The Toyota Highlander is a large SUV that can carry families and their gear. It's becoming fully electric, meaning it will run on batteries instead of gasoline, which is better for the environment.
The Kia Niro is a small SUV that can use both gasoline and electricity to run. It's being discontinued as a plug-in hybrid, which means it won't have a version that can be charged from an outlet anymore.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that can use both electricity and gasoline. You can charge it by plugging it into an outlet, which helps save on gas for short trips.
Extended range EVs are electric cars that can also use gasoline to help them go further when the battery runs out. This means you can drive longer distances without worrying about finding a charging station.
The Toyota Grand Highlander is a big family car that can fit more people and stuff than the regular Highlander. It's popular because it has lots of room and comes with features that help keep families safe while driving.
E-power technology is a way Nissan makes cars that can run on electricity while also using a gasoline engine to keep the battery charged. It lets the car drive like an electric vehicle without needing to plug it in.
The Nissan Rogue is a type of car called a compact SUV, which means it's a bit bigger than a regular car but smaller than a full-size SUV. It's known for being comfortable and having good gas mileage, and now it will also come in versions that use electricity to help save on fuel.
A PHEV is a type of car that can use both gasoline and electricity. You can plug it in to charge the battery, and it can drive on electric power for a while before switching to gasoline.
An EREV is a car that mainly runs on electricity but has a gasoline engine to help it go further when the battery runs out. It’s like a backup power source for electric driving.
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that many people like because it's practical and reliable. It's good for families and can handle different types of roads.
The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is a new electric van that looks a lot like the old VW buses people loved in the past. It's designed to be good for the environment and offers a fun, spacious way to travel, making it appealing to families and those who want to drive an eco-friendly vehicle.
MSRP is the price that the car maker suggests the dealer should sell the car for. It's like a guideline for how much you might expect to pay for a new car, but the actual price can be different.
LIVE
Welcome to Daily Drive. For Monday, February 9th, 2026, I'm
Kellan Walker in Las Vegas. Today on the show, the Toyota
Highlander is going all-electric. Kia drops the plug-in hybrid
Nero, and Nissan doubles down on plug-in hybrids and extended
range EVs. Plus, true car founder Scott Painter talks about his
return to the company and what he's changing. That awful lead gen
type experience is fundamentally what is broken with
true car. It was done for a whole bunch of reasons that are
off-mission. Let's run through all the news you need to know
to keep up in the auto industry. Toyota is giving the Highlander
a major makeover. The crossover is going all-electric in
2027. The automaker released an 11-second teaser video showing
the Highlander nameplate with battery electric and all-wheel
drive badges. A full reveal is expected within days. The timing
makes sense. Highlander sales have dropped 37% to just 56,000
last year. While the larger Grand Highlander saw sales
jumped 91% to nearly 137,000. The electric pivot gives the
nameplate a fresh start. Kia is dropping the plug-in hybrid
Nero for the 2026 model year, citing changing market
conditions. The hybrid and all-electric versions will remain,
but analysts say the plug-in hybrid represented just a
fraction of overall Nero sales. The move follows similar
decisions by Jeep, Chrysler Dodge, and Alfa Romeo. Plug-in
hybrids account for less than 2% of the US market today and
according to Alex Partners, they're expected to make up just
3% of sales in 2030, compared to 27% for traditional hybrids.
And while Kia is stepping back from plug-in hybrids, Nissan is
doubling down on them. Nissan is shifting focus to plug-in
hybrids and extended range EVs as battery electric demand
slows. CEO Yvonne Espinoza says the company is adjusting its
EV investment to reflect weaker demand, infrastructure gaps,
and reduced government support. Nissan will expand its e-power
technology to include Phev and e-rev versions. A rogue plug-in
hybrid launches in the US this year with about 40 miles of
electric range. The move supports Nissan's broader restructuring
plan aimed at cutting costs and improving profitability without
relying on volume growth. And those are today's headlines.
You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com.
So my Seahawks are Super Bowl champions. They beat the New
England Patriots 29-13 Sunday night in Santa Clara. That's
another win for the good guys. But when it comes to automotive
ads, things are pretty light. Continuing a recent trend,
just three automakers, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Cadillac ran
spots during the big game down sharply from the heyday when
automakers accounted for 40% of Super Bowl ad minutes. EJ
Schultz of our sibling publication at age has been tracking
the Super Bowl advertising landscape. EJ, welcome back to
Daily Drive.
Great to be here.
So EJ, first of all, what did you make of this year's auto
ads?
Honestly, I thought it was pretty mediocre. It's definitely
down from the glory years, as you've mentioned, and the ads
that we did get, I don't think are going to win any awards.
So we had Toyota, who had two ads in the game. They're, of
course, an NFL sponsor. So I don't know this for a fact, but
I think they get a decent little deal on Super Bowl advertising
because of that. Their ads were fine. They had a heartwarming
ad. The first one that aired in the game called Superhero
Belt. This was for the RAV4, and they were really trying to
promote the staying power of the RAV4 nameplate with a little
generational story of a grandfather and grandson going
back in time to show how the grandpa used to put his son
in the car and refer to the seat belt as the Superhero Belt
and then the ad flashes forward to show the modern day version
of that with the roles reversed. I thought it was a nice
little heartwarming ad. Interestingly, Toyota admitted
they did not actually create that ad specifically for the
Super Bowl, but they were confident enough in it to run
it, and I thought it was a fine ad. The second ad had a little
bit more of a Super Bowl vibe to it, at least in terms of
celebrities. That spot from Toyota was called Where Dreams
Begin. It was a 30-second ad, and it included one NFL player,
wide receiver from the LA Rams, Puka Nakua. It had a couple
Olympian, an Olympian in it and NASCAR driver, and it was
sort of showing the younger version of themselves, the
kid version of themselves, talking to the adult version
of themselves, giving them a little pep talk. So that's
what Toyota did. Volkswagen came back to the game. They took
last year off, and they came back this year, and they kind
of made another nostalgia ad. If you remember, a couple
years ago, they really went back in time and kind of talked
about the history of VW entering America. This time, they
sort of recaptured an old campaign called Drivers Wanted,
which was Hay Day was back in the 90s. They tried to sort
of modernize the spot. It was sort of a montage-y spot. I
had all kinds of models in it, everything from the Jetta to
the Tiguan to the ID Buzz. And it was basically one of the
lines in the ad was life. If we're not living it, what are
we doing here? It was a classic ad trying to get people out,
right, in the road, in their car, enjoying life. And then
the last ad was from Cadillac F1. So not a classic auto ad.
I would actually categorize it more as a sports ad, because
the whole purpose of the ad was to debut Cadillac's new F1
team and the actual vehicle. They used the ad to debut the
race car delivery. And they chose to do that by sort of
comparing it to America's Moonshot. They began with the
classic JFK speech. We choose to go to the moon and sort of
use some visual effects to show the race car coming together.
So that was basically the lineup.
Now, EJ, what's driving this pullback from automakers at
Super Bowl? So I talked to several marketers at automotive
brands in the last few weeks before the game. There was one
unique factor this year, and that's that, you know, it's
a winter Olympics year, and we also have the World Cup. So
for instance, which was a longtime Super Bowl ad advertiser
took their second year off in a row. And their CMO told me
they basically liked the idea of running ads in the Olympics
in the World Cup instead, because they could actually run
multiple ads. They could use multiple ads to talk in more
detail about features of vehicles, rather than being
confined to, you know, a single 30 second spot and trying to
jam it all in there. And by the way, paying $8 million this
year is what 30 seconds is going for in the Super Bowl. The
price tag isn't is I think another thing that's really
holding back a lot of these auto brands, you know, they have
enough business challenges right now. And they're really
focusing a lot of their marketing around kind of so called
lower funnel activities, which is trying to identify people
when they're closer to the purchase decision. Super Bowl
historically is used for broad based awareness. So right now
I think they're really focused on that lower funnel.
Perfect. EJ, thank you so much for joining me on Daily Drive.
Great. Coming up next true car founder Scott Painter talks
about his return to the company and his plan to make it
profitable. That's next on Daily Drive.
Are you a dealer creating a workplace culture your employees
are proud to be part of? Applications are now open for the
2026 automotive news best dealerships to work for program.
This isn't just an award. It's a chance to get real insight
into what's working at your dealership and where you can
improve. And we've expanded the categories this year,
recognizing everything from technician experience and
leadership development to AI enablement and employee
retention. The registration deadline is April 17th. Find
out more and apply at auto news.com.
Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellen Walker. True car
founder Scott Painter is back at the helm of the company he
started after buying it and taking it private last year.
The digital car shopping platform has struggled financially
despite growing its dealer based five fold since Painter left.
Now he's focused on cutting out what he calls the awful lead
gen experience that drove customers away and refocusing
on true cars original mission saving consumers time and
money. Our own Jerry Hirsch spoke with Painter at the NADA
show in Las Vegas on the automotive news shift podcast.
Here's a piece of that conversation.
Scott, I never thought that I would see you at an NADA
conference given the relationship you've had with dealers
over the years. We first met I think at near the start of
true car in Santa Monica right there on the promenade. And
the whole idea of true car was to save consumers money on
their purchases. But the clients of true car were the
dealers who signed up for the service. So I always wondered
how how would this work? It wasn't across purposes to save
consumers money when dealers want to charge the most to make
the most money. Eventually you were pushed out of the company
until you bought it back recently. So tell me how do you
solve that conundrum now in the day in the days of AI and
much more sophisticated technology?
So I was worried that you might not want to get right at it.
You know, I'm 57. So I'm a much different entrepreneur than
I was in true car 1.0. When I was raising money to build
true car. I had to convince investors that the Internet
was going to be a big deal. We're now living in a world
where clearly everybody goes to market digitally dealers,
OEMs all market their vehicles digitally consumers 100% of
them go online as their first step in shopping for a car.
When I was running true car and when I step back we had just
under 3000 dealers on the program and almost 400 million in
revenue. Today the company has 11,500 dealers across the
country and predominantly franchise dealers that sell new
cars but also use cars and the company has a little under
200 million in revenue. So five times larger in terms of the
dealer population. It's got 8 million unique monthly visitors
whereas when I was running the company we had somewhere between
one and one and a half. So it's a much bigger company and
almost every major you know KPI that you would measure growth
by but revenue and the company is not profitable. So we were
able to buy the company and take it private for about 0.6
times revenue. So a great entry point. I think it's a great
sort of way to think about what we can do and I think the
mission got lost along the way and you're right and not a lot
of people really interpreted it properly. The mission at true
car is to save consumers time and money when buying a car.
If you go to true car dot com we just changed the home page
now that I'm back to that Monday morning. So the home page
just prior to that said car buying shaped to your life with
a gentleman and a surfboard or somebody hiking up a trail with
their dog and that was never the value proposition. It was
about saving time and money true car has a moat that it
hasn't been really focused on which is 75% of people who come
to true car select they are looking for a new car 80% of
everyone who goes to auto trader cars dot com car gurus car
fax are looking for a used car. The only new car value
proposition that those sites have is VIN based listings of
what cars have already been built. Most people buy within 30
miles of their home. There are according to build codes across
50 brands 500 models 5000 trims and all the there's 2 billion
yearly permutations of new car available.
It is the perfect deployment of technology to present you with
the pictures of those cars all the options and by the way all
of this is mapped by third parties like evox chrome the data
is available nobody does it there is no new car marketplace
that is agnostic by brand that will allow you as a consumer
to configure the car without going to the OEM website see
all the options accessories and pick the way you want it and
see an actual price true car was able to unlock and that's
unique. So you want to be the third party information source
then that could connect consumer to an offer from a dealer or
more than one dealer. Yes but that journey starts with being
able to give the customer information about the product
in the context of not just product features pictures but
also price because when you have an anchor price on a new car
an MSRP new cars love it or not are mass produced and they're
an appliance they're a commodity when you look at pricing
though you can see a 30% difference between what one
customer pays and what another customer pays for an
identically equipped vehicle and sometimes that can even
happen at the same dealership the level of fear intimidation
anxiety that people have about car shopping in 2026 is even
greater than it was in 2016 or 2006. So I've been on this
journey for 30 years most of my adult life I love buying cars
I think cars if you ask me where I was at in my life I could
tell you what I was driving to me my cars my avatars how I see
myself in the world and I think that's you know true of sort
of Americans generally in our love affair with cars. I think
that the process of buying a car should be exciting fun almost
all the things that happened good in my life whether it was
having kids moving on to a new company building a new thing
selling a company going to school coming in buying a new
home moving to a new area all these milestones almost always
had a different vehicle attached to them and those things to
me are happy moments buying a car for most people is not a
positive it's it's a real it well it's sort of one of the
things we have to all do in modern life right and there's
four transactions when you're buying car and if you don't
solve all four you're not really helping the consumer
because at some point they have to eject most people cannot
have two cars at the same time and they certainly can't
finance two cars so they have a trade in 75% of the time when
they come to true car shopping for a car 94% of people do not
pay cash for their car so conflating auto shopping with
auto finance which is more possible today because of
technology than ever before you know when you're running a
net funnel efficiency business where you're taking millions
of people on the front end and putting them into a technology
experience it's about net funnel efficiency you're looking
for dropout today I bought true car because 95% of people
when confronted with give me your name your address your
telephone number your email and your lead say I'm out I
don't want to become a lead because they know they're
going to get shipped off to about 15 dealers in five
minutes and that awful lead gen type experience is
fundamentally what is broken with true car it was done
for a whole bunch of reasons that are off mission but it
was done to really drill into lead attribution as a way of
proving to the dealer we sourced this customer.
There was a lot of concern about our billing model pay
per sale and whether or not that somehow meant we were
brokering and applied different there were a lot of ways
to attack true car.
I can tell you looking back and I've now met with a number
of the ATA dealer Association presidents that were my nemesis
when I was in true car 1.0 already here at the convention
and you know the first thing that all of them have said to
me is I hope you're not going to try to change the billing
model and my answer to that is you know to Brian Moss and
guys like Don Hall in Virginia.
It doesn't matter how we bill our dealers we're going to be
compliant we live in a regulatory framework where we
have to be there is no choice but at the end of the day if
my dealers spend X dollars with us we need to divide that
total spend by how many cars they sold so we can come up
with a cost per sale and I'm just going to give everybody
the roadmap if a dealer has to spend more than $400 per car
sold they're on their way out if they spend less than $400
per car sold they will lean in and that is a very important
inflection point to understand about our business and whether
or not I charge a certain way or not I need to be held
accountable by our dealers for that return on their investment.
That's Daily Drive for today.
I'm Kellan Walker.
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Nier as
well as our own Larry Bella Quet, David Phillips and Vince
Bond Jr. for their reporting for today's podcast.
We also have reporting from Luca Shaffari of our sibling
publication Automotive News Europe.
You can get the latest news on digital retail platforms,
electrification strategies and everything happening in the
auto industry at AutoNews.com.
Come back tomorrow for my conversation at NADA with Lance
Wolfer, vice president of automobile sales for Honda
America.
You could easily say that we've got one of the most fresh
lineups in the industry, which really gives us an edge.
We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know to think of the show and the topics we covered
today.
Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com or leave us
a voicemail at 313-444-2774.
And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a
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About this episode
Toyota is making waves by announcing that the Highlander will go all-electric by 2027, a strategic move to revitalize a nameplate facing declining sales. Meanwhile, Kia is discontinuing the plug-in hybrid Nero, while Nissan is pivoting towards plug-in hybrids and extended range EVs in response to market shifts. The episode also features Scott Painter, founder of TrueCar, discussing his return to the company and plans to refocus on its original mission of saving consumers time and money in car buying, amidst a challenging financial landscape.
