Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.
"> the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor James Riswick and News Editor Joel Stocksdale. Joel shares his experience checking out the Tesla Cybertruck in Chicago. James leads a discussion concerning GM's track record with the Ultium EV roll-out and the company's history with electrification, including hybrids. He also talks about his experience getting a home EV charger. And as for the cars that we've been driving, the group discusses the Honda Prologue, BMW i5 and BMW X1.Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.
"> the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor James Riswick and News Editor Joel Stocksdale. Joel shares his experience checking out the Tesla Cybertruck in Chicago. James leads a discussion concerning GM's track record with the Ultium EV roll-out and the company's history with electrification, including hybrids. He also talks about his experience getting a home EV charger. And as for the cars that we've been driving, the group discusses the Honda Prologue, BMW i5 and BMW X1.Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.
">In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor James Riswick and News Editor Joel Stocksdale. Joel shares his experience checking out the Tesla Cybertruck in Chicago. James leads a discussion concerning GM's track record with the Ultium EV roll-out and the company's history with electrification, including hybrids. He also talks about his experience getting a home EV charger. And as for the cars that we've been driving, the group discusses the Honda Prologue, BMW i5 and BMW X1.
Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.
Transcript[MUSIC PLAYING]
GREG MIGLIORE: Welcome back to "The Autoblog Podcast." I'm Greg Migliore. We have an awesome show for you this week. We've been driving a lot of cool things. We've been sitting in a lot of cool things, like the Tesla Cybertruck. This is our first up close experience with this enormous, aluminum, wedge-shaped truck-- stainless steel.
And newsletter editor Joel Stocksdale will tell us what that's like. West Coast Editor and Senior Editor for all things features James Riswick, has been living with a wallbox. He's going to tell us what that's like-- for the last year. We'll drive some cool things like the Honda Prologue, the BMW i5, X1. So with that, let's get right into it. And I will welcome in James Riswick and Joel Stocksdale. Gentlemen, how are we doing today?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Pretty good.
JAMES RISWICK: Very good.
GREG MIGLIORE: Very good. All right, it is summer-like. It is February 27, recording this, and my phone says it is 66 degrees. So-- I'm sorry, 69. High is going to be 70. I think we've already set the record in Metro Detroit. So what is the temperature in LA, James?
JAMES RISWICK: 58. I have no idea what it is in LA, actually. I'm outside LA.
GREG MIGLIORE: There you go.
JAMES RISWICK: Our weather here in the Conejo Valley is a little weird. But it is 58 degrees.
GREG MIGLIORE: We got 10 degrees on you. But it's supposed to be hail, and it will be a low of 20 tomorrow. So.
JAMES RISWICK: Not so much here. Not so much here. That's where the long-term-- you guys play the long game. So I think this is pretty cool. Joel was at the Chicago Auto Show a couple of weeks ago now.
And this says Tesla-- I almost called it the Cessna-- the Tesla Cybertruck was there. First of all, why was it there? It just kind of appeared. Was it, like, an owner? Or, like, how did this thing get there? Did Elon drive to Chicago, eat some pizza, and just park at McCormick? Like, what was the deal?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Well, Tesla actually had a display at the Chicago show. It was a small one and fairly modest, which actually doesn't necessarily fit with the personality of the company's owner. But they had two vehicles on display. They had the updated Model 3 Highland, and they had the Cybertruck.
And they also had a number of Tesla's Model 3 and Model S in the electric car test drive circuit that was also inside the hall. But yeah, it was actually a Tesla display there. And there were even, like, people there to tell you about the car.
GREG MIGLIORE: Wow. Did you know there was actually a Tesla appearance in Detroit? I didn't totally realize this until after the fact. Apparently, it was part of, like, the electric ride and drive circuit setup. And it was factory-supported. So I don't know, Tesla is doing auto shows and Stellantis isn't. What a world.
But you sat in the Cybertruck. And I have not. I don't think you have, James. Most people probably haven't. What was it like?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Well, the inside is a lot better than the outside is what I will start with. It is kind of what you expect from a Tesla. It is minimalist to a fault, and I feel doesn't really actually take advantage of what's great about minimalism, is that minimalism takes things down to their basics and simplifies things.
But there's always that nice kind of detail or structure to something that you can really appreciate once you've taken away all the other stuff. There's not so much of that in the Cybertruck interior. The Cybertruck interior is pretty much just like flat sheer edges, kind of like the outside. But they're finished a lot better than the outside.
Like, it's soft touch plastics and, like, upholstered surfaces and things. The seats are actually quite comfortable. The screen is big, and everything is on it. Thankfully, it's a very good screen. It's very bright. It's sharp. It runs extremely smoothly and quickly. It's probably one of the best screens out there.
But again, it better be, because that's how you're interacting with everything in the car. So that thing better be good. It does have-- oh, were you going to ask something, James?
JAMES RISWICK: Oh, no, I was going to ask about-- the one thing I've wondered about it is kind of, like, headroom. Because it's such a wacky pants roofline. So what's it like in the back seat and in the front seat?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: So front seat, loads of headroom. But that's also mainly because that's kind of where the point of the cabin is. The rear seat, a lot of people have been saying that it's not that bad. I think it's cutting it a little close.
It's not as bad as you might think, because it does have a glass roof. So you do actually get a little bit more space up there than you think. But it was a fairly small gap between, like, my head and the roof. I'm about 5'11.
So, James, I'm guessing your head would probably be touching the roof in the back. Legroom is quite excellent in the back. And the seats, again, are very comfortable, very supportive. Lots of legroom-- lots of foot room too. So it's pretty easy to stretch out.
I was also quite surprised-- access is very easy. Because the rear doors, in particular, open up to, like, a full 90 degrees. So it's actually quite easy to get in and out of this truck, which, again, I'm glad, because the rear door aperture is not particularly big. So you kind of do need it to open up that far for it to work. But it works.
The interior is also-- it's probably not as bad outside, because you do have the glass roof, but it does feel very dark inside, because it is, like, an all-black interior. And the view forward from the front seats is not great. It's got a crazy long dash.
But what really is kind of an issue is the front pillars are absurdly thick. And because it's such a low angle, you get huge blind spots forward, both left and right. And it's kind of the same deal going backwards as well, because, again, it's kind of like the first generation Honda Ridgeline, where you had those, like, kind of flying buttress pillars.
And so that obscures a whole lot of your rearview. And then, of course, the rear tonneau cover will completely block your rearview and mirror. So it has a digital projection on the screen.
