Ep. 311: These Are All The New Trucks We Can't Wait To Drive In 2026!
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Company
Dave Smith Motors
Dave Smith Motors is a car shop that sells GMC trucks and promises easy buying with low prices.
Concept
new car incentives
Dealers sometimes give you a price cut or special loan rates to make buying a new car cheaper.
Concept
dealership
A dealership is a place where you can buy cars, like a store that sells vehicles.
Car
Chevy Silverado
The Silverado is a big truck made by Chevrolet. It’s popular for hauling heavy loads and has been around for many years.
Term
crash system
A crash system is the part of a car that helps keep you safe if the car hits something. It includes things like airbags and special parts of the frame that bend to protect you.
Term
V8
A V8 is a kind of engine that has eight cylinders in a V shape. It’s known for giving strong power and is often used in sports cars and big trucks.
Term
low range
A low range is a special gear that makes the car turn slower but gives it more power to pull heavy stuff or go off‑road.
Part
8-speed automatic
An 8‑speed automatic is a gearbox that can shift through eight different speeds automatically, helping the car run smoother and use less fuel.
Concept
two-liter turbocharged engine
A two‑liter turbocharged engine is a small engine that uses a turbo to boost power, giving you more speed without making the car too big.
Brand
K-Truck
K-Truck makes big trucks that people use for moving goods or doing heavy work. They’re known for being strong and reliable.
Concept
Cars and Coffee
Cars and Coffee is a meetup where people bring their cars to show off and talk about them. It’s like a car club event.
Concept
street cred
Street cred is how much respect a car gets from other car lovers. It’s like having a cool reputation in the car world.
Brand
Ferrari
Ferrari makes fancy, fast cars that many people think of when they hear the name. They’re famous for racing and stylish designs.
Term
electric motor slash battery
An electric motor is a machine that turns electricity into movement, and the battery keeps that electricity ready to use.
Concept
production vehicle
A production vehicle is a car that’s actually made and sold, not just a test or concept model.
Term
towing max
Towing max is the biggest load a truck can pull without breaking down or getting unsafe.
Concept
high loaded option truck
This is a truck built to carry a lot of weight, like big boxes or equipment. It has extra strength and parts that help it handle heavy loads.
Concept
trim levels
Cars and trucks come in different versions. A basic one is cheaper, while a higher version has more extras like better seats or tech.
Concept
plug and hybrids
These cars plug into a charger to get electric power, so you can drive short distances without gas. If the battery runs out, they use gasoline.
Brand
Rivian
Rivian makes electric cars, especially trucks and SUVs. They’re a newer company that focuses on outdoor adventure vehicles.
Car
Land Rover Defender
The Defender is a tough off‑road truck made by Land Rover. It’s famous for being able to handle very rough roads and trails.
Part
bull bar
A bull bar is a metal bar put on the front of a truck or SUV to protect it from rocks and bumps when driving off‑road.
Part
bench seat
A bench seat is a single long seat that goes across the front of a car, so you can sit next to someone without separate seats.
Term
mid-sized trucks segment
Mid‑size trucks are medium‑sized pickup vehicles that fit between small and large trucks. They’re popular for everyday use and light towing.
Car
Ram Extended Ranger Standard
The Extended Ranger is a longer version of the Ram pickup truck. It gives you more room in the back for hauling stuff.
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Hey Andre, with Christmas behind us, we're going to take a look at the future of trucks. Specifically the trucks that we're looking forward to seeing coming up in 2026 and 2027 and beyond. Exactly. But Roman, what happens if you are a Patreon supporter of ours and you're watching this live, but it's slightly before Christmas? Well, then Merry Christmas to you all.
Yes, so we're happy to have you guys on the show with us, both live and recorded and I'm super excited because I love new things and I love new trucks.
The question that people may be wondering is where's Case? Exactly. Where is Case? Well, I have a bit of trivia for you Andre. You may know the answer to this.
He is with Tommy and they are doing a dino run on a vehicle that has the least amount of horsepower that we've ever tested. I'll give you a hint. It's a truck.
I'll give you the number. I'll give you guys a number of horsepower that's producing and let's see if you can guess what the truck is.
You ready for it? I'm ready. 11. A John Deere tractor. It's producing 11 horsepower. Am I right? It's not a John Deere tractor.
It's a truck that produces, so if you can guess, let us know in the comments below what truck is producing a tidy 11 horsepower.
By the way, speaking of 11, this is Episode 311. Oh, yes. Isn't that your favorite band? Yes. It's one of my favorite bands from the 90s.
If you've heard of 311, let us know in the comments below. Let us ask you guess what truck produces 11 horsepower. Thank you. This is dedicated to 311.
All right. Never heard of them, but I'm going to go with it. All right. So like I said, let's talk about future trucks. My favorite topic, future trucks.
Yes. But let's talk about the ones that we know are coming for sure. Not the speculative ones, not the ones that are way out there, but the ones that are coming in 2026.
I think we got to start with the big cajona, which is the Chevy Silverado.
Exactly. And why do we know it's coming soon? It's because we've been seeing prototypes pretty much everywhere.
You've seen some of the heavy-duty Silverado in the mountains in Michigan. They're running around every day. It seems like there's prototypes.
And also recently, there was a story, just what a few days ago, where the U.S. patent office published some images related to a patent that GM had. And it had these renderings and drawings of the next Silverado.
It says in our story, 2027. I thought we were talking about 2026. But you know how this works, right? No, tell me. You know this.
The model here of the truck is usually ahead of the year, actual year. So they're going to unveil it as a 2027 in 2026. Exactly. Which is why we're talking about it now.
And so these renderings are something that they filed a patent on. Yes. And it looks like a truck. It looks like a very bulky, very kind of chunky truck.
But also, it will be cool. If somebody took those renderings and used AI to accurately render it as a real truck, wouldn't that be cool, Andre? I think somebody did. We got an email.
Yeah, somebody did that. Look at that. We got that email. Who sent that email to us, do we know? Yeah, let me look.
Tell us. So there, if you guys are listening to this, unfortunately, you can't see it. But one of our viewers sent us renderings from, I think those patent filings. And what's unusual about it is that it's not that unusual, actually.
It kind of looks very much like the next Silverado. You would think would look like it's like an evolution. It's not a revolution. Yeah.
Exactly. But I think that's usually what happens when a vehicle is successful. Right. The manufacturers usually they don't want to redesign the entire thing. Right. They just want to incrementally kind of updated and change it.
And our friend, Selig. Thank you. Selig. Yeah. Sent us to us. So, you know, it's got kind of the current Chevy Silverado design language, which is a lot of horizontal lines.
Both in the front and in the back. Very kind of like almost like what's that Japanese word for when you do those little creatures that you are a gummy. Yeah, very are gummy. Right. A lot of intersecting right angles.
And yeah, it's a, it's a handsome looking truck. It's got those squinty. I think those are daylight running lights, right. Those, those ones on top are DLRs. Yeah, if you, if you go back to the previous image.
Yeah. So, so they've been doing this for a while now, right. Where they, where they kind of the daytime running light is up above. And it's a little bit thin and it kind of continues this way.
And then kind of below it, it's a little bit different. But I think it's quite attractive. Of course, this is not super official. Right. This is, this is kind of a rendering of a rendering. So we'll have to wait and see a little bit more.
What it's actually going to look at. Like, but call on our website. We also have, have had some posts about 2027 Silverado prototypes testing in the wild.
What do we know about them? So what do we know anything about the powertrain? Do we know anything about pricing? Do we know anything about off-roading worthiness? Any of that? Yeah, we know something.
Okay. Tell me, for example, this story right there where our producer Cole is clicking over to. So first of all, the truck you see here is a little bit higher. Do you see how high it sits? And it's got those bigger wheels and tires. So, so the rumors are is that they're going to go to 35s on some of their off-road trims like the ZR2.
Well, that's a big change because Chevy never goes for big tires. Yeah, so they're usually really kind of a little bit conservative and a little bit slow-ish to kind of go up in tire sizes.
And that's because in the past before, you know, they did away with cafe standards and all that. Bigger wheels and tires meant better, better times spent at the pump because it meant worse fuel economy.
Exactly, because they're heavier, they're bigger, harder to track.
Exactly. And also remember, we were talking to several engineers also with Ram and GM and others who said, you know, when you get a bigger tire and the wheel on a truck, well, first of all, you have to change the suspension, usually.
But also, you have to like retest crash, you know, crash system. Like it's expensive. Yeah, it gets really expensive to actually do it from the factory and do it properly.
But we also think, Roman, that these trucks will have the new V8 engines. Yeah, it says in your headline there, new 5.7 and 6.6 Gen 6 V8. Exactly.
So once again, they, there's a little bit of speculation again here because the, this story came out on a GM kind of a forum, enthusiast site.
And the 5.7 dude, my 2004 ski boat has a 5.7 Chevy, a 350 Chevy V8.
And so the rumor is, is that that displacement is going to come back and also the 6.6 liter engine.
So is that the same 6.6 they put in the HD truck or is it a different? Well, the same displacement, but it may be slightly different.
So they're actually maybe different. Yeah, well, or maybe some of the internals may be a little bit different.
Sometimes they change the stroke or the bore of the engine. So I kind of feel like the 5.3 and the 6.2 have been around forever.
As long as I can remember. They have been. And so potentially more horsepower since you've got more. Yeah.
And hopefully better cleaner, cleaner burning, right? So hopefully a little, maybe a little bit better emissions.
And also maybe a better efficiency. So that's, that could be really cool.
So I think I'm going to write the 5.3 was 355 and the 6.2 was 420.
And so with 0.3 liters more give or take, you're probably looking at a 50% 50 horsepower.
Up maybe if you're lucky. So instead of, you know, smaller engine being 350 it might be close to 400.
And then like the big engine might be closer to 460.
670. That would be sweet because if you're looking at competition, right?
So Ram just came out with a hurricane engines, which are not V8s, but which are very, very powerful and over 500 horsepower.
Oh, yeah. So 6.2 turbo. Yeah. Exactly. So GM really needs to stay up with the game and really.
Is there any turbo charging potential? Well, we think they're going to retain that 2.7, right?
The engine that you talked about these two. So 5.7 naturally aspirated.
We haven't heard any rumor of turbo charging. But would not be cool.
You know, I think GM has done well with their engines.
Not so well with their cylinder reactivations and transmissions, but maybe the engines are okay.
So maybe they'll stick to having an a engines natural aspirated engines just because that sets them apart from, you know, both Toyota and Ford.
But you know how they corvette the C8, you know, they came out with, yeah, and engine and then they see our one.
And then there's 0.6 and then there's the R1 and then so I don't know if they're going to have the similar progression.
And also we don't have any news yet if they're really going to go after the Raptor trucks and TRXs of the world.
But we know the ZR2 is coming back, but we're not sure if they're going to have that supercharged C8.
One could argue that that's one of the biggest misses for GM and that they don't really have a Raptor fighter.
You could argue that the Hummer is kind of a Raptor fighter, but really isn't right.
It's an electric versus supercharged. It's a very different animal, literally.
Yeah.
And so it would be nice for them to actually come up with a normally, let's call it either supercharged or supercharged.
Yeah, Raptor fighter because they certainly have now the off-road cred to keep making the Hummer EV better off-road.
They have the AEV addition in their mid-size trucks which are incredibly good.
We have that AT4X which is mind-blowingly good.
So why not get a full-size one and go, go beyond the trail boss.
Maybe what's beyond a boss?
They senior manager.
Seasweet.
Silverado Seasweet.
Quarter office?
Quarter office.
Yeah, there you go.
Something a little bit better than just the boss.
All right, now speaking of something that is coming that we kind of can't talk about,
but RAM has been teasing something coming on the New Year, Andre.
Yeah, we have a little story about this on our homepage as well.
What have they been teasing?
Can we talk about it?
Three letters.
Three letters.
Yeah, TRX.
Really?
Well, they didn't come out and say it in those words, but the CEO of Stallantes,
what a month or two ago, said a V8 power TRX is coming back.
So they made kind of that statement and I know stuff about it that I cannot talk about.
So what you're hinting at is if you want to know everything there is to know about this truck,
come back.
Just wait maybe another week.
Yeah, there might be some news.
There might be some news that's coming because the only thing they did show a video with
like sand blowing in the wind.
Yeah, that was their teaser.
I wish we had more than sand blowing in the wind.
Just truck, truck blowing in the wind, truck jumping over the sand blowing in the wind.
Oh, wait.
Oh, that's a V8, little clip.
There it is.
If you're watching this, there is the sand blowing in the wind.
It's also out of focus.
Yeah.
That's how fast it's blowing.
I was expecting like a giant like 35 tire just flying through there.
Yeah.
Go back a second.
That's right.
To the main page of Rams up there.
What's the nothing stops Ram?
Oh, wait.
They just set a premiere, Roman.
You saw this.
You saw this.
Whoa.
Do you see that cloud of sand?
Is there a truck behind that cloud?
So there you go, Cole.
We just saw the cloud right there.
It says premiere in nine days, January 1st at 8 a.m.
8 a.m.
That must be when we can publish a video.
No, that might be.
Yes.
That's a specific time.
I don't know.
It's okay.
Well, we need to make sure because we can't blow in bargo.
Well, we could, but we would never test another ram.
I can't ever again.
Well, we don't freaking bargo is on today.
No, we never have.
There are other people who do that.
Not us.
We're doing.
So, yeah.
So I think that's going to be some big news coming.
So we just broke news, Roman.
Well, we broke news that says nothing stops Ram.
Premiere in nine days at 8 a.m.
We don't know.
Yes.
If it's, you know, California.
It could be, it could be a new work truck, Roman.
Well, it could be Saudi time with all its ambulance.
There's a lot of sand there.
There could be in Saudi Arabia.
I think people know it's a three-letter word, Andre.
Well, you know what else opens up on like the third of January?
What's that?
It's the Dakar rally.
It's the next running of the car.
Well, now it's Saudi Arabia.
It's not in Africa, of course.
And speaking of like super trucks, Ford,
and we have seen nothing or heard nothing official,
but Farley keeps teasing that they're either going to build
an off-roady truck or an off-roady car.
So the teases that Ford, and this is a truck show,
but we can talk about it since we're kind of talking about
fuel off-roaders.
That the Ford is working on like, you know how they have the GTD,
which is the ultimate track Mustang?
Well, there might be an ultimate off-road Mustang coming.
Or something.
So like a lift sports car.
I did a video like half a year ago, you know,
saying Ford should build an off-road Mustang
and everybody kind of yawning.
But now I may have been early, maybe too early,
and maybe this is something that is coming as well.
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Well, remember even like a year
to a gold, there was some rumblings of an off-road Mustang
because like the Porsche 911 Dakar,
and the Lamborghini dipping its toe
into slightly more off-road worthy IVA calls.
You know what they need to do?
This is my Ford.
Jim, I know we don't know each other.
And I've given you a lot of what's they call a crap over the years
for building a $400,000 Mustang.
And I stick to that.
But I'm going to give you a free one here.
And I'll ask you, Andre, if you think this would sell.
All right.
So as you know, there is a Raptor.
Raptor.
Yes.
There's a Raptor R.
Yes.
There's a Ranger Raptor, which by the way, we've owned at $50,000.
It's probably the most bang for your buck.
You're going to get out of any truck mid-size or otherwise.
Yes.
There is a tremor heavy-duty truck.
Yes.
Which is, you know, kind of like Ford's version of the power wagon.
And there's a tremor Maverick.
But there should be a Raptor Maverick.
I want to see a Raptor Maverick.
I kind of feel like maybe they should go with a Raptor heavy-duty.
But the problem with heavy-duty trucks is they're just too big and heavy and wide.
And so I don't want to go off-roading in that.
Leave that to you, Namaag, you know, or leave that to our general there.
But I think I would be over the moon if Ford built a true Raptor Maverick.
Now, the Maverick is built on the escape chassis, which is...
Bronco Sport chassis, which is also a Bronco Sport.
So it may not be the right platform.
But imagine like a serious...
Because the tremor is just kind of...
You know, there's no more horsepower.
It's just got kind of stickers and better tires and a little bit of a lift.
But I imagine it's actually actually built a Raptor with a capital R Maverick.
Would you buy that?
Let's call it...
Let's see, a tremor is like now 40-some-k, right?
It's like 42-40.
Okay, so 42 for a tremor and then the Ranger Raptor is 57.
So how about let's go 49 for a Maverick Raptor?
I would buy that.
I would too.
Yeah, I would.
And I think Ford could do that before the Super Duty Raptor.
Because a Super Duty tremor is already 90,000, 95,000, right?
You could trim it up, you know, you could load it up with many options.
And plus, it's heavy, like you said.
So making a heavy-duty Raptor would be very difficult, in my opinion.
But making a smaller, little baby Raptor, I think that's really cool.
And I think the thing that would make it work is not only does the Maverick have a boat ton of payload.
So you're not, you know, you're starting with about 1400 pounds of payload already.
So even if you do give it bigger shocks and better spending heavier.
You could still, you know, have enough payload to make a usable truck.
The magic of the Maverick is, the interior is almost as big as a Ranger, right?
Me and you, we had, for a year, we had the Maverick all-wheel drive hybrid.
And we're pretty big guys.
And we both fit comfortably in there.
Yeah, yeah.
I think there's something, you know what it's got, it's got that kind of gymni appeal, right?
Everybody's longing for a small, cute, capable, serious off-roader.
And there is nothing in the truck world once you get, you know,
below the Ranger size.
And the problem is Rangers are big.
They used to be small, but now they're big.
Like today's Ranger is probably the same size as an F-150, like two generations ago, maybe three.
I think, yeah.
Gosh, I think Ford's Raptor, you know, many, many manufacturers do this.
You know, when Chevy builds a ZR2 or a Ford builds a Raptor,
there's certain testing you have to meet, right?
That's very tough.
You know, off-road tests, towing tests, all kinds of stuff they throw at those trucks.
So, that could be interesting if they could do it.
And you know, President Trump just threw out this K-Car thing,
and there's just, I was just reading a story on NPR about K-Cars
and how people actually love them.
I think there's a community that would bond around a small K-Truck Raptor.
Yeah.
I don't think we have ever seriously tested even a tremor Maverick
because it just doesn't have a low range, as far as I know, right?
It's got that little goat thing, but there's no true low range.
No, because it just has an 8-speed automatic.
Yeah.
It's just basically a two-liter.
Yeah, just a two-liter turbocharged engine.
And without a low range, it's kind of, it's not a poser,
but it's never going to, like, go and do a whole thing.
It's not a real McCoy, let's say.
But you know what Don is here?
Don and Elliot and Jason, thank you very much for joining us on our live show.
These are patrons.
Yes, patreon.com slash TFO car.
If you want to be here while we record the show and answer his questions,
where should they go, Andre?
patreon.com slash TFO car.
And you guys make that possible.
So are there any questions we should answer before we proceed to, like,
the next truck that's coming in?
Yes.
So Don has a couple of comments.
Don also mentions K-Truck, and he says we need to dyno a K-Truck
after you've dynoed the Model T.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Thank you for that suggestion.
I just said.
You just gave it away.
Yeah, well, you go by now they would have, they would have probably
typed their answers in any way.
And it's too late now.
If you're typing your answers like 20 minutes into the show,
we won't count it.
Sorry.
I forgot.
That's okay.
Okay, and then Don also said that he knows that we've
Iced, put every new truck on the I-Gone, let's already.
But he says what if you bought three or so
ten-year-old used pickup trucks and then Iced the heck out of
those trucks.
We've tried that.
It hasn't really taken off.
We've tried.
But I think it's a good idea.
But if the trucks are the right trucks.
Well, there's two issues with that.
First of all, we've been doing the Iced for how many years?
13.
Okay, so 13 years.
So we probably have to be older than that.
So I do really want us to Iced a 20-year-old truck.
We tried that.
Do we like that OBS truck we had?
Yeah, we did.
And it wasn't super popular.
I don't remember anymore.
It wasn't it wasn't fly off the shelf.
But we did it by itself.
So I think comparing older vehicles.
So comparing always always works.
Andrew, I'm going to put my editors hat on.
Right.
And I'm going to say this.
The problem with Iced a 20-year-old truck is that the Iced is not only
entertaining, but it's also a very important video that people use
when they make a buying decision.
Yes.
Because they're using that to determine if they want to buy a vehicle
or a truck one versus the other because of the fact that one
tow's this one tow's that.
There's not a lot of people buying 20-year-old trucks.
Right.
It's a buyer video to a large extent.
Sure.
And so now you got to talk to enthusiasts.
And if I'm an enthusiast, it's about street cred also.
Yeah.
It's about street cred.
Have you ever heard that like you show up to cars and coffee
and you're like, hey, how much does your truck tow?
Have you ever heard anybody say that?
Wow.
Well, line tow's 10,000.
I think truck guys talk about that every day.
Every single day.
You are a true truck guy, Andre.
I pull up to a car.
You're at the dark cars here in Boulder having a burger and a beer.
What's your payload?
Exactly.
I want to see your payload.
Show me yours.
I'll show you mine.
Come on.
Show me that sticker.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.
Okay.
But we do want to actually want to like a truck based through your OSUVs.
I think that would be a, we've done every truck.
So now we want to move on to the SUVs.
I think people tow with like suburban centahos and such.
And I think that's a good, good buyer video.
Jason says Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you.
Happy New Year.
And then Elliott is here.
We just uploaded sports cars.
Myself, I lifted a Mondale.
Did they say that correctly?
No.
Mondale.
No dial.
It was pretty cool to think of certain folks as we plowed through a stream on the side
of the Italian Alps.
Wow, Elliott.
It's a Mondale.
Can you look up a Mondale, please?
No, it's a Mondale.
A Ford Mondale?
Yeah.
Ford Mondale.
It's a common car.
I've never heard of a Mondale.
It's a Ferrari.
Ferrari Mondale.
Are you talking about the Ferrari?
Are you talking about Ferrari?
Is you off-roading Ferrari?
Sports cars.
Oh, so it must be a Ferrari.
Yeah.
Oh, well, I stand corrected.
And I'm impressed.
Both.
Well, if you off-roading this Ferrari, Elliott, this is super sweet.
Do you have video?
Can you share some video with us?
Yeah.
Shoot over to ask a TFL.
Yeah, ask a TFL truck.
Yeah, come.
All right.
Let's keep going with the trucks that we're looking forward to in 2026.
Another truck we know is definitely coming is the new RAM range extended.
Rev.
Yes.
Tell me about that truck, Andre.
Well, we know a lot about this RAM.
I mean, when we didn't know some stuff about the other couple of things we've mentioned,
the Rev, we know a lot about.
So it's got 640 horsepower from two electric motors.
It's got a V6 Pentastar engine as a range extender underneath the hood.
It also means that the RAM rev doesn't have a frunk because there is a generator basically
underneath the hood.
It's like a traditional truck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So there are upsides and there are some downsides and some of the upsides and downsides
are obvious and some are.
So let me give you the obvious ones and I'll give you the ones that aren't so obvious.
Okay.
So obviously the way that it works is you have two basic power trains.
So you have an electric motor and you have an internal combustion engine and the electric
motor turns the wheels and the internal combustion engine in this case the Pentastar generates
electricity which feeds the battery which then turns the motor which then turns the wheels.
Yes.
So it's kind of like a locomotive.
Exactly.
That's good.
The upside to that, of course, is that you can tow with it and you have all the electric
torque and power.
That you need.
So you don't have to stop for 45 minutes and no because you can have that Pentastar generating
power.
The other upside is that if you don't charge it up you can still drive it around kind
of like a plug and hybrid and go on the road trip.
Yeah.
You don't have to have a full battery and the obvious downside is that you're carrying around
two power trains.
So now you got to repair a motor and an engine.
You've got all the complexity of both combined even for more complexity.
So those are kind of the obvious ones but there are some less obvious ones.
What is it?
First and foremost, payload Andre because you know we know that if you want the most amount
of towing you have to have the most amount of payload and when you're dragging around
both an internal combustion engine and a big ass heavy battery you're going to lose a lot
of payload.
Yes.
But not the case here.
So Ram did some magic with the suspension and they actually are quoting.
This is what they're quoting.
They're quoting about 2600 pounds of payload and 14,000 pounds of towing on their range
extended truck.
Even Cole almost fell off his chair when he just heard this.
So I don't know how I seem pretty chill over there Andre.
He was.
Sorry.
He was shocked by that.
No, no, I mean, so basically it's almost a heavy duty.
Yeah, right?
I agree.
So yes, I totally get it.
It's going to weigh quite a lot but they gave it the suspension and the capability.
So hopefully it will be quiet, capable as far as payload is concerned.
But you know what else?
It doesn't.
Oh, he said it was a Ferrari.
Oh, that's so cool, dude.
Wow.
Please send us a picture.
I want to see that thing.
All right.
We're doing it.
Yeah, we want to see you off-roading.
Good for you.
I stand corrected.
All right.
So another not so obvious.
Yes.
And I know this from personal experience issue is that you need a relatively large internal
combustion engine to provide enough power to actually keep the battery charged so you
can spin the electric motor so you can spin the wheels.
And that means either you have a big internal combustion engine or you use it a lot which
means it's going to be thirsty.
So it could be very, very thirsty because now you've got this penta star like spinning
its little legs off just to keep enough energy flowing into the battery so you can keep
towing.
This is going to be an issue.
Yes.
And of course the issue with that is like you're all basically it's like even if you're towing
flat you're like going up the ice.
So then you've got issues with and you know that the penta star loves to rev.
So it's going to be very...
There's a question about how loud this is generated and how much fuel you're using.
So how much fuel you're using?
Is it powerful enough to maintain that climbing right?
Especially we'll find out obviously.
But you could potentially be looking at a truck that if you don't charge up the battery
before you leave.
So it uses a lot more fuel than if you didn't have the electric motor slash battery.
So yeah.
So Ram has addressed a lot of these questions even though we haven't driven one and we
haven't seen one like a production one in real life yet.
They did say that they're going to always kind of maintain a reserve in the battery right?
So maybe you know the meter of the battery of the electric battery which is 92 kilowatt
hours.
It might be going to low but there's still a big chunk of it kind of left behind the scene.
Okay but let's say you're going up from Denver to the top of the ice in the hour tunnel.
That's a 45 mile stretch of straight up and you're towing max.
And Ram tested that way.
So what happens if you hit that 20% reserve then do you go below that 20% reserve or does
the truck like the I three did right?
So we have this experience where I took your I three now when we owned it and drove it
to Keystone and when I got to Idaho Springs I had used up the entire battery and then I was
doing 25 miles an hour with that little Kimco engine power and battery going up by 70.
And then when I got to love them past I was doing 50 miles an hour.
So it kept going but oh my god was I going slow.
Well Ram said that they have addressed this but we haven't tested it so we can't really
speak to it in the real terms but Ram said they're thinking about all those use cases.
But you know what use case I don't know about is the price.
So that's going to be a big one.
So if they price it just right it's going to be it could be very successful.
If they price it in the wrong way you know as a high loaded option truck which they said
there's going to be multiple trim levels of this truck.
So hopefully they'll have something for a lot of us.
I got this sneaky feeling Andre that like 20 years from now or 10 years from now people
will look at extended range vehicles like this plug and hybrids and they'll be like what
the hell were they thinking why did they subject themselves to having a motor and internal
combustion engine in the same vehicle.
You know all the maintenance that needs you know there's all kinds of issues.
So we'll talk about the other issues because we're knocking on the door of getting batteries
that not only have the new BMW IX 3 500 miles range 500 miles range and I think we're
not too far from like a thousand miles range and from that perspective right if you have
a battery that does a thousand miles range and you could put that in a truck now you're
looking at a realistic range of let's say tone 300 miles which is what you would get.
And then the other part of that equation of course is how fast can they charge and
China already has batteries at charge in minutes not hours not you know not 45 minutes
but like 10 minutes and 10 years from now if there are batteries capable of holding enough
charge and charging quickly enough to go a thousand miles then these kind of dual do power
plant power plant vehicles are going to seem pretty expensive and silly and complicated.
I agree.
Absolutely.
And then like it's a it's a transitional thing and then like you got this other
issue.
It's a transitional thing.
So for instance a great thing about a plug in hybrid is if you just zip around town
with it you never need to actually run the internal combustion engine but then at some
point the engine has to turn on because you need to you need to have it run a little bit
to make sure that everything is working properly and so like does your wife's I3 does the
engine turn on every so often just for maintenance sake?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I was going to say and grains but.
No it's.
We don't swear.
Exactly.
No no of course it does and also she uses it I would say in a weekly basis because you
know her commute is 50 miles and the car has what maybe 70 miles of range on a great
summer day.
It can be mine so.
2014.
It's 11 it's on the 11 year old car.
So yes her generator starts and we've changed oil actually ourselves on this little generator.
We actually jacked up the car there's a plug right.
We're talking about the I3 if you're willing yeah.
Now we're changing oil and we've got it I spent like $2,000 because of the charcoal filter.
Yeah so that was but since then it's been actually pretty good.
So thank you for doing so of course time time will tell Andre but there are downsides
to these plug and hybrids right everybody's like oh that's a solution yeah we'll see
we'll test it I can't wait to test it we'll find out.
I agree with you I hate that solution but it may be I don't hate it I just wonder maybe
a necessary evil so to speak because you know right now the battery is maybe too expensive
to produce and now those volumes so maybe this is a kind of a transitional thing where we
need to go this way.
Well I think we're getting to the point where batteries are actually getting cheap and
Ford just announced obviously that they're no longer doing that joint venture partnership
with is it SLK SKSK yeah because they were supposed to build three three battery plants
and now they're going to basically use one of those plants to build batteries to back
up like data centers yeah so I think battery supply is no longer an issue and batteries
just like hard drives at one point just like storage are getting cheap and so you know
we may be switching just at the wrong time and the last thing I'm going to say about an
extended range vehicle because there's another one coming as well which we'll get to in
a second is I loved the front on the truck a front on a truck is an exception to the use
that was kind of a game changer yeah because you don't have a truck right and you don't
probably have a cover on the bed and so having a front on a truck is is very happy it's
very good this is where you can put your junk yeah in the trunk in the trunk yeah no no but
this is key because even if you have a ton of cover on the back of your truck your stuff
can roll around right if you don't have the compartment it's a big five foot yeah if you
put a suitcase back there you know it's going to launch itself into the front of the bed
and then launch itself back and so having a covered kind of weather protected area like
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deals all right next truck that is coming next year it starts with an S ends with an E and it's
got a late in the middle wow or a lot lot slate I'm of course talking about the slate slate which is
the Jeff Bezos sort of kind of Amazon backed back yeah and this is a truck I've been seeing a lot
of on social media like one of them I tick-tock I'm seeing a lot of ads for it same thing on YouTube
so there is some money behind it and they are working hard you said it was just on J there's
garage where they wrapped it in his companies or his garage his garage is logo yeah yeah yeah um yeah
so it's supposed to come in 2026 once upon a time it was supposed to be a $20,000 truck now it's
27 issue we think we don't think it's pricing yeah so we had so full disclosure you had a reservation
yes and what you do with it I cancel my reservation why did you cancel your reservation
uh this is personal that company it's personal yeah personal because we have a company reservation
yeah no I had a personal reservation and well it's just that there's a couple of things going on
first of all I got super psyched like I get always when there's a new product I'm like you know
a squirrel and seeing you know seeing the new nut that I'm like and I'm just about to pound on it
and then the and then the wife squirrel comes in there who just smacks your cross the face
she gives you a squirrel dope flap like bad Andre well there was a little bit of that um and then
like when they launched the slate so it was a little bit like I'm joking my my fear my wife doesn't
smack me no you get lost anyway um no but like partially it was a personal thing where I didn't like
appreciate how they launched the vehicle so that was a very personal thing on my side
but I also thought to myself you know what I I need to talk about I won't be able to tell anything
large with this so it's like it just didn't match what I needed so you know times are changing
quickly and I kind of feel like this concept for this vehicle was thought up like four or five
years ago when everybody was all EV gun hoe oh yeah so somebody put together you know a plan uh
they kind of went down the road that of course Rivian went down uh we've seen this road a lot
where they're trying to get people who are in truck buyers to buy into a truck you know there's a
lot of people out there who would appreciate the utility of your truck but what's going to
amount of the SUV and put them into a truck and we'll do it by creating a very cheap and affordable
and we'll do this kind of module approach where you could buy uh the basic trucker then you could
like you know make it into uh SUV if you want or you could you know add whatever it's basic you could
add whatever and the idea is good but the the the concept that there's this pool of buyers who are
in truck people who will buy into this and you'll get them out of their RAV4s and their CRVs
I think is flawed that's my my biggest issue with it I think if they actually built this truck and
tried to sell it and they're still not doing it to actual truck buyers people who buy trucks
let's say let's say that you're you know uh a long guy and right now you're running around and you
have some let's say an old Tacoma yeah an old Tacoma uh this would might be a perfect truck because
all you're doing is kind of driving around town you know you could throw your lawnmower in there you
could throw your uh you could throw your debris in there yeah and and it's cheaper to run that it
is you know to run a 10 year old Tacoma whatever it is I think if they actually went after those
people then I think there might be a business case but I'm not sure there's a pool of people out
there who want a 25 or 29 thousand dollar electric truck that they can customize that has rolled down
windows because we've seen it time and time again your comments I'm pointing to you what's
they got with the Ferrari what's his name called oh that's Elliott Elliott Elliott hey nice to see
again Elliott your comments often are you know we I need an affordable truck when we be not yours
because you got a Ferrari how about Don yeah Don your comments are like more affordable truck what
happened to the cheap truck and then somehow the trucks that are at the dealerships in the cell are
always the king ranch or the platinum you know you people expensive yeah and someone's buying
those things so I'm not sure there is this untapped market for cheap electric trucks well I think
you I think you nailed it on on the head there because I think like your local parts store
fleet might use slate trucks right yeah because they're small they can go short distances
perfectly well and they can deliver all kinds of parts to your local parts store or what not
and bring them back and maybe deliver food or something like that but outside of those use cases
for they're like commercial yeah how about the how about the guy who's running in the Amazon
boxes and presents around right because they always have like the Amazon fans but there's always
some guy or yeah and he's grand Cherokee yeah he's probably burning a lot of fuel you know
delivering now be a perfect use case yeah and the reason I say this is because none of the people
at slate seem to have contacted us even though we have the biggest truck YouTube channel
for new truck reviews but they don't seem to care about our audience and so I think you know
and even even now you can see it instead of going after and I love Jalen I'm not missing Jalen
oh very you know incredible car guy but I kind of wondering like well there's this pool of
youtubers that do nothing but trucks that have a giant truck audience but let's go and talk
you know let's wrap the car in Jay's truck in Jay's logo and give it to him because you know
he's he's got the direct line between buyers maybe he needs to run some parts maybe he probably
does need to run parts yeah maybe he's running parts yeah up and down except I mean where do you
get up like 1933 to Soto where do you get that part I don't know maybe he's local 3d print shoppers
yeah I don't know but he could certainly use one so so we'll see as TFO we still have a reservation
out we'd love to get our hands on one you know we do buy these vehicles but
because of the way that the youtube model is changing that that number of trucks that we're buying
is also going to change next year so slate if you want to get your truck in front of a large audience
you should maybe contact us and help us get one so that we could actually review it because
if we get it first we're going to be all over it if we get it last or third
our reservation is going to go the way of you know Andre's and we're going to get a hundred bucks
back and this is not a thread it's just a reality of the business model that we're living in today
all right so slate's coming Silverado's coming next year Rams coming anything else coming next year
that we know for certain before we start getting into the ones that are kind of pushed out farther
well there's the big gorilla we haven't mentioned it which is Ford and we don't we haven't heard
anything solid about from Ford right we know they're 2026 model year trucks are kind of
shipping right now you know they have the super duties and of course you know they have on 50s
and all that stuff we know the lightning isn't coming we know the lightning isn't coming but
lightning actually they have a 2026 they've got enough stock so yeah it might be around but they stop
production yeah but you can buy it 2026 which is surprisingly similar to the 2025 or four or three
or the one we have and then and we haven't seen any prototypes from Ford right we've seen the
Chevy prototypes we've seen some of the other prototypes even the ram Ford is a year behind
with on the launch of a new F50 at this point yes so we can tell so we haven't heard from the normal
exactly from the normal cadence I would say so so we'll have to wait and see what Ford does
especially with some of their new products Ford is a little sneaky sometimes they like wait to
see what the competition does you know they're kind of like just hanging out and then all of sudden
they pounce well they're like me whether you track it like you in the school no seriously that's
how they do yeah that's how they do me and they're like hey let's see what ram's doing and then next
thing you know ram comes out with this truck with this much payload and then the next day there's
a press release from Ford by the way our truck has they probably are listening to this podcast
oh sure yeah and they saw us breaking the news about the announcement on January 1st
and there might be cooking something up right now well my question about the January 1st
announcement is if we think it is what it is we'll have more horsepower than a Raptor R that's
my question that's the million dollar question that is so you have to come back or a billion dollar
am I teasing us enough you'll have to come back and find out yes because you know right now the
king of the hill is the Raptor R 720 horsepower yeah exactly yeah all right so we are we don't know
Ford I don't think too does doing anything I mean the one that we're always hearing rumors about
is a stout yes but there's nothing you just went through the technology slash I did for a day
yes I had a hydrogen power to comb my intundra but it's not for sale that's not for sale it won't
be for sale the only thing there that might be for sale is that to come up powered side by side
called the cyan 01 concept yes so but we don't know about it's not official well you interviewed
the engineer and you talked to all those people but they said they're studying it right they're not
ready so let me let me let me share some news that a lot of people may not know about which also
leads into another truck did you know that Colorado became the first state to allow direct consumer
sales of the scout oh the Colorado legislature okay passed that and so now scout will be allowed
to sell first state in the country direct to consumers bypassing any dealers and as you know scout
and the Volkswagen dealers got in a bit of a legal struggle like a powerful kerfuffle where the dealers
were like hey you can't sell these things without us and scout's like oh watch us yeah and the I
think the outcome of that was that the dealers were saying that a Volkswagen had these and I'm
paraphrasing so if I get this wrong feel free to correct me but I think if I'm right the dealers
were saying you can't do this because you have dealer franchise losses Volkswagen and Volkswagen
said that'd be great except we're not Volkswagen we're scout which is true separate it's a separate
it's a separate company and so so even though we are owned by bag the Volkswagen group out of
motor group we are a different company a different legal entity so whatever Volkswagen agreed to
has no impact on us I think the court agreed to that anyway we're looking at the scout
Tara yeah and Tommy was there with them right and interviewing one of their main guys I have to
tell you that's the truck that I'm the most excited about really yeah yeah it's just yeah we're
having our meetings this morning I was saying I love the fact that it is more of a traditional truck
and what they've done is they've included and kept real buttons so it's unlike a Rivian and I'm not
disagreeing Rivian but you know Rivian is like a Tesla there's no buttons this has real buttons
and then they've taken you know the thing about American American trucks there you go you can see
the buttons right there yeah you can see them all the thing about American trucks except for maybe
Rivian is that if you want the premium one you got to get the big horn or the king ranch or the
platinum right there and they're all like these western themes somehow but but the scout has this
kind of this kind of quiet elegance that is more let's call it European so it's got kind of a European
flair to it which I personally like me because I'm European but it doesn't have like barbed wire
stitching everywhere and there's nothing wrong with barbed wire stitching but there are different
forms of style elegance and trucks seem to have fallen into one category and that is the western style
and it's nice to see something that is more bespoke maybe that's a good word more
more Cadillac that look a front bench that's really refreshing yeah a bench seat in the front
lots of space yeah and so they've taken like even like the like the four mats you know everything
about the thing looks like these guys really know how to style a truck and then they've taken
and Defender has kind of done that too right there there are all these like off-road clichés that
off-road have like big bull bars but then what Land Rover does is they make it look elegant and they
don't just make it look like it's big stuck on bull bar and I kind of feel like scout has done that
and to some extent Rivian has done that too except Rivian went way too Tesla on us and they got
rid of every real button and control and that's my biggest issue anything else any other comments
from just one second just one more comment from me I guess is that I I love the styling I think
Chris Benjamin is the head designer at Scout right he came from Stellantis and we love this
Stellantis work and I think Scout work that they've done is amazing but I have some bad news
what is it I won't be here till 2025 no 2035 sorry well so they said the production starts at the end
of 2027 which is almost two years from now and so we still have to wait a long time I'm nervous
about that because it's hard to sustain excitement that long well initially they were going to be
all electric and at the last minute they decide to make them you know a plug-in hybrid and now like
80 or 90 percent of the orders are all for the plug-in hybrid and unlike with Stellantis and the
ram we don't know what the powertrain will be will be I mean Volkswagen certainly has enough
two liter or 2.5 liter turbos in their vast collection of small engines that they can use one of
those but we don't know we don't know the battery size we don't know what the engine will be
and also pricing we don't know pricing and by by the looks of it I think we'll be lucky to see
one under 60 I don't think we're going to see one and also Trey has a comment about scout here
thank you Trey for joining us as again on Patreon Trey says I wish there would include the bench
seat from the truck inside the SUV because what they've shown so far is that the SUV doesn't have a
bench right it has a center console in the front and that's the only thing keeping his family from
buying an SUV scout well maybe one will come later we don't we don't know I mean if they're
successful and they want to expand their offerings they might offer that so but later so my personal
experience with that is wanting is better than having and what I mean by that is when we ordered our
defender the very first defender we had we got we got that option oh I remember for the bench seat
and the way that it worked was and it's worked similar in trucks too and you got this bench seat
that folds down and then there's like a cup holder in the middle and then it folds up and then
you can sit there but but quite honestly the romantic image is like it's you and your gal you know
and she's in the middle seat and you get your arm around or you get to other arm out the window
and the reality is there's not a lot of room in most modern vehicles especially smaller vehicles and
when you try to put a third person in that middle seat it becomes kind of tight and very uncomfortable
and kind of awkward if you don't know them very well and so yeah you may think sorry Tray that you
want that middle seat but when you actually try to drive with somebody like that close to you
unless the thing drives itself although scout said that they're specifically not going to do
a fully autonomous version so yeah so my they're not okay fine yeah good for them my my take on that is
I wish I hadn't gotten that because because you because in the defendant because then what you also
what you lose is that storage bin and all that stuff that's usually in the middle there and there's
a lot of stuff there yeah that's useful like it's there's a place to put your phone there's a place
to like put your and you do have a drink holder because it usually the seat folds down and there is
a drink holder but it's it's kind of awkward and it's kind of big and it's kind of clumsy and
it's not grand dude um the I was just going to say that in the scout that must might be the
best execution of that okay because it's actually a wider vehicle it's almost 50 yeah it's
almost an F-150 by width so I think scout has something going for it because it's actually large
enough for an even an adult to sit there we'll have to wait and see if you're the purchasing manager
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all right well let's keep going so scout another one in the future the other one that I kind of
touched upon is the stout the Toyota stout we've heard scout in a stout stout scout that'd be kind
of cool oh wow what you do that's not gonna happen no it's not gonna happen uh but uh so the
stout is this potentially electric potentially not uh maverick fighting Toyota yeah and you
saw a prototype of something like this which was an electric little compact truck from Toyota
I think we called it kind of a stout I think they called it a city truck if I remember right or
that yeah it's right the second story right there yeah um they called it EPU electric pick up
electric pick up a something like a Santa Cruz kind of like a Santa Cruz yes but it had like an
avalanche like a Chevrolet midgate right where you could fall to midgate down and you could actually
uh put big items into it so this is quite an attractive concept actually it is uh but you know
as much as people keep I would say the stout is the the rumor that is the most prevalent but with the
least amount of meat on the bone on drain because I have I have not seen anything official even hinted at
from maybe Toyota is keeping that very close to the uh bone you know uh but I have not seen
anything that would suggest that within the next year or two or three years there's a stout coming
I wish I'm wrong because I think Toyota needs I think people understand the Toyota needs to be in that
space uh because you know the maverick has had its way with the market for a very long time it's
obviously a huge success for Ford and yet here we are how many years now three years since it was
introduced yeah three and a half years yeah and there's nothing from either Toyota which would be
the most logical choice nothing from Honda which would be less logical nothing from GM nothing from
Ram nothing from Nissan nothing where is Nissan yeah and all these companies actually have small trucks
in other markets in other markets but none of them have thought thought through to actually
putting one up in America except for Slate but that's a whole different animal so nothing so far
I wish I could say like hey we know something nudge nudge wing but no we don't we don't know I mean
and it does it looks kind of quiet on that front totally true all right uh how about Honda
anything coming up from Honda anything with the original well I'm super excited I think we mentioned
that maybe in the last episode too that they do have some new hybrid tech coming down the line
right the pilot is gonna have the new hybrid they also have range extended well actually their
hybrid is a little bit different than most right it's a little bit more electrified right so the
electric motors provide a lot larger share of that power in that system and so I'm really excited
about testing more hybrids from Honda and I'm really hoping that they redesign their
rich line a little bit more kind of manly way and I don't think there's a lot of resources left
at Nissan right now to come out with a new truck obviously the Titan is dead and I'm sure that
cost them a lot of money but I'm not seeing anything from Nissan to even suggest that there's a new
frontier coming let alone a new small or a bigger truck so you drove the Roush I did try to Roush
just lift it frontier right which is yeah so Roush now works on frontiers and they build the truck
down the road and then the truck goes over to Roush and they give it the Roush treatment which is
basically just a lift and you know some stickers and some you know different colors but no extra
power different interior but no extra power which is weird because Roush is known for providing
more power for forwards and they're working with Nissan and it's just a lift so yeah but it's
factory lift so you know but there's nothing nothing beyond that that I've heard so the only excitement
I can see it via Nissan and maybe Mitsubishi is an Xtera right like a Nissan Xtera maybe you know
kind of a truck based SUV and also maybe a Mitsubishi version of it right that has been rumored
it would be easy for Nissan to take their frontier just as it's easy for you know Toyota to make
a foreigner Nissan could take their frontier and you know stick a top on it and convert it into
the Xtera I think they would be wise to do that you can use the same powertrain so you can use that
V6 and I don't know why they haven't done that yet I don't know why they canceled the Xtera just
as off-roading was booming or starting to take off it's one of those like head scratchers so if Nissan
you know wanted to do something which was a low-lying fruit the Xtera would be a smart choice now I
think we also need to talk about Ford because while Ford announced that they're killing the lightning
they have not announced that they are killing electric trucks or small electric trucks so Ford
is still working on a small electric truck but we don't know when it's coming out and we don't
know much about it let's try they had that factory announcement right but just a few months ago
and they didn't show anything they didn't show a truck so so they you mean their Model T moment
which oh yes the model the Model T moment which has led to a 19.5 billion dollar write down
that Model T moment is that is that is that maybe that was not the Model T moment that they
thought it would be no I'm sorry Ford you shouldn't have called the Model T moment well if you
did call it a Model T moment then you should have shown a concept yeah you know we we really
wanted to see an actual shape of a vehicle or truck whatever it is we were just talking about
this I'm going to do a little bit of an editorial before we move on so Ford just announced it
because of the lightning and two things first of all I'm we're hot take the lightning by far
is best F-150 you can buy yes it is it's just the most sophisticated it's the quietest it's the
best writing you know if you can get past the electric part of it it has the best suspension set
up it's just a great F-150 it really is yeah it may not tow well but it's got good payload
and if you can like I say live with you know a shorter amount of range it is by far I think the
best F-150 you can buy because we we now have the coyote F-150 and I like the lightning a lot more
I agree it's just doing a road trip and the lightning was very hard yeah anyway what I'm saying
and I you know we don't do financial news but the journalist in me says that this 19.5 billion
that they wrote off was more than just the lightning you know I'll give you a couple examples of
that that we were talking about so so the best segment in America right now in terms of sales of
course is the mid-size crossover segment so think of RAV 4 sells 400 some thousand CRV and
yet Ford has what a 10-year-old whatever the heck it is escaped that they're selling into that
market which is ancient and doesn't do well you know there's just a lot which kind of helped a
little bit but this cape is still an aging product yeah and they haven't updated that
but Lincoln actually yeah Lincoln has its own version of that so so I think I think there's been a
lot of decision that that Ford has made that have nothing to do with you know going electric that
has cost a company money and they're using the the you know the lightning as a bugaboo for
everything that ails the company and I think there are other issues that Ford needs to address
beyond just you know whether the lightning service survivor or not that might be causing them to
to you know have to write off 19 billion dollars yeah I don't know enough about this I don't
we don't do financial news I mean that there may it may all have to do with electric vehicles but
somehow I think that that there's other deep issues it's you know I'll give you another one okay
here's another one Ford may beat this record Andre right now Ford stands at 147 recalls in 2025
147 there are three away from 150 that is triple or more than that than the than the
average of all the other car companies right and that's expensive somebody's paying for that yeah
what's going on why is Ford have 147 recalls this year that's crazy yeah it's crazy and I get that
some of it has to do with you know the fact that we're moving into computer-defined vehicles and
car companies maybe aren't the greatest of building writing software but still come on that's
got to be expensive yeah because not all of it is software yeah a lot of it is hardware yeah
and then of course there are tariffs you know Ford is an international company and they had moved a
lot of their production out of America so they were building a lot of things in Mexico a lot of
things in other parts of the world and now all that stuff gets tariff when it comes back to America the
maverick might be the best example of that because America is built in Mexico exactly yeah and they
sell a lot of those and so that you know the maverick started out of 27,000 no less than that 23
20,000 yeah yeah in 2022 or 21 yeah and then let's talk about the lightning before you start like oh
you know I think but they said lightning is coming back as an orange extended some yeah but let's talk
about the current one first and foremost for you know this you didn't update it there's no mid-cycle
refresh you started out by selling a few of them at what you said was going to be the cheapest what
was 40 like 49,000 was it that plus plus definition and then when we bought ours a few months later
it was 72,000 if I remember right because we wanted the bigger battery we wanted like a few
options yeah but yeah but you can't go from 40,000 39,000 to 80,000 if you got the one all the bells
and whistles and so a lot of the the problems with the lightning had nothing to do with the fact that
it had a battery but a lot of had to do with that it was a very expensive truck the other thing that
Ford promised when the first came out was this thing where you could actually use the vehicle to
then charge or to power your home we got that but we were never actually able to make that thing work
and a lot of owners have said that they also were unable to make that work so this idea of like
you know everyone the Texas had their huge power outage and everybody got all excited because
somebody could brought by a lightning and powered this wedding and it was like now I could you
know have a battery backup well that never really took off as far as I know and also the pricing
went up and down you know they made it cheaper they made it more expensive they made it cheaper
all over the place yeah and how many are man at Brighton Ford how many lightnings they have for
sale right though zero he stopped ordering lightnings like a year or two ago yeah yeah so the question
there is which came first the chicken or the egg otherwise the demand or the dealerships right
and Ford never was able I think to convince especially in places like Colorado which you should
be able to convince because we got a lot of electric vehicle sold here that the lightning is a good
vehicle to sell to dealers and dealers aren't stupid these guys are sharp but I wonder if they never
gave the lightning a chance I mean I kind of feel like most Ford dealers were like the goose to blade
the golden egg is the F-150 so why do we have to sell this electric version of it and so I don't
think they ever had you educated there salespeople as to you know the way that you sell an electric
truck because it was just much easier to just like hey you want an F-150 with a coyote or with an
eco booster or with a six cylinder well we got it what's that one over there never mind that one
yeah it was just I mean Brighton Ford you know one of our friends they're kind of on the edge of the
city right yeah well they're very rural yeah but but so so the deal with you know a lot of people
who are very traditional right then they love their two of the diesels and they love their gas
engines so yeah it just didn't work in that particular area at all so I don't know like I say I
don't know if the dealers hated the trucks or if the public didn't like the trucks or both of those
things happened or if one of those things happened but there's a lot more going on than just you
know oh by the way people don't want electric vehicles so we're gonna write down 19 and a half
billion dollars I think you could do a pretty good business school case any other vehicles that
we're missing Andre that are coming any other trucks that that that that how about in the heavy
duty world anything HD coming well you saw GM testing new diesel engines it appears it appears
yeah there might be a new new Duramax coming so and if a new Duramax is coming then I'm sure
Ford and Ram will not be sitting down no for this power stroke I'm sure they could stand up as well
and and the new the recent new Cummins was a little bit of a letdown I'm not saying it's a bad
engine I don't know it was just disappointing that it didn't provide we had gotten so used to
having this these diesel wars happening where we just get getting higher and higher higher torque
numbers higher and higher horsepower numbers higher and higher towing numbers and all of a sudden
the Cummins comes out and it doesn't surpass the Ford it just is it actually it isn't even more
fuel efficient than the outgoing one if I remember right isn't that true that the new ones actually
less fuel efficient when we did our testing yeah it wasn't a huge difference at all I wasn't
yeah so so it was kind of like like like okay it was why because you would think two extra gears
in the transmission right it went from six to eight I was really hoping for dramatic but when you
and I drove those trucks VMO out right we didn't see any dramatic changes there and Hyundai has
just updated the Santa Cruz they gave it a kind of a facelift so it looks a little bit people are
calling it like a fat brat that's what I've heard you mean Subaru yeah okay okay like you think
a brat it could it looks pretty I like the way it has a little bit of an insect looks also yeah so
that I just got updated and then in the mid-sized truck road I won't Tacoma is not changing much
at all I mean it's recently redesigned completely redesigned in 2024 we're not getting the heavy-duty
ranger ranger that's not coming for Jeep well the V8 gladiators rumored still we still don't have
official news about this and GM mid-sized trucks are kind of the same yeah so there's not a lot
of changes there once again recently redesigned so the mid-sized segment is a little bit kind of quiet
for 2020 a little bit quiet so I think like I said out of all those the one that I'm the most
interested in and it's coming pretty far down the road is this is a scout I just think that
that like resonates with me the most how about you if you to pick one what's obviously it's not
the slate because you're cancered your reservation but what's the one that you would be the most
excited about I am curious about the ram extended ranger standard there because I used to own the F-150
hybrid really enjoyed the power you know export that it provided you know we ran our you did
yeah you did a lot of work off the back of that yeah we went camping with it we David and I
welded off of it so so I'm kind of excited what ram can bring for this yeah yeah so there you
have it guys next week is New Year yes we kind of do the New Year show a week early I kind of feel
like no no well we did it on purpose because next year there's some sort of announcement you saw
it's coming there's something something on the first something coming so that you might be
dedicated to that announcement is that what you're saying yeah this show is 311 this show is
dedicated to the group to the music group next show 312 is dedicated to three letters I believe
so you're going to want to be sure to stay tuned and come back for that and then if you haven't
seen it our what's our TFL truck of the year Andre it's F-150 power boost hybrid we named it
the truck of the year if you head on over to all TFL.com you can see the wrap up video basically where
we combined all the testing that we did and why we picked the F-150 so congratulations for it
and actually congrats everybody thank you for bringing letting us borrow your trucks next year
if they allow it we'll try to do the midsize trucks or if there's more excitement somewhere else
we'll go somewhere we'll do the hardest range extender competition that you've ever seen indeed
and uh yeah we'll see you next time yeah thank you very much ciao
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About this episode
Excitement builds as hosts discuss the upcoming trucks set to debut in 2026 and beyond, including the highly anticipated Chevy Silverado and RAM's range-extended electric truck. They share insights on prototypes, potential powertrains, and design features, while also touching on the competition from Ford and the emerging Scout brand. The episode dives into the nuances of each model, including payload capabilities and the implications of hybrid technology, all while engaging with listener comments and predictions for the future of the truck market.
Original notes
( https://www.alltfl.com/ ) Check out our new spot to find ALL our content, from news to videos and our podcasts! Roman and Andre break down all the upcoming trucks they’re most excited about driving in 2026 and why these future pickups have their attention. From major redesigns and new powertrains to bold promises from manufacturers, they dig into what could be game-changers—and which trucks might be overhyped before they ever hit the road.
The guys also share what they’re hoping to test once these trucks finally arrive, what questions still need answers, and how these upcoming models could reshape the truck market. If you love talking about what’s next in trucks, this episode is all about the anticipation, the expectations, and the reality check that comes with new truck launches.
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