Toyota Hybrid Only?
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Hi, I’m Tony. I’m your host for tonight’s round table episode. We have four questions to ask you tonight and I’ll be calling on you by name. So have that clicker ready to unmute. And when I say clicker, I mean, it could be your mouse pointer. I mean, it could be your finger if you’re on a phone. I don’t know what you guys are using. Just the thing you use to click the unmute button. So you know who you are. And maybe we should have people check in whenever they’re going to the bathroom because I’ll call on people and they’re not there. Of course, they just could be nervous. You know, you can submit your questions for the round table. Just go to JeepTalkShow.com slash contact to find out how. All right, here we go. Hello, Zoom people.
Good evening. Hello. Hello.
Good evening. Hello, hello, hello. How are you doing?
Count Chacula. What up? Count Chacula. One, two, three. I, two, three. Speaking of one, let’s start off with this first question. Oh, I forgot to send Greg a text message to remind him to get on. Somebody send Greg a message. Send Chuck a message too.
Oh, we need Greg on.
Oh yeah.
We really need him on right now.
Oh, I know. I heard.
(Laughing)
Door pocket update.
All right, so this was the one I was gonna use last week, but we didn’t get to get to it. And of course we’ve got four questions, but who knows if we’ll actually get to the four questions. We do pretty good to get to just two of them, which is not a bad thing. This means that you guys are very interactive and do a lot of talking, which is the fun. That’s the reason why the listeners are here to listen to you guys. All right, so the first question, Toyota has announced no more ICE vehicles. And I’ll remind everybody that’s internal combustion engine, all hybrid electric.
And my question, this is a statement. This is my question. If Jeep follows in their footsteps, are you sticking with Jeep? Are you gonna buy a hybrid or an EV in the future if Jeep goes the same direction as Toyota? And what do you think about Toyota doing this? So let’s start with, let me see, Steve-O was complaining I didn’t call on him. Let’s start with Steve-O.
(Steve Laughs)
I don’t know where that came from, but anyway.
It came from the chat earlier.
Oh, anyway.
So if this is the first I’m hearing about, I guess I’ve had my head in the sand recently, but I wouldn’t be hard pressed to go
without a question at this point. I think that might not be a choice, unfortunately.
Yeah.
But then I would start looking shopping around, going out in Arizona, buying some old Jeeps.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.
You gotta imagine the price is gonna go through the roof.
Well, it certainly should go up. I mean, you’re talking about two drive systems at that point. And I think we already know that the four by ease are kind of pricey now.
So-
Well, I mean in the fact that it can, at a combustion engine, trying to find one.
Oh, I missed it. Yeah, of course. Yeah, if you’re going to get a used vehicle with the, without having to do the hybrid thing, you’re right that the prices are gonna go up on that.
That would start hoarding us.
So I gotta ask Matt. Matt, what do you think about hybrids? Would you stick with Jeep if the only thing they had to sell was a hybrid?
How much of it is the government paying for?
(Steve Laughs)
Government and quotations.
Well, it depends on who gets elected this next time because Trump has said he’s gonna do away with the tax credits for electric vehicles.
Yeah, I mean, we wouldn’t have gotten the four by way we have if the $7,500 off didn’t exist.
Wasn’t a non four by E cheaper even after the $7,500 credit?
So when we got ours in 21,
it was pretty much neck and neck, two liter and a four by E after the $7,500 tax credit were about the same price.
And I picked on you on this because I know that you really like your four by E. You really haven’t had any issues where you don’t care for it. I mean, you don’t drive it in straight EV mode very far, but it helps on your gas mileage
and so on and so forth. For very far in straight EV. Exactly.
15 miles.
You can get 25 if you milk it.
Plug in your USB charger.
I just can’t steer very well if it’s being milked. Hey Greg, we’re gonna put a stop to the show here. I wanna get you and a door pockets customer together.
Oh no. Bill. Well, hold on, hold on like
30 minutes.
I’ll listen, but I’m walking into a party store. So you guys can
hear me buy cigarettes. What kind of party store?
The one on the corner from my house.
(Laughing)
Oh, we can- Is it a other party store?
It can be quick, right? Do you wanna wait or you wanna just let it know now?
Let’s wait.
All right, we’ll wait for you, Greg. You’ll probably need your smokes for this one.
Oh, wait.
(Laughing)
I’m so excited. I got the titty box. We started shipping last week and I’ve
had five problems so far, five. Thanks.
(Laughing)
And I’ll tell you what, trying to put out those fires, because one, I feel bad. And a couple of the issues were 100% due to shipping.
We used the wrong tape, so it literally lost hardware facts.
All that fun stuff.
Well, that’s part of the fun.
Another guy, he ordered two front sets and we only shipped them one front set. So that’s another, you know, it’s all the little things. Hold on, I’m walking into the store here.
Hey, honey.
How are you doing today?
Good, how are you?
Good. Give me all your money.
(Laughing)
Luckily, you’re only in my ear and they can’t hear you. How are you doing?
This will be used in the trial.
(Laughing)
I don’t know what you’re all giggling about, but it’s not funny.
(Laughing)
It is us.
Oh man. Anything else, honey?
That’s it.
Go ahead.
Did you get a phone number?
No.
Greg, if you’re gonna keep putting up with all these guys, you might as well grab some beer while you’re in there.
(Laughing)
Yeah, I’m not a beer drinker though, so. Thank you so much.
You can start tonight.
No, no, thank you.
(Laughing)
All right, well, we’re gonna be talking to Greg here in a few minutes, so I’m gonna move over to, Matt, were you done? Were you done with the four by E? I guess you could live with a four by E Jeep in the future, depending on the tax credit, I think, is what I got from you.
Well, I mean, I think that’s the determination on the purchase. I mean, we didn’t really do it just for the fuel mileage or anything, and realistically, out of the 55,000 miles we have on it, probably maybe 10% electric or less.
So, I mean, there’s definitely some, we’ve done a lot of long trips and it is not the, it’s not the preferred vehicle for either long trips or towing, it fails on both those fronts, though.
Now, I had some really good luck doing a couple of long trips with the JTE.
I would put it in E save, which still uses the electric motor, just barely uses it. And as long as I went like below 65 miles an hour, it got amazing range.
But you gotta drive like, you know, a fancy at below 65 miles an hour. Mm-hmm, no. Been on the trailer?
(Laughing)
No, that was driving it. Like I went from, you know, we did,
posted it Vegas to Moab and made it almost clean, almost the entire trip without stopping for fuel once.
I’m helping them to sell them.
Well, we were going, I mean, we were going slow.
So, We were going slow. That’s the difference. I mean, it’s going slow. You know, I just, I just drove, and Matt just drove, both of us, just went to the Smoky Mountain Deep invasion and back. And, you know, one tank of gas, I didn’t get there from Charlotte to, you know, three and a half or four and a half hours away. One tank of gas did not make it.
You know, it, but I wasn’t driving slow.
There we go, I was just gonna ask.
I was gonna be 75.
Yeah.
Well, Travis, you’re a good one to ask because you currently have a four by E. If a hybrid was your only choice for a future Jeep, would you stick with Jeep or would you go with a used Jeep? Or maybe you would look for somebody else, maybe somebody else that was still selling vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Well, it’s got an internal, it’s got a nice engine. So I like that, but I’ve got two Jeeps. I’ll never get rid of the old one. It’s back home. I’m gonna always have ice. I like a lot of the features and a lot of, I like a lot about this technology. I like it.
I like, you know, a V8. I like, you know,
the 392 better.
There is a lot of like more, but it was that tax credit. It was that buying purchase point that sold me on it. I’m getting a lot of power for a reduced price. And that was it. I didn’t buy it for a gas saving vehicle. I didn’t buy it for, you know, yeah, it’s convenient. I can go to the grocery store and back and it’s free. I say free, it’s, you know, 20 cents of electric range or electric charge to me. You know, it’s great for short little runs and different things, but the reality of people buying it or the company selling it as a convenient vehicle, it’s truly, it’s not.
There’s a lot of pop perks and plositives to it, but for how they market it, I disagree with a lot of points. I was selling them. I realized that and I drove one for two weeks. And then I was like, yup, nope, I’ll do it. I understood what it was. And it’s also a Jeep. I didn’t buy a Jeep for gas saving. I didn’t buy it for the powered Scott, but I was just like, damn it. I can’t turn this down. It’s impressive.
I think Jeep did a good job.
What happens when you have to replace the $15,000 battery?
It turns into an ice. Yeah, it turns into an ice. But you know, if that happens before the 10 years or the nine years, it’s got,
that’ll be fun. And I hope it goes out before the nine years.
I hope it goes out at eight years and four months so that you get a freebie.
Yeah, correct. You and I both.
Until they go, oh wait, you’ve got bigger tires and you’ve got this. So now your warranty is employed.
And then you just say Magnus and Mossack. I’m not gonna avoid it for that. Then your lawyers.
I know. Yeah, I’ve got my warranty. Well, I’m warranty through Jeep knows I have all this equipment on it. And they’re, yep, it’s covered, it’s good.
I think what I would look at it, so if you had to pay, call it 10 grand extra or something a little more than that, I would, I personally would rather have, get a three six and put a blower on it as long as they don’t have the same experience that Roger had.
What’s the savings? I mean, what’s the average battery last, 10 years you say? So in 10 years, would you save enough in 10 years on a fuel to buy another battery?
They don’t know if the battery is gonna last 10 years cause they couldn’t test them that long. I look at the Tesla’s and stuff, they’re getting three to five years on a battery and they’ve got a really nice one. So they don’t know.
Five years gonna save you enough.
Yeah, but luckily they offered that warranty, right? So with that 10 year warranty, it’s a win-win. And honestly, if you’re allowed to plug in at work, it’s a win-win because it’s not spinning your electric meter at home.
And honestly, the power to rate ratio, the things are amazing to drive, they really are. So I’m not gonna knock them that much, but I’m on pins and needles,
throw it back to Bill and figure out what’s wrong.
(Laughing)
All right, so we’re gonna switch back to the door pocket woes
and Bill was complaining before you got joined in here, Greg. Bill, take it away.
No, so first I’ll say like the quality of the door pockets is awesome. Oh, they’re gorgeous. Like better than expected, like the texture, everything, you got it just right. So I was pretty excited. I kind of got the, you know, 730, I opened the box. I’m like, I’m gonna install these when I’m listening to the show. And then I’m missing my hardware and my instructions. So maybe mine was one of those where it slipped out of the box or something and shipping, but anyway.
Text me your info.
Yeah.
And I will priority overnight use some instructions and some hardware and a big fat apology.
No, like I said.
So we learned and I have, so now this is six. But we’ve had three with no hardware. We had one box that was opened and delivered empty. Wow. They delivered the box empty.
That was nice of them.
Yeah. Here’s what you didn’t get.
Right?
So we’re learning, like I’m looking at tape right now, switching from, so right off rip, like today, they were double taping. So they were wrapping it all the way around twice.
I’m looking at the, like that cardboard tape that has the– Yeah,
it’s got like the strings and stuff in there.
Yeah, and the downfall with that is
that’s gonna cost another 40 cents a box.
Wow. To use that tape, because it’s expensive.
I would just take the hit on the five or six that does don’t make it.
Is there a happy medium between the extreme super tape and the–
Obviously mine got here just fine.
I don’t, and that’s the problem is I don’t know, right? So I’ve just been basing my experience on the eight dozen packages that show up here in my shop every week. And looking at all of them, like since Monday, I’ve had, I don’t know, 20 boxes show up. And out of those 20 boxes, only one of them didn’t have that cardboard tape. So I think, I mean, even Amazon has their own made with their own label on it, right? And the reason that companies use it is because it works better. So maybe the paying extra for it and the machine is expensive, right? So you buy this little machine and when you pull the tape through, it wets it. So the bottom of it has,
you fill it with water and when you pull the tape through, it wets the bottom of it, which activates the glue.
But yeah, it works out to be, it was like 35 to 40 cents a box.
But if it prevents, we shipped out 170 packages and we know of at least six issues. Well, when I priority overnight hardware, that’s gonna cost me almost more than shipping the box in the first place. So if you do that six out of every hundred boxes,
it’s cheaper to buy the 35 cent tape.
Yeah.
So you just got to carry some Greg.
I’ve hauled boxes before and I’m sure whatever you got, they didn’t make them for you. There’s a lot of times, like there’s a lot of dust on the boxes, even in between the layers of boxes. Is it possible that you just got some dirty, some dusty boxes? Cause that’ll make the tape not stick. I mean, so maybe it doesn’t make a microfiber cloth and just, after you close the disc, run a microfiber cloth across it.
Well, and the other one I’m thinking of is, when they loaded those on the FedEx truck, right?
FedEx truck backed up, opened his door and 60 identical boxes were all hand loaded. And then, when he got to the depot, 60 boxes were unloaded and then sorted and then put in other things and then shipped and then put in other trucks. So there’s a lot of handling. Oh yeah.
And FedEx can be pretty rough too. Some of the stuff I’ve gotten from FedEx has been.
So how do you, Roger, do you just back up and hit the loading dock at like 20 miles per hour with the door open? Yeah.
I was really surprised how, I’ll just mention to anybody that’s thinking about getting the door pockets. And what we’re talking about here is, Greg’s been working on these door pockets that are OEM plus quality. They replaced the saggy door nets or hopefully like mine, mine aren’t sagging yet. So I’ll be replacing them before they get saggy.
And for anybody that’s too shy to buy them right off my website, which is unofficiallyuseonly.com, within a week or two, you’ll be able to buy them from Northridge 4×4.
Oh, that’s awesome. Oh yeah.
We’re gonna ship out two or three pallets of them to Northridge first of the week.
So anyway, their door pockets, front and rear doors, I think you can buy them separately now if you just want the fronts for like a two door.
But it replaces the nets and several people here and the team members and listeners have ordered the door pockets and installed them.
So everybody’s loving them. I called Greg today when I received, actually yesterday when I received mine. Because you can see pictures of the stuff, but whenever you actually look at it and see the quality of it, it’s like what you were saying, Bill. They’re fantastic. I mean, they are gorgeous. I mean, it looks like somebody made these things with a $140 stamp, $140,000 stamp, which– They did.
They didn’t make it with $140,000 stamp.
Of course, that’s how it was made.
Also– I know where your hardware is. Also for new Jeep owners and new listeners,
they do work with the 2024 with the electric seats. So it’s the only door pocket
or the only net replacement available on the market that works with the 2024 electric seats.
And how much they cost?
For a complete set of four is 150 bucks. So half the cost of my competition.
Damn cheap. And I think you said the shipping’s like 20 bucks or something.
Yeah, right now we, because we’re learning the website woes, which is not a fun thing for a guy who doesn’t computer.
Right now, shipping is a flat 20 bucks anywhere in the country, but we will change that basically. Once we have shipments to every state, we can go in the website and tell it that it’s this much for this state or this much for that state.
And you’re only shipping to the 48 states, the mainland of the United States, right? You’re not doing Alaska– No, we’ll actually ship.
Yeah, well, no, we’ll ship anywhere, but there is, it’s not 20 bucks if you want it to Alaska or it’s not 20 bucks if you want it to Hawaii. Okay, good.
Case in point, we have a couple of customers in Australia, one of who listens to this show, but I still haven’t called him because every time I look, it’s like three in the morning there.
But to ship one box to him is $200 a box.
Oh my God.
You can use the good tape.
Right, yeah. And I definitely want the good tape.
And we had a couple orders in China, which we actually refunded their money because when we Google Earth did it, it was a plastics building. So it was a manufacturing facility that ordered them.
So we just refunded their money.
But yeah, so and we’ve got a guy in Calgary and it was, I think $80 to ship to him.
So– It’s just amazing. I’ve had this situation when people, and I’m just so honored when people, and I’m sure you are too, Greg, when somebody wants to buy your stuff, I mean, they just want a Jeep talk show sticker, England. And I think it was gonna be like 40 bucks to send a sticker. And I said, hey, I’d love for you to have it, get a picture there in the jolly old state of England. Yeah, I say state.
So for those are the people on the show who got them, what did you, did you like the sticker? Because I put some extra effort into that sticker.
I didn’t get that either.
(Laughing)
It’s a nice sticker.
Oh, that’s great.
So that– Funny of all you would have got was just the hardware, Bill, that would have been funny.
Like normally, you know, dealing with the aftermarket and dealing with all these things, you know, like I get faces of stickers.
And traditionally I was looking at all the different stickers once somebody on the Jeep talk show mentioned that I needed stickers. And that was just a few weeks ago. I looked at the normal stickers and I could make
kind of like the stickers we gave away at SEMA. I could make those stickers and they would have cost me about eight cents a piece, which is your standard everyday sticker that everybody gives out. And I didn’t want to do that. I wanted something a little higher class. Now those stickers are UV stable. So they are designed to go on the outside of a vehicle, but you can see they’ve got that resin topping. So it’s kind of like a bubble. And I know Chuck hates them, but it’s a TV stable. It’s supposed to last on the outside of the car for the life of the car. They’re supposed to be really high end. And those things cost me like a buck. I think they were a buck 18 a piece instead of six or seven cents that I would have spent on a normal sticker. So I really want your guys’ feedback because you guys are the ones that told me to put a sticker in the box. So if you dig it, I’ll keep running that sticker. If you don’t dig it, I’ll go to a cheaper version or something different.
I like the sticker.
Man, I almost seemed to get buck 18 just to get one of the stickers.
I was looking at the door pockets. I mean, I kind of saw the sticker on there and I did notice that it wasn’t just a standard die cut sticker,
but yeah. I mean, either one would have been fine. I just wanted something with the logo on it. Fortunately, Bill had sent me one to go on the board behind me that you guys can’t see tonight. All right, well, let’s get off of this for right now. I’d like to welcome Gina. I think it’s Gina’s first time here.
And as always, they’re probably the last time, but we appreciate you being here this time, Gina.
(Laughs)
Not yet, not as scared me yet.
(Laughs)
So. Yes, you wait.
So, as I was asking everybody, the Toyota has announced no more ICE vehicles, all hybrid electric. If Jeep goes to all hybrid electric vehicles, are you done with Jeeps, buying Jeeps in the future?
Help me? Yes. Uh, I don’t, probably.
How do you, what do you think about EVs? I mean, do you mind the EVs? You think they’re a good idea?
I have no experience with any of them. Of course, you know, for the environment and stuff, I can see the pros and cons of it, or the pros of it, but I myself, I never even considered
doing the electric vehicles. My dad was a mechanic, so I always grew up being able to work on my own. So the internal combustion was one thing that I just, I know it, so I’m gonna stick with whatever I want, or whatever I know I can work on if I get broke down in the middle of nowhere, and then I can fix it and still get home.
Mm-hmm.
Very good. Again, welcome to us here. We hope we see you here every week.
Tony asked me. Tony asked me.
(Both Laughing)
So I get this feeling, Greg. I’m like Travis. Greg would like to answer the question about the Toyota, no more ICE vehicles.
Yeah, so there’s one, I was pretty certain that Toyota was working on a hydrogen platform, but maybe not. So I know a lot of the other companies are working on a hydrogen platform, which is still an ICE vehicle, but if Jeep went pure electric or pure hybrid,
I apologize profusely. I would just keep buying. I love Jeep. I love the brand. I love everything about it, but I would just buy old used ones. Yeah. I don’t want an electric one for two reasons.
One, if I needed to drive across the country, I don’t, I’m always in a hurry. You know, I’m a small business owner and I’m always in a hurry. So I can’t stop, you know, like I’m going from here to Moab, I can’t stop and wait six hours for my battery to charge or three hours or two hours or whatever.
I’ll drive 60 miles an hour to get there on a tank of gas and go take twice as long.
Right, I don’t want to take twice as long. I want to break every law. I want to do 85 to 90 across the interstate. And I want to fill up in four minutes. I don’t want to plug in and wait for two hours for it to charge. So that’s step one. Step two, when I built the JTE for Quadratec and we took that death battery out of the four by E
and we affectionately nicknamed it the death battery because we had to orden off 10 feet around the vehicle when we disconnected the battery because it can discharge that range. So if somebody was within 10 feet, it could kill them with the discharge because it’s a hundred percent discharge in less than a minute when it’s not plugged in.
And that’s a lot of amps running through your body. So that’s the second one. And the third one is, and I hate to say it because Gina just said it, but if you do any research, you will see that the manufacturing process for the current batteries is so much worse
on the environment than a gas engine.
The manufacturing process for those batteries,
I think you could drive 60 or 70,000 miles in your car before you’re even close to net zero.
So they really are worse for the environment than your average commuter car.
Yeah, smoke and mirrors.
Yeah, it’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. And that’s the hard part is you have to look to find that information.
The lithium ion mines are just absolutely destructive and disgusting and they’re using so much diesel and then the manufacturing process is even worse. So look at Chuck, right? Chuck keeps walking around and making noise. If you look in his garage, he’s got the CJ6, he’s got a couple old Jeeps. Those things are so much greener than any modern car because they’re still driving. They’re still on the road. They’re still in service 15, 16, 70 years later. Once you put all the computers in them– Not the scrambler.
Not the scrambler.
Well, yeah, not currently.
(Laughing)
But once you put all the computers in them, the lifespan of the vehicle is so much shorter, right? People are kind of used to buying a vehicle in two or three or four years later, they get another one.
Where old cars, if you maintain them, stay alive for a really long time.
And you’re not mining the metal, you’re not mining all the other stuff to make a new car. That one’s already been there. So the longer it
lasts, the cleaner it is.
Yeah, the longer it lasts, the cleaner it is. I mean, on this show, I got rid of my 1936 Studebaker that was still running and driving after almost 100 years. So,
I mean, that’s a very long answer, but it touches each individual point. I love Jeep and I will not stop owning and loving Jeeps until the day I die, but I would not buy an electric Jeep. I just wouldn’t do it.
Well, I guess also too, there’s always a possibility of dropping in a nice engine in a hybrid electric vehicle. I mean, you can always get a crate engine and do it the way you want to do it, as long as the government allows us to do those things, which I know that this part of what SEMA is trying to call attention to is the ability for us to work on our vehicles.
Yeah, did you watch the video?
I did not see it. Chris, he said something about it today, but I was busy working on stuff, but I didn’t know it was out.
Yeah, so I filmed a video for SEMA and it talks about the Biden-Harris EV mandate.
I mean, people need to actually download the EV mandate and read the entire thing so that they understand versus just watching a one minute video. But no, the video has been posted for a couple of days. I posted it on my own personal wall on Facebook
and Driving Force on Facebook actually posted it. That’s SEMA’s thing.
But just like normal things, Zuckerberg is already limiting the reach of these videos.
So they’re doing paid sponsorship. They’re sending it all over Michigan. It’s even on the radio stations, but on Facebook, they’re already limiting the reach. So I shared it. Normally when I share something,
I get a lot of views because I get a lot of people to follow my stuff and nobody’s seen it. There’s only been like four or five comments on the video in two days. So yeah, it’s a pretty good video. I dig it, but I actually did the research. When they asked me to do it and they told me they wanted me to talk about the EV mandate,
I gave them a hesitant, I need to look into it. And I did, I read that entire EV mandate and it took me hours because it’s a lot of pages.
And it’s pretty disgusting. Like they really wanna force the EV mandate
and they wanna completely ban the auto manufacturers from making stuff, but also hidden inside that EV mandate are things that really affect my business. And hidden inside of it, it says that as of a certain year, you’re not allowed to make aftermarket modifications to your personal vehicle, even if you own it outright. They’re trying to make it illegal for us to modify our vehicles.
Well, I’m gonna look for that video. I’m just kind of scanning your Facebook page right now.
Yeah, it’s like almost the last thing I posted on Facebook. You have to go to my personal Greg Henderson one and
you should be able to find it. I was on a future use only. All right.
Now I say that I’m the owner of unofficial use only, but I have not shared it to unofficial use only yet because I’m honestly hesitant for the blowback. Oh yeah.
I’m hesitant for the people that, because I don’t say vote for Trump. I don’t say any of that. I say vote against the EV mandate.
As if you actually read it, you know why I would wanna vote against it. Oh yeah. But I’m hesitant to post it on unofficial use only because there are already people saying, you’re gonna hurt your business by doing this. And on one regard, I don’t really care, but on the other regard, I do a little bit. This is my business and my livelihood.
You gotta be a smart businessman. We all can’t live like Chuck does. Speaking of Chuck, Chuck, I don’t see you, I mean, it took you this long to get a new Jeep. If they go hybrid electric, are you gonna stop buying Jeeps in the future?
Yeah.
Yeah, anytime a government tells you that you have to do something, it’s not for your best interest. It’s for the government’s best interest. So I’m good not doing what they tell me to. That’s me.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the battery power thing, probably the future, right? I mean,
more than likely that’s what’s gonna happen in due time and I’m not against that. I love innovation. I love outside of the box thinking.
I mean, look at what Elon’s doing with space travel. I absolutely love it. But when it’s shoved down your throat, there’s a hidden agenda. I used to work for the government. So we used to do shit that you find out, like, yeah, that’s not for the betterment of the country. It’s a betterment of a politician, right? Yeah, that’s sad. I don’t do it. And to caveat off of what Greg was saying,
we buy new trucks every two years and all the diesels, they have diesel exhaust fluid, right? Which is a smog deal. Boy, they only run 70,000 miles before you have to do a complete death clean out, which is six, seven, $8,000 here.
Well, what are they doing? They’re just getting more money. Because you pay more money, you gotta have more taxes.
And it’s the same thing with this whole EV thing.
They’re just doing it to get more taxes. You’re just gonna have to buy more batteries, just like with the diesel. The government, the EPA has really screwed everything up and made it really hard for us to run them. I got old, my seven three, it’s a 1996 seven three, runs top notch,
way better than my 2023.
Chuck,
I’ve got a question. Because you do a lot of trucks. And I have very limited experience, but I used to get to drive a truck and it was a,
was it a 2006 Dodge Ram mega cab with the 32 valve coming.
And it was a stick shift. And that truck going to Boeing, Boeing two Jeeps got like 23 miles to the gallon.
Last year I went and I rented a brand new 2023 Dodge Ram to tow to Moab. And I got nine miles to the gallon.
And I had to put Def in it. You know, do most of the old trucks get way better fuel mileage than the new ones too, in your experience?
Yeah, because they’re tuned for power, right? Optimum power.
And optimum power means that you’re gonna burn all of the fuel that’s going through it, right? Because if you don’t have optimum power, that’s unused fuel and that’s just unused,
there’s a lot of oil things that go through the diesels.
And they just don’t run as nice. Once they started computerizing them, and really when the death system happened, like my Peter built a 2007, and that’s the last year of a non-def semi truck. And I run circles around everybody else and I use half the fuel now, Roger’s gonna be on here and he’s got a very beautiful
2010, 2011.
And you know, he’s got more horsepower than I do.
The older stuff just was engineered to run because fuel just that your fuel consumption is your big deal. So I’ve got three, 23s, maybe a 22 and a 24 in there. And I run anywhere between four and nine miles per gallon. And I’m running death.
And my 2018, we just did some work to it where the death system is no longer needed. We did not do a delete for any of the EPA guys that are listening.
And it’s running way cleaner, it runs faster, less fuel. You know, just everything about it is so much better than my big red truck. I mean, I don’t know how many, you know, Jeep trips I’ve done with you guys where, you know, I show up in my 23 and it’s a great, big, beautiful red truck, but it gets four miles to the gallon and it’s gutless. Well, it goes into the shop here in two weeks. And we’re also gonna, you know, potentially make it where it doesn’t run that kind of crap, which is highly illegal.
So Chuck, I understand what you’re saying here, but we don’t like logic and facts and results. We need everything done through emotion.
Well, how about this? Buy round headlights and drink Coors. Fuck yeah.
(Laughing)
Hey Chuck, thank you very much for solidifying that for us.
I mean, you have a lot more experience in that realm than I do. That’s why I asked you the question because my limited experience taught me one thing, but I wanted the clarification and thank you for the explanation. That was very nice of you.
I mean, ultimately, I really believe Greg, you know, you and I chat often and Tony and I do too. Ultimately, I think, you know, battery power is going to be the future, but let it naturally progress, right?
Yeah. Because right now the technology essentially is in the dark ages for the batteries. I mean, with Elon or some of those other guys make some changes and I’m sure in a few years, we’re going to have amazing batteries, but right now they suck.
Well, the infrastructure, right? They just, it blows.
Well, and I’ve said this before, what we need is something that generates power. Kind of like when you burn gasoline, you’re not charging your vehicle with gasoline, you’re filling it up with a fluid that can be burned. So we need something along the same lines, but it creates electricity or through its process, it creates electricity and hopefully it does something that gives us a lot more range. Hell, I’d like to have a gladiator that was like a nuclear aircraft carrier where you just refill it every five to 20 years.
Mr. Fusion.
That’s right.
Did you see the video where like in Indonesia or someplace like that, they actually have battery charging stations for their Vespas or their little battery powered scooters where you roll up to the side, you put your old batteries in there, you put some pin number, you pay for it, you grab new batteries, stick it in your deal and keep going.
Oh, that’s a good way. It’s awesome.
Hard to do. So they’re doing that. There was a car in Japan, they’re doing that that’s hydrogen fuel cell. So you go up, you put your old fuel cell in, you take the new one out and you put it in the car and within a minute you’re back on the road and those things have like 400 miles of range on a hydrogen fuel cell. That’s about this big by about this big.
And they have something overseas where they actually,
the chassis was the battery. Do you literally just took the body off and put it on another chassis?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. That sounds stupid, Roger.
No, it was something that I saw on the top gear.
All right, we’ll think about that. We’ll do a little research on that while we go to John Lee. John Lee, what do you think? Hybrid electric for Rajeep? Is that, are you gonna try to keep yours for the rest of your life or maybe buy a new one in the future that’s hybrid electric?
No, I’ll probably keep mine.
I think the, I think the commuter side of the electric vehicles is actually probably a little better. And I would probably be a lot more open to that, especially for my daily commuting back and forth to work and stuff like that. But I’ll keep my Jeep for the long, long trips and when off-roading and just kind of keep it alive, I guess.
I guess you have to if you don’t wanna go with the new stuff. And at some point I kinda get the feeling that we’re old fogies. I’m not getting rid of my horse. My horse can get me home without me even telling it where to go, because she knows how to get there.
And I’m not against technology. I’m like Chuck and Greg. I think new technology is wonderful. But you can’t just say let’s do it. It has to be ready. I mean, I’ve made the analogy before about cell phones. Cell phones were great. They were dumb. You made phone calls on it. You might have texted on them. And then the smartphones came out. And nobody has a dumb phone anymore because the technology is just so wonderful. So that’s what we need to do with the automobiles is they need to come out with something that is just so wonderful that just doesn’t make any sense to stick with what we’re doing now.
All right, let’s– I’ll bet you within five years the batteries will have good technology. Just today they suck.
Yeah, well, and they’re a lot better than when I was a kid and even just 20 years ago. So there has been a lot of technological increases in the time, but it’s just like you say, it’s not time for it yet. All right, so let’s see. I went to Rich last year, last year, last week, it seems like last year, and he didn’t unmute. Let’s see if he’s gonna unmute this time. Rich, what do you think about hybrid electric? Is that XJ gonna be running for the next 20 years?
Hybrid electric, no, but I’ve considered doing an electric swap on it. If they can get the battery technology out there, I think it would be pretty cool.
Oh, it’d be a great off-road rig, wouldn’t it?
Yeah, as far as like everyday use,
I’m actually probably in a good spot for like a four by E, because my commute is a little under 30 miles
and we got a charging station right behind our shop there.
So I could
theoretically run it mostly on electric,
but other than that though, it’s not there yet. It’ll get there, but I’m more leaning towards the hydrogen side of things.
I’m more curious on where that’s gonna go.
Mm-hmm, so the people that are listening, I know that you’re, and I’m surprised Steve-O hasn’t said anything about it yet. We have dueling, and actually not even dueling, we’ve got a Quadrifonic Grasshopper Fest here. Greg has one, Chuck has one. I heard one at your place there, Rich. And I think there was one more person. Maybe it was just those three. But yeah, so if you’re hearing crickets, it’s not me playing a trick on you. The crickets at these locations were these gentlemen that have joined us tonight.
All right, was there anybody else that wanted to jump in on this question before we moved along?
Hey, this is Glenn from Louisiana. I got a couple questions. So the 4XC does not regenerate the battery? You have to plug it in when you get back home?
Yeah, it does not regenerate. Well, if you lived in the mountains and you were going downhill all day long, it does regenerate.
But for normal use, no, it doesn’t. The ice engine powers the vehicle just like the electric one does. So it doesn’t regenerate enough to keep it charged.
It does reserve about, it’s less than 1%. It’s got about 10% left in it. You can definitely juice it out, but it’s still kind of something similar to your stop-go on steroids. So it is region breaking every time you break anyways. The primary breaking system is that.
So you can maintain, like if you, you don’t put an e-save where it’s actually using as a generator,
your breaking system will bring you to a stop, shut it off, and then you’ll start out and go,
you have 200 yards and electric if you’re in a straight hybrid mode. So it does it to a point, but it’s not, if you have an e-save charge for long enough, you can charge the battery, but you’re talking hundreds of miles.
Okay, I’m both curious. I’m curious because I hate to admit it. I used to own a Prius.
That was a long time ago. That’s a long time ago. Like a true soldier, saving money.
Yeah, I used to drive 110 miles to one way to work every day. So I had to do some– 100% yeah.
But I will say I did lower the car, put bigger tires and other sway bars on it because I’m a racer at heart. But anyway, it’s a regenerative system, right? So when you slow down and while you’re slowing down, it would regenerate the battery and you could watch the battery go up and down. And that was all fine and dandy until that battery gave out on me and cost me $2,500 and left me on the side of the road.
Yeah.
Right. And then a couple of years later, I went through a second battery for another $1,800, $1,900.
And I was like, I saw somebody with a Prius at the fuel station. I said, get rid of it. Everything you’re saving right now in fuel economy, put all that money into another account, you’re gonna have to buy a battery.
No. No, they’re not cheap. Well, and so I drove a four by E through the pass. So through the Rockies.
And when I made it to the Eisenhower tunnel, so I went all the way up the hill from Grand Junction to the Eisenhower tunnel in E save. And when I got to the top, the battery was already, I think it was at like 7%.
And then I engaged the charge function and I went all the way downhill to Denver, only having to use the gas pedal, I think like three times.
And when I got all the way down to Denver, I had recharged the battery 19%.
So there’s not enough regenerative or regeneration to fully charge your battery.
Now you say that, and just me this past weekend, going over 441 from Bryson City Cherokee over to Smoky Mountain or to Pigeon Forge to the event. I left my house full charge, or my parents’ house full charge of battery. I get to Cherokee and all of a sudden Cherokee is 20 minutes away and I’m going slow. Again, this is 35 miles an hour, 45 miles an hour over the mountain.
I get there, I’m at zero charge. I go up the mountain in hybrid and then I come down the mountain. When I get down the mountain and I’m in Gatlinburg,
I had over 60% of battery from coming down the mountain. And on the way back, again, I did it and I had on my round trip, a little over 100 miles, over half of it was electrical only going downhill. I mean, no gas was used. It was, I mean, zero charge, it’s rebuilding and I’m driving down the mountain for free.
That’s the only time that ever happens. My daily commute, I’ll drive to work. I get 15 miles of electric range because I’m highway and back roads both.
And then I drive home, if I’m sitting in traffic, I may have two miles with that zero charge just from breaking and everything. I’m like, hey, I got home, I’m two miles of electric range. There are variations and do we- Yeah, there’s variations. Never push the save on.
Wait, how long does it take?
The biggest deal here, Greg is, Travis, you live with your parents?
No, my parents live in the mountains and I went to visit them this past weekend.
All right, just making sure, bro. Cause I thought, dude, if we need to go go fund me page for you, like we would do that.
Hey, I’ve got it. So the other one with the E save or not the E save, but the electric, because I was fortunate enough to play with one for a little bit. The one thing that bummed me out the most is the charger that they send with the car. When you buy the four by E, you get the normal wall plug. And if you drain that battery to zero, just for somebody out there who’s thinking of buying a four by E,
make sure you upgrade your charger because the charger that comes with the car, if you plug it in, it takes about 14 hours to go from zero to a hundred percent. So that means when you get home from work, you better plug it in so that in the morning you have a full charge again.
I got it. There’s also other unexpected expense of an electric vehicle is the cost of having a hundred amp service for a good charger installed in your home.
Yeah, if you’re not an electrician then you can do it for a hundred bucks. You’re paying three grand for an electrician to come out and do it for you.
When you go from the ice engine over to the electric and you’re going full electric, what do you call the gas pedal?
It’s still the gas pedal because if you put it all the way to the floor, the ice engine still fires up.
It’s a volume controller. It’s a volume controller.
It’s an accelerator pedal.
I want to know what all this electric talk is coming from.
I don’t have a gas pedal in any of our trucks.
It’s because not everybody has a Hemi like you Keith.
No, he wanted to drop that, didn’t he?
Go into bigger engines.
I was curious because it’s obviously not that big of a thing to, well obviously you don’t buy a Jeep or fuel economy.
So I didn’t know if it was like how that compared to like the diesel Jeep and fuel economy. But the other thing was you talked about the tax credit. One of the guys I work with over here, he bought a Tesla and this past year he had to pay like $2,000 to $3,500 in road taxes because he doesn’t buy fuel anymore.
What state are you in? They’re going to start doing that in all the states.
Glenn, what state are you in?
Louisiana. Louisiana, California just passed that deal because they pushed EV so hard. And then all Mr. Newsome just fucked everybody and said, “Oh yeah, we’re not getting fuel tax. So now you get a road tax.”
Yeah. Yeah.
How many- When he told me that I was like, damn.
How many tons of these used battery? I mean, because what I understand is you can’t recycle this crap.
So how many- No, they can recycle them. There’s a couple of new recycling facilities that have popped up and they can recycle them. It’s like 98% of the battery is recyclable. Okay. But it costs more than the cost of the battery to recycle it.
Yeah, shipping them to Indonesia and letting kids bury them is not recycling them, Greg.
No, there’s actually a US company that is building two giant recycling facilities and they did figure it out, but it’s so expensive. They’re just banking on the fact that the government’s going to start forcing you to recycle them, which is going to be another charge.
You can look at that. Wow.
There’s a lot of tons.
There’s the damage.
And the pollution of waste from the brakes and tires from the added weight, they use like 10 times more brakes and tires.
Well, the four by E is 800 pounds heavier than an identically equipped Rubicon. So if you take a four by E Rubicon and a regular Rubicon parked next to each other, the four by E is 800 pounds heavier. The battery is 400 pounds and then the motor and all the cooling system is the other 400. So it’s 800 pounds heavier, but it’s really down low. So it’s a…
Here’s something else to think about too, is that with all these heavier vehicles, I saw they were doing tests on the crash barriers on the interstates now. Oh yeah. These vehicles are just rolling through that stuff. So now you’re going to have the extra cost of upgrading all the crash safety barriers along the interstate. So where’s that money going to come from?
And the tires were faster as well because of the weight. Yeah.
Well,
that’s why Camilla wants to take your…
What the hell is it? What did they say?
Yeah, I screwed that one up because now I can’t even say it. Unrealized.
It’s your story, Greg.
Yeah, unrealized capital gains. Yep.
Oh God.
They want to tax unrealized capital gains.
Yeah, they want to tax you money you don’t have.
If your property value goes up from a hundred grand to 200 grand, even though you don’t sell it, they’re going to tax you 28% on the new value of your house. This is California. This is exactly why I left. No, she’s trying to push it. She’s trying to push it nationwide.
No, he’s saying things.
They already do it. This is the same shit that they did. Mom and dad bought their house.
Did you just say they already passed it nationwide?
No. Oh. No.
But it’s all assets, not just your home. It’s anything you own.
Stock included.
Yeah. Yeah. Anything. Even to…
So basically if you finish up your scrambler and you make it, you know, right now it’s worth 500 bucks. If you finish it and it’s now worth 20 grand, you have to pay…
Yeah, but once you finish it and it’s worth, you know, 30 grand, you’re going to have to pay tax on it because it went up in value while it was in your possession.
You don’t ever say that the scrambler’s only worth $500, Greg. That thing has got a nice winch on it.
All right, 675.
All right, well, the Zoom meeting continues on even after we stop recording. You should be here to enjoy it, not only during the recording of the show, not even after the recording of the show, but before the recording of the show because we start at the Zoom meeting about 7.30 p.m. Central time. You can get in here and introduce yourself or maybe get a conversation going. And then I will very rudely interrupt you at 8 p.m. Central time to record the show.
See, I think it was last week. There were two people left in the Zoom room when I walked through the office here, the studio, and it was one o’clock in the morning. And I think it was Bob and Mike. We’re still talking. One o’clock in the morning. There’s nothing wrong with that. You can stick, hang around the Zoom meeting as long as you like.
All right, so coming up on our next Jeep Talk Show interview show, Robbie Bryant of Overlanding, or not Overlanding, Overland of America.com. This is a big, big event happening September 13th through 15th in Jay, Oklahoma. It’s a great centrally located place in the United States. This is something, this is the first one that Robbie’s doing here at Jay, Oklahoma. And it just sounds huge. You’ll have to listen to this interview just to get a feel for what I’m talking about. And this isn’t Robbie’s first rodeo. This isn’t a rodeo, but you know what I’m saying.
And so he’s been involved in the industry for many, many years, and now he’s doing an event. So I think, I’m a believer, I think it’s gonna be a really good event, and I think it’s gonna be a great event straight out of the gate the very first time.
And that brings us to the end of this exhilarating Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode. I wanna express my deepest gratitude to our incredible panel of Jeep enthusiasts for sharing their valuable insights and experiences and expertise with us today. Your passion for Jeeps is truly inspiring, and we’re grateful for your contributions.
So until next time, keep those Jeeps running strong, hit those trails with confidence, and remember, it’s not just a vehicle, it’s a way of life. This has been Tony hosting the Jeep Talk Show Round Table episode, and we’ll catch ya on the next ride.
Broadcasting since 2010.
You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.