Dan Roth  0:03  
this is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes

Rebecca Lindland  0:06  
and Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives.

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

Dan Roth  0:11  
So Welcome back, everybody. This is Episode 161. And let's jump right into, into vehicles into what we're driving. So I'll just go down the list Sam, you've been in the Cadillac CT, five premium luxury all wheel drive 550 T.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:30  
shirt, they're learning from BMW.

Dan Roth  0:34  
The car that is really good, but they really should focus on making better luxury crossovers that people pay attention to because nobody's gonna buy this. Oh, it's selling alright.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:46  
Yeah, it's actually not selling bad. You know, and it's, you know, this is an indirect replacement for the CTS and it's actually selling better than the CTS was. I think it you know, launched late last year went on sale late, you know, Last year, and then obviously got stalled out in the spring. But you know, this is their their mid size sedan. And it's actually a little bit smaller overall a little shorter overall than the CTS was, but has a longer wheelbase and it's actually roomier inside than the CTS was. And it I really like driving this thing it was it was really good. You know, when when the first

Dan Roth  1:24  
thing I've heard is that it's it's great to drive it's actually better than the CTS. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28  
no, absolutely. Yeah. I mean when when we first saw this thing last year when they first dropped some photos of it, that the original batch of photos they they showed before they did a brought media in and showed it to us. The photos were not great, especially, you know, kind of the back quarter of the car from the front it looks look great. The back quarter of the car, it didn't really do it justice. And you know, when you actually see it in person, it actually looks a lot better. I think You know, it's it's got, you know, the typical fastback sedan styling now, although it is a sedan it's not a hatchback the you know if there's if there's a flaw to the design, you know, it's in the C pillar area where they did this thing you know what because the Fastback you know, you have this kind of chunk in there between the back edge of the door they didn't want to make the seep they didn't want to make the C pillar look solid and heavy right there. So instead of putting in a little piece of glass there, they actually put in a piece of black plastic in that corner there.

Dan Roth  2:37  
Which and then they call attention to it. Yes. Which makes it look sort of heavy. Yeah, so it's, you know, with that little funky like that weird, I don't know dip in the trim that it does there.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:51  
Yeah, it's got it's got a you know, that that line, that belt line there, you know, is very reminiscent of the current the current generation Honda Accord. You know, not it's not as bad, but it doesn't look original, unfortunately. But the rest of the car looks great. And, you know, once you get inside, you know, I no complaints about it. You know, one of the complaints we have had about some Cadillacs of late is that the materials and the finish, you know, the fit and finish didn't really look up to par for, you know, for a premium vehicle, you know, some of the plastics looked a little, little cheaper than they should. This one definitely looked and felt better, you know, and when I actually saw the car in person last year, for the first time before the New York Auto Show last year, I got the same impression, you know, it looks fairly premium. So, you know, no complaints about the interior design. For the most part, there are a couple of little oddities like for example, you know, there's actually three three different volume controls. On this thing, there is a volume knob at the lower left corner of the touchscreen. There's also a volume knob on the console beside the the little jog dial controller. And then of course, you have the volume controls on the steering wheel. And this has the same steering wheel that you were complaining about Rebecca on the x86 last time where they did kind of an odd layout with the the forward reverse buttons and the volume controls, you know, so the volume, the volume, the two volume switches are on on the lower edge of this right hand spoke. So you're going left and right to go up and down with the volume. And then the forward reverse buttons are to towards the inner part of the spoke next to the hub of the steering wheel. So you pressing up, up and down to go forward and back and it really should kind of be the reverse of that.

Rebecca Lindland  4:55  
Thank you for validating my my feelings of inadequacy and handling that

Sam Abuelsamid  5:00  
Yeah, no.

Dan Roth  5:01  
I mean, it makes sense. Not to turn the volume up. You press the up button, right? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  5:06  
exactly. It's it doesn't make logical sense. It's kind of like the old the original Audi MMI system where they had you know, the graphics were kind of art you know, it was a circular graphical design,

Dan Roth  5:18  
you know, but mmm MMI the stupid knob turned the wrong exactly what is Yeah. There's like why, you know, you get the German answer like why would you do that the way you're doing that's how it is

Rebecca Lindland  5:29  
and you will like it

Dan Roth  5:31  
right? You buy software like switch it can adjust like and they should do that for the volume and the like, they can switch that in software. I guarantee you Cadillac can switch that Yeah, so the UP DOWN rocker does volume and left right except except

Sam Abuelsamid  5:46  
the buttons are labeled. So yeah, well, that's that's their

Rebecca Lindland  5:50  
own. Understand how that I'm digressing. How does that get past design like? Are we the only ones that think that's weird?

Dan Roth  5:57  
No. There's so many decisions that happen like that. It's like, did you do human factor studies? Did you guys just get so far inside your own project that you, you changed something fundamental but got so used to eat that it's now a shock when everybody's first sort of attempted operating your thing is wrong. I think

Sam Abuelsamid  6:21  
I think that might be part of it. But I think that there's, there's another aspect of that, and that is that the to the Up Down buttons that you would think should be for volume, because of where they're placed towards the the central part of the spoke. You know, if your hands are on the steering wheel, it can actually be it's actually quite a bit of a reach with your thumb to hit those. Yeah. And so they're, they're actually less convenient to use, you know, so you've got this area and the outer part of the spoke that's empty, there's nothing there. And then those buttons towards the inner part of the spoke and you've got to reach over to hit those and Whereas the two volume buttons, even though they're intuitively in the wrong position, they're actually easier to use. But wait a second, this is a GM car. Why don't

Dan Roth  7:07  
they just take the steering wheel from the trucks that has the stuff on the backside of the spokes?

Sam Abuelsamid  7:12  
Because it's a Cadillac, you don't want to test that you want to, you want to actually be able to see the buttons. Use laser plastic, but

Dan Roth  7:21  
I love that feature a great.

Rebecca Lindland  7:23  
No, I know, I know exactly what you mean, I totally agree with you.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:28  
The problem with that is, you know, it's actually probably really intuitive if you drive that vehicle all the time. When you jump in and out of different cars all the time, though. Every time I get into a GM vehicle that has those buttons on the back of the spoke, I always hit the wrong ones. I can no remember if it's left or right for volume and forward and back.

Dan Roth  7:47  
Right. I think they're I think they're opposite of FCA for you. Yes, and

Rebecca Lindland  7:50  
I coincidence why I've written my car I'm going to be talking about and I have some of the same economic issues so there'll be a theme for this show was unintentional

Sam Abuelsamid  8:02  
There's actually I think there's actually another explanation probably for why they didn't use those on the on the Cadillac. And that's because you can deal with paddle shifters. Yeah, they get in the way it really you have the buttons on the back there with the paddle shifters. So, you know, it's a little bit of this a little bit of that, but overall you know, I mean that's that's a relatively minor annoyance, you know, the rest of them are I really liked

Dan Roth  8:29  
Yeah, and the solution is like a manual transmission and then you can get the buttons on the steering wheel. There you go. Everything is fine. Yeah, perfect.

Unknown Speaker  8:35  
Yeah, it's not that

Sam Abuelsamid  8:37  
but yeah, the the one I drove was the premium locks and, you know, as you know, as Cadillac has done over the last couple of years, you know, they've gone to this sort of like configuration for their trims on all their vehicles. So you've got the, the base models and then you have either sport or premium luck. which are both priced relatively the same. You know, the sport you know, obviously is geared a little bit more towards a sporty feel and has kind of the blacked out grille and things like that. Premium locks is a little more traditional luxury look and feel to it. The one I had was the 550 t, which in Cadillacs new parlance, the the numbering now refers to the torque output of the power train in Newton meters. So it's roughly 550 Newton meters here and if

Dan Roth  9:33  
I can, the only

Sam Abuelsamid  9:35  
the only part the only part you have to know is you know, you can get the 400 T or the 550 T and the five 550 is more than 400 and 400.

Dan Roth  9:45  
Yeah, to be fair, Buick used to put the torque numbers on there air cleaners back in the day, but like Newton meters I can't wait for this to get into the dealership and have people talking about nana nana

Sam Abuelsamid  9:59  
yeah

Dan Roth  10:02  
It's a completely different thing, but whatever. I mean, did you

Rebecca Lindland  10:05  
feel like you were driving a Cadillac when you drove it though?

Sam Abuelsamid  10:10  
I mean, what what is the Cadillac feel like anymore?

Rebecca Lindland  10:12  
Well, that's part of the tragedy, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  10:14  
Yeah. I mean, certainly, you know, compared to the Cadillacs when I was growing up, no, it doesn't feel anything like that. That's apparently good. Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, when I was when I was in high school, you know, plan waterpolo one of my teammates was driving an old like a 71 or 72 sedan DeVille with a 500 cubic inch VA that made a van is a fine it was brown. You know, this thing was massive

Dan Roth  10:46  
brown before

Sam Abuelsamid  10:49  
this thing to go to game, who knows? You know, but you know, we go over a bumper, you know, railroad tracks or something wallow in, bouncing up and down for about five minutes. Support finally someone's giving you

Dan Roth  11:02  
experience right?

Sam Abuelsamid  11:07  
Just like being in a waterbed. Yeah, good, but no, I mean, it feels like a like a modern Cadillac which you know is a good thing it feels even even as the premium loxia It feels nice and buttoned down and well controlled, you know, good body control, good ride quality, you know, really, really nice balance of ride and handling. You know, I think it's, it's a really, really nice premium car. And you know, the 550 t means that you've got the twin turbo V six the three liter twin turbo V six with 335 horsepower, and, you know, plenty of power and you're really really good. You felt really good to drive.

Dan Roth  11:48  
Is that the only I think that's the only CT five besides the V series so that's like the only regular CT five you can get with that engine. You can't get it in the sport, right?

Sam Abuelsamid  11:59  
I think Yeah. You Get it I think you can get it into sport. I believe you can get the V six in the sport. But the the the 10 speed automatic transmission, you know, in all the applications where GM has used this transmission This is the one that they developed with with Ford. I think GM across the board has done a better job calibrating this transmission than Ford has. You know it, it's very smooth and seamless. You know, you don't it doesn't feel like it's constantly shifting around trying to figure out what gear should be in they've done a better job on their controls than Ford did. It's you know, I drove it out to to Grand Rapids and back to go visit with main mobility out there. And it's been 100 miles each way. You know, the seats are really comfortable supportive. This one that I had, you know, had the full gamut of Driver Assist features so it had had the adaptive cruise control Lane Keeping Assist. gms Lane Keeping Assist you know, does not even make any pretense to tours trying to do lane centering that is strictly the province of supercruise supercruise is coming to the CT five, but not until like early next year. It was supposed to have launched by now, but because of the pandemic, they had some supplier issues so they had to push back the launch on the CT five and CT four until early in the year the escalate will be getting it right after launch. So it'll have supercruise this fall. So I haven't had a chance to try the second generation supercruise yet, but the you know the adaptive cruise control work great. There's a nice big heads up display in this one. Yeah. So you've got all your information right in front of you. It also had the the digital camera mirror system which you know, this is an upgraded version from the original. It's got higher resolution and higher frame rate than the original version did when they launched A couple years ago and CT six and bolt. So it looks more a little more natural. And after driving that, you know, on on the CT five and then this week on the Silverado that I'm driving, I really wish I'd had that feature in the Corvette the week before, because that would have been, that would have been a great feature to have in the vet to actually have some rear visibility. But you know, it's it's a really good car. And you know, the starting price for the CT five is about $35,000 or $36,000. The one I had was priced out the all wheel with all wheel drive, which mine had starts at about 41 for the all wheel for the premium locks, sorry, rather than all wheel drive, fully. Option doubt delivered. This one was 59 365 which, you know, is not cheap. But you know, I think that it's you know, it's very competitive with something like a BMW or Audi. You know, like Three series are certainly compared to a five series, a five series with this kind of level of equipment would be significantly more, you know, three series probably pretty comparable and, and the, you know, an outtie you know, if this would probably be, I guess, like a little, maybe a little smaller than an a six, you know, between an a six and a five, you know, that would certainly be more expensive than this. So, you know, I think it's, you know, it's definitely something that people should be considering if they're looking for a premium sedan.

Dan Roth  15:34  
How does it go down the river does it you know, cuz the last Cadillac I had was the XT four and I quite liked the way drove you know, it was really disciplined and it rode and handled well, it was, you know, a little, little loud, the four cylinder wasn't great, but this, you know, in this configuration, you've got the V six, so that's probably a lot more refined feeling and I'm assuming it still has the same kind of attention to the ride and handling balance. Yeah, doing pretty well that way.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:01  
Yeah, the driving dynamics are great. The V six is definitely way more refined than the four cylinder I would definitely recommend, you know, if you're if you're going to get a CT five, you know, if you can swing it for the for the V six, definitely go for that over the base four cylinder, because the four is the same one that's in the Z four, although it's turned 90 degrees.

Dan Roth  16:23  
And it's a good engine. It's just yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  16:24  
it's just not as refined as it should be for you know, for this, this price point, this level of car there, I do have to call out one issue with this and I reached out to Cadillac and haven't heard back, you know, but whether the car was driving was a pre production model or not, or regular production version. Because there there was one quality issue, which is the driver side rear door was not particularly well aligned. And given how much we've you know, called up, you know, Tesla on air, you know, panel gaps and things like that, you know, it would, you know, I have to call out GM on this one, you know, I'll will include a picture of this in the in the show notes. But the the rear door on the driver's side was you could see, you know, when you look in the driver's side on the outside mirror on the driver's side, yeah, you could see where it steps up a little bit, the the chrome trim along the around the windows, you can see that it wasn't lined up correctly. And I think that that was also leading to a little bit of excess wind noise that I was noticing on that side of the car when driving at highway speeds.

Dan Roth  17:36  
Was there any evidence of accent anything? Nothing,

Sam Abuelsamid  17:39  
nothing, nothing noticeable? I mean, there was no scuffs or anything, you know, I think it was just not not built, right. How many

Unknown Speaker  17:45  
matches

Sam Abuelsamid  17:49  
but 2000 miles? Yeah, not not a lot, right. So it was it was a fairly new car.

Dan Roth  17:56  
Huh? Well, it happens sometimes. Sometimes. feel bad?

Sam Abuelsamid  18:02  
Yeah, you know, and, you know, if I was, you know, if I was going to the dealer and taking delivery of the car, you know, and I saw that I, you know, I would not take delivery of the car until I fixed it.

Rebecca Lindland  18:13  
Well, since since one of our listeners Blake called us out as favoring GM and Ford. I think that that kind of stuff that can't happen anymore.

Dan Roth  18:23  
How do we favor GM?

Sam Abuelsamid  18:25  
That's not such

Unknown Speaker  18:26  
a crap file. Hi, Mike. Hi.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:31  
No glitter on

Rebecca Lindland  18:33  
me. Yes, I know. But as you say, you know, we we call it Tesla a lot of this kind of stuff, but this is sort of that that's that 70s 80s gm. That's not okay. You know, hopefully, it is pre production now.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:48  
Yeah. And yeah, I mean, you know, we've seen flaws like this and other cars to try to call it out when we notice it.

Rebecca Lindland  18:55  
Yeah, no, I had another menu. I had a Nissan that that had a really pretty egregious, like, it was incredibly noticeable. And I think they pulled it from the fleet as well.

Dan Roth  19:07  
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, interior wise, you said that it felt much better. Did you have a color in there? Did they do the normal?

Sam Abuelsamid  19:16  
Black? No, this one had the Sedona interior was put on a leather with jet black accents.

Dan Roth  19:24  
Because it did a nice job naming colors like they have like maple sugar that just makes me want to pick it, you know? And it does. I think that's, that's an air the interior design is really nice on it. I do like the you know, the ergonomics maybe aren't aren't. Maybe there's a little too much touchscreen, but it looks like there's there's several buttons down below.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:42  
Oh, well, I mean, you know, compared to a lot of stuff out there. I mean, this, you know, it's a good size touchscreen, that's a 10 inch display. But, you know, this is nothing, you know, it at least does have physical controls for the climate controls. Things like that. That's that's all buttons. You know, and it's basic. Just the the nav and a the audio that's in the, in the touchscreen, everything else has physical controls. And that's not terrible and and you can use that that, you know, that central control knob to do a lot of the stuff that's in the touchscreen anyway so

Dan Roth  20:17  
alright, so I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  20:18  
there's also a huge backseat, which is, you know, always a good thing.

Rebecca Lindland  20:22  
It's just a it's a, I'm sorry, I was thinking at that x86 or 65 that we had before. So the backseat is a nice, I mean, yeah, it's

Sam Abuelsamid  20:31  
very, very roomy in the back. And oh, one other thing, just glancing at my photos. One thing that I do that I really do appreciate is it had the front seats have adjustable thigh bolsters. So depending on you know, the proportion of your, your hip to knee length, you know, in some cases like you know, I have fairly long thighs and I like to have a little bit, a little bit longer distance, you know, a little more special Under my thighs when I'm driving, and so being able to stretch that out, you know, is is nice, you know, and but still have it be adjustable so that, you know somebody with Rebecca's proportions, you know would also fit well, no, that's actually

Rebecca Lindland  21:12  
a really good point though because, as you mentioned before you drove 100 miles each way that is wearing if you're, if you are not comfortable, if that seat isn't giving you the type of support that you need, that's where a car gets really tiring to be in, you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  21:30  
completely refreshed after you know, four and a half hours in the car.

Rebecca Lindland  21:32  
No, that's great. That's great. Did it did it have ventilated seats?

Sam Abuelsamid  21:37  
It did have heated and ventilated seats. Obviously the the heat didn't i didn't use on the on a 90 plus degree day. But I did use the ventilated seats and those are those are always nice to have as Yes.

Dan Roth  21:51  
ventilated seats, kind of everyone have them be useful or effective and if you call them now they're more my love. They work better for you.

Rebecca Lindland  22:01  
Especially after I gave I'm after I'm coming back from from working out like at soulcycle oh yeah that's happiness

Sam Abuelsamid  22:09  
you know on a hot sunny day you know when you get back into first get back into the car you know before the air conditioning really cranks up and starts blowing up cold air you know having those ventilated seats you know get a little bit of of cooling going you know, right away on your backside you know, especially if you've been walking around outside is definitely definitely feels really good.

Rebecca Lindland  22:31  
Yeah. And on those black interiors, especially as you say, like and that sun putting that on a desert, it makes a big difference. And I think more and more we're seeing them and more and more cars of all different price points. You know, yeah, that the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid had them which I thought was fantastic.

Dan Roth  22:51  
All right, I'm that's it sounds it sounds like. Cadillac has finally hit its stride just in time for them to be making the complete phone car market.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:01  
ml as long as they can carry this through to the stuff that they're you know, that they're doing going forward you know, I think in the next year or two we'll see an update to the to the Z five you know certainly the Escalade coming up that's actually on sale now they're doing we've already started delivering knows, you know, and getting into cars like the lyric you know, then it's I think they're, they'll be in good shape.

Rebecca Lindland  23:26  
Yeah, I think so. We have to think about globally, you know, they they sell Cadillacs and a lot of other places as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:32  
Yeah, that's a very good point, you know, cars like that CT five, you know, are still more popular in China than they are right.

Dan Roth  23:41  
Yeah, but I thought like even this CT five with a longer wheelbase, but shorter overall, like isn't this kind of small for that market? Don't they prefer like larger longer sedans? Not maybe

Sam Abuelsamid  23:51  
not. I mean, yeah, yes. And no, I mean, they also like, you know, the compact to mid size sedans. And this is why for example, you know, in China, you'll find, you know, long wheelbase versions of the BMW three series and five series. You know, because they, you know, they still like to have something that is maybe a little bit narrower, you know, not quite as as enormous as a seven series or an S Class. But you know, they, but they want that extra rear room. So you find those extended wheelbase versions, and I think the proportions of this car will probably be a better fit, you know, I mean, they used to offer a CT, a long wheelbase CTS purely for the Chinese market. So I think that this car will actually be a better fit in China than the CTS was.

Rebecca Lindland  24:36  
And remember that the, the Genesis g 70 that I had last week, that actually had the buttons on the passenger side that the driver could adjust to move up the seat for the person sitting diagonally, you know, behind the passenger in the back row. I mean, that was clearly designed for a limo type driver. Or to be able to adjust that seat because they were

Sam Abuelsamid  25:03  
just given that maximum. Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  25:04  
it was just right on the side there. I mean, it was, it was actually, it actually worked out really well because somebody was getting into the back of my car that was a lot taller. And I was like, Here, let me help you out and I was able to move that seat, which was kind of cool, you know, but it reminded me very much that you know, especially obviously in Korean and other Asian markets that that's that size vehicle is what we would consider a you know, a three series sports sedan is often used I you know, to ferry dignitaries around and such, so, I think it it makes sense.

Dan Roth  25:40  
I mean, anytime I'm driving, I'm fairing around

Rebecca Lindland  25:43  
anytime.

Dan Roth  25:45  
I'm just it's amusing to me in the sense that they they feel that they need to, they can't just make one car with a long wheelbase. They have to make a short one for us, and then a long one for everyone else. I don't know like, I wouldn't mind longer wheelbase car either. So well,

Sam Abuelsamid  26:03  
now you have one.

Dan Roth  26:05  
Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of China, um, you have the Chinese Swedish Volvo.

Rebecca Lindland  26:13  
I did. I did. And, you know, I, this was probably one of my favorites. I mean, I did love that little xc 60 or the Z 30. Rather, but you know, I've had kind of I haven't had a steady positive experience with all the Volvo baubles that I've had. And so this was a really I really enjoyed the z 90 i i will be the first one to admit that I'm very partial to the design of it. I think it's just, it's just really handsome. It's really masculine. I like the squareness of it looks like an SUV. You know, I my my brother is car shopping and, and he's a big, he's a big tall guy. And, you know, we kind of we talked about like the Ford Escape and I'm like, It's too girly for him it he'll look like he's driving his wife's car like, not that there's anything wrong with that. But yeah, like you want that kind of you want something that's that's muscular, handsome. I don't know, I just, that's what I think of when I think of the XC 90. And so for the exterior standpoint, it just, it's always been really appealing to me. I like that tall stance that it has, you know, very square grill, and I think they've done just a really nice job on the evolution, the design evolution, and of of this particular product, especially. So, Sam, I wanted to ask you, though, as an engineer, because this was really surprising to me, and I and I just verified it again. This thing had a 2.0 liter, four cylinder. Now it gets 316 horsepower. It's supercharged and turbocharged, but with an eight speed automatic, I never felt like that thing was underpowered, and I can't wait. It only had a 2.0 liter four cylinder. What is the supercharged and turbocharged doing for me that I didn't feel like this thing was straining.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:10  
Yeah, so, the the modern generation of Volvo's ever since, you know, they revamped the entire lineup under one after getting acquired by jieli are all powered by this two liter, four cylinder engine by variants of this engine. So there's overseas there's bass, naturally aspirated versions, okay? They also have some some diesels as well, but but those has never been offered here. But there's naturally aspirated versions overseas. There's a version that has just a turbo which is the T five Okay, D six has the the turbo and the supertram. That's

Rebecca Lindland  28:44  
what I had I had the T six right

Sam Abuelsamid  28:46  
okay, and then the TA is that same engine and then with an electric rear axle, electric motor on the rear axle for the plug in hybrid. So the the supercharging the advantage of supercharging because it's mechanically driven You know, turbos work by you know, the exhaust gases when you step on exhaust gas spins up the turbine which is on a shaft to the compressor, which then blows air and forces air into the engine and makes more power. There's inherently some lag with a turbocharged turbo lag. Because Because you've got that delay between when you build up the exhaust gas pressure spins up the turbine, and enforces the air from the compressor side. And so a mechanical supercharger is belt driven off a engine, and it's immediate. So as soon as as soon as the engine starts to rev up, it's building boost pressure immediately there's no lag. The downside of that is that there's more, more friction, more parasitic loss so the faster supercharger spins, it'll keep forcing more air into the engine but it's also consuming power and so it's less efficient. So the company using the combination of the supercharger you can use the supercharger initially To get that initial burst of boost into the engine for better responsiveness, and then as the turbo pressure builds up, then you can declutter, there's a clutch on the supercharger you can decouple the supercharger, so you're reducing that friction and you're just using the turbo and then that way you can you can size the turbo for more for the high end. So, you get more more top end boost and and higher higher peak power and torque. But you know, again when you size you go to a larger turbo like that, that increases the leg so you can use a smaller turbo for less lag, but you know, then you limit your top end power. So this this gives you a broader spread of power and better responsiveness overall.

Rebecca Lindland  30:46  
Okay, thank you for that.

Dan Roth  30:48  
But it was there are some times where it it you can feel the lumps and bumps a little bit. They've done a really good job at smoothing it out but there's this sometimes you can catch that engine in the Wrong

Rebecca Lindland  31:00  
you can, and I definitely had that sometimes. I did, I did play around with the different modes as well, I and I Dynamic mode was definitely you know, the most fun but it was interesting I I was running a little bit low on gas and I always try and leave them with at least a quarter of a tank because I'm not an asshole and

Sam Abuelsamid  31:24  
at least enough gas to get back to the back to the garage. And I

Rebecca Lindland  31:28  
actually, I when the guy called to to let me know he was on his way I told him I said I can run and get gas because it was about 60 miles left. But I think in eco and I actually had on the highway. I drove 20 miles on the highway and I still had that 60 miles when I left my house which was really pretty impressive. I thought there was every once in a while I would say you know when I was like trying to get on to 95 and merging onto the highway. That I would feel like it was maybe a scooch. underpowered? I am but overall it really was very known as

Sam Abuelsamid  32:09  
a big heavy vehicle that

Rebecca Lindland  32:13  
was, you know, I really was. I was very, very surprised when I discovered that it was only four cylinder because it certainly behaved like a six cylinder. I and I apologize I meant to grab my fuel economy. I it's it's rated at 18 City 26 Highway and 21 overall, and I would say I was pretty close to that. But you know, generally it was a really, really good experience. I had I had a couple of funny things and related to what we were talking about earlier. The economically so the the, it doesn't have a traditional stop Start button. It has a knob, and it wrote very reminiscent of the Saab ignition you Key ignition from all those years ago, the key down,

Unknown Speaker  33:03  
right? You don't remember.

Rebecca Lindland  33:05  
But this has the it has the start knob in the center console, which I never got used to. And it was funny because my brother Larry was visiting from California, we were doing a lot of house stuff. And so he and I were in the car a lot together. And he would always laugh. He's like you're you every single time I would get in. And I'd end up tapping, you know, the area behind the steering wheel where the button is supposed to be. And I would have to move by our back like, Oh, that's right, that's where it is. And then the dine the way that you activate the different dynamic modes. It's like a little barrel button. On our onboard I called it

Sam Abuelsamid  33:45  
it's like a little roller roller.

Rebecca Lindland  33:46  
But again, that's in the center console, and I found myself distracted as I looked at the screen to move into on the fly move into the different modes. And then I wasn't always sure that I was actually in that mode like I've like I it was something that I, I found it distracting to change on the fly, which is a little surprising for Volvo because they're so you know, conscious of safety. The other thing I that there was from an from an ergonomic standpoint, because Volvo wants to keep you safe, they expect you to put your phone away. The reality is Nobody does that anymore. And so there wasn't a good place to put my phone. So the cupholders had to serve as a phone which can be distracting, you know, as opposed to having it like in those nice little wireless charging pads as some people have put in there. And then I've had this on other Bobo's also, the, the voice control, like the voice that responds is so robotic and not natural sounding, that it's so jarring because you're in this beauty. For in a very calming, very Swedish environment with soft Nappa leather, you know, beautiful. This one had this metal mesh aluminum cool stuff and it's all and then this like Charlie Brown walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. It's like, Oh yes, you're fake. That's just it's just really jarring. It was kind of funny to to have that experience. And I know I've had it in other Bobo's as well. So my request to them would be to upgrade that voice because it is just, it just interrupts the whole experience.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:40  
Well, I would, I'll be curious to see what the experience is like, you know, when they get some of the pole star twos in the fleet, you know, and then obviously, the next generation of all those starting with the next xc 90, which probably I think by the end of next year should be out you know, they're they're going to continue We replaced the infotainment system and the voice assist. It's all based on Android automotive Oh, interest got. So it has Google Assistant built into it. So it should have the Google Assistant voices. Okay, so you actually be able to select different voices. And you can do all the stuff that you do with Google Assistant on an Android phone. All embedded in the crate.

Rebecca Lindland  36:21  
Oh, well, that's interesting. So I did my Android Auto worked quite well. But I could never expand the screen, you know, that has that huge nine inch screen. But when I would activate ways, it would only

Sam Abuelsamid  36:35  
stay in the lower and only uses the lower

Dan Roth  36:37  
right, and you can't you can't change that. Well, we know the lower half Wouldn't you think? A half would be better for ways, right? Cuz it's closer to like you're not looking down at the week? I think

Sam Abuelsamid  36:48  
we I think we've had this discussion about census, the census interface once or twice before.

Dan Roth  36:54  
Yeah, I'm just I'm for a company with that safety sort of mantle. It's just still astounding. Yes well

Sam Abuelsamid  37:00  
yeah

Rebecca Lindland  37:02  
but overall I mean I really I you know, as I said I I very much enjoyed it I think it's a great family car there's plenty room This one was a seven seater it comes in six or seven seats. I and those seats you know were easy to put down easy to put back up a lot of flexibility internally The cabin is a really nice you know, plenty of room again my this my other brothers Larry, who is also very tall and he just takes up a lot of room he's a big guy, and super comfortable, you know, just plenty of room in it for he's six three. And so you know, really long legs and just was was he himself commented a couple times on how comfortable it was. So the one that I had on this is the T six which only comes in all wheel drive. And it had was it was the art design also. So it had it had some of the appearance packages and then it also has 20 You want inch wheels on it. So this one started 57 to 95. That includes the 995 per destination. And the one that I had was 75,000 to 35. So it definitely had a lot of accoutrements on it. And, you know, all the kind of bells and whistles.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:20  
I'm curious, you know, that was it last week or the week before? I think that you had the x86

Dan Roth  38:25  
he had a couple weeks ago.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:27  
Yeah. was what was Do you remember what the price was on the x86?

Rebecca Lindland  38:32  
I can look it up easily. I think it was, well,

Sam Abuelsamid  38:34  
I'm sure you would, which would you rather have? Because I know you can you can price an x86 you know, into the same kind of price range. You know, which, which do you prefer the 66 or the Volvo?

Rebecca Lindland  38:48  
You know, it's a it's a good question. And I think because they're both really they're they're both quality products. Really I would probably say, I'm going to go with the x86 because I think, except for the volume control, economically, it was a little friendlier for me. It was a little bit easier. I for me to get comfortable with it. Now, again, as we often talk about, you know, we're in a different vehicle every week, but I drove both of them. And I truck both vehicles quite a bit. And I felt like, I felt like I got I got used to the x86 faster. So

Sam Abuelsamid  39:42  
yeah, the Cadillacs definitely more traditional and it's controlling,

Rebecca Lindland  39:46  
right. So the Cadillac that I had, oh, it was 63. But then there's the top of the line which goes for more like 73

Sam Abuelsamid  39:57  
Yeah, and

Rebecca Lindland  39:58  
a lot have to be successful. genette which was really really nice.

Dan Roth  40:03  
Yeah see this and that's interesting you know I never really so first of all, I think the x86 drives and handles better than the XC 90 the XC 90 is lovely to look at. It's a nice place to sit in. But it's ride ski still seems a little stiff to me. Especially depending on the wheels you get on it some of the larger wheels or make wheelies. But yeah, I am not a fan of the way that goes down the road. I just thought it was like you're stiff and not not not suffer over it didn't feel luxurious in that sense it just I'm not sure what's going on I suspension tonight has been

Rebecca Lindland  40:44  
everything I really liked on the Cadillac was the review the I love the rearview mirror where they you can switch it to the camera camera Mir right. And then also, the backup camera has a bunch of different modes that were Really, really useful at times. So I liked that aspect of the Cadillac as well. And sorry, I can't see anything tonight. Um,

Dan Roth  41:11  
what are they? What are they updating the XC 90? like is that is old now?

Sam Abuelsamid  41:16  
I think we'll probably see the new sc 90 probably the second half of next year. I think it goes into production in early 22. They've said they've said that it's launching in 2022. So we'll probably see it before the end of next year.

Rebecca Lindland  41:30  
Yeah, you know, I have to I had to just to confirm, I'm gonna go with the Z six on this one. I love the wife, because that's one that I had after the storm after the tropical storm. So I use the Wi Fi a lot. You know, I was getting my sister from the airport. And which is funny because I drove my brother to a different airport and in the XC 90 But yeah, I think you know, and it's funny to me, I didn't have that same experience from a From a ride standpoint, I thought that the XC 90 was was really nice. But I and as I said, I was amazed that it was only a four cylinder because it does a really, really good job. But I do think that the XC six was a little bit, they were both very refined, but the SP six just had that little bit more of a muscle. That's very appealing.

Dan Roth  42:24  
I you know, we're not doing anything for our comment that we get before me. But I think a part of the part of the thing is that the x86 is just it's newer. So it has some, some updated features. And then there's the contrast between how one company does it versus you know,

Rebecca Lindland  42:41  
exactly, yeah, you're not going to go wrong with that, then you're never going to go wrong buying buying the Volvo you know, I buy I think just having had them fairly close, you know, back to not quite back to back but fairly close. I well,

Sam Abuelsamid  42:59  
and one thing that the that the Volvo offers the Cadillac doesn't you know in a premium, you know SUV of the size they're pretty similar in size is the Volvo you can get a plug in hybrid option, which is not available on the Cadillac, the Cadillac, you only have that one power train Oh,

Rebecca Lindland  43:19  
yeah, no, absolutely

Sam Abuelsamid  43:20  
though if if you you know if you want something that's electrified you know and has some all electric driving capability, the Volvo's your only option,

Rebecca Lindland  43:30  
right and you are going to get well it's interesting, at least among those two, the the Cadillac is the fuel economy is not quite as good. So it's 17 City 24 Highway 20 combined. And the Volvo is, as I said earlier, 1826 21. So you're going to get better fuel economy on the highway if that's the bulk of your driving. But the reality is the people that are buying these cars, the bulk of their driving is not on the highway because they're they're typically badly cars so they're doing a lot of in town driving. And you know there's only one mile per gallon one mile per gallon difference with a four cylinder versus a V six. So, you know again they've I think that both companies done a really good job with the power plants that they've put in these I'm but yeah, and Cadillac has a it's a 3.6 liter at 310 horsepower. I mean, it's, again, it's that that what Volvo has done with that engine I think is really really fascinating. Yep,

Dan Roth  44:31  
you guys were luxury luxuriating Well, I spent the week with a super wr x edition dot white. Not exactly how to talk to Dominic or Jessica and figure out exactly how to say it series dot white I'm sorry series that way. So it's it's a limited production run. They're making 500 each of the WR x and the WR x STI have these and it's really sharp looking as it has A particular shade of white on the exterior called ceramic white. It's the only model that's going to get it it's got beautiful matte bronze wheels so it looks really good. You can see the red Brembo calipers through it on the racks

Rebecca Lindland  45:15  
Did you feel like a high school stud in it because it sounds

Dan Roth  45:19  
never something I will be able to emotionally conjure up um, but I did feel like a punk ass and it started up and you just you know has a throat or exhaust and it's a manual so you know everybody knows how good your technique is with it. You know, it's sob Rx, it's a little bit brash, um, this, you know, this particular one is outfitted nicely. It had nice Recaro seats, that we're really comfortable and the interior is sort of stressed out by I think this is meant to sort of be at the top of the range, sort of giving it some new stuff to to the web while they wait to get the next one out onto onto the market. So almost like a last hurrah. It has a you know, Bill Stein dampers in the chassis, so it wrote pretty well handles, you know that w x is a good handling car. But with the the chassis tuning, it's you know, it's a little stiff, but it's not it's not terrible, it doesn't doesn't beat the hell out of you. So it's fun car, you know, it has Sr 268 horsepower turbo. With the six speed manual. Is it a good time? The problem is I couldn't tell where the hell the clutch pickup was. So I couldn't drive it that smoothly. It was like I spent considerable time trying to figure out how to drive it smoothly. The only time I could get it to sort of be smooth was just by beating the hell out of it.

Rebecca Lindland  47:01  
Was it really early or really late? It was

Dan Roth  47:03  
it was vague. There was no that's annoying. Yeah, no real like indication of like, oh here to see, you know, you drive like a beginner you trying to be smooth with the shifts and you know either you've gone into low or you rev up too much before the clutch is fully disengaged, so it's, it was a little weird and the engine is really tuned to be sort of pushy, you know, like you get a lot of torque out of it pretty quickly. So it spools up quick, which is fine. But sometimes you get a little bit more than you want. And so some of that plays into it too, like, you just kind of want to drive easy and it's ready to go all the time. But that's I mean, that's part of the charm to a certain degree. And it's the flip side of that too is like sometimes I almost felt like alright turned in 68 horsepower, but Up, up an on ramp onto you know, onto 95 outside of Boston, you know it is it was there were some times we'd be like, Oh, that's it. Like, I gotta shift so I can get back down into six speed. Yeah. So you know, it's good. It's good for heel toe, you could really you could you could have a good time in this Carson, excellent trainer, in terms of performance car trainers, just you know, just like the 86 as well. You know, this has a little bit more power than that car. It's a little loud on the highway, cuz, Subarus, you know, yeah, the infotainment was, it hasn't been updated. As you know, it doesn't have the legacy system that has like the one step before that. Is that terrible, but it's still all touchscreen. So it takes a little bit to sort of find your way around it. I didn't, didn't absolutely hate it, but not the biggest fan.

Rebecca Lindland  48:53  
It's a ringing endorsement.

Unknown Speaker  48:55  
really hate it.

Dan Roth  48:57  
Everybody's going to these, these new Screen system for a lot of reasons and the system in the latest servers like the legacy and the outback, it's all touchscreen. And the interface is ugly, the stuff times out you can't hit, you know, it's, we have the problem too, because we're jumping in and out of cars so much like we're really sort of fine tuned to is this easy to use quickly? Especially if you're an owner it's a little different because you can spend time with it you'll figure it out eventually,

Rebecca Lindland  49:31  
but I but you can still frustrating now I still feel like they need to that intuitiveness has got to be there.

Dan Roth  49:37  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's really important because in a in a high pressure situation in a high stress situation, you want it to be intuitive, because all of like your, your sort of mental instruction manual goes out the window and you're like on your lizard brain. Like the things is has to be there for it and also

Rebecca Lindland  49:56  
it's your your sort of that that first impression with your brand new car. car you know, it's kind of like when you get a brand new computer or a phone like you want it to be that you you want it to be a positive experience. You don't want to be digging around for stuff and trying to figure out and getting frustrated. Yeah. Me and technology loves you won't be a problem.

Dan Roth  50:21  
I wish the world was a seamless for me as it is for you. Rex is a it's a it's a good car. It's a car with a lot of personality. And we need more cars like this. So you know, it has a couple of cohorts. One of them is the GTI and and the GTI has a little edge in the refinement side of things, you know where it is quieter on the highway. It's a little little softer and feels a little bit more premium with Adobe RX is a damn good time and this one looks really good and it's not That expensive you know this series White is I think it starts at like 33 995 and then they charge you 900 bucks for a destination so it's it's really it's

Sam Abuelsamid  51:13  
cheap I know by modern standards yeah um

Rebecca Lindland  51:16  
I think it was a good way to extend it and keep it fresh for another year so yeah

Dan Roth  51:21  
it well it definitely has the chops you know like it's got got four piston brembos it's got those times suspension like all the upgrades you would make if you were you know, wanting wanting to upgrade a w x have been done and they've been done at the factory level. So it's tuned really well and it's it's really fun to drive on a back road. It's again that I think the loudness on the highway gets to me, but it doesn't really feel it's not tiring, you know, it's it's, it's a good compromise all around and it's the type of car that is going to be a little loud anyway, but it's not. It's not like exhaust loud. It's like road noise loud. So that That's sort of like the one thing that I wish it had better sound insulation, but everything's trade off.

Rebecca Lindland  52:04  
Yeah, I think it's tiring after a while, frankly. Yeah.

Dan Roth  52:07  
Yeah. Like I wouldn't want to drive it down to Greenwich for pizza my ears. Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, yeah, the STI version of it gets even more powerful. So that has the 310 horsepower 2.5 liter, and you get a little bit more performance stuff, you get the center differential that was the dccd the driver control center differential and torque vectoring all wheel drive, they put this one had I forget the tires that were on it. But the car gets Michelin Pilot cup pot sport cups. So that one actually seems like it would be even a little bit more serious and it would probably feel more serious and maybe too much for for some people so that the WR x is a nice compromise set up this way where it has more performance. It has more, sort of, it's tuned a little bit more aggressively, but it's not all in like the STI that is just the STI can be a lot to take.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:15  
Yeah, I mean, it's been a long time since I drove an STI. But the last time you know, the STI has always had more peak power than the WR x. But it came at the at the cost of, you know, that low end responsiveness. net, which

Dan Roth  53:30  
I might actually like that.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:32  
Yeah, I mean, depending, depending on what you're looking for, you know, it's it certainly can certainly be a little more exciting. You know, because you're sitting you get on the accelerator, and you sit there and wait, wait, and then boom, you know, pushes you in the back. You know what that was that boost comes on? Yeah, I don't know. I doubt it's quite as extreme now as it used to be. But you know, that was definitely the difference between the WR x i was like the WR x I felt it was a little Little more drivable Ale, you know, as a daily driver than the STI was,

Dan Roth  54:06  
yeah, I'll agree there. It's this is it, it's tuned that way, you know, it has the low end torque versus the making you wait for it. You know, so it all kind of depends about what you want and then the hardware on the STI is more serious. You get six piston calipers and you know, it's just it's gonna be a little bit more, more of a, you know, we can track day car, which is cool. Like, I'm glad that they offer that too. So criticisms aside. Thank you for making these cars. Like, seriously, I was so pleased to have a week in a manual transmission car that's got a little bit of a performance edge to it. Is it a five seater? it you can get five in it. It's got five seat belts. Yeah. People in the backseat should be real familiar with the chain. At least if they aren't when they start. They will be when you're done. You know, it's it's a it's a good all around her and I think it looks fantastic. I love the way it looks the white with the bronze colored wheels and stuff, it's gonna be really distinctive, and there's only 500 of them. So this is Yeah, that's amazing, you know, good limited edition car. So yeah, the WR x continues to be a pretty decent performance bargain. And so like if this is the most special one that you know, you're going to get into a quote unquote regular one for, you know, less money. So I still like the W x every now and then I get to refresh about why. So, yeah, if you live where the roads twist and there's elevation changes, it's good, good time. Cool. There's a frickin thing happening. It's gonna it's gonna happen in just two and a half hours the embargo lifts from when we're recording it now since September 2 today.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:00  
Actually embargo doesn't live till 9am

Dan Roth  56:03  
to 12 hours. Yeah. Okay either way, in 12 hours we can talk about it officially and I'm not going to turn the podcast around so there is the long awaited I mean that is the Jeep Wrangler for by ease, it's important and impressive. We'll get to it but the long awaited Grand wagoneer concept which actually the production car is was shown Sam you you've got to watch the background or and get the full dog and pony show. And this is

Sam Abuelsamid  56:40  
to the extent there was a dog and pony show but yeah,

Dan Roth  56:43  
yeah, this has been a very long drip campaign for this and I think we're all kind of on the edge of our seats for it. So what can you tell us about?

Sam Abuelsamid  56:51  
Yeah, so the Jeep is bringing back the wagoneer they've decided to expand up market and compete In a segment where they haven't been before, which is full size premium SUVs you know they're going to have wagoneer and Grand wagoneer so presumably the wagoneer is going to be priced more you know mainstream pricing although they haven't given us any indication of pricing yet these vehicles go on sale next summer so a little less than a year from now they go gone production late spring, in Detroit here at the Warren truck plant. Jeep gave us very little in the way of actual technical details on on these things. You know, they officially are describing this as a design study, you know, the Grand wagoneer concept, but I mean, you know, let's face it, this close to production, this is essentially what it's going to look like, you know, some details, you know, may or may change, you know, in terms of some of the trim, you probably won't have the little teak inserts in the tie down loops in the the roof rails and you know, underneath the, you know, cradling the the headlights. But you know this is this big three row SUV is what we're going to see next year. What's not clear yet is if there will be two wheelbases like there are with most of the competitors like the the expedition navigator, you know, the GMC Yukon Cadillac Escalade, I would guess there probably will be. But it's a big three row. It's it's quite a different design from the Grand Cherokee. It's more upright blockier I don't know quite how to describe it. One of the things very squares very, very square. Yeah. And it's interesting that the pillars there, the A, B and C pillars are actually quite prominent. Because what they've done, you know, if you look at the current Grand Cherokee, you know, the B and C pillars are, you know, they're kind of blacked out, you know, and so you got a chrome strip. That's rounds typically surrounds the entire side glass on the Grand Cherokee. And so it almost looks you know, with tinted windows, it almost looks like one big piece of glass that spans the entire side. Whereas, you know, this one, the the pillars, you know, I don't think are really any wider, but you know, they're painted in the same white and it just extends straight up from the body sides right up to the roof rail. And then you've got a black roof on there. So it's, it's quite prominent, it's quite a different look.

Dan Roth  59:31  
So that's actually I'm curious, because Rebecca, you and I tend to put a lot of a lot of weight on the way things are styled and design. So what's your what's your first impression of this? I mean, you know, I it's a different look. It's different maybe than than people are expecting.

Rebecca Lindland  59:51  
It is a different look. I, frankly, my first thought was that it looks like Lincoln. I mean, it didn't it didn't strike me as looking. It certainly doesn't Harken in any way shape or form back to the Grand wagoneer of our youth or exactly when the

Unknown Speaker  1:00:12  
last time we came back long enough.

Dan Roth  1:00:15  
Yeah. All of us and different decades that apana Chase was built

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:20  
from like 6362 to 1991.

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:25  
Yeah, so this is, you know, this is not a retro Grand wagoneer

Dan Roth  1:00:32  
sort of like retro touch I can see is the grill the shape of the grill, but other than that, I think Yeah, absolutely. I agree even that's I

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:38  
mean, cuz look at narrow those the headlamps are super narrow, and in the back, they're super narrow as well. So, you know, I feel like, I mean, it's almost a person. I think it's cool in that it is certainly from the front it looks very cheap, like less. So from the back to I love the gigantic rims. I mean those tires look like they're 24 I think

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:06  
they were I think they're 20 fours on the concept. Are they 24 Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:01:10  
concepts and that'll be the upgrade.

Rebecca Lindland  1:01:14  
So there's kind of lifts and here's sort of a very difficult imported from Detroit kind of tagline that you know they did on dodge. I get that feeling from from this vehicle which is kind of fun. The interior looks absolutely beautiful. But you know, the the back of it sort of really kind of threw me at first because it can't it just it looks much more Lincoln to me. It and that's that's a compliment. It's meant as a positive. It looks very refined, it looks luxurious. I it does not echo in any way. The wagoneer the grant new original grant. They refer to that at all Sam in the background are they Are they even trying?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:01  
Yeah, they did. You know, they talked about, you know, the old wagon ears. And I think this is like the pillars, you know, for example, or one area where they kind of referenced it. But really, if you look back at, you know, the old wagon ears, there's really not, there's not much here that that harkens back to that

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:19  
book, because I always love when they're like, but no, it's reflected in some obscure, you know, you're like, Yeah, no,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:29  
but one thing that Ralph Gilles did highlight, you know, in doing the design walk around, you know, was those those pillars, you know, and and contrast it to, you know, competitors like the the navigator and the Escalades, you know, which, which kind of tried to hide those pillars now, you know, and and also Range Rover, you know, same thing, they all try to hide those pillars, and, you know, they're very prominent on this vehicle.

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:54  
I pulled up some old pictures from the 70s. I think that the biggest difference really The headlamps, you know, they were all very round or square. And these headlamps are sleek and slick and very narrow, which is the style of today. I buy there is, you know, the the Grand wagoneer was a very, very square, upright vehicle and they certainly have recreated that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:23  
Yeah, I mean, that's really the only part that kind of calls back to the old leg in ears is that that right blockiness

Dan Roth  1:03:30  
the grill with the kink in it, it sort of goes back to the early ones, like the 63 is when they were Kaiser's they sort of had that grid with a kink in it and then when it by the end, you know, they had redone the the front end and the there was a new grill that sort of was pasted over the old

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:48  
The thing is, you know the wagoneer never really had you know, the classic Jeep seven slot grille,

Rebecca Lindland  1:03:54  
right, right. Damn, it didn't

Dan Roth  1:03:56  
and when it wasn't, you know, again, it didn't start as cheap. It's a brick Stephens designed so it's got that sort of classical mid century modern timelessness there wasn't a whole lot of pillar to begin with on the original so I like that they've actually gone they've they've gone pretty prominent with it on this car because you can also keep it looking that surface you know whether it's painted so it's not black plastic that's going to pick up scratches and stuff it's going to just it's going to have that that look that high quality surface every time you get in for you know many years to come in it looks different. You know the the pictures that we can see too, it's interesting the details you can pick out like you can can look under the back of the the rear shot and you can see the IRS hanging down. So I think they've staked out some new ground for Jeep that and that's great. You know, there's only so many places you can take those Wrangler cues or, you know, the Grand Cherokee is getting it's old now. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:59  
I'm in getting replaced next year too, so he knows what that's gonna look like.

Dan Roth  1:05:03  
So I wonder I'm assuming that the front's will be pretty similar. From from the Grand wagoneer to the Grand Cherokee, you can expect that that style to sort of carry through the family to a degree. It's imposing, which I think it's probably supposed to be right because this is basically it's a it's a ram 1500 SUV, right, I guess.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:24  
Yeah, I mean, as I said, you know, according to Jeep, representatives, this is a design study and so we're not going to talk about technical details for the most part, but sure, whenever we you know, we assume that this is being built at the Warren truck plant alongside you know, the ram classic, that this is going to be a body on frame, you know, and a derivative of the modern the new Ram 1500 platform but with an IRS independent rear suspension. On the back

Rebecca Lindland  1:05:57  
to the Grand Cherokee though, is a unibody is The Grand

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:00  
Cherokee is a unibody. Okay, and this, you know, this is going to be built in a different plant from that. So, you know, the one thing that did say, you know, as far as technical details, and that they've actually said this for a while is that there will be plug in hybrid versions of this. And, you know, the concept is, you know, is a plug in hybrid, but they didn't give again, didn't give any specific details on that. But we will there will be available with a plug in hybrid powertrain and you know, presumably the hammy a Hemi and and possibly even you know, there's been some rumors about a new inline six gas engine to replace the pentastar. So that might show up in here as well. This would be the pistol watch that

Dan Roth  1:06:48  
this would be a good place for the three liter diesel although their diesel is loud. So

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:54  
the interior is beautiful.

Dan Roth  1:06:55  
Yes. So let's move inside.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:57  
Yeah, so yeah, so the inside you know this thing Yeah, at least the concept version has lots and lots of screens. Like I mean, lots of screens like eight, eight screens. There's five in the front.

Dan Roth  1:07:09  
Whereas, okay,

Rebecca Lindland  1:07:10  
so yes, because they've used the, the passenger side has its own Yeah, those

Dan Roth  1:07:15  
are those two individual sorry

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:16  
for for sorry, seven screens for screens. Yeah. So there's two. There's, you've got the the 12 inch 12 and a half inch instrument cluster display. Yeah. And then two displays in the center stack at the 10 inch and a 12 inch. The lower one, the 10 inch is for some of the comfort controls like seats and other stuff and the infotainment and nav is in the upper screen. And then there's actually physical climate control buttons in between. So no, you don't have to don't have the problem you have on the ram with its 12 inch portrait display. And then there's a separate 10 and a half inch display on the passenger side of the dash, just for the passenger and apparently this has one of those privacy filters. on there so that from the driver's seat, you can't really see it. So you're avoiding driver distraction because the passenger will be able to watch videos and stuff on that screen. Okay, so that's it also do things like put in nav inputs, and then swipe them over to the center screen.

Dan Roth  1:08:15  
That's awesome, actually, because that's really cool. That's smart. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:20  
Wow. So this is the first application of the passenger side screen in an SUV. The Porsche icon already offers this, but this is the first time in an SUV. And then in the in the second row, there's three more screens. There's two 212 inch 1010 inch displays for rear seat entertainment on the backs of the front seats, and then another 10 inch display on the center console for comfort controls for the second row passengers.

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:50  
That is crazy. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:08:52  
Yeah, I can see it for the controls because it's cheaper. Still makes me sad. Yeah. Ideally, it'll be okay. Like FCA has been pretty pretty on the money with, they'll make mistakes and then it'll pull it back, you know, like the ram system was a little too much, but they're, they're figuring it out and they're they're backing us out to the right mix of physical controls and user customization and stuff. So I have I have hope that it will be pretty easy to use this the seat controls being on a screen soundfonts me Yeah, I'm not I'm not a fan because, you know, you get a stab at the screen. There's latency there. And then there's latency anyway because it's, it's, you know, all networked, so it's not like you're just tweaking a switch on the seat like the old days and getting instant response. So we'll see how that works in practice, and well,

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:48  
I wonder if there's redundancy and that they have the C controls on the side as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:53  
I would expect that you'll have you know, the the primary controls on the side you know, for for aft recline. You know, lumbar support and then you know as you get into some of the details like moving the side bolsters and massage and things like that those are probably in the touchscreen

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:11  
and you can probably control you can probably program all of that so you know with memory settings so hopefully it's kind of just set it and forget it.

Dan Roth  1:10:19  
Like That was my thought was like you'll you'll adjust that in the driveway. Yeah once once or twice Yeah, and then it'll be there for when you need it again.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:29  
I do like when they have this kind of setup though I do like when they have a more and more cars are coming out with automatic heated and cooled seats that sense the temperature outside and this is something FCA has had for a while, which is really cool. When it's below 40 degrees, it automatically turns on the sealer. There's you can disable you can turn that off in the screen, but the by default it turns on the seat heaters when it's below 40 degrees and the steering wheel heater,

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:56  
right? I love that austere, very cozy

Unknown Speaker  1:11:00  
users

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:04  
need some self care.

Dan Roth  1:11:09  
I do. It's been man, it's been a weird six months. You know, we've been waiting for this for a long time and every time I drive a ram 1500 it's usually an extended cab version. So it's two thirds of this anyway, I go, you know, this would make a really good SUV. So I think it's a good basis for the Grand wagoneer. I, you know, I want to I want to see what the wagoneer versus Grand wagoneer kind of split is because they're saying, right, it's, this is basically going to be a couple of models, it's going to be the wagoneer portfolio,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:45  
right? So there's gonna, there's gonna be a wagon here and a grand wagoneer you know, which is probably like a GMC Yukon and a Yukon Denali.

Dan Roth  1:11:56  
Okay, so neither one of them is going to be well, I mean, the are kind of no bad genes. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:01  
I mean, you know, in this case, you know that I think the Grand wagoneer is probably going to stretch up a little bit higher even than the Denali does. So it's more like, you know, probably going to be like the difference between a Tahoe and an Escalade or an expedition and a navigator. All right,

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:20  
look, if they can sell $75,000 why Wranglers, they can sell $100,000 grand Why can

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:30  
I have little doubt that, you know, a grand wagoneer plug in hybrid, you know, with all the trimmings is easily going to be a six figure vehicle? Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:12:38  
Yeah. You know, I think the market is there for that. And I think also that, you know, for the family that has the tricked out Rubicon or Gladiator or whatever, the other side of the garage Bay is, you know, could be one of these. The question is, will they do a grand wagoneer trackhawk They won't call it the trackhawk they'll call it like the Hamptons Eagle.

Alright, so let's talk about the electrify Jeep a little bit. Okay. Um, so you know, I kind of did, I made that one less important, because it's less important to me, but it's still.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:18  
Yeah. So the other thing that the Jeep is revealing to our morning, as we record is the Wrangler for xe, and, you know, they, back in late 2017, when they launched the jL Wrangler, you know, at the time, they said, you know, they launched the Wrangler with, you know, the pentastar v six, and a two liter turbo with 48 volt mild hybrid system. And they said at the time that there would be a plug in hybrid version coming in 2020. And then they showed they had this plug in hybrid on display at CES this year, at their booth, but they gave no details about it. The only thing you could see was the fact that you know, there was a plug poured on the driver side front fence. Now we finally have the details on it. It's going into production in December. And it's it's using its keeps the two liter turbo 48 volt mild hybrid, and it adds in the the Zed f eight speed plug in hybrid transmission, which replaces the the torque converter with an electric motor. Think it's about a 9090 horsepower, electric motor or 95 horsepower electric motor, something like that. And all told, you know, this thing is going to produce 375 horsepower 460 foot pounds of torque, so that was a little shy of Hemi V eight and horsepower but more torque than the Hemi V eight and because it's an electrical big electric motor in there. It's going to be instant torque. So this is going to be very interesting to drive off road. It's going to be available in bass, Sahara and Rubicon version so then you get the full on off road version of this. There's a 17.1 kilowatt hour lithium ion battery that's underneath the rear seat. The plug in hybrid is only available on the four door which these days that's what most Wranglers RS four doors they sell far more than the two doors. So the is a sealed liquid cooled battery underneath the rear seat. It'll give about 25 miles of all electric range. They're estimating the overall fuel economy at about 50 mpg. Which, you know, for a vehicle of this type, I mean, this is gonna This is a 5000 pound SUV that, you know, doesn't have, you know, great aerodynamics to say the least. You know if you can get 25 miles of electric range and 50 mpg on it. I think you're doing pretty damn good. And yeah, there's you know, in a addition to the usual Wrangler drive modes, you know the off road modes and things like that you've got two speed transfer case four wheel four wheel drive high four wheel drive low. And you know, it's the same axles the same Dana 44 axles is what you get on any other Wrangler. The same transfer case, same call ratios. The only difference is, you know, you've got all this extra power and torque now, and the ability to go electric, you know, when you're going down, you know, going through the trails. So, this is going to be very interesting, no indication yet of the pricing. You know, it's like, I have little doubt that it's not going to be inexpensive. But it's, it's going to be very interesting to see consumer acceptance of this thing.

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:47  
So will you be able to put it in electric. Let's say you're going to go out on some trails, and you can you go back and forth between modes. So you drive out there, save all your electric offroad Yep, so

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:01  
there's, you know, there, there's a mode where you can tell it to, you know, run primarily on the engine and, you know, safety electric, in fact, you can, there's one of the modes you can do is tell it to charge up the battery while you're driving, so that when you arrive at your destination, the battery will be fully charged. So okay, they use more gas that way, but you know, right, it'll, you can have the battery fully charged. So when you hit the trail, you can switch over to pure electric mode, and just drive purely on electric, you know, which is kind of cool. Yeah. And, you know, 25 miles of range on the on the EPA test. You know, most of the time when you're going off road, you're going pretty slow. So, and, you know, you're probably I think most of the time, you know, not going that much farther than 25 miles, you know, I think because you're not going very fast typically. So, you know, you could probably do most of your off roading in electric drive with this thing

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:02  
and one thing that really struck me when I was reading through the press release was the 30 inches of water water fording

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:09  
yes

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:10  
even with the battery underneath yes all all the all the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:13  
offroad specs in exactly the same as any other Wrangler. Yeah, same approach and departure angles because the battery is up you know, it's up above the driveshaft, you know, it's underneath the rear seat. You know, the rear seat has been redesigned. So it's, you know, flips and folds forward so you can access it for service. But the battery is under the rear seat, and it's completely sealed. So yeah, you retain the same water fording capabilities you get in any other Wrangler.

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:41  
I do wonder if the ingress and egress is higher at the right height is higher.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:50  
The right the right has the same,

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:52  
but the ground clearance is higher. No, it's all the same. It's all the same. Yep. Interesting where they put the battery on

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:00  
Under the rear seat, I know but I'm just trying like it's above the frame.

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:06  
Right? I'm looking at the diagram now I see it. Yeah, it just, I mean, it's kind of cool how they, it looks fairly bulky actually, though. Am I being too literal? At night? I don't do well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:20  
It's hard to tell until we actually see it. But yeah, you know, I think it's, you know, I don't think, you know, they say the passenger and cargo volume is the same. You know, so it hasn't changed any of that. Or it's like, within, you know, a couple inches. You know, so there's no, there's no notable changes there. And they've managed to pack it all in there somehow.

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:43  
Amazing. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:19:44  
That's clever engineers. And I think honestly, like for me, four cylinder Wranglers. The best Wranglers I just I think they're the best the extra torque of the electric motors going to help. They sure are making a lot of Different powertrains available in Wrangler and Gladiator and all the different permutations of it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:09  
My guess is that over the next couple of years, we're probably going to see some simplification. Like I would guess the diesels probably not going to stick around much more than a couple more years.

Dan Roth  1:20:18  
Yeah, yeah, I bet the I bet the Peniston is gonna go at some point, too.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:24  
Yeah. You know, and I think I think the, you know, the pentastar will likely get replaced by this rumored inline six that they've developed. And, you know, I think that Europe, Europe is probably going to be the biggest maybe the end up being the biggest market for this plug in hybrid Wrangler. And your China though, to China as well, for China, I don't know about the Wrangler. I mean, they'll offer this this one in China, but they're also developing some battery electric jeeps for the Chinese market.

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:56  
Okay, and then they've got the renegade and compass in Europe.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:59  
Yeah. Those are already on sale plug in hybrid versions of Renegade and

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:03  
we're not getting the Forex even though this is what it reads it says Jeep Renegade for XC and compass for XC models arriving Europe this summer, right they don't indicate that they're getting them. Yeah

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:13  
the the hints I've gotten from Jeep spokespeople is probably the compass we'll come to the US market at some point probably later in 2021. Okay, maybe they're not sure about the the renegade yet but the compass probably will. Okay. Because, you know, it's in that same segment, you know, with vehicles like the the rav4 and the, the escape, which also have hybrids and plug in hybrid, right. So they may want to bring that one over here to compete with those.

Dan Roth  1:21:48  
So it's their new it's the hybrid Jeep brand is for z. cross off four by four by eating for x Yes,

Unknown Speaker  1:21:56  
a four by eight sorry, if you say so.

Dan Roth  1:22:01  
So there's a new s class in town. And everybody today has been saying that it is underwhelming, which I completely disagree with. I think it's all underwhelming

Sam Abuelsamid  1:22:10  
and what will in what respect and just from a design standpoint,

Dan Roth  1:22:14  
yeah, it's conservative, which is it's an S Class supposedly. Like, Oh, it looks like an overinflated C class. That's not bad. Yeah. All Fine. Fine. I think it's lovely, quite honestly. And I love the statement from the styling chief saying, you know, like, yeah, our grill is stately, or whatever he said, He's like, we don't need to overdo it. Which I thought was great. In this age of like, giant. Yeah. Giant drills. So no, I mean, the S Class is one of those sort of segment defining vehicles and I think that they have done it again.

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:56  
It is it does look quite different than Other products on the market as you say, That's not a bad thing. But you're right the grill is is smaller and and the headlamps are a little bit larger. And the I should know what this is called the area below the grill which doesn't even lower grown cars anymore and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:22  
the lower grille, the lower grille.

Dan Roth  1:23:26  
If you want to get a high pressure area

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:31  
that's actually where most of the air comes in from most of that the main part of the growth the

Rebecca Lindland  1:23:35  
air intake

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:37  
that is actually the primary air and take most of what's above that, you know, the classic what people think of as the grill is actually blanked off so there's no airflow through it. Isn't that funny?

Dan Roth  1:23:47  
Yeah, so importantly, it looks like a Mercedes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:52  
Yeah. You will not mistake this for anything but a Mercedes Benz which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. There is certainly it's not as radical as some of the concepts we've seen, you know, like the EQ s concept and you know, things like that. I think, as they start as they introduce those electric models, you know, those will have more radical designs than than this one.

Dan Roth  1:24:16  
so gorgeous, though, I think. interiors, the interiors. Yeah. This

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:22  
is the one for plutocrats and dictators.

Dan Roth  1:24:25  
Did either of you have a chance to read the 30? Something thousand words?

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:30  
Nearly, absolutely. But not to that.

Dan Roth  1:24:35  
I was on cellular data. I couldn't afford the gigabyte download. Yeah. It's that typical sort of S Class thing though. They just they overdo it. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:47  
Well, I mean, Mercedes and BMW in particular, have a long history of of overwrought press releases. But there are actually a few interesting technical tidbits about this thing. You know, there's there's a plug in hybrid version that's coming, although it's not clear yet if it's going to be offered in the US, I would imagine it will be at some point. But coming to European market next year, that's supposed to have 100 kilometers 60 miles of electric driving range. The two engines that were getting here in North America initially are the three liter inline six, and the twin turbo four liter V eight, both with 48 volt mild hybrid systems on them. The, you know, the screens inside, you know, lots of, as usual, lots of big screens, especially at a particularly large center screen. One of the interesting things they've done is they actually have a face recognition system in here now, so that when you get in the car, it recognizes you and it brings up your preferences automatically.

Dan Roth  1:25:51  
I hate

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:53  
the

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:55  
spies that get you know their faces reorganized and deleted.

Dan Roth  1:25:58  
I don't want the car storing my fish my, my phonology profile. No, thank you this

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:07  
new version of the MV x infotainment system is powered by three Nvidia processors now apparently speaks 27 different languages.

Dan Roth  1:26:19  
Nvidia processors like that's a gaming rig. That's Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:22  
that's, that's what you need to do natural language processing, which apparently is pretty good at We'll see.

Dan Roth  1:26:29  
And then it does natural language processing on board on board, not like Yeah, not like connecting to the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:34  
cloud. It also connects to the cloud, but it does, it does it on board as well for when you don't have a cloud connection.

Dan Roth  1:26:40  
So that actually in practice, that should actually be better. Because what you've noticed, what I've noticed is that the cars that sort of connect up to the cloud for it, they're, they're not as good if you're in a dead spot, you know, well, that's why

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:53  
they also have, you know, their, their, their hybrid systems, you know, that they'll use the cloud if the connections available. If not, then they do it all on board. And this should give it plenty of processing to do, you know, good stuff on board as well. That's good. Um, and then a couple of other interesting tidbits, at least for Europe that, you know, the the US press release makes no mention of this. So it's presumably not going to be offered here is something they're calling Drive Pilot, which is a level three conditionally automated system. Which is that to compete with the Audi eight Yes, except the eight system never actually was launched. They never they never released it, because the regulations didn't allow it and there was too much uncertainty about the regulations. There are now back in June of this year, they passed new regulations, new UN EC harmonized regulations for level three systems. And so this this cover un EC automotive regs cover all of your cover 60 countries including all of Europe and most Asian countries, and so the the new rules allow These level three systems. So level three means that not only is it hands off like gm supercruise, but it's also eyes off. You don't have to be watching the road. You don't have to be constantly supervising the system. But you do have to stay behind the steering wheel. So you can't, you know, go back and take a nap. You can't You can't crawl in the backseat. But yeah, and it gives you you know, when it reaches reaching the end of its range where it can operate, you have 10 seconds to take over control.

Dan Roth  1:28:30  
No self destruct. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:31  
so the rule Well, no, it'll it'll bring the car to a stop. And no, I know. It's, you know, the, the systems, you know, for the latest regulation. Yeah. You know, they've got to have a driver monitor system, which they have on here. It's limited to 60 kilometers an hour about 40 miles an hour. 37 miles an hour, has to be geo fenced so it's only on highway. So basically, it's designed for when you're in stop and go traffic on the highway, up to 30 70 miles an hour, it basically you can just hand off control to the system and it'll You don't have to be constantly paying attention, it'll, it'll drive you more or less automatically in those conditions.

Dan Roth  1:29:12  
I think what's most impressive to me about it is, you know, the S Class has always had a certain level of subtlety that hides the advancement that's in it, you know, and so you start to dig into the details like even we've talked about and that has the onboard the three onboard and video processors. It's it's got lots of capabilities with its its systems. It's also got a you know, coefficient of drag that's like, point two two, which is crazy low. So they've done a lot of aerodynamic work on it for a big car. You know, and do they talk at all about the, the digital, I'm assuming you, you watched sort of press introduction, but Maybe not. I did not.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:01  
I had another call at the same time. So.

Dan Roth  1:30:04  
So what are they? What are the digital lights that they're talking about? What? Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:08  
yeah. So this is, this is something that we're seeing from a number. Again, this is something I don't think will be available in the US market because current regulations don't allow it.

Dan Roth  1:30:19  
DLP projector basically. And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:21  
yeah, Audi's got them in Europe and other manufacturers are bringing them out. So yeah, it's a fact. That's exactly what it's the DLP systems, a little micro mirrors, you know, and LEDs, and basically, it can define a pattern. You know, one of the things you know, I haven't delved into all the details on this one yet, but for example, on the Audi system, you know, it uses the forward facing camera to detect you know, if there's a car coming towards you, it will automatically dim the lights right where that vehicle is, or if there's a pedestrian you know, dim the lights right on area walkie. So basically you can have your high beams on everywhere except where that car is so you don't blind the oncoming car. And you know, it can also do things like light up, you know, you know, get more intense light on the specific lane where you're supposed to be, or, you know, bright, brighter lighting, you know, on the track where you're where your wheels are heading. So you can see things like, you know, patches of ice or potholes, you know, and see, you know, you feel see if your wheels are going to hit a pothole and steer, help steer around it. All kinds of crazy things like that aren't currently legal in the US market.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:38  
So they really like smart lights. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:31:40  
yeah, they are. Yeah, exactly. Crazy. Don't get the good stuff.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:43  
I know. Right. It's not wiggling.

Dan Roth  1:31:45  
You know, I think to everybody complaining that they didn't break a whole lot of ground. It's, you know, the end of their press release. Says the loyalty rate for these classes especially high. So in the US more than 70% of S Class customers. Choose eventually going to choose another vehicle from Mercedes Benz. So they know their buyer. Yeah, this car. Yeah, this car is what their buyers want to buy. So yeah, I just send us them so we can try them out. I mean, I would love to just roll like a Kaiser in one of these

Unknown Speaker  1:32:19  
guys. Chi chairperson Yes.

Dan Roth  1:32:21  
Either way Yeah. Either way. You know, new new s class again, sort of like sets the bar for the sort of aircraft carrier sighs Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:31  
you know, I mean, lectures in the s class has always been, you know, the car where Mercedes introduces new technology. You know, so things like in this case, you know, the the level three automated driving is also automated valet Park Assist system that's coming. They haven't said exactly when that's going to launch yet but it's coming. You know, in the past, you know, back in 78. The s class was where BMW or Mercedes launched the first ABS system. The first electronic ABS system. You It had got the first stability control it got the first traction control. You know, there's all kinds of things that have been first on the class.

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:09  
I mean, even the keys are gorgeous.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:11  
Yeah. Like it's

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:14  
crazy attention to details is exquisite

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:18  
at this price point

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:19  
$100,000 car so yeah, at least so yeah, it absolutely should be but I still appreciate it though.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:25  
Oh, this also has an augmented reality heads up display system. So it's a it's a multi plane sounds

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:33  
like my dating life. That's what you mean.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:36  
It's a multi plane heads up display. So you have like, you know, the stamp, you know, the the near plane that gives you things like your speed and, you know, turn signals and things like that. But then at a plane that's for that appears to be further away. It actually projects stuff like, you know, for your navigation prompts. You know, it'll, it'll actually put arrows you know, to really show you you know, here's where you want to Turn right here. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yes. You

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:04  
know that the Mercedes SUV that I had a couple weeks ago, it had a fantastic heads up display as well.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:10  
Yeah. And you know, they say that it's analogous to watching a 77 inch TV, you know, based on the size of this thing. That's awesome. Yeah. Not sure how what distance you're looking at that 77 inch display, but now

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:25  
whatever. Oh, I'm sorry, I lied. It was the BMW that had the amazing heads up display. That Mercedes, GLC 43 that I had did not have heads up display as soon as I set it up. Like I don't think that's right. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:34:36  
See, this seems like an oversight.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:38  
Just to clarify for our listeners who we love.

Dan Roth  1:34:41  
All right. Well, I think there's gonna be plenty more to talk about when those things get into the fleet. So now it's it's your move BMW or Genesis or well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:52  
new seven series is due next year. I think so. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:56  
This is certainly set a high bar though. Yeah. And from a design and technology. standpoint well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:00  
and, you know, next week we'll be able to talk about the lucid air in more detail. And that one is setting a high bar but you know what? One thing we can say they announced today actually, they made it public today that the lucid air runs quarter mile and 9.9 seconds for a big four door sedan. Wow. That's not something that's on

Dan Roth  1:35:26  
the pedestrians that dodge demon.

Slow Evie, I want to slow Evie that costs $15,000

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:37  
there's Prius, buy. Just buy yourself a four year old Nissan LEAF.

Dan Roth  1:35:43  
Exactly. That's fine. We fall asleep at the wheel

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35:48  
Andrew Garcia asks, hi guys looking for a daily commuter to replace my oh seven Honda CRV. I was hoping my CRV would last me until the release of the new Bronco but it's pushing 205 Miles I'm starting to think it won't make it. I'm on Long Island, New York. So I do have my fair share of Northeast winters that I may have have to contend with. So I'm looking for all wheel drive. I'm not expecting to do much off roading. Maybe an occasional beach occasional driving the beach looking for something more aggressive looking than the CRV with modern safety features. My wife is really opposed to the looks of the forester. I expect to put about 23,000 miles a year on it all said and done I'm looking to spend no more than $45,000 Do you have any thoughts for replacement? Wow, what do you got? skyland

Unknown Speaker  1:36:34  
Oh, it's on guyland. Oh my god.

Dan Roth  1:36:38  
If he was driving the beach with beach like is that like rock rock rock Rockaway Beach. He doesn't say I'm sorry. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:47  
So under under 45 grand more aggressive looking than a CRV

Rebecca Lindland  1:36:51  
I mean, I went when I was reading this. I went to the passport and the blazer.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:57  
Boy Yeah, that's that's an interesting show. I'm not sure if that's the kind of aggressive he was looking for, you know give given that. You know, he specifically called out he was waiting on the bronco I'm not sure if the blazers I mean it's nail certainly. I mean then

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:14  
a Wrangler then right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:18  
Yeah, yeah. Wranglers definitely. Wranglers a possibility. You know Wrangler Unlimited. And

Dan Roth  1:37:24  
I think that the Wrangler is just if you're doing 23,000 miles a year in a Wrangler

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:31  
I went to the passport and the blazer I agree.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:34  
I think the passport in particular is probably, you know, a good one for him to consider. Sounds like he's a you know, Honda kind of person.

Dan Roth  1:37:44  
Yeah, so the passports a little larger though. So here's here's the thing, like I guess my friend,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:50  
Rocco.

Dan Roth  1:37:51  
Yeah. Okay.

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:54  
I just highlight the pilots. Definitely bigger but the passport. I like the passport a lot.

Dan Roth  1:37:58  
No passports. Great. My first advice would be like, just save your money and just wait until the CRV actually died.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:08  
Well, yeah. So assuming it doesn't, you know, assuming it makes it through the winter into next spring, then that's that's certainly an option, then it's Bronco time, but if it doesn't, then if he needs something sooner then you know this is this is what we're making suggestions for so certainly passports, passports and option passports an

Rebecca Lindland  1:38:26  
option the hundred passport just for clarification, the one that I drove on the launch topped out at 43 six. So it starts at 31 nine, which is not what I would recommend. But it's it's it within that price point that it doesn't wanna spend over 45 and you can probably get, you know, I think you can probably get a little bit of a deal. It has 5000 towing capacity. He didn't mention that it needs to tow it all but we actually had it we spent most right, you know it on the off road and it did really really well and I Believe that was the one sound that didn't have the A it's it's on the fly, but it's a little bit awkward to change the modes. That was my only complaint I remember. Yeah, with that, but the blazers another really good option, I think.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:39:15  
Yeah, blue blazers definitely worth a look. Also the Toyota rav4. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:39:21  
I like the rav4. I especially like the rav4 hybrid. I was thinking, so there's the rogue if you want to stay in the same class like you can't

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:31  
because you're not masculine looking.

Dan Roth  1:39:33  
Right. And that's what I see is like if you want to stay in that class, and you're looking for something that's sort of like, aggressive, like the rav4 offers a sort of aggressive looking version, but if you wanted to, well, yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:46  
because I have the I had the Toyota rav4 TRD off road. That was actually a lot of fun. Yeah, that was that was the that was sort of the offroad he kind of

Dan Roth  1:40:02  
is the one that Ezra Dyer tried to drown and he couldn't. Like he drove he kept forging a river with it.

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:10  
Hopefully I had it before him.

Dan Roth  1:40:12  
Yeah, maybe maybe he had a different one. So it's one of those things like it'll actually do a lot more than you think. So, yeah, that's not bad. You know, the Escape is also within the same class, but again, like it's certainly not, but it's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:26  
not I don't think it's the look he's looking for. But you might want to consider the bronco sport, which is, you know, is definitely in that. Yeah, yeah, in that price range. And it's got the, I think the look that he's probably interested in. And, you know, if if what he's interested in is, you know, something, you know, for some customization, you know, there's gonna be a lot of customization options for the bronco sport, right?

Unknown Speaker  1:40:54  
Yeah, you can make it that long. Right? Yeah, if you can make it that long.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:57  
Well, the Broncos sport should be out in like November. December. Oh, it's coming. It's coming up our

Rebecca Lindland  1:41:03  
bass. Yeah, so that is a very different vehicle. That's true.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:06  
But but it you know, it's, you know, it's more like, you know, Jeep Compass or Cherokee, you know, it's it's a, it's a much more ruggedized version, you know, it's, it's probably, you know, even more so than the passport you know, it's designed as an off road alternative because what they did with escape and Bronco sport is, you know kind of diverged and made the escape more car like this time and because they knew they were doing the bronco sport as the more ruggedized off road version. Right?

Dan Roth  1:41:33  
Yeah, I was actually gonna recommend the Jeep Compass because I think that that's actually distinctive looking. And it drives well and it's packaged nicely. And they're, they're not superduper expensive. You know, so I like that one a lot. If you wanted to go with something that's even a little tougher, you could consider a Toyota RAV. I'm in a Toyota four runner. The four hours awesome, but that's it. Like, it's a little bit more of a commitment, you got to you got to drive it and understand what you're sort of getting into this the same as the Wrangler in that sense. Like it's a little more tricky. Yes, that's exactly what it is as a sort of completely

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:13  
different kind of alternative. I was thinking of the Land Rover Defender, because I wasn't sure where to start but that one starts at about 50,000 but there is the Land Rover Discovery Sport, which was started to 38 really Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:42:29  
Wow. And it's got they still got that weird nine speed transmission. Yeah, which the compass also has Yeah, don't get me wrong. Yeah, all right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:38  
So you know there's there's some options out there

Dan Roth  1:42:41  
and if we're gonna spend all your money yeah, like alandra

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:44  
45 grand so you know, yeah, you can get an entry level Land Rover Sport in there or you discover yourself

Dan Roth  1:42:49  
a really like a good deal on a used LR four. Especially the one with like the church bat. There you go. plenty of stuff to break. Yeah. You got a Range Rover Sport. There you go. Yeah. All right. Now,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:43:08  
next up, Elliot Johnson asks, love to show a relatively new listener. Thank you, Elliot for joining us have a theory maybe I read it somewhere that every carmaker has a model that best represents them from all of their other vehicles, from which all their other vehicles are derived from Mercedes a CS class which we were just talking about BMW three series for Jeeps, the Wrangler. That doesn't mean this model is the most profitable or best selling but if forced, if you forced the automaker to make only one car, that's the one they would pick. I've always felt the can't go wrong with that vehicle and it's a safe pick when choosing between cars of a given class example, you can always confidently buy a three series without worrying about how it compares to the four Mercedes C class was wondering whether you agree or find this line of thinking useful. Who would like to go first?

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:02  
Dan, why don't you go for okay.

Dan Roth  1:44:04  
I think that that's not a, it's not a bad way to look at it. There's definitely a personality that automakers try to put into their cars, especially premium automakers, you know, like I did find that, you know, when I bought a lot of all those back to back, you know, Volvo's drive like Volvo's across generations, and it's very similar for, you know, the three series and the C class and stuff like they drive like, they drive like they're a part of that family. And part of it is like, just the way they do things, you know, where the controls are, how they're marked, what there's, you know, how they operate, that kind of thing is it tends to be pretty consistent. So that gives you a consistent experience. And, and yeah, like they're all going to be, they're sort of their own thing, if you're not comparing. They're going to do what they do and do what you expect them to do. And when you start to compare, you can see which which has, you know, strengths or weaknesses. Among the classes, I will say it gets a little mushy when you get down to the sort of more, I guess, mainstream vehicles, you can tell like an A chord from a Camry, but I have a little bit harder time sort of separating all of the all the like, you know, just blue chip cars from each other, you know, other than like, yeah, it goes down the road and the controls work. Other than that, they don't all have a lot of personality. So it tends to be more of like a premium car thing, but it's I think it's a good way to look at it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:42  
Rebecca, your thoughts?

Rebecca Lindland  1:45:45  
I think so too. I think it's a it's an it's an interesting theory to think about, I Elliot, and I'm glad that he brought it up because it gets back to like, one of my business philosophies is why it's a Simon Sinek book, start with why it's like, Why do you do what you do? And I think that it can be embodied in specific vehicles. And to Dan's point, it does tend to be more of a luxury brand, but at the same time, I think if you pressed Honda, they would say, the chord is their iconic vehicle on some level or somebody the Civic, sorry,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:29  
I was just gonna say, a quarter civic,

Rebecca Lindland  1:46:31  
right accord or civic, and it's kind of like that embodies why they do what they do to make this, you know, reliable that actually, I don't know why they do what they do. That's one of the issues that, you know, legacy manufacturers have that Tesla, for instance, doesn't have, because their, you know, their reason for being is a little bit more clear. It hasn't gotten muddled over the years. But I think it's a really cool way of looking at it. I think it's a it's a great way to To investigate a brand to understand a brand's philosophy, and, you know, to Dan's point, you're going to understand how that vehicle drives, especially if they've done a good job of being consistent. You know, if the car and truck people talk to each other, if the interior and exterior people talk to each other, if they're not designing these products in isolation, I think that that goes to corporate culture also.

Dan Roth  1:47:28  
So it was like, yeah, the classic GM problem where like nobody, exactly other,

Rebecca Lindland  1:47:32  
right, nobody's talking to each other. Yeah. And so I think that it, you can see it reflected in you can see corporate culture reflected in the cars that that they produce. And so I think it's a really cool way of looking at it. I like it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47:48  
Yeah, I agree. You know, and it doesn't apply to every brand. You know, I think there are some brands that don't really have an icon like that, but but a lot of work. brands do have have these kind of iconic models, you know, and to the, you know, the comment in here, you know, if you force the automaker to make only one car, that's the one they would pick. The ultimate example of that is Ford. You know, they now make only one car, and it's the Mustang. The Mustang is the car that represents Ford. Yeah, I think, you know, if you went to Chevrolet, it was the F 150. The F 150 is the one that makes all the money. Yeah. You know, if you if you talk to Bill Ford, or you talk, you know, you talk to you know, anybody at Ford, you know, in product development or marketing, you know, say what is the what is the one product that really represents the heart of Ford? It's the Mustang. Yeah, that's, that's the one. And, you know, that's why it's still in production and will be for some time, it's not going anywhere. You know, even though they got rid of, you know, a lot of other cars that sell and much higher volumes. You know, the Mustang is the one at Chevrolet, you know, I would say it's the Corvette You know, that is the, you know, the beating heart of Chevrolet. But you know, there's some real Honda, you know, you could say the Civic or accord. Toyota, I don't know if they can if they do have one that, you know, that really fits, you know, maybe the Corolla or the Camry. Yeah. Which kind of tells you a bit about although, you know, today, you know, it might be, it might be the Supra, even though even though that's not really a Toyota

Dan Roth  1:49:29  
name. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:49:31  
Yeah, I know. It's not a Toyota. Right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:34  
Yeah. But, you know, the, and, you know, I mean, you look at Nissan, you know, what, what's the car that you know, is the heart of Nissan GTR. Maybe? z z? Yeah, it was the Z for a long time. Yeah. Today is

Dan Roth  1:49:53  
the same z. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:49:57  
Gain yours.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:59  
These These these kinds of cars often are long running, you know, with, you know, minimal or very evolutionary change. Yeah, this is a 911. You know, as a

Dan Roth  1:50:10  
great example, you know, but the 911 has had a lot of change,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:13  
it's had a lot of change, but you can still see that same DNA, you know, from, from 1963 to today. You know,

Rebecca Lindland  1:50:21  
I think that 911 is probably one of the most iconic examples. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:50:25  
that's, that's true. Yeah. All right. I'll give you that. So yeah, that's interesting.

Rebecca Lindland  1:50:30  
Yeah, that's a great, it's a great question. Love it. Thank you.

Dan Roth  1:50:34  
Do we have one more? Are we gonna,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:36  
let's leave that one for next week and come back to that one next week?

Dan Roth  1:50:39  
Okay. Yeah, we are we are we like skirting all that actual criticism.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:44  
It's late, and I think it would probably be worth it. give that one a little more time. Yes,

Unknown Speaker  1:50:51  
I agree. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:50:52  
all right. We'll come back to black swan next week.

Unknown Speaker  1:50:55  
All right. Like,

Rebecca Lindland  1:50:56  
we haven't forgotten about you play. We're just gonna you're gonna give it more time.

Dan Roth  1:51:00  
You're on our radar. All right, well, thanks for listening everyone. We're gonna let let us all go to bed now so you can wake up.

Rebecca Lindland  1:51:08  
Thanks, everyone. One last thing. While we were recording this I got a notice that the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:15  
I Ford's campaign

Rebecca Lindland  1:51:16  
last I heard now the great pitcher Tom Seaver passed away at 75 years old. From the New York Mets 1969 World Series. I just add to what I says since you guys don't pay attention to sports. I just had to say that so rest in peace, Tom Seaver

Dan Roth  1:51:32  
breakfast favorite, favorite French restaurant in New York. schinsky

Transcribed by https://otter.ai