Nissan Kills EV, Driving the Audi SQ8, Shopping for Car Insurance

Nissan Kills EV, Driving the Audi SQ8, Shopping for Car Insurance Car Stuff Podcast · Sep 22, 2025

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This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

Alright, this is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff podcast.

I'm Tom.

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All sorts of stuff there.

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I told you I was a little sick.

Yeah, I'm backing away from you, actually.

Yeah, I got the rasp.

Funny story, I was on with Steve and Johnny Saturday night, and Steve said that I sounded

like an FM disc jockey.

That goes back, like a jazz disc jockey.

Got it.

That's going back.

So how are you?

I'm good.

Alright, that is Jill Siminello, a contributing editor here at ConsumerGuide.com, North American

Car of the Year juror.

We're going to talk some neck toy in a little while.

And a freelancer.

How are you?

That's the second time.

Yeah.

Yeah, good, good.

I'm doing well.

I am not sick, and I hope not to get sick by being in this tiny studio with you.

I think I'm pretty late in this process, but I don't feel good.

That's weird.

Like, it really crushed me Saturday.

Saturday late.

So Saturday, fun day for me, and it was a podcast adjacent.

Okay.

I met Robert Colangelo and his wife.

I had never met his wife for dinner down at Carnival.

Oh, yeah.

Wonderful restaurant.

Yeah.

Like that place.

Let me highly recommend this sweet corn empanadas.

Okay.

Holy crap.

Okay.

They're appetizers.

Just go to three appetizers and skip dinner.

Just got it.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

And then I had a Crown Royal mojito.

Okay.

Which doesn't sound like it would be good.

The waiter assured me it would be good, and it was really good.

Okay.

Something about Crown Royal and crushed mint, muddled mint.

Very good.

Okay.

And since I was downtown, I stayed downtown and visited with Steve and Johnny at midnight

on WGN Radio.

Okay.

That is always, always weird to go down there at midnight.

Yeah.

I don't know where their new studio is.

303 East Wacker, which is right on the river.

Okay.

And you go through Lower Wacker Drive, made famous in the Blues Brothers movie.

And it all seems like a Bond film.

Where everybody goes to get lost.

Yeah.

Kind of.

Yeah.

And then you go through these crazy doors that open for you to get into their garage

with that building, and then the building is dead.

You're walking through a dead building.

And then you get up to the 18th floor where WGN is, and it's like you're in like, like

NASA control room.

Okay.

You know, it's wonderful.

But you have windows on two sides, so the view is fantastic.

So yeah, fantastic event.

So thank you, Steve and Johnny, for having me, and thank you, Robert and wife, for having

me for dinner.

It was fun.

Yes.

All right.

I made mistakes.

Uh-oh.

A couple of them.

Okay.

You had asked a good question the other day, last episode, I think, how much, how much

does an amount of money does it take to raise your, your monthly payment?

Yes.

Let me, let me, let me fill in for you, because your brain seems to not be working this week.

Yeah.

My brain is not working.

Anyway, I had said 25 bucks, raising, raising your payment by raising the cost of your

vehicle by a thousand dollars.

I think I said 25 bucks.

It's 18 bucks.

Okay.

And that's 60 months for 5%, which is a typical loan right now.

Okay.

So who do we have to thank for that information?

Um, I don't know.

I think I just worked it out.

Okay.

Yeah.

You mapped.

I also made a mistake last week.

We were talking about small compact car hybrids, and I said the K4, but the K4 is not available

in hybrid form.

No.

The, the Hyundai Sonata, not Sonata, Elantra, which is kin to the K4 is available as a hybrid.

And the K4 is coming out this year with a hatchback.

Yes.

Which is kind of cool looking.

I can't decide if it's just weird looking or cool looking.

Why not both?

Yeah.

It's kind of space shuttly.

Okay.

It's good look.

They have good colors on that car too.

All right.

I did a fun poll on X.

Okay.

Are you ready for my poll?

Always.

I gave people four colors, white, silver, gray, yellow and black.

And I said, which was the worst color for a Ferrari?

And I have seen Ferraris in all these colors.

Okay.

Which do you think it was?

White, silver, gray, yellow or black?

Worst?

White.

White was number one?

Number two?

Gray.

Yep.

Followed by yellow then black.

Interesting.

I would have thought yellow would have been like the best color because that's like, hey,

look at me.

I'm driving a Ferrari.

I think yellow is like the number two color.

Like the red, obviously red, 80% of Ferraris are red.

And then I see a lot of black and yellow.

Yeah.

Black and yellow, black and yellow.

Fortunately I see white.

Okay.

Which is not good.

All right.

I just wrote a piece about Tesla price increases.

We talked about the Cyber Beast going up the price by 15 grand.

Yeah.

You also know that they killed the rearward drive model.

Do we talk about that?

I can't remember if we talked about it, but I do know this is true.

Yeah.

So basically the base price, the entry point for a Cybertruck, if you were still thinking

about buying one and no one is, went from...

Well, there may be one person.

Went from about 72 grand to about 82 grand.

So you have to get the long range AWD or the Cyber Beast.

Those are the only two models left.

Got it.

So that's what's going on there.

September 18th was a sad day.

Okay.

I'm like, what day was that?

So it was my wedding anniversary.

Okay.

That's not why it was sad.

Oh, good.

It's a little sad because we remember Ryan Sandberg that day.

It was his birthday.

Ryan Sandberg, one of the coolest Cubs ever.

But it was also the last day they built any Subaru Legacies.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and it's really ironic because I'm actually writing a buyer's guide right now

on the Subaru Legacy for the cargoogroos.com.

Oh, well, whatever they're going to sell has been built.

Yeah.

It's an inventory.

Yeah.

I'm just starting to work on the seventh generation, which is the generation that concluded on

the 18th.

So Subaru still has the Impresa and the WRX.

Yeah.

Those are cars, actual cars.

But that's it.

And based on what I've seen in pictures, the next generation Outback is not a car anymore.

It is not a wagon.

It is a crossover.

Yeah.

Well, you know, and so what's really interesting is the legacy came out in 1990.

And it was their way to compete with like the Camry, the Accord.

Like they were trying to get into that mainstream midsize market.

And, you know, it initially offered front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive.

Yeah.

But then quickly moved to all-wheel drive only, and that became a huge competitive advantage

along with the standard safety tech.

The Subaru all-wheel drive thing is relatively new.

Mm-hmm.

Like, well, 30, 40 years.

It wasn't always part of their heritage.

No, it was not.

