Here's Why EVs Are Depreciating Quickly

Hello, and welcome to the Truth While Cars podcast. I am Tim Healy, the managing editor,

and this week we discuss EV depreciation with analyst Carl Brower. We also talk about impact

wrenches and Cleetus McFarlane's efforts to join the NASCAR circuit. Before we do that,

I'd also like to apologize for mispronouncing our guest's name last week. It's Eric Lidue,

not Lendro. I regret the air. With that in mind, let's get into it.

On this week's Truth While Cars podcast, we are talking with Carl Brower from IC Cars that is

I, the letter I, C as in seeing or vision, cars.com. He's the executive analyst over there,

and we're talking about EV depreciation. But first off, Carl, how are you doing?

Doing great, Tim. Just never fails to amaze me how the industry stays interesting. It just

keeps turning along, and there's always a good story to tell.

Yeah, yeah. We're coming off the New York Auto Show a week ago or so. Well, the public,

the press days were, I think the public days might still be going on as this launches. But

anyway, we're talking about EV depreciation. So IC Cars, you folks over there did a study

that shows basically the top 10 cars for depreciation and EVs were pretty dominant.

Yeah. I mean, you really saw, really two dimensions to this recent study. And we do the

five-year depreciation study pretty much every year. We use the same metrics. We go back five years,

and we look at the MSRP of vehicles, and then we look at their current value. Now, a lot of people

are like, well, why do you use MSRP versus, because that's the only thing that we can be

consistent and confident about from cars from five years ago, right? Maybe there's a market spike,

and it made cars sell for more back then. Maybe there was a market deficit or a depreciation

already going on when the cars were new, lack of demand, and they sold for below MSRP. But

depreciation, and by the way, I've worked at Kelly Bluebook and other places,

this is how it's always configured. It's MSRP when new and what it's worth three, five,

10 years later on the marketplace. That's it. No incentives taken into account either.

So with that said, when we looked at cars from five years ago and then what they're worth today,

and compared to their MSRP, the car with the highest depreciation was the Nissan Leaf at 63.1%.

So yeah, now that vehicle, because it doesn't cost that much in terms of raw dollars, it's

actual just price, that only, quote unquote, added up to about $17,743 in loss over five years.

But that was 63%. The next one was the QX80, probably because as we both know Tim, that car

was like 15 years old and now there's a new one out. So that really hurts the value of that.

You also see that when there's been a vehicle that's maybe been on the same platform for a long

time. And then somewhere in that five year period, an all new version comes out. It slams the value

of the previous old version. And so that can, the QX80 lost 62.8% of its value. But because

it's a much more expensive vehicle, that was $52,000, like three times the amount that the Nissan

Leaf lost in just pure numbers or pure money. But then third was the Volkswagen ID4 lost 62.1%.

Fourth was the Tesla Model S lost 62% exactly. Then you had the Land Rover Range Rover Land

Rovers are always high on this list. You had the BMW 7 series, luxury sedans are always high on

this list because luxury cars in general lose more money than non-luxury cars. And sedans in

general lose more money than SUVs. So luxury sedans pretty much take it in the worst. And then the

Tesla Model X was number seven. The Ford Mustang Mach-E was number eight. And then the BMW 5 series,

another luxury sedan was number nine. And the Infiniti QX60, an SUV, but Infiniti and other

brand kind of like Land Rover that struggles was number 10. So that's just the first 10. There's

25 on this list. But yes, you can see how the first third, fourth, and seventh car and eighth car

were all pure electric vehicles. Two of them were Teslas plus the Mach-E and the ID4 and the

Nissan Leaf. So half of the top 10 cars losing the most value in the last five years were electric

vehicles. And I believe out of the 25, it was eight. Oh, sorry, let's see. Top version was five in the

top 10 and eight in the top 25. So about a third of the top 25 were electric vehicles.

So the last time we hit you on was the end of February. And you were discussing,

excuse me, we were discussing how EVs were affected by the EV tax credit, the federal

EV tax credit going away. So how is that related to this, if at all?

Probably not really closely related. The one thing that a lot of people want to point out,

which is true, is let's say you buy a new EV and it's 30,000 MSRP, but there's a $7,500 credit on

it. Then you really only end up paying $20,25. And a month later, if you were going to sell it,

you'd probably have trouble selling it for much more than that $20,25 because you could go buy a

new one and pay $20,25 effectively for it. So a lot of people, especially people who like EVs and

hate the depreciation, they want to point that out and say, you're taking a depreciation from

$30,000 when you should only be taking it from $20,25 because that's really what people pay.

But the flip side of that, you could argue is, yeah, but if it takes $7,500 of help from the

government to sell the car, then that also reflects that the market demand for the car

probably isn't that good. If every one of those cars was benefited by a $7,500 credit to get someone

to buy it, then that's still something that helped sell every one of those cars before the incentive

went away, obviously at the end of last September. But the incentive going away or not going away

at the end of the day, we're going to take it from MSRP. And so that's why it really doesn't matter

whether the incentive was or wasn't in place, the depreciation is going to be based on MSRP.

No, the other thing I'd want to point out is that we not only did individual vehicles,

we also have the cars that held their value the best, the 25, the best, not surprisingly,

Porsche 718 Cayman is number one, Porsche 911 and number two. Interesting to me that the Chevrolet

Corvette is number three because that car not necessarily is always great on resell value over

the course of its long history, but with the C8, the mid-engine, all the production problems when

that car first came out, COVID and all, there had been kind of a consistent lack of supply

versus demand for that car. So it's still holding its value pretty well over the last five years.

I feel like I've seen a kind of a big shift in say the last year, the last 18 months,

I've seen these things on bring a trailer and it looks like they're kind of struggling to be sold

and people want more than they can get for them. But that's just a percentage of the last

five years. So we're not seeing that in the five year number yet. We'll check in again in a few

years and see how the Corvette's still holding up that well. Then you had the Toyota Tacoma and

Toyota Tundra that did really well. Toyota Trucks, surprise, surprise, great for holding value.

Honda Civic was number six, Subaru BRZ 7, Toyota GR Supra 8, Toyota Rev4 9, Toyota Corolla Hatchback

10. So what do you got here? One, two, three, four, five, five of the top 10 best cars for holding

their value. They have a Toyota badge on them. So kind of the antithesis, the electric vehicles,

right? Five of the top 10 and losing the most value were EVs, five of the top 10 and keeping

their value were Toyotas. And just to give you some perspective, we were talking on those high

losses, 60 plus percent, you know, the number 10 infinity on losing value was 58 through 3,

but most of them are at 60 or above. These top 10 for maintaining their value, the Porsche Cayman

is losing 9.6 percent, less than 10 percent of its value after five years. The Porsche 911 is 11.1

percent. Even the Corvette's 18.7, Tacoma's 19.9, Tundra's 21.2. So, you know, you're talking like

less than a third or give or take a third of the value or less that they're losing on these

cars holding their value versus the ones that are losing the most value on the depreciation.

But real quick, the last thing I just wanted to point out was we also did segments,

and this was interesting. So we looked at just overall vehicle segments and versus kind of the

industry average. The industry average for five-year depreciation is 41.8 percent. If you take all

cars and average it, they lose 41.8 percent of their value after five years. Ibrids lose 35.4,

so they lose considerably less. SUVs lose 44.9, so they're a little above the average. Trucks lose

34.2. So, hybrids and trucks are losing approximately 35 percent of their value versus the industry

average of 41. Electric vehicles, 57.2. So, they lose about 16 percent more on average than the

industry average, and over 20 percent more than a truck or a hybrid. 34 percent, 35 percent for

the truck and the hybrid, 57.2 percent for the EV. Yeah, okay. So, the circle back to the leaf for

a second. I know we've already touched on it a little bit, and I think we all know that part

of the factor for the leaf is that the vehicle, a new leaf came out just last year, but what are

any other factors that may have caused the leaf to have this depreciation that we haven't already

talked about? Probably the age of its platform. Again, kind of like that QX80 in number two.

How long, Tim, was the leaf basically the same car? Its whole life, right? Like from the time it

was introduced to the market, which was I believe around 2010, 2011, it was basically the same car

until this redesign this past year. Up until then, it was the same basic car all that time. So,

like the QX80, you had this really old, some would say obsolete, certainly past its due date,

past its sell-by date, as I like to say, design, platform, car, and then finally you have a new

one come out. Well, that just slaughters all the old ones. It's like, why is anyone want those old

ones when the new one is finally new and it's all new from top to bottom? Is that also happening

with some of the other EVs as well? I mean, are there other factors that play on why EVs across

the board are so high in depreciation? Well, when you look at the Model S, Tesla for number

four and the Model X number seven and the top 10 for losing value, again, old designs. The Model S

is still, for all intents and purposes, the same car it was when it came out in 2009, 2010, and the

Model X is essentially the same car when it came out like whenever it was 2015, I want to say. So,

these cars are 10, 15-year-old designs and there is no new one on the horizon, but they're just

old. They're also expensive. The more expensive a car is, typically, the more space it's got to fall,

and especially a premium car. So, you could argue that the Model X and the Model S have

everything going against them. They're luxury cars that cost a fairly high amount of money,

relatively speaking, when they're new and they're very old designs. So, they have all those factors

pushing them down. But the Volkswagen ID.4, that's still a pretty new car. The Mustang Mach-E, again,

these are not 10-year-old designs. They're barely five or less year-old designs, really.

So, I think that's where you just see the EV thing. They're just as electric vehicles. They're just

not holding strong demand on the used market. Gotcha. So, it's not really necessarily

a reflection of the challenges of owning an EV.

No, I don't think so. I think it's a reflection of the used market. So, the used market we've seen

for decades, they won't put the same premium on a luxury badge or even luxury features as the used

market. Used car buyers are much more bottom-line. Where can I get the best value for my dollar?

Okay.

And if I can buy a $20,000 car that moves me around dependably, I'm not going to pay

$28,000 because one of them has a Mercedes badge and one has a Toyota badge. I'll take the Toyota,

and I don't care about that extra $8,000. I got to have the fancy car badge on my vehicle. So,

that hurts premium cars. I think the same thing now is true. It's been proven true pretty resolutely

on electric vehicles. Electric car buyers, they recognize that's kind of a compromise. I'm paying

more for the equivalent vehicle. I'm getting less range. I'm getting more headaches when it

comes to reasons I want the electric car. I'm willing to pay more. Used car buyer, once again,

why would I pay more for an electric car and compromise on things like cold weather performance

or confidence to drive across the country if I suddenly have to or refueling time? Why would

you pay more for that? I just need the best car for my money. That's used car buyers. So,

that premium that luxury and EVs can get from new car buyers falls away for used car buyers.

Yeah, and then have the changes of the new car market had any play, like, for example, Honda

canceling three planned EVs plus the small niche brand of Fila kind of falling apart at the last

second right as they were planning to launch. Shifts in plans, shifts in government, shifts

in fuel accounting regulations. Obviously, we touched upon the EV tax credit. So,

have his future planning played a part in this at all? I mean, if there's more EVs in the market,

does that affect things now that Honda's canceling three and there's fewer options in the near term?

I think that that is more than offset. You're definitely raising the point that there's less

EVs on the horizon and theoretically fewer for people to buy. But there's the loss of that $75

under credit, which I predicted and it was essentially what happened. We'd lose approximately

half the market share. Instead of 8% new car market share, we're going to have 4% with my

prediction. Well, it did a little better than that. It's 5% give or take. So, all those cancellations

of future models, to me, that's just the automakers recognizing we're not going to be able to sell

these things. If we invest all this money in R&D and development and launch for these vehicles,

we're going to have a lot of expensive vehicles sitting in dealer lots that aren't being sold.

So, in other words, the market is readjusting on the new car side to the demand level when

you take away a $7,500 federal tax credit. All right. So, Carl, again, we're with Carl Browler

from IC Cars, the executive analyst over there. So, Carl, is there anything we haven't touched

upon yet that really stood out to you and you really want to talk about here?

I think when we looked at like truck, we also broke it out by like truck and SUVs segments

just to see kind of the top performing ones or the worst performing. And again, you look at like

small SUVs, the RAV4 and the RAV4 Hybrid, Honda HRV, Honda CRV, Subaru Crosstek, Trek, Subaru

Forrester. Those are your top five small SUVs holding their value the best. When you look at

trucks, Toyota Tacoma, Toyota Tundra, Ford Ranger, Jeep Gladiator, GMC Canyon, those are your top

five trucks holding their value the best and they're above average for the truck segment. So,

you look at hybrid vehicles, it's Toyota RAV4, Toyota Senna, Toyota Corolla Hybrid, Toyota Prius.

So, the first four in the hybrid category are Toyotas and then the Crosstrek, the CRV Hybrid,

and the Islander Hybrid are all still above average, those seven are above average for the

hybrid category. So, Toyotas, especially, whether it's hybrids or traditional vehicles and especially

their SUVs and then their trucks as well. Toyota has always had a great reputation for resale value

and maintaining it with low depreciation and our latest study just keeps continuing to prove that

out. Cool. All right, Carl. I think unless there's anything else you really want to add, I think

you might be able to just go ahead and wrap it here at this point. So, once again, we've been with

Carl Brower from IC Cars. That's I as in the letter I. C as in the letter as in the to C with

your vision. So, and cars, so iccars.com. Carl, thank you so much for your time.

Great opinion with you, Tim. Industry is never boring. Always fun talking about it with you.

Just about every week here on the Truth About Cars podcast, we talk about the stuff that we use in

our homes, in our cars, on our cars, cleaning products, tools, that sort of thing. And just

about every week, we have T-Tech contributor, Matthew Guy with us. Matthew, how are you today?

Hey, doing good, Tim. How are you doing? I'm doing well. What are we talking about today?

This week, we're talking about cordless impact wrenches. And the reason why I want to talk about

them is that at this time of year, a lot of gear heads are switching over their tires, right? Tires

and rims from their winter. Yeah, yeah. Right? You know what I mean? And that's something that we

always harp on. You know, you got to have a really good set of winter tires if you're living in the

snow belt in order to be safe and tackle the winter properly. But now, as we roll into April,

it's time to get those off and put your all seasons or your summer tires or whatever you've got

back on. And if you're fortunate enough, you know, to have those tires already mounted on some wheels

and balanced on those wheels and then have a bit of driveway space in order to change them yourself.

It's a great way, you know, just to spend a couple hours leisurely to it. You can do it a

lot quicker in a couple hours, but it's a great entry, I think, as well to do it a bit of wrenching

on your own. And over the weekend, it really, really helps. You know, every car, you know,

has lug nuts. And I'm just going to, I'm just going to stick with, you know, the standard,

you know, four or five or six lug nuts. There are some exotics out there that just have the

big center one, but stick them with car race car, right? Like a whole bunch of Porsches and stuff

like that have those these days. And NASCAR, which we'll talk about later in the show.

But with, you know, your four or five lug nuts, you can use a standard wrench, you know, and you

can, and you can wail on that thing all day, you know, yourself and get those lug nuts off. But I

do find that investing in a impact wrench is a really, really good idea because it allows you to

get those lug nuts off pretty quick. It offers more torque than a lot of us can

provide at one time anyways, at least without standing on a great big long bar,

trying to try to bust off those lug nuts after all winter. And it used to be, I mean, 30 years ago,

when, you know, 30, 40 years ago, when I started wrenching on cars, if you wanted an impact on,

you had to also have an air compressor, and you had to have airlines, and you had to have this,

that and the other thing. But it's a lot more approachable these days because you can buy

cordless impact wrenches that are super, super powerful. There wasn't that long ago that I

used to dismiss a lot of this cordless stuff as not being suitable and powerful enough for what

we were trying to do. But a lot of these are in the same sort of ecosystem as other cordless tools.

So if you got a cordless drill, if you got a cordless wrench of some sort, if you've got cordless

flashlight, a lot of them except the same sort of battery, just kind of goes into the bottom

of the handle, just like a magazine. And I really like that because once you're into an ecosystem,

whether it's a brand like Makita or Milwaukee, Ryobi, a lot of those things, you can really grow

your arsenal of tools. And, you know, put it on your Christmas list, put it on your birthday list,

if someone's trying to find some ideas for you, right? There's a gift giving idea.

If you do get into one particular brand, it really, really helps to stick with that brand,

especially for these cordless tools. And the one that I was using was DeWalt brand.

The value of those are pretty good. There are 300 bucks American compared to, let's say,

if you're looking at something like, I mean, Porter cable is also a little bit cheaper,

but the quality, you know, you just make sure you're getting what you're looking for.

But there's also like Makita, for example, is like over 500 bucks. And that's for a reason,

because it has a huge amount of torque. I just find that those Makita ones, especially the 18

volt ones from a half inch cordless impact wrench, is really heavy. It's the most expensive,

but it's arguably has the highest torque. I feel anyways, just using them. But the one that I was

using this weekend was a 20 volt DeWalt. You can pick those up, you know, with a lot of different

places, Home Depot, Amazon, eBay, a whole bunch of different places. And you, I mean, 300 bucks,

don't spend any more than 300 bucks for once, far as I'm concerned. You know, and the weight,

those are definitely less than 10 pounds. So they're one of the lighter ones out there.

And I would say it would take, I mean, it's just a couple of seconds, right, to get it

off of, especially even the big ones, right? And they say, you know, the peak fastening torque,

I'm just looking at the specs here now, 757 foot pounds. I mean, that's more than the diesel

truck. I just love these. I know they're not directly comparable. But saying that, you know,

your, your cordless impact wrench has more, more foot pounds of torque than some diesel trucks is

just, it's a cool gear head bragging silly thing, right? And I love that, right? And you also,

you know, it makes me green as well, because you get that specific noise, right? When you're

using an impact gun, especially on lug nuts, you get that. Oh yeah, we all know that noise.

You all know that noise, right? From a grad, from a professional grad, and you feel good about the

job you're doing, you know, it's done, right? Because you're doing it yourself. And you also

get this little bit of, you know, I do anyways, get this little bit of joy from that sound.

So it makes you feel like you're on a pit crew. And this type of stuff, you know, I mean, in terms

of safety and things that nature always be safe when you're jacking up your vehicle,

we've talked about that a million times. But as for the tool itself, just hold onto it tight,

there will be a bit of kickback to it. If you're not holding on to it properly,

especially if those lug nuts are really, really tight on there and haven't rusted on all winter.

So just hold onto it, pay attention, know what you're doing, put on a pair of safety glasses

if you feel the need. And I think this is a really, really, it's not cheap, but I think it's a really,

really good tool to have in your arsenal of, especially coming out of winter and now into April.

Is there anything we need to talk about with impact crunches, whether in terms of safety or,

and forgive me if I don't believe I kept caught you mentioning this, but when you're,

I know that a lot of cars, you don't just torque left in a numerical pattern,

but you got to kind of go on a star or it'll be in your vehicle's owner manuals or anything

like that you need to talk about. You're so right. Like that star pattern is super important

because it allows you to cinch the wheel down in the correct manner, right? If you just do it in a

circular pattern, NASCAR pit stops aside, the old ones, it's always better to go in a star pattern

just because you end up torquing your wheels a little bit more efficiently. It's more even.

More even up against the hub. Exactly. That's the word I was looking for, man.

And also it's a really good idea to make sure to re-torque your wheels after about 100 miles or so

of driving, maybe even a little bit less. Sometimes they can loosen up just a little bit after you've

been messing with them after you've changed your tires. So re-torque your wheels after 100 miles

or so, and you'll be good to go. Sounds good. All right, Matthew, thank you for your time talking

about impact wrenches here on the Truth about Cars podcast. Thanks. Thank you.

Just about every week here on the Truth about Cars podcast, we do some NASCAR chat. Now,

just a quick note to our listeners. You may have missed or may have noticed that we missed NASCAR

chat last week. That was because we were New York auto show focused. Matthew Guy and I were both

traveling as well, and there were some family things going on due to holidays and stuff like that.

So it was just difficult for us to get to NASCAR and squeeze it in with all the New York auto

show stuff. And going forward, there may be some changes to the podcast where we might do NASCAR

a little less often or stuff we use a little less often. We're still sort of working through that.

But for now, we'll still be sticking with stuff we use in NASCAR most weeks. And

if there is a week where we go away for this, there's a reason for it, whether it's a particular

guest or particular topic just fits better that week. So if you're a NASCAR fan and you like what

you hear on the Truth about Cars podcast, please, please stick with us. It was, it was mostly not

necessarily a one off, but it's sort of a temporary thing last week where we kind of moved away from

NASCAR. So with that said, we're back onto the NASCAR track punfully intended this week with

a TTAC contributor, Matthew Guy. Matthew, how are you doing today?

Not pretty good. How about you?

I'm doing well. So we're back, you know, back chatting NASCAR. Like I said to our listeners

in just a second ago, I personally didn't have much of a chance to follow racing the last couple

of weeks. I was out of, away from night TV, the last race, the Martin Zoo race. And then

NASCAR was off over the Easter weekend, which might be the only off day of the season. I

don't have it counted. I have a schedule in front of me, but I'm not going to count it all

days out because that would take a while and be kind of boring. But so NASCAR was off after

Martinsville, which was won by Chase Elliott. And then NASCAR sticks with the short track theme,

rolling into Bristol this coming Sunday, getting back in bidding, getting back on track and that

time the pun was not intended. Yeah. So what we wanted to talk about with NASCAR being off

and with Matthew and I both having some travel and not being able to follow the support

as closely as we typically do over the past few weeks. The last time we discussed it on

this podcast was after Darlington and the Cool Pain Schemes. What we want to talk about with

there was no race to go over. What we want to really talk about is Cletus McFarland, the

YouTube driver, he's a YouTube star who has made his bones, I guess, talking about NASCAR.

And he's now trying to make his way onto the circuit as a driver. And Matthew,

I've got my thoughts for that one of the two years. And again, bringing in T-Tech contributor,

Matthew Guy. Yeah, for real. And it's something that you always, when you hear about these efforts

first, right? We talked about this in the pre-show, you want to make sure that people who are coming

into the sport, whatever level it might be, ARCA or trucks or O'Reilly Auto, right? I mean,

those sorts of different levels of NASCAR, you want to make sure that they are maintaining a

minimum speed, right? I mean, there is a certain level of competition that needs to be held up.

And the cool thing about Cletus, and for anyone who's unfamiliar, Cletus McFarland is a pen name,

right? His real name is Garrett Mitchell. Yeah, thank you. I should have specified that.

Yeah, no, for real. And a lot of people don't know, right? I mean, it's just the name that he's

built for himself with his YouTube channel. And he's got, you know, I mean, I mean, the man has

got, I can't remember if it's his own racetrack or not. But he's been also doing some stuff like

quote unquote, freedom factory racetrack in Florida, right? And I'm pretty sure he owns it.

And like they'll have races and famous drivers will come in and like they'll race Crown Vicks

for however many laps, you know what I'm saying? It's not like the man is completely

new to getting behind the wheel of car and in competition, right? But serious competitions,

you know what I mean? Like in trucks and now in O'Reilly Auto Parts, I mean, he he acquitted

himself really well, you know, I mean, Ty Dillon, you had some had some good words for him, right?

He was saying, quote, the thing I could see was you're getting excited to catch the guys in front

of you. And he did and he, you know, he did have a brown pants moment, but he certainly he caught the

car. You know, there were some definite, not just flashes of good driving, but there was,

you know, a solid performance throughout the whole thing. And it wasn't, it wasn't, I mean,

yes, it was probably, you know, for for clicks or for views or for likes originally. But maybe,

you know, Cletus has been a bit more up on the wheel than a lot of people expected,

you know what I'm saying? And his, you know, his finishes, I think he finished six laps down with

at O'Reilly. And he with that's the, what I old guys call the Bush series, right? Yeah. Yeah. One step

just below cup. And he, Cletus, you know, said that that was a completely different challenge

than trucks. Oh, absolutely. You can understand why, right? The quality of the car, right? The

level of competition from the other drivers. And it's just more going up the ladder more so. But

he's had some really good experience with like the Arkham and Ard series. And if he, you know,

I'm glad that he's ventured into the O'Reilly series and into the trucks because you know,

it's brought a lot of new eyeballs to the sport because there's a lot of people who have watched

his channel. I don't know how many millions of views. When you start talking here now, I'll go

and look to see how many, how many, how many subs he's got on YouTube, but it's millions of that,

I'm confident. And it brings a lot of new people to sport, man. And I'm not mad. I ain't mad with

it at all. I mean, if he was out there just wrecking cars and wrecking other people and messing

stuff up, but he's not, he's taken it serious. And his skills are, you know, such that, I mean,

I hope that he sticks with Arca as well, because he's been having some really good success there.

And I do, I do hope that, I do hope that happens. And this is something that, that does happen

every now and then, right? You look at Frank Immunas, you know, he was an actor and, you know,

still is, I believe, I believe they rebooted his show. Very true. Very true. So I shouldn't use

the past tense. But that's another example of someone who has come into the sport and has not

been a rolling chicane, right? I mean, it has been someone who's been really competitive, really

racing and been good for the sport for bringing new eyeballs. So it's, I, you know, the, these sort

of, you remember back in the day that crossover episodes, right? So these sort of crossover

episodes between, you know, YouTube and now someone who is skilled getting behind the wheel

and coming into racing is, I think it's an overall good thing. And I had to laugh at what you said

when we were looking at pictures of him. You're like, why is Luke Bryan in a suit? Because

you're in a race suit, because he does kind of resemble him after, you know, at a quick glance,

right? Yeah, yeah. So my thoughts are pretty much similar to yours on this. And some people are

going to dismiss it as a publicity stunt. I think some of that may just be a little bit of dislike

towards sort of the new work content creators, the new school of YouTubers and influencers.

But I agree with you. I think if he's bringing more eyeballs to the sport, it's fine. If he has

driving experience, it's like he has an ARCA, and he's climbing the ladder the right way.

You know, it's a little bit like Alio Castro Nevers being the 200, 500 last, excuse me,

the Daytona 500 last year, or that might have been the year before, but it's not exactly the same.

But first of all, Alio Castro Nevers has way more driving experience and it's almost certainly a

much better driver than Cletus McFarland. But some people are upset, oh, you know,

he doesn't have NASCAR experience and all. Well, as long as he, the guy can make minimum speed and

he's not risking anybody else's races through boneheaded moves. And he knows what he's doing

out there. And first of all, all rookies are not going to completely know what they're doing. I

don't care how, again, Castro Nevers, I think had a little bit of a struggle, too, because he was

just new to the series, new to the track, new to the culture. And it's the gentleman who's,

you know, won the Indy 500 multiple times and has raced everything under the sun.

But whenever you're new to anything, you're going to struggle a little bit. It's just how it is.

Very few people hop into a car at that level, no matter what their experience is, and just

belong. So there's always going to be some growing pains. So I think that's obviously going to be

natural. And again, I don't have a problem with somebody who is like McFarland, who's got a little

bit of can't believe he's his funny pen name, but it's more recognizable. He has experience at

lower levels, it looks like. So he's not just jumping in as a newbie with no experience.

And it seems like he held his own. He didn't do very well. But again, I don't think that's expected.

He's 33 years old. He's more or less a rookie. You know, if he was jumping into the Cup series

with no experience, and he was affecting other people, and he couldn't maintain minimum speed,

and he was spinning every two laps, I think I'd be more upset about it. But I think if he has

the ability and the resources to belong on the track, that's fine. And again, he might make

rookie mistakes, you know, every driver who's new to a series does. And then of course, there is

that fine line between what is a rookie mistake and what is being too aggressive. And we can look

at Carson Hosefar for that over the past two to three seasons. But you know, I'm fine with it.

Like you said, it brings more attention to the sport, which I think NASCAR after having a nice

little renaissance during COVID when it was the only game in town, I think NASCAR has lost a little

bit of media attention as the other sports have come back online. And I don't think there's any

particular reason for it. I don't, it's not that the sport is boring. I think, I think Tyler Reddick's

start to the season has probably brought some attention back to the sport, especially with

Michael Jordan being a team owner and his cross sport appeal. I think, you know, it's just, it's

a definite flow with popularity. You know, I'm a fan of stick of all sports and with the exception

of the NFL, they all sort of seem to go through ups and downs in terms of popularity and marketing.

So it feels like I don't have numbers in front of me. So maybe NASCAR is doing better than I thought

and maybe I'm way off base. But it does seem like NASCAR has lost a little bit of the juice that

it got in 2020. And so having, having a guy who's known for something outside of NASCAR, in this case

his YouTube career is fine with me. And I had, again, I had no problem with Frankie Muniz doing

what he's done either, especially since Muniz has shown some talent and shown some ability.

I never had a problem with Patrick Dempsey hopping the Grey's Anatomy Star hopping in the race cars

at celebrity events or events where he says, if you're a serious race car driver and you have

the talent and the ability to keep up with the pack and drive safely and not be getting black flagged

and not getting into avoidable contact and that sort of thing, I'm fine with it. I don't care

where you come from. Absolutely. And excuse me, I agree with that. And there are, and this is a

different level of skill that I'm about to talk about here now too. But you talk about Paul Newman,

who was a really, really good racer. And I read somewhere that someone, I can't remember if he

described himself or someone else described him as this, but it was a, instead of a actor who happened

to be a race car driver, he was a race car driver who happened to be an actor. Such was the level of

his skill. And I think that translates to definitely Patrick Dempsey and, you know, Muniz as well.

And perhaps we're seeing something here with Cletus McFarland too. He's

someone who's from a different background, right? I mean, movies and stuff like that is one thing.

But YouTube is that same sort of genre-ish. You know what I mean? Like you're still creating

content just in a very different way. And you're not, you know, starting racing in little cars,

in little go-karts when you're four years old, right? But you're creating content in a different

way with YouTube. And with four point, you know, for almost four, over four and a half million

subscribers, he reads just an audience that NASCAR is desperately wanting to reach because you're

right about, you know, after COVID and, you know, the other sports coming back and everything like

that. I mean, there's a lot of eyeballs on Cletus's channel that NASCAR desperately wants to

watch their races. And if this is one way to do it, and let's not forget, don't diminish the fact

that he started 32nd, started 33rd and finished 32nd at Rockingham. I mean, that's an old school

short track, less than a mile, sort of challenge that is very, very unique.

Yeah, Rockingham is hard.

Oh, Rockingham is brutal, right? I mean, from every interview I've ever seen,

Rockingham is such a hard track. And to be able to basically stay out of everyone's way,

have a couple of brown pants moments and be able to come back from them. And I remember seeing his

Cletus's interview afterwards, because of course, the microphones show up as these climb

out of the car as they always do. And that's fine. And he was like, where did I finish 32nd?

Oh, I get all that for one spot. And he was saying it kind of jokingly in that manner. And I think

that's a good thing, you know, man had a good attitude towards it all. And he seemed to, I think,

bring a lot of new viewers to the race there at Rockingham.

Yeah, my only complaint with this Cletus McFarland thing is it may feel a little unfair to younger

drivers who've tried to kind of climb the ladder and don't have the attention he has. But again,

he has racing experience. So it's not like he's hopping in the car cold. So racing requires

money, right? So on some levels, all unfair. One reason, you know, I don't know if I'd ever

have made, odds are I wouldn't have made it. But I wish I had the chance when I was young

to try my hand at go karting or legends racing or something. And odds are I would have been in

the middle of the pack at best or bad and I would have moved down with my life. Or maybe got the

chance to race on Friday night ball rings like I know you do sometimes. But, you know, you need

money to do that. It takes a lot more money than joining a little league team, right? Or even a

hockey team. So I did play a little hockey when I was young. That was a lot of money, but it wasn't

quite racing money. So I wasn't very good at hockey. So I didn't stick with it. But, you know,

so what I'm trying to say is it may feel a little unfair that McFarland has a chance

to do this because he's well known. But on the other hand, the money he makes may help.

The money he's made on YouTube may help pay for this. He might have had the opportunity,

you know, a 23 year old young driver who has talent but no money and doesn't have,

doesn't catch the right person's eye, may never get that shot. And that's true of all pro sports,

I think. But I think it's doubly true with racing, just given the cost involved.

So that's my only real, my only real issue here is that some of these, you know,

Frankie Moon is back to him. He started racing in his late 30s because he made all that money as

an actor. But then of course he made, well, I think he, I should rephrase that. I believe he was

actually doing well at a younger age. He kind of started getting attention for being in trucks

in his late 30s. So I don't want to undersell him. But, you know, again, with the exception of maybe

it's a little unfair from a money perspective, I have no problem with all this. And I think it's

probably a good thing for NASCAR in the end, as long as he doesn't mess up.

You know, as long as he doesn't get in the cup race and go out there in the second lap,

screw up someone's playoff chances. Then you start having problems.

Then that's a different conversation all together. And that's, but he did not do that,

right? I mean, in his own words, right? He said, did I ruin anyone's day other than

my own? I did not. And he was accurate, right? I mean, he says that he felt that he learned a

lot. And if I'm, I believe I'm correct in saying this, that one of the reasons he ran this race

was so that he could run Talladega later on. And it was part of a license.

I think that's the idea. Yeah. But they may make him run Kansas first.

You can go. Right. You are, right. You are. So, and that's, you know, it's all growth. And

you talk about money. It's all a money racket. I mean, how do you, the old joke, right? How do

you make a small fortune in racing? You start with a large one, right? And that's the sort of

thing. It just costs money to start these things. And there's, you know, it is what it is. There's

when we were kids, you heard about the Grand Turismo, right? The GT Academy, right?

Yeah, I remember that. You know what I'm saying? Right? I mean, drag some people out of, out of,

out of SIM racing and actually put them in seats. Some of them may have been very good. I don't,

I don't know. I don't know how it turned out, but there was at least one guy. I remember his name

was Lucas. I think his name is Lucas. And he went on to some success. But there's, I mean, these

days, there's more to racing too than just finishing, finishing well. You got to be good

in media. You know, you got to be good in interviews. And Cletus McFarland is very, very good.

He has to be to do what he does for a living.

He can go, right? And so that's part of, I think the appeal and should the man

choose to run full time in an arca or something or in trucks or wherever he chooses to go,

if he chooses to go anywhere, that's part of his deal as part of his package and

part of the strength that he'll bring to whatever team should he choose to

go and do that, right? Yeah. All right. Well, with that, we just about time here on the NASCAR

portion of the Truth about Cars podcast this week. We'll be back talking most likely and

topics can always change, you know, depending on what's happening off the track. Sometimes things

pop and then we just like the Cletus McFarland thing kind of popped up and then we ended up,

talking about it, but if we are doing on track stuff, the race this week is in Bristol. So

short track to short track two weeks and two races in a row, not two weeks as NASCAR was

off for Easter. So with that, Matthew, thank you so much for your time. We have Matthew Guy on.

Thanks again. Thank you. That's it for this week's The Truth About Cars podcast. I am Tim Healy,

the managing editor, and you can find us for every year podcast. You can also find us online

at ttsc.com. That's ttech.com or the truth about cars all spelled out.com. We thank Carl Broward

and Matthew Guy for their time. And we thank Matt Poskey for editing. Most of all, we thank you for

listening. We'll see you next time.

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