Is This The End For Small Cars?

Hello and welcome to the truth about cars podcast. I am Tim Healy, the managing editor

and this week we talk about the death of small cars and we wrap up the NASCAR season. We

talk small cars of David Thomas from CDK Global and TTAC contributor Matthew Guy and

I discuss NASCAR's championship as well as air dusters for your car. But first buying

a car should feel secure. Start to finish. That's why you should buy your next ride on eBay.

See, eBay has got everything from classics to trucks and imports. Now with secure purchase,

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us a review. You can also find us online at TTAC.com that is TTAC.com or the truth about cars

all spelled out.com. We're your home for car reviews, car news, opinions and so so much more.

Here on the truth about cars podcast, we're always talking about the stuff that we use

in our homes, in our cars, on our cars as the case may be. And as just about always, I have

TTAC contributor Matthew Guy with us. Matthew, how are you doing today? Hi, I'm doing pretty good,

Tim. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. So let's get into it and let's go ahead

and just kind of explain what we're talking about today and walk us through it. Absolutely. So

it's something that it's a tool that you can use, I mean at home or it was described to me as

something you can use with the car if you're doing some detailing. And I'm like, okay, so I was a

bit skeptical at first, but it did turn out to be a good tool. And it's an air duster. Okay, it's a

powered electric air duster. You hold it in your hand almost like a flashlight. It's about the size

of a flashlight. I don't think I've seen one of these before. Yeah, and it was something new,

it's something I've not used before, but it's about the size and shape of a flashlight, except

it has a nozzle on the end, right, from which it blows air. And I've seen some smaller ones in use

like in computer environments, you know what I'm saying? Right where they need to blow off. Yes,

I've seen them and I actually have one for my laptop at home. Exactly, right. So but this one

is a lot more powerful. I don't know like what PSI or what speed actually comes out of that nozzle,

but I do know just looking at the looking at the specs, the the duster, it says it provides an

airflow of 45 meters per second. Now I want to do the conversion here roughly while we are while

we are talking. But how it was how it was described to me for use in the car is that if you're doing

some detailing, I can see this. And you know, I tried it over the weekend that if I'm trying to get

dirt and crumbs and crud and stuff like that out of especially the console area of my car, like

where the cup holders are, right? I mean, you can say you know, in your Fox body, right? I mean,

you're always having a few snacks or whatever. And it's just really, really hard to get in

those nooks and crannies. And someone suggested, Hey, you know, what about outside as well when

you're trying to get there's always like when you when you wash, especially a big vehicle,

like a pickup truck, there's always going to be there's always going to be like a cup of water

in the side view mirrors, no matter what you try to do. So these are these are from when you pick

them up on eBay. And this company Wolf Box WLF BOX has their own storefront on eBay. So you know,

you're getting it from the company, not from a random reseller. And you know, they've got 99.5%

positive feedback, you know, from real eBay customers and things of that nature. And these

things aren't expensive. They started at about 40 bucks. And I was really, really happy with the

amount of gear that came with it. There were four different, I suppose, nozzle, nozzle shapes,

like, you know, like when you buy a vacuum, right, you've got the crevice tool and all those different

types of attachments, this came with four different attachments. So you can get into

a bunch of different nooks and crannies in your in your in your car. And it operates just like

a flashlight, you got an on off button feels like a trigger. And then it just charges up with a USB

a USB cable that's included that you can then use for your phone. And you know, it was a really,

really good, surprising tool that I picked up. And for the sake of, you know, the pricing goes

between $40 and $80, depending on how big you want one. Right. So I was really, really impressed

by this. And it's something that I would not have. I would not have selected without prompting,

you know, I mean, I wouldn't search for this. But it was a conversation that came up. And so I

decided to just pick one up. And for the price, I'm very impressed. That's good to hear anything

else we should know about these things. So we've said size of a flashlight, I didn't quite picture

it in my head. Then you mentioned the keyboard thing. And now I do know what you're talking about,

because I have, like I said, I've got one for my keyboard. For my laptop, which I use occasionally,

although not nearly enough, I'm looking at my laptop right now and thinking, Oh, my gosh,

I definitely needs needs a dusting. And then, um, yeah, so I had quite a picture, but it's

probably a pretty handy tool. So anything else we should, we should know, or you want to add?

Well, I mean, the thing charges up, I wore it out. That's, you know, part of my testing is just

to wear stuff out, especially if it's battery powered. And, um, you know, I used goodness me,

it was the working time was probably well over an hour for sure, in total. And then charging time

was about triple that. So it says here about two and a half hours to charge up. I feel it was more

around three. And you can't use it while it's charging. It's one of those, right, that you

can't plug in and use whilst it's charging. But, um, you know, for the hour, a little bit more

than an hour, I got ahead of it to clean out the crumb. Like you said, there's going to be

crumbs on your keyboard, no matter what, right? Cookie crumbs. I was using it there for the car.

And I was, I was more than happy. There was also another alternative use. It comes with an

attachment that allows you to blow up stuff like, it's like, um, air mattresses and things of that

nature too, right? Cause sometimes you get an air mattress and it doesn't have the, uh,

inflator built in. Oh, the inflators don't work here. Oh, the inflators don't work exactly,

right? So this one has an attachment that's specifically for that. And I haven't, um,

and it doesn't work for like blowing up basketballs and stuff like that. But for

cleaning out small areas in the car, I'm going to be, I'm going to be hanging on to this thing.

And, uh, I'm impressed with my new compressed air duster is its technical name from this company

called Wolf box. And they've got a different bunch of ones out there. There's like a,

a 50 in of 100 and 200. I just went middle of the road, got a 100.

And, um, yeah. And I think that it was, uh, it was a very, very good purchase and I'd recommend

one for sure. Excellent. All right. So again, you got it off eBay motors. I did. Yeah. And they've

got their own, this company Wolf box has their own storefront on eBay motors. So you don't need

to worry about, you know, like a third party reseller getting into the mix of just buying the

straight from the company. All right. Sounds good. So with that, Matthew, if there's anything else,

unless there's anything else, we'll go ahead and wrap this segment here. I'm through to our

cars podcast. Awesome. Thank you, Tim.

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This week on the Truth About Cars podcast, we are talking with Dave Thomas,

the Director of Content Marketing at CDK Global. Dave, how are you doing today?

Doing great, Tim. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks for hopping on. So what we're talking about today with Dave is

the death of the small car. So the Kia Soul, which was a pretty popular vehicle, was recently

killed off by Kia. And that Kia made it official. Sometimes automakers try and be really quiet about

it. But Kia even kind of did like a trim level or package sort of sending the car off. So

the Kia is dead. The Kia Soul is dead. And there aren't a lot of other cars

of its size and shape around. So let's talk about that. Dave, what's going on with that? Why is a

popular, affordable car going the way? Well, sometimes there are multiple factors at play

with something like this. Most of the time when any automaker kills a car, it's because it wasn't

profitable. It didn't sell enough and they couldn't offset the cost to make it profitable.

Here, there's a little bit of that. But the main reason that the vehicle is not

going to be profitable moving forward is because of tariffs. So when an automaker looks and obviously

Kia hasn't come out and said this, but the current tariff on South Korea is still 25%.

There was some sort of negotiation to bring it to 15%. That didn't happen. It's still 25%.

They're actually negotiating, I think, once again. So the tariff volatility and the idea that

in a best case scenario, it's going to be a 15% tariff on that, not so profitable a vehicle to

begin with, they will see a profitable path for that vehicle. Now, this is a scenario when the idea

of tariffs started six, seven months ago, whether it was April or whenever it was, we got an idea

of this. In the automotive world, everyone pretty quickly mentioned that this was a possibility.

They were mostly talking about that cars made in Mexico and we saw one of those with the Nissan

Versa be canceled as well. But this is one coming from, I don't think people really expected these

large tariffs on major trading partners like South Korea and Japan and not excluding the vehicles

from these tariffs, like making a carve out. So tariffs have ramifications in numerous ways,

and you can believe in tariffs or not, it's immaterial, that they will be a net positive

in the end. But however you want to believe that or not, what's clearly happening,

they have ramifications. One of those ramifications is right here.

Yeah. So they're going to have less affordable cars coming in.

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to talk over that. It must have been a slight delay. But yeah,

one thing too, you mentioned the Versa, which is obviously going away or gone as well.

What's left in the segment? Hyundai's venue is basically it, right?

Yeah. And then you don't want to guess, but I don't foresee that probably living long either.

So yeah, there's not many. And you look at the domestic automakers,

they left this field a long time ago. I mean, the cheapest Ford is almost $30,000,

the I think the most affordable Chevy right now is the Tracks, which is

pretty sure imported from Korea. So there's not a lot out there, certainly the size,

the price. The price is the interesting part. So as I mentioned in my post on LinkedIn,

the souls, I think the 10th or second, were selling Kia. The second best selling Kia

is the K4, which is a compact sedan. They're priced pretty similarly. So if you're an automaker

and you say, I've got two $20,000 cars and one selling really well and one isn't,

I could see that being a decision in this play. And in the end too, I mean,

hatchbacks haven't been popular for a long time in the United States. So they could also just

be looking at a consumer trend, right? The consumers want this compact sedan that size

and price, they're very familiar with it. They have compact sedans have been popular in this

country forever, whether it's a Corolla Civic or Elantra or now this K4. So it makes sense. And

if you're a shopper, there's still a $20,000 new car you can get at a Kia dealer. So that's still

there. So there's still that opportunity. But then the other thing that we're seeing unfortunately is

all car prices are going up as we move into 2026, more than they have been in the past.

Again, tariffs, even depending on where the car is made, the parts and the sourcing,

those things are going to be more expensive. The steel and aluminum are going to be expensive.

Yeah, for sure. So you have car costs going up, you've got tariffs affecting vehicles based on

where they're built and what materials they use. And obviously, as you said, there are alternatives

to, there are lower price alternatives. So it's not like they sell the only inexpensive Kia out

there. But a couple of things that stuck out to me, you mentioned hatchbacks not having been popular

in the States in a long time. This is something that has always kind of sort of ate at me not

because I'm a car enthusiast, because there are some fun hatchbacks to drive. I'm testing a Volkswagen

Golf R as we speak. But I don't understand why hatchbacks, I don't know if I've ever truly owned

one. I've had, well, I had a Foxbody Mustang, I guess I was a hatchback. But hatchbacks are

utilitarian. There's really a lot of utility there. And I'm not saying that they're better than

car to trunk. It all depends on your use case. But for some people, particularly urban, urban

residents and stuff like that, a small car at the hatchback can really make a lot of sense.

So why have they not done better in the States in general? I think, Tim, this is the,

it all goes to the SUV as king in this country now. You know, I think that

personal SUVs have lift gates. Yeah. So I mean, there is a Kia Seltos, right? There's a small

real SUV, I won't call it a real SUV, but a much more SUV-like vehicle in that

product lineup. It's not that much more expensive. And so I think the people that want the utility

are then looking at something that looks like an SUV versus looks like a hatchback. And, you know,

the, you know, you look at marketing, right? The cute hamsters that I think they had two generations

of hamster commercials for the soul. Oh my God, she was on forever, yeah. Right? There wasn't a third,

you know, or whatever. They didn't keep that going. Now with the most recent soul, I don't

think, no. Right. Yeah. So it wasn't, there wasn't a cultural movement for this Kia soul

like there was for the previous one. I don't know, you know, I'm not in that type of marketing where

you dig deep into what Gen Alpha likes and Gen Z likes and would they resonate with anything

cultural around this type of car? My guess is Kia does and automakers do. And they're making these

decisions with that kind of knowledge. They do spend quite a lot of money on that type of market

research. So I think that's, it's all in the mix. And then there's this other thing, you know,

it's a broader topic. And, you know, but with the tariffs, the other thing automakers are doing

writ large that they've here and there been doing for the past few years,

is reducing base trim levels, going with more cars with more content that consumers want,

even though it's more expensive and just not bothering with the base model anymore.

So that's driving prices up as well. So there's quite a lot of shifting going on

in the market that's not serving the lowest cost buyer.

Yeah. Is there also a vibe thing too? People don't want to be judged for being quote unquote

poor because they drive a soul or is that just kind of a not really an issue at all?

Well, I don't have any data on that. But I will say, in other studies and things I've read,

the youngest generation seems to have what I would say is a little misguided expectation

of what spending is and what they can afford and what they should be buying and how much they should

be making. I don't know if you've seen these headlines, but when they ask different generations,

how much do you need to make to be comfortable or to be successful or whatever that number is,

Gen Z is hugely, well, I'll say out of whack as an opinion, but they are thinking that making,

they need to make half a million dollars to be successful where every other generation is much

more realistic about where they need to fit to be considered successful. So I think that's

generational. I think that is a social media driven phenomenon for sure. And in social media,

some people are rocking the Kia Souls, I'm sure, but on car TikTok and Instagram,

people are are flaunting much more expensive vehicles. Now, can any of them really afford it?

Behind the screen, that's a different question, right? That's a different question.

Yeah, that's being shown a lot. And I think that's having an impact on these buyers and

something that the K4 I think does really well is come off as a much more

expensive, large, substantial vehicle than its price point suggests. And I think that's one of

the reasons it's performing really well. Yeah, and obviously, it's kind of hard to quantify

vibes. So it was kind of a tricky question, but didn't mean to throw you off guard there.

But yeah, so we're talking about obviously the factors and tariffs and stuff like that. But

there's also some bigger picture factors and you've kind of touched upon a few of these. We

mentioned the legacy automakers having left the space or not legacy so much as just the Detroit

3 having left the space quite some time ago. And I think part of the chasing crossover profits.

Most of us know that SUVs can be a little more profitable, especially the body on frame ones.

I know a lot of crossovers. Most crossovers are unibody, but obviously if you were a body on frame,

especially the larger ones, and those along with pickup trucks can be more profitable.

But the thing that always gets to me too a little bit is there has to be a need or so automakers

obviously want to sell only in segments where they can make money, right? They're in business.

They're not a charity case. They want to make profit. But there are still and there of course

are still some smaller cars in the market, mostly trunk cars, non-hatchbacks, Toyota Corolla,

Honda Civic I think is both hatch and trunk. You still have some smaller cars in the market

that are under $30,000. And you mentioned the Kia K4. You can probably get a basic

cord for right around 30. So it's not like there's no cars in that segment. But there's a lot

fewer than there used to be. And where I'm going with this is there's always going to be a need

for that, right? First time car buyers, young buyers who don't have a family who might need

a little bit of cargo carrying for a patch or groceries, but maybe don't have kids or maybe

family with a young kid, empty nesters who might want to downsize their vehicles and down price

a little bit. There's always that need and that want for the inexpensive under $30,000,

maybe a trunk, maybe a hatchback car. But yet there's no one's really filling that

niche for the most part. So where's the disconnect there? What has happened to

those buyers? Are they just buying used? Are they buying, are they biting the bullet and

spending more money on something larger? What's going on there? So what I see and I've mentioned

it kind of recently, something I was kind of picking up on is that you're going to see a reduction in

the variety and how many different models there are at this price. But I don't think

you're going to see any change in the volume of sales at this price. So what that means is

if you've got $25,000 max to buy a new car, there's still options there. Like you mentioned

Corolla, right? I think it's the most popular car in the country, right? Or it's one of.

The RAV4 I know is the most popular non-truck in the country. And so that volume, and it's a huge

volume of vehicles, that one compact sedan. And you can mention Civic and however you want to do it.

But these automakers, if you look at the Kia, they lose the soul. They're going to have the

production of that K4 at a level that's going to hit every buyer that needs that price vehicle,

right? So they're going to make sure they hit the right volume. And dealers are going to make sure

that they have, because on the dealer side of the house and CDK, that's our focus.

You know, we help dealers sell and service cars. On the dealer side, one of the top issues they have

is meeting affordability for the people that come in. That they really do need affordable options.

There's plenty of options over, like you said, over $30,000. There's wonderful large SUVs. They

make all that kind of good stuff, right? And they're all selling, right? It's interesting that

the economy is doing fairly well and cars are, you know, despite lots of headlines,

cars sales are still happening, right? So there are the ones that address that affordability

issue. You're not going to get the variety, but the volume will still be there. And, you know,

when you look at, if you talk about inflation and affordability, I did quick research,

you know, since pre-pandemic, the price of a Corolla, the LE, which is now the base model,

it's gone up 16% from 2019 to 2024. And that's, there's a generation change in there, right? They

redesigned it. But, you know, the iPhone's gone up 40 plus percent in that amount. So, you know,

cars are going up in price and there's lots of headlines. Oh, this is the average transaction

price. It's the highest it's ever been. It's always going to be the highest. It's like car prices

aren't going to go down. Car prices are inherently inflationary. Right, exactly. And actually,

used cars is one of the strongest levers on the overall inflation number that the CPI puts out.

So car pricing, like it's never going to go down, but so that inflation, that 16%

jump for the Corolla, the actual, so the price of the Corolla is like 22 grand,

if you actually just use regular inflation, it would be 24 and a half. So it's actually

underperforming inflation by a lot. And I've used those metrics for over 10 years. And it's

actually now the underinflation performance is actually better for certain models like the Corolla

and other compact sedans especially. So, and midsize sedans too. SUVs do go faster. So,

but, you know, I kind of forget the original question now, but there's a lot of nuance in

headlines that say cars are more expensive than ever. And when you really want to look at it as

like, well, shoot, everything's more expensive than ever. And cars are actually kind of in a good

spot. When it comes to that, that said, it's going to tick up really fast in the next year

because of tariffs. Yeah, the original question was basically just, you know, what is the buyer

who wants or needs under $30,000 new car do? So, and you are right to mention that everything

is going up. Obviously, car prices are always going to always going to go up. I think which

shocks people a little bit is just the number that you see 50K. And that's a hard number to

rip your head around. It also seems, it also seems higher than it should be. Like people are

like, okay, I understand prices are going to always go up, but maybe you went up faster than

they expect. Maybe a lot of people would have thought we'd be in the higher 30s, lower 40s.

So, that's I think part of it. But like you said, everything is up. You know, I got a new,

I finally got my iPhone 11, got rid of it after I held it on for way too long and got a 16 earlier

this year at the end of last year. And I don't remember what the price difference was because

there was a different bunch of different deals and stuff, but it was definitely more expensive.

And then, you know, I also forgot one car that we should be talking about a little bit in,

in terms of the smaller car, it's a little bit higher in price. I think it's just above,

I think it's just above the 30K mark. I don't have the numbers in front of me.

But the Nissan, the regenerated or refreshed Nissan kicks is in that, is in that box too,

as along with the Hyundai Venue and the Kia Soul, no pun intended, but your boxy type hatchback

vehicle. Now, the kicks is a little slightly pricey. I can't remember up top of my head if it's in

the upper 20s or lower 30s. But the kicks is definitely in that conversation as well.

Yeah, I think it's right in the mid 20s. And I think it's, you know, the Chevy Trax has performed

really well as an affordable compact. Yeah, the Trax has come a long way from being

one of the worst cars in the market toward the best.

Yeah. And for Chevy, like that's a differentiator between it and Ford, right,

where it's, Ford's just kind of given up on that sub $30,000 segment for now.

So I think the Trax is a really good example of where that new kicks can go. And as far as I

know, the new kicks is performing really well. So again, they both are SUV looking, you know.

And so I think that's part of it when we talked about the sole performance and

hatchbacks and that whole thing. You're definitely seeing that at play.

Yeah, and the kicks is in the 20s. It could get to around 30 with all the options in the

highest trim. I was thinking of a different vehicle I really can't talk about yet,

two embargoes. I was thinking of something else that's a little bit pricey and it's in the $30,000

range. So yeah, I had my models, my relatively inexpensive models from a similar or same

automaker, it's like I really say, mixed up in my head. So the kicks is definitely in that

sole price range. So that's a vehicle we probably shouldn't have been talking about a little bit

more. So if you are looking in that sole price range and you are looking for a boxy hatchback,

you're right now, your options are kicks, tracks, venue. And I'm trying to think of the same thing

I'm missing here, Hyundai venue that is. Seltos, as you mentioned earlier, if you construct your

budget a little bit, the Honda Civic has a couple of hatchback trims as well, although it's more of

a traditional car layout as opposed to a boxy half crossover. The HR-V is under that $30,000.

You are correct. You are right. Yeah. What I say to a lot of people, because a lot of

the trends for the dealers that are going on right now is really the volatility of the used

market, where the new market's got this tariff and this price escalation with tariffs, and it's

in these little percentages. On the used side, they're finally coming out of a really inventory

strapped environment on the used side, pushing up use prices really high. Because where people

naturally go for affordability is the used market. And the value on the used market

is not there right now. I mean, you're paying a lot of money for a three-year-old compact sedan

when a new one is sitting across the dealership lot, not that much more money. And when you look

at financing, if you can get a captive financing deal from the automaker on the new one, and it's

3%, and the used incentive you're getting for interest rate is 8%, a lot of times people are

coming out really close just getting new. They can qualify for that good rate. So on the dealership

level, it's really this unique situation. I know on your perch, you're very focused on

reviewing the new products and stuff. But remember, we sell three times as many used cars in this

country as new. And it's a really important thing to know. But right now, it's not a great scenario.

But I do see that changing from today forward. There's going to be a shift back as more inventory

comes into the used market because we're getting past the post-COVID new car shortages. So that

inventory level will go up. Their prices will start to come down. And then on the new side,

the tariffs are going to start pushing the prices up a little bit. So I think we'll see a lot more

used sales going forward into 26, for sure. And then it'll be interesting to see what happens on

the new side. I'm going to ask you probably the toughest question because none of us can predict

the future. Oh, boy. And you already just touched on it a little bit. So just as you wrapped up

previous answers, so you might be a little bit repetitive. I apologize for that. But

can you kind of predict where the new car market is going? As you mentioned, the post-COVID

inventory, I'm not sure what the word is, but the kind of refilling of what was a shortage.

I don't know what the word is for kind of going back to normal, but there was a shortage. Now

we're kind of getting back to normal inventory level. So obviously, it'll drive price down.

Obviously tariffs will likely drive prices up because at some point,

automakers are not going to want to eat that. And then I know some of the automakers got a bit

of a reprieve from the Trump administration, but it's not 100%. And there's a lot of complicated

and car parts are still being tariff. So even if the new car is not tariff, parts might be tariff.

There's a lot of complicated moving parts there. But what I'm trying to ask is,

do you see us returning to a, quote unquote, a more normal market? And to me, a normal market

would be inventory is not short. Inventory is not a glut. There's a gap between you,

a relatively normal gap between used car pricing and new car pricing. And then of course,

no weird economics like tariffs or recession or kind of active God type stuff. Or do you just

see us kind of being in chaos for the next few years?

Yeah, I think if it's not chaos, it's going to be close. So it's been seven months of tariffs

and they're not solidified. They're not lucky to go away. Well, not go away. We don't know what

the real numbers. There's also that. Yeah, the final numbers yet. And you know this. And so I

don't know how much your audience knows this, but you know, automakers plan their portfolios

years in advance. It's three to five years in general, right? Yeah, it's really hard to do that

on a good day. Doing that with the impact of tariffs looming, a shift to like a

the software defined vehicle type idea, which almost every automaker is going to in some way,

even if it's not a EV, right? Like they're they're trying to streamline the number of

processors in their car. There's a processor, a semi chip issue going on right now in Europe,

impacting a lot of automakers. And there's there's slowing production. And it's actually

it's a European issue. But I think even Honda is slowing production because of it. I mean,

the ripple effects of that are huge. So that'll be on the new inventory side. We might see a little

restriction on the new inventory in the next few months. And when I'm almost out of breath right

now, just like this is just today, like every morning, up the news is just like, come on,

you're killing me, right? Like it's it's there's always something and I don't see that

changing. It's we don't know what the something's going to be every morning, Tim, but

I don't I think that's going to keep keep happening. The positive side

is resiliency of the industry. Car dealers use that term quite a bit. Because car dealers are

actually performing really well right now. You know, they're they're focusing on sales processes,

they're focusing on their FNI department, shoppers right now. Because of like economic

concerns when they buy a new car, they're more of them are buying extended warranties

and prepaid maintenance than ever before, because they're they're just focused on

uncertain futures. So that has an impact on dealers. So those are the things like we track and

you can you can see it like people people get that there's uncertainty in the future.

But, you know, for for sales, I think we'll still be steady, we'll still have these 15 and a half

and up numbers for for a while. I don't think we're going to see like real harm there. But,

you know, the ups and downs, the the supply problems here, tariff problems there,

whatever it is, interest rates, right? Hopefully they keep coming down, but maybe they won't.

So there's all these things, it's it's it's a bit mind numbing to be in the industry analyst seat,

and to have to keep thinking about them all the time. But that's what it's going to be. And

that's just kind of how we have to get our head around it. So but but yeah, so I think if not chaos,

headaches. Yeah, and and saying there's always something unexpected is it's obvious, but it's

true. I mean, you know, terrorists could change in a heartbeat, President Trump could be persuaded

to get rid of them. He could lose or it could change in two years when the if the Democrats

take over Congress or in 2028, when he leaves, maybe a Democrat replaces him. Those things are

somewhat, I don't want to say predictable, but you can kind of game out different scenarios.

But when you know one really saw COVID coming, right, even as late as February 2020,

I didn't think it was going to be the disruptor it was. I remember being on the road in February

thinking, this is kind of a big deal in China. It's like, you know, it's not going to really

affect our lives. And 10 days later, the world shutting down, right? So you can be smaller

things, a supplier fire, a chip shortage, it can be a hurricane hitting the wrong plant,

or the wrong plant's plural, you know, I mean, obviously, we have a big hurricane hit

in the Caribbean right now, although I don't think it's going to affect any manufacturing,

it's just an example. But yeah, so I think that that is something we always have to keep in mind.

So we only have a few minutes left. I wanted to, before we wrap, this has been a nice, we kind of

jumped off with the Kia Soul and the small car thing, but we've also touched on some other parts

of the industry, which I think is relevant and important. And I think we couldn't have,

we couldn't discuss the soul and the small car dying without going into the bigger picture.

But is there anything else you wanted to add, David, before we, before you wrap, we have like

about five minutes left? I would just say like this, it's really this idea of, and I don't know if

you're on a lot of social media, like how deep you, you, you, how much time you spend.

I do scroll Twitter when I'm watching TV and it's like a commercial break.

Facebook, I use more for personal stuff than for automotive. And I've got Blue Sky and

Threads accounts that I haven't really played with them yet. So still kind of,

I guess I would say I'm surface level. I looked on LinkedIn as well. That's how we saw your article

on Kia, of course. But yeah, I would say I'm a casual user of social media.

So what I'd say is I'm noticing, especially on, I use threads a lot just to kind of keep up on

the news. Like Twitter, I find it's too hard to, to filter what, what I want to see.

I use the for you as opposed to, I use the following as opposed to for you.

So on threads, I think they figured out really how to get people upset and engage with content by

making you upset. So what they serve me to make me upset are people talking about

car advice and it's always horrible. So, you know, it's like, oh, how could people be so wrong?

So I think if I leave with anything, it's out, you know, thinking that the advice you were given

the last time you bought a car, whether it was used or new, is still the same advice that would

be given today is a really horrible way of thinking. Five years ago, you know, most people don't buy a

car five, six years, some people hold on their car for 12 years. Five or six years ago, both used

the new car markets were completely different than they are today. Whether it's the portfolio,

like we talked about, whether it's the pricing, the inventory levels of use, inventory levels of new,

interest rates, it is all different today than it was five years ago. And whether, you know,

we work with with dealers every day. The dealer, you know, has a pretty bad stigma, as you can imagine,

but more dealers every day, you know, their number one focus is improving the customer

experience, like making it better for the person that walks through the door to get through the

process in an efficient amount of time. You know, we study how many hours it takes to buy a car,

all dealers are well aware of this number, and they're all trying to, you know, reduce it, and

we're trying to help them with great software, et cetera. So that being said is like, you know,

going into the dealer, if they're not adversarial, as some might imagine, many are moving to a one

price model, you know, there's all these things that they're doing to make this experience better,

do all of them, you know, does everyone that you go to, you know, achieve that, maybe not.

But, you know, there is this real focus on, we're going to try and get this person through the

process as easily as they can. We want them to be good customers, they come back for service,

they tell their friends, and they refer them. That is their overall focus. So

a lot of a lot of people in the past would never go to a car dealer for like that advice type help

at this moment. But it is something to think about, right? The dealer, they know their,

they know what interest rate you're going to qualify. If you don't know your credit score,

right, like you should, but they're going to figure that out for you. That's a real problem in the

process is people understanding, you know, where they fall. You have whole new generations of people

coming into the dealership. Well, a lot of first time buyers have like their parents with them.

Obviously, many do not. And so they're a little overwhelmed by the process. And so it's,

you know, it's not the same place that it once was. And so I think that's something that we're

seeing change in a positive way. But yeah, it is a different market. You can probably get a

lot more car than people think they can. I think you see it all the time. An affordable car that's

20 under $25,000 today has a level of technology, comfort and performance that is like

miles and miles ahead of what they wore 10 years ago. You know, just in a $25,000 car now is

in many ways an exceptional car. So, you know, they're not just the default, you know, this is

all I can afford type option anymore. And I think that's probably the other, you know,

you got to get out there and see the vehicles. Yeah. And just going back to the social media

thing, maybe I'll need to play with threads a little bit more and get, get enraged because

I'm still learning that one. I'm still learning threads and I still have not quite figured out

why the algorithm is sensing what it does. Twitter, I can usually figure out based on who I follow

and what topics I was looking at. Same with Facebook. Being a sports fan, usually, you know,

through the weekend when the sporting games are on, kind of a lot of sports heavy stuff in my

feeds, usually for the next day or two, as an example, or a lot of car heavy stuff when there's

a big, like an auto show or whatever. But threads have not yet figured out. So, David, thank you

so much for your time. I appreciate it. Even with Dave Thomas, the director of content marketing

from CDK Global, excuse me, CDK Global, here in the Truth About Cars podcast talking about the

death of small cars and the bigger picture of the industry that goes with it. So, again, Dave,

thank you so much for your time. Yeah, Tim.

Here on the Truth About Cars podcast, we are always talking NASCAR and this will be our last,

probably our last race review since the championship race just took place in Phoenix.

Most of the NASCAR conversation from here on until Daytona will be a silly season.

Probably all of it, to be honest with you, but you never know. So, this is most likely our last

look back at a race with me as always is CTAC contributor Matthew Guy. Matthew, how are you

doing today? Hey, pretty good. Looking forward to talking about Phoenix. There's lots to talk about.

Yeah, let's start with the main story, the obvious story, probably the only story. Well,

if you have other things in mind, feel free, of course, but Denny Hamlin's heartbreak. And you

know what? I've said in this podcast before, I'm not necessarily a Hamlin fan. I don't love how he

always trolls the fans, although I don't dislike him either. But he did have a sentimental, a couple

sentimental reasons to win. I don't believe he's won the championship before. He had just hit 60

wins. So, you figure if you get a championship and 60 wins in the same year would be an heat

accomplishment. His father is really sick and might not make it to next year's championship. So,

there was the win for dad thing. Also, it's not, I don't believe it's his first child. He did have

another baby recently. So, you know, having a young, a young one at home and an aging father,

this is kind of circle of life thing and win one for my, I believe it was a boy. So, win one for

my son and win one for my father. There's a little bit of family sentimentalism there as well.

And you know, in Hamlin, he might troll the fans, but he's not really

that bad of a, there's bigger heels in the sport and Hamlin's driving on track

is generally within bounds. So, there's a sentimental thing to it with him, but also it's

just like, and plus he's getting older. His shots at a championship are dwindling, but you know,

it's with him, I think, I wasn't rooting for him necessarily. I didn't have a rooting interest,

but when he was dominating the race late, I thought, oh, that's neat. You know, the guy who

probably has the biggest sentimental favorite of the four, the other three being, I should have

mentioned this earlier, but the other three being Kyle Larson, William Byron and Chase Briscoe.

I was like, well, you know, he has a chance to win this thing and put it away and you get,

you get to those final like 50 laps and Byron had dominated earlier, but now Hamlin's back

in front and you're like, in fact, I was with somebody and we watched half the race out in

public and half at a house and I turned to that person and I said, Byron's going to win this

thing. And that was about three-fourths of the race over. And then I forget exactly what happened.

I think he got shuffled back on a pit, on a pit stop and then Hamlin gets out in front and I'm

like, well, okay, Hamlin's going to win it. I was wrong, Hamlin's going to win, Hamlin's going to win.

And three laps out, you get a, you get Byron himself. I believe he, I try to remember off

top of my head if he blew a tire, we could talk about tires too, if we get a chance.

He either blew a tire or got hit or both, but he caution comes out caused by William Byron.

So now you're looking at, okay, Byron's out of it and it's going to come down to

Larson, Briscoe or Hamlin and the four guys had run, all four had run near the front all day.

In fact, there were times that all four of them were the one through four. So now you're looking

at Hamlin and you're like, okay, well, Hamlin's going to win this thing, but he's got, he's got

overtime because there was three laps left when the caution came out and you're like, well, he'll

probably still win. And we're sitting there watching it. And again, I'm in public place,

can't hear the broadcast, but I can see the race very well. And he loses the race off pit row.

I'm like, oh my gosh, why did his pit stop take so long? Because they put four tires on.

And I'm thinking, could he even need any tires? So everyone else went with two,

they went with four, the pit stop took longer and Hamlin doesn't win. But the only three laps to go

were his tires so low that at speed, he couldn't make it,

he couldn't make it the caution laps plus the green right checkered, which is two or three laps,

he couldn't make it. So that's, that's something that's been bothering me. And Matthew,

you actually have an explanation for that. I want to hear that. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean,

Hamlin led two thirds of the laps all day, right? And Larson didn't lead a single lap, right? He

didn't even, you know, he didn't win the race. He was around, but never led.

Right. And then he was ahead and won the title. And I think like, you know, we were talking about

in the pre-show, getting ready that, that, you know, a couple of different things might have

happened with the four tire car. One, maybe Cliff Daniels wasn't paying attention. I don't think

that's the case at all. He's a really good crew chief, right? I mean, I can't imagine any crew

chief not paying attention. Especially at that level, right? So yeah,

season being made to take four tires may have come down to, we've talked all this season about

green white checkers and how you've said it so many times that cautions breed more cautions,

because everyone gets bunched up. And maybe Cliff Daniels was thinking, you know what,

we're going to be restarting here, green white checkers. Ever, it's the end of the race. It's

not just the end of the race, but it's the end of the season. Everyone's going to be going for it.

And this is not going to be the final restart. There's going to be a wreck in front of us. And

if we take four tires, we'll be in a better spot. And I think that's without, you know,

asking the man himself or getting inside his head. I do think that's why they took four tires.

Ended up being the wrong calls. Easy to play Monday morning quarterback. All of us here,

you know, us buffoons on podcasts such as this. It's easy to look back, but

I don't know how quickly you can make the call. I don't know how quickly you can make the change

once you see everyone else taken two, and you're still stick with four. But I,

you know, I think if anything, that might be a possible explanation for why they took four.

Yeah, the only pushback I would have there is if you're thinking that way,

why not wait? You know what I mean? Why not? Instead of trying to anticipate a second

green light checker situation, why not roll the dice of the older tires and then deal with it

if it happens? Yeah, which I don't know. I don't know what Daniel was thinking. And I just wanted

to reiterate too that Byron did hit the wall. I think he hit the wall because the tire went down.

So, um, yeah, all drivers have been having trouble with tires all day. So maybe yeah,

let's talk a little bit too. We still have time. We covered Hamlin's heartbreak. I don't

know. Other than, you know, I'm just looking at the season breakdown. I mean,

and Hamlin had six wins. Did not have a totally awesome average finish compared to Kyle Larson.

You're right. There were a couple of, a couple of, maybe about one place back,

which can be a lot. Christopher Bell actually had the best average finish

of the year, which was interesting in the number 20 car. You know, podiums, all those

types of things, top fives, tops to top 10s. You always see Larson's name in there. So this is a

situation of, of, um, you look at Xfinity where Jesse Love in the number two car won the championship

and then compare that to Connor Zilish in the 88, who just absolutely dominated the entire season

in Xfinity and 10 wins, five second plays, 16 podiums. I mean, he led in every single metric

and didn't win the championship. That's a problem. Um, here in cup, you know, I don't feel that way

about Larson's winning the cup because he also had a great year, right? Versus, versus Denny Hamlin.

Yes, absolutely. It sucks. Some people are going to be saying, Oh, well, you know,

Denny was being antagonistic saying, Hi, I beat your favorite driver, all that type of stuff.

And then you didn't win at the end. But you look at the comments being made by Larson himself,

right? And he, you know, said a lot of good things about Denny Hamlin at the awards dinner.

Actually, you know, gave a special shout out to Denny telling him that, you know,

and telling the entire room that no one works harder. So I'd like to see in that. I don't feel

that Larson's championship is looked at with a bit of a asterisk like what happened in Xfinity.

But I do think this is the final year that we have this format of playoffs where it's one race

winner takes all. I think that's done after this year. I don't know what they're going to go to.

I don't know if they're going to go back to the 10 race chase or like a 334 or 36 race.

That one, I would love that. I don't think they'll do it. But I do think this is the

final year for the points as we know them right now. So yeah, I'm not quite sure. I totally

agree. I think it'll be a minor tweaks. Personally, I suspect that's just got feeling. I don't have any

any news. But I think we both agree that it'll be some change. I think that the change will be

a little more small than or more incremental than you do. But that's fine. We can, we don't

agree on everything. I also wanted to add on to the Hamlin stuff that Larson and Hamlin are close

friends. So I think Larson felt bad for for for taking the championship away from his good friend

through no fault of his own, of course. But, you know, and he even said his car was just average

that day. He, you know, and let's, we could probably spend the entire segment on Hamlin's

heartbreak. There are two other things I wanted to touch upon. One thing is one thing. I'm sorry.

Yes, tires. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. One thing is small. And we'll get to it. And I also wanted to

before we get to the tires. I do want to mention that Hamlin also fought a clutch issue all day. So

good for him for being able to baby that clutch until the race finished, because he first came on

the, I did catch the first part of the broadcast that he did. He came on the radio early, like the

first pit stop or second pit stop and talked about it. So good for him on that. But with tires,

yeah, we saw a lot of blown tires on this race, both championship four and non championship four.

Don't know why. Do you know why? I mean, from what I can understand from reading and

listening to other reporters who were there at the track, Goodyear brought a softer compound to

Phoenix. I mean, tire issues began during Friday's practice session, but no one really was putting

the screws to Goodyear in terms of, in terms of, Hey, your tire is not up to stuff. I've been

hearing that it's more along the lines of several crew chiefs saying, you know what, we were pushing

the limit with lower air pressures to get a speed advantage, right? And there was a similar sentiment

after, you know, after, after, after Sunday's race at Phoenix. So I think combination of, yeah,

the softer compound that Goodyear was bringing, but crew chiefs knew that and they were pushing

as they should push the limit. So I think that that's, you know, Goodyear recommends a minimum,

minimum air pressure, but it's no surprise to me, especially with championship online that

teams are tempted to go beyond that. Yeah, yeah. So that could be, that could be the explanation.

All I know is it was seemed like every two seconds, some driver was heading to the pits with a blown

tire or, or there was a caution flag because of a blown tire. And each of the championship four,

right? We're, we're struggling with tires. So yeah. And he said earlier, it was a blown tire

on the 24, right? With just a few laps to go to push the race into overtime. Yeah. And even

Hamlin came back from having blown tire early and made the traction back up. So it's, it's,

it's a crazy thing. I personally hate it. I understand what you're saying that, that it

wasn't necessarily that Goodyear's tires weren't good enough. It was more that everyone's pushing

an advantage and some teams may have pushed too far. And I get it. It's the last race of the year.

If you're a final four driver, you're championships on the line, if you're not a final four driver,

you still want to win. You still want that person and, and the, you know, Ryan Blaney's

still gonna get some attention for winning the race, not much, but he'll still get. Oh yeah,

in the playoffs, I believe. Yeah. So, or, you know, it was in the playoffs, not too long. I

think he was in the final eight. So, you know, it's, it's, it's obvious why these guys do it,

race car drivers. That's why we have tech tech inspections, race car drivers and their crew

chiefs are always going to push the limit of the rules, just like in any other sport. And I don't

think it's, it's human nature, right? You want to win. So you want to do it as far as you want to

go as far as you can without breaking rules. And it's just, but it just makes for a bad show for

the fans. Your favorite driver might be having a good race and all of a sudden he's in the pits

and his race is over in theory. I mean, yeah, he can get back out there and get something,

get, and finish the race, but he might not have a chance to win, depending on what time the,

if your tire blows early, like Hamlin did, you've got a chance to come back. If it blows late,

you don't, or if it can be like Byron and it can send you into the wall. So,

um, yeah, it's, it's not a good look for the, for the sport to see in its, in its showcase,

one of its showcase races, a lot of tires blowing. So there may be some conversations with good

here, like, Hey, how do we make our tires better? So the, if the crew chiefs are pushing it,

they're not going to blow up so easily. So, and I'm not saying it's a bad look for good year,

necessarily. I don't think, I don't think any consumers are going to stop buying good year

tires because, because very few consumers care and those who do can differentiate between race

car tires and the car tires, they put on their own, on their street car, but it's a bad look for

a NASCAR in general. It just makes the race not as not quite, it just makes it choppy,

especially when you have cautions that you probably wouldn't have otherwise. So

it's a little frustrating to see these tires blowing like that, although it, it did end up

affecting the outcome, obviously. If Byron doesn't hit the wall, Danny Hamlin's your winner. So,

Hamlin was not being challenged under the screens.

No, he was not. And, and in terms of, you know, you're always seeking the advantage,

right? You're always looking, you're always on the ragged edge as, you know, competing at these

top levels. And there's two other things you got to, you know, we got to consider

with these tires, it was a hot day, right? I mean, the temperatures were

more than, than, than maybe they would have been elsewhere. So it was a warm day

at Phoenix. And you also think about the way that the racers go up against the track limits at

Phoenix, right? Because in drivers cut that dog leg, right? And so while they're doing that,

they're slamming those cars down to the ground throughout the entire race. So it's just perfect

conditions to really, really punish the tires, flirting with air pressure, a hot day, and then

just how they drive at Phoenix. You know, a lot of the teams were looking for the edge and they

definitely found it. Yeah. Yeah. And with that, we do only have a couple minutes left. But before

we go, I mentioned I teased a third topic, a small one. And it is a small topic, but it will

play into next year's race. I don't know for those of us, for those of you who are listening,

who happened to catch the beginning of the race, this may have actually been in the pre-race,

because I tuned in just, just ahead of the invocation and the engines firing.

There was an ad featuring Brad Kasolowski, and if memory serves, the, the Bush who's still driving,

which is Kurt Bush, right? Yeah, I get Kurt in comments the whole time. So Kurt Bush,

I believe it was Kurt Bush, I don't think it was Hamlin, I believe it was Kurt Bush, if memory

serves. I haven't seen the ad since the race, but there was an ad kind of riffing off back to the

future, which obviously turns 40 this year, kind of riffing off back to the future. And there was

a DeLorean involved and bad time travel jokes involved. And essentially, the NASCAR has announced

that the championship race, they did not announce any playoff changes to the format, but the race

itself, final race of the year will be back at Homestead next year, not Phoenix. So that's a

little bit of news there. We can save a longer discussion about that for a silly season talk.

I feel like we could do a whole segment on that. So let's, let's table that. But I just wanted to

throw it out there that the race is, is moving or moving back to where it used to be. And does that

signal a change in playoff format? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe there's other reasons. Maybe Homestead

draws better that time of year. Maybe the drivers like it better as a finale. Maybe they just couldn't

reach a deal with Phoenix. So maybe they want to, there are, there have been other schedule changes

we already know about, such as a road, excuse me, a street course race in San Diego, Chicago,

moving from the street course format to the Joliet race track, which was an hour from the city,

the Chicago lane speedway, which NASCAR used to come to. Road America is not back in the

schedule to my knowledge, but there are some other changes. So I forget, I think Richmond or

Darlington, one of the East Coast tracks is moving dates or something like that. So

it could just be a domino effect that other, other races moved. So therefore the championship

changes, but we will, we will see what that means as silly season goes on. And if the playoff format

does change, you can guarantee that it'll be an entire segment and possibly two to give it over

to that. So as big as, you know, it took me this entire year to really kind of understand,

understand the format and try to explain it to other people who are not NASCAR fans has been

a little tricky. So we'll see how things go. Matthew, if you have anything to add, you've got

like about a minute. Yeah, no, I just, you know, it's been another season, right? I've NASCAR lots,

there's always lots to talk about and thinking about, thinking about the year ahead. I don't

know how many weeks we are away from Daytona, but I'm looking forward to talking about our,

you know, silly season topics. It's going to be, it's going to be a good couple of months

here on the podcast. Yeah, don't make me do the math, but it is mid November, early November,

as we, as we talked about Phoenix. And then, so December's a full month, January's a full month,

Daytona's like mid February. So two and a half, almost three months, essentially, if I'm doing

my math correctly. So we've got plenty of time. And don't worry fans who, who like track talk,

that we will probably revisit some of the on track action during the silly season, as well as talking

about things like drivers changing teams, drivers changing cars, previewing Daytona, playoff format

changes, any, we still have never dug into the team, the 2311 lawsuit because it changes so often.

We may devote an episode of that now that we've got some time. So I've got a few other things I

am working on with NASCAR and NASCAR related people. We hopefully we can get those salted away

as well for guest appearances. Those are in the works and may or may not happen yet, but

stay tuned listeners to see if we can make that work. So anyway, with that, this will be our final

review of on track action with the, with the TTAC podcast, but NASCAR talk is not going anywhere.

We will still be talking NASCAR as long as, as long as they want us to, as long as they let us.

So stay tuned to the TTAC podcast for silly season talk going forward. So yeah, but with that,

we will end this week's segment of NASCAR here on the truth about cars podcast. Thanks Matthew.

Thank you, Tim. That's all for this week's truth about cars podcast. I'm Tim Healy,

the managing editor, and you can find us wherever your podcast or at TTAC.com

or the truth about cars all spelled out.com. We thank David Thomas and Matthew Guy for their

time and Matt Poskey for editing. Most of all, we thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.

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