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.

Dan Roth  0:13  
All right, well, are you guys all fully disinfected and not seeing anybody? Like it's, it's been great the last couple of weeks because basically was just like, keep doing what you do because you don't like people don't go out anywhere.

Don't talk to they don't see anyone. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:31  
Every introverts dream.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:34  
Fortunately, you know, I live in a nice suburban neighborhood, you know, so there's lots of room, you know, so I go out and walk Daisy couple times every day and, you know, I see all my, I see my neighbors walking their dogs, and it's great because, you know, the dog leash length, you know, for we let the dogs get, you know, close to each other and greet each other, you know, then we're just the right distance apart from each other to

Unknown Speaker  0:55  
for social distancing, so it's perfect

Dan Roth  0:59  
dog So the kids have been given SR crazy, they, you know, kick him out into the backyard and do my son's kicking around a football for a while and stuff and the dog goes out as the medieval alarm system. It's excellent. put them out there. And then he alerts anytime somebody walks by. It's great. So I

Rebecca Lindland  1:15  
actually got back from Vegas. We left Vegas on Saturday. And of course, everything closed down last night. And so we were sort of waiting to see what would happen. But everything went dark yesterday. So we just, yeah,

Dan Roth  1:30  
it's pretty wild. We'll pray for you, by the way. I mean, I don't pray but we'll pray for you.

Rebecca Lindland  1:35  
You know, it's it was it was very interesting. being there and seeing, you know, most of the people that showed up for this huge trade show that my brother I was helping my brother with. I they're in the construction company, construction industry, it's only three years. And so it's really people you know, that are buying these huge tractors and buying this heavy equipment and stuff and You know, for the most part, it was one of those, like, if you're there, you're you're pretty. I don't want to say Cavalier because people were careful. But it was it was very interesting. And then, you know, the dominoes just started falling as we were, as we were there, and they ended up closing the show half a day early. But yeah, it was, I mean, we got out of Vegas just in time.

Dan Roth  2:22  
No, well, we're glad that you're back because you're able to be on the show. It's, it's kind of an amazing time that we're all sort of living through. So we'll see where it winds up. We can talk about the cars we've been driving, I fully expect that at some point, they're going to turn off the tap at least for of, of cars to drive. they've they've shut down the factories for now. So, um, you

Rebecca Lindland  2:49  
know, I mean, I think we're, we're so fortunate, though, that that provided the excellent agencies that do send fleet management agencies that do send us cars. You know, when you think about travel Writers and stuff everyone, you know, or restaurant, one of my good friends is a restaurant critic and obviously she has to figure out something else and like, you know, for the travel for the travel vlogs they really, you know, there's an opportunity to actually look around your own hometown and see what sites are they or what's close to homes, but it's definitely requires reimagining so we're at least fortunate that we can keep reviewing cars as long as they keep delivering them.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:27  
Yeah, I mean, if you're if you're an Instagram influencer right now, you're basically screwed.

Dan Roth  3:31  
Yeah. Exactly. You know, it's, it's been really I don't want to belabor the point but it's been amazing in some ways to watch the air quality improvement. You know, the way I'm sure there's a lot of industries that have are struggling with this. There's people within my own company that are struggling with working remote, but a lot of us it's not a big deal. I mean, I, we're doing video production remote, and we're sending things around across the VPN and, you know, stuff like that sometimes you have to wait a little bit, but we're all pretty much proving that commuting to the office is not entirely necessary.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:16  
Yeah, I mean, this is gonna be one of the fascinating things to watch. You know, earlier this afternoon, my colleagues and I were, you know, we had a call, we were reviewing our overall vehicle sales forecast, looking at our forecast model, and, you know, making some, some updates to it, you know, and particularly in light of what's going on both with the pandemic, and, you know, also with oil prices crashing in the past week, you know, with this disagreement between the Saudis and the Russians, you know, West Texas, intermediate crude today was down to $21 a barrel.

Unknown Speaker  4:52  
And we had an earthquake here in Utah that was add

Sam Abuelsamid  5:00  
What I was gonna get to is, you know, when we're talking about how we need to update our forecasts or sales forecast, you know, there's obviously a lot of uncertainty. But you know, with so many people working from home now, obviously, there's huge number of jobs that you can't work remotely. But they're, you know, there are certainly hundreds of thousands, you know, probably millions of workers in this country, that work in offices, that many of them, you know, are now working at home for the first time. And, you know, once companies see this in action for a period of time, I have a feeling that, you know, a lot of companies are going to look at how this works out, and if it works out, okay. And if it's manageable, that a lot of these people going forward may end up at least part of the week, you know, maybe maybe not going into the office five days a week, but working at least a few days a week from home, perhaps on a permanent basis. And if that happens You know, now all of a sudden, you've got a lot fewer people commuting. You know, and so that could have a positive impact both on air quality, but also on congestion and safety. And but then, you know, there's all kinds of cascading effects from that. Because, you know, all of a sudden, if companies don't need as much office space, right, that has an impact on the real estate market, the commercial real estate market, then that cascades into, you know, the businesses that support office workers, you know, restaurants and bars and dry cleaners and all this other stuff. So it's, you know, it could have a significant you know, perhaps permanent impact, you know, on the economy and also on vehicle sales right and not not necessarily

Dan Roth  6:43  
good either. It's, it's been fascinating. Well, some

Sam Abuelsamid  6:46  
aspects are good, but some

Dan Roth  6:48  
are like I really liked that when I when I was at the office last week. It was amazing to commute was no traffic,

Rebecca Lindland  6:58  
but also on the flip side, To when you talk about that commercial space use, you could actually see an increase in things like restaurants going into these places. Because if you've been home all day, maybe you do want to go out then in the evening, you know, and you're saving, you're using money differently. You're, you're living in working very differently than if you like, like here in this in Connecticut where people take the train in, you know, and you're saving, like, I know, you know, one of my friends he used usually is on the 7am train, and, you know, goes into the city, works for a big bank and gets home at like, you know, 730 at night. And all of a sudden, his he's walking to his office, you know, in the next and another part of his house, working there all day. And when he's done, he walks downstairs, and voila, he's that's his commute, you know? Yeah, it's the amount of time that he's saving that he's getting back I should say, right? It was just phenomenal.

Dan Roth  7:59  
I get I'm getting Three hours a day back into my schedule. And I'm yeah, I'm better rested. Like, right I'm in a better frame of mind I'm in you know, I was looking at my timesheet because I'm filling in my hours every day. So most days I put in a solid eight and a half, nine hour day usually about eight and a half and I think my timesheet for the last couple of days is like I think Monday It was a 10 and a half hour day yesterday it was nine and a half and it didn't it like it just it was no big deal. like okay, fine, like stuff had to get done. But I was home I started earlier, I work till like eight o'clock, like I took breaks for things and stuff it gets here but it like it's much, much better environment if you can do it. And so I think the companies are going to see that like, oh, by the way, these people are more productive and less cranky. I just

Rebecca Lindland  8:54  
went to Sam's point like how does this affect the vehicle market? You know, in some ways, suddenly Maybe, maybe you see a household that has an SUV and a convertible, right? Because now all of a sudden, you're like, I don't need a car, I don't need a car to get to and from the train station, I need a car to get me out of the house and go for a drive and enjoy the drive all of a sudden, you know, it's just a really different. It's a different attitude when you work from home. And even as you say, like, even if you do it a couple of times a week, suddenly you don't have that, you know, that hamster wheel effect on your life. And you're and you just, you're getting so much time back. It's just it's phenomenal. I have worry.

Dan Roth  9:42  
Yeah. Oh, I was too worried about the restaurants just because, you know where?

Rebecca Lindland  9:47  
No, absolutely. I mean, the lunch crowd suddenly

Sam Abuelsamid  9:50  
gets Rebecca's point, though, you know, maybe if people are working from home, you know, like, if you live in Connecticut and commuting to Manhattan, you know, yeah, it could be Yeah, it may may well hurt a lot of restaurants in Manhattan, right. But on the other hand, it could benefit restaurants that are local to where you live. So you, you, you might see a shift, you know, and it's funny, as you're speaking, I pulled up Google Maps, you know, pulled up San Francisco on Google Maps, and look at traffic like that, you know, so right now, as we record, it's 4pm. In San Francisco, and, you know, four o'clock in the afternoon, you know, anywhere in the Bay Area, you know, it's clogged normally. And it's showing green lines everywhere. Light traffic in this area, much faster than usual. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  10:37  
Just pulled up, right. La is the same way. La I mean, it's just, it's insane.

Dan Roth  10:43  
I saw somebody tweeted something about the air quality in LA and like particulate emissions were like, zero. And yeah, it's incredible to parks.

Rebecca Lindland  10:51  
And you know, I think that this is an opportunity to find a balance. So when we think about people that live in work in Manhattan, those that you No are local and live and work in the city. They're ones that you say, you know what, they have the possibility to return to normal to go into the city. It's the people that are commuting. And there are a lot of them as we see when we notice this traffic. So, again, it's sort of just rethinking, you know, rethinking the work day, and rethinking how we work. So what I was gonna say earlier, the funny thing about my friend who who isn't commuting anymore, is that the bank that he works for he had, he had asked if he could work from home, like once, once a week, and they said, Oh, no, we're not licensed in Connecticut. So you can't work from home.

Unknown Speaker  11:40  
It wasn't anything you sense Exactly. It's something

Rebecca Lindland  11:43  
that has completely disappeared. Yes, it was nonsense and he knew it at the time, but it was one of those like battles you're just not gonna win. And so of course now, you know, and I just it again, it's I think it's just there's there's a tremendous amount of opportunity. Unity here, we just have to focus on that as opposed to focusing on the threat, which, where's the opportunity? I was reading something about Lincoln dealership, you know, that's delivered that's delivering cars. You know, there's a Kia dealer up in Seattle who sold a Sedona for $40,000 by going to the person's house and dropping it off for

Dan Roth  12:20  
that, but it seemed like this is all stuff that like used to happen to like the car dealer in town used to deliver the car to you. Yeah, like it. It was delivered, you know, right.

Rebecca Lindland  12:33  
Right. And certainly milk, right. Yeah. It's just, it's,

Dan Roth  12:36  
it's interesting. And, you know, like, yes, maybe the, like, my local suburban restaurants will be okay. But because we're sprawled out like, I don't, I don't know. Like, it's I'm nervous in some ways. And I, I worry about people who really don't have a choice, and they work in the service sector. It's, it's great for some Yeah, I mean, good luck. For others,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:00  
yeah, later Later this year, you know, it's it's going to be really bad for there's going to be a lot of your favorite restaurants are probably never going to reopen. Yeah, just because, you know, they can't, they can't get by, you know, even if they're, you know, a lot of restaurants right now or doing, you know, takeout and delivery. But you know, that's not going to be enough to sustain them and a lot of others, you know, are just they just had to close completely and they money I'm probably won't ever reopen. And that's unfortunate, and a lot of other small and medium sized businesses are going to be in the same position. You know, the second half of this year, we're probably going to be in a significant recession. You know, and, you know, we're probably going to see a significant drop in GDP and vehicle sales and everything.

Dan Roth  13:48  
Oh, vehicle sales are poised already like already GM is offering an 84 month this year for senators.

Rebecca Lindland  13:56  
Right. I mean, it will be and especially for people that are, you know, that are putting off a purchase? Now we do still have leases. So those people that will lease will have to buy. And there's also, again, always those people that look at the opportunities, you know, maybe I can get a better deal. But it's me, I'm not saying that it's going to be all rosy by any stretch. No, but there, it's, you know, and I mean, the positive here is that we have come from a period of, of economic growth. And so, you know, we aren't, we aren't starting this on our knees, which

Sam Abuelsamid  14:35  
we've had, we've had overall economic growth, but, you know, for, you know, the lower and middle income sectors, you know, they have not actually made much real progress in the past 10 years. And they, you know, over the really over the last 40 years, you know, median incomes in this country have been basically stagnant.

Dan Roth  14:57  
Thanks. See, Ronnie. Okay, sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:00  
So, you know, there's a lot of people, you know, large proportion of the population that has very little, if any savings, I realized that 400

Rebecca Lindland  15:09  
average and now I know

Sam Abuelsamid  15:11  
they're gonna be struggling for a while. Yeah.

Dan Roth  15:14  
And the I was trying to game this out in my head too is the ones who are going to be able to weather at the best, are maybe not necessarily your favorites. It's the large corporations with available credit lines to draw down that are going to be able to take a shorter term financial hit, and continue to pay and retain their workers. And, you know, businesses without that kind of availability of credit or just low margin businesses are going to have a much tougher time so your, you know, your your feet

Sam Abuelsamid  15:50  
are those are the ones that 96% of their cash flow over the last decade on stock buybacks,

Dan Roth  15:55  
airlines airlines kiss my ass, they can go bankrupt and somebody He can buy them out of the ashes and make a real business. I mean, some of the shenanigans that have been going on have gotten us here to the point where it's really I don't want to get very political but it's it's difficult to listen to talk about bailouts but not have it go where it needs to go like we need to bail out those lower and middle income people not the corporations what they

Rebecca Lindland  16:27  
are talking about that though that's that is very much on the table.

Dan Roth  16:30  
Yeah, I mean, the kind of certainly

Rebecca Lindland  16:33  
we don't want to get too political but it is both they are talking about it's not just focused on the corporation's they are

Unknown Speaker  16:40  
spelling out, it seems very heavily again, I haven't paid attention to him, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  16:47  
sending everybody a check for 1000 bucks that's gonna go very far if this you know, if we're locked down for three months or four months,

Rebecca Lindland  16:56  
I was going to say was, if you bet if you do bail out The Corporation's it that should in turn, save some jobs.

Dan Roth  17:06  
It did, should I it depends on how it's done, you know, like I was, I was like you think about the bailouts in 2008. Like those were pretty good. Nobody was super happy with them on any of the sides. They they had to happen to and they had to happen the way they had to happen to maintain jobs really like there's, again, you know, some people got parachutes and stuff and isn't just things to be criticized there. But if we're going to do the same kind of thing, again, I really think that things like buybacks and board seats, and you know, a lot of a lot of things that are important to the sensible running of a company that will wind up not leaving its its workers who can least afford it indigent will be very important to those bailouts. It should be very important to this bailout. So

Sam Abuelsamid  17:59  
all right. Right on politics this week we start we started this off by you know, I'm about to talk about what we're driving.

Dan Roth  18:10  
Well clearly we're driving our listeners away with you know what, Rebecca, you haven't? Don't we sort of Frankenstein the last one together? So it's been a while since we've been on together. Um, why don't you? Why don't you tell us about the handy venue.

Rebecca Lindland  18:27  
Oh my gosh, this thing was such a cute fun little car. I just I loved it. So I had it. I gosh, it is a couple weeks ago. Now. And you know, it's just a happy Zippy little car. It's, it's not going to be the most exciting thing to drive it doesn't you know, to send the most exciting acceleration, but it's just a happy little car. So I had the denim version, I which is the base is the SC which starts at 16,003 50 the one that I had That goes to SEO and then denim is the top trends. So that one starts at $21,050 which is, you know, I think a fantastic price. It's got this exclusive denim color, it looks like a nice pair of jeans, both inside and out. And then the roof is white, which is super cute. And then it's got you know, so they it doesn't, it doesn't have full leather seats, but that was okay because it has this combo seat. So the one that I had is I had a 1.6 liter engine for cylinder 121 horsepower, which again is not fantastic. I definitely felt like it was a little bit struggling a little bit on some of the more aggressive hills that are on the mirror Parkway around here, which can get pretty steep. But for the most part for running around town, it was just fun. It was just delightful.

Dan Roth  19:50  
Our small cars the best

Rebecca Lindland  19:52  
it was and you know, my nephew Jake, he came out and did a little Instagram video with me which I'm actually going to send to To edit for me, but you know, he just he really, really liked it. He's 25. And he was like, you know, this is just the perfect size, the shape of it, he can throw all this crap in there, you know, it's quite square. It's sort of like a, it's almost to me, it was very similar to the feeling that I had in the Kia Soul, which is, again, such a cute little car. But I don't know, I just, you know, it's just a happy little car. And I thought for the price point, it's fantastic. The only downside we were super bummed about is that there's no sunroof in the denim, you can only get the center and the Sal, which I thought was really kind of strange. It's not even an option like you can't even add it. And so I'm not sure what that logic was, but I thought

Sam Abuelsamid  20:49  
it may it may have something to do you know, because it's got that to tell and finish with the contrast in roof color. It may have been just a little too complicated to manage. You know, doing that two tone paint with, you know, having the coal in the roof.

Rebecca Lindland  21:06  
Okay, he looked into getting it getting one installed is going to be like 13 or 1400 dollars but so so that would be the reason that you think the paint job

Sam Abuelsamid  21:16  
that would be my guess. Okay. I mean if it's available in the CL and not in the denim may have just been a case of manufacturing complexity

Dan Roth  21:26  
or keeping the cost down is the other thing. That's

Rebecca Lindland  21:32  
right.

Unknown Speaker  21:32  
Yeah, I go ahead.

Rebecca Lindland  21:35  
Have you guys driven it?

Sam Abuelsamid  21:36  
I did have a chance for a brief drive in the venue last fall last November. When Hyundai was doing an event here at their their tech center, a pre la backgrounder and I got a chance to spend about 20 minutes driving it around, and I liked it a lot. I mean, I think it's it's a really nice size, you know, it's a relatively small footprint, but it's still fairly roomy inside. And it's like a lot of these entry level compact crossovers that we started to see pop up in the last couple of years, like the Nissan Kicks and, you know, this one and there's a few others that, you know, they, they've, they've, you know, they give it kind of a cool look, you know, it drives pretty well, you know, it's, you know, it's obviously not a sports car, you know, it's got a beam axle on the back, you know, but the ride quality is still decent, it's reason it's quite well equipped, you know, you got a, you know, even on the base se, you know, you get a decent audio system, you know, and, you know, with a touchscreen system that's got Android Auto and CarPlay support, you know, so you're, you're not actually sacrificing all that much now, you know, granted, you know, for you know, for somebody, you know, first time buyer, you know, even, you know, 18,000 delivered, you know for the base, se you know, it's not cheap, but by today's standards, it's it's quite affordable, you know, and if you can get a loan, you know, you can get some you can probably get some pretty, you know, reasonable payments on that. So it's, yeah, it's I think it's a very practical vehicle. You know, it comes standard with Lane Keeping Assist and for collision avoidance and

Rebecca Lindland  23:19  
yeah, good safety things on it, you know, that I that I personally was kind of impressed with, I mean, I guess again for that for that price point. Now, now the SEC doesn't have like blind spot warning, rear cross traffic alert, but you can add that I for 1100 dollars to the SEO and the denim does have its standard. And so so it's,

Sam Abuelsamid  23:46  
there's a lot of value. You're getting a lot of free money.

Rebecca Lindland  23:49  
Yeah, there was a lot of value and I like the fact that you know, they make that SC available $16,000 it's not a lot of money at all, but you do get into a brand new vehicle and as you say, Sam you know, it's got some really nice features

Sam Abuelsamid  24:04  
to it and it's got great warranties and great great quality,

Rebecca Lindland  24:09  
right great quality and you know and then and then you can the trim walk was really nice because then you could add you know, you can spend a few thousand dollars if you're if your budget allows and you know, what does that come out to about $100 more a month to get, you know, the fully equipped a really nice looking either Sal or denim. And you know, it was just it was super easy to get in and out of it's got it does have the drive modes to it. And you know, so you can switch it into a drive mode for for snow because it does not offer all wheel drive. But yeah, again, just the features in it. It was a really I just thought it was a really really good value and super fun to drive and zip around town and and such it's, you know, you're not going to take it all on long road trips, by any means but you can

Sam Abuelsamid  25:00  
Did it probably you know, it wouldn't be a terrible place to spend a few hours.

Rebecca Lindland  25:04  
No, no, not a few hours is fine like I was I was actually I would have loved to have driven it, you know, like up to Boston which is like a three hour drive and back or something. But for what the time I spent in it, you know, probably probably an hour in total each way. It was it was good. It was it was just a lot of fun as you say it's got, you know, a five year 60,000 mile warranty it's got a 10 year 100,000 powertrain limited I and you know, they they just they have they've done a really nice job with it. I think it's I think it's just a lot of fun. It just makes it makes me smile. It makes me happy. And it's one of those

Sam Abuelsamid  25:41  
miles per gallon combined.

Rebecca Lindland  25:43  
Right well and you know, it's just it's it's just a good all around little guy. I liked it.

Dan Roth  25:50  
They speak my language when it's stuff like you know, beam axles and I don't say that in jessic I like small cheap cars especially When they're done well so they put the money into the features into the stuff that matters a lot more to most drivers and I haven't driven the venue but I've driven the key area which is related. And I remember really liking that car didn't seem cheap, it was not expensive. But the the way it was outfitted the way it was put together and the just the value you get the material choices, there's good that that's that's sort of their shtick lately, right is to both

Rebecca Lindland  26:31  
Yes, it is. I mean, I think that it's, they can they are so consistent in surprising and delighting a buyer with their features and and their amenities and the quality and the fit and the finish and all these things. You know, think of how many times we've driven a Hyundai or Kia and been really impressed and you know, a friend of mine just bought a telluride because I told her I was like you got to go and if you want one, you got to go and get one before Cuz, you know, they're there. They're just not that many around and they're selling really quickly and she absolutely absolutely loves it. And it's just, you know, they're just doing a really good job.

Dan Roth  27:11  
Yeah. I will agree with that. Um, some of the Let's jump over too soon. It's small, cheap. SUVs still? Well, small SUVs. Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:26  
Yeah, that's so much on the cheap.

Dan Roth  27:27  
Yeah, I think you mentioned this the last time we recorded a podcast was the you were in the road sport. And you wouldn't talk about it that much. But you mentioned the price.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:36  
Yeah. So you know, Nissan, like Hyundai And increasingly, most automakers, you know, is kind of going to paths with their small crossovers, you know, so they've got the entry level models like the the venue and the kicks, you know, and then they've got a step up model, which in the case of Nissan is the rogue sport, which looks a lot Like the bigger rogue fool? Yeah, it's it's, it's just smaller. And you know, they introduced this in the US market a couple years ago. You know, they've had it they had it in Europe for some time were sold as the the Qashqai. But here it's, it's the rogue sport. And, you know, it's pretty much starts where the kicks leaves off or you know, the venue and other you know, the comparable models. You know, so the starting price for the road sport s, front wheel drive, is $23,000. The one I had was the sell the top end model with all wheel drive, and it came including destination charges $33,860 which, wow.

Dan Roth  28:50  
That's too much money.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:51  
Yeah. You know, granted, you know, you can get one in the mid 20s. You know, without, not without, you know, it's not that hard. But you know for this top end model you know almost $34,000 you know it granted you know it's it's a lot nicer interior than a kicks or a venue for that matter you know it had leather seats and you know nice nicely finished materials on the dashboard and everything you know heated seats and steering wheel and all that good stuff lots lots and lots of good toys to play with. And you know it it even included things like pro pilot assist, you know, so you have it's still a hands on but it's you know, lane centering adaptive cruise control system, you know, which they've now got on much of the the Nissan lineup available, at least as an option on much of the Nissan lineup. And, you know, unlike unlike this, the Nissan systems that just have the standard adaptive cruise control without pro pilot, you know, all those and I complained about this, you know, a couple weeks ago, when I think with the Sentra when I was growing Having it or it was the verse the Versa Sorry, I haven't driven the century, the Versa and, and also with the Armada, when you use the adaptive cruise control, it's a full stop and go system. Literally stop and go. So when you're in traffic, it'll bring the vehicle to a complete stop. But then once it stops, it releases the brakes. So if you don't put your foot on the brake pedal, it'll start to creep again.

Unknown Speaker  30:23  
We know

Rebecca Lindland  30:26  
you and I ran into that

Sam Abuelsamid  30:27  
when we were first launch. Yeah, exactly.

Rebecca Lindland  30:29  
Yeah. So remember that because I think I was driving. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:35  
Yeah, cuz i think i think i pointed out to you, wait, whatever. So anyway, you know, when when you get pro pilot, though, it doesn't do that. It does actually keep the brakes applied. So when you come to a stop, it'll hold the brakes until you're ready to go again. You know, the sun, you know, it's the rogue sport. Nice looking little crossover. little bit bigger than, you know, then the kicks or the venue, but not by much. And it's within a couple inches. You know, lots of features inside, you know, decently roomy, comfortable, rides pretty well. It's got the same two liter, four cylinder and CVT transmission that you'll find in the Versa, and a bunch of other Nissan vehicles. So it's 141 horsepower. I think it's, you know, it's it's adequate performance, you know, I wouldn't complain about, you know, the performance, as you know, the basic vehicle. But it seemed like, especially in this car, especially at this price point. Yeah, it was I don't, I wouldn't say was particularly noisier than it was in the Sentra or the Versa, I mean, but you know, the Versa was a $21,000 car. This is half again as much. And at this price point, I expect a power train. That's a little more refined than this, you know, it was kind of noisy, not rough. But you know, you could tell it was it was working. And, you know, obviously this is also a heavier car than the Versa, or heavier vehicle diversity because it's got all wheel drive, it's a crossover, it's taller. And so I'd say the power train was a less pleasant six, significantly less pleasant experience. Or, you know, not not as well suited to the price point, as it was in the in the Versa.

Rebecca Lindland  32:32  
Yeah, that's, that's my issue with any of these vehicles, is that, you know, when you get into that $33,000 range, what else is available? You know, what else can I buy for that exact chord, and that's the thing, or a Mazda CX 30 or Mazda CX 30. And so that's the issue that I have with some of these. It's not that we're not willing to pay for value or that We're not willing to pay for features. It's just that then you look and say, but wait a minute, what else? What other vehicle Could I get for that amount of money?

Sam Abuelsamid  33:11  
Ya know, that's that's an excellent point. You know, and, you know, we've talked about this before, you know, we always try to, when we talk about these vehicles, we try to put them in the context of, you know, who's the customer, how much you paying for this thing? You know, and what, what, what are you getting for the money you're paying, you know, for a less expensive vehicle, you I think, you know, it's, it's reasonable for anybody to just to expect to make a few sacrifices, you know, or to give up, you know, certain certain amount of refinement, you know, that, you know, that you're, you're going to pay a lot more, you know, that in a more expensive vehicle. You're going to get that extra refinement and in this case, For the most part, it's it's really nice. Yeah, I, I didn't really have any other significant complaints about the rogue sport. But the the power train definitely seemed unrefined for this, this price point relative to, I guess even a bass rogue sport, you know, which has the same engine and you know, they only have this one powertrain combination. You know, and, you know, at 23,000 I'd be fine with it. But a 33,000 Yeah. 34,000 Yeah, now, now, I'd be second guessing. You know, if I'm gonna pay this much money, I want something that behaves a little better. And so that's, that's my prime complaint about this. Other than that, you know, the rest of it was fine. You know, the seats are comfortable. You know, it's got, you know, reasonable amount of cargo space in the back. You know, and, you know, for a smaller crossover, you know, I think it's, you know, it can handle for adults, you know, fairly easily so, it's, it's You know, with pro pilot, you know it that works reasonably well you know, it's not, it's not the best such system out there but it works fine. So, I think, you know, if only it had a better power train or maybe some some more sound deadening material or something, you know, then I'd be much more interested in in recommending it. And you know, the other thing too is, you know, at the same price point, you know, mentioned the CX 30 You know, this the CX 30 has does have a more refined powertrain that also has, like 45 more horsepower than this one does. So,

Rebecca Lindland  35:36  
that's a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:37  
Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  35:38  
Except that that really makes a huge difference then.

Dan Roth  35:41  
I mean, it's 33 k though like you could even go up a size. If that's what you want it to do. I know size is not always what is on buyers minds, but size matters.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:55  
While it does matter, but not not not always necessarily bigger and you know, it depends. You know, if you live, if you're commuting into an urban environment, you know, if you need something with a smaller footprint, it's easier to park, you know, than a smaller vehicle like this, you know, may actually be the preferred choice. Yeah. So it all depends on what you're what you're using. I mean,

Dan Roth  36:13  
like 33 k also like, and and if you're looking for something small, you could even get into a mini, I'm pretty sure for 33 k No, I mean, sure. Wouldn't be Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  36:24  
no, you probably wouldn't be as reliable. But

Rebecca Lindland  36:27  
that but i think that's Sam's whole point is that it's, it isn't actually about the size. If this is the right size for you, then you do expect something though, that has a level of luxury and refinement, that for $33,000.

Sam Abuelsamid  36:41  
Yeah, or you know if, if that's the price point you want and you're willing to go a little bit bigger, you know, you could step into something like a cx five ram or rav4 or you know, an escape or any number in our CRV or any number of other vehicles that are a size class up from this, you know, as That same price point.

Dan Roth  37:01  
All right, make sure you get into an actual rogue. Watch.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:05  
Oh, you could Yeah, you know. And you see the I think the rogue starts about Rockstar to 25,000 for the ass. Yeah. So you could you could get an all wheel drive rogue, you know for the same price point like an s an SV

Dan Roth  37:25  
Yes, I mean it depends, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:26  
yeah, you can get a rogue SV, you know, the mid, the mid level rogue for 28 grand with all wheel drive. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  37:34  
it, it doesn't,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:36  
or even ESL you can get you can get an all wheel drive SL, which is the top end rope for $33,000.

Dan Roth  37:42  
It doesn't cost them any less to build the road sport than it does the road. That's true. You know, so I can understand why. It's not necessarily a reasonable expectation that it should be.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:54  
But it's an especially, you know, since you're getting you know, you have access to Most of the same features, you know, and there's you know, there's a lot of stuff that you get in this that you can't get an A kicks or a venue or, you know, these lower end crossovers. So, you know, if you want things like pro pilot, if you want things like leather seats or heated seats, you know, or a Bose audio system, you know, those things are only available in, you know, when you step up to one of these other ones.

Dan Roth  38:25  
So I you know, it's a very competitive market, and it's getting more and more stratified. So, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  38:34  
well, you know, and granted, you know, the rogue and the rogue sport, you know, are both reaching the end of their life cycle I would expect you know that, within the next 12 months, we'll see a next generation rogue sport. We were actually supposed to see the new rogue the 2021 rogue, which was redesigned at the New York Auto Show which also has been cancelled or postponed till August. And they were they were actually supposed to do about Background are here in Detroit in a couple of weeks, but that's been postponed until an indeterminant date, till they figure out when they can actually gather some people together. So, it's, you know, we will be seeing next generation models of these, which, you know, hopefully, you know, will be improved in a number of ways, you know, perfect. I think, like I said, to me, the main thing that I would like to see improved at this price point is the power train. The rest of it, I think, was perfectly acceptable.

Dan Roth  39:30  
Well, all right, let's move on from the rogue, which was too much money to the BMW 2020. I mean, the 2020 BMW M 340. I, which is also too much money. Just more too much money.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:45  
So yeah, so the M 340. I think you said three, did you say 320?

Dan Roth  39:49  
I should have said m 340. If I didn't, I'm sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:53  
So yeah, so this is the new generation three series, which we don't yet have, you know, a true M version of yet we don't have a new m three m four. Those are coming later this year, I think. But, you know, the M 340 is kind of that in between model. It's the high end of the mainstream. Three series. It's

Dan Roth  40:15  
more than anybody really needs.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:17  
That's true. Yeah. You know, I think i think that's that's, that's very true. Not about need.

Dan Roth  40:23  
That's true. That's right farm forbid for me to dictate what somebody else needs. I'm just saying like, it's, it's more than than I as a driving enthusiast actually needs. How's that? I'll just personalize it. You do what you will?

Sam Abuelsamid  40:40  
Yeah. So let me let me say first, BMW inline six cylinder engines are among my favorite engines of all time. I love BMW six cylinders. They're great engines, they, they feel great. They sound great. They've always had lots of torque. You know, they're, you know, they're very smooth but they have this Really nice mechanical sound to them that I really appreciate. And so, you know, and you know, the the version that's in this particular, you know, in the the M 340. I, you know, has 384 horsepower.

Unknown Speaker  41:17  
That's bonkers.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:18  
Yeah, so where's power? Yeah, you know, and, you know, sorry 382 horsepower and 369 foot pounds of torque, you know, from 1800 to 5000 rpm. So I mean, it's got a nice flat torque curve, which is it's fantastic. You know, basically just squeeze the pedal at any time and it pulls. The one I had was was all wheel drive. You know, I think I would probably if I was choosing one for myself, I'd probably go with the rear wheel drive, the base rear wheel drive version, because it's going to be lighter. And, you know, I like the, you know, with this kind of power level. I like, you know, having having rear wheel drive As opposed to all wheel drive, you know, at least most of the year. Unfortunately, you know, it's only available with an eight speed automatic. Now you can't get a manual transmission in here anymore. The last three series I drove a couple years back was a 340 is not an M 340, but just a regular 340 i. And I think that one had about 350 horsepower at the time. And it had a six speed manual and some nice with that six speed manual. You can't get that anymore. Because you know what, three, four, maybe five.

Dan Roth  42:37  
It's so dull with the automatic I didn't drive an M. I think the only current version of the current three series I've driven is a 320. That was a boring car.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:51  
You know, and this is a lot less boring. I would not call it boring. But you know, it's just it's not quite the same without a manual transmission. You know, I definitely appreciate having a stick. And I've always liked BMW manuals, they've always done a lovely job with their manual transmissions. You know, as automatics go, you know, it's it's not a bad one, but it's an automatic, you know, is it a PD? Is it a dual clutch? No, it's just a standard, you know, torque converter. Gear automatic. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  43:20  
that's true. I mean, the M series really doesn't need to have a manual.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:25  
I agree. Yeah. And, and I think the M three and M four will have a manual available, but not the M 340. So, there's that, you know, in terms of the way it looks, you know, I like the size of this one. Most of the design is a little more toned down from the previous generation, you know, the surfaces are a little smoother, there's a little less contouring a little less, you know, you know, character lines or they're, you know, they're more blended in which I think, you know, makes it a little bit dollar to look at I do like the the front end of this one. You know, unlike some other recent BMWs you know, while the grill you know, the twin kidney grill has gotten a little bigger, it's mostly bigger in width, you know, it's still at a reasonable height, it hasn't gotten this ridiculously large grille on it. And the M, the M three and M four, at least the M four, you know, it's going to have this big massive tall grille, you know, full height grille on it, you know, from what we've seen from spy photos.

Unknown Speaker  44:32  
Do you feel about that? Let's get ourselves off track. How do you feel about that grille? I hate it. Really?

Sam Abuelsamid  44:37  
I think it looks ridiculous. I like I like the version that's on this car much better than what's on, you know what we've seen on the floor. Okay. I just think you know, it's too much. You know, I don't like it. What can I say?

Dan Roth  44:53  
Aye. Aye. Aye. It was it's interesting to see how how passionate People get about things like that. Yeah, I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:02  
you know, aesthetics are you know, a very personal thing very personal choice. You know, I mean, everybody's got their own visual taste. That's true. I, I don't like those those massive BMW grilles on the new seven series, the seven. You know, what do you think Rebecca?

Unknown Speaker  45:21  
As far as the logos do know the girl girl

Unknown Speaker  45:25  
or the girl

Sam Abuelsamid  45:27  
to the logos? Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  45:28  
I mean the krill. You know, I don't like the new beaver growl. I think it looks kind of ridiculous.

Dan Roth  45:38  
No, it's fine. JD hadn't heard it called up before. It's a great little image.

Rebecca Lindland  45:44  
But that's what it looks like. I mean, I stole it from somebody. I can't remember. I can't remember now who said it, but I was like, Oh my gosh, I can't unsee that now.

Dan Roth  45:53  
It's weird cuz they should make it the porcupine grill although the BMW the prick is on the inside.

Sam Abuelsamid  45:59  
Always the gym.

Rebecca Lindland  46:05  
Three, three BMWs you don't count my porcupines you don't know I think um you know it's funny because I just finished a review of a Lexus and I said that the grill you know, the front grille was the size of a Japanese apartment because there it's just shy.

Dan Roth  46:30  
And it makes me wonder though I don't I don't think this is for us. I don't think this style is for us. I think this style is for their their main market, which is not the US would be my guess.

Rebecca Lindland  46:44  
Yeah, but I mean, in contrast, when you look at the contrast between, dare I say it a Tesla grill and we're absence there is absence there of exactly like it's really dramatic.

Dan Roth  47:00  
But Tesla does have like, so they didn't mean to have grills but they have a the body contour that makes a dark area replaced with the light where a grill would be.

Rebecca Lindland  47:11  
It doesn't. Yeah, it does to some extent. I mean, I that. So the model three I know we're off track but just while we're thinking about here, he says to go to the bottles three to me looks like a ninja turtle like

Dan Roth  47:32  
that No either,

Rebecca Lindland  47:33  
right? No, I'm not kidding. I actually put together a montage for somebody like a collage, which like, which, which doesn't matter because they all wear those masks. Right? Okay. All right, where are those masks, and they have those little turtle eyes. And that's what the model three looks like, in the very first time I saw it. I went, Oh my gosh, it's an inner turtle. So anyway, so I think that there's, you know, a very different figurative expression that BMW is going for. I mean, I agree. I just I am just sad. I don't know. I didn't I didn't love it i. Now to be fair, I have not seen a lot of them in person. So maybe it looks better on the road program but again, it's okay, I tried I tried

Sam Abuelsamid  48:21  
them on the road.

Dan Roth  48:24  
But Sam, how does it How does it drive I had to sit. The thing I noticed about the three series was it rotated really weird. Um,

Rebecca Lindland  48:32  
it rotated?

Dan Roth  48:33  
Yes. Like when you go into a corner, I almost felt like was trying to hurl the back end out. And it

Sam Abuelsamid  48:38  
just did you drive the rear drive or the all wheel drive?

Dan Roth  48:42  
might have been x day there was probably the x drive. Yeah, so probably. Yeah. So

Sam Abuelsamid  48:47  
I think I think, you know, I didn't personally experience that. But you know, I think that

Dan Roth  48:53  
I know I'm not the only one they talked about it.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:55  
Yeah, that i think that's that's some maybe some issues. With the way they're doing the the torque distribution front to rear, and trying to dynamically adjust that, you know, to give it a little bit more of that rear drive feel, we're going hard into a corner. And, you know, that's a really hard thing to do to get that, you know, kind of smooth and seamless and natural feeling. You know, that's why, you know, if, if I was going to buy something like this, I would go for the just go for the rear drive version, because I prefer it that way. Rather than trying to emulate that, you know, and trying to constantly manage this stuff, you know, front to rear, it's, it's really hard to do that, you know, when, when everything is in motion. You know, it's, it's one thing to do it, you know, when you're on a skid pad, you know, and you've got relatively steady state condition. But the problem is the real world is never that steady state. It's always things are always changing, you know, the surface conditions are changing. And it's it's hard to make it feel natural when you're doing that. You know, at a little more subdued speeds, you know it, I think it drives really well. The steering field is definitely better than the last generation three series, but it's still, you know, it's not in the place where, you know, the, you know, the classic like the 36. And, you know, some of the earlier generations of three surgeries were

Dan Roth  50:18  
saved the Genesis g 70, which seems to be Yeah, seems.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:24  
Right. So, you know, it's it's definitely an improvement, but it's, it's not quite there. You know, but overall, you know, it's, it's a really nice car to drive. You know, unfortunately, you know, they haven't yet rolled out their support for Android Auto. Which means that I had to do my media stream, just just straight up Bluetooth media streaming and, you know, trying to figure out how to, you know, the pause, NFL, you know, I Went, went to lunch with my wife and daughter, and, you know, wanted to pause what was playing and, you know, finally figured out I'll hit the volume button you know basically just turn the audio off and that pauses it. Yeah, because on the screen there's not there's no pause button on the screen. So it's a little little odd

Dan Roth  51:12  
isn't it feel like you're putting like one of those old 78 RPM records on a Victrola when you have to do like Bluetooth now versus

Sam Abuelsamid  51:18  
Yeah, it does. It does feel a little antiquated. Does it? I think still.

Rebecca Lindland  51:24  
Are they still doing that crazy gesturing thing? Because really, there was only one gesture I ended up making

Sam Abuelsamid  51:29  
Yeah. It doesn't work this your central finger.

Rebecca Lindland  51:33  
Yeah, exactly.

Dan Roth  51:37  
The circle that should work and should.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:40  
The gesture control is included in the executive package that was on here, which is a 20 $100 package that gives you auto high beams icon adaptive led with laser light. Whatever the hell that is. I think that's I think that's the headlights. Yeah, so they

Dan Roth  51:57  
Yeah, they hidden

Rebecca Lindland  52:00  
If I wasn't a very good one, so I guess I don't need

Sam Abuelsamid  52:04  
I mean, in, in classic German fashion, there's some very, very expensive options on this car. You know, I mean, the base base price up for the M 340. x drive, you know, it's 56 grand, which is not cheap,

Dan Roth  52:17  
but it's a lot of money.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:18  
It's a lot of money. But, you know, in the competitive set, you know, I think it's, it's a little more reasonable, but, you know, some of the some of the options on here, you know, like $2,000 for the Tanzanite blue metallic paint, you know, it's, it's, but it ain't that nice and, you know, another 1400 and 50 bucks for the oyster for NASA for Nazca leather.

Dan Roth  52:45  
But that's a really pretty combo that dark let's let's like a dark with oyster leather.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:51  
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. And the drivers assistant pro package, which has extended traffic jam assistant Which is basically like, like the pro pilot, but it only works up to 37 miles an hour, not 37 kilometers an hour so like 25 miles an hour. Which, you know kind of got a wonder you know why 1700 bucks.

Dan Roth  53:20  
Listen, when you're the executive with the laser headlights, you want to be able to pick up your iPhone and return emails in the goddamn traffic jam at the Concord rotary. Rotary their system works really really well.

Rebecca Lindland  53:37  
is a thing for our listeners. The Concord rotary is a thing. It's Yeah, it

Dan Roth  53:42  
was amazing. last two weeks, let me tell you it was like tumbleweeds going through

Sam Abuelsamid  53:47  
like the the big you know, the M Sport brakes, and the M Sport differential. Those are all standard on the M 340. So, you know, actually all of the really good stuff all the good performance stuff is included a stamp Under that $56,000 price,

Dan Roth  54:01  
we see other priorities in order. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  54:04  
yeah, it's all the trivial stuff that you can live without.

Rebecca Lindland  54:08  
Yeah, but it's in that I mean, that was kind of to that plays into our point earlier with the rogue sports and very, very different vehicle. But at least you feel like for that price point, you're getting a value you're getting something for that.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:22  
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I mean, you know, a

Rebecca Lindland  54:26  
lot of money I'm just saying that at least you walk away feeling okay with it.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:30  
Yeah. I mean, you know, and this is, you know, the, the option pricing is typical of what you find if you go shop for an Audi or BMW or Mercedes Benz, or Volvo for that matter, you know, any any premium model, you know, that the the margins start to get very, very heavy on these option prices. So, you know, it's, it's not crazy, you know, compared to what you would pay from any other manufacturer, go out the door. It was just shy of $70,000

Rebecca Lindland  55:01  
That's a lot of money.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:05  
It was very nice to drive.

Dan Roth  55:06  
Yeah, I bet. Yeah. You know, I can't really comment, I guess on sort of that being a lot of money for what was their sort of mainstream sedan given. I spent the last three weeks in Ford's entire truck range. I did the Ranger EcoBoost f150 diesel and then just swapped out of an F 250 Lariat with the diesel. Um, yeah, those are expensive.

Rebecca Lindland  55:38  
Was the diesel though I'm really curious.

Dan Roth  55:39  
So the f150 diesel was fantastic. That engine is great. It's really well behaved. It's torquey it just it can wind that speedometer needle around like it's I don't know, I'm trying to come up with an analogy for a gauge that rises really quickly. I've said whatever. It's It's got a lot of torque it's it's very well behaved it's smooth and quiet and powerful. The problem is that it's so expensive the I want to say that it was this almost a 70,000 $60,000 truck I don't remember off the top of my head it was it was more expensive than it should have been. Well, not that it should have been but just more expensive than Well, what what trim level was that truck? It was not a Lariat it was an X lt with the FX four package on it. So the diesel adds a lot of cost to it.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:35  
Yeah, I think it's about four grand for the diesel. And I so

Dan Roth  56:41  
I have trouble with the F series. And even with the super duties when the prices start to rise, no matter what they do, and I they just can't get the cabins to feel like they're worth it versus the ram which is Even in less expensive trims feels like it's a lot richer. And so that is kind of offensive to me. You know the Ford truck itself is is great. It was nice to have a pickup for for a few weeks I got some stuff done. But the the thing that really hit home two things they took away from it because the Ranger just that's not a great deal. I could I I cannot get behind the Ranger. It's too expensive, it's too small. It's decently efficient. It's not that refined. I liked the 2.3 liter EcoBoost I really want to try that engine and an F 150 versus the ridiculous inches that they put in the f150. Like I don't need to wind the speedometer needle around like, like so quickly. And that that EcoBoost engine is just plenty powerful. For an F series, so I'd like to see that I'd like to try that out. It's not gonna happen. But also the other takeaway was the F 250. Which is only about I think it was like four grand more than the F. F 150. Diesel, which is weird because it was the Lariat that's the one to buy if you need a truck to do truck stuff. That's just skip the others and get the heavy duty one because it's it's going to have more of the features it's going to have it's just it's going to be more ready to be to be called upon to be tricky. And no, oh god.

Rebecca Lindland  58:43  
Oh, sorry. It Well, it's just you know, thinking it coincidentally thinking back to the show, the trade show that I just attended in Las Vegas, where you know, get it it's these are construction people. These are people that these trucks part of their toolbox. And, you know, they're used to spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment. Sure. And it's, you know, when you look at some of these trucks for 70 8090 $100,000 It seems outrageous by it if you're using this, as they were built to be used as they were intended to be used, it's, it's, again, it's not in any way, shape or form saying that this is inexpensive, it's a lot of money. But if it if you're showing up to a job site with a $10 million building on it, and your millions of dollars worth of equipment that you own there, I can see those those men and women at that trade show spending that kind of money for sure the right equipment for the right you know, the right equipment for the job. And so you know, it's it's hard to look at these things as you know, these kinds of trucks at some of those price points, but, you know, once you brought in your view and look and say, you know, what is this for? I mean, some of those trucks are amazing. They're, they're, you know, they're, they're gorgeous and they and they do a really good job.

Dan Roth  1:00:15  
Yeah, I I don't disagree especially with the F series where that feels wrong or not wrong but just it doesn't feel right is I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying like that just

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:27  
good.

Dan Roth  1:00:28  
mental clarity about the f150 diesel doesn't doesn't fit that the F 250. Absolutely. Like it's also it's heavy enough so that it it doesn't need its gross weight is high enough that there's there's benefits to that there and having a business paper that has financial benefits versus you know, having it be a personal truck, the f150 diesel is in this weird spot where it's kind of like half of an HD truck, but not really It's just gonna get beat to see threes. Yeah. Yeah, for 250.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:04  
Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, the F 150 diesel, you know, I mean, for it'll tell you, you know, it's targeted at a very specific audience, you know, which is, you know, basically anybody that doesn't need the the towing capability of, you know, the Super Duty, you know, and when you get into super duties now, you know, you can get into, you know, up to, you know, I think, third almost 30,000 pounds, towing capability with a fifth wheel. And even with a regular hitch, you know, I think they're close to 20,000 pounds towing capability, you know, but if you, you know, if you have, you know, towing needs, you know, up to, you know, about nine or 10,000 pounds, you know, you don't necessarily need that big truck, but if you're towing you know, regularly, you know, or even even just a few thousand pounds if you're towing all the time. Yeah, with an EcoBoost you know, if they're, you know, if you're just driving them around regularly, you know, they can get decent mileage. But as soon as you start putting any heavy load on that, you know, especially towing load the fuel economy of an EcoBoost just goes right in the toy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so if you're telling on a daily basis, like a landscaper, you know, that's, you know, got, you know, a trailer that they're towing around, you know, might only be a couple thousand pound trailer, but if you're towing that thing around every day, you know, you don't need an F 250 to do that. But having that diesel you know, the drop off in fuel economy with diesel when you're towing is so much less than when you're when you're doing that with a with a gas EcoBoost engine. And, you know, it makes a huge difference. You know, you'll you can you know, your your operating costs will be so much less or, you know if you have a horse trailer that you need to tell on a regular basis. You know, that might be, you know, four or five 6000 pound trailer, you don't need a super duty for that, you know, an F 150 can handle that. But if you're doing it all the time, you definitely want that diesel engine.

Dan Roth  1:03:13  
Sure, I can see Oh, there's,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:14  
there's a, you know, there's a niche, you know, I mean, it's, you know, it's only, you know, maybe four or 5% of f150 sales. But when you're talking about a vehicle that sells, you know, five 600,000 units a year, that, you know, four or five 6% adds up pretty fast and makes it worthwhile to do that.

Dan Roth  1:03:33  
That engine itself is fantastic. I hope they'll use that across other vehicles in the race. It'd be great in the transit.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:40  
I expect it'll be in the in the navigator and expedition next year, and probably in the in the next gen transit.

Dan Roth  1:03:48  
Yeah. And the the, you know, the big 6.7 power stroke is also great. Yeah. I guess what I liked was that the F 250 is a little stiffer, it was clearly more heavy duty. It just felt like a damn truck, you know? Like, it was it could handle whatever I threw at it. You know, if I wanted to put a plow on it well, we don't recommend that you put a plow on the F series on the f150 they really suggest that you use the heavy duty trucks if I had the heavier axles and hubs and all that stuff, so it just it was if you're buying a truck to use it as a truck that I like the F 250 and above, and it's not it's not that much more money when you start to get that tricked out f 150. But yeah, I see your point. I guess if you're if you're just telling your your boat to go fishing on the lake every weekend or something.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:43  
Have you driven the GM trucks with their new diesel yet?

Dan Roth  1:04:46  
Ah, they're new diesel's a couple years old now. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:51  
Or no, it's just came out last year ran the new three liter the inline 60s.

Dan Roth  1:04:55  
Oh no, I the last GM diesel I drove was a VA t 's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:59  
Yeah, that's That's that's in the heavy duty truck which

Dan Roth  1:05:01  
is awesome. Fantastic. It was great.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:06  
The new 1500s have this three liter inline six diesel which is you know, it's got the best fuel economy rating of any pickup truck full size truck on the market today. And it's everything I've heard from people have driven it's a it's a fantastic engine. I haven't had chance to get in it yet. But yeah, the next few months

Dan Roth  1:05:24  
this thing did kick back 2324 miles per gallon. And yeah, you know, apocalypse laps.

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:30  
And it's pretty good. I got I got

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:33  
I got 39 out of it was on the launch drive. Was it last year or the year before in Denver? You know, part, you know, they had a mileage loop. They were doing a little competition. And it's about a 12 mile loop, you know, hills up and down hills a little bit of freeway some stop and go. And you know, they so they had you know, I took four laps around On this loop, and each time I managed to get it up a little higher, my best Run was 39.4 miles per gallon. It's pretty good. It's Yeah, of course, I had to do some things that you wouldn't normally recommend anybody actually do when driving a vehicle, but, you know, I did them and I pretended I was weighing goodies and it all worked out well.

Dan Roth  1:06:24  
Well, you know, it's also points out that mileage is highly situational. Yes. And therefore somewhat to, you know, look at it with a somewhat jaundiced eye. Let's let's turn our john to size to what else has been going on. We had the The internet has been really important lately for car introductions because we can't get near each other. So Hyundai just released the Lancia 20 was 2021 Elantra Yep, on the web last night. And it's interesting to look at how give it that. It looks like a really good update, but it has it's following the sort of sound

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:18  
like you don't like it. Um,

Dan Roth  1:07:21  
I mostly like it. It's got a weird dent in the door. But, you know, modern See, and this is the thing that like it comes back to us. instead of complaining about BMW, right? Like, this is the thing that happens is if they stay conservative, or you know, so traditional, they get stuck. There was really nowhere else for BMW to go after, you know, 2000 right to the 38 or 39 cars that everybody loves. They're they're very conservative and traditional and they know that they're BMW and then It was a shock to the system when the bangle stuff came out and that even now looks conservative compared to what they're doing note style has gotten very busy. And this Elantra is definitely busy. It's got a lot of lattice. Yes prismatic shirt.

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:18  
I'm I am curious, staring at the pictures. This is definitely one I would like to see in person because I'd see what you mean about the dent in the door. Yeah. And it's it. It's hard to grasp it though. Like it. I mean it because it almost looks like shadows and angles. Well, I think that's the point.

Dan Roth  1:08:37  
Yeah, I think they want to play with it.

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:39  
Does it actually have a den? Like, is it actually yeah,

Dan Roth  1:08:42  
there's a body line. Yeah. Wow.

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:45  
So the crease goes really far down. Because normally they keep the crease straight across the beltline. And yeah,

Dan Roth  1:08:52  
across the road and the No, I don't I'm trying to remember what they call it that so the belt line is the belt line, the one that goes up across the top of doors. I think that's the bone line. I don't know what you're going to call this one.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:02  
No that the one like the base of the wind. The base of the side glass is the beltline. And this would be like the bone line or the tornado line tornado

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:13  
tornado

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:14  
that's what it used to call it I don't know if they still do

Dan Roth  1:09:16  
you didn't mean like tornado like to yar to you. Are he any like the federal I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:22  
never actually saw I called out

Dan Roth  1:09:24  
the toronado Okay, I'm but honestly, it looks really good from most angles. And it just it's one of those things like hey, at least we're trying something give him a pass till I see when a person and then I'll share a lot of crap to say about it. But that's not really the important part is not how it looks. It's sort of all the other stuff that they've they've done to maintain their sort of market. I'm not, I don't know if they have an elite I they probably still don't quite sell as many as

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:00  
Honda or Toyota or anything but they've no this the the Civic and Corolla are definitely the two top sellers in this cset.

Dan Roth  1:10:07  
But we talk about the Hyundai's more I feel. I don't know maybe it's just us.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:11  
Well, we haven't I feel like I have more access to Hyundai.

Dan Roth  1:10:15  
Well, that's a good point automakers

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:21  
Yeah, I mean, you know, the things like two and a half inches longer than the old one, you know, an extra inch wheelbase. A little bit less overhang on the front a little more on the rear. It's it's definitely got some interesting styling on the exterior. I actually don't

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:38  
the grill for some reason.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:41  
No, I think I think the girls actually done pretty well on this one. Yeah. But it's very, very similar to the new Sonata.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:48  
Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's pretty cool. Look, I mean, for a and I'm sorry, I totally interrupted you. continue to grow

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:02  
Rebecca keeps talking all over Sam.

What do you think of the interior?

Dan Roth  1:11:12  
Well, I was I was still hung up on the exterior. I actually I really liked the roofline. And the back end really looks good. I mean, I think overall it's a really nicely styled car.

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:25  
I think it looks more expensive than Yeah, it I mean, it looks very high style.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:32  
Yeah, and I think that's part of what they're aiming for is to at least make it look more upmarket. You know, and again, that's part of, you know, trying to try to get create the perception of, you know, value for your money, the interior wise, like it doesn't,

Dan Roth  1:11:47  
it doesn't blow my hair back. Most of the pictures that I'm seeing are of a all black interior, which is always no fun. As some of the detailing is really nice. I like it. You know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:00  
the does have that unique corner and grab handle for the past year. I see that yeah, that's literally the phrase in the press is really cornering grab handle

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:11  
why let's put

Dan Roth  1:12:12  
the Elantra has never been that kind of car it's never been. It's always handled kind of greasy and not enthusiastically in

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:23  
the Elantra GT has definitely been better than the sedans and the the GTS have had, you know, multi link rear suspension, which is what the sedan has now to it also has the multi link rear suspension.

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:39  
I just found on slide 3034 of 38 pictures I finally found a full frontal view of the interior. I'm not a fan of that divider line that

Dan Roth  1:12:52  
they have. It looks like a stereo like 70s Hi, fi the No no,

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:58  
it's maybe grab handle thing is but it's it's to the left of the passenger. Yeah. into the right, the center of

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:09  
the unit. That's the unique corner and grab handle. Don't forget the word unique.

Dan Roth  1:13:14  
Is it unique or very unique? I like when we qualify how unique something is because it really doesn't walk they don't

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:19  
use they don't use unique they only call it unique. Don't use the very that's only you know

Dan Roth  1:13:26  
what they also I don't let they slap you in the face with how cheap you are if you don't buy the big screen either. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:35  
Yeah, there's definitely a difference there. So, you know, the the upper level setup has a 10 and a half inch or 1010 and a quarter inch touchscreen in the center. And then there's also a 10 and a quarter inch cluster display. And they're both under a common sheet of glass all the way across. And then if you go for the base setup, you get I think it's a seven or eight inch touchscreen. And you know instead of being under you know this one sheet of glass all the way across it's got fairly prominent bezels and it doesn't have quite the same

Dan Roth  1:14:13  
effect looks like an impact ATM machine or something. It's just yes you know, I guess ATM machines were done but it just it Yeah, it looks like it's bad that's not that's not good. I mean maybe part of it is like a cheapskate you should buy the good one the and this is just the instrument panel extend to the left of the the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:41  
that's what I've been trying to figure out. I you know, I watched the the reveal video and you know, I read the all the releases, and I can't quite figure out what that is to the left of the instrument cluster.

Dan Roth  1:14:54  
Okay. Oh, it's like it almost looks like it could be a vent

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:58  
but i don't i don't No, well, no, that's down below that. I mean, it looks like there's another touchscreen there.

Dan Roth  1:15:04  
Yeah, so guys, this is ridiculous. Don't stop this. Not not necessary. It's a Hyundai. So it's gonna be too bright at night. And now it's all in front of you and you can't shut it off because it's got important stuff on it.

Unknown Speaker  1:15:20  
Ah, well

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:27  
yeah, this panel to the left of the cluster. All the images have just have this dashed circle around it with a horizontal line in the middle. It's not clear. Maybe I don't know,

Dan Roth  1:15:40  
for me unique cornering, grabbing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:44  
But during during the presentation, they had Albert Biermann come out and talk and he did say that there is going to be an online version of this coming which which will be

Dan Roth  1:15:55  
nice and they said they did actually importantly, they introduced The first Elantra hybrid, which is the gun rights.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:05  
Yeah, and I mean, it's the same powertrain that's in the ionic. Yeah. So Sam 1.6 liter with a DCT 32 kilowatt electric motor, which is you know, it's it's a good power train and it's really good in the ionic and an arrow. And it's supposed to get about 50 miles per gallon at least 50 miles per gallon. And the

Dan Roth  1:16:24  
second thing that I like about the Hyundai hybrid implementation is that they still use a conventional transmission on instead of a CVT, so it feels a lot better. more positive from behind the wheel, I think. Yeah, just more normal. So that it's pleasing to drive and hopefully with with a guy like Albert Biermann, maybe tuning the chassis, if this one won't handle greasy tire choices and stuff is the launcher I drove was, is a good car, but it just wasn't You know was no Jetta or GTI

Unknown Speaker  1:17:05  
and by Gracie you don't mean slick

Dan Roth  1:17:06  
No, like it didn't have enough grip looking the wrong way. Like in all the wrong way not enough not enough grip like bad tire choice like we went with the high miles tires instead of the grippy tires and

Unknown Speaker  1:17:21  
you know roll rates that's what the Analyze

Dan Roth  1:17:24  
for rates don't match and stuff and it's all I you know, the other end line cars or car I'm trying to remember if there's more than one I know that the end line velocities are quite a lot.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:35  
Gloucester there's a lot of gt online I think and also the there's gonna be a sonata online. Okay, new Sonata good for them. I mean to

Dan Roth  1:17:49  
keep bringing the the nicely designed cars with lots of equipment and good economy and high performance versions.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:58  
I talked about And I talked to Myles Johnson today. You know, one thing that didn't mention the releases when it's coming out he said production is going to start in the fall and it'll be available here in the us all you know, depending on what happens obviously but the plan is it will be available in the fourth quarter and the the gas engine launches and then a few weeks later the hybrid will be available. Okay.

Dan Roth  1:18:26  
My the biggest takeaway from the release for the interior is that the two toned may launch emphasizes the driver focus layout, even on the door. That's their final bullet point, which I don't understand. Okay, they use the word Milan. It will.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:45  
It's not a word you want to use.

Unknown Speaker  1:18:48  
No, it's okay. It's not It's not the one you're thinking.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:55  
But it will it will have wireless CarPlay and Android Auto support as well. Well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:00  
I just like to point out that we're on like day two of corn. Oh no, I've

Dan Roth  1:19:04  
been on Wednesday.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:09  
I've been home since the Chicago Auto Show.

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:13  
Okay, well, I mean in terms I

Dan Roth  1:19:15  
said, you were you're in Vegas until like,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:19  
you are quarantine. We're just we're just sheltering it. sheltering in place. Go get my, my

Dan Roth  1:19:29  
emergency biscuits in the can.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:32  
Yes. next podcast. Fair warning for next podcast. Yeah, we're

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:37  
back. Rebecca's gonna be a little stir crazy to

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:41  
me. I was thinking you know.

Dan Roth  1:19:46  
And worst part is trashing the chocolate. You know, like, Yeah. Like, can have one

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:52  
piece well, CBS has plenty of Easter candy. Just an FYI for you. I can't.

Dan Roth  1:19:55  
I haven't ever CVS like there's people there.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:04  
anyway

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:05  
yeah last last last episode because we put it together you know with you and I talking and then Rebecca and I talking about what happened at GM there Evie day you didn't really get a chance to weigh in so I think you had some thoughts Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:20:20  
So the GM Evie strategy to me like I'm sure the cars are gonna be good but looking at it almost feels like a copycat rollout because they're starting with that luxury brand first I think the first one is gonna be a Hummer, you were saying that we're going to see Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:38  
the Hummer AV will be the Hummer pickup will be the first one out the door, followed by the the lyric and then a bunch of other stuff.

Dan Roth  1:20:46  
Yeah, Cadillac port for Cadillac, but the names why why do this to yourself, but they're coming out and I understand to a degree that that's just how it's done with a few launches and that's how it has been done is you start with the screen. ffensive stuff. Part of that has been because the smaller automakers have led the way on that. And the only way that they were able to sort of be viable was to lead with a they their production numbers were much lower so their cars were naturally more expensive and then you want to get those just premium early adopters in the door and so that's why you had stuff like the Model S so for for GM to follow that path, though, seems like they could have gone another way and grabbed actually more of the opportunity in the market which is coming later, but would probably have made a bigger impression or given them something to talk about more. If they were to say you know what, we're going to actually bring you a $20,000 Evie or $25,000 Evie, it's gonna be a Chevy. You know, Chevy has more it's just a more applicable name to you know, everybody versus Cadillac which is you know it's a premium nameplate even now it's not everybody's interested in Cadillac more people are going to be interested in the the cheap Chevy. Evie that's going to be built well you can get it down the street and you know service is going to be easy. It's going to be just like your normal car. Except for it's going to be electric versus this exotic thing. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:31  
Well, I mean, that's what the bolt is. Except it's not 20,000 Yeah, and Unless Unless you buy one is two years old.

Dan Roth  1:22:37  
Both is great. I love the boat. The boat hasn't really seemed to fit. I really tried to let everybody know that the bolt is there. I guess is my point.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:49  
No, that's that's an excellent point. Yeah, hasn't really been marketed much.

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:54  
Right. The thing is, so that I mean if you look at the technology adoption curve, and and the early adopters, they don't want a Chevy. That's been the whole problem.

Dan Roth  1:23:04  
Do you think they want a Cadillac?

Rebecca Lindland  1:23:07  
Yes, they really would rather they would rather have a Cadillac than a Chevy. Because they're, they're risk takers. They're luxury oriented. It's a very, very different buyer. They don't trust GM or Chevrolet for technology. That's the biggest problem is that is that they're they're more apt to trust that GM has put their best and brightest on a Cadillac and on a Chevy. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:39  
I think that there's probably the perception that you know, if they put high tech into a Chevy, that they've cut corners somewhere. Right?

Dan Roth  1:23:48  
But see, I think that that for for everybody Cadillac to the Cadillac is,

Rebecca Lindland  1:23:54  
it's less you know,

Dan Roth  1:23:56  
I'm having trouble I guess reconciling like the The buyer who's interested in say, Tesla, or Vivian, or one of the other myriad luxury Evie brands actually being interested in a Cadillac?

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:13  
Well, it's a very different it's I know what you mean, I totally understand what you mean. But they're going to be far more interested in a Cadillac than in a Chevy. Which is, is it and I mean this in a positive way. But it's a domestically oriented blue collar brand.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:32  
I can send that as well. The other thing

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:34  
is, oh, the latest technology.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:37  
I think, you know, I think we're GM. You know, what GM is doing here is they're not necessarily looking to grab those Tesla buyers. Because, you know, I think I think everyone or most most people have recognized that the Tesla fans are probably aren't even really going to consider anything Other Tesla

Dan Roth  1:25:00  
buyers are gonna buy Tesla's through like the apple people, right? They're

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:03  
there, they're gone. They were available, they were up so as but they're not anymore. So So what they need to do is create a next generation Cadillac, you know, create something that, you know, other customers are going to be interested in, you know, so that also happens to be electric. I mean, this is, this is the approach that Audi took with the E Tron, which I think maybe we think that does, yeah. Yeah, it is. But, you know, I think, especially here in North America, you know, less, I'd say less so in Europe, because each one's actually done quite well in markets like Norway and, and the Netherlands where, you know, Audi, or Tesla was really strong. They actually have taken buyers away from Tesla, but the, you know, the E Tron. You know, the first e Tron is basically, you know, it's an Audi utility. You know, it's not, aside from being electric all Other aspects of that vehicle are not dramatically different from G five or q seven or q eight, you know, and you know somebody that wants an Audi and loves an Audi but wants to go electric. That's a great vehicle. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:26:13  
well and that's what I was thinking. I see your point, Rebecca where you don't go to Chevy for the latest and greatest tech. But what if it wasn't because of the latest and greatest tech it was just because it's an Eevee and it doesn't have to have an enormous portrait display and just like all that, you know, self parking.

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:35  
is still for 490 What is it 98% of the market Evie still is a risk, it's perceived as a risk. that technology is no

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:49  
battery these you know in the US account for about overall you know, less than one one and a half percent of sales. This this is

Dan Roth  1:26:57  
the other thing that worries me about GM anytime they roll out an New Model, it's like, all the things they want to do are not quite ready. Are they trying to, like reinvent so much? Look how ambitious they got with like the Corvair the Vega, the x car.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:12  
I mean, but that, that, but the volt, both both the volt and the bolt, were very good vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:20  
And really were and you know, in this case, you know, this is not their first swing at the Bat with this, you know, you're right, you know, the Corvair and some other previous amazing

Dan Roth  1:27:31  
engineering that amazing,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:33  
right, but they were the first ones out the door. What we're talking about here, you know, depending on how you add it up, you know, in gms parlance, this is their third generation Evie, and with Evie one being the first generation and the bolt being Gen two. You also had the, the bolt was Gen two, the volt in there as well. So you know, especially the last, you know, 1314 years They've been hard at work on this electric stuff, you know, and you know, continuously you know, and they've gone through multiple iterations. So you know, this is not all new, it's new it's all new and that it's a new generation but it's all based on the stuff that they've been learning over the last honestly years. The tech

Dan Roth  1:28:20  
the the engineering sounds badass 22 pound motor, 200 pound feet of torque or something like that. I forget the exact numbers. But that was really impressive to me, the and the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:31  
battery prismatic

Dan Roth  1:28:32  
batteries, not prismatic the pouch cells, right? But they could go prismatic, if they wanted to.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:38  
Yeah, I mean, you'll, you'll see you'll see variants in various markets that have prismatic cells, you might even see some with with cylindrical cells in certain markets, probably mostly in China probably. But you know, the thing is, the module design can accommodate any type of cell. Yeah, and the overall package design can you know is is agnostic to the seller. Type that's in

Dan Roth  1:29:00  
the law that's really smart thinking and that's the kind of stuff that gM gM has always been good at is that smart thinking forward thinking engineering that is less of a it's it's less easy to grasp than the tech so I guess I can I can see the in car tech you know like the the screens and like the Cadillac stuff with the the giant LEDs that are curved and stuff all that's cool. And that's not the lyric necessarily. It's that's just just the escalate. But I can I can see, I guess I can see how they want to have a conversation piece and push that along and have the Eevee tech sort of be the underpinning this or Oh, by the way, and then once they've established their reputation, hopefully

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:55  
you know, the the other you know, they're going to be Chevrolet's and Buicks. No following very close behind, I mean, it's not like we're going to be waiting another 567 years to get electric Chevy's new electric. Chevy's, you know, these are all going to be coming between now and 2023.

Dan Roth  1:30:11  
I'm excited. I just, you know, it gave me pause, maybe scratch my head, I do think that the Hummer, there's going to be pent up demand for that. Just looking at the excitement around both the cyber truck and the rivia n r one T. If GM can hit the market with that, before the other two, I think they'll actually have something more current and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:33  
you know, there's, there's a Chevy pickup, you know, that's part of this batch of 20. You know, that for for fans of the old avalanche, you know, you you'll want to be looking for the Chevy pickup, you know, it's, it's designed, you know, is very much a callback to the to the avalanche except it's electric.

Dan Roth  1:30:50  
Right. What about the Aztec putting the Aztec stuff in there?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:56  
Not that they showed us okay.

Unknown Speaker  1:31:00  
Yeah, definitely not.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:03  
I've said my piece I'm Pontiac but Pontiac Aztek

Dan Roth  1:31:08  
is you know, Opel built by his users. So by um I've said my piece that's it, you know, I do I do wonder because it's the last sort of thought I had was like, all these things or skateboard chasse ease. And so it almost makes me feel like body and frame has come back but it's not the same.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:32  
Yeah, it's it's different it is but it's different.

Dan Roth  1:31:34  
So it'll be interesting to watch. I think that maybe this time around, I am encouraged that this time around GM can make something that sticks and they're still gotta figure Cadillac out, though. I don't know.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:51  
Well, they do. They do need to figure out Cadillac and hopefully this will be one of the ways that they can do that. I hope so

Dan Roth  1:31:58  
you sound more optimistic than than I do. That's what a shock.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:10  
We've got a backlog of listener letters. We've been asking people for letters and they've been sending them and we haven't been responding to them we've been, we should be that hosts. Yeah. And this one here from Lj. Okay, I could not agree with you more on the abysmal performance of the UConnect system. I regularly rent cars sometimes up to a month and have an opportunity to try different brands. The latest version of Uconnect is so unusable that I would not purchase a Chrysler product for this reason alone, spending a month in Palm Springs and got a pretty good rate on a pickup unfortunately wouldn't fit in the garage of my rental house, so I had to swap it out for a minivan. They both suffered with the same issue on startup it takes a full 30 seconds before the vehicle hooks up the phone. During that time you connect cannot find the phone so it switches over to the radio. Since the signal levels vary, the radio ends up blasting the only way to prevent this To toggle the media button until the auxiliary selection becomes available at some point during this whole process, the media begins playing on your device. So by the time it's available for the vehicle, you've missed 15 or 20 seconds of content. I don't want to live in a world where I miss a single second two wheel bearings. Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Know, the, it goes on a little bit. But you know, this is actually not a problem that's unique to, to you connect. And in fact, it's something I neglected to mention, with the road sport. You know, the infotainment not system also took a while to reconnect the the phone to it, it has CarPlay and Android Auto took a while to reconnect. And for some reason, you know, while it's waiting to connect the phone, you know, it always seemed to revert to like XM Satellite Radio with an at a really high volume, which I found really annoying. I actually, it's been quite a few months since I had any Chrysler vehicles or FCA vehicles. But I don't recall this being that much of a problem with Uconnect. Did you? Did you have a problem with this? Dan, when you had the ram recently, or Rebecca?

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:17  
Um, I didn't. I don't recall it being a problem.

Dan Roth  1:34:20  
I did not like the Uconnect in the RAM. It was hard to figure out at first. I don't know which system it was the big screen Yeah, I don't recall it having that sort of like write the like real prominent kind of startup morning sickness or whatever. But that's also not unique to you connect you involve those do it where it takes it a while to start up and actually start to be responsive. It's very laggy a few cars Yeah, Volvo's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:51  
are quite slow with that.

Dan Roth  1:34:53  
And then once you have five minutes in, it's okay. But it takes forever to to get to that point. So I think that kind of thing that performance issue will smooth out as they they make these systems with newer hardware. You know, we've talked about this before the automated automotive grade hardware is not necessarily the fastest or most powerful so that's one wrinkle and I think they're asking a lot of it to drive these big displays and do all this nonsense it's completely unnecessary but seemingly people want So yeah, I I understand I if I were spending my own money I would probably not buy the upgraded audio system either. You know, and even it's like we're talking about that Elantra. I'd still buy the one with the stupid look and little screen because I don't want the giant touchscreen, even though that one's probably not bad. You know? It's, it's gonna be an issue. Like, they're not gonna listen to us. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:59  
Okay, so Next up, we got Michael Sylvester Oh Jr. With Hyundai's seven speed. DCT says I've got a 2017 Alondra Aiko with the seven speed DCT I hear all three of you praise Hyundai. What's your impression of their transmissions mind replace 220 9000 miles in the shop with 44,000 miles for failure to shift. He's saying that this is a common problem with these transmissions. I have never, you know, granted I have never spent, you know that long in a Hyundai with that seven speed DCT You know, my experience driving it, you know, great to drive. You know, the ownership experience is another matter. You know, like I say, you know, I've never spent more than a week at a time with any of these. Have you guys experienced any issues when you've been driving any Hyundai's with the seven speed

Dan Roth  1:36:55  
that's another one where it's been a while since I've had a Hyundai with with the With the DCT I don't generally tend to like Dual Clutch transmissions just because I'm terrified at the ownership experience and most of them don't operate any better than conventional you know, hydraulic automatic. So I don't really see the point other than you wait and and cost,

Unknown Speaker  1:37:22  
I guess what year was his vehicle?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:26  
2017

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:27  
so there is I just did a quick search and online there there are some issues apparently. With I don't know if it's the same one. Late in 2016 there was a lawsuit filed actually on Mondays at the seven speed transmission transmission control modules that misbehave due to high temperature in certain driving condition. Okay,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:52  
well, that may be what he's experienced. So it sounds like there are have been some issues with this particular transmission. I don't Know About the six speed for what it's worth, you know the new Elantra and other recent some other recent Hyundai and Kia models have actually been moving away from this DCT so that could be a sign that they were having issues with it you know, it certainly you know, these transmissions you know drive pretty well you know, as dcts go these are among the best I've driven in terms of their their general operating characteristics, you know, much better than the Ford powershift dcts and, and even even the Volkswagen DSG gearboxes. So I definitely like driving but it sounds like there may be some reliability issues with them. And the new one the new Elantra, oh God says

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:47  
sorry. There's a software potential for a software upgrade. Okay, so again, just glancing at things that somebody writes once my 2016 Tucson had the software Update in May of 2017. It's worked very well. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:07  
Yeah, I mean, the new one is going to cvts now so they're dropping these dcts and moving to cvts instead.

Dan Roth  1:39:15  
I don't know which is worse. That has always been sort of a back of my mind issue with dual clutch transmission though it's just where and longevity This is a wet Clutch Transmission right like it's a it's very much a dry clutch, isn't it? Yeah, too.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:35  
Yeah, yeah, the Hyundai dcts are dry clutch. Only only Volkswagens done the wet clutch. Okay, the white clutch are not quite as efficient and they're considerably more expensive.

Dan Roth  1:39:49  
Well, that makes sense. Yeah, that's my Volkswagen did it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:54  
Alright, let's move on burn star to writing in from the gold coast in Queensland, seriously beautiful part of the world. Thanks for the show. I thought might this might be a good topic for discussion would love to hear your thoughts. Jim's decision this week to fully cease production of the Holden brand in 2021. Two years after shutting down local manufacturing, so, yeah, they shut down local production in 2019 or 2019. And they're still importing various GM models from Europe and North America rebadged as Holden's, so things like, you know, the insignia slash regal are available as a Holden right now, but the Holden brand is going away entirely next year. So there's a sense of national mourning over the loss of an iconic brand dating to the 1930s. His family owned, only ever own holdings when he was a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s. dismay, the GM reportedly told nobody not even the Prime Minister's office before making the announcement announcement which affects up to 800 jobs and potentially more downstream and the dealerships and outrage that the Australian car industry has been allowed to weather by manufacturers, governments, etc, etc, etc. Reality is that Australians switched to buying Japanese, Korean and European cars many years ago. So it was really reached just so have we really reached just an inevitable and unsurprising conclusion. It shows that our cars shows that though that our cars mean more to a society than just horsepower or kilowatts, whether they're electric or ice and how much they cost. In the end, it's a consumers choice on whether they spend their money and that really decides what stays and what goes

Rebecca Lindland  1:41:44  
well, it is a shame because having been to Queensland and have a very good friend from their Holden branded is a shame because that they gave us the amazing Pontiac GTO recently, fairly recent

Dan Roth  1:42:00  
S and GA.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:03  
Yeah, we we almost got the Jeep on. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:11  
So

Dan Roth  1:42:12  
it is a good question. At what point does an automaker feel obligated to subsidize national pride, you know, like that's is how much does it cost to keep a brand open? Even if they're just rebadging vehicles, you know, that's that's essentially where they got to write it, it's still it costs money to run a separate brand. And if the brand itself is to the point where it just doesn't have any market share anyway.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:39  
what point does it make sense from the business side? I can see it and the challenge for GM you know, is at the same time they made this announcement of discontinuing the Holden brand. They also said you know, that they're pulling out of all right hand drive markets. And this is one of the challenges for Australia, you know, being a right hand drive market. You know, because they GM, you know, a couple years ago sold off Opel and Vauxhall in Europe and most of the engineering and most of the Holden vehicles of late have been based on opal opal designs, you know, that were rebadged, you know, they were essentially Vauxhall's, you know, the Witcher right hand drive. opals sold in the UK. So, you know, with GM deciding to get out of the right hand drive vehicle business, aside from the Corvette, you know, what, you know, what else can they sell? It didn't really have anything else to do it in Australia, because it's just not a large enough market for them to justify the engineering costs or, you know, a full range of vehicles.

Dan Roth  1:43:45  
Yeah, I think what I saw was that they sell more cars in Texas, in less than a year than they did in Australia. for the entire year, like yeah, it just economically gets real upside down. And so I can understand the sadness. I still miss Oldsmobile man, like, but at the end of the day, it's it's a it's a brand of thing. You know, I know that there's again, it's it's your brand and I understand that too. So I don't want to minimize the emotions but I can't see that GM had a real solid business case for keeping it around.

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:39  
Yeah, and for better for worse that's been a hallmark of Mary Barra has Raina GM is it's you got to make a good business case for it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:48  
And, you know, with with, with all the money that they have to invest in electrification, automation, you know, and other future technologies. You know, she's she's got to make sure Got to make some tough choices of, you know, where do we put the resources and, you know, in light of what's happening right now that we start the show with, you know, that's probably the right decision to make because, you know, you can't just go on, you know, spending good money after bad. You know, no matter how much you might like a market or a brand, you know, if it's not working, you got to move on. Yeah, that's just that's business.

Rebecca Lindland  1:45:27  
Yeah, we absolutely Mourne, Mourne with you. Yeah, listener

Dan Roth  1:45:31  
me. You know, you tie off the bleeders. That's right.

Rebecca Lindland  1:45:36  
I mean, it is a shame. It's just a race.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:39  
You know, and it's, you know, if, if Australia, you know, was a left hand drive market, then I suspect the GM would still be selling, you know, would continue to sell vehicles there. I mean, if it was just a matter of maintaining the Holden brand for Australia, I think that they would go with that, that that wouldn't be a problem. If you know if they didn't also have to re engineer the cars so much for that market.

Unknown Speaker  1:46:03  
Right. I agree with you.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:06  
All right, next one, from David Harbin, which family car goes to the kids? Greetings to all of you who have enjoyed the show since the auto blog days. Question for your input. We're a family of five mom, dad and three daughters age 1714 and eight. The 17 year old needs to learn to drive and we're only a couple of years away from the 14 year old. We have three cars in the fleet, which one should be the kid car. Number 120 13 Chrysler Town and Country used for mom's work and family road trips and we'll probably stay mom's car since it's cushy and has satellite radio properties that she likes 2008 monster five, the beater that does odd jobs but an excellent mechanical condition. By the way, big fan of the monster five i think you know great little minivan, you know, a more reasonable size then the bigger minivans we have today. And then number three 2017 vw GTI manual transmission dad's car to do school runs and get to work. So conventional wisdom is probably give the old Mazda to the kids, but drawbacks to that include no stability control seems to step down on solidity and safety compared to the others. It's an automatic and the kids will never learn to drive manual if they don't learn now, is it crazy to consider the GTI is the kids car. It seems to have more safety tech than the Mazda and other benefits include the manual transmission, both girls want to be able to drive and travel overseas, though we know the days of manual are numbered. On the other hand, a powerful car like a GTI for a teenager is probably a terrible idea though neither of the girls are risk takers. I think default advice for engineers to get a US forester accord, though I think the paid for Mazda would be pretty much the same. Any thoughts?

Dan Roth  1:47:52  
I have thoughts.

Rebecca Lindland  1:47:55  
I can't imagine not away

Dan Roth  1:47:58  
so think that the safety equipment, the solidity and the both passive and active safety, put them in the GTA. I know it's a GTI and it's relatively powerful and it you know, handles well and stuff. I do wonder if you can get a tuner, you know, and actually detune it. It's easy to find tunes for those to make them quicker. So maybe you can find one that makes it more responsible. I don't know. But the the rule for me is always put them in the newest car with the newest safety check. And and that's the safest car you own. Was that GTI?

Rebecca Lindland  1:48:39  
Yeah. And I think that there's a couple rules I would implement as well. I don't let the boyfriend's drive it. Right. Yeah, that's right. And also, you know, while he is teaching them, the manual transmission, you can teach them about the vehicle. Take that off. opportunity to teach them about the torque and the power. And, you know, and driving a vehicle like that. I love the fact that the girls want to learn manual. I think that's awesome. So, you know, it really can be an opportunity to educate them on on this type of vehicle, rather than have them feel like they're not allowed to drive it or that they can't handle it. You know, this is such a great opportunity to teach them how to handle it. And I apologize Lucy has come to visit so you may hear me out in the background. She has an opinion about this to go girls learn manual.

Dan Roth  1:49:39  
Well, I think that's a good point and teaching car control. The GTI is a really benign platform for learning car control. And, you know, some some driving school, not to get overconfident, but to just understand what it feels like in a controlled environment. When you start to lose you know, you've run out To the edges of your grip and stuff, that's, that's really important because young drivers don't know what that situation feels like, they don't have the experience. And the only way to get that experience is to be in those situations, you're not going to get it any other way. And if you if you are familiar with the sensation, you're going to, you're going to be less flustered, you're going to you're going to know more what to do, and if you'll just muscle memory and you'll just countersteer

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:29  
I agree totally with everything you've said. And, and, you know, I think, you know, because, you know, talking about all girls, you know, while it's obviously a stereotype, you know, teenage girls, I think in general are generally more responsible than teenage boys. You know, so I think, you know, and and the GTI doesn't have a ridiculous amount of power. It's not like giving them a Mustang GT to drive. You know, I mean, it's 210 you know, 220 horsepower, you know, so it's, it's got plenty of perfect But not not a crazy amount. And, you know, if, if they if they do have to, if they're learning to drive a manual, then, you know, I think that there and they want to do that, then I think that they're generally going to be a little more responsible. And, you know, plus, you know, GT is, you know, smaller carries fewer people than, than the minivan, the monster five, you know, so I think, you know, the fewer of their friends that they're, you know, that they're driving around with, you know, is also a better thing, you know, compared to, you know, hauling, you know, having them haul everybody around. So, I know, Rebecca wants to go get some dinner. So, let's see.

Rebecca Lindland  1:51:44  
I admitted when I was ordering when we were talking about the BMW. I was, I was momentarily distracted, which I apologize for.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:54  
Okay, so, so, one, one quickie here and then one more question Peter from Bavaria. Just wanted to let us know that his wife enjoys her 2010 VW bus t five TDI.

Dan Roth  1:52:07  
You Why are you doing that to us? No.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52:12  
He drives the 2010 horse and various diets deutz goats tractors I'm not sure how it's pronounced. He's a social scientist, social worker, farmer and car mechanic with deep roots in the car industry, listens to wheel bearings on his android phone in the car, and hasn't missed a single episode. Peter, thank you so much for listening from Germany. That's that's the last question for this week. We'll get into some more next time. But the last question that I want you guys to address from Mike Feldman, a longtime listener, etc, etc. Rebecca is a wonderful addition to wheel bearings a great perspective to compliment Dan and Sam.

Rebecca Lindland  1:52:50  
Got my check.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52:53  
On the last episode, you briefly got into used EBS when talking about the model three of shopping to replace the 26 16 Ford Fusion for my commute car 80 miles and about a one and a half hours in the car de fusion is pretty composed and quiet but I find the driver seat to be uncomfortable in my long commute. I've been looking at things like a US Lexus GS two Mazda CX five, but Evie is intrigued me too could have used leaf bolt etc. meet my needs for a smooth, quiet comfortable highway commuter. I worried that these smaller cars are really just meant as urban runabouts. So first I'll just say that, you know, the leaf and the bolt, definitely, especially if you're talking second generation leaf more so than the first gen, you know, second gen, you know, they started at 150 miles of range bolts got you know, to 240 you know, definitely much better than urban runabouts. You know they would be fine for highway commutes. The seat comfort thing though, that's something that I think is very personal to every individual. And you know, depends depends a lot on your body and your body shape. You know, some People find the seats in the bolt, not very comfortable. I personally don't have a problem with them. You know? I think you need to go out and try each one of these. take it for a test drive, you know, spend at least a half hour in it if you can, you know and see how your back feels, you know, riding on those seats before you make a decision.

Rebecca Lindland  1:54:23  
What did he say his commute is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:54:25  
an hour and a half a day but 80 miles.

Rebecca Lindland  1:54:28  
Okay, well, it's interesting trip. Yeah, right. I just wrote my Ls 500 review on for Alexis. And I actually specifically mentioned how comfortable it was on the highway. I mean, my I would lean towards a luxury car because I think that they have a lot more opportunity to adjust that seat. You know, and I for a commute like that. I mean, I used to have a 75 miles each day. way and I had an Acura Integra at the time and while that wasn't you know the height of luxury by any means. I just I think that i think that that Evie seat I agree I think it would it would it would wear on you after a while. And I like how many different ways that you can arrange a seat in a luxury vehicle especially like Lincoln, what is it like 57 different way you know, so some of those minute adjustments. I mean, this was a little bit more extreme, but I remember driving the Volvo XC 42 and from Pennsylvania which was about seven hours in a day. And man by the end of that I was definitely feeling that seat. And obviously that's an extreme version of it. But I do think that, you know, a well equipped, properly bolstered luxury vehicle seat is going to be more comfortable and a lot less tiring to you. No on the body.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:56:01  
Yeah, I mean, personally, I've, I've always really liked the seats and acuras and like in the Accord and even the Civic. So I think Honda does some really great seats, for sure. Again, you know, it's, it's really a very personal thing, you know, it's got to fit your particular body. Absolutely. And, you know, the only way to know is to actually go out and try them, you know, the abused Lexus gx or cx five, you know, both really good choices. You know, again, you know, leaf and bolt you know, if if you've got an 80 mile round trip, you know, either of those are going to handle that without any problem at all, even in wintertime.

Dan Roth  1:56:45  
Yeah, I think I'd go boat though, like I The other thing to do is drive it and see you know how loud it seems to you because whether or not it's actually a quiet car. It depends on the quality of the noise. Yeah, don't Don't, don't forget to just spend some time with them, like you say, like, the, the, the bolt is newer, and then you know, the leaf has been updated even second generation it just, you know, it's it's a little little bit older on the market. And I think I would feel better with if it's 80 miles. See, I'm thinking like, even if it's if it's an 80 mile round trip, you've got that extra little bit of of range with the ball, actually extra considerable amount of range. So you don't have to worry in the winter if you get stuck in traffic or whatever, like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:57:41  
Mike's in West Michigan. So he is going to have winter weather to deal with, you know, and you're going to, you know, with an Eevee, you're going to lose about, you know, 30 to 40% of your range in the wintertime.

Dan Roth  1:57:53  
So there's not a whole lot of traffic out in Western Michigan. I really

Sam Abuelsamid  1:57:56  
depend depends where he's driving him. It could be fairly significant.

Rebecca Lindland  1:58:02  
I think I agree. I think that's just too long for an Eevee

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:06  
not for a bolt. Leave faultless my belief

Rebecca Lindland  1:58:09  
my leaf ran for a leaf specifically, but I don't know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:13  
the bolt the bolt, you got 240 miles of range, you're gonna have more than enough buffer that's that's not gonna be a problem at all right even, you know even worst case conditions, you know that you you're not gonna you're gonna have at least 140 250 miles of range even in the worst of winter weather

Dan Roth  1:58:32  
is not ideal. Can you charge at work or not? If you can charge at work that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:36  
yeah, if you got Yeah, if you got workplace charging, then you know, that definitely helps. So but really, you know, I think you need to go try each one of these that you're considering and see what actually works for your body shape. Okay. All right. And we've got we've still got more we will get to them next week, or the week after when we get to them. Especially tell them masterless and what's up with ugly trucks? And to Tony G, I'm still working on aftermarket tire pressure monitoring and still trying to research that so I will I will get your response

Dan Roth  1:59:14  
on that. All right, well, Hey everybody, thanks for listening. Stay safe out there or in there, wherever you are. Don't go looking doorknobs. And get to wash your hands. Yeah, wash it. Wash your damn hands. Stay in your house.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:59:27  
And listen, listen to podcasts that ours. Alright, thanks. Thanks, everyone. Cheers.

Dan Roth  1:59:39  
Thanks for listening to wheel bearings. Find us at wheel bearings, media, and on Twitter as at wheel bearings cast. Remember, there's only one vowel that's the a and cast. We're also at Carver view tweets on Twitter, or you could just email us that's feedback at wheel bearings dot media.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai