How Porsche Got it Wrong

Expecting China to endlessly consume Western output wasn't just optimistic.

It was Western arrogance on display.

Porsche didn't just misread demand.

They misread identity.

Something Porsche does not do for the opera.

Hey guys, welcome to Overcrest.

I'm Chris and I'm Jake and we have another news episode for you today where we cover

the best news in the automotive industry industry.

It's the interesting industry.

We've got some opinions, which are the best ones, obviously.

I don't believe it.

Well, do you think your opinions are the best opinions?

No, I just don't believe at all that we'll have any opinions from you that I can't believe

that.

I'm being sarcastic, Chris.

You've got to pick up on these things.

I like your hat.

Is that a new Christmas present?

It was a birthday present.

Yeah, birthday present.

Very good.

It's like an old school, like farmer hat.

Hines, tomato seeds.

Yeah.

Happy belated birthday.

Thank you, sir.

Two days ago.

Your gift didn't arrive.

Did it?

I didn't hear anything from you.

No, I guess it didn't.

Okay.

Never mind.

That's all I needed to say.

Jake, I have a rant.

Oh boy.

I have a rant.

I have not ranted in a while.

Really?

Have I?

I haven't.

Right?

Have I not had a rant?

I don't know.

Okay.

I want to take a second to explain something, and this comes from economics, and it's going

to seem like I'm going off the rails, but I promise that I will bring it around.

Okay.

I'm going to bring it around.

Do you know who King Solomon is?

Yes.

Yeah.

Biblical times.

From biblical times.

That's right.

I'm sure I remember Sunday school.

What else do I know?

Yeah.

That's probably King Solomon.

This is a very famous, famous scene.

He was famous because he knew when not to push things too far.

He ruled ancient Israel in the 10th century BCE, and his reputation was built on judgment,

not force.

He was a good king.

The story everybody remembers.

Yeah.

Is he the one with the firstborn son or whatever?

No.

No, I don't believe so.

I'm not a, I'm not a, I've read the Bible from the back twice, but I don't, what's that?

I'm getting there.

Yeah.

So the story is, well, there's a dispute, and I was going to read what I wrote here,

but basically the story was there was a dispute between two women who both claimed that a

baby was theirs.

Okay.

So they both had claimed that the baby was theirs.

They cut it down the middle and they wanted each, and then the real mother wouldn't want

that.

Exactly.

And the other one's like, hot, fine, do it, and the other woman's like, no, don't do

it.

And of course then, you know.

The painting was right there.

Because I bring that up again, this producer, it oddly looked like he was just grasping

a bosom.

If you notice, I think it was, I think it was prayer hands, but no, the next one.

Jake really just needs to see boobs in a painting.

He's just so desperate.

There are websites for this, Jake, just that looked weird to me.

Okay.

Anyways, go ahead.

Okay.

So basically what it was is that two people claim the baby.

Salmon suggests cutting it in half, not because it's the solution, but because the extreme

answer exposes who actually understands the cost.

The point wasn't cruelty, cruelty, it was restraint.

Salmon became shorthand for the idea that wisdom lives in the middle, that system breaks

at the edges and that the job of leadership is knowing where pressure keeps things alive

instead of tearing them apart.

Okay.

So economics.

This is a concept.

It's called the Salmon Curve, all right?

So this idea emerged out of postwar economic thinking when economists noticed something

that ran against intuition.

Postwar being World War II?

Yes.

Yeah.

This is postwar.

Well, what do they mean when they mean postwar?

I think post...

Hmm.

When I think of postwar...

There were a few wars.

Yeah.

When I think of postwar, I'm going to say World War I.

Because when I think of postwar cars, postwar is after World War I.

You have prewar and postwar.

I'm going to assume this is World War I.

Okay.

So you'd assume that zero inflation would be ideal, right?

Stable prices, no erosion of value, total predictability, but in practice systems operating

at near zero inflation tend to stall.

Spending slows, investment dries up, debt becomes harder to manage, nothing is breaking,

but also nothing moves.

Deflation is even worse.

It doesn't freeze the system.

It reverses it, making hesitation the only rational choice because you don't know how

far down prices of goods are going to go.

Yes, you should hold on to your dollars because otherwise they'll be worth it.

Yeah.

Lack of inflation causes delay in growth.

There's basically no sense of urgency to buy.

And one nice thing about inflation, which is why our economy is running red hot right

now is they're trying to deflate the debt.

So you always want a little bit of inflation because planning becomes predictable.

Yeah, this kind of stuff.

I don't want to get too far into the economics of this.

I'm going to get to my point as fast as I can.

At the other extreme, high inflation has its own failures, right?

Prices rise too fast.

Income doesn't keep up.

Planning becomes impossible.

Confidence evaporates and everything turns really reactive.

What economists found was that systems function best somewhere in the middle.

There's a narrow band where enough pressure exists to force movement and decision making,

but not so much that it's overwhelming.

The middle zone became the target, not perfection, not stillness, a managed tension that I'm

not going to get into whether the Federal Reserve and all these things are good or not.

That's that's don't don't ask me these questions.

I'm okay.

Okay.

I'm just want to talk about this and then get to the point.

I would love to go on a rant about the Federal Reserve.

You know it, but I'm not going to.

The name Solomon curve in there, Chris, is the golden different episode.

Please go back and listen to it.

One of my favorites.

Uh, the Solomon curve isn't symbolic.

It's technical.

A reference to King Solomon.

Once you want to understand all of this, it becomes hard to its unsee avoiding extremes,

not because moderation is virtuous because systems survive in moderation.

You start noticing that shared systems don't actually fail because someone pushes too hard.

They fail when participants stop committing to move forward together when they hover,

when they wait, when they refuse to apply pressure, even when the situation clearly calls for

it.

Flow Blake breaks down not because of chaos, but because of indecision, momentum disappears,

gaps open and close unused.

Everything slows down and compresses and starts compensating for the absence of movement.

At that point, it doesn't matter how careful anyone thinks they're being.

The system degrades.

The system I am actually talking about the road driving.

Okay.

That's not at all where I thought that was going.

Yes.

On one end, you've got deflation, hesitation.

This is where waiting feels safe, but quietly kills the system.

It's not going at a speed.

This is literally about speeding.

It's not going at a stop sign.

Yeah.

See, look at this right here.

See this?

See this chart?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's not going at a stop sign when it's your turn.

It's sitting at a right turn on red with nothing coming.

It's refusing to merge even though there's clear space.

The rules are obvious.

The risk is low and still nothing happens.

People freeze because making no decision feels safer than making the correct one.

But hesitation is not neutral.

It forces, you can pull that down.

This is producer.

It forces everyone else to guess.

It creates sudden breaking last second lane changes and confusion.

That is how crashes happen.

Not from speed, but from unpredictability.

Then there's the 0% inflation.

This is the slow rot.

Camping in the passing lane at the speed limit.

Speed matching across lanes, parking lot standoffs that drag on forever.

Nothing is technically wrong.

Nothing's being done is illegal, but everything is clogged.

Traffic compresses, tempers rise.

People start taking risks to get around the obstruction.

You didn't cause the crash, but you set the conditions for it.

And then you've got hot inflation.

Too much pressure.

Too fast.

Weaving through traffic, tailgating, blowing past everyone like physics do not even apply to you.

This is the obvious one.

The margins disappear.

When something goes wrong, it goes really, really wrong.

Here's the part of all of this people don't often hear.

The deadliest driver is not always the a-hole flying past everyone at 90 though.

It's the person who will not fucking go.

The one who freezes at the stop sign like the concept of your turn is a moral dilemma.

