Dan Roth  0:01  
Coming up on episode 187 of wheel bearings, we've got some big show news to share. But first, we talk about our driving impressions of the Lincoln aviator, Black Label, Chevrolet Bolt, Toyota Camry, TRD, Nissan, Titan pro 4x, and Cadillac Escalade, we talk about battery developments from GM and LG and the Jeep wagoneer and Grand wagoneer. As usual, we finish up with some questions and our announcement. That's all the head on episode 187 of wheel bearings.

This is wheel bearings. Hi, I'm Dan Roth from Forbes. 

Sam Abuelsamid  0:44  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:47  
I am Rebecca Lindland from Rebecca dry. All right, so let's get to it.

Dan Roth  0:52  
We're driving cars. I you know what I'm gonna go first I'll take all the mystery out of free. So I have the Lincoln aviator Black Label this week, and I also have the Chevrolet Bolt. So let's start with the Black Label. The Aviator is a really beautiful klutz. That car is lovely inside. In my last experience with The Aviator, I think I also had a Black Label and I felt the same way. It's just really nicely styled both inside and out. The materials are really good, it feels luxurious. I absolutely despise the 13,000 way seats that are impossible. They are comfortable in although they massage you, which is a thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:35  
I do love those massages,

Dan Roth  1:36  
my 13 year old would get in the car. And he's just he will jump in and start hitting the screen. But what are you doing? Nice, like I want to massage like okay, and then he's like your turn mine on. I'm back. I don't want to massage right now. What did they do? You got to switch it to the pasture one that he likes that and just watching him navigate the system was kind of interesting, too. Because they don't really make it easy to get at that setting, which surprised me if like go through three different Yeah, gotta swipe three times to get flu shots.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:07  
Actually, you know, the easiest way to get to the massage setting probably a voice we just know, just reach down on the side and hit the the button for the lumbar inflator. And it'll bring that up on the screen.

Dan Roth  2:17  
Oh, wait, this did have them on the side it was it on a door? I don't even remember. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  2:25  
No, it's on the side on the side of the seat. Okay, on the on the outside of the seat.

Dan Roth  2:29  
Yeah. So anyway, Lincoln seats, I don't like those Lincoln seats, I they're not comfortable. For me, you're just broken down. I am physically and

Sam Abuelsamid  2:42  
you must be shaped like quazi Moto, I don't see how you find a position there.

Dan Roth  2:46  
It's just you know what it is, it's one of those things and like Rebecca was talking about a while ago with her chiropractor, it's that like, the where the head restraint is even when you back it off, they figured out that you can back it off and they have an adjustment that tilts the top of the seat back back away again, as well. All of those are okay, but adjust. Maybe there's just too many settings, I don't know, in this platform. And even in the the larger you know, the expedition and navigator. I like the Ford seats better because they're just they're more basic and a little bit more limited, but they wind up being more comfortable. So maybe

Rebecca Lindland  3:25  
there is too much of a good thing sometimes. Yeah,

Dan Roth  3:28  
yeah. Right. So

Sam Abuelsamid  3:30  
yeah, it's the tyranny of choice. You know, when when you do have that many adjustments possible. It it can be there probably you probably could find a comfortable position. But you end up trying so many different permutations that you end up just getting frustrated.

Dan Roth  3:47  
Yeah, I didn't. I'm not a fan. And just like you know, even that the like the lower cushion, how the it's split, so you can you never have exactly the same support to your left leg as you do.

Sam Abuelsamid  4:01  
Well, that's that's you know, case one thigh is longer than the other

Dan Roth  4:03  
you know, honestly humans aren't symmetrical so well it's true. It's probably makes good sense when you think about get it dialed in just right but

Sam Abuelsamid  4:13  
the amount of time you hit the memory button and you never touch it again

Dan Roth  4:16  
or you hit the memory button you did like you don't do it right and it programs it back to like whoever had it before which inevitably, powers seat back like a foot and leans the thing. Like

Rebecca Lindland  4:28  
all I can pictures I'm doing like driving along during the white man's overbite When Harry Met Sally.

Dan Roth  4:36  
I just yeah, so me in these seats don't get along with the rest of the cars. You know, it's comfortable. It's beautiful inside. Like I said, the interior design. I like how Lincoln has staked out its own territory. It has its own look and feel. It's a little glitzy, which I think it kind of should be to a degree you know, it has has enough of that. That classic Lincoln mid century, sort of great work and the look and feel, but the materials are really nice, the design is nice. The accommodations are nice, although it's I don't know, the cargo area, if you use the third row, it's one of those cars that has has three rows, but you either have to choose people or stuff, or, or, you know, leave.

Sam Abuelsamid  5:27  
I mean, if you if you've got six people in there, you're definitely not going to have enough room for six people's stuff.

Dan Roth  5:32  
Right. So the unfortunate thing with the Black Label with The Aviator overall, you know, the Black Label is is sort of the the nicest one. So I'd like to try one that's not a Black Label to see what the real differences in practice, but the unfortunate thing about The Aviator is that it doesn't really live up to its promise of being on a rear wheel drive architecture in terms of a premium feel. It feels premium until you drive it and it doesn't have that like premium driving experience. And I don't know if it was because of the 22 inch wheels, or what but it just feels clumsy. It doesn't ride is good as I would expect it to especially with air suspension. And it doesn't handle crisply, either, like, it's just it

Rebecca Lindland  6:22  
is it is it like like it's I mean, it sounds like it's just not very sharp. It sounds like it's kind of foggy, almost it sloggy there it

Dan Roth  6:31  
is our word again. It's it's got a funny power. It has the Cessna three liter EcoBoost v six, which we'll be seeing not an EcoBoost and if it's

Sam Abuelsamid  6:42  
sorry, what is it just a GTD twin turbo gtdi sure

Dan Roth  6:46  
what but it's gonna be in the gig sometimes. Wouldn't be just came out with the Explorer, the Explorer, sx T or something, right? That's gonna have

Sam Abuelsamid  6:56  
Lincoln Lincoln explicitly changed that a couple of years ago to help separate Lincoln from Ford. It I mean, it is an EcoBoost v six. Right? And you know, you can find the same engine in Ford vehicles, but they just don't branded as EcoBoost. If it's in a Lincoln, but

Dan Roth  7:14  
gtdi is not you can't brand an acronym, right? I know. So they should call that twin force or something. I think we've said Well, actually, which is what

Sam Abuelsamid  7:23  
order was EcoBoost. That's what the, if you remember back 2008. Yeah, or 2007. They MKR concept. They call the original. That was the first time they talked about, you know, these twin turbo direct injected v sixes before it came out, you know, as EcoBoost a couple of years later, and they called a twin force. Yeah, that would be a great name for Lincoln to use.

Dan Roth  7:45  
I remember seeing the MKR I

Rebecca Lindland  7:47  
think triplets will be offended, though.

Dan Roth  7:48  
You think you think triplets? I mean, it's I'm trying to come up with I don't know. But you know, it just doesn't, you know, like it cost it costs, like an X five. It it on paper appears to compete with it. It certainly does visually, and materials wise inside, but it just, it doesn't drive right. It just I don't know, something about it just doesn't feel feel like dynamically pleasing to Me.

Rebecca Lindland  8:22  
Were there different modes?

Dan Roth  8:24  
There were there's like Eco mode and excite mode. And okay,

Rebecca Lindland  8:30  
and excite really, I mean, I'm just thinking of them of them? Well, again, it's not Lincoln, but the Maki, you know, there were such distinctive differences in the modes and that and but I overall, I don't think that I don't think manufacturers do a good job of making those different modes really distinctive, fairly significant,

Sam Abuelsamid  8:51  
given what they have to work with, there's not actually a whole lot they usually can do to really make them that different. I think if you can change this become a weighting of the steering effort, you know, and, you know, change the, you know, the shift timing, and that's really about it.

Dan Roth  9:08  
And that's really about what that's what excite mode did is it lowered shift points and wouldn't give you upper gears until you hit a certain you know, miles per hour speed. It felt a little more aggressive. I think it actually tightened up the air springs a little bit too or the damping either or both. But it made it a little bit more responsive but what I really wanted was a ride that was more compliant and and handling that was it's it's it just felt like a handful to drive down a curvy road. You know, even in excite mode, like it just weight transfer was weird and the big wheels, you know, you can feel all that mass moving around and just not

Rebecca Lindland  9:54  
it was just a lot. Yeah, it sounds like it was a lot

Dan Roth  9:56  
like it wasn't fun to dry. It was not fun to drive and I kind of You know, I missed out on on my expectation of it being sort of fun to drive because they made a big deal about it being in a rear wheel drive based chassis that should be. That's funny, you know, when

Sam Abuelsamid  10:11  
I, when I did the launch drive and The Aviator and you did to Rebecca out in California Napa? Yeah. You know, it did not feel like that to me.

Rebecca Lindland  10:21  
I know,

Sam Abuelsamid  10:21  
I know. I've driven one here since then, you know, it's been, it's been probably a year and a half since I drove one. But you know, it, it did not have that, that kind of feeling that you're describing. So I wonder if there was something out of sorts with your particular vehicle, maybe

Rebecca Lindland  10:35  
could the tires the larger tires have that much?

