Trevor Long is BACK! Still no sign of Paul...but he will be back, we think

The Driver's Show, Paul Marek and Gordy Waters.

Welcome to The Driver's Show. We got rid of Paulie. How fucking good is it?

Do we swear in this? I can't remember. Yeah, absolutely. But you're coming in a bit hot.

I'm deaf. Let's just keep that in mind. Put your headphones on. Start to be a professional about this.

Mate, this is your, hello. Check one, too. Check one, too. There you go.

Let's start again. Welcome to The Driver's Show. We're not doing a second take. That's it.

You taught me one take, one go. I did say that to you. You did tell me. How are you?

I'm just so excited that Paul's not here. I'm excited that you're here. You're looking great.

Thanks, mate. And thank you to Osempic. I think they're great.

Main sponsor. Trevor's like a real Hollywood guy now. I've had my teeth done.

Yeah. You've got Osempic. Like, I've literally saw you put an Osempic needle between two slices

of carb free bread and eat it like a sandwich. No, that's not true. I would never have carb free

bread. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm full tip top wide. Okay. Oh, yeah. God, son. Son blessed. Son blessed.

Wonder what, whatever it is. The good stuff. And you find your personal trainer and, you know,

you've got a real Hollywood. He was just getting aggressive, to be honest. I find it weird

that personal trainer's like, fucking give me 20 setups. I'm like, mate, I'm paying you 300 bucks.

You fucking do them. You'll be surprised to know I've never had a personal trainer. I've also never

been to a gym. That does surprise me big time. Tell me about what's going on before we talk like

car rubbish. Tell me what's going on in the wonderful world of television and tech.

Yeah, it's pretty, it's a light period right now. We go through these phases. So the first

half of the year is very busy. Well, I've been to US seven times this year and only one

of them was a family holiday. So it's been a super busy start to the year, but it's kind of a lull

right now. We've had all the big, big announcements before the second wave, which is Apple in September.

So we're a month away from the next iPhone. There's a big trade show in Europe. I got to go to

the end of the month, but yeah, it's pretty light time. It's good to turn through basic

reviews, looking at new phones, the Samsung folding phones. I've got the Motorola folding

phone. Can I hold that? That's the Motorola Razr 60. Yeah, that's nice. I just think

the folding phone, that's the form factor I love because it's a normal smartphone when it's open.

So you use it, it's like a normal phone. And then when you shut it and you put it in your pocket,

it's just something that doesn't, it's not obtrusive. It's not overwhelming in your pocket.

Yeah, I'm a big fan. I reckon I'd fucking lose this in two days. Do you know what they've

done with this screen, that little, what do you call that, the fold, the crease?

It's gotten better. I mean, it's not perfect. You don't notice it. You only notice it

when you're analyzing like this, going, how can you see it? And is it there?

When you're using it day to day, you don't even notice that it exists. Yeah. Honestly.

Gee, it is light though, isn't it? It's a light little get around. I like that.

They're a good form factor. So, you know, flip phones have been a big thing because

Samsung came out with one that was, it's 4.5 millimeters thick when open. Now,

a USB C port is 3.6 millimeters. Wow. So there's not much room to make a thinner

phone. No. And so next month, when the iPhone comes out, there'll be a

thin version of that, the iPhone 17 Air. Oh, even that's on Ozenpik.

Yes. I'm calling it the Ozenpik year for phones. Yeah. They're all getting thin.

They're all getting thin. You know, Google puts out a bloody good phone.

They do. Before I moved over to Apple, I was on Google for Yonks and they're a great phone.

Look, I don't know when this is coming out, so we'll save the embargoes for the time. But

there's a new one coming out and that'll do very well. So the next pixel,

they're a very good phone. But in Australia, it's very hard to compete with Apple and Samsung

at the high price level. So over a thousand bucks, people are walking into a Telstra store or JBs

and they're just buying the Samsung or the Apple. Under a thousand dollars, far more competitive.

Like a stupid fact that stuck in my brain is 54% of all smartphones sold in Australia are

under $700. Wow. More than half the phones sold every year in Australia are under $700,

which means they're not iPhones and they're not the top Samsung phones. And then Google come out

with a $900 or a $1,200 phone, they're competing with Apple and Samsung. If they come out with a

$600 phone, man, that'd be... They're coming right into the middle of the market there though,

which is kind of an uncomfortable one. I don't think it's a wise move. Whereas this Motorola,

for example, it's $1,200 bucks and Samsung's version of this. So that would compete with

Samsung and Google. Yes. But this in the folding space at $1,200, this is $500 cheaper than what

Samsung does. So it is competitive. But Google don't play the price game. I think that's dangerous.

What do you think we're going to see with the... I know with Apple Glass and all that stuff coming

out, that's looking pretty nice, that little software. But the AI, like Apple are really

trying to get AI by the balls because I reckon they've dropped the ball.

Yeah, they dropped the ball pretty bad because they announced a bunch of stuff

18 months ago, 15 months ago that they didn't make it and hasn't been released yet.

I would argue though, of most of the AI stuff that I see in phones like Samsung and stuff,

I don't think most people are using it. I think it's all very exciting. I think it's very

amazing. But I think people aren't using it. Yeah, I'm curious to know what the hell like AI

is doing in phones. Well, so with an iPhone, I actually think in the six months that I was

using an iPhone at the start of this year with Apple Intelligence is what they call it. I think I

used more AI than I did on any Android phone because it's little things like notification summaries.

One of my favorite things. They copped a bit of flak because you'd get summaries from news

organizations and it would summarize the news and that was a bit dangerous, like combining

three news items and trying to dot point them. Were they bit dodgy? Were they factual or

were they kind of... Well, that was the thing. There was a few fuck ups, right?

In what way? Like they would just say, they would take four messages, someone died in one,

someone had got married to another, and it might say that the person got married died. So

pretty major mistakes, right? Subscribe! So now there's this pop-up message that says, you know,

if you do choose to summarize news events, just be aware it might change the context.

But when you receive five messages from a group chat and it just goes, Paul said this,

Scotty said that and they're waiting for your reply. At a glance, you can see I better get into

that. If someone sends you a long text message on the cover of your screen and on the home screen,

you can just see a summary that says, you know, this has happened and you're like, I better

read that now. I better read the whole thing. Honestly, that stuff is pretty cool. It's

pretty useful. It feels like a pain in the ass. You know, the thing I love about the

Meta glasses is Meta will just say, hey, Trevor Long sent you a long message.

He's true. You know what I mean? I made those glasses. So I went on, I went, we went to the

States for two and a half weeks with the family and I kind of went, I'm not going to, for two

reasons. One, just to stay attached to the family. I'm not going to post on social media all the

time. I'm going to try and be a little bit phoneless. And I took a film camera, like an

old school wind-up film camera. And so I didn't post on social media for two weeks, except for

from those glasses. So I'd be at Dodger Stadium or Disneyland and just once a day or a couple of

times I'd be like, hey Meta, take a photo and post on Instagram. Boom, it's on my stories.

To the point where I'd have to say to the kids, can someone check that, see what it looked like?

Cause I wasn't looking at it. Oh, cause you actually like, you just control the whole

thing. I didn't know you could do that. Yeah. If your Instagram account is connected to

your Meta glasses, you can just look at something and say, hey Meta, take a photo

and share on Instagram. Oh my God, let me see if it works. Hang on. And it will post it

immediately to your Instagram story. It will ask you, are you sure you want to share?

You'll hear the camera click. Yeah. And then it'll tell you that. All right,

hang on. Here we go. Oh, I think Meta must think you're me. Hang on. Let me take one quick video.

Make sure it works. Okay. This is great podcasting content. This is the annoy, this is

a first hand look of what it's like to work with a farm animal.

Okay. All right. So they work because I can see the white flashing light. So this

time just try and talk to them. Hey Meta, take a photo and post it to my Instagram.

Share photo on your Instagram story. No, because I was rolling my eyes. Yes.

Yeah. Sharing photo. Oh no. Continue. Open Instagram. Oh, so you haven't done it before,

so it needs to. Oh, so I've got to do it again. You might have needed to set something up.

Oh, fuck that. I can't be bothered. But it's a very cool feature, right? Yeah.

