Episode 437: 2026 Nissan Leaf, 2026 Ford Expedition Tremor

Hello, and welcome to the Unnamed Automotive podcast.

My name is Sammy Hage-Assad,

and with me, as always, is my good friend

and fellow automotive journalist, Benjamin Hunting.

Say hi to the people, Ben.

Greetings, frozen listeners.

Greetings to everyone, frozen or liquid hot magma, right?

No, I'm only-

Is that the alternative to frozen?

If you're a liquid hot magma, go see a doctor.

That's the voice of Ben,

my very good friend and fellow automotive journalist.

Ben, you can find his work all over the internet.

Isn't that right, Ben?

Yes.

Give me a hint.

You can find my work at MotorTrend at driving.ca

and at Inside Hook.

Where in the world can I read Ben's work?

Well, now we're gonna get a copyright strike.

I didn't copy entirely. From Rockefeller.

And you could find my work.

No, no, no, from the surviving members of Rockefeller.

There's like 12 of them.

Isn't there? There's gotta be a couple.

That means there's a good chance we're getting a lot of suit.

Oh, no. If there's 12 of them.

If they listen.

Yes.

Of course they listen.

Do you think they listen?

They need some great car information this week.

They have a service that's constantly searching podcasts

for copyright strikes.

They're like the YouTube-

They're just like, where in the world is where in the world?

They're like the YouTube of 90s acapella groups.

I really hope that our listeners know

like the reference, really.

It doesn't matter. Let's move on.

Okay. You can find my work at AutoTrader.ca

and driving.ca and driving.ca's YouTube channel.

I've got some stuff coming out there.

Ben, we've got some cars talk about this week.

Cars we haven't talked about in a very long, long time.

And you in particular drove a car

that I think a lot of people are curious about

because it could shift the world of electric vehicles

as we know it.

Well, I mean, maybe.

Maybe. Anything can.

I think right now, what's shifting the world

of electric vehicles is very unusual political decisions

being made in markets where people are unsure

what's going to happen in the future.

I think that's the single biggest shift for EVs.

I don't know how much the 2026 Nissan Leaf

is going to move the dial within that environment,

but it is notable for a bunch of reasons.

The first being the Leaf hadn't been redesigned

in quite a long time.

I don't remember exactly how long,

but I can tell you the last time I drove a Leaf,

I was living in a different city.

And it was years ago.

Sammy, what's the last time you were in a Leaf?

Oh, man, I haven't been in a Leaf in a long time.

Must have been for like a test fast or something.

And I think it's important to point out

that it's had like two generations.

And now this is the third, right?

Your guess is as good as mine.

I think you're probably right.

But it was an ugly one that had the same.

The same headlights as like a Nissan Juke or something.

Well, so the last time we talked about the Leaf on the podcast

was in 2021.

Oh, yeah.

And that was the previous, that was the middle generation,

I guess, the second generation.

Middle generation.

But what's important to note is even if we're not sure

how many versions of the Leaf there are,

we're very certain that the Leaf has had a journey

that started out with being a very basic form

of electric transportation, not a lot of range,

not a lot of power.

Then it graduated to kind of a middling form

where it had OK range kind of.

The pricing was not as cheap as you would think.

Like I believe it was still more expensive than the Bolt

when they were contemporaries.

But Nissan really made a go of filling it

with as much technology as it could.

It had all the ProPilot Assist semi-autonomous driving stuff

that you could find in that era.

And it was a big step up for the previous Leaf

for this version of the vehicle.

I think that they have done their most

to make the Leaf a mainstream EV

in a way that I don't think it was before.

I mean, this reminds me of the strategy

that they took with the last low cost car

we talked about from Nissan, which was the Kix.

When it first arrived on the scene,

it was this really affordable kind of plucky thing.

And then when they updated it,

they gave it like everything that every other car had.

And that changed the dynamic of the Kix in a certain way.

Is that happening?

Is that a similar trajectory?

And is that-

There's some truth to what you're saying,

but I think it's a lot more complicated

when you talk about electric vehicles

because the drivetrains, they can advance fairly quickly

in terms of battery capacity and management

that gives you different range options.

And the subcompact or small EV market

is radically less competitive

than what the vehicle you were just talking about.

The Kix is facing, right?

There's like so many small SUVs out there.

But when you're looking for an affordable EV,

particularly one that's not an SUV

and that is small in size,

I mean, right now it's really just the Leaf

and the Bolt, I guess, and the Bolt is leaving.

So-

Yeah.

It's a weird thing the Bolt is gonna be made

for like one year essentially, right?

Yeah, it's done.

We talked about it on a previous episode.

It's a bad decision.

It's just like, I can't believe it.

Like I-

Well, I can't.

You can't believe GM made a poor choice

when it came to product planning.

I mean-

But we've been, me and you in particular

have been waiting for this.

Yeah, I mean, we are personally betrayed by this decision.

Don't get me wrong.

But it doesn't mean, I guess I've come to expect betrayal.

I don't know.

What does that say about me

and how I navigate the world?

The Leaf has changed a lot

and I'm gonna talk about the ways it has changed.

The first is it kind of is doing its best

to look like an SUV now.

Even though it's not, it is visibly taller,

although it has less crown clearance than the old Leaf.

It has a bulkier appearance.

It's still a hatchback,

but it kind of looks like a buffed up hatchback.

It's almost like the two series.

Sorry, not the two series.

The X2, remember the X2?

I remember the X2.

It still exists, the X2.

Well, it's not quite what it was though, right?

Yeah.

For a while, the X2 was almost like a stealth hot hatch.

That's true, yeah.

Where it was marketed as a crossover,

but really it was a hatchback

and it was recently fun to drive and all this stuff.

I think that it's kind of the similar for the Leaf.

They're not really marketing it as a crossover,

but they're like winking really hard at you

with all of the advertising,

trying to get you to think it's a crossover.

I had a friend reach out to me

talking about their perception of the Leaf

and how much they think it looks like a Tesla,

like a Model 3.

And that they think that part of the reason

why there are so many two-tone paint jobs

available with the Leaf is to hide that fact.

Interesting.

So in any case, the Leaf looks a lot different

inside, it's also quite different.

It is much more pleasant inside than I remember it being.

The old car wasn't bad,

but it felt more of its price.

The new car, the price has gone up

and as a result, the interior trappings are too.

In the US, it starts around 30 grand now,

which isn't a huge increase versus the older one,

I don't think, but in Canada,

you're looking at $48,000 to buy a Leaf

and you could spend up to 55 if you want.

I had the middle trim, the SV Plus,

that's $51,000 in Canada.

In the US, it is $34,000.

That, if you take the exchange rate out of things,

that's like 29,000 US is like 38,000 Canadian.

So there's still a $10,000 gap.

Like there's a big difference

at how these vehicles are marketed in Canada.

And I wonder how much of that is the incentives

that are available in Canada that are,

you know, we'll put the price up

because the incentives will knock it down

and now we're competitive with our US pricing.

So it's hard to tell, it's a tangled web right now

with whether there's going to be new federal incentives

applicable to the Leaf

and which problems you live in giving you a discount.

Okay, but there's an important thing

to talk about with this car is that it's just,

it's like a huge upgrade over what it used to be.

Performance, range, features.

Is it a huge upgrade in range?

I would think so, isn't that what it's all about?

It's 249 miles, I believe.

It's not bad.

I mean, it used to have like 100 back in the day.

Sorry, 288 on a full charge.

I think 250, if you get certain wheel sizes,

like the larger wheel sizes.

Okay.

I had the vehicle in the cold,

very, very, very cold weather.

I saw between 218 and 180 miles of range,

depending on, displayed, depending on the weather.

And when I say cold, I mean really cold,

like minus nine Fahrenheit,

which is minus 23 Celsius on one day where I was driving it.

And that's when I had the 180 miles.

But when we're talking range and we're talking cold,

I had some weird stuff happen with the Leaf in the cold

that I haven't experienced with other EVs.

And the first one was the gauge for the battery

that tells you how much charge you actually have.

It doesn't really move when it's cold.

And I looked-

That's a problem.

I looked in the owner's manual.

The owner's manual says that in very cold temperatures,

which is definitely what I was facing,

there can be a lag in communication

between the state of the battery and what the gauge shows.

When they say lag in communication, they're not kidding.

I drove 70 kilometers at 100% battery and minus 23.

And it didn't budge.

It didn't budge.

And then when it did start moving, it moved real fast.

Like every 30 seconds, I would lose 1% battery

until it started to settle.

And I ended up on a trip, it was 130 kilometers.

And halfway through the trip, I was at 100%.

And by the time I arrived at my destination,

I was at like 64%.

So that should tell you what the actual consumption was.

The range estimator, the guess thing underneath the battery,

underneath the battery charge indicator,

it was moving all the time.

So that thing was doing some kind of calculation.

I don't understand why they're not linked

or how the range estimator is able to move

when the battery charge indicator

is not getting communication from the battery.

That's a bit confusing.

But I can tell you, it happened not just once,

but a couple of times where I drove quite a bit

at 100% and nothing changed.

And normally you're in an EV and that can happen.

It's like, you know, when you fill your fuel tank

and it stays at full for a long time

and you kind of flew yourself into thinking,

oh, you know, this is the week I never have to buy gas.

Like this is the week where I beat physics

and I can drive indefinitely on a single tank of gas.

And it was kind of that situation.

But then I discovered it was actually a sticking problem.

The other weird thing that happened to me,

and this only happened one time,

whereas the battery was a regular thing,

the minus 23 day, minus nine Fahrenheit,

I got into the car and I'm trying to accelerate

and it feels like I'm stuck.

It feels like the vehicle's not moving.

And I didn't really notice it too much

because at first when I pull out of my house,

I'm on a unplowed road, a dirt road,

and I'm not driving very quickly

because I'm just trying to get where I'm going

without sliding into the ditch, right?

I get to the highway and the highway is plowed,

so I have traction.

And I pull out on the highway in front of another car

and I hit the gas or the accelerator and nothing happens.

And I'm like, what's going on?

I start crawling forward, like maybe half power,

and I'm in a 90 kilometer an hour zone,

55 miles an hour, and there's a car coming up behind me

and I'm like, oh no, and I feel like a jerk

because I'm blocking this person now,

but I'm also really confused.

And I get to a hill and I have my foot to the floor

and the car starts losing speed, like dropping.

And I don't understand what's going on.

And then I start to think like,

am I in some kind of reduced power mode

because it's so cold?

And, but maybe about 10 minutes later,

I look on the dash and there's a turtle icon,

an orange turtle icon.

Oh no, the turtles.

The turtle, I couldn't see it

because of how I had the steering wheel.

Oh, that's even worse.

Yeah, so the steering wheel was set

so that the top right and top left corner

of the gauge cluster were blocked.

And that's where the turtle was in the top left.

And then I looked it up and it turns out

that I was in this reduced power mode

because of how cold it was.

And so I'm in the manual and I'm like,

well, what am I supposed to do when I see this turtle thing?

Like in my mind, it's like,

I guess I keep driving and the battery

will eventually warm itself up or something, right?

Cause there's no, I don't really have another option.

The manual says go somewhere warm and let the car warm up.

I guess like you buy the car like a Cuba

or Dominican Republic vacation.

You send it away for a week, comes back,

it's feeling better.

The other thing it said was plug in right away

and some of the energy from the plug

will heat up the battery.

Now I had had the car plugged in all night.

Yeah.

So that's clearly not true, right?

Yeah.

It's, so anyway, have you ever had an EV

go into a power, a safe mode or a reduced power mode

because of temperature, because of cold temperature?

Not because of temperature,

but I've had it due to low range.

Like I think when you get under like five percent.

That's not what we're talking about though.

This battery was at 100%.

So I've never had it happen because of temperature.

And I can't think like, does this happen in the Aria too?

Is this a Nissan thing?

I don't know.

In any case, very unusual, very strange.

And it was quite cold at other points during the week.

And I did not have this happen with the leaf either.

It was just really this one night,

or sorry, one morning after being out all night

in this extreme cold.

I think that's really an important thing to talk about

when it, whenever EVs are involved,

is just how much their cold weather performance can change.

I've never heard of it being that drastic,

that like limiting that you had in your car,

but it's definitely understandable, I think.

But the funny thing to me is,

and you're gonna have to be patient with me on this,

but I went on the first drive of the Aria a few years ago,

and everyone was pretty excited,

but there was this kind of like brewing sentiment

from the execs that I talked to,

that Nissan wants to be one of the first automakers

to deliver a solid state battery powered vehicle.

And that if they just do that,

all of their problems will be solved.

And I don't think, I don't know if that's,

I don't know enough about solid state batteries yet

to know whether or not they're going to solve

the cold weather problem,

but they need more solutions than,

they need more effort than just,

we're waiting for the next generation of battery tech, right?

I don't know if, I mean,

do they really need a new generation of battery tech

given that other car companies

don't seem to have this issue

with the current gen of battery tech?

Like that's, I don't know.

I don't know, it was just, it was just strange.

Other things about the, the leaf and the cold.

So like I said, unplug roads for the most part,

totally fine, maybe like three inches of accumulation.

The leaf is a little bit lower,

like a half inch lower than the old leaf,

which was just straight up a sub sub comeback hatchback

with no, you know, like faux SUV pretensions.

I didn't get it stuck on the road,

but there were a couple of times,

I actually did get it stuck one time.

And this is the only press car I have gotten stuck

since I moved out into the middle of nowhere.

What happened was I was driving down my gravel road

covered in snow, there's an alpaca farm near me

that I enjoy, I enjoy like going

and I kind of, I kind of creep on the alpacas.

I like park and I watch them from my window

and they watch me and I watch them

and they watch me and then watch me watching them.

And since I change cars every week,

no one picks up that it's me that's doing this, right?

So I can just go back and watch the alpacas whenever I want

to find it very peaceful, it's very relaxing.

But today I just chose that place as my turnaround spot

because the alpacas weren't outside,

super cold, not fair for them, very snowy.

I know they're from the Andes and whatnot

and they're used to it, but at the same time,

you wanna, you gotta be sweet to the alpacas.

So there's this driveway that goes down into the farm

where the alpacas are and I pull into it,

and I said down, so there's a bit of an angle.

Leaf is front wheel drive.

I can't back up.

Is there an all wheel drive version?

No.

Single motor, a single motor, front wheel drive,

795-

Again, front wheel drive when you don't need

to be front wheel drive.

EVs, you can put their motors anywhere.

Sure, I don't get it either.

Rear wheel drive would not have helped me here though.

Oh, okay.

It's 75 kilowatt hour battery and it's 214 horsepower.

The vehicle will not back up.

I am on, there's some ice under the snow.

I actually start sliding further down this driveway

towards the chain link fence that's across it.

And I'm like, I don't need this.

I don't need this jazz.

I don't need this.

I didn't need this today.

I started sawing the wheel back and forth

to get some, try to get some traction.

I turned traction control on and off,

trying to figure it out.

I get it moving backwards like an inch at a time,

but someone is down near the farm

and they're waving at me to stop, stop.

Yeah, good.

Thanks chief.

And they walk up and the guy,

the guy's like, I'll just open the fence

and you can drive down and go out the other exit.

And I'm like, oh, that's a great idea.

So, so I do that.

No problem going up the hill the other way.

Like once I have some momentum,

then like 10 minutes later,

I decided to stop on a hill to get some pictures.

Of course.

I get the pictures, I get back in the car

and it will not move forward.

And I'm like, oh no.

And this is not as abrupt of a hill

and I'm on the road now.

Like I'm not at it like a, on the other driveway,

you know, it's kind of like where you're teetering,

where like the back half of the car is flat

and the front part of the car is on an angle.

In this case, the whole car is like on the same plane.

And I had to back down the hill.

So that doesn't often, like I had an odyssey

in a big snowstorm two months ago.

And I had no issues with it.

It was great.

No problems, really good in the snow.

Front wheel drive as well.

But the leaf not nearly like as long

as you don't stop, as long as you maintain momentum,

excuse me, it's fine on winter tires.

But the moment you stop and smell the roses

or get outside and freeze your hands off

while you're taking pictures,

things can get real very quickly.

Brutal, okay.

That's a major, I mean, you think that's a snow thing, right?

Like that's a snow and muddy thing, I suppose.

Well, you're not gonna go mudding in a leaf.

I mean, maybe if you're a YouTube personality,

that's something you went to.

Okay, that's fair.

A couple, the safety systems worked pretty well,

even in the snow.

Normally when I drive these cars

and they get salted snow on them,

all the safety systems turn off

because the sensors get blocked.

That didn't happen in the leaf.

I'm assuming it's mostly camera-based

and the camera was, except for that one very cold day,

for about 10 minutes, I had condensation

in front of the camera between it and the windshield

and no way to take care of that.

The camera never disabled itself while I was driving.

The on-roads where it couldn't detect the lines,

it just didn't work.

It would say, hey, you have adaptive cruise control,

but I can't, sorry, I can't see where the lane is,

so you're not gonna get lane centering.

But one weird thing that happened was

when I was leaving the city with it the first day,

it was a dry day and there was salt on the road,

but you know that dry salt that blows everywhere

and it just kind of masks the lines

because the lines are painted white

and the salt was white.

And so the lane keeping system that would warn you

if you went off out of your lane, it was working fine,

but ProPilot Assist would not activate lane centering.

It would say, can't find lane.

So I wonder if, it's gotta be the same camera system.

And I just wonder if it needs more confidence

in what it's seeing then lane departure

in order to have that fine control over the steering wheel.

But I've never had one of those systems work

and the other one disabled.

You know what I mean?

So that was a little bit strange,

but most of the time it worked very well.

Like it never fully turned itself off.

So that's impressive on a vehicle like this,

especially one that's, you know, low to the ground.

It's not like an SUV.

I'm driving a tall SUV this week

and all of those systems shut themselves off

in a snowstorm yesterday.

You know, just couldn't handle it.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, it's one of the funniest things I feel

is that these systems are designed to help you

and make you, allow you to feel more confident while driving.

But in reality, they don't work very well

unless the conditions are perfectly.

Yeah, they never work when you need them to work the most.

I'm already confident when the weather is, is clear.

So what it does is it erodes your driving skills over time.

So that when bad things happen, you're not ready.

Yeah, exactly.

100% that's it.

I think that's one of the funniest things.

And it's the most true thing about, about these driver aids.

Yes.

And I'm driving a car this week.

We'll get to it in a minute

that has hands-free driving functionality.

And it's not perfect.

It, and there are times when it is very good.

I think we've talked about hands-free driving

with GM Supercruise, but it can't do everything.

It can't do everything all the time.

And to become reliant on it would be cool,

but just will not happen, like just it won't happen.

And so you end up being like hyper-vigilant

about what system in the car is working and what isn't.

But you also end up not being hyper-vigilant, right?

Because you kind of get lulled into this sense

of the car's taking care of things.

And sometimes when these systems turn themselves off,

it's not easy to know that.

I guess that's true, yes.

So it can catch you by surprise, unfortunately.

Some cars are just better at notifying you than others.

That's why I like what BMW and GM do

with the light-up steering wheels,

where it's right in your face

and you know whether it's on or off.

That's better than having an icon on the gauge cluster,

which like the turtle icon can easily be missed

if you're not particularly looking

in that section of the drive.

Or if your head-up displays can often help with this, right?

Because it puts the information directly in front of you.

And I'm a huge head-up display fan.

I think head-up displays are like,

and the real ones, not the...

Yeah, no flip-ups, please.

No flip-up weird thing that is basically

where the digital dashboard is anyways.

Mini has that one too now,

where they're like, we're not gonna give you a gauge cluster,

but we're gonna give you something even worse.

Just to wrap things up with the leaf, I liked it.

When it wasn't in turtle mode, power was fine,

it drove fine, it was comfortable.

I think it's a good size.

I like EVs in this form factor.

It's nice to see a car that has like a normal-sized battery

that still gets decent range,

like when it's not absolutely freezing outside.

The overall package is good.

I think in Canada, that's a lot of money to ask for this.

I don't see it as being all that competitive at that price,

but in the US, it's not horrible.

I mean, and if you want a base leaf,

if you just want a commuter car,

there's an argument that this is a good value.

So I think that this was a big step forward

for Nissan with this car.

Another thing unusual about it that I want to mention,

it has two charge ports.

One on the left is for the level two charging,

like CCS standard, the one that is not the Tesla center.

J1772 or something?

It doesn't have a combo plug, it just has level two.

If you want to do fast charging,

you have to go to the other side of the vehicle

for the next plug, the North American charging standard.

I got an adapter for that so I could use it with CCS.

I went to a charging station in the chill of the night

to try and get it to fast charge

and it would not connect to either of the two stations

I tried to connect to.

No way, really?

It worked fine at level two at my house,

but fast charging, no thank you.

Can I also add, let me just be clear,

one is the old standard without the CCS bottom, right?

Yes.

And the other side is the NACS Tesla style charger.

Yes, and I had an adapter to use it at a combo charger.

And the problem with adapters,

and we've said this on the show before,

I don't know what failed that night.

If it was the charger, the car or the adapter,

there's three points of failure.

I haven't, I've had to use chargers now

with a couple of cars

and I haven't had any significant issues yet,

but I haven't used any super fast charging.

I haven't used a DC fast charger yet,

just the regular level two charging.

I want to say that charge,

it's rare to see a car with both styles.

I mean, it's unheard of.

I think the Leaf might be the only one

in North America right now.

Yeah, I think that's true too.

I feel like the, this might be weird.

I feel like the Taycan used to have two chargers,

but it didn't have an NACS port.

Yeah, I think you're right.

One was like a CCS port and one was just the non CCS port.

I think that maybe in like another market,

it had two different chargers.

And then in North America,

they were just trying to sell it on convenience or something.

Well, this is a great point actually though.

The old Leaf used to use Chatham-O, right?

Yeah, and it was at the front of the car.

He was in the grill.

Yeah, yeah.

So is now, I've got to double check something

because a part of me believes that Chatham-O might be dead.

It's a hundred percent dead in the United States and Canada.

There's not as, the Leaf was the only Chatham-O car.

No, hold on.

I think that you can fast charge.

I'm going to double check before I get my butt kicked.

Hold on.

Don't you talk about fast charging a plug-in hybrid?

I am.

Is that what you're about to say?

Is it, are you going to say Mitsubishi?

Yeah, that's my boy, the Mitsubishi.

Does it not have a Chatham-O charger?

I don't think so because I've driven one

and I would have flipped out if it had a Chatham-O charger.

Why?

Because I don't have that technology.

No one has that technology.

It's on every charge.

It's on every charging station in Canada for the most part,

but it doesn't get used.

It's like, it's just the standard that time forgot.

I'm trying to find it.

I don't think the old one did.

I think the old one did.

In any case.

No, that can't be true.

In any case, check out the Leaf.

If you're in the United States, if you're in Canada,

I'm not so sure.

I think for that money,

no, but I mean, how much does an IONIQ 5 cost?

We've talked about this IONIQ 5, especially one,

I think they sell a model that isn't quite like real,

in my opinion.

The one with the small batteries.

The small battery and rear-wheel drive,

I don't think they stock them.

