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About this episode
Alex and Jim chat about recent and upcoming electric vehicle experiences, including reviews of the Kia EV9, Honda Jazz hybrid, and the new Genesis GV60. They discuss the challenges of podcasting, potential podcast studio rentals, and the excitement around new EV launches like the Kia EV4 and PV5. Jim shares plans to attend the SEMA show in Las Vegas, highlighting EV conversions and aftermarket innovations, though visa issues limit his filming. The conversation also touches on the Honda Prelude launch, the growing presence of Geely in the UK, and the evolving van market with electric options. They wrap up with personal updates and future content plans.
Topics:
kia ev9 review
honda jazz hybrid
genesis gv60
podcast studio ideas
kia ev4 and pv5 launches
sema show and ev conversions
geely brand expansion
electric vans
honda prelude launch
content creation challenges
Cars:
Ford Mustang
Genesis GV60
Genesis GV70
Honda Prelude
Kia EV4
Kia EV5
Kia EV9
Kia Sportage
Land Rover Range Rover
Jim and Alex are back to talk about what they have been up for the past few weeks, such as Alex's drive in the Honda Jazz, what they think about the new Honda Prelude and Jim's upcoming trip to SEMA in Los Angeles.
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Car
Land Rover Range Rover
"...hat is that people could be maybe coming out of a Range Rover to that. Yeah. And they're probably used to like ..."
Car
Genesis GV70
"And then, yeah, the week before that I had what was supposed to have the GV 70 that you reviewed about. I think about what the video for that came out the other day."
Car
Genesis GV60
"I think about what the video for that came out the other day. But I had the brand new GV 60 instead, which was a lovely upgrade because the GV 60 has only just come out."
Car
Kia EV4
"... of a facelift. But in December, I'm going to the EV4 and PV5, which will be on the same day."
Car
Honda Prelude
"...ess you haven't had time to see it, but the Honda Prelude reviews came out yesterday. So we were recording ..."
Car
Kia EV5
"I've said Kia EV4. I think it's the EV5 you're driving in December. Yeah, it's EV5, yeah."
Select text to request an explanation
I'm Alex, he's Jim and this is the Charging Status EV podcast. How you doing, Jim?
I'm good, how are you?
I've got a bone to pick with you. I thought we were exclusive.
What?
I thought me and you were exclusive. I saw you recording another podcast.
Oh, yeah.
Let's get on there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure if it's going to be a podcast
podcast.
I'm not.
It's been referred to as a podcast, but basically, me and Tom Shorrock, who does the car reviews
for leasing.com, just went to a podcast studio and sat and recorded about three hours of
content for leasing.com. And I think they might put out a couple of podcast episodes
with it and then possibly just lots of short content.
Oh, cool.
And it's basically me and Tom, either being silly or arguing for quite a lot of it.
Fair enough.
So, yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.
Yeah, nice.
Yeah, it's nice to do it in a little studio, actually.
It looks super professional, yeah.
Yeah, it got my mind racing a bit because, I mean, we've spoken sort of offline before,
haven't we, about me possibly getting some premises at some point.
Yeah.
So I can have like a bit of house back and like working from home when you've got family
and a poor internet connection is not always amazing.
So I've had a look at it and I can never sort of make the numbers work.
And one of the things I've thought about is actually having like a podcast space
that I could rent out as part of it.
And obviously, I could use it when I need to use it.
And having seen that set up, it sort of makes me think, yeah.
You look quite nice, don't you?
Yeah, and they're just busy all the time.
It's always booked and you think, all right, maybe there's something in this.
So not a bad idea.
Yeah, something for me to think about for a decade until like podcasts
and no longer a thing.
But yeah, yeah, it was good.
Yeah, it was really good. It was good fun.
Nice.
I'm not cheating on you.
I was slightly heartbroken, but do you know the difference?
So Alex, yeah, I'll get paid for that.
Oh, you didn't get paid for this.
The only payment I need is your undying love.
Oh, that's some. Yeah. Nice.
Yeah, so what have you been driving past few past few days?
I've got only nine at the moment.
Oh, very nice.
And I've done a lot of driving in that, actually.
I'm going to pop out after this and record the review.
There's quite a lot to tell.
Hmm, it's got high points and low points, I would say.
The design for me is a bit of a low point, like the back end.
I'm just not in the back end half of the car at all, really.
Inside it's got tons of space.
It's all quite clever, even the third row.
Loads of room on the third row and still a decent boot with all the seats up.
Some of the interior, like, plastics and stuff just seem like an odd choice.
OK.
And it's not very efficient, as you possibly imagine.
Yeah.
Same with the EV9, you know, it wasn't very efficient.
But again, you're not expecting it to be really.
But it is sort of well under the WLTP figures in my use case anyway.
But I've done a lot of motorway miles in it.
Yeah.
But yeah, about 2.7 miles per kilowatt hour has been my average.
Which is what I was great.
But no, perhaps for that kind of vehicle, it's not terrible.
No, it makes sense, doesn't it?
And with the EV9, what I what I sort of thought with that is that
people could be maybe coming out of a Range Rover to that.
Yeah. And they're probably used to like 18 miles per gallon.
So in like a hundred and seven quid to fill it up to four feet.
So yeah. So yeah, no, nice.
And it works, which is good.
Yeah, that's that's a that's a big bonus.
Yeah. Yeah. No.
But it's a lovely thing to drive, like it belies its size really.
Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah.
Very, very nice thing.
What about you? What were you been driving?
I've been going full nan mode to be driving the Honda Jazz.
So I love the jazz.
No, I love it. It's really good.
How good is it?
It's yeah, it's it's it's such a nice little car.
Oh, everyone takes the Michael at me when I've got a lot of jazz.
And it's brilliant, like I actually enjoy driving the jazz.
Yeah, I've this I can't really apart from
because because the jazz has a the hybrid system with no gearbox kind of thing.
And the engine is doing a lot of when you when you push on a little bit,
it does revel off. That's the only kind of thing is it's slightly unrefined
when you're going a bit faster.
But but everything else around it is such a nice little car
and it's very practical. It also feels really direct, though, doesn't it?
Like you feel like the power is there straight away.
Yeah, which and it is very sort of chuckable.
I don't know. It's just it's yeah.
There's not a lot of body roll. I think it's going to be.
But yeah, you do get there.
I know it hasn't got I don't it's got a proper CVT anymore, has it?
But no, it's like a CVT, which
yeah, but they sort of look, behave and smell like a CVT.
So yeah, yeah.
No, it's a very nice little sensible car.
Lovely to drive.
So I've got the cross star version, which is the one with the waterproof seats
and other bits and pieces.
So quite like that. It's quite good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice.
What do you have before?
Because obviously we had
my chum Paul stood in for me last week.
I thought he did a brilliant job, actually.
Yeah, we did it. We we had a really good time.
We didn't do any prep for that episode, just stat down, recorded.
And yeah, just chatted and Paul's for those in a way,
Paul's only just got started doing car reviews this year.
So it was nice to have his perspective on how it's going
and that that sort of thing.
So no, it was a really fun episode.
So we have to get Paul on at some point with the three of us
and do do an episode of laughs and stuff.
So it'd be quite good.
It's amazing when you consider how long we've been doing it.
And I thought it was better than both of us.
Yeah, a bit bad, actually, at the end.
But fair play to go and check out Paul's YouTube, by the way,
gone in 60 seconds, G A W N E.
Nice little play on words.
Yeah, it's good fun.
And then, yeah, the week before that I had
what was supposed to have the GV 70 that you reviewed about.
I think about what the video for that came out the other day.
But I had the brand new GV 60 instead, which was a lovely upgrade
because the GV 60 has only just come out.
So I had it a few days after those big launch events
that happened the other week.
So no, that new GV 60 is a special kind of car.
I am.
Yeah, that my conclusion to that review was that the the existing
GV 60 was already a very, very high bar
and somehow they improved on what they've done before,
which I couldn't even believe they could.
So very, very good car.
Yeah, my very efficient GV 70 has just gone out.
By the way, no one's watched it.
So it's the great, I don't know.
Disappointment, I guess, with Genesis is the cars are so good
and there's just no interest in the reviews, generally.
I mean, some of them do better than others.
But hmm, it's like they're still just flying under the radar
for so many people and the cars are just so good.
Yeah, they are exceptional.
Whenever, actually, whenever I watch someone's review
when they've been to South Korea,
I'm half watching what the guy is saying in the car,
but I'm half watching the background to see all the Genesis
because there's absolutely tons of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, yeah, that'd be quite a cool place to go to one day
because I think the car spotting will be quite good fun.
Absolutely love to go there.
Yeah, you've been to a geely event, haven't you?
Yeah, so for those unaware,
geely is, I think the cars are on sale right now, actually.
But geely owns Lotus, they own Volvo, they own Polestar
and actually Zika as well.
And they've just come to the UK with their own branded car.
And I found out from that event
that when geely were looking to bring this SUV
to the market, they were actually considering
bringing it under the LEVC brand.
So they were gonna brand it as the same brand as a taxi,
but they did some folk.
That would seem like an odd move, wouldn't it?
So they did some focus groups apparently
and the opinions swayed them towards the geely brand.
Very, very premium car.
And I took a load of pictures.
I wrote an article at the event
about the stuff they're doing.
They've got big plans.
I think 25 dealers by the end of the year,
another 25, sorry, 25 dealers open right now,
another 25 by the end of the year.
And that car has an eight year warranty,
which is I think the longest warranty of any car on sale.
Someone could correct me on that.
Eight year battery warranty.
And there's all sorts of sort of money off
and grants and things.
It's, yeah, it seems a very, very premium car,
but obviously no one's driven it yet.
So time will tell, but it seems quite promising
and they've got a lot of stuff coming soon.
So yeah, time will tell about what happens, I suppose,
but seems quite good.
Yeah, hopefully I'll get a chance to drive one,
but who knows, who knows?
Not EV related,
but I went to the Kia Sportage launch week.
That was very nice.
It's not a massive departure from the previous one,
felt just like the previous one
to drive actually just a bit of a facelift.
But in December, I'm going to the EV4 and PV5,
which will be on the same day.
And I'm really looking forward to that.
They've got both variants of the PV5
can be there, the passenger one and the van.
Yep.
And the EV4, so looking forward to that
because I've got high hopes for all of those really.
PV5 especially, I'm like really excited about a van.
Yeah, I am as well.
And there's already some incredible lease deals
on that PV5 I saw.
Which you would have seen
if you watched my lease deals of the week video.
That's where I found it, yeah.
Yeah.
Where I'm using leasing.com throughout.
Yeah, like phenomenal deals like 200 quid a month
for one of those with a reasonable mileage
and not very big deposit.
So.
No, it does seem pretty impressive.
Yeah, for the van, as we said before,
I think the last episode or the previous episode
we did together, but the van market is,
it's significantly behind the car market,
but Kia seems to bring things up to a level playing field.
Obviously, we haven't driven it yet.
So it'd be quite nice to see what it is like,
but it does seem very, very promising
and a nice sort of refreshing change
in terms of the van market.
So it'd be quite good.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is also not EV related,
but I guess you haven't had time to see it,
but the Honda Prelude reviews came out yesterday.
So we were recording this on the 29th.
And that is such a lovely looking car.
That will be like number one on my list almost
because you know how much I love the Civic.
Yeah, I do as well.
And the Prelude just looks great,
especially that blue one.
Yeah.
Like it just looks awesome, I think.
And there'll be a lot of people that get fed up with it
and oh, it's not this, it's not that
because it's hybrid and it's got like those simulated gears
that you've got in the Civic.
Yeah.
But it will be phenomenal to drive.
It will give ridiculous MPG.
I don't know.
What's not to like really?
No.
So yesterday morning when it came out,
I watched Johnny Smith's review of that car
and they had Richard Porter as well.
Cause obviously if anyone listened to their podcast,
they know they've got a thing for the Prelude.
Yeah.
So, and they, it was a good little review with them too
because they went really in depth.
There's a lot to that car,
which I didn't even realize that Honda
have obviously gone way above what they needed to do
in terms of the details.
So yeah, if just going to check out the reviews
cause I won't go into it too much
cause it'd be a bit boring,
but there's a lot to that car
that you probably didn't realize, but yeah.
Weirdly, it's like a petrol driven EV though, wouldn't it?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because the electric motors are powering all the wheels,
but the petrol engine is the generator for those.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, just seem a very, very nice looking car.
There's not many cars you look at in picture and think,
oh, that's quite good.
So obviously it was it.
It's not like two in your face though as well.
It's not a Civic Type R, is it?
No.
It's like quite understated and cool.
Yeah.
I like it.
Yeah.
No, I agree with that.
And yeah, apparently it's smaller
than the outgoing Prelude from 25 years ago or something,
which just doesn't happen very often.
And yeah, this seems a very, very nice looking car.
And it's, yeah, be quite interesting.
But yeah, sorry, that's not EV related, but kind of.
What have you got coming up?
Oh, well, as I said, we're recording this on the 29th.
Next week, I'm driving the Kia EV4,
which would be quite nice.
Is that a Kia event today?
Oh, do you know what?
I've said Kia EV4.
I think it's the EV5 you're driving in December.
Yeah, it's EV5, yeah.
And the EV4 I'm not going to, because I'm in Las Vegas for that.
Yeah.
And then also, I'm driving the Chang'an D-PAL S07,
another event as well.
Oh, cool.
By the time this goes out,
I would have already sat in those vehicles
and driven them.
Where's that one?
That's in Birmingham.
So yeah, it's an interesting time.
It seemed to be that in the summer,
there was a load of events coming out,
then there was a bit of a lull.
And now, as the days are getting darker,
we've now got these events again.
So I don't know how you'll get on
with your Kia Drive day in December.
I guess there'll be like 30 minutes of daylight
and then that'll be it, but...
Yeah, it's just before Christmas as well.
So the weather might be a bit iffy.
It's literally like a week before Christmas, I think.
Yeah, but we'll see.
Yeah, trying to find the time of the day
to film with the daylight
the way it is is a bit tricky.
So yeah.
Sometimes, you know, on some of these launches,
I will just take their stock footage,
do a voiceover and then do the drive
just to get something out that's watchable.
I don't think anyone desperately needs to see me
standing outside a car poorly lit
to read some stuff from a piece of paper
when I could be doing it on a voiceover.
Yeah, that's fair enough, yeah.
I mean, I did that on a Mode 9 launch
and that's done like 60,000 views or something.
So yeah, my videos for that have done really well as well.
Yeah, not many videos went out, though.
No, I found this.
Some of these events we've been to
where there's not a massively good amount of time to film.
It seems like some people just don't seem to bother.
I don't know.
And some brands still favor, obviously,
like print journals and you're in a room full of print journals
and there are very few sort of content creators there
or videographers.
But that's fine by me.
Yeah, that's done really well.
And actually, I think I wrote an article the other day.
I think there's another version of that car coming out
at some point because I was digging around
on the Cherry International website
and there's an updated version of that car already on sale.
So I guess we'll see that at some point.
But yeah, so you mentioned a second ago
that you're going to Vegas.
So what's happening there?
Yeah, so I'm going on Monday.
I'm going to the SEMA show, which is like,
I think it's the world's biggest car show possibly.
All right.
And it's basically all after-market and custom.
And it's very American.
You know, there will be full of people that buy a car
and immediately drop the engine out.
Coyote in motor in it and all that sort of stuff.
But there'll also be loads of technology.
And Jerome will be there who we've obviously had
on the podcast.
Yep, as you know, Jerome likes an EV conversion.
So he's actually over there now.
I'm going on Monday, but he's doing a thing
without a spec where they're, I think they do it something
alongside piston heads, where they're
driving from Miami to Vegas in something possibly
like an EV conversion or something.
And they're stopping at lots of cars and coffee events.
They're stopping at Gas Monkey on the way.
Jerome actually drove the Tesla Rosser recently,
the Gas Monkey.
I don't know if you saw that, but they launched that.
They launched that, it seemed, a year before last, I think.
And basically a Ferrari Tesla Rosser.
And they did a Tesla conversion on it,
which is complete sacrilege in the Ferrari community.
And I know Richard Rawlings got cease and desist letters
from Ferrari and the rest of the stuff.
But it's actually really, really cool.
And it's worth a look, because they did a few mods
to the looks of it as well.
But there will be a lot of kind of EV conversion stuff
over there and, I mean, everything electric
that we both went to, they had that charge Mustang,
didn't they?
They did, yeah.
Which is really, really good.
Which is incredible.
That to me is just like 10 out of 10.
It's a beautiful looking car.
And then you get in and I think the way
they'd incorporated the Tesla style,
infotainment stuff, it was all really nicely done.
Yeah, it was very, very, like a very sort of bespoke job,
which I guess is what it is.
So yeah.
Now sadly, because of me applying for the wrong visa,
I'm not allowed to film while I'm there.
Which I'm absolutely gutted about.
Obviously it's an expensive trip.
And I did have a sponsor attached to that
to cover some of the expenses.
And of course I can't do what I was gonna do
for the sponsor.
So yeah, I've had to take it on the chins.
But hopefully I'll get that corrected for next year
and I can go to the US and film again.
It also means I've canceled my trip to the LA Auto Show
which was gonna be just in a couple of weeks time actually.
Like three weeks time.
But I'm gutted about that.
Cause I've done that the last couple of years
and yeah, just really loved that event.
But that was gonna be very, very,
I was gonna be over there for like six days
and I was gonna be filming all six days
for both my channels.
And I just can't possibly justify doing that trip
without being able to work essentially.
Well with the SEMA one I am allowed to go
and have meetings with people
and I am allowed to like network.
You can put photos on Twitter and stuff, can't you?
No.
You're not sure?
Oh.
Not too, I mean, I probably will.
I don't think anyone's gonna get upset about it.
But yeah, I won't be doing any video content.
No.
Not even a reel or anything.
Oh well.
No.
Strange, isn't it?
No.
Oh man.
I don't want to go in,
a lot of people would say,
oh, sorry, I'll just go and do it anyway
but it's too important for me.
Like I love going to the US as a tourist
and I want to do more of that before I'm six feet under
and I also want to go over there for work a lot more.
A lot, I'd love to go and do
like some road trips and like so.
Oh yeah.
I think I'd call.
That kind of stuff.
And I don't want to do anything that might jeopardize that
so I'm gonna be white and white and yeah.
And do you know what?
I've had an absolutely crazy year.
It won't actually hurt me to go
and have six days away with a mate
and not be working for all of it.
I mean like Munich,
I know I got drunk a couple of times
but I was doing like 16 hour days of filming in the US
and editing and uploading and all that sort of stuff
so it won't do me any harm to have a little break.
No, I'd be quite good when it, so yeah.
Yeah, I'm only 18 years old, you know.
Oh, I just been that hard on you.
Yeah, yeah.
However, you're like 30 and look 12, so.
Oh, thanks for that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't get ID'd anymore but that's about it.
So.
Obviously don't work very hard.
Oh dear, right.
I think on that note,
that's a good place to end for this episode.
Yeah, you can find all my car reviews
on my channel, The Interface Cars.
Please subscribe to the podcast.
We are doing this every two weeks.
Me and Jim, well apart from the other week,
we do come back every,
as often as possible to record new episodes for you.
So where can people find you on the internet, Jim?
If they wanna find out more about you.
YouTube, definitely not guru.
My website, notaguru.co.uk,
Instagram, at notaguru.jim,
and X, it's formerly known as Twitter,
at notaguru3.
Sweet, all right.
Yeah, thanks for joining
and we'll see you again next time.
Bye-bye.
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