Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – November 24, 2025

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

Hello for this week's version of Car Keys with Jada Markins and Robin Leach.

I have been watching a lot of new cars. The 2026s are now being highlighted in magazines and other new programs that some of us can research and be available.

One of the ones I want to start out about is the three-way test at a magazine called Motor Trend, which many of you car gurus will be familiar with.

Often they pick three vehicles from three different manufacturers, or maybe two manufacturers and three models or whatever, and do a test of them.

They rate them, rank them during the article and at the end of the article.

This one for this week's show is going to be talked about with Jay and I and you, and not you, you'll listen, is the 2026 Hyundai Palisade versus I guess it's the 2026 Buick Enclave versus the Chevrolet Traverse.

And their headline of the article is Details Matter, and the summation of that is that only one of the three gets them right.

And we don't read all everything about the article, but they ordered the cars.

Jay, do you want me to think we should give the listeners the order right now?

Yes, we will.

We have done with one purchase model or vehicle in mind and without going to other dealers.

Go ahead.

Just be clear, these three vehicles are what we call full-size SUVs, right?

Three rows, and I haven't read much of it either, but I'm pretty sure they are all three-row SUVs.

They're full-size.

They're all priced in the $60,000 price range.

They are larger than most SUVs out there.

Correct.

And if you're going to get something that needs to haul a lot of people and a lot of stuff, these are the vehicles you're looking at.

Four, you're going up the scale to the suburban and the expeditions and the Cadillac Esplanade type,

which is in two grades above what we're talking about in this particular three-model test, right?

These would be like non-luxury SUVs, right?

Not Audi, not QW, not Mercedes, not Cadillac.

But I would argue that the Hyundai is becoming more upscale.

This is the second generation of this Palisade.

I guess Motor Trend left out the twin of this car, which is the Kia Telluride.

And personally, I mean, this is just personal.

I've liked the aesthetics of the Telluride better than the Palisade,

but, you know, they're very, very similar vehicles and they look pretty much very similar, too.

And they're both very, like this article mentions and what I've said all along, very range Rover-esque, right?

If you look at the back end of a Telluride or now the new Palisade and the overall size and shape of them,

they do look a lot like a Range Rover.

Correct.

And even the front ends have similar features to them.

What's interesting is that the two GM vehicles are pretty much identical vehicles also.

And when you look at the specs, whether it's the dimensions, whether it's the engine,

both the enclave and the traverse are powered by turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

And we had talked about those engines last week where the Palisade, the base engine remains a V6.

And the performance of the turbo fours is superior, right?

They have more torque, more mid-range power than the V6, but the V6 is a smoother engine,

at least in this vehicle.

So sorry, I interrupted you. Keep going.

No, I look for our listeners.

I mean, as we just said, they were below an upper level of vehicle alternatives,

which obviously go up in price as well.

And they're above a lower level, which I guess we would deal with mid-sized SUVs,

which are two-seaters in general, though some may try to stuff a third-seater in an extended version of it.

The Jeep did that with the Wagoneer, and then they had a Grand Wagoneer or a Wagoneer L

in their first iteration of the new Wagoneer line that came out three years ago.

They're now slimming down a bit.

But in any event, what the Motor Trend article looks at, which many of us don't look at when we go in

and just spend an hour and a half or two hours testing a particular vehicle,

is little things like assembly quality of the components inside the dashboards,

the armrests and the doors and all that.

And they were, particularly in this particular test, critical of the GM vehicles

on both front and on the interior qualitative aspects of their interiors.

And many of us don't even think about that, and many of us probably never look at that situation,

even after we drive off at our new car until something falls apart

or you see something you never saw when you were test driving it.

So the point, I guess, of this article is, should you, as our audience,

always try to test drive more than one type of vehicle?

And the answer probably is no, in most cases, as I said earlier in this discussion,

when we are focused on Jeeps as your host is, as has been,

until they eliminated his favorite model, my favorite model of the Cherokee,

and are now coming out with a new one, which I look forward to looking at

and have briefly commented on in an earlier show,

and it is not interesting, me at least, in print and pictorial form and in motor trends.

Yeah, we've gone over it. Let's get back to the...

We're not going to go back to that. Go back to what you wanted to do.

The palace stage is, I was just...

It's quite far.

Yeah.

I was wondering, you're talking about build quality and assembly,

and I was wondering where the palace stage was actually built,

and actually it's still built in South Korea, correct?

One of the Hyundai's that is built here in the U.S.,

and I was a little surprised to see that.

I haven't checked out on the Tellaride,

but I'm pretty sure they're built in the same factory.

What I notice, and we keep going week after week and having on-year

and off-the-year discussions and arguments about electric vehicles or not,

by today's standards, these three full-size SUV are actually slow as molasses, right?

I mean, they're doing this, the infamous zero to 60 in seven or eight seconds,

and to get them to do that, you probably have to hammer them,

and they don't sound very...

It sounds like a screaming pig when you're trying to extract maximum performance.

And I'm not sure to add that there is any more than one test driver in it

when they're doing their zero to 60 speed limits,

and of course families have anywhere from two people, childless,

to six or seven or even sometimes eight with children.

And then you add on the various components of luggage and things like that

that you load into these vehicles when you're going on a trip,

and they are far heavier to do that same zero to 60 test than is done in the tests

that these vehicles go through when they're tested by the magazines or other testers.

My point is that the ease with which an electric vehicle gets up to speed is just mind-boggling.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a zero to 60 in three and a half seconds,

like some of the Tesla's, the new Jeep, what is it called?

Wagoneer.

Is it the Wagoneer?

No, it's not. The electric one.

The electric one. I can't remember the name.

The electric Wagoneer. It's a Wagoneer S, S for electric, I guess.

I'm not quite sure.

Yes.

But that is a very fast vehicle.

And, you know, they're just a lot more comfortable to drive.

Well, I believe...

It's a little much more pleasant.

I don't know why we're arguing the merits of one or the other.

Well, back to the test of the three that we're talking about.

The only one which Motor Trend did not say needs more power was the policy.

And that happened to come in a hybrid.

And their comment in the cons, because a hybrid engine is not a standard feature,

is that the hybrid engine, which was in their test vehicle, should be standard.

And that is very true for hybrid cars, not just only the pure cars.

I have had this 2013, so not a hybrid, since I bought it, purchased it back in 2013.

And it is hybrid.

And I can tell you that the hybrid part of that drive train, when it kicks in,

it makes whatever sluggish feeling you might have when the...

is exhilarating and makes it totally competent in merging onto from a stop position

or even a slow approach or entering position onto a multi-lane highway

where traffic is cruising by the travel lane to 75 miles an hour.

And you...

And I don't think the other two had a hybrid package in them.

And if so, I haven't read it yet.

But they both had in the cons, which is the detriment side of the comment

that they needed more power.

They were sluggish.

So the whole idea of hybrids is growing on me.

You know, I've not been a fan.

And I also drove a...

Recently a vehicle I've driven before is the new CR-V hybrid.

Speaking of...

And I thought that vehicle was particularly interesting because it's not a plug-in.

It's just a hybrid.

But when you start off, get off the line, it almost always starts in electric mode.

So you can just get on the accelerator and pretty much hammer it.

And it takes off very smoothly but competently.

I mean, the overall numbers are probably not all that...

I don't know what the numbers are, the 0 to 60.

It's probably not much better than six and a half seconds.

But it gets there easily.

And that's where the...

Like you say in your Sonata, the electric power interferes and boosts the acceleration.

So just to admit that the hybrid side of things is slowly growing on me.

And by the time it totally grows on me, it'll probably be out and will be out for electric vehicles anyway.

Well, the hybrid...

To our listeners, many of whom probably know this already,

the hybrid versions of these vehicles, as opposed to pure electric or pure fossil fuel,

that's gasoline or diesel,

is taking over the current market of sales satisfaction and levels

because of the easy flexibility of the hybrid power train,

both to give you added acceleration performance for passing and entering highways

where traffic is going by you at high speeds anyways.

And mileage increase over the fossil fuel, mileage only,

details of miles per gallon.

And the ease of not having to plug it in if you don't have a plug-in version of the hybrid forms, which there is.

And you don't do anything but you do oil changes as much as you do with fossil fuel cars,

but you don't have any battery maintenance of significance that has surfaced in the repairs department that we know of.

Other than maybe explosive situations, Jay?

Not in the hybrid forms, but the electrics are still having periodic fire issues.

Yeah, they'll resolve that. We'll have to deal with that for a while.

Okay, we can move on for a little bit.

The new Toyota has just updated its RAV4 for 2026.

So we were talking in this Motor Trend article about the three oversized mainstream SUVs.

One notch smaller than that, you have what used to be the compact, and they're not so compact anymore.

Toyota RAV4, which compares to the Honda CR-V and the Subaru Forester.

There's also a Hyundai version and a Kia version of that 5-car too now with hybrids.

Yes.

I don't know the mile names.

The RAV4 is the world's number one selling vehicle now.

It actually surpassed the Tesla Y last year, and it's a great all-around vehicle.

You know, it does everything competently. I guess that's my new word.

But it's also hard to get excited about.

Most versions we'll see here will be all-wheel drive and hybrid and are going to cost right around the mid-40,000.

And probably if you get the 50s, you get the luxury interiors and that kind of thing.

Yeah, so nicely equipped, all-wheel drive, hybrid, mid-40s, and that's really where the median price of a car is these days.

So they're hitting it right on the money, and that's probably why it's the number one selling vehicle in the world.

And it's a Toyota, so it's probably bulletproof.

Yeah, and Toyota is the one manufacturer that basically, I believe, hybridized their entire line of cars that I believe for 2026.

Every vehicle may be coming as a hybrid drive train and as a standard feature of all their new vehicles for 2026 and going forward.

I think if not the complete line, between 80 and 90% will be hybrid-only powered vehicles coming off the assembly lines.

I believe they've also hybridized the Tacoma pickup truck a bit.

I'm not sure about the Tundra, but pickup trucks are notoriously bad on mileage, even the smaller ones.

Although once you get to 20 in a pickup truck, you're doing pretty well.

And the Tacoma line of vehicles, Nissan also has a line of small pickups.

And so does Honda and Honda.

All those may be in the 20-plus mile per gallon range capability on a highway.

But the big trucks, even some of the big Fords and the big Chevy's are now available in certain combinations of engines being able to do.

And this is all unladen.

That means just the driver and maybe a passenger riding in the pickup trucks, not a fully loaded rear pickup bed.

Meanwhile, Ford Lightning F-150s sit on parking lots unsold.

I believe they're also purchasable with significant discounts.

I have noted an increase in visually in the number of lightings around our area, but that does not mean a great number in general.

An increase is from, let's say, one to three at a daily situation as opposed to one to ten or something like that.

So they are not selling well, and I believe.

I don't know whether they're terminating the complete production for the lightings for the 26 or 27 mile a year or not,

but they certainly are not increasing their production.

Well, the production's at a stop now.

I don't know if it's a permanent stop.

It should not be a permanent stop.

So pickup owners who want...

I think pickup owners who don't really care about using pickups the way they can be used are actually quite satisfied with their lightings.

I've talked to two or three lightning owners, and everybody I've talked to in the Lightning Ownership Department,

which so far is not more than three, have been very satisfied with their lightings.

But I have also talked to a lightning owner who does know very well that if it is loaded up in the back or towing something,

its range is not particularly interesting for owning a lightning fork.

All right, but I've said before, if you load or tow with a gas pickup truck, your range goes down by...

Yes, but you don't have to charge a pickup truck with fossil fuel listeners.

And Jay and I like to argue about this all the time.

So I don't go to that alternative complaint about fossil fuel pickup trucks loaded.

What about the Rivian pickup truck?

Well, I don't know much about the pickup level of Rivian.

I have not seen any Rivian...

No, there is a Rivian pickup around our listing area that looks like it's a commercial use vehicle.

I believe it had a ladder rack on it and other items, so I can't really tell you.

We know who it is.

Well, in any event, I also...

One of them replaced his big Dodge diesel truck by a Rivian and absolutely loves it.

Let me ask you this about the Rivian.

I had a little conversation with somebody over the weekend who told me that they hated the lights, the front lights on a Rivian,

and that would be the reason not to buy them.

And this person's opinion was that Rivian is losing a lot of sales just because of their headlights.

What's your take on that? What do you think of the Rivian headlights?

So far, they've been very bright oncoming.

I have not driven a Rivian at night to know whether they're giving you...

Talking about the style.

No, I don't mind them at all.

Okay.

So that will not keep you from buying a Rivian.

In fact, a towing in a pickup truck, there is a Tesla around here that is towing a very heavy trailer.

And I have yet to be able to catch up to it to ask him what his range is on a daily basis.

But I've seen it between Lakeville and Sharon.

I've also seen it unladen by a trailer hitched to it.

It has a lot of other graphics on it.

But I saw it out in the comic area.

We know the one.

Flags and peace signs and all.

Flags and peace signs and all, but towing a relatively heavy trailer the day I saw it come out of Taconic

and it turned behind me going up towards Canaan.

And so it had to tow it all the way up to Salisbury School level.

And I don't know if it ever got beyond there, probably because that was its destination,

because I didn't see it follow me into Canaan.

But I was very curious as to what that does to battery power in a Tesla.

As far as range and functionality is concerned.

Other than that, if you're not getting a electric vehicle that's going to be laden with a lot of pickup load,

the Rivian SUV is very much liked by a person who has driven back and forth across this country more than once already

and just drove it up through Vermont and New Hampshire this weekend to a ski mountain.

And he was only able to plug it in in a 110 voltage place.

I don't know if it's where they stayed or not, but he said he only got 29 miles of range overnight in a charge at a 110 outlet.

Which was not going to get him back here because in one charge.

I don't know what he did to get back.

Another day probably.

Well, I'm sure he had to stop on route to get back to Sharon, which is his base location for our listeners.

But properly driven and properly understood electric vehicles are certainly okay,

even though the sales have declined quite a bit since the days of federal incentives.

But I think that'll leave it out and balance out going forward as people realize that the incentives are gone,

but the prices will either or will still be acceptable because of the electric benefits in their head.

They will purchase them no matter what.

This guy that I sent to this rant this morning, Peter Di Lorenzo, who goes on a weekly rant,

probably goes on a rant every day.

He's probably a very angry person.

I don't know, maybe he takes meds for that.

But his writing is pretty sharp.

And his view, he's always been a very, very critical of the electric market.

But his view, and I tend to agree with him, is that the future is in affordable, smaller electric vehicles.

And he, like me, is waiting for Chevy with the new Bolt.

I think if you can come out with an electric vehicle in the $30,000 range,

and if it can go two to 300 miles, it covers most people's daily needs.

There's obsession about range.

In our old age, there are other factors that limit range and how much driving we can do without making it stop.

So the 300-mile range is, I think, starting to be perfectly acceptable,

and takes the worries out of driving, for instance, from this tri-state area down to New York City and back,

which I did over the weekend in an electric vehicle with absolutely no range anxiety.

None whatsoever.

I came back and I had 100-mile range left.

And so, yeah, I still think it's the way to go.

I can hear Mike wanting to barge in, but he's resisting the temptation.

Okay, well, that's good.

As long as he's keeping us on the air, that's good, yes.

Anyway, so moving on, what else can we talk about, Robin?

Well, we keep talking about the same things many weeks,

and I don't really apologize to our audience about doing that,

because it bolsters confidence when we're positive,

and it probably doesn't bolster confidence when we're negative about something.

And we have been negative about range anxiety, with range anxiety being the problem,

for many episodes of our show over the last several years.

And as you are rightly saying, and people are rightly finding out,

understanding them and with the range advertises it more and more than being 300 miles and above

in maybe less than ideal, including in less than ideal weather conditions.

We all know cold and heat, both damage batteries range,

so it doesn't do you any better to be living in Arizona where the heat may be over 100 degrees all day

than it may be living in Minnesota, where in the wintertime...

So let's switch gears for a second here.

We all drive different places. We all use maps of some sorts in the cars, GPS.

Even if they're not GPS, if they're cell tower-related navigation tools like Apple Maps or Google Maps or Waze.

I know that for a long time, years ago, you used to travel with a Garmin or two or four in your cars.

What do you use for navigation these days?

Well, interestingly enough, I still use Tom-Tom's a lot.

And Tom-Tom's has an app which loads all the gas station locations, much like the electric vehicles,

load all the charging station locations.

And it's updated, I would say monthly, if not, or so, if you are responsible and update your Tom-Tom

when you say that when they tell you...

Isn't that a thing from the 90s?

What, the Tom-Tom's?

Yeah.

I don't know, but they've gotten closer and closer to Waze and Google Map capabilities now,

and I have the Tom-Tom app in my phone, so I actually don't even need a Tom-Tom dashboard, GPS.

But the Tom-Tom dashboard GPS is I have lifetime update, so I can update the roads for life of the unit.

I guess that's what life means.

And they also have electric...

They have electric updates for electric vehicles that were used in there, as well as fossil fuel gas stations.

So you still use Tom-Tom?

I do, and it's quite activated, and you can actually match it to a smartphone.

And while I don't think it does, it doesn't do things like let you know what the police are hiding,

the ways that Waze and the Google Maps believe do on your trips.

And it doesn't generally tell you when there's an accident ahead as fast as Waze does,

because I don't think if it does, I don't know how to do it, but it's very good.

You can set the way you want to go economically, avoid toll roads, and various other settings can be done.

And I sometimes run in parallel with the GPS.

I run the Tom-Tom just because I like to see how different they are.

And I will say this, to anybody interested, I have a 2004 Jaguar XJ.

It doesn't matter.

Jaguar with a trip computer in it, and it ran on CDs.

And I have never been able to find a CD that is updated from what it came with from the factory.

So I'm still operating on 2005 mapping.

And mapping the obsolete in the new exit numbers that are going on on a lot of roads.

And there are no new roads that are available for updating the whereabouts of them on the old GPS,

but it matched a Waze routing coming back from Boston on a recent trip,

turn for turn, all the way to the destination, which is very interesting.

So you never use Waze or Google Maps?

Yes, I do use Waze, but I don't use it as my first use because I don't think about it.

How many screens do you have up and running at the same time?

Well, the cars that have screens in the dash only two.

On the cars that otherwise, my 2014 Jeep does not have a trip GPS system in it,

so I don't use that screen, so I just use it on time.

So some manufacturers make you pay for their navigation systems.

Others just like have a deal with Google Maps.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think in the newest Volvo that I've driven,

if you went to navigation, you went straight to Google Maps.

I will tell you that it's a good service on Audi navigation systems

because we don't have navigation in both of the Audi's that are in my family right now

because we won't pay and we don't have to because my wife uses the Waze,

and I use the TomTom if I need to, and they're free.

But your TomTom is a handheld device?

The dash-mounted device, but I have the TomTom app in my phone now

so I can actually eliminate the TomTom dash-mounted devices or window-mounted devices

and use the TomTom app, which is so-called free.

So if I would assume that if you have CarPlay in your car

and you have the TomTom app on your phone, can you then pull your TomTom dash-mounted device?

You can match it up to the Apple screen on your car, I think.

Well, you should try that. Keep us posted.

Okay, gentlemen, it's about time to put a wrap on this.

Okay.

Warranty things will come up next week then.

Yeah, we want to talk in a future show about warranties,

but until we have that show, we are Carkeys with J. DeMarken and Robin Leach.

Carkeys with Robin Leach and J. DeMarken is produced at the facilities of

WHDD91.9 FM, RobinhoodRadio.com, Sharon, Connecticut.

Car Keys with Robin Leech and Jay de Marcken – November 24, 2025

About this episode

Buick Enclave

Hyundai Palisade

Chevrolet Traverse

Ford Expeditions

Kia Telluride

Land Rover Range Rover

turbocharged four-cylinder engine

V6

turbo fours

Jeep Grand Wagoneer

Jeep Cherokee

Hyundai Telluride

zero to 60

Tesla

Wagoneer S

hybrid engine

2013 Prius

electric mode

0-60 time

Hyundai Sonata

hybrid powertrain

Toyota RAV4

Honda Crv

Subaru Forester

Toyota Tacoma

mileage

Toyota Tundra

Nissan

Chevrolet

Rivian SUV

federal incentives

GPS

Jaguar Xj

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