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

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

Rebecca Lindland  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Lindland from RebeccaDrives back from Nam. 

Dan Roth  0:14  
Did you see anything cool in Nam and the although like music people 

Rebecca Lindland  0:17  
You know tragically I really never left the retail store it's it's it's such a zoo there that I did get to see a lot of cool people but mostly because they were buying t shirts from my brother

Dan Roth  0:29  
all right anybody know?

Rebecca Lindland  0:32  
I'm probably not I mean my one of my favorite people is this guy Kenny Who does? Who's actually endorsed as a as a

What do they call the impersonator but in a positive way, attribute of for elton john. Oh, that's good. And elton john actually endorses him as somebody that he supports, doing his music, and Kenny is just a riot and he's so much fun.

And he walks around in full Elton gear all five days. And it's just a blast.

He always makes sure to come into the store and say hi to us and stuff. And he's just a great he's a great great guy and does and does an incredible show. So he's always fun to see and they were probably people that I didn't know. I that, you know, I should have recognized by the fun part about now is a lot of fun things but is that the music industry, the people there are just so consistently nice and fun. And just happy to be there and enjoy the show. And it's just it's just such a great experience. 

Dan Roth  1:38  
That sounds so different from a car show.

Rebecca Lindland  1:43  
I don't want to get you off track but believe me, that's what I was thinking, Oh, really? What this? No, it's true, because you know, so so Nam is the National Association of music merchants. And it's a combination of teachers. There's all the suppliers there so Fender is their gifting. guitars, PV amps like, it just goes on and on and on. And actually last year Nissan was there because they had recently put in a Fender stereo in the tundra. So there is overlap. Actually,

Dan Roth  2:11  
I didn't realize Nissan had to find I know Volkswagen did for a while.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:15  
Yeah. Yeah. So do you mean the Titan?

Rebecca Lindland  2:18  
And the Titan? I'm sorry. A nissan titan? Yes. So yeah, it was it was, you know, so there is some low overlap, but it shows to me Nam shows that what, what an industry event can still be, you know, sort of like CES. Right. It's just it's that, you know, it's just there's a level of exclusivity, there's, you're seeing new cool things. You're seeing exciting things. And people really want to be there. Yeah. It's fascinating.

Dan Roth  2:45  
Well, I you know, I think that it's a that industry has more tentacles than the car industry and it's it's a little easier for them to iterate. For sure. Absolutely. That's cool. I'm glad it was a good time. So, now we're all back and we're driving stuff. So let's get to that. Sam, I was actually interested in your impressions of the Lexus gx because Didn't we just tear that thing up a while, like a couple episodes ago? And that was the era I think, right? I was.

Rebecca Lindland  3:16  
I had the LX.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:17  
Oh, yeah, sorry. It was the else that I had. I missed Allison the rundown here. It was. Yeah, it was the same, the same one that you had

Dan Roth  3:26  
Rebecca's initials carved into the dashboard.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:28  
Yeah, strangely enough. I was wondering what that RL was. Yeah, so it was it was the same, you know, in fact, you know, the two row version. And it the timing actually was fortuitous, because it was right before I have a couple days before I left on a trip, and we got like eight inches of snow, and then it got warm that day. And so it all kind of got melted and slushy and then it got really cold the next day and so it froze. All this stuff. So maneuvering around in a regular car, you know would have been a little more challenging you know because this is basically a luxury you know, Toyota LandCruiser it was it's actually really well sorted out for you know off road driving you know aside from not having altering tires you know if if you actually wanted to use this thing off road I would definitely recommend getting some some proper tires for it you know, they all season tires were fine for what I needed, you know, and, you know, getting around my neighborhood and other areas around these big chunks of ice, you know, the sort half half melted and then flash frozen. You know, it definitely made it easier. That said, you know, this is a big hulking SUV and it's a cloud you know, traditional body on frame SUV, you know, for all the, the good and bad that brings along you know, it's heavy, it's large. But you know, it's it's capable For what it's designed for, and it's also a gas hog, you know, over the course of like four days, I think I drove it and then dropped it off at the airport. It averaged about 10 and a half miles per gallon. So I mean, you know, they're not and that included some highway driving to get to the airport. Exactly. So we're

Dan Roth  5:23  
underwhelming though is Rebecca found it with just the are like puzzling, like why does somebody buy this with this?

Sam Abuelsamid  5:30  
Yeah, you know, it kind of was you know, because like I said, it's got, you know, a lot of the same characteristics as a Land Cruiser, you know, but it's more luxurious. But you know, you getting No, you're compromising those Land Cruiser characteristics by putting all season tires on it instead of proper off road tires on it, like you might have on a Land Cruiser. Because nobody that's gonna buy Almost nobody that's going to buy the Lexus is actually going to use it for what our Land Cruisers intended for. So it is kind of puzzling as to why it exists. But I'm, you know, and there's a few thousand people a year that seem to like it. And for them, that's great, you know, I would have no use. I mean, if I wanted a luxury SUV, I would be much more inclined, I think, to go for something like a Range Rover, you know, like a real luxury SUV with real offroad chops, I would be much more inclined to go for something like the Range Rover, or, you know, you know, a year or so from now, you know, for something like the reveal and r1 s, you know, which I think is really targeting that and it's, that's going to be an EV you know, for, for what this is, you know, as we said last time, it's kind of old, and it feels it. You know, the it has, you know, the Lexus enform infotainment system which is and not a great UI. It doesn't have a touchpad like like the newer lexuses it still has the little mini joystick, some joystick slash mouse controller, which is okay. But you know, it's just, it's just not a great experience driving this thing.

Rebecca Lindland  7:14  
Yeah, I think I mean, my friend Tom, as I mentioned before, my friend Tom has gotten two of these. And he, he loves it, but he loves it for very specific reasons and and the most important thing in his mind, is that his aging, Golden Retriever Matilda her cage, she can lay down comfortably in the back. That is his number one priority. And but I

Sam Abuelsamid  7:42  
Oh God, well,

Rebecca Lindland  7:43  
because I also think that he's not a Toyota guy. He'd rather have a Lexus. So he's very successful. You know, he's he's own lambos and Bentley's. He's got a an IE right now. Along with a And as alpha a Julia, and he would he doesn't want to have a Toyota he wants a Lexus. That's a and hashtag. Okay, Boomer.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:12  
Well, you know, I mean that that use case of, you know, having enough cargo space in the back, you know, it's not like there's not other SUVs that have a big cargo area in the back. It's legit, but, you know, if you're talking about, you know, having an old dog, you know, senior dog, you know, that wants to be able to lay down and spread out, you know, it's also a very high lift over so I mean, how, how's the dog you know, do you have a rap in there for the dog rap? I

Rebecca Lindland  8:41  
think he picks her up and puts it in but I it's I'm just telling you

Sam Abuelsamid  8:51  
know, and you know, if you have a big dog that's actually very useful and one of my neighbors down the street, you know, they've got an older 47 And they've got a, you know, a 10 month old bernese Mountain dog. He's, he's already over 100 pounds. And he's like corgis best friend.

Rebecca Lindland  9:10  
That's Daisy's playmate. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:11  
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I mean, obviously, they can't lift him up to get him into the Explorer. And he's, he's not quite, you know, he, he's not able to jump up into the back of the Explorer on his own. So they've got a ramp, you know, so he can get up into the back. Yeah, just great. I mean, then and that's, that's perfectly legit. But, you know, for again for Well, I guess, you know, it depends, you know, it sounds like your friend has a particular use case where he he wants to have an SUV you know, that he can take the dog and so that's and that's perfectly legit. I mean, that's, that's why we have all kinds of different vehicle but

Dan Roth  9:48  
there's no fan options. Like in terms of luxury van, you can't you can't get a Lexus version of the seanna

Rebecca Lindland  9:55  
well know that our class went away.

Dan Roth  9:57  
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, the art class sort of fit that And I guess, you know, given the the competitive set right I I personally would probably have more faith in the Lexus even though it's old stuff, then escalate, escalate, it's gonna be nice for a couple of years and then kind of I'm a little on the fence about how well General Motors luxury holds up you know the powertrain, I'm sure it'd be fine but just, you know, the Lexus stuff. While it's a little disappointing in some respects and some of the materials are kind of not as good as you'll find it in other brands and stuff. It tends to be really for liable and durable. And that's one of the things that sort of bites some of the other luxury brands is they just don't age well. So when you sell a vehicle that's already old, it's sort of like pre aged you know.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:52  
I'll be curious you know, the next time your friend Rebecca, you know, replaces the LX you know, what he chooses whether he continues with Another Lexus or, you know, maybe it looks at something like the BMW X seven or something like the Caribbean?

Rebecca Lindland  11:07  
Yeah. Well, I mean, he he's having so much fun with his eight that I do see him potentially getting like an X seven he i mean he's single but he's got this dog and you know, and that's his priority and so he doesn't in fairness to he does

Sam Abuelsamid  11:24  
and that's perfectly exactly when done, you know something about racing?

Rebecca Lindland  11:34  
Well, I mean he does, and he does like a pebble beach he drove down from Seattle to Monterey, and then we there was five or six of us that would get it in and out of this thing constantly. So, you know, and then they drove back and so you know, he does enjoy driving it and I mean, as you said, the fuel economy, I think I think I got right around 10 to 11 in town as well. I mean, the raid the one that I had, with rated 1216 and then combined 14. But um, yeah, I mean, it's I finally put my review up on Rebecca drives, and it's just, it's a beast, it's to park it's a beast to turn around. You know, it's just, it's big. And then, but it's just a beast today, you know, so that fuel economy is abysmal, especially from the brand that makes, you know, the Prius. But

Dan Roth  12:24  
yeah, you know, I don't I think this is such a sort of niche seller in the US, especially, you know, that it's because it's based on the what is it the product? That is right, it gets a lot more popular in other versions, especially Toyota versions in other parts of the world where it makes more sense. So here, it's kind of just like, okay, we compete with Range Rover, here's our sort of half hearted attempt, you know,

Rebecca Lindland  12:49  
yeah, they probably couldn't bought they can probably make this for relatively short money, and it's all profit. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:55  
Yeah. I mean, you know, the tooling would have been paid off long ago. You know, and I'll be curious. To see what Lexus does next in this class, you know, because of, you know, some of the new competition that's out there. You know, and I would assume that at some point in the not too distant future, you know, there will be a next generation of this platform, you know, that at that point, may will get, you know, a hybrid option, you know, because I think there's, I think there's a new version of the tundra, and, you know, some of the other trucks that's coming up, either later this year or next year, you know, that will probably have a hybrid variant available. And, you know, Lexus is, you know, or Toyota and Lexus, you know, really going all in on having hybrids available in pretty much everything they built.

Rebecca Lindland  13:41  
Well, because hybrids are getting so much better, because there's so much more transparent now than they were, you know, I mean, it's different than like something like the Prius, where it's, you know, there was a lot of sacrifices, especially on the early Prius. And yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:56  
you're right. I mean, now it's, it's, you know, it's completely Normal. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  14:00  
right. A long time

Dan Roth  14:02  
to like, I would love to see a hybrid tundra because of Toyota's experience with hybrid, the thing that I recall is the Prius, hybrid hardware didn't scale as well. And that's what like you said GM came up with hybrid trucks back in the day. And they had that, you know, the hybrid escalate and stuff like

Sam Abuelsamid  14:25  
10 years ago. Yeah, it was Yeah. 2008

Dan Roth  14:30  
so they had the hybrid SUVs, where it was more of a challenge for Toyota to match that because their system didn't scale up to truck use as as well or as gracefully. So it'll be great to see what they do with it because they have so much other experience with it now with their fleet. But I you know, that the next Alex is going to be like one big grill. You know, it's funny, you mentioned the x seven because that thing took so much crap when it debuted and it just looks fantastic. stick on the road I see them around the Boston yeah and they just look fantastic they look really good

Rebecca Lindland  15:06  
they do they do it's a handsome vehicle there really is

Dan Roth  15:10  
so I would say you didn't like to Alex Sam

Sam Abuelsamid  15:15  
it's not a vehicle for me

Dan Roth  15:16  
not okay but for its target market it has some there's some sense there

Sam Abuelsamid  15:21  
I mean for for for wealthy single guys with us living older wants to live in the back perfect SUV so then who is the

Dan Roth  15:29  
2024 then is that for like older golfing couples are

Sam Abuelsamid  15:36  
now definitely I don't not for a couple you know more more you know more for you know somebody who who wants luxury and you know, wants three role capability and also, you know, wants performance and electrification and and all that stuff all all in one fancy package. You know, Rebecca and I both drove the The Aviator last summer at the media launch. Oh yeah. For me, it was excellent. It was and you know it's it still is although the example that I had here I did have a few issues with it. And it turns out that it seems to mostly have been related to the battery but not the big lithium ion battery under the floor, but rather to the to the old fashioned 12 volt lead acid battery under the hood. So, you know, at one point you know midway through the week I had had it for all of a sudden the driver side door wouldn't open from the outside. You know, I unlocked it and you know, grab the handle and the the door handles on The Aviator are they have electronic switches on the inside, you know, so you grab the door handle and it triggers the switch and unlatches the door and I could not get the driver side door open. I actually had to climb in from the passenger side. Open it. Yes, it was cold.

Rebecca Lindland  17:01  
I'm just like trying to like picture like

Sam Abuelsamid  17:03  
this. It wasn't it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a polar vortex. And it was it was, you know, it was in the 20s

Dan Roth  17:10  
doesn't so okay cool. So that that makes the argument for having like, you know, a linkage

Sam Abuelsamid  17:20  
totally Well that wasn't that wasn't the end of the issues. You know, the very last day you know, the day it was supposed to be picked up, you know, I was moving a couple things around in my driveway, and I moved The Aviator, you know, so it was in position so they could easily pull it out of the driveway and you know, take it away and replace it with something else. And I moved it and then I came back out, you know, an hour later, when, when, when they were on their way to pick it up. And I was going to get something out of it that I had left in there to get my USB cable out of it. And I could not get any doors open or anything to respond. I mean So I finally pulled the, you know, when you have these modern vehicles with keyless entry systems with a fob, there's always a physical key still embedded in there for emergencies. Right and in the case of The Aviator, because of the way the door handles are done, you know where the there's no keyhole there, the keyholes actually embedded just underneath the the mirror on the driver's side. And you know, there's a little there's a little flap there that is not very visible, but if you just stick the key through it, you know, it'll you can unlatch it manually unlock the door manually, and it actually does release the door which actually could have been useful earlier in the week. But at this point, I tried to get it started. I tried to start the car and it wouldn't even wouldn't crank and it was completely dead. And you know when they when they came to get it actually got it jump started. I was trying to figure out how to jumpstart this thing because I didn't want to mess anything up because it is a pretty plug in hybrid. So you've got these two parallel electrical systems, you know, you got the high voltage system and the 12 volt. and there was no owner's manual in the car. So I didn't want to do

Dan Roth  19:10  
the infotainment now they don't

Sam Abuelsamid  19:12  
know at junction is because you know the the these press vehicles as we've talked about for a very often are pre production models. So they're shipped from the factory and they don't, they don't necessarily have everything with them that they're supposed to like the owner's manual. And so I didn't have an owner's manual, so I didn't want to risk jump starting it and destroying it. So I just left it until they got there. But it was completely dead and that after they picked it up the jumpstart it took it back and engineer checked it out back at Ford. And turns out it was a defective 12 volt battery. So, you know, even on these modern high tech vehicles, you can still get tripped up by something as you know as basic as a classic lead acid battery. And, you know, but aside from aside from that actually driving it It was actually you know, just it was still a great experience. You know, this thing you know is really quiet for something that weighs almost three tons. it you know, it's surprisingly you know, nimble, you know it it's got it handles quite well. And really nice interiors we've talked about before with with Lincoln's with modern Lincoln's you know the you know, everything worked everything inside you know when the 12 volt battery was working was worked great. I love you know, unlike you Dan, I do like the 30 way adjustable seats and I am able to get comfortable in them. And I love the massaging system they have in there which is great when you're going for a drive. And you know, it's I think for personally for me, you know, if you're looking for a three row, luxury SUV, I think that you know, I personally think this is a great choice. it you know, it is a plug in hybrid and I drove it ticket for drive, fully charged it up. And the temperatures were in the mid 20s. When I took it for a drive, I wanted to see how far I could actually go just on electricity without getting the engine turned on. And it's got multiple drive modes, one of which is, you know, the pure EV mode, there's also a preserve, preserve he even mode where you can, when you put it in that mode, it actually runs the engine and it'll actually charge up the battery so that if you're going somewhere where when you get close to your destination, you want to have it be able to go into EV mode, it'll actually charge the battery up for you while you're driving. But in pure in just straight up EV mode. It's only got about 100 horsepower from the electric motor, but it's got, you know, a couple of hundred foot pounds of torque. And you know, it's it's not going to be a speed demon in that case, but it's got enough it's enough that you know in city driving You can accelerate at a reasonable pace without the engine coming on. And I got about 15 miles out of it, it's officially rated at 21 miles. But again, you know, it was cold out, which is going to degrade the performance. So I got about 15 miles out of it. And, you know, it's, it's not it's not necessarily something that you know, if you're looking for, you know, for for really a pure EV, you know, this is not the vehicle for you. But if you want, you know, a luxury three row SUV that gets really good fuel economy, you know, overall, and, you know, can also do a bit of electric driving, then, you know, it's it's definitely one to consider. It's not inexpensive, you know, this one was, you know, some Black Label, it was like $84,000. So it was pretty much loaded with everything. But, frankly, I would take this thing over the Alexa selex any day

Dan Roth  22:57  
it's a little more modern, which I think thousand dollars last.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:01  
Yeah. Well, you know, and you know, this is this is not you know, this is not an off road vehicle either, you know, right this difference this is Yeah, this is a this is a vehicle for on road driving. And you know, it is the most powerful production Lincoln ever, ever built, you know 400 and almost just shy of 500 horsepower 670 foot pounds of torque, you know, the thing is pretty quick. Oh, one other thing that I did know, in some driving most particularly if you put it in sport mode, at low speed, sometimes the, the engagement you know of the clutches when it's going switching between electric mode and, and hybrid mode. Sometimes you can feel a little bit of a sunk in when it's engaging the clutch. When you switch it over to normal or econ mode, that pretty much goes away, it disappears. So I think it's just a matter of you know, they're engaging The clutch is a little quicker to give you a little better performance when you have it in sport mode. And that affects the drivability a little bit. I, I've heard some complaints from some people from a couple of people that drove it during the, during the North American Car of the Year evaluations last fall that they thought it was undriveable. And that's, I mean, both this time and last summer when I drove it that that was absolutely not the case. You know, it's not quite as in sport mode, it's not quite as seamless as perhaps it should be. But in any other mode, it's perfectly fine.

Dan Roth  24:33  
I mean, undriveable is kind of a extreme criticism, right? Like, you're actually driving the thing. Just some, especially with with all the drive systems. That kind of stuff is not uncommon, where you get some some of the the power transfer soon as sort of makes a bump here and there. Some of the jeeps to it, too. But I don't know that it's terrible. acceptable either, like you would hope that Lincoln can

Sam Abuelsamid  25:03  
last question of a vehicle this expensive. Yeah.

Dan Roth  25:06  
Yeah. So they'll have to figure that out. And maybe there, if it was a pre production car, maybe they're still working on those calibrations or whatever, how's the how's the visibility at the front?

Sam Abuelsamid  25:18  
Um, you know, it's typical of an SUV, you know, it's not great, because,

Dan Roth  25:22  
you know, apparently one of the critiques of the Explorer is that, like the sightlines are bad. So there's a huge blind spot in front you find that

Sam Abuelsamid  25:30  
not not any more so than any other, you know, similarly sized SUV now, you know, the pillars, the pillars are actually slimmer than on the the old Explorer, substantially slimmer than on the old Explorer. So I think it's the visibility's actually better than previous generation Explorer,

Rebecca Lindland  25:46  
it just you know, we mock the 30 way seat, but those sort of minute adjustments can actually help you with that, that visibility, if the a pillar is a little bit wider, and You're able to move your seat back just to scoot or move it up a little bit or just make those fine tune adjustments that can really improve your visibility.

Dan Roth  26:09  
Oh, absolutely. And it's so funny now because everything we drive has power seats,

Rebecca Lindland  26:15  
and I Well, except the Jeep Wrangler that I have that.

Dan Roth  26:19  
It is weird when I get in a car with me no seats and a good a good manual seat still allows for that fine adjustment. And a lot of manual seats. Still not great. They're still you know, back in like 90s economy car adjustability wise. So, yeah, that's, that's, I think that's right, you can get that 30 way seat seat sort of dialed in position wise where you need it. I'm just, you know, maybe I'm just not comfortable in my skin. So I shouldn't expect to be comfortable in the car so.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:49  
Well, you know, I think one of the challenges with manual seats especially is with height adjustment, you usually don't get much in the way of height adjustment with most manual seats. That isn't advantage you tend to get with, you know, power seats like this is, you know, being able to go up and down. So, you know, depending on how tall you are, or lack thereof, you know that that can be really valuable. I mean, I'm sure true.

Dan Roth  27:16  
Yeah, I loved in my Volvo 740s I had this little lever right on the near the tunnel, and you can adjust the height of the front and back of the seat. It had limited positions because it had pins, so it would lock there was sort of three positions in front three positions in the rear. But there's some cars now with the manual seats where they have like a little lever that you pump on the side and can get up and down and said,

Sam Abuelsamid  27:38  
Yeah, and that certainly helps. It sure does. But overall, you know, to the visibility question, you know, it's, this is an issue not so much of the aviator, but of SUVs in general, big SUVs in general, you know, where you've got a hood that's up high, you know, and that inherently is going to limit your your visibility especially forwards.

Dan Roth  27:59  
Yeah. mean you just couldn't take out pedestrians which is I think an increasing problem that nobody's really talking about, you know, I stood next to an HD Chevy pickup the other day and I'm sick holy crap. It's taller than me. Just could you reach over the bumper almost not like it was just there Hi, this and probably had a lift in it but it's just it was tall. I was like I practically that's not useful for me if I was using it for truck stuff. I can't get anything in it. You have to climb up and do it.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:32  
And just I told Rebecca when you when you drove the LX mean, how did you find the visibility in that one?

Rebecca Lindland  28:39  
Well, I didn't run out over any small children. So I got that going for me. Yeah, exactly. No, I you know, it. It's deceptive. Because the ride height gives you the impression that you see more. right because you're sitting up so high. So you get the impression that you've got full visibility, when in reality, of course, your line of sight is compromised by what's in front of it. So, you know, I think that there's, it's it's one of those things that you don't notice until you've hit that cone on a test track. Yeah, you know, or right until you test it, you don't realize that you don't have the visibility that you think you have.

Dan Roth  29:28  
Well, I think you see further, like, you'll see further down the road just because of the angle that you're as you're writing. That it's, it's I think you're right, I think it's deceiving. Nobody ever thinks about that distance in the front of the car, which you can't see because of the lancha and receiving position.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:44  
Yeah. And there was there was an article somewhere that was just published a study that was done. I think it was maybe a newspaper in California. You know, they did a bunch of measurements, basically, you know, when you're in a big truck or SUV. Yeah, you can see what's you know, 255 Down the road better because you're up higher, but it's that 30 feet right in front of the vehicle that you can't see anything yet. I mean, you it's a complete blind spot, but to me out of there,

Rebecca Lindland  30:11  
right? But it's also I love the cameras that like when you you put you know, you put the car in reverse it shows the back. And then I love the 360 view and also the ones that when you put it in, in Drive or forward that it continues to show the space around your vehicle. I think those are I wish that that was a more common thing. Some vehicles do it. And it's funny because sometimes I think it's actually just because the system is slower. But it does help though in some ways. So you know, that's something that I think would be really effective is to have a camera that you know when you put it into drive, it doesn't immediately change and instead does show you that that 10 feet or 15 feet directly in front of you

Sam Abuelsamid  31:00  
Yeah Well the problem with those is that they typically only work up to about three or four miles an hour and then usually as soon as you get above you know crawling speed then the camera switches off and you know for legitimate reasons because they don't they don't want you looking at the screen right you know, to navigate you know when when you're actually on the road.

Dan Roth  31:20  
I'm not for that. No, we don't want you looking at the screen for the cameras put your we want you looking at the screen for every other goddamn thing while you're driving. Sorry. It's true. Some of the luck it was an opening I had to take it the the Mercedes that I just had the GLC 300 was like that where it would keep the screens on a bit. As you sort of maneuver it around a parking situation it would actually as you can in traffic even as you got down to sort of stop and go and it would you do to hear it sort of deployed to has a real camera that sort of folded up so Hear it like zinc elephant hold up the camera and bring them up on the screens so I think that's something that they are paying attention to and there's usually a button for the like surround view on cars you can you can kick it on in traffic

Rebecca Lindland  32:12  
right? Which I do appreciate yeah

Dan Roth  32:14  
it's it's nice I kind of wish that we could just make the cars with enough glazing and visibility and maybe some smaller physical dimensions so we didn't have to use cameras to make sure we don't crush things it'd be nice

Sam Abuelsamid  32:32  
he'll they still make those some brands still make smaller cars like yeah you know that's true You know, if we could just convince people to buy them you know, they might continue to make them yeah

Dan Roth  32:42  
that I mean I'm not exactly a poster child for small cars although I do love them. I really I like the small car feeling I like how cozy they are

Rebecca Lindland  32:51  
made up a smart anytime with

Dan Roth  32:54  
a smart good good with that. But you know since I started talking about Let me just keep rambling about the GLC 300 Man, I saw that showed up and I expected to dislike it. And my first few hours with it were a little contentious, because it's pretty sophisticated. You know, it has the MB UX system, which is a change from command. So there's a bit of a learning curve, it has a little sort of touch sensor, just like this little mound have to interact with and it it took me some getting used to to figure out where all the settings are just a lot of settings and just how you navigate back and forth between like nav and phone and that kind of stuff. But the tech doesn't define the vehicle and the GLC is a vehicle is really really really good. It is that you know, speaking about sort of a smaller size, it's a little more compact. It's a good size. I think that this sort of personal crossover SUV sighs it's you know, if you want to use a kind of ridiculous term like An urban crossover urban SDV it really does fit that that need. It's just about just right for going into a city in a parking garage, it's easy to park. It's very comfortable while you're in it. Everything feels really high quality, everything you touch has been considered, you know, the switch gear feels really nice, which is, you know, something that you can you can have the car that looks great, but if you use those windows switches, right, and there's that line of molding flash on there, you can feel it. So it's those little things that sort of mar the experience and and the GLC has been really thoughtfully considered for all of those. It's a very quiet very comfortable what engine noise you can hear is, you know, four cylinder turbo. So it has a little bit of that gravel to it, but it's not offensive. It doesn't sound like it's not enjoying itself. It sounds good. And it gets to work with the nine speedruns Really well, the chassis is really well composed and handles. Well, it Fried's really well, the drive modes take they make a difference the steering feels nice I was actually surprised the steering sort of wakes up in the middle of a turn which doesn't always happen these days you know the backseat was kind of tight I didn't find it terribly spacious even with the front seat set for my sort of smaller stature it was still a little tight for the for the kids in the car area is good but not great. But it's it's a compact class of I think it's like a B segment or maybe c segment SUV think it's C to C, right. Yeah. So this I finally while I had it, I figured out Mercedes naming convention. So the GLC is basically it's the SUV equivalent of the C class sedan. The GLA is the equivalent of the class. Make sense? But no i saw i expected to really dislike it and the more and more I drove it the more it grew on me I really liked it I found MB UX actually, after a day or two pretty intuitive and pretty quick to navigate and the more time I spent with it, I you know, I think we've just get easier and easier so and I think that's the mark of a well designed system where Yes, it's complex and yes, there's a little bit of a learning curve at first but after you spend some time with it, it becomes intuitive and easier to operate and so I think that you know, deserves sort of a compliment and round of like well done on on Mercedes part because command wasn't great. And they've made it a lot better, I think with with MB UX, so and, you know, it's top it all off. I just like the way that the GLC looks. It just has that tidy sort of taught Mercedes look to That it's just it's classically handsome. It's really nicely styled. It drives really solid It was great in the winter weather we had some snow while I had it so I was really impressed with it. I liked it quite a bit.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:13  
Did you use the voice recognition much? I not much

Dan Roth  37:17  
No, I used Apple CarPlay most of the time, which is ok to admit from my Luddite seat over here but it worked pretty well with all that why is there an issue with it that you wanted to

Sam Abuelsamid  37:29  
know I'm just curious because you know part of that that MB UX system is a new You know, that's right, like what their natural language processing voice recognition system Yeah, it's it's the voice rec part comes from nuance, but it's it's a hybrid system. So there's part of it resides is embedded in the MB UX system locally in the vehicle. And then there's also a cloud component to like you have with Siri or google assistant or Alexa. So that When you're when you have conductivity, it will send your request. It'll process your requests in the cloud, where it has more capability to do more natural language style processing. But then if your connectivity is spotty or non existent, then it it has a subset of that capability locally. So I was just curious, you know, if you messed around with that, and how, how good you found it,

Dan Roth  38:23  
I hadn't, but I will make it a point. The next time I have an opportunity, I should be able to get back into it. In a couple of weeks. We're doing a winter vehicle award thing up here so I'll be able to go play with it. But I was really, I really liked the way it drove. It was sporty enough for me in terms of chassis discipline, but it was I also felt like it was luxurious enough like a Mercedes feel and you know, fully loaded, it wound up at about 62,000 which is like it's pricey. Don't get me wrong, but it was less expensive than I thought it would be.

Rebecca Lindland  38:58  
Well, and I think you're right about the design. of it, it just it's it is just a classically sort of timeless elegance it will age well in the marketplace, you know, and that's very appealing for consumers and it's just you know, they've had some nice evolutions speaking of grills you know, the the front of it I think has aged again as age well in previous editions. I think they've done a nice restrained a job of expanding the grill without making this it this gigantic mouth that just feels like you're gonna swallow it up. I'm still incredibly partial to the coop version of it just because, as I've said before, it just screams I don't have children. You know, I don't know. It's just, it's my little rebel. But no, I think that it's been a while since I drove a Mercedes Actually, I but I think that they're just they're just classically traditionally beautiful vehicles. I think that A nice job.

Dan Roth  40:00  
Yeah, one This one had the AMG line or whatever. So it has the AMG girl versus the, you know, just the detailing the design was. It's those subtle little things that that, you know, I think they define, especially that premium category. You can't just charge a lot of money and throw leather on everything, you know, like it really it needs to feel like it. It was done with a purpose and look like it was done. The President had said this whole the whole car I thought was, he was 62 K, again didn't feel outrageous for it because it felt like it was worth it. Whereas the other cars that don't feel like that which I'll get to in a sec.

Rebecca Lindland  40:40  
I think that they don't they don't just they're not just leaning on their brand name. They reward you with those touches and fields and materials. They reward you for purchasing a Mercedes like they don't let you forget it, you know? Yeah, I feel like there's a constant reminder That you've, you've purchased something special. I mean, I had that crazy. I had the GTC roadster back in September. That was just, you know, all sorts of fun. That was $162,000. But, you know, it was it was, you had no doubt that you were in a Mercedes at all times. And it was just non stop fun.

Dan Roth  41:25  
Yeah, yeah. And so the contrast to that is the I won't prattle on about it. But the, the Volvo XC 90, t six, our design, Pollstar engineered. Yeah, well, the ghosts are engineered, I think is the particular package it you know, this is another vehicle that looks really great inside and out. It looks premium, but that's also where it sort of lets you down because unlike the Mercedes where Yes, it has a four cylinder, turbo, but it it didn't sound bad. It sounded you know, it's This good sounding engine, it has the right amount of power, you know, the XC nine is bigger. So it's got a more powerful engine, but it's also a much heavier vehicle. So the engine feels like it struggles. And it also does not sound happy about it, you get a lot of engine noise in the Volvo, which I was surprised about. And it would have been better if it were good engine noise. It's not a great engine noise. So that was disappointing. And it just chassis wise I I don't know why Volvo can't get this right. And this had the air suspension, huge disappointment, it just it's clumsy. None of the, you know the steering is too slow. The ride and handling is just not not graceful. But you're also not rewarded with good sort of reflexes. Like maybe in terms of hard numbers. You could manhandle this thing around a handling course and it would it would post okay times or whatever would do all right. It hates every single second of that. It's not like the Mercedes where you could make it hustle and it wouldn't mind it know like, and that's, I know, maybe not terribly important with the XC 90, but I guarantee you if you cry if you walked over and stepped in an X five, it would feel sporty and the X 90 doesn't.

Rebecca Lindland  43:14  
Do you think that that's, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, I've had my pros and cons with Volvo's, myself, semi, you know, the XC 40 that I drove back and forth. And one day to Pennsylvania was like, you know, six, seven hour drive. I actually really liked that car and the more I was in it, the more fun I had with it. And the the XC 90 I remember being quite restrained, and not in a positive way, and not particularly emotionally engaging.

Dan Roth  43:41  
Yeah. Well, so the XC 40 is the CMA architecture. So it's a different platform, which I think and it's just sort of a different slice of the market. So your expectations are sure, but I like I I liked the XC 40 quite a bit. I liked the 60 and even the the fy 16 cross country which are Yeah, based on the SP a platform that the XC 90 is I thought those actually the 60 I thought road and handled quite well. And just was a good overall premium European sedan that the XC 90 for whatever reason it doesn't feel as as solid it was it's it's hard to explain but it feels like you know, it feels like they've cranked up the spring and damping rates, but this is the chassis isn't quite up to that stiffness. So you get you get a lot of harshness over stuff that, you know, you shouldn't, you know, just should be able to soak that stuff up and it makes it feel cheap. And it's not cheap. It's $1,000 Yeah. Just like, I would not buy this.

Rebecca Lindland  44:46  
And I sort of interrupt the experience then.

Dan Roth  44:48  
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And you know, cuz all of a sudden, like, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, and I'm like, so I told somebody the other 10 is to click if you want something that looks that good and has three rows. By the telluride drives. Like

Sam Abuelsamid  45:07  
when I when I've driven the XC 90, I've had a couple of different ones over the last several years. I didn't have that same experience with it. I wonder how much of that is the Pollstar engineered part of

Dan Roth  45:20  
it? Because part of it Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:22  
yeah. Cuz Pollstar, you know, is there? Well, it was it was their performance sub brand. Now, it's their EV sub brand. And so, you know, I think the the Pollstar engineered, you know, supposed to be a sport version of the XC 90 and maybe that's just, you know, going a step too far for that particular

Dan Roth  45:40  
vehicle. Well, I think part of the problem is Volvo's inability historically to really tune a suspension for sportiness in the in its segment properly you know, I remember the original t five hours were very capable cars but man did they suck Fried, they were just super, super stiff. And this is the same kind of thing. They got big wheels and short sidewalls, that does not help you know it in the air suspension, I think has been problematic on the XC 90 x 90 I've had with the air suspension has been surprisingly harsh, where you would expect air suspension to go the other way. And generally like I'm not a huge air suspension fan, it's and it has a lot of promise that generally is unrealized. I think in my opinion, in terms of of how it actually goes down the road. It's great if you want something cushy, but if you if you really want something that can be a chameleon, I think you're better off with the system has, you know, steel springs and adjustable dampers and that generally gets you a lot further. But yeah, I don't I don't know what it is. It's it's some some sort of decision making process or Something where they, they tuned it a certain way decisions are made. And here, at least in New England, New England roads, it winds up being a little bit disappointing and not as not as competitive within its class. You know, I'm just trying to think like if I, if I were to drive a Mercedes or BMW or an Audi, which are all its competitors, I can't imagine that they would feel as harsh. I think they would, they would feel more more poised in most situations.

Rebecca Lindland  47:31  
And you don't you know, harshness is not good in any circumstance, but in some ways, like when you think about a, you know, like the x five m, you know, like, like that, like harshness for a reason. You know, because you've got it sport tuned, because you're expecting that you are, you are in a sport mode, and I wish you could see my hands because I'm like ripping them like, Oh, I want to go back.

Dan Roth  47:56  
video podcast.

Rebecca Lindland  48:00  
Like, you don't want it floaty, no, because that's annoying, you

Sam Abuelsamid  48:05  
controlled and also supple at the same time.

Dan Roth  48:08  
And so I think one of the things that makes it difficult when you get a vehicle that's as you know, this is the biggest version of this PA. And so maybe that's the they just can't get it rigid enough at that, you know, to to work that well, in this version of it where the 60s a little smaller, so it's by its very nature probably a little bit more rigid, a little little less susceptible to torsion and bending. So they can they can adjust the suspension differently because I didn't feel like that car was harsh and it's the same same parts in a lot of respects. This is also not the most high performing xc 90 there's the T eight above this, that that's the one that really has, you know, it's got the the hybrid so it has a bit more performances. I think it's got like 100 more horsepower, which definitely helps. But you know, the XC 90 is it hasn't This niche of beautiful to look at really comfortable to be in three rows relatively large. It's a good family SUV. But it has these weird areas where it lets you down. And so it's a little puzzling to me. And at least I haven't pitched about census yet, which I'm not going to do. Because it's going away anyway. So who cares? Well, I'll complain about the next version. But yeah, yeah, I was. I was hopeful that it would be better but it's also like it's now it's a five year old car right. The new the XC 90 debuted in 2015. Something like that. Uh, yeah, I think so. Yeah. So it's, it's due for some updates, and I think its class has, has started to eclipse it. So we'll see what they do with the next version, or the mid cycle refresh, which should be coming soon, I hope.

Rebecca Lindland  49:53  
So I was driving the 2020 Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon four by four. Which is just fun. Yeah, yeah.

Dan Roth  50:07  
So, okay, so it's the Wrangler Unlimited drupalcon four by four what power train.

Rebecca Lindland  50:13  
So this one has sorry I have to take my glasses off it has a 2.0 leader. I in line for

Dan Roth  50:20  
turbo Wrangler. Alright, that's great.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:24  
Yeah, I like yeah that's that's also the torque. It's

Rebecca Lindland  50:27  
really Yes it is. It's really really nice. I mean, I drove it I haven't driven a ton unfortunately but I've been running errands yesterday and today in it yesterday was raining a lot and I it was it was surprising. This one has the cloth roof which I was able to put open today which was super cool. I This one has a cloth roof and you know at low speed in traffic yesterday. I was really pleasantly surprised that it was pretty quiet. I do did make a note in my review on there after the riding drive that there was some wind noise at at higher speeds, you're going to get that but just driving around town, you know, going 3025 35 miles an hour. I was pleasantly surprised. I also didn't have anybody in the vehicle with me so we weren't having a conversation. But it didn't matter because the radio was soft and I was able to hear it and I had a conversation I've talked on the phone with somebody and so you know, it was it was a good experience overall. Today then I drove it around a little bit more and took some twisties was was again running some errands and visiting from different people and and had the opportunity to use it as i would i in a day to day environment. Obviously ideally you want to go off road in this thing, but that is not to be so I but I'm just I'm so impressed with how well behaved this vehicle is on road Knowing the crazy things that you can do with it off road yet to me is like really, really fun that does always sort of impressed me about the Wrangler and I tend to get tired of the Wrangler after week with and I'm like, okay, that's out of my system for a while, but they're pretty, pretty impressively refined for something that's the same basic design going back,

Sam Abuelsamid  52:23  
you know, especially this new generation

Rebecca Lindland  52:25  
new generation,

Dan Roth  52:27  
the conscious mind the JK and the jL is is

Rebecca Lindland  52:30  
it is I my brother has the JK and and i agree with you, Dan. I'm like Okay, thanks. Bye. Thanks for the ride. See, you and I also have a much more difficult time getting in and out of his then I do this one for some reason. And I don't know why and I don't know he's, I think he's got the fully loaded. I think he does have this exact same one, the unlimited Rubicon, because the price point was crazy like this one is and, you know, for whatever reason, this one is just I can get in and out of it easily. So it was interesting, it does have manual seats I buy. And at first I had a little trouble figuring out what it could and could not do. But then this morning, I was able to adjust the height of it, which then let me put it back a little bit, but greatly improved my visibility and it and my comfort level also. And so that's where we're talking earlier about manual versus electric. I would love to have an electric seat, I understand why it doesn't have it, obviously, with it being like basically, a vehicle you can wash it out, and you can get wet. But you know, it's something that you just have to play around with the seat a little bit more and give it a little time to figure out what you can and can't do with it. But you know, I just I it's so iconic, and I just I love the fact that they really have honored what the brand is and what this vehicle is, but at the same time they have made it where you really can used this vehicle on a day to day basis. And, you know, it's I've said it before I'll say it again. It's the Busboys and billionaires. I mean, you just see, you see these. You see Jeep Wranglers at the smallest houses here in Greenwich and at the biggest one, I think you

Dan Roth  54:14  
only need to be more of a billionaire to afford with a Wrangler has gone well. How many of the Wranglers you see have been just like sort of fetishized with like the angry I grills and all kinds of add on but just the most disgustingly ugly wheels you've ever seen. Punisher.

Rebecca Lindland  54:33  
Today I saw a JK that was just a two door. It was now aren't day it was it was shocking. It was it was really shocking to see. So this one has a starter starting prices 70 of them sorry 41 795 and then deliver the destination charges 1495 I think that's one of the highest in the industry for not

Dan Roth  54:57  
just a place where we certainly slug away some extra costs where the gear yeah we can quote your different price we're going to charge you more for destination and we're gonna

Rebecca Lindland  55:06  
I'm actually really surprised and said that this this price is out at 59 to 75 I mean it's that's

Dan Roth  55:15  
like a you know I don't know what's Mercedes g oh sure but I'm just thinking like it's like the full size pickups too they're like you know that the sort of full on luxury pickups depending on you know what you're buying situation right like if you're if you're successful billionaire business person or whatever like you can buy it is your company vehicle right now amortize it over seven years so

Rebecca Lindland  55:41  
damn everything it weighs enough

Dan Roth  55:42  
oh maybe it doesn't that's that's true. The big pickups on

Sam Abuelsamid  55:45  
while you can you can still lease it like you know if you use it as a company vehicle. Okay, right. Yeah, there's there's tax credits on heavy duty vehicles that you wouldn't get on this but you can still get tax breaks, you know, as a as an

Dan Roth  55:59  
MBA. With a sort of tricky bookkeeping, they will give you a very long loan on

Rebecca Lindland  56:08  
this so so just a couple things on this one this one actually does have the cold weather package, which has the heated steering wheel heated front seats remote start because the one that I had on the ride and drive was like 52,000 and it did not have heated seats. And I remember just thinking for 52 grand

Unknown Speaker  56:27  
right like standard

Rebecca Lindland  56:30  
like well yeah so this so the one that I the one that I drove on the event was 53 645 and it did not have heated seats and steering well it didn't have the cold weather pack that's good I agree. Especially because even if you're out in the desert even if you're in a you know in Nevada, it you can use a cold weather pack because you can use heated seats, you want to put the top down or something like so those are things that I just feel like you use all I use them all the time no matter where I am, but yeah, so So this one at least had that but I mean it's again it's it's an insane amount of money but it's also a vehicle that you can very gracefully drive and in comfort to work and then just go bad ass off on the weekends.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:18  
Hey, Rebecca, I'm curious. The soft top Is that like a fully line multi layer top

Rebecca Lindland  57:24  
it doesn't appear to be fully aligned. So it's the sky one touch power top. It was fairly thick but I don't believe it's lined it also but it didn't flap at all which I was again very surprised about. I can I'll get back to you on

Sam Abuelsamid  57:40  
that. Okay. Just because you commented on how quiet it was some curious you know, if it had some insulation built into there. I know

Rebecca Lindland  57:50  
it was it just fit so tight. Like that's again what I was really surprised about is that the fit on that on that roof is Really, really nice it is. It goes

Dan Roth  58:02  
it's a pretty thick material to you so even if it's not instantly

Rebecca Lindland  58:05  
right, it goes all the way back you know you I looked at it is like all the way back I with one touch and but I just again was very very surprised I haven't taken a highway yet. I will do that tomorrow.

Dan Roth  58:19  
That's where they fall down. Are they loud?

Rebecca Lindland  58:23  
Well, yeah, that's, you know, NVH is very, you know, specific to circumstances.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:29  
Yes. Especially with the, you know, when you get to Rubicon you you do get all terrain tires. And so those those are going to make a lot more noise. highway speeds.

Rebecca Lindland  58:38  
Yes, exactly. And again, that's that's where, you know, I posted something on our Twitter account on Twitter reviews about how quiet it was, but I was on, you know, in low speed in town roads, so I'm not taking it on the highway. As I said, I'll do that tomorrow.

Dan Roth  58:56  
Yeah, I don't know about the full soft top. So the there's the rancor with the hard top that the J with the hard top and they have to put the cloth a roof in it that is made by a company called hearts and they use a specific fabric for it that has PVC in it or something I don't know anyway somebody else can do the research and get back

Rebecca Lindland  59:19  
in message she said yeah they're acting yeah my dad actually used to call on them. Oh really? yes cuz he he was in they they used to treat it flame treat it or do some kind of heat application on on different materials and he used to go there. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So the it's that particular material I don't know. Again, I don't know if the regular soft up as man out of this but that that portion of the

Dan Roth  59:44  
the roof in the soft roof in the hard top versions is 12 fast, which is it's a three ply material and there's a rubber inner layer which will you know, that will add some mass and some sound deadening. So maybe maybe It's the same material used on the soft up I don't know they're actually super nice people I've met

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:04  
they're super nice people I know they were really lovely and when my father passed away they were very very kind and very very sweet. I but that but also what's impressive is that again the fit of that of that top is very tight if it anytime that gets compromised then I could see where it might be really loud. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:00:22  
right right. And this was one of the things with the jail they made the top easier to use.

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:27  
Yes. No, it's amazing. It's one tactic goes all the way back. I mean, I was in a convertible you know in 10 seconds. And then I put the heated seats on and steering wheel and I was happy. I mean, the price the pricing is definitely you know, something that can be a deal breaker for some people if if you get it all dolled up. And what's this is the base I mean, the Wrangler Unlimited Sahara four by four starts at 28 two 95 So, you know, there's this huge range sort of sort of like The Aviator is sort of actually like a lot of cars these days. There's this great big huge range of price points and which is good because then you can decide what your budget is.

Dan Roth  1:01:16  
Yeah, well and the Wrangler if you're going to sort of load anything up with all the options and pay for it That's a good one to do it with I'm not that I ever suggest anybody go into that kind of debt but it holds its resale.

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:31  
It does. You can't get like

Dan Roth  1:01:33  
a Jeep Wrangler is never cheap. Like she like they just say they all go for good money even like go try to find a TJ

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:44  
Yeah, not sure. Yeah, it's amazing.

Dan Roth  1:01:49  
You had posted about the the Wrangler to the car review tweets, the Twitter and do you got some sort of commentary back which I know it's valid critique degree but also just sort of how how the reviewer kind of ecosystem might work critiquing the critique. Yeah. Which is fine, and we're open to it. And it was just, I think it it deserves sort of a mention and a little bit of discussion.

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:17  
Yeah, so I posted just briefly because that's what our brief Twitter car reviews are, right? I'm just about how pleased I was with the NVH in that and and you know, somebody came back and said well, Motor Trend said the exact opposite. Well, that's fine. That's that's the beauty of it being an opinion right?

Dan Roth  1:02:38  
This is you know, their opinions in this one is mine, which I didn't use its method I started me to check was like, too much and listen to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:48  
like, you know, as they say, you know, opinions are like certain body parts, you know, everybody's got one you know, the, the comment, you know, from, from this person, you know, reply to your comment, Rebecca, he said, but with conflicting opinions like these any wonder many consumers don't take journalists seriously, and those who do get seriously confused about what to believe my opinion helps my opinion helps all to remain discontent with such comment or such content. Yeah, and I think, you know, especially when you're talking about reviews, you know, these are, as you say, opinions, and, you know, that they are completely, you know, in most in many ways, most ways, probably, especially for us, because we don't do instrumented testing is, you know, they are completely subjective. And it there's absolutely nothing wrong with having very divergent opinions on a particular vehicle.

Dan Roth  1:03:47  
I think they're, they're subjective, but they're also informed and I think it's valid to to say like, you should always look at it with a skeptical eye. Especially when a lot folks who are looking for reviews, they don't know how to put their preferences or their thoughts and feelings into order or into words as well as we do. And so you've got to sort of look at what what the reviewers are saying. And whether you think that the criticisms are valid invalid. You know, some people will think that our, you know, our, the way we ramble on about infotainment isn't important, where others will, and they're wrong. Because it's not important to them, right? Or, you know, I've had people say, like, oh, since this is fine, and we've complained about census or, you know, high driver or whatever, you know, and it's like, okay, like, if you find it easy to use, I get it. But you know, we're in a lot of cars, and some of this stuff is harder to figure out than others. And, you know, here's my informed take on that. And, you know, I can choose to take it or leave, I'm not gonna get offended either way, and we're certainly not going to get in an argument and I don't I don't want to be doing that here, either. I don't think that's what we're doing. But I think it's valid. I think it's a valid thing to say. Is it any wonder that people get confused? Like, no, I don't think it's a wonder that people get confused, but also, like, we're trying to sort of lay our cards out on the table to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:16  
write and, you know, the important thing. Sorry, Rebecca, I just want to say one thing, you know, the important thing as a reviewer is to provide context about why, you know, what is your rationale for your opinion, and as long as you can provide some justification for your opinion, then, you know, anybody reading that review or listening to that review, and say, okay, that matches up, you know, with my lifestyle or my use case, you know, or it doesn't, you know, and then you're better off, you know, to look for someone that you know, that that does, you know, that that is looking at it from the same perspective you are, you know, for me, you know, when when I talk about SUVs that I may not like You know it, I try to give the context of here's, here's my, here's why I don't like this. And it's not just I don't like this, but here's why I don't like it. And here's why it might be the right fit for a particular customer. And that's, that's, I think that's really the important thing when you're reviewing this stuff is to provide that that background of why you feel about it one way or another, and who you think it might be right for, you know, and when you do that, you know, yes, you're going to get divergent opinions, because people are coming at it from different perspectives, they have different points of view. And if you've yet to find the the reviews that that meet that point of view, and you know, I think for us, you know, we're, you know, we're typically trying to come at it from the perspective of the average person that might be looking to buy a vehicle, you know, and you know, what, what are they going to get for their money out of this product?

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:58  
And I think also and you're absolutely right. That's the thing is that this is, I think we, I go back and forth. On the one hand, I want to give my perspective. On the other hand, I realized that I am shorter than 99% of all adults, but at the same time, for shorter people, they're like, Hey, you know what, that's really good to know. And, you know, my I did a, I did a, I don't know what they're called, like, igtv or something with my brother that I posted on to Instagram, and he's 63. And one of my followers wrote and said, you know, that was so helpful getting his perspective, I'm the same size as your brother. And it just demonstrates to me that, you know, it's just because what you I may be at, you know, 1% of the population and not the tall version of it. It doesn't mean that people aren't going to find it helpful to know that kind of information. And

Dan Roth  1:07:56  
I don't I don't think that that's where the common was, was sort of going

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:05  
well, he reached out to me later and said it was actually supposed to be a dig at Motor Trend, which I was like listen,

Dan Roth  1:08:14  
I don't agree with the Motor Trend guys usually but I always learn something about that kind of person and what they like best. That's the thing like you could you could read reviews you could you can almost like hate read stuff right and you you challenge yourself and you learn a different perspective and that's that's what's like I I was so unimpressed with the Lamborghini orous for example, but I read Johnny Lieberman's thing and Motor Trend about it and it just sort of pointed out a few things that made me appreciate it a little more in that Johnny Lieberman way. So it it's it's, it's valid. And I look, keep continue to criticize us. Well, we'll take it, we might fire back at

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:56  
you. And on that theme. I'd like to Jump into into a user listener email that we got a couple of weeks ago. And you know, it's it's continuing along this same theme of, you know, our perspective on different vehicles and this one had to do with ease. And I'm pretty sure the same person was the person who gave us a rather negative review on Apple podcast. And the, you know, the let me just read this so high, I generally enjoy listening to your podcast, but listening to your Eevee and PhD recommendations on your most recent podcast, I was struck by your best advice is to wait a couple of years from now, for new E visa and EV infrastructure. The only really only sane advice for occasional 350 mile trip is using the Tesla supercharger network. I would suggest you try to check periodically or preconceived notions about the quality of Tesla vehicles and not dogmatically steer people away for fear their vehicles won't blast every new electric vehicles by definition and all new are very new platform. The idea that traditional automakers do even better and more reliably than Tesla's something you cannot say at this point in time. What you can say is that qualitatively the experience of owning a Tesla in terms of things people care about like range performance and charging is better than traditional automakers. If you listen to owners, the EPA and just about everyone else who experiences it when you recommend a four year old us leaf or Mitsubishi Outlander, PHP for gosh sakes it makes me supremely glad very glad Gideon fact that if I randomly selected 6000 people off the street, only about one would have ever heard of Wheel Bearings. Sam, Rebecca or Dan. So so let me let me respond to this.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:46  
Because I am bird there

Dan Roth  1:10:47  
are some valid points there

Unknown Speaker  1:10:50  
that I

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:51  
recommend.

Dan Roth  1:10:53  
I said something about us because you can buy the Mitsubishi but there are valid points there. But I think, at least from from my perspective, when I steer people away from Tesla has nothing to do with their EV prowess. Every time somebody brings up Tesla to me, I say they they do great, you know, motors, batteries, power train, you know, power management, like all the stuff. Fantastic. They're not as good, demonstrably not as good at building a frickin car. And that is a big deal and the supercharger network. Yeah, I guess for now. But that's at some point, there's going to be a, you know, the lines are going to cross and that's going to be an obsolete network, that they're going to have to upgrade. Some. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:42  
Go ahead, Rebecca.

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:44  
I'm sorry. I feel like you say that a lot to me and I appreciate

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:49  
that was another email but we don't need to get

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:54  
I I feel like I think it's very important to say that no He wants Elon Musk to fail. nobody wins. If Tesla fails, it does not there's there's the there's the six such extreme between the haves and the have nots, the Tesla Tesla rotti. And oh my gosh, you hate them. That's not true. I have considered myself for years now, a Tesla realist, I want Elon Musk to succeed, because I think it helps the industry. And I think it's a good thing that he pushes the envelope. But the idea that we have blind faith, one way or the other just is not a fair assessment of how we look at the brand. I think.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:39  
I agree with that. And, you know, we have we have all said repeatedly on this show that, you know, clearly the industry would not be moving in the direction it is at the speed it is right now. Had it not been for the success of Tesla to the degree it's had success so far. You know, they have spurred the entire industry demonstrates an entire industry that he V's can be a realistic, you know, viable proposition that consumer, some lot of consumers actually want to buy, not just that they have to buy, because they, you know, because they're trying to virtue signal or, you know, they they feel a certain way, you know, but it's, you know, they're creating a product that people actually want to buy. That said, You know, I think, you know, we've all I think we've also made clear, as Dan said that, you know, we think that, you know, for all the good that Tesla has done, you know, we don't think it's a particularly well run company for a lot of reasons. And you know, we don't need to rehash that right now, but also to address a couple of specific points in this in this email here. It says the really only sane advice for an occasional 350 mile trip is using the Tesla supercharger network or renting Actually, no, that's not that's the only if you have an occasional 350 mile written trip but you want to drive an EV Saying advice is to buy used leaf. And then for those occasional trips, rent a car, yeah, rent to rent, rent an ice car, you know, because if you use it occasionally, and it's not something that you're driving every day, then you know, you're not having it's not having the kind of impact of him, for example, driving a taco on a daily basis, you know, when you're, you know, it's only one or two people in the car, that's stupid. You know, that's just that's insane. But, you know, if you know and if you want something, you know, if you have a 10 or 15 mile commute, you know, owning a Nissan LEAF for you know, some other lower cost EV makes a lot more sense to do that on a daily basis or even to you know, to have a conventional you know, ice vehicle that is much less expensive, you know, and even use an older vehicle, you know, from a from a, from a pure cost analysis, you know, pure economic point of view for the average Consumer that can't afford a 40 or $50,000 car, you know, owning a 20 or having a $20,000 or you know, or even a used $10,000 Corolla is a lot more sane, but even if you're going to have something like a used leaf, you know, and then rented a Tahoe or a minivan, you know, a couple times a year, you know, if you've got to take the kids on a road trip to go visit the grandparents or to go to Disneyland or something that's actually a lot more sane than, you know, owning a very expensive car, that you're not taking advantage of all of its potential capabilities on a daily basis.

Dan Roth  1:15:39  
I think there's that we do it with with regular cars, too. And I think what it comes down to is the like, if I had to I could kind of thing and I in the sense that the Tesla has the brains and they have the charging network. Yes, I agree. If that's something that you are regularly doing, you want to do a TV show Sure, it might make sense, you can even get a used Tesla. That's, that's fine. Um, but I think, I think part of that question, and maybe I'm mistaken, but part of the original question was, there was an economic factor to it as well, we're looking at costs. And so some of the suggestions we were trying to keep the costs lower, and which which drives, you know, those those other suggestions. And when you're talking about a used car, any used car, like I'm gonna die, I'd recommend the Camry and the Corolla, and those are not cars that excite me to drive in any way. But you know, they're

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:35  
affordable and reliable,

Dan Roth  1:16:37  
right? So and that's the same thing I'm doing I'm going to recommend a leaf because Nissan has been at it a very long time. And that car has most of its bugs worked out. Yeah, it's not it's not a Tesla. But you can you can get a use leaf for a very good price and it will has enough range to really cover most your needs a bolt, same thing. The bolt is very well done. I think it's sort of not on anybody's radar. Even though it's been in production for a long time, and you can, you can pick one up and it's gonna work, you know, kinda as advertised reliably. And there's dealer networks and support structures around and that's the other side of car ownership and not everybody wants to be a beta tester for the manufacturer. And I think that you've run into this, like, what you should listen to the owners will kinda, but if you listen to owners of a lot of cars, who sort of there they're in love with their car, right? Like I when I was in the rear wheel drive Volvo thing for, you know, a number of years, you know, a little pocket of enthusiasts. There's always that sort of like comparison of like, our cars are better than anybody else's cars and you know, those those cars over there that are, you know, the competitor group or whatever, the rivals. Well, they're not good because they don't do these things. And so there's always that grain of salt. You have to take With the the owners perspective, and a lot of owners don't actually know what they're talking about. So there is that not to pull that card, but like, I don't know, this is just good to wind up, I'm gonna make us get more emails.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:14  
But you're right. I mean, the original, you know, I mean, I think what the original recommendations that, you know, that this writer was responding to, you know, we're based on, you know, as we talked about, you know, earlier, you know, it's based on context, you know, what, you know, the question that was being we were trying to answer the question that was being asked, somebody had a budget that they were working to, and so we're trying to give some recommendations that would fit that budget. And, you know, in this case here, you know, if you can afford a Tesla and you want to buy a Tesla, go for it, be my guest, I'm not gonna stop you. You know, but it's, it's just not, you know, just as you know, a Miata is not the right choice for, you know, at least 1% of the of the population. You know, it's, you know, a Tesla Or any other car is not the right choice for, you know, some portion of the population.

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:06  
So, I think also there's a couple things to remember fuel economy standards, and the zero emission vehicle mandate out of California. It's not a suggestion. It's a mandate has also been pushing the development of electric vehicle technology. I I don't know that Tesla has pushed adoption rates of electric vehicles. They've pushed adoption rates of Tesla's that happened to be

Dan Roth  1:19:45  
electronic they've pushed consideration of electric vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:50  
Yeah. And and then they've also

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:52  
have shown adoption of

Dan Roth  1:19:54  
I don't know, I think that's a good point, but I think they've at least put them on people's radar to the point where other automakers have seen that it's a viable business.

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:04  
Well, the other automakers don't have a choice because the California set mandate,

Dan Roth  1:20:08  
right, but they were they've shifted from building up compliance cars to now saying, oh, there's a notion that premium marketplace,

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:14  
and that was a key. That was a key flaw in like, I'm just going to pick on on GM for a minute because as we've heard before, if the volt with a V, if that had been a Cadillac, I think they would have been much more and if it actually had looked at that like the XLR. Was it the LR Miller Yeah, that was a beautiful looking vehicle. But at the end of the day, it turned out that it was a targeted at fault and nobody's going to pay pay that kind of money for it. So the strategy, what Tesla has done so well, is they have married technology with a beautiful vehicle with the mystique that is Ilan Ma.

Dan Roth  1:20:56  
All that's that's the case. The Mystique is a big part of it and

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:00  
It is a huge part of it. And so you know, when I was doing work in Saudi, we were looking at who was buying electric vehicles and there were three distinct profiles. And the Tesla buyer was completely different than the Nissan LEAF fire. And those were primarily the two that we compared it with the Nissan LEAF by or had two different types of people. One was actually wealthier than the other one and more educated. The other one was more economic and environmentally motivated. But it was it was very distinct. And and when I look at vehicles like the Audi e Tron, that is so good and and size appropriate for today's marketplace, whether you agree with it or not. It's it the fact that that isn't just booming to me says that this is less Tesla success is not so much centered 100% around electric vehicles electrified vehicles, but it's it's really around A variety of factors.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:03  
Oh, well, you know, granted is as good as the the Tron is, in a lot of ways. And I think the same also applies to the icon and smothers Sure, you know, but they, you know, the European premium brands have fallen way short, in terms of trying to be competitive with Tesla, you know, on the very things that this writer, you know, is highlighting, you know, not so much the performance, but certainly the range. You know, is it, you know, as irrational as it may be, you know, that, you know, do you really need, you know, 350 miles of EV range? No, probably not, and we've discussed that before. But, you know, if you're going to try to compete in the marketplace, you know, where you've got Tesla over here with 300 plus miles of range, and all you can manage to scrape up is 200 miles, or in the case of the icon, turbo OS, you know, 192, I think or 9194 you know, You look at that. No, you know, it's Yeah. They have fallen short, you know, and, and we've been critical of those brands for doing that, especially, you know, when prior to launching those vehicles. They talked so much about, you know, getting 300 miles of range with these vehicles. But what they didn't tell you was all the little asterisks. Oh, this is on the European and EDC drive cycle, which is a completely meaningless tests that, you know, wildly over optimistic, you know, so, you know, we've, we've, we've, Kevin, we've had plenty of criticism to share across the industry for this stuff. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:23:36  
But I just feel like when Pete when people I'm sorry, Mark, carry on. I feel like when people talk about Tesla, they they brag about the torque, which is a result of the electric vehicle, obviously being electrified. they brag about autopilot about being quiet. They're not bragging about Hey, come Check out my electric vehicle, they say come and check out my Tesla

Dan Roth  1:24:05  
dead. That's true. And I think that they do. I mean, the amount of vanity plates speaks to this where they like to say, you know, I'm not using any gas, there's that virtue signaling there and Okay, fine. It's just it's a it's a it's a lifestyle, it's a conspicuous purchase and the product it has its pluses but me as a car buyer, if I'm looking at drop that kind of money on it, the customer experience needs work and the way the company that Yeah, the and the way the company is run, like look, I choose not to do business with companies that I don't agree with their professional ethics and that is a company I disagree with heartily in terms of its professional ethics, and so I I went to business for them I mean, I I refused or Earlier today, I was like, we're not going to go see the concert that's at Mohegan Sun. Because I don't agree with casinos. It's the same thing. Like, I, like you can buy one if you want one, if you believe it, if you want to put up with the stuff, if you want to own the thing, fine. I'm sure you'll you'll like some aspects of it and you won't like other aspects of it. Cool. And if it works for you, fine. This goes back to I think, again, understanding the source and eat it. I'm glad that we have a listener who will sort of give it to us, but just like, okay, but he kind of like this is this is where we're coming from. And if you disagree with go go buy a Tesla, and I hope you're happy with it. And I you know, please tell us why you love it. And that might help us understand the ownership experience better.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:47  
And hopefully you don't accidentally make an in app purchase.

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:52  
Yeah, I mean, the idea that, you know, the podcast isn't viable, because we're not Tesla is just absurd. It's childish.

Dan Roth  1:26:04  
Yeah. All right.

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:16  
Wait, did somebody really send an email that I interrupt you a lot? Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:21  
No, it's the other way around. Did I interrupt you too much? And if I do, I'm sorry. Oh, I don't feel like I got it all but but but you know, just, you know, keep in mind that you know, we are talking to each other over Skype, you know, where there, there's always some inherent latency and we can't see each other's faces. It's not like we're sitting around the table. And you know, sometimes, you know, we may talk over each other we try you know, I think we all try not to but you know, occasionally it does have we

Dan Roth  1:26:49  
aren't we are we have we have a live thing in the works soon. I should make sure I put airfare for that or book a car to drive because I don't like the carbon footprint of flying. So

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:00  
I'm grateful for I'm grateful that somebody is standing out for me, but and I appreciate that but I don't feel like you and Trump and so I'm sorry if it comes across like that that's too bad because that's definitely not the vibe was

Dan Roth  1:27:11  
was listening to from Larry by any chance.

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:18  
My big brother Larry, definitely gonna come and beat you up.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:22  
It was not from Larry.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:24  
Larry's more likely to smoke a joint, you know?

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:30  
I don't know. But it isn't California where he

Dan Roth  1:27:34  
is I swear to God. I mean, I go skiing on Fridays with my son. He's in the ski club and man there are times when you go to the mountain and you just like, Whoa, kids.

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:47  
When you asked me about man, but the beginning of the show, I did leave out that part. As the day went on, they were definitely had a more interesting aroma.

Dan Roth  1:28:00  
stuff I don't know. I don't know if high people are suggestible as drunk. drunk people, you figure out how you can sort of push them in which direction you want them to go. If you stay, it's, anyway, we are totally off topic. So let's get back on top. What else do we want to talk about?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:18  
So, you know, you know what, you know what's good now that you know now that pot is becoming legal everywhere is you know, in every batch. Well, there's that But eventually, someday, you won't have to worry about you know, being impaired and driving, because you might actually maybe possibly have autonomous vehicles and cruise this past week, showed us what they're getting prepared for that and cruise for those don't recall, is cruise automation is a company that GM bought 2016 to develop their production, automated driving system, and since then, SoftBank and Honda both put money into it, they took equity stake some cruise and this week, cruise in San Cisco showed off the cruise origin. When Honda jumped in to the fray and late 2018. With GM and Cruz, part of that deal was that Honda and GM would collaborate on developing a purpose built, automated vehicle for cruise. And, you know, the reason for that is because, you know, up until now, Cruz has been using a fleet of modified Chevrolet bolts, just as everybody else in this business has been using various modified production vehicles for their for their development purposes. But, frankly, none of the vehicles that you can go out and buy today are really well suited to being robotaxis. Because, you know, they don't have things like doors that close automatically. And, you know, they still have all kinds of other stuff that you don't need for robotaxi like steering wheels and pedals and all kinds of other you know, little you know, trivial things. So, so they of Honda and GM and working together with Cruise development have developed a vehicle that they call the cruise origin, which is a robo taxi. And this is the kind of vehicle there's already some vehicles out there that are not fundamentally different, you know, things like the Navya Arma. And, you know, there's various other developmental, you know, Robo taxis. The, one of the things about the origin is that it's, it really takes into account a lot of the stuff I've been talking about for the last several years and a lot of the talks I give at conferences, you know, which is this idea of Robo taxis need to be modular. And so, it you need to rethink the architecture of the vehicle and you know, today when manufacturers designed vehicles, they designed them to, you know, last 10 1520 years, you know, go you know, a couple hundred thousand miles you know, when you start talking about the robo taxi application, you know, ideally you know, these things are running all You know, caring people delivering packages and so on. And you know, getting very high utilization, they're not sitting around parked 95% of the time, like, our conventional vehicles are. And so, you know, these things are going to be racking up, you know, maybe 100,000 miles a year or more. And if you took a conventional vehicle, you know, thing be worn out two or three years and you scrap it and start over again. What crews and GM and Honda done is they came up, you know, they developed a vehicle where the basic structure of the vehicle is designed to last a million miles, you know, so the structure of the chassis, all that stuff designed for a million miles of use, and then all the stuff that goes into it is modular, and it's designed to be easily replaced. So things like the sensors, and when you've got a technology like automated driving, where it's evolving quickly, you know, two or three years from now the sensors you're using, may well be obsolete and you want something that has better performance, lower cost, saving thing with the communication system, you know, as we're going from 4g to 5g to whatever comes after that, you know, and, you know, and because these things are going to be used for people getting in and out all the time, you know, you want interior seating and things that are designed for this kind of use case, you know, that are going to be durable and easy to clean. Oh, and, you know, you want things like doors that close automatically, you know, if you have, you know, a million Tesla Model three Robo taxis, you know, people get out of the vehicle, they may or may not close the door completely, you know, then the car stuck there and it can't move. And, you know, it's not like a, you know, like a regular taxi or ride hail vehicle where you've got a driver there that can go around and close the doors, the pastor gets out and doesn't close it properly, or leaves the trunklid unlatched you know, all that all this stuff is taken care of in this design, you know, to really, you know, it's addressing what you actually need for this kind of use case.

Dan Roth  1:32:56  
So it seemed like there was a little bit of disappointment with it. When they debuted the other day, although people were saying like, yeah, they're not, they're not messing around, they're pretty serious. But I guess Can you sort of speak to impressions of how it was received?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:15  
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, this, you know, this is not a rush, like put this this is not, you know, a real design statement, you know, it's not, it's not, you know, some sexy looking new sports car, you know, it's basically a box on wheels, which is what all of these things are going to be, you know, it's, it's going to be a box on wheels. Because that is what you actually want for that kind of use case. You know, you want something that's easy to get in and out of, you know, easy to put stuff in, you know, and because there's no operator there, you know, you've got like I said, you got to deal with those other issues. You know, I think, you know, to some, to some degree, you know, the design team has done some interesting things with this thing. Like, you know, the way they've incorporated the cruise colors, you know, they're orange, white Black, you know, to for some of this, you know, it's not, you know, it's got a little more style to it, but you know, it's, it's never going to be something really cool and sexy looking because that kind of vehicle doesn't make sense for this kind of application. You know, a few years ago at CES, Mercedes showed a concept called the fo 15, which was this really sleek looking thing, you know, and that, yeah, that's cool, but, you know, it makes no sense for a robo taxi, you want something that's more upright, you know, and, you know, in the case of the origin, you know, they've got seating for six, you know, everybody facing the middle of the vehicle, you got lots of leg room, you know, easy to move around. It's, it's a much better use case.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:45  
It's sort of the evolution of what we seen in the interiors of airplanes. Right, like, yeah, you know, a private plane looks very different than I then a typical 737 or Airbus A 380 or something. You know, when you look at a private plane, they're small, they've got couches, they've got all sorts of crazy things going on. And that's great for that purpose. But what we're talking about is not private ownership of vehicles. We're talking about a public space. Right? I mean, that's, nobody's gonna, in their driveway, this is a public space this way to get from A to B, isn't that kind of a different thing? Yeah. Don't get me started. Don't get me started on calling.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:32  
No, and that's, you know, that's essentially what we're talking about here is micro transit. Yeah, it's all about, you know, right, setting up getting the right size vehicle for every trip, you know, so this, vehicles like this are, first of all, never going to be sold to consumers. This is only going to be used for mobility services, right? But it's also a case of, you know, it's something where, you know, buses, you know, buses and subways and so on. Great four routes where you have a lot of people going the same direction. But there's a lot of trips that we take in urban areas where you don't have a lot of people going the same direction at the same time. Yes, areas that aren't urban to like those still need mobility. So the okay, right,

Rebecca Lindland  1:36:16  
and the last that last mile, sort of,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:19  
yeah. And so, you know, that's what you know, you there isn't a single silver bullet solution. I think there's a lot of people in urban areas that should be taking buses and subways and trains. But there's a lot of trips where that doesn't make sense. And that's why, you know, transit transit systems are so challenged when it comes to their finances, because they have to try to service as much of a city as they can provide provide service, but there's not enough utilization on a lot of those routes or at certain times of the day, to make it economically.

Dan Roth  1:36:55  
So that's another question I have is like who says that transit has to necessarily make revenue It kind of provides others the, the ability to, to make that revenue like right it provides

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:08  
profit, it doesn't need to make a profit it needs to make it needs to pay for it, or does it?

Dan Roth  1:37:13  
Or does it

Unknown Speaker  1:37:15  
by providing mobility like this

Dan Roth  1:37:17  
is always the knock on it like well, how are we going to pay for it? And it's like well, I mean some capacity that I suppose if you provide enough mobility, right, you can get people to work and then those in theory, I know this is all beautiful theory, those people will pay taxes and those taxes, the revenue that offsets the, the, you know, cost of the system.

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:35  
If they facil Yes, if it facilitates create job creation, then by all means, but it's what you're really focusing on is convenience. We have seen with the the explosion of Uber and Lyft and such that people will pay for convenience. They will pay for pay for it. People that cancer but yeah, but the crazy thing

Dan Roth  1:38:02  
is like those people they can pay for convenience and they're paying ostensibly for convenience, but they're not getting it. They're actually paying to make everything for everybody else including themselves less convenient because they're adding to congestion.

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:16  
Absolutely, I mean, New York City, I have never seen it so crowded and and it's ridiculous. And you can spot an Uber Lyft driver a mile away, because they're driving differently than the yellow taxis. Right? Because those drivers know

Unknown Speaker  1:38:31  
where they're going. Like

Dan Roth  1:38:34  
the yellow taxis is like,

like a mass car with no seat belt.

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:43  
No, you know what's so funny, though, is seriously like, I remember because I actually didn't drive in New York until I was in my 20s even though I grew up because we didn't need to write but I remember having lived in Boston for 13 years with I moved back to this into into the metro New York area. The traffic was far more predictable in Manhattan because you were because you were dealing with yellow taxis and that was your main foe. In Boston, you're dealing with everybody. So it was very unpredictable to me and I actually got into the rhythm of driving in New York because you you anticipate that you know that that Yellow Taxi driver is going to be unbelievably offensive, right? He is defense, he's, he's driving in defensive mode, you then have to drive and appropriate.

Dan Roth  1:39:38  
That's the thing you can mix it up with the taxis and they don't they don't. They don't mind like they'll be aggressive but aggressive back like okay, at a certain point that's

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:45  
expected. That's expected with Uber and Lyft dominating the roads today. It's not you don't know what you're getting because you've got very, you've got people that are everyday drivers, driving other people around. They've they're not qualified, they don't know where they're going. They have not had the same type of training and it's a really different thing. But my whole point is that is that people, this this mobility, these evolution, the evolution in mobility, we have to migrate, it has to evolve towards convenience, because it doesn't evolve towards groups like that's, that's why carpooling is not that popular. Because you can't as set as Sam said, it's about getting the mass to a certain direction. But that funnel as you get closer to that location, the funnel gets narrower and narrower as to how many people actually need to go to that spot. Yes, that's true people. rate and people will pay for the convenience of getting dropped off right at

Dan Roth  1:40:54  
their door. Why something you know, it just is going to take one really solid economic downturn. And then carpooling is going to be back. You know, it's actually, the economic side of it is interesting to me just because SoftBank is an investor and man, SoftBank has not had a good track record lately, especially.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:14  
And that's, that's one of the, one of the things here, you know, SoftBank, you know, it's now becoming, you know, something to, you know, when you see, oh, this is a company that SoftBank put money into, I'm going to Jacqueline. Yeah. But, so, you know, and this is something that, you know, we can, we'll be talking about more in the future, but, you know, this is, you know, just one piece of, you know, a multimodal mobility ecosystem that, you know, goes from micro micro mobility, you know, scooters and bikes, to, you know, pods like this to, to mass transit, you know, and everything in between, you know, we, we need a lot of different solutions, you know, so that you have the right vehicle for every trip, you know, Because, you know, there is there is no solution that is ideal for everything for every trip for every person. So we

Dan Roth  1:42:05  
talked about I think the philosophy behind this, there's any any sort of like engineering things that stood out? I mean, you got to, you know, two companies that are solid engineering powerhouses GM and Honda, you know, putting this thing together, is it? I'm assuming it's viable and not just so

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:22  
yeah, yeah. I mean, they were, you know, they were pretty light on specific details, but I did get some stuff from a variety of people I talked to this week. First of all, the, the TV platform that they're using for this thing is not based on the bolt, it's actually what they call their bed three platform is their new generation EV platform, which is going to be so it means it's sharing components with, you know, things like the upcoming Cadillac electric crossover that's coming in various other EV sort of coming from GM in the next couple of years. Also You know, they, in order to try to keep the cost of this vehicle manageable, you know, they're staying away from exotic materials like carbon fiber and so on. It's got a basic steel unibody structure, you know, and, you know, but they they claim that, you know, the cost of this vehicle, even with the automated driving system is going to, they didn't give a specific number, but they hinted that it would be about half the cost of a premium electric SUV. And, and the the slide that they showed during the presentation, they had two crews origins, and a Tesla Model X. And you know, so that kind of implies that it's somewhere in the 45 to $50,000 price range. And when I talked to people afterwards, they said, yeah, that's about right, somewhere in that neighborhood. And by getting rid of things that you don't need, from conventional vehicles, like the steering wheel, and pedals and mirrors and windshield wipers, and, you know, power seats and all this other stuff that we've been talking about today. You know, that takes a lot of costs. Out of the thing, you know, and keeping it a more simple, straightforward thing and then, you know, making it modular so that you can easily service and replace these various components that over the over the life of the vehicle.

Dan Roth  1:44:12  
I think it's a very smart approach. Hmm. I look forward to take your ride on it. telling people what I think.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:22  
I hear I hear it's going to show up somewhere later, somewhere this summer for some pilot programs and I'm sure we'll start seeing these on the streets in San Francisco. You know, sometime in the next several

Dan Roth  1:44:33  
days super duper can't wait to heckle the crap out of that and Boston traffic either.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:40  
Lead is one of the challenges that AV developers have is dealing with hecklers

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:46  
super duper.

Dan Roth  1:44:51  
Do we have any other topics that we wanted to cover? And we got a little bit out of order I think with with our topic list, but I think we covered everything.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:00  
Yeah, we did. say there's a couple other emails but let's save those for next time. Praise any effusive praise. I'll take the effusive praise. Yeah. So there was chuckles me. Yeah, he he sent us his hello world email. He's just to let us know he's out there. And his current fleet includes a no seven BMW M roadster a 65, e type Jaguar 779, BMW 320 and an 87 m six. So, yeah, and then he's had a bunch of other interesting vehicles over the years as well. So it's these are actually some of some of these he actually still has. Oh, he says, These days he mostly drives a Kubota diesel tractor.

Dan Roth  1:45:51  
tractor is the tractor drive the tractor.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:54  
Sounds like he said he drives. So we'll see.

Dan Roth  1:45:57  
I think there's a market for like rhetoric. fitting the autonomous driving on the tractors that can be repaired.

Rebecca Lindland  1:46:05  
Yeah, a lot of caffeine today.

Dan Roth  1:46:09  
I had a little bit I also think there's a market for, you know, making screens that replace the giant touch screens and cars and you have buttons and switches on them and maybe,

Rebecca Lindland  1:46:19  
right. I will say, I was so excited today, because I was able to both turn the radio on, adjust the volume and change the station, the very first time in the Jeep Wrangler, and I appreciate

Dan Roth  1:46:31  
that's, that's that is excellent. Yeah, just wait till next year when they put like a 24 inch curved screen. I think the curves actually gonna be good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:39  
And we'll be talking more about screens next week. All right, awesome.

Dan Roth  1:46:44  
Can't wait until then. We'll catch everybody later. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai