The Car Curious Weekly for May 24, 2026

The Car Curious Weekly is a look at what the automotive podcast world is talking about, who's saying it, and what patterns emerge when you listen to all of them at once.

May 17 - May 23, 2026 · 257 episodes across 167 podcasts.

Stellantis unveiled its Fastlane 2030 plan this week, committing $70 billion over five years to consolidate nearly its entire lineup onto three platforms, with Chrysler and Dodge notably absent from the priority list. Meanwhile, Ram introduced the Rumblebee, a street-focused 1500 with up to 777 horsepower from a Hellcat engine, positioning it as the on-road counterpart to its TRX off-roader. In EV news, used electric vehicle sales rose 17% in April while new EV sales fell 23%, suggesting growing consumer confidence in the secondhand market, while Tesla began testing a virtual queue system at five Supercharger locations.

Here are the four biggest storylines and where they showed up across the feed.

Stellantis Fastlane 2030: $70 Billion, Three Platforms, and Two Brands Left Out

Stellantis is committing roughly $70 billion over five years to its Fastlane 2030 plan, which consolidates nearly its entire lineup onto three platforms and targets 11 all-new vehicles for North America, most priced under $40,000.

Autoline After Hours reported that 70 percent of that investment flows to Jeep, Ram, and the commercial division, with Peugeot and Fiat also named as priority brands.

CarEdge Live noted that Chrysler and Dodge were absent from the plan, pointing to hundreds of unsold 2024 Dodge Hornets still sitting on dealer lots as evidence of where Dodge stands. Automotive Informants flagged a broader strategic signal: Stellantis appears to be positioning shared platforms and Chinese automaker partnerships as tools for staying globally competitive, with a potential side benefit of navigating tariff exposure.

Autoline After Hours:
AAH #792 - Breaking Down Stellantis' New 5-Year Plan

"They have a new platform coming called STLA One: front drive, rear drive, all-wheel drive, ICE, hybrid, BEV, EREV."

Also covered by: Automotive News Daily Drive.

Ram Rumblebee Brings 777-HP Hellcat Power to a Street-Focused 1500, With a Spool Rear Diff and No Low Range

Ram is positioning the Rumblebee as the on-road answer to its off-road TRX, offering three engine options including a 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat rated at 777 horsepower and a 3.4-second zero-to-60 time.

The Truck Show Podcast framed the vehicle as Ram's deliberate bet on a market niche it believes no competitor has fully claimed, describing the concept as merging everyday truck functionality with muscle-car attitude.

Auto Buyers Guide Podcast:
Rumble Bees Are Buzzing, Toyota's V6 Has More Issues, EX60, & Finally New Chryslers Are Coming

"It's a spool rear differential so you can burn out on your tracks."

The drivetrain skips low-range four-wheel drive in favor of an all-wheel-drive auto mode plus a rear-wheel-drive-only button, and uses a spool rear differential, meaning both rear wheels lock together for burnouts, as Auto Buyers Guide Podcast noted. That same show flagged a known durability concern with the Hellcat engine family: main bearing failures that can result in sudden power loss and complete engine seizure, a question mark hanging over the Rumblebee's long-term ownership case.

The Truck Show Podcast:
S3, E93 - Return of the Sport Truck

"Think of a lowered monochromatic TRX with street rubber."

Also covered by: CarCast.

Used EV Sales Rose 17% in April While New EVs Fell 23%. Battery Warranties Are the Reason.

Used electric vehicle sales grew 17% year-over-year in April even as new EV sales dropped more than 23%, a divergence Automotive News Daily Drive tied to growing consumer confidence in the used market.

A key driver, according to that reporting, is the standard eight-to-ten-year, 100,000-mile battery warranty, which reduces the main risk buyers historically attached to second-hand EVs.

The AutoGuide Show:
The Cars That Best Hold Their Value: Ep 122

"But then you go into individual categories like hybrids are only losing 35.4%. Trucks are only losing 34.2%. And then SUVs are 44.9. And then electric vehicles are 57.2."

The AutoGuide Show put numbers on the gap: EVs are depreciating at 57.2 percent against 35.4 percent for hybrids and 34.2 percent for trucks, making used EVs among the steepest discounts in the market for buyers willing to absorb the initial owner's loss.

Automotive News Daily Drive:
May 18th, 2026 | Used EV sales surge; automakers, suppliers getting along better

"I think the trust and transparency is increasing and consumers are getting more comfortable with buying a used EV, knowing that that battery has a warranty."

Tesla's Supercharger Virtual Queue Rolls Out at Five Sites; Compliance Is Voluntary

Tesla is testing a waitlist feature at five Supercharger locations, showing drivers their queue position and estimated wait time through the app. The system is open to non-Tesla EV owners as well, a direct consequence of opening the Supercharger network to third-party vehicles, which has pushed utilization high enough to require queue management.

Wheel Bearings described the mechanic simply: drivers receive a number and pull up when their turn arrives and a stall clears.

Wheel Bearings:
Lots of Honda Hybrids

"Now you get a number on your app and when it's your turn, you pull up to whichever charger has been emptied out."

The enforcement gap, however, is real. EV News Daily noted that the system is built on voluntary compliance, meaning a driver who skips the queue and plugs in anyway will still receive a charge.

Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast:
Episode 563: A Long-Awaited Supercharging Feature Debuts

"If you're on, whether you're on the list or not, if you try to cut in line, does the supercharger actually lock you out and not charge your car?"

Also covered by: EV News Daily - Technology and Business of EVs.

Hidden Gems

Episodes worth checking out that you might have missed:
- Better Than a classic 911? The Ultimate Porsche 356 Deep Dive (9WERKS Radio : The Porsche and Car Podcast), A hands-on road trip that avoids the typical spec-sheet comparison by diving into how seat position, tire choice, and alignment fundamentally change how a 356 feels, plus real roadside troubleshooting and ignition diagnosis most podcasters skip.
- 352: 2018 BMW 640i No Crank, Coolant In A Place You Wouldn't Expect (Automotive Diagnostic Podcast), A specific diagnostic mystery where coolant wicking into a body domain controller connector through the coolant sensor circuit creates odd voltage readings, the kind of hidden failure path that teaches how electrical and cooling systems can unexpectedly intersect.
- From Red Dwarf to The EV Revolution: In Conversation With Robert Llewellyn! (Everything Electric Podcast), Actor and EV advocate Robert Llewellyn traces the creative and technical threads from sci-fi scriptwriting to real EV adoption stories, offering a unique angle on how humor and media shape technology acceptance, not just another specs-and-sales update.
- A Deep Dive Into Water Pump Design & Tech with Don Meziere from Meziere Enterprises (OnAllCylinders), Don Meziere explains why electric pumps replaced mechanical ones in high-performance engines, walks through ceramic seal life expectancy and failure modes, and covers the often-overlooked relationship between flow, pressure, and heat soak that most car content glosses over.

Quotes of the Week

"[N]on-Teslas can join the waitlist through the Tesla app."

Episode 563: A Long-Awaited Supercharging Feature Debuts on Ride the Lightning: Tesla and EV Podcast

"He decided that he did not need to put the oil cap back on."

0336 - Involuntary Maintenance On The Go on B Squad Hotrod

"Four weeks later, he was brain dead and paralyzed in the hospital."

“It'll Eat You Alive!” Turning Tragedy Into a Billion-Dollar Dealership Group (And the Lessons Learned Along the Way) | Corina Straub Diehl, CEO and President at Diehl Automotive Group on Car Dealership Guy Podcast

"800 volts, fully independent active suspension system, with four-wheel independent control."

CHINA: BYD Battery Bottleneck, Onvo L80 Launches and Denza Hits 500,000| 18 May 2026 on EV News Daily - Technology and Business of EVs

"Actual testers look for cold cranking amps to test the battery, not just voltage."

Your Porsche Is Dying In The Garage (And You're Helping It) on Eleven After Nine | A Porsche Culture Podcast

"Key design changes for R2 include part eliminations and reductions through the introduction of large castings."

Rivian's Q1 2026 Earnings Call on Kilowatt: A Podcast about Electric Vehicles

Recommendations

If You Only Listen To One

Episode #225 - Are We Just Car Hipsters?, Another Pointless Automotive Podcast

The central debate, whether avoiding popular cars is genuine taste or just contrarianism, is a question every enthusiast has quietly wondered about. The hosts keep it light with a print-ad guessing game for obscure models, and the specific examples ('Air-cooled 911 is peak hipster,' a 240D as 'the ultimate hipster car') give it the feel of a real argument between friends rather than a talking-points exercise.

More Episodes Worth Hearing

• 0336 - Involuntary Maintenance On The Go (B Squad Hotrod), Roadside breakdown stories are always more entertaining than planned repair content, and this episode delivers: a dead starter on a '97 Thunderbird, transmission fluid hitting a hot exhaust, an alternator dying in the middle of the night with fading headlights. The crew debates when you limp it home versus when you call for help, and the distinction they draw between 'limping your car home' and 'your car going into limp mode' is both funny and practically useful.
• C.R.E.A.M. #83 - Ben's Bristol Battle, Our Debut Album and VW's Secret Supercar (C.R.E.A.M. (The TDC Podcast)), A Bristol ULEZ saga involving a Honda S2000 and a used-car detective session using Carvertical MOT history makes for an entertaining first half, and the Volkswagen Nardo 'secret supercar' debate that follows, including a genuine Diablo-versus-Aventador argument about what actually feels special, is the kind of conversation that goes somewhere unexpected. Good chemistry between hosts who clearly disagree.
• Author Mary Roach Talks Body Science, Space Toilets, and Cars (DRIVE with Jim Farley), Mary Roach keeps an emesis basin in her glove box as a conversation piece, which tells you everything about how this interview goes. She connects space waste logistics to crash-test cadaver calibration to software-controlled car horns with genuine curiosity, and it's the kind of guest appearance that has nothing to do with horsepower but will hold the attention of anyone who likes the way weird expertise intersects with cars.
• Not Dave Attenborough (Smith and Sniff), The BYD Atto 3 being renamed 'the Attenborough 3' is the kind of stupid joke that lands perfectly because they commit to it, and the episode moves freely between a £1,150 wet-belt-change horror story, rare convertible details, and a genuinely careful pivot to mental health resources. The tonal range is unusual and the hosts handle the serious stretch without it feeling grafted on.
• Classic Auto Mall - #244 Stewart Howden and Guest Brett Mezrow (Classic Auto Mall SHOW), Broadcast from inside an actual classic car showroom, the conversation about event curation, comparing concours logistics to cars-and-coffee, dealing with traffic permits and safety, building provenance through photo albums and receipts, is grounded in real operational experience. The Italian-themed upcoming event with a Koenigsegg in the mix, plus a 1964 Pontiac Tempest Custom Sport with PHS documentation, gives collector-car enthusiasts specific things to chew on.
• 352: 2018 BMW 640i No Crank, Coolant In A Place You Wouldn't Expect (Automotive Diagnostic Podcast), The diagnostic path here is genuinely surprising: a no-crank condition on a low-mileage 640i leads to 28, 29V readings that shouldn't exist, and the actual culprit turns out to be coolant wicked into a BDC connector via the coolant-level sensor circuit. It's a clean procedural story with a satisfying answer and a practical lesson about why visual inspection still matters after scan tools point you somewhere obvious.
• From Boardroom to the Sahara: A Late-Lived Reset Through Motorcycle Travel (Adventure Rider Radio, Motorcycle Podcast), Rob Bridges returned to riding after decades away, dealing with licensing setbacks and mentally shifting from boardroom emergency-mode to Saharan simplicity, and it's a story that works for any vehicle-based traveler, not just motorcycle riders. The specifics, Garmin versus Waze in Morocco, throttle locks for wrist fatigue, solo vulnerability as a feature rather than a bug, keep it from being generic retirement-adventure content.

Next Week

Watch for more concrete product details from Stellantis as its Fastlane 2030 platform and North American model commitments get scrutinized by dealers and suppliers, and expect used-EV pricing and battery-health transparency to keep generating listener questions as spring buying season peaks.

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257 episodes. 2687 car mentions. 9300 terms explained. Browse every episode with searchable annotations and plain-language term definitions in the Car Curious app.