Dan Roth  0:02  
This is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:06  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from Navigant research. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:09  
I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives. 

Dan Roth  0:12  
So let's jump right into the garage. Rebecca. I'm super interested in the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV that you had? Yes. Um, are you? Did you put any gas in it over the week? You've had it so far. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:26  
Well, no. And in fairness, I, 

Dan Roth  0:29  
I never do. I

Rebecca Lindland  0:32  
know in fairness, I just I haven't been able to put a lot of miles on the vehicles that I've had the last few weeks I was actually going to send a note to both Dr. Shop and some of the

motors one and some of the people have been giving me cars because the last three weeks when I've been mired in this project, I just have not been driving. I haven't. I mean, I go for three days and I don't look up so I didn't put any gas in it. I did charge it a couple of times. As I tagged as our Wilburys podcast on Twitter, I, it was very interesting because it takes, you know, a good solid 12 to 13 hours. And the first night I charged it, I got 25 miles, and it didn't seem to want to go any higher. So I charged it again last night and they picked it up this morning, but I charged it again and when I checked it this morning, it actually did have the full 33 miles on it. So I got into a little bit of a little bit of an Instagram commenting issue with a former college roommate, a classmate of mine. And he was very derogatory about the fact that it was 25 miles for a minivan I but it actually is 33 and when you when you multiply 33 miles by 365 days, it gets you over 12 thousand miles. It is not sufficient for a lot of families in a day to day environment, but it is sufficient for some. And of course, with the gas engine as the backup, you can still do the majority of your miles in EV mode, and it drives really well in EV mode. So, you know, it's kind of I mean, I liked it, it was it was nice to be able to do that.

Dan Roth  2:30  
Well, I don't understand why that's something that you would criticize it for, for having quote unquote, only 33 miles like it's better than zero miles. Electric only and it's

Sam Abuelsamid  2:43  
you know, thank thank you, thank you this thing you know, as a grownup version of the Chevy Volt, you know, When, when, when GM launched the second generation version of the volt, you know, they talked a lot about the, the, the data they had gotten from the first generation models and they found that 90% of the trips that volt owners took, used no gas. Yeah. And then then, because most most of the trips that most people take on a daily basis are less than 40 miles. And, you know, if you've got 3540 miles range, even 33 miles a range, most of the time you're going to be able to do your daily commuting, you're running around, you know, and especially when you think of the kind of use cases for a vehicle like the Pacifica, you know, which is typically you know, going to be hauling a family around, you know, running errands, things like that. Most most Pacifica owners are probably accumulating less than 3334 miles a day. And you as you saw, you're going to be able to do the vast majority of your driving without ever using any gas. And because it's not a pure electric vehicle, you know, when that battery does run out, you just keep on going. You don't you don't have to think about it, right when you come when you come home or You park it somewhere where there was a plug, you plug it in, you know, top it off to the degree you can, and then you keep on going. So, you know, for most users, you know, as you said, you know, 365 days, 33 miles, that, you know, that's about 12,000 miles, that's about the average of what most people drive. And when it's time to take a road trip to the grandparents house or, you know, road trip to, to Disney World or wherever, you know, for a vacation, family vacation. You don't have to plan ahead, you just go. Right, you know, and and that's, that's the beauty of this. And this is why I think that, you know, this is actually the ideal form of electrification for a vehicle of this type.

Dan Roth  4:38  
I agree. I think if you're, if you're going to to grandma's house, something you really should plan ahead anyway for other reasons.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:48  
Okay, that's true. I'll give you that.

Dan Roth  4:51  
How can I escape?

Rebecca Lindland  4:54  
I think I mean, I thought it was it was first of all, it was super easy to charge and You know, and that's something to like I had run into the end again, everybody's charging situation is different. For me, I use an outdoor plug. It happens relandscaping plug, I but I had the three back in the summertime. And the plug was so short and in the back like where a fuel tank was, would have been. And I couldn't reach my plug. And so I had to do, I had to basically park on my, on my lower walkway to get close enough to the plug it was it was a big fat mess. The Pacifica has this really long plug the the the outlet is in the front of the vehicle. And it's just it was just really convenient. Now, it would not be so convenient in rain and snow. And I thought about that because the last thing that you want to do is stand out in the rain while you're plugging this thing in so somebody else had mentioned That they thought the majority of Pacifica owners would install a level two charger and I asked I said I wasn't aware that, that that was you know that he was like 90%. And I don't know if that was just hyperbole or not, but I didn't know if you guys knew. Actually, I would be surprised if it's more than maybe 20% yard. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:24  
you know this. This is another one of those pieces of data that GM shared, you know, with the volt is when when we asked why they didn't provide DC fast charging support on the on the second generation volt. They said Well, again, you know, from their data, they found that, you know, about 85 90% of volt owners didn't even bother. You know, having a level two charger, they just plugged into a 110 volt outlet. And you know, overnight, they were they were able to get enough charge to do their daily driving. You went from a 110 volt outlet so You know, I think that I would be surprised if it's more than a quarter of Pacifica owners that are spending the 500 to $1,000 to install level two charger for that thing.

Dan Roth  7:13  
Yeah, yeah, I think it's probably safe to assume that at least 50% of them are going to be in a garage though. So the plug issue is not going to be a big deal. Yeah, and Chrysler has pretty thoughtfully designed all of that side of the Pacifica hybrid to to be really easy to use. Like you said, you don't want it to be hard to figure out especially not for a family vehicle. And I think that that overall, the Pacific is just really easy to use, whether it's gas or hybrid or whatever it is. It's that kind of kind of view.

Rebecca Lindland  7:45  
It is. I thought it was great. I was surprised it from from outside of just charging it. I was surprised inside the the third row is really small like four for three people. Like when I was I was taking pictures of it and I just thought, Man, I just can't imagine having three people back there for any length of time. I it's it's really, I mean, obviously little kids is one thing, but if this is the vehicle that you want to grow with your children, I feel like I can't imagine putting three teenagers in the in the back row. That was just my own. When I looked at it, you know, I felt like it was ideally a six passenger vehicle. It's a seven passenger if you know each other really well and you have a short drive.

Dan Roth  8:33  
So are these like corn fed teenagers is sort of like you

Rebecca Lindland  8:38  
know, the backseat was really narrow. I mean, the 30 rule this the middle seat specifically, the middle seat is very narrow in that third row. It's not a full You know, it didn't To me it didn't it looked. It looks surprisingly narrow. Again, it's going to be fine for for little kids. It'll be fine, I would say up to 12 and 13 years old. But, you know, if you've got a basketball team in there, you know, tall teenagers kind of thing. I don't know, again, I'd love to get some feedback from real world use on that, you know, whether it's a comfortable seven cedar for a long trap.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:22  
I would guess, you know, for for adults, probably not. But as again, as you said, I think the primary use case is going to be when you've got smaller kids, right. Here's one of the you know, the beauty of a minivan, you know, is you know, it's it's perfect if you've got kids that you've got to strap into booster seats or child seats. Yeah. Because, you know, in an SUV, a taller SUV, you know, reaching up, you know, to load the kids into a booster seat, you know, buckling them in and everything is a real pain in the ass. You know, it's not a good experience. And you know, a minivan is ideal for that. With the sliding doors you know and you know in the middle in the in the second row seat, you know, a couple of you know, put a couple of booster seats or child seats in there. It's so much easier to handle, you know, the kids getting him in and out of that, that kind of situation. And even you know, getting him into the the third row seat is so much easier than doing that in an SUV.

Rebecca Lindland  10:21  
Yeah, for sure. And I love the fact that the sliding doors are electric, you can open them up, the kids can pile in, they can get themselves in their own seats at a certain age they can buckle themselves in. I mean, there's nothing there's no other vehicle that's more family friendly. Then a minivan and I also love the fact that in this particular one, so this one so it was the it was the Pacifica hybrid limited and it had a sticker of a base price of 45 five and then this one had a couple of optional things it had this a little bit of a 20 speaker Harman Kardon sound group Which was a special it was only 175 with an emergency kit. And then there was something well, I don't know, a little confusing. There's the S package, which is an appearance package for 795. And then advanced safety tech, which was great. So they did a really good job with adaptive cruise control, the headline Departure Warning, they had the park assist all those kinds of things, and it was only 995, which isn't terrible. I would love to have it standard, but you know, it's still not bad. And so all of that came up there was another one for 17 others that the tri pain, panoramic sunroof, which was enormous at but it's almost a $200 so the total was with destinations 50,800.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:44  
So keep in mind that, you know, because that thing has a 16 kilowatt hour battery, it's still eligible for full 70 $500 federal tax credit. So yes, you can take that right off the top and depending on where you live, you may have some state incentives to

Dan Roth  11:58  
yeah That's cheaper. I guess it's about parity with the last Toyota Sienna I had just a couple of weeks ago and I guarantee you that the Pacific it just felt a lot better and drove a lot better. I

Rebecca Lindland  12:11  
had the I had a Sienna a couple weeks ago as well. I and it was really night and day The other thing to the Pacifica has the stolen go well, the only story all right the third row

Dan Roth  12:25  
or the third Yeah, I was gonna say with the hybrid right the batteries the second row doesn't do it. But if you got a gas Pacifica,

Rebecca Lindland  12:31  
right. And it was just it was nice to drive it it was white felt like a refrigerator. So I wouldn't

Dan Roth  12:39  
storm trooper storm superfast package right as

Rebecca Lindland  12:43  
it does have the S package and my my favorite Stormtrooper is Tom Brady, but we'll talk about that later. Except for yesterday.

