Beads, Bikes, And Bad Ideas: A Trooper’s Guide To Staying Out Of Trouble

Safety isn’t a slogan when streets get crowded and celebrations kick off. We sit down with a Texas Department of Public Safety sergeant for an unfiltered look at Mardi Gras patrols in Galveston—how a small island city scales up with state troopers and partner agencies to keep families safe, traffic moving, and DWIs down without killing the vibe. It’s a masterclass in proactive policing and the power of visible, coordinated presence.

From parades to neighborhoods, we tackle a growing hazard: mini electric pocket bikes. They’re fast, silent, and, under Texas law, not street legal. Our guest breaks down exactly why these “mini pocket bikes” don’t qualify for public roads, what makes an e-bike legal, and how parents can avoid tragic outcomes by setting strict rules and keeping these toys off the street. Then we open the door on a quieter crisis—youth vaping—and how it’s bleeding into underage DUIs. We talk real risks, from THC exposure to potential contamination, and share practical steps for families, schools, and communities to push back.

Truck lovers and daily commuters will appreciate our deep dive into CDL testing, weigh station enforcement, and why overweight citations matter. The sergeant details the tougher inspections rolling out along major Texas corridors, what triggers mandatory pull-ins, and how serious crashes can shut down roads for hours. We round it out with a fast lap through automotive headlines: China’s push for mechanical EV door releases after fatal incidents, Volkswagen’s software-first strategy in China, Porsche’s EV cost crossroads, and Cadillac’s move into Formula One—all while dealer networks wrestle with direct-to-consumer sales models.

Hit play for candid insights, practical safety tips, and a clear-eyed view of how policy, technology, and enforcement shape our roads. If this conversation helped you see the road differently, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who drives.

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Transcript

Live Kickoff And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to another In-Wheel Time podcast. This is your place for all things automotive, the award-winning In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show. Coming up, the famous Department of Public Safety state trooper Sergeant Master Steven Woodard. Hey now. Later in the segment, Mr. Mars has this week in auto history. Jeff has the racing calendar. I'll get you caught up on the stories making automotive use headlines. Howdy, along with Mike out of this world, Mars from Neederville, Texas. We always need more Jeff Zeken. Chief Engineer David Arey and Don R Star. Thanks so much for joining us for our Saturday Live broadcast. Here he is, ladies and gentlemen. It's Department of Public Safety, State Trooper, Mr. Stephen. Sergeant Stephen. Where is he? There he is.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Hey, I promise you I'm not in a jail cell. I'm just kind of using my background here.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

You're doing what now?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

I said, I promise you, I'm not in a jail cell. I'm just kind of switching backgrounds. I was looking for a Mardi Gras background, but I can't figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

You don't go to Mardi Gras except to arrest people.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Hey, I will tell you I have some beads.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

How did you get those beads is the question.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah. Sorry, you can't take those to jail. Or maybe you can. Or maybe you can, depending on the color and where you are. The purple ones in New Orleans work, you know? Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Purple and green. I tell you, my friend, and it's it's so good to see you done and brother Jeff and Mike. You know I love you, baby. Um, we're down here in Galveston, actually. Uh, we're on task force right now just to make sure that this two-week celebration is safe. Um right now, I mean, uh, let's see. We're supplying about 20 troopers uh per day to help out to make sure the travelers are safe. And I will tell you, uh Monte Gras is always a safe event overall because it's a it's a collaborative safety event with a lot of different law enforcement agencies that come down, including HPD and others, to help out the Galveston Police Department. Because they're they're very yeah, obviously Galveston is a is a happening town, but their police department is extremely small. So we help them every year, been doing it for over 30 years, and um just happy to be down here last night was the beginning, and hey, everything was safe. Uh, I can't say that we did not arrest any DWIs, because we did, but overall, safe travels for everybody. So so far, so good, my friends. So far so good.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Do they have you spending the night in a in a in a little uh tent on the beach or do you have an actual motel room somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

You know, that would be nice. I think next week, um during the uh actual main festivities, I'll probably stay down, but I'm commuting back and forth to the house. Uh obviously, we gotta you know, we don't have a task force going for Super Bowl, but you know, just kind of standing area just in case you know folks want to take their celebration a little bit too far.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Yeah, sure. It's always nice to see the uniform, you know. It kind of keeps you in the reel.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. Well, hey, um, we're family, and I I I appreciate you guys inviting me through the years. Hey, uh, if you don't mind, Brother Don, I had the opportunity to work with uh through through your connection, obviously, through uh probably the best traffic man uh really in the United States, your partner. I mean, uh, let's just be honest here. Sky Mike. Sky Mike. Uh, we we did some work. That's why I reached out to you, and we did some work during the during the uh ice storm, and uh man, what what a cool dude. Funny dude.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

He he had quite the character too. He kind of he kind of fits the uh bill, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah, he does, he does, he does.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

But he's a great guy.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

But B U T, there is no other voice of silk other than Gob himself and the man in the sky.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And I don't know why you're trying to make points with me, because you don't have to. You just gotta be you, that's all. Do you know how they make silk?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah, with worms. Yeah, and where it comes from? Oh yeah.

Pocket Bikes And Texas Street Legality

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Hey, can I ask you guys something? Have you been seeing in your neighborhoods or around these mini uh pocket bikes, is what the state law calls them, but these mini electric bikes um that you know some of the kiddos are riding around on?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Hey, so you know it's funny you should say that because I was in uh where was I? I saw, oh, well I was at Los Tos. Yeah. And they they they had uh the the three of them, they had to be junior high school kids. And uh I thought, man, I wish I had that back in the day. But you know, I built my own motorbike from uh lawnmower edger motor, and uh that was that was my transportation, my hoodlum days back in when I was in junior high school. But these new electric ones, they're really cool, but they're also very dangerous because you can't see them.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Very dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

You can't hear them.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

You can't hear them, and and and to be honest with you, I will tell you they're illegal. I don't know, Jeff, if you've seen this big push that the uh Fort Bean County law enforcement officials have pushed out that they're just not road legal. Now, what makes one road legal is if it has pedals. Who in the world wants an electric bike with pedals?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Uh a moped.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, right, yeah. So you know, we we we purchased our the that little boy of mine, we purchased him one for Christmas, and I mean he has some very restrict rules, which he hates, uh, but they're just not street legal. And I'm gonna tell you something right now, uh Brother Mike, that thing will roll. Yeah, you you can adjust the speed on it, and I mean it it's it's just too fast and unsafe uh to be on the road. It's called it really up under state law is called a mini pocket bike. And when you go to it, the state law describes it very, it describes it with two sentences, and in the end it says, not street legal. So we just want folks to be safe. We understand we don't want to be the bummer uh to someone's good time. But I'm gonna tell you right now, Don, I just I just don't want a fatality to occur because it it's just not a little mini pocket bike versus a Ford F-250, it's just not gonna, it's not gonna be a good deal.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Are you seeing any of those down on the island?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Uh none on the island per se, but we're seeing them mostly within residential areas, the neighborhoods. Now on the island, there's some special specific rules and ordinances in place for golf carts. So you see a lot of golf carts and uh those different types of apparatuses, but uh, you know, we're talking about it right here at home, and we're just trying, we're just trying to reduce that.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Have you seen here have you have you seen the video with the guy riding the skyjack with the beer keg underneath him and he getting pulled over and he wouldn't come down? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

That's one that's one of the videos that I use when I'm teaching the academy. It'll last me another 20 years. Hilarious. Absolutely. Hilarious. Hey, let me ask you this, fellas, and I know uh this uh other than other than Jeff, uh Don and Mike, you guys have been out of school a long time. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Thank you for reminding me that one is I don't even remember it in one room school.

Teen Vaping And Underage DUIs

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yes, but I will tell you when you go to an elementary, excuse me, not elementary, let me get the statistic right. When you go to a middle school or a high school teacher's uh high school principal's um office, and I'm and this this obviously this is live and this is for the archives. Whoever looks at this, they'll agree with me. You look in either one of the left or right desk drawers, you're gonna find vape pens with an S. I will tell you, my friends, the boys' restrooms should not smell like strawberries. And there's a huge vaping problem within our school system when it comes to our kiddos. And it started as young as the uh, you know, the middle school age, because I'm getting this information straight from the KD Independent School District, police department. I will tell you, with this vape epidemic, not only are kids being exposed to uh unfortunate chemicals uh that can tie into, you know, you know, improper brain function, but you know, you never know. We don't want a child to get involved in some type of substance where it has fentanyl or any other dangerous substance that's applied to it. Please be monitored, please monitor your children. Uh I know nobody wants to go around checking backpacks and all that, but as I said yesterday at a school meeting uh over in a little town in Bowling, excuse me, not Boland, but in Beasley, I tell you, our children spend more time with their teachers than they do with us as parents. So theoretically, uh they're at school and you know, an idol mind will wonder, and peer pressure is there. So what we're seeing, we're starting to see, Don, a lot of your uh students, a lot of your younger drivers uh that are getting these DUIs because you know, if they're driving under the influence, whether they're whether they're over the limit or not, even though they're exposed, they're getting these DUIs from the vape, the vaping exposure, marijuana exposure, and of course alcohol, but mostly it's the vaping. And I'm telling you, it's a huge problem, especially with our kettles.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

And back in the back in my junior high, high school days, the only thing that was in the upper right-hand drawer of the principal's uh desk would have been the clacking teeth, the wind-up clacking teeth, you know, the fake teeth. Yeah. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Those vape shops pop up any place that there's a vacant building, they pop up. And and I understand the concept that you're an adult at 21, you want to go in there and buy something. But when I see people, kids that I know, I see their cars sitting in front of it, and they're 16, 17 years old. I even went in and got some ad one day. I went in and asked the guy, I said, Why are you selling this to an underage kid? He said, I'm not. I said, Did you check his ID? Well, no.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

I said, Well, I'm telling you, that's a 17-year-old you just sold that to.

CDL Testing And Truck Enforcement

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Now, with uh with DPS, we have a division called the regulatory service where we go around and we make sure that uh pharmacists uh and these these side business pharmacist companies that they're doing the proper thing, but we're starting to really look into a lot of these smoke shops, if you will. And again, it's bleeding into the schools. And I know when Don, when he was in school, him and his classmate Moses, when they when they when they were doing their thing, a lot of this stuff wasn't out here. Right. So please don't get me done, because Don's taking it and he does good when it comes to Don, forgive me on that one. That's perfectly okay when they're but I will tell you it it's a problem. So just be mindful, have those discussions with those with our kiddos, and you know, at the end of the day, it's gonna take all of us to make sure that we have a proper world. Real quick, CDL drivers, commercial motor vehicle drivers. So I will tell you, um, and you and I gotta get you over here done so you can see this one more and we have a chance. So when we're doing the the commercial uh driver's license test, a lot of times the attendants they're out there doing the first there's a verbal test where the individual that's driving the 18-wheeler, if you will, he has to actually show the attendant that he can properly inspect the vehicle. Well, what we have generally is about 30, sometimes 50 yards away, you'll have citizens with binoculars and they're actually looking at the actions before they take the next test. And you you will not believe how many people fail that commercial driver's license test. One of the biggest uh chapters, and I don't I don't have to go to the chapters, but I will tell you, is just the safety inspection. And you we we just don't pass folks. So I will say this if you see an individual drive an 18-wheeler, if you will, or a commercial motor vehicle, box truck, or whatever, keep in mind they've earned that thing and they have to continue to earn it by way of uh they have to turn in a medical certificate to make sure that they're healthy to operate, and just a clutter of other things. And it's hard to get that, it's hard to get it. It really is hard to get it, and it's hard to maintain it. But I will tell you the tax department public safety, we mean business, and we want our truck drivers to make sure that they're in compliance and that they're traveling from point A to point B safely. Because uh our commercial driver rights, they're going up here to state, and uh we're starting to beef up a little bit. So, with that being said, as you're driving, if you're going out of town, especially if you're going to Baytown, as you go out towards uh towards Beaumont, you'll see our inspection stations, they're gonna be open more frequently. You go out towards uh Seely on the west side, open. Uh I got one over on 59 that I that I uh have control over, going down towards Wharton because when the light is on, when that inspection light is on, they're mandated to pull in and get inspected. If they don't, then uh that's a class C misdemeanor.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Do you do weight inspections there too?

SPEAKER_00 13:28

So we yes, we do weight inspection. So under they're all over, but the ones that are up under me is the one in the uh on 288 in Brizouri County near Angleton, the one in Wharton uh near El Campo, and I have a little small one uh over there in Seeley. Well, it's not small, it's pretty, pretty large, and they're all over. And uh I will tell you when the lights on, those guys are mandated to pull in because we're checking out the water.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Well, I can tell you that from experience, I will tell you that uh, you know, when I was working for the drag racing team, we had a couple of 18-wheelers, and one of them held the cars and the engines and all that stuff, and it was constantly getting tickets for being overweight. Now that may not be a big deal to most people, but you know, you got all that weight behind you, you can't stop that thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yes, yes. Uh it it you just can't. And weight, speed, and a com a combination of just not paying attention, it it uh it brings a disaster. Now, people got to hear your commentary from the air, and they got to see us out there working. And I'm I will tell you, anytime that there's a commercial motor vehicle crash, the roadway is gonna be shut down for a very long time.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, by the way, I I want to compliment you guys because uh I noticed that you're getting more and more involved in these 18-wheeler wrecks that I cover from the air, and uh I'm glad to see that because it kind of speeds things up as a rule uh when when you've got the the local police and you guys on scene. And Steve, with that, I'm gonna leave you and let you know that there is another uh it wasn't just Moses, but another man that started with the letter M and his name was Methuselah. And that's it. And that's the man that I was uh who I kind of aspired to.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

I just want to point something out. I was never in the principal's office. So yeah, all right. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Steve, it's great to see you.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah, you'd be looking for that lightning bolt there. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. Hey, if you go come down to Mardi Gras, hey, if y'all got if you need us, any are listening, you need something, need some direction, need some help, give us a call. Any friend of In Wheel Time is a friend of DPS.

Weigh Stations, Overweight Risks, And Crash Response

SPEAKER_01 15:32

All right, well, thank you. Thank you, Steve. It's great to see you, my friend. We love you. Take care. Thank you. Love you too. Thank you guys. Bye. You bet. Hey, In Wheel Time invites you to join our live broadcast every Saturday, 10 to noon on uh inwheel time.com, Facebook, and YouTube. We hope you'll check us out. If you miss us, but you'll be able to connect with us through our podcast from your favorite podcast channel. The In Wheel Time Car Talk Show continues right after this quick break. The Tex-Mex dining experience is defined by Lupi Tortilla, your destination for Texas's best beef fajitas and frozen margaritas. Since 1983, Lupi Tortilla has served authentic and time-tested recipes made with the freshest ingredients. Atmosphere is part of the award-winning experience at Lupi Tortilla, all developed in the little house near Highway 6 and I-10 in West Houston. Visit any of the Loopy Tortillas and you'll see the same attention to detail in each and every location. Start your loopy experience with queso flammiato and guacamole, along with a classic frozen margarita. Dine on famous loopy beef and chicken fajitas or pepper shrimp crochet, or a fish or vegetarian entree, and finish with a scrumptious flan for dessert. Find loopy tortilla in Houston, College Station, Beaumont, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, Fort Worth. There's a Texas location near you. The recipes are authentic and time-testing. The ingredients always fresh. Loopy Tortilla. He's pretty good. Apple or Android InWheel Time Podcast can be found everywhere, on the stream and through downloads. Whether you're on the road or at home and Jones in for a different kind of car talk show, give In Wheel Time a try. Honest new car reviews, fun, informative interviews with real car people, weekly automotive news, features like Jeff's car culture and Mike's driving destinations, all on In Wheel Time. Check us out on Sirius XM Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or while you're shopping on Amazon through Amazon Music. Mm-hmm. InWheeltime.com has a list, and we know you love lists. And today's racing calendar is sponsored by the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge. Jeffrey.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Thank you for that. Well, we've got NASCAR coming up, and that's going to be uh starting February 13th, which is next Saturday. Uh the cookout clash at Bowman Gray Stadium ran this past Wednesday. It was bad.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

And Jeff had some ugly things to say last week.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

I walked with uh call of about 10 minutes. I it it was just bad. They went over an hour into the next program. They make that such a big no. Dude, that is a local racetrack. It's a quarter mile oval. And every time you turn the car, you're hitting somebody. Yeah. And it was just to me it was terrible. They need to do better on that. But it's coming up February 12th, uh, the American 250 Florida duel, and then of course the 15th. I'm sorry, the 15th is the Daytona 500. You got trucks, you got uh cars, you got the uh uh Xfinity Boys, and then you've got the paper next up. Formula One coming up, and I actually joined the Cadillac uh site on Facebook for Formula One.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

It took Cadillac to bring Jeff into the Formula One fold.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

But here we go, ladies and gentlemen. You'll never hear the end of it. They can see that there. Uh Formula One's coming up. That's going to be uh well, they've already done the testing, but you've got some more stuff coming up in February next weekend. You've got IndyCar coming up, NHRA is in March. And one thing that's really popping uh on the internet is the it's uh at the racetrack here in Houston. It's coming up today, as a matter of fact, probably running this afternoon. It's the uh wiener dog races. Uh the wiener dog races, wiener mobile races. Wiener dog races. The wiener dog races. Last year's dogs, actual wiener dogs, uh last year's winner won by six inches. So I like that too. So uh Wiener Dog races, go check it out.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Well, as a matter of fact, if you remember correctly, I think that we saw last week that uh the uh Oscar Meyer Wiener Company is going to have the Oscar Meyer 500, the Wiener Mobile 500 prior to the Indy 500.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Yep, that happens every year, but that's low on the on the part of lower track. But they're also uh there's a lot of stuff going on. You got the snowmobile racing coming up still going on. Uh we got the mushers ready to go for the the uh Ditterod stuff. Do you watch that stuff? If it if I could find it, I would watch it. Well I happened to I found Bowman and that that was gonna ask you something.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

What has happened what has happened to our car channel? They used to have all sorts of stuff. Well, uh it's it's a gone.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

I I did look into that. It's uh turbo owns it now, this company Turbo uh when all the motor c motorcraft and old motor trend and all that, they all sold out because of online streaming. They wouldn't get anybody to watch the TV. Uh the only one that's really left is the guy that's uh with the Mopars up in Seattle or Oregon. I think he's still graveyard cards. I love that show. You know, I didn't like the guy at first, but actually his humor is getting me because he's got a lot of dry humor. Oh, yeah. He's actually kind of funny. Uh he's a nutcob. He berades his people and they berade him back. Oh yeah, exactly. Especially the painter. Yeah. Yeah. So and then with Kindig, uh that was more of the the network couldn't uh get enough viewers, so he just went about building his own cars and doing this. He's still very productive and still very successful. It's just that you don't watch it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Yeah, a lot of that was on the Discovery Channel, right? That's all tied up into some sort of buyout between Netflix and Time Warner.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Why don't we start our own network? I thought we did. I thought this is it.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Well, it is it. Um we're going to take over the world one day. Uh, but I think we just call it the car channel.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Car channel, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah. Quick on that, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Or the In Wheel Time Channel. In Wheel Time Car Channel. There you go. All right. I've got some uh news stories. If is anybody interested?

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Sure, sure.

Farewell And Listener Support Offer

SPEAKER_01 21:30

China banned concealed door handles on electric vehicles becoming the first country in the world to outlaw a design popularized by Tesla that is now facing global regulatory scrutiny following a spate of deadly incidents. Cars sold in China will be required to have mechanical releases on both the inside and the outside, according to new safety rules issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on February 2nd. The ruling will take place January. January 1st of next year, the ministry said, models that have already been approved by the regulator and are in the final stage of launching in China have until January of 2029 to change their design. Crackdown follows several high-profile incidents, including two fiery Xiomi EV crashes in China, where power failures were suspected to have prevented doors from opening, leaving people unable to escape or be rescued to die. While the new regulation will only impact EVs sold in China, the country's influence on the global automotive industry means it could resonate elsewhere. Tesla's doors are already the target of a safety probe in the U.S., while European regulators are considering imposing their own rules.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

And that's a that's a hot item on resto mods and things to make that door flow.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, the Kindig handles, I think, are uh they think that they're mechanical. Right. And so they're okay. Right. Because you have to push them. Yeah, the flush mouth. Flush mount. Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Yeah, but a lot of them is really, you know, the button up underneath the fender whale kind of thing. Yeah.

Racing Calendar Highlights And Motorsports

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Right. There's no reason really. Uh Volkswagen Group plans by 2030 to build most of the vehicles it offers in China on its new electronic architecture platform developed with EV Maker XP. The architecture enables VW to develop cars up to 30% faster and 40% cheaper than with the Automaker's German-developed MEB platform, thanks to centralized control units and increased in-house component production, according to company officials. So let's not forget the robots are coming.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Porsche considering shelving the 718 electric sports car line to cut costs that have ballooned due to its overly ambitious EV bet, according to people familiar with the matter. New CEO Michael Leiters may scrap the planned 718 line of Boxter and Cayman EVs because of development delays and rising expenses. They were discontinued last year. Speaking of Volkswagen, uh Volkswagen of America's return as an advertiser during the Super Bowl telecast for tomorrow evening for the second time in three years will be boasted with a familiar message. Drivers Wanted. Remember that from years back? The German mass market brand, in the midst of a challenging U.S. sales skid, launched the new Drivers Wanted campaign February 3rd with a 90-second spot. VW said a 30-second version will run in the second half of the Super Bowl. The game between the Seahawks and the Patriots slated to start at 5 30 Houston time tomorrow. VW joins Toyota and Cadillac as the only automakers with confirmed spots. Rather than shell out millions of dollars for 30 seconds of airtime along with production costs, many automakers are seeking more value with their media buys, and we're right here to take your ad dollar.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Yeah, Cadillac's going to introduce the uh livery for the Formula One. Oh, is that introduced the car? Will they show you the car? I believe so, but I think it's around I've seen it. It's you know a side view of it. There's not a lot of markings. It looks cool, but we'll see. Well, it's not gonna look that much different than the other ones. Not much, not much different, but there's a few design features. Yeah. And evidently they're struggling with this uh the hybrid part of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

VW's U.S. sales totaled$329,000 in 2025, a decline of 13%. That's a lot. It marked the first yearly decline since 2022. The chairman of the VW Dealer Council, Fred Emick, the fourth, said return on sales has been a struggle for retailers, and the retail network remains frustrated by the lack of hybrid vehicles and VW Group's embrace of Scout Motors, which is pursuing direct-to-consumer sales. That's gonna be a hot button for years to come. And it's still a hot button with Tesla. They don't have a presence at the Houston Auto Show because it's the Houston Auto Dealers Association. They don't have any dealers. Yeah, it's a buy-direct kind of thing. And Scout is gonna try to go to the lucid motors, yeah. And uh you know, I guess there's something to be said with that kind of buying structure. I don't know. I don't know. But it's a it's a set, it's a fixed price and whatever.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

I know the Tesla operation there on 59 south of here, uh it's a little strange. You don't see a lot of things going on out in the general public, but I guess in the back in the service department.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

You still go there to make a test drive?

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Uh if you can get in. The last time I was there, I I had free walking around the showroom, but there was nobody in there.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Mars, uh I I you have to do uh uh either uh limited auto history, because I completely forgot you and you didn't say anything, and it's all your fault.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

We were on a flow.

Auto TV Landscape And Car Media

SPEAKER_01 27:01

We were on a flow, and I'm sorry. I I didn't mean to mess it all up, but I did. Apologies. All right, so we're gonna take a break. Can we do that? Yes, sir. Are you ready to do that?

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Yes, sir.

Industry News: EV Doors, VW, Porsche, Cadillac F1

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Okay. Well, the in real time show will wrap up things right after this break. You own a car you love. Well, why not let Gulf Coast Auto Shield protect it? Houstonian John Gray invites you to his state-of-the-art facility to introduce you to his specialist team of auto enthusiasts. We promise you'll be impressed. Whether you're looking to massage your original paint to a like new appearance, apply a ceramic coating, install a paint protection film, nano ceramic window tint, or new windshield protection called Exoshield, Gulf Coast Auto Shield is where Houston's car people go. Curbed your wheels? Instead of buying new, why not have them repaired? How about a professionally installed radar detector? Gulf Coast Auto Shield does that too. Get a peek inside the shop and look at the services offered by getting online and heading to gcautoshield.com. Better yet, stop by their facility at 11275 South Sam Houston Tollway, just south of the Southwest Freeway and get a personal tour. Gulf Coast Auto Shield is your place to go for all things exterior. Call them today, 832-930-5655 or gcautoShield.com. The award-winning In Wheel Time Car Talk Show. Check us out on Inwheeltime.com, YouTube, Facebook, and podcasts available from your favorite go-to source, including our live broadcast every Saturday, 10 to noon, Central Time. The In Wheel Time Car Talk Show has informative automotive guest interviews, new car reviews, along with popular features including driving destinations, Jeff's car culture, latest car news, cruise-ins, and racing dates. It's all on Inwheeltime.com. Join us. Well, that's all for this week's In Wheel Time Car Talk Show. Be sure to check us out online at Inwheeltime.com. We're always looking for new, informative, and great automotive things to bring to our global audience. And real trip to the podcast information can let us know. It's info at inwheeltime.com. When you're looking for award winning car talk, you can find the Inrail Time Car Talk Show 24-7 on the InRail Time approach website. Have a podcast with your favorite podcast store. Time to do our Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. The NRL Time Video Coordinator, as we always do for Jeff Zoom, working engine, video editor, my God of this world of ours, and Chief Engineer, David Wisley, I'm Dal Armstrong. Thanks to our weekly show contributors, Jeff Heisman, and a get well, ASAP. Get well, George. We look forward to joining us again next week. And for you, have a great weekend. Have a safe weekend. Go whatever football team you want to win. So long for now. We'll see you next week. That's it for this podcast episode of the In Wheel Time Car Show. I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and our In Wheeltime.com website. Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartPodcast, Podcast Addict, Tune In, Pandora, and Amazon Music. Keep listening, and we'll see you soon.