NACTOY winners, and driving the Genesis GV60, Polestar 2, Mercedes-AMG GLS 63 | Autoblog Podcast #813

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Electric, John Beltz Snyder. This week, we discuss the North American Car, Truck and Utility of the year winners: The Toyota Prius, Kia EV6 and Ford Super Duty (and Greg explains his votes). In other news, we talk about GM offering $7,500 incentives for EVs that lost their tax credits, another possible calendar change for the Detroit Auto Show and Stellantis potentially scaling back its auto show presence. Greg spent his winter break with the Genesis GV60 and Polestar 2, while John has been driving the Toyota Prius Prime and Mercedes-AMG GLS 63. Finally, they take to Reddit for this week's Spend My Money question, and pick a sedan under $6,000.

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

Video Transcript

[THEME MUSIC]

[ENGINE REVS]

GREG MILGLIORE: Welcome back to the "Autoblog Podcast." I'm Greg Migliore. We've got a great show for you this week. Happy New Year. This is our first episode of 2024. That's kind of fun to say. We're going to break down the car, truck, and SUV of the Year winners, talk about some news about EV credits that General Motors is doing to offset the federal tax credit, if you will, go away on some of the vehicles.

We've been driving some EVs, the Toyota Prius Prime and the Mercedes AMG GLS. We will spend your money. It's a good one. With that, let's bring in Senior Editor for all things electric, John Snyder. Happy New Year.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Happy New Year to you too. It's an exciting time of year, especially here, in Ann Arbor.

GREG MILGLIORE: That's right. You're repping your Michigan Wolverines, wearing a Big Ten champ shirt. By the time some of you guys are listening to this, maybe you'll know the outcome of Monday's game. We'll see.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah.

[LAUGHS]

Hopefully, my heart can hold out.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah, it's a big one. I watched the Rose Bowl last week. And it was pretty exciting--

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: It was.

GREG MILGLIORE: I must say, as a Michigan State Spartan, it was still pretty exciting to watch.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, Yeah, I definitely had a blood-pressure spike, especially as we went into overtime, so--

GREG MILGLIORE: That was pretty wild. That was pretty wild. But the one play that really stood out was when that kick returner dropped the ball at the 1-yard line. Holy cow, man, that was like--

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: That was-- yeah, that was bad. I was actually at the game, the famous game where we lost to the Spartans in the last second due to a bad-- I think it was a bad snap or a fumble and--

GREG MILGLIORE: Trouble with the snap?

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah. It was-- traumatic.

GREG MILGLIORE: I can see why. I was-- funny story about that real quick. We'll throw this totally off the rails. We were watching that, streaming. And that game was nine years ago at this point. And streaming wasn't as good as it is now. So it was on delay.

So everybody's watching the game. And then all of a sudden, everybody's phones blew up. And we're like, what happened? Because there was no chance that State was going to win that game. There was no time left. And Michigan was punting just to basically end the game, run out the clock. And they're like, wait, what happened? And then it happened. And we're like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. So, yeah.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: This almost felt like it was going to be a replay of that. But thankfully, luck was in our favor.

GREG MILGLIORE: There you go. There you go-- not so much for the Detroit Lions this weekend or last weekend, if anybody saw that game, listeners out there. I'm not quite sure what the ref was thinking out of that play. Trouble with the reporting, I guess, the check-in guy.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: That was-- yeah, that was rough. I was watching all the aftermath of that, pretty-- pretty wild. We've got the billboards up in Detroit.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah, that's right, that's right. The signs say "Decker Report." And I'm supposed to go to the game on Sunday. So I'm pretty excited. It's not too much to play for. But it's a Lions game. I'm going to take Andy. And we'll have some fun.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, it'll be fun.

GREG MILGLIORE: Maybe-- it's a good reason to spend some money. He already has plenty of Michigan gear. So maybe he needs to get a Lion's shirt or something too. So--

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, definitely. This is the year for it.

GREG MILGLIORE: I suppose we should probably talk some cars, right?

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah.

GREG MILGLIORE: Sports and cars-- I think we're taking a few of the boxes here or there. Well, maybe we should talk some beers at the end too. All right, so let's talk about Car of the Year awards. This is-- it's called NACTOY, which is the acronym that-- a lot of people in the industry follow these pretty closely. There's other awards like MotorTrend, the Autoblog Tech of the Year, a lot of different awards out there.

But these really-- they almost stand apart because it's a jury of 50 different writers and editors across North America. So you get like countries, a pretty good encapsulation of the market, in a lot of different perspectives, as opposed to, say, any one specific publication, like some of the car magazines do.

So that's a little overview. I happen to be a juror. So I always like to talk about my ballot. And I think it's also, to go back to sports, it's actually useful we talk football. I'm a pretty big college football fan. And if you look at like the polling-- I forget what they call it for the playoff. There's people-- they determine who gets in the playoff and who doesn't.

So I look at this a little bit too. It's like the Oscars. It is subjective in some ways. So it's fun that it creates debate. And I think that's good for the industry and also the awards. So in case you haven't seen it, the winners this year-- and these are on the site-- Joel Stocksdale, our news editor, wrote this up.

Car of the Year was the Toyota Prius slash Prius Prime. Truck of the Year was the Ford Super Duty. And the Utility Vehicle of the Year was the EV9. So I think there were maybe-- at least one surprise in there. Two of the categories were pretty close. So there's that. A very good field across the board, though. I'll say that. I don't know. Any thoughts as somebody who's just looking at it? What do you think?

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Well, I haven't driven the EV9 yet. I've spent some time with it. That one seems-- that one seems to make sense to me. I'm actually going to drive it in a couple of weeks here. But yeah, it's just a great vehicle. If it drives as well as any of the other Hyundai-Kia EVs-- and then it's just loaded with amazing content too. That what makes sense.

Prius-- we'll get to this later. But I just spent some time in the new Prius. And-- yeah-- really improved. That one doesn't surprise me either. The Super Duty surprised me a little bit, just because of what it was up against. The Silverado EV is a pretty impressive truck.

And so is the Colorado. So it was-- yeah-- a little interesting to see a Super Duty win over more conventional-sized pickups. But you can't-- it's a good truck. The F-Series is the best-selling vehicle in the US, so--

GREG MILGLIORE: It's 78, I think, right, 77, 78, 79, somewhere in there?

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, so-- I don't know. If we're voting with the consumer dollars, it makes sense. But yeah, nothing too surprising there.

GREG MILGLIORE: I think that was the surprise to me. I guess, do you want to hear how I voted? Maybe that--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yes, absolutely.

GREG MILGLIORE: --interesting. So I went with-- the easiest one for me, by far, was, in the utility segment, that was the EV9. The voting system-- without giving away too much-- is somewhat similar to how we vote for auto shows. You get so many points. You can only give-- you have to spread them out a little bit. But obviously, strategically, you would give the most points to the vehicle you want to win. That's just how it works, sort of like the Cy Young voting in baseball or MVP.

But anyways, I gave most of my points in the Ute category, EV9-- I drove that thing. It was about a month ago. I got out of the vehicle, went inside, and just literally told my wife-- I was like, this is the Utility Vehicle of the Year. This thing is awesome. To me, it was so good. It was a very good three-row SUV. It's a good electric vehicle. And it does a lot of things, like the design and the technology, very well too.

I think it ticks all the boxes. I think there's vehicles that we rate very highly or-- even in the context of for awards, where it's like there's some compromises or you're like, well, it gets more points because of how it looks or it gets-- maybe you want to give it more points because it's an EV-- or maybe you don't. But to me, this was just such a grand slam. It had 320 points, which was the most points of, obviously, anything in the category.

But it was significantly ahead of the other two. And it was also the most points, by far, of any of the other vehicles. So it outperformed the other two, like the Super Duty and the Prius, relative to their competitors. So to me, total slam dunk. I can't wait to spend more time in it. I really liked it. I think you're going to probably like it. But I don't want to jaundice you as you head into it.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: No, I can't imagine not liking it. But every Hyundai-Kia EV I've driven so far has been rock solid, just fantastic to drive. And like I said, I've spent some time with it stationary, playing with a lot of its features. And it's just got a lot going for it. It's-- interesting design, lots of unique materials, lots of recycled and eco materials, which is really cool. Super comfortable.

The seating layout is really good. And you can get those know reclining seats for the second row as well-- clever storage. There's that little bin that pulls out, like a drawer, for the second row, out of the rear of the center console. Just lots of really clever stuff.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah, that's a good way to put it, very clever.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah. So-- I can't imagine disliking it unless-- unless it just-- the three-row format just doesn't translate driving down the road as an EV. But I can't imagine that. I imagine it's perfectly fine.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah, the Hyundai Kona EV and the Genesis Electrified, the GV70, are perfectly nice vehicles, I think. But EV9 just-- not only was it very good, to me, it advanced electric vehicles and three-row vehicles. So I believe it's the first mainstream electrified three row. So that's--

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, we've got--

GREG MILGLIORE: --that's very significant.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, we've got the Rivian R1S. We've got the Mercedes EQE--

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah, that's right.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: --the GLS EQE, and then the Tesla Model X. That's basically it.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah. And none of them is accessible to get. It's just like a Kia. It's a 50-state vehicle. So--

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah. Cool. All right, so I'll run through the other two somewhat quick here. Super Duty, for me, was the surprise for the truck. Candidly, I voted for the Silverado EV, if you will. I gave it most of my points. I thought-- the Lightning won easily the year before. I just, frankly, used that same lens to say, hey, it's an electric full-size pickup truck that looks kind of cool, has a little bit of different design. That's just where I landed.

And Silverado actually finished third-- a little bit surprised there. But it was very close. The Super Duty won. But again, it was close with the Colorado and the Silverado. So yeah, little bit of a surprise there. But it's a fourth-straight win for Ford.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Silverado was great to drive too. I drove that, the work truck. Really, really great to drive and just tons of range. It definitely feels heavy.

[LAUGHS]

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: But it makes up for it, definitely, what, 400 miles of range, can still tow 10,000 pounds, comfortable to drive, not a lot of-- it feels very normal, not a lot of weird tech inside. It feels very familiar inside and yeah, just drives really well. Yeah. I could have seen myself voting for that, for sure.

GREG MILGLIORE: And then in the car category, this was actually, to me, the hardest one. I voted for-- let's see, I voted for the IONIQ 6. I guess I ended up going electrics across the board. That wasn't totally intentional. But-- and then the Prius Prime-- this is actually one where I gave the Prius some pretty good points too because I thought both were very worthy. I think the Prime gives you 30 miles of range-- ish, somewhere in there. And then the Prius itself is pretty good. It's a good value. So I was pretty torn.

And the Accord was the third one, very good car too. I just-- I thought it was more like a good Accord, whereas each of these vehicles that finished in the top two did something different, that really advanced what the car means, advanced what, frankly, the segment means. So I really like the IONIQ 6. I drove it-- this is about two months ago at this point, and a beautiful car, interesting interior, really liked it-- also really liked the Prius.

I actually drove them almost back to back, as I think about it. But yeah, no, like I said, no quibble with any of these. But this one was definitely a category I was kind of torn on. I almost wonder if-- we'll get to this in a minute-- because I had some infrastructure challenges with my electric cars over the holiday break.

I wonder if that might have colored my thinking. And maybe I might have given a few more points to the Prius just because hybrids are very, very useful right now. But either way, I stand by my vote. I thought the IONIQ 6 is a beautiful, very interesting EV. But I also think the Prius is a very worthy winner, very deserving, so--

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah. Yeah, I would have split my votes among those two fairly equally, probably. The Prius just makes more sense for more people, I think. But I was on the first drive for the IONIQ 6. And I was thoroughly impressed with it. You can get up to, what, 361 miles of range in a car that feels really good to drive.

I loved the IONIQ 5. And then getting into the IONIQ 6, it's-- the suspension's a little more sporty. It just-- it feels good. And even the base trim feels like you're not missing out on much. It's still a good amount of content in there, comfortable, really nice design. It was some cheaper materials.

But they're done in such a way, with the textures and just the overall design, that it doesn't feel cheap, even in the base trim. So yeah, I really like that. That has made some of our-- here's-- spend some money on whatever lists. And that's made a couple of my picks for those lists that we've done.

But the Prius is just so solid and you know so accessible and approachable too. And we'll get more into that later. But yeah, that would have been-- that would have been a tough call between those two. I haven't I haven't driven the new Accord yet. So I don't-- I don't know how I would have voted with that. But the Prius and IONIQ 6 are both worthy, for sure.

GREG MILGLIORE: All right, so check out the story. Again, it's on our site. And obviously, if you go over to the NACTOY website, there's voting totals and some other juror comments, things like that. Yeah. So let's move on to some other news hits. We'll move through these kind of quickly. GM said, this week, it's offering incentives of $7,500 on vehicles that no longer get the government tax credit.

So that's a big thing as far as-- car companies would almost bake that into their marketing, like hey, here's the price, and then you also get $7,500 on your taxes from Uncle Sam. And some of those credits expired because it's somewhat of a complicated setup.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah.

GREG MILGLIORE: It's not super easy to understand. But either way, Ford-- Ford-- General Motors is essentially putting it back on the hood, which I think is actually a strategic move for them, to keep people interested in their EVs. And also, while they have a wide portfolio of electric vehicles, the Hummer, the Blazer, the Equinox, the Lyriq, they're not making all that many of them.

So I feel like if they didn't do this, that's where you might get some domestic-leaning buyers who just say, oh, wait, that's the price? No, I'm not going to do that. I'll take the regular Equinox. So I think this could be a pretty savvy play.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah. And it's a temporary move too because it's just a couple components that they need to source domestically. And then once they do that, they'll be eligible for the full incentive from the government.

So yeah, I think it's just-- and especially as the Blazer comes out with its problems, you definitely want to not turn people off to it immediately. You want people to understand that this is the price. This is the price that it's going to be, overall, once you get the tax credit.

So I think it makes sense to eat that cost for a little bit, until they make it fully eligible. Man. That Blazer, though, I feel really bad about it because James came back from the first drive, just raving about it. It sounds like such a wonderful vehicle. I edited his story and it sounds super compelling. I can't wait to drive it.

GREG MILGLIORE: Oh, me too. It looks great. It's-- I agree. I really-- I'm excited.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: But yeah, the problems they're having with the-- [LAUGHS] leading to the stop sale, software issues that basically killed the car. Not a good first foot forward for this vehicle. But the Lyriq, I've driven-- that car is excellent too, especially as a luxury value, such a great luxury value. And to be able to get $7,500 off on it is pretty impressive. I've been seeing more of those around town. And I get excited to see them because it's a good car.

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah, I agree. I've seen a few Blazers. But the Lyriqs are starting to really show up. There's a guy who goes to my kids' soccer practice session. And I'm like, where'd you get that Lyriq. I need to corner them to find what's going on there. Not that it's uncommon-- a Cadillac in Metro Detroit? Come on. But still, I digress.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Cool.

GREG MILGLIORE: So that's what's going on there. Let's talk briefly. This piqued my interest because this is auto-show season. It used to be Detroit Auto Show North American International Auto Show right this weekend or next weekend. I'm sure if many of you are listening to this, even though this is insidery, you're probably pretty familiar with coming to Autoblog and you other sites for all the news right now.

There was a column in the Detroit Free Press about a week ago, saying that the CEOs of the Detroit Three-- or just some executives-- there were rumblings that it might shift back to January because originally, it moved from its longtime perch in January to the fall. It actually was going to be in June for a minute. But they never actually had that show because of COVID. And then they did do it in September for the last two years.

So I'm going to put it this way. I think they should move back to January. And the way I would make the decision is, I would say, what's the best from a consumer standpoint and what's best for the show? I would try my hardest to get some sort of press portion, some activations, and do it that way.

But I wouldn't try to base that on that, I think, at least not totally, because I think the future of auto shows is going to continue to probably diminish from a media perspective. I hope I'm wrong. We're in the media. But I think just consumer-facing shows are going to be the ones that have that sort of endurance and longevity.

I also think, from a practical standpoint in Michigan, in January, there's not a lot to do besides go ice skating and go skiing. In September, there's everything to do. So-- what do you think?

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Well, we had the summer auto show this last year. And it was quiet. It was pretty-- ho-hum, that-- when they were switching to the summer, they touted, there will be all these outdoor events.

And it just didn't really pan out the way I thought it would. And most of the stuff was still going on indoors. They had ride-alongs indoors. They had off-road tracks indoors. They had the EV drives indoors.

And if you're just going to do that, yeah, it doesn't really matter what season it's in. I think like you said, it matters on what other people are doing, the consumers. And yeah, during the summer, there's lots of stuff going on.

In January-- yeah, not a whole lot. Just-- the only problem with the show in January is it was sometimes difficult to get due to the weather. But if the show is going on for a whole week, you can definitely find a time to get down there.

I don't know. I'd like to see it stay in the summer and have them do more with it, take advantage of being able to do more outdoor things. But-- I don't know. It seems like the automakers are just spending less on auto shows. And they're shrinking, at which point, yeah, doesn't matter.

Yeah, might as well do it in January. Lots of the [INAUDIBLE]-- the new-model year cars are coming out then. And there was a good amount of reveals though, for different vehicles in the summer, not necessarily at Detroit, but in the summer.

So I don't know how it would time up with the reveal schedule versus launch schedule of vehicles. But yeah, I wouldn't mind it being in January at all, unless they're planning on doing more with the summer one.

GREG MILGLIORE: Tricky part two is CES, which has become-- if we look at the preview for this week, which next week, we'll talk all about CES. Right now, we're-- we're recording this on a Friday morning, which is a little late for us. Usually we do it earlier in the week. But with the holidays, still a shorter week, we pushed it to Friday. So you get all the latest stuff, but you still not quite CES.

But again, CES has news out of Honda, Mercedes. There's already-- CES, which has even pared down itself, looks like a bigger "auto show," quote, unquote, than a lot of auto shows we've seen.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah. It used to be more of a tech show. And now cars are tech. And it's become more and more of a car show. And yeah, there's going to be a lot of stuff there. Honda's showing its future EV portfolio. So yeah, that could take the wind out of the Detroit Auto Show sales, if it were in January. But again, that's going to be more focused on the American manufacturers anyway. So--

GREG MILGLIORE: Yeah. Cool. So Stellantis did sound like they may be backing out. But then we heard maybe they're not totally, case by case. But just real briefly, that news, this week. I think that would be a blow to a lot of auto shows because of the huge tracks they roll out, those indoor and sometimes outdoor off-road tracks. Frankly, even if they don't do a press conference, you kind of want Jeep to have Mountain Jeep in your convention center. They do a good one in Chicago. So I don't know. We'll see.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: Yeah, Stellantis has always made a big splash at auto shows. So it would be weird to not have them doing something. But yeah, I thought just the opportunity, especially for consumers, to get to ride in these vehicles and see their capabilities is important, especially for Stellantis. So--

GREG MILGLIORE: All right, let's talk some cars. I drove the GV60, which we talked about last week, or really three weeks ago at this point, on the podcast, and the Polestar 2. So it was a completely electric holiday break for me. I took some time off, had some good times with the family, did a lot of driving. And both vehicles performed pretty well.

I already talked about the GV60. To be pretty simple, I liked it. I drove one that was pretty nice. It was the performance version. But the tricky-- I guess, the new part here-- again, I like the interior. I like the exterior. It's not cheap. I think I would go with the EV6 or the IONIQ 5, or maybe even the IONIQ 6, before this car. But I still like the little crossover thing.

But I had to charge it. I went out to-- we were taking the family out to Ann Arbor, to go to the Natural History Museum. And it was a lot of fun.

JOHN BELTZ SNYDER: (WHISPERING) That's a good museum.

GREG MILGLIORE: It is. It's a really good museum. Check it out. I needed to charge up this car because the night before, we had gone to see some lights, also on the other side of town. And I didn't get quite enough range out of it. And that was my frustration because I went to this level-- it was a quick charger-- level-3 charge point. And I still only got 50% of the power that I was looking for.

I think it was cold. I think-- I did precondition the battery, which you could do, which is nice. And I also have had some challenges with this charge-point station. It's never given me 100%-- most of the time. I think maybe once or twice, it has. So that was frustrating. We ended up not taking the vehicle because I was like, I don't want to take this out there and then have to refill, if you will, recharge. I wanted to know that I had enough to get there and get back, even though there's chargers basically all over Ann Arbor.

When I pulled out my phone and was looking, I'm like, well, OK, that one's two miles away. We're going to have lunch at Zingerman's. OK, so we're going over here-- this is a real pain. And I was embracing the car, embracing-- I even like charging cars. I think it's fun-- get a cup of coffee, have some phone time, listen to the radio. It's not bad. Maybe hang out with your kid. A lot of good benefits to charging your vehicle if it's local and accessible. But yeah, man, it was a pain. I was a little surprised.

And I will say this. It would have worked had I had an extra 15 minutes. I made some choices that morning. I decided to take the dog for a long walk in the woods. I got up half an hour later. These are things that speak to my lackadaisical approach to the early days of vacation. But it's also like, hey, if you're going to be an EV owner and you don't have an L2 charger in your garage, OK, the dog doesn't get a walk that day. It's just an interesting-- I don't know-- approach, I thought, interesting way to live with it.