2023 Detroit Auto Show recap | Autoblog Podcast #798

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor John Snyder and Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. The team attended the 2023 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, and have some thoughts about the reveals. They discuss the 2024 Ford F-150 (including the Raptor models), 2024 Jeep Gladiator, 2024 GMC Acadia and 2025 Cadillac CT5. Ford held a Mustang-focused event, and we talk about the Mustang Mach-E Rally and Mustang GTD. Finally, the hosts opine about the general vibe of the Detroit Auto Show, and whit it means for auto shows in general.

Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.

Video Transcript

GREG MIGLIORE: Welcome back to "The Autoblog Podcast." I'm Greg Migliore. We have an awesome show for you this week. It's the Detroit Auto Show. There's several-- I almost hesitate to say big reveals, but they're interesting. They're important. They're significant, let's put it that way. So we're going to break that down as well as the feeling from the show floor.

And with that, I will bring in senior editor for all things electric, John Snyder and road test editor Zack Palmer. How are you guys doing?

- Can't complain. Great fall weather, had a successful show yesterday. And yeah, looking forward to whatever comes this weekend in terms of-- we might get some big news over the weekend. We'll see.

GREG MIGLIORE: All right.

- Yeah. I'm doing great too over here, off a couple late nights with Ford, actually. You already mentioned the F-150. I know that we got to see Darius Rucker together this week.

GREG MIGLIORE: That was fun.

- That was fun. So yeah, a lot of Detroit stuff happening.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. Yeah, it was-- yeah it's a busy week, let's put it that way. So all right, things we're going to break down, the F-150, the Mach-e Rally. There was some sort of Mustang news, even though it wasn't really a reveal, per se.

There's the 2024 Jeep Gladiator, 2024 GMC Acadia, and a new Cadillac CT5. So that's kind of the rundown. And again, we'll talk about what it was like to be at the Auto Show this year in Detroit.

So the F-150 is a big deal, obviously. One of the slides they like to show whenever they're doing a presentation is just how valuable the F-150 is by itself. It produces more-- I forget if it's money or value or whatnot than things like Starbucks. If it were its own company, it's more valuable than most actual large companies, including many on the S&P 500. So it's a big deal for Ford.

This is like, I would say, a midcycle refresh would be a way to put it. They tweaked some of the powertrain lineups. There's some interior stuff. But it's obviously not an all new vehicle, just to be clear here.

Big deal here is kind of the tailgate, the bed, which is interesting, and a few other things. Zack, you were living and breathing this thing. What else do people need to know?

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, I mean, you really hit on the big one there, which is that Pro Access Tailgate option, which was-- we sort of termed it, funnily on the site, we called it the tailgate gained a tailgate, which is sort of true.

If you're familiar with the Ridgeline or you're familiar with the RAM's multifunction barn door tailgate, this is similar but different. So you can swing it out. The whole thing doesn't swing out, though. It's segmented into three parts. And just the middle part swings out, while the other two stay there.

That lets you get really close to the bed, where they have added a new storage compartment and some new slots in the wheel hubs for some 2-by-4s to this little bed. So that'll be an option on pretty much every F-150 trim.

I think it's neat. I think it'll be good for some people's use cases, maybe not worth it for others. But it is cool now that Ford has a trick tailgate to go along with everybody else's interesting, weird tailgates that we have out there.

And you also mentioned on the powertrain front. There's no more 3.3 liter V6. So that was just the base, naturally aspirated one. I'm fine with that. The new 2.7 liter EcoBoost is the base engine. And for the V8 aficionados out there, the 5 liter is sticking around. So you don't have to worry about the V8 noises going away.

And perhaps even more importantly, they're making the PowerBoost the same price as the 3.5 liter EcoBoost upgrade. So now if that was a big hindrance-- it was a big, $2,200 option before. Now you can get it for $290, just like you can the 3.5 EcoBoost, so another big one.

And I think the last, last couple of big things, you can get a HUD. And you can get the 12-inch digital instrument cluster. That cluster is standard now. There is no analog one. So that's the long and short of it for F-150. Definitely a better truck now, I think. And a successful midcycle refresh as far as I'm concerned.

GREG MIGLIORE: I think that sums it up pretty well. What did you think of it, John?

JOHN SNYDER: I'm a little curious about that tailgate. Yeah, just that chunk in the middle of the tailgate swings out. I don't know why they didn't do the whole thing to open from the side like the Ridgeline. I don't know if any of you heard any answers from Ford on that. But I'm curious as to how useful this would actually be.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, so Ford's argument there is that, because where it opens from, where the hinge is, and how the detents are placed, you can use it with the trailer hooked up. And the other ones, if you open them very far from where they're at, they will swing directly into your hitch setup and all.

JOHN SNYDER: That makes sense, yeah.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, this one is set to swing out to 37 degrees to the first detent. And there's a bit of a stop there. You can feel it. You can certainly swing past it if you're overly aggressive with your swing. But you can swing it out to there. And then you can get to the bed and not worry about slamming it into the hitch and all and damaging your very expensive tailgate.

So that was their reasoning there. Now, I still think-- I mean, sure, that swings out like that. But maybe they should have allowed you to swing out the small little left portion as well, just to give you a wider opening because it is a fairly narrow spot to throw things through.

I mean, it's not big like the Ridgeline's fully open or the RAM's can also fully open. So you're just out of luck if you have something huge that you want to put in right there.

JOHN SNYDER: That makes some sense. I kind of buy their argument. But also I mean, the Ridgeline doesn't, and they don't worry about it. So I could definitely see it the other way.

It's funny. The F-150 is so many things to so many people. But I mean, they didn't have the trick tailgate, not like with GMC and Chevy and others. Even Honda, there's some complexity there. And what does RAM call theirs? I'm forgetting what that thing is.

ZACK PALMER: The RAM multifunction tailgate. Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: Great name, all right. So yeah, I think they kind of had to join in here. You know what I mean? I don't know if buyers necessarily demanded it. But I think you kind of got to offer it.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah. And it looks like-- I mean, there's already pricing out there. It's being slotted in there as part of a package. It's a $1,290 package that you get a few other things with. It's not like an individual option.

So you've got to want to spend $1,300 to get it. I think we need to actually use it in the real world to figure out if it is worth $1,300. But it's not going to be cheap. I think the RAM's is actually a lot cheaper than that. It's somewhere between $500 and $1,000. So they're overcutting on the price a little.

GREG MIGLIORE: Is the bed divider part of this tailgate, or is that a separate kind of thing if you--

ZACK PALMER: No, no, that's just the new bed in the F-150.

GREG MIGLIORE: Got it, OK.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, they just throw the new slots in there. And the storage boxes are the same way in the side, which are actually kind of neat. You can throw jumper cables or a first aid kit or any number of things back there that are relatively small that you don't want to slide around. And you can also stay weatherproofed. So that's a nice little thing.

GREG MIGLIORE: I kind of like that more than I like the tailgate. I think that's more interesting and more-- if I were to be a truck owner, that'd be something I would be looking for.

JOHN SNYDER: It's as though they took some cues from the Maverick, which has some of the same sort of cutouts and spots for 2-by-4s you can build your own sort of accessories to fit in the back of it, which is really neat. There's a lot of DIY opportunities there.

ZACK PALMER: Most certainly. And before we get off F-150, I feel like I should mention the Raptor too.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: Oh, yeah. And the Tremor?

ZACK PALMER: And the Tremor. The offroad trucks, they revealed them the same time as they revealed the rest of the F-150s, which is kind of cool. And they confirmed that the Raptor R is coming back. And they snuck in, at the little reveal event, that it's going to have probably more horsepower than the TRX. So that's going to be more horsepower than it had last year, which is interesting.

But I think I'm mostly just excited that this supercharged V8 super off-road truck is sticking around. It's not some one-year or two-year thing.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.

JOHN SNYDER: And there's new decals too.

ZACK PALMER: New decals!

GREG MIGLIORE: There you go, yeah.

ZACK PALMER: New decals and new shocks. We'll see if we can sense the difference in the shocks. But Ford says that it's better for off-roading. You might be able to land with more control from jumps. I don't know how much we jump trucks in our day-to-day life.

JOHN SNYDER: Right. Well, we probably get to do it more than--

ZACK PALMER: That's true.

JOHN SNYDER: --the average person. But usually sanctioned.

GREG MIGLIORE: Your landing's always going to be bumpy. And the question is just how much less bumpy do you want it to be, I guess.

So let's stay with trucks, Jeep Gladiator. This is a significant refresh. It's basically what they did to the Wrangler, they then did to the Gladiator, fairly subtle in many ways but significant, I think.

A little news nugget is that the 4-by-E version will be coming by 2025. They kind of tucked that in there with just kind of like paraphrasing their electrification plans, that they're going to have the full lineup of Jeeps electrified in some form-- because 4-by-E is plug-in hybrid, but it's also electric-- by 2025. So that includes the Gladiator, which I think makes a lot of people excited.

And then the Gladiator soldiers on. I think they-- what we're going to see, I think, in this segment with the Wrangler, the Bronco, you throw the Gladiator in there a little bit-- we know there's going to be a new 4-Runner. All of these off-roady-type , vehicles they have to stay fresh in ways that maybe six, seven, eight years ago, they didn't have to. Yeah, I think-- you guys have thoughts?

JOHN SNYDER: Well, it sure seems like Jeep is trying to push closer and closer into the premium territory. Just like with the '24 Wrangler, this looks more comfortable, some better interior design that covers up some of the roughness that I find so charming in them already.

But if someone doesn't want something super bare bones where you can see you know the sheet metal through from the inside of the car and things like that, you've got more material covered, improved tech, just more comfortable and upscale. But you can still you get your basic Gladiator without all the stuff inside.

But yeah, it just seems like they're trying to appeal to the bigger wallets. And it makes total sense.

GREG MIGLIORE: The grill is different. Can you tell?

ZACK PALMER: Honestly, I went up and looked at it at the show. And I was like, man, I honestly wouldn't have known if you hadn't have told me that it was a different grill.

GREG MIGLIORE: It's reshaped a little bit. Honestly, I was looking at them because I was trying to get some pictures for social. And I'm like, is that the '24? It's got to be the '24. They wouldn't have the '23 out here. But then I was doing a double take. But if you look closely, you can see it. But just to be clear, Jeep fans, it's not the grill. It's more like the outline of the overall plate, I guess, of the grill. So yeah--

ZACK PALMER: It's a very subtle thing. I mean, what's less subtle is that new infotainment system.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.

ZACK PALMER: I think that all three of us have spent time in the '24 Wrangler with that new big Uconnect system. And I don't know about y'all, but I loved it.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, it's good.

ZACK PALMER: It felt like a massive upgrade.

JOHN SNYDER: For sure, yeah.

ZACK PALMER: I think that it'll pretty much be the same in the Gladiator. And I know that he's not on the podcast right now, but Byron Hurd has threatened on multiple occasions that he will buy a Gladiator if they make a 4-by-E.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.

ZACK PALMER: It sounds like-- I don't know. Next time he's on the podcast, you're going to have to make him somehow promise to that threat, Greg, because he's pretty much guaranteed it at this point.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I mean, honestly, as you look at some of the Jeep electric plans, like the all electric Wagoneer-- they kind of spelled out some of those details. They've been hanging out there for months, frankly. They just, every now and then, when you go back and look at the Jeep plans, like what I did when I was trying to write my news story on this, you're like, oh, hey, that sounds cool.

And of course, the Recon is on the way. So it could be a good time if you're into electric Jeeps. And that infotainment system too, to your point, Zack, is-- it's solid. And it's easy to read. It's easy to use.

I like that, when I drove the Wrangler, you can look at the front cam as well, which is more like an off-road application. But it's super helpful, just even in a parking lot, where you're like, oh, I didn't mean to clip that parking lot barrier. It's very helpful.

JOHN SNYDER: Definitely. I mean, yeah, having the camera is one thing. Having a good screen to see is even more important, especially off-road when you're trying to put your tire between two big rocks or you a blind crest and stuff. It's really helpful to be able to see the trail and make heads or tails of it.

I mean, that really changed offroading for me when you started getting these cameras in your vehicles that allowed you to see basically underneath you, which is pretty amazing.

ZACK PALMER: It's really great when you're going over the top of a very steep hill, and you don't know what's on the other side. It changes the game.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, you don't know which way the trail bends unless you can-- yeah, you usually have to have your buddy hang out the window and look to tell you.

ZACK PALMER: To the right, to the right, yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, there's always that moment where your stomach kind of starts to move up. And your throat catches. And you're like, is it going to go up. And then you see-- you come down. And you can see over the hood again because there's always that moment where all you can see is the hood.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: And you're like, well, which way? What's going to happen next? So you really need a spotter in some of these situations.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: Cool, so that's the Gladiator. New Mojave, but it basically carries over with the same treatments that it got before. But also, it gets all the normal updates that the rest of the Gladiator lineup gets. Yeah, I'm excited to drive this one.

I think I just drove the new-- I drove the Wrangler 4-by-E recently. I'll talk about that in a future podcast. But some of the updates made a bit of a difference. So I assume that's probably going to be my thoughts for the new Gladiator as well.

So let's see. We've got a couple things to get to here. So let's move on to the Acadia. This is obviously GMC's long-running midsize SUV. They made it even larger. It's sort of in line with the Traverse updates, which makes sense because they're siblings. They're platform-mates.

It looks a lot more like the rest of the GMC lineup now. If you looked at the Terrain or even the larger Yukon-- and this is not that much smaller than a Yukon now. It's a big SUV or crossover, I guess nominally.

But if you look at the grill, there's a lot of-- the grill and the headlights, there's a lot of family resemblance at this point. So I mean, it's--

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, which I think it really needed.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.

JOHN SNYDER: And that's something that I feel like GM has struggled with a lot is just not differentiating between the brands enough visually. So I was glad to see it get some more-- borrow some looks from some of the trucks and other things.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, I don't know if you guys crawled into this thing at the Auto Show. But the new interior rocks. It is really, really good.

JOHN SNYDER: It's really nice.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, I was at the Chevy Traverse reveal a couple of months ago. And I thought, oh, this is a really nice interior and all that, looks like a huge upgrade from the previous Traverse that was, honestly, pretty sad before it.

But the GMC interior, I think, really actually speaks to that premiumness of what GMC is kind of aiming for as a brand, to be above and beyond a Chevy. And they really haven't been succeeding at that in some of their smaller models, I feel. But this really, really hits the nail on the head where I think they need to be.

It looks a whole lot like the Sierra EV interior with that waterfall screen with the big volume knob in the middle, the big toggle buttons below that. I just think it looks really, really nice.

I mean, and it's that way on all the trims too. The AT4, You can go all the way up to the Denali. And they all look classy. They have their own little unique touches. So this was honestly a little bit of a surprise to me in how much I liked this thing.

JOHN SNYDER: There's more attention to detail and just better materials now. You look around, and you see there's things that are laser-etched. There's really nice wood trim and really nice textile patterns in the upholstery.

Yeah, it seems like a lot better of a place to spend time than before, for sure.

ZACK PALMER: And one funny touch that Joel mentioned to me when we were staring at it at the show is that the AT4 has the orange marker lights on the fenders that the Yukon and Sierra and Sierra Heavy Duties get.

[LAUGHTER]

But they've thrown them on an Acadia. I mean, that plus the all-terrains and the skid plate, it's sort of a faithful recreation. It goes above and beyond what I think most of these rugged-ized crossovers try to do appearance-wise to look tough. So yeah.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, they didn't just take you know a Chevy and add chrome.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because we talk about-- and we'll talk about this with our next one too, how these aren't super-significant refreshes, as in they're more like midcycle refreshes.

The Acadia is a significant redesign, dare I say. The wheelbase is different than the outgoing model. The interior is different. The design is dramatically different.

If you look at this, the best thing I can say about this is it reminds me a bit of like a GMC Terrain Denali, much larger. And I think the Terrain is actually a pretty good-looking little crossover. I think it's all right.

But then you get the Acadia in the middle of the GMC crossover-SUV lineup, and it was just this kind of long, barge-like vehicle that did kind of look like a gussied up Chevy in some ways, even though, interestingly, the Traverse and the Acadia did go on kind of divergent paths too because GM did sort of try to differentiate them with different lengths and different sizes for perhaps different, I guess, use cases for--

I don't know. It seems like you would-- the buyers, the potential buyers would be cross-shopping these vehicles. So I don't know how much you need to differentiate them maybe. I don't know. But all that's to say, it looks a lot better. It looks different. It's a significant upgrade.

Cool, I mean, I think that's the Acadia. I think, yeah, I think it's--

I caught part of the press conference. Yeah, I mean, it's-- I thought they could have even maybe played it up a little more, I guess, is what I'm trying to say here. It's actually like a redesign, whereas Ford had Darius Rucker there to show off a glorified refresh. This is, they did more to it, if you will.

That being said, F-150, Acadia, it's a big difference in where they sit in the company and what people care about.

JOHN SNYDER: But yeah, it definitely didn't make as big of a splash at the show as it could have or as the other vehicles did.

ZACK PALMER: No. I don't know. Maybe that speaks to auto shows a little in general, in that they don't want to be caught in the wake of somebody else. I don't know if that's one of the reasons that we see fewer reveals. But it definitely did seem to blend in the background when it probably shouldn't have because--

I don't know how you guys did your Editor's Pick scores. But I gave this one way, way more than I thought I was going to.

GREG MIGLIORE: OK.

ZACK PALMER: So yeah.

JOHN SNYDER: Cool.

GREG MIGLIORE: All right, if you're listening to this, it's probably Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, et cetera. Our Editor's Picks will have been published at noon, noon-ish, I'll put it that way, somewhere in there. Come back, and we will have all of our breakdown of how we rank the reveals.

Another reveal, transition, is the Cadillac CT5. This is a lot of fun to drive. I think Cadillacs have been pretty good-looking the last few years. John, you actually did do the backgrounder for this. So why don't you kind of lead off here?

JOHN SNYDER: Well, I mean, there's really not a lot different. But the things that are different are executed well. Up front, there's a bigger, wider grill, more aggressive front fascia. They did some improvements to those vertical signature lightings, made them a little more prominent.

The stacked LED headlights are redesigned. They've got a lot more detail in the lighting. If you get up close to the car and look at it, you see a lot more detail. Hard to make it out from the photos.

But yeah, it-- that's basically all that happened up front.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.

JOHN SNYDER: And then in the back-- well, basically that's all that happened on the outside. They didn't really do much. They tweaked the lighting in the rear just a little bit, not really in design though, just more in performance.

Inside, it gets that big 33-inch touchscreen. So it's like some of the-- like in the Escalade, the right side is touchscreen. Behind the steering wheel is not. And then to the left of the steering wheel, you get some more touch functions. So basically, everything that isn't covered by the wheel has some touch capability.

The screen is really nice-looking. The resolution is fantastic, 9K resolution.

ZACK PALMER: Wow.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: OK. That's better than my TV by far.

ZACK PALMER: Beyond 8K.

JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

So yeah, that's really the centerpiece of it. It runs on Google built-in, so Google Assistant, Google Maps, Google Play. They've added a little bit of functionality to some of the safety systems, like improved lane keep assist and roadside recognition, Super Cruise.

I haven't had a chance to drive it yet but they said the Super Cruise does a better job transitioning between hands-on and hands-off driving. That was not always super-seamless in the past. So they said that they improved that transition. We'll have to wait and see on that one until we drive it.

Same engines as before, 2 liter turbo making 237 horsepower, twin turbo 3 liter V6 making 335 horsepower. Rear-wheel drive optional, all-wheel drive based on that rear wheel drive, so it's more of a rear bias.

And yeah, it's got the Tour, Sport, Snow, Ice modes, customizable My Mode. But really, that's all that's different. There's just really not much. They just gave it a little nip and a tuck up front and just made it look a little sportier.

And the sport model-- they haven't broken down the trim levels yet, if they're going to change them or not. But there is going to be a sport trim still. And that one has an even more aggressive look to it. It's got this really nice black mesh grill. And yeah, it looks good.

But yeah, pretty much the same CT5 you know, just a little more tech-friendly and with that beautiful screen, oh, and two new colors. There's Deep Space Metallic, which is sort of a dark gray, and the Typhoon Metallic, which is almost like a sort of darkish seafoam green. And I really like the Deep Space. It's a nice finish.

ZACK PALMER: Yeah, and I know that they haven't revealed the V or the Blackwing yet. But they are coming, from what I'm hearing still.