Unknown Speaker  0:00  
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Dan Roth  1:04  
This is Wheel Bearings Bearings. I'm Dan Roth from Forbes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07  
And I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights, and Rebecca is off today taking care of her mom. So she'll be back with us on the next episode, which we've already recorded previously. Yeah, exactly. Should be

Dan Roth  1:20  
back with us in the next episode, which we did the last time. Before we get too far into it. Um, we have had a few more patrons sign up. So let's see. That's the new ones, new folks that we haven't mentioned. I just it's it feels nice to me to give them a little shout out.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40  
That's always a good thing to recognize our supporters.

Dan Roth  1:43  
Yeah, in the beginning of the show. So let's see, we had Steven Adam, Gareth William, living to see I think those are the folks that jumped in since the last show, so thank you, we are up to 12 active patrons a month. So there's still plenty of room for everybody else to pile in. Oh, Ethan and Joseph as well. wanted to make sure that we got everybody in there. So there's again, there's there's a few things coming. It is holiday season. So it's busy, and we're trying to put everything together. But I'll have a few more hours to devote to it in the next couple of weeks. So stay tuned. There's some more fun stuff coming in. Certainly feel free to ask for things.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:32  
Got suggestions for you know, anything special you'd like for just for patrons only? Let us know.

Dan Roth  2:37  
Yeah, absolutely. I'm more than happy to send out some old school thumb drives.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:44  
automators If you want if you want a thumb drive with every episode of wheel bearings on it,

Dan Roth  2:51  
that's Yeah, I it's funny. I'm sure you get a bunch of them too. But the thumb drives with the press kits and stuff. And back when they were doing auto shows like a year ago. Now. That was sort of the most convenient way to get everything. They'd have the press kit with the photos and the press releases and everything on and just snag one and then you get a cool little thumb drive. And sometimes they're really fun designs. So it has some neat ones through the years. I have one that Nissan did that looks just like a Nissan key fob, but it's a little smaller. And it's it's solid metal, so it's kind of a weapon.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:25  
And then I've got some nice transparent glass ones. Oh, nice. Really cool.

Dan Roth  3:29  
I have a Saab one

Sam Abuelsamid  3:30  
from Lou. That's old school

Dan Roth  3:32  
from the turbo x launch.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:34  
So that's probably what about 64 kilobytes on es

Dan Roth  3:38  
512 Meg's i think but it's it's shaped like the old school sob you know, the like the original sub model. And I'd like the sub 92 and yeah, it so that one I still have kicking around. So there's a few things and I'm happy to just you know, wipe them in jettison them. I don't think that all the episodes will fit on just 500 something megabytes but they're not that big. So we'll have to send you to snag snag one of those like GM did some that were like a credit card that like have this.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:11  
Yeah, there's I've got a bunch of those BMW did use those same ones. For several years. I've got a few of those as well. So and I've got one a Mopar one that's shipped like a sparkplug.

Dan Roth  4:24  
I have one from the Dart launch. That's it's like a Dart. It's you know, Oh, sweet. Yeah. So there's some cool things. I'm happy to clean house and send it to you send me in your house missing. But before we start talking about wheel bearings, products, we should probably just talk about the podcast so let's jump into what we're driving and I'm gonna follow up with some more CT five thoughts. So Sam, you've been more interesting this week. You had the the 2021 Volvo XC 60 ti. And what let's start there, and we'll link to your second car as a surprise. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:01  
So yeah, the the Z 60, which we've talked about before, on a few occasions, the 424, the 2021 model year, its name has been revised somewhat. For the the plug in hybrid version. Previously, the plug in hybrid was just referred to as the Z 60 ti eight. It's now the Z 60 recharge. So, Volvo has apparently decided to use the recharge brand on all of their plug in vehicles whether the plug in hybrids or battery electric. So the the battery version of the Z 40 is the Z 40 recharge. The xc 60, xc 90 and all the other models that have plug in hybrid powertrains are also called recharge. And the one I had the full complete name is the 2021 Volvo XC 60 recharge ta two pole star engineered push,

Dan Roth  5:58  
it's not twin engine hybrid. That's not

Sam Abuelsamid  6:00  
no not using the twin engine thing anymore on there. But Pollstar engineered means it's the more performance oriented version, which doesn't actually have any more actual performance relative to any other variant of the plug in hybrid xc 60. But it does have really bright yellow seat belts, and, and big 21 inch alloy wheels with huge rotors and bright yellow Brembo calipers on there. So the the brakes actually the cross drilled rotors, by the way,

Dan Roth  6:39  
so we're still doing cross drilled these days. Oh, yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  6:42  
On on the on the really big stuff. Not Not that something like the XC 60 really needs cross drilled rotors. I mean, it's quick, but it's not, you know, nobody's gonna drive this thing in a way that, that you need, those kind of brakes. But when you've got these big, gorgeous open wheels, and your brakes are extremely visible, you might as well you know, go all in and make them look cool.

Dan Roth  7:05  
When you keeps brake squeal down. Right? It's a sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  7:10  
Maybe a little bit. I don't think it makes I mean, not that these brake squealed. So but in general, it doesn't really make much difference. It's, it's more for heat dissipation for Oh, yeah, of course, you know, for getting that that hot air that builds up, you know, right around the pads, you know, to help vet that out of the way, way from that interface between the brake pad and the rotor. But as I said, the average xc 60 driver is probably not going to be driving this thing in a manner that would justify having those kinds of brakes. But nonetheless, you know, the Volvo plug in hybrid powertrain is a very nice power train. 415 horsepower 460 some odd pounds feet of torque. It has the, the two liter twin charged engine so it's supercharged and turbocharged driving the front wheels through an eight speed automatic transmission and then electric motor at the rear. And a lithium ion battery pack down the down the center tunnel that is officially rated at 19 miles per gallon or sorry, 19 miles of electric driving capability. I actually in my test that I ran in a mix cycle test around some urban suburban roads around this area got 21 miles before the battery was completely depleted. The the tires that came on this thing you know that it comes it comes with summer tires. Standard, you can get all I think you can get all season tires, but this one had Pirelli P zeros 21 inch p zeros, which is December. Yes, yeah, December in Michigan. Hmm, by this point in the year, usually by the time you hit Thanksgiving, it's a good idea to you know, swap out a tire, you know, swap up those summer tires for some winter tires. For the first several days, it was great. And then we got some snowfall, and it was not so great. But, you know, once once the snow melted the next day, it was fine. But you definitely definitely need to be careful driving around in winter weather conditions. Even on dry pavement when it's cold, you lose a lot of grip. You know, summer tires, when you get below about 40 degrees Fahrenheit ambient temperature, the rubber starts to get really hard, it's not as pliable and you lose a lot of grip. So even if the even if there's no snow just if it's just cold, you're not going to have as much grip, which means you're gonna have longer stopping distances, your cornering is not going to be as good. So if you have a vehicle with summer tires, and You live somewhere where temperatures get below 40 degrees, get a set of winter tires.

Dan Roth  10:04  
Yeah, it can be really spooky, when it's when the temp gets too low, even if it's dry.

Sam Abuelsamid  10:11  
Yeah. And, you know, so I mean, I took extra care, you know, when, when driving it, you know, because I know what they're capable of, and wanted to make sure I didn't get into any trouble with it. But, you know, the, the, like other modern Volvo's, you know, it's got multiple driving modes, there's a little knob on a little roller controller on the center console. So you can pick between pure mode, which is, you know, keeps you in Eevee mode. And the setup in this thing, you know, the electric motors on the rear axle, it's about 100 horsepower, electric motor. And if, if, when you're driving around town, that's big, put the torque that you have from that thing, it's actually quite adequate for driving around. I mean, you're not going to be able to do jackrabbit starts off the line with that, you know, on electric only, but you can, you can get more than adequate acceleration out of it for for just driving around town. And that's what I did. You know, when I did my, my range test is I've just put it in pure mode and drove it around. And you can drive it up to about 8085 miles an hour on electricity alone. Yeah, I mean, it'll take you a little longer to get there. But then when you put it in, in the sport mode, or they call their sport mode, you know, there's the hybrid mode. And then there's the performance mode. And you put it in performance mode, you know, you get everything, you know, the full 415 horsepower. And this thing is actually quite quick, surprisingly quick.

Dan Roth  11:50  
Well, so there was a time to By the way, where Volvo's weighed what the XC 60 does, and they only had 100 horsepower. From a you know, is it by that point, it was probably a 2.3 liter four, but it was still

Sam Abuelsamid  12:05  
naturally aspirated with a carburetor.

Dan Roth  12:07  
Yeah, exactly. So there's staying true to their roots. Yeah, but this is a lot quicker, especially. I mean, even if it doesn't have extra performance enhancement from Pollstar for the performance of the engine, it's Yeah, Volvo's are not slow anymore.

Sam Abuelsamid  12:24  
No, definitely not. And, you know, if you want the best performance from a Volvo these days, you know, you definitely want the plug in hybrid. That's, that's the most powerful version. The last, the last one I drove was the earlier this summer, I had a V 60. Pollstar engineered, and you know, so basically the same, you know, same power train, same platform, except it sits a couple inches lower than the XC 60 does. And that's a little sleeker looking. And, personally, if I was buying, I would take the V 60. I, I don't need the extra ride height, you know, I would go for the V 60. But, you know, if like most Americans, you're more enamored with crossovers these days than station wagons, you know, this is you're not you're not, you're not losing much with with this thing. You know, great seats, you know, we've complained bitterly about, but Volvo Sensus infotainment, and, you know, that's going to be on its way out over the next couple of years as, as the current generation of products get replaced with next generation, they'll all be getting the new Android automotive based infotainment system that launched on the pole star two and is also in the XC 40, recharging the battery version of the XC 40. And that should be a lot better. It's generally gotten pretty positive reviews so far in the pole star and the Z 40. The only real downside of the pole star engineered xc 60 is it's not inexpensive. It's not you know, for for this performance level, you know, and for premium mid sized SUV like this. It's not ridiculous, you know, at 71,001 40 including delivery. lots of options. Yeah. Yeah, you know, that when you go when you get the pole star engineer, you know, you're basically loaded, you know, it's got everything in there.

Dan Roth  14:22  
It starts at 5353 five, yeah, for the XC 60 recharges. So that's not terrible. I mean,

Sam Abuelsamid  14:28  
yeah, if you can, if you can live without the big yellow calipers, and yeah, and the summer tires on 21 inch wheels, you know, if you can, you know, go the 18th I think are on the standard one, you know, it's going to be just as quick, you know, might in in, you know, in twisty roads, it might not handle quite as well, but it's gonna be close enough that you're probably not going to notice the difference.

Dan Roth  14:53  
Yeah, I quite honestly don't expect that anybody's gonna really notice the difference. The biggest difference with the larger wheels and tires Just the ride gets crappier

Sam Abuelsamid  15:02  
yet, and that is the that is the other downside of the pole star engineer. And I noted that when I talked about the V 60 pole star engineered, is the ride quality is definitely stiffer you can you can feel the difference in ride quality. So, you know, aside from that, though, I mean, it's it's a lovely vehicle.

Dan Roth  15:21  
Yeah, Volvo does a really good job making their cars feel special, the design is really unique, it's something that they've managed to stick out. So, you know, they're really, like you say, they're lovely, in a lot of ways, I expect that the FPGA platform is getting a little tired, they've kind of gotten about as much as they can out of it. And I know that they're going to replace it soon with the second generation. So some of our complaints will probably be addressed at that point, infotainment, for sure. But also just the ride and handling of it seems like there's just some inherent stiffness to the ride of naspa car that will eventually get sort of smoothed out, when they go after revising the platform

Sam Abuelsamid  16:10  
more heavily. Yeah, we'll probably see the the new xc 90, by this time next year, it's supposed to launch in 2022. And that's going to be on the SP a two architecture. So, you know, it's it's only about a year away from being replaced. And then over the next couple of years after that, you know, the rest of the lineup will get replaced as well.

Dan Roth  16:32  
Yeah, and you know, that the move to making all their electric stuff, no matter whether it's plugin, or just full Eevee, the move to making it because, you know, naming it all recharged, I think is actually pretty smart. Because it's just, it's much more consistent. And when you go to the Volvo website, they're, they're pushing all of their electrified models, more so than non electrified. So you can I know that everything is going to be electrified very soon anyway, if if it isn't already, but they kind of bury the gas models are the non recharge stuff. So you go to the page and the first like, it just loads up. And it's it's all just the recharge models at the XC 40. Evie kind of featured prominently. So it seems like they really want to make sure that you tie recharged and Volvo and electrification together. And so it's a pretty smart move to make sure that it's consistently branded. I like that. And I'm, you know, I'm hopeful that of the premium euros, they've kind of staked out a territory that not everybody else has, you know, BMW and Mercedes. I, their kind of Mercedes, not as much, but BMW seems to be going through a time where I'm not sure if they're sure what they want to do. I don't know. Maybe that's just a personal opinion. I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  18:03  
Yeah, I think, you know, that they've been kind of making a BMW has been making a shift. And also towards more electrification, you know, putting more plug in hybrid options in all their vehicles. You know, over the last few years, they seem to waver on the whole electrification thing, but in a lot, since their their new CEO came in about a year and a half or so ago. They, you know, they've recommitted to electrification. So I think we're gonna see plug in hybrid and battery versions of pretty much everything they build over the next several years.

Dan Roth  18:40  
Yeah. So I had them, they're all going that way. And that's, it's actually it's quite good. The driving experience seems like it's actually probably smoothed out by that electric motor in the XC 60. In particular, because you're not working that engine is hard off off the line. So it takes off strong and smooth and then the engine can get into the, into the mix later. Right. And it can, it can fill in any lumpiness you get in that transition between the supercharger and the turbocharger. Yeah, and that engine to like its is powerful for its size. It's not the most it's not the most pretty sounding. Yeah, it's just, it's fine. It's just it's it's a little growl Lee. The power is good. But it's I'm actually surprised that they're using the twin charged version, they could probably get away with just the T five here, which is still it's like 250 horsepower.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:43  
Yeah, well, I think, you know, the, the strategy in general, you know, from most of the European premium brands, at least until fairly recently, was to use it to put in the plug in hybrid option and use that as a More of a performance upgrade, then, you know, rather than just purely for efficiency, because, you know, the feeling was that customers, especially in the premium segments would be more willing to pay the the cost premium, the price premium for that plug in hybrid, more if they were getting extra performance from it, in addition to the efficiency. And so I think that that's why they, you know, they went this way, with this generation of vehicles, I think, for the next generation, I think we might see them, we'll probably see them offer more options, you know, they'll probably keep a performance, you know, a twin charged version with the plug in hybrid, or actually, more, more likely, we'll see them use a more powerful electric motor, and maybe step back to the, to, you know, just the turbocharged or maybe even, you know, the lower power turbocharged version, the T five version with 250 horsepower, and bump up the bump up the performance of the electric motor instead.

Dan Roth  21:09  
So how's Volvo doing? Overall, like, are they it's a weird year. And I know that they're the US isn't their only most important market. They're actually I think China is probably very, yeah, China's China's bigger for Volvo. Now. They're

Sam Abuelsamid  21:23  
actually doing quite well in China. And, you know, they're, they're actually building quite a few vehicles in China now. So like the pole star two, for example, the pole star one and the pole star two are actually both built in China and export it from China globally. So they're, they're doing quite well, in China. I mean, they're owned by Julie, you know, big Chinese automaker that also owns You know, there, they've got a couple other brands, including Lincoln CO, which is their newest brand, which currently doesn't sell outside of China, but it will be expanding globally over the next several years as well. And the they're, they're sharing Volvo's platforms. The two the two platforms that they've got the compact modular architecture that they use. The xc 40 is also used for the Pollstar two, and it's being used for a couple of Lincoln co models. And I think the SP two platform is also going to be shared with various other jewelry brands over the next couple of years.

Dan Roth  22:28  
That's probably I mean, that's pretty smart. We can talk just a little bit about how awesome everything that Julie's putting out there with all their brands seems to be like the jewelry models themselves are really fantastic looking. I haven't you haven't had any experience with.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:44  
You know, my first exposure to Gili was back in 2007 or eight, at the Detroit Auto shows the first time that Chinese brands came to the Detroit Auto Show. And, you know, there was a couple of different brands down there, you know, including jieli. And their cars were just a joke. I mean, they were so atrociously bad, you know, they were unattractive, but they were really poorly put together. You know, they just looked so, so terrible. And, you know, but everybody figured that sooner or later, you know, the Chinese automakers were gonna get their act together. And, you know, within a couple of years after that, Julie had bought Volvo from Ford. You know, Ford, Ford sold it off, after the recession. And Julie has been an amazing steward for the Volvo brand, you know, they, they've invested heavily in the brand. And, you know, given them their own platforms, you know, they completely re engineered them from the ground up. They've got great design, you know, new, they got new power trains that were previously Volvo had been sharing power trains with Ford, you know, they developed this new two liter engine family from scratch. And, and they, you know, had both gas and diesel versions of diesels were obviously never sold here. But, you know, and then they are sharing, you know, Volvo technology with some of their other brands like Lincoln CO, which is, you know, Link Lincoln COEs is interesting because they launched that as a subscription only brand. So you know, they're not selling them and selling Lincoln Cove vehicles in the traditional way. They're, they're doing it by subscription. Much like the the care by Volvo program that's available here in the US that they have. Yeah, and that's

Dan Roth  24:43  
one of the few subscriptions that's kind of still

Sam Abuelsamid  24:45  
hanging on. So it's one of the only ones that's actually working. And they actually fall 40 has been doing quite well with the subscriptions. And the XC 60 is available through subscription now as well. At least a couple of variants of it. So it's And also the Z 90. So I think they're they've learned a lot, you know, and they they've been evolving their business model evolving their products. And you know, I think that they're, they're in a good place.

Dan Roth  25:12  
Yeah, yeah. And so that's good for them. We'll continue to see Volvo's, I think because of the other stuff seems to be working. They're they're they're pretty, pretty decent juggernaut. I think they're one of the one of the top kind of auto conglomerates in China, this has it figured out. And there's a lot of companies and brands that are going to come our way, in the next day,

Sam Abuelsamid  25:37  
we'll definitely be seeing more from from Chinese automakers.

Dan Roth  25:41  
Yeah, I'm excited for it, it'd be interesting. They definitely have a different way of doing things. And for so many years, with the US being the top market, we were, you know, our tastes and desires. And step two dictated what the rest of the world got to a large degree. And that seems to be maybe shifting a little bit because China is a larger market. So I wonder what effect that's going to have on the cars that we see. So yeah, if any? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  26:11  
so the the other thing that I was gonna

Dan Roth  26:13  
move on you so yeah, yeah. can't carry on

Sam Abuelsamid  26:17  
the I had the 2021 Toyota Corolla SSE. And, you know, I

Dan Roth  26:23  
feel sporty.

Sam Abuelsamid  26:25  
No, not really. Actually, if you want a sporty Corolla, I mean, you can get the Corolla hatchback, right? Yeah, that's, that's actually a, there's a sporty version of that. But there's also the SE trim level. And if you want a sporty Corolla sedan, you can still get the SE with a six speed manual transmission. Unfortunately, the x SC is only available with the CVT. And so you get a two liter direct injected four cylinder, naturally aspirated 159 horsepower, if I recall correctly, and are sorry 169 and 151 foot pounds of torque. So it doesn't have a lot of low end torque, the torque peaks at 4400 rpm. You know, so one of the advantages, you know with some of its some of the competitors to the like the Civic to the Corolla, you know, the Civic, you have the 1.5 liter turbo, which is that's what we have is we have a civic with a one five turbo, and that's got really good low end torque, the two liter and the, in the Corolla is adequate, but it's, it's kind of lacking in low end torque, which is problematic with the CVT because, you know, the CVT is going you know, when, when you get into it, you know, try and drive, you know, with any kind of aggression at all, you know, it's going to rev the engine up, you know, to try and get it closer to that 4400 RPM torque peak. And the engine kind of makes some noise at that speed. That's not necessarily the most pleasant. You know, it, it's not the most refined drive train, it's smooth, but it doesn't sound great. And, you know, the way Toyota does cvts, you know, it's the more the classic motorboating control strategy, where, you know, it goes up, you know, revs up to a certain speed and just kind of hangs there as the vehicle accelerates. Which is, you know, that's kind of the CVT tech control that most people don't really like. The sound from that, you know, the rest of it's really nice, you know, for 20 for the 21 model year, I had one of these last year, and this year, they upgraded the, the infotainment system so it's now got support for Android Auto in addition to Apple CarPlay. One odd little thing that I noticed when I first got in and I went to hook up my phone, you know, I looked around, there's there's a wireless charging pad underneath the dashboard. So at the front edge of the console, there's a little wireless charging pad area and I didn't see a USB port around, opened up the center armrest in the in the storage area there found a USB port there, plugged it in, hmm wasn't recognizing the phone it was charging, but it was wasn't recognizing it. And turns out that's just a charging port, I actually had to go into the manual. And actually wasn't even the manual, I didn't find it in the manual actually had to look online to find that there's a second USB port that's up underneath the dash. So when you're when you're sitting in the driver's seat, you can't actually see it, you have to kind of lean over and look under to see it so the plugs gonna kind of go up and in to the USB port, and that's the data port. So you plug in your cable there and then plug in your phone. Then Android Auto or CarPlay will work from that. But once once that was figured out, you know, it was fine. You know, and tune we've complained about before, you know, it's, it's not a not a great user interface. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't look great, it's not terribly responsive. But, you know, definitely better if you're using CarPlay, or Android Auto, you know, the Corolla is driving dynamics, you know, the current generation Corolla are quite good, you know, it's the tnga platform that we've, we've spoken highly of in the past on various other vehicles. You know, so, you know, handles and rides, well, it's got, you know, decent steering feedback. It the, you know, the thing is roomy, very surprisingly roomy for its size. backseats got lots lots of space in there as well. Good size trunk, the design of the current generation Corolla, especially, you know, in a darker color, like this one, I had the, what do they call this shade of blue, it's a Blue Crush metallic, with black trim, you know, and the, the grill, you know, the large toy to grill doesn't look quite so prominent, and that, you know, kind of blends in a little more. But even even on the lighter colors, you know, it's

the, the way they've done the grill on the Corolla is not quite as, over the top is on some other Toyota's that we've discussed, like the Avalon, but, you know,

Dan Roth  31:35  
it looks like it's just hungry.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:38  
So, you know, it's, it's, it's a good car to drive very fuel efficient, you know, I get 32 miles per gallon with it. Which, you know, considering it was quite cold, you know, is quite more than acceptable, you can also get the Corolla with a hybrid. So it's basically the Prius drive train in there, which is, you know, is fine. You know, so with that, you get like 50 miles per gallon. And, you know, it's a good car, you know, it's a good, you know, basic car. You know, that's not not too insanely expensive, you know, the excess seat trim level with, you know, leather seats, and it's got nice contrasting blue stitching on the seats, you know, it's full, it's pretty much fully loaded 28,008 45 out the door, including delivery, but you can also get a base Corolla, you know, starting at just over 23,000 or no, sorry, nine for the L it's 19,009 25. So, it's going to be 2021 grand with the delivery charge for the L. The hybrids, hybrid starts at 23. Five. So, you know, that's actually a really good value for that. And that's, that's an le trim level. So that's, you know, it's a step up from the L. and new for 21 model year, they have the SE Apex edition, please. Yeah, back there, trim, blacked out trim spoiler on the trunk lid, a little bit of a splitter on the front. No, mechanically, it's the same as any other Corolla. So, you know, it's still gonna sound just as gnarly. But but it looks a little sportier, although, you know, the, you know, like the SE, you know, I think it looks just as good if not better. You know, it's a little more sedate than the the apex edition. And I think that would actually be the one I would I would go for I would probably get the the SC with the manual transmission if I was going to buy a Corolla.

Dan Roth  33:51  
The SC has the smaller engine, right? It's got the 1.8 with less, less power. So it's funny, they try to make it like you have sporty, but it's or maybe that's I thought it had a smaller engine.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:03  
No, I think No, it's a two liter.

Dan Roth  34:05  
Oh, is it? Okay?

Sam Abuelsamid  34:06  
The hybrid has a 1.8. Okay. All the regular gas engine ones have the two liter.

Dan Roth  34:14  
Okay, that's not terrible, then. Yeah, I do. I wonder though, like if it's even a good manual.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:23  
I, I'm assuming I haven't driven driven in the sedan, but I'm assuming it's the same one that's in the hatchback, the sporty hatchback. And that one was pretty decent. It's not a great manual, but it's it's, it's fine. Yeah, and I think it's gonna be generally a more pleasant driving experience than the CVT. Just because, you know, like I said, with the lack of low end torque from the engine, you know, the CVT is going to be making it work hard. And it sounds like it's working hard. You know, I mean, it's got adequate performance, but you know, It's it's got to work to do that. So

Dan Roth  35:03  
yeah, I put the Corolla. The Corona has always been a solid car that you can sort of dispassionately recommend like is this does not sound like you were excited.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:15  
I was you know, it wasn't excited but it also, you know, it doesn't it doesn't annoy me it doesn't turn me turn me off. You know, aside from the sound it was pleasant enough to drive. Yeah, you know, it, like I said, my personal preference would be, you know, the one five civic that with the turbo. But you know, I like that extra low end torque. But I think for most people that role is gonna be just fine. Most almost everybody's going to like it, you know, and not have an issue with it.

Dan Roth  35:47  
But it almost also still seems like Toyota knows that they have a lot of equity in the name and when you look around at the competition, even that civic that you're talking about, but certainly from from Hyundai and Kia as well. Or, you know, even the new Nissan Sentra everybody's gotten very good. You know, none of those cars are bad. They're all priced really competitively and some of them feel nicer, you know, the materials are nicer. I do think the curl actually goes down the road nice, I was shocked at how good

Sam Abuelsamid  36:24  
is the car Jen Corolla, you know, it's at least you know, in the the upper trim levels, you know, I haven't driven $1 anally, so I can't, can't comment on those. But, you know, the x sc, sc, you know, they, they have really nice trim inside nice materials, you know, it looks good, feels good. You know, one of the things I do like really like about the the current gen Corolla is the beltline, when you look at it in profile, the beltline dips down towards the front, that's actually you know, and then right at the front edge of the door kind of tilts back up again. And what that does is it, you know, at your front corners, when you're looking to the front front quarters, the beltline is actually nice and low, so you actually have much better visibility, you know, so rather than just having a straight horizontal line across the bottom of the glass, it's actually cut down more kind of, you know, in a similar kind of way to, you know, what you find, you know, on the Ford F series trucks, you know, where it's got that notch at the front, you know, so the, the glass dips down further, you know, it's obviously a different take on that, but, but having that curve at the bottom of the glass on the front doors, you know, makes it feel like the belt line is lower overall gives you better visibility, it feels more open. So that's something I actually really liked about the the current Corolla design and I think, overall, I really like the design of this girl. I think it's a really handsome, handsome looking car. It's I think it's, you know, by far and away the best looking Corolla ever.

Dan Roth  38:00  
Yeah, I don't know, what's the best curl ever, but it doesn't looks good. There's a lot of certain

Sam Abuelsamid  38:05  
certainly the best curl in decades.

Dan Roth  38:07  
Yeah. Okay, I'll say that, um, for sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:11  
86, you know, from the early 80s You know, that's, you know, that'd be a different story. But

Dan Roth  38:16  
that's a different, different era to deduce up the black roof. Um,

Sam Abuelsamid  38:21  
no. Okay.

Dan Roth  38:24  
Yeah, I mean, it can be it can be sharpened, Xsc trim, and it has overall you know, the Corolla has the Toyota Safety Sense package, standard equipment and stuff. So it's, it's always that good car, like, as a first car or just as a sort of solid choice that you don't if you don't want to shop for cars, because we all know how much fun that experiences just get a Corolla. And it's, it's one of those things like, you know, it's going to be fine. It's gonna, it's, it's gonna work, it's gonna be reliable. It still has all of those things. So

Sam Abuelsamid  39:00  
yeah, you get it, you're always gonna get great customer service from Toyota. You know, something needs to be fixed, you know, I mean, they're generally going to be very reliable. If something does need to be fixed, they're going to take care of it quickly. You know, it's, you really can't go wrong very much with a Toyota.

Dan Roth  39:18  
Yeah. And it does it does drive track decently. Well, I did it I did find that it was actually fun to the last girl I had earlier this year. And I found that it was it was fun to bring it out a little bit. Like I honestly can't remember I had the manual or not. It's, it's I don't want to say it's fine and move on. It's a good car. It's It's

Sam Abuelsamid  39:43  
It's an excellent car. Yeah, I just, you know, the only thing I take issue with really is the, you know, just kind of the engine note, you know, doesn't sound as refined. It does the engine. The engine stands out. The engine note stands out more just because of the lack of refinement. relative to the rest of the car, the rest of the car feels so much better than Corolla as of the past that, you know, that engine note really stands out, you know that because of the way they're controlling the CVT?

Dan Roth  40:11  
Yeah. All right, well, we can just start playing some different engine notes through the speakers. And it'll be fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  40:18  
Yeah, I think, you know, if they, you know, maybe if they did something with Active Noise Canceling that you know, or just a little bit, you know, more sound deadening material, I think that would probably be fine.

Dan Roth  40:31  
Yeah, seeing the noise cancellation to like, that's something that started off as a premium car feature. But it's not actually expensive to do. Like every car has a microphone in it now. Because of the the hands free stuff. And every car has an audio system. And everything's all networked together. It doesn't seem like it's that difficult to sample the noise, flip it out of phase and play it back. Like that's

Sam Abuelsamid  40:55  
just basically just some extra software in the body controller. All you need. You pretty much got all the hardware there already.

Dan Roth  41:03  
Yeah. So and it like, it's not, it's not even like they have to develop difficult code. It's just tickets, it's all there. You know, so I would assume that that's actually something that would be coming are really easy to implement on any car at any price. Yep. So all right. Speaking of engine noise, um, last week, I had the Cadillac CT, five, I, their names still mess with me. Um, but it was the 550 T. And it's a really, really good car. Like I said, last week, it's just I had really good, good week with it. It's, it's a great sedan. It's really comfortable. It's really well thought out. The ergonomics are good, the styling is great. It's roomy, the trunk is good. The infotainment Cadillac has done a good job. So while we complained about census and antoon, I have no complaints with

Sam Abuelsamid  42:00  
IKEA, which which by the way stands for Cadillac user experience. That's so it's Cadillac, Cadillac user experience.

Dan Roth  42:06  
Yeah. So and then I remember the first versions of cube were like, really frustrating, because they put too much into the screen. And it was just, it was gimmicky. And this is a lot more refined, and streamlined and easy to use. So I liked that quite a bit. And last week, sort of my biggest complaint was the engine note. And I thought it was a little bit overzealous and loud. And after a week with the car, I think that that was mistaken. The engine node is great, especially when you get on the engine, which sounds great when you're making it work hard. And it'll give you a little, you know, snap at it, you know, every shift the transmission shifts quickly, it will hold the gears in manual mode. So you can bounce it off the rev limiter if you want, which I I love because when you're in manual mode, it should be fully manual and not shift for you at redline. Like it's a pet peeve, I suppose. But yeah, this is really good performance sedan. And so I really, I think Cadillac has nailed it. Over the last couple of generations of chasing the Germans, they make great BMW is now and they just need to make great crossovers. And they, you know, the crossovers they have are good, but they're not as good as the sedans and that's that's this is a great car it's just it's the wrong product for them to just like it's not their massive product, you know, it's not their their highest seller, and that's kind of a shame that they they don't have something quite as as well done in the crossover SUV space right now. Um, not the Z five x four x six are bad. Certainly the escalate AI is brand new. So I don't have experience with that yet. But I just I don't see a clear analogue for the CT five in their their crossover lineup, which is where the money is right now.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:17  
Yeah, yeah. I drove the CT five back in August. And, you know, I was also really impressed with it and like you say, you know, it's, it's one of those, it's this new generation of Cadillacs, you know, the CT five and the CT for that, you know, really well executed much better so than the than the Z four was, and, you know, to a lesser degree relative to the Z sexy, I think the Z six is also really well done. But they, you know, they need to kind of hit that same level of excellence and refinement with the Z four and the Z five that they did with The CT four and CT five and I think you know the the seat the Z five I think was probably the the next gas engined Cadillac next generation next new gas engine Cadillac we'll see, you know, probably in another year or two. And it may well you know, maybe may well be you know one of the last gas engine Cadillacs we see they're moving aggressively towards electrification you know, by early part of 2022 we're going to see the lyric you know, which is going to be their first Evie that Evie crossover who knows maybe maybe the lyric will even replace the CT or the Z five in the lineup Yeah, I think when you know when that one launches I think that's going to really that's that's going to be the make or break for Cadillac as a brand. You know, they need to hit it out of the park with that one.

Dan Roth  45:55  
Yeah, and it must be frustrating to be inside Cadillac and hear us say stuff because I'm surely listen because I mean, who who doesn't? But it must be frustrating to them to hear us say things like well, you know, their their crossover lineup is lacking right now when there's stuff coming in then just it's just like just you just wait, you know, it's almost like the wait till next year kind of thing for sports teams like we're we're almost there. Just great stuff coming. No, I can't talk about it. But you'll see it very soon. And I feel like that's sort of where we are with Cadillac. I'm sure that that the next step is going to be good stuff. I just want them to get there. Yeah.

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Dan Roth  48:06  
we've been waiting a long time for the bronco and the Broncos sport. Gonna have to wait a little longer for the bronco.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:13  
Yeah, the big Bronco got pushed back a few months. So it's gonna launch in the summer now instead of the spring, they had some COVID related supplier issues that pushed back the launch of that. But the bronco sport is shipping now it's it's available they back in their November sales support they delivered 22 Bronco sports. So the first the first truck couple truck loads have hit customers. And I think you know, in December we'll see a whole bunch more. The You know, we've talked about this before how what Ford you know, has split their compact crossover lineup with this generation, you know, in the past, they had one compact crossover with the escape, you know, that tried to be everything, you know, in that size segment. And this year, you know, or this time around, they split it into two fairly surprisingly distinct vehicles off the same architecture that are each one is more focused on a particular part of that particular part of the market. You know, the Escape is much more car like than it was before you know it's really more like a tall focus now and then they did the bronco sport, you know as part of the bronco larger Bronco family. But, you know, it's the the more rugged off road oriented version, you know, with from the same architecture but you know, as soon as I got on the road with this thing, yeah, I almost immediately realized how different it actually feels from the from the escape. Yeah, It's it's actually got a slightly shorter wheelbase, it's about an inch inch and a half shorter wheelbase than an escape. You know, it's, it's about five inches shorter overall than escape five or six inches shorter overall, and about four inches taller and has you know, the base version you know has about an extra inch inch and a half of ground clearance relative to an escape. And then you know more if you get like the Badlands version with the big 29 inch wheels on it. You know, it also looks totally different from an escape it looks nothing like an escape. It's much more you know, the little brother to the big Bronco, you know, it's got those those Bronco cues with round headlamps and you know, the horizontal grill, the Bronco, the name Bronco in the grill. And, you know, it's it's taller, then it's got a taller roofline, then the escape, you know, less less sleek, looking more

Dan Roth  50:58  
upright when shield boxy broke. Good. Yeah, that's, it does look great.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:04  
Right. And, and as you know, during the summer, when they did the preview of the bronco and Bronco sport, when I talked to some of the designers and put a link to that episode, in the show notes, you had an interview there, where they talked about, you know, some of the things they did with the interior design. Part of you know, one of the one of the things with the Broncos sport, it's got this stepped roof, you know, kind of like the Land Rover Discovery had for many years. And the reason why is you know, they looked at how people wanted to use a vehicle like this, you know, a lot of a lot of customers, you know, would want a vehicle like this, you know, want to take their mountain bikes, you know, and use the bronco to get them out to the trailhead, and, and then you know that but they don't want to leave their expensive mountain bikes, you know, on a rack, on a rack on the outside of the vehicle, they want to put them inside, so they raise the raise the roofline enough so that you can actually put the bikes inside, you know, and one of the accessories you can get his Yakima bike rack that goes mounts in the inside, you fold the seat back seats down, and you can put two mountain bikes inside the vehicle, you know, it's also got things like, you know, when you open the tailgate, you know, there's a couple of LED flood lamps in there. So you know, your campsite, you can open up the tailgate and you know, have light there, it's got got returned to the separate glass on the tailgate, so you can open up the rear window separately from the rest of the tailgate. So if you've got a surfboard that you want to hang out the back or something like that, you can have that hanging out the back, just leave the rear glass open, but have

Dan Roth  52:41  
a beanie child,

Sam Abuelsamid  52:42  
whatever. So you know, a lot of a lot of really nice details. You know, it's, you know, tons of headroom inside because of that extra tall roof. driving it, you know, it does, even though it has the exact same engines, the 1.5 liter three cylinder EcoBoost and the two liter it feels distinctly different overall on the road from the, from the escape, you know, it's, it's a little bit taller, it's got a little more wheel travel, you know, same, same basic same layout of the suspension struts in the front and multi link setup in the back. But, you know, a lot, a lot of the parts are actually different. And, you know, it rides rides. Well, no, no complaints about the ride, you know, the drive route we had, you know, was a mix of, you know, highway and suburban roads and some city streets. And also, you know, some unpaved gravel roads, you know, through through some rural areas around northern Oakland County here in Michigan. And, you know, it was, you know, it was great to drive for the most part, not much in the way of steering feel even less less so than the escape, you know, the steering kind of felt over boosted and, you know, there was not really much in the way of feedback. And but it the other thing is it also sounded, it was louder inside than the escape was, you know, no, it felt noticeably louder. I mean, not, like, hard to say for sure, without driving them back to back, but I don't seem to recall the escape being quite as loud inside. Yeah, it wasn't cacophonous,

Dan Roth  54:29  
but it was like when noise and road noise there's a lot

Sam Abuelsamid  54:31  
more road noise. Not so much wind noise, you know, just, you know, it seemed like there was less sound insulation in it than you would find in an escape. So, there's that and also, you know, the materials, you know, more hard plastics on the inside of the bronco sport. And, you know, so it doesn't it doesn't feel quite it doesn't feel as premium is as an escape does. Which, you know, actually, you know, maybe fine. I know You know, there's been in some of the reviews, there's some complaints about that. I think, you know, given the nature of, you know, the type of vehicle, this is the use case, you know, you want, you know, durable materials inside there. You know, the bronco sport, unlike the big Bronco doesn't have removable doors or removable roof, but it definitely, you know, it definitely feels a bit more utilitarian than the escape does, which, as I said, is not not necessarily a bad thing. It's just, you know, it's a different kind of feel to it. And, you know, it's, it's a good, you know, I think, for what it's designed to be, I think it's really good, you know, I think it executes really well, you know, we also got a chance to drive it, you know, at the Hollyoaks RV park, you know, where they've got all kinds of trails and different kinds of surfaces doing some rock crawling, and you know, going up really steep, you know, like 20% grades, we also got a chance to drive it, you know, on a deep sand autocross one of the features they have on the bronco sport is it's got twin clutch rear axle, which is basically the same as the setup that was in the last Focus RS that they used, you know, they had the twin clutch control on the rear axle, I think there's a whole DAX were axle that, you know, they were able to use and use that to enable drift mode, and the in the Focus RS,

Dan Roth  56:29  
can you get your foot in the bronco sport,

Sam Abuelsamid  56:31  
kind of, you know, it's obviously, you know, it's calibrated completely differently, you know, we're off road control. But, you know, and the, you know, when you put it in the deep sand mode, you know, so it's got the different drive modes, trail modes, that you find on, you know, Ford's off road vehicles, when you put it in deep sand mode. You know, when you're in the sand, you know, if you get on the gas, as you're turning, you can get the back end to come around, you know, so you can, you can make it oversteer, you know, it's not quite like drifting, but you can, you can have a lot of fun with this thing. It was, it was, it was a good time playing with this thing in the sand. But you know, also, you know, climbing up, you know, you can forward through 29 inches of water with it, you know, climbing up steep grades, you know, going around corners, one of the nice things is it's got you can keep the the surround you cameras on at speeds up to about 10 miles an hour. So when you're maneuvering through a tight trail, and you want to see what's around you, or you know, when you come up to the crest of a hill, and you want to see what's on the other side of that is your nose is pointing up, you can't can't see what's what's on the other side of that you can have the camera on so you can see the other side before you go down the hill again, which is really, really handy to have. So, you know, a lot of a lot of nice little features like that. So if if what you want is something that is escape sized, but much more off road capable. That and has that, you know, has the ground clearance and the ability to you know, go almost anywhere. You know, I think this is a really interesting alternative to you know, probably its closest direct competitor would be the Jeep Compass. Trailhawk Yeah, I think, you know, from an off road capability standpoint, I think they're pretty similar. I think, you know, the, the bronco sport has some advantages over the Trailhawk especially, you know, in terms of the form factor, you know, that the compass, is, you know, it's a lower roofline, it's a little bit sleeker looking. But that means that you can't do things like you know, put bikes inside the vehicle. You know, you don't have as much height from the floor to the roof in the the cargo area of the compass. So it's, it's a, it's a different kind of feel. So depending on, you know, what you want to do with it, you know, what sort of things you like to do outdoors, you know, if the Broncos sport might be a better choice for you.

Dan Roth  59:09  
Yeah, I think too, they have really carefully threaded the needle with the bronco sport between being just that stylish, compact, crossover slash SUV that is never going to see dirt and being also capable. And there's a lot of different models that you can select from. So if you want one if you know you're never going to go off road, but you want this squared off styling, it's friendly looking. It has some functional benefits. And you know, you're only going to drive it into this in the city. That's fine there. There's one for you, you know, there's more luxurious versions, they really have a pretty big spread. And they've done a really good job making sure that it's going to live up to the expectations of the owners. Yeah. It's clearly very good. capable and they haven't worked real hard to separate it from the big Bronco on purpose, which again, I think is is smart. You know, I was talking with a friend the other day who loves Wranglers and he was trying to find the right Bronco for you know to lust after for a while, you should check out the bronco sport right now he drives GTA and just you know, as with the Wrangler, the big Bronco is, is probably it's overkill for most people the way they're going to use it. And, you know, the Wrangler is one of those things like, I get my fix, you know, I spent a week with it. I'm like, that's, that's cool.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:40  
That's an awesome Wrangler.

Dan Roth  1:00:42  
Yeah, that's enough. And that's me personally. So I'm not knocking sort of daily driving a Wrangler. But I think that, you know, something like the bronco sport or the compass, you know, the compass seems more like a grand cherokee in a lot of ways. But something like that the smaller form, but still has the charm of the big guns, there's a real place for that this is definitely going to be the bronco that we see the most of, and I don't think that's wrong, I don't think it's bad.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:14  
Yeah. Oh, and, you know, it's, it's a good point you make you know, that that's actually a good comparison, you know, the compass is much more like a baby grand cherokee, you know, it's got, it's got the full offroad capability in the Trailhawk version that you would get with, you know, with any other Jeep. But it is, it's very much a different form factor, even though you know, its footprint is about almost the same as the bronco sport. And one other thing too, you know, the compass, you know, it comes, you know, the base version of the compass is front wheel drive. So, you know, it's designed, you know, to cover a wider spread, you know, from you know, that kind of daily driver, you know, suburban commuter vehicle, you know, all the way to the Trailhawk you know, as the the off road capable vehicle with the bronco sport. Even though every Bronco sport 100% of Bronco sports have four wheel drive, not all wheel drive, but four wheel drive, and there's a there's an important distinction there. So all wheel drive, vehicles, all wheel drive systems are, you know, primarily two wheel drive. And, you know, they, they have some mechanism, you know, whether it's a viscous coupling or clutch system, that will redirect some portion of the torque to the rear wheels on demand. You know, so and in most cases, like on the escape, I think it's limited to about 10 or 15% of the torque going to the rear axle. You know, and then, you know, 85 90% for the front, the bronco sport, it's always 5050 torque split front to rear 100% of the time. So it's never a two wheel drive vehicle. It's always four wheel drive, full time, you know, and then it's, it's got the, the clutches you know, that can lock the rear differential or, you know, do the torque vectoring on the rear, to, you know, help you get around and get through rough terrain. It doesn't have a four wheel drive low mode, like the compass. Trailhawk does. compass Trailhawk actual in four wheel drive low has a slightly lower crawl ratio, and it's about 20 to one versus 18 to one in the bronco sport. So there might be a few places where the bronco or the Jeep might be able to go, you know, or get out of the bronco might not. But overall I mean, they're they're close enough that it doesn't I don't think it's really going to matter to almost anybody

Dan Roth  1:03:44  
get into a situation where you need a low range. You're probably need the big Bronco anyway. Yeah, you'd be probably even better you're very experienced, and you'll get out anyway. Yeah, you know, like either of the two, you're either in trouble, or you're fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:01  
Oh, one of one of the other really nice features that they have on the bronco sport. It's also on the the big Bronco. And it's I think it's also available on the F 150. And the Ranger is trail control, which is basically a cruise control a special cruise control mode for you know, off roading. And, you know, you set the speed, you know, in trout control mode, you know, up to up to 20 miles an hour is the max and once you get above 20 you know it disengages and it will maintain your speed you know going uphill and downhill and you know whatever surfaces So, you know if you're if you're on some undulating terrain, you can focus on just steering you know, making sure you know watching where you're going and you know, avoiding the biggest boulders and it will manage your speed so it'll do acceleration and braking and just hold your hold you constant speed as you're traversing. Those trails. And so when we were driving it, you know, you know, driving it up a 20 degree hill or up a 20% grade, you know, cross the trail across the ridge and then back down to 21% grade, you know, and I didn't even touch the brake pedal or the accelerator, you know, I just let it go and it control my speed all the way down. You know, kept it to about nine or 10 miles an hour all the way down. And it was it was right very much easier to drive that way.

Dan Roth  1:05:29  
Yeah, I mean offered cruise control was gonna get us in probably gets you further without getting you stuck then. Trying to do it yourself. A lot of times. I it's, uh, it's, you know, the bronco team is just, they've worked really hard. And I can't wait to start seeing these things in traffic and stuff just there. I like square vehicles. It's just, you know, it's a really cool product. And I'm glad that we're we're just about there to start to see all of them hit the market. You know, I think 2021 is Bronco and Bronco sport are going to be a bright spot. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:09  
yeah, absolutely. I think it's, I think it's gonna be a big hit for Ford. You know, the base, Bronco sport starts at just under 27 grand. The Badlands the top end, Badlands starts at 33. And, you know, then you can add all kinds of accessories to it. They've got all kinds of stuff that they've worked with, you know, companies like Yakima and a bunch of others to have, you know, oh, like that for the Bravo sport. I think there's over 100 different accessories available from from started production. So

Dan Roth  1:06:39  
yeah, well, that's really important too, with any of these cars, because they're kind of lifestyle cars, the factory accessories that just work really well with the vehicle integrate really nicely. They're easy to use, they're available right from the dealer, you don't have to shop around with your local, whatever, find them online and try to figure out which pieces go with which parts, all that's really important to make it work for your lifestyle and work for the way you want to use it. So the accessories are a big part of it that I think get overlooked for most cars, but for something in this niche, or you know, like the Wrangler or you know, the Subaru stuff, that tends to be a lot of accessories for Subaru as well, that expand the capabilities and match the capabilities to the way you're going to use it. That's really important.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:30  
Yeah, I mean, one of the, you know, they've got a tent system, a rooftop tent that you can get for this thing that attaches to the roof rails and also, you know, the roof rails are also standard on here. So you can mount this tent up there, pop it up, and comes with a ladder and everything so you can sleep up there.

Dan Roth  1:07:48  
We'll come eat, you

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:50  
don't have to climb up and climb up the ladder to get you. I bears and they're good climbers. I know. Yeah, they

Dan Roth  1:07:56  
don't I don't if you're a meal, they're gonna get you.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:59  
I think bear bears this probably isn't going to stop. But you know, things like snakes and you know other Yeah, ground dwelling creatures, you know, keep you safe from them.

Dan Roth  1:08:10  
Yeah, it's a good time. Yeah. I mean, I camp in it. That's fine. Yeah, they're worse ways to go and eaten by a bear. It seems like Uber is giving up on self driving cars, among other things they seem to be giving up on a lot lately. But they sold off their division.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:32  
Yeah. So over the past year or so. Please pass your year so even before the pandemic started Ubers been getting out of some of the business areas that it had expanded into, like its its micro mobility service, the bikes, you know, they sold that off to lime, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, they sold their sold the button the jump bikes off the line. And the scooters. They are in the process of selling off Uber elevate their urban Air Mobility division to Joby, which is a startup that's building an urban Air Mobility vehicle. And this past week, they announced that they're selling off the Advanced Technology Group, which is the group that was developing their automated driving system to Aurora, which is kind of interesting. Aurora is the company that started a few years ago by Chris Urmson. Sterling Anderson and drew bag now. Drew was formerly with Uber ATG. Sterling Anderson was the head of the original head of the autopilot program at Tesla left there to join up with Chris and drew for Uber. And Chris was the head of the Google self driving program from 2009 up until 2016 Before that, he led the Carnegie Mellon team that won the DARPA urban challenge in 2007. So his his background with self driving goes back to 2003. the very beginnings of the DARPA Grand Challenge program

Dan Roth  1:10:14  
is that the same team that spun out Argo

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:17  
is so Ardo, Chris, or Brian Solecki, who's the CEO at Argo, work? Yes, he worked. He was the head of the software team at Carnegie Mellon. And he worked with Chris. And then later, he also worked with Chris at waymo. Or at Google, before leaving there to form Argo. So yeah, there's been a lot of the alumni of the the Carnegie Mellon program, you know, are at various companies in the automated driving space, including at ATG.

Dan Roth  1:10:51  
That's like their it's their equivalent of the Xerox PARC.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:54  
Yeah. So it's estimated that Uber spent well over two and a half billion dollars on ATG over the last several years, you know, when they started it back in 2015, Travis Kalanick, when he was still CEO of Uber, you know, he talked about autonomous vehicles being an existential threat Ubers business, decided they had to have their own autonomous vehicles that, you know, they couldn't rely on anybody else, which I, to be honest, I think was kind of a mistake, I don't think that they, I don't think Uber and the same goes for Lyft, I don't think either one of them ever should have been developing their own, I think they should have been working with partners, you know, like Google and other companies, you know, to focus, you know, to focus on what they do well, which is the dispatch part of that connecting passengers with vehicles, and deploy other people's vehicles on their platform. And, and that's, you know, that's what they're doing now, you know, so they're, they're selling off, they sold off ATG to Aurora. What's interesting here is they, they, they offered it up to a lot of different companies, I know, at least a couple of different companies that I've talked to, that said, Yeah, they offered to sell it to us, and we passed on it because Ubers had, you know, hggs had a lot of problems. You know, obviously, you know, we know about the fatal crash in Tempe a few couple of years back. But even more recently, you know, they have still struggled to really get their system working well. And it doesn't work in a lot of environments. And I can understand why a lot of companies would pass on buying ATG, because doesn't seem like they actually had much technology that was of much value.

Dan Roth  1:12:42  
Well, I think that's, so when I look at it from the outside, the whole push for these companies to get into self driving, seems to me like a way to eliminate labor, or create another product that they could then spin off, and it looks like they've achieved number two, is

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:05  
nothing at all. I mean, for Uber, it was very much a way to eliminate labor, you know, they wanted to eliminate the cost of their drivers. But the reason why I say that, you know, they probably never should have bothered doing it themselves in the first place. Because even though they eliminate the cost of the drivers, if you look at Ubers business model, it's always been an asset light model that because they don't own any vehicles, they don't have to maintain them or, or buy them, or put fuel in them, or insure them. And if they develop their own automated driving system, and have their own fleet, now they've got to buy or build, you know, hundreds of 1000s or millions of these vehicles, and, you know, spend 10s of billions of dollars doing that and maintaining them and operating them. And it just doesn't, you know, for a company that doesn't have any experience doing that, and you know, has has no manufacturing infrastructure or any of that. It never seemed like a good idea for them to be going down this path. Because it was not clear how they were actually ever going to make money doing it. You know, as opposed to, you know, somebody that's already got factories and knows how to build vehicles and has, let's say, dealers, you know, that can that they can rely on to do service and maintenance of their vehicles. Yeah. So it never made sense for Uber or Lyft to be in this business, but they did it anyway. And now they're getting out of it. What, interestingly, you know, Aurora is not paying Uber any money for HCG, they're, they're right. They, they in fact, are getting $400 million, because it's part of the deal. Aurora is taking ownership, full ownership of ATG, and Uber is investing another $400 million into Aurora. So when this is all set, and it's so it's an all stock deal. Aurora is issuing shares to Uber to ATG shareholders which are Uber, and then their minority shareholders, which are Toyota denso and SoftBank. And so Uber is going to end up when this is all done owning about 26% of Aurora, and, and then minority other minority shares for Toyota and dunzo.

Dan Roth  1:15:20  
And I think that's gonna be the only way Ubers gonna make any money is the shares of another company probably.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:27  
You know, the, the, the other thing is, you know, or at GE has got over 1000 employees, they don't really seem to have any technology that's of huge value to Aurora. My guess is that, you know, and and the other thing is Aurora, you know, we've all heard about what the toxic environment is like, at Uber over the years. You know, Aurora has core values, you know, include things like no jerks. Yeah, and setting reasonable goals. And this is kind of the antithesis of what Uber has always been about. So

Dan Roth  1:16:05  
yeah, two

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:06  
very different corporate cultures there.

Dan Roth  1:16:09  
But there's like, so this is, those are statements. Sure, like didn't, didn't Google have the Don't be evil thing? And, like, quit? You look like that's gone by the wayside for 15 years now. At least? I mean, it's, it's, yes, um, I just hope that the culture at a VA is more evolved in Ubers culture of one particular kind of person, and to the exclusion of other voices, that are important to listen to.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:42  
Yeah, no, and, and I think that that's, that's true. You know, and, and having, you know, having spent time with, you know, some of the people in Aurora like Chris and Sterling, you know, they and, and, you know, having talked to a lot of people that know them and how they operate, you know, I, I believe that this is, at least for now, anyway, this is the way Aurora really operates, you know, they, you know, that they're their core, their core values that they have listed on your website, operate with integrity, no jerks, set outrageous goals, focus, be reasonable and win together. Yeah. And this, from all I've heard, you know, this is really the way Aurora operates. And so I think that it's going to be challenging to integrate a lot of the ATG people into this kind of culture. And my guess is a lot of the ATG, people are going to end up leaving, which probably won't bother overall that much. You know, I think that for them, I think that the, you know, probably the more important thing was to develop the relationships with Uber as a place to deploy their vehicles. And with Toyota, and with Denzel, Denzel being a major supplier, you know, to manufacture LIDAR sensors for them, because they're developed roars developing their own LIDAR. And, you know, they can work with Toyota, you know, to get vehicles. So I think that this, you know, if they, as long as they, you know, don't try to have have too many of the or too much of the ATG team stay behind, you know, that which is going to raise their costs, then I think that this could work out. Okay. For Aurora, we'll see.

Dan Roth  1:18:28  
Yeah, I don't anticipate that any of the work on on autonomous driving is going to stop. But I think that the volume of companies that got into it is is going to shrink, that's all thing to say. So I mean, it's i'm not i'm not breaking any ground with my observation. Yeah, I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:47  
mean, we've already seen a lot of consolidation, you know, a bunch of the companies have, have got already gone by the wayside. And we're gonna see more go way over the next year or two. Just because, you know, this is a really hard problem to do. It's, it's not, it's not nearly as trivial, as Elon Musk would like to have people believe it is.

Dan Roth  1:19:06  
No, but I also wonder if, because of that, you know, high level of complexity, it's, you know, the, the concern is that it's like, never going to get there. And I don't think that that's wrong. I just wonder when the companies in this space, decide, like, you know, what, we can get you 99.5% of the way there, but that final point five is just never gonna happen.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:33  
Right? What are they? And that's why, you know, we may never have, you know, true level five vehicles that can that can drive everywhere, you know, anytime under any conditions, you know, it's they're always going to be restricted to, you know, either some geographic location or, you know, operating in certain weather conditions or, you know, whatever criteria it is. There's always going to be some limitations on it, or at least for the, for the foreseeable future.

Dan Roth  1:19:57  
Yeah, and, you know, the other thing that I think Think is sort of a blind spot for even those of us covering it is, there's so much focus on like personal vehicles being autonomous or you know, like like these, you know, like an Uber fleet vehicle being autonomous, but in terms of its application to, you know, delivery fleets or within cargo yards or shipping yards, or in like a transit application, there's a lot of places where this stuff can work really, really well, that I know that there's work going on there, but we only seem to focus on well, and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:36  
that's actually what Aurora is focused on. Now. They're right there. The first thing that they plan to deploy commercially is long haul trucking. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then,

Dan Roth  1:20:46  
and then long haul might be interesting to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:49  
you know, it's it's a different problem set. You know, it's not necessarily easier, but it's a different problem set. And it's something they think that they can get to sooner than Robo taxis. And, you know, that I think that may well be the case. You know, I mean, if you think about, you know, where trucks are operating, you know, on a highway, you know, you don't have intersections, you don't have traffic signals to deal with relatively few pedestrians on interstates. Oh, yeah. You know, it's, and, you know, it does have other challenges, you know, obviously, you know, 40 ton trucks at 6570 miles an hour, take a lot longer to stop. So you've got to be able to sense a lot farther down the road. But it's, you know, so it's a different problem set. But, you know, it's one that maybe, you know, maybe they can make work and have the economics work out better for them in the short term?

Dan Roth  1:21:44  
Yeah. Well, I mean, the reason why the economics work out better for them is because there's, there's companies that would invest in it, you know, on a regular basis, they'd make a large purchase. So when we just won, and it wouldn't be just, you know, 12 years in between, it would be a few 100. And, you know, three years, and then they expand from from there, you know, I'm thinking of like large trucking fleets, the problem comes back to the same problem that Uber has. Labor is the real loser, and truck drivers are already sort of under incredible pressure. with electronic logs now and stuff to the industry is not the sort of freewheeling Smokey and the Bandit kind of outlaw trucking thing that you may think of, it's still, you know, as it was portrayed in the 70s. It's a really skinflint industry. Like it's been bled real dry, and the the people who lost the most really from that are the, the drivers and so like, I don't know how to feel about it. Yeah, I think I think you're right, that, you know, if you say we can make an incremental change, you know, if we restrict this stuff to, you know, interesting, I'm trying to think of like, the interesting that is south further, you know, South enough to go across from, you know, California to Florida.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:08  
I tend, I

Dan Roth  1:23:09  
think, Yeah, I was gonna say if you've restricted to, you know, close enough to the equator, so it's going to render rain, but not snow you can, you can probably work the weather out of the equation, and then you can figure out how to do you know, drop offs and pickups so where does it leave the trailer? Those don't it doesn't have to go into town for that, you know, there's just probably some facility on the highway either a rest stop or a waystation that you could use is that sort of point delivery point, at least in the short term. And and then use just a normal human driver to get it around in those much tougher situations. So and yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:49  
and that's likely you know, what it'll be you know, is a mix of human and automated driving in the in the near term.

Dan Roth  1:23:58  
Yeah, I am still just curious like what why is everybody's ideal for this? like the idea of like, well, you can kick back and read the paper in the car while the car does the thing I can't No, I can't I get motion sickness. Be like that's not what I want to do. I don't know I'm so well, I'm I'm sure that Aurora seems to be a more tightly managed better run company than Uber. Not that they haven't been trying it over but as pushing the rock up the hill, at that company, so I think they'll probably have more success with it or maybe a clear revision. So we'll see.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:39  
Let's wrap up with a listener email from Britain. burghausen. Brent asks, loves the show wanted to get your thoughts on why Toyota lags so far behind in tech compared to other makers. Their safety tech is great, but their infotainment and instrument clusters feel ancient compared to the stuff coming from Hyundai and Kia We have three Toyota's and oh six Sienna, 12 Prius, and it just got a 20 rav4 hybrid. My wife started working for a Toyota dealer this year, and I'm looking for looking to replace my Prius in the next year, but I have no idea what I'm going to do. I really love the market golf, but they're not bringing a non GTI version, let alone a hybrid stateside. And from what I hear, and I'm not a fan of the current Prius and the Corolla hybrid, being only available in one base trim is not doing it for me, I'd love to stick with Toyota, the tech is important to me. And right now, it'd be hard to stick with the analog dials and crappy entune system and small screen. Any rumors of a new tune system or Eevee platform coming from Toyota? Seems like they let the Prius age not so gracefully, while making the rest of the fleet hybrids are falling behind as VW Nissan and others begin the transition to ATVs.

Dan Roth  1:25:54  
Lots of good points. Yep. Well, do you know anything about this? The reason why they're tech seems so behind, is it a culture thing? Is it hardware?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:04  
I think it's the hardware, you know, I think is fine. You know, it's it's right up there with other, you know, other contemporary stuff. But I think it is kind of a culture thing. You know, I think that, you know, the the current generation of antoon was a huge step forward from the previous generation. But, you know, the previous generation was so far behind that, you know, that's not saying it's a low bar. So, I think that, you know,

Unknown Speaker  1:26:36  
it's,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:37  
they do need to, you know, to get to a next generation, certainly, you know, the stuff that they have on the new Highlander is better, but it's still not great. You know, they're, they're moving in the right direction, but they still have work to do. As far as replacements for the for the Prius. Yeah, it looks like the troll hybrid is only available in the Le trim level right now.

Dan Roth  1:27:11  
Well, I think to the Prius is one of those cars that they're the crow hybrid kind of smothers the Prius.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:17  
Yeah, I think this might be the last generation of Prius that we see in North America. You know, its sales have dropped off to the point where, you know, like, last year, they sold about 65,000, priuses, they sold almost 100,000 rap for hybrids. The rap, the rav4, was their best selling hybrid last year. And, you know, they're selling a lot of hybrids in their other models as well. So, you know, if, if what you want is a hybrid, and you're not enamored with the with the curl, excuse me with the Corolla LE trim. There are other options. You know, the, the new Hyundai Elantra is available as a hybrid now, so that's, you know, in that same size class, and if that's something you're interested in as a C segment, sedan, you know, there's there's also, you know, other crossovers, you know, certainly the rap form, you've already got a rap for that's a that's a possibility. There's going to be coming from Toyota, eventually. We don't know when, you know, if you're, if you're interested in, you know, in an Eevee. I think we'll probably see something in 2021. from Toyota. They they did recently, the earliest this week, they released a teaser sketch of the next high, an Eevee crossover that they're going to launch next year. But I'm not sure if that one's coming in North America, I think that one might be only for Europe. Because that sketch came out of Toyota Europe. And so it might only be for the European market, where he V's are much more popular. If they, if they offer that one. We should see that early in the new year, probably sometime in January or February. So that's one to keep an eye out for. But there's also going to be a bunch of other TVs coming out next year. You've got a VW ID for you know as a compact crossover. Evie. That's this launching around the beginning of the year. There's going to be the Hyundai ionic five, again, compact crossover that's coming out early in the new year. And you know, there will be plenty of other options as well. So you know, if if you're interested in Eevee you know, a battery Evie. Toyota might not necessarily be your best choice.

Dan Roth  1:29:49  
Yeah, well, I'm especially if you're, if you're going that way too. You might. You might be looking at leasing like Rebecca says all the time, right, like consider leasing it, and then that gives you two, three years. There's in between, you know, product developments and that seems like enough time for the next generation of of new stuff to be there. So that's one way you could consider going I think to back on the the idea of the newest golf if you want to stay Toyota there's always the Corolla hatch you know the Corolla I was the Corolla I am, which was the cyan I am back a few years ago. It's not a bad car. It it's not as as good as the it's just a gorgeous Corolla hatch now it's no

Sam Abuelsamid  1:30:35  
longer they dropped the I Am.

Dan Roth  1:30:37  
Oh, have they? Yeah. It's a fine, that's a fine car. And it's, it can actually be kind of fun to drive. I don't know if you can still get it with a manual. When I drove it. It was I am and it did have the manual and it was it was good. I I could see it as an alternative to a golf without much of a stretch. So try that one.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:00  
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can get a Yeah, you can get the Corolla se hatchback with a manual transmission with a six speed manual.

Dan Roth  1:31:08  
Yeah, I mean, again, it's it's not a golf but it doesn't suck either. So that's that's actually

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:13  
you can also get the the Corolla hatchback XC with a manual.

Dan Roth  1:31:21  
Well see, that's not also not terrible. It'll have the nicer seats or nicer upholstery and be a little more fancy. All right. Well, I think we kind of answered that as best we could. We did have one other question that we didn't get to the last time we recorded. Just real quickly from Chris Fernandez on Twitter. Your verdict on the controversial BMW grills folly or ahead of their time, like the bangle, but folli

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:51  
follie. Really, the the bangle, but also, you know, eventually faded away as well. So

Dan Roth  1:31:58  
I think the the the original bangle sort of bustled back look of that seven series from what was it? 2002? Not good. It took him a few tries to make that sort of figure out how to make that stick. And that's, it's good in the sense that you do want to push design in different directions. I'm glad that they did it. I didn't like it. I liked what happened later, once they figured it out and refined it. You know, the 60 looks great. But that that first seven series that big shift from was a 38. To he I don't even I don't even know. That was not good. And I think the grills are kind of the same way. The large grills look great on the X seven. I don't but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:54  
it's also a large vehicle

Dan Roth  1:32:56  
right there. So scale wise, I think they work. I don't, I don't necessarily mind them on the four series either. But I'm maybe one of the like, I think they look good from certain angles. But BMW designs in the last five years have gotten really busy. They're not as clean as they had once been. There's lots of just stray lines and strikes and elements. And they're they're not as restrained. And I I'm struggling with that overall. But I don't I don't think the grills look terrible. In all cases, I think there are a couple of spots where they they don't look good. And the idea of where you're going to put the license plate does make them It does seem like you didn't really think this through. That's a good reason to live in Michigan. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:42  
you don't have to deal with the front license plates

Dan Roth  1:33:44  
or you don't have front plates in Michigan. Yeah, and there's certainly it's an opportunity for the aftermarket. There's all kinds of little kits where you can mount them off to the side and stuff. But yeah, so I wish I wish Rebecca was here to break the tie. I don't really care. I think they can be fine. They cannot be fine. It just depends on the model. But it sounds like you're more solidly opposed.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:09  
Very much so especially on the ix where you know, as an Eevee it just looks ridiculous.

Dan Roth  1:34:14  
Yeah, he sent me grunts. Yeah. Even if they have Phoenix dangerous. All right, well, good. We have knocked down another podcast episode. We'll be back with another one real shortly. And in the meantime, let us know what your thoughts are. You know where to find us on social media or at feedback at wheel bearings dot media. And we'll see everybody next time.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:37  
Thanks. Bye,

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