The Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars podcast – Episode # 137 – Connected Car Security fears and plans

Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars — Episode 137

“Connected Car Security fears and plans”
Published: 2026-09-14
Hosts: Trevor Long, Stephen Fenech
Guest: Johannes Lehmann (Australian Electric Vehicle Association)
Caller: Mary

[00:00:00] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars with Stephen Fenech and Trevor Long. Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden. Big thanks to the great people at NRMA Insurance, helping Australians protect what matters most for 100 years and many more. They’re one of Australia’s largest insurers. Electric vehicles and Uniden smart dash cams. Get one front, rear, get— and the great thing is they cover all price ranges, so it doesn’t matter what your budget is, there’s a dash cam for you in Uniden’s range, either their iGO cams or their DashView range. Plenty of options, plenty of styles, and of course front and rear if the R is on the model name. Stephen, great to see you, mate.

[00:00:33] Stephen Fenech: Good to be here. A lot to talk about. There is some important issues we’re going to talk about today.

[00:00:37] Trevor Long: We’re going to take your calls shortly. 0477 657 657. We are going to drive the Mercedes-Benz CLA Electric that Stephen Fenech has his money down on.

[00:00:47] Stephen Fenech: My future car.

[00:00:48] Trevor Long: Hello. So we’re going to get behind the wheel of that and take you with us while we, while we talk about it in the car. And we’re going to talk policy, uh, right after this, uh, when it comes to privacy in electric vehicles. We appreciate you listening, uh, wherever you’re listening. It’s great to have your company and, uh, great to have you on the show. If you want to get in touch, you can do that, uh, 0477 657 657. Now, there’s been a strong conversation over recent months about, um, privacy, data security, and a range of things in electric cars. And I’ll say it, a lot of the headlines are about Chinese cars. Yes, the media loves to beat up a Chinese car.

[00:01:36] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, any product that’s from China, any product from China.

[00:01:40] Trevor Long: True. And the thing is, there’s a little sense of absolute genuineness to it because every smart— every car that we buy today is pretty much connected, and therefore, where is our data going? Well, we can have a conversation about that with someone who knows far more than you and I, Stephen, and that is someone who represents the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, which I’m a member of. Are you a member? Did you join? You didn’t join yet. Johannes Lehmann is a member of the policy group at the AEVA, and he joins us now on the line.

Johannes Lehmann — EV data privacy and policy discussion

[00:02:09] Trevor Long: G’day, mate, how you doing?

[00:02:09] Johannes Lehmann: I’m doing great, thank you for having me, guys.

[00:02:11] Trevor Long: Mate, thank you for joining us. You, a couple of months ago, you put out a release about this, this, this problem, if you want to call it, smart cars and the lack of laws around them. So what is the objective from, from the association here? Is it to guide government and help government understand this problem? Is the government even active actively interested in this problem?

[00:02:33] Johannes Lehmann: Well, to give you some background on the association, or to give your listeners some background of the association, I mean, we’ve been around for more than 50 years. It’s the world’s longest continuously existing EV owners association. And we do, we try to do all kinds of things around information for prospective EV buyers. We try to help people on their journey with their EV because really some things are easier explained by owners for owners and if you just go on the internet or read your typical car journalist reviews. And very often, obviously, we came across these questions of data security, like pretty much these headlines that you just introduced in your introduction about like, is my car spying on us? And all these kind of sometimes a bit more misinformation-guided pieces. And that’s where we as a hodgepodge of different people with different backgrounds in the policy team looked at it a little bit more detailed I myself have an automotive background. I used to work in China before on smart cars. And then there are other people who really look at it from a consumer lens, from a data security lens. And that’s where we then found out that the underlying regulatory framework that we have in Australia is less than ideal. So basically right now you have a Privacy Act which is still somewhat unchanged since the year 1988 and by no means covers this modern kind of world we live in with connected vehicles. I mean, connected vehicles can also be diesel, can be petrol, can be plug-in hybrids, can be hybrids. I mean, every car nowadays has this massive screen. You can stream music whatsoever. So that’s where we then really looked into that and tried to come up with regulatory recommendation to start a national discussion that doesn’t necessarily go down this country of origin route or this— it’s EVs only that are spying on you, but just We generally try to, from a consumer perspective, to give a level regulatory playing field and clear consumer safeguards.

[00:04:44] Trevor Long: Yeah, okay.

[00:04:45] Stephen Fenech: Well, let’s dig into it a bit. So we’re talking data, we’re talking privacy. Like, what sort of data are the cars collecting and sharing? And would we be surprised at the level of data and the type of data that’s being collected?

[00:05:03] Johannes Lehmann: Oh, well, I mean, I think with that media coverage that you have out there, like Choice Magazine did some big reports on that, it’s actually no surprise anymore. Or kind of, they reported that some data was shared already without people really knowing to third-party vendors. They named manufacturers in that. So the data sharing is everything from engine speed to talk about geolocation, at times even voiceprints if you have advanced voice control in in the cars. They use that to train then these voice algorithms. And you have other telemetry data really being shared to wherever at the moment. So we really— there is no clear legal framework that governs this underlying situation that we are faced with right now in Australia.

[00:05:55] Trevor Long: And so what is the general principle of your policy guidance to governments on this? I understand that one of the challenges here is where the data is stored. You know, I look, I think most of us real-minded people would be like, I don’t mind that the car’s doing these things because it’s good that it knows where I am if there’s an emergency. It’s good that it knows how fast I’m going in case there’s a speed issue ahead. All these kinds of reasons for that, right? We can justify almost every bit of the data, but where the data is saved is a really important question, which you’re essentially suggesting gets put on the agenda.

[00:06:32] Johannes Lehmann: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there needs to be some sort of local Australian storage for data that leaves the vehicle. I mean, if you look at our recommendations to give you some insights, we also recommend that actually key personal identifiers are processed actually within the vehicle. So only really necessary data pieces should leave the vehicle and then they should be stored in Australia. And really the thing is, if the data goes overseas, what potentially might happen under the current legal framework that allows it, you don’t really know what ends up happening with that data. And you said it right. I mean, data telemetry sharing for engineering purposes or to give consumers added benefit can have a lot of benefit. But really, concerns are then around like, what are the secondary uses of those data? Who are the third-party providers that use the data? What happens to it? And I think important is with telemetry, very often people say, yeah, vehicle telemetry, as soon as I remove my name, I cannot be identified anymore. But that’s not the case. I mean, there have been reports done where like one major one was the ’38 Chaos Communication Congress of the Chaos Computer Club in Germany, which you have to understand is a white hat hacker organization. So they are like, it’s kind of like a society looking at helping the general population against cyber breaches, against whatever malicious activity in a hacking sense. And they even without having clear personal identifiers, on this vehicle data, they could see just based on movement patterns where the people were working. So they figured out that certain cars are operated by government officials. And then they coincidentally found also out that the same government officials around certain times of the day are attending certain brothels in certain towns. And that’s the typical— that’s a very bad example, but that really shows that you don’t need your ID link to the data or your name, still they can, based on the aggregation and the patterns, really see what you’re up to. And that has obviously for every consumer implications.

[00:08:51] Trevor Long: Try walking, boys.

[00:08:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but that’s not— You sort of dipped into the other sort of concern is privacy. And Trevor and I, we’ve done countless interviews where the headlines pop up, China might be listening to you or South Korea is listening to your conversations in the car. Is there any basis to this? And you said yourself, you have an automotive background, you used to work in China. So is there any concern in that area?

[00:09:24] Johannes Lehmann: Well, as a consumer-focused association, we don’t have the evidence. That’s why we as an association came forward with this legal, like a level legal playing field, like same rules for everyone, no matter where they come from. So no matter if it’s a car from the Americas, from Europe, South Korea that you’re or like China or other Asian countries. I think everything that then goes a bit more detailed into, let’s call it a national security investigation, I think there are agencies poised to handle that in an Australian context. And obviously they need to make evidence-based investigations into that. But we simply wanted to look at it from a consumer lens and without finger-pointing against everybody or anybody, and really have a level playing field, and everything else that’s up to the responsible government authorities to handle and make decisions if necessary.

[00:10:20] Trevor Long: Because one of your other broad suggestions, I think, is to look at the concept of opting in, turning some defaults off so that people get to choose, and most importantly, have awareness about what is being shared. And one of the examples in some of the research you’ve done is where a car could know how many contacts are in your phone because you’ve synced your phone up. Should that information ever leave anything but the infotainment system? No. Like, why? Why would it? So we kind of need visibility around the data, don’t we?

[00:10:50] Johannes Lehmann: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there needs to be the visibility. You need to be able to share, to delete that data. If you sell the car, some vehicle data needs to stay in the car. If you talk about safety, safety-relevant data like battery-related data whatsoever. But really, that shouldn’t kind of go on to the next owner. And also for the these secondary and optional data use cases, there needs to be a clear understanding for the consumer what their data is being used for. So not like your 50-page privacy notice documents and somewhere written in there is written a benefit for the consumer and off they go and kind of share their data. I think it should be clearly understandable. I know nowadays people, they do that with social media and so on, but I feel like a vehicle is still a different beast because you run every every day to school with it. It’s potentially endangering your life if something goes wrong with it. And obviously, it’s an asset that you keep much longer. So you keep it maybe for 10 to 15 years. So that’s why it’s really important to have this clear understanding for a consumer what this optional secondary data is used for, that he’s then hopefully opting in, you know, what you just mentioned out of the policy.

[00:12:11] Stephen Fenech: Well, this is an issue that’s not going to go away because according to your stats here, 95% of all new cars, including EVs, that are sold in Australia by 2035, that’s 95% of vehicles are going to be connected to the internet. So this is— we need to really act now to make sure these guidelines are in place well before this time.

[00:12:34] Johannes Lehmann: Exactly.

[00:12:35] Trevor Long: And what’s been the response from this kind of policy proposal and suggestion. Are you actively engaging with government on this?

[00:12:44] Johannes Lehmann: We’ve had a few responses, to say it like this. Anything else, we shall see how the discussions are going. And we hope to really kickstart the discussion here in Australia with all that media buzz surrounding the policy to help move the country forward, help consumers in the country, and Again, also for an automotive manufacturer, like having a level regulatory playing field that helps to protect them on the long run. Just imagine you have suddenly some issues occurring with consumers or in the field, and then the compliance costs just to rectify these issues are much higher than if you would do it right in the first place.

[00:13:26] Trevor Long: Well, as someone who— I love the idea of being involved in policy conversations, but the average person person’s not big keen on it. But if you’re someone who has any fears around this kind of stuff, what you should be doing is you should be looking up this, uh, just this simple document. Just find the media release from the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, let alone their, their general policy guidance, and talk to your local member. If people talk to their local federal member of parliament and just say, what are you doing about this? What do you think about this? They essentially have to do something. They have to at least put it forward to the, to the minister responsible. And so that kind of that kind of movement from general public is an important thing. So the other thing you can do is join the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, become a member so that you can be part of these kind of conversations and discussions. Mate, Johannes, we really appreciate your time and sharing this with us.

[00:14:13] Johannes Lehmann: Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure.

[00:14:16] Trevor Long: Mate, absolutely. Thank you so much. I’m sure we’ll talk again. Yeah, there you go. It’s like, it’s a big issue, right?

[00:14:21] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:14:23] Trevor Long: I’m a, we work in the mainstream media, but I’m not about the hyperbole around China. I’m about, it’s a genuine potential problem. So let’s find a solution.

[00:14:34] Stephen Fenech: He did point out, Johannes pointed out quite clearly that there is the data shared from your vehicle is definitely happening. And the type of data is, we all, we know about as well. But the fact that people can be tracked around their locations and you know exactly where people are going, including those people he mentioned, Boys, walk.

[00:14:56] Trevor Long: What are you doing?

[00:14:56] Stephen Fenech: Get an Uber.

[00:14:57] Trevor Long: What are you doing? No, an Uber can be tracked. It’s in your account.

[00:14:59] Stephen Fenech: No way.

[00:14:59] Trevor Long: That was my first thought too. Anyway, I couldn’t cover my tracks if I tried. I’m on Life360 if anyone wants to hack that and find out where I’m at any time. My wife certainly does.

[00:15:09] Stephen Fenech: Definitely food for thought, mate.

[00:15:10] Trevor Long: Yeah, absolutely. We’d love to hear from you on anything you want to talk about. If you want to join us, you can send us a text 0477 657 657. After this, our first video call from a listener. Stephen Fenech being embarrassing as always.

[00:15:36] Stephen Fenech: Energy up, mate, come on, energy up.

[00:15:38] Trevor Long: Unbelievable. 0477 657 657. We’d love to hear from you if you want to talk EVs. Mary’s not only on the line But Mary’s also on the video.

Mary — Test-driving EVs, video caller

[00:15:38] Trevor Long: Mary, hello.

[00:15:50] Mary: Hi.

[00:15:51] Trevor Long: Welcome to the show.

[00:15:53] Mary: Thanks for having me.

[00:15:54] Trevor Long: This is the first— you’re the first video caller we’ve had. It’s very exciting. We did a video interview last week, but we’re just, you know, we’re still finding our ground with this new technology. Couple of tech blokes just finding our ground. So Mary, tell us the first and most important part of your story is someone else who’s in your life that’s been a big part of this show.

[00:16:14] Mary: Yes. Penelope was my old manager several years ago.

[00:16:19] Stephen Fenech: Right.

[00:16:19] Mary: That’s crazy. We no longer work together, but we’re still friends. And she actually told me about your show and her EV journey, and I’ve jumped on the bandwagon.

[00:16:30] Trevor Long: Here I am. Nice.

[00:16:32] Stephen Fenech: So, so Penelope has inspired you, has she? I’m sure you’ve been in her EV, no doubt.

[00:16:39] Trevor Long: Smart #3. Yes.

[00:16:41] Mary: Yes, yes, we went for a trip to the snow in it, would you believe?

[00:16:44] Trevor Long: Oh wow, okay.

[00:16:46] Stephen Fenech: So did that demonstrate to you that EV was then an option for yourself?

[00:16:50] Mary: Yes, yes. Before that I was thinking it had to be hybrid, and now I’m totally convinced to full EV.

[00:16:58] Trevor Long: What was it that took you over the line though? Because a lot of people do think that, because hybrid’s definitely going to save you money. Like, I was looking at some of the numbers on a Toyota Yaris, for example, and the fuel economy is unbelievably good. And then plug-in hybrid, you know, the option of being full EV. But what What was it during that road trip that tipped you over the edge?

[00:17:14] Mary: I just thought to be able to do so many hours and go up to the snow and I mean, we did stop along the way, obviously, just to top up, but did it easily. And I thought, there’s just no need here for petrol.

[00:17:30] Stephen Fenech: So tell us, what is it? Which vehicle have you opted for and are you happy with your choice?

[00:17:38] Mary: Well, I’m not there yet, would you believe?

[00:17:40] Stephen Fenech: Oh, okay.

[00:17:42] Mary: Yeah. So I’m sort of, I’m in the journey, although I did put a deposit down last week, but I’ve withdrawn it.

[00:17:50] Trevor Long: Oh, so something took your interest so much that you laid down some cash. But so tell us about that car and tell us what made you a little bit unsteady on the feet about it.

[00:18:01] Mary: Sure. Look, it’s been it’s been sort of a year in the making and then I ended up pulling the trigger. It was actually sort of after listening to you guys, but I thought, I’ve just got to do this. And it was the BYD Atto 2 that I put the deposit down on.

[00:18:29] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:18:29] Mary: But then I ended up just deciding I don’t love it and there’s other options that have better ranges for similar price. So I got cold feet and pulled out.

[00:18:29] Trevor Long: A lot of money not to love a car really, isn’t it?

[00:18:30] Stephen Fenech: On it.

[00:18:31] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:18:31] Mary: What’s that?

[00:18:32] Trevor Long: Sorry, a lot of money not to love something.

[00:18:33] Stephen Fenech: Of course.

[00:18:33] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you got to, you got to love it. But Mary, tell us, tell us the truth. Do you really, you really wanted to get up to Penelope’s record of test drives?

[00:18:40] Trevor Long: Is that the thing?

[00:18:42] Stephen Fenech: Is that really what happened?

[00:18:44] Mary: Oh, look, she, she was the manager, so I’m not as sharp as her, so I was never going to make it to hers. But I’m not, I’m not far off. I’m going for my 13th after I get off the phone from you guys.

[00:18:56] Stephen Fenech: Wow. Okay. Wow. So have you got a new shortlist of like what’s catching your eye now? You say you’ve left the BYD behind and could they potentially even come back? And what are the other brands you’re considering?

[00:19:10] Mary: Yeah, look, it’s, it’s not a total done deal for me at the moment, but I’m coming out of a Corolla after 23 years. So I was sort of thinking I don’t necessarily need to be bigger. And, you know, my kids now are 18 and 20. So I’ve got through, you know, growing kids in a Corolla. But I’ve just found that— sorry, what was your initial question?

[00:19:34] Trevor Long: What’s the short list?

[00:19:35] Stephen Fenech: What were the other cars you looked at?

[00:19:38] Mary: It’s a whole range, but I’ve been through the MG4 Urban, the MG5. I did the Geely 5, the Geely 2.

[00:19:48] Trevor Long: You’ve driven the Geely EXT 2?

[00:19:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I was going to suggest that. That’s a— we’ve driven that too.

[00:19:52] Mary: Yeah, there was, there was about that much headspace in the back. Oh, which not, not that I’m driving my kids around all the time now, but I’ve got 6-foot kids and they would be hitting the roof.

[00:20:04] Stephen Fenech: Fair enough.

[00:20:05] Mary: So that one felt a bit small. What else have I driven? I went for a drive in the LEAF motor.

[00:20:10] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:20:10] Mary: RBE10 yesterday. That was just something else. So I’m sort of, I was thinking I want to stay smaller, but the gear EX5 and the Leap Motor B10 have just been absolutely beautiful.

[00:20:25] Stephen Fenech: Have you driven the Deepal?

[00:20:27] Mary: I haven’t done the Deepal, um, 7, but I did the Aura, um, 5, the SUV version.

[00:20:35] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:20:36] Mary: And I spent most of the drive trying to get the seat position right. My knees were knocking on the steering wheel.

[00:20:42] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:20:44] Mary: So that one. But then I found when I got back to the dealership that you can move the steering wheel up.

[00:20:49] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:20:49] Mary: But it just— when I moved the steering wheel up to the right position, it sort of knocked out some of the windscreen. So I don’t really know about—

[00:20:59] Trevor Long: What about, what about Kia? Any, any options for Kia EV3? Maybe EV5 is a bit big.

[00:21:05] Mary: I went for a drive in the EV5 originally and that just felt like I was in a tank. Didn’t like that at all.

[00:21:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, but it’s a big car compared to your Corolla.

[00:21:14] Stephen Fenech: What’s the smallest Kia? Is it EV3? EV3, right.

[00:21:17] Mary: Yeah. And I didn’t think I was that fussy, but I don’t like the look of it.

[00:21:22] Trevor Long: Well, you’re not compared to Penelope.

[00:21:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Well, you know what? I think you’re looking for something that you’re going to drive for several years potentially. So you want to be happy. You want to make sure that it ticks all the boxes. It does what you need it to do. It’s big enough. It’s within your budget. So there is a lot to consider. So So you have Penelope’s, Penelope’s eye in actually testing the market.

[00:21:44] Trevor Long: What you said, you’re going to test drive something else. What are you going to test drive today?

[00:21:49] Mary: The Zeekr X this morning.

[00:21:51] Stephen Fenech: I was going to suggest that. That was, that was what I was going to say too.

[00:21:54] Trevor Long: That’s premium.

[00:21:55] Stephen Fenech: I think you’re going to like that one, Mary. You’re going to like the Zeekr. That’s a nice little vehicle.

[00:21:59] Mary: Yeah. I had a drive of the Volvo 30. Loved the way it drove. But again, I had a friend who was this— I’m 5’11” and I had a friend who was the same height in the back and she was like totally jammed up against me. And then that’s when I sort of got directed to the Zeekr X. So I’m looking forward to seeing that one.

[00:22:23] Trevor Long: Another quick option. Have you driven the Hyundai? What’s it called? The Alexio?

[00:22:28] Mary: No.

[00:22:29] Mary: Yeah, but again, I don’t like the look of it.

[00:22:32] Trevor Long: Okay. Very standard looking car. Not that you’ve got— you’ve got some wishlists. So hang on.

[00:22:36] Mary: So, you know, I’m looking for Goldilocks.

[00:22:38] Trevor Long: Yeah. You had the money down on an ATTO 2. You withdrew that. If you had to tell us your top 2 right now ahead of driving the Zeekr, without driving the Zeekr, what are the 2 most likely contenders today?

[00:22:54] Mary: I think I loved the Leap Motor V10. Yeah, like, loved that.

[00:23:00] Stephen Fenech: That’s a nice car. We’ve driven that. I’ve driven that. I drove that up to Newcastle and back a couple of times. It’s really nice.

[00:23:06] Mary: Yeah. And I actually really loved the, the Geely EX5, but I think what I really want is a Geely EX3.5.

[00:23:16] Stephen Fenech: Something in between, between the 2 and the 5.

[00:23:19] Trevor Long: Well, we’ll give that feedback to Geely. They do have a lot of cars coming, but I don’t think one of them is a mid to mid-size.

[00:23:26] Stephen Fenech: So, so you’re the EX2, you said you’ve driven, Mary. We’ve— I’ve been in that and I’m, I’m actually 6 foot 1 and I actually sat in that, not a problem. The back seat seemed roomy, it was okay. So what, you, you didn’t— you— that wasn’t an option for you?

[00:23:43] Mary: Absolutely fine for me as the driver. Yeah, but back seat, I think passengers, it felt squashed 6-foot passengers.

[00:23:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so in the back seat, in the back seat, driving my 20-year-old around.

[00:23:56] Mary: Yeah, that often. So, but, but the, the complication too now is that I’m, I’m so excited, I want to get rid of 2 of our petrol cars.

[00:24:05] Stephen Fenech: Oh yeah.

[00:24:05] Mary: And so now I’m sort of tossing up, rather than looking at one, I could be looking at 2, but I think I need to narrow it back.

[00:24:13] Trevor Long: What’s the other car? What’s the other car in the driveway currently?

[00:24:16] Mary: Well, it’s actually, it’s a hybrid. It’s a Camry hybrid. I really dislike it. It’s my husband’s car.

[00:24:24] Trevor Long: Oh, wow. Does he know you think you’re replacing it?

[00:24:27] Stephen Fenech: So you know you’re going to get rid of his car or what?

[00:24:29] Mary: He’s just so sick of me talking about it. He just wants it done.

[00:24:32] Trevor Long: He doesn’t care. Just take it away. Take it away from me.

[00:24:36] Mary: That’s why I’m talking to you guys.

[00:24:38] Trevor Long: You could be a dealer’s delight here. I mean, I got to say, just for giggles, but you know, it’s a pricier car, but you should have a look at the Zeekr 7X while you’re in there looking at the X. Yeah. That’s, you know, the Geely EX. I mean, but think about the duo of an EX2 and EX5. I mean, there’s some good options. Have you thought about the BYD Sea Lion 7? It’s a slightly bigger car, but, you know, very versatile.

[00:25:03] Mary: Too big.

[00:25:03] Trevor Long: Too big.

[00:25:04] Mary: Wow.

[00:25:04] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:25:06] Mary: So I don’t mind the idea of the Geely EX5 and the EX2.

[00:25:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:25:11] Trevor Long: Yeah, what a driveway.

[00:25:12] Stephen Fenech: They’re quite nice.

[00:25:13] Trevor Long: I think Gilly would love that too.

[00:25:14] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know what? Couldn’t you talk turkey? You’re gonna buy two, just get, you might be able to get a deal.

[00:25:21] Trevor Long: It’s worth asking.

[00:25:22] Mary: Well, I was quite interested listening to you guys ’cause I’ve been totally obsessed this week about the vicarious purchasing model that you were offering.

[00:25:31] Trevor Long: So yeah, Aaron, our man Aaron, he’s a fleet manager. Representative at a major car dealer. The problem is they don’t represent a lot of these new brands. So I think they’ve just taken on MG, which is awesome. But Kia, they got Kia, they got Kia, they got Toyota. I’m looking for the list that he sent us, Steven, while we talk. They got Porsche as well, Mary, if you’re interested. So MG, Kia, GWM is on their list. I don’t know if you have looked at the GWMs because there’s a couple of there. I mean, obviously you mentioned the Ora. Yeah. And by the way, you ruled out the MG4 Urban?

[00:26:10] Mary: Yes.

[00:26:11] Trevor Long: Why?

[00:26:12] Mary: Too squashy. Too squashy in the back. Drove beautifully. Right. Loved it as a driver.

[00:26:20] Trevor Long: Yeah. What are your kids, boys or girls?

[00:26:22] Mary: Boy, girl.

[00:26:23] Trevor Long: So I think they need to suck it up. Mum is making some serious compromises on their behalf.

[00:26:29] Stephen Fenech: They need to download the Uber app to their phone.

[00:26:31] Mary: Well, they’ve, they’re inheriting the old Corollas.

[00:26:36] Trevor Long: Oi!

[00:26:36] Stephen Fenech: Oh, okay. Well, then why even less, even less reason to consider them in the package.

[00:26:42] Trevor Long: Who gives a rat’s house squeeze it is in the back seat? If you happen to take a long family trip, take the EX5. If you’re doing a short run around town to drop them off somewhere because they decided to go to a pub and call mum years after that, that should have expired, they can duck their heads down the back of the EX2. You are making compromises purely on that behalf. I think that’s a really important observation, though.

[00:27:03] Mary: Yeah, no, no, it’s, it’s, it’s true. I don’t need to think totally of them. It’s just having any passenger, I suppose.

[00:27:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I didn’t consider that with my, my car.

[00:27:13] Trevor Long: No, Steven. Yeah, not at all.

[00:27:15] Stephen Fenech: 95% of the time I’m by myself in my car. So my new, my car that I’ve ordered is a bit smaller than my, than the one I had previously.

[00:27:22] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:27:23] Stephen Fenech: And it’s again, Again, it’s 95% of the time just me in the car.

[00:27:28] Trevor Long: Do you happen to run a business or an ABN or anything like that? Do you have?

[00:27:32] Mary: I run a business, yes.

[00:27:33] Trevor Long: You know what? And I don’t, look, I’m just absolutely shouting at clouds here, but I would, I’d go to a Geely dealer and I’d say, listen, when you’re talking to a sales rep, just say, listen, is there someone here that I can talk to about fleet pricing? Now see, in my head, when I first heard the term fleet pricing, I thought, well, I’m buying one. Like, what are we talking about here? But there’s just a difference. A different section of the dealership often, and it may not be at that one, where they do, they do business deals and corporate deals. And mate, they can just, they can sharpen that pencil a bit more. And I think especially if you are considering the potential of buying two cars, you should say to them, “If you can offer me some fleet pricing, maybe through my business.” Well, a fleet is more than one, by the way.

[00:28:12] Stephen Fenech: Fleet’s more than one. Two cars is a fleet.

[00:28:14] Trevor Long: A fleet is a car. Yeah. Like I’ve got— The fleet can be one.

[00:28:18] Stephen Fenech: I don’t know what dictionary you’re looking in, but anyway, that’s fine.

[00:28:20] Trevor Long: Trust me, a fleet buyer, a fleet salesperson can do you a better deal. Now that may not, I’m just not giving blanket advice here on getting car deals, but just in your situation where you are literally potentially buying two, you should at least ask the question and get them to put a couple of quotes in writing for you and then see how it lands.

[00:28:40] Stephen Fenech: That’s my motto, if you don’t ask, you don’t know.

[00:28:42] Trevor Long: But I feel like you’re, what number would you say you’re up to in terms of total test drives right now?

[00:28:47] Mary: Mary? 13 I’m on.

[00:28:49] Stephen Fenech: Oh, getting close.

[00:28:50] Trevor Long: Just for the sake of it, can we find—

[00:28:52] Mary: I feel like I need to.

[00:28:54] Stephen Fenech: Just go an extra 4 just to take the record, Mary. Just do it.

[00:28:57] Trevor Long: You know what?

[00:28:58] Stephen Fenech: Just do it.

[00:28:59] Trevor Long: Just do it for us. And to really basically frustrate Penelope. I’m not sure she’d be angry. I think it’d frustrate her more.

[00:29:06] Stephen Fenech: You’ll take over her crown.

[00:29:07] Trevor Long: Yeah, exactly. Well, the most important thing is let us know what you end up driving. Let us know what you end up buying. And we’re very keen to follow the journey, Mary.

[00:29:15] Mary: Three. Lovely. Thanks so much. Would you just tell me if I ask you one question?

[00:29:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:29:22] Mary: Would you just tell me what to do? Would you take that decision?

[00:29:26] Trevor Long: Like, if you come to us, if you come to us shortlist with three.

[00:29:30] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:29:31] Trevor Long: And you go, I could, I could be happy with any of these three. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll make the decision for you.

[00:29:37] Stephen Fenech: We’re happy to validate your decision.

[00:29:38] Trevor Long: We might have, we might have to get your kids on the, on the line and tell them to stop worrying about getting lifts places.

[00:29:44] Stephen Fenech: Just let mum buy her own. Own car.

[00:29:45] Trevor Long: I’m happy to pick between the three. All right, it’s a deal.

[00:29:49] Mary: Thank you.

[00:29:50] Trevor Long: Great, great to hear from you. Thank you, Mary. Good on you. Lovely to hear from you. And, uh, yeah, if you want to get in touch, you can do the same, uh, 0477 657 657. All right, for something different and Stephen’s idea, because we get these cars all the time, we’re going to try and as often as possible jump in the cars to either end or be part of the show to talk about the vehicles. And today we are in, Stephen, the Mercedes-Benz CLA all-electric, which launched in the last few weeks in Australia. And, uh, we’ve been lucky enough to be with Mercedes on a bit of a drive over a couple of days on the Gold Coast. Yeah, and we should point out to table. This is the car Steven has put his money down on it.

[00:30:39] Stephen Fenech: And what are your thoughts?

[00:30:41] Trevor Long: Want to know?

[00:30:41] Stephen Fenech: Uh, I’m happy with my, with my purchase, mate. I think this is a nice car.

[00:30:46] Trevor Long: Uh, it is a—

[00:30:48] Stephen Fenech: still has sort of the real Mercedes spirit to it. The drive, the, the, the fit out, the appointments, the new tech. Uh, yeah, mate, I’m happy with my decision.

[00:30:58] Trevor Long: It’s a big change for Mercedes because it’s a whole new platform. So they’ve built this new new modular platform that allows them to build a vehicle like the CLA in combustion engine, hybrid, or electric, and essentially bring a model to market in any drivetrain. And so what we’re going to see over the next couple years is something like 40 different models come to Australia. And that means not 40 different, you know, um, plates, but the GLC will come in a petrol and a hybrid and electric. The CLA is in models, those variants. And so I actually genuinely think, and this is not a slight on Mercedes’ previous electric cars, I remember at the very first, the EQC launch I went to in Berlin and, and again in, in Melbourne, that was a great car. They’ve made great electric cars. You’ve driven one for years.

[00:31:45] Stephen Fenech: They’re good.

[00:31:45] Trevor Long: But the thing is, I feel like what they’ve done is they’ve built a platform that takes everything they’ve learned and gone, actually, this is an electric car, we can do it better.

[00:31:53] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely right. And I I can speak from experience that I’ve had the EQE for 3 years, and it was one of their earlier models, and there were a couple of hiccups early on, but overall it’s been a great car. But this though seems to be the next, the next one, the next chapter.

[00:32:08] Trevor Long: The best example of that to me, and I don’t think when I asked Mercedes about it, I don’t think they understood the significance of it, is under the bonnet. Yeah, 101-liter frunk.

[00:32:19] Stephen Fenech: Frunk.

[00:32:19] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s a lot of space under bonnet.

[00:32:21] Stephen Fenech: Well, you could fit the, the size of that, you could fit, you know, your carry-on suitcase easily fit in there. Yeah, so that, that’s not too bad. And also put your pizzas in there so it doesn’t stick up, doesn’t stick up the car. But, um, look, it’s impressed with the features though. It’s really nice.

[00:32:35] Trevor Long: Two variants, the CLA 200 and the CLA 350. Um, essentially bigger battery, uh, bigger range, broadly, broadly, uh, similar vehicles in every other way. They both have different option packs you can get which give you— I frankly, if you’re in this market, by the way, take the option pack because you get things like automatic boot, um, heads-up display, a lot of little things like that. It’s like $2,000 or something. Yeah. Um, it’s well, it’s well worth it. It’s, uh, it’s obviously cheaper on the, on the CLA 200 to keep it under the— because, because when you, when you buy the 350, you’re in the luxury, um, car bracket, you’re paying tax, so the pack costs extra in tax as well. Yeah. But I would say this, I, I’ve loved the drive. We’ve done some freeway, we’ve done a lot of, um, B roads, country roads like this, and I wouldn’t call it sporty. I would call it smooth. Yeah, I would call it comfortable.

[00:33:25] Stephen Fenech: I would call it a pretty, pretty sure-footed. I think that the drive is pretty like for a Mercedes driver, it’s what you’d expect from a Merc. Yeah, it is, uh, you know, pretty, pretty, you know, pretty sure-footed, as I said. And in sports mode, it tightens up things a bit tightens up the steering, tightens up suspension.

[00:33:41] Trevor Long: So yeah, you can get a bit more out of it in the option pack. The Patrick, you can have a display. Honestly, I think the display is almost useless unless you spend a lot of time at public places.

[00:33:50] Stephen Fenech: It goes from one pillar to the other.

[00:33:52] Trevor Long: It doesn’t really cost the battery, mate. It’s 3 screens.

[00:33:55] Stephen Fenech: Well, I don’t mind that.

[00:33:57] Trevor Long: It’s the continuity of the screen, but they make it look like one big screen, but it’s not. Yeah, let’s be clear, if this is all off, you think, oh, it’s one big screen, but it’s not. Monitors, 3 separate monitors.

[00:34:06] Stephen Fenech: The other thing I like, the, the front grille, all the light up, lit up stars, the actual Mercedes-Benz logo as well. Um, and in terms of this, the— like, I’m a big guy, it’s fitting in this car. You think— just, do I look—

[00:34:21] Trevor Long: you look—

[00:34:21] Stephen Fenech: this look too small for me?

[00:34:22] Trevor Long: You look like you’ve been shoved into it.

[00:34:24] Stephen Fenech: I’m quite comfortable sitting here, and I’ve got my seat far back. I know I haven’t got much space above my head here, but I What more do I need?

[00:34:32] Trevor Long: I’m fine. No, no, I agree. I get here now. There’s also AI on board. There’s two big changes. I think there’s a lot of change in the infotainment, but a couple that I would point out are the maps look the same as Mercedes maps have, but the underpinnings in our Google Maps. So that’s, yeah, that’s good for both navigation and data. So shops and restaurants and things. And then AI, they say they’re using Google and Microsoft AI. Um, I don’t know how and what that means, but Broadly, you can have not conversational AI like, you know, you know, theory of the world and all that kind of stuff. This is about route planning. So you’ve set up— we’ve set a route, we could ask it, you know, find me the best burger joint near our destination.

[00:35:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:35:08] Trevor Long: And it will read the Google reviews and tell you, I’m suggesting this one, order them by the ratings because it says it’s a juicy and delicious and stuff like that. Um, not— $79,000 for the 200, uh, $91,000 for the, for the 350+ on roads. Yeah, um, yeah, she’s—

[00:35:25] Stephen Fenech: I think, but like, the fit and finish of the cars is really nice, as you’d expect. And I look— like I said, the drive’s nice. I think the— you mentioned the infotainment system. There is— they do have their MBUX system, but there’s— I know there’s AI, but also I think they’ve created a whole new OS as well. It’s brand new OS. It does look a lot different to what I’m used seen in my car. So, but yeah, but AI on board. But I’m just wondering, with the AI, would it be like build up over time? Does—

[00:35:54] Stephen Fenech: remember we asked that question? Because basically, no, Steve drives to Trevor’s every Wednesday.

[00:35:59] Trevor Long: Well, remember, that’s not the AI, that’s the, the system, right? And I get that with Waze every morning. My Waze is driving home.

[00:36:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:36:08] Trevor Long: And if I go to the office and then I get in the car at 5 AM, it says you’re going to Little Spring Street. It says you’re going north to— to Carolina. So this will— you can set routines to like on a Wednesday morning at this time, heat the car up or cool the car down. This will actually prompt you and, and say, Stephen, are you heading to Trevor’s? Because you always do these things. You set, you know, this audio source and this route and that kind of stuff. So my encouragement to you when you buy this is try not to use Waze as much. Use the internal, because then you’ll find out what it really means.

[00:36:35] Stephen Fenech: I think they, they pointed out the fact that many people don’t use the native systems, the navigation, because we use CarPlay, we use Android Auto. I think they’ve given us a reason to use their own, the Mercedes Maps system. Um, so yeah, I, I like that too.

[00:36:52] Trevor Long: So, uh, yeah, it’s a cracker. Um, look, it’s a, it’s a beautiful car. There’s plenty of journeys on this trip, so there’ll be some beautiful—

[00:36:58] Stephen Fenech: the camera, mate, Face ID. Yep. So normally I should use my fingerprint, but now it’s going to look at me and say, hey, who’s that hands up like, oh, it’s Steve. It’s, it’s, it’s, it must be Stephen.

[00:37:06] Trevor Long: Two blokes talking electric cars. We’d love to hear from you, uh, whatever you’re driving, wherever you are thinking about buying electric car or hating on them, we’d love to hear from you. 0477 657 657. Send us a text, we’ll get you on the show when we’re back in the studio. Yeah, next week.