Dan Roth  0:01  
Coming up on episode 186 of wheel bearings, you took the time to send us questions and comments, so we take the time to answer. We're driving the Hyundai palisade here in Telluride, and we spend a while talking about the Chevrolet Bolt, eu v drives that Sam and Rebecca participated. We also talked about to lantis, considering the Cherokee Nation suggestion that it rename its SUVs. And of course, we head off on a bunch of different tangents. That's all I head on episode 186 of wheel bearings.

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

Sam Abuelsamid  0:43  
I'm Sam Abuelsamid from guidehouse insights. 

Rebecca Lindland  0:46  
And I'm Rebecca Lynn land from Rebecca drives. 

Dan Roth  0:50  
All right, we kept everybody waiting several in the garage. I just wanted to one last note on the tundra that I had, because we talked about it last week, as in teak is the tender isn't well, you weren't on last week. So I came up with a theory for the tundra, and it's entropy resistant character development. And so the hypothesis is that the longer an automaker keeps a model in production, without major changes, the more character it develops. Oh, I like that. Okay. Yeah. So and and i think that holds true. So I, that's a poster child for it, but they're going to replace it with the new tundra very soon, so I'll be curious to see how that truck turns out. Okay, cool. The more I drove it, the more I realized something is tight as a drum, it didn't rattle at all over crappy pavement or anything. It's just just just felt like it was really well screwed together. And

they seem to have the bugs worked out of their 15 year old truck. 

Sam Abuelsamid  1:47  
They finally got it right, huh. 

Rebecca Lindland  1:50  
There you go. Well done. 

Dan Roth  1:51  
You know, I quite liked it. I just think it's expensive. You build something long enough, and sooner or later, you'll get it right. Right. That's good. Stick to itiveness. All right. What are the rest of you to driving What? Well, Rebecca, you haven't been on in a while. 

Rebecca Lindland  2:06  
They know I'm so sorry. To everyone that I missed last week. That was very disappointing for me, and I really wanted to be on it. And especially because I'm a star guest. And so I actually had an interesting couple of vehicles. I had the 2021 Hyundai palisade their large seven seater. But I also about two weeks ago, I had the 2021 Kia Telluride, which is its sister vehicle. So it was interesting to compare and contrast those two. Which do you like better?

Right immediately gave her away. And she was like, oh, shoot, but she didn't say anything. Until they went on their test drive. And by the time they got back, they had googled her found out exactly who she was every day. And you know, she just became an actual juror, which is so great. It's North American Car and Truck of the Year. So you know, she's in the news a lot lately and stuff. So she has a very funny story. 

Dan Roth  8:39  
Because you need to be like, it's like that's like a gang you need to be beat in. So what did they give her a deal where they like afraid of her then? Yes, they were afraid of her appropriately so as well, they should be

Rebecca Lindland  8:53  
my guess. Anyway.

You know what? I'm still gonna go with palisade. I okay. If the I'm sorry. I'm going to tell you right. I'm sorry. I'm going to tell you right. I love that. I love the square. I love the square lights on them. They're so distinctive. The headlamps? They're so distinctive. You know that when you are when a power window I'm telling you, right? It's coming towards you. You know it like Actually, I was. I was in mine and I was near a dealership and I was moving the telluride and I kind of flat I flashed my lights a little bit. We waved at each other and I thought, Oh, isn't that fun? But it's just so distinctive. And and I think the palisade is incredibly handsome. It's a very elegant vehicle, but there's something more approachable about telluride. And I know it's just it's a little bit more youthful and rugged. And I just both vehicles are incredibly good. And so I wouldn't hesitate to recommend either one of them. I you know, the price point is very similar. The engine, the 3.8 liter engine is the same. There's just small differences. But I really think you're just deciding between I between the exterior because even the interior is very similar. They're so intuitive. The, the fit the finish the features, they're just, they're all really, really good. And I somebody was at my house yesterday, and he said, Oh, you're the girl with the cars. Like, Yes, I

Dan Roth  10:48  
am. And let me tell you my monroney

Rebecca Lindland  10:53  
you want to come up and see my man Roni? It's so he he asked me that. So the palisade was sitting out there. And he said, What do you think of that? And I said, I would, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anybody. And you know, as we've talked about with Hyundai and Kia before, there still is skepticism about these brands. And it's so unfair, because they're so good. And I just told him, I said, you know, if, if you need a seven seater, this is a vehicle for you. The way that it drives the way that it handles. You know, I've been going back and forth to storage a lot as I purged my house. And I mean, they carry the size of Japanese apartments, like you can put so much stuff in there. It's just It's incredible. So I I'm a huge fan. The other thing that was remarkable to me was even though they don't have running boards, how easy they are to get in and out of, you know, I'm five feet tall. That's not I don't say that a lot about a lot of trucks. But I didn't even hesitate. Like I don't think about getting in and out of them, which tells me that it's very easy to do. And I just was I'm a big fan of both of them.

Dan Roth  12:07  
I mean, I think you kind of have to pick between the more Scandinavian style interior of the telluride or the sort of more German English kind of opulent, quote stitched themes in the palisade. Right? That's kind of

Rebecca Lindland  12:24  
Yeah, I mean, one is definitely more elegant than the other. I mean, I think the palisade is probably a little bit more elegant than Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  12:31  
absolutely. But yeah, but you know, it's a it's a matter of personal taste, you know, your personal style. Exactly like you I I kind of veer towards the direction of the kiya but, you know, not that there's anything wrong with the palisade. It's just it's not my personal style. I prefer you know, the cleaner look, you know, the more restrained look of the of the, the telluride. Yeah, I

Rebecca Lindland  13:00  
mean, I think I feel like the, I feel like the telluride is sort of, you know, that that junior senior in high school kind of coolness, and then the palisade is, you know, or maybe college is like Business School. It's just a little bit it's a little bit more refined. It's, it's, it's much more understated, although it's still as distinctive on the road. Those like yellow rectangular headlamps. On the tail you ride. I don't think there's anything else out there like that. That is an aftermarket. It's the glowing squirrels that get you I got it. It is it's the glowing squirrels.

Dan Roth  13:47  
All right. Well, I mean, in terms of capability and and everything, like I think you're right, they're kind of it's like, it's interesting that you have the back to back because you're kind of really sort of two different preparations, the same ingredients,

Rebecca Lindland  14:01  
they are well, and I actually had the Volvo S 90 in the middle.

Dan Roth  14:07  
That's an interesting thing because that one of the things that I thought about with the telluride was in this feels very vulnerable, like, in its atmosphere inside especially. But it's definitely not fall of a price. No, tell though, it like that's the thing. It's it does the same thing that the Volvo does to a certain degree where it looks and feels premium no matter what it costs.

Rebecca Lindland  14:35  
Yep, very much. So I mean, I will add the what was stunning to me also about the Volvo was how much it held like I went to storage with that thing. And I have a picture of it that I'll put on the slack. It helped a lot. But no, I mean, the price point on the Volvo, I believe, was in about 55 and the palisade and The telluride clock in max at like 4849. And you're just getting so much for that car. But they're two completely different experiences, of course. I mean, the Volvo, you know, is a sedan, it's a beautiful large four door sedan, very elegant, very capable, you know, almost like a limo sort of feel to it. I know very long, beautiful lines, but it's not the same. So, you know, from a capacity standpoint, in such I mean, the, the Volvo. One of the things that was remarkable about the Volvo considering their reputation for safety. And I have a picture of this and I'll, I'm curious to see if if other people have experienced this. In the back in the second row of the Volvo, the the middle, you know, the armrest that comes up and down, like, you can put it up for five people, if you have this person, he put it down. When it's up, it almost completely obscures the view from the rearview mirror.

Sam Abuelsamid  16:03  
Hmm. And it's like your car should have the digital camera

Rebecca Lindland  16:06  
mirrors, like what they should but like shockingly, so like I was, I was really taken aback because I thought it was directly in my line of sight for my, for my rear view mirror. And I ended up putting it down for the whole week. Because it was so it was it was so intrusive. And I just was very surprised by that, because it's almost like the like the egg. It's almost like it has its own extra headrest for safety. And I guess maybe if somebody's sitting there, their head would obscure the line of sight anyway. But

Sam Abuelsamid  16:43  
yeah, but when you don't have any passengers in the backseat, you want you want a clear view if you can have it. Right. And that's that's the beauty of the the camera mirror systems. Is that it's, it's on the outside, it's unobstructed?

Rebecca Lindland  16:59  
Yes. I absolutely love the camera system. And if people don't know what we're talking about, i a lot of I've experienced it in GM products. Yeah. Landrover has it?

Sam Abuelsamid  17:09  
Yeah, a few manufacturers doing it now. Right. So go ahead.

Rebecca Lindland  17:13  
Well, it's cool because you from from your rearview mirror, you can just flick the mirrors a little button underneath it. And it actually doesn't, it doesn't show the interior of the car. So if you have people in the backseat, like little kids, they will disappear. But it shows the exterior of the car, like it activates the camera that's outside the car, what it's ideal for is if you have packed your car to capacity, you packed your SUV or, or whatever, and you can't see out your rearview mirror, you can flick this little switch, and it shows the road behind you using the x Jeremy camera. And I thought that was really cool. Is that a good explanation? Sam? Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  17:51  
well, I would add to that even even if you haven't packed your vehicle, even if it's empty, you know, SUVs, you know, you often you know, you've got a lot of pillars, you've got a lot of, you know, often a lot long distance to the back. And you know, if you may have two or three rows of seats behind you with headrests, and those things block the view. And you know, having having the camera on the outside, that gives you a completely unobstructed view. And the other thing too, is, you know, on a truck or an SUV, where you're also sitting up higher. Yeah, even even if you don't have anything directly blocking your view on the inside, you still can't you know, the, you know, the lowest part of the glass, you know, is usually, you know, four, maybe five feet off the ground. And you know, if there's anything directly behind you, you cannot see it. And those cameras will give you a view a much better, much more comprehensive view of what's behind you. So it's much better for safety.

Rebecca Lindland  18:46  
Yeah, no, absolutely. I love this camera. I've heard some people say that they don't, they have a hard time with them. They can't get used to them. When I was on the GMC Sierra, I pick up truck drive, which was now like 2018 or 19. I, I got used to it right away. It didn't even and once it was on, I never turned it off again. And you're right. I mean, I didn't have I didn't have anything in the pickup bed. But it was

Dan Roth  19:10  
great. You have trouble focusing like, I have to practice more with them. I think it's just it. It's not the same as a prismatic mirror.

Sam Abuelsamid  19:19  
Right? You so your focus does change a little bit. You know, because when you're looking at an optical mirror, you're at your eyes are actually focusing on what's you know, the distance behind you. So you're focusing at a farther distance away. As opposed to when you're looking at a display, your your eyes are focusing on that display. So it's a shorter focusing distance. So it does take a little bit of adjustment, but I think once you once you drive it for a while, I mean, I know it didn't take me long to get used to it. And you know, jumping back and forth between cars, you know, I've never, I don't have a problem with it anymore. Like right now I've got an escalator in the driveway. And then, you know, last week we drove you and I Rebecca drove the bolt. Evie and I don't know about yours, but mine had the camera mirror in it.

Rebecca Lindland  20:04  
Yes. Yep. Might as well. Yeah. Anyway, yeah,

Dan Roth  20:08  
let's talk about the bolt EUV. Okay. Other than like, so it's a bigger boat, but it's not actually bigger. And no, it is,

Sam Abuelsamid  20:18  
it's six inches longer than the regular bolt.

Dan Roth  20:21  
But where is that six inches it's in the rear.

Sam Abuelsamid  20:25  
So you got three inches additional wheelbase and the three more inches behind the rear axle. So you got a full three inches of extra leg room in the back, you know, and then a little more space behind the back seat as well. But like height and width, it's the same as the regular bolt. So it has as the same frontal area as a bolt. But you know, it's just a little it's basically just stretched. And you know, the the styling is, you know, the design is slightly different. And you know, the facial is slightly different from the the bolt. And you know it, the way I described it in my write up on Forbes is, you know, it looks kind of like a mini blazer, you know, it's got a lot of the same styling cues as the blazer. So you have the slim horizontal daylight running laps across the top edge, and then the headlights are down below. And then you know, the side profile, the glass, you know, sweeps up at the back and you have that little black trim in the C pillar. So it kind of looks like a mini blazer and size wise. It it slots in almost almost directly in between the tracks and the Trailblazer in terms of size. So the trail is slightly smaller and Trail Blazers smaller or larger than tracks. But it's a little bit lower than both of them.

Rebecca Lindland  21:45  
I was gonna say without the ride height though,

Sam Abuelsamid  21:48  
without the right height. Yeah. It's like a hatchback. Yeah, yeah, it's a hatchback. But it's, you know, but it's a tall hatch. You know, the bolt has always been, you know, a, proportionately a relatively tall card, you know, compared to say, compared to a Sonic, you know, which would be the closest gas engine vehicle in the GM lineup. You know, it's, it's, it's always been taller than the Sonic, and it's a little bit wider. So you know, it is it is bit roomier.

Rebecca Lindland  22:17  
It is so one of the things and I don't mean to just jump right into the negative because I think I love the fact that they brought this vehicle out. I don't think there's enough differentiation between the bolt and the Eevee. I mean, when when we looked at it, like at one point, even the Chevy person like walked over to the bolt and not the eave is so similar. But one of the things that I noticed and I apologize, I don't know why all sudden my computer's freaking out here. And one of the things I noticed was that there was not that really engaging torque to the V one driving the vehicle. Did you have that? Like I just said, I didn't feel like I was getting instant torque from this thing.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:09  
You put it in sport mode. Are you even in regular mode? Yeah, I got plenty of torque right off the line.

Rebecca Lindland  23:14  
Did you really I just

Dan Roth  23:17  
maybe you've just been spoiled.

Rebecca Lindland  23:18  
Maybe I maybe I have been spoiled by that by the Mach-E because it was not the same. No,

Sam Abuelsamid  23:23  
it's definitely not the it's not the same. You know, it's not in the same league as the Mach-E but Ray, Mach-E all wheel drive, you know, it's like 360 horsepower and this is 200

Rebecca Lindland  23:33  
Okay, so this is what's interesting and this is what I wanted to ask you about because I think I I know I make the the mistaken mistaken misconception the mistaken misconception the misconception that all e V's have really good torque but it does get back to horsepower.

Sam Abuelsamid  23:52  
Well, they have good they all have good torque you know, they all develop their their peak torque right from zero rpm. But that doesn't mean that they all have the same amount of torque.

Rebecca Lindland  24:01  
Right okay. Yeah, cuz I just I found it really sloggy I was just I was disappointed.

Dan Roth  24:07  
Okay, your lead foot? Yeah, that's Yeah, this

Rebecca Lindland  24:11  
is soggy and acceptable term.

Dan Roth  24:13  
That's perfectly acceptable.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:15  
The bolt has 260 foot pounds of torque. You know, the Mach-E, I think is about the all wheel drive is somewhere around 400. So again, you know, it's like 50 or almost doubled the torque

Rebecca Lindland  24:29  
and similar so what causes that difference? I know it's a very remedial question but different so as we all know, that's what I'm here for.

Sam Abuelsamid  24:38  
The Mach-E's you know, the ones the ones that you and I both drove, you know, our have our dual motor. So there's, there's, there's an electric motor in the front axle and another larger one in the rear axle. Okay, you know, so and they're bigger motors. So, you know, it's just like a nail an engine, you know what, you know, depending how much how much If you've got a bigger engine, it's going to generate produce more power. If you have a bigger motor, you're going to be able to get more power and torque out of it. Got it? Okay, so more windings more copper, more magnets.

Rebecca Lindland  25:12  
So that was I just, I mean, one of the benefits to me one of the benefits of driving an electric vehicle, because that's what we haven't really done as an industry is show people why this is better than an internal combustion engine is the torque. And I wanted I wanted more response from the bolt Evie then than was there and it could be, as you say, it's, I'm sure it is. It's, it's the foot pounds of torque. It's a it's a lack of it's a it's a very different vehicle than the Mach-E. And but, you know, I did a lot of things really well though. It was it was quiet. It was refined. I mean, they you know, so over surface roads and different roads and stuff. I thought I did it did a good job. I just I wanted more on Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  26:02  
well, yeah, nothing wrong with the desire for more. Oh, yeah.

Dan Roth  26:06  
But I think the perfect analog for it is that that's about the same amount of power it would have if it were powered by you know, like a turbo gas engine like you know, your interest your standard two liter turbo four cylinder. Yeah, but have about the same amount of power. So actually

Sam Abuelsamid  26:24  
a little less than that. More like a 1.6 Yeah, like the Hyundai kia 1.6 you know, like in a velociter en or, you know, you know, a lot of those cars, you know, 1.6 turbos are usually right around 200 horsepower, 250 foot pounds of torque. That's about what this thing does. And you know, and I just pulled up the Mach-E tech specs. Yeah, it's 200 all wheel drive is 346 horsepower and 428 foot pounds of torque so it's nearly doubled the torque.

Dan Roth  26:54  
Yeah, but I think I think it's just the character of the vehicle to the bolt Evie is not meant to to drive with the same Jawad Aviv of the mark. Maybe as soon as it's supposed to be. Just it's it's a real you know, the thing about the bolt and the Bolt EV that almost hurts It is that it's such a normal experience. It's it doesn't try to call that much attention to its electric powertrain. Just try it tries to be a normal car. You know?

Rebecca Lindland  27:33  
No, you're absolutely right. You're You're absolutely right. It does try and be a normal car. Now, with that being said, I did really enjoy using supercruise which was my first experience with supercruise Oh, yeah. First time. Yeah.

Dan Roth  27:47  
So it's in the difference between supercruise here and in the Cadillacs is that it's just this just doesn't have the bumpy seat, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  27:56  
Yeah, the the this is this, compared to the CT six, which is no longer

Rebecca Lindland  28:01  
the technical term, the bumpy seat.

Dan Roth  28:03  
Yeah, it's slogging

Sam Abuelsamid  28:06  
the rumble seat. But otherwise, it's the exact same system that was in the CT six, the new Cadillacs and the other stuff that's coming out this year. So the the escalate, they're going to start shipping supercruise in the next couple of weeks, and the CT five and CT for getting it and a whole bunch of other GM vehicles, they have the second generation supercruise which is more capable and adds things like auto lane change and various other features.

Rebecca Lindland  28:35  
We should explain what supercruise is.

Sam Abuelsamid  28:38  
So supercruise is the hands free driving assist system that GM is

Rebecca Lindland  28:42  
not self driving. Right?

Sam Abuelsamid  28:45  
It is not self driving. Car no self driving cars available for sale anywhere in the world today.

Unknown Speaker  28:52  
A pure self driving car.

Dan Roth  28:53  
That was it was zero. Honda has a level three system.

Rebecca Lindland  28:58  
Yes,

Dan Roth  28:58  
I saw that it was

Sam Abuelsamid  29:00  
even even that's not really it's it's conditional automation. It's not self driving.

Dan Roth  29:06  
Right. But like level three, I was shocked to see level three Yes. And But enough about it. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid  29:12  
they're there. So it's a it's a Driver Assist system. You know, it combines lane centering, adaptive cruise control and hands free capability and the way it does that there's a driver monitor system there's a little infrared camera that sits on top of the steering column that looks at the driver you know and looks for your your eye gaze and your your head position to make sure that you're still watching the road. So because you have to be paying attention and ready to take the wheel at any time. Now grant I said that this is the same system as on the CT six but there actually have been some improvements compared to the last CT six I drove. And I don't know if these improvements ever got into the CT six or not before it went out of production because it's been a couple years since I drove one. But one of the things that it does now that it didn't do that last Cadillac I drove with it didn't have, if you were, you know, on a highway and your lane was ending, you know, it knows that the lane is coming to an end. And it actually gives you an alert now saying lane ending moved, move left or move move, right. You know, like if if our if it was a an exit only lane that you're in, you know, it would tell you to move left. So it actually gives you that alert now. Whereas before when I, when I drove the Cadillac before, you had to be watching, you had to pay if you didn't, if you didn't pay attention in the lane came to an end, you know, it, the system, you know, would just disengage, it wouldn't give you that alert ahead of time.

Rebecca Lindland  30:41  
So, so we had some interesting experiences, and we drove pre production models people should know. So these are vehicles actually, ours were pre pre production. So they're, they're never going to be for sale, you're never gonna see these cars. This this particular version, this particular exact vehicle. So these were pre pre production, and so they were still getting over the air updates. And even that morning, they were they were getting some more software updates and such. So we had a couple of instances I did where the supercruise just disengaged it just all of a sudden, I was like, oh, okay, I have to take over now. And, and it's something it just it doesn't it doesn't tell you. There's the bar on the steering wheel goes from green to bright red and starts flashing at you and such. But what was interesting was, and I was in New Jersey when we were doing this, and we drove by a Nabisco plant that my dad actually used to go to when he was developing products as a consultant for Nabisco. So, um, so I noticed it on the road, and I and and then I lost supercruise shortly thereafter, like,

Sam Abuelsamid  31:56  
while you were driving past it,

Rebecca Lindland  31:57  
and I looked over, but I didn't stare at it, like I glanced over to it. And, and then went back. But that's an interesting observation, though. Because Do you think that's why I lost?

Sam Abuelsamid  32:09  
Yeah, if you if you look away from the road for more than about at highway speeds, like at 70 miles an hour, if you look away for more than about three or four seconds, that's when it'll start to give you the alert and start to disengage.

Rebecca Lindland  32:23  
I would be surprised if I would do that only because I, I just I feel like I wouldn't. That's not my habit, you know, and I didn't, I didn't try supercruise long enough, cuz that's a long time to not be looking at the road. Oh, it is. I guess a really, you know, that's a really long time. Maybe it was because I looked away a couple of times, because I didn't look at it. I did look

Dan Roth  32:51  
around and get yourself some like nilla wafers.

Rebecca Lindland  32:55  
Oh my gosh. He used to bring home like so they would. So my dad had a very interesting job. And we're totally digressing. But he would he worked for a company that did flame treatment and flame burners on commercial commercial products. And so and I actually met the interior designer for the Pontiac Fiero when I was a kid. And I thought that was the coolest thing ever, because he was doing some kind of molding plastics or something. Because anything was here

Dan Roth  33:23  
was pretty familiar with flame treatment.

Sam Abuelsamid  33:27  
Usually, after production was was in the field.

Rebecca Lindland  33:31  
I was at my job broad summit designer guy there.

Unknown Speaker  33:36  
Yeah, exactly.

Rebecca Lindland  33:40  
So anyway, back to the cookies. So Nabisco would actually like they would be the ovens would be running for him to test and see how they were responding and see how the product was coming out. So he used to bring home like freshly baked cookie.

Dan Roth  33:56  
Oh my god,

Rebecca Lindland  33:57  
we're ridiculous. And then

Dan Roth  34:01  
bisco must be better than like this stuff you get

Rebecca Lindland  34:03  
it is better, it ruined me. And then I used to go to the baking Show in Las Vegas. And then you walk into the baking show, the convention center and like, all bumpin is there. And they have these huge ovens and it smells like a freakin Baker. Right? So anyway, so Sam, that's a really interesting observation. Because then when we got back to back to base, which is an airport, a little private airport, I, I was talking to Jeremy short, the engineer on our trip. And I mentioned I because we, we kind of compared notes in the first leg and I said that I was losing, I was losing supercruise at different points. And it was, I wanted it to let me know, in a more aggressive fashion than it was doing so all the sudden I just wouldn't have supercruise and I was like, okay, and he said, that shouldn't really happen. So then on the second leg, I tried to be a little bit more observed. as to where it was happening, and then it just happened to be like right after the Nabisco plant. But I do wonder if it is because I certainly caught my eye. As we were approaching it, we were probably going 45. It caught my eye for sure. And then I looked again, because I was like, Oh my gosh, that's another basico plant that my dad would have gone to. And so I do wonder if it was because I look, I probably looked three times in a relatively

Sam Abuelsamid  35:26  
short amount of time. There are a couple of other things that could be, you know, what, what did the lane markings look like? Were they faded?

Rebecca Lindland  35:35  
No, they weren't. It was a it was a two lane road with two lanes in each direction with a barrier in the middle.

Sam Abuelsamid  35:42  
What about was there a highway interchange coming up there? Because that's the other thing too, that it does. Now, you know, when when you're approaching a highway interchange, you know, it will disengage at that point, you know, until you get past the interchange.

Rebecca Lindland  35:57  
No, this was like, this was almost like a post road or route one. I'm trying to think in in Detroit like Telegraph, it was it wasn't as busy as telegraph. So the, the entrances and exits, there's a lot of like, big box stores along the way and such, but there wasn't anything significant. So Jeremy did not lose supercruise at that point, okay. And that's, and that was

Sam Abuelsamid  36:22  
something obstructing your camera. Maybe, maybe,

Rebecca Lindland  36:27  
because then I was able to activate it again. So it was just what I've what I found challenging was knowing when it was available, because he we were actually on radios with him, it was a lead follow. Yeah. So he would tell us, you can activate supercruise, and then also the steering wheel would turn green, right. And so then I knew that, then it I had the opportunity to use it. But it didn't ever tell me when it was ending, that was always a surprise. And

Dan Roth  36:56  
this is this is a problem with that, right? Like the system is because you've got to be, you've got to be ready to take over, or there's kind of no point in having the automated driving because human nature is you're gonna tune out, right.

Sam Abuelsamid  37:10  
And this, this is the fundamental problem with with these kinds of systems is level three, level two or three, this is a level two system, you know, you're humans are bad at supervising automated systems. And when it works, when something works most of the time, you quickly become very comfortable with it, and then you stop paying as much attention as you search should, which is why they have that driver monitor system in there, you know, that is watching you. And, you know, it is when it detects that you're not paying attention, then it alerts you and it'll start to activate the system and it won't let you activate. But, you know, in general, you know, anytime that there's human supervision, what it should be is the automation supervising the human and stepping in if the human is doing something wrong, not the other way around this having the human supervise the automation is always always a bad idea. So a couple of things.

Rebecca Lindland  38:10  
So why is this not a level three?

Sam Abuelsamid  38:14  
It drives itself love level three, level three system? So level two, let me step back a little bit. So you get the idea of hands on eyes on brain on. Okay? Okay, level one, your hands on eyes on. Okay? And so your hands are on the wheel, your eyes are on the road. And ideally, your brain is dealies your brain is

Unknown Speaker  38:37  
on, okay? level two is going to be a problem.

Sam Abuelsamid  38:41  
Or actually, two plus, in this case is where you go hands off, but eyes on and your brain are still on. Okay? Okay, level three, allows you to go hands off. But you don't have to watch the road under certain conditions. So it can vary. But you do have to be brain on. So you can't take a nap, you do have to be available, you have to be ready to take over, you know, when it gets to certain points, or if it's can't handle certain conditions, but you don't have to be watching the road all the time. So you could be looking at the screen. You could be, you know, texting or something, you know, and not watching the road constantly. Because you have to watch the road. It's a level two system.

Rebecca Lindland  39:21  
Okay, because I know Google had said that they were having problems with their engineers, where their engineers were falling asleep when they were in the level three mode when they

Sam Abuelsamid  39:30  
weren't, it was working well actually, what Google was doing was actually still a level two system. It wasn't even a lot. They weren't even doing level three, they were trying to do level two, like this. And they found that the the system worked well enough that, you know, people were you know, would quickly become comfortable with it and would not pay attention sufficiently that they would be ready to take over. Right. And this is the fundamental problem with any of these kinds of systems where you know, where it's got just enough automation to get you into trouble if you're not careful?

Rebecca Lindland  40:03  
Well, and now one of the things that they're running into issues with is when people are wearing masks in their car that can sometimes interfere with, with really effective monitoring, I think I mentioned,

Sam Abuelsamid  40:18  
I actually had a call the other day with the with the CEO of seeing machines, which is Australian company that actually makes the driver monitor system that GM uses and uses it, and some other companies are going to be using it as well. And then, you know, they're not really looking at your lower face, they're looking at the head pose, the head position, and the eyes. So the eyes,

Rebecca Lindland  40:45  
right, but so other systems are looking at the entire face. And those are the ones that are having issues. Because GM actually had me Chevy had us remove our mass in the car. And I asked the question, I said, is it to help the monitoring? And they said, Yes. Okay. So, but I do know, other systems like dry drive, which is based in New York here, and they, they have dots all over the face. And so while so I think different systems are doing different things with it, but the ones that were it's a full face, that they're monitoring, because they are monitoring, Dr actually does monitor lips and and function and they do more of the lower face. So I could definitely see where masks were going to be the the issue there. You know, and then some as I mean, I my small my small face, some masks go really like I actually have to physically pull it down away from not only cuz my glasses are big, but my some as cover my entire face, and like they probably go to my eyelashes. Masks. Exactly. But it is it's you know, but people with smaller faces, I could see where there could actually be some issue there. So I think it depends on on the, you know, the circumstances. But overall, though, I thought supercruise I could imagine it helping certainly on long drives. And, you know, and for truckers, I mean, commercial space, there's so much opportunity for commercial space, I think for these kinds of applications.

Sam Abuelsamid  42:26  
Yeah, you know, I think that my experience with supercruise. Now over several different times using it is that for within the scope of what it's designed to do, it works really, really well, it doesn't does it better than any other system out there, including autopilot, you know, it is more limited in scope than what autopilot is allowed to do. But within that scope, it does it better. You know, it has a better driver monitor system. You know, it does a great job of staying in the lane and everything and detecting cut ins, because they've got four corner radars, you know, so they've got front corner radar. So if somebody is trying to cut in front of you, it'll pick that up very quickly and back off. So it's, it's definitely works really well. But, you know, my issue is, you know, as I said, with the fundamental concept of not just GM, but you know, all the companies doing this in the summer, it's going to be on the Maki and the F 150. The same type of system. You know, it's coming on the Nissan Aria later this year with the version two pro pilot assist, you know, other manufacturers are doing it. And, you know, what I found, you know, right from the first time I drove it, you know, on the on the original last drive of the CT sex with supercruise was that it, it reduces the driver workload in some of the traditional driver workloads, but it creates new cognitive loads that you didn't have before. Because you you have to stay, you have to stay more, you have to stay alert without being as engaged in the driving task.

Dan Roth  43:58  
Right. And that exact that's exactly the challenge that I have a really hard time squaring is if it's going to do the thing. And I'm going to still have to actively pay attention. I don't want it to do the same, because it's impossible to actually pay attention. You know, and we've seen that like we see people with dynamic cruise control, not even level two. I see a lot of them on their phones,

Sam Abuelsamid  44:25  
but try doing it over a 450 mile drive,

Dan Roth  44:27  
you know, yeah, you're just gonna tune out you're just gonna get things seems to have it. Yeah, find that. This is why cars need to be simpler, and have have less of this stuff in it. And way more terrifying. So lots of horsepower. Tiny, tiny tires have very little traction. Awful chassis balance. We should all drive for 27 Cobras.

Rebecca Lindland  44:49  
Oh, are you

Dan Roth  44:53  
serious? You know it's almost like why people why people like riding motorcycles because it forces you to concentrate You know, and and I, it's that important. Like, I know, in a lot of places, there's no other way to get around them the car and driving to me is an active, you know, thing that I enjoy. It's the most complex task I generally take on on a daily basis. And I like that other people, it's a chore. So they, yeah, automated but the the problem is that when you automate it so well, even when it's not full automation, it lulls you into

Sam Abuelsamid  45:29  
a false sense of security.

Dan Roth  45:30  
Yeah, you kind of ignore it. And then they've got to figure out how to transition you back to paying attention figuring out what's going on, why is the system telling me there's an issue? What do I have to do here? And you're traveling, you know, at 60 miles an hour, you're going a mile every minute. So like, that's, that's a lot of feet per second, I forget how many inches, but it's another feet per second. Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  45:52  
yeah. 32.2 feet per second.

Dan Roth  45:53  
Okay. 500, free per sec, stupid. No, I

Rebecca Lindland  45:58  
get that. But I do think that I think that one of the challenges is that we don't necessarily know, the optimal times to use this.

Dan Roth  46:09  
Yeah. Well, I mean, I so I look like Sam said the like, never, the system should monitor the driver and assist the driver when there's an issue versus the system taking over. And like, it's almost like, this is a parlor trick that got out of hand. Yeah. But

Sam Abuelsamid  46:24  
it's like what stability control does, you know, what, what Toyota is doing with their guardian system, you know, which is using the same types of sensors, the, you know, the automated driving sensors to detect, you know, when the when the vehicle is getting into a situation, you know, where the driver is not responding correctly, then intervening, you know, so having the automation supervise the human instead of the other way around. So,

Rebecca Lindland  46:51  
does this just supercruise and we didn't have this opportunity. Is it like the Audi traffic assist? Like, can you use it in traffic?

Sam Abuelsamid  47:02  
Yeah, yeah, you can use it in traffic I did.

Rebecca Lindland  47:04  
So I mean, I think that that's, if it can be used to prevent things, annoying things like fender benders and stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  47:12  
Yeah, no, that's fine. Thanks for that,

Rebecca Lindland  47:13  
you know, there's so there is there are there are times and places for this. I where, if I know, you know, like, even even earlier this evening, on I 95. For whatever reason, there was a lot of traffic, it probably was a leftover accident, you know, and the residual because we were kind of go in waves. So that would have been really convenient. Because all of a sudden, we were stopping and then all and then all sudden, we would be going up to 60, you know, for a short period of time, and then all sudden, we were stopping again. And it was just

Sam Abuelsamid  47:44  
it actually is really nice in scenarios like that, you know, I got Yeah, you know, the last time I drove a CT six with supercruise, I was in California and Northern California. And, you know, I was driving back from Petaluma, back down to San Jose. And I drove I came across drove over the Bay Bridge. And, you know, from you know, as I was approaching the Bay Bridge, you know, I, I was hands off the entire time, you know, coming onto the Bay Bridge, and all the way across the Bay Bridge until, you know, we got to the end of the bridge, you know, and that was the point where I finally had to take over but, you know, early morning, you know, rush hour traffic across the Bay Bridge, you know, it's exactly that as often go, you know, and I just sat there, you know, leaned back, you know, hands on my lap, you know, obviously had to pay attention, but right.

Rebecca Lindland  48:38  
Did you is that the direction of the tollbooth or was the other way. The other arm right now.

Sam Abuelsamid  48:44  
Okay. The toll booth is coming.

Rebecca Lindland  48:46  
Yes back towards Yeah. Because that's the thing too is that like how does it handle the obvious you have to take over it that way?

Sam Abuelsamid  48:53  
You definitely have to take longer if you've got to stop for something like that and it's not it's not gonna stop for traffic signals and things like that right? Which is why you can only use it on divided highways. Okay,

Rebecca Lindland  49:04  
I mean, I thought it was a it was a very good system at the price point that this vehicle is I think they both overall did a lot of things really well. And you know, I like the fact that it's already come down to from a Cadillac all the way down to the Chevy Bolt for availability because I do think that there are instances where it can be useful by for day to day driving, you know, like if you're just running errands or something. He does seem a little over the top.

Sam Abuelsamid  49:36  
Yeah. And you know, the getting you know, the the price of the bolt, you know, is another thing you know, they reduced the price, they're reducing the price of the bolt for the 2022 models. So the regular bolt, the base price is going from 37 five to $32,000 and that includes delivery charge. And for the bolt, Evie, it's $34,000 By comparison, that machi that we were talking about that was so much more engaging to drive, you know, that all wheel drive premium extended range Maki is $55,000.

Rebecca Lindland  50:06  
I know. But But Ford still has federal tax credits,

Sam Abuelsamid  50:12  
down to 40 still down 47. You know, you're talking $12,000 more, it's a significantly more expensive vehicle than the bolt

Rebecca Lindland  50:19  
it is. Well, and again, I think I was just one of the reasons I wanted to bring it up specifically was because I think I wasn't factoring in enough the size of the motor, the the the horsepower, things like that, like I I sort of had fallen into this false sense that every electric vehicle had great torque. And the reality is that that's not the case. It has instant torque, but your torque is still limited.

Dan Roth  50:49  
We've got a bunch of questions coming up. But the first news topic that and only

Sam Abuelsamid  50:58  
for nearly an hour now.

Dan Roth  51:01  
And I was gonna actually mention the birthplace of Burt Bacharach. Do you know the way to San Jose? Now

Sam Abuelsamid  51:13  
I've heard this week. Somebody brought it up the other day.

Dan Roth  51:18  
He was I mean, prolific. Certainly was. My daughter's getting into music and so I am touching her with the original versions of songs. So she really likes the always something there to remind me Oh, yeah, naked eyes. But I was like, Oh, yeah, check this out. It was originally for backpacks on for Dionne Warwick, as well. And she, she was like, That's weird. Going through his back catalogue. Totally off the point back on track. So the Jeep Jeep Cherokee Grand Cherokee, it was a news item last week that we didn't quite get to. But the Cherokee Nation has suggested that maybe it's time for them to drop the name from their automobile cuz that's kind of like, I mean, it's like naming your car the, you know, I don't know, something else of European descent, you know, like the it's, it's it sounds it's like a weird, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess I don't know this probably interpretated. Yeah. But after saying I can set that right, I'm sorry. I can see how it's offensive to the Cherokee Nation. This is just just more of like, yep, you guys once again, are stealing our stuff and profiting from it. And last week, it FCA and still lantis had issued some statements that were sensitive. They said, you know, we understand this, and we'll look at it. We're open to conversations and stuff. And just today, Sterling to CEO Carlos de virus said, if there's a problem, we'll solve it. Check out the hook. Whoa, I'm sorry. Yeah. So what's interesting about this is reminds me of the lambda lakes situation where they had a Native American woman on it. And Linda lakes thing was weird, because that that the woman that was on the Linda lakes packaging was actually painted by a Native American artist.

Rebecca Lindland  53:17  
Well, and there was actually Native Americans that said that they really liked her being on it, because they liked the representation of it. And so this is like many of these issues. It's, there's always two sides to it. I suggested.

Sam Abuelsamid  53:33  
Not all right.

Rebecca Lindland  53:34  
Well, a lot of times there are but I suggested to Sam that they called the National Football League national football team, or the national Washington football team, or whatever there.

Dan Roth  53:45  
It was, it was it was like, wasn't it this year, they had the it was Washington football team.

Rebecca Lindland  53:50  
Yes. The Washington football team. So no, I think and I think that it would be. And you know, what, Dan, you had made a comment. This is why you like alphanumerics, I can't stand alphanumerics. Because it doesn't mean anything

Dan Roth  54:05  
don't like, right.

Rebecca Lindland  54:06  
And you know, it's funny, one of our former colleagues, works for a window company now. And he's like, the name of the door is like XYZ bubble. And I'm like, No, what's the name of the door? You know, that's the name of the door is like a serial number. So I think that there's, I mean, I like to have things that have a name to them. But it's very, very difficult nowadays, because people are very aware of implications of that. So it's sort of like when they sign up with a celebrity, and then that celebrity is, you know, caught in a different vehicle of a different brand or something. And I'm not talking about welfare all at all. But you know,

Dan Roth  54:50  
but yeah, you know, that so there's the challenge of naming things. And then I think the other challenge that they've got here is Though the nature of that name, and the weight that it carries the historical weight that it carries, and our reawakening to, to that that history, and so you can, you can, on the one hand shrug and say like, why didn't you know, why is it all of a sudden offensive? And I think that's less? The point? I think it's Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid  55:29  
Yeah, people have been offended the Native Americans have been offended by the use of these names for a long time. It's just that, you know, only recently has the rest of the population started to come around to the idea that, that these names are, in fact offensive to the use of these names for commercial reasons, or, you know, as a mascot for a sports team, you know, is offensive to people

Dan Roth  56:00  
without, I think part of it is like, without consultation or partnership. So I'm glad that they're, they're saying, you know, let's try to work this out. If there's if there's some kind of compromise, you know, talking about it, opening the dialogue, that's a great step. And, and I hope that the Cherokee Nation and still lantis can configure it out. Because, you know, I'd be pretty upset if somebody named to their car that Dan Roth, and I can only imagine what the car would be. But without telling me I'd be like, Come on

Sam Abuelsamid  56:32  
now. Mercedes wagon, you rebooted the Volvo 240. Yeah.

Rebecca Lindland  56:38  
No, no, I think it's there is, I think there's certainly an opportunity for dialogue. And because you know, that when they came up with his name in what was it 1970 something years.

Sam Abuelsamid  56:54  
So what 60s,

Dan Roth  56:56  
I think, yeah, it was it was the late 60s, it was some of the mid 70s.

Rebecca Lindland  57:00  
It was the cheapest sold the compact, the Cherokee compact SUV, since the mid 70s. So the the, the Grand Cherokee, but you know, there wasn't a Native American person in the room. It's my point. Oh, you know, that's the thing. And so, I think that the opportunity for dialogue is, is fantastic. And, you know, to have that conversation about what that really means. So, it would be you know, it's, I think that people often struggle, the people that are not Native American can often struggle with the idea of, you know, this is an iconic name. It's sort of like giving up Wrangler, but it's not it is different, unless there are, you know, cowboy Wranglers out there that are offended by it. But I think that, you know, it's it's something that needs to be talked about, for sure. Yeah.

Dan Roth  57:47  
Yeah. I mean, I think that that's, it's, it's a good development. Let's open the dialog. Let's talk about it. And I want to see what they come up with. I think it's, you know, my personality type is one that I like, the alphanumerics. And like, you would not believe the unbelievable string of just equipment names, like recording gear and stuff. We just like, you can have entire paragraphs that are very little besides number. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna plug the U 47. into the 1272. And then I'm gonna run it into the 1170.

Rebecca Lindland  58:29  
Well, I would, I would love to hear from our listeners on this topic. I think I think I would love to see. So please write in on the topic of the Jeep Cherokee and Jeep Grand Cherokee, and what are your thoughts on on rebranding? And

Sam Abuelsamid  58:45  
yeah, and do you have any thoughts on what you'd like to see it named?

Rebecca Lindland  58:50  
That is way above my paygrade.

Dan Roth  58:55  
Well, so they had before they brought the Cherokee, just the plain Cherokee back they had it called the Liberty, which, I mean, okay, that's at least it's pretty inoffensive. So, again, I'm just gonna go for like an alphanumeric let's start with cuz you know, and it's funny to like, just carkeek sick. I might grant Cherokees a Wk to. So

Rebecca Lindland  59:24  
for may call the platform name,

Dan Roth  59:26  
right. We all that's the market that you car geek, right. We all talk about platforms. And and so you know, when you've got

Sam Abuelsamid  59:35  
people buying these things, they're not true car geeks that

Dan Roth  59:38  
Yeah, no, of course not. I

Sam Abuelsamid  59:39  
don't want to buy a Jeep Wk two.

Rebecca Lindland  59:41  
I think it'll be interesting to hear from our listeners.

Dan Roth  59:43  
Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  59:46  
And speaking of

Dan Roth  59:48  
we heard from them.

Sam Abuelsamid  59:49  
Yes, we got we have a whole bunch of questions and comments that we haven't gotten to. So let's start off with Travis s. And Travis writes, I'm curious about your thoughts on ease of entry in newer cars. And this, you know, this is something we've talked about before. You know, for you, Rebecca, even though your stature is quite different from says, I'm a big guy six foot five and 350 Plus, I feel like entry is getting tighter on new cars. I rarely had any issues with getting in and out of anything that wasn't a Miata. I had an O nine Mazda three that I fit in with plenty of room and zero difficulty getting in and out. I replaced it with a Mazda 16 Mazda six. And despite the car being much larger in size, getting in and out was really uncomfortable. The newer Mazda was very narrow button between the steering wheel and the B pillar start, I've started shopping again. And so far everything I've looked at is similar, very tight entry. Is that something you've noticed? I never see. I've never seen it mentioned in reviews anywhere, but I've experienced it and it's taken many cars out of consideration due to how difficult or uncomfortable entry and exit is. Despite my size, I prefer low riding hatchbacks or can settle for sedans. I have no issue with entry and exit from my wife's Kia Soul. But I could fill a two hour podcast with my hatred of that car and the Hyundai Kia dealership experience. Well,

Dan Roth  1:01:17  
now you have to tell us why you hate the song. Because I think that's one of the most charming cars.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:24  
My random thoughts are that the B pillars further forward for easier entry to the backseat, or better trash protection or if your tinfoil hat is handy. They are making. They're making it a tighter squeeze into cars to push the ever increasing number of large people towards SUVs and crossovers. tinfoil hat off?

Dan Roth  1:01:44  
I think that the dimension you're probably looking for is the the door opening dimensions right? And

Sam Abuelsamid  1:01:51  
pretty much.

Dan Roth  1:01:52  
I don't know, if that has, I don't know how easy that is to obtain. Like that's probably not something that you're going to find in the commonly available like Chrome automotive database that every site sort of scrapes for their information when you're car shopping. So you almost have to bring your tape measure and he's talking about, like a pillar to be pillar versus how that's normally measured diagonally. So it's

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:17  
I think, good.

I mean, my experience with things like this has been the and interestingly, on monsters in particular, has been the slope of the a pillar, that the slope of the a pillar is so dramatic for stylized design. And also the I don't know this necessary facts about the green house, you know, with how high the beltline is, and then how short the windows are, that affects where the seat is where the seat goes. So you know,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:02:50  
your visibility and you know, very

Rebecca Lindland  1:02:52  
great but like, I mean, what's interesting like even in my brand new Alfa Romeo Stelvio, his name is Sergio, for obvious reasons. So they actually it was funny, I was talking to one of my girlfriends, I'm like, well, this will motivate me to lose weight, because it's actually hard to get out. Because I feel like the bolsters on the seats are so high that I kind of have to like squeeze my ass out of there. They actually have an easy exit entry and accuracy this as well, where the seat goes back automatically. Right. And it is much easier to get in and out up.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:26  
But I hate it. Well, you know,

Rebecca Lindland  1:03:28  
it's funny, I I'm getting used to it. But yeah, so I think what's interesting about Travis's situation is that I'm just wondering if even if, if the roofline is a little bit shorter, but to see like where the seating position is. I know like one of the reasons that I bought my Buick Encore Coco was because for whatever reason, my mother could get in and out of that easier than any other car that I had. And I do remember, we had a Mazda six one time, and she and I were getting in it. And we both bumped our heads on the a pillar.

Dan Roth  1:04:05  
Yeah, I think Travis is right to a certain degree that this sort of messing with you. Not on purpose to you know, encourage any kind of lifestyle change, but just they've got X amount of dimensions to play with. And they've got to fit all that stuff and people into that space. So you know, given the styling that they're trying to achieve, and you crash safety, like it's kind of a combo of all of that stuff. That has wound us up with his impression of Titan. Yeah, so

Sam Abuelsamid  1:04:38  
Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. I was gonna say, you know, I haven't actually measured them but I, I would not be surprised if the door aperture so the actual opening that you go through, has gotten some like for a comparably sized car today versus 20 years ago or 25 years ago, if that actual opening has gotten smaller. Even for a car, that's the same size, because you know, pillars have gotten bigger. And, and that is primarily for crash safety. You know, you mentioned the the higher belt lines, you know, on a lot of cars and that is partly driven by Sterling, but also partly driven by by crash safety, because cars today, you know, before they can be put on sale, have to go through a whole battery of crash tests, you know, that, you know, straight on into a cement wall, you know, the small barrier, offset test, you know, frontal offset test, side impact tests, you know, hitting a pole, having, you know, the equivalent of a car, you know, ram into the side of it, rear rear tests, and so all of these things, you know, the, the structure, particularly the structure around the passenger compartment, has to withstand that impact, and, you know, withstand those impacts, you know, and then, you know, the doors be able to open, so you can get out. And, you know, it's remarkable what they've done, you know, not last year, but in 2019, I went down to Honda's engineering facilities in Ohio, to their Crash Test Facility, and we got to witness a crash test of a Honda Civic. And they did the small offset rigid barrier crash test, which is a particularly brutal test, you know, and it's, you know, so they set up a barrier that overlaps 25% to one quarter of the way across the width of the car, on the driver's side, and they slam into it at 40 miles an hour, or 40 kilometers,

Rebecca Lindland  1:06:42  
is that one of the most common crashes

Sam Abuelsamid  1:06:44  
it is, it's a very common crash. Because if you think about it, you know, especially if somebody drifts over the center line, you know, they're not using each other, because they're not using supercruise, it drifts over the center line, you know, and you know, glances off, so you have that partial impact. So it's not a full head on but a partial impact. And that's actually a really, really hard test to pass, and to design a structure that can absorb that energy. And so they did this test with a with a Honda Civic. And, you know, the whole front of the car, the front corner of the car was completely destroyed. But the driver's door still open. Wow, it was remarkable. And yeah, so, you know, this is these are this kind of standards they have to design to today, so that inherently drives, you know, bigger B pillars, for example, wider B pillars, you know, to have enough structure there to absorb that impact, withstand that impact. And so, I said, I don't, I can't say for sure that the apertures are smaller, the opening is smaller, but I think that may very well be the case. And so, and then, you know, to what you said, Rebecca, you know, in terms, you know, some of the styling things, you know, the angle of the a pillar, I've, you know, I'm 511 and I've had some vehicles where, you know, when I get in, you know, I hit my head on the a pillar, just because of the angle of it. So it's, it's not, it's not an uncommon thing.

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:10  
I think also that these did, the designs for things like safety, they are issues with them are highlighted by people of extreme size. Small like me, are big, like Travis, right. So, you know, they are designed for that medium person. And actually, Joseph monello, who, who we should really have on the show, because we've talked about her a lot. She wrote an article recently talking about how more women tend to die in car accidents. And so they're looking at crash test dummies to see if they're really accommodating a five foot four average size woman versus a five foot 10 average size man, and well enough and I know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:08:53  
different, okay, so four foot 11 woman

Rebecca Lindland  1:08:55  
or in Joe's case gas because I feel enormous next to her, which is saying something.

Dan Roth  1:09:01  
And it's been true for a really long time. And that's why the first airbags were Yes, fatal. And you know, they're supposed to catch the what is 200 200 something pounds, six foot tall, the average crash test dummy that

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:17  
and they do use different ones they have like pregnant women, they have children, things like that.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:21  
You saw this facility, you know, they, you know, they've got some of the latest generation dummies, you know, they've got a variety of sizes, as you said, you know, pregnant, simulating pregnant women, you know, males and females and children of different sizes and ages and shapes that they're that they're using to test these now. And but it's you know, it's a really difficult problem to to be able to accommodate all these different variations.

Rebecca Lindland  1:09:47  
Yes, for sure. So, Travis, we feel your pain.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:09:51  
Yeah. All right. Next up, Chuck Goolsbee writes in, we've all had some variation of Rebecca's dealer experience. has been sorted yet a new car from a dealer since 2002. And I imagine I never will again. While I have many of the same reasons to load the load Tesla is you three do not I do not. We do not lose Tesla. I may loathe Ilan Musk, but I do not write

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:18  
Elon Musk.

Yeah, well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:22  
one thing I've applauded them on since the beginning is their stance of dealerships. Yeah, in the age of online shopping, there's really no reason whatsoever to subject subject one selves subject oneself to the torture that is retail car buying. It is the only consumer purchase left where the price isn't the price. And the process is needlessly goddamn frustrating.

Rebecca Lindland  1:10:41  
Well, as he hasn't worked with the contractor lately.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:10:46  
franchise laws are as anachronistic as dinosaurs. And, you know, therein lies the problem. And should all be flushed from the books. I have not. And I will not ever buy another new car again until I can just order it online. And it appears in my driveway A few days later. I don't care if it is Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos or any other tech billionaire who makes that happen. dealers can't die off fast enough.

Rebecca Lindland  1:11:08  
How does it really feel?

Dan Roth  1:11:09  
I don't, I don't disagree that the dealer experience is a holdover. And it's bad. And the franchise laws are sort of entrenched. The problem is that those dealer groups are super, super powerful lobbyists, and they donate a lot of money to political campaigns. And so they have the ear of the people who can keep them in trench, well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:11:27  
especially, you know, local and state legislators. Because, you know, these are often local businesses, you know, that are, you know, they do, they do well for themselves. And, you know, they get the dealers get together, they have trade groups, they get together, and they lobby extensively to maintain these franchise laws.

Dan Roth  1:11:48  
And to be fair, dealers are not all bad, right? They're not awful, there's jobs at dealerships, and there's investment, and overhead that they need to take on. The thing that frustrates me about Tesla's experience is, their purchase experience seems pretty good, pretty smooth, pretty well thought out

Sam Abuelsamid  1:12:11  
their service experience is a whole other issue, though,

Dan Roth  1:12:13  
right. And that's probably the most important thing is, is, if you're going to sell a product, you've got to be able to support your customers and the customer service experience, really, especially for a premium product. Or, if you have a premium experience for a product that's non premium, like that's gonna win you customer loyalty, and they're not advertising, they're not doing a lot of the traditional sales stuff. So at a certain point, Tesla's gonna plateau. But beyond that, like, you're not going to get repeat customers, if you just make it such a terrible experience to own the thing, if the thing breaks, you know, it's a car, it's complex, it's gonna break. People can't be without their cars, for long stretches of time. Tesla customers can because it's not their only car, usually, and they have situations where their life accommodates that. But somebody's buying a $25,000. Evie, that's not the case. They they have different pressures in their lives. And so they need to be able to have that common dealer service experience, at the very least. So that needs to be wrapped up, if you're going to change the sales experience. Cool. I'm down, I do not like the sales experience. But I like the fact that I can go to the dealer for my car that's in town a few miles away, and get it serviced and know that they know the thing they're looking at, and it's gonna be fixed.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:13:39  
If they don't have parts in stock that can usually get them within a day or two.

Dan Roth  1:13:42  
Right. So I like that part of it.

Rebecca Lindland  1:13:44  
I think I think that the the, even though I agree with everything you said about their dealer franchise about the local and state level lobbies and such. The thing though, now is the dealer that is willing to evolve the dealer that is willing to, you know, to to automate their processes to do the no haggle pricing. Even my you know, even in my experience, when I said, Look, is there any way that you can, you can bring the car here to my home? Because I was going to have to figure out like, how, like somebody else is going to have to go to the dealer with me to get me there. And then to get me back because Ubers not really happening right now. Right? So it was it was a lovely experience, to have him come to you and we sat outside, we went through all the paperwork, and it was a really positive experience. So the dealers, I mean, just look at what Sam said earlier, his daughter was willing to drive two hours to get what she wanted. So the dealer that provides that type of service. Also, we're seeing more and more competition on used cars from carvana. From you know, people that deliver the car to you. So, you know there is opportunities for dealers to improve on the economy. ariens, but they have to take the initiative. And they have to do it without needing it to be mandated. You know, by I mean competition needs, it needs to basically mandate what they do. But there's, there's opportunity there to improve.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:15:14  
For what it's worth, you know, if they're, you know, there's obviously been a lot of pain over the last year due to the pandemic. But one area that actually has moved forward significantly in the last 12 months, is online, our online car buying, yes, most dealers, most new car dealers across the United States have, if they didn't already have an online system, they have implemented online systems to go in and shop for a car and do most of the transaction online. And, you know, especially bigger dealers, most most dealers, most bigger dealers, are offering, you know, like at home delivery, and things like that, and even pick up for service. So, you know, they'll come and pick up your car and bring it back. So the the system is evolving, and especially and now as we get into more and more sales of E V's manufacturers are working with their dealers, they're, they're getting more involved in moving a lot more of the purchase process online, you know, for for the machi, when they when Ford launched the machi. You know, they did online ordering, you know, dealers have vehicles in inventory. Now, you know, so you can go into a dealership and buy one now. But initially, you know, all the orders were done online, you went online, you configured your car, and you then you picked a dealer nearby, you were you would finish off the transaction and take delivery. GM has said, you know, when they launched the Hummer EV later this year, you know, you will do the entire purchase process online, and the only thing you'll do with the dealer, you'll select a local dealer, where you'll take delivery, all everything else, the financing, everything else is going to be done online, Volvo just this week. And now Same thing for all their TVs going forward, it's going to be online sales only, you know, and again, you know, you'll finish it up, you'll finish off, you know, with taking delivery from a local dealer, but the whole purchase process will be done online. So how does

Rebecca Lindland  1:17:18  
it test drive fit into that?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:21  
So for test drives, you know, you again, it'll have to be working, you know, selecting a dealer, and they will, they can deliver a car to you for a test drive.

Dan Roth  1:17:32  
Okay, so I can see how this is unpopular with dealers, given the fact that it up ends, their their ability to

Sam Abuelsamid  1:17:43  
upsell, sell,

Dan Roth  1:17:46  
but it also turns them into basically just a service center of the parent corporation. And they're, they're not the parent corporation, those are independent corporations. And so I want to know what the negotiations are like for Volvo. You know, because it's, if I'm a car dealer owner, and most owners don't own a single store, they're their corporate owners, they own multiple stores, their ownership groups in there. They, like they've made millions of dollars on this stuff. To really have their hand forced to shift their business like that has got to be unpopular,

Rebecca Lindland  1:18:27  
but they're, but they can. First of all, I think a lot of like what Sam said, the pandemic forced some of these changes. Yeah. forcing them, though to

Dan Roth  1:18:37  
Yeah, and the dealers that get it are going to be the ones that win Exactly. Those. That's just good customer service. I don't see why you you wouldn't do that. Even back in the before times. Yeah, sure. We'll write the write the loan at your house. That's That's fine. You know, it does it doesn't trap you in that f&i office for an hour trying to sell you the the you know, the, the insurance, this ceramic coating or whatever, yeah, crap is, but they they probably take a hit on on margin, even by just doing that like moving away from those aggressive abusive tactics, costs them money, the it's one of those things like the better it is for the consumer, the more pleasant the experience and less the

Rebecca Lindland  1:19:27  
detail. I mean, I think that we are looking at the blockbuster scenario like the dealer, the dealers that cling to the blockbuster model are going to go out and the ones that are willing to evolve to say, if this is what you need me to do, let me let me rethink my whole business then and maybe and even the servicing of TVs is different, you know. So, right. So they have to move out they have to prepare for an anticipate these kinds of changes.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:19:59  
And this is Exactly why, you know, GM, you know, when they announced, you know, the the Cadillac lyric, you know, they'd said to their dealers, you know, to all the, you know, there were 850 Cadillac dealers across the United States, they said to the dealers Look, you're going to have to invest, you know, Cadillac is going to go all electric, by the end of the decade, you're going to have to invest, you know, in parts and tools and training for your staff. And if you don't want to do that, you know, and it's probably going to cost you about 200 to $250,000, you know, to put in chargers and get the specialized tools they need for to service CVS. If you don't want to do that, that's fine. Tell us now, we will buy back your franchise. And about 150 out of those 850 dealers said, Yeah, you know, what, we don't sell enough Cadillacs to justify, you know, and most of these, you know, we're in smaller, smaller dealerships that are also selling other stuff. We don't sell enough Cadillacs a year to justify that kind of investment. You know, cut us a check. And, you know, so they GM bought back the franchises for, on average, I think about $500,000 each, and just bought them out, so there won't be selling Cadillacs anymore in the future. We're gonna see more of that going forward.

Rebecca Lindland  1:21:21  
I think so too. That's the kind of, there's the kinds of changes that we will see as the industry continues to evolve. And speaking of EDS,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:21:31  
yes. So from Joshua, he said, on your most recent episode, we're talking a lot about how many of the manufacturers are going all electric, talking about talking about this argument that production of these car batteries is worse for the environment than the fossil fuel engines are? I think maybe this used to be true early on, maybe what what is the what is the case? Can you shed any light on this? Keep the sunny shot coming? Keep the shiny side up? So, yes, Joshua, I'll include a link to one example of a lifecycle analysis study that was done, there's there's been many of these done over the last several years, that look at the full product lifecycle, from raw materials to grave to scrapping vehicle and look at the total environmental impact. The reality is that yes, it does take more energy more resources to build batteries than it does to build internal combustion engines. And so the the, the energy and emissions form from production of an Eevee is greater than production of an internal combustion vehicle. But once that vehicle is in operation, the reduction even even with coal, you know, but the, you know, the mix of where electricity is coming from is changing dramatically every year. And it's, you know, coal, you know, is like less than a quarter of our electricity production in the US now, you know, and it's going to continue to decline, even natural gas is probably going to be declining. So the overall emissions from use of the vehicle from use of an Eevee is so much less even factoring in power generation. That, because, you know, one thing that people don't think about, is that it actually takes a lot of energy to refine oil as well. And that's a, you know, there's a lot of emissions and a lot of energy that's used in oil, turning crude oil into gasoline. So those lifecycle analysis studies that have been done, you know, on average, a show roughly about a 40% reduction in total lifecycle emissions from an Eevee. You know, even factoring in the production and recycling, about a 40% reduction in total emissions over the life of the vehicle, from cradle to grave.

Dan Roth  1:23:57  
So yeah, and like that's, so one of the other issues that you have with Oreo itself, too, is like you wind up getting stuff like methane, that you can't just capture news, and you don't want to vent it, you got to flare it, because it's such a powerful greenhouse gas, you're actually that's

Sam Abuelsamid  1:24:15  
better off it's at least an order of magnitude worse, as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is.

Dan Roth  1:24:22  
So the stuff you put in your tank has that ongoing impact. You know, it's it's not, it's not just done at the time of production, it like that's forever as you need to feel your car with with petroleum fuels, and then you're burning the fuel. So it's one that's a tough argument, though, because it's used in bad faith. A lot of times that, you know, the rare earths to like the the mining that goes on for those and where they're produced and the labor that's used to produce them sometimes is not great.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:25:00  
Yeah. And that that is that. If there's anything, that's the real problem, it's some of those raw materials, the mining of those raw materials like cobalt, and rare, particularly cobalt. Yeah, but some, you know, some of the other materials as well. And, you know, that's something that manufacturers are working to address by trying to come up with designs that reduce the use of some of those materials, like the new gems, new altium cells, they reduced the cobalt content by 90%. So there's lot less cobalt that's going to be used, you know, others, other manufacturers are trying to source cobalt from different different regions of the world, not from Central Africa, where most of the cobalt has come from so far. So those are issues that need to be addressed. But then again, you know, there's issues with where oil comes from as well.

Dan Roth  1:25:57  
Yeah, I think anytime there's is that kind of industry that an opportunity? It's really hard to squeeze out. Not not even corruption, but just you know, that that element, you know, like it just shady stuff. And it's, it's, it's a circular argument, like, it's, it's like, it's almost like vehicular. What about ism. It's like, Oh, yeah, your car is bad. Oh, yeah. Your car is worse. Like, come on.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:30  
like, Alright, so let's, let's finish up the last couple here. I can see Rebecca is fading.

Rebecca Lindland  1:26:36  
I just realized that I've never turned on my recorder. Oh,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:41  
sorry. Alright. So it's okay.

Dan Roth  1:26:44  
How many times did you refill the class?

Sam Abuelsamid  1:26:46  
I've got a recording going. Good. Thank you. So from joke anally, I love wheel bearings. And I'm a devoted listener, my wife and I love our Telluride, which we added to our consideration based on your review. Now my mother in law's looking at the Mazda CX five, which I feel like I've heard your review, but I cannot find an easy way to search for which, which podcast would have this? Even on your site, there are like 29 pages and doing a fine per page for cx five is painful. What am I doing wrong? Thanks, again, love the show. Joe, if you go to the top of the page, you will find a link there that says search. Click on that link. Type in cx five, you will find all the references to cx five on all from all the pages.

Dan Roth  1:27:32  
So here's the other thing you can do, you can go to Google. And you can write Mazda CX five or cx dash five, and you can then type site colon wheel bearings, dot media. And that we'll be using the Google search algorithm to search the page versus search the domain versus using whatever we have built into WordPress, which well,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:01  
that's actually that's actually what we're, what the search link is doing is. It's doing that custom Google search. I

Dan Roth  1:28:06  
gave you the hard way. But yeah, I mean, and there's tags too, right? That's it's a good reminder that we should be better about tagging. I do

Sam Abuelsamid  1:28:14  
try to tag add tags for all the cars we talked about on each episode. But yeah, if you look there, and also, you know, the other thing that the Google search will do is it will have started we started a while ago, putting transcripts, txt transcripts on all the episodes, so it'll search the transcripts as well for references. So if there's anything else you're looking for, you know, that's not in the show notes. Yeah. It can often find those from the transcripts.

Dan Roth  1:28:41  
But I can tell you that episode 96. We talked about the 2019 Mazda CX five

Rebecca Lindland  1:28:50  
i and i will will encourage Joe's mother in law to test out the infotainment system on the Mazda CX five because that is the one that is not not only is it not touchscreen, which I know, Sam likes, but it's when you use Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. It takes away the organic voice recognition and such of the system. So I just saw That's right.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:15  
Listen to satellite radio, you know, that may not be the best option for you.

Rebecca Lindland  1:29:20  
I've actually heard a number of other it's a great car to drive. It's an absolutely fantastic car to drive. I've actually recently heard a number of people talk about the difficulty that they've had with changing the radio station and the mostess and the new with the new infotainment system. But if that is not your jam, like if you don't care about the infotainment system, it's a fantastic car to drive. It's well designed it's beautiful interior had a great time driving it all the all that good stuff.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:29:48  
And you know if you if you'd like to have a multitude of voice recognition systems at your disposal, you know some of the newer vehicles like like the Chrysler Pacifica with the 20 One Chrysler Pacifica with Uconnect five lets you choose from either the native Chrysler voice recognition system, Amazon Alexa, google assistant or Siri and to hit the page count you have connected and same thing true in the Cadillac Escalade I've got in the driveway right now you can you can use either one. So awesome. Let us know she buys it. Alright, last one from James tie. Hi, everyone. After all the discussion of freight charges, I thought you might be interested to know that Ontario has a law that says dealers must advertise a price that includes all fees. Those include freight PDI, pre delivery inspection, administrative fees, the om ombak fee, the Ontario motor vehicle Industry Council a fee we pay to fund the organization that enforces these rules. And the AC tax tax for air conditioning. The only things that are not required to be included are sales tax and licensing fee. They're also not this, this is interesting. I didn't realize that they are not allowed to sell for higher than the MSRP price. So no one's saying dealer markups on hot products and everything is MSRP at worst. So whatever they advertised prices, that's the only thing they can charge you for. They can't charge you anything extra.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:22  
It's so interesting. It's funny to meet you because the housing market is different when they put out a listing price. That's actually pretty much a minimum you are expected to get into a bidding war

Sam Abuelsamid  1:31:36  
in Canada. Oh, yeah. In Canada, it varies in some some places that is often the case it it's definitely been the case in California for many years now and hopefully will be in Connecticut as well for you.

Rebecca Lindland  1:31:50  
Yeah, but it's just it's fascinating to me that it's that I mean this is this is really really interesting that it's MSRP or wherever there's no dealer markups are not allowed. That's really interesting. Yeah.

Dan Roth  1:32:01  
Well, you know, that's that's Canada, where

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:06  
they the automaker's they might as well be communists.

Dan Roth  1:32:10  
No, but they they can see it's the North American market so they can turn around and overcharge us chumps here in the States.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:21  
You mean like they do for pharmaceuticals,

Dan Roth  1:32:23  
to subsidize the Canadian fair pricing? No, I have no idea if that's what happens.

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:32  
That's very interesting. It

Sam Abuelsamid  1:32:33  
was worth most of the sticker prices are somewhat higher in Canada anyway. So

Dan Roth  1:32:38  
yes, that's what's metric dollar. Yeah. James, that's

Rebecca Lindland  1:32:41  
very interesting. Thank you for letting us know,

Dan Roth  1:32:43  
I would love that. Because that's one of the biggest sources of trepidation when you purchase a car is that the price is not the price. And I think that that's why when we get back to stuff like carvanha, and car Max, and that experience is that the price is clear. And there's, there's none of that,

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:00  
you know, especially for anything that's a mandatory feed like that for HR, if it's something that you can't opt out of, just included in the price that you advertise. That's right now Simple as that. Right. It's one thing, you know, if you're going to take a flight on Spirit Airlines, and, you know, if you want to take a carry on bag, you got to pay extra, if you want to reserve a seat, you got to pay extra

Rebecca Lindland  1:33:26  
go to the bathroom bottle of water

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:30  
is as painful as it might be, you can opt out of some of those things. But you can't opt out of the freight charges or PDI fees or other other fees. If you can't opt out of them. Just go ahead and bundle it into price.

Dan Roth  1:33:44  
It's interesting that they break it all out. So you can see what the fees are. I don't think they know

Sam Abuelsamid  1:33:49  
what the price that you advertise should include all that stuff.

Dan Roth  1:33:53  
Yeah, yeah. It's just it's just it's interesting to me, that you can see where the money goes.

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:00  
The level of transparency i think is that's my only issue with bundling everything is I want to see what each of these prices are. So we've talked about this before, like, I think yes, if they shouldn't be allowed to advertise a price that doesn't include these things. But I also want a level of detail and transparency. So I know what each one is

Dan Roth  1:34:22  
above the line and the below the line. Producer instinct kicking in.

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:28  
Alright, that's all we've got for this week. So let's wind it up. Thanks for listening. You know, if you feel like you enjoyed the show, please go and give us a review or rating on Apple podcasts or any other place where you can find to rate podcasts and

Dan Roth  1:34:49  
if you'd like you didn't enjoy the show. Please send us an email. Yes,

Rebecca Lindland  1:34:53  
no, no.

Dan Roth  1:34:57  
I think it's it's important to hear

Sam Abuelsamid  1:34:59  
no one constructive feedback. We

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:00  
do want, we want constructive feedback. That's the difference.

Dan Roth  1:35:04  
Right? For sure codes in my report card and potential. All right. Yeah. All right. So thanks for joining us. We'll see everybody next time. Thanks,

Rebecca Lindland  1:35:14  
everyone. Cheers.

Dan Roth  1:35:25  
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 or 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 WHLBR NGS cast. Thanks again. We hope to hear from you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai