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. 

Dan Roth  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebeccadrives and her cat ,Lucy. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:14  
Lucy. Lucy Van Pelt.

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Dan Roth  0:21  
Well, welcome. listen to the podcast. What's Lucy been driving?

Rebecca Lindland  0:24  
me crazy. That's

Dan Roth  0:28  
excellent.

Well, I mean, when you need to get out of the house, you know, you've had actually, Rebecca, you've had a couple of really good cars.

Rebecca Lindland  0:38  
I've been driving most stuff. I did. So I had I had a 2020 Bentley flying spur first with the first edition package, which is $45,000. And what's actually interesting with the package, not for the flights, exactly right. That's just for the package. For the first edition markings are

creature mods. So this so we were actually supposed to be in Seattle last week driving on a launch of this of these these vehicles. But of course, that was the first press trip. For me personally, that was the first press trip that I got notified that was going to be canceled, which makes sense it was in Seattle, so that wasn't gonna happen. So what they ended up doing was dispersing all the vehicles to different parts of the country. And basically, we had to do an add home ride and drive. You know, they

Unknown Speaker  1:33  
want to tragedy they made a mistake. I did not get mine.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36  
Yeah, I know. I didn't get mine either. What's going

Rebecca Lindland  1:38  
on? Well, I actually got two because the first one because the first one. The first one as he's driving it up here, he was only about about, I think, not even half a half an hour away. It's like an hour drive for them. He hit a nail and had to turn around and go back and then they had to re sanitize is the car that I ended up getting? Sorry, I'm totally distracted because my nephew Jake just came in and he's trying to get let's see. She should have claws. She does. Of course, she has claws.

Dan Roth  2:17  
They have like a good accent this magical ability to make themselves like 10 pounds heavier. When you if they have the claws or like Velcro, that's excellent.

Rebecca Lindland  2:27  
So I have to say, I think he actually got her but I started using the Amazon app, call my cat. And I gotta tell you, I don't know if it's just coincidence. It could be totally what is that when the placebo effect is super bright, but it's been working. So when she's been meowing a lot more ever since Linus passed away in January her brother, so she is I know. So anyway, so I'm sorry, but back to the flying spur. So yes, so So they had to go back to New Jersey and re sanitize and sanitize a whole new one. So anyway, so I ended up getting it later on in the day which was fine. But obviously it's you know, this this vehicle it's it's first of all it's big it's it is a full size four door sedan or it's really a saloon and designed you know for a driver in the front and a passenger in the back. And you know, a very important passenger at that. But you know, Sam, I was actually thinking about you and I was driving it because we've talked you and I talk specifically at the Ford Escape launch, but we've talked on this podcast as well Dan, about the the greenhouse you know, the windows in these in different vehicles and how at one point they got so small, that like visibility was compromised. And this I got to tell you in the flying spur the windows are So small, that visibility was really difficult. And it's one of the few times that my lack of height really came into play. Like, I almost, I mean, Jake, when when Jake was with me, I would have to have to ask him when I was making a left hand turn, because between the mirror and how and how close I had to sit, and how narrow the window is, my visibility was so compromised. It was actually easier to drive at night, because I could see headlight headlights, headlights in it and such. It was just it was Yeah, it was really I mean, I kept trying to play with the seat. The a pillar was is pretty big and it is right there. And it was I you know, I took a bunch of pictures that I'll send to you guys so you can put them on but I focus specifically on the greenhouse of the vehicle because the windows are so small It was it was really, it wasn't

Sam Abuelsamid  5:02  
a response, the real problem that designers need to start thinking about, you know, they do this mostly for design, you know, for static purposes. Sure. And when it compromises functionality in such a fundamental way, that that's really bad.

Dan Roth  5:17  
Well, you know, and I think that Yeah, with this with the flying spur, it's for a couple of generations. Now. It's been difficult to really get a sense of scale, from looking at pictures of it. And so in pictures, and I think this is one of the reasons why the windows are small and a lot of cars. It looks dramatic, you know, it's great low roof. It's really hard to tell how big this thing is. So and it's so

Rebecca Lindland  5:43  
yeah, it's enormous, right? It's enormous. Yeah. No, it's it's enormous. Yeah, it was, you know, it was lovely to to drive it was, you know, because it's very, very much of a saloon. It was floaty, even with the dynamic drive. It's all wheel drive, but even with the dynamic mode I can sport mode, there wasn't really a significant difference. You know, it's it's a touring car. It's not a sports sedan, it's not the GT or anything like that. You know, it's it's amazing to drive I mean, we've been

Dan Roth  6:15  
awesome is a 626 horsepower 626

Rebecca Lindland  6:18  
horsepower, a 6.8 liter engine A w 12 configuration for even more torque because the torque was insane. Yeah, it's

Dan Roth  6:29  
a torque. Yeah, it's it's got that, like, people described as like electric motor style, or you know, 1550 RPM, you got full torque. That's

Rebecca Lindland  6:36  
crazy. It was crazy. I mean, we we had it in triple digits in in seconds, literally seconds. And of course, the roads are empty right now. Right.

Dan Roth  6:46  
So I'm assuming you were able to actually try out the top speed. I think is Bentley says it'll do 207 miles an hour. You

have the merit? Absolutely.

Rebecca Lindland  6:58  
No. So we actually went The Tappan Zee Bridge in it because, you know, it's a it's a brand

Dan Roth  7:04  
at 200 miles an hour, right? I was gonna say the new Tappan Zee, right.

Rebecca Lindland  7:08  
Exactly. They could never catch me. So But no, it was it was really an experience to drive. And, you know, it was it was a privilege. It was very much a privilege to drive. So the total price on this thing starts at 214,000. And then there was an 80 $800 sound system called name and aim. Niamey. We'd never heard of it.

Dan Roth  7:31  
Ask Alex Roy, he probably can tell you all I have

Rebecca Lindland  7:34  
no doubt that he could. And then the flying spur this black line specification it did. It had a real it was all blacked out which was really really cool. So that was 4700 the the flying the radiator mass mascot in black gloss 4862

Dan Roth  7:56  
lit up, right.

Rebecca Lindland  7:57  
It lit up. When we say yeah Yes, exactly. And then of course, the first addition specification package was $44,735 or grand total with a 20 $700 destination of $281,175. Okay,

Dan Roth  8:15  
so I know the numbers sound bonkers, but I have not had the privilege of actually seeing one of these in person yet. Oh, there's only

Rebecca Lindland  8:25  
a few of them in the states right? Right. Yeah.

Dan Roth  8:28  
But he's the I and I kind of like this is weird like uh, personally I don't have much of a crap about supercars except for the engineering of them is bonkers and I get a chance to sniff around them I come away impressed. But like, you know, and Bentley, this echelon of car is something different and you start to look at all of the detailing and all of the craftsmanship because he talks about like, what makes it worth that now you start to look at it, you go Okay, it's it's a premium price. And it's your you get What you pay for

Rebecca Lindland  9:01  
every piece had purpose that like every button moved with with purpose. Everything is gorgeous

Dan Roth  9:11  
and fussed over.

Rebecca Lindland  9:14  
Just know it really, I mean, it's just spectacular. It's just spectacular. It really is. And, you know, you, when you sit in it, you are very conscious of the fact that you're not in a normal car, you know, it just was the I should have recorded it and I I forgot I when you turn the SAT when you turn the car on the whole nav system and this screen rotate, rotate. Yes. Which is, you know, just so fun. I mean,

Dan Roth  9:47  
like the 2001 through also sproxil.

Rebecca Lindland  9:52  
Right. You know, the backs I mean, sitting in the back seat, you know, Jake was

Sam Abuelsamid  9:56  
a total baller back there.

Rebecca Lindland  10:00  
You know, it was I mean, it's, it's it's very much a privilege kind of vehicle, you know, it's absolutely lovely. I mean that just just the details on it throughout, you know are are unmistakable as I said, I mean you every every switch every knob there's just they just never missed a trick in it. And this one was Meteor blue is this beautiful blue and the inside was just this gorgeous cream and blue color. And, you know, it was it was just, I mean it really it was a it was an amazing experience to drive for sure.

Dan Roth  10:33  
I see cars like this is just a real celebration of the, of the craft of, of extreme wealth. Well, it's definitely an extreme wealth thing. But beyond that sort of, like absurdity of why a thing like this exists. I think I go I appreciate the the design and engineering and thoughtfulness and really just because it's just a celebration of the craft Yes and what what we can do, as you know, as a true as a craft, I guess, you know, it's this weird thing, right? Like it's

Sam Abuelsamid  11:13  
a celebration of what's possible when you have the resources to build any Yeah,

Dan Roth  11:18  
yeah. And but it's just it's so, so beautifully done like, yeah, I come out of a, you know, a background that is just sort of visual and creative and every little, every little detail in a car like the senate Rolls Royce is the same way too. You start to poke around one of those and you just in

Rebecca Lindland  11:36  
an Aston Martin as well,

Dan Roth  11:38  
everywhere your eye lands is like, oh, somebody thought about this. It's not like, Oh, yeah, we spat them out of an injection molding machine, everything is like, very well done. And so it doesn't really matter. Like what's underneath it either, you know, because there's a lot, you know, there's there's, they have to find economies. So there's shared parts, you know, there's folks hiking stuff into so yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  11:56  
there's a lot of parts in here that are shared with the outside. 897 which is you know, not a bad thing, nothing wrong with that. You know, because it's it's on that same, that same platform that MLB evil platform.

Dan Roth  12:10  
Yeah. And they've done such a wonderful job of evolving the Bentley look to you know, it's dramatic. It looks like a Bentley they've they've changed up the the sort of front. The vintage, I don't know what you'd call it, but that you know that the lights are a little different. It looks more like a bit large single light.

Rebecca Lindland  12:32  
Right, the facia, but yeah.

Dan Roth  12:35  
But it's got that distinctive Bentley grille looks like a continental always has, you know, I'm not a continental left flank spur. Always. You know,

Rebecca Lindland  12:42  
it's it's very distinctive. I mean, it's certainly you know, even in Greenwich, it got looks, for sure. I made it. Exactly. No, I mean, it has a presence, you know, and you know, funny, so you know what, in arrived, Jake and I went out for a drive in it, and then We decided to get pizza because we're trying to support you know, our local restaurants. And it turns out that other people wanted to support our local restaurant and there was a line for pickup like, right on Putnam Avenue, which is like, it's like post road like route one. And so we're sitting in line waiting for pizza and they're bringing it out to each car. Like, we definitely have the nicest car in the pizza like yeah, even in Greenwich.

Dan Roth  13:28  
Well, I mean, that's, that's hard to do in Greenwich. There's a lot of nice stuff there.

Rebecca Lindland  13:31  
If there is a guy it was it was pretty funny. But no, you know, it just and again, as you say, it's it's really very much a celebration of touring. You know, it's, I mean, that's what it's about. And it's, it's not what I would call a really engaging drive, driving experience. You know, obviously with that engine, it's incredible. But you know, it's, it's, I it's, it can be floaty, it can be Little bit floaty as you as you just you know kind of truck along and and as I said that the the sport mode wasn't didn't tighten it up as much as I wanted it to I wanted to have a little bit more engagement but that's what the Continental GT is for so this this is this is for touring is this for Sunday drives and it does it absolutely absolutely spectacularly. This was actually the first Bentley that I got a chance to, to spend time in and to really drive you know, I think I you know, I it's tough because really only Jacob could go with me. And I would love to you know, driven my mom around in it or something, you know, what a great experience for her. So, you know, it's unfortunate it had to be this week, I even another month possibly I could have driven her but it was still, you know, just an incredible, incredible experience to have. So yeah, it was really cool. And then I had the opposite effect as well. Actually, that's not true. I had a really I had a GMC Acadia as well, which I love that, that lineup of vehicles for them.

Dan Roth  15:06  
Maybe Katie's not bad. It's, I mean, that's Did you get mistaken for an Uber in Greenwich? Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  15:14  
No, no, this was actually a really beautiful color and it had the most gorgeous white interior. It was crazy. Totally impractical, but absolutely, absolutely beautiful. They actually did they did a really, really nice job with it. So the Acadia is, is it's a full size car based SUV was actually one of the first large SUV crossovers that came out. I now like 10 years ago, I think at least.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:45  
Yeah, 2007

Rebecca Lindland  15:47  
Yeah, I was gonna say because I was actually involved. When they first came out. They had a lot of engine calibration issues because it was it was 2006 seven timeframe and You know, a recession was starting to happen. A fuel economy was was top of mind. And they had calibrated. I believe it was the Acadia. They calibrated it really to maximize fuel economy and it was terrible. Nobody liked it on the ride and drive that we were on out in California. And they actually brought a number of us back a few months later to when they after they had recalibrated the engine and it was it was fantastic. And I got to drive around. I with Grace Lee blind who ended up being becoming she was an engineer there. And she ended up becoming the president of GMO Brazil before she retired. And, you know, she and I were at The Proving Grounds just talking about how that balance between needing to get a certain level of fuel economy and satisfying what the consumer wanted. So it's, you know, every time I drive in, in one of the lambda platform vehicles, I always think about how much work went into And they're actually really it was it was women that were that were the primary engineers on these vehicles. That's always fun.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:06  
Yeah, the second generation Acadia actually got closer to more of a mid size than full size is when they, you know, for the for the second when they launched the second generation of the lambda platform. They wanted to differentiate the three more than they had before the originals you know all on the original versions of the the Buick Enclave the Acadia the Chevy Traverse Saturn outlook. Yeah, they all had or Yeah, they all had exactly the same dimensions. You know, so they were all exactly the same size. And there was it was hard to make the case for why you would go for one over the others, except for maybe the Enclave which definitely had a more premium feel to it.

Dan Roth  17:51  
Yes. I went to the Enclave quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, the

Sam Abuelsamid  17:54  
unpaid was gorgeous. You know, this the second go around, they they split them up a little bit more. made the Acadia a little shorter. It's about seven inches shorter than the others. You know it the procedure well it's available within a passenger yes you can get it with a third row seat but it's really more of an emergency seat it's not really usable for adults and then you know the Enclave you know they made it a little bit low as its enclave is the same length as the traverse now but it's a little bit lower and wider so it has distinctly different proportions from the from the Chevy and then the Chevy is more the traditional family vehicle

Rebecca Lindland  18:37  
but I love I mean this Acadia we we packed that thing. It's swallowed up we had to bring a bunch of boxes, basically my remains in my father's library, and we were bringing them over to storage and it was like eight banker boxes and once we got those in we were like wow, we still have half a car leftover. I mean it was unbelievable. We stuffed even stuff in there and you know it's just it's great as this this one in particular just say said that the third row is really for emergencies only in the in the Acadia but as a five passenger it was just incredibly comfortable it actually I believe mine had captain's seat so it may have even only been Yeah, mine was only a four passenger Hello? Yeah. Oh wait, no I lie it did have it didn't have the third row it wasn't you know, it's not terrible Yeah, I'm just looking at my pictures of it. It's not you know, it's it's relative.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:39  
Definitely a lot more compact. It's for kids.

Rebecca Lindland  19:43  
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a it's a best best saved for for kids in smaller

Dan Roth  19:48  
times like these that I I enjoyed the fact that I'm significantly less than six feet tall. just about anywhere.

Because an airplane

even I am uncomfortable.

Rebecca Lindland  20:04  
Right? So the Acadia though it's you know, it's a great family vehicle, and the one that I had it's a 3.6 liter V six. I think it has a nine speed transmission, which performed really pretty flawlessly. I mean, I, I, you know, didn't have any issues with it. It's really well appointed. The one that I had was the Denali, which is the top of the line with all wheel drive. So it's the vehicle starts at 29,800. Mine was 52,004 35 because it was a Denali, so it had basically absolutely everything and

Sam Abuelsamid  20:37  
so that I think that is it the standard Acadia that's 29 or,

Rebecca Lindland  20:41  
yes, yeah, that's just a very, very, very big. I don't think there's any $29,000 Katie is running around. Yeah, sure.

Dan Roth  20:49  
What's the your impression of the interior quality I know it's hard to throw it back to back with a Bentley, but

Rebecca Lindland  20:57  
it's actually you know, I was very impressed with the interior. I think I think they did a really nice job with it.

Dan Roth  21:03  
Okay because that's one of the things like this I think this is very similar to the Cadillac 66 it like power train wise I know there's there's some sharing going on the XT six is a little bit distinct but I haven't had the Acadia I had the x86 and one of the things I found was that price wise when it starts to really creep up, they're starting to nudge into the 80s and 90s. That interior that feels nice maybe at 52 feels not quite as nice. Start to go with the money now. You know.

Rebecca Lindland  21:36  
Yeah, I mean, once you start, you know, this is we've talked before about whether they've been good stewards of the Cadillac brand and they haven't been, you can't. There should not be that, that much visible to the consumer. There shouldn't be touchpoints that are the same between an a GMC and a Cadillac. I just I think that Cadillac will be different. I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:03  
you know, to their credit, though, you know, when you look at the Z six, you know, you don't really see components that are common to an Acadia it doesn't you know, they look different, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily look better.

Dan Roth  22:17  
Yeah, I think it was more of like the quality of the materials and the way it felt and just like it's it's nice but it's more in line with the Acadia nice versus like what it should be for Yeah, yeah, significantly more. But that power train was great. I had that if that's the same power train that was in the Z six. It was It was great. It is it's the 3.6 liter now it's

Rebecca Lindland  22:42  
the only thing with the GMC. It has that stupid lever gear shifter and a nightmare. I hate that

Dan Roth  22:49  
thing. Yeah, that so everybody's trying to do that and I'm not sure. I don't think that GM is terribly successful with their it But I see what they're doing. You know, it's not that different than what Honda and Acura have done, you know?

Sam Abuelsamid  23:08  
I think you're the Acadia doesn't have the button push button. Oh, it doesn't. It's got this little lever lever.

Rebecca Lindland  23:17  
You know the Acadia it has that five by five. It's a horizontal stripe

Sam Abuelsamid  23:22  
just below the radio. hang on let me I'm looking at pictures of the Acadia on the media side right now I'm looking

Rebecca Lindland  23:28  
at pictures of the Katy that I had in my driveway. I'm looking at pictures.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:35  
I will I will trust you because I just the on the site, they still have pictures of the 2018. So I think I did refresh it last year.

Rebecca Lindland  23:43  
So this one has it has a it has a big button for Park and then it has a lever forward for reverse and then neutral and then forward for dry

Dan Roth  23:53  
weight you push it or like a lever right?

Rebecca Lindland  23:56  
Like you. It's like a tab. It's like it's Have that you have almost like like with your finger with a single finger you pull it towards yourself oh yeah that's

Dan Roth  24:05  
not that's not what I'm picturing like I thought I think Sam I think this is where Sam jumped in like I'm picturing like Didn't they have like buttons or like there's one that you pull down and then another that you

Rebecca Lindland  24:15  
pray I think that's a refreshed I think they refreshed Okay, so this one because that was a nightmare. Oh yeah, this sounds like it also sucks Yeah, it does. But I do think it's better than the original original but I could be mistaken but the one This one had the had the buttons the gear shifter is is a crock it's a five buttons horizontally. I just end it sits like below the radiator and above where like you put yourself on or something.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:47  
Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. And actually, the I think what you're thinking of Rebecca might be the terrain. The terrain Ah, war had a bad push button system because they Guess you're honestly the Acadia did have a traditional mechanical shifter so they went to a push button system that sounds like it's it's not really much better than what's on the acade on the terrain

Rebecca Lindland  25:13  
it is better than the train though as long as I remember driving the train yes it is definitely better than the terrain and you know, I mean that the leather that they use is very nice. There's nice detailing the top stitching is there, it's still family friendly, because you have to keep that in mind you know they're still there. You know, this is a family vehicle and you know, there's there's a lot of storage and cubby holes and things like that. So you know, and it's it's a nice easy vehicle to drive I just and I think that you get used to that lever push button thing. It's just not something that you want to have to get used to, you know, you want familiarity so I'm also driving this week I keep getting double booked which is difficult, especially when we're not used to Right. And so I have the Subaru ascent and I have the Toyota Highlander and both of them it's just so nice to have like a normal gear shifter. There you know, I but but the you know the Acadia I will say I don't think the gear selector is a reason to not purchase. I do think that in the terrain that may have been a reason to not purchase you're absolutely right Dan It was definitely Sam it was it was the terrain that was that was really difficult but you know the the, the Acadia is, I like the size of it. It isn't as definitely not as large as the Enclave and you do feel that it is more upscale than the traverse. So if you're shopping these this size of vehicle, and you basically will only have four people in because this did have the captain's chairs, then I think it's a really good selection. If you always or consistently have five or six people that You've got to look at the Enclave or the traverse. Okay.

Dan Roth  27:04  
Yeah. So so they're calling it electronic precision shift. Which okay.

Unknown Speaker  27:12  
Yeah. But anyway,

Dan Roth  27:15  
this is it's interesting that you were talking about the ascent and the Highlander because I'm thinking like this really competes in that segment. It's a very competitive

Rebecca Lindland  27:26  
set. It is

Dan Roth  27:28  
absolutely like the Grand Cherokee, and just the pilot and a lot of lot of competition here. And so it doesn't hold up, or are there reasons to actually purchase it versus reasons to like the shifter?

Rebecca Lindland  27:41  
Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, I do think that it's very much a personal preference. I in you know, I'll talk obviously, about the ascent and the Highlander next week, but in my quick drives around with them so far, and I think the GMC really holds its own very much center. So I think it's, you know, gets down to price and aesthetics really. I have to say, and I'm person passenger sighs

Dan Roth  28:07  
Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, it's been that for three years, like, it seems like it's about the right size for that. And it's family, like in terms of that family vehicle. Like, I think it has all the sort of the right ideas, too, especially in Denali trim to appeal to, to those decision makers, you know, especially if it's like I'm thinking of how we made the decision for the Grand Cherokee it was it was less of what I really like in a car more of like, what my wife likes that car because you're going to drive it and you have to make sure that because I really wanted to Durango and she and I like it nicely. Okay, so what do you like, like, let's, let's find a few things. And that's really important. And every time I've been in one of these, this particular platform from GM, they all seem pretty well thought out with that in mind, like, who's using it and how is it set up for that question?

Rebecca Lindland  29:00  
Yeah, no, it is it's very much a, you know, it's a female friendly car, which isn't to say that doesn't appeal to men. It's just that I think economically it's really well thought out things you know, switches and buttons are where you want them to be. I as I said, there's a lot of storage. You know, I like for for a family of four, I think it's a great vehicle, especially if you are going out of town a lot or you know, you're utilizing the cargo space, because it also there's a space in between the two kids like the two seats or captain's chair. I know. Exactly. Talk to my mother, she will tell you what I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  29:39  
even even when there isn't a pandemic, you still want some social distancing.

Dan Roth  29:45  
You know, honestly, the dog likes having his own rope because it's stretched out a little bit. Um, but yeah, absolutely. In terms of the stuff I like in a car every time I drive. One of these I'm impressed with the way they ride and handle and they seem pretty good. well balanced and like they spent some time in and on the, you know, dynamic side of it to where they they're fine to drive. So,

Rebecca Lindland  30:07  
ya know, they are, it's, you know, it drives smaller than it is. and it handles well it was very well behaved. It just, it was, you know, it's comfortable. It's a comfortable car to drive. And by that, I mean, it's familiar. It's not you know, there's nothing weird about it or they're like, why is it doing that stuff for that shift except for the shift shift for the shifter? Which I actually you know, I got used to after a while, which is always the goal, right is how long does it take to get used to it? I just, again, it's, it's not a reason not to purchase. I just think it's something that is a little bit different. It does free up a lot of space to enter console. So what a column shift. You know what it Yeah, but I hate column shifters there.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:54  
We've got it we've got to get used to the fact that you know, column shifters and and You know, just traditional shift leavers are going away and they're not coming back because they take up space, you know, they, you know, there has to be a mechanism that goes in there somewhere, you know, and so they're they're paying to package and variations of either the push buttons or you know, the rotary shift knob are what we're going to see on pretty much everything going forward. I think the rotary shift

Dan Roth  31:24  
knob is really the best solution. Yeah, I agree.

Rebecca Lindland  31:27  
And, and, and speaking of future technologies are current that have just come up. I the adaptive cruise control, I found to be confusing. So the way that you have to set it, most cars, it just it defaults to adaptive cruise control. This does not and so I had to play with it and fidget with it. And again, it was one like, and it tells you and you know, we won't get into touchscreen and a non touchscreen but it was I had to like read, I actually had to read while I was on the highway trying to set cruise control to figure out what it was telling me. And again, it's one of those things that once you know how to do it, it's fine. It just caught me off guard because I wasn't expecting to have to read what my cruise control was telling me. And so it's like press this button twice. Press this button again if you want it don't press that and I was like, Oh my goodness. Once I did it once then then I think I only I think I've only had to press it once again. But it again it was one of those things it's like why is it like that just most cars nowadays just default to adaptive cruise control. So I didn't know if you guys get a chance. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:43  
Yeah, it's been a while since I drove the drove the Acadia so I don't remember the the details of the setup, but it does. It does sound familiar that it had some weird quirks to it. I know GM has done some weird things with their cruise control setup over the years. Yes,

Rebecca Lindland  33:00  
yeah. And and so hopefully that that stuff will get ironed out as well. So all right, that's

Dan Roth  33:06  
what I've been doing well, Sam How did the How did it go with the E Tron?

Sam Abuelsamid  33:11  
Yeah, so I had to eat finally had the E Tron for a full week. You know, I had driven it. What, April of last year in May of last year out in California. We drove from, from Napa up to Tahoe, but this time I you know, I got the chance to really, you know, spend some some time with it. And I wanted to find out, you know, in regular driving, how much real range it could have. Yeah, that it actually had because one of the complaints about the E Tron you know, the E Tron is Audi's first volume production, electric battery electric vehicle. And it's, you know, rightly gotten some criticism for its range, you know, because, you know, it's kind of in the same, you know, the least at the bottom end of the price class against You know, the Tesla Model X, you know, so the Model X is kind of its natural competitor in this space. And the E Tron is only rated at 204 miles on the EPA driving cycle, where's the Model X, you know, depending on which configuration you get, you can get up to about 300 miles of range. And generally, you know, Tesla's have much better EPA label range than you know any other Evie. And we'll, one of the stories we've got later we'll talk about that. But you know, I, I put about, I went out over the course of several days, you know, driving for about an hour, hour and a half each day, just putting miles on this thing, you know, driving around various routes, to see how far it could actually go. And by the time that I pulled into electrify America station down the road from my house, I had put I had 210 miles on it. Are 212 miles on it, and I had seven miles left showing on the range estimate. So say, you know, 219 220 miles so I actually did a little bit better than the EPA range. Although, because of the the moderate temperatures I had, I didn't have to use the heat or cruise control or anything like I did use wipers, because it did have some rain. And this particular one that I was driving had the optional 21 inch wheels, which are generally going to give you, you know, that's going to cut into the range because they're heavier, and they've got more rolling resistance and more inertia. But, you know, in general, you know, hitting that 200 mile mark, you know, is always a good thing. And, to be honest, you know, unless you are driving long distances all the time, in which case, you might want to reconsider, you know, whether an Eevee is the is the right vehicle for you at this point. But, you know, for the average driver that drives, you know, 5060 even 80 miles miles a day. Anything over 200 miles of range or more on an electric vehicle really is more than adequate. You know, it's only in comparison to certain other vehicles where it starts to look inadequate. And you know, I think you know Audi should be able to do better with what they have. You know, because this thing has a 95 kilowatt hour battery pack in it, but it weighs 5700 pounds you know, which is this is a heavy beast

Rebecca Lindland  36:29  
is the battery

Sam Abuelsamid  36:32  
about 1400 pounds is the battery wow 14 way depends you know, like a fully dressed Chevy small block, you know, with all the accessories on it and everything. All 400 pounds. Wow. So, batteries are definitely a lot heavier than internal combustion engines even with all the other

Dan Roth  36:52  
electricity but electric motors are lighter, right like our electric

Sam Abuelsamid  36:55  
electric motors are lighter and Kinloch batteries are the battery, you know. Yeah. I mean it Now, an electric motor like, you know, like the ones in the, in the E Tron, you know, way under 100 pounds, okay, they're there, they're probably about 60 or 70 pounds. So they're

Dan Roth  37:10  
not that they're, they're not permanent magnets, right. Like, are they?

Sam Abuelsamid  37:16  
The E Tron, I believe is permanent.

Dan Roth  37:18  
Okay, you know, I expected permanent magnet motor to be much heavier, but okay,

Sam Abuelsamid  37:23  
no, no, because they're not that big. You know, they're, they're, they're fairly small. But the, you know, the thing is, you know, this, this thing has a lot of features on it, you know, it's a heavy vehicle. So that really cuts into that range a lot because it takes its fair bit of work. And the other thing is, you know, when they launched the E Tron, Audi went very conservative on how they use the battery. So even though it has 95 kilowatt hours worth of cells in there, they only use 88% of that. So there's only 83 and a half kilowatt hours actually available. Which is, you know, quite a bit less than what you get in a long range Model S or Model X. They're both 100 kilowatt hours. So that, you know, that cuts into it, but still, you know, it's not as efficient. Or at least on paper, it's not as efficient as, as the Tesla's but it's, it's, you know, I think for the reality is it's good enough. And the other thing is, e Tron does support 150 kilowatt charging. And so you can actually charge it up fairly quickly. You know, I pulled in, I had about 3% charge left on the battery. And I pulled in, plugged it in, and then you know, took a phone call, you know, and I was on the phone for about 40 minutes. And by the time I was done with the call, it was full, like, just open it was about 45 minutes to go from 3% to 100% state of charge. So, you know, and if you go to 80% you know, which is what you know, that's where they start to taper off. charge you know, you can do that in under 30 minutes. So, you know it's it's really not that inconvenient and it does the E Tron does come with with a charging cable that has you can plug two adapters onto it one is to plug it into a standard 110 volt outlet chart and slow charge it that way. Or if you have 240 volt outlet in your garage, a standard dryer plug in nema 1450 dryer plug, it's got an adapter, you just plug it into the thing and you plug plug into that and you get I think it's 10 kilowatt charging with that. So you can you can easily charge it up overnight without having to spend you know several hundred dollars more on getting a level two charger installed in your garage. So, you know, the range, you know is actually pretty good. You know it's fine. You know it's not it's not spectacular, you know, especially if you compare it to say You know the conus Hyundai Kona Evie or Chevy Bolt you know both of which are rated at 259 miles and can easily get that and you know if you if you drive especially the bolt if you drive it with the in the low range you know where you get the maximum region, you can easily get a bolt over to over 300 miles of driving without without trying very hard thing what

Rebecca Lindland  40:24  
a good Okay, the thing with the E Tron too is that, you know, it's what struck me when I drove it was that it's just so normal. You forget you're driving an Eevee and I love that.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:36  
Yeah, well, that's that's the thing, you know, when they did the launch of the E Tron in September 2018 in San Francisco, I was there I was talking to, to some of the folks from Audi. And so, you know, what are they you know, obviously, you know, people are going to see the Model X is the chief competitor, this and they said, Well, you know, really we're not they said we're not targeting the Model X and how much of that is statement was, because they didn't actually, you know, in in terms of range, they didn't they knew it wasn't gonna be fully competitive. Or just they weren't really, they really weren't trying to do that. And I think it's a it's a reality somewhere in between. But, you know, the what they said was, you know, we designed this to be an Audi first, you know, yeah. And then you know, and then it happens to be electric. So, when you get inside if you've if you've been in any contemporary Audi, you know, in a seven, eight q seven, q five q A, you get in you climb into the E Tron. It feels just like any other Audi there is nothing about this that is going to surprise you about the way it looks or feels, the materials, everything works just like an like you would expect in an Audi. And so for people that like Audi's it's a great choice, you know, and it happens to be electric. You know, if you know if an Audi is not for you, well, you know, I mean, if you weren't interested in any other out, he probably wouldn't be interested in this one. You know, and and there's other choices available for you in that case. But you know, it's it is very, very ordinary, you know, very, very, you'll feel very comfortable in it. You won't. It doesn't feel like a science experiment.

Rebecca Lindland  42:18  
Right. So So I went on, I was fortunate to go to on the launch in Abu Dhabi. And we actually drove from Abu Dhabi down to the border with Oman, which was a good hour and a half, almost, actually over two hours driving. And then when we were sitting there for lunch, then the recharged everything up, and we drove back up and we actually got lost. My driving partner desperately needed to use the restroom, and I have been to Abu Dhabi a number of times, so I was trying to tell him where to go. He made the wrong turn, which is very easy to do in this particular intersection. And we ended up getting your driving around and we never once thought of range and we have been driving all day. And that to me was really a testament of just how comfortable we were in it that you know while we're doing this kind of driving around this crazy city we just ever thought of oh my gosh you know we're and we were nowhere close to losing range because we weren't getting warnings or you know wasn't communicating with us that there was any kind of issue at all but it to me it really just spoke to just how normal I actually would have loved for them to have just called this like either q six e or something and just gave it a more normal name. Because I think it just it just slots into their lineup with any other vehicle and it just happens to be electric. So I I'm a huge fan of it.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:44  
Yeah. And when I when I interviewed Matt la Steffi, who's the manager of E Tron stuff at Audi. Back at the LA Auto Show, we ran it. We had that interview on the show in December, early December. You know, one of the things that he talks about was you know with the with the naming, you know they they name this E Tron you know and E Tron is going to be Audi's brand for plug in vehicles going forward just as quatro is for everything with all wheel drive, and they see this as this

Rebecca Lindland  44:20  
has, by the way to

Sam Abuelsamid  44:22  
Yes it does. And so you know, they see this as the, you know, like the quatro the original quatro coupe from 1983 or 84. You know, this is the electric equivalent of that this is the earth e Tron. And you know, you're going to have all these other Ian's going forward. And that's the branding they're going to use on everything that has a plug. Yeah, so you've got a transport back coming later this year, which is basically, you know, this same vehicle but with, you know, a fat kind of a fastback roofline, and speaking of which, you know, the Sportback they're making, based on their experience so far with The batteries are making some adjustments with the battery management so they're going to bump it up to using 92% of the battery capacity and doing some other calibration changes so it should get up to a rated range of somewhere around 225 miles with the with the sport back and eventually the this one the wagon will get those same changes as well

Rebecca Lindland  45:23  
and then the GT e Tron over the air I'm sorry can they do that over the air?

Sam Abuelsamid  45:28  
No, that won't be an over the air change and the the existing neutrons that are already built won't get those changes but that'll come as a mid cycle update to the to the Tron wagon

Rebecca Lindland  45:40  
okay it's like a software thing they could do

Sam Abuelsamid  45:42  
no no it's not because they actually made some some physical changes as well to the to the battery so the you know the E Tron gt which is based on the the Porsche icon and then the q3 q4 e Tron, you know, it's coming next year. So starting with To q4, you know, they will, it will be it'll be a combination of E Tron with other badges. You know, like the traditional Audi, you know, alphanumeric badging. Just this is just e Tron. Right? There is

Rebecca Lindland  46:17  
my they took my advice I'm going to sell

Sam Abuelsamid  46:22  
an invoice to Matt

Rebecca Lindland  46:23  
Yeah, exactly.

Dan Roth  46:26  
continues to stick out to me is that Yeah, maybe it's, it's an Audi for Audi people. But it's also because it's an Audi it means that you're going to get that performance every single time over and over and over again, you know, just like that the Tyco on same kind of thing. it'll, it'll rip off, you know, acceleration run after acceleration run after acceleration run. It's been carefully tested and vetted and and poked and prodded and just

Sam Abuelsamid  46:59  
and when you parts, you won't have to wait six months for them. Yeah,

Dan Roth  47:02  
I mean, I think that that's one of the real strengths. And one of the things that, you know, performance and range aside would, would really put me into, you know, the Audi. Because the other ones that we mentioned are all viable to like the bolt. Absolutely. I really like the bolt. But if you're looking for that luxury experience, you know, now you can get it with the Audi. And it's gonna be Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  47:27  
well, the and the, you know, the other main competitor right now in the US market would be the Jaguar I pace, right,

Dan Roth  47:32  
which is also fantastic. Like I

Sam Abuelsamid  47:34  
yeah, and the app, but the IPS is a little bit smaller, it's a little bit tighter inside. You know, so if what you're looking for is, and size wise, the E Tron, you know, is in between the Q five and the Q seven, but closer to the Q seven, so, it's roughly that's almost the same size as the Q eight. So it's really roomy for five passengers, lots of hands, like 28 feet of cargo space behind the second row. So you know, there's plenty of room. There is one aspect of the E Tron that I absolutely hate. No, the climate controls. Audi has gone to this new MMI version that features dual touchscreens. Top touchscreen is reserved for media navigation and settings. The lower screen below it is for climate control. You

Dan Roth  48:26  
know, nobody does dual touchscreens does them well, it's just a bad idea. Stop it.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:31  
Well, if even if it was a single big touchscreen, with the same interface, it would still suck. It's not the fact that it's a dual touchscreen. That's the problem. It's a terrible interface that, you know, just just give me three simple dials, you know, for temperature direction and fans. That's not

Dan Roth  48:50  
that's not the future. The future sucks. Yeah, the future is wasted motion and frustration and you just want to punch that thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:58  
Just try just trying to Figure out how to just try to you know that I went for a drive with my wife to, you know, to let her experience this thing. And it was a little chilly outside so we had the windows closed and the windshield was starting to fog up and just trying to figure out how to get the air to blow to the fog the windshield was maddening, I could not do it while driving. You know, this is a horrible interface. And this is the same interface Audi's using on all their, their current, you know, all their new stuff. You know, just stop everybody, every manufacturer, just stop with putting the climate controls in the touchscreen. Please don't ever do it again.

Dan Roth  49:37  
It's a sacred dream. And it's like

Rebecca Lindland  49:39  
all three of us agree because

Dan Roth  49:41  
it is a safety issue and every every time I get it everybody's gonna mess with the climate control. It's like honestly, no Look, if I need full defrost, I need it quick because all of a sudden it's snowing and my windows are foggy. And I don't want it to be an auto auto doesn't know what to do with that. Like I need it and I don't want

Sam Abuelsamid  49:59  
auto woman Otto's fine for maintaining whatever temperature you set it at. But if you want to switch it to a different mode, it's it's terrible. You know, you shouldn't have to mess with it like that. So you know the the E Tron, you know starts, current starting price is 75,000 in the US for the for the Premium Plus and the prestige starts at 79. One. The one I had was the prestige and had a few other options on there. came to a total of $86,000 85 790 with delivery but you can buy one out of stock, you can go get one you can buy, you can buy one out of stock, there's a lot there's plenty of stock at Audi dealers.

Rebecca Lindland  50:41  
dealers,

Dan Roth  50:42  
dealers. Yes.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:43  
dealership service department. What, yes, complete service departments

Dan Roth  50:48  
that everybody gives dealers crap, right. And then all of a sudden, when you have that other experience like Oh, actually some of the stuff they do is pretty good. You know?

Sam Abuelsamid  51:00  
And you know because Volkswagen Group hasn't yet sold 200,000 vehicles you still still eligible for the full 70 $500 federal tax credit. So you know, the base model, you know starts so you'd be at 67 five you know for the base model as a starting price

Dan Roth  51:14  
sorry that's a really good deal for what's going to be a really well made car.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:19  
Oh yeah. No, absolutely. You know, so you know, if you're if you're looking for you know, an Eevee tall wagon or SUV if you must, you know, it's it's absolutely worth taking a look at this thing you know, it's it's a really nice view.

Dan Roth  51:35  
Oh my god, you know what they couldn't It couldn't have been German it could have called an Uber froggen

Rebecca Lindland  51:40  
to it, what was your What was your price on?

Sam Abuelsamid  51:42  
On the one that yo the one I drove was 85 790 and it was pretty much loaded it had pretty much Yeah, much every option. I personally would skip the the 1500 dollar or 21 inch wheels and go with the 19 inch arrow wheels. Instead, because, you know, the, with the 20 ones, you know, the ride quality does suffer. And it's also it has an impact on efficiency and range. So you will get a little more, you'll probably get a couple more few more miles of range with the 19th. And frankly, I think the 1919 inch arrow wheels actually look probably look really good. I mean, the 20 ones look good, too. But the NINETEEN'S still look really good as well. And you'll have a more comfortable ride and better, better efficiency.

Rebecca Lindland  52:30  
Yeah, we had. So the ones that this, they estimate, we didn't have exact pricing yet. The one I drove it was 8282 795. I and so but again, that was more of an estimate. That was last year. And they mentioned 1920s and 20 ones, but again, I think that some of that

Sam Abuelsamid  52:50  
Yeah, so evolved. Yeah, so the base model has a teens on it, I think. And then there's there's 19th and 20th. Available teens 20s and 20. One's available as options.

Unknown Speaker  53:04  
So now, just the I

Rebecca Lindland  53:08  
did, does the European rating system give a different number for the rain? Yes,

Sam Abuelsamid  53:14  
yes, it does. So in Europe, they use the W LTP. test cycle, which is the world world light duty test protocol, which they they started adopting in Europe in the fall of 2018. And so in Europe, it's rated at I think, 270 miles.

Rebecca Lindland  53:36  
Okay, we had 259 was our estimate. Okay,

Sam Abuelsamid  53:38  
maybe was 259. Yeah. So 259 to 60. But the W LTP cycle is definitely not as realistic. It's not it's better than the old any DC test at all that they used, right? It's, it's definitely much better than that. But really, the EPA test cycle is actually Probably the most realistic one out there right now anywhere in the world.

Rebecca Lindland  54:03  
Well, yeah, cuz what I wrote when I drew what I wrote was it'll the estimate they were at the time they were estimating and I wrote 200 or 210 miles and it came down to 204. Right yeah, I think that that was very, very realistic.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:16  
Yeah. And you know, one of the stories I've got on the on the rundown for after we're done with with Dan's vehicle is about real world range. So we'll get to that. Well, you guys are all in

Dan Roth  54:29  
highly luxurious vehicles. I was in the for the little driving I did. I was in the 2022 at a jaros XL E which is a monster two. But it man it's not a delightful car. I just it's it's light and tiny and I love small cheap cars because they by their very nature, they they force clever solutions that aren't expensive. You know, just One of the details I just was geeking out about was just the way there's there's just a tiny cut in the rear bumper cover for you to get your hand in there and the switch to release the rear hatch is under there it's not there's not a big grab handle or anything that you know keeps the hardware cost down. It's just molded into the bumper it's a clever stuff like that that you see in that that small inexpensive class of cars you don't see anywhere else. Because they've they've had to bring it in for a price and I don't know that those kind of things make me I get for contempt when I see them.

Rebecca Lindland  55:36  
What what is the what is that grill trying to eat? I yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  55:39  
well that. That is the one flaw with what it's ugly.

Rebecca Lindland  55:44  
What it was one of those things like look, it's like baby fish now.

Dan Roth  55:51  
In person

Sam Abuelsamid  55:57  
a couple years ago. I was on the last drive I was on the last drive when this thing was still known as the spy on I before they killed you know,

Dan Roth  56:10  
it's it's ugly. It's it's not it's definitely the front the front end. That way you can't get a monster to in the states anymore. So that's the way to get it. It's it doesn't look as good as the Mazda, but it's not as bad as it looks in the pictures like it looks a little better in purses still, it's still not an elegant little bit of Rhino Polo.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:33  
The best part is from the driver's seat you can't see the

Dan Roth  56:38  
rest of it is like I forgot for a moment that the IRS is the most issue. So I got it and I'm like, Wait a second, what the hell car Am I in? Because all the switches and buttons and controls and everything is it's Mazda, you know, even the dash and it's all Mazda. And so you get it and you're like, oh, oh yeah. But it's you It's great because it's got the most infotainment which is it's still not it's a little clunky there's there's sort of too many things to select with a little rotary selector like their menu structure needs to be flatter but it's it's better than better than engine doesn't say it's much better than in tune and just the materials are nice and the SLA You know, it doesn't feel cheap it's it's a little you know, the doors sound a little tinny it's a little noisy on the on the road around town, it's fine it's a perfect around town run about it's

Sam Abuelsamid  57:28  
just the hatch or the X or the dash.

Dan Roth  57:30  
I love the hatch. Oh, it's just it's that's the one to get the sedan is you're gonna miss out on some of the usefulness because of the shape. You know, it goes down the road really well. It's not sporty in that sense. But it just because it's small and light, it has that feeling of, you know, flexibility or whatever just feels direct, I suppose is the best way to put it. There's not as much between you and the, the road because there's not as much between you That's for a very good,

Sam Abuelsamid  58:02  
it's like, it's like what mini the mini was when it was first revised. Except without the premium price. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  58:09  
And without that Cheyenne she was ugly from the front grille. And why is that? Why I love it. She's taught to go you guys so why is the hatchback almost $2,000 more? Is it come with other stuff besides just a hash?

Dan Roth  58:27  
You know? what's what's the difference?

Rebecca Lindland  58:30  
So 20 $100 difference, so 15 650 for the sedan, which is crazy cheese, that's excellent man.

Dan Roth  58:39  
Or just

Rebecca Lindland  58:40  
No, that's just base. Okay, and then 17 750 for this patch.

Sam Abuelsamid  58:46  
Yeah, this is this is an odd phenomenon that I've noticed with other brands as well. It's not just this vehicle. You know where hatchback is more expensive than the sedan, and I suspected it has has something to do with the fact that people who go for the hatchbacks want them really want the hatchback, they, you know, they prefer the hatchback and so they're, they're willing to pay a premium for it. So it's, it's not so much that you're necessarily getting a whole lot more other than utility. But you know, if your people are willing to pay for that for some reason,

Rebecca Lindland  59:21  
well they do have so the bass Yaris is the L and that's the 15 608 and the bass hatches the L right. That's what I was gonna say you are getting it Yeah, so you are getting more but it's still $1,000 more than the Le is today.

Dan Roth  59:36  
Right? But you know, and Toyota is not the only one that does this like Hyundai and Kia do it as well. Where the hatch doesn't reach all the way down to that base trim. You know, they started off in the middle Yeah, and so that's that's definitely part of it. But is actually trim it it's there's not much you want you know there's not much you need here like this is a fully, fully realized car

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:05  
well, especially the price point, I mean, it's 18 750 so

Dan Roth  1:00:09  
it's a fantastic car it's a fantastic price like I know it's a really a Mazda masquerading as a Toyota. Go with it like it keeps it keeps both of those companies alive like look. Sure yeah Toyota has has made a very smart choice to say why are we going to develop our own thing? Monster makes a pretty good one. Let's just buy theirs so they they're paying monster for some volume monster gets to bake cars that otherwise you know wouldn't get bought. And, you know, Toyota gets a decent small car. I mean, I didn't mind the old DRS either. I thought that was okay. But this is just this is the best DRS has ever been. Because,

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:50  
no, that's it. This is this is the whole I mean, this is sort of the beauty of the market, right is that you can have vehicles like the garris that performer Well, the do what do what it needs to do. And then we've got crazy mentally things at the other end. But I love the fact that it was a good little car it deserves, like, every car out there deserves to be good. It deserves to get the type of of quality and engineering that that buyer it's like it's like respecting that buyer. Right and there's certain things that they just that you know for that it's still a lot of money. I mean, that's the thing too is that you know, cars are still your second most expensive purchase and so you're asking somebody to turn over a lot of money. Give them something that is decent, give them something that you know that respects that

Dan Roth  1:01:38  
yeah, it's it's inexpensive without feeling cheap and styling wise. Like that's, it's not gonna get any better. But it's it's also like it doesn't look chintzy.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:51  
And yeah, aside from that girl and the rest of it does look good. I mean, it's got, you know, modern Mazda styling after the once you get past that grill. And as far as the price goes, actually I just pulled it up on the Twitter website. And the reason why the L you can get the Le cheaper than the le le sedan cheaper than the hatchback is because the Le sedan is available with a manual transmission is not and the hatchback is only automatic. So okay, so you are good. If you get the Le sedan with an automatic it's the same price. It's 17 seven

Dan Roth  1:02:23  
and like okay, the power train is you know, Mazda makes a nice, refined four cylinder and it works really well with the transmission. I liked the steering and felt direct, I was still may be a little numb. I didn't really get much of a chance to bend it hard into an on ramp and see, you know, went on for quarantine. I didn't do a whole lot of driving. But you know, like we talked about with the Audi. Right. All the controls are frustrating in that car. They're so straightforward here and this is one of the reasons I think probably Why I still like the smaller cheaper cars is there's no room to get fancy like that with that nonsense. Things just have to be straightforward. And so it's got three knobs for climate control. It had had push button start it had a nice visibility out of the front that the beltline is or the cowl is low. It just you really don't need more car than this was what I was thinking most of the time I was driving it was just this is perfectly you know, adequate and that's that's kind of a crappy way to put it. This is more than adequate. I would say for for most people you know, I probably wasn't leather on the seas probably like leatherette but they still they look good, they feel good. I think you get it on the highway. It might be a little noisy. But other than that I really can't find much to complain about this is probably one of my favorite cars in this class. And one of my one of my favorite cars overall which is weird to say about it. You

Rebecca Lindland  1:04:01  
No, it's not I mean, but that's that's the thing is that they, they? They did they did something really, really well with it. And as you say, it makes sense for Toyota to just buy the technology buy the vehicle from Mazda, that so they can they can fund other projects. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:04:17  
Toyota is not messing around like they did. Yeah, they just, they're being smart with their investment. Now they're like, Hey, we need a sports car. Let's buy one from BMW. We need a tiny x. This is bound for Mazda, you know, and it it's sort of the newest reality with with car companies. It's like why you're gonna beat each other's brains out for for tiny markets, where you're not going to have any share, like at least if you guys if you combine forces, you can all have a little bit of share without sort of that huge investment. I don't know. It seems like a better more collaborative all edge.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:53  
No, you're absolutely right. And, you know, that's, you know, why, you know, for example, this week, you know, GM and Honda announced that Honda is going to use GM new Evie platform as

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:07  
King of segway. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:13  
Well, you know, I mean Evie is, you know, represent a tiny share of the market, I mean less than 2% of the US market. And you know, Honda needs some ease, you know, to meet the Zev mandates in California and other states. And so they're going to use GM bath three platform that we saw last month in Detroit, you know, including, you know, their altium battery system, and they're they're doing to EBS based on that, and they're actually going to be built at GM factories. We don't know yet if it's going to be at the Detroit Hamtramck plant or some other plant that's set to be announced. But you know, their GM is going to build Honda's which is a first

Dan Roth  1:05:57  
why they have had relationships in packs, you know, there, you could get on the Saturn view. Yep, that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:05  
they've had, they've had a relationship going back to the 1990s. You know, with, as you said that in the Saturn view at a Honda v six in it. And, you know, they've been doing some other stuff together and fuel cells and and, you know, Honda was also involved, you know, in the development of the the module design for the LTM batteries, really. So, yeah, it makes sense that they would, yeah, they had announced a partnership on module battery module design about a year and a half ago, and never really talked about it. After that, I guess Honda was part of this. And so that's part of why Honda's using this now. And it's going to be the first models to be coming out in 2024 for using the GM platform, and you know, they're the other thing is they're not, not only are they using gmms electric propulsion system Honda's also going to get supercruise these vehicles are going to be the first non GM vehicles for supercruise. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:07:07  
that's amazing. I wonder what they'll call it. So I'm going to call it 100 cruise

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:13  
call super cruise.

Dan Roth  1:07:16  
That's I wonder if they're gonna have it before Chevy's?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:20  
No, no. The the the Chevy Bolt, Evie. Next year is gonna. Yeah, so this is the crossover based on the old tickets better. I know. She's Yeah. So that one, that one's going to be the first Chevy to offer supercruise. And then also, you know, there's gonna be some other Chevy stuff as well over the next couple

Dan Roth  1:07:42  
years. It really does make sense to share. This stuff is so expensive to develop and I think Honda can bring and they talk about it amongst themselves and Honda right the Han away is very much the same as the Toyota way as well but like just the things that Honda can bring to GM We'll make GM better and the things that GM can bring to Honda will allow Honda to continue being on, you know what I mean? Like, I think it really it does make sense. And we're seeing, you know, Ford is partnered up with VW too. So I think the automakers are realizing that they need to collaborate on this stuff, and they can still put their personalities into the cars.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:22  
And as we've talked about before, you know, the the electric powertrain, you know, there's a lot less differentiation from one to another there than there is with engines, you know, all electric motors feel basically the same, you know, there's not, you know, you get into this aside from how much power they have, and whatever, you know, acceleration that they can produce, you know, they basically, basically all sound and feel the same, you know, they're just kind of seamless propulsion. So whether you've got a Tesla or a Volkswagen or a GM motor and battery in there, you know, to the average consumer, they're not going to know The difference, you know, they're going to the design and the user experience inside the vehicle is what they're going to experience. So it's good for manufacturers to focus on that part of it and share the technology that the the customer is not going to see.

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:14  
I think the differentiator is the is the regenerative braking personally, like, that's where I feel differences that companies do that better than other centers better than that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:25  
And that's something you can easily calibrate, you know, even with the same hardware, you know, because that's all just done in software anyway.

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:32  
Right. But that field, though, I mean, I agree with you there. It's hard to tell the difference between an electric but it doesn't mean the driving experience is exactly the same. That's true. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:09:42  
I think that's where we're gonna see them still continue to be unique from each other is how you know Acura and Honda. Engineers make the cars feel on a as a whole, you know, how they go down the road, how they go around corners, how they hit bumps and stuff. is going to be different than the way GM vehicles do. And not necessarily better or worse, but but different. And because they've they've tuned them with their people and stuff. And we're seeing that already with the, the Supra and the Z four to a degree. And they're pretty similar, but they're still different, you know?

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:20  
Exactly. Yeah. And even the Miata Miata and the FIA 124 yada. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:31  
As long as that one's with us. Stay on with the V's. Autocar published an interesting article this week.

Dan Roth  1:10:40  
They published a couple interesting ones. There isn't one about Honda I mean, yeah, Honda ditching touchscreens which I don't want to touch on. I just want to mention it so people can go read it because yeah, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:51  
But yeah, so so auto car, which is a British car magazine, did an article where they published the electric cars that they've tested with the best real world range. So this is all based on their actual road testing of these vehicles. And what's interesting, you know, I mean, they, they compare, you know, in their comparisons and the individual vehicle reviews, you know, they compare the range that they got against the European rated range, which is on that w LTP cycle I was talking about earlier. And so, you know, pretty much all of them fell short of the W LTP numbers. But what's interesting is when you compare it against the EPA numbers, most you know, the top half of this list, we're all pretty much right on what the EPA numbers were like. The number one on their list was the Hyundai Kona Evie. At 259 miles which is exactly what its EPA rating is the the Jaguar I pace at 253. You know, it's EPA rating, they just bumped it up recently to like 248 or something, I think so. It's really close. Kia Nero Evie 253 miles which is 239 and the EPA rating what's interesting is when you get to the Tesla's which all fell way, way short of their both their EPA and W LTP

Unknown Speaker  1:12:18  
ratings. That's because they hate Tesla.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:22  
Sure, whatever.

Dan Roth  1:12:24  
Why do you hate Tesla? Why are you a hater, bro?

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:29  
don't understand you short salary.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:31  
Yeah. You know, I posted this article on Twitter a few days ago when it first came out. And Dan Edmunds commented on it. Dan used to be@edmunds.com and he's no relation to the family that owns edmunds.com. But, you know, over the last, you know, five or six years, he did a lot of testing and a lot of different Tesla models. And one thing that he he commented on And he's told me in the past is that he's never gotten a Tesla to get anywhere near its EPA rating, range EPA rated range in the real world, you know, they always fall a good 20 to 30% short of the EPA ratings. So, you know, the, the model three, you know, the top, the longest range model three now is about 320 miles. And that one got 239 miles from Autocar which is, you know, that's about 30% short,

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:33  
they honestly did it wrong. Clearly,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:35  
clearly, you know, the, you know, the Nissan LEAF plus you know, they got 217 it's rated I think at 220 on the EPA cycle. So, it's it's, it's an interesting test, you know, they got some some fascinating results from this.

Dan Roth  1:13:52  
I wonder if it would be different in the US just because of the the terrain and the city. The driving styles and locales are

Unknown Speaker  1:14:03  
well, no, but

Rebecca Lindland  1:14:05  
I mean, I think because they got similar ones on some vehicles.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:10  
Right. Yeah. You know, and, and the thing is, you know, the terrain, you know, one of the things I learned a long time ago with with ease, you know, with plug in vehicles, you know, the three T's, you know, temperature, terrain and technique. Yeah. So that, you know, all all three of those things can have a huge impact on your, on your electric driving range, you know, if it's cold, or very hot, you know, you're driving range is going to get cut significantly, you know, because of the need to use climate control. Plus, you know, especially when it's cold, you know, the battery performance is not as good so you're gonna lose range from that as well. You know, terrain, you know, obviously, if you're going up a lot of hills, your range is going to be less, you know, and technique, you know, if you're driving it hard, you're gonna, you're gonna get, you know, worse range just as you'll with an internal combustion car. You'll get You know, worse fuel economy, if you're driving it hard? You know, I think for purposes of this testing, you know, Autocar, you know, tested them all, you know, does their range testing all, you know, roughly the same way, you know, on this, you know, on the same same terrain, you know, so they're, they're getting comparable results for these vehicles for all these different vehicles. So, you know, the fact that, you know, a lot of them that are that aren't from Tesla, you know, get pretty close to what the EPA rated ranges, you know, as an indicator that, you know, the Audi or the Tesla's are not as good as what their claims are.

Dan Roth  1:15:37  
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'd say it's interesting scrolling through the list, and we just talked about the Audi and Audi in this test got so bang on the numbers, right. That?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:45  
Yeah, got 196 I think. Yeah. So it's a few few miles short of the official rated range, you know, 204, but, you know, it's pretty close.

Dan Roth  1:15:55  
So I,

Rebecca Lindland  1:15:56  
yeah, that's, that's the thing is that the numbers that they're getting for other vehicles are what the estimates are close to what the estimates are. It's just only Tesla. So, so why does this do so? Well then in the EPA ratings? So there's a couple things. Number one,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:18  
Tesla, and Tesla, when they do their, their testing, and they submit their numbers, they do the testing based on using 100%. of battery capable battery capability. So they run around from 100% down, nobody else does, right? Nobody else does not nobody else does that. And in fact, you know, when you get a Tesla, and you get into, you know, you go to drive it, the default is actually that it only uses 90% of the battery capacity. It does not use

Dan Roth  1:16:48  
you as you change that there.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:51  
Yes, you can. There is a mode that you can go into and I forget exactly what it's labeled as, but you can, you can go into the settings and you can say I want my maximum range, and it'll use, it'll charge it up to 100%. And it'll use 100% of the available range. But when you do that, it also pops up a warning on the screen saying, you know, this may cause permanent damage to your battery. So, you know, recommend using this sparingly. And, you know, I think most people just use the default, which is just using using 90% of the range. I'm not sure that's one thing, I'm not sure what, how Autocar did that if they used the the maximum range mode or not. But, you know, I'm assuming they used just the default settings, which is, you know, what they typically do. And I know, you know, talking, Dan that, you know, Dan admins, that's what he's, you know, his his numbers are based on using the default configuration, which is 90% of the battery capacity. The other thing is that, you know, manufacturers here in the US, self certify so for, you know, whether it's for a gas or diesel car or an electric vehicle, they do the testing themselves. And then they submit the results to EPA, EPA looks over the the paperwork, they submit, you know, and every year they, you know, they test, they'll audit about 15% of new models that come to market, you know, so they'll, they'll get samples of those cars, and they'll take bring them to the EPA lab here in Ann Arbor. And they will run through the full battery of tests. And if their results come up significantly different from what the manufacturer submitted, then they use their results. But most of the vehicles that go to market are based you know that the EPA will look at whatever the manufacturer submitted, and if there's nothing that looks to obviously wrong, then they will, you know, they'll sign off on it. And that's what goes on the label. EPA has never tested a Tesla. They've never audited any Tesla vehicles. So it's possible that, you know, and this, you know, it would not be the first time that this has happened that, you know, Tesla's testing procedures were not totally in line with the, you know, with what's the way it's officially supposed to be done. I mean, other manufacturers have gotten busted in the past Ford several years ago. Busted Hyundai, Hyundai and Kia got busted, many got busted, you know, with, and usually what it came down to in those cases, was part of the way they do the testing is they do, you know, a cost down test, you know, so they go up to a certain speed goes down and see what the load, you know, the road load is, you know, to post down to a certain speed, you know, and that takes into account things like aerodynamics and rolling resistance and all that, from that, from the results of that they use that to set up the dynamometer for the load on the dynamometer to simulate, you know, the behavior of the vehicle in the real world and then they run the actual test cycle on the dynamometer. So, you know, in the past some manufacturers I said, you know, have gotten that wrong, I'm not gonna accuse them of doing it deliberately, you know, because it's never been proven that they did it deliberately. But they, they certainly got that load testing part of it wrong, which meant that they ended up getting higher numbers for mpg than what the vehicle was actually capable of in the real world. You know, Case in point was, you know, the 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid and the C max hybrid, you know, they, they were both rated at 47 miles per gallon city highway and, and combined, you know, and then, after EPA got a bunch of complaints and audited those vehicles, the fusion got lowered to like about 41 miles per gallon. So it was a pretty significant difference. So far, they've never done that with a Tesla vehicle. So, you know, based on real world results, you know, from You know, normal driving, you know, they generally come up well, short of those EPA numbers is EPA level numbers. And I don't know why EPA has never looked into that.

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:12  
yet. Do they have to do it based on customer complaints? Because nobody know the test is going to complain.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:17  
EPA can do it anytime they want. Okay. Because you know, that I mean that, like I said, you know, they, they pick a random sample every year of about 15% of the new models that come to market and do their own testing, you know, just, you know, the intent is, you know, to, because, you know, manufacturers don't know, which ones are going to get picked for testing. And, you know, so they, they hope is that that keeps them honest, is EPA doesn't have enough capacity to test every new vehicle on every power train generation. Sure. So they rely on the manufacturers to do that.

Dan Roth  1:21:52  
The Fox and house thing, you know, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:56  
yeah, you know, it's one It's it's one it's one thing. It's one thing when carmakers do it, you know, and you know, they use more fuel or use more energy than they claim. It's entirely another thing when an aircraft manufacturer, self certifies and you know, systems don't actually work the way they're

Dan Roth  1:22:16  
so yeah, the the terms for that plane fall out of the regulatory capture. And it is a yes thing. Manufacturers and industry loves it because they again, like it is the fox guarding the henhouse, and the federal agencies just don't have enough money to even just audit, everybody. So like, I don't know what the solution is, but you do wind up in this situation with fuel economy and with Eevee range as it pertains to cars and emissions as well. There's there's room for bad actors and bad actions to sort of slipped through for a while, which is I mean, we start with the Volkswagen diesel thing too.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:59  
Right. And You know, even though I mean, that's a perfect example, you know, in Europe, you know, they have to go through a homologation process, you know, where, you know, they certificate, they don't self certify in Europe. And, you know, VW still managed to slip through that because of the way that they cheated, you know, with, you know, they set it up so that when you're running the tests, everything behave the way it was intended to. And, yeah, you know, and then as soon as you as soon as you put it on the real world, you know, then, oh, all of a sudden, now the emission controls are not working the way they were designed to, and, you know, there's polluting a lot more. And, and this is why, you know, one of the things when, when Europe when the EU changed to W LTP in late 2018. Part of part of that test procedure now, is also a real world driving test. So not only do they test every new vehicle on the dynamometer, they also do a real driving emissions test and so that the vehicles actually have to prove that they can pass emissions on our real world drive cycle not just on the dyno.

Dan Roth  1:24:09  
Yeah, I think the the flip side of that though, is they're willing to pay for it. And I don't think that that's something that we're going to come up with the money for anytime soon. So not anymore, that's for sure. It would be great if it because you know, it really affects everybody on the mission side. And even with ease, you know, like that, that energy has to come from somewhere. So if there if we can make everything as efficient as possible. We all benefit to a degree you know, I mean, look out your window right now. We've got the clear skies and coyotes running down the street in Chicago. It's It's pretty good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:56  
Yeah, I've seen I've seen a fox wandering around the golf Horse across from me a couple times in the past week. So

Dan Roth  1:25:02  
it would be a good investment, it would be something that maybe could get figured out. But in the meantime, expect more weird number stuff to happen. Now we got a little off track. So let's pull ourselves back on track and let's talk about stuff that's not efficient, like the Mustang GT 350. And it's the Shelby g Mach one I What the hell am I trying to say, Sam?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:30  
I have no idea what you're trying to say. Apparently the GT 350 is going away at the end of the

Unknown Speaker  1:25:39  
terrible decision.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:42  
I know but you know, it's but it's the way go

Dan Roth  1:25:45  
gonna drop that car in favor of the GT 500. Dumb. Yes, I'm so dumb. Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:55  
But well, they are they are. They are apparently going to be launching the Mustang Mach one and I think Last fall, I think I mentioned this, when we talked about the machi at the LA Auto Show. A couple of weeks before the show, I went to a briefing, private briefing at the the Ford Product Development Center, and with some of the folks from Team Addison and the Maki team, and one of the things in that presentation, there was a big timeline, you know, Mustang timeline from 1965, up through 2021 and 2021, along with the Maki, you know, right next to Maki it also had Mach one on there. And my guess is that the Mach one is the the Mustang hybrid that they first announced back in 2017 was going to be coming because that would make sense, you know, to do a mock one, you know, to make the hybrid, the new mock one, you know, and it'll probably Have performance comparable to the to the GT 350. So somewhere around 500 plus horsepower. It's just,

Dan Roth  1:27:08  
it makes me sad to lose the Voodoo engine. I just, yeah, I loved the 350 so much the GT just Dude, that's such a visceral car, you know, and just that engine it is the flat plane v just I don't know, the GT 500 seems less visceral in a way.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:37  
Well, it's, it's visceral in a different way. It's a very different kind of experience. Rebecca and have you ever driven the GT 350? I haven't. I've had very little exposure

Dan Roth  1:27:48  
to it. Something you should tear through garnish with. It's just like in first year.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:55  
first appeared at 200 rpm.

Dan Roth  1:27:57  
It was a car. I swear to God, just You'd it's one of those tricky because it can rap so high it was you just put your foot and you'd be like oh it's time to ship nope not time to shift. Oh time to shift up nope that's it just pulls all the way to redline it screams and sounds so good. You just you just ride around on like third gear on the highway just to hear roar it's just oh my god I love that car

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:25  
no say you really feel that's awesome no i think you know it's a shame but if it's going away because that engine is just so unique and now it's worth a shame

Dan Roth  1:28:40  
in Ford's in Ford's defense they can't make every single thing they want and and you know they did make it for a while so it'll be available.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:49  
Yeah, I mean five years so that five year one which is original Gt 350 in the 1960s. It ran for five years as well.

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:57  
So it's great. It's I mean, it's been Beautiful, but, you know, those that own them will probably go up in value. So I think for them, except for those of us who

Unknown Speaker  1:29:05  
don't

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:10  
know, the the the other downside, of course, is that, you know, when they launched the GT 500 last year, you know, some people complain that you couldn't get it with a manual transmission was only available with that seven speed DCT and, you know, Ford said, Yeah, but you know, we still have the GT 350 which, you know, if you want a manual transmission, you know, they get the GT 350 and, you know, the, the GT 500 is automatic, you know, it's like well, okay, but now the GT 350 is going away and assuming that the Mach one is in fact this hybrid, you know, which presumably You know, it will be the, you know, the five liter coyote v eight with with the 96 horsepower electric motor from the A aviator Grand Touring, you know, which would put it somewhere in the 570 horsepower range. 560 horsepower range. Yeah, that will be plenty of performance. But that's not going to be available with a manual transmission. I can guarantee you that.

Dan Roth  1:30:06  
Yeah, I don't know that that's a big deal. Like, I just don't think that that many people buy manual transmission even Mustangs, you know, it's a purist

Rebecca Lindland  1:30:13  
thing. It's a purist and they just want it I want it to exist,

Dan Roth  1:30:17  
because that's the guy but I am not buying so fake need to make the cars that yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:25  
Yeah, absolutely. Although they do sell a pretty high percentage of, you know, the, the EcoBoost and the Mustang GTs with manual transmissions. I mean, it's, it's on the order of about 40 over 40% Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:30:39  
oh man, but in that sense, they can keep those and they're not not losing as much or they may actually make some money on those cars. When you start to climb the ladder into the expensive stuff, I just I think that it's a lot harder to sell the, you know, the higher end Mustangs with me In the same amount that you would sell a higher end Mustang with an automatic, you know, like it's just it's just reality because, you know, you people, you I'm pointing at everybody out there you people are lazy you have lazy left feet.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:18  
Yep. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  1:31:21  
All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:24  
Corn quarantine car maintenance and Motor Trend posted an article this week on how to maintain your car for long term storage. And some of the some of the stuff in here is yeah, hopefully, you know your car won't be in long term storage during this, you know, hopefully we'll get out of this sooner rather than later. But, you know, there's a lot of people right now who are not driving as much as they were, you know previously a lot of people working from home or, or sadly not working at all and you So their cars are sitting idle a lot more than they have in the past and you know while most of this article is relevant you know for somebody like me for example, you know has a car that I don't I have a car that I don't drive in the wintertime you know, so I don't drive it from December until about March or so. And I do most of the things that are on this list there you know, there are some things you know, if you're not driving much right now that you can, they're still worth keeping an eye on you know, most notably with your tires. You know, if even you know if your car sitting idle or mostly idle for the, you know, better part of a month or more, you know, if your car is not going anywhere for a while, it's definitely a good idea to check your tires you know, keep checking your tires regularly. I mean, you should be checking your tire pressures every month anyway. and preferably, you know, every week, but you know, if they're if your car if your wheels aren't rolling You know, when your car, you know, when you put weight on your tires, you know, they aren't completely round, you know, they they deform you know from that weight because they have some elasticity to them. And if your car is sitting idle for a long time, the tires will eventually flat spot, you know, they will, it will harden. And, you know, that can cause balance problems and other issues with your tires. So, it's a good idea, you know, at the very least, to at least move your car round a little bit, you know, roll it back a couple feet forward, you know, just move it so it's not sitting on the same spot on your tires for an extended period of time and check the tire pressures to make sure the tire pressures are within spec on a regular basis.

Dan Roth  1:33:46  
Well, you know, this is interesting. I, Rebecca, what do you do for your personal cars? Because Yeah, like you've got them stacked up in your driveway so

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:55  
well, so actually, I think this is a really good time to check and see if you're reading vehicle, the brand of car you have has an app, because I actually can check. I mean, Jake, Jake uses cocoa my car. So she is driven on a regular basis. But I but I can check the tire pressure via the app. So it's something that you know, if you have a newer car she's five years old. So it's not like it used to be brand new. I you know, check to see if there's an app available that will help you with some of this stuff. Because as you say, Motor Trend, they also mentioned, you know, changing your oil, belts and hoses, a battery, things like that. So I think that this is a great time to, to now that we have some downtime, most people have some downtime to say, Hey, you know, is my car, how much communication can I do between my car and my phone via the via an available app and set that up? Because I think it can be really helpful. I know I've gotten notifications of you know, if a tire is low, it'll come up on the app, and it's And then you know, it's it's that extra, not only should you check, as you said, Sam, but the app can check for you as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:07  
Yeah. And, you know, speaking of oil, I also was talking about the same topic today when I was on Leo Laporte, the tech guy radio show. And we had an email came in today from a listener there from Louis planet check. And he was wondering about, you know, he's got a 2019 Camry. And he said, he only has 2000 miles on it, and he's had it for a year. So clearly, he doesn't. He was he was obviously wasn't driving it much even before the the shelter in place. But, you know, his question is, Do I still need to change the oil even if it doesn't, if it doesn't hit the 10,000 miles Mark yet. And, you know, modern cars all have oil life monitoring systems in them, and you know, they vary in terms of what they do, but in general, you Oil oil change intervals have gotten a lot longer over the years as engines have improved but also the oil itself has improved especially with synthetic blends they last a lot longer. You know modern engines don't have as much blow by you know, one of the reasons you had to change the oil so frequently in the past is you know, gasoline going past the the piston rings and mixing with the oil and diluting the oil so you lost some of the some of the lubricating qualities of it. And you'd get other you know other things in the oil as well. Modern engines don't do that anywhere near as much so the oil change intervals have gotten longer. And you know the computers now that monitors the weight the way you drive. I mean if you do a lot of highway driving steady speeds, you know that doesn't put as much load on your engine. As you know if you do a lot of urban driving or depending on you know if your ambient temperatures where you drive are very high that has different different effects on your oil. And so, you know, depending on where you drive and how you drive, your oil change intervals might stretch out, you know, in some cases beyond 10,000 miles, you know, and you'll get an alert on your instrument cluster when it's time to change your oil. In general, I would say, it's probably a good idea to change your oil at least once a year, you know, you don't have you don't have to do it every three months or 3000 miles, like I used to recommend when I was young, but, you know, you know, once a year is not bad, you know, and, you know, it only costs about 4045 bucks, you know, going for an oil change, you know, so it's, it's, it's a worthwhile investment to do that. And then, you know, the other thing is, when your cars when you're not driving your car, you know, you want, even if even if it's not time to change your oil yet, you know, you still want to keep the fluids moving inside your car, because if it's sitting for an extended period of time, the oil that's on the cylinder walls will drain down, you know, things could potentially seas up. So you want to keep the fluids moving. So you know, if you're not going anywhere, it's a good idea to once a week just go out in your garage or your driveway, just start up the car, let it run for five or 10 minutes circulate the fluids, you know, make sure everything's working right and then just shut it off it is fine that

Dan Roth  1:38:19  
I will help keep the battery charged stuff but actually what that does is that puts it because it doesn't get up to operating temperature. So you get you actually get a lot more moisture in your in your oil that way and it turns oil acidic. So what I would do if I were storing a car I cared about I just leave them in the driver I just started whatever I think I've the Crown Victoria has suffered a bit stuck out it's 1999 brake fluid and but I would actually change the oil, take it out for a run, get it fully warmed up and then change the oil before I put it away. Then Would disconnect the battery life the battery and a battery tender and not start it in plug the intake so that rodents don't get in there and plug the exhaust as well so that rodents don't get in there. And just let it be and and if you have a garage, it might be a good idea to actually put one of those damp red things in the interior to absorb moisture. And you can add that's basically a salt. So you just have to check it every now and then. But generally like the less you do with it, the better off it is and then when you take it out of storage again, start it, get it running, get it up to temperature and then change the oil again. You can put it on jack stands as well to get the weight off the tires. That's that's something that again, if you're not gonna drive it for a long time and you can do it that's kind of that would be my plan but I'm not sure about the light, let it run for a while.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:58  
If you're if you're if you're just sitting thing you know, for, you know, a few weeks or a month, you know, and that's

Dan Roth  1:40:05  
fine. I would have done it idle a little bit just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:07  
just move it around a little bit. Yeah. And actually hit the brakes just

Dan Roth  1:40:10  
to rust to the rotors and stuff. Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:13  
And and don't don't put on your parking brake. Like, you know, with with my Miata. You know, when I got my Miata, I actually talked to my friend Richard true it who writes for automotive news, and he has lots of old cars. You know, he rebuilds old cars. And I asked him for his suggestions. You know, what does he do with his cars? And he's the one who actually suggested to me you know, going out and just starting it letting it run run starting at once a week and just letting it run for a few minutes. And he that's what he does with his old cars. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:40:48  
well, I mean, it's not it's a good thing, especially to for something with like a carburetor like Yeah, I know. He's gonna try them right. And then a bunch of other stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:55  
Some some of those are fuel injected.

Dan Roth  1:40:57  
Okay? I would say that actually for something with a carburetor it might not be a terrible idea to start it and let it run just because it keeps fuel running through those things and you know the ethanol in the fuel now likes to eat stuff so that's that's and it will absorb water so then you wind up with bigger problems so it's actually letting it idle for a little while is not not the worst thing in the world you know if that acidic soil takes out stuff in the engine, you had a problem anyway. But yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:26  
well, you can you can you can read the article for for all the all the other suggestions they have in here. Rebecca has also got another good suggestion of something, you know, it's important now in this in this period, when, you know, a lot of us are in quarantine or shut down with financing and loan support. Rebecca, you want to dive into that?

Rebecca Lindland  1:41:48  
Yeah, so I've been writing, doing some writing for JD Power, and they're actually really beefing up their coverage of the consumer oriented coverage. And so there's a list of On the JD Power website, talking about Coronavirus car payment plans, and it just it details what each manufacturer is doing in terms of either it's not so much loan forgiveness is more like loan deferment. So if you can show that you are impacted in some way, whether it's health wise or wealth wise from Coronavirus, then a number of manufacturers are offering deferments. They're offering new car incentives, loyalty incentives, it really it varies across the board. So I wrote the one that was specific for Genesis and accurate and they were actually really quite different, which would be she's running something different but it's just a helpful thing. I'll send you guys the link so that you can show it but you know, for our listeners that are being impacted by this there are opportunities for for deferment, of your payment of your payment and also It's really actually a pretty good time to buy a car. Because, you know, if you're, again, they're they're offering loan deferment on new car loans as well. So, you know, Genesis is doing something that's really cool too, if you can, you know, talk to them and show that you're being impacted as a caregiver. So, you know, you're not working because you're caring for somebody that has Coronavirus or of course you yourself have it there, they're offering loan deferment as well but I think it's just it's a it's a good thing to note it's a good thing to know that there is you know, there is help out there if you are being negatively impacted, especially financially

Dan Roth  1:43:40  
Yeah, it to me the, the measures they've taken to make it attractive to keep your buyers interested are the most amazing things like you can really get some crazy terms right now.

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:56  
Well, yeah, and and as a finance person, as somebody He used to work at Mercedes Benz credit and the FDIC, please don't do an 84 month loan using

Dan Roth  1:44:06  
a better term. I'll give it to you, but it's a bad idea.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:09  
Exactly. Although, you know, you know, that brings us to another listener question. You know, one of the FCA right now, I think, is offering zero percent loans for 84 months. Still, I would, I would, if you can manage the payment on a shorter term loan, it's absolutely a good idea to do that. You know, you want to pay it off sooner rather than later. Because if, if something happens, like, you know, if you're if you get into an accident or something car gets totaled. You know, you could be way underwater on a loan that long even if your interest is zero percent, you know, the value of the car could be significantly less than what you still owe on

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:51  
it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would, I would say if you can, if you can do this 16 month and, you know, I know a lot of people do 72 And it just, you know, just kind of do your best to try and keep it at that 60. At that 60 months, I know the payment can be very different. But

Dan Roth  1:45:09  
yeah, but that's the thing. Cars are very expensive. And we've ended very generous terms when credit was cheap. And now we're going to see, right now credit is still cheap. But I expect at some point we're going to see that really tighten up and that's going to really squeeze everything. And if you can't, if you can't really make it work on that 60 month term, then you need to buy less car, or

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:35  
Yeah, Toys R Us is a great choice.

Rebecca Lindland  1:45:39  
That would be my recommendation as well. I mean, I think very carefully about a 72 month loan,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:45  
especially in these times. You know, the reality is that even once we come out of this, the economy is going to be in really bad shape for probably at least the next couple of years. Right if not considerably longer than

Dan Roth  1:45:58  
that. I mean, 16 months is five years, right? Like, that's, that's a long time. Right? Well, I don't know, like five years ago.

Rebecca Lindland  1:46:07  
And as you say, you're used as a sandwich, you're gonna be underwater. And so if something happens to that vehicle, you're gonna owe more than it's worth. And that's just, it's just not a good position.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:21  
Or even though even even if, you know, even if something doesn't happen to the vehicle, you know, if you were to lose your job, yeah, or your circumstances changed, and you had to sell that vehicle. Now, all of a sudden the resale value of that vehicle is probably going to be less than what it's worth for quite silly. Absolutely.

Rebecca Lindland  1:46:39  
You're, you're you're vulnerable for for quite a long time that you have that loan, you know, obviously, as you get into, you know, 48 months and you start, you know, if you got a year left to pay on it on a 60 month, then then you're probably well ahead, you know, probably, but again, it's just you know, cars are not they're not assets, they're investment. Um, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're an expense. And so I just don't want people to be falsely lured into the idea that a 72 or 84 month is okay. Because I think that that's something that is, you really need to live a little bit more within your means.

Dan Roth  1:47:15  
Yeah, it's, it's tough, you know, and there's, you know, gap protection is there, there are ways you can be smart about it. We're clearly not financial experts. I mean, we're car riders for Christ's sake.

Rebecca Lindland  1:47:28  
We work with the FDIC though.

Dan Roth  1:47:33  
Seriously, it is true like the, the longer you stretch out that period, the the sort of worse it looks for affordability, you just you really can't, can't predict that you're going to have that stable income for that period of time and you do wind up with the resale value not matching your your payments. You know what you owe on it after a short term.

Rebecca Lindland  1:47:58  
Do you check out I'm sorry.

Dan Roth  1:48:00  
No, go ahead.

Rebecca Lindland  1:48:02  
I just I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Dan Roth  1:48:04  
I wasn't gonna say anything all that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:08  
Well, let's, let's let's, let's finish up with one. The rest of this question. The rest of this particular email is from Randy Guerrero. You know, we mentioned last week when we were talking about a gladiator about the resale value and quality of the Jeep brand. And he says considering a Jeep Compass limited and wondered if we've reviewed this model or what you thought what your thoughts are on it. The likes the size, fuel mileage and price for four wheel drive, plus, they're offering zero percent for 84 months. Definitely stay away from the 84 month loan if you can manage the payments on a shorter

Dan Roth  1:48:41  
Yeah, I don't think they're going to offer you zero percent on a shorter term. Maybe they will I forget. I was looking

Sam Abuelsamid  1:48:47  
to look into it. Yeah. And then additional questions is hearing about hearing with the stimulus package that there will be incentives in the future for dealers to get people to buy new cars, wondering if I should wait or This may be a rumor. Big fan of the show and Joy's podcast and and discussion of iracing. He's a big NASCAR fan. So let me hit that last part of it first. Now the stimulus part of it. There has been some discussion about, you know, doing another Cash for Clunkers style program. Right now, there are no incentives in there for for buying new vehicles. This would be a separate thing that is Congress has not done anything about yet, which, you know, would be some sort of trading program to get people to trade in older cars to buy new vehicles. We don't know if this is going to happen or not, you know, so, depending on you know, if you need to buy a new car right now, you know, then, you know, don't, don't wait assuming that this is going to happen. If you don't need to buy this Jeep right now. Then maybe hold off for a while. See how things go. You know, see if things You know, get a little better, you know, and then you may have that opportunity to do it. As far as the compass goes, I drove a compass a couple of years ago and did a review on Forbes, which we'll link in the show notes. And I think we talked. Dan, you and I talked about it here on the show. Early on, I'll find that episode and link that as well. Have you guys driven the compass? I

Rebecca Lindland  1:50:23  
have. Yes. And it's, I mean, the newer one is so much better than the previous one. That I think that if you're are if you're contemplating as you say, like if you're looking and saying, Okay, I'm not so sure about you know, what, whether I want to spend this money right now, or maybe I'll look at it used just don't. But that's all please don't do that. I think the new one is great. I had a lot of fun with it. I you know, it actually snowed when I had it and it was great. And I just I was delightful. I mean, I I I didn't write a formal review on Rebecca dries but I remember writing some things on on Instagram and I just, it's just a good car. I like the size of it a lot. I think that it's, you know, it's well behaved. It's got that fun kind of Jeep feel to it. And you know, again, I think the biggest thing is just that the previous one was terrible. This one I think is really good.

Dan Roth  1:51:22  
I agree with that. I think that this is one of my favorite jeeps actually is the compass because it offers you a lot of what you get in something like the Grand Cherokee or the Cherokee. Just that really nice car like comfortable Jeep atmosphere in a in a really tidy size. It drives really well. It's I think it's related to the 500 X, which I also No

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:47  
no, I don't

Dan Roth  1:51:50  
think so. are both compact us Why? I'm thinking to the renegade. The rent Yeah, the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:55  
renegade Renegade on the same chassis is 500 x. This is this is basically On the Cherokee smaller version of the Cherokee plot,

Dan Roth  1:52:02  
okay, either way, like, it was such a quantum shift from the original compass, which was not good. Um, I like it a lot. But I think that while we are a podcast that focus, you know, we focus a good amount of our attention on new cars, and we get to drive the new cars and that's all fun and we want to, you want the manufacturers to be successful, so they can continue to enable our fun thing here. It's not necessarily the best time to even contemplate buying a car. So I would suggest, look seriously at you know, do you are you stable? Do you think that you're going to be stable and what's that payment going to be? And what you know, do you have money saved up Is it better to keep that money saved up, you know, like, if you're sitting on some, some cache may wanna might want to stay here. Sitting on some cash. And this is only for a couple more months. Yeah, this is one of the things that I think is actually going to become more important in our, our culture, right, we had a consumer culture for a very, very long time. And we're having right now a very large shock to the system. And I expect if economy wise we we enter a period where of recession, the maintenance culture is going to sort of be have a Renaissance. And so you're gonna see people fixing stuff that they normally don't, you're gonna see people keeping cars even longer. We already keep cars for 12 years, on average. So look at what you've got, and what it needs. And put maybe, maybe just put the money into that case, you know, things hit the skids. And you might, you might need that money for something else. A car is a fun thing to spend money on. It's not necessarily wise. spend money on manual it seems really, really strange for us to say, but we want you listeners to be able to eat. That's right. I feel like a dad now.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:54:11  
Well, no, I mean, it's it's I mean, that's, that's great advice, you know, and I, I agree 100% you know, so it, you know, as Rebecca said, if you can, if you can manage, if you do need to buy something right now, if you can manage the payments on a shorter term loan, that's always a better thing to do. And then, you know, if you if you can wait a little bit, that's probably a really wise thing to right under the current circumstance.

Dan Roth  1:54:38  
I mean, I think it would be happy to give you a very price on a compass right now today.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:54:42  
Absolutely. And if you do decide to buy it, you know, the compass is a great, you know, compact utility. Yeah, I like it a lot. Yeah. And yeah, and even if if you're going for the higher end like the Trailhawk, you know, if you want something with serious offroad chops in rubber I have both driven, you know, the compass Trailhawk you know,

Rebecca Lindland  1:55:03  
that was a riot

Sam Abuelsamid  1:55:05  
at the crest Chelsea Chelsea Proving Grounds, you know, on our off road trail. I mean, you know that this is a vehicle that can go almost anywhere. You know, it's it's very, very capable.

Rebecca Lindland  1:55:17  
It was shocking how good it was.

Dan Roth  1:55:19  
I mean, you can't really put a plow on it. There is a small plow, that would probably work.

Rebecca Lindland  1:55:25  
Oh my gosh, it would probably look really cute. Like a Betty Crocker

Dan Roth  1:55:33  
snowplow. All right. Okay. What are there? We had a bunch of other questions.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:55:41  
Yeah, but I think you know, we've been gone for about two hours. Yeah. I think that's I think that's good for this week. Okay, well,

Dan Roth  1:55:48  
I'll tear through the questions on the Twitter's then so that people don't feel left out and maybe we can. We can address them next week. That sounds like a plan. Sounds great plan. All right. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:56:00  
Stay safe and stay healthy everybody and you know if you got a got a couple of minutes to spare, you know, shoot us a rating on Apple podcasts or wherever else you listen that you can rate us on. And, you know, see you next time

Dan Roth  1:56:13  
yeah stay in touch we're gonna go big Britain.

Rebecca Lindland  1:56:17  
A healthy cheers

Transcribed by https://otter.ai