Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – March 16, 2026

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

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

We are in the middle of high gas prices in our listening area.

They have gone up in two or three days of approximately 30 to 40 cents depending on what station you go

by and look at the prices on the bovards.

In the recent show we discussed triple A's ideas of how to be driving in an economical state to make the mess

get the best miles per gallon on your gas usage.

That was a crazy list in my opinion and I think there are two or three simplified ways to do it which most people won't do

but here I go with the suggestion.

The feather light on your throttle on your foot pedal when you're accelerating away from a stop light or stop signs

don't goosestrottle it because you'll use more gas.

If you know how to use cruise control and like it unlike Jay who does not

that also helps get maximum mileage in general if you are able to use it for much of a drive

mostly long distance drives better than local driving around our local roads with stop signs,

stop lights, intersections and the like.

Also for gasoline cars turn them off when you're not needing to use the engines.

I go to the local post office and people are letting their engines run

it may be because of cold weather keeping them warm but using engines leading the engines running

while not going any distance in a moving condition eats up the gas as well.

And I'm stopping there Jay unless you've got something to add.

Do you use the stop start functions on your cars?

I do indeed I like it and the people who don't I think are just crazy.

There are a lot of people who don't like it but I do when it works.

The thing about stop start I found is if you stop with the steering wheel straight ahead in

my jeeps it works pretty well. If you let your foot drop fall off the pedal and try to put it

back on while you're still stopped it will not restop the car engine. It'll start the engine

and then leave it running. If you turn your wheel while in a stopped condition on my jeeps

it also starts the motor running so it's useless if you're standing still and you turn the

steering wheel to turn left or right out of your stop condition. Other than that it does work

when it works if you keep your foot on the brake firmly during the entire time you want to keep it

stopped and it starts up very quickly when the lights go green or when you want to start up

for a stop sign and it should not disturb the people I feel are disturbing.

Yeah I think it works better on some cars than others but I tend to agree with you on the cars

that have it I don't usually mind it and usually there's a trick like you say wiggle the steering

wheel and the engine will start so you can be prepared to you know be the first to go at the

green light. So what else can you do? I find that when I'm in a two lane road or a three lane road

going the same way at a stop sign I that may be something that you might do but I don't think it's

going to save any significant amount of gas or use significant by holding it down and just starting

up when you want to start moving immediately when the light goes green. It is a very quick operating

situation on my vehicles. So Jay you had a nice interesting list of things to discuss about

topics on this show do you want to start by talking about the used electric market the vehicle

market being the best way to buy an electric vehicle especially since they lose a lot of their

money when you drive a new one right off the lot. Well we talked about that a few weeks ago about the

you know the lease electric cars cars that were on lease in 2023's coming on the market and

and that seems to be confirmed that you know there are a bunch of good EVs that you can buy

under $20,000 you know 23s and 24s and yeah I do think that is the way to go and it's kind of

ironic because you know EV sales are down 40% in January versus a year ago and we know the whole

and it's a worldwide thing you know the EV market is you know it's a it's a it's a roller coaster

and I still don't understand how car manufacturers can can change their you know strategies and

long-term strategies from going all EVs because they were kind of forced to do that to now backing

off completely and and you know and then you have the the the smarter ones like Toyota who've

you know cautiously gone the EV route by by going you know by making most of their lineup

a vehicle you know the vehicles hybrids and you know I hate to say it but that seems to have

been the right strategy but bottom line is yes you can get good EVs for for you know

quite you know quite affordable cars and at this juncture with the price of gas being what it is

we may see I don't know we'll see if there's a there's a jump in in EV sales and and certainly

used EV sales um what what surprised me in the uh like the January sales is that even though

sales are down 40% and we've all picked on Tesla uh their sales being down for all sorts of reasons

not necessarily related to the product as we know but their market share uh Tesla's market share

has still increased in the overall EV market uh which I thought was interesting uh but it's

still it's still peanuts it's still five percent of the new car market so I don't know where this

is going uh companies like Porsche are are are you know uh you know making a quick uh

upgrades to their Cayennes their gasoline powered Cayennes a model that came out in 2017 I think in

Europe and they're slapping new new new front end and rear end on it and making some minor changes

but they're going to sell it alongside their electric Cayennes um so

I uh this is uh I was out to dinner uh over a recent weekend and I happened to be sitting next to

a table of people and I saw you had your uh the discussion was about uh contemplating the purchase

of an electric car so to the point about electric car sales, tanking or at least diving or whatever

or lessening from uh recent uh higher levels and there are people out there that actually

like having an electric car it's just that the manufacturers have got to decide at what what

level of models electric cars are appropriate and I'm not sure the Cayennes is uh the level is

appropriate or even the Cadillac levels are appropriate if unless you're driving long distances

that's all you want and you get the the cars that have got the biggest batteries you can give you

the longest distance between charging situations but certainly for a round town and this somewhat goes

to the plug-in hybrid level of the electric uh fossil fuel vehicles as well um electric cars

perfectly fine as Jay as you have said uh in the past shows and I say and agree with you uh if you're

not a long term uh long distance driver on a regular basis and this is the only car you have or

maybe one of two cars you have in your family because all the electric cars that get 200 miles

or more uh are never going to be used 200 miles a day and you just plug them in at night and you'll

never have to buy gasoline again and we talked recently about longevity of batteries it doesn't

seem to be a problem uh the batteries seem to be fairly reliable and reliability is apparently

improving in new designs of electric batteries all the time uh we do have uh periodic articles

about fires that have started from electric batteries in cars which is not very encouraging

uh if you are parking your car in a garage and or getting an electric car if you're

prone to be very uh subjective to seeing articles about electric batteries exploding

I don't think it's a real problem but any one one is too many in the news world um if a story

comes out on on the news uh about electric car fire fire tires speaking of new electric cars uh

couple cars I think uh that are interesting um the Rivian is is coming out the R2 the R2 yes

very interesting it is it will be on the roads by the end of the year I think it's coming out in

third quarter is that am I correct I believe oh if they get it on schedule and and it looks like

a $50,000 price range is it before you start adding features correct depending on the you know

they have like three three levels of as as most electric car manufacturers seem to do like three

levels of base model with a uh two-wheel drive which is uh Rivian's first two-wheel drive model

and then uh a long range you know the one that makes a lot of sense uh mid-range level uh you

know long range uh mid power uh we're talking 300 330 mile range which is you know totally

perfectly adequate and uh and 450 horsepower which is you know 15 years ago a car with 450 horsepower

would have been a hyper car a super car I mean this is insane amount of power um and and very

usable power right I mean so it's it's perfectly adequate and then they have a top top of the line

of course they have to have a sport model that's gonna put out I can't remember if it's 600 or 650

horsepower uh but yes the price range will be in the 50 55 to I guess maybe 75 thousand dollar range

uh I'm I'm looking forward to seeing that um I think it's a it's a I think it's gonna be a

a hot ticket um we have seen quite a few r ones around here and and you know and these are these

vehicles are you know right around the hundred thousand dollar mark when when all is said and done

so um yeah looking forward to that and also curious about Mercedes's next flop but hopefully not

coming out with a what looks like an electric minivan and wonderful looking vehicle yeah yeah

if you like minivans but and and and we know that people don't really like them although they may

be coming back I think that's that may be changing uh I I agree with you and and also they they're

not marketing it as a as a minivan they're marketing as a luxury vehicle and it will cost

and and uh what's that I mean it will cost it will cost for sure uh you know uh just to inject

it because I read the article or I looked at all the pictures of the article that you submitted

to me on it and it was very interesting looking at the seek various seek configurations and the

first thing that I I bring up to uh this is is I have a Eurovan and I got what they called an mv

version um and it had uh in the center and rear seats seats that faced each other and

that one of the first pictures in the uh Mercedes van were uh sets of twin bucket seats facing each

other um and that'll be at a price it'll be probably six figures by the time you load one up

don't you think but it's a very interesting design there will be people I commented to you Jay in

that list I sent back to you I commented about how stupid and unrealistic I thought the Mustang

dark horse was going to be in terms of a 700 horsepower vehicle at the price it was going to

be at uh why waste your money but I then I said to you uh much better place to spend

wasteful wasteable money if you have it or even high amounts of money if you have it

on the uh Mercedes luxury minivan then to go out and buy a Mustang dark horse

so speaking of these uh you know uh muscle cars like the yeah the the latest Mustang dark horse

well life is about more than just bare needs but uh and you may want them but

you know in places like Florida pretty soon you're not going to be able to rev your vehicles

going to be illegal to to rev up your vehicle so my comment on that was who's going to be there to

listen to everybody revving their vehicles to to give them a ticket oh don't worry cops will be

right there they'll find all they want because you won't rev it if you've got a cop visually available

okay uh we'll see uh but then again you can show up with a thousand horsepower electric vehicle

it makes no noise and they'll just zip off the line correct so um and and and we'll yeah we'll see

how that works uh but I agree with you I think you know but but again the Mustang dark horse is a

is a is a is really a super car it's like a Corvette well it's a nano type collector that

wants to have the best and has the money to buy it and and hopefully drive it every day not just

drive it once in a while but like most cars these days even you know even the basic Toyota

Camry I mean these cars have a performance that is virtually impossible to extract on on on on the

roads so you're left with you're left with track days and and um and and having car collections

sitting in your garage um by the way I saw you had your speaking of car collections I saw you had

did you have your Audi a8 out on the road this weekend the roads were very nice and dry no salt

that I could uh applications that I could find and yes I did and uh you know it is that's got a

4.2 liter v8 engine and I gotta tell you uh as few times as I really use the performance factor

that engine you know it has all the power starting off from a stop sign and or passing a car that

anybody needs as we talk about as we've been talking frequently in our electric car discussions about

how uh crazily fast electric cars are you don't need a car that that and you don't that's why I

say the dark horse is stupid with 700 horsepower um you know I have a 95 Mustang GT with a super

charger in it and you know it won't go from zero to 60 in 2.7 seconds or whatever I don't care

you've reported you've discussed on this show about how you've got to hold on to your body when

you're in these seats of these electric cars that they have extraordinary acceleration leaving a

stop sign or a stop light um who needs it you know I'm tired of the magazine spending time talking

about how fast you can get from zero to 60 uh anymore because anything under six seconds is

adequate for most people I would say zero to 60 and with a decent acceleration capability when

you're trying to pass cars or getting onto a uh interstate highway with traffic quizzing value at

the 75 miles an hour or more when especially when you have these long ramps that have stop

lights that you have to wait till they go green before you can even enter the uh travel lane

so speaking of driving and and and and you know roads and speed limits and what you can do on the

roads or not um you know I was in Europe uh the last two weeks and uh we drove from from Belgium

to Switzerland which is about a 500 mile drive with a good portion of that uh being through France

and they were not all major highways but there was not there was not a speed limit that was over

115 k's which is about 65 to 70 miles an hour uh which is kind of shocking

but but it well in that case it was borderline adequate but but it was also very well enforced

and there was no way in beating the system I mean they have radar uh fixed radars pretty much every

every few miles um and miles of kilometers I know we're kilometers in Europe but you

keep using miles it's okay for our listeners here but um uh to that point did you have anybody

passing you or were you trying to go the maximum speed limit and did people occasionally go buy

you it at extraordinary speeds in France or was it pretty was it not really because I was with a friend

who had you know a little device that pretty much tells you exactly where all the radars are and and

and um you know and and the fact is we even even with you know uh detection equipment if you will

