCTAs, the tabulation areas, you see the decrease.

Mm-hmm.

And that's what we're seeing.

It'd be interesting to see like Fremont or in certain areas in Arizona,

I forget where there's a couple plants in Arizona.

Lucid, Casa Grande, wherever that is.

I think it's Phoenix, metro area.

I'd be curious to see the ZCTA number for there and see has that altered at all

because production is, production cost or pollution is more or is the, is the, is the

manufacturing is, is it more of pulling the minerals out of the earth?

In which case, you'd have to look at Australia, Africa.

So depending on where those are, I find this interesting in many ways.

And there's so many different ways you could slice it.

And this gets back, I mean, going back to like Chinese EV imports.

I mean, if you're going to do like, you know, birth, birth to death, I guess, or like,

you know, mining the minerals to end of life, scrapping and then for imports coming from China,

calculating the freight, the pollution of the cargo ship coming across the Pacific,

you know, taking all that.

Like I said, there's so many ways you can slice and dice this and analyze it.

Yeah, it would be interesting to really get granular about this.

But yeah, see, like if the shipping

paths have a higher of the shipping paths of the battery packs or whatever,

that if there is more pollution in those specific areas, if you've got more dead fish

in certain areas, whatever it is.

I know it's like cargo ships or like use some of the dirtiest fuel known to

modern man.

Yeah.

Bunker fuel.

Bunker fuel is basically tar.

Yeah.

They basically heat up tar and burn it.

That's even though I heard like once they get into port, they have to change to like

basically low sulfur diesel.

Like once they get like close enough into shore, I think I read that somewhere.

That sounds smart.

Yeah.

So like when they're on the open seas, they can, you know, burn brunt bunker fuel.

But I think some ports have a requirement to either run under electrical power or like

less polluting fuel like when in port.

I don't know.

I'll have to do a little digging for that and we'll get back to you.

But it wouldn't shock me.

I mean, like doesn't, aren't there a number of major cities across the world that do that with

vehicles and you've got to be electric or you pay some massive fee within.

What they call congestion pricing or like.

Yeah.

And that if you're in an EV, it's like a different price versus if you're in a gas vehicle or

some areas, I think only accept electric vehicles at this point and all of this stuff.

So case in point, like with plug in hybrids, like, and I think I want to say it's like

BMW models automatically do this through GPS.

Like if you're outside of an urban center, it'll run on the combustion engine.

And then once it gets to a certain point, like close to the urban center,

like it automatically switches to electric power.

I mean, the Volt used to do this, but it was like manual.

I don't think it was automatic.

You had to press it like a mode on the dashboard and it would switch.

But, um, yeah.

So it's just the same concept.

It's the same exact pretty much same idea.

All right.

GM now this this article that you put in our rundown, I thought was fantastic.

This was GM joins Electrify America to enable plug and charge.

GM announced this from an article on Electric.

Link in the show notes, everybody.

GM announced it has integrated Electrify America's charging network directly into its app.

Users navigate to the station, initiate a session and pay for it directly in the app,

eliminating the need for multiple apps or credit cards.

Have you ever heard of anything so amazing?

Whoa, this is like mind blown.

Somebody should write this down and apply this to other manufacturers and vehicles.

Yeah.

You must have read my snarky comment on this.

Well, you're, you compare it back to Tesla and you're like,

Tesla had this like more than a decade ago.

Yeah.

And like Volkswagen, I mean, it took them several years to get this right,

but I think they eventually got it right.

When I had that Ford Mach-E testing that one.

So ironically, plug and charge, plug and charge did work on that,

but I guess for a while did not work on Volkswagen's.

Yes.

So why would they even announce this?

I guess that's my, my thing is I would have thought you educate your dealers on this.

Our dealers don't give a shit about these.

Oh, sorry, we're going to get censored.

Get demonetized, which is ironic because we're not making any money anyway.

Yeah.

So I don't understand.

I don't, I don't get it.

Why are they so late to the game?

I guess the marketing department had a press release quota.

I think.

Why are they so late to the game?

Why?

Why are they so late?

I don't know.

What's kind of interesting about this is previously GM was aligned with Evie Goh.

