Episode 422: Guest Host Chad Kirchner, 2025 Nissan Versa S, Chevrolet Bolt is BACK

Hello and welcome to the unnamed automotive podcast still unnamed. My name though is Chad

Kirschner and I've been asked to guest host this week because Sammy no longer likes me. But

in lieu of Sammy not being here, I'm of course here and my friend, long time friend, automotive

journalist, expert, comic book author, French Canadian and one of them and one of the nicest

guys you'll ever meet. Benjamin hunting. Hi, Ben. Greetings, Chad. One of those is incorrect. I

am okay. I am not French Canadian, but you live in the Frenchish part of Canada. That is correct.

Well, that's right. Where were you born? Do I know this? I was born in Quebec. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Well, hello. How are you? Well, you know, things are okay. Let's go with okay.

Let's go with okay. Where is the Mr. Hajesad? He is in Ireland right now, discharging his

family duties. Oh, good for him. I'm happy that. He's driving a car that we don't get to drive here

and he's going to talk about it when he gets back. That sounds about right. We try to do that when

we are in Europe in Europe. But yeah, well, that's sad. I haven't seen him in, when did I last see him?

Oh, the last time I saw Sammy was on the first drive of a car you can no longer buy, which was

the electrified GV70. You can't buy that anymore. I'm driving one next week. I'm pretty sure they

canceled it for next year. I think the G80 was canceled. Oh, I thought they did the 70 too. Maybe

not. I'm pretty sure I'm driving a 2026 GV70. Electrified. The EV. Yeah, the EV. Let me double

check. I can actually check on that right now because I have my bookings listed here. I could be,

I could be wrong. I think it was like a small refresh. Yeah, I have a 2026 booked. Okay. Well,

I know the G80 is gone. Okay, the electrified G80, that must have been the one that killed.

You know, when you don't name your car names, stuff can get confusing.

There's no way to really sort through that mess. And also, what always trips me up is the position

of the word electrified, like where it goes in that name. It's like, I think for a while it was

like the electrified GV70. And now it's like GV70 electrified. And it's confusing enough to begin

with, right? But it's a good vehicle. I'm hoping that it's still a good vehicle. It's been a couple

years, but Craig and I, Mr. Craig Cole and I, when we were doing EV post stuff, that was our

EV of the year, the first year we did it. So yeah, I think it's, I think the range is starting to

become a little less competitive with time. It is, it is. But man, is it comfortable? Like as a

luxury car, it is excellent. And the thing about the GV70 that I appreciated versus the G80 electrified

was it did have the same higher floor, floor plan, floor pan, sorry, because they had to have a place

with the battery. But because the roof was taller, you didn't notice it as much.

Yeah. I mean, one of my big complaints in the flat floor EVs is the H point tends to be a little

too low because the floor is too high. There can be some weird stuff. Like it really depends on how

your body is distributed. Yeah. And like in second rows, it sometimes it feels like you're using,

not to lower the tone here, but it feels like you're using a squatty potty.

Wow. Because like you're, you're, you're, again, hundreds of people just tuning out right now.

You have hundreds of listeners. Hi, listeners. Um, no, but, uh, like your H point sits so low,

and then you're kind of like your, your thighs support isn't there because it bends up a little

too high. Yeah, it's too low. Like it's really, and in a sedan, it's really hard to hide that in a,

in a crossover where you have a higher roof, you can almost stay the other seat the second row.

I can't, I can't remember which vehicle it was I drove recently within, I see recently within

the last two months it was electric where when I got in, my head almost hit the windshield,

like the, where the windshield meets the roof, even, even with the seat as low as possible.

And when I put the visor down, it hit me on the glasses or the brim of my hat. Like I,

that's the only vehicle I've ever driven where that's happened. It was just an odd seating position

because to look at that, I remember it was an SUV and just to look at it from the outside,

you would think, oh, well, there's going to be plenty of headroom there, but that was not the

case. Yeah, hiding batteries turns out as difficult. Remember when Volvo wanted to put them

inside the doors of its vehicles? It was like the 2000s, they were like, oh, we're going to,

it was like the S 40 or something. And they were considering like, oh, we'll just put the,

we'll put the battery panels inside the door panels because the door panels are hollow anyway,

and it will give us crash protection. And then you start to think about weight distribution

and how easily damaged those batteries would be in a parking lot. And it's kind of,

I think it was just to the EV enthusiasm era where everything was going to be electrified

as quickly as possible. And engineering kind of took a backseat to that.

Well, BMW pre new A class, however you pronounce it, pre that. So like those first

platform shared EV gas cars, they actually would hollow, they would actually cut out

either of the battery pack or able to position the batteries around the foot well in the rear

seats. So you still had the cut out foot well. So the rear seats were still comfortable,

even with the batteries possibly around the door and a flat floor. But a full flat floor

really is hard to get seat comfort right because everybody wants as low of a roof as possible

for aero. Unless you're building a full size pickup, in which case,

they're at a second story to that roof line. Well, that's why you just double up the battery pack

and make it way as much as a Honda Civic. I'm surprised we don't see double decker pickups

at this point. Like why not? What's holding them back? Why not? The air up there. I mean,

it's available. You know, though, when it comes to General Motors EVs, they're really big ones,

like the double packed Altiums and like so the the Hummer and the the Silverado and stuff.

Yeah, aren't the good EVs. The good EVs are the smaller, lighter Altium ones, not that,

not that an EV is light stuff that's efficient. Yeah. So like Lyric and lower or, you know,

overall experience, including driving, I don't the Hummer is this weird example because I don't

think it drives well. And the NVH is terrible. It's better in the SUV than the truck. But like,

it's a Hummer. So like you give it a pass for everything because it's just like a Jeep Wrangler

for a lot of people. It doesn't drive great, but it's a Jeep. I feel like that's sort of the case,

like, you know, with the Hummer. But the the other two big trucks, the Sear and the Silverado,

I haven't driven one yet that I've been like, this is really nice to drive. The F-150 Lightning is

a much nicer truck to drive, not as much range, not as quick a charging. There's a bunch of reasons

why you wouldn't go with an electric pickup truck. But when it comes to just like living with driving

dynamics, the Lightings matter. And that's that I think is a function of Ford not going to a

completely bespoke platform for that vehicle. Yes, for sure. They already had the engineering

baked in and they did their best to work around it. Yeah. And they were able to and they were also

able to manufacture and position the batteries inside the frame rails of the truck. Yeah. So

the way distribution is a little bit better. You know, you don't you don't run into some of the

issues you're running with the full flat floor. So yeah, not that you should necessarily buy

an electric pickup truck if you're going to do certain truck things. But if you are the Lightings,

in some ways, the better choice. So speaking of Segway, there's a couple vehicles that I wanted

to talk about this week. And I wanted to start off with something that is at the opposite price

spectrum of the opposite spectrum in terms of price. Yes. Looking at an F-150 Lightning, looking

at a Hummer, certainly. Sure. And that is the cheapest car that you can buy on the American

market. And I want to underscore car, because it is a car. It is. And it's the only subcompact car

still available, I think. I believe, yes. So it is the Nissan Versa. It is currently offered

exclusively as a sedan that used to have the Versa Note, which was a little a little hatchback

version, a wagon version, but no more. And the Versa has hung on for a really long time. I think

the most recent redesign was in 2020 or 2021. And when I say redesign, I really want to put

quotations, scare quotes around that, because the Versa, for all intents and purposes,

is a car from 10 years ago at a rental fleet that you got for a decent price and you drove

for the weekend and you went home and you never thought about it again. Right. But because of

the crazy way the market has gone now, it has evolved from rental fleet special to the only

affordable car you can still buy pretty much. And its pricing is below $20,000. It starts at,

I want to say, 17 something before destination, if you keep with the manual transmission. If you

go with the, there's a CVT as an option, and that adds a little bit of money that will push you to

just above $20,000, including destination fees. But the most money you can spend on a Versa is

like 22 grand. And right around there, that little segment of the market between, there's

nothing under $20,000 except for the Versa. Correct. If you go between like 20 and 25,

you're looking at vehicles like the Hyundai Venue, the Nissan Altima, surprisingly,

Nissan has another entry at this price point. They also have the kicks, the shoes, the tennis shoes.

Is the kicks that cheap? I think they have one. I thought it was at 26, but I could be wrong.

I could also be wrong as well. I mean, that was supposed to be their dirt cheap crossover.

But there's the tracks as well. Yeah, there's the tracks, which is very good.

It's exceptionally good. But all of those vehicles, except for the Sentra,

are crossovers or crossover like hatchbacks, taller than hatchbacks. Yeah. And like a Kia,

like a Kia K4, like that's, yeah, that is Sentra sized. And that is right around there in price

as well. But again, these are all minimum $2,000, $3,000 more than a Versa. And so the Versa,

by virtue of having been around forever and Nissan putting very little money into it and

just kind of keeping it on lots, has achieved the status as the cheapest car money can buy.

So I drove it a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to see like, for me, the competition for the Versa

is a used car. Yes. Oh, sure. Entirely. Yeah. It's for people who are nervous about buying like

a three or four year old used car and want something instead that has a warranty. Yes.

But they don't want to spend more money than they would on something that was three or four years

used. And I think after spending time with it, if you asked me this question five years ago,

I would have had this opinion. Yeah. But now, based on the market, I think that the Versa is

actually an okay buy. Yeah. I think it's a really decent commuter car. Yeah. I think you have to be

okay with all the things you don't get with the base model. Because I also think that if you don't

buy the base model, forget it by something else. Because if you're going to spend $22,000, you

know, the max Versa price, you can get attracts, you know, you can get something that is that is

going to be modern. This is not a modern vehicle. So for me, what you're missing from the Versa

is safety technology. I mean, it has a decent crash test score. That's not what I mean. But

there's no active safety in it. It has has lane departure, which worked okay. When I was driving

it, it has let me double scroll down here. It has automatic headlights, which is surprising.

I do think that that is a HS thing. They have to have that now. Well, if you want to get if you

want to potentially get the good score, yeah. Yeah. And that's but that's it. Like you can get

a little bit more safety gear if you buy higher trim levels. But at the last one I drove,

unfortunately, was it's been a while, but like that one had adaptive cruise control and stuff.

But that was a loaded version. There's a the the base model that I drove also, it's missing

infotainment. So you get like a seven inch screen, no Android Auto, no Apple CarPlay,

right. The you get Bluetooth, you get an aux in and that's pretty much it. It's extremely basic.

And the screen on my car was already delaminating. Oh, yeah. So that's not amazing. There's an

options package that they offer for the S the only options package is called the S plus.

You move from 15 inch steelies to 16 inch alloys. You also get Android Auto and Apple CarPlay

and a fold down rear seat, which doesn't come with the base model. Okay, so so let me let me game

that out. If I were going to buy the base trim, and I had that infotainment for 200 bucks plus

the cost of somebody to a stereo shop to do it. So three $400 US, I could get a modern

infotainment screen with Android Auto, Apple CarPlay that would integrate with the with the

backup camera and probably wouldn't necessarily delaminate after two months. Yeah. I think though

with that car, I would want the folding your seats. It is a definite plus. I mean, there's 15

cubic feet of trunk space, which is decent for a small car. But you know, you're limited for

longer items. And it just it just feels like a like kind of, I don't know, spiteful for Nissan

to not offer a folding seat at the base model. Yeah, it's strange. I mean, maybe they don't

expect anyone to buy the base model. You can get a five speed manual gearbox with this car if you

want. You do. And it's like one of the last cars that like non performance cars that you can get

with a manual. Yeah, I think there's this, there's the Civic, there's is the Golf still available

with the manual. I don't know. No, no, GTI is I mean, we only get the GTI North in the US now.

In Canada, the Sentra still comes with a manual in the base model as same same in the US. No,

I don't think so, because I went to review one for US. Oh, the Sentra. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I thought we're still at my bad. It's been a long day. Sorry. That's okay. Because I went to review

one for US client and the spec we had here was not available in the United States. So,

so actually, I mean, I completely agree with you. One thing I think that we that might hinder your

recommendation is Oh, there's lots of things. There's more than one without without I mean,

I'm I am, let's say 95% sure that the 2026 model will have a higher MSRP, because it'll factor in

the tariff, the tariff pricing. It's entirely possible. Yeah. Although in Canada, that won't

be that won't be the case here. It starts around 22 23 23,394, which is pretty cheap for the Canadian

market. Yeah, I I've heard some things that the pricing is probably going to crest 20 to start. So,

that still doesn't make it necessarily a bad deal. But when you're looking at something like attracts

or whatever, the thing about the Sentra is I mean, kind of bringing the Sentra back into it.

It has an independent suspension. And it's larger. It is it is the CVT. Not great. But

you know, you get that larger car and it's going to ride so much nicer because it doesn't have

that torsion beam in the back, which everything else in that class outside of maybe the Volkswagen,

the Jetta is going to be I think even the Jetta's torsion beam. Like it's really hard to find an

independent rear suspension on a $23,000 car. It's just it's expensive. It's more expensive

to do and it cuts into your and it cuts into your trunk space. So most automakers are just like

now throw the we'll throw the beam back there because we can get more trunk space. But if you

do a decent amount of miles back and forth to work or whatever you do or you drive on

notoriously crappy Detroit area roads, for example. The Sentra is is a nice place to be. I know

we're not talking about that necessarily. But yeah, Versa or used car tracks or used car

it's a four used car. It's just I think I think it's primarily the warranty. That's the real

appeal here. It's a 1.6 liter four cylinder, you get 122 horsepower. It's not a lot, but the car weighs

less than 3000 pounds. And with the CVT compared to some others, like I had a really bad experience

with the Honda HRV this summer. And that CVT was not well matched to the vehicle. But for the

for the Versa, which has less horsepower, it was fine. Like occasionally, it's a little bit

coarse, but it's not a problem. And you just have to really plan out your driving ways. This

isn't a vehicle where you can just pass it will and pull out the opposite lane. And I got great

fuel mileage. It's rated at 35 combined from the EPA and I saw 37. Yeah, that's really I mean,

that's that's pretty solid. Yeah, I honestly, I had no real complaints about the car. It did

everything it was supposed to do. Did all the car car like stuff that it needed to do. It didn't

I mean, so often I drive a car and I'm like, Oh, I would like this car if it was $10,000 cheaper.

I didn't feel that way about the Versa. I was like, the Versa is well priced. The Versa makes

sense. The Versa is for a very specific customer. I don't know how many of those there are right

now. I don't like I think there's going to be more like that's the I mean, not to be the doomer

on this podcast, but we are heading in I mean, the US especially is heading into a recession.

It's it's going to happen. So I would say that's right. And defaults are already starting on

car loans and one of the subprime lenders have already gone under. And car loans are already

out of control. Yeah, like a four months, 96 months, it's just $1000 or more. The average

transaction price is 50 grand in the US. It is all the signs are leading to a not good place.

And I always thought I never liked driving it. But the Mitsubishi, the the the cheap one,

what was the Mirage? I never drove the Mirage. I didn't like the one that I drove. Don't get me

wrong. I didn't like it. But Mitsubishi at the time was doing what either a five year warranty

and a 10 year powertrain like they had some ridiculous like warranty some way to strong

people into showrooms, right? And and if you are looking for a piece of transportation that you

know is going to be reliable and you don't want to or can't spend a ton of money on a car,

you could do worse. So it's funny you bring up the Mirage because that brings us back to Nissan

that the problem with the Mirage in Canada was we got the micro. Yeah, the micro was easily five to

10 times the car the Mirage was. Again, I didn't drive the Mirage, but and the reason was everyone

I knew who drove one hated it. I didn't think I would have anything positive to add to that

conversation. And at a publication I was working at at the time, they did this thing where they

would take new cars to a garage and pull them apart mechanically to see how well they were built.

And I remember when the Mirage was was in the shop for that it was during the winter and they left

it outside overnight and all the snow blew into the engine bay through cracks in the hood

and filled the engine bay and specifically the fuse box and battery box with snow. They were packed.

Oh yikes. And it's like seeing stuff like that build quality wise. It's really difficult to imagine

recommending that car, especially since the micro was really good and cost less than the Mirage did

at the time. And when when Nissan came out when Nissan came out with the Mirage here and it's

too bad it did not come to the U.S. The price undercut the Mirage by like four grand or five grand

and Mitsubishi had to institute like $5,000 cash on the hood immediately just to keep people coming

into showrooms to look at it. But yeah, I mean, Nissan, I guess bottom line, Nissan has been

the last bastion of truly cheap cars. And what's really fascinating about Nissan is this person

just left, but they had a sales guy had Vinay. Oh, I can't remember his last name, but I remember

first time I met him was at a Formula E race in Portland, not last year, the year before. And

he was sitting with some journalists in the first some of the first words out of his mouth. He's

like, what do you guys think is wrong with Nissan? And like, I kind of dropped my silverware on the

floor and the PR person I know pretty well, just shot me a glance like, I'd be like, no, he asked.

I'm gonna tell him. And what was amazing about that conversation was,

when you get to sort of like that kind of executive level, when you're basically in the C

suite, everybody, nobody does anything wrong in the C suite. Nobody wants to hear about anything

going wrong. Everybody is brilliant. Everybody is right. There's nothing whatever, like, there's

no humility at all. And not just that not just there, I mean, like most automakers. Yeah. So

so that to have somebody at that sort of level be like, hey, look. And I said, I think I said,

I think, you know, there's a lot of people within the company that that are really

against the idea of being a value brand. And I think that if you leaned into that, there's

I don't want to be that way. But like poor people need cars to everybody, like in the US, we don't

have public transit good enough nationwide that everybody can go without a car. And in some cases,

the car means a job. And if it comes between eating or making your car payment, like some people

have to choose the car payment. Otherwise, it's it can be bad. So make a affordable, you know,

definitely work on reliability, which they claim they have been and compared to Ford this year,

they have way fewer recalls. You know, so like and and be the the target or the Walmart or the

whatever of the car industry, that's fine. But so, so many people and I kind of get it,

like, don't want to hear that. Yeah, I feel like the Koreans kind of understand that.

I think a lot of car companies have become allergic to volume if it's not pickup trucks.

Yeah. Well, because the margins, why would you, why would you only want to make $200 a car when

you could make $2,000? Exactly. I think back to when they canceled Ford canceled the fusion,

for example, I think they were selling like 250,000 fusions a year. The last year was almost

300,000. Yeah, that's a huge number of vehicles. And yet that line space was given over to SUVs

that sold less in the aggregate, but were more profitable per unit. Yeah. And that's sad. I mean,

that that is that is thinking that is not customer oriented. It's bottom line oriented.

And COVID didn't help. Because while we did have the scarcity that came from chips,

automakers got greedy. They realized a lot of companies did. I mean, it's not we can expand

this to include, I mean, up here in Canada, right now, we're dealing with a lot of food-related

issues in terms of grocery costs. And there have been numerous lawsuits and court judgments about

price fixing, because there are only a few companies that control the majority of grocery

stores in Canada. So we're still on this COVID hangover. And now that nobody in Canada will buy

anything from the United States, that makes it probably worse. Understandably so, don't get me

wrong. But yeah, but like, everybody got greedy and dealers got greedy and car makers got greedy.

And now they're still in that mindset. And the cheapest, like the least expensive forge you can

buy new is almost $40,000 now. It's, you know, it's a Maverick at like a Maverick hybrid at like

36 or something. Yeah, the Maverick is just no longer compelling at its current price point.

Or I mean, right at $30,000, they don't want, I mean, not $40,000, $30,000.

No, but even still, like that base Maverick, it feels like a $22,000 vehicle.

It's gone up 40%. The price has gone up 40% from the refresh. And at $20,000 for that hybrid front

wheel drive XL, excellent, excellent, excellent. When they removed, when they, when they decontented

it more, they went with cheaper parts on the refresh and raised the price 40%. It doesn't feel

like the deal anymore. It doesn't feel like the most compelling aspect of the Maverick was its price.

And then I think the second most compelling aspect was its fuel mileage. And then you had the utility

aspect. And in what we have here is a vehicle whose price is now accelerated at the same rate as CEO's

pay structures. Like it's a complete disconnect from the market. Only it only reflects a desire

for profit rather than what the market can bear. And we've seen how this ends as recently as 2008

and 2009. We are careening right towards it. The lessons have not been learned. I mean, sure,

maybe real estate is a little safer these days and mortgages aren't as crazy in terms of the risks of

those mortgages, although they are extremely expensive. But if you look at the larger corporate

side of things, especially at automotive, car companies are bent on pumping out vehicles that

I don't even know if people want them. Well, 40%, something like 40% of the US stock market of the

the Dow Jones, 40% of its overall value is based on AI stock. Yeah. And there's going to be a huge

market correction there. Again, something that I personally lived through back before I did car

riding. I worked for a .com in the late 90s. I remember that. How did that work out? That did

not work out very well. I'm old enough to remember that. I'm old enough to remember. I just started

grad school in 2008. I remember all of it. And the people were, this is digressing. I apologize.

But there are cars out there that are, I don't feel like that if you want to buy an inexpensive car,

you should have to feel like you're poor. I don't think you should be penalized.

You feel like you're being penalized for buying an entry level car. Exactly. And I think that

that's, I think that that was what was so cool about the Micra is that it drove well. It looked

good. It was priced extremely cheap and the features were fine. Yeah. Flash forward to now,

we have the Versa. It doesn't necessarily drive great. I mean, it's not engaging to drive,

but it drives fine. The real issue with the Versa are the features. It lags. It doesn't

feel like a modern quote unquote car because you're missing the smartphone integration and

you're missing the safety stuff that most people are used to. But the bones of the car are fine.

There's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. And that was something that surprised me. I really thought,

well, you know what? I've been driving things like the tracks. I've been driving things like,

I haven't driven a Sentra in a while, but things that are a little bit more expensive that feel

very modern. And I've gotten used to being coddled by this stuff. What's it going to be like when

I get back into this Versa S? And it turns out it's okay. I personally, all of my cars are old.

So I'm driving a lot of pre-screen cars all the time. So I don't expect people

to want that. But the experience, I guess, is not as jarring when I find it in a modern view.

Yeah, I just completely agree. But I do think that we're getting some,

I hate saying just adjusted for inflation because we just haven't followed inflation.

But if you look at something like the value that you get in the car now for $25,000,

it's incredible. It really is. And if you look at something like the leaf,

which obviously is a bit more money, but it's the same price as what it was when it first came

out in 2008. I'm sorry, 11, I think it was, 11 or 12, whatever it was. And the standard features

now are what some luxury automakers charge extra for. So we really are kind of blessed

with what we have available now. Yeah, a great word. But we really are in a kind of a good place

with cars. But then we're also seeing this push for margins and hiding the true value of a car,

car's purchase pricing longer and longer loans or manipulating leases. I was just talking to

Blue Sky today about I'm doing this list of EVs, 2026 EVs and how much you pay for every

mile of range. So what is the best value in terms of dollar and range?

So I've got basically it's a miles per thousand dollars kind of thing. And somebody is like,

well, I don't really consider delivery charts and stuff like that because I just look at leasing

charts and whatever. And I'm thinking, yeah, but first off, it's really hard to follow every

single automaker's leasing deals deals all the time and be an expert on that. So I think that

when we speak to price, we have to speak to what the witness sticker says. Yeah, there has to be

a floor, a floor, right? Yeah, a common level playing field. Right. But also, like,

you're so payment brained when you're like that. And I understand I understand buying a car based

on a payment, that's fine. But it becomes such a venue to get you into something more affordable

or something you can afford, I should say. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because

nobody buys entry level cars because automakers don't want to sell them. So they don't send them

the dealers. Dealers don't order them because they don't make as much on it. And then they turn

around and say, oh, customers don't want them. Yeah. And when they and when people are leasing

these high spec cars, that's what that's what's coming back to be resold on the secondary market

in three years. Yeah. And then you have, so then you have the automaker say, well, nobody wants

these, because well, you didn't build them and nobody would stock them. But then if once in a

while, one sneaks to the cracks, you have the dealer saying, well, you don't want to be the

poor person version here is this for only $50 more a month or whatever like that. So it just...

Well, I'm glad that you brought up the leaf. I'm glad that you brought up the dollars per

mile because that speaks to the next vehicle I wanted to talk about with you. And that's the

Bolt, the Chevrolet Bolt. It's back. It's long time hero car to this podcast. Yes. The Bolt is

something that Sammy and I love. And I know you're fond of it as well. I am. Yeah. And we all miss it.

And it's been gone for what, two years? About, yeah. And now it's coming back in a totally

different yet surprisingly similar form. So if you look at it, you would be very hard-pressed

to tell the difference between the new one and the old one. Yeah. The biggest change that I noticed

and thank goodness they made this change is the turn signals have moved from the lower bumper

to where they belong with the taillights. And this is for 2026, right? It is a 2027 model,

though you'll be able to purchase some unlimited numbers starting early next year.

Okay. And by limited numbers, I mean they're going to lead with the top trim levels first.

From my understanding, the ones that are going to be available are the ones that they've already

priced quoted at $29.99. Okay. Wow. That doesn't mean that's going to ultimately be the case. It's

been, I've been on the phone with several GM people today and it's been trying to sort that out and

trying to sort out comparisons with Leaf because I think there's the natural thing there. But basically

in the affordable, in the really truly affordable EV category, GM kind of like laid down a gauntlet

with the equinox. You know, otherwise, other than that, you had sort of like the Tesla Model 3

sort of standard range, but like Tesla's kind of problematic. You have the Mini. Yeah, you have

the Leaf, which is also problematic for different vehicles. Yeah, it has its own issues. You have

the Fiat 500E, which is... Yeah, which again is problematic for the same reason that Mini is.

The Mini is a nice sort of drive. But now we're kind of almost spoiled for choice in that $30,000

US price range, which before we get into it any farther, like the average new transaction price

of a car in the US is $50,000. Yeah. And a lot of that though, I think is pickups. A lot of that

is pickups pushing that up. It is. Don't get me wrong. But there aren't a ton. I mean, there's

a decent number of cars that start around $30,000, but not as many as you would think. Yeah. And

40 is the new 30. Yes. And this idea that you could now go into a dealership and potentially

walk away with a nice car, maybe not your primary car, or you know, depending on your circumstance,

whatever, like we can get into that later. But going in and buying a modern new car

at a price fairly competitive is kind of... I mean, it's not wild, but it is nice to see.

It's nice to see now that EVs aren't just $60,000 or $80,000. Like at $80,000,

you are spoiled for choice in EVs. Yeah. But like, again, how big is that market?

How long until that market is completely tapped out? Everyone who wanted an $80,000 EV has one.

You know, there's no growth there. Because as you mentioned, wages have not kept up with inflation.

So we're not minting a new class of people economically who can afford these increasingly

luxurious vehicles. Right. So a couple of years ago, when GM was going to go everybody in with

Altium, they killed the Bolt. Yes. And it was super sad and the Bolt was great and I will never

get over it. And really, it was kind of dumb because it was selling well. Yes. Let's go back

to the fusion for a second. Yeah. But it's so like, between some of my professional colleagues

and I, we will sometimes say that GM is going to GM. GM going to GM. And then Volkswagen is the

GM of Europe. And I've said this to several of my GM friends as well. And they don't necessarily

like it when I say that. But the point is, sometimes GM can't help but shoot itself in the

foot. And the Bolt really was that car. It was a car that people wanted. It was a car that people

liked. As far as I knew, knew they were profitable on it. It didn't do certain things really well,

like the charge DC fast charge was a bit small. Yeah. But it was a competent car that was well

put together. It drove fine. And it drove fine. And you could get supercruise on the EUV. Yeah. And

you could get supercruise on the EUV. Like it was just, why would you kill that? And the backlash

was pretty monumental that not too long after GM had to say, look, look, look, look, look, look,

we're going to bring it back. And then it was like, well, it's going to come back as old team. Well,

it's not going to come back as old team or whatever. And then as time progressed, we learned

probably wasn't going to be a significant change. Then spy shots came out and people are like,

it's not changed at all. Untrue. There are some new things happening here. But if you're familiar

with the old car, the new car will feel very at home. And under the skin, you're going to benefit

from a bunch of stuff. And there are some things new under the skin. First off, there is a new

battery. Yes, it is the same capacity at 65 kilowatt hours. However, it is a LFP,

lithium. Oh, gosh, I'm not even going to get it wrong. But LFP, it's less energy dense than

lithium iron phosphate. It's less energy dense than a nickel, metal, kettier, cobalt,

lithium iron. But it's a lot cheaper. One of the biggest battery producers in the world of LFP

is CATL or cattle. I believe these original cars are going to have cattle batteries in them

until GM's own plant is up and running. But less energy dense, much safer, you can drill into

a LFP battery with a drill and it might spark. But you're not going to have a thermal event.

You do not have the thermal events the way you do with NMC.

Thermal event is a fun euphemism. Fire. Fire. And bolts know about having bad batteries.

Indeed, they do. But so these new batteries should be safer. But being less energy dense,

you don't get as much performance out of them for the same size. So you're getting 255 miles of

range compared to, I think, 260 something on the previous car. So it's down a little bit on range.

DC fast charging is significantly improved. You get a native NACSport J3400, which is

more commonly known as the Tesla connector. It will work on the Tesla supercharger network

among other places. And it'll peak DC fast charge up to 150 kilowatts. That's almost three times

the peak charging rate as the outgoing car. And is directly competitive with the Equinox,

which is bigger, the Leaf and pretty much everything. The Kona is still 85 kilowatts,

but we haven't seen the 2026 one of that yet. So basically in that $30,000 price point, it's

nearly at the top of that performance scale. 150 kilowatts is starting to be on the lower

and overall. But again, the lower end is a completely okay position for your lower car,

right? It is. And somebody buying a Bolt maybe isn't using it as their only car,

though you could with the new one, just like you could with the old one. But now you could

conceivably take a road trip and not have to sit forever at a charger every 200 miles.

So those are honestly the biggest changes. Some smaller changes come in. One of the upgraded

models will have the latest version of Supercruise, which is hands off, eyes on, hands off,

and it'll take exit ramps, like interchanges and stuff and make sure you're in the right

lane. So the only other GM Supercruise vehicle that does that right now is the Celestic. So

you take hand built one off $400,000 car and now it's in the cheapest car they make.

It's pretty impressive. It is. Trickle down technology is an actual thing at GM.

Yeah, it is. And they take it seriously and Supercruise is really good. So there's that

positive is that being available as an option. Higher trim models will have heated end ventilated

seats and stuff like that. So you can get some really cool options on this. A plus and a drawback

is there is a new infotainment system. It is Android automotive based. So the built in Google

maps will talk to the car and do you battery preconditioning if necessary and be able to

route you to chargers, chargers based on how much range of stuff you have in the car. You've

got all of that connectivity, which is great. But like all new GM EVs, you can not get Apple

CarPlay or Android Auto. I understand their argument. I don't agree with it. I think their

argument is smoke and mirrors for wanting to harvest driver data. It's hard to argue with that.

Yeah. For what it's worth, Tesla, which does have some new pricing out on their new standard model

that came out this week as well or this week as we're recording also doesn't have it, but I still

I have a hard time arguing with your point. But yeah, it's only available now sort of in that

EUV kind of body style like it's a little bit bigger. But starting price with delivery of the

first of what I believe are going to be the first versions on sale is $29,990. Now, do you think that

this version of the Bolt is going to be as popular as the previous version was? Do you think this is

an example of a good formula extended or do you think it's going to be something that's going to

question? And I think part of it is going to yes and no. I'm going to hedge and the reason why

I'm going to hedge on it is the Bolt didn't have any competition. That's true. That's a good point.

And now the Leaf S Plus, yes, with this destination puts it over 30. It's at 31485. But that's 303

miles of range and you can use Apple CarPlay. Does it charge at the same speed? It does.

And they're not still on the old connector, are they? No, it's not the chat. It's not the

emo chat. It also has a next connector. And then you still have the Equinox, which is again,

no CarPlay and stuff there. But if you want something a little bigger, that's not necessarily

the worst place in the world either. But there's competition now and there wasn't competition

before. You might see the Bolt making an impact on other EVs. If you're looking at something like

the Kona EV versus the Bolt, I think that the Bolt is going to take a chunk of those sales

at its price point. Yeah. If you get into different showrooms, yeah, the Kona's,

the 26 Kona, they've dropped the big battery version. They've decontented the car. We don't

know how much it's going to cost. Presumably, Jose Munoz and the Hyundai Motor Group are going to

price that somewhere below 30. We don't know yet because they haven't announced it. They did get

super aggressive though on Ionic 5 by taking nearly 10 grand off the price of the car.

That's wild. They haven't done that here. I can tell you that.

So 800 volts EGMP for 35 grand predestination. Yes, that's five grand more than a leaf,

but I would argue it's almost five grand better car.

Yeah, for sure. There's no question there. The only issue is that I have, and we talked about

this in a past episode, was with the Nax connector now, you're essentially cutting the car off at

the knees in terms of its charging speed because of that 800 volt architecture not being able to

interface properly with superchargers. Yes. And so that's, I believe Hyundai has that figured out

because you were able to for a while use their magic dock and they have figured out their

inverter problem. The only ones that I know right now that haven't completely solved it

is actually Mercedes-Benz. The CLA, which I drove earlier this year,

on US-bound versions of the car will have a Nax connector, but won't have,

the ones that are in press fleets isn't going to have the technology the inverter needed to

basically maintain high charging speed. Just to step down the 800 to 400 volts.

The cars that are going to go on sale to customers will have that in there,

but that is a limitation. As far as I know, they're the only ones that are going to have

that limitation. Now, I know that when Tesla first opened its superchargers to CCS cars,

like the HMG cars would charge a lot slower. It's because they couldn't handle that 400-800

conversion. Yeah, well, the high amperage of the superchargers. I know that we've had some

up here in Canada at driving.ca, one of the outlets I write for, they were unable to get

high speeds out of Tesla superchargers with the Nax setup on the Onyx 5 now.

Yeah. Okay. I haven't had a chance to test it yet personally. I want to, I'm on a list, but

there are, Hyundai knows about it and they're working on it. I mean, ideally what you would do

with any of these Nax-enabled cars is not charge the supercharger. I know that's an

unreasonable expectation. No, I mean, here in Canada, so there are about 2,100, 2,200 installed

fast charge stations across the country. All of those, only 220 are superchargers.

Yeah, okay. So we have a huge installed CCS base that's very different from the United States,

where I think superchargers have kind of taken precedence, at least in the important areas

where people are often traveling, right? Yeah. Like you have a much larger installed base of

those. So the problem is up here, everyone's going to Nax because Canada does not count

when you're making a product decision like this. Sure. But now I have to carry around

two different adapters. Right. So I can use level two or so I can use a DC fast charger.

And like Leaf has its own problems with that because the level two charger is a Jplug and

the DC fast charger is a Nax connector and whatever. But it's such a hassle. It is.

And I'm not going to, I mean, it's the Apple problem. It is the Apple problem with dongles,

for sure. The Hyundai is going to be probably, in the price point that we're talking about,

the Hyundai is the only one where you may run into lower charging speeds at a supercharger than you

would at a Nax-enabled IANA charger or using an adapter. The reason being is the bolts and the

equinox and the Leaf and the Kona are all 400 volt. Yeah. And they're all charging at 150 max. So

yeah, I mean, you can go to like 200 with it. But with 400 volt, I haven't seen a 400 go past 200,

but you can do up to about 200 with 400. Depending on if the charging station has enough amps.

Oh, science. Yeah, it's weird. It would be like, it's kind of like, you know, you go to the gas

station and you don't know how fast it's going to pump, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's still,

it is still a problem. So, so the data suggests, and the data doesn't always, the data isn't the

greatest, but the data suggests that most people that can afford to buy a V also have a garage.

Now, the problem is we're talking about affordable cars that might be more common with people who

rent or live in townhouses, things like that. That charging infrastructure just has to be better.

It just, it just has to get better. It is, it is, but it's not, it's, it's not where it needs to be.

Yeah. And the problem is like, I did bite the bullet and install one of these chargers and now

I have to use it. Now I have to use an adapter on a new car. And that sucks coming home every day,

using an adapter. I mean, that's a lot of great experience. And I don't know, like,

it doesn't give me faith that, you know, 10 years from now, it won't be the same thing.

Sure. And we're going to have to be revitalizing our personal infrastructure

on a five to 10 year basis. Right. I believe, I mean, the only, if you want to take any Salas,

the Salas that I would take in is, I mean, SAE has standards for both, right? Yeah. Like,

I tend to not call it the Tesla connector. It's the J3400. We are unlikely, I mean,

it is unlikely, extremely unlikely that somebody is going to come along and start,

start a car company with its own charging network, using an entirely new type of connector.

What about Porsche's induction charging, Chad? Why aren't you all on board for that?

Well, because it doesn't fit in the Macan, apparently. And the thing is, there's even a J,

there's even a SAE standard for wireless charging, for vehicle wireless charging. So

I had worked, I've done some work with a company called Vitricity that had fully functional

wireless charging. It's built into, or is built into the Genesis GB60 in Korea.

And I've used working demos in Detroit of cars that do it. So as long as everybody adheres to

the standard, which Porsche typically does, in that case, I don't foresee an issue. Now,

I'm not saying it won't happen. I can't sit here and say that it won't.

I need you to reassure me, Chad. I need you to predict the next 50 years of my life.

I don't think, as frustrating as it is to use an adapter now on your home charger,

I think that if you replaced it today with a next charger,

that's saying you should. I'm not saying you should. Oh, I'm not going to. But if you did,

I believe you'd be fine until you no longer walk this earth.

Because everybody wants to follow the standard. The only person that didn't want to follow the

standard was Tesla. And at that point, there really weren't a lot of high charging kind of

things. It was like Shadamout. Oh, you're going to use Shadamout if you're going to do it.

CCS is still pretty new. In Europe, the government mandates so much of,

it's the reason why you could get USBC on an iPhone years ago in Europe. And that's because

they require standardized connectors. Even Tesla sold in Europe have CCS2 connectors because

just the law, because there's consumer protection laws. It would be very difficult right now to

start a car company, roll out a charging network and tell your customers that you can only use

your own chargers and use them. Yeah, for sure. We're past that point.

And next does support VitaL and VitaHome stuff. So whether it's enabled yet is one thing. But the

standard, the SAE standard supports all of that technology for getting power and stuff back to

the grid. So as long as it does that, I don't foresee there being any reason

in the future that that would change. All right. Well, wrapping things up for this episode,

Chad, if people want to hear more of your thoughts and insights and predictions for the future,

how can they do that? They shouldn't, but just really, really quick. The Nissan Leaf Plus at

$31,485 gets you $9.62 miles per thousand dollars. Okay. The Bolt EV, the new one they

announced today, the lower, lower price one because they announced two. They launched a

launch model and they launched then a cheaper LT. When that cheaper LT comes out at $28,995,

that'll be 8.79 miles per thousand dollars. And the Equinox LT1 front-wheel drive was 8.74 miles

per thousand. So it's a dead heat. It's a dead heat, though. The Leaf has almost an extra mile,

but the next five, six, seven are all within a mile. It's all dead heat at that point. So

the segment's getting, I think, very interesting. And what I would say is my recommendation for

people, I always throw this out there. If you have the ability to charge at home, one of these

cars can be great because you start every money with a full tank. If you have to rely on going to

a fast charger, even at 150 kilowatts, that'll get annoying after a while. Super. A hybrid,

a hybrid or an e-rev might be more of what's up here would be a better recommendation.

I agree completely for that. So where can people find me? I am on the internet. I freelance some

places. So I've been in ours, Technica recently, which is a lot of fun. I also run a newsletter

at the Kershner Report that is K-A-R-C-H-N-E-R-R-E-P-O-R-T.com. And I'm also on Blue Sky. You can

search for me. I'm the one talking about Star Trek. And I didn't put, dang it, I didn't put

any Star Trek references in this. I said I was going to. You got 30 seconds to cram them in.

Well, I was just going to say, when Chevy killed the Bolt, they were in a real Kobayashi Maru

situation. That's true. But you know what? They don't like to lose. They don't like to lose.

All I can say is good luck walking through the rest of your life like an astronaut

on some kind of Star Trek. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

And I'm a little sad we didn't get more Star Trek, but I'm happy that we did get.

Next time. Next time. We did close out the show with it. I don't think we're going to have an

episode next week because Sammy is still gone. And I have to do a dental procedure that is going

to make me unable to talk for a little while or at least talk in a comprehensible way.

I'm doing, I've mentioned on the past. So to close things out for me, my comic book kick

starter is going right now at ModelUNComic.com. It's 90s aliens, private school, Model UN,

manga style. I think you'll love it. I know a lot of you have supported me in the past and I

appreciate it. It's digital only. So you'll get the book right away once the campaign is over. But

in any case, I bring that up because I've been doing all these other podcasts for the book.

And I'm booked like almost every single night of the week. And I had this one night where I

wasn't booked and I was able to do this dental thing, which sucks. And I've been waiting a long

time for it because my mouth has become a horror show as after I turned 40, just like everything

sucked. And yeah, all of that adds up to with Sammy not being away, probably no podcast next

week. But when he comes back, we're going to be talking about the Jeep Avenger, which is an electric

vehicle that we never got here that we probably should have got. And based on some of the people

that I know that have one, maybe we shouldn't have had it. So I'll be really curious. So you're

really curious to see what Sammy has to say. So we'll be talking about that. And I will also be

talking about the Subaru WRX TS that I drove recently, and which I have many, many thoughts

about that caught me almost completely by surprise. So again, Chad, thanks for doing this. And

thank you everyone for listening. And we'll talk very soon.

Episode 422: Guest Host Chad Kirchner, 2025 Nissan Versa S, Chevrolet Bolt is BACK

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