Motor Mouth with David Booth

Ask most anyone who followed the recent U.S. presidential election, and they’ll tell you that one of the many things that Donald Trump is ‘anti’ about is electric vehicles. He plans to scrap the EV consumer rebate credit and put in place policies that favour Big Oil.  On the latest episode of the Motor Mouth Podcast, David Booth offers a stark contrast to those sentiments, and in fact also sees Tr...

Much has been written and said about U.S. President elect Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, some flattering some not, but what cannot be denied is that neither man does anything in half measures. Now that Trump has won the election, in fairly dominant fashion it must be said, much speculation is making the rounds as to what role Musk will have in the 47th president’s administration.  Mu...

The stakes are high south of the border as U.S. voters go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new president, but lost in all the hype and hot air is how a Trump administration could have dire impacts on Canada’s automotive sector. David Booth has done the research and crunched the numbers and discovered some existential threats to our domestic industry, one of which we have no remedy for. David has...

Game changer. Two words that seemingly crop up every time an emerging electric vehicle technology, or even a new EV itself, make headlines. But in almost all cases, that new tech or that new vehicle is far from game-changing, and so stokes more skepticism, if not outright cynicism, about the electric vehicle industry.  David Booth, aka Motor Mouth, has long called the bluff on many of these so-cal...

Season 4 of the Motor Mouth podcast kicks off with one of the hottest topics in the automotive industry, and that is the stunning rise of Chinese manufacturers and the subsequent stumbles of century old legacy automakers. Could we really see one of the world’s biggest car companies go out of business? David has written extensively on this topic in his weekly Motor Mouth column, and not surprisingl...

Looking back on Season 3 of the Motor Mouth podcast, we tackled some weighty subject matter, from the existential threat the Chinese electric vehicle industry poses to Western automakers to the continuingly weird Elon Musk/Tesla saga, and from the looming cancellation of EV mandates in North America and Europe to asking will it be the economy or the environment that determines the future of cheap...

With conservative political movements sweeping across North America and Europe, many automotive industry observers believe one of the first things on the chopping block will be the EV mandates established over the past few years, many of them designed to discourage the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles come Jan. 1, 2035.  How will that affect EV adoption, and for that matter, how will automake...

Yes, it’s been a week or so since Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk’s multi-billion dollar payday, but you’re never truly full informed on this or any other automotive-related topic until you hear from David Booth, aka Motor Mouth. As usual, he’s in fine form with a number of original takes on Musk, and then provides some interesting scenarios for the future of the man and his remarkable elect...

David draws comparisons to the disastrous consequences U.S protectionism had on the Big Three in the Seventies, he wonders — as do we all — if Tesla is really serious (capable?) about building a $25,000 electric vehicle, he ponders will the economy or the environment decide the future of cheap EVs, and finally his opinion on the fate of all those 2035 EV mandates.

Trying to figure out what’s going on with Elon Musk, and by association Tesla, is always a challenge, but Motor Mouth has never shied away from offering his opinion on the motivations of Lord Elon.  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, Da...

On this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David recounts how a party weekend in Toronto turned into his first automotive writing gig 41 years ago.  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.

This week David Booth tackles some electric vehicle content, beginning with Motor Mouth channeling his inner Marshall McLuhan to explain that the problem with public skepticism about EVs isn’t so much the medium but the messaging. 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. PHE...

We’re just a couple of weeks into 2024, so David Booth offers up some bold predictions for the year ahead on the hottest and most polarizing topic in automotive now and into the foreseeable future: electric vehicles.  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 president...

If you caught last week’s Driving to the Future panel, you’ll know there is much uncertainty surrounding Canada’s self-imposed 2035 deadline that mandates the discontinuation of new gasoline vehicles for sale. Other countries are following suit, but the hurdles to get there are numerous and, according to some panelists, insurmountable by that date.  David Booth was part of the panel, and following...

The Tokyo Motor Show was running on fumes before the pandemic shut it down for a few years, but it returned last month, renamed and reinvigorated. David Booth attended the Japan Mobility Show and on this week’s Motor Mouth podcast he reports on what he saw, what he learned and what all of that bodes for Japan’s automotive industry and the vehicles Canadians can expect to see in the coming years. I...

The evolving electric vehicle landscape is shaping up to be a heavyweight battle pitting good old U.S. ingenuity versus Chinese low-cost battery and vehicle production. In this episode of the Motor Mouth podcast, David makes the argument that if countries stick to the 100 per cent EV mandate of 2035 many have adopted, many of the traditional automakers — think Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors...

In this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David Booth looks back on his past few columns, the first of which reported on an amazing technical breakthrough that if true, would alter the trajectory of electric vehicles. As David suspected, it turned out to not be true. Well, sort of. Next David recalls his recent interview with Croatian genius Mate Rimac, and his subsequent stomach-turning track drive in R...

In this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David Booth goes back to his riding roots, which started in a small northern Quebec community aboard a Honda CT70. He also talks about his favourite motorcycles he’s owned, his dream bikes and his early days of being a motorcycle reviewer (which preceded his automotive journalism career). He also touches upon some of the two-wheelers coming out in 2024 that have...

In this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David Booth expands on his recent column detailing the fallout from Stellantis stopping work on its Windsor battery factory until the federal government matches the multi-billion-dollar deal they recently struck with Volkswagen for a plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. He also predicts, somewhat ominously, that the protectionist bent of governments at all levels is set...

In this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David Booth extols the virtues of hydrogen as a zero-emission fuel to power heavy duty trucks and passengers vehicles. And he expands on his most recent Motor Mouth column, which highlighted the challenge for fire departments in putting out electric vehicle fires, and some ingenious solutions that are being explored.

Host David Booth is joined by a distinguished panel to discuss traffic congestion and some of the ways it could be improved. Guests are Baher Abdulhai, an engineering professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, CAA’s senior director of public affairs, Kristine D’Arbelles, SNC-Lavalin Canadian VP & Practice Lead for Civil Engineering Services Sabrina Martine...

In news that severely rankled environmentalists, the E.U. voted to extend the life of internal-combustion engines past Europe’s much-ballyhooed 2035 deadline on the sale of fossil-fueled cars. Closer to home, power providers are warning that the surfeit of clean, green electricity we Canadians take for granted will be severely challenged by our rush to electric cars. Host David Booth discusses the...

In this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David Booth dives deep into hydrogen power and man-made fuels, and argues that without them, the planet’s pathway to zero-emission motoring will take decades longer to achieve.

In this week’s Motor Mouth podcast David Booth chronicles the many, and increasing, missteps the eccentric billionaire has made recently and how this trend could see the demise of the incredible electric vehicle company Elon Musk has built.

You’ve read his Motor Mouth column for years and now David Booth is bringing his sharp intellect, vast experience and pull-no punches criticisms to the podcast world. In this first episode of the Motor Mouth podcast David delves into Canada’s just announced Zero Emission Vehicle mandate. Not surprisingly, he’s not impressed.