The future of the auto industry 'looks pretty bright': Jay Leno
Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian previews his interview with Jay Leno at the L.A. Auto Show, and highlights some of this year's biggest reveals.
Video Transcript
ADAM SHAPIRO: Our senior producer Pras Subramanian got the best assignment in the world. He is at the Los Angeles Auto Show. And who's this fella Jay Leno somebody that you were talking to?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: That's right. Hey, Jay, Jay was there. But Seana and Adam, I really miss your guys voices. It has been a long time here. I'm really missing you guys. But anyway, yeah, I spoke to Jay Leno. We couldn't go to LA without going to the most preeminent, one of the preeminent car collections in the world. That's Jay's facility, his garage. It is insane. We talked to him about the auto industry and what he sort of, kind of his takeaway after kind of a long year with the companies, and also why he's sort of hopeful. Let's take a listen.
JAY LENO: Well the nice thing is, at least as far as the American side, American manufacturing is now being run by engineers. In the '70s, '80s, even the '90s, we brought Bill in from Whirlpool. He's going to run the automotive division. And Jim from Maytag. They're not engineers. They're market people. I can remember when Chrysler was just turning out K-cars just to turn them out. And hopefully, we'll fix them under warranty. And luckily, all the companies now are being run by engineers. Mary Barra is an engineer, Mark Reuss at GM, he's at Nurburgring every weekend testing cars himself.
Ford, it's really exciting. I mean, I look at the new Corvette that just came out. And they built a $300,000 car for $65,000. I mean, the new Corvette has a bespoke engine, four cam, four valves, flat plane crank just like all the European exotics. It's the most powerful normally aspirated engine you can get. So I think the future looks pretty bright.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: See I think Jay is pretty hopeful about the US manufacturing in general, US car makers in general but how where they going. Because they're led by these engineers. So and we'll have more on that whole conversation with him. We talked to him about comedy, about the return of fans to actually to his performances. So we'll have more of that next week.
SEANA SMITH: Pras one of the things that Jay Leno just mentioned, the new Corvette. It was revealed at the show. And I just was reading a headline that called it the ultimate Chevy dream car. What did you think of it?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: We sat inside it today. And I actually spoke to one of the product managers of that car. It's very impressive. Look. It's one of the last great gas powered cars you're probably going to be able to buy. It is the most powerful naturally aspirated V8 engine in the world right now. And they made it just for that car. And guess what? It's going to probably be a little less than $100,000, which sounds like a lot of money, which it is. But I think it's a value proposition. It can't be beat.
Another thing that Jay also mentioned, I want to pivot really quickly here, which is back to EVs and Fisker. We spoke to Henrik Fisker earlier today about the Ocean SUV, the new production model of that. And it's pretty impressive in terms of what you get in terms of 300 mile range, up to 500 horsepower at the highest trim. But then also it's the price. It's going to be below $40,000. And so the big question I have is how are they going to make that happen? And Henrik is using contract manufacturing with Magna in Austria. And maybe that's what he's learned from his past experiences with the car company that went out of business is maybe you've got to have partners that can help you too.
And lastly, I want to talk about the Hyundai Ioniq 5. This is going to be an EV crossover that's going to come out next month I believe. And I was really impressed by it. I thought the retro, futuristic look of it really was charming. It's going to have about 300 miles of range as well, not the most power in the world. But it should come in around $50,000. So it's a good value proposition. So that's really exciting to me. But I also got to say, look. I'm at the Toyota stand right now in front of the Toyota RAV4. This is basically the number one selling non truck in America.
It's a crossover SUV. It's a hybrid. This is a hybrid here. It's what Americans are buying hand over fist. And you kind of got to say, hey, the EVs are there. But Toyota is still here. They're still making the RAV4. Lastly, Toyota's an established brand. There's also upstarts. VinFast. This is a Vietnamese company, Vietnamese startup. It's got two electric vehicles coming out. They're not going to be here in the States just yet. But they might be. And they're coming on fast if you ask me, these upstarts. Seana.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Hey Pras. I'm going to I'm going to have some fun with you. Tell your camera guy to zoom in on that Vietnamese car. Although I got to tell you, the Ocean looked hot and the Iconic is it called at Hyundai looked hot. And you're talking to a guy-- my first big boy car I bought myself was an '87 Hyundai Excel. Two door tuna fish can. So is anyone talking about the end of the gasoline engine? Because those EVs are hot.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: We asked Jay about that. And he thought that this is basically the last hurrah for the gas powered engine really. Basically he's saying that this is going to be the end of the road in terms of 90% of cars sold are gas powered. So and that's kind of the peak, we're at peak gas car. And it's all going to kind of slowly trickle down. And EVs are going to go mainstream. The question is, how fast will that be? Will that be tomorrow? Will that be in five years? Will that be in 20? I think that's the big question that automakers are trying to answer. But I think if you look at Wall Street, they're betting on it happening much sooner. That's my takeaway.
ADAM SHAPIRO: I haven't been told to wrap with you yet. So I got to ask you, do you have a favorite at the show? Is there a car that's just going, Pras, you've got to drive me?
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Well I mean, that Z06 was pretty hot. That was a very-- that's really up my alley in terms of a car that you get the most out of a gas powered car as you can. The engine's in the back. Really great. The Hyundai Ioniq, I think that's going to sell like hotcakes. It just looks the part. It just looks great. I really like that car. And there are some trucks here. There's a new Toyota Tundra, the Nissan Frontier, some pickups. Pickups. Americans love their pickups. So they're always going to be here.
The question is, when are we going to get those electric pickups? Right Adam? The Rivian's going to come out soon hopefully. Hopefully we get our hands on that. But and then the F-150 Lightning's here too. So that was very impressive. So I think that's kind of the mix of trucks, EVs, and a truck EVs as well.
ADAM SHAPIRO: All right. I see you in an Audi, what is it, is it the A7? Or in BMW 700 series. But that's just what I see you driving.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Hey that works. I like that.
ADAM SHAPIRO: Well, put it on the budget. You can do the expense report. Money's no object at Yahoo. Pras Subramanian at the LA Auto Show. Thank you very much.
