Hot Wheels at Full Speed: New Designs and What’s Next | Ep. 117

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Hot Wheels have been a favorite for enthusiasts of all ages,

and this week we catch up with the man behind the wheels,

senior design manager Craig Callum.

We discuss the latest trends and designs and what might be coming next from this iconic brand.

Then long-time automotive journalist Gary Vassilash joins me to discuss the latest news

from the car industry, including a new Camaro, the Tesla Model 2,

Kia's foray to pick up trucks and another potential delay for scout motors.

In the AutoGuide Garage, I test-drive the Land Rover Defender Atka.

That was fun, and Gary drove the Polestar 4.

We close things out with a mailbag where we figure out what's next for EVs,

like the VW ID4.

I'm Greg Migliore, stick around, we've got a great show for you.

All right, joining us now on the AutoGuide show is Craig Callum,

he is Hot Wheels designer, which seems like a bit of a dream job.

Welcome to the show, Craig. Thanks for being here.

No problem. Thank you for having me. Yeah, definitely a dream job.

I mean, that's something I didn't expect to be doing when I slide out in the job world.

Why don't you kind of start off with kind of go with that a little bit?

What is a typical day like?

I imagine every day is a little bit different, but what's a day like?

Yeah, I mean, every day is different. We have a sort of a year program.

Every year, we refresh and we do the next year's products, the next year's products.

But day to day, we're working on anything up to 250 different cars.

So every day, we've got a new car to do.

We're sketching, we're working with 3D and working with our sculptors.

We're working with the factories to work out how it's put together.

And bringing these vehicles to life.

Some of the days are more creative than others.

You know, we work with a lot of manufacturers' data.

So we use their 3D CAD to create the cars when they're licensed.

But we also have a lot of creativity and a lot of fun

when we're creating the Hot Wheels Originals as well.

Let's talk about the design process.

We always like to kind of think, like as car enthusiasts,

the back of the napkin sketch or clay modeling,

how are Hot Wheels designed currently?

How does that happen?

It varies, actually.

I mean, I'm still the napkin sketch guy.

So I'm, and I think to the, I'm not sure if everyone else feels

quite as happy about that as I am.

But I will, I'll give like a quick rough sketch, you know,

and hand that over to a sculptor to create in 3D.

But then some of our designers are designing in CAD straight away.

They might be working with Illustrator or, you know,

other drawing programs to create it on the computer.

And then they work that into 3D as well.

So yeah, it really varies.

Each of our designers have a different way of doing it.

I'm still very old school.

I've been drawing cars for a long time and find it very difficult.

I'm not so flexible as I used to be.

So I'm still using a pen and paper.

Talk about the different levels of detail now involving Hot Wheels.

Like, you know, I could go to like a Carson coffee with my eight-year-old.

He could grab a Hot Wheel off the shelf.

And it's not all that different than maybe what I played with, you know,

back in the day.

But at the same time, there's ones that are just dramatically more detailed,

more intricate, different themes, things you never could have imagined 20, 30 years ago.

How have you seen Hot Wheels change over the years?

And, you know, what does that mean, I guess, for like, for kids?

I mean, one of the great things, you know, with Hot Wheels

is that we really try to innovate when we're designing these cars.

So whether it's an original or a license, we're innovating the way we use the materials.

We innovate the way we, you know, design the car and how we get that onto shelf.

So yeah, you will see, you know, we've become very clever at using those different,

you know, each cars made of, you know, especially in the main line,

it might only be sort of four or five parts.

But how we use those parts, how they come together is really innovative.

It's really clever and to make sure we give as much attention to the details of the vehicle,

because that's what kids love.

Yeah, they're looking for that kind of big turbocharger on the thing,

on the exhaust sticking out the side, or, you know, all those things are so important to a kid.

So it's kind of where we really want to make sure we do it right.

Talk about the Hot Wheels brick shop.

This definitely a little bit of a newer initiative and it allows kids to really,

Hot Wheels fans of all ages to really engage with these, you know, toys.

You can so many different things you can do with them.

Talk about what that has brought to the brand.

Yeah, I've really enjoyed doing that.

I think sort of bringing Brickshop into the Hot Wheels world has allowed us to portray

some of these vehicles in a different way.

And also there's a real joy of, you know, when you're creating and building it yourself,

you're putting this together and sort of seeing it come to life.

So you get kind of an extra level of joy for these vehicles.

And yeah, we've had a lot of fun with that line.

And the vehicles we've put in there are, you know, some of the most iconic vehicles in the world.

And they are just, you know, yeah, they're really coming to life.

And we've done it in a different way.

And we've tried to sort of show that, you know, you can be part of that building.

That's kind of a nice segue to one of your prior stops.

You worked for Lego for quite a long time.

In some ways, you've literally gotten to play in the toy shop here for a good chunk of your career.

What's it like to be sort of designing, you know, such iconic toys for such iconic brands?

I imagine there's actually a little bit of pressure there.

Yeah, oh, for sure.

I mean, and I never expected it either.

I've wanted to be a car designer since I was five years old and I was drawing cars.

And that's all I thought about.

But once I got that opportunity to go to the toy industry, I realized that, you know,

it was toys that inspired me.

It was toys that sparked my imagination and my creativity all came from the toys that I played

with. And now I get such a kick out of being able to sort of put back to kids and give them

that opportunity to be creative and to sort of follow their dreams in that way, too.

So yeah, I never expected it.

And yeah, like you say, I don't think I feel any pressure to

with these big brands.

But certainly, you know, there's a reward there because being able to walk down the aisle of a

supermarket and see your products on shelf and to see kids, you know, because there's always

a kid by the Hot Wheels line.

There's always a kid by the construction toys aisle.

