An electrified vehicle, or EV, is a car that runs on electricity instead of just gasoline. Some EVs are fully electric, while others use both electricity and gas.
The Genesis GV70 is a fancy small SUV that comes with a lot of high-end features and a comfortable ride. It's designed to compete with other luxury brands and offers a stylish option for buyers.
The BMW M3 is a fast and sporty car that is part of the BMW 3 Series lineup. It's popular among car enthusiasts because it combines luxury with high performance, making it exciting to drive.
The Genesis G80 is a luxury car that's spacious and packed with features. It's designed for comfort and has a high-end feel, making it a great choice for those who want a nice ride.
Weight distribution is about how the weight of a car is balanced. It's important for how well the car handles and drives, especially when turning or going fast.
The Chevrolet Silverado is a big truck that many people use for work and everyday driving. It's strong and can carry heavy loads, making it very useful.
Altium is a technology used by General Motors for their electric cars. It helps them make different types of electric vehicles that can go further and perform better.
The Hummer is a big, tough vehicle that was originally made for the military but later became popular for regular people. It's known for being able to go off-road and handle rough terrain.
The Ford F-150 Lightning is an electric truck that is part of the popular F-150 series. It offers the benefits of electric driving while still being a truck.
The Nissan Versa is a small, budget-friendly car that is easy to drive and park. It's currently sold only as a sedan, which means it has a traditional trunk instead of a hatchback.
CVT means Continuously Variable Transmission. It's a type of automatic transmission that helps the car drive smoothly and can save on gas by adjusting gears without the usual steps you feel in other automatic cars.
The Nissan Kicks is a small SUV that's easy to drive in the city. It's affordable and has a modern look, making it a good choice for those who want a compact vehicle.
The Chevrolet Trax is a small SUV that's great for city driving. It has a flexible interior and is easy to park, making it a good option for those who need a bit more space than a regular car.
The Kia K4 is a small car that's designed to be stylish and comfortable. It's a good choice for people looking for an affordable vehicle that still looks nice.
A used car is a vehicle that someone else has owned before you. They usually cost less than new cars, making them a popular choice for people looking to save money.
A warranty is a promise from the company that if something goes wrong with the car, they will fix it for free for a certain amount of time. It helps you feel safer about buying a new car.
Adaptive cruise control helps you keep a safe distance from the car in front of you by automatically changing your speed. It makes highway driving easier and less stressful.
Infotainment is the system in your car that provides entertainment and information, like music, navigation, and phone connectivity. It usually includes a screen and controls for these features.
Android Auto lets you connect your Android phone to your car's system so you can use apps for navigation and music on the car's screen. It's designed to make it easier to use your phone while driving.
Apple CarPlay connects your iPhone to your car so you can use apps for maps, music, and messages on the car's screen. It makes it easier to use your phone safely while driving.
Alloys are wheels made from a mix of metals that are lighter and stronger than regular steel wheels. They often look nicer and can improve how a car drives.
The Volkswagen Jetta is a small car that is comfortable and easy to drive. It's a good option for people looking for a reliable vehicle that gets good gas mileage.
The Honda HR-V is a small SUV that has a lot of space inside for passengers and cargo. It's known for being reliable and good on gas, which makes it a great family car.
The Mitsubishi Mirage is a very small and inexpensive car that is great on gas. It's a simple choice for people who just need a way to get around without spending a lot.
The Ford Fusion was a car made by Ford that many people liked for being comfortable and good on gas. Ford stopped making it in 2020 because they wanted to focus on making more SUVs and trucks instead.
The Tesla Model 3 is a fully electric car that doesn't use gas. It's known for being affordable compared to other electric cars and has a lot of cool tech features like autopilot driving.
The Fiat 500e is a small electric car that is easy to park and great for driving around the city. It's known for being cute and eco-friendly, but it may have some issues to watch out for.
The Hyundai Kona is a small SUV that looks stylish and has a lot of features for the price. It's a good choice for people who want a practical vehicle that is fun to drive.
The Porsche Macan is a small luxury SUV that drives like a sports car. It's known for being fun to drive while still offering space for passengers and cargo.
The Nissan Leaf is an electric car that runs on batteries instead of gas. It's designed to be a practical and affordable option for people who want to drive an eco-friendly vehicle.
The Dodge Avenger was a mid-sized car that was known for its sporty look. It's no longer made, but people still talk about it when discussing older Dodge models.
The Subaru WRX is a sporty car that can handle tough driving conditions, like rain or snow, thanks to its all-wheel drive. It's popular for its fun driving experience and rally racing heritage.
LIVE
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.
About this episode
Chad Kirchner guest hosts this episode with automotive journalist Benjamin Hunting, diving into the 2025 Nissan Versa and the return of the Chevrolet Bolt. They discuss the Versa's status as the last affordable sedan in the U.S. market, its basic features, and how it compares to used cars. The conversation shifts to the Bolt, highlighting its new battery technology, improved charging capabilities, and competitive pricing. The duo also touches on the broader automotive market trends, including the challenges of affordability and the impact of EV competition.
When Sami's away, only guest host Chad Kirchner has the gravitas to step into his shoes and keep the podcast vibes flowing. Chad and Benjamin talk about Benjamin's time in the 2025 Nissan Versa S, by far the most affordable new car on the market, and what you give up when shopping for a brand new vehicle at used vehicle prices. Then Chad spills the beans on the return of the Chevrolet Bolt, a longtime favorite of the podcast, and a car which seems likely to stick to its roots as a cheap EV.
