Chinese Car Prices, Nissan Leaf Design, Driving the Silverado EV

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All right, this is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

I am indeed Tom Appel.

Well, thank you for joining us this week.

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That voice is Jill Siminello, contributing editor here at consumerguide.com, prolific

freelancer, and North American Car of the Year juror.

Yes.

Today will be the last day we talk about North American Car of the Year for a while.

Maybe.

We've got some things coming up that we're going to want to talk about.

Sorry.

Too much.

No, no, no, no.

There's like cool things coming, like scholarships and new awards and things like that.

We're going to want to talk about that.

Yeah.

That feels like paid commercial stuff.

No.

North, let's start with that.

Okay.

The Detroit Auto Show happened.

Hey.

You guys made an announcement.

We did.

I was wrong.

I think we were all wrong.

But we've got three picks here.

Tell us about them.

Yeah.

So the Car of the Year this year was the Dodge Charger.

I feel like this is the first time Dodge has won in a really long time.

It is.

I kept, someone had a number.

Yeah.

It's been a hot minute.

But it's been decades.

It is.

It is literally about a minute.

But you know, this new Dodge Charger has some really interesting things going on from

an all electric powertrain to the new six pack that they introduced to, you know, I think

an upcoming Hemi engine that will be in the vehicle in the next year or so.

A thing that did not occur to me, although this is perhaps Dodge's fault, is that this

vehicle is now more or less a practical sedan.

Yes.

Especially now that it's gas powered, it's not even challenging in terms of powertrain.

So that's interesting.

I don't know if there's a market left for large non-luxury sedans in the U.S., especially

by people who aren't looking for something high performance, but who knows?

Yep.

That is a fair statement.

And I should point out this comes in two door and four door variants.

So I mean, it's just a really, really flexible vehicle that can be everything that you want

it to be.

I have not driven the Charger at all.

Is it as roomy as the old Charger or more importantly, the old Chrysler 300?

Okay.

So I'm like five feet tall and weigh about a hundred pounds.

I'm probably not the right person to be asking this question, but I think it's pretty roomy.

Pretty roomy.

Roomy.

If I could speak today.

Roomy.

It's roomy.

Yeah.

It'd be interesting to see how that goes.

So that was Car of the Year, the Charger.

Yes.

And then you have Truck of the Year.

So the Truck of the Year was the Ford Maverick Lobo.

So this is a new variant of the compact pickup truck offered by Ford and it is a street truck.

So lowered suspension, tighter steering, you know, more sporty and not available as a hybrid.

I want to say it's all wheel drive only and it has a different grill, has some different

interior trimmings.

It's more expensive than what you would find from like a base Maverick, but it has pretty

much all the things included and it is a really nice package.

Interesting.

But people love the Maverick.

Yeah.

And I want to say this is like fourth or fifth consecutive year that Ford is one truck of

the year.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Maverick, a little on my bad side just because of the price increase.

Yeah.

Again, the vehicle launched as a 1995 special.

It's now a 30 plus thousand dollar vehicle.

I was going to say special being the operative word.

And then finally, utility of the year.

This one I would have picked.

It's fabulous.

Was the Hyundai Palisade.

So new, new and completely redesigned hybrid powertrain gas powertrain.

This is the first time Palisade gets a hybrid option and it is fuel efficient, roomy, you

know, and you have the luxurious calligraphy trim with, you know, very bougie.

I'm going to use that word amenities.

That's the last time you can use that in 2026.

Nope.

It's a good word.

I like that word.

You may not tap the young hipsters for your vocabulary.

Bougie.

And it has, you know, the suede headliner.

It has really nice accent pieces in the calligraphy trim.

You've got an included dash cam.

So lots of really cool technology, great powertrain options.

And it is, I mean, it is a great, a great three row SUV.

Um, yes, I did not see the fuel economy with it though.

I saw about 24 overall.

And I haven't had the hybrid in, um, uh, an at home test.

So I haven't had the opportunity to test fuel economy.

And 24 is good for a big three row crossover, but it's not great.

Right.

Like Toyota kills it in terms of hybrid fuel economy.

Still, that, that is a fine vehicle.

It is.

It is a great vehicle.

And so, um, you know, if, if you'll remember the, um, also in that category was the Nissan

Leaf, which that was.

That was my pick.

So, but, but I mean, again, no bad options.

The lucid gravity was the other vehicle in that category and groundbreaking in a very

different way, even though maybe not inexpensive.

Too expensive.

Um, and we'll see where they go with that.

Um, interesting.

So that charger, Maverick Lobo and Hyundai Palisade are the vehicles of the year.

So there you go.

Congratulations to Dodge Ford and Hyundai.

Yes.

All right.

Interesting thing at the Detroit Auto Show, Mary Barron, while addressing the automotive

press association, uh, just came out and just said it.

What we also know today is that with plug-in hybrids is that most people don't plug them

in.

And we've talked about this for many years.

We have.

And we've seen research from other places, but I assume if Mary Barron is saying it,

it's based on good research.

Well, it must be true.

It's probably true.

Mary Barron says it must be true.

I'm assuming General Motors research is good.

Right.

Well, I mean, as you know, um, automakers can track how people use their vehicles.

And so I would assume that they are looking at, you know, who has their plug-in hybrid

vehicles.

Do they have any plug-in hybrid vehicles?

I don't know that they do at the moment, but, um, you know, looking General Motors doesn't

have any hybrid vehicles.

Right.

I'm thinking back to the old Silverado hybrid days.

Um, but, uh, but yeah.

So, um, yeah, so I'm not looking at their own data, looking at somebody else's data.

Um, we've talked to the guys at auto Pacific, uh, before, and, and, you know, they have

said similar things from their research.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

So here's just a thing.

Take it from Tom.

If you're going to buy a plug-in hybrid, plug it in or don't buy it.

Yeah.

It's too expensive.

It's too expensive to buy.

You're paying way more money than you would pay for a hybrid to get less, to get reduced

fuel economy because you're hauling around a big ass battery.

Yeah.

And I, I feel like the reason why plug-in hybrids initially took off, especially in California

was they qualified for, like the hybrid or the fuel economy, HOV lanes or whatever.

And so, um, people were buying them just so they could drive in the fast lane and didn't

actually feel like plugging them in to charge them.

The other thing that happened too is that European makers, BMW and Mercedes specifically,

embraced plug-in before hybrid and they never actually embraced full hybrid.

They're all mild hybrid now.

Right.

Which is interesting, but like the, um, the, um, Chrysler Pacifica, which sells in some

good volume, uh, their only hybrid was a plug-in hybrid.

Yep.

Uh, which was an interesting thing to do because it raised the price a lot.

Yeah.

So you had many events that are getting a 60K with that system and if you buy one used,

you might get a great deal on it, plug it in.

Yes.

And I have to say the news that people don't plug in their plug-in hybrids is very depressing

to me because I have always thought that, uh, the, a plug-in hybrid was the next step

before electrification, the natural step before electrification, like complete electrification.

It gets you in the habit of plugging in when you're at home, you get great all-electric

range.

Except it just doesn't.

It's just not that convenient to plug in and you don't need to plug in, but you don't

need to plug is right there.

You just plug it in.

Maybe the plug is right there.

Oh, it's right there.

It's right there.

We don't know what people's garage setup is.

Why would you buy it if the plug's not right there?

I don't know.

Why would you buy it and not plug it in?

Plug it in.

Plug it in, people.

Yeah.

We don't know that it's convenient and people might be parking it on the street.

Also, if you buy a plug-in hybrid and you've got two cars and you're not in the right place

to plug it in, it's just too easy to come up with excuses not to charge and people aren't

charging.

Yeah.

So don't buy a plug-in hybrid if you don't plan to plug it in.

Speaking of charging, we talked about how Stellantis wiped out all of its plug-in hybrids.

The vehicle we didn't mention was the Alfa Romeo Tenali, which is the Alpha analog for

the Dodge Hornet, which was just discontinued.

I don't know if we talked about that, but the Dodge Hornet is dead.

So that's gone, leaves just the Tenali on that architecture, no longer available with

its dreadful plug-in hybrid system.

How did you feel about that?

Dreadful.

It was terrible.

Got it.

And it wasn't good in the Dodge either.

It was the same system.

Yeah, that's just a little depressing and sort of a depressing side note, Honda has

made a decision, heard this over the weekend, to start to make more non-hybrids, this to

address the affordability issue.

Sad state of affairs because the hybrids are the better vehicles.

But anyway, wanted to talk to you about something.

Your Zeekr story is up on consumerguide.com now, and you added some information in your

story that we didn't get to last week, and that is the prices of these vehicles.

There's some very interesting stuff here.

Right, right.

So, I mean, what I did is I looked at what the vehicle costs in China, and then I think

I also then looked at what it costs in Mexico, which is probably more likely what it would

cost if it were for sale in America.

It may be more.

Right.

Because there were lower standards for crash tests and other things in China.

So I went and did some research based on your numbers.

The Zeekr X, we're always hearing about these hyper affordable hybrid or electric vehicles

in China, the Zeekr X in China between 20 and 25 grand seems like a bargain.

By the time it gets to Mexico, between 43 and 48 grand.

The whole idea that a Chinese company is going to storm into the U.S. and change things

massively might not be real.

If this is the prices they have to pay, if this is the price they have to charge for

these vehicles, and keep in mind this is Mexico, the Mexican market is more price sensitive

than the U.S. market.

So these prices probably adjusted down slightly for that market.

The Zeekr 001 in China 37 to 38 grand in Mexico 55 to 60 grand.

Ouch.

And then finally the Zeekr 7X, which is probably their most U.S. friendly design, right?

That's the compact crossover or mid-size crossover, 32 grand in China, 46 to 50 grand in Mexico.

So just yes, China is a threat globally, but this is interesting.

This definitely dampens the notion that they're going to storm in and just destroy the U.S.

auto market.

Yeah.

And I mean, if you look at the Volvo EX30, like that was supposed to be a $30,000 EV in

the United States.

And then tariffs happened and it's like a $60,000 EV in the United States.

It was going to be deal specifically because they were going to build it in China and now

they're building them.

I want to say is that Korea or is that South Carolina?

I think they're building them in Belgium.

You're right.

I think that's right.

Yeah.

So that's expensive.

They're building them in Europe.

Yeah.

Some interesting things.

The tariff in Mexico, Zeekr's going to have a bad year.

The tariff in Mexico up until January 1st was 20% on all vehicles imported into Mexico

from China.

Mm-hmm.

Went to 50%.

The Mexican government wants some of that money.

But I don't know what that's going to do because that's going to hurt Chevy in a huge

way too.

Yep.

Chevy imported last year 127,000 vehicles from China into Mexico at the 20% tariff.

This 50% thing, it's going to crush that.

Mm-hmm.

Interesting thing too about these prices, according to Geely, their market positioning

Zeekr a little bit differently in Mexico than they are in China.

I don't know why they would do that, but they want to position it more as a luxury brand.

Maybe that's just to cover the price.

Maybe that's why they're saying that.

Also, they have to support a dealer network there.

So dealers have to take a cut of that money.

Mm-hmm.

That raises the price.

Right.

All right, that's that story.

I want to talk about something later when we have a little more time, but you got to

drive around in a Waymo.

I did.

So that's a great story.

And I just want to ask right now, did you use an app to get the Waymo?

Okay.

And did you ride in a Jaguar?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll talk more about this.

Just about the things.

Yeah, we'll talk more about that after the break.

Interesting story out of Tesla, which I can't confirm with Tesla.

Okay.

You may have heard of this vehicle in China.

It's called the Model YL.

I have not.

It is a stretch wheel-based Model Y with a third row.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

There's a Model Y with a third row in the US, but it's not stretched, but it comes available

this year.

And I couldn't find any confirmation of this at all on the Tesla website, but other sites

are reporting that it adds $2,500 to the price, bringing it up to $5,194 before options.

So there is a three-row Tesla, but it describes the third row as...

Horrible.

Crushed.

I was going to say horrible, utterly unusual.

Yeah, it's probably a little bit like when Lexus did that RXL.

Yeah.

Or what, the Nissan Rogue, when that had a third row?

Yeah.

Or God forbid, the Volkswagen Tig 1.

Poof.

Not good.

Bad idea.

Even I couldn't sit back there.

So I don't know, but I mean, a third row sometimes appeals to people just for its emergency use

ability.

Yeah.

Fair.

Fair, fair.

So, all righty.

You, you just drove.

You drove it here.

Yes, I did.

The 2026 Silverado EV, that is the electric version of the Chevy Silverado.

Yes.

It is a very good-looking truck.

It is.

And that is all the experience I have with it.

Okay.

I looked at it.

I looked at it on the way in.

Yes.

So, I mean, it's covered in salt at the moment, but I-

You know what?

When you're photographing a truck, that's almost okay.

It should be in salt.

Or just dirt.

Dirt, yeah.

Dirty snow.

I need to go find some mud to drive through before I take pictures.

I am actually riding and I didn't finish it last night like I should have, but my review

of the Hummer EV pickup, which is very closely related to this mechanically, and the one

I drove filthy.

Yeah.

And somehow that worked for the photography.

Yeah.

It works.

You know, this is the second time I've had the opportunity to drive this vehicle.

I was on the program launch for it.

And so, this is my second time behind the wheel.

And I love virtually everything about it.

It is comfortable, it is spacious, it has lots and lots of cameras, so you turn your

blinker on.

And unlike Hyundai, when you get the blind view monitor that shows up and you're behind

the wheel cluster, the entire 17-inch screen shows your blind spot in the infotainment

system.

The cameras, to me, are a little bit like the first remote control.

My 1999 Nissan Maxima had a remote open.

Okay.

The key fob.

And I didn't think I needed it, didn't think I wanted it.

Until you had it.

And then I had it.

And now you need it.

And cameras are like that.

Yeah.

The more you can see, especially when you throw it in the reverse, the better.

Yeah.

And I found from my driving position, there's like a headrest in the middle center row seat.

And I guess this is a second row seat that blocks essentially my entire rear view out

of the back of the vehicle.

But the vehicle I'm in has the rear camera mirror.

So I was just like, all right, we'll turn on the rear camera mirror now.

I'm trying to understand this.

Because you are shorter, I see your eyes are lower, so you're looking at the rear view

mirror.

Uh-huh.

And I guess I had a more string...

I guess that makes sense.

And I actually think it would block the visibility for pretty much everything, because it takes

up the whole center window.

And so it's like, if you're looking behind you to see if somebody's behind you, you can't

see them.

So I think it would be a problem for everybody, which, you know, thank goodness for the rear

camera mirror.

But the tech on this is crazy.

Like it's got Google built-in, so Google Maps.

And one of the things that I really love about the Google built-in system, and especially

with an EV...

I used it today, by the way.

I had to pick up my daughter someplace, and I was driving the Cadillac Lyric.

Okay.

And this is what's super helpful.

So it's about like 25 miles from my home to the radio station.

And so it will tell me essentially what my percentage of battery will be once I get here.

And so then you know, oh, I can make it no problem, or ooh, I should be a little bit stressed

out and maybe think about charging.

So that to me is the singularly most helpful thing about the Google built-in system.

Now, I will point out, I know you love it when I talk about this, but it does not have

Apple CarPlay.

And I've been trying very hard to subsist without it and paired my phone and was listening

to podcasts on the way here, found the buttons on the back of the steering wheel that I could

skip commercials and things like that and the volume.

And so as far as podcast concern, I queued up before I leave on my phone that I can put

my phone down and don't need to touch it.

So that gets up, okay, I can live with it from that standpoint.

But texting, calling, all of that is still a little bit difficult.

So what trim level did you drive?

You know, I haven't even looked, I picked it up like last night at the airport and have

not looked at the sticker sheet yet.

So here's the news, even though the EV market is slowing down, there's no incentives anymore

for consumers to buy them.

And there's been some deaths in the marketplace, including the F-150 Lightning.

General Motors has stepped things up a little bit and there are more trim levels for this

year, including a more interesting price range.

So the standard range LT, that is now a base model, and LT is pretty base for them.

I think the only thing below it is work truck and the gasoline side.

That starts at $55, $395, including destination.

And you can go all the way up to the, that seems wrong.

I think it's the long range work truck for $91.

Now this is all wrong.

You're like, this is all wrong.

Let's see if I can, while we're finishing the chat, we'll see if I can find it.

This is weird, I copied and pasted this list, but the top trim level is $91,795, basically.

And you've got between 510 and 760 horsepower, which should get the job done.

Maybe.

Three batteries.

Yes.

And they're all big, 120 kilowatt, what was that, 170 and 205.

Yeah.

And I mean, the one thing I will say when I picked it up at the airport last night, it

had 411 miles of range on it.

And I drove it home and then drove it here and I still have 390 miles of range on it.

And it is five degrees today.

This is based on the same architecture, the same Altium big truck architecture as the

Cadillac Escalade.

When that was delivered to me, I'd said 90%, I think it was 90% battery, 510 miles.

It's amazing.

So they are wildly exceeding their numbers.

Here's the problem with these.

This is true of the Sierra EV, the Silverado EVN, the Cadillac Escalade, and the Hummer

is that most of the weight classes of these vehicles do not qualify for EPA testing.

So you're getting a mishmash of numbers from the EPA for lower weight versions and numbers

that are claims from General Motors.

And I don't know to what extent you can compare and contrast those numbers.

But the GM numbers do seem conservative.

Yeah.

And I will say, I just looked up the sticker sheet.

I do have the Trail Boss trim, which is the $91,000 model.

Trail Boss is the big one.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, the ass-tested price is like $91,000.

Okay.

So that's the Trail Boss and that's probably the long range and the big battery.

Yeah.

And the Game Day Tailgate package, hard-folding truck bed cover.

So it does have some like about $5,000 in options.

So maybe this isn't the top top, but it's near the top.

You're getting $100,000.

Yeah.

Although regular trucks get to $100,000, it's crazy, regular by that, I mean non-electric.

Yeah, easily.

And then range for these vehicles ranges from 283 miles of battery range to 478.

Yeah.

And that's a big number on the high end.

Big, big number.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going to be talking Nissan Leaf in a moment.

We have with us today Giovanni Arroba.

He is the vice president of Nissan Design Europe.

Yes.

We've got the European design hood.

That's pretty cool.

That's a good get.

Yeah.

We'll be talking to Giovanni in a moment.

Stick around.

Questions or comments?

Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.

Welcome back to the Car Stuff podcast.

All right.

We're back.

This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

I'm Tom Appel.

She is Jill Seminello.

Hello.

And we're chatting stuff.

We were chatting electric cars and we're going to continue that in a moment.

Yes.

But first.

Yes.

But first, just ask me.

Oh, you want to talk about social media?

Briefly.

Can I be as excited as you are when I talk about social media?

You can be even more excited.

Got it.

I'm super excited.

I am Car Guy Tom on Twitter and XMGluceGuide.

That's all I got.

That's all you got.

I did find a wonderful picture of a Honda S2000.

The delightful little roadster that is no longer available.

Parked in the snow in front of a shop.

It looked like it was in good shape.

It was silver.

Great top.

Just parked there in the snow under like two inches of snow.

Made me sad.

Well, you know, I just got back from LA and that is the land of beautiful cars and my

sister and I came out from eating dinner over the weekend and there was a beautiful vintage

like navy blue Bronco out in front of the restaurant we were at and it was like blue

and white, beautifully painted and I should post the picture I took of it.

It was pretty phenomenal.

I just finished my review of the Nissan Leaf and I love the Leaf and I love it for a bunch

of reasons, mostly from market position, but I think that it's going to matter a great

deal as we roll into this year and I think the Leaf, I think the Bolt and I don't understand

the story about the Bolt, but the Chevrolet Bolt is back.

It's been freshened.

It has a new battery.

It's now lithium iron phosphate, not lithium ion.

No one's going to care, but that's a thing and then Toyota's got the CHR, which I haven't

seen pricing for yet, but that might play down here too.

But without the incentives, people who want to go electric are probably going to be looking

to go as affordable as possible and I think the Leaf is killing it.

You know, I would agree with you on that.

You know, I went to the regional program for the Leaf a couple months ago and wrote the

story for Consumer Guide and just walked away from it overall, just incredibly, incredibly

impressed not only by the price point, but the features and the drivability and the technology

and just all of the things included in it.

It looks great and drives great.

I do want to address something and I have complained on air a couple of times about

how dopey looking I thought the old Leaf used to be.

But the interesting thing about the Leaf is that the newly doesn't take up much more space

than the old Leaf, even though it's a crossover now.

And if you go through it, the dimensions are similar.

You lose a little bit here, but you gain and I think passenger space net is up slightly,

but cargo space is up a bunch.

So this is a pretty practical vehicle too.

Yeah.

Interesting though that it is a crossover, but that's mostly a function of styling and

we're going to be talking about styling again in a moment.

Also for a crossover, it has a surprisingly low coefficient of drag.

And I don't know how people know about these numbers and in the 70s, not in the 70s.

In the 80s and 90s, we talked about drag coefficient a lot and people like knew these numbers.

But if you could get below 0.3, that was a really slick vehicle.

That means it cheated the air and aerodynamic drag was not an issue on the highway.

But if you hear a number like 0.3 or 0.26, which is the drag coefficient of the Leaf,

what that basically means is if you had something that was the exact same dimensions of the

vehicle, but a block, that block would be one, 1.00.

And so if you're 0.26, it's 75% basically more efficient through the air than a block.

Like a Land Rover or some upright SUV like that.

Usually Easter eggs sort of irritate me on a vehicle, but there's so much more subtle on

the Leaf. And when we're talking about Easter eggs, there are little things that designers

will leave in places for you to find. Like in Jaguar, it's usually a cat and Jeep is covered

with grille-like things. But this is this repeating of some interesting Japanese 2.3

motif and it's seen in the taillights. Yes.

And I think you took pictures of the taillights. I did.

And I did as well when I drove the vehicle. But the same bar, it's two bars, either vertical or

horizontal, funneled by three bars that are either vertical or horizontal. And they repeat all over

the design of the vehicle. They're interesting. I forgot the importance of it.

Oh, I know the importance of it, but maybe we should hold that for a moment to discuss.

But it is interesting to find those. And unless irritated because they're not Easter eggs

of the typical sense, they're a little bit more meaningful than that.

It's not going to hit quite the price point that the Chevrolet Bolt does. The Bolt's going to be

starting at just under 30 grand. It's going to be offering about 260 miles of range. But the Leaf,

which can come in a little bit higher, also offers up to 300 miles of range.

So we'll see how that plays in the marketplace.

So we're having some time zone issues is the situation that we're running into.

This has happened once before. Yeah, because our guest is in England.

And so I think what we are going to do is we are going to end up punting a little bit and

we're going to talk to Eric Rubel from Nissan. He is in public relations for Nissan.

Is Eric with us? Yes. Eric, how are you, sir?

Doing well. How are you guys? Thanks so much for your patience. Yeah, Gio,

he is in our London office. Okay. And yeah, I'm happy to jump on for now and talk all things

leaf design, at least as far as I'm able. Here's the thing about this. We're sitting in Palatine,

Illinois. That's not interesting in any way, but we're talking about a dude in London.

From Palatine, London just seems exotic and cool. It is exotic and cool. Yeah, in erudite.

But anyway, Eric, how are you, sir? I am doing well. Yeah, I am here in sunny Southern California

and just enjoying the day and thanks so much for having me on. Well, thanks for making the time.

We've been talking Nissan Leaf here for a couple of minutes and I don't know if you know this,

but Consumer Guide named the Leaf a 2026 Best Buy. And I was just talking about my high

expectations for the vehicle for 2026 in that without incentives, I think this vehicle is

going to be very important in the marketplace. Absolutely. Yeah, we're really excited about

it. Starting under $30,000, over 300 miles of range, and we just couldn't be more excited for

this real legacy vehicle for Nissan. How big a deal is it? I think it's a huge deal, but I want

to get your take that this vehicle is now a crossover. That was one of the big things that

they focus on because that's what the market wants right now, right? Look, I'm a big hatchback

fan. Like a lot of folks out there, a lot of car enthusiasts, but this still maintains that

hatchback practicality, but with a little bit more of that kind of crossover SUV like stance

that people are looking for these days. So I think it kind of blends those lines nicely.

So Eric, before we got you on the line, we were talking a little bit about the design and the

like two, three strategy and easter eggs and things like that. And I didn't want to steal

your thunder. I know why it is that way, but I figured you could probably give a little bit

of a better explanation because I don't know. Well, I'll certainly do my best. So for those who

might know Japanese, Ichi ni san is one, two, three in Japanese. So ni is two and san is three.

And actually, if you look at a lot of our like racing cars and throughout Nissan's history,

we have a lot of things that are two, three or just 23 for this reason, Nissan. So we really,

yeah, we really leaned into this relief. And so a really obvious place is the tail light. If you

look, it's kind of two vertical and then three horizontal and on the charge port. And actually,

in over 23 places throughout the vehicle, you'll see this kind of two, three motif.

And some of them are quite obvious and some of them are really hidden and tucked away. It's

a fun thing for customers to discover. About the tail lights, their LED, and they really stick out

in traffic. I've seen a couple of these. The holographic. Yeah, it's a really good look. It's

a very classy upscale look that sort of, you wouldn't expect to find in a vehicle under 40k.

Yeah. And they are, you're right, Jill, they are holographic. And as far as I know, I think we're

first in the West to have these kind of holographic type LED designs in our tail lights. So that's

another fun little detail. Well, it just like when you look at them in person, there's just a

certain amount of depth to them. They look very 3D. And again, it's just like the level of design

and thought that went into the Nissan Leaf boggles my mind. And then the fact that it's like $30,000

like throws me over the edge. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. And for those who don't know, we do

have another slightly smaller battery version coming out later, which will undercut that even

further. What kind of, I was just, that's the S, correct? Correct. And right now we do have an S,

but it's the S plus. So it gives that larger battery pack. Do you guys have a sense for

what the S will be priced at when it comes out? I can't talk about that quite yet, but hopefully

details soon. Yeah, I'm really interested to see that. And I'm wondering too, it'll have the smaller

battery pack. It'll be a little bit lighter. And I'm wondering if you can get close to the range

of the more expensive, bigger, tired, heavier vehicles. But yeah, that price point will be cool

to see. Yeah, we're excited about it. So talk about something. I was reading the interview with

Giovanni that you guys have posted a couple of places. And one of the things he talked about

was designing the vehicle without a grill. And there's something about that that's funny,

because at some point in time, a grill was a hassle for people to design with. And now,

it's this design expectation on vehicles. But the vehicle doesn't have a grill. It still has

something that represents a grill. But it looks pretty good. Talk about that and what kind of a

challenge that was. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, there's kind of two main points here from a

design perspective, I think. And one of them is with the, with the drag coefficient, right? Like

with any car these days, but especially in EV, it's so important, but it's tough from a design

perspective to still maintain this kind of bold look without making it a true kind of jellybean

look, right? So they're really careful in keeping that kind of aggressive wide stance

while making sure it's still friendly in the wind tunnel. And so the front end of the vehicle

in this more upright kind of where the hood meets the top of the rail, if you will, is a really

important part of that. The other thing that, you know, I think people, they're so for over a

century since cars were invented, they're used to having this grill in front, right? So there's

kind of this expectation of what the front of the vehicle should look like. But one thing that

designers have really been leaning into is lighting. And that's true here on the leaf too.

Gio, in fact, has said that lighting is the new chrome. So that's just been a really,

almost essentially a trim piece that's become important. And in the leaf on the platinum

grade, we have this LED line that kind of connects these two headlights and really brings a cohesive

look to the front end to kind of bring that grill like appearance into play.

You know, it's funny, I interviewed Ed Welburn at General Motors. He was their design chief

for a number of years. And just towards his retirement, I interviewed him. And he said the

same thing. He said that lighting is the new chrome. Although I don't... Oh, go ahead.

No, no, I was just going to say you can do so many cool things with LEDs these days,

even on Sentra, you know, our new 2026. Sentra, when you unlock the vehicle, it gives this little

animated light display that, of course, some other more luxury automakers have been doing,

but now you can get that on a Sentra, which starts in the low 20s. It's really exciting stuff.

That's a wonderful point, Ariya. And I don't know if you have this information,

but do young buyers respond to that? You know, I don't have that information. I'll say this.

I'm not necessarily a young buyer. I'm 33 years old, but I respond to it. I think it's super cool

that I can get that on my base Sentra. But that's part of the market demographic for this car,

for sure, is that younger buyer. So I think that's part of what it's aimed at.

You know, it just occurred to me too that if you own a leaf and it's in your garage or your

driveway, you're probably approaching it from behind. And if the lights kick in and you check

out those tail lights, you got to feel pretty good about your purchase, right? That's pretty cool

looking. Yeah. And, you know, the Easter eggs kind of play into this too. It's just about bringing

a little bit of joy to the customer. And from a company perspective, this isn't an enormous cost,

right? Like, especially when you're looking at the Easter eggs, we're going to have to

stamp all of these parts, right? So adding that little 2-3 motif, that's not going to

break the bank, but it will provide a really nice reward to the driver, especially as they

discover these details throughout the ownership of the vehicle.

Now, I don't want to completely spill the beans here because I do want to create a little bit of

an Easter egg hunt for people. But do you know of one of the more obscure places that the,

you know, 2-3 motif can be found? I do. I'll give you two examples. One that I, a co-worker,

had to point this one out, is it's on the steering column, but only once you turn the steering wheel

upside down on the underside of the steering wheel. Tricky. And then the 2-3 motif actually isn't

the only little Easter egg we have in there. We have another one that's hidden in a couple of

spots, and it's a ginkgo leaf, which is a very famous leaf in Japan. It's actually the official

tree of Tokyo, and it's on their little city crest. And obviously, it being the leaf, we wanted to

incorporate that in a couple of places. So you'll see it in the charging, the wireless charging pad

in one of the cup holders, but you'll also see it in the rear license plate frame underneath

the license plate. So you'll only see it when you're changing out the license plate or putting

on new tags or what have you. But again, just a small little detail. Eric, we're running out of

time, but I want to ask you about something that Jill brought up a couple of weeks ago when you

would, you went on the long lead for this vehicle. Short lead. Short lead for this vehicle. And you

came back from that with an interesting piece of information. And that was that Nissan had more

or less designed this vehicle for people who had already owned an electric vehicle. And that is

very interesting to me because I think to some extent that sets different expectations, I think.

People might realize they don't drive 500 miles in a week and they don't need this. But talk a

little bit, Eric, if you can talk a little bit about that philosophically, I'm really interested

in what that means. Yeah, we really wanted to make it extremely comfortable for people who

have had an EV before, whether it was a Nissan or not. And so that it was a familiar, they're

or someone who was new to the EV world and still make it comfortable and a reasonable transition

for them and super easy to use. So that's why we have, for example, charging ports on both sides,

compatible with multiple chargers, very easy user interface to understand everything through the

My Nissan app when you're charging. It's anyone who's new to that world of finding a charging

station and even going on a road trip and finding a place to plug it in charge along the way. We

wanted to make that transition super easy for people who hadn't driven an EV. And for those

who had, we wanted to just elevate the experience, make it the easiest EV to live with that we've

ever produced. So that was a big emphasis in delivering the vehicle. Well, Jill and I are

both super impressed. So congratulations on that. Eric, we've run out of time, but maybe we can get

you back on to talk about the S when that comes available. That sounds great. Be happy to join.

All right. Thank you so much for your time today, sir. Thank you both. Really appreciate you having

us on. All right. That was Eric Rubel with Nissan. 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 consumerguide.com.

That's carstuff at consumerguide.com.

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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 Guide

Car Stuff podcast. I'm Tom. She is Jill. It's quiz time. It is, in fact, quiz time.

Got anything you want to get out of the way first? It's my birthday tomorrow. Is it really? Yes.

Oh, how did I not know that? Happy birthday. I don't know. You clearly have not been following

my stories. It's a big 6-0. Yeah. No, I started celebrating this past weekend. I was in LA.

And you're still drunk. I'm still drunk. No, I think I managed to catch a cold,

but I was with my sister in LA after the Kia K4 launch, and we started celebrating my birthday

early. So birthday week. Well, happy birthday. Yes. And so you got to follow me on social

media. You'll see how I'll be celebrating. And you can do that. See my segue by catching me at

Jill Siminello on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and all the other places.

And I use the hashtag car de jour because I'm talking about the cars that I'm driving today.

Alrighty. It's quiz time. And we're like, you would think I would do something nice on now.

You would. But I didn't. But alas, you did not. I have to have a better week than last week.

Oh, by the way, Randy went 6 for 6 last week. Yes. That's right. I went for like 0 for 6 almost.

I think I got one right. People don't know this producer Randy takes the quiz as well.

We just don't usually know Randy's results. Yes. Right away. By the way,

probably always get 6 out of 6. So. All right. Are you ready? Never. Am I ready? Five regular

questions plus the bonus question. You need 3 for a victory. Yes. The bonus question always

related to the topic of the day. Yes. Today's topic is this is a vehicle that I thought was

going to change and it did not. The 2026 Honda Accord. Okay. It has been lightly freshened,

not even lightly freshened. Just tweaked a little this year. I think we have big changes coming

for 2027. Okay. An important car. And I think after the big changes, it may stay that way for a long

time. Okay. Because sedan. Yeah. All right. 2026 Honda Accord. I'm just going to throw something

out there and you have to tell me if it's true or not. Okay. 50-50 chance.

But you're a professional. It should be better than. No. All right. By the way,

the Accord the last time I drove it, fabulous. Yes. I would agree with that. Yeah.

Base price under 30 grand. Yes or no? I'm going to say yes. Yes. By 410 bucks.

295.90. Including or not including destination? Including destination. Okay. By the way,

that price is for one of two non-hybrids. Like the lineup is mostly hybrid now.

Yeah. Did they follow the, because I feel like the Civic, like their non-sport items are non-hybrid

and the sport trims are the hybrid trims. Sporting now premium. We'll talk about that in a moment.

Okay. Don't give a quiz answer. Question two offered in DX trim level.

Is there an Accord DX for 2026? I'm going to say no. No. DX is an old trim level. Yeah.

They used to use a lot. It was a base base trim level. Right. People wouldn't remember this,

but going into the 90s, there were base trim levels of the Accord and the Civic that could be

had without air conditioning. And it wasn't available optionally. The dealer would have to

install it, which made it fairly expensive. Yeah. I don't remember a time before air conditioning

in vehicles, but apparently that was a thing. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was expensive. It was really

expensive when it was new. It would cost as much as 20% of the price of the car, which was crazy

talk. All right. You've got two points. I got two. All right. The base engine is a 1.5 liter turbo.

Hmm. Is the base engine a turbo?

I love this music. And is it a 1.5 liter?

I will say yes. Yes. 192 horsepower. Other than that, you move up to the two liter hybrid.

Okay. Which is the premium. The premium power train. The premium engine for this vehicle.

Available in Urban Gray Pearl.

By the way, I've already won. So it doesn't matter what I do from here on out.

Well, it does. I mean, there's your reputation's on the line.

After last week, this is already an uptick from my quiz reputation.

Urban Gray Pearl. Urban Gray Pearl.

No. Yes. Yeah. That's a weird name. There were three gray tones that aren't very different.

Screw that. Well, I just would have thought Urban Gray Pearl would have been like on the Civic

because the Civic is more of an urban vehicle. That was my logic. I don't even know what Urban

Gray is. Is that pavement? Smog. I'm gonna say it's smog. That's pollution. That's not a good

color. Smog. No. All right. And finally, available with Bose Audio.

Does Honda work with Bose? I know Hyundai does.

I'm driving Hyundai Sonata right now with Bose Audio. With Bose.

I also didn't link my phone yet. So because the car came today. So I've been listening to,

what was it called? First Wave. Okay. Channel 33 XM satellite. And like, I love that music,

but it's so predictable. It was the cure and then it was new order. That is very predictable. That's

like 50% of that station. Yes. All right. I'm sorry. Bose. Bose. Bose. I was listening to my Bose

Cube this morning. Yeah. Podcasts. Well, I was making breakfast. I have a Bose Soundwall

3 on my desk. Very good Bluetooth speaker. I'm gonna say no. Yes. Yeah. I think they started

down the Civic and it's interesting. I read an article interviewing somebody at Honda and

they were disappointed that they needed to do it. Okay. That they had to go with branded audio,

but their consumers seemed to want it. Yeah. I was gonna guess that their audio was Harman

Kardon and not Bose. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what Bose costs extra to get it,

but there you have it. Got it. Bose. All right. You got three. Three. Okay. Bonus question. Are

you ready? Always. You're good at the fast food restaurant ones. Cause I eat so much fast food.

Let's talk about Burger King. Okay. Go for it. I wrote down Burger King. That is my least favorite

fast food chain, by the way. I will not eat there. I am vegetarian, as you know,

and the Impossible Whopper is very good. Very good. But better. Portillo's does their garden dog.

Dang. Okay. It's a spot on Chicago hot dog. Okay. Except for their cheap ass papers and

tomatoes. Got it. They should be wedges other than that. Other than that. Well, we live across the

street from a Portillo's. So the next time we go there, I will, I will do the garden dog.

Garden dog. It's very good. Yep. Also, they have really good fries.

Portillo's. I don't know if they had their fries. All right, Burger King. How many do you think there

are in the world? 100,000. 19,700. You were right there. One million. This number surprised me.

How many in the US? 10,000. 6,700. You're closer on that one. I thought there would have been more.

And how many do you think there are in Mexico to get to the point? 2,000. 450. Okay. All right.

I'm so close. I need you to tell me which of the following is not on the Mexico Burger King

breakfast menu. Not on the breakfast menu. Okay. I got these from the breakfast menu. One of them

is fake. Okay. Three of them are real. Got it. Are you ready? Yes. Nutella French toast.

That actually sounds good. Sounds great. Hotcakes, chicken guacamole burrito,

fruit loop breakfast parfait.

McDonald's used to do a yogurt parfait. Fruit loop breakfast parfait. Fruit loop. Yep.

And what was the first one? The Nutella French toast.

You're going for the branded things. You think the branded things are the trouble?

I do. Not that chicken guacamole anything is a breakfast burrito. I mean, chicken guacamole,

I don't know. That could be for breakfast. Yeah. I mean, ignore me. Nutella French toast,

hotcakes, chicken guacamole burrito, or fruit loop breakfast parfait. I'm going to say the

one thing that has to be on the menu is the hotcakes. Okay.

The chicken guacamole is something I would order.

You're going to need an answer. I know. But the Nutella sounds, you know what? I'm going to use

the word. It sounds a little too bougie for Burger King. I'm saying it. It's very hipster.

Now you're just abusing that word and it's not even a real word. Bougie.

Yeah. I think you're trying to tell me it's the chicken, but I'm going to go with the Nutella.

Is the fake? Yeah. That's real and it looks good. Yeah. The fruit loop breakfast parfait is the

fake. I do get to sign this for you. I know you treasure these. I do. I hang them on my wall

and throw darts at it. All right. So you had a very interesting autonomous experience. I did.

And you took a ride in a Waymo taxi. And for people who don't know, and that is a lot of people,

I think, because we don't see them in Chicago. No, we don't see them in the Midwest. Waymo,

which is a division of alphabet. So they're friends with our good friends at Google.

Yes. So they have deep, deep, deep pockets. They have been putting out there that on the streets

are driverless taxis that you can get into and take a ride. And at first, they were autonomous

taxis with a safety driver on board. But Google, not Google, Waymo's had incredibly good luck with

this. And it's not just good luck. It's technology, it's skill, it's development. But in a lot of

markets now, you can take a four pay ride in a taxi cab without a driver. And you did that. Talk

about it. Yeah. So it was, it was really cool. My sister and I were going out to dinner and it

was kind of late at night. We didn't, it was about a half mile walk back to her apartment. And we're

just like, hmm, it's late. I don't know that we want to make that walk. So we hailed a Waymo.

And you use an app like you would for Uber or Lyft. And did you already have the app?

My sister downloaded it while we were eating dinner. Oh, okay. So she'd never used it before.

I'd never used it before. Is there a monthly service for you at all? I don't think so. So it's

just per ride. Yeah, it's per ride. And so she put in the address of the, you know, the restaurant

we were at or said where we were. And then like an Uber app, it shows you where the Waymo is.

And as it's coming to you, and it'll tell you it's one minute away or whatever. And when it pulled

up, we like, so it was in the Jaguar I-Pace and it has the door handles that pop out and the

door handles didn't pop out. And we're like, how do you, how does that work? And so apparently in

the app, you have to unlock the doors. I've heard this. Yes. Interesting. So we figured that out.

And then we get in the car and it starts like as soon as the doors are shut, it like essentially

starts moving and it makes you hook your seatbelt. And it starts beeping if you don't hook your seat

belt, which I discovered because of the beeping. And then, you know, it just, it drives like a

normal taxi follows all the rules. It's kind of like, you know, your slow mom driving, you know,

it obeys everything stops really slowly. It was a very smooth ride. The only iffy part of the ride

was at the end. Instead of delivering us to the front of my sister's apartment, it like did a

really quick turn into an alley. And we were like, oh, oh, what just happened here? And so it turns

into the alley and it drops us off in the back of her building at her garage. Weird. That, that

was the weirdest part of it. And we're just like, oh, apparently we're done here. And did you guys

call or complain about that? No, did you call? Yeah. But no, I mean, I was just like, we were

both like, what, what just happened here? It apparently we get out now. And so my sister to,

you know, she was like, okay, if I do this again, she lives above a restaurant. She's like, I will

put the restaurant in as the final destination instead of building address. That might be why.

But, but I mean, I, yeah, so I don't know. It was just, it was very, very weird. And does she enter

her apartment by stairs next to the restaurant? I love Bob's burgers. I mean, there's like a little

corridor next to the restaurant that she goes down. So yeah. Okay. But the other part of this

is it was really expensive. It would for a half a mile, it was like essentially a three to four

minute drive. It was 20 bucks. Was it? So, and I don't know if there's like just a base fee. So

if we'd gone like a mile, if it would have been 20 bucks also, and maybe we just didn't go far enough

to like, I don't know. I also don't know if Waymo employs surge pricing. Like Uber and Lyft do.

Fair. Uber does. Yeah. And so these are questions that we would, I would need to dig into and look

at, but it was, it was a really cool experience. It was neat to see there was no driver. You could

hook up your Spotify to the car and play your own music through the car. And how was the drive

experience itself? It's good. Was it? Yeah. No herky jerkiness, no indecision. Just going into the

alley. That was the weirdest part of it because it felt like it jerked the wheel into the alley.

My experience with Robert Calangelo's Model Y, Tesla Model Y, was that it went really slow

around some corners. And that would be my only complaint. Yeah. It did not go slow into the

alley. It would like turn very fast. It was actually super clean and efficient and direct.

And I had no problems with it. So for people who don't know, Waymo is available in Phoenix,

San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. Those were the big markets.

That's where they were first. And they're pretty well established there. They have 3,500 or will

at the end of this year. They're buying the last of them. 3,500 Jaguar I-paces. I always get my

Jaguar numbers wrong. Jaguar. But they're expanding now. They're already there. Miami,

Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. And there's a big, big list here of other markets.

Las Vegas seems like a really good one. Yeah. That's a cab heavy city. Yeah. And they're going

there next. So, well, that's cool that you did that. Yeah. I was really excited. I would not

hesitate to do that again. It felt perfectly safe. And the other benefit is, and I've never felt

uncomfortable in an Uber or Lyft, but I will tell you, whenever I get into an Uber or Lyft,

I always send my husband a glimpse of where I am so that he can track my location and, you know,

should anything go pear-shaped. But I know that there are a lot of women and children

who feel more comfortable without having a driver. My sister-in-law, for example, will only put my

niece, my 16-year-old niece, into a Waymo. She will not call her an Uber or Lyft.

Interesting. Yeah. My buddy Dave is in Phoenix right now. He's done it before. He's gotten used to

hiring the Waymos. Yeah. It was an excellent experience. I would 100% do it again.

Well, cool. Guess what we did? We had a great show. We did indeed.

Big thanks to Eric Rubel of Nissan for jumping in. Appreciate him joining us today. Thank you,

Jill. Thank you to Producer Randy and the good folks here at TalkZone. Let's talk more about cars

again next week.

Chinese Car Prices, Nissan Leaf Design, Driving the Silverado EV

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