Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – May 18, 2026
CAR KEYS
CAR KEYSMay 18, 2026
Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – May 18, 2026
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30:16
Car
Rivian SUV
They’re talking about a Rivian electric SUV and how far it can drive on a charge. They mention the range gets worse in winter, which is common for EVs.
A plug-in hybrid is part electric and part gas. You can charge it at home, and it can run on electricity for shorter trips before switching to gas.
Car
Polestar vehicle
The Polestar vehicle is described as a plug-in hybrid in the family’s lineup. Plug-in hybrids can run on electricity for short trips, then switch to gasoline for longer driving, which changes how you think about charging and fuel use.
Car
Polestar plug-in hybrid
This is a hybrid car that you can plug in to drive on electricity for a while. When the battery runs low (or for longer trips), the gas engine can step in so you’re not stuck.
The Rivian R2 is a new electric vehicle from Rivian. They’re talking about the different versions (trims) and how far it can go on a charge, plus how much it’s expected to cost.
Trims are different versions of the same model that vary by equipment level and sometimes drivetrain and performance. Here, the Rivian R2 is described as having three trims that differ in power output and whether they’re AWD or single-motor 2WD.
A single-motor EV has one electric motor doing the driving work. The segment says the base R2 uses one motor and is rear-wheel drive, instead of using motors for all wheels.
The Kia EV9 is an electric SUV designed for families. In this segment, it’s brought up as another EV you’d compare when shopping in the same price range.
Launch editions are early-production or initial sales versions of a model that include a specific set of features. The key idea here is that some features may be included at launch but later become optional (or move to higher trims) as the lineup evolves.
Autonomous driving means the car can help drive itself—like steering and controlling speed—though it may still expect you to stay alert. The hosts are saying the Rivian R2 performance includes this kind of feature.
Horsepower is a number that describes how strong the car’s power is. Here, they’re using it to compare different Rivian R2 versions by how powerful they are.
Electric cars use electricity to move the wheels. Because they respond instantly when you press the pedal, they can speed up quickly when you need to merge or pass.
Concept
passing ability
Passing ability means how easily the car can speed up to get around another vehicle. The host connects that to spending less time in a risky passing situation.
Turn signals are the lights you use to tell other drivers you’re changing lanes or merging. The host is saying some drivers don’t use them, which makes the situation less safe.
The “auto signal” idea is that the car would turn on your turn signal automatically when you start merging. The goal is to make it clearer to other drivers what you’re about to do.
An aftermarket exhaust is a replacement exhaust system you buy and install yourself. People often do it to change the sound, and in this case it can make loud “popping” noises.
“Pop and crackle” is the loud popping sound some cars make from the exhaust. It can happen even when you’re not driving super hard, and the host thinks it’s often just extra noise.
Concept
live person on the line
They’re talking about customer support—specifically, how quickly you can reach a real person when you call for help. In this story, Rivian’s support is presented as fast and helpful.
“After sales” means what the company does after you purchase the car—like help when something’s wrong and how service is handled. Here, they’re praising Rivian’s support and responsiveness.
This is about selling EVs for business fleets, like delivery routes, not just to individual drivers. The hosts say Rivian’s relationship with Amazon could help Rivian grow because Amazon needs lots of delivery vehicles.
Concept
100,000 commercial vehicles
They mention a very large order size—100,000 vehicles—for business use. Big fleet numbers can matter because they affect how much the company can build and sustain its business.
Cruise control is a feature that helps you keep the same speed without constantly pressing the gas pedal. The host uses it to drive at a steady speed to see how it affects gas mileage.
Horsepower is how strong the engine is. “900 horsepower” means the car is making a huge amount of power, which is why it can be very fast and loud in racing.
Tracking devices are tools that can follow or record where something is. Here, they’re being discussed as a way to track cars using their license plates.
“Flock cameras” are cameras that read license plates automatically. They can be connected to databases so that, if someone looks up a plate, they can see a record of where that car was detected.
A license plate is the vehicle’s legal identifier, and in automated systems it’s used as the key for matching records. This segment focuses on how plate data can be entered into a database to produce a vehicle’s detection history.
The 1998 Ford Mustang GT is a classic American muscle car with a strong, sporty feel. Here it’s mentioned as an example of a teen’s first car that parents were involved with.
LIVE
He is Robin Leach. He is Jada Markin. This is Car Keys.
Good morning to our listeners for this week's show of Car Keys with Jada Markin and Robin Leach.
We are getting into summer weather, which is nice. I
have conducted a couple of I've had an interview
since the last show
with a family that owns two electric vehicles, which I'll get back to in a moment, and I have conducted a personal
miles per gallon
test on a regular round trip I make between here in New Canaan in my Hyundai hybrid.
The major change between the zoo tests, which will be the nut of the report, is that I
change the average speeds I travel on the two the state roads and the interstate roads
by
reducing them on the second time to see what it would do to the miles per gallon average.
Back to the first one, I encountered a woman who was getting into her Rivian
SUV, the big one,
and I collared her for a 10-minute talk about how she liked it. Turns out I hit a very great
example of somebody who was just totally satisfied with it, not that I don't know that
anybody isn't totally satisfied with them, but by the time I got through I learned that she's had it for two and a half years and
has done nothing to it.
And it has a range
she says, and she's very intelligent about it, she said the range is around
325 miles and it drops to like 265 to 285 in the winter time.
This is a Rivian as our listeners, our knowledgeable listeners know and everybody else well now is totally electric.
The second car they have in their family is a Polestar slash Volvo
vehicle, which is a plug-in hybrid example of the Polestar vehicle. They've also had that for a couple of years and
they love that as well. The major difference being, and this is the key to my
interview, is that they keep the Polestar plug-in
hybrid, which has a gasoline-motor override for the exact reason that
well, I have been talking about the range anxiety factor that has
many people holding off buying a total electric car. And she brought it up as the reason they keep it because sometimes they go on
500-mile trips and
when they do that, they go in the Polestar if it's a day trip
because they don't want to spend time
looking for electric
plug-in places, not that they're not hard to find because the maps are all in the Rivian system, but sometimes it's
inconvenient because they may not be available or whatever.
So those are the two vehicles they have. They've got the gasoline electric plug-in.
They get 50 miles, around 50 miles per electric plug-in for sole electric use, which she says
we sometimes don't
go any further than 50 miles a day for
up to a couple of months and it has an indicator that flashes on the dashboard saying your gases get words to the effect of
probably not exactly as I'm going to relay it. The gas is getting old, replenished with fresh gas.
But there is two highly satisfied
highly satisfactory vehicles owned by one family. Jay, you've got any comment? Yeah, sure.
Speaking of Rivian, we know the Rivian the R1S and R1T.
So the SUV version and a truck version have been out for two or three years now, two and a half years, not quite sure.
And Rivian has been announcing the R2, which will only be an SUV.
There is no truck in the in the future, I believe, and
further down the road the R3, which will be smaller yet. The R2 really looks like a
smaller R1. In fact, when you see pictures of it, it's virtually impossible.
I can't tell the difference between the R1S, the SUV, and the R2, the new SUV coming out.
And it was announced to be available as a 2027 model.
And sure enough, Rivian has delivered on their promise and you can now order a R2
online with their configurator.
Deliveries are expected around when?
So the top of the line, and I hope, you know, part of me hopes not too many people are listening to this because I don't know if there's going to be a long wait line or not.
And I think it's a great opportunity for many people, including myself.
This the R2, they have three levels of performance or three trims, if you will.
There is the performance is that the highest level, which comes with a
is all-wheel drive and comes with around 650 horsepower and a range of 330 miles.
The premium, which is the mid-grade version, is a 450 horsepower, also all-wheel drive and also with a range of 330 miles.
And then the, quote unquote, entry-level vehicle is a re-wheel drive single motor only, which has about 300 or exactly 350 horsepower, also has a range of 330 miles, I believe.
I think in two-wheel drive version, it may be a little bit more, maybe 345, but all versions do, all-wheel drive versions get 330 mile range.
Yes, and you know, I've always advocated that nobody needs the high performance electric vehicles because they're crazy fast, unnecessarily fast, uncomfortably fast in acceleration.
But yet, in the case of the R2, the difference in price is really very slight at this point.
So the top of the line between the models, Jay, or between the R1 and the R2?
No, no, between the R2.
So the R2 is basically coming out.
The top of the line R2 is basically the performance version is coming out at under $60,000.
Whereas a R1, I have not checked the prices.
I haven't either.
But they're hovering around 100.
You can get an R1 under $100,000.
But if you're looking at the performance versions, you're certainly over $100,000 of well-equipped R1 is around $100,000.
And let's keep this figure.
So you're comparing $60,000 to $100,000.
That is a huge difference.
That's a huge difference.
And the $60,000 top of the line price, you know, puts this SUV, fully electric SUV in, you know, right smack in the market, along with, you know, Audi's, Tesla's.
You name it, even, even, you know, less luxury brand.
Kia and Hyundai, for example.
Yes, absolutely.
Lower.
Yeah.
Well, like I haven't checked the price on the Kia EV9.
But anyway, this R2 is very competitive in its pricing.
And the launch editions of these vehicles do include certain features that will certainly be made optional in the future.
So the performance version comes with autonomous driving, which honestly, I don't know what how how sophisticated it is on the Rivian.
But it is included.
The tow package is included.
Paint colors other than silver are optional.
But still, you can order an R2 performance for $60,000.
And you can order a two wheel drive version with 350 horsepower for under $50,000 or or or whereabouts.
So it's extremely competitive and it's extremely tempting.
And I will leave it at that.
It takes a hundred dollar deposit upon registration and ordering, which we can do.
I want to go back to your comment about acceleration needs.
I forgot to go into the performance pleasure that this family has with their Rivian.
The woman of the family was a person I encountered.
She knows a lot about the Rivian.
She just says that one of the things she loves about it when she's driving it in bad weather is that when she's behind, she used the word big trucks as the vehicle that she was being annoyed with.
She just loves the accelerator factor of the electric cars in general, but the Rivian, because it enables her to pass much more safely to get around these vehicles that get her angry when they're when she's plowing along behind them and eating their spray from their big wheels.
So I thought that was an interesting way to pose a satisfactory comment on the car.
And instead of talking about, you know, entering the highway and getting up the highway speed, the way we have said all electric cars do very well, she was using the passing ability, the safeness of the passing ability of the of her Rivian as a big safety feature that she she likes a lot.
The other thing so hold on a second, let me go on a couple of tangents with acceleration here and a few things come to mind as we get over this first summerish weekend of driving, which brings out the good, the bad and the ugly.
So, first of all, you just brought it up, you know, yes, you can accelerate acceleration can be a safety factor right and what I found I had to tow pretty, you know, substantial trailer that I tow around so driving in the right lane on rude eight between Bridgeport and here and with a number of on ramps and off ramps and invariably driving in the right lane.
At totally normal speed, so highway speed, but you know, within within the speed limits or very slight margin there of people getting on on the highways.
First of all, do not put their turn signals and then you can you can see them coming on the on ramp and then either just just are crawling or even slow down as they are merging on the highway.
No, you need to get up to speed.
And this is the one thing electric cars do like almost instantly just step on that right pedal and and merge.
So in all the auto driving features, I think the auto signal might be a useful one.
So I'm done with that little rant, but also the auto signal.
What is the auto signal?
Well, the auto signal is something a feature I would like to see on all cars where, you know, as you merge, the signal turns on whether you like it or not.
Well, how do you I'll say, I don't know.
I'm just I don't know either.
You you design and come back and tell us more.
Yeah, the other I want to finish on.
No, I want to finish.
Let me let me two seconds with the with the acceleration thing.
It brings me on this whole summer driving thing.
And we've seen the signs around our area specifically around the racetrack here where people are asked not to accelerate, make noise.
A lot of aftermarket exhaust exhausts and cars and motorcycles, but also some of the stock exhausts on some performance vehicles just pop and crackle and just make a lot of noise.
And attract attention.
And even if you're not really driving or accelerating all that hard, they just make unnecessary noise.
And yes, you would you would hope that people as we get into summer weather and open windows and people outside refrain from, you know, doing that.
Having said that, I have a sports car too.
And it is sweet to hear the sound of the sports car.
But so let's go do that in the middle of nowhere.
I want to get clothes on the Rivian story because the other factor that this woman is very pleased with is the extremely personalized and excellently connectable service part of the Rivian organization.
She says it takes no time to get a live person on the line.
They are very, very appreciative of anybody talking to them about the Rivian and they will come and she's had a couple of calls, house calls, I guess.
I don't know if it was technological or not, but she said they were very responsive in a quick and efficient manner.
So Rivian's got a lot of good aspects to not only the vehicle, but apparently the after sales component of their corporation, at least in this woman's eyes.
So, you know, I tend to compare Rivian and Lucid are both like Tesla, you know, start up electric car companies, right?
And I have faith in Rivian because, and I've said this all along for the last five years, you know, their connection with Amazon and the fact that they are geared to produce this 100,000 commercial vehicles for Amazon,
you know, the goofy looking one that's actually a great delivery vehicle that we actually now see a little all over the place.
And the difference between Rivian and Lucid. I mean, Lucid makes a great sedan. I mean, I think it's, it's a beautiful car. I've driven one. I think it's great.
The Rivian Lucid just also came out with the their SUV, which personally, I don't particularly like. I mean, it looks a little like a minivan.
It's also, it is a great vehicle. I mean, the objectively a great vehicle. But these are two vehicles that trade like right 100, around $100,000 or way more in some cases.
And, you know, we read these articles about Lucid losing, I think it was a billion dollars last quarter. So you have to wonder what the long term future is for a company like Lucid.
Yeah, well, I had very limited encounters of Lucid owners, only two maybe at the most. And neither of them came away being they all love the car in theory. But I would say that the qualitative condition of the Lucid vehicles, vehicles that the owners I encountered
versus this woman who is just ecstatic about a Rivian quality and everything beyond it is not as positive. And I don't think, and I think the Lucid vehicles are not selling it anywhere near the rate that Lucid would like to have them selling.
Which is probably why they're losing so much money per vehicle and corporately in a quarter.
I've seen a few more around here. I don't think I've seen more than a half a dozen Lucids in any given weekend around here. And that's probably from visit, visitations of the vehicles from maybe some of our school parents, prep school parents, to come and visit those kids.
But they are both, I agree with you, they're both very interesting and in fact, very attractive vehicles from two companies that I really hope succeed. I think Rivians on their way to being okay.
Lucid, you may or may not disagree, is probably still has a question mark over it. It doesn't have the backing of Amazon, for sure, in terms of financial power.
Well, it has a lot of Saudi money, but even that comes, you know, at some point.
Okay, I want to go to my second thing and then I want to turn it over to you, Jay, if I can get this done quickly.
I, at the beginning of the show, I said I make almost sometimes daily during the week round trip, 125 mile round trip.
You're a commuter.
Commuter. And I am going with the gas prices being the way they are. I've been using my Hyundai hybrid, which is between a 35 and 45 mile per gallon per tank full has that capability, which do the math with a 15 plus minus gallon gas tank gives you a lot of miles between
Phillips. The trip but I, I've done it over two days now. I took a Sunday trip southward from here to New Canaan, and I decided I was going instead of going 62 on 22 I was going to go between 57 and 58 miles an hour on cruise control down the 22 portion of the trip.
And then when I got on 684, I instead of going 72, which is what I usually do in 684, I decided to do it at 68. And the miles per gallon for that trip.
At those lower speeds went from 38.6 miles per gallon to 40.6. That is two gallons, two miles per gallon better.
Or, yeah, two miles per gallon better, which would give you a 30 miles extended range over the tank over what I what it did when I was going at the 72 62 and 72 mile per hour speeds on those two roads.
It's a minor thing to think about, but there's so much news about from AAA and from other people about how you can get better mileage in this state this time era of four to $6, you know, 450 and up per gallon gasoline.
My wife was in Chicago, six, regular is $6 a gallon in Chicago proper.
She had to fill up her daughter's car. And I think she said it's cost $70 by the time she got through it means she had to be putting 14 or so gallons in whatever it comes out to be 70 plus or minus dollars.
So and I was behind somebody today on my trip northward from.
Accelerating quite quickly up to the available speed limit or beyond that they would normally do. They were crawling and I was behind it.
So I know what was going on when and one time they stopped they crawled the way back up to the 55 mile an hour range.
It probably took them a mile to get their truck back up to that speed.
So I knew I figured I knew what why they were doing enough on that, Jay, your list.
Mine drivers.
Well, you know, I hate to turn this show into a rant, but go ahead.
No, you know, again, first weekend of I'm not first weekend of summer driving, but yeah, kind of.
I went to a car show yesterday in the southern part of the state and I was towing a trailer as I mentioned.
So I saw quite a bit of traffic and, you know, these are the things you see.
You see a lot of motorcycles.
We had a bad crash.
I don't have the details, but right here in in our area.
I think on Friday night we had a pretty bad motorcycle crash.
We were coming up rude date on Sunday afternoon and there was a pretty bad crash involving a motorcyclist.
And there were quite a few motorcycles on the road and I not at some point on the road we got passed by a couple.
What we call crotch rockets.
So not your Harley type of motorcycle, but you know, more racy, sporty, faster motorcycles.
And these two guys were were really hauling and one of them was riding without a helmet, you know, and riding probably at speeds of weaving through traffic at 90 100 miles an hour.
You know, it startled me when the guy passed me on the right as I was trying to get back in the right lane.
My point is there's going to be quite a bit of that, unfortunately, and you do have to keep your eyes peeled.
And if you happen to be riding a motorcycle, I just you cannot convince me that it is a good idea to not be wearing a helmet.
If if it is a good idea to be skiing with a helmet and it is and if it's a good idea to be riding a bicycle with a helmet.
It sure as heck is a good idea to be wearing one when riding a motorcycle.
I don't believe Connecticut has a helmet law.
I, you know, and I am a Paul at the number of motorcyclists that I see not wearing helmets and I don't know, you know, okay, they can do it.
Technically, I believe, but boy, it sure is dangerous because there's nothing to protect them if anything goes imperfectly in their trip on their motorcycle.
Yeah. So anyway, I was at a car show and it was a Porsche themed and it was actually called Porsches and Pints, which it was at a brewery.
It looked to me like people were drinking responsibly, you know, these but people spent a good chunk of the day there, looking at each other's cars and drinking beer.
I did not have a single one until I got home.
But so, you know, if you do go to car shows, I mean, it's always fun to see.
And it is the season where we're going to see more and more car shows.
Speaking of which, we know there's a big Trans Am weekend at our local track.
And if you are wanting, not well versed into auto racing in general,
Trans Am cars are about as exciting and impressive racing vehicles you're going to see.
But I do have to warn people around here.
They're also the loudest things you're likely to hear all year.
Trans Am vehicles fit on the track.
We mean, how do they fit?
Well, they're big cars.
Yeah, they're not tractor trailers.
They're not F ones or they're not.
I mean, no, but they're race cars.
I mean, they're straight away.
It's not like Daytona 500 or the curves.
It's Tulane, right?
Well, you can try to go three wide, you know, it's racing.
Okay.
Anyways, no, they're very powerful cars.
These cars are going to hit like 900 horsepower and there's going to be a pretty strong field of them.
It's going to be loud.
It's going to be impressive.
I've seen it's some of the best racing you can witness in any series anywhere.
And, you know, they're engine wise.
They're similar to what we'll see in the in the stock car trucks that will will be coming.
I think sometime in July and the noise levels would be about the same.
But I think the racing will be better in my opinion.
I'd love to get you before we close.
What are flock cameras?
Well, tracking devices.
You've got a list here.
Listen, you know what our tracking devices are now.
Well, flock cameras are popping up everywhere in the country and basically picking up your license plate and flock sells subscriptions to municipalities, HOAs, police forces, federal, state, local.
And basically, you know, for any license plate, right really quickly and decide whether you're properly registered or not.
Is that what they are doing?
Well, it just enters the license plate in the database.
But if if if somebody who has access a subscription to the database goes and puts your license plate in it, it will it can generate the history of where your car has been.
So it's a huge invasion of privacy and there have been a lot of privacy concerns.
And it just boggles my mind.
And we have a big problem in this country about putting speed cameras, but yet we're allowing flock to put cameras everywhere and basically doing the same thing.
And yeah, it basically big brother knows exactly where you are when you are there.
Well, they've been, I believe that they're the same cameras that are sometimes on the trunks of the New York State Police and maybe even the Connecticut State Police and they can park on the side of the road.
And these cameras can read the license plate.
It's almost instantaneously and if they are unregistered, the police can go and get them for non registration and all the history, as you said, that they may already have online.
Yeah, and they can use that for anything.
They can use that for ticketing in parking zones.
And this goes this goes a step way further because these cameras are fixed and basically they're everywhere.
I mean, you can you can buy one put it one in your house.
Well, that may be true, but I just control the way.
So, I mean, just people read a little bit about it. It's, it's, I find it a little bit disturbing.
But there we have it and it brought me to something else, you know, the whole debate about should you put GPS trackers on your teen driver, children's in your in your kids cars or in your cars and and should you let your kids know that you're tracking
them or should you have the discussion with them or should you just not tell them.
But that's, you know,
Well, that goes along with the controls you could put on a car, limiting its top speed to I think in some of these newer cars.
So that if you have a driver in your family that you would like to know is driving safely, I believe there is a way to program a speed limiting factor in that car.
Yeah, but by the same token, I know a young lady who as her first car just got a 1998 Mustang GT and that, you know, with obviously parents help and knowledge of this.
And if the parents are confident, it means that I, you know, you got to give a shout out both to the kid and the parents for for allowing this to happen.
And they're probably doing this and it's probably very responsible.
I know she's a very responsible kid.
So I think good parenting can do without the trackers, but that's just my personal opinion on this.
Well, as long as she knows how to drive it properly and responsibly, I guess it's fun to have that kind of car.
Well, if she drives as well in the real world as she does in the virtual world, she's going to be a really good driver.
Okay.
What else do you have?
I think we're close to closing.
Well, I'm close to closing too.
You know, again, safety precautions as we get into summer, a lot of bicycles, motorcycles.
It's a big race at Lime Rock on Saturday or is it on Monday?
No, the race weekend is Thursday, Friday, Saturday of this week.
Okay.
So there is no no follow crossover through Sunday and then the big race on Memorial Day.
We can all go to the parade on Monday.
Okay.
I guess we're about ready to close this week's version of car keys.
So until next time, this is Jay DeMarken and Robin Leach.
Car keys with Robin Leach and Jay DeMarken is produced at the facilities of WHDD91.9 FM, RobinhoodRadio.com, Sharon Connecticut.
About this episode
Range anxiety, charging convenience, and real-world efficiency all get airtime, from a winter EV range drop to a plug-in hybrid strategy that uses gasoline as backup. Rivian’s R2 is broken down by trims, AWD vs rear-wheel drive, and pricing, with features like autonomous driving and a tow package mentioned alongside claimed range. The conversation then widens to electric acceleration for safer merging, “pop and crackle” exhaust noise, and privacy questions around “flock cameras” and teen-driver GPS tracking, ending with a Lime Rock race-weekend schedule.
