Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-26-25_WEDNESDAY _6AM

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

03-26-25_WEDNESDAY _6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clauser Drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Delighted that you are here for Wheels Up Wednesday. And like the man says, Victor says 770-563-3770 KMED. Wheels Up Wednesday. Eric Peters is going to join me here, and we're going to dig into all sorts of things, transportation and elsewhere.

I'm going to have to ask him about the... I'm glad to see that Hyundai is going to be moving factories to the United States of America, but they said, yeah, we're going to build a steel plant here and we're going to do it so that we can make steel for all of the electric cars. Except that nobody is selling electric cars really well. Nobody. And unless they figure they have to continue to make the electric cars because of the compliance thing. The compliance engine thing has still not been completely repealed out of the Trump

administration. I don't know. We'll talk with Eric about that and a whole bunch of other things and also get his latest review. People tend to be running away from the electric agenda as much as possible. It's kind of a strange situation here. Now I know the Trump administration hasn't even been in power for 90 days, so I know there is a lot of moving parts to making a lot of this stuff happen but but anyway that's fine. Anyway to join in 7705633 actually got some sleep last night Linda and I had to make a executive decision together our management team of the home you know

the cats own the house we just happen to live in the house anybody who has cats you probably know that's so the way it is you know you may just be the manager of the house, anybody who has cats you probably know that's the way it is. You may just be the manager of the house or the resident of the house, but the cat's really on it. We had to kick the owners of the house out of our bedroom. Both Matt and Charlie love to sleep with us, and I mean love to sleep with us. There is just nothing and I know it just feels like a big colony. And Charlie is not much of a problem except he wants to sit on your feet and he's, I think his body temperature, he's the young one. He's the young alley cat that we ended up getting a few months ago after Chester died. And his body temperature I think is about 110 degrees, which is fine if the room is 30 degrees,

but it's not when it's warmer. He likes to sleep on your feet. And then there's Matt, who likes to sleep on your face sometimes. It's just amazing. Now Matt's the 15-year-old Maine Coon, and we're trying to be accommodating to him because we don't think we're going to have him a whole lot longer. He's aging, we know it, he's moving a little slower, all the rest of it, right? Because his brother died last year, so it wouldn't be surprising if he ends up leaving us. And we just love the cat. He's

just a great cat and friendly as the day is long and just very sweet natured. But there's something about being awakened eight, ten times a night or so with the featherduster plume tail of a Maine coon in your face, right? Okay, Matty, just move away. And he wants to get up as high and be with our heads as possible. And we finally had to banish them. We had to evict them. No more squatting in the bedroom. Maybe you can take a nap with us occasionally. they're not real happy about that but at least Linda and I got sleep so that worked out okay. So then we can afford to go to work and get his very expensive kibble. We try to explain that to the managers of the house but and if you have cats

you know what I'm getting at. We just live in the house. Anyway, 14 minutes after 6, you know enough about my feline issues here, but today some good news. Couple of good news stories out of Oregon. I know you may be shocked, but in this particular case, it's going to be the United States cracking down on Oregon a little bit. That's really, that's good news these days. Anytime you have the federal government cracking down on the state of Oregon, because the state of Oregon is bat guano crazy,

the way it's run. I mean, you know, hey, anytime you have a mental health authority, under Oregon Health Authority, and the person is a transgender turtle, you know you're in a state that is in a bit, arguably a bit of decline or disorder. I ended up getting an email from State Representative Dwayne Younger

and some good news about the coddling of the transgender, in other words, the biological dudes taking over and kicking the butts of all the girls in female sports. Representatives Dwayne Younger and Ed Deal are real happy about this because the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights yesterday launched investigations into Portland Public School Systems and the Oregon School Activities Association, that's the OSAA, over Title IX violations. These are alleged over Title IX violations. These are alleged Title IX violations. And this action came just a week after Yunker and Diehl demanded that OSAA comply with federal law following a ruling that Maine violated Title IX by allowing

biological males in in-girl sports. And those two lawmakers, by the way, have been leading a big charge in the state legislature. So they've been warning for months that PPS and OSAA were on a collision course with federal law and Juncker, of course, saying, well, I told you so. I said, yeah. What he was talking about is this absolute common sense and this whole idea that the feelings of someone diluted that they're a woman taking or holding sway or dominating over women and girls who are actually women and girls may be coming to

an end. I don't know. I don't know if Governor Kotec will be one of these people like the main governor. See you in court! But we'll see. We'll see about that. Speaking of courts and Governor Koteck, another piece of good news, this reported on Capitol Chronicle, Marion County Judge has put a roadblock up to

that order by Governor Tina Koteck that requires using union labor for a whole ton of state construction projects. Remember, Brad Bennington and others were talking about that here over the last few months. And in a Monday hearing, Circuit Court Judge Thomas Hart issuing an injunction stopping Governor Kotech from moving forward with this policy. The people who don't like this policy are saying that it would benefit Kotech's allies, in other words, the Democrat unions, that sort of thing, saying that there is absolutely no constitutional authority for her doing this. All right? And dispute between COTEC, and this is according to Capital Chronicle, dispute between

COTEC and a coalition of Oregon construction firms stems from an order that the governor issued right before Christmas, said that state agencies required to use project labor agreements and PLAs or contracts between a project owner like the state and one or more labor unions. So this was just a sop. All that was, this was a giveaway to the left-wing labor unions that tend to fund COTEX and her fellow communist travelers campaigns. That's just the way it is. This is good news.

So I find it amazing that there was actually an Oregon judge willing to do it, but so far so good. Okay, this is the Bill Meyers show. We'll go over some of the other headlines here in just a moment too. 7705633 if you wanted to join in. Joel here from and I'm on KMED. 21 after 6. 7705633 on wheels up Wednesday. Eric Peters will be joining me here at about 15 after bottom of the hour news. Some of the other headlines I wanted to touch on. Of course, top stories as far as I'm concerned in Oregon is the fact that the federal government is now taking Oregon and investigating Portland public schools and the OSAA and the day of fake women just manhandling, no pun intended, female sports may be coming to an end. Pam Bondi and the DOJ getting on it.

This is a good start. What could be coming next will be something about sanctuary cities. You can see that something like that could be coming next will be something about sanctuary cities. You can see that something like that could be coming here other headlines worthy of note National advisor net pardon me national advisor rather Mike waltz Says that he's taking full responsibility for that chat leak. We were talking about yesterday on signal And I said yesterday, you know, it had to have been a staffer that did this. Apparently I was wrong, at least according to Waltz. Waltz in an interview with Fox News

says a staffer was not responsible for this. I take full responsibility. I built the group, you know, the chat group here. And my job is to make sure everything is coordinated. And it's after Jeffrey Goldberg, the, the drone from the Atlantic the editor-in-chief there ended up writing a couple of days ago that he was added to this group and they're talking about the attack coming up on on the Houthis over in Yemen. Now Waltz denied knowing Goldberg personally saying he'd never met the journalist however the advisors said he knew some of the Atlantic's reporting on the president's on President Donald Trump. I don't know the guy, I know him by his horrible reputation, but I don't

text him. So the question still comes to how does he get added to the chat? I have a few questions about that, we'll let it work its way out. The one thing to keep in mind here is that, you know, I'm not begging on the Trump administration. Mistakes will be made. But this is a big one. And they shouldn't have ever been on signal in the first place. If you're going to be talking, if you need to get together with the national security people, including Vice President Vance and Tulsi Gabbard and all the rest of them, get on a government phone or get on a government app and keep it safe.

Truth be told, Signal has been known to have security problems for a long time. I would figure that it's pretty well known that they hacked at one point the NSA at one point hacked Vladimir Putin, so why would we assume the NSA wouldn't be hacking our own people too? Or maybe they added the, hey, there we go, maybe the NSA added that Goldberg fellow to the chat. I hadn't thought about that, but you've got to remember that the deep state has a very deep immunity system and there are just millions of people involved in this. Who's to say that whatever it takes, by any means necessary to embarrass the Trump administration,

although they were doing an amateur thing by using Signal in the first place, okay? I will concede that part about it. But if you find out that they're using Signal and you already have it hacked, why not? Why not put a Democratic operative on it so that it could be reported and it ends up being embarrassing and it ends up blowing up. Walt says he doesn't know the guy but yet he ended up in the chat. Count me as more than a little bit suspicious. Okay, so we have that. President Donald Trump, this is according to town hall, has ordered FBI to declassify documents related to Crossfire Hurricane, the big Russia investigation, so it's all going to be out there. It wants it to be transparent. That's pretty good news too,

I figure. Will media be interested in looking at it? Who knows? 7705633770KMED. A little closer to home, a suspicious death investigation in Jackson County ended up having a break in this case because about a year ago, they found the skeletal remains of Louis Merkel, a 63-year-old from Weimer, who was reported missing in September of 2023. Next to kin has been notified. But they got a break in a suspicious death investigation in this missing person case and they're investigating it. They now say it was suspicious circumstances and they've identified some people of interest currently out

of county in custody on unrelated charges and they're going to tell us a little bit more. Jackson County Sheriff's will tell a little bit more when we get a little more information and they talk to this person. So obviously another prisoner type may be willing to talk. Maybe we'll get some closure on this crime. Okay. Had a bicyclist die on Foothill Road yesterday morning like quarter to five in the morning. Very early, very dark out there. Bad section of Foothill too. I don't think this is the section that has been rebuilt at this point. It was struck by a SUV, driver cooperating, but 45-year-old Matthew Edward Davenport of White City is still gone.

And he was struck, it was like on the shoulder, about a quarter to five in the morning yesterday. I could think of a lot of roads that I would want to be riding a bicycle on at 445 in the morning but I had to tell you, Foothill is not one of them. Just saying, okay? 626, off to the phones here. This is the Bill Meyer show. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hi Bill, this is Vicki from the Applegate. Good morning Vicki in the Applegate. Good morning Vicki in the Applegate. What's going on in your world, huh? Well I just thought it was funny about your Maine Coon, Cat, because I also have one and

he's mixed with Mank. Okay, let me just explain the story of someone just joined us. We had to ban Matt and Charlie from the bed because Matt likes to be up by her face walking around and that Feather duster tail of a Maine Coon, you know, it's just in your face doesn't work, you know, right? Well Fortunately, I get the other end which is the whiskers Okay, he literally he's about 15 pounds Mm-hmm, and he gets on my chest at night and it literally covers my whole torso

and once his face like practically kissing me. Oh, it's like he wants to breathe your, well, he wants to smell your breath, right? That kind of thing. I guess. I don't know, but he's got 14 claws on the front. So he's got seven claws on each front paw. Oh my gosh, you have no woodwork left, huh? Well, he's an outside cat during the day, but we bring him in at night because we don't

want him fighting with anything at the Applegate. Oh sure, yeah, he'd be prey for the coyotes and such. Right. So he'll spend about five minutes on me and then I'll say, you need to go lay on daddy. So he'll go over and lay on my husband, but my husband also has our 91 pound black lab saline, so I get really good sleep, but my husband not so much. Oh my God. Well, like I said, we had to ban them.

We had to ban them. Now, Linda and I are getting a new bed this week. We're finally throwing in the towel and getting a king instead of a queen where we've had a queen forever. But I don't know if they will lay on the bed by our feet or something like that and not get in our face. We might let them back in on the king. We'll just see how that works though. Right. Now, we have tried to get Leo out but he'll meow like alley cat meow scratch at the door but we do have a king-size bed so it you know doesn't make any difference okay I have my half and Jimmy has his half with with

Leo and then in the morning he'll meow to come outside about 530 6 o'clock and so I'll let them outside. But yeah, it must be a thing with Maine Coons because they want to be right up on you. Well Maine Coons are a very gentle, giant, great family cat. And it is because they are so friendly and, generally speaking, very mild-mannered, and that's why they've become very popular. When he came to us, he was a stray cat. Somebody had fixed him and his sibling and his mom, and he came to us, but he was with

a group of raccoons. Really? Yeah. He made me spin a little bit. The cat hanging out with a raccoon? That's weird because raccoons kill cats. Right, but he looks like a raccoon. He has the stripes.

So he fooled the raccoons? Yes. Okay. Yes. And he was with a mama with two babies. And I told my husband, I said, oh great, we got a mama with three raccoon babies out here and then he turned his face around and I went, oh my god, a cat.

That's a cat. Oh man, what a great story. Vicki, thanks for sharing that. I've never heard of a cat hanging with the raccoons. That's usually a really odd couple or odd pairing there, okay? Thanks for the call. Let me go to line three. I don't know why we topped that heading for a weird one this morning. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Morning Bill, this is Bob Shandon-Medford. Hey Bob, how are you doing this morning?

Great to hear from you. I'm doing wonderful. Hey, I think Maine Coons used to be black labs that were reincarnated into kitty cats. You know, that's a pretty good way of describing them. You know, black labs friendly is the day is long for the most part. Yeah, great animals. Heads up, city of Medford is having a study session tonight. Yeah, you promised you were going to tell me about that then. Break it down, please.

What's happening? Okay. Well, you know, they restripe Main Street with the Grand Stream funding and they got a lot of negative pushback feedback from the community deservedly so tonight's a meeting they have no less than 15 different options for restriping or reconfiguring Main Street and I don't know that they're probably just going to narrow it down tonight I don't think they're going to come up with an absolute solution. But I just need to make, you know, Mephrodites aware of that.

They can go on the city's website and look at the different options. And I highly recommend that they email city and councilors and mayor. I will look at that when I get off air this morning. What of the options, Which ones do you like? Because the ones I'm looking for are less intrusive and less gang greenish. Okay? Right. I think one of the big ones is, you know, they notch down Main Street to one lane going

over the Bear Creek Bridge, which kind of creates a bottleneck there. And they also took up so much space with the wide, wide bike lanes that, you know, they lost a lane of traffic as well. Well, you have to make sure that the bums can go two by two. Right. Or both ways, or up and down, left or right. There's one where they wanted to consider back-end diagonal parking, which doesn't make sense to me. That's kind of weird. But you know the big string attached that is more of like a rope with a slipknot is that with the grant string funding of $475,799.30

that they have to keep the project for seven years or pay back the money. And I know the city does not want to or maybe be incapable of paying back close to a half million dollars. See, this is the problem of taking this, well, we're going to repay the streets, but then we have to make them democratic bum bicycle streets. That's really what we're looking at here in Oregon with its transportation policy. All right, I'm going to take a look at that and I'll drop a note to Council too with a suggestion.

So even if they make a decision tonight or narrow this somewhat, they have to keep it the way it is right now with the bollards and all the other baloney or can they modify it even right now, do you know? Well, see that was my question that I posed to them. I sent them the note is what changes can you make to it that wouldn't trigger having to repay those funds, if any. That's a good point and I might ask him the same thing and we'll get back to you here but thanks for the heads-up on that Bob. I really appreciate that. You're welcome Bill. You have a great day. All right, but by the way you sent me

a picture this morning of one of those old portable stereos. What was that called again? That was like a Sunnyvox 6000. It was like a suitcase stereo that had the turntable and the tape deck in it. And I remember those back when I was a kid, and only the rich kids had them. They were so expensive, those kind of things back then. Kind of a Cold War James Bond era type of... Yeah, you'd open up the suitcase, there's the turntable, there's the cassette, and

there's the AM, FM receiver, all that kind of stuff, and the breakaway speaker. All that stuff was expensive back in those days. I think we forget just how expensive it was. But anyway, hey thanks for the memory. Always appreciate that, Bob. You're welcome. All right, we're breaking it down with Eric Peters. He'll be joining me after news next on KMED. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable? Serving Southern Oregon for 50 years.

It's the Bill Meyers Show on KMED, Southern Oregon's place to talk. 638. Until further notice, Crazy Train, Going Off the Rails, will be the official theme for EP Autos and the Wheels Up Wednesday show. How are you doing this morning, Eric? Welcome back from EP. Good to have you on. Well, I'm a little woozy from smelling Elon Musk. How about you? Thank you. you and I, I think, are some of the few media people who are not just either a total homer for Elon Musk, which it seems like the Trump administration and the conservatives are now flipping over to right now, or total hatred of Elon, like which is on the other

side, the hissy fitters that used to be his friends on the Democrat party side. Would that be a fair assessment of where we find ourselves? Yeah, the crazy thing per Ozzy is that you know people on the Trumpian side used to consider that the people on the the other side were crazy. Lunatics. Yeah. Look at them now. I mean they are just as rabid in their own way as the left because now all of a sudden Elon man good because Elon man on orange man's side. Yeah. Now I appreciate Elon on orange man's side when it comes to I appreciate the Elon on orange man's side when it comes to dozing the government.

Good stuff. And we continue to say this, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. But then, we have the violent leftists, of course, which are kind of one in the same a lot of times in this country. I know they try to say that it's, you know, the right wing militias

that are causing problems or whatever, but it's kind of nonsensical. That being said though, now it's the right-wing militias that are causing problems or whatever. But it's kind of nonsensical. That being said though, now it's like, oh, you know, Hannity has to give away a Tesla, Donald Trump has to have a Tesla on the White House lawn. I'm looking at, wait a minute, you guys were against the Tesla agenda for the right reason back at the time, because it's all about getting people out of cars. They don't want people in cars, ultimately is the big agenda, not the Republicans, but they're falling into the trap. I guess is all I'm saying here, Eric, they're falling

into this trap. It's bizarre and you know this whole idea, you know, Department of Government efficiency, well that's just great. We're going to make this Leviathan more efficient. Yes, an efficient tyranny, right? An efficient dictatorship, right? You know, dictatorships. They, you know, they dangle in front of people the waste, fraud, and abuse, and that's fine. It's great to know that $40 billion or whatever was going to fund drag queens story times in Moldova, whatever it is. That is outrageous. But it's a dodge. It's a way to get people to go, look, there's a squirrel, and not get them to focus on, well, we're gonna make government more efficient. So

it's gonna be even better at extracting our wealth and controlling us and dictating to us what we're allowed to think. I'm kind of more on the line of making just a government small and or lean. Yeah. Very lean and inobtrusive, that kind of thing. But you're right. When you think about government being efficient, well, we're going to run it like a business. Well, the one thing about a business which government is not is that I can choose to

do business with a business, but government I am not allowed to choose, at least not yet. There you go. There you go, exactly. I pull on this thread constantly. I remember years ago when, after the passage of Obamacare, the refrain from the Republicans was, well, we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Not get rid of it, but replace it with some version of it that they approve of. Yes, with GOP Republican care, in other words, is what it was going to be.

So now, instead of incompetent bureaucrats running the various regulatory apparatus, we'll probably end up having Elon Musk's AI, which will be very efficient. Or else we'll have lots of people with, kind of like Dr. Evil's, with cats on their laps going, we would make it very efficient. Sure, exactly. Anyway, the mental picture is at least enjoyable. You want to talk about Elon's latest grift? Oh, is there another one?

Oh yeah, I just wrote something about it and published it this morning. Do you remember when the claim he made was parroted all over the internet about how he had a hundred million reservations for the cyber truck? Yes, I do recall that, yes. Or one million, I should say. Yeah. Guess how many, how many cyber trucks have been produced and sold? Well, at a hundred to a hundred and twenty grand a piece, I would imagine not too many, really. What do you think? About 47,000. 47,000, okay. But he did collect 100 million dollars, you know, if it's true, from the 1 million rubes who signed up to give him $100 each to hold their place in line. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, I didn't realize that's how it worked. So

you had tons of people that paid him $100 each to reserve a slot for a Cybertruck? Yes. Remember the hullabaloo in hype? Oh, the Cybertruck is coming. You got to get one. You got to get one. It's not here yet, but if you want to get one, pony up $100 to take your place in the line.

Okay. Now, has he refunded that to the people who didn't buy it? Because when it comes right down to it, they had more than enough cyber trucks available, obviously. Well, no. No, the other aspect of the grift is you could still buy your truck. You know, the problem is most people can't afford to buy one. You remember initially he said it was going to cost around $40,000? Yes. And as we now know, the base price is around $80,000 and they typically transact around $40,000. And as we now know, the base price is around $80,000, and they typically transact around $100,000.

So I think a lot of people who put down the $100,000 have decided they can't afford one. And I think a lot of those people thought that this was going to be like a tulip mania scenario where there were going to be so many people who wanted a Cybertruck that they'd be able to turn around and sell their reservation for maybe $1,000 and cash in on the thing. We have a few of them running around here in Southern Oregon and it's kind of an interesting style. I look at it as kind of a Soviet Union slash Robocop brutalism. Is that a fair assessment of the style of a cyber truck? Well yeah, the fact that you brought up a Soviet Union is actually most apt

because as it turns out, and here we get into another one of Elon's cons, initially this thing was supposed to be an all stainless steel constructed vehicle. Remember that? Yes. Well, it has stainless steel panels, but they're glued to a conventional unibody underneath of it. And apparently the glue isn't so good, and it tends to come off, and the parts tend to go flying, and they've had to have a big recall over it.

Okay. Well, I guess this is why Elon needs President Trump to promote it and Sean Hannity to promote it and all the rest of it. And by the way, you know, and he is under attack. I get that. The attacks which are going on are purely of political persuasion. That's the only thing which is causing this at that point. That's right. But that doesn't mean that the grift makes sense, that it's still right for America Huh, right? Elon is just maneuvering and positioning himself and I agree with you that the end goal is to shift away from the easy

grift to the rocket grift Yes state in fact, it was a story I was reading I didn't have that in front of me right now But I know New York Times first broke something saying like Elon Musk is in line to get billions upon billions, if not trillions of dollars in government grant funding for SpaceX, eventually, is how they figure it out. Now, they're kind of extrapolating looking at what they expect to be happening in the future, but remember, we were saying this right from the beginning. This is why he's close to Republicans, not because I think he really gives a damn about Republicans or conservatives or independents or anything like that.

It's the business model, unfortunately. Okay? Sure. Sure. And I ask the same question that I have been asking for years with regard to the Tesla EVs. If there's such a great thing, why is it that Elon can't seem to round up private investors who are willing to put their money on the table to develop and make these things and then offer them for sale to the supposedly eager market that is going to just lap the things up.

If this is a going concern, it shouldn't be a government concern. Indeed, and I think that's a takeaway. I'm looking forward to seeing your latest on that. You're gonna break that a little later this morning or is it tomorrow? The rubber truck thing is out. I do have something on that's coming out tomorrow about what you and I talked about a little bit before we got on the air having to do with this on-sourcing or this decision by Hyundai to invest apparently $20 billion here in the United States, which is being attributed or credited to Trump and his tariff threats. And I wouldn't be surprised that it is, that certainly they're looking at this and looking at which side of the kimchi is going to get tariff threats. And I wouldn't be surprised that it is that certainly they're looking at this and looking

at which side of the kimchi is going to get tariffed. And so they figured, okay, we got to bring it and make it here. This is the part that surprised me though, and I was scratching my head. It's a $6 billion, just under $6 billion for a new steel plant that they want to build in the United States. And hey, I'm good with new steel plants being built here and it's a good thing. They hire a lot of Americans. I think 1,500 Americans isn't that what you're reading? Something in that name? I think it's going to be located at least tentatively in

Louisiana. Louisiana, yeah. So good for Louisiana here. The issue though is that all they're building are electric cars. That's what they said that the steel plant was for, for the specialized steel for electric cars. Nobody really wants them. Very few people really want them. And is this just Hyundai realizing that they don't think that the compliance regime is going to go away? Or is it that they don't have to hire as many people to make electric vehicles? Because there's only, you know, when you're making devices, you don't have to, well, you don't need nearly as many workers to do that well you know on the upside steel is steel right yeah you know and they're you know they

manufacture steel and steel can be purposed to make components for regular vehicles or it can be you know used to make components for electric vehicles okay so would now we am I looking too much into it when they said they were going to be making it for the steel for electric vehicles and that's all? Well, they're paying homage to this whole EV thing. Remember, there's a lag. I don't buy that Hyundai made this decision based on what Trump said eight weeks ago or whenever it was he came out with it.

That's ridiculous. Hyundai is a massive corporation and big decisions like this that involve billions of dollars don't just happen like that. I bet this is something that had been in the works for quite some time and i think that fundamentally it doesn't address the underlying problem that's my big issue with with trump in his tariff regime the underlying issue the reason why manufacturing has left this country is

because it cost so much to make things here you know it's not going to cost hunday any less to make things here because they have to abide by the same regulatory regime that any other automaker or manufacturer has to abide by here. So effectively all we're doing is increasing the cost without if we don't address the regulatory issue and also the compliance issue. All right it's a 648 I'm talking with Eric Peters and looking forward to that article indeed because I was just scratching my head in hoping that it wasn't just going to be

EVs because the Hyundai's and the Kia's very... Now, Kia and Hyundai are same corporate structure or same corporation? Yeah, yeah. Kia and Hyundai and also Genesis, which is the luxury division, they're all under the same umbrella. It's all part of the same company. For example, a Kia Telluride and a Hyundai Palisade are basically the same vehicle just with different styling. It's kind of like Chevy and Pontiac. Right, that kind of thing. All right, well I have to tell you they're very popular.

There's a lot of them on the road around here. I'm just hoping that they're not just going to say, hey it's EV and EV only because I think Hyundai is ultimately setting itself up for a failure if they go there. I agree. I totally agree and I think you know to kind of add on to what I was saying earlier, I think the decision about this EVs that Hyundai made was probably based on their assumption that the push was going to continue. You know, I think Trump's election has disrupted that, if only temporarily. So they had probably planned this factory or this move, this on-shoring here a number

of years ago, really. Yeah, because they're both of those brands. Hyundai and Kia are going, you know, they are going gangbusters. They're selling lots of vehicles. You and I talked about the new Kia K4 last week. Great car. People are buying them. So it makes sense for them to increase their manufacturing footprint in this country to meet the legitimate demand that is out there for their vehicles. And likely then you could see on the press release when they're telling everybody, yes, we're going to be building the steel plant here for steel for the electric vehicles that we're making. That could be part of the headline where you buy off the gangrene critics. Sure, sure. They can

always change things around. You know, again, I don't know what comes out of the factory exactly, but I imagine it's just however steel comes out of a factory in chunks and blocks or ingots or whatever the term is okay all right fair enough Eric Peters with me ep autos.com you have a question or a comment for Eric any question about a vehicle maybe you're looking at here 7705633 we shall continue in moments Eric if you farm and ranch there's always enough and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show so good to have you on wheels up Wednesday Eric Peters with me.

We talk about a lot of the articles he has up on epautos.com and digging into the transportation and political news of the day. Hey, great one you had the other day. And this is something that I've been trying to get up with and how we have to hold Republicans accountable for where they're going when it comes to free speech and non-censoring. And you said some odd things about anti-Semitism. And I've noted this too. And it's not a really good thing here where, like you say, you have a cartoon up there

with MAGA 2023, anyone censoring speech is never the good guys. And then, mega 2025, deport anyone who criticizes our ally Israel. Right. And not only criticizes it, but if you do that, if you raise any questions whatsoever about anything at all that the government of Israel does, then you're anti-Semitic, meaning you don't like Jewish people. Right. And I am really upset about this too, this idea that a country, that I cannot say anything about a country's policy, and I don't even get involved in the Gaza situation a lot.

It is one of the worst talk radio tar babies around, in my opinion. But the whole idea here is that free speech is free speech and the government should not be getting involved in this period. And I know that Republicans all of a sudden... Now the thing is though, Israel is extremely powerful politically when it comes to our Congress and they get a lot of Democrats and Republicans elected. That's just the way it is with AIPAC. There's something fascinating here to me though, which has to do with the way the right is

now using the tactic of the left, which is to impugn somebody's motives to silence their facts. You know, remember when they did that during the pandemic where if you raised your hand and said anything in question about masking and all the sickness kabuki, you wanted grandma to die. And we cannot do that. We must criticize our own team when we're guilty of the same thing. Okay? And I know you're not a Republican. I'm like claiming you are. I know you're a libertarian card guy, but still you're not a hard leftist. We know that too. Okay? No, I'm a guy who thinks the facts matter and plain language and truth matter. And then

let's just stop talking in euphemisms. Let's be straight about what we mean and stop trying to smear people that you disagree with and just deal with whatever they're saying on a factual basis. And get it out there and debate it and when it comes right down to it, Republicans right now are proposing the stuff that they decried when they were out of the majority power and we just have to be honest with ourselves about it, okay? 650... In a way, it's affirming what the left does. So what's going to happen when the left gets power again? You know, they're establishing this precedent and they're normalizing it so it's

going to get to the point. Well if all that matters is you have the majority then you get to crush your opponents illegally then I guess you can't complain anymore. Yeah people should think about that. All righty let's just break this down. Let's go to the next line here. Good morning you're on with Eric Peters and who might you be? Morning Bill. Hi who's this? Morning Eric, this is Steve in Sunny Valley. Steve, what you got going on with you? I want to focus a little bit on the positives instead of all of the gloom.

That is what Lee Zeldin is doing over there at the EPA and him rolling back the clean air requirements and the EV mandates. And maybe we could get his EPA involved in this road diet situation in Medford, because he's definitely against it. Glad to hear that. And he would probably have a lot to do here. Who's the Transportation Secretary, Eric, you recall? The Transportation secretary is... I'm having a bite on it. Yeah, between EPA and transportation secretary, we could certainly modify or eliminate the Grand Stream funding which has killed us to this point with those policies.

I'm happy to see the steps that have been taken by Zeldin, but it's just a start. The problem is you have to fundamentally attack the premise of it, which is this idea that the climate is changing because we're driving cars and using lawn mowers and using propane to heat our water in our houses and things of that nature. That's what's got to be challenged. Otherwise, all this is is a temporary abatement. By the way, you are right about that, Steve. It is positive news, but once again, getting it codified into law would probably be really

helpful. I know President Trump has discussed wanting to get many of those executive orders, especially involving the climate and the EB mandates, etc., put into law so that way it could not be easily reversed by the... God forbid, a doofus gets into the White House. That kind of thing. Yeah, one thing I would like to see Trump do or make a case for at least is to end Cafe, the federal fuel economy mandates. That is something that ought to be entirely between vehicle manufacturers and the people who buy the cars. If you want to buy a car that gets five miles per gallon, you're paying for it.

That's your prerogative. And on the other hand, people who want high mileage vehicles can buy those. This is not something that there's any constitutional or moral authority for, in my opinion, and it would make great strides toward opening up free choice and making America great again, to use the orange man's term. You know how they tie this into, how they claim constitutionality to do this kind of stuff. Interstate trade, the interstate commerce part of the Constitution, they have stretched that part of the Constitution so far I'm surprised it hasn't snapped like an overstretched rubber band. You know, they put it on anything. Well, of course we can regulate this because of interstate

commerce, you know, that kind of thing. That's how they do it. But again, why ought they? You know, people should ask that. Why is it any of the federal government's business what the gas mileage of the car that you buy is? If you want to buy it, if manufacturers want to offer it and there's a market for it and people want to buy it, how is it that that's any of the federal government's business? See, you're talking about a kind of foreign concept in the regulatory state and that is a free country. Right, exactly. All right, now then.

Let us shift gears here a little bit and let's go over to the the 2025 Audi A4. Is this the only wagon really available at this point in time? Just about. It's one of the very few, certainly in the compact size class. What makes it such a standout, at least to me, is that here you have a vehicle that's exactly the same size as the A4 sedan, which is a small sedan. It's about 184 what is it, 184 something inches long, but it has five times the capacity

for cargo in it, so it makes it a much more useful vehicle. And you know, to look at it another way, it gives you an alternative to buying yet another crossover. You know, people buy crossovers chiefly because the cars that are available just aren't practical. You know, even mid-sized sedans have typically about a 14 cubic foot trunk. You can't put much in those things. They're not very useful for a family. They're not very useful for going to get stuff. So if you have a wagon, as anybody who's ever had a wagon knows, wow, you know, you can put all this stuff in it. It's cool, and it's still a car, basically. You know, you don't have to drive another

one of these stupid crossovers. Yeah, it's the best of all worlds, really really when it comes to the car type vehicle here. So your overall impression, A4 Allroad. So Allroad, that must be, is it a little bit of off road capability? Well, that term, they apply that to a number of their models, but it has a little bit more ground clearance. That's about it relative to the A4 sedan, but that's important. OK, so you can take it on a forest road as an example

when you're taking the family out for a nice little Sunday outing and you have a little bit of clearance for the ruts and things, right? Well, the main take home point is that, you know, people hear about all wheel drive and they think all wheel drive is their, you know, their ticket to ride when it comes to snow day driving.

The problem is that most cars that have all wheel drive are pretty low to the ground. And as anybody who knows anything about winter driving knows, if you're trying to drive a car that's low to the ground on snow, it doesn't really matter much whether you have all-wheel drive because the car is going to ride up on the snow and you're going to lose that contact patch with the ground and you're going to get stuck. So having that additional, I think it's about an inch and a half, maybe 1.3 inches, something like that of ground clearance makes a big difference when you're driving in the snow. Makes a lot of sense

now overall the A4 all-road out of how many stars out of five let's say? I'd give it four and a half again you know the one thing that I miss a lot about cars like that you used to be able to get manual transmissions and remember when Volkswagen used to offer a wagon version of the Gulf for the the Gulf of the Jetta. I think it was the Jetta. Yeah, the Jetta. Yeah, and it was a sport wagon and it was available with a TDI diesel and a six-speed manual. I mean, what a great car. It's such a shame we don't have them anymore. Indeed. All right, now there's a car that's going to be going away that if you wanted to grab one of them, we're down to the last few.

This is the last year for the Chevy Malibu, which actually had a pretty darn good run, I guess. And is there a reason? Is it just that people aren't buying sedans and they're getting rid of this? Or is there another reason? Well, that's part of the reason. I think the other reason is that it used to be available with a great V6 engine or even just a great four-cylinder engine. But General Motors, in its infinite wisdom, decided to put a micro 1.5-liter turbocharged engine in it. Sorry, I had to put the scary dum dum dum on, okay? Yeah.

So, you know, on the upside, you remember when there used to be a plefera, say it like El Guapo from Three Amigos, of midsize family sedans that you could buy for less than $25,000. They're all gone now. The Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry are now close to $30,000 to start. Mazda doesn't make the 6 anymore. Nissan cancelled the Altima. The Hyundai Optima is one of the few that you can still get for around $26,000 or so, but the Malibu starts at around $24,000 and change. And it's a family car. Yeah, and the problem is, though, General Motors has had just immense problems from what I'm told by mechanics with the three-cylinder

1.3 turbocharged vehicles. Well, understandably. You put that much pressure on a little engine like that, you're going to have problems. They've also had problems with the, I think it's a 2.5-liter four that they put in, of all things, the Chevy Silverado pickup. So imagine that. Wait a minute. That's laughable just to hear about it. Okay.

Oh yeah, and they'll make you a great deal on it. I mean, if you want a good deal on a new half-ton truck, go to your Chevy dealer and ask them about one of those. The problem is they kind of go splody after a while. Oh my gosh. I'm hoping that with Trump taking, hopefully taking the boot off the regulatory neck of a lot of these manufacturers, that perhaps a little more reason goes in here. And when you have a larger vehicle, you have to have a larger engine that goes with it, and you're not going to penalize people for doing that.

Yeah, and getting back to these mid-sedans, all of them used to either come standard with or at least offer a V6 engine. And none of them do anymore. The Accord and the Camry, the Camry is now a turbo hybrid. The Accord is also a turbo and a hybrid. Which there are more complex and more expensive for that reason. Yes.

Yes. And for what? What's the benefit of that to you and me and the other people out there who just like to buy a decent family car for, say, $25,000 or $26,000? Well, they're talking about eking out a mile a gallon in mpg you know that kind of thing an extra mile per gallon right that sort of thing.

Surely well maybe let's say call it three but again it doesn't matter really to the people who are buying the vehicle especially if they're paying thousands more for the vehicle it matters however in terms of compliance issues for the manufacturers that's it that's the only reason this is happening. Alright, point well taken. What's your good of review for next week? Do you know yet? Well, yeah, it's at Malibu. I haven't got that out yet. Oh, okay. It's in the works.

Alright. I'm looking forward to finding out more about that because it sounds like something worthy of consideration the final year that it's there, okay? Thanks, Eric. Great having you on. Thanks, Bill. epautos.com. Great site, great people, great commentariat over there too. This is KMED and KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Joel here from Butler-Ford and...