you there there's just so many that you don't have the opportunity to to go fast and people who do

on on on many roads and most people have all these detection equipment and most people also know that

you know the laws are there that the the enforcement is there and it's just

you get used to just driving the speed limit and and two things to bring up or one thing

first of all you you it's really mandatory that you have plates on both ends of your car in Europe

right unlike here where uh for example uh many cars around here including mine do not have front

plates to be picked up by photo radar the other thing is um do i i notice a lot of people here

still their cars with these uh plate covers that are designed to i think they i don't know why

they are successful in uh in uh disguising the plates from easy pass it doesn't matter because

they're mostly all those uh uh gizmos are pretty much illegal in in most states so i understand

that but then there's no enforcement i mean i remember you know i i i say there's no enforcement

there's such little enforcement uh numerically in our roads around here it's hard to know whether

there is enforcement because when i'm on uh a highway and a car goes by me and i can't read the numbers

on the plate because it's got a a shadow you know a plate cover that's obscuring easily the numbers

there's there's several cars there's new cars new car owners are putting them on and there are car

owners that have had them on for years but i don't think you can get away with it in europe

not to worry about it on our show but it is a comment no so

yeah what else did you have on your list well i'm looking at uh the final assembly section of one

of my weekly uh automotive news things and i have something for lego lovers uh lego has a model key

moment with a new set of lego's uh it is designed if you want to go buy it you itself for 130

dollars it's a 1060 piece assembly process and it's a picture of a of a a mod forward model

key here and it looks wonderful and since i happen to be in a family that loves lego's um i'm not a

lego person i've never assembled a lego uh set in my life but i think for automotive enthusiasts um

this is outside the driving side of things but it might be for a collector of uh people who

like to do lego's and would like to have a model key lego uh on a table in their house that's one

comment um let's see you know i'm interested to see what's going to happen with this bolt i just

read the motor trend review of the new bolt and they've got a complaint about the seats being cheaper

than apparently the old bolt um undersized in the rear uh does that really matter it's going

out of production i know that's another i i want to say and it's my opinion only i think this is a

bad moment of automotive decision on dm's part for the sake of being able to loosen up a plant

to produce another car i think it's electric isn't it or whatever i'm not sure you have talked

very positively about the bolt i liked it too i think it's you we were just talking earlier in

this show about what's an affordable electric car a bolt is an affordable electric car which would

be the perfect car and and everybody i've ever run into around our corner who's had a bolt has

loved it the perfect electric car to keep in production at an affordable price and it defies

the need for an electric you know a tax credit even at its price so i think this is a very bad

automotive decision i am critical of the american automotive manufacturers automotive decision because

they don't seem to have much staying power when they produce a good vehicle uh and the bolt is one

of those vehicles with despite motor trends complaints about some of the interior aspects of

the new version i should i suspect the people know enough about the vault that they will buy

every one of those bolts that are built before the assembly plant stops in less than a year now right

i think so it's the end of this year yeah we'll we'll see i mean let's see um safety tips um

i was skiing this weekend and went uh did a ski clinic and uh and robin you're a ski or two and

you teach skiing like i do and uh it's funny as we as we go through clinics we we we we are taught

things that we teach every day so and and this thing this tip was about looking at where you want

to go because again you're going to go where where you're looking uh and it's not looking at where

you're going it's looking at where you want to go and i thought this is a good reminder of when

you're driving a car um you don't want to look at the look yeah look ahead and look at war again

far ahead and where you want to go and don't look at the tree or the phone pole because

that's where you're going to end up and it's easier said than done it takes practice and it takes

discipline um it's very interesting about yeah paying full attention because i have noticed

that even i do it and this is a guilty situation which i do not like if i am looking at something

on the side of the road like it could be a fire it could be a bear it could be something

yeah like a bear we know that i have i have one i have one hand on the wheel probably

uh maybe i don't maybe i have both hands i tend to lean my hands on the driving wheel

sometimes oversteering to the right of the road if i'm looking to the right it's a very dangerous

habit um your your hands are going to follow you said it's a hard it's hard to correct it if you've

got a bad habit so i agree with you drivers you gotta keep your if you're gonna have your hands

on the wheel and you've done a straight road you want to keep going straight and not veer off to the

right don't let your hands follow your eyes if you're looking to be right or you're even the left

because you could go across the yellow line don't try closing your eyes to see if you're still

going straight don't try closing your eyes ever uh anyway that was the tip of the day for me as far

safety you know this tip but it you know it's amazing how many people uh do it you know you see

cars wavering and you don't know whether they're they're impaired or whether they're distracted

or whether they're looking down at something on the dashboard i this is where i have my problem

and uh uh i keep trying to remember to keep my if i'm going on a straight road to keep the hand

not moving but if i look down at the radio i can sometimes find my left hand on the wheel might

have gone up from a nine o'clock position which might be the straight position to a ten o'clock

and your those turn the wheels enough to start going off the road absolutely what else do we have

you're not list there was a Cadillac simplification of of uh model listing let's talk about simplification

of models yeah let's talk about Cadillac i mean i i've you know yes i think it's a good thing

that Cadillac is simplifying first of all this badging thing you know to include torque and

Audi does the same thing uh to include torque in the in the badging of the car it just makes no

sense i mean it's just so convoluted well i didn't read it so i don't know what you're talking about

versus Cadillac but yes i would this is in the badging that's on the rear trunk or correct what

is that t or a s like in supercharger or something yeah t for turbo and then they had the newton

meters like 800 900 400 whatever the the maximum torque was and it just it just people don't

don't it can't relate to that so they finally decided to take all that stuff away and by the way

by the same token they're they're simplifying their model line which is a good thing because

after all these years i still don't i cannot tell you what's in the Cadillac model uh line and i think

they're they're streamlining that i think they have great product um but they but they need they

realize they need to streamline it and it's interesting to see how Cadillac has gone you

know again i was in europe talking with a friend who whose last memory of Cadillac was being here

20 years ago and riding in the float boats and uh and and and and now and i and i tried to tell him

that Cadillac is has become you know the the uh sport sedan manufacturer they're the only

manufacturer really that has a stick shift in in in in all of their and i maybe i think i'm correct

in saying that in all of their sedans there's a version a high performance version with a stick

and a six-speed transmission i don't know how long that will last the cts the ct-5 the ct-4 that's

going out of production i mean these are cars that are they're high performance sedans and

you know we always think of bmw, Audi, Mercedes but really the the the sportier models uh sportier

sedans are are made by Cadillac um and and so there's been a change there's been a change in

their marketing approach they've been heavily involved in motorsports they're now involved

in formula one you know they just they just uh join the formula one circus uh as the 11th team on

on on the circus um and uh i mean that's a big step um i will see where that goes but it's

an interesting brand um i don't know if it was really worth the effort or if they should have

just kept building you know luxury vehicles and leave it at that but here we are with that uh

ending comment on Cadillac Jay i think we're going to end the car keys for this week so until next

time we are car keys with jade demarkin and robin lee car keys with robin leech and jade demarkin

is produced at the facilities of w h d d 91.9 f m robin hood radio dot com sharon connecticut

Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – March 16, 2026

About this episode

cruise control

stop-start function

start-stop system

Jeep

used electric vehicle market

lease electric cars

EV sales

Toyota

EV (electric vehicle)

hybrid vehicle

Tesla

market share

new car market

Porsche Cayenne

electric Cayenne

plug-in hybrid

electric car battery longevity

Rivian R2

Rivian R2

two-wheel drive

horsepower

supercar

twin bucket seats facing each other

revving your vehicle

Toyota Camry

4.2 liter V8 engine

supercharger

speed limit enforcement

radar detector

photo radar

plate cover

Motor Trend

Cadillac

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