Sean, Jade and Scott pick their ideal first cars for under $25,000, Scott details the latest delays in Apple’s long talked about car and the team dive into the world of subscription car services.
Welcome to our new video podcast! While we've been publishing the CarExpert Podcast as an audio podcast for some time, we wanted to change things up with a video podcast! It’s hosted by Sean Lander (one of our videographers), resident CarExpert Scott Collie and our Social Media guru Jade Credentino.
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Apple Car: 00:50
Tesla power bump: 06:28
Mazda 2 + Best first car: 14:47
Picks of the week: 22:18
Outro: 26:06
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
Welcome to our new video podcast! While we've been publishing the CarExpert Podcast as an audio podcast for some time, we wanted to change things up with a video podcast! It’s hosted by Sean Lander (one of our videographers), resident CarExpert Scott Collie and our Social Media guru Jade Credentino.
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Apple Car: 00:50
Tesla power bump: 06:28
Mazda 2 + Best first car: 14:47
Picks of the week: 22:18
Outro: 26:06
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Sean and welcome to the Car Expert podcast.
00:02 We've got a slightly smaller week than normal,
00:05 but no less interesting this week.
00:07 Don't turn them away before we even start.
00:08 No, well, we're going to get straight into it.
00:09 We're going to talk about the Apple car, the iCar,
00:12 I guess you could say.
00:13 Is it happening?
00:14 Is it not?
00:15 It's sort of floated to the surface again,
00:17 and we're all a bit surprised by that.
00:18 We're talking about Tesla Model Y.
00:20 They've slipped another update in there for its users,
00:23 and they're a little bit surprised by the cost
00:25 and what it can do.
00:26 And we're going to talk about what is the best first car
00:29 you can buy your youth.
00:31 But joining me to help talk about that,
00:32 our resident youth, Jade Credentino.
00:34 How are you?
00:35 I only buy one new.
00:36 Scott's a year older.
00:38 Close enough.
00:39 Well, Scott is the senior on the couch though.
00:40 So Scott, Colleen.
00:41 As our aging, ungracefully correspondent.
00:44 Yes, yes.
00:46 Guys, the iCar has been burbling to the surface again.
00:50 Oh, surprise.
00:51 Hot off the back of an Apple iPhone 15 launch
00:54 that they just had.
00:56 This hasn't come from Apple,
00:57 though it's come from an insider who's generally
01:00 in the know of what's going on.
01:01 But I don't want to spend too long on the Apple car
01:04 because let's be honest, it's kind of stupid.
01:06 But give us a little bit of information about it, Scott.
01:09 So Apple has once again,
01:10 apparently been forced to delay this project.
01:13 Oh, what a surprise.
01:14 The story of the Apple car is kind of like
01:16 war and peace at this point.
01:17 It was going to happen, it wasn't going to happen.
01:20 Apple was out there talking to the likes of Hyundai
01:22 for a little while there about manufacturing together.
01:25 But at every turn, there's been some problem.
01:27 With Hyundai, it was that Apple wanted to control
01:29 all the data in the car.
01:30 And Hyundai said, well, no,
01:32 if we're manufacturing the car,
01:34 we get to maintain some semblance of control.
01:36 There's been supply chain issues.
01:38 They've had engineers leaving.
01:40 The latest issue is apparently
01:41 if Apple doesn't start acquiring the right companies
01:44 to do this in the immediate future,
01:46 it's going to have to bump its timeline back significantly
01:48 and we're not going to see it for the next couple of years.
01:49 So this isn't the first,
01:51 like we saw this with Tesla in the early days
01:53 where they were a tech company trying to make a car
01:54 and they didn't really know what they were doing.
01:56 And it took quite a while for Tesla to actually catch on.
01:58 And I think, is that a similar problem that Apple have here
02:01 where it's a bunch of tech bros trying to make a car?
02:03 - No, I think it's a little bit of a different one
02:05 because Tesla ultimately was focused on building a car.
02:08 That was what it was trying to do.
02:09 And they dedicated all their time, effort, energy to that
02:12 among other businesses on the side.
02:14 Whereas Apple, and I'm going to steal a prop here,
02:16 spends a lot of time building these and iPads and Macs
02:20 and all of its software services.
02:21 It is the richest company on earth is my understanding,
02:24 based on cash.
02:25 - I think their valuation ends with a trillion.
02:28 So I'd say so, yeah.
02:29 - So I think if you're Apple and you want to build a car,
02:31 you have a lot to lose
02:33 because a couple of iPhones blowing up or breaking
02:35 or bending on someone's YouTube channel,
02:37 it's not a disaster.
02:38 People are going to keep buying them.
02:39 But if people start dying in Apple car accidents
02:42 or maybe the car's a massive flop.
02:44 - Every time you charge it, it overheats.
02:46 - Something like that, exactly.
02:48 The reputational damage is huge,
02:49 but also the amount of money that they have to pour into it
02:52 to get to that point and then scrap it.
02:54 Has the potential to undermine its strength as a business.
02:57 So I think Apple's problem is that it's so successful
03:00 elsewhere to do the car the way it wants to do it
03:04 is kind of a risk.
03:05 And it's not necessarily willing to make the leap
03:07 on that final bit of risk.
03:09 - And we saw Google give up on it a few years ago.
03:11 They were trying and trying and they sort of,
03:13 I think it got a bit too hard.
03:14 Sony, similar sort of story.
03:17 - Actually, yes.
03:17 - But you have one out of China that actually
03:19 fall into it.
03:20 - No, back on the Sony thing for a hot sec.
03:22 Honda and Sony now have a joint venture
03:26 and they've created a company called Alfela.
03:29 - I'm sorry, what?
03:30 - Yeah, A-F-E-E-L-A.
03:33 So I don't know if I'm pronouncing it wrong.
03:34 - Apologies to our younger viewers out there.
03:37 - Now the car, it actually looks pretty cool.
03:40 The car is set to go into production in 2025.
03:43 So that would probably be Honda's success story.
03:45 Oh, sorry, Sony's success story,
03:47 but that is thanks to Honda.
03:49 Now, Huawei, which is China's biggest telco,
03:54 from my understanding.
03:54 - They used to sell phones in Australia
03:56 until they, everyone was big.
03:57 - Let's not go into the political side of that.
04:00 - They now have a joint venture with Cattle
04:03 who create batteries for Tesla, Mercedes Benz,
04:06 quite a lot of manufacturers.
04:08 And Chang'an Automotive, which are China's
04:11 top four automotive brands.
04:14 So think like, say, motors and alike,
04:17 Chang'an is one of those.
04:18 So they have a joint venture called Avatar.
04:21 Now, Avatar has been around in China for a little while.
04:25 It's a high-end luxury electric car.
04:28 They have one model and they're about
04:31 to release another one.
04:32 They are potentially talking about expanding
04:35 outside of China and also potentially in right-hand drive.
04:38 So I think back to what we're talking about
04:41 with technology companies building cars,
04:44 I think it's there.
04:45 I think if they really want it to work,
04:47 there's obviously a way to make it happen.
04:50 But Apple does have, like Scott said, a lot more risk.
04:55 Yeah, when it comes to, you know,
04:58 Huawei or Sony per se.
05:00 - So I'm curious, tech companies are suddenly into it.
05:03 I guess it's 'cause it's electric
05:04 and it's a little bit easier than making
05:06 an internal combustion engine.
05:07 But cars traditionally, from a car manufacturing standpoint,
05:12 cars are a terrible investment.
05:14 It's worse than a restaurant.
05:15 So why are all these companies suddenly
05:17 looking to get in on it?
05:18 - I think there's a couple of things.
05:19 One of them is, yeah, the switch to electric
05:22 has made this all of a sudden
05:24 a very different problem to solve.
05:25 I mean, if you're Sony, manufacturing the millions
05:27 of parts required to make, you know,
05:30 internal combustion engine, differential transmission,
05:32 all that sort of thing, there's absolutely no crossover
05:35 with your business that you do at the moment,
05:37 so why the hell would you bother?
05:38 But if it's essentially a bigger battery
05:41 than you already have, you have the facilities
05:42 to manufacture batteries, you have the knowledge
05:44 to do electrical systems.
05:46 I think that's probably part of the appeal.
05:49 I think the other side of the appeal,
05:50 and what Sony's done quite a lot of talking about,
05:53 is the data and advertising side.
05:55 Sony's first concept car, before it paired up with Honda,
05:58 had screens all over the dashboard
06:00 with the intention of showing you Sony content.
06:02 They have a music studio, they have a movie studio,
06:05 and if they don't wanna show you their content,
06:06 they can sell that space to someone else.
06:09 Ford has talked about something similar
06:10 with autonomous vehicles, when or if they eventually happen.
06:13 There's this data goldmine and this advertising goldmine
06:17 that these tech companies aren't tapping at the moment,
06:19 beyond maybe CarPlay or Android Automotive,
06:22 and this is one way for them to get into it.
06:24 But as we know, building cars is really hard.
06:27 - As Tesla took a long time to figure out.
06:30 But we'll stick with Tesla for a moment there.
06:33 Now they have got it figured out,
06:34 are they number three in Australia?
06:38 - The Model Y is the third best-selling car
06:41 in the country so far this year.
06:42 - There you go, so they're pretty big in Australia.
06:46 What we heard was that Model Y owners
06:48 suddenly noticed an update on the app that said,
06:50 "Give us $3,000 and make your car go faster."
06:53 - Yeah, so Model Y Long Range,
06:55 which is the mid-range model, it's all-wheel drive,
06:56 but it's not quite as fast as the full-on performance.
06:59 People were looking at their Tesla app,
07:01 which lets you unlock the car and do stuff like that.
07:03 And there's an option that you can pay $3,000
07:05 and it will cut 0.6 of a second
07:07 from zero to 100 time with a software update.
07:10 - That's pretty good, 'cause if you're a Formula One team,
07:12 you spend, a million dollars buys you a tenth.
07:15 So that's pretty good.
07:17 - Yeah, I think it's, what is it,
07:18 $500 per 0.1 of a second, per tenth of a second.
07:22 - That's not bad.
07:23 - The capability is already in the car.
07:24 There is no hardware change involved with this.
07:26 It is just Tesla going, "Oh, we've just actually decided
07:29 "that we'll unlock that code for you."
07:30 And it's something the brand's done before.
07:32 It's also something we've seen other brands do,
07:34 but I kind of don't get the point,
07:36 because five seconds to 100 Ks an hour for a family SUV
07:40 is already really quick.
07:41 And if you want to go even faster,
07:42 the performance is like a three and a half second car
07:44 from memory.
07:45 So this middle ground in between,
07:47 I understand maybe it'll generate some cash,
07:48 but I don't quite get what problem it's solving.
07:51 - Do you think it's possible,
07:53 there was a delay on Model Y performance
07:55 when the Model Y first came here.
07:57 So you were able to get a long range early on,
07:59 and a standard.
08:00 Do you think possibly it's a thing of people
08:02 that adopted a Model Y early,
08:04 want a bit of that extra performance,
08:05 but they didn't, were not willing to wait,
08:07 couldn't wait, whatever reason in the first place?
08:10 - Definitely a chance.
08:11 I'm curious to know actually,
08:12 like you, I know like an SUV around that size.
08:17 Does the performance matter to you?
08:19 Because I know for me,
08:19 I'd be happy with five seconds from my family car.
08:22 - I probably wouldn't, to be honest.
08:24 And the reason why I said that before
08:27 was that I'm buying that car more than likely
08:30 as a family SUV.
08:31 I'm not buying it to be 0.6 of a second faster
08:35 than my mate next door.
08:37 Like, yeah, I wouldn't spend $3,000 on that.
08:39 No.
08:40 - Tesla has actually also recently revealed
08:43 an updated Model Y in China.
08:45 It doesn't look as updated as the Model 3.
08:47 We talked about a couple of weeks ago,
08:48 but it had some more tweaks there.
08:49 So I do also wonder if this is not a bridging step
08:52 for Tesla before they bring all the updates to Australia.
08:56 I just hope the updates include more comfortable suspension
08:59 because the Model Y for all of its strengths,
09:01 it does not ride very well.
09:02 - It doesn't.
09:03 And going faster in that car is not necessarily a good thing
09:07 as we experienced at Lang Lang.
09:10 The faster the Model Y goes,
09:11 the less stable it actually becomes.
09:14 I'm curious though,
09:15 and this might be kind of a hard question to answer,
09:17 but with electric cars and software controlled cars
09:21 becoming more and more prevalent,
09:23 is there something that you'd like to see
09:25 that you buy a car in the dealership brand new,
09:27 but you go, "Well, I don't really need that feature."
09:29 But then down the track,
09:30 it might be an option to purchase.
09:32 What's one of those features you can think of?
09:34 - Yeah, so I actually wanna touch on,
09:36 this is something that BMW is looking into
09:39 with subscription services.
09:40 - Don't say subscription heated seats, Jo.
09:42 - No, no, no. - They've killed it.
09:43 - No, no, no. - Oh, good.
09:44 - They did kill it.
09:45 Yes, but what I was gonna say is,
09:47 lately Tesla and Polestar both have access
09:50 to like YouTube on the infotainment system.
09:53 I think that will be something that while I don't have kids
09:55 and I don't need that streaming service,
09:58 I wouldn't wanna pay for it.
10:00 But then if you're on a long road trip
10:02 and your kids are going insane,
10:04 having to pay maybe 50 bucks a month
10:07 to have a subscription service available on my tablet
10:11 so I can keep my kids entertained
10:13 while I'm going away for the holidays
10:15 would be quite valuable to me.
10:17 What about you?
10:18 - I'm anti this entirely.
10:20 I just hate the idea.
10:21 I hate the idea of it.
10:23 I hate with a burning passion
10:26 when you are playing a video game, for example,
10:28 and you get to a certain point
10:30 and you can either play the game
10:31 or they let you pay to unlock more functionality.
10:34 It drives me insane that Apple is constantly trying
10:37 to get a couple of bucks a month
10:38 for me to pay for more iCloud storage.
10:40 I just, I'm completely exhausted already
10:42 of the fact that the modern tech world
10:45 is constantly trying to reach into your pocket
10:47 and take out a monthly payment.
10:48 So I just want my car to be my car.
10:51 I will pay you for the things I want when I buy it.
10:54 They will be there for the life of the car.
10:56 Do not try to take more money from me afterwards.
10:58 And I have a fundamental problem with the way that-
11:01 - You're being real riled up.
11:02 - I'm angry.
11:03 I have a fundamental problem with the fact
11:05 that when BMW introduced these heated seats,
11:07 they tried to spin it as a benefit to us.
11:09 They said to us, well, if you don't use them,
11:12 you don't have to pay for them.
11:13 But that hardware is fitted to the car
11:15 and BMW is not a charity.
11:16 So you're paying for the heating elements in the seat.
11:19 They just switched off with software.
11:20 It's just...
11:22 - And then would be nothing worse than getting into your car
11:24 and you're literally getting frostbite on your backside
11:27 and you're trying to enable your subscriptions.
11:30 - And why are you sitting on a ice pack, Sean?
11:31 - It's just like, it's the most moronic feature.
11:35 Yeah, that was stupid.
11:36 - What about you, Sean?
11:37 - I'm with Scott in all honesty.
11:39 - Oh, come on guys.
11:40 - I buy the car.
11:41 You know, it's like, imagine if you bought a U,
11:45 like a mid-spec U.
11:46 - You don't have to imagine that hard.
11:48 You already did this.
11:49 - But imagine you bought a Ranger or a D-Max as a mid-spec
11:51 and then you were like, oh, in six months,
11:53 I'm just gonna be able to option it up
11:54 to a Wildtrak top spec.
11:56 It's just like, why?
11:58 Why wouldn't you just buy that in the first place
11:59 if that's the thing that you're gonna want?
12:01 - I think Jade's got an argument here, hang on.
12:03 - I don't have an argument,
12:05 but I can understand why some people
12:07 would find that appealing
12:08 and why people like me who one day wanna have a family,
12:11 but don't necessarily wanna drive a family car right now,
12:15 will have that option where I don't need to spend
12:17 an extra 60 grand in three years or two years
12:20 when I decide to have kids.
12:21 - But you don't, you spent 600 bucks on an iPad.
12:24 It's a lot cheaper.
12:25 - Yeah, I guess.
12:26 I mean, in the instance of the infotainment streaming, yes.
12:28 And I also understand Scully's point
12:30 where if the hardware is fitted to the car,
12:33 I should just be automatically paying for it.
12:35 I do get it, but I also know a few people in my life
12:38 who value money quite significantly.
12:41 - Hopefully everyone, yeah.
12:43 - Well, yeah, a bit more than others.
12:45 But if they don't want a feature,
12:47 but want access to it in the future,
12:50 that option there is always gonna entice them.
12:53 Like if they don't have to fork out that money now
12:55 or put that money on finance,
12:57 later once the car's paid off
12:58 and they do have that money accessible to them,
13:01 that can then be something that they add onto the car
13:03 to make it feel brand new
13:04 or to make it feel like it's actually something newer
13:08 than potentially the five-year-old car
13:10 that you've just finished paying off.
13:11 That's more where I'm coming from.
13:13 - I think what scares me about this
13:14 is also the idea that it's never permanent.
13:18 I mean, we've heard stories about Tesla doing this
13:22 in the right direction.
13:23 When there were big fires or floods in the US,
13:26 there were Model S generations
13:28 that had software-locked batteries.
13:29 So it had a 90-kilowatt-hour battery,
13:30 but you paid for the base model,
13:32 so you only got 60 kilowatt-hours.
13:34 And Tesla used over-the-air update
13:35 to unlock the battery capacity
13:37 so people could go further and get away from danger,
13:39 which is an awesome story.
13:40 But the idea of either a glitch
13:43 taking away functionality that I've paid for
13:45 or a car brand arbitrarily deciding after three years
13:48 that it's changing its policy, I need it to pay again,
13:51 or me going to sell the car
13:52 and the next person having that feature deactivated for them
13:55 so they pay for it twice.
13:57 It just, the control that these car companies
14:00 potentially have over your vehicle
14:02 makes me really uncomfortable.
14:04 And maybe that's naive,
14:05 because any car with CarPlay or a sat-nav system
14:08 or online services is tracking your every move
14:10 and constantly communicating
14:11 with head office, the cloud, et cetera.
14:14 But I just feel like it opens a door I don't want opened.
14:17 And already it's starting.
14:19 I'd like to stay clear of it for as long as possible.
14:21 - I understand.
14:22 - Well, if you want to stay clear of one of these cars
14:24 that track you and you want to get a deal
14:26 on a brand new car that doesn't track you as much.
14:28 - Not a good segue.
14:29 - Head to Google, type in Help Me Car Expert.
14:32 We can connect you with a range of dealers
14:34 across the country to get into a brand new car sooner
14:37 and for possibly a better price.
14:39 So head to Google, type in Help Me Car Expert.
14:41 And if you do use the service, leave a comment, let us know.
14:43 How was it?
14:44 What car did you buy?
14:45 And would you tell your friends about it?
14:47 All right, we'll move on to our review this week.
14:49 Semi-review, actually.
14:50 We're just going to keep this one light
14:52 because it's a small review for a very small car.
14:55 - It's also a light car.
14:56 - It is a light car.
14:57 Now, if you may recall a couple of weeks ago,
14:58 Scott taught Jade how to drive a manual car.
15:01 And then she took those brand new skills
15:03 onto the launch of the Mazda 2.
15:06 And by all accounts, well, actually,
15:07 we haven't had a bill from Mazda yet.
15:09 So I guess you did okay, didn't you, Jade?
15:10 - Just quickly, you got a lesson
15:11 from the F1 medical car driver, didn't you?
15:13 - Yeah, that was sick.
15:15 So he was like adamant.
15:17 Yeah, he was adamant that, you know,
15:18 he was going to teach me a few things about the car.
15:21 And it was actually really cool.
15:23 So very lucky.
15:23 - Did he teach you how to go over a rumble strip
15:25 on two wheels like he does in the Aston Martin DBF?
15:27 - You wanna laugh, I think he did it
15:29 in a very safe environment.
15:31 - On a racetrack.
15:32 - On a private, yeah, on a private thing.
15:35 I think he did show me, he was obviously in the driver's seat
15:38 but he did show me a few cool driving skills
15:40 that I would never be able to replicate in my life.
15:43 But yeah, it was a really cool experience.
15:44 - But wait, tell us a little bit about the Mazda 2, Jade.
15:46 - Yeah, so this is also my first review
15:48 on the carexpert.com.au website.
15:50 So if you haven't seen it, go and check it out.
15:53 Let me know in the comments what you thought
15:54 of the Mazda 2 based on my review.
15:57 But I had never driven a Mazda 2 before.
15:59 As Scott mentioned in the previous episode,
16:01 SUVs are usually my thing.
16:02 So getting into one of the smallest cars available
16:05 in Australia was a little bit scary.
16:08 Now the launch took us on a combination
16:12 of windy roads and highways and automatic and manual.
16:15 Now I didn't take the manual on the road.
16:19 I kept it in the test track that Mazda set up for us.
16:23 But it was actually a really cool learning experience
16:25 where it kind of inspired me to encourage more people
16:29 to go and learn manual.
16:30 And the Mazda 2 is a great place to start.
16:32 So yeah, only praise for the Mazda 2.
16:35 And the reason why I say that
16:36 with a little bit of hesitation,
16:38 the segment keeps losing manual transmission
16:42 and it keeps getting more expensive.
16:44 So Mazda's done a really good job at keeping the manual.
16:48 It is in the middle range price-wise of the segment.
16:52 So there's obviously cheaper alternatives
16:54 if you're looking for an automatic.
16:56 But yeah, otherwise it's a pretty good car.
16:59 You've driven it recently, haven't you Scott?
17:01 - I don't know how you did.
17:02 From the back seat I'm presuming.
17:04 - Look, you'd be surprised.
17:05 There are some very big cars that drive small,
17:07 including this and Patrol we talked about last week.
17:09 There's not as much room in there as you'd expect up front.
17:12 The Mazda 2 is--
17:13 - I don't have that problem.
17:14 I don't think you would either, but anyway.
17:15 - Must be nice.
17:17 But the Mazda 2 is a small car that drives big.
17:19 It actually has quite a bit of space up front for me.
17:21 You just wouldn't be able to get in behind me.
17:24 It is now an old car.
17:26 Mazda has updated a big chunk of its range in Australia.
17:29 The new Mazda 3 was kind of the standard set up,
17:31 but all the way through to the CX-90 now,
17:34 it has a heavily overhauled lineup.
17:36 And the Mazda 2 is a heavy facelift on a heavy facelift.
17:38 So it feels old in some ways.
17:41 The interior is getting a little bit old.
17:42 The tech's not great,
17:44 but fundamentally it's still a really good little car
17:46 to drive.
17:46 It's good fun and it's very economical.
17:49 I think the other thing I really like about it
17:50 is there's no rubbish or no tricks
17:53 or no sort of pretense with it.
17:55 It is an affordable, economical little car.
17:58 It's not meant to be a sports car.
17:59 It's not a hybrid or trying to be electric
18:01 or anything like that.
18:02 It just does what it says on the tin
18:03 and there's definitely still a place for that.
18:06 - So it's, I guess you could say,
18:07 it is a pretty good first car,
18:09 which brings me to the question I wanted to ask you guys.
18:12 If you had, it's around 25 grand.
18:14 - Yeah, give or take.
18:15 - Yeah, so if you had $25,000,
18:18 not including the Mazda 2,
18:19 'cause I want to get some other variety here,
18:21 and you were to buy or suggest to someone a first car
18:24 for their 17 year old to get into,
18:26 what would you go?
18:27 Jade or Scott?
18:28 - That's been passed off to me.
18:30 - I don't mind.
18:31 - I would look at, depending on how much space you need,
18:34 I'd look at an MG5.
18:36 The question with that car is,
18:39 how much do you value active safety equipment?
18:41 And if you're a parent buying your kid their first car,
18:43 you probably do value it.
18:45 - It's probably still safer than a '96 Bestiva though.
18:48 - It is, definitely.
18:48 - Probably got a look out.
18:49 - I'll confidently say that, definitely.
18:50 - Does that have airbags, Sean?
18:52 No, thanks.
18:53 (laughing)
18:55 - But it is quite a spacious car, the sedan.
18:58 I think it's quite a good looking car,
18:59 and I drove it briefly.
19:00 It drives quite nicely for less than 25 grand.
19:03 If you do want all that active safety kit,
19:06 you'd have to look elsewhere,
19:07 but fundamentally it still comes with all the airbags
19:10 and physical crash protection.
19:11 It just doesn't have anything
19:13 beyond autonomous emergency braking.
19:14 So no blind spot, rear cross traffic, that sort of thing.
19:17 - Fair enough.
19:18 Look, one could argue that's a good thing
19:19 'cause it will teach them to look over their shoulders.
19:21 - That's exactly what I was gonna say.
19:22 I think driving press cars quite a lot,
19:25 and a lot of that safety equipment is standard.
19:28 I think if you jump into that straight away
19:31 in your first car, you become accustomed to that.
19:35 And then if you have to jump into a car
19:36 that doesn't have that,
19:37 they don't have the skills to be able to, you know,
19:39 check their blind spots quite frequently
19:41 and stuff like that.
19:42 So yeah, I think lots of these guys.
19:43 - It's amazing how lazy you get with that stuff too.
19:45 My girlfriend's got an old Mazda 3, it's a 2006 model.
19:49 And I grew up in a big car with no reversing camera.
19:52 My first car was a Subaru Liberty from the mid 2000s,
19:56 but I can't park her Mazda 3
19:58 without the help of a shop window or something.
20:00 'Cause I'm so used to having cameras and mirrors that dip
20:02 and the adjustment happens really quickly.
20:04 But once that skill goes, it's hard to get back.
20:07 - Yeah, I agree.
20:08 - Yeah, so Scott Cully, bad driver.
20:09 (laughing)
20:10 - We already knew that, John.
20:12 - What's your pick for under 25 brands?
20:14 - I'm going in i30 manual.
20:17 - Does that have blind spot monitoring?
20:19 - I don't know actually, the new one's mine.
20:21 I need to double check that.
20:23 But the reason why it's one of the biggest,
20:26 biggest apart from the-
20:28 - You also already have an i30.
20:29 - I do, I'm slightly biased.
20:31 (laughing)
20:32 But the reason why I went for it,
20:34 it's got quite a lot of tech in there, safety,
20:37 more safety maybe than the MG5, Scott.
20:41 And it's also pretty reasonably sized.
20:43 It's a lot bigger than quite a lot of the other options
20:46 in the segment, which means that you can grow with it.
20:50 It's not something that you're gonna spend,
20:52 you know, 18, 19, 20 grand on.
20:54 And then in a couple of years,
20:55 once you start going on road trips or things like that,
20:57 outside of, you know, your everyday life,
21:00 it becomes too small.
21:01 So that's gonna be my pick.
21:03 What about you?
21:04 - Actually, I liked the idea of your Hyundai one.
21:06 And the reason being is that
21:09 there are a lot more Hyundai dealerships
21:10 than MG dealerships around.
21:12 - They're working on that.
21:13 - Yeah, the MG thing's happening.
21:15 Anyway, let's not go down that rabbit hole.
21:16 - You know, if you're a young person
21:19 and I can only speak for myself,
21:20 when I was young and on my p's,
21:22 I drove everywhere, hundreds of kilometers every week
21:24 because I just could.
21:25 And I think that the ability to be able to go places
21:28 in your Hyundai, you know,
21:30 you're gonna find a service center.
21:32 If anything goes wrong, you're probably gonna be okay.
21:34 Compared to an MG, for instance,
21:36 I think that probably there's a lot more comfort
21:39 in the fact that Hyundai's a much more
21:41 of a legacy brand than MG.
21:43 But I also see where you're coming from with the MG.
21:45 I think it's like, look, let's be honest.
21:46 - It's a lot of car for the money.
21:48 - The Chinese are on the way out.
21:49 - Yeah, I agree.
21:49 - There's no question with their cars.
21:50 - What would you do at i30?
21:52 If you didn't do either or, would there be another car?
21:55 - Sure, the Kepa Kanto, man.
21:56 - Kepa Kanto.
21:57 Actually, the Kepa Kanto is really cool.
21:59 But it's a great little car.
22:00 And I think, yeah, the warranty and the servicing
22:03 on those cars are really good.
22:05 If you're a 17 year old, you're gonna crash it.
22:07 You're gonna bing it at the car park.
22:09 You're gonna bump back into something.
22:12 Having a cheap little car like that is perfect.
22:15 Easy to fix, easy to maintain.
22:17 Can't really go wrong.
22:19 We're close to wrapping it up this week, guys.
22:20 So we'll go to our picks of the week.
22:22 Jade, I'm gonna throw straight to you first.
22:24 What's your pick this week?
22:25 - I saw this actually a couple of weeks ago,
22:27 and it's just rekindled surfaced back in
22:29 on an Instagram account called Hype Whip.
22:32 They have quite a lot of viral stuff.
22:35 Someone has sent in a video of over 1,000 Nissan Skylines
22:39 abandoned in a lot in Japan.
22:41 - There's a lot of people crying right now.
22:42 - Yeah.
22:43 Now, I don't know, there wasn't too much detail
22:46 over who, what, when, where, and why.
22:49 But Hype Whip estimates that the value of the lot
22:53 is over 50 million US dollars,
22:55 which is quite a lot of money.
22:57 Now, looking at the video,
22:58 there were a lot of car colors, all different accessories.
23:02 So they did look, you know, like quite older generation ones.
23:07 So it might've been like a Nissan,
23:09 I don't wanna say junkyard,
23:10 'cause that is somebody else's treasure.
23:12 But yeah, it did look pretty cool.
23:14 And yeah, I quite like the idea of it.
23:15 - Might've been the leftover stunt cars
23:17 from the Fast and the Furious movies
23:18 just stored somewhere.
23:19 - Paul Walker's spare garage.
23:21 - Aw.
23:22 - All right, great.
23:23 Scott, what's your pick this week?
23:25 - I caught up with a couple of friends last night,
23:27 and we were talking about the big things in Australia.
23:29 You got the big banana,
23:30 there's the big chair in Broken Hill, I think.
23:33 - Big prawn.
23:34 - Big prawn.
23:35 - The big koala.
23:36 There's a, yeah, there's a-
23:37 - Are you guys familiar with the big oyster?
23:39 - I've heard of it.
23:41 - So this was a tourist attraction
23:42 in a New South Wales country town.
23:44 It is a big oyster with a viewing platform
23:47 out the front of it.
23:48 - That's what you need next to your big thing,
23:49 a viewing platform.
23:50 - It's too far inland, for one, for the oyster to be good.
23:53 But whatever was underneath is no longer in business.
23:56 This big oyster wasn't big business as it turns out.
23:58 And it's a car dealer now.
24:00 So there is a Kia Hyundai dealership
24:02 in country New South Wales
24:04 with a gigantic oyster on the roof of it
24:06 with a viewing platform over the car park.
24:09 I'd never heard of this thing before,
24:10 but it's the most ridiculous sight you'll ever see.
24:13 - I like that.
24:14 - Maybe they're inferring that their dealership is a pearl.
24:17 - Maybe, or maybe the land was cheap
24:19 'cause there was a giant oyster on the roof.
24:22 - Impressive it survived for so long.
24:24 Normally they start to fall apart.
24:25 - They don't keep very well, do they?
24:26 - Amazing.
24:27 Well, my pick is, I'm sticking with Porsche again
24:30 for the second week in a row.
24:32 They recently held the Rennsport reunion in Laguna Seca
24:34 in the States.
24:35 Rennsport reunion is basically a celebration
24:37 of classic Porsches.
24:39 And I think you mentioned last week,
24:41 75 years Porsche been around?
24:42 - Something like that.
24:43 - Something like that.
24:44 Anyway, they had some of the rarest
24:46 and most expensive Porsches on show
24:48 racing around Laguna Seca.
24:49 They also had probably a race of the hardest
24:54 to find Porsches ever collected in one place.
24:57 - Now this is gonna be something really obscure.
24:58 Hang on, I'm just trying to guess what it is.
25:00 Because what Lamborghini made tractors.
25:02 - Oh, they did.
25:03 - Ferrari didn't,
25:06 but all these brands have got weird histories.
25:08 What do we think it was?
25:09 - You're not far off.
25:10 - Oh, really?
25:11 - Yeah, they held two races.
25:12 - Are they the parts fans they did?
25:14 - Not quite.
25:14 - Okay, sorry, I keep cutting you off.
25:15 - They held two races, Le Mans style start.
25:17 They had to start on the other side of the track,
25:18 run across and get on their vehicles and then race.
25:22 - The fact you said get on worries me.
25:24 - They were tractors, Porsche tractors.
25:25 They reached peak speeds of 15 miles per hour.
25:28 - Someone called Jeremy Clarkson.
25:30 - That's a whole 25 Ks an hour.
25:32 - It was insane.
25:33 And it's really funny.
25:34 Watch the video 'cause you'll see them all run across,
25:36 get on the tractors and the tractors go,
25:37 (grunting)
25:38 (laughing)
25:39 And they just start slowly going down the front
25:41 straight at Laguna Seca.
25:42 And I know you and I have played a lot of Laguna Seca.
25:45 I think you're a bit of an old Gran Turismo fan as well.
25:47 Laguna Seca's quick, get out of the front there.
25:49 These were not.
25:51 - Picturing the corkscrew in a Porsche tractor,
25:53 you'd almost topple over over the inside.
25:55 - It's like a scene in Cars.
25:56 (laughing)
25:57 - So yes, Red Sport reunion, a lot of cool cars,
26:00 but a lot of cool tractors as well.
26:02 So guys, any final thoughts
26:05 you wanna leave us with this week?
26:06 - Yeah, it's chucking down with rain outside.
26:09 - It is, it is.
26:10 - I have decided I cannot buy a ute
26:13 that doesn't have full-time four-wheel drive.
26:15 - Oh, okay.
26:16 - Recently drove a Hilux GR Sport.
26:18 It's got chunky tires
26:19 and it's only rear wheel drive on the sealed surface.
26:22 God, it gets boring.
26:24 Trying to pull away and the wheel's spinning all the time,
26:25 even if you're gentle on hills and stuff.
26:27 That is my takeaway for this week.
26:29 - Right, so Scott's got a heavy foot.
26:32 (laughing)
26:33 Jade, any final thoughts you wanna leave us with?
26:35 - Yeah, I think we did a pretty good episode this week.
26:37 I'm very happy with it.
26:38 - A little pat on the back for us.
26:39 - Yeah, well done guys.
26:40 - Thank you, Jade, appreciate that.
26:42 Well, we'd like to thank all of you
26:43 for joining us this week
26:45 and we're gonna be back next week with another show,
26:48 a lot of exciting stuff,
26:49 so make sure you subscribe for that.
26:51 Guys, thank you for joining me.
26:52 I'll see you next week,
26:53 and I'll see all of you next week as well.