Dan Roth 0:03 This is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes. Sam Abuelsamid 0:06 I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights. Rebecca Lindland 0:10 Oh, and I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebeccadrives it sound like Sam has some news. Sam Abuelsamid 0:16 Yeah, just a company rebranded yesterday as of yesterday. As we record this Monday, April 13. Navigant research is now guidehouse insights. We we were acquired, Navigant consulting, our parent company was acquired by guide house, another consulting company a few months ago. And they've been as we've been going through the integration, they finally were ready to rebrand our part of the company to guidehouse insights. Everything else stays the same. You know, we're still, you know, doing the same kind of market research. And it's just a name change and new new business cards, Dan Roth 0:58 same bat channel, same Sam Abuelsamid 1:01 Well actually the back channel changes because the website change to guide house insights calm instead of Navigant research calm Dan Roth 1:08 alright it's just a 301 million those guys have that Sam Abuelsamid 1:11 well we actually got a whole new website too It looks so you still can't find the blog posts Rebecca Lindland 1:19 we should all check it out though. Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 1:21 yeah. Good anyway. Let's talk about the cars Dan Roth 1:25 the cars the car it's been a crossover we kind of week for all of us looks like should we draw straws or Who wants to go first? Nobody wants that. Rebecca Lindland 1:37 Sam What do you have? Sam Abuelsamid 1:38 Well I had the the Lexus UX250h Luxury, in let me let me make sure I got the the color. Correct. Nori green pearl. Dan Roth 1:49 It was very pretty green. Sam Abuelsamid 1:51 Yeah, it's a really nice looking color. Much nicer looking than the vehicle itself. isn't that bad? Sure, no, it's not bad. You know, I think it's actually a really nice size. You know, it drives pretty well. You know, it's got the, the 2.5 liter four cylinder hybrid combination. So basically the same thing that you find in a lot of Lexus and Toyota hybrid vehicles are actually sorry, to two liter, two liter, four cylinder 181 total horsepower. And, you know, this drives well enough, you know, decent handling Bri quality. I think the thing that's always kind of annoyed me about the UX, one of several things, but a couple of things. But the thing that annoys me the most, I think, you know, it's just the, the beltline is so high and you actually sit kind of low in this thing. You know, so you feel like you're sitting in a bathtub kind of peering over the edge. You know, and the greenhouse is kind of small, you know, the pillars, especially the rear pillars, kind of sick. You know, so it's just, you feel it's kind of claustrophobic feeling in some respects. And, you know, I don't particularly like that feeling when I'm driving. So, you know, and when you look at it, you know, the, it's, it's not a bad design. But, you know, you can see that that beltline is it's got a tiny little greenhouse, you know, on kind of the, everything below the belt line looks kind of bulky relative to the size of the greenhouse. You know, and it's kind of like an Audi TT, except not as much fun to drive as a TT. So, you know, it's, it's fine, but you know, it's not really my cup of tea. And, you know, the other big annoyance that I have with this thing is the the Lexus touchpad the trackpad for controlling the infotainment. It's funny, my wife and I, you know, we're going to, we went to the park to take the dog for a walk along the river. And, you know, she went to she wanted to change what was on the audio system. And she went to reach for the screen and that's it Nope, sorry, not a touchscreen, which I don't mind it not being a touchscreen, but, you know, the the trackpad interface that Lexus has, you know, as we've discussed nauseum on previous occasions with with other Lexus vehicles is it's not a good interface. But you know, other than that, you know, for its size, it's reasonably roomy, if you can get over that claustrophobic feeling it's really fuel efficient, you know, averaged about 38 miles per gallon. And it's, you know, that's was not much more to say and, you know, it's kind of a small cargo area. The back seat, you know, is fair enough, you know, for a couple of adults. It's not not huge, but you know, it'll do you know, and you know, it seems like it's got about three times too much grill for the size of the vehicle sounds like a Lexus. But Dan Roth 4:55 it's compact, right? It's like a it's not a Sam Abuelsamid 4:57 Yeah, no, it's a compact it's, you know, It's the smallest Lexus, you know, it's considerably smaller than the annex. You know, which is the next smallest one. So it's really more subcompact. You know, so it is fairly small, but, you know, for its size, you know, it's got decent a decent amount of room inside, but you just feel closed in. Rebecca Lindland 5:19 And really, you know, the price point at like, 34 to 37 It's not bad. I mean, you know, to get yourself into a Lexus, for that price is good. If that's if Yeah, if the brand name is the most important thing, too. Sam Abuelsamid 5:34 Right. And you know, this one is the loaded luxury version. You know, all in, you know, mine came to $43,625 including the destination charge, which is a topic we'll come back to later destination charges. But you know, you know, so this one had, you know, pretty much every available option. And you know, it also had support for both Apple CarPlay Android Android Auto which worked, worked fine, although again, using the touchscreen to interact with those does not work as well or the touchpad I mean does not work as well as, you know, either a touchscreen or you know a controller just you know just because of the nature of the way this touchpad system works it's it's a relative touchpad you know, similar to what you get on a laptop you know, so it's not like the the touchpad that Acura has in the RDX, you know, which is you know, wherever you put your finger on the touchpad that's, you know, the same location on the screen is you know, where, where you'll be at this is you know, this you can you can be tracking across this touchpad, you know, a couple of times to get all the way across the screen, you know, it's just, it's just doesn't work very well. It's not really intuitive at all. Rebecca Lindland 6:54 Well, it's interesting because I I actually have the Lexus GS 350 This week, I now that's not the vehicle I'm going to be talking about because I, I've talked about the vehicles ahead last week. But today I actually drove down to Long Island because there's no traffic. And so I told you guys I drove there and back and it has this this 350 has a that awful touchpad it did not have Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. And I actually I was on the phone with my brother, and another call came in. And I didn't want to take that call. But it kicked off my brother's call off off Bluetooth. Sam Abuelsamid 7:36 He couldn't figure out how to reject the call. Rebecca Lindland 7:37 Well, I was just gonna I wasn't gonna bother with it. I was just gonna let it because it wasn't it wasn't like bothering me. It was just I could see it coming in. And I was kind of navigating some turns and I was like, Okay, I'm not gonna worry. But then I was like, okay, go away. So when I when I did decline it, it had kicked my brother's a call I was on it kicked it off a bleed off of the Bluetooth which I thought was bizarre Sam Abuelsamid 8:01 so it was pretty strange Rebecca Lindland 8:02 right and it and it still was coming through my phone like when I went to look at my phone to see if I could reattach reconnect Bluetooth it was still showing that it was on Bluetooth but it was only coming through my phone so it was very bizarre I wasn't that far from home so I let it go wasn't you know but if I had been someplace that I could not you know that I like on a long trip or something it would have been really annoying but that touchpad is just well beyond annoying Dan Roth 8:33 like mount was okay but so which is worse though the Lexus touchpad or the accurate touchpad because it's like, Sam Abuelsamid 8:38 Oh, absolutely the Lexus. Oh, much worse than Acura Dan Roth 8:41 touchpad also makes me crazy because they tried to do something that's like when they explain it. It sounds like it makes sense. But then when you try to use the thing, it does not make sense. It's like oh yeah, picks up where you put your finger. I'm like I just that's not how touch pads have worked. So it's not how I expect it to work. I don't Rebecca Lindland 9:01 know. I Well, my my issue with the Acura is more that it. It's not like they don't have I think it was that on the RDX they don't have a place to hang up the phone or requires you to do like two different steps. Mm hmm. It's they fixed it. I believe they've they now have that. But when I first drove on and it's so funny because I and I love our Acura people, but they're always like, well, let's just sit down and show you the system and then you'll understand it. Just like you guys, that it should be more intuitive. I get that, you know, we only have it for a week, but after a week, it should be more intuitive. And it just it's just brutal. Dan Roth 9:45 Yeah, Sam Abuelsamid 9:47 I've never had an issue with it. But you know, that's just me. I guess I'm a little weird. Dan Roth 9:52 No, I think that I they really need to, to have people who are not calling close to it, use it because it's it's not into none of them are really intuitive. Rebecca Lindland 10:05 So it's funny because when I was at CES, and this is somebody I really need to look to reconnect with. We were talking about the testers. In this case, it was phones, but I think it translates into infotainment systems. And he said, Yeah, you know, we're really working on trying to expand our pool of testers, because they do tend to use people that are very comfortable with tech. And while I'm, I'm the worst kind. I am both an early adopter. I'm an early adopter, but technology hates me. And I Sam Abuelsamid 10:44 know you're the best kind of time. Rebecca Lindland 10:46 Exactly. You Sam Abuelsamid 10:47 are exactly the type of person Yeah, you're, you know, a normal person, you know, someone who is not, you know, I'm not saying this in any sort of derogatory way. You're not a tech geek, right? I mean, you are you are a very typical tech user. And so that, you know, I think that, you know, makes you very representative of the general population, which would make you an ideal tester for, you know, for technology like, Rebecca Lindland 11:16 well, that's what they were. That's what he was saying was that, you know, we really need to expand our pool because I like to try different tech like I, you know, I, as I said, I'm an early adopter, I like to try all these different things. It's just that if you need technology broken, I am your girl. Dan Roth 11:31 So here's the here's the thing, though, like, tech is very much like, it's almost like the same idea of I didn't have time to write you a short letter. So I wrote you a long one. It's there's this idea that it needs to be complicated, to be sophisticated. And I think that's actually the exact opposite. The true sophistication comes from people who have put in enough time and streamlined and refined it enough so that it's very easy to use it is at its essence. And I don't really see that happening with a lot of a lot of tech, especially the tech and cars where there's lots of extra steps we've got stuff hidden in places it's like they didn't they didn't or couldn't get far enough away from it to just sit their grandmother in the car and and have her figure it out on her own. Because when they have to it's it's not like Well, Sam Abuelsamid 12:32 clearly no one at Lexus had grandmother's car Rebecca Lindland 12:37 hilarious because who is their target audiences know exactly. their target audience. Dan Roth 12:43 I'm not trying to be reductive either. Like I think it's it's the mark of well designed technology that it's it's just, it's easy to use. You know, I think Rebecca Lindland 12:55 that's where I'm looking. Dan Roth 12:56 I use a lot of complicated stuff and you know, eventually I will figure the most complicated Byzantine stuff out. But I've the stuff I have loved forever is are things that are just easy to use, you know, you just plug it in, you turn it on, and it's there. Rebecca Lindland 13:16 Plug and Play. Well, and and to that point and again, this is a vehicle that I'll talk about next week, the BMW 840. I oh my gosh, I mean, it's fabulous. But Holy crap, goes, I mean, that infotainment system is not okay. Dan Roth 13:36 This must be the only person on the face of the earth who likes the twirly finger gestures and stuff. I like that I couldn't get it to work. Well, it might have been disabled, but no, Rebecca Lindland 13:47 no, because it told me it. It would when I would like use the button. It would give me the little sign to say I should have done this, but I couldn't get it to work. And then the other thing and this is for next week is this But that's a whole nother issue that we'll talk about later. But yeah, the BMW, I mean, there were just pages and pages of menu in there, you know, digitally, not literally, but you know, it just, I mean, the things that you could do, it was kind of fun to play with. And I did I mean, I, you know, I did spend a good half hour going through each one and playing with it and working through the menus and stuff. And it was it was good to use like it was intuitive. You know, Android Auto works really well on it. It was very easy, but it just there's a lot of complexity there. Dan Roth 14:36 So we've we've crapped on everything but the UX. We talked about the UX. Sam Abuelsamid 14:42 Like I already did that. So Dan Roth 14:45 are we done? Did we finish that one? Oh, Sam Abuelsamid 14:47 yeah. No, I just just wanted to mention just to finish up Yeah. As I said, the one I had was still luxury, which is the top trim level and, you know, that comes equipped with everything but even even standard equipment on They're, you know, includes, you know, all of the Driver Assist features, you know, this is something that Toyota and Lexus are doing on all three vehicles, you know, so they've got things like pre collision with destiny detection, adaptive cruise control, lane tracing assist, blind spot monitoring, all that stuff is standard equipment. And it is across, and most of that is the standard across most of the Toyota and Lexus lineup, which I think is a really good thing. And unfortunately, most automakers are going down that path. You know, and then, you know, the you've also got support for Amazon Alexa built in here. And what else? Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, that's the main stuff you got the usual things like, you know, automatic dual zone climate control, but you know, that 43 grand, you know, it's, it seems a little bit steep for you know, for what this is. But, you know, if you like the way it looks, you know, it drives Well, you know, it's You know, it's got decent reasonable performance. So and it's very fuel efficient. So if you if you're looking for a small premium crossover and you don't change, you know, the radio stations or podcasts very often, you know, then it's not about I Dan Roth 16:14 think that they have hit a bullseye for their target market, which is not us. Sam Abuelsamid 16:21 Yeah, unfortunately. Rebecca Lindland 16:24 Yeah. You know, and speaking of 43,000 It's interesting. I just glanced down I because the Subaru is sent that I had this last week. It was 43,000 as well. And that's a you know, seven or eight passenger. I mean, the thing is, right, I thought it was fantastic. So Alexis, though, let's let's Dan Roth 16:41 talk about it. Um, is that like, That's certainly the ascent is the biggest super there's ever been. It's there. Yes. There's sort of big utility big crossover. Sam Abuelsamid 16:53 I like it. Dan Roth 16:56 It's got that brings Subaru ness into the into that segment so it's a it's a good move for them. What did you think about it? Was this Was this your first time with it? Rebecca Lindland 17:06 It was it wasn't my first time with it. I really don't get a lot of Subarus. So it was nice to have the opportunity to drive it. I really liked it. I mean, I thought it was super comfortable. I thought it was really it just I enjoyed driving it. I the CVT was a little annoying at times there were definitely places where it sort of downshifted where I would have preferred it not to have done that. But, you know, overall I think the interior was super nice. They just did a really good job with it. You know, I really liked it. I think it drove smaller than it looked. It had a nice level of, of insulation. So it was it was quiet. I you know, the visibility was really good on it. The you know, the whole layout, the infotainment system, everything that you kind of want, you know, there's tons of cupholders. Like, I just felt like it was just a really good it was it was a good family car. Huge sunroof. I you know, I just kind of had a good time with that I just it's one of those cars that like when you get in you start to drive it you don't feel like you got to fish around for things like things were economically where I wanted them to be. And I like that I think that's important. Dan Roth 18:24 Yeah, that's supers stick, right? They they're simple cars to operate. They're friendly. I found it actually kind of like pleasant and relaxing and familiar and that sort of like every everything is as it's as you'd expect it which is like that's that's hard to do. It feels looks and feels just like a Subaru I think the the CVT and the I think that has that. It's got the 2.5 liter turbo Rebecca Lindland 18:55 2.4 liter Okay, yeah, it's a CVT with a speed manual mode. Dan Roth 19:00 Right, manual CBT crap but it generally feels pretty good the CBT helps multiply the the torque from that engine so it you know, it's basically like I think that's basically a wr x engine and said it pulls it around pretty well. It it's the biggest heaviest Subaru so it's kind of feels a little bit out of breath sometimes when you when you need Max Max performance, but otherwise it's it's okay. It's generally competitive. So yeah, I liked it, what trim was it? Rebecca Lindland 19:33 I had the limited. So so the the base model I think starts around 32 This one was 39. And then it had the option package with the Harman Kardon stereo although that was not great. That was the only thing that Jake and I were driving around and we kind of blasted it at one point and we kept trying to find we kept playing with the treble the bass trying to achieve The levels and we just couldn't get it was really tinny. I think that was the one thing that we really were a little, you know, when you Dan Roth 20:06 want that dx seven to cut right through in paradise city. Rebecca Lindland 20:13 Well, so it was it was very interesting because I had the toy to Highlander, also. And you know, they're very competitive Dan Roth 20:21 and that Syria was great. Rebecca Lindland 20:24 So that stereo was much better. Yeah, the car itself. I know, because Dan Roth 20:31 I bet and this is just total inside baseball. I bet the Harman Kardon and the high end stereo in the Highlander. Rebecca Lindland 20:39 Oh, it was the JBL I'm sorry, sir, Sam Abuelsamid 20:40 with Harman Kardon sync. Yeah. Yeah, well, there's a hymen has like a dozen brands. Yes. Yeah. Almost every manufacturer has something. Rebecca Lindland 20:51 Yeah, exactly. But but they're they weren't the treatment. The end result was quite different. I will tell you though, that I was disappointed with The Highlander it had a very tinny feel especially when you open and close the doors there was not that nice thump that you want in especially vehicle this $53,000 was Dan Roth 21:13 in the Highlanders all Rebecca Lindland 21:14 50,000 Dan Roth 21:17 is the newest. So how does it compare to the ascent? Which is a? It's like three years old now. Rebecca Lindland 21:24 I know but I mean, really, you know, because they aren't the same class. They are. And, you know, this is what I said on on the site. I said, you're never gonna go wrong, buying the Highlander. But I do think that it's worth shopping around. Because when you think about what you get in like, the the Kia telluride and the Hyundai palisade did I miss that? That's right. Yeah. I wrote it and I thought, Wait a minute. But you know, the this Highlander I don't know that it moved the needle enough. I don't know that it raised the bar, like the telluride and palisade have done in this seven or eight seat passenger class. Like I just Sam Abuelsamid 22:14 No, I, I agree. I think that the the one place where where the Highlander, you know is really exceptional is if you get the hybrid and you know, then fuel economy is you know, there's there is no other three row SUV that comes anywhere close to that. Absolutely the net. Yeah, the rest of it, you know, it's fine. But you know, compared to compared to the palisade and Telluride, you know, it's, it's just not as good. Rebecca Lindland 22:43 I know. I know. And that's what and it's, you know, it can it's a Toyota les. It's sort of like one of those like, how do you criticize that but that's just the reality of it. I gotta tell you too. I love the fact that in the Subaru I actually loaded up bunch of stuff. We went, we were doing work on my mom's house, and we took a bunch of stuff to storage. And that thing packed it. I mean, it was awesome. So we got a ton of stuff in it. And then we I was able to use that cool camera. I don't know what they call it, but like where you can see outside the you know, where you don't see the inside of the car, but because it's like Sam Abuelsamid 23:23 the surround view. Rebecca Lindland 23:24 No, it's like, with the rearview mirror where you can flick it forward. GM has it Sam Abuelsamid 23:29 Oh, yeah, the camera, the camera mirror system camera Rebecca Lindland 23:32 where the camera mirror system. That's what I use. So it was fantastic. You know, I had a car I had a carload full and I was able to just you know really easily see out the back. The other thing I loved about it about the Subaru was that it had a really nice can very convenient, wireless, touchpad wireless charging station right in the middle console. Again, super easy to use a little button. You could tell her right away that it was on. And it was just, you know, it's just kind of one of those like quick and easy, economically friendly things. So I just, you know, I think, again, that you're not going to go wrong with a Highlander. I do think that there's so much competition. And this latest one, I don't know that it raised the bar enough. I think that that there's, I think that, you know, it's for me, it's really hard to be that tell you right now, Dan Roth 24:27 like how much should they need to raise the bar, though, they have a lot of, you know, satisfied customers, billions and billions surf right, like, Rebecca Lindland 24:33 well, that's what I'm saying. Right, is that, you know, it's fine. It's just that for new entries for people coming into this segment, it's worth a look around. Sam Abuelsamid 24:42 I agree. I'm curious. What What did you think of the design of the new Highlander? Rebecca Lindland 24:48 So it's very Lexa Lexus ask. I mean, from the back, you know, and, but I think that it's it's a nice design. I mean, it's I think it'll age fine. It's, it's, it's Nothing, you know, nobody was stopping me in the parking lot to ask me what it was. Sam Abuelsamid 25:04 But it's certainly a departure from the last generation. Yeah. And I think one of the things that struck me about or looking at it, yeah, there's, there's like, elements of the Supra in there, you know, like in the wheel arches. Dan Roth 25:17 The wheel arches. Sam Abuelsamid 25:19 Yeah. And the, you know, for a big utility like that. I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm crazy about you know, that that effect on there. You know, I think I actually to me, I actually prefer the previous generation, the design of the previous generation Highlander better, you know, is a little kind of chunkier. Yeah, a little a little more like an SUV. Yeah. Yeah. And this one is, you know, smoother and sleeker. You know, a little sporty or looking. But yeah, not, you know, this is less less truck ish than the last one. Rebecca Lindland 25:56 But some, but that's, that's what's so interesting, though. Is that I feel like the more traditional brands like like, like Toyota are going softer whereas like the Kia telluride in the Palisades those are very truck like looking there's such big handsome vehicles and it's almost like like Toyota and and to some extent Subaru as well. They're trying to sort of disguise the fact that it's a seven seater as if something you know, sporty or is cooler. But if you do a nice design truck like the palisade or the telluride You know, I think that it can go a long way. I think that that's Yeah Dan Roth 26:45 Um, but yeah, I I don't think that Toyota necessarily has the has said the same thing to prove as a Hyundai and Kia do and so they're sticking out territory that's a little bit different. That's, that's good. The differentiation certainly does set them apart. their product also has to compete with Toyota in, in the traditional areas where Toyota excels. And I think they they probably will. But that's one of those things like, you know, the stupid Time will tell trope, like, we don't have any Rebecca Lindland 27:24 other way of knowing. No, you're right. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, as you know, the one of the first things I mentioned, is that reliable durability, you know, the Toyota isn't known for So, again, it's not, you know, it's, there is absolutely absolutely nothing wrong with the Highlander. There's a lot to like about it. It's a very, very good choice. But as we've talked about before, when you're looking at a $50,000 price point, what else is there, what else is in the market at that price point and so at 50 the Highlander 1600 Dan Roth 28:00 I mean, you get Durango you can get? Rebecca Lindland 28:06 Well, exactly. That's what I'm saying is that there's a lot of the ascent is 43. Yeah, they said the ascent is 43,000. And I believe the, the telluride is in that 40, mid 40 range. So, uh, you know, that's the thing is that you're just what are you getting for your money you Sam Abuelsamid 28:24 get, there's a lot of choices, a lot of very good choices out there at that price point. And, you know, you you have you have the ability to, you know, to be flexible, you know, you don't have to necessarily tie yourself in to a Toyota. Dan Roth 28:41 That's true. Rebecca Lindland 28:42 Well, right. Exactly. Um, yeah. So those are the two cars that I had. I mean, it was great. It was both of them were very good solid, good solid choices. I was delighted to to get into spend some time in the ascent because I was I was very curious about that. Yeah, Dan Roth 28:56 I I like the ascent a lot. I think it's a good thing. Play for Subaru. And it's priced Well, it does its thing you know, it's there are no surprises there and there shouldn't be you know, I guess there's no nasty surprises all the surprises are good surprises. So Unknown Speaker 29:15 yeah, it's a good Dan Roth 29:19 one. So I had the 2020 Hyundai venue and I so I went down and picked this up from our fleet guys, which is not how I normally do it, but it was good because I get to spend a bunch of time in the vehicle driving it back. And I seem to recall that when you had this, Rebecca, one of your comments was the transmission does wacky crap as a CVT Rebecca Lindland 29:48 I thought I really really liked it. I mean, I could I could have done let me know I'm actually Dan Roth 29:52 going to be review and maybe you've noticed it because I like pretty much everything about it. Its styling is a little goofy. But it's it's fine like it fits with the family and it's it's a it's a compact crossover. It's delightful in how it goes on the road it rides well it I got out of the yard and into the venue, which is an interesting contrast because I really liked the jaros. But like I said, on the last podcast, I think on the highway, I'd have some some complaints and I did it. It's a it's a it's a little loud. It doesn't have a ton of power. So merging is a planning exercise. You know, all those things that you would expect from from a car like that? Nothing that's a surprise there. But those are, yeah, that's definitely a city car. It's something that can go on the highway, but it's not really as in its element. It got good fuel coming like 40 miles to the gallon. But it was it was a little loud. It got blown around a lot by crosswind is a very windy day when I went down and picked up the venue. So the IRS was getting pushed off over the road by by wind gusts. So going from that to the venue, the venue feels a lot more luxurious, it feels really nice for for the price, you know, it's it's quiet, it's refined and its movements, and has a lot of features that feel really modern and current that are easy to use. Everything is where you'd expect it again, you know, it's just it's a nice driving little card that the transmission did seem a little weird to me. Because there were times where I'd look down and it'd be like 3000 RPM, like 60 miles an hour, what's going on you okay. But I think that's just it had some headwind that it was dealing with and stuff, but that that was the only part that really felt weird. Was the the transmission does whatever it does, but Rebecca Lindland 31:49 right, you know, Sam Abuelsamid 31:51 that's intelligent. Rebecca Lindland 31:52 I actually didn't write a review. I talked about it on a couple of episodes ago. So I'll have Listen, because the thing that I remembered vividly about it was how much Jake liked it. 25 he's like their ideal customer for that, you know, I and I have had transmission issues with other vehicles, but I have to listen back to it doesn't it doesn't, but as you say, I mean, I am barely dressed right now, Dan Roth 32:23 whenever you do podcasts, you're always the only one on a webcam here. Rebecca Lindland 32:29 Like, my brain is just fried literally. Sam Abuelsamid 32:34 Yeah. Dan Roth 32:37 It's, it's a great choice for anybody who doesn't need something larger and sort of any, any age group, you know, I could see this, I was thinking about my parents who are in their 70s. And, you know, they could certainly downsize to something like this and they wouldn't feel like they're giving up anything, you know, if it's nicely equipped, and even with the transition, doing whatever With the ratios, it's quiet enough and isolated enough from you that you don't really hear the engine ticking along at 3000 rpm and it doesn't seem to care. So that's that's another thing that it must just be working as advertised in our as designed so that it didn't really bother me it just was something I noticed. Sam Abuelsamid 33:17 If you're, if you're if you're driving into, you know, if you've got strong headwind, you know, it may have been bumping up the RPM, you know, to get, you know, if it felt like there was a lot of load on the engine, you may have wanted the engine running a little faster, get a little more torque out of it, you know, to you know, just to top it Dan Roth 33:36 keep Yeah, you know, it's an it's a I think it's a 1.5 liter turbo in the venue. Sam Abuelsamid 33:41 No, it's a one. Naturally already that Dan Roth 33:45 Dan is completely wrong. Rebecca Lindland 33:46 Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I think I because I was just asking Jake because he was with me a lot. And I, you know, he was we're trying to remember to, you know, any cvts Gonna just annoy me but I do I do recall there's a particularly steep hill, but almost every car that is not, you know, a V six high powered luxury is going to have issues with this hill. But it certainly isn't a barrier to purchase. Sam Abuelsamid 34:18 Yeah. No, not not at all. Yeah, and I just looked up the specs Yeah, it's a one six. And it's it's only got 121 horsepower 139 Dan Roth 34:29 for that then it does a lot. Sam Abuelsamid 34:31 But yeah, yeah, you know, the torque peaks at 4500 rpm. So, you know, yeah, it was it was probably just you know, going you know, going up to a little bit lower ratio, you know, bump up the the revs a little bit to give you enough torque just to keep up against Dan Roth 34:46 that. So that's what I figured I haven't I haven't had an opportunity to drive much lately. There's been a thing so didn't kind of home with it. But yeah, Rebecca Lindland 35:00 So where do you have to go to pick it up? Do you go to Hartford? Dan Roth 35:02 No, I went down to to automotion here so Rebecca Lindland 35:06 Oh, that's right. Dan Roth 35:07 Yeah. So Shay Bugsy, right and picked it up there. And I you know, it's interesting that we're all still getting cars. I'm worried about the fleet guys, most of them are retired guys. And I worry about just the the health of the fleets, you know, the automakers are parking cars. And the fleet business is not a high margin business. So I'm hoping that everybody kind of pulls through and Rebecca Lindland 35:35 so I have a different theory on that. I mean, are we done talking about cars? Yeah. Okay. So I'm very thankful that we're still getting cars. I had some PR person reach out to me today to see how it was going. And I said, Look, you know, in the, it was it was, you know, the, the vehicle that we were talking about, I had done a couple of Instagram posts. I had done a review we had done wheel bearings before. it and I said all those things I can do with a car and I can't do any of them without cars. So, you know, I think that I think their plan is to try and continue to get us cars by, you know, when you think and this is really off on a tangent so you can pull me back if it's not. So, you know, when you think about post pandemic world, I wonder about whether we're going to have vehicle launches in the traditional manner that we are used to, you know, flying off to some exotic location where they all bring us cars, you know, they bring they bring the car, we they bring us to the car, right? You have to look and say, you know, let's say a program is a million dollars, how many cars could they produce for their for their media fleet, and send out to like, the top 20 people that are going to review it and put in from you know, and do a review what's gonna really be their ROI. on something like that on investing in their fleet, as opposed to investing in this, you know, a week long festival of media launch? Sam Abuelsamid 37:10 Well, you know, I actually it's funny, you bring this up just this afternoon, I was having a call with a writer from automotive news for a story he was working on. And, you know, we were talking about this, you know, he was asking me what my thoughts were, you know, on some of these virtual online launches, you know, that companies are doing, you know, Hyundai, you know, did an online webcast for the launch of the Elantra a few weeks ago that we talked about, and you know, some of these others, and he asked if I thought that they would continue to do that after this was over. And, you know, what I told him was, you know, back in 2009, you know, during the recession, you know, the company I was working for at that time, we were we were actually doing a whole bunch of webcasts for a bunch of manufacturers. You know, and, you know, this was, you know, fairly early iterations of that, you know, the technology compared to what we have what's available today with YouTube Live, you know, trying to try to do the streaming of these events, you know, I was the technical director on this stuff, and it was just a nightmare trying to keep these streams going. But, you know, they, you know, they were in a similar position where they were trying to save money, you know, trying to reduce the cost. And, you know, they did this for about a year, you know, there were a whole bunch of events that were webcast like this. And, ultimately, you know, as soon as things started to turn around, and they had some money again, they stopped doing that. And they went back to, you know, the traditional approach of actually, you know, bring people out, like, I know, BMW, for example, did a couple of events where they would do just a single wave of journalists, you know, so rather than have three, four or five waves a whole week of this, it would bring out one group webcast the presentation, you know, and then, you know, have a small group actually drive them and then, you know, distributed the cars out to the fleet and let people drive them locally. And they stopped doing that. And I think that they'll stop doing that again this time, because you, you actually miss out on quite a bit, you know, when you don't attend, you know, when you don't get to meet up at these events, you know, we get to meet up with, you know, executives and engineers and designers, you know, and spend some time talking at length, you know, at least most of these anyway, talking at length about, you know, what went into this, why did they do things a certain way. And you it's harder to get that when you're not in person? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I see it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Well, just you know, the The last thing I just wanted to say yeah, in the larger context of when you look at what the PR the media budget is for automakers versus what their marketing spend is for advertising. You know, we're talking billions of dollars that major automakers spend annually advertising Dan Roth 40:11 can't make an ad but Sam Abuelsamid 40:16 their, their total their total PR budget, you know, for all these events and the media fleets and everything, you know, is maybe 20 million. Yeah, for big automaker. So, but you know, it's it, it yes, you know, they spend quite a bit on this, but in the in the grand scheme of things compared to what they spend on overall marketing, it's around peanuts. Dan Roth 40:39 As somebody who works in advertising I it's gonna sound weird. But I think honestly, they need to invert what they do for advertising versus PR and and just outreach and getting things to the fleets and having you know, events where where people get in the cars and I say Because that's really the only way to build excitement for the product is to get people to see it, to touch it, to feel it to talk to a person with it right there. So they can point out all the cool features. That's all stuff that happens at a car show or I mean at a launch event, or one of the auto shows, you know, with us journalists, and then we take that back, right, and we've been given the company line and we can talk about that neat thing. We can ask questions about our ideas and our topics too. So that is definitely something that the events faster. I think there's that just that plain excitement factor of the car that it's it's a lot harder to put across with a webcast. I think we're gonna see them come together with Yeah, you know, they've got technologies better now and they figured out how to extend their reach, so that their launches may be a larger reach because they'll have the life And then they'll you can actually get that second tier of journalists right yeah that you wouldn't necessarily fly in but you still want to try to get their audience you can write to the to the webcast and Rebecca Lindland 42:12 I am in no way suggesting that I want it to go without the media hunches I don't think it's going to yeah if you do it right you know if you do a media launch correctly if you utilize the time and the and the access, you get a ton out of it. I mean, I know that I I know cars better when I've been on a launch like even like like BMW like I haven't been on a launch with them in a long time. And I and I have a hard time and Toyota to, I have a hard time with their infotainment system, because I haven't had the premiere on it. I haven't you know, somebody hasn't sat down with me to go over it. Now accurate. I have been on their launches and it hasn't helped. So I'm not saying that. There's no fix. That's been really nice. Oh, yeah, they do. I love their people. But I'm just saying that I think that there's, I feel like coming out of this, that, you know, it sort of that that discussion of like now that the world is standing relatively still what what does this give you time to examine? And it's all those things of like influencers what is the what is the actual ROI on influencers, everyone sort of jumped on that bandwagon because they didn't want to miss. But now, you know, especially with Travel and Leisure and all those different you know, all those different parts. And so, you know, if we think about the fleet people, I just think that we may see more, maybe more strategic launches, maybe short, smaller ones, but I do agree there's there there's really no substitute for getting to know the vehicle getting to know the The manufacturers plans, and certainly with a vehicle like a Jeep, where you know, or land or Land Rover where you get to go off road that I wouldn't don't, I don't think any of us really have the opportunity to do that. So, you know, there's still appropriate in many cases, and they're very, very helpful always, but it'll just be interesting to see what comes out. I think Dan Roth 44:19 it's good. Sam Abuelsamid 44:20 It's always getting to experience a vehicle and its natural element like that, you know, and what it's designed for, whether it's, you know, going off roading with a Jeep, or, or, you know, going to the track, you know, with a Toyota Supra. Yeah, I think definitely helps you to understand what they're trying to achieve with that via Yeah, Dan Roth 44:38 it's, it's always an opportunity for, you know, when a big event happens for them to sort of reassess, you know, what's, what's working, what's not going to work and then how to ease back into it. So I think you're gonna see that sort of pent up desire to, to actually have events and so they're gonna be ready for it. I don't think it's gonna go away it might date the cast of characters may shift. But that's that's sort of natural anyway. Anybody else want to talk about manual minis and the Genesis God and delivery charges and the new Mazda six? Answer some some questions this week. Sam Abuelsamid 45:20 Yeah, let's let's let's do that, you know, the annual minis you know nothing much to that except that if you've been shopping for many in the US for the past year or so you may have noticed that there's no manual transmission option which seems totally anathema to what a mini should be. You know, it seems like a mini without a manual just doesn't seem right. But it's coming back. It's back for for this year. And it you know, that's that's a good thing. Yeah, we need more manual transmissions. Dan Roth 45:52 I agree. Okay, Rebecca Lindland 45:54 well and also Cadillac released. I there was They calling it black wing or something black ring yeah yeah a CT for V black wing and CT five a black wing which I believe they will also have a manual transmission yes they've confirmed Dan Roth 46:12 that all the fun that's gonna be with the black wing v the front they gonna use that engine something Sam Abuelsamid 46:17 no the black plague VA seems to be more or less dead. Why would you do that? Yes. So So what these are you know is the high performance versions of the CT four V and CT five V which, you know, when they when they released those originally or when they announced them originally you know, the CT for V had a four cylinder turbo and the CT five v had a V six. Basically now they're bringing back the engines from the ATF V and the CTS V for these two So, the 6.2 liter supercharged V eight for the CT five, the black wing, and the CT four v black wing gets the four hundred horsepower, twin turbo V six. Rebecca Lindland 47:03 Okay, and a manual just like Dan Roth 47:07 like a whole v eight engine. What the hell Cadillac? Sam Abuelsamid 47:13 Well, first of all, you know that, you know, it's a twin kit and Twin Cam, you know, VA engine so it's a pretty large, I'm not sure. I don't think it'll actually fit in either of those cars. It's too wise Dan Roth 47:24 matter. They didn't put it in anything. Sam Abuelsamid 47:28 They put it they put it in 500 ct, six V's. Right. And that's it. You know, I think, you know, the, the core of that engine may end up being, you know, part of a future iteration of the Corvette. You know, maybe the Z or whatever. Dan Roth 47:44 Yeah, whoever managed to sell management on that project. They They must be brilliant. Sam Abuelsamid 47:53 He works for Volkswagen. Yes. Who did that? Like? Had? I bought? I believe it was Johan that pushed that through, Dan Roth 48:05 how do you manage to get that through? Like, it's such an asinine thing? Like, yes, we're gonna spend it, how much does an engine cost to develop? Sam Abuelsamid 48:13 A couple hundred million dollars? Dan Roth 48:15 Oh, that's not as bad as I thought I thought I was gonna say it's gotta be Sam Abuelsamid 48:18 well, you know, it depends. It depends, you know, I mean, if you're talking about, you know, tooling up a high volume production line for an engine, developing engine and a high volume production system, it probably took about 250 to $300 million. You know, in this case, you know, these engines were basically hand built, it was never meant to be a high volume engine. In fact, you know, you know, some of the components were built by Cosworth. And, and, you know, came from various other suppliers. So, you know, I think it turned out to be less volume than they even anticipated. But, you know, it's still, you know, was never met as a high volume option for these vehicles, as well. A few years back when they launched the CT six you know, I wrote something at the time about you know, the end of the Cadillac v eight because you know, when they launched the CT six without a V eight option, you know, just a cup, you know, twin turbo V six and a naturally aspirated V six. And Johan responded on Facebook saying that Nope, there's definitely VA coming. Yeah, so I think he was the one that pushed that through. Hmm, Dan Roth 49:31 that's okay. I'm sorry for the money that just went up in flames for that. If I'm sure it's a great engine. I'd love to try it out. Yeah, me Sam Abuelsamid 49:42 too. But the one in the press fleet. Dan Roth 49:44 Yeah. Okay, sorry. Moving on. Sam Abuelsamid 49:49 The Genesis God, all new for 2021 Yeah, third generation of the original Genesis. You know, they they did an online review have that as we were just talking about you guys looked at this thing. Yes. What do you think? Dan Roth 50:07 Um I think it's got a lot of Jaguar in it and I think that's good. I'm not as offended by the large grill is apparently the rest of the world is I think they they have bought some very good designers and they're letting them do very good design for all of their cars across all of their brands and this is just another example they're really giving Genesis a personality and I love it Sam Abuelsamid 50:32 Yeah, well you definitely need to separate it apart from Hyundai you know if you're gonna have a separate brand, you know, really needs to be set apart from from the mainstream brand. What do you think Rebecca? Rebecca Lindland 50:43 I Dan Roth 50:46 says it all Rebecca Lindland 50:49 well, I so I, I have a lot of respect for Luke and son. Yep, the two designers at Genesis I I've met with them many, many times. I like I actually don't mind the front end as much. I do think the grill is a enormous it is big. Yeah, it's enormous, but I love like the headlamp treatment. I love how it kind of carries around to the side. I'm not a fan of the profile. I don't really like that big kind of heavy c pillar tree. Yeah, Dan Roth 51:22 I guess if that were the one criticism it does look heavy towards the rear with that seatbelt. Rebecca Lindland 51:27 Yeah, it just it I don't know that one. That's the My only my only issue I can't wait to see it in person. I think the interior is gonna be gorgeous on it. I and maybe you know, again, like this is to our point of talking about you know, seeing things online versus in person. It can be very, very different. And so, you know, I I think the front is really cool. I I'm reserving judgment on the on the side and back. Sam Abuelsamid 51:56 I like the profile. You know, I'm not as defended by the back is you seem to be you know the interior you know definitely seems fabulous you know very much like the the gv ad yeah and clearly you know this is a car it was meant to debut in New York this week for the for the auto show you know and obviously that didn't happen but you know you looking at the you know the one photo we have of the interior, you know, you can see it's got a lot of the same elements the the knurling on the control knob in the in the middle and on the the temperature control knobs, you know, they done a lot of the same kinds of detailing that they did on the gv ad and you know, I think it looks the gvt looks fabulous inside Rebecca Lindland 52:40 the interior is gorgeous. Sam Abuelsamid 52:42 definitely looking forward to trying this out and I do like the, the effect that they've done with the headlights, you know, kind of the two, you know, stacked on slim horizontal headlights, you know, on each side, you know, two of them one above the other with the the signature line They're in between. Rebecca Lindland 53:01 Yeah, that's really cool. Sam Abuelsamid 53:03 Yeah, that's a really nice effect. Rebecca Lindland 53:04 This is definitely another example of where seeing something in person can give you a really different impression of something. Dan Roth 53:11 Well, what's the end? What's the sort of meat and potatoes about the cartoon? Like it's a new platform, right? So it's, Sam Abuelsamid 53:16 it's based on the same architecture as the gv ad. So which is their their SUV? So it's a rear drive platform as before, you know, lighter, stiffer three engine options globally to for North America, I think that the 2.5 liter turbo four cylinder, and also 3.5 liter twin turbo V six 380 horsepower, 304 horsepower. And in some markets, there will also be a diesel, but we certainly won't be getting that here. Yeah, I think Rebecca Lindland 53:49 this also very much represents in the work that Manfred Fitzgerald who came from Lamborghini to run Genesis, he is now he has now been kicked out. But I think it represents his, you know, his vision of the brand and, and his team, most of his team is still in place there as far as I know. But I think this is, you know, the gvt is one of the first vehicles that really had more of their stamp on it. And so and and they were very adamant about making Genesis different and separate from Hyundai. It's not always easy to do that. But that was, you know, one of the things that was really one of their, their tenants of the brand. Sam Abuelsamid 54:32 Yeah, well, I mean, if you're going to have a separate brand from Hyundai, yeah, and force dealers to invest in separate showrooms, you know, you really do need to make it quite distinct from the mainstream brand and, you know, they've definitely moved in that direction with the with the design, you know, it's it's quite different. It doesn't look like any Hyundai. Rebecca Lindland 54:54 Right, exactly. And they did the same thing with the G 90 because I drove that back in December I And that, again is very distinctive, enormous grill, but has a lot of similarities to, to this. So I think they've got that signature down, you know, and that will see run throughout the brand. Sam Abuelsamid 55:14 Yeah, I think it's funny, you know, both this, the GD and the G 90 both have this large grille. Interestingly, you know, on the GMAT, it's kind of, they've kind of slumped it back a little more, whereas on the G 90, it's more vertical. And to my eye, for whatever reason, it doesn't bother me as much as it did on the GA on the G 90. Just because it you know, it looks, it doesn't look quite as in your face. To me, I don't know. Well, it's a bigger Rebecca Lindland 55:47 bra. Maybe it's a little bit more proportionate. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry. Sam Abuelsamid 55:52 It's, you know, it's a subtle difference, but it just works better for me. Rebecca Lindland 55:56 Yeah. Well, it's funny because I was just looking at the pictures from that launch. I don't like that back end either. I don't know. Maybe it's just we have different tastes or NASA's apparently. Dan Roth 56:12 But there's one for everyone. I'm just gonna leave that there. Let's move on. All right. Sam Abuelsamid 56:23 Another rear drive sedan that's coming up. Apparently the Mazda six is going to go rear drive for its next generation. I What do you think? Dan Roth 56:35 I, initially my initial thought was like this is gonna be the car that drives monster to insolvency. They're developing an inline six and a rear drive platform that's gonna sell like, not gonna sell for a car that already even as a conventional sort of front wheel drive, midsize or doesn't really sell all that much. What the heck are they thinking? We Then I, the the current driver explanation makes a little bit more sense. there's a there's a Toyota angle here, or Alexis angle here. Is that accurate? Do we think Sam Abuelsamid 57:15 that it would be based on the Lexus platform Dan Roth 57:17 or that the Lexus platform that Toyota is is having very much like what happened with the Z for the Super right. So Toyota has Mazda develop the platform, and they kick him some money for it, and then they use it for the Lexus. Sam Abuelsamid 57:32 That would make sense. You know, I mean, Toyota owns 20% of Mazda now. So it would make sense to do that, you know, and get some economies of scale out of this. So maybe do an X generation GS, or even the is off of the same platform. You know, I think, you know, if if Mazda wants to go, you know, take the brand a little more premium. I think it makes sense to do something like this and make it more distinct. Yeah, I think, you know, on modern cars, you know, especially on, you know, somewhat larger cars, you know, the, the benefits of front wheel drive aren't as pronounced, you know, so you can afford to, you know, to go rear wheel drive, you know, and, you know, the other the other aspect of this, it's kind of interesting is that not only is a new platform, but also new inline six cylinder engine, which presumably, you know, will share its basic architecture with their existing four cylinder engines. So, you know, probably the same bore spacing as the four cylinders, you know, same while the same component, you know, component set. And it's apparently going to adopt the sky ActiveX technology that we haven't gotten here in the US yet, but it's been, it's proven to be quite popular in Europe, on the CX 30, and on the Mazda three, so this is their compression ignition engine technology, you know, along with a mild hybrid. So, you know, that could be that could be a really interesting you know, differentiator, you know, and really set them apart from anything else in Rebecca Lindland 59:04 the market. Well, they have to do something. I mean, they've, you know, they've been struggling a bit monster has, so they got to work on something, hopefully this will be at. Sam Abuelsamid 59:16 Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, if it looks anything like the division concept from a couple of years back, I mean, you know, this thing will be absolutely stunning. Rebecca Lindland 59:24 Yeah, no, it looks I mean, I hope they can execute on it, because it is it is gorgeous. And again, we've talked about this before, but you know, it's getting the brand perception up there products like this could really move it in the right direction. Sam Abuelsamid 59:39 Yeah, and like I said, you know, if Lexus ends up using the same architecture, then you know, they think they've potentially got a real winner here. Dan Roth 59:48 There's no other way that's going to happen, right? Like monster just, it's, it's expensive to develop in a niche platform like that, and they don't have anything else to go on it. So you're not going to get any economies of scale otherwise. So that's got to be The most logical explanation is that there's, there's gonna be some platform sharing to go on with, you know, somewhere. We're all very excited because it says it's got all the right words right rear wheel drive, inline six. I wonder if that actually makes it sell less though, so I guess we'll have to see but that is because the MAS is not a luxury brand, even though they're trying to pull the brand up market and we talked about that before. I it's hard to say when the right time to do that is this this may be the right product and and they may be able to get out in front of it, but it's looking dicey from here, like whether it's gonna be a success, or they'll take a loss on every single one and just, you know, they know that they're going to do that and they'll uses Halo for the rest of the brands. Sam Abuelsamid 1:00:54 earlier on, we alluded to delivery charges and this is something that Rebecca I wanted to talk about a little bit. You want to lead us off? Rebecca Lindland 1:01:05 Yes. So I just, you know, when I was looking through a bunch of stuff, it just occurred to me that just how how wide and varied destination charges have become, and this is something that every vehicle has on it, and there's really no negotiating on it. But sometimes they, you know, when I look at these things, I think this is really gonna change your payment on a loan, and not by a lot, but it's still you know, I was what, what kind of caught my eye attack my I was, so the super was sent. It's $1,010, the Toyota Highlander, it's 1100 and $20, the Lexus It's 10. It's $1,000. And then on this BMW, which was $100,000 car, it's $995. So it's actually less Which I was really, you know, very surprised about. I was expecting it to be more the Bentley was about 20 $500. Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:08 Okay, they're making it up on the MSRP. Dan Roth 1:02:11 Okay, so my first question is, Why is this not just rolled into the purchase price? Sam Abuelsamid 1:02:16 Yeah, this is this is something that's always annoyed me, you know, it's not like, it's not like you can opt out of paying this fee, even even if you know, for companies that offer factory delivery programs, you know, even if you go to the factory, and they never put that thing on a truck and ship it to you. You still have to pay that delivery fee. It's crazy. Yeah. So if it's not an optional fee, it should be stuck right into the end of the sticker price. And just get rid of it entirely. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, if you're, if part of that fee is going directly to the dealer, you know, it's not going back to the manufacturer, fine. I don't care. You figure that out in the back end, but the price that you you advertise should be the price include Neil the total out the door price, less taxes. Rebecca Lindland 1:03:06 Well and the things that so on the on Fiat Chrysler on most of their product line there that destination and delivery is 1400 and $95 that is that's just Dan Roth 1:03:20 insane to me that that is nuts. Rebecca Lindland 1:03:23 I mean that's 1500 dollars. I just I don't know and I it struck me again like as I was writing different things just working on stuff I was like wow, that's just a lot and as I did some research, I when I was just and again this is very informal, but from the from the research that I did do that 1495 is one of the highest for a non premium product. Now some full size pickup trucks sometimes are like, like 615 95 or 1695. So you can get up there for sure. But for a flat across the board that 1495 is Really high and, and the other thing is that, you know, when you're looking at buying, you've got to factor that not only into your payment, but when you're looking at used cars, you don't pay that. And so that's something else to think about. You know, we're looking at when you're negotiating for a used car, you're not going to be paying this destination fee. There's no way out of it. You know, it's not it's not negotiable. And so you've got it. You don't have to negotiate the price of the car with that in. Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:30 Yeah, and even. Even the fee of 500 has that same 1500 dollar Rebecca Lindland 1:04:36 destiny. So as a percentage of the MSRP It's crazy. Sam Abuelsamid 1:04:42 Yeah, yeah, I mean, the base 500 starts at 16 five, and then you're paying another 1500 on top of that for destination charges, even without any options. You know what? 8% listen. Dan Roth 1:04:54 Yeah, I mean, they should buy the best cry. Once. I'm You're getting a Fiat 500 Rebecca Lindland 1:05:04 I love my little fat. So, but yeah, but yeah, it was just something that you know, kind of came into my head today and I thought it would be interesting to not only bring it to people's attention because they have gone up considerably depending and they do vary so much across manufacture it's um it's just you know, it's something else to keep an Dan Roth 1:05:24 eye I think I and we should have him on as a guest on one of the shows. I have a internet car friend who spent time in the the automakers side dealing with dealers. So like his own rep, I'm not sure exactly what his position was, but he could probably speak to some of this stuff from the retail level that we wouldn't have considered having not having been part of the automotive retail industry. So we should be straight to get them on and Yeah, I think that'd be interesting with questions. Why does it suck so much to buy a car? Now we figured out our technological our tech, our tech stack, right like Rebecca Lindland 1:06:13 well, and that To that end also I and I mentioned this last week but looking at the seven the Coronavirus relief plans, more manufacturers have come out with them Jaguar Land Rover just announced yesterday. So if you if you do have a loan through the manufacturers, privately held or captive finance company, I you know, do look at it and if you need deferred payments, there is opportunities out there for people. Sam Abuelsamid 1:06:44 So, shall we get to some questions? Yes, we should do the questions. Questions, please. We've solicited them twice. We should we should go through them. So first one here from William mailee. On Twitter as said aside from delays and product launches me events in auto shows. Do you see any other consequences, both good and bad coming from COVID-19? Certainly lots of bad consequences. either of you have some thoughts before I dive in? Rebecca Lindland 1:07:14 I'd love to hear what you think. Dan Roth 1:07:15 I just I think that the sales are gonna have a tough time this year, at least this? Sam Abuelsamid 1:07:21 Yeah. Well, for several years, I think, you know, we like me and my colleagues have been working on updating our sales forecasts for the next decade. You know, based on what's been going on, and, you know, we we actually just had updated them recently, before, you know, all of this happened. And we decided to go back and revisit those, and we've put together a report that we're going to be publishing in the next week or so. But basically, you know, the projection, you know, globally, for 2020 had been somewhere around 95 million vehicles. And we're currently forecasting about 65 million in a best case scenario for 2020. Wow. And depending on what happens, you know, especially here in the US, you know, you know, if if we, you know, reopen the economy too quickly and we get, you know, sub fall on flare ups of the, of the infection and have to shut back down again. You know, it could be much worse. I mean, you know, we could be looking, you know, down as close to, you know, close to 50 million, you know, you know, potentially in a worst case scenario, and even in that best case scenario, you know, we're not, we're not project we're not expecting to get back, you know, to the previous trend of sales, you know, back up, you know, to where we had anticipated until about 2023 or 2024. Because, you know, there's a lot of things going on, right now, you know, obviously, you know, we've got, we're gonna have huge unemployment through the remainder This year, I mean, there's a lot of people out of work, and a lot of people, a lot of those jobs that, you know, are not going to be there, even when we open back up again, because a lot of small businesses are not going to make it through this. You know, they just don't have the resources to keep going with no revenue. You know, this is unlike any previous downturn, we've had, you know, in the past, you know, 2009 You know, when we had a big recession, you know, we weren't forcing, you know, entire industries to shut down completely. You know, we didn't force restaurants to close and bars to close. So there's going to be a lot of people that don't have jobs to go back to when when we start back up again. And, you know, then there's other factors, like, you know, for example, you know, right now we've got the biggest work from home experiment that we've ever done. You know, in the past, a lot of companies had not had not, you know, ever really considered letting their people work remotely? Now they are, you know, they're being forced to do it. And I think a lot of companies are going to find that, you know, hey, this actually didn't work out so bad. And so I think there's going to be a significant portion of the workforce that may end up working remotely on a permanent basis, either full time or part time on a on a permanent basis going forward, which means you're going to have fewer people commuting. So there's going to be less wear and tear on cars, though, you know, the lifespan of cars is going to increase for a lot of people, they're, you know, they're not going to need to own as many cars, you know, maybe a car, a household with three cars goes down to two cars, or even one car, you know, so there's going to be a lot of a lot of potential societal changes going forward, that are going to impact this, you know, and then on top of all this other stuff, you get what's going on with oil prices, you know, oil prices are in the tank right now. And if they don't go back up, you know, that's also going to put a lot of downward pressure on sales of EBS. You know, around here, you know, there's, there's a lot of gas stations where you can find gas for $1 a gallon. Which, you know, we haven't had since I was a kid. So, you know, the, you know, the overall situation for the auto industry is going to be really bad. And, you know, right now, everybody's trying to conserve cash, you know, to get through this this period. But, you know, even when they start building cars and selling cars again, you know, they're going to be, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna have a lot less cash on the balance sheet than they do today. Or than they did a month ago. And so they're gonna have to make some hard decisions about product plans going forward. And so some stuff like this monster six might not survive, you know, you know, other things that you know, that we've seen and heard about, you know, might end up getting delayed a year to three years, you know, the stuff that's, you know, that's close, you know, that was gonna launch this year and next year, they've already spent the money on that. Right. It's like the Dan Roth 1:12:09 sunk cost monkey book, you're not gonna put it out there. Sam Abuelsamid 1:12:15 Yeah, I mean, you've already you've already tooled up the plant, you know, it, you know, it's pretty much ready to go, you know, go forward, you know, there will be some delays, you know, because of lost productivity right now, you know, in the final stages of testing and validation, but, you know, they'll, they'll end up going forward. So, you know, this is, you know, this is gonna be a bad situation for quite some time to come. Rebecca Lindland 1:12:42 And we've touched on this in the previous podcast as well. But I think, you know, when we think about that, the potential for like 60 million versus 90 million vehicles sold. I think we also have to think about how what different vehicles are or what that mix is. Go To look like and it's you know, you can speculate all you want, but this work from home phenomenon, you know, is something that's, that's very, very interesting because, you know, the ability to not commute even for once a week. I, you know, I think I mentioned last time I, my brother in law and my former sister in law who is still a very good friend, they each have, you know, three hour commute to and from the city and, you know, from the minute they leave their house to taking an hour train ride and then another half hour to get to their office and gaining that time back is really precious. And, you know, they they're loving it. And it's very difficult, obviously, to work from home. And that's not ideal in many cases. My brother in law in particular, it's there, they work on big finance deals, and he said it's just so hard to not have everybody in the same room, like they often have, like a war room, you know, when they're financing things like stadiums and stuff, you know, these are big, big finance, jobs, projects that he has. So it's, you know, there's definitely opportunity and I can see a growth pattern for working from home. But it's also I think there's also plenty of people that would prefer to be back in the office and to have everybody you know, at their fingertips and being able to go into different people's offices quickly and easily. So, I know you know, from working from home with when I worked for Kelley Blue Book, and everybody else was in a different office. I was the only one that was remote, which is an unusual circumstance that not what we're talking about here. But it definitely put me at a disadvantage being in a different time zone and being remote. So I do also think about like companies like we work, you know, where they they ahead of their time, in some ways, and you know, there was a lot of other scandals, obviously with that company, but the idea of shared workspace, you know, where you just have a temporary, you know, temporary offices, you know, or you have your shared workspaces where you can go in if you need to, I think that is something that is a bit in its infancy now, but could really grow as we change and, and through this experiment, as you called it, Sam, you know, it could be really different. It could be it could be a brave new world, Sam Abuelsamid 1:15:34 you know, obviously, not everybody that's working from home today is going to continue working from home. But you know, even if 10 20% You know, we're talking millions of potentially millions more people working remotely. And, you know, companies are going to look at that and say, okay, we don't need as much office space, we don't need as much commercial real estate. So you know, you're gonna see contraction in that sector. You're gonna you know, if that happens, then You know, a lot of businesses that serve those companies, you know, are similarly, you know, going to contract you know, restaurants and bars and dry cleaners, you know, that provides services to the people that work in those offices may end up going out of business as well. So there's there's going to be this huge cascading effect going Dan Roth 1:16:20 forward. I mean, dissipating a few things, no matter what really happens with any kind of decrease, there's going to be a large group of workers who have the ability to say, look, we've proved this can work. Let's just keep doing this until we're really sure because if we go back and we're not 100% sure that disruption is going to then be much worse. So let's continue our business and so those of us who can do it comfortably are going to still do it. I think you're right though that economy cascading effect is we don't even know how bad that's gonna get. And we don't know what the the measures to stimulate might be. You know, there's been chatter about a cart Cash for Clunkers thing. I don't, I don't really know if that's gonna work. And I, it's gonna be interesting to see what kind of cars people turn around and buy. You know? Sam Abuelsamid 1:17:12 Yeah, well, I mean, if you've got 10s of millions of people out, nobody's buying anything. You know, if you don't have an income, do cash record Dan Roth 1:17:20 right then. And so some of those businesses that if we're, if we've seen a permanent relocation or a permanent move to a significant, larger group of work from home, we're going to see some of those businesses that are in the the sort of more dense districts that some of them are going to move, right like the businesses will come out to where the people are, because even work from home at a certain point during the day, those of us who've been cooped up now for six or eight weeks, we're going to want to go get a coffee at lunchtime or something. So there's gonna be businesses that pop up in our locales to serve that Need, it's not going to be the same. It's not a full it's not a one to one replacement. For sure. So there's going to be economic pain no matter what. So I think you're right, like, Is it a two year recovery? Is it a five year recovery? We don't? We don't know. It's gonna be long. Yeah, it's gonna be long, it's gonna be deep. I mean, we're just continuing to add to a deficit, which is kind of what you do in a time like this. We're not doing it in the smartest way either. And that's, that's gonna be really hard to pay back off, especially if GDP craters, you know, we got we got pretty lucky with the last downturn in 2008. That we, we pulled up out of that. But if demand and global demand is another problem, like in in 2008, the the US had an economic problem and there was there were economic problems around the world but not, not to the same degree, you know, and so when the world economy kind of stalls or slows down That recovery just takes that much longer. So it's it's going to be a contraction in the automotive market and it's going to change we by you know, in terms of looking for cars, I think you're going to see a lot more pressure on used cars because they're more affordable. And I think that, you know, tastes may change to something more practical, more durable, less frivolous, more efficient. Sam Abuelsamid 1:19:24 Well, I think we're having some some technical glitches here with with audio. So I think maybe we should wrap it up and, and come back to questions again next time. Dan Roth 1:19:42 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. Media. Thanks again for listening to wheel bearings.