Yahoo Autos Autoblog Electric launches; we talk EV news, VW ID.4 and Kia EV6 | Autoblog Podcast #770
In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder. In company news, we launched the Autoblog Electric hub this week, and as such, we spend a lot of this episode talking about EVs. WE start by talking about some electric pickups on the way, EV charging and U.S. infrastructure plans, states banning ICE sales, the happiest EV owners, thoughts on the viability of smaller electric automakers and Formula 1's renewed stance against goinf electric. We also share notes on the Volkswagen ID.4 and Kia EV6 we've been driving, as well as other memorable EVs we've driven in the past year. Finally, we reach into the mailbag for a Spend My Money update before talking about late winter/spring beverages.
Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.
Video Transcript
[THEME MUSIC]
GREG MIGLIORE: Welcome back to the "Autoblog Podcast." I'm Greg Migliori. We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about a lot of things electric. Perhaps you may have noticed that we launched our Autoblog Electric hub this week. Lots of great content on there. We've got a charging finder if you want to find out what charging stations are near you, plus all of the great electric car news brought to you by us here at Autoblog. So check it out. It's all over our home page.
And also, if you're just a really big electric fan, you know, you could go ahead and bookmark this or follow this as well, and it'll take you right there. So with that, I will bring in senior editor for all things, should I say, electric, John Snyder. What's going on?
JOHN SNYDER: Hey. How's it going? I'm just excited about the launch today. And yeah, we've got our social media feeds running too, so you can go follow us @AutoblogEVs on Twitter and Autoblog Electric on Facebook.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. I like that. Small, little behind-the-scenes thing. The Autoblog electric wouldn't fit on Twitter, so our social media guy, Michael Morris, was like, how about Autoblog EVs? I'm like, hey, that's actually kind of a cool Twitter handle. So yeah, give us a follow.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, a little easier to type too.
GREG MIGLIORE: A little easier to type, yeah, that is. It makes a lot of sense. It's good for SEO too. So yeah, we have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about a variety of things going on in the car world. We will spend your money. We've got an update from David in New Jersey.
In the fleet, we've been driving the Kia EV6. That's our long-termer. John's been in the Volkswagen ID.4. We'll talk about some of the memorable EVs we've driven in the last year and why. New section, we've got an electric pickup trucks round up, the state of charging. We've got a bunch of different takes on that.
We're going to talk, too, about some of the states-- the states-- specifically, New Jersey is the latest to put an expiration date on sales of new ICE-powered cars. That's a mouthful, but we'll get into that kind of talk about what we think it might mean. We'll see. Maybe it won't mean anything. And then F1 says, "Hey, we're never going to go electric." So there's a lot of stuff going on here. Maybe we'll have some breaking news even during the show.
So yeah, let's talk about some of the electric pickup trucks coming. You wrote this one, just posted and updated this morning. You know, there's a lot of stuff, obviously, that we know is coming, that we already have driven. The new sort of additions and things that we know a little bit more about is the RAM electric.
The last time, I think, you did this, we didn't really know about the timing. We didn't even know what it was going to be called. Now we've seen it. We've seen a Super Bowl ad. To me, that's going to be a pretty strong contender once it gets out there.
JOHN SNYDER: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, the Americans are really good at building and selling pickups. So I think, you know, we we've seen how wildly successful the F-150 Lightning has been. Now there's going to be something for the Rams fans. And yeah, it seems like a pretty promising truck too, you know, 350-kilowatt charging, which is great.
I think anytime that you can lower the charging times right now, that's one of the big things that people are looking for in order to get into an EV and be willing to live with it, even though most of their charging will be done at home. You know, it's a bummer when you go on a long road trip, and you just want to keep going, and you have to stop for however long. You know, if you're driving an older EV, you've got to stop for a good long while each time you want to refuel.
Yeah, so something like 350-kilowatt charging, again, that's as good as you can get right now. I think that's really important, especially in these trucks that are heavier and less efficient, but, you know, they'll probably have bigger batteries too, but, you know, the charging thing is a big thing for it.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, yeah, definitely. As I learned firsthand in the Kia EV6, our long-termer. We can, maybe, get into that in a minute, but overall, I'm really liking that car, that's for sure. Looking at the list here, we've got the Cybertruck, which Elon Musk is promising mainstream production by 2024. We're actually recording this on the eve, the morning of, Tesla Investor Day. So we may get more details on that.
It's actually supposed to show up in some form this year. So we'll see. I think that could be a game-changer. I like the looks. They've grown on me. I think they offer something kind of different. So I mean, I think, obviously, it's going to be a Tesla. People are going to probably-- it'll be polarizing, but a lot of people will love it. So that's kind of a cool one on the list here, I think, that could really reshape things. Like, I think it'll bring a lot of new truck buyers to the segment.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, then there's the Scout Truck, too, which I think just looks really sweet. We don't know as much about it, but 2026, a little bit farther.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. I think yeah, Volkswagen is pretty excited about that one. And yeah, it sounds like they're going to be building a lot of it or, you know, I don't know if they're going to build all of them, but it sounds like they're going to be building a lot of them in the US.
So that's also really good right now, with the infrastructure Act, just to help make these more affordable for people too. But they'll an neat thing, just the revival of the Scout name. And we'll see what Volkswagen does with it.
GREG MIGLIORE: The Sierra EV is coming. It's the 2024 model year. Well, you can't make reservations for the Denali edition one, which starts at almost $110,000, so that's going to be expensive, but, you know, lots of expensive trucks from General Motors on this list, too.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: Silverado, Hummer, Sierra.
JOHN SNYDER: The Sierra is cool because, you know, if you don't want to go the Hummer route, you've got another option there. And it will offer crab walk, things like that. I just hope that they offer some lower trims soon in the lineup because, yeah, over $100,000 is a tough pill to swallow right off the bat.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the state of EV charging. Just anecdotally, I'd say it's OK. That would be the way I put it up, not really where it needs to be. I'll give you my charging experiences in the last, say, like, six weeks. I was slow charging a BMW 330 plug-in hybrid, small batteries, only 20 miles of range, small gas tank. To me, that was more, like, how to get re acclimated with my local gas station than driving an electric car, let's put it that way.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: Although I saw road test editor Zac Palmer yesterday. He dropped off a level-one charger for the EV6, which we just got from Amazon, I think.
JOHN SNYDER: Beautiful.
GREG MIGLIORE: And he rolled right up quietly. So if you have a level-two charger, you're OK with that. But yeah, that's one end of it. Then I did some really quick, fast charging in the EV6 last week, two weeks ago. There was a DC fast charger nearby. It's ChargePoint, so that worked out pretty good after a slow start.
Downside is then I went to the same charger on Sunday, hoping to kind of get a boost for the week because I knew there was going to be ice storms. And who wants to be charging your car in an ice storm in a public place? And I literally got, like, 10 miles of range, so that was a little frustrating.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: It just was really moving slow. The battery wasn't warmed up, but yeah, and I committed a faux pas because I parked in slot one-- parked in spot two and charged in spot one, so it was a little awkward.
When this person rolled up in an Audi e-tron quattro and she was very nice. She just pulled her car up to the other side of the charger and plugged in. She's like, don't worry. You don't need to move. I was like, oh man. I'm that guy. I'm the guy, like, you know-- so I don't know. So it seems like infrastructure is up and down. You know, I wanted to take--
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, it's--
GREG MIGLIORE: Go ahead.
JOHN SNYDER: It's an interesting sort of inflection point right now.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: We're definitely better off than we were a year ago. I can now get up to my cottage pretty easily, you know, up in rural northern Michigan. And, you know, we've got more chargers coming online. Electrify America is building out their network.
Reliability of these things is still a huge problem everywhere you go. Not everywhere, but lots of places you'll go, you see chargers offline. And that's rough when you're rolling in on 20 miles left in your battery and need to go another, you know, however many miles to the next charger, and you just don't have the availability there, but that's getting better.
I think these charging providers are starting to realize that they need to address this better and, you know, have a fleet of cars that go around and test the chargers and actually fix them.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: It's just as important as building new ones, but new ones are getting built. I've noticed ChargePoint is around here. ChargePoint is everywhere. And Electrify America is-- there's fewer spots, but each, you know, destination has a lot of chargers, and they've got those 350-kilowatt chargers. So that's super helpful now that more and more of those are coming online.
And then as of today, I believe, Tesla has opened up some of its supercharging infrastructure to non-Tesla vehicles. And I've been seeing videos on Reddit of people charging their Rivians and F-150 Lightnings at Tesla superchargers and getting really good charging rates.
You know, there's a little adapter that unlocks when you unlock the charger, and it pops out on the handle, and it's ready to go right there. And yeah, it looks like people are charging pretty successfully on the supercharger network. Glad to see that there's not any real compatibility issues. Maybe we'll see some as more people get the opportunity to charge on that, but man, that's huge.
Tesla's just got-- you know, they've got the infrastructure thing down better than anyone else. And, you know, I know that Tesla doesn't want to piss off some of its customers by allowing anybody to charge at a supercharger that might already be pretty full, pretty busy.
So I think they're picking select ones to offer up, but they've just got so many of them already built out that it really helps to fill the gaps in the infrastructure for people traveling across the country or, you know, across their state. Kudos to Tesla for that. That's huge. Glad to see it.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. That's one of those sometimes sort of incremental, like, just low-hanging fruit things that really makes a difference. I think that that will make a difference. When I was trying to take our EV6 up north, it was very doable, but I was pretty nervous because it was cold. I was worried about the rate of charge, you know, with the chargers, with the car.
And there's a fair amount of Tesla superchargers on the way up north, in Michigan, but-- and you actually know this better than I do-- there's some fast chargers on the way up north, not quite as many as I felt quite comfortable doing.
Initially, I regretted not taking the EV6 because it's an awesome car, for one thing, but because when I got there and I had to top off the family truckster, the Acadia, there was literally two fast chargers sitting at the gas station. I'm like, I didn't even see these on the map, which is probably my own fault. So, you know, there was that.
But then it also did become a thing of, how much of the vacation did I really want to be charging the car? And we did a lot of stuff. We went from-- like, you'll know this logistically, John. It's from Petoskey to the Mackinac bridge, which, if you ever get a chance to do that in winter, totally do it.
JOHN SNYDER: Oh, yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: It's amazing to see it the ice and everything, so I mean, long story short, I would have been probably charging a little more of this long weekend that I wanted to. So thus, that's how I made the call, but I think I would have tipped the other way had I known if there was going to be, like, a charger every 50 miles.
Like, that's sort of the latest news out of Washington is, you know, the government wants to grow the network of chargers to half a million, including high-speed chargers. And they'd be 50 miles apart. So if you do that, you know-- and I kind of said this last week, you know, you're really rethinking how people can use their EVs, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: It totally changes it if you have that level of scale.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, it's funny. I've driven across the country in gas-powered vehicles and, you know, been in the Utah desert and been like, oh man, there is not a gas station--
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: --for a really long time. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And seeing how nervous that is. Having a reliable EV chargers every 50 miles on these main highways would be huge, would just be a game changer for EVs. So yeah, I hope that they meet these goals in whatever way, and I'm glad that, you know, Tesla was willing to play ball for them, at least a little bit. So we'll see.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, if we can get, you know, that much infrastructure in this giant country, I'll be pleased, for sure.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. It's interesting. I enjoy charging my car. It's still more like a technical kind of-- and I'm not-- like, I still do most of my notes in, like, a dot journal, like, with pencils. Like, I'm kind of old school. I have a smashed Android Google Pixel 3 phone.
Like, I'm not Mr. Technology, but I really do kind of geek out with charging electric cars. I like looking at how quickly the car is charging. I like trying the different vendors. It's way more fun than getting gas, where if you think about it, you're, like, taking this poisonous flammable fluid and loading up your car with it. I mean, if you actually think about it, it's a little unsettling. We've been doing it for 120 years, you know, whatever, it's all good.
JOHN SNYDER: Right.
GREG MIGLIORE: But it's just from a-- you know, it's a different way to look at it, you know? And I kind of like it. It's almost when I switched to an electric lawnmower last year, I found how much I enjoyed, like, not having to worry as much about some of the maintenance, like the oil and the gas.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: And just how, like-- I mean, literally I would fill up the lawnmower on a Saturday morning and then smell like I had, like, I don't know-- I just smelled flammable and, like, grassy for the rest of the weekend, even if you shower. And you know, you extrapolate that a little bit to, like, filling up your car. It's like, hey, all right. I can see electric here.
So you know, I like charging my electric vehicles. I think it's fun. I'm looking forward to doing that later today, even though I know there's always challenges. That's the other thing, too, is I try to level set going in, like, will somebody to be there? Is the charger not working? So I don't know. Maybe the novelty will start to wear off. We'll see.
JOHN SNYDER: Maybe. So far, yeah, again, yeah, like you said, it's something you can kind of geek out about. And the strategies maybe not ideal for everyone but--
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And hopefully, you know, that changes where you don't have to really have a strategy, but that part is, you know, it's kind of like a game right now. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: Not ideal for the average consumer. I suppose.
GREG MIGLIORE: It literally fits my lifestyle because we work from home, and I have a close fast charger, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: So I don't know, and I've enjoyed hanging out with the other electric vehicle owners. Like, I'm kind of like, I'm a ghost. They think I'm an EV6 owner. I'm like, well, not, but it's too much to explain it, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: And you see cool stuff too. You see really, really cool cars. I saw a Silverado EV prototype--
GREG MIGLIORE: Oh, cool.
JOHN SNYDER: --one of the last times I was charging the EV6. And yeah, you just see cool stuff like that. I see pictures, you know, online of people at chargers and they're like, oh, I got to see, like, this prototype and that prototype and then this new car and stuff. So yeah, you get to see, like, the newest, coolest cars at the EV chargers.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, the lady in the Audi e-tron was just like-- that thing was awesome. It was all black, basically, and it was the crossover. I'm totally blanking on the name. That's the Q5-based one. Am I thinking that right? And it was just-- I was like, wow. This is really cool. And you know, she was interested in the EV6. I saw another guy in an EV6.
When I rolled up there in the Hummer last fall, I was definitely a rockstar. People were like, what is this? So yeah, it's a cool culture in many ways. And anecdotally, in Slack, I was talking about this earlier. I have a relatively short, like, errand, if you will, some preschool drop off in the mornings. And I literally saw six or seven EVs. It had caught my mind because of the launch of Autoblog Electric, obviously caught my eye, but even a year ago, I don't think I'd see this many on the road.
JOHN SNYDER: Oh, yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: You know, I saw a Polestar 2, a Model Y, like four other Teslas, a Mach-E. And probably missing something, you know? And the Polestar 2 was kind of cool because you don't see that many of those in metro Detroit.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, there's a parent at Wally's school that has one that I see sometimes. It's really cool.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, the Polestar 2 is such a great car. I love it. Sometimes I see people driving EVs that I've driven and really like, and I'm like, that guy is cool. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. Yeah, no. I'm with you. It's a very understated one, you know, as many of the Polestar things are, so I think that's kind of cool.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. But yeah, EVs have blown up. I think last year or maybe it was the year previous, the latest year data was that, I think, 10% of EVs sold globally were-- 10% of cars sold globally were EVs, which is not insignificant.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And yeah, it speaks as to why we're seeing so many, even here in metro Detroit, where everyone loves their great, big, gas-guzzling trucks and everything American.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: But now that we've got things like the Mustang Mach-E and cars to make EVs cool, people are getting on board. And I'm glad they are.
GREG MIGLIORE: So this is kind of like a stronger approach, I would say. Let me put it that way. It's a little bit controversial. New Jersey is the most recent state to ban internal combustion vehicles by 2035. This is sales of new vehicles, as I understand it. So if you're still driving your 2022, you know, four-cylinder Honda Civic, you're going to be OK, but you're not going to be able to buy certain kinds of new vehicles in certain states.
There's 12 of them so far, you know, trying to align by-- usually it's the mid 2030s. 2035 is sort of the magic number that most states are doing it. And that's also when, like, in California, they call it their ACC 2, Advanced Clean Cars 2 comes in. And a lot of states are adopting that, which kicks in on 2035. So yeah, just news came in this morning. I saw that.
You know, I think put politics aside of it. I kind of question, in some ways, the practical, you know, relativeness of this, let me put it that way. I feel like by 2035, the electric revolution is either going to be much farther along that stuff like this won't be relevant or it could create some problems for people too. So I don't know. I haven't fully formed my mind on this one.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, it's hard to predict, but I feel like 2035 is far enough along that, you know, that the way that things have accelerated in just the past, like, couple of years, it might not even be that big of an issue, especially if you can still keep driving your old gas car.
But I don't know. The big thing about it is that, you know, like, carb. And in California, its mandates really drove the auto industry in a certain direction in terms of efficiency because if you want to sell cars in California, you have to make them to a certain spec. And if you're going to do that, you might as well make it to that spec for the rest of the country.
So people want to sell cars in places like California, New Jersey, you know, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Oregon, you're going to have to be making enough EVs to sell to the residents of those states.
And that will mean that there will be EVs available. And it's a sort of that chicken-and-the-egg thing, where we need people to have EVs to have infrastructure, but now that I feel like the first chicken has laid the first egg, and there are going to start being more chickens and eggs, and it's not going to be a problem anymore.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. Another piece of news that came over the last couple of days is about the happiest EV owners. Rivian took the top spot, dethroning Tesla, which is kind of interesting.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: I can see this. Like, I've driven Rivians. I've driven both of their products, the truck and the SUV. They're a little wonky in different ways, in my opinion, but overall, they're cool. You know, they seem to, I think, capture the zeitgeist of what people are going for. So I can see why Rivian, you know, kind of won top honors, you know?
And maybe some of Tesla's-- I don't even know why they would have edged out Tesla. Teslas didn't fare poorly. Maybe it could be some of the politics have started to irritate some Tesla owners. I wonder if that or just some of the Twitter controversy. You wonder how that kind of bleeds in, even though this spot, this JD Power survey, is ostensibly about, like, just the products, but, you know, you always kind of wonder about that stuff.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm. Well, JD Power did change their methodology a little bit this year.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And the survey was specifically first-time EV buyers. So I don't know if that makes a difference either.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And with Rivian being new, you know--
GREG MIGLIORE: That's a good point.
JOHN SNYDER: --it could color people. The thing that surprised me was that, you know, if you're going down from the premium segment to the mass market EVs, Mini Cooper EV took the top spot, which-- that just kind of surprised me because it's not, you know, the most convenient vehicle. It's not big. You can't put a lot of stuff in it. It's got, you know, 115 miles of range or something like that, not a lot of range.
And it just goes to show that you don't have to have, you know, a big family hauler or something with a huge battery to have an EV that you enjoy. But also, you know, the Cooper is just cool too.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And it's a fun car to drive, you know. Minis are great to drive anyway. And then an electric Mini is also really fun to drive. And, you know, for most day-to-day driving it's not an issue. Just charge at home, and as long as you're not driving over, you know, 100-some miles a day, you will never have to use a public charger. And if you live somewhere with decent charging infrastructure, yeah, that'll be an easy car to enjoy, for sure.
But yeah, [LAUGHS ] I feel like the people who buy that car are already willing to live with those things, and so they're not going to knock the Mini for-- knock the Mini points for things like range. But Kia EV6 came after that and Ford Mustang Mach-E, no surprises there. They're all excellent cars. But yeah, the Cooper was a little surprising to me, but I'm glad to see it.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: I'm glad to see that people are enjoying it.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I thought that was cool, actually. We get so jaded as journalists about everything. A lot of times it just goes to chalk or what you expect it would be. And then we're like, oh, the Mini Cooper electric popped in there. That's kind of cool. And I have not driven that one. I can only imagine how fun that must be to drive because Minis are fun to drive, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: It is.
GREG MIGLIORE: That sounds like a riot.
JOHN SNYDER: [LAUGHS ] Yeah, I was actually able to fit our ski gear in that car.
GREG MIGLIORE: Wow.
JOHN SNYDER: It was kind of surprising. I mean, when you have a Mini, like, you figure out how to live with it. And just how fun the car is makes it all worthwhile. It's just so much character and such good driving dynamics.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, no, I believe it. So as we look at sort of the field, if you will, there's a lot of smaller companies, startups, or smaller legacy automakers, like Lotus, for example, that are getting into electrics. When you look at this field, like, I mean, who do you think is doing well? Who do you think is, like, that sounds like vaporware or I don't what. Who knows what they're going to do? I mean, who's standing out to you.
JOHN SNYDER: Lotus I feel pretty bullish on--
GREG MIGLIORE: OK.
JOHN SNYDER: --partly because of who's backing them, you know?
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, that's true.
JOHN SNYDER: Geely and Volvo and Polestar in their umbrella. And think I talked to those guys recently about their EVs. And it sounds like they've got a solid plan in place. And they're planning to expand and become a larger automaker. And, you know, I think they've got the brand cachet to at least draw interest and. You know, I've never driven a Lotus I didn't love.
GREG MIGLIORE: That's true, yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: I can only imagine that they'll be at least successful, about as successful as they expect, if not more. Fisker, wow. I don't know. I don't know. I love everything I hear coming out of the company, but it's taken so long to actually see product, but, again, it's another one that's generated a lot of interest. People, they hear "Fisker," and their ears perk up.
And the Ocean seems like a really promising vehicle at a promising price point. And, you know, it's sort of, like, right in the segment that people are buying.
So I don't know. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes there, but, you know, once they get the product out, it'll be a lot easier to gauge, pretty quickly, how they're going to do, but, you know, just from the specs and the segment and pricing, I think it has the potential to do well.
Lucid, they're somewhere in between those two, in my mind. You know, they they've got really good people at the helm, really good designs. I think once they come out with the Gravity, that'll attract even more buyers, but yeah, they've had some issues with investments in the past, but
I think they're smart enough. And they're already building and selling cars. I think that's maybe the hardest thing, is to get started with that. But I have always sort of suspected that they'll be fairly successful, you know?
Let's see. Who else? I don't know, man. There's so many other ones that, you know-- there's some of the makers on that truck's list, like Atlis.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: A-T-L-I-S that you just don't expect to ever see the light of day.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: [LAUGHS ]
But sometimes you're surprised. I mean, when Tesla was making, you know, roadsters in Lotus bodies, who'd have thought, you know, they'd be what they are now? So there could always be a dark horse that will surprise you, but some of them, like Lotus, I'm pretty confident about, for sure.
GREG MIGLIORE: I'll be curious to see, you know what some of the-- like, you mentioned, like, Lucid, some of in-between brands, ones that have received some coverage, we've driven some of their cars.
You know, there are some, like-- General Motors, Ford, et cetera, like, you know, they have a lot of manufacturing expertise and technology, like, and resources behind them, but then some of the in-between ones, too, like Lordstown. We talked about them last week, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: Oh, yeah, Lordstown, jeez.
GREG MIGLIORE: It's an interesting spot. I mean, who knows? You know, they had a recall last week.
JOHN SNYDER: They have had a rough start. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. They've had a very rough start. In some ways, it's interesting that they're still hanging in there. It reminds me a little bit of the old Fisker sort of hiccups they faced once they started to scale up a little bit. So we'll see. I mean, I do think it's interesting. This is like sort of like when we were 100 years ago, when there were all these different brands and companies and some were big, and some were, like, more startups.
So I think it's cool. And a lot of them are working together, you know? I think that's kind of interesting too. Like, the bigger ones are working together, like, GM and Honda, you know? And Ford had that partnership with Volkswagen that kind of went a couple of different ways. So it's interesting. It's way different now in the last 10 years in the next 10 years than, like, the previous 50.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, with the legacy automakers getting in the game and with resources behind them and the speed with which they can do these things.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. It seems daunting for the little guys.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: But some of the little guys are backed by bigger guys.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. So then we have news, kind of an interesting way to put a bow on this. Formula 1, Stefano Domenicali, the president, is like, we are never going electric. So hot take, I can see how that makes sense too. I mean, they already are, like, essentially hybrid cars in some means of the definition, using kers and other things. They have been for quite some time. But I mean, I guess if you go electric, that's Formula E, right?
JOHN SNYDER: Right.
GREG MIGLIORE: And like, I can somewhat see his point. It's motorsport. It's sport, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: I mean, you're not really-- I'm sure there are studies on the CO2 emissions and the stuff that F1 makes, but, I mean, horse racing is still around, you know?
We don't use horses as our main means of transportation. At some point, ICE cars will go away, probably. It'll probably be quite some time, but they'll probably go away in some form. And you know, we still have, like, different motorsport series. So I don't know. I wasn't actually all that surprised by his comments, especially having seen how he approaches interviews in the past. He doesn't hold back.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. And they're sort of banking on synthetic fuels.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: They're still trying to go, you know, carbon neutral, F1 is, by 2030. And they want to do that by switching to, you know, sustainable fuels, e-fuels, which, you know, could throw a wrench into things too.
That could mean, you know, companies like Toyota might be OK in their slow approach to EVs if sustainable liquid fuels become another prong in the approach to sustainability and carbon neutrality for transportation. I know Porsche and Audi are big on e-fuels. And if it's something that gets off the ground and gets going, and if F1 can do it, you know, a lot of the fun stuff trickles down into consumer cars.
So there might be, you know, a spark of life for internal combustion yet. But yeah, I'll be very curious to see that roll out from F1. And if they can stick with the sustainable fuel thing and not go back on this never-going-electric thing, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting.
But yeah, like you said, there's already a Formula E. If Formula 1 did go electric, they'd have to find some other avenue, maybe just make their cars way, way more powerful or something, but--
GREG MIGLIORE: Which they could do.
JOHN SNYDER: --that could be even better. Yeah, but I mean, with battery technology and whatnot, it might be tricky to endure a whole F1 race, but, you know, I'll be watching that. I'll be paying attention, seeing what's going on there because, you know, like I said, that often, you know, has effects on consumer cars. We see that technology trickle down all the time.
GREG MIGLIORE: Sounds good. Yeah. I mean, F1 kicks off, basically-- today's Wednesday. We'll start seeing practices, I think, tomorrow. Bahrain, first Grand Prix of the year. I'm looking forward to it. You know, we're a pretty early-rising family, and the F1 races are usually on pretty early, so looking forward to the season. I've catching up a little bit on "Drive To Survive" too.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, I haven't watched that yet. I need to catch up.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. First, you know, this is the new season of the show. It dropped Friday. So I've watched a little bit of it. Yeah, the sports calendar is starting to heat up, too, with hockey and basketball. So that tends to cut into my Netflix viewing as well.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. So EV6, we've already touched on it a little bit. The charging experience, like I said, it's been up and down. I think par for the course for how, like, most EV6 owners would be who don't have a home charger.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm.
GREG MIGLIORE: And I found you don't need one. You know, like, if you live in a developed metro area, you can definitely swing it. It's working for me pretty well in that sense. The road trip was the only hang up, which ended up being the road not taken for me.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm.
GREG MIGLIORE: Loving the car, though. I mean, it's plenty of room in the back, taking it shopping, it's fun to drive. You know, ours is the all-wheel drive version. It's got snow tires on it and all-wheel drive, which is really nice, given that we appear to be on the, you know, fifth portal of ice hell or whatever is going on with the climate.
JOHN SNYDER: [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: But yeah, I mean, been a great loan. I'm going to swap with our news editor, Joel, and get the Toyota Sienna next week, which I'm very excited about, but this is literally been the quickest long-term loan I've had. It's been a straight month, four weeks. That's how it usually is. Historically, the long-term cars tend to, it seems like, stay with me for a extra week or two longer just because of, like, schedules and stuff. Man, this one just flew by. I enjoyed every minute of it, and I'm sad to see it go.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, it's a fun car. And, you know, you can get in this sort of groove of just using it like a normal daily driver, running errands, everything's hunky dory, you know, you might be putting it in eco mode and seeing how much energy you can save, but, you know, it's easy to forget that put it in sport mode and dig into the accelerator, and this thing's a riot, you know?
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: You can get the rear tires to come out just a little bit sometimes, and it's really fun. It's really easy to bring back. Yeah, it's an enjoyable vehicle for, like, all sorts of different types of driving.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And I drove it up north in the dead of winter. And I ended up stopping a couple of times to charge. I was playing it safe, just because I was going to be out in the middle of nowhere by myself, in the cold.
So I, you know, was able to just two charges for 250 miles to make sure I still had-- I wanted to get home and have extra battery to get through my week too but yeah, it's not so bad. I also didn't have a baby or a dog with me.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: Which definitely complicates those stops, if you need to stop for longer periods. But yeah, I'm curious to try that same route in the summer and EV. And I'd like to try and go all the way to my cottage, you know, on a full charge, without stopping because you know, with the right car, you could do it, and wouldn't be too harrowing, as long as I plug it in once I get to the cottage.
GREG MIGLIORE: If it was just me, I would have done it. I would have probably powered through and, you know, seen how it would go, but, you know, again, with the multiple people and dog in the car, it was, like, yeah, I got to play it safe on this one, but, you know, I did try out our new Amazon charger. I think it's from Amazon. I got about eight miles of range last night. I had it plugged into just my standard outlet in the garage. So it worked out OK. I was.
I'm pretty low, so I do need to hit a fast charger, like, today. That's how I'm going to celebrate Autoblog Electric because I'm going to charge my EV back up to, like, 17%, but still below 20%, you know? Jeez I was at, like, 12% or 13%, 14%. I was like, oh dude. I was literally going to go to that ChargePoint and tell Zach-- he was like hey, I'm going to bring you a charger. When do you want it? I'm like, well, now would be great, literally right now.
So it's OK. I mean, I don't know if-- you know, when it comes around, if the EV6 comes back to you, yeah, like if I had it plugged in, I probably would have had another 10, 15 miles of range this morning, but I forgot to go to the garage. It's a nice line of defense, if you will. Yeah, so how was the ID.4?
JOHN SNYDER: Oh, I really like it. [LAUGHS ] Apart from the tech, the really wonky infotainment system. Other than that, I've come to be OK with, like, the touch slider controls and--
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: --and the fact that you have to tap a little button because there's only two window levers, so you have to tap a button to switch them between the front and the rear. You don't use that that often, but everything else about the car, I love it. The interior is beautiful. Really nice, it's really clean. I really like the design. The handling is fantastic. This is just a really fun car to steer.
It's definitely, you know, more on the European side than the American side of Volkswagen handling and steering. It's really sharp, you know? You can really point it wherever you want, you know? If there's a pothole you can quickly just-- [VOCALIZES] and just get right around it. It's really nice, very, very sharp.
And this time not having a Mustang Mach-E to directly compare it to while driving it, it feels plenty quick, you know? It's not slow at all, you know? It feels like a normal EV, which, you know, feels quicker than most gas-powered cars. I've owned. So yeah, and the space inside is really nice and usable, really easy to put kids and gear in. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
There's some weird design things about it. The drive selector is, you know, up next to the digital instrument panel, and you sort of twist it. [LAUGHS ] It takes a little getting used to, but you get used to that quickly. It's not a problem. And it just makes it sort of neat, but yeah, I quite liked driving that around. And I've been seeing-- you know, we've talked about seeing EVs. I've been seeing a lot more ID.4s on the road around here too.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, definitely.
JOHN SNYDER: And, you know, someone came up-- someone who had a Tesla Model Y, they came up and were asking me about it because they're looking to add a second EV. And I was like, yeah, it's good. But this guy was like-- one of his things was tech. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Mm-hmm.
JOHN SNYDER: He wants good tech in a car. I'm like, eh, you might want to look at something else.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah
JOHN SNYDER: But I told him, Kia EV6 and Ioniq five might be up his alley, tech-wise, is great. But yeah, that's the one drawback of the ID.4, but I know that Volkswagen has heard those complaints and is working to improve that aspect of its vehicles. So hopefully, we start seeing some updates and some improvements there. But yeah, I think it would be very slow to load up the infotainment. I had one time where the volume just didn't work until I restarted the car.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yikes.
JOHN SNYDER: And then it started working, but that was weird. But, yeah, it's wonderful to drive and wonderful to be in, but yeah, the tech needs some help.
GREG MIGLIORE: And to me, that's fixable. I had a similar experience when I drove one. It's been a little while now, but I do remember the drive very vividly. I like how it looks. The handling is really good. It's a good EV, but some of the interior tech was just-- it's harder to pick up, you know?
I think the Mach-E is a great example of how to make an electric car kind of techie, but not overwrought, you know? Like, you can just figure it out. So I thought it was easier to change, like, the drive modes in the Mach-E than it is to change, like, the radio in the ID.4.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. [LAUGHS ] I know.
GREG MIGLIORE: I did really like the overall just aesthetics of the ID.4. I really think it, like, could be the right car for a lot of people, right crossover, you know? It's one of the better Volkswagens I've driven, full stop, in quite a few years. Like, I liked a lot of it, let me put it that way.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, I mean, I would put up with the tech problems.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: And hope for an over-the-air update or a dealer update or something down the line, but, you know, it wouldn't stop me from buying the car. I know it would stop some people from buying the car, but it wouldn't stop me from buying it just because it's a delight to drive.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. It would give me pause. And I'd probably then go, like, drive, like, an Ioniq 5 or something and then figure out which one I truly liked better and then make the call, and be like, well, this is a drawback, but there's always compromises in life. And what do you want to do? If you like the car, then you get it.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: In the last year or so, we've been talking a lot about EVs. Just what stands out? What EV has stayed with you, if you will? What has been, like, a moveable feast of an EV for you in the last year or so?
JOHN SNYDER: There's a couple. I mean, obviously, the Lightning was one.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, for sure.
JOHN SNYDER: It's just a phenomenal vehicle, you know? It's not just a good EV, it's a great truck.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: But the Cadillac LYRIQ I keep thinking about.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yup.
JOHN SNYDER: I think about it all the time. I think about the interior design. I think about driving it through the mountains and, you know, the different levels of one-pedal driving and the fact that there's also the regen on-demand pedal on the back of it like they have on the Chevy Bolt, but this regen on-demand pedal is, like, progressive. So the more you squeeze it, the more regen it feeds in.
And, you know, if you've got it on the highest regen and then, you know, use that, you come to a complete stop very quickly on a very steep downhill grade. And it's really kind of fun. So you've got these different ways of interacting with the car when you're driving it.
There is a lot of stuff in the menus that, you know-- maybe too much stuff, you know, in the menus. You have to do a lot of digging, but I just thought the design was really cool. The attention to detail and the interior was, you know, next level. And yeah, it was also very good to drive. I only drove the rear-wheel-drive version, but for the level of luxury that you get in that car and, you know, all the tech and the fun and performance, it's really good value for a luxury EV.
If you're looking at a luxury EV crossover, that one's hard to beat in terms of just an overall value package. So yeah, that one stuck with me quite a bit too. Obviously, the Hummer. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. Same. That was awesome.
JOHN SNYDER: Just because it was like so much fun, just incredibly goofy fun. Crab walk, putting it, like, an extract mode and driving over stumps in my lawn. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: You know, on the weekend, I'd be inside, like, doing a chore. And I'd be like, yeah, I'm going to go outside and drive this thing around the block--
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah.
JOHN SNYDER: --just for fun because it was just a riot, just terribly entertaining. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Man, we had like a minor health emergency. Everybody's fine, but when I rolled up to, like, the emergency room drop-off in the Hummer, oh man, you want to, like, have some jaws drop when you're rolling up in, like, yeah, this electric Hummer. I mean, literally, the security guard had no idea what to do.
Like I said, everybody was fine so we can laugh about it now, but just looking at this guy's jaw drop because it's also pretty quiet, and it's enormous. And the like, the cognitive dissonance people have trying to, like, just process, you know, that. So that's cool. I agree with you. That really stood out. The Lightning was outstanding. In some ways, it almost didn't stand out to me because it was so all-around good, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: That's a weird way to say it, but I kind of figured Ford would make an awesome electric F-150, and they absolutely did. So you know, like, in some ways, it was almost like, yeah, you guys did exactly what we all thought you would do.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm.
GREG MIGLIORE: So it's ironic, maybe, that didn't stand out as much as some of the other ones that were a little more novelty, but the Lightning, I mean, it won truck of the year. It's excellent, you know?
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, and still very, very much an F-150.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yes.
JOHN SNYDER: You can get out of your gas or diesel F-150 and get in this and feel right at home. It'll just be more comfortable and have more power. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, which sounds pretty good to me.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of anything else that stood out. Like you, I really liked the LYRIQ. I thought it was an excellent design aesthetic for Cadillac. I think something like that could really raise their brand. It reminds me of, like, old-school Cadillac, you know?
It's not trying to be some, like, you know, I don't know, you know, rip-off-your-head, you know, German M3 fighter or something. It's just, like, Cadillac. It's electric. It's attractive. It has a lot of cool, like, features in it. I really like the LYRIQ too. They need to scale it up, obviously, because they didn't sell many of them last year. That's a good one too. The Genesis G80 electric was outstanding too.
JOHN SNYDER: I haven't driven that one yet, but I'm curious about that.
GREG MIGLIORE: Beautiful car.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, all the good things about Genesis, just also electric, so that was really good. Yeah, the Rivians were actually really-- the Rivians were really interesting too. That's a mouthful. I drove the SUV last fall. And the only reason that it didn't stand out more is it just was, you know, just like the truck, except it was enclosed, if you will, but that was cool.
And I did drive the Lordstown Endurance. That was fine, it really was. They have some interesting approaches to, like, their suspension and their, like, in-wheel hub motor technology. So, you know, it's their approach is interesting. They have a lot of great engineers and designers working on their truck, but it's tough to make cars. Just, it is.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: So we'll see what kind of staying power they have, but I actually was writing this down in one of my, you know, low-tech pencil and paper notebooks about all the EVs in the last year because I did this a year ago. I did, like, a notebook of the EVs that stayed with me. So I may need to do it again. I think it may be time to try to recap just some notes on what I liked and, you know, make for a good column, that type of thing.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm. For sure.
GREG MIGLIORE: All right. All right. Well, we talked a little F1. Let's spend some money, then maybe we can talk about some beers or something.
JOHN SNYDER: OK.
GREG MIGLIORE: But I have an update from David in New Jersey. "Hey, guys. Love the podcast and the blog." Thank you, David. "A couple of months back, I asked you to help spend my money to replace our 2019 Alfa Romeo Giulia. It's been trouble-free and a joy to lease."
It's his wife's ride, and she wanted to go electric. So they went with a BMW i4 M50. That's cool. I like that. "We've had it for a few weeks, and it's been awesome." Glad to hear it. "Still figuring out how not to get whiplash every time they accelerate." OK, yeah, I can see that. So yeah, it's a lot different than some of their other cars, let's put it that way. I'll try to skim through this to get a little quicker.
Yeah, the Genesis G80 was a lovely car to test. I believe the G80 is only available in a few states. I guess New Jersey is one of them. It was in the running. They could not bring themselves to buy an $80,000 car from a Hyundai dealership, so there's that. They're not going to go with a Tesla. Polestar is a little tight, 6' 4." For what it's worth-- and you're taller than I am-- I found the Polestar 2 a little tight, but you didn't, if I recall, right?
JOHN SNYDER: I was OK in it. I have.
GREG MIGLIORE: You were OK?
JOHN SNYDER: Like, most of my height is in my legs. So my torso-- like, I usually don't have problems with headroom and stuff.
GREG MIGLIORE: Got it. OK. Yeah, I thought it was tight, but maybe I sit weird. I don't know. So let's see. David also mentions that local electric company put up a $1,500 rebate on installation so he was able to get a level-two home charger for $100. That's not bad, right? And then--
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, that's awesome.
GREG MIGLIORE: --total cost was $550, including some installations and other rebates. And then he just signs off with some whiskey time. So all right. That sounds good. It's a nice segue into our sort of happy hour section, but yeah. I mean overall just congratulations on the i4. I have driven the i4. Have you driven that, John? I think it's a pretty good one.
JOHN SNYDER: I have not yet, no.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, it's interesting.
JOHN SNYDER: I got a chance to walk around it and sit in it, and it was really nice. And I imagine it's great to drive.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I think it's a good move. You know, you get the enormous grill on it. Yeah, I mean it's, not a cheap, but I mean, we like it. Just looking at some of our colleagues, "Car and Driver" gave it a 10 out of 10 rating, which is pretty gaudy. CNET gave it a 9 out of 10. So you know, it seems like Autoblog is-- you know, we're aligned, if you will. Like, it's not like we're out there, but it seems like everybody likes it.
So good move there, Dave. Enjoy your whiskey. It sounds like you've earned it. Car buying is tricky. So yeah, that's this week's show. It is March 1. I'm going to get into my case of Guinness, I think. That is what my evening drink will be.
JOHN SNYDER: Ooh, yeah. Yeah. I've been seeing-- they've had that on sale at the grocery stores and stuff. It's that time of year.
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah. I had a really good Griffin Claw, Mr. Blue Sky, which is their-- it's kind of their lighter-- I think it's an ale. It might be a lager. I don't know, but it's a really good beer to drink on a heated patio, which I did last week. Do you have any recommendations here?
JOHN SNYDER: Getting into the summer, there's a lot of really good beers from Witch's Hat Brewery, which is just down the road from me, in South Lyon, Michigan.
GREG MIGLIORE: OK.
JOHN SNYDER: They've got some really good-- lots of really good beers, lots of good sours. One that had been sitting in my fridge for a while that I busted out after skiing was called Dames and the Giant Peach.
GREG MIGLIORE: OK.
JOHN SNYDER: So it was like a peach sour ale, and it was delicious. It's sort of like a farmhouse ale.
GREG MIGLIORE: I like those, maybe one or two.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, yeah. So it hit the spot. That's the only, like, distinct beer that I've had lately. I put some Stella in my veggie sloppy joes.
GREG MIGLIORE: Mm. Good idea.
JOHN SNYDER: So I had a swig of that, but I had a cold a while back. So I had some hot toddies with some bourbon, so I still got some Elijah Craig, but I've been reading up on some cheap whiskeys. And there's--
GREG MIGLIORE: What kid?
JOHN SNYDER: --one that my hairdresser has been telling me about, Very Old Barton.
GREG MIGLIORE: Very Old Barton. OK.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah, it's like $12. It's maybe $17 for the 100-proof, and it's just-- everything I've read about it, it's just one of the best whiskies you can get for-- and it's, like, super cheap. [LAUGHS ]
I'm going to seek that one out next time I'm at the store.
GREG MIGLIORE: OK.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: You said it's a bourbon or a whiskey?
JOHN SNYDER: It's a bourbon, yeah.
GREG MIGLIORE: Oh, it's a bourbon, OK. Yeah, maybe I'll check that out. I have a weird relationship with bourbon, rye, some whiskeys. Like, sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. You know, so I don't know. A good cheap bourbon could be, like, a low-risk play for me, you know, something to have by the fire in the spring when it's still a little chilly, but, you know, I could try something around the fire.
JOHN SNYDER: I went to Woodford Reserve in Kentucky--
GREG MIGLIORE: Oh, yeah. That's good.
JOHN SNYDER: --like six years ago. Wally was a baby. And I bought a bunch of weird bottles, you know, different, you know, like, cask strength and different lengths of aging and things like that, different blends. And most of them sit unopened in my basement, but I'm going to have to bust those out because I've been thinking about those a lot lately too. Man, I need to get back to Kentucky. [LAUGHS ]
GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, they do bourbon right down there. Let's put it that way. That is definitely a good place to go if you're into bourbon and whiskey, for obvious reasons. Cool.
JOHN SNYDER: But David from the Spend my Money recommends Widow Jane whiskey.
GREG MIGLIORE: Oh, that's right. I left that out. That's right.
JOHN SNYDER: Yeah. And that reminds me-- just the name reminds me of something from here in Michigan that I quite like, Two James Grass Widow.
GREG MIGLIORE: OK.
JOHN SNYDER: That's a really good bourbon. That's one I quite like.
GREG MIGLIORE: I like-- yeah, the Two James Distillery, that's in Corktown, in Detroit. Again, it's, like, St. Patrick's Day month.
JOHN SNYDER: Mm-hmm.
GREG MIGLIORE: It's a great place to hang out. You know, there's a parade coming up on Sunday, a couple of Sundays. It's, like, the Irish, like, parade of Detroit. And that's a good place to, you know, grab a spot to warm up, the Two James Distillery. They do some really nice things as far as--
JOHN SNYDER: They've got some great stuff.
GREG MIGLIORE: I had an old fashioned there a few years ago. And I was not driving, which was good. And I like, literally, went across to Slows, which is the barbecue restaurant across the street. You may have heard us mention that come Detroit Auto Show time. And I had a lot of ribs and pulled pork and fries to sop up just that one old fashioned.
So you know, they do good stuff there too. I had a good maple old fashioned on Friday, actually, too. I recommend that from Griffin Claw too, just smooth, very smooth.
JOHN SNYDER: All right.
GREG MIGLIORE: Cool. All right. Well, send us your Spend My Moneys. Send us your spring beverage recommendations. Don't drink and drive, obviously. Everybody be safe out there. Check out Autoblog Electric. Let us know what you think. If there's some areas you'd like us to, maybe, dive into, please let us know. Send us your Spend My Moneys too. That's podcast@autoblog.com. Be safe out there. We'll see you next week.
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