Dan Roth  0:02  
This is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:06  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid, from Guidehouse insights. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Lindland from  Rebecca drives too much coffee making that you'll never hear it.

Dan Roth  0:18  
All right, well, let's talk about what we've been driving. Let's just go We'll start at the top of the list, Sam, over here, not alphabetically at the top. Well, your name is your last name. Well, he is yesterday. My last names.

You had the the 2020 Mazda CX 30. We talked about this a little bit, I think on the last episode, just that you were gonna have it. So does it still make this the was the CX three completely obsolete?

Sam Abuelsamid  0:47  
I would say so especially for the US market. Yeah. So the CX 30. As we've discussed before, Rebecca and I both drove it at the last drive in California back in December. You know, this is You know, a slightly bigger compact crossover for Mazda than the CX three, but much better packaging than the CX three especially for the US market. You know, the CX three is based on the monster two platform which is now only sold here as the total ers. And you know it's it's a lot smaller inside and it was never really never very well suited to the US market the CX 30 is you know, it's based off the new generation three you know it's a it's a compact crossover it's it's a great looking vehicle it drives great you know drives when it's available as front wheel drive or all wheel drive I had the all wheel drive premium package which comes to you know, what was it was like just 32,000 31,002 75 is when it came to including delivery and you know This is Yeah, I actually in a lot of ways like it better than the three mainly because I do like the fact you know that, you know, I prefer in smaller cars having a tailgate having a hatchback type of design. And the three as much as I like it and I love the way it looks, you know, its visibility is more restricted, especially to the back because, you know, it's, you know, the roofline slopes down a little more, the beltline sweeps up more towards the back, so you got really thick c pillars. The CX 30, you know, has better visibility. It's still not ideal because the belt line, you know, like the three, you know, is pretty high. It's It's interesting, you know, compared to the Lexus uX 30 that we talked about last time. You know, the UX 30 or, UX?

Yes, 250. I went all the way

to x. Yeah yeah the Lexus the Lexus u xe has a similarly high beltline. But you know, the way everything is shaped in the interior it doesn't feel quite as enclosed in the Mazda as it does in the the Lexus You know, it still feels a little more open. And I think it's partly because the way the dashboard is shaped, you know, more sweeps away from you know, and it just, it feels more welcoming and maybe a little less I don't know if oppressive is the right word and the Lexus but, you know, it just it didn't it just didn't feel as like, like as much like a place that I want to spend time. Where's the Mazda really does feel that way. And, you know, like every, you know, Mazda of recent years, you know, it's got lovely interior materials. You know, this is the loaded one, you know, so leather, finishing on the top of the doors and across the dashboard and the seats and everything. You know, soft touch materials everywhere, you know, that fully equipped with, you know, adaptive cruise control and Lane Keeping Assist and all the other driver assists, you know, really nice heads up display. It's got features like, you know, sign recognition, traffic signs for speed limits and stop signs and things like that it'll I like I do like having this the speed limits show up in the lights like

Rebecca Lindland  4:30  
that. Exactly. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  4:31  
things like stop signs, you know, not so much. I don't find that particularly useful, but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't annoy me. And, you know, so it's doing, you know, same sort of things that you know that the latest edition of Tesla's latest feature addition to Tesla's full self driving is doing, you know, recognizing traffic signals, but it's not it doesn't respond to To them, it just gives you, you know, an alert, you know, just to make sure that you put it right in front of you. In case you missed the sign that you just drove past. lunch. You know what was there? Yeah.

Dan Roth  5:13  
I remember which car it was, but it would actually would set the cruise by the road sign. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:23  
Well, there's a bunch of cars that do that now. You know, the Lincoln Coursera and navigator do that. I think the first one I had that did that was the Mercedes E Class. You know that I drove about three or four years ago, up to Traverse City for the management briefing seminars. Did that you know it? You mean it adapts

Rebecca Lindland  5:43  
the cruise control? fitness?

Sam Abuelsamid  5:45  
Yeah. Yeah. The camera would read the speed limit signs and automatically adjust the cruise control sets. The speed limit? Yeah, and

Rebecca Lindland  5:54  
I've done a lot of BMW do that. Mm hmm. It's a it's a cool trick until it happens when it when it's dark and it's snowing, and the car still wants to go 120 miles

an hour,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:08  
you know, in that scenario that may have probably shouldn't be using cruise control anyway. It was for what for what it's worth, you know, all these systems that I've tried, you can turn that that function off so it doesn't you don't Yeah, yeah. and not have it reset the speed limit. And, and actually, you know, last fall on the launch drive for the course where a bunch of us did experience along one particular stretch on the last leg of the drive, driving towards Monterey. We got we, that we passed one particular speed limit sign which we all read as 65 but for some reason the camera read it is 85 and, you know, we went past the sign and I know Stephanie brenly experienced this Several other people I talked to all had this happen, where, you know, all of a sudden the cars start speeding up and I looked at the HUD and it was showing at, well, let's read the speed limit. 85. And

Dan Roth  7:13  
it felt it was a fire truck.

Unknown Speaker  7:15  
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:19  
So, so, you know, these systems aren't these systems aren't perfect. So you do have to, you know, keep an eye on it. But, you know, I think it can be a handy feature. To know, just to give you a reminder what the speed limit is.

Rebecca Lindland  7:31  
So you had you had the CX 30, right. Yeah. Okay, I had, so I wasn't going to talk about it this week. But I had the CX five, which is in the middle. I actually did a little Goldilocks chart. I was during the review, on on my site, shameless, plug.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:52  
calm.

Rebecca Lindland  7:55  
your site Rebecca drives.com. All one word. Exactly. But But I remember after after we went to the launch, I, you know, it's hard to discern the differences between the three, between the CX three, the or the C, what is it the CX three, the 630 and the CX five. So I put together a handy dandy little chart showing like the starting price, the wheelbase length with height, things like that. And so I had the, what would be perceived as the biggest one.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:32  
Yeah, well, you know, I think, you know, if you drive the CX three and the CX 30 back to back, you can definitely tell cx three is a substantially smaller feeling car for sure. And similarly, with the CX five, you know, that it does feel bigger. Although the, you know, the in terms of the interior design and layout and everything of the CX 30 versus the CX five they are they do feel a lot closer to each other. I mean, yeah, definitely a very common to language there. And I think I'm fine with that because I like that design language. I love the way they feel and the way they drive. And you know, I think the the engine that they put in this the 2.5 liter naturally aspirated 186 horsepower, 186 foot pounds of torque. You know, it feels good and strong. You know, it's a nice six speed automatic No, no, no CVT nonsense in here, you know, so it's, it is enjoyable to drive.

Rebecca Lindland  9:27  
Yeah, no, I had a great time in the CX five. I mean, I think it was. It was, yeah, we've talked about this one before, because I think I had it last year, as well hit the 2019 this was the 2020 in the signature all wheel drive, so it's fully loaded. And it was it was just, I mean, those things want to go fast and they're and they're fun to go fast. You know, it's, it's one of those you have to you have to be conscious of your speed but so the one that I had an the 2.5 liter liter turbo engine, 227 horsepower. The six speed sport mode skyactiv It's so nice to not have a CVT with that. I, and this one one for $39,000 with delivery. So it was,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:15  
you know, again, we would, you know, and we've, you know, we've talked about the pricing of the CX five, you know, several times before, you know, but the reality is that the, you know, the rest of that segment is getting into that same price range as well, you know, and I think, you know, give you if it came down to, you know, Ford Escape or Honda CRV, you know, the high end, you know, or, or rav4 Yeah, and that same price range. I personally would probably opt for the Mazda. I just like it.

Rebecca Lindland  10:48  
Yeah, well, well, so that so the other car that I had, because we've been gone a couple weeks. The other car that I had was the Toyota rav4 with the TRD off road and with all of that because it's It's got a lot of special packages to it. That one goes for $41,000 around for over $41,000 so but the number one complaint I had with the rav4 the TRD in particular was that it was just incredibly noisy inside I don't know if it had to do with the roof rack and I'm intruding on your on your explanation time but it's it's kind of related but

Sam Abuelsamid  11:30  
did the TRD off road you have that it had like all terrain tires on it.

Rebecca Lindland  11:36  
You know I was looking at that and yes it has so it has 18 inch they didn't actually it's interested in they didn't go into too much detail on the site and nor on the sticker on the tire. So you just there I knew that they were they were definitely they were they were definitely off road but it was not. It was not tire noise. It was like I kept Trying to close windows.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:03  
It was maybe it was a roof rack then?

Rebecca Lindland  12:05  
Well, because that's my first thought was the sunroof was open and I kept trying to close the sunroof, even though it was closed. And then when I actually closed the cover of the sunroof, it got quieter. And so that's makes me wonder if it was just the arrow with the roof racks is, you know, it's, it's disturbed. And

Dan Roth  12:28  
yeah, I usually have that. So we have a Yakima for the jeep. And I take it off as much as possible because it does just make me right.

Rebecca Lindland  12:40  
Yeah, I just I felt like I mean, that was really the only thing that because otherwise, otherwise, it was a blast. But and I loved the way it looked. But I was really really disappointed in How noisy it was. And and, and the monster of the CX five was not I mean, I it's it's Nice vehicle, it's you know, you definitely feel the premium part, as we've talked about before that Mazda is concentrating on

Dan Roth  13:07  
you, they're really working hard to earn the prices that they're asking for, at the top terms, you know, the touring or the signature. You know, that they're, they're nice cars, and they feel nice. They're good to drive they have that I'm going to set the G vectoring. Yeah, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  13:25  
Yeah, the G vectoring is kind of an interesting little thing. And we've talked about it before, you know, where when you're cornering, you know, it will, under certain circumstances, it will actually back off the engine torque slightly in order to get a little more weight transfer onto the front wheel. So essentially, what it's doing is kind of an automatic trail braking functionality. Yeah. You know, to put a little more weight on the front wheels to get a little more grip so it'll turn in better.

Dan Roth  13:57  
Yeah, it works. Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  13:57  
does it absolutely does. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  13:59  
No. It felt really stable. So I noticed that's on this one

Sam Abuelsamid  14:03  
too. It's on it's on the CX 30. That feature. So I like it a lot. So yeah, I mean, I, you know, have, you know, we and we talked, you know, over the last couple months you know, as you've driven cars like the venue and you know, some of the other in a lot more more affordable, compact crossovers. You know, the the mark that segment that compact crossover segment is kind of split into two. So you've got the more affordable segment like the the, the Hyundai venue and the Nissan Kicks. And then you've got this slightly more upmarket segment, you know, that starts in that $22,000 range, which is right where the CX 30 starts a front wheel drive a cx 30 starts at 22 grand, which is still very affordable. And, you know, this one that I had that all wheel drives fully loaded was just over 31 with delivery. So that's it's still in You know, it's not crazy. And when you, when you look at what you're getting in terms of the feature set, and the fit and finish the materials and this thing, compared to a lot of the competition, you know, I would definitely choose this one over most of the competitors. In fact, I can't think of any of the competitors in that same size class that I would choose over the CX 30.

Rebecca Lindland  15:23  
Yeah, no, it's it's really they've done a really nice job, especially that you know, the technology that's available. I think it's, it's, it's impressive. And 3130 one's not bad. I mean, that's, you know, it's, I I start to cringe when I'm getting into the high 30s and certainly low 40s. But I think the bottom line when when people are shopping in this segment, there are so many choices. It's exhausting. And I think that you know, people really need to shop carefully and test drive and spend time with the toy with with the vehicles that they're that they're looking at. Because there are just so many choices out there It's really incredible. Yeah

Dan Roth  16:05  
3031 k gets you pretty much anything that's either at the high end or the low middle end you can pick pick your size. Pick your brand. and off you go. Especially if you had used

Rebecca Lindland  16:20  
Oh gosh, I think I'd use yeah no 30 That's it. That's a really sweet spot.

Unknown Speaker  16:25  
You get a Ferrari for 31 grand.

Dan Roth  16:28  
Be Mondeo. Do it.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:33  
Totally. The only thing I would change you know if I was buying one of these myself is I would not go for the the white. That was on the the one that I drove i would i would go go for the sole crystal red because it's just such a fantastic color and it really shows off the the shape of that sheet metal. Kind of the white looks kind of flat. You know, you don't you don't see the contours of that work. The sculpting they did on that sheet metal with the white. But in the in the red you definitely get it.

Rebecca Lindland  17:06  
Well in my car. My cx five actually had this it had it had that gorgeous soul red crystal metallic. And then it had the cateura Brown where it's like the interior is both black and brown. And they just they did such a beautiful job with that. And it really looks I thought it looked really really nice. I was talking to my accountant today and he's like, what's with the black and brown interiors on cars? I started laughing. I said Do you not like it? And he he was not a fan, but I thought they did a really nice job on it. Well, that's

Sam Abuelsamid  17:39  
why they offer more than one one option.

Rebecca Lindland  17:41  
That's what I told him. I said everyone's palette is different.

Dan Roth  17:45  
Well, what does he like?

Rebecca Lindland  17:48  
He just Well, I mean, he's, he's my account. He just wants a black interior.

Dan Roth  17:53  
I was I was hoping you'd say something or another. I think, you know, in my in my Search. When I come across a car with a black interior, it's just like, it goes low on the list because it just, I don't like them. I look cheap.

Rebecca Lindland  18:09  
I don't like them. And they also they just get so hot in the summer. Yeah, I don't find that appealing. And I and I hundred percent agree, Dan, I think that they really they do a disservice to any kind of materials. They just cheapen it instantly. And we we've talked about it before, you know, like the you sit in a black interior, and I just feel like it shows all the flaws.

Dan Roth  18:31  
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Sam, where do you feel? Are you part of black interior club? It depends.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:39  
Yeah, I'm not quite as offended by black interiors. You know, I think it depends a lot on the material. That's true. You know, obviously, you know, it does have certain advantages in terms of, you know, being less prone to showing off. You know, some of the stains come with wear and tear, especially if you have kids You know, I would certainly never never get a vehicle with a white or light colored colored interior you know if my kids were still young but they're grown and out of the house now so I don't care it's their problem now what you know what they choose to do but no I you know, I I don't I don't mind blackened terrorists but I do like the black and brown which is what was in the the CX 30 I drove and, you know, one of the interesting details on the CX 30. I don't know if you remember them talking about this, Rebecca at the launch drive. The, you know, the seats, the leather on the seats is perforated you know, the front seats are cooled. And the inserts you know, you have the brown center section on the seats. But if you look in the perforations, there's, there's actually a second layer underneath. And so you actually see, you know, like a set you see black under there. Or, you know, under the the black sections you see brown under there. So there, it gives it a three dimensional look to it, you know, and it's not, it's not readily apparent unless you you look, you know, if you look down at the seat, you know, and look closely, you can see it there. And so it's just a really nice little detail, that it doesn't jump out at you, but it's there if you look for it.

Rebecca Lindland  20:22  
Right? It's it's those as those kind of subtle nuances that make the overall experience a more premium feel. You know, it's those that kind of attention to detail. It's well done top stitching, it's a you know, just that that craftsmanship that they're that they're really pushing towards. And so I think, you know, I think it's, I do, I do hope that they clarify their portfolio a little bit, because it is, it's confusing down at that end with the CX three 635

Sam Abuelsamid  21:02  
is probably gonna go away at the end of its current life cycle.

Rebecca Lindland  21:05  
I just I wish that they would get on that

Dan Roth  21:20  
let's, let's pivot over to the ram for let's let's let's yeah there so it That sounds like it was not cheap.

Rebecca Lindland  21:28  
It was not cheap.

Dan Roth  21:30  
What does it compete with? Do you think it's like a competitor for the Cherokee Trailhawk or something like I'm trying to think about?

Rebecca Lindland  21:36  
Sure. Yep. And the Subaru Forester Oh, yeah. as well. You know, it's it's because it is a I don't know exactly if it's if it's significantly more off road capable, it does have the multi What do they call it? multi terrain select. And so you can, you know, put it into snow mode and things like that. I mean it's I don't it's not just an appearance I guess unfortunately I didn't actually have the opportunity to take it off road but this is the TRD off road. And you know, I it's a it's a fun Appearance Package because and I don't I don't want to diminish it because I think there are more it's more off road capable than a typical route for but it is you know, it's a lot of it is an appearance package. It has blacked out Rims blacked out grille, it has actually has a white the one that I had had a white top to it, which is kind of cool. I and you know, it just looks different than every other, you know, mid to mid size small to midsize crossover that's on the road today, as I just talked about, you know, there are so many choices. And this thing was just a lot of fun. And I you know I in my review, I said I said it's like I said equipping the stalwart rav4 With a TRD off road is like turning up your 40 something SR anti 80s rock jeans

Unknown Speaker  23:07  
once a year.

Dan Roth  23:10  
If you like it, you can drive Halloween all the time, right like this.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:16  
And I'm just looking at the press release for the TRD off road. It does have all terrain tires. So yeah, yeah, so those are going to give you some extra grip, you know, but as a competitor to a Trailhawk a Jeep Trailhawk model, it's, you know, it doesn't have locking differentials. So it's not going to be able to go some a lot.

Dan Roth  23:37  
Be honest, I go as a Jeep owner, nobody uses that stuff.

Rebecca Lindland  23:43  
Like, well, that's the thing is that like I would I would put the

Sam Abuelsamid  23:47  
option to do it.

Rebecca Lindland  23:48  
I would put it in that competitive category from an appearance standpoint, not so much from that stamp.

Dan Roth  23:56  
That's a big part of it, though, is like the appearance I think and just Like people, people like that rugged look, you know, and then with the different faces that probably improved the approach and departure angles and like it, it's there for a reason. The biggest reason is people just like that it looks a little tougher. And the fact that it has a little bit of extra capability probably gives it more more ability than anybody's ever really going to use for the for the most part, especially on the rav4 side I know that there's a lot of Jeep people that actually do no matter which Jeep they have they go doing Jeep stuff with it. So that's that's fine.

Rebecca Lindland  24:38  
Right? This this is really I mean, it's, it's, to me it was it was largely in appearance package. It does, you know it they do try and promote it but it's still a car based SUV that isn't as you say it doesn't have a locking or a differential. It's certainly not as offer capable as the Trailhawk by any means. You know, the interior has this soft text Kind of your wipeable cleanable you know, you can, it has this lovely embossed pattern on it. So, you know, they did some nice things with it on the inside. And it does have heated and ventilated perforated seats, which I absolutely love had a heated steering wheel and had really nice bird's eye camera this the the Technology Package, which is about 1900 dollars is really well worth it, especially if you're going to go you know, do a little trailing. And it's definitely something that will come in handy. So, you know, it's, I mean, overall, it's really, really well equipped, but it's also $41,000. And, you know, that's just a lot of money started like

Dan Roth  25:45  
35 So that to me seems like that's a little better deal,

Rebecca Lindland  25:49  
right? Yeah, it starts at 35 I mean, you get the so this one had the offer of weather package which is the heated and cooled seats as I mentioned. And that's $1,000. And then I had a premium. Yeah, that had a premium auto system $1,000 so for heated and cooled seats and heated steering wheel, that's not terrible. Rain sensing variable windshield wipers, little on the high side. And I don't know, I mean the Technology Package is 1900 and $50. And then it's not two that's right in the middle, the premium moto is 1600. Hmm, two tone paint is 500. So that all adds up to 41.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:34  
Unlike unlike a Trailhawk, you know, the TRD off road rav4 does have red Penny coil springs. So,

Unknown Speaker  26:42  
Erykah, it wins. This is what cracks me up about,

Dan Roth  26:47  
about the rav4 here for a couple generations now like the rav4 sport has had the struts have been painted blue. Seemed like Oh, we got the good stuff here, but this generation of rav4 and they've actually done a really nice job on it. It feels really solid every every single one of them I've driven from the the hybrids to just the lower trims it's it's a really good crossover to drive and they did a really nice job on its weakest spot I think was the interior and I don't know what the TRD interior is like the soft Tex poster seems a little different to me than what I was in

Rebecca Lindland  27:27  
Well, it's not going to be leather but but I like the fact that you know if you are out adventuring, you're going to get muddy and you know dirty and you don't mind because it cleans off really easily. So I you know, so I did like that. I mean, I went I drove out to New Jersey to pick up something out there so I drove it. You know, I drove a probably 120 miles in a sitting and it was very comfortable. Very, very well behaved on the highway. You know, one thing I will say that they did a fantastic job. Is the the adaptive cruise control was really good on this. And I bring that up because a couple years ago, I drove a Toyota Highlander down to New Jersey. And granted there was obviously more traffic on the road. But I got I, when I got to my friend's house, I was carsick from the wrong or like, and I wasn't really in a lot of traffic. It just it was miserable. And this one is so much better. I mean, they really really did a really nice job on on changing and modifying the adaptive cruise control.

Dan Roth  28:40  
Yeah, I did. I think that that's been Toyota's em over the last couple of years is everything that they've updated has been been pretty solid. I know that they get treated poorly by the enthusiast opinion but there there is stuff has gotten a lot better and worse. Like, one of the, like the tip of the spear I've really liked this raft for

Sam Abuelsamid  29:05  
No, no, it looks to.

Rebecca Lindland  29:06  
Yeah, I like the way it looks too. I do wish that they would spend a little bit more on insulation, not just because it's loud. But I mean, I ran into this with the Highlander as well, you close those doors and you can see the metal shake, like the metal wave like it, you know, it kind of what's the word I'm looking for, like a sort of wobbles. And it's not a nice thunk. Like I want that to be, you know, so that that again was and I feel like I'm whining right now, but that was something like firstworldproblems but you know, it's, it's those little things again, like we talked about with the monster right, there's a lot of attention to detail there. And I feel like the I feel like the the Toyotas I just I want them to concentrate a little bit more on some of those refinements I think they could make.

Dan Roth  30:03  
Yeah. Um, well, I mean, you can always get the Lexus version, and

then it'll be refined.

Which good. So that's what I was driving was the Lexus version of a Toyota I had the Lexus Gx 460 still have it. And we talked about this briefly. A couple of couple episodes ago, I think.

Rebecca Lindland  30:26  
Yeah, I had that a while ago.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:28  
Yeah, none of our about a month ago. Yeah.

Dan Roth  30:31  
Yes, they do know, this thing is fantastic. It's old as hell. You can tell that it's old because

it reminded me a lot of the Crown Victoria were just like, buttons and switches are sprinkled around, and like the most nonsensical locations like oh, yeah, we wanted to add these features to this ancient platform. So like we just stuck the seat memory stuff on the door. Hey, I think part of it is just it's it's the Toyota way in this model because it's a this is this is a foreigner

Unknown Speaker  31:09  
it's just it's, it's nice. I like it, it

Rebecca Lindland  31:14  
it rather have a foreigner though.

Dan Roth  31:15  
I mean a foreigner Ltd is again, it's, it's quaint, but

it's not.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:23  
So not as expensive. No,

Dan Roth  31:24  
it's not terrible. It starts at like 53 for the GX 460. I mean, you get that like we talked about that week. 301 horsepower VA, who cares? It sounds good. It makes enough torque. He eats a ton of gas. It ton of gas but it's smooth that you know, it's it's paired really well with its transmission. It's very comfortable. I really like the seats. It doesn't hurt that this one is like a white pearl metallic with red leather interior. Okay, somebody picked good colors, which makes it easier to stomach the fact that it's old with it. Doesn't really matter because it's like, I think that it's what people are expecting for the GX. You know, it's it's a known quantity. And I have you ever heard a Lexus owner complain? I they love their cars and their dealers,

Rebecca Lindland  32:16  
because they're baby boomers and that's their jam.

Dan Roth  32:20  
Absolutely.

Rebecca Lindland  32:24  
And they never questioned their decisions because they always have to

Dan Roth  32:27  
listen, they were told you don't want to

carry on.

Oh, come on, that does suck comm awful. That's at the rotten apple carplay.

And it's weird because a year ago, I was like crap, that stuff doesn't matter. And now

it's just it's more cumbersome.

So I'm a late bloomer in that sense, but you've really missed that stuff when it's not there. And then just i the only nav systems that gotten lost on me and the last few years have been Toyota naff. It's just it's just not good. And this is really old turn and I like I just don't, I don't like the controls on the screen. And I think, actually the new the 2024 runner has a new version of it, doesn't it? I thought it did. I'm trying to remember now.

Rebecca Lindland  33:23  
I'm just looking at. The other thing I love about the GX 460, though, is I love this swing back door. Yeah. And the fact that the and it's a split the, the glass actually goes up or has flat

Unknown Speaker  33:37  
because I do.

Dan Roth  33:39  
I do I do so I'm torn. You know, like,

Rebecca Lindland  33:42  
I wonder if we had this little one. Did you have jersey plate? It

Dan Roth  33:44  
does have jersey plates. Yep. I don't know how many miles I would I mean, thank you, Troy and Alexis

Rebecca Lindland  33:50  
mine because I'm looking at pictures. Yeah, mine had read. Good. It's a beautiful. It's a gorgeous, isn't it?

Unknown Speaker  33:58  
Yes. Yeah, it looks It's

Rebecca Lindland  34:00  
a champagne color that is to

Dan Roth  34:03  
die for good in the driveway. I mean, I'll give them that. It's, it's and it's it's not a new design and it does have that giant Lexus grille. But it's it all works, you know, and I think that's the thing is overall as a package, it works and that's why it may be ancient but I, I'm sure that they have a new one in the works on on the way. But if it's satisfying customers, there's never really anything wrong with it, other than it could use an infotainment upgrade really like functionally, right? It's pretty good ergonomically, there is this weird strip in the dash that you expect to be something because it's like this. Yeah, in the middle of the dash, right. There's like this black plastic panel. It's like, it's almost like a ruler, you know, it's like it's like two inches high by like, I don't know, eight inches wide or something. And all it's there for is the LCD number display. For the heating, I feel like it doesn't do anything else. There's no other buttons or anything and it's just like, I'm I'm glad that there's not extra stupid touchscreen buttons, but like that seems to be a pretty big waste of space to me. And like those are the things where he is if you want it to pick it apart, it does. It's got these things about it that just are very just archaic now and so it makes you laugh a little bit, but as a functional vehicle, I think it's good. It's definitely got offroad chops, you know, it's a forerunner, and it has all the different switchable modes, I think it actually has lockable rear and center diff Yeah, it does have a lock so you can get super super stuck with this. Be comfortable about it. I don't know I and I had to go. I had to go pick it up. And I had a couple of other things to do. So while I'm still freaked out about picking up an infection, it's so Lovely car, it's a lovely way to, to spend time I saw I dropped the venue off, which I liked the venue, but I was driving this back was like, Alright, like we'll take, we'll take the backroads home instead of just getting this drive. And I'm trying to like, I'm just appreciative that the fleets are still, you know, available to us. So thank you, Toyota, yes for that. But it's, it's a it's definitely a it's kind of out of character.

Rebecca Lindland  36:32  
Well, it does. I mean, the fun thing about about that and the foreigner is it doesn't really, they haven't been watered down. You know, it's still a truck. And that's a you don't you still see that a lot on the road in a

Dan Roth  36:46  
crappy leg room in the back seat because the second row is load in the floor. And

Rebecca Lindland  36:53  
yeah, it's, it's not, you know, it's not the most comfortable vehicle but there's, there's the Definitely an old school oil to it.

Dan Roth  37:02  
I like it quite a bit. And I'm sure that the one I drove I didn't I don't have the money for it. I'm sure that when I drove push the price up quite a bit.

Rebecca Lindland  37:12  
If it was the same one that I had, it was just over seven. Yeah,

Dan Roth  37:16  
that probably makes sense because that is probably the GeForce GTX 460 luxury. And that starts at five so but

Rebecca Lindland  37:25  
right yeah, that's exactly

Dan Roth  37:25  
and I honestly think like, for all of its,

for all of its flaws, is it definitely has them

it's probably not going to break. It's probably gonna just do what it does for a very long time. And I think that it's it's just going to deliver you what you want, Nick it is tricky. It's also it's as comfortable as it can be. It rides a lot softer than the the forerunner it's based on. It doesn't tow all that much. It's like 6500 pounds. But that's that's enough. Like that's a that's a small camper. Or a boat, small boat. So it'll, it'll do most of what most people would do with it anyway.

Rebecca Lindland  38:10  
So now, but but when you think about the competition though, right like the GMC Yukon, the Audi Q seven, I mean, what do you think about you know, do you part do you purchase this the Lexus? Because it's a Lexus. And because of right because it's it's reliable. And what about resale? What do you think? I think Lexus has every sale

Dan Roth  38:33  
I think Lexus

Rebecca Lindland  38:35  
Yeah, but I'm this

Dan Roth  38:37  
I think this is a particular buyer, though like I you know, it's very much like how I'm sort of like sniffing around for a class Benz wagon. Like, that's particular buyer. Like, yeah, no, that's very valid if you want this thing cuz you could get I'm not sure that there's really a Lexus. There's not really a Lexus analog. The Highlander though right like that's that's true that's kind of a hole in their lineup right

Sam Abuelsamid  39:05  
right the the RS sure yeah

Unknown Speaker  39:08  
yeah it's

Sam Abuelsamid  39:10  
it's it's still basically you know based on the Highlander yeah

Dan Roth  39:15  
oh that's right there's the the long wheelbase RX now too does that have three rows?

Sam Abuelsamid  39:22  
Yeah, it does have three rows I'm not sure this the the three row are actually even have a longer wheelbase or just a longer body could be just like it's just a longer bow.

Rebecca Lindland  39:31  
It's a longer body. Yeah,

Dan Roth  39:34  
that's the worst Lexus there is I like

Rebecca Lindland  39:41  
well, you know, it's not that popular either. No,

Dan Roth  39:43  
no, it's only the top selling car.

Unknown Speaker  39:46  
Look, I

Dan Roth  39:47  
my mother told me the other day that I was a contrary from the day I was born. I was like, No, I'm not. Um, yeah, but I think honestly, like coming Back to resale. Uh, the Lexus resale has to be better than Audi Audi resale it's just like

Rebecca Lindland  40:05  
oh, like a stone well Audi Audi is lease

Dan Roth  40:09  
yes tester and they lease it and then they lease it then they sell it right? They get three bites of the apple. Um, and I think that you know, coming from European cars the Lexus might be like an oasis right because you get that Lexus dealer expense which is very fine tuned Audi also has a good dealer experience depending on the dealer but I've heard nothing but praise for Lexus dealers to the to the point where even if you didn't really like their cars all that much like you know you're gonna get a pretty decent car and you're gonna get treated well. So it has its its its upsides.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:48  
Well and that's, you know, that's something that's been part of the Lexus experience from day one back in 1990. Right, is that the whole experience, you know, the customer experience around the dealers. That's something that you know, other manufacturers have tried to emulate with varying degrees of success or lack thereof.

Dan Roth  41:07  
Yeah, I mean, premium brands generally will treat you pretty well across the board. But I mean, just the local Lexus dealers, just people I know with Lexus they just rave about it's like a guy I know, bought a used Ls 460. He's like, they treat me the same as the new car buyer. Like, they'll come pick it up, they'll leave a car. They'll bring it back. It's all detailed and like those are those are nice touches that you get that at some other premium dealers too. So

I like this thing, though. It's it's got character. No.

Rebecca Lindland  41:39  
does have character that says,

Dan Roth  41:42  
I don't know that. I mean, I'd be fine driving it. I don't know that it's great. For our tripperz it's a little short. It's a little, you know, until you try to use all three rows and put some some gear in it. It's gonna be tight. pretty quick. Yeah, but yeah. All right. So good. We've had a nice Nice array of automobiles in our garage, we should move on to some some topics. And I love the first topic in our list, which comes from Jalopnik and said their headline is awesome. Yeah, Georgia has just decided that any teenager who wants to drive can drive because Georgia it's not quite as black and white,

Sam Abuelsamid  42:25  
because why not?

Dan Roth  42:26  
Okay. Um, I would have loved this when I was 16 I was sneaking the car into the driveway.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:32  
Yeah, I mean to anybody that that cares at all about automotive safety. You know, the the last thing that we should be doing is making it easier for American kids to be able to well, driver's license, it should be getting harder. What's

Dan Roth  42:47  
the reasoning behind it, though? Like, what's their reason for opening it up? There has to be any legitimate kind of, besides just making fun of them.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:58  
It's the apparent Because of the Coronavirus. The executive order issued by the governor Brian Kemp said effective immediately the provision of code requiring the Department of driver services to examine every applicant for driver's license with a comprehensive on the road driving test. And, you know, right there I mean, you know, driving tests in America have never been particularly comprehensive. But anyway, is hereby suspended and applicants for driver's license shall not be required to complete a comprehensive on the road driving test, providing all of the requirements outlined in the code are met. This person provisions shall expire at the conclusion of the public health state of emergency declared in the executive order of March 14, and renewed by executive order anyway, so it's because of the Coronavirus pandemic, you know, they're saying, you know, don't don't bother going to the DMV, you know, if you pass the written test, you're good. Go ahead and drive.

Dan Roth  43:55  
Okay, I mean, that so that does protect The people who are giving the exams, right, there's, there's that, like keeps them.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:06  
Right. But why should we let kids drive if they haven't actually demonstrated, at least to the degree that they have to demonstrate it as part of an American, you know, driving exam road test, that they actually know how to operate a vehicle? I mean, is it that imperative that a 16 year old actually be able to get behind the wheel right away? That they can't wait a few months?

Rebecca Lindland  44:33  
I mean, I think that you're I mean, there, is there some presumption of parental oversight.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:44  
That's a pretty big presumption. You know, I, you know, I don't think, you know, frankly, you know, I think it'd be better if six, you know, if the driving age was raised to 18. Well, yeah, that's a good place.

Rebecca Lindland  44:59  
Discussion? That's I mean, that's a different topic. And, and if anything, I mean, well, Driver's Ed, as you said in this country is appalling. And it's embarrassing and getting a driver's license is seen as a right. And not a privilege. So there's the whole, that whole other issue of just who gets to drive and when, and but, you know, they I mean, they, they do have to pass the written,

Dan Roth  45:26  
which is a little bigger there. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  45:28  
the positive you know, I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:32  
not much. I mean, there's a big difference being it between being able to pass a multiple choice test, you know, and actually being able to operate a vehicle relative.

Dan Roth  45:42  
I agree that we need better driver training, but I think that

my perspective on that comes from a certain

lived experience and a certain level of being fortunate that not everybody has, and So, I think that making it easier for some folks to drive will actually be a positive for them, you know, a 16 year old kid who still has a job, right? That's, that's a plus, but needs to get to their job who can't, you know, doesn't have transit around to Georgia's not really well known for its transit. And just depending on where you are in the socio economic ladder, you know, anytime we sort of crank up those those restrictions, it seems like you have to be careful so that the people who lose the most aren't the people who can least afford it not thanks. So that's, like I see like, okay, in a tough time, especially in a household that may have one or two laid off workers. If if there's still somebody who's 16 you get to a job, but for the lack of a driver's license, okay, because I will tell you if I was 16, and I need money that that I drive anyway.

Rebecca Lindland  47:03  
Well, let's think about this. So, I mean, I agree with you damn. The other thing too is, you know, is this is this that much drastically different than the fact that they said to all nursing students,

Dan Roth  47:17  
right Screw it, you're good trying to try not to kill

Unknown Speaker  47:19  
everyone in school

Rebecca Lindland  47:25  
you know, I mean, there's been this is extreme like the, the, I think the Jalopnik headline makes it sound like they don't even have they can just, they don't even have to pass the test. They don't have to. They don't have to pass the written test, which they do. It says so the aspiring driver's license technically still need to complete 40 hours of supervised driving. I you know, and they're saying I've you know, most parents spend five to six hours at most and but i think that you know, we are in in a crazy time of the world and you know, they did say that can be they graduated nursing. is early,

Sam Abuelsamid  48:02  
I think I think it's, you know, it's something different to, you know, say to nurses, you know, or even doctors for that matter who are in their last semester, you know, you know, you're four weeks away six weeks away from graduation, you're good. We need you to be out there, you know, on the front lines, you know, helping out in the hospitals, you know, I'm I would be much more comfortable with, you know, somebody who's gone through, you know, a couple of years of nursing school or, you know, or, you know, gone to med school same, then, you know, having a 16 year old that has not demonstrated they can actually drive being on the road.

Rebecca Lindland  48:40  
Right, but and I recognize that they're not the same. My point is that we are in a bit of unprecedented time. And, you know, again, it's the idea, you know, where does this where does the kid get the keys from the parents, presumably And not always but I mean, I don't know, I guess I

Dan Roth  49:04  
just Yes, I can, I can see, I honestly don't know that it amounts to much either. It's probably not a huge percentage of drivers on the road in Georgia, that are going to be these 16 year olds who passed one part of the test and not the other. And I think honestly, as well, if they're driving the family car, and they're trying to be responsible, they're not gonna be taking too many risks. So there's just some of that. It's something that would give me a little bit of pause, because really the only thing it makes you a good tourist experience, and if you don't have any experience,

Rebecca Lindland  49:38  
well, but the other thing too, I mean, the positive is, there's not a lot of cars on the road right now.

Dan Roth  49:43  
It's gonna be fine like 90% of the time, right? But there's those outlier incidents like a heavy thunderstorm, or something that you just need to know how to handle and that's where, when it gets dangerous and dicey that, you know, the lack of Experience is gonna

Rebecca Lindland  50:02  
play a role. But that's that's whether they pass the test or not. I mean, that's true whether Yeah, absolutely. And, and the positive here is that there are not a lot of cars on the road right now. I mean, I was talking to somebody, I'm like, Listen, you know, my, my son, my girlfriend's in Saudi Arabia, who only recently got the, you know, the right to drive or the privilege I should say, I, you know, I said, Go out now, go practice, get familiar with the roads, nobody's on them. So you know, now is the time to send kids out that are practicing their driving and, you know, be get to know the roads as a driver versus a passenger.

Dan Roth  50:44  
It is. I hope that when we get back to more normal, um, this gets lifted, and they have to go back and get a road test. But you know, kids on kids farms and if you have foreign plates in certain areas you can be 14 Drive pickup truck. Yeah, exactly. And it's a really varied experience it does it does make you a little nervous but hey, I went through all the drivers that and stuff and then two and a half months of getting my license I crashed the car and totaled it so wow there's there's that so no it was a good time in a state park was awesome

Unknown Speaker  51:27  
Um, so yeah.

Dan Roth  51:31  
There's I hope that it helps the folks that that it can help

I yeah, I guess the best part is that it keeps people away from each other. And that's really sort of the only way we're going to kind of squash the the infection rates.

I'm sorry that I did see that while total vehicle miles are down

injuries and and you know, like I don't know if it's deaths, or if so for like, half the total mileage or less, we were still at the same rate of sort of crashes and injuries over the last month, so that's not good. I mean, that's actually.

Rebecca Lindland  52:16  
I mean, I know and, and to my point of, you know, there's not that many cars on the road, the the cars that are on there, there are people that are going fast. I mean, you know, I am not hard not to I mean, is, but, you know, it is I mean, the average speed limit, I would say is between 75 and 80 or 95 right now, because nobody's on it. But then of course, you always getting those jerks that are going like 110, which you know, is fine if it's a clear road, but they're weaving in and out of traffic and the whole thing, but

Dan Roth  52:51  
Yeah, I did. I did have some of that when I was going down because it's not all that close for me to go pick up a car from the frame. Yeah, it's a long drive. It's a little bit of a haul. I think it's like 70 or 80 miles. But I got tailgated a lot. On my way down, and I was just like, guy. I'm doing 75.

Rebecca Lindland  53:10  
Right. Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, well, and then a couple weeks ago, Jake and I went across the Tappan Zee Bridge. And on the way on the way in towards New York, I probably have I was probably doing about 8085. And all of a sudden in my rearview mirror, I saw one motorcycle, and I moved over to the to the middle lane, and then a swarm of bikes. And they went by us like, we were standing still, I think I was in the Bentley. And it was like, we were standing still, it was insane. And there was probably 25 or 30 of them and they were all going over 100

Dan Roth  53:52  
that scares me because it was scary. Usually it's guys in like tank tops. Yeah, like man. I do not want to When you hit a pebble pop and like do you take the whole pack out like that? I do not want to come upon that scene so just

Rebecca Lindland  54:08  
oh I thought you were just offended by men in tank top session

Unknown Speaker  54:10  
I am generally

Dan Roth  54:14  
but the you know the guys are gonna do that on bikes cuz it's always guys they yeah I just don't want to thank the results of the crash

Rebecca Lindland  54:22  
that's in Connecticut we don't have a helmet law now they were they were in New York so we had a helmet so they did have helmets on but yeah can't get doesn't have a helmet law which

Dan Roth  54:30  
is crazy every year they have the Pappy stay run crazy.

Rebecca Lindland  54:35  
So anyway, onward. Okay.

Dan Roth  54:37  
So I think we saw that Sam, I think we're okay with with untested drivers.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:45  
So last week, Ford had their first quarter earnings call. And as expected, it was not very good. they'd lost about $2 billion in the first quarter. And they'll probably lose considerably more than that in the second quarter. Because they're going at least a minimum of six weeks with no production. But one interesting item that came up from Jim Farley during the earnings call was that they've decided to delay the commercial launch of their automated vehicles, which were scheduled to launch next year in 2021. And now, they've pushed that back into 2022. And the reason they gave is that they're reevaluating their go to market strategy. And, you know, I talked to somebody at Ford, you know, just before the call about this, and, yeah, this is, this actually sounds consistent with what Jim told me when I talked to him last fall on the interview that that I did with him. And we'll stick a link to that in the show notes. But, you know, he talks at the time, a lot about, you know, really more of a focus on Goods delivery instead of Robo taxis for their automated vehicles. And, you know, this, this seems to be the direction they're going. You know, and I think, you know, other companies are looking at the same thing. I think what we're going to see is a shift away from the whole idea of Robo taxis towards goods delivery, especially in the early years of automated driving.

Dan Roth  56:24  
That's probably where the demand is, right is logistics.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:29  
Yeah, absolutely. versus just trying to move.

Rebecca Lindland  56:32  
Yeah, and we've talked about this before, too. Like, it's, uh, it's a good place for this technology to live for a while.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:41  
Yeah, well, especially, you know, since the technology is still immature, you know, it's, it's really not ready for primetime. And, you know, I, I don't think that you know, there's there's nobody that you know, that's actually working on this stuff that thinks that it is, you know, with the possible exception of One guy in Silicon Valley, he shall be shall remain

Rebecca Lindland  57:07  
yelling all of his worldly possessions by the way.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:16  
You know, everybody else acknowledges that this stuff is not ready. And it's not it's not really, it's getting better. But there's still a lot of work to do on this. But for, you know, for goods delivery, I think you can actually get away with having something that as long as it's reasonably safe is perhaps not as refined as you would want it to be for, you know, if you're carrying passengers, if you're carrying passengers, you really need a system that's going to drive really smoothly. You don't want to jerking around. You don't want you don't want to make people sick when they're riding in your vehicles. as yours truly said, yeah. So, you know, you want a system that's going to be nice and smooth. That's going to give a good experience to the to the passengers. And, you know, if all you're doing is carrying passengers or carrying packages, or groceries, you know, it's not quite as big a deal. You know, if maybe you brake a little bit too hard or you know, you change lanes, maybe a little bit too aggressively, things like that. So you can get away with more, and also the cost of operating these vehicles, if what you're talking about is goods delivery, is going to be way lower than for a passenger vehicle. You know, the in my latest forecast report that was just published yesterday, as we're recording this on a V's You know, I'm projecting the same thing that you know, goods delivery is going to be a much bigger share of the market for a V's at least out through 2026 27, maybe 28. And, you know, the costs, the cost per mile to operate these things is going to be lower because you You don't have to do you know, as much cleaning the vehicles themselves are going to be probably going to be cheaper to manufacturer, especially if you do you know, something that's purpose built for goods delivery.

Unknown Speaker  59:12  
You know, wait,

Rebecca Lindland  59:13  
I mean, I just I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm just confused on something. Yeah. So are they're not going to be any people in these things. We're all gonna be dead and then how do they? How do the goods get to the front door then or whatever door you

Sam Abuelsamid  59:34  
think about it, you know, more like an Amazon locker on wheels. So, you know, you could have a vehicle, it's got a bunch of lockers in it. And, you know, people are going to have to come out and pick them up, you know, you know, when it gets to your doorstep, you know, you'll have to come out, you know, to the vehicle, you know, open up the locker. And so, you know, probably what go

Rebecca Lindland  59:56  
home though. I mean, that's,

Sam Abuelsamid  59:59  
you know, yeah. And, and that's, you know, again, that's gonna be part of the limitation. That's why, you know, these things aren't necessarily going to be as widespread but I, you know, if if this epidemic goes on for a while

Dan Roth  1:00:14  
it's a really curious shift because up until the I got all of them up until about December, right, the prevailing wisdom was that, you know, Lyft and Uber, were just doing fine and they're carrying passengers and

the, the real way forward for those companies kind of has always been

some sort of logistics use versus carrying just passengers like a taxi.

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:49  
Well, I was on a call yesterday morning with a some people here in town in Greenwich and he there and they were mentioning in particular Killer that Lyft is struggling much more than Uber because Uber has Uber Eats, and they're getting revenue from Uber Eats. And Lyft doesn't really have anything like that. So and they were talking about the profitability and comparing them and and Uber is doing, obviously, everybody is doing poorly. But Uber is doing less poorly, because of things like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:27  
yeah, that's, that's, that's absolutely true. You know, and going forward, you know, after the pandemic, it's gonna be interesting to see how this you know, what, what happens. But, you know, I had a call the other day with somebody from IBM was part of their, you know, part of the research group there. And they just they, over the last couple of weeks, they did a consumer survey 14,000 Americans, you know, to look at their attitudes towards mobility You know, after the pandemic, and, you know, a lot of what they, you know, what they found was consistent with what our thinking has been, you know, my company, you know, they they found that, you know, they they asked question, you know, how do you expect your personal usage of the following types of mobility options will change once the current COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Use of personal vehicle 47% said they would use a personal vehicle more or only 53% said they would use ride sharing or car sharing like Zipcar less or not at all. 50% say, Would you say they would use ride hailing less or not at all? You know, so, you know, there is going probably, it looks like there's going to be a significant shift away from shared mobility options because people, it seems that they're going to be very wary about getting into a vehicle That they don't know who's been in there before them, they don't know when that vehicle was last sanitized, and they're going to feel a lot more comfortable being in their own vehicle, you know, if they know that they're the only one that's been in there, you know, even if they're, you know, if they're not sick, you know, then they're, you know, there's nobody else that's been in there that's going to make them sick for goods delivery, you know, one of the things you can do with goods deliveries, if you've got, you know, this sort of Amazon locker on wheels, you know, you could, you know, inside each one of those lockers, you could put a UV light on there, so that as soon as the package has been taken out, you know, and the doors closed, it can flood the interior that that compartment with UV light and kill off anything that you know, any, any bacteria or viruses that might have gotten in there. You know, and, you know, that can be done you know, in between the time it's, you know, the delivery has been made, and it goes back to the Depot or wherever to pick up the next set of packages. So it's actually going to be a lot easier to sanitize That type of vehicle and you can do that, you know, do that kind of delivery, you know, in a really almost completely contactless way, you know? Because, you know, if you've used an Amazon lock, I've used an Amazon locker for deliveries.

Rebecca Lindland  1:04:14  
I haven't I did use a locker at Home Depot. Okay, go for it similar, right, you know, same idea.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:21  
Yeah, so works the same way. So you get a QR code on, you know, they email you a barcode, you know, on your smartphone, you scan it, you know, you put your phone under the scanner reads the QR code and pops open one of the lockers, you take your package out, you know, so you don't even know except to close it, you know, yeah, you know, you can do that with your elbow or something, you know, you don't, you know, you don't have to touch anything. And you could do the same thing with these types of vehicles. So it's, it's going to potentially be a lot safer, you know, in that respect. And, you know, if more people are stuck at home for an extended period of time or you know, if we have a trailer transition of people working remotely, you know, a significant portion of the population is, you know, working remotely on a permanent basis going forward, then there's going to be more use of e commerce, so they're going to be relying on deliveries more. So, you know, there's I think there's definitely going to be a lot more of a market for that type of use case for automated vehicles than there is for for Robo taxis, at least for the foreseeable future.

Dan Roth  1:05:25  
Right. So, um, I was on a call with strategic vision, which they do new car buyer surveys, and they asked people that were intending on purchasing a vehicle about changes in mobility needs that were anticipated. And to your point, just to reinforce these are people that are, are actively or intending on purchasing vehicles in the near future. They said that I only 2% said that they would use ride hailing services more often after the pandemic and only 1% sense that they would likely take public transportation more, or 77% said they expect their mobility needs to remain the same. So I think they, you know, 1% said they would use ride hailing services less often, but I don't know, you know, it's, I think people are definitely going to be evaluating the cleanliness of some of these locations. Well, you know, how do you feel when you swap your your fleet vehicle and I know that they're working very hard to sanitize all the cars that we drive, but I know that when I go down to drop one off, I make sure I spray it down so that the next guy who gets in it, hopefully it doesn't get any anything I'm carrying. And before I get into the next one, I sprayed the door handles and then I opened the door and then I spray stuff with with cleaner and disinfectant. And so that's not necessarily practical to do on a on a large scale. So I understand the trepidation about transit. I think Once we get on the other side of this particular pandemic, it, it may ease, but it's gonna take a long time for people to feel comfortable, like a couple of years, I think. And that's only presuming that we eventually do get to testing and vaccination some other ways to to really keep a lid on it. So in the meantime, it's like all of those, like, I do think that that we're going to see the personal car thing sort of bounce back anyway. And right, I don't know where that leaves like Uber and Lyft. It's like, it's gonna have a chilling effect, I think on any kind of transit. And so I don't know how you encourage transit, after a certain point that it's going to be necessary to get people riding again.

Rebecca Lindland  1:07:51  
I mean, I do think that you know, that we'll see different responses based on age as well. Yeah. You know, and and You know, the reality. I mean, the other day I was at, you know, waiting in line to get into the grocery store, and people were getting to the grocery store and taxis, you know, an Uber and Lyft like, if you don't have a car, and that's not, you know, within your budget, you're kind of stuck, unfortunately. I mean, that's, you know, and and I think if anything, we may see more migration towards, you know, the changes in materials that are used and, you know, antibacterial fabric or things like that, you know, and, and to Sam's point, I think that that then, we can see more of a divide between the commercial space I and the resident, you're the personal ownership space for vehicles. But you know, I think that this idea of delivery, you know, a lot of people never had never used for Direct or P pod or things like that and you figure out really quickly that it may actually be worth the you know the expense I you know if it saves you time and money and keeps you out of the grocery store

Dan Roth  1:09:14  
Yeah, I know that's like what we've been doing is just you go to the grocery store and bring them out to us you know the delivery order the car and then can't we've ordered some with with like, target and stuff through shipped and just

it's expensive though, so not everybody can do it.

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:34  
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the thing is that it is expensive and, you know, but these are some of the modifications that we need, that that we're gonna be seeing.

Dan Roth  1:09:44  
I do think and we had a question about this. For the that relates to the The topic

is probably easier or are more more efficient to make this this kind of thing, make money. If you're doing the Just Express passengers because you can show that you're not deadheading all the time. You know, one of the problems with Ubers is they're constantly deadheading at least half the trip.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:11  
We're usually more than half the miles driven by Uber and Lyft drivers is

Dan Roth  1:10:16  
kind of the question that we had was what are the unit economics have a hang on let me let me bring it up sounds screwed up

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:27  
was a unit economics

Dan Roth  1:10:30  
compared to the unit economics if it delivered AV so yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:33  
yeah. And that's what I was getting out a little bit earlier, you know, that the, for a delivery vehicle, it should be significantly lower cost per mile. Because, you know, as you said, you know, when it's less predictable, with you know, with a robo taxi, you know, you kind of have to have the vehicles out there. There's some degree of predictability you know, in terms of traffic patterns of you know, when when people are more Moving around, but there's there's always going to be some uncertainty. Whereas with a delivery vehicle, even, you know, even when there isn't necessarily demand, you know, you can have it at the warehouse or the store wherever, you know, ready to go when needed. So at least it's not, you know, racking up miles empty miles. And, you know, depending on the type of vehicle, it is the type of application, you know, if you had something that had, let's say, eight to 10 lockers in it, you know, you could send the vehicle out, you know, and you know, have it do eight do 10 deliveries on a single trip, you know, and you know, set up that route, you know, so that you minute again, minimize those deadhead miles. So the last, you know, the last part of the distance from that last delivery until it returns to the warehouse or wherever, you know, wherever it's got to go for its next pickup, you know, is kept to a minimum. So it's a it's an easier problem to optimize. For deliveries than it is for a robo taxi application. So, you know, the cost per mile is probably going to be about maybe two thirds, even even half of what it's going to be for, for deliveries. And, you know, it's it's probably, you know, in the early years, you know, it's probably going to be, you know, well over 250 a mile for Robo taxis versus, you know, somewhere in the dollar 50 to $1 75 per mile range to start with for deliveries. And it might even be less than that for deliveries. So I think deliveries are, are much like much more likely to get to a point of profitability much sooner, and also be more affordable for the users than robot taxis.

Dan Roth  1:12:47  
Okay, Rebecca.

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:49  
If we could, we could also, you know, get to the point where people actually have almost like a mailbox you have like a receptacle That the locker actually comes out of the van and just drops it. You're

Dan Roth  1:13:06  
like, Oh, my containerized shipping.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:09  
Right? Yes. Right. And so you know, you've got this little box at your house and your stuff goes in there and it's climate controlled, and everything's good. In that case, then you can actually have like, basically 24 hour delivery. Almost.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:23  
Yeah. I mean, you could do that, you know, that's, it's more complicated to do that. Because, you know, where are you going to put that receptacle? Is it going to be out by the curb? Is it gonna be by your door? Right, exactly. And, you know, depending on where you live, that might be more challenging. Certainly, you know, if you're living in a multi unit dwelling and an apartment building or something, that's going to be more challenging.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:44  
Yeah, but coming out to get the to get the delivery isn't really

Dan Roth  1:13:49  
exciting for a lot of people

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:51  
either.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:52  
I think, you know, it's less of a challenge than actually going to the store. You know, I mean, if all you have to do is

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:59  
grind I mean, oh, yeah, I can barely coordinate a car delivery every week.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:06  
Yeah, I mean, there are limitations to it. And and this is why, you know, it's not gonna be anywhere near universal, you know, in the early years of this stuff, you know, it's it's still gonna be very limited applications. You know, you know, my my new forecast, you know, I'm only projecting about 300,000 automated vehicles in 2025, as opposed to, you know, several million that were being projected a couple of years ago in that timeframe, you know, so I'm not, my forecast doesn't get into the millions until, you know, towards the 2829 timeframe.

Dan Roth  1:14:41  
Well, I think one of the keys is to go forward and understand that there's not a perfect solution, and we shouldn't wait for that perfect solution before we start to implement some smart solutions. And I got I hope this really kills Uber and lifts past Hunter thing dead I know that sounds harsh but, you know you think about highway volume, right? They haven't done anything but make it worse. Because you know, the best highways carry what I don't know five 6000 cars per hour maybe they that's that seems high to me but you're you put even a bus, a Buster can carry like 10s of thousands of people per hour a lot more efficiently than a car based solution can and then you try to add transit to that and I know not every place has transit but we should be thinking in ways that move the most people for the least cost. Yeah, if we need to move people at all.

Rebecca Lindland  1:15:48  
But you're getting into the pandemic part of like, I know

Dan Roth  1:15:54  
that's, that's something that we're gonna have to get over that at a certain point and have some some solutions out there. mistake that will solve that, in the meantime, is totally understandable that everybody's freaked out, I'm freaked out. I get it. I just you're never gonna build enough roads, and

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:12  
there are no roads.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:15  
You know, and this is, you know, this is one of the challenges, you know, with it's always been a challenge for transit is that it's inherently fixed route. You know, so there's always going to be some, some inherent lack of flexibility with transit, which is one of the reasons why, you know, personal ownership of vehicles got so popular in the 20th century. Yeah, you had the flexibility to go anywhere you needed to go anytime you needed to go there.

Dan Roth  1:16:42  
I should. So I should preface my rants with like, I'm reading the power broker right now, which is all about Robert Moses and how he he sort of screwed up New York pretty hard with all of his expressways and highways and it's just an amazing story. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy right up Build the roads that creates the sprawl. You cut the roads through neighborhoods, and you don't put transit in the middle of the roads or along those rights of way. All of a sudden, you've you've taken neighborhoods that are, you know, dense and walkable, and you've cut their heart out. And so yeah, you do have sprawl you, you shift the people around, because we're, as you know, if there's a, if there's a transit line that gets you into the city from, say, one of the boroughs of New York, right? So, if you're in Queens, and you you want to work in Manhattan is transit lines that can can get you there. If if that transit line doesn't exist, and there's only a highway then you're you're driving farther and farther away, like you know, you can't you can't afford stuff close and then you're the traffic just gets worse and it's just it's it's a whole, like self fulfilling snowball effect kind of thing. So, I guess it's somewhat inflexible along that That last mile, right? Like you, you have to live close to the stops. I don't know that that's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:09  
not nice. You don't, you don't necessarily have to live close to the transit stops. But what you know ideally what you want is a system that can minimize the friction, you know in because what you want is a multimodal, right and a system that can minimize the friction in between those modes. And actually, this is something else that was just announced this morning. As we record this Mobileye, which is planning to watch me do a commercial launch of Robo taxis in 2022 announced that they were acquiring another Israeli company called move it which has been building you know, this mobility platform in the basic basically, you know, to aggregate the different mobility modes You know, transit and ride hailing and micro mobility and so on into a single platform. So, you can put in where you want to go and it'll tell you the best way to get there you know, when when the the you know, when the bus or train is going to be there you know, where you can pick up a scooter or bike, you know, all the different pieces, and they want to integrate that with what mobile is doing with the robo taxis and make it you know, part of this larger ecosystem to keep that friction to a minimum for people so that they will be more likely to use that you know, into, you know, to avoid using their, their personal vehicles for an entire you know, to go to the final destination you can maybe use it you know, for that first part you know, to get you to a train station, and then take the train or, or subway or bus, you know, into the city and then take you know, take a scooter, you know, the last mile or whatever, you know, whatever modes you happen to choose and whatever is available in a given city.

Dan Roth  1:20:00  
Yeah, I would, I would I mean, I live on a transplant. I live on a commuter rail line. The problem is like you're talking about friction, like I could, I could even walk there. It's only like a mile and a half or two miles from my house to the station. And then from there, I've got to take commuter rail, and there's then I've got to switch to like the local Boston subway, and they're not, they're not exactly the same thing. I gotta pay fare on both. So it's like, all of a sudden, it's economically the car is so much cheaper. It's just I pay in time. Versus Yeah, actually, it's I wouldn't get there any faster either. So

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:38  
I open it. Oh, there's the element of convenience. Yeah, I mean, it's not just, you know, I know like in the city in New York. I would, I would see people would come off the train from you know, from Connecticut. And then there's the whole city bike thing like all those those you know, rental bikes just lined up. And they it's actually it's people are so funny. They sort of sometimes there's no bikes. And so there's like, it's unmarked. But everybody knows where you're supposed to stand for the next bike, huh? And, you know, and and as the next bike comes in the person in yoke, returns the bike close to where the line begins, and then somebody else takes it and, and goes off with it. But it's that, you know, before I don't know what that person was doing before to get to their office, they obviously aren't using the subway. And thankfully, they're out of a taxi. You know, they're riding a bike to for that last mile, but it was, it was very, it was a little bit of a science social science project to just sit there and watch some times how that that worked, and and really work seamlessly and people were polite, and you know, this is this is Oh my god, this is New York. You know, they

Dan Roth  1:21:53  
just leave places just bugs me though. It's just like, Why are you leaving your crap I hate

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:58  
this. I like this one. scooter the lime scooter sub, no, this is like there's bike racks and you have to put the bike in that's a dog

Dan Roth  1:22:06  
city bikes charge to ride their bikes, right? Yeah.

Yeah, like I more and more of that that's, that's great. Like not every not everybody, but a lot of people can and like given given the state of my health I could really stand to ride a bike more

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:24  
Well, I think I would love to see opportunities of, of where these things are possible because I think, you know, there's It's rare for us to have a macro solution a car is a is even a car isn't even a macro solution. There's places that you don't want to have a car like in Manhattan, but you know, where we have pockets of opportunity to, to try these things out to make these to make these systems available. I think it's great and you kind of figure out what works best in what location

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:55  
Yeah, and this is this is what's happening right now is we're you know, we've got a lot of different experiments going on in different places to see what works. And you know, the solution, there isn't going to be a single silver bullet solution. It's not going to be autonomous vehicles, it's not going to be scooters or bikes, or buses, it's going to be a mix of all these things. And what what companies have to figure out is how do we make all these things coexist in a way that is usable for the most number of people? And you know, to get people where they need to go in the most timely and affordable fashion fashion? And, you know, so it's, it's, it's a tough problem, you know, that. Don't you know, anybody who says it, oh, we just got up, you know, write some software and flip a switch and it'll all be good. Oh, nice catch. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:23:49  
This is, this is this is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:51  
this is going to be very difficult, isn't going to be a very difficult problem to solve and it's, it's gonna take time. And a lot of effort and experimentation to figure out the right session

Dan Roth  1:24:06  
right now. super low demand and also super low gas prices aren't really doing any any of these things a service. I think the last thing that I just kind of wanted to touch on was in terms of the state of, of ease, really adoption. I think it's going to flatten adoption for EBS for the short term, and we just saw that really, actually really exciting Vivian and Lincoln project kind of die because there's just there's no business case for it.

