Episode 431: 2025 Jeep Wagoneer S, 2026 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid

I don't get this. You don't know the lyrics to Walking in a Winter Wonderland?

I can't recall them right now. Gone away is the blue bird, here to stay is the new bird.

Is that really the lyrics? Yes! How did you not know that? I've never thought about it!

What is wrong with me? So now it's funny, right? Now you find it funny, yes? Yeah. All right, I'm new bird.

Okay, let's do this. Hello and welcome to the Unnamed Automotive Podcast. My name is Sami

Haj Asad and with me, as always, is my good friend and fellow automotive journalist,

Benjamin Hunting. Say hi to the people, Ben. Sami, I just want to start the podcast off this

week with a shout out to longtime listener, Dean, who reached out about the episode we recently did

on the double minivan attack, basically, where we talked about the Chrysler array of names that

they've given to the minivan. There's the Voyager, there's the Pacifica, there's the Grand Caravan,

and we were confused about who got what for what market and when they were on sale and whatnot.

So Dean reached out to say that the Voyager was fleet-only for a long time, and I didn't

realize that. I looked into it after he mentioned it, and apparently from 21 to 25,

sorry, 21 to 24, it was fleet-only in the US and maybe in Canada. I didn't confirm that,

but it went back on retail sale in 2025. So that's extremely random that they just decided

to bring it back. I know also that I think it's pretty much... Everyone knows that that is a

successful marketing move to sell a vehicle only as a fleet vehicle and then transition it.

They're like, you see all these Amazon drivers driving around with these stripped out vans,

don't you want one too? And they just don't reference it. It just comes back and like,

where has it been? Well, technically, it hasn't gone anywhere, but you couldn't buy it.

So thanks, Dean, for letting us know about that. I had no idea. And then I found out also that

Grand Caravan, they just called it that in Canada because the brand equity was there.

But it's only funny because the Grand Caravan was a Dodge nameplate, right?

Yeah.

And this is a Chrysler.

Well, Stellantis is determined to remove as many vehicles from the Dodge lineup as possible.

Currently, they sell two vehicles.

Are you considering the Hornet one?

Oh, I forget it every single time.

Yeah, gotcha. And the Durango?

Yeah, I consider the Durango.

But you don't consider the Challenger and Charger two different cars?

The Challenger doesn't exist anymore.

Is it not a Charger?

For over a year. There's a Charger.

And there's a four-door Charger?

It's the same thing.

They just call them both the Charger?

I don't even know if there's a four-door. There's no Challenger.

Where are you getting Challenger?

What is the name of their new muscle-y car?

Charger.

The new sedan?

Charger.

And it's a coupe?

Yes.

That's hard to believe.

How is it hard to believe?

We just discussed how Grand Caravan was Voyager.

Anyways, that's the voice of my good friend and fellow automotive journalist Benjamin Hunting.

Ben, any other shout-outs you want to give this week or what?

I want to say a shout-out to longtime friend and friend of the show Addy,

who's been going through a bit of a tough time recently,

but has come out the other side and is doing a lot better.

So I wanted to give him a shout-out and let him know we're thinking about it.

Agreed.

Shout-out to Addy.

Ben, why don't you plug a couple of the publications you've been writing for,

and then we can get on with the show,

talk about some cars that we've been driving, right?

Sure.

You can find my work at Motor Trend, at driving.ca, and at Hagerty.

And you can find my work at autotrader.ca and driving.ca,

as well as driving.ca's YouTube channel.

I've got a couple of videos that have gone live there recently.

So take a look at them.

And you can press the like button if you mean it.

What if they push it and they don't mean it?

Do you lose money?

Well, yeah.

I'll get a false sense of security.

I'll become that really arrogant journalist that I was,

somewhere around the episode 350 mark of the podcast,

when I was a different person then.

But now I feel I've become a little bit more in tune with what's going on these days.

No comment.

Ben, you've been driving a new EV.

You seem to be driving a new EV fairly often.

Well, there's a lot of EVs out there, Sam.

A new new EV?

Yeah.

I mean, this is an EV that should have come out a long time ago,

came out finally, and it left you with some impressions.

What are you clicking around with over there?

I have this little snow globe on my desk.

You're messing with it.

I'm messing with it because the battery situation is complex.

And I got it working.

I think I had too many batteries jammed inside of it.

And it changes...

What do you mean by too many?

So it's like, it's not even really a snow globe because there's no snow in it.

Do you not go with the recommended amount of batteries for any appliance you own?

I put in as many batteries as came out of it.

Let's put it that way.

But depending on how they're stacked, it seems to affect how it works.

It was flickering and doing weird stuff.

It does color changing.

And I find it cheerful because it's super dark in Canada right now

at this time of day when we record.

So I have it on my desk.

Emotionally or...?

Both.

Always, I think.

ACDC.

And it helps me feel good.

So now it's working and I won't click around anymore.

And I'll probably edit those clicks out so no one will hear them anyway.

And then it just sounds like I'm insane and you have to explain it?

That's pretty much the gist of our entire podcast.

Okay.

The vehicle I'm driving, you mentioned it's a new EV.

It's from a brand that hasn't had any EVs for sale ever,

except for the one that we talked about last month

when you went to Ireland and drove it, right?

Yeah.

That was what?

It was kind of like a platform share doodad back then.

Yeah, that's Jeep.

And the vehicle you drove, was it a Compass?

Avenger.

Okay.

Again, long time Jeep nameplate Avenger,

a name that we all remember the old Jeep Avengers from days of yore.

Why are they?

Okay, so then I can't wait to hear what your car is called.

So the vehicle I drove is the Wagoneer S.

Yes, perfect.

Let's think about all of the Wagoneers that have been in production

and what they look like and behave like and compare it to what this vehicle is.

Okay.

At the very least though, at least Jeep has made a Wagoneer before.

Whereas Avenger was just, you know,

it was a Dodge that was based on a Mitsubishi platform.

It's not exactly front of mind when you say Jeep,

but who knows the European market,

maybe they're a little more forgiving of that kind of thing.

In any case, Wagoneer S, it's a puzzling name.

I don't get it.

This vehicle is nothing like the Wagoneer that's in my garage,

which is super old and has wood paneling.

And it's nothing like the brand new Wagoneer,

which is a gigantic body on frame three row SUV.

Sammy, when they created the Escalade IQ,

did they make it a small, sleek looking EV that was not the same size as the regular Escalade?

Or did they just go all out and make it a gigantic version of the current Escalade?

I guess that's true.

They know it is fairly large.

The Cadillac Escalade IQ is closer to the Cadillac Escalade,

but it isn't a one-to-one transformation.

No, it's bigger.

It's much bigger.

It's bigger.

Yeah.

It didn't look that big when I got it.

It's because it's deceptively short.

It doesn't look as tall, but it's longer and wider and all that good stuff.

But more importantly, it's still a three row.

It's still in the same segment.

And if you were to park them side by side,

I think you would be able to pick out some styling cues that move from one vehicle to the other.

With the Wagoneer S, the grille still has that seven slot thing that Jeep likes to talk about.

Other than that...

What is your interpretation of the seven slot grille?

Does your Jeep have seven slots?

My Jeep has zero slots.

Zero slots.

Well, that's not exactly true.

I've never counted them.

Okay.

The seven slot...

I've heard so many weird myths about the seven slot,

that it corresponds to each continent on the planet.

No, there's absolutely no way that's true.

That's kind of like Star Wars retconning that we got from the prequels.

You know what I'm saying?

From what I understand, it used to have nine, I think.

You remember when Darth Vader was a little boy?

That never happened.

Yeah, that never happened.

It's the same thing.

It's the same thing with these slots.

Other than the slots, this looks very much like a Grand Cherokee that's been put in a wind tunnel.

That's, I think, the easiest way to describe it.

It in no way resembles the slab sides of a Wagoneer or a Grand Wagoneer.

The name is really puzzling.

I'm not sure I understand it.

Um, why not make it the Grand Cherokee E?

Is it because they already have the four by E?

Like, what's stopping you?

Hold on.

Cherokee and then more E's at the end of it?

Cherokee!

All right, I guess you got me.

You didn't think about that?

No, I didn't think about it any longer than Jeep thought about Wagoneer S.

What's the S stand for?

Oh, man.

What does the S stand for?

It doesn't stand for electric.

I've heard it stands for the S at the end of continents.

That's the myth.

I think that's true.

I believe it.

So looking at this thing, it looks a lot like other SUVs, I guess.

As I mentioned, there's a strong resemblance to the Grand Cherokee.

The big difference being the roof is somewhat sleeker and it has this extension at the rear,

which is like a big spoiler kind of thing that they have on the back,

and it has a couple indentations in it.

And I'm assuming it's there to try to keep the rear window clean because,

of course, there's absolutely no wiper, which is terrible.

What a great design trend we found ourselves in in 2025.

I was in two blizzards with this thing, and it was a huge hassle.

The only saving grace of this giant wing is the fact that the rearview camera is

on the back of the wing in the middle.

It's way up off the bumper, so it stays clean most of the time, except when the snow

piles on the back of the vehicle to the point where it gets in front of the camera

and blocks a wall of snow, and you can't clear it off because you don't have a wiper.

So it looks like – I don't know how many people out there are Star Trek fans.

Shout out to Star Trek fans.

But in Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan, the Reliant has this torpedo launcher

above the bridge, and it looks very much like that.

That's what the camera looks like.

Yeah.

Okay.

Inside, it feels like it's a bit tight because the roof is low, but the room is good.

I drove the launch edition, the 2025, which is really expensive.

It's like 95 grand in Canada.

It's less in the States.

The vehicle starts at 65 in the US.

I think that includes a whole bunch of discounts.

That's a good starting price to me.

Actually, no, the discounts – that doesn't include discounts.

You can get almost 9 grand in discounts on that $65,000.

In Canada, it's more expensive.

The discounts are built in.

I believe that it starts at $77,000, including an $8,000 discount, and you can push up to

$90,000 on the premium trim, which starts at $84,000, and you can add a bunch of options.

The reason I'm bringing up the price right away is because size-wise, this is very much

like a Mach-E.

Really?

That seems smaller than I thought it would.

It's not that big.

It's really not that big.

It's fine.

I'm not saying it's too small, but it's not Wagoneer-sized, and yet the pricing is

absolutely nothing like a Mach-E, right?

I think you can get a Mach-E that's this expensive.

Yeah, the Raleigh or the GT or whatever.

But the starting prices are very different.

So with the Wagoneer S, what you're really looking at, I think, is comparing it to something

like a GV70 Electrified, you know?

Okay.

Or the upcoming BMW iX3, I think, will probably be priced around the same point.

You think this thing is smaller than a...

Man...

I didn't say smaller than.

I said it was similar to a Mach-E.

The design of it makes it look...

Look, when I'm looking at this thing, I see a competitor to something like a BMW iX.

Size-wise...

It's not as big as the iX.

That's crazy.

The proportion...

They're designers.

Listen, I have to be clear here.

Their designers at Jeep and Stellantis are killer.

Like, they know how to design a car, man.

So looking at a Grand Cherokee, would you say that's about Mach-E size?

I would.

A Grand Cherokee?

Yeah.

Mach-E?

No, I find a Mach-E kind of small.

Really?

Relative to a Grand Cherokee?

Grand Cherokees can be large.

They even have a larger model called the L.

Yeah, that's the three-row version.

That's what you're talking about?

No, I'm not.

So a regular Grand Cherokee is 193.5 inches long.

193.

A Mach-E is 186.

So there's a five-inch difference.

That's not a very big difference at all.

It's big.

And let's check out the Wagoneer S.

The Wagoneer S is 192.

So it's even closer.

To a Grand Cherokee?

No, no, no.

The Grand Cherokee is longer.

It's an inch and a half longer.

That's not that far off, though.

Yeah, it's like four inches.

It's within four inches.

So this is basically an electric Grand Cherokee, as you mentioned.

Cherokee-E.

Which is also almost the same size as a Mach-E.

And I'd say the Blazer is probably a little bit smaller,

but it's right up there in conversation as well.

Okay.

Well, that's weird, because all these other cars are super established.

They've been around for several years.

How long has the Mach-E been around?

Maybe 2022 or something?

Yeah, it's earlier than that.

But I bring it up because when I look at the Wagoneer S and I look at the size,

I'm like, hmm, that feels like it should be going up against a Blazer or a Mach-E

or an Ioniq 5 or something like that.

Yeah, but the pricing is just not...

The pricing is completely the other direction.

It is in the luxury world.

So...

But, James, it seems like with the Wagoneer name,

is that what they're trying to do with the Wagoneer name?

Well, they tried to make it its own brand, right?

And that's no longer the case.

They've folded it fully into the Jeep family now.

You don't see the separation on the websites.

You don't see the separation in terms of how the vehicles are advertised.

I think that that was kind of a failure for them.

The other thing, though, is when you push a vehicle like this

into the luxury segment, expectations change.

Yeah.

And I think that a big part of what Jeep was hoping

was that the massive power plant on this $95,000 Canadian version that I drove,

which has 600 horsepower and 617 pound-feet of torque, would be the deciding factor.

People would look at that and go, okay, that's Mach-E GT levels of power.

That's like X5 or I guess IX levels of power, even though I think the IX is bigger.

So we're going to say this is a luxury vehicle.

We're going to give a luxury price.

It does 60 in like 3.4 seconds, which is insane.

And the range is advertised as like right around 400 miles.

I think something like that.

In Canada, it's advertised...

Sorry, not 400 miles.

The range in Canada is 478 kilometers.

I'm going to try and pull up the US range, which I have here.

Again, those numbers are good, but they're not...

The horsepower numbers are pretty crazy, but the range numbers are normal.

I found 294 to...

Yeah, that's right.

294.

Yeah, it's just shy of that legendary 300-mile range that everyone wants.

And it's dependent on tires, too.

If you get...

There's a Pirelli tire you could order with it that drops the range to 273 miles.

In the real world, let's hit the range first.

I saw a 40% reduction in the cold, and it was very cold, like minus 15, which is, I think,

4 degrees Celsius.

Are you being more lenient with it because of this temperature?

What do you mean lenient?

A 40% seems like quite a drop.

It was wild, man.

And the thing is, it was not represented on the range estimator.

Oh, that's the worst.

So it just went down twice as fast.

Well, I get in, and in the cold, the range estimator is showing 450 miles on a full charge.

I'm like, okay, that's not so bad.

That's like a 16% drop from advertised.

But if you look at the consumption, it was doing 32 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers,

with a 94 kilowatt hour battery.

Which is a metric that no one uses or understands, but I get it.

It ended up being 1.9 kilowatt hours per mile, something like that.

And that works out to a 39, 40% drop.

That's huge.

That's really rough.

That's difficult to me.

That drops you down to like 188 miles per battery charge.

So that's problematic.

That's really problematic.

But every EV deals with winter weather.

Yeah, I had an IONIQ 5 do similar stuff in similar temperatures a couple years ago.

This happens when it's very cold.

Minus 15 is very cold.

And it really affects battery chemistry.

So that was a little disappointing.

There's no preconditioning on this vehicle for the battery in terms of charging.

At all?

There's no option.

It's built into the vehicle, apparently,

but it has to be activated by an over-the-air update that hasn't happened yet.

There's no word on when that's going to happen.

I wanted to see...

I don't usually fast charge vehicles because I charge at home and it doesn't matter.

Preconditioning is when you warm up the battery,

because when a battery is cold, it doesn't just discharge inefficiently.

It will also charge inefficiently.

But if you have a system that allows you to warm it up,

by the time you get to the charger, it will charge as though it's like a nice summer day.

So I wanted to test it out.

I went to a DC fast charger with a 120 kilowatt limit,

and I plugged it in with...

Obviously, I didn't precondition.

It was minus two out, minus two Celsius, so just below freezing.

So it's like, I don't know, 34 degrees or something in the US Fahrenheit.

And it started at around 90 kilowatts, and then it spiked at like 119, and it stayed there.

And I was really impressed with that.

As unimpressed as I was with the range deduction,

that was reversed by the ability to charge quickly.

Especially in cold weather.

Yeah, exclusively in cold weather.

Because I can tell you, I can plug an EV in in warm weather,

one of these chargers, and not see that number.

Yeah, anything over 100 is pretty good.

Close to 120.

Very nice.

And last year, in very cold weather, around minus 20, I had a Volvo or was a Polestar.

I can't remember, but a Polestar 3.

And I couldn't get above like 50 kilowatts.

And to see this doing nearly triple that, that was great.

Jeep is really weird about advertising the actual maximum charge speed.

It says it'll do 20% to 80% in like 23 minutes,

but it doesn't tell you the actual charging speeds available.

Some people who are owners are saying it's something like 170 kilowatts.

That's what they're spiking at, which is not, that's fine.

It's not maximum.

It's not minimum.

It's a good middle of the road number, I think.

But the real issue with this vehicle is twofold.

One, yeah, it's really, really quick.

That's not an issue, is it?

In the winter, it kind of is.

So normally, when you have an EV, the traction control is really good at keeping these under

control because it can just kill the electric motor instantaneously, right?

Like torque management is so much simpler in an EV and so much more granular.

And so they're really good at pulling themselves out of snowbanks.

They're really good at staying stable when things get slippery on the road.

The Jeep was a bit of a different story.

There was one morning where I was driving on the highway and it was not wet on the road,

but it was very cold.

And I suspect there was a layer of frost or something on the road.

Every time I hit the accelerator, it would squirm in the lane.

It would pull from one side to the other.

And this is just a normal driving at normal speeds of like 45, 50 miles an hour.

I had to be careful.

In deeper snow, it was a little bit better about staying on track of like not giving

me insane amounts of power and spinning out.

But if you put it in sport mode, Sammy, it turns off every nanny and you can just spin

it and drift it and do whatever you want.

When was the last time you were in an EV where sport mode turned off everything?

Yeah, very rare having to push other buttons.

Yeah, very rare because most of the time a sport mode just makes it get like,

yeah, full power, but for a very short period of time, either due to like heating or as

you mentioned, safety and lack of traction at that point.

But it seems like Jeep does not really care about that kind of stuff.

Jeep is just all about breaking traction at any given time.

And I've seen some reviews done by colleagues in warm weather where they were able to light

up all four tires.

Yeah, I saw that.

I've seen that.

That gives you an idea of what you're working with in the winter.

It's the same idea.

One of my colleagues showed me the other day that just they did like a launch, no launch

control or nothing for a video shoot that they were doing.

And the amount of smoke they got was equivalent to like putting line lock on a Mustang.

It was like insane.

It's very intense.

What a joke.

That's crazy.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

That's a good thing.

It's not a good thing for me.

I don't need it.

I'm not upset about it, but I don't need it.

No, I mean, obviously, it seems like there should probably be a lower powered version

of this car.

Oh, there is.

I believe on the base trim, it's like 600 horsepower and 500 pound feet of torque.

So maybe that keeps it under control.

But I'm assuming that sport mode will still like remove everything.

What do you mean by base mode?

All I know is they all have 600 horsepower, no?

Yeah, but I said 500 pound feet of torque.

Oh, 500.

117 less than the version that I drove.

That's insane.

That's unnecessary.

The other thing that is an issue with this vehicle is owners have tons of complaints

about build quality, rattles, noises, features not working.

I had some rattles in the vehicle.

I discovered the infotainment system was super laggy.

Even shifting the dial to like put it in drive or park was laggy.

The heated seat buttons were laggy.

I didn't really like the gauge cluster was very basic compared to the rest of the interior,

which looked pretty good.

So that was disappointing.

It just kind of felt like...

It's all touch screens and touch buttons, isn't it?

Partially.

It has like capacitive touch for the most part.

It has like a dial for volume and stuff like that.

But yeah, but even those capacitive touch buttons were laggy.

So just basic functions, trying to do things on the screen.

It was frustrating.

I'm spending $95,000.

No other version of Jeep infotainment systems are like this.

So I don't get why this is happening.

Yeah, great point.

It just seems like they had extra time to make this vehicle.

Did they?

Or were they already rushing, right?

I mean, it came out way after all of their rivals.

And it's like, you could have learned from that.

You already have good off-the-shelf components.

And it seems like it could have been left in the oven to bake a little bit more.

This is important to point out.

This truck came out.

I think technically it came out last year, but I think it's on mass sale this year.

Other vehicles have been out for at least five years, if not longer.

Yeah.

And you're right.

They should have been able to learn something from this, because they could have learned

what the pricing would be in order to capture people's attention.

And they whiffed on that, I think.

I think so.

And I think that that's obvious by the amount of discounts that are available.

There's only two models, essentially.

A limited and launch edition, right?

Well, now there's limited and premium.

Launch edition is no longer available.

Okay, sorry.

And so they could have had more range in terms of what to have in the vehicle

and what doesn't have to be in the vehicle.

I think the issue is...

But the technical details.

No, but Jeep positioning itself as a luxury brand has put them in this box.

And like you said, if the reason it's called Wagoneer is to further stuff it into the luxury

box, then what can they do?

They can't offer like a 400 horsepower base model, right?

For like 50 grand.

It just doesn't work for them.

And maybe that's why it's not the Grand Cherokee.

But there is going to be an EV called the Recon, but I think that's even more...

Like, I don't know what the price is.

Is there though, Sammy?

Is there?

Good point.

If it's one thing I know about Stellantis and what they're doing, they can change just

like that.

Shout out to Nissan Altima, not dead.

Speaking of things that change just like that, 2026 is going to be an Altima.

Realistically, this is a company like Stellantis, the parent company, has been really mobile.

I don't know if flexible is the word.

What does mobile mean?

It means like they're always on the path towards creating something.

One step ahead of creditors, I think is what you're saying.

Then pivoting at the last second towards something else.

Well, we saw that with the Ram Charger or whatever it was called.

Wait, hold on.

Not just the Ram Charger.

The Ram itself was going to be a six-cylinder turbocharged pickup truck.

Which is a great engine.

It's a pretty good engine.

Mine had a check engine light when I drove it the entire week.

But you checked it.

It was there and life moved on.

It was still there.

But it worked.

It was good.

And then they decided that...

One step ahead of the check engine light.

Then they decided that, you know what?

All that money and effort we spent into developing this engine, screw it.

We're going to put the V8 in there.

We're going to put a weird badge on the fender that you're going to feel uncomfortable about.

What was it?

Like a Patreon or something?

Some kind of rebel freedom thing.

Yeah.

Nothing says rebel like a consumer purchase from a major brand.

That is a hat on a hat.

We already know who you are with a Ram, okay, buddy?

But they were going to make an electric Ram.

That didn't happen.

And they were going to make an E-Rev, which was like...

A range extended, yeah.

A range extended where it had a full Pentastar V6 under the hood.

And that's going to happen, question mark?

We're not sure.

Anyway, this is why I say recon.

I'm not sure if we're going to see it or if Wagoner S is going to be kind of the only EV.

I'm only bringing this up because I had to do a story about like...

Had to do it.

About new vehicles, new three-row vehicles coming out next year.

And the 2026 Grand Wagoneer 4xe uses that powertrain that you're talking about.

It has the Pentastar V6 as a generator rather than a drive engine.

Mind blown.

And again, totally weird concept that is not necessary for that vehicle.

And like the Grand Wagoneer has, you know, powertrains galore.

While we're on this...

Well, they have one powertrain.

They do, a good one.

But while we're on this subject, Ford is doing the same thing.

They're killing the Lightning.

The Lightning is dead.

But Ford even had a chance to spawn multiple other, you know, like its platform or technology

could be found in other vehicles.

Well, its platform was the F-150 platform.

So there's no special platform for it.

It doesn't have a special platform?

No, that's what made it so effective because it's a truck first and foremost.

It's also why it's 3,000 pounds lighter than the Altium trucks from GM.

OK.

Because they use the F-Series platform.

But what they're going to do is they're going to keep selling...

I don't know if it's going to be called the Lightning.

I think it might be.

It's going to be a range-extended vehicle in the same way as the Ram Charger or whatever

that we were just discussing, where they're going to have an engine and a big battery.

And what upsets me about this...

So wait, hold on.

Ram had this idea, was going to execute this idea, cancelled it, and then Ford went,

you know what, actually, that's a pretty good idea.

No, no, Ford cancelled...

Ram cancelled the full battery electric.

They're still making their range extended.

They didn't cancel the Ram...

The 4xe or whatever it's called, Ram Charger?

Yeah.

So the problem I have with this is everyone is like...

Ford is like, oh, it's going to have 788 miles of range because like

full tank of gas plus a full battery.

It is an inelegant solution to an infrastructure problem.

The real solution to range anxiety isn't to build a vehicle that hauls around a gas

tank and an engine that you might need once in a blue moon on the off chance that you

run out of battery.

The real solution is to build more chargers.

That's the real solution.

It just bothers me that this exists.

It's like we had a good electric pickup.

We threw it away to add gas back into the mix that maybe you're never going to need,

but it's there now if you need it, and you'll feel better about that.

I mean, it's vibes-based product planning.

A little bit, yes.

I agree with this in a few ways, but there's a couple of things I want to point out while

we're on this conversation.

One, the hit that weight seems to be having on EVs is not as big as I thought it would

be.

I think that weight is like the size of the battery.

Yes, it's a big deal, but weight in particular doesn't seem to be a big issue because we've

seen these vehicles try to make use...

Let's say, for example, BMW.

BMW has all of these CF or carbon fiber vehicles way back with the i3 and i8, did not really

execute the ability to design a vehicle with more range or efficiency or anything like

that.

Everything else was just as efficient.

Now, when we get to the 200 kilowatt hour battery, there's a point of diminishing returns,

and I think that's where things start getting a little bit dicey because you stop looking

at a vehicle that, like at 100 kilowatt hour battery, you can get 300 miles of range.

But then when you get 200, you don't get 600.

You get, I don't know, like less, right?

I really got to disagree with this take because I feel like weight is a huge issue for EVs.

I don't know, the torque motor, those motors seem to be able to keep up.

You're looking at the wrong statistics.

It's not about power and driving.

It's about efficiency.

This is what I'm talking about.

That 200 kilowatt hour battery, 205 kilowatt hour battery in...

Is a necessary evil for these cars.

It's not, because first of all, it's 3,000 pounds more than the Ford.

So it's not necessary.

The other issue is this vehicle that we're talking about, the Wagoneer S, where I said

it got like 32.6 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers and how bad that is.

Do you know that's still better than just driving a regular Silverado EV, which gets

like 35?

Yeah, because it has a 200 kilowatt hour battery.

Exactly.

So it's not, it's...

Like I said, there's some, that's what I'm trying to say.

What I mean to say actually, is that there's some point, I think the over 100 kilowatt

hour battery, that limit somewhere there is too much.

That again...

And now you're adding a gas engine and a fuel tank to that, which is going to be another

five, six, 700 pounds.

If that's what the mindset is, get a 100 kilowatt hour battery and a gas tank.

I agree with you.

That's an insane solution.

That's just putting the biggest of both worlds.

That's what it is.

But if you had a 60 and a gas tank or a 40 and a gas tank, I could kind of like, I agree.

I not agree.

I get where they're coming from.

If you had a 40 and a gas tank, so now you're asking a 40 kilowatt hour battery to lug around

not just itself, but also a gas tank and an engine?

Not a...

Yeah, I guess so, but...

That's, then you're just, it's just a plug-in hybrid.

Yeah, that is what's the, that's what we're doing.

It's not though.

We're doing something even stupider.

I just...

Okay.

Why not just hook a trailer up filled with gas and drive around with that all day?

I mean, why do we even charge our phones at night?

We should just have portable battery packs in our pocket at all times.

We should just throw our phones into the sun, Sammy.

I can't throw that hard.

I need help from an electric motor.

Superman will do it for you.

If you're real, because we could use them right now.

I don't have much more to say about this vehicle.

I don't dislike it.

I just don't think it really does anything that much better than any other vehicle at

its price point.

And I think that it's a bit behind in some areas.

I'm not sure you need to drive it if you're looking for an EV.

I think there are more affordable EVs that are more engaging.

And I think there are more expensive or as expensive luxury vehicles that are a better

choice.

I think this is kind of a placeholder.

It's in the showroom because they needed to have it.

And it's not embarrassing by any means.

Did they?

Were people like, oh, I would buy a Jeep, but they don't have an EV.

No, but federal regulators are definitely, you know.

The federal regulators.

And California emissions and all that stuff.

They got to do this kind of thing.

Okay.

So I've got a question about it then.

Just one small thing.

Okay.

We'll see if I feel like answering.

That's going to be real.

You're on thin ice right now after that poll.

I have talked in the past about cars that come out that feel like they're just in need

of a mid-cycle refresh.

Small tweaks to make it super competitive.

Is that what this is?

No, the biggest tweak you would make is price.

And you can't do that with a mid-cycle refresh.

Well, I don't think you can do that without bankrupting Jeep.

It just won't happen.

The entire marketing strategy of this vehicle seems to be based around

Wagoneer is luxury.

So once that doesn't work, you're back at the drawing board.

That's brutal.

That's really not good.

Would the best choice have been to make an electric Wrangler and then surprise the world

when everyone who buys Wranglers is like, oh, we're so into this.

And it becomes like a Trojan horse into the world of EV driving.

Maybe that would have been a cool thing to do.

What an alternate future that would have been.

Assuming this recon—sorry, you mentioned as if the recon is not happening.

Is there any suggestion that that is not happening?

No idea.

But they have announced this thing.

They've announced pricing and range of it.

It was really unimpressive.

How many Jeep EVs have they announced and not brought to market?

It's quite a few.

So I can't tell what's going to happen and what's not.

This isn't a standout.

I feel like it could have been a standout.

It's not enough to just make one now.

I mean, GM is kind of just making them.

They're like, here's a whole bunch of EVs.

One of these you're probably going to like.

But Jeep has just one.

So it's got to be compelling enough for someone to say, I'm not buying a Grand Cherokee.

I'm buying this.

That's why I think the Wrangler is the cool way to do that.

Because people are already spending a ton of money on a Rubicon.

So if you got rid of—

Why not make them spend a lot of money on an EV version?

Yeah, this is a 392 as well.

Why not make the electric version like the 392?

Anyway.

Well, that would be even cooler because then they would have like this.

They would be like, look, we are this rough and tumble brand.

You could have this with a gas engine, a very big gas engine, a plug-in hybrid.

You make a solar roof for it and people can go camping and it's super cool.

Just make the whole sunroof or whatever, that big old removable roof.

You can power your espresso machine with it at the campsite.

So much you could do.

You know, like the lighting was cool because you could do a bunch of stuff with it.

But didn't they get their spot stolen by the Rivian, basically?

What?

Isn't a Rivian considered to be like an off-roady EV?

Yeah, but it's a luxury vehicle and it doesn't have two solid axles.

I think it's a very different class of vehicle.

Anyway, let's move on to what you want to talk about.

I don't want to talk about it, but we've got it.

And we should probably talk about it because it's the 2026 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid.

For 2026, nothing significant has really happened to the Tucson Hybrid,

but I think it's been a little while since we've driven one.

I can't remember driving one.

Okay, so what do you need to know about this?

It features a turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine along with a hybrid powertrain

that achieves somewhere in the vicinity of, let's say, 231 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque.

So the last time we talked about this was 2024, February.

And I think we both drove it and it was an N-line version.

So this is the interesting thing.

I drove an N-line.

N-line does not exist in the U.S.

So the closest thing that we have to compare for our U.S. listeners

is the 2026 Hyundai Tucson.

It's called the SEL Convenience.

Okay?

Okay.

All right.

And this starts at around $34,000.

I have all-wheel drive on mine, which brings it up to $37,000.

Totally acceptable price for a crossover of this size.

It is way more spacious than I thought it should be or would be,

which is to say that every day I drive my 2020 Outback,

I bought it because it has a ton of cargo room and a really decent rear seat room

for big, clumsy car seats.

And I find that this thing can keep up in almost both metrics.

I'm very happy with how much space it has.

Why do you think there's no N-line version of the Tucson?

Because there is an N-line Elantra.

I don't know, man.

That's clearly a marketing thing that I don't have the chops for.

Okay.

Why?

What do you think?

I don't know.

It surprises me.

Well, the N-line could, like, feasibly lead to an Elantra N—

like, there's an Elantra N, there's an Elantra N-line, right?

And there was a Kona N-line.

And a Kona N.

Yeah.

So I think that maybe there—

And there's an—

Is there an N-line version of the Ioniq?

No.

I don't think so.

But there's an Ioniq out.

They went with XRT.

Oh, yeah.

And they haven't even done that for the Tucson Hybrid yet.

So I guess that's probably where they're going.

Sorry to interrupt.

No, there's no reason.

There's no reason to apologize.

But this is clearly a trim level that happened last year, I think,

and just has not made the jump to this year's model

or is available in the gas product and not in the hybrid.

So I don't know what the story is on that.

I'm very much impressed with this car.

I think it drives very nicely.

It features a six-speed automatic, which I think is a little bit strange

in that so many other vehicles use either a CVT or more gears.

It gets better fuel efficiency than its gas product, obviously.

You can probably get close to 40 miles per gallon.

Actually, close to 38 is the official number.

I mean, that's pretty good.

I don't think it's that difficult to get better than that.

But there's a couple of small things that I noticed really weird.

I don't know if they're quirks or just...

Again, last time I talked about small things I noticed,

you got mad at me because I mentioned the auto brake hold on the Pacifica.

I didn't get mad at you, but I did question as to whether

you really knew what you were doing behind the wheel.

Yeah, and that it had parking sensors that didn't trigger the related cameras to them.

I don't remember that part.

Okay, you were just so angry about the auto brake hold thing.

This car has only two defined drive modes, eco and sport.

It starts off in eco.

So there's no regular.

It's like when you can only get medium and large.

Yeah, eco and sport.

Then there's a my mode, which you have to set up manually and turn on.

And when you turn on the car, you have to flip into it.

Now, does my mode offer eco, regular and sport on various settings?

There's two settings to control for my mode, powertrain and steering.

Okay, that's it.

That's it.

All right.

Powertrain, and I sent you a photo already of this.

Powertrain has a very curious mode setting called baby mode.

Oh, man.

I don't want a baby driving.

Which I don't know when they designed this.

It stresses me out that they did this.

There was there's actually four.

There's four powertrain modes, eco, sport, smart and baby.

Yes, not smart baby, but smart and baby.

It's a big Hyundai Kia thing.

They like that.

But it's not a it's not a specific drive mode.

You have to put it in my mode and then you have to then you sacrifice anything else.

Baby.

I need to talk to you about baby.

Do it.

Which is a feature that a car probably did not need.

And I'm worried that either some poor engineer somewhere got stuck

figuring out how to make this happen.

Hopefully did not subject a baby to excessive amounts of drives in a car

to make this effective or perfect.

It helps them sleep, Sammy.

It helps them sleep.

It doesn't matter what drive mode you have to help a baby sleep.

I can tell you that if I'm in a car as a driver and there's a baby in the car,

I'm in baby mode like right away.

It's not I don't need a special prompt for that to happen.

So what apparently baby mode does is it kind of smooth?

What are you what are you laughing at?

What is baby mode?

It's just funny to me.

Here's what baby mode does.

All right.

I'm all ears.

It reduces the the response of the accelerator.

So it's like stop.

It's like snow mode.

It is.

It feels identical to snow mode, which this car also has in a terrain mode.

But also so you remember back in the day for like a 20 year period,

every Mercedes-Benz would start in second gear.

Or and then they changed it from W or a snow mode.

It wasn't even that it was just in regular driving.

The transmission would default to second gear for smoother starts.

I had a W203 which started in first, but you had a special snow mode that you would press

and that became another it had a different name for it.

I can't remember what it was.

Are you sure it started at first?

Yeah, yeah.

How do you know?

Because you can feel it.

There's a huge difference.

There's a huge difference between the two drive modes back then.

Now, what I'm saying is, are those vehicles already in baby mode?

Were they baby mode before baby mode?

Apparently there's more to it than just the throttle.

Apparently.

Is there a lullaby?

No, there should be.

There's supposed to be.

Like the braking is supposed to have a little bit less of that like

sudden stop feel at the end of the brake.

How do you get a lawyer to sign off on the baby mode with less braking?

Cushioned braking, I think is the word that they use.

Yes.

You know what will cushion your braking?

Another car.

Or a snowbank.

It is.

I don't understand.

I do understand.

I understand that parents are like the easiest people to market to.

Just say this is going to help your baby sleep and they'll believe you.

And if it does and if it doesn't, it doesn't matter.

Will this help my baby get into Harvard?

Yeah, I mean, essentially that's what's going to happen down the line.

Or baby Yale.

Baby Yale, of course.

It is so funny that they have features like this that they have and people still like

fall for it, I guess.

I don't know if people fall for it, actually.

I don't know if people are buying a Tucson just because it has a baby mode.

But as you mentioned, it feels a lot like from the driver's seat when you put it in baby mode

compared to what is traditionally a snow mode, which starts the car in a second gear

and is a little less responsive with throttle input from a stop to prevent wheel spin and to

prevent a loss of traction or excessive weight transfer.

This feels the same thing.

So I don't know why they just needed to rename snow mode to baby mode.

I guess you're probably right in that it's marketing.

Of course it is.

But the son or daughter of Mr. Hyundai or Mrs. Hyundai came into the chair in a bad mood one

day because their kid wouldn't sleep or came into a board meeting and was like, I get this great

idea called baby mode and everyone just didn't say anything.

And they put it on the screen.

It doesn't matter.

Lawyers will deal with the breaking thing.

You know, that's what I think happened.

Yeah, maybe.

I don't know.

I'm more on the opinion that it is just such an easy button.

I mean, it's all like, it feels like it's all software, right?

Like it's all like something you can tweak in the software.

You can make a button that makes this perfect combination of settings that people will appreciate.

Now, is baby mode available across more vehicles in the Hyundai portfolio?

As far as I know, it's in the Tucson, but I think it should be in other vehicles and maybe

a Hyundai, a Kia as well.

I'm driving a couple of Hyundais in the end of January, and you're going to have to remind me.

Are they hybrids?

Because I think it's mostly hybrids.

Well, one's a full EV.

So you'll have to remind me to check for baby mode.

Apparently, because I mentioned this to some other colleagues who were on an EV drive with a Kia

recently, I think the EV4, which I don't think is coming to the US.

But apparently, I think it has also a baby mode.

So yeah, this might just be there.

I mean, is it easier to market a baby mode than a snow mode?

I just don't think babies are buying cars.

I think you're really mistaken about that.

I think snowmen might be.

I truly believe that it is the easiest thing to market to a parent,

because especially a young parent, when my son was born, you have no sleep.

You are willing to do anything to make your life easier.

I sold you all kinds of gadgets.

It was amazing.

I'm just inventing gadgets and sending them to you.

And you'd be like, I'll take it.

And I'm like, well, you haven't heard the price set.

You're like, I don't need to hear it.

Yeah, no, at 330 in the morning, when you've been awake,

dealing with this child for 16 hours straight, you don't see numbers anymore.

You just hear the promise that something will get better.

And by the time whatever this thing happens, it ships to you, or you buy it, or whatever.

Oh, I never sent you anything.

You end up going like, what the heck was I thinking?

Anyways, I truly believe that if a sleep-deprived parent heard baby mode in a car,

it will be the only thing they think about for like a month and a half.

Like, if we had baby mode, this kid would be asleep.

We'd be living our best life.

It'd be great, right?

I'm surprised that we don't see baby mode in like minivans.

The whole car is a baby mode.

Like, I don't know what else.

It's not like they have a sport mode in our minivans.

Yeah, they do.

Some of them do.

Yeah, come on.

Oh dear.

All of the Odyssey I drove did not have one.

It did not have any drive modes that I was aware of.

Pacifica I had also had no drive modes.

Yeah, that's how it should be.

Just sheer utility all the time.

Always in baby mode, even if there's no baby.

It's always working hard.

Should it detect if there's a baby in the car?

No, I mean, come on.

If there's a car seat.

So do you remember long ago, I did that interview with the person at Volvo

who was part of the design group that created the heartbeat sensor in the Volvo S80?

You left the child in the car and then...

No, it couldn't.

Oh no!

It was designed to find if there was a hijacker in the car who was going to kidnap you.

That's what it was for.

And I asked...

Kidnap me in my own car?

Oh man, that's the worst.

Yeah, they're waiting for you and they were going to kidnap you and it would remote.

It would send you an alarm on your key fob saying someone's broken into your car

and is hiding in the back seat and they can detect your heartbeat.

I would be so embarrassed if somebody kidnapped me in my own car.

So I asked them why they didn't continue...

I do weird stuff in my car.

I sing weird songs.

The moment I get it, I start taking off certain pieces of clothing sometimes.

Yeah, but I mean, the person...

And then this person would be like, oh, I'm uncomfortable.

The person waiting for you has a hook for a hand.

They're going to get you.

Oh yeah, that guy.

It's like a 90s horror movie.

Got you.

So...

Okay, sorry, go ahead.

The reason they didn't continue with this technology and went instead to other technologies

is because it could not detect a child's heartbeat.

It wasn't...

That was the failure.

That was the threshold that they couldn't...

No, it wasn't a failure because it was never designed to do that,

but the market went in that direction and they needed different technologies

to see if people had left pets or animals or people in the car

and they realized they couldn't use the technology they had developed

and they had to move to other things like now you have...

I don't know if it's like millimeter radar or whatever they're using in a car

to determine if you've left someone behind,

but they don't detect heartbeats because a child's heartbeat is like faster

or more shallow or whatever.

It's just not possible to be picked up by these types of sensors.

I'm going to tell you right now what baby mode needs to have.

It needs to have...

It needs to have a white noise playing on the rear speakers

or in the speakers between the different passenger areas so that I can have a coverage...

A car filled with white noise sounds like I'm about to drive off the road to end everything.

You're so mean!

Well, no, it helps mask the conversation that me and my partner would be having in the front seats

and the child would be able to ignore that and fall asleep.

What about some kind of instant deodorizer?

That'd be helpful, too.

Yeah, like a seat-based air filtration system.

Yeah, but that's a great idea.

Yeah, I'm full of them.

That's why you bought all that baby stuff from me.

All right, is there anything else that you want to talk about for this?

No, that's all I got.

But next week, buddy, I'm driving a Honda.

I gotta know which one it is.

CR-V Hybrid Touring to compare to this thing.

Well, the thing is, we're not doing a podcast next week because it is Christmas time

on the actual day where we usually record.

So we're gonna skip a week.

But the week after that is New Year's.

Is that okay?

You're getting ahead of yourself.

We hope everyone listening gets a chance to at least take some time off during the holidays

and be with people that care about you.

And also, if you work retail, I'm sorry.

I know it's really hard right now and it's tough and people are not cool

and they're just thinking of themselves.

And it makes it really difficult to be in that environment.

So I hope that you get through that okay.

And a lot of other service position jobs are in the same type of situation this time of year

where people feel really entitled about the holidays.

When we come back from our break, our one-week break, Sammy,

I'm gonna be talking about a hybrid as well.

But it's a Toyota Camry Hybrid.

Lovely.

Yeah, so that'll be exciting for you.

I know you're already-

Okay, perfect.

You're already psyched.

I really encourage people to head on over to our website, unnamedautomotivepodcast.com.

Fill out the little contact form there.

And we get all of your comments, your questions, your thoughts.

Yes.

What is in your ideal baby mode?

Is that the question for this week?

I don't know.

What do you want for Christmas?

I'm not Santa.

Or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever you've got going on.

However you choose to celebrate.

However you choose.

Just let us know what's going on.

When you have this little break, just send us a little message.

We love it.

And this is a real dark time of the year.

Dark in terms of there's just no light.

It's dark at 3.30 now where I live.

And I know that we have listeners in more northern parts of the world where it's just

dark all the time.

And a couple of hours of daylight a day.

So just being able to step back and not deal with that and relax for a little bit is nice.

I try to take time off this time of year because it's not necessarily like the summer where you

can go out and do things.

Although I definitely can.

I like winter more than I used to.

But it's crushing to be constantly in darkness.

And I like to try and inject a little light and levity into my life.

I look forward to hearing from any of our listeners.

We are here if you guys need us.

It can be a depressing time of year.

It can be a lonely time of year for some people.

Just send us a message.

We love it.

Yeah, we're always checking.

All right, everyone.

Take care.

See you later.

Bye.

Episode 431: 2025 Jeep Wagoneer S, 2026 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid

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drift

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