Dan Roth  0:00  
Coming up on episode 184 of wheel bearings were driving the 2021 Honda Odyssey elite Volkswagen Passat and the 2021 Ford f150 King Ranch hybrid. We talked car buying. Rebecca shares her own painful story we answer some listener questions including a follow up with Ford about Maki markups and other topics are more pickup buyers dreaming of electrification and Ford and Jaguar committing to it in the EU in just a few years. That's all ahead on episode 184 of wheel bearings. Did you know you can support wheel bearings directly? Head to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media and you can become a patron today. Your contributions will help fund the platforms and tools we use to bring the podcast to you. And exclusives and improvements are already on the way thanks to your generosity. So if you want to be a part of an automotive podcast, like no other had to patreon.com slash wheel bearings, media

This is wheel bearings. I am Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Rebecca Lindland  1:08  
I'm Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca drives. 

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10  
And I'm Sam Abuelsamid. From guidehouse insights. 

Dan Roth  1:14  
That's right, we're changing it up on everyone. I wanted to thank our new Patreon supporters, Mark Reynolds, Matt vape pen for love.

Helping didn't screw that one up. David Levine and Michael Sim. Thanks y'all for kicking in. And hopefully, you're you're gonna stick with us and let us know what we can do better to keep you pleased now that you're paying customers. So it's helpful. But let's get on to the cars were driving. Let's see who wants to go first?

Rebecca Lindland  1:49  
Sam, Chico, there you go.

Dan Roth  1:50  
Sam. Sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:52  
Yeah, I had the 2021 Ford F 154. by four SuperCrew King Ranch hybrid. Our power boost, I should say. rolls right off the tongue? Yes, it does. Yes. It's the not quite most expensive f150 that that is reserved for the Platinum the limited? The limited, or is it the Platinum? I can't? I don't know. Anyway, I don't remember how they're it's really expensive. f 150. Let's put it that way.

And well, how expensive is it? Bottom Line price? $76,905, including the $1,695 delivery charge? Yes,

Dan Roth  2:32  
I can. And it's not even so it's not even heavy enough for a tax write off? Is it like you couldn't you couldn't get a tax?

Sam Abuelsamid  2:37  
No, because the gv W is less than 8500 pounds. So it's not a commercial vehicle.

Rebecca Lindland  2:44  
And speaking of destination charges, I know already diverging Consumer Reports is actually doing some work on that because I was asked to provide a quote last night for a story that Kristin Shaw was writing for the drive. And she referenced the Consumer Reports story. So there, it is not our imagination. Destination charges have been increasing steadily over the last five years.

Sam Abuelsamid  3:08  
Oh, God, no, no doubt about that.

Dan Roth  3:11  
With So, like, I just don't understand why don't they just put that in the price of the car? Why is it separate?

Sam Abuelsamid  3:16  
That's a really good lot. I mean, the, you know, the cynical side of me wants to say it's, it gives them a way to do hidden price increases. You know, and you know, it lets them advertise a price that is less than what you actually have to pay. Because it's not an optional thing. You can't You can't decline to pay the destination charge and go pick it up from the factory. I mean, if you could do that, and for me, you know, the these things are built in Dearborn like 25 minutes away from me here and I could you know I could easily get a ride over I could take a lift over there for a lot less than what this destination charges but they would they you can't decline it. So it's it's a mandatory fee. And I think I mentioned last week when we were talking about the the 2022 bolt, the prices that they're quoting for the bolt now and the bolt, Evie actually include the destination charge so they are not they're not talking about the price without destination charge anymore. It's included. And I think that this this should be mandatory for all automakers. You cannot advertise a price that does not include the delivery charge.

Rebecca Lindland  4:24  
I agree with that. I don't mind. I'm never in favor of opaqueness though. And that's the that is the one thing is that that I do I agree that you shouldn't you shouldn't be able to advertise the price without something as significant as the destination fee, you know, some of the other ones license registration, all that stuff. But when you're tacking on, you know, five to 8% onto a vehicle sometimes it's like, wait a minute, you can't just throw that on in. So I agree but I do I do still like having it as a line item.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:58  
Yeah, that's fine. You know how Haven't as a breakout line item on them on them and Roni, but, you know, in terms of what you the price you advertise, it should be that bottom line price. And you mentioned, you know, registration fees, license fees, that sort of thing. Those vary state to state anyway. So it's not realistic to lump those in. And sales tax sales tax is another one, because that varies based on where you are. But anything that is consistent, you know, that every single customer has to pay for should be included in that price that you put on that on that ad. Yes, I agree. Yeah, you should not be you should not be allowed to advertise a price it is missing mandatory items. So that, that that set aside, this is a really good truck.

Rebecca Lindland  5:45  
What were you driving?

Sam Abuelsamid  5:47  
It's the 2021, Ford f150, King Ranch powerboost SuperCrew? Maybe not necessarily in that particular sequence of terms. But yeah, so this is the hybrid King Ranch. And actually, yeah, so the the hybrid is new for 2021. Ford has been talking about this for a long time. In fact, I think it was probably about 10 years ago, when they first announced they were gonna do a partnership with Toyota to develop a hybrid for both for the F 150. And for Toyota's trucks. And after a couple of years, for reasons unknown, that deal fell apart, the two companies went their separate ways. I'm guessing that when the new tundra finally shows up, it will probably have a Toyota hybrid system in it. But for now, this is the only full size pickup truck you can get with a full hybrid system. And, you know, it's, it's actually fairly fuel efficient, but it's not, it's not the most, it's not designed to maximize fuel efficiency. It's designed to get good fuel efficiency, but really more for the functionality, the capabilities. So you know, to get great towing capability, and you can tow 12,000 pounds with this thing properly configured, you can, you know, it comes standard with their pro power onboard generator system. So, as standard equipment, you get a 2.4 kilowatt generator system. So it's using the electric motor from the hybrid as a generator. And depending on how much power you're consuming, it can run that just off the hybrid battery without even running the engine, depending on how long you need it, eventually, it'll turn the engine on and run that. But even that, this, this is something that can be really appealing for a lot of commercial users, for contractors, plumbers, things like that, where they need power for their tools that you know, because a lot of them haul around a gas generator in their truck. Yeah, and that will takes up space. You know, those guests does, you know, portable generators typically put, you know, consume far less fuel efficient, they can, they're got, you know, they don't have all the emission controls are on modern vehicles. And, you know, because they're going to have to run continuously, you know, they also have, you know, have a disadvantage during this, this thing, you know, when the engine is running, it's running through the catalytic converter and everything so it's generally going to be cleaner than a typical generator, and you don't have that extra piece of hardware to haul around. So in the left rear corner of the bed, on the base version, there's four 120 volt AC output outlets with maximum of 2.4 kilowatts total output. Then there's also the upgrade model which gets you 7.2 kilowatts. So without one you get, you still get the floor 120 volt outlets, and you get a 240 volt, nema 1450 outlet, you know, it's like a dryer outlet. So you can run a welder off of that, you know, or any number of other things

Dan Roth  8:56  
aren't easy. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  8:57  
And, you know, this past year, you could you could chart you could plug in, you know, because the, the Mustang Maki, you know, come standard with a charging cable that supports 240 volt and it's got interchangeable plugs so you can plug it into a 120 outlet or 240 outlet so you could plug it in to an F 150 hybrid and charge it off of that.

Dan Roth  9:19  
See, it's its own roadside assistance, it is

Sam Abuelsamid  9:22  
exactly fine. In fact, this this this past week, you know as we're recording this in Texas, and a lot of the South got hit by these big storms. And Ford was actually asking their dealers you know, because you know millions of people were without power for several days and freezing cold weather. They were asking dealers to loan out their f 150 that they had in stock to use as generators to provide power for people you know, emergency power for people. So you know, these these things can put out a lot of power so that can that can be very handy. And the the one I was driving had the upgraded 7.4 kilowatt system. And you know, when you're using the 240 volt outlet, you know, the engine is going to be running continuously. It's not, it's not going to run off the battery for that one. But, you know, this, this is a, you know, this is a very capable truck. And a lot of really neat features on here to what we talked about last week, we were talking about the grab handles, and some of these bigger vehicles. And I went back and checked, and the F 150 did in fact, it does in fact, have a grab handle on the a pillar, the 2021 F 150. I can't remember if the previous generation did or not, but the new ones do. So on both sides, you've got that grab handle there to help pull you up into the truck. You know, the King Ranch of course has the power running boards that retract you know, they automatically extend when you approach the truck with the key fob on you. Or if you get the F 150 also supports phone as a key. So you can program your you can set up your fordpass account on your phone or enable your phone to be used as a key using Bluetooth LE. So when you walk up, you know it automatically pops down the running boards, unlocks the doors turns on the puddle lamps that sort of thing. This This one also had excuse me, the fold flat front seats the full full recline reclining or mat max recline driver and passenger seats for the front right. So you know it's like like laying back in a business class seat when you when you slot when you fold it all the way back in your closet all the way back the seat cushion actually, the seat cushion actually comes up to make it a flatter surface. So it's more comfortable. So if you need to take a nap in your truck, you can do that. It also had the

Dan Roth  11:47  
performance chair

Sam Abuelsamid  11:48  
Exactly. I also had the the twin panel moonroof, so basically, you know, a panoramic moonroof, you know, in this crew cab truck, and, you know, the set with the size of these cabs now, you know, the back seat in these things is huge. You know, these are these are luxury, I mean, even even as a base vehicle you can you can get an XL, and SuperCrew hybrid. And you know, you've got more legroom and headroom in that thing than you do in almost any big, you know, luxury sedan had the tow package it had the the active prep package for the active drive assist that's coming this summer. So this will be a hands free Driver Assist system similar to gm supercruise. And that will you know, if you, if you order the truck with that active prep package on it, it actually comes standard on the higher trim levels, then it'll, you'll get that update as an over the air software update. And this that's one of the things about these new f 150s is they support full otaa update capability just like a Tesla. It had a really nice 12 inch display. Landscape display for the sink for system, you know, very responsive, it's a little bit different interface from the one in the Maki, because it's landscape. So it's set up a little bit differently, but you can still, you can swipe back and forth, you still get a two pane display on there, and you can so you can have your media player and the smaller pane on the on the right and navigation and if you want to swap them you can just swipe across the screen and it'll swap the positions of whatever's in those two panes. It's got, you know, full fordpass capability so you can get apps in there like paying for parking and paying for gas, things like that. So yeah, this is a really, really nice truck, you know, and we've complained in the past about the interior quality of some of the materials even on the high end Ford trucks, that's no longer the case on these 2021 models using these new models. Really, really nicely done interiors really well executed. You know, they all have the 2021 trucks you know with the automatic transmission have the the fold down shift lever, so you press a button and the shift lever motors down into the pocket in front of it and then you can have the work surface it just folds out so you have a nice big flat work surface to put laptop or ease their clipboards on there and you know to write out your notes This is great for again, you know, for people working from their trucks and you know the work surface on the tailgate. So you've got a molded in. ruler, there's pockets for clamps to clamp down your whatever you're working on. There's molded in cupholders and a little slot for tablet, you know to put whatever whatever you need there. It's it's just really well thought out with a lot of a lot of really cool Details. And so that's the, the 2021 Ford F 150. King Ranch SuperCrew powerboost?

Rebecca Lindland  15:07  
Yeah, I think Ford has done an amazing job on those emotional solutions that make people happy. Right? Like, it's like, they thought about things and and they put in so many details like that. I, you know, the it's really stunning. And the stories out of Texas are so interesting. They're actually Ford reported that they're seeing an 18% increase in online searches for the for the F 150. And which is notable because they've, you know, it's such a popular vehicle to have that kind of increase in online searches is really significant. And so, I think that, you know, they've just, the thoughtfulness that you said that went into that vehicle is is amazing. And I know, I love driving, the one that I had for a couple of days. You know, it's a big truck for sure. By

Sam Abuelsamid  15:59  
very big,

Rebecca Lindland  16:00  
yes, very big, but I don't know, there's, there was still, there was some that there was a good feeling about driving it. And, you know, while it's a lot to drive around every day, certainly in suburbia, I'm, you know, I think it's really hard to be on the open road. And when you're down in India as a worker as a working ranch kind of kind of environment, you know, as a working truck, it's it's really, really well done.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:29  
Yeah. And,

Dan Roth  16:30  
well, there's a reason why people like them, too. You know, I think that this is one of those areas where everybody loves to hate the huge, you know, full size pickups, a kind of until they try one, and it may not be your thing. But once you try one, and you see how they've been designed to fill the needs of the people who, who need them, and want them, you kind of understand it a little bit more and and you can walk away saying, you know, this may not be right for me, but I can I can see the appeal, I can understand, you know, it's awful. It's similar to like minivans to write if you're not a parent, if you haven't had that experience. It's easy to really dislike them until you try out all those features and you understand like how

Rebecca Lindland  17:18  
it feels, right. Like, that's the thing is that like a minivan, a full size pickup truck, a full size SUV, as we talked about before, it's purpose built. It's not designed for everybody. And that's okay. Yeah, you know, it's, but it's designed for the people that need it.

Dan Roth  17:34  
And well, and the luxury, like, the luxury is something that you know, I like that they're, they're making them them nicer and more, you can you can get them as fancy as a Lincoln. Right? And that's, there should be no shame in that. It's just funny, like, how there's this this, like, undercurrent of like, this, this, this feeling that like, No, no, no attraction, be austere. Like, why?

Sam Abuelsamid  18:03  
Well, I mean, if you want us here, you can certainly get it us you can get

Dan Roth  18:05  
it. Yeah, absolutely. You can get it last year, that's fine. But like, if you're willing to pay for it, and you want the luxury, I don't understand what I

Sam Abuelsamid  18:12  
mean, when you talk to marketers, you know, at the automakers, you know, whether it's Ford or GM, or, or RAM, you know, they'll tell you that, you know, what, what often happens is, you know, the owner of the company, and he'll will buy a fleet of, you know, excels, you know, or the base model. So work trucks, for their crews to use, and then, you know, don't buy, you know, they'll buy themselves as part of that package sell by themselves, like King Ranch or platinum or limited, you know, for the owner of the company, you know, is that as their luxury vehicle. Now, personally, I would not want to be driving around, you know, in a big truck, like this is just as my daily driver, unless I actually had a use for truck like that, that, it. It's not, it's not great. It's just not the kind of vehicle I like to drive. But, you know, it actually drives shockingly Well, you know, I mean, I remember when I started my engineering career, you know, in the early 90s, working on ABS for these kinds of trucks, and those trucks, you know, late 80s, early 90s those things were sloppy, they had terrible steering and terrible brakes, you know, and they handled just awful these modern trucks or nothing like that. I mean, these things are very composed on the road no matter what kind of surfaces you're driving on, you know, when when when I had it, you know, we had one night last week when I had it, hey, we got like eight nine inches of snow. And you know, I pulled this thing out of the driveway, you know, before I before I applied my driveway. And you know, I mean it just pulled right through it, it didn't it didn't care, you know, just put it in four wheel drive and, and just let it go. The only issue I had to hell was you know, the with the with the running boards down, you know, when I first started to move through or actually Was clearing the one side of my driveway with the snowblower and it was blowing the snow over towards the truck. And every time I walked by the truck, I had the key in my pocket, running boards are coming down. So it was packing the snow on the running boards. And so then it couldn't retract. And so it kept trying to pull it up and go back down, pull it up and go back down because of the snow packed on there. So I had to go and manually clean that off. But other than that, it worked great. And, you know, you can you can get the you know, the XL, super crew with the hybrid, you know, the basic work truck with with the same power train in it for $43,000, which, you know, for a commercial user, it's not cheap at 43 grand, but that's, you know, that's a very reasonable price to pay for that kind of truck these days. So and, you know, the fuel economy, the EPA fuel economy rating for, for the hybrid, with four wheel drive is 24 miles per gallon, which is actually quite impressive for a truck the size. And I got about 19 during my time of driving it but it was also really, really cold. It was a little difference

Dan Roth  21:08  
to is like a truck that size. It's not a hybrid that's going to get 19 is not going to have the like, what is the EcoBoost v six f like that total system has a 500 foot pounds of torque 450 So yeah, that it's it's you're not gonna have the performance it says you have to pick it's not gonna be able to pull 12,000 pounds for sure.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:29  
Well, the EcoBoost v six, well, it'll pull Well,

Dan Roth  21:32  
yes. But I mean, like with the hybrid together, like a carrier. Sorry.

Sam Abuelsamid  21:38  
Well, basically, you know, with this hybrid, you know, like the last time there was a full size pickup with a hybrid was when GM did theirs. You know, a decade ago, they're two mode hybrid on the Silverado and Sierra, and also on their on their SUVs. And at that time, those hybrids were a lot more expensive. The the hybrid system was a lot more expensive to build. I think I heard from people inside of GM that they were losing about $20,000 on every one of those trucks that they sold. And

Dan Roth  22:10  
that in the four wheel steering trucks.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:14  
Yeah, that thing could only tow 6000 pounds, you know, this is this thing can tow 12,000 pounds. You know, it's got a lot more performance a lot more payload capability than those ever did. Yeah,

Dan Roth  22:24  
Ford said it says it has a safe 430 horsepower. 570 pound feet of torque for the full hybrid power. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:33  
that's a lot. That's that's the most torque ever, not in an F 150. Yeah,

Dan Roth  22:39  
like it's so you can have that in 19 mpg. Or you can have you know, something like 300 pound feet of torque, and 18 miles spring 1890 miles per gallon. So you can pick either or,

Sam Abuelsamid  22:52  
yeah. So, you know, in this case, you know, the the three five, you know, basically the same truck with without the hybrid with the with the three five gets 20 mpg combined. And you get 24 with this one. So it's about a 20% improvement in fuel economy. like Oh, absolutely does. Yeah.

Dan Roth  23:12  
Especially like if you if you do a lot of city driving too, right, I get city numbers can actually increase Oh, yes. The non hybrid significantly. And so, you know, it'll do start stopping all those things. So yeah, so this is what I'm waiting for the new f 150 to arrive. My driver, this is the one for truck I haven't driven this year, multiple times, like they have kept us so well stocked in trucks. I've had like to have everything for a while and all the super duties. And so I'm just sort of biding my time until the new f150 comes in. It's everything I've heard is really, it's like they listened to me, they addressed all my concerns the interior material.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:54  
We've been complaining about these things for years, and now they fixed it all. So it's good.

Dan Roth  23:58  
Yeah. So they should just send me one. Nakita All right. Well, so Rebecca, you've been doing a lot of driving. How's mom, by the way? Thank you. She's

Rebecca Lindland  24:09  
doing very well. Yes.

Dan Roth  24:11  
Excellent. Thank you. And you've been putting miles on on, you know, the the tooing and froing in the 2020 Volkswagen Passat, which I'm surprised you're able to stay awake. Well, cars boring,

Rebecca Lindland  24:31  
you know, and yes, it is. That's it what odd something more for me.

Dan Roth  24:37  
I mean, you know, whatever ways,

Rebecca Lindland  24:39  
you know, this is what this is. So, life is a little chaotic right now of there's a lot going on. And I didn't even remember I knew I was getting a Volkswagen. I couldn't remember which one it was. And so I

Sam Abuelsamid  24:55  
had it you still couldn't remember what it was

Unknown Speaker  24:57  
so couldn't remember.

Rebecca Lindland  25:00  
I thought it was the facade, I hop in, I start driving, first of all, closing the door. It's so tinny. And then I am looking around, and I actually took a picture of the door and sent it to, to the interior of the door. And I sent it to our friend Joe Lamarr. Alia and I said, Joe, what car Am I in? Because it was so generic. And he wrote back, he goes, I have no idea. You know, what's frustrating is that Volkswagen often makes, you know, very fun, character filled vehicle, they can do like the Golf GTI. You know, there's the beetle, obviously, you know, is is very iconic still. And so, so anyway, so I got out, you know, I started driving, and this one's got the 2.0 liter 206 feet of torque, join six pounds, but pounds of torque, pound foot of torque, I'm sorry. And, you know, it's, it's supposedly, it's got this Arline thing going on that they

Dan Roth  26:16  
all do is Arline to Wow.

Rebecca Lindland  26:19  
Yeah. And it was, it was not. It was fine. It was fine. I actually

Sam Abuelsamid  26:29  
fine or just fine.

Rebecca Lindland  26:31  
It was, and Lucy has awakened after her long nap today

Dan Roth  26:35  
as fine. Chocolate boy,

Rebecca Lindland  26:38  
goodness. So what so after I'm driving this thing, it's kind of, it's pretty loud on the highway. It just doesn't have any kind of a premium feel. And I'm thinking I'm in the Jetta. Like, that was. I'm not even I didn't even realize that I was in the facade, until I pulled out some paperwork. And then this facade, it, you know, the starting price is 22 995. And they just, they have really, really managed to strip this car, of any character of any feeling of premium at all. And you know, what's frustrating is that, and we talk a lot about Kia and Hyundai, and brands that actually have a reputation that they don't really deserve as a bargain vehicle, you know, like people will ask me about a Hyundai or Kia

Unknown Speaker  27:38  
are those good cars, it's

Rebecca Lindland  27:39  
like they're great cars. And so Volkswagen, though I don't feel like they have been good stewards of their brand and the reputation that the brand enjoyed. Um, you know, I yeah, I didn't have any problems with it, it was fine. And actually, I got stuck. On the other morning, I made a storage run. And when I left the house, it it was not snowing. And then as I got on to 95, and my storage unit is about 20 minutes away, almost 30 minutes away, actually. And it was heavily snowing. And the car did great. And then went into storage was there for about 15 minutes came back out and there was even more snow on the ground. It was it was really heavily snowing. And it did really, really well I have to say, and we can talk about that a little bit more because it doesn't have AIDS. It's front wheel drive. It's not anything sexy. And but so you know, there were things that I liked about it in that it did have a nice, secure feeling even on a slightly slippery highway. But it was just there, there's no sense of reward for a vehicle that this one topped out at over $33,000 and that includes 995 destination charges. And you know, I didn't feel like I was rewarded for making this purchase.

Dan Roth  29:03  
Like that. Yeah, but yeah, so in the facade is in this position, I think where the Jetta was just like a year or two before where Volkswagen had been known they'd had a run of the you know, building their reputation as almost bargain outies since the like the Jetta three, back in the mid 90s. Where the cars just felt solid. They felt more expensive than then they they cost you know, materials were high quality. They were comfortable. They just they felt like a premium car right. And and even now, like the facade goes down the road, field feeling it has the road going feel of a premium car. What you're missing now is all the accoutrements of the premium car right? feel cheap. It looks non discrete. It's, it's Yeah, it's it's just, you know, it's it. And I think I made the crack a couple of weeks ago about that. It's just it's a great impulse. Yes. Yeah. Because that's, that's like exactly what it is. It's just it's a big sedan with a big trunk and decent ish back seat. It's not that expensive. You know, so 31 k for the airline, that's probably not that much. You're not, you don't have much more room to grow with. There's not a lot more to throw at it. So it's like, that's a decent price for the pissant. That's not like,

Rebecca Lindland  30:38  
it's not, but it's not. So. So. And the other thing, this doesn't have any drive modes in it whatsoever. Because like I was looking for, like, Is there a snow mode? Is there something you know, some way that I can interact with the vehicle and say, you know, and adjust, adjust the vehicle for my current driving conditions, which was heavy snow, and there wasn't, and I just, I don't know, I just was disappointed. And I, I go into every car wanting to love it. Right? We love cars, and I go in wanting to feel rewarded as a consumer, they have chosen a vehicle, right? And you want them to feel rewarded for making this decision to buy a 2020 Volkswagen Passat. I didn't have that.

Dan Roth  31:27  
And if you were if you were like a longtime Volkswagen fan to I don't know,

Rebecca Lindland  31:31  
I my first car was about fan.

Sam Abuelsamid  31:33  
And, and we owned a couple of Volkswagens. You know, we had a 22,000%, you know, that we had for for nine years. You know, we we had our meal more than our fair share of issues with it. But, you know, my wife loved driving that car, you know, and I did to him, it was a great car to drive. And, you know, what he said, Dan, you know, they've they've felt like bargain. Audi's, you know, when when we went to buy that, you know, the local VW dealer here in Ann Arbor. You know, they had VW and Audi's in the same showroom. And I was sat sitting there next to the a4, which, you know, they were on the same platform, they were mechanically identical. They had the same 1.8 liter turbo four cylinder in there. Yeah. And use you go from one to the other. It's like, why is that Audi $10,000? More than his Volkswagen.

Dan Roth  32:29  
Right? Well, and the folks say that the asix it, I mean, the the facade at that point was larger, you know, so

Sam Abuelsamid  32:36  
it's actually a bit bigger. But Oh, you mean larger than a4?

Dan Roth  32:40  
It was larger than a4 then right. Like, yeah, so

Unknown Speaker  32:43  
it was slightly larger.

Dan Roth  32:44  
So, so yeah, like, that's, I think that's the thing is they've taken that, that all that stuff that that you loved about the facade besides the tuber liability issues, which actually may be better now. They took all the character out of a car, I think is sort of where I come to is just like, like, Rebecca said, it's fine. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:08  
Yeah. There's, there's nothing inherently wrong with it. But no, when when you compare it against cars, like the new Sonata, or the key of K five, or even the current generation, Camry, you know, it's just, it doesn't have the the style and the flair and the verb, you know, it just does it doesn't Yeah,

Dan Roth  33:29  
I mean, the camera has enough style for for That's true. So there's a lot going on. Yeah, that's

Rebecca Lindland  33:36  
the thing. Your user

Unknown Speaker  33:38  
experience, isn't there? Exactly. Yeah.

Dan Roth  33:40  
So like, I can directly compare with the K five, because the K five impressed Yes. Where, like, I had only the GT line. So I didn't have the GT which had more power. And I think, Rebecca, so that car, felt like a premium European sedan as well, and then felt good to drive.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:00  
That's one other thing too, you know, the the facade and the facade currently, and it's actually also true of the Tiguan. Yeah, VW has a two liter turbocharged four cylinder that they sell in a bunch of different variations across their, their product line. The version that you know, there's, there's a version of this engine that you can get into golf, that makes over 300 horsepower. And then there's the version that's in this facade, and in the tagline, it makes 174 horsepower. 170 liter.

Unknown Speaker  34:35  
Yeah,

Dan Roth  34:35  
well, but the trade off is the facade engine is gonna consume less fuel and last longer,

Sam Abuelsamid  34:40  
in theory. We'll see. In theory, I

Rebecca Lindland  34:44  
don't know that I would want this car to last longer. Sorry.

Dan Roth  34:48  
pissed off cat By the way, did you feed her?

Rebecca Lindland  34:52  
You know, and again, there. There isn't. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this with a Volkswagen facade? There isn't Like, it was fine, it was fine. But that's the problem is that there are so many cars in this class that are better than fine, the bar keeps getting raised and VW has not kept up.

Dan Roth  35:13  
Exactly. Well, I think also like, the presets in that tough position where it's a large sedan. Everybody else has bailed on this for the most

Sam Abuelsamid  35:22  
part. VW. VW is gonna bail on this, you know, I think that this one, this generation of besought, goes out of production in the next year or two, it is not going to be replaced by another sedan. It's going to be replaced by some sort of crossover. You know, the the Chattanooga assembly plant where they build these and and the the facade is unique for North America. We're the only ones that get this iteration of the facade, they have a completely different everybody else

Dan Roth  35:51  
get your old facade that was

Rebecca Lindland  35:52  
maybe that's one of the problems is that because, you know, Volkswagen people, Americans that buy Volkswagens have an expectation of getting a proper Volkswagen. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's it's the difference between a co boss and a hotdog.

Dan Roth  36:14  
That's not the worst. It's the worst.

Rebecca Lindland  36:20  
Are you driving down?

Dan Roth  36:22  
So we had the 2021 Honda Odyssey elite, and when that showed up, we did the appropriate thing, which we took off to IKEA. On the way back, we stopped and got pizza in so I was actually thinking about this we we got pizza from the very special rare place, Frank Pepys, but there's only so many of those, and it was on the way back and I got the largest and I really wanted that like fold down console like in the F 150. Where the shifter falls down the way because they got the largest and the larger and Pepys large it's your bag. Yeah, um, there was no place for it. My wife was like, why didn't you get the minivan with the table? I was like, gonna have that for a long time but that was pretty awesome. So yeah, but the the Odyssey is that great family size vehicle and it's really interesting getting into a van after having so many big trucks and SUVs for a while. You know, you feel that GG just a little bit lower. So it feels so much sportier than stepping out of a large pickup truck. And the the Odyssey is the drivers minivan it's it's got a low cowl compared to everything else you know you really like the hood just just isn't there. That's like the classic Honda thing where you've got the bottom of the windshield and then nothing else. So visibility out is great. You feel like you're really you can see exactly where you need to go. The visibility sightlines are are excellent. It really handles You know, it has that bit of Honda sportiness to it. It also has a lot of Honda noisiness on the highway. There's like that road noise. Yeah, there's like a lot of low frequency that intrudes on the highway. The engine itself is wonderful. I love their 90 degree 3.5 liter V six. It's really snarly, it's torquey. And then when you get you know, you hear the shift over when it shifts. The V tech cam profiles when V tech kicks in. It's it just the engine note changes a little bit and it ripples really hard. It's it's a it's probably my favorite power train in a minivan because it has that little bit of Honda sort of spirit to it. The steering is good. The ride is not so great. It's a little stiff. And those things kind of make it make it feel like not properly tuned for the class. You know, it's great. If you want to take a back road with it. I was surprised at how you could sort of follow the curves. The problem is that it's a little loud, it's a little stiff and it just it's not not as soothing for occupants. And even with the new interior. The interior materials for the elite at least. Don't feel as good as what you're going to find in the Pacifica specifically I haven't been in the newest Sienna yet but the Pacifica has their their top tier I forget what it's called. Off the top of my head it's the Pacific a very fancy, the pinnacles the pinnacle There you go. Yeah, it's the scenic as opposed to the Volkswagen Passat Napier

Sam Abuelsamid  39:46  
cheap shot.

Dan Roth  39:48  
Yeah, sorry. But the, you know, it just it doesn't, it feels durable. It's gonna look good. Everything's gonna present Well, it's gonna hold up and that's what I've seen from Odysseys. You know, I work with people Have them and they do they hold up, they look exactly the same at 10 years old inside as they do brand new. And that's good. The problem is that they don't feel as nice, as you know, some of the competition, which, again, I don't know how well, the other stuff holds up. I don't I don't know how well the Pacific interior holds up, but it feels nicer. It looks nicer. And because our business is driving brand new cars all the time. That's gonna color my judgment. And it's just, you know, I think this is the kind of car that you need something to be a little bit quiet a little bit compliant. Not quite as edgy with the handling, although it's very secure. It's very sure footed. I liked that. It's also trailing. Both, I think that both the Sienna and the Pacifica now have all wheel drive where the Odyssey doesn't?

Rebecca Lindland  40:53  
Yeah, so I actually I had the Sienna back in October. Mm hmm. And it was it was really nice. It has those cool seats that like the reclining, not the reclining, but they pop up the Ottomans with the lazy boy. dress. Yes.

Dan Roth  41:11  
Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  41:13  
Yes. And, and the interior was very, very nice. It was really, really well done. You know, obviously a huge improvement over the previous version. The styling was nice. It was fun to drive. I mean, they thought they did a really, really nice job with it. So I think that again, you know, like, like, we've talked about people are raising the bar the, the minivan class is purpose built. Yeah. And you know, people buy for a very specific reason. And I think that they have I think certainly the Sienna, and and the Pacifica, they have said, You know what, if you're going to be in this, if you if you have purchased this vehicle for a reason, we are going to put a lot of thoughtful designs into it. I think that that Chrysler and Honda were the first ones to really do that, you know, with some really cool features to stow and go the vacuum cleaner, these kinds of things. But I do think that Toyota has really stepped up and Honda is facing a lot more competition now. I still think it's like a cool, you know, the cool minivan, right? It is amazing. And, and the new Sienna is really really good.

Dan Roth  42:26  
I do like the niche that Honda has sort of sort of carved out for itself. Go ahead.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:30  
I was just gonna ask if the one you had had the the the vacuum cleaner still in it because

Dan Roth  42:36  
yeah, it sucks.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:40  
Is there actually no longer available? The company that was supplying them with those vacuum cleaners? Actually, it's Shopback was building those, they went bankrupt last year. And so Honda right now is looking around for a new supplier. So if you were thinking about an odyssey because of the vacuum cleaner, you can't get the built in vacuum cleaner

Dan Roth  43:04  
anymore. But there's an opportunity for you if you'd like to actually start becoming an OEM you could make vacuums This one has it has the has the Honda back in it the it has all the features you know what the elite is the top of the top of the food chain for the Odyssey and so it has all the A das it has little cabin intercom which is hilarious it has the little the camera, the little night vision camera or the way I used it at night so maybe it was in night vision mode, but it has the camera where you as the driver can can sort of get a view of who's punching who in the back seats. Which is interesting, you know that they're funny things to joke about but also I can see it as a you know, a parental feature especially like I think Nicole was talking about it last week with the rear facing child seat somebody mentioned

Sam Abuelsamid  43:56  
I would have loved to had a feature like that when my kids were young. Yeah, cuz i mean you know when when you're driving around when you've got younger kids, you know, there's always stuff going going on back especially on a road trip. There's stuff going on back there, you know there's there's gonna be conflicts

Dan Roth  44:12  
like even when they get to be teenagers you know, you gotta see who's passing the ball forth and stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:19  
So you know, being being able to you know, you know, hit that hit the button and see what's going on back there is actually a really valuable feature and like I said, you know, like Nicole said, you know, for you know, if you've got a baby in a rear facing seat, you know, being able to look at them, you know, is fantastic.

Rebecca Lindland  44:39  
Yeah, just an FYI for you. Shopback was actually purchased by a great star tools USA and I which is part of another larger a company Hangzhou, great star injured industrial company.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:54  
I think they bought the the brand, but, like some of those contracts like the Honda contract, you know, they did not take those up. And so Honda was shopping around for a new supplier for those vacuums.

Rebecca Lindland  45:07  
Hmm. Because they bought the assets. So they bought the Williamsport factory. Yeah. But

Sam Abuelsamid  45:15  
they're not supplying those vacuums anymore for?

Rebecca Lindland  45:18  
Well, hopefully they'll maybe they'll reconsider. Yeah.

Dan Roth  45:23  
You should call them up and, you know, start to consult with them. But yeah, so those features are good. And at the end, the infotainment was actually pretty good. I know, I've complained about Honda infotainment in the past, this time around, it's been updated. To the point where I think it works pretty well, it works nicely with CarPlay and had the screen and the DVD player, which is nice, because we got in another car, I think, a couple of weeks ago, and there was no DVD or CD player. And people were upset about that. People who had been planning to watch a movie in the car, and could not because I wasn't, you know, we didn't have the thing to play the movie back on. So that's nicely done. It's been updated quite well, it's it's easy enough to live with and figure out after a couple of days, the the A das is actually really good. It's, it's well done lane centering. Lane Keeping is good. The dynamic cruise controls is good. So it all works nicely. And it takes it takes some of that stress out of driving it versus like being a thing, you've got to constantly fight against some especially lane centering, it starts to wander a little too much. You're like, Look, they're gonna pull me over for being like, I just need to do this myself.

Rebecca Lindland  46:45  
Yeah, well, and you know what, there's an I forgot to mention two things with the facade. But the lane 70 remind me driving in the snow was very interesting, because, you know, people don't necessarily drive right down the center. So where you where you're driving isn't necessarily where the lines are. And it definitely wanted me to keep moving over like to get more centered in the middle. Do you to be more centered in the lane? But I couldn't, because that's not where the that's not where the path was.

Dan Roth  47:19  
Right? You don't drive on the like driving the tire tracks like,

Rebecca Lindland  47:22  
Yeah, exactly. And the other thing I wanted to mention, I don't mean to hijack your section. That's okay. I so I don't know if if we ever did anything with it. But the Volkswagen that when I had the when I had the SUV, and we were sitting outside the post office, and I was saying yes, to find the post office. Oh, yes. And the same thing happened in this car. So I wanted to, I wanted to test it out. I was like, fine, fine, keep smart, or my storage ID? And it could not, it just kept saying Pardon?

Sam Abuelsamid  47:54  
Was that was that with the built in nav system that's in the car?

Rebecca Lindland  47:59  
That was the built in nav system does not like me, I don't know what it

Sam Abuelsamid  48:05  
is, it probably just, you know, whoever supplies the point of interest database that they have embedded in there, just just obviously, not not very good, or the voice recognition is not very good.

Dan Roth  48:17  
Or both?

Rebecca Lindland  48:18  
Crazy. It's crazy. So I'm sorry, I digress. No,

Dan Roth  48:21  
no, that's fine. I think I'm mostly done. You know, the things that we like to think of is frivolities, like the power doors, and the power sliding doors, all of that is super welcome. And the the market for minivans really, is like those features are really dead on to what consumers want. Because once you have it use it all the time, especially in this format of vehicle to be able to just open it up and and you know from the press of a button. Again, it's just handy and convenient. And that's as a parent, oh my god, anything that makes your life a little bit easier. I will gladly pay you many dollars.

Rebecca Lindland  49:02  
What was the best part of the 2021 Honda Odyssey for you?

Dan Roth  49:07  
For me, that has to be the power train. I just I really liked the responsiveness of the power train. And you know that the handling is good. But the the flip side of that is the noise. You know, it's

Rebecca Lindland  49:22  
the stiffness of Yeah,

Dan Roth  49:24  
yeah. It's just it's a little fatiguing, you know, because the the so for example, the IKEA is not that close to us, it was a little bit of a ride. So I was out there with a tape measure actually measuring like, do the things we want to buy actually fit in this thing because I'm not gonna make that drive if I can't stick it in the car. And he like it's nice because it'll, you know, you got 85 inches from the back of the console to the back of the door. And so if something can fit in between those two middles seems like you get a lot of stuff in there. And that was that's nice, but it just like after a while I was like I just want Get home get out of this thing. It's loud. So maybe it's, you know, active noise cancellation can help with that. And it's hard. I know it's hard to soundproof, especially with that low frequency stuff. A big box and vans and minivans, especially they all kind of rumble like that. Because you basically you've got a tube, it's essentially a tube and that's what tubes do, is you vibrate them and they resonate at a frequency and

Rebecca Lindland  50:24  
that frequency when it's a big tube is low. So, but I feel like I feel like Honda and Acura often have this complaint of road noise, and it gets back to you know, I mean, for me, like even the facade it was it was tinny and noisy, and I really wanted more insulation. Well, that's Yeah, I mean, it's just it's something and road noise tire noise you know, different surfaces. It's, some cars certainly handle it better than others.

Dan Roth  50:55  
Yeah, it was nice to get the new pavement and just quiet right down here like Oh, great, but in New England, there's very little new pavement especially this time, all right. Yeah, exactly. I did not try it in the snow it should have all wheel drive at some point they should they should update that.

Sam Abuelsamid  51:10  
that'll probably coming the next generation and since this one has been around 2018 you know, it's probably again about two years a year or two.

Dan Roth  51:21  
It's a great fan. I have like honestly, the thing with vans is like you've got to drive all this like for that you can choose from go drive them all balanced out against what kind of deal you're gonna get and the features that you like the most. And purchase away. I don't think any of them are bad. How much was it and another's is about 50 that's like nine something so but again like that that the pinnacle the the Pacific Pinnacle is going to be overall Yeah, this Yeah, I think the Sienna, whatever the top what limited? No, not limited. They must have a higher than that. And it's also gonna be you know,

Rebecca Lindland  51:58  
but no, for sure. minivans are pricey.

Dan Roth  52:00  
Yeah. But the flipside with minivans, too, because a lot of car weirdos will be like, Well, what about the Transit Connect long wheelbase or the transit itself and suck, don't don't do them a and never gonna find a good deal, that those are more expensive than you think. And they suck to us as a family minivan. They're just they're not their work rats. They're not meant for that. And they're not designed for it. And you don't have any of the nice features that I just talked about. You don't get even on the Transit Connect long wheelbase

Sam Abuelsamid  52:30  
unless you have more than five kids plus your partner that you're hauling around. And you probably don't want to transit.

Dan Roth  52:38  
Yeah, I mean, the transits? It's a great van. But it's a word. It's an hour long.

Rebecca Lindland  52:44  
It's built for a different purpose.

Dan Roth  52:46  
Yeah. Or is it? It's, you know, if you really have nostalgia for the experience of driving around a Volkswagen type to it over at it, but you're gonna say go get over that's fine. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:01  
What's a somebody's phone vibrating on their desk? Yeah. What do you mean? Oh,

Rebecca Lindland  53:07  
I turned on my heater.

Dan Roth  53:09  
Oh, that's what I hear. Oh, sorry. Speaking of books.

Rebecca Lindland  53:15  
I had an earlier and I

Sam Abuelsamid  53:17  
something was rumbling. So

Dan Roth  53:19  
all right, well, before you freeze to death.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:26  
Why don't we start off with some, there's some big Evie news out of Europe. This week, both Jaguar. And Ford of Europe, announced that they're going all electric. And Jaguar said by 2025, all Jaguars are going to be battery electric. No more gas engine jaguars.

Rebecca Lindland  53:51  
So I find this, I find this fascinating, I have to say because, you know, electric vehicles are still a very, very small percentage of the market.

Unknown Speaker  54:02  
So Jaguar, right?

Rebecca Lindland  54:06  
Sadly, but that's the point is exactly. So here, we don't appeal to what's the luxury market 15% of the market. More than that. So we don't you know, so we're struggling in you know, because we only appeal to 15% of the market. So then let's double down on that and only appeal to 2% of the market. Like, I don't I don't know how this is going to help them.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:33  
Well, you know, I think they're facing they're trying to face the reality that you know, especially in Europe, and you know, their home market and also in China. If they they have to go electric they don't you know, especially is you know, what's what's happening right now, you know, the land rovers, the Land Rovers and Range Rovers are going to take longer so they're not they're not switching over to electric yet. You know, they've got plug in hybrids. They're gonna have some electrics, but Mid decade, but they're still going to be around, you know, with gas engines for a while though, they're gonna discontinue the diesels. And to hit that 95 gram per kilometer, or, you know, they're talking about now by by 2030, that's going to go down to 45 grams per kilometer. For co2 emissions, they have to go electric, they don't have a choice, that is just something they're gonna have to do that. And, you know, they can't have, you know, their sales in the US are not enough to justify, and, you know, their volumes, not enough to justify continuing to build gas vehicles just for North America. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  55:37  
So this is purely more driven by regulatory issues than any kind of concern that we're seeing.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:44  
Yeah. You know, and, and, you know, looking at where, you know, the other premium brands are going, they're increasingly going electric, you know, and they they need

Rebecca Lindland  55:53  
everybody else does everybody is, it's just, you know, is, I just wonder if the market is ready, especially from established brands, to, you know, if you struggle, if you're struggling like jag has been struggling. It just seems like I don't I just don't know. And I'm not saying they have a lot of options, I realized that, but I don't know I there's there's brand building that needs to happen. There's product that needs needs to happen. It always starts with product. Right? Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  56:28  
and the strange thing about this announcement was, yeah, they have they were they've been working on a new electric Xj. And yeah, it's been out testing. It's, you know, it's done. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it was supposed to launch this year. They cancelled it for some reason.

Dan Roth  56:46  
because nobody's buying sedans.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:48  
Yeah. But I mean, if you've already developed it, you've already got the tooling. And presumably, they've got the tooling. You know, they've been building the prototypes for a while. Why not go ahead and build it?

Rebecca Lindland  57:00  
Well, and on a global basis, I think sedans are still early in the US. So he's buying them on, but in places like China, still

Sam Abuelsamid  57:08  
demands good market for them. I'm not sure why they're here. And there must be something else that they're not telling us about why, why they decided to cancel that program. But yeah, that is very, and then the other one was Ford, Ford of Europe, announced that they're going electric. So by by 2026, all of their passenger vehicles, so their cars and SUVs and crossovers in Europe will be plugged in. So they'll be either a plug in hybrid or battery electric. And by 2030 100% of their passenger vehicles will be battery electric, no more plug in hybrids by 2030. And then that same timeframe, by 2020, for all of their commercial vehicles will have at least as an option, a plug in hybrid or battery electric. And then by 2030, they expect two thirds of their of their commercial vehicles to be plugins as well. Wow. So and then they're putting a billion dollars into retooling their cologne assembly plant to build a V's starting in 2023. That's where they're going to build their their Evie based on the Volkswagen MVP platform.

Back in 2019, when they announced that VW was investing in Ford,

Rebecca Lindland  58:33  
okay, I just want to clarify that because I thought you were talking about

Sam Abuelsamid  58:38  
cologne in May. So July 2019, Ford and Volkswagen announced a deal, you know, it was for autonomous vehicles is Volkswagens investment in Argo. And then they also announced that Ford was going to build an Eevee at least one Eevee based on the MIB platform. And that's gonna be Brian cologne.

Dan Roth  58:59  
And so this is kind of what I'm, what I was, I was trying to recall, because when, when both of these announcements happened to john Volker, who I forget who he writes for now, he was Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  59:12  
he was all over the place, he freelances but you know, he's

Dan Roth  59:17  
he's pretty visible and he I don't recall the exact sort of wording but it was one of those like, you need to read these press releases very carefully. Because the first reaction is, oh, all their cars are going to be electric by next year. That's not exactly what's happening. It's like you just said they will offer at least one within the models so that their model range at least what the fourth thing in particular, every model line they offer will have a plug in or battery electric

Sam Abuelsamid  59:55  
option. Well, that'll actually commercial vehicles. And then oh, And the but the passenger vehicles, the cars and crossovers and utilities, they're going to be all plugins and all electric by 2030.

Rebecca Lindland  1:00:09  
Every one person every, every version, as opposed to just having a trend. Yes.

Dan Roth  1:00:16  
Right. Okay, so that's and that's the other thing is and this happened with Volvo to involve was like, No, no, we're gonna electrify everything. And they were very careful about using the word, electrify.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:26  
I'm careful because they're the headliner, and their press release said, we're gonna be all electric from 2020. Which was not true. Wow, when I when I asked Volvo, but what that means they said, well, we're gonna have, everything's gonna have a 48 volt mild hybrid, a standard. Yeah, so they're going to be electrified, and then they'll have options for plug in hybrids or battery electrics.

Dan Roth  1:00:47  
Right. And that's what I was also just gonna get at is like, when you have to, again check like, electrified is not fully electric. It's so it sounds like, at the very least, though, you won't be able to buy a Ford that's not a high yet. Well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:00  
Ford Ford, Ford was very, I mean, it says, you know, they, they were very explicit that by 26, all of their passenger vehicles will be either all electric or plug in hybrid. So no, nothing without a plug. They're not gonna sell anything without a plug after 2026.

Dan Roth  1:01:19  
So, like circling back to Jaguar two, though, what is their product line look like? In a few years? If everything is going to be Evie, or hybrid? Like?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:30  
That's a very good question. We don't know. You know?

Dan Roth  1:01:36  
Where is it? This this is where I I'm trying to? I'm struggling to understand. Is it all Evie? Or is it

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:43  
hybrid? Jaguar said all, Evie. All battery electric by 2025. For the for the cars. So for the Jaguar brand. So the Jaguar brand, land rover is going to take longer to electrify.

Dan Roth  1:02:02  
Yeah. So like the F type? How did that platform just can't just throw batteries in the wall, and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:10  
it's gonna have to be a new platform like they can't realistically make turn the current generation f type architecture into an Eevee.

Dan Roth  1:02:19  
I mean, they only have one, Evie? Yeah, I know. Right? Like, which is a good evening. Don't get me wrong. People like it. But it's it's gonna spawn a whole range of died? I

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:32  
don't think so. I think I think that there's a you know, they've got new platforms and development. I don't think I don't think it's all gonna be based off what they built with the I pace. Is it isn't isn't efficient enough?

Dan Roth  1:02:46  
Yeah, it's also old now too. So it is time for that to get updated. And I'm, well, I'm confused Jaguar. I think we all are. Well, that'll be interesting to watch. We'll see what happens. Maybe they'll backtrack a little bit. Like that wouldn't really mean it. We still need to sell cars. We buy some please.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:08  
Yeah, so this, this is a new survey that Cox automotive, your former colleagues, Rebecca put out, they talk to a bunch of consumers that we're in market for pickup trucks to see, you know, how they felt about electrics. And overall 35% of them said that they are interested in an electric pickup truck, which seemed surprisingly high to me. But, you know, stood

Rebecca Lindland  1:03:39  
it is it's it's surprisingly high in a couple of cases. Because, you know, while we've been espousing the fact that, you know, pickup trucks are purpose built, and one of the things that, you know, that work use ranked last, in terms of, of attributes and priorities. And I thought that was very strange. It was a very strange result, since, you know, people typically buy maybe it was the phrasing of the question or something. But well, do you really mean like, it seemed very kind of an odd that they maybe I'm misinterpreting it. But work use? I'm interpreting as utility, and maybe that's not the right interpretation, or

Dan Roth  1:04:27  
is it that they have to use it for like, I need it for my job?

Unknown Speaker  1:04:31  
Yeah, I don't know.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:33  
Well, you know, it was near the bottom of the list, you know, still, you know, 55% of the truck buyers, you know, 54% for the ice and 55% of the of those considering an Eevee. You are looking at it for you to see that is less important for their purchase decision.

Rebecca Lindland  1:04:56  
Yeah. And what's funny is the quote from my friend Vanessa is ice buyers prioritize horsepower shoppers interested in ABS care more about technology? But what's kind of funny is that, you know, one of the fun things about an electric vehicle is the tour. Yeah, you know, and the power. So, but again, you know, like, horsepower can be important depending upon what you're doing. Showing capabilities actually almost the same. So it's definitely an interesting result. I think it's publicly available, too.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:05:26  
So yeah, there's a link in the show notes. But the other thing that was interesting part of this survey was they showed images of trucks to the people in the survey. First, they showed them without branding and model indications, to see you know, which ones they were which ones they found most appealing. And they had the F 150, the Hummer, EV, the rivian, r1. T and the cybertruck. And far away the F 150. was the most popular of the four by

Dan Roth  1:06:00  
well, but also like, it's the most convention. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:02  
I mean, it looks familiar, it looks like what you expect a pickup truck to look like. Yeah, right.

Dan Roth  1:06:08  
I'm just so glad that cybertruck didn't

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:11  
cybertruck did poorly, actually. Good.

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:14  
And that gets back to what we've talked about before where we, you know, we still maintain that electric vehicle is just a different power train doesn't make it weird, just different.

Dan Roth  1:06:28  
It's an alternative. It's getting there. Yeah, I think that's, that's one of the things that I think this like this hybrid f150 is going to help facilitate is that people will think of it as another choice and stuff like the rivian are when t which is striking, and, and still does all those truck things, you know, it's coming in as a premium product, but it's really helping to normalize, that you can do truck stuff with an electric truck, it doesn't require this sort of full on investment in, you know, changing your lifestyle to fit the truck like because that's really what has to happen with the truck buyer is especially like it just needs to the truck needs to deliver for their needs without forcing much change, if any at all. And the fact that you can charge up your truck at home, versus like, frequent stops at the gas station for a lot of money. Every time we need to fill the big tanks, I think that's once people get to use this stuff, they're gonna really, really like it, and they're going to enjoy the torque, they're going to enjoy the fact that you don't need to, to put so much gas in it all the time, or diesel or whatever. And they don't have to give up anything to get it and they've they've proven that they're willing to spend money. I mean, do you have a $75,000 151 other

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:58  
thing about this? That was interesting. That kind of talks to some of the things we've said about Tesla, you know, when they did identify what the trucks were, you know, put the badging back on there and ask the question, how likely are you consider the following pickup truck for your next purchase? The Tesla went from dead last to second the day if the Ford cord was still, you know, first by a fairly wide margin. But you know, the Tesla moved ahead of the Hummer and the rivian when, when people were told that this was the Tesla.

Dan Roth  1:08:30  
Yeah, I think that that's one of those things like in the car business, you could probably get somebody to you can you can get a conquest buyer once, pretty, pretty steadily. Then getting them to buy another one of your cars, or vehicles. That's the hardest part. And I don't I don't know that a truck buyer who tries the cybertruck, which is not even a product yet.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:56  
These are products yet.

Dan Roth  1:08:58  
Well, sure, but I know we know that the rivian r1 T is great.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:02  
Well, and yeah, we know the Ford, the rivian. And the GMC are all actually actively being tested.

Dan Roth  1:09:09  
Right. And that's what I was gonna say is like that the Hummer is definitely. And I think the stuff that makes the Hummer is going to wind up in other GM trouble. Absolutely. So, you know, you'll be able to get a Sierra with some version of that technology at some point.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:23  
We'll just give her 500 horsepower instead of 1000 horsepower.

Dan Roth  1:09:26  
Yeah, I mean, what's 500 horsepower among your friends? So yeah, I think Tesla has they have that great reputation down. But you see enough of it where, you know, people bought the model three or the Model S and they're like, I won't buy another one or the X for example. Because those those things that make it stand out the that are almost gimmicks, but they're they're really cool to some of the buyers. That's gonna be real frustrating when you just need the Damn truck to do the damn truck thing. And the doors won't close and it won't go. like, Nope. Not an emotional solution. No, I don't know. So this is where the market needs to shift like we need people, especially in trucks to, to move to EBS. And I think for a lot of reasons, it's such an ideal platform for electrification, not even a full Eevee. But just hybridization, I think that we'll see a lot of gains, even just the, you know, the emissions reduction will be worth it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:37  
Let's get into some listener questions and comments. And what why don't we start with Adam? Again, this Adam, jack alenko? Guy? I don't think we've heard from him again.

Dan Roth  1:10:47  
Now. Who? Who's that?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:49  
So following up on the conversation we had last week about which was a follow up. So following up a follow up. So just to remind people, Adam was shopping for a Maki, Mustang Maki, and he went to four different Ford dealers, and basically got the runaround, from almost all of them to the floor, tried to put ridiculous markups on there. And also, by the way, I forwarded that email over to the folks at Ford, and they were gonna follow up on that with their marketing folks, you know, have them reach out to dealers, and they'll let them know that that's not not not the right way to treat customers.

Dan Roth  1:11:32  
Yeah, but so but the answer to is that if they're selling at MSRP, they're making

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:37  
Yes, yes, that is something the Ford did confirm. Because we had we had somebody else, right in who their name escapes me right now. But he's, he asked, asked a question, or he said that he talked to a dealer that told him that they were not getting any markup on the Maki when they sell it at MSRP. And I checked with Ford, and they confirm that no, they are in fact getting a markup over the wholesale price, they are making a profit on it, when they sell it at sticker price. So if a if a if you go to a Ford dealer looking for a Maki, and they tell you Sorry, you know, I can't sell it to you for sticker, you know, because I don't make any money on it. They're lying to you. They'll just walk out, turn around, walk away, find financing. You're

Dan Roth  1:12:22  
absolutely right. You are correct, sir, you cannot sell it to me.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:27  
But anyway, back to Adam. And, you know, his experience with the dealers. And then you know, Rebecca has got some some of her own personal experience with dealers to talk about. But what Adam got back to us said, in positive news, I managed to find one dealership in my county that was reasonably informed about the relevant eB eB rate rebates and promos, and not greedy in their markups. So I just bought a Maki from them. They admitted much of this was new to them, and that I was the first person ever at their dealership to claim California's 15 $100 clean fuel reward. So it took them an extra hour to figure out how to process it. But at least they were apologetic and earnest in their efforts to get it figured out. Which is good, because you know, now when when they sell other Evie sales, they already know how to do it. I think my point still stands because the average person wouldn't have worked nearly as hard as I did to find a dealer who knew enough and cared enough about selling TVs, but at least there's some hope out there. Thanks to all of you, because I really value your opinions. And those opinions were much of why I decided to get this vehicle Keep up the great work. It's much appreciated. And thank you, Adam, for continuing to participate. And Rebecca, you have some thoughts of your own I think about dealers.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:41  
I do. So

Dan Roth  1:13:43  
yeah, time happened.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:44  
So I am purchasing the car, which I'm very excited about. And so I chose, I don't know, I chose to get an Alfa Romeo. I haven't signed the deal yet. I have a deposit on one. So I contacted our very good friends at still lantis and I said, You know what, you want to sell me a car. And I get what's called a certain designated individual discount code, CBI.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:14  
generically these are friends and family discounts. So if you if you know, somebody that works at an automaker, you know, employees usually have a certain number of usually like a PIN code or something, you know, or some kind of code that they can give you that you can get, you know, that just bought a new car.

Rebecca Lindland  1:14:33  
And some of them you know, they can they there's significant ones. So what's great about these is you don't negotiate, you go in you say here's my CDI, and it depends on I guess there's different levels and stuff. And so, the dealer then knows that you know, somebody that now that you are special or anything but that you have some connection, you know, to the to the company so I did this and I'd actually stopped in prior to that, prior to getting my CDI i'd stopped in look to the car look to see what they had in line on an inventory and exchange business cards with this kid. And so and then, you know, he got back to me. And he said, You know, this is based on what I told him what kind of vehicle and what I wanted features and stuff. And then he, there was there was one particular car Actually, there was two cars that I was looking at one was silver one was white, exact same trim everything else. So he said to me, he said, if you put a deposit down, we'll hold it for 48 hours. And he said this to me on Thursday. And again, I there's just a lot going on right now. I'm up to my eyeballs, and trying to manage a lot of stuff. So I was like, that would be great. Then, so Friday, then I get an email from him that says, hey, I was able to hold that vehicle until 11am on Saturday. Now I gave him that I said, I said, I'm getting the deposit form. And I'll take care of it later on today. And but I hadn't even sent him the deposit form. He just said, I'm able to get the vehicle held until 11am on Saturday, and I said, Well, that's not really going to work for me, because I've got stuff to do with my mom until noon. I can come after I can go buy one. And so he's like, Oh, well, let me check with my manager. Right. And I'm like, Are

Dan Roth  1:16:24  
you kidding me? Like, come on, man. I

Unknown Speaker  1:16:27  
said no, I said,

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:29  
I said I first of all, you said that they could hold it for 48 hours. And he's like, Yeah, but you know, we're really busy. And we're and Saturday is our busiest day. And the manager doesn't really want to hold it. And

Dan Roth  1:16:45  
so the car

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:47  
mail here. They don't sell that many Alfa

Dan Roth  1:16:52  
Fairfield County

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:53  
these dealers are actually very, very busy. They, they don't have a lot of inventory. And they are selling very quickly. But I was like I said, I was like, are you? Are you really pulling this on me right now you have to go ask your manager. I said to you told me, You told me it was 48 hours. And now you're telling me that it's basically 16 hours? Because it was late in the evening. And I said, I appreciate that you're available to me at eight o'clock at night. But are you kidding me? I said you gave me a timeline I didn't even ask for. And because you told me it was 48 hours. He goes, Well, yeah. When the manager found out which car you wanted. He he really he didn't want to hold it for that. That is our normal policy, but we're not gonna hold it that long. I was like I said, let me ask you a question. How many CDI number how many people come in with a CDI number? Well, yeah, not very many, like Yes, exactly. Not very many. Which means that not only should you not change a policy on any potential customer, but you sure as hell should start with a CDI number person. Like I just, and I said to him, I said, this is why people despise dealerships. And honestly, like, if he had it, I was he was on my last nerve. And I really wanted to walk away from the deal. And I told him that I said, I am so close to walking away right now, because you are just pissing me off. How dare you change the policy? And tell me you've changed the policy. So just a reminder to car dealerships out. Don't screw around with your customers. Any of us, it doesn't matter what number we have. It doesn't matter if we're a a certain designated individual. If you give somebody your hold policy stand by that. It just if the car is that much in demand, and it doesn't sell on Saturday, somebody's gonna buy it Monday morning, when you when you open back up again. It was just, it just pissed me off so much.

Dan Roth  1:19:06  
Well, yeah, you know, and it's funny because there's, there was a Jalopnik post not too long ago about people talking about how they were basically held captive at dealerships during the buying process, usually in the f&i office, where they try to sell you all the crap like the undercoating or the, you know, the extended warranty and all that's just like, I, I just want the car. Yeah, we've agreed on the price with your guy out there. Like, can you just write the papers, I can sign them and we can go like, it's easier to like donate an organ.

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:39  
Like, this is why this is why sites like carvana car, and some of these more less traditional sites are appealing.

Dan Roth  1:19:48  
Yeah. When I went

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:50  
to the dealer, I was probably about 15 minutes late. I sent him a note. I said, Listen, I'm running late. I'll be there. I they the car was not ready. It was was just sitting in the lobby, they hadn't done anything. You know, I told him I'm coming to your shop to look for the silver one, I go in, and then they just it was it was just I don't know that they were understaffed. The two guys were busy. The guy's like, he's like tosses me literally tosses me the keys here. Do you want to sit on it?

Dan Roth  1:20:22  
What do I want to say? Rebecca said,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:24  
Stanford has five Maki's and stock.

Rebecca Lindland  1:20:32  
Well, and again, you know, I'm, I'm very, very interested in that Maki. I don't know, there's reasons behind that I can't speak of but it just it was, it was a very disappointing experience. I have not told my friends at alpha about this. And I haven't told them because I'm so mad. Anyone who listens

Dan Roth  1:20:55  
to the show is gonna know. Go and snip the guy's name out of the podcast. Poor guy like, anybody's gonna be able to be like, okay, Rebecca lives here, the alpha dealer and the guy's name and they're gonna find this poor kid.

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:11  
Right? No, it's It's never good when I have to say things like, do you want me to have somebody from alpha corporate call you?

Dan Roth  1:21:20  
Like I'm non confrontational. How do you how do you handle that? Like, I just normally I just feel like that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:25  
was around a walk away.

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:27  
Yeah, I mean, that's I really, I am. As you know, I haven't finished the deal. But it's it's very, it's almost frustrating to give them my business.

Dan Roth  1:21:38  
Yeah, like, I would be like, No, I don't want the car. I don't want your stupid trinket like, scram. I'll go buy. I mean, I guess if you've committed to it, especially for if there's other reasons for things you can't buy. or whatever, like alluded to with the machi. Like, you know, you you're a little pigeon holed, but

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:56  
for what it's worth, you know, Alex Roy has driven cross country and in 55 hours and a Tesla. So, yes.

Dan Roth  1:22:07  
Alex might let you borrow his Porsche.

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:13  
So anyway, back to our listener questions. I saw I ranted on on Twitter,

Dan Roth  1:22:20  
you did? Oh, my goodness,

Rebecca Lindland  1:22:22  
unladylike language.

Dan Roth  1:22:25  
Although if you didn't you just use the abbreviation it was it was fine. But like, there's a reason why tailors have a bad rep. And it's, you know, it's a hard business. But the they may make it easier. Like even as Adam points out, like, Look, don't jerk me around, be straightforward. And you'll you'll possibly, you know, it's gonna be easier to close the sale. I think the problem is that a lot of the old school techniques allow a fatter margin because you're still you're taking advantage of people and you don't have to invest in educating your people, which takes time and effort and ultimately cost you money. But that's, we had that Twitter question, I think when we talked about recording the show, somebody asked like, you know, how are we going to how are automakers and Cargill is going to foster Evie sales. And I think that's actually one of the things that you're gonna have to put more effort into educating people not only at the sales level so that your salespeople know more about the product. And they can they can help because like, that's one of the like, when you go stand when you go to like Home Depot or Lowe's or wherever Do you want those people coming up to you this the like the salespeople, not the salespeople, but the employees, they're like, if you're looking for lumber, like you want one of those guys to bother you.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:23:51  
I want to be left alone until that exact moment when I actually do need some help finding something or you know, getting if I need something cut or you know, getting it loaded, you know, they should be hovering just out of sight. But as soon as I appear to be looking around, they should be right there.

Dan Roth  1:24:09  
Right. But so part and part of the reason for that because I want to, right? Part of the reason I want to be left alone in this situation is because I know more than they do. It's like the Ron Swanson thing. Like I know more than you just the amount of bad plumbing advice I ever heard in the plumbing aisle at Home Depot is amazing. It was just like

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:33  
when I'm in one of those places what what I'm what I usually need somebody for is, you know if I'm because usually I will look for lookup what I want on the website, online, and you know, now now these days, you know, on the website, you know, it'll tell you which aisle which bin, the product is. And I'm standing there in front of that band and the product is not there. And that's when I need somebody it's like Where the hell is this product

Dan Roth  1:24:59  
right? I can Just looking for this, where is it?

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:02  
I will say, I mean, what is my strategy at Home Depot and Lowe's and places like that i is if I'm in a specific aisle, and I'm, I'm just not sure about, like, whether it's a screw size or a wrench size or something like that, I will ask somebody who's shopping there as well, because most of the time, they're a contractor or tradesperson, or something, and they're always willing to, you know, I mean, I would say 90% of the time, they're always willing to kind of help out. A lot of times, the people that are working there are not as well versed as the people that are shopping there, particularly if you're in like kind of a random

Dan Roth  1:25:40  
eye. But that's the thing, I think that automakers are going to have to tell the story about their product in a lot of different ways, you know, grassroots and influencers, and getting people actually to experience the cards, you can only do so much by sort of broadcasting a message out, you need to get butts in seats, to sit there with a product specialist of some sort, who knows the thing very well, to explain and walk you through here the features. So it's probably not going to be cheap, I think for automakers to really get adopted just by consumer demand, unless there's some other component where you're trying to adjust behavior through regulation. And I really don't see that happening right now beyond more tax breaks. I don't I don't think there's any, you know, real appetite for trying to use regulatory measures to push consumers one way or another especially is gonna cost.

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:39  
But I think also, you know, when shopping for a car, you know, we don't As Americans, we don't haggle, you know, maybe I hate to haggle. I spray you make you put a bit and see what happened. But Buying a car is really the one of the few places where we suddenly expect a consumer to be you know, an expert Hagler like they're at the souk in Saudi or something. Yeah. And so that's, I would love to get you know, we talked about destination charges before, I would love to, to get away from this idea of negotiating on the price of your car. And that, you know, it's just like this is like when you go into a you know, Wegmans or stopping shop or something, you don't negotiate in the Canada tomatoes, that's the price that's it, right? And it's just, you know, or when you go into Best Buy to buy a big TV, you know, like, that's the price you go to Apple, that's the price and all of a sudden we expect you know, consumers just suddenly you have to do all this research on what everyone else is buying as paying for you know, so you understand what a fair deal is and stuff it's just this is the price that's it that's what you're paying for and guess what your neighbor paid the same last week

Dan Roth  1:27:58  
and and you get to negotiate with a guy who negotiates all day like

Unknown Speaker  1:28:02  
yeah

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:05  
you're going up against somebody who does it all the time. It's it's really I mean, it's hard anyway,

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:10  
it's not right.

Dan Roth  1:28:12  
I hate it. I don't I don't I'm not I'm not one of those people that haggling over price like I this is not like you said it's not it's not a bizarre in the Middle East. I just know, tell me what you want. If I can if I think that's a fair price, I will pay you if I don't think it's a fair price. I won't pay you that's it like yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:30  
girlfriends that quick side note that one of my girlfriends I I had lost a piece of jewelry. And I said can you pick me up another it's just a Hamza like the the, the sign what's the it's a five fingered sign. And so she's she was gonna go to that one of the suits. And I told her I said, This is what I want. And he I said, just spend, I don't know, I told her like $50 or something. $75. And, I don't know, to this day, how much the replacement was, all I know is she said, let's just say you paid white people prices. I was thrilled I thought that's a great deal is sterling silver, blah, blah, blah. And she's she's Arabic she Saudi and she was like, You paid what I was like, I was really happy with that. So that's the thing is these you know, the people at those bazaars at the souk in the markets and stuff, that's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:24  
the culture, you know, and a lot of parts of the world, you know, when when you go into, you know, you go into a bizarre, you know, or some sort of open market like that, you know, people are constantly haggling over the prices, you know, and it's just, it's just the way they are, and nothing wrong with that.

Dan Roth  1:29:42  
No, I don't have a problem. I just I don't find it entertaining. It's not my kind of sport. I just like, I want the thing. How much do you want for Mike? That's good.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:52  
So, you know what, while we're still with this, you know, partially with with EBS, and you know, with dealers, we did a one of the questions We had on Twitter was from Craig Lemoine. Yes, I'd love to love to hear you talk about how to educate the masses on EBS. And you were referring to this, Rebecca, that I'm constantly amazed at how the average person doesn't understand how EBS work, and also the limitations and benefits. And, you know, I know, you know, this is part of what we try to do here, try to educate people, you know, certainly one of the things I do, you know, and the stuff I write about and stuff, you know, the the segment I do on Leo Laporte, the tech guy radio show every week is try to educate people. But then what, what thoughts do you have about, you know, how we can do this?

Rebecca Lindland  1:30:40  
So, I think, you know, we have a, we also have another listener, comment, and he talked about how he put a big sticker on his on his TV, so that people would ask him, you know about it, and that the neighborhood effect, I think that it's, I think that as an industry, we have not really done a great job of saying this is better, an Eevee is better than what you're driving today, because of whatever it is. And I've said this before, because it's true, people don't see the benefits of it. You know, GM tried, when the volt came out, GM tried really hard, because you remember, you could plug the volt, and you can plug in anyone, but you can plug the volts into a 220 outlet, or 110 outlet rather, and, you know, it was only getting like 48 miles, but it was a trickle charge, like, overnight, but they wanted to show how easy it was. But I don't know that they then, you know, showed how much fun it was or like the, you know, the the positive the quiet ride that you get from an Eevee. You know, the the advantages of it. And so we started, we've we've had to backtrack a lot, because we haven't done a good job of educating people on what it's like to really own an Eevee. You know, what is the etiquette of owning an Eevee? And, you know, we hear a lot about complaints about people that, you know, you'll see charging stations that are, you know, the car is there for eight hours, and it's like a Tesla or something, it shouldn't even be there. So I think that I think it's just it's, it's a conversation. Certainly, you know, Evie owners can be their own best advocates for the technology, but the marketing needs to address how he V's are better. And more. And, and, and, you know, what, what's the difference? What's the difference and how they're better? I think we've done that. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:32:53  
Yeah, I think that's true. I think there's, I think, honestly, it's experiential. You need to, you really need to spend time getting people to spend time. Because otherwise, they're just the words are empty, they ring hollow until you actually have that experience that sticks in your head. So I don't know the best

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:16  
thing ever been in the Navy?

Dan Roth  1:33:18  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's still like less than 1% of the market, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:22  
1.4% 1.5% last year, but

Dan Roth  1:33:26  
that's not that many cars.

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:28  
You know, think about it, though, hybrids, like your pure hybrids, like the Prius. What was the highest ever penetration of hybrids was I think it was 3.4%. And that was when gas was $1,000 a gallon. Right. And, and again, because people don't see how a hybrid is better than their internal combustion engine. And yeah, you could talk about, you know, going to the gas station, stuff like that, you know, most people go once a week, it doesn't matter. You know, it's like, whatever. Yeah, it sucks. Okay. But you're there for 10 minutes. And, you know, it just, it's, it's a conversation. I think, from the very beginning, I have never liked the idea that we advocate EBS and an urban market. I remember, I've told this story before sitting and when they first showed, the even the technology wasn't even, I don't even know that there wasn't really a product that they showed for the Chevy Volt. And this was like 2006 2007, I think, and I was living in Boston, and I said to Bob Lutz where am I gonna plug this thing in? I live on the sixth floor. You know, and one of the other guys from GM was like, get a really long extension cord and why haven't we Oh,

Dan Roth  1:34:44  
yeah, that's that's that's funny asshole. Considering you can have the car like you haven't thought of.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:52  
But an Eevee is it is a great suburban solution. It is. It is for people that are Driving, you know, if you if, like most people, God knows how many people are driving what people are driving nowadays because of the pandemic, but, you know, a typical commute, I, you know, is, I think what was it was like 35 miles or something, you know, round trip. So you don't have to charge at work if you're only driving 35 miles. And nowadays you can get an Eevee with 200 miles of range, you're charging once a week, you know, or maybe you're, maybe you're charging on Thursday or something. You know, I advocated when I was on the National Academies committee, I'd advocated or talking to businesses about putting charging stations at train stations, because everybody here in Greenwich is going from their McMansion to their train station, and then they're taking the train to the city. Well, I

Dan Roth  1:35:45  
mean, that's what we have, we have the commuter rail station, and that's the nearest level to charger to me is, is there it's a charge point, charger. And I think that's the thing that is everybody's biggest fears, how am I going to charge this thing? And there hasn't been enough thought to replicating what Tesla has done? Well, you know, Tesla, with their superchargers, they thought about the full sort of lifecycle of, of the product, you know, like, you can build the car? Sure, but not how are you going to charge it and most people don't have chargers in their homes? And if they do if they need to go elsewhere? How do they charge it then? And they they imagine that solution, and they put it out into the world as the product was also put out into the world? And we're getting there a little bit more with you know, like electrify America and some of the other charging stations but the the problem is is still not quite there. And you some of the places like well, you were talking about like this charger at the mall, if you can find

Sam Abuelsamid  1:36:47  
signage at these things. Yeah, you're driving around trying to find the charger if you can't find it, that doesn't help. You know one thing that's interesting that didn't mention last week when we were talking about the 2022 bolt, Chevy Bolt and Evie Chevrolet this year is they're partnering with que Merritt which is a company that that handles installations charger installations. And you know with with the bolt this year, they're including, like a lot of other Evie makers, they're including a charge cord that has an interchangeable and on it so you can plug it into either a 120 volt outlet or a 240 volt outlet. So and what they're doing is with q merit, when you buy a bolt to share a new bolt you they will do a free 240 volt outlet installation for you.

Rebecca Lindland  1:37:43  
Oh wow. So awesome. I'm actually driving the boat this Friday. Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:37:46  
great. So you can even sorry I'm driving. I'm driving it on Thursday over here, but the you know what? As long as you know you don't have a really old house you know with really old electrical system that can't support it as long as your house can support a 240 volt outlet

Dan Roth  1:38:06  
you're not gonna come and install it on your knob and tube no

Sam Abuelsamid  1:38:14  
dryer outlet you know they'll put in a nema 1450 outlet for you in your garage or on the outside of your house you know as when you buy the car and then it because it already comes with the charger basically there's no added no added cost for getting a charger installed. So especially for first time Evie buyers you know that's that's really great. And even even if you know most most new TVs increasingly are coming with you know the these charge cords that support 240 so you don't have to buy an extra charger you can all you have to get is that outlet. And even if the manufacturer isn't paying for that outlet installation, you know, again, you know as long as you've got you know a relatively modern you know circuit breaker panel in your house you know it's not that expensive just to get an outlet put in you know, it's probably you know, less than 500 bucks

Dan Roth  1:39:08  
100 bucks I think to like if you're a if you're a management company and so like the urban environment or even you know somewhere more dense like a suburb but close enough to the city where there's there's lots of apartments like

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:25  
queens Staten Island like those those areas doesn't it

Dan Roth  1:39:29  
start to make sense for you to make that one of your amenities to attract absolutely

Unknown Speaker  1:39:35  
yes.

Dan Roth  1:39:35  
You know tenants is to say like look we have we have charging at every parking spot or you know, this unit has Evie charging if you want it or whatever. Well

Rebecca Lindland  1:39:46  
what was so funny to me it was in Boston, along um what's the what's the really expensive street beacon up

Dan Roth  1:39:57  
there Like kaminari Come come with have

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:03  
no. But they so they, they took out all the meters, and they put in one meter that you pay for parking, right?

Dan Roth  1:40:12  
Oh yeah, you come up with like your little space number and you go ask me and I

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:15  
just thought, you know, that's so funny because actually, it shouldn't be taking out those meters they should be putting in charging stations.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:22  
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's gonna be fun running the power to all of those is gonna be fairly costly.

Rebecca Lindland  1:40:29  
But some of them though they have like some kind of a meter, like, you slide in a card, and it's reading something there digital meters. So that

Sam Abuelsamid  1:40:38  
must have a power, fairly low power. It's probably not taking them. Right, and, you know, in, in some places, for example, and some cities, you know, they're starting to do this, you know, put chargers on utility poles. So for curbside parking, you know, you can, because those, those are going to have, you know, full power coming to them. So, you know, if you can have, you know, the utility poles with charger charging cords on them, that would be great.

Rebecca Lindland  1:41:09  
Yeah, no, I agree. But,

Dan Roth  1:41:10  
I mean, there's just Austin Valley, we built a we put a, you know, we put the cannons from Ticonderoga on top of Dorchester heights in a night. All right. And that chased the British out of town. So we should be able to put charges in

Sam Abuelsamid  1:41:31  
the original question, though, about education, you know, I think a big part of it is going to be you know, getting, you know, building a community, get your community to educate their friends, this is this is actually been one of the things about Tesla's success, because Tesla doesn't do any traditional advertising. You know, they don't they don't buy ads on TV or in magazines and things like that, you know, they they do, you know, they have aeons Twitter account. And you know, they rely on people that have Tesla's to tell all their friends about how great they are. And this is what every man needs to do is create products that are exciting, and get their customers to go out and evangelize it to everybody that they know.

Dan Roth  1:42:17  
But so here's a question like, at what point and has Tesla hit this critical mass where they're their their customer evangelists and their demagogue becomes a liability, like everybody who likes that kind of thing? Has a Tesla. Right, like, have they exhausted that supply? Or not turned off?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:42:35  
I think there's still some probably still some room for for Tesla to grow there. But But I think, you know, for other manufacturers, there's still an opportunity there. You know, if you know, when Ford sells an F 150, electric or a Maki, and to a customer, you know, they can tell their, you know, tell their friends and neighbors about it, you know, and I think manufacturers need to be encouraging their customers that are buying these things to go out and tell, you know, and take their friends for rights. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:43:04  
I mean, Mike Levine was just recounting on Twitter, his story about how he walks out. And there's people just talking smack about the machi. And they're like, Oh, is this your car, and he's like, Oh, I work for Ford. But, you know, they were offended, it's a Mustang. So we took them for a ride and change their minds. But it's, it's that kind of thing. It's, it's like, you know, to me, I'd never buy a Tesla. Because I'm just I'm turned off by the sort of cultish pneus. And I think there's a lot of room for other automakers to do it, I think when you, when you buy it, you know what it is, even if you're buying a different brand, somebody buys a volt, they're gonna talk about that volt, and they're gonna probably evangelize to a certain degree, you're just not gonna see as many of those with stupid vanity plates.

Rebecca Lindland  1:43:51  
It's so funny, because that's such a Gen X point of view. Because, like, I remember, when we were do studies on who buys like BMW, this was years ago. And it was like, a Gen X or bought a BMW, not for the status, but because of the attributes of the vehicle. And whereas a baby boomer bought it just for the status, like there's one. So I think that there's Tesla buyers, though, that do appreciate the technology that they're buying. And, you know, and and in spite of the, in spite of the the assumptions that you know, that people may I mean, so I think it's, you know, I think there's room for growth in Tesla, because younger buyers still are still want to support a brand like Tesla. The difference is that now there's a lot of competition coming their way.

Dan Roth  1:44:50  
Yeah, I don't see to me that. That brand is not a brand I want to support.

Rebecca Lindland  1:44:54  
Well, I mean, but yeah, but a lot of younger people that aren't in the market, yet. They still see Tesla as aspirational. The difference is though, just like BMW experience when with a resurgence and Audi and Mercedes, the difference is that Tesla is going to see a lot of competition. They're going to see competition from Vivian, from lucid from Fisker. So they have to be careful because they can't rest on their laurels at all. Well, as many people are turned off by Ilan, as are turned on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:45:32  
While we're on this, look, let me read this other listener. Okay, all here. So hey, guys, I'm a loyal listener to the podcast. appreciate the work you put into it. I've noticed that you've never been big fans of Tesla. And that's nothing new among established automotive journalists and much of the criticism is well warranted. Well, I wouldn't say it's true about all automotive journalists. There are, there are some established journalists that are really big fans of Tesla. The folks that Motor Trend tend to be more fanboys and some of the other buff books. Certainly Dan Neil is a huge Tesla fan. But

Rebecca Lindland  1:46:02  
well, and I appreciate. I am glad that Tesla is in the market because they push Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:09  
traditional automakers and that's sad. But let me let me finish reading. So I've started to notice that things have turned personal when it comes to Tesla and there's a real bias coming through during your conversations. Last episode I listened to took this to another level and the criticism fell squarely on the shoulders of Tesla owners as being virtue signaling status symbol seeking elitists.

Dan Roth  1:46:30  
It's all my fault.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:46:33  
First of all, you have a podcast that talks about cars that routinely cost over $80,000 are out of reach of 95% of American buyers. So yes, cars are used to set status symbols. I do not own a Tesla. I bought a used spark Evie two years ago, and I drove it over 20,000 miles and will never buy an ice vehicle again. I love the driving and ownership experience. And yes, my initial reason for this purchase was over environmental concerns. I slapped a big electric decal on the Bob Ross Happy Tree sticker on the on the back of it now that's a virtue signal. But in the hopes that people would ask me questions about DVS a lot of people did and they've encouraged them to test drive my car and I answered a lot of their questions. I hope they've walked away a little bit less scared of an Eevee future and hope that they would consider buying when the next time they buy a car. Now I'm ready for an Eevee upgrading considering a Tesla Model three standard range. I'm not considering the model three to get attention or because I see Ilan as a deity. My car history includes a Pinto wagon, Mercury tracer, saya NXP and so many Corolla variants, I can't remember them all. So obviously, I don't use cars and status symbols. Now, no, I'm considering a model three, because it's the best value amongst all ETS. And one of the safest cars made even the new reduced price version of the bolt will cost more than a model three when comparably equipped, I convinced my nephew to buy an Eevee. And even though he could, even though he could afford a Tesla, he ended up with a bolt because he didn't want to deal with the stigma of being a Tesla owner. This stigma undoubtedly comes from some Tesla owners, but most likely from more non Tesla owners, which is a shame. Anyway, all that being said, Please do. Please be mindful of how you stereotype people based on the cars they drive. And don't assume that you know their motivations. The ones you write about will be insulted. The ones you are right about will be insulted and the ones you are wrong about well, that will be doubly so keep an open mind or risk losing those old men who drive Corvettes. Still, the podcast. Well, thank you, Mike, we do appreciate that

Dan Roth  1:48:29  
all fair criticism, I think it's That's true. I I tend to have that reactionary bone in my body. Just like I see it and it tweaks my nose. And clearly, I must speak about it. To let everybody know how I feel. Honestly, I think if if he's looking at a model three or thinking about it, you should you should try it out. I mean, you heard Alex Roy on the show who has no shortage of Tesla skepticism and criticism to go around talking about how much he loves his model three, and I think it is a great car. Some of the quality issues aside and certainly some of those owners aside, like I would love to hear about it, if that's what he winds up with.

Rebecca Lindland  1:49:12  
Yes, please let us know. Michael.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:49:14  
Yeah. And yeah, those are valid criticisms. And, you know, we Yes, we, we probably have we certainly overgeneralize you know, with some of the things we've said, you know, about Tesla owners, you know, certainly there are those who, who, you know, have bought them, you know, for virtue signaling reasons, you know, or status symbols, particularly, you know, in the San Francisco Bay Area. But, you know, Tesla, as you said earlier, Rebecca, you know, Tesla has done so much to move the industry forward towards electrification, you know, they really have legitimize the idea of the Eevee as something, you know, that can can work for people, you know, You know, can be a great car can be a fun car to drive, you know, have, you know, they've got some amazing technology they've done things, you know, that have prompted everybody else in the industry to make changes in how they are designing developing vehicles and how they're doing business. You know, Mike, my complaints with Tesla, aside from the the quality issues, you know, have more to do with with Ilan, you know, I certainly don't think he's a deity, if any, if anything, if anything, he's the opposite of that. But, you know, we don't need to rehash.

Dan Roth  1:50:37  
I mean, I think that a lot of the the valid criticisms of labor practices and just their their quality issues, and then misleading claims, and, you know, charging for stuff like full self driving, which is never going to be full self driving in its current tech, with its current technology stack. All of those things are reasons why we sort of bring the bring the jaundiced eye to examining Tesla, but, you know, there's no, there's no denying that they've built a brand that's really well known is shorthand for high tech, regardless of what everybody else does, like they, they've really masterfully established themselves in the mind of the consumer. And and,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:51:33  
you know, they have, they have shown the rest of the industry how to sell not just how to build, but how to sell EBS. You know, as I said, you know, the lack of traditional marketing, you know, is that something that every other automaker needs to be taking into account in terms of how they try to sell all these new TVs that they are, are going to be putting on sale over the next few years? And, you know, they need to, you know, everybody needs to address that.

Rebecca Lindland  1:52:05  
Yeah, I think Tesla is a good example of a company that the product forgives a lot of other things. Yes. Right, it starts with product if you have the right product and a good a good product for the tolerance that an innovator early adopter can, is willing to put up with. Right? I mean, that's the thing is that most of Tesla buyers are willing to forgive any of the idiosyncrasies because they want to be the first to drive the technology. So it is, uh, you know, the mindset is quite different. But they have done a lot for the industry, however much however difficult they can be to, to handle something. All right.

Dan Roth  1:52:55  
So keep the valid criticisms.

Rebecca Lindland  1:52:58  
Yes. Love the feedback.

Dan Roth  1:53:02  
I think that does that wrap us up?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:53:03  
I think that's tonight, and we've got some more. We have lots more to talk about next week.

Dan Roth  1:53:10  
I mean, I did say it wasn't going to be a super long show, and then Wednesday.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:53:15  
And we should have we should have another special guest next week as well.

Dan Roth  1:53:19  
So stay tuned. And in the meantime, drop us your reviews, and your emails with your thoughts and keep listening. Thanks. Bye. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks for listening to wheel bearings. Hey, we love to listen to our listeners to drop us an email to feedback at wheel bearings dot media with your thoughts. Questions are conversation starters. That's feedback at wheel bearings dot media. You can also find us on Twitter at wheel bearings cast. Don't use any vowels except for the A in cast. So that's why LBRNG s cast. Thanks again. We hope to hear from you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai