The Dodge Ram is a pickup truck. It’s made for tasks like towing and hauling, not just everyday driving. The podcast mentions it while talking about what people should consider in the truck lineup.
When people talk about “transmission shifts,” they mean the moments when the car changes gears. The segment is saying the shift feel in this Cherokee hybrid doesn’t match what the listener expects from Toyota.
Regen-breaking is a feature where the car slows down using its electric motor. Instead of wasting that energy, it helps recharge the battery, and it can change how the car feels when you take your foot off the gas.
Blue Nexus is mentioned as the way Toyota shares or distributes hybrid technology to partner companies. In other words, it’s part of how Toyota hybrid know-how can end up in non-Toyota vehicles.
An inverter is the electronics box that turns battery power into the right kind of electricity for the electric motor. Without it, the motor can’t run.
This is a hybrid transmission design that uses gears to share power between the gas engine and the electric motor. It helps the car decide how much power comes from each source.
Toyota is the automaker being compared here. The host is saying Toyota’s hybrid tech and related patents are part of what other companies are building on.
Term
patent arrangements
Patent arrangements are legal agreements about who is allowed to use certain inventions. In car tech, they can explain why different brands’ systems end up looking similar.
Brand
GM Voltex system
This is GM’s named hybrid/drive system. The host is using it as an example of how different automakers can use similar ideas but implement them differently.
Ford is mentioned as another car company involved in similar hybrid technology discussions. The host is grouping it with other brands to explain how the tech and patents are shared.
A hybrid system uses both a gas engine and electricity to help move the car. Depending on how it’s set up, the electric part can assist the gas engine and sometimes improve efficiency.
The rear axle is what delivers power to the rear wheels. If the car sends power to the rear wheels differently, it can change how well it grips and how capable it feels off-road.
Torque is the engine’s twisting force. More torque usually helps the car feel quicker, especially when you’re starting from a stop or pulling at lower speeds.
A planetary gear set is a type of gearbox inside the drivetrain. It helps the car multiply torque and send power to the wheels efficiently, especially in hybrid systems.
An off-road course is a track or route built to challenge a car with rough terrain. The hosts are saying the test setup didn’t match what Jeep said the vehicle was meant to be.
These are parts under the car that help the air flow smoothly underneath. The hosts are saying they weren’t meant as simple protection panels—they were there to improve efficiency, and the test ripped them off.
Low rolling resistance tires are made to make the car easier to roll along. That can help gas mileage, and in this story it affects how the vehicle performs on the test route.
A “mall crawler” is a joking way to describe an SUV that’s mostly meant for regular roads, not real off-roading. The hosts are saying this Cherokee is more about daily practicality than going off-road.
Term
E-axle setup
An e-axle setup uses an electric motor to help drive the wheels. The hosts are comparing how that kind of electric torque delivery can feel different from a more traditional AWD system, especially in snow.
A “fuel efficiency loop” is a consistent driving route the hosts use to measure gas mileage. They use it so the results are comparable between cars and can be checked against the EPA numbers.
EPA is the U.S. agency that sets the official fuel-economy test numbers you see on car labels. The hosts are saying their testing sometimes gets better mileage than the EPA estimate.
“Zero to 60” is a simple acceleration test: how fast the car goes from 0 to 60 mph. They’re saying their times have been slower than other people’s, which can happen depending on conditions and testing.
A “trim” is the version of a car with a specific set of features. “Limited” usually means a more optioned-up version than the base model, but it still may not include every luxury feature.
Ventilated seats have small fans that blow air through the seat so you don’t get as hot. It’s like built-in cooling for your body while you drive.
Term
tape measure
They’re basically saying: don’t trust how big the cabin looks—measure it. A tape measure can show whether there’s actually enough space for passengers.
SAE is the organization that sets the rules for how car companies measure legroom. The test uses a specific “dummy” body position and a straight-line measurement, then adds a fixed amount, which can make the number not match real life.
The ankle point is a specific spot the test uses to represent where your feet/ankles would be. Since the measurement is based on these fixed points, the published legroom number may not match what you feel when you sit down.
The hip point is a fixed spot used by the measurement standard to represent where your hips would be. It’s part of the official legroom calculation, so it can affect the number even if your legs feel different.
Rear legroom is how much space back-seat passengers have for their legs. The number can change depending on where the front seat is moved during measurement.
Front legroom is how much room your legs have in the front seat. The tricky part is that the reported number can depend on where the seat is set during testing.
The Honda CR-V is the example the host uses to show how legroom can feel different in practice. They’re saying published “legroom inches” can be measured in a way that makes cars seem equal on paper.
The Ford Escape is the comparison car in this segment. The host’s point is that the “legroom inches” you see for it may come from a test setup that makes the car look bigger than it feels.
This is Volvo’s EX60. The host is talking about how the car’s published size should line up with how much room it has inside, especially for legroom.
Car
Volvo EXC60
This is the gas version of Volvo’s EX60 family, called the EXC60. The host compares it to the electric EX60 to question whether the published legroom numbers make sense.
Wheelbase is the car’s “front-to-back” measurement between the wheels. A longer wheelbase usually helps designers fit more interior space, including legroom.
Legroom measurements are the published numbers that try to describe how much space you have for your legs. The host says the way they’re measured can make two cars look different (or the same) even if the real-world feel is different.
The host is saying some legroom specs are measured as a straight-line distance on paper. That can miss how your legs really fit when you sit normally, so the number may not match what you feel.
The Toyota 4Runner is an SUV. The host uses it as another example that the official legroom numbers don’t always predict how much space you’ll actually feel.
SAE J1100 is a set of rules for how car makers measure “legroom” so the numbers are supposed to be comparable. The catch is that the method was created with sedans in mind, so it doesn’t always match how space feels in SUVs. That’s why two cars can show similar numbers but feel different in the back seat.
A power reclining rear seat is a back seat that you can tilt/recline using buttons or controls, not by hand. In this case, the host says you can do it from the door. Reclining can change how much room you have behind the seat, which affects how legroom feels.
Cargo room is how much stuff you can fit in the back of a car. The problem is that companies measure it in different ways, so the numbers on paper don’t always mean the same thing.
The Volvo XC60 is an SUV, and the host is saying its cargo-space number can be confusing. The reason is that different measurement rules can make one car look bigger on paper than it really is.
Different regions use different rules for measuring cargo space. If a car is measured one way in Europe and then converted for the U.S., the published number can look smaller or bigger than you’d expect.
The BMW X5 is an SUV, and the point here is that its cargo-space number can look smaller on paper. That’s because the measurement rules can differ by region, not necessarily because the trunk is actually worse.
Cubic feet is just a way to measure volume—how much space there is. If two companies measure differently, their cubic-feet numbers can look different even if the space is similar.
SAE is a set of measurement rules. Instead of just estimating, they use test boxes of different sizes to figure out how much real-world cargo space a car has.
The BMW 3 Series is a popular sedan, and the host says BMW’s published trunk space number changed after an update to their press info. That can happen because the measurement method or reporting standard changed, not because the trunk suddenly got smaller.
The Subaru Outback is a crossover SUV that’s shaped like a wagon and is popular for road trips and rougher roads. The hosts are saying the Cherokee’s styling/shape feels closer to that vibe than to a more typical SUV.
“Trail-rated” is a label that means the vehicle is set up to handle off-road trails better than a basic street SUV. It usually implies tougher off-road features and testing.
Trailhawk is a Jeep trim that’s meant to be more capable off-road than regular versions. The hosts are saying the new teased model is basically that Trailhawk style of package.
The Jeep Wrangler is the Jeep most known for off-roading. The host is saying that in the past, Wranglers could be sold in a simpler two-wheel-drive form, not just the hardcore off-road kind.
Two-wheel drive means the car only powers two wheels instead of all four. It usually makes off-road traction worse than four-wheel drive on dirt, snow, or mud.
The Jeep Grand Wagoneer is a big, more luxury-style Jeep SUV. The host is saying that even though it can have four-wheel drive, it’s not really the kind of vehicle people think of for tight, serious off-road trails.
Four-wheel drive powers all four wheels, which helps grip on rough or slippery ground. But the host is pointing out that being 4WD doesn’t automatically mean it’s good for off-road trails.
The Jeep Renegade is a smaller Jeep SUV. The host is using it to question whether a Jeep has to be truly off-road-capable to be considered a “real Jeep.”
The Jeep Wagoneer is a classic Jeep SUV. The host is using it to explain how Jeep’s SUV lineup evolved over time into models like the Cherokee and Grand Cherokee.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee is one of Jeep’s biggest, more upscale SUVs. The host is saying it was a big breakthrough for Jeep and helped the brand grow a lot.
Body-on-frame means the car’s body sits on a separate heavy frame, kind of like a truck. The host is saying Jeep used that traditional setup, especially in its pickup-style roots.
Car
Jeep Aspen
The Jeep Aspen is a Jeep SUV model. The host brings it up as an example of Jeep trying a more upscale SUV approach when SUVs were becoming popular.
Stellantis is a big car company that owns multiple brands. The host is saying their dealerships often sell several of those brands under one roof, which changes how easy it is to compare SUVs.
The Dodge Avenger is a car model that’s been sold as a sedan. The podcast mentions it because the same name and model can show up differently depending on the country. That can matter when you’re comparing listings or trying to identify the right car.
The Jeep Avenger is a smaller Jeep SUV. The host is using it to show that Jeep has multiple SUVs that compete with each other in the same general market.
The Wagoneer S is another Jeep SUV in their lineup. The host mentions it to illustrate that Jeep has several SUVs that end up competing with each other.
The Jeep Compass is a smaller SUV in Jeep’s lineup. The host mentions it to show Jeep has several SUVs that can overlap and confuse shoppers who are trying to pick one size/price point.
“Electric” means the car is powered mainly by a battery and an electric motor. The host is saying they’re not sure enough people are ready for that yet.
Concept
capture different markets
This means selling different versions of cars to appeal to different types of buyers. The host is suggesting Jeep could do that by offering similar-sized vehicles but aimed at different customer tastes.
The Mazda CX-50 is a compact crossover SUV. It’s designed to look more rugged and “boxy” than some other crossovers. The podcast mentions it because they think that style and approach could attract buyers.
The Jeep Commander is a Jeep with three rows of seats. The point here is that Jeep sells different versions of its SUVs in different countries, so the lineup you see at home may not match what’s sold elsewhere.
The Dodge Durango is a big SUV with three rows. The hosts are saying the company can’t always build it with a V8 because V8 engines are in short supply, so they sometimes use a different engine instead.
A “V8 only strategy” means the company wants that SUV to be sold only with a V8 engine. Here they’re saying they can’t always do that because there aren’t enough V8 engines to go around.
“Pentastar” is the name for a certain type of V6 engine used in some Stellantis vehicles. The point here is that if V8s aren’t available, they may put this V6 in the Durango instead.
A “cylinder shortage” here means the company can’t get enough of the engines they want—specifically V8 engines. So they sometimes have to use a different engine until supply catches up.
Car
Jeep Durango
The Jeep Durango is a family SUV with room for more than two people. They’re just referencing that some Durangos are coming with a V6 engine.
“Hemi” is a nickname for a specific type of engine design that’s often used in performance cars. “Reboot” means they’re talking about updating or bringing that engine back in a newer form.
“Hurricane” is the name they use for a newer engine family. The “Hurricane six” means the six-cylinder version, and the host is saying it feels better and is the one to choose if you want more power.
“Hurricane four” means the four-cylinder version of that newer engine line. The host is basically saying it’s fine, but it won’t feel as strong as the six-cylinder.
Hellcat is a name Jeep/Dodge uses for a very high-power performance setup. The host is saying it’s the one that’s not “slower” like the other versions being discussed.
The Dodge Challenger is a muscle car made for strong acceleration. The podcast talks about how some newer Challenger versions are slower than other high-performance versions, with exceptions like the SRT and Hellcat. It’s basically a performance comparison within the Challenger lineup.
An inline six is an engine with six cylinders lined up in a row. It’s often praised for being smooth and having good pull at lower speeds.
Car
BMW B58
The BMW B58 is a specific BMW engine (a turbo inline-six). People like it because it makes strong power and tends to feel really well matched to the car’s driving setup.
Horsepower is a way to describe how much power an engine makes. Higher horsepower usually means the engine can push the car harder, especially at higher speeds.
The Charger RT is a higher-performance version of the Dodge Charger. The host is comparing how it drives and sounds versus the even stronger Scat Pack.
The BMW M3 is a sporty, high-performance BMW sedan. People talk about it a lot because it’s designed to feel fast and sound distinctive. The episode mentions it because they’re comparing how something sounds to what an M3 should sound like.
They’re complaining that the car sounds like it has a bigger engine than it really does. It’s like fake engine noise that doesn’t match the actual engine.
They’re saying the car’s noise is made to sound like a V6, but the engine is actually a smaller four-cylinder. That can make the sound feel fake or off.
The Jeep Gladiator is Jeep’s pickup truck. It has a cab for passengers and a separate cargo bed in the back. Here, they’re using it as a size reference for the new scrambler’s layout.
“Two door four seat” means there are only two doors to get in, but it can still seat four people. It usually also means the back seat area may be a bit tight compared with a four-door setup.
Jump seats are smaller back seats meant for occasional riders. They’re usually not as roomy or comfortable as the main front seats or a full-size rear bench.
Easter Jeep Safari is a yearly Jeep off-road event where people show off new Jeep ideas and gear. They’re referencing it to talk about what kind of vehicle setup they saw or expected.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Autobire's Guide podcast.
Today we have Jared with us again, and we're going to be talking about the Lexus lineup,
the Jeep Cherokee, the Ridgeline, MSRPs, are they good, bad?
How should we be talking about them?
What's up with Jeep Dodge and Ram and a whole lot more in this episode.
Let's just roll the intro and then get back into it.
Alex, it was just a couple of days ago you posted on our Facebook page about the Jeep
Cherokee or the Toyota Cherokee, sort of a question about how much Toyota is built into
the Jeep, but it's all hybrid and that's a big swing for what the Cherokee used to be.
Yeah, this is an interesting twist because I was talking to a journalist friend of mine
who was also driving the Cherokee.
Apparently, there are lots of Cherokees hanging out there because Jared has one in his driveway.
I have one in my driveway.
Apparently, everybody has one in their driveway right now.
But this friend of mine was complaining about it.
He's like, oh, I don't like the way the transmission feels.
I don't like the way the transmission shifts.
It's just not as good as the Toyota one.
It won't be as reliable as the Toyota one on and about the variance between
this and the Toyota one.
And I was like, buddy, that is the Toyota one.
In fact, the regen-breaking programming and like it is, it is all Toyota.
Fun fact, Stellantis Jeep's parent company, Inc.
to deal with Blue Nexus, which is the mechanism by which Toyota and their partner companies
are selling hybrid tech around the world, sort of at an arms distance.
So you're not actually licensing it from Toyota.
It's a joint partnership between Isen, Denso, and then Toyota as a minority partner with
like 10% of the contraption of Blue Nexus, except that Toyota owns a huge portion of
Isen and Denso.
So really in the end, Toyota owns 70% of Blue Nexus and they will do things like they will
sell you the entire drivetrain, basically what they're doing with Mazda, the whole
kit and caboodle made in a Toyota factory, or they will license bits and even let you
build them in your own factory.
So apparently what is happening with the components and the Cherokee is that the transmission
is being built to Toyota specifications in a Stellantis factory, sort of like the ZF
arrangement they have, with parts sourced from Blue Nexus and the design sourced from
Blue Nexus.
So most likely, although they will not tell us for sure, but it sounds 99.9% sure that
the motors, the inverters, the control systems, all of that jazz is actually coming directly
from Isen and Denso going to the Stellantis factory where they assemble it into a custom
case to mate with their engine and their mechanical all-wheel drive system.
And it's a...
You're sure it's not just a coincidence that Toyota ends up so involved?
You're sure that just isn't random happens to us?
I mean, it sort of makes sense.
Chrysler, the Chrysler side of the corporation has dabbled with this style of hybrid system
in the past.
They had their own design system in the Pacifica plug-in hybrid that used the same patents
that Toyota and Isen used for their planetary power split system.
Only they did it themselves and they licensed the patents from PACE.
Just FYI, everybody out there, the patents are not Toyota's patents because Toyota effectively
licenses them from PACE as well.
So Ford, Toyota, the GM Voltex system, they all operate on a similar principle and lots
of patent arrangements are whirling around out there.
And even though the hybrid system is from Blue Nexus, they kind of Jeepified it because
instead of using an electric motor at the rear axle, this does have a drivetrain going
to the rear axle.
So it has a little bit more off-road capability.
You're going to sacrifice a little bit of fuel economy there and it does have a Jeep
engine or I should say a Stellantis engine.
It's actually from the PSA side.
I believe this is the first, maybe not the first, but it's a 1.6 liter turbo four engine
from a lot of Pujo Citroen products, which is kind of interesting.
So it's like 210 horsepower and they do quote the torque here.
It's 230 pound feet, 0 to 16, about 8.4 ish seconds is what I got from 0 to 60.
And it is the same like planetary gear set system that Toyota would use.
We definitely got a faster 0 to 60 time, which is interesting.
We got the same, almost the same 0 to 60 time as Motor Trend.
I'm sorry, Motor Week did in their testing.
So I was able to talk to a friend over there at Motor Week and she said that it was going
0 to 60 around 7.5, which is what we got as well.
I don't know what that is about there, but I know that there has been a bit of variance
in testing.
Motor Trend initially got a slower 0 to 60 time and I will diverge here for just
one moment and throw Motor Trend under the bus and Jeep as well, because Jeep shouldn't
have done it and neither should have Motor Trend.
Motor Trend got their hands on a very early prototype Cherokee because for their year
end testing, the only way for it to qualify was for Jeep to send them one.
And it was, I don't think ready yet, but also Motor Trend then decided to put it on an off-road
course, even though later Jeep was real clear that this is not the off-road model.
Then Motor Trend tried to say that the aero panels underneath the Cherokee were like
underbody protection and underbody cladding.
They were not.
Those are aerodynamic panels and they took it on this course and then ripped them off
of course and then we're complaining about that.
And it's on regular low rolling resistant street tires.
Good friend of ours up in the Pacific Northwest also did an off-road test and comparison with
a woodland RAV4.
And there the tires also, you know, play into effect here.
So I will say full disclosure, this Cherokee that we have now is an on-road mall crawler.
This is not meant to go to the off-road park exactly, although the all-wheel drive system
is going to feel more traditional in snow than an E-axle setup.
And the strange thing here is that this is like such an important model for Jeep because
it's one of the lowest entry points cost wise.
It's one of the most practical and it still, I think, at least from the outside to the
casual consumer, it still feels Jeep enough that you're like, Hey, I got a Jeep, even
though it's the one that's going to get you the best miles per gallon for sure, it's going
to be your daily driver.
And if you wanted to, you could have a totally separate Jeep for actual Jeep things.
This one just sort of happens to be a Jeep.
But ironically, like one of the most important staples here of hot segment, buyers ready
to go, it's got hybrid now.
It's also like the least Jeep of them all.
Yeah.
But it gets 38 miles per gallon.
That's what we averaged in our fuel efficiency loop.
So that was slightly above EPA, not RAV4 above EPA because RAV4 is, you know, in our test
loop is like 43, 44, so it's punched actually decently above its EPA number.
This punched a little bit above like most of the Toyota hybrid systems do.
I will say it's big, though.
So this is the other thing that I think is lost in translation sometimes with Cherokee.
And I don't think Jeep did a good job explaining it, etc.
It's eight inches longer than a RAV4 on a massively longer wheelbase.
And it weighs 700 something pounds more.
Yeah, it's a big car.
I live in Florida.
It's very flat.
So I can typically with a Toyota hybrid really beat their fuel economy.
I think the last time I had a RAV4, I was able to get, you know, nearly 50 MPG out of it.
Toyota is always the best with that.
So I've been getting, you know, a little over 40 MPG out of it.
You know, it's going to go down while I'm doing zero to 60 testing out of it.
I'd love to see what I'm getting at the end of a week.
But in Florida, where it's super flat, you can get really good fuel economy out of this car.
Not sure why my zero to 60 times have been slower than you guys and some other people lately.
But it's not slow.
It's not a slow powertrain either.
I will say, though, in terms of the size is pretty good.
I will say the interior is not that great, though.
At least the one I'm driving is the limited trim.
It's $45,000, doesn't have ventilated seats, doesn't have a 360 degree camera.
I know it's a hybrid.
I'd love to see exactly what RAV4 you'd be getting for that price.
Because I know the RAV4 for 2026 isn't the best value either.
But I don't know, 45 grand to not have either of those two features just seems like kind of a lot of money.
And I know you're we're going to be talking a little bit about MSRP's and what you're actually paying for vehicles in this day and age.
But it just seems kind of a lot of money for some of the little squeaks and stuff.
When you kind of push on some of the door trim, at least to me as a car reviewer.
But it's not it's not a bad place to spend time.
I do like, you know, some of Stellantis' latest tech and stuff like that in the car.
And I do like the powertrain.
The powertrain I do think is pretty good the way they've engineered it.
Yeah, I'll say the drawback is actually how you don't get more space somehow because it is so big and it feels so spacious inside.
But once you get in and actually feel like the roofline is strangely shorter.
So there's not quite as not that there's like limited passenger room, right?
But there's not more room for the passenger headspace is also not room to stack some more things inside.
But but it's not like it's missing anything.
Yeah, this is where the numbers this is where it's like, don't believe your lying eyes.
I think is the problem because visually, I agree.
It doesn't look bigger inside, but the tape measure doesn't lie.
And that's the weird part of this.
We squeeze the same number of 24 inch roller bags in the cargo area as the RAV4-6.
It is a little bit wider in some areas in the cargo area than the RAV4 and a little lower.
So the roofline is definitely lower.
Ground clearance is also lowering in Cherokee because this is not the off-road one.
So it's actually less than average now for a compact SUV in this category.
Legroom figures, the way that the SAE measures legroom, it is only one inch more than the RAV4.
But this is where we probably ought to dive into legroom because this is a perfect example.
The way that legroom is measured is a very strange measure.
And I know Jared and I were talking about this with his, with the Volvo, etc.
So weird.
So here's how it goes.
And for people that are not watching on, on the, the, uh,
YouTube's, you know, find us over there on the podcast.
So basically what they do is imagine this is a car seat.
I don't know if you can tell.
So, uh, if I can actually draw backwards, uh, totally, totally get it.
Right. Totally car seat.
Well, what we do or what manufacturers do is they measure from the hip point to the ankle point in a straight line.
So in the back seat, they literally put a dummy in the car or use a calculated dummy measure.
And they measure from the hip point to the ankle hinge point in a straight line,
as if it could be measured through the seat.
Does that make sense?
Got it?
Then for no apparent reason, they add 10 inches.
And the dummy is based on a round number.
The dummy is based on a five foot nine dummy with a size seven shoe.
And the size seven shoe is allowed to go under the front seat.
Now, where is the front seat?
Where is the back seat?
50%, 100%.
Yeah, right.
And this is the problem.
And this is where some manufacturers like Ford, Ford is really known for gaming this system.
So there are two places you can put the front seat.
The front seat can be put in this same measurement style, hip point to ankle hinge point.
And it can be set at a calculated 40 inches for that measurement in the rear to be taken.
Or it can be all the way back.
Or it can be wherever the front leg room has been measured,
which is typically all the way back, because car companies want to advertise.
I've got 44 inches of front leg room, right?
So Ford will measure the leg room with the front seat all the way back
to give you the most front seat leg room possible in this test.
And then they will shush that seat all the way forward to that 40 inch setting
to then measure the rear leg room.
So it's not consistent.
Either A or B, but not A or B.
Which is why when you hop in a Honda CR-V and then you hop in a Ford Escape,
you think, my God, this Ford Escape is not as big as a CR-V.
But you look at the numbers and the presto, it looks as big as a CR-V.
And the reason why this came up, listeners, is because if you watch the video that I guess
hosted for Alex with the Volvo EX60, the Volvo EX60 is 189.1 inches long.
The Volvo EX60 is that long.
The EXC60, the gas one, is only 185.4 inches long.
The wheelbase is 116.9 on the EXC60 versus 112.8 on the EXC60.
So there is zero chance in AT double hockey sticks that the EX60, the electric one,
has less leg room than the gas-powered EXC60.
However, if you look at the leg room measurements that I gave them,
and you know, it's funny because I'm in Europe driving this car,
so I'm talking to European product people who are like,
no, no, no, it definitely has more leg room.
I go, these are the product specs that I was given from the America team.
So the EX, the electric one, 41.7 in the front, 41.5 for the EX.
Okay, so the EXC, so the EX has a tiny bit more rear, 37.4 rear, 38 for the EXC.
So a little bit more for the gas one.
How is that possible?
And when you think about it, here's one of the reasons where this is possible.
It all depends on the height of the rear seat and how far your shoes can go under
the front seat, because since it's this in straight line calculated measure,
like from the tips of these two pencils in a straight line.
Well, if you're sitting like this, like in a kitchen chair,
you're going to get a smaller number than if it's a very reclined seat,
like a sports car where your legs are way out in front of you,
which is part of why like the old Tacomas and forerunners felt really cramped inside,
even though some of their leg room numbers seemed big,
because if your legs are stretched out in front of you,
and then you add 10 inches to that measurement, you get this really long number, right?
And it's also important to remember that these measurements, the SAE 1100 standard,
was designed in a world of exclusively sedans.
So all the reference images for how you do this calculation,
they're all sedans with legs stretched out, etc.
But with Cherokee, this is how you get to this odd number.
The rear seat is actually a little bit more upright than RAV4,
so your hip point and your ankle point are a little closer together.
But also the relaxed nature of the front seat and the lower roof line,
it's kind of an odd set of things coming together.
So when we do our internal measurements, if we put the front seat angle at the SAE 70 degree angle,
and set that to the right distance, same distance from the accelerator pedal to the seat back that
we usually do, there is about four inches more room between the seat backs in the rear seat.
So you actually get more room for like a car seat in the rear.
But in the Cherokee, you'll end up with your legs a little bit maybe more in your chest
than in a RAV4.
So which is better?
It depends on what you want out of it.
And in the Volvo, all of them have a power reclining rear seat that you can control on the door.
So you could literally go like this and give yourself more leg room.
So it's like, it should have like, and I said that in the video,
I'm like, do you want to trust what this little number says?
Or do you want to trust me as I recline here and tell you that it's absolutely huge.
And if you're Ubering with this or, you know, or just like, you know, want to have kids back here,
it's massive.
Like it's great.
So again, like I would really, I would really trust Alex on this.
He's giving you a really great like measurement instead of just saying, well, you know,
the automaker says it has this, which is more than this.
Like, you know, the two numbers are not always measured the same.
And it was the same with cargo room.
That's another one where they mess up all the time because they said based on the numbers
that there were certain measurements where the XC60 was bigger and it for sure was not.
Yeah, cargo room is another weird one because there are several different standards internationally.
Some will include the area above the rear seat back.
Like in the U.S., generally we include the area above the rear seat back in those measurements.
The Japanese and the American and Korean car companies typically use that measurement.
The reason that like X5 seems like it has such a tiny cargo area compared to some is because
BMW tends to use the European measurement and they just convert it to cubic feet and just throw it at us.
But then there's also multiple ways of measuring that space above or below that zone.
You can either use the standard set of boxes like little tiny square boxes or
an SAE mixed set of various different boxes that you stuff in there.
Or you can literally calculate it the way you could pour water into it.
So imagine it was a swimming pool and you could just pour water into it and then go,
how many cubic feet of water did we stick in this thing, which is not usable at all.
I believe there was actually a day that I remember where every BMW trunk just got smaller.
They updated their press site and every BMW trunk, I think the three series had like 17.3 cubic feet
and then one day it changed on us and it was like 14.
I was like, what happened? Did it just fit?
And they like, they changed the way they measured it.
I remember that day distinctively.
It was an interesting day in automotive journalism.
I don't know about you, Travis, but to me, going back to the Cherokee for a bit,
Cherokee reminds me more of the outback in a way than a RAV4, just the format of it.
Well, that's kind of what I meant about the short roof line.
It feels much more wagony than I would have anticipated.
And I'm not mad about that.
I don't dislike the way it drives and I don't think it needs way, way, way more storage,
but it's bigger than the RAV4, but it doesn't feel like you're getting that much more space
than the RAV4.
Yeah, sort of strange.
And actually, I do think where the Cherokee lines up feels like it's acting more like a Subaru
than it is trying to be a Jeep.
And I think that's to everybody's benefit, where the Subaru is going to be a more daily
driver friendly thing without off-road capability.
You generally get a better on-road vehicle.
And I feel like that's where the Cherokee is going to shine.
They did tease a trail-rated version, though.
Oh, yes.
The Ferrari.
They did tease like a trail.
They didn't call it a trailhawk, but they basically said it's going to be the
trailhawk.
You can't not call it a trailhawk at this point unless it's really not up to snuff.
And then I don't know what you call it.
We all know that there is going to be a more trail-rated version.
But this actually plays to an interesting question that we had from someone on Facebook,
on the Autopiris Guide Facebook page, which was, is it wrong that there is a Jeep Cherokee
that can't do Jeepy things?
And I sat and thought on that for a bit, but then I reminded myself there was an era where
Wranglers came as two-wheel drive vehicles by default.
So Wranglers, Jeep's history, even including the iconic Wrangler, has not always been off-road only.
And of course, we have vehicles like Grand Wagoneer, which they've said there is never
going to be a trail-rated version of this thing.
It has a four-wheel drive system, but it is way too big for a trail.
Thank goodness they didn't try.
They could use one of those, too.
They could.
I could see that.
They could use the commander of that.
I don't know if I believe any sincerely held beliefs, but sometimes the things they showed
Easter Jeep Safari are wishful thinking, and sometimes they're thinly veiled future.
So who knows?
But at the launch, I will say at the launch of Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, that is what
they said.
They're like, you're never going to get one of those things here.
I mean, I don't think it's a problem, but for folks who might, and I understand that, right?
Like, oh, it's not a real Jeep.
Like, was the Renegade a real Jeep in whatever context you want to capture it in?
It's the same folks who are really upset about the Lamborghini Urus, right?
Like, oh, that's not a Lamborghini.
That shouldn't exist.
Well, if you want Lamborghini to exist, then you need this to exist, right?
You have to take your licks to get what you actually want to.
I guess it's a little Tootsie Pop, right?
Like, you have to get your licks in to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop, and that's
the Jeep you want.
And without this, that Jeep might not be there.
Or they have to make too many compromises on that Jeep, so it's less Jeepy.
I'd rather have like a sacrificial lamb in the Cherokee that still feels Jeep-ish.
Or there just aren't as many Jeeps.
I mean, this goes back to Chrysler's acquisition of Jeep, of AMC, back in the before times, right?
So, you know, they basically were a brand with Wrangler, and they had Wagoneer,
which then turned into Cherokee, which turned into Grand Cherokee.
And it's an interesting progression there.
But there was some theory at the beginning that Grand Cherokee was going to replace Cherokee.
Who knows what was actually going on inside the Chrysler window.
But at any rate, they stumbled upon this sort of more luxury-oriented SUV thing in the 80s and 90s.
The success of Grand Cherokee was explosive for a Jeep, because they had just been this tiny brand.
You know, they had that if you pick up trucks, they had a body-on-frame thing
that was big and a body-on-frame thing that was small.
And that was that was kind of it with Jeep.
And then in this formative era where SUV started taking over America,
instead of making a Jeep or an SUV for Chrysler, they tried once upon a time with an Aspen,
but that was too little, too late and too weird.
But instead of trying to SUV-ify Chrysler, arguably they did okay with Dodge and the Durango,
but it's kind of been the one-hit wonder.
You know, they didn't have anything else that stuck there.
The nitro didn't work for you.
Yeah, it didn't work for them either, you know, when you look at the sales, right?
They didn't do that.
And Ram never got an SUV.
So this SUV explosion, it's all Jeep.
And it sort of makes sense because there are very few standalone or limited brand
dealerships for Stalantis in North America.
By and large, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram are all sold at the same dealership.
So do you really need a Chrysler SUV?
If you've got the Jeep SUVs, but bottom line, Jeep's got a shit ton.
So I mean, they've got they've got the Avenger internationally in the U.S.,
almost overlapping in the segment.
We have Wagoneer S. We have the the EV thing, the Recon.
We have the Cherokee and we have the Compass and the Grand Cherokee,
which are all actually really close in size.
In fact, Cherokee is closer to Grand Cherokee in size than it is to RAV4.
Yeah.
And then they overlap in price too, because you've got this Cherokee at 35.
You've got the Wrangler at like 32.
And then you've got the Grand Cherokee at like 38,
which is only a little bit more than this, this Cherokee at 35.
So it's like, do I want like a V6 powered bigger car?
Do I want this hybrid car?
You know, so it's like.
And all of a sudden, we're going to get a gasoline powered Recon
instead of just the electric Recon.
So I don't know why we need that many things with doors that come off.
But hey, I think the Recon looks good.
Yeah, I think it looks good.
I just I'm not sold on how many people want this electric right now.
I think maybe people want the Reeve.
I'm not I think I'm not a you know how I feel about Reeves.
I'm not in on them, but maybe people want the performance from them.
At least I think they could maybe pull a Mazda and have this Cherokee,
but just a super boxy little shape on it and sell two vehicles
of like the same size and price, you know, but just capture different markets.
But you know, make it super rugged and cool and boxy like how Mazda did with CX5, CX50.
I think that would be a winning strategy with it.
That's that's my hot take on it.
But maybe you're cutting the pie too thin.
If you're doing that, I'm not sure who knows.
I mean, Jeep has gone from selling globally under 100,000 units a year
before the explosion of Grand Cherokee to over a million units a year globally.
Now with the whole contraption and they're doing relatively well in Europe.
You see a lot of Jeeps in Europe now, the little Reconst and things that we don't get.
Or sorry, the Avengers that we don't get in the U.S., etc.
And in China, they've got China only Jeeps.
The commander, as I recall, is what it's called over there.
It's a little three row thing.
So it's funny because this has this has inflamed some people on the raw,
raw, made in America thing.
They're like, they're building Jeeps in China now.
Well, duh, yeah, they're building Chinese Jeeps for China in China.
That's how how it goes.
Do they know why beer exists?
I'm more upset that they're building Jeeps in North America that we don't get.
That's that's the one that bothers me.
You know, and and Jeeps future seems interesting because I don't know if you saw this new story,
but apparently the Grand Cherokee, Tim Kniscus, the president over there,
had this interesting quote here.
And this, this is a direct line here.
He says, we have a V8 only strategy on Durango.
Now, we violate that on a regular basis and build some of them with Pentastars.
That is his exact quote.
And we do that because we generally run out of V8s.
But our strategy is once we get enough V8s, the Durango will be V8.
There's a cylinder shortage as you were there.
There's a cylinder shortage.
So do they just cut them off at the fact like they just like switch them?
No, they literally can't build enough V8s.
Apparently, Stalantis just cannot build enough V8s.
And so so apparently that's why there are occasionally some some Durango V6 is poking
out here and there.
But Grand Cherokee, then in this sort of same breath, he said Grand Cherokee
isn't getting a Hemi reboot because it's not refined enough.
So odd because when I drove the four cylinder Grand Cherokee,
you know what I instantly didn't think of?
I think it's good for a four cylinder, but it's a four cylinder.
So the reading between the lines there, it sounds like Grand Cherokee is going to get
another engine.
It's just not going to be the 57
Yeah, it's that's all that's left right as the hurricane.
Yeah, the hurricane six.
Yeah, because obviously the four is also a hurricane.
So yeah, the hurricane four is okay.
Yeah, I like the hurricane six.
In fact, I prefer it.
And I just wrote a story about this, that all of those amazing Rumblebee trucks that
they just came out, save for the SRT, the Hellcat one, are all slower than the
hurricane ones.
They're all slow.
They are all slower.
So if you want a fast truck that doesn't cost six figures, it's going to have a six cylinder.
It'll be there in the next couple of years.
I have no doubt.
I mean, like it's going to be the performance version, right?
Yep.
The six cylinder is higher performance, better torque, better fuel economy.
And I know that's not a concern for those trucks, like at all.
But at the end of the day, the numbers are better.
It just doesn't go quite as well.
They call it the whoosh bee.
I think they just need to work on a better exhaust because BMW is really the only one
that has a decent exhaust sound with their inline six.
The Mercedes sound a little boring.
There's a lot of digital manipulation there.
They sound OK on the outside, too.
But not as good as some of the BMW inline six is not all of them mind you.
There's something about it.
Like the B58 is a stupendous motor.
I mean, but you look at it, they're getting what, 550 horsepower out of the hurricane.
Oh, yeah.
BMW is getting 382.
But yeah, the sound of a B58 is tough to beat.
Their transmission tuning is amazing.
And I even like the charger.
I've driven both versions now, the RT and the the Scat Pack.
And I think it's a great car.
I think people have like too harsh of complaints about it.
But yeah, sound, it doesn't sound like a V8, but it doesn't sound bad.
But it definitely doesn't sound like an M3 or an M340i.
They just need some extra tuning.
And I hate to admit it.
Maybe they also need to go down the BMW rabbit hole of a little bit of digital augmentation
on the sound.
Not, not Ford, where they're playing a V8 soundtrack over a V6.
That's wrong.
Or an infinity doing a V6 over the four cylinder.
Yeah.
And so it's like, I don't want the extra cylinders added to the soundtrack,
but just, you know, a little bit of extra throaty rumble or something
wouldn't necessarily be the worst.
Yeah.
Maybe you need to hire a German.
Like, I don't know, you know, maybe that's the answer.
And it's, it is interesting because like, you know,
our Greta dear does not have the best exhaust note.
It sounds more like the Stellantis three liter inline six,
even though it is a BMW engine.
Just BMW didn't have anything to do with the exhaust tuning.
That was all in EOS.
And they were like, we don't care.
We're just going to stick an exhaust on there.
It has one.
Check, check.
On the Stellantis front, I don't know if you saw this little news blurb.
Apparently details on the scrambler have come out.
So last week we thought it was going to be smaller, smaller than a gladiator.
It is not.
It looks like it's actually going to be about the same length as a gladiator
with a smaller cab or a more configurable cab.
Maybe is the better way to describe this.
So essentially what we'll be able to happen is you'll be able to remove the top.
It'll be a two door.
Okay.
You'll be able to take the top off and somehow flip fold the rear seats to enlarge the cargo bed.
Wait, it's a two door, but there's rear seats.
Yes.
Two door four seat.
It sounds like it's actually going to be roughly the same size in the back as the current gladiator.
So is it going, uh, and that's weird because that doesn't make sense.
The truck doors got a lot.
Ram, Ram, as you know, related to this, you know, Stellantis situation,
just put out the rumble being said, Hey, I know sport trucks all have two doors,
but here's the deal.
Two doors, isn't the answer.
And then in the same breath are going, but you know, it's amazing.
Two door Jeep truck.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it.
You know, so I don't understand that one, but it, what it sounds like is that we have
some more jump seats in the back.
I love, I'm down for jump seats versus a full rear, not like the gladiator has a ton of rear room.
I don't think you're going to be jump seats.
I think I know why it sounds like if they fold flat or it sounds like they might fold flat and
have like the large pass through.
So like one of the modes you get in the, uh, the GM EV trucks.
So there won't be a pass through because it sounds like there won't be anything above it.
So it won't be a mid game.
It would be too floppy.
It will be some sort of, because the roof comes off, you know, so it's sound.
I don't know.
I don't know where the occupant protection is going to be for roll over for the rear passengers,
mind you.
So maybe there is a hoop back there, but it sounds like sounds like you take the roof off.
And then there's the typical hoop over the pillars probably moved rearward because the
front doors got a lot bigger supposedly to make ingress and egress for the rear better.
And then we have two full size regular seats in the back that somehow do a flip fold thing
to then make the bed presumably eight feet long.
So the reason has got to be break over, right?
Cause that's the biggest hindrance off-roading a gladiator versus a wrangler.
That's God.
It's got to be better.
It has to.
That's that's a hunt.
Cause why else would this need to exist?
Versus cause I literally on Easter Jeep Safari doesn't sound like it's any shorter though.
So the break over is probably going to be the same.
No, no, but maybe the wheelbase can be.
But doesn't sound like it sounds like it's going to be the same as gladiator.
So then I have no idea then if it's not break over, then I don't know then cause like that's
the one thing where a gladiator just cannot cause it has the same approach as a wrangler.
The departure is terrible because the I'm going to guess even bigger tires.
That's the answer.
40s.
They're going to.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Who knows.
It's got a VA.
They can do whatever it wants.
I will say though, the, uh, the funny part about the wrangler now is, you know, anybody that
thinks the wrangler is like, you know, God's gift to off-roading.
Yes, it does have locking fronts and rears and a center, et cetera.
But it's also grown a lot.
Not talking the two door one.
I'm talking the one that actually sells the four door one, like 90 something percent
of wranglers have four doors and that four door wrangler is longer, wider on a longer
wheelbase than my grand Cherokee.
Yeah.
And, but they put big tires on it.
And it's heavy too.
The one I just drove had like the winch and the four cylinder.
So it was slow to 60 miles an hour with the four cylinder and a winch and a sky power one
touch.
And it was expensive too.
It was just over $70,000.
So it was.
I hope that one gets the new two later.
Yeah, right.
That'd be nice if it got the more powerful, uh, hurricane, that'd be nice.
This leads me along to a intrinsic question here.
Since we're talking all sorts of things that will no doubt have big discounts of MSRP.
And this is a comment that I made to Jared the other day when he was complaining about
the price tag of the Cherokee, because I looked it up here.
A RAV4 limited is going to be $44,895.
And we also had a Cherokee limited with an MSRP of around $449, I think.
So basically $45,000.
But currently the average transaction price on a RAV4 is running around 1% above or below MSRP,
depending on who you believe.
And Jeep's average MSRP discount, depending on the model, runs between 3% and 15%.
With Cherokee running around 10%.
So you're going to be getting almost five grand off your Cherokee.
So realistically, that limited is probably going to be about $40,000.
So how does one talk about this cost structure?
What's fairest when we're talking to consumers and we're trying to create videos for shoppers?
Is it fair to compare MSRP to MSRP because that theoretically changes less frequently?
Or is it fairer to use a 12 month average on discounts when we're talking about comparisons?
Because bottom line is there's probably no one that is going to pay full price for a Jeep Cherokee
in the US.
If you do, then yeah, I don't know what went wrong.
Because there's like all the listings everywhere list at least $2,000 off right now.
Like I could not find a single advertised listing for Cherokee at MSRP.
And RAV4, some dealers are still charging over MSRP.
And if you want to plug in hybrid, it looks like those are going for 5% to 8% over MSRP.
It does look like though the RAV4 limited is a nicer equipped vehicle though than this
Cherokee limited that I'm in though.
So maybe we're not comparing apples to apples at least.
Because I think this RAV4 limited has ventilated seats, would have a 360 camera,
would have some things that we don't have.
I'm not sure if it would have a panoramic roof or if you would have to add that.
It has a wood.
It looks like it would.
And it would have, what else would it have here?
You can add a head up color display for $600.
So for about the same money, you're getting a lot more because there is.
Well, it's not about the same money.
That's the question and the point is it would be about 5% more expensive.
Okay.
So up to 10% more expensive depending on which numbers we're talking about here.
So the average discount currently is running 8% to 10% on Cherokee.
So we're talking $5,000 more dollars for the RAV4.
So it's fair like the RAV4 has more equipment.
So that sounds rational.
That means basically the Cherokee is sort of like a nicely equipped XLE in terms there.
So if I price that out here, you could add heated seats, but no panoramic moon roof.
So for about $40,000, you'd be getting an XLE with the driver assistance package,
which has the traffic jam assist and actually, sorry, you can't get that for that price.
So you would have no front cross traffic alert, no lane change assist, no traffic jam assist,
no driver monitor, because you'd have to add the panoramic moon roof,
which would get you more expensive than the Jeep.
You would have heated seats and heated steering wheel, but no ventilated seats and all wheel
drive there.
You would also get soft techs, not leather.
And you would not get floor mats and you'd get more reliable thing.
I would probably in that balance recommend the RAV4, better fuel economy, greater reliability,
but I could not fit my daughter's child seat, for instance, in the RAV4 comfortably.
There's almost enough room, it's close.
Whereas in the Cherokee, absolutely no problem.
Both Rob and I can drive the car with my daughter in the back seat, zero issues.
And to be honest, if your family doesn't fit in the thing,
then some of these other things don't make sense.
And I think that's where the Jeep helps itself is by being bigger.
But I think, but the question here on the pricing is how do we,
what is fairest to talk about this?
Because if you don't talk average discounts on GM cars, Ford cars, Nissan's, Mazda's,
and Stalantis vehicles, and you're trying to compare those MSRPs to Honda and Toyota,
although Honda has some pretty good discounts now.
But if you're generally speaking, and then lately, Hyundai and Kia are actually some of the higher,
or closer to MSRP brands lately, Palisade, Telluride, it was also looking like Kia,
and Catalystia, it was actually kind of surprising.
Kia K5, Sportage, Seltos are also selling above MSRP at the moment.
So if you don't talk about that, are you really being fair with a comparison?
I think it's so hard as a reviewer because it's so regional.
It's so independent of each person as they go in, and are they able to haggle?
Are they able to get that deal?
Unless you're able to pull up these numbers, where are you able to pull this data from?
So it's really tough for each individual reviewer to be able to do that.
So it's much easier to quote an MSRP number.
I think the other thing that's always interesting to look at,
and you have to ask this on an individual buyer side, not even an individual reviewer side,
is how long does each person intend to keep the car?
Because that discount might be washed by the residual value.
So if somebody doesn't intend to keep a car for very long,
the residual value of the Toyota might offset the discount.
Well, but no, not necessarily though, because that's the twist,
is that this affects the residual, because they're all tied together.
Because residual value, when we're talking about resale value, I should say,
because residual is usually attributed to leases,
but if we're talking the resale value that you see quoted on Edmonds or whatever,
resale value is based off of MSRP, not actual transaction price.
So this is generally why, when you look at vehicles like Grand Cherokee, or Tahoe,
or some of these others, they'll say that the resale value over five years is below average.
Well, but if you already got a discount on it, then there's where a huge portion of that comes from.
On the flip side of that, resale value can be truly atrocious on things that appear good,
like true resale value.
When you look at, for instance, Telluride, and its first year on sale,
they were going way over MSRP.
So five years later, they looked like they held their residual value fantastically, right?
The resale value fantastically, but they didn't, because you paid more than MSRP for it.
So if you're paying $45,000 for your $40,000 car, and it's only worth $20,000 five years later,
that's not a 50% resale value.
That's way less than that, because you paid more than $40,000 for it.
Oh, because they're basing it on MSRP, not what you paid for it.
Exactly.
And this is also part of why Wrangler scores so high.
Like, have you ever questioned, how is it that other Jeeps have low resale value with air quotes?
And Wrangler has high resale value with air quotes.
A lot of this has to do with dealer installed accessories that are put on it that don't factor
into this calculation.
So your average transaction price gets inflated, and then when you then resell it later,
you're getting pennies on the dollar for your roof racks, and your gas tanks,
and your this, and your that, and your whatever, and your graphics packages,
and yada, yada, yada that were added to the vehicle.
There's some value in that, but it gets really crushed by some of those other factors.
When we actually calculated this out for an episode earlier in the year,
or maybe it was late last year, and we really looked at this over time,
because some of these are easy to find, high volume cars,
it's easy to find historic discount data on.
We looked at Nissan Rogue versus RAV4, and Honda Pilot versus Grand Cherokee.
If we looked at these vehicles, and compared their resale value five years on,
versus their average transaction price at the origination,
the difference was only a few percent off.
It was under four percent for both of those comparisons.
So you really aren't losing that much more in a Rogue, it still was lower,
find you. But you really aren't losing that much in Rogue, or in Grand Cherokee,
because they started lower to begin with.
Yeah, it just seems to me.
Don't want to do all the math is that it kind of just is a wash across the board.
So yes, are you going to be able to sell the Toyota for a higher dollar amount down the road?
Probably, but you won't get the same bit.
So if you're trying to break the system, good news,
system's designed to take care of itself by and large.
As I always wondered, not about the Wrangler, but about when everybody,
I just saw one of our colleagues did a video of these are the five best resale values,
and they were all like Toyotas, and I was like, why isn't the GT3 on that list?
I always see them, and it sells for like 300. MSRP was 180.
So why isn't that the best resale value?
Probably is. I'm guessing it's just too low of a volume to be counted.
I'm sure there's some artificial limit there.
Maybe is, but I would think that was for 100.
Niche cars like that, especially certain niche Porsches,
are probably going to be beating that number nine times out of 10.
But it is interesting. It makes me recall a company I used to work for, Service Company,
at this meeting one day, we're always talking marketing spots and advertising spots, and like,
well, this month we're going with a 30% discount, and next month we're going with a buy one,
get one discount, and then the month after that, we're doing a 50% off of this service,
when combined with 20% off of that service. And after having worked there for well over a decade,
I was like, when do we ever sell anything for full price? And they were like, oh,
we haven't done that since 1952. I was like, what happened in 1952? They're like,
that's the year we started and realized we couldn't sell things for full price.
So like the discounts are baked into the pie, and that's where I would say
that's why shoppers, especially for full size trucks, full size American trucks especially,
they expect that. So like these shoppers going in for another truck,
they're expecting the deal, discount, which is why I was actually surprised
by this, Tundra and Tacoma are currently averaging around 10% off MSRP for the last year.
Which is rare, because usually those trucks did not have
incentives. Yeah, it seems like Toyota's incentive spend on their trucks has gradually
been increasing over time, as Toyota has turned into the new General Motors.
I will say that this is a big change in the generational, you know, like from one to the
next, right? So this Tacoma is the one that's all turbo or hybrid, and that's weird. So maybe
this is just intended to say, hey, don't worry, don't worry, I'm going to give you a little bit
of something. And especially at 10%, they could roll that back. It's not too much to ever return
from, but I'm almost wondering if that's on the Tundra, sort of a different situation,
not entirely, but still sort of the Tacoma is like, hey, this isn't last year's Tacoma,
this isn't the Tacoma, maybe you were expecting. So here's a little something, come on back,
you'll be fine. I think it could be, I think it could be for Tacoma, it could be competition,
because there's more competition in the midsize truck segment than there was,
you know, a decade ago. And for Tundra, I think it's totally really trying hard to gain market
share from the Americans, which have been trying to do for a long time with Tundra. So Tundra
has, has, has generally had more, more cash on the hood effectively than Tacoma for a while.
And I think Tacoma is mainly just competition. And they still haven't solved the turbo issues on
that Tundra yet. So that's been a big issue with that one. But I'm worried that I still get so
many comments where it's like, I literally had somebody ask me before they were going to go
out and look at the Tacoma, well, would you be worried about that turbo engine being reliable
in the Tacoma? And I was like, bro, it's a Tacoma. I was like, are you kidding me? Like,
people are still asking about turbo engines. But, but then in, in their defense, you know,
Toyota is recalling Tundras again with that turbo. I mean, the funny, the funny part there is it
has nothing to do with the turbo. It has nothing to do with why people are concerned. It's like,
just because there's a turbo doesn't mean it's unreliable. Because what's failing in the Tundra
has nothing to do with the turbo. Right. It was like metal shavings, right? Well, it seems to be
an oil. Yeah, that's what they said initially. But then recalled engines that were included in the
fix that got that repaired or and brand new engines as well, mind you, to the same design
with the supposed cleaning fix, those are also having failures. So it sounds like it's an oiling
issue. Like there isn't enough oil flow to critical parts of the engine. Not great. I mean,
GM has had issues with oil issues too. So what is the bottom line? How should we be talking about
car prices? What's what seems to be the most fair? So I have to go back to the discussion about leg
room. Don't hate the players hate the game. So but we need to fix the game so that we have
standardized that. And that's what I've always hated about. You know, so I was in car sales for
five years. And it's the thing I hated about car sales is whenever you drive by dealership and it
says sale, I go on what there's not a fixed price on any item here. How can it be on sale if it
didn't have a price to begin with, right? It's all marketing. It's all advertising. It's all
bogus for the most part. And any frustration that a dealer or manufacturer has about, oh,
why don't they think they should ever pay full price or why do they want to discount on this?
It's your own fault. And it's the consumer who suffers. I love somebody who goes, I got an
incredible deal on my blank. But I also know that for you to get an incredible deal, somebody got
screwed to pay for the lack of profit that you just gave them. We have to go with MSRP. It's
kind of the only way we can, we can reference, you know, historical discounts. But, but, but do
I get that today? Do you get that today? We can go into the same dealer by the same vehicle,
delivered same day, same spec, and we'll pay something different. How do you?
Yes, I will say they're, they're going to be different, but generally speaking,
they will be fairly close. Like if you, if you and I go into a Toyota dealer and we buy a RAV4,
same dealer, different days, different salespeople, different people, customers going in,
we are probably going to get a very similar price on that identical RAV4. But I would also argue
that generally speaking, if you go to a Chrysler dealer, you're going to get a very similar price
on a Pacifica as well. And that Pacifica's price is generally going to be further from MSRP than
that Toyota. And we have the numbers for that. That's, that's the thing though, is that we actually
have the transaction data from places like Cox and from IC cars and a number of other outlets there.
Cox, you know, always reports every quarter on, on average transaction price for major brands and
major models. So we can see what people are actually paying out the door and it's pretty
consistent for the same model and actually relatively consistent across regions as well
with certain variances for things like the Northwest in winter where people may be more
interested in one car versus, you know, that, that Corvette that's on the lot that we're like,
move that one before winter. So there's certain variances like that. But generally speaking,
in the fair weather states, there's not a lot of variance in, in that, that, that discount off MSRP.
Oddly enough, even including states with higher property costs like California versus Florida,
you're seeing relatively similar pricing in these areas. And I would say that if there weren't,
we would see more online sales across state boundaries than we do. And on the Toyota front,
one of the car company, one of the companies rather that does do a lot of that is Longo Toyota in
California. They're the largest Toyota dealer in, in the US and they advertise that they never mark
up anything. So they have, I think I don't remember if it's exactly fixed price or they just guarantee
no markup, but that's the place where if you want to be on a waiting list for a RAV4 Prime,
which they're now calling whatever the heck they're calling, plug in, you know,
it ditch the prime. But if you want to pay MSRP for one of those things anywhere,
you can just get one from Longo and drive it home or have them ship it. They don't care. They're
just like, yeah, Toyota is the door. They are one of the automakers notorious for certain regions
will not let you buy from if you're in like a certain region, especially the Southeast region
that I'm in, like you cannot buy from like out of region, like the dealers, they are like mafia,
like they're like, yeah, that's, that's because Toyota has a different importer in, in different
regions of the US. They're, they're the weird one, but you can still go. I mean, you could
literally fly to Longo to California drive one home. That's not prohibited. There's certain
restrictions in their contract and I can't remember how it goes, but they may not be able to ship one
to you and think it's the limitation. But say if you're in Texas, which is under the other importer,
it's like most of the US, then there's the South importer, which is not part of Toyota. Toyota
imports their own for most of them. Then there's that second importer. It's a historic thing from
back when they started at any rate. There's nothing that will prevent you in Texas from
flying to Southern California, buying one from Longo and driving it home and even including fuel
probably still saving some bucks. Yep. But I think that's too much effort for 95% of car shoppers,
right? Even if all the math makes all the sense and, you know, you don't have to take any time
off work. It's all done shipping and it's just, it's just going to be more effort than people are
either think it's worth or are there assumption of what the effort is, is greater than it actually
takes. It's, it's question. I'm not, yeah, I'm sure on average, yes, but there's a significant
number that do because those sorts of orders are why Toyota is the, why Longo is the largest Toyota
dealer because they do a lot of this advertising and, and sell to people that are willing to travel
for the discount. And that, that is a, that is a massive Toyota dealer down there. Most people I
interact with and like who I recommend cars to won't go to their second closest Hyundai dealer
to get the Tucson hybrid because the one that they went closest to didn't have one. So they just
settle for the gas one, which objectively sucks. The hybrid is so much better. So they were just,
they just end up with the gas Tucson and they're unhappy with it because well that one was two
hours away. They were told that there aren't any nearby and there are. I remember I had a friend
who went to a Kia dealer, one of the Kia Forte coupe back in the day and one of the, just,
just, just a nice little daily driver that was interesting with the stick, right? The, the not
quite civic SI alternative. And, and they were told, Oh God, there just aren't any around. Oh yeah.
There were. I mean, it wasn't the one next door that was a fairly low volume vehicle,
but either that dealer wasn't going to be in a position to dealer trade for it,
or they just said, can we get you to buy that one? And guess what? They did get him by Kia
Stoll instead. Not the same thing. Not what he was looking for. But the dealer, the one who has
all the authority and power in that situation says, nah, they're not there. And stick with what you
have in front of you. This, this falls into the last topic that I wanted to cover, which is what
do car shoppers actually want and why reviewers and enthusiasts especially are often on the wrong
page. Because I will venture that that person didn't really want a Forte coupe anyway. They
wanted, they kind of liked it. And they were like, Oh, that's cool. And then when they go to the
dealer, if they really still wanted one, they could have gotten, got one, right? Cause they could
have found one. They could have pulled out their phone, their computer in their pocket said they
weren't there. Right. Right. But then they didn't want one bad enough. But they aren't there, Alex.
Right. They aren't there. Yeah. It's, it's an expert told you it doesn't exist. And sometimes you're
sometimes you're in an accident and you literally like can't get, you pull out the computer in
your pocket and then you Google and you show the sales guy this one on their web page. That's the
one I want. I would. And Jared would. And most of our listeners, I bet you also would. Not all of
them and not their family members. Right. But see, that's my point is that you and I and Jared are
not the average car shopper. The average car shopper cares an awful lot less about that.
Right. But when you're talking about something like a color and we know dealers tend to stock
white and black and silver and all the, all the boring ones. And it's like, well, I really want
this cool blue that you guys offer. Well, guess what? There's not a single one of those, you know,
it's like, well, you're going to have to go three states over to get it. It's like, okay, well,
I can wait two months. Well, guess what? Your car gets rear-ended and you need a new car and you
have work on Monday and it's Saturday. It's like, all right, do I want blue or do I want to get to
work on Monday? So it's like, I'm excited about getting a new car. It's right here in front of
you. You got to prove for your loan. And you know what? I'll just take this one. Like, is it the
wrong decision? Probably. But it's the human way to do things. Yeah. So that happens a lot too.
If driving enjoyment was a concern, we wouldn't find the best sellers on the best seller list
that we have, right? Correct. No. I mean, it's not like, it's not like the RAV4 is so exciting to
drive. It's that it's very practical. Hold on. There's a GR Sport version now.
There's a GR Sport version. It's fun, but your sport's not more fun than a bunch of other things
that are at a similar price point. You can't get a tow hitch with a GR Sport. Just throwing it out
there. You can't get a manual transmission either. It's not like Camry is the most, you know,
jaw-droppingly gorgeous and fun thing on this earth, but they sell 300,000 of them a year because
the average family car shopper just wants a family car that does family car things and they
don't care as much about some of those details, which is why I kind of have this suspicion
that Cherokee, going back to the very beginning of this, that Cherokee will be just fine because
it's the new hybrid Escape for America. And I'm thinking the older, boxier Escape,
because the current one's too small. This Cherokee is big enough and boxy enough to be that thing.
It's fuel efficient. It's going to sell fine in the square estates where people are like,
I don't know about that new fangled Japanese car. Did I say that out loud? That's my family,
you know, somewhere in the middle of the U.S. I'm making fun of my own family guys out there,
the listeners. So I have, have members of my family that will absolutely not buy a foreign
car. But then somehow, yeah, but then somehow they're okay with the Jeeps, the Dodges and the
Rams, even though that's a foreign car company now because they're headquartered in the Netherlands.
But what do I know? Here's my question, Alex. Forester hybrid or Cherokee?
I would probably buy the Cherokee because it is a little bit bigger in the backseat.
And I do have, you know, one with two on the way that need to fit back there.
I also find the seats a little bit more comfortable and the drivetrain is considerably
more refined than the Subaru. It is quiet. But the Subaru, I think looks a little better here
and there. Parts quality, I would actually say is probably better in the Cherokee. The Cherokee,
I'm bummed by some different things I think than you guys were. I'm really sad that there's no
ventilated seats we're all in agreement on. Four-way lumbar support for the driver is missing.
You can tell that there's going to be a model with seat memory for the driver, which does not exist
yet because there's a weird panel that's blank on the driver's door and I'm like, that's ugly.
The door handles suck in all of these cars. Like you pull it and it like kind of doesn't always
open. That's the electronic door release. Yeah, it's worried. Like, is there something there?
Like, are we going to open the door into something? Yeah, it's always a bummer on those.
But I would probably in that grouping end up with a Cherokee instead. But I would rather
that there was something in the midsize. If Toyota brought back a Venza, a real actual
in between two row thing, between Grand Milander and RAV4, like if they could grand RAV4,
I would buy one of those every day and twice on Sunday. No, it's not. Because Crown Signia is
not actually any bigger on the inside than RAV4 and it's a lot less practical in some areas.
Cargo area is not as practical. Crown Signia does not have that much more room. I have our
measurements here where we. You don't need that much more room. You just need some more room.
Yeah, I thought you need several, several inches more room than we find there. So
I thought it was longer. Maybe I don't know the exact measurements of it, but it's more
luxurious. Crown Signia actually has barely, barely more leg room than RAV4. I know the crown
doesn't have much more than a Camry. The seat back to seat back distance is actually lower. So when
the driver's seat is at that, that 40 inch, 41 inch position, you actually get half an
inch less, sorry, half an inch less in Crown Signia than RAV4. RAV4 improved this generation.
They redesigned the seat backs a little bit. So you get a little bit more room back there.
And then Crown Signia, if I'm looking where is this Crown Signia? It has less cargo room
than RAV4 by a reasonable amount, 10 cubic, actually 12 cubic feet less because of the roof line,
the roof line and the cargo area. So what's the practical difference? Yeah, what about cargo?
Because it's not as deep. Crown Signia has a much longer nose. A lot of the size difference just
goes to the front overhang, not actually usable space. So that's, that's my problem is the thing
that would actually work best for, I think not just me, but actually a lot of families, which by
the way is something else we talk about, which young families don't buy new cars. That's the
problem. But what would work for people? Appbids or buy new cars, those are your choices.
If you're an 80 or 90th percentile male and you have kids, you know, cars are not made for you,
but I think what would be is if they simply took a RAV4 and they just added six inches to the middle,
just like boop, made it longer. RAV4 out. You just need to be rich and buy an RX.
RX doesn't actually have that much more room either. It's very strangely shaped because of
its sort of wagon like profile. Right. But if they literally just took a RAV4 and grand RAV4
did, that would be fantastic. Or we need an outback hybrid. What was that? We need an outback hybrid.
It's true. That's probably coming soon. Yeah. Outback, outback is close to enough room. I love
it. Not quite as much as some, but it's pretty close. I mean, the trail seeker. The trail seeker
would work well. I would like more range. I haven't driven yet. The real answer for your
whole future, Alex, is the Lexus ES. That's just what it comes down to. If you want nothing but
ridiculous amounts of rear passenger volume, that's it. You want six and a half feet between
front seat and back seat. That's not it, but it's close. I mean, it's getting there. It's ridiculous.
I don't think I'm old enough for a Lexus ES. Well, but the new ES is more interesting.
It's a little younger. more modern. It still says Lexus ES on the back.
That's true. And it now says LEXUS instead of L. And what do you feel about the Lexus ES
going from the discount entry level rebadged Camry to now Lexus' flagship sedan?
Right. I don't know if it's made that full leap, but I do have to say for the value,
for what it offers, it actually fits in a really weird space. And correct me if I'm wrong. I don't
normally hunt for executive rear seat packages, but considering that you can get an executive rear
seat in the ES with somewhere around a $50,000 price tag, kind of seems absurd to me. That has
got to be the lowest entry point of an executive rear seat package. And it's really good as long
as you're not, you don't sit terribly tall. But even that is so weirdly structured because you
can't get it in the hybrid, which they said is going to be about 80% of sales. And it's not going
to be in the more powerful, more expensive version of the EV. So it's the lowest price version.
And it's the lowest range. And it's just, it's so strange how that all comes about.
For what it is. That's the highest range is the single motor?
It is the highest range. Yes. But it's not the lowest, but it's not the highest power.
Right. Yeah. It's at the lowest starting model, starting trim.
Yeah. What is generally the bougiest of all the options.
But it's funny because that one's cheaper than the hybrid, which is interesting. The EV.
And then it's what it's all about with that model.
I know, but the, but even the hybrid, it doesn't have the luxury package. It has premium and premium
plus no luxury. So I wouldn't be surprised if they added some things later to ES since it is
technically the flagship sedan. Right. Yeah. I mean, I personally think Alex could do with the Volvo
EX60, a little more family friendly. I have to admit, Lexus ES is pretty tasty. I have to admit,
this goes back to the, what customers actually want. Cause when you look at Lexus sales of RX
and ES, that's a huge chunk of what Lexus sells. And TX now is outselling MDX. So clearly what
people want there is not driving enjoyment. They want reliability, comfort, a little bit of space.
They want a nice dealer experience. And the TZ is a driving lounge according to Lexus. So that's
actually what with LFA sounds, which you want in your driving lounge.
They told me that the RZ couldn't have that because it was the wrong type of product to have
LFA sound. But TZ is the right one. Are you kidding me? Because it has 402 horsepower,
not 420 like you get in the RZ alternative. I appreciate that Lexus tries to do fun things
now and then. LFA was, it's a really interesting vehicle. I've driven it on a track. It was, it
was a joy. You lucky bastard. But I have to admit, they're not as fun as some of the other
companies, fun things, and they don't stick with the fun part. You know, they've had FFs here and
there. They've had the LFA, whatever, but Lexus's core strategy and core competence is making higher
volume things that people buy as, as the, you know, the reliable, the luxury there is the dealer
experience, the reliability, the fuel economy, et cetera. The luxury is not, you know, the opulence
in the cabin. It's not a driving experience. That's for someone else to tell. Well, I have,
I have the new IS that just got refreshed for the third time because it's, I looked this up
because it came out in 2013, the third generation IS. This is now the third facelift. So the,
it came out, it got revealed in January of 2013. A few months earlier, Barack Obama was just
reelected and the iPhone five was released. I don't know what iPhone were on like 15 or 16.
So it's crazy. Apple CarPlay had not come out yet. So like, you know, it's crazy. So they just
put a new active sound control on this car. So it used to be the little knobby on the, on the side
left of the steering wheel. Now it's on the touchscreen. You have low, medium and high.
So what you do is you put it on high, you twist it to sport plus mode and it goes
and it kind of, it's supposed to sound like the V eight, I think, but then when you let off, it goes
like, it does like, wait, wait until you drive it. It is heinous. It is, it's not, it's not great
like this. I, I'm sorry. I missed, I missed the IS with the tiny little V six that they used to have
in there. That was fantastic. I love that little thing. No, the 2.5, the 2.5 sounded like, sounded
like a sewing machine. It was fantastic, but it was, it was good. I mean, it was like precision,
quiet. You could hear a little V six noises. I was like, this is a miracle of an engine.
This is fantastic. I wanted to buy one with a stick because I thought that would just be a
good car to have, but it was a terrible stick. I think it was the same. I think it was a Tacoma
stick if I'm not mistaken. I think it was the same gear. I could be wrong about that.
I know it's an unpopular thought, but I'm actually sad that that 2.5 liter V six didn't become the
star of some new Toyota Lexus hybrid system that rocketed across. Although I believe it was the
engine used in the IS hybrid in Japan. Yeah, I do believe they did have that and they still have a
16 auto in this car. If you get all will drive because they never were able to fit all will drive
in the eight speed in this car, which is just hilarious. Let's see what the hybrid was here.
Yeah, I do. I do remember because I was just 300. Yeah, IS three had. Oh, no, it was IS 300.
It had the 2.5 liter. So sad. No, it would have been. No, the IS hybrid didn't have a V six.
Okay. All right. I do think Jared's right though, that for your family vehicle, the EX 60 is still
a strong contender. I know we've talked about EX 60 and IX three a little bit and also the
living are two, but we're being our two June 9th is when pre-orders go live. So I expect
some more information. Tell you a little bit more about that probably on that June 9th,
but in the meantime, the EX 60 still does does seem like a bit of a standout for you.
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how big it actually is inside or whether I just need to pick up a
lightly loved Acura ZDX. Oh, they're great used. You can get them under 30. So cheap. Oh my god,
even the type S's are cheap. That's a good one. The thing about the Volvo was I'm curious to see
the pricing on the P 12. I think that's the one that the viewers would be the most interested
to learn about because Volvo hinted to me that it would probably follow the same pricing structure.
So it would jump about $2,000. So if you're looking at 60,750 for the P 10 plus and 67,350
for the P 10 ultra. So you're probably looking at about 63 for a P 12 plus and maybe about 69
for a P 12 ultra. So I'm going to guess it's got to be more than that, but I'll be intrigued to see.
That's what they told me is that it would probably follow quite close to what P six to P 10 was.
So I'm not sure if that means exactly the same, but that's roughly what they told me.
And then they did tell me that the battery in the P 12 was a slightly different chemistry
than what was it in the P 10. So even though they both charge at a peak of 370,
you get a better curve in that one as well. So you should see higher sustained speeds at those
higher percentages. So you'll see like a quicker curve as well. So I'd really love to do some
battery testing between the IX three. And this, this was a more comfortable car because I'm one
of the only people that's driven both. The IX three had a very firm ride, if that's something
that you don't like. If you're cross shopping the two, they both have great charging tech.
They both have nice interiors. The BMW is obviously more like in your face with screens.
The Volvo is kind of more simple and Tesla E on the inside, but the Volvo is like
very soft and very lax a days ago, but the BMW has braking that I promise Alex is the smoothest
braking you've ever felt in a car. The Volvo just has kind of normal regen braking. And I
promise when you drive the BMW, you'll be impressed by the braking. I am just surprised
that the cross country version of the EX 60, which also seems silly to me since the EX has
an X in it, so it's be cross country, whatever, that the cross country EX 60 is going to have
an air suspension and the regular one won't. That seems like a sad miss to me that the P12
should have an air suspension. But the time you get up to the tippy tops or should it be
like an option box you could select, like you can on an XC 90, you could add it, you know.
Yeah. The P 10 and P 12 both have adaptive suspensions and then the P six had a regular
steel spring. Yeah. It was steel, but it was a why am I blanking on it where it reacts to the
amplitude reactive dampers. That's basically it's a dual valve system. So one for low frequency,
one for high frequency, frequency adaptive dampers. So it was even that was really comfortable.
And what they told me was because they went up to a 22 inch wheel now for, you know, the first
time on an EV, but it has like the thickness that they would have put on a 21 inch tire.
So both of them rode really well. I only drove them on 22 inch tires and I did not have a problem
with the ride quality on the P six or the P 10, which was really nice. I will see how it goes.
I'm curious to see exactly what the refreshed Polestar three will end up being like with the
new motors. Since it is theoretically, theoretically, I'm going to be getting a version of one of the
EX 60 batteries because that's what the EX 90 will also be getting is the new, the new battery,
new motors and some of the control tech. But we don't know all the details yet.
It's the Polestar six that's going to be the first full spa three car. That'll be the sister car to
this as far as I'm aware. So that should be a really nice car as well. I'm not really sure the
size of that. I did a flow chart with Polestar's with by size and by price and by order of,
you know, how they've come out and actually no Polestar six is not supposed to be a spa three
car. Polestar six and five are supposed to be sorry, Polestar seven with lips. Yeah, that's a
set. Yeah, it's seven. That's the sister. See, I got it wrong. I need the flow chart or else I
don't know because 65 and six are seven. They won't they won't talk about this a lot. But
five and six are going to be sharing some things somehow theoretically with Lotus.
Yes, because they're going to be using the aluminum, aluminum intensive, whatever platform
Yada Yada developed in the UK. Yes, six is the convertible. But yeah, my confusion with Polestar
is maintained. The number thing makes no sense. Yes, it is. Why they aren't all volvos also makes
no sense to me, but that's a whole different problem. Oh, yes. But with that, we should end our
episode. So thanks for watching and listening everybody. Be sure and hit that subscribe button
if you haven't already done so. Shoot us your questions to hay at auto buyers guide.com. That's
H E Y at auto buyers guide.com or send us a voice memo either at that same email address or you
can give us a call at 669-842-1947. See everybody later.
About this episode
Jeep’s hybrid tech gets traced back to Toyota—right down to “planetary power split” architecture and Toyota-derived regen behavior—while the hosts challenge how outlets test prototypes and how “0-to-60” and MPG results can swing with tires and setup. The episode then pivots to why MSRP comparisons are misleading: discounts, markups, and even residual-value math can flip the story. Finally, legroom and cargo specs are unpacked, showing how SAE measurement geometry and seat-position choices can make published numbers feel wrong.
Alex and Jared open with a revelation that stops most car shoppers cold: the new Jeep Cherokee hybrid isn't running some Stellantis-developed powertrain — it's essentially Toyota technology, sourced through Blue Nexus, the joint venture Toyota quietly controls via its majority stakes in Aisin and Denso. From there the conversation expands into the Cherokee's real-world performance (38 mpg, a 7.5-second 0-60, and a Motor Trend early-prototype controversy), how it actually sizes up against the RAV4 despite looking smaller inside, and whether a Jeep Cherokee that's really an on-road mall crawler can still legitimately wear the Jeep badge. The guys also dig into the deeper history of how Jeep went from a tiny niche brand to over a million global sales, the brand's increasingly crowded lineup, and where a rumored two-door Wrangler-based pickup might fit into all of it.
The second half of the episode tackles one of the trickiest questions in automotive journalism: how should reviewers talk about car prices when Jeep and GM routinely sell at 10–15% below MSRP while Toyota holds at or above sticker? Alex breaks down how MSRP-to-MSRP comparisons can mislead shoppers, how resale value data is distorted by markups and dealer add-ons (and why Wrangler's "strong resale" is partly a statistical illusion), and how Toyota's own trucks are now hitting 10% off MSRP as competition heats up. The episode closes with a frank look at the Lexus lineup — including the ES's evolution from budget Camry rebadge to Lexus flagship sedan — and a quick update on what Volvo's SPA3 platform and the EX60 might mean for the forthcoming Polestar 3 refresh.
0:00 Intro: The Cherokee, MSRPs & What's on the Docket
0:43 Jeep's Toyota Secret: Blue Nexus, Aisin & How the Cherokee Hybrid Really Works
4:20 Cherokee Real-World Results & the Motor Trend Prototype Controversy
7:00 Cherokee vs RAV4: Size, Cargo & the "Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes" Problem
10:00 How Legroom & Cargo Numbers Are (Mis)Measured — The C1100 Standard Explained
19:00 Can a Jeep Cherokee Be a Real Jeep? + Jeep Brand History
25:00 Jeep's Overcrowded Lineup, Global Growth & the Wrangler Pickup Rumor
34:00 Are MSRPs Meaningless? Pricing, Discounts & Resale Value Reality
44:00 Toyota Trucks at 10% Off & the Tundra Engine Recall
52:00 What Average Car Shoppers Actually Want (vs What Enthusiasts Think They Want)
1:03:23 Lexus Lineup: ES as Flagship, Lexus's Core Strategy & the IS We Miss
1:11:00 Volvo EX60, SPA3 Platform & What It Means for Polestar 3
