Latest / In Wheel Time Podcast / The Future of Electric Vehicles: Hype vs Reality

Transcript

The Future of Electric Vehicles: Hype vs Reality · In Wheel Time Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast, a 30-minute mini version of the In Wheel Time Car Show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11 am, and welcome to the award-winning In Wheel Time Car Talk Show Just ahead, noted author car aficionado and our go-to therapist, jack Nerab, joins us.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I'll give you my thoughts on driving the 2025 Alfa Stelvio, and Jeff has the Motor Minute in this segment of the In Real Time Car Talk Show Howdy, along with Mike out of this world, mars.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We always need more Jeff Zekin.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: David Ainsley is packing, getting ready for his big trip to the Youper that's the UP of Michigan, for his three-week extravaganza and he'll be back with us when he gets back.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm Don Armstrong, by the way.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: And thanks so much for joining us.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: We're book pointing at you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that I'm not exactly sure why that's a scary part.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: He did it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: You're Don Armstrong.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: He did it.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I am, it's all my fault.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: It's the Don Armstrong.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Let's go out to the West Coast, shall we?
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, live from the Los Angeles, california area of the West Coast.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: The Left Coast, as some folks like to call it, is Jack Nerad.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Jack, it's a pleasure, honor to see you again.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: It is such a pleasure to be with you guys.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: I really do appreciate it.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: How are things out there in CA?
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: Interesting Always.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: It's an interesting place to live.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it never fails to amaze me.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, the governor makes more news than the news.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, he's running for president, that's true.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: He's got to be out there, has he?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: officially announced that.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: No, he did 12 years ago.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: It's pretty obvious that he thinks he's the guy and he's doing what he can to get attention and he's getting a lot of attention.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: You know how kids are.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: They like attention, whether it's good attention or bad attention.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: I see some of that from Governor Newsom.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: That's like one of those kids that goes bonkers in the grocery store and you just walk away and leave them lying down on the floor kicking and screaming and making a big deal out of everything.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they stop.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And then they stop.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: I don't think he's going to stop, though I'm not sure that he's going to stop.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Well, Jack, it's always a pleasure to talk to you and get the latest.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: We just read the story about the Cadillac Celeste.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Have you driven one of those yet?
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: I haven't driven one, but my reaction is largely like your reaction.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: In fact, my reaction about a lot of the Cadillac electrics is the same, and I would think that in Southern California here, where there's a lot of affluent people I wish I were one of them we would see a lot more Cadillacs, and electric Cadillacs in particular, and you know I see none.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: There's virtually none being driven.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Overridden with with Tesla's out there.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and of course Tesla had had its little thing with Musk joining the Trump administration.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Suddenly that became on the outs for a lot of people.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: So I guess they didn't quite know what to do with themselves and they couldn't all offload their Teslas right away.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: I think maybe that's calmed down some now, their teslas right away.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: I think maybe that's calmed down some now.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: But uh, you know, tesla did certainly take a hit, uh in in sales during that that period of time yeah to their bottom line and the value of the company.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Everything um yeah.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So have you driven anything really fun, exciting here lately?
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: I have, in fact, one of the vehicles and maybe you'll laugh at this or maybe you won't is the Volvo XC60 Polestar Engineered Edition, and it is kind of a sleeper car in that it has 455 horsepower, I think, something like over 500 pound-feet of torque.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: It's a little hot rod, but it's a crossover.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: It is probably among the most complicated consumer vehicles ever put out there, because it's got turbocharging, supercharging, mild hybrid, it's you know, anything you could put under the hood.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: It's in there.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure that I really want to own one, but it's really cool to drive.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I know that Mr Mars recently drove a Volvo and he wanted to shoot it, I think after he hit it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: And he's back driving a Volvo as of yesterday.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Is it the same?
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: one Came back from the shop.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Did you get more ammo?
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, I did.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I had time to stock up.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that the problem was that the range pretty much killed it over his enjoyment of the Volvo.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I have to add an hour and a half to my trip over here if I drive it here, because it will not go from here to there.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: What are you driving?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: It's the Volvo.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember which one it is.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I kind of wiped it from my mind.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Is it the EX30 or EX90?
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: You know, it's obviously, and it seems like an electric right.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: It is the EV.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it is the EV.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I don't even remember.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: I got it back from the shop late yesterday afternoon.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: They dropped it off, I parked it in the driveway?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it can't make it over here from where it might sit for a while he drives about 90 miles.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: It's 112 miles door to door 112 miles and the car will not make 112 miles on one full electric charge.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Well, it'll make it over here, but I gotta allow an hour whatever time it takes, because I get about 80 on average.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: If it says it'll do 100, I can get about 80 miles out of it, so I'd have to find someplace close to charge it to try and get back home and I'm sure that you've dealt with that and not I have actually my.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: My daughter went to school.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: She just graduated.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Actually, my youngest daughter just graduated from cal poly in San Luis Obispo, which is exactly 200 miles from my house, and so we would go up there Frequently.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: We'd go up there just for the day, drive up early in the morning, come back at night, avoiding Southern California and Central California traffic, and I always had the opportunity to drive an electric, but I passed on it for exactly what Michael's talking about.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: It's like what do I do when I'm there?
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: And time is really precious?
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: I don't have an hour to charge a car at one end of this or the other.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: It just wouldn't work.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: So a vehicle with 200 miles of range and 250 miles of range, you're really on the edge just getting one way, and then you have to charge and you're at the mercy of public charging, which is pretty iffy well, like don drives one, he's got a place that when he drives it to work I charge it all day.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: He's charged it all day.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm here three hours.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: And and his 110 charging system when three hours doesn't do a whole lot.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: You're getting like five miles of added range.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: Well and.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: I think that's kind of pointing out a larger question here.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering, if we're at peak EV, that we're not going to see many people.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: I really have to wonder who is about to buy an EV right now.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: I guess right now is better than two months or three months from now, when there are no tax incentives to buy them too.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: But certainly, once the tax incentives are gone, what's the impetus to buy an electric vehicle then?
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: I'm curious what you guys think about that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that they'll still sell some, but I think it's going to be those folks that have kind of more disposable income than most in the fact that they've either got a stay-at-home mom raising kids, goes back and forth to school with the kids or the grocery store or church.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: That sort of stuff keeps it local, never tries to venture out of town with that and, uh, I guess they use uses the husbands or whoever's regular gasoline powered car and the way you described on.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: You don't need 300 miles of range to do that that's correct you can get by with 150 miles of range, and that would make the car a lot less expensive that's where the plug-in hybrid would really come in, because it's not near as expensive and you get 150 miles on a charge and you're good to go.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: And if you want to make that 200-mile trip or 300-mile trip because of the hybrid, you can do that.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: I mean that's my wife's pushback on it because I told her the same thing.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: You know you don't go more than 10 miles from the house two or three times a day, so charging, I mean you could charge it up an EV and keep it going and not use any gas or get pretty close to it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: But she said, what if I want to go to the mall?
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: That's 30 miles away.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Jack, how much is gas out there on average today?
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: It's about $4.50 a gallon.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I think for regular right now it's come down some.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: It was well over $5.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: And I'm kind of surprised it's come down a little.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: I think it's going to go back up.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: I think it's going to go back up.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: I think it'll be well over $5.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: And you know the way things are going.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: They haven't built a refinery here in 50 years.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: You can't get permits to build a refinery.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: That's part of the problem.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: We have special gas regulations too.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Our gas is somewhat different, especially, I think, in the winter than it is across the country, I think in the winter than it is across the country.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: So you know we're kind of stuck in a bad situation here that's probably going to get worse.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: You can keep importing from Texas and keep us employed over here.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah Well, and that's part of the issue too, is transporting the gas.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: And again, it's not the same SPAC gas, which is kind of weird, but really true.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: I think we have a winter blend that is different.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: It's illegal to sell 49-state gas in California at some time of the year.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: We still have that as well.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: They have a different blend here in the wintertime than they do in the summertime.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Gas here, I think I paid $2.70 this week for a gallon of gasoline I got $2.58.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: And I'm not trying to rub it in, just to give you an idea.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: We're trying to get you to move here.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we're getting close.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: In fact, my wife is in Dallas right now.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: My middle daughter just bought a house in Fort Worth and so you know.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: You got to start somewhere.
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of Texas in the Neerad family.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, a couple of weeks ago we took a little trip up to Granbury, texas.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of that?
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: I have, I've been there.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: It's very nice.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful place and it's just south of Fort Worth, so I'm thinking the Neerad compound is going to be there in Granbury and if you need to get a press car, no big deal, just come on down.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you 4th of July weekend we're going to be at Cedar Creek Lake which is south of Dallas about an hour or so, and we're going to spend a week there.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: It's another nice place.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: A lot of Texas connections with us.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think about car shows, jack?
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Are we going to continue to have new car shows or are they going to go away?
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: You know it's a big question.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: I think the car companies are cutting off their nose, despite their face, by not attending car shows or not supporting car shows.
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: I just interviewed and we'll have the interview on America on the Road in the next couple of weeks here kind of the founder of Electrify Expo, which is electric car shows across the country, but he calls them kind of the anti-car show because they're very experiential, you can drive the cars.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: The most recent one in Los Angeles was outdoors and kind of more like a festival than a traditional car show of cars on carpet.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: But you know I love car shows, I think auto shows are terrific and I think there's a still a place for them.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: But uh well, if manufacturers don't support them, it's it's very difficult to see them.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: They got it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: They got in such a habit like excuse me, particularly up in the detroit and chicago show.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: I mean you're talking about vehicles coming down from the ceiling or rising up from below the stage.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I mean you're talking about some expensive stuff.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: That was all show but it didn't help the consumers that wanted to come, the ticket buyers that came in for the week that the show was open.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: And they didn't even see them.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, a lot of those media events were closed to the public and 20 minutes would cost the manufacturer a million dollars or two million dollars to produce.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: I mean they were big shows absolutely.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: But I don't know how effective they were.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Well, the Houston show still gets very good traffic and very good numbers for the five days that it's open.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: But you know that's not the case in other cities.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: For instance, detroit has really been handed the backhand of a lot of folks.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: They shot themselves in the foot, yeah they shot themselves in the foot, didn't have a venue, and then they moved it to the middle of the summer outdoors.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Just one thing after another, and I know that they're trying to do something different and bring people in, but if people don't attend, well, I guess that's the end of that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think they're putting it back in the wintertime.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: Wintertime's a great time in the upper Midwest to have an auto show, because what are you going to do?
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It's like bowling, jack, it's terrible outside.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you just go to an auto show.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like bowling.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Let's go inside and have some fun.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the downturn or the lack of participation is how they promote it.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've got Rochelle Salinas that does the work here for the Houston Auto Show.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know the caliber of the folks that do the California or the Detroit, but it seems like they need a little bit more effort.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I did a thing on this not very long ago on the decline of the auto shows and the hot rod shows and things.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So I think it's the people that organize it and get it running.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I think that's part of it.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I think it's money, because we never did have the big cars coming in from the ceiling type thing.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: It's all been more geared toward the spectator or the ticket buyer.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Right, and in Houston it's the auto boat of shows, so you're combining the boat folks with the car folks, trailers, all that stuff, so it works out yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty close to the LA Auto Show people and they do a good job.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: They still get good consumer attendance, but they don't have many luxury manufacturers participating and I think that's a big problem.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: It's a big problem in Southern California where you would think you know this is a big luxury market, this might be the biggest luxury market in the world and they're just not reaching those folks.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Do they think that the luxury buyer doesn't go to car shows?
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: I think that's what they think, or they think there's other ways they can reach them.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: They want to be more specialized, but what they're missing is the aspirational people, the people who aren't necessarily luxury buyers now, but are going to be luxury buyers as they age and get more affluent yeah, just wait, wait, just wait till I win the lottery.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Man, I'm going to buy one of those luxury cars, I know I mean we all went.
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: We undoubtedly all went to car shows when we were teenagers and everything was aspirational, right it's?
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: like man.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I wish I had one of those things, but yeah, they're missing that.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: We did a story earlier.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Our story of the week this week was about all of the things that manufacturers are slapping on cars these days.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Auto Week had a special on it and so we kind of talked about that and the fact that you know, self-driving aspects of the cars, self-braking, all this automotive stuff, and it seems that it's not really resonating with the buyers and they don't want it because it costs too much money and it really, I know.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: For me, the lane keeping assist, what an annoying, absolute annoying feature.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: To fight the car, to go keep it in the damn lane, and I think, no, I don't want that and I tell everybody don't buy it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: You're going to drive yourself insane with this thing.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: The other thing is that I drove a car here recently that the infotainment system was very confusing.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And in today's day and age, how long have we had infotainment systems now?
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: For what?
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Over a decade, yeah probably 20 years.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you would think that they have gotten it down.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Some manufacturers have gotten it down.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: You know it's easy to use and understand and all that, but some make it so difficult.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Who designs these things?
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a real turnoff of somebody that is really computer savvy, especially to get into a car and you've got to spend 10 minutes trying to find how to change the radio station.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a giant turnoff and I mean it's quantified.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: We just reported on our show about the JD Power initial quality study and the biggest problems are infotainment systems exactly what you've identified, I mean and they're not getting better.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: More stuff is going into the touchscreens.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't know about you.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I'd much rather have a button or knob to grab when I'm driving that I don't even have to look at, I can just reach over, and I know I got into a vehicle the other day and it had a on-off and volume knob on the radio and then a tuning knob on the other side, you know, just like a 65 Chevy, and it was a boon.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: It was like wow, I haven't seen this in a long time, but it really works well.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the studies keep pointing in that direction, saying, hey look, this is what resonates with, buyers, do this.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: But the manufacturers are slow on the uptick and I think that it really hurts them when it comes down to sales.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Well, it's the millennials designing it too.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Well, there's that yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, jack, it's always a pleasure to talk to you, my friend.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And so the summer plans you've already got them in place.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: You're looking forward to any big car stuff that you're going to be doing.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: We're going to do a Made in America tour.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: America on the Road Our radio show is going to do a Made in America tour where my wife and I are going to take an American-made vehicle and we're going to drive the upper Midwest and go to ballparks and national parks.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: So we're going to go to Milwaukee, detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: We're going to go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: We're going to do a lot of that stuff.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: So that's going to happen late July and into August.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: How fun, that's neat, yeah, and we also understand that book sales are picking up.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my newest book is.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: Only One Thing Stays the Same it's a crime novel.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Actually, the protagonist is kind of a car guy.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: He's got a 69 Barracuda.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Imagine that.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: It's his car of choice, but it's about crime and he gets involved in some things he probably shouldn't get involved in.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Sounds like us.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: So, jack, do you get any input on your book covers, or do you have somebody completely?
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I actually help design them or I give a lot of input on the covers.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: I like them, thank you.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Thank you, I like them too.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I think, and we like you too, jack, it's great to talk to you always.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: My friend, take care of yourself, be safe this summer and we'll talk to you next month, hope I this summer and we'll talk to you next month.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Hope I can't wait to talk to you guys again.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: All right, Jack, Be safe, Take care, my friend.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Just ahead, a review of the 2025 Alfa Romeo Stelvio and Jeff's Motor Minute.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: After this quick break on the In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show.
• 18:34
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  Speaker 1: Loopy Tortilla he's pretty good.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Apple or Android In Wheel Time podcasts can be found everywhere on the stream and through downloads.
• 19:40
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• 19:45
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• 19:55
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• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Inwheeltimecom has a list, and we know you love lists.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Well, the summer heat has us hiding inside the Sugar Shack studios for a while, so we invite you to join us for the live In Wheel Time show every Saturday, 10 to noon Central Time on InWheelTimecom, youtube and Facebook Time.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Now for Jeff's Motor Minute.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how about that?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Nascar is suffering from viewership on their Amazon Prime video.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're down 21%.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: They've got a contract through 2031 for $8.8 billion.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: Now I'm going to read these.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: These are some comments from some actual fans, race car fans.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to read it, like Casey Kasem, of course.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: This comes from Rick.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Rick Jabo, it's usually hard to know what channel the NASCAR race is on this week.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: They do a terrible job promoting the sport.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And now for the Coke 600, on Memorial Day tradition, they put it on Prime TV.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Only.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: How about?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: How out of touch can you possibly be?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks, rick.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: This one comes from Jim Been, a NASCAR fan for 40 years.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Now it's more important to switch to Prime TV and make more money.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I'm done.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I will not pay for Prime TV to watch the races.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: In another 10 years, nascar will have zero fans.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: The younger generations are just not interested and the older ones won't pay.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks, jim.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: A little bit of anger management there, and then this one's going to sum it up this comes from Chris.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: You disgraceful bleep word.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: This race puts on the best military support presentation.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: They deprive all of us of that.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: As a proud American, you guys are an embarrassment.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: At least I don't have to watch one big long Toyota commercial.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Goodbye in all languages.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: Chris has some anger management.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: In other words, you suck yeah, so it goes on and on.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: You can pull these up and NASCAR is losing viewership because of the Prime and all that good stuff.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Well, NHRA as you know it's been a lifelong thing of mine to always follow drag racing.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I don't follow it anymore because you know what?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I can't find it on TV and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay with commercials.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: You're making the money off of the commercials.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Let me see it for free.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Oh no, we can't do that.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: We're going to try to rob you as well, they promote it as a new episode, new broadcast, and it's from like two days ago.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and you already know the results.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Not playing that game?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: No, not doing it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Not doing it, I ain't going to do it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: All right Time now for this hour's car review.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Jeff and I had the opportunity to ride and or drive the 2025 Alfa Stelvio.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Final assembly location is Casino Italy.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's kind of appropriate, don't you agree?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So it comes in these trim levels base intensa and triputo italiano.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Forget about it, forget about it.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I had the veloce package.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It was the base with the Veloce package.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It's going to be good.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, my Italian isn't really all that good, yeah it's not up to speed.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: No, it is a small SUV five seats in it.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Exterior changes.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it was all new in 2018.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: So it's getting a little long in the tooth, but this is a fun, sporty ride.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I saw one pass down the street, really yeah, the other day.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Sharp looking, unique and attractive overall design with a triangular grille.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Now you're thinking, wait a minute, a triangular grille?
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Ooh, no, it works.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Smooth rear sunshade over the hatch glass Wheels, five rounded hoops for the spokes.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: It's kind of weird, but it works.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Green, white, red Italy tribute on the side view mirrors.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: It's a little bitty thing, but it's fun.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yep, what I liked about it is its uniqueness, and I, speaking of unique, had the green paint called Verde Fangio and it got believe this.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: He put some ointment on it and it went away.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you this.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I got more damn comments.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Positive comments hey man, I really like the color of that car and when I first got it I thought, no, that doesn't do it for me.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: But everybody liked it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big green car fan because that goes back to racing superstitions and all that, but at any rate, yeah, verde, fangio Interior Highly detailed design on the interior, hvac in its own pod, below the center vent, two-pod instrument cluster with a smallish infotainment screen.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But remember, this is from 2018.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: The start button is on the steering wheel, which is kind of weird.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But, like I said, this is a very unique vehicle.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Very Italian Cargo room, small.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: What I liked about it?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: The very Italian neck, Italian uniqueness.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: You ain't going to find anything like this.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: This is one unto itself.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I'm actually kind of surprised that they don't sell more of them.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: This thing is pretty cool.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Infotainment functions are confusing, however.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: My Italian friend schooled me on the thought process and I still don't understand it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: So you have to become a little bit Italian to be able to understand the functions and how it all operates.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Eat a lot of pasta.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Two liter, turbocharged, four cylinder, 280 horsepower, so it's got some juice Torque 306 pound-feet of torque and it can tow up to 3,000 pounds, mileage 22, city, 28 highway for combined to 24.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I got 25.4 miles per gallon over the 754.7 miles that I drove up to Granbury and back and then back and forth to work.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: What I liked about it?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: The sport car-like handling that is built on the Giulia platform, which is a sedan that really is a sporty sedan.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: The half of Romeo thing is sportiness and it's got that kind of ride and unique handling to it and you either like it or you don't like it.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I like it, I like it.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I like to be able to go around corners fast.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure about feeling comfortable about that in a high-platform SUV, but apparently it'll do it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: How much was it?
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Well, the base trim price is $48,995.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: The price as tested $59,140.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: The base model price $48,995.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Competitors include the Audi Q5 for $45,400.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: The Mercedes-Benz GLC for $49,250.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: And the Acura ADX that I didn't even know about.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: You know we don't get too many Acuras to drive.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: No, we don't.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Did you know that there was an ADX?
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: No, there's the RDX.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: You're familiar with the RDX?
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the Acura ADX, which is a small platform.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It competes with the Lexus UX, so it's small, small.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: $44,000 is what they're getting or asking for the Acura ADX.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Huh yeah, it was a very unique vehicle and I'd like to thank Kimberly Schultz, with Stellantis, who allowed me to drive all those miles in it you liked it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I liked the car.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: The car was very comfortable, the seat positions you could get put anywhere and you'd get comfortable.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I agree with you, the infotainment system was a little challenging.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: We were trying to do some things.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Jeff, I'm trying to drive, Would you please do this?
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Well, let's see, it's on the steering wheel.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Well, there you go.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I got my hands over here and I'm going like this Digging around on the steering wheel trying to get things.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: And the truck driver going by is looking out the window like what the hell are these two men doing in there we?
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: had four hands on the steering wheel trying to figure stuff out.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: We made it.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we did.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: We were trying to reset the trip odometer and you had to drill down into it to reset the trip odometer.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: That's some of that, more of that stuff where it's getting too complicated.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: When you get there, you got to know what to do with it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So there was.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I broke out the manual.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: We read the manual.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: By the way, that green paint job was an extra $2,200.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Just saying.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: It was a nice vehicle.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: The front grill you said the, what'd you call that?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Triangle?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Triangle, like what the Edsel used to be, with the horse collar.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, that is not ugly.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Well, to me it's kind of.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I think of that one.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: You're more traditional.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: You're a Detroit boy.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to get in touch with us, shoot us an email.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: The address is info at inwheeltimecom.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: We'll be back right after this.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: You own a car you love.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Why not let Gulf Coast Auto Shield protect it?
• 29:00
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• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Curbed your wheels.
• 29:21
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• 29:23
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• 29:26
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• 29:33
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• 29:41
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• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Call them today 832-930-5655, or gcautoshieldcom.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: The award-winning In Wheel Time Car Talk Show now reaches 5.3 million folks each year.
• 29:57
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• 30:08
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• 30:18
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• 30:20
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• 30:20
  Speaker 1: That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, youtube, twitch and our InWheelTimecom website.
• 30:36
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• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Keep listening and we'll see you soon.