JAMES RISWICK: Wait, hold on. The visual is on the screen, not in the mirror?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: That is correct.
JAMES RISWICK: Oh, no.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: Oh.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: It's a little weird. And especially because--
JAMES RISWICK: By "weird," you mean "bad?"
JOEL STOCKSDALE: I'll reserve total judgment for that until driving it, because, I mean, it's still going to be somewhat up and in the middle.
JAMES RISWICK: Come on. You're not trained-- for your rearview mirror, the reason the rearview camera works is because it's where the rearview-- you are trained as a driver to look up there. OK, great, if my daily driver was a '58 Corvette and the rearview mirror was mounted to the dashboard, cool.
But that's what not most people are used to. So I mean, every-- I live in a silly place where I have somehow seen eight Cybertrucks. And every single one has had that tonneau cover in place. But that means that you're using that one screen-- does the rearview camera stay on that screen the whole time, and the speedometer, and, like, how much real estate is then left to everything else? That's-- oh.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. Well, and also when, like, every other manufacturer knows how to put it, like, in the mirror--
JAMES RISWICK: It's not every-- well, I mean, honestly, it's not every manufacturer knows how to, it's all those manufacturers are buying a part from a supplier. GM's not making that thing, you know?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah, but it's the same-- it's the same thing. It's like, all these automakers know how they can at least get that part, whether they can make it or not. But this is also a company that still refuses to do head-up displays, which is also the case in this. I don't know if it's a combination of trying to be cheap or--
JAMES RISWICK: Yes.
GREG MIGLIORE: Also probably--
JAMES RISWICK: That.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Well, and probably a command from Musk that he's like, I don't want a weird little square in the middle of my perfectly smooth, clean dashboard.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah. But the Model S had a regular IP, as did the Model X. This is such-- it's cost-cutting. I'm sorry. Like, getting people on board that it's somehow minimalist-- yeah, it's minimalist if you remove every single piece of hardware apart from a screen in the interior.
Of course it's minimalist. But there's a difference between, like, design minimalism and, like, budgetary minimalism.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Right.
JAMES RISWICK: You know, if you drive a farm truck from 1938, that's pretty minimalist too. I'm sorry, I just can't get on board with, like, that-- we're not going to put the rearview camera mirror in it, oh, because of minimalism. Like, no, there's still a mirror back-- there's a regular mirror up there, right?
So it's like, no, we're not getting that supplier. And we're not going to put a shifter in the car. And we're not going to pay for stocks on the wheel anymore. We're going to put them all in the wheel, because now we only have to do two parts, a steering wheel-- and I'm sure they would rather not put a steering wheel-- and then the-- no, it doesn't. It literally has a yoke, right? But and then the screen.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Speaking of that yoke.
GREG MIGLIORE: About that yoke.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: It's better than the one in the Model S Plaid, because this actually has, like, kind of brace bar things across the top and bottom. So there is at least something to grab there. It's still very much like rectangular square kind of shape. And, because the Cybertruck has steer-by-wire with a very fast ratio, you actually will just kind of have your hands on the wheel--
JAMES RISWICK: Doesn't need it.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Sorry?
JAMES RISWICK: Ironically, it doesn't need it, because of, like-- I haven't driven the Cybertruck, but if it's the same as the Lexus system, you really wouldn't. You don't really need it.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. They could have actually gotten away with the old one. And, fortunately, in this case, getting rid of the stocks and putting, like, the turn signal buttons and things on the steering wheel works better in this case also, just because, again, you're not really going to be taking your hands off the wheel.
So your thumbs are kind of always going to be where they need to be. That doesn't work in the Model 3 Highland, which I'm taking a small segue here, where it also has the stocks gone in favor of putting the buttons on the steering wheel face. But that has conventional steering. So any time you're going to be going, like, through a corner or something, and, actually, you probably have your turn signals on, you're going to be going hand-over-hand, and your turn signal buttons are going to be going this way and that, and aren't going to be easy to get to, and might be facing different directions. So that's a whole thing.
JAMES RISWICK: To be fair, I remember that being a criticism of the Ferrari Italia when that came out.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. Yeah, it's not an exclusively Tesla-- it's, like, it's a problem no matter who did it. The other thing--
JAMES RISWICK: Well, and the thing is the Ferrari does it because, I believe, it has the gigantic paddle shifters.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yes. They do need to have space for that, whereas you don't on the Tesla.
JAMES RISWICK: So either your paddle shifters are far away or your signal-- I mean, if you have-- like, if you drive an Alfa Romeo, they kind of have the same shifters. And the stocks are kind of in weird places. And they get in the way. So, like, that's why. And it's a Ferrari Italia, so they make eight of them-- I think Ferraris-- sorry, I have not driven a modern Ferrari.
So I do not know how that-- I'm assuming they still have those. But it's less of a deal because a lot fewer people buy them.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. Oh, and then one last thing with the steering wheel. So when I first hopped into the truck, I realized that something that I rely on a lot with, like, taller vehicles is grabbing on to the steering wheel to help me lift inside. That's not so easy when, like, that usable grab handle is either non-existent or, like, really low and kind of small.
JAMES RISWICK: I did that in the Lexus. I definitely did that when I was driving the RZ with the steer-by-wire.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: And adding to that, there's no, like, A-pillar grab handle either. So--
JAMES RISWICK: It's in the screen. It's in the screen.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Right. Yes. Yeah, so interior, I mean, it's got foibles and stuff. But there are some positives. The exterior--
GREG MIGLIORE: This is the uncontroversial part, right?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. The exterior, I mean, I still don't like the design. But what really shocked me was the finish on the panels. They-- so, like, I'm not-- I'm not that nitpicky about panel gap and fitment. Like, I think for the most part, people don't really even notice.
It's not good. So I'm using that to preface the fact that it's really bad on this. There are some pictures in our first look of it where it's, like, on the A-pillar where, like, the fender and the A-pillar meet, it's, like, weirdly tight and, like, just not flush.
And then there are other places where it's just really far apart, and other places where they just mismatch by a whole bunch. And a lot of this stuff also stands out a lot when you just have sheer flat panels with just straight edges. So any time any of that is off, it stands out a lot, because it's not really being hidden by any other kind of detailing, or curves, or anything.
But a bigger deal than that is just every single panel-- because something that you may not, like, consciously realize with modern cars is that almost every single panel, the sheet metal has been, like, bent over so you get a nice, smooth edge that's not, like, going to catch on things and isn't going to, like-- and doesn't, like, hurt to touch. This is basically just, like, unfinished edges of metal.
I mean, I think they've been given, like, just the very bare minimum of, like, being filed down. But they're rough and can be kind of sharp. And some of the corners that have been, like, cut, they're not that crisp or smooth. I think it's probably, in part, due to the fact that, like, they're using this stupid thick, stupid hard steel that they can't bend very well.
And it's probably difficult to cut and file down. So the result is you get these really rough finishes. It's not nice. And I will not be surprised if there are people that, like, scrape themselves and cut themselves occasionally on stuff.
And also, like a lot of people were saying, like stainless steel appliances, this thing is the magnet in dirt-- this thing is a fingerprint and dirt magnet. The one on the floor was just covered in fingerprints everywhere along, like, the door edges where you're going to, like, close the door, and open the door, and, like, just kind of smears of, like, dirt and stuff.
JAMES RISWICK: Can you take it to a car wash?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: I think so. I mean, it's just--
JAMES RISWICK: I don't know. I've never taken my stove to a car wash.
GREG MIGLIORE: That sounds like a good SEO story, guys. I don't know-- could you take a Cybertruck to a car wash?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: I think you just-- get, like, a six pack of Pine-Sol and, like, just wipe it down in your driveway.
GREG MIGLIORE: I mean, if Elon Musk had asked me, I could have told him when we got stainless steel faucets, some of them get very smudged, especially when you have, like, a kindergartener at home. So that's why when we continued our faucet renovation, we did not go with stainless steel. We went with brushed nickel-- much easier to clean and maintain.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Well, and, I mean, I even remember reading stuff about DeLorean owners complaining about how hard it was to keep their cars clean. And I think that was probably exacerbated by the fact that those were a brush finish.
So, I mean, the result is you have these very, very fine little grooves in the metal that can accumulate dirt. The Tesla, at least, is more of a smooth finish. So hopefully it's a little bit easier to get dirt off of it. But it's still-- like, it picks it up fast and easy.
GREG MIGLIORE: For me, the biggest question about the Cybertruck is, will they make as many of them as they say they are going to make? Because if you make in the tens of thousands, ultimately, hundreds of thousands, right, we're going to see a lot of these things, and some of these flaws aren't just going to be this novelty.
Like, you saw a car at an auto show, and we spent 20 minutes talking about it? It's kind of crazy, when you think about it. When there's thousands of these things on the road, these flaws are going to be very apparent. And to me, it's going to really determine a good chunk of Tesla's, like, fate, you know?
The stock market is going to lose its mind if the Cybertruck is having all of these problems in mass production. People are going to not want to buy them, I think. You're going to get past that early adopter phase that's willing to put up with, like, literally anything. And then they're going to say, well, I don't want my car to be smudged every three days.
And that's going to cause problems. And I mean, the rearview mirror is problematic. It feels like there's a lot of challenges that will make a mass production vehicle like this, perhaps, very unappealing.
So for what it's worth, I think the design is cool. I mean, an electric truck like this-- I mean, it has all the, like, tenants of what should be a successful product. But it also sounds like a modern dumpster fire version of the DeLorean.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. I mean, they've started making them. So I'm guessing they can probably continue making them.
JAMES RISWICK: But I mean, it's not that different than-- like, it's like Tesla's sports car. That's how I view it. It has-- it'll be-- it has minimal, like, general consumer appeal, because it's weird. And I mean, I'm-- I don't-- I have serious beefs, obviously, with some choices made.
But I mean, it's also, like, it's a weird, niche-y, bizarrely-designed thing kind of like sports cars used to be. And I do think that there's a ceiling on how many they can sell because of the inherent just-- I'm not going to call them flaws, but the inherent limitations of the body style, whatever that may be. And we saw it with the X.
I mean, we've literally seen it already with Tesla. The Model X does not sell in, like, the huge numbers. And it's not just because of the price tag. I mean, that has part to do with it, but it's also the functionality that comes with the price tag. It is not a very functional three-row SUV like another three row SUV would be.
The falcon wing doors, while very cool, are bizarre. And I know there have been problems with them. So there's a hindrance in that way, not unlike all of these things in the Cybertruck. There's just, like, hundreds of them in the Cybertruck. So I think it has a ceiling.
And it's not like-- if you want a more conventional truck, the Rivian's there. The Lightning's there. The Silverado EV will be somewhere over the rainbow. It has a limited ceiling, and that's fine. But let's not try and make it a bigger deal than it is because of that.
GREG MIGLIORE: Now, the tricky part, too, though, is Tesla isn't totally treating it that way. They have a factory that will build 125,000 per year. And they say they have a million hand-raisers that have put down some form of deposit or some sort of an agreement.
So I agree with you, James. I kind of said it myself that, you know, this is, like, a niche product. It's, like, a version of the Roadster or whatever they end up doing with the sports car. You're probably fine. But when you have an enormous factory almost as big as the Rouge plant in Dearborn in Texas to make these things, it seems like that could be a problem for their business model.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Well, so, like, I agree that-- this is going to be much more of that niche halo sports kind of vehicle. And it's-- and they can try and say it's supposed to be, like, this new mainstream revolution of the pickup truck. It just isn't. It's-- it's not going to win, and it's not going to win over truck-buyers. Like, this is designed for the person that is, like, all in on crazy Tesla-ness.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah. I think it's-- yeah, I think it's a very bro car-- tech bro.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: You're going to go home to your mojo dojo casa, and you want your Cybertruck parked out front. I mean, like, if they didn't have the Hummer in the "Barbie" movie, Ken would have driven a Cybertruck.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: Without question.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Now, what I will say, though, that thing got so much attention on the floor. And this was just-- this was on press days. Now, granted, the people that, like, I could recognize as other automotive media were checking it out because, I mean, this was our first and potentially only time that we will have a chance to get up close with one.
And there was significant skepticism and criticism among the actual media and press. The people that were there that were not, like, identifiably, like, journalists, were just like, whoa, this is so cool, and, like, all excited, and swarming it, and checking it out, and even up close were like, wow, this is really, really neat.
And I imagine that will be the reaction for a lot of just average people, because it doesn't look like anything else out there, for all kinds of reasons. But I think, like, actual buyers will probably be just the hardcore.
GREG MIGLIORE: Well, I think we can thank Elon Musk for giving us about almost half an hour-- not quite-- of a podcast. But once you start talking Cybertruck, it's tough to stop. But we've got some other things we want to get to. So let's talk about what it's like to have your own EV charger for a year.
Guess that's a pretty good segue from electric truck to electric charger. This one was the Wall Box-- good name for an electric charger. This is the Pulsar Plus, which I think is a fantastic name, actually, in general. What was this like, James? And what did you learn?
JAMES RISWICK: Well, Yeah, I've had it for a month. The Wall Box Pulsar Plus-- imagine a square that's just kind of, like, a rounded square kind of thing. It's only about the size of a dinner plate, I'd say.
GREG MIGLIORE: That's cool.
JAMES RISWICK: There's no buttons or anything on it. It has a ring within it that glows different colors depending on its mode. Because of that shape, it actually serves as its own wire management system. So you don't need to have, like, a secondary thing there. The wire itself is 25 feet long. Apparently, that is the longest a wire-- a charge cord can currently be.
This is a great thing because you don't need to put it as close as humanly possible to wherever your car is going to be. I have it in the middle of my garage. A lot of this test is, like, to do with my unusual situation of owning an electric car but then needing to charge all the other electric cars that might be out there. So I wanted to be able to have it parked the Niro-- I have an electric Niro in inside the garage.
The Niro is weird because it has its charge port at the front of the car, which makes it kind of easy to charge at any time. But most other cars have them on the right rear. So that long charge cord really allows me to leave it in the garage, but then run the cord outside. That was good.
The other thing-- this is a premium charger, so it does have more functionality. Some of the functionality is the long charge cord. But this is one that has 40 amp and 48 amp versions. The 40 amp ones can be hard-wired. Or if you already have a 240 volt house outlet, you can just plug it in very simply so then you don't have to install it at all if you already have that charger.
I did need to install it. Wall Box, again, full disclosure, Wall Box provided us with this device to test, like we do any number of other products. However, unlike a car or a Yakima Roof Box, this thing is now attached to my house. So it's kind of hard to send it back to them. So a company called Coil installed it for me. And it was pretty easy.
All I did was they sent me, like, we need pictures of, like, these four things-- where the box will be, your electrical panel, just to know that that's it. No one came out beforehand to double check. That was it.
There was a couple of back and forth, is this possible? And Coil is C-O-I-L. And that's one thing that I would recommend, because I thought that this company was very easy to work with. And the one technician did a really good job-- clean, everything looked really good afterwards.
A final cost for installation was $1,095 with $550 for permits and inspections. But, of course, that is related to Agoura Hills, California. Your town would be different.
The Pulsar Plus-- I got the 48 amp version. So this is the top of the line, the most powerful one. It's kind of future-proofed so that when when cars can charge even faster than this, it's capable of doing that. My house limited it down to 40. So I would have had to get a new electrical box to take advantage of the 48 amp.
But it's fine. I mean, like, I can still rapidly charge things. It's not really holding me back on that part. It's really if you have a Lucid, you can really let her rip with a 48 amp. Otherwise, everything else is going on 40.
But in terms of some of the extra features, you can schedule your charging. Now, a lot of cars can do this. Actually, all EV chargers can come on as you like. But with this, because I have multiple cars, I can just do one setting. And I can do it so that, say, I can do it to match off-peak hours.
I can do it as I currently am to match peak sun hours, because I now have a solar panel system on my roof. Now, because my solar panel system isn't the size of Cincinnati, I cannot actually charge the entire car very quickly at full blast using solar power. It's actually not a lot at all. It's only about 2.5kw full sun at this moment in February.
It's probably going to go up as the sun goes on. So one of the elements that's nice about the wall box is you can, quote, kind of "throttle down" the amount of output. So I can equalize the amount of input from the sun to the output of the charger and kind of just run off the sun and be carbon neutral in that way.
And then, when necessary, you know, like, we've had a couple of days without a lot of sun or where my wife wasn't parked at home during the day, I can throttle back up and give it full blast and get it done in five hours, no problem at all. So that's been a nice part of the charger being able to change the amount. The other thing is you can get-- I don't have it, don't really need it-- but there's an accessory you can get that you install with the Wall Box.
And it effectively allows it to throttle itself down automatically based on your current power usage. And this is important because let's say that your electrical box cannot handle 40 amps of this charger going while your stove, and fridge, and all the other-- and air conditioner going at the same time. So instead of blowing out and hitting the breaker every time your car goes on, it automatically adjusts itself for your current power limit.
So this means that even though if your electrician says, oh, no, you can't do this-- you actually can because it monitors itself. That same element also allows you to have two Wall Boxes. So you can have two of them in the same electrical panel, and they'll automatically adjust to each other, working with each other and the system.
So if you have two electric cars, then that makes it possible. So those would be the above and beyond elements of this. So yeah, it's been a good experience. I go into full depth, obviously, in the article, just about how the app works and some of the advantages there.
Yeah. Like, I experienced it with a whole bunch of different cars. And yeah, so, it's a cool system. And because of-- actually, one thing I will note is one problem with electric car adoption-- public fast charging is mentioned a lot. But part of the reason public fast charging is such an issue is because if you live in a condo or an apartment, you can't have home charging. So this ability to link up to 25 of these Wall Boxes together and have them work together is something that could, theoretically, work for name-a-condo or an apartment complex.
So this is, in fact, a solution for that. Now, obviously, your apartment or condo has to install them, but it does make it possible to do that. So that was one element. And Wall Box, the company, actually does most-- a lot of their business in Europe with multi-unit buildings for this very reason.
And they have its own app that allows you to maintain all of them together, almost like an admin situation rather than an individual user. So for-- you know, as an individual user or being able to see the options, both if you have a solar system or if you are a multi-unit complex-- like, I was able to experience why some-- if not this, then something like this really has its advantages.
GREG MIGLIORE: No, I think that's a really good point. And honestly, I'm kind of jealous. I've never had an opportunity to have a home charger. When I had an apartment way back, I actually ran an extension cord out the window to charge the Chevy Volt, which is something we're going to talk about here, well, right now.
You have a pretty good opinion piece. It was one of our top clickers. It got a lot of discussion going on the site about General Motors' fits and starts and the electric vehicle space. I think it's interesting-- another one of our contributors, Jonathan Ramsey, when he saw it go up, he immediately Slacked me-- he's like, hey, I got a reply to that.
So as we all know, he's got some opinions. So I can't wait to read that. And you know, it's interesting, as I look at some of these different examples you mentioned, we were even talking about the almost-- we called it, like, Pointless Hybrid Week when I was testing these at another car magazine-- of these enormous SUVs that had light hybrid systems that got, like, no real discernible better fuel economy.
The Volt, I think is-- you could write a book on that. I think people have. But I guess state your case here.
JAMES RISWICK: So I think the main point is, like, canceling-- I have no problem with canceling vehicles that people aren't buying, right, or is making your company hemorrhage money. Like, I am not opposed to that. I'm not here saying, like, keep selling cars that no one wants. No.
The problem is the cars themselves were kind of, for various reasons, were flawed from the get-go and not set up for success, starting from the Volt. So the Volt initially came out, and it was this really cool concept car that everybody really, like, wow, that thing looks cool. And then they came out with the production car, and, like, well, kind of not surprisingly, if you look at the concept car, it didn't really look the same.
So that was kind of a sad trombone, deflating balloon moment. And then the volt itself, it sat only four people. It did not have a three-person back seat, which immediately hampered its functionality versus a Prius, for one. The back seat was also cramped.
So as a car itself, it was compromised, even though its powertrain was great. I mean, that thing got about-- they have since changed the Volt's range estimates on the EPA from that era. But it was basically 40, 42 miles, which, name a HVE today that has that number, and it's not many of them. They're still mostly in the 30s.
So it was still ahead of its time. Really enjoyable to drive, because, you know, all that battery weight-- all those reasons we like electrified cars now, still there. It was an enjoyable car to drive, great car in the city. But the car was kind of fundamentally flawed. And it was weird-looking too. So the second generation, less weird. But now, it doesn't get any attention because--
GREG MIGLIORE: It's kind of boring at that point.
JAMES RISWICK: Exactly. They just didn't get it. Like, it now had five seats. But, like, it-- and then the Bolt. So that's also amazing technological achievement. The engineers really hit it out of the park. In an era when EVs were getting like 110 miles, it was like 250, 240, right?
Whatever it was, it just, like, doubled it. Huge achievement. Unfortunately, it was pretty dorky. They tried to sell it as a crossover. But yeah, that's an upright kind of dorky hatchback looking thing. And shockingly, people were like, eh, I'd rather not be seen in that.
They have since, actually-- the mid-cycle refresh on it, I think, was very successful. Had it looked like that from the get-go, I think it could have been marginally more successful, not to mention a lot cheaper than it is as it is now slash was, because it's now no longer on sale. And then, those are the big ones in terms of, like, not giving people what they want.
But then the other thing is that Voltec hybrid powertrain that was so good. They didn't put it in anything. Like, yes, it was in the Cadillac ELR, a car that was so hilariously priced we thought it was a joke, and so hilariously overpriced it was like they didn't want to sell them. And they didn't.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: And there's actually one other thing that got Voltec-based technology, and that was the Chevy Malibu hybrid. It's just that it didn't have the whole battery-- it didn't have as big a battery to charge.
JAMES RISWICK: Exactly.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: And in the Malibu, it was really very good.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah. I mentioned that in the article because I draw-- I'm like one of-- you and me must be one of the few people who actually drove the damn thing.
GREG MIGLIORE: I actually drove it too. So we've got three people on a podcast out of probably 10 people in the world who drove this car.
JAMES RISWICK: It must have been-- maybe it was in Michigan more, because, like, it just disappeared. And it was really good. And you know what? Because it basically works like Honda's system.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: Voltec without the plug and Honda's system are very similar. It is-- it runs of the electric motor most. And the engine, with rare exception, only comes in to do the battery.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: And it's the same deal with Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid too. It's the same sort of roughly series hybrid design where, again, you get-- because that's one of the things that's so great about it is that, especially in a plug-in situation, where even when you're running in full EV, you still have all of the power that you would get-- at least with the exception of, like, sustained full throttle where, like, you need the engine to come on. But for the most part, like, so many other plug-in hybrids, you're only getting, like, half of your power, if that, if you're running in full EV mode.
And that's kind of disappointing when it's like you have this 300 horsepower thing, but if you want to be, like, the greenest that you can be, you can only use, like, 100 or 150 of it. And you're carrying around a lot more weight. And that was one of the things that was great about the Volt and Voltec stuff was that, you know, you actually got-- you still had all of your power even when you were being green.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah. Well, and to bring it back-- you know, the impetus for this is the fact that GM announced it's making hybrids again. But I mean, that just follows up a decision not to keep making them in the first place, which, like, we're on board for EVs. EVs great-- way to keep going on EVs.
And I can acknowledge a company saying, you know, why develop hybrids when it costs so much money to develop the end game, which is EVs? Fair enough.
GM had already developed the hybrids and had very good hybrid technology. So you know, you mentioned the Tahoe hybrid, and it was a little silly for its day, but, actually, it was a hybrid. And 20 miles-- the difference between 20 miles per gallon and 18 miles per gallon is actually kind of big.
So it was a little half-baked at the time. But imagine, that's step one. What if they had kept developing that? And Chevy could have immediately an answer to the F-150 hybrid, which is excellent. Ford didn't stop. Ford's been doing hybrids for ages back since the old square Escape hybrid.
They didn't stop. And that's where they are now. So we could be looking at a Silverado hybrid that gets good power and good fuel economy because it was back there. But nope, they killed that. We could be looking at hybrids-- it's one thing to say, OK, well, no one's going to be interested in this Equinox hybrid because we don't put a lot of effort into marketing it, and it doesn't look any different.
But you know, you have the technology. It's there. And it's good. You don't have to license somebody else's. It's just sitting there. And when they canceled it, it just seemed shortsighted and just not really utilizing this investment.
It didn't make sense.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Well, and I was about to say, because you mentioned Equinox hybrid, and it's like, I don't know why that wasn't a thing. Because it's like, you have this great technology and you keep putting it in packages that don't necessarily sell. You're putting them in weird hatchbacks that either weren't all that useful or looked kind of dorky, or you put them in sedans, which is a flagging market-- and maybe you were doing that just for maximum fuel economy.
But, like, imagine if you had that Malibu hybrid powertrain in the Equinox. That would be-- that'd be superb, because then you would have something that sells a whole lot. It's very practical, and then, suddenly, very efficient.
And my guess is that part of why they didn't do it was because, hey, why not do a diesel? Which, you know, it's easy to look back on with 20/20 vision. And I mean, that was probably in development before dieselgate happened. But even so.
JAMES RISWICK: Even with Equinox, we could be looking at, this platform cannot accept Voltec, and, therefore, this is not possible. We could also not be looking at, you know, how many hybrids does Fortis sell with the escape? Because that's, like, you cannot tell a Ford Escape hybrid from a regular one. That's what we're looking at.
And we could be-- Chevrolet does not have-- even though they've sold the Volt, people do not think of them as hybrids-- that's a Toyota thing. So maybe it wouldn't get any attention. But, perhaps instead of selling a-- why don't you come out with a Equinox-sized hybrid?
Like, maybe we're just talking about door number three here that doesn't exist. But they had the opportunity. And it just seems-- yeah, it's like the engineers do their job. But I'm not going to say the designers aren't, but they're not nailing the design, the overall concept of the vehicle.
They're definitely not marketing it sufficiently, because the Volt was never marketed, no one-- dealers-- they could not overcome dealers having absolutely no interest in selling these things, first, because it was confusing. And they'd have to put some effort into it. And then two, the Volt-- they want no parts of electric cars, because they can't sell you on expensive service for years to come.
So, therefore, no one wants to sell them. So they never tried to overcome that, as they kind of have to now. So it's like they just kind of shot themselves in the foot. They were working against themselves while putting all this money-- and great, money and effort into engineering. They should be better-- they shouldn't be in this position. They should be in a better position.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. And I do think some of it was they thought their electric rollout was going to go much more smoothly and much more quickly, because I do kind of remember them being like, OK, well, like you were saying, we don't want to spend a whole lot of money and time developing these hybrids, because electric technology is accelerating very quickly. That's where everything is going to end up.
We want to get ahead on that. And I feel like there was also a lot of pressure from the outside too. Like, hey, look at all the stuff that Tesla is doing. Why can't any of the big three do that? And so they kind of came out with this big, like, OK, we're going to do this whole Altium stuff.
And it seems like, clearly, something went wrong in this whole Altium thing. I'm not sure what it was. I did see John Volker, he's a journalist, had a pretty good story kind of that touched on something that may be related. All of the Altium development stuff is being done completely in-house. There's not really a partnership with, like, LG or other companies that already have battery experience. So that may be kind of contributing to the problems.
They're doing stuff that they haven't done, really, traditionally, before. And that may be kind of the hangup. So I can kind of see how they were like, we're going to just kind of skip hybrids. But also, that's clearly come back to nip them in the bud.
JAMES RISWICK: You can skip hybrids, but it's the development of the hybrid powertrain. It's like--
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: Toyota has their hybrid system, and they're throwing it, and they put it in everything.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: They're not developing a new hybrid powertrain every time they have to put it in a new car. It's cut and paste.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. That's absolutely true.
JAMES RISWICK: With the exception, of course, they now have-- they did do a next generation one that's in the Prius. And they have a totally separate hybrid system. You know, what is it, I-force, or whatever the hybrid max--
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Oh yeah.
JAMES RISWICK: That is a totally different hybrid concept.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: But they still sell a ton--
JAMES RISWICK: We've already mentioned that there's the GM truck hybrid is different than the Volt. They are not the same concept. So they, too, had multiple concepts.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Yeah. And it definitely feels like a very GM thing to roll out this really impressive technology only to abandon it very quickly, either because of technical problems or because of colossal mismanagement, which, in this case, it seems to be the latter.
GREG MIGLIORE: That's the single biggest criticism I can levy. I think I've driven most, if not all, of these products, and, in many cases, I've liked them, while being cognizant of, perhaps, trying to cram them into different market segments and maybe not giving them the best chance for success. But generally speaking, they, at times, have had class-leading hybrids and EVs. But the inconsistency of the strategy is the part that blows my mind.
I mean, when, you know. Riswick rolls out the term "Voltec," that takes me back to 2008 and going to a reveal of the Volt at the Renaissance Center in Detroit with every governor, senator you can think of-- Bob Lutz did, like, in-depth briefings on this car. Literally, they could have put something on the moon and not made it a bigger deal than that. They called this a moonshot.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: I mean, stick with it, man. Like, you literally turned the industry on its ear for a few years, and then they walk-- kind of walked away from it. To me, sometimes I think you have to almost-- when the market zigs, you need to zag. And that, to me, is the biggest criticism, because I think most of these products have been pretty good.
The execution-- yeah, the EVs, like, the rollout in the last year, which even the CEO Mary Barra said has been-- I think she called it "frustrating." I would call it a dumpster fire. But the fact is is they have, like, a handful of pretty good EVs. If they could get them in the market, they could really win there.
So I think that's, to me, the second biggest criticism is just the execution has been so scattershot. And that's kind of the way to just describe your column and the last 15 years, 17 years of EVs at GM-- 30 years of EVs at GM, if you want to go back to the EV-1, is, like, they roll out this like spectacular product that maybe is flawed a little bit. But how many times in the car business do you get it right in the first generation?
It's like the second generation-- or that refresh when it finds its traction and people like it-- and, I mean, who has more money than General Motors when it comes to marketing? If they had consistently messaged some of these things, I mean, we'd probably all be driving Chevy Volts or something. But it just seemed like there's so many different mouths to feed at GM, that that's where it gets lost too.
So I mean, I guess there's one company that really was into GM's EV technology, and that's Honda. They literally were like, hey, let's make a Prologue out of it. And you drove it, James. How was it?
JAMES RISWICK: I sure did. And it's not great. And here's the thing-- it looks like a Honda outside. But yeah, you open up the door, and it doesn't. It's all GM parts.
Now, there will be a lot of people who go, ew, that's bad. But that's not what I'm here to say, because the GM parts are not the problem. The problem is the execution of them. Because it's not surprising that if you look at the interior of the Prologue, and if you put it next to a CRV, they kind of look similar, but it looks like exactly what they were trying to do, which is, like, recreate the look of their standard vertical-- or horizontal strip dash design using GM parts. It's not successful, because you do not have the same parts.
It's going to look different. And because it doesn't have that intricate honeycomb thing, which carries a lot of weight, as it turns out, it just looks plain. It looks plain. And the center console plastics are kind of cheap and scratchy.
And it just has this big expanse of, like, a tablet sized tray. And it looks-- it looks cheap. And this isn't a GM thing, because the Blazer, which is this car's kind of fraternal twin, is a much nicer interior. And so does the CRV.
So it's not the GM parts that are the problem. Now, it is a problem because of perception and because of who's going to buy these cars. Now, Honda-- people who buy Hondas are a very loyal bunch. My mother has owned four of them going back to 1990, when she was tired of dealing with succession of annoying GM vehicles and just got into Honda. And I know a lot of people who are like this.
They trust it. They know how to-- even if it's just-- they just trust the brand. They're Honda people. And then the other thing is you have-- because you have loyal customers, anytime you have loyal customers to a brand, you get into their cars, and you know how to turn on the lights. Everything is where they know where things are.
And when they get into something else, be it a new car or a rental car, different-- quote, "different"-- tends to be equated to, quote, "bad." This is bad, not just, well, you just don't know how to work it. It's just a different way to turn a screw, whatever. But now, you're going to get into this car, and the lights are different, the windshield wipers are different.
That doesn't look like my-- that doesn't look like my climate control system. This is weird. This is different. This is not what I was expecting. Or worse, you don't notice that-- oh, it's just different. My car is 10 years old-- whatever.
And then you find out a week after you've bought this thing, as a loyal Honda customer, that, oh, no, it was built by GM in Mexico using GM parts. You'd be pissed off. I'm sorry, you would be, regardless of whether you are a loyal customer of anything.
If you find out that what you purchased is not what you thought it is, you would be pissed off. And I don't think it's entirely reasonable-- I don't think it's unreasonable-- sorry, I think it's unreasonable to expect someone to, you know, Google, was my Honda actually made by Honda? No one would think to do that, unless they previously got hosed by a '98 Passport.
So, like, I think that is an issue for them. Now, they are not, like, hiding it. They're not, like, saying, oh, what are you talking about GM? No, this was made in Ohio. No, but, like, it's not like you're going to advertise that, right?
And then dealers, are they going to be like, well, actually, if you notice, this is made by GM. And this is a GM thing. So I think that's an issue. Now, they acknowledge that that could be a hang up for folks.
And because it's an EV, because of its size, and because of its DNA, they say that we anticipate people interested in that are people with an open mind. And customers of the CR-V hybrid and the Passport, who are already kind of open to new different types of vehicles, that's who they're going to go for, which is all well and good. But I think that's a big problem for this.
Because even if-- they're not trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes, but it seems likely to happen, which is really unfortunate. And then there's the vehicle itself. So it's not very quick. Like, I only drove the all-wheel drive two-motor version. And it's just not that quick, not just for an EV.
It just doesn't have a lot-- if I was talking about an engine, I would say there's not a lot on the top end. But it's only about 200-some horsepower for the front drive version. Like, the CR-V hybrid has more power than this. And they didn't have a curb weight spec, which seemed questionable.
But I mean, I'm guessing it's more than a CR-V hybrid. So it ain't quick. The price tag really isn't that much different than an Ioniq 5, et cetera-- or, like, an ARIA. So it's just-- it wasn't-- does it drive like a Honda? No, it doesn't.
But then, like, anytime you're talking about an EV versus an ICE version, that's kind of hard to determine anyway. But it was just-- the only saving grace in terms of value is that it's likely going to get the $7,500 tax credit. So that drops the price quite a bit.
And because of that, the cheaper versions, which will be available from the beginning, unlike the Blazer EV, which is when they eventually go back on sale, is only, like, the top trim levels immediately. So you'll be able to get a front wheel drive EX from the get-go. But you know, I'm not surprised this is the only time they're going to be doing this. The marriage is already kaput.
GREG MIGLIORE: I always thought it was a weird arrangement. GM, at the time they announced this, Altium-- you know, this was before we'd seen some of the fits and starts with Altium. And it seemed a little, I thought, questionable on the part of General Motors. Why are you giving this prize technology to Honda so they could catch up to you?
They got nothing. What are you doing? And then a couple years later, you're like, oh, boy, some of your Altium launches didn't go too well, and the pendulum kind of went the other way. And it's like, OK, Honda, what are you doing? You know?
So to me, this is one of those alliances that, frankly, didn't make a ton of sense-- maybe on paper, it did. But, I mean, I don't know, I think the best thing you can say about the Prologue is it kind of looks OK, I think.
JAMES RISWICK: It does.
GREG MIGLIORE: Subjective. I like the Blazer better, to be honest. I think the Blazer looks way better, way more-- the Equinox EV looks pretty good. So I mean--
JOEL STOCKSDALE: I think that part of how this partnership may have arisen is that a few years back, Honda announced-- Honda and GM announced that they would be collaborating on fuel cell development. So that may be where some of this kind of came from. The only other thing that I can really think of that was Honda and GM connected was the Saturn Vue Red Line that got the Honda V6, which was a super bizarre thing. I still don't know how that came about.
GREG MIGLIORE: That was not a terrible car-- or crossover. I drove one of those. I actually kind of liked the whole Saturn Green Line Red Line setup. We're really going deep into early-2000s trivia here at this point, I guess. You want-- go ahead.
JAMES RISWICK: I was going to say the one bow on this is that the Prologue is not the only thing. There's the Acura ZDX.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yes.
JAMES RISWICK: And I'm going to be driving that in April.
GREG MIGLIORE: Palm Springs or San Diego?
JOEL STOCKSDALE: I'm sure they're excited to see you.
JAMES RISWICK: Santa Barbara.
GREG MIGLIORE: Santa Barbara. Third one on the bingo card.
JAMES RISWICK: Prologue wasn't great-- I mean, I'll just leave you this. Google the interiors of an Acura MDX, the new Acura ZDX-- not the original one, but the new one-- and then the Cadillac LYRIQ. And tell me which of these interiors does not belong. And I got to tell you, it's the ZDX. It doesn't look-- it looks more like the Prologue. Yeah. Skepticism will be high on that one.
GREG MIGLIORE: I liked the LYRIQ. I really did. I thought it was good crossover, handsome interior. And I think it's ironic that these Honda versions managed to get some of the Honda things wrong in the execution.
JAMES RISWICK: It does not help your brand, especially when Acura is trying to build its brand again, and you get this thing that, like, yeah-- it's a shame.
GREG MIGLIORE: Well, a brand that, actually, is in pretty good shape is BMW. You've got the i5 and the X1. So I'd say the products are in good shape-- just what I just said, the i5 and the X1-- alphanumeric and numeric alpha-- that's not great. That's a little confusing. But give me the nickel tour here of these two. What do you think, James?
JAMES RISWICK: Quick thing-- X1, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It's actually very, like, fun car to drive. The transmission, it's the dual clutch, did not care for that. It's kind of stuttering to start sometimes. But the interior is beautiful-- like, not just, like, for the segment. It's, like, really nice.
And yeah, I had the M Sport package, so there's, like, pleather on the dash. But, like, really cool design elements. The speaker grills, in particular, really cool-- the center console is also very, like, really interesting functionality in it. Like, just take a look at the photo of a BMW X1 interior-- looks great.
It's really cool. Very impressive, stands out for the class, also has lots of space inside of it for its size. Not quite as big as, like, a GLB, but that's, like, a little, like, warehouse on wheels. The i5, that's the first five series that hasn't saddened or infuriated me in, like, well, forever, because I never drove an E39.
So also, incredibly cool interior. Google that one too. When I got in, it had this cool, like, blue trim on the dash. And I thought, OK, that's a neat design element. Like, BMW has done that before with color on the dash.
I remember I think the last generation 3-series with an M Sport, package you get red or blue. It was cool. And then as he's want to do, my son asked me to change the interior ambient color, because he just loves that.
GREG MIGLIORE: Kids love doing that.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah. I'm pretty sure that whoever decided to put 64 color ambient lighting in Mercedes has a toddler who just, like, goes nuts. And that's why they do it. Anyway, so he asked me to do that.
And I was like, OK, let's see. Change it to pink-- and that trim level that I thought was painted plastic is the ambient lighting that can change to all these different colors. It's super cool. Like, I thought it's a simple thing, but it's much better than just, like, obviously, just, like, diffused lighting.
It's the trim panel. That's so cool. So you can contrast it with the exterior. You can complement it. It's pretty cool. The air vents in it are kind of hidden. And they're controlled with these-- instead of, like, going into the touch screen, like the Panamera does, and I'm sure Tesla does, has these little rubbery nubs under the dash that work.
They feel nice, and they actually do their thing. So, fine-- functionality, and it maintains a minimalist look without cheapening out, because that little nub, that costs more money than doing the screen thing-- although there's no motors that move those things around, so maybe I don't know-- there's a wash. Who knows?
So, like, really cool interior. BMW's latest iDrive, big-- like, small but big improvements in terms of functionality. You don't need to go click, click, click in order just to turn on the heated seats in the touch screen. That goes for both the x1 and the i5, because they have the same latest iDrive. But the i5, I'm guessing because it's a [INAUDIBLE] product, has the redundant iDrive knob still, which is really nice because sometimes zooming in on a map, or going through playlists, or whatever-- some things are just easier done with the knob.
And it still has it. And it still has the physical menu buttons. So really like that. It's also really lovely to drive. Like, BMW, you know, they've been doing electric vehicles going back to the mini-E, like, 15 years ago or something. So it's a well thought out thing.
Has good range. I had the rear drive version. Frankly, after driving that, it was like, this is-- like, it's insane that they sell a more powerful version of this, let alone one that has over 200 horsepower more in the M60. There's going to be an xDrive 40 to bridge the gap. But still, like, it's totally fine just to go with the rear drive one.
Yeah, good range, tremendous ride quality. And yeah, I drove it up a mountain road-- very fun. I think it's one of the better looking of the new BMWs. The front, I still think, is a bit of a mess. It has a black goatee for some reason.
The back looks nice, and the silhouette's OK. So it could be worse-- cough, 7-series. So I liked both of them. Yeah, BMWs that didn't sadden or infuriate me.
GREG MIGLIORE: OK.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: I think one of the things that's really interesting and impressive is how good so many of BMW's electric cars have been, and the fact that they're platforms that are shared both electric and gas-powered, because that's such a different strategy to so many other automakers, where, like, well, like, GM is doing these, like, completely ground up new platforms.
And also, like, Hyundai and Kia, that are just EV, that's it-- they've been designed from the ground up for that, and nothing else. And I mean, in some of those cases, like the Hyundai Kia stuff are fantastic. I don't know. I just think it's really interesting that, like, BMW is able to make these potentially class-leading EVs that are designed to handle both powertrains and don't suffer from it.
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah. Well, they do suffer from them, though. That's not entirely accurate, because the interior-- the packaging does suffer, because the interior is not as spacious as EQE. And the trunk is-- ignore whatever that cubic feet number is, it's not applicable to any other car company, because it's small and awkwardly shaped. It's not like the old hybrid where you'd have, like, this giant suitcase-sized stage in the back, but it is, certainly, compromised.
EQE's is a little bigger. But you know-- and if you open the hood and you remove the, quote, "engine cover," there's a great big motor-sized hole under the hood.
Now, part of it will be filled by the front motor if you had an all-wheel drive one. So I'm sure if you looked at a Hyundai, you'd see a similar hole. But nevertheless, there are some packaging limitations.
You also end up with a vehicle that's kind of high. Like, you look at the black plastic, that glossy black trim at the bottom, it's to hide the fact that it is weirdly tall down underneath the doors.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Although, truthfully, even, like, EVs that are designed from the ground up often have a little bit of that--
JAMES RISWICK: Yeah.
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Just because--
JAMES RISWICK: That's why SUVs make for better--
JOEL STOCKSDALE: Exactly, because you've got this big, thick platform of batteries that you've got to put them somewhere. And it just makes sense to put them in the bottom.
JAMES RISWICK: But I really like the i5. And, honestly, I mean, unless you're-- I guess Michigan is a different story, but, I mean, don't worry about the dual motor version. The rear wheel drive is, like, great performance. And you get better range because of it. And it's just-- it's more than fun. It's great.
GREG MIGLIORE: You could even slap some snow tires on it up here if you wanted to. And of course, it only really snowed twice this year with any consistency. And I mean, yeah, you might actually be OK with the rear wheel drive car.
Is that the effect of climate change is rear wheel drive cars are coming back more? We'll see. All right, we have had an epically long podcast. If you enjoy the show, that is 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get the show.
Please give us five stars. We appreciate the ratings. It helps us get the word out, helps us connect with other car fans who maybe are searching through their iPhone or Google Pixel trying to find a car show. And that could be us. Send us your "Spend My Moneys." That's podcast@autoblog.com. Be safe out there, and we will see you next week.
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In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor John Beltz Snyder. John's been driving the new Chevy Traverse and the BMW X5 M Competition, and Greg gives his first impressions from behind the wheel of the new Fiat 500e. They discuss Tesla's abandonment of …
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In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Electric, John Beltz Snyder. This week, they've been driving the Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing, Kia Seltos and Autoblog's long-term WRX (which has a CD player). They discuss the Chrysler Halcyon concept and what it means for a possible …
In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor James Riswick. We kick off the week by reviewing cars we've been driving, including the new Lexus GX, Land Rover Defender 130 Outbound, Jaguar F-Pace, Hyundai Kona and our long-term Subaru WRX. Next, we break down …
