Out of Spec’s Kyle Conner: Part 1 of Our Chat With the Man Who Loves EVs the Most
There's so much good stuff, we couldn't fit it into one episode.
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No automotive journalist has embraced the EV space as passionately, as knowledgeably, or as comprehensively as Kyle Conner. The founder of Out of Spec Reviews, Kyle lives, sleeps, and breathes electric vehicles. He also tows with them, off-roads with them, and races across the country with them. Conner gets as excited about battery charge times as most journos get about lap times; he rambles off ISO charger standards the way traditional car dorks do with BMW platform numbers. Trust us, you’ve never seen anyone as excited about our electrified future as Kyle Conner. Sure, he’s a self-described nerd, but there’s much more to the man than that. Or is there? As Kyle says during this episode, “My whole life is cars. I have no other interests.”
In fact, there's so much more to Kyle and what he does that we’ve decided to make his time with us our first ever double episode! That’s right, two.
On the first half of our Kyle Conner double header, which you can watch here, we kick it off with Tesla style. Kyle came to our studio straight from the Tesla Model 3 Performance reveal. Next, we get into the CyberBeast version of the CyberTruck that he just purchased, and how he thinks it’s not quite up to snuff, and how we, MotorTrend, agree with him. There’s a small back and forth about the Model 3 Performance vs the Hyundai Ioniq 5, before we get back to his CyberTruck and the fact that how it stacks up against his Rivian R1T. Then we get into Kyle’s fleet (he owns many vehicles, not all are EVs) and the origins of his successful YouTube channel. We end episode one with Kyle explaining how most journalists just don’t understand EVs – how they focus on the pain of not having a home charger, rather than the car they’re driving.
If you’re interested in the future of car enthusiasm, or just want to get familiar with one of the most credible and original voices out there, you’re going to want to listen to both episodes featuring Kyle Conner. Or better yet, watch ’em! How do you do that? Well, you can watch the vodcast right here or on our YouTube channel. If audio is your thing, download the podcast here or wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you like it, please tell your friends, share us on social media, like the video, and don't forget to give us a five-star review. We truly hope you enjoyed listening/watching to the first part of our fun chat with Kyle. Thank you for doing so. If you could, leave a comment or a review. And remember, we'll be back next week with part 2 of our chat with Kyle on another new episode of The InEVitable!
When I was just one-year-old and newly walking, I managed to paint a white racing stripe down the side of my father’s Datsun 280Z. It’s been downhill ever since then. Moral of the story? Painting the garage leads to petrolheads. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always had strong opinions about cars.
One day I realized that I should combine two of my biggest passions and see what happened. Turns out that some people liked what I had to say and within a few years Angus MacKenzie came calling. I regularly come to the realization that I have the best job in the entire world. My father is the one most responsible for my car obsession. While driving, he would never fail to regale me with tales of my grandfather’s 1950 Cadillac 60 Special and 1953 Buick Roadmaster. He’d also try to impart driving wisdom, explaining how the younger you learn to drive, the safer driver you’ll be. “I learned to drive when I was 12 and I’ve never been in an accident.” He also, at least once per month warned, “No matter how good you drive, someday, somewhere, a drunk’s going to come out of nowhere and plow into you.”
When I was very young my dad would strap my car seat into the front of his Datsun 280Z and we’d go flying around the hills above Malibu, near where I grew up. The same roads, in fact, that we now use for the majority of our comparison tests. I believe these weekend runs are part of the reason why I’ve never developed motion sickness, a trait that comes in handy when my “job” requires me to sit in the passenger seats for repeated hot laps of the Nurburgring. Outside of cars and writing, my great passions include beer — brewing and judging as well as tasting — and tournament poker. I also like collecting cactus, because they’re tough to kill. My amazing wife Amy is an actress here in Los Angeles and we have a wonderful son, Richard.Read More