And it created this kind of in the moment thing where I'm just literally just sharing my view

of something. And it was the same with the film camera. You take, you know, 35 photos

and you're not taking six photos of the same thing. Because, you know, you take six photos,

that didn't like that one, didn't like that one, didn't like that one. Whereas you just go,

here's a photo and in three weeks I might find out whether it was a good photo. That's

a pretty cool thing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is wild. I like that.

But, you know, we've seen the absolute debacle with Jaguar, with what they're putting out. And

by the way, we've seen physical cars now, right? So that'll be kind of interesting. But now,

I know Aston is taking on the Apple, I guess they're kind of really integrating.

CarPlay also. Yeah, they're really like integrating

Apple CarPlay into their cars. It's super exciting.

Do you know what? You kind of said this like two years ago on this podcast,

could have been longer, that you reckon the Apple Car is shelved, you said they're going to

concentrate all their time, their money, their resources into Apple CarPlay. You think that's

where the value is. And fuck man, you got no one. I mean, it's fascinating because a lot of car

companies are pushing back against it. But if I'd love to drive that Aston Martin, because

it's a unique experience, because you're choosing, if you connect your phone,

you're choosing to say, I don't want to see the dials instrument cluster that Aston Martin

is creating. I don't want to see the infotainment system at all. It's all coming from my phone.

And then it's able to connect and bring in all the diagnostics of the car so you can control your

temperatures and all that. But you get to choose. So I want the temperature over here.

It's like widgets on your phone. You get to choose how you have the layout.

You get to choose what you want the dials to look like. I think that level of customization

is super exciting. It's cool. And I think it's a waste of money and time and resources

for car companies to develop infotainment systems when they can just have something to plug and play.

However, there is something amazing. I think when you buy a car and you look at, say,

that what's behind the steering wheel rather than what Apple is customizing or what Apple is putting

out there. Well, I would say to you, take yourself out of the mind of a really nice car

like an Aston Martin and now put yourself in one of these modern cars where we're getting

that a brand's been ever heard of. And you get in there and there's this square, little tiny,

but very wide rectangular screen in front of the driver. And it's a lot of information.

Like I think there's too much there. There's little tiny icons for things like battery and

all this. And I'm like, dude, I just want to have fast time going and what the

cruise control set out. And like I want to choose basic info. I would opt for a head-up

display over any instrument cluster, because I think the head-up display is the least

acknowledged feature of any car. Like if I get in a car that's worth more than $80,000 and it doesn't

have a head-up display, that's pretty disappointing. It's a slight concern, right? Yeah. But having said

that, I mean, some of these car companies, like I kind of feel like a normal everyday commuter,

especially a lot of these Chinese companies are coming out with, should definitely be on

Apple. Like keep it fucking tight and bright. Keep your Apple CarPlay linked with everything.

It would make so much sense. But I don't know. I feel like there's something special when you go

into like a Porsche or, yeah, an Aston Martin. And you kind of, you want to rely on like even

like a Ford Mustang. Like they're iconic stuff. And like same with say like a Mini. I mean,

look, I love the Mini, right? I love that they've got that big OLED display thing in the

middle, the circular thing in the new ones. I think that's really cool. I think it is a bit odd

now that they've kind of taken it a little bit too. It just feels a little bit clinical on that

screen. It's a bit childish now, the Mini, because it's all about like this cool background

wallpaper. It's more like it's like, I don't want a background wallpaper in my car. And a lot of

the Chinese cars have it on their big infotainment. It's like, choose your theme and all that.

Just give me the icons. Give me the information. That's if you want to. Like that's the

thing I loved about the Mini, right? You can put it in different modes, go-kart mode or whatever.

And like the whole thing, you know how it goes, like go-kart mode. 100%. Or if you want, you can

put in the photos and all that sort of stuff as well. Personalization. I guess that's a

personality thing too. You know, some people are much more into that. You know, I want this

picture there. I want that thing there. But like it's wild to me. You know, I use

Android as much as I do iPhone in a year. And there's still cars that don't support

Android Auto. And I think Leap Mode is one of them from memory the last one I drove.

I'm like, how are you not supporting? Fun fact, they don't fucking have Apple CarPlay.

Oh, so it's both. See, I was using the Android phone at the time and I'm thinking,

this is wild. They don't support this. But not to have CarPlay as well.

Nope. They have nothing.

It's outrageous. That's what, that was like, that weeded me out about the Leap Mode C10 because

I got in that. And I thought, I was actually really excited because I remember when they

brought it out, I thought, wow, this is actually like, it looks pretty good.

It looks like a pretty nice car. It's sleek and it's ambiguous a little bit, but it's,

it's got a presence about it. It's, you know, I had an all black. Everything was black. It

looked cool. The interior looks really cool. You can get it in like a tan as well.

Yeah, we had the tan interior. It's like a Donald Trump tan.

Yes, presidential tan.

Yes, presidential tan. But that's where it ended for me. Like the actual driving

experience was rubbish.

Did you feel it? So let's just talk driving experience of the Leap Mode C10. I went

pretty hard on it in my video and I, a lot of the comments, I'll acknowledge right now,

a lot of the comments were, but it does do this and it does do that. You just didn't know about it.

I'm like, well, that's not my fucking problem. Like if a brand doesn't go to the trouble of

emailing you or phoning you to say, Hey, just while you've got the car, you should know

that a normal owner would have an app that they can open it with.

Also, I think it points to the fact that that car is so not user friendly. It's not funny.

The fact that you can spend a week in that and not know the fucking basics,

I think says a lot of how they design that.

We were using a tap and go card on the fucking mirror to lock the thing.

I'm thinking, do I walk away from it? Is that how it locks? I've got to tap the card.

Yeah.

And yeah, okay, an owner would have an app, but I still think it's stupid that you've got to

put the card on the proximity, on the wireless charger to start the car and then move it

to put your phone there. And just as a drive, and I'm not Paul Merrick, I don't know how

to talk about how a car feels, but I know when a car doesn't feel right. And if you

rewind to when even Holden was in Australia, remember they used to bring out an Astra,

the Opel Astra, and they'd say, but it's now the Holden Astra, and we've refined it for the local

conditions, because we have a different expectation of the way the steering feels.

And the best way I could describe it to my 13-year-old who's like, why don't you like it?

There's no weight to the wheel. It's like the wheel was just loosely abundant to steer,

which is totally in control of the wheels. Don't get me wrong, but I need weight to the wheel.

It was just far too loose for me, and I didn't love the way it felt to drive at all.

Well, that's a really good point. And like feeling the road is intuitive.

And when you get in that car, you don't, it sounds wanky, but you don't feel the road.

Like you don't, the steering is so loose, it could just be doing anything.

Like everything kind of works in sync with each other, and nothing does in this car.

Even from the driving position, the wheel position, the way it turns, it just...

It felt like a startup company had decided to build a car, and they didn't bring any

motoring engineers in to go, this is what we've done. How do we make it drive like a car now?

We've worked out how scale electrics works. This is the accelerator thing and breaking.

We've got all that worked out, but how do we put the personality into it?

Because that's the thing, and motoring journals of old will talk about how different brands have

different personalities and the feeling of it. Like I genuinely love the fact that European cars

do have a different feel on the road than your American cars.

American cars are just a very different thing to drive.

And that's because Americans want it that way. I get it.

And in every aspect, like you could sit in an American car compared to a European car,

I would say, apart from the last couple of years, the Americans haven't designed a good interior

in 30 years plus, right? Whereas the Europeans, holy moly.

Have you driven the Cadillac Lyric?

Yes.

Like that. That's where you go, okay, they're getting it.

They're getting it now.

They do need, they have worked out how this can be done.

And it's not just in the Cadillac, the Silverados have got a great set up about it.

Through the market.

The Ram as well, they're doing really good things, but you know,

rewind a couple of years ago. That was not the case.

But yeah, you get in this, this late motor and that tap and go card and Paul,

men, Paul had a bit of an argument about it.

He goes, why don't you just use your phone?

Just use your phone. I used it with my Tesla for years.

You get the average user. She's a mum with three kids.

Her phone fucking dies, right?

Apart from the button on the boot, which took me ages to kind of work out.

There's a button apparently on the boot that opens it.

That is hilarious that you had that same problem.

Because Fennec was just, I couldn't work out, open the boot and I'm like,

that's amazing. And then I took the car and I went, there's a button.

It was just not, it was on the right hand side.

It wasn't where any button would ever be for a car.

It looks like a sensor as well.

It looks like a sensor.

But I wonder if we got the same car because like, I'm sure that button wasn't there.

So Paul wasn't as negative about it. Is what you're saying?

No, he wasn't negative.

He was more sort of going, well, there's nothing wrong with using your phone.

And I had a, he had a card for his Tesla for ages, but he didn't use this C10.

He didn't have to literally fucking clumsily rub this card on the mirror like you're asking a genie

for wishes. You didn't have to then go in. And the only way generally to open the boot

from inside the car is to go through three different menus on the touchscreen.

If you're a mum with a couple of kids and you just want to get the shopping in the back of the

car and your phone's dead or whatever, it, to me, it just felt like an instant.

That goes to this whole concept now, these center screens being where all the controls are.

I was in an Uber on Monday and it was a Tesla Model Y and a lovely old bloke.

So like in his 70s, retired just driving Ubers. And he had his maps and Uber phone on one side,

but on the off, coming off the center screen of the Tesla, he had an iPhone,

which was running a third party app, which had shortcut icons to quick features like open the

boot, open the door, turn on, hit on his phone. What the fuck are we doing?

We're using a smartphone in a mount to control features that should be a button in the friggin

car. Like that is wild to me. And the other thing about the lead motor, I think, in reflection,

and it's a bit egotistical, whatever you want to say about it. People listening who own one

would be like, you idiots because you're this, that and the other. But when we pick up a car,

you just hand it a set of keys. And often I'll sit in and I go, where the fuck's the

start button? Like because they've driven it over to you in this big complex where there's

just cars and cars and cars. And you're like, fuck, I better find the start button.

It's like it's a bit awkward sometimes. And then generally you've got to, once you pull out of it,

because we go to the same place, you pull out. And when it was in Barrickville, you have to try

to find somewhere to park. To pull over and set your phone up and everything.

Oh fuck, I've got to set my phone up. How's this going to work? And the amount of times,

like I saw other car journalists like I'm on, but I saw actual car journalists

like looking out the window, just laughing at me like, yeah, but you all fucking get it.

We're all doing the same thing. And so it's funny because in the tech world,

I'm a bit of a pain in the ass, probably to some brand. They're like, oh, we want to,

we want to give you a half hour briefing on this thing and then show you how to set up the product.

And I'm like, dude, if you send me the product, I'll set it up. Because if I can't set it up,

how does the fucking average user set it up? And so that was always my mentality with a car.

It's like, if I can't work it out, how's anyone else working out? But then I realized

when you buy a car, you do normally get a bit of a walkthrough. So I'll handle it

mode of that that maybe if they had someone out there giving us a walkthrough, it might be

different. And it's funny because I'm going to drive the IM, the MG premium brand in a couple

of months. And they were like, we want to give you a handover for 20 minutes. And I'm like, you know

what, I was going to say fuck off. But then I thought, you know what, I'm going to take it

because if there's something about the car that I need to know, then they've got that opportunity

to tell me about it. Because I feel like that's where Leap mode will let themselves down.

Yeah. Yeah. The new sector of MG are putting together some great stuff.

When you're talking about the infotainment, actually, one thing I will say about the

C10, the fact that it does not have Apple CarPlay, it does not have Android Auto, it is

not a user-friendly car. This is a car that is not ready for market. It should not have been

released. It's not a user-friendly car. It is possibly the worst car I've ever sat in.

It's bi-friendly. That's all it is. Because at $46,000 for that much space,

it's pretty bloody good value. Yeah. But is it though? Because that sector,

there's a lot of competitive cars coming out. If you want electric. But for that

size in electric, it's unbelievable value. I disagree. I disagree. I'm driving the

MG5S EV. Same price and that's for the absolute top spec. That is a similar size too. Yeah.

And this is what I'll say about that. In terms of the middle screen, the infotainment display,

they have nailed it. Right. And I'm not just saying that because I'm driving the thing.

They have nailed that in such a way where not only is it wireless Apple CarPlay and

Android Auto, everything that you need generally for day-to-day and all the time is either physical

or it's hard-wired at the bottom of the screen. So it's always there. So things like climate control,

physical, temperature, physical, volume, physical. Changing tracks if you want that,

that's physical. But things like if you want to get into car or maps or the radio,

media, it's all just touch there. It's all there all the time. And then you've got

the Apple CarPlay on top of that. So it works really well. Have you used that in one of those yet?

No, we've got it at the moment. So what we do is we have two cars over two weeks. And so I'll pick

a one up and Fennec will pick one up. And then on a Wednesday, when we record, we swap.

So that we've, over the course of two weeks, we've each got it for a full week,

including a weekend. So I've got the JQ, I don't know what's called.

The JQ. JQ. Super hybrid something. J7 or something. I think it's called. And

Fennec's got the 5S and we'll switch on Friday. So I look forward to it because I do think MG,

so I've not been a fan of their petrol cars because I think they are for the mass market.

They're built at a price and that worries me a bit. But it feeds the market because

as we've discussed before, you can't buy a cheap car anymore. It's ridiculous.

That's exactly. I think the thing that I've always admired in that sense is

what they've done is they've put families who not doing it tough, but

life's a bit fucking hard sometimes. Certainly aren't looking at a brand new car in bigger brands.

Yeah, exactly. They're trying to get a brand new car and they're putting a family of five

in a brand new car with a decent warranty behind it. And I wasn't a big fan of their early EVs

just because they were bolt-on upgrades to petrol cars. But now that they've got a platform

for pure EVs, MG4, unbelievable car, this thing looks amazing. And I think it's because

they've put the time and effort into software but without over-engineering. Like the fact is

most of these brands, whether it's a D-Power, Leap Matura, whatever they are,

they're over-engineering the software. It's like, I don't care that you've got software that can

show me people walking on the road like a Tesla can. No one cares. I can fucking see them with my

eyes. Yeah, and no one has actually ever fucking cared that, like, exactly the tests like

you're driving next to a building or a truck. If you're getting that information by looking

at the screen, I suggest you look in front of you because you're about to crash your fucking

shitty truck. If you needed to know there were construction cones by looking at a fucking screen,

dude, you've got problems. You know, I get it, they're trying to prove that they can.

The ghost mode is pretty cool. Autonomous. Have you ever driven through a

cemetery and you can see people walking on there? That's fucking stupid. That's cool.

That is pure Elon Musk. Yeah, yeah. Insanity. The blokes are lunatic.

Here's what I'll say about MG, right? If you look at, say, the last 12 to 18 months,

what I do like is, and I'll throw shit at them if I have to, but what I do like is

everything from the MG5S EV to even the ZS Hybrid, which I had the HS as well,

they've come together with all brand new design language. They're setting a new price point.

They may not be the best fucking car on the market, but they're best, I reckon,

in what they're putting out in their space. Do you know what I mean?

Absolutely. I think we gave the MG4 best EV under $50,000 last year in my EFTM

magazine awards because it's a fucking great value car and fully electric. Like if you want to go

electric, man, it's very hard to argue that MG shouldn't be your first test drive. Yeah.

Because that should be the benchmark for, okay, what can be better than that?

So you might go to a BYD and go, that felt better or looks different or whatever.

Then you might go to a car and you've got to compare it back to that thing,

which is essentially most likely going to be the most affordable one of the big brands,

especially with people who don't want to go to these new Challenger brands.

Yeah.

Are they going to be around in five years? Don't know. MG certainly will be.

Yeah, I think they will be. I think out of all the Chinese cars, MG is...

MG BYD, they're here for the long haul.

Yes. Yes.

The rest of them, I can't make a judgment on.

Yeah, they've got the chops to back it up as well. I think what they're putting out is

in their space, in their own line, is top class.

Yeah. I made them, I bought the MG4 and text me regularly that he just thinks it's the

coolest thing. Did he buy the X-Bow? No.

The X-Bow is fun. Really?

You know what I think that's interesting? They're putting out these cars that could be,

most people might call them plain Jane, they're putting out affordable cars,

good design, all that. But what it does allow them to do is to bring out

fucking nutsy things like the cyber stuff. Yeah.

That was fun. You kind of look at that.

I quite enjoyed that. Look, there's a few fucking problems with it,

like the screens behind the wheel and stuff.

You don't like that?

They're covered by the wheel. Just the placement was slightly wrong.

But I visited my uncle in Canberra on the weekend. He's got an old MGB,

like he's a part of the MG club and all that. And I said, what's the

vibe among proper MG enthusiasts about this thing? And he said, look,

we, he said, as the club kind of struggle with, do we let them into the club?

Because a new MG owner is very different to a classic MG owner when they're going on

long, you know, country drives enjoying their old MGBs and things. But he said,

you know, one of their owners has bought a cyberster and he's bringing it to the club

on in September. It's going to be exciting. And another man of mine went,

this is crazy money. But I said, look, it's not about selling lots of those cars.

That's about creating a flagship product that says we can, we can build something

very impressive. We, I think it's a nod to their heritage, which is, you know,

the two seat sports car, open top. That's an absolute nod to their heritage.

And I respect that. I didn't love the drive. I think that it probably could have been

tuned better, you know, the steering and riding handling could have been tuned a bit better,

but it still was the most impressive MG I've driven. It's undeniably fun. And like,

here's the thing, our family's got like a bit of a long heritage. My dad, when he was like 16,

human mum, dad would do up the MG's mum would be like in the workshop with him.

And, you know, I grew up like going to my grandparents' house and, you know, there was

like these MG logos that were painted like in the garage. Like dad painted the one he was 16 years

old. They used to do up TFs and all this sort of stuff. And I thought, I should, I should just

get an MGB like just, and so I went to, I went to have a look at one the other day. Actually,

and it was, oh, it was good, but it is driving in 19, bloody 16, 62, whatever, but

that's not a third car. That's a fourth car. You know, that's a real, you know,

garage, you know, take it out once or three times a year. Yeah, you go to the wineries with it and

that's about it. And I respect the fact that a Chinese company bought a brand and went,

we're going to sell tons of these things. Because I think if you did a survey of most MG3 hatchback

owners, let alone EV owners, I'm not sure many of them realize it's not a British brand

still. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like I think they bought a smart brand. My argument here

is if General Motors let go of the Holden brand, like they, they relinquish the ownership of it

and Geely or someone bought the Holden brand, you don't think they would sell a shit ton of Holden

electric cars just because of the brand affiliation? Yes. True Holden officiatos would, like they did

with the last Commodore ZB, they'd be like, fuck that, it's not a Holden, but a bunch of people

would go, I got a Holden electric car because the brand, that's, that's what MG has going for it,

is pure brand reputation. And it's genius. Yeah. Bloody genius. I think it's, I think, look, my

problem with the, the Sybuster was how beautiful it is, how lovely the doors are. And you know,

it is, it is set up well, I think on a, on a tour, like a lovely country drive,

it'd be a lovely thing to take with a picnic in the back and all that kind of stuff. It's a

quicker, it's almost too fucking quick. It's so fast. And like, if obviously I don't have

this problem because I'm the size of a Smurf, but someone like Paul, who's like seven foot eight,

you know, his heads, he's an awkward size, isn't he? His big fat Croatian heads popping out the top.

And so that was an issue. But the dealer, I remember when the dealer handed it over to me,

he goes, I mean, I'm like, how much are you guys selling this for? And he's like 110 grand?

I'm like, whoa. And he goes, what are you talking about? Not a bad price for a super car.

And I was like, oh, sir, you shouldn't have said it's a super car. You shouldn't have said it's a

beautiful car. It's a lovely car. But don't call it. Don't do that. Don't, you know, there's no other

two seat sports car on the market. No, no. So they're the only ones doing it. Genius.

Little bit. Again, I respect it. I respect what they've done with it as a, as a concept to

draw the brand and to really excite people about the brand. I think it's very smart.

Do you want to go for a drive in an MG Sybuster menu? Where are we going, honey?

Are we taking a picnic? No, I was going to say the brothel.

Wow. Right. Okay. That's a hard no for me, Paul. That's a hard pass. Yeah.

And where can we go? Where can we go in the, in the, in the Sybuster?

A road I've never driven is the, what's it called? The Great Ocean Road? Oh, yes.

I think that'd be a great drive in the Sybuster on a sunny day. It's, it's a windy,

windy fucking road, that one. Is it? Yes. I did it in a rainy or like, what speeds are you doing?

Yeah. I think it's technically 80, but even like as an 18 year old going down that thing,

full pelt in a Renault Clio sport, wasn't the smartest thing for me. I always think about

that and go, God, you're a reckless little shit. Like, what was I thinking? We all had

moments though. I did it also in my mate's dad's E63 and was it the, no, it was the C63.

That was the fast one back in the day, wasn't it? Yeah, that was, that was a spicy one,

but it was good fun. Actually, you had the, I saw it, was it the electric G-wagon I saw you

with? Yeah, I've, it's still out, it's sitting outside behind your MG. Oh, is it? Is it

here? Oh my God, we're gonna have to have a look. It's a tank. Yeah, right. It's a tank

and do you know what's funny about it? It's a little bit cheaper than a normal one.

It's the cheapest G-wagon here, but $300,000. Yeah. Right, and when they announced, I was in

Melbourne at the Grand Prix when they announced it and, and I was like, 300 grand seems good.

And most of the other, there's a couple of motoring journals there and they're like, that's,

well, why is it cheaper than the other? I'm like, oh, God, I was right, it is cheap.

And you know, it's, it's this, I took it to the country, right? I took it out to Young.

No one there gives a shit about a G-wagon, right? Even though it has the credentials for

being off-road in the country. That thing is all about Turac and, and Vorkluse, right? Yeah,

it's dropping the kids off to their private school. I took my, I took my 14-year-old daughter

into the city for an event and she was, she was like, you've got a G-wagon? I'm like,

how do you know what a G-wagon is? So it's like an influencer's car. And to the point where

we had to give another teenage girl a lift home that night after the event and we went

to the car park, I clicked the button and she goes, you've got a G-wagon? I didn't realize

this thing was like appealing to, you know, kids and influencers and all that kind of jazz.

I knew it was the Eastern Suburb soccer mom car, but honestly, if Mr. Beast is giving that thing away

on YouTube, I'm telling you, all of them want it. You know, in the car once you're in it,

it's just, it's just like driving a Mercedes because all the, all the screens and everything,

it's just a Mercedes. But getting into it, opening the doors, shutting the doors,

just the feeling, the sound of those things is so unbelievable. Range knock rate,

it's got like a 400 kilometer range and driving to the country, not great, because at 115 on the

highway, it's really sucking through the battery. Did you get it, did you get it on one trip? No,

I never, I never tried in one trip. I always stop at Yass at the Tesla supercharger and just juice

right up here. There's a new supercharger, by the way, at Golben, which I didn't find out about

until I'd passed it. That's open to non-Teslas. So it's like 20 bays. Yes, that's what it's

going to say. That is going to fuck the rest of the industry. Like I stop at the Tesla at

Yass because there's always space, there's always 12 bays. I normally stop at Pheasant's Nest where

there's an amp pole with six, nearly six bays on each side of the highway. And when I stopped on the

way home, they were all full. That's the amp pole chargers, right? Yes, amp charge, they were all

fucking full. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. And I was on 15%. So I'm like, I've got a charge.

I ended up driving to a shopping center in Picton and charging there. But now that I know there's

Golben, I'm just going to do one stop or one stop at everywhere. At the Tesla charges too.

Because they're open. They're fast. There's 20 of them. Dude, Tesla is putting the others out of

business because they're building the right size sites with enough bays in the right places.

Everyone else is playing absolute catch up and they're not even close. I was on 10% coming

into work the other day and I was like, oh, I'm going to have to charge this thing and I'll

just walk into work and I'll leave my car here and it was EV. I think it is EVIEE, right?

Four of them. They're all empty. I'm like, oh, fucking sweet. So charge it up and I'm like,

oh, it's not working. Oh, it's not working. I looked at the helpline. I'm like, hey, mate,

what's going on? And he said, which bay are you in? And I said, well, I mean, you know,

bay one. Oh, yeah, yeah, there's no charge coming out of that one. That one's broken.

Thanks, Scoop. I knew that. Okay. What about the next one? If I sort of

move my car, set it all up and am I going to have to call you back? And he goes, let me check.

Oh, there's no charge out of any of them. The whole lot's broken. Four of them.

And I thought such, that does not happen. At a Tesla, there might be two out

that are not working for some reason, but never all of them.

And here's the, here's the disgusting bit, right? I remember looking down on that EV thing

and the first thing I saw that stood out right in the middle of it is the Australian code of arms

supplied by the Australian government. And I thought you fucking absolute wrought,

like taxpayer dollars went into that. You've done some deal with our government

and you've absolutely just like, this is the thing. Honestly, I would say,

apart from the Tesla charges, I still don't have faith and confidence

in the charging network around our country. I think it's absolute.

And I drive a lot of kilometers. I do that trip down the country a lot. And

so I'm trying BP's, ampoules, ChargeFox, EV and Tesla. Yeah. And you've got to have like little

memberships on your phone. Every time I'm just better off at the Tesla. Yeah.

Just better off. Now, EV is best advantage if you've got the right car. And it's not

all cars. So my Cooper won't do it, but the Kia does is they have an auto charge.

So like Teslas with the Tesla, it knows who you are. So I've said to my wife,

if you ever urgently need power, we've got a EV station up at Hornsby,

which is not a bad drive from us. You just plug the car in, no apricot. It will just go,

oh, it's Trevor's Kia Charge. That's the smartest thing that EV's done. But it's not on all their

charges. It's only their most recent models. So the ones on the highway that I use,

they're not like that. So we've got so far to go in the charging space. And Tesla is

length ahead. If I was Elon Musk, if he could take any advice from me, it is,

because I don't know corporations, but when they split companies up, like

Woolworth splits out BWS or whatever the hell it is and makes a separate company in the stock market,

separate the supercharger network out as its own business, that thing, that's got value.

That's got value because they build big sites, they provide fast power, they maintain them well.

They've got great tech support. Honestly. I hate Tesla. With a passion, I wouldn't

never buy one or try and drive one. But their charging network is without fail.

Respect or it's due. Yeah, I think it wouldn't surprise me. And it's probably a good way of

going. But these EV companies should probably start privatizing themselves a lot more.

I don't know, mate. I've said for a long time that what we need is a, you know,

you're Mike Kennan Brooks of the world with all this crazy money and shit.

We need someone like Twiggy Forest or someone like that to just go, here's

fucking $10 billion. I want you to build the next shell or the next BP, you know,

I want to build the future of charging across the country. But I don't need it to make a profit

for a decade. That has to be the condition. It has to pay for itself.

I'm not going to try and withdraw my money out of this thing. So that's the problem is

all these companies, they're not expanding their bays. They're not adding six bays to a

four-bay area because they've got to suck the life out of the four they've got there

before they invest anymore. You need someone who's going to go, we're going to build 20

bays and we're going to build a convenience store and a cafe and a lounge. Like that's the

future of charging. You look, go to a Tesla supercharger where cars, both Tesla and otherwise,

are sitting and charging. And I see it because I'm at, yes, more often than not. And you'll see

an old couple sitting there with a coffee and a paper. You'll see another bike sitting on

his laptop. You'll see me editing videos or whatever I'm doing. If I could get out of the

car and sit in a lounge and pay for drinks and that kind of stuff, I would do that.

I mean, they've already started doing that. Tesla started doing that with that diner

over there in LA. And that's a real thing. I thought it was all fake, but it's actually real.

We drove past that in March and I thought, what the fuck is this? It looks like a spaceship.

Yeah. It's a very cool idea, but it's, again, it's, I don't think it's their plan for the

future. I think it's just their way of showing off on Melrose, you know?

Yeah. But there's... But think about it though. What have they got there? Let's say 40

charges, right? I mean, they've still got the diner on the inside. You can do all that.

They've got, I think upstairs is like a fucking bar and a cinema up there. Like it's a great idea.

It's such a cool idea. Someone though, like Elon, has to put their money where their mouth is.

That's what he's done. There's no way it's cost effective for Tesla to build 20 charges at

Goldman in a second site because they've already got to charge a site that's Tesla only in town.

This site's another site. It just doesn't seem logical that it's right to build 20,

but they're doing it because they're thinking of the future. They're thinking of those

five days a year at the start and the finish of school holidays when there is going to be demand.

That's what they're thinking of. No one else is thinking of that.

That's exactly right. I mean, the fact that a BP at Maroulin, which is on the Hymn Highway,

has one fucking charger on each side of the highway, what the hell? Like that's insanity.

So we've just got a long way to go before these companies, amp on BP are doing,

and Shell now, they're doing it. They're building charges.

Starting to. But they're building to at a fucking time. Like folks, build shit loads.

You've got to build a reputation. You've heard the man. Build them.

If you have a reputation for being the place to charge,

then you'll be the destination. That's what you've got to become. I don't know.

I think there's something wrong with that part of the industry.

In a big way. God, you got fired up with that, didn't you?

Don't get me started about ChargeFox. Can you?

Oh, don't get me started about them. What an absolute.

I told this story on. Can you pass me a piece of pizza?

I feel like I'm going to need to settle in for this.

On my EV show.

I can't believe the pizza's on your end and you're not touching them.

I was going to say, I can't believe you put them on mine.

This is a new Trevor Long, and I'm not liking what I'm saying.

About a year ago, I stopped at the Supercharge, the fast charge of the ChargeFox,

the NRMA ChargeFox outside of Melbourne at the old Maccasite, the current Maccasite.

The pepperoni on these pizzas remind me of Paul's and Nimble's. Go on.

Wow. And it just wasn't working. There was all this drama.

It just wasn't working well. The app wasn't right.

And so I'm on Instagram going, well, this is stupid.

It's fucking outrageous. And ChargeFox gets your act together or something.

Now, only a few weeks early, we'd interviewed someone from ChargeFox on the show.

And so they email me and they go, mate, we explained to you in the interview that we don't

run the charges, we just run the network. And I'm like, listen.

Hang on. Back up. Back up. Did he just give you the whole,

mate, I just work here?

Kinda. So they're NRMA charges that are on the ChargeFox network, right?

And so their argument was it's NRMA's fault they're not working and they're not upgraded

or they're not maintained or whatever.

I'm sorry, what name was it?

I'm like, who's fucking logo? Yeah, NRMA logo and ChargeFox and which app am I using?

Fucking ChargeFox. And so we had this argument.

Yeah, that's what the Nazis said, buddy.

It doesn't matter if someone is buying into the ChargeFox network, it's as much their

responsibility as the, you know, the site, the owner of the site to maintain the thing.

And I think their reputation, unfortunately, has not gone well for them because

you go to, like they put, again, this is a classic example,

Golbin, anyone in New South Wales knows, but, you know, if you're in Melbourne,

think, I don't know, Yorua or Shepparton, you know, big place on the highway, Golbin.

So the ChargeFox location was a shit place on the outskirts of town, but at least it was near

a mackers. So there was somewhere across the road, you go for a meal. The Tesla location

in the middle of town, unbelievable, but only for Teslas. And then just on the outskirts

of town, the other side, there's a fucking, there's KFC, there's Red Rooster,

there's Mackers, that's where you think this would be a good spot.

So ChargeFox puts one of, like, all fast food outlets and Trevor's like,

fucking, what a place to put a charger. But that's where everyone's stopping, right?

That's where the big service station is. Well, that's exactly what,

that Golbin is a brilliant toilet stop. Yes, exactly, because you've got fast food outlets.

So ChargeFox, or I don't know who owns it because they run the network, but

someone, and uses in ChargeFox network, puts a charging pole in the KFC car park.

It's a charging pole with two fucking plugs on it that do, I don't know, 50 kilowatts,

and it's fucking Golbin, mate. Why wouldn't you build six? And so what happens a year later,

Tesla builds 20. And there's just, I know that Tesla is more expensive to charge

than ChargeFox or EV, but I'll pay the 10 or 20 cents per kilowatt more every day of the week.

Of course. For the simplicity and speed of a Tesla supercharger.

If I'm going to get a full charge on 18 minutes, and it's going to cost me 30 bucks,

as opposed to 22 bucks for a fucking one and a half hours, I'll tell you where I'm going.

Every day of the week. What's it to deal with this EV tax? Can you put me across this? Because

for me, I didn't say what all the fuss is about, because I mean, we've known about this for years,

and it sort of seems like the thing that should happen anyway. So basically,

if you're an EV owner, you're now going to basically get taxed for using the roads.

That's right. So you know, you're an EV owner, you're not paying for petrol,

so therefore you're not paying the fuel excise. But just like a petrol car user is getting taxed

to use the roads, essentially. And so in Victoria, they implemented this a couple of years ago.

And the EV owners, of course, took them to court because they're being stuck up EV owners who

think that they should have entitlements that they don't. Are you a stuck up EV owner?

You've got two of them. I'm realistic. I think of myself more as a business person than a stuck

up EV owner who goes, how's the government going to do the numbers here? They're making

like 17 to 20 billion dollars a year out of fuel excise. And if we have more and more and more EVs,

there's going to be billions and billions of dollars missing from the budget.

How's that going to affect us? They're either going to put our fucking personal tax up or

something else is going to go on, right? So they have to fill the hole in the budget.

Of course, right? Of course. Having said that, I think if they're going to pay tax on it,

they need to come up with, and they're going to put in the Australian government,

are going to put their logo on charges, fucking make sure they work.

Well, that's true. If the government's going to put their logo on things,

there should be a requirement for uptime and all that kind of stuff. But how do you penalize the

charging networks for that? You're just penalizing the base on uptime. That doesn't help the people

that came across the charger at the wrong time. You don't get a compensation for it, do you?

You never get hold responsible for it. But it's like, it's the reputation. You can ask

anyone who's too scared to jump in and buy an EV these days. They'll all say, oh, look,

I don't know, like, do you know about the charging? I don't think we're still

quite ready. Which I don't, if you're about it, I'm still 50%.

The fascinating thing about the Melbourne thing was, got overturned by the courts, right? I don't

know which court, Supreme Court or something like that, right? And what's really interesting,

I spoke to someone in government in New South Wales who said at the time,

it's actually a really interesting ruling because it basically says, the ruling broadly says,

that a state can't impose this level of tax on its citizens. It's just not entitled to.

So it actually draws into question things like stamp duty and all that kind of stuff,

if you actually dug into it. But what they realized was, we can't do it at state levels,

so now the states are saying, the federal government needs to do it. So the idea is,

the federal government institutes a law. I assume the states will run it through

registration. We'll have to say how many Ks we've done and we'll pay it. I don't give a

shit because $400 a year or whatever it's going to be, it's still cheaper than running a petrol

car, right? So if you're complaining about as an EV owner, you're actually,

you're out of touch, right? But here's my solution. Buck off the fuel excise. Drop

the price of petrol by 52 cents and make everyone pay a road user charge.

Yeah, but you know if they did that, like the whole EV thing wouldn't be as attractive anymore.

No, but it's just neutralizing that as a cost. Everything else stays the same for EV drivers.

They're cheaper to maintain, cheaper to run, cheaper to fill. But a petrol car owner can

choose to drive less and potentially pay less in this road usage tax. But it's also

neutralized so that over time the budget stays the same based on road usage. It's not one tax

and another tax. It's just one big tax for everyone. I don't think necessarily owning an EV, well, it

can be cheaper, yes, depending on how you use your EV. If you're charging at home and you're

doing it on peak hours, fine, fine, fine. And obviously you've got to maintain a petrol

car and that's fucking expensive. I get that, but I don't know. Me and Paul have always talked

about this at length and they always seem at the moment just to be 50-50.

Yeah, I'm pretty confident we're saving three grand a year on the Kia versus the EV9 versus

the Carnival. Now, we are charging at home more often than not, but if I look at a trip

to the country and I go, if I'd paid for petrol, you know, a full tank's going to be 100

plus dollars and it was 35-40 on the Tesla charger. So I've always said that charging an

EV is 30 to 40% the cost of filling a petrol car. So just on usage, there's no doubt that

it's cheaper to run an electric car. And if you're really smart by, you know, getting,

you go to an electricity company with 8 cent overnight charging and all that kind of stuff,

you can absolutely bring the cost of owning an EV down. So if it is an issue for you,

there are very smart things you can do to make it genuinely cheaper to run.

Do you know what they should get rid of? The luxury car tax.

Like, especially the import luxury car tax. Especially given we don't have a local industry.

We don't have a local market anymore. We don't have a local car market. That's what it was

there for was to protect your Ford and your Holdens and all that sort of stuff.

You have to go buy a Caprice instead of a BMW, but there's no such thing anymore.

No. It's wild. Like, it's actually, you look at, say, I'm in the market to try and get

an old Porsche, right? They're so much cheaper in New Zealand.

Really? Oh my God, they're so much cheaper. On the scheme of things, say they were, say whatever

I was looking at would be 80 grand here, model dependent, but say if I'm looking about 80 grand

here, that would be about 60 over there. Having said that, by the time I get it over, which

you wouldn't think it would be this much, but it's anywhere between six and 10 grand

to get it over. Taxes when you land it here?

Yeah, taxes, transportation, yeah, plus you pay the person extra to do all the paperwork and

fucking stuff around. It's just, I just don't get it. I don't get why it's so goddamn expensive

to import a car. It's wild. It's very niche, I guess. There's not probably a very big priority

for the government, I would suggest. But the luxury car tax is definitely something you need

to say. My taxes generally need a say. That's the biggest problem we've got in Australia.

It's just weird tax system in my view. I've run out of pizza.

Oh, you haven't really, there's another whole pizza over here.

What else are we, what else are we going to bring out? We're going to mention the

other story that's been around in a little while was that Australian Automotive Association doing

an analysis of the range on electric vehicles. They found that like a BYD that had a stated range

of, I don't know what number, called 400Ks was like 20% less in their real world testing. I think

the Smart 3 was not that bad, but it was still under. So their basic claim and the headlines

in the media was EVs not living up to the advertised range. And I think it's a great

story because it's good analysis, but it's just proof that we need education. We need to educate

people that range is a variable. Range is really a comparative tool. So if you're shopping for a

leap motor versus a D-PAL versus an MG at a price point, you can absolutely look at them and go,

well, this one's got more range. It definitely has more range on a comparison basis.

Because if one says it's got a bigger battery and a better range, it's going to have a better

range than that other one. However, when you sit in the car and drive it,

you're never going to achieve like my car, EV9 has a 511K range. It doesn't achieve 511Ks.

Is that if you ever got over 450 in that? No, no. It normally gets 600. Oh,

fuck. Because it drives around fucking town. It goes to the shops and back. I don't take it

anywhere. My wife drives it. And an EV around town is sick. So when shit, yeah, that's what

they're great for. So when range is understated by the manufacturer. When she fully charges

that thing, is that going to 600Ks? It says sometimes it's got 600Ks range.

Because it uses the smarts of what it's been driving, not what the manufacturer said. Whereas if I take

the fucking G-Wagon to young, it says maximum range 401, minimum range 326. And I'm like, I don't

even think it got 326. I think it was probably less than that. But you've got to know when you're

buying an EV that it's going to be dependent on what you do and how you drive it.

No, here's my argument against that, right? If you're going to drive an EV, you've

got to know that it's not going to reach the kilometres it's advertised for.

On which drive? Are you assuming everyone's taking it on a freeway? Well, that's the only time it won't

reach its desired goal, is if you're driving a lot of freeways. Because that's highly inefficient

in electric cars. Well, no, I disagree. I mean, I'm sort of driving 10 minutes to work,

20 minutes to pick up my kid, that sort of stuff, that MG5S, that's advertised as about

440, right? I'm getting about 380 when I'm filling that thing up.

I just feel like as a normal consumer, and you've got to realise, we're car guys,

you know what I mean? No, no, 100%. So it's the biggest question we get on our EV show is just

people going, I'm worried about the range. And you've got to tell people, hey, breaking news,

whatever you think it's going to have, assume less. By the way, in winter,

fucking even less, because cold affects batteries and range. And then driving,

it used to be that you take your petrol car on the freeway, you get fucking really good fuel economy,

but in an electric car, it's the worst thing you can do. It's the opposite. Yes.

So people don't know that. So this is the thing, we've got to educate people.

Dealerships are not trying to educate people. Well, then I'm going to, if like, if you're,

the average person thinks that they're going to go a better sell, right, for a car, here's my

new EV1, right? It's shiny. It's beautiful. It's $45,000. And I'll get a 40, I'll get a 440

kilometres of range in it. That's the sell. But when you drive that, you're like, I'm only getting

like 350. What the fuck? There's a sticker on the window that says that too. But here's my counter

to that whole fucking story. My Kia Carnival that we bought before the EV9, so we had it for

four or five years, had a stick, we had still had the sticker on it, you know, the fuel

economy stick. It was still on the fucking thing after five years. I'd never take them off. Oh,

that's embarrassing. 11.6 was the claimed fuel economy. I didn't reset the trip meter from birth.

So at the end of its life, having driven, I don't know, I think it was 100,000 kms something,

14.6 was its fuel economy. Yeah, that's wild. It never came close. By the way, 14.6 is massive.

Yes, because I was doing less in the Chevy Silverado. Because my wife just drives to the

shops and to fucking pick the kids up at school. It doesn't get opened up. Whereas if I took it on

the highway, it might do nine on the highway, which is awesome. But under the stated fuel economy.

But I would challenge motoring journals of Australia to say, how many cars have you driven

that you find fuel economy wise come under the stated fuel economy? But it's not a headline.

It's not a headline unless it's dieselgate. Well, it's not a headline that cars, petrol cars

are not, sorry, are consuming more petrol than was predicted. So therefore their range

is lower than was expected. We've gotten used to that over time. This is a new thing. It's EVs.

We're going to bash the shit out of them. That's all I'm saying is it's a fucking great headline.

So I agree it's a problem and we need to educate people. But I think it was a really

good headline. Safety features on cars. I would strongly argue that they are anything but safe.

I want to know. Scary sometimes. I'd love to know from whoever it is, when you get the

ANCAP safety rating, what the fuck is actually going on? Because if you're

advertising a car, this has got a five-star ANCAP safety rating because it's got lane

departure assist and speed exceeding the speeding limit and an alarm for this and a

bing for that and a bong for that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you're driving and all this

shit is going off, and this is probably one of the worst things about the Chinese EVs that are coming

in, they are notorious for it. They are the worst at it. They're the worst at it and they're

the worst to find the setting, which makes it even more distracting just to go looking through

the menus while you're trying to turn the fucking thing off. And you're trying to

fucking drive. Yes. Right. It's absolutely stupid. I'm offended that most cars when

I'm singing Billy Joel loudly on my own in the car think I'm yawning. Come on guys,

I'm not tired. I'm excited. That's the car because China's listening to us.

That's them slowly dying and they're hearing Trev singing like some sort of constipated dinosaur.

As it should be. Yes. Take this China. What is it? Something pussycat?

What's new pussycat? What's new pussycat?

All that. It's a good fun. It's a really great way to round out the show really.

Well, it's very similar to yours. No, but yeah, here's the thing. I'd say the safety systems on

these cars are just diabolical. It's frustrating. Is that a leap motor again going back to it?

Its lane keep was just so persistent and it was like, dude, I don't need lane keep when I'm

leaving the lane problematically. But when I'm just on the M2, let me fucking choose

where I want to be in the lane. And also like when it's saying concentrate on the road and it's

saying that over and over and over again, it's like, mate, I am concentrating on the road.

You're making me lose my concentration because you go bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

My kids love the fact that I get frustrated because it bings at me and I'm like,

fucking why are you binging? I don't even know why now. Some cars are very obvious.

It says you're tired. You're doing whatever. But other cars just go binging. I'm like,

I missed the red light. What was it? What was it binging for?

It's, look, I think they do more harm. Yeah, I agree. And I think the needle on that will

swing backwards because they're all realizing it through software updates and stuff. And I think

what they're doing is they're getting in other cars and going, oh, you can do it but a bit more

subtly. It doesn't need to be as annoying. It can just be a little pop up message and all

that kind of stuff. So I think they're all going to learn from each other which ways things

are possible. And like Kia, it was frustrating to me that we had the speed chime a lot.

And when my wife's on the phone in the car and I can hear the beeping, I'm like, babe,

stop speeding. If you're not going to mute it, don't stop speeding because they implemented

a software update where you push and hold the mute button and it turns off the speed function.

Perfect. So whenever I get in the Kia, the first thing I do before I reverse out of the

driveway is I turn that off. I mean, that's fine. Actually, that's the one thing the MG

that I'm driving was giving me the shit at the start, right? It was saying,

yeah, focus on the road, focus on the road. And it was only doing it funny enough when I

was taking a phone call in the car. Obviously not on my phone, but like it was it was really

doing it. And then I spoke to MG and they said, yeah, whatever you want to turn off,

the customize the, it's the star button on the steering wheel, right? So once you,

you can customize that. So once you push that, you choose what you want to turn off. Oh no,

I still want to keep the speed warning on there. I still want to keep like emergency

this on there, but I want to turn off the sleep stuff and the bloody concentrate on the

road crap. And so yeah, it's that's, to me, that's one of the great things.

In the defense of all those safety systems, I am technologically blown away by how accurate they

are. I disagree. The fact that they can, that may, if I, if I am tied, it knows it. They're not,

yeah, but if I am not looking at the road, it knows it. I think it's amazing that they've

nailed that. I just think the implementation of the warning is fucking horrendous. Yeah, I didn't,

I don't think so at all. I don't think they know when I'm tired. It's gone off a lot of

the time when I'm not. When you look at the speed, half the time it's fucking, like you go from,

say here go over the bridge, which is a five minute drive, right? It thinks it's,

it's hit three different, four different speeds. It's like, it still hasn't registered.

No, no, this is not a 20, 20 K zone. And what about the ones that, the ones that

automatically break down to another speed when it passes a speed sign and you're on a

motorway. You're going 100 and you drive past an off ramp and it says 70 for the off

ramp and he goes, oh, it's 70 and fucking you're like slow down. Dude. Does it? Which ones? I

can't remember which one that was, but it happened to me once and I'm like, holy shit.

It was because I was in cruise control. So it was like, it was trying to automatically adjust

to the cruise. I'm like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. And by the way, just a

shit can't Tesla quickly at the end. In that Uber that I was in the other day,

driving out to Moorbank, I was sleeping in the back because the fucking hour drive

and it's phantom brake twice on the M seven. What do you mean? So he's just driving

along at 80 and the thing just goes to break because it detects something that it thinks

is going to be a problem. And it's just bullshit. It's not a real problem. Oh God.

Phantom braking, mate. Oh, that's the worst. Like didn't even apologize either.

I was very, he forced us to that plate. That happened to us once in my wife's Volvo.

It fucking just breaks. I'm like, what the fuck? And the steering wheel, I'm sorry.

The seatbelt, the seatbelt's like lock back and it scares the shit out of you.

The road coming into our kind of suburb has, it's like 50ks an hour, but has a

slight turn in and along the road, there's parking all the way for people who live there,

right? And there's always these cars on the out, what would be the outside of the turn

and it sets off 50% of cars forward collision alert. No, no, mate, I'm turning. It's the

fucking road. It's okay. Relax. I'm turning the fucking corner. Relax.

We, we've got along terribly well in this episode and it's going to piss a lot of people off.

And that's right. We had beef. Sorry, I've forgotten that we were meant to have beef.

Yeah. Well, I blame you. You know what it is? It's because you're skinny now and I find you

quite good looking and funny. I'll come back in another six months and see if we've actually

made some progress on that. Let's go to a couple of questions. Oh, when is the merch coming out?

And how do I get it? Regards, Dan, you're always-

www.shitmerch.com. Shut up. You know what? Do you know my favorite?

Do you know what? I've actually like, I remember when you do come on here,

I'm always like straight on you. But I thought, you know what? I'm just going to let you talk today.

Yeah. I'm just going to let you go. I've had a hard day on the ones and twos.

Oh, it's really hard. Yeah. I've had to talk about Justin Bieber and I've really had to talk

about Taylor Swift today. You know, remember the sticky you gave me? You gave me one of

your dry wish hose stickers? Yeah. I really appreciate it. I've still got that. It's

stuck on the lid of the bin out the front of the office. We've got a big, like,

commercial bin and it's every time I put something in the bin, there's you and Paulie.

Fuck you. I'll send a photo. You gave me an ATM hat once and unfortunately I bloody love that hat

and this was when I was living in quite a posh area with a country club.

I wore it to the country club gym and I left it on the bench seat. Which one? The one with the

stripe or the ones with the logo on the side? The black one. Yeah. It was the one with

the logo on the side. It was the classy one. I'll send you one. I'd like one because,

like, I fucking went to have a shower and I came back and some old bastard had taken my

ATM hat. Big fan. He's a big fan. EFTM, but that's okay. And whatever it is. He's a big fan that,

like, what is ATM, FM? EFTM, everything for the man. Is that what it is? That's what I

originally stood for, yeah. Is that what? Man's lifestyle. Were you trying to do like a

fucking man show, Jimmy Kimmel? No, no. It was just, it was, the idea was that it was,

you know, there was so much women's content on the internet. Mum and me and all that. There

was no, there was no website for me. Did you think you were going to be the male

be a freeman? No. Just, you know, there's tech and cars. Oh, made sense, mate.

Everything for the man. Welcome. What's the next fucking question? I want to go home.

Everything for the man. My wife's calling me. Everything for the man sounds like a fucking

website. I do not want to visit. Okay, here we go. Should we be pushing hybrid cars before

EV, seeing as we don't have infrastructure for charging them? Well, thank you for that,

Doug Wookie. We kind of, that's actually an interesting question. That's a great point.

Given that we've shadowed a lot of the infrastructure. Anyone that says that they

do a lot of driving, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of kilometers in terms of rural driving and stuff,

yeah, a hybrid is definitely going to be a better option. And by the way, the plug-in hybrids

are a brilliant option because you get to have the full EV experience at home around town,

but you've got the benefit of range. Like no, no, no brainer. They're making way better

plug-in hybrids now than they were like two years ago. The BYD shark going, like,

see so many of them on the road and the country. Yeah. The JQ that I'm driving, like it's a,

it's, it's got that benefit of being an EV around town, but it's fucking a thousand

kilometers range. Oh man. It's so good. The Kia's and the bloody Hyundai's are making some great

hybrids. Yeah. Some really good ones. When will Donna and Hamb, Hamburger Warmers be back on?

Who's Trevor Long again? That's a good one. That's a funny fucking call. Thank you for

that one, Ubi. Yeah, Donna and Hamburger Warmers. That's a joke because, don't worry. She warms her

hamburgers in spots where we can't really talk about. Solid in Jack. Well done. Excellent.

Good gear. Anyway, I just, I prefer those questions to be honest. I'm not going into

any of the fucking, we'll leave those for Paul. Wow. Yeah. When Paul bothers to come back?

Fucking hell. Actually, he's on next step. He'll be back next step. I know his name's

on the fucking billboard and he's been too busy traveling around the world. Pretty disappointed

you didn't update the billboards. That's all I'm saying. Oh, what for you? Just for the show.

Fuck with? Actually, once upon a time you wouldn't have fitted, but now I'm going to have to get

some sort of like filter on me. I'm going to get a photo show and I'm going to put myself over

that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck really pissed Paul off. Well, look at, look at, look how fucking

wide I'm looking these days. Look at that. I look like Donna's left hit. Yeah, there's a

bit of tan going on there. That's fake tan too, isn't it? No, no, I had a real tan there.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. I did get my first fake tan. I love that Paul's laughing at you in the photo too.

Fun fact, they're two different photos. Oh, I can see that. Oh, all right there, fucking photo shop.

Calm down. Paul would be caught dead taking a photo with you. Yes, he would. I reckon if I

booked in like a proper photo shoot, you would be surprised. Why does Paul do this show?

Because it's it's the question keeps coming up on Instagram. No, it doesn't.

This is a reputable car program. This is absolutely better than fucking two idiots in a

Navy. Is that guy? What's his name? Fennec? Steven Fennec. Oh, yeah, yeah. My best mate. He's a good

guy. Yeah, he's actually a good guy. I don't know why he hangs out with you. Money probably.

He's his brother Jeff or his cousin. No, he's his brother Maria. They're not related at all.

Oh, they're not related at all. No, they do look alike. They're Phoenix. They're Maltese.

I guess that's the only limit. Yeah, right. Oh, there goes your little, you know, you probably,

everyone probably thought, oh, fuck, he's like, he's hanging out with Jeff Fennec's brother. That's

cool. Most people think it's pretty cool that he's Maria Fennec's brother. In his own right,

he did play for South Sydney as well, Steven. Yeah, there's that. But it's not as cool as Jeff

Fennec or Maria. Yeah, fuck Maria. Wow, there it is. It's official. It's been great hanging

out with you. Can I go now? No, I want to talk to you just two more minutes. My wife wants me

home. Oh, put her on. No, no, she just said she can be home at 8.30. Did you get the whole when are

you coming home? Yeah. Oh, how far does it, how long does it take to drive home? Oh, I reckon

25 minutes at this time of night. Oh, there you go. That's all good. That's all good.

No, no, no, no. What are you driving that, or what are you going to be driving that you're

really excited about before we go? Once you've had like a $300,000 G-Wagon,

it's pretty hard to find the next exciting thing. So, yeah, it's all a bit downhill from here.

Do you know what? I jumped in a Mazda MX-5 the other day. Shout out to the lovely folk at Sutherland

Mazda who just contacted me and said, hey, do you want an MX-5 for the week? And it's like the

special edition SP blah, blah, blah, right? I haven't jumped in an MX-5. It's a fucking great car,

isn't it? It's so good. But here's my thing. Why would I, and sorry to Sutherland Mazda,

which by the way, you guys were one of the best dealers I've ever walked into, everyone's

friendly and I'm going to shout them out. Makes a big difference. I'm going to shout them out

because those sorts of experiences are like far between. Anyway, why would anyone buy a brand new

Mazda MX-5? Here's my thing. It feels exactly like it did five years ago. It hasn't changed much,

which by the way. Oh, you're saying why wouldn't you just buy a five-year old one?

Yeah, because I mean like it's like warranty maybe. Maybe, but it feels exactly the same.

And geez, you're saving a lot of money if you do. Like you're saving a lot. And by the way,

the Apple CarPlay on those new ones, you still got to control it through the fucking wheel.

Why? Well, that's the problem with the five-year-old car. A new Mazda with touchscreen, you don't.

But no, but that's what I'm saying. The new MX-5. No, but it's like it's still an old model.

Like they haven't actually updated anything inside the car. They're just fucking rolling

the same thing off the production line. Yeah, well, that's what I mean. It's such a

fun engaging car. You don't buy that car for touchscreen. You buy that car for the

windy roads and the fucking riding handling. It's such a great car. You turn all that shit off.

You know what's still good is the bloody Toyota 86. Yeah. Fucking hell. It's a driver's car.

It's still great. There's such a good reason why that's a cult car. 100%.

I had a mate of mine who's got a GT3 RS and he said that Toyota 86 that I had is just as

engaging. It's the only other car that's as engaging as his Porsche that he's driven.

In a manual mode, it would be so much fun. Great car. That's what you get when you actually have

someone who like a company decides to build a car and refine the drive. That we go right back to the

leap motor. You're just not saying we can make it drive like an 86, but you need someone to go,

should the suspension be different? Should we influence the steering in some way?

It's hard to engineer a lot of these EVs. Like it's hard to get a road for the car.

They've got the best fucking weight balance, weight distribution possible,

because the battery is low. It should be actually really good.

You look at a IONIQ 5N. That is probably one of the greatest EVs you can get. It's such a brilliant

lesson to anyone who are bringing out an EV because it just feels the road like nothing

else. For sure. It's fucking amazing. Nothing you're looking forward to. I'm looking forward

to every day in life, but yeah, I'm not looking forward to returning the G-Wagen at this point.

Sad days. Okay. Contactedthedrivershow.com.au. Thank you for coming on.

Mate, it's my pleasure. No, it's fine. As long as Paul's not here.

No. Let's kill him off. Next time he comes in, I'm going to put your face on there

just to see what happens. Just to piss him off. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sorry, mate. We didn't update it. Yeah. But these are numbers. We're good.

Would you take... Yeah, I reckon you need to start doing like a centerfold for us.

Do like a centerfold naked shot. That's definitely not going to happen.

Thanks for coming in. See you, buddy.

Thanks for listening to The Driver's Show. If you'd like to put your brand here,

you can now sponsor us. Contactedthedrivershow.com.au or drop us a DM

at thedrivershowpodcast.com.au on Insta. At the very least, you'll be helping two car nerds in need.

Trevor Long is BACK! Still no sign of Paul...but he will be back, we think

Ford Mustang

Chevrolet C10

Opel Astra

Cadillac Lyric

Chevrolet Silverado

Tesla Model

Rolls-Royce Ghost

Dodge Challenger

Ktm Xbow

MG MGB

MG Cyberster

MG3

Renault Clio

BMW E63

G-Class Gwagon

Dodge Charger

Kia EV9

Holden Caprice

General Motors Ev1

BMW M2

Rolls-Royce Phantom

Byd Shark 6

Mazda Mx5

Toyota 86

Hyundai Ioniq 5N

About this episode

Original notes