And so you kind of see these kids interacting and being excited by the products you've done.

I mean, it's so rewarding.

It really is.

All right, you are listening to the Auto Guide Show.

We'll be back with more after this with Craig Callum from Hot Wheels.

Staying with Craig here.

Lots to talk about when it comes to Hot Wheels.

Why don't you talk a little bit about the Legends Tour?

That's something that I think has really gotten a new generation of fans just into what Hot Wheels

could be. And also, I think it's very engaging, just the different designs, the different things

that people get to see and engage with.

Talk about what that has meant for Hot Wheels.

Yeah, I mean, it's so inspiring to see what people are doing in the automotive world and

doing at home.

Because otherwise, some of these projects, you know, I think we're really lucky.

Social media opens up the world to us and so people can share their creations.

But the Hot Wheels Legends Tour really gives these builders and designers, you know, home

designers, a place to bring their creations and to show them off and to kind of showcase

that creativity.

So for us, it's really just, it's just inspiring to see what people are doing.

Where do you think toy design obviously relates to Hot Wheels, but just in general,

where do you think it's going to go next?

Oh, toy design, where it's going to go next.

I mean, I think we're really seeing a lot of desire for the analog.

And so, you know, as much as we have this full digital world around us, I think the analog

toys are becoming more desirable because they offer an alternative.

And that's not to say digital play isn't fantastic as well.

I think both sides of that are fantastic places to be and can inspire creativity in all kids.

But yeah, I think, you know, it's kind of, that's where I really see that sort of

more physical play, hands-on experiences that are really going to keep inspiring kids.

Is there any sort of generation or segment of cars that maybe hasn't quite gotten its

due yet in the Hot Wheels catalog?

Like, I'm thinking of things like, I don't know, vans or 1970s cars that, frankly,

were not as popular as some of their predecessors.

Is there any sort of genre that's due?

No, I think, you know, and Hot Wheels, we really try to represent every corner of the

automotive world. I mean, we're an international product.

And so it's very difficult to balance that, but we really try to make sure there's something

represented from every genre of vehicles, every area of interest is represented.

And I think, you know, but I'm seeing a trend, obviously, 90s vehicles are so popular right

now. JDM is so popular right now. And so, you know, I think maybe we're going to be working

into the 2000s vehicles next and things like that. But we're always going to try to represent

everything, everything from, you know, a 30s hot rod through to a modern supercar.

Every vehicle, we try to make sure there's something in the line, because there's something

for everyone there. That's kind of a nice segue, just kind of looking at some of the other

stories written about you. It looks like you have quite a personal car collection, even

that sort of golden age of heart writing. Can you tell?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have a few. And I think, yeah, my own vehicles are probably as eclectic

as the Hot Wheels line itself. Yeah, everything from a 30s hot rods and then I've got a 70s mini

that I've owned since forever. I've always driven that car. I've got a 55 Chevy with

various different colored panels that kind of looks like it's falling apart, but underneath

is actually brand new. It's got sort of 400 odd horsepower and a lot of fun. And then I've got

yeah, an MG midget and another hot rod as well that I race on the beach in Denmark. So yeah,

I've got a few cars. They're pretty all over the place. But yeah, they keep me busy. And then my

motorcycles as well. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So obviously, your interest in cars must have

started at a young age. Was there any moment where you just kind of really knew you were gonna,

this is what you wanted to do with your life? Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, I was I was five years

old, I think when I, you know, I was drawing a lot as a kid anyway. And then when I was five,

I was I was drawing a lot of cars. And my mom just said, you know, you could do this as a job,

you can you can draw cars that people create cars from drawings. And I sort of didn't really

understand. But at the time, and I was like, no, that's what so that's what I'm going to do. I'm

going to be a car designer. And then I remember sort of as a teenager going and seeing a university

degree show where they showed all these design, like design students and what they had created.

And these like, you know, larger, like this guy here, like larger models of these crazy,

wacky designs. And I was like, Oh, okay, so this is a thing. And so yeah, it was it was a very

young age. I was five when I decided car design is what I'm going to do. I'm going to draw cars

for a living. And so never really grew up, basically. So here I am. I know the feeling it's a

car business is a good place to be. Yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, you are your car designer,

toy cars at the moment, but you're a car designer. What do you think of the current state of the

auto industry as far as design? I think it's pretty good. I mean, you know, you can be as

critical of it as you want. But we're in a really interesting place where sort of technology and

the, you know, the bones of a car are kind of certainly they work well and everything functions

pretty good. So it gives a lot of freedom for designers to have fun. We're starting to see

that. I mean, you know, you could you could say that there's a lot of blobs out there and and

sort of, you know, not so much free thinking. But actually, I think we're in a really good place

for that. I think there's, like I say, the the technologies nailed down the vehicles are all

very good. I mean, you can imagine driving driving a car that can do everything that it does these

days. And so yeah, there's a lot of freedom in expression for the exterior styling of a car,

at least. I'm not the best person talks about it. I drive a 55 Chevy as a daily. So

but when I do when I do drive a modern vehicle, I'm always blown away. I think it's just it's

fantastic. I think we're really lucky. We're in a really good place.

All right, 55 Chevy actually one of my favorite generations of Chevys. I think I kind of like

that look a little more than the 57 with the huge fins and all that. So cool. I like that.

Craig, I'm curious. What types of like features do you think are different on Hot Wheels now,

then maybe they would have been in a different generation? I mean, for example,

seem like cars back in the 80s were just it seemed like they're trying to make them look as

realistic as they could within the technology and times, you know, and means they had back then.

Whereas now it's like a Hot Wheels is your oyster. It can be almost anything. So I mean,

what features are different? What do you think Hot Wheels enthusiasts kids want going forward 2026?

Yeah, it's always it's always a good question. I think it's a question we're always asking ourselves

to you know, to make sure we we do it correctly. Because Hot Wheels is yeah, we've been through

a lot of different expressions. It is, you know, we are enhancing those vehicles because Hot Wheels

is about performance. It's about, you know, power. It's about these these wild and cool cars. So we

want to make sure we portray them in the best possible way. We do enhance features and we,

you know, the proportions of the vehicles, we play with them a little bit. But we really are,

we're about authenticity. And so we want to make sure that we retain that authenticity too. So

it's a real balance. I couldn't possibly say whether, you know, we're one way or another,

you know, we've been through a lot of periods where we had big wheels, we had big back wheels,

we had, you know, all different. We've been through so many different styles and approaches to that.

Whereas now I'd say we're we're about performance, we're about power, but we're about authenticity

too. I think, you know, and that links to the Legends Tour too, you know, we we bring that kind

of thinking to the Legends Tour. So we judge the cars on authenticity, garage spirit and creativity.

And I would say that's pretty much what we're doing as well with the vehicles we design in-house.

Sounds pretty good. I got to ask you over your left shoulder. And for those of

everybody watching this on YouTube, check out the video. Craig has one of the better backdrops,

I think of any guests we've had on the show lately. Can you kind of tell us what's behind you there?

Yeah, so on my left, I've got this is the 1970 collection of Hot Wheels vehicles. So

these are all the vehicles we did. I think it's 69 and 70, the full lineup. We actually found this

in storage recently and I've been just staring it. I just love it. I just love what we did.

You know, there's a lot of licensed vehicles there. There's a lot of Hot Wheels originals that

I've had it quite close to me. I'm kind of, you know, looking at it and that's one of the other

things as well. You know, our team are very inspired by what we've done in the past. So,

you know, a lot of our vehicles from 68, 69 and 70, we're revisiting, we're looking at them and

sort of being inspired for what we can bring forward into the contemporary lineup of Hot Wheels.

And then, yeah, the other side is the Mercedes CLA we designed with Mercedes. So,

we're having a lot of fun, whether it's modern, brand new vehicles or looking back to the past,

we have a lot of fun with those and bringing those together into one line as well. You know,

it's such a crazy thing to think how, you know, we bring all of these different approaches and

all of these different vehicles into one place. What haven't I asked you? Would you like to tell

me about Hot Wheels or the industry in general? We're just about to kick off all the legends

to us. So, I think, you know, that's one thing we should definitely sort of talk through is that

we've got the Legends Tour coming up. That season starts again. It's always a crazy season for us.

We send a designer to every round to make sure there's someone there as part of the panel of

judges. We're in 20 countries, I think, this year, and it's just growing every year. It's

fantastic to see. We said earlier as well, you know, it's such an inspiring thing for us to be

there and to see what the fans are building at home and what they bring. But, yeah, we're very

excited for that. It's a lot of work flying everyone around to be there. And because also,

you know, when you're there, you're just taking it all in. And there's so many great entries that

it's so difficult to make a decision sometimes. And you feel so bad that everyone's got a winning

vehicle, to be honest. If they're there, then, yeah, it's fantastic. All right, that sounds good.

He's Craig Callum, Senior Design Manager for Hot Wheels. Thanks for joining us this week

on The Auto Guide Show. We'll be right back after this.

Mike and Kyle are hard at work this week on a video shoot about off-road midsize SUVs,

which we're going to talk about on a future podcast. But joining me now is Gary Vashalash,

the co-host of AutoLine After Hours and a veteran automotive journalist. Welcome to the show, Gary.

Thanks, Craig. Appreciate being on.

All right, so you've been a longtime industry watcher and it's been quite the newsy week here,

right? So let's start off with the Camaro news. There's actually a bit too odd pack here.

It sounds like Buick and Cadillac and Camaro are all going to get cars. The Buick and the Cadillac

would be sedans. The Camaro is unclear. As we wrote it, we don't know. This could even be

like a crossover type thing. But enthusiasts hope it might actually be just like an actual

7th Gen Camaro. Two doors, big engine, probably slightly retro looks, as is sort of the case

with the pony car segment. I think this is a good move for GM. This kind of has like

Mark Royce written all over it. What's your take on this?

Well, okay, so a few things here. So, okay, so Cadillac for sure will get the CT5 sedan. We know

that for a certainty. Then the Buick thing is a little bit more fuzzy whether or not they'll get

a sedan or not. And then the third piece that Auto Forecast Solutions found out by talking to

some people is this anticipated Camaro coming. All of these vehicles would be on the Alpha 22

platform and they'd be built at the Lansing Grand River Plant. I think that the really

interesting part would be if Buick does indeed get a sedan. Because if you look at the Buick

showroom right now, you've got four SUVs and that's it. Okay, no cars. And, you know, they

haven't had a car since model year 2020 when they had the Buick Regal. So I think that General Motors

is finding itself sort of leaving a lot of cash on the table conceivably. Because if you look at

Toyota sales of the Camry, it's 316,000 vehicles a year. And General Motors has no vehicle that's in

2025 that sold over 300,000 vehicles unless you're talking about a pickup truck. Okay,

so clearly customers want that. You know, the Camaro is, you know, Mark Royce, as you say,

you nail it exactly. I mean, Mark just loves performance. He, you know, spent time in Australia

where, you know, things like high performance sedans and coupes are, you know, part of the

culture there, which, you know, we would imagine would still be the culture here, which is not the

case. So, you know, coming back with the Camaro would be a great move. See, but I would quibble

with you a little bit in terms of a retro design, okay, because they tried that the last time, right?

And it didn't go so well for them. Now, maybe it was because, you know, that the doors were so big

and the greenhouse was so small and people just didn't sort of like that feeling of being in a

cocoon and therefore the sales weren't all that great. The question would be is, you know, if we

look at what Dodge is doing with the charger and, you know, starting out launching the two-door

electric, unfortunately for them, but now going with the hurricane engine and

bringing it also to a four-door, would that be what we'd see for the Camaro? A four-door rather

than a two-door, because, you know, let's face it in terms of, you know, ingress and egress for a

these pony cars are useless. They're just, it's ridiculous. So I think we may see four-door done

the thing. So I would disagree with that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I hope they don't do that.

I think the move is you're Chevy, you've been making cars for over a hundred years,

you've got a million sedan names. Anything would be better than making a four-door Camaro.

Hell, call it a Caprice. Impala would be good. You know, bring back the Malibu, but don't do that,

please, Marcaris. But I do agree with you that like the last generation, I would put the

Challenger is like the most emotional, visceral one. Then you'd have the Camaro and then the

Mustang could be, even though the Mustang is still a riot to drive, especially in different

trims, it was the most daily driving capable of the pony car segment. And the Camaro was not

far off from the Challenger as far as just like being a little bit, being a little bit raw, you

know, it was hard to see out of. Many times I compared it to being in like the conning tower

of a submarine, not that I've ever been in the conning tower recently. But it's definitely,

it's definitely had its, it was on the sharper end of the spear as far as the design. And as

far as like throwback, I don't think they'd go full throwback. Even the last one was more like

the idea of a Camaro, not like a straight up throwback to like 1969 or something. So I think

that's kind of what they would do is maintain that ethos and then move forward. But we'll see.

I mean, the last generation Camaro, I'm sure you drove it many times and they did a good job

sort of integrating a lot of like Cadillac and some of GM's best engineering learnings, Cadillac,

Corvette, with the brakes, with the chassis, with the platform. And that made it a really good

driver's car. We did a track test with it at my old shop and the Camaro Handley would be,

it's like comparable Mustang when we did this out at Willow Springs. And it was like, literally,

I was racing another colleague who was a much faster driver than I was, like not even close.

But in the Camaro, it's like, well, hey, wait a minute, hey, I'm hitting from the front tease

here. I can keep up with you a little bit. So yeah, we'll see. That's Camaro. I do think the

last part, you know, a Buick sedan, I don't think they need it, but it wouldn't hurt. And if you're

going to do this and you need the capacity, go for it. Cadillac, we kind of expected this because

they got to update the CT5. And we don't really think the CT4 is going to live on. They basically

said that. So we'll see. But if I were if I were betting you and they build these three vehicles,

we're going to have the Cadillac is going to sell the most, the Buick will sell the second most,

and the Camaro will come in third in terms of volume. And one thing that General Motors needs

right now is a lot of volume because, you know, the EV whole thing really hit them hard.

That's a great transition to EVs. Tesla Model 2. Basically, it was off. It seemed like Elon

Musk decided he didn't really want to make cars. He just, you know, they're done with the his original

sort of the Model S and the Model X. And then it's just like, well, you have is the Model Y.

A few months later, lo and behold, sounds like the Model 2 project is back on. It sounds like the

price could be quite competitive, which is an interesting approach for them. I think we're

sort of starting to see Tesla like two or 3.0 where like they've proven that one, they can make cars,

two, they can make money, and three, they could sometimes and three, they can actually stay in

business. And now all of a sudden it seems like they've dawned on themselves like, whoa, we've,

you got to put out a new product at least every 10 years. I mean, preferably four to five, like most

product cycles are. So I think this is a good sign for Tesla as a car company. It's an interesting

segment. And if you talk about volume, this could be some volume for them. You know, they're looking

at this as like a crossover type thing. And it would also not be like a reskinned Model Y. So

we'll see a lot of conjecture and speculation here in this part of the podcast.

How are you feeling about Tesla and this idea? Right, great. I think you're far more optimistic

than you ought to be about this. Do you remember, do you remember when Tesla introduced the Roadster?

Oh, yeah. And then they decided to send the Roadster into space. I think that we'll see

this Model 2 about the same time as the Roadster arrives on Pluto. It's going to take a long time.

Okay, in 19, in 2024, Elon Musk, when he was asked about a budget SUV called it, and I quote,

pointless. So I'm not sure that that Elon Musk in 2026 is that much different than Elon

Musk in 2024. So, you know, there's there's a little bit of question there. Now, it very well

could be that the cyber cab, okay, the vehicle without the steering wheel, the vehicle without

the pedals that is supposedly in production at Gigatexes right now could be made into something

that might be the Model 2. Okay, there might be that possibility. But then if you look at how Tesla

is doing with its RoboTaxi fleet compared to basically anyone else, they're not doing so well.

So, you know, I wonder about the viability of the cyber cab going forward for these guys, you

know, and, you know, I was thinking, okay, if they make this Model 2, where will they produce it?

And I first thought, well, gee, you know, if they're getting rid of the S and the X,

this opens up capacity at Fremont. But then, Elon said he's going to make a million humanoid robots

in that factory. So, where does that leave car capacity?

I think he maybe doesn't care. I think he'll have an answer for it at some point. I do think,

I mean, to take a step back, I think they need another car. I mean, right now it feels like

they're just, but also to take another step back, maybe Elon doesn't care. I think he's already,

like he's sending stuff into space, you know, like he's got his hands in so many different things

that I don't think what he said himself, like you said in 2024, he doesn't care about making

a compact crossover. Like he wants to put people on the moon or whatever and do all that stuff.

But from a viability perspective, I think they got to do something. And this would like, again,

pay the rent. It's kind of an incongruent analogy. But if you look at Chrysler, I wrote a couple

of weeks ago, Chrysler should bring back the 300, get an SUV and stay with the minivan. That's a

three car lineup that's credible. You got one thing that's got the sizzle, then you got a bunch

of steak there too. Right now, Tesla is just kind of like sort of resting on its laurels as far as

having like people just stay loyal with their like lightly refreshed products that they just keep

rolling up. They do have a new president though. And he was president of Tesla, you know, for a

few years back in the 2010s. So it makes me wonder if bringing this guy back, he kind of got in,

got his bearings. He's like, okay, you know, this is great. I'm going to get some latitude. I'm going

to try to get some of these like back to basics products and projects off the ground. Then we

let Elon go be Elon. So I don't know. I guess we'll see.

One of the arguments is that is that Tesla needs something to compete with the Chinese brands

in China. Okay. And so if you look at a company like BYD, I mean, and you look in the like $30,000

arena, they've got four different vehicles available. They've got the Dolphin, they've

got the Atto 3, which is a SUV. They've got the Seagull and they've got the Seal. I mean, and

you know, you look at the Seagull, it's like 10 grand. Okay. I mean, it's like insane. It certainly

wouldn't cost 10 grand if it were brought here and homologated, but you know, it would still be a

cheaper vehicle. You know, I just wonder whether you can get a $25,000 or $30,000 EV that's credible

out in the market. Now, if somebody can do it, it's probably Elon since they do things differently.

So, you know, we'll see. So let's move on to something that is going to happen. We know

Kia has confirmed this week at sort of their global annual meeting financial, you know,

event. It seemed like quite the event there. They talked about a lot of different things.

If they're going to do a body on frame pickup truck for the United States and for North America,

it's going to apparently be something a bit different from the like the Tasman vehicle that

they've shown and sell other places. And this makes sense. Initially, you might be surprised

that Kia is doing this, but we just heard a couple of weeks ago that Hyundai is going to do it. So,

naturally, hey, you know, they're going to help each other out here. Hyundai showed off the bolder

concept, kind of a Bronco fighter, but their first move is going to be to do the body on frame

pickup truck. And then Kia naturally is going to do the same thing. So I mean, it makes sense. I

think I don't know why even though like the Telluride and the Palisade are based, are twins

basically under the skin, it feels a little more natural to me that Hyundai would go into pickups.

I don't know why, maybe because they did have the Santa Cruz, which I actually saw this morning on

the road. It was a rare sighting. I guess I think it's a good move for Kia like why not. The Telluride

is great. Many of Kia's products, despite being twins of Hyundai's or vice versa, maybe Hyundai's

are twins of Kia's under the skin, are outstanding. You know, like I like the EV6, maybe even a little

bit more than the IONIQ 5, I don't know. So I have a high degree of confidence that they can execute

this. I guess my biggest concern is, do we need two pickups that are going to butt heads in the same

segment? I guess we'll see. What did you make of this when you heard about this?

You know, this is going to be a body on frame vehicle. And you know, the aforementioned

Hyundai pickup is a unibody construction. So it's a different game. So this puts them more in the

competitive space of the Tacoma and the Colorado and the Ranger and Frontier Canyon.

And you know, again, I mean, if you look at last year's sales, the Tacoma was up 17 percent,

the Colorado was up 52 percent, the Ranger was up a whopping 120 percent, although they only

sold 71,000 of those and there were 275,000 Tacomas sold. So I think that both, you know,

the Hyundai Motor Group writ large, you know, the parent company of both of those individual

companies, Hyundai and Kia, you know, look at this space and saying, hey, you know, Americans really

like this stuff. And you know, another thing that Hyundai said, or I mean that Kia said during that

global conference was that they want to sell like a million vehicles in the U.S. by 2030.

And they want the production capacity to be as localized as they can possibly get it. Okay.

So I mean, it just makes perfect sense to me that these guys would say, hey, let's get into the

space that's, you know, got a big upside to it. People just love these things. And I think that,

you know, I mean, we're seeing gas prices now. I mean, it's going to be a whole lot harder to

convince somebody to buy, you know, a full-size pickup truck when there are compelling mid-sized

pickup trucks that probably will get significantly better gas mileage. And they're talking about

having E-Raves. They're talking about, you know, hybrids. You know, who knows, maybe full EVs for

these pickup trucks. So I think it's a great idea for both of them. And if, you know, the guys in

Detroit are going to have to sharpen their pencils because, you know, you've got, you know, Toyota

continuing to dominate the segment. And then these other guys are all going to be fighting for what's

left. And I think we're seeing Hyundai and Kia be, you know, very, very significant competitors

in all of the categories that they go up against the other companies with.

I think Hyundai and Kia have shown a really, an aptitude for sort of being a little bit ahead of

the market. We actually talked about this on the show last week, how like the Genesis sedan

underpin the Genesis luxury brand, how the Palisades sort of launched the whole company into

this large three-row segment where they had never played before. So, I mean, Kia and Hyundai have

done a great job of being daring. I think in a way that other companies haven't. In some ways,

they have nothing to lose because they're like, well, we've never done this before. We want to

make a three-row SUV. We might as well do it. We want to make a pickup truck. Let's go for it. I

mean, what really do they have to lose? Like they don't currently make these things. They're not

meeting like the needs of this potential market. Why not go for it? So I'm kind of cautiously

optimistic. I guess we'll see. I'm more optimistic than you on this one.

All right. Sounds good. So let's close things out with something that may not be

cause for optimism. We'll see. That's the Scout motors. A reported delay. Scouts kind of, you know,

pushed back against that. But there's definitely a conversation surrounding Scout as to when these

vehicles are actually going to get there. I went out to their innovation center in Novi,

Michigan. That's northwest of Detroit for those of you listening across the country in North

America. Beautiful facility. I was really impressed and got to look at the Terra and the Traveler,

which are the two products. It basically Scott Keough, who you might remember from Audi in

some other spots. He's now the frontman for Scout. He was like, hey, you're talking about weeks,

months. The way he sort of couched it is it's going to go from maybe in customer hands in 27

to maybe 28, which is what they didn't exactly say before. But it still sounds like production

in some form starts in 27. New report says, well, we'll see about that. Scout again,

denied the claim. But there definitely seems to be a lot of maybe not fire, but there's smoke

going on as far as what's going on with Scout. They've talked a big game and I guess we'll see.

Maybe the bigger question is, I mean, how would you think about this news if you buy it or not?

But how are you feeling about Scout right now? Well, okay. There are a couple of things I think

going on here. When Scout first launched, it was going to be an all EV brand.

They were pressing it enough to see that maybe being an all EV brand wasn't going to be the

right thing for them to do. You mentioned the Traveler, which is their SUV, and then the Terror,

which would be their pickup. Literally almost down the street from where you were at the

Scout Development Center is the Rivian Engineering Center, which I think they're

actually both on Haggerty Road, but one of the Rivian places is far south. So

they decided that they're going to make extended range electric vehicles

in a vehicle that they had basically already designed to be an electric vehicle. But this

basically means that they have to add an internal combustion engine into what was an EV,

so they're going to be packaging it back by the rear axle. Well, I got to believe that

this engineering change is of just huge, huge proportions in terms of the amount of work that

needs to be done to get that thing back there and to get that thing working in a proper way.

Because if you think about it, there are no EV revs out there on the road right now,

at least in the United States. Now there are in China, but here in the US there are not any.

BMW had an EV for a short period of time with their I3. So I think what Scout has discovered

that, you know, like, holy moly, we've got 85% of the reservations are for EV revs,

not for EVs. We've got to get this thing right. Okay. Now there's another question about

the larger Volkswagen group, which owns Scout. The question is that, okay, the plant that they

built in the south has got a capacity of, I think, like 250,000 units. Well, are they really going

to sell that many Scouts of any type, or would Audi begin to get some out of that plant? Because

Audi has, you know, no North American operations that could supply the US market tariff free.

So maybe there's like, oh, maybe we need to hesitate a little bit here to see, you know,

if our sister brand needs to have some space. But, you know, to have a whole new brand, I mean,

I know that it comes from an old brand, but for most people it's still new. If you don't get it

right, you know, you only get one shot, that's it. And I think that these guys realize it's better

to wait and get it right than to rush and get it wrong. Yeah, I think it's sort of like a one day,

maybe news cycle. If you like screw up the launch, you go from like a couple of stories that you and

I and maybe some of the early adopters and early handraisers get a little flustered about. But,

you know, it's easy to go from that to like Fisker. So I think they got to get it right.

They have, I mean, to your point, they have a ton of money backing them. But Volkswagen has shown

a propensity to make some big decisions in recent years. Like, I don't think they're just going to

like throw money at this like US based kind of throwback off road brand, if they don't think

it's going to work, which we'll talk about that a little bit here in the mailbag where we talk about

the ID4's pausing. But that's the news section. We're going to go inside the AutoGuide Garage.

We'll be right back after this. All right, stepping inside the AutoGuide Garage. We've got a couple

of interesting vehicles, both quite different this week. Gary's been in the Polestar 4,

and I've been in the Land Rover Defender Akka, which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. It kind of

gets stuck in the back of your throat like a bit of phlegm. But I'll lead off. This thing's a lot

of fun. It's also a lot of money. Mine cost over $160,000. This is the the five seat version

based on the 110. It comes in the shade of Petra Copper shade that you see that on all the press

shots and the advertisements. It's a beautiful vehicle. It adds the big fender flares, the huge

wheels, 22 inch diamond turned with gloss black. I don't even know what that means, but they look

expensive. It's still pretty high up. This one has 626 horsepower, 553 pound feet of torque

that's hooked up to an eight speed automatic with all wheel drive. I actually, it has electric power

steering, which with defenders and different Land Rovers, for the last probably 10 years,

I've really enjoyed the vibe of their steering. They often have very large steering wheels to

affect that off-road type of vibe. And that as a result, it's pretty easy to turn these pretty

large and powerful vehicles. This thing will get the 0 to 60 in like 3.8 seconds, which is mind

blowingly fast for something this large. It's kind of like driving a cube or a refrigerator on wheels.

It's getting a lot of stairs. I went through the drop off line this morning at my son's elementary

school and some nice cars, right? You know, going through there, but the Land Rover Defender

in Opca trim really definitely gets some attention. That's for sure. And I really

like this matte finish too, and the black wheels. I think Land Rover, it's sort of sibling brand

Jaguar. I've done a nice job with that. Laying on the throttle, I turned on the Woodward, and I

was just like, let's let's let her rip. And it's a quick vehicle. It sounds good. The 4.4 liter

V8. You don't get as many V8s in, well, frankly, on the market, but also in the press fleet as we

used to. And it seemed like every Mercedes or BMW or Cadillac had a V8. So it's a lot of fun to drive.

The back cargo hold is pretty large. Being this is like one of the most expensive defenders you

can get. It has like everything. There's like plugs everywhere, rubber mats, all that like off-road

stuff to sort of make it look like if you want to go on safari with your, you know, highly expensive

vehicle, you can do so. I actually went golfing with my son last night. Clubs fit back there pretty

well. That was a little tight actually with the big wheel wells and fender flares. Things get a little

cozier back there than you might expect. The back seat is pretty roomy. It's great for like,

you know, three or four people. I don't think I'd want to put a fifth in that kind of center seat,

but just everybody back there in the vehicle in general can see great. You've got that king of the

road vibe. You know, it's tuned a little sportier than some of the real off-road defenders,

but still plenty of ground clearance. Again, the chassis is dialed in. It steers and breaks very

well. The motor is just just an absolute riot. I don't love the Pivi Pro infotainment. Not my

favorite. It's doing weird things, just trying to get like some of the bells and whistles to work.

Like, I was changing the radio stations this morning and it kept like trying to rewind the song.

Like, I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen, but I don't need to hear everything on satellite,

East Street Radio, channel 20, like twice. I just want to go up to channel 21, you know,

but none of this is stuff that's like new to, you know, JLR electronics or, you know, British

cars in general for that matter. Interior, really beautiful. It's got kind of like a brownish,

like mahogany type look, black accents, kind of like a two-tone layout. Defender, you might

recall, has a shelf going across this, like the dashboard, so your passenger can put his or her

phone, purse, whatever you want to put in there, some snacks. It's a clever layout and to kind of,

you know, wind things up here. It does a nice job of looking and feeling expensive,

but still feeling authentically off-road inside and out. So, it's 40 degrees and raining,

kind of a nasty morning. It was a great vehicle to have for my drive across town over into the

AutoGuide Studio, as you can see behind me. So, I liked it a lot. It's definitely a little bit,

you know, the Defender's been a little polarizing. They've got some, you know, up and down, you know,

ratings, the different reliability and things. It would be a lot of fun to own and you could

probably get an okay deal for one, like on the used car market, but some of that, like, reliability

stuff has got a creep into the back of your mind or the front of your mind. So, yeah, that's my

review of the Defender. Have you driven any Defenders lately, Gary? Any thoughts on that?

It's been a while since I've been in a Defender. So, I thought it was interesting

discussing the size of the vehicle, but you wouldn't put a third person in the back seat.

Seems somewhat ironic. Yeah, it's just, well, to be fair, I do have a car seat, like,

in one of the seats. So, it does make that middle seat a little tighter than it might be.

It's not huge, though. I mean, it's not huge. So, but why don't you tell me about your,

the Polestar 4 you've been driving. Right. So, basically, you know, I'm feeling really good

because I was basically in an economy car compared to what you've just been in because

it has a starting MSRP of 62.9. And then when you, you know, add on the goodies, you know, you're

bumping 80. But, you know, that's basically half of what you were in. And, you know, an interesting

thing that I found out about this vehicle is, okay, so it's a, in the version that I drove,

it was the long-range dual motor. So, basically, you have two 200 kilowatt motors, one in the front,

one in the back. And, its styling is just, you know, the exterior styling is just gorgeous.

I mean, you know, you talked about how, you know, you're in your vehicle and sometimes people

turn their heads to look at it. I had neighbors come over to ask me what the car was because,

basically, Polestar's out in the real world are like unicorns. I mean, the company has

very small sales. And, you know, they were just shocked. They're like, geez, what is this thing

is gorgeous? And the interesting thing is that it's got a fast roof line. And the designers

had a charter whereby they had to get good room in the back seat. Okay, so when you have a fast

roof line that's curving back, usually people can't sit back there very comfortably because their head

bumps up against the roof of the vehicle. Well, what they did was they decided we will get rid of

the backlight or the rear windshield as it were. So, it is solid metal on the back of that vehicle.

The only way that you can see what's behind you, beyond your side view mirrors,

is there is a camera which is in the back above the trunk area. And it feeds the information,

the images, into the rear view mirror, which is a very odd sensation. I mean, not to be able to

look what's behind you without looking at the mirror. Several people that I've talked to who

have driven it, found it to be a little awkward because looking out in the real world and then

flipping up and seeing a flat screen, flat images on the screen, because when you normally look at

a mirror, you can actually see depth. You may not realize that, but you're seeing depth there. And

this doesn't provide that sort of sense of depth. So, that's a little bit awkward. But I suspect

that if you owned it for a while, you'd be highly comfortable with that. And then plus you've got

that good looking car to boot. The thing like most EVs is wicked quick. I mean, it's rated at

zero to 60 at 3.7 seconds. And if you think about it, you're moving basically two and a half tons

because these things are heavy. The range, I find a little bit disappointing. Now, I guess it comes

to the trade off. Do you want performance? If you want performance, you're going to give up on

range. So, their single motor version of the Polestar, they're saying gets 310 miles of range.

This dual motor, they say, gets 280 miles of range. I didn't get anywhere near there. I mean,

I was down in the 220, 230 area, which I think personally is insufficient for vehicles.

Polestar basically grew out of Volvo. And Volvo, to my way of thinking, has some of the best

automotive interiors going. They're purposeful. They're clean. There's a certain sense of elegance.

And all of that is brought into the Polestar. But with a little bit more panache than you're

finding in whatever Volvo you're climbing into. And I think that that's a recognition of, okay,

this is a performance brand for the company. Let's provide that. But it's very clean, simple.

Perhaps there's a little bit too much you have to do through the touch screen when you want to

change things. Again, another sort of awkward thing. Digital natives will probably find it fine.

But when you're driving and you want to change something, you really don't want to be looking

at the screen. You ought to be looking forward. And I think that ergonomically,

that may not be the right way to go. But overall, for someone who's looking for something that

isn't a Tesla, I mean, the Polestar is a great, great thing to consider. It should be doing

better in the market than it's doing. But where are you going to buy a Polestar? I have no idea.

Yeah, it's tough with brands like Polestar. To a lesser extent, like Rivian and even Scout,

like we were talking about in Lucid, people just don't know what these brands are. Now,

if you're an early adopter or a tech fan, you might say this sounds great. I want to get something

that's from a non-traditional automaker, although many of them are now backed by traditional

automakers. Polestar does a nice job of kind of splitting that difference, being at least

nominally independent. But you've got Volvo and their parent company behind them, Geely.

But I think, I haven't driven this one yet. I'm excited. It's very attractive looking Sedan

crossover. What would you call this thing? It's kind of like it's, I don't know,

aesthetically, it's sleek. We could go there. I think that for marketing purposes,

they would want to call it an SUV. But I think it's more of a Sedan. But who can tell?

To the point of it being performance, I mean, even the safety belts are yellow.

And that's the sort of telegraphing. This is something different. The calipers are painted

a bright yellow again. And you get the option package. And the wheels are just drop dead gorgeous.

And so all of the small touches are there. And a very compelling package. But again,

car that you can't look out the back window, it's strange. I don't know whether that will

take or not. Yeah, poll stars are kind of playing fast and loose with what I think

mainstream consumers want. So that is our car review section. Thanks for joining us inside

the AutoGuide Garage. Let's move over to the mailbag. This week, we have a question speaking to

BBs. VW was an early adopter, but it's pulling back without certainty over the ID4. There's a

sell down of the ID buzz. What do you think happens for this generation of EVs that sort of came

about in the early to mid 2020s? Pretty interesting question. If you missed the news, the ID4 is

also essentially paused. It sounds like they're going to sell it down, reprioritize what they're

doing in Chattanooga, which probably means Atlas, and then maybe bring it back is like

like a variant of the Tiguan, which I actually drove recently and very much liked. So kind

of a general question. I mean, weigh in on the VW element if you want. But if you look at that

sort of, we'll call it a second wave, like you got, I mean, I guess the even like the real

predecessors are like the GM EV1 or something. But then you get like the leaf and the volt in

2008, 2009, which were like the moonshots for those companies. Prius gets more extended range.

You get some electrics through the 10s. But into the 20s, that's when you really started to see

things like, okay, we've got the Kia EV6, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Mach E from Ford,

ones like the Volkswagen ID4. You might remember the Nissan Aria, which they quickly killed off.

But to me, the ID4 was actually one of those like pillars that wasn't pillars is strong,

but it was one of the front runners as far as like, you know, electric vehicles that were in

that wave with Ford, with Hyundai of companies that showed, hey, we're going to really do this.

Chevy got to the game a little bit later. They appear to maybe have some more staying power,

although electrics are definitely weighing on their financial burden, their balance sheet. Although

it would be a shame if they didn't do anything but update the Blazer and the Equinox, because I

think those are excellent EVs. But yeah, I mean, it just seems like if you didn't have an absolute

home run, or your company wasn't all in on that specific product, you're starting to see these

things go by the wayside, which is, you know, to me, Volkswagen kind of got, they kind of got

Nissan here with like what they did with the Aria. So I think we're going to see more of these sort

of mid-level players, you know, face some Darwinism. So what do you think?

Well, I mean, I think that the fundamental problem with the ID4 was

it was a different type of, again, driving experience. The interior, the interface was

different than people are used to. Okay, so I mean, one of the large complaints had always been that,

okay, you've got four windows in the vehicle. They're all power windows, but you have two buttons

to adjust the windows. I mean, that just seemed wrong. Okay, you've got, you know, a different

operating system that was, you know, in the infotainment system. You had a small screen that

was in front of you, you know, about the size of a pack of playing cards or cigarettes or,

you know, whatever, that that was your speedo, which was completely different than anybody

else had been doing. It was, you know, an early user of the, you get in and you start driving,

you don't push any buttons, you just go, I think that people were uncomfortable with that car.

The range wasn't great. It was just in, the exterior design was somewhat awkward. I mean,

it was not in keeping with what you would expect a Volkswagen to be buying the stretch of the

imagination. And, you know, and so I think that is, you know, it was just a, it was a problem child

as a car. Okay, now you look at, you know, you look at the ID buzz, which of course, you know,

they're going to stop for a year. They're going to skip 26, I believe. And I think when they bring

that back, we'll have to bring that back with some reasonable range. I mean, you've got this giant

vehicle and you've got very little range. I mean, the Polestar looks like it's going on forever.

Compared to that. So, I think that Volkswagen is beginning to learn lessons not necessarily

from this market, but more from the China market and from the European market that, you know,

they've got to do things. You know, you mentioned the, say the Equinox, which is a great car.

But if you get into the Equinox and you start driving it, it's like, you know, driving a

gasoline powered Equinox. I mean, it's your behavior and your actions completely transparent.

Okay, you don't need to do anything special. It's a powertrain. That's the difference.

And I think some of these companies just became a little bit too clever for their own good. And

that doesn't work well on the market in large numbers, at least.

All right, sounds good. Well, Gary, thanks for hanging out with us this week.

Sure. Gary Vasilesh, the co-host of AutoLine After Hours. And where else can we find your work?

There's a sub-stack, shiny metal boxes. There is a new sub-stack that was just announced yesterday

that I'll be participating in, which is the car collective. So, you can find that there. And

that's pretty much it. And also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the truth about cars.

Gary is one of our TTAC creators. He actually has a column up about how

automakers don't really get all that much about racing. Don't get much out of it. So,

if you're interested in that, get into the comments on TTAC. I'm sure they'd love to have you.

Thanks for being here, Gary. Sure. Thanks, Greg. And that's all the time we have this week.

Thank you for listening. If you enjoy the AutoGuide show, please like, share, and subscribe.

We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This was the

AutoGuide show. Be safe out there. We'll see you next week.

Hot Wheels at Full Speed: New Designs and What’s Next | Ep. 117

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