You ever been at a stop sign?

This is dude, I've been lately.

I just I'm losing my mind.

Losing it.

Okay.

What are people doing?

What are they doing?

Why is everything happening at a snail's pace?

It's like everyone is crawling.

And I feel like it's getting worse and worse and worse.

Have you experienced this?

What is it?

What is going on with people being like?

What's happening?

There are a couple of factors.

You're saying this is new.

You've just realized and noticed that.

No, it is not new, but it is getting worse.

What is the big factor?

All things being equal has changed for you, Chris.

What has changed for your perception and your sample of driving in general?

I have moved from a rural area with low traffic.

However, I did drive in on a pretty busy road.

Now I live.

Uh-huh.

What?

I live in town.

You live in YZETA.

What does that have to do with anything?

I'm taking housewives that don't know how to drive.

And I don't know.

I just there's definitely the the the variable here that has changed is your location.

So yes, you lived out in the country.

Great.

Yeah.

It's driving me.

It's driving me crazy.

When you did go in, you went into the city.

Guess what?

City traffic is generally a bit more aggressive.

They know how to get around.

They're going.

There's a lot of traffic.

No, it's not.

No, it's not aggressiveness that necessarily bothers me.

A little bit of aggressiveness is fine because it keeps things going.

We're in the city.

That's what I was saying.

Dude, you go into Minneapolis.

It's even it's even worse.

It's even worse that people will not commit.

You'll sit at a stoplight and they look at you and you go after you.

I go and I actually okay after you.

This is you.

Hold on.

Do you do this?

Hold on.

Yes, I do that.

And what Jake is doing right now is directed and pointed out of his windshield.

And you know where I got that from?

Where?

Adam Corolla talked about it on his podcast like 10 years ago.

I talked about it on his podcast.

He points at people and says go.

I am traffic police now.

I just want to say that everyone is outsourcing their fear and decision to everyone else.

If you are the person that's doing this shit, you are causing problems for everyone else.

You might be safe, but everyone else has to change the norm of what's supposed to happen

because you can't figure your shit out.

That's it.

What's supposed to happen is whatever the law of the road is.

Exactly.

However, there is these instances where someone is going to turn into a driveway or something.

And they slow down so much.

They slow down so much that you just go, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

Why don't you go?

What is the psychology of that?

Are they completely naive of the rest of the world around them?

Is that what it is?

Is that what's going on?

Are they completely oblivious?

Tell me if this theory is right.

Are people due to isolation of being on devices and not interacting and going outside?

Maybe COVID is to blame.

We have all been very introverted and introspective and self-absorbed that they literally you

cannot.

When people are in their cars, they're in a bubble.

This I think is a fact.

Do not think about the world around you, your environment, your surroundings as much when

you are in your personal bubble.

Right?

I 100% agree with you.

People feel overly, they feel way safer than they really are.

Way safer than they really are.

It's because you're in your 15,000-pound, you know, electric SUV that can just boulder

through anything.

It can just run over a guy that's jaywalking in my, in over on Wysetta Boulevard.

Like it happened last night.

Did that just happen?

It just happened.

Guy's dead.

Somebody just didn't see the guy.

What granted the guy was jaywalking in the dark, but I feel like people are very, very

disconnected to what's going on around them on the road.

They're very disconnected.

It's their, their texting, they're on their phone.

The car is beeping for them.

It's keeping the lane for them.

Have you, your new truck must have like lane assistance.

Have you used it?

It doesn't.

On has lane assist.

I kind of miss it a little bit in the truck only because it's really wide.

Like it actually, I need some assistance to be like, I'm already over in that line.

Oh, I only got a couple of inches over here.

How is parking that thing?

Great.

All the cameras, but you do need to take like a 27 point Y turn.

Yeah.

All right.

That was my rant.

I just, I, I really feel like I wish there was a statistic where I could figure out how

indecision and.

So, okay, what do you attribute it to?

Because I think what we've stumbled upon and what you were getting to is this false sense

of safety that a lot of these modern conveniences have afforded folks, right?

So when you have the emergency crash avoidance that'll slam on your brakes for you or beeps

that you already has your blind spot monitoring with a little light is on in my mirror.

So I don't actually have to look.

Well, there's no light out of my mirror.

So I can go now.

It's, I think maybe that people rely on that too much.

That's been proven.

I think Volvo approved that.

Actually, I think it was Volvo or maybe they were talking about.

Well, so here's the thing that we only go forward, right?

We only go for, we only move forward because the only way to sell a new car is to have

it do more.

Sometimes I think that people forget that progress is regression.

You can, you can, you can move forward.

That is wrong.

You can progress by admitting by removing things.

You can, you can move forward.

Okay.

So you're saying you can regress.

Not necessarily regression.

Right.

Don't have to always add in order to progress.

That's what I'm trying to say.

That's what I'm saying.

Progress is regression.

It can be.

You can regress back to a previous version of a car.

Why not?

But obviously the shareholders will never, never go for that.

So that's saying your definition of progression by the term progress means it's.

Added.

Yes.

No.

Progress does not have to be additive.

It can be, it can be subtractive 100%.

We can remove things that are wrong and better with progress.

Yes.

Do not.

Yes.

Exactly.

That's, that's the bottom line.

That's the bottom line.

All right.

Tell me a little bit about.

You did a great.

Tell me about Nokia and tire, Jake.

Nokia and tires are.

Been making progress on tires for forever.

Forever.

These guys.

19.

Oh boy.

Now I got to get my notes up.

I think it was 1954.

They invited, invited, invented the winter tire or invited it.

They invited it to participate on the roads and make everyone safer.

Yes.

Traction is very important.

Chris, did you wake up to like literally a sheet of ice on everything?

I haven't even looked outside yet.

I just went and sat down and started working on this.

I just literally had a meeting this morning.

Her alarm goes off at like 6 30.

And then she comes over and she wakes me up by going auto start because the Porsche doesn't

have remote start.

And so I go out there and I clear off her windows.

And I was like, there was a quarter inch of just sheer ice on everything.

You can pull that ad down.

This is producer.

We see it.

Mount Solver.

So it is a good thing.

So we have dedicated winter tires.

You need them too.

The Nokia and Haka Polita is the best industry standard.

It is, it is second to none.

The state of the art when it comes to winter tires and driving performance with traction.

The Nokia Surpass AS01 also offers you all of that all weather performance with a performance

actual tire.

So you don't have to sacrifice one or the other.

You don't have to make concessions when it comes to safety.

So check them out at nokiantires.com today.

Have them on the formatic.

Mercedes thing absolutely tears in the snow.

That's my endorsement.

It's unbelievable.

That's it.

Well, I can say it's a contrast between the cars that I have that have it.

The cars that I have that don't.

You don't even want to drive the other car in the snow.

All right.

Jacob, this week, Porsche did something you almost never see from a luxury brand.

They admitted a miss out loud.

What is this photo?

I don't know.

What are you doing, Mrs.

Producer?

Who is this woman?

I'm just that, that lady looks very much computer generated.

She might be good AI.

That was just like, yeah, it's, it's, it's all right.

Well, I understand why I think that was a, I might have been the Chinese market.

The CEO of Porsche, Oliver Bloom, said publicly that the company got China wrong.

Quote, we were too optimistic in China.

The market has changed significantly.

Consumer demand is much weaker.

Competition is extremely intense and price pressure is very, very high.

We have to accept that the assumptions we previously had about the Chinese market no

longer apply.

Not in a hedged way, not in a quote, we'll adjust allocations way.

What engine is that?

What are we?

Mrs.

Producer.

You're literally just, she typed in Porsche and China.