Dan Roth  10:39  
I wonder if it was the 20 twos on, you know, in the winter in New England on the crappy

Sam Abuelsamid  10:45  
cars. I've driven it on the 22. I've driven the Black Label on the 20 twos. And we

Rebecca Lindland  10:50  
drove them in Napa and yeah, it right. Yeah. And the second leg, I think we had them. Yeah, I definitely don't recall having that sort of sloggy feeling of like, I've got a lot of truck behind me.

Dan Roth  11:04  
Yeah, it's just it was no fun. It was no fun to manhandle, which kind of made me a little,

Rebecca Lindland  11:10  
how many miles were on it. I'm just curious, like, how many people you think, have driven it?

Dan Roth  11:14  
It's been around the block, I think it had over 10,000 on it. So

Rebecca Lindland  11:18  
that's, that's not a lot of press miles.

Dan Roth  11:20  
I mean, it is it is, but the nice thing about that is that it's press miles. So that tends to confuse the any any algorithmic stuff that's going on, right. But it also tends to break them in really well because the drivers is so varied. Yeah, you get to sort of see how a car is gonna settle in.

Rebecca Lindland  11:40  
But that many miles that kind of reminds me of a rental car, right? You know, when they say like, if you gotta rent a car 10,000 miles, it's more like having 20,000 miles on it. Yeah, you know, and I'm granted the car that we are privileged to drive should be well taken care of and should be you know, maintained and and all the wear parts

Sam Abuelsamid  12:00  
usually are until they get to Massachusetts.

Dan Roth  12:05  
No comment. No complaints about that. The it's generally doesn't really matter the mileage they're always in good shape, you know, that the companies do. Make sure that they're paying the fleets to maintain them and the fleets do a good job, but I do. I don't know. I I'd have to try it again and really see, but I didn't find it as pleasing behind the wheel as I was hoping, you know, bad

Rebecca Lindland  12:35  
so so what do you think of the bolt? So the bolt? Did you just have the regular bolt, I

Dan Roth  12:40  
did have the regular bolt. I thought for a minute. It was the boat, Evie, but it was it was just just quote unquote, the regular bowl, which is, you know, I had a little bit of an interesting experience with it, because it got here and I didn't have a chance to charge it. So the the fleet facilities have ways away there. So I got here to had about 130 miles range on it. And I needed to run to the office on one day last week, and I had the bolt and I needed to get there fast. So I kind of had a high average speed. And that ate quite a bit of power. And I how

Rebecca Lindland  13:16  
far is the office I know,

Dan Roth  13:18  
is 45 miles one way sorry. Okay, good 90 miles round trip. And it It ate a lot of fuel. But the funny thing too is when it got to me, it's average energy consumption was like 2.6 kilowatts per mile, which is not that's

Sam Abuelsamid  13:37  
that that's low for a

Dan Roth  13:39  
really low right. And so even driving like an animal that is now like I think it's about 2.9 or three miles per kilowatt, or three kilowatts per point, 100 kilowatts per mile, which is better like it was going up even as I was driving it rather aggressively. But you're the bolt on the other hand is another it's like one of those cars that you don't expect it to drive well, but it actually does. I really love the way they've tuned it that the chassis guys did a fantastic job. It's actually fun to drive. It's very responsive. It doesn't have Maki power, like we talked about the last episode but it it's definitely got enough punch to get you in and out of any situation you really you're gonna find yourself in it's pretty well disciplined. You do feel the weight of the batteries when you're when you're pushing it but it's it's nicely done and it's just a good car to drive. So I liked that about it quite a bit. I know there's been complaints about the seats. I don't really have a problem with the seats, I can understand how they'd feel thin and crappy to some people. The the backrest, I think is probably a bone of contention. Because when when I bend it into curves a little with a little bit of speed, you can sort of feel where the padding ends. Like oh yeah, I can see how that would be annoying. But no, it's it's a great car and then the next day, I still I had to do like the school route. trips and dance class drop off and stuff. So I got back here and I have like 40 miles of range. And so I did the school drop off round trip. So that's 20 miles. And I plugged it in, I only have 110. So it wound up like I did the rest of the day with a max of like 20 miles of range on it. And each trip was 10 miles out 10 miles back, roughly. So I sort of discovered that really, like you can get by with about 50 miles of electric range. Most of the time, if you're not doing something stupid, like driving 90 miles back and forth to an office every day. It was it was fine. Like, it did get a little upset with me the last sort of the last trip out and back. It was it was blinking the battery indicator at me and like, performance reduced. If I don't make it, I'm just gonna make a phone call and wait for my wife to come rescue me. I'm just across town.

Rebecca Lindland  15:54  
Yeah, well, I think you know, it takes it takes a change in mentality to drive an Eevee. You know, we've talked about it before, but I think I've mentioned you know, somebody said to me, it's like, it's like driving with your low fuel light warning light on all the time.

Dan Roth  16:13  
A little bit.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:14  
I think that was I think that was true. You know, when we were talking like the first generation leave, things like that, right. 75 miles of range. Yeah. Yeah, that's less true now. Well, I know, driving with this, you know, this time, you know, he's got a car that could go as far as a normal car. But he was just driving around with the low fuel light on. It was literally and

Dan Roth  16:36  
you know, I thought about like on on Friday, I think it was Friday, just taking it in to the commuter rail station just just a couple miles away, and just like sticking it on the level two, and I just didn't. But that would that would top it up quick. It's it's now been on the the 110 charger for about a bout two days. It says it'll be done on Tuesday.

Rebecca Lindland  17:00  
And it's Sunday.

Dan Roth  17:01  
Yeah. Yeah, outside. You know, tomorrow, probably I'll just take it and plug it in for a while.

Rebecca Lindland  17:08  
I think you know, I've always said that, that range anxiety is really a misnomer. It's really recharging anxiety, it's how long is this thing going to take to recharge? You know, that's I mean, and especially now like with, you know, a lot of vehicles having 300 to 350 miles of range. It's more than just like, Where am I going to charge it that uncertainty? And how long is it going to take to charge because I know, like when I had the machi, you know, it was going to be four hours, the public charger that I found, and it was 19 degrees outside, I'm not going to sit there. So you know, that's more of the issue. But it, I still think that it does for somebody to actually buy an Eevee it does require a change in mentality, it does require moving beyond the familiar and saying that this is this is how I want to I want to take on this perceived risk, or make these adjustments to you know, whether it's committing to putting in a charging station at home, which is basically a gas station, you know, like nobody has a gas station at home because they're all over the place. And it takes five minutes. Right. And so that's where as we continue to evolve, the infrastructure and and the charging. My favorite thing still are those robots that Volkswagen is developing when it comes to your car. So you can park anywhere little guy comes to your car, boo doo doo doo done goes back to his house. Yeah, I love that. All except,

Sam Abuelsamid  18:41  
I mean, those are designed, you know, for parking garages, not not to necessarily drive down the street to wherever you are, but rather, when you're in a parking garage, you know, so they'll have a dock where those things are, when they're not in use. They'll be sitting there plugged in charging up, and then they'll come to your car and plug in and recharge your car while you're parked.

Rebecca Lindland  19:03  
I wasn't thinking of it, like on the fly refueling, like there to, you know, military jets. Yeah, but but if you think about like, at a grocery store or something, you know, having those same kinds of, of judging banks like that it takes it adds to the convenience factor because because right now people perceive charging as an inconvenience, right. So gas is a pain, but it's only a five minute pain. Charging is you know, a lot longer than that.

Dan Roth  19:35  
Well, and that's sort of, you know, one of the things I spent some time doing was like, Okay, well, where's the nearest DC fast charging that, you know, I could see how the bolt does on that. But they're like 40, not 40 like 25 miles away, is the nearest electrify America or Evie go. I think stations and you know, it's funny. Like I went to the office. I knew I had planned Finding a charge to get there and sort of hammer down to get there as like everyone had a charge and the way home Fine, whatever. So I sort of had to make that mental calculation to like, do I need to go and do this thing that's important. And then I will figure out the rest of everything after. But if I were spending more time at the office, like, I know that, you know, our office is pretty close to in in Chestnut Hill, there's the mall, just the hill, and there's charges right over there. Last time I was there, they've installed charging a charging station in the parking lot over there. So I could just plug the car in there and let it top up for a while. And be okay. I wasn't I wasn't at the office long enough, it was basically just go and drop stuff and leave. But that kind of like, you start to think about that, like, Where are the charging stations? And are they high speed or low speed? And what can the car do? Can the car do high speed or low speed? You know, how fast can I get the most energy into this thing? So you have to know your hardware a little bit? Yeah, that's different. And that'll eventually change or you won't really need to care about it. But for now,

Sam Abuelsamid  21:05  
well, and, you know, the thing is something like the bolt, you know, with a 259 mile range. You know, I think what you experienced shows that, you know, it 200, you know, you only had half of the range to start with, you know, if with 250 miles of range, you can basically do whatever you need to do. And for most situations, you know, most people drive less than 30 or 40 miles a day, you plug it in at night, you're going to be topped up, you're going to be full all the time, right? And you're generally never going to have a problem.

Dan Roth  21:37  
Well, that was kind of what I wanted to prove to myself on on Fridays about it was like, Okay, I've got, I started off the day with like, 30 or 40 miles of range. And by the end of the day, it had gone down a little bit, but every time I came back from whatever I was doing is plugging it back in. So I spent most of the day with 20 miles of range on the car. And everything I needed to do was within a 20 mile, you know, out in bed range. So I was you really don't need as much range as, as you might feel a sense of comfort with. But it's it's mostly to just make your feelings better.

Sam Abuelsamid  22:10  
Yeah. Well, and you know, you also have to factor in, you know, I mean, right now. Yeah, if it was three or four weeks ago, when the temperatures were a lot colder. That's and you were using the heat, yeah, you would have been, you probably would have come back from your office, you know, pretty much empty,

Dan Roth  22:29  
that's true, I did make sure that I was not running, I did shut off HVC as it gets warm enough, it's been sitting in the sun, and I don't don't need it. Yeah. My two biggest critiques of the boat was one pedal driving kind of sucks in it, because you have to actually pull the paddle. And so it makes it less smooth than it otherwise would be. Because you got to sit there and tinker with the paddle to adjust your DSL for one pedal driving. And the a pillar, really an entire f 251 point. I was almost head on into truck. I was on a curvy back road. And all of a sudden, just the way the eight pillars are with a quarter window and stuff. I just was like I'm just gonna go over to the side of the road here because I don't know what's coming around this curve. And it took a little while for me to see the giant pickup emerge from the side. So yeah, the but the one pedal driving I couldn't it's not like you have a B mode or something that Ria

Sam Abuelsamid  23:26  
there is if you put it you have to put it in low, you have to 2020 so it's got the shifters. Yeah, if you put it in low, it gives you the one pedal mode,

Dan Roth  23:32  
but like, okay, I because it mimics like a low range on the transmission. I didn't get the same impression. Like I thought that that's not the same. So I know,

Sam Abuelsamid  23:47  
basically all putting it in low does is it just enables the one pedal driving mode. Yeah. So if you're in Drive, you're not going to get the heavy region, unless you use the paddle. If you put it in low, you get the heavy region without touching the paddle.

Dan Roth  24:04  
Okay, I'll have to go play with that. And just how it is

Sam Abuelsamid  24:06  
the new the 2020 twos, the new ones that are coming out. Now, they get rid of that shift lever and they go to a push button shift, and there's a separate one pedal, switch. And if you press the one pedal switch, that's that's all you got to do. And then it actually remembers that each time you start the vehicle. So once you press it, it'll stay engaged every time you drive it until you until you turn it off.

Dan Roth  24:31  
Okay, because like I like having the manual control but also, sometimes it just wants to be smooth because you get to the point where you can anticipate and you know where to let off and religion when you do

Sam Abuelsamid  24:45  
have it in low or the one pedal mode. It actually is very smooth. Okay, you can modulate it very easily.

Dan Roth  24:51  
I'll go fiddle with that then. Yeah, Rebecca. What have you been wheeling around the wilds of Greenwich and the Merritt Parkway, which you mentioned all the time.

Rebecca Lindland  25:02  
So I got a chance to drive the 2021 Toyota Camry TRD with a V six engine in it. And it was actually a lot of fun. I was really pleasantly surprised I it's not that I don't like the camera. I just I feel like I like the A chord a little bit better if I have to choose. But this thing was a riot. It was also this really cool. Like, they call it ice edge. It was this gray. You know that really cool like casting or gray that's like a cement kind of like a pale gray. Yeah, it's like the China blue gray. Yeah, it's a really but this was a lighter shade. It was really beautiful. And then I had blackout rims and trim hell peel thin. And it was just, they just did a really, really nice job on the styling. And it's sort of the 3.5 liter kind of just brings back that that sort of souped up Toyota feel is that is missing I think from things like the regular cam. And so you know, Dan, you were talking earlier about ride and handling this stuff. This thing really delivered, it was a riot. I mean, there was it was also very pure driving because the infotainment systems suck. I try just

Sam Abuelsamid  26:27  
had to focus on the driving

Rebecca Lindland  26:28  
Oh my I had to because I had I tried to focus on the end too. I tried to do the end tune thing that didn't work. It didn't have Android Auto so I never had it didn't have the navigation downloaded. It was only this car like 500 miles on it. So it was really one of the newer ones obviously. But you know, in some ways I was like okay fine, whatever. It was just fun to drive though. I mean it really really was and I got a chance to put I probably put about 150 miles on it which is a lot for me lately. I and so it was just it was just great. And you know there was a good amount of room in it was really quite roomy, it was easy to get in and out of we've spoken a lot lately about you know different size people and different size cars. And this one, you know the Camry the a pillar is well positioned. Visibility is really good. It was just it was a little bit stripped down from you know, the creature comfort standpoint. I don't believe it had heated seats. And if it did, I couldn't find them. I it didn't have any of the you know didn't have a heated steering wheel. It

Dan Roth  27:37  
doesn't mention heated seats if they are sports soft Tech's trimmed front seats with red seatbelts stitching and fabric inserts.

Rebecca Lindland  27:45  
Yes, so no heated seats. It says that it has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. But we've talked about this before. This one did not. I will say for $32,000 plus another 500 for the two till midnight black metallic roof and rear spoiler. So and then with our famous delivery, processing and handling fee of 995. You get up to 33 cents, right 33,006 80 I think is was I think it's a lot for this car. But at the same time, it was really really fun to drive. If it was 5000 less, I'd be all over. I

Dan Roth  28:24  
don't know, I think that's a lot of car for the money. You know, it's the V six that V six is punchy, it it's the tnga platform, which is decent to drive. It's a lot of styling, a lot of styling, it's kind of showdown

Rebecca Lindland  28:39  
a lot of creature comforts. Yeah, that's, you know, a seven inch touchscreen is not that big. And it's all it's this awful black and red. It reminds me a DOS

Dan Roth  28:52  
dos command line

Rebecca Lindland  28:57  
you know, this is staring at that all we go like oh, whatever. But so but again it what was fun about it is it did it did bring me back to my roots. It is all about you know, just driving and and that's what it was about. So from that standpoint, it was very fun. But there are a lot of vehicles in that price point that give you all that fun and all that ride and handling and twisties and all that good stuff. And heated seats and a decent infotainment system and technology

Dan Roth  29:31  
rating of one right now, actually, and that would be the key a K five exists.

Sam Abuelsamid  29:39  
Yes. And the K five comes with the sounds of nature.

Unknown Speaker  29:42  
Yeah.

Dan Roth  29:43  
And, you know, I just I think that the the K five feels more luxurious it drives probably just as athletic. I was really impressed with for sure. Absolutely. It's maybe not as quick that that Toyota v six is a great engine.

Rebecca Lindland  29:59  
It is a great engine. It absolutely is. And I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it. It was great, great fun. I just, you know, I think I'm just spoiled and kind of bratty. And then I agree on a nav system.

Dan Roth  30:15  
So yeah, I mean, what do you think was the problem? I was just didn't have the right firmware or something? Or

Rebecca Lindland  30:21  
Yes, I think that it just hadn't been properly prepped and downloaded and such. So because again, like, I didn't even have a map, I didn't have anything. And so I had Sirius XM and am FM. But it just it was, it was like half of an infotainment system. And again, you know, we run into this quite a bit. Right. So I would be curious. Be curious, though, if other people have if any of our listeners or any of their friends have this Camry TRD because the V six engine was fantastic. But I would be curious what the infotainment system is, like, on you know, actually

Sam Abuelsamid  31:00  
working. Because the last Camry I had did have working Android Auto. And, you know, this, this is usually more of a problem. You know, a lot of the times the the vehicles in the press fleet or pre production models, you know, they're their pilot vehicles, you know, and they're, you know, they're ones that were built before they get the okay to ship to dealers. And so, you know, we do see some of these glitches in there. But you know, the Camry is basically been around for a couple of years, you know, in cars generations, I think three years now. So, you know, there There shouldn't be any issues like that.

Rebecca Lindland  31:41  
There should not be your right and again it only had about I think it had about 400 miles on it maybe 450 because then I when they took it in had just over I just rolled the 600 mark on it. But yes, I you know, but I think we've talked about in tune not fans anyway. Yeah, you know, God given right so I but I do think that it was missing some kind of almost like standard equipment now which is heated seats and even perhaps a heated steering wheel. But have you know, all together a das systems, a lanky, persistent everything, but most importantly, it had that 3.5 liter V six.

Sam Abuelsamid  32:18  
Yeah, I mean, for what it's worth, you know, many of the other trim levels of the Camry do have heated seats and steering Yes, they do. And and it's actually not unusual for a sport model like this, like the TRD right to you know, drop some of those features. You know, when we were when we were shopping for our civic A few years ago, you know, they have a nice civic hatchback they have the sport and then the you know, they have the LX is the base model the sport and then the x and the touring and the sport was based on the the base LX and so it didn't have the heated seats that were an E x that we ended up buying.

Rebecca Lindland  33:00  
Well and that as Dan said, it's it's a lot of style. It's Yeah, you're you're buying you're buying style and you're buying that V six engine you know, but but overall I thought it was you know it again, it was super fun to drive.

Dan Roth  33:14  
Yeah, well and you get all the charms that make the camera the camera and a decent trunk and room for people and yeah, I

Rebecca Lindland  33:21  
mean the Camry isn't you know, it's it's a classic. I mean, it's you know, it's it's a it's a very very good car overall. It this just added that level of excitement and driving dynamics that you're not going to find in a four cylinder.

Dan Roth  33:39  
Alright, just Sam,

Sam Abuelsamid  33:41  
what were you driving so I had a couple of vehicles since we left one off last week because we were running long which is the the Nissan Titan the 2021 nissan titan I had the the pro 4x four by four crewcab Titan and a couple You know what, year and a half ago I guess Nissan did a refresh on the Titan they they tweaked the the front end styling and they did some upgrades to the interior they dropped the the x d with the diesel engine. So now there's just one engine one powertrain option which is the 5.6 liter V eight which is a great engine you know 400 horsepower 4.4 113 foot pounds of torque so it's got plenty of plenty of power you know for a full size truck and you know the the pro for x you know it's kind of the off road version you know with big altering tires and you know four wheel drive locking depths and all that all that good stuff low four wheel drive low range. The Titans a good truck. Yeah, I will give it that, you know, I'll acknowledge that. You know, it's it's way better than the first generation Titan was,

Dan Roth  34:52  
which is okay truck.

Sam Abuelsamid  34:54  
Yeah, it's, you know, it's got good driving dynamics. You know, it looks decent. It's got lots of features. That starts the the base rear wheel drive King cab version starts at about little over 36 grand. This pro for X was almost $61,000. You know, it had the roll bar on the back and it had all kinds of other goodies. Had the tie down cleats in the in the bed, Park Assist system, the fender premium audio, hey, it was good, you know, not exceptional, you're good.

Dan Roth  35:37  
That's like 61k doesn't seem out of bounds for No,

Sam Abuelsamid  35:41  
it doesn't upset you know, in for that kind of money. You know, what I buy a Titan, or like an F 150 tremor, or a ram 1500 rebel? probably would not choose the, the the Titan out of that group or the Silverado trail boss?

Dan Roth  36:03  
Why why would you not pick the Titan?

Sam Abuelsamid  36:08  
It didn't. It just didn't feel as good. You know, the interior while it's upgraded, it still didn't feel quite as nice, you know, the screen. You know, I've had my complaints about Nissan screens, this was better than most of the screens in Nissan's. But it was it was fine, but not great. You know, it just the other trucks just seem they feel the user experience in them the you know, the, the way they look and feel just feels better. You know, you know, they feel a little quicker off the line. And, and also, they're oftentimes more efficient. This thing averaged about 14 miles per gallon. Yeah.

Dan Roth  36:54  
I think that's the same issue that I had with the tundra, right? Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  36:58  
very 80s of them. Now.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:01  
It's rated at 17 combined, I got 14 out of it, which is not Yeah, and I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, drag racing the thing or anything, I was just driving it normally, and it just didn't, you know, didn't get particularly good fuel economy. You know, the ride quality was was fine, you know, not great. The the audio system was was good. You know, it doesn't have things like, you know, on the F 150s, you know, on the tailgate, now you've got, you know, things like the molded in rulers and the, the clamp poles, you know, to put in C clamps, you know, to tie down, you know, for, you know, as a work surface, you know, you've got some of the newer trucks have some of these really, really well thought out features, which this one doesn't have, you know, and granted, you know, this one is like, I think five years into its lifecycle now. So, you know, it's kind of, you know, at the point where, you know, most trucks would be getting a redesign now, and, you know, when this came out in 2015, or 620 16, I think, you know, most other trucks weren't offering those kinds of features they are now. And so, you know, if I, like, if I'm comparing this to an F 150, I'd have a hard time choosing this over an F 150. And looking at the sales figures for this, I think the same is true for most people. You know, I think Nissan sold about 23,000. Titans last year, you know, versus, you know, I think, close to 900,000. f series,

Rebecca Lindland  38:36  
that's like less than a month of

Sam Abuelsamid  38:39  
Ford Ford sells about 80,000 f series a month. So

Rebecca Lindland  38:42  
this is the thing is that, anytime that you were, anytime you're talking about a pickup truck, and using words like fine.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:53  
Yeah, I mean, it's such a, it's such a competitive segment. It is, you know, the, you know, the leading trucks in this segment are so good now that you have to be better than fine. You do needs to be much more. What was the price on this? $60,006 Yeah,

Dan Roth  39:12  
so it starts at 50. So that's why I was gonna say is that for the pro forex sensitive and you can, you can

Sam Abuelsamid  39:19  
get, you know, a four wheel drive, you know, because they all all the Titans have the same power training. So you can get a four wheel drive crew cap for 40 grand.

Rebecca Lindland  39:31  
Yeah. Right. But the one that you were driving, right, is $60,000. And listen to the adjectives you were using to describe it.

Sam Abuelsamid  39:42  
Yeah, okay. No, that's

Rebecca Lindland  39:43  
the thing is that like, you got enough. And, as you mentioned, the other the other brands are putting in all these emotional solutions for people and they're really making it very human centered design. You know, they're making it How just like Jim Hackett? Thank you very much. But you know, but that idea of like, how is our buyer using this track? That's the thing and the all those thoughtful details really do make a difference, especially in the pickup truck market.

Dan Roth  40:16  
So yeah, I do think that the pro forex, you know, those things that you get are the bilsteins suspension, and I was having a lectric locking differential in the rear that maybe the rest of them don't like,

Sam Abuelsamid  40:30  
it does get they all they all do, and these kind of off road trucks.

Dan Roth  40:34  
So it's, it's outfitted that way, it's almost like the Titan analog of maybe like the trail boss, or like you travel to trail boss or the

Sam Abuelsamid  40:43  
tremor or the rebel. It's, that's the equivalent, um,

Dan Roth  40:47  
you know, the thing that I've really liked about the Titan The last time I drove one was, it's friendly. You know, it has. It's funny, it almost has, you know, car like steering feel, and decent dynamics. And it just, it feels pretty good to drive.

Sam Abuelsamid  41:01  
Yeah, well, and yeah, it always has, you know, that's one thing I've always liked about this generation of the Titan is it does have good driving dynamics. But so do the rest of the trucks in this segment.

Rebecca Lindland  41:15  
Yeah. Well, and that, yeah, that's the problem, right? It's the competition.

Dan Roth  41:18  
And I think to the, the thing that we have to remember, is, those domestic brands, Ford, GM, and RAM have robust fleet programs, and they sell a lot of their volume is not trucks like this. It's not just consumers, you know, right. It's,

Sam Abuelsamid  41:44  
I would say most of their volume is not consumers. Right. So certainly, certainly with the super duties, but even, you know, even the light duty trucks like this, you know, even at least a third of if not more of the volume of those trucks is, is commercial customers. Fleet customers. Yeah,

Dan Roth  42:04  
I don't think that it's so both Nissan and Toyota. I mean, honestly, 20,000 like, that's, that's just not good. Even the tundra at like, I think it was, what 100,000 or so a year, just they're not making money on now. Maybe they are because it's so old. But it took them a while in there. They're not a profit center, like the F series is. And I guess they're just like, they're, they're a different thing. They have a presence. And it's, it's harder for them to compete. I think they just don't have the just the mindshare even, you know, I

Sam Abuelsamid  42:42  
you think about this truck, when you think about pickups, if you were to be to be honest, No, I don't. You know, and that's, that's the problem. You know, it gets the basics, right. Yeah, like the ride quality, the power performance, everything, you know, it gets that stuff. Right. But, you know, that's, that's table stakes to get into the segment, you've got to have that stuff. And, you know, all of the, certainly certainly, you know, all the domestic trucks, get those things, right. You know, so then, you know, how do you compete, you have to have those other details, you got to get those deep, those, you know, those interesting details, you know, that make it more functional for customers. And that's where this one kind of lacks, you know, it just, I mean, and as you said, You know, I mean, they don't sell very many of them. So they clearly, you know, they can't afford to invest a huge amount in developing those details, if they know that there's not going to be customers for them. So, you know, how do you how do you move forward if you're not going to make that investment in those those kinds of details? So, that's, that's the Titan pro forex.

Dan Roth  43:56  
You know, I like the Titan, its numbers, like it's competitive, it's just price wise, I feel like it's, you're just not going to get the deal that you're gonna get.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:06  
Alright, so the other thing I had was the, the 2021, Cadillac Escalades, which, you know, this thing's just a beast.

Dan Roth  44:15  
I laugh because it's just like that is all the screen.

Sam Abuelsamid  44:19  
Yeah. Well, and

Rebecca Lindland  44:21  
in the in the notes, you have Cadillac, Escalades sport,

Sam Abuelsamid  44:25  
yes. So, you know, a couple of years ago, a couple of years ago, you know, Cadillac changed their, their marketing the other trim strategy for all their models and you know, with the introduction of the new, the 21, Escalades and redesigned escalate, you know, it adopted the same, this y strategy so they have, you know, the base premium, the base the premium, or sorry, premium is the base model and then premium locks and sport. It's very easy. The premium locks and sport are priced the same, you know and it's no one has a sportier look and feel to it and the other one has a more luxury feel to it and, and the sport escalate sport I had, you know, definitely had the, you know, looked like a Star Wars Stormtrooper, he knows the crystal white, you know, the crystal white tricoat you know, which looked fabulous for a white and then the grille and all the trim and the wheels and the retractable running boards all that was in black, you know, so, and I looked at look kind of sinister for, you know, a store as sinister as a white vehicle a big white vehicle can be. But, you know, and I think I think you had before down we talked about it, you know, and we've talked about the the Yukon Denali, I had that and I think in December, they're, you know, they're, these new GM SUVs are really well executed, you know, they finally adopted an independent rear suspension, they've got great ride quality, the the Escalades, I had had the magneride suspension, or the magneride dampers, you know, so it provides a great balance of ride quality and handling and body control. You know, when you're driving down the road, you know, on rough pavement, you know, it does such a good job of the body control, you don't get any of that shake back and forth, you know, the head, the head shake. And, you know, the thing is, you know, the The interior is fabulous on this, the displays, you know, we've talked about this before, it's got three OLED displays, you know, spanning 37 inches across. So there's a touchscreen display, small touchscreen, on the left hand side by the a pillar where you can switch back and forth some some different modes and control the HUD and switch between the normal instrument cluster and the augmented reality instrument cluster, which I'll get to in a minute. On the on the right hand side, you've got the big touch center touch screen for the infotainment, and then a big digital instrument cluster right in front of you. And the the digital instrument cluster. And one of the modes you can have on or you can switch from, you know, replicating analog gauges to what they call their augmented reality display. And this is kind of a precursor to what's coming next year on the lyric. Where, when you switch it to the augmented reality display, what it does is it shows you the view from the front camera that's up on the windshield that's normally used for Lane Keeping system. And then it overlays that, you know, when you're using navigation, it'll overlay that with, you know, the navigation prompts showing you like on the view, you know, so as you're approaching and I'm running a video that on my screen on my background right now that you guys can see. But as you approach an intersection where you're supposed to make a turn, you'll see an arrow that appears to be floating over the intersection, you know exactly where you're supposed to turn, as you get closer, it gets bigger and bigger, things like that. This is, in principle, I think, a really cool idea. And when they do it as a heads up display next year on the lyric, I think it'll actually be great. Because it'll it'll overall, you know, it'll overlay, you know, right, it'll look like it's right on the road where you see the turn props. And it'll be you know, where you're actually looking, which is at the road. The problem with this is it's down in the instrument cluster to see it you have to be looking down instead of at the road, which is not a good thing. You know, you should you should not be looking at that, except for glancing at it to see you know how fast you're going. It's a really cool feature. But I think that they probably should have just waited until they have the AR heads up display available, which as I said is coming next year on the lyric electric crossover. And I suspect that you know, they will add it to the Escalade next year as well.

Rebecca Lindland  49:07  
Reminds me of isn't a Honda that has that lane assist thing that shows up in the side mirror? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  49:14  
it shows up in the center, the center touchscreen.

Rebecca Lindland  49:16  
Yeah. Right. But, but and it was just it was more distracting than anything.

Dan Roth  49:21  
Yeah, that's how I brought it to I think and I remember commenting about the AR display was like it's an interesting idea, but it is it's distracting because of where it is and if they write in the hood, I think it's gonna be a lot more useful. It just that requires either a larger HUD or it just they're not there in the escalate yet. But otherwise, though, we've we've expended a lot of commentary about screens on this podcast, how did you feel overall about just the amount of screen and how functional it was in the escalated you know because it stretches all the way from the The a pillar over to the other side of the center stack, there's a lot of screen in there.

Sam Abuelsamid  50:06  
Yeah, so the the small screen on the left by the a pillar, you basically not really using that except just to switch modes and the instrument cluster and the heads up display. So most of the time, you're never even going to touch that. The, the instrument cluster display is actually similar in size to most male, modern instrument cluster digital instrument clusters. And, you know, when it's in its normal, normal mode, you know, displaying the instruments, then it's, you know, it's great, it looks fabulous, you know, the OLED displays, you know, really high contrast and look really good, really sharp, they're very high resolution. And then, you know, the center touchscreen, you know, the infotainment display. Again, you know, it's, I think it's like 16 inches or 17 inches. So it's a nice, big display. Again, it looks fabulous. And, you know, the the UI, you know, the current generation of Cadillacs user interface for their infotainment is quite good. And, you know, I like that it also has the, you can use it as a touchscreen, Rebecca, for those people who like touchscreen, you know, but there's also a center controller, like an eye drive style controller, which, you know, has, you know, full jog functionality, so you can twist it, but you can also, you know, go forward, left, left and right, forward and back, and pushed down to select stuff. And I actually preferred using that, because that center touchscreen is actually kind of a reach because it's up, you know, it's all mounted up high on the dash. So it's close to your line of sight. And it's actually a bit of a reach to get to that. So I actually preferred using that using the center controller for that.

Rebecca Lindland  51:52  
I like having options, so

Sam Abuelsamid  51:54  
yeah, no, and I'm glad there are options. So, you know, I think I think it looks great. You know, it's really well done. And it's, you know, it's a fabulous, it's a really fabulous interior, you know, and it's it's the kind of interior I would expect in an SUV that costs $112,000

Dan Roth  52:17  
Oh, yours is more expensive than mine. Mine was 189

Sam Abuelsamid  52:20  
Yeah, this was the sport platinum. And the other thing yeah, it

Rebecca Lindland  52:26  
has a boiler in it.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:28  
It does have a cooler and

Dan Roth  52:29  
yes, I liked that. I thought that was cool. Pun intended. Did today feels like a vehicle you I just wanted to point it point West and keep going until it hit the ocean. It was Yeah, that kind of car.

Sam Abuelsamid  52:43  
The the one I had was equipped with the 6.2 liter vhc has to do two engine options in the Escalades this year. The six two v eight, which is nice, powerful male smallblock VA, great, great engine, or the three liter inline six diesel and interestingly, you know, when you go through the building price there, they're both the same price there's no there's no there's no price premium for either engine. So for the same price, you just pick whichever engine you want. It's the same price I'd

Rebecca Lindland  53:13  
really want to know what the take rates are.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:16  
I would guess it's probably 5% Yeah, maybe maybe 10% for the diesel. Yeah, probably actually it might actually be a little bit higher for the escalate you know because you know, I think I think a fair number of people you know do tow with escalates and the you know that diesel is such a nice engine you know, I drove it last year in the in the Sierra, it's a fantastic engine.

Dan Roth  53:43  
It has the same exact I think its torque is the same as the six to 60 460 pound feet of torque the diesel is also 460 pounds, and it's a hell

Sam Abuelsamid  53:52  
of a lot more fuel efficient. I got it 14 miles per gallon. Also with the escalator. Yeah, but

Dan Roth  53:58  
I just kept beating the hell out of that thing on every every onramp because that VA sounds so good. It does.

Sam Abuelsamid  54:05  
It does sound great.

Dan Roth  54:06  
The the diesel gets I think it's supposed to get like 28 on the highway, which is pretty good. Versus I think 20 for the

Sam Abuelsamid  54:15  
i got i got i think i got something like 2425 when I drove it in the car last year. Yeah.

Dan Roth  54:20  
And

Rebecca Lindland  54:20  
isn't that the same one that's in the suburban that I just had? Yep. Yeah, yeah, that's a Christmas. Yeah, that was that was what impressed me about that diesel was how quiet it was inside the vehicle. Even really outside but inside as well. Like, this is not your grandpa's diesel. That's

Sam Abuelsamid  54:40  
very smooth. And if you like diesels, you know get one now because a few years from now, you probably won't be able to buy one that and supercharged VA. It's nice to be able to get them so get them now.

Dan Roth  54:53  
The thing that I realized was the 6.2 has, it has cylinder deactivation with dynamic skip All that stuff totally seamless. The only way you could tell that it was doing anything was listening very carefully for the exhaust note that that, you know that the first MDS systems or, you know, displacement on demand or whatever it was cylinder deactivation, it was, it was pretty smooth, but a lot more noticeable that and it would just drop down to four cylinders. And it was only the same four cylinders all the time like this, it can move it around,

Sam Abuelsamid  55:29  
yeah, this, this can shut off any of the eight cylinders, you know, up up to six of the eight cylinders it is and and the thing is, it's constantly juggling around, you know which ones are off. So it's not the same six all the time or for two, that it's turning off. So even if it's only if it even if it's running out six cylinders only turning off to you know, it'll be constantly switching, which which two is turning off. So that it's it's not disrupting the ballots or minimizing the destruction of the balance and the sound?

Dan Roth  56:00  
Yeah, it sure works. It's good, good stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:04  
Good stuff. All right. This past Thursday, Mark Royce, president of GM, did a interview with David Ignatius on Washington Post live, talking about EBS, and that one of the first things he talked about was this new partnership with a company in your neck of the woods, Dan called FCS, formerly known as Solid Energy Systems. And they're working on lithium metal solid state batteries. So just a quick primer on the basics of a battery. You've got two electrodes, a positive and negative electrode separator in between, so they don't touch because you don't want your positive and negative electrodes touching each other, never short circuit, bad things happening. No touching, bad, bad things happen. And then the Holy Spirit. Yeah, and then it's all flooded with an electrolyte. And the,

Dan Roth  57:02  
like, that's a battery like that, right? Just

Sam Abuelsamid  57:05  
Yeah, that's it, that's a basic, that's the basics of a battery, any battery.

Dan Roth  57:08  
Um, so what makes them solid state.

Sam Abuelsamid  57:12  
So the electrolyte and battery most batteries today is either a liquid or a polymer gel. And it's an organic liquid. So it's got the carbon and oxygen. And the problem with that is, if you do have a short circuit in your battery in your cell, and you get some, some contact, some touching between the positive and negative electrodes, that generates heat, that heat causes the the electrolyte to give off oxygen. And if that heat gets out of control, and starts to fire, that that electrolyte is giving off oxygen that feeds the fire. You know, normally when you have a fire, like if, you know, if you have, you know, if you have some grease, catch fire and a pan on your stove, if you put a lid on it, it'll consume the oxygen that's in there and then extinguish,

Dan Roth  58:09  
you don't want to put water in a grease fire the same as you want to put water in a battery, definitely don't

Sam Abuelsamid  58:13  
definitely don't do that. Or, you know, anytime, anytime, you know, if you put you know, take a fire extinguisher, you put your put water on it, whatever, on any kind of fire, the, you know, that smothering a fire is, is preventing it from getting oxygen from the air. Well, the problem with a battery though those salt, those liquid electrolytes actually produce their own oxygen. So even if you smother the battery, it's still gonna have oxygen to feed the fire. That's why it's so hard to put out battery fires, they often it often takes hours to extinguish a battery fire. So solid state battery actually replaces that liquid electrolyte with a solid material. And it's usually some kind of ceramic material. So when they manufactured they put in like a slurry or something, you know, something liquid, but then it solidifies and basically becomes a big block. And then that won't give off oxygen. It helps to prevent the, the you know, any short circuiting, things like that, so it should be safer. And in the case of you know, what's being claimed by companies like SBS and quantum scape, which has an investment from Volkswagen, they're claiming, you know, double the energy density as well because they're lithium, what they call lithium metal. And so most lithium ion batteries today have an energy density about 250 watt hours per kilogram. Sex is claiming four to 500 watt hours so double. The great thing about that if you can double the amount of energy that's in a given weight or volume of a battery, you can have you can take the same capacity we have today like that bolt, you've got Dan as a 65 kilowatt hour battery. You could make that battery half the weight and half the size

Dan Roth  59:59  
or The same size and twice the capacity,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:02  
or Yes, so you could either double the range of the car, or you could reduce, you know, keep the same capacity, you know, because 250 miles is enough for most people and reduce the weight that makes it more efficient. You know, because you're not hauling around as much weight, or, you know, if you want to keep you keep the same range, you actually can. Or you can, you can reduce the size and reduce the size of it, and get, you know, get more range out of it. There's all kinds of different combinations you could do. But it's gonna make EDS both more functional and more affordable. Presumably, if they can actually figure out how to manufacture these things, which is the thing that you don't

Dan Roth  1:00:44  
have to put like a halen system on them to so that they can just smother those, those fires, that's all

Sam Abuelsamid  1:00:51  
well, but if you have a solid state battery, you won't need to worry about that. Yeah, you won't need the halo on it. But so part of the announcement that they made GM actually invest GM ventures invested in FCS back in 2015. And they've been working on this stuff. And now they're going to build a prototype production plant in Massachusetts, not far from where you are. And that's going to start production prototype production in 2023. And, you know, GM has talked about starting to roll out lithium, lithium metal cells as their next generation of their ultium batteries, starting sometime around 2025, or 26. So, this could be a big, you know, big boost for GM, if they can actually get this stuff to work. And the same goes for Volkswagen with their partners a quantum scape, and Toyotas also working on this stuff. So

Dan Roth  1:01:41  
Escape is the one that I keep hearing them the most about, like. So I guarantee you, they're not going to they won't do full scale manufacturing in Massachusetts, because then No,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:51  
no, not that when they get when they start to do full scale manufacturing, the battery plants will be closer to where the car assembly plants are.

Dan Roth  1:01:59  
Yeah, but it's anybody reading the press release. It's Woburn. It's not walborn. It's over. Okay, you got to say it, right. Let's get second place right off. 128. What do you think in terms of getting these cells like out in production cars? Like, is it two years? Five

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:16  
years? What's the I would say? Probably? Five, at least five to six years? Yeah. Minimum. We may see some low volume stuff in the next couple of years. But for the most part, it's going to be five or six years at least.

Dan Roth  1:02:31  
Yeah. Right. I mean, GM has made a big investment. Hopefully, this plays out better than some of their other investments. Like, we just watch like, Nicola and

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:45  
Lordstown motors,

Dan Roth  1:02:46  
if seems like GM is sort of stumbled around and like, they're like, sideshow, Bob stepping on rakes. themselves, face.

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:57  
Everyone is, I mean, you know, what, there's battery technology hadn't changed in decades. And then all of a sudden, in the last 10 years, we've seen tremendous changes. So I think everyone is sort of throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Dan Roth  1:03:11  
That's true. I mean, honestly, like, even now, there's still really, they're not that far off from like what volta was doing in late 1800s.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:03:20  
Yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not fundamentally different from the original batteries, you know, at a conceptual level, they've changed the materials and the chemistry. So, you know, it's got a lot more density than it did and you know, they last longer than they did, but it's still conceptually the same as what we've had for 150 years. One more thing I want to mention about batteries. So we've been talking about e V's a lot, you know, and how, you know, California said by 2035, they want to ban the sale of new internal combustion engines go Evie only think Massachusetts plans to follow suit, probably a bunch of other states will, and other countries are doing this too. One of the challenges with doing that, though, is we currently don't have anywhere near enough battery production capacity. Right now in the United States. We have roughly somewhere around 40 gigawatt hours of annual battery production capacity. And that's enough for about 444 to 500,000 cars a year. And most of that right now is with Tesla at their plant in in Nevada. And then LG Chem has a plant here in West Michigan that has about five kilowatt hours or five gigawatt hours. But, you know, at the pace we're at up to 2019, where we're selling 17 million cars a year. If we converted all of those over to electric, we would need about one and a half terawatt hours a year of battery production capacity to meet to meet that demand. And that that's about 40 times as much production capacities we have today. So we need a lot more battery plants, if we're going to do that, and LG announced on Thursday that they are going to invest four and a half billion dollars in additional cell production capacity here in the US between now and 2025. They're expanding their Michigan plant in their building to other plants. And that's in addition to their joint venture with GM. So they're they're adding another 70 gigawatt hours of annual production capacity on top of what they're doing with GM with their joint venture with LTM cells, which has one plant under construction now, and they're planning on a second plant as well. So we're making some progress, there's gonna be a lot more batteries coming over the next several years and other other battery manufacturers are also SK innovations, building two plants in Georgia right now. We'll probably see Panasonic add more capacity, Tesla is definitely going to do more, they're going to start doing their own. And Ford and, and even still analysts have talked about building their own cells. So we'll see a lot more we're gonna we're gonna have to have a lot more battery production capacity, if we want to make everything electric.

Dan Roth  1:06:09  
Well, you know, is, is GM trying to position themselves as a supplier to like start whether adding or

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:16  
not right now, they're they're just trying to meet their own demand, you know, to say they have plans to sell a lot of TVs. And they're not. I mean, they have said that, you know, at some point in the future, they could sell cells to other companies. But right now, they're they're just they're just trying to meet their own demand, their own internal demand.

Dan Roth  1:06:35  
Yeah. And God knows what's still lantis is going to do

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:39  
they? Well, on Monday this week in an interview, Carlos Tavares, you know, said that they're going to be accelerating their, their Evie production, and they're even look, they're looking at adding their own cell production capacity.

Dan Roth  1:06:58  
I think one of the things is still lantis really dearly wants to do is stop paying Tesla for anything.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:04  
Yeah, it's, well, I was just, I just saw some sales figures for Europe earlier today. And in January, they top top manufacturer top sellers of TVs, Volkswagen was Volkswagen Group was number one. Still latus was number two, for Evie cells in Europe. Because bujo actually has quite a few IE V's that they're selling now. And, and Tesla was way down the list, they had like three and a half percent market share,

Dan Roth  1:07:36  
when they start to produce all these batteries as well, the things that they're producing them out of are not necessarily the greenest either. So are we gonna wind up in critical shortages of like just different raw material or

Sam Abuelsamid  1:07:51  
everybody's dead? That is a distinct possibility. And that's why, you know, everybody is scrambling to try to develop batteries that don't use any cobalt, and eventually no nickel either. So they're trying to try to use more of materials that are more readily available and cheaper, like aluminum. And manganese.

Dan Roth  1:08:12  
Yeah, there was a company here and another company here in Massachusetts, and this was like, storage scale battery so big. And they were calling colloquially, the, the dirt battery. It basically is like, if you want it to be as cheap as dirt make it out of dirt. But it's I don't I don't think that's anything that scales down. But it's trying to basically use the cheapest materials.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:36  
Well, and and that's, you know, that's the thing, you know, for, you know, for stationary storage applications. Wait, isn't the problem, right? You know, and, and dense energy density isn't really a problem. You know, for a mobile thing like a car, you want to have, you know, as much energy density as you can, you know, to keep the weight and the size down. But for something that's not moving anywhere, you can use stuff like iron phosphate, which has, you know, about half the energy density of, you know, nickel, metal, nickel, manganese cobalt cell, but it's a lot cheaper, you know, but it doesn't matter, because it's not moving anywhere.

Dan Roth  1:09:14  
Yeah. And what's this getting stolen? All right. All right. This is how this is how it gets done, though. This is I'm excited to see where we wind up in two to five years with battery technology. Have lots of mass and things that move. The 2022 Jeep wagoneer was finally introduced a while back, they introduced the I guess it was the concept that basically

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:43  
I think it was in like October of last year.

Dan Roth  1:09:45  
Yeah. When I was super excited for it. And then when you saw it, it was different than I thought it would be. And now the production version is essentially the the concept with less gee whiz tech Are you still really nice but Rebecca, you live in a rich town? Do you think anybody there's gonna diverse town? town? Yes, they have a diverse,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:12  
there's ridiculously wealthy and slightly less wealthy.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:15  
Right? I will have you know that we just passed an ordinance dealing with blight and Greenwich blame no idea where there's blight and Greenwich but we have an

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:23  
ordinance low just want to make sure that you never have to make being proactive.

Dan Roth  1:10:26  
You can't come in here if your plate like this. Yeah, we wouldn't let the train stop here so that the train people could get off

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:32  
anyway.

Dan Roth  1:10:35  
Do you think anybody in that that area is going to be okay with spending 100 plus $1,000 on Jeep wagon here, because this is the thing that I've seen as like a headline, like Jeep thinks it can get this kind of money from from this vehicle. And I'm like, kind of like, Well, I think they're not gonna have a problem, but maybe it's just where I'm from. But like I, I because I also live in a rich area. Right? I can say you live in a rich area to move outside of a rich area. Let's be clear.

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:01  
Hey. You know, I think that there's a couple things. What's kind of fun about this is, you know, the Jeep Wrangler is Busboys and billionaires, right? You never know who's gonna be driving, you're always spending a lot of

Dan Roth  1:11:17  
money to like, customize that one, like the

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:19  
those are absolutely. But jeeps in general are seen as in a very, very positive light, you know, it's one of the few brands that doesn't have a, quote, target market or, or a well defined customer. Because for a from a demographic standpoint, because there's so many different people that buy them. So I like the fact that they have this in their showroom, they had to do something bigger than the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Like that is, you know, it's a nice size vehicle, but they had to, they had to get a bigger vehicle in there. The pricing is certainly, you know, very, very high. And by,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:59  
well, that's where the Grand wagoneer but because they also have ones that are going to start it's going to range from $40,000 for a base wagon here, all the way up to Yeah,

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:08  
so for sure. I mean, I was gonna say, though, you've got Jeep Wranglers that are 5560 65,000 just

Dan Roth  1:12:15  
talking about Escalades 112. So

Rebecca Lindland  1:12:18  
yeah, so that that $100,000 Mark, you know, is is no longer sacred, that used to be the quote exotics, right? It's not anymore.

Dan Roth  1:12:29  
Yeah. Well, and I suppose to like, why do we need to feel like it's presumptuous for a domestic brand and especially Jeep as a premium domestic brand, no matter which Jeep vehicle it is. It's like that's, that's a Chrysler Premier, still lantis Premium line. You know, like, it has some cachet, no matter which vehicle that that logo is on. It's, it's, it's no no longer, like, why should it be a bad thing for a brand like a hometown team to have a vehicle that is in that, that Echelon? Right, like I think that's actually good.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:12  
Well, and if you're looking at domestic brand prices, I mean, look no further than the pickup trucks. Right and how much people spend on on their pickup trucks You know? So I think that there's real opportunity here I I can't say that like when I look at the styling

Dan Roth  1:13:30  
Yeah, I was to say what do you think of the wagon here and grand wagon here like

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:33  
I I wish it had a little bit more cheapness to it like I don't know I I guess I have to see it in person again. I did get to the preview this past fall as well but the front grille I want it to be it doesn't scream Jeep to me, you know, it's, it's, it almost looks like a Lincoln Lincoln Navigator. Okay, I don't know I just yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:14:03  
they've done a new interpretation of the classic seven slot grille, right that's shorter and wider. Yeah. And they have the same thing gravity happens when you get older you know

Dan Roth  1:14:18  
you know your your your vertebrae compress you get I want to

Rebecca Lindland  1:14:23  
go to the moon I just want to be five three for like a day. But anyway, so I think I just think I don't know. I can they sell these? Absolutely. I is it athletic enough like it again? Like I don't know that it looks like a Jeep enough. Yeah, I could just be cranky. Well, I

Dan Roth  1:14:44  
know I mean, I hear you I especially as I was watching some of the running footage in it looks weird in motion but I think part of it is like it's a new thing. So we're gonna have to get used to it it right. Everybody has their I think the most trouble with the rear and rear three quarter view. It just looks tall. And I don't know kind of just not GB enough. But it's a new thing. And I remember how sort of offended everybody was by the, the Cherokee when they reintroduced that and it was different. And now it blends right in, you know, it looks good. It's kind of a long term, like, looking down the road vision were like, what's going to look good still in five years and not be derivative, and I think they did a really good job there. I, I do want to I want to wait to see it in person and see it moving around, but it to me it kind of like, it looks like a Jeep SUV superimposed over a ram 1500. And I think that's just me mentally doing that and going, you know, how does the ram move? And how does this styling sort of fit with? With that? It's a weird mental exercise, but I don't know, I want to see it in the wild.

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:03  
I will say the interior is spectacular

Dan Roth  1:16:05  
interior.

Rebecca Lindland  1:16:07  
I don't what I saw

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:08  
this past fall, and I'm amazed they actually are offering the passenger side screen on the dashboard is available as an option on the high end. Grand wagoneer you

Dan Roth  1:16:21  
know, they have those those filters like the all the lawyers, yeah, who's in their offices, so you can't see it from unless you're directly on it.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:16:28  
Yeah. So yeah, so across across the front, I think I've said something like 58 inches of display, there's you know, you've got the instrument cluster, the big 12 inch center stack display and then another display on over on the passenger side and then a couple more displays you know, if you get the in the back if you get the rear seat entertainment and then there's also another touchscreen set another center touchscreen in the second row a on the high end, grand wagon yours, you know, to control your climate control for the back, it's

Dan Roth  1:17:01  
not I worry that it's a little too screenie with the the front HVC is also on a screen and and we'll have to the HR

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:10  
controls, I think are actually physical controls below the screen.

Dan Roth  1:17:14  
Oh, are they Okay, I'm still I'm still just like paging through pictures. Because it looks like there is a lot of glossy touch surfaces. Yeah, in the in the cabin. It's beautifully designed. I'm sure it's gonna be beautifully outfitted. I can't wait to actually get in one and try it out as a fleet vehicle. The other thing that I don't want to get lost either is still antas is going to offer level two driving assistance. I don't think anything they make has more than sort of basic a das right now. So now that's new for for anything and still Lantus is range.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:53  
Yeah, they're they're offering at launch, they're gonna have a level two hands on system. So it's kind of like what you get with Nissan's propilot assist and words copilot 360. And then, and actually, Tesla autopilot, which is also a hands on system, don't take your hands off the wheel.

Dan Roth  1:18:14  
I thought it was a napping system.

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:15  
I wouldn't say hands on what

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:17  
hands on the steering wheels over

Dan Roth  1:18:19  
your eyes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:21  
And and then the next, I think next year, or sometime after launch, they're going to have they're going to start offering a hands free system, which may or may not be a level three system, but it's definitely gonna be a hands free system, kind of like what you've got with supercruise that lets you take your hands off the wheel. And that that'll be available probably sometime early 2022.

Dan Roth  1:18:48  
And Fire TV. That was the other big thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:18:50  
Yeah, Amazon Fire TV. Like

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:52  
No, I think it's a really handsome vehicle. I think it's, they have to do it to expand the range. And, you know, from what I saw, I think it's really really cool. And I do think that it will draw people it's a little bit like when Porsche came out with a kayak how many people had a 911 and then a different branded SUV in the driveway, right and then but everyone they wanted, they wanted to to Porsche garage. I think that there's a lot of people that have a seven seat or you know, or a large SUV with their Jeep Wrangler, and maybe they'll want

Dan Roth  1:19:34  
to Jeep garage, the Grand wagoneer offers you that option of the full size SUV that you didn't end the wagon here to. It's funny how there's, I'm just gonna call it the grand but it just gives you that option that wagoneer family you don't have the largest thing you could get previously and it wouldn't even be a Jeep if you wanted three rows and the same basic hardware. You're looking at a Durango and so now you've got the the Grand Cherokee l which is going to give you three rows in that form factor. And now the Grand wagoneer, which is larger frame based, you know, it's it's more of a traditional SVC. You don't have to go defecting over to a suburban or an expedition. You can stay right in the family and it's going to be nicer. It's probably gonna have a higher profit margin than those because that's the Jeep thing. Only the Hemi I know that's got the

Sam Abuelsamid  1:20:27  
Well, yeah, they're watching with the two homies that five, seven in the 664. And then sometime after launch, by the end of the year, they will add the plug in hybrid as well.

Dan Roth  1:20:39  
Yeah, that's the that's the one and the more electrification FCA. Still lantis I'm going to screw that up for the next year and a half more electrification they can do, the better they're going to be because they're there. Yeah. This just big, and I don't expect it with the 5.7 even with a torque to get very good fuel economy. So anyway, that's all for that. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:06  
I just dropped a picture in the chat of the interior. There is a roll physical switches below the touchscreen for the climate control.

Dan Roth  1:21:15  
Okay. Yeah, I see that now. All right. Good. I'm glad.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:23  
We've got a question from a new listener. His name's Adam jackal. winco, who I don't think has ever written to it before.

Dan Roth  1:21:29  
See what he has to say?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:31  
says hey, crew, I had a feeling he missed me when I didn't email for a whole full episode. So I'm back.

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:41  
I think you need to come on as a guest.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:44  
Absolutely. Now that I've just completed my car, my recent car buying journey. It got me thinking about how every vehicle has some pros and some cons. There's some there's no one car that has everything one person could want. So I thought it'd be fun to ask you all if you could build a brand new Franken car, they'd have every modern feature that you valued the most, what would be in it? For the purposes of this exercise? I'm just thinking of modern tech conveniences quirks and features. Thanks to Doug de Muro, etc. which features which features on which manufacturers would you love to pour into one magical unicorn car? minor below have fun. The Hyundai Kia blindspot cameras in the gauge cluster. Nissan's zero gravity seats so comfortable gmcs heated seat backs. Volvo's built in Google Maps rear view camera from GM cars. I guess that's the camera mirror system. The panoramic roof like a Tesla or Maki, Audi satellite radio preview it shows you what artists on our conversation topic is on each channel without you having to go to it first at Volvo's b&o sound system. Tesla's Sentry mode, Hyundai smart Park and the Toyota Venza has magic sky roof, which seems like it might be a conflict with the panoramic roof But anyway, so what would you guys want your freakin car?

Rebecca Lindland  1:23:14  
After Think about this,

Dan Roth  1:23:15  
I could go one of two ways. I could just I, you know, like I want a Winnebago that handles that just has has all the comforts of home and still handles really well. But that's I think probably unrealistic. I think like my tastes are more simple. If I think of an idealized car, I actually don't necessarily think of those. Those features, I think of something more elemental. So my idealized car is more like a lotus exists, or something that's just you in the machine makes you concentrate. I would like the sound deadening of like a rolls in that car. You know, it's like I don't like light pollution in the cabinet night. I don't so I don't you know, I don't like screens. I don't like even the little lights that like illuminate the controls like now make it so I can do it by feel I like I like switches like hardware. I like manual transmissions and not a whole lot else between me and the vehicle. So my tastes are pretty, pretty simple. I want a car that's mostly a motorcycle.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:33  
I like so you want a real Adam.

Dan Roth  1:24:35  
Yeah, I would be okay with an atom except for winter.

Rebecca Lindland  1:24:40  
I like the ones with the eye. The bird's eye view camera system you know like, like if you're parking you can see the whole I love that. I think that that's a really, really handy feature. And it's funny when you mentioned the Kia Hyundai blindspot camera, that's what I was talking about earlier was that it's in the gauge. It's in the cluster, it's not like the heads up display, I would love to have more things in the heads up display because as he said, sound like your eyes are supposed to be on the road. But this is a great question, though, I'll have to think about I want about some more.

Dan Roth  1:25:13  
I want our other listeners to think about this too, because it's a tough one to answer, kind of on the spot, brain. There are a lot of great tech features. And automakers do this, right. They look at what other companies are doing. And they sort of incorporate the good into it. And they interpret it in their own way. But they sort of pull it all into their own lineups as well.

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:38  
Yeah, I mean, definitely the exhaustion from an Aston Martin.

Dan Roth  1:25:41  
Yeah, right. I'll take that.

Rebecca Lindland  1:25:43  
Yeah, that would that would be that'd be probably my first pick. And yeah, no, it's really it's a great question. And And likewise, I would love to see some listener responses.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:55  
Well, I would, I think what I would want is something like a Miata that has, you know, an electric drive train state of the art batteries. So they're, you know, relatively light. The, you know, just a set of good Recaro seats. With no, you know, the only adjustability it needs is, you know, seat back angle and for aft, because, you know, they always seem to fit me perfectly for some reason. And yeah, and, you know, I don't need I don't need any of this, any of the other stuff. You know, I can get by without any of the other stuff. You know, I just, I would want you know, something, something like a Miata, you know, with a 250 mile range, electric. Oh, and the soundtrack from a GT 350. I want I want the Voodoo soundtrack.

Dan Roth  1:26:50  
Now we are we are product. Yes, we're we're true enthusiasts. In some ways, we get flustered, when we start to talk about features are just like, I just want a car that drives well. But in terms of audio systems, I really like the SLS surround systems in acuras. You know, I'm starting to put that list together. So I think I'll have to come back to this. We should circle back to this next week. And maybe we can get some responses to. All right, my first instinct is to be like, give me something that I really enjoyed driving so I don't care about any of the other stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:27:24  
Okay, one more question. During a recent podcast, you guys discussed otaa updates over the air updates. I bought a 2021 Honda CRV a couple months ago, and it has wired Apple CarPlay salesmen told me there was a possibility Honda would release a wireless Apple CarPlay update for my car at no charge. Have you guys heard anything about this? Do you have any contacts within Honda who could answer as to whether the wireless Apple CarPlay feature will be added to my car? So Ray, I did reach out to Honda I haven't heard back yet. But my guess is that the answer will be no. Because they have not actually changed the the head unit in the CRV for a couple of years. In fact, since the current generation came out, and there are hardware differences that are required with to go wireless with CarPlay or Android Auto. And I don't believe that Honda has added those to this. There are there are some you know some of the the new newer Honda models as new Acura models are coming out with wireless CarPlay support. But I don't think that they're going to be able to add it with a software update to your CRV unfortunately, but

Unknown Speaker  1:28:41  
yeah, retroactively. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:42  
not not not what just a software update, it's going to require a hardware change for that. But I will I will follow up with Honda on that too, just to make sure. So that's it for questions. Rebecca, did you have anything you wanted to add?

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:58  
So after just over to really fun filled yours, this is sadly my last wheel bearings, podcast, and I really I'm going to miss it. Because I've had so much fun. I've had so much fun with the audience and watching it grow and gain in popularity. And it's kind of hard to believe because the sound when you first asked me, I don't I think my first show was in January of 2019.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:28  
I think so yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  1:29:29  
And then I promptly went to India. And we said we recorded a couple of shows from there. Exactly. Which was so cool. And you know, I just the audience has been fantastic and it's just been so fun. And then someday we'll meet in person. And you know, I was thinking back to like when we would sit in the car at the Auto Show and talk and so I've I've actually accepted a new position I and so I can't continue with wheel bearings. Unfortunately, I dragged you that as long as possible. Oh, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone, because it really, really has been so much fun. And I appreciate everybody's interaction. And I'll still kind of keep up my Rebecca drives twitter feed a little bit. Again, I'm sort of feeling out, like what's a conflict and what I am not allowed to do. My job will be announced. I think it's the very beginning of April. And for more details, it's under embargo still right now. But again, I've just I've, I've had such a great time. I think I did almost 100 episodes. I couldn't remember just just about that. Yeah, just about Yes. And so we'll have, we'll have some new people, though, I think it'll be a lot of fun.

Dan Roth  1:30:43  
Yeah, I really enjoyed the way we sort of expanded our knowledge with all of the unique understanding of the world that you bring to it, you know, you certainly bring a different perspective and a lot of different experience. That, you know, what we were trying to do with wheel bearings in the first place was something that's not just two dudes talking about cars, and chuckling at their own jokes, although we do our fair share, um, you know, having that understanding of, you know, we're trying to understand the cars, how they fit in the marketplace, who buys them and the ups and downs of that. So I appreciate the balance you brought to us. So hopefully, we'll talk again soon, once you settle in, and we'll get regular updates from the Rebecca verse.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:32  
Yes, well, I can be a special guest.

Dan Roth  1:31:34  
That would be fantastic. Absolutely.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:36  
You're welcome back anytime you want. And Rebecca, I really sincerely want to thank you for joining us on this little adventure over the last couple of years, you know, you as Dan said, You have been such a great addition to the show, you know, really providing, you know, a very different perspective from the two of us, you know, both, you know, as a woman, but also, you know, just based on, you know, your your professional experience coming from a totally different point of view, you know, which I think has been extremely valuable to hopefully making this show both more fun to listen to and more informative.

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:14  
Well, thank you. And I've learned a ton. I mean, really, you know, what's interesting, Sam and I have known each other for quite a few years now. And but you know, we don't get to talk technical, and I'm not good at technical, like, that's what you're so good at. And so I've just learned so much of, of what's behind the vehicle, and the perspective and such. So I'm really gonna miss everybody. And please continue to listen, there's great things ahead for this podcast. And it's just been really a privilege. So thank you justice, we

Dan Roth  1:32:45  
start to put some money in the bank.

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:51  
Well, I'm terrible with money anyway, that's why I need a lot of it. Yeah,

Dan Roth  1:32:54  
no, we don't have any. We're gonna actually try to take some of that money and add to some some riders, they put out a call a little while ago for some writers. So we can pay people a little bit. And we'll give them some assignments. And we'll see if we get some content moving on, try to get a snowball effect and build the wheel bearings Empire. So

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:14  
everybody gets to sort of become a true digital media company.

Dan Roth  1:33:16  
Well, that's the thing is like, think that's part of our growth has been a little bit stumbling and scrappy. But, you know, you see all the podcasts that are now they're funded by large corporations, and we're trying to figure it out on our own and maintain all of that on our own and build a build an actual media company. So it's been a little slow. But it's been really interesting to sort of play around and pull the levers and see what we can make happen. So yeah, stick around. We'll have more news soon for a lot of different things. But we're going to miss you. saying We love you, Rebecca,

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:51  
thank you so much. I love you guys. Thank you.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:56  
Alright, that's that's it for this week. Don't forget, you know, if you like the show, you know, go leave us a review on Apple podcasts or even if you don't use Apple podcasts. That's like the most popular place for reviews for podcasts. So go leave a review there anyway. And, and because it helps it helps people find the show. And we'll see you next week.

Dan Roth  1:34:23  
Thanks. 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 w, h l br NGS cast. Thanks again. We hope to hear from you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai