The Ford Explorer is a common family SUV. In this story, a used older Explorer was idling with people inside/near it, and carbon monoxide built up—this gas can be deadly if it gets into the cabin.
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that can come from car exhaust. If it builds up where people are breathing, it can stop the body from getting enough oxygen and become fatal.
Bolt holes are holes drilled so something can be attached with bolts. In this story, drilling through the floor for a police cage could create a path for dangerous gases to get inside.
Term
cage in the back
A back cage is a metal barrier used in police cars. Putting it in place can require drilling and mounting changes that may affect how safe the cabin is.
CO emissions are how much carbon monoxide the vehicle produces. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas, and if it gets into the cabin it can make people sick or worse.
Electric vehicles are cars that run mostly on electricity stored in batteries. The discussion here is about what worries people have when they consider buying one.
They mean a normal wall outlet (like the kind you’d plug appliances into) that you can use to charge an EV. It works, but it charges much more slowly than a dedicated charger.
The Alpine A110 is a small sports car. In the podcast, it’s mentioned because the speaker talks about using a plug-in setup in their parking spot for charging. The focus is on how they manage charging, not on technical specs.
Level one charging means using a regular home outlet to charge an EV. It’s convenient, but it usually takes a lot longer than using a dedicated charger.
Ford made a hybrid version of the F-150 pickup called the PowerBoost. It uses a gas engine plus an electric motor, so you can get extra push when you need it.
A hybrid uses two power sources: a gas engine and an electric motor. The electric part can help the truck feel stronger, especially when you accelerate.
The Chevy Silverado is a major big pickup rival to the F-150. They’re saying the next Silverado versions are likely to bring hybrid tech too.
Concept
crazy hybrid era
They mean we’re in a time when lots of new cars are becoming hybrids. Automakers are adding electric help to gas engines to save fuel and meet regulations.
A mild hybrid is a hybrid that uses a small electric assist, but it usually can’t run fully on electricity by itself. If it’s removed, the car relies more on the gas engine.
The Toyota GR Corolla is a sporty compact hatchback from Toyota’s performance team. It’s designed to be fun to drive, with strong grip and rally-style attitude.
The Chevy Colorado ZR2 is a version of the Colorado pickup that’s meant for off-roading. It’s set up with stronger off-road parts so it can handle rough trails better than a regular Colorado.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is Mercedes’ most luxurious, comfort-focused car. The host is talking about an older one they drove that was especially smooth, quiet, and had a V8 for effortless power.
The Land Rover Defender is a tough off-road SUV that’s also trying to work well for daily life. The host likes how much room it has and wants the six-cylinder version for a better engine choice.
The Porsche 911 is one of the most famous sports cars ever made. In this clip, the host is especially excited because they drove one with a manual transmission, which makes it feel more like a classic driver’s car.
The Mazda Miata (MX-5) is a small, sporty roadster that’s famous for being enjoyable to drive, particularly with a manual gear shifter. The host mentions it to show she’s a long-time Mazda fan.
A manual transmission is when you shift gears yourself with a clutch pedal and a stick. The host brings it up because she likes cars that feel more engaging to drive.
A rotary dial is the round knob you turn to control the car’s screen and settings. The host says it can be annoying to get used to if you’re only driving the car for a few days.
The Mazda CX-90 is a bigger SUV that can fit more people, including families. The podcast mentions it because it has some features that feel well thought out, including how it handles reversing. It’s used as an example when comparing other Mazda SUVs.
The Mazda CX-70 is an SUV that’s meant to be practical and comfortable. The podcast mentions it because it has features that help with reversing and generally feel carefully designed. It’s referenced as part of a group of similar Mazda SUVs.
The Mazda CX-50 is Mazda’s crossover positioned as more stylish and sportier than the CX-5, with a higher price tier. The host contrasts its interior design details (like stitching) and overall “upmarket” positioning against the CX-5.
A turbocharged engine uses a device that pushes extra air into the engine. That usually helps it feel stronger; the host is saying the CX-5 no longer comes with that kind of engine.
Torque is the twisting force an engine produces, and it strongly influences how quickly a car accelerates, especially at lower speeds. The host quotes torque alongside horsepower to describe the CX-5’s output.
The Mazda CX-5 is a popular compact SUV/crossover. Here, they’re talking about the CX-5’s “rotary dial” control for the infotainment and settings. The point is that Mazda is changing that interface on the newer CX-50.
Infotainment is the car’s screen-based system for things like music, navigation, and settings. The host is saying that when the system adds more features, Mazda may need a different way to control it than just a single knob. That’s part of why the rotary dial is going away.
The Honda CR-V is a compact SUV meant for everyday driving. It’s designed to be practical, with room for passengers and cargo. The podcast mentions it because it’s in the same general category as other popular crossovers.
The Toyota RAV4 is a compact SUV that many people buy for everyday driving. The podcast mentions it because it’s similar in size and purpose to other popular crossovers. They also say it can be hard to find, which is why it comes up.
Jeremy Barnes is the person joining the podcast for this part of the conversation. He’s being introduced as the guest who will talk about the Mitsubishi news.
A mild hybrid is a car that has a small electric assist system. It helps the gas engine, but it usually isn’t meant to run the car by itself on electricity for long.
The Eclipse Sportback is being introduced as a fully electric car. They’re saying it’s based heavily on the Nissan Leaf, so it should feel like a modern EV in how it’s built.
“True four-wheel drive” usually means the car is built to drive all four wheels when traction is poor. It’s generally more serious off-road tech than the simpler AWD setups some crossovers use.
A crossover is kind of a “SUV-looking” car. It usually drives more like a regular car, and it may not be built for serious off-road use the way a true 4WD SUV is.
They’re talking about Mitsubishi’s plan for the next several years—specifically a 2030 goal to sell more different models. The idea is to expand what’s available in their lineup.
The Mitsubishi Outlander Sport is Mitsubishi’s smaller SUV. They’re using it as the cheapest option in their lineup and talking about pricing.
Topic
Mitsubishi SUV lineup pricing and availability
They talk about what Mitsubishi has left to sell and what models are now the main focus. The big idea is that Mirage is basically out, and Mitsubishi is pushing SUVs—especially ones priced under about $30k.
The Nissan Rogue is a popular Nissan crossover. In this segment, it’s being used as the comparison point to show how two related cars can still feel and function differently.
Super All-Wheel Control is Mitsubishi’s name for its advanced all-wheel-drive system. It helps the car grip better by using the brakes and the car’s computer to control which wheels get the most help.
A differential is a part that lets wheels turn at different speeds, especially when turning. Here, they’re saying their system can control wheel spin using brakes instead of relying on a differential.
The Mitsubishi Cordia is an older Mitsubishi model from the 1980s. People bring it up because it was part of Mitsubishi’s early push in the U.S. with a more sporty reputation.
Term
EV thing
They’re talking about Mitsubishi doing electric-vehicle projects for a while. It’s just a casual way of saying “EVs” in general.
The Mitsubishi Pajero is a well-known Mitsubishi SUV sold in different countries under different names. In this segment, they’re talking about whether it will come back to the U.S.
The Mitsubishi Montero is basically the Pajero’s name in some countries. They mention it because Mitsubishi is talking about bringing that SUV back globally, but they don’t know about the U.S. yet.
All-wheel drive means the car can send power to both the front and rear wheels. That helps the car grip the road better and respond more predictably when you steer.
The World Rally Championship is a major rally racing series. Rally cars have to handle changing traction, so racing there helps develop technologies like all-wheel drive.
The Ford Ranger is a pickup truck that’s built for tougher driving and practical use. It’s often chosen by people who want something that can handle rough roads. The episode mentions it while comparing extreme off-road capability.
“Off-highway” just means driving on rough ground that isn’t regular paved roads—like dirt or gravel. The host is saying Mitsubishi wants to market toward that kind of use.
They’re talking about how Mitsubishi names its cars. The point is that the “Eclipse” name already has recognition, so it helps the brand communicate quickly.
This means the popular class of smaller SUV-style cars. The conversation is about how these cars are getting nicer inside and more expensive, like they’re competing with more premium models.
The Dodge Durango is a family SUV. The host is saying an older Durango was built on the same underlying platform as a Mercedes-Benz ML, which can help explain why it drove well.
The Mercedes-Benz ML is a Mercedes SUV. In this segment, it’s mentioned because the Dodge Durango was based on it, meaning the Durango inherited some of Mercedes’ underlying design.
In car talk, “architecture” means the car’s basic build—how it’s laid out and what major parts of the structure are designed around. Updating the architecture usually means more than just cosmetic changes.
Car
Chrysler Charger
The Chrysler Charger is a well-known car model. In this discussion, it’s mentioned as part of a Chrysler group that used Mercedes-based components, which can influence how the car drives and feels.
Car
Chrysler Challenger
The Chrysler Challenger is a muscle-car model. The host is using it to illustrate that some Chrysler models shared Mercedes-based components, which can affect overall quality and driving behavior.
The Dodge Challenger is a muscle car, meaning it’s built to feel powerful and sporty. The podcast mentions it because it’s part of a set of related cars that share some design and parts. The discussion is about those connections, not just the car’s style.
The Dodge Charger is a car model that’s known for performance, especially in its sportier versions. In this episode, it’s mentioned as part of a group of related Chrysler-era cars. The point is that some of those cars share parts and platform design.
The Dodge Magnum is a car model that was offered in a wagon-like form. In the episode, it’s mentioned because the speaker is talking about related Chrysler cars and how some parts were based on Mercedes-Benz designs. The point is the connection between vehicles, not just the body style.
The Chrysler 300 is a large sedan. Here it’s mentioned as part of a group of Chrysler models that used Mercedes-based parts, which can help explain why they were considered strong cars.
The Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a Mercedes model line. The host is saying some Chrysler cars used parts from the E-Class, which can help explain why those Chrysler models felt more “fancy” or well-engineered.
Car
Dodge Crossfire
The Dodge Crossfire is a small, unusual sports car. The host says it looked weird and also notes it was closely related to a Mercedes model, meaning it wasn’t a totally original design.
The Mercedes-Benz SLK is a Mercedes sports car. Here it’s mentioned because the Dodge Crossfire was closely related to it, so the Crossfire wasn’t completely separate engineering.
A hoodstrake is a raised line or ridge on the hood of a car. It’s usually there to make the car look more aggressive, and sometimes it’s tied to airflow design.
The Chrysler Pacifica is a minivan, which is a family vehicle with more seats and space. The podcast mentions it while talking about the shape of the hood and how the design looked earlier. The point is about styling details and how the vehicle changed.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made for fast, exciting driving. The episode mentions it because they’re doing a Corvette-related quiz. It’s brought up as a recognizable model in the discussion.
They’re talking about the 2026 Volkswagen Jetta and which “versions” you can buy. Different trim levels are basically different feature packages—some are cheaper, some include more equipment.
“Wolfsburg Edition” is a special set of options for certain Volkswagen models. Think of it like a package of features that’s meant to be a good deal, not a completely different car.
LIVE
Every team, every topic, everywhere. This is Belize.
All right, this is the Consumer Guide Carstove Podcast.
I am Tom Appel, publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive.
Thank you so much for joining us this week.
When you have a moment, when you have a chance, please do us a favor.
Check us out at consumerguide.com.
Lots of stuff going on there.
I won't get into this this week.
We have an action-packed show, a lot of stuff to get to.
So why don't we just jump right in with me?
As always, Jill Simonillo.
She is a contributing editor here at consumerguide.com,
North American Car of the Year juror, and a freelancer.
Yes.
I just noticed you waved, and I always forget,
you will repurpose this for use on YouTube.
Talk about that real quick.
Yeah, yeah.
So since we are now doing a different format,
we are recording this live via Zoom, I guess I should say.
We're recording via Zoom.
And so after the show, I just essentially take the entire recording
and upload it to my YouTube channel, Cartagior,
which you can find under my name, or Cartagior.
And I have it in a special playlist,
and you can actually see what we look like and facial expressions
and what are we wearing today, you know, that kind of thing.
We could play a fun game called When Will Tom Shave?
Hashtag never.
I'm going to say never.
I was actually going to get a haircut next Saturday,
and then I realized I have an appointment.
I can't do that.
And usually I like to get, shave for the haircut,
you know, so I just leave super clean.
I don't know that that's going to happen now.
Well, no, so never.
Yeah.
So there you go.
But yeah, so we do post these on YouTube,
in addition to pushing this out to all of the various podcasting
networks, so.
Yeah.
So check that out.
Give Jill a little business there.
Later in the show, we talked to Jeremy Barnes.
He is the senior director of communications and events
at Mitsubishi.
Mitsubishi is sort of a brand we haven't talked about much,
largely because you and I haven't seen test cars from Mitsubishi,
and they haven't been making much news,
but we just drove the updated 2026.
Both of us have had some time in that vehicle.
Yep.
It's very good.
The Outlander.
Outlander.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, did I not say that?
I think you said 2026 and then stopped there.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah, the Outlander, which is their compact crossover
and their volume car, and it's worth knowing about.
Sad, sad, sad story out of Toledo, Ohio.
And I don't know if you saw this Jill, but a family of five
were parked in a Ford Explorer, a used older Ford Explorer
with the air conditioning on.
It's been hot and the car was idling outside.
And three of the people died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
I did not see this story.
Yeah.
And I think that there might be some overreaction to this story.
One, like that this is a Ford Explorer,
which I'm not entirely sure is relevant to this story,
or that CEO is a huge threat to the lives of drivers.
But some interesting stuff here.
Carbon monoxide poisoning cars last year in vehicles parked
outside, there were maybe 10 examples.
It's a very, very rare thing that somebody dies
from carbon monoxide poisoning in a car that didn't intend to die.
It's still unfortunately a form of suicide,
and that's tragic, and we don't want people doing that either.
But there was an interesting story,
and it's that between 2011 and 2019,
there were some complaints about the air quality in explorers.
So there was, in fact, an investigation.
The investigation found nothing.
Yeah, I seem to recall that investigation.
But there was one interesting thing that was determined
in the investigation, and this might be where this story ends up going.
And that's the amount of CEO, and that's CEO, not CO2.
The CEO in the car was higher in some used explorers
that had been police cars.
Interesting.
And it turns out, though, and there's not a direct correlation
made yet between these two facts, but these facts exist nonetheless.
To install things like the cage in the back of a police explorer,
bolt holes have to be drilled through the floor.
So what's happening is that access for CEO from the exhaust
is coming up through the floor or can come up through the floor.
And I think what we're going to find out eventually
is that this was a used vehicle that was not handled well.
But the exhaust system was problematic,
that in fact there had been holes left in the floor
from it being a stripped down police car, I think.
And that's all terribly tragic,
but there's probably easy ways to prevent this happening again.
Including rubber plugs, something like that.
Or just putting carpeting over it, or I don't know.
But yeah, there's got to be something that can be done.
But no, that is unfortunate. I did not hear this story.
Yeah, we'll hear more about it, I think.
There will be an investigation.
It's interesting to note too that there are no standards for CO emissions
inside a car.
Instead, there are lots of standards for keeping crappy air out of a car,
including exhaust.
So we'll see if there are any changes to the way the laws are applied
to related to air quality in a vehicle.
Interesting piece of news, it's market research.
It has to do with electric vehicles.
Not earth shattering, but interesting.
Resistance by consumers to electric vehicles has changed a little bit.
And the number one concern is no longer range.
It is charging at home.
The number one concern is charging at home.
And that makes some sense to me as probably most of the people
who own electric vehicles, especially the early adopters,
if we're still using that term for EV owners, have homes.
They have garages they can charge.
And there's probably lots of people like, I don't know, you.
You live in an apartment, you have access to a garage,
but can you install a level two charger in your garage?
Probably not.
Well, I know, but yes, I feel like there are some laws on the books
in some states, and I think Illinois is one of them,
that if I wanted to install a charger in my rental garage,
the landlord has to approve that, but I would have to pay for it.
And I would have to agree to leave it there when I move.
So I think I could legally do that, but I don't, I mean,
fiscally, I don't know that it would make sense if I'm not planning
on living here forever, which I am not.
I'd like to look into that.
I'd be interested to know what it costs to do that,
like in the parking garage like yours,
because it's a communal parking garage.
Yep.
It's a big thing.
And you would have to run power to wherever it is you parked.
Do you have a dedicated parking spot?
I do have a dedicated parking spot, and I will say I do have,
like there is, I do see like power up above in the,
in the rear ceiling, and I do actually have a 110 jack in my parking spot
that I will use occasionally to plug in like PHEVs or electric cars
if I'm not driving far.
Yeah.
For people who don't know 110 or level one charging,
it's a temporary solution.
It'll help and you'll get some mileage overnight,
but you're not going to fully charge battery in any short amount of time.
Level two charging, which is what you can do in your house or your garage,
something like that is six or seven times faster.
Yeah.
It is meaningfully, meaningfully quicker, but it costs money.
Yeah.
So like level one will take you like three days to charge to 100%
if you are meaningfully discharged.
And like doing the level two charger,
it'll take something like eight to 12 hours.
So it can be done overnight.
The next time I don't finish a project,
I'm going to say that I was meaningfully discharged.
Meaningfully discharged.
Okay.
I don't know what that means, but it sounds serious.
Like doctors note serious.
Yes.
Yes.
I talked to you about this a little bit before we went on here.
Before we went live, Jill.
Yes.
And I just think it's interesting that we have not talked much about the
Ford F-150 power boost pretty much since it was introduced.
And for people who don't know,
this is a hybrid version of the F-150.
And it uses the 3.5 liter EcoBoost engine plus electric boost.
And it's got some stuff that comes with it too.
That's pretty meaningful.
I should stop using the word meaningful today.
But you can tap that power.
Yeah.
There's I think even 220 outlets in the bed of the pickup.
So you can do a lot with that ultimately.
But I don't know why we're not talking about that.
And interestingly, the Sierra, the GMC Sierra and Chevy Silverado will be
seeing brand new versions of that very soon of those big pickups.
No hybrid.
Yeah.
We're in this crazy hybrid era.
Everyone wants a hybrid,
but no one's talking about hybrid versions of those vehicles.
Instead, counter-intuitively,
Gia made its V8 engines bigger.
Yes. More power.
Well, that seems to be the trend.
I mean, Ram brought back the Hemi.
They did.
They did, yes.
And actually took off the mild hybrid system from that.
It's like, we really don't want to be efficient.
No.
All right.
Question for you.
When's the last time you worked in an office that you went to every day?
2014.
And were you there most days?
Yes.
Okay.
And did you kind of work nine to five during the week?
Because my office was in Schomburg or, you know,
in the Schomburg area, Arlington Heights,
I was allowed to like work from home for a couple of hours before I
would get on the road.
To avoid traffic.
So I would typically work from like 10 to six,
which would then also help me like avoid traffic on the way home.
But I would work a couple of hours at home before I would get on the road.
So you're actually, that was actually,
I remember that office because I met you for lunch a couple of times.
You were by a bunch of car dealerships,
the golf road strip in Schomburg, Illinois.
One of the interesting things that's happening,
and I'm wondering if it's interesting to you as a would be consumer,
if you weren't driving test cars,
is that dealerships are beginning to offer mobile service.
And they are putting together big vans that can go out and do things like recalls,
oil changes, tire rotations,
basically lesser mechanical things that need to be done,
probably things like a 30,000 mile, you know, service and stuff like that.
And my question is, how much does that appeal to you as a consumer?
I mean, if they could come to my office and do it while I was working,
that would be very appealing to me.
You know, it's funny, I don't spend obviously a lot of time in dealerships
because of, you know, having test cars and, you know,
my husband and I are maybe once every five years.
And so I, but I recently had the opportunity to visit a dealership a couple weeks ago
and walking through their customer service area, like dealerships have changed
in the last couple of years.
I don't know the last time you were in a dealership,
but this had like massaging chairs in it that people could sit in while they were waiting for service
and it had like a really good coffee maker and big TVs.
I think I even saw like a gaming console in there and I'm just like,
man, I might actually want to go to the dealership to get my car service, you know.
But I mean, if I did work a nine to five job, probably not.
Dealer customer service scores are based in part on customer satisfaction
and service satisfaction is based on how comfortable people are
and how long they have to wait for their car.
And I think their ire over a long repair is softened somewhat
by the fact that, oh, there's a big screen.
And this magazine is from last week, not, you know, less decade.
So yeah, but massage chairs.
That's all I'm saying free massaging chairs.
But the dealer thing is the mobile service thing is interesting
because it affords dealers an opportunity to expand their service capacity
without adding space or modifying their service area.
It's remote.
And if it can be done for easy things, oil changes, tire rotations, things like that.
That means that your techs at the building can be doing expensive, higher profit things.
And that can happen where the equipment, you know, you have the equipment and things like that.
So this is like a trend and it's a big deal and more and more dealers are experimenting with this.
I'm wondering too, if they can keep the cap on prices,
like is an oil change still about 75 bucks, 80 bucks?
If they can keep it there for, you know, for a synthetic oil oil change, that's great.
If they start raising prices on this, that would kind of suck.
But new thing, it's a trend, but the dealers who have experimented with this seem to like it.
Yeah.
I mean, I would have to think they would cost you a little bit of a or charge you a little bit of a premium,
you know, just for the, you know, convenience of not having to go to the dealership.
But I don't know, maybe not.
Maybe not.
They wouldn't at first probably they have to draw people into wanting to do this and we'll see where it goes.
Kind of like a free trial on a car.
So then you get sucked into the subscription fee.
That is, by the way, that is why manufacturers want people to go back for service so much.
I mean, dealers want the money from the service,
but manufacturers want you to come back and walk around the showroom and think about buying a new car.
So they really don't want you leaving, leaving the brand, leaving the fold.
Saturday night, I visited with our friends, Steve and Johnny, and some caller called me up and we chose to not have me try and answer this question this week.
Okay.
And I want to know if you can do this quickly.
If you can answer this question quickly.
What are the five best test cars you ever drove?
Go.
Five best test cars.
I would say the Rolls-Royce Ghost, the Lucid Air, the Toyota GR Corolla, the, I'm like, what else?
Oh, you know, I really do like the Ford Bronco and Raptor is especially awesome.
So that would leave me one more.
One.
You know what?
I'm also a really huge fan of the Chevy Colorado ZR2.
Very different models.
You did that very fast.
Are you comfortable with this?
