Chevrolet Bolt Returns, Driving an Electric Lotus, Talking Big Pickups

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All right, in the studio with me is Paul Harold of the Sons of Speed.

Jill is out this week.

How are you, sir?

I'm well, Tom.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Yes, I think Jill's playing in some big sandbox or something like that.

Big sandbox?

Yes.

Yeah, people can follow her exploits there by going to rebelrally.com.

Yes.

You can go there, check it out, and there's like scoring and live updates and stuff like

that.

It's better this year than before.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

It sometimes is kind of confusing, and you really didn't get a sense of what was going

on until the end of the day, but now it seems a little bit more live.

Oh, okay.

Sounds good.

So there you have it.

How are you doing, man?

I'm doing well.

Real quick, for people who don't know, tell us about the Sons of Speed.

Sons of Speed is a media outlet where we focus in on the passion that vehicles bring you,

not just features, options, pricing, stuff like that.

We kind of dig into it.

We drive it.

We drive it on.

We try to drive it on track if we can.

If not, we will drive it spiritedly on a street and see what kind of emotions this car will

term up.

So what you don't have is a lot of videos of four-cylinder Malibus.

No.

No, we don't.

Although, if you gave us one, we'd drive it.

There was the Malibu got pretty good looking towards the end of its career with General

Motors, but like three generations ago, that was that horrible, weird, blocking Malibu.

Oh, yeah.

Why did anyone buy that?

I don't know.

It was so damn ugly.

Price.

Yeah.

It was just a rental special.

I don't know what the deal was with that.

It was awful.

Yeah.

And did you remember the Malibu Max?

No.

Oh, wait.

That was like a hatchback?

Here's a weird hatchy wagon.

And you can get an SS version of the hatchy wagon with a 3.9 liter V6, which is something.

Well, that's something.

It's something.

Yeah.

So I see them occasionally.

I think that there's a weird, strange car guy attachment to weird stuff like that.

That would be right up your alley, Tom.

It would be.

They weren't all that quick, though.

Oh, man.

So weird news from the world of automobiles.

First of all, the Chevrolet Bolt is back.

Yes.

And it's not nearly as different as I think we thought it was going to be.

You know, I don't think I've read into it yet.

So tell me all about it.

Well, it looks like the old Bolt, but it's been re-trimmed a little bit.

So we can call it a freshener if we want to.

But the big change is that they moved from a lithium-ion battery to a lithium-ion phosphate

battery.

Okay.

So that saves them some money, but the range is about the same.

Okay.

I was going to say, is this a better technology or just different?

Lithium-ion is less expensive and a little bit less likely to do bad things in a fire.

And it doesn't lose its capacity as much in cold weather.

Oh, okay.

Well, that's a plus act.

So those are all good things.

But what it doesn't have is the capacity.

So somehow they made this work.

So that's good.

And it's much cheaper to produce about a third cheaper.

So that's helping to keep the line on pricing.

Yeah.

But the Bolt, I don't know if they still call it Bolt EV.

When that drops later this year, it's going to start around $29,995.

There will be a cheaper version that will be $28,995 later.

Kind of a nice deal.

Yeah.

For an EV, that's a great deal.

And I love the old Bolt.

What a delightful little thing to drive.

Yeah.

That was actually really nice.

Just fun to drive.

It was zippy, fun.

The only problem with was it didn't charge very quickly.

Okay.

The new one charges more quickly.

So they have a bigger capacity on it, yeah.

Not much more quickly, but it's still better.

Okay.

All right.

Weird news.

And we're going to talk to Sam Fiorani after the break about this.

Okay.

But Tesla, Tesla's cheap model, I'm pretty disappointed because we were all led to believe

that we were going to hear an announcement soon about a $25,000 Tesla.

Okay.

That never going to happen.

Probably never.

Yeah.

Never going to happen.

All they really did was decontent the Model 3 and the Model Y.

Okay.

They took some price out of that, but they also took some range out of there and some

stuff out of there.

So it isn't just if they've broken a new ground.

It's just...

Isn't it like if you want the stuff that they took out, I think you can get it through

a subscription maybe or something?

Oh, I don't know that.

Yeah.

That feels very Tesla-driven.

Yeah.

So I thought I read something about that.

But ironically, it makes it more expensive than just paying for it up front.

It's also weird.

Yeah.

So there's three trim levels now.

Standard, premium and performance standard are the new ones.

Okay.

And that's for the Model 3, the little sedan and the Model Y, the little crossover.

Base price for the Model Y is now $41,630 with destination and for the Model 3, $38,630

with destination.

These don't feel like shockingly great values.

No.

Especially with a $7,500 credit gone now.

It's $40,000.

Yeah.

And by all accounts, the Model 3 and Model Y are good cars.

They're fun to drive and they get the job done.

But they're not a whole lot cheaper here.

So we'll see what goes on with that.

Sam's got some thoughts.

He told me that.

Okay.

Good.

We'll be talking to him about that.

I'm waiting for a very interesting bit of news and I think the test drives have already

begun but a little bit like a new Pope.

There's a new RAV4 coming.

Okay.

Yes.

Big deal.

It is a big deal.

It's like, I think that's Toyota's number one SUV, right?

What's that?

Isn't that Toyota's number one SUV?

It's the world.

Yeah.

The world's number one SUV.

Both Americas.

Okay.

I really don't know what's the best SUV in Western Europe but they sold 475,000 of these things

last year.

Can't make them fast enough.

That's like old Mustang kind of sales numbers or old Caprice classic in the 70s guys.

Yeah.

These are huge sales numbers.

Huge numbers.

And I just, I went and checked the other cars in the class, the CR-V about 4,000, 400,000

units, the Rogue about 245,000, Chevy Equinox sneaking in there about 210,000 and the Forester

about 175,000.

Okay.

So you have very few vehicles doing a whole lot of volume here.

Yeah.

And if you're shopping in this category, I know you should probably just read our reviews

and buy the one we suggest but really honestly you should test drive them all.

Sure.

These are all really good vehicles.

Yeah.

And they all cater to different demographics.

