Speaker 1: Between now late 2022 and the end of twenty twenty six, a hundred and fifty new cars will be introduced in the US that have a plug, pure battery, electric or plugin hybrid. That’s amazing. I think that’s some kind of a record for auto industry history in this country. Let’s make it more manageable. I just wanna talk about the ones that are coming out in 2023 that I’ll be keeping an eye on in particular. This isn’t every single one, but the ones that I think are the most important to monitor the market.
Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Okay, let’s start with GM because they arguably have the most weight of announcements in 2023 beginning with the Cadillac lyric. Now this one is kind of a cheat on my list because it’s been slightly available at the very end of 22. It’s really a 23 story. It’s the first GM car to use their new Ultium battery platform. They’re making a huge bet [00:01:00] on this. It’s a modular shrinkable expandable platform that can stick under anything in the future. It’s different than what’s underneath the bolt and certainly what was underneath the vault. They use pouch cells instead of cylindrical cells like almost everyone else uses. And of course the magical B in all kinds of patented technology they’ve got for good charging, delivering actual range as stated and making sure the battery stays healthy and stable for a very long time of probably multiple owners. All of that is part of what TMS [00:01:30] all about. The lyric itself is a hot looking little thing that will bring the message, I think very credibly. Now, yes, TMS been attached to things like the coming Silverado, which we’ll talk about in a minute, or the Hummers, which are pretty niche, but this one is a big bang both for Cadillac and gm.
Speaker 1: Now, act two for LTM is arguably going to be the Chevy Equinox. This one’s really aimed at mainstream America. It’s a compact crossover. That’s the vehicle we love in this country that [00:02:00] either looks great or techy depending on the paint scheme. I’m not loving that two-tone blue and white thing, but in other colors, it’s a sharp looker. It’ll start around 30 grand for its lowest base configuration. That’s with the smaller of two batteries that get you 250 miles higher trim models can get you to 300 miles and critically 51 miles of range per hour when you’re charging at home. And I find that factor important because as people look to live with EVs, not just imagine one, it’d be great if you can say, You know what? I forgot [00:02:30] to charge the car. I’m about to get in the shower. If I plug it in now, by the time I leave, I’ll have all the mileage I need for the day. Never mind a full battery. That’s a key understanding I think a lot of people are gonna come to and start to shop around.
Speaker 1: Okay, now the new Chevy Blazer is often mentioned in the same breath as the Equinox, but they’re pretty different. This is a bigger, more stylish vehicle. Chevy says based on the Camaros inspirations, that means it’s kind of of their answer to the [00:03:00] rather successful Ford Mustang mock E. Now note that it’s a completely different vehicle from the current gas burning thing that they call a blazer. This one will have 557 horsepower, 648 pound feet of torque, 60 in under four seconds using what they call the wow mode and is expected to have between 247 and 300 miles of range depending on configuration. By the way, I’m not getting a lot into ranges in this story because almost everyone’s in the same place, low twos to three [00:03:30] more or less.
Speaker 1: Now, early in 23, we’ll get the first variance of the electric Chevy Silverado. This doesn’t need any explanation, does it? Between Silverado F-150 and I think later in 24 electric ram, we really reset what was thought to be the most stubborn part of the car market to move to electrification, and I no longer think that’s the case. I think there’s some of the biggest pent up demand around electric pickup trucks. A whole lot of varis are coming on [00:04:00] the Silverado, of course, as there are on the gas engine one, I can say this without getting into the weeds on pricing, it’ll probably be higher than initially promised. Just as we’ve seen Ford’s F-150 Lightning have two major pricing increases since introduction. But for both of these, I don’t think that dampens appeal just yet. Okay. Nissan Aria technically not qualified for my list because it’s already on the market, but the all-wheel drive versions will be arriving in 2023. This is [00:04:30] from the company that brought us the Nissan Leaf and prior to Tesla, they were the Big Bang brand around electrification of cars in terms of pure battery architecture. So this is worth watching. Nissan knows a bit about electric vehicles and the aria is a good looker. I never said that about the leaf.
Speaker 1: Now, BMW’s line of I cars began with a bunch of weird oddballs, the I three little transportation appliance, the I eight pseudo supercar. Since [00:05:00] then, I mean something completely different. IX I four I seven, it now means the mainstreaming of electrification across recognizable BMW form factors. The I five, same thing. It electrifies the five series. Now normally it’s saying, okay, it’s an electric sedan. It’s outside the bullseye of the American car market, but with BMW it’s a little different. The three and the five are absolutely critical cars in terms of appeal sales and the image of the company. They are literally legendary [00:05:30] vehicles. So when you see a five series go electric, it’s a bigger story than just a German sedan going electric. This one’s a little bit rumored and little less concrete as of my taping today, but we should see it in late 23.
Speaker 2: 23
Speaker 1: Is also gonna bring us a dose of fun in electrification with the Dodge Hornet rt. It’s a good looking compact crossover right off the bat. That in itself is not hard to find these days, but Dodge says it’s going to be the fastest, quickest sub [00:06:00] $30,000 compact utility. That’s a nice set of attributes, simple, understandable, and compelling. I think they’ve also got a cool gimmick. It’s called Power Shot. You pull back on both paddles and stump the pedal as I understand it, and you get 25 more horsepower for a 15 second burst. It’s just gonna be cool. But you know how many social videos are gonna be done about this? It’s a builtin free marketing campaign.
Speaker 1: Now, Hyundai has won [00:06:30] electric only name plate or model so far, and it’s the Ionic five, which we in Crew Bay area style call hella impressive. Now they need to show if they can do it twice, that will lead to the Ionic six, which has almost no visual relation whatsoever to the Ionic five. I mean, it’s a very controversial design. Looks to me like a Porsche Panara had a collision with a Citron ds. I don’t love it. I’ll be quite honest. I think it’s kind of an odd and sort of unattractive looking thing. However, Hyundai has a track record, [00:07:00] as does Kia, as does genesis of surprising people who think they don’t know what they’re doing When it comes to style and taste and setting themselves apart, this might be a sleeper hit.
Speaker 1: Now the Kia EV nines gonna be exciting because it follows in the general footsteps of their wildly popular Kia Telluride. They’re not the same vehicle, and the styling is notably different in the details, but the volumes and a lot of the cues say, Yeah, this is the electric Telluride, if that’s [00:07:30] what you’ve been looking for. They say the cars style and shape was inspired by water. I have no idea what the hell that means, but I do know this is gonna be a vehicle that’s gonna take a footprint set by a surprisingly popular conventional SUV that snapped a lot of heads and step in there with a big battery. Next step by the Genesis electrified GV 60 and GV 70. Now the GV 60 just makes my list technically because it is [00:08:00] shipping, but it’s really gonna be a 23 story at volume, selt, slick looking crossover that we give high kudos to. Now look at the electric version of the larger GV 70. Put those two together and you’ve got a tight one two punch from a company that’s getting taken quite seriously lately as a luxury challenger, as they call it.
Speaker 1: Now, if Volvo’s an interesting story, they’ve been very aggressive on alternate power trains for a number of years now, and yet they really only have one electric car, The C 40 recharge, [00:08:30] two variants of that, and they’re kind of overweight on plugin hybrids, of which they have an enormous number for a relatively small company that should be adjusted in 23 as they’re expected to bring out a large utility that is pure electric. Let’s say it’s like an XC 90 that’s pure electric, and I believe and always have thought that Volvo’s audience is one of the most accepting and ready for cars that are electric, very sparse inside and have a technology message. I [00:09:00] think they have an easier road than a lot of other brands.
Speaker 1: Now, the Mazda MX 30 is really interesting and needs some explanation. This is a plugin hybrid range extender. That means it has a combustion engine and also a good size battery, and you plug the thing in regularly, but it’s also using that combustion engine not to drive the car directly or conventionally, but to run a generator that creates more power to put into the batteries as you’re driving essentially an updated Chevy Volt, although they’ll hate me [00:09:30] saying that. The key here is they’re using a rotary engine as that combustion motor, not an inline piston engine. That’s good cuz rotary engines are smoother, smaller, lighter, quieter. Those are excellent attributes for a range extender engine that does electricity generation. Here’s the downside. Most people don’t know what a range extender is. Don’t understand all the minutia I just explained to you, and they’re just gonna want to ask about the bottom line figures of range charge [00:10:00] cost. Now, the Tesla cyber truck is kind of like a Twitter acquisition on wheels. You never really know what’s happening with it, but Elon must says it is coming out in 2023 this time, assuming it does, it is probably gonna be story number one around electric cars in 23, not because it’s the most important vehicle, but it’ll be the most talked about, fascinated, debated, and anticipated because it’s so radical because it comes from such [00:10:30] a successful electric car maker. I still don’t think it has mass market appeal, but let’s see what happens.
Speaker 1: While we’re talking about hype, I gotta mention that the Hummer Electric SUV body style is coming out in 2023, and I find the Hummer Electrics to be apropo of nothing. It’s just another vehicle that’s gonna have all kinds of hype without even getting outta bed in the morning. So I wanna mention that it is coming out next year.
Speaker 1: [00:11:00] We get a new Toyota Prius Prime in 2023, and it has to do two things in my mind, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to one, a radically different style that’s a little more attractive. No one ever looks at a Prius prime and says, Ooh, nice looking car. Uh, no, and it needs to step up. It’s electric only range before the gas engine has to kick in to something closer to 40 ish, maybe 50, knowing Toyota, because that means you’ve got a plugin hybrid that can almost certainly handle all the daily driving for a large [00:11:30] number of motorists. And now you’ve got a very different proposition than the current 25 mile range plugin hybrid Prius. Prime Toyota knows how to do hybrids and plugin hybrids. They’ve gotta nail this.
Speaker 2: Believe
Speaker 1: It or not, the Lexus RZ will be Lexus first pure electric car. I don’t think I realized that till I went and looked over their line again. They don’t actually have a pure battery electric until this one comes out in 23. It’s a compact crossover that shares [00:12:00] underpinnings with the Toyota Buzz Forks, which is BZ four x I can never remember. And the Subaru Soldera, the RZ has that traditional handsome Lexus. Good look though the body does have more edges than your kitchen knife drawer inside, they do have that prominent central tablet, but at least it’s not that Spartan look of a prison cell around it. The Lexus has a traditional, I would say, cabin that has beautiful luxury touches and they promise a new high water mark of the interaction between [00:12:30] dedicated steering wheel buttons and the head up display for things like vehicle status, audio or media selection and navigation input and display. I look forward to seeing that.
Speaker 1: And finally, poll Star has a key introduction in 2023. It’s called the Poll star three. The poll star one was kind of, you know, off the beaten path. It was a large luxury sedan that was a plugin hybrid fun. Then came the Pole star two, which is kind of this utility sedan looking thing that looks like it’s not happy, [00:13:00] being that the Pole star three is finally gonna hit us with a nice mid-size utility. Great looks pure electric, that’s what I’m talking about. And then a little later on, I don’t know if it’s this coming year, the pole star four, which as of today has only been shown under a thin gauzy drape, but it looks to be a sleek, kind of a fast back coop. Uv tasty.