Dan Roth  0:02  
This is Wheel Bearings, I'm Dan Roth from Forbes

Sam Abuelsamid  0:05  
Sam Abuelsamid from Navigant research and unfortunately Rebecca is not with us today. She is tending to her mother, her elderly mother who's in the hospital. And hopefully she gets better quick.

Dan Roth  0:19  
Yeah, so you can email your well wishes to Rebecca Wheel Bearings dot media. I think that's her email.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:26  
That is got nice subtle ones now.

Dan Roth  0:29  
She's gonna be like, what is this guys What happened? So but yeah, that is a

Sam Abuelsamid  0:34  
speaking of emails well we've got a whole bunch of them that we've gotten in the last couple of weeks since we published our new address. And we'll be talking about some of those

Dan Roth  0:42  
later on in the show. Did we get any from a Nigerian prince?

Sam Abuelsamid  0:46  
Sadly, no, no, no offers to transfer vast sums of money into our accounts temporarily for a share of that, but we did get one from Australia that we definitely want to talk about. Alright, well, we'll get to it shortly. Let's start With cars and what have we been driving? What do you what do you been in Sam? Well, since last we spoke I've been in a couple of different vehicles. I was in the first day, Honda passport elite. And Rebecca and I both we talked about earlier this year, when we did the Rebecca and I did the first drive out in Utah. And I had a chance to spend a week with one here. And you know, just for those that don't recall the passport, it is Honda's new sort of upper mid sized SUV that they launched this year, which is it's based on the the pilot so it's got it's actually the same wheel base as the pilot, but it's got a shorter nine inch shorter body. So it's been cut down from a three row family truckster down to just a two row that's designed, intended to be more of a lifestyle vehicle, you know, for somebody who doesn't need something quite as massive as the as the pilot, but you know, wants lots of space for their gear for camping or You know even some light off roading you know and when we drove it in Utah you know did pretty good on you know on some trails and around Moab you know it's you know there's certainly going to be areas where for example you would take a Jeep Wrangler where you're not going to be able to follow with something like this but for most of what I think what most SUV buyers are looking for can kind of handle everything just fine especially you know things like when you get into you know, winter conditions you know, and you get snow and ice and things like that you know, it'll especially if you put some snow tires on it winter tires on it, it'll probably do well you know, had just to spend a week with it, you know and get garner a little more experience with this thing. And you know, overall I still you know, it's it's fine you know, I generally like it you know, it's it's a it's decent looking vehicle I think, you know, it's a little more sporty. I guess not really sporty looking, but, you know, it's it's proportions are definitely very different. From the pilot because you know it is so much shorter.

Dan Roth  3:02  
Yeah so tired here it looks better. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  3:04  
yeah, definitely, you know, where's the, you know, definitely a lot shorter overhangs on the pilot, you know, which you know, certainly helps you know, if you are going to do some off roading, you've got some better approach and departure angles, things like that, you know, interior is not substantially different from pilot, which means that, you know, for example, you get the same infotainment system that you get and other current you know any other Honda's introduced in the last couple of years. For better l it does have a volumes volume knob, which is good.

Dan Roth  3:37  
You know, the rest of the entertainment isn't that bad. It's not as

Sam Abuelsamid  3:40  
bad. It's not bad at all. You know, it's, it's actually a pretty decent system as touchscreen infotainment systems go and he had lots of cargo space in the back including a nice deep well in the back. You know, there's a panel that flips up and you know, gives you an unlined storage well in the back to you You're going to put wet stuff boots, you know, hiking boots or other gear that you want to keep separated. You can put that stuff in the back there and then load in your other things on top of that, as I said to row, you know, five seater, quite comfortable, you know, overall, you know, generally a decent ride. You know, it's got plenty of performance with the 3.5 liter V six, you know, about 300 horsepower and that thing, or 280 horsepower, I should say. One, one thing I did notice when driving this one that I hadn't noticed during the earlier drive of the, of the of the passport, the adaptive cruise control this one, you know, like all other current Honda's or mainstream Honda's. The passport you know, comes with the full Honda Sensing suite so you get adaptive cruise control, Lane Keeping alert, automatic emergency braking and assorted other features, the adaptive cruise control and this one is not Full stop start system, which means that it does cut out at about around 20 miles an hour. So if you're driving in traffic, you do need to pay attention because you know, if, if you're in stop and go traffic when you get down to 20 miles an hour, the ACC is going to disengage. And at that point, if you don't have your foot on the brakes, you're going to keep coasting. So you do need to pay attention to that. But other than that, the rest of it is fine. You know, Collision Mitigation braking, which is nice, you know, when it detects the impending collision, you know, it'll, it'll automatically apply some breaking for you. The the lane departure Lane Keeping Assist system that the Honda has, is okay, it's not the it's certainly not as aggressive as some systems it does, it's not going to try to center you in the lane. You know, and you know, it will you know, as you drift out of the land, it'll try to put some steering input into Kind of nudge you back. But if you, if you don't respond, you know, just a tighter curve, it the vehicle will continue drifting out of the lane. So you do have to watch for that. So, keep in mind this is this is not a, you know, a, you know, a not an autopilot type of system, it's it's definitely, you know, a step down from that, or a couple of steps down. But, you know, overall, you know, I think it's, it's generally a, you know, a good vehicle overall gets decent, you know, reasonably decent fuel economy but 21 miles per gallon combined. And I think I got about 20 overall during my week with it, you know, and the, the base price for the elite trim, which is the top level Trump is 43 six at you know, all in with a destination handling came to 44 725. So, you know, it's, it's in the ballpark of where other vehicles in the segment are. It's perhaps not the most, most up to date in terms of some of the tech most most sophisticated in terms of some of the tech. But you know, it's it, it hits most of the checkmarks that you want to hit.

Dan Roth  7:10  
Yeah, I agree with that. I actually had the chance to drive it a few weeks ago as well. And I forget what I stepped out of, and it might have been a Mitsubishi like an Outlander, PHP or the the eclipse cross, I forget. But I just remember getting in the Honda and everything felt like it should operate together and felt like they they actually drove it made all the systems work together. So it was actually really good to drive. From a driver's perspective, you know, the controls work quite harmoniously together. And it is like it's like a right size pilot, you know, the pilot feels. Alternately sort of too big and too small at this, you know, depending on the situation, you know, it's not

Sam Abuelsamid  7:56  
for one of our three, it's for a three row it's on the smaller size in I have a lot of three rows, you know, compared to, you know, say the Hyundai palisade or they can't tell you ride, you know, it feels a little smaller than knows. But at the same time, you know, it's if you don't actually need a three row then it's you know, it's a little little bit too much, you know, and the passport is almost just just the right size.

Dan Roth  8:20  
Yeah, yeah, I like the passport a lot and price wise I think it's pretty competitive within the range. I'm a little confused at how Honda still keeps trying to sell it as an SUV which I think is just the way they they want to position it and the way they imagined both the pilot and the passport is that you know, these are our SUVs because we don't make you know traditional body on frame trucks and that's fine. I think

Sam Abuelsamid  8:46  
they you know, to To be honest, you know, even you know, the the most SUV ish of SUVs these days, you know, Jeeps Are you nobody designs anyway.

Dan Roth  8:56  
Oh, absolutely. That was one of the big selling points for me in the Grand Cherokee was that It's not a full frame vehicle because I don't need to be hauling that kind of weight around and the Jeep has not really ever done anything off road other than, you know, turn around in the backyard. So that's like, except what people use them for. But I think that they're, they're still sort of selling the sort of like if you needed to you could kind of aspect of it which is which is fine and it's a it's a good vehicle, people are gonna like it. I was a little dismayed by the, the interior quality for the price. It just, it's a nice and it's a Honda interior, it's it's nice, but also still feels kind of austere. And that's, I think, just sort of a personal preference kind of thing. Maybe some good,

Sam Abuelsamid  9:41  
you know, I think, you know, again, if you compare it against that palisade, you know, then it certainly is perhaps a little more austere feeling it doesn't have quite the premium feel of a palisade. But, you know, it's, it's still perfectly adequate, you know, and Oh, yeah. Especially, you know, especially You go from one of the the lower trim levels like the sport or the XL, you know sport starts 3233 delivered, you know, he excels you know 37 So, you know, it's, they're, you know, they're they're definitely you know reasonably affordable for this this class of vehicle

Dan Roth  10:19  
yeah I'll agree there and I think given the given the choices, the hand is going to feel you know really light on his feet it's got a lot of thoughtful features that are pretty well thought out. And it has the 200 reputation for for holding up or you know, there's the alternate Honda reputation where you get grumpy people who are not all they're cracked up to be so it has that hundred reputation but it's generally they come out pretty well on you know, quality and durability and satisfaction. So, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:50  
you know, the all wheel drive system is based on it's a variation of the super handling all wheel drive that they have on the on the accuracy So it's the same basic technology in there. You know, so it has torque vectoring, side to side torque vectoring. Rear. Yeah. Which, you know, you don't get on the pilot. So that, you know, that does give it some extra extra capability when you're in low traction conditions.

Dan Roth  11:18  
I wonder if that's the basically the power train that accurate just put in that SLS that they did up for? For radwin?

Sam Abuelsamid  11:25  
I think it probably is. Yeah, it's probably the same thing

Dan Roth  11:29  
as super cool.

All right. Well, I mean, there's not a whole lot more to say about that. Right? Unless we're gonna Yeah, no,

Sam Abuelsamid  11:36  
I mean, if you're, if you're in the market for a midsize utility, you know, mid size to real utility, you know, this is definitely one that you should be taking a look at. You know, depending on what you're what you're looking for, it may or may not be your best choice, but, you know, it's definitely one that should be on your

Dan Roth  11:51  
list. Well, let's ping pong a little bit because we're still on. We can stay on crossovers when you talk about three rows and then we'll come back to the we can finish up The sedans that we both had as well, but I was able to drive the 2020 Dodge Durango SRT, which is like three rows, no waiting. And it like it snowed while we had it. And first of all, it's hard not to like the Durango right? It's comfortable. It's an extra long Grand Cherokee. So it's it's actually based on the old commander. If you look on the the underside of the second row seats when you flip them up, the decal still has a line drawing of a commander. Oh, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's kind of funny makes me laugh. But it's not the most accessible third row. It's not the biggest third row but overall, like it's it's sort of occasional use third row. So it's, it's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:45  
It's got you know, it's kind of like the the pilot in that respect, you know, yeah. You know, more of a, an upper mid size than, you know, then really a full size utility.

Dan Roth  12:55  
Yeah, I'll agree with that. And but we're different from the pilot is it has the big hand 6.4 liter 392 which is like 435 horsepower or something, and then it sounds fantastic.

And it's just like it's one of those cars that you just revving the driver, you're like, that sounds pretty damn good. I could do this for a while,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:16  
that that is, you know, that is and we'll be you know, probably the single biggest thing I'll miss you know, someday when we transition all over to electrics, you know, is that sound of engines like that, you know, big especially big VAT there's, there's just something you can't and it's not just the sound you know, you also feel the vibration of it, you know, so it's, it is a really a visceral thing.

Dan Roth  13:38  
I think you can probably replicate some of that with like a tank of compressed air and you know, an actual like,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:45  
haptic actuators in the chassis and I said, Well,

Dan Roth  13:47  
eminence, it's just you know, you use little vowels, right? Because that's all it is. It is a poppet valves opening into a length of pipe. So it's like a pipe organ. That's all okay.

It's extra

Sam Abuelsamid  14:00  
Need some weights, you know cracking rotating around to though that's true. I mean, you know, the salad, yes, the valves but you also need that, you know that little rumble of a VA.

Dan Roth  14:10  
That's true. That's one that I walk around because of like a you know a tune to sound, you know, I noticed you walk around the side of it as you get sort of towards the front of you can hear that the valvetrain the push rods and the rockers and stuff all actuating that you don't you don't necessarily get an overhead cam engine because they've got it. It's so quiet down with them. And sound absorbing or sound blocking valve covers where they've done as well as they could with the Hemi to it's pretty quiet but you can still if you listen for it, you can hear the pushrod actuation and it How are you going to complain with a family SUV that has a big VAT it's lowered. It's got a pretty disciplined chassis. It's got the very comfortable SRT seats and in the second row is his captain's chairs into captain's chairs is it's a it's a great family car. It's complete overkill. It's basically if you wanted a challenger but you needed more this is your your option. And

Sam Abuelsamid  15:14  
there is one more thing that could do to this so they could drop a Hellcat in it. They are frankly surprised that they haven't yet

Dan Roth  15:20  
well because the people are buying the Hellcat are gonna buy the cheap and they're gonna pay more for it. So you know you can get a track Hawk that's fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:29  
We can't get a three year old track

Unknown Speaker  15:30  
hot, correct?

Dan Roth  15:33  
I don't know. I mean, I don't know how much of a market there might be for that. But if there's anybody who's good at sort of exploring those niches, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  15:40  
wide body Hellcat Durango? My I take it awesome.

Dan Roth  15:44  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. It would. It would get about 10 miles to the gallon. This one got about 14.

And I didn't drive it hard. It's just, you know, and it's funny when you actually get into the big me. There's a lot of power there. But there's also a lot of weight and Oh yeah. So it it doesn't it doesn't feel maybe as muscular as it sounds like it should be. It's definitely powerful but it it it could use more.

Unknown Speaker  16:12  
And I

Dan Roth  16:13  
was amused actually to have in the infotainment system in the the Uconnect they have like all the performance screens because this the SRT set has the SRT screens where it has like a real time dyno and, you know, gauges and stuff. So you can you can actually just, I drove around for a little while just playing with that stuff my 11 year old is fascinated with you know, you take off fast from a stoplight and you watch the dyno trace go up and it's, it's rather amusing.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:37  
It's all it's all rather silly, but you know, yeah,

Dan Roth  16:40  
yeah, it's it's a fun car. And it was about I think it was like $77,000 GT pay for it. You can get a Durango much, much cheaper in the mid 30s if you need a nice one. And it'll do pretty much all the things that this one did outside of the performance trappings, which is really, again like, you know, You're buying when you buy this but if you just need two, three or four cards, come get the SOC just get a three and this suspension is a little bit it's a little bit stiff was sort of my my only real gripe and we had it actually over Thanksgiving so the day after Thanksgiving we usually go get the Christmas tree and I really wanted to take it but it didn't have referrals and didn't want to put the tree on the top without referrals. So I threw the rack on the Jeep when we took the Jeep it was an interesting contrast because there's the same basic vehicle and the Grand Cherokee feels a lot squishier compared to the Durango and but it's it feels later on its feet to that big Hemi has a lot of has a lot of weight. You know it? It is it's the it's the challenger SUV

Sam Abuelsamid  17:47  
or pretty much Yeah, yeah. And you know it does the SRT does start at 58 and a half. So, you know, you don't have to spend you know, 70,000 plus on one of these things. Yeah. Clearly clearly a lot of options in the one you had.

Dan Roth  18:02  
Yes. Oh it was very it had the screens it had the HDMI connectors which they have copied Hyundai Kia and Hyundai with their they put them in the edge of the seats the edge of the front.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:12  
Okay, that's cool. That's that's a good approach. Yeah,

Dan Roth  18:16  
you know all it's a very thoughtful family SUV in that sense you know it has plenty of cargo space that diminished a bit when you fold up the third row, but you can still get some stuff in there you know, we managed to get all the Thanksgiving dinner in there because we when we traveled we cooked in then we went across town so we had all that stuff, the dog the kids sit, it's you know, it's a good sort of three row that you don't need to use the third row all the time and had a tow hitch on it. And with that large engine it can tell with authority, I'm sure. So it has a lot of just practical charms and I love the Durango overall it's just a really nice execution. It's been around for a while you know what you're going to get. FCA is going to keep milking it until they absolutely can't. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

So let's move on to Sundance you

Sam Abuelsamid  19:13  
something perhaps a slightly more sensible than, than a big SUV.

Dan Roth  19:17  
Extremely sensible. You were in the the 2020 ha, Toyota Avalon hybrid. Indeed. So all the fuel I used you didn't.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:26  
That's right. I was so saving it for you. Yeah, I mean, you know, the Avalon is a is a big sedan, you know, and it always has been, you know, fairly large and roomy. You know, it's, it's basically, you know, a camera plus or a camera Max, you know, depending on, you know, which which smartphone companies, terminology you want to use. But, you know, it and in its current iteration, it's actually a pretty decent looking vehicle to it's, you know, it's aside, you know, depending on how you feel about, you know, really massive grills, you know, The Camry or the sorry, the Avalon does have, you know, a maximum grill aperture in the front. Most of it is blanked off so that there's actually no airflow through it. But you know, they really want you to know you know when you walk up to this thing that yes, you are driving a Toyota Avalon

Dan Roth  20:18  
it's not that offensive though.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:21  
Right? No, it's not offensive, but it is huge.

Dan Roth  20:23  
it you know what it looks like to me it looks like one of those like Gillette razors with like nine blades.

Unknown Speaker  20:28  
Yeah, pretty much.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:32  
But, you know, aside from that, you know, the rest of it, you know, I think is an attractive design. You know, that as with most modern sedans, you know, they've gotten to more of the Fastback look on it, which is which is fine, you know, I think it's it's got decent proportions to it. And you know, it's really roomy inside, you know, both in the front and the back. It has the toilet is 2.5 liter four cylinder Atkinson four cylinder engine, with their their hybrid power trends and basically the same You get in, in the Camry Hybrid or in the new 2020 Highlander hybrid that's that's coming shortly. And you know, it's it's got you know, more than more than adequate performance find it here

Dan Roth  21:17  
more than adequate that's a yeah not sure if that's what they were going for. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  21:22  
it's it's no it's no SRT, but you know, it's about 200 horsepower which is fine you know, for for something you know, that you're going to drive around you're going to use as a daily commuter. You know, it does fine you know, it is but and you know, you can pop it into smart sport mode, or put it in an eco mode and you know, maximize your electric driving with it. And, you know, this thing's rated 43 miles per gallon, you know, city highway and combined, you know, which for a big sedan like, this is really impressive. I got about 40 overall during my week with it, but it was fairly cold. And, you know, I didn't, I didn't really, you know, try to You know be as efficient as I could I just tried drove it normally. And you know, got 40 miles per gallon with it which for, you know, to get that kind of mileage with a big sedan like this, you know, that's, that's better than we typically got with our diesel Jetta when we had that and you know this thing's got a lot of room inside,

Dan Roth  22:17  
right it's bigger you don't have any nonsense you've got with a modern diesel where you've got the SCR fluid and all that and right. It's you're running regular regular fuel in a to not mid grade or premium. Yeah, and,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:30  
you know, when you're cruising through your neighborhood, you know, at 25 2025 miles an hour, it's you know, typically running just on electricity alone, you know, so it's currently a rolling along silently so you can sneak up on people which is which can be fun.

Dan Roth  22:45  
What exactly are you up to?

Sam Abuelsamid  22:50  
But, you know, when, when you're pulling into the neighborhood, you know, it's, you don't necessarily want to be rattling everybody's windows. So you know, depends on your mood. I guess, but it's good in that respect. The seats are comfortable. They The interior is is really nice. You know, it's got some nice stitching on the leather, you know, nice nice leather, some real wood trim. The biggest gripe I have with this one as with other modern Toyotas is probably the infotainment system, which is better than it used to be, but it's still not as good as it could be.

Dan Roth  23:28  
Well, so this is and did you hit the limited? Yes, yeah. So that's the nicest execution but the Yeah, they're infotainment. It's like It's like a tombstone in the middle of the maybe maybe tombstones not the best way to describe it, but it does. It's just on this this panel that just like sticks up. It's an interesting take on that the way everybody tax on the screens. You know, this is sort of integrated with all the center stack controls.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:55  
Yeah. And in this case, you know, the center stack kind of sweeps up from the console sweeps all the way up, you know, and it's, it's integrated, you know, in this sort of wave that comes up, you know, that kind of stands out in front of the dash you know, and like other like other you know, modern vehicles, you know that they have moved the the center touchscreen up higher. So again, it's closer to your line of sight, but it's still a touchscreen, which, as regular listeners know, I am fundamentally opposed to in cars, and I think should be banned but and we'll talk about more more about that next week when Rebecca is back when we have a chance to talk about the Mazda CX 30. But you know, the the screen is better than most the screen itself, the display is better than what I've seen on many recent Toyotas. It doesn't have quite as much trouble with polarized sunglasses, things like that. Some does have a did have a heads up display, which also worked worked law, but just the the interface, you know, was kind of If it wasn't always as responsive as I'd like it to be, and it doesn't have it does have support for CarPlay. Apple CarPlay does not have support for Android Auto yet at some point they will be adding that in and it's supposed to be believe the Avalon is one of the cars that's supposed to be eligible for a retrofit to add Android Auto support to it at some point in the not too distant future. I mean, that's a software

Dan Roth  25:27  
right. It's just a

Sam Abuelsamid  25:29  
no actually there's a hardware module that has to go in there as well. Really, dedication. So that that is one of the one of the issues actually speak as long as we're speaking about CarPlay. You know, I have talked to a few other manufacturers. And you know, there is hardware that's associated with both the both of the projection systems with CarPlay and Android Auto for you know, for communications and the authentication. But as far as I can tell from speaking The other manufacturers Apple and Google do not charge you know, any sort of ongoing licensing fee for using that software. And this week, BMW finally backed off on their previous announcement to that they were going to charge a subscription fee on their cars for Apple CarPlay. They were, you know, they they had been charging $300 premium, one time premium for CarPlay. Or you could pay for an $80 a year subscription to use CarPlay. Which in both, you know, in forever, every other manufacturer, they just roll that the price into the, into the sticker price of the car or the upgraded infotainment system that supports it, but nobody else in the industry was charged trying to charge a subscription fee for CarPlay which not even just worship, not even Porsche right so that, you know, that was just ridiculous and they finally backed off on that. So now you know you won't they're not doing this you still have to pay 300 bucks up front but the subscription is gone.

And

Toyota is not charging any kind of extra fee except for whatever you're paying for the the any of the upgraded infotainment systems I don't think the bass infotainment system supports CarPlay but all the other ones have it included. You know, and in this case you get it's a 14 speaker or 14 or 14 speaker JBL system with a subwoofer now and it sounds pretty good. You know you got four USB ports in here. You know and you know lots lots of other goodies. There's a cheap wireless charger, so you can just drop your phone on that does support I

Dan Roth  27:46  
have a question about those. You know, I try them and they seem to like work for a few minutes and then they stop working and I don't know what is because my phone is in a case or whatever but like I can never make them work for reliably no matter what car and across multiple phones, that is your case pretty thick. Right now it's it's not in the past it had been and I was like, okay, it's just the case right now,

Sam Abuelsamid  28:12  
sometimes the case can interfere with it. If it's if it's a really thick case, usually the thinner cases work fine. It might just be your phone too, because I've I've not had any problems with it.

Dan Roth  28:22  
Well, I mean, we now have an iPhone that I begrudgingly moved to. So it's been it's been interesting actually using our apple carplay. I didn't realize this, there's a little, you know, hardware for authentication that they need for it. I thought it was just software that must be like just sort of like a little ice chip or something that Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  28:43  
yeah, I mean, it's not it's not expensive hardware. I mean, it's only a few bucks. Add that hardware into this into the system. But there is some hardware that's involved.

Dan Roth  28:53  
And it's the thing with with CarPlay is it's it's one of those things like You know, that auto writers will gripe about like settings or, you know, learning the screen layout is because once you get it set up in a single car that you're going to have for a period of years, it's fine. But because we're jumping from car to car to car, every single time you pair it with a new car, if you have your icons and stuff laid out in a different way, you have to go and redo that within the airplay versus having it like store those settings and show up across multiple vehicles. So that's kind of a it's not even a gripe, it's just one of the things I'm realizing is the way it works. That's all

Sam Abuelsamid  29:38  
Yeah, you know, and when when we're reviewing stuff, you know, we need to take some care and how we talk about that, you know, because the average person that's going to go out and buy or least one of these things and live with it for, you know, multiple years, you know, after you know, a week or two they're probably going to get accustomed to, you know how a particular system works. And you know, we have you know, that classic first Problem of, you know, dealing with different cars every week. And, you know, so you have to have that make that mental shift every time you jump into a different car, and, you know, so it's, it's generally not as much of a problem for most consumers, you know, but we have to think of it, we need to look for is the kinds of things that you're not necessarily going to get used to, or that, you know, that are that are going there things that are going to irritate you for the long haul, and things like a slow interface, or, you know, even just, you know, kind of a, you know, kind of a non intuitive interface, even even though you get accustomed to it, it's still not necessarily a good thing, you know, user interface, you know, for something, especially something that's designed to be used while you're driving should be simple and clean. You know, and there are some aspects of the toilet interface that are fine, you know, because you On the main home screen, you know, you can put some shortcuts on there to the people that you call most often, for example, but, you know, you do have to go dig down sometimes, you know, a couple layers, through menus or to take multiple taps to get to a particular piece of information that you want on the screen. And that you know, that that's non non optimal when you're driving, especially with a touchscreen, you know, where you know, you're reaching out and as you're driving, you know, the, the end of your arm where your finger is, you know, is going to be tending to move around a little bit and you know, you want to hit want to have a nice large touch targets to hit. And, you know, this is one of the things that we talk about with with Mazda, that they emphasized a lot is that, that whole their whole strategy around their infotainment system, but we'll talk about that next time.

Dan Roth  31:52  
No, right. So you know that Yeah, I didn't mean to get us off track on the Avalon but it's a limited, it's a nice interior. It's a you know, They're getting better traders getting better with their infotainment. It's interesting how Toyota and Honda both kind of their leaders in the the market, you know, no matter no matter what class they're in, they're generally like they're the safe choices, right? They've really they've become established as

Sam Abuelsamid  32:17  
you're definitely not going to go wrong with by either a toilet or a Honda.

Dan Roth  32:20  
Right. But they're infotainment, both of those companies that had infotainment that has lagged everybody else are significantly lagged. What what we've known to what we've sort of crowned in our infinite wisdom is automotive journalist is the classic. Like I mean, this, you get into a Hyundai or IKEA the infotainment a lot better, it's a lot more intuitive. It's a lot easier to use. Do you know Uconnect has gotten praised over and over again, although it's starting to get a little crappier. I was less impressed with Uconnect in the Durango than in past iterations. Because it is like a lot of screen. This stuff is being driven by the screen that shouldn't be in it. menus are a little buried now. But you know, there's other stuff out there, that's better. And they're still playing catch up on that, that side of things.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:09  
Right. And that's, you know, when we get a chance to

try out the Ford SYNC for system that's launching next year. You know, it'll be interesting to see how that works in practice, I've, I've played with it a little bit, you know, in demos, you know, and particularly the large screen version, you know, what they've done with that is really trying to get the things that you're using all the time at the top level so that you don't have to go down through menus, it's all right there. And you know, have nice big cards and touch targets. You know, and at least, you know, playing with it on a kiosk, you know, or you know, even a prototype, you know, it seems to work seems to work better. But we'll see you know how that works out. You know how that plays out on the 10 inch and eight inch screens, you know, that will be you know, the the volume players for that stuff now,

Dan Roth  34:00  
Yeah and so let's little wrap up the car segment here. Speaking of Hyundai and Kia, I have a Genesis, which is neither Hyundai or Kia. It is a Genesis. Genesis,

Unknown Speaker  34:11  
don't you forget

Dan Roth  34:12  
it the correct three point it's just the 3.3 t with the all wheel drive. So this is a fantastic car and it reminds me of the best three series from like the 40 6090 generation. It just it has a great chassis. It's got lots of power it's really well behaved and handles great rides nicely that could use a little bit more steering feel the steering still a bit numb. The ergonomics are are really really good. They did such a great job on this car and it's a shame because nobody's gonna buy it. It's just it's a small city and it's tight like those older three series where it's the backseat is sort of reminds me of That classic car reminds me of the 60s that we had where, you know, front seats fine, but you try to get like people in the back end like oh, it's actually a little tinier than it would seem. So it's a great drivers car. It's a great sort of one plus, if it's you and somebody else with an occasional use backseat. You know, it's like the old Lexus IS series as well. Or even maybe even the current one is still a little tight. I forget. It's been a while since I've been in one of those but it's really that sort of entry near luxury performance, class of sidin. And I like it a lot better than the last three series I drove, which to me is it started to get kind of big and the latest three series rotates funny, it doesn't behave the way I prefer them to behave, I guess. So the way I remember them behaving. This this car and I know why it behaves this way is because Genesis has a lot of former German performance, premium car people working for them and I think was the the chassis was it was Albert Biermann,

Sam Abuelsamid  36:02  
our yeah albinism is a charge of r&d and vehicle development at Hyundai Motor Group now so he oversees all the vehicle development for for the three brands for for Hyundai, Kia and Genesis now

Dan Roth  36:16  
Yeah, and he came from BMW M, right? Yep. Yeah. So that's it's pretty good pedigree.

Have you driven the G 70. I'm really happy I've

Sam Abuelsamid  36:27  
driven I've driven the the two liter turbo, I haven't driven the V six turbo V six yet.

Dan Roth  36:32  
I've heard that the turbo V six is the one to get I haven't driven the four cylinder I'd really like to because that's the one you can get with a manual.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:38  
And that one's really nicely balanced. You know, there's a lighter, the lighter weight of the four cylinder and you know, it gives it even even better balance than the than the V six.

Dan Roth  36:48  
Yeah, I think that's sort of the one I guess criticism is there's a lot of power and a lot of potential here. It I it's been snowy so I haven't really had a chance to try to ringing out on a curvy back road or anything, what I have been able to do within reason because I don't want hit black ice and wind up in trees. It handles really well and it's a car you can hustle and it will enjoy being hustled. So as a drivers car, I think it really it does hit the mark. But that the the V six is almost like you might not need that much power, which I hate saying

Sam Abuelsamid  37:28  
may not there's there's nothing wrong with that, you know, especially, you know, if it's a car that you're driving out on the road, as opposed to take you to the track. You know, you can you can have so much fun with something that's got a little bit less power, you know, it's it's, it can still be a blast to drive. And you can do it at speeds you know, that aren't necessarily going to, as I've said before, aren't necessarily going to get you in trouble. You know, so you can still hustle a little long and you know when you look You know, things like modern turbocharged four cylinder engines, you know, they are really amazing compared to what you got an A v six or V 815 or 20 years ago.

Dan Roth  38:09  
That's true. And the torque curve from those those little fours with lots of turbo on them is really impressive. It's, it's, you know, shaped like a table. It's just goes up and stays up. Yeah, and it feels really planted to you know, trying things like you know, on ramps, and then just seeing how you can stop on the brake and get that little bit of rotation out of it and stuff. Not it's not a car that's going to get loose on you. So the the just sort of the basis of the chassis is there, I you know, you shut off all the stability and traction control, it still behaves, it's not something that's using electronics to manage fundamentally evil chassis. So it's just it's a really, really good compact sports sedan and the idiom of the three series that sort of set the mold and you know, other than the steering needing a little bit more weight or Feedback really the way it is fine. It's just it's it's a little tight. It's not a big car. And they offer other models if you want more space.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:08  
Yeah, I mean, you know, if you need a little more space, you know, on the same platform, you can get the Kia Stinger, you know, which is the same platform but with a little more wheelbase. And you know, so you got a little more room and that one because the stinger is a hatchback, you also have that extra practicality there you know, if you need to carry large stuff, you can drop the backseat down and and you know, stick stuff in through that hatch. And you know, it's a little more useful sometimes.

Dan Roth  39:34  
Yeah, the stinger doesn't feel quite as premium because it's a key versus the Genesis and that's what Genesis is really going for is that that sort of premium outfitting and you know this this is the nice quilted leather seats and the trim is nice. All the materials are really good. The plastic trim on everything you touch almost. I think it's flocked in some way it has a coating on it that's it's like a non slip coating. It just it feels nice. And they'd so they've, they're really paying attention to all aspects of what makes cars feel premium and and it just sets that impression how well it's going to hold up is another story. And I know that's always the crappy criticism that people sort of give it and take it away. Genesis is like, Wow, so one day we'll see how long they last, how news tend to be around for four

Sam Abuelsamid  40:26  
days have good reliability and durability scores. So I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

Dan Roth  40:31  
I say that in particular, though, just noting that from what I've heard of the long term tests of the stinger, people, you know, magazines and stuff have noted that the, those particular cars that they've tested feel like they loosen up, they developed some rattles and stuff over time that I, again, take it for what it's worth. Those are, you know, a small sampling of very picky people who are probably pushing those cars a lot more.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:58  
are they spending a lot more time together? Track than than your average consumer.

Dan Roth  41:02  
But I think overall the hardware that the powertrain is going to hold up and you know, either or this I've really liked the stinger when I drove that a while back to so

Sam Abuelsamid  41:14  
I'd highly recommend that you go buy a G 70. Now before they maximize the grill on this thing to like

Dan Roth  41:21  
they're all good looking, though. I mean, I really I really like what what Hyundai kiya and Genesis what they're doing styling wise that they're just, they're they're a force to be reckoned with. I think they're they're really making smart choices and they're being aggressive in their, their company to watch and I don't know how well they're being established, but as somebody who just watches the industry, they're doing a lot of stuff and they've been doing a lot of really good stuff for the last 510 years.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:51  
Yeah, absolutely. The whole Hyundai Motor Group, and you know, Genesis is finally going to get its first SUV in the near future that gv ad is coming soon, I'm not sure when they'll when they'll actually launch it. But within the next few months, it'll be making its debut, perhaps at the New York Auto Show in the spring, but it's not far off. And I've seen them running around here, I live just a few miles away from the Hyundai Tech Center, here outside of Ann Arbor. And so I've seen some of the kammo DVDs running around. And will, you know, if, what if what you were looking for is, you know, the same kind of style, you know, and, you know, something like a utility, God knows why, but, you know, if that's what you must have, you know, they'll, they'll have that option too. And I think that's perhaps where the Genesis brand may really start to take off, if they can translate, you know, these kinds of driving behaviors, you know, and, you know, the premium feel, you know, into utility vehicles, and I think, you know, the market may start to take notice, and maybe at that point, you know, once once The, the Genesis brand starts to get a little more attention for that, then maybe customers will say, Oh, wait a minute, these guys make cars too, and some pretty damn interesting cars, you know, like that, especially the 7070. And GT, you know, then hopefully, you know, that will provide a bit of a halo effect to those models as

Dan Roth  43:20  
well, which is so backwards from what it used to be. But I mean, if you can easily imagine a garage that right now might be filled with five series and an X five, being filled with a G ad and gV 80, or a G 70. And a gvt. You know, like there's, there's those same choices, they're there. They're going to have to focus I think, on the premium design and premium outfitting versus necessarily sort of performance when they move up to sport utilities, but they're smart. I think they'll they'll do well, I hope.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:56  
Yeah. I'm confident in

Dan Roth  43:58  
it. It's always good to have more more interesting choices and more product and across the lineup. They're interesting stuff. So let's let's dories General Motors and LG can have announced a joint venture they're going to put the Lordstown plant to use right. That's

Sam Abuelsamid  44:14  
not exactly. Okay. So, so this this is a report that actually first cropped up back in September, at the beginning of the GM UAW strike, you know, and there were reports that part of the deal that GM had offered to the union was to convert the large town assembly plant into a battery plant. And the the deal that was offered was that, you know, rather rather than being a full up GM plant, it would actually be a joint venture with at that time, an unannounced battery supplier, you know, to build batteries, lithium ion batteries, or rather lithium ion cells for Jim's upcoming fleet. electric vehicles. And, you know, the the union rejected that offer. Because first of all, you know, GM was insisting on, you know, a lower wage here for the people working at that plant. So it would have been about half the wages half half the hourly rate that the people building the crews were getting. And it would also be a lot fewer people. You know, part of the problem with building batteries, especially cells, is that it's a very highly automated process. So they're, you know, they had, you know, one point, I think, what, over 5000 people working at the Lordstown assembly plant building crews on a couple of different chefs. And, you know, with for the battery plant, you know, you're they're looking to eventually get up to 1100 jobs, which is, you know, obviously better than no jobs. But you know, it's it's a lot less. And so that was part of what what led led into the strike. Ultimately, you know, following the or, you know, after the strike was settled, GM decided to sell off the Lordstown plant to Lordstown motors, which is a startup founded by one of the founders of workhorse group electric truck manufacturer. Essentially, you know, gave them the plant for nothing. Because the Tesla

Dan Roth  46:23  
Model

Sam Abuelsamid  46:24  
Yeah, it's basically the Tesla Model. And actually, you know, same thing goes for Vivian Vivian got the old Mitsubishi plant in normal Illinois for effectively nothing. And, you know, what, you know, what Lord bloodlust town motors is going to have to do now is raise, you know, several hundred million dollars to convert that plant from building, you know, front wheel drive cruises to electric pickup trucks and vans. So that's, you know, their chances of success in in actually getting that operation up and running I think are pretty limited. But that aside You know, this new deal is actually for a new Greenfield site in large town not far from where the last town assembly plant is. It's in the same area. But this is a new brand new facility that they're doing a joint venture 5050 joint venture with LG cam and LG cam is one of the biggest battery suppliers in the world along with Panasonic CTL of China. Samsung SDI and SK innovation and LG supplies the batteries used or the cells used by most of GMC electrified vehicles. They supplied the batteries for the volt. Now for the bolt, Evie. They you know some of the hybrids plug in hybrids that GM is doing all had LG cells. Ford's using LG for the Mustang Maki, Audi and Jaguar are using LG for their batteries. So you know this is a major supplier batteries. It's a $2.3 billion investment Split 5050 between the two companies, and this plant will build only cells. Nope, no battery packs, just the cells. And when it's complete, sometime around 2023 when it's fully ramped up, it'll have about 30 gigawatt hours of capacity, which if you if you assume an average of 90 kilowatt hours per vehicle, that works out to about 300 enough for about 330,000 vehicles a year. And the you know, one of the first new e V's that GM is launching is their electric pickup truck, which may or may not be called a Hummer, or it may be a Silverado or who knows but, but they're going to break ground on this new plant next year in early 2020. And start construction and get it up and running in the next couple of years.

Unknown Speaker  48:54  
Well, so

Dan Roth  48:57  
you know, I'm coming just I'm stuck a little bit on the you stuff where it really seemed like GM was the hardest part of all the other all the union negotiations this time around. Ford and FCA both seem to get through it a little bit easier. So that was just kind of interesting to watch. But yeah, I mean, last on this never gonna really sort of return, at least from what it seems like it's not going to be what it was just going to be mean between this and workhorse but it may be a couple thousand jobs overall. In the area.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:31  
Yeah. And, and, you know, many, many of the people that were that were working in the lifestyle assembly plant have since transferred to other GM plants, so they've moved away, and they've gone to work at other other GM plants, you know, in Ohio and in Michigan. So, you know, many of them, many of them have new jobs already. But some of them, you know, that have stuck around Lordstown, you know, may end up excuse me getting jobs at this new battery plant.

And, and

Dan Roth  49:59  
the This is Vega plan, isn't it? Lord seen this

Sam Abuelsamid  50:02  
one big while the you know, the last town assembly plant. So keep, you know separating the cell plant from the subway. Right, right. That was where they built the Vega back in the 1970s. And it's actually it's actually a pretty old plant. I think it's I think it was originally built in the 1950s. I can't remember what they built before Vega. But yeah, it was it was the home of the Vega, and then many other vehicles over the years, finally ending up with the cruise. But during the conference call during the announcement on Thursday, you know, Mary Barra was asked, she's the CEO of GM she was asked, you know, if this plant would be unionized, and her response was interesting, you know, said because this is a joint venture plant. This is not a General Motors plant. This is a new company that is 50% on by gm 50%. On biology count. It will be up to the employees at the plant if they want to be represented by the union. Normal Ray,

Dan Roth  50:57  
get it done.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:00  
So it may or may not end up being unionized, I suspect it probably will end up being unionized. But there's no guarantee of that. And, you know, again, you know, they're going with the lower wage tier that the GM typically has supplier plants, which is about $17 an hour, and said that, you know, the number of people working there because the cell production isn't inherently more automated process, you know, unlike assembling engines or, you know, installing dashboards and seats into cars, you know, this is not something you have humans involved in a whole lot. So even at full capacity, you know, the plan is only expected to employ about 1100 people as opposed to, you know, up to 5000 that were working in the large town assembly plant.

Unknown Speaker  51:45  
So,

Dan Roth  51:46  
with battery assembly to like there and batteries themselves, there's a lot of chemistry involved. Does that pose any environmental hazard like what's the risk for those people that are making $17 an hour to be around You know, lithium and all, you know what I forget whatever else is in, you know, there's lots of minerals and justice, there's stuff that can hurt you.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:09  
Yeah, I mean, there's there's always some potential hazard there, but, you know, because, you know, the, because of the need for, you know, the stuff, you know, the main part of what you're talking about there is the coatings that go on the electrodes. And, you know, because that stuff needs to be really pure. This is the these processes are typically done in in green room or a clean room environments. And so it's, it's kind of like, you know, building chips, you know, you don't want any impurities in the stuff. So it's, you know, very highly ventilated And typically, when you you know, when I took a tour a couple years ago, LGs plant in Holland, Michigan, on the west side of Michigan, you know, when you go into these sections of the plant where they're doing things like putting the electrode material, you know, these are positive pressure areas of the planet. Yeah, so, you know, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're not they don't want to suck anything in they don't want to suck in any dust or anything. So when you open the doors, you know, you typically go into class almost like an airlock.

Dan Roth  53:12  
Yeah, you have the booty up.

Unknown Speaker  53:14  
We had the booty up, you know, put on the

Sam Abuelsamid  53:17  
butt on the bunny suits like you do in a chip factory.

Dan Roth  53:20  
Yeah, or marijuana production facility. I found I

Sam Abuelsamid  53:24  
never been in one of those.

Unknown Speaker  53:25  
Yeah, I

Dan Roth  53:26  
was at first it was very interesting. It's actually really, really high tech in that sense that they just, again, they don't want any contamination. So right.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:33  
And so, you know, there's not a lot of direct interaction, you know, with the the production process, you know, where you know, where you're talking about these chemicals. As far as, you know, kind of the broader range of this joint venture. You know, speaking of chemistry, you know, GM and LG Chem is part of this joint venture are working together on cell development. You know, cell chemistry development and future types of cell production. So, you know, they'll probably be looking at things like solid state cells eventually and areas like that. And also the other thing, you know, that borrows asked was whether, you know, whether the, this plant would be supplying cells to other manufacturers, other car makers, and she didn't rule that out. She said, you know, it'll depend on, you know, how, you know, because, you know, this, this is a business that has to, you know, be, you know, up, you know, profitable on its own, right. It's a separate business unit. You know, they will do whatever they need to, to sell as much capacity as I can and, and, you know, for not using it, they'll be, they'll be free to sell it to anybody else, basically. So that's, that's,

Dan Roth  54:47  
yeah, that's how it goes for their, their normal stuff. I mean, you've got cars all over. The history of automakers have GM transmissions and HVC and stuff in them. So if they're smart, they'll do that.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:00  
Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, you know, 10 years ago when they were developing the first generation volt, you know, at that time, you know, companies like GM, you know, we're talking about batteries, not necessarily being a core competency of the company, you know, it was something that they were relying on their suppliers for. And increasingly, that that's, that's something that's shifting. You know, as they've shifted, as many of car makers have started to shift away from internal combustion to electrification, they're increasingly treating both battery motor design and power electronics as thing as areas that they need to have internal core competency and not necessarily, you know, manufacturing it all themselves, but you know, understanding the technology and being responsible for the design and development of it. So you know, for example, at the LA Auto Show, BMW had a workshop on what they're doing. With with batteries, you know, they've set up a new Battery cell competence center in in Munich. And going forward they are developing the chemistry for all of their cells in house. And we're then working with suppliers to actually do the volume production. So they have some small prototype level production capability to build test cells and and you know, develop those, but then when it comes to actually, you know, producing them in volume for, for Viet for production vehicles that go out to an LG or Samsung or CTL or SK to, to actually manufacture manufacture them for it also has a similar lab, that they they operate in conjunction with the University of Michigan for the last several years where they've been doing cell development internally, you know, developing the chemistries inside in house and then going out to their suppliers like LG to do the manufacturing for vehicles like the machi and the other areas. You know, companies, you know, including Volkswagen and BMW are getting into is the sourcing of the raw materials they are. And you know, BMW and Volkswagen have both put in long term supply contracts for the raw materials, so they can ensure that they have a steady supply of materials needed to build these batteries is the raw materials turned out to be about 85 to 90% of the cost of the cell. And, you know, they, they want to make sure that they have a steady supply. And so they've gone out and done the sourcing themselves, and then whoever they select as their manufacturing partner, they'll supply that those raw materials to that manufacturing partner. And, you know, in this case with GM and LG, it's a little bit different because they're doing a joint venture, but you know, still they're getting more directly involved in, you know, this production of this core component of electric vehicles.

Dan Roth  57:55  
Yeah, that's a smart way to do it is to sort of create the spec that you No can be created can be produced in volume and then have somebody else do the volume manufacturing for you. It's that's pretty seems like it's a pretty well established convention in manufacturing and other spaces. So I think that's, that's smart of them.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:15  
Yeah. And this, this probably won't be the last battery plant that the GM invested in over the next five to 10 years. I mean, they say they're going to have 20 to 23 cars in the next few years. That's one of 20 TVs by 2023. She Barra did recommit to that. That target.

Dan Roth  58:31  
Yeah. So that's, that's a lot of work to do.

All right, let's, let's jump to the the next couple of things.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:41  
You know, the reports this week, you know, that Mazda, you know, is thinking about electrification for the next generation Miata, which is probably still the cars probably still about five or six years away from from production. But you know, they're, they're looking at what they need to do for that vehicle and You know, one of the issues with going all electric on the Miata, you know, is, you know, batteries are still heavy and bulky. And, you know, the Miata, you know, is known for being small and lightweight, you know, even even in its modern iterations, you know, it's, it's about this, it's still about the same size, you know, and close to the same weight as the original 1990 Miata that I own. You know, and that's, you know, that's about 2200 pounds for a manual transmission Miata, and, you know, it's going to be really hard to get anywhere close to that with an electric version, especially anything with any kind of reasonable range to it. It's, it's hard to see how they're going to pack in, you know, enough battery, you know, to, to maintain the, you know, kind of the feel of a Miata, you know, especially if you go all electric. Now, I brid. I could definitely see you know, that that being a very feasible approach, you know, doing a hybrid Miata. Or even maybe even a plug in hybrid, you know, with maybe a 10 mile electric range. I think that's that's very, that's very feasible but going all electric, you know, I'm not sure if that's going to be doable, you know, at least in the next in the next five to 10 years. What do you think?

Dan Roth  1:00:15  
I think that the miatas characters fundamentally different if you electrify it with current technology, I think that it could still be a lot of fun. A hybrid may be a good step to sort of split the difference, but that's a whole lot of investment to make. And if you're in if you're ultimately going to go EV, I don't know that that investment is a worthwhile investment might as well just skip to figuring out the EV immediately because if that's where you want to go to go there you know, if you're going to do a hybrid with like, like the BMW i, the idea where you've got it's mostly EV with a little bit of a range extender for for sort of emergency use, that's a little different, but still, that's not really The miatas character, so I don't I mean, it's it could still be a good time. I mean, test the roasters for fun.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:07  
So, oh, they were fun, but they were also, you know, hundred thousand dollar cars and they weighed, you know, over 3000 pounds, you know, which is very different from what a Miata is.

Dan Roth  1:01:18  
I think though, if you if you set your target way to 3000 pounds, you could make a Miata have a lot of me out of character with, you know, an easy power train. And I think you'd still please a lot of people, what you what I would miss from it is the shifting engine, you know, like, those are the things that are just not going to be there, but it'll be a really fun sort of pointing squirt, kind of good handling small roadster So, you know, it's gonna be like two thirds of the current charm, I think would be there for it. I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:49  
Yeah, you know, I guess part of the part of the issue, you know, the Miata is not a real high volume vehicle. And so, you know, if you're going to make the investment and you know, Go to the effort of doing an electric vehicle. It seems like you'd be better off to do it on something where it's going to have a bigger impact, a bigger environmental impact bigger impact on your, your overall fleet average, you know, the Miata, you know, they don't sell that many of them to justify, you know, that kind of investment in it, you know, that would be better off to electrify something like the CX five or, or the CX 30. You know, or even the, even the CX nine, then to go, you know, and that's basically what they did with the MX 30 that they launched at the Tokyo Motor Show, you know, it's kind of in that cx 32 cx five kind of size range, you know, the crossover, and, you know, electrified that, to do it with the Miata. I'm not sure that, you know, it necessarily makes business sense to do it. But you never know, but I think you know, a hybrid could be interesting.

Dan Roth  1:02:56  
Yeah, it could be I just like looking The amount of money that's gonna take for a low volume model I don't I put this like the chicken and egg thing to like the Miata. If you electrify that or hybridize that, you're going to get a lot more attention and a lot more sort of coverage in the media to get your your message out. So there's that to think about as well as if you just do the CX five. Hey, you know, it's another EV kind of thing. So Mazda has a lot of considerations to make, and we'll see where they go and just hedge your bets and be like timeouts out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:33  
Yep. As it always does.

Dan Roth  1:03:38  
All right, well, let's do this. Let's tee up your interview with Miss Duffy from Audi, and then we'll come back and we'll answer a couple of questions. Because you get to speak with Matt at the LA Auto Show. Yeah, and you know, so right before we go to this, my, I listened to it and one of the things that stuck out to me was that he said 69% of return buyers want to buy detron because of the ecological ecological consideration versus buying an internal combustion car that's still like, to me, I guess if you're going to be buying a car anyway, that's valid, but it brings me back to the idea that you can't consume your way to conservation, especially buyers at that under the market. You know, they're they're all like, the character of vicini. And the Princess Bride who keeps saying like, inconceivable, like, using that word. I do not think it means what you think it. Like, if you know, concentration were the motivating concern. I'd like to see less consumption from the people who can afford it most, you know, by quality things, by all means, but then adopt a maintainer mindset. You know, keep it as long as possible. So I guess what I'm basically proposing is to completely destroy the economy and, you know, buy Rolls Royces and keep them forever.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:53  
possibly go wrong with that strategy. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:04:56  
exactly. But it was it was really interesting interviews about 20 minutes and when when you're done when we're done, we'll come back.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:04  
What, six months into each on sales. Now, new St. JOHN Potro?

Unknown Speaker  1:05:10  
How would you say it's going so far at this point?

Unknown Speaker  1:05:14  
We've had certainly some hiccups along the way to getting it started. But once we got through those, I think we're in a better position now. So obviously, we had the recall with the chart court that we have to fix that on the court for us. And a couple other software updates only along the way that we had to do. But now that that's all I'm pretty confident that we should concede start to see consistent numbers throughout the month sales. What we saw initially was, you know, your peak month was almost 900 units, and our lowest month was about point seven. So quite a wideband there I think, will probably fall somewhere in the middle and we have the capacity to support customer demand. So it's really just going to come to how many customers fill the funnel Well, there's a lot behind that. So what will determine when they're ready, but we are here to at least support that. Yeah, the the strategy of designing this vehicle as an Audi first. And then obviously electric first, but really an electric vehicle that has the characteristics of an Audi. How our customers responding to that. And do you think that could be a challenge in getting some conquest customers? Great, great question. So I would say we hit the nail on the head with that is we designed it to be a normal car normal Audi first. And that's our target buyer for this was really the the wide range of existing traditional ice SUV buyers. And that's exactly what we're seeing with people who buy new transparently. They're coming out of traditional ICV. So whether it be our key fiber key seven and switching to the Tron or being Wi Fi ble, things like that. Those customers are also coming along we're seeing a smaller portion of existing Ed customers actually are given our direct competitors being Jaguar based model x premium SUV segment, both of those cars have only been combined on sale for a few years. So perhaps those customers aren't quite ready to make the jump to another new vehicle yet, which is why we didn't want to specifically make this car one that targeted only currently buyers because the pools are so small. So I would say it's been a success in terms of conquest and new buyers from not only within the brand for driving nice vehicles but also outside Are you getting a significant number of conquest fired is conquest buyers, from out even for W Mercedes and so the split between current Audi owners and competitor ice vehicle owners is almost exactly so we're keeping 50% Coming from the only family but also complex and 50% of our customers responding to the range of the same. Yeah, obviously, we can be talk all we want about the 200 mile range being funny, you know, and from, from a purely rational argument, that's totally true. But, you know, car buyers are not necessarily always rational. The fact that it's hard, I would hardly call it a rational choice to buy, you know, a lot of the high performance cars that we have. So how are they responding to the reins of this car? So great question. Number one. Rejection reason that we're saying for customers who don't want to buy the car is the written trigger. But then also, one of the big things that we're seeing from customers who have purchased the E Tron is that they're saying 204 miles is completely not what I need. And if I need to go on a longer trip, I can charge up quickly at the hundred and 50 kilowatt years station. So I think it's a matter of getting the customer to greens the car which is still sometimes somewhat of a struggle, but once they do actually experience it and live with it, they see how much better it is to wake up with a full 204 miles to never have to go to a gas station to steal the dirt

Unknown Speaker  1:09:14  
and see that

Unknown Speaker  1:09:18  
let's let's their sponsor and like some dealers because you know, in the past, you know, other manufacturers are more so from customers. Other manufacturers have complained that dealers have been reluctant to sell them VDS or you know, they go in wanting to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:34  
look at an EV looking at a lead for the other E and

Unknown Speaker  1:09:39  
sales people push them towards ice cars. How's the Audi dealer body then responding to the neutron? Well, so think about a great point which I'll get to in just a second. But what we did when we launched the event prior to launching the problems we took our dealers to the most expensive thing probably they've ever gone through for new vehicle launch we took them over to Germany to actually experience the car well before the launch in the US and do a real I think it was three or four day Crash Course of all things e Tron and all things electrification to get them ready to be able to actually talk to customers. And then beyond that, we also have a team here boots on the ground in the US that takes these calls, once they arrive, and he has to deal with his friends. The deal is again, you know, refreshes a number and really make sure that they're ready to support is there to sell it. And some of the data that David was mentioning that we've gotten through some research that we've been doing is essentially customer there's actually a quote that a customer wanting to do, you know, interested in the QA which is exactly the story that we want because we see that we position the Tron as being the electric alternative the QA in terms of size, price, everything, packaging, and selling here that a customer actually went in interested in Kuwait, left with the neutron is exactly Is that? Is that a common thing that you're seeing? Or we're seeing a lot of people who for instance, there's that there are a lot of people who say that they are they look, they're looking at high end premium STDs. There are people who say that x five plugin is not what they want. They want to they want to go hallway. And these are people who who've been dabbling with electric and researching for a couple of years. And now there's a compelling product with the main reputation and the quality that dates back to that kind of price. You know, one of the things that, you know, with watching this vehicle coincided with the rollout of electrify America, you know, the first real attempt to, you know, challenging the supercharger network and with with a network that can support all the other TVs out there. Yeah. Are you finding that, you know, when you talk to consumers, is that something is that one of the things that maybe brought them to the alley as a customer and the fact that this network exists, and That, you know, it's it's supporting what you guys are doing. I think it certainly helps. But I think really the thing that's bringing them to me is that we have that established sort of trust and reputation for, you know, being a company that you can rely on premium quality product. So I would say that's probably what's bringing them in, and then just being familiar, obviously, with what our brand is and what we stand for. And then also the electrify America aspect of this kind of really just the icing on the cake. And I think some of what we're seeing in terms of the rejection reasons is the fact that a lot of these phase one electrify America stations were built along the highway corridors. So people aren't seeing this every day. So their perception of actual charging stations in the wild is much lower than what the reality of it is because they're not seeing it every day. So now with electrify America space to where they're focusing on more Metro sites, and people are going to see the same stations when they go to the mall, or the grocery store or wherever I think that'll help boost consumer confidence in charging networks. And then let's get them ready to go. There's there's a station that opened up in September about a 10 minute walk from my house. So finally opened up. I saw the Chargers were installed there back in early June. And I was waiting, we can open up finally, number open. So really, really great story that we have even from the past few months. So in the greater LA area, there were two East Asians open for the longest time and just there while the red cape and getting them all all open. Within the last two months we've got from in LA. Okay, so total state of California, we're almost at 50. chargers with the total total state delegation. Yeah, it's 50. Exactly sites and then each site has anywhere from four to eight chargers, sites. And then yeah, by the end of the year, that will be the more today's number will double by 2021. Right. Yeah. way more than double wait. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay. Yeah. Its infrastructure sir. Yeah. Now Now I just need an easy to plug into the plugin and actually try to perfect eat on

Unknown Speaker  1:14:17  
Sunday one.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:19  
So let's jump into skorca.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:22  
I think if I'm not mistaken, I think general and premium utilities, you know where there's a

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:30  
variant of,

Unknown Speaker  1:14:33  
of a premium utility, and it's generally a general rule of thumb account for about 15% of sales for Sportback versus the existing plateau. Where do you see that falling and do you see Sportback being more incremental or perhaps cannibalizing some of the wagon? Yeah. So we do, like analysis on what we expect the customer to be will be horrible. defier and what we've seen this based on other cars, I see cars in that segment scaling, things like that is that they tend to be a little bit younger and a little less oriented with utility certainly you'll have some cross shopping between economy transport back when we expect most of the sales pretty transport back to be on top of each one and not really cannibalizing just because we're seeing those two bars is completely different people each on score backfires can be a little bit younger is going to be a little less focused on their utility needs and more focused on design and making sure that the car that they have represents you know how and I think that's what the front score back fulfills really well was the E Tron SUV is really more for that family oriented person who needs that extra utility and parking space in the back

Unknown Speaker  1:15:51  
and has that family that

Unknown Speaker  1:15:53  
and yeah, the reality is you're actually not losing that much in the sport back anyway.

Unknown Speaker  1:16:01  
It's not that yet. For the the availability is going to be next summer and correct in the US is launching in Europe earlier just ever so slightly. I think it's a mid to late spring in Europe and then about mid summer here in the US. And mechanically that's that's all the same as the existing. So there are some mechanical things as improvements. We have planned that we're introducing on the Sportback. So we are using more of the 95 kilowatt hour battery pack. Okay, so it's from 88% on the fantasy movie, now it's 91%. The results were back, but that's in a combination of other software and hardware changes. So now we're we've also had some thermal management system changes in terms of how we're using the pumps to be more efficient, also improved efficiencies there. And additionally, we've replaced the battery control mode. Going to be a new piece of hardware that is not only more efficient, but also able to use

Unknown Speaker  1:17:10  
that battery control module glued to power electronics or Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:15  
Can you talk at all about what's changing there? Are you going to Silicon carbide, I don't have the specific details of that. But I do know that it is more efficient in its power usage, which also helps a lot. So you're getting things from that you're getting more usable capacity out of the battery. And we're also able now to fully disconnect the front axle when it's not being used. There's actually no current going through the motor when it's coasting essentially. So that's helping with the efficiency improvements as well. And it's this combination of things. Obviously, the score back has more aerodynamic body style and shape to it, which also helps with the weight. So those combination things that help pull those changes get rolling into the wagon as well. Somebody's SUV. Yeah. Eventually.

Unknown Speaker  1:18:06  
Yeah, that should be that. Now I remember what my

Unknown Speaker  1:18:10  
the naming is a little confusing you get the trunk lotro economy trying to support that. Is that going to get kind of rationalized a little bit? So the reason why it went from E Tron quattro now and it launches econ econ. Okay, the Quattro was dropping for production, because it's sort of like think of the original or quatro. How was it that was the name of the car and then quanto became a basically a very designation and designation. So think of this as the word Tron. Okay, and then everything else from there will be a branch of an ego. So each one CG and whatever else. Yes, this is the word.

Unknown Speaker  1:18:51  
Looking from a technology standpoint,

Unknown Speaker  1:18:56  
the advantage that Tesla has had over most other manufacturers in terms of the range or overall efficiency, I think significant chunk of that has come from the fact of using silicon carbide power electronics, just performance efficiency advantage. And I know some suppliers like Bosch and recently announced that they're starting to manufacture silicon carbide for the power electronics. So hopefully, we'll we'll see how he and others start to pump that up.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:29  
What about the

Unknown Speaker  1:19:32  
the using more of the battery capacity? Is that something that will be rolled out to the E Tron existing? Yeah. So this is something that could be done as perhaps as a update and software update. So we're looking into that. The current way that it was developed was that all of those pieces were kind of developed together. So because we changed the battery control module and all the other changes on the table that it was a developed together. So we would have to go back now to test the revalidate and send and verify that you're not going to be giving up the durability which was one of the reasons for the previous better than promo zactly. So we're confident that it's good as it is. Now. The other aspect that comes into thing is, is Kamala gating. Again, if we were to do such a thing,

Unknown Speaker  1:20:22  
and actually put a estimated range improvement behind it.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:29  
So for I wouldn't say that we're not doing it, but we're looking into it at this point to see how feasible the queue for a Tron one is that correct? That's coming in 2020. So we showed it to Niva earlier this year, and I believe he said within two years of the concept being shown there Niva is 21 Yeah, so it should be shortly thereafter. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:58  
ggs coming, buddy.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:01  
Correct. So last night, we said we should have a very sexy production lower, wider even in the show next year. And is that is that still plan to be built on the J one? architecture?

Unknown Speaker  1:21:22  
Sorry. Okay. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:31  
That's pretty much all I've got

Unknown Speaker  1:21:34  
anything else that I'm asked about the to

Unknown Speaker  1:21:39  
market trends? I think that he did. He did hit on like, a lot of our buyers are coming from traditional SUV people, or even folks who we've spoken with just kind of anecdotally, who said that they've been wanting to go electric for a long, long time. They just need to figure out what to do. So And I'd say all along the, the the wave of kind of where these people are, they may not be like, they're they're definitely early adopters. They may not be first movers, but they are absolutely a lot of them are. And a lot of them are very early adopters, because we all look at this from a very granular level kind of on the ground that all of these electrified cars. Most of Middle America has not seen these cars yet. So it's still very, very early in the process. And we're still seeing a lot of people who want to come in and the early adopters who want to go electric on the coast, we see this more as a technology play for why these people are doing this in the middle America is especially places that don't necessarily have quite the charging infrastructure. These a lot of people who are coming to these cars are seeing it as they want to do right by the environment. I mean, the people in California fairly We're seeing a lot of people 69% of people who buy the trunks are buying them. Because they want to do right by the environment, which is a first for us, is most of the time it's performance or its design or its craftsmanship. But when you have two thirds of the people coming in and saying, the reason I want this is not only do I want that performance and quality, but I want to be environmentally conscious with what I buy and drive and how I present myself. It's a very different dynamic and a very different thought process was one thing, seeing a lot of other plug in hybrid coming into the market as well now across a number of brands, and also enhancements of plug in hybrids BMW is extending the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:42  
electric range of there's someone is

Unknown Speaker  1:23:46  
our PhD is still part of how these SEO strategy and I have a few five over there. Okay, so we have three coming. Certainly the best portfolio is more of our strategy than the key habits but we will have As support people who maybe don't feel electric yet but still want to be in an Audi and want to do as much electric driving as a bullet.

Unknown Speaker  1:24:09  
But yeah, the majority of our vehicles will be full basket, we

Unknown Speaker  1:24:14  
can actually our global CEO recently announced that our target is now 40% of our vehicle sales by 2025 will be electrified. So plug in hybrids.

Unknown Speaker  1:24:27  
Globally, we're planning five out the same period 30 electrified models. So

Unknown Speaker  1:24:38  
there, it is an ambitious goal, and it will be rapid.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:43  
Well, yeah, and you know, everybody is moving in this direction. Now.

Unknown Speaker  1:24:48  
What's going to be interesting to watch is the the consumer adoption is one thing for everybody to put out all these electrified models. Question is the customer by looking look at ion Europe where you have five automakers that are more there rather than just electrified America where it's largely every automakers over there, and they're all buying die on more and more of them are buying a die on it every month. So I think when you see that kind of support from the automakers and you know that it's not going away anytime soon, it becomes much greater consideration. And it's hard work.

Unknown Speaker  1:25:28  
So there will be no reason not to get immediate.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:31  
Yeah, well, you know, Ford, you know, they're, you know, they're trying to

Unknown Speaker  1:25:35  
put one of these as part of their strategy with the machi and their other TVs, is actually aggregating the network. So rather than investing directly into network, pulling it together to try and reduce that friction for customers. As they as they try to use multiple networks, so electrify America announced that they're working on that as well. So that'll help bridge that gap is also I think the landscape for charging 2025 is gonna be so different that yeah, I think these targets over Real Estate. And then

Unknown Speaker  1:26:04  
when you do have the opportunity at some point to drive plug in hybrid, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:26:09  
it is a four cylinder is the same engine as regularly as the regular two liter, but it performs it is zero to 60 as fast as an sp five it is. And I think that we're breaking down a lot of people think that a plugin or a hybrid is supposed to be something easy and slow, right when you are plugin hybrid is as fast as an sp five. Yeah. And I think I think that's a big part of the strategy shift we're seeing is that manufacturers are seeing that customers don't necessarily want something easy and slow. You know, they, you know, if they're going to pay this premium price for this electrification they want they want it to not only get better efficiency, but also enhance the other attributes of the vehicle. And you know, performance being a primary one, but you know, other and other vehicle types and trucks and things that might be different characteristics, but to enhance

Unknown Speaker  1:27:03  
60 $700 rebate on

Unknown Speaker  1:27:07  
my plugin so it puts done.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:11  
Yeah, so might as well.

Dan Roth  1:27:16  
Matt had a lot of it wasn't wasn't just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:18  
meant to I don't know who the other voice was. That was that was Jacob Brown. Jacob is Communications Manager at Audi he's responsible for EV communications. And he Jacob used to be at at Mazda. That's where I first met him a few years ago. And then he did a stint at farraday future and left there earlier this summer to go to, to move back to the east coast to join Audi. And so yeah, Jacob had a few comments in there as well.

Dan Roth  1:27:46  
I think I follow him on Twitter to see Listen, he if he doesn't, he should but I'm not sure if he does or not, I'm sure let us know.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:54  
Yeah, that's right. I'll shoot him a note and tell him to listen.

Dan Roth  1:27:58  
All right, and then send out these send out How TVs because I think that they're they've got a really solid understanding of what their customers want.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:06  
Yeah, well you know when when Jacob was still at Mazda he's the one that sent me the the driving matters license plate frame for my Miata.

Dan Roth  1:28:12  
Oh, that's cool.

Alright, so let's get let's jump into email communications since we made it easier for people to email us at. Was it a

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:25  
Wheel Bearings?

Dan Roth  1:28:26  
Well, I didn't know if it was Yeah, I was going to go with the the individual ones. But yes, feedback at Wheel Bearings that media There you go.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:32  
That's, that's the main one that, you know, gets to everybody. And then there's individual emails for for myself and Dan and Rebecca as well. But feedback at Wheel Bearings, media is where we've been getting most of them and, and, you know, a couple of weeks ago, we asked you to, you know, to reach out to us, let us let us know where you're listening from what what kind of stuff you drive and so we got a whole bunch of emails, which is really cool. You know, we heard from her from a couple of people in Australia, actually Including the wellum in Adelaide, who drives the 2001 Miata and

let's see what else here

Rishi cash Mandy Iam in in London who strangely enough also drives a Miata he's got it

Dan Roth  1:29:20  
you can drive it nothing still. Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:25  
you know I don't know if he lives in central London or outskirts but yeah there's still plenty of cars there Guy hasley who see where Scott from doesn't say but oh he asked about our opinions on the the fact that the savage truck offers the performance of a Model S at half the price or twice the capability of a model three at the same price. And

Dan Roth  1:29:48  
none of those things because it's not here it's not reality.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:50  
And And And the thing is, you know, you get selective specs, you know that like, like most manufacturers, you know, Tesla, you know, when they reveal a vehicle like that, they put, you know, they select which specs to show and that they're not some of them are mutually exclusive. For example, you're not going to get for $39,000, you know, the price of a model three, you are not going to get 14,000 pounds of towing capability, or the performance of the Model S, you know, you're not going to get 2.9 seconds or 60 it's probably going to be more like, you know, maybe five or 6000 pounds, which obviously is a lot more than more than a model three, but, you know, you might

Dan Roth  1:30:31  
take five or six and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:32  
they're mixing and matching tick ticking, you know, specs from different trim levels.

Dan Roth  1:30:37  
Yeah, they're not the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:38  
$70,000 truck that goes zero to 60 and 2.9 seconds will probably not till 14,000 pounds, or if you tolling 14,000 pounds, you're not going to have 500 miles of range. You know those things do not go together. You can have one or the other but not both at the same time.

Dan Roth  1:30:54  
Right. And that's that's not us being cranky and disliking Tesla. That's just physics. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:01  
And that that same thing applies to every manufacturer.

Dan Roth  1:31:05  
Right? I was gonna say though, when I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:06  
launch a new vehicle, they show you the base price now for the machi. They showed $45,000 Yeah, right well and 300 miles of range, but you don't get 300 miles of range for $45,000. Right?

Dan Roth  1:31:17  
That's exactly where I was going to go with the sort of latest EV to make a splash with this thing. machi and they did this they cherry picked in the same way and it's fine, like everybody does it, but just understand we're going to call nonsense on it from time to time.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:29  
That's right, which is that's what we're here for. And from Greece, we had Apostolos writing in to tell us he drives a 2006 all wheel drive route four and puts birthstone bliss X on it for the winner which is great

Dan Roth  1:31:45  
as I drive a drive from bliss x for I've done it for decades. They're great. I would be cool to go drive on bliss x in the in European mountains though me European mountain terrain.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:56  
Yeah, that would be fun. And we heard from JOHN didn't say where where he's writing from Rob in Toronto, who see he drives and flies and rides. He's got a 2015 Wrangler 2017 moto goosy v 776 Honda CB 400 F and in 1959 Cessna f 150 and in the past he's had an RX eight Mazda protege five and a 95 Miata. And interestingly claims the the 2003 protege, five was the best during car he's owned.

Dan Roth  1:32:33  
Okay, I could get behind it, you know, just and it just it's perpetuating that myth that Canadians love mostess

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:40  
it's not a myth. It's true

Dan Roth  1:32:41  
that it's okay to stereotype.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:45  
And then we also heard from from con in Houston, Texas. And between him and his wife, they drive a Lexus Alex for 70 and is 350 a Toyota Sienna 94 Supra with a single turbo and it's a garage Queen apparently is broken again. And a 2004. Honda is 2000, which is not being driven enough. See who else? Oh, we got Blake in Wisconsin, who drives a Nissan 370 z with a manual transmission. And, and to Blake and guy. Yes, we are the same Sam and Dan from from the Autoblog days. And Rebecca,

Unknown Speaker  1:33:29  
who

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:29  
you probably hadn't heard as much of unless you follow, you know, that kind of the automotive business. You know, Rebecca, you know, it's been an analyst for a long time. And, you know, if you watch a lot of the business media, you would have seen her, you know, being interviewed a lot you know, in places like CNBC and Fox News and, and other places, you know, on a more automotive business related stories. And that's kind of where her her background comes from.

And then, let's see and then

Adam jordison wanted to let us know that he's here and we

Dan Roth  1:34:06  
thank you very much. As we did we asked for hello world

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:10  
and said from Austin, who drive he's got two family cars, the 2013 Honda Fit sport excellent choice and a 2014 Honda Odyssey. And previously on Corvettes, Lexa cx. Yes.

97 Chrysler Sebring convertible.

Dan Roth  1:34:34  
I'm sorry, in terms of inherited it. That's true. That's true. That's true. Some of us do inherit weird cars. That's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:40  
a first generation Acura legend. Very nice car that is seven and the 1978 Chevette had his wife's body. His wife had a 99 Miata when they first got married. So let's get to this. This last one here. Which is the the big one This is from from Abby Becker in Australia, who had some thoughts on the cyber truck and responding to our prior discussion of this thing. It's pretty long. So let me just pick out some of the high points. I think the the fact that you guys didn't fit, don't fit the target market for a truck combined with the unconventional design language chosen and your general predisposition to dislike Tesla have all conspired to affect your judgment of this product. Okay. Let's start with that.

Dan Roth  1:35:28  
Okay, so I, I'm a middle aged guy, with a family and a house in the suburbs. So in terms of a truck buyer, I am very much in the target market for a truck not exactly as like a contractor or whatever, but there's a lot of guys there's a lot of pickups on my street, a lot of Ford or pickups in, you know, those mid to higher level trims and stuff. So in terms of what we sell in the US, I certainly am that that target market And you as well, so I know that Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:02  
there's a lot of pickup trucks in my neighborhood. And you know, both of us drive pickup trucks on a fairly regular basis. Let me let me just read the next paragraph of this too because it ties into this. First of all, I don't think you understand why people buy pickup trucks. It's not so much about hauling heavier bulky cargo sure, that can do both, but their primary uses for dirty cargo that you don't want in a cabin or boot of a car. And for those of us who speak the other form of English that's the truck. A mountain bike after riding through mud, a lawn mower covered in grass clippings, a stinky bag of fertilizer, a bale of hay power tool covered in sawdust, and or wet dog covered in sand after an afternoon at the beach.

Dan Roth  1:36:41  
This is this is all true, although I would never ever put my dog in the back of the truck. like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:46  
dogs. Dogs do not belong in the in the bed of a truck that belong inside and preferably, you know, buckled up.

Dan Roth  1:36:52  
I've got the we had the cricket sport for the dog because if you've got an unfit, unrestrained dog and you get in an accident, that dog is now a wrecking ball inside your car, and it's Going to kill the dog and hurt you. But beyond that, like those are all valid uses for a truck. That is that is all that is all true. But trucks are also designed for much heavier duty uses. There's no reason why you need in a US in North American market pickup which we should touch on. There's no reason why you need four wheel drive massive ride height a V eight engine and you know a four door cab and a six foot bed to carry a lawn mower. I asked you that. I put one more is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:35  
more of my West Honda Civic.

Dan Roth  1:37:37  
Right? Um, but yeah, you you had mentioned to him we were discussing this. And again, I don't want to get defensive like I don't think we're we do. We're not programmed necessarily to dislike Tesla. As a company. There's a lot of people that work very hard and they they're trying to design things that are good, and they are pushing the market. I think what our biggest gripe about Tesla Tesla is the potential that is there and the horrible horrible management that is short circuiting really hard working people and if you had a good management team in place and got rid of the demagoguery that company could really take off and and that's what frustrates me so much I don't I don't know where you stand on it but that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:20  
Yeah, totally.

Dan Roth  1:38:23  
But North American pickups are different than pickups in other markets too.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:28  
Especially Australia I mean, Australia, you know, is it's kind of a unique market you know, it's, it was the home of the youth and you know, they still even even for more traditional style pickup trucks, you know, they still call them Utes in Australia but you know, a lot of the the market for what we think of as pickup trucks in Australia over the years and I don't know what you know, what Abby drives, but you know, a lot of that market was for you know, car based pickups you know, more more like, you know, old style el caminos You know, both Ford and GM before they got out of the business of building cars in Australia, you know, had, you know, they had the they had Utes there, you know, that were based on, you know, the Holden Commodore and on the Ford Falcon, and that that was, you know, one of the bigger you know, the more popular types of pickups in Australia, but they also sound Aloo could be I think they had it under various badges over the years. But, you know, there's also a fairly substantial market for, you know, compact to mid sized pickups, you know, Toyota, Toyota pickups, Ford Rangers are popular there, you know, and those smaller pickup trucks and while those midsize trucks are also increasingly popular here in North America, and now the Rangers back you know, the the, the Toyota Tacoma the Nissan Frontier, you know, the real heart of the market here is for the full size trucks and A substantial proportion of that customer base, you know, yes, a lot of them are sold to individuals for personal use, especially the light duty see the F 150s and the Sierra Silverado to 1500s and the Ram 1500s. A lot of them are sold to individuals for personal use for towing trailers and boats and things like that. But a lot of you know, more than half of them are also sold to commercial users. And, you know, later on in this letter, you know, Abby talks about, you know, commercial customers, you don't want to leave their stuff out, you know, in the in the better the truck, actually in a lot of cases. They they do have the stuff out in the back of the truck, you've got landscapers and contractors, you know, and what they will typically have is racks that slide in, you know, to hold all their tools, you know, and they'll have storage units that are, you know, slide right into the bed to hold hold their equipment. The supplies that they're carrying, you know, they're these pickup trucks are often used by, for example, local water department, you know, or electric utility crews, you know, that, you know, they they have, you know, they upset these things with the equipment that they need for their job. And, you know, while you know, the, the cyber truck did have, you know, they did show off some, some bedrail tie down things in there, you know, these are things that you find in, you know, in all of these trucks, and I think,

Dan Roth  1:41:33  
yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:34  
think it's very often a much more much more thoughtfully designed for the actual users of the trucks.

Dan Roth  1:41:40  
Right. I spend some time I think, and I think this is maybe where the disconnect is coming from, like looking at the cyber track. It's, it's not well thought out for the actual for contractors or for those those sort of actual heavy duty users of, of trucks a spend some time on like the the The North American Ford website and go to their, their, you know, commercial trucks page they had the ram as well. You can look through the up for their options, this stuff already on those on those pages and see that there's already that stuff being made you can order right from the dealership, you can finance it, it's all very well thought out. Fleet service is a big thing. And those are my concerns like if you're going to just switch your fleet from a bunch of f150 exiles to test the cyber trucks. Well guess what your basic truck now costs a lot more. And if you have a problem with service or you need parts, they're going to be down. So you're gonna be down trucks where you know your f150 XL, if you're making a fleet by you can get those for a very good price and they're everywhere. And Ford knows how to get you the parts and you can certainly go to any Ford dealer getting serviced. So there's a lot of business side concerns that I don't see and that's fine. There may be a market for couple hundred thousand trucks that are are not the big players. And that's fine. I really do want to see an electric pickup come to market the size of this thing. Not good. It does it just doesn't fit in places. I don't think in the idea of an exoskeleton is real smart. And this end of the market, the thing that that happens with trucks is the bodies get damaged when you're making a work truck for personal use truck that's different. And there are a lot of trucks that are used, you know, like, like cars like sedans that, you know, that target market that we talked about at the top of this word, you know, we're just the suburban kind of truck user. That's a slightly different story. I think there are a couple hundred thousand people with, you know, enough money who who would buy one of these and that's that's fine design aside. I'm not really concerned about the design. It's not. It doesn't look practical to me. But okay, and everybody rolls out prototypes. To show so again, like the fact that doesn't have mirrors or stoplights did, you know do t compatibility with Fine, whatever, but the production shock is going to have to have all those things. So they're going to have to think about it at some point. I just, it's just not a real, it doesn't seem like a truck that really understood. They didn't understand what they were making a truck for other than maybe modelesque buyers.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:23  
Yeah, I agree. You know, it'll, it'll be interesting to see, you know, what, once it actually comes to production, you know, what has changed, you know, to make it more useful as a truck. You know, and as well, obviously, as you said, you know, to meet regulatory requirements, I have some real concerns, you know, about, you know, occupant protection, you know, with that structure that they, they claim, you know, that it's really rigid structure. You know, part of the reason why, you know, modern vehicles are designed to have crumple zones is when the structure of the car crumbles in a crash. It's actually absorbed A lot of kinetic energy, kinetic energy that's not getting transferred into the occupants of the vehicle. Now, if you've got something as rigid as they claim this thing is, then there's nowhere for that energy to go, it's going to get transferred directly through the structure through the seats to the the occupants. And so now you have to find a way to provide those occupants with the production protection so they don't get injured. It's not as simple as just having a really rich structure. There's a lot more, it's a much more complex issue. And, you know, just some of the practical matters, like visibility, you know, I think, I think ability is going to be a real issue at it.

Dan Roth  1:45:37  
But yeah, it's not the 50s cars that crumble like that's not a bad thing. The whole that argument, I still hear like, I can't hit anything with these cars just come apart. It's Yeah. Then then you open the door for a reason. That door opens and then you walk away with your intact limbs without your

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:57  
scratches but you're not you're not dead.

Dan Roth  1:46:00  
Yeah. And so and we've seen cars with rigid exoskeletons, right, like the, the, what's the very small Renault or even the smart car? Right? They because they were so small, they had the rigid, yeah, rigid structure and what they would do was they would consume some of the crash structure of whatever they hit, you know, and they would sort of be relying on you to hit something,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:28  
or or, you know, they would, you know, what would often happen if you, you can find videos online, for example of a smart car crashing, being crashed into a Mercedes E Class, right? And what you often see in that case, because the smart was so light, you know, you had this rigid structure because there was no physical space for crash for crushed zone, rather than crushing that energy would be dissipated by the car literally bouncing off the other vehicle.

Dan Roth  1:47:01  
Secondary impacts Yeah, which

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:02  
could be problematic, but you know?

Dan Roth  1:47:05  
Yeah. Either way, like there's there's only, you know, so many paths for that energy to go and I'd rather have it go through the structure of a vehicle than through my body.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:17  
But this is a topic that will be discussing for probably at least the next three years. Yeah. So I will come back to it.

Dan Roth  1:47:25  
Yeah, I don't I but I really like we're not predisposed to dislike Tesla, where but we're going to call nonsense when there's nonsense and this cyber truck rollout thing has been nonsense. It's been brilliant at getting, you know, coverage in the media for Tesla. And it's been making all of these people who aren't very thoughtful about the auto industry and the the, you know, the car and truck market to say that, you know, oh, this this puts the nail in the coffin of the, you know, of Ford and GM and I think that's complete nonsense. And really, we should thoughtfully look at it. And it's not because it's styled weird. That's fine. I'm fine with weird styling. But, you know, it's just it didn't seem like a very well thought out effort. And so that's what has bugged me about the cyber tracking, I think the river and stuff is actually much better thought out. And at the end of at the end of the day to like, these are not binary choices. We don't need to choose between, you know, one or two very expensive high end electric trucks, if there's other ways around this stuff that don't involve vehicles at all or involve other modes of transportation they should probably be looking at. So,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:42  
like renting a truck when you need one. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:48:44  
yeah. It's there are no easy solutions. It's just sort of like, you know, look at it. My philosophy

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:49  
has always been that a truck is a great thing to be able to borrow.

Dan Roth  1:48:53  
Absolutely. That's every time I get a check as immediately. I'm like, all right, what do I need to go what I need to take to the dump wreck kind of

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:01  
Alright,

well let's wind it up at thanks to everybody for writing in and keep those emails coming that feedback at Wheel bearings.edu and we'll keep trying to address them every week. Alright, thanks

Transcribed by https://otter.ai