I mean, this is what's coming to me immediately off the top of my head.
Okay.
That's a good list.
You said the Colorado, the Ghost, the Lucid Air, the GR Corolla and the Bronco.
Yep.
Yeah.
I was literally alerted to this by text during a commercial break.
And I'm like, I don't, I don't think I want to do this.
But I've got some stuff here.
And this is not a definitive list, but I just, I drove a Mercedes-Benz S-Class fairly early in my career as an auto journalist, 2004 or so, maybe 2005.
And it came to Consumer Guide with no options, no AMG wheel and tire package, nothing like that.
And it was the quietest, smoothest riding vehicle I had ever driven.
And it had the base V8.
There was a smaller V8 that was available in the base S-Class.
So smooth, so smooth, so quiet.
And there's plenty of power.
That was a fantastic car.
I'm really, really, really fond of the current Defender.
I think it makes great use of space.
The powertrain is fantastic.
I would like that six cylinder engine.
A fuel economy is decent.
And for some reason, a vehicle that is that capable off-road should not ride and handle as well as it does, but it does.
It's an engineering marvel.
I agree with you on the Lucid air.
It's on my list.
What a fantastic car.
We could talk about this next week.
Lucid's in big, big trouble.
We talked about their financial issues.
Rumors are now.
Rumors are now.
They might, they might declare bankruptcy.
Finally, I drove a Porsche 911.
Around the same time I drove the S-Class.
It's kind of a base car with a manual transmission.
Holy shmokles.
That is like the epicenter of what a sports car should be.
Right.
So good.
All right.
You.
Yes.
You miss Jill drove the all new Mazda CX-5.
I did.
I did.
Tell us about that.
I have very mixed emotions about the new CX-5.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
Very mixed emotions.
Um, I should start by saying that I,
I tend to be a little bit of a Mazda fan girl.
I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Mazda vehicles.
Like the Mazda three is just one of my favorite,
like just kick around everyday driving kind of vehicles.
Um, and you know, the Mazda Miata MX five.
I mean, come on.
Like what, what a better like little sports car with a manual
transmission.
And, and so, you know, I have a strong love in my heart for this
brand.
And when I got behind the wheel of the CX-5,
the first thing I thought was this is not a Mazda.
And, um, the, you know, so the first thing that they've done,
and we have had a guest on the show to talk about this,
but they removed the rotary dial.
And I know as automotive journalists,
we tend not to like these dial things because they're really hard
to get used to when you only have a vehicle for like three to seven
days.
And, and, and so when you have such a short amount of time with a
vehicle, like when you have something that is very, um,
owner focused and something that would take some time to get used
to and to learn, there's the big learning curve.
Um, you know, we, we tend to not like that as much.
I, and I didn't mind it.
I didn't hate it, but it just wasn't my favorite thing,
but they've removed that.
And in its place, they now have a, like on the top end trims,
and I was in the, what, the premium plus they have,
so the very top trim, they have, um, a 15.6 inch screen.
This is bigger than my laptop.
This is bigger than my MacBook Air.
You know, it is a large screen and everything is through the screen.
So you don't have any more like volume dial.
You don't have HVAC controls with buttons or dials.
Everything is done through the screen.
Now it does have Google built in and you can use voice commands to do this,
but the test card did not activate that.
So I was not able to test that out.
So, um, so you have this very large screen and that's the first thing
you're going to focus on when you get into the car.
Well, after the Zen intro sound, cause the Zen intro sound is pretty nice.
So like you, I call it the Zen intro sound.
So you open the door and you sit behind the wheel and it's like,
it's got this really like, like Zenny, um, calming,
relaxing Namaste sound that's going on.
And so, um, well, I'm not going to like that.
Well, you can turn it off.
Um, and I have a tech that shows you how, but, um, so, you know,
after the sound, the thing that you're going to notice is this big screen.
Then, um, just the overall interior to me was really, um, land.
Very boringly done.
And if you have driven the, the CX 90 or the CX 70 or even the CX 50,
those vehicles have this really nice attention to detail with cool reverse
stitching and just some really nice details.
And this just didn't, it was just, I mean, it did have reverse stitching,
but it was just very boringly done.
And so there was a strange, deliberate attempt to,
to kind of decontent this vehicle and move it more distinctly
downmarket of the CX 50.
And for people who don't know what happened, the CX five has been
Mazda's best selling vehicle for a very long time.
And then the CX 50 came out, looked a little more stylish,
a little bit more sporty and was priced slightly upscale just
upmarket of the CX five.
But the CX five now, uh, also no longer available with the
turbocharged engine.
No, no, no zooms even the zoom.
No, I mean, it's 187 horsepower, 186 pound feet of torque.
That's not awful, but it's just no zoom.
No, I just read to zero to 60 time from, it might have been
current driver of eight seconds.
So I'm sure that puts it mid pack.
I'm sure that's plenty of power and I'm sure it's plenty of power
around town.
It's fine.
It's fine.
But I missed the turbo.
And so, you know, it did feel, um, like quieter when you're cruising
speeds, but louder, like when you're under acceleration, just
because the engine is going to have to try a little bit harder.
Um, you know, and I, I, I didn't mind the big screen, you know,
and with voice controls, I think that would be manageable.
Um, you know, I like the steering wheel.
They changed instead of putting the logo.
Wait, I got to hold your feet to the fire here.
I thought you never liked the big knob.
No, I did not like it.
I just didn't love it.
If that makes sense.
That was not one of those people who was bothered by it.
It just wasn't like, I actually liked it.
And now, okay.
Yeah.
So, so you miss it a little.
Well, I wouldn't say I miss it, but I think Mazda owners are really
going to miss it.
Yeah, maybe.
And, and so I actually did, um, and I'll, I'll send you the link,
but I did a first look review of this and I also have a road trip
review coming.
I haven't posted that yet, but I did a full first look review.
And my overall consensus of this vehicle is if you have never driven
a Mazda, you will love this vehicle.
It is really well appointed.
I mean, the, the as tested price for the vehicle that I had all in
with all of the things you can't get anything else on it was,
um, like 40, $41,000.
So, um, you know, for, for everything, you know, that to me,
and that included, um, premium paint color.
So, you know, I thought that was a pretty decent price for the
vehicle that you're getting.
And if you've never driven a Mazda, I think you're going to think
it's awesome.
However, I think that if you have driven Mazda's before, and I
have a couple of friends who, who are Mazda owners, um, I think
that they will not like it.
I think that they will, um, miss the rotary dial.
I think that they will miss the zoom in the zoom zoom.
And I think that they will think the interior is just a little too
plain.
And I, I have gotten some feedback to that extent, um, from my friend
and TikTok.
Here's some bad news.
Um, the rotary dial gone from the CX five going to disappear from
the CX 50.
Um, they have, they need, they basically needed more control
than the rotary knob would afford them for a lot of the
functionality that's coming online.
So they have to get rid of that.
Unfortunately.
All right.
We got to take a break.
Final final thoughts on the CX five.
I think this is a really great vehicle.
And I think it's slightly demystified, but if you've never
owned a Mazda before, I think you're going to love it.
If you are a current or former Mazda owner, um, you, there are
some things about it that you just may not like.
It's a little bit more plasticky than, um, you would hope for,
but the price is really good and you get a lot of great features
for your money.
There you go.
All right.
That's, uh, where can people read your review?
Um, it is on my YouTube channel right now and I will send a link
and make sure we include it in the show notes.
Sounds good.
All right.
We're going to take a break when we come back.
We talked to Jeremy Barnes of Mitsubishi.
Stick around.
Questions or comments?
Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
Welcome back to the carstuff podcast.
And we're back.
This is the consumer guide carstuff podcast.
I'm Tom.
She is Jill.
Jill, how are you?
I'm doing very well.
Thank you.
Did I ask you that earlier?
I don't think you did.
It may not be redundant this week.
Normally you give me a hard time about constantly asking you
how you are, but I don't think I've done that yet.
I think you missed it.
How are you doing Tom?
I'm doing good.
Okay.
I'm doing good.
As you can see, I still haven't cleaned my office.
No, I think it's gotten worse since the last time we did a show.
Actually.
It may have.
And then again, I apologize.
If anyone's watching this on YouTube,
I apologize for the door being open to this closet.
But if I close that, the cats will come in here and scratch at it.
So, yeah, it's a thing.
So you and I, we haven't talked much about Mitsubishi in the last
couple of years, but there's news there.
Yes.
There's some stuff going on.
And you and I have driven the Outlander recently.
That is their best selling product.
And that is their compact crossover that plays in the exact same pool
as the CRV and the RAV4.
And by the way, you can't get a RAV4.
That is true.
Maybe think about an Outlander.
But on the phone with us is Jeremy Barnes.
He is the senior director for communications at events at Mitsubishi.
Jeremy, how are you?
I am wonderful.
I'm very, very grateful for you guys having me on today.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with me.
Absolutely.
It's our pleasure.
So Mitsubishi's been quiet, let's say, for a couple of years,
but things are starting to happen there.
Tell us a little bit about what's happening and why we should start
to get excited about what's going on there.
So thank you.
I won't argue with you on that.
Yeah, things have been a little quiet for a while, but we've been here.
We're plugging along steadily.
We've had a handful of years of solid sales.
We are excited about what the future brings.
That's really the biggest thing.
As you said, there's a lot coming down the pike, a lot on the horizon for us now.
We are in the midst of a midterm plan that we call Mitsubishi Momentum 2030.
Momentum 2030 takes us out through our fiscal 2030.
So that's sort of the end of the 2021 calendar year.
But what that plan is, it's made up of four key areas.
The most important one, let's just say the most exciting one for all of us car people,
is that one of the things it calls for is an all new or extensively revised vehicle
to be launched every single model year between 2026 and all the way out through 2030.
We've got a lot of that stuff happening right now.
We actually launched a plan about two years ago to our dealers at a national dealer meeting
that we did here in Nashville where our national headquarters is located.
And since that time, we've launched the 25 Outlander, which had an all new interior.
You said you've both driven the Outlander just recently.
So that's the second update to that Outlander in just a year
because that added a brand new mild hybrid powertrain.
We used to have two and a half liter normally aspirated for.
Now it's a one and a half liter turbo with a mild hybrid system.
The vehicle got that all new interior.
We have an Outlander plug-in hybrid coming along literally any day now
that will have that all new interior with that killer Yamaha audio system in it as well.
It is good.
We also have increased all electric range will be up to 45 miles of all electric range
in the plug-in hybrid up from the 38 in the previous one.
Then in another couple of months, we've got the Eclipse Sportback coming out.
That's our brand new battery electric vehicle.
That's a vehicle that was that is based heavily on the Nissan Leaf.
We're a business partner of Mitsubishi's Nissan and Mitsubishi have a global business partnership.
Then spring of next year, we have the an all new rugged off road variant of the Outlander coming out.
That'll have distinct bodywork.
It'll have some more updates to the all wheel drive system.
Very, very exciting vehicle, but starting to move us further into that kind of off off highway.
I like to think of it initially and then you can think of sort of off road.
So Jill, I know that you're your rebel history.
You know, there's a difference between the crossover class and the true four wheel drive.
So think of us kind of in that crossover section now moving down the road to fall true four wheel drive down the road.
We just announced we've got the midsize pickup truck coming back to North America.
That's also going to be developed in in partnership with Nissan and that'll be built in the US.
We are in development with Nissan right now or I should say in discussion with Nissan right now about another midsize SUV coming down the pike.
That's also going to be built in the US as well.
So yeah, there's nothing but great stuff coming down the road for Mitsubishi.
We are really excited about what the future brings.
It's it's definitely a new dawn all over again at Mitsubishi is very exciting stuff.
Jeremy, the last vehicle you mentioned was a midsize crossover.
Yeah, we had said it was a midsize crossover SUV that we are entering into discussions with Nissan.
Have there be a vehicle on both brands name plate in other words and that vehicle will be built in the US.
So the expansion here that we're looking at includes an electric vehicle plug in hybrid.
A midsize crossover.
What am I going to pick up truck truck?
Yeah, absolutely.
So that's a very interesting line.
That's a full showroom.
It really is.
You know, the 2030 plan part of that plan is we had said it's going to essentially double the number of vehicles that we have in the lineup in our showroom.
Right.
We used to sell the Mirage.
You remember the Mirage?
Some subcompact subcompact hatch and four door sedan.
We discontinued production of that back in the end of 25
We're out of vehicles.
There are no more.
I mean, there's a couple of maybe 10 or 15 mirages left in the country.
We sort of see one or two trick up, tick up every now and then in our sales numbers, but we're fundamentally out of those vehicles.
So we're kind of all SUVs at the moment with the Outlander Sport is our entry vehicle starting just over just under 25 grand.
Eclipse Cross starting just under thirty grand Outlander also starting under thirty grand and then Outlander plug in hybrid starting at about 72000
So there's a three distinct new SUVs under 30000 in a market that as you guys know, what's the average purchase price today?
50000
Yeah, at least.
So we have thirty, which is a real I think it's a real value play.
It's I think it's a place that Mitsubishi is really, really affected that.
So where I'll go ahead, Joe.
Okay.
I'm like, can you talk a little bit about the the sport back that's coming the eclipse sport back?
Because I mean, we do have some details.
We've seen a couple of pictures.
You know, we we have a basic idea of what's coming.
But can you give us a little bit more detail and tell us when we should expect to see this?
Yeah, absolutely.
So let's sort of take these backwards a little bit.
So cars should be on sale.
They should be in dealers.
Maybe West Coast, maybe very, very late September, perhaps early October, back onto East Coast by sort of say mid October timing frame in in dealer in dealer stock.
So that's kind of the timing thing.
Now, as I said, the vehicle is based on the Nissan Leaf Mitsubishi and Nissan do have a joint partnership, right?
The two of us are also partners with Renault in a global alliance that we call the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance.
So where and when it makes sense for the brands to to to work together on engineering to work together on sharing products, even to an extent, we do that, right?
Nissan had the rogue plug-in hybrid, right?
Which was a variant of the Outlander plug-in hybrid.
They sold that vehicle last year.
Again, we're taking the Eclipse Sportback, which is a variant off of the Nissan Leaf.
And if you go far enough back, frankly, if you go back to when we launched the current Outlander back in 2021 as a 22 model, the Outlander and the Rogue, don't forget.
Think of some of the sort of sister vehicles that were separated at birth, right?
But they look different and they act different because they are different, right?
You can say that they're from the same family, but they're not the same people.
And that's kind of how rogue and Outlander are.
Those of us in the business, OK, you know, you can sit in an Outlander and you can look at that center screen or the dash or the gear shift knob and you can go, OK, I can see some Nissan takeaways there.
But the reality is to a customer, the two cars look completely different, right?
Rogue's built in the US, Outlander's built in Japan.
The two cars don't share a single body panel.
Outlander's larger in every dimension.
It has a standard third row that Rogue doesn't even offer, right?
We have, they're not standard, but they're all but standard on everything but a single trip, 20 inch wheels, right?
So there's a lot of things that are very different that our all wheel drive system, we call it super all wheel control, has different logic than the Nissan system.
The mechanicals are the same, right?
The way it operates using brake bias torque vectoring and instead of having a differential, it's using brakes to grab a spinning wheel.
The mechanicals are all the same, but it's that what's going on in the mind.
That's why I say that they're two sisters that were separated at birth.
They have the same parents, but they got very different personalities.
Speaking of personalities, question for you about where Mitsubishi is going in terms of identity.
I'm old enough to remember.
I'm old enough to have changed the oil on the Cordia and Tradia.
That's how old I am.
Great stuff.
By the way, box players, box players, that's my cup.
Oh, those are actually the people who bought those early on.
This is the 80s.
Love those cars.
But I think that Mitsubishi's early presence in the US was more or less based on sporty tech.
Then you guys did an EV thing for a little bit.
Where do you want Mitsubishi to be now?
What do you want consumers to think about the brand?
That's a great question, Tom.
What I would say to answer that question, I take it back to about a month ago in Japan.
Our global president had discussed that our global midterm plan that takes us out through,
I think it's out through 2032 or so, and talked about new vehicles coming down the road.
That was the point, for example, when he announced that the Pajero or Montero was going to come back on a global basis.
We'd have nothing to say about that coming to the US yet.
Don't know if it's coming.
We'd like it, but don't have anything to say on that front at all.
I'll make that perfectly clear before I get the inevitable question.
But what he said at that point, though, was we have something that we call internally Mitsubishi motor's-ness.
It's one of those very long words that, frankly, we put together to make the marketing people have something to build ads around.
But the reality behind it, though, is that it's born of a company that uses technology to make vehicles better,
to make vehicles operate the way that the driver wants them to operate.
So when you turn the wheel a little bit, the car changes direction a little bit.
Turn the wheel a bunch, car changes direction a bunch.
We do that with all-wheel drive systems.
And those all-wheel drive systems were born on the roads of the World Rally Championship, right,
from the four drivers championships that we've won over the years.
They were born on the deserts of Dakar.
We've won Dakar 12 times, more times than any other car company ever in the history of the event.
So I think what we said as part of that future business plan when we talked about Pichero coming back globally is
moving Mitsubishi back to a place of ruggedness, of vehicles that you can drive out into the wilderness and will always bring you home.
The ability to go adventuring.
I like to think of it at the moment, think of it as off-highway, not off-road, right?
Again, Jill, I'm using that nuance from Rebell.
The idea that the ladies that run Rebell say that the car in your driveway is more capable than you think.
And it is stunning where you can take a box, stock, modern SUV today, right?
No one knows what those things are capable of.
And I'm not talking about a Defender or a Ranger over with 35 inches of wading depth.
I'm talking about an Outlander.
It's just amazing where those vehicles are going.
So I think think of it initially as off-highway, moving down the road as we get to future vehicles to more off-road.
And then some really exciting stuff coming down the pike as we go beyond there as well.
But I can't talk about it.
It sounds exciting.
So, a question for you about use of the word Eclipse, the name Eclipse.
We have it for the Eclipse Cross, small crossover, and the Eclipse Smartback, the new EV.
Does the use of Eclipse in this context, these contacts preclude Mitsubishi in any way from going back to sporty offerings?
I've been in this business long enough to never say never.
I've seen never's that I have proclaimed with all of my heart and soul turn out to be...
I was just kidding.
I would say there's, that is not our current planning direction is to go back to sporty cars.
It's just not really where the brand is focused right now.
Like I said, think of it focused more of an adventure brand and off-road brand.
And when I say off-road again, think of it more off-highway, at least initially moving down the road to something a bit more rugged in the future.
Eclipse, it has a place of respect within the Mitsubishi nomenclature.
And when you're a small company with limited resources, it kind of makes sense to fall back on some of the naming that people already have.
You say Eclipse, people assign Mitsubishi to that.
Okay, maybe they assign small sports car to it than SUV or battery electric vehicle.
But they do assign Mitsubishi to it.
So we walk in the door without having to introduce ourselves immediately, right?
Maybe we have to tell them who we've become these days, but we don't have to tell them who we are.
So that's kind of where that fits.
As an aside, do you know where Eclipse comes from?
I do.
Is that the name?
Yeah.
It's actually a racehorse from the 1800s.
I did not know that.
The way the moon covers the sun, it's got nothing to do with that.
I was just thinking of the Diamond Star vehicles from the 80s, but...
No, it's not.
Yeah, it was a very famous racehorse.
I did not know that. That's very interesting.
So I have a real quick question for you about the compact crossover segment.
I think Jill and I agree on this point, but the interior of the new Outlander is in fact very nice.
Congratulations, it feels very high-end.
And if you were to tell me that this was a premium brand vehicle when I was sitting in the SEL, I would not doubt that.
Is that segment in general moving upscale?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yes, it is, because if it's not the number one, it's the number two segment in the entire industry right now, right?
Right.
But more importantly, think of it as...
Think of the place that that vehicle occupies in the Mitsubishi hierarchy, right?
Outlander is our flagship nameplate.
You said at the very top of the piece, Tom, when you said that you and Jill had recently driven it.
It is our flagship nameplate.
Again, I'll use the relationship with Nissan.
Nissan's got a rogue here, but then they've got, what, a Murano or a Pathfinder or maybe the other way around?
And then they've got Infinity all the way above that.
In the US, Outlander is our flagship.
So it is a fully loaded Outlander is a more luxurious vehicle than a fully loaded rogue, by intention,
because they actually play different roles in our respective brands.
So, yeah, I mean, a fully loaded SEL Outlander with that beautiful brick brown interior with that killer Yamaha audio system.
Every bell and whistle on the planet for $44,000, it's a lot of car for not a lot of money.
Yeah, no, it feels very premium.
And that's really why I asked the question.
Jeremy, we've run out of time, but what have we forgotten to ask you?
What else will you tell us?
Well, one thing I'll tell you is that I always say that our biggest challenge is not that people think poorly of us.
It's that they don't think of us at all.
So if there's one message that I can leave with your viewers and your listeners, it is think about Mitsubishi.
Put us on your shopping list, go drive one, go sit in one.
If we can get you to sit in one, we can make you go, this is a Mitsubishi?
And I get all of this for that.
That's the thing I would ask you to tell all of your viewers and all of your listeners.
And if we can achieve that, I'm confident that we've got nothing but a bright future.
Awesome. Sounds good. Jeremy, thank you so much for your time today.
On the contrary, thank you both. It was a real pleasure being on.
All right. That was Jeremy Barnes with Mitsubishi.
We're going to take a break and when we come back.
Quiz time.
Quiz time.
Questions or comments?
Drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
That's carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
Welcome back to the Car Stuff podcast.
And we're back. This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.
I'm Tom. She is Jill and we just chatted about Mitsubishi.
It's kind of nice. nice to talk about a brand that had gotten dusky.
Yeah. You know, and I really like that Jeremy pointed out that, you know,
it's not that people think poorly of Mitsubishi.
They just don't think of Mitsubishi.
And I would say that they are definitely one of those underrated brands that I think more people should look at.
And, you know, when I've driven the Outlander, for example, I'm like, oh man,
this is way better than the Rogue.
Like this is a much better Nissan Rogue.
And, you know, and that's kind of by design, as Jeremy said.
Mitsubishi kind of got short shrift in the Daimler Chrysler days.
Chrysler had a stake in Mitsubishi.
And really, if we're going to be honest about what happened back then,
Chrysler and Mitsubishi were getting hand-me-downs from Mercedes.
And you might remember this, but the Dodge Durango,
the Durango we still have in showrooms right now was based off the Mercedes-Benz ML.
That architecture has just been updated.
And the Chrysler LX cars, the 300, the charger, the Challenger, there was the Magnum, the wagon for a while.
Those are actually based on Mercedes-Benz E-Class parts.
And those turned out to be fabulous cars.
Well, you remember the Crossfire, right?
Oh, the Crossfire just was a Mercedes.
It was like the SLK.
Yeah, the SLK, what was that called? SLK 350?
And there was an SLK AMG.
Yeah, the Crossfire. That was ugly.
I did not like it, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I don't know. It was weird looking.
That's when Chrysler was doing that hoodstrake thing.
And there was really weird gutters in the hood.
In the original non-minivan Pacifica that they first came out with, with the hood lines, yeah.
Very strange styling thing.
All right. Jill.
Yes.
You're in the social medias.
I am in the social medias.
Yeah, you can find me on TikTok and YouTube pretty much every day.
I upload new videos there daily.
But I'm also on Instagram, Twitter, X, Facebook, LinkedIn,
all the things as I like to say threads.
And I like comments. I like to talk to people.
I'm not one of those people who doesn't read the comments.
I literally read every comment.
And I may not respond to them all.
But I do read every comment.
So I appreciate people who interact with me.
And if you ask questions, I will try to answer it.
But yeah, I'm on all the things you can find me at Jill Siminello.
And I use the hashtag car de jour.
So like the car that I'm driving today, car de jour.
Yeah, I don't like people.
So social media is perfect for me.
Because you're anti-social.
Yes. Yes.
I am Car Guy Tom on Twitter, X and on Blue Sky.
Lots of good car chat on Blue Sky these days.
Also, I don't do a lot of car stuff on Facebook,
but I do share pictures of the car I'm running about that week.
So I've got pictures of...
In addition to pictures of TV screens.
Yes. Yes, that's a star spotter.
And that's something I do in conjunction with Nic de Gileo.
We talk about it on Nic de Gileo's podcast.
But what I'm watching in Old Western, and it's mostly gun smoke.
And I spot someone who is not yet a star, but going to be a star.
I quickly take a picture.
Okay.
I got a picture this week.
Not from gun smoke, but from a raw hide of DeForest Kelly.
Bones. McCoy from Star Trek on that show.
Playing a bad guy.
How can bones be a bad guy?
Got to start somewhere.
I guess so.
All right, it's quiz time.
All right.
I hope you're ready.
I am, but I do want to say I did listen to last week's episode
and Brandon did a great job being a co-host.
And I want to point out that I got like one out of six.
So he totally would have beat me.
I think he mentioned that I always say that I beat him on the quizzes.
He totally would have beat me.
That was not my subject.
Was that the Corvette quiz?
Yeah.
They had to be a little tough because he knows a lot about Corvettes.
Yeah. Yeah.
So he did an amazing job and I would have gotten like one out of six on that.
All right.
I do tailor these, I think appropriately.
This week's topic is was it a VW trim level?
Oh, okay.
These are all 2026 model years.
So not was it?
Is it?
Is it?
Got it.
Okay.
All right.
I'm just going to give you a 2026 Volkswagen model and a trim level.
And you have to tell me if that's a real trim level available for that vehicle as we speak.
Got it.
All right.
You ready?
I am as ready as I can be.
The 2026 VW Jetta.
Can that be had in S trim?
I would also like to point out that I really dislike Volkswagen trim levels.
Oh, no.
Kia is the worst with their trim levels.
They make me crazy.
Yeah.
But these are bad.
X Pro, X line, SX prestige.
What?
That is madness.
What in the heck are you doing to me?
Okay.
S.
This is the Jetta S for 2026.
Is that a Volkswagen?
I'm going to say no.
Yes.
Hmm.
Okay.
Yeah.
For 2026, the Jetta can be had an S Sport SE and top line SEL trim.
Jill.
I have no points.
You have no points.
I know your favorite phrase.
All right.
You haven't gotten to use it for a while.
No, I haven't.
You've been cleaning up.
The Golf GTI for 2026 can be had in Wolfsburg Edition trim.
Man, if it cannot be had in a Wolfsburg trim, you know, they need to just leave the United
States.
So I'm going to say yes, because that is like such a classic trim.
All of the GTIs we've had have been Wolfsburg trims.
So if they don't, they should just, you know, they should just call it a day.
There isn't.
No.
They need to call it a day.
They need to call it a day.
Oh, they do call what would probably be that trim over the Autobahn.
So there's SSE and Autobahn used to see Wolfsburgs sometimes late in a model year.
Yeah.
Especially in the 80s.
They would just put together a Wolfsburg.
And it was often like a price special where they add some equipment to a vehicle, but
not raise the price.
And I want to say I dated a girl whose brother bought a Wolfsburg Edition Jetta.
That was one of those cars that sort of changed my life.
I couldn't believe how good it was.
Like an 80s Volkswagen.
Holy crap.
So they removed the manual transmission and they don't have a Wolfsburg Edition in the
GTI anymore.
Yeah.
Thumbs down.
That could be thumbs down.
What's next?
They go to three wheels.
Yeah.
The Volkswagen ID four.
That's Volkswagen's electric compact crossover.
Is it available in pro s plus trim pro s plus?
I mean, that sounds like a very easy trim to have.
Yeah.
The newest Volkswagen we've owned is a 2018.
So clearly not up to snuff on my 2026 models.
I'm going to say no.
Yes.
The ID four is available in pro pro s and pro s plus trim levels.
I hate all of those trim levels a bunch.
Well, you know what I don't like is that they're not consistent amongst the I'm a little bit
of a nerd and I really like consistency.
And so I'm kind of like as irksome as I find the X line X s prestige plus whatever from
Kia, like at least they're consistent and they put it, you know, they have like pretty
consistent trims across the lineup and that's just so drastically different.
Yeah.
Boo.
You need to win all the way out now to make this work for you.
This isn't looking good for me.
Got it.
All right.
The Atlas Crossport for 2026 is very trekking edition trekking.
I think there is.
I'm going to say yes.
No.
I should just be saying the opposite of what I'm thinking at this point.
Do you remember the Jeddah Trek?
No.
It was a Volkswagen Jeddah.
It was in conjunction with Trek, the mode of the bicycle company, T-I-E-K Trek.
And you got a free Trek bicycle and roof rack with your Jeddah.
It was kind of cool.
I need to check on eBay and see if any of those Trek Volkswagen treks are still out there.
I think they were decent bikes.
Most treks were decent bikes.
Yeah.
I'm like, I feel like my husband has a Trek bike.
I do.
Hmm.
I've had the same Trek bike for like the entire time I've been married.
Never had a problem with it.
All right.
The Crossport is available in SE, SE with technology, SEL, SEL R-Line Black and SEL Premium
R-Line trim levels.
There's no rhyme or reason to that nightmare.
No.
No.
I'm going to say yes.
Yes.
Yes.
That's true.
Finally, the Volkswagen Taos.
Okay.
How do you pronounce that?
I say Taos.
Taos.
So you two do try to make two syllables out of it?
Yeah.
Okay.
The Taos.
It's kind of like Jaguar.
Is there a Taos SEL Pro?
No.
There is not.
You got a point.
Woohoo.
Well, did I get the last one?
No, you said there was a trekking.
Oh, that was, that was, I thought you had another question between the trekking and the other
one.
Okay.
No.
Nope.
So you've got one point.
You have not been shut out.
The Taos is available in SE, SE Black and SEL trim levels.
All right.
I hope you're ready for a really, a solid, a solid bonus question.
I am so ready.
As auto journalists, we have a lot of friends and contacts and colleagues in Detroit.
We do.
And one of the things in Detroit that they have that we don't really have in Chicago
is Fago Soda, F-A-Y-G-E-O soda.
I thought you were going to say Coney, Coney Dogs, but okay, Fago, that's the direction
we're going.
They got the Coneys.
Yeah, they got the Coneys.
We don't have the Coneys.
Yeah, they got the Coneys.
And if you ever want to kind of be grossed out, look into the chili that they put into
Coneys.
I do not want to be grossed out.
It's mostly super lean organ meat.
Yeah, it's usually made out of something like hearts.
Says the guy who's a vegetarian, so you're trying to gross out all the people who eat
meat.
Thanks.
Yes, I am.
But Fago been around since 1907.
They love it.
They love the stuff in Detroit.
Yes.
It's like cells like Pepsi or Coke over there.
It's crazy.
I need you to tell me which of the following Fago flavors is fake.
Okay.
And they get weird.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Ohana Peach, Ohana Peach, Rock and Rye, Dr. Fago or Jasmine Blast.
Okay.
They make it an interesting face.
I have never heard of any of these.
My aunt and uncle always used to have grape Fago or like orange for us.
That's pretty conventional.
Didn't know they had like bougie names outside of like grape and orange.
They list 50 flavors now, which much makes things very tough for the people who run
a 7-Eleven.
Yeah.
Okay.
Read through them again for me.
Ohana Peach, Rock, Ampersand Rye, Dr. Fago, Jasmine Blast.
I mean, I want Jasmine Blast to be real because I don't we all because I like Jasmine tea.
I don't know if you've ever had Jasmine tea, but it is literally my favorite.
Jasmine Blast sounds like an employee of a gentleman's club.
It wasn't going to go there.
I didn't go all the way there.
What was not even a thought in my head.
How about that until you put it there?
And then you wonder why we get X-rated ratings.
That hasn't happened in a while.
I always thought it was your potty mouth.
No, it's yours.
You're the one who's putting the thoughts out there.
Okay.
So I want Jasmine to be real.
So I'm going to say that's real.
I think it's probably like the Rock.
What is it?
The what in Rye?
The Rock, Rock, R-O-C-K, Ampersand Rye, R-Y-E, Rock and Rye.
That seems weird to me and the Dr. Fago one seems redundantly weird to me.
I feel like it should be one of those because only one is fake, right?
Right.
I'm going to say Rock and Rye.
Is the fake?
Yeah.
No, that's real and really popular.
And I've tried it and it's strange.
It's strange, but it's kind of like cherry with weird hints of brown liquor.
Obviously it's not alcoholic, but Ohano Peach is real.
Rock and Rye is real.
Dr. Fago is what you think it is.
Dr. Pepper rip off.
Jasmine Blast is the fake.
Boo.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got a one today.
That's like the lowest I think I've gotten in a while.
But you didn't get shut out.
I did not get shut out.
Do you know what's in my driveway?
Is it the one that you posted pictures of today?
No.
Okay.
That was last week.
By the way, I want to talk about that vehicle later.
Okay.
But that was the Range Rover, just the Range Rover Range Rover,
the top of the line luxury big crossover, big SUV.
It is so refined.
And then I found all sorts of little things about it that irritated me.
Like, is this because it's British?
Is this what's the deal?
But I like the defender so much for a bunch of reasons.
And so, but, but dang, on the highway,
that Range Rover is so quiet and so smooth writing.
And the one I drove has the available BMW 4.4 liter VA.
What a sweetheart.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're looking for a vehicle that defines luxury,
this is that vehicle.
And if you're looking for a vehicle that defines luxury and has weird
little British idiosyncrasies, this is that vehicle.
I have a road trip review of that coming.
So maybe, maybe we'll talk about that soon then.
Well, let's do that.
Let's talk about that at the same time.
Because there's a lot there to like, including that color I had.
No, I just got the Lucid Gravity.
Oh, okay.
And that's a tough thing to review now because I keep hearing about Lucid
going bankrupt.
See, and I, the CEO did go on LinkedIn and he tried to debunk those rumors.
So I'm unconvinced that bankruptcy is in the future.
Well, a bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean the end of the brand either.
It just means a reorganization.
Right.
So we'll have to see what happens.
But one of the problems with the brand is that the stock has gone from a high
of around $500 a share to about four bucks a share.
So if you rode this wave, you're just sad.
So buy now.
If you want to get in on it, buy now.
I'm just saying buy stock now.
I mean, I can't because I review cars and I ethically find that an incorrect
thing to do, but I can tell you to buy it.
I just want everyone to know that Jill has just given you a stock pick.
Yes.
Yeah.
I don't know if I do stock picks.
Like I said, I wouldn't buy it because I can't, but I think that if you were
interested at all, now would be the time.
Man, I don't know.
I don't know because if they declared bankruptcy, they could still hang around,
but the stock would go to zero.
Yeah.
But if you're only buying it $4, I mean, what are you missing?
I mean, that's true.
I mean, you could get in for like 200 bucks and it might matter.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, you know, I've been watching SpaceX stock speaking of stocks because
that's gone down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's below the launch price now.
SpaceX, of course, famously another one of Elon Musk's many products.
All right.
Guess what we did?
We gave one too many stock tips and we need to end the show now.
We talked too much.
That's what we did.
If we gave one stock tip, we gave one too many stock tips.
One too many.
Yeah.
Because that is not our forte, by the way.
All right.
Big thanks to Jeremy Barnes of Mitsubishi.
That was a great conversation.
Thank you, Jill.
Thanks to producer Margaret.
Let's talk more about cars again.
Next week.
Next week.
Remember to check us out at consumerguide.com.
The Car Stuff podcast is produced by J-Turn Media.
To advertise on the show, please drop us a line at carstuffatconsumerguide.com.
Thank you.
About this episode
The Car Stuff Podcast jumps from a Mazda CX-5 first-look—where the rotary dial is gone and controls are now screen-based—to a Mitsubishi Outlander update and strategy chat with Jeremy Barnes. The episode also revisits a rare carbon monoxide tragedy tied to idling vehicles and discusses why there are “no standards for CO emissions inside a car.” EV ownership concerns shift to charging at home, with Level 1 vs Level 2 timing and costs. It closes with mobile dealership service and more car talk.
Jill and Tom open the show reviewing news from the city of Toledo where three members of a family perished in a crossover last week as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. Little is known at this point regarding the tragedy, except that the vehicle was running with the air conditioning in use.
The hosts also discussed recent news that potential EV shoppers no long worry about vehicle range as much as they do home charging. Listen in for why this might be the case.
Tom notes that, five years into its run, the Ford F-150 PowerBoost (hybrid) does not seem to be generating as much consumer interest as might have been initially expected. Price may be an issue, or just a general lack of interest in hybrids by large-Pickup buyers.
Still in the first segment, Jill reviews the redesigned Mazda CX-5 compact crossover. Has the CX-5 lost some of its "Mazdaness?" Listen in for details.
in the second segment, the hosts welcome Jeremy Barnes of Mitsubishi to the show. Jeremy talks about the the maker's updated Outlander compact crossover, as well as its Mitsubishi Motors Momentum 2030 business plan. Mitsubishi plans to roll out a new model every year until 2030 in the U.S. market. Listen in for details.
In the last segment, Jill is subjected to Tom's "Is it a VW Trim Level?" Quiz. Listen in to see how she scored.
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