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Hello, welcome to the Edmunds Car Cast Podcast.

I'm Matt, the moderator, Deandra here with Alistair Weaver.

How are you?

I'm good.

Thanks, Matt.

I even went to try surfing this morning.

Did you?

So I did fall into my Southern Californian existence.

It was a beautiful morning.

How did it go?

Was it cold?

No, it's beautiful.

It's like the Mediterranean.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

The water temperature is 70-odd degrees.

Hardly any waves, which is good for me.

So I just kind of sat on the board, meditated for an hour, did a bit of breathing.

Calling and surfing came back in.

Yeah, I fell over a couple of times, came back in.

It was marvelous.

You're going to start doing it all the time because you realize when you're surfing, quote,

surfing, there's no cell phone or anything out floating in the water with you.

So you get a nice little hour to bobble around like a buoy out there, just going, hey, no

one's texting, no one's calling, no one can reach me.

It is beautiful.

I mean, I used to, I mean, I had the same feeling of what I used to race cars.

And particularly, you know, a lot of us, I was doing my own business at the time

and you know, it was really stressful.

And then you would go out for practice session on a Friday or whatever.

And you know, for that half hour window when you did normally four half hours a day, you're

on your own, your helmet's on, you know, you've got to concentrate, you've got the adrenaline

running.

And it was like the best therapy.

Very, very expensive therapy, but very, you know, you need a sponsor therapy.

But it was, it was, it was epic.

And surfing has a little bit of, bit of that about it that you can't, you know,

you're nervous a little bit.

You stayed out too long and you're going to get, you know, told off when you get back

home.

But no, it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing.

Even if you're too old and too tall and too, too uncoordinated, do it properly.

Do you own a surfboard?

I own a 10 foot foam board, which is like, if you want to shout, I mean, I might as

well have like a wetsuit with like, you know, inept beginner written on cross

my chest because yeah, like a bright blue 10 foot foam board does say, you know,

stay away.

Yeah.

Okay.

I got shouted at and a few months ago I was going out and the waves were too

big for me and I was flailing around, but I managed to kind of like get up once

and then I went towards the beach.

Some guy came across and we nearly hit each other and he went nuts because

apparently I should have seen him.

It is right away.

I don't know.

Anyway, I turned around and my best British accent said, oh, I'm sorry,

dude.

And he turned around and he said, don't dude me.

Wow.

It's a controversy on the beach.

Controversy.

I was like, hey, Zen, you know, it's all good.

Yeah.

Did you see the sign on my chest?

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, if I knew, if I'd been able to see you, if I had like the self

awareness and the spatial awareness to know that you were coming, I

would have jumped off and kindly got out of the way, but I didn't see

you.

I was on a 10 foot pool noodle coming at you.

You should have known better.

Exactly.

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Okay, so I wanted to pick your brain, the collective

Edmunds brain about something.

We were exploring some of these deals that are out,

especially with EV tax credits ending in about a month.

We have spoken, you and I, on the air about some aggressive

deals with billboard on the side of the freeway over here.

It says Honda Prolog 159 a month.

I called the Honda dealer and I said,

what's the deal I'm interested?

They said, okay, but just so you know,

it's going to be about 6,000 down.

And they're like, you got to read the fine print.

I was like, okay.

So that kind of brought up the issue of leasing and

transparency and what does it really mean to get into the car?

I mean, 6,000 down by the way is two to three times the

down payment of comparable vehicles.

You'd see them anywhere from 2,000 to maybe 3,500 down

somewhere around there.

So yeah, if you're going, hey, it's 159 a month,

but it's 6,000 down.

It's a 24 month lease.

Really how much am I paying overall for the whole package

for that to own that vehicle for two years versus something

that might be 250, 300 a month and half the down payment.

So sort of how to navigate that and don't get too caught up

in the low payment at first because there could be a big

down payment.

Now you can make the down payment effectively feel less

impactful if you have a trade.

If you're going to the Honda dealer and you've got to use

car and it's worth six grand and they go,

we'll give you six grand for your trade.

So now you're at zero down and 159 a month.

You're like, wow, that's a good deal.

But you did just give them your car.

Yeah.

So you just got to look at it in the round.

And it's the old fashioned trip trick.

You're driving down the 405.

You've got this huge billboard that says 80 bucks a month

and you go, wow, let's get one of those.

Even I can afford that.

And then you're getting the fine print

and that's with $15,000 down.

So it is a trick.

You've got to think about the lease.

Effectively, what am I paying for the time

that I will have that vehicle?

And most leases today are either typically 36,

particularly on the EV side, you know,

a lot of the deals on offer are actually for 24 months.

So you've got to basically look at what is my down payment

plus what is my monthly payment,

total it up and then divide it by the number of months

that you will have the vehicle.

And that's the de facto cost of the vehicle.

So we've been looking at this kind of,

we have a lot of obviously at Edmunds,

we have a crazy amount of data

and how can we kind of populate this

and how can we manipulate this data?

So for a long time we've done a page

which was like 199 lease deals or 299 lease deals.

And now we have this hidden gems page.

Now I was talking to our product team this morning

and said, if you're going on there and talking about this,

this is a early prototype

and with the best over the air updates,

it will get better and better.

But if you Google Edmunds hidden gems

and then tap in your postcode,

it will actually bring up your zip code, I should say.

It will actually bring up all the best deals in your area.

And what we're showing is the due at signing

and then the month at least cost.

But what we're also doing,

if you're watching on YouTube,

you can actually see this in the picture where it says gem deal.

We're actually calculating based on a,

some complex maths in the background

how good a deal this actually is.

And typically the way the leasing industry works,

I'm going to try and explain this in very simple terms,

is you are looking at a measure of how long it would take you

to pay down the MSRP of that vehicle.

So you can basically add up the down payment

plus the lease cost,

compare that to the cost and plus the monthly cost,

compare that to the overall MSRP of the vehicle

and work out how long it would take to pay down the full MSRP.

And that gives you a measure of how good the deal is.

This is used across the industry.

It sounds complicated.

It's actually not that complicated.

And behind the scenes,

this is what our gem deal notification is actually doing.

It's basically looking at the overall price of the vehicle,

looking at the cost of the lease,

calculating whether it is a good deal or a bad deal.

And then also in the case of the Tacoma that you got on screen,

Matt, it's giving you an idea as to where this sits relative

to the rest of the market.

So in this example, there's a 24 Toyota Tacoma.

So obviously they're trying to probably clear out

some of the 24 stock due at signing 3 grand,

219 a month, which looks like a great deal,

not a huge amount down at signing.

And we're saying, look, this is 318 bucks

per average per month.

So yes, you're buying a 24, not a 26 as we're almost into,

but it's still a brand new vehicle, still a great vehicle.

And frankly, Toyota didn't change it in the meantime.

So that to me looks like a really good deal.

And so it starts to sound complicated.

But I think if you're just shopping,

the two critical things that you need to look at,

how much am I paying at signing?

How much is it going to cost me a month going forward?

How long is the lease deal?

Typically 24 or 36 months.

And then have a look at this page

and we'll give you an indication

as whether we think it's a good deal or not.

Yeah, okay.

I think I'd like to see some of the math for me.

I'd like to see the 219 a month times 36

plus the due at signing and just go,

here's the total for my 36 months.

So if you look at the viewful program details, Matt,

we give you a little bit more information on the page.

You've also got to look at how many miles.

I mean, typically these deals are done on 10,000 miles.

You can sometimes reduce the lease cost by,

maybe it's just going to be running around a city

and you're only going to do 5,000 or 8,000 miles a year.

I think my lease is on 8,000 miles

because we don't take the car that far beyond LA.

There's all these little factors that you can use

to tune the lease cost.

So if you're only going to do 5,000 miles a year,

don't buy 12,000 miles a year

because you're not going to see that money back.

Yeah.

And of course, there are the caveats that,

to some extent, this depends on your credit rating.

If you've got bad credit, you're not going to get

access, sadly, to the best deals,

but I guess that applies to everything in life, unfortunately.

Yeah.

And like you mentioned, if you go to this page,

start here, start where you type in your zip code

because it will be different in different areas for sure.

You would be surprised actually from state to state

how different it can be.

I mean, we've seen some extraordinary lease deals

on like dodges in Colorado,

which you just can't get in California

or, you know, Detroit or anything else.

I mean, there's like a Hornet here as we're going through.

I mean, this is kind of a good example.

2024 Dodge Hornet.

You know, maybe not the sexiest car in the world,

but $99 a month with, you know, three and a half down.

You know, that's still a lot of car for not a lot of money.

Yeah.

And you've got a brand new car with a warranty.

You know, Wrangler 4XC, you know,

three, four grand down, $149 a month.

That is just for two years.

So in two years' time,

you've got to go through this process again.

ID4.

I mean, this is, you know, ID4 is particularly

after the sort of refresh that they did of it.

That's a pretty decent vehicle.

Two and a half thousand down, $129 a month.

I mean, we're saying that's $402 a month below average.

So that's a cracking deal for two years.

And even if you're just having that deal for two years,

that's a lot of car for two years.

The other thing you've got to bear in mind,

a lot of these we're looking down on EVs,

is what is happening at the end of September

or the least all the tax credits go away.

Yeah.

So it'll be very interesting to see what happens to these deals

at the end of September.

This is going to be the big conundrum for the manufacturer

because suddenly your 200 a month deal

will become 400 a month just because you've got to absorb

another seven and a half thousand bucks.

So what happens then?

Do the manufacturers support it?

Do they put more money against it?

Or, you know, do all these lease deals go up?

So I mean, honestly, if you're in the market for an EV,

now is a good time.

No question.

If you're in the market for these deals, it's like, wow.

Yeah.

Take into account that tax credit and that gets rolled into

a reduction on the price of the vehicle

that you're leasing.

That's right.

Very simple terms.

The vehicle's 40 grand.

It's seven and a half grand off that.

So suddenly the deal is worked out on 32 and a half thousand,

not 40,000.

And then come October the 1st,

we worked out on 40,000.

So you do get this kind of compound effect.

But what's striking as well is you kind of tend to imagine

that the mega deals will be on old cars.

We mentioned, like, a couple of 24s

were probably still sitting around in inventory.

But looking at this list of our deals,

and this bear in mind is in California,

the, you know, the EV center of the universe,

Hyundai Arnick nine, that's a brand new vehicle.

Yeah.

And, you know, not only is it a brand new vehicle,

but it's a brand new very, very good vehicle

that we rate really highly.

You know, 5,000 down is quite a bit down.

But then it's in 279 a month for a big three row,

you know, big three row electric SUV

with a, you know, with an MSRP of over 60 grand.

That's a hell of a deal.

Yeah.

And it's also not just mainstream brands.

You know, we're seeing Audi Q.

There's good deals on EVs, but not everything has to be EV.

There's some pretty decent.

Yeah.

Audi Q for each on 359 with admittedly a fair bit down.

But yeah, Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid.

You know, it's based on the Nissan Rogue.

Again, maybe not a class leading vehicle.

Maybe we don't look and say this is, you know,

the best vehicle.

But frankly, if it's, if there's a mega deal to be done,

Mazda CX CX 70, I mean, these are, you know,

Jeep Grand Cherokee Forexie.

This is some good, you know, some great choices.

Hyundai Tucson is a fantastic vehicle.

Now, I mean, the other thing at the moment is, of course,

we're moving from 25 to 26.

So a lot of dealers are starting to get the 26 model years in.

So you always have this little bit of a sell-off of the 25s.

Yes.

And then there is some other fine print you got to look at.

So you can do the research online or speak to the dealer.

But for example, and like with the Honda, the 159 a month,

that deal is to get people to switch from a current manufacturer

to Honda.

Right.

So if you, that deal is effective if you own certain cars,

certain makes and model cars, and they have a list that needs

to be 2010 or newer from a certain, from their list of cars.

Otherwise it's, it's a little bit more like it's 199 or 189

or whatever it is.

So you kind of have to look at the, the fine print of the details.

But also it's like, what does it matter what you previously

own?

If, if you're not trading it in, I mean, if you are trading

it in, then I, then I guess it does matter.

But if you're not trading it in, is that lease still valid?

You know, so you kind of have to look at, at the fine print,

which we discovered.