I don't think they put them in anyone's.

58, 50 is the entry price for a 26.

That's 3,000 more than a Platinum Plus trim leaf.

I don't think that that makes sense.

We've talked about this with the Kona, right?

We always talk about the Kona.

Oh, I totally forgot about the Kona.

I think the Kona is the natural rival for this thing.

I think you're right.

In Canada, because of pricing, yes, in the States,

I think that the Leaf is cheaper off the top of my head.

Sammy, you know, you're talking about how the starting price

for the IONIQ 5 in Canada right now for that $58,000,

it is the large battery.

Oh, they've gotten rid of it.

It looks like it, because the preferred long-range

all-wheel drive is only 60,000 versus 58 for this other one.

They both have the 84 kilowatt-hour battery.

That's wicked, holy moly.

Yes, get an 80 kilowatt-hour battery for 3 grand more,

for sure.

I mean, yeah, it's only 10 kilowatt hours more

than the Leaf, but the IONIQ is a more useful car

in the sense that it's larger, more comfortable,

and you can get all-wheel drive for a little bit more money

if you don't want to get stuck at the Opaka farm like I did.

I think this is a tough sell against an IONIQ.

I think it's a decent competitor to the Kona.

And there's also the Equinox.

The Equinox feels a lot bigger than either of those two vehicles.

Well, now that the Bolt is only around for one year,

do you think if they sell it for more than one year,

we're going to be allowed to take them to court

like all the Durango SRT buyers did?

I think if they sell it for more than one year,

the Earth will reverse its rotation,

and that will be the least of our concerns.

So that's pretty much all I have to say about the Leaf.

I think it's much more competitive in the US

than it is in Canada,

and I think it's a good rival to the Kona EV.

Affordable EVs are such an interesting.

It feels like nobody's gunning for it,

and at the same time,

no one has nailed the segment in a way

that makes it hard to just not recommend

going to the next step up.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, it's no one's interested

in making a very small amount of money.

It's kind of how it seems to come across.

But you notice how we're not talking about the Fiat 500E

in this conversation once.

Well, the 500E is limited in more ways than just range, right?

Like it's too small to be really appropriate

for a lot of people.

Currently, the 500E is available for lease

at a dealership nearby for $28 Canadian a week.

That's like $20 US a week.

So that's a sub one hundred.

Well, I'm going to do some basic math for you.

80 bucks a month.

Sub $100 US a month.

That's a good price.

That is 12,000 kilometers of driving a year,

which is about you won't ever need to ever be able to do that

in a 500 even if you tried.

What if you put it on a treadmill?

Yeah, you'd have to have it plugged into a generator.

You just want to get your money's worth, right?

So the car I drove has no inklings about efficiency

or electrification.

In fact, it is a it is the one of the biggest things

that I drive whenever I do these these press reviews.

And yet it fits in your enormous garage somehow.

It did fit just like a glove, honestly, without without any

room to to to to spare.

I have to like suck my tummy in when I'm scooting in around it.

It is the Ford Expedition and I will know it's not they make

a bigger version of the Ford Expedition called the let me

make sure I got this right.

Expedition Max.

So you can get the Max, but you got the Sammy Expedition Sammy.

I got the regular one.

And I I'm I have it this week because I'm going to be

usually utilizing all of its space for a road trip with four

adults and a child and we need all of the space and stuff

we can get because we're hauling in strollers and suitcases

and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, you could have picked up a minivan.

Just gonna say yeah, that's true.

The model I had in particular was the tremor.

I will point out that it seems like the expedition has gotten

a pretty significant redesign.

The exterior looks kind of similar to the outgoing model,

but the interior is where things have changed fairly dramatically

in terms of the amount of there's a lot of technology in the car

now there are some like two massive almost redundant screens

including a curved dash that sits on top of the dash like a

curved digital display that sits on top of the dashboard.

And at some point seems to kind of overlap with the infotainment

system like if you look at the infotainment system and then

look look on top of the dash the same information is on in both

places.

It's very strange.

So I'm looking at the trim levels for the expedition and it

seems like they've really simplified things like there used

to be something called Timberline and that's that's gone.

Now there's just active platinum tremor and King Ranch.

Yeah, so it seems like I think active is probably I would I

haven't taken a look at it, but I would guess that it's like

the lower trimmed version of a tremor while platinum and King

Ranch are King Ranch are probably just two models in the same

kind of like two piece in the same pod basically, you know,

like they're they're the high end versions fully loaded.

But so to say that one I had was not well equipped for starters

the car comes with a twin turbo I believe it's a twin turbo.

Yes, twin turbo v6 that has 440 horsepower.

The trip the the the cheaper models feature a 400 horsepower

model.

I don't know if that's a significant enough difference

when you're when you're hollow.

What's the torque figure?

I'm sure it's vastly different.

It is 510 pound feet of torque on the high output model while

the entry level model features.

Why won't you tell me Ford?

They won't tell me I'm sure someone will tell you.

That's just the way it is, man.

All right, we'll never know.

One thing to note about you were talking about how there's a

longer version called the max, right?

Yes, the tremor is the only trim that can't be ordered on the

max.

Yes, so that's an important thing to talk about.

I don't have that model.

Obviously it's test out and if I did, I probably wouldn't

been able to put it into my garage.

The tremor as well comes with a bunch like it's special.

It is meant to be an off-road model.

So it comes with a couple of features that are are designed

to emphasize that.

First of all, the exterior is a little bit more rugged.

So you'll see some blacked out badging.

It has some orange trim bits around where you would expect

the fog lights to be.

It has like an orange segment in the wheels and they're 18

inch wheels with massive all-terrain tires on them.

I'm not a winter tires on yours.

I do not have all I do not have winter tires.

I'm currently on, I think they're called general tire

grabbers if I'm not mistaken.

Be careful in your road trip.

Yeah, and I'm going somewhere particularly snowy.

So I'm not really excited about that experience, but it has

the all-wheel drive system, four-wheel drive system actually

and you can set up a bunch of different drive modes.

There's a feature in it that I haven't been able to test out

called trail turn, I believe trail turn assist trail turn

assist, which I believe it lets you pure wet the vehicle

right using the inside brake.

I want you to visualize the panic in my gut when I try to move

this land yon the way it's trying to expect you to do it.

It's like a poor man's crab walk.

It is basically a handbrake turn, I think at speed like kind of

yeah, but only on one wheel.

Yeah, exactly.

I will say there is some really interesting things in this car

that are that really caught me off guard.

In particular, it has a total redesign of the steering wheel

controls in which that there are only two illuminated control

that basically how do I describe this?

There are two D pads basically like video game D pads on the steering

wheel, but they are not illuminated except for one button.

When you touch the pad part of the steering wheel, an on-screen

display shows up in the gauge cluster to show you what you're

touching because those are blanked out buttons, but they still

have functionality and then you can press the button that you

want. It is an awful experience because that means that instead

of driving, I'm trying to figure out what button I'm trying to

get my thumb on and I don't know why they did this.

It sounds like a total nightmare.

I don't understand why they would do this either.

They very clearly have the capabilities to just put icons on

the display and the only reason I would understand why they

didn't do that is because in order for you to change the adaptive

cruise control gap setting, you have to press like two buttons.

So you have to press the gap button and then up and down on

that side of the steering wheel.

It's really unnecessary.

Every other automaker has figured it out.

It sounds like Ford used to have it figured out too before

they forgot it and did this.

Yeah, and in addition to that, it's also a strange shape for

a steering wheel.

It feels way, it's very oval, almost like a flat bottom and

flat top steering wheel.

That's what everyone wants.

It's very strange.

I guess they're trying to mimic the yoke thing that I think

Tesla had and Lexus had for a little while.

And I don't think it's super successful.

On the other hand, this car does come with blue cruise, which

is the Ford hands free alternative to what's it called in super

cruise.

Yeah, super cruise.

And it's you mentioned BMW had one as well.

Yeah, but I was talking about the notification systems.

I don't have any notifications except for on the digital gauge

cluster.

That's when it tells you that you should help help like grab

the wheel or not, which again is not ideal because you're not

staring at that gauge cluster all the time.

So those are my main idea.

Those are my main concerns with with all this technology in

the car.

It also has a motorized moving center console.

Or armrest something that I think will probably it does not

move fast enough for people.

Why does it move?

Why do I need to move?

Explain this to me.

I think that they can put stuff in the storage.

I'm not doing it.

Do I need to catch it?

Like when it's moving, like is it escaping me?

What is it doing?

What do you say moving?

There's two buttons on the armrest.

Okay, move this whole thing forward and backwards.

Why backwards?

It hides a a path through storage area between the driver

and the passenger and when it moves and then obviously it

goes closer to the people behind you.

In addition to that, there's also a I think it's a tablet

mount on the back of the armrest.

That's how wide it is.

Is there a hinge for this?

Like didn't we used to use hinges?

Am I crazy?

It has a hinge.

Does the hinge?

I have no idea how to picture what's happening here.

You have an armrest on top of the armrest.

Just stop our buttons.

I feel dumber like with each word you say.

Am I not helping you understand this?

How do I not help you?

It goes forward and backwards, but it also has a hinge.

Yeah, it opens up.

It wasn't opening before.

I don't know.

It was going forward to do what to not open.

No, it can open like this whole console just moves.

Oh my goodness.

We need to move on.

Okay, fine.

And then in addition to that, my car has motorized third row

seats.

Do they have a hinge?

Yeah, they they have to in order for them to fold.

See this, I understand and it has a split tailgate.

So the that that I don't know if that's great or not.

I'm not a fan of that.

It always feels like, hey, you're here's a way for your

groceries to fall on the ground, you know, like.

No, it's more about the idea that when I press them on the

opening button, I have to press another button to draw.

Yeah, that's always that's always great.

That's always like get make it a process.

Yeah.

One of the interesting things is you can fold down the middle

seat of the second row and third row, all of them.

So you have this massive pass through throughout the whole

car.

That's I guess that's what you do with your sliding motorized.

I guess the tailgate actually helps with the groceries

because you could pop the top one and then the groceries

don't fall because the bottom one's there.

I remember isn't it Land Rover that came out with this first

that was their big thing.

I thought BMW had it too with the X5.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I think you're right.

Um, a lot of things to enjoy about this car really really

punchy powertrain despite its size.

It is again 440 horsepower 510 pound feet of torque in this

model and features a 10 speed automatic transmission which

in which normally feels very nice but occasionally I've had

it like judder or jump.

Is that a weird way to describe an action?

It feels like sometimes it slams into gear and then just

kind of like lurches forward really aggressively and I don't

know what's causing that.

I don't know if that's just a seems bad.

Yeah, I don't know if that's just a cold weather thing

or something.

It's not a great experience.

It's a great feeling which is weird because as far as I

understand expedition is based on f-series and f-series is

like one of the most sold vehicles in the world and any

issues would be like any issue that happens to one car is

happening to like 400,000 of them.

But that 10 speed transmission has been nothing but problems

for Ford in the f-series.

So then that makes a lot of sense.

I'm expecting my father has one and he hates it.

Okay.

He has a six speed in his older F 150 and the 10 speed in the

new one and he prefers driving the 2012 model.

They both have the five liter V8.

No, no more V8 are available in the expedition.

It's an important thing that you brought it up despite it sharing

a lot of I don't think it's had a V8 for 10 years now.

Really?

I'm pretty sure it's been EcoBoost exclusively for a very

long time.

Yeah, for a while.

And the other thing to mention is that it cost quite a bit.

The my model in particular is about 82 grand.

In Canada, my trim level came to $107,000.

Okay, we need to pump the brakes and just discuss the idea of

paying six figures for a Ford that isn't a GT 40 or some crazy

Mustang variant.

I agree with you mainly because they also make the navigator,

which is based on the same car.

And I'm also driving this tremor model, which feels

compromised in terms of, as you mentioned, off-road, like,

I mean, I don't know what kind of off-roading.

It has a rock mode and I keep looking at this and I'm like,

and it has rock rails.

Like when you push side steps or like rock rails.

But when you push the rock mode, nine inch nails comes out of

the dashboard and hologram form.

Yeah.

And you get to request one song.

So I'm just like, I don't understand this trail turn, which

again, whipping a car of this size around.

It's only for low speeds.

It's not a cool move.

Like, I don't know what kind of, you'd need to have so much

confidence in what that feature can do to use it in a tight

space.

It's exclusively for low speeds.

Okay.

Like it says that in the description.

So I can't say whipping it anymore.

No.

I mean, you're making it sound like it's like when you said

handbrake turned before.

It's like drifting.

Like you're going to be like in a high school parking lot.

Yeah.

Hammering it.

And anyway, it's got a limit.

It's got a locking locking diff and all that, but and a locking

wheel and a locking wheel.

But it feels like those are features that are not necessary

in a vehicle of this.

I think like Kubo is off-roading in a gigantic three row SUV.

It just doesn't really have a floating, not just like trail

like on a trail, which like every Subaru impressive can do

like real off-roading.

But the thing with a long vehicle is trails are a challenge

when you have to turn like if you have a tight corner, you

might not be able to get through them.

Like and the longer wheelbase is a bit is a bit funky over

certain obstacles too.

So yeah, I mean, these they're not intended for, you know,

this isn't this isn't an expedition Raptor, right?

Like it's not that I keep wondering why they don't have

an expedition Raptor though.

Because of everything we just talked about.

But if they're going to make an off-road thing, make it all

the way off-road, right?

They make a Nismo version of the Armada and that's not even

off-road.

Yeah, but that's like that's super low to the ground.

Yeah, hella sweet.

Like don't even I need stuff like that.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we what we can do for you is yellow on the bumper.

Yellow, yellow fog light surrounds on the bottom and sorry

tow hooks.

Is that okay?

Is that anything?

That's what they do.

You're 100% correct.

Anyways, 82 grand for this is too much.

I feel like the entry level model, the 62 grand model is as

as much as I'm willing to pay for an expedition as luxurious

and high tech as this is.

The other thing to mention, of course, as you said, if I'm

taking a bunch of people adults, especially on a adventure,

a minivan will do the trick probably better than this thing.

It might actually have winter tires.

Yeah, it would have winter tires and I wouldn't have to worry

about struggling how to park it in places like I do with this

tremor.

Now, one more thing I wanted to talk about before we close

today's podcast.

There was a story I sent you yesterday.

When you say you, you mean me, right?

Yeah, you.

I sent Ben yesterday something that I thought he would really

he would love.

It's about the 2026 Mazda CX-5 and this is a car that has

gotten a very significant redesign.

And you have to mention that this is an Australian market

review that you sent me.

I sent you the but automotive news is their source is

in American publication.

So I never read the sourcing.

I just the sorry the source that they used came from the

American American journalist and American.

Oh, I can't read it now.

It doesn't matter.

Why is this okay?

Sorry, it's interesting because the headline is Mazda cuts

invisible costs on CX-5 to protect margins from terrorists

and restore profitability.

Okay.

I want to submit that there are no invisible cuts you can

make to a car.

I think that when you have a car that was one thing and then

you make it lesser than that car, you can perceive that in my

opinion from behind the wheel or in the second row or wherever

it is like the article gets really weird about these cuts

like well, not the article.

It's the it's the actual the chief financial officer of Mazda

here.

I'm not sure if that's Mazda US Mazda global or Mazda as you

mentioned Australia.

They mentioned that they for on the nitty gritty side, they

cut some cost and weight from the steel body structure by

coordinating with their supplier.

We're using because it's also a longer vehicle and a wider

vehicle and now it has less steel in it.

Let's let's sit with that for a second and see how we feel

about that.

Yeah, I don't like that.

The other thing that they really pointed out and they got

really into the nitty gritty here is that Mazda changed how

it wraps leather on the CX-5 steering wheel.

Now, I know this sounds really like nitpicky, but apparently

Mazda is no longer cutting it precisely and sewing it on a

curve so that the stitching lines up horizontally and they

argue that buyers don't value this more than the angled

stitching used by rivals.

Yeah.

So the whole the whole crux of this person talking about the

cuts they've made to this car is that we've decided to make cuts

in areas where customers don't care, aka where Mazda perceives

that customers don't care.

There's a whole bunch of worrisome stuff in this in this

interview slash discussion.

The first is why are you telling us this stuff?

Why are you coming out and saying, Hey, here's the new CX-5.

It's lesser than the previous CX-5.

Yeah.

Don't worry, not in a way that you'll notice like that's like

saying the t-shirt that I'm wearing that says the CX-5 is

lesser than the old CX-5 is answering a lot of the questions

I've been getting about this CX-5.

You don't need to tell us these things unless you're trying

to get ahead of something that you think will be a problem.

So then you can see.

Yeah, go ahead.

The second thing about what he's saying is that talk about

the steering wheel.

If I'm being ungenerous is the kind of niche detail that you

bring up because it's something that a journalist can print

that like hopefully keeps them from asking questions about

things that actually matter.

You think it's a misdirect.

There's something really, I think it's a total misdirect.

So there are, first of all, there's there's an important

discussion to be made about Mazda looking at their

looking at their competition and being like, I guess we'll

just be more like them.

And then there's another discussion about where they

made other changes.

For example, Mazda used to have a lot of physical controls

in their in their vehicles.

Even their latest ones have a lot of physical controls.

But if you look at the infotainment system on this,

it has a ton of touch buttons.

The there's a really bizarre looking d-pad again on the

steering wheel.

So they've changed some some of the things that I think used

to make a Mazda Mazda.

And they've also removed the turbocharged engine for now.

I think from almost everything that you're saying really

makes me feel like this is a decontented vehicle.

I agree with you.

Now here's the major issue I have.

Major issue that I have is that for a long time Mazda made

its its its energy, I guess it really stood out from everyone

else despite being a smaller automaker by delivering a better

driving experience than the mainstream competition.

I used to love the way a Mazda 3 drives.

We all know that the the MX-5 is a great driving car.

The first generation and second generation CX-5's also

drove fairly well and that could be said about even some

of the latest versions of their cars too.

But somewhere along the lines they said instead of a car

being fun to like a better driving experience, we want to

make the cars a more luxurious experience.

They tried to go premium, but like not be true luxury.

Yeah.

And then they that's when they kind of started becoming

an amorphous blob of an automaker because the MX the CX-30,

CX-50 and then the two latest blunders, the 70 and 90 lost

all sense of the automaker entirely for the effort of

trying to say that we care about certain details that are

interesting and unique and make the car feel like it's worth

more money.

And now they're walking that back.

Exactly.

So now they're in the middle of they're in no man's land,

right?

Yeah.

It's like what is if you're going to do this, they've now lost

the premium drive.

I mean, we haven't driven the car, but they've lost the in previous

like examples from them.

They've lost the driving, you know, like joy of their mainstream

cars and now they're losing the like attention to detail,

which made them stand out.

And it's like you said like saying to me that they're going

to say that that's too expensive to do when if you like we just

got out of the Palisade and we remember the first generation

Palisade saying, holy look at the the the attention to detail

on the knobs of this car, right?

And now as it's walking back there, their attention to detail

on their leather stitching, I think that's that's a as you

said, just the want the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, they're not only walking.

They're not only walking, you know, removing the attention

to detail.

They're advertising that fact like this is things you don't

need to tell us.

Like let us discover whether the vehicle is actually lesser

than before.

Don't set us up to think that because now I'm going to the

situation looking for areas where they've cut corners.

And as you mentioned before, like it's it's the homogenization

of the badge.

Like why would I buy a Mazda versus another vehicle?

If you're a hunger.

Yeah, what's the reason for doing so?

You know, like is it just styling now?

Is it just price?

Like what what are you really selling me as the Mazda

experience?

It's really worrisome.

It's just it's a strange thing used to be like look me and

you have been on Mazda programs together and they used to be

the the automaker that seemed like it was run by the engineers

and not the not the accounting department.

I think that's what that's what they used to be like.

But the reality is they're such a small company that the

accounting department is super important.

They can't afford to make mistakes.

You know, they're like Subaru in that sense.

They they can't come out with a product that nobody wants.

Like Subaru survived that with the the B9 Tribeca.

Yeah, and they came right back with the ascent though.

But the no, not right back.

Well, not right back.

Yes, but they learned their lesson, right?

I guess.

But they're very conservative in terms of what they bring out

and and Mazda like they swung really big with the CX-90.

I don't personally know how successful it's been for them.

So I can't speak to that.

But I don't like do people put put the CX-90 on the same level

as a Genesis, for example, like is it viewed as Genesis light?

Is it viewed as Acura light?

Like where does that fit for them?

And and now that the CX-50, we're talking about the CX-5, right?

You were saying about the CX-5.

Yeah, and they have a CX-50 still.

If the CX-5 is not going to be going for like premium or a semi

luxury experience anymore, then if you buy a CX-5, are you going

to be interested in upgrading to a CX-90 later on and paying

that awful car?

We've all driven it.

No, no, thank you.

So it's it's just it's really hard to understand why this is

happening.

And the reason I guess why Sammy and I are talking about it so

much is because we're, you know, we're cheering for its small

car companies to survive.

And we used to I used to recommend CX-5s.

I used to recommend 3s, Mazda 3s and CX-30s.

They had their place and now Mazda is like is no longer the

automaker that we recall when they we were recommending, I think

in my opinion.

I guess we'll see what happens.

I don't know.

I used to think that Mazda would be a very dependable automaker

for I mean, a dependable choice for somebody who is looking

for something interesting to drive and off the beaten path in

terms because Toyota's can be very expensive.

Honda's can be very expensive and lame to drive to or were

like that.

And Mazda was seen as like the alternative for somebody who

maybe wanted to care a little bit more about what they were

driving.

And now it feels like they've lost that CX-90 and 70 is a

blunder.

That is a huge mistake and I don't know how they're going to

it seems like they're going to be unable to recoup that.

If you have any ideas on how to save Mazda, you can reach out

to us at unnamedautomotivepodcast.com.

There is a contact form.

Just fill that out.

Click submit and it ends up in our inbox or you can email the

old fashioned way Benjamin at Benjamin hunting or you can find

Sammy on Instagram.

He is at Sammy underscore ha like you're laughing next week.

Then I think we're going to be talking about a three row

electric vehicle.

Yeah, we actually know next week we're not going to be talking

about anything because I am you're going to your your your

fortress of solitude in the woods and with four other people

which makes it a lot less solitary than it says on the sign

and I am going to be going to Toronto a sensibly to visit

you, but you won't be there.

So because Sammy is traveling, even though I will be in

Toronto, we won't be able to get together to record an

episode.

So we're going to have a week off and when we come back, we're

both going to be talking about the Ioniq nine, which we

happen to have sort of simultaneously driven.

It's the gigantic battery powered SUV from Hyundai and I have

a lot of thoughts about it, Sammy.

I have several thoughts about it because of the winter that I

had to drive it in.

Oh, I assure you it is far more wintery here.

Oh, that's true.

I can't wait to hear how you're done with it because it did

not go well.

Okay, well, we're going to we're going to tell you guys next

week or the week after that.

All right.

Thank you for listening, everybody.

Bye.

Episode 437: 2026 Nissan Leaf, 2026 Ford Expedition Tremor

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