And it's not in other markets either.

It's very carefully crafted for the U.S.

Yeah.

Europeans, for example, and people in other markets won't pay for all-wheel drive.

Mm-hmm.

They don't get it.

And they kind of don't need it.

Yeah.

So goodbye, legacy.

Nice car, actually.

Always worth knowing about.

And you always had the great all-wheel drive.

There's a Nissan that just died.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

The Aria.

Yeah.

And, you know, I'm...

The Aria's like the car that never happened.

No.

And I have to say I'm not super surprised about it, though.

I feel like it was one of the best EVs out there.

I do, too.

But I just feel like Nissan did not care about it in the U.S. market.

They didn't promote it.

They didn't get it out there.

They didn't, you know, really...

You know, I think I had it once in all...

You know, in its life cycle to drive.

Yeah.

And they just...

I don't know.

I feel like they, like, launched it via press release and were like...

Well, they stuttered.

When they should have had, like, a big press event and they should have had journalists

and stuff like that, they didn't.

And they dragged their feet on full production for like two and a half years.

Yeah.

And then it came out a little bit expensive.

And I think it just wasn't the right vehicle for the time.

I think they didn't quite hit their cost targets for building this thing.

Yeah.

And it was a little expensive.

I think I have the prices here.

The price range was $41,000 to $56,000.

That's what it is right now.

Right.

On the ground.

And they've got the new leaf coming out.

Yes.

Which I'm going to be driving later this week.

Okay.

So we can talk about that next week.

That's good.

That estimated price range, current driver estimated price range is $26,000 to $40,000.

Yeah.

So much more affordable.

Yeah.

A little bit smaller.

Yeah.

But now that's a crossover.

Yep.

It's clearly a crossover.

As opposed to a weird-looking shoe.

Wagony.

Whatever it was.

Car, like...

Why was that a thing with early electric cars?

Well, it had to look different.

So you knew you were driving something special.

Yeah.

But the leaf always looked weird.

The Mitsubishi iMeave looked really weird.

The iMeave was weird.

Even the Bolt was a little weird.

It was.

It was like a bubble.

But the Bolt was cuter and a little more functional.

It had a crossover thing going.

And then they added...

The EUV.

Yeah.

So they made that work.

But the Aria, only 12,000 units so far this year, actually for six months, where the

Equinox did $36,000.

Yeah.

And just so people know this, even though Tesla's in dire straits, they still sold

135,000 model-wise.

Yeah.

So it's still the dominant vehicle in the segment.

So, interesting thing about the leaf, it will have the NACS and CCS charge ports, both.

Is it...

And I thought it had the next charge port with a CCS adapter.

Oh.

When I read said both, I could have read something wrong.

Because I don't know how you would have both.

You can have them right next to each other.

But how?

Oh.

And that would be super-duper expensive.

It might be expensive.

So...

There's no reason why you couldn't have both.

But you wouldn't have it on a $26,000 vehicle.

And I'll be honest.

Maybe not.

I'm going to be driving it on Wednesday.

And so I will be reading the materials on this vehicle tomorrow.

All right.

We'll have to check that and get back on that.

Because that's interesting.

It struck me as a little bit nice, actually.

Yeah.

I'm like, I don't know that they would have both.

I've never seen that or heard of it on any other vehicle.

There are vehicles that are going to be doing that.

So, what that says.

And what we're talking about for people who don't know, NACS, it gets you access to the

Tesla charging network.

Tesla superchargers, yeah.

And chargers, other outside purveyors of public charging are going to be switching to NACS.

Yep.

So, where we used to see, for some reason, chargers that had Chathamal and CCS, CCS being

the dominant charge format in the U.S.

If you're still using Chathamal, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

The original Nissan Leaf.

I think it was the Kia Soul EV, I think used Chathamal originally.

Did it?

I think it did.

I think there were like two vehicles that had Chathamal.

For some reason, it's already dead.

There was an English company that was selling commercial vehicles.

There were vans.

I don't know if they ever got to the U.S. and they were using Chathamal for some reason.

Way to make your vehicle even less interesting.

Yeah.

And I feel like the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV might also use Chathamal.

Yeah.

That's a weird factoid that seems to stick in my head.

That's silly.

Yeah.

You know what?

People installing that crap at home.

Yeah.

Because they're never going to have another vehicle that uses it.

Nope.

All right.

That's the news, I think.

Everything I've got here, I mentioned Ryan Sandberg's birthday.

I could say it is also, this evening is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.

Is it?

It is.

I don't want to, is that New Year?

It is.

Okay.

I didn't know if happy was appropriate.

Yes.

Happy New Year.

Okay.

Or Shanatova.

I think that's how you say it.

There are certain holidays, especially some Jewish holidays where happy is probably not

the right.

Perhaps not.

Yom Kippur, not happy.

Like I'm not sure.

Probably not.

I'm not sure.

Happy Passover?

Yeah.

I mean, the light stays lit for eight days.

I think that's kind of happy.

I will have to ask my in-laws more about that.

I'm new to the Jewish community information.

I'm Catholic, born and raised.

But yes, I will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah this evening with my in-laws.

I assimilated some Jewishness over the years.

Publication is international limited.

Okay.

A lot of Jewish co-workers.

Yes.

There.

So.

All right.

I just noticed that you were driving the Audi SQ8.

Yes.

Which we're going to be talking about.

Yes.

Interesting thing.

I drove a different SQ8.

Okay.

Often when you and I are in test cars, they're the same test cars.

It's the same one.

But yours is silver.

Yeah, I don't really love it.

Mine was something that you would not have loved either, I think.

Sakir Glow...

I'm going to start over.

Sakir Gold.

It was a strange color and a lot of people poo-pooed it.

They did not...

Better than satellite silvers, what they're calling this.

Funny names for silver.

Don't make it less silver.

No.

It's just kind of gray.

It's just boring.

And this is such a beautiful car.

It is so lovely.

Well, we should talk about what this car is.

Yeah.

It's not a big seller because it is now Audi's flagship vehicle.

And when we talk about flagships, especially for German luxury makers, they used to be

their big sedans.

They used to say these S-class would be in W7 series, the Audi A8.

And that's not the case anymore largely because manufacturers are kind of taking the marketing

muscle off of them because they don't sell well anymore.

People don't buy big luxury cars.

Yeah.

Part of the problem with Lucid is that the only product they have until they brought out

the gravity was this big sedan.

And people don't really want those.

Right.

So this is Audi's flagship crossover.

Yes.

And it's interesting for a couple of reasons.

It is counter-intuitively less useful than the Q7.

Yeah.

It's like a little bit squished in terms of headroom.

Yeah.

Not that I have a problem with it.

So Audi sells the Q3, the Q5, the Q7, and the Q8 in the US.

Yeah.

Plus the electric vehicles, which have E-tron.

That gets a little confusing.

And there is an E-tron version of the Q8.

I think it's just called the Q8 E-tron though.

Yeah.

But the Q8 is like the Q7, loses the third row and gets the rakish rough line.

Yep.

So you are paying money to look cool and lose utility.

Yes.

But good cargo space.

Still.

Yeah.

Still.

But it is, well, you start.

So I both love and I won't say hate, but there's some things about it that I just don't love.

And first off, it is a very classic interior.

And what I mean by that is there is no place for you to put your phone.

That will actually fit your phone unless you're sticking in the cup holder.

There's like a little slot before the armrest, but my iPhone 16 is too big to fit there.

Okay.

And so like that's, you know, so then you have to like lift up the armrest and put your

phone in the armrest.

So you're summarying up a vehicle that's over like 127 grand?

Like $36,000.

And your first issue is the phone.

It is.

All right.

I mean, because, okay, I don't carry a purse.

So I don't put my phone in the purse so that it can like sit on the floor or whatever.

Where do I put my phone?

That really irked me.

That was the first thing that I noticed about this car.

So you would rather drive a 73 Pinto wagon with the optional console because there'd

be room for your phone.

No, there still wouldn't be room for my phone.

The other one.

I mean, have you ever seen the optional console in the 73 Pinto?

I can put this in the console, in the console of the SQ8 or SQ8, but like that's not the

same.

You may have missed the point of this vehicle.

No, I didn't miss the point of the vehicle, but I'm just saying that was the very first

thing that I noticed.

The next thing I noticed, however, when I turned it on was the sound of the twin turbo V8

engine, which is a word I can't say awesome.

Yeah, that is the four-liter twin turbo.

It's flipping awesome.

And Volkswagen, of course, also the parent company of Audi, I'm sorry, of Volkswagen

and Porsche, not to mention Bentley.

And this engine shows up in those cars as well.

This is a heck of an engine with a great pedigree.

And yeah, it's fantastic.

Twin turbo V8, ZF-H speed automatic with tip-tronic paddle shifting, nice, nice drivetrain.

Yeah.

It's quiet, just smooth, it's silky, it's really potent, no delay.

So fat.

Like I was merging onto, like from one high to the other on the way here, and I literally

just like was trying to get around some traffic.

I put my foot down and I swear I was going 100 without even blinking.

And I was like, ooh, need to slow down now.

I've driven a lot of electric vehicles lately, and you get used to that sort of silent

whoosh.

Yeah.

But there is something about the visceral response of something like this, where the

engine is not only nearly as responsive as an electric motor, but sounds good.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, there's something to that.

But this vehicle is interesting too, because it will seat four people in real comfort.

Yeah.

I mean, technically seats five, but.

Yeah, not in comfort.

Well, I mean, unless they're my size.

Yeah.

But I mean, it's relatively practical.

It's just you're losing that third row.

Yeah.

But it is a great looking car.

The Rekish Roof Line really works.

There's actually, there's a whole lot here to like.

I read, I read some reviews of this.

I like to get other people's reviews once I've formed mine.

And a lot of them were digging the ride quality with the larger wheels and tires.

Yeah.

And the vehicle I drove had the optic package, which is a lot of black trim and 22 inch black

finished wheels.

Yeah.

And I did not think that the ride quality suffered.

I thought it worked incredibly well.

I would agree with that.

In fact, the reason I used to think that Mercedes products of the of the European luxury brands

rode the best, but lately I've driven some impressive Audis.

Yeah.

So I haven't spent enough time in BMWs in the last year or so.

So I probably need to see if I can get back into those.

But I mean, all three makers really make incredibly good stuff, but this is this is an interesting

car.

And if you don't get the weird ass color that I had, it's kind of sublime, right?

It's stylish, but it's not over the top.

Well, so what's the interesting thing is, is you would probably competitively put this

in the same category, perhaps as the Lamborghini Urus, the like one of the top end high performance

Porsche Cayans and like the BMW X6, like M performance.

And like all of those other vehicles have a little bit of flash to them, where if you

didn't know what you were looking at, looking at the RS Q8, like you might be looking at

what you're looking at.

Right.

Well, the RS Q8 is a whole notch up.

Yeah.

That's 138 grand.

Yeah.

That's that's what I was driving.

Oh, you're driving the.

Okay.

Yeah.

We're driving different vehicles.

Okay.

I drove the S8.

Okay.

Which is which is mid level, but they both have the four liter V8.

So we're not crazy.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

So you're driving a vehicle.

140 grand starting.

Yeah.

I drove one that came to what was it loaded here?

I have my numbers.

127 was the vehicle.

Okay.

I didn't realize both of those are in the fleet.

So you drove the RS Q8.

Yeah.

So we should make that distinction.

Yes.

Further indulgence.

Yeah.

And so did you, did your model have the ultra suede on the steering wheel?

No.

I have to tell you that was like other than like the phone and the, um, the performance

like the suede on the steering wheel was the next thing I noticed.

And it's just, it's like nails on a chalkboard for me.

And that would be an option delete for me.

You know what?

This has nothing to do with Audis.

A thing that's been bugging me lately and I don't know why this happens is when you're

driving a car that's got leather wrapped steering wheel, which is almost everything these days

or fake leather.

Yeah.

And then somehow, some way the leather behind the steering wheel in back of it is ripped

and you could feel like a tear, like a little tear and then you can't get past it.

No.

And you'll take a little flap there and you just want it gone.

You just want to pick.

Yeah.

I've had it like three o'clock where I tend to hold the steering wheel.

Oh man.

All right.

So we just talked about two of the flagship models.

Yeah.

There's also a base eight.

I'm sorry.

Q eight that starts at just 62.

Oh no.

I'm sorry.

The Q seven starts at 62.

The, uh, the, the Q eight starts about 73.

So question for you as a tall guy, um, the, the front windshield is pretty steeply raked

as well.

And I'm wondering like, did you, like, I didn't necessarily have problems getting in or out

even though I have a far forward driving position, but I have a friend who did not buy this vehicle

who, and he's like six four because he kept hitting his head, getting in and out of the

vehicle.

Oh, interesting.

I'm driving the forerunner right now.

It's a forerunner.

I had a little problem getting in and out, but you didn't have a problem in the, no.

Okay.

No, I did not.

Um, but actually I just, to nutshell, on his flagship, I really like this, um, it's a

lot here to like, it's an indulgence.

It's expensive and you can get everything that you wanted here in the, in the Q seven

and pay less money.

And there is an S Q seven as well.

Uh, there isn't an RS though.

Okay.

So that's for people to know your final thoughts.

You know, I really like it, but for $140,000, I want all of the things.

You know, I want, I want my phone to be able to fit.

I, you know, I want, um, a less black, shiny stuff on the interior and, um, you know, I

just, I just think it should be everything that I want it to be for $140,000.

And it was 99.9% of the things that I wanted.

So I loved it, but there were a couple of annoyances that would make me not spend $140,000

on it.

All right.

There you go.

Well, you drove the RS.

Yeah.

Q eight.

All right.

I drove the S Q eight.

All right.

We're going to take a break.

When we come back, when we talk to Herb Weissbaum, the consumer man from checkbook.com, we're

going to be talking about car insurance.

Yes.

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.

And Jill, we're going to talk about something we never talked about on the show before,

and that's insurance.

Yes.

My daughter just bought insurance, actually.

And I think I made a mistake, and we may have to ask our guest about this.

But I just sort of let her shop for insurance herself.

And I realized that I have an insurance agent, and she ended up buying all state insurance

online.

And she told me what she's paying.

I mean, it feels a little expensive, and I wonder if she went through my broker through

my insurance agent, she might have saved a little money.

But people don't go through agents anymore, and we might talk about that in a little bit.

I still go through agents.

Do you?

Yeah.

Okay.

You seem like someone who might have done it online.

No.

Well, so I should clarify, it's my husband's car, and my husband is a master networker,

and so he has, like, a lot of friends who are insurance brokers, and so.

And then when I was looking at my mom's insurance and my mom's, like, renter's insurance, like,

we went through one of his friends who's also a broker.

So, yeah.

All right.

Well, our guest today is a contributing editor at checkbook.org and the host of their Consumer

Pedia podcast.

He's an Emmy award-winning, I'm sorry, his Emmy award-winning reports have held consumers

nationwide for more than 40 years.

He is Herb Weissbaum, the consumer man.

Welcome to the podcast, Herb.

How are you?

Thank you.

I'm fine, Tom.

I always hear you on the NICD podcast because I started off and key everybody up for you.

So, it's nice to finally talk to you on what's thrilled when you asked me to be on yours.

It is great to be, uh, finally talk to you as well, and yeah, for people who don't know,

uh, Herb and I are both guests regularly on the NICD podcast.

I think it's like the second episode of every month, and we're on his, we're on his, we're

on Nick's For the People episode.

Okay.

So, yes, nice to finally talk to you in person.

Uh, Nick sent me your contact information.

I am delighted to have you here as an expert because we have never talked about insurance

before, and, and the insurance market has changed a lot.

And as I just noted, my daughter just went through the whole process of buying car insurance

entirely online.

And what do you make of online and current, the market in general?

How have things changed in the last few years?

Well, um, twice as skyrocketed, I mean, there's no question that insurance is so much more

costly than it has been in the past.

Um, you know, the, uh, according to the latest statistics in the first half of 2025 alone,

rates have gone up over 8%.

That's according to the Euro labor statistics, uh, it's gone up 30% since 2023.

And according to bankrate.com, the average driver, the average is 2,600, 79 for, for

a year, but in places like Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, 3,500 in New York, it's 4,000 a year.

So cost, or a cost, or it's expensive.

And to your question, uh, you can do some good stuff online.

I like you and Jill use an agent because they're working for me.

They can compare a lot of policies and the agents can also sometimes find policies specifically

for that region much better than the big companies to tailor to your area.

My guy, the last time I price shop, and I try to price shop every two years at the, at

the most a year or two, if things changing so much, he saved me over a grand on home

insurance and car insurance to mind a grand.

And I got a little bit better covers than I had with a policy before.

So that to me is the value of a broker.

It doesn't cost, of an agent, doesn't cost me anything.

There are brokers out there who do charge a fee.

And unless you have some really specialized situation, I see no need to pay somebody,

but an agent yet makes an absolute lot of sense.

Cool.

Yeah.

And based on those numbers you just gave me, I feel better about the prices.

My daughter is now paying.

But the other thing that's really important is it's not just the price you pay for

insurance, it's how the company is going to handle the claims.

And that varies greatly.

That's the mistake people, I believe they base it solely on the price.

You've got to base it also on the, uh, the company you're dealing with.

You know, it's really great to go to a restaurant with a food sheet, but it's

going to give you a food poisoning.

That's not the way to go.

You want, you know, reasonable price and a good, so I'll give you the latest numbers.

I just looked it up here for you guys from consumer reports.

They rated, uh, 31 companies and only seven got the highest ratings for

poll, from policy holders.

They interviewed thousands of policy holders, uh, for satisfaction handling claims.

They are companies, some of them that you may or may not recognize in your area.

The Geary Insurance Group, the Amica Mutual Group, uh, NYCM Insurance Group,

Cincinnati Insurance Company happened to be the one my broker found country

financial acuity and farm bureau and property casualty.

Those are the ones, uh, that did the best.

But if you look on the entire ratings for all these things, I mean, some of the

names you know and trust were so big, uh, State Farm only rated four out of five.

Uh, Chubb only rated four out of five travelers, three out of five.

Progressive, three out of five, uh, State Auto Insurance Company, three out of

five Kemper, three out of five.

So that's what I look at.

Just like when I buy an appliance, price is important.

I look at consumer reports, reliability ratings, but I want an appliance to

go to last, I don't want to spend money repairing it.

So that's also a really important part of buying good insurance.

You know, you just made a really good point there.

I feel like a lot of automotive, um, buyers will go to consumer reports and

look up reliability ratings for vehicles or if they're getting ready to buy a

new appliance, but I have to tell you, I never in a million years would have

thought to look there for, um, ratings on car insurance.

Yeah.

And, and they have, they have rated everything.

And by the way, just looked it up for you, Tom, uh, all state rates, three

out of five claims insurance.

Uh, and, uh, so that's, uh, you know, that's a, that's a big deal.

You know, making sure you have a company is going to pay your claim.

If you have a problem with not just delaying the delay, just get installing

and try not to pay it.

So what is driving the big increase in, uh, insurance rates lately?

Uh, number of factors.

First of all, it's much more expensive.

We're driving more expensive vehicles.

So when there is an accident, it costs a lot more to repair them, uh, the

cost of parts and the cost of labor and the whole routine, I'm sure, as you

guys know, has gone up dramatically.

Uh, so that's number two, uh, insurance claims for medical, a medical

cost has skyrocketed.

So that's another factor driving this up.

And then there have been a lot of, uh, legal action taken, uh, also that, uh,

have caused the brain to go up and put it all together.

And, uh, you know, it's a, it's a reason why, uh, premiums are going up.

So I've heard two things lately and they're contradictory.

One is that rates are going up and I believe they are an annual minor, uh,

but that rates are going up because cars have gotten more expensive and that

the safety equipment and cars is very complex and expensive to repair.

And one of the things too, very specifically is a lot of this equipment.

These sensors are in bumpers.

So if you have an accident, your, your accident is much more, your cars, much

more expensive to repair now, because all, all this expensive equipment that

gets dinged up.

Uh, but the other thing is that because of all this equipment, I've heard

that accident rates are actually coming down as they should, right?

Because the accident avoidance equipment is pretty impressive.

Like pedestrian detection and, um, automatic emergency braking and things

like this.

Um, and that the last thing I heard is that, um, insurance rates should

actually be coming down in the near future, but I haven't seen that, but it's

a contradictory article or two that I've read and, uh, where do you see

these trends going?

Well, if you think insurance rates are going to come down, I got a bridge in

Brooklyn, I would really like to tell you it's a great deal.

It's an absolute great deal.

Uh, I don't expect insurance rates to come down.

Insurance rates keep going up.

Uh, yes.

Bumpers, for example, uh, they have all the radar and the stuff in there.

So when you, the thing to bother in the past, so it's a couple of

hundred dollars, whoever fixed it now, it's a couple of thousand dollars

because they got it, you know, windshield.

Now you break a windshield.

It used to be a simple replacement.

Now they got things in the windshield to do all kinds of what I trade lack

of safety equipment for a lower insurance premiums, not on your life.

Those things, they've wise, they reduce access.

I don't have any statistics, but, uh, I'm just telling you that basically

based on all the data that's out there, insurance premiums are not going to go

down.

They're going to keep going up and because now with the farm parts coming

over, uh, with the tariffs, uh, there, it's going to get even more expensive

to repair vehicles.

So you should expect insurance rates to go up even higher because that's

already happened.

I did a big podcast.

Oh, I, it's not going to be a drop till Thursday, huge podcast on, uh, a home

insurance and a good portion of the reason why they're going to go up in the

future is because of material costs.

Some of that is being driven by, you know, like lumber coming in from Canada.

And that sort of thing.

And it's just going to, it's going to drive up, no pun intended.

It's going to drive up everything.

Well pun intended, I guess I should say clever to say drive up.

Uh, in terms of car insurance basics, I don't actually understand car

insurance and the difference between the different segments of it, the

liability and the comprehensive and all that.

What, what is in a car insurance policy?

There are three terms you need to know.

I'll run down all three of them.

First of all, there's liability coverage that pays for damage that you

cause includes damage to another person's car, uh, the other person's medical

bills, resulting from the crash that you caused any property damage you run

through somebody's garage or a fence or hit a lamppost or anything like that.

And any legal fees involved, uh, that's, that's one thing.

Second thing is collision, collision, pace or damages to your car from a crash.

That's not the fault of another driver.

And the collision is how you pay for a pair of placement.

If you're in a single car crash, you hit another car, the crash, you hit, uh,

you hit the something as the crash was your fault or if your car gets hit in a

parking lot or one driver doesn't leave a note there.

You know, you run into a tree, something like that.

So, um, that's what you have the collision insurance for.

By the way, it doesn't cover animals.

If a deer hit your car or something like that, believe it or not, that's

covered up a comprehensive.

The third part, even though it was a collision, it's covered under

comprehension and that's the type of coverage you add to it.

It's just an insurance policy that covers damage to your car.

It isn't your fault and that isn't related to a crash.

So that your car's stolen, your car is vandalized.

Your car catches fire, damaged by weather.

Uh, again, if it's a hit by an animal, so, uh, that's so what this covers.

And, uh, the one way to save money that we recommend and consumer reports

recommends is you might want to drop collision and comprehensive coverage.

It's allowed, depending on how you own the vehicle, when your annual

premiums equal about exceed about 10% of your car's book value or the vehicles

more than 10 years old, which is a vehicle that worth the whole lot.

And then you're not going to get much for it.

There's not a whole lot of sense in, in getting this coverage.

If you, if you're, if you're trying to save money, I mean, who knows, you know,

if you have the money to do it, do it, but if not, you might want to do that.

Uh, in some cases you will be required to have this coverage.

If you're leasing your vehicle, if the vehicle's still being financed and

you know how long people are financing their vehicles for now, seven years or

more, uh, but it's just something you might want to consider dropping if

you're looking to save insurance.

So do that.

One thing I want to, want to, you know, cost you on it.

Policy, do they say this is, you know, the absolute minimum protection you can

get in this thing, age, if you can afford it, and I know there are a lot of people

that can't, you don't want them to know you want enough to protect yourself from

serious, I mean, I've seen car crashes where several people have been hurt

and the medical bills have been over a million dollars.

So $300,000 doesn't look like a heck of a lot when you're looking at a

million dollars liability.

The other thing is because of the cost of insurance, a lot of people aren't

driving with insurance and you have to make sure you have uninsured motor

protection.

I was just going to ask you to put it in your policy because you have no idea

if the person who hits you has insurance, then you have this whole thing

and a lawsuits and the stuff.

Why not just put that on the policy?

It is not a heck of a lot of money and it will cover you if the person, there's

just too many people doing what happens.

Now with a lot of people by the insurance and they do it to either satisfy

the state requirement or something like that.

And then they drop it as after a couple of weeks and months or something like

that.

So it looks like they have insurance, but they really don't.

And that's where this uninsured motor protection covers it.

All things considered, all the things you just mentioned, what is the

minimum coverages you would recommend like for liability and uninsured

motorists and all of the, I think you mentioned four different things.

So if you could talk about the minimum, we recommend at least $100,000

liability per person.

So if there were four people injured in that other vehicle or your vehicle,

it would be $100,000 for everybody and a burger killed $300,000 per

claim.

So again, that's not a whole lot of money these days.

And a hundred thousand dollars in damage, you know, and I have, uh,

because I'm on TV and radio and I've known everybody thinks I'm worth

the hell of a lot of money, which is of course not true for reporters, but I,

I have an umbrella policy that covers me up for a million dollars.

And it really, I don't know if it's a figure here, but it's really cheap to

get a million dollars umbrella coverage.

It covers you for anything.

Car accident, somebody trips on my property.

Oh yeah, we're going to dig the TV guy.

Like, uh, there's not a lot there to get guys, but this is going to take care of

that. That's something else you just might want to consider getting an umbrella

policy that would cover you both for your house and for your car.

It's really in the scheme of life, very inexpensive coverage to protect you

against a whole lot of potential loss.

Cool.

Here, we've run out of time, but before we go, tell us about checkbook.org and

your podcast.

Sure.

Checkbook.org is nonprofit.

Uh, we, uh, rate services across the country.

So where consumer reports does, uh, like products, like washers and dryers,

we do electricians and, uh, veterinarians and dentists and plumbers and all

that sort of thing.

And, uh, we don't take any advertising because we're non-profit.

So you can trust our rating is not like some of these groups,

Angie's with others who make it a little money to boost up the rating.

And, uh, we're there to help people.

I do the consumer pedia podcast, which is at consumerpedia.org and write one

general consumer story.

Like I used to do for NBC news.com, not based on ratings, but just general

consumer advice, uh, every week, people who want to, uh, go to my website,

consumerman.com, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter.

It's free.

We get up what I do every single week and, uh, keep up to the know of what's

going on, consumerman.com.

Herb, thank you so much for your time.

We will link to all of that stuff and we'd love to have you back on the show

sometime.

And one, I know you're on time at one last thing, 30 seconds.

Yeah.

Do not let your car insurance policy lapse.

No matter what you do, if you let that policy lapse for a day and then go to

buy new insurance, it's like you never had auto insurance.

You're going to get clobber.

Oh, sure.

Your insurance never lapsed.

Thank you.

So that's some advice.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you for joining us.

All right.

That was her wife's mom, the consumer man.

We're going to take a break.

And when we come back quiz time quiz time questions or comments, drop us a

line at carstuff at consumer guide.com.

That's carstuff at consumer guide.com.

Hi, it's Brendan from Sons of Speed.

You've heard me and my colleague Paul on the car stuff podcast, whenever Jill's

out of town, but now you can hear us every week on the we are motor driven

podcast, along with Jennifer from auto exotica and Harvey from rides and drives.

We talk about everything from sports cars to trucks to EVs and our favorite

speed.

So join us each week by searching we are motor driven wherever you get your

favorite podcast.

Welcome back to the car stuff podcast and we're back.

This is the consumer guy car stuff podcast.

I'm Tom.

She is Jill and I just learned for certain.

I don't know anything about insurance.

I know that was so much good information.

It's funny because people think that, you know, car guy, and maybe you get

questions like this too.

And then people call and ask me about like tires.

I don't, I don't know that much about tires.

No, I very rarely get to test tires and I rarely buy tires except for my wife

and daughter's car, but, um, yeah.

And you know where I go, um, little plug for our good friends there, but it's

a wonderful site to research tires.

And that's the tire rack.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

We, we do that as well.

They do their own engineering train, a test, you know, these things plus the

consumer reviews are extensive in lots and lots of, lots of people have driven

these things.

Well, and plus I think you can actually call them if you're one of those

people who actually likes to talk on the phone and, um, you can talk to a real

human and they will guide you through the process.

I usually like to do the phone thing, but I did make my reservations at carnival

online and that was pretty handy.

But another send a meal sorts of texts.

Yeah.

I don't like using the phone, um, but whatever.

Hey, you're on social media.

I am, I am on social media.

Uh, you can find me on pretty much everything that exists at Jill

Siminello.

So my full name mashed together, lots of eyes and L's in there.

And then I also use the hashtag card as your, um, I've been putting new videos

on Tik Tok every day and I do full length YouTube reviews once a week.

So, uh, definitely check me out and I like to engage with people.

And you were working out some kinks in the process of putting our stuff up on

yes, YouTube.

Yeah.

So I, I was having, it was taking me like three hours to edit a one hour video.

So I think I'm going to just put the audio up for a short amount of time and

then, um, get back into it, but I've fallen very far behind.

I think April is the last, uh, video I've uploaded of the podcast.

So I will, I will get back into that though.

I found you're thinking about editing a video.

Um, I used to go to auto shows more often and they used to be invited to,

to interview executives and I enjoy doing that.

And if you can get 20 minutes with an executive, you should take it.

It's pretty precious time.

And, and one of the things that I had access to back when I consumer guide was

part of another company was transcribers.

So I would record the interview and like hand them a file, you know, and, and then

a week later I'd have a nice written thing that I could edit.

Yes.

Oh, this is so much better than me doing this.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right.

Um, you didn't mention your social media.

Uh, Car Guy Tom.

Car Guy Tom on X, Twitter, same thing.

And blue sky.

Got it.

All right.

Uh, it's quiz time.

Yes.

Um, I lost the quiz.

Well, while you're finding the quiz, I will fill in and say, um, I have chosen a

new doughnut today.

Oh, do tell.

Um, yeah.

I mean, the, the normal powdered cinnamon doughnut was there, but there was

something that looked like it was not powdered cinnamon.

It was just like cinnamon and sugar.

And you said it was like an apple.

I didn't call it the apple crisp.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm doing the apple crisp that has cinnamon and sugar on it.

And it is really quite lovely.

I, um, over the weekend, I was, no, last week before my anniversary, I was at

Mark's chocolate picking up anniversary stuff for my wife and the owner there

says hello.

So it's a little out of the way.

Hello.

You and I went to Mark's.

Yes, we did together.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's a little out of the way.

Did you find the quiz?

Uh, I did.

Yep.

Okay.

Today's topic.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Foreign places.

Okay.

You're a geography nut.

No, I am not foreign places.

And the question is, does Volkswagen build there?

Okay.

I'm going to give you five foreign places.

I've got five here.

One, two, three, four, five.

Okay.

Um, looks like four, five.

Okay.

I'm going to give you a foreign place.

You have to tell me a Volkswagen builds cars there.

Okay.

Are you ready?

Right.

And it's not parts.

It's got to be cars because Volkswagen builds parts everywhere.

Okay.

Big company.

Okay.

I, I have to admit, I'm not very familiar with, uh, where Volkswagen builds things.

They build things a lot of places.

Okay.

Number one.

Okay.

Bratislava, Slovakia.

And Volkswagen is a very big company as well.

With a lot of brands.

Yes, it is.

Um, too many brands.

I'm going to say yes.

Yes.

In fact, they build the Q8 there.

Oh, so topical.

How, how ironic.

Yeah.

The Q7 Q8 and the Porsche Cayenne are built there.

And I think there's some other like crazy sub like SCOTA and other things that are

but those.

All right.

You're on the board.

You have one.

I don't know how to pronounce this, but I think it's a gear.

Hungry.

Spell it.

G Y O with whom louts are hungry.

You're.

I'm going to say no.

Yes.

They build the Audi A3 and A3 Sportback.

I think for Europe, I don't think those are important to the U.S.

Okay.

You still have one.

San Miguel El Salvador and the little strip of land that connects North America

and South America and Salvador and Salvador.

I'm going to say no.

No, you're doing good.

You've got two.

Okay.

All right.

You're in good shape.

Um, Accra, ACC RA, Accra Ghana.

Hmm.

We don't talk about Africa enough.

We did talk to have, we talked to Sam about Africa a little bit.

Um, I'm going to say yes.

Yes.

I didn't know this.

The Amarek pickup, it's one of those vehicles that enthusiasts are like,

bring it to the U.S., bring it to the U.S.

And then they won't buy it.

Everyone wanted the, the Heidi Buzz here.

No one's buying that, but the Amarek is pretty cool.

And I think it's very offered capable.

We wanted the Heidi Buzz in the, um, shorter wheelbase version with a longer range.

You don't, well, is there a longer range version of it?

I don't know, but we wanted more range.

You'll get more range onto the shorter one, probably cause it weighs a little bit

less, but I don't think they can squeeze more than 95 kilowatts under the deck of that.

All right.

You got three, you've won.

All right.

And finally, Peace River, Alberta, Canada, Peace River.

Peace River.

Uh, does Volkswagen build stuff there?

Hmm.

Does Volkswagen build anything in Canada?

But that's the question.

That is the question.

Um, I'm going to say no.

No, they do not.

A lot of manufacturers do, but they do not.

All right.

You have three, you've won this, but we're going to the bonus question

because that's what we do.

Uh, we're doing good on time.

You want to talk about something after the quiz.

Uh, KFC, no longer called Kentucky fried chicken.

Just KFC.

How many do you think there are in the world?

I am always so far off on this.

Um, KFC locations worldwide, 15,000 halfway there, 30.

How many do you think there are in the US?

This never surprised me.

15,000.

Just 4,000.

Okay.

1075.

I would have thought there were more.

Okay.

Yeah, me too.

They're ubiquitous where we live.

Well, cause Kentucky like that, you would think there would be a lot more in

America than any place else.

How many do you think there are in Africa?

This number also surprised me.

A hundred.

1200.

Wow.

Yeah.

Very international.

And then finally, as long as we're talking about Ghana, how many do you think

there are in Ghana?

Two.

37.

You're pretty close there.

By the way, the Ghana URL extension is GH.

I learned that today.

Never saw that before.

You know, it's RU for Russian and stuff like that.

Yeah.

All right.

I need you to tell me which of the following is not an item on the Kentucky

fried chicken menu in Ghana.

In Ghana.

Got it.

In the four, wait, you said 14.

37 locations.

Yeah.

Got it.

Are you ready?

The Zinger tower burger.

Okay.

The Colonel tower burger.

The glazed yam Zinger burger or the veg burger.

I think it's going to be one of the last two.

Okay.

The glazed yam Zinger burger or the veg burger.

And we have to talk about this tower thing briefly.

Yeah.

I mean, veg just seems very basic.

It does.

And it could be so many things.

Um, I want the yam thing to be true.

Glazed yam Zinger burger.

Yeah.

I hope it's yams and a zinger, like a raspberry zinger and just pressed on a bun.

Why would you eat that?

I would eat something that was zingy, spicy.

Um, I'm going to go with the veg burger as the fake.

No, it is the glad the glazed yam Zinger burgers.

The fake, the tower burgers are interesting.

The Zinger tower burger is a fish patty plus a potato patty.

And the Colonel tower burger is a chicken patty plus a potato patty.

They're huge looking in the, in the, in the photography.

And the veg burger was very simple looking.

It looked a little bit like a chicken patty.

All right.

You have won this with three.

You did not get, but the bonus question, I have four, didn't I?

Did you have four?

Oh, you got the Canada one.

You have four, four.

Don't, don't try to, you know, take away my points.

All right.

You have some Nectoy news, North American car of the year news.

And what do you have finalists?

Um, not finalists, not finalists.

The, the consideration, what do you call the first round?

Best of, best of, okay.

Um, so essentially this is like we, every year, there's a whole crop of vehicles

that are all new, significantly refreshed.

Yes.

Um, and we look at all of those vehicles and we put them forth to the, we have 49

jurors right now.

So we put them forth to the 49 jurors and say, okay, what are the best of what's new?

And we came up with a list.

All right.

So, um, in the car category, we have the Audi A5, the Dodge Charger, which will

include the, both the electric and the six pack.

So the Daytona and the six pack, the Honda prelude, the,

tell us what that is.

So the Honda prelude is a new vehicle.

It's coming out, um, towards the end of this year.

And I believe it is the hybrid.

It's a hybrid version.

It is very civic like drive.

Yeah.

Um,

and for people who don't know preludes a legacy name.

Yes.

Um, it was once a very nice sporty car.

If you remember the Acura Integra, it was of similar ilk, although the prelude

was always based on the Accord, not on the civic.

That's different now.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so that's, that's new that we haven't necessarily seen anything, I think,

other than a prototype right now.

By the way, is that a two door?

Oh, I don't remember.

I think it's, it should be historically replacing the, like the coupe version.

So yeah, I think it is.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So, um, but yeah, so that the Kia K4 hatchback, the Mercedes Benz CLA and then

the Nissan Sentra.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's all redesigned.

If that is redesigned as well as the kicks was, and they are mechanically

similar, that should be a very nice vehicle.

And I will say, like of the vehicles on this list, I don't know what will make it

through to the finalists.

I, if I had to venture a guess, I would say, um, Dodge Charger Honda

Prelude and Nissan Sentra.

I don't think the Charger only, if I'm going to guess, I think the, the Prelude

and the Kia are interesting and the Sentra.

I think they matter the most and they, I don't know.

I'm very interested in the Prelude.

We'll see what that is.

Yeah.

Um, okay.

So then for the truck of the year candidates, I have to tell you, this is

always a really tough category because there are, it's very rare that you get

like a whole bunch of new trucks in a year.

Right.

So it seems to be a problem for Motortrend where they would do a truck of the year

and then there weren't enough new trucks.

Right.

And so very often you will have like a full trim version that appears that, you

know, it's not a completely new truck, but it's a trim version.

So the vehicles this year, um, are the Ford F-150 Lobo, which is a trim version.

Uh-huh.

The Ford Maverick Lobo, um, at the Ram 1500 with the Hemi engine.

So they're bringing back the Hemi, the Ram 2500, which is all new.

And then, um, the Rivian R1T quad motor.

So new powertrain.

I will bribe you people not to reward Ram for taking a step backwards

technologically.

Oh, so irritating.

I know why they did it.

It just feels like regression.

It's so good.

All right.

So if I could venture, yes, then I think the three finalists would probably be

Ford Maverick Lobo, Ram 2500 and the R1T.

What's the deal with the Ram 2500?

That's a redesign?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

For people who know the 1500 and then the heavy duties, um, what do they call them?

Heavy duties at Chevy and at, uh, Ram and super duties at Ford.

But those are actually a significant class up in terms of, um, utility.

They are big, big, yeah.

They're big honkers.

And they're the ones that get the big brand name diesels.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right.

And then finally utility.

Okay.

So there's a lot of utilities this year and we purposely, we're a little tight on time.

Okay.

We purposely increased this category because the SUV segment is the largest.

Yep.

So we have Acura ADX Audi Q5, Cadillac Escalade IQ, Cadillac Optic, Cadillac

Mystic, Ford Expedition, Genesis, GV 70, Honda Passport, Hyundai Ionic nine, Hyundai

Palisade, Jeep Cherokee, Lucid Gravity, Nissan Leaf, Polestar four, Subaru

Forester hybrid, Toyota four runner, Toyota RAV four, Volkswagen Tiguan and

Volvo EX 30.

Dang.

This is a really, like there are a lot of significant vehicles.

Can I look at that real quick?

Yeah.

I just want to see what I think might happen here.

ADX is not going to happen.

Q5 probably not.

Um, maybe the Cadillac Optic, that's electric, of course.

I like the new Expedition a lot.

Passport, I haven't seen it.

I'm driving the Hyundai Ionic nine, I think next week and Palisades very good.

Cherokee has a chance just because it's really important.

They need that vehicle in that class.

Lucid Gravity, that's interesting.

A little expensive though, right?

It starts at 80.

Leaf could win this.

Yeah.

Could win this if it's good.

Um, I don't know how new the Q5 is.

Yeah.

But interesting.

And Polestar four, you've driven that.

I have.

Yeah.

And that's good.

I can't tell you yet.

Oh, okay.

I thought you would, I have driven it, but it's under embargo until the

beginning of November.

All right.

And I finally have a Polestar three coming.

Yes.

So I'll be adding that to my personal fleet experience checklist.

Yeah.

If I had to guess what are going to make it through to the final three, I

think Cadillac optic, um, has a good chance.

I think Ionic nine has a good chance.

Oh, and I mean, Nissan Leaf and Polestar four are both.

It's an interesting list because there's not a lot of esoterica there.

It's all stuff that's been significantly updated.

I mean, the RAV four is all new.

That's a big deal.

It's a big deal.

Interesting thing about the RAV four and we're out of time here, but the RAV

four is coming in down on people's lists of best crossovers, but people are

still buying it.

Yeah.

Uh, and I think that long in the tooth, it's a little low, but it is still the

Toyota entry in that field and it's still got reliability and fuel economy on

its side, although pricing maybe it's just a little higher than other stuff.

So an all new one is exciting.

Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Yeah.

All right.

Uh, big thanks to Herb Weissbound, the consumer man for joining us this week.

Thank you, Jill.

Thank you to producer Randy and the good folks here at Talk Zone.

Let's talk more about cars again next week, next week.

Remember to check us out at consumer guide.com.

The car stuff podcast is produced by J turn media to advertise on the show.

Please drop us a line at car stuff at consumer guide.com.

About this episode

Jill and Tom dive into the latest automotive news, discussing Nissan's discontinuation of the Aria EV and the driving experience of the Audi SQ8. They also explore the complexities of car insurance with guest Herb Weissbaum, who shares insights on rising rates and the importance of choosing the right coverage. The episode features a lively quiz segment and a preview of the North American Car of the Year considerations, highlighting new vehicles like the Honda Prelude and Rivian R1T.

Acura Integra Audi A3 Audi A5 Audi A8 Audi e-tron Audi Q5 Audi Q8 e-tron Audi S8 Audi SQ8 e-tron Cadillac Escalade Dodge Charger Ford Expedition Ford F-150 Ford Lobo Ford Maverick Ford Pinto Genesis GV70 Honda Passport Honda Prelude Hyundai Elantra Hyundai Genesis Hyundai Ioniq 5 Hyundai Palisade Hyundai Sonata Jeep Cherokee Kia Soul Lamborghini Urus Lucid Gravity Mercedes-Benz S-Class Mitsubishi Outlander Nissan Leaf Nissan Sentra Porsche Cayenne Porsche Cayman Rivian R1T Subaru Forester Subaru Outback Tesla Cybertruck Toyota 4Runner Toyota Camry Volkswagen Tiguan

Original notes

Tom opens the show correcting two errors he made recently. Listen in to hear what he got wrong. Tom then shares the results of an X poll he conducted on Ferrari colors. Turns out white is NOT a popular choice for the Italian sports cars.

The hosts also acknowledge the end of production for the Subaru Legacy midsize sedan. Jill notes that the car never had much impact on a segment ruled by the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.

Jill and Tom also share news regarding the Nissan Ariya electric crossover, which will not be sold in the U.S. after 2025. Nissan is focusing its efforts on the launch of the all-new, more-affordable, Nissan Leaf EV.

Still in the first segment, the hosts review the Audi SQ8 and RS Q8 performance crossovers. The hosts are generally impressed by the luxury fastback crossovers, though Jill had some tech issues.

In the second segment, the hosts welcome the ConsumerMan Herb Weisbaum to the show. Herb shares news and pointers regarding buying car insurance, and knowing how much insurance you need.

In the last segment Jill is subjected to Tom’s “Does Volkswagen Build There?” quiz, including a bonus question about fast food in Ghana.

Jill wraps on the show sharing the list of this year’s North American Car of the Year award candidates.

Car Stuff Podcast

Consumer Guide Automotive, Tom Appel, Jill Ciminillo

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