Total Car Score

S5E56 - We drove the GWM Tank 300 to go skiing in Chile and we loved it!

In this episode we are in Chile driving the 2024 GWM Tank 300 to the Portillo Ski Resort with a couple of world travelers and car enthusiasts, who are not only surprised by the design, technology a capability of this adventure SUV, but mostly by it´s price.

Duration:: 19m
Broadcast on:: 30 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Bring you the world of cars from inside the car. And now your host, Karl Brauer, Lauren Vicks, and Javier Mota. ♪♪♪ Well, today we're here driving in Chile from Santiago to Portillo, which is one of our favorite ski resorts. And we're driving the 2024 Great Walmarters Tank 300. And I'm here with my friends Leah from San Diego. How are you, Leah? I'm good. And Marvin from, you live where, like Jackson Hall? Jackson Hall, Wyoming. Hello, everybody. I've skied there a couple times and it's one of the best places, right? What do you think? How are you rated in the U.S.? Obviously, you live there, bud. Definitely top three and 4,139 vertical feet of Attack Hill. Wow. And a very exciting skiing and some of the skiers there are best in the world. We've got Gold Medalist, Tommy Mo, on residence and just recently new ground. Queen of the Bumps, Jalen Cough is a local resident. And we get to share a hill with people about caliber. And what do you do when you're there? I'm a ski guide. I take people skiing all over the world. And I kind of got my teachings and learnings from Jackson Hall. I've been skiing there since 1990. Wow. And coming up in that environment and really kind of honed your skill and kind of set you off to take on the world. So we met here in thanks to Leah. How many years ago, maybe? We met here, I think, in 2002 or 2003. Yeah, you were new, bud. And then we did. Oh, and then I met Marvin eight years ago. Oh, OK. In '16. So anyway, Leah, she's like a world traveler also and like super good skier. Yeah. Where's your favorite play to ski? Ah, well, Chile. Chile, of course, in the summer. But in the winter, I like to travel around because I live in San Diego now. If I'm going to get on a plane, I'm going to explore everywhere. Yeah. So my current favorites, Palisades Tahoe is my home mountain. And my current favorites are Revelstoke and Grand Targy. But that changes from year to year. Where is that? Revelstoke is in Canada in eastern British Columbia. Like, like, Banff. It's west of Banff. It's on what's called the Powder Highway. Oh, OK. And it's just a great little town. You fly into Kelowna, which also has a winemaking industry. Oh, that's another topic. That's another topic. And then Targy is just west of Jackson. It's actually in Wyoming. But you have to get there from the Idaho side. And it gets the snow before Jackson does. Yeah. They call it the Western Slope of the Tetons. Oh, OK, OK. So, yeah, like beautiful places. But as Las Lea said, we've been coming here to Chile for more than 20 years. And this time, I'm-- I wasn't going to come on this particular trip week. Because I came last month for 10 days. But Lea was coming here and she convinced me like, oh, well, by the way, the snow here, they say it's been the best in 30 years, right? Yes. Like, they got half or more than half of their average snowfall a month ahead of the start of-- official start of the season. They had a nine meter storm. And it's been coming down again. And so, like, again, like last month was fantastic. Yes, I went to these three resorts near Santiago, in Colorado, La Parva, and-- Bay in Nevada. Bay in Nevada, which, by the way, are being bought by American companies. Do you know about that? Yeah, I did. I heard that Bay in Nevada was bought and he's looking at El Colorado. Yeah. No, La Parva too. They bought La Parva and Bay, and now they're thinking about getting El Colorado, which will that make a whole one huge resort. That would be great. Yeah. So anyway, like, we can talk skiing for, like, our having Marvin, especially, you know, you're right around the world. Yeah. And we will talk again about that. But we're here driving these great wall motors, Tank 300. I'm part of the World Car of the Year award, and I talk to my colleagues here in Chile, and I ask if they have some contacts with one of the Chinese companies that are here. I've been here since, this one in particular, since 2007. So, what my, I mean, I want to tell you about the car a little bit later, but you picked it up. Lea, yes, you both picked it up. Yeah, we picked it up yesterday, and first of all, the color is awesome. It's awkward. Orange, yeah. And I was pleasantly surprised. I expected something that felt cheap because it's not an expensive car, but it doesn't feel cheap. It's super nice. Yeah, we'll talk about the price, but yeah. But it's super nice. It has really nice aesthetics. It drives well. It's a bigger car than I usually drive, so I had to get used to that, but I felt comfortable pretty quickly. So, Mary, when you hear the words "Chinese car," a car made in China, what's your first thought? Well, the Chinese have, you know, cornered the market on dependability, but unfortunately, the cars feel hollow or kind of tinny to use an American term. I find the tank to be really well-built, very sturdy, feels very solid underfoot. The interior compares to anything that I've driven. I've been a 30-year Tahoe-driven person. Oh, wow. And currently, I'm driving a 2022 Tahoe RTD, and this vehicle compares to that, the interior. The interior space is utterly amazing. Right now, we've got three people on the way up to Portillo. And a bunch of equipment. And a bunch of, what, five, six pair of skis and seven bats and... How many bottles of whiskey? No, two bottles of maker's art. Two bottles of whiskey and a case of wine. And two cases of wine, at least. And a case of beer? And a case of beer. Just in case. It's just a case. But no, I find the car exciting. The let the interior is that of any quality compared to a vehicle in this class. The pricing structure is from what I understand is second to none. So this car compares, not only compares, looks a lot. Like the Jeep Wrangler and the Ford Bronco. That's exactly what I was thinking. The Bronco, yeah. I mean, there's always a lot of talk about how Chinese companies copy things from the US and like take the technology or whatever. But I mean, the Chinese industry is huge. I mean, there's how many? 1.3 billion people, I think? I don't know. It's a lot. A lot. And they have a lot of companies. They have like 45 car manufacturers to their own world. They say they have too many. They have to consolidate. And in states, we still don't get these cars, even though there are some companies that you'll be surprised. So cars made in China in the US. Like Bulbo through the Gili Group. You know, Bulbo was bought by the Gili Group years ago after Ford. So we get Bulbo's made in China. We get some General Motors products made in China too. Like Buicks and some Chevrolet. But now the government is putting tariffs and I think they put them in Bulbo. They put a 100% tariff on the EX30, which was $35,000 and now it's 70. So it doesn't make any sense. So, Leah, you already mentioned a few things about the car, but what else do you like? How do you feel about it, like in general, like compared to an American? What are you driving now? I'm driving an Audi Sedan, an S4. So it's more of a sports car. Yeah. It's a lot smaller. Also, it's a manual, so I don't have a good comparison for the transmission. This one feels pretty smooth. I think it's a, I see there's a 7 or a 9 speed. A 7 speed, I think it is. And it's a small engine 2.5 liter, 2.4 cylinder. But it's like super good enough power. It's smooth. I mean, it drives more like a truck than a car. So it's a little slower on the pickup than I'm used to, but that's not a valid comparison. Yeah, and there's like, you have a Q5 in your family, right? Like you've got an example. So you drive that a little bit? Yeah, I drive Q5 compared to an Audi, but... Yeah, I drive the Q5 occasionally, and it feels smaller. It feels more reactive than this car. But again, they're not, they're not really in a comparable use model. So, Marvin, you were talking about the price. So I did a little investigation because I didn't know either. And this car here in Chile, there's for $30 million, which sounds like a lot. Because millions instead of like thousands. But that's like $33,000. That's incredible. And when you see what you can get for... I mean, we have like 12, two screens here in the front. We have Apple car. We have everything that you see and expect in a... Don't forget about the Infinity Sound System. Oh, yeah. The Infinity Sound System. I know. But you know, Infinity, and most of the audio companies were bought by Samsung. And Samsung owns like 10 of the main audio system makers in the world. And now they just name them different things. Yes. But yeah, it's a good quality system. And I'm saying, so like 33,000. And I did a little research. The cheapest Wrangler that you can get is about 40. And same with the Bronco. The Bronco is even a little more expensive. And I haven't heard anything about this car's record. But I have heard things about some of the other comparable cars that aren't very flattering. I know. Yeah. But like when you see what the Chinese car companies are doing and producing these cars that are very comparable to what we get in the US. And when you see like the governments getting into the protectionism and it's basically politics. And obviously they're trying to defend the American companies. But I don't know. I mean like it will be good like for people to get this kind of car. Like for this price, for this technology, this design. The price point is absolutely, absolutely incredible. I mean you take into consideration what you would get in the States at that price point in a new vehicle. You'd be more into an entry-level Tesla or an entry-level Volkswagen Bug. Or maybe some of the entry-level Ford Fiendsas and vehicles of that nature. Which anyone to compare, you don't have the interior room. You don't have the leg room. I'm 5'5", 180 pounds. I'm sitting in the backseat with plenty of room. Yeah. I mean the cargo space is second to none but also the main cabin. You know, can't fit anyone six foot plus, no problem. Yeah. And we're here in the front. We have a sun roof also and we have again Apple CarPlay, USB-C. Heated seats? Oh, heated seats. We don't need that, right? Yes. I'll call this it outside. It's a 10 Celsius. So it's about 50. Yeah. So it's cold and it's going to get colder when we get to the mountains. So this drive is really, really amazing. So the road from Santiago is pretty flat, like nothing much. But now we're getting closer to the Andes. And now when it gets tricky. So usually we have one of our friends here, Pedro Leon, who is our official driver, right, Leah? Yeah. But he's not here yet. This year we got this opportunity to drive this car. It's a different experience. So you have driven this road again, like, tell people how is it? So like Javier said, the road from Santiago to where we are now is pretty straight and smooth and super well maintained. But we're heading north from Santiago and pretty soon we will make a right hand turn and head east into the mountains. And we start going up a canyon. And at the end of the canyon, right before we get to Portillo, we go up an old moraine and it's switchbacks. And you go up about 3,000 vertical feet in the last 20 minutes. So it will be interesting to see how the car handles up that. And we may even have some snow on the ground. So we'll get to use the four wheel drive. Exactly. Four wheel drive, winter tire. So this car is a quick for this. And what would you do? Javier, these are 18s on this vehicle. I think they're 22s. I think they're 18s. They have to check the specs. But I mean, they don't look huge. Like in the US now they're doing 35s, 37s, something like that. I think it looks adequate for this car. They probably can feed a little bit larger tires, but it looks good. And so would you see this car in a Jackson hole? You think it will feed well in the crowd there? I think this car would be an absolute soccer mom commuter. It seats seats six comfortably. Enough room for soccer bags and hockey sticks and hockey bags. And I think this would fit very well in a suburban type community where you'll have to deal with snowy roads or icy roads, but also maintain a commute during snowy conditions. So you both have way more experience than me driving in the snow and like the winter. Any tips for me now that we're going to head into the mountain? Do everything in slow motion. Okay. Keep it in a higher gear if you have to. You don't want a lot of torque because you'll slide. Stay on the brakes. Yeah, very slowly. This car probably has ABS. Maybe you want to drive, baby. I've driven home after a few nights after a few nights after a ski in Jackson. Because I live in Miami. There's not much snow in Miami. So we'll see how it is. And I live in San Diego, but I grew up going to Lake Tahoe all the time. So I live in San Diego. I mean, there are a few times. Well, maybe more than a couple of years ago. I have to go back. I know. But I remember the last time that I was there, I think, I had a Volkswagen T1. We were now like eight in the morning to shovel the snow off the driveway and take the snow off the car. Like at nine o'clock. I did my noon. We had to do it again. When Tahoe, when it snows, it snows. You can get ten feet in a weekend. And it comes down fast and heavy. So Javier has a great video of him and my dad shoveling snow out of the driveway. Yeah. Well, we're going to start our drive up. And again, I think this car is really good. I'm like... Let me try. I'm surprised about it. As much testing and driving, what's your opinion, say, on a scale of one to ten? I think, I mean, for what it is, I mean, for the price, it's like closer to the ten. Yeah. And the lower numbers, because as we all said, great equipment, everything that you would expect in a much more expensive car, maybe. The driving has been great. Again, we haven't tried it in the tough spot. But I've seen videos of this car going off-roading, over the water, over rocks, everything. It has different drive modes too. We're going to check that out where we got up. So, for the price, and that's my biggest point with, again, the politics, the taxes and all that other thing. I mean, they're hurting the American consumer if they don't have this car seat. Yeah. Based on these buttons, it looks like you can put limited slip. Yeah. You have traction control. You can lock the front differential. And you can lock the rear differential, which gets you out of pretty much any spot I've ever been in. Exactly. And now we can pass these trucks. Not very fast, as you said, but fast enough. It goes fast. It's just a little low on the pickup because it's a small engine and it's a big vehicle. But I'm comparing it to a small car with a 3.6 litre engine and a supercharger. So, it's not quite in the same category. Yeah. Well, thank you. Great wall motors here in Chile. And all my friends here, Marcelo Palomino, he's also a member of the World Car Award. And let's go skiing. I'd like to say thank you. This vehicle's been a treat and it's really coming in handy to get us up to the mountains. And Marvin, if people want to find you on hook a tour with you, please look me up at marvinskis.com or look me on insta, Marvin's Keys or Marvin's Keys on Facebook. Please come and join me for an adventure. We will. You have done it, right? We've done skiing with Marvin, we skied at the side country at Jackson. He and I also did an adventure down in Chile, in a place called Navaros de Chien. Just as friends. No one was guiding anyone, but we were skiing together and we just had a blast skiing around the volcano down there. Excellent. Okay. Here we go. Thank you again. Let's go. Thank you for listening. For more, check us out online at TotalCarScore.com. Imagine earning a degree that prepares you with real skills for the real world. Capella University's programs teach skills relevant to your career so you can apply what you learn right away. Learn how Capella can make a difference in your life at Capella.edu. It's time to get the world talking about black lead brands. We all have our favorites, but we can't keep them all to ourselves. So if you're feeling a little black, old, old beauty, tell somebody. If the lip bar gives you a lip for every drip, let them know. And if your hair is doing the do, shout that out too. Join Walmart in shouting out your favorite black lead products, creating a new world of choices. At Walmart.com/blackandunlimited. unlimited.