The Debate Over CVTs: A Discussion with Mike and Christine

Mike and Christine recently discussed the topic of Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVTs) on their show, Talking Cars. The conversation started off on a lighthearted note, with Mike joking about not asking what makes his car go at the end. However, the discussion quickly turned into a serious exploration of the pros and cons of CVTs.

"I'm actually I'm not hating CBTs," said Christine. "I don't hate them. I'm living in the future." She emphasized that while some people may view CVTs as inferior to traditional automatic transmissions or manual transmissions, they have their own advantages. One of the main benefits of CVTs is that they can provide an infinite number of gear ratios, which can be beneficial for fuel efficiency and performance.

Mike pointed out that Christine was "on team CVT" and acknowledged that some automakers may not do a great job with CVTs. He noted that Consumer Reports has written several stories on the topic, highlighting both the benefits and drawbacks of CVTs. Mike also mentioned that while some people may find CBTs to be annoying or drones-like, he saw nothing wrong with them.

As they delved deeper into the conversation, Christine explained how the hybrid system in the Nissan Fusion works. She stated that the hybrid electric motor and gas motor work together to transfer power to a CVT, which has two variable pulleys that can constantly change the gear ratio for the vehicle. This system allows the engine to stay within an optimal operating range, resulting in improved fuel efficiency.

Mike chimed in with his own thoughts on CVTs, saying that they're not all created equal. He noted that some automakers do a better job than others when it comes to implementing CVTs. Mike also mentioned that Honda and Subaru have made significant improvements with their CVT designs.

Christine offered her own perspective on the topic, stating that she's fine with CVTs as long as they're implemented well. However, she acknowledged that some manufacturers may not treat them as well as they should. She recommended that owners of hybrid or electric vehicles refer to their owner's manual for specific guidance and to keep records of related services.

The conversation also touched on the topic of maintenance. Christine noted that CVTs require special fluid changes and inspections, which can be costly if not done properly. Mike emphasized the importance of keeping records of these services, as neglecting them could result in big headaches and repair bills down the road.

As they wrapped up their discussion, Mike and Christine referenced some history on CVTs. They noted that the first CVTs were actually developed by a Dutch car manufacturer named DAF in the 1970s, which was long before their modern counterparts.

In conclusion, the debate over CVTs is complex and multifaceted. While some people may view them as inferior to other transmission types, they have their own advantages and disadvantages. By exploring the pros and cons of CVTs, we can gain a better understanding of these transmissions and make informed decisions when it comes to purchasing a vehicle.

In another section of the conversation, Mike and Christine discussed the topic of motor boating in CVTs. Motor boating refers to the tendency for the engine to stay at high RPMs on the highway or during acceleration, which can be annoying for some drivers. Mike noted that this issue was more prevalent in the early days of CVT development, but it's largely been mitigated by modern designs.

Christine pointed out that some manufacturers have simulated shifts and realigned their transmissions to make them seem less like CVTs. However, she also emphasized that while these efforts can be beneficial, they're not always effective in completely masking the characteristics of a CVT.

In addition, Mike mentioned that Consumer Reports has had some experiences with various automakers and their implementation of CVTs. He noted that while some manufacturers have done a better job than others, it's essential to remember that each vehicle is unique, and what works for one person may not work for another.

Christine also offered her thoughts on how the automotive industry could do a better job with CVTs. She emphasized the importance of transparency and honesty in marketing and advertising, as some manufacturers may exaggerate or misrepresent the benefits of their transmission designs.

As they continued to discuss the topic, Mike and Christine delved into the world of hybrid and electric vehicles. They noted that many manufacturers are now incorporating CVTs into their hybrid systems, which can provide improved fuel efficiency and performance.

In another section of the conversation, Mike mentioned that Honda had experimented with manual transmissions in some of their hybrid models. However, he also noted that these vehicles were not widely popular among consumers.

Christine pointed out that while some people may prefer traditional automatic or manual transmissions, others appreciate the unique benefits of CVTs. She emphasized that as technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more innovative and practical transmission designs in the future.

As they wrapped up their discussion on CVTs, Mike and Christine expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to explore this topic with their audience. They acknowledged that while CVTs may not be perfect, they have their own advantages and disadvantages, and by understanding these nuances, we can make more informed decisions when it comes to purchasing a vehicle.

The conversation on Talking Cars serves as a reminder that the world of automotive technology is constantly evolving, and manufacturers are continually working to improve and innovate. By engaging in open and honest discussions about the pros and cons of CVTs, Mike and Christine hope to educate their audience and provide valuable insights into the complex world of transmissions.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis week we respond to questions about our recent coverage of tesla autopilot we share our test results from the 2021 toyota highlander hybrid and answer a question we've been getting more and more these days how can you test drive a kia telluride if no dealerships have them in stock all that and more next on talking cars hey welcome back i'm keith barry i'm mike quincy and i'm jennifer stockberger so sometimes consumer reports and talking cars covers the news sometimes we are the news uh in in this case uh we had a lot of questions about our coverage of the aftermath of a tragic crash in houston um in which two people died in a tesla and there was speculation that no one was uh behind the wheel in that vehicle there was a lot of talk on social media on the internet a lot of people were speculating uh making assumptions about uh whether autopilot was active what autopilot could even do whether it was even possible to get a vehicle moving like this and you know we have a test track we have a tesla so we put some of those claims that we saw online to the test they they were not an investigation of the crash we're not speculating on what caused the crash but we wanted to answer some questions that our our viewers our readers and and other folks out there had uh so uh i talked to jake fisher a little earlier to find out more about some of what we were able to do at cr well and the truth is i really can't tell you exactly what happened in that crash and you know i'm not gonna speculate on what happened on that crash um i can't imagine what was interesting though is that when the police reported that there was no one in the driver's seat there was a lot of questions about whether or not that's even possible yeah i think uh one of the first mentions that we saw that was uh was online it was it was a tweet um where someone said and there were there was a ton of conversation about this uh and of course we reached out to tesla and they didn't respond as their press department uh appears to have been dissolved um the tweet uh that it comes the closest to an official response from from tesla is one that uh tesla ceo elon musk responded to and that tweet was uh this doesn't make sense there are safety measures in place where the autopilot seat is weighted to make sure there is a driver hands must be on steering wheel every 10 seconds or it disengages autopilot doesn't go over the speed limits over limit is impossible research please and elon musk responded to that your research as a private individual is better than professionals at wall street journal data logs recovered so far show autopilot was not enabled and this car did not purchase full self-driving there was something in that tweet that you kind of honed in on right jake yeah yeah that's right i mean look i i i couldn't tell you whether or not autopilot was engaged in this particular crash but but i thought it was really interesting when they talked about what was required to actually engage autopilot you know i heard you know that um that weight had to be on the seat that hands need to be on the steering wheel and all those things so we decided we'd actually just try it out and see if it was actually impossible or not and that's when because we do have a tesla and because we do have a closed track with a controlled situation where we could try it please do not try this at home this would be idiotic to try to do this at home or on the road because you would put yourself at risk or others at risk i was curious was that true we decided to do this experiment take a look at this video and you can see what happened so the first thing i did was i took this car to about 15 miles per hour engaged autopilot and then changed the set speed back down to zero which stopped the vehicle but autopilot still remained engaged if your hands are off the wheel it could also stop autopilot but i put a small weight on the left side of the steering wheel that wasn't enough to turn the wheel but just enough to put some resistance there at this point i was able to get myself completely out of the driver's seat with the seat belt still plugged in and autopilot still stayed engaged in the passenger seat i was able to increase the set speed by turning the wheel on the steering wheel and at this point it was completely driving on autopilot with no one in the driver's seat i kept my foot near the brake pedal just in case but there were people standing by and we were on a closed facility the car continued to follow the lines on the test track there were no warnings that no one was sitting in the seat no one was holding the steering wheel and no one was looking at the road so as you just saw in the video it turns out you don't have to have weight on the seat i actually honestly was surprised i figured that i know there's a weight sensor in the seat i figured you'd have to do that um really makes tricking out the system very difficult if you had to do that but but no um we were able to uh get the vehicle to drive down our our track um on autopilot without that it is true that you do need to have um well it's not totally true you have hands on the steering wheel you just need to have some kind of a weight on the steering wheel honestly and um and that's not difficult i think anyone who knows um who has this car or or drives autopilot realizes just need to kind of just put a little bit of weight on the steering wheel and and that defeats that that device so we published that article and uh we we certainly got some responses and uh we want to respond to a lot of them so uh the first one elon musk will probably fix this with an over-the-air update he was a little busy the last couple days launching four astronauts into space very true he was very very busy he is a very busy man he is a very busy man no one can dispute that yeah i was following the uh the the launch um and that was exciting to watch for for sure um but it is very interesting over-the-air updates our over-the-air updates are totally possible in this vehicle um before we have we have notified uh tesla's of issues with the vehicle that they were able to um update over the air updates um and that is certainly a possibility i actually don't disagree with this one yeah in some ways we we kind of hope that that's going to happen that that's there is a seat sensor that is built into there that's used for airbags and and uh for seat belts and if that seat sensor just a couple of lines of code probably would be able to change it so as to turn off um the ability to use autopilot if no one was in the driver's seat right yeah yeah i mean look i mean there's no there's no saving people from doing really stupid things you can't idiot-proof the world that's for sure um but it does seem like a pretty easy change and you know i just want to kind of reiterate that you know the purpose of what we did wasn't to stop people from doing dumb things i mean that will happen but i think in the end really what we found out was just it needs better driver monitoring because if the driver monitoring system can't determine really if someone's at the passenger seat or the driver's seat of the passenger seat it's not going to be able to determine if somebody's paying attention so the next question autopilot the the phrase uh not not necessarily the exact technology comes directly from airplanes do people think that airplanes don't have pilots anymore because of autopilot full self-driving literally states that it's not available yet and lastly it's not tesla that advertises their cars as self-driving cars and never has and then they attached um an ad that i it was an older mercedes ad that says introducing a self-driving car from a very self-driven company and i remember the controversy around this ad because there there were not self-driving cars and it also was an implication um yeah yeah yeah i mean actually that mercedes-benz ad we took issue with um it said your full self-driving mercedes-benz has has arrived we drove that car said it's clearly not full-strength driving and actually we wrote and contacted the ftc about that because it really was false advertising and mercedes-benz actually was pretty quick to react and change the ad um and no longer introduce their vehicles to full self-driving um or as self-driving as it was in the ad but that that that there's a lot to unpack in that tweet for sure um you know it's interesting i mean words do matter words mean different things to different people um you know autopilot if you really get down to the details of it actually it's true a airplane that has autopilots um you still need a pilot the pilot is still in control but certainly there's confusion um you know look there's been so many things written about tesla's being self-driving and there's a lot of confusion from not just that point i mean look even if you want to use the word autopilot i mean keep in mind there's also a co-pilot you know there's also someone else um usually making sure that you're paying attention and also the amount of training that is required to fly an airplane is a whole lot more so um monitoring the autopilot and all that is is one piece of that but but it doesn't end in autopilot um you know i mean we purchased it in our car the full self-driving capability you know is a feature that they charge for um on tesla's 10 000 option full self-driving capability that does seem confusing i know in the small print i mean as as the person who tweeted kind of says you know in the small print full self-driving doesn't mean full self-driving but sometimes that's missed the next question can you please share studies you have conducted to conclude camera-based approach is better to monitor for drivers attention have you tested the following with gm and or ford sunglasses night time and or darkness using pictures so i know we mentioned supercruise a lot gm supercruise so far it was only available on on one vehicle but we we just got a new vehicle in that that has it um and gm supercruise is also something we talk about a lot just because it's one of the only other systems out there that's that's that has this level of capability right yeah yeah so i mean we have used uh supercruise quite a bit in the past uh many of us i've personally driven it with sunglasses i've driven it at night i've used it in all different types of situations and it does work it's not just we talk about camera-based systems it's not just a camera it has infrared uh capabilities so it could actually see through sunglasses that are dark and it works quite well and we actually have done um many studies and and we're actually part of a consortium out of mit where we're studying people using these systems and they're quite robust yeah and there are also third-party studies too that are that are being done at at various schools at duke at carnegie mellon um as far as things like blue cruise which is going to be ford's system i know a lot of people say uh asked why are we talking about gm and ford um gm supercruise it's one of the first other really robust systems out there uh ford blue crews as soon as we get a vehicle that has that we're we're certainly going to add that to our our ongoing testing right we we have this ongoing testing of all of these driver assistance systems that's right yep i mean we're we're in a position where we get the brand new vehicles as soon as they come out um and we will be experiencing and writing about them our next question how about owner satisfaction of tesla's autopilot versus other driver assist systems why don't you show this data you guys usually try to focus on the data but in this case it seems like subjectivity and opinion have won out it's a that's an interesting question um you know because really you know we're coming from you know a data standpoint um you know making these claims that looking where you're going is better than not looking where you're going you know even if your hands are on the wheel but satisfaction is subjective satisfaction data we do have uh satisfaction data and i actually could call talk about that a little bit um when it talks about when we ask about satisfaction with things like auto steer which is part of the autopilot um it's very very high satisfaction that doesn't necessarily mean it's safer means people like it i mean i'm sure satisfaction with ice cream is better than the satisfaction with carrots doesn't mean it's healthier but when we do ask things about you know have you ever felt unsafe because of auto steer compared to other like systems for other vehicles people actually tell us their tesla's they are more likely to feel unsafe with it so you know there's a lot to unpack on that and our next question consumer reports no longer takes ad money so who pays them to run their business consumer reports is organized as a non-profit of its six largest philanthropic partners number one ford number three gm number six big oil wow there are some inaccuracies uh there's some inaccuracies in here i i think it's yeah mostly inaccuracies i mean start with we no longer take ads we've never taken ads um but that list is just plainly wrong um i mean we are it's true we are a non-profit organization um we do get grants from large institutions and foundations that support consumers i can assure you we do not take any donations from any companies who of products that we test or oil companies it's just simply not true you know i think they're talking about you know ford the ford foundation uh gm the alfred p sloan foundation big oil being the energy foundation but there are there are differences between these foundations and philanthropic partners and being paid directly by a manufacturer yeah yeah i mean i kind of invite anyone to kind of go onto wikipedia and learn a little bit about these foundations and you'll quickly learn that the ford foundation is not the ford motor company um yeah so jake thanks so much for staying on twitter all weekend uh and we're glad that we can get a chance to answer some of these questions right yeah absolutely i mean there's some good questions there and i'm happy to answer them so we hope that clarifies uh whether whether your question was uh was was sent with with kindness or a little bit less than kindness uh but if you're interested you know it's a it's a very controversial topic and the story is developing and ongoing we've got more coverage at cr.org and you you can find out that things like driver monitoring things like ensuring that a driver is in charge of a vehicle uh are so important that lawmakers are starting to take notice uh so you can learn more about that uh read some articles over at cr.org and back to something a little less groundbreaking in fact one of the least groundbreaking vehicles we've ever driven and that's not an insult that's the point that's the point the highlander hybrid the toyota highlander hybrid what what do you folks think we purchased our own uh xle it's a 2020 243 horsepower 2.5 liter four-cylinder hybrid drivetrain continuously variable transmission all-wheel drive no major options but it's pretty well appointed about 44 400 fuel economy that's the big story here mid 30s miles per gallon fuel economy is is really incredible for its class right mike you were you spent some time with this vehicle right oh sure i mean it is getting the the hybrid version of the highlander assures buyers that they're definitely getting a bump up from the standard highlander which also did well in consumer reports testing i love the fuel economy i love the cruising range i love the fact that toyota has uh you know kind of co-developed hybrid technology uh about a long time about alongside uh honda back in like 1999 i believe they they debuted and they've stuck with it and so you get you got to give uh toyota some props for for for making this technology as good as it can be uh it's super reliable i love the standard safety features uh the hybrid version gets standard blind spot it's comfortable it's quiet and it is that one of the most uninspiring cars i've driven recently listen it's it's like the perfect family car for people who are not really interested in driving it's it's pretty boring it's functional but it's pretty boring yeah jen what do you think yeah so it's funny i i had the very similar thoughts to mike in that um this is a vehicle that is more about function than driving dynamics and don't get me wrong it functions very well it is a fantastic family car in this iteration as typical of toyota evolutionary not revolutionary they tend to just incrementally improve if you've had a highlander or are happy with how a highlander has driven in the past you'll be very happy with this car improvements you know apple carplay android auto all the standard safety and that's why their reliability is so great because they just incrementally improve their vehicles one thing i will say is that um the fuel economy particularly if you're like a city stop and go i think of the parents that might be dropping off kids it really excels in city um in terms of fuel economy that's where the big gains are so if you're not one that's you know taking long highway trips that really may be an advantage for you um the other thing is that the hybrid in our testing had some notably longer breaking distances and we've seen that on other vehicles as well um the the braking distance is not dangerous don't get me wrong but more in the realm of a ram 1500 pickup than many of the say more more grippy suvs out there so that was one thing that hurt the hybrids overall score versus the regular v6 i do prefer the v6 in terms of driving dynamics this is somewhat of a soft vehicle you know when you pick up the speed or get in a curve you're gonna know that there's some body roll there you know i think back my kids when they were little used to call them sick cars cars that were a bit more floaty and had a bit more body roll and i will say most of them have improved they would say to me mom this is a sick car and they don't mean like oh that's a sick car you know but i think the toyota highlander hybrid might be judged a sick car by my younger versions of my children but totally functional it is a fantastic family car bulletproof reliability all of that you know nobody has done hybrids for longer than toyota so um i think you just have to drive it and see if it's to your liking but a great car for sure yeah we've got we've got a ton of of of toyota hybrids in the in the in the family in the extended family uh i actually used this car when i was moving and that that third row folded down uh you know the third row is pretty tight uh it's it's good in a pinch as most third rows are in in everything but full-size suvs but i was able to fit a decent amount of boxes in there um and i appreciated going back and forth from a storage unit and going back and forth you know connecticut to boston on 95 it it was fine um the engine noise was about the only thing that i didn't notice and i think that that that kind of made me feel like the car was struggling more than it was uh it it sounded when it was fully loaded with a ton of boxes and and i would hit that gas pedal uh and you know as soon as it went from electric acceleration to the gas engine kicking in that handoff it kind of gives you that feeling of something's up here uh the car is working hard and and and that that took away uh for me from from the pleasure of it but i i'm a big hybrid proponent as well i i think what if if you're not driving a sports car if you're driving a car for its practicality why not get the most fuel efficient car you can buy i i agree keith i am also a big fan of toyota hybrids and i would say that uh if if our our viewers our audience out there is interested in a highlander but you're more interested in some kind of more engaging driving i would check out the xse version of the highlander i mean uh you're giving up several miles per gallon but toyota really goes the extra mile when they when they slap the the xse line on a leather products the avalon the camry the corolla versions are usually a pretty big step up when it comes to steering response and handling it's a little bit more money than our tested uh hybrid version but i i've been really impressed with with all the xse versions of toyotas that i've driven and i would i would definitely check that one out it also kind of has really cool looking wheels too so there you have it you'll be um you'll be the the coolest three-row hybrid suv driver on the block it doesn't it doesn't actually make it sick but you know well uh if you want to learn more i know that this is this is the highlander hybrid is is very popular among our members so um they can log on to cr.org and learn a ton more about this vehicle and all the numbers all the stats they're all there at cr.org so before we move on we just want to let you know about the talking cars donation program so cr is a non-profit that means that all the work that we do is funded by memberships and donations um and if you're able to give it really helps us keep doing the work we do and some of that work includes the show which is why you won't hear jen talking for 30 minutes about um a new mail-order mattress like some other podcasts out there or mike quincy talking about the nude uh the new actually you don't shave anymore so we can't talk about that well i i trim it a little bit well either way if you're able to give it really helps it keeps us from from having to do stuff like that and uh you can find more information at cr.org give talking cars cr.org give talking cars now on to some audience questions uh which uh came to us via talking cars at icloud.com no unfortunately no no video questions this week but send them along we love video questions but our first question comes from appleton wisconsin from christopher who says my wife and i are getting ready to purchase a new family car through hours of research we compiled a list that included the kia telluride so i think everyone can kind of see where this is going the problem is that when we showed up to the kia dealer there weren't any tellurides in stock when talking to the kia dealer they pointed out that even if a vehicle is listed in the dealership's inventory it doesn't necessarily mean the car is on the lot and from looking at kia's inventory it doesn't seem like there's a single telluride or its cousin the the hyundai palisade within 50 miles of us how can we schedule a test drive of a telluride if we can't actually find one in stock since it's so highly rated by cr should we just order one and hope we like it uh so let's take a little step back this is this is a question i got from actually even people from within cr and other departments on our internal messaging service the other day um someone said i'm trying to buy a telluride and i can't find one what's going on and what's going on is i mean these are these are incredibly popular cars kia and hyundai with the palisade have a real hit on their hands they are underpriced for for what they are there's an article on cr.org that compares it with much more expensive luxury suvs so um and very favorably uh the telluride though like all vehicles is subject to some of the the supply shortages that we have there's a microchip shortage that's going on and basically it means that automakers are only uh using the limited supply of chips they have in the most profitable vehicles possible so they're they're selling fully loaded versions of of vehicles you're not going to find a base version of a car and these tellurides when they when they when they are released from it from in from inventory not even when they're on the on the dealership stock but when when they get the order for them they're being sold and we get this mike quincy you get this when you bought a lot of cars for us you get this when when you you'll call a dealer and you'll see it's on their website and they'll say oh that car is actually on the truck right right so so whether you're using some of the more popular new car um websites which i guess i'm not going to mention right now or you go to the actual dealer's own website and you see a picture of let's say a tell your ride but it's clearly what they call a stock image it's it's it's a it's a picture that the kia company uh makes available to to to to to retailers and whatnot and there's no like detailed shots of the interior there's no you know out of focus shots or anything that's a good indication that the car is not on the ground or it's an indication that the dealer is kind of lazy and they just can't be bothered with taking a picture um so when uh uh when i was trying to buy our our cadillac escalade for example it was really it's really really hot and i would i would see kind of these again these stock images of seemingly available cars and of course they're either not there or they're already sold i mean the the the the key is kind of a victim of consumer reports publishing and that we say the telluride is really great and now everyone wants one now i i would say uh you know some actual advice for you you're probably gonna have to travel to get this car i would also say that you and this is advice they don't usually give you might actually want to put down a deposit um and a refundable deposit make sure you get it in writing and that way you get this sort of first choice first crack at the next one that comes off the truck then you go you drive it and if you can't negotiate the right price make sure that that you know make sure that that deposit is on your credit card so if the dealer doesn't give you back your deposit you can take it up with your credit card company but you know get that get that deposit refunded if you don't decide to take the car but you probably will take the car and you can apply that deposit to the cost of the vehicle but shop around because you know dealers are marking up these vehicles with extra on msrp this is what i was going to say that all of those things combined the high-end chip the lack of inventory and the popularity of this car probably means you're gonna pay more than you really want to and my advice for christopher and he didn't share his timing of how quickly he needs this car if your heart is set on the telly ride or the palisade i would wait i would wait a little bit and if you need this vehicle right away or a vehicle right away i actually said i would consider some alternatives um so you know for example you know my favorite you know the kia sorento not much smaller you know obviously not the cargo room but look into the sorrento look at the highlander hybrid or not you know as we just talked about look at the mazda cx-9 you know the popularity is not going to be in your favor financially or economically so i would i would look perhaps at something else if this is a vehicle you need soon yeah and one thing that i was reflecting on keith uh part of the question where they said you know should i just buy one just buy it anyway and i i don't think that's good advice i don't think people even even the top rated car from consumer reports i don't think anyone should just blindly you know put their faith in it because everybody is different every seat is different every sight line is different so so i would i would caution against just jumping in uh and getting one without trying it yeah so from the most popular vehicles today to the most popular vehicles of the era when uh when jen's background was made there um paul asks us could car manufacturers build and sell a new model t for the same price it was sold for in 1925. according to wikipedia the 201925 model t sold for 260 dollars which equals 3790 in today's dollars jen what are you doing so just to clarify this is supposed to be the 1700s okay okay come on keith so so i did a little research and my so the tin lizzy as they called the model t was produced between 1908 and 1927 and it was the first for those of you with a little history it was the first mass produced production line vehicle which made it a reasonably priced vehicle for the middle class that was the whole premise of the model t but to answer the question for paul i don't think we would want the model t even if it could be available at today's prices so it's funny you talk horses um the model t when it was introduced literally shared the road still at that time with horses not my horses that i can see out my window but yeah so um it was really called the horseless carriage and because that's what it was it didn't have so to bring that to today's market it didn't have many of the things we would need to share the road with other vehicles and nor would you want to so it had 177 cubic inch 2.9 liter i was like that's pretty large display that's bigger than most most vehicles today yes in line four and it produced 20 horsepower 20 with a top speed of 45 miles per hour so you bring that technology i i thought it was a funny story to put in perspective the 2008 smart for two that we tested was a 71 horsepower one liter three cylinder had a base price of 13 000 just to put that and it was one of the slowest vehicles we've ever tested we literally put the smart for two in a foot race against ryan pisikowski and the smart for two lost yeah actually i was saying that i was in that race too i remember that so unless you had a model t brought up technology wise to a point where it can share the roads with today's vehicles which is you know literally hundreds of years different it would um it would not compete so it has to be brought up not just by price but tons of technology we talk about in reading the history it came with its own toolkit not a very good sign for reliability either so um and you had to crank it get out and crank it to start it electric start was not available until 1919 so again to bring a model t to today's technology is more than just dollars and i'm not sure we would want a model t though i love seeing them so the question actually had me thinking you know what is the least expensive new car available in the united states right now i did a little research and i found that um chevrolet still has the 2020 spark on their website that you can configure and buy new and an ls with a five-speed manual transmission comes in at twelve thousand one hundred and forty five dollars that's the newest that's that's the least expensive new car that i could find and just this whole thing reminded me of my wife's uh first new car which was a 1993 toyota tercel i believe anatoly the great has a picture of of her and her new car it was a four-speed manual 82 horsepower vinyl seats no right side exterior mirror i mean they did everything they could to make this inexpensive you know no anti-lock brakes no stability control just a driver's side airbag the only option that she put on it was air conditioning we put our own radio in into it later and it cost about about seven thousand dollars so we're going from 1993 to 2021 where about seven grand would get you a decent uh new car and now it's over 12 000. yeah well from the past to the present and future uh james asks us with so many car manufacturers putting led daytime running lights on their cars i wonder once the leds burn out can just the daytime running light portion be replaced or does the whole headlight assembly have to get changed too that sounds like a question for jen yeah so so this is um the whole glory of leds are that they're very low power consumption they run you know they don't dissipate a lot of heat so they're cooler running um and with that they are touted as having a much longer life and many many will say that leds should last to last the lifetime of the car so so that concern is far less than it would be to mike's point with his tercel of changing out the halogen bulbs which are inexpensive but fail far more frequently so with that said to answer his question it's going to depend on the design we see some very very complicated arrays of leds i think of volvos thor's hammer drl that are integrated very much and are a number of leds in that array to create that kind of styling and then we see some very simple ones where it's like a single led behind a lens that is the drl so i think that is going to depend on the design hopefully we don't have to do that very often and the other place you're going to see it is depending on the design if there is a crash or fender bender where the headlights are damaged is what's that replacement cost um for a thor's hammer versus a very simple drl that has like maybe a few leds behind a lens again that would be covered hopefully with insurance but um it's it's gonna depend and hopefully we don't have to to answer this question um because their longevity takes care of that and and for the record and as every volvo press release it seems will remind you the lights are actually called thor's hammer uh there's they're you know designed to be uh some norse mythology and really hammer in that swedish thing no pun intended jaguar and it has the the cat's claws there's all kinds of the jewel eye boy this is this is why this is why the press releases you really you really miss out when you don't you don't read those sometimes that marketing language is really something else i have quite a crush on chris helmsworth too i was gonna i was gonna wait before that came i was like somebody's gotta say you know they're gonna put the hammer down or boy this is a bright idea here he comes with the dad jokes moving on uh to a dad question from jerry from harlem who says i drive my daughter to school every day about four miles each way with lots of stopping and going as you'd expect in a city which maintenance schedule should i follow miles driven or months elapsed we only drive short distances daily with occasional 100 plus mile trips upstate mike you you did some digging into this right yes and i will say to jerry short trips are hard on cars uh four mile trips every day would be considered severe duty it's funny because i i didn't think that i thought you know severe duty you've got pickup trucks out in the desert and hauling heavily loads and stuff like that but our chief mechanics here at the track uh assured me no no it's short trips are severe duty i mean severe duty that's that phrase that you see in the owner's manual and you think it means like you're you know you're out in the desert somewhere yeah or towing exactly but yeah now keith that that's that's a really good point you know our advice has always been that even if you don't drive a lot of miles per year you should still be getting your oil change probably twice a year i mean a direct quote from our mechanic is if you make a lot of short trips standard motor oil may never get warm enough to burn off the moisture and impurities which mean it may not be doing enough to protect your engine so i would i would very seriously consider looking in your owner's manual just like keith said and look up the severe duty uh maintenance schedule and i would follow that another point for jerry is very similar to what we've been saying to people with cars that have been sitting during you know covet and the pandemic is jerry you might want to take some just rides get that car get it out on the highway get that oil heated up maybe once a week you just take a ride and you could get yourself kind of out of that severe duty by by getting that that engine warmed up and kind of you know using it at a higher speed a little bit as well so um that that certainly could be helpful for the longevity of that car i mean uh back back in the days of carburetors they say you gotta blow out the carbons yes and in this case it's it's paid that what a 14 toll over the henry hudson bridge and right get that car going get it going all right and our last question comes from christine from laguna hills california who uh says i recently bought my first hybrid vehicle a 2019 ford fusion se um i really love the smoothness and how it climbs hills increasing or decreasing revs with no shifting but when i watch car videos i hear people say it's a hybrid so it has a cvt or something similar does a hybrid have a belt and pulley cvt transmission does my car use some type of gears and a computer to drive the wheels by the electric motor or the gas engine or maybe both what makes my car go christine you're like almost there you really if you hadn't asked what makes my car go at the end you were like you were like really really close and i gotta say i'm on team cvt um i know this is not a popular you know you go on to you know car social media or you go to enthusiast websites and well there's a cbt and it has a and we talk like john wayne and it has a cvt in it and it uh and it drones and okay some of the early nissan cvts had some reliability issues but other than that i see nothing wrong with a transmission that has essentially an infinite number of gears you know you see all these automakers going 8 speed 9 speed 10 speed what about an infinite speed and uh so i'm i'm actually i i don't hate cbts i don't i don't hate them i'm living in the future i'm not living in the past uh mike what do you you you looked a little into into the actual explanation that answering christine's actual question right well yeah and and well from infinity to beyond um in in in the fusion that the hybrid uh hybrid electric motor and the gas motor work together to transfer power to a cvt and the cvt has two variable pulleys that can constantly change the gear ratio for your vehicle and again this is coming directly from our super smart uh mechanics here at the track uh i i mean keith you kind of you kind of summed up uh you know the the benefits of the cvt i mean they're they're they always seem to be in the right uh gear they are made they're they're smaller they're lighter they're designed to save gas in in many ways and as you mentioned you know some some automakers uh make them do well i mean consumer reports has done a number of of stories on cbds i actually looked it up and and back when we wrote it a couple years ago we said you know automakers that don't do a great job of it our nissan for example i think they've gotten better but in the beginning they were they they kind of drone on the the one of the criticisms of cvts is what they call motor boating in other words that the engine has to go up to a high rpm like on the highway or accelerating and sometimes it seems like it stays there and it just goes and it just keeps going um we found that to be the case in a lot of nissans other other automakers that do cvts pretty well include honda and subaru so uh keith i'm kind of uh in between i i don't hate cvts like a lot of people do but but it definitely depends on the application yeah and and also the the the cvt hybrid um most of the time you'll see hybrids with cvts because um because of the fuel economy but not all hybrids have cvts in fact honda had a few uh hybrids a few years ago you could get a manual transmission still on them um but jen what do you what do you say are you a cvt lover hater i would say with mike that that when they're implemented well i'm fine um i'm also one and i've said this before when i'm in a hybrid or an electric vehicle i don't want to be reminded every moment that i'm in a hybrid or electric vehicle and some manufacturers have gone so far as to simulate shifts real geared shifts with their cvts to make them seem more non-cbt-ish if that's that's the right word yeah they're kind of fake um but again i didn't you know i think they've come a long way to mike mike's point but but i mean it is kind of our consumer reports duty to remind people that like most cvts need inspections and special fluid changes i mean we advise owners to refer to the owner's manual for specific guidance and to keep records of related services make sure that you use cvt specific fluid or you could risk some big headaches and some big repair bills um down the road so as with a lot of things there's no free ride yeah and and just a uh a little bit of history the first cbts were actually from a dutch car manufacturer named daf and that was that was in the in the in the 70s that was many many many years ago and they were put in some volvos and then it kind of languished for a while and came back came back with hybrids so so with that uh thank you for sending your questions to us i i hope we've answered them and and then some uh keep sending them to talking cars at icloud.com your questions your opinions uh send them along and check out uh cr.org you can find out all the cards that we've talked about today and uh even more information uh to answer all your questions thanks for talking cards with us and we'll chat again soonthis week we respond to questions about our recent coverage of tesla autopilot we share our test results from the 2021 toyota highlander hybrid and answer a question we've been getting more and more these days how can you test drive a kia telluride if no dealerships have them in stock all that and more next on talking cars hey welcome back i'm keith barry i'm mike quincy and i'm jennifer stockberger so sometimes consumer reports and talking cars covers the news sometimes we are the news uh in in this case uh we had a lot of questions about our coverage of the aftermath of a tragic crash in houston um in which two people died in a tesla and there was speculation that no one was uh behind the wheel in that vehicle there was a lot of talk on social media on the internet a lot of people were speculating uh making assumptions about uh whether autopilot was active what autopilot could even do whether it was even possible to get a vehicle moving like this and you know we have a test track we have a tesla so we put some of those claims that we saw online to the test they they were not an investigation of the crash we're not speculating on what caused the crash but we wanted to answer some questions that our our viewers our readers and and other folks out there had uh so uh i talked to jake fisher a little earlier to find out more about some of what we were able to do at cr well and the truth is i really can't tell you exactly what happened in that crash and you know i'm not gonna speculate on what happened on that crash um i can't imagine what was interesting though is that when the police reported that there was no one in the driver's seat there was a lot of questions about whether or not that's even possible yeah i think uh one of the first mentions that we saw that was uh was online it was it was a tweet um where someone said and there were there was a ton of conversation about this uh and of course we reached out to tesla and they didn't respond as their press department uh appears to have been dissolved um the tweet uh that it comes the closest to an official response from from tesla is one that uh tesla ceo elon musk responded to and that tweet was uh this doesn't make sense there are safety measures in place where the autopilot seat is weighted to make sure there is a driver hands must be on steering wheel every 10 seconds or it disengages autopilot doesn't go over the speed limits over limit is impossible research please and elon musk responded to that your research as a private individual is better than professionals at wall street journal data logs recovered so far show autopilot was not enabled and this car did not purchase full self-driving there was something in that tweet that you kind of honed in on right jake yeah yeah that's right i mean look i i i couldn't tell you whether or not autopilot was engaged in this particular crash but but i thought it was really interesting when they talked about what was required to actually engage autopilot you know i heard you know that um that weight had to be on the seat that hands need to be on the steering wheel and all those things so we decided we'd actually just try it out and see if it was actually impossible or not and that's when because we do have a tesla and because we do have a closed track with a controlled situation where we could try it please do not try this at home this would be idiotic to try to do this at home or on the road because you would put yourself at risk or others at risk i was curious was that true we decided to do this experiment take a look at this video and you can see what happened so the first thing i did was i took this car to about 15 miles per hour engaged autopilot and then changed the set speed back down to zero which stopped the vehicle but autopilot still remained engaged if your hands are off the wheel it could also stop autopilot but i put a small weight on the left side of the steering wheel that wasn't enough to turn the wheel but just enough to put some resistance there at this point i was able to get myself completely out of the driver's seat with the seat belt still plugged in and autopilot still stayed engaged in the passenger seat i was able to increase the set speed by turning the wheel on the steering wheel and at this point it was completely driving on autopilot with no one in the driver's seat i kept my foot near the brake pedal just in case but there were people standing by and we were on a closed facility the car continued to follow the lines on the test track there were no warnings that no one was sitting in the seat no one was holding the steering wheel and no one was looking at the road so as you just saw in the video it turns out you don't have to have weight on the seat i actually honestly was surprised i figured that i know there's a weight sensor in the seat i figured you'd have to do that um really makes tricking out the system very difficult if you had to do that but but no um we were able to uh get the vehicle to drive down our our track um on autopilot without that it is true that you do need to have um well it's not totally true you have hands on the steering wheel you just need to have some kind of a weight on the steering wheel honestly and um and that's not difficult i think anyone who knows um who has this car or or drives autopilot realizes just need to kind of just put a little bit of weight on the steering wheel and and that defeats that that device so we published that article and uh we we certainly got some responses and uh we want to respond to a lot of them so uh the first one elon musk will probably fix this with an over-the-air update he was a little busy the last couple days launching four astronauts into space very true he was very very busy he is a very busy man he is a very busy man no one can dispute that yeah i was following the uh the the launch um and that was exciting to watch for for sure um but it is very interesting over-the-air updates our over-the-air updates are totally possible in this vehicle um before we have we have notified uh tesla's of issues with the vehicle that they were able to um update over the air updates um and that is certainly a possibility i actually don't disagree with this one yeah in some ways we we kind of hope that that's going to happen that that's there is a seat sensor that is built into there that's used for airbags and and uh for seat belts and if that seat sensor just a couple of lines of code probably would be able to change it so as to turn off um the ability to use autopilot if no one was in the driver's seat right yeah yeah i mean look i mean there's no there's no saving people from doing really stupid things you can't idiot-proof the world that's for sure um but it does seem like a pretty easy change and you know i just want to kind of reiterate that you know the purpose of what we did wasn't to stop people from doing dumb things i mean that will happen but i think in the end really what we found out was just it needs better driver monitoring because if the driver monitoring system can't determine really if someone's at the passenger seat or the driver's seat of the passenger seat it's not going to be able to determine if somebody's paying attention so the next question autopilot the the phrase uh not not necessarily the exact technology comes directly from airplanes do people think that airplanes don't have pilots anymore because of autopilot full self-driving literally states that it's not available yet and lastly it's not tesla that advertises their cars as self-driving cars and never has and then they attached um an ad that i it was an older mercedes ad that says introducing a self-driving car from a very self-driven company and i remember the controversy around this ad because there there were not self-driving cars and it also was an implication um yeah yeah yeah i mean actually that mercedes-benz ad we took issue with um it said your full self-driving mercedes-benz has has arrived we drove that car said it's clearly not full-strength driving and actually we wrote and contacted the ftc about that because it really was false advertising and mercedes-benz actually was pretty quick to react and change the ad um and no longer introduce their vehicles to full self-driving um or as self-driving as it was in the ad but that that that there's a lot to unpack in that tweet for sure um you know it's interesting i mean words do matter words mean different things to different people um you know autopilot if you really get down to the details of it actually it's true a airplane that has autopilots um you still need a pilot the pilot is still in control but certainly there's confusion um you know look there's been so many things written about tesla's being self-driving and there's a lot of confusion from not just that point i mean look even if you want to use the word autopilot i mean keep in mind there's also a co-pilot you know there's also someone else um usually making sure that you're paying attention and also the amount of training that is required to fly an airplane is a whole lot more so um monitoring the autopilot and all that is is one piece of that but but it doesn't end in autopilot um you know i mean we purchased it in our car the full self-driving capability you know is a feature that they charge for um on tesla's 10 000 option full self-driving capability that does seem confusing i know in the small print i mean as as the person who tweeted kind of says you know in the small print full self-driving doesn't mean full self-driving but sometimes that's missed the next question can you please share studies you have conducted to conclude camera-based approach is better to monitor for drivers attention have you tested the following with gm and or ford sunglasses night time and or darkness using pictures so i know we mentioned supercruise a lot gm supercruise so far it was only available on on one vehicle but we we just got a new vehicle in that that has it um and gm supercruise is also something we talk about a lot just because it's one of the only other systems out there that's that's that has this level of capability right yeah yeah so i mean we have used uh supercruise quite a bit in the past uh many of us i've personally driven it with sunglasses i've driven it at night i've used it in all different types of situations and it does work it's not just we talk about camera-based systems it's not just a camera it has infrared uh capabilities so it could actually see through sunglasses that are dark and it works quite well and we actually have done um many studies and and we're actually part of a consortium out of mit where we're studying people using these systems and they're quite robust yeah and there are also third-party studies too that are that are being done at at various schools at duke at carnegie mellon um as far as things like blue cruise which is going to be ford's system i know a lot of people say uh asked why are we talking about gm and ford um gm supercruise it's one of the first other really robust systems out there uh ford blue crews as soon as we get a vehicle that has that we're we're certainly going to add that to our our ongoing testing right we we have this ongoing testing of all of these driver assistance systems that's right yep i mean we're we're in a position where we get the brand new vehicles as soon as they come out um and we will be experiencing and writing about them our next question how about owner satisfaction of tesla's autopilot versus other driver assist systems why don't you show this data you guys usually try to focus on the data but in this case it seems like subjectivity and opinion have won out it's a that's an interesting question um you know because really you know we're coming from you know a data standpoint um you know making these claims that looking where you're going is better than not looking where you're going you know even if your hands are on the wheel but satisfaction is subjective satisfaction data we do have uh satisfaction data and i actually could call talk about that a little bit um when it talks about when we ask about satisfaction with things like auto steer which is part of the autopilot um it's very very high satisfaction that doesn't necessarily mean it's safer means people like it i mean i'm sure satisfaction with ice cream is better than the satisfaction with carrots doesn't mean it's healthier but when we do ask things about you know have you ever felt unsafe because of auto steer compared to other like systems for other vehicles people actually tell us their tesla's they are more likely to feel unsafe with it so you know there's a lot to unpack on that and our next question consumer reports no longer takes ad money so who pays them to run their business consumer reports is organized as a non-profit of its six largest philanthropic partners number one ford number three gm number six big oil wow there are some inaccuracies uh there's some inaccuracies in here i i think it's yeah mostly inaccuracies i mean start with we no longer take ads we've never taken ads um but that list is just plainly wrong um i mean we are it's true we are a non-profit organization um we do get grants from large institutions and foundations that support consumers i can assure you we do not take any donations from any companies who of products that we test or oil companies it's just simply not true you know i think they're talking about you know ford the ford foundation uh gm the alfred p sloan foundation big oil being the energy foundation but there are there are differences between these foundations and philanthropic partners and being paid directly by a manufacturer yeah yeah i mean i kind of invite anyone to kind of go onto wikipedia and learn a little bit about these foundations and you'll quickly learn that the ford foundation is not the ford motor company um yeah so jake thanks so much for staying on twitter all weekend uh and we're glad that we can get a chance to answer some of these questions right yeah absolutely i mean there's some good questions there and i'm happy to answer them so we hope that clarifies uh whether whether your question was uh was was sent with with kindness or a little bit less than kindness uh but if you're interested you know it's a it's a very controversial topic and the story is developing and ongoing we've got more coverage at cr.org and you you can find out that things like driver monitoring things like ensuring that a driver is in charge of a vehicle uh are so important that lawmakers are starting to take notice uh so you can learn more about that uh read some articles over at cr.org and back to something a little less groundbreaking in fact one of the least groundbreaking vehicles we've ever driven and that's not an insult that's the point that's the point the highlander hybrid the toyota highlander hybrid what what do you folks think we purchased our own uh xle it's a 2020 243 horsepower 2.5 liter four-cylinder hybrid drivetrain continuously variable transmission all-wheel drive no major options but it's pretty well appointed about 44 400 fuel economy that's the big story here mid 30s miles per gallon fuel economy is is really incredible for its class right mike you were you spent some time with this vehicle right oh sure i mean it is getting the the hybrid version of the highlander assures buyers that they're definitely getting a bump up from the standard highlander which also did well in consumer reports testing i love the fuel economy i love the cruising range i love the fact that toyota has uh you know kind of co-developed hybrid technology uh about a long time about alongside uh honda back in like 1999 i believe they they debuted and they've stuck with it and so you get you got to give uh toyota some props for for for making this technology as good as it can be uh it's super reliable i love the standard safety features uh the hybrid version gets standard blind spot it's comfortable it's quiet and it is that one of the most uninspiring cars i've driven recently listen it's it's like the perfect family car for people who are not really interested in driving it's it's pretty boring it's functional but it's pretty boring yeah jen what do you think yeah so it's funny i i had the very similar thoughts to mike in that um this is a vehicle that is more about function than driving dynamics and don't get me wrong it functions very well it is a fantastic family car in this iteration as typical of toyota evolutionary not revolutionary they tend to just incrementally improve if you've had a highlander or are happy with how a highlander has driven in the past you'll be very happy with this car improvements you know apple carplay android auto all the standard safety and that's why their reliability is so great because they just incrementally improve their vehicles one thing i will say is that um the fuel economy particularly if you're like a city stop and go i think of the parents that might be dropping off kids it really excels in city um in terms of fuel economy that's where the big gains are so if you're not one that's you know taking long highway trips that really may be an advantage for you um the other thing is that the hybrid in our testing had some notably longer breaking distances and we've seen that on other vehicles as well um the the braking distance is not dangerous don't get me wrong but more in the realm of a ram 1500 pickup than many of the say more more grippy suvs out there so that was one thing that hurt the hybrids overall score versus the regular v6 i do prefer the v6 in terms of driving dynamics this is somewhat of a soft vehicle you know when you pick up the speed or get in a curve you're gonna know that there's some body roll there you know i think back my kids when they were little used to call them sick cars cars that were a bit more floaty and had a bit more body roll and i will say most of them have improved they would say to me mom this is a sick car and they don't mean like oh that's a sick car you know but i think the toyota highlander hybrid might be judged a sick car by my younger versions of my children but totally functional it is a fantastic family car bulletproof reliability all of that you know nobody has done hybrids for longer than toyota so um i think you just have to drive it and see if it's to your liking but a great car for sure yeah we've got we've got a ton of of of toyota hybrids in the in the in the family in the extended family uh i actually used this car when i was moving and that that third row folded down uh you know the third row is pretty tight uh it's it's good in a pinch as most third rows are in in everything but full-size suvs but i was able to fit a decent amount of boxes in there um and i appreciated going back and forth from a storage unit and going back and forth you know connecticut to boston on 95 it it was fine um the engine noise was about the only thing that i didn't notice and i think that that that kind of made me feel like the car was struggling more than it was uh it it sounded when it was fully loaded with a ton of boxes and and i would hit that gas pedal uh and you know as soon as it went from electric acceleration to the gas engine kicking in that handoff it kind of gives you that feeling of something's up here uh the car is working hard and and and that that took away uh for me from from the pleasure of it but i i'm a big hybrid proponent as well i i think what if if you're not driving a sports car if you're driving a car for its practicality why not get the most fuel efficient car you can buy i i agree keith i am also a big fan of toyota hybrids and i would say that uh if if our our viewers our audience out there is interested in a highlander but you're more interested in some kind of more engaging driving i would check out the xse version of the highlander i mean uh you're giving up several miles per gallon but toyota really goes the extra mile when they when they slap the the xse line on a leather products the avalon the camry the corolla versions are usually a pretty big step up when it comes to steering response and handling it's a little bit more money than our tested uh hybrid version but i i've been really impressed with with all the xse versions of toyotas that i've driven and i would i would definitely check that one out it also kind of has really cool looking wheels too so there you have it you'll be um you'll be the the coolest three-row hybrid suv driver on the block it doesn't it doesn't actually make it sick but you know well uh if you want to learn more i know that this is this is the highlander hybrid is is very popular among our members so um they can log on to cr.org and learn a ton more about this vehicle and all the numbers all the stats they're all there at cr.org so before we move on we just want to let you know about the talking cars donation program so cr is a non-profit that means that all the work that we do is funded by memberships and donations um and if you're able to give it really helps us keep doing the work we do and some of that work includes the show which is why you won't hear jen talking for 30 minutes about um a new mail-order mattress like some other podcasts out there or mike quincy talking about the nude uh the new actually you don't shave anymore so we can't talk about that well i i trim it a little bit well either way if you're able to give it really helps it keeps us from from having to do stuff like that and uh you can find more information at cr.org give talking cars cr.org give talking cars now on to some audience questions uh which uh came to us via talking cars at icloud.com no unfortunately no no video questions this week but send them along we love video questions but our first question comes from appleton wisconsin from christopher who says my wife and i are getting ready to purchase a new family car through hours of research we compiled a list that included the kia telluride so i think everyone can kind of see where this is going the problem is that when we showed up to the kia dealer there weren't any tellurides in stock when talking to the kia dealer they pointed out that even if a vehicle is listed in the dealership's inventory it doesn't necessarily mean the car is on the lot and from looking at kia's inventory it doesn't seem like there's a single telluride or its cousin the the hyundai palisade within 50 miles of us how can we schedule a test drive of a telluride if we can't actually find one in stock since it's so highly rated by cr should we just order one and hope we like it uh so let's take a little step back this is this is a question i got from actually even people from within cr and other departments on our internal messaging service the other day um someone said i'm trying to buy a telluride and i can't find one what's going on and what's going on is i mean these are these are incredibly popular cars kia and hyundai with the palisade have a real hit on their hands they are underpriced for for what they are there's an article on cr.org that compares it with much more expensive luxury suvs so um and very favorably uh the telluride though like all vehicles is subject to some of the the supply shortages that we have there's a microchip shortage that's going on and basically it means that automakers are only uh using the limited supply of chips they have in the most profitable vehicles possible so they're they're selling fully loaded versions of of vehicles you're not going to find a base version of a car and these tellurides when they when they when they are released from it from in from inventory not even when they're on the on the dealership stock but when when they get the order for them they're being sold and we get this mike quincy you get this when you bought a lot of cars for us you get this when when you you'll call a dealer and you'll see it's on their website and they'll say oh that car is actually on the truck right right so so whether you're using some of the more popular new car um websites which i guess i'm not going to mention right now or you go to the actual dealer's own website and you see a picture of let's say a tell your ride but it's clearly what they call a stock image it's it's it's a it's a picture that the kia company uh makes available to to to to to retailers and whatnot and there's no like detailed shots of the interior there's no you know out of focus shots or anything that's a good indication that the car is not on the ground or it's an indication that the dealer is kind of lazy and they just can't be bothered with taking a picture um so when uh uh when i was trying to buy our our cadillac escalade for example it was really it's really really hot and i would i would see kind of these again these stock images of seemingly available cars and of course they're either not there or they're already sold i mean the the the the key is kind of a victim of consumer reports publishing and that we say the telluride is really great and now everyone wants one now i i would say uh you know some actual advice for you you're probably gonna have to travel to get this car i would also say that you and this is advice they don't usually give you might actually want to put down a deposit um and a refundable deposit make sure you get it in writing and that way you get this sort of first choice first crack at the next one that comes off the truck then you go you drive it and if you can't negotiate the right price make sure that that you know make sure that that deposit is on your credit card so if the dealer doesn't give you back your deposit you can take it up with your credit card company but you know get that get that deposit refunded if you don't decide to take the car but you probably will take the car and you can apply that deposit to the cost of the vehicle but shop around because you know dealers are marking up these vehicles with extra on msrp this is what i was going to say that all of those things combined the high-end chip the lack of inventory and the popularity of this car probably means you're gonna pay more than you really want to and my advice for christopher and he didn't share his timing of how quickly he needs this car if your heart is set on the telly ride or the palisade i would wait i would wait a little bit and if you need this vehicle right away or a vehicle right away i actually said i would consider some alternatives um so you know for example you know my favorite you know the kia sorento not much smaller you know obviously not the cargo room but look into the sorrento look at the highlander hybrid or not you know as we just talked about look at the mazda cx-9 you know the popularity is not going to be in your favor financially or economically so i would i would look perhaps at something else if this is a vehicle you need soon yeah and one thing that i was reflecting on keith uh part of the question where they said you know should i just buy one just buy it anyway and i i don't think that's good advice i don't think people even even the top rated car from consumer reports i don't think anyone should just blindly you know put their faith in it because everybody is different every seat is different every sight line is different so so i would i would caution against just jumping in uh and getting one without trying it yeah so from the most popular vehicles today to the most popular vehicles of the era when uh when jen's background was made there um paul asks us could car manufacturers build and sell a new model t for the same price it was sold for in 1925. according to wikipedia the 201925 model t sold for 260 dollars which equals 3790 in today's dollars jen what are you doing so just to clarify this is supposed to be the 1700s okay okay come on keith so so i did a little research and my so the tin lizzy as they called the model t was produced between 1908 and 1927 and it was the first for those of you with a little history it was the first mass produced production line vehicle which made it a reasonably priced vehicle for the middle class that was the whole premise of the model t but to answer the question for paul i don't think we would want the model t even if it could be available at today's prices so it's funny you talk horses um the model t when it was introduced literally shared the road still at that time with horses not my horses that i can see out my window but yeah so um it was really called the horseless carriage and because that's what it was it didn't have so to bring that to today's market it didn't have many of the things we would need to share the road with other vehicles and nor would you want to so it had 177 cubic inch 2.9 liter i was like that's pretty large display that's bigger than most most vehicles today yes in line four and it produced 20 horsepower 20 with a top speed of 45 miles per hour so you bring that technology i i thought it was a funny story to put in perspective the 2008 smart for two that we tested was a 71 horsepower one liter three cylinder had a base price of 13 000 just to put that and it was one of the slowest vehicles we've ever tested we literally put the smart for two in a foot race against ryan pisikowski and the smart for two lost yeah actually i was saying that i was in that race too i remember that so unless you had a model t brought up technology wise to a point where it can share the roads with today's vehicles which is you know literally hundreds of years different it would um it would not compete so it has to be brought up not just by price but tons of technology we talk about in reading the history it came with its own toolkit not a very good sign for reliability either so um and you had to crank it get out and crank it to start it electric start was not available until 1919 so again to bring a model t to today's technology is more than just dollars and i'm not sure we would want a model t though i love seeing them so the question actually had me thinking you know what is the least expensive new car available in the united states right now i did a little research and i found that um chevrolet still has the 2020 spark on their website that you can configure and buy new and an ls with a five-speed manual transmission comes in at twelve thousand one hundred and forty five dollars that's the newest that's that's the least expensive new car that i could find and just this whole thing reminded me of my wife's uh first new car which was a 1993 toyota tercel i believe anatoly the great has a picture of of her and her new car it was a four-speed manual 82 horsepower vinyl seats no right side exterior mirror i mean they did everything they could to make this inexpensive you know no anti-lock brakes no stability control just a driver's side airbag the only option that she put on it was air conditioning we put our own radio in into it later and it cost about about seven thousand dollars so we're going from 1993 to 2021 where about seven grand would get you a decent uh new car and now it's over 12 000. yeah well from the past to the present and future uh james asks us with so many car manufacturers putting led daytime running lights on their cars i wonder once the leds burn out can just the daytime running light portion be replaced or does the whole headlight assembly have to get changed too that sounds like a question for jen yeah so so this is um the whole glory of leds are that they're very low power consumption they run you know they don't dissipate a lot of heat so they're cooler running um and with that they are touted as having a much longer life and many many will say that leds should last to last the lifetime of the car so so that concern is far less than it would be to mike's point with his tercel of changing out the halogen bulbs which are inexpensive but fail far more frequently so with that said to answer his question it's going to depend on the design we see some very very complicated arrays of leds i think of volvos thor's hammer drl that are integrated very much and are a number of leds in that array to create that kind of styling and then we see some very simple ones where it's like a single led behind a lens that is the drl so i think that is going to depend on the design hopefully we don't have to do that very often and the other place you're going to see it is depending on the design if there is a crash or fender bender where the headlights are damaged is what's that replacement cost um for a thor's hammer versus a very simple drl that has like maybe a few leds behind a lens again that would be covered hopefully with insurance but um it's it's gonna depend and hopefully we don't have to to answer this question um because their longevity takes care of that and and for the record and as every volvo press release it seems will remind you the lights are actually called thor's hammer uh there's they're you know designed to be uh some norse mythology and really hammer in that swedish thing no pun intended jaguar and it has the the cat's claws there's all kinds of the jewel eye boy this is this is why this is why the press releases you really you really miss out when you don't you don't read those sometimes that marketing language is really something else i have quite a crush on chris helmsworth too i was gonna i was gonna wait before that came i was like somebody's gotta say you know they're gonna put the hammer down or boy this is a bright idea here he comes with the dad jokes moving on uh to a dad question from jerry from harlem who says i drive my daughter to school every day about four miles each way with lots of stopping and going as you'd expect in a city which maintenance schedule should i follow miles driven or months elapsed we only drive short distances daily with occasional 100 plus mile trips upstate mike you you did some digging into this right yes and i will say to jerry short trips are hard on cars uh four mile trips every day would be considered severe duty it's funny because i i didn't think that i thought you know severe duty you've got pickup trucks out in the desert and hauling heavily loads and stuff like that but our chief mechanics here at the track uh assured me no no it's short trips are severe duty i mean severe duty that's that phrase that you see in the owner's manual and you think it means like you're you know you're out in the desert somewhere yeah or towing exactly but yeah now keith that that's that's a really good point you know our advice has always been that even if you don't drive a lot of miles per year you should still be getting your oil change probably twice a year i mean a direct quote from our mechanic is if you make a lot of short trips standard motor oil may never get warm enough to burn off the moisture and impurities which mean it may not be doing enough to protect your engine so i would i would very seriously consider looking in your owner's manual just like keith said and look up the severe duty uh maintenance schedule and i would follow that another point for jerry is very similar to what we've been saying to people with cars that have been sitting during you know covet and the pandemic is jerry you might want to take some just rides get that car get it out on the highway get that oil heated up maybe once a week you just take a ride and you could get yourself kind of out of that severe duty by by getting that that engine warmed up and kind of you know using it at a higher speed a little bit as well so um that that certainly could be helpful for the longevity of that car i mean uh back back in the days of carburetors they say you gotta blow out the carbons yes and in this case it's it's paid that what a 14 toll over the henry hudson bridge and right get that car going get it going all right and our last question comes from christine from laguna hills california who uh says i recently bought my first hybrid vehicle a 2019 ford fusion se um i really love the smoothness and how it climbs hills increasing or decreasing revs with no shifting but when i watch car videos i hear people say it's a hybrid so it has a cvt or something similar does a hybrid have a belt and pulley cvt transmission does my car use some type of gears and a computer to drive the wheels by the electric motor or the gas engine or maybe both what makes my car go christine you're like almost there you really if you hadn't asked what makes my car go at the end you were like you were like really really close and i gotta say i'm on team cvt um i know this is not a popular you know you go on to you know car social media or you go to enthusiast websites and well there's a cbt and it has a and we talk like john wayne and it has a cvt in it and it uh and it drones and okay some of the early nissan cvts had some reliability issues but other than that i see nothing wrong with a transmission that has essentially an infinite number of gears you know you see all these automakers going 8 speed 9 speed 10 speed what about an infinite speed and uh so i'm i'm actually i i don't hate cbts i don't i don't hate them i'm living in the future i'm not living in the past uh mike what do you you you looked a little into into the actual explanation that answering christine's actual question right well yeah and and well from infinity to beyond um in in in the fusion that the hybrid uh hybrid electric motor and the gas motor work together to transfer power to a cvt and the cvt has two variable pulleys that can constantly change the gear ratio for your vehicle and again this is coming directly from our super smart uh mechanics here at the track uh i i mean keith you kind of you kind of summed up uh you know the the benefits of the cvt i mean they're they're they always seem to be in the right uh gear they are made they're they're smaller they're lighter they're designed to save gas in in many ways and as you mentioned you know some some automakers uh make them do well i mean consumer reports has done a number of of stories on cbds i actually looked it up and and back when we wrote it a couple years ago we said you know automakers that don't do a great job of it our nissan for example i think they've gotten better but in the beginning they were they they kind of drone on the the one of the criticisms of cvts is what they call motor boating in other words that the engine has to go up to a high rpm like on the highway or accelerating and sometimes it seems like it stays there and it just goes and it just keeps going um we found that to be the case in a lot of nissans other other automakers that do cvts pretty well include honda and subaru so uh keith i'm kind of uh in between i i don't hate cvts like a lot of people do but but it definitely depends on the application yeah and and also the the the cvt hybrid um most of the time you'll see hybrids with cvts because um because of the fuel economy but not all hybrids have cvts in fact honda had a few uh hybrids a few years ago you could get a manual transmission still on them um but jen what do you what do you say are you a cvt lover hater i would say with mike that that when they're implemented well i'm fine um i'm also one and i've said this before when i'm in a hybrid or an electric vehicle i don't want to be reminded every moment that i'm in a hybrid or electric vehicle and some manufacturers have gone so far as to simulate shifts real geared shifts with their cvts to make them seem more non-cbt-ish if that's that's the right word yeah they're kind of fake um but again i didn't you know i think they've come a long way to mike mike's point but but i mean it is kind of our consumer reports duty to remind people that like most cvts need inspections and special fluid changes i mean we advise owners to refer to the owner's manual for specific guidance and to keep records of related services make sure that you use cvt specific fluid or you could risk some big headaches and some big repair bills um down the road so as with a lot of things there's no free ride yeah and and just a uh a little bit of history the first cbts were actually from a dutch car manufacturer named daf and that was that was in the in the in the 70s that was many many many years ago and they were put in some volvos and then it kind of languished for a while and came back came back with hybrids so so with that uh thank you for sending your questions to us i i hope we've answered them and and then some uh keep sending them to talking cars at icloud.com your questions your opinions uh send them along and check out uh cr.org you can find out all the cards that we've talked about today and uh even more information uh to answer all your questions thanks for talking cards with us and we'll chat again soon\n"