Hurricane Charger and Stormy Industry Weather
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Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a big car made by Dodge that looks sporty and can go very fast. It has strong engines and is popular with people who like powerful cars.
Term
electric vehicles (EVs)
Electric vehicles are cars that run on electricity instead of gas. They use batteries to power electric motors, which makes them cleaner and quieter.
Car
Tesla Model S
The Tesla Model S is a fully electric car that runs on batteries instead of gas. It showed people that electric cars can be fast, practical, and good for everyday use.
Concept
government regulations
Rules made by the government tell car makers how clean and safe their cars need to be. These rules help push companies to make better, greener cars.
Concept
hybrid vehicles
Hybrid cars use both gas and electric power to help save fuel and pollute less. They switch between the two to give better mileage.
Concept
fully EV
A fully electric car runs only on electricity and doesn't use any gas. You have to plug it in to charge its battery.
Concept
plug-in hybrid
A plug-in hybrid car can be charged by plugging it in, so it can drive using only electricity for a while before using gas.
Concept
EPA emissions and fuel economy regulations
The EPA makes rules to make cars pollute less and use less gas. This helps keep the air cleaner and saves fuel.
Concept
electrification
Electrification means making cars run on electricity instead of just gas. This can be part or all of how the car moves.
Concept
electrified vehicles
Electrified cars use electricity in some way to help them run. This can be just part of the car's power or all of it.
Brand
Volvo
Volvo is a car company from Sweden that focuses on making safe cars. They are working to make all their cars run on electricity soon.
Concept
supply chain complexity
Making a car needs lots of parts and many people working together. This makes building cars a big and complicated job.
Term
EV mandate
An EV mandate is a rule that says car companies have to sell a certain number of electric cars to help the environment.
Term
fuel economy standards
Fuel economy standards are rules that make sure cars use less gas so they don't pollute as much.
Term
battery production
Battery production is how companies make the big batteries that power electric cars.
Term
bespoke platforms
Bespoke platforms mean making a car's basic design just for one place or model instead of using the same design everywhere.
Concept
global auto market
The global auto market is all the car sales happening around the world in different countries.
Car
Japanese cars
Japanese cars are cars made by companies from Japan that became very popular because they are reliable and use fuel well.
Term
TPMS
TPMS is a system in cars that checks if your tires have enough air and tells you if they don't.
Concept
backup camera mandate
Since 2017, all new cars in the US have to come with a camera that shows what's behind the car when you back up. This helps prevent accidents.
Term
infotainment
Infotainment is the screen and system in a car that lets you play music, use maps, and connect your phone.
Concept
fuel price impact on vehicle demand
When gas prices go up, people usually want cars that use less gas or run on electricity. This changes what kinds of cars people buy.
Term
C pillar
The C pillar is a part of the car's frame near the back window. It helps hold the roof up and can change how the car looks and how well you can see out the back.
Concept
muscle car
Muscle cars are cars made to be very fast and look strong. They usually have big engines and were very popular a long time ago in America.
Concept
pedestrian crash test standards
Pedestrian crash test standards are rules that make sure cars are safer for people walking near them. Cars have to be designed so they don't hurt people badly if they accidentally hit them.
Term
hatchback
A hatchback is a type of car where the back door opens up like a big lid, making it easier to put things in and take them out.
Term
Hemi V8 engine
The Hemi V8 is a type of eight-cylinder engine that makes a lot of power and is famous for its special shape inside the engine that helps it run well.
Term
Pentastar V6 engine
The Pentastar is a six-cylinder engine used in many cars and trucks that runs smoothly and is reliable.
LIVE
So we're back for the Hooniverse podcast. Ross, thank you for joining. We're back from
the Vault interlude from last week. Time traveled. Yeah, but they fit together. They
fit together. You and Johnny had a lot to say about the charger and it'll be an interesting
contrast to see now that you've had time with the charger, which we'll talk about in a little
bit. Whether your expectations were met or not or not. Yeah. Yeah. There's also been a lot that
has happened in the automotive world and manufacturing and tariff government side of things since that
conversation about I'm trying to think of the nice way to put this about fuel efficiency and
electrification that may or may not have impacted companies. Yeah. Financial desires to
continue building the cars that a year ago or last whenever that me and Johnny spoke that they
were already working on. So things have changed. There was already chatter about that. And then
we let the supply change on fire. And we also like lit a bunch of actual physical things
like actual countries on fire. Yes. No matter actually. And it's a real weird kind of thing.
We should probably just start there because it's a real weird situation where automakers pull back
from EVs at the very same time that now that energy is spiking, EVs are going to be just the thing
and they don't have or they have fewer. Well, so the whole EV craze really picked up after the
Model S came out. Then every automaker was chasing the Model S. They got to the point
in their development cycles, which I think probably just coincided nicely with government
regulations at the time that were helpful in the development of EVs, not just as replacements for
vehicles in lineups, but as supplemental vehicles and as lineup, full lineups.
And we saw a lot of hybrids, a lot of electric cars in the 2018 to 2022 range.
And then things changed. But the reason why we saw all those cars though was like everybody saw
Tesla. I think they saw them as a threat because not because they were profitable because Tesla
wasn't profitable for quite a long time. But the difference was that they really proved you could
do a mainstream like viable. This is your only car EV. And when they started buying Tesla and
taking them apart to figure out how they did it, they were blown away by some of the innovation
and just some of the way they put that car together, even at the price. And we're 15 years
really plus the initial start of everything where everybody started growing hybrid first and then
plug-in hybrid and then fully EV. And the regulations, the EPA with emissions and then fuel economy,
both together were also pushing things toward the only viable solution being
further electrification. And now that's lit on fire. And nobody knows what our regulatory
environment is going to be. And the crazy thing here is that it used to feel like,
at least when I was growing up, what I was taught, for something to go through the government,
it would take forever. And it would be years and years and years for some kind of regulation
change to take place. And it seems to have like flopped a little bit. A lot. And concurrently.
Yeah, very. I mean, while that regulation side of things has changed, and I admit I know
nothing about the government. Most of the stuff I know about the government is from the West Wing.
That's okay. Most of our government doesn't know about the government right now. Most of our government
doesn't really have any government experience either. But automakers and manufacturing and
building cars is a very difficult, a very involved and a very complicated process. So if the person
in office says, and this is I'm making this up in the spot, this isn't real at all, saying in 10
years, every car has to be electric. Every car sold here has to be electric or electrified,
which is why we saw a lot of the conversations about like, and disputes about Volvo saying all
our cars will be electric, because they were saying they'll be electrified electrified. I'd
like to say they will just be electric. But if the government says in 10 years, every vehicle needs to
be electric, that means the manufacturing companies need to start working on that, like the second
that is said, because there's the depths of the supply chain are immense. There's tens, if not
hundreds of thousands of components and pieces and hands that get touched over the lifecycle between
when a car is first seen on an assembly line and shows up at the, you know, dealer for you to pick
up. And we saw that change over in the timeframe, as the automakers tried to bring, quote unquote,
to fruition all of their electric cars, while the government was also saying, no, you don't need
electric, fine, whatever, you don't know. No, no, gas, gas, gas, diesel, good.
The thing is, though, and there's talk like, oh, there was an EV mandate. No, there wasn't.
There was fuel economy standards that continued to get further more efficient, which they honestly,
they should. And you saw the EVs, the way they all went into the market followed the Tesla model to
a large degree where they start premium and then you filter it down. It's like the automotive
which Rivian is, I mean, we're seeing it right now. The R2, the Rivian R2 is the most expensive
is coming out first and batteries were expensive. The cost of batteries has come down a lot. We
didn't have battery production here. Like it takes a really long time to stand up the industry,
to stand up the supply chain and to just get that stuff moving. The only thing I remember being
as fast as this last change where they were like, yeah, I know all those EPA roles and stuff that
we talked about, forget it. Now, the automakers are like, we're still going to do it because we're
global companies. We don't have really bespoke platforms for the US. Your market's not big enough.
I mean, it is and it isn't, right? Like we have, I think the second biggest auto market, but it's
a lot smaller than China. China, I think sells five or six million more cars per year on a predominantly
electric at this point. Yes. And on a population that's three times our size. So there is that,
but also Europe isn't a big enough market either. You can't just do the English auto industry anymore.
They have to share a lot of stuff. It's so expensive to do.
And we're a long time past since when America and like the new Western world and the creation
of highways and the American dream and all that stuff was really like capturing everybody's
imagination. And that's what drove car culture and car development until the 70s when Japanese cars
really took off. And now we're seeing probably the next phase of new, of really like a change over.
I mean, things can't grow forever and needs change, right? And so there's always that inertia and just
all kinds of other stuff around it. Like, you know, the cost of money has gone up now. We'll see how
long that lasts when money gets cheaper, you know, expensive cars happen. But the only thing I think
that was as fast as that rollback, which is just going to cause chaos is the implementation of TPMS.
And that's why with like early TPMS, there were so many different systems. It wasn't all that
reliable. It people hated it to a degree because it would sometimes give you the false warning
light. But that had to be implemented. Like there was a hard date for that. And some auto
automaker platforms were in the middle of a cycle, and they didn't have the tech to do TPMS
like we do now. So they came up with other ways to do it because it had to happen.
But it was 20 to 2007 or something. It was like hard date. This goes into every car. And so some
cars use the the wheel speed sensors to compare across the axles. The diameters would be different
if they were under inflated. And like it was great rotation over a constant velocity.
Interesting to see what you could do with older hardware. But that was everybody freaked out because
explorers started blowing tires and rolling over and they were like, no, now we need tire pressure
monitors. But it's not a bad idea. But it's a good idea. We also we 10 years after that,
literally, we saw the mandate for backup cameras hit. I think it was I think 2017 was the reverse
camera forced mandate. And cars like the ND Miata had already been like two years into their cycle.
And they had to figure out like what how do we thankfully like there was already
infotainment at that point. But there's a lot of rejiggering that the companies have to do.
Now it's a long lead. It's a long lead manufacturing.
We won't get into it. But I'm just saying fuel prices are now spiking.
Depending on how long it goes, fuel prices are going to spike. Also, the thing that you
don't really see yet, but you will. So gas prices spike that tends to drive a high percent,
like I think 20% depending on how they go up. It causes like when gas goes to $4
gallon that drives a certain not insignificant percentage of people towards buying more fuel
efficient vehicles. Well, we just had a whole switch over where we pulled back on EVs. We
the ones who have hybrids are okay if they can keep up with demand. Demand might not be all
that hot because nobody can afford anything right now. So this cost of living hasn't really
gone up and the cost of everything has. I said that wrong. Cost of living has gone up,
wages haven't, everything else has. But the thing that we haven't seen yet really,
but we will very soon, is all of those raw materials, all of the shipping costs. Because
if you start to pay attention to what's happening with even just shipping on the continent,
so like something comes into a port in California to get it to the east coast,
it's going to be a lot more expensive. Diesel is like five or six bucks a gallon.
It's coming by train. It's either coming by train or truck.
And trains are diesel. So they don't run on coal anymore. So that's going to get,
it's more efficient, but it's going to get more expensive. Shipping across the ocean on a ship,
they run on bunker, but that's still essentially like that's like asphalt. So it's still a petroleum
byproduct. Horrible for the environment. Oh, it's terrible. Like the worst.
And then the raw material, like aluminum, the Middle East makes a lot of aluminum.
Lots and lots and lots of aluminum. Guess what EVs use a lot of? I mean, guess what most cars use
a lot of? Surprise. Yeah. F-150s, 10 years into its aluminum body. Yeah, they also had a plant
burned down, which... Oh, that wasn't, that was... It cost them a billion or two right off the top.
They came out and said it, they missed their guidance. They were like, yeah,
our supplier costs are going up because of that aluminum plant. And the, like the volume,
like that's their flagship product. Yeah. But no, efficiency in the modern era is expensive.
And that is the cost of, I guess, complication is the best way to say it because we have so many
technological and safety and creature comfort requirements that people consider
necessary right now. Yeah. You know, like let's, let's take a 1991, I don't know, Camry,
and put all of the airbags and all of the tech and all of the crash structure that's in a 2026
Camry into that car. The gas mileage would be a third of what it was on the original car.
I don't necessarily mind sort of readjusting the regulations. I think footprint was dumb. That's
kind of why we have such huge cars now. Car footprint or... No, the, like the footprint
of the current cafe requirements. This is also like the stupid 6,500 pound GVWR thing where
you pay taxes different. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like that was typically like a farm or commercial
vehicle. And then we just started making enormous personal vehicles. So I think they tweaked it.
I think it's now higher, but still. Yeah. There's like just a lot of weirdness for
economic things driving our market to be the way it is. And yeah. So automakers at this point,
like they just pulled back on EVs. I feel the worst for Honda because they were,
they didn't really have a great hybrid. They didn't, they didn't move fast. Well, no, they did.
Well, I mean, the CRV hybrid and the Civic hybrid are both fantastic. They're not,
they're not like interesting or appealing. I really like the last car. The Civic based
Insight was like the last year. With like the slight wheel covers on the very top.
No. And it just was like the prior one. I think that was the prior one. No, was that the,
was that the FZ? The first one, the first Insight was like a teardrop shape. It came out in like
1999. It was in a, it was what, uh, what's his name drove in the day after tomorrow.
Jake Gyllenhaal. No, no, his dad, who is also probably...
Isn't that Liam Neeson? I think it was Liam Neeson.
No, it's worse. I think it was Dennis Quaid. Oh, that is worse.
Yeah. So the first generation Insight was a little weird. The second gen was just,
it was just a terrible car. I find it was efficient, but I, it was awful.
They finally got it right on the third try. Oh, that thing was heinous.
Right? It felt like a cheat piece of junk. They also did the C,
they did the CRZ at the same time, which was... I thought the CZ was kind of fun.
It was actually kind of cool. It was kind of cool. It was like a, I like CRZ.
I think the problem was that, uh, people expected it to be like the CRX because just
sort of how it was sort of positioned in it. It really wasn't, but it was still fun.
The shape and the name. Yeah. Um, I enjoyed that car. The, but the final gen Insight,
which they just killed here, and they, I think there's a new gen Insight,
but it's not for the US. It's for Japan only. Um, so I don't, I don't really know anything
about that one. But the last gen Insight was basically like a Civic with a nice interior.
And it looked a little different, but it was the same basic body shell.
That was great. But they also didn't have an EV. They had to go to GM for their EV.
Yes. And they built this prologue thing, but they also spent an ass load of money on hydrogen
at the same time. Uh, yeah, them and Toyota. So the thing with hydrogen, hydrogen
is petroleum. That's, that's how we get hydrogen. It's, it's a natural gas byproduct.
We don't crack water. If you tried, if you tried to crack water for hydrogen,
you would need a giant nuke plant or some even bigger coal plant or an actual gas plant.
Like 10, like just electrolysis is just, it's expensive.
Yeah. Yes. It burns clean. Fine. If you want to burn stuff, it's no, but it's just a matter of like
public exception and critical mass and availability and like too big to fail.
That's the oil industry right now. There's also no infrastructure for it.
Like you've got two suppliers, I think for hydrogen, which are like air,
gas and Linda or Linda or whatever. LIND. Those are basically the two suppliers that
have it locked up and the amount of hydrogen you would need as motor fuel just doesn't exist.
If everybody transitioned to it and you would, you would really harm the healthcare industry
that uses a lot of hydrogen, a lot of liquid hydrogen. What do you think cools an MRI?
So good luck, fellas. Good luck. So yeah. So all of that is to say when we started reading about
the electric came in and box like four years ago and then about a year ago, we started reading
like they might kill it. They might not kill it. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that we
are not privy to that must not be a decision they're taking lightly, but everybody's
taking write downs. It's wild. Like Ford took a huge write down. Honda just also took a big
write down. It's going to hurt their businesses to the point where I don't know whether they're
going to recover. People in finance much smarter than myself that are probably part of the reason
those write downs exist and there's drama in them and the money that they're investing is
is probably making them the money back. So who knows? I think some of it is like
not perpetuating the sunk cost fallacy, right? Where you're like, well, we've invested this much.
We want to get a return on it. It's like that money's gone. It's not coming back. Stop throwing
good money after bad. It's just so big. So do you think there will be an electric
came in inboxer? They were always going to make was it going to be exclusive? I was always a little
gray area. First it was going to be the 9 11 be gas that came in a boxer would be electric and then
the rumors were swirling that it would be both that both platforms would live concurrently.
And then now we're hearing that electric might be dead. The electric
two seat Porsches might be dead. Who knows? That's a weird one because there's a market
for that. There's no Tesla. You think so? There's supposed to be a Tesla roadster right now. It's
in space. I say it's weird because Porsche, if any company could pull it off, Porsche could pull it
off. Because their customer base will buy it. Hey, you buy this and you get on the list for the next
hyper GT or whatever. Right. Also, the performance is not bad. And Porsche,
you can trust that it's not going to be like taking your Model S to the track
and having it overheat after half a lap. Like, no, the Porsche is going to be engineered. So you
can just continue. Yeah, the tycoons don't fuck around. Right. So it's going to be verified
performance. I don't know. I think in the short term, probably not. They'll either just delay the car
and continue building the old one and see what happens. But they're a global manufacturer.
Porsche are popular everywhere as a status car. They have to sell them in China too. Not just here,
but they can dual line it. It's a weird, weird world out there.
Again, how long does this nonsense with oil crisis last? I say this all the time, right?
The electric car is fuel agnostic. Just give it a sign wave. It doesn't care what makes it.
Yeah. Because if the plant that makes the energy that you charge the car at your house with
runs out of gas, they'll find another way. That's like, they'll find another way.
I mean, you could, anything that burns at that point. But it's like one of those,
you could power your car with a treadmill or solar, which again, for whatever reason,
while we want to be energy independent, we have now made all of those alternative forms of energy
more expensive and penalized the companies trying to develop those.
The strangest thing to me like, yes, we want to be energy independent, but only if it's oil.
If it's not oil, we don't want it, which is strange. We built a huge pipeline in Alaska, so.
Yeah. They did just finish Vineyard Wind, which is nice off the coast of Cape Cod.
Off the coast. Yeah. That was in contention when I was in middle school or high school,
because people were pissed off that they would see like a little stack.
Oh, spoil the view. Yeah, spoil the view. If you were sitting on the beach, you would see
not even the tip of a toothpick on the horizon, and people were like, no, I can't have that.
If I have to see wealthy people on, if I go to the Vineyard, which I
not a place to hang out, but if I have to go there and see wealthy people in those stupid
pinkish red shorts being the type of people that they are, if I have to be around that,
they can look at a window. That's fine. Vineyard Vines, the headquarters,
and the company was founded in my town. It's not even on the Vineyard?
Not even close, man. It's terrible. No, no, no. All right, we've rambled about this for a long time.
But anyway, like this does dovetail. Wow, we've avoided the politics.
There's the reality of the situation. But yeah, mostly it's automakers are in a tough
spot. So we'll see. What should we pivot to? I forget. I don't have my notes in front of me.
Charger, the Dodge Charger. The Dodge Charger. The Dodge Charger brings us to exactly how
fucked they are. All right, so I have a 2026 Dodge Charger RT Scat Pack for press loan this week.
And so in 2014, I bought a Challenger. Right. That's not a charger. That's a Challenger.
14. This is Jesus Christ. That's before the new interior, right? That was the last year before
the new interior. I bought it six weeks before they announced the new interior, which I was very
happy about because I didn't know there was going to be a new interior. But it was a 5.7 car with
six speed and like the quote unquote track pack, which was just like better pads, a limited slip.
And I think it was like five millimeters lower or something in consequential.
But at the time, I thought that was very much like the ethos of the big two door
Dodge Coupe, you know, like grand tourer and just comfortable and fast enough to be fun.
But the big emphasis was sound and comfort and that simplicity factor.
It's a great car. It's a fantastic Thunderbird was what I called the Challenger.
Fantastic Thunderbird, especially the GT. So I had mine for two years. I drove it like
through the winters and everything. I put 50,000 miles on it in two years.
And then I got rid of it because I wanted to simplify things. But that perspective of a car,
which at the time was like 4100 pounds. And just for context, the last Challenger I drove before
this press car showed up charger in this case. But this one on the screen was a 2023 RT Swinger.
So it was a swing. It was one of those last call cars. It's got a shaker hood and a wide body.
Yeah, the six four and the wide body and the six.
I thought it was an awesome, awesome looking car.
And at the time, like, Hellcats are great. Hellcats are fun. They're silly. They make you laugh,
but they're not make you giggle. They're not. They're not the full. They're not like the core
Challenger experience. And I thought by the time the last car died, like this was the
this was at the swing, you know, like a wide body, the not supercharged but still
enormous VA and a stick and cloth seats. Like that was really where it was at. Yeah.
So this new car. So the first things first, and I'm going to preface all of this
by saying I hear you, Robbie, you think I'm extremely negative when it comes to new cars.
But I think my justification is there. So yeah, so this 2026 charger.
So first of all, bear in mind that they're making a two door and a four door on the same
platform platform, same wheelbase, same wheelbase and the same overall length.
So which is like the old days. That's what they used to do. Yeah, it's like the old days. Sure.
It's not the old days anymore. But I mean, that's also that's their customer.
That is their customer. You're not wrong. You're not which contradicts some of what we'll get to.
So because the wheelbase is so long and because they are doing a two door and a four door
platform, the door on this thing is absolutely enormous. And in a normal parking spot, in a
back seats are usable and all that stuff. But I genuinely had a hard time like even just getting
in and out of it alone, like in a parking spot, you mean in a normal parking spot. And I think
I'm relatively nimble from the side profile. I just think it's a little weird. Like I think
from the front three quarter and the back three quarter, it's a great looking car. They nailed it.
The one I have is the gas version. The electric version has that swooping hood with the crazy
vent that sends it up over. The side profile is just a little strange in the two door,
just proportionally like the the C pillars a little too big and the fronts a little too
melty, you know, and it's, I don't know, feel the the prior car was perfect dimensionally.
Like it was quintessential muscle car and this maybe it'll just take some time to get used to.
Yeah, that always happens. I see a lot of like 68, 69, 70 charger in this.
I see that too. Whereas the the challenger was obviously the challenger, right? Like it was
pretty, it was so well done that it when they first debuted that that car as a prototype or
concept, people were like, Oh, what would they do with the old car? Like they just and when you
park them next to each other, the new one in the old one or they're they're nothing alike,
but they just nailed the look and the stance and everything. So and we've had that car for like
20 years now. So it's 2008 to 2025. So they got their life out of it. I see what you're saying
where it's like the hood kind of on the new car. It's like you would want it to be more gradual
where it does kind of kind of droop. And I wonder if some of that is what they had to do for for like
passenger like for pedestrian crash test standards. And then the C pillar, I didn't realize it's a
hatchback. So how's visibility? It is a hatchback. Visibility backwards is fine. Visibility forwards
is not fine because it is dude with the hatch open, it is comical. Like to take this picture
that I'm about to show you, I had I had to hold the phone above my head just to put it
at the same level as the like middle part of the hatch. And interesting too,
the hatch goes up with power, but it only closes manually. Well, it's weighs like 1600 pounds.
So don't get in the way. It's probably it's a guillotine. It'll be a Cybertruck hood effect
where your finger just disappears. Yeah, I mean, it's that's that makes it more useful,
which I think like as a car, it's got some nice touches and some some thoughtful,
thoughtful design and some thought went into making it. It took a long time to get here,
though. And the powertrain thing, they sort of whiffed by having an EV first from a brand that's
not really like they just didn't have EV customers that had never done an EV prior and right was
basically launching their short of the Viper, their flagship has an EV. I don't know what happened,
but but Stalantis and an EV and hybrid stuff like they yeah, they don't have.
See, I wonder if when they started developing this car, they said, if we make it electric,
we can make it faster than anything else. And then by the time it actually got to implementation,
they realized that making it electric makes it like 2000 pounds heavier than or 1600
pounds heavier than the last car, which was probably concurrent with the oh, we can do a gas
engine, you know, psych of the whole government thing. And then they had already at that time,
decided to phase out the Hemi, which they have since phased back in with the with the ram trucks,
which makes you wonder if. Yeah, well, and we can day will come.
Can talk about that in a minute, because I have a feeling there'll be something at some point,
but the the five seven. It's not that powerful. Like it's like, it's there for the noise.
And I'm on my mind. You and Johnnie talked about this, too.
Where by modern standards, not a lot of no. But it's got the drama, which is what I think people
want and fine. But emissions wise, the only reason it's coming back is because the standards are
a little looser, right? Emissions allows them to bring it back. But it's it's just the money
that they would have to spend to update that engine to meet the mission standards that were
impending or the efficiency standards, because they're kind of both the same thing, emissions
and efficiency to a degree. The was just like it wasn't wasn't going to happen. There weren't enough
applications for a Hemi V eight. And the six cylinder, the hurricane. It's the hurricane.
Hurricane. Yeah, I six. Yeah, just more, more flexible architecture. And that's a modular
architecture. So the V eight is nothing but a V eight, unless you make a 90 degree v six,
which has its own set of issues. And they've got the Pentastars. So they really don't need
the V eight based v six. It's not the 80s. Right. So there was no point really for the Hemi,
except for the big trucks. And by the time you get to the big trucks, you could also
eventually see a heavier duty version of the hurricane with turbocharging and electric
assist together to get into the truck market. The Ram E rev that they're going to make the
I forget what they're calling it. But there is a they were supposed to be an electric
gram. Now they're doing range extended ram. Right. But yeah, this this I six. So I've driven it in
this is the third think the third vehicle that I've driven with the hurricane in it.
The first was Grand Wagoneer that I took on a road trip last summer, which was perfect application
for it. I had it in a Ram 1500, and it was fine.
And in the 1500 in the Ram 1500, that twin turbo I six has like
80 more horsepower. And there's so much sense in that ton more torque. Yeah,
then the 57 Yeah, no, it makes so much sense. Better gas mileage, better throttle response,
better torque for towing, like it's almost like a little it's also a gas version of a diesel.
Right. And everybody's like, Oh, when you tow with the turbo engines, they get bad miles when
you tow with anything gets bad mileage. Yes. Yeah, you don't get to choose towing mileage is
shit, regardless of what you're doing, unless you got a heavy duty diesel when you're towing a
light load, right? It is. The problem with that I have with this, at least is that
it feels like we gave away all of the glory and the oral pleasure of that's a URL of the V8s
in the sake of this proposed new theoretical efficiency. And I'm not getting any better
gas mileage out of this car than out of the last one that I drove and I'm driving them similarly.
Mm hmm. And this car sounds horrible. Like, I'm not saying that lightly, because I think a
nicely tuned straight six, even a turbocharged one, like a B 58 or something is a great sound
in motor. This one just they did what Dodge does best and they favored volume over tonality.
So it's just it sounds I'm going to get all of them. It's loud and raspy, right?
Loud and raspy. Broken. It's just loud. It's just like they did it for the sake of trying to
prove something not for the sake of loud for a purpose. And it drones and it's just
permanently present. And the only time that the noise goes away is when start stop comes on. And
between that and the gearbox, like dragging the one to shift, like really, really like
is it just like syrupy between the two like just slides into gear, do like a three count between
the one to shift, you know, and between that and then the cars all wheel drive, you know,
they tune the diffs like there's a small change in height to get into my driveway.
And if you do that or really tight turn, you can feel the diffs like chattering front rear side
to side because it doesn't really understand where it should be sending power between all of that.
It's just not a pleasant drivetrain or powertrain to interact with. Yeah. And I know that doesn't
necessarily carry a ton of weight with it because it's not like the five seven and the six four were,
you know, marvels of modern manufacturing or anything. But with such
like a generational gap between when the last car debuted with those powertrains and yes,
it feels like a lateral. Yeah, I sense your disappointment across the internet.
It feels like a like wrong place, wrong time or just like a lateral misstep in what
if they hadn't been partially forced to create an electrified car from the get go.
And also if they, you know, had spent the money to develop just a cleaner, more efficient V8,
like all of this could have been avoided, you know, and a lot of that is out of our control. A lot of
that is stuff that we can't deal with that will never have a say in. I think there's blame here
and the blame really goes to mismanagement and it goes to Carlos Tavaresh because I think
there was money, especially post pandemic or during the pandemic. Ram was the money engine.
Yeah. All right. And I certainly believe that even even the old, I mean, they had old hardware,
right? So even the 300 and Challenger and stuff, like that's just long amortized,
long paid off. The car is still sold, like, you know, like they still had something to sell.
But they really leaned, they took all the money from the North American operation
when Stellantis bought FCA and they used it on European product, which in and of itself isn't
necessarily the worst thing if they're going to share the platforms and they did.
The problem is they didn't get what we buy, right? So they came, they came out with the Hornet,
for example, and we talked about this just before the podcast. So the Hornet was super expensive,
has this weird powertrain in it from the Tonali that defaults to rear drive until it detects slip
or whatever. And then it gives you all the things that like they they wag around.
It's got a power boost thing. It's it's tight. It's expensive. It's just it's not the right size.
It's not the right price. Again, wrong place, wrong time. Yeah. They killed the Cherokee,
the KL Cherokee. They but they had that, that I think it was called the Avenger in Europe,
which was like a slightly smaller than Cherokee electrified car. Yeah, which is like that's
all electric. I don't know what platform that's on that was supposed to come here. It's not coming
here. They just replaced the Cherokees. That's the new thing that's out now, which, you know,
you'll get it. You'll tell me what you think of it. We'll talk about it when we get there.
But it's it's hybrid, right? It's 1.5 liter. So it's a one point and I think it's the new
four cylinder. That might be one. Yeah, it's like the the same architecture as it's the hard scaled
up hurricane. Right. As the new two liter hurricane that's in the Grand Cherokee. Right.
And that the Grand Cherokee, you know, since they've redid that to be the WL,
that started with the Hemmy and the long wheelbase versions. And then it's it's either
Pentastar or the four by E, which has the GME. The GME is a terrible engine.
Let me tell you, like it's fine ish. But it's it's just you say that as a notar. So
yeah, it's your more experience. It's it's also loud and crappy sounding. And if apparently the
thing is if you run premium in it, it smooths out a bit because you can get more timing out of it.
But it's like, great. I'm not running premium in it. Like that's just why anybody bought a four by
E. So I went all right. And I went from a Pentastar. So very similar, right? Like I went from the WK2
with the Pentastar really refined in what it does. Not the most refined vehicle on the road,
but everything works together really nicely. They sweat the details on that.
So very similar to your Challenger. And then I step into the new one. And it feels like
that I think the thing for the automakers is when it's not just the parts like we were talking about
with Vaughan in the last episode, or second, whenever he was on, where it's not just putting
the parts together, it's making them work together. And like that's even when you have like a project
car. You know, it's making sure everything kind of functions properly. The handoffs are right.
The shift points are correct. Just everything. That's integration. And that's like,
it feels like Chrysler lost a lot of integration talent because the Grand Cherokee doesn't feel
well integrated. It's like clunky and clumsy. This doesn't seem well integrated. And I think
what you're talking about is it would be better if it felt better. It's that feeling like this
feels like a prototype. Less is more. It does. And it's also, I mean, we're seeing the culmination of
Stalant is only having like fucking five platforms across this whole lineup.
That's the other thing, right? It's trying to emulate VW and they're not doing a good job
doing a good job being VW. Well, no, but five years ago, like with MQB, it was a perfect
demonstration of what you can do with, you know, effectively one formula. Well,
but they had to, they had to, they had MQB and M-E-B. And like that's the thing that both of
those platforms have one fixed dimension, which so it's very good. It's very clever. But they didn't
do a gas and electric together on the same platform. They split them. And that's, I think,
a huge compromise here is it's EV and it's gas. And I will tell you, I drove a gas-powered WL
Grand Cherokee. Feels great. It's, again, it's the Pentastar, the 8-speed ZF, like it's solid,
you know, very stiff structure that we figured out is the Georgia platform. And so it's like,
it drives really well. When you put the batteries in the middle of it and the electric motors inside,
it doesn't drive as well. It's, it's not as good. It's compromised. And so like you can't,
you would, you're better off making a separate electric platform that
takes everything. I just don't think they could afford it.
Trying to be everything to everyone. And it's, and just to, like, jump off what you were just
saying, the one sole thing that I noticed an enormous improvement in this car versus the last
one is, is chassis rigidity. Yeah. Shocker. It's a 20-year newer chassis, you know. But it's,
you know, that's, that's, it's like, what have we given up for? What have we gained?
You know, I made a list. I made a list of things that Rob, you will love me here, complain about.
And also, for what it's worth, I think it's a shit ton of attention.
Like, it's beautiful. It's a great looking car.
Part of it is the color. The color is called Bluedacris.
Oh, it's not B5 blue?
No, it's called Bluedacris now, which I told my wife that and she literally like,
I could feel her reeling.
That's so unbranded, but man, a little cringy.
Yeah. So yeah, the interior, I just, I also wanted to share this because the interior is
like it's big, it's spacious. The, the amount of real estate between the rear view mirror and the
dash is like, like I can put my hand like this and it'll touch ball at the same time.
That's not good.
It's not good. And also the interior. So this is a name drop because they have this,
they have like a ridge between the door panel with the switches and the actual door card itself.
So it's like a gap there?
Yeah.
It's a physical gap that I can fit my hand between and it runs all the way around the dashboard,
like all the way.
That's for visual drama.
It's dramatic.
It's for visual drama.
You get the lighting that bounces off there, which is why I shut that off.
Jesus Christ.
They call the lighting here and you can see it runs all the way around and it's such a big gap on
the dashboard that you can fit the actual key between the airbag and dash and like the actual
like core part of the dash. And since you mentioned the lighting, I have a picture of it,
of what they call the lighting, which is even cringier than the name of the paint.
But wait, I want you to read this on there. What do they call the interior ambient lighting?
Attitude adjustment lighting. That's great.
I mean, they've boxed themselves in with the brand so badly.
They really have boxed themselves in.
Like I thought for a long time it would be a fun brand to work on.
It still probably would, but they're a little bit
in and lost in the forest right now.
Yeah.
So okay, so backing up.
So I sent namedrop Larry Casilla a picture of the gap between the
control panels and like the door cards.
And basically said like, you're going to have a miserable fucking time with this thing.
And his response was damn with like a bunch of abs.
So and he's, what is he? He's ammo NYC?
Yeah, he's a master detailer who's coming on the show soon.
So awesome tuned.
There we go.
Yeah. And just to wrap up my rent about the charger,
uh, you connect in this application is like click.
Okay. Now the screen is there.
Is this you connect five?
It's you connect five.
I don't know if it has the most recent software, but it should.
And yeah, you know, the last one like in the last challenger was fast and it was
functional.
You had a 14.
So you had you connect four.
No, no, mine was you connected.
My car was horrible.
I'm talking about the last challenger.
Oh, the last ones you have in 2023.
Like it was great.
That might also not have had you connect five though,
just the architecture of that platform.
Yeah, the bigger screen.
It wasn't it wasn't about to be just like four, but like the later version of four.
They were great.
And yeah, okay.
My rent about the charger will be done after we discuss this.
Okay.
This car base price of $55,000.
The one here is 68 three.
The things you can buy with $68,000.
Right.
Brand new awful lot Mustang with a performance pack.
You probably even get a dark horse.
You get an M2.
You get a CT4V black wing.
You know, you get two meadas.
Like there's 68 grand for something as compromised as this.
In my mind is, is you're playing to your core fan base.
You know, they're going to spend the money on it.
That's it.
Do you think that I would never consider this charger as a Mustang cross shop?
I guess because it's a two door, you know, I can see that because of the engine.
I just, it's just not the same kind of car.
Not even close.
You know, and not, I mean, for the money, I just wouldn't consider it at all.
I just think that's abusively expensive.
Like also that.
But I think since like 2015 when the revised Challenger came out, like they were GTs,
they were Grand Touring cars that when you put your foot down, you had a good time.
Other than that, they were cruisers.
The Mustang is a sports car.
It's effectively a sports car.
It has evolved into a sports car.
And it's, you're right.
You're right.
The Challenger was always the thing where it was like, it's not going to embarrass itself,
but it's definitely not going to keep up with the Camaro or the Mustang.
We both evolved into sports cars.
So I think this car's two closest competitors are probably like a M440 or CT4 Blackwing.
You know, just, I would buy the Caddy.
I'm buying the Caddy.
I'm buying, come on, man.
I don't know if there are any cars on sale today that I would buy over the Caddy for that money.
Blanket statement.
That's just a 68K for like, this is the replacement for a car that was like,
it started off in the mid 20s, right?
Like the, when it came out, I realized it was 20 years ago.
But when it came out, the Charger four door base model was, it had to have been like 27, 28.
Yeah.
Right.
And now the base four door Chargers like 52 or something.
That's unconscionable.
You're not going to be able to sell those.
The brand has problems already, right?
Like it's, no, especially with everything stacked up.
And they've been so slow to bring it to market and they, I don't know.
I like the car.
I, it sounds like we're so negative.
I've realized that we're like, we are from New England.
We do hate everything.
So just deal with that.
This is true.
But everybody take that with a grain of salt.
Also, we hate salt.
But yeah, the, I hate it on the roads.
Like it on my pretzels.
But yeah, the, yeah.
Chips and lots of rolls.
But the, the, the problem with Dodge and, and every still anxious brand right now is
they kind of, they put themselves in a hole and they haven't been able to dig out.
And I, I, God, I hope they make it there.
They are, I am a mobile guy.
So same.
I bought one.
I grew up in a Jeep house.
I still love Jeep, but like, I think the problem now is the cycle of,
it used to be you dug yourself in the hole and by the time, and you knew that by the
time you got out of the hole, things would have been like stabilized in the economy,
sort of, and the government, sort of, now the companies are looking to dig themselves
out of holes with no semblance whatsoever of what might be the case by the time they can
turn around their entire five, 10 year business plans and, you know, five, 10 year manufacturing
leads and a whole bunch of fuckery.
I mean, just overall, the shape of the company is a little rough.
I think maybe if they bring, if they bring a compact pickup or a mid-sized pickup, they might,
you know, they might decode it themselves out of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hey, we've seen Maverick despite, you know, infinite recalls.
Maverick has done well for Ford.
Tacoma still doing well for Toyota.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's room in the market for that, but not that much room, so they got to move.
And, you know, I do honestly hope they get their act together.
So we've talked about two things for an hour.
Can we be a little cheerier?
Can we pivot to any more positive vibes we can give our listeners?
Oh, man, positive vibes.
New York Auto Show is...
It's going to happen.
Yeah, it's in two weeks.
So anybody, anybody go and give me a shout.
I'll be there.
Camille and I will be doing our usual shit-talking shenanigans.
Hopefully you won't pull any roof racks off of Landcruisers this year.
That was, I have a picture of that happening.
It was so funny.
You went up to like the, they had the Heritage Edition Landcruiser there with the Yakama rack on top
and he went to like ask the press lady something and he like put his hand on it and the fucking
thing just like started to fall off.
Oh, it wasn't even like secured?
It wasn't bolted down.
It's just like, oh, oh my God.
It leaves a big gouge on the side.
That's awesome.
Anybody go and give me a shout.
What do you think I'm going to see there?
I think we're going to see the VW Atlas.
That's very exciting.
Yay. Yeah, the new Atlas.
That'll be very exciting.
BMW has no presence.
I was informed by their press officer or whoever it was, but yeah, they will not have a presence
at the Auto Show.
Okay.
Who has Jeep always?
Yeah, Jeep always puts on a fucking show.
Well, there's going to be Camp Jeep, right?
In front of the Javits, there's going to be the ramps and stuff.
Yeah, I don't know.
The New York Auto Show has just bets over the last like five years over all the indoor EV test
tracks.
Oh, they'll have that again.
They'll have that again.
I don't know, Chevy's, it's been like the first public appearance of like
Z06 and Z01 a couple of times, I think.
But we have those.
Yeah, I can say they don't really have it then.
So, transport, maybe transport, maybe Ford's cook it up, something.
Ford might do something.
I was wondering actually if they're going to, I don't know that they're, it may be too soon
for them to do anything with their universal EV, so with their like EV truck.
It might be a little too soon, but they'll probably do something that's related to it.
Detroit next year will be when they want to do that.
But they'll probably drip out some sort of additional story or something.
And usually Ford does, I'm trying to think, they would do a Mustang thing there.
So like they did a Shelby one year.
They had Carroll Shelby there one of the years I was there, and I think at 08.
So that must be a long time ago because he's dead now.
He's been gone a minute.
That was the year I remember sitting in the redesigned Focus and just I was absolutely
appalled by that car.
I was like, wait, first it's ugly on the outside, and then it's made out of milk jugs and stuff.
What is this?
And John Knapp, who was editor-in-chief of Autoblog at the time, he was a big Ford guy.
We went and checked it out as we walked to the floor, and he was like,
oh, I kind of like it.
I was like, dude, what?
It's fine, it's a Focus.
It drives like a Focus still.
It was fine, but it was just like, I do not understand why it looks this way.
And then on the inside, it's awful.
But they usually also do a Lincoln thing.
They usually announced something Lincoln at that show.
And Nissan usually does something.
Nissan usually does something.
Lincoln usually does something.
Lincoln's booth is usually beautiful, really, truly beautiful.
I'm excited to see the Lexus, or no, the Toyota.
The GR.
Oh, God.
The V8 long nose AMG lookalike Toyota GR thing.
What is that thing called?
I don't know.
The GR GT.
I thought it was the Lexus.
The Gurgat.
The Gurgat.
That's great.
That's, I think that's probably a good time to end.
And Hyundai.
Hyundai might do something.
As well.
Although they might be a little mad still that Kia is outselling them this year.
Although maybe not.
That's OK.
Because like the EV, or the, is the EV, no, not the EV9.
The Ioniq 9?
No, the Telluride.
I think the Telluride is outselling the Palisade, but they probably don't care about that as much,
even though Hyundai is supposed to out, like, Kia is never supposed to outsell Hyundai in the
market.
The Palisade is built in Korea.
So I think it's built in Ulsan.
Maybe one of their plants over there anyway.
So it's imported versus the Telluride, which is built here.
So they make like Alabama or something.
Is that the plant that got the child labor like two years ago?
Yeah, it was it was the contractor and they handled it.
But yeah, that's still like that's brand reputation.
Right.
They are going to be forever linked with it.
Not a good box.
Yeah.
No, that's not good.
Yeah.
So yeah, New York, I go have fun.
I will look forward to talking about it in three weeks when you're back.
And hopefully there'll be plenty of things for us to talk about and maybe in a more positive light.
Seriously, I feel like we did spend an hour being just.
We spent an hour joking on everything.
Yeah.
Hey, man, sometimes you got to air your grievances.
Yeah.
That's true.
I mean, I can leave it on a positive note.
I saw my local Jeep dealer in town has one of the new Cherokees and I think it looks fantastic.
Good.
I'm looking forward to seeing the retop.
There we go.
Doors off electric.
Sign me up.
Yeah.
But I'm going to I'm going to take a video.
I'm going to walk up to the Toyota Rep.
I'm going to say, can you tell me up the Gurgit?
Yes.
Maybe they can they should come on the show.
We should invite as many people onto the show as possible so that we can talk to them.
Like the yogurt that was like in a tube.
That's right.
The yogurt in the tube.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like the most disgusting thing.
Just sugar.
Just how would you like your sugar delivered to you?
Sugar and dairy.
Okay.
If you want to have this for your school lunch so that you sit in class at 145 with your stomach hurting.
Not learning a goddamn thing.
Yeah.
Hyper and shitting yourself.
Right.
And also then you'll fall asleep because you're going into like insulin shock.
Seriously.
So we can be shot on something else.
It wasn't even auto.
Yeah.
No.
Insulin shock.
Insulin shock.
Just a segue.
After the auto show, we have some awesome guests coming on.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we have we have a couple of good ones over the next couple of weeks.
I hope people have enjoyed what we've done.
The consistency has been key.
So hopefully.
Paul, you Dan.
Man.
Yeah.
So cool.
All right.
Thanks for joining.
Take an hour out of your day.
Let's we'll be happier next time.
I promise.
About this episode
The conversation dives into the challenges facing automakers amid shifting regulations, rising fuel prices, and supply chain issues, with a focus on the recent Dodge Charger RT Scat Pack. The hosts critique the new Charger's design, powertrain, and pricing, expressing disappointment in its compromises and integration. They discuss the broader industry context, including the uncertain future of EVs, hydrogen fuel, and the impact of government policies. The episode wraps with anticipation for the upcoming New York Auto Show and hopes for more positive developments in the automotive world.
Original notes
It's the perfect follow-up to last week's Vault episode with Jonny Lieberman. Ross spent a week with the gas-powered 2026 Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack, which was a hot topic when they talked last August, too.
In addition to the driving impressions, we talk about the state of the industry amid an absolute storm of fast-moving events. EVs may be dead. Or they may be ready for greatness.
Give it a listen and let us know what we got right and where we struck out. See you in a week!
Hooniverse
Dan Roth, Ross Ballot, (Jeff Glucker)
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