TTAC Podcast: The Best and Worst Cars with Jake Fisher of Consumer Reports

by Tim Healey

Published: January 19th, 2024

ttac podcast the best and worst cars with jake fisher of consumer reports

We're doubling up this week after the tech issues we faced last week.

We sat down with Jake Fisher, the Senior Director of Auto Testing at Consumer Reports, to talk about their best and worst cars of 2023.

And our best and worst, of course.

Click here to check it out and listen in, and don't forget to check out CR's podcast, called TalkingCars, here.

Thanks for listening!

[Image: Honda]

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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4 of 27 comments

Probert on Jan 21, 2024
A BEV is about 400% more efficient than an ICE car and gets around 110 - 120 egmp on the EV cycle. ICE is about 20-25% efficient (about 1 in 5 gallons of gas are actually use for propulsion, the rest is lost in heat and noise), and a BEV is around 90% efficient. On the highway, even at its most inefficient, a BEV is much much more efficient than ICE.

2 Reply
- Ajla on Jan 21, 2024
  There are some nonhybrid ICE engines that achieve thermal efficiency in the 40% range now but that isn't a match for the 80%+(?) that a BEV can manage. Assuming similar size class and output, there doesn't seem to be much efficiency gains on the highway comparing a hybrid to a conventional ICE. There are efficiency gains comparing a BEV to either a hybrid or conventional ICE.
  
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- 28-Cars-Later on Jan 21, 2024
  "gets around 110 - 120 egmp on the EV cycle." Not sure what "egmp" is other than Hyundai's name for its BEV platform but according to this J.D. there's a bit of fraud going on with BEV mileage. In case of paywall: "In all of these cases, regulators punished carmakers that had cut corners and misled the public. But when it comes to electric cars, the government has a cheating scandal of its own. That scandal, grabbing far fewer headlines, is buried deep in the Federal Register—on page 36,987 of volume 65.When carmakers test gasoline-powered vehicles for compliance with the Transportation Department’s fuel-efficiency rules, they must use real values measured in a laboratory. By contrast, under an Energy Department rule, carmakers can arbitrarily multiply the efficiency of electric cars by 6.67. This means that although a 2022 Tesla Model Y tests at the equivalent of about 65 miles per gallon in a laboratory (roughly the same as a hybrid), it is counted as having an absurdly high compliance value of 430 mpg. That number has no basis in reality or law. For exaggerating electric-car efficiency, the government rewards carmakers with compliance credits they can trade for cash. Economists estimate these credits could be worth billions: a vast cross-subsidy invented by bureaucrats and paid for by every person who buys a new gasoline-powered car." In the legal word an attorney isn't going to publish anything negative which cannot be corroborated by evidence else they leave themselves open to libel, among other things. So, two different playbooks one grounded in some kind of science and the other fantasy.
  
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Pig_Iron on Jan 22, 2024
If he worked for Sports Illustrated instead of ConReps, his name would be Fake Jisher. 😉

Like Reply
- Grein002 on Jan 22, 2024
  If he worked for Sports Illustrated, he would be unemployed.https://deadline.com/2024/01/sports-illustrated-staff-layoff-authenic-brands-arena-group-1235797884/
  
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Recent Comments

Lynn Joiner Lynn JoinerJust put 2,000 miles on a Chevy Malibu rental from Budget, touring around AZ, UT, CO for a month. Ran fine, no problems at all, little 1.7L 4-cylinder just sipped fuel, and the trunk held our large suitcases easily. Yeah, I hated looking up at all the huge FWD trucks blowing by, but the Malibu easily kept up on the 80 mph Interstate in Utah. I expect a new one would be about a third the cost of the big guys. It won't tow your horse trailer, but it'll get you to the store. Why kill it?
Lynn Joiner Just put 2,000 miles on a Chevy Malibu rental from Budget, touring around AZ, UT, CO for a month. Ran fine, no problems at all, little 1.7L 4-cylinder just sipped fuel, and the trunk held our large suitcases easily. Yeah, I hated looking up at all the huge FWD trucks blowing by, but the Malibu easily kept up on the 80 mph Interstate in Utah. I expect a new one would be about a third the cost of the big guys. It won't tow your horse trailer, but it'll get you to the store. Why kill it?
Ollicat I am only speaking from my own perspective so no need to bash me if you disagree. I already know half or more of you will disagree with me. But I think the traditional upscale Cadillac buyer has traditionally been more conservative in their political position. My suggestion is to make Cadillac separate from GM and make them into a COMPANY, not just cars. And made the company different from all other car companies by promoting conservative causes and messaging. They need to build up a whole aura about the company and appeal to a large group of people that are really kind of sick of the left and sending their money that direction. But yes, I also agree about many of your suggestions above about the cars too. No EVs. But at this point, what has Cadillac got to lose by separating from GM completely and appealing to people with money who want to show everyone that they aren't buying the leftist Kook-Aid.
Jkross22 Cadillac's brand is damaged for the mass market. Why would someone pay top dollar for what they know is a tarted up Chevy? That's how non-car people see this.
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