On the latest episode of the Motor Mouth Podcast, David Booth offers a stark contrast to those sentiments, and in fact also sees Trump promoting another one of his favourite ‘antis’ - China.

As always, David’s provocative thoughts and conclusions serve for a rollicking ride down the automotive highway.

Musk poured a reported US$130 million into Trump’s campaign war chest, so he’ll be looking for some kind of input into how the US government moves forward on segments near and dear to his wallet: namely, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, social media and space exploration.

Today we’ll hear David’s thoughts on what role Musk will play in the administration and what policies he’ll promote. And why that US$130 million is looking like money well spent, particularly in terms of turning Musk’s robotaxi dream come true.

David has been burning the midnight oil this week researching such diverse subjects as the 60-year-old Canada-US Auto Pact, the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, the Inflation Reduction Act, Trump’s proposed car loan deductibility and why the hell is Elon Musk cozying up to Trump?

As always, it’s a rollicking discussion covering issues you probably haven’t even heard about, but are serious enough to have even David fearing what might be to come.

David Booth, aka Motor Mouth, has long called the bluff on many of these so-called game changers, but on this week’s episode of the Motor Mouth Podcast we find the man himself bestowing just such a description on some tantalizing zero emission sorcery from, of all automakers, Renault. Has the French company really solved the puzzle that has perplexed the industry for over a century now? That is, zero emission running with no associated range anxiety. 

Following that discussion David recounts an amazing experiment he experienced first hand in an Alberta laboratory involving a very unorthodox method of creation of hydrogen that could very well be, well, game changing.

David has written extensively on this topic in his weekly Motor Mouth column, and not surprisingly has some unique hot takes. From there he weighs in on a related subject, and that is what should be the bigger priority when it comes to building electric vehicles, the economy or the environment? And should we be building, and supporting, low-cost EVs at the expense of lower wages to produce them?

But we started the season out with a fun episode about David’s unlikely path into automotive journalism, so we’re wrapping things up with an equally joyous ride recounting exotic supercars Motor Mouth’s driven in the past few months in Europe, along with his raving review of France’s National Car Museum.

How will that affect EV adoption, and for that matter, how will automakers respond? Will they ratchet back EV production? And what about consumers? Will they continue to demand EVs, particularly lower priced ones. David weighs in on these topics and more on this week’s Motor Mouth podcast.

David then turns his attention to a couple of incredible new automobiles, the first the fire-breathing, 16-cyclinder Bugatti Tourbillon that is a showcase for a one-of-a-kind powerplant and with a reported top speed north of 400 km/h. And the second the Lotus Emeya, an all-new electric vehicle that is said to be the fastest charging EV on the planet. Yes, two very different kinds of propulsion systems, but each worthy of David’s attention, admiration, and as you’ll hear, astonishment.

And with Musk’s somewhat erratic behaviour over the past few months roiling the good ship Tesla, it seems only sensible to question what might be behind some of those controversial moves. 

As usual, David has a fresh take, that while perhaps not a popular one amongst the Tesla fan club members, is worth listening to and one that you won’t find anywhere else. He also squeezes in his opinion of the 2026 Kia EV3, a just announced model that has piqued his interest.

He tells some memorable tales from on the road, rattles off a number of ways the business has changed over the years, and finally, provides some sage advice to youngsters wanting to break into the automotive journalism business.

Then we’ll switch gears, or at least powertrains, to find out why David has big praise, and high hopes, for the latest and coming-soon wave of plug-in hybrid models. PHEVs have been making headlines recently, with General Motors announcing they are getting back into the PHEV business, and other automakers doubling down on their efforts to bring all-new Plug-in hybrids to market. Possibly at the cost of new EVs.

And finally David will report on a recent trip to Southern California where he became one of the first automotive journalist in the world to drive the all-new Porsche Tie-con. And just as with his experience with the first-gen high-performance all electric sport sedan, he came away very impressed, particularly with some interesting advances in battery pre-conditioning temperatures.

He glimpses into this crystal ball to opine if Chinese EVs will show up in Canada this year, if we’ll see a sub-$30k all-electric in the next 12 months, what a Donald Trump presidential win might mean for Canada’s burgeoning battery manufacturing industry, and what emerging battery technologies will make the greatest leap in 2024. 

And it wouldn’t be a Motor Mouth prediction list without a word or two about Tesla, in this case if the much-hyped and polarizing Cybertruck will be a success story over the next 12 months.

David Booth was part of the panel, and following the discussion decided to come up with his own version of the legislation: call it the Motor Mouth Mandate. He offered up his plan in a column last week that was crafted as an open letter to federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who if the polls are to be believed, could very well have this issue come across his desk at 24 Sussex Drive.

In particular, Toyota made quite a few headlines, including the reveal of several all-electric concepts — some of which David says look production ready. Our man in Japan also did a deep dive with Toyota engineers on some fascinating hydrogen powertrain systems they are working on, and also experienced a bona fide manual six-speed electric vehicle transmission that he says could fool long-time petrolheads.