Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-13-26_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

05-13-26_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 Klausurrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Welcome to Wheels Up Wednesday, May 13th, 57 degrees on our way up. It's going to be, uh, yeah, I mean, we have a few showers. I had a few showers at my house this morning. Other than that, it's going to be pretty decent one.

It's going to clear up and dry up a little bit, uh, nice warm day. Getting into that summer feel for sure here, joining in the conversation at 7705-633. Eric Peters is going to join me here in a few minutes, and we're going to talk about some of the latest reviews that are going on. And one of the most interesting automotive stories that I've been seeing recently is that Honda. Honda has never lost money in its entire existence ever since it started. It has always made money as a corporation. It's never been in the situation of like the GMs and the Fords and the Chrysler's. They have always made money, and now they're on track to lose a ton of money.

And I can't help but think that it's part of this, the fact that they're going into EVs. And it's almost like the moment that you say, we're going to be creating some more electrical vehicles, compliance cars, and green, green, green. And then all of a sudden, no, the stockholders are saying, no, don't do this. No. People would buy Hondas because they like your motorcycles. like things that are affordable that you could move around. Don't do it. Hold on.

Stop. Can you remember the Ford, you know, the Ford lightning? Remember what happened? How many billions that Ford lost on that stuff? And it's still going on. And it's like this, this Lemmings, the Lemmings just running off the cliff, boo, you know, down into the abyss. But anyway, we'll talk with Erith Erick about that and a bunch more here, too. I also have a meteorologist from Seafact who's going to join me, and I've never had the opportunity to talk with Chris Martz, but we're going to be doing a fact check on the weather.

A lot of conversation on the weather, and it's climate change. Well, it's a climate fact check is what they're offering. And so we're going to talk about where we're headed. And I wanted to ask, Chris, since he is a meteorologist, what about this talk about a super el Niño? because I had mentioned yesterday the story that I had read in Washington Post in which Washington Post saying that, hey, you know, we're on track for a super El Nino. That means lots of drought and lots of dry. Why it's going to be, you know, as hot and dry as it was back in 1877.

Oh, wait a minute. I thought that we only got the severe weather situations because of the SUV and of fossil fuels and of climate change. How did we do it in 1877 when, you know, we didn't have SUVs and we were using the telegraph at best? You know, that was it. No data centers, you know, pumping out the heat in the atmosphere. How did we do that then? Could it be natural? Anyway, I'll talk with Chris about that in a little while.

And we will definitely have a pallet cleanser this morning. Tom Clavin, I talk with Tom Clavin, usually about once a year because he puts out another great book, usually some Western-themed history. telling history in a way that I wish I'd been taught history back in the government school days. This time he's talking about the last stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull. So there we go. All right. Now, I received an email overnight from Brian Weldon. Brian Weldon at Josephine County.

And he said, Bill, in response to the caller about the 8647 sign on a shed along the golf course, I went to find it yesterday. It's rather obviously visible from anyone playing golf, and it's unacceptable. I've contacted Sheriff Daniels to have it removed. I'm not sure if this is a crime or not, but it needs to be removed. Okay. And so Brian sent me a picture. He took a picture of the 8647 sign, and this is, of course, 86, meaning get rid of Trump, 8647.

So there we go. got a crappy shed on the backyard and 8-6-4-7, 8-6-47. Now, my question for you, what do you think? Because I see something like this, and I tend to be a little more nuanced about this kind of stuff. I'm a free speech absolutist. I tend to be the cure for bad speech is more speech that's good speech. I don't know. I guess the question is, does the person who is putting this on their crappy shed in the backyard,

do they have means, motivation, and the ability to actually act on that threat? Is it actually a threat? Or is it an expression of an opinion? Even though I don't like it, I would tend to default on opinion. Am I right? Or am I just missing it entirely? Am I missing it entirely? President Trump is and always has been a very polarizing figure.

So when do you cross that line? Let me know, okay? 770563-3-3-770K-MED. And I'm glad to say it because as somebody called yesterday, you know, about that and talked about it. But, yeah, it's a sign, but it's four numbers, four numerals on the side of a building. 86 and as far as I'm concerned 86 the way it's always been talked about me hey you know you better behave otherwise you're going to be 86 out of Safeway that's how it was always talked about me I never heard about the mob hit and even if it was a mob hit do you have to assume it's a mob hit

or is it because there have been assassination attempts on the president that all of a sudden 86 can no longer be looked at as innocently or not can the United States withstand the existence of 8 and 6 and 4 and 7 at the same time being written out, written out. Well, I feel sorry if your address is actually 8647, huh? 8647 Highway 99, you know, that kind of thing. I don't know if that exists or don't. I'm just musing about it. Do you think the country can stand? Can we stand and withstand the existence of the numbers 8, 6, and 4, 7 together?

I understand being sensitive about it, but does being sensitive to it rise to the level of a crime? That's my question for you this morning. I'm happy to take your opinion. 770563. I figure we have a lot of moles to whack in this country. Is 8647 the existence of people wanting to put 8 and 6 and 4 and 7, the four numbers together? Is that sign that the Republican, is going down the tubes.

I'll take your calls. Take your call on that and anything else in your mind here, too. You go to the phones. Maybe this is Brian for all I know. Hi, good morning, KMEED. Who's this? Bill, no, this is Chris. Hey, do you have a minute to expound on the initiative or referendum for these

flock cameras if they were ever, if they were ever, who had the means and the motivation to do it, you know, like the means is taxpayer money and motivation is for them to collect incomes of having other creative ways to get people downtown. Okay, so you want me to riff on it in one way or what were you thinking? Well, what do you have the history of because Ben and Eugene have turned them off? Yes. And so what's going on here?

So do they have to do and... Well, Ben and Eugene turned them off because. of great public pressure. It took public pressure and then the government responded to it. Okay. Well, what about do they have to, is it have to come up? Like, not all cases get taken at the Supreme Court, you know, so. Well, I don't think this has anything to do with the Supreme Court case. Well, they're getting, they're getting, the private sector is getting away with it, and the police agencies are buying the data. Right. And then writing the tickets. and the ALPRs and their radar and are they certified and all that?

When they start putting this stuff in Medford? They don't have grants pass. Okay, well, like I said, a lot of this stuff has been put up on private property, too. I do know that. And you've got to understand that your local law enforcement is probably absolutely thrilled to have flock cameras. It makes their job easier, Chris. Now, I'm not agreeing with that. I'm just saying, but that's why they exist.

Okay. It'll also take away their jobs. too because they don't have to monitor, they don't need as many cops. And it's a violation of your Fourth and Fifth Amendment. So you're... How is it a violation of your Fourth and Fifth Amendment? It's been pretty much ruled already that your privacy on the government roads is, like, non-existent? Well, not what some of the cases out in Norfolk.

It says that, you know, 24-7 monitoring is crossed the constitutional line. I'm not familiar with that case. I'd have to find out more about that. But courts have made it pretty much clear that you do not have the, there is no inherent right for you to travel anonymously and unobserved on the city streets around here. That appears to be what's going on, generally speaking. Now, does that mean that you have to be supportive of flock cameras and various other monitoring? No, you don't. And enough people rose up in Ben. But you see, remember, you do know.

the reason why they rose up in Bend and Eugene. Are you familiar with why? Not exactly. Yeah. Most of it was because, oh my gosh, the illegal aliens were being observed. Ice, yeah. It's about ice. Yeah, that's the reason why they got all hot and bothered. It's okay if the regular people were being observed, I guess, but if you had ice and you had a bunch of illegal invaders around here, you know, that's not good. That's not good. It was helping them. You've got 20 million that came across the border unobserved. Don't know where they're at, but they wanted the regular citizens like you and I, they want to have eyes on.

Pretty much. Yeah, yeah, you're pretty much observing. You're observing it correctly, no pun intended. Okay. Yeah, yeah. We have to put a little blinders up when the illegal aliens are getting observed by the ALPRs, and you know, the automated license plate readers. But everybody else, well, it's all right.

It's a, you're a free person in a free land here, Chris. Just remember that. Tell yourself that again. again and again. You'll feel better, okay? Take away our freedoms, Bill. Uh-huh, yeah. And so if enough people get a B in their bonnet or burr up their backside and want to talk about getting rid of flock, it can be done. Appreciate the call. 7705-633. Good morning. Hi, who's this?

Yeah, this is Brian Weldon. Brian, thank you for sending that picture. Okay, I went over to the golf course yesterday, took a look at this. This is. is extremely obvious to anybody playing golf. It's right. As you can see in the picture, there's a chain link fence, and it's directly behind the chain link fence about five feet from the asphalt where everybody goes by with their golf carts. With all the threats over the years now on Donald Trump,

this is unacceptable. Whether or not this is against the law in Sheriff Daniel's mind, he's been notified and we'll see what he does. But this is absolutely unacceptable in my world. Okay. Now, well, yeah, in your world, in your world, it is unacceptable. I get that. I understand being sensitive about it.

But is the United States of America strong enough to withstand a moron in Josephine County, putting 8-647 on the side of his shed? Are we strong enough for that, or are we that week that we have to go after? Well, yeah. And I also think that there's, you know, there's a great deal of Karen's everywhere. wear that have no idea what 86, 47 even means. They probably think it's the guy's address. I don't know.

You know, it very much could be. And, you know, my concern about this is that my concern is that the right is getting, is getting, you know, just getting its panties in a wad. There are much more important things to be worried about. President Trump is surrounded by essentially a flanks of Praetorian guards everywhere he goes, okay? Yes. And he is guarded much more intensely than you and I will ever be guarded if we were to go into danger around here in Southern Oregon. I am less worried about President Trump than I am about us just having a hissy fit every time a moron pulls out a spray paint can. And that's what we're looking at here at 86-47. I'm just saying, you know, is this the biggest thing we got to worry about right? now, Brian, or not? Not really, no. But it really bugs you.

A lot more issues. But it really bugs you. And I appreciate it really bugs you. I just don't know if it rises to the level of a threat. It does rise to a level of an idiot, you know, of what I'm looking at here. And it's probably an idiot, you know, doing it because they're doing it just for that reason, aren't they? I guess.

You know, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the owner of the property doesn't even know it's back there. because all you'd have to do is climb over that little four-foot chenley fence and spray-painted on his shed and walk away. And he may not even know anything about it. Yeah. Well, I'd like to find out. I certainly would like to find out more. I'm just getting concerned that we don't go off half, that we don't go off half-cocked on this every time. Oh, my gosh, there's the numbers, 8, 647.

Assassin! You know, I, is that the world we're in right now? Yep. Okay. I appreciate your call. But thanks for showing. At least we know what it looks like, though. Does it rise to the level of a threat?

I look at this and I say it rises to the level of bad taste. I don't know if it rises to the level of a threat, though. Yeah, I think it's more idiocy. You know, if anything, maybe what we ought to do is, can you go and find the front of the house and find out who it is? And so we can talk about, hey, you know, we have an idiot living at blah, blah, blah, blah, over by Dutcher golf courts, right? Yep. How about that?

Yep. I've already researched the owner of the property and his phone number. So if Sheriff Daniels doesn't do anything about it, I'm going to go tell him to remove it. All right. I appreciate the call. Thanks for checking in. All right. You'd be well. Okay. All right. Bye. I love it. Yeah. Full color, 8647. Now, odds are there, you know, is nobody within that house that is going out and gathering up weapons and getting ready to go over and take on. Well, President Trump is in China this morning anyway. He wouldn't be able to do anything. You would have to wait for a little while, wait for Air Force want to come back.

But hi, KMED, good morning. Who's this? Mr. McNeary, Dave. Yes, Dave. I wanted to say it's 86. Have you ever been 86? Because I have, there's a truck stop over here to kick me out and wouldn't say why at all because something to do with the shower I used,

because they have showers there. And so that's left me for full years without a place to get a shower. So they actually said, we're 86ing you from this place? Yeah. But you see, that's how I always knew 86. Now, I have no doubt that mob types would probably use that, but I don't look at mob types to control my use of language. Well, when a drunk is drunk at a bar, they told him to get out, don't come back.

That's 86. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Dave. Yeah, I'm just talking about this 8647 sign here in Joe County. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome.

Hey, Bill. It's Vicki from the Applegate. Yeah, Vicki. Go ahead. Who was the, was it a senator or a congressman or who was it that originally said 86-47 the president. Well, I don't know if it's original or not, but James Comey is the one that got in trouble because of, oh, look, there are seashells on the beach and it spelled out 86-47.

Okay, so I think that this guy, if he is aware that and did put that on his shed, that he's just following suit like they all do. Like, I don't think he's personally going to try and kill the president, but since it's been put out there, I'm sure this is not the last 8647 we're going to see. Oh, we're going to see a whole bunch more of them. I would agree with you on that. I guess my question is, can the Republic withstand the combination of 8647 out there in public discourse? Can we survive this?

Well, people can survive it. Crazy people probably cannot. Okay. All right. That's a reasonable take on that. So watch out for the crazy people. Hi, KMED. Good morning.

Who's this? Hello. Let me try it again. Hi, KMED, good morning. Good morning, Bill. Hi, horse lady. How are you? I'm well, thank you.

You want some justification. I know what they're going to do in politics with Comey about the 86. Well, they're probably going to do nothing, really. Oh, that's a given. Do you want justification for 86? Do you remember the number and the name for the abortion pill when it started? No, I do not. The letter R, the letter U-486.

RU-486. They call it by the scientific name now, but it was RU-486. Yeah, but were they looking at four, was that FDA name? forward or whatever it is. What are you 486? Are you 486? Are you 486? Are you 486 are killing the kid, I guess, right? I don't know how they got it, but somebody with a real weird sense of humor got the numbers. Okay. Does make you wonder. Thanks, horse lady. And I'll grab one more. Hi, KMEDA. Good morning. CIS. Good morning, Bill. Bob, Shandon Medford. Bob, welcome. Hey, thank you. I wonder if 2586 would create as much controversy based on the 25th Amendment.

25th Amendment, 25th Amendment, and, oh, that's the one in which you take the president out of office, correct? Right. Okay. You know, that's actually interesting. 2586, 2586, 25th Amendment 86. Take them out. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Probably not. Of course, most people would go, 25th Amendment, what's that? Even I had to think about it for a second. Okay, Bill. Okay, thanks, Bob. Hi, KMED, good morning. Lee Morton, how you doing?

I'm fine, Holly. What's up? Well, you know, I would have to agree with Brian. I think we're at a place in the world now where people think that if you don't say the right thing, they should just be killed. You know, they killed Charlie Kirk because they didn't agree with this position. And so 86, I mean, my understanding of it is to eliminate. And I think that's just completely inappropriate. I don't know if it would rise to the level of him being arrested or that kind of thing. But you see, inappropriate doesn't rise to the level of criminality is what I'm thinking.

There's a lot of stuff in our society. Listen, I think guys walking around in a suit wearing crooks is inappropriate, right? You know, do I think that I should do? No, that's not the same. Yeah. Give me a break. We're talking about it. Well, not wearing a, you know, a...

Yeah, I know. I know. But it's like there's a lot in our culture which is inappropriate, but that's also what you have to put up with in a free people, if you are a free people. You know, I'm not sure that that's what we're talking about here. I think what we're talking about is real scary extremism. And, you know, I mean, is it...

You know, when you talk about killing people, which is what they're doing now, you see, you know, when we have these demonstrations in the street, people are not saying, I don't agree with. They're saying, you know, kill this person, kill that. Yes, but does the number 86 automatically mean kill? I don't think so, Holly. And I think it's nonsense to make it right to make the number 86 rise to that level. I just don't, I don't see it. Well, you know, that's your opinion. But you're a man who's out there and you have public opinions all the time. And I'm sure there are a lot of people who would like you not to have the opinions that you have. Yeah. But to go to the, from the place of, hey, let's not like Bill because he doesn't, you know, he doesn't speak our language, too, we should kill him because he doesn't speak our language.

That's where we are as a culture right now. And it's really scary to me. It's not just crocs and, you know, wildfast. You know, that was a poor analogy on my part, okay? I will walk that back, all right? I could come up with something, I could come up with something better. But to me, to me, you know, it's like, how often, how much do we get to the point?

But to me, this is going into the thought police world. And I want to be very careful about that as the United States, which is already reducing its tolerance for the rights of its citizenry sliding into more of this. You have the wrong thought. And you, you know, you're in trouble here for thinking the wrong thing. And... But if you're thinking about killing someone, because they disagree with you, then you are, you definitely are stepping over the line. I mean, I believe it's free speech. No, to me, it's if you are acting on killing someone.

There are probably a lot of people, there are probably way more people that want to kill President Trump than what have written 86-47 on a side building. Okay. Right. I'm sure true, but that doesn't mean that it's appropriate to, and I don't even think they should do when they have these demonstrations to be talking about killing people. Disagreement is what we have a right to do. We have a right to verbally disagree. We have, and so, but we don't have a right to suggest to people that killing someone is the solution to disagreeing with what they have to say. And that's where we are as a culture. But 86 is not defined as killing. I think most people believe that 86 to 86 someone is something to get rid of to kill someone. I mean, if they're just talking about getting him out of... I've used the term 86 for years. Get him out of here. 86 them out. Get him out. You know, come on. All right. If that's the case.

That's not how I'm... You know, if we're going to automatically assume that whether... And, of course, I think we're at this point where they're going to put it up there because they know that we get wound up about it. ...ound up about certain kind of things like that, in my opinion. I mean, I don't know about how wound up we want to get. I think it would be appropriate for somebody to go knock on his door like Brian may do and say, please.

You know, let's not talk about... Because the way I see that is they're saying, hey, eliminate or kill. And we're having enough of that going on. People keep trying to kill the president. They manage to kill Charlie Kirk. There are so many people that are just being assassinated because they have something to say that people don't agree with. And that's not the solution. Yeah.

And this is really nothing new, though. There's a reason why political violence is used. It's effective. And that's a sad part of life. And so, I mean, I could see part of this, but it's getting hard for me to get upset about some guys. guy, some loser guy, probably a guy in Josephine County writing 8647 on his crappy shed in the backyard. Is that... Well, that's true, but there's so much of it.

I mean, if you see, if you go to these demonstrations, you'll see there's a lot of talk about killing. And they use the word killing. That's a day. Yeah, see, that's different. Solution, and that's what my problem is. And I would agree with you. I would agree with you if there's talk about, if there's open talk about... about killing. Yes. All right. Thank you, Holly. I appreciate it. Hey, we're going to hold off on

this subject. Eric Peters is standing by. We're going to kick it around in here just a moment with wheels up Wednesday afternoose. Just like sheep herders need sheep dogs to get the job done. Professional landscapers need two dogs fabricating. Two dogs is the place for custom landscape trailers. With the features you need, hydraulic dump beds, side gates, ramps, equipment racks, LED lights. And our custom landscape trucks can feature side load buckets and side dump hoppers. designed to your exact specifications. I'm Hayro of the Two Dogs Fabicating and I can help you with your project

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your Oregon State representative from Josephine County in Grants Pass. In Salem, Southern Oregon is a minority, and that's why my most important job I have isn't passing more mandates. It's being a strong voice, pumping the brakes on bad legislation. I help lead the fight to protect your right to vote on the gas tax because politicians shouldn't raise your cost of living without your consent.

That fight is saving the average Southern Oregon family about $500 a year. Next term, my job is clear to protect taxpayers, hold Salem accountable, and keep more of your money in your pocket. I'm Dwayne Yonker and I always stand up for Josephine County at home and in Salem. I'd be honored to earn your vote. Paid for Yonker for State Representative, PAC ID 23071. KMED News, here's what's going on. We don't know why, but a driver intentionally drove a car into the SOU-Stevenson Union Building Tuesday.

NBC 5 reports around 1230 p.m., the vehicle jumped the curve, drove up the sidewalk, and crashed into the structure. A gas meter was damaged, so the building was a vacuum. for several hours. Ashland Fire and Rescue saying they do know the act was intentional. The driver wasn't an SOU student, but the identity and condition of the driver not released. It was a packed house at the Phoenix City Planning Commission meeting this week at issue residence concerns for a proposed 7-11 and Big Rig fueling station on the corner of Grove and Fern Valley Road. According to the RV Times, the city says the development does meet the criteria to be allowed there. Several residents indicating they just don't want it. Some say there's no need to duplicate the Petro Center already there.

Others claim the center would make it more difficult to evacuate an event of a wildfire. A vote on the project delayed until June 8th. In other news, a missing talent pharmacist and father has been found dead. Talent Police in the family of Jackson, Victoria, reported the sad news Tuesday. Jackson was reported missing May 1st. No other details of the case are available. And a solemn ceremony held Tuesday morning in front of the Josephine County, courthouse honoring local fallen law enforcement officers. NBC 5 says the ceremony was held in observance of National Police Week. Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel expressing appreciation for the community's ongoing support. Bill Meyer, KMED News. If you've been injured in an accident,

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The long road to recovery The moments you'll miss Suddenly, a ticket doesn't seem so bad That ticket, that was nothing. Click it, don't risk it. Paid for it by NHTSA. This is News Talk 1063,

KMED, and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. I tell you, Eric Peters and I, we both love every time those NHTSA ads come out, usually around Memorial Day. Isn't it when we first start seeing them come out there? They click it or ticket, Eric.

Welcome back to Wheels Up Wednesday. Good having you on. Yeah. And astonishingly, this is coming from Trump's NHTSA, from Sean Duffy, the current Secretary of Transportation. And it seems that they are as all in on safetyism as every other administration prior. And it's just a measure of how far this cult has become a kind of a mainstream religion in the country now.

Yeah. The worst thing you could possibly do is not where your seat. Not where your seat on. I'm thinking about those days of crawling around in the 1965 Ford Country Squire station wagon as we were heading out to Bethany Beach, Delaware back in the days as kids, Eric, you know, and we were all just that, and we're crawling over the seats and then we're waving at the truckers and telling them to blow their thing. Of course, now we would be all arrested.

We only have to be in a little safety pod, right? Everybody has to be in a safety pod now, and this is how we'll all get there to grandmother's house. Yeah, the neurosis has been normalized. You know, for those who are too young to remember the before time, just watch a movie that was made before the 90s, you know, back in the 80s and the 70s, watch a TV show from that period. People just got in the car and drove. And somehow that world was actually, I think, in a lot of ways, safer than the world that we live in today.

We were, you know, we just felt freer. We were freer. It wasn't as if there was blood all over the roads and carnage and all the. It's just, it's so over the top. It's so frustrating. And it's so sad. And that being said, yeah, I wear my seatbelt because I know that it's a pretty smart thing to do for the most part. I'm just getting tired of going after everybody else for everything.

That's all. But, all right, fine. Let me go into. Let's talk about the latest car company that could be committing, what do they call that, Sapuku? Sapuku, yes. Sapuku, which is, you know, the Japanese term for suicide. Honda. What is going on with Honda? Honda, one of the longest running car companies or operating car companies. Great car, reliable, value. Everybody has liked their Honda's motorcycles. It's all there.

And what? They're setting it on fire because of EVs or what? Well, yeah, the interesting thing is, as you say, the preface is that, you know, Honda has been one of the most consistently profitable blue chip car companies of the last 80 years. and they reported for the first time a year loss in 2025 because they too had pulled up the Kool-Aid and drank hardly from the EV Kool-Aid bin. And it's just a metric of the devastation that's been imposed. You know, they had this whole line of EVs that were scheduled to be introduced beginning this year. They actually called them the Zero series, if you can imagine that.

No, no. No, I'm sure zero is the zero for zero emissions, right? That's what they were thinking. Of course, but like the double entendre there, zero. Like, I mean, that person should be forced to commit supuku for having come up. That's probably the worst name for a vehicle that I can recall, having been considered. And it was for a whole line of vehicles. Anyway, well, this was right up there with Nova when Chevy was trying to market Nova in Mexico, right? And that only hurt in Spanish markets. You know, the Nova was a great success in North America, People love the Nova.

Man, that's just wild. Yeah, and it's not just the Zero Series. You know, they did another thing that I think was very foolish, which was to take the Chevy Blazer EV, buy it from General Motors, re-skin it, and put a Honda badge on it. And I think that greatly diminished and watered down their brand. You know, it's vaguely cheesy to go to buy a car that says Honda on the outside and find out that it's a Chevy on the inside.

Not that there's anything wrong with Chevy. That's not the point. You know, you buy that you're buying a brand because you want something that was actually made by that brand. You and I can remember back in the day when General Motors got in trouble for putting other GM brand engines in Cadillacs, for example. Yeah, well, and there's nothing wrong with like a Chevy engine per se, but you've got to figure if you're paying Cadillac style bucks you would want a Cadillac engine. I remember that scandal at the time. Yeah, absolutely. Like part of what people buy when they buy a Honda is the brand's reputation for engineering excellence.

And again, I'm not slamming General Motors or Chevrolet, any of that. I'm just saying the presumption is you're being presented with something that is supposedly made by Honda, and you'll find out later on it was actually made by Chevrolet, and that's not going to wear too well, I don't think. So, you know, a Honda's in a predicament here, and they issued a kind of interesting apology to their customer base. But at the same time, and this is what makes my teeth fall out of my head, they did not reject the underlying premise. They still talk about carbon neutrality and how they're very committed. down the road to being a mobility company rather than a car company. Oh, my gosh, a mobility company.

In other words, this is the sound of like the transportation as a service. Honda, Chevrolet, everybody would be just as happy to not sell you a vehicle any longer, but just to sell you the service of the car coming to get you? Yeah, and it's just absolutely tragic. If you can remember the early history of Honda, they began selling really excellent little motorcycles. That's where they began in the post-war era. and then they started making really excellent little cars. Some people remember the Hondas of the 70s and the 80s, the civics and the preludes,

and they were just outstanding little cars, really well engineered, fun to drive, very affordable. You could buy a Civic in 75 for $2,200, I think it was, and that works out to about $14,000 in today's money. They don't sell anything like that today. And I understand that a lot of it has to do with the impositions of the government regulatory apparatus that have made cars in general more expensive, but there are still things that they could do to make their products appealing. And I wish, wish that they would go back to focusing on that rather than on mobility. Yeah, it's a great article once again, Honda's first ever money losing year. Now, was it a huge amount of money or just like a minor speed bump in their corporate profits?

And I think they are probably underreporting it like all the other manufacturers are, you know, because the losses have been so staggering. And they're trying to figure out what are they going to do about it. And in a compounding problem, Trump's tariffs are proven to be enormously expensive for the industry generally. And I think what was it last week, he decided he's going to impose another 25% tariff on vehicles that are made in Europe, which will encompass Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, a lot of vehicles are made over there and shipped over here. It's just, it's a disaster. Unfortunately, the tariffs do not make it more advantageous, really, to manufacture in the United States of America. Our costs, you know, our costs. You know, our costs.

are still too high. And that's what we haven't really been doing a lot to tamp down here. At least I don't think we have. It doesn't appear that way. No, nothing. That's, you know, to me, that's the frustrating thing about Trump's tariffs. He has done, as far as I can tell, essentially nothing to deal with the manufacturing costs that have made manufacturers leave this country and go elsewhere to produce their vehicles because they can do so less expensively than here. So what do the tariffs accomplish? All they accomplish is getting rid of the lower priced alternatives and thereby making everything uniformly more expensive. Yeah, and you have a car companies that are now talking to foreign car companies. We're not going to bring our least expensive vehicles into

the United States market anymore. We were discussing that last week, which, and then you have Chevrolet and GMC and Ford and Chrysler not making small cars, period, any longer. So where does that leave us? In a bad place, doesn't it? Really bad place. So, yeah, that's an issue, though. Hey, worth reading here once again, Haunt is first ever money-losing year. That's on E.P.O.O.com. And once again, government mandates. It's what's doing a lot of this.

We talk with Scott. Scott, you've been holding on here a little bit. You want to talk with Eric about something? By the way, we're happy to take calls for Eric Peters this morning on this segment. 7705-633. What are you thinking there, Scott? Go ahead. Well, hey, Bill.

Hey, Eric. A long time Honda buyer, and I raised Hondas back in the 80s, late 80s and early 90s and made championships. You know, I was very successful with a car. Only complaints were headroom, for helmets, but that was worked out later. And I'll have to say, I recently bought a couple of Honda motorcycles.

One is made in Brazil. A wonderful bike from Mepford Power Sports, a little plug there. What is your feeling, Eric, on producing cars a little closer to town, man. A little closer to the WERG. What do you think about that? Okay, what was that, Eric?

I'm not following. You said a little closer to town? Yeah, we're in Medford, Oregon. I think you're out of town, by the way. Well, yeah, he's in Virginia, and we've made that pretty clear. Oh, okay. Okay. Because we have BP autos in Eagle Point, too, you know.

Oh, I didn't. Oh, I will go. It must be a different. Yeah, good advertising dollar here. somebody wants to go over there and sell them. Anyway, I was just wondering what he thought about producing cars. Hey, you know, in southern Oregon. How about that?

Okay. Well, I don't know specifically, but I would imagine that Oregon is probably one of the least friendly places to manufacture anything because of your more onerous regulations on manufacturing. And also, and remember the corporate activity tax that we charge you a percent just off of your gross. It doesn't matter if you're making money on it. That tends to be a killer for any manufacturing. manufacturers that want to do. Absolutely.

But you know, as an aside, you guys, I've got a number of Honda motorcycles, including an ancient 1983 Silver Wing GL-650. And so what is it? It's more than 40 years old. The thing is so overbuilt, so well designed. I never have to do anything to it. Yeah, hold on. Yeah, let's finish one of the time there.

All right. Scott, I appreciate it. I'd love to see manufacturing here. As a matter of fact, we did have Brammo, the electric motorcycle, made here, for a short time, but that it ceased operation here, too, Eric, if you recall. Yeah, because who wants an electric motorcycle? I mean, it's like a fish that jogs. It's not, there's no purpose to it. Speaking of which, whatever happened to the Harley Davidson electric motorcycle, is that gone now?

The dead wire? Yeah. They're pretty much trying to divest themselves of that disaster as well. I don't remember what the actual numbers are, but they were epically bad. Obviously, obviously. It's like this is like take a ballpane hammer and hit yourself in the head with it. People who like motorcycles and in particular Harley motorcycles, the whole point is to feel that big V-twin, you know, the vibration of sound. A Harley that has not got an engine that makes no sound other than perhaps artificially generated motorcycle sounds, it's ludicrous. The idea that they were going to attract anybody who likes motorcycles to buy that was such a dumb brain-dead idea. I can't even believe it ever got out of the board. room and yet it did and it has it's it's cost harley a fortune and it's one of the reasons why harley is struggling right now now the thing about harley is that uh their demographic has been aging you know most of the people who would buy harley were considerably older and they were having trouble selling by motorcycles rather to younger people and is there any way to get that harley feel into a more modern style perhaps more affordable for let's say a young man

woman wanting to do that because that's where they needed to take it. And I guess they were thinking, oh, we'll just do an electric motorcycle and the electric motorcycle will scream youth, I guess, is what they were thinking. I don't know. Sure it's possible. Why not go back to their roots? You know, when Harley's, you know, the initial crop of Harleys that were attractive to young people, it was basically a tube frame and an engine and, you know, some spoke to wheels. And then it was something that the owner would add to and customize and make their own. You know, there's nothing inherently expensive about an air-cooled V-twin engine, there ought not to be, or a tube frame, you know, bring it back down to being a simple thing that you could buy for, say, $8,500,

and then, you know, offer them a plethora of dealer-available options that, you know, the owner could put on the bike, make it serviceable like it was. One of the attractions of those old bikes was that you worked on it, you kept it up. You know, now they're over-electronized and almost everything that you do on that bike, a new Harley other than change the oil, requires going to the dealer to hook it up to the Harley computer to sink whatever the part is that you want to have installed. Boy, that kind of goes against the reason why you would want to have a motorcycle in the first place. Particularly, I think, young people, it's one thing if you're talking about a 60-year-old guy,

you know, who just wants to, you know, ride his big touring bike around and doesn't wrench anymore because he's too arthritic and old to do it. Okay, that's fine. I get that. But for a 25-year-old guy probably wants to wrench on this thing himself. and doesn't want to pay a Harley dealer. God only knows what, $100 an hour to work on the bike. Yeah, to flash the ROM, as it were.

Right. Okay. Eric Peters, we're talking cars and motorcycles in this case and the open road here, too. We'll have some of the latest reviews coming up. And, of course, happy to take your call, 770563, right back on KMED. This is the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED. Got something on your mind? Give Bill a shout at 541-770.

5-633-7-0-KMED. A couple minutes before 7 o'clock. This is KMEDE. KMEDE H-D-HD-E-D-HD-D-EG-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-BAS. It's wheels up Wednesday with Eric Peters. We've been talking about Honda losing money and motorcycles, the electric motorcycles, incutting it, you know, out there. And what about Harley, too? I had a question from Dan, Eric, who wrote me last night about you.

And he says, hey, Bill, this might be a good question for Eric today with Honda announcing that first year loss in their history, why didn't they ever move into a truck market and do something that could compete with the Tacoma and the Tundras? I've been a big fan of their product since the early 1980s riding their three-wheeler's in the desert, and I even cut my grass with a Honda back in the day. Now, I guess they talked, he wasn't a big fan of the ridgeline. I actually thought the ridge line was a pretty good truck. kind of a truck SUV sort of thing, but it hasn't been well received, I think, in the United States market. What are you thinking? No, that's not true. The Richland has actually done quite well.

It has? It's basically, yeah, it's based on the pilot. It has a bed in the back. Yeah, you know, it's a very practical vehicle in many ways more practical than a conventional truck. Can tow a six engine, by the way, which is something that's fairly uncommon for all the reasons that you and I have discussed. So it has the luxury motor now with a six cylinder, right? I think it's the only Honda other than the pilot that still has a V6. Yeah. Now, but I agree with you that, yeah, I don't know why the Japanese manufacturers in particular went away from the small truck market.

Well, I take it back. I think I know why they did. There's more profit per vehicle in selling, you know, the current super-sized Tacoma, for example, and the supersized frontier. Both these trucks are effectively full-sized by the standards of the early 2000. Oh, yeah. When you look at an old early 2000-era Tacoma, or a thunder or something like that, they were considerably smaller, but it's like everything else

kind of got, well, you had to get the giant and then you had to put the angry catfish face on the front, right? Yeah, and they're twice as expensive. You know, the current frontier, I think, there are all these so-called mid-sized trucks, that's what they are now. They start in the low 30s, around $32, $33,000. Whereas a compact truck, such as my frontier, I've got an 02, those things used to sell for about $12,000.

bucks. So yeah, and I think if any manufacturer were to bring back a vehicle like that and get it into market for around 15,000 bucks, I think they would sell enormously well. I would love to see that happen. Well, I kind of had hope when you saw some of those, what was the kind of truck hybrid that the Ford was bringing? Was it the Maverick or was it? The Maverick is like the Ridge Line. It's based on the escape. So it's based on a crossover. It's fundamentally a front wheel drive, all wheel drive, chassis. So it's not really a truck. You know, trucks typically have body on frame construction, rear wheel drive with a part-time, four-wheel drive system with low-range gearing and all that stuff.

But still, you know, for a little knocking around vehicle that's practical, it's great. Now, you know, the problem with the Maverick was that, you know, initially Ford promised they were going to sell it for just under $20,000. And that was, and they couldn't make enough of them at that price. They were insanely popular when they first came out. And they may still be, for all I know, but they're not 20,000 or 23,000. thousand anymore, are they? No, they're closer to 30 again. So they just gets you coming and going, which is a shame. You know, it's such an opportunity as I see it. They may be held back by the

idea that they might not make as much profit per vehicle, but I believe that if such a vehicle were available, they would sell so well, particularly now, that they would more than make up for it. And can you imagine if they put a 50 mile per gallon diesel engine in a little truck and made it available in this country. Oh, my gosh. Well, they used to have something like that back in the day. It was a little truck, but it was kind of that hybrid thing, the Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel truck back in the day. We used to be able to get that engine in a lot of little vehicles. And it's just, you know, out the window now. You get the Toyota, the little high lux champ that you and I harp on a lot. That's available with the diesel engine outside of the United States. And it's available for about 16,000 bucks.

Now, it's minimalist, granted. It doesn't have a lot of amenities in it. But, I personally would love to be able to buy a brand new 50 mile per gallon diesel pickup with a manual transmission, by the way. Why was it, though, that Honda doesn't seem to go into the pickup truck? Did they just see too much competition from the Ford's and the Toyotas? Well, you know, the Japanese have had difficulty penetrating the half-ton market, obviously. Okay. That's the, you know, that, they've just decided they can't compete with that. Though they did compete very successfully in the compact market.

And Honda never got into that. I think Honda was the only major Japanese car company that never offered. I might be wrong about this, but I think I'm right. A compact-sized truck, Toyota Isuzu, Nissan obviously all did. And I'm not sure why Honda never got into that market because I think it potentially, it is a huge market. There are a lot of people out there. I'm one of them. You may be one of them who need and would love to have a little truck and who don't need some gigantic,

ridiculous, I mean, no offense, but I don't need a monster truck. Yeah, I don't need a work truck, but it would be nice to have something with a minor bed that you can tell, okay, I can throw some soil in it over at biomass or, you know, various other places. If it can take a sheet of plywood, I'm good with that. You know, something like the basics, you know, just small, kicking around kind of truck duties. But yeah, not the kind of truck that you're going to see on a construction site. I mean, those are real work trucks, and I understand the need to have the big frame on body and all that kind of design. and that towing capacity when you're towing that trailer around those work trailers. I get that, okay?

You are saying, though, there's an article up there today. Diesel is dead. I'm a little concerned about that because the one thing I have noticed is that the price of diesel is soared out of sight here. And we're looking at $8 diesel out on the coast right now. But it was going up there even before the Iran war situation. What is killing diesel at the moment? Is it just the price or something else going on? No, it really doesn't have anything to do with the price per se.

it has to do with the regs. Looking around, can you think of a single current model year passenger vehicle that you can get with a diesel engine? None. I can't think of any. None. I think the only vehicle that still is available that isn't considered heavy duty is the Chevy Silverado half-ton, 1500. General Motors still offers diesel as an option in the higher trims. But you know, you wind up paying $55,000 to get it.

So, you know, they're just piece by piece, the regs have pushed dies off the market by making them much more expensive to buy, not particularly efficient and more complicated. You know, one of the great virtues of diesel engines in the past was that they were so simple, mechanically injected diesels, you know, didn't have any electronics. You didn't even really need an alternator to run the engine. Once you got it started, it would just run. Now they've all got electric injection. They have got particulate traps, DEF, and as a result of that, they are very expensive.

They're not particularly efficient. And, you know, diesel fuel is just the final nail in the cost. And by the way, that's going to affect heavy trucking more than personal transportation. And we're going to feel that in the cost of food as this continues to worsen. Yeah. I'm looking at the cost of diesel, the cost of fertilizer made from natural gas and, of course, other fuels and inputs has doubled. And this is just as farmers are planting. So, yeah, the challenges that we're facing, I think, economically are just beginning here. So let's talk about the good news you have. I don't know if it's good news or not.

2006 Land Rover Defender. This is the latest review you just put up. Yeah, it's something special because, among other things, you can get it with, I think, four or even five different engines ranging from the ubiquitous two-liter four, all the way up to either of two V8s. The one they sent me had the magnificent five-liter supercharged V8. Oh, man. Supercharging. Yeah, supercharging is getting to be extremely uncommon because turbos are more efficient. I'm not going to slam the turbo. But the supercharger sound is something particularly wonderful.

Yeah, there's kind of a particular wine to it, isn't there? Yeah, because it's mechanical. Yeah. You know, it's an engine-driven air pump, basically, and it's got lobes or rotors inside of it that rotate as the engine spins, and you get this immediate reaction from the supercharger because there's no lag having to wait for the exhaust gas pressure to build, and the thrust that you get along with this wonderful sound. Now, the only criticism that I'll level is that Land Rover puts,

it's one of those acoustic plastic covers on top of the engine that muffles that sound. So they make it too quiet, right? Which, you know, I mean, the first thing I would do if I bought the vehicle would be to take that black plastic cover off so I could hear the supercharger some more. Listen, if you have a supercharger, if you have the bucks to get a supercharged land rover defender, I want people to hear that supercharger, right? Is that kind of where you're going? That's great.

Overall, how's the competency of it as a vehicle? I know that in the past they've had some reliability issues. I have some friends that have had some issues with them in the past. Oh, yeah. You know, reliability with any luxury vehicle is getting to be an issue just because they are so complicated. And they have another level of electronica on them, you know, having to do with all of the particular amenities and features that you see in those vehicles. But the impressive thing to me is that this thing is as capable as the defenders that you see in the nature shows, you know, from back in the day in the 70s, you'd see National Geographic explores the Mayan Outback and, you know, stuff like that. And they'd always be driving a defender with, you know, gas tanks on the side of it and all of that.

So it's unstoppable, shy of anything with treads. And yet at the same time, it's just remarkably pleasant and luxurious to drive at the same time. And that's really something, you know, just in terms of kudos to the engineers for being able to do both of those things without compromising either. And now then, the question, what did the one that you drive sticker at? Yeah, that's the that's the asterix at the end of the. review. It was $110,000. $110,000. God bless the Range Rover. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. We should all be able to have one, right? I would like it. I know. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's, what was it? Ferris Bueller said, you know, if you have the means,

I highly recommend picking one up. All right. What's you going to review for next week? What can we look forward to, huh? Well, something a little more down market. It looks like I'm getting, what is it, I'm getting the Subaru Outback, which has been redesigned for 2026. So we'll have some stuff to talk about next week. Very good. Eric, thanks so much. E.P.A.O.O.S.com. You always have a great time. Great commentary on articles and so much more.

It's all in there. All right. We'll see you then. Be well. Thank you, Bill. All righty. Well, the ladies from Fox News is coming up here. And then more of your calls. We were talking earlier about the 8647 sign in Josephine County.

And I ended up having a difference of opinion with some of it. can we survive that kind of nonsense around here in southern Oregon or should something be done about it? I'm happy to take your calls at 770-5633. Just how clean...