What is that thing?

What is that?

Well, that's, that's a tag here.

That's the formula one Porsche engine and say, Hey, well, well, it's, it's close enough.

This all matters because in the, for the last two decades, China wasn't another region on

Porsche sales map.

It was the foundation underneath the entire growth story.

The headline floating, a number floating around this is dramatic.

Porsche leadership pointed to an estimated, are you ready for this?

Yeah.

80% collapse in China's luxury car segment.

What?

Wait, when?

Now that's now what they're saying.

That's now, now.

Yep.

The figure is blunt and arguably overstated, but directionally, the damage is real.

Porsche's China delivery deliveries are down roughly 25% from their peak and the real

shock is in profit.

Porsche, one of the most profitable automakers on earth, the goose that lays the golden egg

chick saw operating profit fall by roughly, and I looked at a bunch of different sources

for this when I wrote this, cause like, I couldn't believe it, but it's true.

They have seen their off operating profit fall by roughly 99% year over year in recent

reporting and posted a quarterly operating loss of just under one billion euros.

That is structural failure.

It's bad.

That is bad.

Can I ask you, they admitted that their assumptions with the Chinese market were wrong.

What were the assumptions they made?

What was the fact that that was going to be 80% of the market?

Is that what they, the assumption?

That's what, that's what I'm going to get into.

Cause that was my question too.

And none of the news articles got into this.

Like why?

Like what is it about to change market?

All these things.

What did they think and how did that?

Yes.

What they were actually doing.

Yeah.

So to understand why this happened, you have to understand why China matters so much in

the first place.

I mean, I think that's, that's where we start.

So for roughly 20 years, China was the only auto market that felt inevitable.

Europe was mature and slow.

The United States was cyclical and politically erratic.

And we're not growing that much either.

Neither is Europe.

Japan had already plateaued and there's no more people being born there.

China, meanwhile, was industrializing at a scale that modern world had never seen.

Hundreds of millions of people moved into the middle class in a single generation,

a rise field in no small part by decades of Western consumption.

And the United States as the primary engine, offshoring manufacturing capital and demanded

to China at an unprecedented scale.

That dynamic has not stopped.

It continues today as consumers pull up to their mailboxes and tax subsidized vehicles

to collect packages shipped on bunker fuel across Pacific, all while further underwriting

China's ongoing industrial growth.

And for our purposes, the scale shows up clearly in one defining metric.

And I always speculated this was the case, but I pulled the numbers.

In the early 2000s, China had roughly 100 million licensed drivers.

By 2010, that number had doubled 200 million.

By the 2010s, it crossed 300 million.

Today, China has over 500 million licensed car drivers, more than the entire population

of the United States for nearly two decades.

China added something like 20 to 25 million new drivers every single year.

Every new license represents a potential buyer, a future upgrade, a rising aspiration.

Western automakers didn't imagine this market growing.

They watched it grow in real time and assumed it would continue indefinitely and just for them.

Remember, China wasn't always making great cars.

German brands in particular became shorthand for success.

If you had made it, you bought German.

Engineering, order, heritage, sense of arrival.

Porsche leaned into that belief harder than most.

Expanded dealer networks, China specific planning, new factories.

Internally, China wasn't treated as a variable.

It was treated as gravity as an inevitability.

After all, it's Porsche, right?

It's Porsche.

I got the heritage and everything.

This is where the story gets weird because it wasn't just bad forecasting or slow reaction time.

Porsche didn't wander into this direction on a whim.

Okay, with this EV stuff, which is where they're losing the majority of their money.

The broader regulatory and cultural environment pushed them there at the exact moment China was best positioned to benefit.

European regulators, environmental policy and activist pressure.

Activist pressure created a world where aggressive electrification was not optional.

Compliance targets tightened, penalties loomed, capital flooded toward EV nerve is where customers were ready or not.

At the same time, China controlled their supply chains, battery production and the pace of iteration.

Automakers did not chase this future.

They were herded into a direction China already mastered.

The result was a strategy shaped by regulation, executed into China's shadow.

And it exposed the moment domestic Chinese brands met the market faster and cheaper.

That moment is right now.

This is where Western hubris enters the story.

There was a deeply held belief and there still is and this is a mistake.

I want to make this very clear.

There was a deeply held belief that China would want what we're selling simply because we are selling it.

That luxury as defined by Europe would remain aspirational forever.

That Chinese buyers would naturally progress toward our idea of prestige.

That belief is wrong.

Chinese consumers did not just get wealthier, they got more confident.

Younger buyers care less about lineage and more about capability.

Software matters, screens matter, integration matters, EV performance matters,

and Chinese manufacturers are very, very good at those things.

In EV land, especially the tables turn fast, Chinese brands are not just cheaper.

In many cases, they are objectively better.

Faster development cycles, deeper software stacks, features that feel native rather than bolted on.

Meanwhile, Western automakers showed up with expensive electric cars that felt late,

compromised, and oddly unsure of themselves.

And there's a cultural miss here, Jake, that almost no one wants to say out loud.

And this is something too that I think the Western minds that we need to get away from this.

We need to get away from this savior complex.

That is embedded in Western thinking about China.

The idea that capitalism and democracy are the inevitable in-state of China someday.

That Chinese consumers secretly want to be more like us.

That eventually they will abandon their domestic brands in favor of Western ones

once they finally arrive into our method of thinking.

That is not how their identity works.

China's middle and upper class is increasingly proud to be Chinese.

They like Chinese products.

They trust Chinese brands.

There is national affinity there.

Just like Americans have affinity for American brands,

expecting China to endlessly consume Western output wasn't just optimistic.

It was Western arrogance on display.

Porsche didn't just misread demand.

They misread identity, something Porsche does not do very often.

And this doesn't stop at Porsche.

The damage rolls directly uphill to Volkswagen Group,

which is getting monkey hammered in China.

The sales that are down, market share routing, dealer network shrinking.

The entire German premium playbook is under pressure.

Yes, absolutely.

This is the end of the idea that China is a guaranteed growth engine for luxury brands.

And in my opinion, regular brands as well.

It is competitive.

It is national.

It is fast moving.

And what comes next is not just going to be collapse.

It is recalibration.

Brands that understand they are guests in someone else's market might survive.

Brands that still believe heritage alone carries enough weight will shrink.

Porsche admitting they got it wrong is not just weakness.

It's the first honest signal that the old world model is finished.

This is a really, really tenuous time.

Tenuous.

I disagree.

That means the old model is finished.

I think what this signals is that China is a unique market.

And so I have a couple questions I don't expect you to have answers for.

Sure.

But maybe just an observation that, of course,

if once China became capable of making products that were just as objectively attractive as, you know,

Porsche or something else, of course they would win out because...

You say that now.

That's a conversation of hindsight.

Okay, so let me ask you this.

Chinese regulation has to be different, right?

Or maybe lack thereof.

I don't even know.

I haven't looked into it.

Do they have, you know, environmental standards?

Do they have crash standards?

Do they have these things?

My question is, is BYD, is some of these other Chinese specific manufacturers,

are they able to make their products that much cheaper and tailored to the market

because of this totally different landscape as far as requirements?

Well, there's a lot of different reasons that stuff is cheaper.

They don't have unions.

They don't have pensions.

They don't need to ship it over there.

It doesn't.

Yeah, well, that's...

If that was the case.

Dude, there was a car I saw just in terms of cost to build things.

And I think government subsidization is a big part of this.

There was a vehicle.

I wish I would have kept the reel.

I sent it to Mrs. Producer and her Instagram.

She can go into my sent to you and skip over all the memes that I sent you and find it.

That would be great.

Oh, to me.

You sent it to me.

Did I send it to you?

No, I sent it to Mrs. Producer.

It was this luxury car and it had...

I'm watching this lady swipe...

She's in the backseat.

She swipes the door thing and it like raises and lowers the transparency of the window.

She just swipes it like this.

Yeah, I've seen that.

All the stuff that this car does, the way that it...

She's reclining back in the seat and it's got these things for your phone and it's just

like this unbelievable car with this unbelievable technology.

It honestly looks like a Maibach or something.

Right?

I mean, it looks like it's...

Yeah.

It's $140,000, dude.

That's it.

It's $140,000.

You get into a $160,000 S-Class now.

The lower kick panels are plastic.

Yeah.

They're just not keeping up.

It's all Quagmars in regulation and expectation and heritage.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

What was my other point about all that?

Oh, well, it's...

You're thinking about...

Or I was thinking about BMW and how when they went to the big like massive grill noses,

the big pig snout look, they did that because we wanted Chinese to be able to differentiate.

This is a BMW, right?

Because they didn't have that historic knowledge of how to tell different makes apart.

How much of that do you think is factoring in here?

Not only do they not care as much about the prestige of the German brands, but also who cares even if you did know?

Even if you did say, yeah, BMW is better, who cares?

Because the common person in China probably doesn't know or care about the fact that that is.

Here, let me grab this.

Can you see it?

Yeah, I can.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

Oh, yeah.

Huawei is nice to us here.

Huawei, yeah.

We're just banned here.

Thank you.

Look at this.

It's $140,000.

Huawei's Mixtro S800 flagship.

Yeah, that's pretty wild.

You're waving your arm to shut the door is like crazy.

Look, that's an interior, another piece of glass that goes up.

That's cool.

I was going to ask you to, as far as their actual market, so we said it grew from 100,000 drivers to 200,000 and now it's at

Million, Jake.

Million, not thousand.

Now it's at like 500 million drivers or something.

Have we reached the market cap?

You know what I mean?

So the assumption was always, well, that's going to grow.

So not only are we realizing that the market doesn't want these vehicles.

Could it be that we've reached like this is, yeah, those are all the drivers.

That's the entire middle class now.

Like that's all the people that are going to drive have drip.

I highly doubt it.

I thought the Chinese economy is still going pretty wild, man.

What?

Have you also read something about, oh, that, what?

Your phone just like integrates.

That was cool.

So have you read something about how the population assumptions of China are vastly incorrect?

Yes, but go on.

I don't know if that is a conspiracy theory or what it is, but basically I don't, and I don't even know what the

estimated population of China is.

But the, the theory or the story I read was that there's no possible way that it could be that high.

And it is orders of magnitude smaller.

They just simply, there are not as much people as many people in China as we assume or thought.

And how that factors in the fact that it is this as big of a market.

It's just, it's fascinating.

And I'm curious.

I can't really comment on that, but I can comment on, you know, I think one of the reasons why this was all rejected too is I've

gotten into this before is you and I have both grown up around car culture.

So we've had an identity of what all of these brands mean represent and stand for for our entire lives.

Right.

I mean, we grew up with Hot Wheels.

You could buy your, your, your dad, if he loved you would come home and bring you like a little Hot Wheels card.

It would be this car.

Oh my gosh.

You know, you do that for your son.

Your son is going to have an identity of what cars are, what a Porsche is.

He's going to know what these know what they are and know that they're race cars, know what trucks do and all these different things.

In China, 20 years ago, there's nothing.

There's entire groups of people that grew up with no influence from any car culture whatsoever.

So they don't have this heritage bullshit doesn't matter.

They don't have any preconceived notions.

Nothing.

They had nothing.

So it's none of the heritage matters.

None of the luxury matters.

There's no definitive what luxury is like we've, we've seen it.

We've seen it in all kinds of pop culture and movies and stuff like that.

It doesn't really exist there.

Which is very subjective, you know, like luxury.

We've talked about this lower case luxury versus uppercase luxury.

Do you remember this conversation?

Like uppercase luxury is the concept of the heritage and the brand and it's kind of like what's behind it.

Whereas the lower case luxury is like, okay, we'll look at the actual features and finishes that are being delivered.

Like this is leather.

So it's luxurious versus like, no, no, this is a high end design chair.

Even though it may not be made out of quote, luxury materials.

That's the quote, uppercase luxury or whatever.

How are we decided that?

And so my point is Chinese market not having this preconceived notion of luxury brands.

Yeah, they have no idea.

Look at the Huawei and say, well, yeah, this one's more luxurious because it has all these things.

Which is, it's probably a better place to be coming from.

If I'm honest, you're not tainted by, does this, does it say, does the purse say Louis Vuitton on it or not?

Right.

You know, it's okay.

So why don't you tell me a little bit about the common gear before we get into, you know, some more, in my opinion, good news, but also kind of bad news.

Uh-oh.

Well, how about just news in general?

Yes, the common gear is a really cool partner.

I'm going to bring up the ad reading here so I can say exactly what it is.

So the common gear is basically a single hub, a place to digitize every record and every story of your car.

And when it comes to your cars, let's face it, the story matters just as much as what it is.

Every receipt, every late night fix, maybe even every rally, mile and trip you took.

That really builds up and adds up to what your car's identity is, but it's not easy to have all that in one place.

You might have it on Instagram, some of your photos.

You might have oil change receipts in your glove box, or maybe they're in the file folder that's behind me that I have a bunch of automotive receipts in.

What this does, the common gear, it fixes that.

It's a platform built by real car people allowing you to digitize everything, maintenance records, builds, provenance photos, history.

And it's all organized, all searchable, all in one place.

If you've got decades of paperwork, maybe you bought something and it came with an entire file folder, which would be awesome.

I love when you get a car and it just has records.

Next week I'll bring the W124 records.

I'll just show you.

Do you have that?

Yeah, usually it's like the very OCD guys that have the older car and they're like, I saved everything and I'll jot it down every fill up what the oil change mileage was.

If you have those decades of paperwork, you can actually send it over to the common gear.

They have a white glove service where they digitize everything for you, remote or on site.

You hand them chaos, they'll hand you a complete car history.

It adds credibility, it adds value when it comes to maybe sell a car.

So go to thecommongear.com, make your free account, start building your car's digital legacy today.

Oh no, did I close the window?

Oh no, I didn't.

I just, there's an auction ending.

This is a total sidebar of a car I want.

I want to show it to you.

Oh boy.

Check this thing out.

I want to know, is this thing cool?

Is this cool for you?

6.2 liter V8, E63 AMG wagon.

It's only $29,000 right now.

How many miles do I have on it?

Dude, this thing is going to be like 50 grand, I bet.

What do you think?

What's your estimate?

It ends in 40 minutes.

We'll check it again at the end of the episode and see.

I was going to say that's amazing.

It's only at 29,000.

It's only been 20 bits.

This thing will go.

We'll check.

Someone remind me to, someone remind me.

All right.

Hey Chris, check it.

One automotive manufacturer talked about bringing back a legendary name

plate for legitimately decades, not months, not years.

Okay.

Decades.

They teased in interviews, floated it in concepts, let it leak,

then pull it back, then hinted again, auto show whispers,

press photos, the slow drip of, we know what you want.

For a long time, it was almost charming.

Anticipation restraint, the idea that when it finally arrived,

everything would be perfect.

By the end, it wasn't anticipation anymore.

It was momentum.

The original was one of those, one of the most culturally important

vehicles ever made, not because it was fast or luxurious,

but because it was useful, honest and everywhere.

It carried families, surfers, bands, tools and bad ideas that

somehow turned into good stories.

It was cheap enough to buy and flexible enough to matter.

It was easy to fix.

It became a symbol without ever trying to be one at all.

For years, people kept asking the same question.

When are you bringing it back?

In 2017, the answer finally appeared, a concept, bright, friendly

and instantly recognizable, and the crowd reaction said

everything it needed to.

For a brief moment, it felt like Volkswagen had remembered who it was.

From there, the marketing never stopped.

Seven years of buildup, seven years of expectation,

seven years of Volkswagen telling us, this wasn't just another car.

This was heritage.

This is memory.

This was the soul of the brand finally coming home.

Seven years is a long time to wait for a $60,000 van.

Pull that down.

Because that's what finally showed up.

The electric bus, the ID buzz, a resurrection,

decades in the making, landing the U.S.

at a price that immediately reframed the entire conversation.

It wasn't cheap.

It wasn't practical.

Range was bullshit.

Utility was actually compromised.

And suddenly this thing that had been sold as the people's vehicle

was being pitched as a premium lifestyle object.

Nostalgia financed.

Sales reflected this immediately.

Demand was, how did they not know, dude?

How did they not know?

What are they doing?

How did they not know that a $60,000 EV that nobody wanted

was not the way they should have made it?

I'm sure the margin was insane.

Yes.

Yes, they did.

Yes, it could have been.

This is exact.

It should have been like what they did with the bug.

It should have been cheap, simple, and easy, but it wasn't.

It was expensive, complicated, and not useful.

It should have been like the bug.

The bug saved Volkswagen.

This doubles advocate here, that probably is as cheap

as they could have made it.

No way.

That thing has had to have been high mark.

$60,000, dude.

We know the future's EV.

There's no question or mind this thing cannot be gasoline powered.

It has to be electric.

OK, great.

It has to be on a brand new chassis.

Dude, an ID.3 costs $30,000.

$32,000 in ID.3.

Why couldn't the bus be MSRP of an ID.3?

ID.3 Pro with a 59 kilowatt hour batteries available from $32,855

until the end of the year.

OK.

So it's a lower range one.

Yeah.

Yeah, $32,000 right there.

So this thing costs twice as much, twice as much.

$60,000, dude?

Yeah.

I agree.

It should have been cheaper.

I'm asking the question, was there hand force?

But you're saying they priced it as that to make it up market.

I don't know.

Within a year, barely a year.

Within barely a year of launch, Volkswagen quietly announced

that ID buzz would skip a model year in the US.

Call it a pause.

Call it inventory optimization.

The result is the same.

The long way to come back didn't land.

Volkswagen did not fail because people don't love the bus.

They failed because they forgot why people loved it.

The original wasn't aspirational because it was expensive.

It was not a capital L or lowercase L luxury thing.

It was aspirational because of its attainability.

It was magical.

And Volkswagen failed to recreate and capture that magic.

They inflated expectations for seven years and then delivered

something priced like a status symbol and packaged it like a

concept car that never grew up.

Now, after decades of talking, teasing, promising and waiting,

we're left with a small handful of electric fans that will almost

always be remembered as a curiosity and not a revival.

It's more Pontiac Aztec than cultural reset.

I'm disappointed.

At least that.

Those you saw everywhere.

Those were cheap.

Those were unique enough to be cool in their own way because

people could have them.

They're attainable.

I don't know.

It's really, really, really disappointing.

You can do a model.

You're off.

Okay.

They have so much invested in this.

They can't can it.

They're not going to can it.

They can't just be like, oops, that sucked.

Sorry.

They're going to redevelop it somehow.

They're going to make it cheaper.

They're going to.

They better.

27.

It's a failure right now.

Totally different.

Yeah.

And the thing is, is that they're going to probably just like strip

it down and make it.

Yeah.

Cheap.

mind or in my mind perception wise felt more like refined or not like

serious but like German yeah then a civic or something but price wise they

kind of competed right yeah they well they were probably they were more than

a civic they were more but you've kind of felt like oh yeah but this dude these

are like this is a luxury this is luxury it's my point is I don't think they can

compete on the same level now as Honda or as a Toyota or someone you know that's

there's no differentiation between being more upscale I don't know have you seen

have you I just drove a rental Camry okay like which is base base base base

yeah it's really shitty like it's very very plastic very okay I don't want to

say shitty if you meet the expectations what a Japanese economy car is it's that

everything's plastic that's just plastic all these things are plastic just do

that but like a little bit better yeah we're gonna go into another Volkswagen

story later on here okay and I'm gonna and you're gonna see it and you're gonna

go oh this is why Volkswagen is failing you're gonna know it you're gonna see it

and and everybody listening and watching we'll see it we got some more news to

get into tell me about on ex before we move on yes on ex off-road I use that

app more than I ever thought I would and that's not what the ad read here but

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different layers as far as who owns land that's what I use it for mostly around

me but if you're looking for the best app navigate your next adventure it is

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connected it has cell service layers it has peace of mind with like wildfire and

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for any adventure on the road on the trail or completely off of it try it

for free for seven days and hit the road with confidence download on ex off-road

today you know what I'm buying instead of this Mercedes which has only gone up

$500 in last ten minutes oh boy stupid basement remodel okay so I'm gonna

tease that later in the episode we're gonna end the episode with our art this

is gonna be a new segment going forward the year-end predictions yes you're the

year yearly predictions it's not your end because it already ended we're in

brand-new year the annual predictions coming up I have predictions I do too

I've got a couple predictions of how you'll be eating eating your words

oh no no that's where you are gonna be for the last decade or so this

manufacturer has felt like it was in cardiac arrest not dead clinically flat

a company that used to win rallies build unkilometronically flat is dead by the

way like flatline there's a reason they call flatlining dead true you're right

I'm sorry but this week something interesting is happening the language

change in motorsport has crept back in heritage got mentioned without it being

irony or comedy suddenly it sounds like a brand everyone had written off might

just have felt the paddles hit the chest mrs. producer roll the clip

mrs. producer roll she has to get the paddles to get the paddles out

oh yeah I don't have any sound you're so I can't hear it but it's okay you don't

need to hear it but this is rally cars the Evo answer Evo what brand is this

Jake the car that's this is Mitsubishi of course she be she the company that I

thought was pretty much making mini splits and like pianos and stuff yeah well

I had I had written them off from a car perspective look at these look at this

this is this is an ad this is on Mitsubishi motors TV and for some reason is

I guess Japanese so this is yeah oh yeah we had sound we had sound earlier when we

tested it anyway there's like a little bit of a well what is this that's the one

no that's it's not the new truck but there's a little there's a little clip at

the end of this okay I'm waiting right there that's it that little clip that was

what we think is a Montero yeah yeah exactly the Montero wasn't just another

SUV in its time globally known as the Pajero yeah yeah I mean do this thing

could be totally lame but I'm just I'm just excited but look at the rear you

see the rear there it looks very like defender-esque so yeah I'm with it let

me see it again see the rear like bubble yeah it does look yeah the offline and

like the rear arch yeah the Pajero had 12 wins overall at Dakar that's

domination Mitsubishi didn't dabble in rally they owned it that success was

not marketing either it felt it bled directly into production vehicles the

Montero was tough because it had to be durable because failure was not

theoretical this was Mitsubishi at its absolute peak so when Mitsubishi starts

teasing a Montero revival and wraps in motorsports language you all get a

little bit of a chubby I think you don't involve you don't invoke rallying by

accidents you don't reference Dakar unless you really want credibility for

a long time Mitsubishi people this isn't just about whether the new Montero has

the right infotainment or lane assist it's about whether Mitsubishi remembers

what made it matter in the first place whether it's a real attempt to connect

with its past or just another branding exercise wearing a familiar name if

Mitsubishi turns this thing into a soft expensive crossover with some plastic

cladding skid play cosplay it's over but if they lean into durability motorsport

DNA an actual off-road intent this could be something different not a volume

play but true credibility that is the exact car I had 1987 Mitsubishi Montero

sport two-door the short wheelbase here's the one thing dude that thing is you

need to get another one of these mine was red that was my car but I had a really

cool custom welded push bar on the front a bull bar so picture of it I was just

thinking I don't know where obviously you're not gonna be able to find it right

now but but there's one feature that if the new one doesn't have I don't care

about it it's dead to me the inclinometer in inclinometer hard to say

kilometer inclinometer M M inclinometer inclinometer I try to figure out how to

retrofit that in a month on the dash just like the biggest feature mine does my

trooper doesn't have it no anyway it will be really damn nice it really would be

real damn nice if we could get one of these you know we also be really really

nice what's that if you join the drivers club yes join what type of okay so

lowercase luxury or I'm gonna I'm gonna tease this again I think I talked about

this in in December we are doing something new for the drivers club I

highly recommend that you sign up now because we are going to be launching an

entire new drivers club system which is going to give some very exclusive

exclusive merch and items and really cool stuff that you will cherish you will

truly cherish and it's gonna be only for drivers club never gonna be sale for

sale at the rallies it's never gonna be for sale and gosh there's gonna be tons

of cool stuff that you're gonna get that you'll be able to flex that you are part

of the drivers club part of this community I'm just really excited about

it yeah head over to overcrestproductions.com for us last drivers club

obviously you get all that stuff right you get the cool things but most of all

we just appreciate your support it's one of the things that I say all the time

you know without the without that the podcast would look a lot like this yeah

we're gonna make efforts to kind of reinvest in this community and you

should definitely be part of it yep lots there's Jake I think Jake is gonna

be doing some more exclusive episodes again we're very very excited to start

really trying to give back to you guys as much as we can you know I asked on the

discord said hey what do you guys want and the most common answer is nothing

we're just here to support you but it is very very important to me that we give

back and we're very excited to do that so I'm looking forward to it very very

much okay so Mrs. Producer have the clip ready this time speaking of rally

legends it looks like our other rally friend Subaru Subaru might not be done

after all roll the clip and I want you to look and see what you see Jake tell me

what you see I see an STI it's very difficult to see but it's the first can

you start the clip over again just play it again yeah I saw the STI badge you did

see it okay it didn't show up for me that is like a really that Subaru officially

ended the STI in the 2021 model year production wrapped in early 2022 yeah at

this time Subaru was very clear that we know STI version of the current

generation of WRX emissions cost and the uncertainty around electrification made

it untenable full stop we're not doing it that makes sense that decision left a

very real hole in the brand I mean the STI stuff was the other reason Subaru was

cool otherwise it's just you know tree huggers and whatever else you want to

not gonna say it the WRX still exists but I don't want to get demonetized

the WRX still exists but the STI was always the pointy end of the stick the thing that

made Subaru matter to people who care about driving rally was not just a decal set for

Subaru it was the foundation and again getting into the same thing what that I talked about

with the Montero this better be good don't fuck with me and make this some stupid crap

that's not real if it turned into something mechanically serious it could re anchor the

entire brand if it doesn't people are gonna move on fast for the first time in years

Subaru has got me paying attention yet again come on Subaru Subaru and Mitsubishi guys come on

do it do it do it another like hot boy like just what were those I what was that segment

what was the STI in the Evo what do you call that because they're hashbacks but it's like the hot

little I don't care about I don't care about any of that I want to see Subaru and Mitsubishi

going head to head on a rally stage right that's what I want that's it I also liked and what was

cool about that was at the same time you could go to showroom floors and they were head to head

yeah yeah I mean that was the competing models that's why they competed in rallies yeah it was

awesome it's awesome it's gone it's been gone and they both this all this happened in the last

couple weeks these announcements or not in January I think was a Subaru one it's right now this is

being announced this is fresh hot off the presses news ladies and gentlemen nice yeah look at that

oh let's look at it under the little cover right there yeah all right all right we're gonna we're

gonna better be the sedan it better not be the stupid hatchback that they did in like the 2017

yeah I don't like that thing either yeah that was lame I would love a 2.5 you remember when 2.5

RS's were like three dollars and thirty cents dirt cheap so because they were oh they're not turbo

they're super slow I remember thinking that I don't want one of those they're slow now I want one

in it to do an engine swap so bad but they're really they're like Legos they just bolt in and

everyone's already done it so really expensive yes that makes sense Kai Grunitz Volkswagen brand

board member for technical development this is the name of this guy's job says our new interior

there he is that is Kai Grunitz the Volkswagen wow I love the background he used that is so uh wow

that's that's not not very Volkswagen we're gonna take no risk whatsoever look

literally there's nothing in the background like the absence of things is glaring to me like it's

literally a white room with right tables that's what's so bizarre Chris why do that it says in

the caption in the background are all the creative ideas Volkswagen has come up with in the last 20

years is that not the weirdest photo he's the VBB MTD guy nice that's that's his acronym

he has said quote our new interior architecture and play one of the clips these might have sound

our new interior architecture starting with all new id polo elevates the customer experience

to a new level clean lines high quality materials and an intuitive operating

here we go

I just want you to I'm gonna rant about this

what okay what play the next one let's just roll through these and then we'll then we'll talk about

it but no no not this one play the Volkswagen one not the mini one we're gonna get into that

nope not that one

what do you see right there Jake buttons baby the buttons are back

oh they're just showing all the buttons I'm gonna make a statement and you're gonna eat your words

from earlier in this episode sort of even though it was a heated agreement I can't hear you so

yeah mr. producer you can always turn the sound down on those a little bit if you want to there's

a little volume slider all right we're learning um buttons for sure buttons number one there's

there's two things here okay the buttons are regression as progress

okay this is a very good example okay yes there was buttons no more like Volkswagen always had

the haptic feedback things were just a little shiny black thing with no buttons um I that wasn't

it's not progress it's just oh that wasn't progress what we did before it wasn't better

so therefore wasn't defined as progress that's what I'm saying okay sure whatever but we do

have buttons back which is nice one thing that I despise though is that retro bullshit that

means what it did retro mode what did that do did you not see the the gauges were from like a

cabriolet like the square like all the fuel gauge and all the like the tachometer and the

speedometer all were from like a mark two from like an actual gauge make it a gauge just well

that's never going to happen because you know what it's way cheaper to make the software to

make the gauge go than it is to tool up and make gauges all the different little things that make

gauges yeah it's it's way do these things I don't know what their margin is and they'll never release

it but dude it's got to be so freaking high the margin on these things it's got to be incredible

this is why that when you get into a tesla there's a screen that controls everything

because it's cheap it's the cheapest way to design any of it um I was wondering however this made me

think of uh there's there's one photo I it didn't show up maybe there's another clip but we didn't

play but there's this one where it turns your radio into a tape deck it just shows like a what's

playing and then there's like a little tape with the little cogs spinning or whatever that's kind of

cool or clever I should say no it should be Winamp do you remember Winamp oh my gosh yes

there it is it should be that why aren't we doing that instead of a tape because look

yes this is what it should be if you're gonna do a throwback it should be to this not tapes

not tapes anybody that's putting yeah look at these remember how you could skin you could do

skins on your on your Winamp yes oh so good you could literally have like the pope or whatever be

your skin or some anime girl if that was your thing um scroll down mrs producer there was a whole

bunch more I'm sure this exists for some no not in the locked can you hack your tesla look at there

it is look at the cat look at the cat to Winamp was so cool did you remember geis did you ever do

geis no geis it was this oh man um mrs producer just put in the in the top of the thing there look

up I had that skin the gray one I had that one it was the gray one right yeah yeah it was like

geis 2.0 but it was like this visualizer that went with Winamp are you remembering now so in the

back of your screen it would like do all the things like the way you choose like you're yeah

why aren't we doing that as retro why is retro always have to be tapes and records there was a

period of time especially with fp3 culture that was really really fun I think it's a missed

opportunity to not be able to skin your own yeah geis here it is and it would go along with the

music I don't remember the name but I remember this yeah anyway um anyway I I think it's a

missed opportunity plus oh play the dude I play the clip of the mini the first one with uh yeah

play the first one this is

is that the welcome screen oh yeah turn the volume down a little bit would you miss this producer

or off completely was probably also fine so this is like this is in your mini

uh it's an oh it's an OLED screen they've they've talked about it being an old led screen

why are we doing this I'm asking you a legitimate question Jake why why is this happening I'm just

yeah that's the same reaction I've got is that guy right there what the bleep are we doing

does that happen every time you turn the car on because that's really annoying I don't think so

but look at this oh good you can have your hot cocoa in front of your screen what are we this is

how we sell lifestyle is what's on the screen it's different because it's a circle it's a circle

screen Chris we are selling like the lifestyle when you look at both the Volkswagen and this

Volkswagen a little more palatable than this mini thing we're selling the the lifestyle of the vehicle

by what is playing on the screen or what the screens can do well yeah that's all there is left

and guess what what someone has to make that stuff you as a consumer are paying for that

crap you're paying for it's built into your MSRP you're paying for it so you're sitting there

cheersing your little boyfriend with your mug of coffee watching the 10 hour stream of the of the

thing that people put on on the Christmas when they don't have a fireplace at their house

the you will run I just I don't understand it people need to realize they're paying for this

and to just stop um all right what do you mean stop what are you gonna do what are you gonna do

I I don't know complain what are you talking about what are you leave it up to me I will

stop buying things stop buying things why are we doing this it's it makes the things it makes

it more expensive it's it's technical inflation it's feature inflation that all kinds of crap

we're talking about that and that was very very cheap for someone to do that comparatively in in

the Heinz in like grand scheme developing a car so guess what it worked chris that's why it worked

what because we're talking about it yes that's different yeah don't buy that car it's stupid

there that's what they want people to do is look at that and see people on tiktok and instagram

going what is this mess it's two people have gone it's gone too far it's too much it's too far

just build a car it's a tool I want boring things says chris I don't want boring things

I love the mini I love what the mini represents speaking of something that is so far removed

from what it ever represented this is another brand that's way off the rails as many sure it's

basically a I don't know what capitalization L luxury it is but it's definitely upscale

and it never was before yeah many was a brand that came along when the wealth disparity

and the class warfare in britain was at an all-time high the mini led a cultural revolution

for an entire class of people that could never afford to drive post world war two getting into

you know 67 people's car of the UK for sure now what is it tell me what it is jake I don't know

it is really there's bmw still on them I think they do so it's it's even if they don't it's

whoever's brand to access a segment of upscale yuppies yeah I don't know they I hadn't thought

of many in a long time I'll put it that way so I you are at the target market that's for sure

although you would fit very well in one you would almost look like a normal-sized person

in one of those things here's the problem though they're not even mini chris I know they're not

even that small if you have a brand that you paid for named mini at least make miniature cars

that are different that way there are many more stories we got here let's let's let's roll I'm

going to skip this last story what is the last oh car plays man it's about carplay yeah we're not

going to we don't I can do that one I love carplay I have it in my truck it's nice you know what's

cool okay having a new vehicle is so weird there's some things Chris there are some feature sets that

I do like did you know when I go hey Siri guess what happens all the HVAC stops like the fan the

defrost everything pauses so it can hear me better how cool is that I didn't know that's a thing

why are you talking to Suri when you're driving around anyway because because what I wanted to call

my dad and you couldn't hear it because of the blower motor was on yeah isn't that amazing

that's dude Suri works in the in my Mercedes with a shitty continental radio with the defrost on high

it still works that doesn't turn your defrost on so it can hear you better isn't that clever

Chris that's all yeah that's it's very clever someone you're paying for that you're paying for

that nonsense all right so lots has happened in last year 2025 the average as you're complaining

about a $60,000 Volkswagen bus not bus buzz the average price of a new vehicle in the US

hit over $50,000 average the average vehicle 50 grand Jesus to keep things in perspective

manufacturers are of course walking back their plans for EVs China's BYD overtook Tesla as the

world's top seller of electric cars top seller and Porsche's left Russian stranded as we found out

yes month yeah so what do we think 2026 will bring the make a quick comment this this hold on

before we do this I just wanted to make one comment in night and this goes back to the

bus thing because you mentioned it made me think okay the MSRP of vehicles made me think of this

yeah in 1970 a base model VW Beetle deluxe sedan MSRP 1800 bucks okay base model bus 2000

sorry 2500 so by this mentality the bus should be around 40,000 dollars 40 45 but it's 60

anyway I'm just I'm just saying that it's so far removed from what it's ever was I had a whole

episode I was going to do on this but it was too convoluted with math and would get boring but I

think maybe we should revisit it which is these classic models like the Mustang has been around

forever the 911 has been around forever what is the price with inflation today versus the day they

were introduced compared to a bunch of different metrics like let's use the big Mac let's use like

the average home price and the average income of American or whatever it is and just like how do

graphs all line up have cars you also have to say that yeah I know what you're saying but you're

basically want to chart of but you also have to what do the cars do they do more they do more

they are safer performance is better I'm talking from an average consumer's point of view because

I'm with you dude but I'm the average consumer is getting more they're getting better fuel economy

they're not dying as much okay they have far higher performance the features are far higher

the cars are quieter and more comfortable that's what that's what people the manufacturer would say

yes they are more expensive but the consumer is getting so much more the problem is is that we

we've set the bar for the baseline too high so the baseline should be basically what my 2008

Mercedes is which is just car right it does have what I don't know it just you get car and you like

it it is covia derache you get car against you car you get more car you the most that you need the

most that you need is carplay and that's it I think carplay is good because I think it keeps

people paying attention off their phone I think carplay is is very good although using car this

makes me want to talk about the other thing I was talking about we can talk about it what carplay

is like mandatory or something um well okay so you know do you know about carplay ultra do you

know what that is I've never heard so so far Aston I'm going to go right into my previous news thing

Aston Martin is effectively the only manufacturer actually shipping vehicles with carplay ultra

in a meaningful form so this is like this is carplay that then runs your entire car

do you know about this at all no so it's basically like my seat settings and all my little like

customizations that you do in your car all the HVAC everything is all done with the car

with with carplay okay so this came out in when did this come out uh like 2023 I think sure and

Aston Martin has been the only company to adopt it why do you think that is um I guess cost no it's

not cost because if it was cost it would it's not cost it's not all the cars already have our

carplay built in it's not cost because they don't want to relinquish that control yes you're getting

there keep going oh what is what is one of the reasons why apple what I was going to say licensing

no it's not licensing apple is famously aggressive about user privacy oh it's privacy apple is

religious about it on device processing clear boundaries automakers on the other hand or what

oh yeah they want all the data they want all the data they're increasingly invested in monetizing

you subscriptions usage analytics behavioral insights customer tracking these two philosophies do

not align they don't align that really what it came down to I think it is I think it is I think

manufacturers don't want because then the manufacturers have to write all of their code up

to the the iOS rather than writing everything uh holistically from from like a compliance of

privacy standards compliance of privacy standards but also you then have to design your let's say

HVAC needs to be able to meet the standards of what the apple ultra needs to control it so you're

writing up you're writing up towards the apple ultra is getting at cost like you have to make the

entire you have to write the software either way you have to write the software either way because

it has to communicate with your own software too but you're relinquishing control and writing up to

apple standards so you've pretty much you're you've lost you've lost some control just an api

yes but you no longer have control of it anymore it's now all going through apple which means

they're not going to be selling your data anymore because what if you buy your car that has apple

or carplay ultra but you're not using an apple device that still exists there are still people

that don't have iPhones right so you're you still have all of your menus that can be used without

the iphone yes you would not be using the iphone anymore it works without it so yes it's us api

that talks to it yeah but i guarantee apple is not going to be down with selling your stuff to geico

it's like a religious philosophy with apple privacy yes but my whole point is that's outside of

the software that's an ancillary system that it happens to be connected to i don't think apple

is mandating that you can't have over the air like data stream outside of this i do not think that's

the case what what's your assumption of why none of these cars have apple carplay ultra then

cost you have to literally make all the apis talk to each other and you re that's already doing that

though you're already doing that with your own software that you're overlaying plus putting

apple carplay on top of it maybe currently like in my old vovo it had its own operating system

your truck has its own operating system correct they have to design that all has to work all the

modules have to talk blah blah blah so you have to write that software either way you're spending

the time doing it plus you're writing the software yourself plus you're making sure that carplay

has to do with like licensing costs like i'm sure money gets paid one way the other to license

carplay you can't just put carplay in a car and not tell apple about it there's something

with licensing and that's what it is i don't see if this i'm sure you write some of it is the

requirements of that but i don't think the primary driver is privacy or compliance with that

cost is baked in the vehicle's price um

it's generally understood that automakers integrate this deeper system as a premium

feature paying for development and licensing well others yeah so basically you pay for it

they're passing that well with the astin martin they're just passing the cost of whatever it is

onto the consumer well yeah but man i would there's other luxury brands out there dude and none of

them have done it there's gotta be a reason it's also development it's not always cost

dude this is a couple years old sure astin martin has it they're british they can never figure anything

out it's all lucas electronics inside can you imagine you remember the old intel inside ads

yeah but it was when it would say lucas inside and then the and then it would just go dark

all right new year we're in a new year all right so 2026 we had a lot of things happen in 25 so

i want to have us go on record chris of predicting things in two categories one all right is going

to be predictions about the actual industry okay the automotive industry so either surprises

or maybe the biggest story something that's going to happen in the industry and then also

predictions personally about each other okay whatever that can be do you want to go first or

should i go i'll go first with my world prediction okay i believe stick to the automotive industry

yes okay okay oh boy i well i was going to pick that we were bringing buttons back and sell it

as a feature but we i know we already saw that we already saw it so i had to come up with something

else i had to come up with something else we already saw the volkswagen is doing that their

regression as progression um i believe that amg will bring a v8 back in a halo car i think we will

see a halo car from uh from Mercedes that is powered by a giant v8 okay which we thought was

never going to happen again we thought amg was dead it was all small displacement turbo this

turbo that i think we're going to see a v8 halo car out of Mercedes that's probably right yeah we'll

see um what about you so i i was thinking about this as like the base question i originally wrote

down was like what is going to be the coolest new car in 26 what is the coolest car coolest thing

that we didn't see coming like oh my goodness i can't believe they made that which i guess is in

vain of yours too and then i i was looking and nothing was going to be that exciting to me

realistically that i thought was coming out so the coolest car in 2026 is the 2001 reno clio v6

because now you can import them 25 year gray market rule dude this is such a work around

bullshit way to come up with a prediction get out of here that's garbage i made a real prediction

about new cars this is lame you're lame well that yeah that's the dumb one but okay more fun is the

predictions about each other well basically i'm saying i don't know i don't think there's going

to be anything that exciting well you better come up with something next week so that you can be

better industry prediction yes that sucks that's lame an industry prediction that a car will be

imported lame all right so uh j i have i will actually see well we already are seeing so

it's not really a prediction either but like the the slate and some of these other like cheap ev

models i think we're going to get back to seeing models that are very bare bones basic cheap

from who who's going to be let me let me pin you down who's going to be the first

who's going to be the first major manufacturer to build something that competes with like a slate

like a base base like put an ipad in the thing we saw it a little bit

with the ford maverick but that's not basic enough i think it's going to be someone

maybe left field a little bit like um kia maybe kia comes out with something that we're like that's

actually kind of cool and it's not even an i would yeah i would i would put hunday on that

here's the prediction is there will be a new cheap kind of somewhat exciting attainable

car that is not an eb they're going to be a gas engine and it's going to be back to basics i

i think it would be hybrid before it would be gas but yes that's that's forget okay so predictions

about jake okay um i have two i think we're going to have literally the opposite predictions for

each other this is going to be interesting okay i'm going to estimate that you will say that i am

wrong 45 times plus or minus five times so someone out there the whole year 45 times that's the whole

year that's all i'm basing this on usually it's not going to be during an episode where we're talking

to doing it we've got interviews you're not even there like it's just like i'm saying 45 times wrong

at least twice this episode uh maybe someone's gonna have to keep track you know maybe this is

half your troubles i also said plus or minus five so it can be up to up to 50 as as low as as 40

um i also would i i am going to wager and this is this is high risk high reward okay okay i'm

gonna wager that you will admit that maybe you should have bought a diesel version of your truck

instead of the gas for some reason that i don't know what it is yet you will admit that it possibly

would have been a better idea okay that's okay that's well we'll we'll find out high risk high

reward i also i also have a two-part prediction for chris okay prediction one is that i think he's

gonna okay well actually three okay because i got specific with this for some reason because it's

more entertaining you're gonna sell two cars that you currently own in 2026 oh okay i don't even

know which ones but you're gonna sell two cars that you currently own in 2026 prediction number two

is you are going to buy a boat in 2026 prediction three and this is a stretch prediction three

is that you are going to buy and find need for and eat your words you're gonna buy a pickup truck

you're gonna need a pickup truck you are that's the big one you are going to just

tooth and nail fight it and maybe not even tell anyone but you're gonna be like damn it i need a

pickup truck and you're gonna buy a truck okay i will put that on the same likelihood as you

admitting diesels are great um i have thought about buying a boat though so that's that's not

probably not not too far off the boat might come first those are literally i think it's gonna happen

that order you're gonna buy a couple cars you're gonna buy a boat because now you're like i have

room in my driveway you're like damn it i need a truck and also i'm going to home depot a lot

because i had to get lumber for whatever project now that i have this house that i want to do things

with and i should have just got the truck instead of renting the truck alright i'm gonna buy a truck

but i'm not gonna tell jake that's gonna happen you know i i give that almost a zero percent chance

but that's your prediction we'll see what happens we'll have to revisit these this time next year

next year all right guys that's all we've got time for make sure you check out our partners um they

they keep the lights on and the drivers club get in um there will be a point where it's you know

where it's uh it gets too late you have to wait you have to wait and wait and wait so there's no

going back yeah the event horizon it's a drivers club event horizon um overcrestproductions.com

forest slash driver club uh check us out we would really appreciate it on that note i'm looking forward

to a great year let's do this fun stuff for overcrest let's go i'm ready anyway we'll see you guys

next week take care

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