Dan Roth  12:55  
So here here's the thing that I wind up in this discussion a lot with some college Because we're all about the same age, we have kids, and so we're looking for family vehicles. And you know, I'll mentioned vans a lot, I'll say, you know, the best thing to get is the van. And so then we talk about the relative merits of each band and, you know, the seanna it, it always comes up. And I say, yeah, it's, it's good. It just feels really old and the pilot. I mean, at the pilot, the Odyssey, the Odyssey drives, like it's got the soul of a motorbike in there somewhere. But it's also it's kind of pricey, and some of the tech isn't as good. The Pacifica really hasn't nailed with all of the tech. It's the only hybrid van and then the one sort of thing that that people get a little squeamish about is Oh, but it's not all will drive the only all wheel drive van is the Sienna. And you know, my my counterpoint to that is like, really, you should look at the Pacific. I think it's the best van on the market, especially in the hybrid and hybrid is not only a little heavier. So that's good in some ways. Winter traction once you put winter tires on it and it's not really such an issue. I don't know where you guys stand on that, but

Rebecca Lindland  14:08  
no, I agree. I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  14:10  
I would say a front wheel drive van with winter tires will beat an all wheel drive van with all season tires. Any seven days of the week? Yeah, every day.

Rebecca Lindland  14:18  
Absolutely. So I was getting one of our somebody asked me this, I ended up getting 34.1 miles per gallon. That was seven miles of battery seven miles of gas. That was one example and then somebody they hadn't reset the trip ometer and it was up there was about it was around 30 miles per gallon, I think over over several hundred miles. So that's pretty good because as you say, it's a heavy van. You know, and it's just, it was really nice to drive. I mean it was, you know, for as vans go and, you know, I had some twisties it last night I was coming home late and there three deer ran out right in front of me. And you know, it stopped pretty well. I mean, I wasn't going really fast but you know when deer run out it's it's startling and you know it just it did a lot of things really well i think it's a fantastic fantastic vehicle for families for sure.

Dan Roth  15:21  
And it has plenty of room if you hit those deer you can

Sam Abuelsamid  15:27  
take care of that that's stolen go third row seat to drop it down into the back, just down all the carcass right in there clean it up when you get home.

Rebecca Lindland  15:36  
I did hit a squirrel though he was suicidal though. He know he's flat. He was starting continue to cross the road he would have been fine but instead he came back towards now

Dan Roth  15:45  
they turn around. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  15:47  
that's that's the worst thing. When you when you're when you're gonna run across the road when you're a little road and like that you have to be decisive. You either go or you go all the way you don't stop halfway.

Dan Roth  15:56  
Yeah, you can't stop and that's nothing you can do right now. point I feel bad but just like you know you hear that oh and I looked back and he

Rebecca Lindland  16:05  
was rolling and oh it was terrible anyway so we digress so just one more point on this I had another This was when the battery was fully charged and I went 16 miles on on all electric and one and a half miles on gas and I got 47.8 miles per gallon that's pretty good. I mean that's really good that's amazing.

Dan Roth  16:34  
Yeah, overall it flattens out I'm sure like over the life of the vehicle your your lifetime fuel economy probably drops from that but that's there's not another van you can do that with where you can just go 15 miles on battery alone. So I think part of that like that right there is your answer to the criticism that you got into on an indiscriminate and I think part of that is you know, what do you what are you expecting? What what are your your expectations out of it's not a full levy.

Rebecca Lindland  17:02  
It's not a full levy and it's not for everybody and I understand that there's families that do a lot of running around in a given day. But as you guys said at the very beginning, it's still better than nothing. It's still younger than old gas

Sam Abuelsamid  17:17  
if you're if you're dropping off your kit, you know dropping after kids at school, you know, you pull right up there in electric mode, you're not you know, you're not spewing any fumes there, you know, round all the other

Dan Roth  17:27  
pickup line. Yeah, I think what you need is you need to like the really filthy diesel. Yeah, and batteries so that like, you know, when you see those punk kids that don't get along with your kids,

Sam Abuelsamid  17:39  
flip the switch and go under coal rolling. That's right, you just out.

Rebecca Lindland  17:45  
The Jeep Wrangler diesel is launching this week. The media launches this week. I'm very jealous. People

Dan Roth  17:53  
are that's gonna be good, like $90,000 Wrangler. It'll

Sam Abuelsamid  17:57  
be about 60 probably

Unknown Speaker  17:59  
60

Sam Abuelsamid  18:01  
Yeah, what one one more thing about the range that you saw Rebecca? was it was it as cold earlier in the week when you had this as it was here? Like it was the temperature down into the 30s?

Rebecca Lindland  18:13  
Uh, you know, not really it didn't it did get there was only one night that it was chilly. I actually, you know, last night it was pretty chilly. It was I brought my plants in last night. And there was a little bit a little, little tiny bit of frost this morning. But it was definitely chilly. But again, this was the what was interesting was this actually, the battery actually filled up to 33. Whereas the other night when it was warmer, it only went up to 25. And I don't I didn't want anything different. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  18:43  
well, the you know, the range estimates that it that it's going to give you are based on you know, your driving style up to that point, you know, so it's going to be adjusting so maybe whoever had it last sure might have been driving more aggressively. And you know, and I didn't have it yet. Depending depending on what the weather conditions were, you know, so it's it's doing a running average you know as to calculate that range, you know to try and give you something that is realistic based on the way you've been driving it so it'll it'll adjust up or down. If you drive it if you hyper mile the thing, yeah, you'll actually see the range, you know, the estimated range climb up above 33 miles, you know, depending on depending on the conditions you know, it's it's, it's trying to learn from your behavior. And that's, that's one of the problems with you know, when you're jumping into different cars every week, you have different people driving it right now, whoever whoever was driving up before you was perhaps driving more aggressively, and that's why it estimated 25 and then after it saw the way you were driving, then it adjusted, you know, for the next time you charged,

Rebecca Lindland  19:48  
right because I was trying to be pretty careful. And then yesterday, I drove up to my mom's which is mostly highway, it's a little bit of backgrounds but a lot of it is highway and i think i Got, I definitely got more than 25 miles out of that drive. But, you know, I just think it was it's just, I love the technology on a family van like this. I think it's really, really commendable. And I think it's fantastic. I think I think they did a really nice job. I'd love to have it for not only a longer period of time, but just to be able to live with it a little bit more and put a little bit more miles on it because I you know, I think it was it was they did a really good job. And I'd like the regenerative braking was was very normal. You know, it wasn't any of those. Whoo. Oh, I will say though, when I was driving it in full electric mode. I floored it, because I wanted to see how it would sound and it didn't sound great. It sounded like it was sort of straining. Oh, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:54  
Yeah, well, it's got it's got the stand. You know, it's got the typical hybrid vt Yeah, it was very near to a tee motorboating.

Rebecca Lindland  21:07  
So I wouldn't recommend doing zero to 60 s launch control with it. But otherwise it was very good.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:13  
But, you know, again, you know, look at you know who the customer base is for a vehicle like this, you're not likely to be driving it that way anyway.

Rebecca Lindland  21:21  
No, exactly. I mean, I will say I noticed it just when I was accelerating onto the highway was actually the first thing I that's when I actually noticed it. So it was a bit in normal driving and then I stopped on the road. I when I went obviously it was safe to do so. And I just floored it to see what it sounded like and it was pretty windy. It was pretty CBT you can't you

Unknown Speaker  21:43  
can't load up the tires. I know. No.

Dan Roth  21:49  
I bet it can. It just won't let you

Sam Abuelsamid  21:53  
out some wet pavement those all season tire. There's low rolling resistance all season tires. So they'll spin but

Rebecca Lindland  22:00  
Probably when Ralph shields the designer from, uh, from FCA when he drives that he could probably get it to smoke up a bit.

Dan Roth  22:06  
Yeah. Well, so, you know, you spent your time some of your time in the Pacific but you split your time, right? You had a G 70 as well, right? Was the G 90

Unknown Speaker  22:17  
it was the G 90. Yeah, 90 I'm sorry.

Rebecca Lindland  22:21  
I probably made that error when I sent you the note. And let me see Hold on one second.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:28  
That's a love No, Dan. Dan just misread it.

Dan Roth  22:31  
Yeah, I just said

Rebecca Lindland  22:32  
no, it's definitely possible. I swear.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:35  
It was it was g 90 and slack

Unknown Speaker  22:39  
Okay, sorry gracious.

Dan Roth  22:42  
said last week. You guys are so polite teacher.

Rebecca Lindland  22:45  
Oh, we don't. I mean, we can change. Okay. So yes, so I had I had the Genesis, it was 2019 Genesis i g 90 all wheel drive. I didn't have the 5.8 liter engine in it. The V six every eight did we talk about

Dan Roth  23:02  
a five five liters? The VA?

Rebecca Lindland  23:04  
Yeah, it was the VA. It was. It was powerful. I mean, yeah, you know, it just is and it was plush. And gorgeous. And I really wanted to just sit in the backseat and play with stuff. Like

Sam Abuelsamid  23:19  
what a car like this is built for somebody else drive it for you

Rebecca Lindland  23:23  
exactly. Very much. So

Sam Abuelsamid  23:25  
this this is the ultimate autonomous car.

Rebecca Lindland  23:27  
Yes, it is. It

Sam Abuelsamid  23:29  
now doesn't even need any special sensors.

Dan Roth  23:33  
Just nice to meet robot.

Rebecca Lindland  23:35  
today. It was beautiful. And so this one went for this one has an MSRP of 76,003 50

Dan Roth  23:44  
all that such a deal. For a car like the car

Rebecca Lindland  23:47  
like that. It really is and it was this gorgeous. Adriatic blue that was like it was more of a gray than anything. It was just stunning. I mean, it's you know, the proportions are It is just an absolutely absolutely beautiful vehicle and and it drives you know just really responsively and a lot of fun and you know diving into the corners and everything you want it to do, but I definitely wanted to spend some time in the back to see what it was like so yeah, it was it was lovely and also there's been big news at Genesis though because I the president of the brand Manfred Fitzgerald I stepped down I'm going to go with he's

Dan Roth  24:37  
we call it at work we call it feature endeavored yeah which what happens is you get everybody gets the email all hands email with the name in the subject line. And then this very terse like so and so is no longer with the company. We wish them the best in their future endeavors. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  24:51  
He's been featured endeavored, exactly. So manford is a really interesting guy. I've met him a number of times. He's very global. He is. He speaks fluent German. He speaks I think fluent Chinese. He's very multilingual very much of a Polish guy came from Lamborghini and is just super styled. And I think that they, you know, I don't know all the ins and outs of why he was let go. But I think that you know, he Korean brands are really tough to work for. I mean, they there's results that they expect and you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  25:31  
most most Korean executives don't have don't have very long 10 years there

Rebecca Lindland  25:36  
right? They don't and he was there a number of years and he really inherited a mess. And you know, not only did he inherited a dealership mess and a brand mass, but he also inherited a portfolio mass this you know, everyone is talking about how they need the SUV, which is now supposed to come out shortly, but

Sam Abuelsamid  25:55  
I just saw one yesterday. Oh, did you really? Yeah. camelid one here in town, or on Friday, actually, how big is that? It's it's a three. The one I saw was a three row. So you know, it's like palisade sighs

Rebecca Lindland  26:12  
Oh, is it really? it's that big?

Sam Abuelsamid  26:14  
Yeah. Maybe a little bit smaller. Okay.

Rebecca Lindland  26:18  
But it's gonna be I mean, based on what the palisade looks like, I think it's a really handsome vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:26  
Yeah, you know, we'll probably see this one coming up, you know, early next year, probably at the New York Auto Show. I would guess, if not sooner.

Dan Roth  26:37  
Yeah, well, I think the G 90 is sort of an indicator of what what your guy Fitzgerald was able to actually do because like you said it was it was kind of a mess. I kind of remember the first you know the Hyundai when it was still Hyundai Genesis. And they brought out the sedan and the coop and it was This sort of weird two prong approach. And the cars were they were good, they just weren't good enough. And they've really quite quickly moved into being just very good and very competitive. I did the last time I drove a G 90, I think it might have been a G ad. I forget off the top of my head. Either way, the last time I drove agenesis sedan it left me exceptionally impressed. Because there isn't you don't need to have those qualifiers anymore. Like for a Hyundai? Right? When you say it's very good. No, it's it's varied. It's just

Sam Abuelsamid  27:37  
it's just good period. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  27:39  
And I think that I think the G 70 really cemented that for, you know, really critical acclaim. And you know, that I mean, the G 70 is just non stop fun. You know, it's just an incredibly great vehicle to drive and I drove it a couple of years ago in Korea, when they first when I actually one of the first times that I met Manfred. And I said, You know, I just I'm questioning what the plan is with this brand. And this was like two and a half years ago. And he said, we'll come to Korea and you'll get to know it a little bit more. And I did. And obviously in Korea, they're much more popular as well. But it was just interesting to kind of see, you know, where he was going. And I thought he had a really good team around him and designing for him. And I just, I'm disappointed that he didn't get an opportunity to unveil the the sgv because that's really going to bring new buyers into the brand. I think a lot of people are waiting. The other issue is the dealerships. And the dealership strategy has gone back and forth, where they've said to some dealers, at first it was only certain dealers were going to get the brand. And then other people said I'm not going to spend $80,000 on a vehicle and go into a Hyundai dealership. And so then they wanted a separate Section of the dealership, but you're still at the dealership. So that didn't really work. And then they kind of ended up now where all the dealers everyone is getting, it can sell Genesis. So they've had a lot of fits and starts with the dealer strategy. And but the product just continues to get better and better and better.

Dan Roth  29:23  
Feel figured out, hey, well, at some point

I have faith.

Unknown Speaker  29:30  
So what have you been in?

Dan Roth  29:32  
Yeah, Sam, what do you what do you go? What do you been driving.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:35  
So over the last couple of weeks, I've been in the new Toyota Corolla, the ex se, which for the first time is a Corolla that I would actually consider perhaps wanting to own. You know, this is this is both a really good looking so Didn't you know compact sedan, and really nice to drive. I mean, it was it was a very pleasant experience being in this thing. I felt

Dan Roth  30:01  
about the last Kuro I was in I was just I was just like, wow, this thing's really good actually his steering feel,

Sam Abuelsamid  30:06  
yes, the steering feel nice comfortable seats. It's roomy, you know, and you know, night, you know, really sharp looking car to especially the front end. I like what they've done with it, you know, the way they've done the lights at the front and the the engine, you know, has adequate power. You know, it's not, it's not a Stormer, but you know, it's a 1.8 liter naturally aspirated four cylinder, as well the CVT so it's not, you know, the CVT is okay, it's not great, but it's fine. I think most people will have no issues with excuse me, no issues with it. So, you know, it's, it's just a really pleasant place to be that, you know, the main issues I have with it are still, you know, the Intune infotainment system, which is still kind of mediocre. And it it still does not support Android Auto which You know, eventually maybe someday they will. But for now, it's still doesn't. The one I had the excess he has a, basically a top trim level, and it has navigation and, you know, all the Driver Assist features and everything. I tried using the voice recognition in there and it was very much hit and miss, you know, in terms of what it would recognize what it wouldn't recognize, you know, it was just, it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. The audio was good, you know, it's got a JBL audio system there with nine speakers, you know, so it sounds good. But they just the, the, the general interface was kind of typical, what we've seen from Toyota, which is just kind of okay, not not particularly great. screen. The screen is anything lead sides, and it's an eight inch Yeah, today.

Rebecca Lindland  31:53  
Yeah, that is nice. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:54  
And it's, you know, it's one of those, you know, that sits on top of the dash now. So

Rebecca Lindland  31:58  
we'll have those

Sam Abuelsamid  32:00  
I prefer prefer those because it's up closer to your line of sight. I don't want to have to look down at the screen Yeah, fair enough. You know and and that's why they're doing that. So and it had you know, this one had achieved wireless charging pad excuse me lots of other features in there it does have CarPlay support if you're an iPhone user, which is fine, Siri Eyes Free but the the lack of Android Auto i think is is something that you know toiler just really needs to address across the lineup You know, this it's kind of ridiculous. They're, they're the last mainstream automaker that does not include both systems. So I for both systems,

Rebecca Lindland  32:41  
I do wonder and I can ask somebody or and you may know what percentage of their buyers are Apple because I asked because when Porsche said at 85% of their buyers are apple and that's why they're not worried about it.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:00  
Yeah, well, I think the the demographics sort of roller a little bit different. You know, when you look at when you know, when you when you look at the overall market in the US, you know, it's, it's it's about 5248 iPhone versus Android in the US market.

Dan Roth  33:17  
iPhone is more popular.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:19  
Yeah, the US is the only market where that's true everywhere else in the world. Android is about 80 85% of the market. Once again, Americans proving that we are indeed

Rebecca Lindland  33:30  
Wait, clarify that Apple is 52% apples to apples to apples about

Sam Abuelsamid  33:35  
51 52% of the US market and in the rest of the world, and rest of the world. It's Android dominates. Yes,

Rebecca Lindland  33:41  
yes. Because that's that's been my experience as well. So I thought those are the other way. So I just wanted to clarify. Yeah,

Dan Roth  33:48  
yeah. I I have to say even I'm a new recruit to the iPhone and CarPlay and stuff and that expect

It's consistently not great

on everything, because you just plug it into your phone. It's I don't know what the alternative I don't I haven't I didn't none of my androids were expensive enough to have Android Auto. So I can't really compare, but I get the impression that Android Auto is actually better.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:25  
I, I personally prefer it. But, you know, the newer versions of CarPlay. You know, the latest version of CarPlay is definitely better than what was originally the first version of it. So it's it is improved. And I think they're there. You know, in terms of the user interface, I think they're both fairly comparable at this point, where I think Android still has a significant advantages in the voice control. Google Assistant just works better than Siri does, you know, across the board. Yeah. So I think that's that's the biggest advantage that Google has right now. But you know, in terms of In terms of driving this car, you know, and and, you know, looking at the demographics of who are the customers that are going to be buying a Corolla versus buying a tie con. You know, I think that there's, there's probably a perhaps a little bit of a difference, you know, in the mix. I

Unknown Speaker  35:17  
don't think Carl was brought up

Rebecca Lindland  35:19  
because I'm wondering what the split is. Maybe it's like 7030 for Toyota across the board also, Alexis.

Dan Roth  35:28  
I think I really think that the crow is winning conquest.

Rebecca Lindland  35:33  
That's not what I meant.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:36  
That definitely conquest Porsche customers. So

Rebecca Lindland  35:40  
women in automotive a bad name. That's not what I know. No, I'm

Dan Roth  35:46  
we're making jokes.

Rebecca Lindland  35:48  
That as a brand, Porsche Oh,

Dan Roth  35:51  
I think I think you're right on. I think it makes sense. I wonder what

Rebecca Lindland  35:54  
the breakdown is. And I'll try and find out

Sam Abuelsamid  35:57  
I would guess it's probably closer The overall market breakdown of Android versus iPhone, which is probably, you know, closer to that 5050 split.

Dan Roth  36:08  
I think if you were going to look at my expectation, and maybe we can back this up with some data, so my, my hypothesis, which we will have to test with the scientific method is that the more you get to a luxury brand, the higher percentage are going to be Apple users.

Unknown Speaker  36:23  
Why do you think that is? Because the more expensive

Dan Roth  36:28  
The facts are, right, so So I had a I had a Motorola x t 1030 was like $150 Android. And it was the most expensive Android I've ever owned. And they had it for five, four years. And only replace it because I dropped it and shattered the screen. And we I only went to iPhone because we had one and it was it was here as well. That was that was a stupid expensive phone and if it still works, okay, fine. And everybody else in the family's on iPhone anyway. So there's some benefits from being on the same network, right? It's not just a repurchased, actually, reasons for it. But, yeah, there's definitely a premium piece of hardware. And that's what I've noticed after after using is the same reason why I've used Mac laptops for a while is their premium hardware. Yes, you spend more for them, but you also tend to get a longer service life out of them,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:20  
they do have that advantage of Apple does a better job of supporting, you know, providing software updates over a longer period of time. And, you know, a for you, you can, it's not unreasonable to use a four or five year old iPhone. Whereas, you know, a three year old Android phone, you know, tends to be a little bit challenging, shall we say? Feels like a piece of crap.

Rebecca Lindland  37:45  
So anyway, so back to the Corolla. Anyway, what was good to drive was it is nice,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:50  
it's like yeah, I mean, it you know, like most of the other you know, TMG a platform cars, you know, it the handling, right quality, really good nothing to nothing that complain about it's got some decent steering feel, you know, and it's just just a really pleasant car to spend time in. You know, we, we took it to, to go to the centennial gala at my alma mater, it was about an hour, a little over an hour drive each way. And, you know, I had no complaints from my wife. And, you know, it was it was great. So, you know, this particular one that I had, you know, being in a loaded ex se, with sunroof and everything came to just shy of $29,000. So, you know, mainstream cars aren't quite as, you know, affordable as they used to be, but but it's still a

Rebecca Lindland  38:35  
well, but wait a minute. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  38:37  
To be fair, you're To be fair,

Rebecca Lindland  38:38  
you're a hot automotive guy and you shop to your college thing and a Corolla. That's the best that you could do.

Dan Roth  38:47  
Really well, engineer, they don't care. Oh.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:52  
Guess who pulled up behind me. Was Raj Nair, former president of Ford in his Gt 350

Unknown Speaker  38:59  
Exactly. The Well, that's a little flashy.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:04  
She's fresh. Hey, you know, I just tossed the keys to the valet and said here, you know.

Dan Roth  39:09  
Yeah, but so here's the thing to this was the fanciest Corolla there is the excess, that's a

Sam Abuelsamid  39:15  
$30,000 camera, you can you can get a Corolla, you know, starting at 20 grand and you know, it's going to be almost an equally nice vehicle to spend time

Dan Roth  39:23  
in. Corona l starts at 19. Six, that's before destination. So it was

Sam Abuelsamid  39:28  
this 20 Yeah, 20 grand, which is I mean, that's, that's pretty much the going rate these days for a C segment car, you know, you know, in that 20 to $25,000 price range, you know, with the premium versions, you know, creeping up towards 30 but, you know, that 20 to 25 that's, that's kind of the mainstream now for for a new compact car. Which, you know, is also the reason why, you know, the vast majority of people never buy new cars, they buy used cars, you know, the the percentage of people that actually buy new cars is is tiny. I mean, you probably have a better idea of what that percentage is than I do. Rebecca, based on your history at Cox. So it's a tiny percentage.

Rebecca Lindland  40:13  
I'm sorry, I didn't mean turn tracking. Oh, go ahead. So actually, so my former employer, Cox, automotive, they were kind enough to send me some their 2019 car buyer journey study recently. And I just before we were going on the air and preparing for this presentation I'm doing and it's I came across this nugget, the percentage of vehicles costing more than $50,000 has grown from 6% in 2012 to 23% in 2018. So 6% in 2012 to 23% in 2018 of vehicles costing over 50 grand. I mean, that's just incredible. It's

Dan Roth  40:51  
not consumers doing that. Well.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:55  
Actually, you know, you don't you know, where a lot of that growth has come from From the truck and SUV market, yes, because, you know, if like full size trucks, you know, average transaction prices for F 150s are, you know about $50,000 now,

Dan Roth  41:10  
right, but I feel like that's a deliberate strategy, though, on the part of automakers and the sort of the finance side of the business because they're going to offer you know, Morning Edition just it was I think Friday or it was wanting to shut up or all things considered and they had a story about sort of the rise of the seven year car loan and it that that's the thing is a terms have been getting longer and longer and longer. So you and they can make the cars last for you know, you get through 50,000 miles like nothing that's virtually buy a car with 50,000 miles on it unless it's been abused generally. It's a pretty fair

analog for the brand new car experience.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:55  
Right and average age of cars down in the US is about 12 years in You know, it's, it's not at all unusual to see, you know, cars running 2025 30 years.

Dan Roth  42:07  
So I just, I feel like the industry has aligned to push us into expensive cars

Rebecca Lindland  42:15  
well but also anywhere but new car buyers are expecting the technology to keep pace. So, you know, this other projects that I've been working on I'm looking back at vehicles that came out in like 1617 1819 I'm going through and looking to say, what are the changes model to model year to model year and the majority of time the changes that were made were to technology they were to add Android Auto and Apple CarPlay they were to add Driver Assist features, you know, things like that and

Sam Abuelsamid  42:50  
make them more fuel efficient and safer and you know, yes 10 airbags now you've got, you know, you've got cars that you can crash into a barrier. into a small offset rigid barrier test at 2540 miles an hour, and you could still open the driver side door.

Rebecca Lindland  43:08  
Exactly. I mean, it's like so what we're expecting the manufacturers to put into these vehicles is far above what we were expecting, I would say even 10 years ago.

Dan Roth  43:19  
I think that's, that's fair. But I also wonder if the tech is actually all that expensive, given that a lot of it is software and some sensors.

Rebecca Lindland  43:27  
There's licensing agreements, there's a lot more than those,

Sam Abuelsamid  43:30  
yeah, somebody's got to pay for the software, you know, I mean, the software has to be developed, it has to be paid for, you know, and, you know, all those sensors, you know, while individual sensors, you know, on their own are not all that expensive, you know, like, camera sensors and radar sensors, you know, they're about 30 or 40 bucks, but, you know, all of a sudden you got five cameras, instead of 40 bucks, you're talking $200 and you know, then you've got all the wiring for all that. You know, the computers To run all the stuff, I mean, you know, a typical car now is got somewhere, somewhere around, you know, anywhere between 50 and 75 computers in it. And high end vehicles, you know, can be up to 120 530 computers in there, you know, and three or 400 pounds of copper wiring. So, you know, it's all all this you know what you can take them one z, two z Yeah, they don't add up too much. But, you know, all those nickels and dimes eventually start to add up to real dollars.

Dan Roth  44:33  
That's lovely. I like that. I'm gonna I'm gonna leave that there. The Corolla, on the other hand, maintains his position as being a relatively affordable car that $19,000 starter Corolla is equivalent to about, I'd say about a $3,000 30 $300 car in like 1970

Sam Abuelsamid  44:52  
Oh, yeah, yeah, easily. Yeah, but it's, while it is still a reasonable value and it's low and trim levels. It's Not necessarily the best value that that honor actually probably goes to the Hyundai Elantra, which I also drove after after giving back the Corolla had the Elantra GT endline which came to $24,230. And, you know, this was, you know, the the high end version of the, of the launcher GT. Yeah, so this one has the, the 1.6 liter turbo, which, you know, we've talked about before, this is an engine that I really liked, you know, they use it in a whole bunch of different Hyundai and Kia products. And the one I drove was the manual transmission, and it's a very slick shifting manual, you know, 201 horsepower, hundred and 95 pounds of torque, you know, vert, you know, really nice performance, you know, especially at this price point. You know, it's a it's a very slick car, and you know that the Elantra GT i think is a good looking car too, and it has As a really nice interior especially when you compare it to the velociter end that I was driving a few weeks back you know the velociter you know the velociter still has you know all hard plastic surfaces the launcher gt on the other hand you know has nice you know much nicer material soft touch surfaces and this you know, the the GT is the five door hatchback version, which is really one that is targeted more at the European market but they've been bringing it to the US and you know, I don't know what the split the sale split is they don't you know, they don't break out the sale split between the launcher sedan and the GT but I would guess it's probably not more than about 25 or 30% at most of the launcher sales probably less than that. But you know, the it's a handsome looking vehicle. Really nice interior, you know, for 24 grand. They only complaint I have about this car is the suspension tuning was Terrible.

Dan Roth  47:00  
Are we back to that, again with that, that they figured out?

Sam Abuelsamid  47:04  
Well, the the regular ultras and the standard, you know, the not the non endline GT is really good. That's not a problem. But on this end line, which is kind of the sporty or trim level that they have, in this case here, it's, it has this the same kind of problem that I experienced, what the Ford Focus RS and even the Focus ST. Which is, you know, it's, it's a little bit too stiffly sprung, you know, a little bit under damped and when, you know, on these certain road surfaces around this area, particularly the stretch of i 94, not far from me here, you know, that it's got, you know, this kind of little bit of a wave to it, it gets into this vertical bouncing motion. And, you know, again, we went to my wife and I went to Detroit to meet up with our daughter for lunch, and You know, it was just not a pleasant ride on that stretch of highway and, you know, there was a few other places where it just felt a little overly strong, you know, over overly stiff spring, spring rates, you know, and it's just, it was kind of, you know, not good, which is unfortunate because, you know, everything else about this thing is is really nice. You know, it's, it runs on 18 inch wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport tires. You know, it's, it's a, it's a Ruby, compact, hatchback. Lots of cargo space in the back, you know, and everything else about is great, except for the suspension tuning.

Dan Roth  48:42  
Well, I mean, what you're saying basically, is that it's almost as good as, as a golf. It's just, it's not quite a golf.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:51  
Yeah, you know, I, frankly, you know, what I'd love what I'd love to have is this, you know, this 200 horsepower One six turbo with the standard Elantra GT suspension setup instead of the endline setup

Rebecca Lindland  49:06  
with with different tires help.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:09  
No, no, I doubt it not, not unless you went to like smaller wheels, like a 17 or even a 16 inch wheel with you know, taller sidewalls. Yeah, that that would probably help. But it's it's really more of a, you know, a spring rate damping issue than anything else, because I've driven the, the, you know, other trim levels of the ultra GT and really liked it. It's just this this particular one, this endline version is the first time that I've had this issue.

Unknown Speaker  49:36  
Oh, okay.

Dan Roth  49:38  
But it was it was the case that a few years ago, Hyundai and Kia really couldn't figure out suspension tuning. So the rest of the cars again, were great, but they just they wrote and handled like cheap cars. But this is what you're not saying this feels cheap. He's just saying it feels it's a little too stiff.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:58  
Yeah, it's just you know, and said, You know, I think it may be a quirk of, you know, the some particular roads that we have around here. But, you know, because I've had, I've had this experience with some other cars, not all of them, but but, you know, certain certain models that just have this issue, you know, especially some that have been tuned for European roads, you know, where it gets into this vertical motion. And I'm frankly kind of surprised, you know, because, you know, the endline models, you know, are also tuned, you know, by, you know, by the same group that does the end models, you know, the higher performance models like the velociter and, and there is an electric gt in Europe and and version of the GT, which is in Europe, the Elantra GT is called the I 30. So there's an i 30 n in Europe, and these are all developed by Albert Biermann scripts Our beer man is head of r&d at Hyundai formerly led BMW Sam division. And, you know, they they did, they actually did a better job on the end on the velociter. And then on this particular model,

Dan Roth  51:15  
I wonder what, there must be a reason we should be able to get to the bottom of that some point but, you know, we're continuing aspect week here on the podcast because I actually, it's funny, I was really interested in the launch of gt because I had a golf se, the 1.4 liter turbo, so a pretty similar car, not quite as high spec. But I felt like it's, it's overall it's still a benchmark for the class and this is why I was really curious to see how the the Elantra GT did. And the ride and handling are really one of the places where Volkswagen has led the field with the golf naked They continue to I really like the golf. I don't like their automatic transmission, but that's me is that the DSG or conventional automatic, it's just their conventional auto, it's just something about it is just it's gravity it jerks your head back, it's just I, I don't know, I know the 1.4 liter engine is one of those power plants. That's good most of the time, but it definitely runs out of breath when you really want it to have more lungs, you know, it. It's a little limited in in sort of its power band is good. It just doesn't have a whole lot of peak power. And so there are times where you just want it to accelerate a little quicker, like some of the tight ramps here in New England. But the car itself feels really, really solid. It's it just again demonstrates why Volkswagen is sort of the benchmark here. The controls are really simple and easy to use. The car looks good. It's Maybe it's a little conservative inside now, but everything functions mostly as you'd expect it to there's a couple of little bits of blockiness with the infotainment system it's it's better than the one the Corolla for sure but it's not quite as good as it I even even you connect is easier to use and I know you can act as sort of very friendly but they're all kind of doing this I get to the point where I wish that somebody would standardize on some things are not all so bad. It's better than the Supers I got out of it. Yeah, I mean the golf just remains the solid solid hatchback and this is about a $27,000 car so I don't think you can do much, much better for the same money I just I'm I always liked golf said even in GTA i just i like it quite a bit and it will. It will return decent Fuel Economy depending on how you drive it I feel like I drive kind of the most aggressively out of three of

fuel economy is never great.

But it'll rack up 3030 plus miles per gallon on the highway only trip easy.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:15  
I'll stop the complaint about

Dan Roth  54:17  
now. Sorry. The car had the week before was the Volvo V 60. Cross Country which is a lot more luxurious. Nice. Why not? Yeah, it's nice. I I was I was talking with someone on Twitter about it. whose opinion i i appreciate and you know, his taken there's like that car is perfect when it's parked. Not as good to drive.

Rebecca Lindland  54:42  
Well, I'm getting the XC 40. Again, I had it last summer. And I really liked the exit. I know I'm looking forward to because you know, I've had some issues with some of the how the caliber The ball was recalibrated. So I'm actually driving quite a distance in it. So I That'll be interesting to see I have a I have a road trip I need to go on in during the weekend. And so I'm looking forward to that. But I have to say on the Volkswagen, I just, I just I like you. I just love Volkswagens. I had one it was it was the first car I ever I ever bought. It was a Volkswagen cabriolet and just make

Dan Roth  55:21  
with the basket handle.

Rebecca Lindland  55:22  
I don't know what do you mean the basket hand? It's a bit big. Oh, it did? Yes. Yeah. Yes, it had there. It had the role by that's a good description. I like that. But um, you know, the thing is that I think that that Volkswagen just has the ability to kind of elevate any vehicle to to make it more drivable. It's driving enjoyment and driving dynamics and I always had a weakness for books wagon.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:50  
Oh My my, my experience with owning Volkswagens was that they were great cars to drive and terrible cars to own because we have You know, all kinds of issues with them that often required very expensive repairs. I know. And they've certainly gotten better, you know, their warranties have at least gotten better. And so, you know, it's less of a concern now than it used to be.

Rebecca Lindland  56:13  
I remember talking to this, one of the German guys over there, and he said, I just don't understand why Americans have such issues with reliability. I said to him, Well, we do expect the windows to go down and back up every time

Sam Abuelsamid  56:31  
that sunshade on the on the winch on the sunroof, you know, the shade on the sunroof. And, you know, when we press the door lock button, we expect all of the doors to live, not just three of them.

Dan Roth  56:44  
Why would you expect that that's unreasonable cars sometimes have defects, says the engineer

or I just like the best. The best to me is when you're explaining to those guys like I don't like it because it doesn't operate. This way, and their answers always

know, why would you do it that way? Right? That's not the way you're supposed to do it.

Rebecca Lindland  57:07  
Well, that that was something that was sort of when I

Sam Abuelsamid  57:09  
when I challenge you read the manual and operate it the way the manual tells you to

Dan Roth  57:13  
now we're Americans. We don't we don't do that

Rebecca Lindland  57:16  
when I challenge the guy, you know, the Porsche Ty con take Can I never say it right icon icon. I, you know, I said, What about the Android users? And he's like, well, that's not our market. Like it's just completely irrelevant. Like it didn't matter. Alright, so what else is going on? Oh, we have the big merger, the PSA FCA merger. The merger.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:43  
Yes. So Fiat Chrysler, you know, finally trying to merge yet again, you know, another company will see

Dan Roth  57:53  
that still needs approval, isn't it? Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  57:56  
but but the French government recognizes that they messed up when they screwed up there ran out marker. So I don't think that they're going to get in the way this time. I think this one's going to happen.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:06  
Yeah. And, you know, and a lot of ways I think this deal actually probably makes a little more sense than the Renault deal. Did. You know, I think, you know, these two companies, I think, in terms of their product line lineups are a little more complimentary to each other. You know, so, I think I think that this could actually work for the two companies depending on you know, how the whole you know, merging of corporate cultures and all that nonsense works out.

Rebecca Lindland  58:34  
I do wonder what this does, for products like the Buick Regal though, which are supplied by opa which is now owned by PSA.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:45  
I think the regals going to be going away in another year. So anyway, I think the the production contract that they had with opal the GM had with opal, I think expires in a year or so. And, you know, frankly, Look at vehicle sales now. I don't I don't think anybody's gonna be too upset. You know if it just kind of disappears.

Dan Roth  59:07  
It is a good car.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:08  
Oh, I know. We talked about it. It's a great car. Very good. Americans just don't want to buy them. I know.

Rebecca Lindland  59:17  
It's too bad. But it but again, it was just something that crossed my mind because they are German sourced and now it's Yeah, well,

Dan Roth  59:24  
and I also I think that Buick I don't know, I actually see them trying to sell them to I just I don't know why they just don't gel. I'm not sure why.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:34  
Yeah. And you know, the thing is if, if GM really wanted to keep the Regal, they could source it from China because they are also built in China. Yes. So they could get it from there if if there was enough demand for it. But frankly, you know, it makes no sense for GM to continue offering that car here.

Dan Roth  59:51  
So wait a second. Are you saying that that you think that I'm getting the impression like just just the wrinkles gonna go away? It's not that GM has lost sort of incentive on on pyrrhic itself.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:04  
While though I mean, there's there has been some speculation that Buick might get dropped from the US market. Because their sales have not been exciting and that too, not too great. But for now, just the just the Regal because all all the other, that's the only one that they get from Poland, Germany, but what do you

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:23  
what do you think they're going to do about the I mean, I realized the ones that are made in China are used in China, but the technology and everything Do you think all that's been worked out already?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:36  
on intellectual property? Yeah, I'm sure you know, when they made I Well, I would assume when they made the sale because they GM does sell so many of those, you know, all of those, you know, the same products in the Chinese market, that you know, they had a deal for the intellectual property, you know, the designs and you know, they also, you know, they those many of those vehicles, Share platforms with cars that are built here as well, like, the Malibu, you know, is on the same platform as the Regal. And, you know, there's other GM products. So I'm sure that GM retained the rights to use those, those platforms. And in fact, Mike, my guess is that, you know, PSA probably, you know, had no interest in acquiring the those that IP for for those platforms.

Dan Roth  1:01:27  
It's it's not exactly the newest IP at this point. And so even if you could get it, although FCA, on the other hand, has shown that you don't need the newest property, do you know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:41  
that these cars are all really good, you know, even though they're, you know, based on older designs, you know, from a suspension standpoint, they have been updated regularly over the years and, you know, they perform perfectly adequately,

Dan Roth  1:01:54  
perfectly adequately is what I aim for.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:58  
certainly seems to be GMC. Targeting wagle

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:00  
gs is a lot of fun to drive though.

Dan Roth  1:02:03  
Oh, yeah. I mean, it really is more manual. Man meets meets manual.

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:08  
Yeah, I would go with that.

Dan Roth  1:02:12  
In terms of FCA and PSA though, I think are we back in the situation where

some other manufacturers changes supan a cert that the wounded Jeep owner so limping along and it's like oh, there's a there's a weak one that's been separated from the pack. Let's get Jeep as our sort of crown jewel because he looked at the rest of what's there you know, the jeep and RAM are the two profit generators for the brand Fiat's not really doing anything. Dodge and Chrysler sort of Shadows of their former self. I think there's some people here in the US that imagine Chrysler as a luxury brand. I have a hard time thinking there. It's a true luxury brand. It's not

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:56  
new premium at best. 300

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:01  
and they only have two nameplates, the 300 everything else was discontinued. So,

Dan Roth  1:03:08  
you know, those are good cars 300 could go away tomorrow and it paid for itself X amount over the problem that that Chrysler has FCA has is they don't have any replacements for and they don't have any small cars and PSA also has a pretty robust electrification program that created the FCA doesn't have. Right,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:33  
right. And, you know, the other, you know, the areas where we're FCA has got strengths are, you know, the, the SUVs, the trucks, and also in commercial vehicles in Europe, you know, so they've got a pretty good commercial vehicle operation over there, which would definitely benefit PSA over there. Plus, you know, FCA is got, you know, a dealer network here, and PSA is a company that wants to bring some of their brands back into the US market. In the coming years with Maxwell shield

Dan Roth  1:04:01  
them the last time they were here, I will tell you that pujo and remote tools for garbage

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:06  
right? So you know if they can at least you know if they can build decent vehicles and you know bring those into the US market and you know and go through the FCI dealers, you know, then they don't have to establish a new dealer network.

Dan Roth  1:04:21  
That's that's a good point. And yeah, I know, Jeep Jeep is just that. I'm I'm waiting to see if they snap it up just for Jeep and then see what gets what gets cut. I mean, Alfa Romeo has not had a successful relaunch in the US.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:38  
No, and it's already been reported in the last day or so that as part of this merger deal, that that the, I guess and I guess during the FCA q3 financial call last week, Mike Manley announced that they were scaling back their investment in alpha and the the GTV and The AC competence Yani replacements were being put on hold for the time being. Hmm. So Well yeah, they're gonna they're gonna focus on the on the Stelvio, the Julia and then two smaller crossovers as well.

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:14  
And then the fee is going away and right i mean the dealers are really limping along here.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:22  
Yeah, I mean, the five the five hundreds of 500 is going to be killed, you know if they can, if they can keep them going long enough, you know, perhaps they could use that dealer network for for PSA brands.

Dan Roth  1:05:34  
So this is what this would create the fourth largest automaker, right. Are we gonna see another? Anytime this happens now to Chrysler? I'm just worried that it's going to be a repeat of the merger of equals nonsense that happened with Dima No. Well, FCA service again, FCA swooped in or fiatter swooped in and they got a lot of benefit out of it and they certainly burnished Chrysler, they invest smartly, but I don't I don't know that the brands are in quite as good the overall businesses and as quite a good shape as we might imagine.

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:10  
Well, no, but one of the biggest reasons that the Daimler Chrysler quote, merger of equals failed was because their, their, their customer base was so different. And Mercedes customers didn't want anything to do with Chrysler. And to all And granted, you know, Mercedes executives and engineers didn't want anything to do with Chrysler either. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean, that's, yes, that's exactly except the customer.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:39  
Customers probably don't.

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:40  
I'm sorry, you're sitting in a meeting, and you're designing a vehicle, and you're thinking about a customer and their values. And these are two different sets of values. Neither of them is better or worse. They're just different. And that was part of the that was one of the biggest challenges with the They weren't designing with the same people in mind.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:03  
And, you know, when you're talking, you know, if you're talking about building a company that, you know, with brands that span, you know, the range of different market segments, you don't necessarily have to do that either. But there were so many other cultural issues between those two companies that you know that the the, the dialer engineers just did not want to work with the Chrysler people, they want to have anything to do with

Rebecca Lindland  1:07:28  
them, right. But the culture is still somewhat customer based, you know, who you're designing for. And I know you're, you're right, it's it spans you know, the the gamut. It runs the gamut of different customers. But if you're trying to share platforms, if you're trying to share a mindset, they just didn't, they didn't have it. And and they weren't the same at all. And it was a very blue collar white collar European versus American. I mean, there were so many issues, culturally, that and design wise it just wasn't going to fit. I don't see those same types of extreme issues with this merger.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:14  
Right. I agree. I think that this one has at least has the potential to work better. Well, we'll see if that how that actually transpires. But it I think it has potential.

Dan Roth  1:08:27  
Right, well, when will we know more?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:31  
Probably, you know, in the next few weeks, you know, I think the the boards have already tentatively approved, you know, moving forward with the deal, but, you know, it's, it's going to take at least, you know, six to nine months, you know, to go through all the regulatory approvals and everything, you know, probably won't be till the second half of 2020. You know, if everything gets approved, that, you know, merger actually happens, you know, and then, you know, it'll be a couple of years after that, you know, before we start seeing any significant product changes

Dan Roth  1:09:01  
I think it's it's a smart move for for SCA and a lot of ways to because they they killed other small car platforms. They're not really that far into electrification although they're further than we think. So if they can just sort of buy their way into it, that's not terrible,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:18  
right. And, you know, right now neither company has much in the way of automated driving development. But SCA does have relationships with BMW, Intel, and active and waymo. That, you know, the combined company could leverage that, you know, if they wanted to move forward with any of that stuff.

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:38  
Everybody has to consolidate on costs because the technology is so incredibly expensive.

Dan Roth  1:09:44  
Also, FCA shareholders are probably going to be pretty pleased with it. They're going to get a special dividend from it if the deal closes too, so they'll get paid,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:53  
right? Oh, yeah.

Dan Roth  1:09:56  
I guess what more will be coming soon. on that.

So what's next?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:05  
The Shelby GT 500

Dan Roth  1:10:07  
Oh, you got a chance to drive that? I bet it sucked.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:10  
It was it was atrocious. You know, anytime you put a supercharger on a Mustang things just fall apart. That's kind of true. Actually. Actually, in this case, this is the first time you know that I've driven a GT 500 that I actually really liked. You know, in the past, you know, like, I wrote my review on Forbes, you know, back 2008 I had, you know, the then current bullet and Gt 500. About three weeks apart and reviewed both of them for Autoblog at the time, and even though the the GT 500 you know, had more than twice as much power as the bullet time. It the bullet was such a bunch better car to drive. You know, gt five hundreds in the past, you know, they have always been Great at their classic muscle cars there were great, going really fast, accelerating really fast in a straight line. But when it came to turning and not so much, and it didn't really get a whole lot better, you know, in the later years of the last generation Gt 500, when they kept cranking up the power, and it got it up to like 662 horsepower, you know, it was the car was still, you know, with that kind of power, it was still kind of a mess to drive on a road course, or, you know, on even on the street. This time, they, you know, they've taken a completely different approach to the car, and it really applied a lot of the stuff that they've learned from developing the GT 350 and really focused on making this thing really an all around sports car, and it's certainly the most powerful production Mustang ever at 760 horsepower. And and it's absurd. Yeah. It's it is. And it's also rather pricey. You know, it starts at like a little over $72,000. And you can max it out at over 100 grand. You can get it up to 102,500. If you if you really want to if you want if you get the carbon fiber kit, and they painted racing stripes, which that that's, you know the the painted if you go through the building price for the GT 500 you have two options for racing stripes, you can get the the vinyl stripes, which are, you know, stick on stripes that go on top of the paint on top of the clear coat. Those are thousand bucks. If you want the painted stripes, that's a $10,000 option. And I asked the Ford guys why it's so expensive, and explain the process. It's actually a really labor intensive process to do Because what they have to do the painted stripes, the stripes are actually underneath the clear coat. So what they have to do is the body goes into the paint line into the paint shop, they paint the base coat, and then they have to take the body out of off the line. And, you know, then, you know, let the paint dry, they mask it, they paint the stripes, they spray the stripes by hand. And, you know, clean it all up, polish it up, and then put it back into the paint line to go through the clearcoat stage and then baking the paint. So, you know, if you run your hand across the cross the painted stripes, you won't feel them, but you know, and they won't, you know, they won't obviously won't peel off because they're underneath the clear coat, whereas the painted stripes can, you know, over time they'll eventually peel and start to peel off. So you know if you if you are you know, if you're a real collector and you must have the best Gt 500 Then you want to go for the painted stripes but or for if you just want the fastest Mustang, you can, you can do without the stripes altogether.

Dan Roth  1:14:08  
It was those are the people who are never going to drive them, and they're going to sell them for a zillion dollars. I know.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:13  
I know. But, you know, the this, this is actually a GT 500 that you would want to drive. You know, we drove it out in Nevada in Las Vegas. And you know, we spent a few hours on the road driving it driving up into the mountains outside of Las Vegas. And then we had a chance to do some drag strip runs with it quarter mile runs, and then took it on the road course at Las Vegas motor speedway. And, you know, even though this is a pretty heavy car, it's almost 4200 pounds. You know, it actually feels much lighter, you know, it's got standard, magnified dampers humungus brakes, the front brake rotors is standard brakes on this thing. It's all Brembo brakes. The front brake rotors are 16 and a half inch diameter brake rotors, six piston calipers you know and they had a display there with the the brakes from the new GT 500 and a wheel and tire from the original you know from a 1967 Gt 500 mounted back to back and the brake rotor on the new car is bigger than the wheel was on the old car. And actually, Haggerty Haggerty actually brought out a 67 Gt 500 from there that they have in their collection and got to go for rotten drive with Jonathan clinger from Haggerty and a 67. And, man, you know, it was it was officially rated back then, you know, it was a 428 cubic inch v eight, it was officially rated at 335 horsepower. But you know, it was that was the gross horsepower. That was a gross so the real horsepower is probably closer to under 300 which you know, for The time was a lot, but nothing compared to today. And you know, this, this car, you get it as a ginormous wood rim steering wheel with real a really skinny rim. And you know the brakes, you step on the brakes and it's like you're halfway through the pedal travel before you actually get any braking force with this thing. It's just as crazy to drive

Dan Roth  1:16:21  
and were they were they drums. Oh, for

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:23  
no, I had had discs on the front drums on the rear. Okay.

Dan Roth  1:16:27  
Alright, so that's all right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:28  
Yeah. So I mean, you know, these were the first Mustangs that had front disc brakes. You know, there were there were, you know, regular Mustangs is still had front drums back in those days. But, you know, it was, it's clearly the kind of car that you would not want to take this thing racing, you know, it's, you know, it's purely a cruiser. But the new car, I mean, you could you could do whatever you want with it, you can race it, you can take it to track days or just drive it around. And you know, it's a very pleasant car to drive and you know, just MCs an amazing sound not quite as amazing as a GT 350 with its flat plane crank, but still very impressive car.

Dan Roth  1:17:09  
hundred thousand dollar Mustang now. I yeah, I guess all right, I can see it. But

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:15  
it's a Shelby. That's right. Why that's why you pay the customers will pay for the Shelby day that guy has to pay me to put his name on my stuff. But

Dan Roth  1:17:25  
the charlatan?

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:27  
I'm sure they have all sorts of special additions planned. Limited function runs and such.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:33  
Oh, yeah. Well, for the GT 500. Actually not but I mean, one of the things they've always done with Mustang is have various special editions and there there is other stuff coming that we can't talk about yet. But the you know, the GT 500 You know, I think this this will probably go for a couple of years. They'll build this for a couple of years, and then move on to something else.

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:57  
For it's actually a pretty big week because they had the Bronco they are talking

Dan Roth  1:18:02  
about it yeah the Broncos are

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:04  
yeah they reveal the the logo for the new Bronco which is going to be the the vehicle is going to be unveiled next spring and then this afternoon they reveal photos of brocco r which is an off road racing variant that has the same basic shape as the the production brocco but I don't think it actually shares anything with the with the bronco that you'll be able to buy next spring well that's

Dan Roth  1:18:30  
too bad. Now maybe it has the same Fox shocks. Let's see what

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:34  
you'll probably be able to get a version of it with Fox shocks Yella kind of a raptor brocco

Unknown Speaker  1:18:39  
Yeah, why not? They

Dan Roth  1:18:42  
call it a bronc art.

And I you know, I just trying to I'm trying to move the fact that like the Mustang was always sort of like a cheap fast car, you know it no economy car with just the bigger engine stuffed into it from one of the larger models and it It's not that anymore and it hasn't been that for since s 197. And that's okay. But it's really at the the Shelby's have sort of become this real high end Not, not with the Mustang started out as these are actual these are sports because these are 911 competitors. These are I'm assuming that somebody's looking at the GT 500 might also consider a Corvette.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:28  
A Corvette? Yes. I don't think you find too many Gt 500 customers cross shopping a 911

Dan Roth  1:19:35  
I wouldn't absolutely crush on 911 Gt 350 I because their their performance envelope is really, really similar.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:43  
Yeah. gt Gt 350. Absolutely. gt Gt 500. No, no, yeah, it's really aimed at a very different kind of audience. But you know, it's interesting. You know, somebody from Ford marketing, explained to me a few years back back in 2007 when They relaunched the GT 500 on the S 197 platform. You know, the previous generation the SN 95, high performance, you know, supercharged Mustangs and high performance Mustangs were bashes SVT Cobras. And the new one was supposed to be called the SVT Cobra. But they ended up doing a deal with Shelby to license the name. And the reason why is with on the Cobras, you know, when they when they sold it as a cobra, they only got about it found they were only getting about 100 to $150 of extra profit margin per vehicle, relative to a regular GT. You know, obviously the price was higher, but the the total profit margin was only marginally higher than on the on the Jeep on a Mustang GT. But they found that when you put a Shelby badge on it, there were customers that were willing to pay a $10,000 premium for that Shelby badge. And so you know, the The margins on those cars grew substantially, which is why they still build Shelby's today, you know, even though a chunk of that that extra profit goes back to Shelby American You know, that's it's still much more profitable car for Ford to build and that's part of why they can still get thought he'll still get around to building Mustangs today. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:21:21  
Well and and I guess to be fair to Ford doesn't offer anything that's like a corporate. So it's okay that they offer their own sort of flavor of extreme performance car on the platform that they've got so right. Make sense? Why do we want to wrap up with what's the something that's much more efficient?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:42  
Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:21:44  
you'd mentioned that pricing for the 2020 Mini he is out and it's not that expensive. It also doesn't go that far.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:51  
But yeah, I mean, for many, I mean, you know minis have since they brought many back in the early 2000s. It typically being on the high end of the Price scale, you know, for small cars. And in fact, you know, some of them, you know, when you get into a john Cooper Works or you know, some of these other high, high end editions, you know, they can get pretty expensive. But the the minis starting at just just under just shy of $30,000, which is just pretty reasonable until you look at how far it can go.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:22  
How far can it go?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:25  
But 114 miles.

Dan Roth  1:22:26  
So but again, though, let's temper this with our earlier discussion, right? This is a full electric it's not a hybrid, but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:34  
it is a battery electric. It's, it's using a lot of the hardware from the i three. So it's it's got a lot of the same motor technology and battery technology that's in the i three, but it's been moved, the motors been moved to the front instead of the back. So it's a front wheel drive.

Dan Roth  1:22:49  
Yeah, but it's got more than enough for pretty much I would say 90% eight is a safe 80% of the daily roundtrip. commuting that happens here in the US is is plenty with 114 miles. Yeah. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:06  
it is yeah. And, you know, depending on where you live what your lifestyle is, you know, it could be a perfectly, perfectly adequate car. And it's got all the you know, got all the attributes that you know, any regular mini hard top has. Yeah, let's let's compact fun to drive. kind of cute looking.

Dan Roth  1:23:25  
I think I think it needs the range extender like Rebecca had with the three.

Rebecca Lindland  1:23:29  
Well, I mean, my gosh, that was just miserable. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:33  
packaging that into the mini though would be a problem.

Dan Roth  1:23:38  
I like it better than the regular mini quite honestly because I feel like it's not trying to recreate something so much as it's got its own personal personality. You know, the wheels are cool. The details are cool, because it's it's a very different model.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:52  
Yeah, you know, and I'm back in 2008 you know, I drove the when they had the original mini you know, before They did the three, you know, in the lead up to launching, you know, BMWs electric vehicles, they went through a couple of stages of this pilot program, starting with the mini Mini, they built this fleet of I think about 600 Mini ease that were converted minis. And, you know, they leased them out to people for a couple of years to learn more about how people use electric vehicles, and then you know, they replaced those with the the activity which was based on the two series. Or the one the one sir, the one series still at that time. So they did an electric conversion of the one series, and then they then they brought out the three, you know, but the I drove that mini that original mini and it was it was a hoot to drive.

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:45  
Yeah, I drove it briefly to because when I got in, I was at some kind of event. And when I got in it had like 12 miles of range, and I knew where I was and I was like, No, thank you. So it was brief, but I actually had a mini I had one of the first many Cooper ss, that when they came back to the States, and they are they're just they're just so much fun to drive. And I think you know, the you always it always gets back to your comfort level with the range anxiety, do you have a place to charge it easily? How fast does it charge all those things? Those are all barriers that I think we're starting to overcome. As more electric vehicles Come on the road as people become more familiar with it, as the neighborhood effect takes takes effect. I you know, where you it's not this strange thing anymore. It's something that, you know, your next door neighbor has, so it's too bad that there isn't more more range for sure. But, you know, as Dan said, it's not really necessary.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:45  
Well, and you know, I think, you know, in this case, you know, because there's a small car, it was just a matter, you know, that's as much batteries that could package into the car right now. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's got 181 horsepower, hundred 99 foot pounds of torque. It is well, it is. Yeah, literally. I mean, it's actually the Mini Cooper se as well. Yes. So it's, you know, it's the Cooper S, you know, it's similar similar output to the Cooper, the standard Cooper S, you know, it's equipped, you know, got roughly the same equipment as the as the Cooper S, it's just an electric version. Basically, the only thing you're giving up with this one from relative to a Cooper S is the distance you can drive. You know, so it's limited to that, you know, because that 33 and a half kilowatt hour battery, you're limited to about 114 miles. But other than that, it'll be just like driving a Cooper S.

Dan Roth  1:26:34  
Well, let me make some wild assumptions. So minis tend to be popular in areas where in urban areas, you know, where where people are commuting into cities. So does that. Does that bode well as we build up charging infrastructure that cities are going to get more more charging infrastructure faster, if they don't already have it like maybe maybe it's not so much of an issue to take the money into the office and plug it in all day while you're in the city. And then you've got, you know, you boosted the range and apparently confessed charges on DC faster, so up to 5050 kilowatts, so,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:17  
yeah, so it's about the same fast charging as most other lower end EBS. So you can you can put 80% of the charge back in about a half an hour from what they say

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:28  
it's still going to be it's more of a suburban commuter solution though. So the commute from the suburbs into the city,

Dan Roth  1:27:35  
so or suburb to suburb

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:37  
or so December but you know, like, I'm picturing you know, like in the Boston area, I you know, driving in from one of the suburbs into the city going to work and they're turning around and coming back to your garage or you know, or your house where you can,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:52  
you know, if you have if you have workplace charging, you know, you can use you can use that that'll work for

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:56  
Right. I mean, it's still the multifamily the multi Families solution is not out there yet. Like what do you do with people that live in apartments?

Dan Roth  1:28:05  
Right? Well, what you do is you get an extension cord. And you go over to the nearest streetlight, and you take your screwdriver and you open up the bottom of that, right and they'll be, there'll be wires in there. Well, you know, take one hand very carefully and unwrap the wire and wrap it around them from

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:25  
me, the terrible thing is that, you know, in many cities, including Boston, they've taken out all the meters, right and they do these centralized parking areas, but those meters potentially could have had charging stations could have been you know, charging stations right there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:42  
Well, and what they're starting to do now is you know, they're looking at smart polls, like the light poles and utility pole, right smile, Austin,

Dan Roth  1:28:49  
Boston,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:51  
equipping, equipping those with charging plugs and, you know, various other equipment, you know, so there's a bunch of companies and this, this is One of the reports that my company's recently done is, or is working that somebody one of our analysts is working on right now is on smart polls, you know, looking at the market for those. And, you know, so they're, you know, they're equipping them with, you know, with radios, you know, for vehicle to infrastructure, communications, putting sensors on them, putting charging plugs in them, you know, so that you can have, you know, more more Street, you know, charging with street level parking in cities.

Dan Roth  1:29:32  
I think it's kind of come and we're going to see it in the next three years. It's going to be a lot easier to charge your car no matter where you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:40  
No, yeah, absolutely.

Dan Roth  1:29:42  
Yeah, hopefully. I'm going to go I'd like that opportunity. So I can test more cars. I don't have workplace charging yet. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:48  
you know what, one of one of the things that you know, Ford announced last week, I guess or the week before, you know, is an update for their fordpass system. You know, Because they've got an EP that's going to be unveiled in a week and a half in Los Angeles. And as part of their rolling out of new electric vehicles, including this EP, the electric f 150, and an electric version of the transit van. They, within fordpass they are doing deals with these various charging network providers like electrify America and green lots and others. Today, you know, if you own an EV, you gotta have, you know, a bunch of different apps on your phone, you know, depending on where you're going, you know, and you sign up for accounts with these different charging network providers. And, you know, they all have different rates and everything, and it's just kind of a hassle. What they're doing is Ford is aggregating all that within the fordpass app, so that you just log into each of the login to each of them. You'll have access to each of these different charging networks through one interface. And you can pay for it all through that one interfacing and just connect your credit card to it and pay for your charging that way. And so they're trying to simplify that. And, you know, when they when they launch their EV, they're going to have at owners will have access to a network of over 35,000 charging stations at 20,000 locations across the net across US and Canada.

Dan Roth  1:31:26  
Better. Yeah, it's getting better. Every day. That's all getting better. Yeah. All right. That's podcast.

Oh, we did have a question. Actually. We had it. We had one question from Twitter. I'm we're not going to be helpful for this guy. But he it's Rick Rick sweat with sweet three. I don't know how to pronounce his name Rick. Rick says he just bought a 25 year old Suzuki joy pop key van for his first project car and he's asking if we have any advice and not looks good in pictures and keep cars and now really popular. Us casera over 25 years old, the fans.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:02  
Yeah, I would reach out to Mike Austin at Hemmings or Chris Parker. Both of them on various k cars. Mike, Mike, Mike has a hard to beat, you know, so he could probably give you some hints as to what to do.

Dan Roth  1:32:16  
And you know what, actually, there were a bunch of of these kind of bands at Redwood in Boston, and I think they regularly show up to Redwood shows. So looking around at who's involved with Redwood will probably get you some names to I honestly, I can't imagine that parts and support are actually that difficult. It's a Suzuki. So it's Suzuki pieces. The stuff that's Japan specific it's going to be

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:44  
Yeah, and, you know, there's, there's enough of these things, you know, these various key cars showing up, you know, across the United States now, because because of the fact that once they're over 25 years old, you don't have to federalize them. You know, there's enough of these various different from different manufacturers and you know, many of them are Suzuki's, you know, they may not be the vans, but they I think they all pretty much have the same power trains in the same 6660 cc power train engines in there. So, you know, look around and you can definitely find help.

Dan Roth  1:33:19  
Yeah, you're kicking it. You should get help. Yeah.

All right. That's it. That's a podcast. Catch everyone next week. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai