Dan Roth  0:04  
This is wheel bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes.

Sam Abuelsamid  0:06  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights.

Rebecca Lindland  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives.

Dan Roth  0:12  
All right, let's get to it. We're driving. So, Sam, what have you been in?

Sam Abuelsamid  0:18  
I got to spend a week with a Lexus lc 500 convertible sound noise that a lovely, lovely car. You know, when I've talked previously about the coupe in both, it's the eight as well as its hybrid forms, you know, that the term I use to describe it, you know, I mean, this is this is a classic Grand Touring Car is not, despite despite its track prowess, and it actually absolutely has prowess on the track. I've driven it Road America, you know, this is this is a grand touring machine. This is not, you know, a super sports car. And, you know, it's a GT in the classic sense, you know, like the old Ferrari daytonas. And, you know, basically most of the front engine Ferrari's you know, that or, you know, Aston Martin's that sort of car. So, it's got a mix of, you know, high performance and luxury, it's really something that's designed, you know, for two people to travel long distances at high speed and in great comfort, which is, you know, exactly what this convertible is great at. And, you know, I emphasize that to people, it has two back seats, it has seat belts back there, there is absolutely no logical reason whatsoever why Lexus should be putting those in there. And I think any manufacturer that that does, this is just being ridiculous, just stop, don't bother with the back seats in these cars. You know, the, in the the LC especially in the convertible, you know, I'm 511 with the seat in my, you know, proper position, there is no room for legs behind me. So it's, but as a two seater, it's, it's fabulous. You know, it's big and beautiful, and very comfortable to sit in. With the top up, you know, the, it's fully lined, it's surprisingly quiet. But you can still hear the exhaust node in it. Full Power top, you know, it's got this fancy mechanism where the rear deck lifts up and, or the back part of the top lifts folds up, and the rear deck lifts up, and the whole thing folds down. And the thing goes to it's, it's, it's a it's a engineering wonder. And, you know, even you know, as the temperature was getting colder, while I had it, you know, when you turn on the heat, it's got a little heater vents, below the headrest, you know, so it's blowing warm air on the back of your neck while you're driving. You know, there's relatively little buffeting you know, if you put the the windows up, even with the windows down, it's it's relatively common there, there is a wind blocker that was in the trunk that I didn't bother to try to install, you know, because you frankly, don't really need it. And it's, it's a fantastic car. You know, there's just one fundamental flaw with this car. The Lexus trackpad, it is

Unknown Speaker  3:21  
it is atrocious.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:23  
But, you know, it is what it is, you know, we've we've complained about it, you know, we don't need to beat that dead horse again. You know, it's got lots of power from that V eight engine. One. One other. I guess related to that, though, I found that when I was driving, when I was driving with the top down, and the sun either up high above me or a little bit behind me, the screen, also pen basically was completely washed out. There is a bit of a hood, over the screen with the top up, it's fine. But with the top down, you really you know, when the sun is behind you, you can't really see the screen at all. Strangely enough, I was able to see the heads up display, which was good. Even with my polarized sunglasses on. And slight tangent. I was on a call a tech talk call with some folks from continental last week. And we're talking about next generation. Hmm, human machine interfaces and things like augmented reality heads up displays. and learned something interesting from that, you know, we've complained vociferously over the years about a lot of cars, particularly German cars with heads up displays that fade to nothing when you're wearing polarized sunglasses. And it turns out that part of the part of the reason why German automakers in particular never really paid much attention to that until recently. Apparently, europeans don't wear polarized sunglasses, they they wear sunglasses that are not polarized. Why would you do that? I have no idea right?

Dan Roth  4:59  
polarized sunglasses unlike

Sam Abuelsamid  5:01  
the best, exactly. So, you know, if you've got a German car with a HUD, and the display disappears when you put on polarized sunglasses, that's why because they never really looked at their start that's changing now, you know, newer, newer generation HUD's are starting to work better with polarized sunglasses, even from German manufacturers. But but that's, you know, an aside, but as far as the the LC 500 goes, it you know, it was fantastic. You know, I love the coupe and I love the convertible version even more.

Dan Roth  5:32  
Um, what has happened to Lexus they, they they're making these great cheeky GT cars in a time when the passion and appetite for GT cars has has really waned. Why, why not have done this 20 years ago, when they were constantly dinged for making boring cars?

Sam Abuelsamid  5:57  
I know. Well, I mean, they were selling cars, you know, hand over fist 20 years ago. 10 years ago? Yeah, they couldn't they couldn't sell our axes fast enough.

Dan Roth  6:06  
I mean, I guess they did make the SC 300 400. And the SC 430. That was really strange. But I don't know this. This seems like they finally got their act together, just in time for nobody to care. I think.

Rebecca Lindland  6:21  
I think the logic is that because I mean, they have been a baby boomer brand. I think the logic is that baby boomers are moving into retirement now. And so they'll want to have this beautiful, empty nester baby boomers want to have this beautiful Grand Touring sedan, or a convertible, you know, with this great driving experience. But the reality is that the car is 110 to 12,000. Right? It's a it's,

Sam Abuelsamid  6:50  
yeah, this one was 100 $111,920, including the thousand $25 delivery charge.

Rebecca Lindland  6:57  
Yeah, so that's pricey. I baby boomers are not retiring, as they had hoped to, in many cases. So I die, you know, I saw I saw, one of our colleagues wrote a great headline, it was like, you know, the LC 500, the best sport car that nobody will buy? You know, it's, it's, I just I don't think that Lexus has really adapted I too, to the demographics in an appropriate way, like retired, again, like baby boomers who are retiring, very few of them, if they can afford to buy that car, but they're still, they're still very active in their grandchildren's lives, they're still very active in, you know, if they are retired, they're not abandoning their families per se, you know, just going to a retirement community in Arizona, never to be seen again. So I think that I think this is part of it. And, and again, if you're spending that kind of money on a vehicle, this is not your only car. So but I do feel like, you know, that they maybe have have, have misunderstood the marketplace a little bit. Because it is it's an incredibly beautiful car. And but and I wonder sometimes, if it would have been almost better as a Toyota in that, you know, at least Toyota has that. You wouldn't think about like the Supra there's a track appeal there. There's a sportiness and, and maybe not making it 100 and something thousand dollars. I don't know. I just it's it's such a good vehicle. It shows what Lexus is capable of it. Of, but you're absolutely right, Dan, it's not. It's really not. Who is that buyer? Who did I?

Dan Roth  8:47  
Well, that's my question. You know, it's no more expensive than an eight series or an s, the s class equivalent, but it's also not an eight series, right. Like, I mean, when

Sam Abuelsamid  9:03  
I was looking at this, I would, you know, I would look at this and look at an eight series and, you know, certainly based on the way it looks, I would probably go for this series. Yeah, I think it certainly arrives. Great.

Dan Roth  9:16  
Yeah, the only thing that would really be on a personal level, I think the only thing that would really make me choose the eight series over the Lexus would be the infotainment you know, the ATR it's a great car, but it's it's a lot you know, yeah, it seems you know, it's still the the Lexus is still very, you know, stylish stands out, but it's more of a grand tour. It's a little bit less edgy, in the right ways. But you know, and I almost wonder if this would have more success if it if it had, you know, partial hybrid or EV option, but I don't I don't know. I mean, I think that

Sam Abuelsamid  10:01  
The coop is available as a hybrid. So you can get and as it wouldn't surprise me if they did a hybrid version of the convertible at some point.

Rebecca Lindland  10:09  
Yeah, but it, but the eight series is a very different I feel like the driving experience and the eight series that is all about passion and engagement and Yes, right. Like, and I mean, Dan, I think, you know, Sammy, right? It's a, it's a grand touring. That else the LC 500 is a grand touring experience, whereas the eight series is still, like, I mean, that's a much tighter suspension. That's, I would say,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:39  
I would say the eight is very much a GT as well, it is,

Rebecca Lindland  10:43  
but there's, I don't know, I found it to be more fiery. And yeah, you know,

Dan Roth  10:49  
it has, it's got a much more forward much more sporty personality, or at least it can be. Exactly It's equipped and how you know, which modes you select.

Rebecca Lindland  11:00  
Right. Exactly. So yeah, I mean, it but but, and Sam, I'd love to see your pictures of the LC 500 because it is just gorgeous. And I bet your pictures make it even better. Thanks.

Sam Abuelsamid  11:10  
Yeah, no, it was it was definitely a fun week to spend with that. And you know, even without being able to see the screen, you know, it was fine, because I was looking down the road anyway. Yeah. Yeah. And that took it out, you know, around some of the some of the back roads around here, you know, such as they are, and just just had a lovely time with it. So what about you, Rebecca, would you have

Rebecca Lindland  11:32  
so I had the 2020 Hyundai ionic electric. This is the ionic comes in three different power trains. There's a hybrid version with a gas engine. There's a PHP versions of the plug in hybrid version. And then this one was the all electric version. And I have to say, I was really excited to get in it. Because I, I felt like I you know, I had had such a good experience with the Hyundai Kona Evie, that I thought Oh, good. I can't wait to try this. This is it's a it's a four door hatchback. So it's not a quote, utility vehicle. But of course, we love hatchbacks, because they're still very functional. So I was really pleased. I was like, Okay, great. This is a fantastic opportunity for comparison. But it wasn't the same. It was definitely not the same. I mean, that the the ionic has a, it's got 100 kilowatt battery, 134 horsepower, electric motor, it's, and you really feel it like it is just it is not nearly as, as I don't say powerful, but as as engaging really, well, it's not as powerful. It's not as powerful, right? The Kona has 150 kilowatt, 201 horsepower. There's definitely a difference. And so what I kind of took my, my short, cheap takeaway is, you know, not all electric vehicles are created equal. And the ionic, it's, you know, it's less expensive, for sure. I so if that's a priority for you, then the ionic makes sense. And it doesn't have nearly as much range it maxed out at 170. The Kona maxes out at about 258. So, it's a very different vehicle. And the pricing reflects that. So it's appropriate. So you know, if you're, if you're constrained by budget, and you have a very specific budget that you're looking for, you can get into the ionic four, high 20s after the federal tax credit. The other thing that was interesting to me was that the Kona is available in 11 states but the iyonix only available in 10. And I didn't know why. That was. And I don't know if that's just an anomaly on the website. But that was kind of I want to explore that a little bit. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  14:00  
Typically Hyundai Hyundai has been selling their plugins only in the Zev states, right. And I'm not sure why there would be a difference between the car and the ionic. I just be something that that you know, there might be an error on the website.

Rebecca Lindland  14:15  
Right. That's what I was thinking to. I just picked it up. I just I looked at it about an hour ago, before we came on the air so I want to delve into that a little bit more. But you know, it's what I took away from it was that you know, if you if you don't want a utility, if you do still want an Eevee This is a priority for you. Then this is a great first experience with an Eevee I you know it has the same type of charging, it's a four on a 220 volt, you can get six hours for a full charge, DC fast charge, you've got about an hour about 45 to 50 minutes, 55 minutes for an 80% charge. So you know a lot of The ownership experience is the same I, you know, I plugged it into mine overnight, and it charged up just fine. So it's, you know, it's good. It's just I was I was disappointed in the lack of engagement that I had with the vehicle. It felt like I was driving a an inexpensive compact sedan, as opposed to driving the future.

Dan Roth  15:19  
But you were

Rebecca Lindland  15:21  
exactly but but I was hoping that the Evie would have more engagement than it did you know, that instant torque that I loved in the Kona really just wasn't there as much? Because it's a different, it's a different and the specifications are different on it. So right?

Sam Abuelsamid  15:38  
Well, you know, when when Hyundai launched the ionic A few years ago, you know, they talked about this, you know, we asked them, because, you know, it came out, not far, not long after pretty close to the same time as the bolt. And, you know, we we asked them, you know, why its range was so short, in fact, it got, it got better for 2020, they, you know, they did a mid cycle update this year, which boosted the battery up to 38 kilowatt hours from 27. And took the range from about 130 miles, hundred 27 miles, I think 270. We asked them why they did that. And the the explanation they gave at the time, was, you know, they and this is, this is actually very similar explanation to what Honda gave for the clarity, electric, you know, they were going for optimal efficiency. So they were trying to find the right balance of efficiency and range, you know, to give a usable range, but really to focus on efficiency, because, you know, when you go to a higher capacity battery with more range, you know, it's going to be heavier, which is going to hurt your efficiency. And so they they really focused on that efficiency part of it, you know, to the detriment of range. And depending on your use case, you know, what your, what your, you know, your lifestyle is, you know, 127 or even 170 miles might be more than adequate. And I think that if you're, you know, for example, if you're in the market for something like, you know, the standard Nissan LEAF, not the Plus, you know, that one's only got 150 miles of range, you know, here, you got 170 I think that, to be honest, I think the interior of this is probably a little better than the the leaf, you know, arguably the design, I think is better than the leaf. You know, it's certainly a very practical car, you know, it's got lots of cargo space and room. It's got, you know, the the ionic has more passenger space, particularly in the back seat than the Kona does. So, you know, if what you're looking for is an Eevee and affordable Evie that, you know, can carry four or five people more comfortably than you can in the Kona, you know, this is this may be a better choice for you than the Kona. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right, the con is a lot more fun to drive.