So you know, somebody might not be looking for something specific that one model has

but another one does.

And I'm going to say something weird and I've said it before and it still feels strange

but the Chevy Equinox is good looking.

It is.

Since when does Chevy have like a popular good looking car?

It always seemed like they just kind of sold on price.

You know?

Yeah.

And they were decent and but now they're right out there.

And what was worse with GM before was the interiors but now they've kind of cleaned

up those as well.

They have.

Yeah.

All right.

This is totally off topic.

Okay.

I want to talk interior for a second.

So I just drove the Audi S5.

Okay.

And it's the most confusing thing in the whole world because do you know what happened here?

No.

They killed the A4 and the S4.

Yes.

So it's going to have dual duty now.

So the A numbers, the A5 replaces that vehicle.

Yeah.

Even though it was kind of a premium fast baggy thing with a hatchback, that's now their

compact sedan.

And it is by every measure a wonderful car.

I drove the A5 with the turbocharged 6, whatever it was, 360 plus horsepower.

Delightful car.

But I remember when Audi just sort of led the industry and the interior to some point,

they were the top ring of interiors.

It's not happening anymore.

Yeah.

It's absolutely Genesis thing now.

Genesis is crushing it out of the water.

Crushing it.

I've got Genesis coming Wednesday, actually, the GV70.

But I don't get what Audi's doing here.

It's a very nice interior in terms of materials and craftsmanship and like everything looks

high end.

Yeah.

But it's dull.

It's just kind of somber.

It's just, I think it's just trying to appeal to everybody.

Yeah, maybe.

And not focusing on a niche.

And sometimes that just, they just go astray and start doing dull things.

I guess because it's so weird.

I remember 10, 15 years ago getting into an Audi A8.

Yes.

And that's their big sedan.

Their S-Class, their 7 Series.

And the interior was bright.

There were a lot of bright colors and textures.

And all the wood inlay was surrounded by this really nice sort of matte finish aluminum.

Like this is gorgeous.

Yeah.

It was really high-endy.

This is furniture.

Yeah.

It was like a walnut type of furniture look to it too.

Yeah.

It was really classy.

Yeah.

And that's gone.

Yeah.

And now it kind of, if you get a BMW with a black interior, same effect.

You kind of wish that there was more wood.

For a while, yeah.

You wish there was a little bit more warm and cozy and stuff.

Yeah.

And that's my complaint here, especially because the 5, which is a really weird car in their

lineup, used to be kind of a premium alternative to the mainstream vehicles.

So you want just a little more from that interior.

Yeah.

But whatever.

It's a great car.

Yeah.

And I'd like to see it with a lighter interior and see if that looks better.

But I'm kind of bummed.

I mean, this used to be the hardest thing.

I get it.

Yeah.

All right.

So you recently attended Chicago Drives Electric.

Yes.

And then you drove something cool.

But tell us about Chicago Drives Electric.

So the CATA, which is the authority that runs the Chicago Auto Show.

Yeah, those guys.

They get together with Komet and they put together a show for basically the public.

So I think it's like four days long.

And the public can go.

They just need to register like a time window and then they can go down there and basically

drive any EV that they want through like a little loop around Oakbrook and get a good

feel for all sorts of EVs.

And what's great is because all different manufacturers are in one spot.

You don't have to like spend six days driving to every different dealer and driving everyone's

individual EV.

You can kind of do it all in one place.

I was talking to Jim O'Brien, who's one of the people that places together over at CATA.

And they have no problem filling the time slots.

So there are people interested in EVs and they filled up quick.

They do.

So they didn't really promote this event because it sort of promoted itself.

And there are other similar events across the country, including one that was touring

in Chicago.

I forgot what it was.

Yes, there was one, but I heard it didn't do as well for some reason.

But...

Tried to get the promoters on this show, but it didn't happen.

Yeah, but no, what's great is also the morning, the first day morning is for the press.

So we kind of get to go there and take a look around and then any afternoon the public starts.

So I found a vehicle that I've never seen before, the Lotus Electra, which is actually

a Hungarian word that means coming to life.

I wrote that down too.

Did you?

Okay, okay.

See, we're on the same page.

We are, yeah.

We do our research.

Because when I think electric vehicles, I think Hungary.

Yes, but it was actually made in China by Keely.

But it's, you're ready for this, it has 905 horsepower.

So obviously as soon as I saw that, a smile started cracking on my face.

This is interesting because it's so not Lotus.

The Lotus 7, which people remember the TV show The Prisoner, the car that was being

driven around at the beginning of that show, was a Lotus 7, curb weight, 750 pounds.

The curb weight of the Electra is like 5,700.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's got the big battery.

It's got the battery.

It's a huge battery.

It's a huge battery and it's got obviously some big motors to get 905 horsepower out

of it.

So, but yeah, so I drove that and it is, it's nice.

It's very nice.

Is it?

It's, oh my, you hit the accelerator pedal.

You better make sure when you hit the accelerator pedal, you have at least 150 feet of complete

clear roadway in front of you because you will be, you're just going to rock it out

of there.

I'm fascinated by this vehicle just because I'm fascinated by whatever Lotus is now.

And Lotus hasn't sold a street legal car since like 2001, so they're kind of getting

back into that.

Most of they were selling cars that were prepped for the track that you couldn't put license

plates on.

But they did have, they did have like the VOR and stuff like that was.

Yeah, for years.

Yeah.

Very low volume, usually powered by Toyota engines.

Yes.

I think that was a good relationship for them, but, but I'm confused by what this is supposed

to be and how they're going to make money on it.

They have 39 dealers in the United States.

Yes.

Well, I mean, they obviously have a lot of things to sort out, but, but the sponsor that

brought this one over was Glenview Luxury Imports.

Okay.

So it's a local dealer.

Yes.

So a big shout out to them.

And I know they have other vehicles as well, but the guy that was there, Richard, he was

really nice to us and got us into the vehicle and, and had one of his employees sit down

with us and kind of show us, you know, how everything worked.

So it was great.

I don't even know what a Lotus would look like inside.

How's the interior?

Well, I'll show you some pictures, but yeah, it's, it's pretty cool inside.

It's very futuristic.

And even the hood, like it's sculpted where you can kind of see through parts of it into

the street.

You know, so it's got, it's got a very unique design.

The one that was there was a carbon package, which was their, I think their most expensive

one came in around 230 grand.

Yeah.

But, you know, when you think about, I mean, it's, it is a Lotus.

It's designed to handle and, and to perform.

So in it, in it, it does the people you spoke to, did they talk at all about manufacturing?

Because obviously they're being whacked by serious tariffs right now.

Yes.

In fact, that was part of the reason why it's 230,000 hours.

I think 30 of that was, was pure tariff.

Okay.

But, but, you know, it's obviously they're trying to work out something where they can

bring in more of these, but they, they had two of them there.

And, they, when they have a presence, when you see them, they do look like a lifted

up, you know, sports car.

It's, it's interesting that Lotus got into this, and I think Lotus needs to do this

to survive.

But all of your exotic manufacturers and, and ultra luxury manufacturers now have sporty

cars, sporty crossovers.

Yes.

And some of them are EVs, which you got the Ferrari Pure Sang and, and, and, thank you.

And, and the Bentley Bentayga and, and the Lamborghini Urus.

Yeah.

So, Urus, Urus.

Urus, yeah.

Urus.

Hate that.

But all these cars are out there and they're crazy and they're going to be the volume cars

for these manufacturers.

Most likely, yeah.

Yeah.

Because the other things they sell, you don't really drive daily.

Correct.

So.

The SUVs, I mean, we are an SUV society now, period.

So if they make an SUV, people are going to buy it.

And Ferrari's talking, I forgot what the name of it is.

Maybe they didn't name it, but there's a Ferrari EV coming.

Oh gosh.

What was the name of it?

But it's electric.

Yeah, it's electric.

Yeah.

And it's supposed to weigh 5,800 pounds, which is so anti-Ferrari.

And the same way that anything that weighs a lot is anti-Lotus.

Yeah.

I think even Lotus more so.

Well, Lotus's was, their tagline was like.

Add more lightness.

Add more lightness or something.

Yeah.

Colin Chapman.

Yeah.

They were crazy.

And, and those cars were really successful on the track.

And they were teeny-tiny.

Yeah.

Plus they had a little bit of F1 history, too.

So.

Yeah.

It's a cool brand.

And for a long time, they kept changing owners.

And Lotus was, stopped sort of becoming a car maker and became more of an engineering

firm.

Yes.

And over time, children motors had owned it.

I think even wasn't, like, Isuzu or something had, like, a little tagline suspension by Lotus.

Yes.

And I forgot what car it was on.

The imp...

Was there?

Was it the Isuzu?

Oh gosh.

I can't remember the name.

Oh, Impulse.

Maybe, yeah.

I think it was the Impulse, yeah.

It actually had handling or suspension by Lotus on the fender.

Yeah.

And I had a Ford, an all-white Ford Ranger.

I really wanted to get one of those and stick it on my fenders.

It would have been a lie, but still, it would have been pretty funny.

So what are the plans for this car now?

Is it in the U.S. for sale now?

Yes.

Okay.

So they have the R version and the carbon version, which have the huge horsepower, 905 horsepower.

They are going to be coming out with a base model a little later.

That's got only 603 horsepower, I say only, lightly.

And that's going to be like just over 100 grand.

Interesting.

It's going to be weird, too, because they're going to have a product to sell now.

Yeah.

So...

With some relatively broad appeal.

Yeah.

So we'll see what happens with Lotus there.

Yeah, it's just a fun brand.

I always liked the...

What was the bond car?

Was that the Esprit or the Elan?

Esprit.

Esprit, yes.

Yeah.

The one that turned into a submarine.

Yeah.

That was awesome.

When I was a kid, that was awesome.

That was a great looking car.

Yeah.

The spy who loved me.

Okay.

That was the movie.

I just saw that scene, I think, on YouTube.

I love that.

Yeah.

The car just takes off underwater.

That's very cool.

I don't think they'll do that with the EV.

Probably not.

Oh, man.

So that vehicle is on sale now.

It's a lot of money and you have to find a Lotus dealer.

Yes.

And there's a couple of them around here.

You're in the Chicago area.

You're in Chicago, you're good.

Go on View.

Go to Go on View and there are the luxury imports.

Go on View, luxury imports.

Yeah.

If you're in Albuquerque, this might be tougher.

Yes.

I don't know how many Lotus dealers are out that way.

All right.

We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we talk to Sam Fiorani, the vice president of global forecasting

at Auto Forkast Solutions.

Stick around.

Questions or comments?

Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

Welcome back to the Car Stuff Podcast.

And we're back.

This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast.

I'm Tom.

He is Paul Harold of the Sons of Speed sitting in for Jill this week.

Jill is back.

It was what we just discussed next Monday.

Okay.

We'll hear about all her exploits.

I did not see the little Frony face show up on the Rebel rally thing.

So I think she still has all her limbs.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

That's important.

She was going to pour a Frony face if she lost a limb.

Okay.

So that would be bad.

What about a half a limb or something?

I don't know.

Oh, okay.

And then if she loses a limb, does she use that as an excuse not to be here on Monday?

Okay.

Well, just let me know.

I'll come in.

Okay.

All right.

But so far, so good.

I think she still has four limbs.

Good.

All right.

Real quick, ask me about social media.

Tom, are you on social media?

I am, dude.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Thanks for asking.

I am Car Guy Tom on Twitter X and I'm Blue Sky.

And oh, man, I'm really late.

I haven't done my Saturday collection yet.

Oh.

So I got to get those up.

That's a hashtag car spotter.

Yes.

So, yeah, when we see good stuff, I post it.

Good for you.

Good.

And we are MotorDriven.com.

Excellent.

All right.

On the phone with us is Sam Fiorani.

He is vice president of global forecasting and auto forecast solutions.

Sam, how are you today?

Doing very well.

How are you guys?

Doing good, man.

Thank you for joining us this week.

You've been busy doing all sorts of things.

I have.

I've had, uh, judged a couple car shows, uh, attended a anti-car parade, been all over

the place.

Anti-car parade.

That doesn't sound good.

Oh, it was great.

I, I got to get my old MG into the parade and it was the, uh, I believe it was the one

of like three foreign cars in the entire parade.

I don't know if I knew you had an MG.

What year is that?

Tell us what your MG.

My new MG is a 74 midget.

My old MG is a 72 midget that I've owned for the last 37 years.

I didn't know Americans fit into midgets.

Well, I'm a little one, so I got, I'm good.

And I apologize.

I thought you said anti-car, um, antique, antique.

Okay.

I, I heard anti.

I'm like, that doesn't sound good.

Okay.

So you, you own two MGs.

Interesting.

Now, what was the difference between the MG midget and the MGB?

Well, the, the B is the senior car.

It's a lot larger.

Oh, okay.

Uh, the, the midget, uh, the largest engine in the midget was a one and a half liter,

which we don't talk about because that has, that's from Triumph.

Oh, okay.

But my car is a 1275 and, uh, MGBs had a 1.8 liter.

Oh, I don't know what the deal is, but around here in the Palatine area outside of Chicago,

I see MGs all the time.

Do you really?

Yeah.

People are keeping them and restoring them and bringing them out.

And yeah, nice days.

You see them.

That's funny because I go to like a lot of cars and coffees on Sundays and I don't see

any of them.

So whoever's in Palatine isn't going to where I live, I guess.

Oh, so Sam, what is going on in the world of automotive stuff?

Well, there's so much going on.

And, uh, the most recent one that, uh, brings to mind is the end of the EV tax

credits two weeks ago and how all the manufacturers are dealing with that

situation by either discounting their current vehicles by throwing incentives on

them or lease rates or, uh, slowing down production or ending production altogether.

Now, since the incentives kicked in, have manufacturers become more efficient at

building EVs and they are, are they in a slightly better position to discount these

things now?

Well, yes and no, they're the manufacturers did ramp up production and find ways to

build them more efficiently, but they're still expensive.

They still don't make it, make much if any money.

And, uh, and manufacturers right now are trying to decide whether or not they want

to build them because there are no fines anymore if you don't build them.

So, uh, yeah, the idea that they want to, if they want to sell them, if they want

that market, then they're going to have to discount them because consumers expect

to pay $7,500 less than, than what sticker was two months ago.

Yeah, it's a weird situation.

General Motors, for example, has cranked out a bunch of EVs.

They had a really good September selling the, uh, the equinox and the blazer EV and

a couple of other vehicles.

Is, is General Motors making money on these things right now?

Or are they losing money on an awful lot of vehicles, actually?

Well, they're selling about the same volume that Ford is and Ford has two, well,

two and a half models, if you count the van.

So they're spreading that same volume across a lot more models.

So it's unlikely they're making any money on those vehicles, but they are very

good vehicles.

I just got out of a Sierra EV and I didn't understand that vehicle at first.

And I do now.

It, it makes a lot of sense because a large number of people who buy full

size pickup trucks do not use them as pickups.

They just use them to drive to the office or to school or wherever.

And, uh, this vehicle makes a lot of sense.

It's, it's inexpensive to drive.

It's expensive to purchase, but it's inexpensive to drive.

And, and it's quick and it's roomy and, uh, it's, it's a really good truck.

And GM, you said GMC, GMC recently, um, um, added a new mid-price, uh, trim level.

So they're coming, they're getting a little bit more affordable, right?

But they, they were coming in really expensive for a while.

Oh, absolutely.

The part of the press fleet are always the expensive ones.

So this one I just got out of was the AT4 and that was priced at 92.

I think the last one I had was a Denali and that was 102.

Wow.

92 for an AT, that doesn't seem crazy for the EV being added to it because GMC

pickups are expensive anyway.

Yes.

I have to compare the, uh, the gas powered one because it can't be that far off.

Yeah.

I, I've driven a couple of GMCs over, over time and, and was it AT4X?

I think I had.

And, uh, that was pricey with, with gas power.

You always joke.

They can't make a pickup expensive enough, right?

So I had a guy from Ford tell me that.

Yeah.

And this was long before they had, uh, started building like platinum additions.

Yeah.

But yeah, he said, every time we come up with a more expensive, uh, pickup truck,

people buy it.

Yeah.

They, they keep testing that limit.

And, uh, and when you have light duty trucks, when you have F-150s and

Silverado 1500s that are pushing a hundred thousand dollars, that just tells

you how much the, the market is for these trucks and, and vehicles in general,

you know, the current, the, there's a growing number of people spending a

thousand dollars a month on their payments.

Yeah.

And, uh, it's just, to me, it's just insane, but that's how the market is.

Oh, excuse me, Sam.

Do you, do you like the Sierra better than the F-150 Lightning?

It's a bigger vehicle because it's built around the electric drive train.

It seems to have a lot more interior space.

Okay.

It's physically a larger vehicle.

Just feels huge.

Uh, I put my, uh, my mother next to it, who's like five, three or something.

And, uh, her head came up to about the top of the bed.

It's just an enormous truck.

Okay.

So talk about that a little bit.

Um, the, the Silverado and then the Sierra EV, um, General Motors is dragging

their feet and going to full production on these things.

Will we ever see, do you think stepped up production or they always build these

unlimited numbers at, where is it at plant zero?

They're building a bunch of vehicles that are all related.

So they're, the plan was they were going to spread to a second plant and they've

pulled back on that plan.

Now factory zero will be the only plant building the Silverado EV, the Sierra EV,

uh, the Escalade IQ and, uh, the upcoming sport utilities for Chevrolet and GMC.

So it's filling that plan.

Oh, and the Hummers as well.

That they're, they're spreading that plant across a number of models that

all share the same platform.

Sam, we talked a little bit about building increasingly more expensive pickups.

Do you have any fuel for how well the Ram tungsten is selling?

Cause that's crazy.

I don't have the trim level on that one.

No, but I did see that, uh, Ram is, is kind of picking up the pace now.

They, they lost a step or two when they got rid of the classic and then got

rid of the Hemi, but, uh, the sales seem to be picking up again.

And I, I've got to presume that that's picking up into the, the higher

trim levels as well.

Here's an interesting question.

I'm going to get a little off topic, but Ram found itself in a very

strange position where there was buyer pushback because they had eliminated

the VA to the Hemi from their lineup, which, which is so strange because the

other engines, the, the, um, the inline six, the hurricane in line six was by

all accounts more efficient and more powerful.

So it was such a strange move, but Ram seems to have the greatest attachment

to this sort of legacy situation.

Like Chevy and Ford don't deal with this.

What, what, what do you think?

Is it because Ram was last to make the move?

I think it's because they just pushed the hell out of Hemi.

Like just that word Hemi, Hemi, Hemi.

They oversold it.

Yeah.

They oversold it.

That's, that's my opinion.

Well, that's, that's definitely going to be a part of it.

It's going to be the heritage of the Hemi.

The, the Mopar folks want what they want and they want to have that legacy.

They want, you, when you see a person driving a, a 1500 Ram with a Hemi, you

hear it before you see it.

Uh, same thing with a, a charger or a challenger with a V eight, the owners

want you to know what they have under the hood, no matter what.

And putting the Hemi back in there, taking it away in the first place was largely

an emissions issue.

It's a dirty engine and the, uh, the Hercules six cylinder is a much cleaner

engine and more powerful and smoother, but it doesn't sound like the Hemi.

And that's what a lot of the buyers wanted.

Sam, what do you make of a big sticking with Mopar here for a second?

Um, Dodges attempt to sell an electric version of the charger.

This seems to have gone very badly, uh, for them.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the idea that, that you would put an electric motor in the

charger, the name alone sounds perfect for it.

Yeah, but the, the idea that you can out accelerate the old Hemi, any version

of the old Hemi with an electric motor and have the emissions be much cleaner.

And the electric vehicle doesn't have any.

So it seemed to be the perfect replacement for the Hemi, but it also

goes back to the Dodge buyers, the Mopar buyers want to hear the vehicle.

And the, there's something about that V eight with the supercharger and the

wine and the, and the, the power of it and the shifting of it, all these

things that you lose when you get to an electric vehicle.

It had so many more characteristics that owners would like and, and it seems

that that's exactly what they were buying was the sense of that V eight.

So, so they weren't, um, falling for the electronic order sound on the, uh,

EV charger.

Oh, was it called Frezonic?

There's Frezonic engine.

That's, that's a, I heard one on the road in, in Canada six months ago.

And it sounds good, but it's definitely not a Hemi.

Well, yeah, you're right.

It does sound good, but people just, you know, like fake and then that's it.

They just shut down.

It is interesting.

I think that electric vehicles largely sell themselves on the test drive.

They're smooth.

They're quiet.

They're quick.

And then in ownership, if you know someone who owns one, you know that

they're, they're efficient too.

Um, but for whatever reason, one class of car, it seems, um, muscle cars, muscle

cars.

Yeah, people don't want that.

They want that, that sound and there's a characteristic to a, uh, a performance

car, to a V eight, to a, to a six, a 12 cylinder, to all these engines that

electric vehicles can't copy.

There's, there's no transmission shift.

There's no feel of the, the engine building up.

I mean, you get the instant torque of an electric motor and the performance

is insane with an electric vehicle, but there's character to a V eight engine.

There's character to a, to a car attached to a five speed, six speed, eight

speed transmission.

Uh, it, it gets lost when you move it to electric vehicles and electric vehicles

make excellent trans transportation.

But when you're buying a performance car, it's more than just the zero to 60 time.

It's how it sounds, how it feels, where it shifts, all those pieces that are

missing from an electric vehicle.

It's going to be very weird five years from now, four years from now, when,

when Dodge discontinues selling electric versions of this vehicle, yeah, those

are going to be out there.

And, and in fact, that happens and they do discontinue selling EV versions.

Will those cars be collectible?

It's a good question.

I don't know.

Sam.

Yeah, well, I was doing, I just wrote an article about, uh, future collectible

vehicles and the high end versions of the electric charger, definitely.

Uh, I think the high end versions of the last gas powered charger will

definitely be collectible.

But they, uh, when, if they admit a mistake and back away from a vehicle

with very few built, especially one as good as the charger, then it's very

likely that it could be a collector collector's piece in 20 years.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I drove the charger EV and, um, apart from the, you know, want to

be sound system, um, it's great.

It's really a nice car.

Handles well.

You guys have a video of this.

Yes.

Yeah.

Handles well.

Um, it's, it's quick, you know, but, um, but yeah, is it, is it going to appeal

to the, that Mopar crowd?

Um, that's, that's a whole other question.

We go back to the Superbird that didn't sell very well when it came out either.

So yeah.

And look at it now.

It's entirely possible.

Frank Piler, who, um, was the original, the first publisher of consumer

guide automotive and of collectible automobile magazine was.

My old boss.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

He used to, uh, he sold Mopars as a younger man and he talks about

trying to get rid of super birds and the factory would just call up the

dealership and try to force these things on them.

Like no one wanted them.

Now they're, you know, a half million dollars.

Is that because of the super high wing in the back?

The ridiculous way on the crazy front end, you know, it looked like the Concorde,

yeah, which isn't a very practical thing.

And now if you got one, it's worth a lot of money.

Well, you know, it was a thing like that too.

Sam, you're going to remember this car.

The Mercedes Benz 190 E 2.3 16.

Yes.

That came with a ridiculous spoiler.

Um, yeah, it was, it was like the first spoiler on a, on a, the back of a Mercedes.

Yeah, I don't remember if it was a two, three or the two, five, I think it was

called the Evo for a little while, but that came with a monster spoiler

that no one installed.

Like it just spent, it spent its life in the trunk of that car.

Yeah.

The 2.3 was the 2.3 16 was a, uh, of a demand, in-demand vehicle among those

of us who liked performance cars.

Well, I think the engine wasn't made by Mercedes or was it?

I don't remember that.

At least part of it was made by Cosworth, I believe.

Yeah.

This, I knew there was something going on.

And that was like really hot and group B racing in Europe, right?

Yes.

So when that thing existed at all.

It was, it became legendary.

I don't know the whole story behind it, but, but it's, um, it's one of those

cars that just stands out.

Yeah.

When you look at it today, it does not have the performance of run of the

mill economy, economy cars today, but at the time it was spectacular.

So Sam, what is going on at the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles?

Oh, there's always something going on right now.

Well, we just came back from Hershey.

We had, uh, one of our pull-mans over on display at the Hershey car show.

And if you don't know what the Hershey car show is, it's one of the largest

car shows on the planet.

And every fall, the, uh, anti-car automobile club of America has their

annual meet there and literally thousands of cars show up as well as acres of vendors.

So if you need a part on a vehicle, that's the place to show up.

And, and Boyertown Museum shows up every year to show off one of their vehicles

and invite people to the museum, uh, to, to see everything we've got.

I'm sorry.

What vehicle did you bring there?

We had a Pullman.

Oh, Pullman was a car company in York, Pennsylvania, not related to the Pullman

train cars, but named after.

I didn't know that.

I assume they were related.

Yes, I always did too, but they are, they are separate companies.

They were just, uh, named after that because everybody knew what a Pullman

train car was.

Sure.

And, uh, they built a number of cars for about 20 years.

And we, the newest one that we have in our collection is a little delivery van.

And it's, uh, done up in, uh, Harley Davidson livery.

It's a really sharp truck from, uh, around 1915.

Oh, cool.

And it, it's beautifully restored and we just had it at the car show.

Sam, it's always a pleasure talking to you.

Remind us about, uh, auto forecast solutions and what you guys do there.

Now auto forecast solutions provides a forecasting and analytical work for the

industry.

We, uh, put out, uh, forecasts every month by vehicle around the world.

And, uh, we get a monthly newsletter to keep everybody informed of what's going

on and we can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, everything.

Sam, awesome.

Sam, thank you so much for joining us today.

Great to be here.

All right.

That was Sam Fiorani, vice president of global forecasting at

auto forecast solutions.

We're going to take a break.

And when we come back, quiz time, quiz time, questions or comments, drop us a

line at carstuff at consumer guide.com.

That's car stuff at consumer guide.com.

Hi, it's Brendan from Sons of Speed.

You've heard me and my colleague Paul on the car stuff podcast, whenever

Jill's out of town, but now you can hear us every week on the we are motor driven

podcast, along with Jennifer from auto exotica and Harvey from rides and drives.

We talk about everything from sports cars to trucks to EVs and our favorite speed.

So join us each week by searching we are motor driven wherever you get your

favorite podcast.

Welcome back to the car stuff podcast and we're back.

This is the consumer guy car stuff podcast.

I'm Tom.

He is Paul and we're coming up on quiz time.

But first, sir, tell us about the Sons of Speed and tell us about the we are

motor driven podcast, which is very good.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So we recorded about 11 episodes and we just had to get a little confession.

I'm not caught up.

Oh, you're not?

Okay.

Well, I don't know if I can continue doing this time.

No, no, it's okay.

We did 11.

We had to take a little bit of a break for some health issues.

And but we will be back November 1st to record some more and we'll get those

out as soon as possible.

It's got to be tough, um, trying to coordinate four people.

There's four people.

So yes, it does.

Oh my gosh, it gets tough.

Yes.

So you guys do that remotely, right?

Actually, we try not to.

We try to actually meet up on like a Saturday and just bust out like five or six

episodes.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's what we try to do.

So that's a good way to do it.

That's that is fatiguing.

It is a long day.

I know I sound like a big wuss, but Jill and I will, because of holidays and

things, sometimes do two episodes and somehow I just find that fatiguing.

I don't even, Steven Johnny, you're familiar with my friend Steven Johnny.

Yeah, they used to do, um, a five hour shift, four days a week on WGN radio.

That is insane.

And it was, I forgot when it was from like 10 o'clock till three in the morning,

something like that.

And like talk that long.

Yeah.

And they're so good at it.

Yeah, they are.

It's stunning.

They've got the great voices, the great cadence, they're funny.

I don't know how you do that.

Like I couldn't do it.

Like there's no way I could do five hours.

It takes a special kind of person, I guess.

Actually, I would take a nap right now if I could.

I'm completely worn out.

All right.

What the hammock is for, okay.

All right.

So we talked about the podcast, but how can people keep track of everything?

We are MotorDriven.com.

It has all our links to social media.

So it's the best place to go.

I'm a little nervous because I lost the quiz.

Here it is.

Okay.

All right.

I've got the quiz.

You're going to like this one.

All right.

The Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast, today's quiz is Grand or Grand.

Oh, God.

Somehow I think you're going to crush this one.

All right.

Are you ready?

I'm just going to give you a car.

I don't know if I'm ready.

I'm going to give you a car model name and you have to tell me if it's Grand or Grand.

Okay.

It's that easy.

Pontiac Grand Prix or Grand Prix?

Pontiac.

That's grand.

It is.

Okay.

You're on the board.

Great.

Super easy.

Okay.

What?

Pontiac ruined that car.

When it just became like some dull, rental, mid-sized car.

Like, you know, I remember the early versions of it and then I completely lost track.

So obviously that's when it kind of just went.

I was pumping gas.

I was pumping gas in the early mid-80s and my boss at the gas station had worked at

had a navy blue with navy interior and big sunroof Grand Prix S.J.

It's kind of a classy ride.

You know, it had the wire wheel covers.

There was nothing sporty about it.

Yeah.

And it kind of was the worst of malaise, but it was also kind of cool.

Okay.

It has its own character.

All right.

Mercury Grand Marquis or Mercury Grand Marquis?

I think it's again grand with a D.

It is.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

See, I knew you'd do good on this one.

I've got this one's going to be hard.

Okay.

Now I'm going to pull the rest.

Suzuki Grand Vitara or Grand Vitara?

Oh gosh.

It's I could think of this a D again.

You used to be a huge Suzuki.

Totally.

I'm like six of them.

You were like the Vitara guy.

Yes.

It was a problem they called me.

You know, I would think there'd always be a problem.

I'm sorry.

Did you say grand or grand?

I think it's grand with a D again.

It is.

Okay.

You've already won.

All right.

Six, six questions total.

Five regular one bonus question.

Yeah.

This I think this one would have totally flummoxed Joe.

Okay.

She doesn't know the classic cars.

All right.

Ford Grand Torino or Grand Torino?

That's grand without the D.

Without the D.

You're right.

You've got four.

You're on.

I told you you'd get the first five and you're not going to get the bonus question.

And then finally Buick Regal Grand Sport or Grand Sport?

This one I honestly don't know.

I don't.

I wouldn't have gotten this one.

I'll say grand with the D.

No.

No, that one is grand without a D.

Okay.

All right.

To get your five, you're going to have to get the bonus question.

Well, I already won.

So yeah.

Yeah.

There's really not a lot of incentive here.

So Paul, you smell pretty good.

And I hope I do too.

Oh, thank you, Tom.

Fun thing to watch in recent years is the rebranding of Old Spice, which my dad

wore in the early 70s, most of the aftershave.

Now the stuff is hip and though traditionally make and though traditionally

make in target audience, apparently a lot of young women avail themselves

of the stuff too.

Who knew?

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Traditionally male.

I'm having a long day.

Uh, I need you to tell me which of the following is not an Old Spice deodorant

variety.

Okay.

All right.

Have you seen the commercials?

They're wacky.

Yeah.

With the guy on there is fairly built.

Yes.

Yeah, that dude.

Yeah.

And it's interesting to me that there are brands where the brand is, they think

is so dated they can go crazy with it.

Do you remember the crazy Burger King creepy guy?

No.

There was like a big plastic Burger King that show up in people's windows.

Yes.

Totally creepy.

Okay.

Yeah.

But that's where the brand was.

Yeah.

And I think Jack in the box.

We don't see these in Chicago, but Jack in the box used to do similar stuff.

All right.

I need you to tell me which is not an Old Spice deodorant variety.

Are you ready?

Okay.

Swagger, Fiji, Mesquite, Pumpkin.

Okay.

I'm going to go with Pumpkin.

Is the fake?

Yeah.

It's real.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

That's what I said.

Oh, Mesquite's the fake.

Okay.

Swagger.

That was my second guess.

Swagger.

Swagger?

I can see that.

It smells good.

Yeah.

They describe it as Cedarwood.

Fiji, I have no idea what that is.

I can't believe there's pumpkin deodorant.

Yeah.

Well, you got me on that one.

I wonder if it's got like bits of pumpkin in it.

Which feels like a hygiene issue, maybe not.

All right.

You came to me with a story I know nothing about.

Yes.

So you have to take this away and because I don't know what you're talking about.

Okay.

So it has been announced that, you know, with autonomous vehicles coming out

whenever they finally come out, but, you know, they're starting right now.

So they are going to be adding a fourth color light to the stop sign signals.

Can traffic signals generally open to change?

I don't like this already.

Yeah.

So of course, we have green, red and yellow and they're going to be adding

white.

White?

Yes.

And what does that mean?

Okay.

So what's happening is because autonomous vehicles communicate with each other and

they're going to be communicating with the traffic signals and they're going to be

communicating with other beacons and stuff along the roadways.

When there are enough autonomous vehicles in a certain area, the traffic lights will

turn off and they will just cross each other.

Cars will just cross each other at a, you know, at a certain speed and distance and pace.

And if you happen to not be in an autonomous vehicle, you will get a white light that

signals for you to follow the vehicle in front of you through the intersection.

What?

Exactly.

The vehicle in front of you should be autonomous and knows technically what's

going on, so you will then follow the vehicle in front of you if you are not in

an autonomous vehicle.

Of course, this is all the engineering stage right now.

There's many, many years of development that's needed, but that's basically what is

going to be happening in, you know, in the future.

Wow.

Yeah.

So that's why they're talking about adding a fourth light to the signals and the white

is going to be very bright, so you'll be able to see it from far away and you'll know to

just keep driving through the intersection and not to worry.

And not to worry.

Yeah, not to worry.

That's crazy.

Okay.

So if you get white, it means basically green.

Yes.

But you can follow the vehicle in front of you.

That's the wording that they're saying right now.

Okay.

And who is developing this?

Is it manufacturers?

Is it NHTSA?

Right now, I think it's some universities are doing it, but then I think it's going to

branch out once they start figuring more things out, I guess, I don't know.

I don't immediately see the value.

What is this supposed to get us?

Well, when everything is autonomous, traffic signals don't really matter because if one

basically you can go through an intersection without worrying because every car is going

to be spaced out perfectly, that they'll just pass each other without any collisions.

So due to that, but not everyone's going to be having an autonomous vehicle.

So the ones that don't have one have to pay attention to the white signal.

This is interesting because it seems to rely on infrastructure and V2V, vehicle to vehicle

communication, all of which seems to have stunted and like the growth in those particular

elements of autonomous vehicles seems to have stalled.

And then part of the problem, I think it's taking us so long to get to autonomous vehicles

is simply because right now, each vehicle has to be completely independent and do everything.

So it is for this to work, we need municipalities.

Yes, it's going to be government, obviously, has to get involved.

And also, we have to hit a certain amount of vehicles that can drive by themselves.

OK, so like, I don't know what the percentage is, but I'm assuming at least 50 percent,

probably more.

I remember a couple of generations ago, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class was launched with V2V,

vehicle to vehicle communication, a thing that never had found any application.

It was there, but there were no other vehicles, didn't really matter.

I think Audi had on some of their vehicles where it was communicating with the traffic

signals and it would tell you a timer on your dashboard how many seconds were left

on the red light or how many seconds you had to wait to change to a green light.

So there was a little bit of that going on, but that's about it.

I had a friend, Larry.

Hey, Larry.

I think he listens who tried to patent the system for, in that sense, traffic signals

that would alert you to the fact that, one, there was a traffic camera at the intersection,

and two, the yellow light, or the green light, I'm sorry, would flash at some point before it

went yellow, so you knew that you were about to get into trouble.

So because the yellow was increasingly being shortened so that municipalities could generate

revenue with stupid.

They've gotten me a few times, yeah.

Yeah, there was some in Palatine, that's where we've recorded the show,

they've taken them all down, I think.

They were awful.

I kept getting the same ticket.

I got it two times, went to court both times, and they dropped it, but it was a pain in the

ass to do that, but basically I was on Northwest Highway turning right on Palatine Road, and I

would start the turn as I was braking.

So I did come to a complete stop.

I was just sort of turned in.

If there was a cop behind me, he would never give me a ticket for that,

but I got it from the traffic lights.

Both times that I got one of those tickets was turning on red.

Apparently, I didn't stop long enough and started up again, and they triggered the...

It was a terrible idea.

One of the interesting things, Woodfield Mall, not too far from here,

one of the largest shopping centers on the planet, it's in Schaumburg, Illinois,

and for a while, especially in the 90s, I remember this, they started writing tickets that were not

traffic violations, they were just sort of municipal code violations.

So you didn't get a ding on your driver's record, but you did have to pay them 50 bucks.

And unbelievably, and this is a ridiculous thing to do around a shopping center,

they were dinging people for turning a little bit too early into the turn lane.

So you're either on the median or they're quite in the lane, it's like, come on.

This is like, first of all, every person here is a terrible driver,

and two, you have lots and lots and lots of traffic because it's a shopping center.

You're just plinking at fish in a barrel, like why are you doing this?

Like you said before, money generation.

But I believe they stopped doing that, and I think they took all the traffic lights,

all the traffic cameras out of that area.

What a terrible thing to do if you have the largest shopping center in Illinois

right there, you don't really want to discourage people from shopping.

Yes, there was an intersection in front of Oakbrook Mall, which is another big

shopping mall that had cameras just on one side.

It was another town like right across the street.

Oakbrook Terrace?

Yes, thank you. So Oakbrook Terrace put up the lights, Oakbrook did not.

So on one side you had all the lights, on the other side you didn't.

And I guess they couldn't prove after five years, they couldn't prove that they saved a single

accident, so they made them take them down, which was interesting.

I know this is too insoluble, but a lot of municipalities ended up getting into

into bed with these companies and long-term contracts, like five or 10 years.

So they had to do this stuff, and it just really annoyed the local citizens.

Oh man, have you driven anything else interesting lately?

The Palisade, the Hyundai brand new 2026 Hyundai Palisade.

I drove that at the Mama FawFest.

So really nice, I'm writing an article about it right now.

It's just as big as the Ionic 9, 199.4 inches long.

So it's got a lot of room inside, three-row SUV.

This one's gasoline, they're coming out with a hybrid any day now, if they're not already out.

I think that's the big news here.

I mean, it was redesigned, but there's no hybrid drivetrain.

Yes, yes. So you got the V6, which is the standard, 3.5, and then you have a smaller

four-cylinder engine with two electric motors to do the hybrid, and it's supposed to have

about 40 more horsepower, so I think it's like 337 or so versus 287.

We are officially at that place in history where hybrids are the more powerful option,

yes. Which is what they were not. Like the first Prius was kind of a dog.

Yes. But that's not the case anymore.

But as we talked about this before, when Lexus took their absolutely silky smooth,

beautiful V6 and kind of started swapping it with four cylinders, which are much more buzzy,

I'm sure there's a trade-off there, and even in this Palisade, if you get the V6, you're going to

get more of that silky smooth engine. If you get the hybrid, you're going to get out that

even though more powerful and more efficient, but way more buzzy.

This makes me old, but the Lexus ES350, which I believe they still sell in some of the last cars

that has that V6 engine, the 3.5 Toyota V6, is just one of the nicest, smoothest cars in the world.

There's nothing in the world sporty about it. But if you need to hit the highway or if you're a

realtor, you need to put people in your car, what a fantastic car. But that V6 is going away,

unfortunately. Yeah. I don't know if maybe they eventually did, but when I was reviewing the car,

there was no way of getting all-wheel drive with the V6.

Right. Yeah, you had to get the four-cylinder. Yeah. I don't know if that's changed or not

since I did that review. I bet you they committed to that. Probably, yeah.

They're kind of getting the V6 to go away. Did you see this? This is an interesting story.

The Lexus LS, really the car that Lexus... Yeah, it's going away.

It's going away. So, they're going to do 500 collectible versions of it for 2026,

and then that's it. That's it. Okay.

So, it just kind of bums me out because Lexus, really...

That's just started it all. Yeah. Yeah.

Was this ridiculously good car. Yes.

$35,000 when a similar Mercedes-Benz was like 60.

I don't know if it was that much, but it was definitely a lot more. Yeah.

It was staggeringly more expensive. And they pretty much put

Mercedes and BMW both had to put their tail between their legs after this Lexus LS500 came out.

Yeah. And I don't think the LS or Lexus got enough credit for changing

BMW and Mercedes and Audi. Yeah, because they had to up their game big time after that.

Yeah. All of a sudden, value became something they never had to think about before, but now they

had to. Yeah. Oh, my God. This Lexus is $35,000, and it's fantastic.

Yes. And it was leather lined, and it was roomy, and it was quick.

They even had some special coating on the inside of the sheet metal to make it quieter.

I mean, they were adding all this tech that you never even heard of. It was crazy.

And they had a four-valve engine, which the Germans weren't using yet.

Yeah. They only had the two-valve. Yep.

So crazy stuff. All right, guess what we did?

We burned through another hour.

We did. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Absolutely. Anytime, Tom.

All right. This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

Thank you to Sam Fiorani of Auto Forkast Solutions.

Thank you to Paul Harold. Thank you to producer Randy and the good folks here at TalkZone.

Let's talk more about cars again next week. Next week.

Remember to check us out at ConsumerGuide.com.

The Car Stuff podcast is produced by J-Turn Media.

To advertise on the show, please drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

Chevrolet Bolt Returns, Driving an Electric Lotus, Talking Big Pickups

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Lotus Electra

Lotus 7

Pontiac Torino

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