Cruise control lets your car keep going at the same speed without you pressing the gas pedal. This saves gas and makes driving easier, especially on highways.
Stop-start means your car turns off the engine when you stop, like at a red light, and turns it back on when you go. This saves gas and helps the environment.
A start-stop system turns off your car's engine when you stop at a light and turns it back on when you start moving. This helps save gas and keeps the air cleaner.
Jeep is a company that makes cars, mostly big SUVs that can drive off-road. Some of their newer cars have features to save gas, like turning off the engine when stopped.
The used electric vehicle market is where people buy and sell electric cars that other people have already owned. These cars can be cheaper than new ones and still work well.
Lease electric cars are electric cars that people rented for a while and then gave back. Now, other people can buy these cars, usually for less money than new ones.
EV sales mean how many electric cars are sold. Sometimes more people buy them, sometimes fewer, depending on things like price and how much people want them.
The Porsche Cayenne is a fancy SUV made by Porsche that you can drive on and off-road. The 2017 version uses gas but Porsche also makes electric versions.
Electric cars use big batteries to run. Battery longevity means how long these batteries last before they get weak. New batteries last longer now, so electric cars can be used for many years.
Some cars have special seats that face each other so people can talk more easily while riding together. These are called twin bucket seats facing each other.
Revving your car means making the engine run faster to make a loud noise or get ready to go fast. Some places might not allow this because it can be noisy or bad for the environment.
The Camry is a common car made by Toyota that many people use every day. It's reliable and can be faster than you might think, but it's mostly made for normal driving.
This is a type of engine with eight cylinders that work together to make the car go fast and smoothly. The 4.2 liter size means it has a good amount of power.
Photo radar is a way police catch cars breaking speed limits or traffic lights using cameras. The cameras take pictures of the car's license plate and send a ticket to the owner.
Cadillac is a car brand that makes fancy and comfortable cars. They used to make big, smooth-riding cars, but now they also make sportier cars that are fun to drive.
LIVE
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
About this episode
Robin Leach and Jay de Marcken dive into practical tips for improving fuel economy amid rising gas prices, including gentle throttle use and stop-start technology nuances. They explore the fluctuating electric vehicle market, highlighting the affordability of used EVs and the cautious strategies of manufacturers like Toyota. The hosts discuss upcoming EV models like the Rivian R2 and Mercedes' luxury electric minivan, debating their appeal and market fit. They also touch on muscle cars like the Mustang Dark Horse, regulatory challenges, and the evolving landscape of automotive powertrains and consumer preferences.
