Barack Obama says voters in the United States are going to want “that new car smell” when the 2016 presidential campaign comes along to choose his successor.

Obama’s former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is strongly fancied to run on the Democratic ticket for the White House, although she has repeatedly refused to confirm she wants to do so.

“I think the American people, you know, they’re gonna want, you know, that new car smell,” Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC News.

“You know… they wanna drive somethin’ off the lot that… that doesn’t have as much mileage as me.”

Obama, in the interview conducted in Las Vegas on Friday, described Clinton as a friend and said they speak regularly.

He believes she would be “a formidable candidate” and “a great president.”

“And she’s not gonna agree with me on everything,” he added. “One of the benefits of running for president is you can stake out your own positions.”