Clutch Culture Podcast Dec 15, 2025

The Corvette SUV, EV Realities Not Talked about, Stellantis Stops Investment in Autonomous Driving, Toyota Subscriptions & more

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69:45

Brand

Rivian

Rivian is a company that makes electric trucks and SUVs. They are known for creating vehicles that are designed for outdoor adventures and are environmentally friendly.

Term

LiDAR

LiDAR is a technology that helps cars understand their surroundings by using lasers to measure distances. It's important for self-driving cars to know where they are and what is around them.

Term

L4 mode

L4 mode means the car can drive itself completely without any help from a person, but only in certain places or situations. It’s a step towards fully self-driving cars.

Company

Waymo

Waymo is a company that makes self-driving cars. They are working on technology that allows cars to drive themselves without a human driver.

Company

Zoox

Zoox is a company that designs cars that can drive themselves. They are creating special cars for ride-sharing services, like Uber, but without a driver.

Brand

Tesla

Tesla is a car company that makes electric cars. They are known for their advanced technology and unique designs.

Concept

robo taxi

A robo taxi is a self-driving car that picks you up and takes you where you want to go without needing a driver. It's like a regular taxi, but it drives itself.

Term

ECUs

ECUs are small computers in cars that help control different parts of the vehicle, like the engine and brakes.

Car

Rivian truck

The Rivian truck is an electric pickup truck that is popular for its advanced technology and ability to drive off-road. It's part of a new wave of electric vehicles that are becoming more common.

Company

Stellantis

Stellantis is a big car company that makes many different brands of cars, including some that are well-known in America and Europe.

Concept

sub $30,000

'Sub $30,000' means cars that cost less than $30,000. This price range is important for people looking for affordable options.

Brand

Fiat

Fiat is a car company from Italy that makes smaller cars. They are known for their compact and affordable vehicles.

Car

Toyota RAV4

The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that's great for families because it has a lot of room and is good on gas. Many people choose it because it's reliable and easy to drive.

Car

Ford Escape

The Ford Escape is a small SUV that's easy to drive and good on gas. It's a popular choice for people who want a car that can do a little bit of everything.

Car

Toyota 70 Series

The Toyota 70 Series is a tough vehicle designed for off-road driving. It's known for being reliable and is often used for work or adventure in challenging areas.

Car

Toyota 4Runner

The Toyota 4Runner is a sport utility vehicle (SUV) that can handle rough terrains and is great for outdoor activities. It's a popular choice for families and adventurers alike.

Term

An automatic seatbelt is a type of seatbelt that moves on its own to buckle you in when you close the car door. It was designed to make it easier to wear a seatbelt, but you don't see them much anymore.

Car

Ford Escort

The Ford Escort is a small car that Ford made for many years. It was popular because it was cheap and easy to drive.

Car

Ford Probe

The Ford Probe is a sporty car that Ford made in the late 80s and 90s. It was designed to look cool and attract younger drivers.

Car

Dodge SRT-4

The Dodge SRT-4 is a fast car based on the Dodge Neon. It has a turbocharged engine, which means it gets extra power, making it fun to drive.

Car

Yeah, apparently that Diddy duck's pretty wild.

But that's for a whole other show going in the 2026.

No Diddy here on the show.

No Diddy.

Hey, man, come on.

I got to give you the kudos as soon as we start the show.

The background, the new color.

I told Nick, I was like, give me a second.

Let me just brace myself.

I was about to fall over how good that looked behind you.

Yeah, we're painting the shop.

Going to be here for a few more years.

Got with the landlord, got a little plan together.

Got some work going on.

We've upgraded the lights.

We've done a lot.

And the final kind of piece to this

was having the team here from a good painting company.

They're great guys fixing this up.

And I think it's coming out good.

Yeah, I told Nick, I used to work for SW back in my day.

Again, no surprise, probably, by the skin tone color here.

But I said, send me the color.

I've got to have that on something in the house.

Even if it's in a closet, I want that color somewhere.

Yeah, it's nice, man.

So Nick called me yesterday.

Interesting conversation.

I was going through.

I had already had a list of topics and stuff.

I usually put things together on a list throughout the whole week.

And then as the week winds down, I put it

in order of either virality or interest or whatever.

And Nick had already posed a question

that I had on the list, which was Rivian's announcement,

this whole new chip inside chips being made

and the lidar being added.

And R1 and R2 drivers will get this whole new assistant

coming up and software.

And we ended up talking for, I don't know if you saw

on our phone, it was 45 minutes.

We did a podcast.

I mean, the guys, this EV thing, I'll just say from me,

there's a lot of people that talk about this shit really

improperly, in my opinion.

It's like they're either some kind of evangelical for EVs

or they're so anti-EV, they can't think straight.

And I think they're both the same side of the coin to me.

So a big J journalist makes this what

looks like a press release post on Instagram

and it's nonsensical.

I'm like, well, he's there and there's more people there.

And they're like really down this AI rabbit hole

on their post and I go, this just can't,

Rivian, it's operated too intelligently for that

to be the big story.

And that's kind of what I said to you on the call.

I'm like, this doesn't really seem like this

is what Rivian would have been talking about.

So what was left out is basically the LiDAR move,

which I guess they're betting on or I know they're betting on,

insurers, regulators are all signed off on LiDAR.

So if we don't go the LiDAR route,

we're gonna have all kinds of issues

of getting into autonomous vehicles

and getting things approved through the government,

approved through the insurers.

Then there's this weird moment where they say things

like, when you're in full autonomous mode, L4 mode,

we're gonna cover the insurance.

That's on this post.

It was complete nonsense, nonsensical.

I don't mean that the announcement is nonsense.

I'm sure this has been looked into.

Then when you dig deeper into it,

sort of the guys running the company

start to say really interesting things

like vertical integration.

We're trying to control everything we do.

This is what makes Rivian interesting in the car world

because it seems like to me,

if they are really going this route,

they're going to try on some level

to bring almost everything in-house.

And I think that's the interesting part.

I think you're right.

And I use several different AI assistants and stuff

to just kind of get my thoughts out

depending on what kind of project I'm working on.

But usually for the podcast, I'll just use

whatever I feel comfortable with at the time

or I already have some data fed into

to kind of just put together some notes.

And as I was going through the idea

of what has kind of come up in the past

that was very similar of these kind of announcements

and claims of what's to come and what's around the corner.

And you've said a thousand times,

I mean, you were in college when the skateboard was, you know,

this XYZ is around the corner, right?

Everything's around the corner.

25 years.

And by the way, this announcement is like

last days of 2026, we could see something,

but this could bleed into 27 before we really see.

And we don't know which vehicle.

So we're back into that game again.

And I'm not blaming Rivian as the only people

playing that game, but the right around the corner crowd,

it has always in my career played right around the corner

as some type of financial gain of right around the corner.

Right, right.

And this is what I was telling them yesterday

is just my two cents, right?

And I almost always come from a skeptical side.

I don't mean to, it's just that Nick knows this

and I'm sure listeners do.

Once you kind of just know too much about some things,

it's hard to unknow it.

So you just put it all together.

You always try to connect the dots

and all the different arenas of life

that you've kind of seen things unfold.

But as AI, and no matter what you use,

Claude, Grock, Chad, DPD doesn't matter, Gemini,

I know Nick's a big Gemini guy.

It tends to put things together in a way.

I know you laugh because we're always going back

and forth on this.

It tends to put things together in a way

that sometimes you didn't phrase it,

but this is what I came to

and it was at the top of my notes

of the way I phrased the whole conversation with myself.

And it's the vertical integration mirage, right?

Because what Rivian was saying yesterday

is what you've heard through Tesla's now,

but even especially at the early days

of full self-driving.

You heard it from Google with Google Glass.

You heard it with Intel and the vertical integration

with their chips, it was with somebody else.

I can't remember who had mentioned their partner here.

I forgot it.

There was the initial LiDAR boom back in the early 2010s.

So a lot of this, it's not like we haven't heard it

before, but Rivian is such an attractive company

that they've done so much

and so what feels like a little amount of time

that we're kind of just like, yeah, we're excited.

What is this?

Is it really around the corner?

But in my notes are way too long to go through all of them.

It just, it all sounds like stuff we've heard

over the last 15 plus years.

Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt, right?

I mean, this is what gets people like you,

it's also being alive long enough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's things I believed at the age of 20

that by now in my early 40s, I go,

guys, I've heard this all before.

Again, it's not necessarily the right way to look at EVs

and go, well, I've heard this in tech for 25 years,

but you can't help it.

And I know many of you feel the same way.

It's like there is so much to unpack

with the insurance part of this

that it's not even really worth unpacking.

And for anybody in the journalistic space,

again, we always do that in air quotes

that there's just kind of bypassing

like the insurance is handled.

You've never really dealt with insurance on a big boy level.

Like you are now out of your depth big time.

Like you're gonna get in an accident

and hand them Rivian insurance in Austin, Texas.

That's that this is not gonna go as smoothly

as you're trying to portray,

but also there's going to have to be people on the hook.

Yeah.

And I got news for you.

If I'm in autonomous driving

and I'm still on the hook,

that's not gonna pass the smell test.

Not long-term.

It can pass the smell test in this little beta version

we've been doing for a decade,

but long-term there's too many attorneys

that make too much money

that are gonna find the loopholes and just goes,

I mean, there are lawsuits

that could bury some of these upstart companies.

I mean, it's just that simple.

Like there's some of this stuff

you can't outpace financially.

So I look at this and I go,

you guys wanna talk about vertical integration?

Cool, let's talk about it.

When are you gonna start making your wiring harnesses?

When are you gonna start making all the stuff?

When are you gonna start making the battery?

When are you gonna start making everything?

Because vertical integration on tech

is not vertical integration to build a car.

That's just stuff you guys are saying internally

into the doofuses that are there

right in the press releases from the media.

Vertical integration traditionally,

this is what made GE a powerhouse, okay?

This is also what dismantled General Electric.

General Electric controlled a ton of stuff vertically, okay?

All throughout all kinds of business units.

Awesome, man.

I think that's what these car companies

should have been doing for the past 50 years,

not going the other way.

I've stated that on this podcast.

I've said it about parts

and all this kind of stuff where they've outsourced it

and then it gets one hiccup

and all of a sudden the whole supply chain's messed up

over three bolts that are being built in Sweden.

It doesn't make any sense, okay?

So they use vertical integration,

which I think is a great idea for these companies to do,

to trick media members and go,

well, see, we're gonna do the chip and the AI in-house

and the software development in-house.

So we're gonna be vertically integrated.

They still can't make a wiring harness.

That's not vertical integration.

That's vertical integration on things

that you can vertically integrate in an office building.

If you had the wand and you were pointing it

in the direction you wanted the company

or the whole technology stack to go,

where do you think it goes?

Because one of the first things

as I'm working through the notes is

that they would wanna lean on their

magical innovative software,

where it's all in-house

and essentially sell the consumer subscriptions,

which is what it always goes back down to, right?

Sure.

And I think if you were gonna talk

about owning an electric car company,

the first thing you'd wanna own is the electric.

Yeah.

Yet,

they don't go that way

because it costs a zillion dollars

and it's the hardest thing to own.

They are picking off very easy things

that you literally can put people

in an office building or even working remotely

to vertically integrate.

They're not actually vertically integrating

the toughest parts of the business.

Now, that's not to say that the chip part

and all this story they're telling about that

is not a difficult task.

I don't wanna sound like that's not true.

But the facts are,

when they say the words vertically integrated,

if their supply chain is still in Mexico

or still in Asia or still in India

to get, to put the car together,

then you've really vertically integrated software.

Like that, again, bravo.

I mean, that's what you should do.

It's a smart move compared to a lot of people are doing,

bringing LiDAR on because the LiDAR cost

has come down significantly.

They're making the most aggressive move at this now.

But to me, if I had to guess,

I think this has something to do with robo taxis.

And them being in that business of Waymo or Zooks,

if you guys haven't seen the Zooks vehicle,

they're all over Vegas,

which is a, I believe a Bezos company.

So I'm gonna say that what this feels like to me

is yes, it's a play on autonomous driving,

but all EV lovers think it's about their car.

And I think it's more about the taxi part of it

than it is about the individual's car getting to work.

Be my read on it.

I think my read was gonna be fleet

at the end of the day.

Probably more fleet size.

Again, the consumer kind of gets left in the dust

because let's just say we're the consumer.

We don't have one of the Rivian or any of these EVs yet,

but we might one day, but we're the one that hypes it up.

You support it, you spread the awareness of it,

you get your friends convinced of it,

your friends and family or whatever.

And then you just never end up getting a result,

the result of like a consumer vehicle

that you actually thought was gonna come.

It just doesn't happen.

Well, and I still have the same question

I think every consumer has that cares about cars.

I'm still waiting for all of this advancement

makes things more affordable.

Take a sweet ass time with EVs, I'll tell you what.

That seems to continually be skipped over.

I'll tell you what.

We got LiDAR, we got new chips, we got AI, we got...

Okay, brother, okay.

But where is the cost coming down?

Because that's really not happening

on any real scale.

Are you building, can Rivian point to,

hey, the first vehicle we brought out was roughly,

78 to 100,000 depending on when the economy

and where it was.

And now we have an option that's $62,000.

Yeah, but it's smaller, it's cheaper to build.

All good.

But that isn't what the price point

we need to break through.

Again, we need to be way under $50,000.

We need to be trending towards

how to build stuff for $20,000 to $30,000

as we've stated here for the last year.

We're just getting no closer to that.

But dude, I can tell my AI assistant

to turn all the seat warmers on and leave mine off.

What do you thought we're living?

And you and I have talked about it.

If you've seen the AI integration into Siri, good luck.

I'm sure it's all gonna go swimmingly.

But I do think it's important.

I think Rivian is playing a different chess game

than most EV manufacturers.

And I think they actually have been from the beginning.

They've built a better interior than almost any EV company

consistently where it just was modern.

It was built to a high standard,

not the perfect standard.

It's not a Bentley interior.

It's not a, I understand that,

but is it light years ahead of what you get out

of a Tesla at the same price point?

Yeah, Tesla kind of just does cheap interiors.

Rivian gives you an elevated feel.

Look, they thought about storage

in the bed of their truck better

than almost anybody at the time.

And I think a lot of it comes,

and this is why I cheer them on,

their CEO is a car guy.

I mean, this is a guy

that was restoring Porsches at one point.

Like he is kind of one of us.

To what level this all goes,

it feels like it's a robo taxi play.

It feels like we're getting no closer

to true vertical integration

because they're never gonna own the battery technology.

It doesn't seem to me they're going to get

into the manufacturing of batteries.

Can they have certain technologies

that are driven by them

and bolted on to the raw battery?

Probably.

I mean, that's basically what's going on right now.

That can continue forever and ever and ever.

But until people start actually

making the whole battery system,

I think you've got a cost problem

that might never go away.

Yeah, and this is gonna come up again forever

as long as EVs are as big as they are today.

In the sense of it might be the only car

we have in the future.

So what I wanna do is tell the audience,

we don't wanna sound like we're bored of talking about it,

but there's times where it's boring as in,

there's nothing else to say.

Like we've kind of said it all, right?

But I think announcements like this

are worth talking about

because we can always kind of parse out

things that are said that were glossed over.

I think we just did that in the first 15 minutes.

The insurance thing being one of them

that gets glossed over.

What vertical integration even means today in 2025

or as we go into 2026?

Well, and let's say this

because I think we gloss over this sometimes

and I wanna make sure that we,

for people that wanna learn,

basically LG is building Rivian's batteries, I believe.

I believe it was Samsung at one point.

That's what I mean.

It's like the minute your supply chain

for the biggest mover of your car is not yours,

you're not building the cells from the ground up.

Vertical integrations kind of a lie, right?

Because that would be like saying

Ford doesn't stamp any metal parts, right?

Ford doesn't build anything in the engine.

You know, Chevy doesn't build their own engines.

They have no capacity to do that.

So there's the EV conundrum is

the supply chain is heavily relying

on people who are essentially not in the car business.

They're only in the car business

because they build batteries that go into the car business.

It's almost like a foregone conclusion

that I'll ever happen because what you ever,

what you read is that when you talk about like this

for instance, the Rivian conversation

in how silicone would mean less ECUs

or ECUs that can handle or thermal anything

or wire harness anything or fill in the blank

but it's never batteries.

It's everything else.

Yeah, it's never batteries.

And we all understand why.

I don't want people to get parts of this conversation

and be like, these guys don't understand

I understand how much it costs.

But I'm saying you're the ones using vertically integrated.

I didn't use those words.

You use those words.

And matter of fact, one of their biggest executives

said that word quite a bit.

Well, who loves those words is capital markets, right?

Yeah, that's a good call.

Just saying.

Yeah, oh, we're gonna own our technology.

Next time you want to raise money,

the next time you want to fill in the blank

when it comes with the money and that's who likes it.

And anybody that's listened to me for a year

one of the greatest deals that existed during COVID.

I couldn't tell you the exact year

it's all kind of rushed together.

There was a point you could buy the Rivian truck

for $75,000.

And I told everybody in the market

for an electric vehicle,

I said it's a $75,000 truck

with 125,000 build quality.

It was the best deal in the EV market from new, I mean.

Right.

Because I got in one of those.

I go, well, this costs a lot more than 75 grand.

Like, you could just feel it.

You could, you know, feel a tailgate.

You could look at all the features.

You could get in the interior.

You get into enough cars.

You go, yeah, this isn't gonna be 75 grand for long.

Did anybody take you up on that?

Oh yeah.

No, I had a lot of customers.

I had a lot of customers that were like,

sight unseen bought them.

And then when they got them, they go,

yeah, this won't be 75 grand for very long.

Why do you, did you tell them?

Why do you think you hire me?

Why do you think you have me do this?

That's why you call me.

That's what I do, dog.

It's what I do, big dog.

Better call Saul.

Very underrated.

Oh, that was a good show.

For a little bit.

You got a little.

A little weird.

A lot of those shows got weird.

All right, let's, I want to contrast this conversation,

this topic with something else that I was actually doing

a deep dive on already before Nick had called me

with the Rivian thing, and that is Delantis.

Good old, you know, American made, Delantis, you know.

Number four in the world.

French, Indian, American made, Delantis.

Let's take three quarters French on it at this point.

And funny enough, that's who is backing this

emergency room rush to recapture market.

And so this is from Reuters, but I was going through this

and a couple of other articles about Delantis' push

to recapture market share.

And it is so much different than what, you know,

a Rivian or even Ford's kind of doing right now.

And since this new CEO, what's his name?

Flores, I think it is.

Oh, Filosa, sorry, Filosa.

His priority is essentially to get back to

what made Delantis great in America or North America.

It's affordable vehicles.

He's trying to pursue the sub $30,000 fill in the blank

that, you know, the market will buy.

They've recaptured more market share in this past quarter

than they had in the previous eight quarters.

Unfortunately, when they try to capture the under $30,000,

they use fiat's, which, you know,

fiat platforms of some sort, that's sort of like a bad,

I don't know if he's listening to this,

but you probably want to abandon using the fiat platforms

to get under $30,000 in the American market.

Yeah, yeah, it's up in the air.

They're trying to find out which one of the 14 brands.

Which one's gonna stick.

Yup, it literally was in there.

We're trying to find one of the 14 brands

that can actually deliver on this sub $30,000 vehicle.

But on top of that, they're essentially

abandoning all direct investments into EV and hydrogen

and going the other way.

It's, what do you do when the government's

around the world get the different politicians in place

and EV gets hot again?

Because this is the yo-yo that's going to happen.

Okay, so for everybody who doesn't follow this stuff,

what's going to happen is this is all going to

continue to go up and down in government demand, basically,

on who's kind of running the biggest countries

around the world at the time.

They're gonna say cons for a second.

You wouldn't get wrong there, but.

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, I mean.

So, you know, you have a very car-friendly

administration in America right now,

allows them to back off EV.

What happens when the next administration comes in,

lays the hammer down?

We've always on this show been very big defendants,

you know, defendants of, you know,

car companies and how these governments

have screwed them over in a lot of ways

by yo-yoing back and forth with, you know,

EPA regulations, et cetera.

I don't think you should be out of the EV business.

I think that'd be dangerous because what happens

when the world changes again?

So I don't think I would dump it all.

I don't understand scaling it back.

But it sounds like he feels like we can't do both.

We don't have the capacity to save this company

and actually, you know, do both.

So we're gonna have to just go down a path

and live with it.

And that's sort of the part of being a CEO

you're in charge to do.

Like that's what you're being hired to make the call on.

Yeah, when he came in, the other guy,

Tavares, I think was his name,

he, when he was let go,

Stellantis essentially had the smallest market share

in the history of the company

at just like under 7% of market share.

So I mean, they're like, okay, we need an emergency turnaround.

We can do multiple things at once.

We got to do this.

We got to know what's gonna work.

Yeah, makes total sense.

And when you talk about the profit center,

you know, America can be a huge profit center.

That's what he said.

It could also be, you know, a real strangle around you

like we're seeing with Nissan and Infinity

and the Stellantis brands.

Like when you get America correct, i.e. Toyota, et cetera,

it really buoys your company, right?

It allows you to do a lot of things globally

and strengthen your power basically from America out,

right?

Not every car company has this ability,

but the car companies that can get America right,

the profit center from there basically leads

to this global dominance and investment that they can make

that you can't make if you don't have

profitable American sales.

Yeah, and so this emergency turnaround, right?

That's being fueled essentially by the big French families

and the French government is what's making all this happen.

So that's kind of like a,

it's a really good promising, I don't know,

feeling I guess for Stellantis

and all of their other partners.

When you have that big of a backing,

you're like, okay, maybe they are in the right.

And although you're right,

it might be just a yo-yo rightness of time

where it's gonna make sense for those people

to put up that kind of investment and say run

with your idea of going back to cheap combustion,

abandoned EV, abandoned hydrogen.

Well, I mean, speaking of France,

the question I have for you is,

are they gonna backstop Ineos's factory?

Because the stuff coming out of Ineos is not positive.

That's a good question. It's not positive at all.

I haven't, yeah, you know what?

Fine, I haven't heard much of Ineos in a while.

I mean, that guy's a billionaire,

so I'm sure he's gonna figure his way out,

but the Ineos story is not going well

because that vehicle, again,

needed to be sold in the US,

needed to be successful in the US.

All the tariff stuff and all the stuff that's come

during this administration basically made it

where price-wise Ineos kind of just couldn't really get

where they needed to go price-wise.

And so you think about all of this stuff

and it all comes back to if you're in,

especially in the American market as we are,

all roads lead to you better start building stuff in the US

because it's getting really hard to compete

for a lot of these companies.

And I think that's Stellantis number one issue.

I think the only thing Stellantis should be looking at

is what can be built in the US?

What can be built quickly?

What can be built at a fair price

and how quickly can we get it out there?

Because if they gotta go to the globe,

that's the whole fiat joke.

They go to the whole globe

to then bring cars into the US.

I just don't see how that works for them.

Now, I don't have access to all the information

they got access to, but I can't see it working.

I, wait, does that mean that we might see

an Ineos at a price that Nick could actually pick up

and say this is, you know what I'm saying?

Hey.

That might complete the garage right there.

We finally got the Ineos dealership here.

Oh, perfect timing.

Made a little phone call over there

and how's everything going?

Not well.

Not a lot of movement.

Perfect timing to make the introduction.

My name's Nick Walters.

Yeah, I had a customer looking for one

and we're in talks.

It's probably gonna go pretty well.

Pretty quickly.

I'd say about 15 minutes in and out.

Tell your friends, please.

Yeah, no, I cheer them on

because I think it's a cool concept

bringing back something kind of vintage.

But everything's price point, man.

And if you're not at the right price point,

which is Stalantis has found out,

Ford is finding out,

I think Tesla is now at a four year low in sales.

The worlds are colliding here.

Yeah.

And for everybody who's kind of asking what could happen,

the way out of this is the consumers tapped out.

Yeah.

You can't keep going up.

Maybe you can stay lateral,

but most of these car brands

are gonna have to figure out

how to cut the consumer in on a deal.

Yeah, a real meaningful deal too.

Yes, agreed.

100%, not too grand off.

Exactly.

You know, when you were selling a $30,000 truck

and you said $2,000 off, it meant something.

When that same truck is $73,000,

two grand doesn't feel like a whole lot.

Dude, no joke.

Tell me this, what do you think about the comments?

Cause we've had a lot of videos here recently

go pretty wild on across different socials.

And whether, not just Toyota,

although it wasn't Toyota videos as well,

when you get commenters that like,

I'm from or visited, we'll just say China or wherever.

And they do what?

Or wherever.

A fully loaded RAV4, a fully loaded XYZ is like 36,

40 on the top end.

And that's kind of where our start.

Yeah, no, look, the game in the US

is different than the game in Italy

is different than the game in South Africa

is different than the game everywhere else, right?

So these car companies are playing

the game with the government.

And there are a lot of regulations

that are good for the consumer, such as safety regs,

that the US has made cars a little safer for you to drive

or a lot safer than the older cars.

So you can't bash all of that stuff, right?

And we never have, I think people believe we have,

but I've never bashed safety regulations.

I've said, I don't know that some of these sensors

are making everything safer,

but making the crumple zones better,

doing that kind of stuff,

there's no question that that stuff is a huge impact

on the safety of the car.

But I love how people believe that

these companies don't know what it takes

to get into the US market.

That's the best way to put it.

They're like, you know, if only the US government,

buddy, Toyota knows the game.

Yeah.

If they wanted to sell a cheap truck here,

they build it here, they sell it here.

They escape 99% of the problems.

They didn't want to do that.

That's not the US government's fault.

That's Toyota making a corporate decision.

They are, the game has always been pretty much the same

with little regulations going up and down

and tariffs going up and down

and disappearing all together and coming back.

But if you built stuff in Alabama,

or you built stuff in Detroit,

or you built stuff in Austin, Texas,

you largely escaped a lot of it.

They didn't want to make the investment.

That's okay.

It is.

It's okay.

But you can't sit here and be surprised

that prices are different all over the globe.

And it seems like people are just shocked.

Well, I went to this country on vacation

and they had this one 70 series.

Guys, if you price the 70 series,

it's gonna be the same cost as a forerunner.

If not more expensive, for less.

And you guys are gonna be bitching about that.

I think the way I summarize it most times in my head

is when it comes to these manufacturers making money,

I think they, we can all agree,

they understand how to make money.

I think the bigger obstacle is how long

will this thing make money?

Whatever the initiative is at the time.

So whether it was EV and the, you know,

the push to go green and zero emissions

and all this kind of stuff.

Well, that was like, okay,

I think we have a decent projection

of how long this will last.

And when things have to turn on a dime,

like Stellantis here, they're like,

okay, we understand how to make money.

Let's revert back.

Who's gonna, who's on board?

We know how to make the money.

Like just give us the investment and we'll recoup that.

But then again, if another administration comes in,

you have to go back to the scratch,

the head scratchers of like, okay,

well, how long can this make money

until we have to revert back to what we know makes money?

Yeah, I mean, we all can say out loud

that these companies wouldn't have built EVs

at the level they did and lose all these billions of dollars

if the worldwide governments weren't pushing it.

Yeah.

It's not like the CEO of Ford is that big of a dummy

like, hey, let's go build a Ford.

He felt he had to.

Yeah.

Why?

Regulations, right?

And by the way, that wasn't just the US.

Okay, this was worldwide going on, still going on.

And I see the EUs pulling back on some of this stuff too.

But again, guys, these guys have to make real time decisions

that take years to go into effect

based on what they're being told they have to meet.

So it's not always everybody's a dummy

and you're the smart guy.

Like that, that isn't how this all works.

Like most of you don't have all the information

and you're just saying,

why can't we get this $13,000 truck in the US?

They can't meet safety regulations.

And then by the time they pay the tariff,

by the time they get it in here,

but it was never going to be $13,000.

I'm not, I'm rooting it on.

Yeah.

But by the way, in what universe does somebody

want to undercut their truck selling for $60,000

by bringing in a $15,000 truck?

Blame it on the one world government, brother.

Yeah, brother.

Alex Jones mixed with Hulk Hogan.

Turn the frogs game.

It's my favorite.

It is my absolute favorite.

Absolutely.

Okay. All right.

Well, I think that was a great way

to kind of compare the two contrasts,

what Salantis Rivian's doing.

If we get into some fun, just kind of a,

actually, let me ask you this before we move on.

What was the first feature that was, you know,

whether you call it a new safety feature

or just technological feature where you were like,

that's awesome.

I'm glad I have that.

I tell you one of the features that is pretty crazy.

It doesn't still,

I know why it doesn't still exist,

but do you remember the first car you got in

when the seatbelt was automatic on the door frame?

Oh, you mean the old S-corts?

Yeah, it was my favorite.

I like that, Ford Pro, things like that.

That was probably one of those things

that was the least cool thing

that you thought was the coolest thing in the world.

And technically, it was a safety feature, right?

Right.

Because it was automatically putting your seatbelt on

or at least the top part of your seatbelt on.

That was probably the first thing

that I thought was so cool.

And looking back, I'd be like,

actually, it was kind of annoying.

Because sometimes you'd be trying to get in a car

or you'd be moving around.

The thing would like...

It doesn't really loud if we're being honest.

Yeah, it was loud.

It was like a primer going on.

You had to find the red button

and then it would release real fast

and it could whack you in the side of the head of it.

That was probably like one of those things

for those of us that were there

when you had a buddy or you got one,

you go, man, this thing's cool,

but it was only cool for like 10 minutes.

And then you, like you said,

you had to find the red button and it clicked

and the metal part hit you on the side of the head

because it whipped back too.

That was probably like the first one I remember.

That's real, dude.

I'm so glad you mentioned that

because I forgot about that feature,

but those old little cars,

a lot of those old commuter cars had that.

And I did think it was so cool

because it was just like, it was on its trolley.

You're a kid, I was a kid,

so my cousins had these cars.

And they're just like...

And by the way, you would be pissed

if it was in your car now.

Oh, I don't know.

You don't lie, dude.

I had an SRT-4.

You're carrying stuff.

I'm talking about on your daily drive.

Carrying stuff.

I don't know why I grow with my Stanley in my purse

that I can't get in the driver's seat.

You don't take your laptop with you?

Okay, dude.

I have a hatchback.

I throw it in the back like a man, all right?

You don't ever carry a water bottle?

You don't ever need some water?

I put it in my door.

The GTI has huge cup holders.

I don't have to put it in the car.

Don't be an internet hard-o on this.

You never have anything in your hand.

I mean, I don't, I don't.

Okay, well, I'm gonna tell you this.

I'm gonna get the ring camera footage at your crib

and I'm gonna watch it like a hawk

and be like, okay, see, see,

and then I'm just gonna start posting it on socials

and be like, look, Rob.

Actually, the kids' backpacks are always,

yeah, those get in the way.

Those are the only things that get in the way.

There you go.

I said, everybody's a little different.

You always have something.

Two jackets and two backpacks.

Guys, you can't carry your own shit.

Give me a break here.

100%.

All right, that's a good call.

I do wanna ask you though, modern-wise,

because the first thing that comes to mind

when the blind spot monitoring was basically like,

you know, everywhere, I was like,

oh, that's actually pretty cool.

I don't know why in my mind

I thought that was one of the coolest

little additions to cars.

Yeah, I think I could vote for that.

Nice.

I think I could vote for that.

But once you start driving your car a lot,

you kind of blank out.

It just like fades into the background.

You don't really, but it is like helpful

for those first couple of weeks you're on the car.

That's true.

But you just ignore it all.

You're looking over your shoulder.

You're just going back to the old habits.

Pretty much.

You're absolutely right.

Some things just, you know,

old habits die hard as they say.

We brought up MJ a couple of weeks ago,

dude, in the NASCAR thing.

They had a settlement yesterday.

Wow, come on.

I mean, it was quicker than I told you.

I was like, it's going to be as fast as it can be.

And it was quicker than I thought in and out.

Yeah, so I didn't read in on the settlement,

but this is what happens.

You don't want people to go too deep.

You don't want things to become public.

You want to avoid embarrassment.

This is the lawsuit world.

I think they were what?

Total of 16, 18 months, you know?

Yeah, I think it might have been

even a little shorter than that, yeah.

Yeah, so I, you know,

I've been to a lot of NASCAR races actually in my life.

Like a lot of fun.

I don't watch it on TV,

but hey, the party at the NASCAR races,

a hell of a lot of fun.

You got to be there.

If you're in the pit and you're kind of doing your thing,

like you're the best time ever.

It's kind of like college, whatever happens.

And by the way, when you're single,

a lot of talent, a lot of talent.

A lot of talent, as they say, a lot of talent.

All right, all right.

We got a video that was sent to me here.

I got to pull it up.

And I know we kind of already talked about this

with EVs, but it seems like Toyota's going the extra mile

when it comes to subscriptions.

Have you heard this?

Have you heard the doubling down on this?

Let me try to pull.

I love this.

I'd be furious if I got my Lexus LX470

and I had to buy a subscription anyway.

I'm gonna, we're gonna watch it together

because I only started it

and I didn't want to watch it together

without getting an idea of myself.

A year to keep all of our functions

on our 2025 Camry after we've owned it for a year.

Let's go ahead.

So this is after a year

when the initial subs are done.

Well, everything is a subscription nowadays.

So it shouldn't be too surprising

that cars are now wanting a subscription as well.

And after a year, Toyota expires some of the vehicle functions.

So what are those functions?

Well, probably the biggest thing that expires after a year

is remote start via the Toyota app.

So you used to be able to from anywhere,

open the app and remote start your vehicle

to get it cooled down.

That's no longer a thing after a year.

You also lose the digital key functionality.

So you have to take your keys everywhere with you.

You can no longer use your watch or your phone.

Another big thing that expired is our navigation.

Despite us buying the high-end XSE trim level

with the big screen,

when we tab to the navigation menu, guess what?

It's now expired.

And if I hit get started,

all it wants to do is sell me the subscription.

So how much is the subscription?

Well, $15 a month is the entry level price.

If you want the app functionality

with things like navigation,

which I feel like we already paid for.

Now, if you want additional things like Apple Music

to be able to function inside the car natively,

that's $25 a month.

And then if you want Wi-Fi on top of that,

that's an additional $25 a month.

So yes, you can spend 50 bucks a month

on this Camry in subscriptions, $600 a year.

Now, of course we're not doing that, I don't-

Bro, $600 a year for your Toyota Camry subscriptions?

Oh my, I actually didn't know it was this bad.

I didn't either, although I had said a year ago

that the tokenization subscriptions would take over,

it only took 12 months.

We get it, Rob, you were correct.

I mean, Nick gets too many of them.

I gotta get my one or two every time, all right?

I gotta get my one or two.

Hey, you call it, you're like, you-

Yup.

That you were on this early.

I just don't know how it's defensible.

I mean, it's gonna happen.

We all gotta probably live with it,

but I just don't know how anybody,

and we'll have people in the comments

and it'll be some of you that defend this

because it's the brand you like, or the people you like,

or whatever it is you say in your head.

I just don't think this should happen.

Now, the whole question I have,

because this video doesn't make it clear,

can I still just connect my phone for free

and then everything works,

or is there something about the whole interface

that you have to buy no matter what to connect your phone?

That's a very good question.

Maybe it would not make it clear,

and I don't know, no T.O. to Camry or anything.

So anybody out there,

somebody leave it in the comments

of what's happening or what could happen.

But I still say if you can connect your phone

and your phone can run the infotainment

and you can bypass all the subscription,

that's what 99% of us do anyway.

So are they just getting the people around the edges?

Now, if what they're doing is

you basically have no connectivity whatsoever

without some type of subscription,

I think you're down a pretty diabolical road.

Diabolical is my favorite word these days

to describe almost everything.

Let me see, I'm gonna actually see,

can you use your phone connected to you?

I wonder if it's only,

once can't just be Camry, that'd be crazy.

No, no, it's, I mean, that's almost like,

besides, I mean, I guess you could call Corolla,

you know, obviously their base,

but I mean, Corolla and Camry

are like a hand in hand thing to me.

So if it's on those,

I would assume it's on RAV4 and Grand Highlander

and, you know, everything else.

You've called this for a long time,

long before we ever had a podcast,

that this is where all this was headed.

So for everybody that wants to pat Rob on the back here,

that's 110% he's been in this world

on this one from the beginning.

I will take those pads on the back.

I didn't, and I do seriously have this question.

If I literally just can't connect my phone

without some type of subscription,

I think you're down a real crazy road.

So you can, it says you can still use

CarPlay and Android Auto for navigation and music,

but you can't use any advanced features.

So the list, I mean, it's an extensive list, I think,

but it only notes, you know,

remote start using your key fob,

well, key list entry, that kind of stuff.

You can't, there's no other way other than subscription.

I really would have liked to hear from like, our crowd.

Is it that big of a deal to carry your keys?

You know, it's an interesting question

because I've gotten back to the point where I kind of like it.

Like sometimes I'll visit a relative,

or usually my parents,

and they have cars with keys still, really.

And I kind of enjoy putting it in there

and turning the ignition.

Well, I mean, I still have,

I mean, my LX is still keyed,

but what I'm saying is they go,

hey, you're gonna, yeah, that's,

no gentleman should be using a watch.

Yeah, yeah, don't do that, Rob.

We've already had this discussion,

and for everybody who always asked me,

I got an old school G-Shock on today.

You know, just roughing it a little bit.

Oh, roughing it.

Just in case I fall in some mud

or, you know, have to run a race,

I got my G-Shock.

Only, the only way I will get one of these,

and I like timepieces, don't get me wrong,

I just don't really feel like buying one,

but I've seen videos of this guy,

this one particular guy who has found Rolexes at pawn shops,

that I guess the pawn shop,

that was a fake or something,

takes it somewhere, and it's worth thousands of dollars.

Yeah, good for him.

Good for him, right?

I wanna do that.

Yeah, good for him.

So this is what I'm going on the search for real quick,

is Pokemon cards and Rolexes.

I'm gonna be buying these two things together,

and the person at the shop is gonna be like,

what the hell are you?

You better start making a new channel.

I don't want any of that on there.

It's like, how artistic are you?

Yeah, so we have,

you know, I need a key to get into my shop.

So I always, if I go to work,

I have to carry a key no matter what.

You don't have a retina display or a thumb scanner?

We don't have a retina.

Evidently, I'm not,

I would assume most of you have something

that you're going to where you might need a key

to get in your house,

or you need a key to get into a shop or to an office.

So this whole keyless entry thing,

the only company I think that's never gotten credit

that I think is a great feature is the Ford keypad.

I love it.

Yeah, that's a great.

I think that should have been on every car.

I agree.

And by the way, Ford hardly ever talks about it.

I know.

Which I think is crazy to me.

So I kinda understand that,

like you're gonna go out to go for a run

or go on a hike and you can leave your keys in

and you just gotta punch in your code.

The keyless entry thing to me,

which now Toyota is charging for,

is it just that big of a deal to carry a fob?

Cause don't you need other keys in your life?

Like I have two keys or three keys on my key ring.

I'm not one of those 27 key guys.

I know there's a lot of people like that.

Mine's like two or three keys.

But I also need the two or three keys.

Yeah.

How do you feel about key organizers then?

A little leather key organizer you have out here?

Well, here's the deal.

I don't have enough to organize.

Mine are just like, I got a very tiny amount.

I do too.

But I mean, I've always thought to myself,

maybe it's one of those things where like as dudes,

you're like, that's a cool little usable knickknack

that I could actually.

It's sort of like the metal wallets.

The problem is if you roll heavy with cash,

they never work.

Oh, that's really loud.

The groove wallet, this thing is incredible.

I used it for a year.

I loved it, but I went back to a regular leather wallet

because I needed to put some bills in there.

I got to put some cash.

Yeah, I mean, you got to carry a knot with you, period.

That's just the way I grew up.

You got to have some cash.

Anything can happen.

That's why I got this tool watch on.

Absolutely.

And you carry cash.

Anything can happen, Rob.

I agree with you.

You might have to bribe a federale.

You know, you don't know.

You just never know the circumstances.

You might find yourself in, especially in Las Vegas,

if you know what I'm saying.

You might need to hit the craps table.

You want to do it quick.

Yeah, in and out.

Get in and out.

No paper trail of anything.

Yeah, don't want to have to go to the ATM.

I don't want to tap to pay at the fucking table.

You know what I mean?

That's not the way this goes down.

But actually, I've met a couple of leather workers, dude.

And in the future, I kind of want

to just see if I can have a custom wallet made

with all of the things that I think

would make a perfect wallet.

And then brand it for the podcast or for our audience

and just be like, look, you guys would get this.

Yeah, and by the way, I think that's other,

like we talked about the cobbler.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

These leather maker content, you just, you can't turn it off.

Once you, once you get like a short in front of your face,

it's like three minutes long.

You're like, I'm going to watch you make this handbag.

Yeah, and now I'm watching 10 people.

I'm not in the handbag market, but I got news for you.

I'm going to watch it.

I got news for you is the right thing

because I got news for you.

I ended up picking up like a little, you know,

thing that you put on your counter whenever you get home

to put your keys in your wallet.

This beautiful leather, you know, thing where it's got

to you.

Dude, he's so got me, but like you can,

so you can unsnap it to put it in your briefcase

or rather suitcase if you're traveling and it's just flat

and then you can clip it back together

to make it a little square for a little,

it's just like, and it smells like brand new leather,

you know, just like, I mean, I love it.

Social media really does some cool stuff at times,

does some other shit that we're all like,

what's going on here?

But like cobbler content, leather making content,

them telling you what kind of leather they bought.

There's these guys that make these 10,000, 20,000,

$30,000 wood tables that they're selling to people.

I'm like, I don't know how I got onto this,

but I'm just on it.

You know, I just see the shit.

I can appreciate it.

Cause that's like good craftsmanship, right?

Good artists and stuff.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a call out to the listeners

cause I just love suggestions for wallets.

And I understand why women love purses obviously, right?

Like it's just something cool, but like my favorite style

is like a little bifold size like this, right?

Do you still have a small wallet like this?

Yeah, mine's, mine's, hold on.

Where it just opens kind of like a FBI open up.

Yes. Yes. I love exactly.

Very similar.

Mine's got the cash strap on the middle.

Yeah. Mine's got it on the, on the inside.

So I gotta like fold it and put it in there,

which I kind of like is kind of hidden,

but I do like yours cause I saw that one.

I was like, ooh, it kind of, it's got a little divot.

That's what, that's what I've been rocking

for a little bit.

I mean, I like that I'm with you guys.

If you got good, like leather, small wallets,

but yeah, I tried the metal ones.

It didn't work for me.

Did you have to go Ridge?

I did try the Ridge.

Again, if you roll heavy with a knot, Ridge is not friendly.

No, it's huge bull.

How I grew up was rubber band.

Yeah, you're right.

So there used to be a, there is still a restaurant out here.

It's called Pierrot's.

They gave those away.

Like you could get them at the restaurant.

Really?

You could get the Italian, you know.

When I was a dude.

Half of my family, you know, that's, that's,

so my first ever was rubber band.

When I was a kid kid,

and I was always hustling to make some money,

like flipping cards or games or whatever.

I used to get giant paper clips and just put,

before I knew what a cash clip really was,

I'd just get a giant paper clip and put.

So here's the, here's the crazy thing.

So I know this guy, very good friend of mine.

He's a, like a top spinal surgeon.

So they like fly him all over to do like cases.

He uses one of those like binder clips.

Oh yeah.

Uh-huh.

To this day.

Those thick ass chip clip things

where like you clip it and then it flips over.

Yep.

Damn.

Old school.

Yeah.

He got found one that was like all silver.

You know, like, so it's like,

I don't know why I like the sound of that now.

I'm like, what are you doing, dude?

He's like, it just works, you know?

And he always rolls the heavy, heavy with it.

You know, we call it heavy.

Are you rolling with the heavy?

It just works is also a great way to just reply

to anything that you, you know,

somebody questions you and you're like, it just works.

Don't question it.

Every Honda owner.

Ah!

That's what they say.

That was good.

It just works.

All right.

Speaking of, it just works.

Did you happen to watch the Porsche documentary

that Haggard did together?

Yeah, I thought it was really cool.

It was cool, right?

So this is by a motor trend, but this is cool.

The 2027 Porsche 911 GT390 is perfect for Porsche history

nerds.

Beautiful Porsche in the green

that you think every car should have,

at least, you know, one option.

Gentlemen, back if it's got the cognac interior,

they've really done it up right.

There it is.

There you go.

Of course.

Hey, got some hounds tooth in there, it looks like.

I like that, right?

Yeah, that's top tier right there.

You know, these cars are, they've always been popular.

They've always seemed to be going up in value,

at least over the last, like, 10, 15-ish years.

What's, in your opinion, the next thing to become,

I guess, reasonable?

Like, just a gentleman's affordable Porsche?

I could be gone, brother.

Could be gone, damn.

I did not expect that.

I mean, look, we've told you guys,

996 is about your last hope right now.

Last hope.

I saw Damiro bought, I think, a 993.

I think he said he paid a quarter of a mil.

Damn.

The only thing I liked about Doug's video,

I shared a lot of cool stuff,

how you got to take his son for his first ride

in a sports car, because the sports cars he owns

don't have a backseat, that one does.

Oh, that's cool.

He got kind of choked up.

I think that's a cool moment, you know,

for guys like us.

For sure.

But he says it pretty honestly,

and I think I've heard him in a couple interviews now,

or a couple clips.

He's just like, it's not a $250,000 experience.

It's like, if I didn't have the money I have,

like this just isn't a $250,000 experience.

But you can still love the car and say that,

which is what I've always wanted the Porsche guy

to be honest about, which none of them are.

But Doug now owns two Porsches.

He keeps saying he's not a Porsche guy,

which is kind of a funny joke.

But he kind of says it.

I mean, look, man, I love Porsche.

I think in my life it stood for something different

than it stands for now.

I've expressed that before.

But damn, they built a good sports car, man.

And it's a shame that it's now getting to the point

of just unreachable in a lot of different aspects.

You know, you can still get to go the Cayman route

different, but that 911 turbo life

that so many of us who are probably,

I don't know, 30 and above, 35 and above.

Yeah, man, you're gonna have to make

some serious coin to get into that world.

Well, speaking of cool sports cars,

car driver puts out the list of cars

to look forward to or wait for in 2026 and beyond.

And speaking of these really fun sports cars,

has this design grown on you yet?

The 26M3 or three series?

Uh, is that an Evo?

It looks like the modern transcend

that you see in some of these body kits.

Well, no, this isn't.

Come on, you're not gonna buy one of these?

I figured you'd be all over this.

Hell no.

What is going on here?

A new direction, like most things, you know?

New directions, new audiences.

I think somebody should be seriously investigated.

For what?

Tell me for what.

Bad taste?

What can we get them on, Rob?

A Rico statue?

I mean, something to get them in jail.

I don't know.

Straight to jail?

Make something up.

Straight to jail.

Right away?

Jail.

Yeah, that's just not good.

That's not, that is not anywhere near.

I may be seeing it from a weird angle here.

We're getting one picture from car and driver,

but this is a bad angle.

I mean.

It's the angle.

I don't know, Rob.

What is going on here?

I mean, we talked about it because it's on that new platform

that the EV that has the screen

at the bottom of the windshield is on,

the Glossé, Glossé, whatever, you know, new Glossé.

I just, I don't know.

Those wheels are heinous.

Yeah, that's something out of like a bottom of the barrel,

GTI.

It seems like it should be in Transformer movie.

Don't insult Bumblebee like that.

Son of a bee.

I mean, yeah, guys, I'm not.

I think if you're of a certain age,

you're coming of a certain age,

this is the BMW you're growing up with.

You're going to have a different opinion than me.

I just, I mean, this is nowhere near E92, E90, E46.

I mean, what is this?

This is no heritage to anything.

This is no connection to anything.

I tend to vote that if it looks so out of whack

for what you've built in the past,

when you've already built beautiful cars,

I think that's probably the wrong direction.

That doesn't mean you got to hold on to the past.

Okay, because that's what people think I'm saying is

things don't evolve.

Yes, things evolve, but you don't evolve past building.

This is the argument I make for Aston Martin.

Aston Martin's just always building good-looking cars.

Now nobody buys them.

I'm very aware of that.

But you go, okay, they know how to build

a good-looking car.

BMW, for most of your life,

knew how to build a good-looking car.

I'll show you my favorite one

and I actually just bought an RC drift version of this car.

And if and when I can ever find 30 minutes

to do something outside of work,

it'll be for work purposes, ironically,

but I bought this little RC drift

and tell me this isn't one of the, if not,

I mean, I know you have your favorites,

but a lot of younger people will also remember this car.

Yeah.

The 2005 M3 from Need for Speed, most wanted.

I love this car so much.

Looks good.

I mean, why did you have to go so far from this?

This is such perfection.

To me, you didn't have to.

You didn't have to go that far from this.

I mean.

Just put some modern touches and get out of the way.

You already figured out the algorithm.

Get out of the way is a great phrase too.

Get out of the way.

Settle down one and then get out of the way.

Yeah.

You don't have to do too much

when you already learned how to build a beautiful car.

It's like go back to some of those late 90s, early 2007 series.

You had it figured out.

You didn't have to drift too far.

Just stay in the pocket.

Stay in the pocket, buddy.

Stay in the pocket.

And it's just they can't help.

Somebody's got to always put their stamp on the company.

The wrong executives, the wrong team gets in there.

This is what you get.

I mean, that looks like an Evo to me.

I for one will not stand for this.

Is what I felt was coming out of your mouth next.

No, I'm not going to.

That's why I say a lot of times I

hate guys that are so brand loyal.

They can't say when the brand went off kilter.

Design wise, BMW has gone off kilter.

If you still buy it because you like the powertrain

and you're like it's super, I'm not making that argument.

That is an ugly vehicle.

I agree.

Let's take a completely different turn

on another one of these vehicles to look forward to,

which we haven't heard a whole lot about,

and I don't think we've even covered on the show once yet.

But that is a 26 Corvette SUV.

I mean, this is probably on the list for me.

I'm not going to lie.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

It looks better than the Lambo, in my opinion.

That is the craziest take.

Nah, it's pretty solid.

No, it's a terrible take.

Solid.

Yeah.

The Lambo sold eight zillion of them.

They don't look good.

You're committed.

No one said, relax, all right, dad.

I didn't say it didn't look good.

Don't rephrase my words here.

Hey, yeah, you and I are just having a conversation about that.

Yeah, why are you taking words out of my mouth

and twisting them around?

That's not what I said.

I think this looks cool.

I think this is a good opportunity.

We've heard for a while that the Corvette sub-brand

would be producing some kind of different models.

We did.

And if this is the first model, or one of the first models,

I think this is pretty cool.

So can I make a request here to the Chevy Corporation?

They're all listening.

Or the General Motors Corporation.

The Corvette team as a whole.

I think there's something weird from front door back.

I think I'd probably fix that a little bit.

It maybe doesn't flow the way.

I think the front end is fine.

I think there's something in that rear fender that

looks kind of goofy.

Because they're just trying to give you too much space

is what it looks like.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Because that back window looks funky.

Yeah.

This is what the Lambo would look like if it gave you more space.

This is what the Lambo would look like if they had bad design.

I set you up for it.

I was like, is he going to smash it out of the park?

All right, I'll give him a double.

You got a double.

I'll ask this question for everybody looking online right

now and watching us online.

Is that a white roof?

Or is that a panoramic roof?

It looks like a panoramic roof.

OK, thank God.

Yeah, yeah.

This isn't a Honda HRV, all right.

Relax.

Not a Juke, it's not a Nissan Juke.

We're going to be cool.

It's not a Scion.

Yeah.

Oh, by the way, Scion's back.

Did you see that?

Hey, I told you.

I showed everybody at SEMA the Scion side by side.

Oh, you did.

I forgot.

But have you seen it in action?

No, I haven't.

OK, fantastic.

Let me just go ahead and pull this up for you real quick.

I even had it queued up as an extra thing

in case we didn't have enough time to cover everything.

But whatever, check this out.

Oh, God, I'm not going to play the volume.

It's just so loud.

Yeah, Toyota revives a Scion name.

Yeah, I saw this exact one, I believe, at SEMA.

It's a side by side.

I mean.

You'd rather have this or the tello.

Those are our options in the future, guys.

Yeah.

I think we'd all probably vote for this

would be what we would vote for.

But look, I think they're probably

using it for some of their off-road chops

for development of suspension parts and things like that.

So if you look at the greater picture,

this gives them a chance to very cheaply test things out that

could possibly go on TRD stuff or things like that.

I'm not saying that's what they're doing,

but that would make logical sense.

The Scion brand is one of those things for me,

and I never really dug deep into their sales numbers.

So I'm just saying this off my head.

I saw them and still see them.

I'm almost surprised.

It's sort of like Saturn.

I can't believe like Saturn is gone.

Yeah.

Because everybody you knew, somebody had a Saturn,

somebody had two Saturns.

If they had two 16-year-old kids,

there were Saturns or Scions or...

I don't know what the sales numbers were.

I mean, obviously Saturn was gobbled up by the bankruptcy

when GM had to declare bankruptcy.

But, and by the way, did you see the video of a guy

who was working at like a retail store

who GM ripped him off of his pension during the bankruptcy

and he was getting no pension and he was broke

and they raised like a million dollars for him?

Uh-uh.

Did you see that?

No.

Couldn't have been a good week

for the General Motors executive team.

Was...

Do you think this was the same week

where the guy figured out how to play

GM's points rewards app

and ended up getting a CT or rather an Escalade V

for $60,000 or $90,000 off essentially?

Oh my God, how did I forget to put this on this week's list?

So GM's got a reward loyalty program

where you can like earn points by like watching advertisements

and watching these videos that they make

and whatever like to build more brand loyalty.

So you would earn points

and you could use those points for like GM stuff.

We'll call it swag or whatever.

But you could also...

Did I have one of those like mouse contraptions

that kept the mouse moving like they did during COVID?

Not only that, but there was no limit

to the amount of accounts you could associate

with your account.

So he just put together like,

we'll call it hundreds of accounts racked up.

I think it was the equivalent of, don't quote me here,

but like a hundred hours of like doing this

like consuming this GM content through the loyalty app

and he ended up putting like a $90,000 payment

paying off his CT or his Escalade V.

That's unbelievable.

And because it would call so much for GM

to do anything about it.

They just swept it on the rug and let it go

because litigation would have cost way more

than the $90,000.

By the way, what are you going to litigate?

What are you going to litigate?

He played your system.

Yeah, you set up the stupid rules.

Dude, that was the grin on my face

because like in the comments and people are like,

Oh, I mean, this is how you ruin good loyalty programs

people like this.

I'm like, are you really defending the fact that...

And let's all chill on the loyalty programs.

We're all a little burnt out.

Okay, relax.

No, no, no.

We got a clutch culture loyalty program

coming out.

Relax.

Don't say that.

I'll put that in the listeners ears.

What's wrong with you?

That's funny.

Let me see if I could actually just GM.

That's crazy.

Makes for good radio

and we're looking stuff up on it.

Oh my God.

You know what?

Screw it.

I gave you the story.

What wouldn't have happened if Jamie was here?

That's just...

Well, you know what?

Hyme is doing it another way.

As I've said before, Hyme does it his way.

Jamie can suck it.

All right.

As you round out the show and land the plane here,

I do have one more thing to show you

because I still can't believe

they're going to be producing more things

that look like this.

But one of your favorite brands

will be releasing this Jaguar,

I guess, I type in 2027.

By the way,

they clipped the dude that was in charge of all this.

Yeah.

But here we are.

We're still looking at more shit that looks like it.

I mean, it looks all right.

It's just who's going to buy it.

And the big thought,

and a lot of us were saying it at the time,

Jaguar seemingly was going after

sort of the rich Chinese Asian market

with a lot of their redesign.

Yeah.

I don't think they knew the $10,000 EV

was just around the corner.

They must have missed the memo

because now it's basically like this,

this isn't going to work.

I don't know who they're going to be building this for.

I think all of us probably feel the same.

You were around at a time

when Jaguar still kind of meant something.

Yeah.

And you got to see a lot of cool Jags

in your life.

It just gets more sad by the minute.

It's like, I don't even want this news

because this is kind of depressing.

Especially when you get to the end of it here,

we expect pricing to start close to $200,000

as Jaguar aims to capture wealthier, younger audience.

People weren't buying $70,000 Jaguars at the end.

Wealthier and younger with $200,000 EV,

all in one sentence is just, that's diabolical.

And it's like seven Bitcoin bros.

Who are you going to sell this to?

The one guy that found the hard drive

from the guy that threw it away.

Yeah, exactly. It was digging in the dump.

Exactly.

Yeah, I don't know, man.

I don't see that.

I think none of you see that.

And I think, I wonder how much of this

they're just using as development

inside of the whole conglomerate that they own.

And they're just kind of letting Jaguar be this thing

where they try stuff, research stuff, design stuff.

It's almost like a design studio with no end in sight.

I wonder if that's what it is.

Because this isn't viable.

So let's all get that out of the way.

This isn't, it's not going to work.

It's not going to, none of it's going to happen, right?

Like this isn't going to take place.

So let's just say it's like an independent design studio

under the umbrella of Jaguar.

I don't know.

I mean, what's the other alternative?

This isn't going to work.

The alternative, the only alternative is

that you just want to incinerate the whole brand.

And which is what they're kind of doing right now.

Exactly. Yeah.

Like, I mean, I think I would just be,

we go back to what we've been saying for a year.

Sometimes just don't say anything at all as a brand.

Again, settle down and get out of the way.

Just fade into the abyss, be quiet for a while,

get your bearings about you.

Just clip the dude that was the head of all this disaster.

Just relax.

When that car goes on sale, if it actually does

and they end up selling, even if they sell one or five,

you're going to see commercials that are like,

just hello, darkness, mild friend.

And then you'll never see Jaguar again

after that year. Yeah, it's...

Can I put a shout out?

Any billionaire out there that could get Jaguar

back to the old Jaguar, let's maybe take a swing.

You know, if you're on your way out,

you only got 10, 15 years left,

never going to be able to spend the money.

You know, you remember the old Jaguar?

You're a car guy.

Let's, let's, I don't know.

We'll take you to lunch. We'll take you to lunch.

It's on Clutch Culture. It'll be on us.

We'll take you out lunch.

Yeah, well, we got a company card.

We'll take you out. For sure.

You know, we're on board.

We'll give you some ideas, you know,

which will be just us basically pulling up old cars

and say, build this.

Which is better than any idea you've been given

in modern times. So I mean, it's a win-win.

And by the way, you get a free lunch.

Come on, with these two guys?

With these two guys?

We're not going to charge you.

Come on.

You know, if you want to pay us,

you know, we'll have a number ready

for being the head of design.

But let's just go through your whole roll of decks

of awesome designs, pick out five of them

and build them. How about that?

There's your idea, Jaguar.

I absolutely love it.

Okay, last thing, because we did Motor Trends

EV of the Year, and I had you guess,

and you were close, but you missed,

you know, Cadillac being the EV of the Year.

Can you guess Motor Trends 2026,

or rather Motor Trends Truck of the Year?

We'll call it.

Why is it in my head going to,

what was the EV truck released this year?

I'm not, I mean, I don't know.

You're just telling me,

what's the Motor Trend Truck of the Year?

Can't give you any hints here.

There's no fun in that.

It's not a Silverado, is it?

It's, I mean, is that your final answer?

I can tell you it's not.

I'll tell you it's not.

If you want to get another whack at it.

I mean, wouldn't Truck of the Year always be Raptor?

It should be, but it isn't the same family,

and it is the Maverick, the Ford Maverick.

Woo!

God, God, God, God, God, it's claps, claps, claps, claps.

Yeah, it's not bad.

Yeah, they,

unfortunately I'm a little bit unclear

of what the criteria is to be Truck of the Year,

Car of the Year, Performance Car of the Year,

because let me tell you how all this stuff goes

with Performance Car of the Year.

Whatever the coolest sports car that was released,

because basically for a decade,

you could have just made

the new GT3 Performance Car of the Year.

Right.

But, you know, you gotta give C8 in there.

You gotta, so, I don't know what the criteria is.

I mean, okay, we cheer on the Maverick.

I think the Maverick's price point

is getting to a little bit of a shaky point,

you know, in all seriousness.

So what do they got?

So they're still advertising the $28,000 one

that nobody can get.

Mm-hmm.

And the Lariat's are $37,000 to $39,000.

Do you imagine saying I want a Lariat Maverick?

What do you mean?

You wouldn't wanna-

I just don't think, I'm just asking,

is that what you'd go in and ask for?

If you're already gonna pay $40,000,

I'd just get a Gen 1 Raptor.

Oh, okay, yeah.

I mean, I would like a Lariat Maverick,

but not for $40,000 plus thousand dollars.

I will ask you this, though.

The one that just came across

are available not too far from me.

It's a 22, 23 maybe?

60,000 miles, 21K.

Not bad, right?

I thought it wasn't terrible.

It's a number that intrigues you,

but why do I feel like it should be like 16?

Yeah, because it should have started at like 22,

and then it would have been 25, 26,

and now you can buy it again for 16,

but in the world we're living in,

they sold it for 35,

and now you can buy it or 40 maybe even,

because I think it was an XLT, it wasn't a Lariat.

21, you're like, huh, okay, 21?

That's a number we just wanna hear.

Well, that's kind of been our point about everything.

When people were like, I'd never buy an EV,

you and I were talking about this with the Rivian.

Oh, that's not you.

I'd never buy an EV.

Well, if they were 20 grand, you would.

I still rather have the Maverick, to be honest with you.

If it was 20 grand, 20 grand.

Yeah, hold on, but I'm not debating that.

Hey, whoa, whoa, hey, take it easy, Pops,

don't get wound up so quickly.

All right, I'm too used to this.

Yeah, don't put words in my mouth bad.

What I'm saying is, is that everything has a value

at a certain price, even if you don't love it.

Like, if you're so anti-EV,

but I told you they were 12 grand,

you'd be like, hmm, I might get an EV.

But in that world, there's always something

you're cross shopping it with, right?

So let's just say all things being equal,

it's 12 grand for the Maverick or 12 grand for the EV,

or 20 grand for the Maverick or 20 grand for the EV.

Never picking the EV.

You and I always say the same thing, man.

Maverick, I believe, missed a huge opportunity during COVID

because of production issues.

I think that five years could have made

forward all kinds of money if it was handled.

Oh, man, imagine.

I mean, you would have seen them everywhere.

In a white, hot economy, you know, with a cheap Maverick.

I mean, game changer, too.

It would have been forced to bring this small truck.

When we'd say to people production issues

and doing things out of the country has a price,

that was the price for Ford.

The price for Ford was they couldn't get the trucks built.

They can blame chip shortage, this and that,

but building them in Mexico added a layer of problems

that they were escaping building F-150s, you know,

at the time.

And I believe to this day, you know,

just like we always say, probably the Canary

and the coal mine for Nissan was cancelling

the X-Terra as overlanding took off.

You know, that was kind of one of the all-time dumb decisions.

Yeah.

One of the all-time really weird moments for Ford's history

was the market share they could have gobbled up.

Had they been able to build the Maverick,

they were promising everybody at the numbers

they needed to produce them.

I mean, you're not wrong.

It's a sliding door moment.

I mean, it really is if you think about it.

There's a couple of clips that are going to be coming out

about, you know, reshoring stuff.

I'm going to be interested if people actually take the time

to comment and get some perspective on it because,

you know, there's people wildly on both sides of it.

It'll absolutely never happen.

And then some people, the thing is going to happen in 12 months.

It's like, hey, everybody relax.

Probably in between.

Yeah. We all know this.

Sort of like politics, probably somewhere in the middle.

Let's all relax.

Settle down.

If you take anything away from this podcast, settle down.

Settle down.

It's Christmas, Chris.

We've got the decorations up.

Exactly.

Half of you don't work all the month of December.

Not here.

We're going full blast.

As a matter of fact, we'll be recording the Christmas special

a few days from when this episode drops.

So Nick, you got anything else between now and then?

No, we're all good, man.

All right. We will see everybody next week

for the Christmas extravaganza.

I will have your Santa hat in the mail.

So make sure to wear it.

Take care. Brush your hair.

See you guys.

See you.

0:00

69:45

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Toyota 70 Series

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