Dan Roth  0:03  
This is Wheel Bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:07  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Navigant research. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives. 

Dan Roth  0:13  
And we are all from twit car reviews, check it out, cuz it's fun. I'm just gonna keep plugging that over.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:20  
Well actually as long as long as we're plugging stuff before we dive into the topics, give the listeners a couple updates. I recently moved this whole site over to a new website hosting provider, which should be much more reliable than in the past. And in the process also set up some new email addresses for the show. So you can now reach us at feedback at Wheel Bearings dot media, so the site is still the same address Wheel Bearings dot media as it's always been, but you can email us at Wheel Bearings, feedback at Wheel Bearings, step media, or you can reach any of us individually at Dan, Rebecca or Sam at will at Wheel Bearings.

Media.

Dan Roth  1:01  
Alright, and so the correspondence will come pouring in. I hope and because we love our listeners and our fans, I think actually what I would like to do is every single listener should take the time to send me an email. Just Hi, I'm here.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18  
Let us know you exist,

Dan Roth  1:19  
right? I think and just copy all three of us and we'll just get a bunch of Hello worlds. Exactly.

Rebecca Lindland  1:24  
Fast and tell us where you where you usually listen to it like what what your location is?

Dan Roth  1:29  
Yeah, yeah, and your and your device. And you know what, while you're at it, just give us your household income and turn into a survey.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39  
Once you draw what you drive and yeah, nevermind. Okay, let's, let's get

Rebecca Lindland  1:44  
long walks on the beach. Oh, no, that's not right. Who doesn't?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48  
on site, Rebecca. All right.

Dan Roth  1:52  
Well, as we head into Thanksgiving, which I'm ready for because it's about food. It's the most American holiday because it's about food. And what's side of subjugation. But beyond that, let's talk about the cars. We're thankful to drive like the cars are driving this week. What are you guys in? Rebecca? Why don't you go first.

Rebecca Lindland  2:09  
So I was in the 2020 Mazda three, compact four door sedan. And we have talked a lot on this program about Mazda and its price points. This one actually starts at 21,500. For the very base model, that's the one that I had, which is very good. The one that I had was fully loaded. Of course, I had all wheel drive, which is absolutely fantastic in a compact car, and it topped out at 30,006 45 including destination so it really comes in at just under 29,000 and change. I'm sorry, it comes under 30,000 without destination. I you know, I've bragged on Mazda a lot about their price points, but I have to say that this was an hour absolute delight to drive. It was so solid. I really forgot that I was in a compact car a lot of times like it just, it was so solid, it was quiet, it was comfortable. And I just I never mind it hopping in it and running around and doing my errands and going, you know, doing all the crazy stuff I have to do in any given week. And it just was really really, really nice. So kudos to the Mazda I think that they did a fantastic job. The interior is absolutely beautiful. Mine had a combination of black base around it with these gorgeous white seats, heated seats, which I am a total sucker for white leather. You can tell I don't have children. It just, you know, it was just it was just really nice, huge sunroof. You know, nice sized tires. I just, you know everything about it. I really, really was good. It's

Dan Roth  3:56  
a 30,000 with all wheel drive. I don't think there's that Many other all wheel drive compact sedans. First of all, I don't know

Sam Abuelsamid  4:05  
I like super Subarus about it Really?

Dan Roth  4:08  
Yeah. I would say

Rebecca Lindland  4:12  
the only the only issue that I did have with it was and I'd be curious if you guys have have experienced this. So obviously it's, you know, mid November, and the sun sets quite early. And I had really noticed that sun glare. I had really bad sun glare in the afternoons. And it was a combination, because I knew I wanted to talk about it. So I really tried to observe it was it's a combination of the dash is very large and of course it's black, which they always are, but it's still reflected quite aggressively onto the windscreen. And I don't know if it's just the slope of the windscreen, but it was it wasn't that the wind show was dirty or anything. It was really noticeable, is totally fine on rainy days of which we've had many, but the couple of days that I did drive it, it had the sun glare was really pretty bad. And I didn't know if you guys have experienced that.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:14  
I drove the three, I guess about a month and a half, two months ago, and I had not noticed that at the time, which is not to say that, you know, it wouldn't be there, you know, if I tried it now, you know, under current conditions, but I hadn't noticed that as a problem at the time.

Rebecca Lindland  5:30  
And I also do wonder, you know, obviously, I sit very differently than you would set I if that's a problem as well, but I'd love to hear from people if they've driven the monster three, if they've had if they have one, or if they've had this experience at all. The the a pillar does encroach a bit by, you know, I've had worse and again, I try and sit out a balance between, you know, I typically will stretch my arm out, I'll break my wrist. Over the steering wheel, and trying to get that balance between that is proper.

Dan Roth  6:05  
That is, I'm sorry, that is proper. That's how you're supposed to do it.

Rebecca Lindland  6:08  
It is proper, I take my driving position very seriously. Excellent. You know, so I try and kind of do that balance between safety and where I need to sit and you know, just getting all the ergonomics. Correct. But it was something that I really, you know, I observed that the first day which happened to be a sunny day, we had several days of cloudy days in a row. So I didn't have that issue. But then it happened again the other day, I was like, wow, this is just, you know, it was it was bad. And I don't know if it's just the combination of the type of time of year it is, you know, at all times of

Sam Abuelsamid  6:43  
the day or just

Rebecca Lindland  6:46  
all times of the day. It was it was particularly noticeable in the late afternoon, but it was definitely I was driving it in the morning as well. And it was definitely noticeable in the morning also and again, it's kind of one of those things. I felt I felt like it was the angle of the windscreen,

Dan Roth  7:05  
it's that's probably part of it is angled the windshield and where where you are, I mean, second, you're sitting up kind of an optical system at that point, right. So right, um, did you so when you wear sunglasses, are they polarized?

Rebecca Lindland  7:19  
So, you know, I have corrective lenses and they have the tint to them. And I don't I typically my sunglasses are too big, and I typically don't wear them. So I just rely on the glasses that I have and then they tent down. Yeah, so you know, it's a very fair question and I I've got it. I'll dig them out and see the next time especially with heads up display because I know Sam, you asked that a lot which this car had and was fantastic because it

Dan Roth  7:48  
bounces off the windshield that the woman puts a little piece of plastic up.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:52  
No, it's the proper one to bounces off the windshield and it's it's a larger display than what you get with those with the flip up ones which are there Those are lower costs and you know, it allows manufacturers to put it into lower end vehicles but they they're not as effective. They're

Dan Roth  8:06  
not as good but yeah, so I think the, the glare on the windshield issue pull, you know, polarized filters polarized sunglasses probably help it but if you have corrective lenses obviously that's that's an issue where they're not generally polarized and so that's I mean I suffer through solar glare with with all of the cars to a certain degree just the time of day that I'm driving I'm driving

Rebecca Lindland  8:33  
is now if you go

Dan Roth  8:34  
on the math page I don't do the pike but I do 128 and I do route nine and so I everywhere but the bike

Rebecca Lindland  8:40  
well route nine is I'm parallel to the pike so you're gonna run into the same idea.

Dan Roth  8:45  
Yeah. For sure. So it's it's some cars are worse than others. But I do find that polarized sunglasses help cut that glare a lot. Yeah. But yeah, it's probably the angle of the windshield more than just about anything, you know, the cars that I've had that have had so Faster windshield angles tend to Yeah, to have that issue. And this doesn't look like it's, you know, very upright.

Rebecca Lindland  9:07  
No, it's definitely very upright. It's not. And yeah, Rebecca.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:11  
Yeah. One other question, you know, just in general about visibility, you know, this, this new generation three, you know, has a fairly high belt line, and, you know, you're not as tall as I am. put it mildly. And so I'm just curious, you know, you know, in general visibility, the one I drove the three that I drove had was the hatchback. And you know, I think in the case of the sedan, it might be slightly better but but not much. So I'm just curious what how the visibility was for you.

Rebecca Lindland  9:42  
You know, it's so funny that you say that because it was it was not great. And, and maybe that is because the high belt line, but the the rear when the the rear window was Okay. Bye. You're absolutely right. I mean, I didn't feel like this car had great visibility in it. I, you know, it's not it's not the same but like the Ford Escape that does have a lower belt line now, there was a lot of visibility in that vehicle. Obviously, it's sits up higher as well, but I never felt like I was sitting on the ground in this monster. I mean, that was one of the things that I liked about it was that it has such confidence on the road, that I didn't feel like I was in a tiny little compact car. But the visibility was definitely something that I struggled with a little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:37  
Yeah, there's definitely not as much glass area and this is car generation three.

Rebecca Lindland  10:42  
Yeah. I mean, it's not a reason to not buy it. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like that. It's and again, I I do think that you know, again, like how I try and sit though I do sit fairly high, you know, and, and it wasn't that there wasn't it wasn't that I didn't I feel like there was that I couldn't see it anytime, but I didn't have it. I certainly didn't have that feeling of expansive spaciousness and and the rear both the rear and the front visibility were not my favorites With that being said, I mean I used to have accurate integris that had that really slit you know, narrow slit. I've had a few yeah 500 I mean, I've had cars a convertible I've had cars that don't have great rear window visibility but and that kind of eat because I even noticed that at all says something about that that is definitely something that to consider what on a test drive of the monster three to make sure yeah, but with it

Sam Abuelsamid  11:43  
and and you know, to be fair visibility straight out the rear on most new cars has become significantly compromised because they tend to have taller rear decks you know that very you know, in most cases you know that sloped were glass and so the the vertical field The view through that window tends to be fairly limited and now you're on modern cars you also have received headrests which also significantly reduces it. And in the case of the three, you know, the this new generation three wallets, a great looking car, it does have a higher higher belt line. And an on the hatchback in particular, you know, it really sweeps up that belt line, the rear, the on the rear doors, that lot of the sheet metal sweeps up a lot more towards the back edge of the door, whereas in the in the sedan it kind of the bottom edge of the glass tends to stay, you know, more along a straight line, all the way. trunklid Yeah, it

Rebecca Lindland  12:40  
stays on the belt line as opposed to sitting up.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:43  
Yeah. So in the sedan, you know, the C pillars are not as substantial as they are on the hatchback.

Dan Roth  12:49  
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, but like feeling cocooned like that, too. They, they feel safer in the end and, you know, for side impact. It's better somewhat easier. Yeah, I don't I don't agree that's debatable.

Rebecca Lindland  13:06  
There's a compromise.

Dan Roth  13:07  
That was at least the explanation for some of the high belt line was you have metal there instead of glass, it's it's easier to pass those side impact tests. That may not be so but it seemed good to me who is not a, you know, a crash engineer?

Sam Abuelsamid  13:22  
Yeah, I would say, you know, purely from a mechanical standpoint, that's, that's probably true that, you know, the more sheet metal you have there, as opposed to glass, you know, it is going to 10 probably, it's probably going to be easier to pass the side impact. Yeah. And that said, you know, you're you're also compromising on, on safety. You know, visibility is a significant impact on safety. Oh, I agree. You know, if you, if you can't see around you, you know, then, you know, you're more likely to hit something because simply because you can't see

Dan Roth  13:54  
it. It's it's a trap. It's a trap. It's a scam. You see, here's what's going on. They're taking away the windows from us. So they Cell a sensor packages to look you don't need to see up the windows don't trust your eyes, your lying eyes and ears look at them like a pillar.

Rebecca Lindland  14:10  
Look at the light.

Dan Roth  14:14  
But, you know, that psychological feeling of being sort of like snuggled up in this like, you know, metal envelope I guess is something that appeals to some people it drives me bonkers because I, you know, I like Jesse out of the car.

Rebecca Lindland  14:26  
Well and it also is design wise, you know, high beltline narrow greenhouse. You know, we've all written those words dozens of times. Yeah, that's the luck and it's a cool luck. But it doesn't help visibility.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:39  
Yeah, unfortunately, I think that, you know, that is a trend that's starting to starting to reverse a little bit least with some manufacturers. And I think you know, over the coming years, we'll we'll probably see, you know, a little bit more balance there between the glass and sheet metal, or a little bit better balance between glass and sheet metal. mentioned Rebecca, the new escape and the course they're looking course they're, you know, they have definitely moved towards a lower belt line. And I think we're gonna we're going to start seeing other manufacturers do that as well.

Rebecca Lindland  15:12  
Yeah. And they've done it in such a way that it doesn't compromise the design. I mean, I think that both, you know, both the escape and the Coursera are really nice looking vehicles. So, you know, every little centimeter millimeter counts. And so I think they've done a nice job of just bringing the beltline down a little bit, and still having that that cocoon type of feel. I mean, I you know, I don't ever remember feeling unsafe or feeling exposed when I was driving both of those vehicles. So I you know, I think it's, I think it's, it's a it's a balance,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:47  
because it's kind of the opposite of driving my cars. You know, Rebecca,

Rebecca Lindland  15:50  
Yes, exactly. Your body is out of your car. Yes, yes,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:55  
exactly. There's no cocoon feeling in my my first generation me nada,

Dan Roth  16:00  
you know, you know, and it's, it's interesting what you get used to because one of the sort of like, most terrifying automotive experiences I've ever had was riding in a T bucket, a custom t bucket. It was it's really cool. It was built on a top down model a frame and it had a monster 12 a rotary and it was very small. The body was just one ply of fiberglass. And we're, you know, we're in Worcester for the car show. And so that's, that's fine, but you get used to it really quick and you just like you ride around in it, and you feel like yeah, this thing is going to contain me, but if you hit anything, you're you're airborne. There was no seatbelts that think the windshield might have been plate glass at that time. So the safety

Sam Abuelsamid  16:43  
So have you ever have you ever driven a Wrangler with the doors off?

Dan Roth  16:47  
Yes, it's actually pretty good with the doors off but it you feel very volatile,

Sam Abuelsamid  16:51  
except for the turbulence. Yeah, there's a lot of wind turbulence around around the side, sir when you take the doors off because of the You know, flat windshield and just the way the thing is shaped, you know, the wind just swirls around in the cabin when you take those doors off.

Dan Roth  17:08  
Yeah, it will. And that's like that's why it's so great in the summer, you know, they make like pegs that you can stick your foot just outside of the body.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:17  
Just like just like a motorcycle. It's just like,

Dan Roth  17:21  
fits with the Wrangler crowd, I suppose. But it's just kind of funny. And then you think about again, if anything happens like your foot and your ankle and probably like the whole lower part of your leg below the knee is the first to go. So enjoy it while you've got it.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:36  
Fortunately, Wranglers are a lot have a much reduced, predilection to rolling over than they used to.

Dan Roth  17:42  
Yeah, that's that's true. They're not unstable at all. No, no. It's the drivers. All right. What else do we need to say about the Mazda three while we're on the subject? Did we I guess we got a little off point. But overall,

Sam Abuelsamid  17:57  
you know, what did you think it was all related, though.

Dan Roth  18:00  
There was some there's a common thread. The infotainment to me is sort of a stumbling block from us because it's kind of like I drive but it's kind of not it's not a touchscreen. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  18:09  
I definitely had some interface. I described it as clumsy in my review. I and then Android Auto, sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. It was very arbitrary. Like I was so pleased because the first time I dialed up I was like, Okay, good. Here it is. I plugged it in, got everything up and running, put down my phone, and bam, it was gone. And I could never get it back for like three days. And then all of a sudden, it was back again. I'm like, Oh, great. Okay, I guess we're friends again.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:37  
And you know, you know, what I found on a number of cars with with Android Auto is the the USB connections tend to be somewhat flaky. Okay. Yeah. You know, sometimes if I swap out to a different USB cable, it works just fine.

Rebecca Lindland  18:54  
I do know that but the thing you said that it worked perfectly like it was all I know

Sam Abuelsamid  19:00  
I've had, I've had exactly the same thing. It works works absolutely perfectly, and then all of a sudden, you know, even as you're driving along, you know, the Android Auto screen will go away. Yeah, and the only way to get it back is to unplug and plug back in, you know, or sometimes even then it doesn't come back. And, you know, if you if you've got a cable that you've been using for a while, especially in the car, where it's more likely to get wound up into weird, you know, bent and you know, and, you know, some of the, the, the wires inside the cable, make it, make it fractured. Sure. It tends it's tends to be much less stable. And that's why I'm looking forward to the onset of vehicles that have wireless support for for both CarPlay and Android Auto. And those are starting to come to market now including the the escape and of course there.

Rebecca Lindland  19:51  
Yeah, that will be really nice. So I definitely had some issues with that. I listened to a lot of Billy Joel channel because I just couldn't be bothered to figure out how to change it.

Dan Roth  20:03  
And then I every version of good night Saigon ever recorded.

Rebecca Lindland  20:09  
Then I did eventually go through the several steps to do that. I found you know, and again, this is a little bit of an ergonomics. I found that the, the center console where they have the dial, and where the buttons are, I found it. It was, again, this is because of how I sit, but it sat really far back for me like I had to. It's funny, I'm actually making the motion now like, I had to like physically like move my arm back, move my elbow back in between the seats, because it was just set kind of far back for me, and, you know, it was just uncomfortable and I had to look down a lot to see it. Now with that being said, I loved the heads up display, and I loved the fact that it gave directions and it Gave signage and my speed. So I didn't have to look down a lot, thankfully. But when I did, it was not a comfortable reach for me.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:12  
When you say look down and you mean look down for the the dial or right

Rebecca Lindland  21:15  
for the dial and the buttons and stuff, and, you know whether I wanted to go to home or get the map back up, or, you know, I literally, like I changed the radios channel, like twice because it was so annoying. But yeah, well, I think I think that's one of those favorites in and stuff, you know, like, you can personalize it. So,

Sam Abuelsamid  21:33  
yeah, well, and I think that's one of those things where, you know, once you once you spend a little more time with it and get accustomed to the, the what those force buttons around the dial, are you that's really something you can do without looking at it. It is Yeah, because it's directly you know, that dial is directly behind the shift labor, you know, so and you drop your hand down there. Yeah, I mean, in your case, you know, I i can i can understand, you know, Just because of your seating position, it might ergonomically, it might be a little bit further back than is comfortable for you. But in general, you know, just being able to drop your hand down on it and twist and push and pull on, on that dial and tap those buttons, you eventually you will, you know, you'll know which which of those four buttons are which ones you know, you know, the bottom left is the is the audio or is the Back button is the top

Rebecca Lindland  22:29  
left is the navigation. The one right right bottom I think is home. Yeah, and the Wando top right is audio. Right. So

Sam Abuelsamid  22:39  
once you get used to those extra memory, yeah, I mean you can you can do that without without looking at it, you know and just glance over at the screen well and manipulate the stuff fairly quickly. And that's the thing I like about those those rotary control systems is that you can do that you know without it, it takes once you once you remember where the button positions are Takes a less cognitive load than actually aiming for a touch target on the screen.

Rebecca Lindland  23:05  
I knew you were going to get that in there somewhere. Well, I think, as with any infotainment system, it's always a matter of getting used to it. And you know, I did know, you know, I took the time to load in favorite so that I didn't have to go through that motions of trying to, you know, when I went to change the music and stuff, but it's, again is anything you have to spend the time with the infotainment system to maximize it and to get used to it. There are others that are I think are a little bit more intuitive to us and so that would be my only thing but it sounds something that I got used to it after a while and again it's none of these things are reasons not to buy this vehicle. It's such a good it's such a good small car that I would absolutely tell people to put it on their shopping list Yeah. sighs there's it's there's so many good things about I was gonna say like, okay, we've given

Dan Roth  23:59  
Given plenty of oversight and sort of the stuff that's a little bit, you know, that you should, you should see that you can live with, but overall the reasons to buy the vehicle are like, you know, it looks great. It's pretty comfortable, right? It's seems

Rebecca Lindland  24:15  
quiet, it's quiet, it's steady. I love the fact that has all wheel drive to it. It doesn't feel like an econobox at all. I mean, for under 30,000 you know, and again, this one is all dolled up. So you can definitely get them for less. And so, you know, for under 30,000 I think that's it's a really, really good vehicle. I you know, it's it's something that you don't necessarily need to have absolutely everything in it. So I you know, I think it's something that that every everybody can get used to, you know, all the all the stuff that we're talking about, is is addressable in many ways. But, you know, I'm also not going to just sit there and be a fangirl and say, this is the perfect vehicle. You know, I'm going to address what some of the concerns that I had, but You know, it's got a 2.5 liter four cylinder engine that was really peppy. The only thing I didn't like when I put it in sport mode. I just found it made the engine rev louder and noisier and I didn't find it appealing. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  25:16  
I can agree with that.

Rebecca Lindland  25:17  
So, you know, it didn't seem to really do much for me. So I kept it just in general. I didn't put it in. I put it in sports several times trying to like it. Just it didn't. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't for me. But overall, it's great.

Dan Roth  25:33  
Sport can be like that a lot of cars can just be like,

Rebecca Lindland  25:36  
Yeah.

Dan Roth  25:37  
All right. Well, now that we've had a thorough winding thesis on all things smoker, oh, how's the trunk?

Rebecca Lindland  25:44  
The trunk? decent. The trunk is pretty good, actually. Yeah, I know the trunk is really good. I had to we're clearing at my mom's house and so I had some electronics and stuff to bring to Goodwill and and it was super easy and you know, it had it It had a good amount of space to it for sure. The only thing that was annoying and this is probably a setting, I went, when you unlock all the doors, the trunk does not unlock as well. So the number of times that I walked up to the unlocked car thinking the trunk would unlock as well, was annoying. And so that, and that, again, is probably just a setting on there, but the size of the trunk itself was great.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:26  
Yeah, and if it's not quite enough for you, then, you know, they're not up for the hatchback which, you know, as always, you know, is more has more utility than any city, especially in small cars has more utility than sedans.

Rebecca Lindland  26:38  
Yeah. And I think the hatchback is is a fantastic option. You know, for those people that don't want to have an SUV. I go up be all over that hatch. I think it's really cool. And while we're on the topic of of Mazda, I think we're driving that cx 30 the 2026 30 in a couple of weeks in California.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:57  
Yep. I'll be there on the first wave.

Rebecca Lindland  27:00  
I'm looking forward to that.

Dan Roth  27:01  
So you can tell us about the infotainment and the seating position and the visibility, whether it measures up to this car because it's basically like a

Sam Abuelsamid  27:10  
crossover version of this car. Right? It is, yeah, I actually spent some time this week at the LA Auto Show, talking with the program manager for the month for the CX 30. And, you know, we talked and we can get into that a little more next time after Rebecca and I've had a chance to drive it. But, you know, it's, it is very heavily derived from the CX three. Excellent. that bodes well. From this from the three I mean, not the CX three, yes, the three.

Rebecca Lindland  27:42  
Yeah, cuz the interior, you know, the interior on this vehicle is really, really nice and the switches, the toggles all that had a really, really nice feel to it. The, the leather dash was beautiful, nice top stitching like there's just again, there's just really nice premium features. I will say They had a USB in the front and a wireless charging pad. But then in the back, I was a little surprised there aren't any USB keys in the center console in the back. Again, it said force five seat car that you probably don't have a lot of people in the back, but it was a lot of cars have that now, so I was a little surprised that didn't have that. That would be a nice add in the future.

Dan Roth  28:22  
Yeah, and they gotta save money somewhere. Right. All right. So let's stay with maza. Sam, because you're driving the the 2006 2019 the 2016 2019 Mazda six signature.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:38  
Yeah. So pretty much everything that would you know, most, most of what we just said about the three really applies to the monster six as well. Yeah, and, you know, in a slightly larger package, you know, it's, you know, again, you know, great styling, really nice interior. You know, it feels very premium, you know, It is one of my favorite mid size sedans, you know, mid sized mainstream sedans. You know, the signature was new for 2019. We actually talked about it, I drove it earlier this year, we talked about it then. So I'm not going to, you know, repeat too much of that. But the signature comes with the turbocharged version of the 2.5 liter that has 227 horsepower, and 310 foot pounds of torque. It's front wheel drive, only know all wheel drive, you know, but it does have, you know, most of what else you know the other stuff that you will find on the three and then you know, that extra rear seat leg room, a little bit more headroom in the back, slightly bigger trunk. But you know, aside from that, you know, it's the same kind of feel that you get in a three just extended and expanded you know, and I had the chance last year to drive one of these during the mama spring rally at Road, America. You know, we get to really thrash it. And, you know, I mean for for a front wheel drive, you know, midsize sedan, you know, I mean, this thing has some fantastic driving dynamics, it feels really good. You know, and in this case, you know, with the sport mode, you know, you do get a little bit more because it is a more powerful engine, you do, you know, get a little bit more of that feel, it's not just, you know, holding the gears longer and revving higher before it shifts and make more noise. You know, it actually, you know, has some extra performance that that you get from that. But overall, you know, the same kinds of themes that you get, you know, from any Mazda car, any modern Mazda car are there. And, you know, you get a lot of, you know, the same kind of equipment. with, you know, the the Driver Assist features, the Lane Keeping Assist that Mazda has on the six is not great, it's not particularly effective. You know, it's fine as more as a lane departure warning system. It doesn't really do much to really try to intervene to actually keep you in the land is certainly not a lane centering system. But the adaptive cruise control works well the blind spot monitoring is all there, you know, you have really nice Napa leather covered seats. And it's just, you know, it's just a really lovely place to spend time. You know, if you've got a, you've got to do a lot of driving, you know, this is a great vehicle to do it.

Rebecca Lindland  31:21  
What's the price point on it?

Sam Abuelsamid  31:24  
This one, you know, this is the loaded one, it has everything, you know, basically, you can't add anything else to this, you know, we're including delivery charge, it came to 36,005 20 Yeah, I mean, you know, compared to, you know, a loaded Camry or a cord or, or even a fusion, you know, it's, it's in that same ballpark, they're all in that mid 30s price range. So, you know, it's not cheap, but it's, you know, you can you can certainly get, you know, a Mazda six and one of the lower trim levels you know, in the mid 20 thousands range, right. You know, it's it's you know, you're not going to get the let the natural leather seats and the turbo engine. But, you know, aside from that, you know, most of the rest of the basic characteristics of this, even in base trim levels, you know, Mazda, you know, really does a great job with their interiors. And you know, it's, it's just a great, great place to spend time You know, it feels it feels much more premium than its price point would suggest.

Dan Roth  32:24  
That's the that's the master trick. And it looks great too. And you know, the the scale Yeah, is elegant. Yeah, that little

Sam Abuelsamid  32:31  
fantastic looking car,

Dan Roth  32:33  
that bit of length, lets them sort of stretch out the lines here that three looks great, but the six really because it's a little longer it really that the styling develops a little better. And it just right

Sam Abuelsamid  32:43  
at eautiful right, and the six you know, the six is nearing the end of its current lifecycle, you know, so it still has the kind of the earlier iteration of mostess kodo design theme, so you've got a little more sharper creases. Compared to what you see on the three, the three, they've kind of softened it. You know, the the theme that they talked about last year when they first showed the three, you know, was this idea of, you know, a pebble in a stream, you know, the waters been running over for for many years and smoothing it out. So taking, you know, kind of those same kinds of themes and evolving at further, and I'll be really fascinated to see what they do with the next generation six, you know, as they bring this updated version of this design language to that car and apply what they've done with the three, you know, to that slightly larger form factor.

Dan Roth  33:33  
Well, we've covered monster pretty comprehensive anatomy. It's like most of their lineup. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:40  
Well, actually, not, not not not so much anymore. I mean, the NIV are going to have they're now going to be up to four SUVs with the addition of the CX 30. And you know, the the CX five already accounts for more than half of all monster sales in the US.

Dan Roth  33:56  
Yeah, that was that's a good one, too. I like that.

Rebecca Lindland  33:59  
Yeah. That is I do wonder, you know how successful they've been trying to sort of move up scale. I mean, that I like the fact that they're speaking with the product. First. I but, you know, consideration and such. I, you know, continues to, I think be an ongoing challenge, but the product certainly is there. And, and really nice.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:24  
Yeah, I think I would say that you know, there may be reconsidering the pace at which they try to move up scale. You know, when you look at the pricing that you know, one of the things this week at the LA Auto Show, they announced the, the US pricing for the CX 30 which starts at about $23,000.

Rebecca Lindland  34:44  
Oh, they've got nine

Sam Abuelsamid  34:46  
on the site Well, with with delivery. That, just on a slight tangent here, I think it's time for all manufacturers to just stop calling out the MSRP without delay. If you cannot option you know if you can not take the option to take your take delivery somewhere where you don't have to pay for it just included in the MSRP because it's not a it's not an optional extra. Right? It is it is something you absolutely it's a mandatory fee that you must pay. So just include it You mean you can't

Dan Roth  35:18  
get your monster for for nano delivery.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:21  
So sadly you cannot so 20 23,000 including delivery which you know for a compact crossover like that is actually you know, not an unreasonable price especially, you know when you consider that it like other mostess You know, it does have you know, a more premium feeling interior than much of its competitive class. And so you know, I think that they are at least with the CX 30 there they're trying to and I think you know, with with the three as well I think they tried to hold the line on pricing, you know, try to to give it that premium feel, you know, but not go overboard on the on the pricing. Because you know, even you know the the all wheel drive sedan that you drove Rebecca you know, 31,000 is is not bad. And that's that's a perfectly reasonable price, I think for what you're getting

Rebecca Lindland  36:08  
right for the content and the quality and the capability. I agree with you. It's still it's still a lot. We don't want to dismiss that. But for for what you're getting, there's a good value story there. Now, when I'm looking at the monster site, one of the things I'm one we're going on a low grade rant about manufacturers. I'm curious because you know, it, there seems to be a lot of 20 on the monster site, the Mazda CX three, and the Mazda CX five, you can still build a 28 teen on their site, and then 2019 and they don't have some cars at 2020, but not others. But there's, there's three there's three different model years on their website,

Dan Roth  36:52  
and I've been trying to move.

Rebecca Lindland  36:54  
I'm just I find this is fascinating, isn't

Sam Abuelsamid  36:59  
it? Yeah, it's not unusual, you know, most manufacturers websites, you know, you'll usually find a link to previous model years, you know, where you can build at least at least the, you know, the one year earlier model, because they often do that still have some inventory in stock. And the other thing I've been noticing, you know, especially in the past year, is many of these manufacturers are, you know, the, the 2020 or the new model years, and the new model year models are actually coming, in many cases not, you know, in some cases are coming earlier. In some cases, they're actually coming later. You know, so, you know, the, you know, the, the 2020 Nissan Sentra, you know, was just launched, you know, it's, you know, almost the end of November now, they just launched it this week in LA, and you know, it'll be going on sale early in the year. Right. And you know, in the past, typically, anything that went on sale after the first of January, usually took up The next model year, but now that's often not the case. They're often starting, you know, with the, you know, even if it's in the middle of the model year like that they're they're starting with the with the current model year.

Rebecca Lindland  38:09  
Do we know why that's happening? I mean, he shouldn't change or something like I just something really curious to me.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:16  
Yeah. I'm not really sure. I haven't haven't really delved into it much. You know, I don't think there's any real certification changes, you know, in a lot of cases, it's just kind of arbitrary decision making.

Rebecca Lindland  38:28  
Well, I think part of it was brought to my attention when I was doing this project that I was embroiled in the last couple of weeks where I was looking at, literally at different models. And it just struck me that how many 29 teens I was still writing about, because that's what was available on the website. And, and then when I'm as we're talking about monster this morning, there's, I'm just looking at that. So anyway, it's just an observation.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:55  
You Yeah, you know, it's it's funny, you know, this is actually the kind of move away from for some, to some degree from the traditional model your designations is actually something that was kind of started by Tesla, because Tesla has never really stuck with the usual model your designations, you know, they, they do it for for EPA certification purposes, you know, that's something that's required, right. But beyond that, you know, in their marketing, their advertising, you know, on their website, you'll never see motley or designations. It's just whatever they happen to be building at that particular moment. You know, and they, because they, they don't hold off until a new model year to introduce new stuff, you know, they will roll out changes, whenever they feel like it's ready, whether it's actually ready or not, there's another story but they roll out change changes, you know, on the fly. And so the model your designations don't mean as much there and traditional manufacturers aren't, haven't got to that degree, but they are being a little more fluid in what you know what a given model year when a given model year starts or finish.

Rebecca Lindland  40:01  
Let's begin. And we'll we'll circle back to Tesla. But Dan, what are you driving?

Dan Roth  40:05  
Yeah, so I had the 2020 GMC Sierra 84 with the carbon pro package now off road performance package or some stuff anyway, it was a $67,000 1500 which seems like a lot of money for a 1500 but I understand that people are spending lots on pickups and I really want to know why people seem to think that the GMC and Chevrolet pickups are not as good as, say the RAM and the Ford pickups because those two seem to be really gunning for number one. Number one obviously is just Ford in terms of overall sales, although there's there's an argument to be made there, but also ram seems to be duking it out with GMC for Chevrolet or Chevrolet for the number two spot And I can understand some of the criticism, but this is a really good pickup truck.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:06  
Yeah. Did you borrow a front end loader and drop a load of cinder blocks into the bed to see if it would scratch the carbon fiber bed?

Dan Roth  41:12  
No, I did not.

Rebecca Lindland  41:16  
I then you didn't really test it.

Dan Roth  41:17  
Right. I will say that. In terms of doing truck stuff. I did very little truck stuff. But because this is a very targeted up $67,000 1500 with red toe hooks and all the goodies and stuff. I probably drove it the way I see most of these very fancy 1500s being used, which is not to do truck stuff. And it's basically as a commuter car and and in that respect. It is just it's a lovely truck to drive. What I liked about it was that it just it drives like all the teams spoke to each other on a regular basis.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:54  
Like Yeah, well it does. You can remember do you say this was a Denali?

Dan Roth  41:59  
No, it's the eight Tea for so it's the mid level trim had the 6.2 liter V eight though which and the 10 speed auto, which I think is is probably one of the biggest reasons to like it

Rebecca Lindland  42:10  
didn't have the multi pro tailgate.

Dan Roth  42:12  
Yes, did good. And that said First of all, small blocks are lovely. This is the loveliest example of a small block like it. One of the things I've always loved about small blocks is that just sort of like wave of sort of competent, quiet torque that you always get, even though the ones that were choked by emissions stuff and had like 10 horsepower, they always had this sort of like you could walk along

Sam Abuelsamid  42:38  
and never got below 100 and 100 horsepower,

Dan Roth  42:40  
never below 100 excellent. All eight cylinders and three

Sam Abuelsamid  42:46  
inches they never get they never got below 100 horsepower from the factory for a time they did after a while get below well below 100 horsepower in the real world because they had a problem with the heat treating on the camshaft and it went the camps. Yeah, we had an 82 Malibu with the 4.4 liter V

Dan Roth  43:03  
216 was excellent.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:05  
Yeah. And after a while it started running really bad. And you know, I pulled the spark plugs, I was checking compression and I realized that the four middle cylinders weren't doing anything and I found out that the way they treat the camshafts they the way that he treats the camshafts they would bring the heat treat probes in from the ends and and spin it up and heat it and it didn't always get completely hot in the middle so they were soft and so the cam lobes would eventually were off they weren't so I pulled the I pulled the cam out of this thing in the four center lobes were completely round circles no lobes at all

Dan Roth  43:40  
so you had a half means camshaft literally. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  43:43  
well, I had cylinder deactivation before it was popular. Yeah, that's true. I was it was just permanent.

Dan Roth  43:48  
Well you know and see that's an opportunity for an upgrade. Get yourself a nice like high lift cam with make it make it idle crappy. But know that this this VA and tend to be Transmission works so well together they're so strong and competent. And I I drove gently just to see what I could get out of it and gently doesn't mean like being a traffic hazard. It means sort of limiting it to like, you know, 65 on the highway and stuff. I got it up to 20 miles per gallon combined, which was pretty impressive. That says the five three or the 62620 Wow, yeah, that's good, man. It has stopped start. You know, you spend more time and stop and go traffic obviously your average drops but you drive it sort of in a relaxed fashion. It returns pretty decent fuel economy. And it's a good truck for driving in that relaxed fashion because it tends to just reward you it. All the controls feel really good. You know, the the steering, the brakes, the accelerator, everything works together. You know, one of the things I don't like about the the Fords is they've got that real squishy EcoBoost throttle response, where'd you get that real strong hit of turbo torque and you're constantly like, making adjustments where this this one seems a lot more linear because it's not a turbocharged engine and it works really well with 10 speed auto. So I just it was just great to drive from a driving perspective of drover though and it was quiet and it rode pretty well. So the it's in it's two thirds of a taco or two thirds of a suburban really, and I was like, well, I okay, I could be down with this or, and GMC. I guess it's UConn. So I liked all that I liked a lot of the thoughtful touches around the interior, the infotainment was was decent. You know, the controls were good. Except for you know, some of the climate controls were a little crappy where they were sort of they gang functions on a button. But other than that, you know, it was just a really easy truck to operate into us and very, very good to drive. And I feel like if you were to load it up with the trailer and you don't take a long, long call with it, great. The off road stuff kind of is a little confusing here because all it really does is it adds tires it makes some noise and limit your traction. So your braking distance gets longer your cornering gets a little bit worse and your steering accuracies is not as good and it's just such a long truck Yeah, I guess I can go off road but I feel like it's it's probably going to be out of its element a lot sooner than something like a raptor or the the ram what's the ram the power the rebel now the rebel Yeah. And you know those two are probably a little bit more equipped although it does have a suspension lift with the off road package it just it seemed maybe less it in character. But again, you know, not taking it off road. I it's a bunch of that stuff probably helps but My fear is always like get, it'll help me get stuck like deeper in the woods. So it's a more expensive,

Sam Abuelsamid  47:05  
actually, you'd be surprised how good some of these big trucks are, as long as wherever you're going, you know, has enough width for the truck to fit through. These things are surprisingly capable off road. I mean, I haven't driven the Sierra off road, but you have driven the the rebel and the and the past, you know, some of the Fords on off road courses. And they can actually handle a surprising amount, you know, granted, you know, compared to, you know, a short a two door Wrangler, you know, you're not going to be able, you're not going to have the same kind of break over height, you would with those, you know, and certainly, you know, again, as I said the width is going to be a limiting factor. But overall, you know, these things can go pretty much anywhere.

Dan Roth  47:48  
Hmm. I mean, I think it's, it's fair. It's just, I so this is where I walk away kind of puzzled because I thought that it was it's a really nice Nice package and yes, it's expensive but the what makes it really nice is the basic goodness of the truck so you don't have to buy the fancy Sierra to get a pretty decent truck in it. You know, the the sort of most lasting impression was how light on its feet it felt where the ram feels just like it you're driving the Titanic, it just feels so heavy. And it is

Rebecca Lindland  48:29  
yeah, I think the gM gM products tend to drive smaller than they are they there's just something they they've done a really good job on that aspect of it. And you don't feel like you're hauling a truck around with you.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:42  
Yeah. And you know, for for some of the the moaning that you know that people have done about you know, perhaps the quality especially on the Silverado, maybe less so on the on the Sierra, but the the quality of the interior materials, things like that. You know, one thing that GM has done a really good job at Over the last six or seven years is reducing the way to their vehicles you know they've done a lot of work yeah and and that's without you know taking the Ford path of resorting to an all aluminum body you know they've they've done some very smart use of mixed material architectures you know using various grades of steel and aluminum and in the case of this particular truck carbon fiber for the bed you know it's jams done a lot of great stuff there you know, to actually make it lighter so not not only does it feel like it's driving lighter it actually is lighter than the other trucks yeah and that's so much lighter than they then the Ford before it's it's close to the same way as the Ford even without using all aluminum

Dan Roth  49:43  
right and that was the joke right was that the Ford had to go to aluminum to get into slightest the shift. But it really like that pays off. This is the Ford the Ford F series feels kind of like loose fit and just that's not a truck. I like the interior and those trucks are cheap too. The interior here was a little harder to get a read on. And I tried to really examine materials it probably is the area where it doesn't compare as well to ram which is the day of the class leader. They have the nicest cabins. This is all black. So I think that hides some of the contrast and materials quality. It had leather for the seats with some some, you know, highlight trim on it, but the lower dash and then parts of the door panels probably aren't as nice as you're going to find in RAM. I think it's competitive in the class though. And if you if you want to get picky about it for your $67,000 probably feels more like a 40 something thousand dollar interior. But again, that's the same kind of thing you get in the Fords, even with their super duper trim that goes way, way, way up above 70 bass

Rebecca Lindland  50:57  
and you always have to balance the work truck aspect of this, because you don't want somebody to come in and say, I can't I can't use this truck for work, because it's too nice. Yeah, you know, I mean, like so that I agree the materials are there's always that you need to have a certain amount of durability to these materials in because it's still at the end of the day is a pickup truck.

Dan Roth  51:21  
Yeah. And and, you know, styling wise I think is very handsome. It surprised me because I came at it like, well, these are the the trucks that everybody's saying are not as good the trucks that are lagging the competition. I don't think that's true. I think the F series sort of claims that sales crown through a variety of sleight of hand. It's a it's a very competitive market. All the trucks are good these don't do.

Rebecca Lindland  51:50  
The volume is split between the GMC and Chevy right brands. And so that's always arguments.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:56  
Right. And, you know, in the past there have been times was when the combined sales of GMC and Chevrolet actually did exceed Ford. But that's not true today.

Dan Roth  52:08  
Yeah, and will on Ford also has the benefit of, they really really know the fleet business they have that they're so good at that. If they need to sell a few, they'll sell a few to, to maintain that position and and they're really good at what they do and the series is is a good truck. None of the trucks are bad. You know, like I said, they all feel solid. I, you kind of your eyes glaze over when you read the description of the frame, whatever, it's a railroad bridge, who cares.

Rebecca Lindland  52:40  
But the other thing I'm wanting with the with the volume, you know, Ram is very clever, because they still have the classic available and there's an estimate of like 30% of their sales are that classic and so but they don't separate it out. It's all one volume. Yeah.

Dan Roth  52:56  
And oh boy, I bet they're willing to deal on that.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:59  
Oh, yeah. Though I mean those sell primarily, you know, as with Ford, you know, they sell primarily the classics to fleets and commercial customers.

Rebecca Lindland  53:07  
And again, they got a bench seat, which I think is awesome. They're not

Dan Roth  53:11  
not none of this is all down to personal preference. None of these trucks are inherently bad I prefer the 6.2 here to the turbocharged be six in the in the Ford but again, you're you I think you're paying a premium for that engine and b i or the V sex or the V V and necessarily the 62 the way I just I just think at a certain point the fordist is like the EcoBoost is gonna out toe and out like it just that the turbo is really do help you when it comes to work. They're also gonna be thirsty as a bastard.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:52  
You feel another thing, you know the thing about the the telling, you know, you'll see these three companies, you know, go back and forth. Worth under claims on who has the highest tow rating? Yeah. And you know, the reality is, you know if you can tell 11,500 pounds or 12,000 pounds or 12,200 pounds doesn't really make that much difference. Now

Dan Roth  54:14  
you don't want to but you don't want to tell one of these things out at the edge of their capabilities obsessing

Sam Abuelsamid  54:16  
contest between the three of them. Yeah.

Dan Roth  54:19  
But you know that the 6.2 has 420 horsepower, it can go up to 9400 pounds. They say that actually it gets 20 miles per gallon on the highway. So I can confirm that on the highway you can achieve 20 miles per gallon. And it starts at 50,000. So 50,000 plus 7000 of options actually seems like not that abusive for the truck Fire seems like a pretty pretty solid deal. And it was a good place to spend time I I liked it quite a bit. You know if we're talking just the Is it the the sybaritic qualities of the truck It's just a nice matter

Rebecca Lindland  55:02  
what

Dan Roth  55:04  
if you're a sinner, right, you it's I think it's a David de Davis word. But it's just basically like so luxurious environment. The more lovely truck more luxurious it is, the more I like I like GMC per inch and like Jim's approach, you know, instead of having like, sort of like fold down steps on the on the side of the bumper, they just cut a hole in it stuck a step in there

Sam Abuelsamid  55:32  
is molded right into the bumper itself.

Dan Roth  55:34  
Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of those little thoughts that are like okay, we could we could just do it this way, which is a little bit and every truck is gonna have their own little bit of clever So

Sam Abuelsamid  55:44  
speaking of those, those little thoughts, did you actually try playing around with that multi pro tailgate I did whatever as I call it.

Dan Roth  55:53  
It was it was a little I was a little confused by it. Just Like what? Like this. Okay, this one goes down. This goes like just the different configurations like a Swiss Army knife, you know, your full metal the

Sam Abuelsamid  56:04  
blades, you know, like, what am I going to do with his I think there's six different positions you can you

Dan Roth  56:08  
need to put like a? Well, I'm sure there's a guide in the glove compartment which Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  56:14  
well, I think one of the issues as it is, but one of the issues I've seen with it is, in some cases, you know, if you actually have a trailer hooked up, it, you know, can interfere with the trailer, you know, if you drop down like the of the step, the step part of it, the middle section of it, you know, it'll hit the trailer hitch. Yeah. So you have to be careful with things like that. But, you know, I mean, otherwise, I think it's, I think it's generally a good idea. Of course, it does add complexity and cost. No, you don't, but you know, it's, it's, it's part of that, you know, 11,000 or almost $12,000 carbon pro package on the 84. That also includes the the carbon fiber bed and it's interesting that they don't break out the cost of that carbon fiber. Bed I'd be curious to know how much that by itself cost. Do

Dan Roth  57:02  
you think that carbon fiber bed is significantly more expensive than? Oh, yeah, I guess it is significantly more expensive.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:08  
It's it's, oh, yeah, it's it's way more expensive than a stamped steel bed. It saves about 70 pounds, I think it was 69 pounds or something that said, and you know, of course, it's never going to rust. And it's, you know, they've done some interesting manufacturing techniques with that, you know, it's actually made in the same way as they do. Sheet molding compound body panels of Corvettes, the SMC body panels, so it's not done in the traditional lay up approach that that has been done for carbon fiber in the past. Is

Dan Roth  57:38  
it claves? Like, do they do it under pressure?

Sam Abuelsamid  57:40  
No, no, it's not interest, though. It's Yeah. So that that brings the cost down substantially. And this is the first you know, high volume application, or, you know, comparatively high volume application of this kind of technology for carbon fiber.

Dan Roth  57:56  
See, I think that's going to be one of those features that everybody sort of, you know, Like when we had plastic valve covers and intakes and stuff come out, you know, everybody thought it was going to be a failure point. And I think it's not going to be, you know, there may be some, some teething pains, but composites are material that there are materials that automakers have been using for a very long time. And they'll they'll figure it out and it will be a benefit, you know, who wants a pickup truck with a with a bed that rests out and that that is a significant problem. So I think to it worth whatever the extra cost is to GM when you consider you can save 60 pounds there and put it elsewhere in the truck. Like that. That's completely worth it or add it right onto

Sam Abuelsamid  58:35  
your payload rating.

Dan Roth  58:36  
Yeah, either or so. That seems like a pretty good win to me.

Rebecca Lindland  58:43  
Did yours have moving running boards?

Dan Roth  58:45  
No, I, I'm I'm getting confused between that and the vehicle I've got this week,

Rebecca Lindland  58:52  
I think I think I'm pretty sure this is the truck that has the running boards actually will move backwards and which allows you to get into the truck bed that way as well.

Dan Roth  59:04  
Oh, it's in the front. Oh, that's right. It's really, really cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:08  
Yeah, it's really fun. I hadn't noticed that before.

Rebecca Lindland  59:11  
Yeah, it's just a slight movement back and then you can get them into the truck because of course, egress and Ingress is always my issue.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:21  
Yeah, well, and particularly, you know, with this truck, you know, one of the things when GM launched the new Sierra and Silverado last year, one of the things they talked about is that the the bedsides are higher on this one compared to the previous generation compared to most others. So you actually have more contained volume in the bed because they raised the sides of the bed by three or four inches, something like that. You know, which also you know, if you're coming in from the side, you know, does make it does make reaching into grab stuff a little more challenging no matter how tall you are.

Rebecca Lindland  59:55  
Yeah, it does. So the and that's this is the other thing too, and I apologize if you hear it. Lucy in the background because she has decided to join us. I So, getting in and out of the of the new Ram 1500 without the split tailgate. The only way that you can access that bed is through the license plate holder. It's outrageous. Yeah, I did. It was just something that was so mind boggling to me that they have not paid more advantages

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:29  
I do they do offer an optional step, retracting step on the on the rear, the you know, you can you can put your foot on it push it down, well I let you get up in there.

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:43  
I saw that with the split tailgate because I actually demonstrated that on on Fox Business and fox and friends or something for them. So I so I use that to get in and out. But that was with the split tailgate does it come even with that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:00  
With the conventional tale,

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:02  
all right, the version, the 1500 that I had last year, I remember having it around Christmas time I it did not have it. And I complained bitterly to my friends there and they were like, No, no, no, it's coming. It's coming. So that went the Chicago Auto Show when they showed the split tailgate. Then that was one of the reasons I demonstrated it was because I was happy that they finally did something.

Dan Roth  1:01:24  
It's, you know, I think we all benefit from the, the truck wars here. They're all good. This is just comes down to which one you like.

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:33  
It does and and it pushes them to innovate. And, you know, which I think is a good segue to talking about innovative pickup trucks.

Dan Roth  1:01:45  
I don't know what you have in mind.

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:47  
So shall I introduce our next topic? Well,

Unknown Speaker  1:01:52  
you know, we lost

Dan Roth  1:01:52  
our our comment right before we recorded, I think is sort of the most salient point here is Is that with one sort of amateur hour press conference and vehicle that yes seems rather slapped together. They were able to erase a week of coverage from the

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:17  
Tesla. Yeah, just to be clear. Yeah. So no, go ahead. I just

Dan Roth  1:02:20  
I thought that was amazing.

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:23  
Well, no, I just wanted to clarify who they were. Because we haven't actually verbalized it yet.

Dan Roth  1:02:27  
Yeah, well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:29  
yeah. showing their cyber truck. I think that was one of the mark jod chopping unexplicable This has to be a joke moments that we've all had in a long time.

Dan Roth  1:02:44  
It was not what I was expecting. What did you think Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:52  
Well, let me just say, first of all, you know, tastes when it comes to design is a very personal thing. Okay, and there's no guarantee that any two people will have the same taste in the way things look or should look and frankly, I think this thing looks absolutely ridiculous I know there are those out there like Tim Stevens at CNET that disagree with me and think it's a very innovative design and you know give Tesla credit for that that's fine I disagree strongly I could I would not want to be seen anywhere near this

Dan Roth  1:03:28  
thing well, so well design aside because it's okay to look weird I'm fine with that like make the Lamborghini Countach of trucks all you want but the I've seen weird takes on it like it's going to be cheaper to manufacture because it has flat stainless steel biedermann's I I don't think so. First of all, I think once you block it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:51  
just feels more expensive than regular steel or aluminum. So you know, I don't think that That's going to be true,

Dan Roth  1:04:00  
right? And you don't ever want to be putting dead flat body panels on a vehicle, they have much less inherent rigidity because there's no radius, the rate the stamping them out to a radius gives them some stiffness that's not there. If you just use a flat panel that's just going to flap around. Like, this is just a whole whole host of reasons why that just doesn't ring true to me. But but they demonstrated

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:23  
to us that you know that that's not true for this one's it's as stiff as anything.

Dan Roth  1:04:29  
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:30  
France, France, Juan holson you know, took a sledgehammer to the side and couldn't dentists deadblow hammer,

Dan Roth  1:04:35  
and I, you know, that's just showmanship fine. And there's always spectacle to any car. Introduction. So I like those things that people saying, well, it's not street legal. Yes, I get it. It doesn't look like it's been designed with that in mind. It's a concept car. And every automaker introduces concept cars that have various non street legal aspects that like Get it. I don't want to deal i think that's that's not where we should put our energy right now what I see is a fundamental problem with the Tesla cyber truck is that they don't seem to have spent any time trying to understand the truck market the needs of the truck buyer like we were just talking about all of these things right with this, this GMC truck where the stuff that that makes it work when you're doing work. This seems like a Model S truck and it seems like the model as buyer is the person they're they're speaking to not anybody who has maybe a fleet of 100 trucks for their business that might be looking to go EV and you know, it doesn't seem like they've thought about those needs or fleet service. I certainly wouldn't want to invest in even two of these and try to keep them up and running for fleet use. With Tesla's track record of initial quality and service and support like that seems like you're going to be buying another truck. Just You can get to work. So I'll back off and just see what your impressions are, you know, either of you have any particular takes you you'd like to share?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:12  
Why don't you go first Rebecca?

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:13  
Okay. I think there's a couple things. You're absolutely right down. I don't think that they've considered who buys pickup trucks and and they often you know Tessa will refer to the millions of units that are sold every year. By as you say, we've just gone through that there is always that balance of beauty and functionality and utility, probably more so than any other vehicle. The reason that people purchase this, you know, purchase a pickup truck is, for the most part to utilize its functionality. I do think that the bed was really cool with the built in ramp, you know, the ATV was The best part of that show

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:02  
which apparently may not have even been the Tesla built a TV it looks the reports online or looks like it was based on an existing Yamaha ATV and

Rebecca Lindland  1:07:14  
probably just spray painted black or something. You know, I mean, I think that again looking trying to be somewhat objective looking at what I did like about it, I thought that was a really cool feature to have the built in ramp. I don't think that it's a functional truck. I you know, when when the bed is covered, it looks like it covers the rear windscreen and having just talked about visibility. I think there's a lot of compromise visibility. I know that there's the camera the rear view camera that many vehicles have today, particularly GM is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:48  
mandatory now.

Rebecca Lindland  1:07:49  
I know that the rearview mirror that turns into a camera that I don't know what there's Is there a fancy name for that? But you know, I did just to get a camera mirror system. Yeah, the GMC Sierra It was the first time that I had ever seen that and I found it to be super easy to use but it was weird to not see the occupants of your vehicle then and my understanding is that they don't have a toggle back for that. So you've got people in the backseat you're not,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:15  
that's something that will have to change because legally, you have to have a reflective mirror as well. Okay, that's, that's, it's so that's why all those the ones that are out there now there are various GM models and some others now as well. They all they can all toggle between the reflective mirror and the camera display

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:34  
and they should have

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:35  
the right because you want you want that as a backup. You know, in case in case something goes wrong with the camera

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:42  
well and it's also just the idea that you know, sometimes it is helpful to be able to see, you know, to glance back and see people that are in the vehicle with you so obviously you know there's a lot of there's no side mirrors and you know the camera system I drove when I drove the Audi e Tron last December. overseas, we had the cameras, the side mirrors were cameras, which definitely took a little time to get used to, but eventually we did you know, through the course of the day, so all these things you can overcome. I do like the fact that it has, you know, the leveling suspension and such, we saw that again, when they were loaded the ATV that front end came up high, I mean, that was thing was high, and then sort of setting you know, itself leveled. So, all those things are good. It's just that, you know, I think that you do have to have a fundamental understanding of the consumer that buys pickup trucks. And, you know, I can't see a rancher or somebody that uses this as a pickup truck, a contractor, using this as a pickup truck. It's not to say they're not gonna buy them, but they wouldn't. They're not gonna this isn't going to be a work truck.

Dan Roth  1:09:56  
Who do you think is going to be attracted to it? It's not

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:00  
a it's not about the design, right? The design is very, very controversial, no doubt, but I can see and God bless them. I can see contractors here in Greenwich pulling up to that thing. That thing, because it's a talking point, right. And it shows how innovative they are.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:19  
You'll see you'll see that the owner of the company,

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:22  
Yes, exactly. No,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:24  
not, not, not the not the electricians and the plumbers, and not the guy that owns the guy. Yeah, the guy that owns the company, right.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:34  
And keep in mind, too, you know, we went through this period of brutalist architecture. And, you know, look at Boston Town Hall, for God's sakes. It's considered one of the ugliest buildings

Dan Roth  1:10:45  
in City Hall Plaza is so good. If you looked at the other proposals, they definitely picked the best one.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:55  
That's a low bar.

Dan Roth  1:10:55  
I don't know I saw.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:58  
Well, the FBI, the Hoover building, it Washington DC also brutalist architecture. So this Yeah, brutalist car that I get, it is not yet,

Dan Roth  1:11:07  
I and I appreciate brutalist architecture, you know, you know, quarter or a concrete and you you make the materials part of the design in a very, you know, sort of deliberate way of this. for, you know, in terms of the concerns that you would have for a truck, the packaging seems to really suffer in this design, because like the high peak roof, you've gotten over your head room. It just, you know, practically, when, you know, part of the trick of designing anything is to fit around your actual functional parameters, right? Like, if you're designing a truck, you've got to start with, like, what is it going to be

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:50  
doing and designed from the inside out, not from the outside,

Dan Roth  1:11:53  
right? And then there's always that friction between engineering and design and nobody's gonna get exactly What they want, but really the magic happens when they come together and everybody's satisfied with the compromises made in the end product. They talked a little bit about some of the capabilities and they you know, the numbers seem good. My concern is that there was emphasis put on the acceleration numbers, which is complete nonsense. I don't, there are some people that care how quickly their trucks get to 60 miles an hour. I really don't think that's an issue. I think really what makes more sense is to talk about what if any, modifications have been made to the the power hardware, you know, the batteries, the cabling the motors, and you know, how much it can tell how long you can, how long can do it for, you know, because we don't really have a good idea of how to measure that, like, how long are you going to get useful work out of this electric truck. We haven't really been there yet. So we don't really know what the best way to measure that is and And they could have established that and saying like, this is useful to you because, you know, we limited the performance in terms of speed, but certainly more than adequate performance and you get X amount of range, even while you're towing 10,000 pounds or something. And, and, you know, I'm still, they, you know, Tesla has good, good power electronics, good batteries, good motors, but when you're trying to start off an extra 10,000 pounds on that, you know, you're going to put a lot of current demands and everything and current equals heat. And, you know, how have they have they done all that? I didn't get any, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:35  
to, to what you said about acceleration, for example, the truck that they showed, was on these big nobly off road tires. Yeah. And, you know, if you try to accelerate to 60 and 2.9 seconds on those tires, you're going to get, you know, one, maybe two launches off those tires before you start shredding them. Yeah. So that's, you know, you can either have the off road capability or you can have that kind of acceleration. but not both. And similarly, with the telling, you know, it used to be up until about 2011 2012 timeframe, you know, when you heard tell ratings from manufacturers, you know, from Ford and GM and Chrysler and anybody else, and you know, they tended to be all over the map because there was no standard for towing. You know, SAE developed a standard a standard chest testing procedure for for doing till ratings just as they have in the past with horsepower and torque and, and all kinds of other things. That's, that's one of things that I say the Society of Automotive Engineers does, they develop standards that most of the industry adheres to, and you know, that j 2807 standard, you know, ever since then, you know, manufacturers test to that standard. And so now you can directly compare those two ratings. My guess is that 14,000 pound total rating we heard about the other night was not done to the J 2807. Standard. And, you know, if you if you talk to Dan admins love to get him on the show one of these days from edmunds.com no relation to the family that owns edmunds.com, by the way, but, you know, Dan, you know, does most of their their testing, and he's done a lot over the last several years with Tesla's and, you know, and great respect for a lot of what Tesla does, as I do from a, from a technical standpoint, but, you know, like, he's done a lot of tests, testing with the Model X, you know, because it has a 5000 pound tow rating. And, you know, if you look up some of the stuff, he's, he's written on it, you know, basically, you know, even with a fairly small trailer hooked up to a Model X, like a less than 2000 pound trailer, he was losing about, you know, at least half of the range of that vehicle when towing. And, you know, this is one of the challenges when you're towing you know, you do you do have a significant degradation in efficiency, whether it's gas efficiency with you know, if you're telling with a with a conventional truck or Or range with an EV, you're going to lose a lot when you're towing because you're doing a lot more work, your aerodynamics are a lot worse. And, you know, this is one of the reasons why, you know, manufacturers, you know, all three of the domestic manufacturers have brought out diesel versions of their light duty trucks, you know, even though they are seen primarily as a niche product, relatively low volume product in the grand scheme of things, you know, for Ford, I think they project you know, the sales of the diesel f 150 to be no more than about 30 to 35,000 units a year. For people that tell all the time, like say, for example, a landscaper, you know, that has to tote around a bunch of equipment, you know, bunch of lawn mowers and you know, all kinds of other equipment that you know, they are totally on a daily basis when you're towing with an EcoBoost f150. You know, that 2223 mile per gallon rating that nominally has that dropped To about 11 or 12, a lot of times, you know, same thing goes for, you know, a lot of the other trucks even for for a VA truck, you know, you, you gas Viet, you lose a lot of fuel efficiency when you're towing. And one of the advantages that a diesel engine has is that under load, it actually has much less degradation and fuel efficiency under load. So if you're, you know, they targeted that truck at people that tow all the time, whether you're towing a horse trailer, or, you know, a load of lawn mowers, you know, that's, that's something that is an advantage to those customers. And what we've seen so far from from Tesla from the one via Tesla vehicle that can tow the Model X is that it suffers from that same problem of, you know, basically cutting your efficiency in half or more when you hook up a trailer to it. And, you know, I think that's going to be a real challenge not just for Tesla, but for all the manufacturers that are bringing up electric pickup trucks in the next couple of

Dan Roth  1:17:57  
years. I mean, it takes your brains friends if you have 100 mile range. Now you have 150. And if it's early, you have less region and stuff, but it also really stresses all of the, the powertrain. So you know what it's the durability of that look like and I don't know that that's been really comprehensively tested.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:20  
Yeah, I guess I'm less concerned about durability of electric trucks in general. As opposed to, you know, maybe, in the case of, of Tesla's trucks, we'll see, you know, they, most most of them, most of Tesla's vehicles, you know, they have more of a problem with reliability than durability. things, you know, randomly stopped working, but I think when they do work, you know, they tend to work for a long time, you know, you know, talking, you know, the last couple years a couple different times to rule. So nadd guy run runs a company called test loop that Until recently offered inner city transportation services with a fleet of model S's and axes, like between LA and San Diego and LA and Palm Springs. You know, he's he's had a couple of model axes that, you know, racked up over 300,000 miles without too much difficulty. So, you know, in general and EV shouldn't be too much of a problem there. But, you know, again, you know, we haven't really seen it used in this kind of a use case, you know, with with consistent heavy towing. And so that may be putting more load on the batteries in there than it really up to, you know, depending on how you do your, your temperature management in the battery. Right. And

Dan Roth  1:19:41  
that's down. That's my, it makes me scratch my head. I'm not overly concerned about it. It's certainly a solvable problem. I just wonder what it means.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:49  
Yeah. But Rebecca, to what you were saying earlier about, you know, the way the truck is designed for, you know, for people for commercial users, you know, Woody, what do you think about commercial users and electric trucks in general and more specifically the Cybertron

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:07  
so I love the idea of electric trucks in a fleet environment because they go back to the same station you know, they go back to a specific charger they can you can set up I place where these trucks are going to go back. I also like the and I'm talking about like ups FedEx the post office. I also like the idea of all operations

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:33  
are not going long local operation or they're not going straying far from home,

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:37  
right, we're not talking long haul we're talking but you know, planned routes, right? And, and I also like the fact that they're, you on some level, get the neighborhood effect. You know, you get the idea like, you know, you talk to your, your mailman you are male woman, you know, you have an electric truck now, you know, what do you think about that you can kind of get that real world expensive. And so I think there's and you also get around the whole, you know, the the challenge with the consumer is, you know, is this better than what they have right now? And and, you know, when we look at the Tesla truck or any of the other electric vehicles that are coming out, is it better? does it solve the problem of transportation and mobility and functionality better than what they currently have? And I think that in some cases with with that local delivery, it could be yes, you know, this, this could be better. When I think to have like what Ford has been able to do with some of their smaller vans, you know, it's been fantastic, really, because they were better than what delivery people were using before. So, from that standpoint, I'm a fan. When I feel from it from a of the technology itself. You know, the cyber chalk is incredibly controversial. Not Because of the design, but because of that limited functionality, you know, again, we've spent some time talking about ingress and egress to the truck bed, those sides are so high, is that a functional truck? And that's what you know, I don't think that they really were able to demonstrate effectively. And, you know, as far as we think about the design, you know, the way that vehicles are designed, historically, is because they had an engine in the front for the most part, but you know, they usually have the engine in the front and you automatically get this long hood. And just because it's not there, doesn't mean that you shouldn't design it as if it were, because again, that can be functional space. It doesn't have that Frank, it doesn't have the kind of storage that that people need and want in their track, but In terms of the technology you know, you're absolutely right Sam Tesla, I love the fact that they always push the envelope they always push they have pushed the traditional automakers to be better to to come out with vehicles that that are you know the challenge that that status quo that that you know are pushing them regulations are doing it as well but I think that Tesla with the range that they've been able to achieve with the the historically beautiful vehicles that they've come out with the stupid Falcon wing the Model X doors notwithstanding, but you know, they push the envelope they've the interiors are beautiful, there's, I know there's an elegance to these products that up until the cyber truck, you know, Tesla was known for. It doesn't have to be ugly. You know, that's that was always the that was always the complaint with the with the Nissan LEAF and you know, and just Bolt. Right, the Prius, you know, these are not attractive vehicles. Wow, that's hybrid truck, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:07  
you know. And you know to be to be honest, you know, aside from the Prius, most of those unattractive vehicles didn't sell in huge numbers either. So

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:15  
why? Well, and that's what a Tesla showed was that it doesn't have to have. You don't have to have this compromise design language. You can have a beautiful Evie. And, you know, as you said, at the very beginning, it's an eye of the beholder, but I do think that most of the tests of products are really elegant and and look, you know, they're distinctive, and they turn heads in a positive way. I think this cyber truck was a big misstep for them. And an a missed opportunity. Also, you know, when you see some of the, some of the renderings of what it could look like, I it was just, you know, I think everyone was kind of waiting for the joke to end in the Real Truck to come out. Well,

Dan Roth  1:24:58  
yeah, the What I haven't gotten from this is, you know, what's actually underneath it? How is it? How is it built and engineered? And what of your existing technology and pieces and parts? Have you leveraged for this? You know, how did you do any durability testing, you know, all this stuff that a normal automaker will sort of crow about when they introduce a new model. And so Tesla has been successful kind of, in spite of its management, you know, all the very hardworking people, I would say, totally just want that, you know, they want to succeed, I want them to succeed. What I'm very frustrated by is this just completely haphazard approach to product development and announcements and you know, none of their cars really, you know, they haven't built from platform to platform that they like each car is a distinct platform at least more distinct than than it should be. So they they're not, you know, they're not gaining efficiencies. This doesn't look like they did any market research on who might buy it. So it looks like the people that are going to buy this and I honestly don't think that this this truck has much of a chance of ever seeing the light of day. But if it does the people who are going to buy it, they're going to cannibalize their own sales. these are these are Model S people who had trucks before traded them for a Model S and now you know, now there's a product for them. That's great. So they're not going to necessarily see an increase in in you know, sales it maybe they'll be some conquests, but really not not too many. So I'm just I'm frustrated by the squandered potential, there was a lot of opportunity to do better, I want them to do better because they could they could kill it. If they put their sort of their hearts and minds to it. And it just I'm just not seeing that this is this looks like a vanity project that was very poorly considered. So We'll see where it goes. I don't want to belabor the point. But I want to know more about what's under the actual controversial body of work.

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:10  
Well, and, and to, you know, continue on the topic of the idea of an electric pickup truck just in general. I would love to hear from people. And the idea of, you know, do they see this as a potential work track? You know, Sam, to your point, I had actually been discussing this on Twitter with somebody about landscapers, you know, and the people that have to tow and such but there are other places that pickup trucks go that don't that aren't necessarily require towing and so, you know, is is the and of course the the electric range it all depends on the charging right all depends on the charging infrastructure and stuff so, but can we get Traditional pickup truck owners, you know, even if you get one or 2% of that population, it's still a good number. I, you know, that is this is this a technology that pickup truck owners can see eventually integrating into their lifestyle.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:16  
I think that, you know, especially for commercial users, I think that there's actually a huge opportunity for electrification in trucks, because, you know, for, for commercial users, you know, for for the average consumer, you know, you tend to drive 12 15,000 miles a year. And as we've talked about before, going electric, from a purely economic standpoint, doesn't necessarily make sense. You know, in terms of the fuel savings, you're going to get in going electric. The, the numbers don't necessarily add up. But for commercial users that often you know, are going 70, you know, driving 75 to 100,000 miles a year and a lot of applications. Now, the operating costs of using that Vehicle make up a much larger proportion of the total cost of ownership. And, you know, if you're going from 250 $3 a gallon or, you know, if you're in California, four bucks a gallon for gas to, you know, electricity, you know, at, depending, again, where you are anywhere from 10 to 30 cents a kilowatt hour. Now, all of a sudden, you know, your operating costs potentially get slashed pretty dramatically. And that, that makes a big difference for commercial users. So, you know, it, you know, depends on how much the upfront cost premium is, but it's, you know, that cost premium is, is has been shrinking and will continue to shrink. So, I think that for a lot of commercial users, I think that they're, you know, if they're driving, you know, let's say, you know, hundred hundred and 50 miles a day, you know, you know, doing whatever, they're there application is got it depends a lot on the application. But I think that there's a lot of opportunity there to, you know, to get some pretty significant cost savings by going to electric. And, you know, there, there's some some things that you can utilize, you know, one of the things that must talked about was the ability to utilize the, you know, the battery to power power your tools on a job site. And this is something that Ford has talked about what the, the f150 hybrid that's coming out next year, is, you know, for contractors and, you know, other other users that, you know, have to use power tools or charge power tools on a job site where there may not be electricity available. You know, they can use that, you know, today they have to haul along the generator in their truck. So that's one more piece of equipment they're bringing along with the f150 hybrid, they'll be able to use the hybrid, the hybrid electric motor as a general to power their tools, so that, you know, that simplifies it. And that's going to be a more efficient and cleaner system. Even if they have to keep the gas engine running along there, that's going to be more still going to be more efficient than a typical gas generator that they have to bring along. So I think that there's some significant opportunities for electrification in the commercial market. But to take advantage of that, you really have to have a design that meets the needs of those same users, you know, a design that they can, you know, most of those users you know, do various outfitting, you know, they'll put tool racks and various other equipment on there on the trucks, you know, for whatever it is they're hauling, that you know, that makes it easier you know, for them. And, you know, most of that equipment is standardized. You know, if you look at trucks today, you know, they have slots in the bed to put racks and various things in tie downs. And you know, this is something that with the design of the fabric Could be a lot more challenging.

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:02  
Now, I think that there's, there's absolutely there's an opportunity in the commercial space. And I love the idea of using the available battery on a job site. I think that's absolutely fantastic. I mean, it's a reminds me of being able to use a power wall or a second source when you lose electricity in your house. So I think that there's that's why as Dan said, It's frustrating because this could have been really, really good. And I don't think that they respected the opportunity. And and that's something that is frustrating. It's not to say that they're not going to fix it or they won't, they won't get better, you know, tests will get better in time. But as you say, there's there's a ton of opportunities here. And so I do think that it's a real space and it's a it's a it's a real place where I can see a lot more hybrids and a lot more electric vehicles out there in the marketplace. It's a huge

Dan Roth  1:32:59  
market? Yeah, I think it is a lot of, you know, for whatever you might think about folks who, you know, the sort of trucking audience trucking a customer, I think they're ready to go easy when it makes practical sense for them and it doesn't really cost them that much extra and it's reliable. And, you know, I think like Sam was saying, I think that f150 is going to do great when it goes hybrid plugin. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:24  
It's a trusted brand.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:28  
And, and, you know, the those buyers, you know, they'll be able to reuse a lot of the the extra equipment, you know, that they use in their trucks today, you know, on that in that hybrid and then in the electric version as well, when it comes out. And on Thursday, Thursday morning, you know, Mary Barra was talking to the conference in New York. She's the CEO of GM, and she confirmed that you know, the GM electric pickup will be out in the second half of 21. The Ford F 150. Electric should be out in roughly the same time frame and You know, Ford is also doing an electric version of the transit. You know, this was something that came out of their, their UAW contract, you know that, oh, that's gonna be fantastic gonna be an electric electric transit. And that's the vehicle that's going to be running on the Vivian platform. That's the vehicle that's,

Dan Roth  1:34:16  
like so widely adopted. I mean, think of all Yeah, I mean, Amazon's running well, I guess they're running for yachts, but either way, like, yeah, so there's a lot to that market that I feel is untapped. And I think that the sort of the legacy or quote unquote, old line automakers who have fleets much more figured out are going to be the ones that that crack that wide open, and it's actually going to make them money.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:46  
That's my prediction. But Silicon Valley Tech bros will love the separate truck. Yeah, that that's fine. So they can sit in traffic and fight if they can find a place to market.

Dan Roth  1:34:54  
Well, they just park it on top of all the proletarian anyway Moving on, let's move on before we get too angry. All right. So it was la last week, right? It was the LA Auto Show that did happen now. I was there for a whole week. How was it?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:14  
It was interesting. You know, it was, like a lot of other recent auto shows, there was less big news that came out of it, you know, less fewer announcements, you know, than we'd heard prior to the show that came out of it. But there were a few interesting tidbits. You know, one one that came out actually right after was Volkswagen in Germany. So it's not actually related to the show. But Volkswagen announced that they are canceling all their internal combustion engine motor sports programs, and going all electric with their motor sports programs. And electrification, as we've just talked about, was really, you know, the big theme of LA is it has been to varying degrees for the last several years. But, you know, it showed up The E Tron support back which is a different style version essentially of the same vehicle that we've already driven the the wagon, the SUV type e Tron over electric. Yeah. It looks awesome. Well, it's not this is not the GT This is the sport pack. So the GT is coming next year that convert the production gt will be out by by the end of next year. That's the one we saw as a concept last year in

Rebecca Lindland  1:36:27  
LA, I think looks great.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:29  
Right. So the GT is based on the the tie con. The Sportback is based on the E Tron quattro that we already have. But you know, with a slope back, you know, poop like SS xx back design. And I spent some time talking with Matt McDuffie who's the manager of electric vehicle programs at Audi of America. And they actually did make some changes. So it's it's mainly based on Existing neutron which by the way is now just called a Tron. It's not so like like the original lotro coupe back in like 83, which subsequently became known as the quatro among fans you know, or meaning original or primitive. The E Tron that we have now is essentially the eree Tron and all the ones coming forward will have some suffix on them like sport back to distinguish them. So one of the big complaints about the current e Tron is its range is too short for you know, given the size of the battery it has, you know, because Audi went very conservative, they're not using the full capacity of the battery, they only use 88% of the battery and the E Tron. For the support back, they've made some changes, it's going to be a chance to make some changes to the power electronics to the battery management system. They're now bumping that up to 91% of the battery will be used. And the expectation is that the range will probably be somewhere Around 215 to two to 20 miles, which is still not great, but it's better than the tool for that the current each Ron gets, right. But one of the really cool things which unfortunately we will not get on ours because nitsa regulations is the the lighting system on there, they the transport back has these matrix LED lights that do all kinds of wild and crazy things. It's basically has a, if you remember old projection TVs, with their DLP, little micro mirror systems, basically using the same kind of mechanism, it's produced by Texas Instruments, a little micro mirror system in front of the LEDs. And it's I think it's 1.3 megapixel lighting pattern that they can do, you know, and so you can control the light pattern dynamically. So one of the things that it can do, for example, as you're driving down the road, your high beams, you know, if you're On a, you know, dark road, you know, there's nobody else around you got your high beams on so you can see more of what's around you. when it detects a car coming towards you, it can automatically mask out the portion of the view where that car is. So instead of shining the high beams on that approaching car, you get the high beams all around it, but not on that car. So you don't blind the oncoming driver, things like that. Another thing that they showed us that they demoed is, you know when if a pedestrian is detected, it can actually cast essentially, you know, a light up that pedestrian so you can see the pedestrian better. You know, it can project little Chevron's on the road where the lane markings are to give you more guidance, you know, where you should be things like that. So there's all kinds of neat things that you can do with it. But of course, those lights aren't legal here in the US yet. So it sounds maybe someday we'll get cool lights, but not now. Well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:00  
they also help with autonomous driving autonomous features.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:05  
Yeah. So yeah, for you know, the same that same kind of technology can be used for autonomous vehicles, because you can actually project messages right on the road. You know, so you know, to signal the intent of the vehicle. So if the vehicle, you know, is is not going to be moving, you can put parked or stopped, you know, if the vehicle, you know, before the vehicle starts to move and say, you know, vehicle about to move or, you know, some some sort of short message there so that pedestrians and other road users can see, get an idea of what what the vehicles intent is, you know, so projecting those kinds of messages. And it's a very high resolution control system. And it worked really well for the for the demo.

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:46  
That's really cool. It's very clever. And it worked for the demo, unlike some other demos that we saw this week.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:53  
Yeah, nothing broke. it all. It all worked as intended. So that was good. No, no broken Last yes but but of course it you know, they didn't have a designer throwing steel balls at the at the at the headlight share that that is the one the one downside to these fancy headlight systems is that you know, if you do get into a fender bender and you have to replace that headlamp cluster, you're not talking about like a $6 bulb. Yeah, they didn't they didn't talk about the pricing, but you know, the parts, parts, parts prices, but you can bet these things are going to be really expensive to replace if you get into a little accident. But hopefully you get into fewer accidents because you can see better.

Exactly.

Dan Roth  1:41:36  
And I'll work it Yeah, and you it's lighting technology is something that really, it's, it's fascinating. It seems boring, but it's something that we really should have better lights on the road. Although I was I've been struck by the last few vehicles I've driven with halogen lights and you know, a good halogen system. But you know, lamp and reflector they're only 55 watts are 60 on IBM's. Like, that's, that's not a lot of wattage, but if they're designed well they really they put the light in the in the right place and they can actually be surprisingly better than a lot of the HIV or LED systems that are out there. It's just what throws you off I think is that they look they have that more sort of orange color temperature where the newer systems they burn at daylight which is 5600 Kelvin, so they they look maybe brighter because they're whiter but they actually they have a patchy crappy beam pattern. And it's all done to beam pattern so yeah, the better you think the more light you can put on the road and keep it there, the better I'm really fascinated by how these these new lights can just they can sort of make basically make a.of darkness and track it and just you know keep the rest of the road illuminated that brightly for you that that's amazing to me.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:52  
Yeah, it is pretty cool.

Rebecca Lindland  1:42:54  
The other place I've noticed the lighting is in the rearview cat in the in the backup camera. So on that Mazda, the Mazda three the backup camera was so bright. It provided fantastic light for your night time backing up. I have a Hyundai Santa Fe. And I was in my sister's driveway so exactly the same driveway last night and I was like, wow, this is not nearly as bright as the monster was.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:23  
Yeah, that that that can be a challenge. Yeah. You know, it's great having these backup cameras, but you know, if you're not lighting up the area where the camera is looking at, it's not really very helpful to you.

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:34  
Yeah, I was really I was kind of taken aback but again, the Mazda had, it was definitely brighter and I had her driveway isn't tricky. It's just you know, it's at night and you want to when you put the car in reverse, you're expecting it to be a certain amount of light there. And, and the monster did a really, really nice job of that and I've been I was, I was surprised. And obviously I talked about the Hyundai more next week, but I was a little disappointed in the Hyundai Santa Fe, it also sits up higher, but it's still was just not as bright. I don't know it was, but that's something that I you know, I, I've seen a big difference and a lot of variation in the brightness and effectiveness of the lighting in a rear in a backup camera that somebody has talked about every day.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:21  
No, but it is something we do a lot. So you know, it's important.

Dan Roth  1:44:27  
What else did you see now I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:29  
one of one of the one that I wanted to talk about is the Hyundai vision t concept. You know, we saw you know, there was a lot of emphasis on electrification, like I talked about, you know, a lot of EBS there was the the Volkswagen ID space vision wagon, which is coming in 2022 we built in Chattanooga. And, you know, BMW showed the mini E which is launches in the US early in 2020. But the division T is pretty cool because it It shows the next generation of Hyundai's design language, you know, where they're going with their design language, which is a little, little bolder. And this is, you know, seen as kind of a preview of where the Tucson the next generation Tucson is going, probably in about 18 months or so. And there's some interesting stuff about you know, side from the side from the basic design. If you look at photos of it, you know, when it's off, it looks like there's no headlights on the front. You know, you've got this kind of diamond pattern.

Rebecca Lindland  1:45:34  
Oh, that's crazy.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:37  
Yeah, but in fact, there's there's some technology that you're using there which is actually already on the 2020 Sonata, which is going on sale shortly. And on the on the Sonata. If you've seen the new Sonata, you know, when it's off, it looks like there's a chrome strip on either side that extends up from the headlamp cluster and runs along the edge of the the crease of the hood on the other side and runs to the base of the eight pillars. But the front section of that the front portion of that is when it's off, it looks like it's just a chrome strip, but it's actually an electric chromic coating on the back of the plastic. So it's like a one way mirror. So when you light up behind it, it lights up like a light. And that's what they're using as the headlights on this on this vision t concept. Which is is really neat. So you know, you get this, these wild looking lights on it. And, you know, it, it's a great design, I think, but you know, and then when it's off, it just you know, kind of blends in, you know, with with the grill, and it's it's quite quite unique. I don't think it's going to be legal for headlights, as we've already talked about. But at least you know they're able to use it for things like daytime running laps and other stuff, you know, to kind of hide it and then when you when you Turn it on it, you know gives you gives you some unique, you know, some interesting design possibilities.

Dan Roth  1:47:06  
That's very cool. I get it. Yeah, Hyundai design is just stunning. They're doing so good. Just i mean i think it looks I don't know what what this design language is going to sell for but you can bet it's going to be from like the 20s up to the 50s right. It looks like a million boxes just so so classically refined and handsome I just you know it they have clearly made the investment and they're letting the investment actually, you know, they're not getting in the way of it they're not micromanaging it. They're they're really letting the guys that they hire do their thing and it's it's paying off their cars. It's just just beautiful.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:47  
Yeah, they're they're doing some good stuff. Oh and one other one, just to bring up as well as from the other side of the Hyundai Motor Group. Family kiya also introduce used to new small crossover called the cell toes. No electrification on this one for now. But it's you know, it's there. A new compact crossover that slots in just below the Sportage. It's not as small as the Kona, it's actually about the same size of the current Sportage. And what James Bell from Kenya told me is that the next gen Sportage is going to get a little bit bigger than where it is today, it's going to move a little more up market. But this you know, like a lot of the other recent, you know, compact crossovers we've seen like the Hyundai venue that the Nissan Kicks, less less so the kicks. But, you know, what they're doing with this one, you know, is trying to make them more affordable to consumers. And they're doing some interesting stuff with this. You know, so it's, it's, like I said, it's a little bit bigger than the venue and the kicks, but it's going to start it like $22,000 Wow, and 20 Need $2,000 for the base model that's with all wheel drive means that's a great point actually, if you if you want, if you want front wheel drive, it's actually going to be in a slightly more premium trim level a slightly higher price. So the base model, you know, unlike the venue and the kicks which don't offer all wheel drive at all, this one actually has standard all wheel drive for $22,000 and, and and for that for that price point, you know, it's actually got like, like modern key is you know, it's got a really nice interior you know, really nicely executed it looks like this could be a real winner.

Rebecca Lindland  1:49:36  
Well, you know, Luke dokin woke I think that's it say I mean, he's done a great job at leading up Hyundai Kia and Genesis design, along Of course with Peter Schreier, which whose legendary but they've got a fantastic group. They're designing these products in Korea, the I mean, these guys are so international in terms of their mindset and their Where they grew up you know, there's another designer son Yep, he's Korean. And so you've got you know, this mix of cultures, but with a lot of they have a clear vision of where they want each of these brands individually to go and I think that we're really starting to see their design language coming into play and it's one of the reasons why the products are getting better and better I think Luke's been there since 2015 or so. So we're just you know, really starting to see his vision come to light

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:32  
Yeah, I think there's there's some great stuff there and it's looking forward to seeing what else comes out of the Hyundai Motor Group. Aside from that new grille on the Genesis g 90 which

Rebecca Lindland  1:50:42  
oh my gosh, that thing is a new heart overall i

Dan Roth  1:50:47  
g 90 still looks good. I like what they've done have almost as little bustle back to the trunk to it, but I think that they've, you know, everything they do see looks looks tasteful. I yeah, it's a big girl, but I mean, I also I'm not anywhere near as offended as everybody else's. But the new theme 30 x seven. I think that thing's fantastic on the road. So what was that? Yeah, I think that things fabulous on the road, Big Girls, Big Girls have happened before and they'll happen again, whatever. Exactly. All right. Well, I think that we've covered a lot of ground, and we're edging towards two hours. So we should probably call it a podcast.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:23  
Sounds like a plan.

Dan Roth  1:51:24  
Sounds good. Alright, well, we'll catch everybody please definitely send us individual HelloWorld emails so we can get all the information. And we'll talk to you next week. Let us know if there's anything we missed. You want to talk to us about and

Transcribed by https://otter.ai