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:42  
Well, that's the problem is that with everyone losing billions of dollars, you can't. I mean, you have to focus on things that are going to make money today. And you're absolutely right. I mean with gas prices so low. I you know, I maintain that we have not made the case. Or the how an Eevee is better, more convenient than an internal combustion engine? Like it, maybe it's better for the environment. But even then, where do you get the electricity from? Like, well, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:16  
you know, I just want at least at least for consumers, you know, for the average consumer, it's not necessarily, you know, a better solution from an economic standpoint, but for a lot of fleets for commercial operators. That's, that's a very different story on the commercial

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:33  
side versus the provide

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:36  
high, but but I think, you know, this is part of why, you know, Ford decided to drop the link and rubian program. And, you know, I think what we're going to see is more focus from Ford on commercial vehicle electrification. You know, they're going to do you know, the Maki is still going to go ahead, but, you know, next year when they launched the F 150, and the transit electrics, That's, I think, where you know where you're going to see a real push from Ford, on the Eevee side is with those kinds of vehicles, because those customers are the ones who are you know, they're putting a lot of miles on those vehicles, they're going to see the benefit of the lower operating

Dan Roth  1:26:16  
well, and those those customers can also afford the increased cost. Because of the way Business Economics structured. They, it's less of a hit when you're purchasing a fleet of vehicles for a business or even just a single pickup truck or two for a farm. The bookkeeping is slightly different. So if the Evie version is a little bit more expensive, but you can charge it on your own, have your own, you know, solar on your farm or wind. I don't know how many farms have wind but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:49  
surprised.

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:50  
Yeah, but that initial investment though, I mean, whether it's commercial, a municipality, company, I mean right now And, you know, everyone's sort of on their knees for the most part. So I think that we still will see, you will see a delay in those kinds of purchases, you know, unless they need them right away. Even fleet purchases.

Dan Roth  1:27:18  
Yeah, I mean, there's also a case to be made, you know, we were talking about so being freaked out about catching viruses. Even if you charge at home and the majority is are charged at home. You don't have a bunch of different hands like you do on a gas pump. Now if you charge it a commercial charging station, it's about the same it's a wash. A lot of other people who touch those things, but it's

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:42  
your fault anyway, who touches those things? That's just

Dan Roth  1:27:47  
wow, I mean,

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:49  
you have something else. Oh, anything but your fingers.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:01  
But, you know, to the to your original question of you know how much your Eevee is going to suffer. You know, we are going to see a dip in Evie sales this year along with the whole market. And and the the we published a report last week, you know, assessing the impact of COVID on the light vehicle market. And you know, our projection is that Evie sales compared, they're going to be off by probably about five to 7% from where they were in 2019 this year well on a global level. But compared to what our fourth what the forecast was for 2020 because you know, we're getting we're expecting a significant increase compared to what our original forecast we're off by over 30%

Dan Roth  1:28:43  
Yeah, well, but on the other side of it too, though, like what are we seeing because cars are off the road right now we're seeing much cleaner air and people are also seeing the benefits of working from home in terms of getting those hours back and maybe feeling better because you're not sitting in a car. So much, although I tend to be sitting at a desk. It's a car, either either or, but I think it's one of those things where you get a taste of the benefit. And so it may make you want it more and with ease, it's always been, you gotta want it, and you got to invest because it's not on the purely economic standpoint, it doesn't pencil out, right, but neither does eat a McDonald's, right? It's the cheapest way to get calories, but your health suffers for that. And so, the cheapest way to get around causes health problems, as well. You know, just environmental issues with and for people who aren't even the ones making the choices. So there's collateral damage, you know, people just live near near roads, they got a lot of asthma and stuff like that. So if we commit to the benefits, the the costs may be in one spot, you know that the cars will be higher, but our health care costs overall will probably drop. So you pay in one spot to save in the other. So it was that kind of holistic thinking. I don't I don't know that the economics don't work. It's just that we're not convinced of it. Because we're not thinking like, all of these things are interconnected. We're just thinking and sort of.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:24  
Most consumers aren't really into the whole holistic thinking thing. So that's where the problem lies.

Unknown Speaker  1:30:32  
Well, I'm not going to solve it. Just move on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:37  
Like that. That was it for the topics. I earlier today, I did get a chance to participate in an interview session with James Collado, who's one of the drivers for the Jaguar formula. team this year, or two was until the season was basically canceled a couple of months ago. And we'll we'll tack that on at the end of the show. But we do have one other listener question that came in while we're recording from William Bailey. And, you know, aside from Mitsubishi, which automaker Do you think could leave the US in the next decade or so? This is kind of a follow on from the, from the zoom conversation a couple weeks ago. So who do you think besides Mitsubishi, is is going to get killed in the near term?

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:31  
Oh, I'm not going near that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:39  
That's as much as I hate to say it. I think Mazda is probably on the bubble. I was

Dan Roth  1:31:46  
just thinking Mazda because

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:51  
infinity is probably another brand that might might get killed.

Dan Roth  1:31:57  
Nissan has just released a plan though. It says like, Hey, we actually care.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:01  
We're gonna try to know when the workman just moved over to Yokohama

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:04  
Yeah, we should just go to her so I adore her. I know. I'm just thinking, you know? Yeah, that's,

Dan Roth  1:32:14  
that's a tough one. Well, we've lost all the tiny niche brands anyway.

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:18  
Yeah. Right. And I think also, you know, it's just for the amount of money that has been lost in the last six weeks is unprecedented. It really is. And so, you know, recovery is is going to be very staggered and I think we may see some surprising people you know, companies that don't survive.

Dan Roth  1:32:47  
Yeah, Mazda because of where they are with their product may actually do okay.

when things start to come back, their their stuff is reasonably priced. I

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:57  
leaving a market I'm so sorry. I just Leaving a market involves, I mean, you have to declare bankruptcy. You can't just say we're out because a franchise laws, dealer franchise laws, you have to negotiate with every single state, that you have a franchise in which you have a friend,

Dan Roth  1:33:14  
that sounds expensive. Well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:16  
that's the thing is prohibitively expensive. You know, now, if you if you declare bankruptcy, then you can do that, then it goes into the federal courts. And you know, it's a different process, right. But, you know, you can't just say, you know, hey, I'm out, you know, that's huge as a manufacturer, that's just not, it's something you can do. I just,

Dan Roth  1:33:42  
I don't think I think we're more likely than Mitsubishi or Mazda. We're more likely to see premium brands, really small, premium brands that are here. decide that it's just not worth it and I'm mostly thinking of Lotus. I don't I don't know how profitable they are in the US. I'm just I'm hoping that they are. I've really liked that car. So I think the chances of that are pretty slim.

Yeah, I'm leaving or being profitable, being profitable.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:19  
That's that's something they've struggled with their entire history. So

Dan Roth  1:34:22  
yeah, that's, that's true. I just like, if we're gonna, if things are going to be flat, I did they there's a, there's still going to be demand for the high end stuff, but there's a lot of choices. And so I just don't know if they get squeezed out there. That's a they're really Michi you know, and they don't have the cachet of a Lamborghini or Ferrari and they don't cost like it. But even like a high end, Audi, like same way it's

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:47  
Yeah, but do they have a lot of capital costs, and they don't have a widespread dealer network, you know, supporting things like that. You know, maybe they maybe they're only in New York, and LA and Miami or something like that, you know what I mean? Like then they just really limit they limit their exposure rather than leave altogether. Because the US is such a big market for Super exotics. It's usually the number one market something now China maybe maybe China may be the number one market now but historically, the US was the number one market for those types of vehicles.

Dan Roth  1:35:21  
Yeah, I don't know. It's a tough question. Damn.

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:27  
William, take it easy on I honestly don't,

Dan Roth  1:35:30  
I don't really see a Mitsubishi leaving either.

It's the same same reason as mindef stuck

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:40  
it out. They've stuck it out this long. Yeah, you know, they seem to be for whatever reason Mitsubishi seems to be intent on remaining a presence in the US market. What about you know, like via an alpha male?

Dan Roth  1:35:53  
Oh, alpha could die tomorrow like they're so insignificant Fiats already on its way.

Unknown Speaker  1:35:59  
Yeah, like

Rebecca Lindland  1:36:01  
Yeah, but I mean, Alfa, they're so popular in this area. I mean, the other day I pulled up to a four way stop and there was a Trulia and a Stelvio, huh. Yeah. I mean, they're, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:15  
that's a niche, you know, like Lotus, you know, there's a certain audience that likes those cars and don't get me wrong. I love them. You know, I think they're fantastic vehicles. Not sure I'd actually want to own one. But, you know, I do love driving them.

Unknown Speaker  1:36:33  
Yeah, okay.

Dan Roth  1:36:34  
Um, I did the Fiat brand. Like, they don't have anything left. They've got what the 500 is going away

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:44  
the 500 and the 124 120.

Rebecca Lindland  1:36:47  
Yeah. Yeah, it's on its way out. I mean, I can't see it surviving. Alpha, though. I do think there's a place again, limited, you know, limited dealerships a real estate forecast but Fiat just now

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:04  
and you know, I mean, what when they launched the Denali, you know, that could be, you know what really kind of gets them established and gives them a real foothold in the US market if it's successful. Hmm.

Unknown Speaker  1:37:18  
Okay.

Dan Roth  1:37:21  
I don't know. Yeah, there's not there's not a whole lot of brands for us to shed anymore here in the US.

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:29  
Well, yeah, I mean, we had a purge 13 years ago. Yeah. 2007 2007 2008 2009 the, you know, the brands, Saturn Pontiac Hummer. I mean, they went away. You know, Oldsmobile went away. Saab

Dan Roth  1:37:44  
saw Yeah, pick on GM. All right. Geez,

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:47  
mercury, Mercury. I mean, I'm just thinking off the top of my head. Those are brands that went away.

Unknown Speaker  1:37:54  
You Suki

Dan Roth  1:38:00  
Zuzu was

another GM sort of lash

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:03  
via cross. I love that car.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:09  
I love the way the axiom look.

Dan Roth  1:38:12  
Everybody thought the axiom was so sharp looking. I don't know that is as refined as it looked.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:17  
The floppy

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:18  
cross was ahead of its time. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:22  
And will remain sell for all the time.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:26  
Yeah, I think those are.

Dan Roth  1:38:29  
That's about all the questions. Yep.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:32  
Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:33  
All right. Well, let's, let's wrap it up then. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Don't forget to give us a rating somewhere if you're so inclined. It always helps to hopefully help us get a little more exposure and

Unknown Speaker  1:38:47  
we need to do another zoom soon too, by the way. We do get asked specifically. I mean, I

Dan Roth  1:38:53  
so yeah, I trimmed my beard and everything.

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:57  
I showered

Dan Roth  1:39:04  
We have to see the rock again. So yes,

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:06  
exactly. Rock is still here.

Dan Roth  1:39:09  
You're gonna get bored you're gonna get like grab a jackhammer and start making a little mini Mount Rushmore and and there's

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:16  
I do see I do see opportunities for water in the rock We'll see.

Dan Roth  1:39:20  
Okay, excellent. Excellent.

Unknown Speaker  1:39:22  
All right. Well, thanks for listening. We'll catch you

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:24  
next one.

Unknown Speaker  1:39:25  
Hi,

Unknown Speaker  1:39:29  
James, how you doing today?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:32  
Good. All right. So James, question. First question. How how's the transition been going from sports cars I've been watching for watching it for the last several years racing. Ferrari's in particular to, to Formula E. And you previously raised open wheel cars in the past and you know, how does the format of the Formula E cars compared to what you've previously raised?

Unknown Speaker  1:39:58  
Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker  1:40:00  
Firstly, you're obviously

Unknown Speaker  1:40:04  
completely different. So obviously I have to be

Unknown Speaker  1:40:08  
but to be honest, jack will be doing a lot of testing from the and I spent a lot of time in the car. And so it came back to me pretty quickly I adapted to, you know, being in the single seater. And the way single seater works, the approach you need to do single seater racing. So, I, I've got that experience from before. The car itself is a little different days changing, but it's to the electric racecar. So there's quite a lot of software. So that took time to do that. And to be able to learn,

Unknown Speaker  1:40:52  
you know what to do in a race situation.

Unknown Speaker  1:40:55  
Efficient that's quite an off

Unknown Speaker  1:40:59  
Sunday. In that respect should pretty much be learning curve races

Unknown Speaker  1:41:08  
right now, which is helping but

Unknown Speaker  1:41:14  
if I write

Unknown Speaker  1:41:19  
the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:19  
formula cars, you know compared to certainly compared to the the open wheelers that you've run previously and I'm sure maybe even relative to the GTS and you can maybe answer this a relatively low downforce cars. How do you How does that feel? You know, how do you like that compared to running the the cars you previously raised?

Unknown Speaker  1:41:41  
Yeah, obviously, I missed the high downforce cars, the Ford GT gt to run tests with and honestly, they are the most incredible cosplay but GT is very much different.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:02  
distill it down to quite a lot.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:06  
We find that especially in the mall, that is very, very sensitive to change. And the corollary is pretty much Nero follow cause race cars are much easier than any other Formula racing for. And in terms of that, that just do it. Any driver that gets the car will just that, you know, just take a few laps, get used to it. There is a different pool theory where one wonders off is you're trying to tap the brake really hard

Unknown Speaker  1:42:48  
to be really good.

Unknown Speaker  1:42:51  
And that is purely because it's lack of downforce and the fact that slip

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:58  
so because you don't have as much mechanical grip from the tires. And, and, and as much aerodynamic downforce that you can't use as much brake as you normally would.

Unknown Speaker  1:43:11  
Yeah, you just

Unknown Speaker  1:43:14  
it's fun to see it because

Unknown Speaker  1:43:17  
you can only drive the ordinary car because, you know, you're stacking what feels like a form, obviously, just without all the downs

Unknown Speaker  1:43:27  
and not only that we're on Toyota streets

Unknown Speaker  1:43:31  
driving these cars,

Unknown Speaker  1:43:34  
but at the same time, they are really enjoy the positive drive very, very fast. And what they can do, and you know, they're not slow. They're, they're, you know, insane speed is.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:48  
Yeah, I attended the race in New York last year with the folks from Jaguar, and it was it was a fun race to watch and it's, it was some, some really good jealousy. on the track there between the drivers, you know, as a driver, and D, you know, how do you feel, you know, what do you do like the the low downforce versus the higher downforce cars. I mean, is it? Do you find it more fun or is it or is it just, it's different? It's

Unknown Speaker  1:44:17  
Yeah, I don't know crap.

Unknown Speaker  1:44:20  
The only thing I mentioned the sheer speed of high downforce high power. I do miss that. But at the same time, it's just because it's different. You still enjoy it anyway. It's different in a good reason. It's nice to be able to slide around and follow the cards. It makes for really good racing. You know, we've seen for three races is always action.

Unknown Speaker  1:44:49  
You don't rely on their rely on passive

Unknown Speaker  1:44:56  
technology kind of game needs to be at the front and center. Good Friday. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:07  
You mentioned earlier, you know, the fact that you're driving on, you know, street circuits. Have you had a chance to test one of the formula D cars on a proper road course and, you know, what was it like? And would you like to see formula and running on those guys? Of course,

Unknown Speaker  1:45:23  
I'm not I've never been. I've never

Unknown Speaker  1:45:29  
been already quick enough.

Unknown Speaker  1:45:32  
I've been on airfields. That's where I do my testing.

Unknown Speaker  1:45:42  
But yeah, I think at the moment

Unknown Speaker  1:45:47  
as cars and technology

Unknown Speaker  1:45:51  
as a generation go up and up, we will eventually have to go on bigger track. It's easy.

Unknown Speaker  1:46:06  
And that would be a contract.

Unknown Speaker  1:46:09  
I just see better

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:16  
driving an electric car, you know, would you? I don't know if you have you driven any other hybrid hybrid race cars and, you know, would you like to try electric racing in other formats besides something like formula D like a like an electric GT car, or something else? I think well, first of all Drew Brees, obviously, when I was doing

Unknown Speaker  1:46:45  
Formula One test in 2013.

Unknown Speaker  1:46:52  
There were electronics and too many make that system work. So that's the only experience And then yeah, I wouldn't mind. I would, of course be interested in that formula. turns on that would be great to see. We've got the trophy races. So I think that's a good introduction to

Unknown Speaker  1:47:19  
G GP. gP gP.

Unknown Speaker  1:47:23  
Right. And

Unknown Speaker  1:47:27  
so, in the future, we'll see that

Unknown Speaker  1:47:31  
and yet and see what happened.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:34  
What about sim racing? You know, well, first of all, you know, before before you got into the the Formula E car, I assume you spent some time in jaguars simulator. And, you know, how, how helpful Was that too? You know, was it you know, did you get enough out of it? Was that a realistic enough experience to really get you prepared for being in the car for the first time and Has it been helpful to you, you know, in training going in as you've gone through at least the first part of that season before before you get shut down?

Unknown Speaker  1:48:10  
Yeah, no, I think too late to do this is the most important thing. For us. It's really realistic. Tracks are identical. So they scan track. And then we can pretty much simulate anything in simulator that would react the same way in real life data to

Unknown Speaker  1:48:36  
winform Larry,

Unknown Speaker  1:48:38  
all your tracks. So I tend to do two days prior as we race niche, it there's one secret experienced by livestream to Thursdays purely to track and push my limit, and then the second phase to work on sector

Unknown Speaker  1:48:58  
strategy with rates To me,

Unknown Speaker  1:49:03  
it means to make the Shakedown do absolutely everything.

Unknown Speaker  1:49:08  
And it's important that you don't get off track in balancing the two, three practice sessions which are only 45 minutes and 30 minutes, and then stretch, call us on that. So you kind of

Unknown Speaker  1:49:24  
rely on the simulator

Unknown Speaker  1:49:28  
to get that knowledge to forget. Obviously we do separate. In reality, it's never the same. There are differences. It just gives you that general knowledge and track went great on the gas,

Unknown Speaker  1:49:46  
super helpful.

Unknown Speaker  1:49:49  
Hanging out looking forward to get back on that

Unknown Speaker  1:49:52  
drive and pick up the law

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:56  
you you have been participating in the in the Sim racing that started recently for real Yeah, I think.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:05  
Yeah, yeah. So we will simulators for drivers and simulator.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:11  
And yeah, we did race last

Unknown Speaker  1:50:19  
weekend, Jeff. So

Unknown Speaker  1:50:22  
yeah, I mean, be simulated on like, the professions, right?

Unknown Speaker  1:50:28  
more fun than

Unknown Speaker  1:50:30  
the thing that is real is like, you know, the tracks and the fact that you get to race, your real capacity is actually quite nice. You'll get to speak to each other on discord and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:42  
that's certainly something you don't get to do in a real race.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:45  
So funny. Some drivers get really mad. We wind each other up all the time. But um, you know, it's all good. We're all enjoying it.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:56  
Stuck on to everything.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:00  
Is that something you'd like to continue doing? Maybe, you know, do you think series should continue? We're being involved in sim racing, you know, maybe during the offseason periods or during breaks, you know, to keep the interest up.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:13  
Yeah, sure. I think it's good

Unknown Speaker  1:51:16  
to track the crowd people.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:19  
Fans opportunity to watch us right.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:23  
And when you look at the graphics of iracing are up to two. Sometimes when I'm watching TV, it's like, it really

Unknown Speaker  1:51:34  
took me few seconds to pick out the graphic.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:40  
And it is really rare to sit there. We have spotters, we have clues, we have all those things. So it's actually nice to work with guys.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:50  
Trying to find a good setup. Especially.

Unknown Speaker  1:51:56  
Yeah, it's good and I think a lot of drivers At the same time, great

Unknown Speaker  1:52:04  
to see so many

Unknown Speaker  1:52:08  
opportunities to try real simulations.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52:15  
I don't have anything else. Thanks for your time James has

Unknown Speaker  1:52:19  
been great conversation. Appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai