Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-28-27_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

01-28-27_WEDNESDAY_6AM

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. How are you doing this morning? It is Wednesday. Wheels up Wednesday, January 28th, 2026. Happy to take your calls as we discuss the issues, the news, the views, the nonsense.

And boy, there's a lot of nonsense. Like I said, every morning I wake up, I look at the email. I got up and I'm looking at there. Okay, I have 185 new email in my box. It's like, where do you start? How much coffee? How much coffee is there in the world to even try to wade through that kind of?

You know, it's one of the challenges I think that we have in today's world is to try to focus on things that are really going on in trying to ignore as much of the noise as possible, and there is so much noise going on, too. I know my boss, George, even talks about the same thing. I think, you know, he starts the day off with, how you doing, George? Okay, everything's fine until you look into the email box, right?

And then, you know, 500 in there or whatever the case. So, anyway, I feel your pain, George. We get this. But, you know, a lot of it ends up being partisan noise. You know, the progressives are talking about, oh, there's not enough money. and of course the Republicans are the oh those progressives those those liberals are just just crazy and then they are in my opinion but uh you know speaking of those of those crazy

libs you know there's never there's never enough money and there is never a spending problem in salem there is never ever a spending problem and which is why they just so jealously look at the ticker rather the kicker which is ensconced in our Oregon state Constitution and both sides of the aisle have been very good about liking that kicker. In other words, the kicker returns a certain percentage of the budget to the people if more money is coming in than what is needed for state services. You know, there's a formula about I don't want to get off into the, into the weeds on this one, but it ends up being a sizable amount of money.

Well, the hardcore left, in other words, our communes. I know they call themselves progressives, but, you know, I don't want to engage in too much of this one. But they're after it, again, they cannot leave it alone, no matter what happens. No matter what happens, there's never enough money. It's never enough. And they really hate the kicker because the last thing that they really want to see is to have you enjoy your money. Now, Oregon Public Broadcasting, which I'm sure is in favor of getting rid of the kicker,

they're reporting on the kicker this morning. The headline Oregon lawmakers might once again debate the kicker tax rebate. A proposal from one Democrat, of course, would ask the voters to allow the state to keep some of the money that would otherwise flow back to taxpayers. Oregon Democrats in progressive groups, even OPB admits, have long bemoaned the kicker, the rebate that sends money back to taxpayers when state revenue comes in higher than expected. They estimate what the revenue will be, and if it's too high, well, they kick it back, right? They've also resigned themselves to the fact that Oregonians will never vote to end the kicker. And this has been backed up by years of polling.

Even the Democrats want to keep their own personal money, right? Now the Democrats are going for another angle, asking the taxpayers to share the wealth. And this is coming from State Senator Floyd Przansky. You know him, Pink Floyd. from Eugene, introducing a bill that would allow Oregon to keep some of the money. Yeah, now remember, this would only be, it would just be a little bit, just be some of the money. It would allow the state to keep some of the money that would otherwise go back to the taxpayers. It wouldn't require Oregonians to approve an amendment to the state constitution.

But if they agreed, Prasansky's change would ensure that, The first 300 million of future kicker refunds would go back to the taxpayers, as usual. The first 300. And, of course, it wouldn't be adjusted for inflation, I would imagine. So as the years go by, that 300 million going back to taxpayers would go down and down and down in actual purchasing power. But, yep, they're going to try again. And so they'll be talking about it in the short session, which is up there next week. We'll have to talk with – I'm sure that –

Yeah, yeah, you know that Dwayne Yunker would be a yes vote for that, right? No, said no Dwayne Yunker ever. Junkyard dog would be going, grr, be chewing down on Pink Floyd's leg. But it is about the money, and the money is in shaky state. Remember I was talking to you yesterday that even the big money places like the Wall Street Journal they're starting to say, hey, you know, the dollar is starting to go down in value a lot, right? This is the reserve currency of the world. And what's been going on is that the world is saying, okay, big empire 38, all this way to $39 trillion in total national debt,

may not be a good bet to loan money to, right? That's what's been going on, and the dollar has been going down. But on the other hand, President Trump has been working very hard too. lower the value of the dollar intentionally. And this is about trade, about trade. And this is why he's so irritated with, you know, Jerome Powell and anybody on the Federal Reserve Board who does not want to raise rates. By the way, today is supposed to be another day in which they decide whether or not they're going to cut interest rates again. And looking at the real inflation still baked into the economy, there's no sane reason to lower interest rates, but President Trump would like that to happen.

It's probably not going to happen. The story is they're not going to be raising interest rates because the dollar value has been going down. The dollar index has dropped 10% of its value against other currencies just the first month of this year, just this month in January, which is almost over. And Sean Ring, you know, I always say I always go to the money guys to see what they're thinking about this. Sean Ring from the Daily Reckoning or the Rood Awakening, he says, well, let's face it. Agree with President Trump or not, the president's dollar detonation strategy is working. And when a government is incentivized to cheapen its currency to monetize its debt, it's madness for investors to fight that policy. Going with the flow is the easiest money you'll ever make.

tempting though it is Sean says I mustn't take the credit my good friend in Paradigm Press Project Prophecy Guru Alan Nuckman had been saying for years that the dollar would be getting cheaper. I remember arguing against his thesis asking why would anyone rather own

euros than dollars? Well it's plain to see that Alan was right. Euro has been roaring up and the dollar has actually been going down in value about 10% for this and just for the sake of argument. Let's take a look at where... Oh, here we go. Let's go to Bert's Gold Page and see what we're

looking at for the price of gold and silver. See, this is reflective of this. This has been driving part of it. Part of it has, of course, just been a mad speculative rush. But the central banks have been buying gold hand over fist now for the last couple of years. I've been mentioning to you as I talk about the Jay Austin, you know, my sponsor who sells and buys physical gold and silver. But physical gold in the futures, as we see right now, five $2,263 as the dollar continues to sink in value. Now, silver is, you know, I can't even explain this kind of stuff. Well, it's trading for like 120 over in Shanghai on the Chinese.

Now, on the Chinese exchanges, the silver exchanges, the markets for silver there, they actually force you to use the physical metal. Now, we use paper, paper contracts in the United States, in the Comax. Even here, it's less, you know, it's less than what's being traded in China right now for the real stuff. But even the fake paper is going for $114 an ounce right now. It's like, oh, I can't believe these numbers. And I think all of this is connected. But yet this has been official President Trump policy because he's been looking about getting a trade going and getting a better export market.

And the problem with having a really valuable currency or the world's, reserve currency is that we don't look competitive when it comes time to export something that we sell. So President Trump is trying to control detonate the dollar to a certain extent. Now, if you own gold and silver, you're kind of going, okay, that's fine. All right, I'll hedge with this. But it is going to cause problems elsewhere within the economy. Yeah, you may have some more exports, but boy, your imports, along with your tariff costs are going to go up there too. Anything that we need to buy from outside of the United States could be a bit pricier as time goes on. So interesting times, interesting times.

By the way, I highly recommend if you don't follow Sean Ring on rootawakening.com. I just think he's one of the good brains out there. Another person you got to take a look at, even though I don't always agree with him. But David Stockman, the former budget guy used to work for Ronald Reagan, President Reagan back in the day. and he has an article up on Lou Rockwell.com today, how the GOP appropriators bushwhacked the doge boys. In other words, there's no real cutting in the spending. Everyone's talking about, oh, Biden, worst inflation ever,

worst profligate spending, and we haven't really changed it all that much, unfortunately. All right. Meanwhile, President Trump ends up campaigning in Iowa. It's almost like kicking off the midterm campaigns. He says, if we lose the midterms, you will lose so many of the things that we are talking about. He's right about that. But I don't know. A lot of people, even hardcore Republicans that are starting to raise a few eyebrows over some of the Trump policies.

But we will be talking about that, no doubt. We have the protesters swarming the office of Governor Walls in Minnesota. In Minnesota's capital yesterday, they're not real happy with him actually talking with President Trump's people and maybe cutting a deal on letting go of illegal illegal. illegalian criminals. We had a doofus end up spraying some stinky stuff on Elon Omar. Yeah. State representative or Congressman Omar, who I'm not a fan of.

But no, you don't do this kind of stuff, but she's going to be okay. But yeah, the stinky, some kind of a stinky liquid of some sort. Meanwhile, at Red State, they're reporting that anti-ice signal chats implicating the state officials plotting against the federal immigration people. Clearly, there's an organized insurrection underway led by several elected officials in Minnesota and aided by alleged insurrectionists. A little bit closer to home. Some of the stories here too. Let me bring up my other window, which is getting ready to freeze. Okay, no, I was able to get it. I was able to get it going before it froze. I'm going to be talking about this with Commissioner Coney Roberts.

about an hour from now. And it's absolutely fantastic news for ONC Timber counties. And this includes, I think it's like there's 18 of them. But we are, too, Jackson and Josephine County. President Trump ended up signing a bill last week, which ends up restoring the historic balance of the slice of the money, the cut of the money. Now, the O&C counties were the ones that were the Oregon and California Railroad.

And that railroad went bankrupt back in the day. It's why we had the 1937 ONC Act. And when the railroad went bankrupt, it had been granted a lot of federal land around here. You know, in the checkerboards, if you ever look at the, you know, the maps of Jackson and Josephine County and the other counties in Oregon, you'll see these checkerboards that were part of ONC, you know, big plots of land that had timber on it. and the ONC Act was always designed for sustainable yield timber harvest, although boy, that's been hard to do, you know that, because reasons in viral lawyers, you know, that kind of thing. But since the 1980s, the revenue split was 50-50.

The county got half of the value of the timber that was sold and harvested, and the federal government got the other half and just stuck it into the treasury and then bought gold-plated toilet seats on the space shuttle or whatever the case might be. Now that's going to be restored back to what it had been all along, 75%. So instead of 50%, Jackson and Josephine County will get 75%, 75% share of that revenue. How much will that mean? Well, it's more than we're getting right now. And the whole idea was to have this revenue available to help counties provide local services.

I don't know. Does Jackson, I think Jackson actually harvests more on Jackson County. he lands than Josephine County does. I'm not quite sure about this, but I'll talk with the commissioner next hour. It's still, it's still better news that better than taking a sharp stick to the eye or stinky liquid to the breast as Elon Omar had to put up with the other day, okay? Joel Couswell, Joel Caswell, remember the guy that was involved, you know, charged with a couple of drive-by shootings in the Jacksonville area contractor,

former owner of that Portland Nitro team. it's going to stay in jail. We're going to give him time served. At least when it comes to the drive-by shooting charges. We'll see about that. But the Roe Kelly Times are digging into this. They're going to keep him in because he's still charged with pandemic-era fraud charges from the feds. And they want to keep him in there.

And as far as when we're going to get a couple of new county commissioners in Josephine County, they haven't announced the date for this, though, but they are going to have that meeting because there's only Commissioner Ron Smith right now. And the other two, they're gone. And so it's time for the elected officials of Josephine County to step up and do this. So they're going to be the temporary board at some point. I'm sure we'll hear more about this really soon. I do find it interesting that Wally Hicks was talking to NBC 5 yesterday.

I was watching him on that. And he thinks that the elected board should choose both. choose both of them. I would disagree with this. I would say choose one. And then maybe Commissioner Ron Smith will actually do his job and bring in quorum and then they can choose the third one. Wouldn't that be a good thing to do rather than having the other elected officials, which of course go to the county commission for their budget? I think it would be better not to have too many of the other elected ones that are dependent on the county.

county commissioners choosing the county commissioners. Just saying, all right, this is the Bill Meyer Show, 627, and you're on KMED. Attention, realtors. Good at Diner 62. Hi, I'm Deb with Father and Son, Jory, and I'm on KMED. And speaking of Diner 62, we will have a Diner 62 Real American Quiz sometime this morning. I think looking at the schedule, yeah, probably between 839. We'll see how that ends up working on. Captain Bill Simpson will join the show after 8 o'clock. And we're not talking about wild horses necessarily this time, but a change that any Tussum Newsom or Gavin Newsom, Governor Newsom, there's all sorts of nicknames for Gavin Newsom.

Governor Hairgill is my favorite. But apparently he has changed the rules that would just practically force you to shave down everything around your house, just down to the dirt practically. And Bill's thinking that this is a bad policy. He's an ethologist. Sure, he's in love with the wild horse thing and everything else. But pretty smart cookie. And so we'll talk with him about that.

And so delve into what's happening in Northern California. All right. Another story from the state of Oregon. We had a federal judge. A federal judge. Oh, you know how much we love federal judges in Oregon, right? A federal judge in Oregon ruling against a Trump administration request to view the state unredacted voter rolls.

Judge Mustafa Cusabi. Mustafa Cusabi, boy, by a vowel. But anyway, he will dismiss the Justice Department's lawsuit and filing a final written opinion in the coming days. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield hailing the ruling, arguing that the DOJ was seeking a backdoor to grab Oregon residents' personal information. now Dan Rayfield is talking a really good Democratic Party lie as usual you know being the attorney general

but what this was about is that the federal government suspects that we're rather loosey-goosey and sporty with who we sign up in our vote by mail that's what this is all about and so now they're saying that we don't want Oregon's we don't want Oregonians personal information exposed to Donald Trump because we might find out that we have more sportiness in that in that election sign-up process than Oregon will admit to. Well, yeah, we had, you know, a couple hundred illegal aliens signed up to vote. And yeah, yeah, we know, but that's all right. It's okay, you know, doing the limited hangout sort of thing like Oregon does when it wishes to lie

and lie frequently from the progressive side of the aisle. But, yeah, the court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standards, they say, to get these records in the first place. And you'd have to ask yourself, why would any state that supposedly has such a clean election process and elections, good government, good, clean, honest liberals and progressives and communists? And why wouldn't they want the feds to get that information? The same federal government that, you know, is involved with things like passports and some of the drive. license information and all this kind of stuff, real ID, all the rest of it.

Why would Oregon not want the federal government to know? What could there possibly? What? They're wanting your social security number? Well, the federal government provides that social security number. I'm hoping the Trump administration will appeal this because to me it looks like nonsense. You know, if everything's, if everything's clean and honest, you provide. the evidence.

And the fact that Oregon doesn't want to provide any kind of voter evidence of all the cleanliness of our voter rolls and they're continuing to fight this one, to me, says that, yeah, there's something stinky, just my opinion, but, you know, I'm just one guy. This is the Bill Meyer show. We'll continue with Eric Peters. Wheels Up Wednesday, E.P.Otos.com. Also taking your calls on it, too. If you have something going on with a car, I have a question or two.

770K-M-E-D. When Paul Simon released the song, Slip Sliddy. And the pressure is on everywhere we look this morning. Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. Pressure in Minnesota. Pressure in Virginia. From what I understand, Eric Peters, by the way, rejoins me from Virginia. E.P.A.O.com wheels up Wednesday.

How are you doing this morning, sir? Welcome. Well, good, Bill. But, you know, I'm feeling awfully unsafe that I decided to go to my office rather than stay in bed. Where it's safe because we did get a couple of inches of snow. few days ago. You know, it astounds me. You know, in all honesty, I think more so within the snow, I think it's ice when you get a lot of ice storms. That's big. That hurts some of the places in the in the south, especially. Takes down the power lines of the trees. Of course. But, you know, I literally,

I went down to the gym yesterday. Okay. So the day after the big snowpocalypse, in my truck, which is two-wheel drive, not four-wheel drive. Two-wheel drive. How can you go out there without an SUV? Now, mind you, I live in a rural part of South Carolina. Southwest Virginia, and I had absolutely zero problem. None whatsoever. It was totally fine. Nonetheless, the schools are all closed because there might be a snick spot out there. And I, you know, I recall when I was a kid, the salty old lady who smoked Marlboro Reds that drove the school bus. And we stood down there at the end of the street with several inches of snow waiting to be picked up. It just the entire culture has changed completely, this neurotic.

It has totally whipped out, totally whipped out, Eric. And I would wholeheartedly agree with you. I remember the salty old lady that drove the bus when I was a kid. Joan Burdue, how you doing, Bill? You know, smoked about 12 packs of cigarettes a day, I swear, that sort of thing. How you doing, Billy? Get in. Yeah, it was totally normal. You know, we didn't soil our pants at the first prospect of snow. Now, remember when we were kids, we would sit there by the TV, hoping and praying, as the snow was actually falling, that the announcement would come through, that they're going to actually close the schools. Will they do it? Are they going to do it? Now, if they talk about snow, the weather guy says it might snow tomorrow, they'll close the schools. Yeah, I know. Our schools never closed. They were famous in Mylon, Ohio when I was a kid, you know, growing up there in junior high and high school.

And everybody else would be closed around us. So I get where you're coming from. When did this all start? Do you know? Because I know it wasn't happening in the 70s when I was a kid. It had to have come later. It's hard to pin the tail on the donkey. but I kind of think it began to percolate around the time in the 80s when those baby on board signs started appearing. Remember those?

Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. That makes a lot of sense. And the really crazy thing is that today probably eight out of ten of the vehicles that are on the road have all wheel drive or four wheel drive and stability control and traction control. And of course, they all have ABS. So the vehicles are much more capable than the vehicles that we drove back in high school back in the 80s, that people generally drove, which were really. rear wheel drive without even a locking axle and no electronic assist. And yet people are more afraid to drive today, paradoxically, in these more capable vehicles. I wonder if it's because they really don't know how to drive. Now, I'll give you an example. One of the trucks that I had to drive to school from time to time was a 1965 Chevy, Chevy van. And the Chevy van had absolutely no weight on the back, right? You remember those flat fronted ones with a straight six on it. And it was a

piece of garbage. It really was. But you had to know how to drive to finesse it through the oil, through the slick roads and the ice and the snow that would normally come from Ohio or western Pennsylvania, hilly areas. He had to deal with this sort of stuff. But we all had to know. We all had to know or else you just didn't go anywhere for a lot of the years. And I'm wondering if that's what's changed over time. You know, I think you remember that Star Trek episode with Ruck the Android and he says, yes, that's the equation. My memory banks, recall, you know, something like that. Yeah.

It's true. We had to learn how to drive and therefore we know how to drive. A whole couple of generations now have been raised without being expected to learn how to drive. And part of it is because modern cars, by which I mean pretty much anything made since the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, they're so easy to drive, especially a little automatic. If when you were a kid, you had to start out driving something like an old, an old Ford truck with three on the tree, you know, and the kind of suspension that something like a 69 or 70

pickup truck had. If you learned how to drive that, you got to be a pretty good driver, you know, and if so facto, then you were, you felt competent and you were confident to deal with a little bit of snow on the ground. In other words, our actual driving muscles are very atrophied and weak these days as a culture. I think so. That's part of it. Another part of it is that there has been a systematic program to terrify people about cars and driving that has been underway now for at least 30 years. And it begins with babies and infants and top. toddlers and children who are strapped into their safety seats. You know, implicit in that is, oh, the car is very dangerous.

You shouldn't go in this thing. Or you're going to die unless you're strapped in for safety. And of course, they don't advertise how cool the car looks, how fun it is to drive anymore. They all talk about how safe it is. And it got six airbags. And it'll stop automatically, emergency braking, lane keep assist, all this stuff. And implicit in that is that the cars are just these awfully dangerous, horrible things that we should be super careful about getting anywhere near.

I think we need to blame Subaru and or Volvo. What do you think? They're the ones that really started it, wouldn't you say, as far as the car world? They are partially guilty, but even worse than that is the safety nags, people like Ralph Nader, and then some of his acolytes, including Joan Claybrook, and then later Bob Doe's wife, who was instrumental in getting the airbag thing made into a federal requirement. And it just metastasized. I never had a problem with Volvo back in the day when Volvo advertised safety.

If you were somebody who was just like really fixated on safety, hey, cool, go get a big clunky Volvo. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, that was their marketing stick. And in an interesting twist, you know, Volvo has lost that now. They're kind of out to see because every car is made like a Volvo now. So what are you buying the Volvo for exactly? Eric Peters with me, EP autos, man, I got to tell you. By the way, since it has been so kind of cold and a little bit snowy and icy,

have we been having the death of the EVs talked about back east? I'm just wondering if we had those situations where you had a bunch of EVs, dead on the road on the side or has it not been that bad bad this time? Well, that's because, no, the EVs people aren't stupid enough to take them out. You know, what happened, there's, I think what I like to call the safe and effective moment with electric vehicles that happened about three years ago. You remember when we got that big cold snap out here in the Northeast? Sure do.

Yep. And at that point, you know, people had been sold this load of Bochum about EVs and they found out what happens when you go out in an EV when it's, you know, minus five or minus 10 out and your range gets plummeted in half. And then the road, you know, is clogged up with cars. cars that aren't moving and you can't get anywhere. And at that point, the truth about dealing with an electric car percolated outward. And now, of course, EV sales are in the toilet. They went from, I think, about 7 or 8 percent of new sales down. They're down to like 3 percent now. People

aren't buying them. They're certainly not driving them. I don't see them nearly as much anymore. And certainly not in bad weather because people now get it. They know what they're going to deal with if they go out in their EV. And most of the people who have an EV have another car that isn't one. So they're choosing to take those vehicles instead for all the reasons we already know well about. Yeah, now out here on the West Coast, especially in the more temperate areas there, I can understand, you know, you're in Southern California, you can get away with it. Works fine. Most of the time, you're not going to have much trouble with that. And I think the infrastructure is also grown up. But any place where it gets super, where it gets super, super cold or super, super hot, you know, the one thing I will say is that, you know, these old cars that I may have in my driveway, they don't. lose any fuel just sitting there. But electric cars do. Electric vehicles are always taking power.

And it's usually to keep the battery either warm or cool, right? Isn't that what happens? It's a compounding effect. They have thermal management systems which are designed to keep the battery within a certain temperature range, not too hot, not too cold. And obviously that draws power. Now, if you have the thing plugged in while it's parked, you know, you can maintain stasis. The problem there is what if you don't own a home? What if you don't have a single family home or a townhouse or a garage where you can plug the thing in? Well, you park it on the curb, you know, and the next morning you get up and you find out that the range you had the evening before has diminished by 30 miles, which is significant, you know, in an electric vehicle, particularly when it's very cold out. Because now you get in and drive it, and as we all know, battery efficiency declines when it's cold. It's why when it's very cold, a conventional car sometimes it's hard to start. And maybe it won't start.

But the nice thing about a conventional car is you can just jump it. And once it's started, you're fine. You can't jump start an electric car. Eric Peters. We'll be right back with Eric in just a moment. And if you want to talk with him, have a question, comment on anything we're talking about or bring something else to it. 770 KMED on Wheels Up Wednesday. Two dogs, Fabry. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Yep. He is our weekly highway star. Eric Peters, automotive journalist and genius at E.P.Otos.com, the libertarian car guy. Hey, Eric, I'm happy to talk with you, but there's a bunch of people want to talk to you even better. Absolutely. So let's get him on here this morning. Jeff, Jeff, you want to talk about, we'll talk about. I guess the learning to drive, the actual learning to drive thing we were kicking around, huh?

Go ahead. Oh, yeah, you talk about snow in Ohio. You're talking my language because my brother and I, we had a big picture window in the house, and the couch was right in front of it. Our knees are on the cushions of the couch. Our arms are on the window still. We're watching it snow, waiting for it to get at least four inches. Yep, let's go.

Right? Out into the, out and driving into the snow, we would go. I have a great memory. You go out there and you play and you learn that way. You learn what the car's capable of. You learn how to stay out of the ditch, which brings me to the opposite end of the spectrum is, you know, the 100 car pile up in Michigan last week or week before, whatever it was, right? You're in Michigan. I mean, don't you know to slow down when you get zero visibility?

And these guys are truck along 65 mile an hour. This is not unusual. This is not unusual, is it, Eric? Oh, guys, everybody knows that four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive means you can drive much faster in the snow. I feel your exasperation on that one. Thank you, Jeff. 7-7-0-K-MED. Deplorable, Patrick.

You're on with Eric. Go ahead. Well, good morning, guys. I've had a concern for a long time. Never voiced it until now. The concern was, if they solve the problem. problems of the electric vehicles, it will give them better ability to shove electric vehicles up our noses.

And I've been hearing about a battery that charges way faster and goes along. If it's less prone to burning your house down or not, but the question is, are they getting into a position where they can shove these electric vehicles on us? I have good news for you, Patrick. I've got good news for you. And yes, it's true they have developed in the laboratory, some batteries that can be charged relatively quickly, about, you know, within 10 minutes, let's say. So that's an improvement over half an hour. Quite a bit.

The problem is that you need extraordinarily high voltage charging infrastructure in order to accomplish that. And it doesn't exist. And it's not likely to ever exist, at least not at any scale. Well, that sounds like good news. But I'm still going to keep on the lookout for my neighbors. house burning down. Okay, Patrick. Yeah, we don't want to laugh about that, but yeah, we've seen enough videos.

It's amazing when you see a car just sitting there placidly, Eric, and then all of a sudden, you see a little spark, and then boom. Just that massive explosion, and all that energy is brought to bear. I think about that every time I get an EV, you know, to test drive. Should I park this thing anywhere near my house? You know, I try to plug the things in. I've got a shed that's offset away from the house. And I've got a high voltage connector out there. And that's what I used to charge them.

And I figure, well, if my shed burns down, that's not going to be too bad. I guess I can get the car company to pay to have a new shed put up. But I'm not going to risk my house burning down. What's always surprised me about the EV arguments when it comes to the safety, especially given that it's such a safety called Nanny State that we've had, is that if there were any gasoline or diesel cars that a certain percentage would just routinely sit there and burst into flames because they would have been yanked off the market a long time ago. Oh, absolutely. It just, it shows you the disingenuousness of the safety clap trap stuff because it's so arbitrary.

So obviously arbitrary. As you and I know, they, you know, they went berserk over the Pinto because the Pinto had a design defect that if it were hit hard in the back, if it were rear-ended violently, the fuel filler neck would shear off the tank and there might be a spark and that could result in a fire. and it did happen. Yeah. But in a relatively small number of cases, because it's, you know, uncommon to have that kind of an impact and even less common when it involves a pinto. Nonetheless, they recall all these pintoes. And, you know, Ford had to pay tons of money and they had to redesign the fuel system and blah, blah, blah. And yet they never say anything about the inherent vulnerability of every EV to spontaneously combust. Vicki is in the Applegate.

Vicki, you have a question or comment. Question about the EB2. Go ahead. Yeah, good morning, guys. My sister has a hybrid. She took a trip. She lives in California. She took a trip to Arizona.

And she was in like the middle of the desert. I don't know if she crossed the border yet or not. But I asked her, I said, well, how come you can't, if you're running out of gas, how come you can't just switch over to the electric part of it? And she said because the electric part of it is mainly for town driving. So what is the purpose of taking a long trip using the gas part of the hybrid? And then when you get low on fuel and there's no gas stations around, you can't just switch over to the electric to make it to a gas station. That's a good question, Vicki.

I think on some of them you can. Isn't that right, Eric? Go ahead. Well, some of them, but the way they're designed to operate, if you start out with a first, fully charged battery, it'll operate in the electric mode for what 20 or 30 miles, I think, is typically the maximum. And those are plug-in hybrids, not your standard hybrid. The real reason is that they're intended to be a compliance technology. The whole point is to shut off the gas engine as often as possible. So in stop and go type city driving, oftentimes the engine won't be

running much, if at all, as you creep from light to light. Now, when you're out on the highway, the gas engine is doing the preponderance of the work. That's the way the things are designed to operate. Yeah, there's just no way to flip that switch, I guess, Vicki, wasn't designed that way. We grab another one. Hi, you're on with Eric Peters, EP Autos. Who's this? Welcome. Kurt. Hey, Kurt. Grant's Pass. You got a question for Eric. Go ahead. Yeah, the Ford Maverick, what's your take on it? I've looked at them as far as used on Auto Trader and Cargoer and all those. And it seems like half of them I've already had two to three owners. I just wonder what to take out is on the Ford Maverick.

Well, initially, I was very enthusiastic to see Ford bringing back what was advertised as an affordable truck. Initially, they were talking about selling it at about $20,000. Well, that turned out to be a false promise. The price now is closer to $30,000. So it really vitiates the whole point of a small truck. You know, the hybrid drive train was interesting because it got about 40 miles per gallon in Stop and Go City driving, which is comparable to what you would have gotten out of a little diesel truck back in the late 70s or early 80s. So really good. And for 20,000 bucks, you know, that's appealing, even though

technically it really isn't a truck. It's a modified version of the escape, you know, so it's not built on a body on frame type of layout. Nonetheless, a useful little knocking about truck. That said, I don't know that I'd want one relative to something like what I have, my little Nissan pickup. That's just a simple little truck with an engine without the hybrid stuff and certainly without the optional engine in the Maverick, which is that turbocharged engine, don't want any part of that. The whole point of these little trucks was that they were simple, basic, cheap, and affordable. So, well, why, I guess what I was getting at here, though, the caller, I think you were kind of like wondering, why are we seeing so many with maybe two or three owners prior? Are there

problems with him that you were aware of that we didn't know about it before? Not that I'm aware of specifically, but I bet it has something to do with the general trend in that there's so many people now who are underwater on their new car loans, you know, and so they'll come in and they'll trade in and they'll get another loan. And then these vehicles get circulated again. You know, people generally don't keep their cars as long as they used to anymore. Part of the reason is they're so expensive that they have to get cycled into a new loan to keep on, you know, to keep the thing going. Does that help you out, caller? Is that to help you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. All right. I appreciate that. Thanks for the call. I'll grab one more here. And then we've got a couple of things I need to talk with Eric about too. Hi, good morning. You're on with Eric Peters on KMED.

Hi, good morning. Bill, Eric, this is Francine. Hi, Francine. Go ahead. Hi. Okay, so the other day I was sitting in traffic and making left-hand turns coming the other direction was one of those, I guess, they're Teslas that look like Lego blocks or something. So I was going slow. Yeah, the cyber truck.

The cyber truck, that's the one? It was the car like thing. It was they were just like all hard lines. Oh. You know what I'm talking? You know what I'm talking about? It's a cyber truck. If you're talking about the one that's angular and looks like it looks like a dumpster.

They call that a truck? Yeah. Yeah, it's called the cyber truck. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Why? My question is why. Well, I don't know. I guess Elon decided he needed to find a job for some eighth grader somewhere to draw the thing.

I just, I mean, I have never seen anything so ugly on the road ever. And I've seen some ugly stuff, you know. It's pretty bad. Well, I'm thinking, Francie, what that could be. Beauty is in the eye the beholder. My brother bought one of those. He loves it. He loves what it does. And he likes the look. That's what he bought? Yeah, he bought. That's what he bought. Yeah. My brother, Mikey. Yeah. I would, I would, I would know. He's one of the few. The cyber truck has been an absolute disaster for Tesla.

Oh, it is? Absolutely disastrous. Well, maybe that's why he bought it. He said he got it for a pretty good price. That may be why. I'm sure he did. I'm sure you could probably get a fire sale deal on a cyber truck. All right. So that's what it is, Francie. That's why. Okay. Okay. Thanks for the call. That is so funny. She didn't realize that was a cyber truck, Eric, all along. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so startlingly ugly. When the first time you see one, it's almost like, are they filming the sequel to Judge Drag Dread in my town? I am the law, you know, that kind of thing. Okay. You know, I did want to ask you questions. I don't, is there a formula to, to evaluate whether you want to rework a car and,

and keep it or sell it or try something new? And this is some, there are so many variables there. And I guess one of the variables is, are you able to do the work yourself? You know, in that case, potentially it can be a very favorable transaction. You know, I have the tools and knowledge to, for example, put a transmission in a car. and I have the ability to go to a wrecking yard and find and buy a good use transmission. So the cost to me to replace a transmission is relatively low and therefore worth it. Now, on the other hand, if you're dealing with somebody who has no ability to do that and they have to go to a dealer and they're going to pay the dealer to have the thing done with a factory part and they're going to pay a dealer technician $100 or $200 an hour to do the work, it's probably not worth it.

All right. Well, the example I'm going to use is a personal one. I bought the last year P.T. Cruiser. Had good luck with it. Yeah, I've kept it up, changed the oil every 3,000 miles with synthetic and done all this and had to do, you know, did the timing belt and everything like that that was done, you know, a few thousand miles. It's a little over 100,000. But like anything else kept outside here in Southern Oregon, the paint just went to hell. And it just looks like crap, right? You know, just went to hell. clear coat flakes off and I wish they weren't using clear code. I don't remember them using clear coat back when I was a kid. That must be more of a re- They didn't. They used to use, they used to use just an enamel and lacquer. And as you know, and anybody who's R-age knows back in those days, you could get the rubbing compound and the polishing wheel out and bring it back to a nice shine. But yeah, you can't do that now. It's not the type of paint that they use. Now, I end up getting a bid and a guy that trust said that he could repaint the whole top of it and, uh, and, uh, and get all the cancer look gone.

And it'd be about $1,600, right? And so I'm looking at that. It's like, all right, it's 16 years old now, has 102,000 miles, has been pretty reliable, and I don't know, could I get another $100,000 out of that, you think, when, you know, realistically, because I'm thinking that might make it pencil because it's a car that's not spying on me,

not reporting, doesn't have anything other than the anti-lock brakes, really, and traction control. but that's about it. It doesn't have all that lane assist stuff that you're always talking about. Well, I mean, I know you know how to wrench. So I certainly think it's worth it. A hundred thousand miles for you, absolutely. You know, you maintain it well. And you can fix the trivial things that go wrong over the course of time with an older vehicle. And $1,600 to bring it back so that it looks nice again. Sure, why not? Yeah, because that's the thing I can't do. You know, auto body stuff, the paint, that's serious.

You know, that's, that's artwork that I'm just not really capable. I don't do that either. Or at least I wouldn't try to do it. The results would not be pretty. Speaking of the lane assist, you have an article up there called Assisted to Death. What happened with this? And this is what happens, I think, where sometimes the AI and all this helping you can sometimes get people killed. Yeah, there was an incident in Romania. Now, I don't have all the facts at hand.

So I'm just riffing on this based on my own personal experience and what I know about lane keep assist technology. And this is in Romania, which is where this happened. You can see the video. There's a van, and apparently the van was carrying a bunch of soccer fans to a game or something. And you can see the van is passing a semi, a big rig. And it's starting to move back into the lane, into its travel lane in front of the semi. When all of a sudden, it veers into the left lane right into the path of another semi. And there's a catastrophic accident. Most of the people in the van are killed. And, you know, there's a rumor afloat that that was because of the lane keep assist. And whether it was or wasn't really is beside the point, as far as I'm concerned, because I can tell you as somebody who has experienced the system in many cars, that sometimes that tug can be fairly violent, particularly if you're in the middle of a high-speed maneuver like that, you know, that minor input, anybody who does track days knows minor steering inputs can have major effects on the way of vehicle handles and, you know, where it positions itself relative to your traveling. So it's entirely possible that something like that could have happened. And it's one of the reasons why I despise this technology. And I despise even more of the fact that it's being effectively forced on us. People aren't being offered the option, hey, here's a box you can check if you want this stuff. It has been embedded as a standard feature in everything that's new. And you have to wonder why every poll I've ever seen of new car buyers says that the vast majority of them do not like this assistance technology and would prefer not to have it. And also if you have someone who has been killed or a number

of people who are killed by this, the theory then is that they're trying to pass and the lane assist forces them back in, right? Yeah. Yeah, because these vehicles have an electric assist steering. Most new cars have that with a powerful electric motor. And what happens is when the car's cameras see that the vehicle is crossing over a painted line, particularly if you haven't signaled. So if you're starting to move to the left and you haven't signal or you're moving to the right and you haven't signaled, the thing will assume that you're you're wandering across the lane and try to counter-steer incorrect and make the vehicle go back into its travel lane. But that runs contrary to what you're trying to do.

And that's what unsettles the car, particularly if you're not ready for it. And you maybe have one hand on the wheel and you're just driving along. And that happens. It can be very disruptive to maintaining control of the vehicle. Yeah, grabs the wheel essentially out of your hands and starts staring for you. Yeah. What could go wrong with such a system? What could go wrong?

All right. Eric, great story there. Read it on E.P.O.com. A lot of great political talk going on this week, too. I've been getting involved in the conversation there. You've got some great people there, even if I disagree. sometimes. Yeah, I agree. One of the things I really like about my site is that we've got a gang of a very bright, educated people who banter back and forth in an intelligent way. We're not limited to

or a couple of characters like on X. You can actually have a long form conversation. So anybody who's listening to this who would like to do that, there's a place where you can do it. All right. E.P.O.O.com. By the way, great review on Nissan Kicks, and we'll talk more, maybe more about that next week, and you'll have another review up there. But the Nissan Kicks over. You were pretty pleased with that for what it is, right? Very small subcompact SUV. Yeah, you know, I like that there are still a handful of relatively affordable vehicles. This thing is priced just under $24,000 to start, which in today's market is kind of a deal. And it's a practical and fun little car.

And if you look at it, you know, it's interesting to look at. It has a little bit of a personality. Now, I wish that Nissan would allow you to have a manual transmission in it as they used to in a number of their fun vehicles. but they don't because, again, like all the other manufacturers, they're stuck having to comply with all these federal regulations. So the vehicle's weak point, in my opinion, is that it comes with one of those CVT automatic transmissions. That's almost impossible to get away from in most vehicles, lower-end vehicles, is it?

Absolutely, because they're inexpensive and they help bump up the gas mileage by about three or four miles per gallon, which really matters from the standpoint of the vehicle manufacturer. I'm not sure that it matters that much from the standpoint of people who are buying vehicles and might like a little bit more fun and a little bit more fun and a little bit of it more control. Check it out on EP autos.com, the 2026 Nissan kicks. And I hope you have a great week, Eric, and we'll catch you next Wednesday. Okay, thanks again. Sounds good, Bill. This is KMED and KMED HD-1 Eagle Point Menter for KBXG grants pass. The latest from Fox News is coming up.

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