Episode 155: The 2023 #LucidAir Touring, 2023 #VolvoXC90 , 2023 #HondaPilot TrailSport
This is America on the Road named best radio show by the international Automotive media conference and now in its 29th year on the air. Thanks for being with us as we bring you the latest Automotive information from around the world. New car prices keep going up and now global car maker says the U.S average price will Top fifty thousand dollars I'll tell you who that automaker is and have more details and our thoughts on this coming up America on the road is brought to you by Mercury Insurance and driving today.com if you're looking to save some money you should switch to Mercury for your auto and home insurance California save an average of 670 dollars with Mercury so imagine how much you could save get a quote today at driving today.com auto insurance that's drivingtoday.com Auto hyphen Insurance hyphen is important I think hyphens are more important than we think aren't they Chris absolutely yes yeah we're in favor of pythons also in the news this week Tesla Motors is being investigated again this time seat belts are the culprit we'll tell you which model is affected and what the problem is coming up a little later and a new deal in the European Union is breathing new life into vehicles with internal combustion engines maybe to the great Chagrin of one Christie will find out his thoughts on that coming up Ferrari is one brand that is expressing relief at the news so if you're a ferrarista you might be expressing relief too we'll have more details on that in our comments coming up but I'm sure we'll have some comments I'm Jack Nerad with me as co-host Chris Teague. As you already
know Chris lives at one end of the country I live at the other each week we get together to talk about cars the car industry how can save the most money on your Automotive dollar. Chris is back this week after missing last week and number one I want to welcome you back Chris and just see how it's going how you doing things are going well Jack I'm feeling much better. I want to tell you I'm looking out the window right now the snow is almost completely gone now that we're on two or three days away from the end of March and I can't wait to see some grass growing here but it's warming up finally here in Maine how about you? Well it's a pleasant weather here I think we're expecting more rain in Southern California April Fool's Day ah you know who knows what's going to happen then I mean it's fooling us with the weather because you're never quite certain what's happening what's your vehicle for this week Chris I spent the week driving the 2023 Volvo XC90 it's the B6 ultimate all-wheel drive version I can't wait to tell you how it differs from our 2021 XC90 that the family that my family drives yeah some insight on that one from driving that for years or something very similar I have the all-new 2023 Honda Pilot Trail sport this is their off-road version of this vehicle I had the opportunity to drive it for more than 750 miles this past week my wife and I drove out to Phoenix to watch some spring training games.
Very successful test drive all around so it's a lot of fun with that I'll share more on that later fun to go to spring training games for any baseball fan your access to the ball players is is much greater in a lot of ways than it is during the season so that's that's fun we have a terrific guest for you this week David Lickfold is Lucid's director of chassis and vehicle Dynamics really smart guy I sat down with him uh recently at a driving event based in Santa Monica California he had fascinating things to share about um the very fascinating Lucid air touring what a performance sedan this is outside it just knocks your socks off and you know he had a lot to do with the chassis uh tuning of course so I think you'll enjoy that interview uh you know it's more a lot more about that vehicle than just the chassis tuning by the way too but before we do anything else let's bring you some of the latest Automotive information globally and let's dive right in. Well new car prices are going up we've seen that ever since covet really and supply being constrained and the average transaction prices just shot up big time that's what people are actually paying dealers for their vehicles and Toyota is the brand that expects um the prices to exceed fifty thousand dollars for your average car can you imagine that I bought a house for less than fifty thousand dollars back in the day but the average car transaction price will be fifty five fifty thousand dollars for the first time in history demand will outpace supply this according to to Toyota and you know this isn't probably the guy the sky stuff either I mean we're creeping up there to fifty thousand dollars or transaction price I think in January was 49 000 and change so this is amazing isn't it Chris it is it's a little disappointing but I can't say it's surprising when you look at you know so EVS are growing in popularity they're generally more expensive than gas vehicles I'm just trying to come up with some reasoning here but it's also kind of funny you know it's hard to tell whether it's the chicken or the egg right so automakers make the most expensive Trends and sell more of them do consumers actually want them are they buying them because they're what's available uh you know you don't really know what's coming up there but uh vehicles are really expensive I was at the Volkswagen dealership earlier today and just strolling around looking at regular old SUVs and just shocked at the prices so um you know disappointing but not all that's surprising yeah and Toyota expects to be very very strong again in 2023 it in Lexus of course Lexus is its luxury division probably going to sell 2.1 million vehicles in the United States alone this year I mean that's kind of mind-boggling and there's there's still production restraints so that shows you how strong and how dominant Toyota has become uh an American car maker kind of through and through really I mean with plants all over the place you know based in Texas outside Dallas and Plano Texas they're North American operation so they expect the first half will be maybe a little bit behind last year in terms of overall sales but they will catch up and the market will catch up in the second half of the year I think as we work through this supplies chain stuff that's still going on it's kind of amazing kind of amazing what Toyota has been able to accomplish isn't it Chris yeah you know they they were one of the early proponents of the just-in-time manufacturing process and they kind of created I think or at least laid the road map for the manufacturing processes that we see going on today so uh to hear them you know kind of acknowledge that they're struggling with these things when they're the ones that kind of laid the foundation for a lot of this it shows you just how serious things have gotten yeah well let's switch gears here and talk about Tesla it seems like we talk about Tesla every week and there's always a Tesla story hot copy as they say and people like to talk about Tesla the and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a probe into the Tesla Model X this over front seat belts they're going to look at about 50 000 of these vehicles out there that's their big SUV a pretty expensive vehicle and I I'm kind of scratching my head over this because they're looking at this after two two reported failures usually it's a much larger number before they open a probe and I wonder if there's a little well who knows there might be more to this than meets the eye uh that Nitza is is looking at Tesla but in any case they're looking at 2020 2022 and 2023 model year model X's and the front seat belt anchor has a tendency or could I guess has a tendency actually it's probably not correct we have two instances maybe of this becoming loose and the seat belt becoming loose and of course that's terrible this was a a complaint from Larkspur California Tesla was moving at around 10 to 15 miles per hour and the auto braking system activated when the driver's door and the large truck park on the side of the street opened unexpectedly I guess then the vehicle saw that door open and activated the brakes with the deceleration this is written by the driver my upper body flung forward in the force of my weight caused the seat belt anchor on the lower seat belt to detach completely well you don't want that to happen that is sure we're far from a recall on this but I'm curious to see your reaction Chris well it's scary obviously I'm glad that they found that out at 15 miles an hour instead of 75 miles an hour but I will say this and this is kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing but it's good to finally have a more normal Automotive investigation into Tesla's products instead of you know the autopilot engagement times and who was in control of the vehicle and all these other things but seat belt failure as scary as it is is kind of the standard thing that we hear about when we talk about recalls so I'm going to say that this is a little bit less a little bit less out there than some of the things we've heard about them lately yeah what's your take on them looking at this after two complaints I mean I think that's maybe a little aggressive but uh you know certainly you don't want anything bad to happen no I mean I agree with that you know maybe they're they're kind of already a little touchy given the the number or the volume of the recent investigations they've had to to initiate but uh two like you said they usually wait for there to be at least what a dozen or more of these reports before they start an investigation so that part is surprising right well Switching gears again here's something we've talked about on the show and that's infrastructure right and um certainly we are proponents of electric cars and especially in urban areas I mean they seem to make a ton of sense in urban areas where you're liable to have more pollution anyway and you know they it really kind of seem to fit a need you can have a smaller car and it makes a lot of sense easy to park all of that stuff the only fly in the ointment there is charging right and so many people live in apartments and they don't even live in apartments with garages frequently they're parking on the street you've probably been in that situation I think Millions upon millions of Americans are in that situation this has been pointed out as a problem I don't know that we have a solution what's your take yeah I don't know that we have a solution here in New England you frequently have large apartment buildings with no parking because there's no room to jam a parking lot into downtown Boston or downtown Portland Maine but you know I've seen some countries I'll say not the United States necessarily install these Chargers on Street side parking uh units and things like that but if we're aiming for even half of the country's new vehicles to be electric by any point in the next decade we have a long way to go and I've said this to all the listeners and you are probably tired of hearing it but smaller Chargers destination Chargers anywhere you can park a car there should be at least a few Chargers available and that's going to have to be the reality before we can reach even half of what we want to get to so um I I think I agree with what you're saying it's going to be tough for apartment dwellers especially yeah apparently 44 million people 44 million Americans live in apartments that's not an inconsequential number of people and uh plenty of those I think would be a good e-vehicle customers well let's talk about this European Union deal uh Matthew Lorenzo and I talked about it a little bit last week the fact that it was imminent and now they have okayed the the use of e-fuels in some some small production uh Vehicles going forward past 2035 it may open the door to use more e-fuels as we go forward we'll see um Ferrari is breathing a sigh of relief among other companies because they they would like to have internal combustion engines going for it now what's your quick take on that whole thing are we talking about e-fuels as an alternative synthetic fuels are we talking about just straight up fossil fuels here well this is e-fuels that are apparently carbon neutral is what they're talking about so yeah so Porsche's got a big leg up on this they've got a factory in South America that's already turning this stuff out and they can run cars on it without modification you know look I think we've talked about this before and I've I've kind of converted to your way of thinking as many Avenues as we can take to zero zero emissions the better right so if it's hydrogen if it's e-fuels if it's electric vehicles if it's whatever uh that's the best you know as long as we can get some of these gas powered vehicles off of the street e-fuels have yet to be truly proven I think I've read you know somewhere they're less efficient or you know some of these things the cars won't turn out the same level of gas mileage but the reality is they're not burning their fossil fuel and they're not producing carbon I think that's a net positive yeah that should be a good thing and we'll talk about that in future shows when we go forward we're going to be Road testing some pretty cool vehicles including the Volvo XC90 and the Honda Pilot Trail sport all new so stay with us for that with Christie this is Jack me red with you and thanks so much for being with us right here on America on the Road [Music] Welcome back to America on the road with Chris Teague this is Jack Nerad back with you we're so glad Chris is back with us after a week off and he has a really interesting vehicle to talk about the Volvo XC90 his family vehicle among other things but he was driving an all-new tester for the past week or so Chris tell us how it worked yeah this has only happened a couple of times to me I think it happened with Golf GTI and then maybe a Subaru Outback in the past but having a vehicle to test of one that we already own in a different year is always very interesting so this is a 2023 Volvo XC90 I drove the B6 all-wheel drive ultimate which is a mouthful they changed the powertrain naming from the year before it used to be called T5 T6 and T8 now it's called B5 B6 and still T8 so you have to wrap your head around that it took me a while to understand it but owning one actually helps so this powertrain Jack they moved from a turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder which is what we have in the 2021 that one made around 315hp horsepower pretty good for a vehicle this size it feels energetic they move from that and added a mild hybrid system to it and changed the name to a B6 so power is actually down slightly 295 horsepower 310 pound feet of torque torque is up a little bit and I want to get your feeling on this in just a minute but the difference here is really interesting because the mild hybrid system takes the place of the traditional starter motor so that system starts the vehicle it also provides a small acceleration boost when you're taking off it allows the vehicle to Coast when you're on the highway or going down a hill it also activates the start stop system which annoyingly cannot be turned off so I want to get your feeling on this have you driven the new mild hybrid Volvo powertrains in any other vehicles I have I have it and I like them actually and I like them because of the torque that's available right I mean I also and I I've never experienced the the fact that the the turbocharged supercharged thing uh it always struck me as Super complicated right I haven't experienced any service issues and maybe you haven't experienced any server service issues so that's that's really good news but this strikes me as kind of a better way to go uh I think it improves fuel economy I think overall drivability is as good or better with the new system so pretty much like it I like it too and you're right about the torque it does feel torquier off the line the acceleration does feel more immediate it does feel more energetic like I said so uh not positive there you go up to 26 miles per gallon on the highway which isn't great but it's not terrible for a large three-row SUV with all the features and the things that this one has this vehicle has 21 inch wheels the optional air suspension on this thing is awesome it rises it raises and lowers the height depending on if you're getting in or getting out it also lowers on the highway for better aerodynamics and in the snow it helps keep the wheels planted because I did get to drive it through a snowstorm for once uh and it actually is very comfortable over the bumpy icy kind of rocky surfaces that develop here over that while the roads are being plowed and kind of chewed up a little bit so all around a very quiet peaceful ride but you got plenty of energy plenty of power when you need it eight-speed automatic transmission all-wheel drive like I said earlier so this is a luxury vehicle the price tag on this guy climbed to over 78 000 with options that air suspension system was an option it had a uh Bowers and Wilkins sound system that was a very expensive option so but you can get into it for much cheaper around fifty seven thousand dollars for the base B5 powertrain uh you still get leather you still get a great safety equipment array uh so you don't miss a lot by you know going for the 21 000 cheaper model um inside the ultimate has Napa leather heated and ventilated front seats my tester came with a six seat option which was Captain's chairs in the middle instead of the bench which I've often been a proponent for it kind of helps keep some distance in between the kids a little bit better and it also allows access to the third row seats even though you do lose the middle bench seat which nobody wants to ride there anyway so I think that's probably okay the other options this vehicle came with massaging seats um it has a head-up display as part of its safety equipment blind spot monitoring forward Collision alerts just an array of safety equipment here Jack these are top safety pick plus worthy vehicles Volvo has always been the kind of Pinnacle of safety equipment and it just continues here the updated infotainment system is a nine inch touch green same size as before but they change from Volvo's census infotainment to Google based infotainment so it's a lot faster the menus load quicker it's a little bit more intuitive you still have a lot of swiping back and forth we've talked about this of all those kind of weird with how you have to navigate in and out of the functions but it is much faster there's no delay when you start the vehicle like in my 2021 you have to wait for the system to boot up before you can change the radio system stations and all that but much faster the Bowers and welcome stereo system will shake your house to the foundation from outside in the driveway I found that out by accident when I turned it way up so really no complaints of the technology here I think you know it's an excellent family vehicle I've said this many times if you have the money and you want to spend it you know we're an only vehicle family now I got rid of my GTI so you know we kind of put all of our eggs in the XD 90 basket and that's really what it's good at it's good at being the all-around I would do everything family vehicle Jack nice yeah certainly is a terrific vehicle luxury vehicle from a luxury brand and I think it offers a lot and I just like the Swedish touches of it too well I was driving a vehicle that's all new and you don't see complete makeovers in the midsize SUV segment all that often but in making changes Honda has pulled out all the stops on its new pilot is brand new completely revamped exterior design is completely different it was drawing a lot of stairs and parking lots across the the country as I was driving cross country a little bit I drove from Southern California to Phoenix and back and a lot of people were staring at it it was also in the the lead color which is kind of a baby blue I mean kind of an electric blue so that gets some attention too there's a new more Upscale Interior as well including a new infotainment system uh that we could talk about actually two variations of the infant the infotainment system it has the same 3.5 liter V6 engine that it had before with been revamped somewhat five more horsepower uh but the bigger change is the replacement of the nine-speed automatic transmission with a new 10-speed Auto which I think is a good change um front drive is standard all-wheel drive is optional and as I said the Honda has also upgraded the infotainment systems and tweaked its standard and optional safety off offerings which is good there's more safety stuff than ever before the pilot now comes in five trim levels the sport the EXL with a hyphen in it and who were a hyphen show trail sport which I was driving the touring and the elite as I said I was driving the trailsport model which is the off-road trim I was driving many many miles on road and very few miles off-road and didn't do heavy off-roading and I don't think the trail sport is designed for heavy heavy duty off-roading all over that has more off-roading capabilities than it had before but it does have all-terrain wheels and tires especially tuned suspension second row captains chairs and it listed about almost fifty thousand dollars with the destination fee I think quite a value actually I think there's a lot to like about this this had capture Captain's chairs in the second row some of the other models have a special insert that goes between those Captain's chairs that allows the pilot to be an eight passenger vehicles three across in the second row and then three across in the rear and there's actually room enough to do that so um that's a nice thing uh the 3.5 liter V6 now delivers 285 horsepower 262 pound-feet of torque
10-speed automatic transmission I frankly wish I could get to that torque a little quicker or maybe that there was more of it I mean when I went to push down to passes I was doing a lot on I-10 going back and forth between here and and Phoenix uh passing slower traffic of which there was quite a bit uh I I kind of wanted this to be a maybe a bit more responsive than it was uh but overall you know quite good I think 285 horsepower is is pretty decent it had the ivt M4 all-wheel drive system that's a mouthful jot that down it's that's standard on the trail sport and Elite and it has a stronger rear differential uh it uh responds faster than before it also has multiple Drive modes five standard selectable Drive modes normal econ snow Sport and Sport and Tow and then the trailsport adds a sand mode and a trail mode which I didn't get much use to to I think maybe the most off-roading I did was pulling into the parking lot at Bass Pro Shops uh during the during the drive V6 with a V6 engine the only engine the trail sport is rated at 20 miles per gallon combined and I confirmed that on my uh drive cross country where I was probably going it I hate to admit this and don't use it in court but maybe extra legal speeds at times uh more safety equipment um overall I think this is a really good value and and I blathered on about this Chris do you have a quick comment on this before we get out of this segment yeah I like the Honda V6 I think they stuck with a pretty steadfastly through a bunch of generations of the pilot that the passport and the uh and the Ridgeline it'll be interesting to see going forward if they move to kind of like what Toyota did with the Highlander to a turbo 4 to get more torque out of it as you mentioned but I like their V6 I like the pilot I like the 10-speed automatic so not too many complaints there I think they've really done what they needed to do with this vehicle so I like it a lot I think we have two great family vehicles on on the show the Volvo XC90 uh revised for 2023 and the all-new Honda Honda Pilot Trail sport version and then other Honda Pilot versions so look for those when we come back we have a terrific guest for you David Lickfold is loosen's director of chassis and vehicle Dynamics so stay with us for That interview and we'll be right back right here on America on the Road [Music] Welcome back everybody to America on the Road Jack Nerad with you and we're in Santa Monica California about to drive a car that I'm really excited about the Lucid air touring with me is David Lickfold who is the chassis engineer just chief designer of chassis engineering at Lucid this is an exciting Pro program for you um tell us about it tell us what's most exciting about this vehicle to you yeah good morning it's it's an incredibly exciting product It's a combination of many years of work by a large very dedicated very talented team and then we get to see what you folks think of it which is both nerve-wracking and exciting yeah well uh this is a car with remarkable capabilities in all kinds of ways right and certainly straight line capabilities but handling uh is maybe a question mark for some EVS tell us a bit about what you've been able to do with the loser air touring yeah we think we think the Lucid air is a fantastic very compelling product in many areas it's extremely efficient at very long range it's very comfortable um but it also has some some handling shots when you want it to So today we're gonna head out on a drive on on Route 1 PCH first of all you'll get to experience the car being very comfortable in in kind of cruising environment and then we'll head off open to the canyons and we'll switch to our own mode and then hopefully you'll you'll get to experience what the car can do on the twisties what are some special challenges with an electric vehicle in terms of chassis engineering certainly there's weight to deal with is that the the key thing that's a difference between that and an internal combustion engine car it's certainly a large difference yeah it's no secret that EVS tend to be heavier than their ice counterparts we put a lot of work in on the Lucid Air making the car feel very light very agile we've really kind of switch at the details of chassis tuning of Economics tuning we have the benefits of a very responsive very powerful very high torque powertraining as well which can really wave the car up made you feel very alive very responsive um yeah so it's it's uh there are several challenges so it's a double-edged sword with all that and all that talk we need to manage all that power and all that talk so from a traction control and civility control perspective for an engineer it's challenging and it's taken us kind of years of very very hard very detailed development to get it to a point where it is now but from a customer perspective it's seamless it's extremely responsive very quick it's exhilarating to drive and the benefits of an EV powertrain are that because it's so responsive compared to a combustion engine which we'll take in the region of kind of 100 milliseconds 150 milliseconds to respond to any any control we will intervene with to help the driver and EV is instantaneous so so we can very precisely very quickly make the card do exactly what we want to do and the experience for a customer then is just a super low handling very agile vehicle how do you go about handling weight I mean what are some things you can do to kind of mitigate the feel that that weight brings to the party yeah yeah it's all about in my mind it's all about response so we want to make sure and I'll try to avoid nerding out too much here but we want to avoid that we want to ensure that the the front and the rear axle are very in Phase together so when the customer makes a steering input the car immediate response on both the front and the rear axle we want the car to to kind of quickly take a set in the corner so it's very predictable we carefully manage roll we carefully manage all that or our transient body motions um really how we've achieved that is through a very high specification suspension system we've spent the money where it counts we have a very high spec set of dampers steering system brake system all designed in-house a fantastic suspension architecture which gives us lots of tuning flexibility um so yeah it's uh it's all about switching the details really here you have a Powertrain that instantaneous torque an immense amounts of it right I mean that can get people into trouble I I would think um almost unknowingly uh because it is so much it could be so much quicker uh than the typical car even the typical luxury car the typical luxury performance car talk about that that challenge you know keeping people on the road is kind of an important thing isn't it it is impossible yeah yeah with um that's the old saying goes with great programs great responsibility and the lucida touring would be driving today has 620 horsepower uh Peak so it's it's quick there's a lot of power on the tablet um and as you mentioned with an EV you have the uh it's extremely quiet it's smooth it's seamless so uh drivers can be traveling a lot more quickly than they think they are you don't have the reference points of engine noise or gear shift points um instead you get this one seamless surge of acceleration so yeah there's there's a huge responsibility on us to make sure the car is approachable by all drivers and in all conditions as well whether it's a nice Southern California weather like we'll have today or whether you're in snow out in New York Minnesota or wherever um and really that's through we achieve that through our in-house controls so we've we've developed our own traction controls to put the control systems um we we also work with kind of leading Partners in the in the automotive world to develop these types of systems um and yeah I I was obviously sound like a broken record it's about switching the details it's about ensuring that our tuning is absolutely spot on and we've catered for every possible scenario customer um and yeah we we have to ring in all that power and all that talk that's available and make sure the car is approachable by any driver no matter whether they're alert and ready to arrive or they're tired at the end of a work day and they just want to get home right and uh you have um a buyer base is probably fairly varied right and not necessarily Enthusiast drivers um you want a comfortable vehicle as well as one that handles really well that's something you have to balance how do you go about doing that yeah good question um as we'll as we'll talk about today the Lucid is is kind of many cars in one it can be a very comfortable long distance Turing car it can also be a really engaging company on the Canon on Canyon Road like we will do today um and we do that through we have three Drive modes available in and we change our chassis setup hugely between the three to give the customers the choice of essentially three different cars in one yeah so it's it's uh it's a very compelling product I think describe how you do that in a little more detail how do you give that three different steps yeah yeah we have um we have several systems on the car we have many systems on the phone which can change their character hugely so going between smooth which is relax to drone mode as the name suggests from when we're in smooth we run our dampers in a software setting our steering is quite light our brake pedal is quite aligned quite quite boosted um we will run the powertrain in its most efficient manner and we'll we'll kind of we call it the the Autobahn sneeze test we want to make sure that when you're cruising at high speeds and you the lane you don't change your vehicle speed so we apply a lot of kind of filtering and smoothing to our powertrain controls as we then step up from smooth drive mode into our more aggressive mode Swift and Sprint we make the car come alive through changing calibration of our adaptive damper system we put in a whole lot of body control and build control make the car really responsive and lock down on the road we firm up our brake pedal to make it easier for a driver who's driving enthusiastically to modulate their brick torque uh we apply a bit more weight to the steering when we switch steering calibration to give more Road feedback as well so the driver can feel what what the tires are doing um and then the powertrain gets a whole lot more responsive as well we um we up our power and torque limits we also change our current talk curves and a big detail there is we become more rear biased in where we're throwing that power and torque so as you step through into Swift and Sprint we become more like a real world row Sportster yeah and tell me a list is why we're biased is helpful in in terms of apparently sure sure yeah so of course a tiger can only do so much and we typically kind of look at Thai behavior in well many different plots but one of those is a friction Circle and if you are if you imagine you're you're asking your tire to do a lot on the studently okay so acceleration or breaking it limits what it can do in lateral Force generation in steering for quantum so when we go more rear biased we're kind of taking off some of that longitudinal load from the tire and freeing it up to do more lateral regeneration so that gives you a sharper more responsive front end and it allows the car to drive more like some of the kind of historic rents of real drone Sports atoms like E39 M5 if that we reference a lot during 90 London what do you think is the highest achievement you've made with this vehicle I mean there's a lot of things you've done but what is the one that you think wow this this is really I've really done something here we we've got something here that's really cool I think we're as a team we're incredibly proud of the fact that this this vehicle Lucid air does everything it has plus leading range triggers has classified ride and refinement it's a fantastic car to throw around the Canyon Road it has extremely quick charging and it's all in the case of touring it is at an attainable price point I think if if people can compare US versus EV all combustion in United Sim on the price point the Lucid air does more it's so many cars in one um and it's it's I won't say easy but it's easier to engineer a car or design a car to do a single thing well it's incredibly difficult to do everything well and I think we've achieved them and I think it's a it's a really exciting car for that reason so it's really a combination of things rather than one thing that you think is the achievement because you've combined things to enable that yeah exactly exactly the the way we work at Lucid is different to anything I've experienced before all of our teams are incredibly tightly integrated nobody makes any decision in isolation nobody is going to siled just looking out for their attributes and their performance Target we're all one team together and we have this in turn when we call it the the jelly setting design approach which comes from Peter Rawlinson a CEO CTO where no single part of the car is ever locked down early on everything is fluid everything's evolving together we keep stirring the jelly and gradually everything will start to solidify together into a fantastic product and that's worked really well for us yeah give us uh and give our listeners some some idea of pricing and availability and the tourings I'm gonna have to look to our marketing and media folks for some help here um touring Consulting press it's 107.4 hundred seven thousand four hundred dollars so it is attainable it's attainable yeah yeah I think the part of the Lucid mission is to kind of um evolve sustainable mobility and we want to keep making EVS more attainable to more people so we started off with our kind of Premium products we started with the Lucid and a dream crematorium rental and performance and now we're on to the the touring package which I think is a is kind of a sweet spot in the range really you get you get a lot of the class reading benefits higher range trim levels at a more attainable price point terrific terrific I can't wait to drive this uh I'll have more to say when that's over but thanks so much for being with us we really do appreciate it thanks for having me and uh stay with us everybody we'll be right back right here on America on the road [Music] Welcome back to America on the Road with Chris Teague Jack Nerad with you and it is listener question time we love to answer your listener questions it's very easy to get us a listener question as well and we'd love to hear from you love to hear your comments just tell us what you think about the show I hope you like the show and I hope you pass it along if if you do like it to somebody else you think might like it um it's easy to get a question To Us by sending it to editor drivingtoday.com editor driving today.com we'll answer your question on an upcoming show and Chris uh here is a question uh from Lenny in Davenport Iowa I think on the Mississippi River there in in I've been there beautiful Town yeah it's a cool town I think uh I was very into this is what Lenny says I was very interested in your recent talk about e-fuels it seems like EVS require a lot of changes and aren't very convenient I think maybe it means lifestyle changes or changes to how you do things uh do you really think e-fuels could allow us to keep our regular cars Chris oh well you know let's break out the crystal ball right how many times has that been pretty cloudy for both of us I mean look the answer is this e fields are brand new they're not even anywhere near Commercial viability yet uh Porsche as I mentioned earlier in the show as a factory in South South America they're working on this um now I've done some reading in the break here I realized that burning e-fuels does still release carbon dioxide emissions I think the process here is just a little different than that we're not extracting fuels from the the earth I think the problem is that it's going to be very expensive and it might not be as efficient as regular gasoline nor will it be as efficient as a kilowatt hour of electricity or whatever you know the unit of measure that you want to use there so I think we could be a ways off from seeing this become a reality but again I think any more the more Avenues we can take to zero emissions future the better um and I can't wait to see what formula one does with it in a few years when they change their rules so uh you know you know you never know it could be something that I'll be eating my words in a few years I hope but uh we'll see well yeah I'd love to see more research on this I think it's this is unproven technology and you know we've been looking for battery breakthroughs for years and years and years now maybe decades and I haven't quite got there yet that would lower charging times make this a lot more expensive so maybe that we can have a breakthrough on e-fuels or maybe we can't you know maybe it's impossible to do I think looking to balance out carbon emissions from uh fuel release and I to me there's always been something uh very intriguing about the ability to drill holes in the ground and bring stuff up out of the ground and then you know drive cars based on what comes out of the ground it otherwise would be useless right I mean so there's a lot to like about that there's a lot to like about how much power can be stored in a gallon of fossil fuel uh the the sticking point of course is the carbon dioxide that's being released so maybe there's a way to mitigate that in in ways or capture that in ways that we just don't know so I think it's too soon to tell Lenny whether this could allow us to keep regular cars regular cars within internal combustion engines but I think it's certainly worth examining anyway absolutely oh very good well Cindy has a maybe a little bit more down to earth or uh immediate question she's in Vista California this is what she writes this what do you think is the best buy among all the EVS under fifty thousand dollars I think it's time I bought an electric car but I don't have a ton of money and she's not alone there uh can you help what do you think about that I think we can help but I think the good news is that there are some some really really nice EVS under fifty thousand dollars right so we've got the Kia ev6 and the Hyundai ioniq 5 those both started under fifty thousand dollars you can option them both over fifty thousand dollars but even the base models of those are both very nice uh let's see what else do the Tesla Model 3 with its recent price drops you can now get into that guy for under fifty thousand dollars if that's your flavor then you get the Ford Mustang Machi which is a pretty good buy too um and then if you really want to go you know a little bit different you got the Toyota bz4x although that range is a little shy of the other ones and I've had some experiences or some colleagues with experiences of slow charging with that so you know I think the world is kind of your oyster at under fifty thousand dollars here you've got a lot of great choices and if you want to go even cheaper than that you can hit the Chevrolet bolt or the Chevrolet bolt euv which are both fantastic values yeah I was going to talk about those too and uh I think the the Hyundai Kona EV is is another one to take a look at it's a pretty inexpensive a lot to like about it there are also other versions of that including a I think a hybrid is their basic version of that vehicle that memory serves right but um you know certainly if you're looking at all EV there are some good choices now under fifty thousand dollars and as we were reported later in the earlier in the show um fifty thousand dollars is liable to be the average transaction price out there so while fifty thousand dollars seems like a heck of a lot of money for me uh for a new car um I think there are some very good EV choices there I think in Vista California which I'm some semi acquainted with you can get by without tons of rain so maybe even a Nissan Leaf with 150 miles of range would be okay if you're charging overnight uh Cindy if you have your own house you can install your own at-home charger I think that's a pretty good solution too and maybe uh one of the most cost effective yeah I think now that we're talking about this too we need to take tax credits into uh account here so I think the VW id4 which is built in Chattanooga the Ford Mustang Machi some of these some of the American built EVS are the ones that would give you the 7 500 credit back haven't heard much on Hyundai and Kia yet those don't have the final assembly locations that they need to to qualify yet so we'll see that but some of these are you know they can become even cheaper with the tax credit at the end of the year so it's always worth right well I hope Cindy is making enough money to take advantage of a 7 500 tax credit that would be good I think a lot of people are working full-time probably pay more than 7 500 in federal income tax so that's something to look at you also have to look at the fact that you don't get that right away it's not like a discount immediately you're going to get that uh when you file your next year's taxes so that doesn't help with things like down payment or something like that like a an incentive would but uh something to keep in mind let's take another question David in Myrtle Beach South Carolina says this we're looking at minivans but it seems like the prices are so high with four kids I guess I don't have any other choices what do you think we should do well with four kids a minivan would probably be your best option uh you know I think there are some very good ones we've talked about these before on the show if you want a hybrid minivan with all-wheel drive you have two options basically you have a Chrysler Pacifica and you have the uh Toyota Sienna and if you want something a little bit more upscale which is personally my favorite minivan right now is the KIA Carnival if you get the higher trim levels of some of these you get a lot of luxury inside quilted leather you know backseat entertainment systems and all that but I really do I keep coming back to the Sienna for the sole reason that uh it's got the Toyota predictive reliability it comes only in a hybrid powertrain and it comes available with all-wheel drive which for somebody like me living in Maine it turns the vehicle into a year-round it's just a very confident vehicle to drive all year round so I think that would be my pick even though the carnival is my favorite I think the Toyota is more practical from my uses yeah and I I'm a giant fan of the Toyota Sienna and we've taken them on a couple of family vacations now and they've just been super Champs and the hybrid powertrain is great you know I you might like the uh Ikea a little better but I I really love everything about the Sienna so I would look at that the other thing I would point out to David is look at a vehicle maybe that's a year or so old or two years old a CPO version of this can probably get the price down at least somewhat not a ton these days because supply has been so constrained and they probably haven't had a lot a lot in the market and a lot coming off lease but I'd look to maybe do that as an alternative I mean to maybe keep the price under 50 or 60 thousand dollars I mean most family folks I think family folks with the four children probably pretty cost constrained so I'd look for uh something like that as it may be a way that you can lower the overall outlay on the vehicle I agree oh very good well Chris I you do great things on your testdriver.com why don't you tell us about that yeah I mentioned this before but we're running a giveaway the where I'm going to extend it through the end of April just so we have a little bit more chance to sign up we partnered with skip Barber racing school and team O'Neill rally School up here in New England to give away two one day driving school passes now you can go to any of the skip Barber locations I think they have three or four and they're at some really nice race tracks across the country if you look at some of the pro drivers right now there are a lot of pro drivers that came through skip Barber racing school so it's a great program then if you want to get in the dirt we have uh Team O'Neill here in New Hampshire they do rally schools they have Ford focuses Subaru wrx's they have the whole range of vehicles up here for you to try you get a one day pass unfortunately I can't fly you there myself but we can get you there and get get the ticket in your hand to go driving to find out everything you need to know go to your testdriver.com or head to at your testdriver on Instagram there you can find our post and sign up it's very easy and it's free to do those are such wonderful opportunities I'd love to go to a rally School sometime I've been to a lot of on-track driving schools including skip skip Harbor which I loved a lot so uh great opportunity people should take you up on that Chris very very cool I'd love to have people take me up on at least checking out my newest book which is called Dance in the Dark it's a crime Thriller it's based on true crime and uh of course I have studied crime for years and years and years I have not committed many maybe a little speeding is is the most uh heinous crime that I've ever committed but beyond that uh but I'm sure interested in why people do what they do so look for dance in the dark we'd love if you like our show we'd love to have you pass it along to people who would also like the show that would be great for uh the show so if you listen on the radio tell folks what radio station on which you listen to the show and let them know what time you're listening and they can sample it they can also sample it as a podcast it's on all the major podcast Outlets America on the road and of course we'd like to thank our Sports map radio network stations for carrying America on the road you can find uh the podcast on the sports map Radio website so uh thanks so much for listening to America on the road thanks so much to Chris for being a great co-host and we look forward to seeing you again next week right here on America on the road oh [Music]
2023-05-15 17:59
