Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – January 12, 2026

He is Robin Leach. He is Jada Markin. This is Car Keys.

Good day to our listeners for this week's version of Car Keys with Jada Markin and Robin Leach.

It is a

2026 year and there's a lot in the news in the automotive industry

which Jada will try to cover as effectively as we can. I want to start out with just going down a list for

that I have in front of me of

title what's new in US showrooms in

2026. Well, I'm going to try to give an abbreviated quick form without a lot of comment

just running down some of the major manufacturers who are projecting new or putting new vehicles for

buyers to either wait for or

even contemplate whether or not they want to contemplate buying them.

The problem is with this list is that not all of them are in the showrooms as this show is being done and

2026 is a long year. I'll start with Acura. Acura is going to

add a

electric vehicle to its lineup in early

2026.

It'll be the second Acura EV Acura for those who don't know it is the upscale division of the Honda Motor Company.

Which means with an Acura label everything is more expensive than what you might be able to find in the Honda label.

We'll go to Audi and Audi is going to redesign. They redesigned the Q5 for

2026 which has been reported earlier on our show, but they're adding a

redesigned Q3 which is a compact version crossover of the Q5

version of their vehicles.

That's going to show up also sometime this month or a little bit later.

BMW is going to add

another electric crossover.

Claiming to have a range of up to 400 miles. We'll get back to the range discussion later in the show.

BMW has been doing pretty well with their electric vehicles. Jay, I don't know whether you've driven one or not, but in any event

this is going to be their latest

iX3, they call it. It's going to be small.

Chevrolet is coming out as Jay and I have both reported with the second generation of Bolt,

which I believe is going to be labeled as a

2027 model year vehicle. Though it's going to show up, maybe it's starting to show up now in the dealer showrooms

during 2026.

Jay and I both

like the bolt, he's reported extensively on it, so no more need be said.

Except that the price is going to be under $30,000 for at least two versions of it.

Now under $30,000 means it's just shy of $10 to be make $30,000 in

one model and $1,010 in a lower price model.

Chrysler, which basically has about

one or two models in its vision under the Chrysler moniker, is going to refresh in or freshen up the Pacifico,

which is a large

people mover type van. It's got a hybrid power crane. It's pretty well designed. They're going to redesign it to make it even better.

We'll go to Ferrari, which really is sort of out of many of our pocketbooks.

They're going to come through with an electric vehicle called the Electrica.

Then we'll move to Ford.

Ford is redesigning their large super-duty pickup truck for 2026.

Also, the Mustang in 2026 is going to come up with some redesigns in its current iteration.

Going to Genesis, as Jay has mentioned, a sort of a smaller version of their line-up, electric line-up called the GV90.

Actually, it's a three-row flagship, I guess, and that's coming forth later this year.

Honda, we talked about the Acura.

Honda is coming in with an electric prologue, which has been out for a couple of years, and they're going to add a second EV.

Honda is going to also redo the Ionic 6 EV and bring out an updated version of that, which is an all-electric vehicle, similar to the Toyota Prius, in my opinion.

Infinity, which is the upscale version of Nissan, is also bringing two new crossovers for 26.

We go to Jeep. I didn't know about the Recon, but it's apparently going to be an all-electric, trail-rated electric Jeep with great capability, but it's going to be 650 horsepower.

It's going to have probably 250 miles of range. I don't know whether that's good for off-roading or not. It should be, but it's going to be also closer to $70,000 by the time you see it in the showrooms, whether or not it will be a big seller in the electric vehicle department.

Jay, you want to pop up?

It will not be a big seller.

It remains to be seen. That is why they'll buy an all-electric off-road, capable vehicle in the Jeep line.

The Grand Wagoneer, which is the largest version, I believe, of the Wagoneer line of vehicles, or the Grand Cherokee line of vehicles, is going to have an extended-range electric vehicle with an interesting situation.

It's going to have a 3.6-liter V6 engine, not powering the wheels, but powering a 130-kilowatt generator. I do not know how that's going to work.

It should work pretty well, actually.

Jay said it's going to work pretty well, actually. He must know more than I do, probably does.

Kia, which is a sister or brother lineup of the Hyundai vehicle lineups, is also redoing its crossovers and its large crossover.

It's going to be batched as a 2027 vehicle, but it will be in the showrooms in the Kia dealerships during the 2026 year.

Land Rover is also going to bring some electric vehicles, or at least one electric vehicle during 2026.

I will talk about whether electrics are going to be popular, not Jay, later on.

Lexus dealers are also going to get some redesigned sedans in 2026.

Lucid is going to bring a lower-priced vehicle of its midsize crossover in 2026, allegedly with a starting price of around $50,000.

I'm not sure what the current starting price for Lucid is. Jay will probably comment on that shortly.

Mazda is going to get a redesign of its top-selling CX-5.

Here, I object to one of the features of this redesigned vehicle in that it is going to be a larger vehicle in larger dimensions.

This goes back to an earlier comment that I have been making on a couple of shows about why do these manufacturers keep increasing incrementally, in most cases, the sizes of vehicles that are very good in their present size categories.

I'm not sure how their research departments come up with the idea that they have to redesign very successful kinds of vehicles by making them a little bit bigger for the next time around.

Lucid Benz is going to add some electric vehicles also, as is Mitsubishi and Nissan.

The interesting thing about the Mitsubishi and Nissan companies is that they are working together to design cars that the other manufacturer, which is not labeled as a Mitsubishi or Nissan, and vice versa, are going to be producing cars for each other in the electric line range of vehicles.

We're coming to the end of the list. Porsche, Rivian, Slate, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo are the final manufacturers, all of which are going to have newer models for you listeners who want to wait for the latest and greatest to show up in their dealership lines during the rest of the year in 2026.

And whether they'll be labeled as 26 models or 27 models really doesn't matter, but if you want to wait for them, there's a list for this week's show.

All right. So in order and disorder, I agree with you that Chevy Bolt, I mean, we've always liked the Bolt. The 2027 model looks pretty much the same. They've extended the range a little bit.

We are at 260 mile range now. It's the estimated EPA range for the Bolt. That's a little low for cars that need to be, you know, maybe your travel car if you had planned on making any long trips.

But as a get around town car, it's perfectly adequate and I still believe it's a great proposition and under $30,000 it certainly is.

Going down your list again in the order or not order, I think the Jeep Recon, I don't know much about, but I know I read about it a few weeks ago and I just think it's overpriced, overpowered.

And I think Jeep has a problem marketing EVs or even hybrids to their customer base. I have a son-in-law who quote unquote stole a Jeep Wrangler hybrid.

He got a leftover 2023 model just or 2024 a few months ago and because they could not sell it.

For some reason Jeep buyers are just not buying into the whole electric thing, which is probably a good thing because Jeep has just pulled the plug on their plug-in hybrids.

They've had a number of fires on those cars. I think they've had more fires than Tesla's have had fires and the problem is they can't fix the problem.

So they've taken the cars off the market and people who have these Jeep plug-in hybrids are waiting and hoping that theirs don't catch fire in the driveway.

I can jump in on this fire problem with electric and hybrid vehicles. Perfection has not been reached apparently in the safety factor of electrically propelled vehicles.

I know parking garages I believe don't allow electric vehicles to park in them because of potential fire risks.

There have been often on recalls of certain models of hybrid and electric vehicles by manufacturers suggesting that until they can find a fix and or solve the problem,

owners, private owners of these vehicles should not necessarily be parking their vehicles inside garages at night time when they are not driving them.

This is not to get the listeners worried, but I'm sure this topic is, but it's an ongoing issue which stumbles production.

It leaves people who have bought them wondering whether they bought a safe vehicle or not. Jay, you have something in the email that I got from you about

Congress offering a safe exit act to change the apparently dangerous Tesla and maybe some other electric vehicles door handles

because they will not automatically release if the car is in an accident and the article says something about you could be trapped in your Tesla if you get in an accident and can't get out because the door handles are currently designed to do not allow for safe opening operation.

Anyway, I don't often drive Teslas because every time I look at one and how to get in I'm kind of at a loss, but I'm going to get back to your list for just a little bit.

Speaking of the Grand Wagoneer hybrid, it's not powered by a V6 and I don't mean to be nitty-picky here, but it's an inline 6 which is Jeep and Chrysler's new 3-liter turbocharged inline 6-cylinder engine which is a fantastic engine.

Unfortunately, their clientele is, I don't know if it's miscommunication, but Chrysler is back to putting V8s in their Dodge Chargers in their pickup trucks because the public or their public cannot understand that the inline 6 is a more powerful, more fuel efficient, more modern engine than their V8.

So we're going, and Chrysler or Jeep are going backwards in offering this V8, but now I'm going on a rant and I'll stop and move on again.

You have a list of everything new EV launching in 2026. I know it covers some of the things I mentioned, but do you want to go over that list quickly?

Yes and no. It's another article I didn't really read. I personally am looking forward to seeing a Rivian R2. I don't know if it'll be coming this year or if it's only going to be next year.

But I do think the Rivian, and I think we see more and more of these large SUVs. It's a nice size. It's not oversized. It's efficient. People like them. You and I, I mean, I don't know about you. I think you would have told me by now if you had the opportunity to drive one, but I have not driven.

I have driven the Rivian, the current version of the Rivian SUV. It is a remarkably nice vehicle to drive, silent, quiet, peppy. It does everything very well and the owners, I've only talked to two or three owners of Rivians, only driven one.

They all love the Rivians universally. That is a very accepted and liked vehicle by the owners who have purchased them thus far that I've run into.

So what did you like about it, if I can ask?

Well, you know, the main difference between a Rivian, let's say, and a GMC Suburban or a Jeep Grand Wagoneer is the propulsion system, which is electric.

The seats were comfortable. I rode in the back and then I drove it from the front, and it was a very quiet car on the highway.

There was not a lot of wheel noise coming into the vehicle that I drove, which is credible, because sometimes when you don't have an engine making noise and anything else like that, you hear a lot of tire noise in vehicles,

even in fossil fuel vehicles. I know that, for example, the Broncos and the Jeep Wranglers have been putting tires on their vehicles, which have been very noisy even with the fossil fuel engines running them,

and there have been some public complaints about the tire noise of cars. So the Rivian just was, you know, its main difference is it is electric.

You can get the same features in fossil fuel like-kind vehicles, so would I buy that over a fossil fuel equivalent?

Probably not, because of my sometimes long driving trips, and we've still got the same situation of charging times that are longer, even though they're getting shorter than the simplicity of putting a gas handle pump into a gas tank and filling up in five minutes or less in most cases and being on your way.

But on that, the Rivian is just, I like the looks of the Rivian, it's different. It doesn't confuse itself with the designs of any of the other non-electric vehicles out there. That's a plus for me.

I'm tired of seeing, in the sedan line of vehicles, vehicles like the, I think it just continues Chevy and Palo, but similar to the Hyundai Sonata and similar to Honda designs of sedans coming down the road, because I like unique looks, or at least looks that are unique to the vehicle that I'm driving.

Let me get back to the Rivian for a second, because in an article I just read a little while ago, there was a mention of one of the new vehicles, new electric vehicles coming out is the electrified Range Rover, and I do believe the full-size Range Rover, which the current model has been out for, I would say, three years now, maybe four?

Yes.

I don't know, I can't remember exactly if it was 21, 22, 23 that it came out, but the electric version of that vehicle has just come out, or is coming out. I believe it's built on the same chassis of the ICE-powered vehicle.

But I got stopped right away, because they're talking about a 260-mile range. So as much as I think 260-mile range is perfectly adequate for a Chevy Bolt, I think it's totally idiotic when it comes to a luxury vehicle that's meant to cruise long distances.

And compared to a Rivian, it's just ridiculously low. So I think that vehicle is doomed. What we also know is that Range Rover is coming out with a hybrid version of the vehicle, and that's probably going to be the way to go to your point about hybrids.

Right.

So that was my two cents on that.

Okay, well, that's all for those who are following the electric and hybrid car world. It's all of interesting added knowledge base that's building on these line-ups of cars.

Incidentally, I just came across your...

I don't know, close to 20 years now have been the first generation XC90 came out. I'm going to say in the early 2000s, if I recall, the new and current XC90 came out, I think, in 2016 or 2017.

It was the SUV of the year back then, and it is still quite up to date and very well-liked amongst large, full-size SUVs, but their full electric vehicles are coming out.

And you have the EX90, which has already hit the road, and the EX60, which is the, I guess, the electrified version of the XC60, which is Volvo's best-selling ever, I think, vehicle.

And they are advertising a 400-mile range for that vehicle, which 400-mile in a mid-size luxury electric SUV is looking pretty good, very competitive in my mind.

I would agree with you.

400 miles, we were talking about the range of some of the newer vehicles coming in in the mid-200s again.

You had a comment or there was a comment about why...

Oh, for our listeners, let me interrupt myself.

Those VW listeners who have been following the buzz situation, I'm not sure whether we already reported this, but the buzz is being terminated as far as a available vehicle to purchase in the US this coming year to whatever inventory is currently available left over in the buzz lineup of vehicles.

And it's been, I would say, Jay, you know, it's sort of been a flop.

I think the biggest problem was that it's been overpriced for what it delivered or delivers to consumers who would otherwise like to buy this style or the VW van type of vehicle going forward.

If anybody's guessed whether we're going to see it again or not, but I guess what is it? Hyundai or Kia has an alternative out there.

It's not on your list of stuff, but something that came across that I haven't read the article that says that whatever it's bringing out that's similar to the buzz in design is also in a mid-200-mile range,

but it's apparently got other features that the buzz doesn't, and it's probably much less expensively priced.

And not coming to the US, by the way.

Right.

Let me just say that it is never going to happen, but that's another...

I would agree. You know, back to my list, I mentioned the name Slate running down the list very quickly at the end.

I have a very dubious, positive aspect about what the Slate's going to finally be popular at, because I think when it was coming out in its basic non-painted plastic form,

initial ideas were it was going to be in the $20,000 price range before you started adding options.

Now in the list of the 2026, it's hit $30,000 in its most base form, I believe, crank windows, etc.

And by the time people who really want a Slate outfitted to how it should probably be to be really convenient,

which is my idea of what convenient it is, it's going to be considerably above the $30,000 price range,

and you've got the Ford compact electric vehicle already in the $30,000 or minus...

I'm sorry, I'll believe that when I see it, because Ford having just pulled the plug on their lightning,

I do not see them coming with a pickup truck half the price making money and selling.

Well, I'm not sure whether they're making money, but we talked about it, and it's a very popular vehicle,

and it made Motor Trends Truck of the Year award.

And it's in the 30s, which is with all the features it has, a highly more desirable idea of mine for me to consider than trying to buy a Slate

based on what Slate was trying to offer the public, which was a very inexpensive pickup style vehicle.

You're talking about the Ford compact electric truck now?

Yes.

I don't believe in it. Call me when it's out on the market.

No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about the coming Ford car.

I was talking about the one that you and I both talked about in a recent show as being a really good, small pickup truck.

Oh, oh, oh.

The Maverick.

So let's jump into in the last few minutes we have about a little less tedious and a little less put on quote,

boring vehicles and collectibles and such.

As I told you last week, oh, and we can start with the news that there is a new world record.

A 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR, sorry.

Ulinhout, which is a very special three car edition of the very famous 300 SL of the mid 50s,

just sold at auction for the equivalent of $142 million.

That's extraordinary.

That's really wasteful.

Oh, and it reminds me, I was at a couple events last week at a car club, car storage facility in the southern part of the state.

And in one of the events which gathered a bunch of young CEOs and quote unquote leaders of tomorrow,

a question came up for the speakers and asking whether collectible cars were an asset class and a form of investment.

And the answer was, and it was an educated answer.

Yes, they are.

People have been investing in cars and selling them years down the road and making money.

And you can do the problem with considering them as an asset and as an investment,

is that all of a sudden these cars are taken off the road and barely driven, which is kind of a shame.

But there's still beautiful things to own.

It's like owning art.

I mean, you can say it's wasteful, but you know, it's not wasteful.

It's rude for me to have said it was wasteful because you're absolutely correct.

It is a collectible item.

Cars, you know, we talked about new cars losing anywhere from what, 15 to 30% of their value when you drive it off of parking lot of the dealership.

You just purchase that and they don't go up from there in many, in most cases, but yet you have these collectibles from the past.

And as we know, there are collectibles in all lines of things from cars to art to comic books.

And I could close this show by leaving the cars topic and saying that I recently heard that the first comic book about Superman sold for $150 million.

It was 1938 or something like that.

Is that wasteful spending?

Yeah, sure is, but I guess it's collectible.

Yeah, and maybe that's reasonable.

And with that, you know, we have covered a lot of soft topics in this week's show.

But your experience down there at that auto show that you were at or recently attended was a very interesting place to get comments like you got about the concept of collectibility of vehicles.

Yes, and we can revisit that because there were a very nice bunch of very, very special cars.

But hey, on a safety note, please be aware and keep your eyes peeled if you're walking through New York City.

I think that I saw a video where there were, I saw a Waymo self-driving car go by and a quick Google search will let you know that I think there are eight or nine Waymo's.

Running around New York?

In New York City, in Manhattan.

Okay.

The good news for you, Robin, is that they have planted a real driver behind the wheel ready to take over.

So this is still in a, obviously in a development phase, but the day Waymo's can drive in New York City is the day you will have to just admit that self-driving cars have a place in New York City.

Okay, Jay, with that, we've got Tesla coming out with a possibly version of what, a driverless car that will be available for private purchase with no steering wheel and no pedal.

And I wait to see that happen and see on the road.

The world will be a better place with self-driving cars.

Okay, and with that, we are Car Keys with Robin Leach and Jay DeMarkin.

Car Keys with Robin Leach and Jay DeMarkin is produced at the facilities of WHDD91.9 FM, RobinhoodRadio.com, Sharon, Connecticut.