Rebecca Lindland  18:00  
Right. I think that was my, you know, I was I was coming off of that KONATE so excited about it. And it was kind of like, wah, wah, wah. You know, I but, but with all that being said, and you're absolutely right, Sam, this is it's a different consumer, it's a different clientele, potentially, I this is, I think this is a great vehicle, if you are still commuting, you know, within, and that's 170 is going to give you a couple of days worth of range. I think that it's a great around town, I did have a better experience, I was so thankful for the listener who mentioned the paddle shifters, I and the regenerative braking. Because I was able to engage that and play around with that and, and have a better experience when it comes to the regenerative braking and the one pedal driving and such. So that so thank you for that pro tip, because that was fun to play with.

Dan Roth  18:51  
So I was gonna ask you about that. And I was also gonna ask you, so did you, you have a chance to try the fast charging or,

Rebecca Lindland  18:58  
you know, I didn't need to I it was I I got Well, you know, all of our listeners, they're there. They're our family too. But I ended up having to spend a couple days with my mom, which I'm very thankful for. But I didn't get a chance to drive it as much as I would have liked to have done. So I the person that normally I takes care of her wasn't able to come. So I was commissioned, which is fine. But so I wanted to buy my I had every intention because it did have a charge point card with it for the opportunity to charge it. So I apologize to my you know, to our audience here that I didn't get a chance to do the fast charging but that is certainly on my list of things to do with it.

Dan Roth  19:42  
And when you charged it at home, it's still just one Tanner. Did you did you

Rebecca Lindland  19:46  
see 110? I don't right. So my plan is to get us a you know, a level two charger at some point but no, I just had one child who just plugged it in and it was great overnight and didn't have any problems with it. So you know, there's That 170 range. And the other thing that I found was when I first you know, even just a couple of months ago, I remember getting an Eevee and being like, oh, shoot, that's only 100 miles Yikes. But you get used to it so quickly. I'm like, Oh, good. 100 miles great. I'm not driving 100 miles today, like, it's funny how you can kind of, you know, you can get into that range anxiety disappears very quickly, once you start using the vehicle. And once you start driving with it, and again, you know, think about, even though 110 is not ideal, the trickle charging, it can take a long time, but, you know, I got home at seven o'clock one night, I plugged it in, I'm not leaving my house at 7am. You know, I left my house about nine. And so, you know, and yeah, it's kind of a pain to roll up that the charger and do all that stuff, but it's not a big deal. Like, it's, it's something that, you know, again, they definitely look at putting in a level two charger. If you buy this vehicle, or if you lease this vehicle, you're going to set it up for more permanently than we'd set it up with, you know, our one week test experience. So but you know, all that being said, I think the interior is really nice. The se has an eight inch touch touchscreen display the limited which is what I had bumped that up to a 10 and a quarter I touchscreen. And you know, overall, it's just it's, it was a very easy vehicle to live with. It's very familiar, it's comfortable, the economics are really nice on it, that infotainment system is great on it. Apple CarPlay Android Auto, and there's a lot of safety features on it. So you know, there's a lot of really good things about this vehicle. It's just that it is more of a utilitarian II The experience rather than the more engaging Kona experience that I had. So those are kind of the the two big differences, but it's also like $7,000 difference in price too. So um, it was cold last week. So how did it do with running like heated seats? heater? That kind of stuff? Yeah, so heated seats were great. You know, again, like I because I mean, they really have thought this out. So the eight track you really don't have to use as much because you got a nice toasty heated seat.

Dan Roth  22:17  
Yeah. And did you did you sell it? So because I played with this, and I mentioned it last week with the bolt. I couldn't figure out how to get it to condition the precondition the interior, I didn't download the app.

Unknown Speaker  22:29  
Yes.

Dan Roth  22:30  
I didn't do it to the app. But yeah. Did you Did you do any of that? Like set it up so that it preconditions?

Rebecca Lindland  22:37  
I did not? Okay.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:39  
I've done that in the past. Yeah, in fact, I did it. Last year when I had to Kona Evie. I set it up, I had some some meetings that I had to go to, and it was during a particularly cold week. So I preconditioned it to heat the interior while it was still plugged in, which was great. Yeah, I didn't get in the car. It's already nice and warm. You know, and, you know, raising the temperature takes a lot more energy than it does to maintain the temperature. And, you know, so if you if you do have, you know, an electric vehicle, and you live somewhere where it gets cold or hot for that matter, and we're absolutely summertime, you know, take advantage of that, that preconditioning capability that pretty much every modern Evie has now, you know, in many cases, you know, if you own a vehicle, you can usually do it through an app. And a lot of cases like with Hyundai's you know, they have support for Amazon. The skills, the skills, that's the word for Yeah. So if you have echo devices in your home, you know, you can tell it to warm up your car and you know, set the temperature you can set the temperature and just do that with a voice command from inside the house, you know, before you're ready to leave. And you know, a number of other manufacturers are doing that now, too. So it's it's definitely worth taking advantage of that because it won't that heater won't eat nearly as much into your range that way as it otherwise would.

Dan Roth  24:04  
Yeah. Well, that was Sam it's interesting to sort of compare and contrast your experience with the the ionic Evie and we're at this point now where there's a lot of choice in Evie. Yeah, as much as I want. But you know, you even just among Hyundai and Kia, you could do the Kona that has that you know more forward personality that we all love. Or you can do the ionic or there's the narrow. And we can you can jump out to now other similarly priced TVs like I was driving, which was the bolt and I really loved the bolt. And I talked about it last week and it's funny after I talked about how GM should put that power training everything and make it available for swaps. That's exactly what they takes.

Rebecca Lindland  24:52  
Obviously they're listening.

Dan Roth  24:54  
Yeah, we didn't want any more good decisions come to me. But they they released that Bolt powered k five laser, just super cool. But it's basically the bolt power drain. Because the bolt is a really well done, Evie, it's the same thing that you found with the ionic, it's easy to live with, it's really pretty simple to use, it's got good space inside, it's great to drive. And it has actually even better range. Its range was like 200, around 250. Ish, I used the heater, and that was, you know, kind of prompting my question. boy did that range. It eats a bit, you know, not not anything to cause worry, but it's just you know, I took a ticket with a full charge and just go, you know, do 10 mile round trip and it would it would have lost quite a bit, which is fun, because it has the the sort of built in buffer. But that was that was interesting to sort of observe charging experience wise. So this was the first time I used a charging like an charging service. So I got a call from the fleet guys. They said, Hey, the bolt needs to be a main tomorrow, please make sure it's fully charged. And I'm like, Oh, it's gonna take two days to fully charge from where it's at, on a 110 outlet with, you know, extension cords into the back yard and whatever. So it's like, hang on, it's got a charge point, I think I had a charge point or an ego card in it. So locally, we have the commuter rail station. And they have 1772 chargers there. So I just took it there and put it on a level two, and that reduced the charging time. And so it was really interesting, just sort of using that gas station model of charging in a way like, Oh, I need to go refuel the car. Where's the nearest station?

Rebecca Lindland  26:55  
Wait.

Dan Roth  26:56  
Yeah, that experience is not. not there yet.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:00  
Well, and that's what you know, we've talked we talked about this earlier this year. You know, gmms deal with Evie, go to install DC fast chargers, at places where people are going anyway. Yeah, so it sounds like what you were using was level two chargers, 240 volt chargers, you know, they're putting 480 volt chargers, or 400 volt chargers, you know, places like grocery stores. So in a half hour, you can be fully charged up, you know, while you're shopping for your groceries.

Dan Roth  27:29  
Right. And so that makes a ton of sense. Because that was my concern was, this is cool. I'm glad it's here. If it weren't, you know, a global pandemic, I guarantee you, I would not have been able to just waltz in there and put the thing on the charger for four hours or five hours, however long it took, you know, I paid for the parking to which was like, four bucks. It's not a big deal. But still, and the charging was free. So that was nice. You

Rebecca Lindland  27:54  
didn't have a DC fast charger?

Dan Roth  27:56  
No, there was no fast charger and I don't the bolt

Sam Abuelsamid  27:58  
the bolt supports 50 kilowatt fast charging. Okay, so

Dan Roth  28:00  
that would have been better. Oh, probably would have cut it down to what a couple hours to fill it up.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:06  
Yeah, but even if you were doing it all the way from like near zero probably take a little more than an hour. Oh, okay. That's that's about an hour and a half. Actually, one of the questions one of the listener questions we have later addresses that. So we can we can come back to that. Okay,

Dan Roth  28:22  
so yeah, that's the experience with the bolt that I thought was really interesting and varied still, you know, and if you wanted to actually use it, it's good to know that you can, you know, they're the charge point or charge way, or Evie go, there's a lot of different ways you can find different chargers, when I looked at the charge point site to it, I had to know the area is when, because, like, knowing where they were directing me was like, oh, that that is not, that's not a charger I'm going to be able to use, you know, it's like behind a fence locked in somewhere. Versus I knew that these were at the, the commuter rail station. Yeah, I

Rebecca Lindland  29:06  
think all of that. All those logistical issues are improving, though, you know, with every iteration. I mean, I don't think that, you know, I don't think anybody's kidding themselves. Having an Eevee is different than having a gas engine, it just is. And so, you know, but there is also significant resources that are going towards making that ownership experience, more convenient, more seamless, more familiar, if you will. So I think that we've got a long way to go. But I also think, you know, I don't want anyone to interpret our discussion as a criticism of charging because we're using 110 at home. It's, it's just it's their observations and and you know, Somebody said, you know, please get yourself a level two charger. And I'm like, well, for will, and they and they, they couch it in such a way that because that's a more realistic ownership experience. I'm like, it's not actually because a lot of people don't have a place to put a level two charger. And you know, it can be very, very expensive

Dan Roth  30:25  
to run if you if you rent, you don't necessarily have that choice, either. There's a lot of people that rent.

Sam Abuelsamid  30:30  
Yeah. And even even if you own you know, if you, you know, and a lot of cities, you know, see, even single family homes don't necessarily have a driveway in a garage. A lot of people rely on street street parking. Exactly. So, you know, having access to public charging somewhere is going to be crucial to making this mainstream.

Rebecca Lindland  30:51  
Right. And I think our experiences are actually more reflective of, of, of what is happening today, not necessarily what will happen in the future. But certainly what will happen today. So I think that your experience has done a really interesting. And again, it's we're not criticizing, we are Explorer, just giving our experience. It's not. It's just this, this is what we faced when we went to charge. What a level two charger at home fix all that? Sure. But that's not the reality for so many people. And so I think that, you know, you're absolutely, there's so many choices that we have now, which is really exciting to see. But we still have to, I don't think that the mainstream buyer is totally there yet. And so it's our job to say, this is what your experience is going to be, especially if you don't have a level two charger at home, which is why I always preface it. If you can put one in, please do. It'll save yourself a lot of hassle. But if you can't, that's not 100% barrier to ownership. Like it really may have even been a while ago, when it would take it would take two, three and four days to charge system. You know, there are other opportunities out there for charging?

Dan Roth  32:06  
Well, no, sorry, no, no, I mean, I think those were the choices that are made, you know, it was, it's nice to have the option available. You know, for me, I'm not using all of its range every day. So I can just pop it on the 110. And it'll pop up enough and it'll be fine. But knowing that I really needed it to be fully charged in a short period of time, right? I had the option to go plug it into a charger and and we had a pretty lively discussion on Twitter about this a few days ago with some some folks. And really, it sort of boils down to the charging experience isn't quite there for everyone. But Tesla and one of the smartest things that Tesla has done. And one of the real big values to the company overall, is their charging network the way absolutely cars. That way, you don't have to worry, you know, like, like, is this thing going to have the right plug is it going to work? You know, because they're the cars actually flown home. If the charging, if the supercharger isn't working correctly, and they they alert so that they can get repaired. And so the charging network for Tesla is generally it's widespread, it's super easy to use, it's in good repair most of the time. Nice. So that's, that's all really important. And, you know, like, yeah, I had to go and like I had the charge point card or the ego card. So that was actually pretty easy. You know, you just hold it up to the kiosk and it unlocks and you just plug it in. So that was interesting to experience as well. But then I had to go fight with the parking. Like the the parking machine in the parking garage,

Rebecca Lindland  33:48  
right? Yeah, we split the license plate in and right, I had to do

Dan Roth  33:51  
like two different transactions. And that one wouldn't take my car because it couldn't read the mag strip and I didn't have a chip reader and I'm just like, come on. You know, so like, that experience. And that's the thing that, uh, yes, it's all available for you. Now you don't have to do you don't have to buy a Tesla to have an Eevee and, you know, charging is available as more charging infrastructure is being built. But it really takes commitment. And as a consumer, like if you're if I'm if I had the whole family in the car, and we're going somewhere, I would be so livid. Just having to deal with that frustration, you know, as it was, it was it was still kind of a pain and it was like losing more time on this. I thought I could just drop it off at the garage and be done. Now, you know, it's just a hassle. So that's got to get better. And and I and I think that that's, you know, part of the reason that people buy Tesla's isn't that doesn't have anything to do with the car. It has to do with how easy it is to use, I mean, the car will route you to the supercharger. If If you know if your route changes use it. So it takes some of that that route planning out of it and and you know that it Going to work and be reliable and the customer experience is really important. So it just

Sam Abuelsamid  35:04  
to be to be fair, you know, most TVs, you know, do have, you know, it can route you to chargers as well, you know, they're they have that, you know, the point, the chargers and the points of interest in the nav systems. And, you know, the process, the, you know, the process is about to get a whole lot simpler for a lot of people as well, you know, there's a standard called plug in charge, which is now being implemented by charging network providers and, you know, the companies that do the the back end stuff of connecting this, which, basically, it's, it takes a lot of the friction out, you know, the things you were just describing will go away, over, you know, in the coming months and years. Because, you know, they're doing things like essentially one of the things that enables is roaming, remember, you know, not so many years ago, you know, your cell phone, you know, you and if you wandered off somewhere where your particular cell provider did not have a tower. And you know, if you're if you're a Verizon customer, and you know, suddenly you were making a call through a sprint tower, you know, you were paying roaming charges. And that is all gone away, you know, they've, they've basically connected all these networks, you know, so that you you're no longer paying roaming charges. And that's the sort of thing that's going to happen that's happening with ease. You know, the Ford Mustang Mach E is one of the first that implements this plug in charge standard, you know, through the fordpass app that's built into the SYNC system. And also through electrify America, and green lots. So when you pull up to one of those charging stations, and plug in your car, it will the car will authenticate itself with the charger and the network behind that charger. And it will just automatically bill, your fordpass account. So you have a credit card, or cards, you know, assign the payment method, linked up to your fordpass account, and you just go to the station, plug it in and go and you don't have to mess around with any of the NFC cards or any of this other nonsense. It'll just work. And, you know, that's, you know, we're gonna see that happening across the board with newbies that are coming to market. You know, now that now that that standard has been finalized.

Dan Roth  37:32  
Yeah, and I think that's, that's really one of the sort of final barriers to getting it. Wider Evie adoption, you know, the cars are there, the product is good. It's how you refill the batteries, that still needs some work. And this is not a complaint, this is more observations like, Okay, this this experience, and I'm sure, you know, in some places, it's better than others in here, it wasn't bad, it was just, it took a little bit of, of head scratching. And as you get used to it, you know, once you do it a couple of times, it becomes much easier, you're not confused by the process. But the first few times, it can be confusing. And most people don't go on super long trips with their TVs. So it's really, these are observations. And once it becomes as easy as a gas car or as nearly as easy as a gas car, it's going to be a lot easier to make that switch. And, you know, it just takes a little while to get there. And I know they're working on it. And you've had to really combine a few different, you know, companies, you know, Tesla is the only company that sort of, I'm not the only the Tesla's pretty vertically integrated with, you know, they own the charging network and all that stuff. And Ford and GM don't, so well as

Rebecca Lindland  38:50  
as any manufacturer ever owned a gas station.

Dan Roth  38:57  
But those two industries grew up in parallel. Absolutely. I think we need to mirror that and say, ie V's and charging, and they will because they kind of have to but those industries need to grow in parallel to. So there's a mutual benefit. I think they all realize it, they're all working on it. So it'll get there. You know, I mean, think about how many different like audio players and music apps and stuff we used to have. And now this basically you just go to one same kind of thing. So I think that's about it for the garage. I don't want to ramble anymore about this because we have questions to get to.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:36  
Yeah, so we've got we've got quite a few questions actually. Let's start off with actually a question from the last show that we didn't get to from Gareth Thomas. Gareth asks, or says I really enjoy your show and look forward to each new episode. Thank you, Gareth. However, I'm what I'm more of an old car person than I and a new car person. So I have a couple of historic car sales questions. Is there a good way of finding MSRP information, I presume that he's referring to the original MSRP for all vehicles. I've been able to find a few cars listed here and there, but nothing easily searchable. So for the first part of this, I did do a little digging around and actually, state of Michigan. And I suspect most other states have something similar depends on how they're they charge for their licensing or for you know, license plates and registration. State in Michigan, part of the registration fee is based on the original price of the car. So on and we'll put this link in the show notes. michigan.gov. There's a link to this particular one is for new car msrps from 1987. And they you know, they have similar documents for other other model years. And pick the the 87, because the second part of the question gets into that, but it lists all the original base MSRP is for all the cars that were available in the 1987 model year in the US. So the second part of the question is, he has a 1987 Jaguar XJ s with the lovely v 12. What were its competitors when new, Porsche 930, BMW 635, CSI, what offered similar performance and value, I feel like I'm missing something well not sold in the US the Ferrari for 12 has a lot of the same features v 12. Up front two plus two seating and controversial styling. The Ferrari is more powerful and slightly faster than the jag but presumably cost quite a bit more than the x GS is 37,000. Which brings us back to the cost when new question. So you know, I, you know, did a little thinking about this, you know, a couple of ones. I think that were clearly more competitive. I don't think the 930 was really a competitor to the x Gs. You know, that was, you know, 911 turbo 635 CSI? Yeah, to some degree. You know, in those days, it was still just in line six cylinder only, no v 12. But the Mercedes Benz sec and SLC from that era, I think, you know, we're definitely big coupes were definitely fjs competitors. And of course, the old school, Aston Martin V eight, and vantage of that era was another one, although probably a lot more expensive than the than the jag. Any thoughts from the two of you?

Dan Roth  42:32  
Um, well, so via x j. s was in production for so long. That its competitors change. Yeah. throughout its life, I think.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:45  
Yeah, I mean, it started it launched in the early 70s. And finally went away in the early 90s. So it's about 20 years, I think.

Dan Roth  42:52  
Yeah. Um, I do think that if you wanted to compare it to a Porsche, the 928 is more. Yeah, that's

Sam Abuelsamid  43:01  
a good one. I forgot

Dan Roth  43:02  
that one's competitor or, and, you know, for ours, I thought the 412 was sold here, but I was a kid then. So I definitely the Monday all but that's a different kind of car. And yeah, more expensive. So I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  43:18  
Well, and you're done. And then a Ferrari is gonna be a lot more expensive to maintain. Then

Dan Roth  43:23  
Jaguar, but not necessarily anymore. Trump, probably. You're gonna Greenwich like that. All this stuff is like daily drivers down there.

Rebecca Lindland  43:34  
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was looking actually to see also because I, if I've misinterpreted the question, it's part of it is about finding out what the price was on it as well, right. Am I

Sam Abuelsamid  43:46  
yeah. So yeah, I'll put that Michigan website on there.

Rebecca Lindland  43:51  
Yeah. Because I was like, I remember I was doing some research for something else on Carfax and they actually had the original MSRP of the vehicle now it was it was newer. So I I just did a quick search on they only go they went back to 2003 for for a jag and I don't see at quick glance, I don't see the original price on it, but it might be there. I just haven't had a chance to look through. But um, yeah, so I think that there's because Sam, when you when you put that Michigan website up, I was wondering if there's if there was other more nationwide sites like a Carfax or something, but so anyway, so I'm catching up here. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:40  
Well, you know, I think, you know, I also looked at places like KBB for example, you know, that you can find us car value, sir. But unfortunately, their listings only go back to early 90s. Right. Oh, it doesn't go doesn't go back quite this far. You know, other sources, you know, A check, you know, probably Haggerty

Rebecca Lindland  45:02  
Yeah, that's that was my first time to be a good one. For sure. In terms of, you know, what he said what he comments here? I, you know, the and this may not be a priority at all, but I do think that potentially while the Ferrari and is certainly going to cost more, possibly, but it could also increase in value eventually.

Dan Roth  45:24  
But not a Mondeo.

Rebecca Lindland  45:27  
I mean, it depends on which one it is. And the same thing with Aston Martin, you know, and, but also, I think, I when, when did Ford by Aston Martin was that in the 1989? I think 89 of that. Yeah. So, you know, so I think that anytime that you're looking at these older vehicles, you have to keep in mind ownership, you know, who was owning who owned the brand at the time, and because that's gonna impact what vehicle they built, you know, Aston's were all by Ford. And I think that that may not have been the ideal.

Dan Roth  46:06  
Well, jack, when did the Ford buy Jaguar? Is that 98 as well? Or was it

Sam Abuelsamid  46:11  
somewhere around nine dopag? group

Rebecca Lindland  46:14  
eight, the premium Auto Group

Sam Abuelsamid  46:16  
was within the span of a few years, they bought Volvo Jaguar and Aston Martin.

Dan Roth  46:21  
Yeah, and Volvo I think was the sort of the last And so yeah, I definitely think that the x j s probably has an analogue over at Aston regardless of sort of ownership, you know, they did kind of keep keep the companies running with their their different product lines. You know, it was an expensive car. But, you know, I'm trying to try to really just conjure up what other sort of GTS there were at that point, because back when it originally debuted, he could have certainly competed with the Jensen interceptor. But the interceptor I don't think made it to the 80s others other stuff to like, maybe Bristol's, but crystals are a lot more expensive.

Rebecca Lindland  47:12  
Well, yeah. And also, I think that there is, I mean, if there isn't a question to you know, getting, I mean, it's, you know, I think, I don't know, maybe I'm putting my practical hat on too much. But, you know, you can get very, very exotic and you can't find parts for it. You know? Yeah,

Dan Roth  47:34  
well, there anything about the jag is back in the day, like, Yeah, and that's funny when you talk about the sort of increase in value of something like the Ferrari and I just, you know, I made the flip comment there, right, the Monday all doesn't really appreciate, like Ferraris do sure, but the XPS is basically got like an anchor tied to its value. Nobody wants those things. They're, they're lovely cars, but they have that reputation as being temperamental, and they're not that bad. But people in the 80s and early 90s didn't quite get it, especially the V 12. It was like alien technology. And so that the common very common solution was we'll take that out and put in a 350 with a carburetor, which there was like this company called Jags that run that, like, they made kits to do it. And it horrifies me, because it's such an elegant solution. Although the small block is fantastic.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:31  
You know, the small block will probably you'll probably end up with better performance, more reliability. And it'll be a hell of a lot cheaper to maintain.

Dan Roth  48:39  
Yeah, but it's not a V 12. JACK, you know, that's true. Like Bosch fuel injection is not that complicated. You people are just lazy about learning it. Um, so yeah, I don't know if we answered that question. just drove around the cul de sac.

Rebecca Lindland  48:55  
Well, a good a good resource.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:58  
Yeah. And you know, the, just pulled up the 85. Monday owl in concours condition. According to Haggerty, it's worth about $40,000.

Dan Roth  49:08  
Yeah, so x j s, you can get a really nice x as for like, 15.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:12  
Yeah, and you know, a tune up on 85. Monday, I'll probably cost you about 3020 about $20,000.

Dan Roth  49:21  
engine out service. I mean, yeah, those Ferraris like the three rates the Monday all this stuff like a cheap Ferrari is great if you're a DIY person, and if you have the space and the

Sam Abuelsamid  49:30  
pitch garage and a lift and everything Yeah,

Dan Roth  49:33  
because they do you know, a lot of this stuff is engine out services, but it comes out easy. It's designed to be serviced. It's just

Sam Abuelsamid  49:41  
not you know, complex.

Rebecca Lindland  49:43  
This is designed to be serviced at home though.

Dan Roth  49:45  
No, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:47  
Where you live,

Dan Roth  49:48  
you gotta have commitment. Ah, all right. All right,

Sam Abuelsamid  49:53  
what next one up, rust offer question for you to maybe include in the podcast someday. Anyway. Days car drills, were almost all usually horizontal shapes of some sort sitting above the front bumper line. There, there might be a modest louver below the bumper as well. Lately though, it seems like grilles are both larger and often lower or split vertically into one horizontal bit above bumper line and another below or else integrated into the bumper. See the rav4? Is the poster child for the splitter douleur and take a look. What's up with that two radiator sit lower now our radiators larger? Or is it just all styling? etc?

Rebecca Lindland  50:31  
So I think there's a combination of things going on with the grills. First of all, there's pretty strict pedestrian crash regulations that are dictating the shape of a front of a vehicle, they tend to be more square. But also there's I don't think that the and Sam, you're much more qualified to answer this question. But I don't think the functionality of the radiator has changed all that much. But the other thing is that a grill now is also expected to support a whole variety of sensors, and cameras. And, and do really multitasking not just serving as the as the functional purpose for the radiator, it's also now suddenly, our eyes and ears into what is in front of the vehicle. So I think that there's a combination of things that are going on there both design and functionality and a multitasking purpose.

Dan Roth  51:32  
Yeah, I think two, we could totally eliminate a proportion of the grill. That's mostly just style and go look at a lot of BMWs, they don't have much opening there, they certainly have active shutters. Because really, all the air comes from the bottom. Most cars are bottom breathers because that's where the high pressure is on the front, as you push air out of the way, it sort of piles up on that lower part of the body. So you cut a hole there. And that goes into the engine compartment. And so most of the air is done from you know, scooped up from from not too far off the road foot or two off the road. So we don't and you saw this with, you know, cars in the 80s like the Taurus where they they hardly had a grill opening because they didn't need it, they got everything, you know, all the cooling air they needed from below. So it's mostly a style issue now, and it does sort of allow them to package those sensors and hide them a bit of they're not doing such a great job hiding them. You know, you can exceed like Mercedes with this giant plexiglass piece. And some are more elegant than others in hiding the sensors. But it's mostly a convention at this point to have to grow.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:54  
Essentially, what we think of as the traditional grill is all about styling, it has almost nothing to do with functionality anymore. Yeah, it's all about creating a visual language that identifies this car as a Genesis or a BMW or Ford, or whatever it might be, you know, most, you know, if you even with these massive drills that we have today that you know talked about, you know, especially with Genesis and, and BMW late, there's usually in that he said, Dan, you know, only a small portion, it's an actual error opening, you know, the rest of it, if you actually look closely, you'll see it's blocked off, there is no airflow through most of that area, I think on the G 90, you know, there's a space that's about 12 inches wide by about four inches high, you know, that is an actual air opening. Same thing on the new, the latest Ford Explorer, you know, now that I've seen the new fort and the new Explorer, you know, as a police vehicle, you know, it's it's particularly obvious on there, you know, because it's all black, you can see where the opening is, it's a very small opening. There are there are some exceptions, like for example, the Shelby GT 500 you know, almost all of that area is open because, you know, it's got huge cooling requirements for the engine and the supercharger everything, but most of the rest of it is blocked off. You know, so it's, it's all about, it's all about design, and you said Dan, you know, grab most of the air that does come in is grab from down below because you don't want that airflow underneath the car for aerodynamic reasons and, and you know, minimizing lift and everything so they try and grab the air from down low. And you know, the rest of it is just closed off. So,

Rebecca Lindland  54:43  
yeah, so it's a design I mean, it's the the grille is the face of the vehicle.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:47  
Alright, next, Joseph Marino. I everyone just picked up a brand new vehicle and has the auto stop start which shuts the car off when it comes to complete stop. I'm not sure if I like it or not. It's a little annoying. Especially and by Austin area stop and go traffic. What are your feelings on it? We'd love to get your feedback. Thanks. Keep up the great show, Joe.

Rebecca Lindland  55:10  
What are you depends on the vehicle, because I think almost all stop stars can be turned off. But it's just how hard is that to figure out? Well, that's it. Yeah. So it's, it depends on the vehicle and

Dan Roth  55:22  
which ones can be turned off, because usually, it has been the case that you can shut off.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:27  
So it depends, you know, with the EPA, with the fuel economy ratings, the way the EPA drive cycles are set up, manufacturers don't actually see a whole lot of benefit in the cycle from auto stop start in, because the car almost never actually comes to a complete stop. So the engine doesn't shut off. Real World driving, you get a lot more actual benefit and fuel economy because the car does come to a stop, especially in stop and go driving, which is the whole point, you know, and stop and go driving, you can get up to about, you know, an eight to 10% improvement in fuel economy without a stop start. So what's happened, you know, EPA meant when manufacturers started wanting to put auto stop start in, they went to EPA and said, Look, you know, we see the benefit of this on the European driving cycle, but we don't see it on the EPA cycle. And so EPA gives them an off cycle, what they call an off cycle credit. So if you put auto stop start in the vehicle, they will adjust the you know what, when you do when they run the test to get the actual raw numbers for fuel efficiency, they make some adjustments to that and one of the credits that they get, you know, so they'll bump up the fuel economy number by a little bit. If you have auto stop start. If a manufacturer puts in a shut off button, EPA makes an assumption that certain percentage of customers are going to disable the auto stop start. And so there's not going to be as much real world benefit from it. And so they may give you a two or 3% bump in your fuel economy. If you number, your label number, if you have auto stop, start with a shutoff button. If you don't put in a shut off button, so that it's forced to do it all the time. They give you more credit. So it depends on the manufacturer, the manufacturer wants more of a credit for auto stop start. They will they may not put in the shut off button. So that's why you find out how can find out what if there's a shop button? Yes, you just have to check the particular car you're interested in. So it you know, it's it's something that will be on a given model or not. It's not something that'll be optional. You know, so, you know, fate of BMW three series, it's either going to have a shut off a disabled button or not. And, you know, some you know, I think it depends on depends on, you know, where what the manufacturer needs to hit as far as their targets. And you know, what, how many complaints that they've gotten from customers in the past?

Rebecca Lindland  58:07  
So Joe, let us know what kind of card is. Yeah,

Dan Roth  58:10  
yeah, I will say in Boston, stop and go. There are times where you just don't want that stuff. doing its thing. For You know, it just makes the car really unpleasant depending on how much it vibrates and shakes when it starts.

Rebecca Lindland  58:27  
Yeah, it depends on the transparency, right, that is a bigger, I found larger engines, like an Aston Martin is going to be Oh, that's that's an event when the car goes back on? Yeah,

Dan Roth  58:41  
yeah. It depends too, on how they've implemented the starter. So

Rebecca Lindland  58:45  
weight torque thing, right?

Dan Roth  58:47  
Yeah, it's a lot less obtrusive, with something like a torque or hybrid, certainly, because of the way they start the car. It's it's much quieter, there's not you don't have to engage like a typical starter with like the Bendix drive and all that, you know, it's it's smoother to start up that way. And then how they implement it, where if you do have, like a torque wrench, it takes off on battery power, and then fires the engine once you're underway. So that feels better. And that's one of my complaints is in Boston, traffic, in particular, back in the before times, you'd, you'd come to a stop, but then very quickly, you'd be like moving again. And so the amount of delay that's programmed into it, and you can't get it perfect for every situation, and maybe it adapts a bit as it gets used, but that's the thing that makes you want to shut it off. Sometimes it's like it it's just it makes the experience so busy, because you're just starting and stopping the engine so much, right? And when it saves, maybe save some fuel fine, but it's so

Rebecca Lindland  59:56  
but you know, also, Joe if you have different drive modes That may also change your experience. Yeah, yeah. Good, right. So check. So check your again, we don't know what kind of car it is so, so check to see if you have different drive modes that can also help with that stop start

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:11  
experiment. A lot of times if there's a sport mode, that'll disable the auto stop start things like that,

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:16  
right? So you can kind of cheat if you don't have an actual disable button.

Dan Roth  1:00:19  
And you know, I think it should be mandatory that you have auto hold without a stop start. So you don't have to keep your foot on the brake, and

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:27  
you shouldn't have to keep engaging it every single time. Yeah, right. Like, it's like you want the vehicle to learn. You know, some and some vehicles, do they have certain settings depending upon which driver is driving that vehicle?

Dan Roth  1:00:39  
I guarantee you those kind of things are regulatory, and we just don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:43  
Oh, yeah. All right. Last one, and probably the most controversial one. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the new Tesla full self driving beta, they just pushed out to a number of drivers. This really concerns me because we know it's in no way level five ready, and they just put it in the hands of everyday drivers with no specific training skills or certification. Just an aside, I did not write this letter. I know this is from Adam Jacko. anko. Anyway, continues on I know, the Tesla owner, I know the Tesla owners who have it are aware and signed up for it. But my problem is, as a non Tesla driver, I didn't sign up for this. Watching just a few minutes of video posted by some users already, it's clear that if drivers didn't intervene on several occasions, there could have been serious accidents. I read that it says keeping an eye on this program and will have supposedly intervene if needed. But I just don't understand how something like this is allowed from a private company on public roads without serious government regulations, and train people at the wheel. You know, it's only a matter of time before the first person is caught sleeping at the wheel while this Tesla plows into another car. I'm sure any victim of this carelessness could sue but I don't want to win a lawsuit. I want to not get hit by some stupid Tesla. Wow, couldn't have said it better myself. Adam was

Dan Roth  1:02:02  
gonna die for progress. It's just

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:04  
Yeah, no, I I think Tesla is being absolutely reckless. And putting this out there and promoting it as full self driving. It is not full self driving, if you have to keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road like they say you do. In the disclaimer, when you start it when you launch it, it says the system may do the wrong thing at the worst possible time. mean those exact words are in the disclaimer on your screen when you engage it.

Dan Roth  1:02:29  
I think my disclaimer built in when I wake up says the same thing, though. When I get up every morning at acceptance,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:38  
yeah. Yeah, no, I think you know, unfortunately nitsa under the current regime in Washington is not going to do anything about this. They've completely abdicated abdicated their responsibilities when it comes to automated driving,

Dan Roth  1:02:50  
what is what is we're keeping an eye on it, like you're, you're I want to hurt for some reason, your job is to regulate not

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:58  
for some reason, regulators are not paying any attention to anything that Tesla is doing when it comes to autopilot, or, or self driving. And I think it's a travesty that, you know, and you know, like, like Adam says, none of the rest of us signed up, or opted into being part of Tesla's experiment. You know, I think, you know, putting, you know, putting this stuff in the hands of average people that haven't been trained, and I will include a link to the latest episode of the atomic cast, where Alex Roy talks a bit about his experience, Alex, you know, among the various things he does, he's, he works for Argo AI. And one of the things that he did last year, after he started was he went through their safety operator training program, and he flunked out of it. And Alex is a professional driver, he knows how to drive, he did not pass that program that they have at Argo. Because, you know, it's it's very stringent, you know, that they have there's a lot of expectations on the safety operators, you know, and I think that, you know, what Tesla is doing is, is absolutely reckless. And, you know, somebody is probably going to get killed before this is over.

Rebecca Lindland  1:04:11  
Well, there's a reason why commercials always say, you know, professional driver on a closed course. Yeah. Right. And, I mean, it is it's, it's highly, highly reckless. This, you know, no specific training skills or certification, that's a real thing. And I think we have to make the distinction from what Wei mo is doing. Because way mo is using trained,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:35  
is driving every other AV company is using,

Rebecca Lindland  1:04:38  
exactly but but I I felt like I saw some reference to way mo it's like these, that's not the same thing at all. And so I so this is an issue very specific to what Tesla is doing and edited. It's highly, highly irresponsible. It's crazy.

Dan Roth  1:04:55  
Yeah, I think we've we've answered that. I get there. Yes. I definitely agree with all of his points. It's like, their system can't even. It's only camera based, it doesn't have enough sensing to do what they're doing. And that's reckless. And it would be great if some of the regulatory bodies that are set up to regulate could actually do their

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:21  
job. Unfortunately, the only federal authority that has ever called Tesla on their irresponsible behavior when it comes to autopilot is the National Transportation Safety Board. And the multiple investigations they've done of fatal crashes involving autopilot. The problem is NTSB is an investigatory body, they have no regulatory or enforcement authority. So that's up to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NTSB makes recommendations, it's up to nitsa to actually do something about it. So far nitsa has done nothing. And that is a disgrace. And, yes, Elaine Chao secretary, Elaine Chao is a disgrace. She should not be the Secretary of Transportation, but enough of politics. Moving on, yeah. All right. Well, let's call that a show.

Dan Roth  1:06:17  
All right. Well, thanks, everybody for listening. And we'll catch you next time. Keep the questions rolling in reticent reviews and, you know, find us where you find us. All right, thanks. Tell

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:25  
your friends.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai