Season 2, Episode 125 - Have You Heard? BYD Shark, Updates on SCOUT, ’25 Nissan Frontier, Chevy Tahoe and more

 

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Sean P. Holman (0s):

Hey Lighting Have. you heard?

1 (4s):

Oh no. Oh, no, no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13s):

No. Uhuh

Sean P. Holman (13s):

Seems excessive. I don’t think

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15s):

That I have heard

Intro (16s):

The truck show. We’re going to show you what we know. We’re gonna answer. What? The truck. Because truck rides with The truck show. We have the lifted We have the lowered end. Everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa Whoa. It’s The truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Sean P. Holman (54s):

This episode of The truck Show Podcast Have, you heard it’s proudly presented by Nissan with the Frontier Titan and Titan Xd. Nissan has a truck for every need, along with the legendary Nissan durability. Test Drive. your next truck at a local Nissan dealer today, Or point your browser to Nissan usa dot com where you can use the build and price tool to configure a Nissan truck that fits your lifestyle. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 14s):

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Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 7s):

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Sean P. Holman (2m 28s):

Hey, lighting Have. you heard?

6 (2m 30s):

How about

Sean P. Holman (2m 31s):

No. First on this week’s new Truck News is the first drive from our friends over at TFL Truck of the Chinese 2025 BYD Shark pickup. We’ve talked about it on the news before, but didn’t know anybody who’s driven it. And I, guess our guys headed out to, was it Texas to drive this truck, which is not coming to the US

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 51s):

Now. Is this the one where they had it go swimming

Sean P. Holman (2m 54s):

In the fish tank? Yeah. Among other things. Yeah. you know, they go to their website, TFFL truck, you’ll see it, watch their video, but a quick overview without giving it away, they basically said, Hey, it’s a good effort but it’s not perfect. And it’s basically the size of a mid-size truck. It’s all battery.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 9s):

Is it being marketed as a submarine?

Sean P. Holman (3m 13s):

Not currently. And it’s not being marketed at all here. All Wheel drive, four Wheel drive and it has a little range extending gas generator, a little 1.5 liter turbo, four under the hood, So, I like that. I like this idea of these range extending EVs where you can still fill up with gas but then have the EV experience. I think that’s kinda cool. RAM is the first to market that way. It’s the way trains are and So it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (3m 37s):

That. So essentially, so explain it for those that don’t understand.

Sean P. Holman (3m 39s):

So, so the difference is a hybrid, the electric motor and the gas are combined together and they touch the drivetrain and either one or both can be merged together, taken apart to run the vehicle on its own in a range extending ev the gas engine is just a generator and it doesn’t touch the drive train at all. It basically is charging the batteries as you drive. So the difference is a full ev you gotta plug in, you run it out, you plug it in, you run it out a hybrid, you run out the ev. If you’re done, you just go to gas motor, no big deal. And you go to the gas station to fill up. You can charge while driving or you can drive or you can top it off with a plug. A range extending EV is you fill up like at a normal gas station, you don’t have to plug it in because the onboard generator is gonna charge the batteries as you’re driving.

Sean P. Holman (4m 21s):

Right. And so it’s just different ways of applying the technology.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 24s):

It’s similar to the guys that put a Honda EU 2000 generator on the tow hitch of their Tesla.

Sean P. Holman (4m 30s):

I Okay. Right.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 32s):

I be

Sean P. Holman (4m 33s):

Sure you’ve seen that right? Yeah. BYD tells the guys over TFL go around 60 miles in all electric mode, fully charged. Full tank gas is about 520 miles, level two, level three or even a level one charger. They said zero to 60 was around five and a half seconds. And it’s got a gross vehicle weight of 7,700 pounds. So 5 5500 towing. So it’s, it’s right kind of in the middle. Sniffing around some of our mid-size trucks. They talked about the suspension brakes needing work that it wasn’t really well tuned. This one is a four Wheel in independent suspension. But this is like what we heard from our friend Simon. Some of the Chinese vehicles. you know, suspension seems to be an area that, that they definitely need improvement. I would say that living in America, we have pretty amazing vehicles as far as suspension tuning and things like that go.

Sean P. Holman (5m 19s):

Because I think our, our massive roads and different things people do sort of demanded it’s hard to find a vehicle that just sucks, right? These days. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 26s):

Were they trying to accomplish other than creating the world’s largest electric eel by, by having it swim around in that like whale tank, I’ve never seen anyone, what

Sean P. Holman (5m 35s):

Were they improving? Just how the batteries are sealed, sealed doors. It sealed and that it’s, you can do truck stuff.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 40s):

I mean it was all the way up to the mirrors.

Sean P. Holman (5m 41s):

So I said Texas, I meant Mexico. That’s, they had a friend who purchased this truck there for 47,000 And I. Guess they drove it down there. So anyway, kind of a cool review, but check our buddies out over at TFL Truck ’cause that’s a, that’s an interesting video. Hey lighting, Have, You, Heard.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 58s):

No Uhuh.

Sean P. Holman (5m 59s):

So October 24th. I know if we mentioned it before, but we count down the days ’cause I’m gonna go see the reveal of the New Scout brand. So. we have a a, a new Wait, wait, wait.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 14s):

Counting down.

Sean P. Holman (6m 16s):

Just gonna let it roll.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 18s):

Yeah, we just count it down. Okay.

Sean P. Holman (6m 20s):

So anyway, I’m heading out to go see this reveal event and where out in, I believe it’s Tennessee, they’ve got a new factory. They’ll be building vehicles in South Carolina Scout’s owned by Volkswagen. But Scout is, again, we’ve mentioned it before, they’re doing a lot of really crazy good stuff like secondary controls that are operated with switches and not just touchscreen everywhere. Stuff that truck and off-road buyers are gonna want. So if you guys are like, what Scout, if you remember International Harvester had an SUV from 1960 to 1980, call the scout that competed with the Bronco of the Land Cruisers, things like that. But after Volkswagen bought international harvesters successor I guess you could say, which is Navistar back in 2020, they also took possession of the Scout trademark and decided that’s how they were gonna do Enthusiast EVs here in the us.

Sean P. Holman (7m 8s):

So that’s how an American brand came into the hands of a German company to be built in America about off-roading. Go figure.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 16s):

Should we check in with Ben Palmer at 4 0 6 Grudge? ’cause he’s our resident scout expert. Wonder how how he feels about this? Yeah, we could call back acquisition. It’s been

Sean P. Holman (7m 23s):

A little while. Yeah, so anyway, I’ll I’ll let you know what I think. I think it’s gonna be pretty cool what I’m hearing. And there’s a lot of company like Rivian people over there now, Ford people over there now. There’s a lot of really smart people that left where they were at to go start scout from the ground up. So, well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 38s):

Volkswagen does know what they’re doing. I mean when you look at these, they’re

Sean P. Holman (7m 41s):

One of the biggest car companies in the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 42s):

World. Audi Group and Lamborghini and fricking,

Sean P. Holman (7m 45s):

They got their hands in a lot of cookies.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 46s):

Everybody else? Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (7m 48s):

Hey lighting Have. you heard talking about Woods All, right. So Nissan has announced the pricing for the 2025 Nissan frontier, which as you would expect, more standard equipment means more standard pricing. So prices are up around 1500 bucks more than before. And the entry level King Cab S four by two now starts at 33 5 60. And you can go through the, the trim walk a frontier SV King Cab four by four is now 39, 200 versus 37, 9 20 from before SV grades and higher get the larger 2.3 infotainment screen, which adds wireless Android auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility.

Sean P. Holman (8m 28s):

So going up the line, if you go all the way up to like what we like Frontier Pro four X crew cab was 41 5 50 still a bargain. When you look at the rest of the market, 43 to 80, if you go up to the SL crew cab four by four SL is full tilt. It’s all the Pro four X stuff. You get the sunroof and leather and all that. But it’s in a vehicle that’s made more for around town, less off roadie. Okay. That comes in at 46, 6 20. So that’s about where the frontier line stops at.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 58s):

So these increases, do they include destination?

Sean P. Holman (9m 0s):

The prices I quoted in include destination charge. Oh. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 3s):

Well that’s reasonable. Fully

Sean P. Holman (9m 4s):

Loaded. Mid-size truck for 45. Not a bad deal. Yep. Hey lighting Have, you heard, I mean

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 10s):

Now? No.

Sean P. Holman (9m 11s):

So Chevy is introducing and they’ve been teasing the 2025 Tahoes ’cause it gets a refresh and they’ve got a new trim that I haven’t heard of before. Maybe I’m wrong. But the premiere, have you seen the Tahoe premiere before?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 25s):

No, I’ve not

Sean P. Holman (9m 26s):

Heard of. So that is basically gonna slot in right below the, the high country. So it’s a supposedly some, you know, fancy trim above lt.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 35s):

So on the Chevy line, high country is the highest. Is the highest,

Sean P. Holman (9m 38s):

Correct. Yeah. So this will be

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 39s):

On the GMC side. That’s gonna be your Denali. Denali, okay.

Sean P. Holman (9m 43s):

Got it. Yeah. So it’s, but Premier, I always laugh ’cause I think if it’s like, you know, the Communist party and like maybe it needs little flags that pop out of the front fenders or something like that. No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 53s):

I don’t, I don’t

Sean P. Holman (9m 54s):

Do that to take some like global leader around

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 56s):

Premier. I just, I’m not a fan of that name. I I

Sean P. Holman (9m 59s):

Still doesn’t sound American to me. No. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 1s):

Look at our new Premier, to me Premier is the, is the, it’s what you call something when you’re out out of names. Premier

Sean P. Holman (10m 7s):

It, it gets some of its own exterior details. LED headlamps with running lamps and animated lighting on the, in the front fascia gets the LED tail lamps with animation as well, which means they move the, the lighting moves and then you can get Chrome door handles and side view mirrors with Chrome and 20 inch polished wheels. and it just, you know, it’s just,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 28s):

But how does the nose look? Because that’s what they keep messing with is the nose of The

Sean P. Holman (10m 32s):

Truck. It looks good. I mean it’s, it’s not, it’s just, see here I’m indifferent to it. It looks like a Tahoe

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 35s):

Hold on a second.

Sean P. Holman (10m 36s):

It’s nice. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 37s):

Don’t, it’s not ugly. It’s not crazy is much difference. Yeah. So it’s very similar to the current one. So. It’s, yeah, it, that’s not if you, you

Sean P. Holman (10m 45s):

Like current one, you’re not gonna be upset with the new one. Okay, how about that? Hey, lighting Have. you heard what?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 51s):

No, no, I have not heard

Sean P. Holman (10m 53s):

I know this is sort of outside of our, our wheelhouse, but Nissan has said they’re now working on a new Sylvia EV sports car. So, I Dunno if you guys remember, but while back,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 3s):

Wasn’t this Sylvia something else

Sean P. Holman (11m 6s):

Was the, Sylvia was the two 40 sx. Ah, there you go. There you go. Drive Nissan kind of has their, their sports cars were like the z the GTR and the Sylvia in Australia’s Drive magazine, Nissan Vice President of Global Product Strategy. Ivan Espinoza said we’ve been doing some very early upstream exercises of what that architecture could look like. So that basically means it’s like an initial planning phase. He says it’s not a done deal, but we’d love to be able to do it. And Nissan did these, I guess concepts a while back, And Don, don’t know if you guys remember it, but they were freaking awesome. and it was, they looked like the little dotsons, like a modernized version of the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 42s):

Dotsons. Yeah, yeah. I, yeah. Remember the graphics? I would

Sean P. Holman (11m 45s):

Buy that and if that’s what the Sylvia’s gonna be like, like that’s cool as hell.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 49s):

The retro look of this particular cart reminds me of the forthcoming rivian. I I realize they’re

Sean P. Holman (11m 54s):

Arthur three x. Well, yeah, yeah. This is more of a, a coop versus a, you know, two box, four-door hatchback, like the rally car. But this has, it is like that modern retro rally. But that’s, this is an older concept. So Don don’t know if they’re just using it for illustration or if it’ll the, the design language starts here. But if Nissan came out with some of the vehicles that they’ve teased, man in the car market, there’s nothing. I mean when you And I just got back from Minneapolis is where we landed. I mean

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 19s):

Nothing land of the most boring cars on the planet.

Sean P. Holman (12m 22s):

We had President Circle, which means you can choose from President Circle Gold or the five star area. There was nothing,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 28s):

Nothing to choose from.

Sean P. Holman (12m 30s):

It was, was so Ugg, everything was gray, black or silver. And they were all like low rent like Korean SUVs.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 39s):

And then when you got into like the reserved ones where like if you call ahead and say I’m willing to spend a thousand dollars on a rental car. Yeah, there was like a Porsche Macon and there was a master navigator Thereor navigator. But like they were all white. Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (12m 53s):

Black silver. Honestly the most exciting thing we saw was a fire engine Red Ram V six Quad Cab.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (12m 59s):

But it was beat up from the,

Sean P. Holman (12m 59s):

The feet up. But it was, it was beat up. Yeah. So anyway, So, it just, there’s not a lot of exciting things out there. Even my wife And I are in the process of getting a new vehicle for her. Man. It’s been hard. Like we’ve looked at all sorts of stuff and it’s just like, I’m, that’s a lot. Everything’s so expensive. You’re just sitting there going, man, that’s a lot of money for that. Yeah. Like, I’m gonna go spend a lot of money for a vehicle that I don’t really even feel good about. I’m just, I’m just in it. I mean that’s not everything, but we’ve been underwhelmed at some of the stuff that we’ve looked at. We’re like, oh this is supposed to be great. And we’re like, I mean, okay.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 29s):

Oh but you can’t say the same for The truck Market. I think there’s still a lot of

Sean P. Holman (13m 33s):

Exciting on No, it’s exciting. I, yeah, Bronco Raptor coming on the way. Wrangler three 90 twos. You’ve got Raptor Rs, you’ve got Z 70 ones and Bisons. And I mean there’s, there’s a lot. I just, and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (13m 42s):

On the pull truck side, we’ve got Ram to look forward to with the new heavy duty, which we don’t know what it’s gonna look like, but we’re excited.

Sean P. Holman (13m 47s):

So it’s just, it’s, I don’t know if we’re truck, you know, market Homers. So I. Guess we probably are, but it’s just, are we truck sluts? We are truck sluts. I just, there’s so many cars out there that could be cool that that aren’t so Hey Lighting Have. you heard

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 8s):

I can’t get through that one. Go

Sean P. Holman (14m 9s):

Ahead. That’s a long one. Yeah. Kind of interesting the Nissan Patrol. So we talked about the Armada is basically the same as the Global patrol is gonna be A little bit. Are

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 17s):

You gonna read through your Instagram fight with the guy about the patrol?

Sean P. Holman (14m 21s):

I mean you, should I do any? I don’t know because

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 25s):

All, right,

Sean P. Holman (14m 26s):

I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (14m 26s):

Can, we’ve talked about this for, I had to because in the last episode we read an email where the guy’s like stop talking over each other. You’re talking over the guests, you keep interrupting. But if I don’t interrupt Holman right now, then he’ll just gloss over this. So Holman was in an Instagram like feud. He was going back and forth and this thing extended through our entire trip to Wisconsin. Like he was just battling with this guy on Instagram. Every time We went to breakfast, lunch, dinner, he was like, hold on, let me check in with this guy and just bash him some more.

Sean P. Holman (14m 60s):

No, that’s not what happened. He just kept responding. And, I. I just kept responding back and the whole thing was, I said that the last Armada was not a patrol, it was a subset of that platform, which is true. There were a bunch of differences. Like, you know, the brakes were different, the suspension was different, the rear cross member was different. The options like hydraulic motion control was different. Fuel tank was different. you know, all the stuff that was different, you couldn’t just take

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 21s):

And he was just trying to say that the,

Sean P. Holman (15m 23s):

They’re the exactly the same. They’re all the same.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 25s):

And generally speaking they’re all the same. And you were kind of nitpicking at pieces here and

Sean P. Holman (15m 29s):

Piece there. Well no but it, it wasn’t it. The difference is the current armada slash patrol were developed with the US in mind. The old patrol was never developed with the US in mind. So when they made that the armada and they replaced the old Titan Alfalfa platform and they brought it on the patrol, they had to do a bunch to get it certified for the US market. So there’s a lot of little things that make it So. You couldn’t take that. A patrol put Armada badges and it would be suddenly be a armada in the us. That’s what

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 55s):

He was insinuating though. Right? Right. Not even insinuating just saying

Sean P. Holman (15m 58s):

They’re the exact same card. I’m like here’s all these differences. They’re not the exact, it’s a subset of that platform which Brent even talked to from Nissan. Right. Anyway, long story short, he’s like brings up Hellcat Demon and a V six Challenger.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 12s):

Those, they were the

Sean P. Holman (16m 13s):

Same. They’re the same car that has less changes in nutrient than they’re the same. I’m like, you don’t think those are the subset of that platform? ’cause if you pull ’em apart, there’s a lot of differences between those two cars that is not the same car. They didn’t just take the same body shell and just bolt some like high performance stuff. They’re again the subset of platform. So he goes, no, if the parts interchange, it’s the same car. So then I said to him, if you wore your sister’s dress, would you be a girl? And I haven’t heard back from him. So Don don’t, I don’t know, it’s just like wants to argue And. I like arguing back. Anyway, so the whole point of this is we get the 3.5 liter twin turbo, V six here in the us. Well guess what? The patrol has the option of the base 3.8 liter V six from the frontier.

Sean P. Holman (16m 55s):

Ooh, that’s kinda interesting. So. it gets uprated to 316 horsepower and 285 pound feet of torque. But I think they know that the US market wants the big power. So it’s not even an option here. So I just thought it was kind of interesting that the overseas patrols will be getting and And I think there’s also gonna be more of a base patrol right? Than we get as a base arm. ’cause it’s going to be probably for UN and fleets and working. Gotcha.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 19s):

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Sean P. Holman (17m 20s):

Yeah. Anyway, the patrol will be sold in the UAE Saudi Arabia, anything a part of the GCC countries. It’s also gonna be patrol in Australia. It’s just basically armada here in the States. So anyway,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 32s):

I like the fact that we’re unique.

Sean P. Holman (17m 34s):

Hey, lighting Have, you heard? No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (17m 37s):

No. So

Sean P. Holman (17m 37s):

According to GM authority, GM rival Toyota is scaling back ev output target by one third. So following Ford’s footsteps of everybody starting to pull back A little bit from forcing EVs down down our throats. Lots of cool EVs coming. I think they realize the cars have to be compelling. It can’t just be a Camry electric vehicle. There has to be something that makes it interesting. But I think hybrids are starting to come back more into favor as people go, wait, this makes more sense for my life. And you know, we’ve talked about it lots on the show. I just thought, interesting. Seems like these companies, like years ago, 2035, we will never make another Ice v. Ever,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 11s):

Ever, ever. No matter

Sean P. Holman (18m 13s):

What. And they’re like, except for a truck. Except for the heavy duty. Except for this. And then, but but the rest of you. Right? But I think now people are starting to, or companies are starting to figure out like that may not be the way

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 23s):

Choice. This is the way,

8 (18m 27s):

This is the way

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (18m 29s):

The truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous LLC. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.