262: Preamble to the Preamble

This is What Car Evie Podcast for Thursday, March 19th, 2026, Episode 262.

Pre-amble to the pre-amble.

I'm guessing you like football.

Not especially, but I like using the analogy.

Because you're about to armchair quarterback the heck out of this episode.

Yes.

Ironically, I am an analyst, but not an energy analyst, but I'm going to go there anyway.

You're going to play one on this episode.

Yes.

This episode of what?

The What Car Podcast.

Where can you find it?

YouTube.com slash at the What Car.

See our smiling faces.

If you are listening to this episode, forget you.

If you're watching us, welcome.

I don't know.

That sounds mean.

We also welcome listeners.

Yeah, we welcome listeners.

Any kind.

We prefer views.

I mean, honestly, I don't know if we care at this point.

Anything.

Put as in as many holes as you've got.

Hey, now.

This is going south.

All right.

I'm Phil Royal, and I'm here with bad analogies, and all the best words, and I point people

to the What Car.com slash store where you can buy paraphernalia, of which I'm not wearing,

but Ed may be that you'd see on YouTube if you went there.

I've been doing content creation for too many years.

So my Alzheimer's has kicked in, and I don't remember any of it.

But I've been doing it with Ed the whole time.

Yes.

Likewise, long time playing in the automotive sandbox in one form or another.

Today, I'm playing an energy analyst, even though that's not my day job, but I'm going

to do it anyway.

Ironically, while we're both in a heat wave, the rest of the country is freezing cold.

And here in California, I think it's like 91 degrees at my house today, which is a balmy

75 here, but at least you have air conditioning.

Yeah.

Well, I don't have it on.

I got I got quiet ceiling fans for people watching at home.

You can watch Ed begin to sweat throughout this episode because he had to turn his fan

off.

I have a gigantic ring light, and I just turned my box fan off.

Oh, the things we do to record.

Yeah.

So what's up for you?

I mean, not a lot's been going on in the news recently that might affect EVs.

Not at all.

So with that, thanks, everybody.

We'll see you next week.

Not quite.

No.

So you're going to arm share a quarterback this.

Yes.

Okay.

So actually, I want to start it out and maybe on the surface, this may kind of seem like

kind of a nothing.

I hate using the term nothing burger.

I'm so tired of hearing that, but maybe a non issue right now, but it could be.

So this is a report from Edmonds.

So this is new car or I'm assuming new car searches.

Yeah.

New car searches on their site.

So this is from basically about a week ago, because the site activity shows hybrids, plug-in

hybrids and EVs accounted for 22.4 of all vehicle research activity on Edmonds the week

starting March 2 up from 20.7 the previous week.

Is that significant?

I don't know.

Well to put that into context a little bit.

Back in 2022, they saw a surge from 17% search for electric vehicles to 25%.

Which I would say is pretty significant.

Or 17% for, was that for hybrids?

I think it was high, but it actually electrified.

It said electrified.

So it was probably hybrids, but actually like synced up with an actual rise in purchases.

And that went from about 17% to 25%.

So here we've gone from 20% to 22%.

It's trending the way it did historically.

Yes.

So that was around the, yeah, like you said, the outbreak of the Ukraine war.

Which is kind of interesting because I actually think from an interview standpoint that was

arguably less significant than what's going on right now.

But now we're numb to it.

So but yeah, it's just kind of interesting how the market reacts to geopolitical events.

So there's definitely an uptrend, but it's not like a dramatic spike yet.

Of people purchasing EVs.

Purchasing or researching like compared to previous months.

Yep.

But really it's, this could go many different ways right now.

But first of all, before we get into that, I want to get a little bit philosophical here.

I thought that was the preamble, but now there's a preamble to the preamble.

Preamble to the preamble.

Okay.

So the coverage of this from certain networks, which will remain nameless, but I think you'll

be able to put the pieces together, has been absolutely obsessed about oil, oil prices,

oil flow, so forth.

And that's been a big part of this administration's narrative.

So and I'm not going to discount that because oil prices do have a lot of ripple effects

through the global economy.

So I'm not discounting it and say, oh, you know, we should all be driving EVs and, you know,

you know, you know, unicorns and rainbows and all that.

It's like, look, I'm a realist about the world we live in.

Oil prices affect it.

But what I'm not hearing, and I'm not saying I'm surprised by this, but what I'm not hearing

from this administration or really anyone to a large extent is that the current geopolitical

situation is exactly why we should reduce our dependence on oil.

And I'm just not hearing that, which I find kind of puzzling just from a very pragmatic

standpoint.

Yeah, right now, it's getting oil tankers out from the area of Iran is very difficult.

And that is driving up the price of everything, of the price of oil because they're blowing up

tankers and other tankers are not leaving because they don't want to be blown up.

Crazy idea.

Don't want to be blown up as you go and that drives up the price of oil.

And yeah, you would have thought that in that is exactly like, why is America not saying,

man, we need to start investing now in renewables.

I think, I mean, there have been like, whether you think this is a fringe group or not,

Union of Concerned Scientists, various academic and research bodies have been saying this

probably for the past, but a part of the last 40 years of like, we need to diversify,

we need to move more toward renewables, reduce our dependency on oil.

I mean, to a degree, they probably started saying this in the 70s.

The answer back then was increased fuel economy to span out how much fuel you had because we

didn't have solar wind and all these.

Even though they weren't mainstream, they weren't like Tesla or the Leaf or anything.

That's when you started seeing these kind of niche EVs in the 70s.

A lot of them were like converted.

I remember when I was like, you converted Dotson and then you had the city car,

which is a little kind of wedge shaped two seater.

So clearly the thought was there like, okay, we need to move in that direction.

Nobody in power has made a move to make any of this happen.

No. So anyway, in a meaningful way, I guess I should say.

No, no. So where we are right now, so we're at a one year high,

I think probably about a two year high for oil.

The last high was in 2022.

But yeah, so we're between there's two indexes.

There's WTI and Brent.

Brent's a little over a hundred.

I think it closed today, 102 something.

Brent is like 96.

So we're about a hundred bucks a barrel right now.

So that's a pretty significant spike over the last couple of months.

It's not near the all time inflation adjusted high of 200.

But a lot of people are saying that's still a possibility.

But anyway, I want to dig into a little bit why this administration is so obsessed about oil.

If you look at the administration, Secretary of Energy, former CEO of Liberty Energy,

North America's second largest fracking company.

And Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior, former North Dakota governor.

North Dakota, by the way, the number three oil producer in terms of like states.

He's a well known advocate of kind of the drill baby drill ethos.

And he just last year he issued an order saying unleashing American energy

for a review of oil, gas and mining activities on public lands,

which to be fair isn't unprecedented.

But it's basically the way I'm reading is that is like nothing is sacrosanct.

Like no, you know, whether it's tribal lands or national parks or whatever.

He's like, everything's on the table for exploration.

So if you're conservationists, it's a little alarming.

Anyway, is he related?

So former North Dakota, you said governor.

Okay. So just going back real quick to Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy.

Just note that you said he was connected to fracking, to a fracking company.

Lord Fracking Company.

He was the CEO of a fracking company.

And fracking companies produce oil that we don't use in America.

We pump it.

We pump it and then we've got to ship it elsewhere.

It's the light sweet, not the heavy crude.

And we use the heavy crude here and we refine the heavy crude, not the light sweet.

So he's our secretary of energy and his whole business is selling to foreign countries,

not producing oil that we can refine and use within America.

It's a little ironic.

Yeah. And so actually I looked this up.

This was kind of surprising to me because this isn't a country you typically

associate with the oil or energy industry.

The largest light sweet refinery in the world is in India, actually.

So imagine we export a lot of that to India, I'm assuming.

Most of the refineries around the Gulf of America, Mexico, whatever you want to call it.

Most of those are optimized for heavy sour.

So basically the stuff coming from Venezuela, from Canada.

But some of them are also set up to refine light sweet.

But they're not, like I said, the top light sweet refinery in the world is India.

I think like two or three are maybe in the Gulf area.

But by and large, the U.S.'s refining capacity is set up to process heavy sour.

And there's long-standing historical reasons for that, which I'm not going to get into here.

The long and short of that, as far as I understand it, and I could sum it up,

first movers disadvantage.

We started using oil earlier, and it was the heavy sour mix that was available at the time.

Like a hundred years ago, they discovered heavy sour, and no other country wanted it.

So we built our empire on that.

We were like, there's got to be a way we could use this.

So I guess some chemical engineer kind of figured out a way to make it a useful product

and how to refine it.

And then all of a sudden, we like switched all of our refineries to processing this stuff

because we could get it cheap because nobody else wanted it.

And then we discovered how to frack, which produces light sweet.

Yeah.

And we were stuck there.

We're not set up to do.

Yeah.

And that was how that came to be.

So anyway, all right.

So here's another kind of domino effect to all this is the national average for diesel,

I guess, as of today, as the day we're recording this top to $5 a gallon,

which in California is like, eh, every other day.

But for a national average, that is extremely high.

And before you say, well, I don't drive a diesel.

Why do I care?

Yeah.

Well, guess what?

Your groceries, all the stuff at Walmart, you know, literally everything delivered anywhere.

It came by diesel.

Yeah, you choose diesel.

You may be fully independent off the grid, solar, EV car, but everything in your fridge

arrived via a diesel truck.

Yes.

So effectively, diesel has basically 100%.

Basically 100% of land freight is effectively diesel.

I mean, if I had to give a precise number, it's probably 94, 95.

But effectively 100%.

So the thing with that is, if they're not already doing this, they're probably,

probably a lot of the truckers are tacking on fuel surcharges to their delivery fee.

So that's being passed along to wholesalers, to the retailers,

which ultimately get passed down to the consumer.

So the domino effects are not far where we're going to start feeling this throughout the economy.

And prices go up fast and they come down slow.

Exactly.

So there's that.

So I actually, again, I am not an energy analyst.

I'm not a military analyst, but I really went down a rabbit hole when I was prepping for this episode.

So I came up with a very provocative little subtitle for the section we're about to go into.

You ready?

Oh, I'm ready.

I'm just adjusting my light for those people watching.

So I called this war games on the road to 200 plus dollar barrel oil.

So there's a couple of scenarios that could play out.

So I don't know if you've been listening recently.

So something that's been in the news the past, I'd say about the past week.

It's a place called Carg Island.

I try not to watch the news.

I mean, in fact, all of this episode so far has been news to me.

All right.

So we're a war.

Carg Island.

Why is it important?

That's where about 90% of Iran's crude is exported from in terms of location.

Also, 50% of Iran's economy is energy exports.

So pretty critical to them.

So does the first question is does Iran have an alternative to Carg?

If Carg is either taken over by U.S. or Allied forces,

do they have any other way they could export oil?

Yes, they have another export depot in a place called Bandar, which is like out.

If you look at the map of Iran, there's a little kind of,

there's the Persian Gulf.

And then there's a little finger where there's the Strait of Hormuz.

So the Bandar export depots outside of that.

It's on the Gulf of Oman, which is effectively the Indian Ocean.

Now, I read somewhere that pipeline and that terminal has the hypothetical capacity

to basically, in terms of output, I think it's 1.5 million barrels a day,

that it could hypothetically handle that.

So potentially they could divert the oil flow from Carg Island to Bandar

and export it out of there.

So that basically bypasses the choke point of the Strait of Hormuz.

But again, like anything in energy of large scale,

it's probably not a matter of just flipping the switch.

There's probably a lot of infrastructure,

things that would have to happen to facilitate that.

But that is a potential secondary outlet.

Now, but that's not to say we couldn't take that over too.

So if the US took over Carg Island and Bandar,

would basically, I mean, and it was a family show, but would have Iran by the,

you know what, it's like, you can't, well, we,

I put in the notes would basically kneecap their economy.

Like if they can't export any oil, they're basically screwed.

Yeah, that's, like you said, 50%, you would suddenly cut off 50% of their economy.

Their economy would be at a standstill effectively.

That'd be the equivalent of cutting the export of avocado toast from California.

It would just destroy the state.

Yes. So I'm sure, I'm sure the military strategists are looking at this.

They're probably, you know, game-planning this potentially.

At that point, I, again,

would either trigger a scorched earth campaign by Iran just out of desperation

or an effective surrender, whether an official surrender or

it's a de facto surrender of like-

The answer would be both.

The answer would be absolutely both.

We've seen it.

They would blow up everything that they could.

It would be like one of those, have you seen those 4th of July celebrations?

You could YouTube them.

No, where they accident, there's a handful of them,

where they accidentally hit the wrong button and everything goes off at once.

The 4th of July fireworks, they all happen in like 15 seconds.

It would be that.

And then they would have to surrender.

That'd be how it would go.

But man, the collateral damage of that would be-

The collateral damage could be significant.

Already, we're seeing them attacking UAE pretty significantly.

UAE has probably taken the brunt of most of their offensive attacks.

Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait.

I mean, basically, Iran's just kind of, you know, everybody.

Yeah.

So you know that if you force their hand, it would be everything.

If they would hit the button that sends everything off,

because they would have one shot.

Yeah.

So at that point, I think you're realistically probably looking at 200 bucks a barrel,

if that were to play out.

Now, that would-

I'm shocked that that would only double the price from what it is now.

I mean, maybe even more than that, but I would say-

I wouldn't doubt that they blow up their own stuff.

Well, if we can't have it, you can't have it.

You blow everything up.

That's possible.

If we're going down, the whole oil infrastructure goes down.

It's a really bad analogy.

I was like, you're cornering a dog.

I mean, that's not what I'm trying to say.

But at some point when you're cornered-

No, but a cornered animal, they're more likely to like last shot.

You've got nothing to lose.

You have nothing to lose, and that's the position that they're in.

Or who would be in that situation?

I wouldn't say this would be good, but a potential beneficiary of this, ironically,

would be the US.

Because we are the world's largest producer.

We're the world's biggest import or the biggest exporter.

And if the Gulf and all the Gulf states are effectively out of commission,

the world's got to go somewhere, and most likely they'd come to the US.

But unfortunately, that's not really good news for US consumers, unless you happen to be a

stockholder in ExxonMobil.

Or say a previous CEO of the second largest fracking company

who probably owns shares in that company.

I mean, already I'm seeing these reports.

Now, granted, I think these are kind of-

In fact, when I lived in the LA area, I think I remember driving by this place.

But I think it's a Chevron station in Beverly Hills, where it's already like seven or eight

bucks a gallon.

Yeah.

But rather than that being like, oh, haha, look at California, that could be the entire US.

Which I think would just-

I think the psychological effect of that on American consumers would just be-

Yeah.

You know.

I mean, California-

Yeah, I mean, we're kind of-

And I don't really-

It doesn't affect me.

Like, I mean, it does, but it doesn't.

It cost me an extra like $6 to fill up.

Like, it's not-

It's not the end of the world, but-

You just, you kind of get-

You know, it's kind of like boiling the frog analogy, but-

When you're already used to being raked over the coals for something,

then when you're just raked a little bit more, it doesn't affect you.

What's next?

But like in the middle of America, where they've been paying $240, $250 a gallon,

and all of a sudden it goes up, say it went up to $450 a gallon.

Like, they'd be-

They'd be pitchforks.

Besides themselves, yeah.

So if they don't go scorched earth on the Gulf and destroy like all the

refineries and export terminals and everything, and the strait is basically opened up,

you could see the price drop pretty significantly.

But there is that disconnect between crude and refined.

So while crude would drop quickly, I think refined products, which is, you know,

gasoline, diesel, all that would kind of be like, you know, like a feather going down,

rather than just like-

We just need to figure out how to run all of the gasoline and diesel vehicles on bunker fuel.

I think that's the answer.

Well, if it-

We're missing the obvious.

Up to Trump and Chris Rye that'd probably be all for that.

Or use French fry oil or whatever.

Yeah, well, the Philippines are already doing that.

They've been doing that for decades.

So yeah, this could really go either way at this point.

Either this ends quickly with relatively-

I won't say minimal, but relatively limited damage to export and refining capacity in the Gulf.

Prices could come down, everything kind of settles out.

Or like I said, if they go scorched earth, there's major damage to a lot of

that energy infrastructure in the Gulf.

The prices could stay high for an extended period.

My feeling is, you know, going back to the Edmunds story,

I feel it's going to take two to three months of this being a thing in terms of like,

elevated gas prices for that to make a sustained difference in EV demand,

I think.

If it's just a couple of weeks, I mean-

And we discovered when Ukraine, the Ukraine war happened, when it started,

we spiked fuel, price gas to the roof, and no end in sight.

We didn't know what was going to happen.

But it didn't take long before people realized the industry,

the oil industry realized, oh, we can get this from here.

We can do this, the Russian oil is being cut off, can be replaced with this.

And as soon as you get that chain in order, then all of a sudden you start to see,

okay, it's not as bad as we thought, whatever.

The initial knee jerk is going to be very high.

And that could be the case with this.

But unlike with Russia, here, I think you have the serious possibility of

that oil being taken off the table that's coming from Iran, that it goes away.

At this point, Russia was always going to keep producing.

They weren't being attacked in any sense that could destroy their-

The situation with Russia is a little different because oil is heavily sanctioned,

but you've heard about these ghost tankers or whatever.

So it's kind of this clandestine kind of oil tanker fleet that they fly under different

flags and turn their radar beacon off.

So they'll sell it to China or India or whoever.

And it's not officially accounted for in official energy tabulations,

but they're still buying and selling.

And I think Iran's probably been doing some of that too.

Yeah, whether or not they can get it out and whether or not went cornered, do they just take it?

Except if we can't have it, nobody can.

Which is if I were running a country that was being attacked

and we were about to be taken over, I would forget everybody else.

You know what?

You earned this and I would blow up my own stuff.

And I could see them doing it.

Why not?

You got nothing to lose.

Why not?

So anyway, that's kind of where we stand.

So I'm not saying 200 bucks a barrel is eminent, but it's definitely not impossible.

But like I said, I think the high gas prices are going to have to be for several months before

it's reflected in sales figures of increased sales or like back to Edmund's story,

like a search or interest level above like 25%, but I mean, I don't know.

So let's go to that Edmund's story that you talked about in a preamble to the preamble of

the preamble.

People are beginning to search more for EVs for purchasing new ones.

That's great.

I mean, that's kind of what the show's all about.

We're for that.

So not exactly for that being the cause, not for the cause as to what's leading to that,

but you know, more people, butts in seats.

If you're forced to buy an EV, you know, darn it, you go kicking and screaming.

Maybe your next one's an EV.

Like, you know, it opens the door.

However, also in these last weeks, Honda, they had three EVs on the table.

One, I think the RSX was already out, wasn't it?

Because I run by one like a, I think I do on my runs.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Anyway, I don't know if it's in showrooms yet, but the RSX EV,

then they had the zero SUV, which was a funky looking vehicle that was supposed to come out.

And then they had the zero sedan, which looked a bit like either a Lamborghini or a

handy vac, depending on which side of the bed you woke up on that day.

Those two were supposed to come out eventually.

We hadn't seen anything production on those.

Well, they've said, Honda said, you know what, we are facing ginormous.

That's actually a word now.

I say now, it was like 20 years ago.

The web serves.

Yeah.

So they are facing giant financial losses of, I think the number was five to seven billion

dollars in a year could be.

That's conservative.

I've heard, I've heard like 15 to 17, but regardless.

So maybe that was a quarter.

Big.

I'm not 100% sure of what this number was, but it was in the billions.

And they're going, all right, we need to cut costs because there's tariffs costs.

And look at, you know, America no longer cares about emissions.

Let's just scrap our EVs, go to the bread and butter of our gas powered vehicles.

And there you go.

And the knock on effect to this.

And this wasn't clear until, at least to me, until a few months ago.

It seemed like a Fila and this Honda zero thing were like on separate development tracks.

But I think they were effectively being co-developed.

So that they would basically share a platform.

And I think this raises a lot of questions about the future of a Fila.

If it was part of the Honda zero program is like, is a Fila even going to happen now?

I mean, I feel it was never going to happen.

So there is that hypothesis.

But I think its chances are not as good now.

Yeah, I think taking the so-called technology that was going into a Fila

and putting it in the zero sedan and the zero SUV that were at least cutting edge

as far as design goes, exterior design visually.

I think that makes a lot more sense.

So if these do end up coming back, I could see a Fila maybe going away

and the zero SUV and zero sedan coming back with the Fila tech.

But I think a Fila is gone in all of this.

It just gets swallowed up.

I really don't see a path forward.

No, for them.

No.

So also with that, I won't move on, is I guess there was no Honda sales in China

of anything significant.

They couldn't crack that.

So without China now, you're kind of hurting as a business.

So at the same time, I'm wondering if they're rethinking that Nissan merger deal.

So maybe we should have done that.

Nice.

So at the same time, Volvo with its EX-30, they're going maybe not for the American market.

So the EX-30 had a couple of headwinds.

Is number one, it was made in China.

Tariff tariff.

Basically tariff tariff.

Same problem as China or as a Honda.

Yeah.

Now they did, I don't know if they currently are or were planning to also produce in Belgium,

which is a lower tariff than China, but still, I still think, I want to say they were like 20

or 25% as opposed to 100.

But I'm guessing tariffs had some influence on this and like the math ain't math and

they facing that they couldn't sell it for a competitive price that it would be

attractive to customers.

So for now, EX-30 for the US market.

So this means everybody searching on Edmunds for EVs is finding no Hondas,

which they really weren't any anyway.

And they're seeing no Volvo, which wasn't really one anyway.

EX-60 and EX-90 made in South Carolina, still part of the plan.

Yeah.

So your choices are getting slimmer with time other than they're kind of not.

So Lucid has announced the Earth, the cosmos, and an unnamed SUV that will be coming out,

I guess.

But does anybody care about Lucid?

Nobody seems to buy the air.

I'm seeing gravities around, but I'm guessing the sales of those are going to be marginally

better than the air.

Well, I mean, you're still looking at the $80,000 to $120,000 car.

So it's going to be a limited market.

These, they're targeting around 50 grand, give or take.

So more affordable, but still not cheap, I would say.

And 50 grand is the average sale price of a new vehicle in 2025.

It's just, it's a takeover 50,000.

By the time 2025 ended, it was like 50,200 or something like that.

So we don't have official photos of this.

We have just a slideshow with sheet draped blobs.

I won't even click on the link.

The links are in the show notes to all of this.

I won't even click on that because I don't care to them.

I don't need to see sheets.

We do have some specifications, which are kind of interesting.

It has a new, what they call it, the Atlas Drive Unit.

This is all of them.

This is the cosmos, the Earth, and the unknown.

And the, on the slideshow, it's technically said stay tuned.

Okay.

So you could say the lucid stay tuned.

The stay tuned.

Yeah, the stay tuned.

So they have the Atlas Drive Unit.

Yeah, Atlas Drive Unit, 23% lighter than I guess the predecessor.

I'm assuming they're comparing that to the Drive Unit,

either the air or the gravity and 30% reduction in the number of components.

They did confirm 800 volt architecture.

Um, what kind of got my attention is the relatively small battery pack.

Um, 69 kilowatt hours, which for mainstream EVs, it's smallish.

It's not tiny, but it's, I'd say most kind of mid-size or larger EVs now,

I would say are in the 70 to 80, something up to like 90 kilowatt hours.

So 69 kilowatt hours is on the smaller side, and they're still claiming 300 plus mile range.

So that's pretty impressive if that's true.

They said part of it is the coefficient of drag of 0.22, which is pretty slick.

That's one of the lowest on the market right now.

They did show a picture of the interior, which was kind of interesting.

So Tesla kind of, you know, they went with the kind of the mono,

mono screen and like the Model 3 and the Model Y, where it's just a big, you know,

central kind of rectangular display.

This one is actually dash mounted and it runs, I'd say the middle two thirds of the dash.

So it basically gives you an instrument cluster infotainment and then something that kind of

goes toward the passenger side, but it's kind of, and I guess there's like four,

what they're calling zones.

So it's kind of an interesting look.

I'm not 100% sure what I think of it, but I think the takeaway from this is they're really

looking at cost reduction.

And so Lucid actually hired, I don't know if you remember this, from Monroe and Associates,

Corey Stubin.

So he was, I can't remember exactly what he was.

He was like, I want to say like, I don't know if he was director of engineering or whatever,

but Monroe's whole thing is streamline production, minimize components,

like really lean things up.

So I think maybe that's why they hired him.

It's like, you know, we have the air from a technical standpoint, it's kind of a tour

to force, it's very sophisticated, it's very efficient, but it's also very expensive.

We need to reduce costs, reduce complexity.

So that's why they brought them in.

So I think that's their game plan with this, you know, simplify.

It's funny, you go back to reduce costs.

You go back to Lotus and how they got famous with Colin Chapman adding lightness.

Add lightness, yeah.

And it seems like the answer for EV success is to add simplicity.

Everybody's got to like, you've got to have these lower models that have seemingly less,

like look at Slate, they got crank windows.

But that's where we're at now is adding simplicity to try to drive these prices down

because everything's just out of control.

So good on Lucid.

I just hope people care about Lucid.

Nobody seems to care about them.

Which is a shame because I think, you know, from a technical and engineering standpoint,

they're really impressive cars.

But again, other than EV nerds, who cares?

Yeah.

One of the guys down a couple blocks from me has his R1S and his Lucid Air.

And oddly enough, he charges them with two Tesla chargers.

Missed opportunity there.

And he didn't have a Tesla before.

He had gas power vehicles and more.

So they're still.

Receiver advantage.

Yeah.

I mean, it is hard to beat their chargers.

But anyway, they're adding simplicity.

And that's great.

They just need to somehow let people know by maybe advertising on this podcast.

Yeah, there we go.

Lucid.

Well, welcome your broken arms.

Come on.

So also speaking of midsize EV SUVs, we finally have R2 pricing.

Again, not a huge surprise, I don't think.

So again, they were targeting $45,000.

That one's not coming till later.

That seems to be the predominant pattern.

Introduce the expensive one first and then we'll give you the cheap one when we feel like it.

And then, yeah, and then never release the cheap one.

Yep.

Yep, yep.

So they're leading with the performance all-wheel drive.

That's going to be about $58,000.

They say that's coming spring 2026.

I think I read somewhere that's something like 650-something horsepower.

Zero to 60 is like three points something.

So, you know, quick, powerful.

Following that, the premium all-wheel drive is going to be about $54,000.

Say that's coming late 2026.

Standard rear-wheel drive long range, early 2027.

That one for about 485.

And standard rear-wheel drive.

That's the much Bally Hood $45,000 model.

Which will never come out.

Which will come out.

They're claiming late 2027.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was some speculation that a tri-motor version would be offered at some point.

A lot of people are thinking that will be the rad model.

So whenever that's coming.

So anyway.

So I don't think anybody cares about those two.

I think the question is, they're just going along on their,

they're just trying to get sales.

They're doing their thing.

The company that is the most interesting that,

while you've got Honda getting rid of EVs, you've got,

or some of its EVs, you've got Volvo getting rid of one of its EVs for American shores.

The company that's interesting is what we talked about a few weeks ago,

Toyota, introducing three?

Basically three.

Somewhere between three and eight EVs.

Yeah, basically three new, new ones.

If you're not including the BZ, which is a refresh of the BZ4X that they revised.

But now they got the BZ Trailseeker, the CHR.

And then I think there's a third one I'm forgetting.

But anyway, all of a sudden, like out of the blue, Toyota has like multiple EVs.

Yeah.

So they've gone from a company that's been like, nobody wants to buy EVs.

It's plug-in hybrids is where they want to go.

Or what did they term them?

No, they termed it as like unlimited range.

Unlimited range, electrified vehicles.

Self charging.

That was what it was.

Self charging.

And so they've been saying that and they've been poo-pooing EVs.

And we've been like, come on.

And Toyota, keep in mind, if I'm going to put my money on anybody,

it's going to be Toyota to succeed in EVs.

I may not be around long enough to see it, but I think that they will.

They are one of the companies that can succeed and be a major world player in EVs.

Because they're very safe with everything that they do.

So of course, those will have gotten green-lit long before Iran

and everything that's gone on there.

But I guess the question is, is that, does that line up with where Edmunds

is saying more people are searching for EVs?

Is they now on the right time, are they in the right swing of things

to get things going for EV sales?

This whole time, they've been right.

We've been saying, oh, come on, Toyota, you're so far behind.

You're going to get left behind.

And it turned out they were right with plugins and hybrids.

Are they right with EVs and come in now?

Is now the time?

I think either coincidentally or whether it's a vast conspiracy or whatever,

they're getting the timing right.

Because as everything is happening in the Middle East right now,

we're looking at the prospect potentially of $200 barrel oil,

potentially $5 plus national average for gasoline,

increased interest in EVs.

They're going to have stuff in the showrooms.

So when people come in asking, hey, do you have EV models,

they'll say, sure, we got three.

We got four of them, which one do you want to look at?

And if you're going to go and spend $50,000, $60,000 on a vehicle,

and you're being super reluctant to do it,

I would have thought the majority of people, not us,

the majority of people are going to be more likely to spend that money on a Toyota

that they know will work, that has dealers that will back up the sale,

that have networks to repair everything, and not some bizarre like Lucid or Rivian

special handshake in some states trying to get your vehicle.

They're there to win this, I think.

Yeah, but again, I don't know if it was planned.

It was just kind of coincidental that everything just kind of converged at the right time,

you know, right place, right time, right product.

So if there is a significant sudden uptake in EV interest, Toyota is like right there.

Yeah, they just need to get them on the road.

The Highlander EV would, I don't know when they said that was going to go for sale,

but the one that they unveiled looked like it was ready to go.

I think most of these are going to hit showrooms, I think spring to summer.

That's perfect.

So basically in a few months.

So if it's anything like the RAV, I don't know if you've heard the stories about the RAV,

but there's like a months long waiting list for them.

For the Prime?

No, for any RAV.

Of any RAV?

Any RAV.

In fact, dealers are asking five grand over MSRP with impunity, just like we don't care.

They're enthusiast cars now.

Kind of.

I mean, it's like they're saying, look, you're going to have to wait three or four

months anyway.

So we're going to charge you what we want and you're going to be happy about it.

I mean, I think you would be very fortunate to find one available for MSRP

because they are in such high demand right now.

And so I imagine it could be kind of the same situation with the EVs.

There's just such high demand that's like, okay, get on the list.

So Toyota's won.

I think that's where we've come back.

Toyota started this war in the Middle East to drive up prices to correspond with their

marketing and manufacturing efforts over the years.

And of course, all the militias in the Middle East are all in high luxes.

So they got every corner of the market locked down.

So good on them, I guess.

I think I'm right.

Toyota's going to win.

And that's all there is to it.

They are the Illuminati that's been controlling everything behind the curtain this whole time.

Are we done?

I think we're done.

Yes, I think so.

I mean, there's other stuff about various wacky proposals by the DOE trying to restart coal

plants or a pipeline that was notorious for a really bad spill about 10 years ago.

Just kind of weird stuff.

I don't know.

Maybe they're seeing.

It's interesting.

So I saw that you had that note.

Trump orders restarted Santa Barbara oil pipeline off the coast.

And what's fascinating, I must have known about this.

I must have known about this.

It was the Refugio spill.

In that area, when I go surfing, you're still covered in oil.

Really?

Yeah.

Like I've got a board if you can't really see them because of the angle, but I hang my surfboards

here.

One of them has oil from that area that is on it.

And then if you go further south, Malibu area, whatever, down San Diego, you get less oil.

But it's still, I don't know if it's from that, but it's kind of in that area.

Well, it was before 2015, but I remember visiting that area with my sister years ago.

And there's some really swanky upscale resorts and really multi-million dollar homes and

neighborhoods there.

It reeked.

Like the smell.

Like for all these, the oil industry can paint rainbows and unicorns all they want about

refineries and all that.

Refineries stink.

I'm just going to say it.

I wouldn't want a refinery in my backyard.

So or even like a drilling operation, especially offshore.

So of course, you know, Newsom and California is like saying, no, I don't think so.

So this is going to be a battle of wills between the state and the feds, I think.

But and one final thing, interestingly, I guess there was an auction for exploration

in the Alaska Cook Inlet.

And so they said, okay, we're opening this for bids for, you know, people that, you know,

companies that want to want to explore and, you know, drill here.

Guess how many how many bids they got?

I'm guessing not a lot.

Wow.

Goose egg.

Yeah.

So there are a lot of factors to play here.

But I think considering the uncertainty and the Gulf uncertainty with politics,

they don't want to stick their neck out, invest billions of dollars and then all of a

sudden be told, oh, guess what, you got to stop what you're doing.

Yeah.

So no, I mean, it's a lot of caution right now.

If come 2028 things swing the other way with who's in the White House.

Yeah.

You want to be held in the bag for billions of dollars on something that's just going to

get shut down or tied up in red tape.

Like the uncertainty that comes with everything.

I get if you're on the Trump's line of thinking, I get the idea of, okay, well,

decrease regulations for emissions and drill more and do all that.

But you still got to be fully aware from a business standpoint that you know it's going to

swing the other way and how much can you afford to lose and you're gambling with billions of

dollars.

Like it uncertainty is what kills industries.

Like nobody wants to be running a business in an uncertain industry.

Yeah, which is why I think Toyota is kind of so genius because they've dominated hybrids for

decades.

They're potentially going to dominate EVs.

So whichever way things go, they're like, okay, we're ready.

Yeah.

So yeah, we'll all welcome our Toyota overlords.

Everything we talked about, most of everything will be linked in the show notes.

Show notes are wherever the podcast thing embeds the show notes or on YouTube down below.

You click the more read more, whatever it is.

I don't know that YouTube, it's a new thing.

If it catches on, I'll start paying attention to it.

Maybe I'll create a, I got an idea for a YouTube page called like MrBeast.

Maybe I'll start something like that.

Hopefully nobody's taken that yet.

Uh, youtube.com slash at the walk car.

It's as good as MrBeast's site.

I think we're on social medias, but don't follow us.

What's the point?

But you can share us, share like with a podcast, share a little link.

Oh, hey, these guys don't know what they're talking about.

Or with this episode, it's kind of, I don't know, this was a good one.

If I do say so myself.

I think so.

I'm sure we'll get some pushback, but I can't wait for the short comments.

You could email us at hello at the walker.com.

We've been getting more emails and I don't even promote that email.

So that means people must be going to the walker.com and finding the email is fun.

Tell you I'm full of crap.

Or, uh, you know, I haven't read all of them, but one of them, um, that I, it wasn't bad.

Okay, it wasn't, it wasn't bad.

The walker.com slash store, get some paraphernalia, help support the podcast

because this episode is brought to you by us and, um, maybe lucid if they buy an ad.

Yes, maybe people will care about lucid if they buy an ad in this episode next week.

Hopefully a more normal episode.

No, more normal.

I think this is about as normal as we get.

I'll see you when we're normal.

Okay.

262: Preamble to the Preamble

About this episode

Edmunds

hybrids

EVs

dependence on oil

renewables

Nissan Leaf

WTI

Brent crude

fracking

light sweet crude

heavy crude

diesel

EV

Acura RSX

Ford Edge

800 volt architecture

kilowatt hours

coefficient of drag

mono screen

cost reduction

adding lightness

crank windows

Lucid Air

Tesla

performance all-wheel drive

zero to 60

rear-wheel drive

tri-motor

Honda

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