All right, we're obviously not in studio right now. It's pretty clearly obvious by both the picture and the audio. If you're watching, you can see that's the corkscrew with the last car I expected coming down it right now.

A few more, I guess. Just throwing the checker. We are at a hooked on driving track day, our own hooked on driving track day, here at Laguna Seca. We've been here for a couple of days at the finish of our latest Monterey adventure. Amazing, yeah. If you know the top of the corkscrew, you know exactly where we're at. This is pretty much the place for getting the best photos up here. But welcome

back, guys. We've got a couple of car debates, car conclusions, some hooked on driving updates

for tracks and track days near you, and a little bit of news up front about Lotus. Lotus news.

Kind of interesting? Interesting, horrifying. It could be a little bit of both.

This is being reported lots of places, and I'm

wondering how it affects my car. Because I have the 2024 Mira, the V6 supercharged, that's the Toyota

motor, but that's going away. Now, Toyota's already stopped using that motor. G Lee Lotus

bought a bunch of them, but they have the AMG Alt. Apparently they're throwing out both those motors for a joint venture called Horse Power Trains.

Horse.

It weighs only 160 kilograms, 353 pounds that horse says makes it 22 pounds lighter than any other V6 currently in production. That is one of those stats that a marketing person made up. I don't know why that matters. Good news. The engine's lighter, but it's got to make more power. But you know it's because it's got the 3-liter displacement and developed from mild hybrid, full hybrid, and plug-in hybrid applications. So they want to use it clearly in other places, not just your mirror, but they they're going to start using it, which, you know, we've talked about for a long time. Was the Amira ever the last gas-powered sports car? Because that's how it was introduced. You remember this, right? That is exactly what they said. Yamira just get it now. Yeah. Last gas powered. And then now they're developing a different engine, a new engine, their own engine,

which, you know, not the rover days, then Toyota days, and then, you know, and up to now.

This engine's a joint venture of Renault and Gilles.

So Renault and the Chinese, I'm not sure that's the combination that you want for a new gasoline motor.

They're killing it in EVs.

But this is the thing, if the trajectory that we all expected of EVs had happened, this would have made some sense. By the time we can't actually justify car past the V6 anymore, we'll move on to full electrics. So now the market has changed, they've got to do something. So they're talking about 500 horsepower in this motor, which is interesting, except it gets to the

one part of it that really scares me.

Okay.

The hybrid doesn't even bother me.

It's four-speed auto only.

Yeah.

And if you're buying a driver's car, especially a Lotus, and there's no manual offered,

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