I think, and obviously Electrify America is a competitor.

And then I think GM got access to the supercharger network.

So they're just, I don't know.

And really Electrify America, I mean, percentage wise,

I think it said they have 5,000 charging locations across the country.

I think Tesla's like 30,000.

And if you're talking about individual charging points, like Tesla's over 100,000.

Like, like quite a bit.

So I don't know, but it's like, yeah, I don't know.

Do you think that what you said that they had a partnership,

I know they were part of IANA that was like a multi.

Which is.

Manufacture thing.

Do you think that they were letting a partnership stop them from doing like plug-in

charge with Electrify America?

I mean, what, what were they possibly thinking?

That you would want to be compatible with everybody, the lowest friction level possible

for any charging scenario.

That is the best thing for your customer.

The idea that they would be bought in to something else or a partner with somebody else.

And then they would just ignore Electrify America like.

Well, I mean, it's not that you couldn't.

You could before, but you'd have to open the app.

You have to register, you know, your car, method of payment, blah, blah, blah.

So supposedly this is effectively almost kind of like plug-in charge.

It seems like when they say we're going to make these EVs.

The first step should have been making it compatible with the lowest friction level

possible with every charging station that is in existence.

That should be step one.

From a consumer experience standpoint, that would make sense.

But my guess is they probably had a longstanding contractual agreement with EVGO

that gave them some level of exclusivity in terms of their app.

And they said, well, you know, you were exclusive to this app for this number of years.

And then after which you can do whatever is my guess as why this happened.

Yeah, I need to dig in.

If that's the case, that's really bad for GM.

If it's just the case that they didn't put in the effort, that's really bad for GM.

Like, I don't see how this is good.

I don't see how this...

Like, yes, I see how it's good for the consumers now that they've got it.

And hopefully it works and all of this.

But you're so late that all it makes me wonder is why have you not done this before?

What were you possibly thinking?

Is this your level of commitment to the EV game?

I mean, I thought Mary won it.

I thought she didn't...

You didn't, Mary.

Yeah, I thought Joe Biden announced this that Mary Barra and GM were the winners in EVs.

I think this just goes to show you how kind of broken the EV charging infrastructure ecosystem is.

Where, I mean, again, I'm gonna have my little fanboy moment here.

Tesla got it right from the beginning, but nobody else wanted to follow them because they're like,

oh, it's too much money.

It's too much commitment.

It's too hard.

You know, we'll just, we'll just partner with whoever.

But for a while and still to this day, each charging network has their own app.

You got a registry credit card with each one of them.

You know, you still got to go through this multi-step process at the charging point,

and it differs for some.

Some you activate first, then you plug in.

Some you plug in first, then you activate.

There is still this kind of mythical protocol, which exists supposedly and I guess is in place with some.

Plug-in charge, it's an actual ISO standard, 15118, I believe.

So that's like kind of this mythical utopia that, you know, everyone's striving for.

And Tesla did this a decade ago.

So good for GM, good for Electrify America, I guess.

But again, I mean, this shows me, I mean, I'll admit I'm spoiled.

I'm spoiled as a Tesla owner because I hear all these horror stories and I experienced it

in person with my friend that was running a Nissan Leaf.

And we had to go on the scavenger hunt to try to find an operational

charger, you know, and adding insult to injury, that was a Chathamu port.

So to find a still operational Chathamu to try to charge this thing.

Yeah, it's painful.

And I get it why, you know, people that drive non-Teslas are like,

forget this, this is too much trouble, it's too much of a hassle.

And, you know, I get why some people are turned off by, you know, all the stuff Elon said and

done, and they're like, oh, I don't want a Tesla anymore.

I'd like to know how many Tesla owners got rid of their Tesla and kind of protest to what Elon

did and ended up coming back because they're like, these other companies, they just haven't

figured it out.

It's not a seamless, I want to go back.

Or conversely, they may have gone back to gas cars and said, I don't want to deal with this

anymore.

But anyway, so yeah.

No, I just, I'm disappointed that it just took GM this long.

Good, good on you GM for doing it.

But it really shows what commitment you had before.

Yeah, I mean, to your point, I mean, they did join IANA and I've, I've not been to and I

IANA station yet.

I've heard they're very nice.

They're very clean.

They, a lot of them support plug-in, plug-in charge.

Kind of sound similar to, oh, where did I go in Orange County?

Gosh, what's the name of that?

Oh, the gas station thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, what the heck?

Why am I drawing a blank on that?

I can't remember it either, but I remember the press release.

Fancy mini mart and all that.

And it was, I went there and it was a great experience.

But I guess that's how memorable it is.

I can't remember the name.

Well, I mean, to be fair, like, I can't remember the name of the gas stations that I fill up at.

Like I, they're a utility.

They're not, I mean, I guess you remember the Tesla Supercharger.

If you go to the one down in LA, it's got the movie theater.

I guess you'd remember that one, but everything else is just, it's a stop along the way.

So, Rove, Rove, Rove.

Rove, if you want to remember, I remember.

Now I'll never forget until we need to remember again next time.

In which case I won't because I can't obviously remember what we even talked about last week.

Judge rules.

Trump's suspension of nevy funds was illegal.

I saw this headline.

Yes.

So to be clear, so before it was a temporary injunction.

So we did talk about this before that told Trump, basically told the Trump administration,

you can't do this, but it was temporary while that I guess the case was like still pending.

And I guess this is the final ruling where they said, no, you have to disperse these funds.

So there you go.

Well, but are they gonna?

I mean, because don't they just then take it to the next step and the next, isn't that what the

policy is of they'll just, well, we'll need the Supreme Court to rule on this.

Well, we'll see.

I mean, the Trump administration has a lot on its hands right now if you hadn't noticed.

What?

Between, yeah, I don't want to get into the whole, anyway.

I haven't heard what's been going on.

Yeah.

Anyway, just turn on the TV or open Google news.

So maybe funds are frozen, $7,500 tax credits gone, but during all of that,

there's an article linked to it as well.

Electric did a thing on 0% financing on EV purchases.

And I haven't read the whole thing.

So I'm sure that there are like, well, this only applies to this and

you've got to do this for this or whatever.

But the list is like, when you scroll down it, it's like every EV.

It's like everything.

Well, all the key is Machi, Salterra, Silverado, Equinox, Volkswagen, like it's like my guess is

the Tesla's, the dealers screamed to the OEMs like, okay, you made us get off this inventory

that nobody wants to buy because there's not $7,500 on the hood.

You know, what do you want us to do with this?

And they said, you got to help us out.

So that's my guess.

I don't know how I've never priced it out with this.

Maybe this article covers it.

I don't know.

But there is a lot to be said about reducing the interest rate on a high ticket item

versus getting money back off of the high end that you can actually like the monthly payment

can be better even though you're paying more.

Your day to day life is actually better because the APR is less because you're not paying as much

interest.

So I haven't done the math, but it could be, your mileage may vary, but it could be that

you don't need the $7,500.

You just need 0% APR.

Well, I mean, I don't know if this is saving money.

So a while back, like Hyundai specifically, I think it was on the Ionic 5, they dropped

prices depending on the specific trim, like in some cases, I think about $10,000.

This is separate from the rebate.

They dropped the price dramatically.

And if you can get 0% financing in addition to that price drop,

means potentially you could get a pretty sweet deal on a Ionic 5 or whatever.

Yeah.

So even though there's not cash on the hood anymore, I mean, a lot of times 0% financing

is just good if not better.

Yeah.

And the manufacturer is trying to sell these things.

Yeah.

Now, whether or not they'll be continuing to sell them or trying to sell them once they've

got rid of all the stock, who knows?

Now, it's like we're in the wild west at this point.

Go buy a Buick Envision, I guess, I guess.

Yes, get you through the next few years before everything changes again.

And I mean, the uncertainty, the uncertainty, like I would hate to be one of these manufacturers.

No, I think the game at this point is let's just wait it out for the next two to three years and

then revisit everything.

And this, I was reading back.

I found us referenced on some podcast.

Anyway, I found us referenced.

I went back and it, there was this website and they'd compiled a lot of the comments

and some of the highlights.

And one of the people that no longer listens to us, so I don't need to care about their thoughts

anymore.

But they said that they're stopping listening to us because even though we say that we're

not trying to be political, that we instantly turn and bash Republicans,

which is not necessarily the case.

It just happens to be.

I just think he was offended by my Trump impersonation.

Could be, it could be.

But it's the uncertainty started to me back with Biden.

That that was when all of a sudden we went so hardcore into EVs.

Obama made the, the EPA standards go up significantly.

I remember when that happened and everybody was like, it's never going to happen.

And sure enough, we actually hit some of those numbers.

But at the time, that seemed crazy.

Biden seemed to ratchet that up even more and make it with EV and then you got Gavin Newsom

that then ratchet it up that was like, okay, we're going to stop these EVs or start selling

only EVs.

And then we've got six other states, Oregon and whatever that follows California regulations

are like, okay, we're going to do that.

And so all of a sudden it was like, we went from a gradual, what was a gradual adoption

of EVs into this, here's all this money, here's, here are all these funds.

We're going to force like sales in these states to be this where and it,

it kind of was unchecked toward EVs very heavy handed, very fast and potentially

unobtainably.

And then we went from there, swing the other way, emissions don't matter, nothing for your EV.

And in the last eight years, we have gone from just a gradual progression of EPA standards

going up that would slowly push you toward EVs to hardcore EV, hardcore gas, oil and gas.

Yeah, I'll tell you how crazy it's gotten is I've seen some forums and some YouTube videos.

So the fact that they're like getting rid of the cafe, like they're basically eliminating

any penalties for cafe standards.

Now they've said they're not going to prosecute like companies that sold like emissions defeat

devices to some people speculating like the roll coal bros that are doing full emission

deletes that they're going to, they're going to eliminate penalties for that.

Diesel brothers got like a billion dollar fine or something.

Or something, it was big and they went after a lot of other companies too.

But to the point where, you know, while these babas are like, I'm just going to straight

pop my diesel and, you know, they're going to do nothing about it.

So I don't know if that's true or not.

I personally, I wouldn't do that.

You know, that's a little bit of FAFO, but

it's interesting.

Now I'm about to talk about non EV stuff.

So once again, fast forward about a minute.

I saw an ad for banks that does the diesel performance and whatnot for trucks.

To be clear, not a financial institution.

No, no, no.

Yeah, banks power.

And they were advertising and this is where I'm probably completely wrong.

They were advertising.

They're basically math defeat that the mass airflow sensor that it would, they said the

problem with these in the past, like you get a cold air intake and it flows so much air.

But the problem is that you've got to choke them down to go through the math,

because it's got to accept the same amount of air that you've got to be within a certain

parameter for the computer to accept the computer.

Otherwise the computer freaks out and throws codes.

So they were saying, we've figured out a way around this 50 state legal and we've got,

we flow more air, but you plug this in, it goes to a tuner that then tricks the math

into accepting this new parameter and it throws no check engine lights 50 state legal.

And I went, what?

That doesn't sound like that's a carb legal thing, but 50 state legal means it's carb.

But it's interesting that you say that they are now basically just not going to,

they're saying like everything's wide open.

I wonder if this is now why they're advertising that.

Possibly.

If they've finally, if banks has had this thing in their back pocket,

which I'm sure everybody has like, oh, you can trick it if you just reprogram it.

If anyway, I wonder if that's what this is leading to, which then goes back to the story

earlier of lower emissions in individual cities is measurable.

Are we now getting to higher pollution because it's now going to be unchecked gas

modifications and diesel modifications.

I think it's a matter of, of whatever penalties there were are not being enforced.

Now, you know, Newsom in California, they may do their own thing, but

that's still, I think right now kind of an illegal gray area.

If California even has that authority anymore.

I think that's being contested.

Yeah, the current administration has contested.

I don't remember what the thing was on that.

So, I mean, I don't know, maybe, but the whole ECU tricking thing, that's,

I mean, that's been around for probably like 20 years.

But not for carb.

Not for carb legal stuff.

Especially with a math.

Well, I'm also too.

I've heard a carb to get a part carb certified is I've heard numbers up to a quarter million

dollars for a single component.

So these little shade tree shops, there's no way they just said, we're not going to spend

a quarter million dollars on something that might take us 10 years to recoup that investment.

You know, it's usually bigger companies like Holly, like, you know, Holly and it's like

almost kind of like the Walmart of the aftermarket or whatever analogy they're a huge

conglomerate that swallowed up a lot of smaller companies.

And my guess is one of the reasons why is a lot of these smaller companies just couldn't

can justify the cost to and California.

I mean, even though it's like the most restrictive market from a regulatory standpoint is one.

It's one of the largest markets in the country and especially for the performance scene.

So, you know, companies, it's kind of a catch 22.

It's like that we want to sell in the state, but the regulations are so prohibitive.

So, but company like Holly can afford, you know, like a LS intake, they can throw down

quarter mill, get it carb tested certified.

And they basically have a lock on that.

They're like, oh, we got, you know, carb legal.

So, yeah, it's like you said, it's kind of the wild west right now.

All right, let's blast through the last three stories.

All right.

Geely says it'll start production of solid state batteries in 2026.

Solid state batteries is something that we've been hearing about for forever.

They are the holy grail there.

I'm just gonna make up some numbers thing is energy density.

Yeah, I'm gonna make up some numbers.

Everybody claims they're like, what, 60% more energy dense or something that they're

more efficient that you can do twice as much with the third of the battery or whatever it is.

More stable, more better everything.

Nobody's ever been able to do this.

Like, yes, in small scale, not in a big EV.

So good.

Good.

I mean, they're not the only one claiming they're almost there.

I mean,

There's a motorcycle manufacturer that's producing solid state,

motorcycle with solid state battery right now.

They're like the first and yeah, they're the first to do it.

Yeah, but I mean, even the definition of solid state.

So, so you and I are familiar with the little little portable power stations.

Like I have one, you have one.

So there was a company.

Oh, gosh, I want to say it was Yoshi that came out with this.

Oh, solid state power bank.

And so they did a reverse.

They basically did a tear down on it.

And they said, not really.

It's, I don't know.

Some companies play kind of fast and loose with the definitions.

I mean, Geely's a pretty established, you know, they own Volvo,

pretty big company.

I mean, I'm more inclined to maybe kind of believe that.

But they're not, like I said, they're not the only one.

You got Geely, you got CATL, Toyota says they're developing one.

For years, Toyota said that has been developing one.

Yeah, I'd say for the better part of a decade, Toyota.

And they've also been saying, oh, right around the corner.

And that's one of the reasons why you'll hear me on this podcast many times say

that I think Toyota will one day just come out and shock us.

That all of a sudden they'll be like, here's the new Corolla EV.

But the phone's so battery.

It costs like $25,000.

It's a solid state battery.

It can do 380 miles and it can charge from zero to 100% in eight minutes.

And here you go, you know, that that's what I was expecting from Toyota.

But that's been, like you said, that's like a decade of them talking about this.

And now I'm in the the idea of like, it's just not going to happen.

It's just not, when it does happen here, you got a note that says,

Geely solid state battery claim is that its energy density is 400 watt hours per kilogram,

which is more than the 300, 200 to 300 watt hour per kilogram of lithium ion batteries today.

Okay, let's see it.

Let's see.

Yeah, cool.

It's the same thing with Tesla's.

Someone will be first.

Tesla's new, I can't even remember.

They went from the 2680 to the, what, to the, what's the big battery?

No, it was the, originally 18th, I think it was the 1865, which was like the Model S.

Model three was like 2170 and now they're like 4680.

But they remember the 46, the Helix, whatever they did.

There's a whole song and dance about it.

And it was exactly these same claims.

And none of it turned out to be true.

There was no increase in efficiency that they could get.

Manufacturing was difficult.

It basically fell on its face.

It didn't do anything.

Shock, shock.

Nothing the Elon Musk said about it was true.

So I'm kind of now, I feel beaten down on solid state batteries.

I think.

So do you still think Toyota's going to be first to market?

No, I don't think so.

Outside of China?

Yeah, it's Chinese.

So that's a matter of, is it going to be CATL or Geely?

But I don't even think at this point that it's going to be

what everybody's been claiming that it's going to be.

And I think that a lot of that assumption now on me is not only I've been hearing

about solid state batteries for so long and so obviously it's not easy to do,

but I've heard Elon Musk stand up there and make these claims about this next technology

that they're working on and it never turns out to be as good as what he says.

So now I see these things and I'm like, whatever.

I don't believe these numbers anymore.

Show it to me.

Yeah.

Show me a production car in America that we can charge.

On the road.

On the road that we can buy that does not cost us half a million dollars because I'm

sure that you could build a Lamborghini for $500,000 with this kind of technology.

Yeah, I'm sure that that could happen.

Show me something in a Corolla that I can buy.

All right.

Toyota, game on, you heard it.

Yep.

I want it to exist.

I feel so defeated now on that.

I've been, it's turning into my hydrogen.

Maybe we should do a solid state battery shirt.

Yeah, solid state batteries in the future and always will be.

I don't know.

It's very scary.

Folks, so I can change tickets name from the ID4 to the ID Tiguan.

For one, name by any other, rows by any other name is still a suite, if that still applies.

But when are they dropping the ID name?

I thought that was, I thought that was the master plan, but I guess they're keeping it

around for a little more.

I don't know.

They've actually just dropped the dot whatever and they're renaming it to something that they

already had a Tiguan in this case, which is already a horrible name.

I've told you the story about how I got banned from Volkswagen VW events.

Yeah, I was invited to talk their names and this is not funny.

Not today anymore.

Long story short, I'm on this long lead and I turned to like the vice president of whatever

he was at Volkswagen and we were talking about car names and I said the reason because the

Tiguan was voted on by the public and I said, this is exactly the reason you don't ask the public

what to name your vehicle because you end up with something stupid like the Tiguan.

I don't think I use the word stupid, but I was never invited back after insulting the name

Tiguan.

And here they go again, just to spite me.

Yes, out of personal spite for you.

For me, yeah.

Yes.

All right.

Last item and I really want to get to this because I can't even remember what episode

we talked about this.

Or even if it was even before we started doing the podcast even, maybe that's how far back it was.

There's this kind of Lancia looking EV that this Chinese company made is called the SC01.

Anyway, I do remember talking about it, but it's that's how long ago it's been.

So dual motor, about 430 horsepower, 0 to 60 in like a little under three seconds.

The big, the big headliner is the weight.

It's barely over 3,000.

It's 3,009 pounds, which for an EV is exceptionally light.

So they say they're actually going to build this.

Good.

Are we going to see in the US?

Who knows, probably not.

It is.

But I hope Mazda gets one and reverse engineers it and makes an EV Miata for 30 grand.

Yeah.

The problem is I'll stay battery while we're at it.

Yeah.

Just keep adding to the wish list.

The problem I'm being I'm negative fill in this episode, I guess.

The problem with this car is it's like what a little two-seater.

I mean, I say little in the pictures.

It's as wide as a lane on the road.

So there's things like six feet wide.

And the problem is, is some of this article that we'll link to, they talk about,

they kind of compare it to the MX-5 in its length.

It's 7.7 inches longer than a Miata and 60 kilowatt hour battery and whatever,

430 horsepower, supercar acceleration, yada, yada.

But you already said it's 3,000 pounds.

But that's not bad though.

Now.

Especially for an EV, like, I mean, I guess 3,000 pounds is fine.

So you being a former Miata owner, so for you for it to get any cred in your book,

it would be like 20, 2,500 pounds.

Or I mean, what's, I guess, what's your benchmark for being like impressed?

Okay.

So I don't know.

But the first Miata comes out and it's like 21, 2,200 pounds.

The NA.

Then the second gen of the NA comes out and it was a little bit heavier.

I don't remember any of the numbers, but it was like, say, 2,300.

Then the NB comes out and it was like 2,350, something like that.

And then the NC comes out and it was like 2,600 or 2,700.

Yeah, so it really poked up.

It failed.

Nobody wanted it until it hit like five years old on the used market

where people could actually like buy them for cheaper.

Nobody was buying those things.

Nobody was racing them.

Nothing because it hit that 26 or 2,700 pound mark.

And it was like, it's not fun anymore.

So they come out with the ND and the ND goes back to like 2,350, 2,400 pounds.

And that sells like gangbusters.

But loaded Miata's are pushing 40 grand now.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know if you do inflation adjustment where that is.

Oh, the first I saw something about that with Miata's in the first gen one

was like significantly more expensive than the current one is for now.

Oh, inflation adjustment.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's quite wild.

But 3,000 pounds is a lot for a small two-seater sports car.

I mean, I'm not.

It's a lot.

I'm not disputing that, but it's moving in the right direction.

I mean, personally, like I said, I think I would be impressed if Mazda were to do a Miata EV

and they were able to get it like 2,800 pounds.

2,800 pounds, let's say 35 grand, 250 mile range.

I'd be like.

Yeah.

I think 2,800 pounds, you start the conversation.

I think you're right.

I think that's in the range.

But 3,000, you're like, yeah.

But well, when they came out with, I think it was the ND,

that they were saying we trimmed everything.

Weight was such it's their whatever.

I forget the term for their with it.

Like you're they look at every ounce and they were they were like,

we cut six ounces out of the rear view mirror.

We cut, you know, when they went around and they tell you, I remember even like the dipstick,

they it's like on the ND, it's like supposedly like a wire.

Yeah.

The first I went on the ND long lead and because they invite me, but not Volkswagen,

not Volkswagen.

But there, the car that I was sat in driving around for a couple of days was the seat,

which they eventually rectified was basically like a hammock.

It was like mesh that went across because they cut out all the weight that they could

and my back was killing me.

Yeah.

But so you think they went too far in pursuit of trying to I think they got it about right

for what the car is.

But what I'm my point is, is that they were they were chasing ounces them.

How do you do that with a giant battery pack?

It kind of is what it is.

So there is no there you can do all of that.

But at the end of the day, you've got like a 1500 pounds skateboard underneath car

is just what it is.

And you're not cutting ounces out of that.

So they're going to have a really hard time getting down there.

Yeah.

And maybe solid stays the answer and maybe they get there.

But I don't know if Mazda is the one that's going to be able to do it unless they get

consumed by Toyota or a Chinese company.

Yeah, possibly.

Let's call it a day because this is the longest episode we have had for a while.

And I need to get out of here to do.

Like so.

Yeah.

Show notes.

Links can be found in the show notes.

Where are the show notes?

They are somewhere in your phone.

The files are in the computer.

Just watch.

You get that reference.

I was getting I was in a office, whatever.

Long story.

Anyway, they were showing Zoolander.

So I watched Zoolander.

It was awesome.

Um, I don't remember what else I was talking about.

And I just like popped my piece there.

So, oh, store.

Thewatercar.com slash store.

Buy some merchandise.

Go back if you listen to this episode and watch the episode.

YouTube.com slash at the what car.

We're on social medias.

Share us.

It's about all I was thinking of getting off of certain ones.

We're on blue sky.

We're on threads.

I don't do anything with that.

I just post stuff.

I'm like, why even have the account?

So I maybe YouTube is where it's at.

Yeah.

It's like YouTube and maybe Instagram,

although we need to start putting our shorts on Instagram as well.

I think I think that'll be our next move.

I'll talk to our show social media manager and make that happen.

We'll see what could happen next week is more of the same.

I got to end this before we hit one hour

because we're getting out of control with these episodes.

And somebody needs to listen.

All right.

See you.

0:00

58:27

255: The Bolt Shall Live Again...Or Maybe It Won’t

Chevy Bolt

Buick Envision

CAFE standards

Chevrolet Equinox

Chevy Trax

Chevy Trailblazer

BYD

Geely

Lucid

bunker fuel

congestion pricing

plug-in hybrid

BMW

Chevrolet Volt

GM

Electrify America

charging network

Volkswagen I

Ford Mach-E

plug and charge

supercharger network

ISO 15118

Nissan Leaf

CHAdeMO

Dodge Charger

plug-in charge

EV

Ford Mustang Mach-E

Chevrolet Silverado

0% APR

Hyundai Ioniq 5

Toyota Corolla

Tesla Model S

Volkswagen Tiguan

Volkswagen Id4

Mazda Miata

About this episode

Original notes