Hot Wheels at Full Speed: New Designs and What’s Next | Ep. 117
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Brand
Hot Wheels
Hot Wheels is a toy car brand that’s been around for decades. It’s famous for making lots of different car designs that feel fast and exciting.
Car
Polestar 4
Concept
EVs
EVs are electric cars that run on batteries instead of gasoline. The show is likely talking about what’s coming next for electric cars—like new models and improvements.
Concept
3D CAD
3D CAD (computer-aided design) is digital engineering software used to model a vehicle in three dimensions. In this context, it’s used to translate manufacturer data into accurate toy-car geometry when designs are licensed.
Term
3D
“3D” means making a model that has height, width, and depth. Toy designers use it to plan the shape of the car before they build the real thing.
Term
turbocharger
A turbocharger is a device that helps an engine make more power. It uses exhaust gases to push extra air into the engine, which lets it burn more fuel and feel stronger.
Brand
Lego
LEGO is the company that makes those snap-together building bricks. The guest is saying they worked there for a long time and got to be creative through toy design.
Concept
Legends Tour
Hot Wheels has an event called the Legends Tour where creators build and pitch car ideas. Those ideas then get highlighted by Hot Wheels, helping new fans discover real car creativity.
Concept
JDM
JDM means “Japanese cars for Japan.” People use it to talk about Japanese car models and parts that enthusiasts really like.
Concept
hot rod
A hot rod is an older car that’s been modified to be faster and more exciting. People often change the engine and other parts to improve performance.
Car
MG midget
The MG Midget is a small British sports car/roadster. People like it because it’s light and fun, and it’s often used for racing.
Concept
exterior styling
Exterior styling is the visible design language of a vehicle—shape, surfaces, lighting, and overall proportions. The speaker connects current technology maturity to more expressive exterior design choices.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Toyota Camry is a very popular Toyota sedan. The hosts mention its sales numbers to show how strongly people buy certain everyday cars.
Car
Dodge Challenger
The Dodge Challenger is another big American performance/pony car. They’re saying it feels the most exciting and intense compared to the Camaro and Mustang.
Concept
conning tower
A conning tower is a part of a submarine where the crew controls the ship. They’re using it as a comparison to say the car is hard to see out of.
Brand
Cadillac
Cadillac is GM’s luxury brand. They’re saying the Camaro borrowed some of the “smart engineering” GM developed for Cadillacs.
Brand
Corvette
The Corvette is Chevrolet’s high-performance sports car. They’re saying GM used lessons from Corvette engineering to make the Camaro handle and brake better.
Brand
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is the leader of Tesla. They’re pointing out that his decisions and priorities can change what Tesla builds.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla is the company that makes electric cars. The hosts are talking about whether Tesla will keep launching new models often enough to stay successful and sell a lot of cars.
Concept
body on frame
A body-on-frame truck has the main structure (the frame) separate from the body. This is the classic truck setup and is often chosen for towing and durability.
Car
Hyundai IONIQ 5
The IONIQ 5 is Hyundai’s electric SUV. The host compares it to Kia’s EV6 to talk about which one they prefer.
Brand
Kia
Kia is another car brand under the same big company as Hyundai. They’re aiming to sell a lot more cars in the U.S. and expand into new types of vehicles.
Brand
Genesis
Genesis is Hyundai’s luxury brand—think more upscale than regular Hyundai models. They’re using it as an example of how the company can successfully move into new markets.
Term
fender flares
Fender flares are the extra trim around the wheel wells. They can make room for bigger tires and also give the SUV a more rugged look.
Part
electric power steering
Electric power steering uses a motor to help you steer. It can make steering feel lighter and more consistent, especially at low speeds.
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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.
About this episode
Hot Wheels design manager Craig Callum breaks down how toy cars go from sketches and CAD to shelf-ready details, why “analog” play is resurging, and how initiatives like the Hot Wheels Brickshop and Legends Tour keep fans building at home. The show then pivots to industry news with journalist Gary Vassilash: GM’s rumored Camaro return, Tesla’s possible Model 2 comeback, Kia/Hyundai body-on-frame pickups, and fresh uncertainty around Scout Motors’ timeline. AutoGuide Garage reviews include the Land Rover Defender Atka and Polestar 4, followed by a mailbag on EVs like the VW ID4 and why some early EVs are getting paused.
Original notes
Hot Wheels have been a favorite for enthusiasts of all ages, and this week Greg Migliore catches up with the man behind the wheels: Senior Design Manager Craig Callum. We discuss the latest designs and trends and what might be coming next from this iconic brand.
Then longtime automotive journalist and co-host of Autoline After Hours Gary Vasilash joins me to discuss the latest news from the car industry, including a seventh-generation Chevy Camaro (Plus sedans for Buick and Cadillac!), the revival of the Tesla Model 2, Kia’s foray into pickup trucks and another potential delay for Scout Motors.
In the AutoGuide Garage, Greg test drives the Land Rover Defender Octa, Gary reviews the Polestar 4.
We close things out with the mailbag, where we figure out what’s next for EVs like the VW ID.4.
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