And also it's still, in a lot of these cases, you know,

there's still negotiation to be done.

Yeah.

So it's not like, even if we're publishing this and you go

into dealer, then yeah, there's always little nuances of the deal.

There's still a conversation to be had.

And we were talking just before we came on air about the,

the Mustang Mackey.

And I remember looking for to buy, to lease one of those,

just as we're coming out of the pandemic and being quoted

$900 a month and just be, and kind of being deciding that

that was absolutely not going to happen.

And now they're like 250 a month.

It's, it's, you know, and so why, you know, we talked last

week Ford lost $5.1 billion last year on its EV program.

There's a reason, right?

You know, you've gone from 900 books at which point

Ford's making a profit.

Dealers making a profit.

Happy days to 250 a month.

Dealers not making barely any money.

Ford's making zero money.

They're losing money.

Yeah.

So it's, you know, the only win there is actually the consumer.

So if you are the consumer right now, it's not a bad time.

It's a pretty good time actually.

Right.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So yeah, like we were saying, you got to, you kind of have

to dig into the fine print.

This is a great page that you guys are working on.

Again, it's, it's, it's edmunds.com slash lease deals.

Right.

Or just Google Edmunds, Edmunds gem deals.

Both, both will, both will, both will take you there.

It's also quite good sport.

Isn't it?

Like it's, it's always kind of, I get this every week.

Can we do a newsletter every Saturday, which also you can

sign up for.

Good plug.

You can sign up to our deals newsletter every, every Saturday.

And it is, it's always fun just to see like what crazy

deals are out there.

Yeah.

I mean, like Ionic nine, I would never have guessed that

they had like a mega deal on that at the moment, just

because it's a brand new highly rated vehicle.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's good.

There you go.

Sensible shopping advice.

Last week we had Bugatti's president this week.

Sensible shopping advice.

Let's, we're going to take a short break.

And then I want to get into an interesting list of

vehicles that we are not going to see any longer.

So we'll be right back.

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So another Edmunds list that you guys have been compiling.

This is really out of convenience for us.

This isn't like, hey, what have you guys been working on?

And should we talk it about it on the phone?

It doesn't mean just yet,

but it really is out of convenience for us.

like, hey, what have you guys been working on? Should we talk about it on the podcast?

I was actually thinking more like, why don't we talk about lease deals? And you're like,

we have a page for that. It's like, great. Now I don't have to write down a whole bunch of notes.

You guys can write it all down for us. But deals, cars that, not deals, cars that we're not

going to see, cars that are going to get discontinued. Probably good deals, actually.

Probably good deals. These are the stock left. Yeah.

All right. Where do we begin?

Yeah, this is so we basically just, I mean, this is obviously the, as I was talking about earlier,

this is the model year change point. We're going from 25s to 26. And, you know, everybody gets

obsessed with having the, you know, the latest upgrade. Actually, one final point on the

shopping advice that I didn't say is it's well worth looking at Edmunds or even the

manufacturer website and working out, is there a difference between 25 and 26 model year? Because

a lot of the time, nothing changes or they might have, you know, a new shade of blue.

Right. But sometimes, particularly on the EVs, there will be, you know, maybe it's got a bigger

screen or they've got this or they've changed the battery. So it's always worth just checking

out that, you know, if you look at the IONIX 6, for example, the deals are on the 2025,

but that car's having a mid-cycle refresh, which actually makes quite a big difference

to aesthetics and everything else. So, you know, in that case, yeah, there's mega deals

because basically it's now an old car. In other examples like the Tacoma,

off the top of my head, I don't think Toyota has done anything to that car because it's

basically a brand new truck. So, you know, maybe there's a fresh coat of, you know,

different shade of paint. So I think it's worth, that's the only thing, it's just

worth doing a little bit of research. And if you go to Edmunds, we actually do

list everything that changes by model year. So, you know, that's the only caveat.

And if cars have been sitting around the lots, we're really kind of looking at 24, 25 and 26.

Well, the days to turn, that's a day, I mean, the auto industry is full of data points. And

that's another data point that we track is like days to turn. And we know that the

Mustang Mach-E, for example, days to turn is, I haven't got the exact figures,

but last time I looked, I think it was over 200 days. And what days to turn means is

dealers receive that, you know, dealer has car, car is sitting on dealer lot for more than 200 days

before car is sold. I mean, it's still sold as a new car. Yeah. But, you know, whereas other cars,

Lexus GX brings to mind, you know, they can't build them fast enough, Toyota Grand Highlander

can't build them fast enough. That means, you know, good deals, because the dealer wants to get

this, you know, wants his car part back. Right. You might get the new inventory,

the space, if you think about it, it all adds up as costs to that dealer, the longer those cars are

there. Yeah. And maybe depending on how it's financed, and you know, there's all sorts of

equations that, you know, that feed into it. And if it doesn't sound like a lot of time,

but yeah, when there's that much time, there are some changes to the vehicle. I think you

guys got the new Tesla Model 3, and you were talking about how it's significantly better ride

quality, more comfortable. Yeah. The Model 3 was always kind of bumpy in the back, especially around

LA, where there are so many that are Uber drivers, and you're in the back, you're like,

this is, yeah. Model Y actually, more than Model 3, it's like revolutionary, how about how much

better the ride is. So yeah, it's worth, it's like all things automated, you're like, you've

got to do your homework. A lot of times, these deals like Ionic 9, brand new car, mega deal.

You know, Ionic 6, you're buying the old car, but it's actually still a good car.

Yeah. You know, you're just not getting the new, the new version of it. So, you know,

all these things you just, you've just got to weigh up. But that's, I mean, that's,

guess that's why we exist. Okay, let's take a look at this list. Let's see what's going on.

What are we, what are we going to miss? That's exciting on this list. I was going to say,

what are we going to miss? We're going to talk Acura, TLX. Are we going to miss that? Probably

not so much. No, probably not. Not with Integra. Is Integra staying around for a little while

longer? Well, yeah, I mean, TLX is sort of bigger, it was bigger than that. But I mean,

they barely sell it. And nobody buys those sort of like, you know, larger sedans. I mean, I

mean, I know Camry still sells, but you know, TLX not so much. Audi A4 S4, well, that's just a

bit of a name change, to be honest. They've, it's now going across to the A5 and the S5.

Yeah. And that's, I've driven those. I mean, it's kind of,

they went through this period, I think they've now scrapped where even numbers were going,

I think this is why even numbers were going to EVs, odd numbers were going to be gas.

And I think everybody said this is ridiculous. We can't know that way now. We,

nobody can remember what this means. And so I think they've got rid of that. But in the

meantime, the A4 has become the A5. So it's dying, but kind of not in that there's the new

A5, which is actually quite nice. Right. That's a, that's more of a lateral move,

I think, we just named. Correct. It's a sideways. It's a sideways.

Interesting. M8, which I like, but I don't see a lot. So maybe not a huge loss there,

but I do like that vehicle. BMW XM, that's the ugly one that's rolling around, I think.

Right. It's also kind of confusing. So no, M8, I think I will miss. I actually

really like the, I think it's really cool. I like the M8.

The four door version as well. You know, I was like, if you want a family, you know,

like me, you've got kids, you've got to, if you don't want to buy an SUV, but you want

something, you know, you got money and you want something that's like the Panamera choice,

isn't it? It's something that gives you, potentially the best of all worlds. I've

had a soft spot for the M8. It's, it's a, I think it's probably the best looking

BMW at the moment. And it's always been, it's always been good to drive.

So yeah, M8 Coupe, as long as you look at the four door M8, presumably they've just got,

they've just got some stock running. But I do like the coupe. I like the look of the coupe more.

Yeah. And then they've got, yeah, because the proportions, you put four doors, and it's always

a bit confusing to the eye. BMW XM, so they're going to keep going, I think with the,

I think it's just the, like they're called a red label trim, which is like the flagship one.

Honestly, when people say like, what's one of the worst cars that you've driven in,

in recent years, XM, I just thought was a, even BMW quietly will admit that,

you know, it's basically a poses car for certain parts, for certain parts of LA or the,

or the Middle East. Yeah, it's, it's a little confusing. It's a little confusing.

Okay, X4. Yeah, so the X4, because X3 is such a big seller, right? Yeah, X4 was that,

X4 was that sort of, we're kind of looked a bit like a coupe, a bit like,

Yeah, the coupe version of like X3. Yeah, not, I don't think it'll be missed.

Cadillac XT6, but we kind of knew what was going on with Cadillacs that are doing a

refresh in the lineup of pretty much everything. So no one's going to miss the XT6.

I don't think.

Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to miss the, miss the XT6. It's,

the only thing that I think Cadillac's got an issue with now is, you know,

they've gone all in on EVs and the VISTIQ, we talked about last week,

love the new VISTIQ, think it's a great vehicle. It's just that, well, they miss a gas

three row, maybe. Well, they've got the, look at the Ford side, Ford Escape, Lincoln Corsair,

Ford Escape is, is the street version of a Bronco Sport. If it's, if you need a more

street version of a Bronco Sport and the Bronco Sport at least has some character and it seems

to be selling. So do we need a Ford Escape? I think this is also part of that. Well,

they struggled to sell it and also they have to put a lot of money behind it to shift it.

And I think what they've also, you know, this whole no boring cars idea,

the Bronco Sport, as you say, is just like a kind of slightly cooler version of a Ford Escape

anyway. So people are just, just by that. Escape was always kind of a bit half-hearted

anyway. It was like, sort of, you know, it's a pretty mediocre product that doesn't really,

it's just another identity SUV. That whole market has been refreshed, RAV4's coming,

CRV's already here, new CX-5. So it just feels very old and tired.

Although you could probably go get one pretty cheap.

You could get one, you could probably get one pretty cheap. And if you just want something,

it's like a decent, honest vehicle. Yeah.

Okay. Corsair is the link conversion of the Escape.

Electrified GV-80, that's a real niche within a niche. G8 is a nice, this is a genesis. G8

is a nice thing. The gas car will continue. EV was a bit left field. So again, probably not a

big drama. Yeah, it's interesting. So Hyundai and Kia is doing so much,

they're having success in the EV space. But genesis didn't really catch on,

like the higher-end versions of what they were doing. Like you said, the sedan never really

caught on. The SUV is like the GV-60, kind of cool. I think the larger version. Maybe

they're working on a flagship GV-90, I think they're working on. Yeah, there's a lot of

rumors that they're doing a three-row, like a posh three-row. Yeah. Which I think will be a nice

thing. Although it's funny, we were talking about that. I drove the Hyundai Palisade this week,

and I think we were planning to get more into this next week. But it's hard for

genesis because the Hyundai's have got so good. Yeah. And they're kind of,

I mean, there's deals on them, but the MSRP is kind of pricey on them.

Yeah. The leap from the Hyundai to genesis is pretty modest. There's quite a lot of crossover.

We're talking about it right here on the page is the ad for the Hyundai IONIQ 9.

And it's like, that's kind of what you would expect the genesis to look like.

That's right. I mean, we talked about this year. We have our genesis GV-60 parked outside,

and we had an IONIQ 9 for the weekend. We were testing and we went on a family vacation. And

I was talking to my wife about it, and she's like, I can barely tell the difference.

You know, the genesis has got a Bang and Olsen high-fi. The Hyundai's got a Bose. Does it really

matter? Probably not. Infinity QX50, QX55. Nobody's going to care, unfortunately, sadly.

You know, and they've got the new QX60 or QX65 and the QX80?

The QX60 is kind of only slightly bigger and only slightly more expensive. So

there's no real value in keeping the rest of them on the books. And a lot of their

attention on QX80. We saw the concepts at the quail and pebble for the two SUVs,

the Infinity that Infinity had. Yeah, Infinity. I mean, the QX80, the new QX80,

which is their sort of new direction of travel, is a nice, you know, I think is a nice thing for a

full-size one. So again, it's just a tired old car, a bit like the Escape. Lexus RC,

it's been around forever, 10 years old. You know, its time is done. But it was always

kind of cool, you know, 5-liter V8. Yeah, still sounded good.

Yeah, it might be a nice second hand buy if you want a kind of luxury coupe and

don't need that much space. EQB was pretty dreadful. The Mercedes, yeah, the Mercedes.

Bye-bye. This is, this is like a sad one, Porsche 718, Boxter and Cayman.

Yeah, I think they screwed this up with the, putting the four-cylinder into it.

I know at the time it was like, we need to do something different and its emissions and

its blah, blah, blah. But it was such a bad engine that just compromised that car so much.

And then they did the GTS and they put the six-cylinder back in, but then it was a load of money.

So this is going to be an interesting thing for Porsche because the Boxter and the Cayman

are, you know, the small, sporty version. And you want that excitement, that feedback.

You want to, you know, hit that thing on a Sunday morning or Saturday morning.

And switching this to EV versions as the plan is,

I think they're going to have a tough time resonating with the customer.

I think it's going to be, and I think they know it now. I mean, I think they had a tough time

resonating with the customer, selling a four-cylinder Boxter because he just didn't have that.

You know, a big part of Porsche is the noise. You know, it's the fact that you've got that almost

unique flat six howl. And even at low speech, you feel it and hear it. And I just,

just the four-cylinder just never had that. And because of the mid-engine configuration,

they couldn't do some of the tricks to improve the noise that they could in other vehicles.

So, you know, the, the GTS Boxter and GTS Cayman with the six-cylinder engine,

I think that will go on to become collectible. And obviously the GT4s and the GT4 RS as well.

But I think, sadly, the four-cylinder car will just, you know, will be,

will be instantly forgotten. And yeah, now they're going to do the electric one.

I think it's been delayed a little bit. But what will, how will that do? I mean,

well, how's the McCann electric doing?

Not great. I haven't looked at the latest figures, but not, not, not fantastic.

Yeah. I, funny because I try to see them on the road because the McCann, you know, you're like,

hey, this is kind of entry-level, you know, Porsche SUV-ish. So you see McCanns everywhere.

But when you get to the EV and it's expensive and it's just not quite connecting with the

customer, I've seen a handful on the road. I just don't see that many and maybe they're

not standing out as much, but you know, it has sort of the distinctive front end with no real

sort of grill to it. So you can kind of tell that's the EV version. Not, not seen a lot.

I think the, certainly, right, you know, there's a lot, a lot of gas McCanns where I live. And

if you are a bit of an affluent enthusiast, but you need a family vehicle, then,

you know, that, that was almost the kind of, you know, if you could afford it, that was almost

the default that you had the Porsche badge. It still felt like a Porsche. It drove fantastic.

And, you know, that you could, you could have that as your, as your family car.

And I just don't hear, you know, you don't hear people saying, oh, I want the electric version.

I think it's too expensive, too small in terms of not maybe the footprint, but the

interior packaging is too small. They're going to have the electric Cayenne, which

I think is going to be a great product, but a ton of money.

Yeah. And then, you know, in time, we're going to have an electric box to another electric Cayman.

I don't know. I think the, the magic recipe for an electric Cayman would be

if you can get the Porsche characteristics that you're going to get in that thing.

But if you can get a range closer to a lucid gravity, and so you can actually use that vehicle

for, you know, some more of a trip. If you can get a Cayman with 400 miles of range,

420 miles of range, that would be interesting.

But the problem with the technology at the moment in order to do that, you're adding a ton

of weight. And yes, you can do it in a way that probably doesn't compromise handling too

much because it'll be low down the car. Central gravity will be low. But, you know, sports

cars, you want less and less weight, not more and more. So you're going to have to trade that.

You want, you want to go far. You're going to have to put, you know, more battery. And also,

from a aesthetic perspective, what do you want your boxer to look like? Because if you want to

go far, you want it super aerodynamic. You want this and that. And you end up looking like an

ionic six. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, look, we'll see what, we'll see what comes. I suspect

it'll be good to drive. Maybe it'll be good to drive. You know, it'll have some Porsche

characteristics. How much money is it going to be? We'll see. I mean, they're locked in on this now.

They can't re-engineer that car for gas engines. So, what are you going to do?

The boxer and Cayman are always a bit nichey anyway. We'll see. If you look at the sales

figures, you always imagine because it's the cheapest, they sell more. The reality is they

don't, you know, the 911 is still there. Still there. That I live is still the

go-to Porsche. And I think people would rather buy a used 911 than a new Boxster.

Yeah. We should dig in to see how the GTS is selling the hybrid 911.

Yeah, that's not really been pitched as a hybrid really. It's just a go-faster 911.

Yeah. And then the final one, now this is one, I'll just wrap things up,

our final one on the list. I think it's a bit sad. Volvo S90.

Volvo is basically saying, look, we're all in on SUVs, but, you know, we're not going to do sedans.

We're not even going to do wagons. I mean, Volvo without a wagon, what is Volvo without a wagon?

Yeah. S90, I just think it's just such a nice way to travel. I mean, they...

It's sharp looking.

They move like a... Pardon?

It's sharp looking. I think it's a great looking car.

They sold a thousand. It's just, yeah, like this afternoon, I'm going to have to drive.

It's Labor Day weekend. I'm going to have to drive like three or four hours

for a couple of nights away with the family. This would be just a lovely way to travel.

I was going to say, this would be perfect for that.

This would be absolutely perfect. I'd much rather take one of these than the X3 that I am going to

take. But, yeah, nobody wants... Maybe just people don't know about it.

You know, they don't got any money to market it. People don't know about it. Nobody buys

big sedans, certainly Volvo big sedans. You can find one of these in the used market,

Volvo S90. Lovely thing.

And I like big sedan. But, you know, I was just... We were just outside walking and someone pulled up

in a seven series and I'm coming up behind it. I'm like, seven series from the back. It's looking

good from the side. It's not bad from the front. It's not good. It just got like...

As I was walking up behind it, I was like, oh, this is sharp. And I was like, it's getting worse.

Every step closer to the front end, it's just getting worse. And I bet it's an amazing nice,

large sedan that's comfortable and does everything right. But it just... It's just starting to get

goofy in the front. I spend quite a bit of time in the AX7. And unless you really need

which is the electric version, unless you really need the space, it's not much that it does

that an AX5 doesn't do. But I think that's the challenge. It's just... I mean, it has that big

cinema screen in the back. But again, how much are you actually going to use that?

To your point though, if you get the bigger car which could fit a bigger battery and it gave

you a lot more range, then I would understand the difference between an i5 and an i7. But if

the ranges are going to be within 15 miles, 20 miles of each other, then do you need

the bigger one? Is it worth the extra money? Is it really that much different, like you're saying?

If you said, hey, the i5 is 280 miles of range and the i7 is 350 miles of range, but like, oh,

what is going to make more sense now? The other thing I love about that is that,

I don't even see, I think it's on the... I think it's on the services that you get those

illuminated BMW grills. So I think the grille, it looks a bit ridiculous anyway,

where it's just got too large. But then when it's got this LED ring around it,

like, I don't want to be somebody's billboard. I don't feel the need to drive down the highway

and announce the person in front, hey, I bought a very big BMW with a really ugly nose. I just

don't get that. I mean, I know there's certain people out there who want to do the whole

bling thing and want to shout Gucci from every pore of their body, but not me.

If you want me to advertise your product, you can pay me to advertise it.

I don't need a big LED badge on the front to tell people I'm driving a BMW.

And it accentuates the ugly nose, like you're going, I don't like the design of this,

but the beauty is that at night, people notice it more.

Yes.

All right. So what do you say? We're going to wrap things up. You're going to,

as we're recording this on a Friday and heading out to a long weekend, taking the family,

like you said, in the X5 road trip. X3. X3. X3. I still have a range of Raptor. So we're,

we got a Google desert near me, dirt near me, Google. Where is it? Where's the off road?

To Roa Flats or something. Yeah. There's a few, there's a few nice places.

Yeah. Gorman, which I haven't been out there, but

take a picnic. It's going to be hot as hell if you go out there, but take a picnic. Nice.

Yeah.

Bit of tailgating.

I'm going south from LA on a holiday weekend Friday. So, you know,

there's every chance we'll be recording next week's show from the traffic jam.

Unless the family will go to sleep or they'll read or they'll play with the phone or

whatever. I'll just speak. All right. Well, listen, have a good weekend.

We'll see you guys next week, everybody. I guess you're listening to this on a Monday.

So hopefully you had a good Labor Day or having a good Labor Day weekend.

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