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

Rebecca Lindland  0:06  
I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:09  
And I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights.

Dan Roth  0:11  
Well, that's the best ever so far.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:13  
162 episodes in, we finally got it right. Yeah.

Dan Roth  0:19  
Perfect. Alright, so let's talk about what we're driving and I'll just go from the the top of our rundown here. Sam, you had the 2020 Chevrolet Silverado diesel. That's their small diesel, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  0:32  
Yes, this is the the new diesel that they announced when they when they initially announced the Silverado at the 2018 Detroit Auto Show. They one of the things that they announced at the time was that it would be coming with a diesel. Finally for the first time and light duty trucks, they've obviously had diesels in their their heavy duty versions for a long time. And in fact, there was a plan back a decade ago to put diesel engine in the light duty Silverado and GMC Sierra, it was a 4.5 liter V eight diesel. That was I had seen it, you know, I'd seen prototypes of it, you know, it was really neatly packaged to fit within the same package envelope as a standard gasoline smallblock VA, although shared no componentry with that engine, and they were so far along in the process, that, you know, they had a plan all tooled up, ready to build these things. And then in early 2009, as they were heading into bankruptcy, you know, and the market was collapsing, they canceled the program. And I was told a couple years later, by somebody GM that, you know, they had actually mothballed all the equipment, it was sitting in a warehouse. And, you know, if they felt that the market would come back, you know, they could potentially revive it. They never did. But, it would be if it took, you know, Another almost 10 years before they finally got around to bring a diesel to the, to the light duty pickup trucks. And this time around they did. They did a six cylinder like Ford and FCA have done in their light duty trucks. But they didn't do a V six, they did an inline six. And, you know, I talked to Dan Nicholson at the time, you know, a couple years ago, said, you know, why? Why'd you guys pick an inline instead of a V sex? And he said, Well, you know, we had we had the packaging space available in the big pickup trucks was plenty of room for an inline six. And we felt, you know, the inline six would, you know, provide a lot more refinement, it would be much smoother operating than a V six. And oh man, was he right? I mean, this. This is the smoothest running one of the smoothest running engines I've ever driven of any kind, but certainly the smoothest v six or smooth, smoothest diesel engine I've ever driven. You know, those like felt like no vibration at all. Very quiet. You know very slick really quite powerful you know it's it's a it's a really impressive engine and you know it's the you know obviously only going in the the full size pickups but also now into the new full size SUV so they're putting it in the in the Tahoe and suburban and the Yukon and the the new escalate as well. And you know when it when it finally arrived back to the right tab here you know, the the EPA ratings on this thing are 23 miles per gallon city 25 combined 29 Highway for the four wheel drive, the rear wheel drive, if you get the rear wheel drive, it's actually I think 30 or 31 Highway. Yeah, so this this is an incredibly you know, impressive engine. If, if you need a full size pickup truck and you want to do towing And you're going to be telling a lot, you know that if you're just telling you two or three times a year, it's probably not worth the investment in, in a diesel engine. And because it's you know, it's a fairly pricey option package.

Dan Roth  4:14  
Right, that was what I was gonna say, What are you? What are you spending to get?

Sam Abuelsamid  4:19  
So it's 1000 No, it's it's 2500 bucks.

Dan Roth  4:23  
Oh, that's actually cheap for the engine.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:25  
Yeah, yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  4:27  
Fuel Economy pretty quickly.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:29  
Well, if you're if you're telling yes you will, yeah. Because you know, compared to telling with a V eight engine, you're going to be you know, when you know, with a with a gas engine, your fuel economy when you're towing is going to drop off a lot more dramatically. I didn't get a chance to do any towing with this one. But I have towed with other diesel trucks and you know, I've hauled heavy payloads and I've seen the difference in fuel economy. There's a lot less degradation and fuel economy when you're towing With with a diesel than with a gas engine, because they they work best under load. So, you know the total price of this particular truck. This was an LTC crew cab, four wheel drive, you know, the base, the base MSRP was, you know, 40,000 $40,700, which is again, not inexpensive, but it's right in the ballpark of, you know, average transaction prices on on new vehicles or new trucks these days. And then this one had the premium package with leather and all kinds of other goodies in there, which was 60 $700. The

Dan Roth  5:40  
is that so that's, I guess, part of my question is some of that stuff required together with the diesel so the diesel itself is cheap, but it also makes you buy you know, the different transmission or something you know, it said that the total cost rises like if I guess we go to the build tool and add it and see if it requires other additions, but Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:03  
I would I would answer that question. I think that on some of the lower trim levels, I think it's it is a higher priced package. I think it's like $4,000 on some of the lower trim options, or trim levels. And I would answer the question more specifically, except my keyboard is giving me fits again. But

Dan Roth  6:23  
we'll leave it up to you, dear listener.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:26  
But, you know, all in, you know, this one came to $61,720 includes 1500 dollar delivery charge,

Dan Roth  6:35  
that's actually, surprisingly not that terrible. I mean, it's a lot for 1500 pickup, but I had a ram 1500 that was like 70. So

Sam Abuelsamid  6:46  
yeah, you know, it's, it's, uh, you know, average transaction prices on these full size trucks now, you know, are in the $50,000 ballpark. So this is a little bit above average. But this one was also pretty well loaded up, you know, That that premium package I mentioned for 60 $700 you know that includes things like you know leather interior power sliding rear window with a defogger Power Up down tailgate, heated heated second row seats. The latest generation of their infotainment system and funny thing is you know it says an eight inch touchscreen in there. But in this massive truck an eight inch screen just feels so tiny. You know when I got in I looked at that screen compared to the 10 inch screen it was in the CT five I had the week before. You know that eight inch screen feels so small in this massive charge

Rebecca Lindland  7:37  
phones that I feel like are eight inch screens

Sam Abuelsamid  7:40  
to getting there. I mean there's there's definitely fallens in the six and a half, almost seven inch. Take the new Samsung Note 20 Ultra is like 6.8 inches now or something like that

Dan Roth  7:50  
when encourage them. Don't encourage them. It was great. here's here's our take. It was great to see a small screen thank you for having restraints so that we don't have any Giant unresponsive LCD is stab our finger at and yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  8:04  
or there are phones that size. Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  8:10  
So anyway, you know and then this one also had you know things like the spray in bedliner that was part of the Z 71 off road package. So that's another thing to add another 1600 bucks on here. I think the thing that I actually appreciate the most besides the engine was the technology package which you know 20 $100 you know that includes the the surround vision system with HD surround vision system with trail camera.

Dan Roth  8:40  
Yeah, that's like surprisingly necessary on these Yeah, with these trucks because you can't maneuver them because you can't see exactly

Sam Abuelsamid  8:47  
and, and also, you know, this one had the the rear camera mirror that we talked about last time on this that was on the CT five, which on on these big trucks, you know, because they ride up so high. That rear camera mirror actually is a really an Another really important feature to have because you can actually see what's behind you, you know, you have much better much better visibility to what's what's around you with that than you do with a standard optical mirror.

Rebecca Lindland  9:11  
Yes, so I had that the first time I had that camera was on the launch of the GMC Sierra. And I absolutely love that camera. It's It's really cool. I mean, some people, some people's had issues getting adjusted to it and getting used to it. But once mine was on I just kept mine on the whole time and it's probably weird if you can't see people in the backseat because you're not seeing the inside of your car anymore. You're actually just going you're seeing the exterior on right onto the road. Exactly. And but it's it's I mean I thought it was just absolutely fantastic. And it's so easy to switch back and forth to which is the other thing I just

Sam Abuelsamid  9:50  
flipped a tablet you'd normally would you know for you know when you're doing a night.

Rebecca Lindland  9:55  
We have to do day night.

Sam Abuelsamid  9:56  
Yeah. Although in this case, you know, it goes between the cameras. View and the optical view.

Rebecca Lindland  10:02  
Right and it's just it's such a I think it's just such a great feature. So Sam, do you think that GMC will eventually get a diesel?

Sam Abuelsamid  10:11  
Oh yeah, you can get you can get it into Sierra.

Rebecca Lindland  10:14  
Oh, you can get it in both okay. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:15  
So they're putting differentiating, no, they're putting it all the light duty full size pickups and SUVs.

Rebecca Lindland  10:22  
Okay, because I was thinking of a tailgate, which they're only keeping in the GMC, the Pro,

Dan Roth  10:28  
the multi pro Semi Pro. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  10:30  
that thing that they are not putting into anything except GMC right now.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:35  
Yeah, no, the, the, the the diesel is available across the board. Okay, cool. So, so that is a good thing. Yes. And like I say, if you're going to be telling on a regular basis, you know, I highly recommend it. You know, so, you know, I mean, they expect you know, I haven't talked recently to the the Chevrolet folks about it. But you know, talking to the Ford and FCA people in the past, you know, they expected the main market. For the diesel engine, you know, it's you know, it's going to be a small percentage, you know, single digit percentage of sales, but when you're talking about vehicles that sell, you know, half a million plus a year, I mean, you're still talking 30 to 50,000 vehicles a year. So, they, you know, they expected the the primary customers for this are people that are towing horse trailers, or, you know, people are using it for commercial purposes, you know, like landscapers, you know, that are towing a trailer full of, you know, with their big lawn tractors and lawn mowers and all their other equipment, you know, towing those on a on a daily basis, because for those people, you know, that operating cost advantage, you know, that you get from the diesel in that application, it you know, some So, overwhelms you know, the the upfront cost premium, that it makes a lot more economic sense for them to use a diesel in that case. So, I think that you know, if if you if your use case you know, is the right use case Diesel This is definitely one to consider. And you know said this this is the most refined diesel I've ever driven both in terms of noise but you know vibration you know that in line six is so smooth running. It's got plenty of performance. And you know, it's it's quite fuel efficient. You know, in my week of driving I averaged about 24 miles per gallon, which was mostly city driving. And it was it was good.

Dan Roth  12:25  
Yeah, so I guess um, especially this year, towing is has become a lot more on the forefront of everybody's imagination. rv sales are through the roof. Nobody has any inventory because you know, the current situation I'm gesturing around, nobody can see me. But you know, everything means like if you have to go to another state, you know, if you want to go actually try to have a vacation or something you've got to do a lot of times you got to quarantine. See you till your car accommodations with you. You can actually go and have a vacation while you're quarantined especially because who can have spend two weeks in a place before you sort of turn around. And so towing is actually a lot more sort of on everybody's mind I think this year than it has been in the past and you start to look at the tow ratings of the 1500s and they're good. But you you also start to compare some of those RVs and they get heavy. So, you know, you've got to calculate like okay, what's the dry weight what's it going to weigh when I put all my stuff in it and in the truck and if I fill up the you know, have the propane tanks, the freshwater tank and stuff all topped off and everything it gets to be heavy pretty quickly. And you can get yourself a nice you know, if you've got a family you want to get something that's like 25 to 30 something feet, that's a that's not small. And so, you want to be able to confidently tell that and all of the haften pickups will do it. It's nice to have that that edge with The power and the sort of confidence that you're going to have the power and torque and fuel economy with the diesel and this one doesn't sound all that expensive so there's other late duty diesels but they I mean I'm sure they're all price competitive you can get in to the comparison but I'm actually surprised that this isn't terrible because 61 isn't completely bonkers for a truck like that. I mean it's bonkers but it's not it's not the most nutty I've seen so yeah yeah what is it a dino off the top of your head or have in front of you the sort of Max towing and Max payload I know there's and there's a lot of options like it usually yeah

Sam Abuelsamid  14:44  
did plan again with depends a lot on the specific configuration and it kind of depends on if you get short bed long bed four wheel drive two wheel drive,

Dan Roth  14:54  
which which were and ratio or final drive. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:59  
So Don't get it's lots.

Dan Roth  15:02  
Yeah, it's got to be over 10,000 my assumption is he's like 12 or 13,000, if not more pounds, the trailering because no, the gas engine ones will get up there. Like with the VA, if you were to get, let's see. Yes. So Silverado 1500. With the right actually, you could probably do 10 or 11,000 pounds, maybe. Maybe more now, they're all they're all duking it out. So

Sam Abuelsamid  15:28  
yeah, so silly number so see a crew cab four wheel drive with the short bed the five 5.5 foot eight inch bed will toe 9300 pounds with the long the long bed it's 9200 pounds, two wheel drive that drops to about 7500 pounds.

Dan Roth  15:48  
Really it is less of a two wheel drive with the diesel.

Sam Abuelsamid  15:51  
Yeah. And and that's that's actually the same same thing is true with the gas engines as well. They told us with two wheel drive Typically than they do with four wheel drive

Dan Roth  16:02  
weird that used to be different it used to be you'd get the two wheel drive with the biggest engine and and it would have the highest tow rating and like the two wheel drive with the biggest engine smallest cab and yeah, I start writing while the

Sam Abuelsamid  16:17  
payloads the payloads go up you know with two wheel drive versus four wheel drive, but they so the the max payload see, they don't actually match the payloads are not broken out by by engine just by the configuration so you get about two max payloads about 2100 pounds for a two wheel drive shortbed Yeah, four wheel drive 2170. So yeah, about to about 2100 pounds of payload, so about a ton of payload and about about 9000 you know 90 9300 pounds of tow rating for the diesel.

Dan Roth  17:00  
Bunch of corn fat Americans in there with their stuff in the bed and their Airstream on the back.

Sam Abuelsamid  17:06  
Yeah I mean if you actually need the maximum tow rating the 6.2 liter gas v eight is the top one in the in the GM lineup that's 12,000 pounds that surprises me but you're gonna use a lot more fuel yeah oh that and even if you're towing 9000 pounds with the gas VA, it's gonna use a lot more fuel than that diesel is.

Dan Roth  17:28  
Well that's why it has a higher tow rating right and make it lighter as it goes really quickly because it's sucking the tank dry. Yep. So it's it's interesting that you said it's like one of the smoothest inline sixes you've experience like diesels typically have that the little, little bit of clatter and like any diesel, no matter what the layout of the engine is, you can sort of typically count on them to be a little bit more noisy and a little bit more vibration then I guess and But that's not not so here. They've tainted that.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:02  
Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, there's, you know, no shortage of noise dampening materials under the hood and you know, around this engine so that helps, you know, so you don't it doesn't really sound much like a diesel. You know that, you know, it's got a little it's got diesel growl to it, but it doesn't have a whole lot of clutter. So it's Yeah, it's quite quiet, which is a you know, it's a it's it's a very pleasant truck to drive.

Dan Roth  18:26  
That's one of the things I love about the GM trucks is that they're quiet.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:29  
Yeah. And the last Silverado I drove was a trail boss. It was 5.3 liter V eight trail boss. Yep. And you know that one, I think I averaged about 14 miles per gallon with it. I was very unimpressed.

Dan Roth  18:44  
That's a good truck though.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:46  
It is, you know, but you know, the trail boss is designed for, you know, that was set up more for offroad. And the whole suspension was a little softer, more compliant and the thing kind of moved around a lot more. Didn't feel as buttoned down or controlled, as this one did, this one was a lot better to drive on the road, I suspect, you know that, I would appreciate the suspension tuning of the trail boss, you know, if I was actually out on a trail somewhere, but, you know, most people don't drive full size trucks out there. So, I, you know, I personally wouldn't recommend that, that configuration, unless that's what you want. But this one, you know, I think was was much better buttoned down. And also the interior feel felt better than in that trail boss, you know, obviously, with the premium package, you know, that 60 $700 Premium Package, it was more leather and soft touch materials across the dashboard and the door and everything. So it didn't feel quite as cheap as the interior and that trial boss did. So I think this one is definitely a more pleasant place to spend time, especially, you know, when you're up above $50,000, you know, I, this one was not not quite up to the standards of a RAM, but it was, you know, a That

Dan Roth  20:01  
all right. So you're gonna buy one with your own money when you need a truck.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:06  
Now you're just gonna borrow my my philosophy is a truck is a great thing to be able to borrow. I mean, I personally don't have a use case that would justify owning a pickup truck of you know, either small or large, full on a full time basis. It makes no sense for me. So I, you know, I have no reason to buy one. But if I did, you know, if I did need one, I would certainly give this one some consideration. I am

Dan Roth  20:33  
I run into those situations, so I'm gonna buy a truck out of frustration because it's just one of those things where like,

Rebecca Lindland  20:41  
that's an extra reason to purchase a vehicle.

Dan Roth  20:42  
Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, it's the same reason why people like just like they'll buy a car decide they don't like it after like a couple of weeks and then do like, return it and buy another one. It's just like, but it's always run into these situations where I needed where a truck would be handy and I'm just like, like, I do it to my And I just like swear at myself. Anyway. So yeah, what do you have Rebecca?

Rebecca Lindland  21:07  
So it's funny I had, I had the two, what I feel sort of the two extremes of the Toyota Lexus brand. I because I had, I had the Toyota c HR, which starts at about $21,000.

Dan Roth  21:27  
I love that thing.

Rebecca Lindland  21:29  
And then the and then back to back, I had the Lexus the 2021 Lexus lc 500 convertible, which starts at like 92,000. So I spanned the gamut of Toyota Lexus offerings in the US. And, you know, they were both appealing and I'm Oh, I'm sorry. Can we just hear Alex Speaking

Sam Abuelsamid  22:02  
probably.

Rebecca Lindland  22:04  
So, yes, yeah, that's very true. So yeah, so it was it was really interesting to have these vehicles and as I said, they were back to back so they picked up the Toyota HR car and they dropped off the LC 500. So I have a little bit of a soft spot for the Toyota c HR, which is a small it's sort of a mock crossover. And because it's really hot, right it's a glorified car but it's actually the very first review that appeared on my Rebecca drive. Thank you. So

Dan Roth  22:39  
go find it Rebecca dress so yeah.

So Rebecca drives.com and we'll come up.

Rebecca Lindland  22:49  
So I called it a I call it a mock crossover in that review, and, and I think that that's a really good description of it. I remember talking soon after it. Come out back in 2018 I remember being in Manhattan of all places, and I had to do something for ABC News. And we were actually doing it at a Toyota dealership. And I was early for once. And so I was talking to the dealer, and he actually said that people love it. It's great for an urban environment. However, in New York, in particular, it only comes in front wheel drive, let me rephrase that.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:27  
In North America, it only comes in on

Rebecca Lindland  23:29  
that side. So I was gonna say, let me rephrase that because I it's it was not clear the vehicles only available in front wheel drive. That was particularly problematic, he said, For when people would come in and want to look at it because it's such a great size, but everyone wants all wheel drive, especially in places like New York where it snows obviously. So

Dan Roth  23:48  
I answer The answer like, well, you don't actually need it is not gonna fly when you're trying to actually sell cars.

Rebecca Lindland  23:55  
No, it's not. And you know, and that's the thing is that people are Are they expected we've trained them to want all wheel drive even though front wheel drive has been more than sufficient in many cases, and certainly in a place like New York in some ways of all places where you don't really need a car at all, but that's a whole nother discussion. So, so you know, and of course, no tires are an option, but snow tires are, you know, 800 to $1,000. And when you're looking at a price point in the 20s, you're not likely to spring for, you know, $1,000 of equipment that you feel like your car should come with. So this one has a Ford a 2.0 liter four cylinder engine, it was definitely whiny, that CVT it's only got 144 horsepower. So and you feel it sometimes. I mean, there's there's carbs was left less obviously, but you know, the acceleration was okay, in most instances. It's just when you're going like up hills when you really need it. It's not always there. And it's a shame because it looks like such a fun little vehicle. I mean, it's You know it's such a it's definitely eye catching I people want to know what it is because they don't see it very often. And you know there's a lot of good things about it I love the size of it there's good flexibility with it you know the back seats go down so there's there's some, you know, healthy amount of cargo room. The rear doors have this weird handle, which

Dan Roth  25:22  
I love that handle it took me like five minutes to find it.

Rebecca Lindland  25:27  
So I had some groceries in the back, I was at my sister's house, and she's like, oh, I'll run out and grab the rest of them and I had to go out and like, are you okay? Because where's the handle? Like it took me a little while so once you once

Dan Roth  25:41  
you find it like it especially if you have something in your hand and actually it's it's a because you it's up on the pillar and you pull it out towards you. It's actually like handier than the normal like,

Rebecca Lindland  25:51  
I didn't think so. It's so funny. I said the exact opposite because I feel like if you've got something if you're It depends on what you're carrying. Right? Yeah. So if you've got something you know, substantial in your hands that you're supporting with both hands, that that kind of like waist level door that a lot of handles are or you know, sort of, you've got your your hand your arm at 45 degree angle, you can pull out that a typical door handle. Yes, one you actually have to reach out you have to elevate your shoulder your arm through your shoulder and then pull out so it can be very

Dan Roth  26:34  
quite awkward. And when you've got your arms full of that false graph, vintage pattern, you don't want to drop it and go pick it up. I got it. Do you

Sam Abuelsamid  26:42  
guys remember the man? Do you guys remember the Chevy Beretta? Yes. And and the copies.

Dan Roth  26:52  
Yeah, had the floppies inside. They were hidden.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:55  
On the on the B pillar they had you know, that was something similar kind of flat. door handle you know you grab it and you know pull it towards you.

Dan Roth  27:03  
I'm sure what the web that was like a cable that would stretch and stop working after a while. Probably yes. Every time somebody gets fancy with the door handles said people suffer this the car so i i agree. I was really charmed by it when I had it but mostly because it it's chassis tuning is pretty good. Yeah. And it it was actually surprisingly fun to drive is definitely down on power. And the lack of all wheel drive was something that I flagged too. But, you know, the thing that's like the most annoying about it is they make a turbo version. They make a hybrid. They make an all wheel drive version. They just don't bring them here.

Rebecca Lindland  27:49  
Right. Well, and that's the thing is that, you know, and I agree. Yeah, I was completely charmed by it. I liked it a lot better the second time I have to say it was just I And I don't really know why I just remember thinking, you know what I this was, this was a lot more fun. And maybe it was just I was in a better mindset or something better place in my life although I'm not, but you know the, you know some of the fit and finish maybe the bar has

Sam Abuelsamid  28:17  
been lowered so much.

Dan Roth  28:22  
Today

Sam Abuelsamid  28:25  
at least at least here in Michigan, the sun, the sky was blue yesterday. Not bad.

Rebecca Lindland  28:29  
It was a spectacular day yesterday. Yes. And we are definitely thinking of all our friends and colleagues out.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:36  
I didn't mean to interrupt you, but no,

Rebecca Lindland  28:37  
no, you're okay, cuz it's true. I will. And the ironic part is that this car was very much like an orangey fiery red that would probably blend right in up there these days. You

Dan Roth  28:46  
have the two tone the two tone roof, the white roof. I love it had

Rebecca Lindland  28:50  
a black roof. I love that two tone.

Dan Roth  28:53  
Yeah. And they have like the color choices till he gets like the teal with the white roof. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  28:59  
Is it Really, really awesome. This one had a black I love the white the white roof is super fun. So you know the the interior is definitely heavy on the hard plastics and the and the piano black. It's all black, which we've talked about before. Can you know really it actually I feel like it shows a lot of flaws, which is the opposite of what black does on a body. But in here it does show quite a few flaws. It had Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto worked really really well for me it doesn't come with any other system which is fine. I don't have a good place for my phone. So economically it worked out well and the steering wheels pretty busy but but they're well placed on like things that you know we've, as we've talked about before, so overall I think that you know it just it's a good little vehicle. Now. I will say that at the end of the day I had so I had the limited Which is the top of the line and delivered? It was 28,004 35 Ah, there's there, sir. Yes, this class of vehicle, there are so many choices that I I struggled to not recommend other vehicles like the Mazda CX 30, you know, which is I think, a little prime not as well. So it's

Sam Abuelsamid  30:25  
just my ask you if you how you would compare this against the CX 30.

Rebecca Lindland  30:30  
I mean, I would probably have to go for the CX 30 instead. Frankly, I think that you know, it has all wheel drive available. Power, a lot more power, you know, the interior that cx 30 is really lovely. So yes, I mean, I think that this is one of the challenges that they've got with the I you know, with the car in that it's there's there's just a tremendous amount of competition now. Some people are true, you know, Toyota files and they're never going to buy anything else. And, you know, maybe this I will say that this suits many different lifestyles, many live different life stages. It's easy to get in and out of, it does have cargo room when you need it. But it's not you're not driving or you don't, I don't feel like I'm driving around a lot of extra baggage when I don't have the car full. So, you know, again, there's always that kind of balance between how much room Do you need, how much room Do you want to carry on a daily basis and figuring that out? So I think that you know, it was it's the bottom line to me is just that there's so much competition out there, that it's hard to really to say this is the best car in that class because it's I don't think it is, but it certainly is one of the more stylish ones. I will say that so from a styling standpoint, this is a head turner. And then a really fun way. I not like you know, what the hell are you driving kind of way. But you know, it's it's a it's a fun happy car. So it has a lot of personality. So that's what you're going for. I think that this is is really fun. The other one. I haven't driven the Nissan Rogue sport.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:21  
Yeah, I had that one a couple of months ago.

Rebecca Lindland  32:24  
Okay. So, you know, there's, I mean, there's just there's a lot of choices out there, but this one's definitely worth the test drive.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:32  
Yeah, well, I mean, and we've talked about this previously, when talking about some of these small crossovers. What you know, what we've seen in the market over the last year and a half or so is kind of this splitting of that small segment, you know, that kind of B segment B to C segment crossover with, you know, slightly more premium ones and then cheaper ones, you know, or more affordable ones. And you know, so, you know on the more affordable side it in some cases you know some brands have you know multiple choices, you know, in that same size class, you know, like like Hyundai and Nissan you know, Hyundai has the venue and the Kona which are both, you know, similar sized vehicles, but have very different characters to them. You know, similarly, Nissan's got the the rogue sport and the kicks you know, and the the rogue sport and the Kona you know are priced you know a little bit higher like it basically where the car is priced or the CX 30 but you know, they offer you a little more they have a little bit nicer interiors, you know, that little you know, little bit I think a little bit better quality feeling. Whereas, you know, then you get the the lower the more affordable ones that are similar price, you know, but for a lower price point, you're, you're giving up some of that stuff. You're getting the hard plastics But I think that that's a reasonable trade off, you know, to get something that's, you know, a new vehicle with a warranty that's more affordable. And I think that the problem for Toyota is the car needs to be priced against the kicks and the the venue rather than the rogue sport and the Kona and the CX 30.

Rebecca Lindland  34:21  
Yeah, no, I think that's super valid. I mean, I just pulling up the CX 30. And, and, you know, it's the one that I drove on the launch was 28,200. So it's actually it's actually less and that had all wheel drive with it. I mean, I just end it and that that interior that we've talked about, and it's got 40 more horsepower to it. And that makes a huge difference. As you said earlier, Sam that power, you know, 186 horsepower, 2.5 liter four cylinder on that mouse's cx 30. You are going to notice that now, that x cheerier wise, the CEO 30 is much more understated. It's it's a great looking vehicle. It's very handsome, but it doesn't have that that character. So if that's more your jam, then you gravitate towards the car for something a little funky or a little bit more fun. But for if you're talking about just vehicle to vehicle inspect to spec, I think the CX 30 is a much better deal. And you know, what's interesting, Sam, is that those vehicles that you talked about things like the Hyundai venue, those have come out after the car. And you know, and that price point was probably completely valid. It was actually it was it's actually increased because when I wrote my review on the 2018, it maxes out at 26,000 and now it maxes out at 28,000 so I you know, there's definitely some significant price increase 10% probably with the addition of some of the safety features as well because this one do have, you know, things that you wanted, like you Departure Warning and blind spot and such.

Dan Roth  36:02  
Yeah, it's just that's one of the things that sort of does everything has to SSP.

Rebecca Lindland  36:06  
Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  36:08  
You know, it's so does everybody else now? Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  36:10  
yeah, it's included, but you're paying for it.

Dan Roth  36:13  
Of course. So the thing that like, I walked away, I guess it was a couple years ago now, when I had the car, it was one of those things like yet it's charming, but it's hard to make a case for it against the field and that now the field has expanded even more, you know, the, the Kona and the venue are going to feel more refined. You're right, it does feel cheap inside. And it has drawbacks, you know, visibility to the rear isn't good because of the styling, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  36:42  
especially especially the rear three quarters.

Rebecca Lindland  36:44  
Yeah. Those depend upon that rear view camera,

Sam Abuelsamid  36:46  
right. Absolutely. And if you're sitting in the rear seat Did you try sitting in the rear seat comes up to you. It's like sitting in a coffin. This terrible experience for rear seat bass. Yes,

Dan Roth  36:59  
but it's Yeah, it is it's got some room I was impressed with the cargo capability but then you compare it to the other things you are you do lose out for the style and you know it, it actually like outside, it kind of takes up a lot of space. It's compact, but like compact and name only. Yeah. And then because of the like deeply sculpted body sides, you don't have as much interior missing might think. And so compare those specs a little bit. But, you know, it's it's a friendly offering in the class and it's it's sort of like classic Toyota, right? Like they, they are in a segment and they're like, well, we're not the best, but you know, we have a really good reputation.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:38  
Well, the thing is, this vehicle wasn't supposed to be a Toyota, at least in North America. Sure, it was. Right, yeah. And then they, they, you know, just before they launched this, they killed Scion and then they rebadged it as a Toyota.

Dan Roth  37:52  
I like it. It's just, you know, you gotta gotta make sure you're not paying retail.

Rebecca Lindland  37:57  
Yeah, exactly. So and should point out also I got 31 miles per gallon, which is higher than the rated they are 29. As for combined, it has a really small fuel tank that's only 13 gallons. So I did actually end up having to put gas in it because I did I did drive it quite a bit. But still 31 miles per gallon is pretty good. Again, though, you know, you look at that's, that's an expectation. It's not a bonus. It's not something that somebody is going to pay for that fuel economy is what people expect, nowadays, so right

Dan Roth  38:31  
with more power,

Rebecca Lindland  38:32  
with more power. Exactly. Yes. So speaking of more power,

Dan Roth  38:37  
yes.

Rebecca Lindland  38:39  
Let's get to the fun part. So, the 2021 Lexus lc 500 convertible

Dan Roth  38:49  
Wrangler that you sacrifice for,

Rebecca Lindland  38:52  
you know, it's amazing what we'll do for our work. Yeah, this thing was

Sam Abuelsamid  39:00  
Hot paid for it but yeah I don't know

Rebecca Lindland  39:06  
what do we do? And this thing was hot to go she's ready as I love it would say it's I it was, you know was darn near a privilege really. So you know the LC 500 is heavily praised and as well it should be gorgeous v eight engine 5.0 liter I mean this exhaust note is right up there with Aston Martin's exhaust notes it this thing rumbles to life. But what I love is that you don't it doesn't intrude into the cabin, it's there in a very positive way but you're not, you know, you don't feel like you're riding on top of an engine. I it's really, really graceful, really refined. And just, you know, I'll just all sorts of fun. And then when you top it off with the convertible, that's a whole nother level of engagement. And so the first thing when I when I got into the car and it is very low slung It is exciting to get in sometimes. And but when I first got it, I was like, Okay, how do I put the top down, that's the first thing you want to do, right? So if they've actually put in, I'll send you pictures of this. It's actually very clever. They have this little pod that is, um, I don't know what's maybe a four inch by four inch, little area where they have the top, the top down button, and the Windows button. I, I duplicate windows buttons so that you can put the windows up or down all four at the same time, which is really, really clever. So you're not kind of what you can't. It was actually the only way that I found to put the Back button back windows down. But it was still a nice feature a thoughtful feature to have both buttons. They're very conveniently located underneath this pod once I found it So the it goes up and down in 16 I think is 15 to 16 seconds. So it's really quick. There's a lot of machinations that go on and and I apologize I did not. I meant to videotape it going up and down and I forgot to do that. So we'll have to find that online somehow there's plenty

Sam Abuelsamid  41:23  
out there. I'll do it when I get one later in October.

Rebecca Lindland  41:26  
Okay. Yeah, there's there's plenty out there but I you know, and so once it's down, all the windows are down, you've got just a flat opening. But you know, Sam, like, as we've talked about before on your Miata, where you're kind of sitting up and out of the car almost. You are definitely I mean, your shoulders are like down in your in this little cockpit. I which is a great feeling. It's a lot of fun. One of the things I loved was that the the the roof the windscreen is very, very rakish, you know it's really sloped, but I felt so Cool in that like, I don't know what era way where I could put my little hand would fit on the corner and I could rest my elbow on the on the door sill and just kind of hang there. Like I was really cool. It was like, just at that proper angle for that kind of look and feel. I just wish I had diamonds on my hand or something. But it's

Dan Roth  42:26  
close to New York, you could probably go get some I could probably.

Rebecca Lindland  42:32  
But there's that whole, you know, working not paid for it thing. And so, I mean, the car itself certainly draws attention. I mean, the number of people that stuff this thing it was it they call it sunburst. My neighbor called it faded school bus and other people. Other people, you know, it's banana yellow, I mean, it's it's a stunning, stunning yellow, and it's funny actually, the hardtop that I had that I spoke about a few months ago and was exactly the same color. And then just the roof is is it's a black roof. So, you know, overall, it was just a fantastic thing. One of the one of the key differences that they've added from a technology standpoint is from the hardtop to the soft top is that they have added Android Auto compatibility. Honestly, they don't do it, but they don't have access to ways, I guess, because it was only Google Maps. I don't know, I thought that was really strange, but it's

Sam Abuelsamid  43:29  
for me either.

Rebecca Lindland  43:31  
And, yeah, I could only get Google Maps to work. So that's what the default was, I should say. But for me, I it was a welcome addition, obviously, because I'm an Android person. And so the last time I had it, I the when I had the coop, it was only Apple CarPlay. So that was a positive. And the, the navigation itself. I remember pulling it up, I needed to go someplace that I thought I knew where I was going, and I just wanted to confirm The navigation had so many lines on it. I didn't know which one to look at. So that was really weird for me

Dan Roth  44:08  
enough it's just not generally not good. I

Rebecca Lindland  44:11  
you know, I mean, you're right. There's it's not too bad. The other thing that I was a little disappointed about and this is very first world but other cars have had it is the automatic it senses heat and heat and cool. So other cars have had it where if the if the exterior temperature is a certain degree, it'll put cooled seats on or heated seats on this doesn't have that and so you end up getting mired in that change. You know and changing from hot to cool and I love having the heated seats. I love having the ventilated seats, but and I know this is very first world but you know having to go in so you know if I if I went someplace during the day Day and have my cooled seats on at night stop top still down. I wanted to have the heated seats on. And I would have to go in and manually change that for $105,000 I think it would be nice if they had the option at least of having some kind of that auto sort of censoring that kind of forward thinking technology would be really cool. But you know, otherwise, I mean, it had obviously had a little tiny backseat, but there's plenty of there there was a good amount of cargo room. I mean, I made the mistake of going to bed bath and beyond and picking up a couple things and coming out and being like Oh, whoops they took the car.

Dan Roth  45:41  
Right How was this mattress gonna fit?

Rebecca Lindland  45:44  
It was actually it was rug pads of all things. So I had gotten this giant nine by 12 rug and I forgot to order a pad with that. So I had to go and they actually had a couple they're very neatly folded up but I have pictures

Dan Roth  46:01  
Just the seat back with me. I'm assuming it doesn't because come No,

Rebecca Lindland  46:04  
no, it doesn't. Yeah, so so and then what I liked also is that there was still plenty of room even with the top down. So in a lot of old style convertibles, the convertible top would actually use the wood use the trunk space, you know, for the storage, this is not the case. So there's still plenty of trunk space, it does have a baffle in the back so that you can you can insert that to improve conversation in the front, but then that negates any anybody sitting in the back.

Sam Abuelsamid  46:37  
So I think the seats themselves negate anybody. I'm looking at a picture of this thing right now. And I think you know, anybody that has more than a torso I'm sorry, I mean, unless you're an amputee from the waist down. You're not gonna fit in the back seat of this thing. Well, I like Why?

Dan Roth  47:01  
Dogs, that's where the designer dog sits when you draw,

Rebecca Lindland  47:05  
so I've got some funny pictures of it because the other thing is my, my eight year old coffeemaker finally died. And so I had to pick up a coffeemaker so I've got

Dan Roth  47:16  
like, this picture fondly referring to a human, like a little eight year old that makes you coffee. Like finally died in like, Oh, this is a dark story.

Rebecca Lindland  47:26  
These Cuisinart coffee makers. I bought one for my house here and I bought one for my house in Saudi. And so I actually had two of them at one point. But the one from Saudi got damaged in the return. The it actually melted.

Dan Roth  47:40  
Excellent.

Rebecca Lindland  47:42  
Nice hot cup of coffee is kind of exciting. So I have the picture. I'll send you Sam. It has the it has the rug, the large rug pad in the back the coffee makers in the front, the other rug pads in the trunk and then there's a little gift For Lucy I kitty cat

Dan Roth  48:01  
awesome that's what i mean that's what we do right we find the utility in the cars I have gotten consumed like lumber in the widest array of vehicles imaginable. But I think the best was I put like enough of enough lumber for a an outdoor swing set into like the first generation Mazda six there was a Yeah, there was a lot of wood in the car. It was not happy.

Rebecca Lindland  48:30  
I love it. But no, I mean look that the LC 500 it's a much has been written about a it's won a ton of awards. It's It's gorgeous. You know, the thing that really struck me and I actually I got to have dinner with the fabulous Tabitha hammer who works for Haggerty and she is she moved into town fairly recently and and we were talking a little bit about this she would actually be a fun guest sometime we should have her on

Dan Roth  48:57  
but come on down.

Rebecca Lindland  49:00  
This, That, to me that lc 500 shows what Toyota and Lexus I say can do, from an emotional standpoint, from from a styling standpoint, from an experience. It really it's, you know that that, that the exhaust out alone, do that in more sedans do that, you know, do that in the performance, like just the performance aspect of it was really fantastic. And I will be the first one to say that far too many of my reviews of Lexus involve, you know, something along the lines of stayed, because they're just not very engaging a lot of times, but I just, you know, this, and this vehicle just really shows what that brand can do.

Dan Roth  49:49  
Yeah, I think that the the issue for them is, is that what people buy from them is I know they can do it, but and we want it but is that what actually sells

Rebecca Lindland  50:01  
well. Yeah. I mean, I saw one review that said, you know, this is the best Lexus that nobody's buying and, you know, your apps, right. But that's part of the, that's part of being a good steward of the brand as we've talked about before. Brand steward stewardship is incredibly important. As, as the market migrates away from baby boomer domination. Baby Boomers have dominated the market for decades. Well, they still

Dan Roth  50:30  
have all the money though. So

Rebecca Lindland  50:32  
no, Gen X and and Millennials are starting to move into their their mid 40s. And later on, tell

Dan Roth  50:41  
me about it.

Rebecca Lindland  50:44  
You know, I mean, there's we're starting to get to the point where we have to recognize what you know, we've got to be designing and producing for millennial who's not living in it. Her mother's basement, but instead is moving into peak earning years. And you know, so I think that Lexus is a brand that they have a huge challenge because they were so baby boomer focused that most millennial children when they think of Lexus, they think of their parents cars. And that's a problem. And I shouldn't say millennials, children, but young, but they're, they're the children of the baby boomers. So

Dan Roth  51:25  
yeah, yeah. But it's true. I mean, so the oldest Millennials are just now that I think they're like in their late 30s. Right now I'm at the tail end of Generation X. So I'm in my early mid.

Rebecca Lindland  51:36  
So for me the way that I genex is 65 to 77. Right and Millennials are birth year 78.

Dan Roth  51:44  
Right. So I'm right at that crossover and I will tell you that the LC Great, that's a total Boomer car, it because millennials and Gen Xers like we're still got families. So I would love to talk that into the garage. It might be a good time but it's not going to work for the lifestyle if they can do that in like us version of the Sienna for Alexis awesome it's that's

Rebecca Lindland  52:13  
right yeah but even you know the I had the I had the Lexus RX 350 F SPORT

Dan Roth  52:21  
and that's not good

Rebecca Lindland  52:24  
but the thing is but my but my point is that even that like give it personality give it you know i certainly enjoyed that one more than just the the RX 400 which doesn't have any personality right that's the thing is that, you know, give these vehicles that kind of emotional emotional experience as a kid hauler, so I just you know, I feel like that's something that there's there's opportunity there To be more engaging to take some of the features, take some of the fun in that we've experienced with the LLC and move that into vehicles like the RX where you can obviously you're not going to do something stupid but you know, but do something that has that kind of fun. You know, Lexus doesn't really have, say like a GLC I Mercedes GLC 43 AMG Coupe, competitor. They don't really they haven't really gone into that coupe space from an SUV standpoint at all.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:36  
And don't worry, I'm sure it's probably coming.

Rebecca Lindland  53:40  
You know, so I just I think that there's opportunity there. And I think that the LC 500, to me is just a vehicle that demonstrates what Lexus can still do.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:49  
Yeah, I wonder if some of this maybe some of this kind of thinking is why Toyota invested in Mazda? You know, they own 20% of Mazda now. Yeah. And you know, Mazda Yeah, I think, you know, maybe we're, we're Saigon struggled, you know, I think Mazda has a little more of that they've got more that design flair, you know, that emotion to that brand. And maybe, you know, they can compare most of their vehicles are more competitive with Toyota brand vehicles, but have more of that, that emotion to them. Right. And, you know, maybe a little bit more of a premium feel to them. And maybe they see Mazda as being that compliment, that gives them an inroad with those kinds of vehicles, you know, and as customers maybe want to move into those kinds of vehicles, you know, they've got, they can, you know, they can support Mazda to bring that to the table.

Rebecca Lindland  54:48  
Right, maybe I mean, I hope so. Because I think that you know, Lexus and, and Toyota to some extent also, I think, you know, they've They are a little bit stagnant at times Lexus certainly. And and need to have some kind of a an emotional boost. They are definitely cautious. I think that's

Dan Roth  55:12  
their, their sort of mo is to be, you know, polished, but cautious and when you're trying to appeal to emotions, like a little bit of that caution goes out the window and I think that's why I like to see HR is because it's less cautious.

Rebecca Lindland  55:28  
Yeah, absolutely. I agree.

Dan Roth  55:30  
Yeah. So,

Rebecca Lindland  55:32  
so are you driving? Yeah, so

Dan Roth  55:33  
I speaking of total Boomer cars, I had the the 2020 Lincoln aviator, I think it was the Black Label phv I didn't bring the sticker. It was okay. So it was the Grand Touring. So this is a really well done premium crossover. They've done a really good job with the aviator and the Explorer that underpins it. I think, you know, for part of their move to rear wheel drive was to give it a premium feel. And it sure does. It's interesting because I really liked the Black Label Nautilus. But you could definitely tell that that was based on a front wheel drive seeing the Ford Edge platform they did as much as they could they give you know, in that instance gave it a good interior pretty decent suspension tuning, but it still had some of that clumsiness that the edge just has. That is not the case for The Aviator. It's especially in phv it's very powerful. It's got like 600 pound feet of torque or something.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:38  
It's the most powerful production Lincoln ever.

Dan Roth  56:41  
Yeah, it's weird because it's pretty understated about it. It's not like always raring to go, you can it's just there when you need it. Otherwise you don't ever really even think about it and it's it has a twin turbo V six, I think he's got the three liter version of the EcoBoost. So it's it's quite and refined in a way

Sam Abuelsamid  57:01  
published in Lincoln anymore.

Dan Roth  57:02  
I'm sorry, whatever.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:04  
That's a Ford only brand.

Dan Roth  57:07  
Sure. Can you call it twin force? Let's call it twin force. But, you know that engine is it's an interesting contrast, like we were talking about the Cadillac x86 last week. And this is sort of the similar analog right, but it's it takes a slightly different path. It feels a lot more special than the x86. In its interior. outfitting the refinement of the power train feels better than 66 isn't bad. But some of the other Cadillacs have that issue where they've got the four cylinder and so you've got the vibration and the grittiness. The grittiness was there with the Z six a little bit and just sort of the vibes you feel. This is not like that. It's also a much newer hardware. So I expect Cadillac is going to jump ahead when they do their next thing as well. But you know, it's It's really nice and it should be, like $86,000. But I was thinking about it too, you know, Lincoln has we we've bagged on Lincoln for like 10 years now. But they've finally with this version of The Aviator, they've gotten to a point where they're pricing competitive with stuff like the the x five pgv. Or, you know, whatever Mercedes version, they change their name. So I don't know what the heck I'm talking with the model names over there. Yep. gl, GL, E,

Sam Abuelsamid  58:33  
GL E, it's like in between the GLA and the GLS. Right. A little smaller into GLS. Yeah. Because the GLA is in the three row. So right.

Dan Roth  58:42  
So and but that's the thing. It's like it. It's not only priced that way and feature competitive. Its overall like refinement wise, and design and style and execution. It's there like it didn't seem absurd to me that it's an $86,000 Lincoln's like, it felt worth it, which was that's different. You know, it's huge.

Rebecca Lindland  59:04  
Yeah. Just the fact that you've, you've just said the words it felt worth it.

Dan Roth  59:09  
Yeah, it feels really special. But it's, it's lovely inside. Now, you know, the design is it's not as sort of striking on the outside or as you know, it's very, it's conservative, it looks great, but it's, it's more conservative. It's not looking to break ground, it's looking to look good. And it does, you know, interior wise, it's right there. You know, it's got really good materials and really nice design. The controls are decently easy to figure out, it's sophisticated. So you do spend like your first couple of hours fiddling with everything. And one of the things that just kept on getting me Was it has electrically operated door handles, so is like you don't there's no door handle the pole. When you want to get out. It's a thumb switch every time I Like looking like what do I pull? You know, it's like that was that felt a little bit like a gimmick but I think also it cleans up the the interior to like you don't have to package a pull door handle, you can leave space for something else I don't know,

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:14  
sort of like that way what I experienced with the Volvo that were the push buttons start with the turn the turn knob on the cot on the center console. It wasn't any thing I ever got used to. Right and it's

Dan Roth  1:00:26  
not like it's not any more convenient like I'm trying to make a justification for like maybe it makes room for something extra but not really and you know that the Explorer has pull handles so it's not like they didn't engineer it. I don't know it does it makes it different but it's a little bit of a gimmick and whatever like

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:45  
I will say though so I had I just had to interrupt you Sorry. No, it's fine. So I have a new dishwasher not because I wanted it but because my dishwasher broke it's that kind of season apparently. And I got one of those are Paco Exactly. I got one of those Fisher Bacall pullout drawer dishwashers. Yeah, there's a two and four I when I was showing it when I was playing with it inevitably I would pull down because that's the motion that you make to open your dishwasher. right you know like you pull and this you pull out you pull straight out. Yeah and I was so proud of myself because yesterday I realized after about three weeks of ownership I am now just pulling it out I'm no longer pulling Yes. Right So

Dan Roth  1:01:35  
I think if you owned this you would get trained eventually. You know I had the add the buttons for the shifter which also screwed me up for a while. I don't really like those. The transmissions a little slow to respond but it's not it's not it's not the worst implementation of push button shifting. It's just I again like I get away they did it here. They definitely saved space by by tucking the the buttons at the base. To the center stack there's a lot more room on the console for other controls so I get that one. I just it's a little underwhelming but you know when you're looking to change decades of practice you gonna have some hits and some misses. I do I just they seriously invested their efforts to make the aviator special and I think they hit a bull's eye you know that the even the materials and the the controls that you touch they everything feels good so I was impressed with that and it's very quiet out on the road. It's it's not super duper efficient, you know that the hybrid is there more for for power and performance than it is necessarily for fuel economy. You can plug it in, you have different modes, it has five different drive modes, which I I liked you know that it technology wise, it's easy to use, it's easier to use than something like I drive. It may not have as deeper feature set as I drive, but it definitely has a lot of things it can do. There's an app that you can put on your phone That opens up some more features to

Rebecca Lindland  1:03:03  
the app is actually really cool because you can lock, unlock, start and drive it and you can start The Aviator. So the app is actually really pretty useful in terms of replacing the traditional key.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:18  
Yeah, you can, it works through Bluetooth LE to make your phone and once you pair your phone once you pair the my Lincoln app with on your phone with the car, then your phone becomes the key. And so if your phone is in your pocket, you don't even have to take it out. You walk up and unlock it with the phone even if you don't have the fob on you. And then similarly you can start the car with that as well.

Dan Roth  1:03:45  
Yeah, it's you know, for all that we gave them crap they were they were working.

Rebecca Lindland  1:03:53  
The interior though is scanning. Oh, I love your interiors are stunning.

Dan Roth  1:03:57  
I was a little annoyed that When I had to go get some I had to get a four by eight sheet of plywood. I use a tape measure and I was like, well, it should fit diagonally. It's just one sheet. Nope. It's like they designed the opening specifically to not accept the four rate sheet of plywood. And then like, you can get it in just a little bit. And then there's there's some interior trim that gets in the way. And it's like, Ah, so I'm there like the hardware store with this sheet of fourth grade material. And I'm like, I need to leave this here. I had to go borrow my brother in law's ancient e 350. Van that smells like one big greasy carpark and put it in there, which I mean, it worked out. And it was an all Ford show. So there's that. But I got to thinking like what you would really compare this to and that the best thing I could come up with was, you know, this is a really sharp competitor for an xc 90. It has the style. Not it's not quite as avant garde as the Volvo the Volvo really does. You know, it does still, to this day, it's an older bit of styling now, but it still looks fantastic. You know, The Aviator looks good, but it's not as distinctive. The interior and The Aviator is just as good. And the way it drives is a lot better in this one has air suspension, and it's very smooth on the road. It is it soaks up a lot of the high frequency stuff. So it just goes down the road with with a lot of a lot of comfort and authority. So I was impressed with it overall. And it's you know, they were really smart to skip the you know, having The Aviator when it was when everything was based on the older explorer and just bring it back for this new generation. They did a lot of work and I know there was a little issue about the the launch with quality and stuff. This didn't have any quality issues. It all looked and felt

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:49  
those seemed to have been ironed out by the beginning of this year. I think they pretty much got that sorted out by the by the end of 2019.

Dan Roth  1:05:57  
Yeah, so I was I was very impressed with it and It goes back to our question from from last week or the week before we were talking would you buy the the x86 or I forget, maybe it was xc 90 that we were comparing it with. I thought I would have a hard time comparing or not choosing The Aviator over the Z six. So it's direct competitor from across town in their different cars, but this one just does, it feels like it's worth the money more than that

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:28  
one. And I feel like also Black Label does offer some nice services. I think that they've migrated they've, they've changed some different things. But you know, they've done a nice job of, of offering, you know, Lincoln service, valet pickup and delivery. They've got some nice lifestyle features that can really come in handy too. So I think that there when you're comparing these vehicles, you have to also compare especially if you're doing the Black Label, you have to compare the the What else comes with the vehicle beyond just the vehicle? Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:07:04  
well that's that's the like the ownership experience and that's what keeps people coming back to Lexus IS because you know, they that they care less about the cars and how they're treated and i think that's that's pretty universal I would go back to a good dealer for a brand I'm less enthused about then you know the get the perfect car and have to suffer with the world's worst dealer just you know then I guess to sort of like the the main criticisms are those those multi way seats we got along with them a little better this time, but there's still just one part of it this digs into the back of my ribcage and it's like no matter how I said it, I couldn't just couldn't quite get comfortable. And the audio system does not sound good at all. I'm very picky about that. So maybe other people will be pleased with it, but I just thought it was like that's not something I will pay for. It's the highest end audio system sounded bad so are you doing okay? When when somebody's picky can really help I picked those two things out. So good job. Well done.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:06  
Fortunately for you, I think that 28 speaker rebel system come standard in the Grand Touring. So,

Dan Roth  1:08:11  
I mean, that's okay. As long as I don't see a lie item for it, so they just hide that hide the cost somewhere. If I see a line item for I'm gonna, I'm gonna read line, I'm going to cross it out, like, I don't want that.

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:24  
Well, it's funny that because I actually forgot to mention in the LC 500 convertible, that I was really disappointed with the sound system. I know, it's just really, really fantastic. But I never felt like it was like, I had to like up to up to maximum because I didn't feel like it was like, and the loping me. Part of it was there was no roof. But that kind of stuff. Like it all plays into that experience that plays into that you're talking $87,000 right. Yeah, you know, the sound system should be something that you're all about as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:58  
Yeah. So look, let me ask you guys both a question related to convertibles Why? Why would you buy a convertible and never put the top down?

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:12  
I have no idea. I mean my first the first new car I ever bought was a boat so I can cabriolet and I had matching gloves, hats and mittens and now for people because commitment, I was like, at least at least once a month. This top is coming down even in the wintertime and if people complain about it said there's your hat. There's your scarf.

Dan Roth  1:09:39  
I meant this.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:41  
Yeah, who

Dan Roth  1:09:42  
does that? No. Wow. Awesome or it's a commitment like you you you buy the convertible because you want the car with a top of the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:50  
crate. Well, it you know, it costs more. You know, in most cases it doesn't drive as well and most most of the time, most convertibles, you know, are you They've taken a unibody design and hack the roof off and you know they're usually not as rigid you know they're most convertibles are not designed from the ground up as convertibles like you know like like some sports cars are you know so and then you're usually giving up rear seat room giving up some cargo space. You know you're making a lot of sacrifices to have this folding top. So why would you drive it around with the top up all the time and I know I so frequently see people in convertibles you know when beautiful weather is even especially when it's not too hot. I mean I can understand maybe sometimes if it's, you know, like 9500 degrees and you know you want to have the air conditioning on Fine, whatever, you know exactly.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:44  
Why sitting on and still have this.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:46  
Why, you know, why would Why would you buy a convertible and never put the top down. I know that there's, you know, least one person in my neighborhood that has like a 2010 Mustang convertible. I have never won Ever seen the top down on that car? And I said so often,

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:04  
I yell at what are you waiting for a nice day like it's because especially because on a gorgeous day,

Dan Roth  1:11:09  
you legitimately heckled people you grant it's like, Hey,

Unknown Speaker  1:11:14  
I'm one of those people.

Dan Roth  1:11:17  
So, while I wouldn't necessarily do convertibles is not a not a thing I would choose on my own. Um, but there if you want them they're not pleasant. Like if you're if your speed gets really above like 50 or 60 miles an hour. So and true well

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:36  
500 was very pleasant at 100

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:42  
fairly hypothetically, yeah.

Dan Roth  1:11:44  
So personally, I they start to get loud and they aggravate my tinnitus. So that's that's one of the things like just like it gets, it gets loud on the highway and you Yes, while you have the airflow like if the sun's beating down on you that cannot be not great too. So it depends, like if you're in town a lot, yeah, put the top down on the cover. But then again, like, I personally wouldn't buy a convertible because, like,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:09  
that's perfectly

Dan Roth  1:12:11  
legitimate. That's my job. But some people enjoy that like sundown the wind in your hair stuff like it's so. Yeah. Yeah, and I get it. It's definitely like the charms of a convertible in the right. Right venue, you know, they definitely, they're enjoyable.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:27  
So, to the listeners, you know, if you own a convertible and you drive it with the top up, please write in tell us why. Yeah, we're Yes. I personally am extremely curious to know why you would buy a convertible and drive it with the top but maybe

Dan Roth  1:12:42  
maybe there's people that buy cars with like resale only in mind like well, the convertible is gonna have a higher resale price. So

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:49  
why would you podcast? I don't think those people are listening to our

Dan Roth  1:12:56  
finance people.

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:57  
No, but I think I mean, I agree and and it was funny because When they, after the LC 500 went away, I realized that I had never actually driven it with the top up, which is not a good thing when you're trying to review something. That's better. I do think that, you know, from a visibility standpoint and all that good stuff, but I agree, Sam, I don't understand that for all the reasons that we've talked about, but they're so well, you asked that guy, the person, that woman, male who's driving the Mustang in her neighborhood.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:29  
I prefer not to

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:30  
and your nicest possible way, not like you know, you've done that, you know, but

Dan Roth  1:13:36  
the best Bartleby the Scrivener. Answer,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:39  
what are you doing? I prefer to ask that question of people that I'll probably never actually meet and

Dan Roth  1:13:44  
listen to sometimes the best thing for neighbors is just to mutually ignore each other.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:51  
That guy down the street that had the john James for senate sign Yes.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:55  
Hey, no politics. My neighbor has a Jeep Wrangler. four door. And that thing it's always stripped bare, and it's so fun and you know, the kids are hanging out and stuff and it's great. It's that's how it's supposed to be. And I totally agree. convertibles are meant to have the top down it everything about them.

Dan Roth  1:14:16  
Yeah, that's I mean, yeah. Oh, then the one that one last thing about the linking to just completely whipsaw back to the topic. I found a view when I opened one of the places in the central console, and they've designed a nice little place for your phone with an inductive charging pad. And that's where the USB port is like it's it's got a place for stuff. Excellent. Let's I love that. So, yeah. All right. Moving on. It's been a pretty busy week of stuff. There was the GM Nikola partnership that was announced and then they sort of got in trouble. It's a little bit yeah. And then we also have to touch on the lucid air because that was a pretty big deal. But yeah, the The niccola thing like I don't know what's going on there like they they came out with the announcement. And then like, the next day, there was this this thing by Hindenburg research or whatever it was saying it's all fraud. And she didn't do due diligence. And I, what what is going on?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:15  
So for those that aren't familiar with Nikola motors, this is a startup company that came out in 2017. I think, initially, they they announced a hydrogen fuel cell, long haul semi. Yeah, and this was before Tesla showed off their semi. And, you know, part of their deal was, you know, they wanted to build these fuel cell powered long haul trucks and also build a hydrogen fueling network to support them. And so they're working on both of these paths. And they, you know, they over the years you know, they've developed a number of key partnerships with various suppliers and investors Including, you know, Bosch was a was a very important partner for them you know working on the fuel cell technology working on the the electric drive system and then also working with other partners on the on the hydrogen fueling side. And, you know, they the summer Nicola went public through one of these now very popular reverse mergers with what's known as a spacca specialty purpose, special purpose acquisition company. So these are companies that are set up, you know, a bunch of investors put a bunch of money in, they go public, they do, you know, they do an IPO. And the company has no actual business, they just have a bunch of cash in the bank, from their investors, and they're set up specifically to do an acquisition. And we've seen a bunch of these this summer Nicola velodyne, did one luminar there's been a number of others and I won't get into All the details of why, but when they when Nicola went public with through this transaction, their stock price immediately spiked and their their market cap went to like $18 billion. This is a company that had $36,000 in revenue last year.

Dan Roth  1:17:19  
I think we all together probably had more than 36.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:23  
Yeah. Why are we worth $18 billion? No, you're

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:28  
absolutely right. Well, let's let's put

Dan Roth  1:17:30  
together this crack.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:31  
Yeah. And, well, no, I mean, we don't we wouldn't create the spec. We need the spec to buy us.

Dan Roth  1:17:37  
Oh, okay. So anyway,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:39  
you know, and, of course, you know, this got a lot of attention from a lot of people, you know, taking a look at this company, is this company for real? You know, what, why is this company that has, you know, effectively no revenues still a couple of years away from their first product. Why are they suddenly worth more More than, you know, automakers that, you know, have hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and make profits and all this stuff. So, you know, got a lot of people looking at them. And, you know, the founder of Nikola a guy named Trevor Milton, who was CEO after the, the transaction, he became chairman. They hired another guy to be CEO. They, I think they, you know, they, a lot of people see this guy as, you know, kind of a huckster, you know, kind of another Elon Musk, and, you know, not coincidentally, you know, the, the naming of the company was very much in, you know, for the same reason that Tesla is called Tesla, Nikola, Tesla, Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla's first name was Nikola, hence the name

Dan Roth  1:18:50  
I think we should like our spec should be called Westinghouse, because Westinghouse was the one who actually funded Tesla develop AC power, so they anyway

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:00  
He fought with Tesla.

Dan Roth  1:19:01  
What? No Edison fought with Tesla.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:04  
Oh, you're right, you're right. Yes, you're right. Anyway. So, on Tuesday of this week, GM announced that they were part of doing a strategic partnership with Nikola where GM would get 11% of the stock in in Nikola and they would provide the fuel cells for the Nikola one semi through their their joint venture their fuel cell joint venture with Honda that they're that they're building. And they would also do the engineering and manufacturing of the Nikola badger which is the the electric pickup truck that Nikola announced earlier this year. And when they announced it you know they said you know we're looking for a partner to work with to build this for us you know, because basically Nicola didn't want to go into actually you know, does you know to tulips To build this consumer pickup truck, you know, they, they wanted to focus on the on the semis. And so GM was going to build the Badger based on the same platform as the GMC Hummer that's coming next year using their ultium battery system and all this other stuff. And, you know, then two days later, this Hindenburg research comes out with his big report, you know, basically trying to take down Nikola, and, you know, as it turns out, the day before they publish the report, they bought a whole bunch of, you know, short options, and Nikola and Nicolas stock price tanked after the report, and accusing Nikola, of all kinds of shady things, you know, like, for example, when they did their initial reveal in 2017, that, you know, they showed a video of the truck in motion, implying that this was actually a functioning prototype. And it turns out that perhaps it wasn't. According Yeah, according to their research, they talked to somebody who worked for nickel at the time and they actually Have this thing on a very road, long desert road with a very shallow grade and basically got it rolling down down this road. And it was rolling, you know, not under its own power, just gravity. And

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:16  
kind of awesome. And all I can think of is that non that shatterproof, shattering glass on the test.

Dan Roth  1:21:25  
Doesn't everybody pull crap like that?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:27  
Yeah, and this is this is what I said in a couple of interviews over the last couple of days, you know, to be fair, you know, almost every concept you see from every manufacturer ever, is not completely functional, or in most cases not functional at all. Yeah, and the example I like to give was the original Chevy Volt concept in in January 2007. You remember how much attention that thing got and they published videos showing it driving around a neighborhood? Well, like a lot of concepts, that car that would actually couldn't move under its own power sort of, but it was powered by a golf cart motor. Yeah. It did not have this fancy extended range, Evie power train that they were that they showed all these cool renderings of and had a mock up of, you know, it was it was basically a golf cart underneath this fancy concept body. And this is actually very common. Yeah. And I mean nobody on the PR side of the industry likes to talk about this stuff. But it is it is real. This is the way it's done.

Dan Roth  1:22:29  
Yeah, I mean, and that's how you attract investment to I'm not I don't think it's worth getting all that exercised about like there's other parts of the deal that if you know Yes, find look at the concept vehicle and get excited, but also look at the rest of the business. And if you're going to invest, I'm hoping that you look at all of those other things and make your decision versus just well the truck looks cool. Let's just throw money at them which to be fair seems like what has happened in that industry with a lot of oil. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:59  
So although also To be fair, GM has not actually put any cash into this deal they're getting 11% equity in the company, but they're not putting up any cash there they are putting in engineering resources, you know, but a lot of that you know, is already being done anyway for the Hummer and Chevy trucks you know, so there's not going to you know, they're not developing a new platform for for Nicola you know, most of the most of the hard engineering work and tooling the factory and everything is already being done anyway for for GM This is basically all upside they get you know, potentially you know, if this all works out, they get to have better capacity utilization of their factory you know, more utilization of their batteries and motors and everything you know, it's it's all good for GM and you know, it didn't really cost them anything.

Dan Roth  1:23:50  
Doesn't it seem like this is all stuff that GM doesn't doesn't really need Nicola for other than the bus Like, this is all stuff that GM is good at. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:04  
Yeah. But I think to Sam's point too, about the capacity utilization, I mean, there, I think that there are things that GM benefits from with this tie in. So, yeah, I agree. But it also, you know, GM is good at these things, but they don't have a reputation of being good at these things. And that's, you know, part of it, too, is when you, you know, they're teaming up with a brand like Nikola, that, you know, has is that exciting, charismatic startup kind of feel to it with all its pros and cons. So, I think that there's, there's positives from a business case standpoint for General Motors, but there's also positives from a goodwill standpoint as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:54  
Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Roth  1:24:55  
I think that was one thing that struck me was like all of the especially the fact They're not not putting in cash, they're putting in expertise really and right.

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:05  
It's a way that they have to pay for already.

Dan Roth  1:25:08  
Right? It's a way for them to get a return on on stuff they've already invested in right now and it's almost like it's a PR campaign to a degree like we are partnering with this this new shiny object over here. But we're bringing our vast experience and Nicola even was was messaging about this like look, we've we've now plugged into 100 plus years of vendor relationships and logistics and supply chain management and you know, car building expertise, which if you look at Tesla, beyond the hubris, that was the area that that bit Tesla was actually car building is a lot of the the east part of Tesla is fantastic. And their engineers are very clever. And they're they're doing a lot to push that part of the field ahead, but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:58  
where else would you find automotive engineer's going to Home Depot and buying the plastic molds to help tie down their AC connectors.

Dan Roth  1:26:06  
I mean, it's very much like a stir, it's like it just reminds me of like a modern day seen at a Tucker or something but like, just the the, the thing that GM is really good at is making like things with with consistent quality nowadays consistently good quality and and doing it for a very carefully planned cost. And they they do they, they have a big machine and they know how to how to run it. And so if you're getting people interested in the trucking, you know, they can use their, their engineering and their battery cells and their, you know, even the same platform as that Hummer. I mean I think it all makes a lot of sense and they they get away to sort of put their expertise to use and hopefully get people interested in it. It's an interesting move and and I don't know, if it's gonna nobody knows if it's gonna pay off but it's probably cheaper than trying to, you know, put the message out just bluntly, like straight ahead, right? Like, we're GM. No, we're here. We're good at this stuff really? Like,

Rebecca Lindland  1:27:08  
we have to self promote a number of NGOs as well.

Dan Roth  1:27:12  
Yeah. So that was Yeah, that was that was curious and interesting. And there's already partnerships that sort of their their lives looks like they're being smart about it actually is saying we're going to partner over here. We're going to partner over there. And then we're going to find ways because they're

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:25  
they're also, you know, working with Lordstown motors, you know, who basically gave the Lordstown assembly plant to you know, that they you know, Lordstown was another one of these companies that went public through respect transaction. And, you know, GM was actually an investor, and that's back so they own a small stake in Lordstown motors. And I'm sure there are going to be others that we see as well, where GM is an investor and has the potential to, you know, to leverage something off of these other brands that are, are getting hype and attention. You know, the hype and attention that a traditional automakers probably never going to get you know, because everybody there's this fetish around startups and founders you know, especially in the Evie business that it's going to be hard for any traditional manufacturer to to achieve that.

Dan Roth  1:28:18  
Yeah, that's a good good like that's see how it plays out I hope that it actually gets past this little rough patch and anytime there's this move especially in such a red hot sort of area of a market you know, the the quote unquote disruption right like that those there's a lot of speculators and it's the reason why the Tesla stock is outrageously high, although it took a hit recently. But it's it's it's like a casino it's people trying to make money and so they're going to they're going to defend their investments and try to minimize competition. And and so you see that it's not it's not a mature market. There's a lot of those Lot of sound and fury over there a lot, a lot of heat, not a lot of light, I guess is what I'm trying to say, in the Eevee space. So maybe it'll come down and we'll forget about the whole like nonsense with the Hindenburg thing. I I'm card dorable. I don't know. I just like it came out. And I was like, This reads like a hit piece. And, you know, yeah, Trevor Milton has its own, sort of like, Elan Musk, like personality. So you need that certain amount of, of hucksterism, I think in that space, but I don't know, I can't imagine that GM didn't carefully look at things and they didn't really take on a ton of risk, right? They just kind of like, well, this pays off. It'll be good. If it doesn't walk away. We haven't.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:45  
I mean, worst case, you know, maybe GM maybe looks a little foolish for getting involved with this company, but they haven't really lost anything. And, you know, frankly, to the people who think that they look foolish for this. They think GM looks foolish anyway. Yeah yeah so it's it's it's no no big deal that you know it's it's really all upside for GM and and no real downside in this case

Rebecca Lindland  1:30:11  
sort of like when Kim Kardashian married that Chris basketball player for 72 days it's just a really you know one looks good one yeah just sort of whatever

Dan Roth  1:30:21  
I'll take it oh let's talk about new product the lucid air friendly dropped and this is one that was sort of on on the radar and then like they went quiet for a little while now they came up with a car that is a it seems very expensive when you get the highest price model but everybody lost their collective mind over the reveal of this you know, the configurators up there doing a lot of things that a more established automaker would they have a lot of mature, you know, a lot of a lot of mature leadership from automakers over there. Even their their their PR guy is a guy that we know well he spent years at BMW, so it's it's a Just it's happening, I guess. So you guys both watch the lucid reveal what was that all about? I played with you the configurator and pick my colors.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:10  
Well, it was funny because when it when I was looking at the run of show, it's it said it was like 45 minutes for this and then 40 minutes. I'm like thinking an hour and a half. I'm not gonna sit there for an hour and a half. And I actually sat there every minute. Because the q&a was really interesting also is really stilted they, they basically only took questions from reservation holders, as opposed to the media, but I mean, the car is so I'm not I'm not crazy about the exterior. I don't love the front end. The interior is stunning. I mean, it's just it's gorgeous. And then they had the very end they teased an SUV that called the gravity. But no, I think that this is from a visual standpoint is absolutely stunning. And then from a technological standpoint, I know they are I feel like they've addressed so many of the barriers for electric vehicles from the range, which is I think over 500. And correct me, Sam, I know, you know these better than I do. But, you know, they've they've partnered with electrify America, the recharging is super fast like, they've just done so they really have. I feel like they've taken every barrier to electric vehicle deployment and said, Let's fix that. Let's address that question. It's just add and the car looks stunning.

Dan Roth  1:32:35  
It does.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:36  
Yeah, I mean, we we first released I first saw the air back in late 2016. When I got a briefing from Peter Rawlinson, who, at the time was their CTO, and he's now CTO and CEO, and their head of design, Derek Jenkins. We had a private briefing at the LA Auto Show in late 2016. And, you know, walk through the technology side and the Design and actually went down in the garage and took a look at one of the prototypes that they had brought to LA for that. And then they they showed the car publicly for the first time at the 2017, New York show where I think you saw, did you get a chance to sit in it? And I

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:14  
did not. I think it was one of those. The New York show was really chaotic. For me. I think I just I glanced at it and had to move on to something that was actually coming out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:24  
Yeah. I sat in it for a while chatting with with Derek. Yeah. And it's, it's amazing, you know, and it's a really fabulous interior. And one of the, you know, one of the knocks on Tesla has been, you know, especially for the Model S and the Model X, you know, at the price points that those vehicles go for, you know, upward, you know, often upwards of $100,000 you know, compared to the the competitors from Germany and Japan, and those price ranges. They don't feel like luxury cars. They don't have

Dan Roth  1:33:58  
to be fair, the interior sucks.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:01  
Okay, you know,

Dan Roth  1:34:05  
they're not they're good. Yes,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:06  
they are, they are not up to the par of what you can buy at that price point from other manufacturers. This car does not suffer from that this car absolutely feels like it's worth $100,000 or more. Yeah, no, no doubt about it, it looks like it feels like it. You know, and the the launch version, which I think they're calling the lucid air dream edition, you know, that one's gonna be $170,000 all in. And then over the next few months after they, they start building them, you know, they'll they'll start building lower priced models by sometime in 2022. They'll have a version that's supposed to start at $80,000, which will have a shorter range at won't have that 500 mile range, it'll, it'll be somewhat less, but it'll probably still be at least 300 miles of range. You know, and I think that from a from a tech standpoint, the thing that really impresses me about what They've done here is right from the beginning. Rawlinson, his focus has been on optimizing the efficiency, the energy efficiency of every system in this vehicle. Because one of the challenges for ease, you know, batteries are big, heavy, bulky and expensive. And, you know, if you want more range up until now, you know the solution has been add more battery, well that adds cost that adds weight, you know, which is negative to efficiency and takes away from from room. So, you know, if you can make all of that stuff more efficient, then you can get range with less battery, which reduces your cost reduces your weight, you know, it's a virtuous circle, and this is this is the argument we heard from Hyundai when they launched the ionic a couple of years ago. You know, with the electric version Neo when it first came out and only had 124 miles of range and they said, Well, we picked you know, we decided to go with a smaller body Batteries 27 kilowatt hour battery, I think it was in the original one. And because we wanted to maximize the efficiency of this thing, they've subsequently gone to a larger, larger battery, you know, it gives you more range. But they really want to optimize for efficiency. Honda said the same thing when they did the electric versus the battery electric version of the clarity. You know, we went with a smaller battery for more efficiency, well, that's fine. But if you don't have enough range, you know, then that's it's not good enough. yet. It

Dan Roth  1:36:29  
also doesn't. Doesn't the air have one of it's got at least its top end right is the largest

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:37  
battery? Yeah, it's 113 kilowatt hours. But right. If you I did the math, you know, if you compare that to the hot the top end model, Tesla Model S, it's 402 mile range, at least EPA rated. I don't think it actually does that in real world. But you know, it does that with a 98 kilowatt hour. Battery, the the air is a little bit bigger 113 kilowatt hours. But when you adjust for the, you know, miles per kilowatt hour, the error still has a 14% advantage and efficiency, you know, so you know, just just based on the the battery size that would give you 15% more range, you know from the battery, but then they go another 14% beyond that So, they're they're getting more miles out of every kilowatt hour in that battery. And you know, they're going to offer versions with a smaller battery. And you know, one of the options will you know, from the beginning will be you can, you know, the way the modules are laid out in the in the battery pack under the floor, you can if you want extra rear leg room and foot room, you can get a version that they take four of the modules out from the middle of the battery pack where the rear foot underneath where the rear foot wall would be, and then they lower the rear floor. So you have more room back there. And you know, that version is still going to have well over 400 miles of range, you know, from, you know, with even with a little bit less battery capacity. So, you know, they did all these things, you know, a lot, a lot of cool engineering in there. And Dan, you mentioned you know that they went quiet for a while after after 2017. And partly a big part of that was because they were looking for money they were they needed to raise cash.

Dan Roth  1:38:26  
I thought you needed to make noise to raise money. You have to, like just come out on on Twitter and like go on Joe Rogan's show and stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:32  
You know, that's a nonsense. Peter doesn't even know Peter doesn't even have a Twitter account. And a smart man. Yeah. So you know, they ultimately ended up raising a billion dollars last year from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. So you know, the Saudis, the Saudi royal family basically owns the majority stake and do some really interesting given Saudis sort of

Dan Roth  1:38:58  
history with oil.

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:00  
dependency. So I'll tell you the the logic behind that is the reality is that Saudis running out of oil, I mean, at some point in time, they will run out. And they are such high demand domestically. That an every barrel of oil that they use domestically is a barrel of oil that they can't sell. So there's actually benefits to them, getting more fuel efficient engines out there. And, and Saudi Aramco actually has a, I think it's seven or eight engine labs spread around the world that are working on engine technology. And so because they realize the need to make oil last longer, and the way that you do that, of course, is through more efficient engines. And so that's one of the reasons that's one of the motivators behind the investment in things like lucid and so Yeah, so that's that's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:01  
the Tesla as well at one point and

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:03  
right so the demand the demand in Saudi is so extreme because they have a very young population. Most of the cars there are truck based SUVs. And and so there's no Look, there's no you they were working on fuel economy standards when I was there, that was one of the things that I worked on with them. I so it's, it's very counterintuitive until you understand more of the dynamics of what's going on inside the country.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:32  
So, you know, they've got, they've got their plant built now and in Arizona, you know, they're doing some pilot production and they will start full production in the spring of 2021.

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:43  
Well, and you know, it's funny, just the fact that the plant is in Arizona, because that hot weather testing that you know, there's such high demand on a battery in that kind of climate, by it's also very representative of the climate in the middle. Least. So, you know, it's again, it's kind of just it's counterintuitive to put a plant there, but at the same time, electric vehicle plant of all things. It makes a lot of sense.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:11  
Yeah. So, you know, it'll, you know, they've made a lot of big claims. Yeah, there's a lot of impressive things that they've talked about over the past several weeks. But, you know, now we have to wait until they actually are in production. And we can try this, you know, to see if they can actually deliver on these promises. Can they actually deliver a 500 mile range? Can they deliver the kind of efficiency they've talked about? And you know, can they do it with consistent quality?

Rebecca Lindland  1:41:36  
Yes, that's a huge thing. So Damn, Which one did you build?

Dan Roth  1:41:39  
I built I mean, I built the the like the ultimate level one and I picked a really nice red and the silverback part of the roof and like butterscotch colored interior,

Rebecca Lindland  1:41:56  
the interiors. I mean, Sam to your last point of Build quality, because the interior certainly look absolutely stunning. I mean, really stunning. And and you're right about, you know, there's people that we know, that are working here now, and that are long and longtime industry people. So there's clearly things that they're seeing that they believe in and that they want to be a part of, which is exciting.

Dan Roth  1:42:24  
Yeah. So good luck, send us cars when you have them, please.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:29  
We're talking with them hope to get Peter Rawlinson to join us as a guest in the next couple of weeks, I hope

Rebecca Lindland  1:42:36  
because I believe that they actually are going to have a dealer network, which, right, because they talked about

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:45  
the following Tesla Model and doing custom showrooms. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:42:50  
yeah. Okay. But you know, I think that that even there, I think it's really well thought out. I think that this I feel like sometimes Tesla's a little bit on the fly and This is a little bit more, you know, strategically thought out.

Dan Roth  1:43:04  
Yeah, well, you know, the ideas are good, I think and, and to be fair, that is also part of that culture is to, to, you know, make a move. It's it's the minimum viable product culture that comes out of, you know, software versus these sort of like, least harmful kind of this is not going to kill people culture, very, very carefully tested in two ways that comes out of automotive. And so, you know, software moves a lot faster than hardware in that sense. And you got to find the sort of right point and and, yeah, Tesla seems to be a little bit too, to tip to the like, we're gonna make a move and we'll figure it out as we go. Versus, you know, some other automakers that are a lot more cautious. So,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:52  
yeah, it's not something I neglected to mention through all this. Peter Rawlinson. He was the chief engineer on the Model S. Yeah, he worked at Tesla. He was the chief engineer on the SEC. He was the architect behind that car. And you know, so a lot of the things learned from developing that have gone into into this car. And, you know, they've done some things distinctly different from Tesla. And to your point, Dan, I think, you know, it's it's very much not Caesar the pants kind of thing. I think it is very, it's much better thought than, than what, what Elon Musk's approach to Bill's business.

Dan Roth  1:44:28  
Yeah. So good luck. Send us cars come on the show. Talking about it. We had some questions.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:44:35  
We had we have a bunch of them. So let's start with one that we can we skipped on last week, because we're running long. This is from Blake swan. So on the previous week's show, talking about performance bargains Harvey Simon asked a question I was yelling when listening to your discussion on Hackett retiring. The the object the objective the objectivity on this podcast seems to be lacking for any change. GM or Ford product discussed, the fact that Hackett and company decided to do away with his passenger vehicles has to be proved has proven to be a costly move. No way I'm getting an echo sport thing if I can get an affordable Ford, if I want to get an affordable Ford compounding The problem is the next generation focus and Fiesta are getting rave reviews overseas. Now wish I didn't have to hear that you are all close to Ford management and especially gave them a pass. Is that truly being a journalist in your eyes? So it was actually Blake's actually got a couple of questions. But let's, let's address that one first. Oh, actually, let me let me get to the next one. That ties in is also to clarify the last email all three of you do just do such a great job on the other manufacturers that might be cause for greater frustration. The Infinity q 50 q 60. redline was spot on. You capture the the good and the bad very accurately and I look forward to the podcast every week. I thank you for that. So What else? How do you guys want to respond to that question of objectivity, especially with regard to GM and Ford?

Dan Roth  1:46:07  
Um, you, Sam, you're based in Michigan and because of your day job and your your work history, you personally know, a lot of the people at the companies, that's not a terrible thing. I wouldn't say that we're close to Ford management, we have a familiarity the very same as you know, I out here in my my advertising side of my career, I know people at other agencies, I, you know, I know people at production companies and you know, it's an industry and I know we had the discussion about whether or not we consider ourselves part of the industry but it's the industry we cover at the very least so there's, I don't know that it's a we're close in there are buddies and we gave them a pass. I share Blake's frustration You know, Ford shut out some cars that I really think are, you know, viable products in the market. And I would love to have them here focus on the Fiesta, even the last ones were were good, and then they just let them sort of weather. They just they weren't selling and Ford is leveraged up to their motors still. So it's a it's a low margin business, they've got to make the moves to where they think they can make revenue. And I think that, you know, shutting up or not doing the cars and losing money, while they could take the same hardware and make crossovers and, you know, higher transaction prices, more revenue, potentially. That seems like the sort of moves you'd want to make from a from a sort of like business move perspective. I don't know that's worked out. But you know, they're Ford's cars like they seem to have cranked up the sticker prices to so It's like a one two but I personally I'm not not really all that close to four I think the person closest to it for this Mike Levine because I keep asking them for trucks. I don't know Rebecca, where are you in all of it? Oh,

Rebecca Lindland  1:48:14  
I would say I I don't I really don't know Jim Hackett at all. I've met him a couple of times, because right after he started, I moderated an event for four out in San Francisco Bay Area. That was, again right after he started. I would say I've had some really good constructive conversations with Jim Farley. And, and but I certainly was much closer to people like Mark Fields, and even Alan Mulally than I am to really spending one on one time with Jim Hackett I have not done that I have with the other with with the other two guys so I but you know I think that that there is an element to where it's a combination of, of you want to be objective, and I think that we are, for the most part, pretty objective. It's always constructive criticism, though. That's the thing that I think, you know, we don't trash any car for the sake of trashing the car or because, you know, like a PR person or something. But, you know, I think that there's a, there's a, there's a balance between, you know, between providing a constructive criticism, like talked a little bit of, he wrote a little bit more about understand the dynamics of the industry, and you can be blacklisted. I was I wrote an article my second article for Forbes way back in 2011. It was not a critical article, but the headline implied that it was critical and that manufacturer black Listed me for 10 years. So, you know it was they cancelled all my appointments with them, they cancelled it, it was just boom, that's it out. So it can happen. And I'll tell you it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:11  
does happen have and it does happen, having worked on the PR side of this business for time as well. I know I you know, I never did it or wanted it to happen, but I know that it does happen that people do get blacklisted when when they piss people off. You know, we are not actively trying to avoid that. Or, you know, you know, to actively piss anybody off.

Dan Roth  1:50:36  
No, that never plays into it. But I will say like you do have to have balance and when we have been critical most of the time. It's not something that's news to the automaker. Anyway, they've heard those criticisms of their product. And certainly internally, I'm sure that those criticisms came up before they even released it. So they have familiarity with the complaint. We're off Making and as long as just sort of backing it up, it's it's fair game if you just say, Well, I don't like this car because I don't like that company and I can't substantiate it. And oh, yeah, the PR guy's a jerk, and I'm going to have a feud with him. Yeah, you're gonna wind up, they're not gonna spend, you know, the money to put you in the product. And then have you have you trashed it, I realized that almost sounds like they're, they're threatening, and it's a pay to play. And it's, it's not. It's, it's, it's more PR, in some ways than it is journalism. And you have to bear that in mind and actually practice journalism. Because otherwise, you know, you just, you're you're you're a lifestyle blogger, which has its place. I'm not crapping on lifestyle bloggers, but it's different. You know. So we try to offer that informed criticism and critique while also, you know, understanding fairly, what we're what we're saying. And that's our Job like, if if I don't like something, I have to step back and say, Do I not like it because of me? Do I think that this is wrong because of, you know, decisions they've made that put it sort of in this place amongst this competitive set, you know, so there's it's it's a, it's an active, you know, it's a job it's it's so I I'm curious, though, why there's that. That consideration especially with Ford, that were we gave them a pass because i don't i don't know that we did. I mean, we've talked about their, their products before then. And I love the feedback too. So I want to feel like we're sort of like, carping here like, we're Yeah, we're not

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52:39  
we're not being defensive. We're just trying to explain where we're coming from.

Rebecca Lindland  1:52:44  
Yeah, I think that we consistently, you know, go into every product. With the mindset of positive we want to get into a car and we want to like it, because this is a big deal for people a lot of time and energy and resources. have gone into this car. It's funny, because when I think about products like the like the Lexus infotainment system where we all had issues, but I gotta tell you, every time I sit in that car, I want that thing to be better. The last time, you know, I want to like it, I want to have a good experience with it. And that I think it's our mindset for the most part. And if we, if we have a better experience, like for instance, the idea, I like the fact that now it has Android Auto and it didn't before. And, you know, with a Ford, I think that we've all you know, had those experiences where it was okay. It wasn't the best thing that we've ever driven, but it wasn't the worst thing. But when they do things like the Lincoln aviator that interior is stunning. And we look, we look uninformed to say otherwise because across the board people acknowledge that that interior is stunning. So, you know, I think that there's, we there's objectivity there. But there's also the objectivity of want, we, I think we bias towards, we do want to like it, we want to like all the products that are put in front of us, because not because of the favoritism, but because we know what's gone into the design of that product. We know that years of engineering and development and time and energy and money and the resources required to come out with a vehicle, the complexity of the vehicle, the engineering, all those things. It's, you want those people to succeed. I even Tesla, I've said it before, and I will say it again, nobody wins, if these brands fail, and so we want them to do well. And so I think that that are we we do bias towards positive but I think for the for different reasons. And then they be, then we then we've necessarily stated before.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:55:05  
And, you know, to the specific question about giving for to pass, you know, on doing away with cars, you know, I think I think we have expressed our frustration that, you know, new focus and Fiesta, you know, we can't get them. You know, but at least for me personally, you know, I also I understand the business reasons why, and I don't, I don't disagree, fundamentally, you know, with why they did it. You know, why they discontinued those products in North America from a business perspective. You know, as somebody that likes cars and likes to drive fun cars, I am disappointed and annoyed that we can't get those cars here. You know, and but, you know, I've also, you know, I've expressed my disappointment and annoyance, you know, with the American consumer that mostly refuses to buy those cars?

Dan Roth  1:56:00  
Well, you know, it might be different. Yeah, it might be different with the, in the case of the focus in particular, the only way you're getting a focus here is the escape and escape. That's one of those that was like, okay, it's it is expensive in its competitive set, and it doesn't blow you away. Like it's expensive, and it's good and it has more power than than a lot of the competition. But yeah, you know, kind of kind of left me a little cold. So it's not it's not like like sort of like a class leading product that you might expect if they're, if they're going to narrow their offerings so much and really kill it in a single segment. That's not what happened. So I can understand Blake's frustration if he's trying out cars trying to get that that sort of the focus hardware here and the only way you can and it's just not as good as we'd like it to be. It looks good, though. That's

Rebecca Lindland  1:57:04  
also I mean, I remember I, ironically talking to Jim Farley about this, when they decided to I to discontinue cars. The reality is that from a marketing standpoint, from a market standpoint, you know, we're at like, 80% car truck now. And you know, which just a couple years ago is 5050. And people define when people talk about their car, they are actually often talking about a crossover. So their definition of a car is different. And we've as a market we have migrated away from thinking of a car as a sedan, or, you know, God forbid, a hatchback. You know, we talked earlier about the influence of baby boomers on the marketplace and hatchbacks are one of one of the body cells that they kill Gen X loves hatchbacks for their practicality. Baby Boomers hate them, because they that's what they have. Do crappy Ford Escort hatchbacks?

Dan Roth  1:58:03  
I suppose Gen X is clean up the mess you boomers left us. And it is it's funny, like crossovers are basically like small wagons.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:14  
They are elevated wagons.

Rebecca Lindland  1:58:16  
They're elevated wagon. Exactly.

Dan Roth  1:58:18  
So um, guy. Yes. So I was just gonna say, you know, hopefully we address that for you, Blake and please keep keep the conversation going. Because Yeah, I don't I don't want it to come off as we're defensive. But hopefully that gives you a little bit more insight into at least where our heads are at.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:58:37  
All right. So let me Next one is also from Mr. Blake swan. I'm assuming it's Mr. It is don't think I've ever met I don't I don't think I've ever met a woman named Blake but anyway. When discussing the Volvo XC 90 power trends, I was curious in your thoughts of losing the supercharger and adapting the new 48 volt electric turbo chargers would make this more efficient lighter engine, I believe borgwarner BMT, si and Mitsubishi all make similar designs with Garrett being a little different. Do you do you think Volvo would use this going forward? Or was that a one time development cost that they won't look at making again because of the V hybrid focus? Also, I followed up with some insiders to the industry. If I was being too harsh for saying that there's bias with Jim Ford with the previous question. I was told all five told by all fives I was wrong simply because I do not fully understand manufacturers ban exclude people. If there's one criticism mentioned about the car you'd got to drive. I was told that you could. You could lose seven positives in one you could post seven positives in one negative the company rep will reach out to tell you it was not appreciated that your characterize the car and will make life tough for you. With the brand going forward, essentially the manufacturers dictate the rules and everyone plays along unless said been around long enough in my industry that there's a fan base that's quite large for them apologize for the unfair statement. So let me let me address that last part first, I have written many negative reviews, I've given many negative reviews over the last 414 years I've been doing this. And, you know, I have had PR people follow up to, you know, to ask, you know, if, you know, or to try to understand what the what the issue was, in some cases, not all this sometimes, you know, it just let it slide. I personally, you know, you know, I guess I must be a much nicer guy than Rebecca. I've never, to my knowledge, at least been banned by anybody. But you know, I think, you know, I think usually when they do blacklist somebody you know, to Rebecca's previous point, there's usually something else behind it. It's not Yeah, you have a negative review.

Dan Roth  2:00:57  
You've been asked.

Rebecca Lindland  2:00:58  
Yeah, yeah. I had never I This was I was not asking. Sure you

Dan Roth  2:01:04  
Well, no, I mean, generally barred. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:01:08  
I said that that is still a strange, strange situation with you in that particular company. I don't know what's going on. Yes,

Rebecca Lindland  2:01:14  
it is being resolved, though. I will say, Okay, that's good.

Dan Roth  2:01:17  
Yes. Yeah, there are, it's weird because there are little fiefdoms. And those people move around. And so they'll be at one company, they'll build their fiefdom. And they'll have their favorite journalists and their, their sort of their their blacklist and move to another company. And that situation follows them. So it's, it's weird as a journalist, it's like, Okay, well, if you don't want to sell any of the cars, don't send them to me to drive. That's fine. Whatever you like, you don't like what I have to say. All right, but it's never really been my experience that they're watching that closely. You send them clips and links so that they know that their their media loan has been effective because they have to report on that. And so to a certain degree, it's a symbiotic relationship, right? Like you gave me the thing. I made the content, here's the content so you can justify why you gave me the thing. So you can give me more things. And this was not

Rebecca Lindland  2:02:06  
it was actually a car review. That's even weird. It was a, it was a commentary on and the it was it was basically talking about their standing and they're in there in the marketplace and then So, as I said, I just I had a number of conversations with them afterwards and they were they just basically shut me down.

Dan Roth  2:02:31  
That's such a PR mistake. Like that's that is your opportunity. That's your opening to go on a charm offensive. And to just shut somebody out like that is really it comes off as

Rebecca Lindland  2:02:40  
they I think their their perspective was they didn't need me I needed them. which is which is it. And to Blake's point, like that's That is very true. There are, you know, the first thing that they look at are the numbers. You know, and so I don't know I mean, I just Yeah, I don't know.

Dan Roth  2:03:05  
I've never gotten, I've never gotten called out like that. We're like, Oh, you wrote a negative review. And you know, like, we didn't appreciate it. Like, often it's like, Hey, you wrote this thing. I'd love to talk with you about it a little more, and then you get an interview out of you get more calm, more content.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:03:22  
So to the question of the Volvo power trains and using electric turbos, I wouldn't rule out seeing Volvo adopt electric turbos in the future. You know, there, there are some challenges with them, you know, obviously, it does require adoption of a 48 volt electrical system, and Volvo is actually doing that they're removing to make that standard, you know, their new products coming out, that will be the baseline is 48 volt, mild hybrid systems, and then, you know, strong hybrids on top of that. So, you know, we may well see them, do that. You know, at the time that their current generation of stuff was developed those electric turbos were not ready in the marketplace yet. There are some that are out there. Now, Audi uses them. Mercedes Benz uses them on some of their engines, Mercedes on their new three liter inline six has an electron e booster on there. And there are other manufacturers going this direction. So I wouldn't rule out them then using 48 volt turbos going forward.

Dan Roth  2:04:27  
Yeah, I think that the difference to me would be is it lighter? Is it less complex? And does it does it fit the rest of the power train? And I think that the answers to all that is probably yes. You know, even the, the motors you're going to have in there to spin them up are going to be lighter than some of the extra plumbing ready, you're trading one thing for another. And that's that's all the engineering is compromised? Yeah. But I think yeah, definitely the fact that you can spin them up so quickly, versus waiting for the pressure drop to do it with The like actual physics probably helps out and it's basically like what is the superchargers that they use it they're really popular in the 80s and 90s Pro chargers they were basically like a turbine side of a turbocharger with a gearbox on the front

Sam Abuelsamid  2:05:17  
yes I forget who made those the basically switch all supercharger Yeah,

Dan Roth  2:05:23  
yeah. So yeah, but it's I think it's probably possible. I don't know that Volvo is really looking to develop another engine. So I think that drive e powertrain they're gonna just keep tweaking it until they absolutely have to do another engine if they have to. But

Sam Abuelsamid  2:05:44  
yeah, like I said, I don't think they'll do an all new engine but I could see them updating the existing one you know, and dropping the supercharger and going dropping the mechanical supercharger and going with an E two or E turbo instead. And all all adults I'll put a link in the show notes to an article I did when I interviewed Garrett last year on their e turbos. And it's got some some good information in there about that as well.

Dan Roth  2:06:12  
All right. All right, next next question what do we got what I want to cover a C,

Sam Abuelsamid  2:06:19  
compact cars and China either left continue to love the show and look forward to new episodes. And this is from Yaakov Nimoy. The longer the better. Well, there's been a while since I've sent sent you folks and unsolicited peace of my mind though I fill in a few gaps in the Chinese market for you, and why they are why there are long wheelbase versions of compact sedans that Americans don't buy anymore. Cue the market is that cars cost effectively twice as much in absolute cost compared to the US. China may have a larger market for cars overall but owning a compact sports sedan like a BMW three series or even a three Audi A three is already Consider the minor status symbol. For someone who has made it in a minor way, this could very well be the family car. That driver may not be able to afford a chauffeur all the time, but certainly hires one now and then even when they are doing the driving, you often have full size adults such as your parents in the back. All those things factor in before even considering the cost of fuel and the size of some of the older streets, you may find yourself driving down. When I drove my brother in law's 535 al down the wrong alley a couple of years ago, I discovered that it just barely fit with about two inches of clearance on either side and had to creep along at about a mile an hour waiting for pedestrians to slowly walk down the street. Unfortunately, ultimately, we may see just as many premium and luxury cars on the road in China as you do here in the US, especially compared to the San Francisco Bay area where we live. But there's far more tearing of cars as status symbols compared to anywhere else in the world. The implicit expectation there culturally For anyone in the middle class who is interested in getting married is to have a car and a house. So the details matter a lot. PS love the special edition, Rebecca has become to the show. It feels like the three of you really have gel together as good complimentary hosts, love, especially loves that perspective she brings to all sorts of vehicles to get me to rethink my American male centric point of view of cars. The show is some amazing give and take dynamics that make you feel like one could just jump into the conversation. And I don't think you folks need to worry at all about that anyone talks over her? You can really sense the deep respect that you all have for each other and we do have enormous respect for for Rebecca, thank you. Thank you, Mr.

Rebecca Lindland  2:08:40  
Lita view and believe me, nobody talks over me because I'm

Unknown Speaker  2:08:44  
me. We

Dan Roth  2:08:46  
need to have somebody who knows what they're talking about on the show. Okay,

Rebecca Lindland  2:08:52  
very, very sweet. Thanks. That means a lot more than you know. Thank you.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:08:55  
Let's let's get one more before we wrap it up here. from Peter Fagel. Hello years and years ago your your answer to most questions was Honda Fit. And then years and years ago was years and years and years ago. It was Honda Fit years and years ago. It was Miata years ago. It was GTI. Now it's telluride. palisade what will it be tomorrow greetings from my wife who enjoys your your envy about her VW t five yeah for those who don't know the T five I believe is the latest edition of the the transporter the van the microbus for Peter from Bavaria, Germany. So what will it be tomorrow after telluride and palisade

Rebecca Lindland  2:09:36  
please say the air

Dan Roth  2:09:42  
Ah, yeah, I it's funny because it really the next question I asked is like, what are you doing with it? You know, and we recommend those cars a lot because there there's pretty versatile and I guess a lot of the people I'm talking to are you know, they have a similar similar set of needs that I do, you know, where we've got to move the family and the dogs and stuff and all all around. So, it there's ringers in every segment, there's not really that many cars anymore on the market, you know, or vehicles overall, like there's there's a lot less choice than there used to be. So I don't know. Um, the next answer Corvette $60,000. I mean, come on.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:10:29  
I think can't go wrong with that.

Dan Roth  2:10:30  
That's true. I say it looks like a McLaren. And it goes like stink. I mean.

Rebecca Lindland  2:10:35  
Well, it's I think, to his point, what's, you know, when we think back? I never know when the Honda Fit was an appropriate answer, but that's a different thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:10:43  
But it was always an appropriate answer if what you were looking for was a reasonably affordable small car that was fun to drive.

Rebecca Lindland  2:10:50  
Okay. So it was a better answer. But, so I think

Sam Abuelsamid  2:10:57  
it's also more expensive.

Rebecca Lindland  2:10:59  
Yes. Of course it is. But I think that to his point, it's this idea of where is mobility going, right? Where are we moving as a culture and, and I've said it before. And I feel like I've said that numerous times on the show today, I but, you know, people migrate towards convenience, they migrate towards a better solution than what they have today. And one of the one of the interesting and fascinating parts of the market right now is that we do have a very diverse marketplace, unlike we've had for a long time. So you do have people that look at things like Uber and Lyft, as a more convenient, viable solution to owning a vehicle. And that's a harder discussion to have with people that are in their 60s and 70s. And don't live in an urban environment. But what's fascinating now, is because of the pandemic Is that still the case for people? Or has a core value of safety and security? and feeling like you're not going to get a disease from the last person that sat in that seat? Does that over cup does that does that Trump the the convenience part of it, so now is suddenly buying something like the Honda Fit or smaller vehicle for your urban mobility needs a better solution? And we don't know that yet. Because we're still in the midst of everything. So I think it's a great, great question. I think it's really fascinating to look at,

Dan Roth  2:12:33  
you know, big fortresses. So the top

Sam Abuelsamid  2:12:39  
Yeah, no, I think, you know, in general, you know, there aside from the Miata, there is no silver bullet that, you know, answers every question. But you know, I think, you know, more, having diversity in the marketplace, I think is great. You know, I think that I guess I would say the one thing that is likely To be part of that answer tomorrow is electrification. And to some degree, whether that's, you know, hybrid plug in hybrid or battery electric, that will almost certainly be part of the equation for whatever, whatever we end up choosing, and, you know, near term, you know, it'll probably be something like electric crossovers, you know, something like a CRV rav4 escape, you know, but that's electric, you know, and, you know, a couple of weeks we're going to see the new VW ID for which is going to go into production here next year, and will be available here in the US next year. Their first MTB platform vehicle here. You know, Audi's got the key for E Tron, which is on that same platform. We're going to be you know, we're going to see stuff from Hyundai and Kia and, and many other manufacturers that is electric. That, you know, those vehicles are going to get more affordable. You know, going As we keep going forward. And so I think that's that's the one thing I can say almost with certainty is that electrification will be part of whatever the answer is.

Rebecca Lindland  2:14:11  
Yes. And not only affordable but more convenient. Yes, a better replacement, a better replacement for your internal combustion

Sam Abuelsamid  2:14:17  
engine, something something that requires fewer lifestyle compromises, to use it resonated, yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  2:14:24  
perceived or otherwise. Yeah.

Dan Roth  2:14:27  
Yeah, sorry. Well, I mean, you know, keep listening, and then tell us in a couple years, whether you're accurate. Well, on that note, it's it's two hours of show, so the longer the better. There you go. So I think we're good to wrap up. Thanks for listening, everybody. Keep the emails and comments rolling in and talk to you next time. Yes. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai